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But still it was not without a little nervousness that the conspirators awaited developments. Christy saw the notice and fumed. Ferrers heard of it and laughed. Rogers rushed to the Chief palpitating with rage. After lunch the Chief sent for Betteridge, and asked for a copy of The Younger Generation. There was an air of nervous anticipation pervading the studies.
On another occasion Betteridge walked quietly up to him, handed him a Shelley, and without any warning suddenly shrieked out: "He hath outsoared the shadow of our night." Finnemore looked at him sadly: "My dear Betteridge, so early in the morning!" By many little things his life was made wretched for him. But yet he would not have chosen any other profession.
"Rot! Absolute rot! If you go on the field in that spirit you won't get a single man out. Go in and win." And a very fine fight the House put up. Foster bowled splendidly, Betteridge was fast asleep at point and brought off a marvellous one-handed catch, while Gordon stumped Felsted in his third over. After an hour's play seven men were out for about ninety.
But he took only a casual interest in its welfare. "My dear Betteridge," he used to say, "if you were aware of the large issues of art and life, you would see that it would be a mere waste of time worrying about such a little thing as discipline in a house. You should widen your intellectual horizon. Read Verlaine and Baudelaire and then see life as it is."
"Oh, well, you know, even the fastest of us get tired of our licence at times. Byron would have become a Benedictine monk if he had lived to be fifty." Betteridge smiled, and picking up a Browning from the table sank into an easy-chair to read. Tester remained looking into the fire. What a fool he had been to give himself away just then.
"By Jove, he's some fellow. Now he's a man," said Mansell. "He's a boy still; he can see our side of the question, and he knows what footling idiots half of the common room are. If we had more like him." ... "And it would be a jolly good thing, too," said Betteridge, "if we could get a really young master like that Winchborough man, Ferrers, I was telling you about. He'd stir things up a bit."
Shall I reason with you, lad? Have you a grain of decency left in you, or must I " At this point a well-aimed cushion put an end to the fervour of the new child of light. Betteridge sat on his head. "Look here, Bradford," he began, "you may be a convert and all that, but don't play John the Baptist in here. It does not pay. Very shortly I shall carry your head to the dustbin in a saucer.
He must go on probing everything to discover where, if anywhere, was that complete peace, that perfect beauty that he had set out to find. In the meantime the destiny of his life would unfold itself. He would follow where his inclinations led him. The evening bell broke into his reverie. He stretched himself. "Come on, Betteridge. Let us have a rag to-night."
"My good man, you don't surely imagine I am so devoid of good feeling and have such a hazy conception of the higher life as not to inform the Headmaster. I have just returned from breaking the news to him. He took it quite well on the whole. It was a touching scene. I nearly wept." Betteridge then arose, and gave an imitation of a Rogers' sermon.
Had Betteridge, who had only that night given half the day-room a hundred lines, once had his bed shipped on that very floor! It all seemed like a gigantic fairy story. And to think that Caruthers had seen these things! But they were not long, these moments of the assumption of the godhead. Darkness soon fell on the long passage, and only whispered talking sounded faint and far away.
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