Part 23 (1/2)

Obeying orders, I gave no hint in school of the great fortune that had come to me; but hurrying home, I exploded in the pa.s.sage before the front door could be closed behind me.

”I am to be a hare because I run so fast. Anybody can be a hound, but there's only two hares, and they all want me. And can I have a jersey?

We begin next Sat.u.r.day. He saw me run. I ran twice round the playground.

He said I was splendid! Of course, it's a great honour to be a hare. We start from Hampstead Heath. And may I have a pair of shoes?”

The jersey and the shoes my mother and I purchased that very day, for the fear was upon me that unless we hastened, the last blue and white striped jersey in London might be sold, and the market be empty of running shoes. That evening, before getting into bed, I dressed myself in full costume to admire myself before the gla.s.s; and from then till the end of the week, to the terror of my mother, I practised leaping over chairs, and my method of descending stairs was perilous and roundabout. But, as I explained to them, the credit of the Lower Fourth was at stake, and banisters and legs equally of small account as compared with fame and honour; and my father, nodding his head, supported me with manly argument; but my mother added to her prayers another line.

Sat.u.r.day came. The members of the hunt were mostly boys who lived in the neighbourhood; so the arrangement was that at half-past two we should meet at the turnpike gate outside the Spaniards. I brought my lunch with me and ate it in Regent's Park, and then took the 'bus to the Heath. One by one the others came up. Beyond mere glances, none of them took any notice of me. I was wearing my ordinary clothes over my jersey. I knew they thought I had come merely to see them start, and I hugged to myself the dream of the surprise that was in store for them, and of which I should be the hero. He came, one of the last, our leader and chief, and I sidled up behind him and waited, while he busied himself organising and constructing.

”But we've only got one hare,” cried one of them. ”We ought to have two, you know, in case one gets blown.”

”We've got two,” answered the Duke. ”Think I don't know what I'm about?

Young Kelver's going to be the other one.”

Silence fell upon the meet.

”Oh, I say, we don't want him,” at last broke in a voice. ”He's a m.u.f.f.”

”He can run,” explained the Duke.

”Let him run home,” came another voice, which was greeted with laughter.

”You'll run home in a minute yourself,” threatened the Duke, ”if I have any of your cheek. Who's captain here--you or me? Now, young 'un, are you ready?”

I had commenced unb.u.t.toning my jacket, but my hands fell to my side. ”I don't want to come,” I answered, ”if they don't want me.”

”He'll get his feet wet,” suggested the boy who had spoken first. ”Don't spoil him, he's his mother's pet.”

”Are you coming or are you not?” shouted the Duke, seeing me still motionless. But the tears were coming into my eyes and would not go back. I turned my face away without speaking.

”All right, stop then,” cried the Duke, who, like all authoritative people, was impatient above all things of hesitation. ”Here, Keefe, you take the bag and be off. It'll be dark before we start.”

My subst.i.tute s.n.a.t.c.hed eagerly at the chance, and away went the hares, while I, still keeping my face hid, moved slowly off.

”Cry-baby!” shouted a sharp-eyed youngster.

”Let him alone,” growled the Duke; and I went on to where the cedars grew.

I heard them start off a few minutes later with a whoop. How could I go home, confess my disappointment, my shame? My father would be expecting me with many questions, my mother waiting for me with hot water and blankets. What explanation could I give that would not betray my miserable secret?

It was a chill, dismal afternoon, the Heath deserted, a thin rain commencing. I slipped off my s.h.i.+rt and jacket, and rolling them under my arm, trotted off alone, hare and hounds combined in one small carca.s.s, to chase myself sadly by myself.

I see it still, that pathetically ridiculous little figure, jogging doggedly over the dank fields. Mile after mile it runs, the little idiot; jumping--sometimes falling into the muddy ditches: it seems anxious rather than otherwise to get itself into a mess; scrambling through the dripping hedges; swarming over tarry fence and slimy paling.

On, on it pants--through Bishop's Wood, by tangled Churchyard Bottom, where now the railway shrieks; down sloppy lanes, bordering Muswell Hill, where now stand rows of jerry-built, prim villas. At intervals it stops an instant to dab its eyes with its dingy little rag of a handkerchief, to rearrange the bundle under its arm, its chief anxiety to keep well out of sight of chance wanderers, to dodge farmhouses, to dart across highroads when n.o.body is looking. And so tear-smeared and mud-bespattered up the long rise of darkening Crouch End Lane, where to-night the electric light blazes from a hundred shops, and dead beat into the Seven Sisters Road station, there to tear off its soaked jersey; and then home to Poplar, with shameless account of the jolly afternoon that it has spent, of the admiration and the praise that it has won.

You poor, pitiful little brat! Popularity? it is a shadow. Turn your eyes towards it, and it shall ever run before you, escaping you. Turn your back upon it, walk joyously towards the living sun, and it shall follow you. Am I not right? Why, then, do you look at me, your little face twisted into that quizzical grin?

When one takes service with Deceit, one signs a contract that one may not break but under penalty. Maybe it was good for my health, those lonely runs; but oh, they were dreary! By a process of argument not uncommon I persuaded myself that truth was a matter of mere words, that so long as I had actually gone over the ground I described I was not lying. To further satisfy my conscience, I bought a big satchel and scattered from it torn-up paper as I ran.