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"I'll bet it's coloured by school-time." And sure enough, when school-tune arrived, there was Sheen with his face in the condition described, and Stanning hastened to spread abroad this sequel to the story of Sheen's failings in the town battle.
"You're as flabby as " Stanning looked round for a simile, "as a dough-nut. Why don't you take some exercise?" "I'm going to play fives, I think. I do need some exercise." "Fives? Why don't you play footer?" "I haven't time. I want to work." "What rot. I'm not doing a stroke." Stanning seemed to derive a spiritual pride from this admission.
"Well, it's a pity," said Joe regretfully. "It's a pity." At this moment Jack Bruce appeared. "What's a pity, Joe?" he asked. "Joe wants me to go to Aldershot as a light-weight," explained Sheen, "and I was just saying that I couldn't, because of Stanning." "What about Stanning?" "He won the School Competition, you see, so they're bound to send him down." "Half a minute," said Jack Bruce.
So Luke Marks, who was by no means troubled with an eye for the beautiful, thought himself very fortunate in becoming the landlord of the Castle Inn, Mount Stanning. A chaise-cart was waiting in the fog to convey the bride and bridegroom to their new home; and a few of the villagers, who had known Phoebe from a child, were lingering around the churchyard gate to bid her good-by.
The expedition looked disappointed. "Any message I can give him?" asked Drummond. "No, thanks," said Stanning. "Sure?" "Quite, thanks." "I don't think it's worth while your waiting. He may not be in for some time." "No, perhaps not. Thanks. So long." "So long." Stanning turned on his heel, and walked away down the passage. Drummond went back into his study, and shut the door.
There were smaller gates in the gardens which led into the meadows behind the Court, but there was no other way of coming from Mount Stanning or Brentwood than by the principal entrance. The solitary hand of the clock over the archway was midway between one and two when my lady looked at it. "How slow the time is," she said, wearily; "how slow, how slow!
The members of the senior day-room made no reply, but continued, as Mr Kipling has it, to persecute their vocations. Most of them were brewing. They went on brewing with the earnest concentration of chefs. "You're a cheery lot," said Stanning. "But I don't wonder you've got the hump. I should be a bit sick if we'd got a skunk like that in our house. Heard the latest?" Some lunatic said, "No.
He felt instantly that "warm shooting" sensation from which David Copperfield suffered in moments of embarrassment. Since the advent of Drummond he had avoided Stanning, and he could not see him without feeling uncomfortable. As they were both in the sixth form, and sat within a couple of yards of one another every day, it will be realised that he was frequently uncomfortable.
When Stanning, through his study of the Field, discovered that the redoubtable boxer had been one of the team against which he had played at Ripton, and realised that, owing to Drummond's illness, it would fall to him, if he won the House Competition, to meet this man of wrath at Aldershot, he resolved on the instant that the most persuasive of wild horses should not draw him to that military centre on the day of the Public Schools Competition.
As for Stanning, he pursued an even course of life, always rigidly obeying the eleventh commandment, "thou shalt not be found out". This kept him from collisions with the authorities; while a ready tongue and an excellent knowledge of the art of boxing he was, after Drummond, the best Light-Weight in the place secured him at least tolerance at the hand of the school: and, as a matter of fact, though most of those who knew him disliked him, and particularly those who, like Drummond, were what Clowes had called the Old Brigade, he had, nevertheless, a tolerably large following.
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