Actons Feud

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Acton's Feud

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Acton's Feud, by Frederick Swainson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Acton's Feud A Public School Story
Author: Frederick Swainson
Release Date: January 25, 2005 [EBook #14772]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACTON'S FEUD ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Marie Stelly, Bruce Thomas and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net).

[Illustration: ACTON DROPPED TO THE GROUND LIKE A BLUDGEONED DOG.]
ACTON'S FEUD
A PUBLIC SCHOOL STORY
BY FREDERICK SWAINSON
1901
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND 1901
AD MATREM

CONTENTS



CHAPTER
I.
THE FOUL 1
II. THE PENALTY 8
III. THE REGENERATION OF BIFFEN'S HOUSE 15
IV. BIFFEN'S PROGRESS 22
V. COTTON AND HIS JACKAL 27
VI. THE LAST CAP 36
VII. THANKS TO ACTON 49
VIII. BIFFEN'S CONCERT 57
IX. THE END OF TERM 65
X. THE YOUNG BROTHER 75
XI. TODD PAYS THE BILL 88
XII. RAFFLES OF ROTHERHITHE 93
XIII. "EASY IS THE DOWNWARD ROAD" 99
XIV. IN THE STABLE 106
XV. GRIM'S SUSPICIONS 112
XVI. TODD "FINDS HIMSELF" 119
XVII. RAFFLES' BILL 126
XVIII. HODGSON'S QUIETUS 133
XIX. HOW THEY "'ELPED THE PORE FELLER" 138
XX. ACTON'S TRUMP CARD 146
XXI. LONDON AND BACK 156
XXII. THE PENFOLD TABLET FUND 161
XXIII. BOURNE _v._ ACTON 170
XXIV. A RENEWED FRIENDSHIP 179
XXV. A LITTLE ROUGH JUSTICE 187
XXVI. THE MADNESS OF W.E. GRIM 194
XXVII. CONCERNING TODD AND COTTON 204
XXVIII. ACTON'S LAST MOVE 209
XXIX. WHY BIFFEN'S LOST 215
XXX. THE END OF THE FEUD 225
ACTON'S CHRISTMAS
I. SNOWED UP 237
II. OVER THE FELLS 248

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACTON DROPPED TO THE GROUND LIKE A BLUDGEONED DOG Frontispiece
PHIL WALKED DOWN THE STEPS WITHOUT A FRIENDLY CHEER 40
ACTON JUST REACHED IT WITH HIS HEAD 50
AS THE TRAIN MOVED, GRIM SAID, "THREE CHEERS!" 74
ACTON THREW HIM INTO THE SNOW-HEAP 78
A LITTLE YELLOW, EAR-TORN DOG BUSTLED OUT OF SOME SHED 94
"I'M GOING TO HAVE THE SEVEN TEN, OR SHOW YOU UP" 128
THE GREEN POWDER UNDERWENT SOME WEIRD EXPERIMENTS 142
HE PUSHED UP HIS WINDOW AND CRAWLED THROUGH 160
"CUT, YOU MISERABLE PUPPY" 172
HE GAVE ME A LONG, STEADY LOOK OF HATRED 204
AS THE HORSES WHIRLED PAST, HE CLUTCHED MADLY AT THE LOOSE REINS 226



CHAPTER I
THE FOUL
Shannon, the old Blue, had brought down a rattling eleven--two Internationals among them--to give the school the first of its annual "Socker" matches. We have a particular code of football of our own, which the school has played time out of mind; but, ten years ago, the Association game was introduced, despite the murmuring of some of the masters, many of the parents--all old Amorians--and of Moore, the Head, who had yielded to varied pressures, but in his heart thought "Socker" vastly inferior to the old game. Association had flourished exceedingly; so much so that the Head made it a law that, on each Thursday in the Michaelmas term, the old game, and nothing but the old game, should be played, and woe betide any unauthorized "cutters" thereof. This was almost the only rule that Corker never swerved a hair's breadth from, and bitter were the regrets when Shannon had sent word to Bourne, our captain, that he could bring down a really clinking team to put our eleven through their paces, if the match were played on Thursday. Saturday, on account of big club fixtures, was almost impossible. Corker consented to the eleven playing the upstart code for this occasion only, but for the school generally the old game was to be de rigueur.
So on this Thursday pretty well the whole school was out in the Acres, where the old game was in full swing; and, though I fancy the players to a man would have liked to have lined up on the touch-line in the next field and given Shannon the "whisper" he deserves, O.G. claimed them that afternoon for its own, and they were unwilling martyrs to old Corker's cast-iron conservatism. Consequently, when Bourne spun the coin and Shannon decided to play with the wind, there would not be more than seventy or eighty on the touch-line. Shannon asked me to referee, so I found a whistle, and the game started.
It was a game in which there seemed to be two or three players who served as motive forces, and the rest were worked through. On one side Shannon at back, Amber the International at half, and Aspinall, the International left-winger, were head and shoulders above the others; on our side, Bourne and Acton dwarfed the rest.
Bourne played back, and Acton was his partner. Bourne I knew well, since he was in the Sixth, and I liked him immensely; but of Acton I knew only a little by repute and nothing personally. He was in the Fifth, but, except in the ordinary way