



Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)







Transcriber's Notes:

The frontispiece illustration has been removed from text version.

Italics in original are marked with _underscores_.

Small caps have been changed to ALL CAPS.

Punctuation has been regularized.

The following typographical corrections were made:

  p. 517, "dumurely" changed to "demurely." (the Nun admitted demurely)
  p. 536, "that's he" changed to "that he's." (that he's terribly)
  p. 539, "thing" changed to "think," (think you're perfectly)




                          SECOND STRING

                         BY ANTHONY HOPE



                      THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
                    LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN,
                       LEEDS, AND NEW YORK

  LEIPZIG: 35-37 Koenigstrasse.   PARIS: 61 Rue des Saints Peres.




                      First Published 1910.




CONTENTS.


     I. HOME AGAIN                                              5

    II. A VERY LITTLE HUNTING                                  27

   III. THE POTENT VOICE                                       45

    IV. SETTLED PROGRAMMES                                     66

     V. BROADENING LIFE                                        87

    VI. THE WORLDS OF MERITON                                 106

   VII. ENTERING FOR THE RACE                                 128

  VIII. WONDERFUL WORDS                                       148

    IX. "INTERJECTION"                                        169

     X. FRIENDS IN NEED                                       190

    XI. THE SHAWL BY THE WINDOW                               212

   XII. CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS                              235

  XIII. A LOVER LOOKS PALE                                    256

   XIV. SAVING THE NATION                                     278

    XV. LOVE AND FEAR                                         300

   XVI. A CHOICE OF EVILS                                     321

  XVII. REFORMATION                                           342

 XVIII. PENITENCE AND PROBLEMS                                362

   XIX. MARKED MONEY                                          384

    XX. NO GOOD?                                              404

   XXI. THE EMPTY PLACE                                       424

  XXII. GRUBBING AWAY                                         446

 XXIII. A STOP-GAP                                            468

  XXIV. PRETTY MUCH THE SAME!                                 490

   XXV. THE LAST FIGHT                                        512

  XXVI. TALES OUT OF SCHOOL FOR ONCE                          533

 XXVII. NOT OF HIS SEEKING                                    555




SECOND STRING.




Chapter I.

HOME AGAIN.


Jack Rock stood in his shop in High Street. He was not very often to be
seen there nowadays; he bred and bought, but he no longer killed, and
rarely sold, in person. These latter and lesser functions he left to his
deputy, Simpson, for he had gradually developed a bye-trade which took
up much of his time, and was no less profitable than his ostensible
business. He bought horses, "made" them into hunters, and sold them
again. He was a rare judge and a fine rider, and his heart was in this
line of work.

However to-day he was in his shop because the Christmas beef was on
show. Here were splendid carcasses decked with blue rosettes, red
rosettes, or cards of "Honourable Mention;" poor bodies sadly
unconscious (as one may suppose all bodies are) of their posthumous
glories. Jack Rock, a spruce spare little man with a thin red face and a
get-up of the most "horsy" order, stood before them, expatiating to
Simpson on their beauties. Simpson, who was as fat as his master was
thin, and even redder in the face, chimed in; they were for all the
world like a couple of critics hymning the praise of poets who have paid
the debt of nature, but are decorated with the insignia of fame. Verily
Jack Rock's shop in the days before Christmas might well seem an Abbey
or a Pantheon of beasts.

"Beef for me on Christmas Day," said Jack. "None of your turkeys or
geese, or such-like truck. Beef!" He pointed to a blue-rosetted carcass.
"Look at him; just look at him! I've known him since he was calved. Cuts
up well, doesn't he? I'll have a joint off him for my own table,
Simpson."

"You couldn't do better, sir," said Simpson, just touching, careful not
to bruise, the object of eulogy with his professional knife. A train of
thought started suddenly in his brain. "Them vegetarians, sir!" he
exclaimed. Was it wonder, or contempt, or such sheer horror as the
devotee has for atheism? Or the depths of the first and the depths of
the second poured into the depths of the third to make immeasurable
profundity?

A loud burst of laughter came from the door of the shop. Nothing
startled Jack Rock. He possessed in perfection a certain cheerful
seriousness which often marks the amateurs of the horse. These men are
accustomed to take chances, to encounter the unforeseen, to endure
disappointment, to withstand the temptations of high success. _Mens
Aequa!_ Life, though a pleasant thing, is not a laughing matter. So Jack
turned slowly and gravely round to see whence the irreverent
interruption proceeded. But when he saw the intruder his face lit up,
and he darted across the shop with outstretched hand. Simpson followed,
hastily rubbing his right hand on the under side of his blue apron.

"Welcome, my lad, welcome home!" cried Jack, as he greeted with a hard
squeeze a young man who stood in the doorway. "First-rate you look too.
He's filled out, eh, Simpson?" He tapped the young man's chest
appreciatively, and surveyed his broad and massive shoulders with almost
professional admiration. "Canada's agreed with you, Andy. Have you just
got here?"

"No; I got here two hours ago. You were out, so I left my bag and went
for a walk round the old place. It seems funny to be in Meriton again."

"Come into the office. We must drink your health. You too, Simpson. Come
along."

He led the way to a back room, where, amid more severe furniture and
appliances, there stood a cask of beer. From this he filled three pint
mugs, and Andy Hayes' health and safe return were duly honoured. Andy
winked his eye.

"Them teetotallers!" he ejaculated, with a very fair imitation of
Simpson, who acknowledged the effort with an answering wink as he
drained his mug and then left the other two to themselves.

"Yes, I've been poking about everywhere--first up to have a look at the
old house. Not much changed there--well, except that everything's
changed by the dear old governor's not being there any more."

"Ah, it was a black Christmas that year--four years ago now. First, the
old gentleman; then poor Nancy, a month later. She caught the fever
nursin' him; she would do it, and I couldn't stop her. Did you go to the
churchyard, Andy?"

"Yes, I went there." After a moment's grave pause his face brightened
again. "And I went to the old school. Nobody there--it's holidays, of
course--but how everything came back to me! There was my old seat,
between Chinks and the Bird--you know? Wat Money, I mean, and young Tom
Dove."

"Oh, they're both in the place still. Tom Dove's helpin' his father at
the Lion, and Wat Money's articled to old Mr. Foulkes the lawyer."

"I sat down at my old desk, and, by Jove, I absolutely seemed to hear
the old governor talking--talking about the Pentathlon. You've heard him
talk about the Pentathlon? He was awfully keen on the Pentathlon; wanted
to have it at the sports. I believe he thought I should win it."

"I don't exactly remember what it was, but you'd have had a good go for
it, Andy."

"Leaping, running, wrestling, throwing the discus, hurling the spear--I
think that's right. He was talking about it the very last day I sat at
that desk--eight years ago! Yes, it's eight years since I went out to
the war, and nearly five since I went to Canada. And I've never been
back! Well, except for not seeing him and Nancy again, I'm glad of it.
I've done better out there. There wasn't any opening here. I wasn't
clever, and if I had been, there was no money to send me to Oxford,
though the governor was always dreaming of that."

"Naturally, seein' he was B.A. Oxon, and a gentleman himself," said
Jack.

He spoke in a tone of awe and admiration. Andy looked at him with a
smile. Among the townsfolk of Meriton Andy's father had always been
looked up to by reason of the letters after his name on the prospectus
of the old grammar school, of which he had been for thirty years the
hard-worked and very ill-paid headmaster. In Meriton eyes the letters
carried an academical distinction great if obscure, a social distinction
equally great and far more definite. They ranked Mr. Hayes with the
gentry, and their existence had made his second marriage--with Jack Rock
the butcher's sister--a _mesalliance_ of a pronounced order. Jack
himself was quite of this mind. He had always treated his brother-in-law
with profound respect; even his great affection for his sister had never
quite persuaded him that she had not been guilty of gross presumption in
winning Mr. Hayes' heart. He could not, even as the second Mrs. Hayes'
brother, forget the first--Andy's mother; for she, though the gentlest
of women, had always called Jack "Butcher." True, that was in days
before Jack had won his sporting celebrity and set up his private gig;
but none the less it would have seemed impossible to conceive of a
family alliance--even a posthumous one--with a lady whose recognition of
him was so exclusively commercial.

"Well, I'm not a B.A.--Oxon. or otherwise," laughed Andy. "I don't know
whether I'm a gentleman. If I am, so are you. Meriton Grammar School is
responsible for us both. And if you're in trade, so am I. What's the
difference between timber and meat?"

"I expect there's a difference between Meriton and Canada, though," Jack
Rock opined shrewdly. "Are you goin' to stay at home, or goin' back?"

"I shall stay here if I can develop the thing enough to make it pay to
have a man on this side. If not, pack up! But I shall be here for the
next six months anyway, I expect."

"What's it worth to you?" asked Jack.

"Oh, nothing much just now. Two hundred a year guaranteed, and a
commission--if it's earned. But it looks like improving. Only the orders
must come in before the commission does! However it's not so bad; I'm
lucky to have found a berth at all."

"Yes, lucky thing you got pals with that Canadian fellow down in South
Africa."

"A real stroke of luck. It was a bit hard to make up my mind not to come
home with the boys, but I'm sure I did the right thing. Only I'm sorry
about the old governor and Nancy."

"The old gentleman himself told me he thought you'd done right."

"It was an opening; and it had to be taken or left, then and there. So
here I am, and I'm going to start an office in London."

Jack Rock nodded thoughtfully; he seemed to be revolving something in
his mind. Andy's eyes rested affectionately on him. The two had been
great friends all through Andy's boyhood. Jack had been "Jack" to him
long before he became a family connection, and "Jack" he had continued
to be. As for the _mesalliance_--well, looking back, Andy could not with
candour deny that it had been a surprise, perhaps even a shock. It had
to some degree robbed him of the exceptional position he held in the
grammar school, where, among the sons of tradesmen, he alone, or almost
alone, enjoyed a vague yet real social prestige. The son shared the
father's fall. The feeling of caste is very persistent, even though it
may be shamed into silence by modern doctrines, or by an environment in
which it is an alien plant. But he had got over his boyish feeling now,
and was delighted to come back to Meriton as Jack Rock's visitor, and to
stay with him at the comfortable little red-brick house adjoining the
shop in High Street. In fact he flattered himself that his service in
the ranks and his Canadian experiences had taken the last of "that sort
of nonsense" out of him. It was, perhaps, a little too soon to pronounce
so confident a judgment.

Andy was smitten with a sudden compunction. "Why, I've never asked after