The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Lad of Mettle, by Nat Gould

A LAD OF METTLE

NAT GOULD’S SPORTING NOVELS

Crown 8vo., Picture Boards.

THE DOUBLE EVENT RUNNING IT OFF JOCKEY JACK HARRY DALE’S JOCKEY BANKER AND BROKER THROWN AWAY STUCK UP ONLY A COMMONER THE MINERS’ CUP THE MAGPIE JACKET WHO DID IT? HORSE OR BLACKSMITH? NOT SO BAD AFTER ALL SEEING HIM THROUGH

Also, uniform with the above,

ON AND OFF THE TURF IN AUSTRALIA TOWN AND BUSH THE DOCTOR’S DOUBLE A LAD OF METTLE

A LAD OF METTLE

BY NAT GOULD

AUTHOR OF ‘THE DOUBLE EVENT,’ ETC.

LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited Broadway, Ludgate Hill

To MY SONS.

CONTENTS

A LAD OF METTLE

CHAPTER I. BULLY RAKES TAKEN DOWN.

Lessons were over for the day, and the boys at Redbank School came running with shouts and whoops of joy into the playing-fields. They were like young colts freed from restraint for a few hours, and eager to make the most of their liberty.

Redbank was the home of brilliant cricketers and all-round athletes. Many a noted cricketer had received his first lessons in the great game on Redbank cricket ground. The lads were proud of the men who played in the All England eleven, and who were never slow to acknowledge that to Redbank they owed what prowess they possessed.

The Redbank lads were born runners, so many an old hand training them for races vowed. Something in the atmosphere of Redbank seemed to make the lads athletic. Perhaps the traditions attached to the school had much to do with this, for lads are very proud, and justly so, of the feats of scholars who have preceded them.

But Redbank was not merely a training ground for famous athletes. Redbank scholars had taken high honours at the Universities, and afterwards distinguished themselves in various walks of life. The Bishop of Flaxham was proud of the fact that he was ‘grounded’ at Redbank. He was an eloquent and distinguished man, an ornament to the Church, and a brilliant writer of readable books.

When the Bishop of Flaxham came to Redbank, and preached in the chapel, the lads with difficulty restrained themselves from giving him a hearty cheer at the end of his address. The Bishop knew how to talk to boys, and never forgot that at one period of his life he had been bored with wearisome sermons about the world, the flesh, and the devil, which he did not in the least understand. So he took warning, and told the lads to run the race set before them much in the same manner as they would a hundred yards sprint, each striving to win the prize and do the distance in even time. The Bishop believed that well-trained muscles and a healthy body were conducive to an active and moral state of mind. The Redbank lads gloried in the fact that the Bishop of Flaxham had been one of themselves.

Field-Marshal Lord Kingcraft was a Redbank boy, and his warlike deeds and bravery were celebrated in song on the fly-leaves of school-books, and occasionally on the panels of doors and the insides of desks.

was discovered carved, evidently with much labour and pains, on the lid of a desk at which the celebrated Field-Marshal formerly worried his brains over Euclid and algebra.

This inscription was pointed out to the brave leader of men when he visited his old school, and he never forgot it. He hoped, from the bottom of his heart, the lad who carved it would one day win his V.C.

Redbank was represented in the navy and in the diplomatic world, and one day it was hoped a Redbank lad would become Prime Minister.

So, with all these successful public men constantly before them as an example, the lads of Redbank felt bound to endeavour to do great deeds, and win renown for themselves and their school.

The head-master of Redbank was the Rev. Henry Hook, and it was universally acknowledged that no more suitable man could have been selected. He ruled his lads with a firm hand, but he was no tyrant or hard task-master. The boys knew he meant what he said, and that his word to them could be implicitly relied upon. He had confidence in his boys, and they returned it.

When Edgar Foster came to Redbank School he was sixteen, small for his age, but muscular and active. At this time there were between two and three hundred scholars at Redbank, and naturally out of such a number there were several lads whose absence would not have been regretted.

Young Edgar Foster soon became popular. For one thing, his father was a well-known man, who had worthily upheld the honour of Redbank in the cricket field, and had captained the All England eleven. This was quite sufficient to give Edgar a standing in the school.

Bullies exist in almost every walk of life, and a few of this undesirable species were to be found at Redbank. The leader of these bullies was a lad named Raymond Rakes—‘Bully Rakes’ as he was generally called. He was a big, hulking fellow, powerful and strong, but deficient in courage, as bullies generally are.

There was nothing manly about Bully Rakes, and the boys knew it. So far he had held his own, for he was the biggest boy in the school. Any new scholar he at once endeavoured to inspire with awe, and generally succeeded.