the school and the world by victor gollancz and david somervell authors of "political education in a public school" london chapman & hall, ltd. 1919 to the school which both we and those who differed from us sought to serve preface in december, 1917, the present writers wrote a little book entitled "political education in a public school," in which they put forward their views as to what the aims and methods of a modern liberal education should be. they also described certain experiments which they had been permitted to make in one of our old english public schools, experiments which both illustrated the authors' principles and tested their value. in july, 1918, that book was published. but in the intervening seven months several things had happened. on the one hand, "political education" had produced further striking evidence of its power over boys' intellects and characters, evidence altogether more striking than anything that had occurred up to the time of writing the book. on the other hand, the movement in the full tide of its success ran upon rocks and has been, for the time being at any rate, utterly and completely destroyed. the authors have left the school in which their experiments were made. when the book was published, its reviewers in the press raised one by one a series of problems which we had already encountered in a practical shape in the course of our work, problems hardly touched on, however, in our book, which was devoted to exposition rather than argument. such problems were: how far is political propaganda inseparable from political education, and in what respects is such propaganda desirable or undesirable? how can political differences among the masters themselves be made to play a helpful rather than an injurious part? does the introduction of politics into the curriculum open a way, as the very able reviewer in _the westminster gazette_ suggested, for prussianism in its most insidious form, the conscription of educated opinion? are the old public schools the best medium for political education, or should the new wine be poured into new bottles? and lastly--for educational "subjects" are or should be but aspects of a single whole--what of political education in relation to morality, and to religion? the present volume, therefore, essays a twofold task. the first two chapters briefly recapitulate and continue the history of our work down to its abrupt end. the latter chapters deal with such questions as those mentioned above. one feature of the earlier volume survives in its successor. the appendix to that volume contained a selection of articles written by boys for our political paper, _the school observer_. as an appendix to this volume we print a few more articles by boys whose work did not then appear. we are under no delusions as to there being anything very extraordinary about these articles and those printed in the previous volume. abler work has been done by abler boys in various schools at various times. they are interesting as the combined effort of a group rather than as the work of individuals. we reproduce them as the only concrete evidence available of the character of one aspect of our experiment. in the former volume we suppressed the name of the school out of deference to the wishes of the head master, and though our own judgment was against the concealment as a wholly superfluous piece of mystification, we continue to respect his wishes. one word of apology is needed for the use to which we have put the utterances of our reviewers. the reviews revealed the interesting and important fact that thoughtful people really felt strongly, one way or the other, on the subject of political education. they constitute a symposium of conflicting judgments upon an educational problem of which they one and all recognize the importance, and as such their main features are worth preserving. having said this much about the reviews it is necessary to add a word more. the quotations we have chosen are, quite naturally, very largely critical, and as such give no idea of the very warm welcome the general policy of the book received. not one in five among the reviewers was hostile. one of them, however, the _church times_ reviewer, was virulently hostile, and appeared to us not merely to dislike our educational policy, which he had every right to do, but to blaspheme against the very idea of a liberal education. as we have quoted from no other "church" paper, we should like to remark here that a number of other such papers, representing various schools of religious thought, gave the book a generous welcome. our experiments perished in the dark days of last spring. within only a month or two came the turn of the tide. it is bitter to reflect that, could they but have survived until victory and peace brought a return of political sanity, they might have weathered the storm and conciliated some of their bitterest enemies, and reached safety. possibly, though gone, they have left their mark. meanwhile pneumonia has carried off, in the prime of early manhood, their staunchest friend among our colleagues. he was not one who took any but a very small part in the actual conduct of the experiments. he once lectured to _the politics class_ on "liberalism." but he had a genius for sympathy, and always, when difficulties arose, it was to him that we turned, because he had the gift of making us feel that it was still worth while to persevere. had we been wiser, he could perhaps have served us still further by bringing us into touch with some of those who differed from us, and helping to a mutual understanding. for everyone was his friend. the dedication of this book had already been chosen before he died, and we are unwilling to alter it, but perhaps we may also venture to offer it as an unworthy tribute to the memory of alan gorringe. contents chap. preface i. the rise ii. the collapse iii. propaganda iv. controversy v. capture by the state vi. the making of "politicians" vii. public schools and freak schools viii. morality ix. religion x. curriculum xi. the young generation and the old appendix "that such an experiment should have been permitted in one of the great public (english) schools is a sign of the greatest promise for the future."--_aberdeen free press_. "of all the objectionable and inept proposals for reforming the education of our public schools we must award the palm to the scheme of teaching boys politics."--_saturday review_. "we do not believe the authors have delivered all their message."--_scottish educational journal_. the school and the world chapter i the rise the school in which political education was tried for a space of something under two years is in no way a very remarkable school. it has its sixteenth-century founder, "of pious memory," and its "second founder," of memory almost more pious, in early victorian days. that second founder made the school famous as a centre of stalwart evangelicalism. more recently its fame has been won chiefly in the production of first-class cricketers. until the early years of the present century the school had also, we are told, a kind of inverted fame as one of the "stupidest" of the public schools, as a dumping ground for young hopefuls who could not pass entrance examinations elsewhere. from that reputation, however, it had struggled fairly successfully to free itself. the present writers started with the common assumption that the "classical" scheme of a liberal education had long broken down in practice, and survived only as feudalism survived in eighteenth-century france, because sufficient energy had not yet generated to create a new scheme to replace it. in part it had already disappeared and given place to the patchwork innovations of the earnest but painfully cautious and conservative reformers who have ruled the schools since the days of dr. arnold.[1] the classical system had become the classical compromise, a clipped and truncated classics, fighting a losing battle for air space amidst a crowd of inadequately provided "new subjects"--history, literature, science, modern languages. in some ways the last state was worse than the first. for the first state had at least been based upon a great tradition and an ordered philosophy of life, but in the last state there was no tradition, no ordered philosophy; only a jumble and a scramble, and a passing of examinations. such a system or lack of system must fall a prey sooner or later to some educational movement based on a coherent and defensible doctrine. now, as it chances, such a movement is already in the field; we may call it the "cult of efficiency." it proclaims a great many truths about the necessity of increasing productivity, about the connection between education and the world of business, and generally speaking points to the achievements of germany for our envious imitation; it proclaims the commercial utility of spanish and russian, and ranges in its advocacy from advanced chemistry to shorthand and book-keeping. much that writers on these lines have to urge against the present system is perfectly sound and reasonable. many of their claims will have to be recognised in the educational system of the future. but the admission of their claim as a whole, of the claim of "efficiency" to be the true and rightful heir of the old classical education, would be, to speak without exaggeration, the greatest disaster that could possibly befall this country. what was wanted then was a conception of education at once "liberal" and "modern," and such the writers found in "politics," using that word in its widest platonic sense. the classical education set out to study the ancient world, and in the case of most of its pupils achieved little more than the dry elements of two dead languages. the study of the modern world has so far usually meant no more than the study of how to make a little money out of it; the trail of commercialism has been drawn over our modern sides. why should not the modern world be studied in the same noble and disinterested spirit as that in which the best of the old teachers studied the world of greece and rome? it is surely worthy of such study. only perhaps by such study in our schools can its wounds be healed. the central subject of a liberal education should be "to-day," the great difficulties amongst which we are all groping, the great problems awaiting solution, the great movements, capitalism and socialism, imperialism and internationalism, freedom and authority, that are battling for mastery or negotiating for a workable compromise. the value of the classics lies wholly in the contribution that classical art, philosophy, and history can make to the enrichment of our minds for the study of our own problems. the value of modern history lies in the inspiration of its great men, and the warning of its tragic experiences. the value of "divinity" is only found when we face the fundamental question, are we to apply christianity in our political and economic relations to-day, or are we not? but over and above this reorientation of subjects already scheduled in the orthodox time-table, there is the new subject within which all these (except divinity, which is fundamental) must be regarded as merely contributory, and that subject is "politics," the treatment, elementary yet thorough, vigorous yet many sided, of the great questions of the day, with all the diverse lines of thought along which each can be approached. here the fundamental "text-book" is the newspaper. growing up in such a world as this of 1918, how can it be anything but sheer monasticism to divert the main part of a boy's intellectual energies away from this subject to anything else? our educational "america is here or nowhere." with this principle in view, and after various tentative experiments, we obtained permission to found the _politics class_ described in our previous book. suffice it to say here that the class was a voluntary body of some thirty or forty senior boys, that met once a week on a half-holiday evening to hear informal lectures from one or other of us, and occasionally from one or other of our colleagues, on questions of the day. sometimes the topic was purely general--"competition and co-operation," "the spirit of the reformer," or the like. sometimes a historical topic was traced rapidly from its beginnings down to a crisis of last week's newspaper, the discourse ending on the brink of the future with a note of interrogation; such were brief courses of lectures on "the irish question," and "the russian revolution." a third type were those that confined themselves to an analysis of a strictly contemporary situation, such as the lectures on the various "peace terms" speeches that led up to the versailles declaration of february, 1918. no attempt was made to create any artificial popularity for the class. the scene was the ordinary bleak class-room with all its sad suggestiveness. ordinary notes were taken in ordinary note-books. no one, in fact, can have come from any motive but a genuine desire to know what was deemed worth knowing. parallel with the foundation of the _politics class_ had come a remodelling of the sixth form time-table. indeed, not modern politics but greek philosophy had been the first subject to stir that almost religious passion for a real understanding of things, without which knowledge is in the old man mere pedantry and in the young man mere grist for the examination mill. in the present educational chaos, school sixth forms are quite bewilderingly fissiparous. every one is a "specialist" of some sort or other; specialism means "private work," and if private work enables the gifted few to escape into self-education from the hampering attentions of the form master, it gives the rest a terrible training in the habits of time-wasting and evasion. yet so long as sixth form orthodoxy is classical scholarship work, the majority will rightly be found among the heretics, and that is the "specialists." the remodelled sixth form time-table made at least a move towards the recognition of the principle that, over and above specialisms, there were certain subjects that were the common concern of all educated men. a heterogeneous body drawn from all corners of the school time-table met together for modern history, for outlines of world history, and for general principles of science, and (with some regrettable abstentions) for political science and economics. some day it will appear ridiculous that these last subjects should not have been deemed a necessity for all the "specialists" alike. the real test of an educational system is not what the masters do for the boys, but what the boys do for themselves, and in this matter only one large undertaking fell within the scope of our previous book, namely the paper, _the school observer_, therein described and largely quoted. the idea of this paper, a political journal on the lines of a high-class weekly, published twice a term, with "notes on current events," political "leaders," literary and philosophic "middles," a poem or so, and correspondence all complete--this laughably magnificant idea came entirely from a little group of boys, and one at any rate of the present writers was at first frankly sceptical. well,--enthusiasm has a way of beating scepticism, at any rate when youth is thrown into the scale. we were quickly harnessed to our task as members of the editorial committee. our literary contributions were confined to a part of the "notes on current events," the portion of the paper that naturally attracted least outside notice, and was rarely singled out for praise. it is true that a discerning schoolmaster from another school remarked that these notes displayed "restrained strength even more remarkable in boys than the qualities of the other parts of the paper." i am ashamed to say we smiled and held our peace. five of the six issues of the paper appeared, and we had already contracted with our advertisers for a second volume when the crash came. in general, of course, the paper was much less important than the _politics class_. the class was a necessity to political education; the paper was a luxury. but it is a man's luxuries that give the clue to his character, and it was the very fact that the paper was always of the nature of a _jeu d'esprit_, a glorious game, a kind of fleet street doll's-house affair, that gave a sense of gay adventure to the pursuit of politics. when the paper had been suppressed, a boy who had never contributed to it said to me, "what a shame!" and he added very pensively, "it was all so extraordinarily romantic!" but so far the movement had only touched the sixth form, and in a minor degree such lower forms as the writers happened to meet in the course of their professional duties. that was plainly not enough. if boys are learning from their masters something that they really value, their natures are so essentially communicative and sociable that they will be eager to pass it on to their friends. this may seem a paradox, but it is true enough. if of two boys in constant contact, a is learning algebra and b is not, and if a refrains from talking algebra to b, one of two causes must be the explanation of a's reticence. either he does not care about b or else he does not care about algebra, and since by hypothesis he cares about b, we can only assume that he does not care about algebra. a simple experiment will verify our conclusion. drop an indiscretion about a colleague during the algebra lesson, and b, c, d and all the rest of them to a long way beyond z will know all about it before sunset. a, b, c, and d are interested in masters' opinions of each other. now we would not claim for a moment that all educational subjects should be required to pass this test of "interest," and rejected if they do not.[2] that would be grotesque. but it seems to us that the central subject of a liberal education, that subject to which all others cohere and in relation to which all others are justified, ought to make some such appeal to enthusiasm. unless education produces enthusiasm for something, there is no education, and that is why it has so often been maintained that the real education of public schools is in the playing fields, because there alone, for most boys, enthusiasm is generated, if it is generated at all. (for most, one may remark in passing, it is not generated even there. the notion that the average boy is an enthusiast for cricket is as wide of the mark as would be the idea that he was an enthusiast for greek, natural science, or the church of england.) judged by this test of infectious enthusiasm, political education was to produce in the early months of 1918, evidence of its educational worth such as we never dreamt of, and here again the pioneer was not ourselves but a boy, and that boy not one of the group that had started the paper. this boy, who had recently become head of his house, conceived the idea that politics could become the medium of the same spirit of joyous and unforced co-operation as is traditionally (and sometimes actually) associated with athletics. his idea of a school house was of a vigorous and jolly community, living together on terms of friendly equality such as reduced fagging and the oligarchial "prefect system" to a minimum, and uniting in a real effort to keep abreast with the great world outside by means of a co-operative study of politics and the press. the idea will seem mere foolishness and an impossibility to many of those who did not see it actually at work. at the best it will seem the kind of thing we may have read of in books about "freak schools," where so much loss has obviously to be set against whatever is gained. in this case, not only the idea, but all the practical details came from the boy himself and the little band of enthusiasts that gathered round him. indeed, one feels a sense of impropriety in describing what was essentially not our work, but his. however, it was the fine flower of political education, and as such may fitly close this chapter. "houses," after all, and not "forms," are the natural social units that compose a public school, and a scheme of education that becomes in the best sense popular may, indeed must, take its rise in the classroom, but will find its freest development in the life of house reading-room and house study. the chief among many "stunts," as they were called, was a political society. the twenty-five members of this society, rather over half the house, undertook to read between them nearly all the more important newspapers, including one or two french papers. on sunday the society sat in conclave, the three or four leading events of the week were taken each in turn, and the individual or group responsible for each newspaper put forward the view of the event in question taken by his own particular organ. these views were compared and debated, and ultimately a brief synopsis was drawn up, consisting of the event itself, with the chief typical utterances of the press on the subject set out underneath, for purposes of comparison and contrast. these were typed and posted on a board as "news of the week." neither of us ever attended a meeting of this society, and it is obvious, from the fact that more than half the house joined in, that we are not concerned here with the activities of a little set of intellectualists. in the fullest sense in which the word is applicable in a public school, these political activities were "democratic," and the effect on the "english" work of some of the boys in middle forms was most remarkable. the present writer recalls, for instance, a middle fifth essay of some three thousand words on the complex, and in some ways repellent, subject of "national guilds." on how many successive nights the rule against "sitting up" was broken over the composition of this work the recipient of the essay forebore to inquire. from this beginning other developments rapidly opened. a modest but useful idea was a question paper, on which any one who liked could set down questions that occurred to him in the course of his reading. the house library naturally felt the impact of the movement, and a political section was started in which books about the greeks and mill's "liberty" stood side by side with the latest essay on "reconstruction." but it would be giving an altogether unworthy notion of the movement if it were suggested that politics alone, in the narrower sense, marked the limit of these activities. the best modern plays and poetry began to appear on shelves whence rubbishy novels of a past generation were removed to make room for them. nor were older books neglected. the general drift of interest was inevitably towards the moderns; but the great poets of the past were also finding their way in before the end came. then, of course, there was a gramophone, with its "popular" and "classical" repertoires; and before the end came, the "classical" had so far surpassed the "popular" in popularity that house piano recitals had begun as well. another development was on lines that would have gladdened the heart of ruskin and morris, though i do not know that either of these was consciously recognised as an influence. a movement arose for beautifying the studies, which began with pseudo-japanese lamp-shades, and moved upward through pretty curtains and tablecloths to framed "medici" pictures. before the end there was hardly a study that had not its big framed medici, and often a selection of medici postcards as well. all these things involved, of course, some considerable expenditure; but the cost was met with an eagerness astonishing to the boys themselves when they reflected that, a few months before, so-and-so "had never cared about anything but the tuck shop." other houses began to catch the spirit of the thing--a trifle reluctantly and tentatively, it must be admitted, for there is a good deal of improper pride about a school house, and imitations have not quite the glamour of originals. also the whole movement was by this time falling under a cloud, and it is now time to give some account of the collapse. [1] a brilliant "depreciation" of arnold and his school has recently appeared in mr. lytton strachey's "eminent victorians." [2] something more is said on this subject in chapter x. chapter ii the collapse "teachers though they are, mr. gollancz and mr. somervell do not seem quite to realise ... what obstacles have to be overcome before the advice given in their little book is generally taken."--_the westminster gazette_. our account of the collapse of our experiment has to be written, as the reader will easily understand, with a good deal of reserve. "the rise" was the work of ourselves and our pupils. "the collapse" was the work of others. it is not a question of "dora"; it is not a question of the common law of libel; there are certain older laws of courtesy and forbearance which we would fain observe, for he who has not learnt to observe these has hardly made a beginning with political education. so let it be said to begin with that no one was to blame. things followed their predestined course, and every actor in the drama played the part that was natural and proper to him. it was natural that the movement should be destroyed by masters as that its success should be made by boys. if any one is to blame it is ourselves. it was we who chose to pour new wine into old bottles--the preference for old bottles is explained in chapter vi.--and when the custodians of the bottles awoke to the fact and hastily poured the wine out again, fearing disaster, they certainly thought they were acting for the best. needless to say, we have often discussed the question whether, had the movement run on other lines, had we been content with rather less to begin with, had we considered principle rather less and prudence rather more, had we added the _rã´le_ of diplomatist to the _rã´le_ of missionary, had we hardened our hearts against some of the best boys in order to soften the hearts of some of the more tractable masters--had we done all these things, could we have postponed or even permanently escaped the collapse? on the whole, we come to the conclusion that, much as we regret many plain mistakes of detail, in the main it is best that the bold course was taken, we rode boldly, and, in the last months, we had to ride for a fall. an experiment has been made by frontal attack, and with the slenderest of resources. now that all that is over, the time has come to begin the slow and circuitous approach toward political education as a normal institution. the material of our experiment was boys and boys alone. now, at first sight, a school might seem to consist of boys, but in point of fact boys are only one element in a complex organisation embracing boys, masters, head master, bursar, governors, and parents. the boys are only there to be educated, and education is a matter about which very few people have any strongly cherished ideas. for very many, public school education is a species of "doing time," whereby a child of fourteen is taken and simply kept out of mischief (or, at any rate, kept away from home, where he would be a nuisance), until at eighteen he is become a man. but the other constituent parts of the school have serious commercial interests at stake. for the masters the school is the means of livelihood, and the livelihood afforded them is in many cases so niggardly that they very rightly consider that the smallest financial mishap to the school might plunge them below the line of bare subsistence. from a slightly different angle, the eyes of the higher officials and the governors are fixed upon the same point. a head master once remarked to me of one of his governors, "old x.'s only idea is that the school should pay five per cent." and the parents. it is an article of faith with the present writers that parents are wiser, more tolerant and more open to ideas on educational matters, than schoolmasters generally suppose. but parents live at a distance, and only make themselves felt at moments of crisis, and then the crisis is one which they probably only very imperfectly understand. that is all the fault of the schools, for the schools have never made a serious attempt to take the parents into partnership in the matter of their sons' education. and here we are back against the root of all evil, for the reason why this has not been done is that the schools have not yet seriously faced the fact that a liberal education for the average boy is an unsolved problem, for the solution of which they need all the help they can possibly get. of course this taking of the parent into partnership would be no easy matter. readers of that wise and humorous tale, "the lanchester tradition," will remember the comical failure of the head master's attempt at a "parents' committee." still, all this being so, the fact emerges that the important factor in the problem of the moment is not the real parent but the traditional parent, and the false image of the traditional parent has been created in the schoolmaster's mind by that fussy and ill-informed individual who is always "writing to complain." now, he who pays the piper does not necessarily call the tune. that would be too absurd. but he has a veto on any tune he too positively dislikes, and it is well known that the unmusical generally dislike a _new_ tune. the opposition to political education developed along two lines. one of them makes this story a microcosm of the world history of the years 1917-1918. the other is something peculiar to the english public schools, and might have befallen at any period since dr. arnold inaugurated their modern history. when we began our experiments the "party truce," in the moral as distinct from the formal sense, still held good. outside the circles of strict pacifism--and with pacifism in any but a merely abusive sense we never had any concern--english people were agreed upon the great questions of the war. such differences of opinion as there were concerned only questions of method and expediency, not questions of principle. the "gospel" of august, 1914, had not yet become a battle-ground disputed by fiercely earnest rival sects. we were liberals in a general sense, but we differed on a great many topics, and we were genuinely anxious, in the words of one of our pupils in the school magazine, "not so much to advocate any one particular remedy of any given problem as to lay before the class the problems themselves and the principal reforms which have been or are being suggested, so that thought and criticism may have full scope for exercise." it would be unfair to ourselves to admit that we abandoned that ideal, but the events of 1917 brought a new spirit into the world. on the one hand, the early days of the russian revolution and the demand for a peace "without annexations or indemnities," coupled with the entry of america and the war speeches of president wilson, seemed to revive the flagging idealism of the allies and lift it to a more universal and exalted level than ever before. on the other hand, the publication of the secret treaties and the many incomplete revelations that followed thereon, laid bare the fact that quite another act of motives were also at work among our leaders; that territorial greed and diplomatic hypocrisy were enemies to be fought in our own midst as well as on the battlefield. the issues of the war assumed a grander and a more terrible aspect. more than ever before perhaps in the history of the world--and we do not overlook the period of the so-called religious wars--religion and politics fused. to us, at any rate, the calm aloofness suggested by the quotation above became impossible. a cry seemed to have gone forth, "who is on the lord's side? who?" a great gulf opened up between those who only a year before had believed themselves to be for the time at any rate in one political camp. on one side of that gulf we found ourselves, and on the other most of our colleagues. it was not that we differed from them as to the necessity of winning the war, and of putting forward every possible military effort for that end. but everything depends on the uses to which the victory is put, and the spirit in which it is approached, and there the differences were profound. and thus the _politics class_ became a school of liberalism.[1] it was no intolerant liberalism, for intolerant liberalism is not liberalism at all. from first to last we stood for the examination of all points of view. we were for reading the views of those we disagreed with, not for abusing them unheard or burning their books unread. in so far as some of our pupils carried liberalism to the point of intolerance, they lost the spirit of the movement they professed to support. there were not many against whom this charge could be brought. one of our most ardent democrats, i remember, sent me during the time of his military training a careful and painstaking examination of mr. mallock's latest big book. the excuse of those that fell into intolerance must be, i suppose, that they were young, and that they found themselves confronted by an astonishing spectacle of intolerance in some of their "conservative" masters. when this change was taking place, we sought to redress the balance by taking into partnership in the running of the _politics class_ a strongly conservative master. such an arrangement would have been admirable had the genuine educational spirit been there. it was not. the overture was a failure and only added to our difficulties. to some men it seemed better to root out the liberal masters as "traitors" than to co-operate with them as teachers. on the eve of the final collapse, a similar experiment was tried with _the school observer_. the last number bears the names of two "editors," and contains both a liberal and a conservative "leader" written on the same topic. the innovation was made at the last minute, and the conservative "leader" is not a genuine schoolboy production, but the model may be a useful one for future work on the same lines. but there was another influence making for the collapse. we quoted in our previous book a head master who remarked at a school prize-giving that the only questions worth asking are those that cannot get a definite answer. political education consists almost entirely of such questions. its sheet anchor is freedom of thought; its method is controversy; its end is not in complete mastery of a box of intellectual tricks such as will win full marks in an examination, but in the modesty of realised ignorance and the enthusiastic search for fresh lights in the darkness. socrates was put to death by the athenians because he would not desist from asking them questions, and it is to be feared that some of our pupils would have incurred the same fate had the customs of the time permitted it. the taste for controversy on the fundamental subjects will grip a youth like the taste for drink, as many who have passed through undergraduate days at oxford or cambridge can remember. suppose a boy enters into political controversy with his form master, over the| giving back of an essay, or with his house master at the luncheon table.... now, there is a divinity that doth hedge a schoolmaster, and the hedge must be kept in somewhat careful repair. so long as we are concerned with subjects like elementary latin and greek or mathematics, we are dealing with a body of knowledge in which, to take the examinations standard, all the masters get full marks. all knowledge is contained in a set of small school books which the masters, for their sins, know more or less by heart backwards. even history, if it is sufficiently badly taught, may be grouped among such subjects, for, strange as it may seem, it is quite possible to teach it in such a way that no boy feels impelled to ask questions either insoluble in themselves or beyond the scope of the master's immediate memory. there are schoolmasters who definitely discourage or even forbid the asking of questions by the class. "little boys should be seen and not heard"--that worst of all educational maxims--makes a larger contribution to the buttressing up of the present system than is usually supposed. a lowering diet of irregular verbs keeps the boy mind "docile," to use a word of ironically perverted meaning, and prevents it from impinging embarrassingly upon the lightly guarded regions of the master's intellectual entrenchments. in fact, political education set up a new intellectual standard. it was a subject in which no one, boy or master, got "full marks,"--scarcely even president wilson, perhaps, if you took his "work" as a whole! all were learners, all were fellow workers together, and before the vast scope of the task, differences of proficiency between the various workers seemed hardly to matter. here, then, rises a difficult question. ought the schoolmaster to possess, or appear to possess, complete knowledge of the subject he teaches? the present writer has taught a good variety of subjects during nine years, and on the whole he has found his ignorance, not only of politics, but of far more finite matters, a very helpful educational instrument. as an emergency teacher of latin on the modern side, for instance, he found it a positive advantage that he had forgotten more of the language than his pupils had ever learnt. his occasional quaint errors did not always pass undetected, and their detection had probably an educational stimulus for the form which outweighed the loss incurred when his mistakes passed without notice. nor did he feel greatly the loss of intellectual stature. it was partly made good by the ingenuity with which he explained how he had come to make the mistake. and if there was loss in intellectual prestige, there was an increased sense of intellectual comradeship. but this is a trifling and not wholly serious digression. some masters stand for intellectual infallibility. these political discussions disturbed them. they felt that their credentials as schoolmasters were being examined and found wanting. they accused the boys of priggery. it was a most false charge, for the boys were enthusiasts, and enthusiasm is a form of self-forgetfulness as priggery is a form of self-consciousness. still priggery was the word. the charge of "priggery" was added to the charge of "pacifism." on these two lines the opposition developed and ultimately triumphed. it was suggested that "the school would be empty in a couple of years," if political education continued. here, it would seem, our critics were trading on their false idea of the parent, and believing what they wished to believe. take the statistics of entries, which is the only tangible evidence on the subject, and the only conclusion you can draw is that political education either had no effect at all, or that it slightly increased the commercial well-being of the school. it was not on such ground as this that political education was doomed. as we said at the beginning of the chapter, the material of our experiments was the boys and them alone. we had made a short cut. we had made no effort to convert our colleague. we trusted to results for their conversion. but, as the preceding narrative will have shown, the greater our success, the greater became their irritation, when success was labelled "pacifism" and "priggery." without intending it, we had played "pied piper" upon some of the best of the house masters' foster children. we had envisaged a school as a single corporate society, boys and masters working together with the maximum of frankness and equality for the common end, education. we had not allowed for the fact that a school cannot become such a corporate society, unless the staff has become such at the same time. like three-quarters of the reformers of history, we had, in our own despite, become rebels. and so all was over. there is now no _politics class_, no _school observer_ in the school of their foundation, though two other schools of fame have started papers on similar lines, with handsome acknowledgments to our example. there are no political societies in the houses. two or three of our pupils have left before their time, and we, the authors, are no longer schoolmasters, only "educationists,"--it is a change for the worse. [1] generally speaking, the liberalism of _the manchester guardian_ or of president wilson's speeches. chapter iii propaganda "a point hardly touched on in the book is the difficulty of teaching politics without the disadvantages of partisanship. it is worth discussion."--_manchester guardian_. "if 'politics'--even politics as an art culled from the classics, from _pro-german_[1] economists and historians, from poets such as shelley, and from _german_[1] higher critics of the bible--were taught to fifth form boys with crude impressionable minds, the result would be bolshevism. we agree that under careful guidance much of ultimate political value can be taught from history and literature. but it must be done with infinite care, and opinions must be excluded from the teaching. that is the difficulty."--_contemporary review_. "clever boys will learn their politics for themselves."--_saturday review_. "the public schools have for years past covered their quiet infiltration of conservative principles with a camouflage of strict neutrality. teachers though they are, the authors do not seem quite to realise what a formidable protective device this banning of the modern history which we call politics has been, and what obstacles have to be overcome before the advice given in their little book is generally taken."--_westminster gazette_. two great objections have to be met if politics is to become the central subject in our public school education. the desirability of such a change may be urged from many points of view; and the practical results obtained during the course of our recent experiment seemed to us even more valuable than preliminary theorising had led us to expect. once make a boy think about the life of his own time and the great principles whose fight for mastery he is witnessing; once make him wonder about the actual machinery by which his world is moved; once set him speculating about the meaning of the universe and of his own existence; and you have created such a spirit of eager enthusiasm and inquiry, that at last that development of the individual personality is achieved which, as every great educationist since plato has told us, must be the aim of all who desire to be more than mere teachers. modern history, politics, sociology, economics, ethics, even _metaphysics_--we may class all these under the broad heading of politics, for one and all they deal with the life and destiny of the individual as a member of human society and a part of the universe. there is no human being who, at least while he is young, does not feel a keen interest in such things; the deepest waters are stirred and the classroom becomes the meeting-place of minds engaged in an exciting adventure instead of being, as is so often now the case, a prison cell in which all a boy's spontaneity and joy of life are crushed out beyond recall. yet the two objections remain, and to one of them we address ourselves in this chapter.[2] when the possibility of political teaching is considered, the first thought that leaps to the mind is: can the subject be taught without the introduction of propaganda? and is not politics just the one subject in which propaganda is above everything undesirable? now it may be pointed out that the present system of public school education is itself a form of political propaganda none the less effective for being concealed. a boy is sent to a public school with a set of political notions imbibed from his parents and the circle in which he moves, and during the whole period of his boyhood, no genuine effort is made to develop his powers of independent thought and so to enable him to revise his inherited opinions. a certain stimulus no doubt is given to his mental activity by setting him mathematical problems to solve and passages in the classical authors to construe; but his thought on political and social questions remains a thing apart, unstirred, atrophied. what else is this but political propaganda? and when it is reinforced by a thousand subtle hints in and out of the classroom, hints suggesting that, of course, there can be no two opinions about so-and-so and his supporters, it becomes one of the most potent instruments of mental darkness that has ever been allowed to function in a rational community. but the objection to propaganda is not to be met by a "tu quoque." it is one which raises the most fundamental issues of educational theory. to develop, we are told, and not to mould, is the aim of education; and every genuine educationist will eagerly agree. yet you cannot develop in a vacuum. you must impart some background for the young mind, give it some material on which to work. how, then, can the compromise be effected? how can we inculcate and yet at the same time aim above every thing at the development of an individuality, which may and indeed must, be so very different from our own? the answer is not really hard to find. what we inculcate, the background we give, must be considered by us as merely a stop-gap, a poor temporary support which the child may fling away when he can support himself. and even while we are giving the support, we must at every moment be developing the power which will as soon as possible dispense with it. if this _caveat_ is borne in mind and honestly observed, propaganda, whether in political, philosophical, or religious teaching, becomes not only defensible but actually desirable. nothing can be more fatal than to give the impression that it does not very much matter which of several conflicting principles or policies a boy adopts; that there are after all equally strong arguments on both sides, and that the adhesion of the world to one philosophy of life and code of conduct rather than another will make no very vital difference to anybody. yet if the teacher presents his subject in a perfectly balanced and passionless manner such a result will inevitably follow. the boy will notice his master's lack of enthusiasm, and consequently remain unenthusiastic himself; and not only will that intellectual eagerness remain undeveloped, which is as a spark to set his whole nature ablaze, but also he will feel none of that moral passion for principles which is the crying need of the world to-day. a master in another school, which had adopted the idea of a politics class, heard of the excitement and controversy which ours was occasioning, and remarked adversely on our methods. "we teach politics too," he said, "but we are careful that the boys should never be able to discover on which side our own sympathies lie. consequently there is no excitement and no controversy. politics are thought of in just the same way as any other school subject." we can well believe it. our whole idea, of course, is that they should not be so thought of; that they should be regarded rather as a matter of most vital interest and importance both for the boy himself and for the world as a whole. we would have a boy feel an attachment to principles as romantic and absorbing as his affections for his dearest friend, not coldly cancel one principle against the other as if he were doing a sum in mathematics. but it is time that we explained exactly what we mean when we say that a master should not shrink from propaganda in political teaching. we do not by any means intend that he should state only his own point of view, and pass over the arguments that may be urged against it. that would be the merest parody of education. rather do we mean that he should adopt a threefold method. he should put forward his own view with all the enthusiasm that he feels for it (we have been called "missionaries" by way of abuse, but find nothing but honour in the word); simultaneously, he should impress on his pupils the fact that it after all is only his view, and urge them not merely to accept but to examine and criticise; and finally, he should explain with complete honesty every point that has been, or possibly could be, raised against it. we call this method "propaganda," because a fire is imparted to the statement of one side which cannot, from the nature of the case, be imparted to that of the other; but it is propaganda in which there is no touch of dishonesty or obscurantism. we have said that, while he is presenting his case, the master should be urging his pupils to examine and criticise it. but he should do more than this; if he is a liberal, he should spend much of his time in a direct propaganda of the great liberal principles--freedom of thought and discussion; the sanctity of the individual conscience; the paramount importance of moral and intellectual independence. in this way he will be creating a habit of mind which will _naturally_ criticise; and so by his propaganda of general liberalism he will annihilate the vantage-point he would otherwise occupy in his propaganda of particular principles and policies. we speak of "liberal education," and surely the epithet is meaningless unless it be taken to imply that conversion to those general principles is the very bed-rock of education. but others think otherwise, and so we would point out the broad distinction which must be drawn between propaganda of the simple liberal and propaganda of the simple reactionary principle--on the one hand freedom of thought, on the other acceptance of ideas not one's own. our liberal propaganda carries with it the instrument of its own overthrow. if you can inspire a boy with a desire to put all things to the test of his own free conscience, you are empowering him to criticise everything you teach--even that very liberty of opinion, a belief in which you have been so anxious to create. but with reactionary propaganda it is quite otherwise. by it a static habit of mind is produced--a habit of mind which, except by way of a mercifully not uncommon revolt, is a pawn in the hands of its present teacher, and that public opinion which in time to come will take its teacher's place. a word may be added on the means best calculated to produce the free mind at which we are aiming. use, of course, can and should be always made of the fundamental arguments (all to be found in mill) in favour of liberty of opinion. but there is one case in which the employment of a subsidiary method may give even more valuable results. where a boy holds tenaciously to an opinion which you think to be evil, argue against it unceasingly; show him the errors of it; point out passionately the beauty of its alternative. the stronger his conviction, the better; indeed, deliberately choose his deepest-seated prejudice--attack him in the very heart of what you regard as his error. then, when at last he sees that the opinion which he had thought of as the only possible one is in reality wrong, and that another which he had loathed is in reality right, a tremendous intellectual conversion will have taken place; his own case will constantly act as a warning to him whenever he is again tempted to prejudice or narrowness of outlook. [1] the italics are ours. why were these two words inserted, we wonder. [2] the other is dealt with in chapter v. chapter iv controversy "while a formidable strife between masters of different creeds might be engendered, it is arguable that the finest political spirit might be fostered by approaching the problems under the conditions of fairness and courtesy on which the public schools pride themselves."[1]--_manchester guardian_. "tolerance, to be more than a pale and negative virtue, needs to be based on an understanding of these different points of view, which means, again, bringing an educated mind to bear on them."--_westminster gazette_. "boys always will be boys" they say, and the saying can be interpreted in many ways. "masters always will be masters" is a more sobering reflection. the reputation of schoolmasters for sweet reasonableness has never stood, perhaps, particularly high. even supposing that, with a staff of angels, such a scheme of teaching as that sketched in the preceding chapter were desirable, will not the actual result be something very different? will not "a formidable strife between masters of different creeds be engendered," and will not the spectacle of that strife, and a possible participation in it, be the very worst possible training for the new generation? the difficulty is one that has got to be faced, and the present writers, at any rate, are not at all likely to overlook it. as was shown in chapter ii., our experiments collapsed not because our colleagues differed from us in political opinion, but because, differing from us in political opinion, they also differed from us in educational theory. had the experiment collapsed simply because they differed from us in political opinion, it would be no use pursuing the subject of political education further; for a staff in which all the masters held the same political views would be unlikely to exist, and in any case altogether undesirable. we may take it for granted that the staff will consist of men of diverse political opinions. indeed we may go further and take it for granted that in a school in which political education flourishes, those diversities, though certainly less bitter, will be more clearly marked than at present. in such a school the masters, for the most part, will be keenly interested in politics, for the school must be a single society of men and boys in real intellectual co-operation. what is good for the boys will be good for the masters. perverse metaphors comparing masters and boys to hounds and hares will be seen as the symptom of a radically false educational philosophy. if political education becomes not merely an experiment but an integral part of the timetable, the staff as a whole, not necessarily all the masters, but all those concerned with what are at present ironically called "the humanities," will be taking a part in it. but how can this be worked? we are here faced with a problem such as none of the ordinary school subjects has ever raised, at any rate in this acute form. everything depends upon the educational philosophy of the staff. everything depends upon the extent of their belief in freedom of opinion. the case for freedom of opinion, like the case for self-government, has suffered from the fact that we take the theory so completely for granted that we do not notice how far we are removed from the practice of it. freedom is supposed to be an englishman's speciality. "britons never shall be slaves," we say, and suppose that settles the matter. very likely thomson, when he wrote his feeble verses (they have been redeemed by an excellent tune), never paused to reflect that the sailors he was glorifying were mostly victims of the press-gang. it is but a step from a press-gang to a press bureau. most englishmen are not very anxious to tolerate any opinions but their own, if the subject be one that they deem of vital importance. very few have the faith of the great apostles of freedom, the conviction that right opinion can only triumph through fair and open conflict with the wrong. the cause of freedom, then, fares badly enough in the world outside, when we are only concerned with its application to those who have reached "years of discretion." inside the school the difficulties are admittedly greater, and freedom has hitherto had a poor chance. yet without freedom, though there may be instruction, there can hardly be education. in so far then as the staff fall short in this vital matter of toleration, they must themselves go to school and learn; and he is probably a poor teacher who is not himself ever learning something more. here perhaps the head master might find one of his finest opportunities. the conscientious modern head master often finds it hard to rise above the mass of administrative work attached to his office. he resembles philip ii. of spain, of whom it was said that he was always trying to be his own private secretary. meanwhile his assistants go their own ways, each narrowing into his own little intellectual groove. the result, at any rate in the more remote and less distinguished schools--that is to say, the vast majority--is a society far from idyllic. even if politics were to engender "a formidable strife," the discords would not be breaking in upon any very beautiful harmonies. two novels have recently been written by schoolmasters about their profession, and even if "mr. perrin and mr. traill" may be discounted as the ill-natured revenge of a clever man who had mistaken his profession, "the lanchester tradition" has, we believe, been generally hailed as a truthful record. masters at many schools have exclaimed, "how on earth does this rugby man come to know all about _us_?" teaching is spiritual work or it is nothing, and the head master ought to be, as the greatest head masters have been, a true leader of his staff in spiritual things. our profession is the most insanely individualistic in the world. probably the teaching of every subject would be improved by the establishment of a really organised co-operation between the various masters teaching it, and "politics," with its strong human appeal would, with a leader worthy of his position, be the best place to begin. masters would meet for a genuine educational purpose--and the last thing ever discussed at the masters' meetings we have attended has been educational principles--they would learn to see into each others' minds and methods, enlarge their intellectual sympathies and understand their differences. thus a real corporate intellectual life of the staff might begin. often at present this does not exist, and its absence is fatal to the school as a seriously intellectual institution. and surely the need for the tolerant staff can hardly be exaggerated. and here we are thinking not so much of the war and its controversies as of the days that will follow. after the war a baser motive than even the crudest jingo patriotism will claim a monopoly over the political thought of public schoolboys for the defence not of "country," but of property. the unorthodox will be denounced not as "pacifists," but as "socialists," and the enemy will be not the kaiser, but perhaps the prime minister of a labour government. but just as the only hope for the world after the war seems to lie in a league of nations, so the only hope for england lies in the co-operation of all classes in a common search for industrial justice. the public schools are "class preserves" of the rich, and their opportunity for good, as for harm, will be almost boundless. "to turn out the young of the capitalist class with all their capitalist prejudices intact will be sheer dereliction of duty on the part of public schoolmasters." so wrote a great teacher of the older generation. the obvious way of destroying those prejudices as prejudices is by an enthusiastic and capable exposition of various forms of socialism. this can best be done by socialist masters. but, supposing the socialist teaching is false, why should those who are not socialists fear for the result? it is a necessary part of the scheme that they on their side should make a reasoned defence of a reformed capitalism. if this is done "the young of the capitalist class" may be turned out socialists or anti-socialists, but at least they will go out into the world men of some economic understanding, with views based on reasoning, and by further reasoning or experience liable to be changed, not men with inherited prejudice intact. if we assume in our staff a general inclination towards freedom of opinion, everything becomes possible. a hundred questions of organisation arise, essentially practical questions, and more easily solved by concrete experiment than by literary methods. it may, however, be worthy while to glance at a few of these. masters will always be human; and political education must be so organised as to suggest in every way that the masters of divergent views are co-operating in a general scheme of political education such as no one of them alone could impart, not competing for the political allegiance of the boys. a school is not a bye-election in permanent session. thus, though a controversial element is bound to come into political education, we would mitigate this element by not allowing any one form to go to more than one master for political work. the boy will pass from form to form, and thus the conservatism of a summer term will be tempered by the radicalism of the following winter. but these political compartments will not be particularly air-tight in any case. the house master will be a permanent influence, and when a keen-witted boy has just got out of the form of a sympathetic master, it is unlikely that they will altogether lose touch with one another. at the top of the school, however, the controversial element should be more frankly accepted. we believe in the permanent institution of a voluntary _politics class_ in which the best boys will hear again the best of the masters who have taught them on their way up the school. between such a _politics class_ and a really efficient school debating society it might be hard to draw a precise line. one would play into the hands of the other. the "judicial" teacher, the man who from an olympian elevation surveys the political strivings of past and present alike, and analyses, catalogues, and defines, creating all the while an impression of luminous impartiality, may, of course, do much good work. the present writer would be the last man to deny it when he remembers his own debt to a teacher of that kind. none the less, we believe that it is the other kind of teaching that is really needed in the schools of the well-to-do to-day.[2] the political problems of our time are of intense and terrible importance: on their solution this way or that depends the happiness or the misery of uncounted millions; and it is so largely on the way that the young of the privileged classes learn to look at them that their solution depends. "judicial" teaching creates the impression that so long as you "know the case" for or against a policy, it does not matter whether you believe it, and as for acting upon it, or making sacrifices for it, there is no question of doing anything so "extreme." education _must_ create enthusiasm. it must also make for many-sidedness, and so we arrive at the function of the staff, the many-sided staff of enthusiasts. let each one believe himself, if he is young enough to do so, the monopolist of political truth. let each one differ from all his colleagues on every subject under the sun, except two, the infinite possibilities of the boys he teaches, and the infinite importance of freedom of opinion. [1] is there a little irony here? [2] whether any particular single school can afford to experiment in such teaching is, of course, another matter altogether. gallio is a less troublesome colleague than paul, and paul will waste his breath if he complains of the obvious fact that such things are so. but he has a better ground of complaint when he sees himself silenced, while sosthenes is allowed to carry on as vigorously as he pleases. chapter v capture by the state "it is a great and perilous discovery that the state can [as in germany] impress the minds of masses of men by a carefully organised system of political education, and we hope the authors will bear it in mind."--_westminster gazette_. "germany has shown the world to what evil ends the dishonest use of schools and schoolmasters must lead."--_contemporary review_. we have discussed the pros and cons of propaganda--the propaganda, that is to say, by each master of his particular point of view--and have concluded that, if certain safeguards are adopted and honestly adhered to, such propaganda is desirable. but there is one particular form of propaganda which no one, if he has any reverence at all for the individuality of his pupils and the freedom of the world, can regard as anything but an abomination. and here we meet with the most serious criticism which can be, and has been, levelled against the project of political education. suppose, it has been urged, that your scheme is adopted by a number of the public schools; suppose that by a steady process of attack, this new and very powerful piece of machinery is captured by the state, as a means of imposing orthodoxy on the nation and nipping in the bud a great part of our potential vigour and independence; have you not then defeated most disastrously your own object, and desiring above everything more liberty in thought and more self-reliance in action, merely succeeded in setting up a system similar to that which created the national character of modern germany? it is at first sight a most damaging criticism; and a criticism which seems to gather weight as we look about us and observe the terrible results which have occurred when the state has been allowed to manipulate opinion for its own ends. no englishman will need to have the lesson of germany brought home to him; he knows too well how inculcation through the schools of the worst type of narrow patriotism, rendered seemingly noble by a deliberate falsification of history, has warped the generosity which all children, german or other, possess, into a pitiful acquiescence in every form of intellectual and moral vileness. but in england, too, the danger signals are not wanting. we have observed the people falling more and more under the sway of one man's ideas, carried by his press into every town and village of the countryside: we have noticed that complete independence does not appear always to exist as between the press and the men who are responsible for the gravest acts of public policy; and some of us do not much like what we have seen. are we then to help forward the forces making for our own prussianisation? we desire to see politics taught by masters of every shade of political opinion, so that the boys may have all the materials from which to form an independent judgment; but will not the state see to it, as it grows more and more powerful, that only those men are allowed to become, or to remain, schoolmasters, who will teach a doctrine not abhorrent to the powers that be? those who know the public schools will not be at a loss to understand how such a consummation could be achieved. even now there is the pressure of parents, members of the financial or political wing of the ruling class--a pressure few head masters are big enough to resist. and in the future--to take only one instance--may not conscription remain, and the government exercise a direct control through the medium of the o.t.c.? and as one writes these words; as one sees the ghastly prospect of more and more state control, more and more authoritarianism and docility, less and less of the free co-operation which is the very life-blood of society, one sees also that the only way in which we can prevent the remedy we have proposed from becoming another instrument in the hands of our enemies, is simply by adopting that remedy itself. we must break in on the vicious circle while and how we can. for why is there a danger of our instrument of education being turned into an instrument of obscurantism? only because there is a danger of our whole society becoming rotten to the core; only because there is a danger of the present cleavage between the two english nations becoming wider and wider, until we have, on the one hand, a class ruling in the interests of money and privilege, and, on the other, a slaving and possibly pampered proletariate. and unless a start is made here and now with the political education of europe--unless boys and girls are made to think politically while their generosity and idealism is still untainted by motives of personal profit, and their powers of vital thought not yet decayed by disuse--these and worse things will happen; love, tolerance, and the independence which is the birthright of men, will all be engulfed in a mad welter of personal, class, and national selfishness. in such a society it really would not matter very much if political education were captured by the state; and the only way, as it seems to us, of preventing its advent is by getting up a system of political education. for by political education we are creating the only possible safeguard against a misuse of it--we are creating a society which will not _desire_ to misuse it. and so we would make, if we may, an appeal to all who are considering what their future work shall be, and to those also who may be finding their present work unprofitable--we would urge them to become schoolmasters. we like sometimes to think of a little greek army of devoted warriors--a band of five hundred young men, who will go into the public schools and there gradually help to set up a system of political education. the word "greek" is not out of place. for there is something about the sunlit freshness of a cricket field--something too, about the boys, belonging for the most part to a class which, with all its faults, has a great tradition of public service behind it--that brings before the mind a gathering of greek humanity in the smiling peace of a greek country place. it is idle to pretend that a man of ability who goes into the schoolmastering profession does not have to make many sacrifices. his salary is usually miserable; his chances of a head mastership must be at present in inverse ratio to the vigour with which he acts on the principles he believes in, for these posts are mostly reserved for the "safe," as the debates of the head masters' conference used to show, until, a few years ago, that body very wisely decided to exclude reporters. but the compensations are enormous. he will live all his life close to boys whom, when he once gets to know them, he will find to have a freshness and high-heartedness which will be a constant source of hope and inspiration; he will have the joy of watching their minds develop, and of feeling that it is due in some measure to him that they are growing into makers of happiness for themselves and the world. and when in his work he is met by the opposition of those who misinterpret or misunderstand, he will have an almost fierce satisfaction in the faith that the future may be all on his side, and that many years hence a little of him will live in men who have realised not his, but their, individuality, and that potentiality for goodness which, as well as he was able, he fostered and brought to the light. we have both been schoolmasters; at the moment we are neither of us anything so useful; and we feel that we can say quite dogmatically that there is no happiness equal to that of the profession that was ours. and both of us fell into it accidently, as so many others have done. yet the appeal for schoolmasters should surely not be based entirely or even mainly on the idyllic picture of the happy schoolmaster. john stuart mill reduced hedonism to its fundamental paradox when he declared that the way to find happiness was to turn your back on it. if there is one lesson which political education rightly conducted cannot fail to impress upon its best boys, it is the crying need of the schools for their services. from plato and aristotle down to the latest treatises on reconstruction, be it the "principles of reconstruction," as laid down by mr. bertrand russell, or the "elements of reconstruction," as reprinted from _the times_ with an introduction by lord milner, all alike come round to education as the keystone of the arch of politics. the final appeal is always to the schoolmaster, and it is perhaps less hopeful to appeal to the actual schoolmaster of to-day than to the possible schoolmaster of to-morrow. as are our schools, so will be our parliaments and our civil service, and some at any rate who have mapped out for themselves a career of political usefulness and honour in westminster, whitehall, or abroad, might bethink themselves first of banquo. "lesser than macbeth and greater: not so happy yet much happier; thou shalt get kings though thou be none." chapter vi the making of "politicians" "the way the authors wish to realise their ideal would, i fear, merely increase the output of politicians and political journalists, of whom an adequate supply already exists."--mr. e. b. osborn, in _the morning post_. sharp-wittedness playing on ignorance to the end of personal advancement--so dominant a feature has this become of our political life, that any protest against the misuse of a noble word, when men speak contemptuously of politics, is no doubt quite untimely. untimely, because it is too early, not because it is too late. we retain the word ourselves, and call the kind of education we advocate political education; appropriately it seems to us, for we believe that its wide adoption would remove the root cause which has made such a stigma possible, and free the very name of politics from the indignities it now justly suffers. nothing, indeed, could be wider of the mark than the notion that a system of political education would increase the number of self-seeking, power-hunting "politicians." such men are the product, not of political education, but of the lack of it. what is the present situation? to the ordinary boy, politics, when it first obtrudes itself on his attention, appears under one or other of two aspects. if he is clever, or is imagined to be so by ambitious parents, or again, if, though stupid, he happens to belong to a political family, the air begins to be thick with talk of his "going into" politics. he is to "go into" politics in the same way as men "go into" the stock exchange or the law; by virtue either of birth or brains he is to enter one of those little strongholds of his class, and earn his living there by playing the appropriate game. this is the guise under which politics appears to one type of boy. the other type, hears in some quarter or other a babble about income-tax and little navies and big loans; and either dismisses the whole thing as "absolute rot," which can have no possible meaning for him, or imbibes the ideas and prejudices of the people whose talk he is listening to, without in the least understanding their implications. from these two types is developed the great bulk of the population, considered under its political aspect. on the one side, politicians, whether clever or stupid; on the other, the electorate, ignorant and apathetic, or prejudiced and inflammable, as the case may be. there are, of course, other classes too. there is the man who has made money in business, and late in the day conceives the idea of entering parliament--which he sometimes succeeds in doing even when he has been unable to avoid making an election speech or two. there is the idealist who takes up political work with the sole object of doing useful service. there is the well-informed and open-minded student of public affairs. there is the intellectualist. but the great majority are as we have described them. the introduction of a far-reaching system of political education would have three results, each of which would reinforce the others in putting an end to the present state of affairs. make every one a politician, and "politicians" will become rare. politics will cease to be an essentially specialised profession; men will no longer "go into" it as into a thing apart. some will administer, guide, and direct; others will know and criticise. but every one will be politically active; and instead of the stronghold of politics in a desert of ignorance, there will be that interplay of political functions, distributed among the whole body of the people, which is the real meaning of democracy. and not only will politics cease to be a preserve, kept ready for spoliation by the clever, the pushing, the rich, and the well-born, but also the very desire in these men so to misuse their citizenship will cease altogether to come to birth. for political education, properly so called, awakens political idealism; it teaches principles, arouses aspirations after public service. the "politician" is a man who finds in political intrigue the fruitful source of his own advancement; one who catches at every breeze to further his personal ends. but if politics had formed the basis of his education; if, while his idealism was still untainted, he had been led to consider fundamental principles, and to examine public affairs in the light of them: then the potential goodness of his political nature would have been so fully realised, that no vain or mean thing would disfigure his maturity. "ah, but 'potential goodness' and 'while his idealism was still untainted'; there's the rub," we hear the cynic saying. such criticism moves us not at all. we had to do during the course of our experiment with a great number of boys of many different types; one can recall hardly a case in which, when vital thought had really been awakened, often after much sweat and agony, virtue was not found to be the fundamental characteristic of the boy's intellectual nature. but the teacher must not, of course, rest satisfied until he is certain that the goal in very truth has been reached; until he is sure that his pupil has thrown off the weight of carelessness, thoughtlessness, and prejudice, and that his mind is really awake and is in actual contact with ideas. finally, just as the leader and administrator will not desire to misuse his powers, so the education of the rest of the nation will deprive him of his opportunity. for it is only among a people politically uneducated that corruption and intrigue on a grand scale can exist. the unscrupulous creation and manipulation of public opinion; the concealment of low and mean designs under an appearance of nobility and disinterestedness; the putting forward of one argument in support of a policy, while a thousand are kept back which weaken or invalidate it; the appeal to prejudice and blind passion; the cunning use of suggestion; worst of all that pitiable game which consists of turning the people's noblest instincts--instincts of fellowship, solidarity, romance--to the basest ends; marks of degradation such as these would vanish gradually but surely as knowledge and power of criticism spread to every section of the community. such evil motives as still existed would be seen through and exposed; events would be regarded, not as isolated occurrences, but as a part of history, to be viewed in their relation to the whole and to be judged in accordance with a definite philosophy of life. so that if, here and there, a "politician" survived or made his reappearance in the clearer atmosphere, he would find his playthings gone; waiting instead for him would be men, citizens, politicians--ready to sweep him aside and gaily choose a better man. chapter vii public schools and freak schools the radical--and by the radical we mean any one who sees that life for the majority at the present time is not as fine and happy as it should be, and who is determined to leave no stone unturned to make it so--commonly looks askance at the public schools. he thinks of them, rightly, as the stronghold of those in possession, the class which, as a whole, not only opposes such fundamental reforms as would result in a fairer distribution of wealth, but also itself has failed to do what might conceivably justify its favoured position, to keep alive, by virtue of special opportunities such as would disappear in a society based on equality, the finest ideas of which the race is capable. individual and national power, privilege, commercialism--it is on these things that it has set its eyes in its leadership of the nation. and so our fellow-radicals have more than once said to us, "if you are really keen on education, why don't you start a school of your own?" now it is, no doubt, difficult for any one who has fallen under the sway of a public school, and who has been so caught up by its fascination as to feel for it a love more compelling than anything in his life, to be certain that personal predilections do not dictate a reply unjustified by intellectual considerations. yet for all that we give our answer without hesitation. for the multiplication of what may be conveniently, if somewhat unkindly, classed together as "freak" schools, breaks no fresh ground at all. boys who have been brought up in an "intellectualist" atmosphere, and those alone, are sent there; and even if there were no schools to which they could be sent, home influence would turn them out intellectualists still. the ranks of the intellectualists, in fact, are recruited from three main sources. first, there are the sons of intellectualists, sent either to a freak school or to no school at all; secondly, sons of intellectualists of a slightly different type, sent to a public school yet nevertheless retaining in the new environment their own peculiar stamp; and, thirdly, the clever sons of "ordinary" parents, sent to a public school and becoming intellectualists by revolt against the philistinism of it and of their homes. the community thus composed leads a life as distinct and separate from that of the rest of the nation as was ever lived by the "intelligentzia" in russia's darkest hour. it has hardly a point of contact with the average englishman; it does not understand his revues and musical comedies, his novels and cinemas, his hunting and race meetings; it speaks a different language, thinks altogether different thoughts. and being itself not in the least understood, it has acquired a certain hardness of mind, a certain contempt for ordinary people and ordinary things, which has widened the gulf, and led to mutual suspicion and sometimes even hatred. inevitably its mental health has been affected by such a situation. feeling itself different, it has consciously made itself as different as possible; intellectual extravagances indulged in from mere bravado, these and similar stigmata of balance lost and sanity impaired have made their appearance in varying degrees at one time or another. under a different set of circumstances--those of the war, for instance, so far as concerns a section of the group of which we are speaking--there has been a pitiful relapse into mere boredom, cynicism, and inactivity; remote from the passions of the crowd, and unable to give service to a cause in which they disbelieve, some of our cleverest men have provided an english parallel with the vodka-drinking, bridge-playing, and unutterably tired community of highly-developed intellects which tchekoff describes so brilliantly. now, in saying all this we would not have it thought that we are bringing a sweeping accusation against one section of the nation. for the fault lies, not mainly with them, but with the lack of culture, idealism, and genuine education which characterises england (and most other countries) to-day. in a country in which regard for things of the mind and spirit was the rule and not the exception, these men would form the backbone of the nation; they would develop along healthy lines, be marked by love and sympathy instead of contempt, use their great powers to the full in the public service. what they are to be blamed for is their failure to see their real duty; their failure to understand that it is among the philistines, and not in their own exclusive set, that their most important work lies. some of them, of course, do understand this, and spend their lives in an unselfish attempt to spread light in the darkness. but even so they commonly speak a language which is not understood; and inevitably they fail to achieve any widespread result. it is not, then, in the multiplication of schools designed to cater for intellectualists that we see the best hope for the progress of the nation. we see it rather in the creation of an army of missionaries from among the ordinary men themselves; missionaries of thought about the great problems of life and society, fashioned out of those who are of the people and understand and sympathise with their emotions. when once the average, revue-loving, thoughtless, "sporting" public school boy has been taught to think vigorously about politics and sociology; when once he has been so fired with enthusiasm for these things that he will teach and talk to others of his kind: then, at last, slowly and painfully no doubt, but none the less inevitably, will war, poverty, and materialism vanish altogether from a world not meant for them. that is why we have ventured to urge all those who both are idealists and love the public schools--but those alone--to break in on them and help to awaken the great sleeping instrument of salvation. and they will find good material awaiting them. the english public school boy shares with all the youth of all the nations an immense store of latent idealism, which can be brought to a splendid fruition if atrophy and decay are not allowed to overtake it. but he possesses other things also, over and above this common heritage. the intellectualist has often got beyond the big ideas, if such a paradox may be allowed; they have been for so long the platitudes of his caste, and he has grown so hopeless of their general acceptance, that he has turned to a search after subtle refinements and intellectual novelties, in the course of which much generous breadth of vision has been lost. again, many working-class reformers--can it be wondered?--not only bring to their task a bitterness against the world which has so misused them and their fellows, but also have inevitably been cut off from those gentle manners of life which have been gradually evolved by the more fortunate to express, however imperfectly, the feeling for grace and beauty which it should be our aim, not to crush, but to extend to all. but with the public school boy all is different. once he has begun to think in any real sense of the word, his intellectual life develops as joyfully and naturally as does the physical life of the beasts of the field. freshly and spontaneously, and with no trace of self-consciousness or affectation, he leaps to greet ideas and principles, between which and his own true nature there is a glorious bond of kinship. we have seen boy after boy, as he realises, for instance, the meaning of liberty, and gets his first glimpse of the wide country which such a realisation opens up, experiencing an emotion of happiness which we can only compare to the catch of breath with which men see great scenes of beauty, or hear of lovely deeds of generosity and heroism. given their chance, public school boys (not one or two, but great masses of average humanity) will rediscover for themselves the simple things which christ and plato taught; and once that is achieved a general advance all along the line toward the goal of a worthy human society may begin. chapter viii morality "generally speaking, the intellectualist phase [of a boy's career] is remarkably brief. just occasionally its morals are such as to cause the swift expulsion of its leaders. more often they leave in the natural course of things, or grow weary of their pose--which has, indeed, not made them popular--and return after the holidays frankly and unaffectedly philistine. this transient fashion is not new. what is new is the deliberate encouragement given to it by a certain type of assistant master. we do not imply that the wise master will suppress... that kind of intellectual measles will work itself out... but to leave the phase alone is one thing; deliberately to foster and give it official backing is quite another."--_the church times_. when the morality of the public schools is being discussed, attention is usually concentrated almost exclusively on that particular branch of morality which is concerned with sex. nor is this unnatural; for sex plays so important a part in the life of a growing boy, and the development of his character is so closely bound up with the development of his physical nature, that the determining part may be very easily confused with the whole. yet there are many boys who are sexually virtuous, but filled with the worst type of hardness and intolerance; many, too, who are sexually vicious, yet full of love and sympathy. to imagine that the problem of public school morality is solved as soon as we have discovered the best method of making public school boys continent, is to look at the matter from an altogether too narrow angle; for the sins of the spirit, we have been told, are more unpardonable than the sins of the flesh. nevertheless, when we have said this, as say it we must, the fact remains that the sex question is one of overwhelming importance. for if once self-indulgence is allowed to become firmly rooted in a boy's character, in the majority of cases it will be ineradicable; and he will either be the victim throughout a great part of his life of temptations which he loathes, and which will be a constant source of unhappiness to him, or he will end by acquiescing in a manner of life which is degrading, it may be to himself alone, it may be both to himself and others. it will be urged, of course, as it has been urged against every school novel which has attempted to give a true picture of the "manners" of a school house, that we are grotesquely exaggerating the whole business; that there may be a problem in the case of this boy or that, but that in general there is no problem at all. this simply will not do. there is a problem, and a very grave one; and we had better anticipate the possibility of being misunderstood by stating very directly what it is. we believe that the number of cases in which boys have undesirable relationships with one another is not very large, but we believe also that there is a very great deal of that purely personal self-indulgence, that purely self-regarding licentiousness, which is the cause of so much unhappiness in boyhood. but the reader will already be asking, "what is all this to do with political education?" the connection is a close one. for the prevalence of this particular form of immorality may be ascribed to two main causes. at some time during early adolescence the majority of boys automatically become acquainted with the sensation of sex, and, as part of a natural process, try to reproduce the pleasurable experience. but why do so many of these repeat and repeat the process, until the thing becomes a habit for which they can find no escape? partly because the verbal warning which is given to them by parents and masters is made in a wrong form, and partly because there is not that constant joy and romance in their daily lives in comparison with which temptation, when it comes, will appear sordid and unworthy. in the second place, there is an atmosphere in the houses of tolerance towards these practices, accompanied by constant discussion, sometimes open, sometimes secret, which encourages and not rarely actually suggests them. this is certainly true of many houses in many schools. the house prefects, it is true, usually try to suppress as much of the unhealthiness as they can; but since, on the one hand, they are often known to have been "as bad as any one" in their day, and on the other they use the method of pretending that these are things which no decent boy could possibly be guilty of, they meet at best with a very partial success, derived only from the fear which they inspire. the common method of dealing with the evil is a system of "talks" by masters and heads of houses. the "talks" follow a fairly stereotyped plan; they are either religious in nature, and contain references to "the temple of the body," or medical, and convey warnings of the physical consequences which will follow if excess is persisted in. sometimes the two types of address are dovetailed into a single whole. neither are wholly satisfactory. the medical variety sometimes terrifies a sensitive boy, who will imagine that his whole life is ruined and all his chance of future happiness wrecked. he will become somewhat morose, and not unfrequently will finally turn, in his despair, to the very thing against which he has been warned. on the other hand, and with another type of boy, it often fails equally disastrously, because, judged by the medical standards to which it appeals, it is proved by experience to be unsound. in his anxiety to create a strong impression the schoolmaster will sometimes make statements that are simply untrue. he will tell the boy that these practices will ruin his cricket or his football. no doubt it sometimes will; but it is more than likely that the boy knows several highly successful athletes who are, as the boy knows, though the master may not, complete adepts in schoolboy vice. then there is the old threat, possibly obsolete to-day, though one hesitates to say that anything is obsolete in the conservative world with which we deal--the old threat that half the inmates of the asylums of england have been brought there by this practice. that, again, is simply untrue, and if the boy happens to know it, the effect of such an untruth upon him may be very bad. equally unsuccessful, in the majority of cases, is the religious talk. the unspeculative, dogmatic type of school religion does not make an appeal to the ordinary boy sufficiently strong to override what he has found to be the most fascinating thing in his experience. it is too much a conventional decency imposed upon him from without, too little a force within him which he has been helped to develop, such as is alone powerful enough to contend with a desire itself arising spontaneously from within. and when the sermon is accompanied by exhortations to pray against temptation, it is sometimes not only useless, but (again in the case of the ordinary boy) positively harmful. for to get into the habit of praying against temptation means to get into the habit of thinking about it, to become self-conscious, and to succumb. not but that there are some quite young boys who feel christ's nearness to them as friend and helper so vividly that they can gain real strength from praying to him. but we are talking of the average boy; and the average boy is not of this type. conversations between master and boy on the subject are, of course, quite necessary and often very helpful. very often a boy is mystified, or it may be terrified, by what seems to him some peculiarity in his nature, and it may do him all the good in the world to unburden his soul to some one older and more experienced than himself. it is best, too, that the house master should be the man to whom such a boy naturally turns; though if the boy should prefer to turn elsewhere, the fact should be to the house master food for thought rather than for anger. indeed, while in one way there is far too much talk on this subject, in another there is far too little. too much may easily be made of conventional "talks" on conventional occasions. what is rather wanted is a relationship between boy and master, created by frank intercourse on other topics, such as will naturally bring the boy to the master for help in these difficulties, with the sure knowledge that the latter will not "lecture" him, but will speak as one who has been through similar difficulties in his own boyhood, and is anxious only to help and to explain. under the present system, when the verbal appeal fails, recourse is often had to corporal punishment. we have no room here for a discussion of the ethics of punishment; but a method more foolish could scarcely be devised, if the aim is to enable the boy to overcome temptation. and of all forms of punishment, corporal punishment is the worst. the physical side of the boy's nature is asserting itself in all its strength; and you attempt to combat it by making a physical appeal which must from the nature of the case be far less powerful and compelling. moreover, any one with even a slight knowledge of sexual psychology (and it is curious how few schoolmasters take the trouble to acquire such knowledge) is aware that given a certain temperament on the part whether of the giver or the receiver, perils lurk in this form of punishment of the very type which it is designed to meet. but the only sound way of combating the over-development of one side of a boy's nature is to develop the other. make a boy's whole life one of joy and interest; let him live with a constant sense of the beauty of grass and sky, of the exultation of vital work, of the happiness of love and friendship. as the days go by, let him feel his latent powers developing, and glory in the thought that they have been given him for his own joy and that of humanity. then when temptation comes to him, and he remembers how its indulgence has left him slack and bored, it will seem to him like a candle-flame in the sun of his happiness, a wretched little mean and unworthy thing breaking in on and threatening to ruin the peace and harmony of his life. and so he will not give it a second thought, and soon all danger will be over. this may seem preposterously difficult. it is: but it is also the only way. the master cannot do it for the boy, but he can perhaps give the boys some help towards doing it for themselves. what we want is that every house should become a small community of boys carrying on together absorbingly interesting and romantic activities--a kind of club in which they may forgather and undertake in common the intellectual and spiritual adventure which thus become a part of their individual daily lives. in this way there will be none of that boredom, that feeling of "having nothing on earth to do or think about," the presence of which is the chief cause impelling a boy to turn to the one thing which at least can provide him at any moment with a temporary excitement. rather will his whole nature develop harmoniously, and sex, about which we have become too self-conscious, take its proper place as the (normally) unconscious inspirer of many of our most vital activities and happiest emotions. and once morbidity has been put away, and with it the constant preoccupation of boys and masters with this one topic, and all that suspicion and suggestiveness which we know so well, then the graver problem which has to do with the relationship of boy to boy will be found to have been solved at the same time. no one who knows a public school is likely to deny that sexual emotion is nearly always an element in the intensest schoolboy friendships; but that makes them neither the less lovely nor the less desirable. indeed, the value of such friendships at their finest cannot be overestimated. for when a boy "falls in love," he learns for the first time something of the real splendour of living: he comes into his birthright of beauty and ecstacy, and understands how the greatest happiness is to be found in doing everything for the service of another. there is something very loathsome about the spying, and secretiveness, the jokes and unclean hintings which, in the majority of schools, make such a friendship appear a thing to be ashamed rather than proud of, and often in the end actually render it shameful. given a clean atmosphere, an absence of suspicion on the part of masters and of morbidity on that of boys, and we believe that very rarely would physical acts result from schoolboy love. but the reader will be asking, for the second time, "what is all this to do with political education?" and again we answer--everything. for we believe that the joy in life, and the intellectual interest of which we have spoken can be awakened from where they lie dormant in a boy's nature by political education. the subject is the boy's own destiny as a member of human society and a part of the universe (for it will be remembered that we include ethics and philosophy with history and politics under the one broad heading); and there is hardly a boy who does not find, at best in all these subjects, at worst in one of them, the inspiration to vital work and the sense of living well, which goes with it. the boys start reading, widely; a thousand topics occupy their attention; poetry, plays, novels--all these are reached from the one starting point. then clubs and groups of various kinds are started in their houses; and the sex problem has become as much as it ever can become, a thing of the past. nor, we may add, are we merely theorising, and talking of hypothetical goods which might conceivably follow from the adoption of our plan. all that we have written of is within our own experience. time after time while we were making our experiments did we come across cases of boys whose moral health had been saved by their new-found interest. one had turned to physical excitement as the only possible relief from the tedium of latin grammar; after a year under the altered circumstances he turned to it no longer. the parents of another (a boy of about sixteen) had attempted to base his morality solely on christian dogma, which meant nothing to him; and the result was disastrous. but a course of lectures on plato's philosophy gave him what religion had previously failed to give him--a belief in an ideal and the distinction between right and wrong, and a determination to do always what seemed to him the absolute best.[1] but by far the most remarkable results were achieved in the house of which we have already spoken in chapter i. during his first fortnight of office, the new head boy followed the old method; he examined all suspicious cases, discovered some that he had not suspected, and dealt out the traditional treatment. then he followed the old method no longer; nor did he ever return to it from that day till the day when he finally left the school before his time. instead, he set about interesting the boys in politics. we have already described the course of his experiments; how enthusiasm, kindled over newspapers, spread to plays, to poetry, to pictures, and to music. and the result? the house was transformed: it became such a place as every mother hopes the house where her own son is may be. and yet during the whole time of which we are speaking only one boy was beaten, and he for an act quite unrelated to the seventh or indeed to any other of the ten commandments. note.--a fortnight after the writing of the present book was projected, one of the writers was dispatched on military duty to india, and the above chapter was sent home from "somewhere" in "somewhere"--i believe taranto. close co-operation in authorship became impossible, and upon his collaborator in england devolved the responsibility of sole editorship. i leave the above chapter almost as it was written, for there is about it, as it seems to me, an indomitable optimism which was a characteristic of the writer's work and a cause of its success. still, in so far as it suggests that a complete solution has been found for a problem i believe to be insoluble, i must in honesty add a few words on my own account. our direct experience, or the more remarkable part of it, amounts to this: that a certain head of a house achieved during the course of a year, using the methods described, an uplifting of the whole tone of his house that can only be described as marvellous. other heads elsewhere have no doubt achieved similar results by other means, though we have never come across an example equally remarkable. the goal can be reached, presumably, by the road of saintliness. it might be reached, though it is doubtful, by the road of puritanism and "efficiency," the appeal to abstinence and "living hard." it cannot be reached, that is certain, by merely disciplinary methods and the appeal to fear, for the commonest form of schoolboy vice is such that, even allowing for the casualness of boys, it will not be detected once in a hundred cases. something, however, must be discounted from this result, by reason of the fact that the experiments were new. these boys had an enthusiasm bred of the fact that they rightly felt themselves to be pioneers. they felt themselves to be making history, certainly for the first, possibly for the last, time in their lives, and whether you admire them or whether you laugh at them, making history they were, so far as their own world was concerned. it seems doubtful whether the spiritual force engendered would have lasted at full strength when the thing had become normal, and it was no longer possible to start the hare of some new "stunt" (as they called it, i am sorry to say) once every two or three weeks. the experiment was cut short in its prime, and how it would have developed when the first generation of enthusiasts had passed away, one cannot say. as for the other houses, something had been begun in two or three, but nothing of much value had been achieved. the minorities hesitated between a desire to imitate and a desire to be quite original, and the majorities looked a trifle askance upon the whole affair. and the masters came in here and put every sort of difficulty in the way, for by this time the collapse was visibly approaching. none the less, the lines on which this strange and temporary achievement was based are the only lines along which the moral problem can be grappled with. a perfectly "pure" public school is as impossible as a perfectly satisfactory marriage law. a few incorrigibly bad boys there will always be--incorrigible, that is, when they have reached public school age. hopelessly inanimate and feeble boys there will be also, doomed to become the victims of the bad. but the present moral average might be immensely raised, and the plain way to raise it is to provide other adventures for the soul. a boy once said to me, speaking of the matter in hand, "you see, it's the only thing i've ever found to do here really 'on my own.'" it was, in fact, his one adventure. no amount of class-room tasks, however well devised, no amount of organised games, however healthy, no amount of school religion, however sincere, could fill that gap. we must put the boys on the lines to organise their own adventures, and the only adventures that can compete with this absorbing adventure of misapplied sexuality, must be adventures that really lead up to the highest and best things of life. it was only when he found an empire to save that clive ceased to be a young ruffian. nothing lower than "politics" will suffice. [1] not that we believe that plato is a greater teacher than christ. our opinion is the opposite; but we are also of shelley's opinion when he said, "i would rather go to hell with plato than to heaven with paley." much that is called christian is not of christ. also there are no doubt minds so constituted that they will get more good in certain circumstances from the lesser teacher. chapter ix religion "it may be a slight shock to some people to hear that 'divinity' should grapple with capitalism and imperialism."--_manchester guardian_. "politics, in the large sense, is one of the main gateways to the understanding of fellowship, and of that which lies beyond fellowship, and leads boys to express something further-reaching than the thought of the dear city of cecrops."--mr. kenneth richmond in _the new age_. this chapter will be as short as its subject-matter is important. indeed, the problem of religion as it presents itself in a public school is so interesting and so difficult that one might well apologise for relegating it to a late chapter in a brief book upon an apparently quite alien subject. but we have set out to recount our experience of political education; and in our experience we found that politics and religion lay not so very far apart. without any very direct suggestion from us, several of our pupils to whom the kingdom of heaven had been hitherto a somewhat uninteresting abstraction found that they could not think out to their satisfaction the problems of the city of cecrops until they had formulated their ideas upon the city of god. the history of _the school observer_ illustrates this well enough. that journal showed a distinct tendency to become a religious organ. at the time of its suppression the embarrassed editor was confronted with three long articles--the longest, it must be confessed, his own--all of them bearing upon the nature of the deity, and, lest we should be misunderstood, all of them broadly christian in character. now, a certain type of clerical head master has often tried to impress upon his boys--he would try it on his staff also did he not know that it would be waste of time and energy--that the two hours devoted to "divinity" are the two most important school hours of the week. and he is quite right: they are the most important, or, rather, but for opportunities missed, they would be. for a liberal education without a foundation in religion is not merely defective, it is impossible. if the religious foundation offered by the teacher proves no foundation, proves a mere meaningless excrescence upon the time-table, then a religion will be sought and found elsewhere, even though it be, as is most likely, a religion such as is generally classed as no-religion, mere worship, as ruskin called it, of britannia agoraia, britannia of the market place, the goddess of getting-on. that, it is to be feared, is very much what we have at present, for the religion of the divinity lesson is usually nothing at all, and the religion of the school chapel has hardly got beyond the tribal stage, and does not suffice for the modern man in his maturity, nor for most types of thoughtful schoolboy. there are some old boys, perhaps many, who have a strong sentimental regard for "the old chapel"; but it is as a venerable symbol of the corporate life of their boyhood that they regard it, not as a place of divine worship. the religion they carry away from the school chapel has very little connection with the message of the gospel they heard there: it is a religion not of jesus christ, but of alma mater. their attitude to it is not strictly religious at all, but romantic. it is easy to write with a certain irony on this subject, but that is the last thing we want to do, for the problem of the public schools is here, as elsewhere, a profoundly difficult one, and many good men have devoted the best of their life's energies to it, and have achieved here and there a fine measure of success. but their success has been personal and exceptional. the rule is what we have just described. indeed, the problem of the schools is but a single aspect of the problem of the church and the world at large. two years ago the national mission came, proclaiming that the church had been a failure, and so much has recently been written on these lines by the leaders of the churches themselves that it is unnecessary for us to enlarge upon the well-worn theme. nominally the schools are "church" schools. "chapels" are as compulsory as football, and all boys, with a very few marked and conscious exceptions, are confirmed and expected to become communicants. but in actual fact, many of them come from homes where connection with the church is purely nominal, even if it exists at all. thus a dangerous element of formalism and make-believe is introduced from the start. the masters again;--fifty years ago they were parsons almost without exception--stern, godly, whiskered individuals--singularly unlike, as it would seem, to our colleagues or ourselves. the masters of to-day are nearly all laymen, and laymen with as wide a variety of religious opinions as the members of the stock exchange; but--and this is where they differ from the members of the stock exchange--they will all be, during term time, formal members of the church of england. once again, formalism and make-believe. yet what would you have? the schools are the schools of the nation, not of a sect; and to-day the church of england is, within the nation, but a sect. and even supposing the schools were, or could be, genuinely church of england schools, another problem would remain, for within the church itself there is a wide variety of opinions, and beliefs without which christianity is impossible to one will be mere blasphemy to another. it has been said with some truth that our religious ideas have undergone as great a revolution in the last hundred years as our knowledge of machinery, and that the sermons of 1820 are as obsolete as its stage coaches. for the author of this notion--and he is a clergyman--this may be true; but whereas none of his congregation travel in stage coaches, it is very likely that the theology of some of them is nearer to that of the sermons of 1820 than to his own. now, it is obvious that our experience of political education does not provide a way out of all these difficulties; but it seems to us to throw a certain glimmering of light upon them. several of our boys who, in spite of schoolroom "divinity" and the school chapel, had more or less outgrown the religious faith of their childhood, and found nothing satisfactory to take its place, were led back towards religion by their interest in politics. in fine, they had discovered the intellectual need for a religion, and liberalism pointed the way to christianity. as in the middle ages, philosophy had been the "ancilla fidei." the suggestion is that the fault of our religious teaching in school and chapel has been that it is not sufficiently philosophical. by a philosophical religion it need hardly be said that we do not mean the obtrusion of a remote and contentious theology, but a religion based upon a real understanding of political principles and crying social needs. "it may be a slight shock to some people to hear that 'divinity' should grapple with capitalism and imperialism," says the _manchester guardian_ reviewer. it may: none the less we believe that it is with such problems that christianity has to grapple if there is ever to be a christian society upon earth. the last thing we wish to suggest is the off-hand conclusion that capitalism and imperialism are in all their manifestations anti-christian. the world is not so simple a place. but we cannot go on applying one set of principles to our private lives and another set of principles to our politics and industry. man is not so illogical a creature as that. there is bound to be, finally, either a levelling up or a levelling down towards a single uniform standard. no proverb is more dangerous than "charity begins at home." when it begins in the place most congenial to its exercise, it is apt to end there. lord melbourne is said to have complained, after hearing a sermon, "things are coming to a pretty pass, when religion claims to interfere with a man's private life." we smile at lord melbourne's honest indignation. our turn come to be indignant when the sermon applies the christian "paradoxes" to industry, commerce, and international relations. and it is along these lines that religious teaching can be made absorbingly interesting. it all comes round to the old question, "are we going to apply christianity to the problems of modern society or are we not?" the case against doing so can be found every day in the press, so here, at any rate, is an issue worth facing, with a presumably infallible authority to support each side. the direction of most religious teaching hitherto has been too purely personal; the exhortation is too obvious and the appeal falls flat. politics without religion lacks foundation; but religion without politics lacks quite half its content. christianity is the leaven, but so also is politics the lump. along these lines, we believe, one might get in the middle and lower parts of the school results analogous to those we have described in the cases of some sixth form boys. the present writer used to teach divinity to a middle form on the modern side, and whenever a gospel happened to be scheduled, he found ample material to his hand. it is surprising how little, for all the sermons they have heard, most boys of sixteen have faced the ideas expressed in the most hackneyed texts. "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle...." "love your enemies." "take no thought for the morrow." a most mischievous half-truth has got about that these sayings are not to be taken literally. boys have told me that a "rich man" means one who has grown rich by robbery. well, what is robbery? "la propriã©tã©, c'est le vol"? "love your enemies" means, i have been told, "have no enemies: lead a peaceable life; but if..." there was a case apparently not provided for. "take no thought for the morrow." on this i once got the delightfully honest comment, "christ must have said this to cheer the disciples when they were depressed. taken literally it would be absurd." with such candour on the pupils' side, surely the teacher's task is not hopeless. here at last we have the atmosphere of honest controversy, and without controversy there is no freedom of thought; without freedom of thought no conviction; without conviction, no education and no religion. chapter x curriculum it is always difficult to define the limits of a topic. this book is concerned with one educational subject alone, politics in the very broad sense we here attach to the term. our contention is that that subject is of paramount importance, and that it should provide the basis and foundation of liberal education. with that idea in view, we have given some account of our own experience; we have also considered what seemed the most reasonable and weighty objections; we have also shown how politics reacted, in our experience, upon morality and religion. and then it might seem well to make an end. but an education is, or should be, a single whole, and the entire omission of certain aspects lends itself to misunderstanding. our previous book suggested to one reader, at least, that we regarded subjects other than those we treated of, as possessing no educational value other than a purely utilitarian one. that was not at all the impression we wished to create, and it is with a view to correcting it that we attempt a brief general survey of the non-political subjects and their place in a curriculum which took politics as its centre. but we offer these remarks with much diffidence. if this book and its predecessor have any value, it is due to the fact that they are based on direct and vivid teaching experience; and here for the most part the guidance of experience deserts us. one very natural criticism of our thesis is that politics, though it may stimulate interest, cannot provide intellectual discipline. the criticism is natural because, so long as the english subjects are regarded as a subsidiary matter, they are and will be treated by masters and boys in an easy going manner. other and sterner subjects are reckoned on to supply the disciplinary factor which the english subjects lack. there is, in fact, a very prevalent idea that interest and discipline vary inversely to one another; that discipline is to be found in doing what is uninteresting; and that interest is to be found in doing what is "slack." this is very bad psychology. for we aim at training willing servants, fit to become masters, not slaves fit for nothing but slavery. the only valuable discipline is self-discipline, and self-discipline will only be reached when the boy has realised for himself that the work is intrinsically worth doing, and when he has realised that he will have become interested. again, what is interesting must be absorbing, and such work can never be "slack." the mistake seems to arise from a confusion of ideas in connection with the word "easy." it is no more "easy" to write an adequate essay on the subject of national guilds than it is to learn the principal parts of a large number of irregular verbs: possibly it is much more difficult. but under certain conditions which we have seen produced, a boy will find it "easy" to gird himself up to the former task; indeed, he will get so absorbed that he will find it difficult to leave off. few questions are less "easy" than those connected with a paper-money currency, but one half-holiday afternoon we found a vigorous discussion on this subject in progress between a group of cricketers whom rain had driven to the pavilion. ordinary history teaching, if only time is allowed and certificate examinations do hot threaten, affords scope for a great variety of exercises demanding careful thought and accurate knowledge. so much in answer to the suggestion that only through the non-political subjects can real hard work be secured. the non-political subjects fall into three groups--languages, mathematics, and the natural sciences. probably no one regards the teaching of foreign languages in the public schools as at all satisfactory at present, and the chief reason is that far too much is attempted, with far too little consideration of what will be achieved. most boys are either simultaneously learning, or have at one time simultaneously tried to learn, three foreign languages, latin, greek, and french, or latin, french, and german. the burden is too heavy for them to bear. only the minority have any real gift for foreign languages, and for the rest the aim should be one foreign language only. little will be accomplished in any subject unless there is a real ambition to learn, and there can be no such ambition unless a definite goal is in sight. the goal here is real knowledge in a foreign language, for half or quarter-knowledge of a foreign language is a most unsatisfying accomplishment. the obvious language is french. even so, many will not learn to write it correctly, and as for speaking it, that is an accomplishment so much more conveniently acquired elsewhere that we offer no opinion as to how far it is worth attempting at school.[1] but fluent reading of french is a thing within the reach of practically any boy, and even the stupid boy, if he concentrates upon this, to the exclusion of other and more difficult linguistic tasks, will make such unmistakable progress that his ambitions may well be roused. and the accomplishment is one that can quickly be made useful. for instance, probably the best general history of europe is still guizot's book, and its french is about the easiest ever written. but we would go further. we remember once a boy being birched for circulating a copy of _la vie parisienne_. does not this suggest that every house should take a french daily newspaper, and also an illustrated weekly, other than that above mentioned? but while advocating the single language for the ordinary boy, we are pulled up short by the claims of latin; and here we feel a difficulty. a good deal of what is said in favour of latin we regard as pure superstition. it is not true that boys can only learn to write their own language correctly by means of latin prose. nor is it true that latin prose supplies the ideal mental discipline. that is only true for the minority of boys who reach the stage at which real latin prose is written. most flounder about all their time in the stage of artificial latin prose, wherein is nothing more than the meticulous application of a set of laboriously acquired grammatical rules--a tolerable training in conscientious application, such as any subject can supply, but nothing more. yet it may well be true--on this point we feel uncertain--that an elementary knowledge of latin supplies such a foundation for the understanding both of english and french, that it is worth making some sacrifices to retain it. if that be so, we would start every boy on latin as his first foreign language. those who showed little ability would abandon it at about the time they began french. in the case of boys with some real linguistic ability, we are happy to find ourselves thoroughly conservative. we believe firmly in the grand old fortifying classical curriculum, provided it is understood that the languages themselves are but means to an end, to the understanding of the classical civilisation. in fine, the goal of classics should be to-day, as it was for the renaissance scholars, ultimately political. the classical student who, at the time when his schooling ends, is still doing no more than "settling hoti's business" and "properly basing oun," is in the position of browning's "grammarian," with this vital difference that he probably does not intend to employ his future life in building any superstructure upon the foundations thus laboriously laid. in mathematics there is probably a deeper cleavage than in any other subject between the real thing, as mathematicians understand it, and the elementary knowledge within the reach of all. "the real thing" is perhaps the most remote and specialised of all branches of learning. for a few it is the best, indeed, the only natural, line of development; but these are few and easily recognised, and even they should not be allowed to specialise too narrowly--that is a point which no one who is not a mathematician will dispute. at the other end of the scale comes the third of the three r's; and about that again there is no controversy, except as to the best methods of teaching it.[2] yet the schools do not recognise sufficiently clearly this line of cleavage, and many boys who are presumed to have reached the end of the elementary stage remain for some time battering in vain at the doors of the inner temple. these should go back once over the elements again to see if they know them, and then give it up for good. this will mean a cheerful exodus from the upper-middle mathematical divisions. we confess to sympathy with the conservative-radical head master who said, "i shall not advocate the abolition of compulsory greek in university examinations until i can get people to agree to the abolition of compulsory algebra." there is perhaps a middle term between elementary and "real" mathematics; that is the mathematics that is the handmaid of physics, and leads us on to the natural sciences. to-day the claims of natural science are very insistent, and they come from more than one quarter. from one quarter comes the claim that science alone of the subjects in the time-table "means business," and makes money, and that in these strenuous times other subjects that lead to mere elegant accomplishments must crowd into a narrow space to make room for the one subject that makes for sheer efficiency. the point is often put with a certain crudity; but we may as well ignore that, and recognise that the just claims of commercial training will have to be met by the schools more fully than heretofore. only let us recognise commercial training for what it is, and not pretend that it can ever offer a substitute for the liberal education which must continue alongside of it. but the teacher of science will more often take quite other ground, and will claim that his subject, over and above its commercial usefulness, provides most of the ingredients of a liberal education in itself. he will point to the training it offers in habits of conscientious accuracy, its exemplification of the laws of cause and effect, its undeviating respect for truth, and the inspiration of its endless progress, built up on the heroic researches of the great pioneers. this claim demands careful and sympathetic scrutiny. to begin with criticism, we are quite unconvinced that science alone can train the mind to logical methods, or imbue it with a respect for truth in matters outside the scientific sphere. "science," as the term is commonly understood, deals with material things, and, as such, it gives but little support to the mind when confronted with the problems of humanity, whether personal or political. it is only too common for the science specialist to respect cause and effect in a test-tube and despise it in a newspaper. in science no passions are evoked in favour of one solution or another. the search for truth may well be disinterested, since it is, humanly speaking, uninterested. a liberal education must train the mind to master prejudice and self-interest, and this training cannot be given in a material where prejudice and self-interest will not come into play. as regards ordinary laboratory work, and lectures on laboratory detail, of which science teaching at present, as many science masters agree, far too exclusively consists, our view is similar to our view on mathematics. it is often instructive, both for boy and master, to get the boys to draw up an ideal time-table. the results, as a rule, are disappointingly conventional, it is true. few boys have ever criticised their education, except in a purely destructive and cynical spirit, and when confronted with the constructive task, produce something not very far removed from the time-table they follow out every week. but as regards science, it will often be found that the form falls into two clearly marked divisions. one part cut it down to a minimum, and would, if they had the courage of their convictions, cut it out altogether; the other part give it half, or more than half, the time-table. this probably marks the fact that for many boys a very small amount of laboratory experience, just enough to give them a notion of method, is all that they will benefit by. for the rest the training has real value and interest; but these are a minority. but there is another aspect of science, receiving as yet far too little attention at school, which seems to us an essential part of a liberal education. indeed, when our own sixth form time-table was remodelled, we put in a claim for a weekly lecture on general principles of science, alongside with modern history and political science and economics. the general principles of natural law, evolution and heredity, the nature and cure of disease, the atomic theory of matter, general principles of astronomy--these things seem to us second only in importance to the great principles of politics themselves. here is an extraordinary record of patient achievement, some contact with which is in itself an inspiration not merely intellectual, but moral. for it seems to us hardly fanciful to suggest that such knowledge should react--so subtle are the reactions of the boy-mind, as we have already tried to show--most favourably on the political spirit. dr. gregory, in his enthusiastic work in praise of his subject, "discovery: or the spirit and service of science," writes: "in the discussion of political questions, prejudice and party determine the view taken, and facts are selected and exploited not so much with the object of arriving at the truth as to confound the other side.... a politician may place party above truth, and a diplomatist will conceal it on behalf of his country, but it is the duty of the man of science to attain truth at all costs. in direct opposition to the narrowness of thought which views all subjects through the distorting mirage of party prejudice, stands the absolute freedom of mind of the man of science who stands with open arms to welcome truth...." and dr. gregory's moral would seem to be: eschew politics and devote yourself to science. as if the world could exist without politics! as if the happy alternative to bad politicians were no politicians! the right moral surely is that which we have been drawing, with possibly wearisome repetition, throughout this book; that all that is best in the scientific mind, all that is best in the literary and artistic mind, all that is best in the religious mind, must be brought to bear upon the problems of our corporate life. [1] we offer no opinion, also, on the "oral method" of teaching both modern and classical tongues, as we have no experience at all to guide us. [2] surely, too, the third of the three r's should include a knowledge of book-keeping, balance sheets, etc. here we join hands heartily with the "utilitarian" school of educational reformers. we also wish that every one learnt shorthand almost as soon as he had learnt longhand. chapter xi the young generation and the old "there, it is to be feared, they will find the parents most in their way. the normal father may endure his son being taught poetry, but he will object to the instilling of opinion other than his own."--_outlook_. "fancy some imp of fifteen or sixteen assailing the author of his being, a court-worn barrister or 'rattled' stockbroker, at his evening meal: 'father, i think lord bryce's bill for the reform of the house of lords radically unsound,' or suddenly asking his mother, who, good, easy woman, is revolving in her mind the merits of a coat and skirt she has seen that afternoon at debenham's: 'mother, what is your opinion of the trading with the enemy bill?'"--_saturday review_. "youth is asking questions as never before--asking awkward, burning questions, which put its seniors in a flutter. the seniors, under question, discover that they have no body of doctrine, and have never till now dreamt of the need of any. if they are wise, they will put away the taboo on politics and sit down with their juniors to hammer these things out, and perchance clear their own minds in the process."--_westminster gazette_. by way of epilogue--an appeal to the parents. what is it that the parents want from the schools? the question is all-important; for by the spiritual law of demand and supply, what they want they will get. it has been said that every nation has the government it deserves. so it is with the press, and so it is with the schools: we get what we want, and what we want is what we deserve. what do we want? there are some parents who take the public schools quite seriously as places of professional training, places where their sons will be taught to earn their livings, and they are encouraged in this notion by the fact that several professional bodies insist on successful candidature in some pass examination in school subjects as a first step towards entrance into the profession, and thereby rivet these examinations upon the schools. the result is not altogether bad. the examinations make for a deplorable ossification of the curriculum; but they also set a certain low standard, and drive a certain type of boy and master to work, and, though the type of work is not very exalted, it is better than nothing at all. on the individual boy the effect will be various. "look here," says the house master, "there's london matric. at the end of next term. hadn't you better give up all this foolery with politics and do a little real work?" the advice was taken, and perhaps we are not sufficiently impartial to offer a valuable opinion on the result. however, the boy was no fool, and the first part of the advice need never have been given. except in the case of boys, far too numerous, who are taking examinations that ought never to have been imposed on them, "modern aiders" and the like who are mugging up "prepared books" of virgil and euripides, work for a pass examination ought not to mean the cessation of all other intellectual activity. there is another much more old-fashioned type of parent who stands for everything that is traditional, who is seriously disturbed if his boy wanders far afield from the old classical curriculum, who regards all new subjects as foolish fads. it is this parent, helped by an old-fashioned type of house master, who retains in a mild torture of boredom the boys who linger wasting their time in the lower reaches of the classical side. but anything is better than nothing, and the attitude of many more parents is purely cynical. they just leave it to the schoolmaster. "cynical" might seem a hard word with which to repay this compliment of trust; but it is not, for there is really no compliment and no trust. the parent does not really believe in the school-master's judgment. he believes in him so little that he thinks it simply does not matter what happens in the class-room, provided the boy seems to enjoy himself--how many parents really _know_ whether their boys do enjoy themselves at school?--and provided the house master is not actively complaining. now, there is only one hope, and that is that the parents should come to look at this matter of their son's education politically. school-time is a training, and we are all familiar enough with the idea of training now. before the war, as since, schools had their o.t.c.'s. but these o.t.c.'s were wretched perfunctory affairs, boring everybody, because we hardly any of us seriously envisaged them as a training, only as an incubus. now, we all see them as training for a part that has got to be played, and the whole spirit is different. but the country will soon be calling upon our public school boys to play another and perhaps even more difficult part, and where is the training for that? when the war is won we shall plunge into another maelstrom; and it will all be politics, politics, politics. the leaders of labour have roughly charted their course; they mean to make a new world for the masses whether we like it or not, and they mean in the main right. but what part are the public school men going to play? it is an extremely difficult position, and the difficulties crop up not only in the details, of which only mature experience can give a knowledge, but in the elementary principles regulating our outlook, our attitude. and that is where the public schools could come in with irresistible effect if only they would brace themselves to the task. "your king and country need you," said the old recruiting poster of 1914. "good god! have they never wanted me till now?" was the natural rejoinder. in any case they will not cease to want the public school boy when the war is over. in this task the parents must co-operate. the normal father, we are told, will object if his son brings home opinions other than his own. but, in sober truth, if the son brings home the same opinions as the fathers have always held, we are in a poor way. it was the fathers and the grandfathers who brought the world to its present pass. it is the sons who, starting with new principles from new beginnings, have got to set it on a better road. the _saturday review_ and _the westminster gazette_ offer us, in the quotations at the head of this chapter two little vignettes of parentage. which would you have? the holidays occupy rather more than a quarter, and rather less than a third of the year. if you asked what the boys do in the holidays, you would ask a question that puzzles many boys themselves to answer. the waste of school holidays is even more striking than the waste of school terms. for education should not be, indeed, cannot be, limited to term time. the proportion of boys who require "rest" in the holidays, even for the first week or two, is small. a slack time, prolonged beyond a week or so, bores most boys consumedly and ought to bore them all. we are not thinking here of the favoured few who get their fill of fishing and field sports. such things have their limitations, perhaps, but they offer at least a time of activity, resourcefulness, and keen enjoyment. most boys, however, live in quiet homes in towns, far from the opportunity for such things, and how these pass the time is a mystery even to themselves, as many have confessed to us. in plain words, they _kill_ the time, and thereby acquire a most dangerous accomplishment. some few, it is true, make themselves endlessly useful to their parents, and nothing could be better. but only a few homes provide scope for an "odd-jobs man" of this type. for the bulk, holidays are simply times of unemployment. now, when a schoolmaster ventures to offer advice about the holidays, he might seem to be stepping presumptuously outside his own province; but that plea for reticence is one we cannot admit. term and holidays alike are an education, and they interact upon one another so closely that the schoolmaster not only may, but must, form his judgment upon both. it is not for us to compile a detailed "parent's assistant." heaven forbid! every home has its own problems and its own opportunities, but surely there is no home in which the parents have not a range of activities, professional, commercial, political, or literary. so often, as it seems, from various motives, good and bad, the boy remains more or less excluded from these long after he has become capable of a certain partnership in his parents' interests. the drawback of life at a public school is that it is highly artificial. call it as you please a barrack or a monastery, a boarding-school is something cut off from the main streams of ordinary life. in the holidays the boy renews contact with ordinary life, and that periodic renewal is an essential part of his education. but surely his holidays should bring him into contact with some more of life than its superficial frivolities. the kind of holidays we have in mind would make some call on the time and energy of the parents; and perhaps it will be said that the time and energy simply cannot be spared. well, there was a time, fifteen years or so before, when these same parents gave ungrudgingly any amount of time and energy to the task of watching over the development of the little child now rapidly approaching manhood. but the boy of seventeen, though much more difficult to understand, is every bit as fascinating as the child of two, and the parents' time and energy devoted to the boy will be as certainly well spent. and it will, we believe, bring a new happiness to many parents themselves. as school-masters, our widest experience of parents--not that we pretend it is very wide--is our experience of boys' talk about their homes. boys speak of their parents with deep affection and respect, as a rule; but so very often they leave an impression that they do not really know them. it is the commonest thing in the world for fathers and sons, without any positive estrangement, to get entirely out of touch with one another during the latter part of a boy's school-time. the boy develops rapidly, and the greater part of his development is quite concealed from the father. he returns home to find his father "just the same," and apparently quite unable to divine the new developments which the son is too proud to reveal uninvited. or maybe he does attempt to reveal them, and, bungling his task, finds himself misunderstood, and lays the blame on the father. so often, as it seems, the father might have helped matters by playing a rather more active part, and going half, or even three-quarters, of the way to meet his son's confidences. but there is a natural shyness of fathers towards their sons at this stage, and shyness on one side begets shyness and misunderstanding on the other. more than once a boy has said to one of us, "what am i to do to get into touch with my father? last holidays we found we'd nothing sensible to talk to each other about at all." it is difficult to advise, but the most obvious thing to say is, presumably, to remind the boy that his father is but a human being like himself; that possibly the boy is himself rather unnecessarily enigmatic, and that instead of expecting the father to make all the moves, the son might himself hold out a hand and help the father to understand the changes that had taken place within him. that is how the matter stands on the boy's side, and it may help some fathers to know it. one of our boys, we remember, wanted to discover something at first hand of the real interests of employees in his father's firm. whatever he discovered, it made an excellent holiday interest for him. among other things, he attended some w.e.a. lectures, because he found that the more intelligent men were interested by them. this was a boy of rather unusual initiative; but we believe there are many boys who would find a genuine interest in such matters, if the fathers gave them the lead. thus the wretched tradition that the holidays are for unemployment would be gradually broken down, and games would take their proper place--in holidays and term alike. perhaps, too, the father on looking back might find that there had been some "education" in it for himself also. the principle from which we started was that the public schools were full of glorious possibilities, to-day largely unrealised. is not the same true of many homes? appendix "it is quite evident that the boys have been encouraged to read periodicals such as _the nation_ and _the english review_, and their articles read like elaborate parodies. there is no particular harm in allowing a clever boy to do monkey tricks of this type, but there is a good deal of harm in printing it instead of gently deriding the self-sufficiency of these youthful oracles."--_church times_. "the most obvious fact about these articles is that the boys are writing what they mean, and what they want to say, and that they are able to do so because they feel sure of the community that forms their audience."--mr. kenneth richmond in _the new age_. [of the three articles that follow, the first was printed in the first issue of _the school observer_; the second was written for the suppressed sixth issue; the last was written on the day after the final collapse of the whole experiment, and was, of course, never intended for the paper at all.] i education and the future if workmen strike, if employers oppress, if prostitution flourishes, if paper demagogues are allowed to rule, if poverty exists, if men fight, whatever evil it is, the remedy lies at the root--education. all reforms are mere palliatives until the fundamental reform of education is perfected. there are no connecting links of argument. it is a natural corollary, justified by any particular example that may be traced. it is another question whether education or lack of it is more calculated to hasten the ultimate ideal of well-ordered anarchy, which, consciously or unconsciously, we all entertain; but for the meanwhile the affirmative assumption must be adopted. the sole remaining question, then, is, by what means is education to rectify the immediate evils? while it is fairly generally established that the purpose of education is efficient citizenship, it is clear that, owing to the diminished proportion of the individual to the community, the purpose is being gradually lost sight of. to borrow from scientific phraseology, the tendency of the unit to remaining an "idiot" (in the greek sense of the word!) varies directly as the magnitude of the mass. and this is a truism that public schools do not help to abolish. although "school patriotism" is invariably quoted as a denial of this, there prevails in modern schools a definite inclination towards unsentimental cynicism in the matter. this does not necessarily denote an unhealthy spirit, but an increase of intellect that, whether with justification or not, vaguely asks for something wider or more substantial. perhaps our grandfathers are right when they tell us that the modern youth becomes a man sooner than his predecessors. perhaps our grandfathers are right when they tell us it is a pity. however that may be, the two facts remain, that there is a rather benighted tendency in the direction of intellectual activity, which the public school spirit makes no effort to assist, and that the public schools are inclined to produce gentlemen rather than citizens. of course the former make better advertisements. yet they ought not to. they would not in germany. one day they will not here. the instance shows that the chestertonian "england of romance" is really the one that exists. the word "gentleman" is purely a romantic one, and a gentleman a purely romantic though enviable figure. a state in the future will not be able to thrive on gentlemen: it will need citizens. it has cost me dear to write down this, for in my illogical mind (and no one, by the way, save a politician, could have a logical one!) i would choose without hesitation the gentleman. but that is probably because, if i could, i would sell my quills for brushes. the conclusion from all this, then, is that i was not holding germany up as a paragon just now, but leading up to an obvious improvement--a gentleman-citizen. whoever thinks he fulfils the conditions implicated in the _rã´le_ may know that not only is he an uncommon and a great man, but also the embodiment of a high, practicable ideal; in the attainment of which lies the solution of the whole educational question--how, of the two component parts, to maintain the moral position of the first and create one for the second. except for the few, favoured with a productive imagination, the public school can as yet do nothing in this direction. it would be useless, for instance, to crowd a dull, technical science of politics on an already over-amended curriculum. one day it may not be useless. but until a new species of governess can be bred, it is. of the species in question, i know of one example. there may be more, but not many, though of course they are, i am aware, rapidly multiplying. the only possible children's governess is the governess who attempts to teach nothing except how to learn. the ideal education is undoubtedly an _ã  la carte_ one, but as this is impossible both physically and because a public school master has not the time to find out how to teach any particular boy, the difficulty is solved if the boy has found out how to learn from any particular master. a man's life depends altogether on the first morsel of education he receives, so that a governess's responsibility is colossal. and, of course, a competent governess is a far holier thing than any parson's wife. not only must she teach not so much what he will have to learn (which would scarcely encourage him in view of its magnitude) as how he will have to learn (which could only make him eager to put the theory to the test of practice--all the more so when he finds it succeeds), but also she must attempt to discover and develop, even at this very early stage, the seeds of mental independence and originality, which alone can make him a competent citizen. think how much easier legislation would be in a state composed of such as these! it is the only condition that really justifies democracy. there could be no question of denying a people of this quality a voice in their own government. representation could no longer be a game for gamblers and contortionists. as things are, however, the progress of the public schools (and i have been dealing exclusively with public-school classes) cannot make much headway until they have clay to mould instead of granite to chisel. it is not their fault if there is no way to teach the majority, and if the few are thrown back on their own inadequate resources. the remedy lies in some measure to ensure the right primary education. seventy-five per cent. of the public school boys have not had brilliant, discerning governesses--or even mothers. there are not enough of either to go round. so that the seventy-five per cent., possibly more, don't know how to learn, and the mere twenty-five per cent. do. it is hard to tackle effectively so intangible a problem as the correct primary method of teaching, and the statesman, through whose instrumentality this percentage is reversed, may give up politics for gold not had brilliant, discerning governesses with a clear conscience. the first step, therefore, is to reform the education of women. "take care of the women, the men will take care of themselves." nevertheless, be the solution what it may, the importance of the subject cannot be over-estimated. one more illustration. the better educated a man is, the more capable he is of soaring above the spirit of national citizenship.... and the next stage is the spirit of world citizenship ... which, in the course of many, many years, together, possibly, with the development of esperanto, means the brotherhood of men.... then perpetual peace.... then advancement to a primitive condition.... then the much-dreamed-of well-ordered anarchy.... to continue till a second milton is called upon to write as misty history a second "paradise lost." ... b.w.l. ii "and he saw that it was good...." throughout the universe which he had created he set a great road, and on it was man, at first invisible, but soon an infinite multitude. and then unto man, as to nothing else in his universe, he gave the power to move, and to walk on the road, which he made to pass through all the great and beautiful worlds, coming at last to where he is, where all is happy because all is good, and where nothing ends because there is the end. and as he looked and beheld man scattered out upon the great road as it wound about through the universe, he thought to try his people, and show by a certain proof whether they were possessed of the goodness through which alone they could comprehend all things, and become able to enter the realm of perfect goodness. and so he sent the semblance of a great fire into the universe, which should seem utterly to destroy all things which he had made, and to cut off the hope and possibility of a future perception and life eternal. * * * * * as the fire rolls on, devouring all that it meets, humanity on the road sees its advance, and realises that in the course of a few hours the universe will be reduced to a smouldering cinder, that its hopes for a future life, where the road ends, is cut short and never to be realised, and that apparently its former belief, albeit a vague and ill-defined one, in a god who is all-merciful and kind, was altogether an illusion, and merely a cause for false confidence and self-righteousness. and how will it stand the test? would the good or the bad element in human nature assert itself in the face of absolute annihilation? it is obvious that with such a position several of the possible and no doubt ordinary motives for goodness, such as the idea of doing good in order to reap benefits or escape punishment in a future existence, and of doing good for the sake of having it recognised among others, are excluded from the proposition. even the idea of doing good because it is in accordance with a "will of god" is excluded, since the idea of destruction coming from the direction of the end is unheard of to man, and is in direct contradiction to his ideas of god. we are brought, therefore, down to the very foundation; and the question we have to answer becomes--is one of the elements of human nature a feeling of necessity to pursue goodness for its own sake, quite apart from any motives? in the first place, when a supreme danger such as that already described is rapidly approaching humanity, if such a thing could be, what would be the immediate result? we know that with the ordinary dangers, such as shipwreck and air-raid, the tendency among people gathered together in large numbers is to panic, to herd together and become temporarily deprived of normal reasoning powers. would this be the result of the sight of approaching universal destruction? surely not. panic is the result, i believe, not of approaching danger simply, but necessarily of a danger which threatens to affect some of a number of people more than others, and which there is a possibility of avoiding. it is entirely the element of uncertainty or suspense which causes panic among numbers of people. now this is an important point in the argument. it seems very easy to defeat it on the grounds that animals almost invariably herd together and panic in the face of danger, and that such action cannot be due to the element of uncertainty and suspense, since this necessitates the employment of calculative and reasoning faculties which animals presumably do not possess. the justification is to be found in a closer examination of the part played by the uncertainty in producing the panic which is common to men and animals. in the face of danger, as in everything else, man's first instinct is to reason and calculate, and his calculation results in finding the danger either avoidable and uncertain, which is almost always the case, or unavoidable and inevitable. if the danger is found avoidable, fear is the immediate result. fear as we know it has come into being with reason, but at the same time, as will be seen later, it is only reason which can triumph over and destroy fear. this fear then brings about the destruction of reason, and the animal standard is reached, from which time the man behaves in the same way as the animals, to whom the danger is merely something out of the ordinary. he then comes under the domination of the instinct to panic. it will thus be seen that all the mental processes which came before the reversion to the animal standard in men, are unknown to animals, and are the outcome of the purely human faculty of reason. however, if reason can by any means retain its foothold and its entirety, there will neither be fear nor the consequent breakdown of reason and the domination of panic. now this is the position in the other case, the case in which reason finds the danger unavoidable. in the case of a danger which is unavoidable there will be no panic. it is this fact which accounts for the bravery of numbers of people going to their death on board a sinking ship; but such a position has never--or very seldom, indeed--avoided a relapse, to a certain extent, to panic, inasmuch as there is a possibility of avoiding the danger, and a possibility that some may survive, while others are doomed to perish. in the face of universal destruction, therefore, there will be no fear and no panic. the fact that he is facing annihilation together with the rest of humanity would have an extraordinary influence on each individual, which, of course, would be just the same if he alone was aware of the danger. i remember very well an evening at school when i was told and convinced by several boys older than myself that (i even remember the date) on june 18th the earth was going to be destroyed. it had been proved, i was told, beyond the shadow of a doubt that on that particular date some natural phenomenon would take place which would inevitably entail the destruction of everything living on the earth. this forms an interesting parallel to the present case; for at the time i was only about eight years old, and i had very scanty ideas about god and future life. to me the earth was the universe. and, furthermore, for about an hour most of us thoroughly believed that the destruction of the earth, or the end of the world as we called it, was at hand. of course, it might be said that there is no real parallel, since we were only children; but i believe that argument to be absolutely fallacious. in the matter of fundamental tendencies and characteristics of human nature one cannot assume such divisions. since the present state of good and evil in human nature has taken thousands of years to become evolved, it seems unlikely that there can be caused in the individual at present any fundamental change. i therefore contend that as soon as personality and independence of character becomes evident in the individual, both the good and the evil in his nature will be present in the same way and in the same relation, although not necessarily in the same proportions or degrees, as they will be throughout the greater part of his life. this personality becomes evident without any doubt at a very early age, certainly by the age of eight; and in so far as the development of good and evil is dependent upon the development of character, it seems likely that these elements will be more clearly marked in the child of eight than in the second infancy of the man of eighty. to return to the personal incident. i recall very vividly now the half-hour which followed my conviction of universal destruction, and, of course, i realise my actual feelings and their probable causes more clearly now than i did at the time. the real force of my conviction only lasted for about an hour, but in that time, and aided no doubt by a rather strained imagination, i was, i feel convinced, in the same position as any one of the individuals on that great road as they see the fire approaching and devouring the entire universe. as the affair was being explained to me i remember i was terrified, but very soon, and as soon as i realised the situation, which it must be remembered the people on the road would do almost instantaneously, this feeling entirely left me. and the next feeling, a very forcible one, was rather extraordinary, being as it was an overpowering feeling of solitude. it was evening, and twenty or thirty of us were all in a large classroom together, and for many minutes i felt more lonely than i ever had before; i felt cut off from all those around me, and i see that, as peer gynt would have said, "i had become myself." as has already been said, i was not frightened, and what i did in those minutes was to work. it was "prep-time," and it is an interesting fact, as bearing out what has already been said both about the establishment of individuality with consequent opportunities of concentration, and also about the maintenance of reason, that i was able to "do" in those minutes, and do better than usual, the work that generally demanded more than the allotted hour. very soon, however, the feeling of solitude passed away and its place was taken by a feeling of exactly the opposite nature, a feeling of unity, of extraordinary fellowship, followed by a wonderful sensation of happiness. all this sounds rather grotesque, and the continued use of these rather meaningless epithets is very ineffectual in expressing what they are meant to convey. but it must be remembered that the position is altogether an extraordinary one; and the feelings and sensations resulting from such a position were extraordinary at the time and still are extraordinary. the position seems quite unique; it is difficult to imagine where and how else that same mental condition could be produced: older people would not have credited the story even for the short time that we did, and younger children would not have had the independence of thought and imagination to picture and contemplate the situation. at the time it was my good fortune to experience things which i have never experienced before or since, and which i believe few ever have experienced. however, you ask for a return to the question of whether goodness is an immanent reality in human nature; you ask perhaps, in view of the incident described, "if it had been in your power to do something at that time which was supremely pleasurable but at the same time contrary to your moral ideas, would you have done it?" the answer, which is mainly contained in or drawn from what has gone before is--no; and the direct reason is, because, in the conditions produced by the position described, nothing but what is good remains in the human nature. the bed-rock has been reached, and it is good; the causes of evil and of its continuance are removed. ever since man has led a corporate life it seems probable that one outstanding evil has prevailed, in greater or less degrees according to the rate and amount of progress made by any community. and this evil is the lack and suppression of individuality. it seems impossible to account for it, except by simply saying that it is, and has always been a characteristic tendency of human nature; however, this is the most encouraging answer possible, because it assumes that this evil can eventually be eradicated. no one can surely deny that there is a lack of individuality at present; its chief manifestations, of course, are to be found in hatred, and in the spirit of competition and rivalry; it produces a clash between individual opinions and actions which is so apparent that it cannot be denied, and need not be enlarged upon. but, apart from these more obvious manifestations, this failing has been responsible for the production and continuance of _all_ that is evil in man. human nature is the foundation of our life, of that foundation every individual is entitled to partake; and, furthermore, that foundation is good. every individual possesses a portion of this foundation as his right; and what is the result, under these circumstances, of lack of individuality? surely the result is that some parts of those individual sections, parts which are in some cases similar to and in other cases different from parts of other individual sections, are used as the foundation, while the remainder is left unused. for, for the most part, men either employ those parts of their portion of the foundation of goodness which are common to as many other individual sections as possible, or, like alceste, the parts which are definitely opposed to most others. in any case where the foundation is undeveloped and unused there grows, like a poisonous growth, sin, which is made of and feeds upon the material of the good foundation, which has been put to the wrong use. sin and evil are not separate, in the strict sense, from good. it seems inconceivable that good and evil should have had different origins, and should have existed as rival elements in human nature without the one having by this time triumphed over the other. in matters which affect every member of a body similarly, the combined influence of all those members should be brought to bear; but where every individual can "be himself" and interpret and use his portion of the foundation of goodness in the complete way for which he was made and intended, without affecting others, he should be allowed to influence them or be influenced by them, without interference on the part of any other individual. since this has not been the case, we have had the continuance of sin, and until it is the case, there always will be sin. now, in the position described, complete individuality is established and evil ceases to exist and becomes a thing of the past. with the near prospect of universal destruction, there is immediately a cessation of progress; and then, as in the incident described, there comes complete individuality--every individual becomes himself. with a common destruction inevitable and with the establishment of individuality, co-operation in its true sense prevails, and with it the surpassing and disappearance of evil; and then that wonderful happiness ... of all this i am convinced. i remember well the effect for an hour or so among a few of us that evening. the contrast between the atmosphere in the little room in which the most impressed of us gathered during that time, which was free, i know, from everything but good, and that of a day or two later when we made fun of the whole affair, is so marked that my opinion on the matter is very definite. goodness alone there was at the beginning, and goodness alone there will be at the end. no man is the cause of his own downfall, but he alone as an individual can be the maintainer of his foothold. individuality in all that concerns the individual, alone can make and keep life clean and sweet. if this individuality could, by such means as education, be established, there would be constituted a _uniting_ force through humanity which could lead it, in the course of time, in the way it should go. * * * * * and as he raised the semblance of the fire from the universe, he looked upon man and saw that he was good. j. a. a. j. iii the dream how much of our life seems and is a dream! how often we feel ourselves carried off our feet and borne along on a tide of circumstances, tossed backwards and forwards on a sea of conflicting events, now hurried along by a current of opinion, now blinded with the spray of false accusation, then motionless for a moment, trying to collect our shattered thoughts before the next onslaught: but all the time out of touch, consciously, with what is going on, utterly powerless, trying to gather up the threads and recover consciousness. any action that we take, any word that we utter, is done without thought, without knowledge, and without any result. and yet neither the cause nor the effect are, strictly speaking, physical. the position is a mental attitude, in this case mental helplessness, and this is dependent solely upon the relation of the mind to exterior circumstances. when we are fully conscious, we are ourselves each the centre of a little world, which includes all that concerns us, and the appearance of this depends entirely upon its particular meaning for us. we do not, cannot, under these circumstances, see anything exactly as it is: its appearance is influenced by its importance for us or by the degree of approval, or disapproval which we ourselves attach to it. when our life becomes a dream, our sphere is broken into and usurped by the changing of values, shapes, and appearance of things within it. the old familiar forms are transfigured and tampered with, our mistaken or incomplete idea of persons is revealed, and a host of new and inexplicable forms appear; with the result that we are literally bewildered, and instead of regarding things with reference to their influence upon us, we see things as they are in themselves--when we can see at all--and feel what they actually do to us. there can be no one who is not aware of this experience, in a greater or a less degree. i speak of it as dreaming because that is the analogy which best represents the circumstances, all of which have been explained except one. in the same way as we are not conscious that what we have been dreaming is a dream until we awake, so in these periods of our actual life in which we are deprived of will and are borne along by exterior circumstances and forces, we are not aware of our helplessness, of our utter weakness, of the significance of what we have seen and heard, until we have regained consciousness and woken again to our freedom. in this sense i have recently had a dream, and only since have i realised that what i dreamt was fact; and then i was able to place it all within my sphere--its ideas, its causes, and its effects have become or are becoming the familiar forms and shapes, in the midst of which i am, like a spider at the centre of its web, placed with my hands on every thread. and this is that dream. full of life and happiness i set out with another, one who was a friend and had lived with me for a time, sharing the same hopes, methods, and ideals. laughing as we went, with the smiling world around us and the glad faces of those we knew, we made our way to the house of one who, older than ourselves, had inspired and befriended in us those hopes and ideals. and there we learnt from him that the authorities of the community, the institution to which we belonged, had taken offence at our methods and by suppressing them had destroyed our aims and all that was most dear to us. as we sat there in silence, my mind cast back over the time--it was little more than a year--since our outlook had been entirely changed. i saw the school a throbbing piece of mechanism with its bells, its clocks, and its governors, set down in a place of great beauty. blind to anything of beauty, it worked with a rhythm and a precision which became a twentieth-century development (although it had been set up in 1557, and was still running on very nearly its original lines--which was the reason, so they say, of why it "worked" so "well"). i saw it at work and was myself made part of its raw material. into its hungry mouth there went childhood at its best, full of energy, with every kind of ability, talent and promise, enterprise and ambition; through its teeth, its moulds, and its classrooms they passed, until they issued from the end a single and singular type of humanity, moulded, stamped, docketed and numbered--to take their place, or rather, and this is the saddest note of all, their very numerous and different places in the world. while this was passing through my mind we got up and went out for a walk. and then there came the war, and the men and institutions of europe were put to a supreme test. and the immediate result was that men began to think, began to look about them, and realising the palpable evil of war, began to wonder whether they had not been mistaken in their values and systems. men soon came to realise that they did not fulfil their entire duty if they followed as nearly as possible in the footsteps of their great-grandfathers, but that as the world moved it behoved them to move; that each man is made with the possibility of every attitude and achievement as seeds within him; that circumstances alone had caused him to live on some of these and not on others; that intolerance was therefore a crime of the most unpardonable character; that it was wrong and unprofitable to let one's self be borne along on the surface of the world's tide--and that it was every man's duty to use the world as he finds it for the development and fulfilment of all that is best within him, and not to depend upon one thing and reject another, favour one opinion, and oppose or even disregard another. and those in the school who first realised this, determined not to submit to the guiding and moulding of this mechanical institution, but to look at the world around and outside them--its beauty, its methods, its effects, its possibility, its wonder and its joy, and to develop for themselves, under the guidance and suggestion of those whom they trusted, their own powers, with their own principles to guide them and their own aims to reach. and in the carrying out of this plan and in the suggesting of it to others and in witnessing the results in others and in the institution to which they belonged, they, and later i and all those who followed them, found great happiness--a happiness which i felt could come from nowhere else, and certainly a happiness such as i had never before experienced. a greater facility in all intellectual activity, and in avoiding and fighting everything which one felt to be wrong, a greater confidence, and determination through self-dependence in all things, are some of the natural immediate fruits of a self-conceived basis of thought and action which refused to accept blindly everything that was handed down or dealt out. the permanent results in the shape of statistics and concrete evidence are proof and witness to the rightness of the undertaking. but now it is all of the past--the reasons are irrelevant; suffice it that they are iniquitous, and more than iniquitous, since they have murdered what is right. and now we had come, after passing through a great field of green corn rustling in the light wind, to a fence, on which we sat. my retrospective thoughts had now caught up to the present--but i was still dreaming. all that i thought was unconscious, out of my control and wonderful. our attempt had been very beautiful, had been a work of art, and in many ways had come to a beautiful and artistic end. like a great and wonderful bubble, wrought in many and enchanting colours, it rose up complete at that moment from its birthplace and deathbed--and i was happy again. then from the place down below us--that place in which we had striven and apparently failed--i seemed to hear the voice of those who opposed and hated us in our ways--those who were making the school into a machine again--and were rejoicing in it, as they pumped in the oil: "the germans are verrmin--it is your work in life to _krrussch_ them!" and at that very moment there came by three german prisoners--passed us, jumped over the fence and were gone; but the likeness! it was more than striking; never, never shall i forget it--and i was convinced. the school, its very self, its soul, had struggled to its feet, and as a little child was taking its first conscious steps--the most beautiful, perhaps, that it was ever destined to take--when they, those mechanicians, with their mailed fists smote it in the face, crushed it heartlessly to the ground, with louvain and belgium not only before their eyes but on their very lips. "oh, this world is a rotten place," he said, at my side. "i wonder," i murmured in reply, and i still do.... j. a. a. j. [frontispiece: "a fierce hand-to-hand fight was in progress."] soldiers of the queen by harold avery london, edinburgh, and new york thomas nelson and sons 1898 contents i. tin soldiers ii. an ugly duckling iii. the rebel reclaimed iv. the court of queen mab v. an unlucky picnic vi. a keepsake vii. strife in the upper fourth viii. a banquet at "duster's" ix. "guard turn out!" x. "storms in a tea-cup" xi. "out of the frying-pan--" xii. "--into the fire" xiii. a robbery at brenlands xiv. the sound of the drum xv. the queen's shilling xvi. on active service xvii. under fire xviii. the battle xix. "food for powder" xx. the river's brink xxi. "when johnny comes marching home again!" xxii. conclusion list of illustrations "lieutenant lawson, revolver in hand, stepped into a gap in the ranks" . . . . . . . . . . . . _frontispiece_. "another volley swept the intervening stretch of tablecloth" "'make haste! i can't hang on much longer'" (missing from book) "the visitors were seized, and hustled unceremoniously out of the room" "'here they are! now we've got them!'" "it was christmas day in the camp at korti" "the enemy swerved round the flank of the square, and burst furiously upon the rear" "the oncoming mass of arabs" soldiers of the queen. chapter i. tin soldiers. "they shouldered arms, and looked straight before them, and wore a splendid uniform, red and blue."--_the brave tin soldier_. the battle was nearly over. gallant tin soldiers of the line lay where they had fallen; nearly the whole of a shilling box of light cavalry had paid the penalty of rashly exposing themselves in a compact body to the enemy's fire; while a rickety little field-gun, with bright red wheels, lay overturned on two infantry men, who, even in death, held their muskets firmly to their shoulders, like the grim old "die-hards" that they were. the brigade of guards, a dozen red-coated veterans of solid lead, who had taken up a strong position in the cover of a cardboard box, still held their ground with a desperate valour only equalled by the dogged pluck of a similar body of the enemy, who had occupied the inkstand with the evident intention of remaining there until the last cartridge had been expended. another volley swept the intervening stretch of tablecloth, and the deadly missiles glanced against the glass bottles and rattled among the pencils and penholders. two men fell without a cry, and lay motionless with their heads resting on the pen-wiper. [illustration: "another volley swept the intervening stretch of tablecloth."] "look here, barbara, you're cheating! you put in more than two peas that time, i know." it was the commander-in-chief of the invading forces who spoke, and the words were addressed to a very harum-scarum looking young lady, who stood facing him on the opposite side of the table. "how d'you know i did?" she cried. "because i saw them hit. there were three at least, and the rule was that we weren't to fire more than two at a time." "there weren't three, then," retorted the girl, laughing, and shaking back her tangled locks with an impatient movement of her head. "there were _six_! ha! ha! i put them all in my mouth at once, and you never noticed." "oh, you little cheat!" cried the boy. "i'll lick you." the threat had evidently no terrors for her. she danced wildly round the table, crying, "six! six! six!" and when at length he caught her, and held her by the waist, she turned round and rapped him smartly on the head with a tin pea-shooter. at this stage of the proceedings a lady, who had been sitting in a low chair by the fire, looked up from her book. "come, come!" she said pleasantly. "i thought the day was past when generals fought single combats in front of their men. isn't that true, valentine?" the tussle ceased at once; the boy released his sister, who laughed, and shook herself like a small kitten. "she's been cheating!" he exclaimed. "i fired six peas instead of two!" cried the culprit, evidently delighted with her little piece of wickedness. "and i knocked over two of his silly old soldiers." a girl, somewhat older than valentine, though very like him in face, laid down her needlework, saying, with a quiet smile,-"all's fair in love and war, isn't it, barbara?" "yes, of course it is," answered her sister. "it's not--is it, aunt?" retorted the boy. the lady rose from her chair, and, with a merry twinkle in her eye, came over to the table. "well, we'll hope not," she said. "why, val, i should have thought you were too old to play with tin soldiers; you were fourteen last birthday." "i don't think i shall ever be tired of playing with them--that is," he added, "until i'm with real ones." "queen mab," as the children sometimes called her, was below the medium height, and as she stood by her nephew's side his head reached above the level of her shoulder. she glanced over the mimic battlefield, and then down at the bright, healthy-looking young face at her side, with its honest grey eyes and resolute little mouth and chin. the old words, "food for powder," came into her mind, and she laid her hand lightly on his rumpled hair. "so you still mean to be a soldier?" "yes, rather; and father says i may." miss fenleigh was silent for a moment. "ah, well," she said at length, "a happy time will come some day when there will be no more war; and i think it's about time this one ceased, for jane will be here in a minute to clear the table for tea." if valentine or either of his sisters had been asked to describe their aunt mabel, they would probably have done so by saying she was the best and dearest person in the world; and accepting this assertion as correct, it would be difficult to say more. her house also was one of the most delightful places which could well be imagined; and there, since their mother's death, the children spent each year the greater part of their summer holidays. it was a dear, easy-going old house, with stairs a little out of the straight, and great beams appearing in unexpected places in the bedroom ceilings. there were brass locks with funny little handles to the doors, and queer alcoves and cupboards let into the walls. there was no fusty drawing-room, with blinds always drawn down, and covers to the chairs, but two cosy parlours meant for everyday use, the larger of which was panelled with dark wood which reflected the lamp and firelight, and somehow seemed to be ready to whisper to one stories of the days when wood was used for wall-paper, and when houses were built with sliding panels in the walls and hiding-places in the chimneys. the garden exactly matched the house, and so did the flowers that grew in it--the pink daisies, "boy's love," sweet-williams, and hollyhocks, all of which might be picked as well as looked at. visitors never had a chance of stealing the fruit, because they were always invited to eat it as soon as it was ripe, or even before, if they preferred. there were a lawn, and a paddock, and a shrubbery, the last so much overgrown that it resembled a little forest, and often did duty for a miniature "merry sherwood," when the present of some bows and arrows caused playing at robin hood and his men to become a popular pastime. lastly, there was the stable, where jessamine, the little fat pony, and the low basket-carriage were lodged; and above was the loft, a charming place, which had been in turn a ship, a fortress, a robbers' cave, and a desert island. up there were loads of hay and bundles of straw, which could be built up or rolled about in; the place was always in a romantic twilight; there were old, deserted spiders' webs hanging to the roof, looking like shops to let, which never did any business; and the ascent and descent of the perpendicular ladder from the ground floor was quite an adventure in itself. to picture a ship on which one had to go aloft to enter the cabin would seem rather a difficult task; but a child's imagination is the richest in the world, and though valentine and his sisters had grown rather too old for this style of amusement, every fresh visit to brenlands was made brighter by recollections of the many happy ones which had preceded it, and of all the fun and frolic they had already enjoyed there. but best and foremost of all the charming things which made the place so bright and attractive was queen mab herself. she never said that little people ought to be seen and not heard; and there never was a person so easy to tell one's troubles to, or so hard to keep a secret from, as aunt mabel. no one in the world could ever have told stories as well as she did. "the brave tin soldier" and "the ugly duckling" were the favourites, and came in time to be always associated with brenlands. they had been told so often that the listeners always knew exactly what was coming next, and had the narrator put the number of metal brethren at two dozen instead of twenty-five, or missed out a single stage of the duckling's wanderings, she would have been instantly tripped up by her audience. but queen mab was too skilful a story-teller to leave out the minutest detail in describing the perilous voyage of the paper boat, or to spare the duckling a single snub from the narrow-minded hen or the bumptious tom-cat. the "tin soldier" she generally gave in answer to the special request of her small nephew, but she herself seemed to prefer the other story. there, the duckling's sorrowful wanderings finished with his turning into a swan, and queen mab always had a liking for happy endings. she and the old house were exactly suited to each other, and seemed to share the same fragrant atmosphere, so that wherever her courtiers met her, and flung their arms round her neck, they were instantly reminded of sweet-brier and honeysuckle, jars of dried rose leaves, and all the other delicious scents of brenlands. the children never noticed that there were streaks of silver in her hair, or that on her left hand she wore a mourning ring; nor did they know the reason why, on a certain day in the year, she seemed, if possible, more kind and loving than on any other, and went away somewhere early in the morning with a big bunch of flowers, and came back with the basket empty. "aunt," said barbara, "what's an old maid?" "why, i'm one!" answered queen mab, laughing; whereupon it became every one's ambition to live a life of single blessedness. when there was cherry-tart for dinner, an alarming number of stones were secretly swallowed, in order that the person guilty of this abominable piece of sharp practice might count out, "this year--next year--some time--never!" and at old maid's cards the object of the game was now reversed, and instead of trying to "go out," every one strove to remain in, the fortunate being in whose hands the "old maid" remained at the finish always brandishing the hitherto detested card with a shriek of triumph. the last trace of the mimic battle had been cleared away, and now where tin cavalry had ridden boldly to their fate, and lead guards had died but not surrendered, nothing was to be seen but peaceful plum-cake, or bread and butter cut in thin and appetizing slices. "i'm sorry you weren't able to make a longer stay," said aunt mabel, as she poured out the tea. "but your father said he couldn't spare you for more than a week at easter. however, the summer will soon be here, and then you will come again for a proper visit. by-the-bye, valentine, d'you know that your cousin jack is coming to be a school-fellow of yours at melchester?" "no, aunt; is that uncle basil's son?" "yes; i want you to make friends with him, and bring him over here on your half-term holiday. i hope he will come for a few weeks at midsummer, and then you will all be able to have a jolly time together." "how old is he?" asked valentine. "oh, i think he is about a year older than you are--fifteen or thereabouts." barbara had fished a stranger out of her cup, and was smiting the back of one plump little hand against the other, to the accompaniment of "monday--tuesday--wednesday," and so on. "aunt mab," she said suddenly, "how is it we never hear anything of uncle basil, or that he never comes to visit us? what's jack like?" "well, i can hardly tell you," replied miss fenleigh; "i've only seen him once, poor boy, and that was several years ago." "but why don't we ever see uncle basil?" persisted barbara. "you often come and visit us, and why doesn't he?" "well, i live within ten miles of your house, and padbury is thirty or forty miles on the other side of melchester." "but that isn't very far by railway; and if he can't come, why doesn't he write?" aunt mabel seemed perplexed what reply to make, but at this moment the boy came to her rescue. "don't ask so many questions, bar," he said. miss barbara was always ready for a tussle, with words or any other weapons. "pooh!" she answered, "whom d'you think you're talking to? i know what it is, you're angry because i knocked over more of your soldiers than you did of mine!" "yes, you cheated." "fiddles! you thought i'd only got two peas in my mouth, you old stupid, and instead of that i'd got six, _six_! ha! ha!" and so the discussion continued. helen was nearly two years older than valentine. she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, and later in the evening, when her brother and sister had gone to bed, she remained talking with her aunt in front of the fire. while so doing, she returned to the subject of their conversation at the tea-table. "aunt, why is it that father and uncle basil never meet?" "well, my dear, i didn't like to talk about it before val and barbara; it's a pity they should hear the story before they are older and can understand it better; besides, i wish the boys to be good friends when they meet at school. basil and your father had a dispute many years ago about some money matters connected with your grandfather's will, and i am sorry to say they have never been friends since. your uncle has always been a very unpractical man; he has wasted his life following up ideas which he thought would bring him success and riches, but which always turned out failures. he always has some fresh fad, and it always brings him fresh trouble. i don't think he would wilfully wrong any one, but from being always in difficulties and under the weather, his temper has been soured and his judgment warped, and he cannot or will not see that your father acted in a perfectly just and honourable manner, and the consequence is, as i said before, they never made up their quarrel." "and jack is going to the school at melchester?" "yes; and i want valentine to make friends with him, and for us to have him here in the summer. poor boy, soon after your mother died, he lost his, and i am afraid his life and home surroundings have not been very happy since. well, we must try to brighten him up a bit. i've no doubt we shall be able to do that when we get him here at brenlands." chapter ii. an ugly duckling. "they had not been out of the egg long, and were very saucy. 'listen, friend,' said one of them to the duckling, 'you are so ugly that we like you very well.'"--_the ugly duckling_. it was the first day of term, and melchester school presented a general appearance of being unpacked and put together again, as though the whole institution had been sent out of town for the holidays, and had returned by goods train late on the previous evening. the passages were strewn with the contents of boxes belonging to late comers; new boys wandered about, apparently searching for something which they never found; while the old stagers exchanged noisy greetings, devoured each other's "grub," and discussed the prospects of the coming thirteen weeks which they must pass together before the commencement of the summer vacation. most of the boys had arrived on the monday evening, but valentine fenleigh did not come back until the following morning. according to a promise made to his aunt before leaving brenlands, one of the first things he did was to inquire after his cousin. "yes," said one of his classmates, "there is a new chap by the name of fenleigh, but i don't know what he's like. he's not put with us in the lower fourth." among a hundred and fifty boys, and in the confusion of a first day, it was a difficult matter to discover at once the whereabouts of the fellow he wanted. he accosted one or two of the new-comers, but by the time the bell rang for afternoon school he had only succeeded in ascertaining the fact that his cousin must be somewhere about, from having seen the name "j. fenleigh" ticked off on the bedroom list. holms was full of a project for hiring a bicycle during the summer months, and, what with listening to the unfolding of this plan, and struggling with the work in hand, valentine soon forgot the existence of his undiscovered relative. towards the end of the first hour mr. copland, the form-master, folded up a piece of paper on which he had been writing, and handing it across the desk, said,-"fenleigh, take this in to mr. rowlands, and bring back an answer." valentine made his way to the head-quarters of the upper fourth. the classroom was rather quieter than the one he had left, mr. rowlands being somewhat of a martinet. "all right," said the latter, who was copying a list of questions on the blackboard; "put your note on my table, and i'll attend to you in a moment." the messenger did as he was told, and stood looking round the room, exchanging nods and winks with one or two members of the upper division with whom he was on friendly terms. on a form at the back of the room sat three boys who were hardly ever seen apart, and who had apparently formed an alliance for the purpose of idling their time, and mutually assisting one another in getting into scrapes. their names were garston, rosher, and teal; and seated at the same desk was a boy with whom they seemed to have already struck up an acquaintance, though valentine did not remember having seen his face before. even in the upper fourth there was a subdued shuffle, showing that work was going rather hard on this first day; and the young gentlemen whose names have just been mentioned were evidently not throwing themselves heart and soul into the subject which was supposed to be occupying their undivided attention. mr. rowlands finished a line, made a full stop with a sharp rap of his chalk, and then turned round sniffing. "dear me!" he said, "there's a strong smell of something burning." "perhaps it's jackson's cricket cap," murmured a small boy. jackson's hair, be it said, was of a fiery red, and hence the suggestion that his head-gear might be smouldering in his pocket. "what's that?" demanded mr. rowlands, and the joker subsided. jackson waited until a fresh sentence had been begun on the blackboard; then he dropped a ruler, and in picking it up again smote the small boy on a vulnerable spot beneath the peak of his shell-jacket. "there _is_ something burning," repeated the master. "has any one of you boys got matches in his pocket?" "oh, _no_, sir!" shouted a dozen voices. "answer more quietly, can't you? i'm not deaf! jackson, see if there's anything in the stove." the stove was found to contain nothing but a bit of ink-sodden blotting-paper. jackson drew it carefully forth, and held it up between his finger and thumb. "that's all, sir," he said. "then put it _back_, sir," cried the master, "and go on with your work." valentine had some difficulty in keeping from laughing. the smell which had greeted mr. rowlands' nostrils was caused by garston, who was deliberately burning holes with a magnifying glass in the coat of the boy in front of him, who sat all unconscious of what was happening to this portion of his wardrobe. the new fellow, who watched the proceedings with great interest, now stretched out his hand, and taking the glass held it up level with the victim's neck. a moment later there was a yell. "who made that noise?" "please, sir, somebody burnt my neck!" "burnt your neck! what boy has been burning pilson's neck?" the new-comer raised his hand and gave a flip with his thumb and finger. "i did," he answered. "you did!" exclaimed mr. rowlands wrathfully. "what are you thinking of, sir? i've spoken to you four times to-day already. i don't know if you were accustomed to behave in this manner at the last school you were at, but let me tell you--" "please, sir," interrupted pilson plaintively, "they've burnt a hole in my back!" at this announcement the class exploded. "_silence_!" cried the master. "what do you mean, pilson? is your coat burnt?" "yes, sir." "very well, fenleigh; i shall give you five hundred lines." valentine, who had been an unoffending spectator of the affair, was fairly staggered at suddenly hearing himself commissioned to write five hundred lines. then the situation dawned upon him--this reckless gentleman with the burning-glass was his cousin jack. mr. rowlands made a memorandum of the punishment, and at the same time scribbled a few words in reply to mr. copland. as he did so, valentine had an opportunity of examining his relative's appearance. the latter might have been pronounced good-looking, had it not been for a perpetual expression of restlessness and discontent, which soured what would otherwise have been a pleasant face. he seemed to care very little for the lines, and as soon as the master's eye was off him he turned to garston and winked. valentine was by no means what is commonly known as a "good boy;" he was as fond of a lark as any right-minded youngster need be; but he had been taught at home that any one who intended to become a soldier should first learn to obey, and to respect the authority of those set over him. he did not like plunging into rows for the sake of being disorderly; and something in jack fenleigh's careless behaviour did not tend to leave on his mind a very favourable impression of his newly-found cousin. he had, however, promised queen mab to make friends; and so, as soon as afternoon school was over, he waited for jack in the gravel playground, and there introduced himself. "oh, so you're valentine," said the other. "my guv'nor told me you were here." "yes. i hope we shall be friends." "well, there's no reason why we shouldn't. my guv'nor's had a row with yours, i know; but that's nothing, he's always quarrelling with somebody, and i'm sure i don't mind, if you don't. by-the-bye, weren't you the fellow who was in the classroom when i got into that row about the burning-glass?" "yes; and i say it's rather a pity you go on like that the first day you're here. masters don't expect new fellows to begin larking at once, and you'll get into rowlands' bad books." "oh, i don't mind that," answered the other; "i didn't want to come here, and i don't care if i'm sent going again." at this moment garston joined them. "hallo!" he said, "are you two related to each other? i never thought of your names being the same before. cousins, eh? well, look here, new fenleigh, pilson's on the war-path after you for burning his neck." "i don't care if he is," answered the other. hardly had the words been spoken when the subject of them turned the corner. "yes," he cried, "you're the chap i'm after! what did you burn my coat for?" "i didn't burn your coat." "oh, you liar! look here, i'm just going to--" what pilson _was_ going to do will remain for ever unknown. he had no sooner laid his hand on jack's collar than the latter, without a moment's hesitation, struck him a heavy blow on the chest which sent him staggering back against the wall gasping for breath. "just keep your dirty paws off me. i tell you i didn't burn your coat; though to look at it, i should think burning's about all it's good for." this was not at all the usual line of conduct which new boys adopted when brought to book by an oldster. pilson felt aggrieved, but made no attempt to follow up his attack. "all right," he said. "you're a liar, and i'll tell all the other fellows." "you can tell 'em what you please," returned the other, and taking hold of garston's arm he walked away. valentine turned on his heel with a doubtful look on his face; his cousin evidently knew how to take care of himself, yet the latter's conduct was not altogether satisfactory. it was garston who had burnt the coat, and it was like him to let another boy bear the blame; while jack evidently cared as little for being thought a liar as he did for any other misfortune that might befall him. during the next few days the cousins met every now and again in the playground, or about the school buildings, but it was only to exchange a nod or a few words on some subject of general interest. there seemed to be little in common between them; and jack, though willing enough to be friendly and forget the family feud, evidently found the society of the three unruly members of the upper fourth more to his liking than that of a steady-going boy like valentine. for nearly a month the latter did his best to form the friendship which his aunt had desired; then an event happened which caused him to almost regard the task as hopeless. jack had been steadily winning for himself the reputation of a black sheep; but the climax was reached when he further distinguished himself in connection with certain extraordinary proceedings known and remembered long afterwards as the "long dormitory sports." it was rosher's idea. the chamber in question was called "long" from the fact that it contained sixteen beds, eight on a side, all of which were occupied by members of the upper fourth. skeat, the sixth form boy in charge, was ill, and had gone to the infirmary; and in the absence of the proverbial cat, the mice determined to get in as much play as possible, only stopping short at performances which might attract the attention of the master on duty. it was one tuesday night. garston and teal had had a quarter mile walking race up and down the centre aisle, which had ended, to the great delight of the spectators, in garston nearly tearing his nightshirt off his back by catching it on a broken bedstead, while the other competitor had kicked his toe against an iron dumb-bell, and finished the race by dancing a one-legged hornpipe in the middle of the course, while his opponent won "hands down." "i say," remarked rosher, "why shouldn't we have proper sports, with a proper list of events and prizes?" "who'll give the prizes?" asked teal. "oh, anybody! look here. i vote we have sports to-morrow night before old skeat comes back. hands up, those who are agreeable! to the contrary!--none. very well, it's carried!" "but how about prizes?" persisted teal, who was of rather a mercenary disposition. "there needn't be any proper prizes," answered rosher; "we can give the winners anything." "give 'em lines," suggested garston. "no; shut up, garston. everybody must give something. i'll offer a brass match-box, shaped like a pig." "no, you won't," interrupted teal. "it's mine; you borrowed it a week ago, and never gave it me back." "did i? well, i'll tell you what, i'll offer a photograph of my brother; the frame's worth something. now, what'll you give, garston?" garston offered a small pocket-mirror. jack fenleigh a bone collar-stud, while a boy named hamond promised what was vaguely described as "part of a musical box," and which afterwards turned out to be the small revolving barrel, the only fragment of the instrument which remained. prizes having been secured, the next thing was to arrange competitions in which to win them; and in doing this, the committee were obliged to keep in view the peculiar nature and limitations of the ground at their disposal. it was no good hamond's clamouring for a pole jump, or teal suggesting putting the weight. jack's proposal of a sack race in bolster cases was, for a moment, entertained as a good idea; then it was suddenly remembered that the bolsters had no cases, and so that project fell through. one by one the events were decided on. rosher promised to draw up a programme, and insisted that after every boy's name some distinguishing colours should appear, as on a proper sports list, and that competitors were to arrange their costumes accordingly. "when shall it come off?" asked garston. "oh, to-morrow, after the masters have all gone in to supper. now, we've been planning long enough; good-night." the occupants of the long dormitory, be it said to their credit, were not fellows to form a scheme and then think no more about it, and the next day their minds were exercised with preparations for the sports, the chief difficulty being in arranging costumes which should answer to the descriptions given on rosher's card. these vagaries in dress caused an immense amount of amusement, and when the masters' supper-bell gave the signal for the commencement of operations, every one found it difficult to retrain from shouts of laughter at the sight of the various styles of war-paint. perhaps that of jack fenleigh, though simple to a degree, was most comical: his colours were described as "red and white," and his costume consisted of his night-shirt, and a large scarlet chest-protector which he had borrowed from a small boy, whose mother fondly believed him to be wearing it according to her instructions, instead of utilizing it to line a box containing a collection of birds' eggs. as every race had to be run in a number of heats the events were necessarily few in number. there were a hopping race, a hurdle race over the beds, and a race in which the competitors were blindfolded, and each carried a mug full of water, which had not to be spilt by the way. teal, over whose bed, as the result of a collision, two boys happened to empty the contents of their half-pint cups, professed not to see much fun in the performance, though every one else voted it simply screaming. but the contest looked forward to with the greatest amount of interest was the obstacle race. it was placed at the end of the programme; garston's pocket-mirror, the only prize worth having, was to reward the winner; and the conditions were as follows:-the runners were to go once round the room, alternately crawling under and hopping over the sixteen beds; the finish was to be down the middle aisle, across the centre of which a row of chairs was placed, on which boys stood or sat to keep them steady while the racers crawled under the seats. in spite of the fact that the pocket-mirror was to be the prize, only jack and hamond appeared at the starting-point when it came to this last item on rosher's programme, their companions voting it too much fag, and preferring to sit on the obstacles and look on. the signal was given, and the two competitors started off in grand style, plunging in and out among the beds like dolphins in a choppy sea. jack led from the first; he dashed up to the row of chairs a long way in front of hamond, and had wriggled the greater portion of his body through the bars, when-no one could have said exactly how the alarm was given, or who first saw the gleam of light through the ground-glass ventilator. the obstacle was snatched from the centre of the room; with a rush and a bound everybody was in bed; a moment later mr. rowlands entered the room, the first thing which met his gaze being the extraordinary spectacle of jack fenleigh, who, like a new kind of snail, was crawling along the floor on his hands and knees with a cane-bottomed chair fixed firmly on the centre of his back. the weight of the boy sitting on it being removed, the unfortunate jack found it impossible to force his way any further, and thus remained unable to extricate himself from between the bars of the obstacle. "fenleigh," said the master, "get up off the ground. what are you doing, sir?" the boy struggled to his feet, and in doing so revealed the glories of the chest-protector. there was a subdued titter from the adjacent beds. "silence!" cried mr. rowlands. "so you're responsible for this noise and disorder, fenleigh? if you want to perform as a clown, you had better leave school and join a circus. at nine o'clock to-morrow you will come with me to the headmaster's study." by breakfast-time on the following morning the story of this tragic finish to the obstacle race was all over the school. valentine heard it, and waited anxiously to learn his cousin's fate. the latter escaped with a severe reprimand, and the loss of the next two half-holiday afternoons; but he was reminded that his conduct, especially for a new boy, had been all along most unsatisfactory, and he was given clearly to understand that any repetition of this constant misbehaviour would result in his being expelled without further warning. "i wish you'd take more care what you're up to, jack," said valentine. "you're bound to get thrown out if you don't behave better." "what's the odds if i am? i've only been here a month, and i hate the place already." "it seems to me," answered valentine sadly, "that you don't care a straw for anything or anybody." "well, why should i?" returned the other. "you wouldn't, if you were in my place." chapter iii. the rebel reclaimed. "'i think he will grow up pretty, and perhaps be smaller; he has remained too long in the egg, and therefore his figure is not properly formed;' and then she stroked his neck and smoothed the feathers."--_the ugly duckling_. towards the end of june, queen mab wrote asking the two boys to come over for their usual half-term holiday. "i'm not going," said jack. "why not?" asked valentine, astonished that any one should decline an invitation to brenlands. "why ever not? you'd have a jolly time; aunt mabel's awfully kind." "i daresay she is, but i never go visiting. i hate all that sort of thing." it was no good trying to make jack fenleigh alter his mind; he stuck to his resolution, and valentine went to brenlands alone. "i'm sorry jack wouldn't come with you," said queen mab on the saturday evening; "why was it? aren't you and he on good terms with each other?" "oh, yes, aunt, we're friendly enough in one way, but we don't seem able to hit it off very well together." "how is that?" "oh, i don't know. i'm not his sort; i suppose i'm too quiet for him." "i always thought you were noisy enough," answered miss fenleigh laughing. "you wouldn't, if you knew some of our fellows," returned the boy. the weeks slipped by, the holidays were approaching, and the far-off haven of home could almost, as it were, be seen with the naked eye. whether the disastrous termination to the dormitory sports had really served as a warning to jack to put some restraint upon his wayward inclinations, it would be difficult to say; but certainly since the affair of the obstacle race he had managed to keep clear of the headmaster's study, and had only indulged in such minor acts of disorder as were the natural consequences of his friendship with garston, rosher, and teal. it needed the firm hand of mr. rowlands to hold in check the sporting element which at this period was, unfortunately, rather strong in the upper fourth, and which, at certain times--as for instance during the french lessons--attempted to turn the very highroad to learning into a second playground. monsieur durand, whose duty it was to instil a knowledge of his graceful mother tongue into the minds of a score of restless and unappreciative young britons, found the facetious gentlemen of the upper fourth a decided "handful." they seemed to regard instruction in the gallic language as an unending source of merriment. garston threw such an amount of eloquence into the reading of the sentence, "my cousin has lost the hat of the gardener," that every one sighed to think that a relative of one of their classmates should have brought such sorrow on the head of the honest son of toil; and when teal announced joyfully that "his uncle had found the hat of the gardener," rosher was obliged to slap the speaker on the back, and say, "bravo!" this being m. durand's first term in an english school, that gentleman could hardly have been expected, as the saying goes, to be up to all the moves on the board; and certain of his pupils, sad to relate, were only too ready to take advantage of his lack of experience. it was discovered that it was comparatively easy to obtain permission to leave the class. "please, sir, may i go and get a drink of water?" or "please, sir, may i go and fetch my dictionary?" was sufficient to obtain temporary leave of absence; nor did the french master seem to take much notice as to the length of time which such errands should by right have occupied. the consequence was that not unfrequently towards the end of the hour a quarter of his pupils were gathered in what was known as the playshed, drinking sherbet, or playing cricket with a fives ball and a walking-stick. one particular morning, when the lower fourth were struggling with the parsing and analysis of a certain portion of goldsmith's "deserted village," a mysterious patch of light appeared dancing about on the wall and ceiling, attracting the attention of the whole class, and causing the boy just told to "go on" to describe "man" as a personal pronoun, and to put a direct object after the verb "to be." "fenleigh," said mr. copland, "just see who that is outside." valentine, who was seated nearest the window, rose from his place, and looking down into the yard beneath saw the incorrigible jack amusing himself by flashing sunbeams with the pocket-mirror which he had won in the dormitory sports. the latter, who ought by rights to have been transcribing a french exercise, grinned, and promptly bolted round the corner. "who was it, fenleigh?" valentine hesitated. "who was it? did you see the boy?" "yes, sir; it was my cousin." "what! j. fenleigh in the upper fourth?" "yes, sir." "humph! very well," answered mr. copland, making a memorandum on a slip of paper in front of him; "i'll seek an interview with that young gentleman after school." valentine's heart sank, for he had in his pocket a letter from queen mab saying that she was driving over in the pony carriage that very afternoon, and inviting the two boys to spend their half-holiday with her in melchester. this significant remark of mr. copland's meant that jack would be prevented from going. valentine felt that he was indirectly the cause of the misfortune, and his wayward relative seemed inclined to view the matter in the same light. "i say," he exclaimed, "you were a sneak to tell copland it was i who was flashing that looking-glass." "i couldn't help it," answered valentine. "he told me to look out and see who was there." "well, why didn't you say the fellow had run away, or something of that sort?" "because it would have been a lie." "pooh! telling a cram like that to a master doesn't count. you are a muff, valentine," and the speaker turned on his heel with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. the little fat pony, the low basket-carriage, jakes the gardener driving, and last and best of all queen mab herself, arrived at the time appointed; but only one of her nephews was waiting at the rendezvous. "why, where's jack?" "he got into a scrape this morning, and is kept in. what's more, he says it's my fault, and we've had a row about it. i don't think we ever shall be friends, aunt." "oh, you mustn't say that. in a fortnight's time we shall all be at brenlands together, and then we must try to rub some of the sharp corners off this perverse young gentleman. i must come back with you to the school and try to see him before i drive home." in the quiet retirement of mr. copland's classroom, jack was writing lines when a messenger came to inform him that some one wished to see him in the visitors' room. "bother it! aunt mabel," he said to himself. "i suppose i must go," he added, swishing the ink from his pen and throwing it down on the desk. "what a bore relations are! i wish they'd let me alone." from their one brief meeting years before, neither aunt nor nephew would have recognized each other now had they met in the streets, and so this was like making a fresh acquaintance. jack had heard only one half of a very lopsided story, and though he took no interest in the family disagreement, yet he was inclined to be suspicious of his grown-up relations. he marched down the passage, jingling his keys with an air of defiance; but when he entered the visitors' room, and saw the bright smile with which his aunt greeted his appearance, he dropped the swagger and became stolidly polite. she, for her part, had come prepared for the conquest which she always made; his awkward, boyish manner and uncared-for appearance, the dissatisfied look upon his face, and the ink stains on his collar, all were noticed in one loving glance, and touched her warm heart. "well, jack," she said, "you see mahomet has come to the mountain. how are you, dear?" jack muttered that he was quite well. it was rather embarrassing to be called "dear." he attempted to hide his confusion by wiping his nose; but in producing his handkerchief, he pulled out with it a forked catapult stick and a broken metal pen-holder, which clattered to the ground and had to be picked up again. "how you've grown!" said queen mab, "and--my senses! what muscles you've got," she added, feeling his arm. jack grinned and bent his elbow, the next moment he straightened it again. "go on!" he said; "you're chaffing me." "i'm not. i wish you'd been at brenlands at easter, and i'd have set you to beat carpets. never mind, i shall have you with me in a fortnight." "i don't think i shall come," he began. "stuff and nonsense!" interrupted the aunt. "i say you _are_ coming. valentine never makes excuses when i send him an invitation. don't you think i know how to amuse young people?" "oh, yes; it's not that." "then what is it?" "i don't know," answered the boy, grinning, and kicking the leg of the table. "of course you don't; so you've got to come. valentine's sisters will be there; you'd like to meet the two girls?" "no, i shouldn't." "oh, shocking! you rude boy." jack stood on one leg and laughed; this was like talking to a fellow in the upper fourth, and his tongue was loosed. "they'd hate me," he said; "i don't know anything about girls." "i should think you didn't. wait till you see helen and barbara." "but there's another thing. i haven't got any clothes." "my dear boy, how dreadful! whose are those you are wearing now?" "oh, go on, aunt; what a chaff you are! i don't mean that--i--" "no, you evidently don't know what you mean. well, one thing's settled, you're coming to brenlands for the summer holidays." the battle was won, and queen mab had gained her usual victory. "how is your father? didn't he send me any message?" "yes, i think he told me to give you his love." "is that all?" "well, that's a jolly sight more than what he sends to most people," answered the boy. he would have been surprised to have seen that there were tears in her eyes when she walked out of the school gates, and still more astonished to know that it was love for his unworthy self which brought them there; for little did fenleigh j. of the upper fourth imagine that any one would come so near to crying on his account. that evening, just before supper, valentine felt some one touch him on the shoulder, and turning round saw that it was his cousin. "i've seen queen mab, as you call her," remarked the latter, "and, i say--i like her--rather." "i knew you would. she's an angel--only jollier." "she made me promise i'd go there for the holidays." "oh, that's fine!" cried valentine. "i thought she would; she's got such a way of making people do what she wants. i am glad you are going; you'll enjoy it awfully." fenleigh j. regarded the speaker for a moment with rather a curious glance. in view of the events of the morning he rather expected that his cousin would not be overpleased to hear that he had been asked to spend the holidays at brenlands; and that valentine should rejoice at his having accepted the invitation, struck him as being rather odd. "look here, val," he blurted out, "i'm sorry i called you a sneak this morning. it was my fault, and you're a good sort after all." "oh, stop it!" answered the other. "i'll forgive you now that you've promised to go to brenlands." queen mab was at home, miles away by this time; yet, as a result of her flying visit, some of the softening influence of her presence and kindly usages of her court seemed to linger even amid the rougher and more turbulent atmosphere of melchester school. chapter iv. the court of queen mab. "they were swans ... the ugly little duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them."--_the ugly duckling_. during the short period which elapsed between queen mab's visit and the end of the term jack managed to steer clear of misfortune; but on the last evening he must needs break out and come to grief again. he incited the occupants of the long dormitory to celebrate the end of work by a grand bolster fight, during the progress of which conflict a pillow was thrown through the ventilator above the door. it so happened that, at that moment, mr. copland was walking along the passage; and a cloud of feathers from the torn case, together with fragments of ground glass, being suddenly rained down on his unoffending head, he was naturally led to make inquiries as to the cause of the outrage. as might have been expected, fenleigh j. was found to be the owner of the pillow which had done the damage, and he was accordingly kept back on the following day to pay the usual penalty of an imposition. "i'll take your luggage on with me," said valentine. "you get out at hornalby, the first station from here, and it's only about a quarter of a mile from there to brenlands. any one will tell you the way." it turned out a wet evening. queen mab and her court had already been waiting tea for nearly half an hour, when valentine exclaimed, "hallo! here he is!" the expected guest took apparently no notice of the rain; his cloth cricket cap was perched on the back of his head, and he had not even taken the trouble to turn up the collar of his jacket. he walked up the path in a cautious manner, as though he expected at every step to trip over the wire of a spring-gun; but when he came within a dozen yards of the house he quickened his pace, for aunt mabel had opened the door, and was standing ready to give him a welcome. "why, boy, how late you are! you must be nearly starving!" "i couldn't come before," he began; "i had some work to do, and--" "yes, you rascal! i've heard all about it. come in, and jane shall rub you down with a dry cloth." jack left off jingling his keys; he did not like being "rubbed down," but he submitted to the process with great good-humour. it was the cosiest old kitchen; the table was the whitest, and the pots and pans the brightest, that could be imagined; and jane, the cook, groomed him down as though brushing a damp jacket with a dry glass-cloth was the most enjoyable pastime in life. in the parlour it was just the same: the pretty china cups and saucers, and the little bunches of bright flowers, only made all the nice things there were to eat seem more attractive; and the company were as happy and gay as though it was everybody's birthday, and they had all met to assist one another in keeping up the occasion with a general merry-making. jack alone was quiet and subdued, for the simple reason that he had never seen anything like it in his life before. queen mab, strongly entrenched at the head of the table, behind the urn, sugar basin, and cream jug, held this line of outworks against any number of flank attacks in the shape of empty cups, the old silver teapot apparently containing an inexhaustible supply of ammunition, and enabling her to send every storming party back to the place from whence it came, and even invite them to attempt another assault. once or twice jack turned to find his aunt watching him with a look in her eyes which caused his own face to reflect the smile which was on hers. she was thinking, and had been ever since she had seen the latest addition to her court coming slowly up the front path through the dismal drizzle, of the old favourite story, and of that part in it where the ugly duckling, overtaken by the storm, arrived in front of the tumble-down little cottage, which "only remained standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first." when the meal was over, and while the table was being cleared, jack wandered out into the porch, and stood watching the rain. he had hardly been there a minute before he was joined by barbara. "i say," she exclaimed, "why didn't you talk at tea time? i wanted to ask you heaps of things. your name's jack, isn't it? well, mine's barbara; they call me bar, because it's the american for bear, and father says i am a young bear. i want to hear all about that pillow fight, and those races you had in the dormitory." "oh, they weren't anything! how did you get to hear about them?" "why, val told us." "well, what a fellow he is! he's always talking about the rows i get into." "it doesn't matter; we thought it awful fun. helen laughed like anything, and she's very good. i say, can you crack your fingers?" "no; but i can crack my jaw." "oh, do show me!" jack really did possess this gruesome accomplishment; he could somehow make a blood-curdling click with his jawbone. when he did it in "prep." his neighbours smote him on the head with dictionaries, and when he repeated the performance in the dormitory, fellows rose in their beds and hurled pillows and execrations into the darkness. barbara, however, was charmed. "you are clever!" she cried; "i wish i could do it. now, come back, and sit by me; we're going to play games." jack, who had cherished some vague notion that every girl was something between a saint and a bride-cake ornament, was agreeably surprised at this conversation with his small admirer, and readily complied with her request. several of the games he had never seen before, but he made bold attempts to play them some way or another, and soon entered into the spirit of his surroundings. in making words out of words his spelling was nearly as bad as barbara's, but he seemed to think his own mistakes a great joke, and didn't care a straw how many marks he gave to the other players. in "bell and hammer," however, he always managed to buy the "white horse," while other people would squander their all in bidding for a card which perhaps turned out after all to be only the "hammer." at "snap" he was simply terrible; he literally swept the board, but kept passing portions of his winnings under the table to barbara, whose pile seemed to be as inexhaustible as the widow's cruse. by the end of the evening he was the life of the party, and no one would have believed that he was the same boy who, a few hours ago, had come up the front path wishing in his secret heart that he was safely back at melchester writing lines in the upper fourth classroom. he and valentine shared a delightful, old four-post bed, which in times gone by had had the marvellous property of turning itself into a tent, a gipsy van, or a raft, which, though launched from a sinking ship in the very middle of a stormy ocean, always managed to bring its crew of distressed mariners safely to shore in time to answer queen mab's cheery call of "tea's ready!" "it is nice to be here," said valentine, dropping his head upon the pillow with a sigh of contentment. "aren't you glad you came?" "yes," answered jack. "aunt mabel seems so jolly kind and glad to see you. i wish you hadn't told her about all those rows i got into; i don't think she'll like me when she knows me better." "oh, yes, she will! don't you like helen?" "yes; i think she has the nicest face i ever saw. but she's too good for me, val, my boy. i think i shall get on better with barbara; she's more like a boy, and i don't think i shall ever be a ladies' man." valentine laughed; the idea of fenleigh j. of the upper fourth ever becoming a ladies' man was certainly rather comical. "you'll like helen when you get to know her. i wouldn't exchange her as a sister for any other girl in the kingdom. well--good-night!" that one evening at brenlands had done more towards forming a friendship between the two boys than all the ninety odd days which they had already spent in each other's company. the next afternoon, however, they were destined to become still more united; and the manner in which this came about was as follows. during the morning the weather held up, but by dinner time it was raining again. "bother it! what shall we do?" cried valentine. "i should think you'd better play with your tin soldiers," answered helen, laughing. "they always seem to keep you good." valentine hardly liked this allusion to his miniature army being made in the hearing of his older schoolfellow, for boys at melchester school were supposed to be above finding amusement in toys of any kind. the latter, however, pricked up his ears, and threw down the book he had been reading. "who's got any tin soldiers?" he asked. "let's see 'em." the boxes were produced. "my eye!" continued jack, turning out the contents, "what a heap you've got! i should like to set them out and have a battle. and here are two pea-shooters; just the thing!" "you don't mean to say you're fond of tin soldiers, jack?" said aunt mabel. "why, you're much too old, i should have thought, for anything of that kind." "i'm not," answered the boy; "i love tin soldiers, and anything to do with war. come on, val, we'll divide the men and have a fight." the challenge was accepted. there was an empty room upstairs, and on the floor of this the opposing forces were drawn up, and a desperate conflict ensued. the troops were certainly a motley crew; some were running, some marching, and some were standing still; some had their rifles at the "present," and some at the "slope;" but what they lacked in drill and discipline, they made up in their steadiness when under fire, and jack showed as much skill and resource in handling them as did their rightful commander. he set out his men on some thin pieces of board, which could be moved forward up the room, it having been agreed that he should be allowed to stand and deliver his fire from the spot reached by his advancing line of battle. each group of these tag-rag-and-bobtail metal warriors was dignified by the name of some famous regiment. here was the "black watch," and there the "coldstream guards;" while this assembly of six french zouaves, a couple of red-coats, a bugler, and a headless mounted officer on a three-legged horse, was the old 57th foot--the "die-hards"--ready to exhibit once more the same stubborn courage and unflinching fortitude as they had displayed at albuera. valentine held a position strengthened by redoubts constructed out of dominoes, match-boxes, pocket-knives, and other odds and ends. they were certainly curious fortifications; yet the nursery often mimics in miniature the sterner realities of the great world; and since that day, handfuls of englishmen have built breastworks out of materials almost as strange, and as little intended for the purpose, and have fought desperate and bloody fights, and won undying fame, in their defence. "i'm going to be this chap, who takes on and off his horse," said jack. "which is you?" "here i am," answered valentine. "now then, you fire first--blaze away!" as he spoke he picked up the veteran captain of the solid lead guards, and set him down in the centre of the defending force, and so the battle commenced. it was still raging when jane came to say that tea was ready; but the losses on both sides had been terribly severe. the invading army still pressed forward, though the "57th" were once more decimated by the withering fire; and nothing actually remained of the "coldstream guards" but a kettle-drummer of uncertain nationality, and a man carrying a red and green flag, which he might very possibly have captured from some sunday-school treat. the opposite side were in no better plight: men were lying crushed under the ruins of the works which they had so gallantly defended; and hardly enough artillerymen were left to have pulled back, with their united efforts, the spring of one of the pea cannons. the leaders on both sides remained unscathed, and continued to brandish bent lead swords at each other in mutual defiance. "make haste! you've got one more shot," said valentine. the pea-shooter was levelled and discharged, the veteran lead captain tottered and tell, and thus the fight ended. "val, my boy, you're killed!" cried jack. "no matter, it's the bed of honour, old chap!" "oh, i don't mind!" answered the other, laughing. "_c'est la guerre_, you know; come along. i'd no idea you were so fond of soldiers." so they passed down to queen mab's merry tea-table, unsaddened by any recollections of the stricken field, or of the lead commander left behind among the slain. the two boys talked "soldiering" all the evening; and the next morning, when breakfast was nearly over, and helen ran upstairs to inquire if they meant to lie on till dinner-time, they were still harping away on the same subject. the door was standing ajar, and she heard their words. "don't move your knee," jack was saying; "that's the hill where i should post my artillery." "yes, that's all right," answered valentine; "but you couldn't shell my reserves if i got them down under cover of this curl in the blanket.--all right, helen! down directly!" the sun was shining brightly, the fine weather seemed to have come at last, and the question was how to put it to the best possible use. "why don't you children go and picnic somewhere?" said queen mab. "you can have prince and the carriage, and drive off where you like, and have tea out of doors." a general meeting was held in the hayloft directly after dinner for the purpose of discussing this important question. jack won a still higher place in barbara's affections by hauling himself up the perpendicular ladder without touching the rungs with his feet; and though knowing little or nothing about such things as picnics, he was ready with any number of absurd suggestions. "let's go to pitsbury common," said barbara; "there's such a lot of jolly sandpits to roll about in, and we can burn gorse-bushes." "oh, no, don't let's go there!" answered helen; "there's no place to shelter in if it comes on rain, and when you're having tea the sand blows about and gets into everything, so that you seem to be eating it by mouthfuls." "it's so nice having it out of doors," persisted barbara. "well, let's go out in the road and sit with our feet in the ditch, like the tramps do," said jack. "i'll bring the tea in my sponge bag. rosher used to carry it about in his pocket, full of water for a little squirt he was always firing off in the french class. pilson had the sentence, 'give me something to drink;' and as soon as he'd said it, he got a squirtful all over the back of his head, and durand--" "oh, stop that!" said valentine, laughing. "look here! i vote we drive over to grenford, and call on the fosbertons, and ask them to lend us their boat; they'd give us lunch, and then we could take our tea with us up the river. it's not more than six miles." "don't let's go there," said barbara. "i hate them." "is raymond away?" asked helen. "yes; didn't you hear queen mab say he was going to spend his holidays in london? uncle james is rather a pompous old fellow, but we shan't have to go there except for lunch; and father said we ought to call on them while we're here; besides, it'll be jolly on the river. you know them, don't you, jack?" "well, i've _heard_ about them," answered the other. "i know that the guv'nor's sister married old fosberton, and that he got a lot of money making tin tacks, or whatever it was; and now he fancies he's rather a swell, and says he's descended from william the conqueror's sea-cook, or something of that sort. i don't want to go and see them; but i don't mind having some grub there, if they'll lend us a boat." "my senses! you ought to feel very much honoured at the thought of going to lunch at grenford manor," said helen, laughing. "i'm sure i don't," answered her cousin. "i'd sooner have a feed in old 'duster's' shop at melchester." "well, that's what we'll do," said valentine. "we'll take a kettle and some cups with us, and tea, and all that sort of thing, and go up the river as far as starncliff, and there we'll camp out and have a jolly time." with some reluctance the proposal was agreed upon. had the company foreseen the chain of events which would arise directly and indirectly from this memorable picnic, they might have made up their minds to spend the day at brenlands. chapter v. an unlucky picnic. "the tom-cat, whom his mistress called 'my little son,' was a great favourite; he could raise his back, and purr, and could even throw out sparks from his fur if it were stroked the wrong way."--_the ugly duckling_. "now, jack, do behave yourself!" cried valentine, as the basket-carriage turned through two imposing-looking granite gate-posts into a winding drive which formed the approach to grenford manor. jack, as usual, seemed to grow particularly obstreperous just when circumstances demanded a certain amount of decorum, and at that moment he was kneeling on the narrow front seat belabouring prince with the cushion. "well," he answered, turning round, "we must drive up to the door in style; if we come crawling in like this, they'll think we're ashamed of ourselves." as he spoke, a curve in the drive brought the house into view. it was a big, square building, with not the slightest touch of green to relieve the monotony of the rigid white walls, and level rows of windows, which seemed to have been placed in position by some precise, mathematical calculation. a boy was lounging about in front of the porch, with his hands in his pockets, kicking gravel over the flower-beds. "o val! you said raymond wasn't at home," murmured helen. "well, aunt mab said he was going to london; he must have put off his visit." raymond fosberton turned at the sound of the carriage-wheels, and sauntered forward to meet the visitors. he had black hair, and a very pink and white complexion. to say that he looked like a girl would be disparaging to the fair sex, but his face would at once have impressed a careful observer as being that of a very poor specimen of british boyhood. "hallo!" he said, without removing his hands from his pockets, "so you've turned up at last! you've been a beastly long time coming!" he shook hands languidly with valentine and the two girls, but greeted jack with a cool stare, which the latter returned with interest. grenford manor was very different from brenlands. aunt isabel was fussy and querulous, while mr. fosberton was a very ponderous gentlemen in more senses than one. he had bushy grey whiskers and a very red face, which showed up in strong contrast to a broad expanse of white waistcoat, which was in turn adorned with a massive gold chain and imposing bunch of seals. "well, young ladies, and how are you?" he began in a deep, sonorous voice, of which he was evidently rather proud. "how are you, valentine? so this is basil's son?--hum! what's your father doing now?" "i don't know," answered jack, glancing at the clock. "i expect he's having his dinner, though there's no telling, for we're always a bit late at home." mr. fosberton stared at the boy, cleared his throat rather vigorously, and then turned to speak to helen. lunch was a very dry and formal affair. raymond spoke to nobody, his father and mother addressed a few words to valentine and the girls, but jack was completely ignored. the latter, instead of noticing this neglect, pegged away merrily at salmon and cold fowl, and seemed devoutly thankful that no one interrupted his labours by forcing him to join in the conversation. "you may tell your father," said mr. fosberton to valentine, "that i find his family are related to one of the minor branches of my own; i've no doubt he will be pleased to hear it. his father's sister married a pitsbury, a second cousin of the husband of one of the fosbertons of cranklen. you'll remember, won't you?" valentine said he would, and looked scared. the silver spoons and forks were all ornamented with the fosberton crest--a curious animal, apparently dancing on a sugar-stick. "what is it?" whispered barbara to jack. "the sea-cook's dog," answered her cousin. "but what's he doing?" "he's stolen the plum-duff, and the skipper's sent him up to ride on a boom, and he's got to stay there till he's told to come down." at last the weary meal was over. "i suppose we may have the boat," said valentine. "oh, yes. i'm coming with you myself," answered raymond; which announcement was received by miss barbara with an exclamation of "bother!" which, fortunately, was only overheard by jack, who smiled, and pinched her under the table. it did not take long to transport the provisions and materials from the pony-carriage to the boat, and the party were soon under way. it was a splendid afternoon for a river excursion. raymond, who had not offered to carry a thing on their way to the bank, lolled comfortably in the stern, leaving the other boys to do the work, and the girls to accommodate themselves as best they could. he was evidently accustomed to having his own way, and assumed the position of leader of the expedition. "have you finished school?" asked jack. "i don't go to one," answered the other; "i have a private tutor. i think schools are awful rot, where you're under masters, and have to do as you're told, like a lot of kids. i'm seventeen now. i'm going abroad this winter to learn french, then i'm coming home to read for the law. i say, why don't you row properly?" "so i do." "no, you don't; you feather too high." "there you go again," continued the speaker petulantly a few moments later; "that's just how the cockneys row." "sorry," said jack meekly. "look here, d'you mind showing me how it ought to be done?" raymond scrambled up and changed places with jack. "there," he said--"that's the way--d'you see? now, try again." "no, thanks," answered jack sweetly, "i'd rather sit here and watch you; it's rather warm work. i think i'll stay where i am." raymond did not seem to relish the joke, but it certainly had the wholesome effect of taking him down a peg, and rendering him a little less uppish and dictatorial for the remainder of the journey. at starncliff the right bank of the river rose rocky and precipitous almost from the water's edge. there was, however, a narrow strip of shore, formed chiefly of earth and shingle; and here the party landed, making the boat fast to the stump of an old willow. "we promised queen mab that we wouldn't be very late," said valentine, "so i should think we'd better have tea at once; it'll take some time to make the water boil." there is always some special charm about having tea out of doors, even when the spout of the kettle gets unsoldered, or black beetles invade the tablecloth. to share one teaspoon between three, and spread jam with the handle-end of it, is most enjoyable, and people who picnic with a full allowance of knives and forks to each person ought never to be allowed to take meals in the open. jack and valentine set about collecting stones to build a fireplace, and there being plenty of dry driftwood about, they soon had a good blaze for boiling the water. the girls busied themselves unpacking the provisions; but raymond fosberton was content to sit on the bank and throw pebbles into the river. the repast ended, the kettle and dishes were once more stowed away in the boat, and valentine proposed climbing the cliff. "it looks very steep," said helen. "there's a path over there by those bushes," answered her brother. "come along; we'll haul you up somehow." the ascent was made in single file, and half-way up the party paused to get their breath. "hallo!" cried jack, "there's a magpie." on a narrow ledge of rock and earth at the summit of the cliff two tall fir-trees were growing, and out of the top of one of these the bird had flown. the children stood and watched it, with its long tail and sharp contrast of black and white feathers, as it sailed away across the river. "one for sorrow," said helen. "i shouldn't like to climb that tree," said valentine. "it makes my head swim to look at it, leaning out like that over the precipice." "pooh!" answered raymond; "that's nothing. i've climbed up trees in much worse places before now." helen frowned, and turned away with an impatient twitch of her lips. jack saw the look. "all right, master fosberton," he said to himself; "you wait a minute." they continued their climb, and reaching the level ground above strolled along until they came opposite the tall tree out of which the magpie had flown. "there's the nest!" cried jack, pointing at something half hidden in the dark foliage of the fir. "now, then, who'll go up and get it?" "no one, i should think," said helen. "if you fell, you'd go right down over the cliff and be dashed to pieces." "i know i wouldn't try," added her brother. "i should turn giddy in a moment." "will you go?" asked jack, addressing raymond. "no," answered the other. "why, i thought you said a moment ago that you've climbed trees in much worse places. come, if you'll go up, i will." "not i," retorted raymond sulkily; "it's too much fag." "oh, well, if you're afraid, i'll go up alone." "don't be such a fool, jack," said valentine; "there won't be any eggs or young birds in the nest now." "never mind; i should like to have a look at it." fenleigh j. of the upper fourth was a young gentleman not easily turned from his purpose, and, in spite of valentine's warning and the entreaties of his girl cousins, he lowered himself down on to the ledge, and the next moment was buttoning his coat preparatory to making the attempt. for the first twelve or fifteen feet the trunk of the fir afforded no good hold, but jack swarmed up it, clinging to the rough bark and the stumps of a few broken branches. the spectators held their breath; but the worst was soon passed, and in a few seconds more he had gained the nest. "there's nothing in it," he cried; "but there's a jolly good view up here, and, i say, if you want a good, high dive into the river, this is the place. come on, raymond; it's worth the fag." "oh, do come down!" exclaimed helen. "it frightens me to watch you." she turned away, and began picking moon daisies, when suddenly an exclamation from valentine caused her to turn round again. "hallo! what's the matter?" jack had just begun to slip down the bare trunk, but about a quarter way down he seemed to have stuck. "my left foot's caught somehow," he said. "i can't get it free." he twitched his leg, and endeavoured to regain the lower branches, but it was no good. "oh, do come down!" cried helen, clasping her hands and turning pale. "can't any one help him?" jack struggled vainly to free his foot. "look here," he said in a calm though strained tone, "my boot-lace is loose, and has got entangled with one of these knots; one of you chaps must come up and cut it free. make haste, i can't hang on much longer." [illustration: "'make haste! i can't hang on much longer.'" (missing from book)] valentine turned to raymond. "you can climb," he said; "i can't." "i'm not going up there," answered the other doggedly, and turned on his heel. valentine wheeled round with a fierce look upon his face, threw off his coat, took out his knife, opened it, and put it between his teeth. "o val!" cried helen in a choking voice, and hid her face in her hands. only barbara had the strength of nerve to watch him do it, and could give a clear account afterwards of how her brother swarmed up the trunk, and held on with one arm while he cut the tangled lace. valentine himself knew very little of what happened until he found himself back on the grass with helen's arms round his neck. "i thought you couldn't climb," said jack, a minute later. "it's possible to do most things when it comes to a case like that," answered the other quietly. "besides, i remembered not to look down." that sort of answer didn't suit fenleigh j.; he caught hold of the speaker, and smacked him on the back. "look here, valentine, the truth is you're a jolly fine fellow, and i never knew it until this moment." the party strolled on across the field. "it's precious hot still," said raymond; "let's go and sit under that hayrick and rest." "we mustn't stay very long," helen remarked as they seated themselves with their backs against the rick. "we want to be home in time for supper." "we can stay long enough for a smoke, i suppose," said fosberton, producing a cigarette case. "have one. what! don't you chaps smoke? well," continued the speaker patronizingly, "you're quite right; it's a bad habit to get into. leave it till you've left school." "and then, when you smoke before ladies," added helen, "ask their permission first." "oh, we haven't come here to learn manners," said raymond, with a snort. "so it appears," returned the lady icily. fenleigh j., who had been smarting under that "leave it till you've left school," chuckled with delight, and began to think that he liked helen quite as much as barbara. at length, when raymond had finished his cigarette, the voyagers rose to return to the boat. jack enlivened the descent of the cliff by every dozen yards or so pretending to fall, and starting avalanches of stones and earth, which were very disconcerting to those who went before. on arriving at the shingly beach, he proposed a trial of skill at ducks and drakes, and made flat pebbles go hopping right across the river, until valentine put an end to the performance by saying it was time to embark. the girls were just stepping into the boat when helen gave an exclamation of surprise. "look!" she cried, pointing towards the top of the cliff, "where can all that smoke be coming from?" "it's a heap of rubbish burning in one of the fields," said raymond. "there's too much smoke for that," said jack. "it may be a barn or a house. wait a moment; i'll run up and see. i shan't be more than five or six minutes." he started off, jumping and scrambling up the path; but almost immediately on reaching the summit he turned and came racing down again. "what a reckless beggar he is;" said valentine. "he'll break his neck some day. well, what is it?" jack took a flying jump from the path on to the shingle. "the rick!" he cried--"the one we were sitting under--it's all in a blaze!" the boys and girls stood staring at one another with a horrified look on their faces. "you must have done it with your matches, raymond," said helen. "i didn't," returned the other. "it's the sun. come on into the boat." "you must have dropped your cigarette end," said valentine. "we ought to find the owner of the hay and say who we are." "you fool! i tell you it wasn't me," returned the other passionately. "ricks often catch fire of their own accord. i'm not going to be made pay for what isn't my fault." valentine hesitated, and shook his head. jack seemed ready to side with him; but raymond jumped into the boat and seized the oars. "look here!" he cried, "it's my boat, and i'm going. it you don't choose to come, you can stay." the two boys had no alternative but to obey their cousin's demand. jack took the second oar, while valentine steered. raymond was ready enough now for hard work, and pulled away with all his might, evidently wishing to escape as fast as possible from the neighbourhood of the burning rick. "what are you pulling so fast for?" asked jack; but "stroke" made no reply, and seemed, if anything, to increase the pace. "look out!" cried valentine, as the boat approached an awkward corner, one side of which was blocked by the branches of a big tree which had fallen into the water. "steady on, raymond!" "stroke," who did not see what was coming, and thought this was only another attempt to induce him to lessen the speed at which they were going, pulled harder than ever. valentine tugged his right-hand line crying, "steady on, i tell you!" but it was too late. there was a tremendous lurch which nearly sent every one into the river, the water poured over the gunwale, and something went with a sounding crack. raymond's oar had caught in a sunken branch and snapped off short. his face turned white with anger. "you cad!" he cried with an oath, "you made me do that on purpose." "i didn't!" answered valentine hotly; "and i should think you might know better than to begin swearing before the girls." helen looked frightened, but barbara was sinking with laughter at the sight of jack, who, on the seat behind, was silently going through the motions of punching master fosberton's head. "well, we can't go on any further," said the latter. "we must get the boat into that backwater and tie her up. though it'll be a beastly fag having to walk to grenford." dividing between them the things which had to be carried, the cousins made their way through a piece of waste ground studded with gorse-bushes, and gained the road, which ran close to the river. barbara lingered behind to pick quaker grass, but a few moments later she came racing after them and caught hold of jack's arm. "hallo!" he said, "what's up? you look scared." "so i am," she answered. "i saw a man's face looking at me. he was hiding behind the bushes." "fiddles!" answered jack. "it was only imagination. come along with me. i'll carry those plates." raymond fosberton seemed bent on making himself as disagreeable as possible. he was still in a great rage about the broken oar, and lagged behind, refusing to speak to the rest of the party. "we ought not to let him walk by himself," said helen, after they had gone about a mile; "it looks as if we wanted to quarrel." she stopped and turned round, but raymond was nowhere in sight. they waited, but still he did not appear. "he can't be far behind," said valentine. "i heard him kicking stones a moment or so ago." jack walked back to the last bend in the road and shouted, but there was no reply. "it's a rum thing," he said, as he rejoined his companions. "i wonder what has become of the beggar. i thought just then i heard him talking." the boys shouted again, and barbara drew a little closer to jack. whether the watching face was imagination or not, she had evidently been frightened. "surly brute! he has gone home by a short cut," said jack. "come along! it's no use waiting." they had not gone very far when they heard somebody running, and turning again saw their missing cousin racing round the corner. his face was pale and agitated, and it was evident that something was the matter. "hallo! where have you been?" "nowhere. i only stopped to tie my shoe-lace." "but you must have heard us calling?" "i never heard a sound," answered raymond abruptly, and so the matter ended. the four fenleighs were not at all sorry to find themselves free of their cousin's society, and bowling along behind prince in the little basket-carriage. it was still more delightful to be back once more at brenlands, and there, round the supper-table, to give queen mab an account of their adventures. "i should like to know who that man was whom i saw hiding among the bushes," said barbara. "i should like to know what raymond was up to when we missed him coming home," said valentine. "yes," added jack thoughtfully; "he was hiding away somewhere, for i could have sworn i heard his voice when i walked back to the corner." chapter vi. a keepsake. "he is my own child, and he is not so very ugly after all, if you look at him properly."--_the ugly duckling_. the holidays passed too quickly, as they always did at brenlands. jack was no longer the ugly duckling. whatever misunderstanding or lack of sympathy might have existed hitherto between himself and valentine had melted away in the sunny atmosphere of queen mab's court; and since the incident of the magpie's nest, the two boys had become fast friends. soldiering was their great mutual hobby. they constructed miniature earthworks in the garden, mounted brass cannon thereon, fired them off with real powder, and never could discover where the shots went to. they read and re-read "a voice from waterloo," the only military book they could discover in their aunt's bookcase; and on wet days the bare floor of the empty room upstairs was spread with the pomp and circumstance of war. the soldiers had a wonderful way of concealing their sufferings; they never groaned or murmured, and, shot down one day, were perfectly ready to take the field again on the next, and so when the solid lead captain or die mounted officer who took on and off his horse was "put out of mess" by a well-directed pea, the knowledge that they would reappear ready to fight again another day considerably lessened one's grief at the sight of their fall. perhaps, after all, lead is a more natural "food for powder" than flesh and blood, and so the only time tears were shed over one of these battles was one morning when barbara surreptitiously crammed two dozen peas into her mouth, fired them with one prolonged discharge into the midst of valentine's cavalry, and then fled the room, whereupon jack sat down and laughed till he cried. it would be difficult to say what it was that made queen mab's nephews and nieces like to wander out into the kitchen and stand by her side when she was making pastry or shelling peas; but they seemed to find it a very pleasant occupation, and in this, after the first week of his stay, jack was not a whit behind the others. he was sitting one morning on a corner of the table, watching with great interest his aunt's dexterous use of the rolling-pin. "well, jack," she said, looking up for a moment to straighten her back, "are you sorry i made you come to brenlands?" "no, rather not; i never enjoyed myself so much before. i should like to stay here always." "what! and never go home again?" the moment that word was mentioned he was once more fenleigh j. of the upper fourth. "home!" he said; "i hate the place. i've got no friends i care for, and the guv'nor's always complaining of something, and telling me he can't afford to waste the money he does on my education, because i don't learn anything. i do think i'm the most unlucky beggar under the sun. i've got nothing to look forward to. but i don't care. when i'm older i'll cut the whole show, and go away and enlist. any road, i won't stay longer than i can help at padbury." queen mab smiled, and went on cutting out the covering for an apple-tart. "i know you like soldiers," she said; "well, listen to this. just before the battle of waterloo, the father of sir henry lawrence was in charge of the garrison at ostend. he knew that some great action was going to take place, and wished very much to take part in it; so he wrote to wellington, reminding him that they had fought together in the peninsular war, and asking leave to pick out the best of the troops then under his command and come with them to the front. the duke sent him back this reply,--'that he remembered him well, and believed he was too good a soldier to wish for any other post than the one which was given to him.'" "you're preaching at me," said jack suspiciously; "it's altogether different in my case." "no, i'm not preaching; i'm only telling you a story. now go and find my little bar, and say i've got some bits of dough left, and if she likes she can come and make a pasty." barbara came, and jack assisted her in the manufacture of two shapeless little turn-overs, which contained an extraordinary mixture of apples, currants, sugar, and a sprinkling of cocoa put in "to see what it would taste like." but the boy's attention was not given wholly to the work, his mind was partly occupied with something else. he wandered over and stood at the opposite end of the table, watching queen mab as she put the finishing touch to her pie-crust, twisting up the edge into her own particular pattern. "i don't see why people shouldn't wish for something better when they have nothing but bad luck," he said. "i don't think people ever do have nothing but bad luck." "yes, they do, and i'm one of them. i hate people who're always preaching about being contented with one's lot." "you intend that for me, i suppose," said his aunt, slyly. "all right; if you weren't out of reach i'd shake the flour dredge over you!" "no, you know i don't mean you," said the boy, laughing. "and i have had one stroke of good luck, and that was your asking me to brenlands." he went away, and told valentine the story of colonel lawrence. "i didn't think she knew anything about soldiers." "she's a wonderful woman!" said valentine, solemnly. "she knows everything!" the following morning, as the two cousins were constructing an advanced trench in a supposed siege of the cucumber-frame, helen came out and handed her brother a letter. valentine read it, and passed id on to jack. "what d'you think of that?" he asked. the epistle was a short one, and ran as follows:-"grenford manor, "_tuesday_. "dear valentine,--i want five shillings to square the man whose hayrick we set fire to the other day. if you fellows will give one half-crown, i'll give the other. send it me by return certain, or there'll be a row.--yours truly, "raymond fosberton." "pooh! i like his cheek!" cried jack. "at the time he said it was the sun; and now he says, 'the hayrick _we_ set on fire,' when he knows perfectly well it was entirely his own doing. i should think he's rich enough to find the five shillings himself." "oh, he's always short of money, and trying to borrow from somebody," answered valentine. "the thing i don't understand is, what good five shillings can be; the man would want more than that for his hay." "i don't understand master raymond," said jack. "what shall you do?" "well, as we were all there together, i suppose we ought to try to help him out. the damage ought to be made good; i thought he would have got uncle fosberton to do that. i'll send him the money; though i should like to know how he's going to square the man with five shillings." a description of half the pleasures and merry-making that went to make up a holiday at brenlands would need a book to itself, and it would therefore be impossible for me to attempt to give an account of all that happened. the jollification was somehow very different from much of the fun which fenleigh j. had been accustomed to indulge in, in company with his associates in the upper fourth; and though it was not a whit less enjoyable, yet after it was over no one was heard to remark that they'd "had their cake, and now they must pay for it." on the last morning but one, when the boys came down to breakfast, they found queen mab making a great fuss over something that had come by post. "isn't it kind of your father?" she said. "look what he's sent me!" the present was handed round. it was a gold brooch, containing three locks of hair arranged like a prince of wales's plume, two light curls, and a dark one in the middle--valentine's, helen's, and barbara's. "he says it's to remind me of my three chicks when they are not with me at brenlands." "mine's in the middle!" cried barbara. "you ought to have some of jack's put in as well," said helen. the boy glanced across at her with a pleased expression. "oh, no," he answered, "not alongside of yours." during the remainder of the morning he seemed unusually silent, and directly after dinner he disappeared. "d'you know where jack is?" asked valentine. "no," answered helen; "he went out into the road just now, but i have not seen him since." it was a broiling day, and the children spent the greater part of the afternoon reading under the shade of some trees in the garden. they were just sitting down to tea when their cousin reappeared, covered with dust, and looking very hot and tired. he refused to say what he had been doing, and in answer to a fire of questions as to where he had been he replied evasively, "oh, only along the road for a walk." "look sharp!" said valentine, bolting his last mouthful of cake, "we're going to have one more game of croquet. come on, you girls, and help me to put up the hoops." jack, who in the course of his travels had acquired a prodigious thirst, lingered behind to drink a fourth cup of tea. "you silly boy," said his aunt, "where have you been?" "to melchester." "to melchester! you don't mean to say you've walked there and back in this blazing sun?" "yes, i have. i wanted to get something." "what?" the boy rose from his chair, and came round to the head of the table. "that's it," he said, producing a little screw of tissue paper from his pocket. "it's for you. it's only a cheap, common thing, but i hadn't any more money." the paper was unrolled, and out came a little silver locket. "i didn't want the others to see--you mustn't ever let any one know. there's a bit of my hair inside." "now, then, don't stay there guzzling tea all night!" came valentine's voice through the open window. "but, my dear boy, whatever made you spend your money in giving me such a pretty present?" "i want," answered the boy, speaking as though half ashamed of the request he was making--"i want you to wear it when you wear the brooch; stick it somewhere on your chain. i should like, don't you know, to feel i'm one of your family." "so you are," answered queen mab, kissing him. "so you are, and always will be--my own boy jack!" chapter vii. strife in the upper fourth. "'you are exceedingly ugly,' said the wild ducks."--_the ugly duckling_. school was a great change after brenlands. the rooms seemed barer, the desks more inky, and the bread and butter a good eighth of an inch thicker than they had been at the close of the previous term; but by the end of the first week our two friends had settled to work, and things were going on much the same as usual. considerable alterations had been made in the composition of the upper fourth. most of the occupants of the front row of benches had got their remove, while a number of boys from the lower division, of whom valentine was one, had come up to join mr. rowlands' class. the long dormitory was also changed, and jack now found himself in number eight, sleeping in a bed next to that of his cousin. being thus so much thrown together, both in and out of school, it was only natural that the friendship which they had formed in the holidays should be still more firmly established. only one thing acted as a drag upon it, and that was the fact of jack's still finding a strong counter-attraction in the society of garston, rosher, and teal. the quartette began the term badly by being largely responsible for a disturbance which occurred in the dining-hall, when a clockwork frog was suddenly discovered disporting itself in pilson's teacup; and it is probable that jack would have continued to distinguish himself as a black sheep, in company with his three unruly classmates, had it not been for an unforeseen occurrence which caused him to make a change in his choice of friends. as not unfrequently happens, the few original members of the upper fourth who had not been called upon to "come up higher" still clung to their old position at the bottom of the class, while the front benches were filled by their more industrious schoolfellows who had earned promotion. this state of affairs was not altogether pleasing to some of the old hands. in garston's opinion, the ideal form was one which would have no top, and where everybody would be bottom; and when the first week's "order" was read out, he remarked, concerning those new-comers who had won the posts of honour, that it was "like their blessed cheek," and that some of them wanted a licking. teal was entirely at one with his chum in this opinion, and showed his approval of the latter's sentiments by laying violent hands upon the person of hollis, the head boy, making a playful pretence of wringing his neck, and then kicking his bundle of books down a flight of stairs. hollis, a weakly, short-sighted youth, threatened to complain to mr. rowlands; which course of action, as may be supposed, did not tend to increase his popularity with his new classmates. the very next morning the dogs of war broke loose. the boys were construing the portion of virgil which had been set them overnight. garston, who came last, had floundered about for a few moments among the closing lines, giving vent to a few incoherent sputterings, and every one was impatiently awaiting the first tinkle of the bell. "yes, garston," said mr. rowlands, "that's certainly up to your usual form--quite a brilliant display; i'll give you naught. let me see: i set the lesson to the end of the page, and told you to go further if you could; has any one done any more?" "i have, sir," said hollis; "shall i go on?" the master nodded, hollis proceeded, and valentine, who stood second, also followed in turn with a continuation of the translation. he had only got through a couple of lines when the bell rang, and the class was dismissed. hardly had the door closed behind them, when rosher and teal charged along the passage and seized hold of valentine and hollis. the other boys crowded round in a circle. "look here, my good chap," said teal, "in future you'll have to drop that; d'you hear?" "drop what?" "why, doing more work than what's set." "but why shouldn't i?" said hollis. "there's no harm in it; he didn't give us any marks." "you young fool! don't you see that if you do more than what's set, he'll think we can all do the same, and make the lessons longer." "of course he will!" added several voices. "just you mind what you're up to," continued teal, "or you'll get what you won't like." "pass on there! what are you waiting for?" cried mr. rowlands, appearing in the doorway of his classroom, and the gathering dispersed. the following morning, as fate would have it, nearly the same thing happened again, only this time during the hour devoted to algebra. "has any one had time to do any of the next set of examples?" asked mr. rowlands. "if so, let him hold up his hand." only two boys held up their hands--hollis and valentine. there were murmurs of discontent at the back of the room, and several fists were shaken ominously. jack had not troubled to side with either party--it mattered very little to him whether the lessons were long or short, as he only did as much as he felt inclined--but, if anything, his sympathies lay with his less industrious comrades, who, he considered, had very good ground for feeling aggrieved with hollis and his cousin. "look here, val," he said, when they met at the close of morning school, "what d'you want to go and work so beastly hard for?" "i don't." "no, perhaps you don't, because you're clever; but you're always doing more than you're obliged to, and the other chaps don't like it, because they say it'll make rowlands set longer pieces." "oh, that's all rubbish! it's simply because they're waxy with us for getting above them in class. i don't see why i should take my orders from rosher and teal, and only do what they like; and i don't intend to either." "all right, my boy," answered jack, carelessly. "do what you like, only look out for squalls." the latter piece of advice was not at all unnecessary; for soon after this, as the giver was strolling across the gravel playground, he heard his name called, and looking round saw his cousin hurrying after him with a scrap of paper in his hand. "look," he said; "i found this in my desk just now, and there was one just like it in hollis's." jack took the paper. it was an anonymous note, printed in capitals to disguise the handwriting; and it ran as follows:-"this is to give you fair warning, that if you will persist in doing more work than what is set, you'll get a thrashing. the rest of the class don't intend to get more work on your account, and so have decided not to put up with your nonsense any longer." "it was rosher or one of those chaps wrote it," said jack. "you'd better look out; any one of them could give you a licking." "they'd have to try first," answered valentine, hotly. his cousin laughed; the reply rather tickled his fancy. those concerned had not long to wait before matters came to a head. that same afternoon mr. rowlands set a history lesson for the following day. "take the reign of elizabeth," he said. "by-the-bye, there's a genealogical tree at the end of the chapter; get that up if you can." the examination next morning was a written one, and the last question on the board was, "show, by means of a genealogical tree, the connection between the tudors and the stuarts." "please, sir," said garston, "you told us we needn't do that." "i said you were to get it up if you had time," returned the master. "haven't any of you done it?" "yes, sir," came from the front desk. "very well; let those who have learned it write it down." "val, my boy," said jack, in his happy-go-lucky style, as they met in the dormitory to change for football, "you just keep your eyes open; you're going to get licked." valentine replied with a snort of defiance, and the subject was dropped. tea was over, and in the short respite between the end of the meal and the commencement of "prep.," jack was strolling down one of the passages, when his attention was attracted by a certain small boy who stood beneath a gas-jet scanning the contents of a small book, and occasionally scribbling something on a half-sheet of exercise-book paper. suddenly the youngster flung down the book in a rage, and kicked it across the passage, whereupon jack promptly cried, "no goal!" "hallo, little garston!" he continued, "what's up with you?" "why, i've got to write out the translation of some of this caesar for old thorpe, and i can't make head or tail of the blessed stuff. i say, fenleigh, you might do a bit for me!" jack was a good-natured young vagabond. "where is it?" he said, picking up the book. "all right! here goes." garston minor slapped his piece of paper up against the wall, and wrote at his friend's dictation. the translation was not very accurate, but coming from the lips of a fellow in the upper fourth it was accepted without question by the juvenile, and in ten minutes the rough copy of the imposition was finished. "thanks awfully!" said the youngster, as he stuffed the book and paper back into his pocket. "look here, fenleigh; as you've done me a good turn, i'll let you into a secret, only you must promise not to let my brother know who told you. he and teal and rosher are going to give your cousin a licking." "how d'you know?" "i heard them talking about it. they said, 'we'll lick valentine fenleigh. if we touched hollis, he'd sneak; but it'll frighten him if we thrash the other chap.'" "when are they going to do it?" "now--some time; they said soon after tea." "where?" cried jack. "i can't tell you; they didn't say. that's all i know." jack exploded with wrath. he had talked calmly enough to valentine about his getting licked, and was inclined to think he deserved it; but now that it had come to the point, he found that the idea of his cousin being thrashed was not at all to his liking. even at that very moment the outrage might be taking place. the victim was not equal to any one of his three assailants, and stood much less chance of escaping from their combined attack. fenleigh j. rushed off down the passage on a wild-goose chase after his chum, but nowhere was the latter to be found. as a last resource, he ran into the schoolroom. valentine's seat was empty, but a boy sat reading at the next desk but one. "have you seen my cousin?" "yes, he was here a minute ago." "where's he gone?" "bother you!--let's see--oh, i know; some one came in to say darlton wanted him in the little music-room." "darlton never gives lessons after tea. phew! i see what's up!" the boy looked up from his reading with a grunt of astonishment as his questioner turned sharply on his heel and dashed out of the room. jack had his faults, but he was loyal-hearted enough to remember those who had at any time proved themselves to be his friends, and not to leave them in the lurch when an opportunity offered for rendering them some assistance. he was a strong boy, but the back desk trio were also good-sized fellows for their age. had it, however, been the whole of the sixth form who were licking valentine, jack in his present state of mind would have charged in among them and attempted a rescue. "it's clear enough," he muttered to himself, as he turned off down a short, narrow passage; "that message was a trap to catch him alone. but wait a minute, and i'll surprise the beggars." he paused outside a door, and hearing voices within tried the handle. it was locked. "hallo! who's there? you can't come in." jack was too wary to make any reply. he glanced round rapidly, endeavouring to concoct some plan for gaining an entrance. stooping down, he discovered that the key was turned so that it remained exactly in the centre of the keyhole, anything pushed against it would send it out on the other side. "i believe that bathroom key fits this door," he muttered, and tiptoed a little further along the passage. in another moment he was back again, and thrusting the key suddenly into the lock he turned it, and forced open the door. the room was a small chamber set apart for music practice, the only furniture it contained being a piano, a chair, some fiddle-cases, and music-stands, while on the mantelpiece, in the place of a clock, was a metronome that had something wrong with the works. jack, however, had no eye for these details; his attention was centred in a group of boys who were struggling under the single gas-jet, which was flaring away in a manner which showed it had evidently been turned up in a hurry. "here, leave that chap alone!" he exclaimed, plunging into the centre of the scrimmage. "let him alone, i say!" "hallo! it's fenleigh j.," cried garston. "you've just come in time to help us to teach this cousin of yours a lesson on the subject of not overworking himself." "leave him alone!" repeated jack angrily, giving rosher a push which sent him staggering back into the fireplace, where he knocked over the metronome, which fell with a crash on the fender. "don't be a fool, fenleigh," cried teal. "we're going to teach this chap a lesson. if you don't want to help, you can clear out." "i shall do nothing of the sort," returned the other. "you let him alone." both parties were too much in earnest to waste their breath in talking, and the next moment garston and rosher sprang on the intruder and endeavoured to force him out of the room. valentine, being unable to free himself from the muscular grasp of teal, could render no assistance; but his cousin, whose blood was fairly up, struggled furiously with his two assailants. round the room they went, like a circular storm, wrecking everything they came in contact with; music-stands went over with an appalling clatter, while the back of the solitary chair gave way with a crash as the three combatants fell against it. suddenly a sharp voice sounded down the passage,-"now then, there! what's all that noise about?" teal released his hold of valentine, and springing to the gas-jet turned out the light. "_cave_!" he whispered: "it's old thorpe!" it was impossible to continue the struggle in the darkness, and the tumult ceased. "he's gone into copland's classroom," continued teal. "quick! let's hook it before he comes back!" a rush was made for the door. "all right, fenleigh; don't you think you're going to be friends with us any more." "i've no wish to be," answered jack. "if you want to finish this out any time, i shall be quite ready for you!" "it was jolly good of you to stick up for me like that," said valentine, as the two cousins hurried off towards the schoolroom. "i should have been a mean cad if i hadn't," returned the other, laughing. "you don't think i've forgotten that affair of the magpie's nest, do you? i don't care a straw for any of those fellows, and it they want to fight, i'll take them on any day; but they'll have to lick me first before they talk about thrashing you." in course of time the dispute between the two extremes of the upper fourth died a natural death. mr. rowlands did not increase the length of the "prep." lessons, and peace was restored. garston and his two companions, however, did not forgive jack for his interference with their plans. regarding him, perhaps, as rather a hard nut to crack, they made no attempt to renew the combat, but evidently decided to cut him off from any future enjoyment of their society or friendship. jack, on his part, did not seem to take this loss very much to heart; it only induced him to become more chummy with valentine, and, judging from the comparatively few times that his name was down for punishment, this change of associates seemed to be decidedly to his advantage. as the autumn advanced, and wet days became more frequent, the two boys took to doing fretwork in their spare time; and having purchased a rather large and complicated design for a kind of bracket bookcase, they conceived the happy notion of making it as a christmas present for queen mab, and so worked away together, taking an immense amount of interest in their task. before the term ended a rather curious incident happened, insignificant in itself, but worthy of being recorded as bearing on more important events to be dwelt on at a later period in our story. it wanted about three weeks to the holidays, and jack and valentine were returning from the ironmonger's, where they had been purchasing some sandpaper wherewith to put the finishing touches to their work. "i wish it was midsummer instead of christmas," the former was saying. "i don't want to go home. i'd much rather go to stay with aunt mab at brenlands." valentine was about to reply, when both boys were surprised by a shabby-looking man suddenly crossing from the other side of the street and taking up his stand directly in their path. the stranger wore a battered brown hat, no necktie, and a suit of clothes which he might have stolen from some scarecrow. "'afternoon, young gents!" he said. "good afternoon," answered jack shortly, stepping out into the road. the stranger turned and walked at their side. "you may not remember me, gents, but i'm ned hanks." "i don't care who you are," answered valentine; "i don't know you." "oh, but i know you, sir; it's mr. fenleigh i'm a-talking to. i thought, perhaps, you might like to stand me a drink." "i say, just be off," cried jack sharply, "here's old westford coming." the man fell back, and a moment later the two boys raised their caps to the headmaster. mr. westford acknowledged their salutation with a cold stare, which clearly showed that he had seen their late companion, and was wondering what business two of his pupils had to be talking with such a vagabond. "i wonder who that fellow was!" said jack. "oh, some tramp. i never saw him before." "but he knew your name." "well, these beggars are up to all kinds of dodges," answered valentine. "if we'd waited long enough, i daresay he'd have told me the names of all the family!" chapter viii. a banquet at "duster's." "it must have been the fault of the black goblin who lived in the snuff-box."--_the brave tin soldier_. at easter, jack and valentine got their remove into the fifth, and there became acquainted with a young gentleman who rejoiced in the name of tinkleby. tinkleby was a comical-looking fellow of medium height; he wore nippers, and had a perpetual smirk on his lips. "hallo, you two fenleighs!" he said, coming up to them on the second morning of the term; "i suppose you'll join our society." "what society?" asked jack. "the fifth form literary society." "what's it for?" asked valentine. "we're neither of us very literary." "well, to tell you the truth, the society isn't either. it's kept up for the sake of having a feed at the end of every summer term." "what?" cried jack, laughing. "if you'll listen a moment," said tinkleby glibly, "i'll explain the whole matter in two words. "the fellows in the fifth used to run a manuscript magazine. aston was the first editor, and he called it the 'portfolio,' because it was bound up in the case of an old blotter that he bagged out of the reading-room. the chaps who contributed papers called themselves the fifth form literary society, and elected a secretary, treasurer, and president. aston was so pleased with one of the numbers that he sent it to _the melchester herald_ to be reviewed; but after waiting about six months for a notice to appear, he went down to the office, and the editor said that the manuscript was lost, and that aston ought to have enclosed stamps if he wanted it returned. godson, one of the prefects, said he saw a bit at snell's the fish-shop, where they were using it to wrap up screws of shrimps; but that was all rot, and he only said it because the fellows in the sixth were jealous. well, then, it was suggested that the magazine should be printed, and the members subscribed towards bringing out the first number; but after they'd raked in all the money they could get, they found there wasn't enough for the purpose, so they decided to spend what they'd got in having a feed at 'duster's,' and it was agreed it should be an annual affair. "when i was made president i brought out two numbers of the 'portfolio,' but in the second i wrote rather a smart thing on old ward, and called it 'the career of a class master.' it was really so good i thought he'd enjoy reading it, and so i got another fellow to show it him; but he didn't properly appreciate it, and cut up rough. he said he would overlook the personal allusions, but he really couldn't allow any fellow in his form to be so backward in spelling, and therefore i must borrow a spelling-book from one of the kids, and learn two pages a day until i improved. he used to hear me before we began first lessons. it was rather rough on the president of a literary society, making him stand up every morning and reel off two pages of 'butter's spelling-book.' and that squashed the 'portfolio;' fellows wouldn't send in any more papers, for fear they should be hauled up in the same manner. "but they went on subscribing for the feed," continued tinkleby, brightening up. "we didn't let that fall through. it comes off on the breaking-up day, after the old boys' match. the sixth are always invited in to have supper with the swells; but i know a lot or them would much rather be with us having a blow-out at 'duster's.' well, that's the meaning of our literary society; the subscription is only two-pence a week, so you'd better join." the two cousins promised they would do so. every monday morning, in the classroom, tinkleby passed round an old missionary box, crying, "now then! pay up, you beggars. no broken glass or brace buttons!" it was always a race to get the collection over by the time mr. ward entered the room; but the sprightly tinkleby, who seemed to have undertaken the combined duties of president, secretary, and treasurer, hurried through it somehow; and each week the box grew heavier, and the hearts of the contributors lighter as they looked forward to the time when they should sit down to the long-expected banquet. the term passed very pleasantly for jack and valentine; and what between cricket, bathing, and the prospect of spending the coming holiday at brenlands, they had good reason for feeling contented and happy. only one thing happened to disturb their peace of mind, and that an incident of rather a curious nature. they were strolling back to the school one afternoon, and had got within twenty yards of the main entrance, when some one hurrying along behind them touched jack on the shoulder, and looking round they found themselves once more confronted by the same shabby-looking man who had accosted them on a previous occasion. "beg pardon, mr. fenleigh," he began. "i'm ned hanks; you'll remember, sir. maybe you've got a copper or two you can spare a poor fellow who's out of work." "i've got no money to give away to beggars," said jack; "and i tell you once more we don't know you." "that's rather ungrateful, i calls it," answered the man. "i did you two gents a good turn last year, and got precious little for it. i might have made more out of the other party." by this time they had reached the school-gates. "look here," broke in valentine, "don't you bother us any more, or we'll put a policeman on your track. i don't understand a word of what you've been saying, and--" "stop, stop, fenleigh!" interrupted a deep voice. "what's the meaning of this, pray?" the two boys looked up and found they were standing in the presence of the headmaster. "what's the meaning of this?" he repeated. "who is this man you're talking to?" there was a moment's silence, during which the seedy stranger slunk away, and disappeared round the corner. "i ask who is this man you are speaking to?" "i don't know, sir," answered valentine. "nonsense!" retorted mr. westford sharply. "i saw you two boys holding a conversation with him once before. you must know who he is; answer my question immediately." "he told us his name was hanks," said jack; "but we don't know him. he came up and spoke to us of his own accord." "and, pray, what did he want to speak to you about?" "i don't know, sir," answered valentine--"that is--he wanted to beg some money." "i don't understand your answer, fenleigh," replied mr. westford. "i fear you are not telling me the truth--or, at all events, you are trying to keep something back which ought to come to my knowledge. there must be some reason for my having twice found you in conversation with that disreputable-looking fellow. both of you will not go outside the school premises for a fortnight without special permission." jack stormed and raved, and threatened what he would do if they should encounter the tramp again; but of the two, valentine felt the punishment far more acutely than his cousin. he was not accustomed to rows; and for a boy with his naturally high sense of honour, the mere thought that the headmaster suspected him of telling a falsehood was ten times worse than the fact of being "gated." the term ran on, and at length the last day arrived; a day of perfect happiness, with no more work, and a letter by the first post from queen mab, saying that the pony-carriage would meet the train as usual at hornalby station. the prize-giving, with the mayor of melchester in the chair, and augustus powler, esq., m.p., and other grandees, upon the platform, was a very serious and formal business; the past and present match, in which preston, the coming man in bowling, took seven wickets, and dear old clayton, a bygone captain, lifted a ball over the roof of the pavilion, was certainly more interesting; but, at all events, in the opinion of all those concerned, the chief event of the day was the annual supper of the fifth form literary society. "come along," cried tinkleby, as the cheers which greeted a win for the present were gradually dying away--"come along. i told duster to have the grub ready at half-past five sharp, and it's a quarter to six." "shan't we get into a row for cutting tea?" asked jack. "no fear," answered the other. "old ward knows where we're going; and it's all right as long as we get back before lock-up." the confectioner's shop patronized by the melchester boys was situated in a quiet street some five minutes' walk from the school-gates. why the proprietor's name should have been changed from downing to "duster" it would be difficult to say; but as long as his customers came furnished with ready money and good appetites, the probability is that the former would have been quite content to serve them under any nickname which they chose to invent. at the back of "duster's" establishment was a little square parlour, where boys repaired to eat ices and drink alarming quantities of duster's famous home-made ginger-beer--a high explosive, which always sent the cork out with a bang, and to drink two bottles of which straight off would have been a risky business for any boy to attempt without first testing the staying power of his waistcoat-buttons, and putting several bags of sand in his jacket-pockets. in this parlour it was that the literary society assembled for their banquet; as many as could find room squeezing themselves on to the two short forms on either side of the table, and the remainder camping out wherever they could find room on the chairs, window-ledge, and a small sofa. at the close of a summer day the place was decidedly hot and stuffy, and the first thing everybody did was to pull off their coats and blazers and appear in their shirt-sleeves. tinkleby, as president, took the post of honour at the head of the table, and hammering the festive board with his fist, called on "duster" to "bring in the grub and something to drink." to describe the banquet itself would need an abler pen than mine. the sausages were browned to perfection, the ices were pinker than a maiden's cheek, and the ginger-beer was stronger and more filling at the price than it had ever been before, and made those who drank it gasp for breath and feel as though they had swallowed a cyclone. james, surnamed "guzzling jimmy," distinguished himself by finishing up with ices, and then beginning all over again with cold ham and pickles; but at length, when even he had finished, there was a general hammering of the table, and a call for "speeches." "well, fire away," said the president. "who's going to start?" "i will," cried a boy named dorris. "gentlemen, i beg to propose a toast--success to the fifth form literary society, and with it i couple the name of our worthy president, mr. tinkleby; may he live long and be happy!" this sentiment, though not very original, was received with great enthusiasm, the company showing their approval of it by administering to themselves fresh doses of "duster's" liquid explosive. the president, rising slowly to his feet, sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and expanding that portion of his body which contained his supper, in imitation of the movements of augustus powler, esq., m.p., cleared his throat, and began in pompous tones: "mr. mayor, ladies and gentlemen, i cannot well express to you the delight with which i stand here to fulfil the pleasing duties which you have so kindly called upon me to perform. when i look round on the bright, young faces before me--" the speaker paused to dodge a shower of crusts, corks, and other missiles; the owners of the "bright, young faces" evidently resented this personal allusion. "shut up, tinky!" cried several voices. "talk sense, can't you?" the president smiled, and readjusted his nippers. "i was about to remark," he continued in his natural tone, and with his accustomed fluency of speech, "i was about to remark that i thank you very much for having drunk my health. you were good enough to couple my name with that of our society. gentlemen, i am convinced that the fifth form literary society has a great future before it. (laughter.) i look forward to the time when we shall not grub here at 'duster's,' but dine together in premises of our own. our friend mr. james has a nice little plot of ground in a soap-box, where he now grows mustard-and-cress, but which i have no doubt he would let to us on reasonable terms for building purposes. but, perhaps, i am looking a little too far ahead. as regards our immediate future, i intend making a determined effort to publish another number of the 'portfolio.' (cheers.) mr. ward has intimated his willingness to contribute a large number of latin lines written by members of his class; while mr. sam jones, the boot-cleaner, has offered to place his talented brush at our disposal, and produce a grand new-year's illustrated supplement, entitled, 'christmas in the coal-hole.' gentlemen, i fear i am trespassing on your time and good nature. mr. james, i see, is anxious to drink another toast. once more i thank you for having drunk my health, and would now call upon you to drink that of mr. preston, who distinguished himself this afternoon by taking no less than seven of the old boys' wickets." great applause greeted the finish of the president's speech, and preston's health was drunk amid a scene of the wildest enthusiasm. cries of "on your pins, preston!"--"well bowled, sir!"--"order!"--"speak up!" etc., rent the air; while the pounding of fists and drumming of feet were continued until a game leg of one of the forms suddenly gave way, causing a temporary disappearance of half the company beneath the table. preston might have been able to howl, but he certainly could not talk, and it was hard for him to follow such a glib speaker as the president. however, the fact remained that he had distinguished himself, and brought honour to the fifth form in general by taking seven wickets; and for this reason his comrades would have been content had he merely stood up and reeled off the list of prepositions which govern the accusative, or quoted selections from the multiplication table. as it was, they awarded him a cordial reception, and filled up the pauses in his disjointed utterances with tumultuous applause. "i'm much obliged to you fellows for drinking my health," began the bowler. "it's jolly good of you, and--all that sort of thing. (cheers.) i did manage to bag seven wickets." (renewed applause, interrupted by a warning shout of "look out! this form's going again!") "i was going to say," continued the speaker, attempting to hide his embarrassment by pretending to drink out of an empty glass, "that it was rather a fluke--" (shouts of "no! no!" "more pop for the gentleman!" and fresh outbursts of cheering.) "well, i did the best i could, and--well--glad you're pleased, and all that sort of thing. (alarums and excursions.) i suppose i ought to say something about this society, but, as regards that matter, the former speaker has rather taken the sails out of my wind. (cheers and laughter.) no, i should say the _whales_ out of my- (yells of laughter.) any way," concluded preston, shouting to be heard above the general uproar, "i'm much obliged to you, and--all that sort of thing--" it was not until several ginger-beer bottles had rolled off the table, and the rickety form had once more gone down with every soul on board, that a sufficient amount of order was restored to enable the president to call on somebody for a song. "sing yourself, tinkleby," was the answer. "give us 'little brown jug.'" the president complied with the request. mead, a musical companion, ground out an unearthly accompaniment on "duster's" little, broken-winded harmonium; and the company shrieked the chorus, regardless of time, tune, or anything but the earnest desire of each individual to make more noise than any one else. when this deafening uproar had at length subsided, everybody was forced to remain quiet for a few moments to regain their breath. "now, then," said tinkleby, "who's next? what's that? all right. bos. jones says he will give us a recitation." the announcement was received with a groan. mr. boswell-jones was rather a pompous young gentleman, who expended most of his energies trying to live up to his double surname, and in consequence was not very popular with his schoolfellows. he rather fancied himself as an elocutionist; and though he might have seen "rocks ahead" in the manner in which the audience received the president's announcement, boswell-jones had sufficient confidence in his own powers to be blind to any lack of appreciation on the part of other people. he stood up and adjusted his necktie, cleared his throat, and began,- "i remembah, i remembah, the house where i was bawn, ("euh! re--ah--lly!" murmured the listeners.) the leetle window where the sun came peeping in at mawn." "whose little son?" interrupted dorris. "shut up!" cried the president. "well, i only wanted to know," said dorris in an injured tone. "i should call it jolly good cheek of anybody's son to come peeping in through my bedroom window--" "shut _up_!" exclaimed tinkleby. "go on, bos." "he never came a wink too soon, nor brought too long a day; but now"-continued the reciter with a great amount of pathos, --"i often wish the night had bawn my breath away!" "so do i," mumbled paterson. "let's have another song." "i remembah, i remembah, the roses, red and white--" "go on, bossy," ejaculated the irrepressible dorris; "you don't remember it at all, you're simply making it up as you go along." a general disturbance followed this last interruption--the audience laughed, the president vainly endeavoured to restore order, and boswell-jones sat down in a rage, and refused to continue his oration. "a song, a song!" cried several voices. "jack fenleigh, you know something; come on, let's have it." jack had a good voice, and with mead extracting fearful groans and growls out of the harmonium, he started off on the first verse of "the mermaid," a song which he was destined in after years to sing under strangely different circumstances:- "oh, 'twas in the broad atlantic, 'mid the equinoctial gales, that a gay young tar fell overboard, among the sharks and whales; and down he went like a streak of light, so quickly down went he, until he came to a mermaid at the bottom of the deep blue sea." then the audience took up the chorus, and yelled,- "rule, britannia! bri--tann--ia rules the waves! and bri--tons never, never, ne--ver shall be mar--ri--ed to a mer--mai--ed at the bottom of the deep blue sea!" the song was received with great enthusiasm, and the performers might have been kept repeating the last chorus until break of day on the following morning, it tinkleby had not suddenly jumped up, crying, "i say, you chaps, it's five-and-twenty past seven. we shall be late for lock-up." every one sprang to his feet. dorris was the first to reach the door, and being of a playful disposition caught up a bundle of coats and blazers and bolted with them under his arm. a moment later certain of the peaceful citizens of melchester were astonished at the sight of a dozen or more young gentlemen tearing madly down the street in their shirt-sleeves. and so ended the third annual supper of the fifth form literary society. chapter ix. "guard turn out!" "he felt for them as he had never felt for any other bird in the world. he was not envious ... but wished to be as lovely as they."--_the ugly duckling_. "it is jolly to be here at brenlands again," said jack, as he sat dangling his legs from the kitchen table, and munching one of the sweet pods of the peas which his aunt was shelling. "i've been looking forward to it ever since last summer." "yes, and a pretty fuss i had to get you to accept my first invitation," answered queen mab; "i thought you were never going to condescend to favour us with your company. however, i've got you all here again, and it _is_ jolly; and what's more, you managed to turn up at the proper time yesterday instead of coming half a day late, as you did last year, you rascal!" the boy laughed. "oh, well! you may put that down to val," he answered. "he's quite taken me in hand lately, and has been in an awful funk for fear i should get into another row just before the holidays. you know those penny toys you get with a little thing like a pair of bellows under them that squeaks--well, i got a bird the other day and pulled off the stand, and stuck it in my shoe so that i could make a noise with it when i walked. whenever i moved about in class, old ward used to beseech me with tears in his eyes to wear another pair of boots. i used to come squeaking into assemblies a bit late on purpose, and send all the fellows into fits. it was a fearful joke; but poor old val got quite huffy about it, and kept saying i should be found out, and that there was no sense in my 'monkey tricks,' as he called them." "so they are," answered queen mab, smiling in spite of herself. "i should have thought you were old enough to find some more sensible amusement than putting pieces of penny toys in your boots. you may laugh at valentine if you like, but i can tell you this, he's very fond of you, and that's the reason why he doesn't like to see you in trouble." "i know he is," returned the boy briskly. "he's a brick; and i like him better than any other chap in the school." queen mab went on shelling her peas, and jack remained perched on the end of the table, quite content to continue watching her nimble fingers and sweet, restful face. it certainly was jolly to be back again at brenlands. he was no longer the ugly duckling; helen and barbara were like sisters, and he got on with them swimmingly; all kinds of splendid projects were on the carpet, and there were plenty of long summer days to look forward to in which to carry them out. to be a careless dog of a schoolboy, ready for anything in the way of larks and excitement, and paying precious little attention to one's books or conduct record, might be a fascinating sort of existence; yet somehow it was not altogether unpleasant, once in a way, to become for a time a member of a more civilized and refined society, where gentler treatment encouraged gentler manners, where hearts were thought of as well as heads, where there was no black list, and where no one would have made a boast of being on it, had such a thing existed. this year the mimic war operations were of a more advanced kind than had ever been attempted before. a fortress built of clay and pebbles was mined and blown up; and there still being some powder left, jack successfully performed the feat of blowing himself up, and in doing so sustained the loss of an eyebrow. in order that this catastrophe should not alarm queen mab, the missing hair was replaced by burnt cork; but jack, forgetting what had happened, sponged his face and rushed down to tea, where barbara, after regarding him for a few moments in silence, leaned across the table and remarked, with a wise shake of her head, "yes, i see--you've been shaving." but what proved a source of endless delight to the two boys was an old, military bell-tent which queen mab had bought for their special use and amusement. they pitched it on a corner of the lawn, and were always repairing thither to read, and talk, and hold councils of war. it was delightful to speculate as to what doughty warriors might have been sheltered beneath it; and to imagine that sundry small rents and patches must be the result of the enemy's fire, and not due to the wear and tear of ordinary encampments. not satisfied with living in it by day, they determined to pass a night there also, and would not rest content until their aunt had given them permission to try the experiment. "all we want," said valentine, "is a mackintosh to spread on the ground, and a few rugs and sofa cushions, and a candle and a box of matches." "very well, you can have plenty of those," answered queen mab; "perhaps some day you won't be so well off, valentine." she spoke lightly enough, and with no foreshadowing of a visionary picture, often to haunt her mind in the days to come, of men lying silently under a clear, starlit sky, with belts on, rifles by their sides, and bayonets ready fixed. the two boys prepared to put their project into immediate execution; and in connection with this their first but by no means last experience of a night under canvas, they were destined to fall in with a little adventure which must be recorded. shortly before the commencement of the holidays a lot of strawberries had been stolen from the garden, and queen mab feared lest a similar fate should overtake a fine show of pears which were just getting ripe. "well, good-night," she said, as she prepared to close the door on the two adventurers; "if you're cold, and want to come in, throw some pebbles up at my window." "oh, we shan't want to come in," answered jack stoutly. "if you hear any one coming to steal the fruit, you shout, 'guard turn out!' and we'll nab 'em." the boys settled down like old campaigners. "awful joke, isn't it?" said jack. "yes, prime!" answered valentine; "soldiering must be jolly." half an hour passed. "i say," murmured valentine, "this ground seems precious hard!" "yes," answered his companion. "i've tried lying on it every way, and i believe my bones are coming through my skin." a long pause, and then, "i say, don't you think it's nearly morning?" "oh, no! the church clock has only just struck one." the darkness seemed to lengthen out into that of a polar winter instead of a single night. at length the canvas walls began to grow grey with dawn, and jack awoke with a shiver, wondering whether he had really been asleep or not. "it's beastly cold," he muttered. "yes," answered valentine. "i thought it was never going to get light. look here, i'm determined i _will_ sleep! what's the good of my being a soldier if i can't sleep in a tent?" he turned over on his face, and had just dropped off into a doze, when he was awakened by jack, who had reached over and was shaking his arm. "i say--val--who was that?" "who's what?" was the drowsy answer. "why! didn't you hear? some one just walked down the path. it can't be jakes; it isn't five o'clock." valentine rubbed his eyes, thought for a moment, and then suddenly sat up broad awake. "the pears!" he whispered. both boys sprang up, unlaced the door of the tent, and sallied forth in the direction of the fruit garden. "don't make a row; walk on the grass border. hist! there he is!" there he was, sure enough; a boy about their own age, calmly picking pears and dropping them into a basket. jack and valentine slowly crept down by the side of the raspberry bushes, like indians on a war-trail. "now then!" murmured the former, "charge!" the thief jumped as if a gun had been fired off behind him, and started to run, but before he could reach the path he was fairly collared. he struggled violently, and then commenced to kick, whereupon his arm was suddenly twisted behind his back, a style of putting on the curb-rein with which fractious small boys will be well acquainted. "woa! steady now, 'oss!" said jack facetiously. "keep your feet quiet, or i shall put the screw on a bit tighter. now then, what shall we do with him?" "put him into the tool shed," answered valentine. the culprit, finding himself fairly mastered, became more docile. his captors, however, turned a deaf ear to his pleadings to be let go; and thrusting him into the little outhouse, turned the key in the lock, and then began to wonder what they should do next. "well," said jack, "we've got a prisoner of war now, and no mistake. what shall we do with the beggar? go for a policeman?" "no, we don't want to get the chap sent to prison." "if we tell aunt mab she'll let him go, and he ought to be punished." "of course he does--young villain! it's like his cheek coming here and bagging all the fruit." "i have it!" said jack, suddenly struck with a bright idea. "we'll lick him!" valentine hesitated. "i don't like setting on a chap two against one," he answered. "i don't mind a stand-up fight." "well, that's what i mean," answered jack joyously. "look here!" he continued, hammering on the door of the shed--"look here, you inside there! i'm going to punch your head for stealing those pears. if you like to come out i'll fight you, and then you can go; if not, you can stay where you are. will you come?" "yes," answered the prisoner sullenly. twenty years ago a fight was not quite such a rare occurrence at melchester school as it would be to-day. jack threw off his coat with alacrity. "now, val, you watch; and if the beggar tries to bolt, you leg him down." with a dogged look the stranger took up his ground, and on the signal being given for the commencement of hostilities, lowered his head, and made a wild rush at his antagonist. the latter stepped aside, and greeted him with a smart cuff on the side of the head. once more the visitor came on like a runaway windmill, but this time jack walked backward and refused the encounter. "oh, look here," he cried, in an injured tone, "can't you do any better than that? can't you stand up and hit straight? don't you know how to box?" "no." "well, what's the good of saying you'll come out and fight? what's your name?" "joe crouch." "well then, joseph, you'd better take your hook. there's your old basket, only just leave those pears behind; and don't come here again, or we'll set the bobby on your track." crouch marched off, evidently astonished at finding himself at liberty to depart. when he reached the gate, he turned, and touched his cap. "morning, gen'lemen," he said, and so disappeared. valentine laughed, and regarded his cousin with a queer look in his face. "you are a rum fellow, jack; you're always wanting to fight somebody. when you get two fellows against you like garston and rosher, you go at it like a tiger; and then another time, just because you get hold of a chap who can't knock you down, you back out and make peace." "well," answered the other, "there's no sport in licking a chap like that. i'll tell you what, i'm frightfully hungry." the two adventurers had plenty to tell at breakfast that morning, and the interest in their capture lasted throughout the day. in the evening the young folks went out a favourite walk through the lanes and fields. valentine and barbara were running races on the way home; but jack lingered behind with helen, who was gathering ferns. "let me carry your basket," he said. "oh, don't you trouble; you'd rather run on with val and barbara." "i expect you don't want me. i know you think i've got no manners, and in that you're about right." "no, i don't think anything of the kind," said helen, laughing. "i shall be very glad if you will carry the basket, because i want to talk to you." "now for a lecture," said jack to himself.--"all right, fire away!" "well," began the girl, looking round at him with a twinkle in her eye, "i want to know why you didn't set val on to fight that boy this morning, instead of offering to do it yourself." "oh, i don't know! it was my own idea; besides, i'm bigger and stronger." "you mean you did it so that val shouldn't get hurt, in the same way that you grappled with those three fellows who were ill-treating him at school." "pooh! he didn't tell you that, did he? he always lets you know all the bothers i get into. you'll think i do nothing but fight and kick up rows; and," added the speaker, with a pathetic look of injured innocence, "i've been behaving jolly well lately." "i think you're a dear, good fellow for defending val," said helen warmly, "and i've been wanting to thank you ever since." "it was nothing. 'twasn't half as much as he did for me when he climbed that tree and freed my bootlace. i wish he wouldn't go telling you everything that happens at school." "you were saying a day or so ago," said the girl, slyly, "that you didn't care for anybody, or for what people thought of you." "yes, i do," answered the ugly duckling; "i care a lot what you folks think of me at brenlands." "why?" "why, because you're all better than i am, and yet you never try to make me feel it; but i do all the same. and i love you three and queen mab; and i love the place; and i should like to live here always. but outside of that," he added quickly, "i don't care a button for anything." "i wish you wouldn't talk like that." "but it's a fact." "you mean," she answered gently, "that you've said it so often that at last you're beginning to believe it's true." a few mornings later, when the boys came down to breakfast, they were surprised, on looking out of the window, to see no less a personage than joe crouch weeding the garden path. "i found he was out of work, and his parents wretchedly poor," said queen mab; "so i said he might come and help jakes by doing a few odd jobs. you know the old maxim," she added, smiling--"the beet way to subdue an enemy is to turn him into a friend." the two boys took considerable interest in crouch, regarding him as their own particular protã©gã©. joe, for his part, seemed to remember their early morning encounter with gratitude, as having been the means of landing him in his present situation. he had apparently a great amount of respect for jack, and seeing the latter cutting sticks with a blunt knife, asked leave to take it home with him, and brought it back next day with the blades shining like silver, and as sharp as razors. one afternoon, when the boys were lying reading in the tent, barbara suddenly appeared in the open doorway, and stamping her foot, cried, "_bother_!" "what's up with you, bar?" "why, that wretched raymond fosberton is in the house talking to aunt mab. he's walked over from grenford; and he is going to stay the night." valentine groaned, and jack administered a kick to an unoffending camp-stool. "what does he want to come here for, i wonder?" continued barbara. "silly monkey! you should just see him in his white waistcoat and shiny boots--faugh!" and she choked with wrath. raymond's presence certainly did not contribute very much to the happiness of the party. he monopolized the conversation at tea-time, was very high and mighty in his manner, and patronized everybody in turn. he lost his temper playing croquet, and broke one of the mallets; and later on in the evening he cheated at "word-making," and because he failed to win, pronounced it a "stupid game, only fit for kids." in barbara, however, he found his match. she cared not two straws for all the fosbertons alive or dead; and when the visitor, who had been teasing her for some time, went so far as to pull her hair, she promptly dealt him a vigorous box on the ear, a proceeding which so delighted the warlike jack that he chuckled till bed-time. every one felt relieved when it came to tea-time on the following day. raymond had announced his intention of walking home in the cool of the evening, and queen mab proposed that his cousins should accompany him part of the way. they had walked about a mile, jack and helen being a little in advance of the others, when the girl caught hold of her cousin's arm. "oh, look!" she said, "there's a man coming who's drunk." "never mind," answered jack stoutly; "he won't interfere with us." the man, who had reeled into the hedge, suddenly staggered back into the middle of the road, and stood there barring the way. "'ello! misser fenleigh," he began, "'ow're you to-night, sir?" jack stared at the speaker in astonishment, and then recognized him as the same man who had spoken to them in melchester. "look here!" he said hotly. "i've told you twice i don't know you. you just stand clear and let us pass." by this time the remainder of the party had come up. "why, 'ere's misser fosbe'ton," continued the man, with a tipsy leer. "now i jus' ask you, sir, if these two gen'lemen don't owe me some money for a drink." raymond's face flushed crimson, and then turned white. "you've had too much already, hanks," he said sharply; "just shut up, and stand out of the road." "oh, no offence!" muttered the man, staggering aside to let the cousins pass; "'nother time'll do jus' the same." "look here, raymond, who is that fellow?" asked valentine, as soon as they had got out of earshot of the stranger, "twice he's come up to us in the street at melchester, saying he knows us, and wanting money; and the last time, old westford saw us talking to him, and we got into a beastly row, and were gated for a fortnight. who is he?" "oh, he's a lazy blackguard called ned hanks; he's always poaching and getting drunk. he never does any work, except now and then he collects rags and bones, and sells them in melchester." "how does he know you?" "he lives close to grenford, and every one knows me there." "but how does he know _us_?" "i can't say. haven't you ever seen him at brenlands?" "no, never." "well, i suppose he must have found out your name somehow; and he's always cadging for money for a drink. don't you trouble to come any further. by-the-bye, next year i'm going to set up in diggings at melchester. i shall be articled to a solicitor there; and if you fellows are still at the school, we might go out together." "confound that man!" said jack, on the following morning; "i should like to find out who he is, and why he always speaks to us. i wonder if crouch knows anything about him." joe crouch was questioned, and admitted that he knew the man hanks well by sight, and had sometimes spoken to him. jack explained the reason of his inquiry. "the fellow's got us into one row already. why should he always be bothering us for money?" joe crouch stood thoughtfully scratching his head for a moment with the point of the grass clippers. "i dunno, sir," he answered; "but maybe i might find out." chapter x. "storms in a tea-cup." "'are you not in a warm room, and in society from which you may learn something? but you are a chatterer, and your company is not very agreeable.'"--_the ugly duckling_. at the commencement of the winter term, in addition to being in the same class and dormitory, the two cousins were thrown still more together by occupying adjoining desks in the big schoolroom. "now i shall be able to keep an eye on you," said valentine, "and see that you do some work." "shall you?" "yes; helen gave me special instructions that i was to make you behave yourself. this is my last year; and the guv'nor says if i do well i shall go on then to an army coach to work up for sandhurst." "well, i suppose i must behave myself, if it's helen's orders," said jack, laughing. "i wish i knew what i was going to do when i leave this place. i only wish i was going into the army like you. some fine day i think i shall enlist." "oh, no, you wouldn't. what d'you think queen mab would say when she heard about it?" "but she wouldn't hear about it," returned the other, with a touch of his restless discontent. "no one would hear about it. i should call myself jones, or something of that sort. it would be a happier life than that i live at home; and what the guv'nor thinks he's going to do with me, i'm sure i don't know." valentine certainly did his best to follow out his sister's instructions, and keep master jack out of hot water. the latter seemed to have become a trifle more tractable; perhaps, finding other people were interested in him, he was led to take more interest in himself. at all events, his conduct underwent a considerable change for the better, and his name no longer appeared on every page of the defaulters' book. football was now on, a sport which he specially enjoyed. in addition to this, garston and teal had left, and rosher, who had now joined the fifth, seemed to be increasing in wisdom as well as in stature, and no longer sought the bubble reputation in official visits to the headmaster's study. in short, jack had improved with his surroundings. he and valentine, in addition to their fretwork, had taken up carpentry; and on wet afternoons, when idle hands were steeped in mischief, they were always to be found in the shed which had been set apart for the boys to use as a sort of workshop. as far as the fifth form was concerned, only one incident happened to relieve the monotony of a somewhat uneventful term; and as one of our heroes was largely responsible for what took place, an account of the episode may as well be included in our story. jack, it should be said, was not to blame for what happened in the first place, his and preston's share in the business was, as it were, only the effect arising from a primary cause; and for this, the real root of the matter, tinkleby was solely responsible. "look here," said tinkleby, "those fellows in the sixth are running that debating show of theirs, and they get let off 'prep.' every saturday night; wherefore i vote we join." "they wouldn't have us," answered dorris; "they won't allow any one to join if they are lower in the school than sixth or remove." "ah!" answered tinkleby, adjusting his nippers, "but, don't you see, i should do it in this way--i should propose that our society be amalgamated with theirs." "what society?" asked preston the bowler. "why, the fifth form literary society, you blockhead!" preston and dorris both exploded. "you seem to think," continued tinkleby, with a cynical smile, "that the only use for our society is to provide us with an excuse for having a feed once a year at 'duster's;' but let me remind you, sir, that its main object, according to the original rules, was the cultivation of a taste for literary pursuits among its members." "yes," added dorris, "and so you want to get off saturday 'prep.' fire away, tinky, i'm with you." that very afternoon tinkleby addressed a large, square envelope to _s. r. heningson, esq.,_ _hon. sec. melchester school debating society._ and having sealed it with an old military button, dropped it into the letter-box, a proceeding more in keeping with the importance of the communication than if he had delivered it by hand. the honorary secretary went one higher--he sent his reply by post. it was polite, and to the point. the committee of the debating society did not see their way to extend the limit of the rule relating to membership. they would be pleased to admit any of the fifth form who could obtain permission to attend the meetings, but they would not be entitled to vote, or to take any active part in the proceedings. tinkleby was incensed at this cool reception of his proposal, and harangued his comrades during a temporary absence of mr. ward from the classroom. "they think such a confounded lot of themselves, with their miserable essays and dry debates. i'll bet we could stand up and spout as well as they can, on any subject you like to mention, from cribbing to astronomy." "of course we could," answered boswell-jones, who had prepared a paper entitled, "an hour with the poets," into which he had introduced all his favourite recitations, and which he longed to fire off at something in the shape of an audience--"of course we could; it's all that conceited beast heningson. he thinks he's an orator--great ass!" "well, look here," said tinkleby, fixing his nippers with an air of resolution and defiance, "heningson's going to open a debate next saturday. the subject is: 'that this house is of opinion that the moral and physical condition of mankind is in a state of retrogression.' we'll go and hear it. ward'll let us do our 'prep.' in the afternoon. i've got a little plan in my head, and we'll take a rise out of these gentlemen." the melchester school debating society, as we have already mentioned, was established for the benefit of the senior boys, who held their meetings every saturday night during the winter and easter terms in what was known as the drawing classroom. it was conducted in a very solemn and serious manner. redbrook, the head of the school, took the chair; while on the table before him, as a sign of his office and authority, a small hand-bell was placed, which he was supposed to ring when, in the heat and excitement of debate, members so far forgot themselves as to need a gentle reminder of the rule relating to silence. as a matter of fact, the chairman seldom, if ever, had any need to use this instrument, though on one occasion some wag removed it before the proceedings commenced, and substituted in its place the huge railway-bell used by mullins, the school-porter; a jest which greatly incensed the grave and dignified assembly on whom it was practised. there was a proper mahogany ballot-box. the subjects for discussion always began, "that this house, etc.," and the secretary entered in a book exhaustive minutes of every meeting, which the chairman signed with a quill pen. these details are given in order that the reader may understand the character of the society in question, and be therefore in a better position to pass judgment on the outrageous behaviour of certain gentlemen whose conduct will shortly be described. on the following saturday evening, in answer to the formal invitation which they had received, tinkleby and his friends filed into the room, looking very good and demure, and occupied the desk against the end wall, which they entered as though it had been a pew in church. the usual preliminaries were gone through, and the chairman called on "our worthy friend the secretary" to open the debate by moving, "that this house is of opinion that the moral and physical condition of mankind is in a state of retrogression." for a time all went well. the visitors sat as mute as mummies, and the opener sought to justify his proposition by launching out into an impassioned discourse, which seemed rather inclined to resolve itself into a brief history of the world, and which the critical tinkleby afterwards described as containing "more wind than argument." touching briefly on the statements of the hebrew chroniclers, heningson proceeded with a wordy exposition of the manners and customs of ancient greece, and from this stumbled rather abruptly into the rise of the roman empire. drawing a fancy and perhaps rather flattering portrait of one of the world-conquering legionaries, the speaker thought fit to compare it with that of a latter-day italian organ-grinder who often visited the school, and who had recently been had up for being drunk and disorderly in the streets of melchester. "gentlemen," exclaimed the orator earnestly, pointing accidentally at the chairman, but meaning to indicate the unfortunate musician, "is _this_ the culmination of a race of gods? this inebriate, undersized--" at this point the discourse was suddenly interrupted by a loud and prolonged snore. heningson hesitated, and glanced up from his notes with a look of annoyance. he was about to proceed when a chorus of snores in every imaginable pitch and key effectively checked his utterance. with an indignant "sh--s-h!" the audience turned in their seats to witness the following astonishing spectacle. at the back of the room every one of the half-dozen visitors sat, or rather sprawled, with his head upon the desk, in an attitude suggestive of the soundest slumber; the only variation in position being on the part of jack fenleigh, who lay back with a handkerchief thrown over his face like an old gentleman taking his after-dinner nap. the nasal concert continued, and the chairman smote his hand-bell. "firs' bell," murmured tinkleby drowsily, "stop working;" while dorris became suddenly afflicted with a catch in his breath which caused a succession of terrific snorts, each of which nearly cracked the windows. "here, stop that noise!" cried redbrook, springing to his feet in great wrath. "wake 'em up, somebody!" an obliging member caught tinkleby by the arm, and gave him a prodigious shake. "shur up," growled that gentleman. "give me back my pillow, 'tisn't time to ger up. hallo! have i been asleep? i'm beastly sorry." one by one the other occupants of the visitors' gallery were made to understand that they were not in their beds. jack fenleigh, however, absolutely refused to return from the land of dreams. he was shaken, pinched, and pommelled, but all to no purpose; his snores only became louder, and the style more fantastic. meanwhile a heated altercation was going on between the chairman and the president of the fifth form literary society. "look here, tinkleby, we don't want any more of your silly foolery, so just stop it." "my dear sir, i'm doing nothing." "well, why did you begin?" "if you mean my having dropped off to sleep, i'm very sorry; but really there's something in the air of the place--" "haw-r-r-r-r-ratch," interposed jack fenleigh. redbrook rose from his chair, boiling with wrath. "just clear out!" he cried. "go on--all the lot of you!" the visitors demurred, but being outnumbered three to one, they were seized and hustled unceremoniously out of the room. in the midst of all this commotion, however, fenleigh j., still continued in an unbroken slumber, and was distinctly heard snoring louder than ever as his companions dragged him off down the passage. [illustration: "the visitors were seized, and hustled unceremoniously out of the room."] for the time being this little joke gave rise to a rather strained relationship between the members of the sixth and fifth forms. tinkleby and his comrades were designated a set of rowdy jackasses; and they replied to the compliment by declaring that a fraternity of live donkeys was better than a collection of stuffed owls, and advising heningson to patent his discourse as an infallible cure for insomnia. cutting allusions to the "literary society" and sarcastic retorts were exchanged in the corridors and playing-field; and so the feud continued. all his classmates were charmed with jack's share in the performance. "you wait," was his invariable answer to their congratulations; "i'll take a better rise out of them before long." for a time this boast was not considered to imply any definite intention on the speaker's part to play any further pranks on the members of the debating society; but at length a rumour got abroad that something _was_ going to happen. fenleigh j. and preston had been seen more than once taking counsel together in out-of-the-way corners, and exchanging mysterious nods and winks. they were known to have spent the free time between "prep." and supper, on two consecutive evenings, alone together in the workshop, with the door locked. a great deal of hammering went on, but no one could find out what they were making. when questioned on the subject, they professed a lamb-like state of innocence; and even tinkleby himself could give no explanation of their conduct. a fortnight after the delivery of heningson's essay, the debating society held an important meeting, the announcement of which, posted the previous evening on the notice-board, was worded as follows:- m. s. d. s. _saturday, november ...th._ debate. "that this house approves of the settlement of all international disputes by arbitration instead of war," _aff._, mr. n. j. carter. _neg._, mr. shepherd. the members turned up in force, for this time the openers of the discussion were the two leading lights of the society, and the contest between them was certain to prove an intellectual treat which ought not to be missed. carter's style of oratory was of the impassioned order; he thumped on the desk, and went through the "extension motions," with the exception of that awful movement where you bend double and try to touch your toes. it was rumoured that he wrote deep, unintelligible poetry that did not rhyme; and if the school rules had not forbidden the practice, he would have worn long hair and a fly-away necktie. shepherd, on the other hand, went in for logic, unadorned by any movements suggestive of setting-up drill. his style bore a suspicious resemblance to that of augustus powler, esq., m.p. he stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and pushed forward that portion of his body which it would have been unfair to strike at in a fight. it would be impossible to give here anything like a detailed report of the proceedings. from the moment when the chairman rose to introduce the first speaker, every one felt that the meeting would be one of unusual interest; and in one sense they were certainly destined not to be disappointed. carter was in great form; he dealt the desk such terrific blows that the ink spurted out of the ink-pots, and ran down on to the secretary's breeches. war, he declared, was legalized murder, and the soldier little better than a hired assassin. napoleon bonaparte was far more roughly handled than at leipsic or waterloo; and a long list of conquerors, ranging back to alexander the great, were, figuratively speaking, torn from their graves and hung in chains. at length, having dwelt on the enormous cost of standing armies, and other more practical aspects of the subject, the speaker concluded with a vivid picture of the horrors of a battlefield, and was in the act of quoting a verse of poetry, when he was suddenly silenced by an unlooked-for interruption. "the bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, the rattling musketry, the clashing blade; and ever and anon, in tones of thunder, the--" bang! every one started; something like a miniature representation of the "bursting shell" had just exploded in the neighbourhood of the blackboard. a boy sitting close by stooped down and picked up from the floor a small fragment of burnt tissue-paper. "who threw that?" he exclaimed. "what is it?" asked the chairman. "why, one of those 'throw-downs.'" redbrook glanced round the room in angry astonishment. "look here," he said sharply, "i don't know who did it, but if any of you have come to play the fool, you'd better leave the room at once, for we aren't going to have any more nonsense like we had the other night." the audience turned in their seats, and stared at one another in amazement. most of my readers will probably have some practical knowledge of the small, round paper pellets known as "throw-downs," which explode when flung against anything; and it was difficult to imagine that any member of the select and decorous melchester school debating society would cause an interruption by flinging such things about in the middle of an important discussion. "go on, carter," said the chairman. "shan't!" returned the other, snappishly. "i've finished." shepherd was now called upon to open on the side of the negative. "war," he began, assuming his accustomed attitude, and beaming round on his listeners with a very good imitation of the powler smile--"war is like surgery. when drugs are of no avail, we are often forced to resort to the use of the knife, and so--" another mimic bomb exploded in the very centre of the speaker's waistcoat, causing him to jump nearly out of his skin. redbrook sprang to his feet in a towering rage, and as he did so another projectile burst on the open pages of the minute book. "who threw those things? i will find out!" a babel of voices rose in reply. no one had done it. the door was shut, the windows were fastened, a hasty search was made in the cupboards and under the back desks, in the hope of discovering a lurking enemy; but even while the search was in progress another missile went off under the secretary's chair. "who is it?" shouted redbrook. "where do they come from?" "that seemed to fall from the ceiling," answered heningson; "yes--look there!" above the hanging gas-jet in the centre of the room was an ornamental iron grating, between the apertures of which there now appeared about an inch and a half of brass tube, like the end of a big peashooter. a moment later there was a prodigious puff, and four "throw-downs" exploded with a simultaneous crash in the centre of the chairman's table. "there's some one up on the roof!" cried several voices.--"stop it, you villain!" "how could any one get there?" "there's a trap-door at the end of the passage," exclaimed shepherd. "quick! we shall cut him off." a rush was made for the door, but it refused to open; some one had evidently blocked the exit from the outside, by placing a short form lengthways across the passage. the drawing classroom formed part of a one-storied building which bounded one side of the school quadrangle. finding the door closed, shepherd dashed to the nearest window, and flinging it open dropped out on to the gravel, an example which was speedily followed by the chairman and several members of the audience. breathing out all manner of threats, they ran round through the nearest door and gained the entrance to the passage. the trap-door in the ceiling was wide open, and communicating with it was a curious, home-made ladder, consisting of an old post, with half a dozen rough cross pieces fastened to it with stout nails. a candle end was lying on the floor, and with its aid shepherd climbed up and explored the roof; but the bird had flown. after such an interruption it was no use attempting to continue the debate, and redbrook and his companions spent the remainder of the evening trying to discover the authors of this outrage. the culprits, however, had made good their escape; no one remembered having seen the ladder before, and it was impossible to say to whom it belonged. the members of the debating society were clearly outwitted; and not wishing to make the story of their discomfiture too public, they determined for the present to let the matter drop, at the same time announcing their intention of taking dire vengeance on any irreverent jokers who should rashly attempt to disturb their meetings in future. two days later, valentine was sitting at his desk reading, when he was joined by his cousin. "i borrowed your brass ruler the other afternoon," said the latter, producing something from under his coat. "yes, i know all about it, you villain!" "i only used it as a sort of pea-shooter." "oh, i've heard all about your little game; preston told me." jack tried to look innocent, and then laughed. "it's no use, val, old chap, you'll never make a good boy of me. it's the old story of the silk purse and the sow's ear." valentine laughed too. "i'm afraid i never shall," he answered. "the joke is that you're always ready to bring the whole place about your ears with some mad prank, and then when a cartload of bricks does fall on your head, you say, 'it's just your luck, and that--'" "a collection will be taken at the door in aid of the poor fund at the close of the present service," interrupted the other. "good-bye--i'm off!" he moved away a step or two, then came softly back, and began to rumple his cousin's hair; whereupon an exciting struggle ensued, which brought them both down on to the floor, and ended with the edifying spectacle of the preacher sitting flushed and triumphant on the congregation's chest. chapter xi. "out of the frying-pan--" "above all, beware of the cat."--_the ugly duckling_. "here, val, you're just the man i want! tell me something to say." it was a broiling afternoon. the summer term had once more come round, and jack, with his coat off, was sitting in a shady corner of the schoolroom wrestling with a letter to queen mab. "i write to her nearly every blessed week," he continued, "and the consequence is i've never got anything to say. i've told her how jolly it is to think that in four weeks' time we shall be at brenlands again; and now i'm stuck, and i can't get any further." "have you told her how well you've been doing in cricket this season?" "no." "well, i have; so it doesn't much matter. look here! raymond fosberton's outside, and wants to see you." "oh, tell him to go to bath!" answered jack, making another stab at the ink-pot with his pen. "i want to finish this letter." "no, come along," answered valentine, laughing. "you must be civil to the fellow; he's been waiting about for nearly a quarter of an hour." "do him good," growled the scribe, reluctantly pitching his untidy epistle into a very disorderly desk. "he only comes here to show off. just because he's in a lawyer's office, he thinks he's a big pot, and all he does is to write copies like a kid in the lower school." according to his own opinion, raymond fosberton had blossomed out into the full-blown man. he wore a light check suit of the very latest fashion, a rosebud adorned his button-hole, and he tapped the toe of his highly-polished, patent-leather boots with the point of a silver-mounted cane. "hallo!" he exclaimed; "what the dickens d'you want to keep a chap waiting so long for? i can tell you my time's more valuable than yours. look here! i'm sorry i haven't been able to ask you boys to come and see me before, but nearly every night since i've been here i've been engaged. however, i want you to get leave to come and have tea at my rooms on wednesday, and after that we'll go to the fair. you know what i mean. it's held once a year in a big field on the other side of the town; there are shows, and round-abouts, and all that sort of thing." "thanks," answered valentine, "but i'm afraid we can't go." "why not?" "because the rule of the school is that no boys are allowed to go to melchester fair. old westford is awfully strict about it. two years ago some fellows went, and had a row with one of the showmen, and it got into the papers." "oh, rubbish! you can say you're only going out to tea." valentine shook his head. "oh, yes, you can," continued raymond. "by-the-bye, there's a fellow here called rosher, isn't there? my guv'nor knows his people, and told me to ask him out sometimes; tell him to come too, if he can." "we can't do it," answered valentine decisively; "while the fair's on, westford won't even give fellows leave to go down into town." "nonsense!" answered raymond contemptuously. "you leave it to me, and i'll manage it all right. now i must cut back to the office. ta! ta!" on wednesday afternoon the two cousins were preparing to start for the cricket field, when a small boy brought them word that the headmaster wished to see them for a moment in his study. "what's the row now, i wonder?" said jack. "'pon my word, it's so long since i went to the old man's study that i feel quite nervous." the interview was not of a distressing nature. "i have received a letter from your uncle," began mr. westford, "asking for you to be allowed to go and meet him at the station this afternoon at five o'clock. he wishes also to see rosher, so you can tell him that he may go. be back, of course, in time for supper." "i wonder what brings uncle fosberton to melchester," said valentine to jack as they walked away together. "can't say," returned the other. "i don't want to see him; but i suppose we must go. let's hunt up rosher." a few minutes before five, the three boys entered the booking-office at the railway station. "i wonder which platform it is!" said jack. "hallo! there's raymond." the gentleman in question came forward, flourishing his silver-mounted cane. "well, my dear nephews," he cried, laughing. "how are you to-day? did old westford get my letter all right?" "what letter?" asked valentine. "why, the letter asking for you to come out." "but uncle wrote that!" "not a bit of it!" answered raymond triumphantly. "i did it. i had a bit of the manor note-paper, and i sent it to our man to post it from grenford. ha! ha! i told you i'd manage the business!" rosher chuckled, jack whistled, but valentine remained silent. "look here, raymond," said valentine, after a moment's pause, "i tell you straight, i don't believe in this sort of thing. i'm going back." "don't be a fool, man," retorted the other. "you can't go back now, or they'll want to know the reason. come along to my diggings and have some tea, and i'll bear all the blame." with some reluctance valentine agreed to go with the party to his cousin's lodgings. raymond did not seem on very good terms with his landlady. the tea was a long time coming; and when at length it did make its appearance, the fare consisted only of bread and butter, and a half-empty pot of jam. "sorry i can't offer you anything more," remarked the host, "but just now i've run rather short of cash. better luck next time." as soon as the meal was over, raymond repeated his proposal that they should visit the fair. "it's an awful joke," he said. "i'm going, and you chaps may as well come along too." "it's all very well for you to go," answered jack, "but with us it's different. any one can see by our hat-bands that we belong to the school; and if it gets to westford's ears that we've been, we shall stand a jolly good chance of being expelled." "oh, well! if you're afraid, don't go," answered raymond, with a sneer. "i thought you were a chap who didn't care for anything. will you go, rosher?" "i don't mind." "come on, then; don't let's stick here all the evening." the four boys put on their hats and sauntered out into the street. valentine said good-night, and turned off in the direction of the school; but jack lingered behind with the other two. "that's right," said raymond, taking his arm; "i knew you'd come." the evening was always the gayest part of the day at melchester fair. crowds of people from the town and surrounding neighbourhood jostled each other in the open spaces between the tents and booths, while the noise of bands, steam-organs, and yelling showmen was something terrific. "i say, have either of you fellows got change for a sovereign?" asked raymond. "you haven't? well, you pay, and i'll settle up with you some other time." the boys wandered round the field, listening to the cheap jacks, and the proprietors of various exhibitions, which were all "just a-goin' to begin." they patronized a shooting-gallery, where they fired down long tubes with little rifles, which made the marksman's hands very black, and seemed to carry round the corner. jack, however, succeeded in hitting the bull's-eye, and ringing the bell, and was rewarded with a handful of nuts. "come on," said rosher; "let's have a turn on the wooden horses," and the party accordingly moved off in the direction of the nearest round-about. the steeds were three abreast, and raymond mounted the one on the outside. a little group of factory boys were standing close by, and, just as the engine started, one of them thought fit to enliven the proceedings with a joke. "hallo, mister! how much starch d'you put on your weskit?" "that much!" answered raymond, snappishly, and leaning outwards in passing he dealt the speaker a sharp cut with his cane. "yah! thatches!" cried the boy, and every time the whirligig brought his assailant into view the shout was repeated. in the year of grace 1877 some traces still remained of an ancient feud between the school and the boys of the town. the name "thatches" had been invented by the latter on account of the peculiar pattern of straw hat worn by their adversaries; while the answering taunt always used in those warlike times was, "hey, johnny, where's your apron?" a remark which greatly incensed the small sons of toil, who usually wore this garment. "what have you been doing to those chaps?" asked jack, as the horses slowed down and the yell was repeated. "one of them cheeked me, and i hit him with my stick." "well, we'd better slip away as soon as this thing stops; we don't want to have a row with them here." unfortunately for the three boys, their steeds stopped just opposite the hostile group. jack pushed through them with an expression of lofty contempt, an example followed by rosher; but raymond was stupidly led into a further exchange of incivilities. "don't you give me any more of your confounded impudence, you miserable little cads, or i'll give you another taste of this stick." the "cads" answered with a shout of derisive laughter, and a few more straggling clansmen joining the band, they followed after the three friends, keeping at a safe distance, and repeating their cries of "yah! thatches! hit one yer own size!" and other remarks of a similar nature. "we can't go on like this," said jack. "they'll follow us all round the fair. shall we charge the beggars?" "no," answered raymond. "let's go into the circus, and that'll put them off the track. you fellows pay, and i'll owe it you; i don't want to change my sovereign here." rosher paid for three shilling seats, and the trio entered the big circular tent, thus for the time being effectually escaping from the pursuing band of unfriendly natives. the performance had just commenced, and though the display was by no means brilliant, yet the boys enjoyed it, and soon forgot the existence of everything except clowns, acrobats, and trained horses. "_i say_!" exclaimed rosher suddenly, "d'you know what the time is? it's close on nine o'clock!" "by jingo!" answered jack, "we must do a bolt." "no, don't go," interposed raymond; "you can't get back in time now, so you may as well stay and see the end. if you'll come round by my lodgings, i'll get my guv'nor to write a letter of excuse." "i don't want any more of your letters," murmured jack, "it's too risky. we'd better hook it." "no, stay; you can't get back in time now, so what's the good of losing part of the performance?" after some further discussion, jack and rosher decided to remain, and so kept their seats until the end of the performance. it was quite dark when they emerged from the tent, and every part of the fair was lit up with flaring paraffin lamps. they had not gone very far when, as ill-luck would have it, a shrill cry of "hallo! thatches!" showed that they had been sighted by some small scout of the enemy. "i've got some coppers left," said rosher; "let's have a shot at the cocoa-nuts." they stopped opposite a pitch, and began bowling at the fruit. the first two or three shies were unsuccessful; then jack knocked down a nut. "i'm not going to let you beat me!" cried rosher. "here; mister, give me some more balls." a fresh group of town boys were hovering about in the rear, their number being now augmented by one or two of a larger size. "yah! thatch! you can't hit 'em! come 'ere and let's see that stick you was talking about." "i say," whispered raymond to his cousin, "wouldn't it be a lark to pretend to make a good shot, and knock that lamp over." he pointed as he spoke to one of the flaring oil lamps which, fastened to a stake a few feet above the ground, illuminated the line of nuts. "no, don't do it," answered jack; but the warning came too late. raymond threw with all his might, and, as ill-luck would have it, the aim was only too true; the heavy wooden ball hit the lamp a sounding whack, dashed it from its stand, and the next moment the canvas screen at the back of the pitch against which it fell was all in a blaze. in an instant all was confusion. quick as thought raymond turned, and slipped away between the wheels of a caravan which stood close by. the proprietor of the pitch sprang forward and seized jack by the coat. "'ere, you did that," he cried, "and you did it a purpose." the crowd of juvenile roughs closed in behind. "yes, 'e did it," they cried; "'e's the man." "i didn't do it," retorted the boy. "leave go!" rosher leaned forward, and giving his friend a nudge, uttered the one word,-"_bolt_!" jack's blood was up. he wrenched himself free of the man's grasp, and plunged into the little crowd of riff-raff, striking heavy blows to right and left. rosher did the same; and the enemy, who were nothing but a pack of barking curs, went down like ninepins, falling over one another in their efforts to escape. the two fugitives rushed on, stumbling over tent-ropes and dodging round the booths and stalls, until they came to the outskirts of the fair. then they paused to take breath and consider what was to be done next. the glare of the burning canvas and a noise of distant shouting, which could be clearly distinguished above the other babel of sounds, showed the quarter from which they had come. "where's raymond?" cried jack. "i don't know," answered rosher; "we can't wait here, or we shall be collared." "didn't you see what became of him? i don't like the thought of leaving the fellow--" the sentence was never finished; for at that moment two men suddenly appeared from behind a neighbouring stall. one was arrayed in a blue uniform with bright buttons, and his companion was at once recognized by the boys as being the proprietor of the cocoa-nut pitch. "here they are!" shouted the latter, catching hold of the policeman's arm; "now we've got 'em!" [illustration: "'here they are! now we've got them!'"] quick as thought the two schoolfellows turned and dashed off at the top of their speed. beyond the outskirts of the fair all lay in darkness; a high hedge loomed in front of them. jack scrambled up the bank, crashed through the thorn bushes, and fell heavily to the ground on the other side. in an instant he had regained his feet, and was running for his life with rosher by his side. in this manner they crossed three fields, stumbling over uneven places in the ground, scratching their hands, and tearing their clothes in the hedges, and at length landed nearly up to their knees in a ditch half-full of mud and water. "it's no good, fenleigh, i can't go any further. i'm completely pumped." struggling on to a bit of rising ground, the fugitives halted and turned round to listen. the glare of light and noise of the fair had been left some distance behind them, and there were no sounds of pursuit. the night was very dark, and everything in their immediate neighbourhood was quiet and still. "we must get to the town some other way," said jack. "doesn't the road to hornalby pass somewhere here on the right?" "i don't know," answered rosher; "we ought to strike some road or other if we keep going in that direction." the boys continued their flight, varying their walk by occasionally breaking into a jog-trot. at length they found themselves in a narrow lane; but after wandering down it for nearly half a mile, their further progress was barred by the appearance of a private gate. "botheration!" cried jack, "we've come wrong; this leads to some farm. we shall never get home at this rate." retracing their steps the way they had come, the two unfortunate adventurers at length found themselves on the hornalby road; but when they reached melchester, and were hurrying down the side street past "duster's" shop, the cathedral clock struck half-past eleven. "oh, my!" said rosher; "how shall we get in? everybody will be in bed. we shall have to knock up old mullins at the lodge." "no fear," answered jack. "we must get into westford's garden, and from there into the quad; then we'll try some of the windows." the plan was carried out, and a few moments later the two boys were standing in the dark and deserted playground. jack made a circuit of the buildings on tiptoe, and then returned to his companion. "all the classroom windows are fast," he said, "but there's one on the first landing belonging to the bathroom that's open. what we must do is this. under the bench in the workshop is that ladder thing that preston and i made last year. we must fetch it, and you must hold it while i get up to the window. then you must put the ladder back, and i'll creep down and let you in at the side door. the workshop's locked, but luckily i've got the key in my pocket!" the scheme was successful, and ten minutes later the two wanderers were creeping up the main staircase. rosher had a private bedroom; and jack, moving softly, and undressing in the dark, managed to get into bed without awakening any of the other boys in his dormitory. chapter xii. "--into the fire." "one of the little boys took up the tin soldier and threw him into the stove."--_the brave tin soldier_. "hallo, fenleigh! you were back precious late last night," said walker, the sixth form boy in charge of the dormitory. "yes," answered the other carelessly. "i had leave to go out to tea." the reply seemed to satisfy walker; but there was one person in the room to whom jack knew he would have to make a full confession. while dressing he avoided valentine's questioning glances, but after breakfast he was forced to give his cousin a full account of all that had happened. a dark frown settled on the latter's face as he listened to the recital, which he several times interrupted with impatient ejaculations. "i knew you'd be in a wax with me," concluded jack, with an air of defiance; "but it can't be helped now. you'll never make a saint of me, val, old chap, so don't let's quarrel." "it's not you that i'm angry with," answered valentine wrathfully, "it's that beast of a raymond. it's just his way to get other people into a mess, and leave them to get out of it as best they can. i suppose he never paid up his share of the money you spent?" "not he. never mind, we got out of the bother a lot better than i expected." valentine shook his head. "i hope to goodness you won't be found out," he said anxiously. "if you are, you'll stand a jolly good chance of being expelled." "oh, we're safe enough. don't you fret," answered jack lightly.--"hallo, tinkleby, what's up with you?" the president of the fifth form literary society was striding across the gravel, fingering his nippers, as he always did when excited. "haven't you heard?" he answered. "some one's in for a thundering row, i can tell you." "why, what do you mean?" "why, mullins says that some man from the fair came this morning, and wanted to see the headmaster. he says one of our fellows was up there last night, kicking up a fine shindy, and set his show on fire; and he means to find out who it is, and summon him for damages. mullins told him he'd better call again later on, as westford was at breakfast. my eye! i pity the chap who did it, if it's true, and he's collared." the clang of the school bell ended the conversation, and tinkleby rushed off to impart his news to other classmates. the distressed look on valentine's face deepened, but he said nothing. "pooh!" exclaimed jack, sticking his hands in his pockets, and making the gravel fly with a vicious kick. "let him come and say what he likes. what do i care?" the school had reassembled after the usual interval, and the sixth form were sitting in their classroom waiting for the arrival of the headmaster. a quarter of an hour passed, and still he did not arrive. at length the door opened, and mullins poked his head inside. "mr. westford wants to see all those gentlemen who are in charge of the different dormitories--now, at once, in his study." a murmur of surprise followed the announcement, as the boys indicated rose to their feet and prepared to obey the summons. on entering the study they found a shabby-looking man standing just inside the door, who eyed them all narrowly as they came in. the headmaster sat at his writing-table looking stern and troubled. the twelve prefects arranged themselves in a semicircle, and stood silently waiting and wondering what could have happened. "you say this took place about a quarter past ten?" "yes, sir," answered the man, twirling his hat with his fingers. "as near as i can say, it must have been about a quarter a'ter ten." "i have sent for you," continued mr. westford, turning to the group of senior scholars, "to know if any of the boys were absent from any of the dormitories at the usual bed-time." "one was absent from number five, sir," said walker. "who?" "fenleigh j., sir." "why didn't you report him? what time did he return?" "i don't know, sir. i was asleep when he came back. he said he'd had leave to go out to tea." "was any one else absent from any of the rooms? very well. you may go. redbrook, send fenleigh j. to me at once." a minute or so later the culprit entered the room. "that's the young feller i want!" exclaimed the stranger. "i could tell him anywheres in a moment." "fenleigh, were you at the fair last night?" "yes, sir." "what were you doing there? you know my orders?" the boy was silent. "i can tell you what he was doing," interrupted the man. "he knocked over one of my lamps and set my screen afire; and a'ter that he started fightin', and i was obliged to fetch a p'liceman. but there was two of 'em, this one and another." "did this really happen, fenleigh?" "yes, sir." "who else was with you?" "my cousin, raymond fosberton. it was he who knocked over the lamp." "that's a lie!" interrupted the man. "it was you done it. i seed you with my own eyes." "i don't think i need detain you any longer," said mr. westford, turning to the owner of the cocoa-nuts. "i need hardly say i regret that one of my scholars should be capable of such conduct. i shall make some further inquiries, and if you will call again this evening, whatever damage has been done shall be made good." the man knuckled his forehead and withdrew. jack was left alone with his judge, and felt that the case was ended. "now, sir," said the latter, in a cold, rasping tone, "you have succeeded in bringing public disgrace on the school, and i hope you are satisfied. go to the little music-room, and remain there for the present." there was something ominous in the brevity of this reprimand. no punishment had been mentioned, but in the school traditions the little music-room was looked upon as a sort of condemned cell. every one knew the subsequent fate of boys who had been sent there on previous occasions; and in a short time the news was in everybody's mouth that fenleigh j. was going to be expelled. it was a grave offence to hold any communication with a person undergoing solitary confinement, yet, before jack had been very long a prisoner, a pebble hit the window, and looking out he saw rosher. "i say," began the latter dolefully, "i'm awfully sorry you've been found out. if you like, i'll go and tell westford i was with you." "of course you won't. what's the good?" "well, i thought perhaps you'd think i was a sneak if i didn't. i'm afraid you'll get the sack," continued rosher sadly. "it was awfully good of you, fenleigh, not to split; you always were a brick. i say, we were rather chummy when you first came, if you remember; and then we had a bit of a row. i suppose it don't matter now. if you like, i'll write you when you get home." it was something, at such an hour, to have the sympathy and friendship even of a scapegrace like rosher. the prisoner said "it didn't matter," and so they parted. for some time jack wandered round the little room, swinging the blind cords, and trifling with the broken-down metronome on the mantelpiece. it was this very instrument that had been upset when he sent rosher sprawling into the fireplace; and yet, here was the same fellow talking about keeping up a correspondence. a litter of torn music lay on the top of the piano; among it a tattered hymn-book. jack turned over the pages until he came to "hark, hark, my soul!" and then, sitting down, played the air through several times with one finger. it was a tune that had been popular on sunday evenings at brenlands, and the children had always called it queen mab's hymn. jack shut the book with a bang. in less than a fortnight's time he ought to have been with her again, and what would she think of him now? * * * * * dinner was over in the big hall, and most of the boys had started for the playing-field. mr. ward sat correcting exercises in the deserted fifth form classroom, when there was a knock at the door, and valentine entered. "well, fenleigh," said the master kindly, "what do you want?" "i came to speak to you, sir, about my cousin jack. don't you think there's any chance of getting mr. westford to let him off?" "i'm afraid there isn't. i don't see what excuse can be offered for your cousin's conduct." "but there is an excuse, sir," persisted valentine, his love of honour and justice causing the blood to mount to his cheeks at the recollection of raymond fosberton's share in the adventure. "it was not all jack's fault, and it'll be an awful shame if he's expelled." had it been another fellow, mr. ward might have pooh-poohed the objection, and sent the speaker about his business; for, it being nearly the end of the term, the master had plenty of work to occupy his attention. he was not given to making favourites among his pupils, but valentine was a boy who had won his respect; and so he laid down his pen to continue the conversation. "i still fail to see what can be said on your cousin's behalf. if it was not his fault, who then is to blame?" valentine hastily recounted all that had happened on the previous afternoon. he did not hesitate to give a true account of the bogus invitation, and repeated all that jack had told him as to what had taken place at the fair. mr. ward listened patiently till he had heard the whole of the story. "there certainly is something in what you say," he remarked. "but the fact remains that your cousin went to the fair in defiance of the school rules. there was no reason at all why he should have gone. you say you came back; then why couldn't he have done the same?" "if i'd thought that my staying away would have made it any the worse for him, i'd have gone to the fair myself," said valentine desperately. mr. ward smiled. "well, what do you want me to do?" he asked. "i don't see that i can be of much service to you in the matter. the only thing i can advise you to do is to go to mr. westford, and tell him exactly what you have told me." "i thought perhaps you might say a word for him too, sir," pleaded the boy. "he's been behaving a lot better lately than he used to do." "there certainly was some room for improvement," returned the master, laughing. "well, if you like to come to me again just before school, i'll go with you and speak to mr. westford." the long summer afternoon dragged slowly away. mullins brought jack his dinner; and after that had been consumed, he sought to while away the hours of captivity by reading a tattered text-book on harmony, and strumming tunes with one finger on the piano. he wondered whether he would be sent away that evening or the following morning. at length, just before the second tea-bell rang, the school porter once more appeared, this time to inform the prisoner that the headmaster wished to see him in his study. mr. westford sat at his table writing a letter, and received his visitor in grim silence. "i've sent for you, sir," he said at length, "to tell you that i have been given to understand that you were not altogether to blame for what happened yesterday. there is, however, no excuse for your having set me at defiance by breaking the strict rule i laid down that no boy was to attend the fair. as i have already said, i believe you are not solely responsible for the disgraceful behaviour of which i received a complaint this morning. i shall not, therefore, expel you at once, as i at first intended, but i am writing to your father to inform him that your conduct is so far from satisfactory that i must ask him to remove you at the end of the present term. until then, remember you are not to go beyond the gates without my permission." "well, i've got off better than i expected," said jack, as he walked up and down the quadrangle, talking matters over with his cousin. "it was jolly good of you, val, to go and speak up for me to the old man. ward told me all about it. if it hadn't been for that, i should have been expelled at once. you've always been a good friend to me ever since i came here." "i'm sorry to think you're going at all," returned the other. "i can't help feeling awfully mad with raymond." "yes," answered jack, "it wasn't all my fault; but there, it's just my luck. the guv'nor'll be in a fine wax; but i don't care. only one thing i'm sorry for, and that is that this'll be my last holidays at brenlands." chapter xiii. a robbery at brenlands. "so at last he ran away, frightening the little birds in the hedge as he flew over the palings. 'they are afraid of me, because i am so ugly,' he said. so he closed his eyes, and flew still further."--_the ugly duckling_. whatever changes and alterations might take place in the outside world, brenlands seemed always to remain the same. coming there again and again for their august holidays, the children grew to think of it as a place blessed with eternal summer, where the flowers and green leaves never faded from one year's end to another, and such a thing as a cold, foggy winter day, with the moisture dripping from the trees, and the slush of slowly melting snow upon the ground, was a thing which could never have been possible, even in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. better still, the welcome which greeted them on their arrival was always as warm as on previous occasions, and never fell one single degree during the whole of the visit. in spite of all this, on that glad day when queen mab's court gathered once more round her cosy tea-table, jack was not in his usual spirits, but appeared silent and depressed. the result of mr. westford's letter to his father had been a reply to the effect that, as he seemed determined to waste his opportunities at school, it would be decidedly the best thing for him to come home and find some more profitable employment for his time. when tea was over he strolled out into the garden, and wandered moodily up and down the trim, box-bordered paths. to realize that one has done with school life for ever, that the book, as it were, is closed, and the familiar pages only to be turned again in memory, is enough to make any boy thoughtful; but it was not this exactly that weighed upon jack's mind. he had grown to love queen mab and his cousins; the thought of being different from them became distasteful; and he had entertained some vague notion of turning over a new leaf, and becoming a respectable member of society. now all his half-formed resolutions had come to the ground like a house of cards, and he was ending up worse than he had begun. he was standing staring gloomily at the particular pear-tree which marked the scene of his and valentine's first encounter with joe crouch, when his aunt came out and joined him. "well, jack, and so you've left school for good?" she made no mention of the melchester fair incident, though jack himself had sent her all particulars. he wished she would lecture him, for somehow her forbearance in not referring to the subject was worse than a dozen reproofs. "yes, aunt, they've thrown me out at last!" "it will be dreadful when both of you have left melchester. valentine tells me that next easter he expects to be going on to an army coach, to prepare for sandhurst." "yes, i know," answered jack, petulantly. "i'm always telling him what a lucky dog he is. i wish i had half his chances, and was going into the army, instead of back to that miserable padbury." "what does your father mean you to do?" "oh, he's got some scheme of sending me into the office of some metal works there. he says it's about all i'm good for, and he hasn't any money to put me in the way of learning a profession. but," added the boy impatiently, "he knows i hate the idea of grubbing away at a desk all day. i want to be a soldier." "i know you do, and i believe you'd make a good one; but, after all, it would be a sad thing if every one devoted themselves to learning to fight. besides, we can't afford to let all our gallants go to the wars; we want some to stay behind and do brave things in their daily life at home." "well, i'm not going to rust all my life in an office," answered jack doggedly. "rather than do that, i'll go off somewhere and enlist." queen mab looked down and smiled. they were walking together arm in arm, and he was fumbling with the little bunch of trinkets on her watch chain. "do you recollect who gave me that little silver locket?" "yes," he answered, with a pouting smile. "well, then, please to remember that you are always going to be my own boy, and so don't talk any more about such things as running away and enlisting." "yes, but what am i to do? look at the difference between my chances and val's." "i think that a man's success often depends more on himself, and less on circumstances, than you imagine," she answered. "'to be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird if it is hatched from a swan's egg.' that's what the story says that i used to tell the children." jack laughed, and shook his head. he was far from being convinced of the truth of this statement. a few mornings later the usual harmony of the breakfast-table was disturbed by the arrival of a letter from raymond fosberton. "he writes," said miss fenleigh, "to say that his father and mother are going away on a visit, and so he wants to come here for a few days." the announcement was received with a chorus of groans. "i wonder he has the cheek to come, after the way he treated us at melchester," said valentine; "i never wish to see him again." raymond did come, however, and instead of being at all abashed at the recollection of the termination of his tea-party, he was, if anything, more uppish than ever. it was only natural that he should make some reference to their adventure at the fair, and this he did by blaming jack for not having made good his escape. "why didn't you run for it sooner, you duffer? you stood still there like a stuffed monkey, and wouldn't move till the man collared you." "and you ran so far and so fast," retorted jack, "that you couldn't get back to own up it was your doing, and save me from being expelled." "oh, go on! it isn't so bad as that," answered raymond airily. "you ought to be jolly glad you're going to get out of that place. it's no good quarrelling over spilt milk.--look here, will either of you do a chap a friendly turn? can you lend me some money? i want a pound or two rather badly. of course, i'd have got it from home, only the guv'nor's away." jack and valentine shook their heads. "well, i wish you could," continued the other. "i'd give you a shilling in the pound interest, and pay you back for certain at the end of next month." "i wonder how it is," said jack to valentine that evening as they were undressing, "that raymond's always wanting money, and never seems to have any. his people are rich enough, and i should think they make him a good allowance." "of course they do," answered valentine, "but he throws it away somehow; and he's the most selfish fellow in the world, and never spends a halfpenny on any one but himself." raymond was certainly no great addition to the party at brenlands. his manners, one could well imagine, resembled those of the ferocious animal in the fosberton crest, which capered on a sugar-stick with its tongue stuck out of its mouth, as though it were making faces at the world in general. he monopolized the conversation at table, voted croquet a bore, and spent most of his time lying under a tree smoking and reading a novel. he fell foul of joe crouch (who still came to do odd jobs in the garden) over some trifling matter, calling him an impudent blockhead, and telling miss fenleigh in a lofty manner that "he would never allow such a cheeky beggar to be hanging about the premises at grenford." "i am sick of the fellow," said valentine to helen that same evening. "i wish he wouldn't come here during the holidays; it spoils the whole thing." on the following day raymond was destined to give his cousins still more reason for wishing that he had not favoured brenlands with a visit. at dinner he was full of a project for borrowing a gun, and having some target practice in the garden. "i know a man living not far away who's got a nice, little, single-barrelled muzzle-loader. we might borrow it, and make some bullets, then stick up a piece of board against that hedge at the end of the long path, and have a regular shooting match." "oh, i don't want any guns here!" said queen mab. "i should be afraid that one of you might get hurt. you'd far better stick to your croquet." "yes," added valentine. "it would be precious risky work firing bullets about in this garden with a muzzle-loader." "pooh! you're a nice chap to think of being a soldier, if you're afraid of letting off a gun!" "val knows a lot more about guns than you do," broke in jack. "i suppose you think a thorn hedge and a bit of board would stop a bullet, you duffer!" raymond lost his temper, and the discussion was carried on in a manner which was more spirited than polite. "come, come," interposed queen mab, "i think we might change the subject. i'm sure raymond won't want to borrow the gun if he knows it would make me nervous." the meal was finished in silence. anything so near a quarrel had never been known before at brenlands, and proved very disturbing in what was usually such a peaceful atmosphere. jack sauntered out into the garden in no very tranquil frame of mind. joe crouch was there, weeding. they had always been good friends ever since the pear incident, and something in jack's mode of action on that occasion seemed to have gained for him an abiding corner in crouch's respect and affections. "well, joe, what's the news?" "nothing particular that i knows of, sir, but there--there was somethin' i had to tell you; somethin' about this 'ere young bloke who comes orderin' every one around, as if the place was his own." "what's that?" "why, i'll tell you," continued crouch, lowering his voice in a significant manner. "you remember, sir, you was askin' me this time last year about a man called hanks, who'd come up to you wantin' money, and you didn't know 'ow he'd got to know you. well, he's in jail now for stealing fowls; but i seen him a month or so back, and got to know all about the whole business." the speaker paused to increase the interest of his story. "well, what was it?" "d'you remember, sir, about two years agone you and master valentine and the young ladies went up the river to a place called starncliff? well, hanks said he saw you there, and that you set some one's rick afire. he wasn't sure which of you done it, but he had a word with master fosberton as you was comin' 'ome, and he told him it was you two had been smokin', but that you were his cousins, and he didn't want to get you into a row; so he said he'd give hanks five shillings to hold his tongue, and promised he'd speak to you, and between you you'd make it up to something more, and that's why hanks was always botherin' of you for money." jack's wrath, which had been quickly rising to boiling point during the recital of this narrative, now fairly bubbled over. "what a lie!" he exclaimed. "what a mean cad the fellow is! why, he set the rick on fire himself!" "i just thought as much," said joe. "yes, and that's not all. he knew we got into a row at school through the man talking to us; and then last summer, when the man was drunk, and met us in the road, he pretended he couldn't tell how it was the fellow knew our names!" "well, 'ere he is," interrupted joe crouch; "and if i was you, i'd just give him a bit of my mind!" raymond came sauntering across the lawn. "i say," he exclaimed, "what a place this is! fancy not being allowed to let off a gun. it's just what you might have expected from an old maid like aunt mabel, but i should have thought valentine would have had more pluck. a fine sort of soldier he'll make--the milksop!" raymond fosberton had for some time been running up an account in his cousin's bad books. this speech was the final entry, and caused jack to demand an immediate settlement. "look here," he began, trembling with indignation, "don't you speak like that to me about aunt mab or valentine, he's got a jolly sight more pluck than you have, you coward! if you want to begin calling names, i'll tell you yours--you're a liar and a sneak!" "what d'you mean?" "i mean what i say. i know all your little game, and it's no good your trying to keep it dark any longer. you told hanks that val and i had set that rick on fire, and so got us into a row through the man's speaking to us at melchester. and last year, when we met him, you made out you didn't know why he should be always pestering us for money." raymond's face turned pale, but he made no attempt to deny the accusation. "that was one of your cowardly tricks. another was when you ran away after knocking that lamp over at the fair, the other day, and left rosher and me to get out of the bother as best we could. that was what practically got me thrown out of the school. for two pins i'd punch your head, you miserable tailor's dummy!" it was hardly likely that a fashionable young man like master raymond fosberton would stand such language from a school-boy two years his junior. "i should like to see you!" he remarked. "two can play at that game." the speaker did not know the person he was addressing; in another moment his request was granted. jack came at him like a tiger, put all the force of his outraged feelings into a heavy right and left, and raymond fosberton disappeared with a great crash into a laurel bush. joe crouch rose from his knees with a joyful exclamation, wiping his hands on his apron. "i should have liked to have had a cut in myself," he afterwards remarked, "but master jack he managed it all splendid!" whatever joseph's wishes may have been, he had no opportunity of taking part in the proceedings; for, before the contest could be renewed, helen rushed across the lawn and caught jack by the arm. "oh, don't fight!" she cried breathlessly. "what is the matter?" "ask him!" answered jack shortly, nodding with his fists still clenched, in the direction of fosberton, who was in the act of emerging from the depths of the laurel bush. "ask him, he knows." "he called me a liar!" answered fosberton; "and then rushed up and hit me when i was unprepared, the cad!" this assertion very nearly brought on a renewal of the contest, but the speaker knew that helen's presence would prevent any more blows being struck. jack watched his adversary with a look of contempt, as the latter wiped the blood from his cut lip. "yes, i said you were a liar and a coward." "oh, hush!" said the girl, laying her hand on her cousin's mouth. "don't quarrel any longer; it's dreadful here, at brenlands! what would aunt mabel say if she knew you'd been fighting? come away, jack, and don't say any more." the boy would have liked to stay behind for another private interview with raymond, but for helen's sake he turned on his heel and followed her into the house. "all right, my boy," muttered raymond, looking after the retreating figures with a savage scowl on his face, "i'll be even with you some day, if ever i get the chance." there was a great lack of the usual mirth and gaiety at the tea-table that evening. every one knew what had happened, and in their anxiety to avoid any reference to the painful subject conversation flagged, and even queen mab's attempts to enliven the assembly for once proved a failure. neither of the boys would have been at all shocked at seeing a row settled by an exchange of blows, had the dispute taken place at school; but here, at brenlands, it seemed a different matter--bad blood and rough language were out of keeping with the place, and the punching of heads seemed a positive crime. to make matters worse, the day ended with a thunderstorm, and the evening had to be spent indoors. raymond was in a sulk, and refused to join in any of the parlour games which were usually resorted to in wet weather. "aunt mab, i wish you'd show us some of your treasures," said barbara. she was kneeling upon a chair in front of a funny little semicircular cupboard with a glass door, let into the panelling of the wall, and filled with china, little indian figures, and all kinds of other odds and ends. "very well, dear, i will," answered miss fenleigh, glad to think of some way of amusing her guests. "run up and fetch the bunch of keys out of the middle drawer in my dressing-table." the young people gathered round, and the contents of the cupboard were handed from one to another for examination. the curiosities were many and various. the girls were chiefly taken with the china; while what most appealed to jack and valentine was a small moorish dagger. they carefully examined the blade for any traces of bloodstains, and trying the point against their necks, speculated as to what it must feel like to be "stuck." "and what's that?" asked barbara, pointing to a little, square leather case on the bottom shelf. "ah! that's the thing i value more than anything else," answered queen mab. "there!" she continued, opening the box and displaying a large, handsome gold watch. "that was given to your grandfather by the passengers on his ship at the end of one of his voyages to australia. they met with dreadful weather, and i know i've heard him say that for two days and nights, when the storm was at its height, he never left the deck. you boys ought to be proud to remember it. there, valentine, read the inscription." the boy read the words engraved on the inside of the case:- presented to captain john fenleigh, of the "evelina" steamship, as a small acknowledgment of the skill and ability displayed by him under circumstances of exceptional difficulty and danger. "my father has a gold watch that was given to him when he retired from business," said raymond; "it's bigger than that, and has got our crest on the back. by-the-bye," he continued, "aren't you afraid of having it stolen? i shouldn't keep it in that cupboard, it i were you. you are certain to get it stolen some day." "oh, we don't have any thieves at brenlands," answered his aunt, smiling. "i've a jolly good mind to steal it myself," said jack; "or it you like, aunt, i'll exchange." jack's watch was always a standing joke against him, and, as he drew it out, the bystanders laughed. it was something like the timepiece by which, when the hands were at 9.30 and the bell struck three, one might know it was twelve o'clock. the silver case was dented and scratched; the long hand was twisted; the works, from having been taken to pieces and hurriedly put together again in class, were decidedly out of order; in fact, jack was not quite certain if, when cleaning it on one occasion, he had not lost one of the wheels. queen mab laughed and shook her head. "no, thank you," she said. "i think i should prefer to keep mine for the present, though one of you shall have it some day." raymond always came down to breakfast long after the others had finished. the next morning there was a letter waiting for him which had been readdressed on from melchester. he was still in a sulk, and the contents of the epistle did not seem to improve his temper. he devoured his food in silence, and then went off by himself to smoke at the bottom of the garden. "he is a surly animal," said valentine. "i wish he had never come." "well, he's going to-morrow evening," answered helen, "and i suppose we must make the best of him till then." during the remainder of the day raymond kept to himself, and though, after tea, he condescended to take part in some of the usual indoor games, he did it in so ungracious a manner as to spoil the pleasure of the other players. somehow the last day or so did not seem at all like the usual happy times at brenlands. there was a screw loose somewhere, and every one was not quite so merry and good-tempered as usual. "bother it! wet again!" said barbara, pushing back her chair from the breakfast-table with a frown and a pout. "never mind," answered her aunt. "rain before seven, fine before eleven." barbara did not believe in proverbs. she wandered restlessly round the room, inquiring what was the good of rain in august, and expressing her discontent with things in general. "oh, i say," she exclaimed suddenly, halting in front of the little glass door of the cupboard, "what do you think has happened? that dear little china man with the guitar has tumbled over and broken his head off!" helen and the boys crowded round to look. it was certainly the case--the little china figure lay over on its side, broken in the manner already described. "who can have done it?" "i expect i must have upset it the other evening when i was showing you the things," answered miss fenleigh. "never mind, i think i can mend it. go and fetch my keys, bar, and we'll see just what's the matter with the little gentleman." "this is funny," she continued, a few minutes later, "the key won't turn. dear me! what a silly i am! why, the door isn't locked after all." the little image was taken out, and while it was being examined barbara picked up the little leather case on which it usually stood. in another moment she gave vent to an ejaculation of surprise which startled the remainder of the company, and made them immediately forget all about the china troubadour. "why, aunt, where's the watch?" every one looked. it was true enough--the case was empty, and the watch gone. for a moment there was a dead silence, the company being too much astonished to speak. "stolen!" exclaimed raymond. "i said it would be some day." "but when was it taken?--who could have done it?--where did they get in?--how did they know about it?" these and other questions followed each other in rapid succession. a robbery at brenlands! the thing seemed impossible; and yet here was the empty case to prove it. the watch had disappeared, and no one had the slightest notion what could have become of it. "there's something in this lock," said valentine, who had been peering into the keyhole. "lend me your crochet needle, helen, and i'll get it out." with some little difficulty the obstacle was removed, and on examination proved to be a fragment of a broken key. "hallo!" said raymond, "here's a clue at any rate. don't lose it; put it in that little jar on the mantelpiece." the remainder of the morning was passed in an excited discussion regarding the mysterious disappearance of the gold timepiece. "i can't think any one can have stolen it," said queen mab. "how should they have known about it? and, besides, if any one broke into the house last night, how is it they didn't take anything else--that little silver box, for instance?" "it's stolen, right enough," said raymond. "it couldn't have been joe crouch, could it?" "not a bit of it," answered jack decisively. "he wouldn't do a thing like that. he stole some fruit once, but he's honest enough now." "could the servant have taken it?" "oh, no!" answered queen mab. "i could trust jane with anything." during the afternoon the weather cleared, but no one seemed inclined to do anything; a feeling of gloom and uneasiness lay upon the whole company. jack was sitting in a quiet corner reading, when his aunt called him. "oh, there you are! i wanted to speak to you alone just for a minute. helen told me about your quarrel with raymond, and i want you to make it up. he's going away to-night, and i shouldn't like you to part, except as friends." the boy frowned. "i don't want to be friends," he answered impatiently. "he's played me some very shabby tricks, and i think the less we see of him the better." "perhaps so; but i'm so sorry that you should have actually come to blows, and that while you were staying here with me at brenlands." "i'm not sorry! i wish i'd hit him harder!" "oh, you 'ugly duckling!'" answered the lady, smiling, and running her fingers through his crumpled hair. "you'll find out some day that 'punching heads,' as you call it, isn't the most satisfactory kind of revenge. however, i don't expect you to believe it now, but i think you'll do what i ask you. go to raymond, and say you're sorry you forgot yourself so far as to strike him, and ask his pardon. there, i don't think there is anything in that which need go against your conscience, or that it is a request that any gentleman need be ashamed to make." jack complied, but with a very bad grace. if the suggestion had come from any one but queen mab, he would have scouted the idea from the first. he found raymond swinging in a hammock under the trees. "i say," he began awkwardly, "i'm sorry i hit you when we had that row. aunt mabel wished me to tell you so." "hum! you'll be sorrier still before long. i suppose now you want to 'kiss and be friends'?" "no, i don't." "then if you don't want to be forgiven," returned the other with a sneer, "why d'you come and say you're sorry?" jack turned away in a rage, feeling that he had at all events got the worst of this encounter, and that it was entirely his own fault for having laid himself open to the rebuff. he felt vexed with helen for telling his aunt what had taken place, and with the latter for influencing him to offer raymond an apology. altogether the atmosphere around him seemed charged with discomfort and annoyance, and even the merry tinkle of the tea-bell was not so welcome as usual. "where's raymond?" asked queen mab. "i think he's putting his things in his bag," answered valentine. "shall i go and call him?" at that moment the subject of their conversation entered the room. he walked round to his place in silence, pausing for a moment to take something down from the mantelpiece. "who owns a key with a scrap of steel chain tied on to it?" "i do," answered jack. "it belongs to my play-box." "well, here it is," returned the other. "i picked it up among the bushes. do you notice anything peculiar about it?" "no." "you don't? well, here's something belonging to it," and so saying, the speaker flipped across the table the little metal fragment which had been taken from the lock in the cupboard door. "confound it!" said jack. "the thief must have used my key!" "_faugh_!" ejaculated raymond, bitterly. jack looked up quickly with an expression of anger and astonishment. "what's the matter?" he cried. "d'you mean to say i took the watch?" "i've said nothing of the kind," answered the other coldly; "though i remember you did say you'd a good mind to steal it. i've simply given you back your key." if a thunderbolt had fallen in the middle of the pretty tea-table, it could not have caused more astonishment and dismay than this last speech of raymond's. every one for the moment was too much taken aback to speak. the smouldering fire of jack's wrath had only needed this breeze to set it into a flame. his undisciplined spirit immediately showed itself in an outburst of ungovernable anger. "you are a cad and a liar!" he said. "wait till i get you outside." "hush! hush!" interrupted miss fenleigh, fearing a repetition of the previous encounter. "i can't have such words used here. perhaps raymond may be mistaken." the last words were spoken thoughtlessly, in the heat of the moment. jack in his anger resented that "may" and "perhaps," as implying doubt as to his honesty, and regarded the silence of the others as a sign that they also considered him guilty. in his wild, reckless manner he dashed his knife down upon the table, and with a parting glare at his accuser, marched straight out of the room. valentine rose to follow him. "no, val," said miss fenleigh, in an agitated voice. "leave him to himself for a little while. he'll be calmer directly." ten minutes later the front door closed with a bang. "he's going out to get cool, i suppose," said raymond scornfully. "he didn't seem to relish my finding his play-box key. however, perhaps he'll explain matters when he comes back." but jack did not come back. the blind fury of the moment gave place to a dogged, unreasoning sense of wrong and injustice. he had been accused of robbing the person he loved best on earth, and she believed him to be guilty. the old, wayward spirit once more took full possession of his heart, and in a moment he was ready to throw overboard all that he prized most dearly. he had some money in his pocket, enough to carry him home if he walked to melchester, and his luggage could come on another time. the plan was formed, and he did not hesitate to put it into immediate execution. it was not until nearly an hour after his departure that queen mab realized what had become of him, and then her distress was great. "why didn't he wait to speak to us!" she cried. "we must all write him a letter by to-night's post, to tell him that, of course, we don't think he's the thief, and to beg him to come back." "if you like to do it at once," said raymond, "i'll post them at grenford. they'll reach him then the first thing in the morning." the letters were written; even barbara, who never could be got to handle a pen except under strong compulsion, scribbled nearly four pages, and filled up the blank space at the end with innumerable kisses. about two hours later the scapegoat tramped, footsore and weary, into the melchester railway station; and at nearly the same moment, raymond fosberton, on his way home, took from his pocket the letters which had been entrusted to his care, tore them to fragments, and dropped them over the low wall of a bridge into the canal. "now we're about quits!" he said. chapter xiv. the sound of the drum. "'i believe i must go out into the world again,' said the duckling."--_the ugly duckling_. the summers came and went, but jack fenleigh remained a rebel, refusing to join the annual gathering at brenlands, and to pay his homage at the court of queen mab. one bright september morning, about four years after the holidays described in the previous chapter, he was sitting at an untidy breakfast-table, evidently eating against time, and endeavouring to divide his attention between swallowing down the meal and reading a letter which lay open in front of him. the teapot, bread, butter, and other provisions had been gathered round him in a disorderly group, so as to be near his hand; the loaf was lying on the tablecloth, the bacon was cold, and the milk-jug was minus a handle. it was, on the whole, a very different display from the breakfast-table at brenlands; and perhaps it was this very thought that crossed the young man's mind as he turned and dug viciously at the salt, which had caked nearly into a solid block. in outward appearance, to a casual observer, jack had altered very little since the day when he knocked master raymond fosberton into the laurel bush; yet there was a change. he had broadened, and grown to look older, and more of a man, though the old impatient look seemed to have deepened in his face like the lines between his eyebrows. the party at brenlands had waited in vain for a reply to their letters. within a week, miss fenleigh had written again, assuring the runaway that neither she nor his cousins for one moment suspected him of having stolen the watch; but in the meantime the mischief had been done. "they think i did it," muttered jack to himself, "or they'd have written at once. aunt mabel wants to forgive me, and smooth it over; but they know i'm a scamp, and now they believe i'm a thief!" again he hardened his heart, and though his feelings towards queen mab and his cousins never changed, yet his mind was made up to cut himself adrift from the benefit of their society. he left valentine's letter unanswered, and refused all his aunt's pressing invitations to visit her again. every year these were renewed with the same warmth and regularity, and it was one which now lay open beside his plate. "i suppose," ran the letter, "that you have heard how well val passed out of sandhurst. he is coming down to see me before joining his regiment, and will bring helen and barbara with him. i want you to come too, and then we shall all be together once more, and have the same dear old times over again. i shan't put up with any excuses, as i know you take your holiday about this time, so just write and say when you are coming." jack lifted his eyes from the letter, and made a grab at the loaf. "i should like to go," he muttered; "how jolly the place must look!--but no, i've left it too long. i ought to have gone back at once, or never to have run away like that. of course, now they must think that i stole the watch. yet, perhaps, if i gave them my word of honour, they'd believe me; i know aunt mabel would." at this moment the door opened, and a gentleman entered the room. he was wearing a shabby-looking dressing-gown, a couple of ragged quill pens were stuck in his mouth, and he carried in his hand a bundle of closely-written sheets of foolscap. mr. basil fenleigh, to tell the truth, was about to issue an invitation to a "few friends" to join him in starting an advertisement and bill-posting agency business; to be conducted, so said the rough copy of the circular, on entirely novel lines, which could not fail to ensure success, and the drafting out of which had occupied most of his leisure time during the past twelve months. "humph!" he exclaimed sourly. "down at your usual time, eh? you'll be late again at your office." "no, i shan't," answered the son, glancing up at the clock. "i can get there in ten minutes." "you can't. you know very well mr. caston complained only the other day of your coming behind your time. the next thing will be that you'll lose your situation." "i don't care if i do; i'm heartily sick of the place." "you're heartily sick of any kind of work, and you always have been." jack threw down his knife and fork and rose from the table, leaving part of his breakfast unfinished on his plate. "all right," he said sulkily; "i'll go at once." he strode out of the room, crushing queen mab's letter into a crumpled ball of paper in his clenched fist. after what had just passed, he would certainly not broach the subject of a holiday. the morning's work seemed, if possible, more distasteful than ever. casting up sheets of analysis, he got wrong in his additions, and had to go over them again. he watched the workmen moving about in the yard outside, and wished he had been trained to some manual trade like theirs. then he thought of valentine, and for the first time his affection for his old friend gave place to a feeling of bitterness and envy. "confound the fellow! he's always done just as he liked. i wish he was here in my shoes for a bit. it isn't fair one chap should have such luck, and another none at all. little he cares what becomes of me. i may rot here all my life, and no one troubles the toss of a button whether i'm happy or miserable." he was in the same ill-humour when he returned home to dinner. mr. fenleigh was also out of temper, and seemed inclined to give vent to his feelings by renewing the dispute which had commenced at the breakfast-table. father and son seldom met except at meals; and unfortunately, on these occasions, the conversation frequently took the form of bickering and complaint. jack, as a rule, appeared sullenly indifferent to what passed; this time, however, his smouldering discontent burst out into a name of anger. "i suppose you _were_ late this morning?" "no, i wasn't." "humph! you said before you started that you were sick of the place, and didn't care whether you lost it. if you do, i hope you won't expect me to find you another berth." "no, i'll find one myself." "what d'you think you're good for? you're more likely to idle about here doing nothing than find any other employment." "i work harder than you do," said the son angrily. "hold your tongue, sir! if you can't treat me with some amount of respect, you'd better leave the house." "so i will. i'll go and enlist." "you may go where you please. i've done the best i could for you, and all the return i get is ingratitude and abuse. now you can act for yourself." it was not the first time that remarks of this character had been fired across the table. jack made no reply, but at that moment his mind was seized with a desperate resolve. once for all he would settle this question, and change the present weary existence for something more congenial to his taste. all that afternoon he turned the plan over in his thoughts, and his determination to follow it up grew stronger as the time approached for putting it into execution. what if the move were a false one? a person already in the frying-pan could but jump into the fire; and any style of life seemed preferable to the one he was now living. his father had told him to please himself, and, as he had only himself to consider, he would do so, and follow the drum, as had always been his inclination from childhood. the big bell clanged out the signal for giving over work; but jack, instead of returning home, picked up a small handbag he had brought with him, and walked off in the direction of the railway station. on his way thither, he counted the money in his pocket. he had some idea of going to london, but the expense of the journey would be too heavy for his resources. it mattered little where the plunge was taken; he would go to the barracks at melchester. he lingered for a moment at the window of the booking-office, hardly knowing why he hesitated. why not? he had only himself to please. the clerk grew impatient. "well?" he said. jack threw down his money. "third, melchester!" he said, and so crossed the rubicon. very few changes had taken place in the little city during the four years which had elapsed since he last visited it. here and there a house had been modernized, or a new shop-front erected, but in the neighbourhood of the school no alterations seemed to have been made. he strolled past it in the dusk, and paused to look in through the gates: the boys had not yet returned, and the quadrangle was dark and deserted. he thought of the night when he and rosher had climbed in by way of the headmaster's garden, and forced an entry into the house through the bathroom window. it seemed a hardship then to be obliged to be in by a certain time, yet it was preferable to having no resting-place to claim as one's own. a few minutes later he halted again, this time outside the well-remembered cookshop. "duster's" was exactly the same as it always had been, except for the fact that, it being holiday time, the display of delicacies in the window was not quite so large as usual. jack smiled as there flashed across his mind the memory of the literary society's supper; the faces of the sprightly tinkleby, preston the bowler, "guzzling jimmy," and a host of others, rose before him in the deepening twilight. they had been good comrades together once; most of them had probably made a fair start by this time in various walks of life. he wondered if they remembered him, and what they would say if they knew what he was doing, and whether any of them would care what became of him. no, he had only himself to please now, and if he preferred soldiering to office-work, what was there to hinder him from taking the shilling? there was no particular hurry. he passed the night at a small temperance hotel, and next morning, after a plain breakfast, started out for a stroll into the country. he had written a note to his father before leaving padbury merely stating his intention, and giving no address. there was nothing more to be done but to enjoy himself as a free man before making application to the nearest recruiting sergeant. he passed the barracks where the 1st battalion of the royal blankshire regiment was quartered, and thought how often he and valentine had lingered there, listening to the bugle-calls, and watching the drill instructors at work in the square with their awkward squads. just inside the gate the guard were falling in, preparatory to the arrival of the relief, and something in their smart appearance, and in the very clank of their rifle-butts upon the flagstones, stirred his heart; yes, that was the calling he meant to follow. he strode off along the hornalby road, whistling a lively tune, and conjuring up bright mental pictures of the life before him. he might not have valentine's luck, but he would make up for it in other ways. the path was steep and rough, no doubt, but in treading it scores of brave men had won honour and renown; and with courage and determination, there was no reason why he should not do the same. it was a man's life, and here there was certainly more chance of distinguishing oneself than in a manufacturer's office. with these and other thoughts of a similar nature occupying his mind, jack tramped on gaily enough in the bright sunshine. suddenly, however, he stopped dead in the middle of the road. he had come in sight of a wayside inn, the black horse, and the thought struck him that he was within two miles of brenlands. all unbidden, a host of recollections came rushing upon him. the last time he had walked from melchester along this road was the afternoon on which he brought back the silver locket for queen mab. what if the pony-carriage should suddenly turn the corner? and yet, why should he be afraid to meet her? he was doing nothing to be ashamed of, and the recollection of the stolen watch never entered his head. he would have given anything to have gone on and seen her again--to have had one more kind smile and loving word. "my own boy jack!" would he ever hear her say that again? he turned on his heel, and began the return journey with a gloomy look of discontent upon his face. his castles in the air had vanished: what was there that made a soldier's life attractive but the right to go about in a red coat like a barrel-organ monkey? for two pins he would abandon the project, and go back to padbury. this impression, however, was not destined to last very long. as he approached the barracks he noticed a small crowd of idlers collecting near a gateway, and at the same instant the silence was broken by the sound of a drum. he knew what it was--the regiment had been out drilling on the neighbouring common, and was on its way home. he hurried forward to watch the soldiers as they passed. boom! boom! boom!--boom! boom! boom! with a glorious crash the brass instruments burst out with the tune. jack knew it well, and his heart danced to it as the band marched out into the road. "'twas in the merry month of may, when bees from flower to flower did hum, soldiers through the town marched gay, the village flew to the sound of the drum!" jack drew back into the hedge to watch as the regiment went by. "march at ease!" the sunlight flashed as the arms were sloped, and glittered on bright blades as the officers returned their swords. not a detail escaped his eager observation; the swing of the rifle-barrels, the crisp tramp of the marching feet, even the chink of the chain bridles as the horses of the mounted officers shook their heads, all seemed to touch answering chords in his inmost heart, and awaken there the old love and longing for a soldier's life. "the tailor he got off his knees, and to the ranks did boldly come: he said he ne'er would sit at ease, but go with the rest, and follow the drum!" jack hesitated no longer, but hurried back to pick up the few belongings he had left at the hotel, determined to put his project into execution without further delay. chapter xv. the queen's shilling. "if he had called out, 'here i am,' it would have been all right; but he was too proud to cry out for help while he wore a uniform."--_the brave tin soldier_. there was no more hesitation or uncertainty about his movements now, and before he knew it, jack found himself once more back at the barracks. the corporal on "gate duty," who, for want of something better to do, had been chastising his own leg with a "swagger cane," ceased in the performance of this self-imposed penance, and shot a significant glance at the stranger. "looking out for any one?" he inquired, by way of opening up a conversation. "no," answered jack; "the fact is, i've come to enlist. d'you think you could make a soldier of me?" "well, at any rate, i should say you were big enough," answered the corporal briskly. "why, we ought to make a general of a smart young fellow like you, in less than no time!" this seemed a promising commencement; but the adjutant, in front of whom jack was conducted after undergoing a preliminary examination as to his height, chest measurement, and strength of eyesight, did not appear to be of quite so sanguine a temperament as the non-commissioned officer. he eyed the would-be recruit with no very favourable expression on his face, as he prepared to take down the answers to the questions on the attestation paper. "name?" "john fenleigh." "is that a _nom de guerre_?" "no, sir, it's my real name." "humph! so you speak french?" jack coloured slightly. "no, sir--that is, i learned some at school." the officer looked up, and laid his quill pen down on the table. "look here, my good fellow," he said, "it's not my business to ask what brings you here, but one thing i should like to know: how long do you expect you are going to remain in the army--a week, or six months?" "the full time, i hope, sir." "are your parents living? and do they know of the step you're taking?" "my father is living. i told him what i meant to do before i left home." "well," returned the officer, once more dipping his quill in the ink, "if you change your mind before to-morrow, you'll have to pay a sovereign; after that, it'll cost you ten pounds!" the paper was filled up, and our hero received the historical shilling, which he slipped into his waistcoat pocket, having previously determined never to part with that particular coin, unless he were obliged. he was then conducted to the hospital, and there examined by the medical officer; his eyesight being once more tested by his having to count a number of white dots on a piece of black paper displayed on the opposite side of the room, each eye being covered alternately. having passed satisfactorily through this ordeal, he was informed that he could not be sworn in before the following day, when he must present himself at the orderly room at eleven o'clock. until that time he was free to do as he pleased; and being still in the possession of the greater portion of his previous week's salary, he chose to sleep another night at the hotel, and so spent the remainder of the day wandering about the streets of melchester. on the following morning, at the appointed hour, he returned to the barracks, and after some little delay, was brought into the presence of the commanding officer, where he was duly "sworn in," and signed his name to the declaration of allegiance. "you'll join c company," said the sergeant-major. "just take him across, orderly, and show him the room." with feelings very much akin to those of the "new boy" arriving for the first time at a big boarding-school, our hero followed his guide across the square, up a flight of stairs, and down a long corridor, amid a good deal of noise and bustle. the bugle had not long since sounded "come to the cook-house door," and the dinner orderlies were hurrying back with the supply of rations for their respective rooms. at length a door was reached, in front of which the orderly paused with, "here you are!" jack entered, and made his first acquaintance with his future home--the barrack-room. it was large and lofty, with whitewashed walls and a floor of bare boards. a row of wooden tables and forms ran down the centre, above which was a hanging shelf for the men's plates and basins. around the room were sixteen small iron bedsteads, each made in such a fashion that one half closed up under the other, the mattress when not in use being rolled up and secured by a strap, with the blankets and sheets folded on the top; the remaining portion of the couch, on which the rug was laid, serving for a seat. above the bed were shelves and hooks for accoutrements, and other possessions. above some of the cots small pictures or photographs were hung, which served to relieve the monotony of the whitewash; but these, like the rest of tommy atkins's property, were arranged with that scrupulous care and neatness which is so characteristic of all that concerns the service from baton to button-stick. at the moment jack entered, his future room-mates were busy round one end of the tables, assisting the orderly man in the task of pouring soup from a large can into the small basins, and making a similar equal division of the meat and potatoes. the new-comer's arrival, therefore, was scarcely noticed, except by the sergeant, who told him to sit down, and saw that he received a share of the rations. the fare was certainly rough, and seemed in keeping with the table manners of the rank and file of the royal blankshire; they forbore to "trouble" each other for things out of reach, but secured them with a dive and a grab. "here, chuck us the rooty!" was the request when one needed bread; while though substantial mustard and pepper pots adorned the board, the salt was in the primitive form of a lump, which was pushed about from man to man, and scraped down with the dinner knives. but jack had not come to barracks expecting a _table d'hã´te_ dinner of eight or nine courses, served by waiters in evening dress, and he set to work with a good grace on what was set before him. the remarks addressed to him, if a trifle blunt, were good-natured enough, and he replied to them in the same spirit. his comrades evidently remarked from the first that he was a cut above the ordinary recruit; but he was wise enough to avoid showing any airs, and soon saw that this line of conduct was appreciated. the meal was in progress when there was a sharp rap, and the door was opened. "'tenshun!" the men laid down their knives and forks, and rose to their feet. "dinners all right here?" "yes, sir." "all present?" "all present, sir." the orderly officer glanced round the room, and then turned and walked out. "'e's a gentleman, is mr. lawson," murmured one of the men; "'e always shuts the door behind 'im." jack's eye followed the figure of the lieutenant as he rejoined the orderly sergeant in the passage. it was not so much the sash and sword, and neat, blue patrol jacket, as the cheery voice and pleasant sunburnt face, which had attracted our hero's attention; somehow these reminded him of valentine, and turned his thoughts back to his old friend. he wondered how his cousin looked in the same uniform. well, well, however wide and deep the gulf might be which the doings of the last two days had placed between them, they were, in a way, reunited; for the service was the same, whatever difference there might be in shoulder-straps. dinner over, some of the men made down their beds for a nap, while others announced their intention "to do some soldiering," a term which implied the cleaning and polishing of accoutrements. sergeant sparks, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the room, had a few friendly words with jack, told him what he would have to do on the following day, and advised him in the meantime to make himself as comfortable as he could. "here," he added, turning to a private, "just show this man his cot, and explain to him how to keep his bedding; you may want a good turn yourself some time." the soldier obeyed readily enough. jack had already caught his eye several times during dinner, and now followed him into a corner of the room, resolved if possible to patch up a friendship. in the carrying out of this intention he was destined to experience a startling surprise. the man paused before one of the end beds, and began to unfasten the strap of the mattress. "i didn't think of meeting you here, mr. fenleigh." jack started and stared at the speaker in silent astonishment. "you remember me, sir?--joe crouch." "what! joe crouch, who used to work at brenlands?" "yes, sir; joe crouch as stole the pears," answered the soldier, smiling. "i never expected to find you 'listin' in the army, sir. i suppose miss fenleigh ain't aware of what you're doin'?" "oh, no!" exclaimed the other eagerly. "promise me you'll never tell any one at brenlands where i am--swear you won't." "very well, sir," replied joe crouch, calmly proceeding to unroll the mattress and make down the bed. "for goodness' sake, drop that _sir_. look here, joe: i'm a lame dog, down on my luck, and no good to anybody; but we were friendly years ago, and if you'll have me for a comrade now, i'll do my best to be a good one." joe flung down the bedding, and held out his big, brown hand. "that i will!" he answered. "you did the square thing by me once, and now i'll see you through; don't you fret." tea in barracks was evidently a very informal meal, of which no great account was taken. as jack sat down to his bowl and chunk of bread, joe crouch pushed a screw of paper in front of him, which on examination proved to contain a small pat of butter. "what's this?" asked jack. "fat," answered joe, shortly. "from the canteen," he added. "then you've paid for it, and--look here--you've got none yourself." "don't want any," answered joe, breaking up a crust and dropping it into his tea. "there you are. that's what's called a 'floatin' battery.'" in the evening most of the men went out. jack, however, preferred to remain where he was, and passed the time reading a paper he had brought with him, at one of the tables. sergeant sparks came up to him and chatted pleasantly for half an hour. he wore a ribbon at his breast, and had stirring stories to tell of the afghan war, and roberts' march to candahar. about half-past eight the men began to return from their walks and various amusements, and the barrack-room grew more noisy. at half-past nine the roll was called, and the orders read out for the following day, and jack was not sorry when the time came to turn in. crouch came over to see if he understood the preparation of his cot. "the feathers in these 'ere beds grew on rather a large bird," remarked joe, referring to the straw mattress, "but they're soft enough when you come off a spell of guard duty or a day's manoeuvrin'." the bugle sounded the long, melancholy g, and the orderly man turned off the gas. our hero lay awake for some time listening to the heavy breathing of his new comrades, and then turned over and fell asleep. the bright morning sunshine was streaming in through the big windows when the clear, ringing notes of reveille and the cheery strains of "old daddy longlegs" roused him to consciousness of where he was. "now then, my lads, show a leg there!" cried the sergeant. jack stretched and yawned. yes, it was certainly a rough path, but his mind was made up to tread it with a good heart, and this being the case, he was not likely to turn back. chapter xvi. on active service. "a voice cried out, 'i declare here is the tin soldier!'"--_the brave tin soldier_. a brilliant, clear sky overhead, and such a scorching sun that the air danced with the heat, as though from the blast of a furnace; surely this could not be the twenty-fifth of december! but christmas day it was--christmas day in the camp at korti. [illustration: "it was christmas day in the camp at korti."] among the pleasant groves of trees which bordered the steep banks of the nile glistened the white tents of the camel corps. still farther back from the river lay fields of grass and patches of green dhurra; and behind these again an undulating waste of sand and gravel, dotted here and there with scrub and rock, and stretching away to the faintly-discerned hills of the desert. the shade of the trees tempered the heat, making a pleasant change after the roasting, toilsome journey up country. here, though hardly to be recognized with their ragged clothing and unshaven faces, was gathered a body of men who might be regarded as representing the flower of england's army--life guards, lancers, dragoons, grenadiers, highlanders, and linesmen from many a famous foot regiment; all were there, ready to march and fight shoulder to shoulder in order to rescue gordon from his perilous position in khartoum. every day the numbers in camp had been gradually growing larger, fresh batches of troops arriving either on camels or in boats. a whole fleet of these "whalers" lay moored along the bank of the nile; the usual quiet of the river being continually broken by the dog-like panting of steam launches hurrying up and down the stream. friendly natives, clad in loose shirts and skull-caps, wandered through the lines, gazing wonderingly at all they saw; while in strange contrast to their unintelligible jabberings, rose the familiar _patois_ of the barrack-room, or snatches of some popular music-hall song hummed or whistled by every urchin in the streets of london. the concentration of the expedition had now been almost completed, and the chief topic of conversation was the immediate prospect of a desert march to shendy. but to return to our commencement, christmas day it was; and however difficult it might have been to realize this as far as the weather was concerned, the fact had, to a certain extent, been impressed upon the minds of the men by the supplementing of their ordinary dinner rations with a gallant attempt at plum-pudding, manufactured for the most part out of boiled dates. two men, who had just partaken of this delicacy, were lying stretched out full length under a shady tree, their pith helmets brought well forward over their eyes, their grey serge jumpers thrown open, and pipes in their mouths. to see them now, with their tattered nether garments, stubbly chins, and sunburnt faces, from which the skin was peeling off in patches, one could hardly have recognized in them the same smart soldiers who paraded a few months ago on the barrack square at melchester. yet such they were, as the reader will soon discover by the opening remarks of their conversation. "this weather don't seem very seasonable. i wonder whether it's frost and snow away home at brenlands." "yes; i wonder if the reservoir at hornalby is frozen. we used to go skating there when i was at school. it seems a jolly long time ago now!" "it don't seem three years ago to me since you enlisted. i never thought you'd have stayed so long." "didn't you? when my mind's made up, it's apt to stick to it, joe, my boy. besides, i had no prospect of anything better." there was a pause, during which the two comrades (who, from the foregoing, will have been recognized as our hero and joe crouch) continued to puff away at their pipes in silence, listening to the remarks of three men who were playing a drowsy game with a tattered pack of cards. "these cards are gettin' precious ragged; you'd better get 'em clipped."--"why don't you play the king?"--"'cause there ain't one! he's one of 'em as is lost." "you used to have fine times, i reckon, when you and mr. valentine and the young ladies came to stay at miss fenleigh's," said crouch. "i wonder what she'd say if she knew you was out here in egypt." "i took precious good care she shouldn't know. i suppose she heard from the guv'nor that i went off and enlisted, but i didn't send word what regiment i joined. i never mean to see her again--no fear!" "she was a kind lady," murmured joe reflectively; "very good to me once upon a time." "yes, that she was--the best and kindest woman in the world; and that's just the reason why i'm glad to think she doesn't know what's become of me.-hallo, swabs, what are you after?" the person thus addressed was a gaunt, lanky-looking warrior, clad simply in helmet, shirt, and trousers; the sleeves of his "greyback" were rolled up above his elbows; and he was armed with a roughly-made catapult, evidently intended for the destruction of some of the small, brightly-coloured birds that were flitting about among the branches of the palms. "swabs," who answered at roll-call to the name of smith h., in addition to holding the badge as best shot in the regiment, was a popular character in c company. "shist!" he answered; "when there ain't nothink better to shoot at, i'm goin' to try me 'and on some of these dickies." "swabs" was evidently more skilful with the rifle than with his present weapon. he discharged his pebble, but with no result. "miss; high right," said jack. "where did you get your elastic from?" "the tube of me filter. i'll take a finer sight next time," and "swabs" went stalking off in search of further sport. "it seems hard to imagine that we're on the real business at last," said jack, clasping his hands behind his head and stretching out his legs. "after so many sham fights, it seems rum to think of one in real earnest. the strange thing to me," he continued, "is to think how often my cousin and i used to talk about war, and wonder what it was like; and we thought he was the one more likely to see it. i used to be always grumbling about his luck, and now i expect he'd envy me mine." "i suppose he hasn't come out?" "no, i don't think so. i forget just where he's stationed. look at tom briggs over there, he using his towel to put a patch on the seat of his breeches. hey, tommy! how are you going to dry yourself when you wash?" "wash!" answered the man, looking up from his work with a grin, "you'll be glad enough afore long to lap up every spot of water you come across; there won't be much talk of washin' in this 'ere desert, i'm thinkin'." the answer was lost on jack; something else had suddenly attracted his attention. he sat up and made a movement as though he would rise to his feet. an officer had just strolled past, wearing a fatigue cap and the usual serge jumper. his face was tanned a deep brown, and showed up in strong contrast to his fair hair and small, light-coloured moustache. our hero's first impulse was to run after and accost the stranger, but he checked himself, and sank back into his former position. "i say, briggs," he called, "what men were those who came up in the boats yesterday?" "some of the ----sex regiment," answered the other, stooping forward to bite off his cotton with his teeth. jack's heart thumped heavily, and he caught his breath; his eyes had not deceived him, and the subaltern who had just walked by was valentine. he was roused from his reverie by the warning call to "stables," it being the time for feeding and grooming the camels. they were queer steeds, these "ships of the desert," and for those who had never ridden them before even mounting and dismounting was no easy task. in the case of the former, unless the animals' heads were brought round to their shoulders, and held there by means of the rope which served as a rein, they were apt to rise up suddenly before the rider had got properly into the saddle, a proceeding usually followed by disastrous results; while, on the other hand, the sudden plunge forward as they dropped on their knees, followed by the lurch in the opposite direction when their hind-quarters went down, made it an extremely easy matter to come a cropper in either direction. their necks seemed to be made of indiarubber, and their hind legs, with which they could scratch the top of their heads, or, if so inclined, kick out behind, even when lying down, appeared to be furnished with double joints. jack had christened his mount "lamentations," from the continual complaints which it uttered; but in this the animal was no worse than the remainder of its fellows, who bellowed and roared whatever was happening, whether they were being unsaddled, groomed, mounted, or fed. with thoughts centred on his recent discovery, our hero made his way to the spot where the camels of his detachment were picketed, and there went mechanically through the work of cleaning up the lines, and the still more unsavoury task of attending to "lam's" toilet. should he speak to valentine, or not? that was the question which occupied his mind. unless he did so, it was hardly likely that after seven years, and with a moustache and sprouting beard, his cousin would recognize him among the seventeen hundred men destined to form the expedition. the men marched back to their lines, and were then dismissed for tea. jack sat silently sipping at his pannikin and munching his allowance of biscuit. should he speak to valentine, or not? the vague day-dream of their school-boy days was realized--they were soldiers together, and on active service; but everything was altered now. the great difference of rank was, of itself, sufficient to place an impassable barrier between them; and then the recollection of their last parting, his refusals to meet his cousins again at brenlands, and the fact of his having left so many of his old chum's letters unanswered, all seemed to lead up to one conclusion. valentine would long ago have come to regard it as a clear proof that the runaway had really stolen the watch, and not have been surprised to hear that he had gone to the dogs. nor was he likely now to be very well pleased if the black sheep suddenly walked up and claimed relationship. no. jack felt he had long ago severed all ties with what had once been dear to him; it was the better plan to let things remain as they were, and make no attempt to renew associations with a past which could not be recalled. sunset was rapidly followed by darkness. in honour of its being christmas day, an impromptu concert had been announced; and the men began to gather round a rough stage which had been erected under the trees, and which was lit up with lamps and the glare of two huge bonfires. the programme was of the free-and-easy character: volunteers were called for, and responded with songs, step-dances, and the like; while the audience, lying and sitting round on the sand, greeted their efforts with hearty applause, and joined in every chorus with unwonted vigour. jack had always possessed a good voice, a fact which had long ago been discovered by his comrades, and now, for the honour of the royal blankshire, those standing near him insisted that he should sing. before he knew it, he was pushed forward, and hoisted on to the platform. there was no chance of retreat. he glanced round the sea of faces glowing brightly in the firelight, and after a moment's thought as to what would be likely to go down best, he struck up his old song, "the mermaid." "oh! 'twas in the broad atlantic, 'mid the equinoctial gales, that a gay young tar fell overboard, among the sharks and whales." the great crowd of listeners burst out into the "rule, britannia!" chorus with a mighty roar. but our hero heeded them not; his thoughts had suddenly gone back to the little parlour at the back of "duster's" shop; his eyes wandered anxiously over the faces of the officers who were grouped together in front of the stage, but valentine did not appear to be among them. an uproarious repetition of the last "rule, britannia!" was still in progress as jack rejoined the blankshire contingent, and submitted his back to a number of congratulatory slaps. these signs of approval were still being showered down upon him, when sergeant sparks touched his elbow. "here's an officer wants to speak to you, fenleigh. there he is, standing over by that tree." with his heart in his mouth, the singer stepped out of the crush, and approached the figure standing by itself under the heavy shadow of the palm. "jack!" the private soldier made no reply, but raised his hand in the customary salute. the action was simple enough, and yet full of meaning, showing the altered relationship between the two old friends. "why, man, didn't you tell us where you were? and what had become of you?" "there was no need; and, besides, i didn't wish you to know, sir?" "surely you are not still offended over what happened that summer at brenlands? you must have known that we, none of us, suspected you for a moment of having stolen that watch. it was only a cad like raymond fosberton would ever have thought of suggesting such a thing." "appearances were very much against me, sir--and--well, it's all past and done with now." valentine was silent. that "sir," so familiar to his ear, and yet seemingly so incongruous in the present instance, baffled him completely. in the first moment of his discovery he had intended, figuratively speaking, to fall upon the prodigal's neck, and converse with him in the old, familiar style; but now, between valentine fenleigh, esq., of the ----sex, and private fenleigh, of the royal blankshire, there was a great gulf fixed, and the latter, especially, seemed determined to recognize that the former conditions of their friendship could now no longer exist. after a moment's pause, jack spoke. "could you tell me, sir, if they are all well?" "who? my people? they're all right, thanks. helen's just gone and got married; and little bar's just the same as ever, only a bit older. she was twenty-one last month." jack smiled. "and aunt mabel, have you seen her lately?" "oh, yes! she's very well, and doesn't seem to alter at all. she often talks of you, and is always sad because you never write. why have you never been to see her?" "i have seen her once. i passed her in the street in melchester; but i was in uniform, and she didn't notice me." "but why didn't you go over to brenlands?" "oh, i couldn't do that! i struck out a path for myself. it may be a bit rough, like the way of transgressors always is; but it suits me well enough. i've been in it now for three years, and mean to stick to it; but it'll never bring me to brenlands again." "oh, yes, it will," answered the other cheerily, "at the end of the long lane comes the turning." there was another pause; the conversation had been running more freely, but now jack fell back again into his former manner. "i beg pardon, sir, but i should like to ask if you'll be good enough not to mention my name in any of your letters home." "why not?" "i should be glad, sir, if you wouldn't. i've managed hitherto to keep my secret." "well, if it's your wish, for the present i won't," answered valentine; "but if we both live through this business, then i shall have something to say to you on the subject." "good-night, sir." "good-night, old chap, and good luck to us both!" chapter xvii under fire. "the tin soldier trembled; yet he remained firm; his countenance did not change; he looked straight before him, and shouldered his musket."--_the brave tin soldier_. five days afterwards the camp was all astir, and presented an unusual scene of activity and animation. on the twenty-eighth of december, orders had been issued for a portion of the force to march across the desert and occupy the wells at gakdul; and on this, the morning of the thirtieth, the guards camel regiment and the mounted infantry (to which latter force jack and his comrades of the royal blankshire were attached), together with detachments of the engineers and medical staff corps, a squadron of the 19th hussars, and a large train of "baggagers," were preparing for the start, amid much bugle-blowing, shouting of orders, and roaring of camels as the loads were being placed on their backs. gradually, as the hour approached for the assembly of the force, the noise grew less; even "lamentations" ceased his protestations, and stalked off to the parade ground without further murmuring. lord wolseley inspected the force, and shortly before three o'clock the cavalry scouts started. as jack stood by the side of his kneeling steed, with joe crouch on his right, his heart beat fast. this was something different from any of his previous military experiences; the cartridges in his pouch and bandoleer were ball, not blank. it was to be the real thing this time; the stern reality of what he and valentine had so often pictured and played at far away in the peaceful old house at brenlands. though showing it in different ways, all his comrades were more or less excited at the prospect of a move: some were silent, others unusually noisy; joe crouch puffed incessantly at a little clay pipe; sergeant sparks seemed to have grown ten years younger, and overflowed with reminiscences of afghanistan and the ghazees; while lieutenant lawson might, from his high spirits and cheery behaviour, have been just starting on a hunting expedition or some pleasure excursion. at last it came: "prepare to mount!" "well, here goes!" said jack, drawing his steed's head round, and putting his foot in the stirrup. "here goes!" echoed joe crouch. "mount!" the bugle sounded the advance, the word was given, and the column moved off across the undulating plain--the guards in front, baggage camels in the centre, and the mounted infantry bringing up the rear; the length of the column extending to nearly a mile. scared gazelles sprang up from among the rocks and bushes, and bounded away. "hi, swabs! where's yer catapult?" inquired tommy briggs. "keepin' it for the niggers," answered the marksman significantly. after an hour's going, many of the riders sought to ease themselves, and vary the peculiar swaying motion by a change of position: some crossed their legs in front of them; while jack and his chum sat side-saddle, facing each other, and for the twentieth time that day exchanged opinions as to when and where they would first come in touch with the enemy. in addition to the heat, the clouds of dust raised by the force in front rendered it choky work for those in rear; and no one was sorry when, about five o'clock, the bugles sounded the halt. jack dismounted, feeling uncommonly sore and stiff, but was soon busily engaged helping to make fires of dry grass and mimosa scrub, on which to boil the camp kettles for tea. never, even when poured from queen mab's old silver teapot, had the steaming beverage tasted so refreshing; and the men, sitting round in groups, mess-tin in hand, seemed to regard the whole business in the light of a gigantic picnic. the sun dropped below the horizon; and after a rest of about an hour and a half, the march was continued, the column closing up and proceeding with a broadened front. the clear, brilliant light of the moon flooded the scene with silvery splendour, throwing up in strange contrast the black, dark hills in the distance. gradually, as the men grew sleepy, their laughter and conversation died away, the padded feet of the camels made no sound as they passed over the sand, and the silence remained unbroken save for the occasional yelping bark of some hungry jackal. jack felt cold and drowsy, and, in spite of the movement of his camel, had hard work to keep awake. once or twice, when the loads of some of the baggagers slipped, a halt was called while they were refixed; and men, dismounting from their saddles, fell fast asleep on the sand, only to be roused again in what seemed a moment later by the "advance" being sounded. hours seemed drawn out into weeks, and jack, glancing with heavy eyes to his left front, wondered if the sky would ever brighten with the signs of dawn. at length the east grew grey, then flushed with pink, and the sun rose with the red glare of a conflagration, sending a glow of warmth across the desert. for about two hours the march was continued; then, at a spot where a number of trees were growing, a halt was made, camels unloaded, and preparations made for a well-earned breakfast. in spite of the excitement of this first bivouac, as soon as the meal was over jack stretched himself out upon the ground and fell fast asleep, only returning to consciousness when wakened by the flies and midday heat; and so ended his first experience of a desert march. for the purposes of this story it will not be necessary to follow closely all our hero's doings during the next fortnight; and we shall therefore rest content with describing, as briefly as possible, the movements of the force during that period of time which preceded its coming in actual contact with the enemy. starting again on the afternoon of the thirty-first of december, the column pushed forward with occasional halts, until, early on the morning of the second of january, gakdul was reached, and the wells occupied without resistance. leaving the guards and engineers to garrison the place, the rest of the column marched the same evening on the return journey to korti, to collect and bring on the remaining troops and stores necessary for continuing the advance to metemmeh. ten days later, the remainder of the force arrived at gakdul; and after a day spent in watering and attending to arms and ammunition, a start was made on the afternoon of the fourteenth in the direction of abu klea. soon after sunset the column halted, and resuming the march early on the following morning, by five o'clock in the evening had reached jebel-es-sergain, or the hill of the saddle, which was to be the resting-place for the night. the men lay down as usual, with piled arms in front and camels in rear; the order for perfect silence was hardly needed; the sandy water-channels made a comfortable couch for wearied limbs; and the tired warriors were glad enough to wrap themselves in their blankets, and enjoy a few hours of well-earned repose. in spite of the long and fatiguing day through which he had just passed, jack did not fall asleep at once, like the majority of his comrades. ever since his meeting with valentine, his mind had been continually going back to the days when they were at school together; and now, in the solemn stillness of the desert, as he lay gazing up at the bright, starlit sky, his thoughts flew back to brenlands, and he pictured up the dear face that had always been the chief of the many attractions that made the place so pleasant. he almost wished now that he had written to her before leaving england. she knew where valentine was, and every morning would glance with beating heart at the war headings in the newspaper. it would have been a great satisfaction to feel confident of having a share in her loving thoughts. since christmas day, our hero had only caught an occasional glimpse of his cousin, but that was sufficient to revive his old love for the bright, frank-looking face. "he's just the same as ever," thought jack. "well, i hope he'll get through this all right. there are the girls, and aunt mabel--it would be dreadful if anything happened!" and with this reflection fenleigh j. turned over and fell asleep. before daybreak next morning the column was once more on the move, crossing a large waste of sand and gravel, relieved here and there by stretches of black rock; while, bordering the plain on either side, were ranges of hills, which gradually approached each other until, in the distance, they formed the pass through which ran the track leading to the wells of abu klea. the march was now beginning to tell upon the camels, which, weakened by fatigue and short allowance of forage, fell down in large numbers through sheer exhaustion, throwing the transport into great confusion. shortly before mid-day the force halted at the foot of a steep slope for the usual morning meal of tea and bully beef. "i shan't be sorry when we get to those wells," said jack, sipping at the lid of his mess-tin; "i've been parched with thirst ever since we left gakdul. i wonder it we shall reach them this evening!" "i don't reckon it's much further," answered joe crouch. "i heard the nineteenth are going on ahead to water their horses. look! they're just off." jack watched the hussars as they disappeared over the brow of the hill. "lucky beggars!" he muttered, and lying down upon his bed he pulled his helmet over his eyes, and prepared for a quiet snooze before the order should be given to mount. he had been dozing, and was in the dreamy stage between waking and sleeping, when his attention was attracted by a conversation which was taking place in his immediate vicinity. a few yards away, lieutenant lawson was sitting on the ground rearranging the folds of his putties, and talking to another subaltern. "i shouldn't have brought a thing like that with me," the latter was saying; "you might lose it. any old silver one's good enough for this job, especially if you get bowled over, and some villain picks your pockets." "well, i hadn't another," answered lawson; "and, after all, it didn't cost me much. i knew a fellow at melchester, called fosberton, an awful young ass. he got into debt, and was hard pushed to raise the wind. he wanted me to buy this. i was rather sorry for the chap, so i gave him five pounds for it, and told him he could have it back if he chose to refund the money; but he left the town soon after that, and i've never heard from him since. hallo! what's up now?" a couple of horsemen were galloping down the slope, and a few minutes later the command was passed back from the front,-"fall in! examine arms and ammunition!" the men sprang forward to the row of piled arms, and then, like an electric current, the report passed from one to another--the enemy was in sight! "cast loose one packet of your ammunition," said the commander of the company. jack's fingers twitched with excitement as he pulled off the string of the familiar little brown paper parcel, and dropped the ten cartridges into his pouch. it was the real thing now, and no mistake! moving forward in line of columns, the force ascended the slope, and after one more brief halt, while further reconnaissances were being made, began to advance across the level stretch beyond, from which a good view was obtained of the distant valley of abu klea, with the steep hills rising on either side, and opening out at the entrance of the pass. "there they are!" far away, on the dark, rocky eminences, crowds of tiny, white-robed figures could be clearly distinguished moving and gesticulating in an excited manner. steadily the force advanced until, when within a comparatively short distance of the mouth of the valley, the word for "close order" was given. the camels were driven forward into a solid mass in rear of the leading company as it halted; the men dismounted, and knee-lashed their steeds. there was not much time for looking about, for the order was immediately given to build a zareba; and while some men were set to work to cut down brushwood, jack and his comrades were told off to gather stones for constructing a breastwork. "look alive, my lads!" said sergeant sparks, "and get whatever you can. hallo!" he added; "they've begun, have they?" jack had heard something like the sound of the swift flight of a swallow far overhead, but he did not understand its significance until, a moment later, the sound was repeated, and on the ground in front of him there suddenly appeared a mark, as though some one had struck the sand with the point of an invisible stick, leaving behind a short, deep groove, and causing a handful of dust to spring into the air. far away on the distant hillside was a tiny puff of smoke, and as he looked the faint pop of the rifle reached his ear. then the truth dawned on him: this was his baptism of fire--a long-range fire, to be sure, but none the less deadly if the bullet found its billet! he caught up a fragment of rock, and carried it to where the wall was to be constructed. men were hurrying to and fro all around him, and yet suddenly he seemed to feel himself alone, the sole mark for the enemy's fire; again that z--st overhead, and a cold chill ran down his back. he shut his teeth, and, with a careless air, strode off for a fresh load. he had not gone twenty yards when another shot ricochetted off a stone, and flew up into the air with a shrill chirrup. jack winced and shivered. it was no good, however well he might conceal the fact from others--the fear of death was on him; it was impossible to deceive his own heart. a fresh terror now seized him, coupled with a sense of shame. he was the fellow who had always expressed a wish to be a soldier, and go on active service; and now, before the first feeble spitting of the enemy's fire, all his courage was ebbing away. what if his comrades should notice that his limbs trembled and his voice was shaky? what if, when the advance was made, his nerve should fail him altogether, and he should turn to run? with dogged energy he pursued his task, hardly noticing what was going on around him. for the fourth time he was approaching the zareba, when a comrade, a dozen yards in front, stumbled forward and sank down upon the ground. there was no cry, no frantic leap into the air, yet it was sufficiently horrible. jack felt sick, and his teeth chattered; he had never before seen a man hit, and it was his first experience of the sacrifice of human flesh and blood. at the same moment, like a clap of thunder, one of the screw-guns was discharged; the droning whizz of the shell grew fainter and fainter--a pause--and then the boom of its explosion was returned in a muffled echo from the distant hillside. a couple of men hurried forward and raised their wounded comrade. jack turned away his eyes, and immediately they encountered a rather different spectacle. a young subaltern, with a short brier pipe in his mouth, and without a hair on his face, was making a playful pretence of dropping a huge boulder on to the toes of the lieutenant of jack's detachment. "hold the ball--no side!" said mr. lawson facetiously. "look here, mostyn, you beggar! i've just spotted a fine rock, only it's too big for one to carry. come and help to bring it in; it's a chance for you to distinguish yourself. look sharp! or some of the tommies will have bagged it." something in this speech, and the careless, happy-go-lucky way in which it was uttered, seemed to revive jack's spirits. mr. lawson recognized and spoke to him as he passed. "well, fenleigh, they've begun to shake the pepper-box at us; but it'll be our turn to-morrow." there was nothing in the remark itself, but there was something in the cheery tone and manly face of the speaker; something that brought fresh courage to the soldier's heart, and filled it with a sudden determination to emulate the example of his leader. "yes, sir," he answered briskly, and from that moment his fears were banished. slowly the construction of the zareba was completed--a low, stone wall in front, and earthen parapets and abattis of mimosa bushes on the other three sides. the enemy still continued a dropping fire, which was replied to with occasional rounds of shrapnel from the guns; but jack saw no further casualties. once, during the work of collecting stones, he encountered valentine. "i say," remarked the latter, acknowledging his cousin's salute with a nod and a smile, "this reminds me of the time when we went up the river with the girls to starncliff, and built up a fireplace to boil the kettle." when darkness fell, the force was assembled within the zareba; the low breastwork was manned in double rank, every soldier lying down in his fighting place, with belts on, rifle by his side, and bayonet fixed; all lights were extinguished, and talking and smoking forbidden. in spite of the day's exertions, few men felt inclined for sleep; the drumming of tom-toms, and the occasional whistle of a bullet overhead, were not very effective as a lullaby, and served as a constant reminder of the coming struggle. jack settled himself into as comfortable a position as his belts and accoutrements would allow, and lay gazing up at the silent, starlit sky. what was death? and what came after? before another night he himself might know. lying there in perfect health, it seemed impossible to realize that before another night his life might have ended. he turned his thoughts to brenlands. yes; he would like to have said good-bye to aunt mabel, and to have had once more the assurance from her own lips that he was still "my own boy jack!" "i always make a mess of everything," he said to himself. "i thought i should always have had brenlands to go to; and first of all i got chucked out of the school a year before i need have left, and then this happens about the watch. in both cases i've raymond fosberton to thank, in a great measure, for what happened. i'll pay him out if ever i get the chance." the thought of his cousin brought back to his mind the recollection of the conversation he had overheard that morning. strange that mr. lawson should have known raymond! jack wondered what the monetary transaction could have been that had been alluded to by his officer. gradually a sense of drowsiness crept over him, and his heavy head sank back upon the sand. "stand to your arms!" he clutched instinctively at the rifle by his side, and rose to his feet; the noise of the tom-toms seemed close at hand. "they're coming!" but no; it was a false alarm. once more the men settled down, and silence fell on the zareba. suddenly there was a wild yell from one of the sleepers. "what's up there?--man hit?" "no--silly chump!--only dreaming!" again jack dozed off, to be wakened, after what seemed only a moment of forgetfulness, by joe crouch shaking him by the shoulder. the word was once more being passed along, "stand to your arms!" and the men lay with their hands upon their rifles. daybreak was near, and an attack might be expected at any moment. the sky was ghostly with the coming dawn, the air raw and cold. jack shivered, and "wished for the day." chapter xviii. the battle. "then he heard a roaring sound, quite terrible enough to frighten the bravest man."--_the brave tin soldier_. numbed with the cold, and stiff from lying so long in a cramped position, jack and many of his comrades rose as the daylight strengthened, to stretch their legs and stamp some feeling into their feet. as they did so, however, the dropping shots of the enemy rapidly increased to a sharp fusilade; bullets whizzed overhead, or knocked up little spurts of sand and dust within the zareba; and the defenders were glad enough to once more seek the shelter of the low wall and parapet of earth. several men were wounded, and the surgeons commenced their arduous duties--services which so often demand the exercise of the highest courage and devotion, and yet seldom meet with their due share of recognition in the records of the battlefield. ever and anon the screw-guns thundered a reply to the popping of the distant rifle fire, and men raised their heads to watch the effect of the shrapnel, as each shot sped away on its deadly errand. even amid such surroundings, hunger asserted itself; and breakfast was served out, a good draught of hot tea being specially acceptable after the long exposure to the cold night air. "when you're on active service, eat and sleep whenever you can," said sergeant sparks, munching away at his bully beef and biscuit. "there's never no telling when you'll get another chance." bands of the enemy kept appearing and disappearing in the distance; spear-heads and sword-blades flashed and glittered in the rosy morning sunlight, and the tom-toms kept up a continual thunder; but still there was no sign of an attack. jack longed to be doing something. he lay on the ground nervously digging pits with his fingers in the soft sand, listening to the monotonous murmur of conversation going on around him, and the constant z--st! z--st! of bullets flying over and into the zareba. now and again he exchanged a few remarks with "swabs" or joe crouch; and when at length he was told off to join a party of skirmishers, he sprang up and seized his rifle with a sigh of relief. moving out in extended order to the right front of the zareba, they marched forward a short distance, then halted, and lay down to fire a volley. "ready, at eleven hundred yards. now, men, be steady, and take your time." "swabs" was in his element. he sprawled his legs wide apart, rooted his left elbow into the sand, and settled down as though he were firing for the battalion badge on the range at melchester. our hero was not quite so cool; his heart thumped and his fingers twitched as he adjusted the sliding bar of his back-sight. "aim low--present--fire!" the rifles were discharged with a simultaneous crash. "good volley," said mr. lawson, who was kneeling, peering through his field-glass; "a bit short, i'm afraid; put your sights up to eleven-fifty." jack opened the breach of his rifle with a sharp jerk, and drew a long breath. for the life of him he could not have told whether his aim had been good or bad, but this much he knew, that he had fired his first shot in actual conflict. the skirmishers retired; but still the enemy hung back, too wary to attempt a charge. at length the order was given for an advance, and preparations were accordingly made for forming a moving square. the various detachments marched out of the zareba and lay down as they took up their positions. camels for carrying the wounded, and conveying water and reserve ammunition, were drawn up in the centre; the two guns and the gardiner with its crew of sailors taking positions respectively within the front and rear faces of the formation. jack raised himself and looked round, anxious, if possible, to make out the whereabouts of his cousin. he could distinguish "heavies," blue-jackets, and the guards, but valentine and the ----sex men were stationed somewhere out of sight on the other side of the central mass of baggagers and their drivers. a short wait, and then came the order,-"rise up! the square will advance!" two deep, as in the days of the "thin red line," the men marched forward, stumbling over rocky hillocks and deep water-ruts, vainly attempting to keep unbroken their solid formation, and delayed by the slow movement of the guns and camels. the arabs, swarming on either flank, opened a heavy fire. the flight of the bullets filled the air with a continual buzz. men dropped right and left, and a halt was made while the wounded were placed on the cacolets. the sides of the square turned outwards, the mounted infantry formed its left-front corner, and jack and his comrades were in the left face. "why can't we give 'em a volley?" murmured "swabs," gazing at the feathery puffs of smoke on the distant hillside, which looked so innocent, but each of which might mean death to the spectator. no order, however, was given to fire, and the command, "right turn--forward!" put the marksman and his comrades once more in motion. to walk along and be shot at was not exactly the ideal warfare of his boyhood: but jack had been "blooded" by this time, and trudged along with a set face, paying little attention to the leaden hail which swept overhead, and only wishing that something would happen to bring matters to a crisis. a few minutes later his attention was turned to the line of skirmishers, who were moving, some little distance away, in a direction parallel to the march of the square. suddenly, close to two of these, a couple of arabs sprang up from behind some bushes. one rushed upon the nearest englishman; but the latter parried the spear-thrust, and without a pause drove his bayonet through his adversary's chest. the other native turned and ran. "bang! bang!" went a couple of rifle shots; but the fugitive escaped untouched, and disappeared behind the brow of an adjacent knoll. "see that, lawson?" inquired a voice from the supernumerary rank. "yes," answered the subaltern, "like potting rabbits. i think i could have wiped that fellow's eye if i'd been there. the bayonet _versus_ lance was done better." jack glanced round, and saw the speaker smoking a pipe, while sergeant sparks tramped along close behind with an approving smile upon his face, as though, if questioned, he would have made exactly the same observation himself. it was no time to be fastidious or sentimental; the callous indifference to life and death, whether real or assumed, was the thing wanted. here, at least, were two superiors who did not seem to consider the situation very serious. the young soldier shifted his rifle to the other shoulder, and grasped the butt with a firmer grip. for an hour, which might have been a lifetime, the square toiled on, every now and again changing direction to gain more open ground; the stretchers and cacolets constantly receiving fresh burdens. a man, two files in front of our hero, went down with a bullet through the head, and those in rear stumbled over him. "close up! close up, and keep that corner blocked in!" with mouth parched with the stifling heat and dust, jack sucked at the lukewarm dregs of his water-bottle, and wondered if the river itself would ever quench his thirst. "swabs," his rear-rank man, kept fingering the loose cartridges in his pouch. at length the marksman's patience and _sang froid_ seemed exhausted. "is this going on for ever?" he blurted out, "ain't we ever going to give it 'em back?" hardly had the question been asked, when the answer was made evident in a most unmistakable manner. away in the grass to the left front a number of white and green flags, mounted on long poles, had been for some time visible; and at this point, as though they sprang out of the ground, swarms of arabs suddenly made their appearance, and with headlong speed and reckless devotion charged down upon the left-front corner of the square. the scattered line of skirmishers turned and fled for their lives; while behind them, like a devouring tidal wave, the vast black mass rushed forward, their fierce shouts filling the air with a hollow roar like that of a ground sea. like many another young soldier, with nothing but a few hundred yards of desert between himself and death, jack's first impulse was to raise his rifle and blaze away at random as fast as he could load; but the clear, calm voices in the supernumerary rank, and the old habit of discipline, held him in check. "steady, men:--aim low--fire a volley!" another moment, and the black mass with its waving banners and glittering weapons disappeared in a burst of fire and smoke, as the rifles spoke with a simultaneous crash. again, and yet again, the vivid sheet of flame flashed from the side of the square; then, through the drifting fog, it was seen that the enemy were apparently changing the direction of their attack. falling in scores before the terrible, scythe-like sweep of the volley firing, they swerved round the flank of the square and burst furiously upon the rear. [illustration: "the enemy swerved round the flank of the square, and burst furiously upon the rear."] rapid independent firing had succeeded the regular volleys, and jack was in the act of using his rifle, when he became conscious of a shock and swaying movement, like the commencement of a rugby scrimmage. he turned, and saw in a moment what had happened: by sheer weight of numbers, the overpowering rush of arabs had forced back the thin line of "heavies," and a fierce hand-to-hand fight was in progress. what had been the interior of the square was now covered with a confused mass of struggling combatants, dimly seen through clouds of dust and smoke. desperate fanatics hacked and stabbed with their heavy swords and long spears, while burly giants of the guards returned equally deadly strokes with butt and sword-bayonet. shouts, cries, and words of command mingled in a general uproar, half-drowned in the incessant din of the firing. how long this awful contest lasted, or exactly what happened, jack could never clearly remember. he was conscious that the rear rank had turned about, and of a vision of "swabs" standing like a man shooting rabbits in a cover, with his rifle at his shoulder, waiting for a chance of a clear shot. turning again to his front, he noticed the fellow on his right working frantically at his lever, and sobbing with rage and excitement over a jammed cartridge-case. "knock it out with your cleaning-rod!" he yelled, and thrust another round into the breach of his own weapon, determined, if this were the end, to make a hard fight of the finish. at length the pressure seemed to grow less, and then ceased; the enemy wavered, then turned and began to slowly retreat, hesitating every now and again, even in face of the withering rifle fire, as though half-minded to renew their attack. some turned and shook their fists, while others, with the fanatic's unconquerable spirit and reckless valour, rushed back singly, only to fall long before they reached the hated foe. once the threatening attitude of the retiring masses raised the cry of "close up! they're coming again!" but a well-directed volley settled the question, and the last stragglers soon disappeared behind the distant sandhills. cheer on cheer rose from the square, and jack, grounding the butt of his heated weapon, joined in with a right good will, for he had fought his first battle, and his heart throbbed with the triumph of victory. but even now the conflict was not quite over. arab marksmen were still lurking in the broken ground, and one of them suddenly rose into view from behind a rock. levelling his piece he fired, and mr. lawson, who, revolver in hand, had stepped into a gap in the ranks, fell forward on his face, the blood gushing in a crimson torrent from his mouth. at the same moment "greek met greek;" for "swabs," throwing his rifle into his shoulder fired, and the arab sharpshooter tossed up his arms and dropped out of sight behind a rock. our hero fell upon his knees with something like a sob, and attempted to raise the fallen man. there was no lack of assistance. mr. lawson was one of those officers for whose sake men are always ready and glad to risk their lives; but the boldest among them could do nothing for him now, and a moment or so later he died in jack's arms. "he's gone, right enough, poor fellow!" said captain hamling, the commander of the company, who had hurried to the spot. "see what's in his pockets, fenleigh. it there's anything of value, it must be taken care of, and sent to his people." jack did as he was ordered. a pipe, tobacco-pouch, jack-knife, and rolled bandage were the chief things he found; and he handed them to the captain. there was still the breast-pocket of the tunic, and this on examination was found to contain a small letter-case and a handsome gold watch. jack glanced at the timepiece, and very nearly let it drop from his fingers to the ground; he knew it in a moment--the lost treasure which years ago had been stolen from queen mab's cupboard. this then was the thing which raymond fosberton had parted with for five pounds. * * * * * the square moved on a short distance to ground less encumbered with the slain, and then halted. the carnage was awful; dead and dying of the enemy lay in heaps where they had fallen, mown down by the deadly fire of the martinis; while among them on the knoll where the square had been broken, and in many cases hardly recognizable from the blood and dust which covered their forms and faces, were the bodies of the englishmen who had perished in the fray. orders were now given for burying the dead, collecting the arms and ammunition, and destroying the useless weapons that lay scattered about in all directions; and it was while engaged in this latter duty that jack encountered his cousin. "i've just been inquiring for you. thank god, you're safe!" in spite of all that he had just passed through, jack's thoughts were not fixed upon the fighting or dearly-won victory. "o val!" he blurted out, "i've found that watch--the one that was stolen at brenlands!" in a few hurried sentences he described the conversation he had overheard, and the discovery of the timepiece in the dead lieutenant's pocket. the dread scene around him was for the moment forgotten in his anxiety to clear his character from the doubts which he imagined must still be entertained to a certain extent by his former friend. "so you see, sir," he concluded, "i can now prove that i'm no thief. raymond fosberton stole it. i wish you'd ask captain hamling to show it to you, sir, and then you'd know i'm speaking the truth." valentine listened to this extraordinary revelation in open-eyed astonishment. "there's no need for that," he answered--"i'll ask to see it if it's your particular wish--but, jack, i wish you would believe that what i say is true, and that neither i nor queen mab ever for a moment imagined that you were the thief. you may doubt us, but we have never lost faith in you." chapter xix. "food for powder." "and so he lay quite still, while the shot rattled through the rushes, and gun after gun was fired over him."--_the ugly duckling_. at last the wells were reached, and after the wants of the wounded had been supplied, jack and his comrades got a chance of quenching their parching thirst. water! it was a moving sight--a crowd of men standing round a pit, at the bottom of which appeared a little puddle, which when emptied out would gradually drain in again, the spectators watching its progress with greedy eyes. never had "duster's" celebrated home-made ginger-beer tasted so refreshing as this muddy liquid. jack sighed in an ecstasy of enjoyment as he gulped it down, and joe crouch remarked that he wished his throat was as long as a "hostridge's." a body of three hundred men from the guards, heavies, and mounted infantry started on a return journey to the zareba to bring up the baggage, and the remainder of the force bivouacked near the wells. the night was fearfully cold; the men had nothing but the thin serge jumpers which they had worn during the heat of the day to protect them against the bitter night air. shivering and gnawed with hunger, jack, joe crouch, "swabs," and two more men huddled together in a heap; and finding it impossible to sleep, endeavoured to stay the cravings of their empty stomachs with an occasional whiff of tobacco, those who were without pipes obtaining the loan of one from a more fortunate comrade. jack's thoughts wandered back to brenlands, and he smiled grimly to himself at the recollection of that first camping-out experience, and of queen mab's words as she promised them a supply of rugs and cushions, "perhaps some day you won't be so well off." his mind was still full of his recent discovery. the thought that his friends must regard him as guilty of the theft, and the feeling that he could never give them proof to the contrary, had rankled in his heart more, perhaps, than he himself suspected; and now that he had at last discovered a solution to the riddle, and could prove beyond the possibility of a doubt who was the guilty party, he longed to ease his soul by talking the matter over with some one who knew the circumstances of the case. joe crouch was the very man. "joe." "yes." "you remember my cousin, raymond fosberton?" joe was not in the best of humours; he was cold, and his pipe had gone out. "yes, i do," he grumbled. "i wish i had him here now in his white weskit and them shiny boots!" the speaker drew hard at his empty clay, which gave forth a fierce croak, as though it thoroughly approved of its owner's sentiments. "d'you remember that time when the watch was stolen out of miss fenleigh's cupboard?" "yes; and that fosberton said it might 'a been me as took it, and master valentine told me afterwards that you said that though i'd stolen some pears once, you knew i was honest. ay, but i thought of that the morning i seen you come into the barrack-room. and then he told them as it was you 'ad done it. my eye! if i had him here now, i'd knock his face out through the back of his head!" the clay pipe literally crowed with rage. "well, you may be interested to hear that it was raymond fosberton himself who took the watch." and jack proceeded to tell the story of his find. "so he stole it himself, did he?" exclaimed crouch, as the narrative concluded. "law me! if i had him here, i'd--" "never mind!" interrupted the other, laughing. "i may have a chance of settling up with him myself some day." "what shall you do when you see him?" "oh, i don't know!" answered jack. "i daresay i shall have my revenge." joe relapsed into silence, but for some time sudden squeaks from his pipe showed that he was still meditating on the terrible vengeance which he would mete out to raymond fosberton, should that gentleman leave his comfortable lodgings in england and appear unexpectedly in the bayuda desert. * * * * * at length the morning came, and with it the report that the baggage-train was in sight. the news was welcome, and the work of knee-lashing and unloading the camels did not take long. the previous morning's hasty breakfast under fire had not been, by any means, a satisfying meal; and so, after a fast of nearly two days, the prospect of food made the men active enough in unpacking the stores. jack seized his ration of bully beef and biscuit with the fierce eagerness of a famished wolf; cold, hunger, and weary, sleepless nights had never been the lot of the lead troops campaigning on the lumber-room floor at brenlands, or of their commanders either; nor, for the matter of that, is it usual for youthful, would-be warriors to associate such things with the triumph of a victory. our hero had finished his meal, and was cleaning his rifle, when he was accosted by joe crouch. "i say, mr. fenleigh wants to see you. he's over there by the guns." valentine was standing talking to some of his fellow-officers. he turned away from the group as he saw his cousin approaching, and the latter halted and accorded him the customary salute. "look here," said the subaltern, "the general is sending dispatches back to korti, and the officers have the opportunity of telegraphing to their friends in england. i'm going to send a message home to let them know i'm all right. shall i put in a word for you? i'm sure," added the speaker, "that aunt mabel would be glad to know that you are here, and quite sate and sound after the fighting." jack hesitated, but there was no sign yet of the long lane turning. "it's very good of you, sir," he answered, "but i'd rather they didn't know my whereabouts. if i live through this, and return to england, i shall still be a private soldier. i'm much obliged to you, sir, all the same." he saluted again, and walked away. valentine looked after the retreating figure with a queer, sad smile upon his face. "you're a difficult fish to deal with," he muttered; "but we shall land you again some day, though i hardly know how." late in the afternoon the column was once more in motion, and then commenced an experience which jack, and all those who shared in it, have probably never forgotten. at first the march was orderly, but, as the hours went by, progress became more and more difficult. camels, half-starved and exhausted, lagged and fell, causing continual delay and confusion. the desert track having been abandoned in order to avoid possible collision with the enemy, the road lay at one time through a jungle of mimosa trees and bushes, when the disorder was increased tenfold--baggagers slipped their loads, and ranks opening out to avoid obstacles found it impossible in the dark to regain their original formation. utterly unable to keep awake, men fell asleep as they rode, drifting out of their places, some, indeed, straying off into the darkness, never to be seen again. worn out, and chilled to the bone with the bitter night air, jack clung to his saddle, dozing and waking; dreaming for an instant that queen mab was speaking to him, and rousing with a start as the word was passed, "halt in front!" to allow time for the rear-guard closing up with the stragglers. at each of these pauses poor "lamentations" knelt of his own accord; and his rider, dropping down on the sand by his side, fell into a deep sleep, to be awakened by the complaining grunts of the camels as the word, "all right in rear!" gave the signal for a fresh start. after each stoppage it was no easy matter to get the weary animals on their legs again; and almost equally difficult in many instances to rouse their riders from the heavy slumber into which they fell the moment they stretched themselves upon the ground. "pass the word on, 'all right in rear!'" "oh, dear! i'd give a month's pay for an hour's sleep," mumbled joe crouch. "get up, you fool!" answered jack, kicking the recumbent figure of his comrade. "d'you want to be left behind?" on, on, through the endless darkness, now for a moment unconscious, now half awake, but always with the sense of being cold and weary, the long night march seemed to last a lifetime. then, as sometimes happens in similar circumstances, a half-forgotten tune took possession of his tired brain, the once familiar melody of queen mab's hymn; and in a dreamy fashion he kept humming it over and over again, sometimes the air alone, and sometimes with snatches of the words, as they came back to his memory. "rest comes at length;...... the day must dawn, and darksome night be past." his head sank forward on his breast. it was sunday evening at brenlands, and helen was playing the piano. queen mab was standing close at his side; and yet, somehow, the whole world lay between them. "you may doubt us, but we have never lost faith in you." he turned to see who spoke, and the figures in his dream vanished, leaving only the echo of their voices in his mind. "......angels of light! singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night!" the tune was still droning in his head when the first grey streaks of dawn gave warning of the approaching day, and, in the growing light, the column gradually regained its proper formation. the line of march lay down a vast slope covered with grass and shrubs, which stretched away towards the distant nile, as yet out of sight; and ere long word was received from the cavalry scouts that the enemy, in large numbers, were close at hand. once more the bullets of the sharpshooters whistled overhead; and the arabs appearing in considerable force on the left flank, the column was halted on the summit of a low knoll, and orders were issued for the construction of a zareba. all hands now set to work to unload the camels and build walls of saddles, biscuit-boxes, and other stores--parapets formed of almost as incongruous materials as the old domino and pocket-knife works behind which the lead warriors took shelter at brenlands. skirmishers were thrown out to keep down the enemy's fire; but the men were worn out, and having nothing to aim at but the feathery puffs of smoke rising amidst the distant grass and bushes, they failed to dislodge the arab marksmen. jack and his comrades "lay low," glad to avail themselves of the shelter afforded by the side of the zareba. the bullets whizzed overhead, or struck the biscuit-boxes with a sharp smack, while some dropped with a sickening thud into the mass of camels. they were patient sufferers, and even when struck made no sound or attempt to move. stretchers being constantly carried to and fro showed that the medical staff had plenty of work; but it was not until some hours later that the news leaked out among the men that sir herbert stewart himself was mortally wounded. feeling inclined for a smoke, and having no tobacco about him, our hero asked permission to fetch a supply from the zuleetah-bag attached to his saddle. "lamentations" acknowledged his approach with the usual grumble; but it was the last greeting he was ever destined to give his master. a bullet flew past with a sharp zip, the poor beast started and shivered, and a thin stream of blood trickled down his shoulder. poor "lam!" he was unclean and unsavoury, an inveterate grumbler, and possessed apparently of a chronic cold in his nose; his temper was none of the best--he had kicked, and on one occasion had attempted to bite, he had fought his comrades in the lines, and had got the picketing ropes into dire confusion; but, for all that, he was a living thing, and jack, who was fond of all dumb creatures, watched him with tears in his eyes. it did not last long: the unshapely head sank lower and lower; then suddenly turning his long neck round to the side of his body, the animal rolled over, and all that remained of poor "lamentations" was a meagre meal for the jackals and vultures. hour after hour the men waited, huddled together behind the hastily-formed breastwork of the zareba. "swabs" occasionally peered through a loophole in the boxes to get a snap-shot at any figure that might be seen creeping about among the distant bushes. jack, worn out with the night march, stretched himself upon the sand, and, in spite of the constant zip of bullets and discharge of rifles, sank into a deep slumber. at length he was awakened by a general movement among his comrades: orders had been issued for a portion of the column to fight its way to the nile, and a square was being formed for the purpose a little to the left of the zareba. in silence, and with anxious expressions on their faces, the men fell into their places, lying down to escape the leaden hail. the force seemed a ridiculously small one to oppose to the swarming masses of the enemy, yet on its success depended the safety of the whole column. the bugle sounded, and the men sprang to their feet, to be exposed immediately to a heavy fire. slowly and doggedly they moved forward, now halting to close up gaps, and now changing direction to gain more open ground. the vicious bang of rifles, fired at comparatively close range, told of innumerable sharpshooters lurking around in the grass and shrubs. a bullet suddenly tore the metal ornament from the top of jack's helmet, and striking the sword-bayonet of a man behind, knocked his rifle nearly out of his hands. "a miss is as good as a mile!" remarked sergeant sparks; but as he spoke joe crouch was suddenly flung to the ground as though felled by the stroke of a hammer. jack involuntarily uttered a cry of dismay, and the sergeant dropped down on one knee to assist the fallen man. to every one's astonishment, however, the latter rose to his feet unaided, looking rather dazed and gasping for breath, and picking up his rifle staggered back into the ranks. a spent shot had struck him on the bandoleer, demolishing one of the cartridges, but fortunately failing to penetrate the leather belt. now and again the square halted to send a volley wherever the enemy seemed to be gathered in any numbers, then continuing the advance in the same cool, deliberate manner. jack was marching in the left side, close to one of the rear corners, and, as fate would have it, the left half of the rear face was formed of the ----sex, and from the first he had been close to valentine. they were within a dozen yards of each other, and every few moments jack turned his head to assure himself that his cousin was unhurt. for more than an hour the little square had been doggedly pursuing its forward movement, and now the enemy were seen in black masses on the low hills to the left front. "they're coming, that's my belief!" said joe crouch, turning to address his chum. he got no reply; for, at that instant, as the other happened to look round, he saw his cousin stagger and sink down upon the sand. in an instant jack had sprung to his assistance; but this time it was no false alarm. the bullet had done too well its cruel work. for a moment valentine seemed to recognize him, and looking up, with his left hand still clutching at his breast, made a ghastly attempt to smile. then, with a groan, he fell over on his side, and fainted. a stretcher was brought, and jack was ordered sharply to get back to the ranks. as he took his place the square halted, and an excited murmur rose on all sides:-"here they come!--thank god! they're going to charge!" chapter xx. the river's brink. "then he could see that the bright colours were faded from his uniform; but whether they had been washed off during his journey, or from the effects of his sorrow, no one could say."--_the brave tin soldier_. darkness had fallen, and a thick mist rising from the river made the still, night air damp and penetrating; but the weary men, stretched out upon the sand, slept soundly in spite of the cold, and of the scanty protection from it afforded by their clothing. the dark figures of the sentries surrounding the bivouac, moving slowly to and fro, or pausing to rest on their arms, seemed the only signs of wakefulness, except where the occasional gleam of a lantern shone out as the surgeons went their rounds among the wounded. jack, however, was not asleep. he seemed instead to be just waking up from a troubled dream, in which all that had happened since he had seen valentine placed upon the stretcher had passed before his mind in a confused jumble of sights and sounds, leaving only a vague recollection of what had really taken place:--the oncoming mass of arabs; the crash of the volleys, changing into the continuous roar of independent firing; the pungent reek of the powder as the rolling clouds of smoke enveloped the square; and the sight of the enemy falling in scores, wavering, slackening the pace of their advance, and finally retreating over the distant hills, not one having reached the line of bayonets. then, in the growing dusk, as the square advanced, the sight of the silver stream showing every now and again amidst the green, cultivated strip of land upon its banks; the wild joy of men suffering the tortures of a burning thirst, which swelled their tongues and blackened their lips; and the pitiful sight of the wounded being held up that they might catch a glimpse of the distant river; the wait on the brink of the broad stretch of cool, priceless water, as each face of the square moved up in turn to take its fill; and then, no sucking the dregs of a warm water-bottle, but a long, cold, satisfying drink. [illustration: "the oncoming mass of arabs."] all this, though so recently enacted, seemed to have left but a faint impression of its reality on jack's mind; his one absorbing thought being that valentine was hit, badly wounded, perhaps dying, or even dead. a man approached, and in the darkness stumbled over one of the slumberers. "now, then, where are you coming to?" "dunno--wish i did. d'you men belong to the blankshire? where's your officer?" "can't say. wait a minute; that's he lying by that bit of bush--captain hamling." our hero raised himself into a sitting posture. he had recognized the new-comer as a hospital orderly, and in the surrounding stillness heard him deliver his message:-"surgeon gaylard sends his compliments, and would you allow one of your men named fenleigh to come and see an officer who's badly wounded? he's some relative i think, sir." "very good," answered the captain drowsily; "you can find him yourself." the orderly had no difficulty in doing that, for in a moment jack was at his side. "is he dying?" "dunno; he's badly hurt--shot through the lungs, and he's asked for you several times." it was a cruel night for the wounded, with nothing to shelter them from the bitter cold. valentine lay upon the ground, with his head propped up against a saddle. the surgeon was stooping over him as the two men approached, and the light of his lamp tell on the pale, pinched features of the sufferer. within the last three days jack had seen scores of men hurried into eternity, and his senses had become hardened by constant association with bloodshed and violent death, yet the sight of those unmistakable lines on that one familiar face turned his heart to stone. "you're some relative, i believe. he seemed very anxious to see you, so i sent the orderly. what?- yes, you may stay with him if you like; but keep quiet, and don't let him talk more than you can help." "is--is he dying, sir?" "he may live till morning, but i doubt if he will." jack went down on his knees. there was no "sir" this time--sword, and sash, and shoulder-strap were all forgotten. "val!" the great, grey eyes, already heavy with the sleep of death, opened wide. "jack! my dear jack!" "yes; i've come to look after you. are you in much pain?" "no--only when i cough--and--it's dreadfully cold." the listener stifled down a groan. ah, dear thoughts of long ago! such things had never happened on the mimic battlefields at brenlands. this, then, was the reality. "jack, i want you to promise me something--your word of honour to a dying man." a fit of coughing, ending in a groan of agony, interrupted the request. "don't talk too much," answered the other in a broken voice. "what is it you want? i'll do anything for you, god knows!" "i want you to promise that you'll take this ring to queen mab--and give it to her with your own hands. say that i remembered her always--and carried my love for her with me down into the grave. promise me that you will give it her--_yourself_!" valentine ceased speaking, exhausted with the effort. "i will, i will!" returned the other, taking the ring. "but don't talk about dying, val; you'll pull through right enough." the sufferer answered with a feeble shake of his head, and another terrible fit of coughing left him faint and gasping for breath. "stay with me," he whispered. jack propped him up to ease his breathing, and wiped the blood from his pallid lips. for a long, long time he sat silently holding the hand of his dying friend; then, fight against it as he would, exhausted nature began to assert herself in an overpowering desire to sleep. numbed with cold, and wellnigh heart-broken, wretched in body and mind, jealous of the moments as they flew past and of the lessening opportunity of proving his love by any trifling service it might be in his power to render--in spite of all this, an irresistible drowsiness crept over him, and his head fell forward on his knees. the feeble voice was speaking again. "what did you say, val? god forgive me, i cannot keep awake." bending close down to catch the words, he could distinguish, even in the darkness, some faint traces of the old familiar smile. "you used to say--that i had all the luck--but, you remember--at brenlands--it was the lead captain that got killed." jack murmured some reply, he was too worn out and miserable to weep. once more that terrible struggle to keep his heavy eyes from closing; a dozen times he straightened his back, and groaned in bitterness of spirit at the thought that he could wish to sleep at such a time as this; then once again his head sank under the heavy weight of fatigue and want of rest, and everything became a blank. * * * * * awakening with a start, jack scrambled to his feet. how long he had slept he could not tell, nor did he realize where he was till the light of a lantern flashing in his eyes brought him to his senses. "how is--" the question died on his lips. the surgeon took one keen glance, held the lamp closer, and then raised it again. "is he going, sir?" "going? he's gone!" the words were followed by an awful silence; then, for an instant, the yellow gleam of the lamp tell upon the soldier's face. "come, come, my lad!" said the medical officer kindly, "we did what we could for him, but it was hopeless from the first. be thankful that you've got a whole skin yourself. you'd better rejoin your company." the sky was paling with the first indications of the coming dawn. the men were standing to their arms, and jack hurried away to take his place in the ranks, hiding his grief as best he could from the eyes of his comrades. then as he turned to look once more towards the spot whence he had come, he saw, away across the river, the flush of rosy light brighten in the east, and all unbidden there came back to his memory the words of queen mab's hymn. the sun rose with a red glare, scattering the mist and sending a glow of warmth across the desert; and once more the old, sweet melody was sounding in his heart, while all around seemed telling of hopes fulfilled and sorrows vanquished when "morning's joy shall end the night of weeping." chapter xxi. "when johnny comes marching home again!" "it touched the tin soldier so much to see her that he almost wept tin tears, but he kept them back. he looked at her, and they both remained silent."--_the brave tin soldier_. it was a hot, still afternoon in august. the birds were silent, hardly a leaf stirred, and everything seemed to have dozed off to sleep in the quiet sunshine. old ned brown, the cobbler, and general "handy-man" of the village, who, in days gone by, had often bound bats and done other odd jobs for "miss fenleigh's young nevies," laid down his awl, and gazed out of the window of his dingy little shop. a soldier was walking slowly down the road. his boots were covered with dust, and on the breast of his red coat glittered the egyptian medal and the khedive's cross. "that must be widow crouch's son," said ned to himself. "i heard he was back from the war. maybe he'll know summat about the young gen'leman who used to come and stay up at the house yonder, and who, they say, was killed. ah, yes! i remember him well--a nice, pleasant-spoken young chap! dear me, dear me! sad work, sad work!" with a shake of his head, the old man once more picked up the shoe he was mending, still muttering to himself, "yes, i remember him--sad work, sad work!" the soldier strode on. his thoughts also were busy with memories of the past. in one sense he was not alone; for before him, in fancy, walked a boy--a rather surly, uncared-for looking young dog, with hands in his pockets, coat thrown open, and cricket cap perched on the back of his head, as though in open defiance of the rain that was falling. the road had been damp and dismal then; to-day it was dry and dusty; but the heart of the man who trod it was no lighter than it had been that evening ten years ago. the old cobbler had been mistaken. it was not joe crouch, but jack fenleigh, who had just passed the window of the little shop. he was thinking of the first time he had come to brenlands at the commencement of the summer holidays, after having been kept back on the breaking-up day as a punishment for sending a pillow through the glass ventilator of the long dormitory. "i didn't want to face her then," he said to himself, switching the dust off his trousers with his cane. "and yet, how kind she was! never mind! she won't know me now. valentine promised he wouldn't write, and he never broke his word." jack had walked from melchester. more than once in the course of the journey he had hesitated, and thought of turning back; but the sacredness of the promise made to a dying man had compelled him to go forward. he turned the corner, and slackened his pace as he saw before him the old house nestling among the trees. there was no board with to let printed on it, such as usually, in story-books, greets the eye of the returning wanderer. the place was just the same as it always had been; and the very fact of its being unchanged appealed to his feelings in a manner which it would be impossible to describe. the white front gate, whose hinges had been so often tried by its being transformed into a sort of merry-go-round; the clumps of laurel bushes which had afforded such good hiding-places in games of "i spy;" even the long-suffering little brass weathercock above the stable roof, which had served as a mark for catapult shooting,--these, and a hundred other objects on which his eyes rested, recalled memories which softened his heart, and brought back more vividly than ever the recollection of that faithful friend, whose last request he was about to fulfil. "i must do it," he muttered, feeling in his pocket for the ring; "i promised him i would." he pushed open the gate, and walked almost on tiptoe down the path, casting anxious glances at the windows. to his great relief it was not jane who opened the door, but a new servant. "is miss fenleigh in?" he stammered. "will you tell her a--a private soldier has brought her something from an officer who died in egypt?" the girl showed him into the old, quiet parlour (as if he could not have found the way thither himself), and there left him. it was very still. nothing broke the silence but the sleepy tick of the clock, and the sound of some one (jakes, perhaps) raking gravel on the garden path. everything was unaltered. there was the little bust of minerva that barbara had once adorned with a paper bonnet; the fretsaw bookcase that the two boys had made at school; and the quaint little glass-fronted cupboard, let into the panelling, from which the watch had been stolen. in the years that had passed, only one thing in the room had changed, and that was the tall figure in uniform standing on the hearthrug. he turned to look at himself in the glass. the dark moustache, bronzed skin, red tunic with its white collar and badges of the "royal tiger;" all these things had never been reflected there before, and for the twentieth time during the last half-hour he sought to reassure himself with the thought that his disguise was complete. "she'll never recognize me!" he muttered. "it's all right." then the door opened, and for an instant his heart seemed to stop beating. the same easy dignity and graciousness of manner, the same sweet womanly face, and the same depths of love and ready sympathy in her clear, calm eyes. she was dressed in mourning, and at her throat was the brooch containing the locks of the children's hair. jack noticed it at once, and saw, too, that the little silver locket still had its place among the gold trinkets on her watch chain; and the sight of it very nearly brought him down upon his knees at her feet. she seemed smaller than ever, and now, standing in front of him, her upturned face was about on a level with the medals on his breast. what was it made his chest heave and his lips tremble as he encountered her gaze? however foolish and headstrong he might have been in the past, he knew he had only to declare himself and it would all be forgotten and forgiven. "you may doubt us," valentine had said, "but we have never lost faith in you." yes, that was it; she loved her ugly duckling, believing even now that, in spite of outward appearances, it would one day turn into a swan. but the years had slipped away, and the change had never taken place. she might hope that it had, and it was best that she should never know the truth. with a set face he began to speak. "i've lately returned from egypt, and saw there your nephew, lieutenant fenleigh, of the ----sex regiment." he tried to say "ma'am," but even at that moment it seemed too great a mockery, and the word choked him. "i was with him when he died on the banks of the nile. he asked me to bring you this, and to give it to you with my own hands." she took the ring, but without moving her eyes from the speaker's face. "he asked me to tell you that he remembered you always." the voice grew husky, and the lady drew a little closer, perhaps to hear more plainly what was said. "and to say that he carried his--his love for you with him down into the grave." with a great effort jack finished the message. the words had brought back a flood of vivid recollections of that dreadful night, and his eyes were filled with blinding tears. he turned to brush them away, and as he did so he felt queen mab's arms meet round his neck. "you dear old boy! don't you think i know you? don't you think i knew you as soon as you came inside the gate?" he made some attempt to reply, uttered a broken word or two, and then turned away his head; but she, standing on tiptoe, drew it down lower and lower, until at length it rested on her shoulder. and so the ugly duckling ended his wanderings. * * * * * no autumn frosts or winter snows could ever have fallen on that garden, for here were the same flowers, and fruit, and ferns as had bloomed and ripened that last august holiday seven years ago. so, at least, thought jack, as he and his aunt walked together along the paths. "did he write from egypt to tell you about me?" "no; but i've always been expecting you. i knew you'd come back some time." "i didn't think you'd recognize me." "valentine knew i should. don't you see it was you he sent home to me, and not the ring?" jack was silent. everything that his eye rested upon reminded him of that faithful, boyish friendship, and his lip quivered. queen mab noticed it, and changed the subject. "i wonder what jakes will think to see me walking about arm-in-arm with a soldier," she said gaily. "never mind, i must make the most of it while it lasts. i'm afraid i shan't have many more opportunities of 'keeping company' with a red-coat." "how d'you mean?" he asked, with an uneasy, downward glance at his uniform. "my time isn't up for nearly three years; and i know i ought not to come here in this rig-out." "don't talk nonsense," she answered. "you're a pretty soldier to be ashamed of your cloth. isn't it possible for a man to do his duty unless he has a pair of epaulettes on his shoulders? can't he do it under any kind of coat? come now," she added, shaking his arm, and looking up into his face with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "don't you think, for the matter of that, a man could be a hero in his shirt sleeves?" "yes," answered jack, laughing. "oh, you do! i'm glad you've come to that conclusion at last." "why?" "why? because i think you'll soon have to give us a practical illustration of how a man can distinguish himself by being capable and trustworthy, even in plain clothes. that opens up a subject that i have a lot to tell you about. have you heard that your father and your uncle john are friends again?" "yes; val said something about it." "you haven't heard," she continued quietly, "that before the second battle valentine made a will, and gave it to a friend to be sent home in case he was killed. it was more in the form of a long letter, roughly written on the leaves of a pocket-book. a great deal of it was about you. he did not break his promise to you, and say actually that he had seen you, and where you were; but he assured us that he knew you had not gone to the bad, but were living an honest life, and that before long we should see you again. then he begged his father, as a last request, to do something for you, and to treat you as his own son. your uncle was over the other day. he is very anxious to carry out valentine's wishes, and would like to take you into his own business, with a view to an ultimate partnership." "it's awfully good of him," murmured jack huskily. "well, that's what he intends to do. but come, it's time i put in the tea." "it's time i went," he murmured. "time you went? what nonsense! you say you've got a week's furlough, and that you left your things at the black horse. well, i'm just going to send jakes to fetch them. why, i quite forgot to tell you that little bar was staying here." the person who had just stepped out from the open french window on to the lawn was certainly no longer little, but a tall, graceful young lady. there was, however, still some trace in her roguish mouth and dancing eyes of the smaller barbara who had wrought such havoc among her enemies by firing six peas at a time instead of two. jack had never before been frightened at bar, of all people in the world; but now, if queen mab had not still retained her hold of his arm, he might very likely have bolted into the shrubbery. the girl advanced slowly across the lawn, casting inquiring glances, first at the red coat and medals, and then at the bronzed face of the stranger. then suddenly her mouth opened, and she quickened her pace to a run. "oh, you rascal!" she cried. "it's jack!" that was all the speech-making barbara thought necessary in welcoming the returning prodigal; and not caring a straw for bars and ribbons, pipeclay, and "royal tigers," she embraced him in the same hearty manner as she had always done when they met at the commencement of bygone summer holidays. the dainty tea-table was a great change after the barrack-room. the pretty china cups seemed wonderfully small and fragile compared with the familiar basin; and once jack found himself absent-mindedly stuffing his serviette into his sleeve, under the impression that it was his handkerchief. "why, when was the last time you had tea here?" asked barbara. "it must have been that summer when raymond--" she stopped short, but the last word instantly brought to jack's mind the recollection of that evening when fosberton had charged him with being a thief. "by-the-bye," he exclaimed, "i forgot to tell you--i've found the watch." "yes, i know," answered queen mab quietly. "valentine gave a full account of it in his letter." jack was just going to launch out into a long and forcible tirade on the subject of the theft, but his cousin signed to him across the table to let the matter drop. "aunt has been in such a dreadful way about it," she explained afterwards. "only she and ourselves know about it. she doesn't like even to have raymond's name mentioned. he has turned out a thorough scamp, and has given uncle fosberton no end of trouble. father happened to know the friends of that officer who was killed, and when his things were sent home the watch was returned; so it's back again now in the same old place. aunt has never told any one, not even raymond himself, as she doesn't want to bring fresh trouble on his parents." later on in the evening, as they sat together in the old, panelled parlour in the soft light of the shaded lamp, the talk turned naturally and sweetly on valentine--on all that he used to say and do; and jack told as best he could the story of the desert march, and of that last sad parting on the river's brink. after he had finished, there was a silence; then barbara picked up the piece of work she had laid down. "so you didn't find war quite such a jolly thing as you used to think it would be?" she said, looking across at him with a tearful smile. "no," he answered thoughtfully. "i suppose things that you have long set your mind on seldom turn out exactly what you want and expect them to be. i'm glad i saw active service, and i'd go through it all again a hundred times for the sake of having been with valentine when he died; though it was little i could do for him, more than to say good-bye." queen mab rose from her chair, and stooped over the speaker to wish him good-night. "never mind," she said softly. "i'm glad to think of both my boys that their warfare is accomplished!" chapter xxii conclusion. "i never dreamed of such happiness as this while i was an ugly duckling!"--_the ugly duckling_. the old house at brenlands still remains unaltered, except that the empty room upstairs, once the scene of so many terrible conflicts between miniature metal armies, has been turned into a nursery. another generation of children is growing up now, and eagerly they listen while aunt mabel tells the old story of the tin soldier who went adventuring in a paper boat, and came back in the end to the place from which he had started; or the history of the little lead captain, who stands keeping guard over the precious things in the treasure cupboard; and who once, after bearing the brunt of a long engagement, fell in front of his men, just as the fighting ended. when the nursery is in use, a long-forgotten little gateway makes its appearance at the top of the stairs, and "uncle jack" pays toll through the bars to the chubby little helen standing on the other side. queen mab tries to make out that she is growing older; but her courtiers will not believe it, and go so far as to scoff at and hide her spectacle case, declaring that her wearing glasses is only a pretence. but though brenlands and its queen may seem the same as ever, many of those connected with it in our story have experienced changes, of which some mention should be made. old jakes has been obliged to give up the gardening, and joe crouch has been installed in his stead. joe has finished his time, both with the colours and in the reserve; but he is the soldier still--smart, clean, and never needing to have an order repeated twice. he often unconsciously falls back into former habits, and comes marching up the path with his spade at the "slope" or his hoe at the "trail," whistling softly the old quick-step, which once drew our hero to "go with the rest, and follow the drum." for jack he cherishes the fondest regard and deepest admiration, which he never hesitates to express in such words as these:-"aw, yes, sir! he's what i call the right sort, is master jack. he don't turn his back on an old cumred, as some would. i 'member the day he bought himself out. 'well, good-bye,' says i--'we've been soldierin' together a good time, and in some queer places; but now you're goin' back to be a gen'leman again, and i suppose we shan't see each other never no more.' 'i should be a precious poor gen'leman if i ever forgot you, joe,' says he; 'you stood by me when i first came to barracks, and some day i hope i shall be able to do something for you in return.' and so he did, for he kept writin' to me, and when my time was up he got me this place. look here, sir, the day he come to enlist the corporal at the gate says to him, 'we ought to make a general of such a fine chap as you;' and you take my word for it, that's just what they would have made of him, if he'd only stopped long enough!" of barbara something might be said, but that something is for the present supposed to be a secret. jack, who, like the average boy, always seemed to have a knack of finding out things that were intended to be kept private, knows more than he ought about this matter; and bringing out a handful of coppers at the table, and representing them to be the whole of his savings, declares that he will be "dead broke" should any unforeseen circumstance necessitate his purchasing a wedding present. whereupon his cousin blushes, and puts her fingers in her ears, and says, "i can't hear," but listens all the time. of raymond fosberton, perhaps the less said the better. his name has come very near being mentioned in a court of law, for forging his father's signature to a cheque, and is therefore seldom mentioned among his friends. one thing, however, might be told concerning his last visit to brenlands. a year after that eventful christmas in egypt, jack was sitting before the fire in queen mab's parlour, when raymond was announced, and shown into the room. he was dressed, as usual, in good though rather flashy clothes; but in spite of this, he looked cheap and common, and his general appearance gave one the impression of dirt wrapped up in silver paper. the moment he saw jack a spiteful look came into his face, and he took no pains to conceal the old dislike and hatred with which he still regarded the latter. "hallo! so you've turned up again. i thought you'd soon get sick of soldiering; too much hard work to suit your book, i expect." "no; i left it because i had a chance of something better. aunt mabel's out; will you wait till she comes back?" jack had seen more of the world since the day when he had knocked the visitor into the laurel bush; and could now realize that queen mab had spoken the truth when she said that punching heads was not always the most satisfactory kind of revenge. he had a score to settle with raymond; but he regarded the latter now as a pitiful fellow not worth quarrelling with, and he hesitated, half-minded to let the matter drop without mentioning what was on his mind. fosberton mistook the meaning of the other's averted glance. he thought himself master of the situation, and, like a fool, having, figuratively speaking, been given enough rope, he promptly proceeded to hang himself. "you've been lying low for a precious long time," he continued, maliciously. "why didn't you come here before? you've been asked often enough!" "i had my own reasons for stopping away." "you didn't like to come back after the bother about that watch, i suppose?" jack let him run on. "that was partly it," he answered. "well, then," continued raymond, with a sneer, "you made a great mistake bolting like that; you gave yourself away completely." "i don't understand you," returned the other, with a sharper ring in his voice. "d'you mean to charge me again with having stolen the watch?" "pooh! i daresay you know what's become of it." "yes," answered jack calmly, at the same time fixing the other with a steady stare, "i _do_ know what's become of it: at the present moment it's in its case in that cupboard there. shall i show it you?" the answer was so strange and unexpected that raymond started; the meaning look in his cousin's eyes warned him that he was treading on dangerous ground. he had, however, gone too far to let the matter drop suddenly without any attempt to brazen out the situation. "humph!" he said; "i suppose you put it back yourself." "i was the means of its being brought back. i found it in the pocket of an officer named lawson who was killed in egypt." the withering tone and scornful curl of the lip was on the other side now. the visitor was fully aware of it, and winced as though he had been cut with a whip. "mr. lawson had been stationed with the regiment at melchester, and i happen to know how the watch came into his possession." raymond saw that he had rushed into a pitfall of his own making--he was entirely in his opponent's hands--and like the mean cur he was, immediately began to sue for forgiveness and terms of peace. "hush!" he cried, glancing at the door. "don't say any more, the servants might hear. i'm very sorry i did it, but you know how it was; i was pushed for money, i say, you haven't told any one, have you?" "no. uncle john and aunt mabel know; though i don't think you need fear that they will let it go any further." "that's all right," continued raymond, in a snivelling tone. "i was badgered for money, and i really couldn't help it. i've been sorry enough since. i don't think i'll wait any longer, i'm in rather a hurry. well, good-bye. and look here, old chap--i'm afraid i treated you rather badly; but well let bygones be bygones. i don't want it to get to the governor's ears, so you won't mention it, will you?" jack cast a contemptuous glance at the proffered hand, and put his own behind his back. "no; i won't tell any one," he answered shortly, then turned on his heel, and that was his revenge. and now the only person remaining of whom a last word might be said at parting, is our hero himself. it was a balmy evening in that eternal summer that seemed to reign at brenlands; and he and queen mab were walking slowly round the green lawn, while the swallows went wheeling to and fro overhead. fastened to her bunch of trinkets next the locket was a silver coin--the enlisting shilling, which jack had never parted with since he first received it on that memorable morning at the melchester barracks. "yes," said aunt mabel, "it was queen victoria's once, but now it's mine!" "well, i think i earned it," he answered, laughing. "perhaps you'd like to go and earn another?" "no; i'm too happy where i am. uncle john is awfully good to me. he couldn't be kinder if i were his own son." "so you're content at last to stay at home and take what's given you?" "yes; i think i've settled down at last. dear old val said that the lane would turn some time, and so it has. my luck's changed." "i think i'd put it down to something better than that," said queen mab, smiling. "perhaps it is not all luck, but a little of yourself that has changed." jack laughed again, but made no attempt to deny the truth of the suggestion. possibly he felt that what she said was right, and that not only in his surroundings, but also in his own heart, had come at last the long lane's turning. the end. nelson's books for boys. _the books below are specially suitable for boys, and a better selection of well-written, attractively-bound, and beautifully-illustrated gift and prize books cannot be found. the list may be selected from with the greatest confidence, the imprint of messrs. nelson being a guarantee of wholesomeness as well as of interest and general good quality. for further selections see under ballantyne, kingston, nelson's "royal" libraries, etc._ _many illustrated in colours._ "captain swing." harold avery. hostage for a kingdom. f. b. forester. firelock and steel. harold avery. a captive of the corsairs. john finnemore. the duffer. warren bell. a king's comrade. c. w. whistler. in the trenches. john finnemore. in jacobite days. mrs. clarke. heads or tails? (a school story.) h. avery. held to ransom. (a story of brigands.) f. b. forester. jack hooper. v. cameron, r.n., c.b., d.c.l. jack ralston. (life in canada.) h. burnham. with pack and rifle in the far south-west. achilles daunt. a captain of irregulars. (war in chili.) herbert hayens. red, white, and green. (hungarian revolution.) herbert hayens. in the grip of the spaniard. herbert hayens. the tiger of the pampas. h. hayens. true to his nickname. harold avery. red cap. e. s. tylee. a sea-queen's sailing. c. w. whistler. play the game! harold avery. highway pirates. (a school story.) harold avery. sale's sharpshooters. harold avery. a rattling story of how three boys formed a very irregular volunteer corps. for king or empress? (stephen and matilda.) c. w. whistler. soldiers of the cross. e. f. pollard. tom graham, v.c. william johnston. one of buller's horse. william johnston. the fellow who won. andrew home. beggars of the sea. tom bevan. a trusty rebel. mrs. henry clarke. the british legion. herbert hayens. scouting for buller. herbert hayens. the island of gold. dr. gordon stables. harold the norseman. fred whishaw. nelson's books at one and sixpence. _stories for boys and girls._ from the back of beyond. mrs. roberton. countess dora's companion. mrs. bennitt. two little cavaliers. w. bettesworth. the luck of chervil. h. elrington. knights of the red cross. d. moore. john knox's "bairns." margaret h. roberton. mark's princess. mrs. edwin hohler. the round tower. a story of the irish rebellion of '98. florence m. s. scott. the riverton boys. k. m. eady. dorothy's difficulties. m. c. cordue. evelyn. dorothea moore. jake. adela f. mount. a helping hand. m. b. synge. the queen's namesake. m. b. synge. a happy failure. ethel dawson. fifine and her friends. sheila e. braine. a little cockney. miss gaye. mark hamilton's daughters. a. f. robertson. a story of seven. bridget penn. three sailor boys. commander cameron. terry's trials and triumphs. j. m. oxley. true to the flag. mrs. glasgow. bobby's surprises. three scottish heroines. e. c. traice. nelson's "royal" libraries. the shilling series. _eight coloured plates in nearly every volume._ archie digby. g. e. wyatt. as we sweep through the deep. gordon stables, m.d. at the black rocks. edward rand. aunt sally. constance milman. cyril's promise. a temperance tale. w. j. lacey. georgie merton. florence harrington. grey house on the hill. hon. mrs. greene. hudson bay. r. m. ballantyne. jubilee hall. hon. mrs. greene. lost squire of inglewood. dr. jackson. mark marksen's secret. jessie armstrong. martin rattler. r. m. ballantyne. rhoda's reform. m. a. paull. shenac. the story of a highland family in canada. sir aylmer's heir. e. everett-green. soldiers of the queen. harold avery. the coral island. r. m. ballantyne. the dog crusoe. r. m. ballantyne. the golden house. mrs. woods baker. the gorilla hunters. r. m. ballantyne. the robber baron. a. j. foster. the willoughby boys. emily c. hartley. ungava. r. m. ballantyne. world of ice. r. m. ballantyne. t. nelson and sons, london, edinburgh, dublin, and new york. the secret glory by arthur machen new york alfred a knopf mcmxxii copyright, 1922, by alfred a. knopf, inc. _published august, 1922_ _set up and printed by the vail-ballou co., binghamton, n. y._ _paper furnished by w. f. etherington & co., new york, n. y._ _bound by the h. wolff estate, new york, n. y._ manufactured in the united states of america to vincent starrett note _one of the schoolmasters in "the secret glory" has views on the subject of football similar to those entertained by a well-known schoolmaster whose biography appeared many years ago. that is the only link between the villain of invention and the good man of real life._ preface _some years ago i met my old master, sir frank benson--he was mr. f. r. benson then--and he asked me in his friendly way what i had been doing lately._ _"i am just finishing a book," i replied, "a book that everybody will hate."_ _"as usual," said the don quixote of our english stage--if i knew any nobler title to bestow upon him, i would, bestow it--"as usual; running your head against a stone wall!"_ _well, i don't know about "as usual"; there may be something to be said for the personal criticism or there may not; but it has struck me that sir frank's remark is a very good description of "the secret glory," the book i had in mind as i talked to him. it is emphatically the history of an unfortunate fellow who ran his head against stone walls from the beginning to the end. he could think nothing and do nothing after the common fashion of the world; even when he "went wrong," he did so in a highly unusual and eccentric manner. it will be for the reader to determine whether he were a saint who had lost his way in the centuries or merely an undeveloped lunatic; i hold no passionate view on either side. in every age, there are people great and small for whom the times are out of joint, for whom everything is, somehow, wrong and askew. consider hamlet; an amiable man and an intelligent man. but what a mess he made of it! fortunately, my hero--or idiot, which you will--was not called upon to intermeddle with affairs of state, and so only brought himself to grief: if it were grief; for the least chink of the door should be kept open, i am inclined to hold, for the other point of view. i have just been rereading kipling's "the miracle of purun bhagat," the tale of the brahmin prime minister of the native state in india, who saw all the world and the glory of it, in the west as well as in the east, and suddenly abjured all to become a hermit in the wood. was he mad, or was he supremely wise? it is just a matter of opinion._ _the origin and genesis of "the secret glory" were odd enough. once on a time, i read the life of a famous schoolmaster, one of the most notable schoolmasters of these later days. i believe he was an excellent man in every way; but, somehow, that "life" got on my nerves. i thought that the school songs--for which, amongst other things, this master was famous--were drivel; i thought his views about football, regarded, not as a good game, but as the discipline and guide of life, were rot, and poisonous rot at that. in a word, the "life" of this excellent man got my back up._ _very good. the year after, schoolmasters and football had ceased to engage my attention. i was deeply interested in a curious and minute investigation of the wonderful legend of the holy grail; or rather, in one aspect of that extraordinary complex. my researches led me to the connection of the grail legend with the vanished celtic church which held the field in britain in the fifth and sixth and seventh centuries; i undertook an extraordinary and fascinating journey into a misty and uncertain region of christian history. i must not say more here, lest--as nurse says to the troublesome and persistent child--i "begin all over again"; but, indeed, it was a voyage on perilous seas, a journey to faery lands forlorn--and i would declare, by the way, my conviction that if there had been no celtic church, keats could never have written those lines of tremendous evocation and incantation._ _again; very good. the year after, it came upon me to write a book. and i hit upon an original plan; or so i thought. i took my dislike of the good schoolmaster's "life," i took my knowledge of celtic mysteries--and combined my information._ _original, this plan! it was all thought of years before i was born. do you remember the critic of the "eatanswill gazette"? he had to review for that admirable journal a work on chinese metaphysics. mr. pott tells the story of the article._ _"he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the encyclopædia britannica ... he read for metaphysics under the letter m, and for china under the letter c, and combined his information!"_ the secret glory i a heavy cloud passed swiftly away before the wind that came with the night, and far in a clear sky the evening star shone with pure brightness, a gleaming world set high above the dark earth and the black shadows in the lane. in the ending of october a great storm had blown from the west, and it was through the bare boughs of a twisted oak that ambrose meyrick saw the silver light of the star. as the last faint flash died in the sky he leaned against a gate and gazed upward; and then his eyes fell on the dull and weary undulations of the land, the vast circle of dun ploughland and grey meadow bounded by a dim horizon, dreary as a prison wall. he remembered with a start how late it must be; he should have been back an hour before, and he was still in the open country, a mile away at least from the outskirts of lupton. he turned from the star and began to walk as quickly as he could along the lane through the puddles and the sticky clay, soaked with three weeks' heavy rain. he saw at last the faint lamps of the nearest streets where the shoemakers lived and he tramped hurriedly through this wretched quarter, past its penny shops, its raw public-house, its rawer chapel, with twelve foundation-stones on which are written the names of the twelve leading congregationalists of lupton, past the squalling children whose mothers were raiding and harrying them to bed. then came the free library, an admirable instance, as the _lupton mercury_ declared, of the adaptation of gothic to modern requirements. from a sort of tower of this building a great arm shot out and hung a round clock-face over the street, and meyrick experienced another shock when he saw that it was even later than he had feared. he had to get to the other side of the town, and it was past seven already! he began to run, wondering what his fate would be at his uncle's hands, and he went by "our grand old parish church" (completely "restored" in the early 'forties), past the remains of the market-cross, converted most successfully, according to local opinion, into a drinking fountain for dogs and cattle, dodging his way among the late shoppers and the early loafers who lounged to and fro along the high street. he shuddered as he rang the bell at the old grange. he tried to put a bold face on it when the servant opened the door, and he would have gone straight down the hall into the schoolroom, but the girl stopped him. "master said you're to go to the study at once, master meyrick, as soon as ever you come in." she was looking strangely at him, and the boy grew sick with dread. he was a "funk" through and through, and was frightened out of his wits about twelve times a day every day of his life. his uncle had said a few years before: "lupton will make a man of you," and lupton was doing its best. the face of the miserable wretch whitened and grew wet; there was a choking sensation in his throat, and he felt very cold. nelly foran, the maid, still looked at him with strange, eager eyes, then whispered suddenly: "you must go directly, master meyrick, master heard the bell, i know; but i'll make it up to you." ambrose understood nothing except the approach of doom. he drew a long breath and knocked at the study door, and entered on his uncle's command. it was an extremely comfortable room. the red curtains were drawn close, shutting out the dreary night, and there was a great fire of coal that bubbled unctuously and shot out great jets of flame--in the schoolroom they used coke. the carpet was soft to the feet, and the chairs promised softness to the body, and the walls were well furnished with books. there were thackeray, dickens, lord lytton, uniform in red morocco, gilt extra; the cambridge bible for students in many volumes, stanley's _life of arnold_, coplestone's _prælectiones academicæ_, commentaries, dictionaries, first editions of tennyson, school and college prizes in calf, and, of course, a great brigade of latin and greek classics. three of the wonderful and terrible pictures of piranesi hung in the room; these mr. horbury admired more for the subject-matter than for the treatment, in which he found, as he said, a certain lack of the _aurea mediocritas_--almost, indeed, a touch of morbidity. the gas was turned low, for the high usher was writing at his desk, and a shaded lamp cast a bright circle of light on a mass of papers. he turned round as ambrose meyrick came in. he had a high, bald forehead, and his fresh-coloured face was edged with reddish "mutton-chop" whiskers. there was a dangerous glint in his grey-green eyes, and his opening sentence was unpromising. "now, ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of thing is not going to be tolerated any longer." perhaps it would not have fared quite so badly with the unhappy lad if only his uncle had not lunched with the head. there was a concatenation accordingly, every link in which had helped to make ambrose meyrick's position hopeless. in the first place there was boiled mutton for luncheon, and this was a dish hateful to mr. horbury's palate. secondly, the wine was sherry. of this mr. horbury was very fond, but unfortunately the head's sherry, though making a specious appeal to the taste, was in reality far from good and teemed with those fiery and irritating spirits which make the liver to burn and rage. then chesson had practically found fault with his chief assistant's work. he had not, of course, told him in so many words that he was unable to teach; he had merely remarked: "i don't know whether you've noticed it, horbury, but it struck me the other day that there was a certain lack of grip about those fellows of yours in the fifth. some of them struck me as _muddlers_, if you know what i mean: there was a sort of _vagueness_, for example, about their construing in that chorus. have you remarked anything of the kind yourself?" and then, again, the head had gone on: "and, by the way, horbury, i don't quite know what to make of your nephew, meyrick. he was your wife's nephew, wasn't he? yes. well, i hardly know whether i can explain what i feel about the boy; but i can't help saying that there is something wrong about him. his work strikes me as good enough--in fact, quite above the form average--but, to use the musical term, he seems to be in the wrong key. of course, it may be my fancy; but the lad reminds me of those very objectionable persons who are said to have a joke up their sleeve. i doubt whether he is taking the lupton stamp; and when he gets up in the school i shall be afraid of his influence on the other boys." here, again, the master detected a note of blame; and by the time he reached the old grange he was in an evil humour. he hardly knew which he found the more offensive--chesson's dish or his discourse. he was a dainty man in his feeding, and the thought of the great fat gigot pouring out a thin red stream from the gaping wound dealt to it by the head mingled with his resentment of the indirect scolding which he considered that he had received, and on the fire just kindled every drop of that corrosive sherry was oil. he drank his tea in black silence, his rage growing fiercer for want of vent, and it is doubtful whether in his inmost heart he was altogether displeased when report was made at six o'clock that meyrick had not come in. he saw a prospect--more than a prospect--of satisfactory relief. some philosophers have affirmed that lunatic doctors (or mental specialists) grow in time to a certain resemblance to their patients, or, in more direct language, become half mad themselves. there seems a good deal to be said for the position; indeed, it is probably a more noxious madness to swear a man into perpetual imprisonment in the company of maniacs and imbeciles because he sings in his bath and will wear a purple dressing-gown at dinner than to fancy oneself emperor of china. however this may be, it is very certain that in many cases the schoolmaster is nothing more or less than a bloated schoolboy: the beasts are, radically, the same, but morbid conditions have increased the venom of the former's sting. indeed, it is not uncommon for well-wishers to the great public school system to praise their favourite masters in terms which admit, nay, glory in, this identity. read the memorial tributes to departed heads in a well-known and most respectable church paper. "to the last he was a big boy at heart," writes canon diver of his friend, that illiterate old sycophant who brought up the numbers of the school to such a pitch by means of his conciliator policy to jews, turks, heretics and infidels that there was nothing for it but to make him a bishop. "i always thought he seemed more at home in the playing fields than in the sixth-form room.... he had all the english boy's healthy horror of anything approaching pose or eccentricity.... he could be a severe disciplinarian when severity seemed necessary, but everybody in the school knew that a well-placed 'boundary,' a difficult catch or a goal well won or well averted would atone for all but the most serious offences." there are many other points of resemblance between the average master and the average boy: each, for example, is intensely cruel, and experiences a quite abnormal joy in the infliction of pain. the baser boy tortures those animals which are not _méchants_. tales have been told (they are hushed up by all true friends of the "system") of wonderful and exquisite orgies in lonely hollows of the moors, in obscure and hidden thickets: tales of a boy or two, a lizard or a toad, and the slow simmering heat of a bonfire. but these are the exceptional pleasures of the _virtuosi_; for the average lad there is plenty of fun to be got out of his feebler fellows, of whom there are generally a few even in the healthiest community. after all, the weakest must go to the wall, and if the bones of the weakest are ground in the process, that is their fault. when some miserable little wretch, after a year or two of prolonged and exquisite torture of body and mind, seeks the last escape of suicide, one knows how the old boys will come forward, how gallantly they will declare that the days at the "dear old school" were the happiest in their lives; how "the doctor" was their father and the sixth their nursing-mother; how the delights of the mahomedans' fabled paradise are but grey and weary sport compared with the joys of the happy fag, whose heart, as the inspired bard of harrow tells us, will thrill in future years at the thought of the hill. they write from all quarters, these brave old boys: from the hard-won deanery, result of many years of indefatigable attack on the fundamental doctrines of the christian faith; from the comfortable villa, the reward of commercial activity and acuteness on the stock exchange; from the courts and from the camps; from all the high seats of the successful; and common to them all is the convincing argument of praise. and we all agree, and say there is nothing like our great public schools, and perhaps the only dissentient voices are those of the father and mother who bury the body of a little child about whose neck is the black sign of the rope. but let them be comforted: the boy was no good at games, though his torments were not bad sport while he lasted. mr. horbury was an old luptonian; he was, in the words of canon diver, but "a big boy at heart," and so he gave orders that meyrick was to be sent in the study directly he came in, and he looked at the clock on the desk before him with satisfaction and yet with impatience. a hungry man may long for his delayed dinner almost with a sense of fury, and yet at the back of his mind he cannot help being consoled by the thought of how wonderfully he will enjoy the soup when it appears at last. when seven struck, mr. horbury moistened his lips slightly. he got up and felt cautiously behind one of the bookshelves. the object was there, and he sat down again. he listened; there were footfalls on the drive. ah! there was the expected ring. there was a brief interval, and then a knock. the fire was glowing with red flashes, and the wretched toad was secured. "now, ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of thing isn't going to be tolerated any longer. this is the third time during this term that you have been late for lockup. you know the rules: six o'clock at latest. it is now twenty minutes past seven. what excuse have you to make? what have you been doing with yourself? have you been in the fields?" "no, sir." "why not? you must have seen the resolution of the sixth on the notice-board of the high school? you know what it promised any boy who shirked rocker? 'a good sound thrashing with tuds before the first thirty.' i am afraid you will have a very bad time of it on monday, after graham has sent up your name to the room." there was a pause. mr. horbury looked quietly and lengthily at the boy, who stood white and sick before him. he was a rather sallow, ugly lad of fifteen. there was something of intelligence in his expression, and it was this glance that chesson, the headmaster, had resented. his heart beat against his breast, his breath came in gasps and the sweat of terror poured down his body. the master gazed at him, and at last spoke again. "but what have you been doing? where have you been all this time?" "if you please, sir, i walked over to selden abbey." "to selden abbey? why, it's at least six miles away! what on earth did you want to go to selden abbey for? are you fond of old stones?" "if you please, sir, i wanted to see the norman arches. there is a picture of them in _parker's glossary_." "oh, i see! you are a budding antiquarian, are you, ambrose, with an interest in norman arches--eh? i suppose we are to look forward to the time when your researches will have made lupton famous? perhaps you would like to lecture to the school on st. paul's cathedral? pray, what are your views as to the age of stonehenge?" the wit was heavy enough, but the speaker's position gave a bitter sting to his lash. mr. horbury saw that every cut had told, and, without prejudice to more immediate and acuter pleasures, he resolved that such biting satire must have a larger audience. indeed, it was a long time before ambrose meyrick heard the last of those wretched norman arches. the method was absurdly easy. "openings" presented themselves every day. for example, if the boy made a mistake in construing, the retort was obvious: "thank you, meyrick, for your most original ideas on the force of the aorist. perhaps if you studied your greek grammar a little more and your favourite _glossary of architecture_ a little less, it would be the better. write out 'aorist means indefinite' five hundred times." or, again, perhaps the classic orders were referred to. mr. horbury would begin to instruct the form as to the difference between ionic and doric. the form listened with poor imitation of interest. suddenly the master would break off: "i beg your pardon. i was forgetting that we have a great architectural authority amongst us. be so kind as to instruct us, meyrick. what does parker say? or perhaps you have excogitated some theories of your own? i know you have an original mind, from the extraordinary quantities of your last copy of verse. by the way, i must ask you to write out 'the _e_ in _venio_ is short' five hundred times. i am sorry to interfere with your more important architectural studies, but i am afraid there is no help for it." and so on; while the form howled with amusement. but mr. horbury kept these gems for future and public use. for the moment he had more exciting work on hand. he burst out suddenly: "the fact is, ambrose meyrick, you're a miserable little humbug! you haven't the honesty to say, fair and square, that you funked rocker and went loafing about the country, looking for any mischief you could lay your hands on. instead of that you make up this cock-and-bull story of selden abbey and norman arches--as if any boy in his senses ever knew or cared twopence about such things! i hope you haven't been spending the afternoon in some low public-house? there, don't speak! i don't want to hear any more lies. but, whatever you have been doing, you have broken the rules, and you must be taught that the rules have to be kept. stand still!" mr. horbury went to the bookshelf and drew out the object. he stood at a little distance behind meyrick and opened proceedings with a savage cut at his right arm, well above the elbow. then it was the turn of the left arm, and the master felt the cane bite so pleasantly into the flesh that he distributed some dozen cuts between the two arms. then he turned his attention to the lad's thighs and finished up in the orthodox manner, meyrick bending over a chair. the boy's whole body was one mass of burning, stinging torture; and, though he had not uttered a sound during the process, the tears were streaming down his cheeks. it was not the bodily anguish, though that was extreme enough, so much as a far-off recollection. he was quite a little boy, and his father, dead long since, was showing him the western doorway of a grey church on a high hill and carefully instructing him in the difference between "billetty" and "chevronny." "it's no good snivelling, you know, ambrose. i daresay you think me severe, but, though you won't believe me now, the day will come when you will thank me from your heart for what i have just done. let this day be a turning-point in your life. now go to your work." ii it was strange, but meyrick never came in the after days and thanked his uncle for that sharp dose of physical and mental pain. even when he was a man he dreamed of mr. horbury and woke up in a cold sweat, and then would fall asleep again with a great sigh of relief and gladness as he realised that he was no longer in the power of that "infernal old swine," "that filthy, canting, cruel brute," as he roughly called his old master. the fact was, as some old luptonians remarked, the two had never understood one another. with the majority of the boys the high usher passed for a popular master enough. he had been a distinguished athlete in his time, and up to his last days at the school was a football enthusiast. indeed, he organised a variety of the lupton game which met with immense popularity till the head was reluctantly compelled to stop it; some said because he always liked to drop bitter into horbury's cup when possible; others--and with more probability on their side--maintained that it was in consequence of a report received from the school doctor to the effect that this new species of football was rapidly setting up an old species of heart disease in the weaker players. however that might be, there could be no doubt as to horbury's intense and deep-rooted devotion to the school. his father had been a luptonian before him. he himself had gone from the school to the university, and within a year or two of taking his degree he had returned to lupton to serve it as a master. it was the general opinion in public school circles that the high usher had counted for as much as chesson, the headmaster, if not for more, in the immense advance in prestige and popularity that the school had made; and everybody thought that when chesson received the episcopal order horbury's succession was a certainty. unfortunately, however, there were wheels within wheels, and a total stranger was appointed, a man who knew nothing of the famous lupton traditions, who (it was whispered) had been heard to say that "this athletic business" was getting a bit overdone. mr. horbury's friends were furious, and horbury himself, it was supposed, was bitterly disappointed. he retreated to one of the few decent canonries which have survived the wave of agricultural depression; but those who knew him best doubted whether his ecclesiastical duties were an adequate consolation for the loss of that coveted headmastership of lupton. to quote the memoir which appeared in the _guardian_ soon after his death, over some well-known initials: "his friends were shocked when they saw him at the residence. he seemed no longer the same man, he had aged more in six months, as some of them expressed themselves, than in the dozen years before. the old joyous horbury, full of mirth, an apt master of word-play and logic-fence, was somehow 'dimmed,' to use the happy phrase of a former colleague, the dean of dorchester. old boys who remembered the sparkle of his wit, the zest which he threw into everything, making the most ordinary form-work better fun than the games at other schools, as one of them observed, missed something indefinable from the man whom they had loved so long and so well. one of them, who had perhaps penetrated as closely as any into the _arcana_ of horbury's friendship (a privilege which he will ever esteem as one of the greatest blessings of his life), tried to rouse him with an extravagant rumour which was then going the round of the popular press, to the effect that considerable modifications were about to be introduced into the compulsory system of games at x., one of the greatest of our great public schools. horbury flushed; the old light came into his eyes; his friend was reminded of the ancient war-horse who hears once more the inspiring notes of the trumpet. 'i can't believe it,' he said, and there was a tremor in his voice. 'they wouldn't dare. not even y. (the headmaster of x.) would do such a scoundrelly thing as that. i _won't_ believe it.' but the flush soon faded and his apathy returned. 'after all,' he said, 'i shouldn't wonder if it were so. our day is past, i suppose, and for all i know they may be construing the breviary and playing dominoes at x. in a few years' time.' "i am afraid that those last years at wareham were far from happy. he felt, i think, out of tune with his surroundings, and, _pace_ the readers of the _guardian_, i doubt whether he was ever quite at home in his stall. he confessed to one of his old associates that he doubted the wisdom of the whole cathedral system. 'what,' he said, in his old characteristic manner, 'would st. peter say if he could enter this building and see that gorgeous window in which he is represented with mitre, cope and keys?' and i do not think that he was ever quite reconciled to the daily recitation of the liturgy, accompanied as it is in such establishments by elaborate music and all the pomp of the surpliced choir. 'rome and water, rome and water!' he has been heard to mutter under his breath as the procession swept up the nave, and before he died i think that he had the satisfaction of feeling that many in high places were coming round to his views. "but to the very last he never forgot lupton. a year or two before he died he wrote the great school song, 'follow, follow, follow!' he was pleased, i know, when it appeared in the _luptonian_, and a famous old boy informs me that he will never forget horbury's delight when he was told that the song was already a great favourite in 'chantry.' to many of your readers the words will be familiar; but i cannot resist quoting the first verse: "i am getting old and grey and the hills seem far away, and i cannot hear the horn that once proclaimed the morn when we sallied forth upon the chase together; for the years are gone--alack!--when we hastened on the track, and the huntsman's whip went crack! as a signal to our pack riding in the sunshine and fair weather. and yet across the ground i seem to hear a sound, a sound that comes up floating from the hollow; and its note is very clear as it echoes in my ear, and the words are: 'lupton, follow, follow, follow!' _chorus._ "lupton, follow away! the darkness lies behind us, and before us is the day. follow, follow the sun, the whole world's to be won, so, lupton, follow, follow, follow, follow away! "an old pupil sang this verse to him on his death-bed, and i think, perhaps, that some at least of the readers of the _guardian_ will allow that george horbury died 'fortified,' in the truest sense, 'with the rites of the church'--the church of a great aspiration." such was the impression that mr. horbury had evidently made upon some of his oldest friends; but meyrick was, to the last, an infidel. he read the verses in the _guardian_ (he would never subscribe to the _luptonian_) and jeered savagely at the whole sentiment of the memoir, and at the poetry, too. "isn't it incredible?" he would say. "let's allow that the main purpose of the great public schools is to breed brave average boobies by means of rocker, sticker and mucker and the rest of it. still, they do acknowledge that they have a sort of _parergon_--the teaching of two great literatures, two literatures that have moulded the whole of western thought for more than two thousand years. and they pay an animal like this to teach these literatures--a swine that has not enough literature of any kind in him to save the soul of a louse! look at those verses! why, a decent fourth form boy would be ashamed to put his name to them!" he was foolish to talk in this fashion. people merely said that it was evident he was one of the failures of the great public school system; and the song was much admired in the right circles. a very well-turned _idem latine_ appeared in the _guardian_ shortly after the publication of the memoir, and the initials at the foot of the version were recognised as those of a literary dean. and on that autumn evening, far away in the 'seventies, meyrick, the boy, left mr. horbury's study in a white fury of grief and pain and rage. he would have murdered his master without the faintest compunction, nay, with huge delight. psychologically, his frame of mind was quite interesting, though he was only a schoolboy who had just had a sound thrashing for breaking rules. for the fact, of course, was that horbury, the irritating influence of the head's conversation and sherry apart, was by no means a bad fellow. he was for the moment savagely cruel, but then, most men are apt to be savagely cruel when they suffer from an inflamed liver and offensive superiors, more especially when there is an inferior, warranted defenceless, in their power. but, in the main, horbury was a very decent specimen of his class--english schoolmaster--and meyrick would never allow that. in all his reasoning about schools and schoolmasters there was a fatal flaw--he blamed both for not being what they never pretended to be. to use a figure that would have appealed to him, it was if one quarrelled with a plain, old-fashioned meeting-house because it was not in the least like lincoln cathedral. a chimney may not be a decorative object, but then it does not profess to be a spire or a pinnacle far in the spiritual city. but meyrick was always scolding meeting-houses because they were not cathedrals. he has been heard to rave for hours against useful, unpretentious chimney-pots because they bore no resemblance to celestial spires. somehow or other, possibly by inheritance, possibly by the influence of his father's companionship, he had unconsciously acquired a theory of life which bore no relation whatever to the facts of it. the theory was manifest in his later years; but it must have been stubbornly, if vaguely, present in him all through his boyhood. take, for instance, his comment on poor canon horbury's verses. he judged those, as we have seen, by the rules of the fine art of literature, and found them rubbish. yet any old luptonian would have told him that to hear the whole six hundred boys join in the chorus, "lupton, follow away!" was one of the great experiences of life; from which it appears that the song, whatever its demerits from a literary point of view, fully satisfied the purpose for which is was written. in other words, it was an excellent chimney, but meyrick still persisted in his easy and futile task of proving that it was not a bit like a spire. then, again, one finds a fallacy of still huger extent in that major premiss of his: that the great public schools purpose to themselves as a secondary and minor object the imparting of the spirit and beauty of the greek and latin literatures. now, it is very possible that at some distant period in the past this was an object, or even, perhaps, _the_ object of the institutions in question. the humanists, it may be conjectured, thought of school and university as places where latin and greek were to be learned, and to be learned with the object of enjoying the great thought and the great style of an antique world. one sees the spirit of this in rabelais, for example. the classics are a wonderful adventure; to learn to understand them is to be a spiritual columbus, a discoverer of new seas and unknown continents, a drinker of new-old wine in a new-old land. to the student of those days a mysterious drowned atlantis again rose splendid from the waves of the great deep. it was these things that meyrick (unconsciously, doubtless) expected to find in his school life; it was for the absence of these things that he continued to scold the system in his later years; wherein, like jim in _huckleberry finn_, he missed the point by a thousand miles. the latin and greek of modern instruction are, of course, most curious and interesting survivals; no longer taught with any view of enabling students to enjoy and understand either the thought or beauty of the originals; taught rather in such a manner as to nauseate the learner for the rest of his days with the very notion of these lessons. still, the study of the classics survives, a curious and elaborate ritual, from which all sense and spirit have departed. one has only to recollect the form master's lessons in the _odyssey_ or the _bacchæ_, and then to view modern free-masons celebrating the mystic death and resurrection of hiram abiff; the analogy is complete, for neither the master nor the masons have the remotest notion of what they are doing. both persevere in strange and mysterious actions from inveterate conservatism. meyrick was a lover of antiquity and a special lover of survivals, but he could never see that the round of greek syntax, and latin prose, of elegiacs and verbs in [greek: mi], with the mystery of the oratio obliqua and the optative, was one of the most strange and picturesque survivals of modern life. it is to be noted, by the way, that the very meaning of the word "scholar" has been radically changed. thus a well-known authority points out that "melancholy" burton had no "scholarship" in the real sense of the word; he merely used his vast knowledge of ancient and modern literature to make one of the most entertaining and curious books that the world possesses. true "scholarship," in the modern sense, is to be sought for not in the jacobean translators of the bible, but in the victorian revisers. the former made the greatest of english books out of their hebrew and greek originals; but the latter understood the force of the aorist. it is curious to reflect that "scholar" once meant a man of literary taste and knowledge. meyrick never mastered these distinctions, or, if he did so in later years, he never confessed to his enlightment, but went on railing at the meeting-house, which, he still maintained, _did_ pretend to be a cathedral. he has been heard to wonder why a certain dean, who had pointed out the vast improvements that had been effected by the revisers, did not employ a few young art students from kensington to correct the infamous drawing of the fourteenth-century glass in his cathedral. he was incorrigible; he was always incorrigible, and thus, in his boyhood, on the dark november evening, he meditated the murder of his good master and uncle--for at least a quarter of an hour. his father, he remembered, had always spoken of gothic architecture as the most wonderful and beautiful thing in the world: a thing to be studied and loved and reverenced. his father had never so much as mentioned rocker, much less had he preached it as the one way by which an english boy must be saved. hence, ambrose maintained inwardly that his visit to selden abbey was deserving of reward rather than punishment, and he resented bitterly, the savage injustice (as he thought it) of his caning. iii yet mr. horbury had been right in one matter, if not in all. that evening was a turning-point in meyrick's life. he had felt the utmost rage of the enemy, as it were, and he determined that he would be a funk no longer. he would not degenerate into the state of little phipps, who had been bullied and "rockered" and beaten into such a deplorable condition that he fainted dead away while the headmaster was operating on him for "systematic and deliberate lying." phipps not only fainted, but, being fundamentally sensible, as dr. johnson expressed it, showed a strong disinclination to return to consciousness and the precious balms of the "dear old head." chesson was rather frightened, and the school doctor, who had his living to get, said, somewhat dryly, that he thought the lad had better go home for a week or two. so phipps went home in a state which made his mother cry bitterly and his father wonder whether the public school system was not over-praised. but the old family doctor went about raging and swearing at the "scoundrels" who had reduced a child of twelve to a nervous wreck, with "neurasthenia cerebralis" well on its way. but dr. walford had got his education in some trumpery little academy, and did not understand or value the _ethos_ of the great public schools. now, ambrose meyrick had marked the career of wretched phipps with concern and pity. the miserable little creature had been brought by careful handling from masters and boys to such a pitch of neurotic perfection that it was only necessary to tap him smartly on the back or on the arm, and he would instantly burst into tears. whenever anyone asked him the simplest question he suspected a cruel trap of some sort, and lied and equivocated and shuffled with a pitiable lack of skill. though he was pitched by the heels into mucker about three times a week, that he might acquire the useful art of natation, he still seemed to grow dirtier and dirtier. his school books were torn to bits, his exercises made into darts; he had impositions for losing books and canings for not doing his work, and he lied and cried all the more. meyrick had never got to this depth. he was a sturdy boy, and phipps had always been a weakly little animal; but, as he walked from the study to the schoolroom after his thrashing, he felt that he had been in some danger of descending on that sad way. he finally resolved that he would never tread it, and so he walked past the baize-lined doors into the room where the other boys were at work on prep, with an air of unconcern which was not in the least assumed. mr. horbury was a man of considerable private means and did not care to be bothered with the troubles and responsibilities of a big house. but there was room and to spare in the old grange, so he took three boys besides his nephew. these three were waiting with a grin of anticipation, since the nature of meyrick's interview with "old horbury" was not dubious. but ambrose strolled in with a "hallo, you fellows!" and sat down in his place as if nothing had happened. this was intolerable. "i say, meyrick," began pelly, a beefy boy with a red face, "you _have_ been blubbing! feel like writing home about it? oh! i forgot. this is your home, isn't it? how many cuts? i didn't hear you howl." the boy took no notice. he was getting out his books as if no one had spoken. "can't you answer?" went on the beefy one. "how many cuts, you young sneak?" "go to hell!" the whole three stared aghast for a moment; they thought meyrick must have gone mad. only one, bates the observant, began to chuckle quietly to himself, for he did not like pelly. he who was always beefy became beefier; his eyes bulged out with fury. "i'll give it you," he said and made for ambrose, who was turning over the leaves of the latin dictionary. ambrose did not wait for the assault; he rose also and met pelly half-way with a furious blow, well planted on the nose. pelly took a back somersault and fell with a crash to the floor, where he lay for a moment half stunned. he rose staggering and looked about him with a pathetic, bewildered air; for, indeed, a great part of his little world had crumbled about his ears. he stood in the middle of the room, wondering what it meant, whether it was true indeed that meyrick was no longer of any use for a little quiet fun. a horrible and incredible transmutation had, apparently, been effected in the funk of old. pelly gazed wildly about him as he tried to staunch the blood that poured over his mouth. "foul blow!" ventured rawson, a lean lad who liked to twist the arms of very little boys till they shrieked for mercy. the full inwardness of the incident had not penetrated to his brain; he saw without believing, in the manner of the materialist who denies the marvellous even when it is before his eyes. "foul blow, young meyrick!" the quiet student had gone back to his place and was again handling his dictionary. it was a hard, compact volume, rebound in strong boards, and the edge of these boards caught the unfortunate rawson full across the eyes with extraordinary force. he put his face in his hands and blubbered quietly and dismally, rocking to and fro in his seat, hardly hearing the fluent stream of curses with which the quiet student inquired whether the blow he had just had was good enough for him. meyrick picked up his dictionary with a volley of remarks which would have done credit to an old-fashioned stage-manager at the last dress rehearsal before production. "hark at him," said pelly feebly, almost reverently. "hark at him." but poor rawson, rocking to and fro, his head between his hands, went on blubbering softly and spoke no word. meyrick had never been an unobservant lad; he had simply made a discovery that evening that in rome certain roman customs must be adopted. the wise bates went on doing his copy of latin verse, chuckling gently to himself. bates was a cynic. he despised all the customs and manners of the place most heartily and took the most curious care to observe them. he might have been the inventor and patentee of rocker, if one judged him by the fervour with which he played it. he entered his name for every possible event at the sports, and jumped the jumps and threw the hammer and ran the races as if his life depended on it. once mr. horbury had accidentally over-head bates saying something about "the honour of the house" which went to his heart. as for cricket, bates played as if his sole ambition was to become a first-class professional. and he chuckled as he did his latin verses, which he wrote (to the awe of other boys) "as if he were writing a letter"--that is, without making a rough copy. for bates had got the "hang" of the whole system from rocker to latin verse, and his copies were much admired. he grinned that evening, partly at the transmutation of meyrick and partly at the line he was jotting down: "_mira loquor, coelo resonans vox funditur alto._" in after life he jotted down a couple of novels which sold, as the journalists said, "like hot cakes." meyrick went to see him soon after the first novel had gone into its thirtieth thousand, and bates was reading "appreciations" and fingering a cheque and chuckling. "mira loquor, populo, resonans, _cheque_ funditur alto," he said. "i know what schoolmasters and boys and the public want, and i take care they get it--_sale espèce de sacrés cochons de n. de d._!" the rest of prep. went off quite quietly. pelly was slowly recovering from the shock that he had received and began to meditate revenge. meyrick had got him unawares, he reflected. it was merely an accident, and he resolved to challenge meyrick to fight and give him back the worst licking he had ever had in his life. he was beefy, but a bold fellow. rawson, who was really a cruel coward and a sneak, had made up his mind that he wanted no more, and from time to time cast meek and propitiatory glances in meyrick's direction. at half-past nine they all went into their dining-room for bread and cheese and beer. at a quarter to ten mr. horbury appeared in cap and gown and read a chapter from st. paul's epistle to the romans, with one or two singularly maundering and unhappy prayers. he stopped the boys as they were going up to their rooms. "what's this, pelly?" he said. "your nose is all swollen. it's been bleeding, too, i see. what have you been doing to yourself? and you, rawson, how do you account for your eyes being black? what's the meaning of all this?" "please, sir, there was a very stiff bully down at rocker this afternoon, and rawson and i got tokered badly." "were you in the bully, bates?" "no, sir; i've been outside since the beginning of the term. but all the fellows were playing up tremendously, and i saw rawson and pelly had been touched when we were changing." "ah! i see. i'm very glad to find the house plays up so well. as for you, bates, i hear you're the best outside for your age that we've ever had. good night." the three said "thank you, sir," as if their dearest wish had been gratified, and the master could have sworn that bates flushed with pleasure at his word of praise. but the fact was that bates had "suggested" the flush by a cunning arrangement of his features. the boys vanished and mr. horbury returned to his desk. he was editing a selection called "english literature for lower forms." he began to read from the slips that he had prepared: "_so all day long the noise of battle roll'd among the mountains by the winter sea; until king arthur's table, man by man, had fallen in lyonnesse----_" he stopped and set a figure by the last word, and then, on a blank slip, with a corresponding letter, he repeated the figure and wrote the note: lyonnesse--the sicilly isles. then he took a third slip and wrote the question: give the ancient name of the sicilly isles. these serious labours employed him till twelve o'clock. he put the materials of his book away as the clock struck, and solemnly mixed himself his nightly glass of whisky and soda--in the daytime he never touched spirits--and bit the one cigar which he smoked in the twenty-four hours. the stings of the head's sherry and of his conversation no longer burned within him; time and work and the bite of the cane in meyrick's flesh had soothed his soul, and he set himself to dream, leaning back in his arm-chair, watching the cheerful fire. he was thinking of what he would do when he succeeded to the headmastership. already there were rumours that chesson had refused the bishopric of st. dubric's in order that he might be free to accept dorchester, which, in the nature of things, must soon be vacant. horbury had no doubt that the headmastership would be his; he had influential friends who assured him that the trustees would not hesitate for an instant. then he would show the world what an english public school could be made. in five years, he calculated, he would double the numbers. he saw the coming importance of the modern side, and especially of science. personally, he detested "stinks," but he knew what an effect he would produce with a great laboratory fitted with the very best appliances and directed by a highly qualified master. then, again, an elaborate gymnasium must be built; there must be an engineer's shop, too, and a carpenter's as well. and people were beginning to complain that a public school education was of no use in the city. there must be a business master, an expert from the stock exchange who would see that this reproach was removed. then he considered that a large number of the boys belonged to the land-owning class. why should a country gentleman be at the mercy of his agent, forced for lack of technical knowledge to accept statements which he could not check? it was clear that the management of land and great estates must have its part in the scheme; and, again, the best-known of the crammers must be bought on his own terms, so that the boys who wished to get into the army or the civil service would be practically compelled to come to lupton. already he saw paragraphs in the _guardian_ and _the times_--in all the papers--paragraphs which mentioned the fact that ninety-five per cent of the successful candidates for the indian civil service had received their education at the foundation of "stout old martin rolle." meanwhile, in all this flood of novelty, the old traditions should be maintained with more vigour than ever. the classics should be taught as they never had been taught. every one of the masters on this side should be in the highest honours and, if possible, he would get famous men for the work--they should not merely be good, but also notorious scholars. gee, the famous explorer in crete, who had made an enormous mark in regions widely removed from the scholastic world by his wonderful book, _dædalus; or, the secret of the labyrinth_, must come to lupton at any price; and maynard, who had discovered some most important greek manuscripts in egypt, he must have a form, too. then there was rendell, who had done so well with his _thucydides_, and davies, author of _the olive of athene_, a daring but most brilliant book which promised to upset the whole established theory of mythology--he would have such a staff as no school had ever dreamed of. "we shall have no difficulty about paying them," thought horbury; "our numbers will go up by leaps and bounds, and the fees shall be five hundred pounds a year--and such terms will do us more good than anything." he went into minute detail. he must take expert advice as to the advisability of the school farming on its own account, and so supplying the boys with meat, milk, bread, butter and vegetables at first cost. he believed it could be done; he would get a scotch farmer from the lowlands and make him superintendent at a handsome salary and with a share in the profits. there would be the splendid advertisement of "the whole dietary of the school supplied from the school farms, under the supervision of mr. david anderson, formerly of haddanneuk, the largest tenancy in the duke of ayr's estates." the food would be better and cheaper, too; but there would be no luxury. the "spartan" card was always worth playing; one must strike the note of plain living in a luxurious age; there must be no losing of the old public school severity. on the other hand, the boy's hands should be free to go into their own pockets; there should be no restraint here. if a boy chose to bring in _dindonneau aux truffes_ or _pieds de mouton à la ste menehould_ to help out his tea, that was his look-out. why should not the school grant a concession to some big london firm, who would pay handsomely for the privilege of supplying the hungry lads with every kind of expensive dainty? the sum could be justly made a large one, as any competing shop could be promptly put out of bounds with reason or without it. on one side, _confiserie_; at the other counter, _charcuterie_; enormous prices could be charged to the wealthy boys of whom the school would be composed. yet, on the other hand, the distinguished visitor--judge, bishop, peer or what not--would lunch at the headmaster's house and eat the boys' dinner and go away saying it was quite the plainest and very many times the best meal he had ever tasted. there would be well-hung saddle of mutton, roasted and not baked; floury potatoes and cauliflower; apple pudding with real english cheese, with an excellent glass of the school beer, an honest and delicious beverage made of malt and hops in the well-found school brewery. horbury knew enough of modern eating and drinking to understand that such a meal would be a choice rarity to nine rich people out of ten; and yet it was "spartan," utterly devoid of luxury and ostentation. again, he passed from detail and minutiæ into great napoleonic regions. a thousand boys at £500 a year; that would be an income for the school of five hundred thousand pounds! the profits would be gigantic, immense. after paying large, even extravagant, prices to the staff, after all building expenses had been deducted, he hardly dared to think how vast a sum would accrue year by year to the trustees. the vision began to assume such magnificence that it became oppressive; it put on the splendours and delights of the hashish dream, which are too great and too piercing for mortal hearts to bear. and yet it was no mirage; there was not a step that could not be demonstrated, shown to be based on hard; matter-of-fact business considerations. he tried to keep back his growing excitement, to argue with himself that he was dealing in visions, but the facts were too obstinate. he saw that it would be his part to work the same miracle in the scholastic world as the great american storekeepers had operated in the world of retail trade. the principle was precisely the same: instead of a hundred small shops making comparatively modest and humdrum profits you had the vast emporium doing business on the gigantic scale with vastly diminished expenses and vastly increased rewards. here again was a hint. he had thought of america, and he knew that here was an inexhaustible gold mine, that no other scholastic prospector had even dreamed of. the rich american was notoriously hungry for everything that was english, from frock-coats to pedigrees. he had never thought of sending his son to an english public school because he considered the system hopelessly behind the times. but the new translated lupton would be to other public schools as a new york hotel of the latest fashion is to a village beer-shop. and yet the young millionaire would grow up in the company of the sons of the english gentlemen, imbibing the unique culture of english life, while at the same time he enjoyed all the advantages of modern ideas, modern science and modern business training. land was still comparatively cheap at lupton; the school must buy it quietly, indirectly, by degrees, and then pile after pile of vast buildings rose before his eyes. he saw the sons of the rich drawn from all the ends of the world to the great school, there to learn the secret of the anglo-saxons. chesson was mistaken in that idea of his, which he thought daring and original, of establishing a distinct jewish house where the food should be "kosher." the rich jew who desired to send his son to an english public school was, in nine cases out of ten, anxious to do so precisely because he wanted to sink his son's connection with jewry in oblivion. he had heard chesson talk of "our christian duty to the seed of israel" in this connection. the man was clearly a fool. no, the more jews the better, but no jewish house. and no puseyism either: broad, earnest religious teaching, with a leaning to moderate anglicanism, should be the faith of lupton. as to this chesson was, certainly, sound enough. he had always made a firm stand against ecclesiasticism in any form. horbury knew the average english parent of the wealthier classes thoroughly; he knew that, though he generally called himself a churchman, he was quite content to have his sons prepared for confirmation by a confessed agnostic. certainly this liberty must not be narrowed when lupton became cosmopolitan. "we will retain all the dignified associations which belong to the established church," he said to himself, "and at the same time we shall be utterly free from the taint of over-emphasising dogmatic teaching." he had a sudden brilliant idea. everybody in church circles was saying that the english bishops were terribly overworked, that it was impossible for the most strenuous men with the best intentions to supervise effectually the huge dioceses that had descended from the sparsely populated england of the middle ages. everywhere there was a demand for suffragans and more suffragans. in the last week's _guardian_ there were three letters on the subject, one from a clergyman in their own diocese. the bishop had been attacked by some rabid ritualistic person, who had pointed out that nine out of every ten parishes had not so much as seen the colour of his hood ever since his appointment ten years before. the archdeacon of melby had replied in a capital letter, scathing and yet humorous. horbury turned to the paper on the table beside his chair and looked up the letter. "in the first place," wrote the archdeacon, "your correspondent does not seem to have realised that the _ethoes_ of the diocese of melby is not identical with that of sacerdotalism. the sturdy folk of the midlands have not yet, i am thankful to say, forgotten the lessons of our great reformation. they have no wish to see a revival of the purely mechanical religion of the middle ages--of the system of a sacrificing priesthood and of sacraments efficacious _ex opere operato_. hence they do not regard the episcopate quite in the same light as your correspondent 'senex,' who, it seems to me, looks upon a bishop as a sort of christianised 'medicine-man,' endowed with certain mysterious thaumaturgic powers which have descended to him by an (imaginary) spiritual succession. this was not the view of hooker, nor, i venture to say, has it ever been the view of the really representative divines of the established church of england. "still," the archdeacon went on, "it must be admitted that the present diocese of melby is unwieldy and, it may be fairly said, unworkable." then there followed the humorous anecdote of sir boyle roche and the bird, and finally the archdeacon emitted the prayer that god in his own good time would put it into the hearts of our rulers in church and state to give their good bishop an episcopal curate. horbury got up from his chair and paced up and down the study; his excitement was so great that he could keep quiet no longer. his cigar had gone out long ago, and he had barely sipped the whisky and soda. his eyes glittered with excitement. circumstances seemed positively to be playing into his hands; the dice of the world were being loaded in his favour. he was like bel ami at his wedding. he almost began to believe in providence. for he was sure it could be managed. here was a general feeling that no one man could do the work of the diocese. there must be a suffragan, and lupton must give the new bishop his title. no other town was possible. dunham had certainly been a see in the eighth century, but it was now little more than a village and a village served by a miserable little branch line; whereas lupton was on the great main track of the midland system, with easy connections to every part of the country. the archdeacon, who was also a peer, would undoubtedly become the first bishop of lupton, and he should be the titular chaplain of the great school! "chaplain! the right reverend lord selwyn, lord bishop of lupton." horbury gasped; it was too magnificent, too splendid. he knew lord selwyn quite well and had no doubt as to his acceptance. he was a poor man, and there would be no difficulty whatever in establishing a _modus_. the archdeacon was just the man for the place. he was no pedantic theologian, but a broad, liberal-minded man of the world. horbury remembered, almost with ecstasy, that he had lectured all over the united states with immense success. the american press had been enthusiastic, and the first congregational church of chicago had implored selwyn to accept its call, preach what he liked and pocket an honorarium of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. and, on the other hand, what could the most orthodox desire safer than a chaplain who was not only a bishop, but a peer of the realm? wonderful! here were the three birds--liberalism, orthodoxy and reverence for the house of lords--caught safe and secure in this one net. the games? they should be maintained in all their glory, rather on an infinitely more splendid scale. cricket and sticker (the lupton hockey), rackets and fives, should be all encouraged; and more, lupton should be the only school to possess a tennis court. the noble _jeu de paume_, the game of kings, the most aristocratic of all sports, should have a worthy home at lupton. they would train champions; they would have both french and english markers skilled in the latest developments of the _chemin de fer_ service. "better than half a yard, i think," said horbury to himself; "they will have to do their best to beat that." but he placed most reliance on rocker. this was the lupton football, a variant as distinctive in its way as the eton wall game. people have thought that the name is a sort of portmanteau word, a combination of rugger and soccer; but in reality the title was derived from the field where the game used to be played in old days by the townsfolk. as in many other places, football at lupton had been originally an excuse for a faction-fight between two parishes in the town--st. michael's and st. paul's-in-the-fields. every year, on shrove tuesday, the townsfolk, young and old, had proceeded to the town field and had fought out their differences with considerable violence. the field was broken land: a deep, sluggish stream crossed one angle of it, and in the middle there were quarries and jagged limestone rocks. hence football was called in the town "playing rocks," for, indeed, it was considered an excellent point of play to hurl a man over the edge of the quarry on to the rocks beneath, and so late as 1830 a certain jonas simpson of st. michael's had had his spine broken in this way. however, as a boy from st. paul's was drowned in the wand the same day, the game was always reckoned a draw. it was from the peculiarities of this old english sport that the school had constructed its game. the town field had, of course, long been stolen from the townsfolk and built over; but the boys had, curiously enough, perpetuated the tradition of its peculiarities in a kind of football ritual. for, besides the two goals, one part of the field was marked by a line of low white posts: these indicated the course of a non-existent wand brook, and in the line of these posts it was lawful to catch an opponent by the throat and choke him till he turned black in the face--the best substitute for drowning that the revisers of the game could imagine. again: about the centre of the field two taller posts indicated the position of the quarries, and between these you might be hit or kicked full in the stomach without the smallest ground of complaint: the stroke being a milder version of the old fall on the rocks. there were many other like amenities in rocker; and horbury maintained it was by far the manliest variant of the game. for this pleasing sport he now designed a world-wide fame. rocker should be played wherever the english flag floated: east and west, north and south; from hong kong to british columbia; in canada and new zealand there should be the _temenoi_ of this great rite; and the traveller seeing the mystic enclosure--the two goals, the line of little posts marking "brooks" and the two poles indicating "quarries"--should know english soil as surely as by the union jack. the technical terms of rocker should become a part of the great anglo-saxon inheritance; the whole world should hear of "bully-downs" and "tokering," of "outsides" and "rammers." it would require working, but it was to be done: articles in the magazines and in the press; perhaps a story of school life, a new _tom brown_ must be written. the midlands and the north must be shown that there was money in it, and the rest would be easy. one thing troubled horbury. his mind was full of the new and splendid buildings that were to be erected, but he was aware that antiquity still counted for something, and unfortunately lupton could show very little that was really antique. forty years before, stanley, the first reforming headmaster, had pulled down the old high school. there were prints of it: it was a half-timbered, fifteenth-century building, with a wavering roof-line and an overhanging upper story; there were dim, leaded windows and a grey arched porch--an ugly old barn, stanley called it. scott was called in and built the present high school, a splendid hall in red brick: french thirteenth-century, with venetian detail; it was much admired. but horbury was sorry that the old school had been destroyed; he saw for the first time that it might have been made a valuable attraction. then again, dowsing, who succeeded stanley, had knocked the cloisters all to bits; there was only one side of the quadrangle left, and this had been boarded up and used as a gardeners' shed. horbury did not know what to say of the destruction of the cross that used to stand in the centre of the quad. no doubt dowsing was right in thinking it superstitious; still, it might have been left as a curiosity and shown to visitors, just as the instruments of bygone cruelty--the rack and the iron maid--are preserved and exhibited to wondering sightseers. there was no real danger of any superstitious adoration of the cross; it was, as a matter of fact, as harmless as the axe and block at the tower of london; dowsing had ruined what might have been an important asset in the exploitation of the school. still, perhaps the loss was not altogether irreparable. high school was gone and could not be recovered; but the cloisters might be restored and the cross, too. horbury knew that the monument in front of charing cross railway station was considered by many to be a genuine antique: why not get a good man to build them a cross? not like the old one, of course; that "fair roode with our deare ladie saint marie and saint john," and, below, the stories of the blissful saints and angels--that would never do. but a vague, gothic erection, with plenty of kings and queens, imaginary benefactors of the school, and a small cast-iron cross at the top: that could give no offence to anybody, and might pass with nine people out of ten as a genuine remnant of the middle ages. it could be made of soft stone and allowed to weather for a few years; then a coat of invisible anti-corrosive fluid would preserve carvings and imagery that would already appear venerable in decay. there was no need to make any precise statements: parents and the public might be allowed to draw their own conclusions. horbury was neglecting nothing. he was building up a great scheme in his mind, and to him it seemed that every detail was worth attending to, while at the same time he did not lose sight of the whole effect. he believed in finish: there must be no rough edges. it seemed to him that a school legend must be invented. the real history was not quite what he wanted, though it might work in with a more decorative account of lupton's origins. one might use the _textus receptus_ of martin rolle's foundation--the bequest of land _c._ 1430 to build and maintain a school where a hundred boys should be taught grammar, and ten poor scholars and six priests should pray for the founder's soul. this was well enough, but one might hint that martin rolle really refounded and re-endowed a school of saxon origin, probably established by king alfred himself in luppa's tun. then, again, who could show that shakespeare had not visited lupton? his famous schoolboy, "creeping like snail unwillingly to school," might very possibly have been observed by the poet as he strolled by the banks of the wand. many famous men might have received their education at lupton; it would not be difficult to make a plausible list of such. it must be done carefully and cautiously, with such phrases as "it has always been a tradition at lupton that sir walter raleigh received part of his education at the school"; or, again, "an earlier generation of luptonians remembered the initials 'w. s. s. on a.' cut deeply in the mantel of old high school, now, unfortunately, demolished." antiquarians would laugh? possibly; but who cared about antiquarians? for the average man "charing" was derived from "_chère reine_," and he loved to have it so, and horbury intended to appeal to the average man. though he was a schoolmaster he was no recluse, and he had marked the ways of the world from his quiet study in lupton; hence he understood the immense value of a grain of quackery in all schemes which are meant to appeal to mortals. it was a deadly mistake to suppose that anything which was all quackery would be a success--a permanent success, at all events; it was a deadlier mistake still to suppose that anything quite devoid of quackery could pay handsomely. the average english palate would shudder at the flavour of _aioli_, but it would be charmed by the insertion of that _petit point d'ail_ which turned mere goodness into triumph and laurelled perfection. and there was no need to mention the word "garlic" before the guests. lupton was not going to be all garlic: it was to be infinitely the best scholastic dish that had ever been served--the ingredients should be unsurpassed and unsurpassable. but--king alfred's foundation of a school at luppa's tun, and that "w. s. s. on a." cut deeply on the mantel of the vanished high school--these and legends like unto them, these would be the last touch, _le petit point d'ail_. it was a great scheme, wonderful and glorious; and the most amazing thing about it was that it was certain to be realised. there was not a flaw from start to finish. the trustees were certain to appoint him--he had that from a sure quarter--and it was but a question of a year or two, perhaps only of a month or two, before all this great and golden vision should be converted into hard and tangible fact. he drank off his glass of whisky and soda; it had become flat and brackish, but to him it was nectar, since it was flavoured with ecstasy. he frowned suddenly as he went upstairs to his room. an unpleasant recollection had intruded for a moment on his amazing fantasy; but he dismissed the thought as soon as it arose. that was all over, there could be no possibility of trouble from that direction; and so, his mind filled with images, he fell asleep and saw lupton as the centre of the whole world, like jerusalem in the ancient maps. a student of the deep things of mysticism has detected a curious element of comedy in the management of human concerns; and there certainly seems a touch of humour in the fact that on this very night, while horbury was building the splendid lupton of the future, the palace of his thought and his life was shattered for ever into bitter dust and nothingness. but so it was. the dread arrest had been solemnly recognised, and that wretched canonry at wareham was irrevocably pronounced for doom. fantastic were the elements of forces that had gone to the ordering of this great sentence: raw corn spirit in the guise of sherry, the impertinence (or what seemed such) of an elderly clergyman, a boiled leg of mutton, a troublesome and disobedient boy, and--another person. ii i he was standing in a wild, bare country. something about it seemed vaguely familiar: the land rose and fell in dull and weary undulations, in a vast circle of dun ploughland and grey meadow, bounded by a dim horizon without promise or hope, dreary as a prison wall. the infinite melancholy of an autumn evening brooded heavily over all the world, and the sky was hidden by livid clouds. it all brought back to him some far-off memory, and yet he knew that he gazed on that sad plain for the first time. there was a deep and heavy silence over all; a silence unbroken by so much as the fluttering of a leaf. the trees seemed of a strange shape, and strange were the stunted thorns dotted about the broken field in which he stood. a little path at his feet, bordered by the thorn bushes, wandered away to the left into the dim twilight; it had about it some indefinable air of mystery, as if it must lead one down into a mystic region where all earthly things are forgotten and lost for ever. he sat down beneath the bare, twisted boughs of a great tree and watched the dreary land grow darker and yet darker; he wondered, half-consciously, where he was and how he had come to that place, remembering, faintly, tales of like adventure. a man passed by a familiar wall one day, and opening a door before unnoticed, found himself in a new world of unsurmised and marvellous experiences. another man shot an arrow farther than any of his friends and became the husband of the fairy. yet--this was not fairyland; these were rather the sad fields and unhappy graves of the underworld than the abode of endless pleasures and undying delights. and yet in all that he saw there was the promise of great wonder. only one thing was clear to him. he knew that he was ambrose, that he had been driven from great and unspeakable joys into miserable exile and banishment. he had come from a far, far place by a hidden way, and darkness had closed about him, and bitter drink and deadly meat were given him, and all gladness was hidden from him. this was all he could remember; and now he was astray, he knew not how or why, in this wild, sad land, and the night descended dark upon him. suddenly there was, as it were, a cry far away in the shadowy silence, and the thorn bushes began to rustle before a shrilling wind that rose as the night came down. at this summons the heavy clouds broke up and dispersed, fleeting across the sky, and the pure heaven appeared with the last rose flush of the sunset dying from it, and there shone the silver light of the evening star. ambrose's heart was drawn up to this light as he gazed: he saw that the star grew greater and greater; it advanced towards him through the air; its beams pierced to his soul as if they were the sound of a silver trumpet. an ocean of white splendour flowed over him: he dwelt within the star. it was but for a moment; he was still sitting beneath the tree of the twisted branches. but the sky was now clear and filled with a great peace; the wind had fallen and a more happy light shone on the great plain. ambrose was thirsty, and then he saw that beside the tree there was a well, half hidden by the arching roots that rose above it. the water was still and shining, as though it were a mirror of black marble, and marking the brim was a great stone on which were cut the letters: "fons vitae immortalis." he rose and, bending over the well, put down his lips to drink, and his soul and body were filled as with a flood of joy. now he knew that all his days of exile he had borne with pain and grief a heavy, weary body. there had been dolours in every limb and achings in every bone; his feet had dragged upon the ground, slowly, wearily, as the feet of those who go in chains. but dim, broken spectres, miserable shapes and crooked images of the world had his eyes seen; for they were eyes bleared with sickness, darkened by the approach of death. now, indeed, he clearly beheld the shining vision of things immortal. he drank great draughts of the dark, glittering water, drinking, it seemed, the light of the reflected stars; and he was filled with life. every sinew, every muscle, every particle of the deadly flesh shuddered and quickened in the communion of that well-water. the nerves and veins rejoiced together; all his being leapt with gladness, and as one finger touched another, as he still bent over the well, a spasm of exquisite pleasure quivered and thrilled through his body. his heart throbbed with bliss that was unendurable; sense and intellect and soul and spirit were, as it were, sublimed into one white flame of delight. and all the while it was known to him that these were but the least of the least of the pleasures of the kingdom, but the overrunnings and base tricklings of the great supernal cup. he saw, without amazement, that, though the sun had set, the sky now began to flush and redden as if with the northern light. it was no longer the evening, no longer the time of the procession of the dusky night. the darkness doubtless had passed away in mortal hours while for an infinite moment he tasted immortal drink; and perhaps one drop of that water was endless life. but now it was the preparation for the day. he heard the words: "_dies venit, dies tua in qua reflorent omnia._" they were uttered within his heart, and he saw that all was being made ready for a great festival. over everything there was a hush of expectation; and as he gazed he knew that he was no longer in that weary land of dun ploughland and grey meadow, of the wild, bare trees and strange stunted thorn bushes. he was on a hillside, lying on the verge of a great wood; beneath, in the valley, a brook sang faintly under the leaves of the silvery willows; and beyond, far in the east, a vast wall of rounded mountain rose serene towards the sky. all about him was the green world of the leaves: odours of the summer night, deep in the mystic heart of the wood, odours of many flowers, and the cool breath rising from the singing stream mingled in his nostrils. the world whitened to the dawn, and then, as the light grew clear, the rose clouds blossomed in the sky and, answering, the earth seemed to glitter with rose-red sparks and glints of flame. all the east became as a garden of roses, red flowers of living light shone over the mountain, and as the beams of the sun lit up the circle of the earth a bird's song began from a tree within the wood. then were heard the modulations of a final and exultant ecstasy, the chant of liberation, a magistral _in exitu_; there was the melody of rejoicing trills, of unwearied, glad reiterations of choirs ever aspiring, prophesying the coming of the great feast, singing the eternal antiphon. as the song aspired into the heights, so there aspired suddenly before him the walls and pinnacles of a great church set upon a high hill. it was far off, and yet as though it were close at hand he saw all the delicate and wonderful imagery cut in its stones. the great door in the west was a miracle: every flower and leaf, every reed and fern, were clustered in the work of the capitals, and in the round arch above moulding within moulding showed all the beasts that god has made. he saw the rose-window, a maze of fretted tracery, the high lancets of the fair hall, the marvellous buttresses, set like angels about this holy house, whose pinnacles were as a place of many springing trees. and high above the vast, far-lifted vault of the roof rose up the spire, golden in the light. the bells were ringing for the feast; he heard from within the walls the roll and swell and triumph of the organ: _o pius o bonus o placidus sonus hymnus eorum._ he knew not how he had taken his place in this great procession, how, surrounded by ministrants in white, he too bore his part in endless litanies. he knew not through what strange land they passed in their fervent, admirable order, following their banners and their symbols that glanced on high before them. but that land stood ever, it seemed, in a clear, still air, crowned with golden sunlight; and so there were those who bore great torches of wax, strangely and beautifully adorned with golden and vermilion ornaments. the delicate flame of these tapers burned steadily in the still sunlight, and the glittering silver censers as they rose and fell tossed a pale cloud into the air. they delayed, now and again, by wayside shrines, giving thanks for unutterable compassions, and, advancing anew, the blessed company surged onward, moving to its unknown goal in the far blue mountains that rose beyond the plain. there were faces and shapes of awful beauty about him; he saw those in whose eyes were the undying lamps of heaven, about whose heads the golden hair was as an aureole; and there were they that above the girded vesture of white wore dyed garments, and as they advanced around their feet there was the likeness of dim flames. the great white array had vanished and he was alone. he was tracking a secret path that wound in and out through the thickets of a great forest. by solitary pools of still water, by great oaks, worlds of green leaves, by fountains and streams of water, by the bubbling, mossy sources of the brooks he followed this hidden way, now climbing and now descending, but still mounting upward, still passing, as he knew, farther and farther from all the habitations of men. through the green boughs now he saw the shining sea-water; he saw the land of the old saints, all the divisions of the land that men had given to them for god; he saw their churches, and it seemed as if he could hear, very faintly, the noise of the ringing of their holy bells. then, at last, when he had crossed the old road, and had gone by the lightning-struck land and the fisherman's well, he found, between the forest and the mountain, a very ancient and little chapel; and now he heard the bell of the saint ringing clearly and so sweetly that it was as it were the singing of the angels. within it was very dark and there was silence. he knelt and saw scarcely that the chapel was divided into two parts by a screen that rose up to the round roof. there was a glinting of shapes as if golden figures were painted on this screen, and through the joinings of its beams there streamed out thin needles of white splendour as if within there was a light greater than that of the sun at noonday. and the flesh began to tremble, for all the place was filled with the odours of paradise, and he heard the ringing of the holy bell and the voices of the choir that out-sang the fairy birds of rhiannon, crying and proclaiming: "_glory and praise to the conqueror of death: to the fountain of life unending._" nine times they sang this anthem, and then the whole place was filled with blinding light. for a door in the screen had been opened, and there came forth an old man, all in shining white, on whose head was a gold crown. before him went one who rang the bell; on each side there were young men with torches; and in his hands he bore the _mystery of mysteries_ wrapped about in veils of gold and of all colours, so that it might not be discerned; and so he passed before the screen, and the light of heaven burst forth from that which he held. then he entered in again by a door that was on the other side, and the holy things were hidden. and ambrose heard from within an awful voice and the words: _woe and great sorrow are on him, for he hath looked unworthily into the tremendous mysteries, and on the secret glory which is hidden from the holy angels._ ii "poetry is the only possible way of saying anything that is worth saying at all." this was an axiom that, in later years, ambrose meyrick's friends were forced to hear at frequent intervals. he would go on to say that he used the term poetry in its most liberal sense, including in it all mystic or symbolic prose, all painting and statuary that was worthy to be called art, all great architecture, and all true music. he meant, it is to be presumed, that the mysteries can only be conveyed by symbols; unfortunately, however, he did not always make it quite clear that this was the proposition that he intended to utter, and thus offence was sometimes given--as, for example, to the scientific gentleman who had been brought to meyrick's rooms and went away early, wondering audibly and sarcastically whether "your clever friend" wanted to metrify biology and set euclid to bach's organ fugues. however, the great axiom (as he called it) was the justification that he put forward in defence of the notes on which the previous section is based. "of course," he would say, "the symbolism is inadequate; but that is the defect of speech of any kind when you have once ventured beyond the multiplication table and the jargon of the stock exchange. inadequacy of expression is merely a minor part of the great tragedy of humanity. only an ass thinks that he has succeeded in uttering the perfect content of his thought without either excess or defect." "then, again," he might go on, "the symbolism would very likely be misleading to a great many people; but what is one to do? i believe many good people find turner mad and dickens tiresome. and if the great sometimes fail, what hope is there for the little? we cannot all be--well--popular novelists of the day." of course, the notes in question were made many years after the event they commemorate; they were the man's translation of all the wonderful and inexpressible emotions of the boy; and, as meyrick puts it, many "words" (or symbols) are used in them which were unknown to the lad of fifteen. "nevertheless," he said, "they are the best words that i can find." as has been said, the old grange was a large, roomy house; a space could easily have been found for half a dozen more boys if the high usher had cared to be bothered with them. as it was, it was a favour to be at horbury's, and there was usually some personal reason for admission. pelly, for example, was the son of an old friend; bates was a distant cousin; and rawson's father was the master of a small grammar school in the north with which certain ancestral horburys were somehow connected. the old grange was a fine large caroline house; it had a grave front of red brick, mellowed with age, tier upon tier of tall, narrow windows, flush with the walls, and a high-pitched, red-tiled roof. above the front door was a rich and curious wooden pent-house, deeply carven; and within there was plenty of excellent panelling, and some good mantelpieces, added, it would seem, somewhere about the adam period. horbury had seen its solid and comfortable merits and had bought the freehold years before at a great bargain. the school was increasing rapidly even in those days, and he knew that before long more houses would be required. if he left lupton he would be able to let the old grange easily--he might almost put it up for auction--and the rent would represent a return of fifty per cent on his investment. many of the rooms were large; of a size out of all proportion to the boys' needs, and at a very trifling expense partitions might be made and the nine or ten available rooms be subdivided into studies for twenty or even twenty-five boys. nature had gifted the high usher with a careful, provident mind in all things, both great and small; and it is but fair to add that on his leaving lupton for wareham he found his anticipations more than justified. to this day charles horbury, his nephew, a high government official, draws a comfortable income from his uncle's most prudent investment, and the house easily holds its twenty-five boys. rainy, who took the place from horbury, was an ingenious fellow and hit upon a capital plan for avoiding the expense of making new windows for some of the subdivided studies. after thoughtful consideration he caused the wooden partitions which were put up to stop short of the ceiling by four inches, and by this device the study with a window lighted the study that had none; and, as rainy explained to some of the parents, a diffused light was really better for the eyes than a direct one. in the old days, when ambrose meyrick was being made a man of, the four boys "rattled," as it were, in the big house. they were scattered about in odd corners, remote from each other, and it seemed from everybody else. meyrick's room was the most isolated of any, but it was also the most comfortable in winter, since it was over the kitchen, to the extreme left of the house. this part, which was hidden from the road by the boughs of a great cedar, was an after-thought, a georgian addition in grey brick, and rose only to two stories, and in the one furnished room out of the three or four over the kitchen and offices slept ambrose. he wished his days could be as quiet and retired as his nights. he loved the shadows that were about his bed even on the brightest mornings in summer; for the cedar boughs were dense, and ivy had been allowed to creep about the panes of the window; so the light entered dim and green, filtered through the dark boughs and the ivy tendrils. here, then, after the hour of ten each night, he dwelt secure. now and again mr. horbury would pay nocturnal surprise visits to see that all lights were out; but, happily, the stairs at the end of the passage, being old and badly fitted, gave out a succession of cracks like pistol shots if the softest foot was set on them. it was simple, therefore, on hearing the first of these reports, to extinguish the candle in the small secret lantern (held warily so that no gleam of light should appear from under the door) and to conceal the lantern under the bed-clothes. one wetted one's finger and pinched at the flame, so there was no smell of the expiring snuff, and the lantern slide was carefully drawn to guard against the possibility of suspicious grease-marks on the linen. it was perfect; and old horbury's visits, which were rare enough, had no terrors for ambrose. so that night, while the venom of the cane still rankled in his body, though it had ceased to disturb his mind, instead of going to bed at once, according to the regulations, he sat for a while on his box seeking a clue in a maze of odd fancies and conceits. he took off his clothes and wrapped his aching body in the rug from the bed, and presently, blowing out the official paraffin lamp, he lit his candle, ready at the first warning creak on the stairs to douse the glim and leap between the sheets. odd enough were his first cogitations. he was thinking how very sorry he was to have hit pelly that savage blow and to have endangered rawson's eyesight by the hard boards of the dictionary! this was eccentric, for he had endured from those two young apaches every extremity of unpleasantness for upwards of a couple of years. pelly was not by any means an evil lad: he was stupid and beefy within and without, and the great public school system was transmuting him, in the proper course and by the proper steps, into one of those brave average boobies whom meyrick used to rail against afterwards. pelly, in all probability (his fortunes have not been traced), went into the army and led the milder and more serious subalterns the devil's own life. in india he "lay doggo" with great success against some hill tribe armed with seventeenth-century muskets and rather barbarous knives; he seems to have been present at that "conference of the powers" described so brightly by mr. kipling. promoted to a captaincy, he fought with conspicuous bravery in south africa, winning the victoria cross for his rescue of a wounded private at the instant risk of his own life, and he finally led his troop into a snare set by an old farmer; a rabbit of average intelligence would have smelt and evaded it. for rawson one is sorry, but one cannot, in conscience, say much that is good, though he has been praised for his tact. he became domestic chaplain to the bishop of dorchester, whose daughter emily he married. but in those old days there was very little to choose between them, from meyrick's point of view. each had displayed a quite devilish ingenuity in the art of annoyance, in the whole cycle of jeers and sneers and "scores," as known to the schoolboy, and they were just proceeding to more active measures. meyrick had borne it all meekly; he had returned kindly and sometimes quaint answers to the unceasing stream of remarks that were meant to wound his feelings, to make him look a fool before any boys that happened to be about. he had only countered with a mild: "what do you do that for, pelly?" when the brave one smacked his head. "because i hate sneaks and funks," pelly had replied and meyrick said no more. rawson took a smaller size in victims when it was a question of physical torments; but he had invented a most offensive tale about meyrick and had told it all over the school, where it was universally believed. in a word, the two had done their utmost to reduce him to a state of utter misery; and now he was sorry that he had punched the nose of one and bombarded the other with a dictionary! the fact was that his forebearance had not been all cowardice; it is, indeed, doubtful whether he was in the real sense a coward at all. he went in fear, it is true, all his days, but what he feared was not the insult, but the intention, the malignancy of which the insult, or the blow, was the outward sign. the fear of a mad bull is quite distinct from the horror with which most people look upon a viper; it was the latter feeling which made meyrick's life a burden to him. and again there was a more curious shade of feeling; and that was the intense hatred that he felt to the mere thought of "scoring" off an antagonist, of beating down the enemy. he was a much sharper lad than either rawson or pelly; he could have retorted again and again with crushing effect, but he held his tongue, for all such victories were detestable to him. and this odd sentiment governed all his actions and feelings; he disliked "going up" in form, he disliked winning a game, not through any acquired virtue, but by inherent nature. poe would have understood meyrick's feelings; but then the author of _the imp of the perverse_ penetrated so deeply into the inmost secrets of humanity that anglo-saxon criticism has agreed in denouncing him as a wholly "inhuman" writer. with meyrick this mode of feeling had grown stronger by provocation; the more he was injured, the more he shrank from the thought of returning the injury. in a great measure the sentiment remained with him in later life. he would sally forth from his den in quest of fresh air on top of an omnibus and stroll peacefully back again rather than struggle for victory with the furious crowd. it was not so much that he disliked the physical contest: he was afraid of getting a seat! quite naturally, he said that people who "pushed," in the metaphorical sense, always reminded him of the hungry little pigs fighting for the largest share of the wash; but he seemed to think that, whereas this course of action was natural in the little pigs, it was profoundly unnatural in the little men. but in his early boyhood he had carried this secret doctrine of his to its utmost limits; he had assumed, as it were, the rôle of the coward and the funk; he had, without any conscious religious motive certainly, but in obedience to an inward command, endeavoured to play the part of a primitive christian, of a religious, in a great public school! _ama nesciri et pro nihilo æstimari._ the maxim was certainly in his heart, though he had never heard it; but perhaps if he had searched the whole world over he could not have found a more impossible field for its exercise than this seminary, where the broad, liberal principles of christianity were taught in a way that satisfied the press, the public and the parents. and he sat in his room and grieved over the fashion in which he had broken this discipline. still, something had to be done: he was compelled to stay in this place, and he did not wish to be reduced to the imbecility of wretched little phipps who had become at last more like a whimpering kitten with the mange than a human being. one had not the right to allow oneself to be made an idiot, so the principle had to be infringed--but externally only, never internally! of that he was firmly resolved; and he felt secure in his recollection that there had been no anger in his heart. he resented the presence of pelly and rawson, certainly, but in the manner with which some people resent the presence of a cat, a mouse, or a black-beetle, as disagreeable objects which can't help being disagreeable objects. but his bashing of pelly and his smashing of rawson, his remarks (gathered from careful observation by the banks of the lupton and birmingham canal); all this had been but the means to an end, the securing of peace and quiet for the future. he would not be murdered by this infernal public school system either, after the fashion of phipps--which was melancholy, or after the fashion of the rest--which was more melancholy still, since it is easier to recover from nervous breakdown than from suffusion of cant through the entire system, mental and spiritual. utterly from his heart he abjured and renounced all the horrible shibboleths of the school, its sham enthusiasm, its "ethos," its "tone," its "loyal co-operation--masters and boys working together for the good of the whole school"--all its ridiculous fetish conventions and absurd observances, the joint contrivances of young fools and old knaves. but his resistance should be secret and not open, for a while; there should be no more "bashing" than was absolutely necessary. and one thing he resolved upon--he would make all he could out of the place; he would work like a tiger and get all the latin and greek and french obtainable, in spite of the teaching and its imbecile pedantry. the school work must be done, so that trouble might be avoided, but here at night in his room he would really learn the languages they pottered over in form, wasting half their time in writing sham ciceronian prose which would have made cicero sick, and verse evil enough to cause virgil to vomit. then there was french, taught chiefly out of pompous eighteenth-century fooleries, with lists of irregular verbs to learn and babylonish nonsense about the past participle, and many other rotten formulas and rules, giving to the whole tongue the air of a tiresome puzzle which had been dug up out of a prehistoric grave. this was not the french that he wanted; still, he could write out irregular verbs by day and learn the language at night. he wondered whether unhappy french boys had to learn english out of the _rambler_, blair's _sermons_ and young's _night thoughts_. for he had some sort of smattering of english literature which a public school boy has no business to possess. so he went on with this mental tirade of his: one is not over-wise at fifteen. it is true enough, perhaps, that the french of the average english schoolboy is something fit to move only pity and terror; it may be true also that nobody except deans and schoolmasters seems to bring away even the formulas and sacred teachings (such as the optative mystery and the doctrine of dum) of the two great literatures. there is, doubtless, a good deal to be said on the subject of the public schoolman's knowledge of the history and literature of his own country; an infinite deal of comic stuff might be got out of his views and acquirements in the great science of theology--still let us say, _floreat_! meyrick turned from his review of the wisdom of his elders and instructors to more intimate concerns. there were a few cuts of that vigorous cane which still stung and hurt most abominably, for skill or fortune had guided mr. horbury's hand so that he had been enabled here and there to get home twice in the same place, and there was one particular weal on the left arm where the flesh, purple and discoloured, had swelled up and seemed on the point of bursting. it was no longer with rage, but with a kind of rapture, that he felt the pain and smarting; he looked upon the ugly marks of the high usher's evil humours as though they had been a robe of splendour. for he knew nothing of that bad sherry, nothing of the head's conversation; he knew that when pelly had come in quite as late it had only been a question of a hundred lines, and so he persisted in regarding himself as a martyr in the cause of those famous "norman arches," which was the cause of that dear dead enthusiast, his father, who loved gothic architecture and all other beautiful "unpractical" things with an undying passion. as soon as ambrose could walk he had begun his pilgrimages to hidden mystic shrines; his father had led him over the wild lands to places known perhaps only to himself, and there, by the ruined stones, by the smooth hillock, had told the tale of the old vanished time, the time of the "old saints." iii it was for this blessed and wonderful learning, he said to himself, that he had been beaten, that his body had been scored with red and purple stripes. he remembered his father's oft-repeated exclamation, "cythrawl sais!" he understood that the phrase damned not englishmen _qua_ englishmen, but anglo-saxonism--the power of the creed that builds manchester, that "does business," that invents popular dissent, representative government, adulteration, suburbs, and the public school system. it was, according to his father, the creed of "the prince of this world," the creed that made for comfort, success, a good balance at the bank, the praise of men, the sensible and tangible victory and achievement; and he bade his little boy, who heard everything and understood next to nothing, fly from it, hate it and fight against it as he would fight against the devil--"and," he would add, "it _is_ the only devil you are ever likely to come across." and the little ambrose had understood not much of all this, and if he had been asked--even at fifteen--what it all meant, he would probably have said that it was a great issue between norman mouldings and mr. horbury, an armageddon of selden abbey _versus_ rocker. indeed, it is doubtful whether old nicholas meyrick would have been very much clearer, for he forgot everything that might be said on the other side. he forgot that anglo-saxonism (save in the united states of america) makes generally for equal laws; that civil riot ("labour" movements, of course, excepted) is more a celtic than a saxon vice; that the penalty of burning alive is unknown amongst anglo-saxons, unless the provocation be extreme; that englishmen have substituted "indentured labour" for the old-world horrors of slavery; that english justice smites the guilty rich equally with the guilty poor; that men are no longer poisoned with swift and secret drugs, though somewhat unwholesome food may still be sold very occasionally. indeed, the old meyrick once told his rector that he considered a brothel a house of sanctity compared with a modern factory, and he was beginning to relate some interesting tales concerning the three gracious courtesans of the isle of britain when the rector fled in horror--he came from sydenham. and all this was a nice preparation for lupton. a wonderful joy, an ecstasy of bliss, swelled in ambrose's heart as he assured himself that he was a witness, though a mean one, for the old faith, for the faith of secret and beautiful and hidden mysteries as opposed to the faith of rocker and sticker and mucker, and "the thought of the school as an inspiring motive in life"--the text on which the head had preached the sunday before. he bared his arms and kissed the purple swollen flesh and prayed that it might ever be so, that in body and mind and spirit he might ever be beaten and reviled and made ridiculous for the sacred things, that he might ever be on the side of the despised and the unsuccessful, that his life might ever be in the shadow--in the shadow of the mysteries. he thought of the place in which he was, of the hideous school, the hideous town, the weary waves of the dun midland scenery bounded by the dim, hopeless horizon; and his soul revisited the faery hills and woods and valleys of the west. he remembered how, long ago, his father had roused him early from sleep in the hush and wonder of a summer morning. the whole world was still and windless; all the magic odours of the night rose from the earth, and as they crossed the lawn the silence was broken by the enchanted song of a bird rising from a thorn tree by the gate. a high white vapour veiled the sky, and they only knew that the sun had risen by the brightening of this veil, by the silvering of the woods and the meadows and the water in the rejoicing brook. they crossed the road, and crossed the brook in the field beneath, by the old foot-bridge tremulous with age, and began to climb the steep hillside that one could see from the windows, and, the ridge of the hill once surmounted, the little boy found himself in an unknown land: he looked into deep, silent valleys, watered by trickling streams; he saw still woods in that dreamlike morning air; he saw winding paths that climbed into yet remoter regions. his father led him onward till they came to a lonely height--they had walked scarcely two miles, but to ambrose it seemed a journey into another world--and showed him certain irregular markings in the turf. and nicholas meyrick murmured: "the cell of iltyd is by the seashore, the ninth wave washes its altar, there is a fair shrine in the land of morgan. "the cell of dewi is in the city of the legions, nine altars owe obedience to it, sovereign is the choir that sings about it. "the cell of cybi is the treasure of gwent, nine hills are its perpetual guardians, nine songs befit the memory of the saint." "see," he said, "there are the nine hills." he pointed them out to the boy, telling him the tale of the saint and his holy bell, which they said had sailed across the sea from syon and had entered the severn, and had entered the usk, and had entered the soar, and had entered the canthwr; and so one day the saint, as he walked beside the little brook that almost encompassed the hill in its winding course, saw the bell "that was made of metal that no man might comprehend," floating under the alders, and crying: "_sant, sant, sant, i sail from syon to cybi sant!_" "and so sweet was the sound of that bell," ambrose's father went on, "that they said it was as the joy of angels _ym mharadwys_, and that it must have come not from the earthly, but from the heavenly and glorious syon." and there they stood in the white morning, on the uneven ground that marked the place where once the saint rang to the sacrifice, where the quickening words were uttered after the order of the old mass of the britons. "and then came the yellow hag of pestilence, that destroyed the bodies of the cymri; then the red hag of rome, that caused their souls to stray; last is come the black hag of geneva, that sends body and soul quick to hell. no honour have the saints any more." then they turned home again, and all the way ambrose thought he heard the bell as it sailed the great deeps from syon, crying aloud: "sant, sant, sant!" and the sound seemed to echo from the glassy water of the little brook, as it swirled and rippled over the shining stones circling round those lonely hills. so they made strange pilgrimages over the beloved land, going farther and farther afield as the boy grew older. they visited deep wells in the heart of the woods, where a few broken stones, perhaps, were the last remains of the hermitage. "ffynnon ilar bysgootwr--the well of saint ilar the fisherman," nicholas meyrick would explain, and then would follow the story of ilar; how no man knew whence he came or who his parents were. he was found, a little child, on a stone in a river in armorica, by king alan, and rescued by him. and ever after they discovered on the stone in the river where the child had lain every day a great and shining fish lying, and on this fish ilar was nourished. and so he came with a great company of the saints to britain, and wandered over all the land. "so at last ilar sant came to this wood, which people now call st. hilary's wood because they have forgotten all about ilar. and he was weary with his wandering, and the day was very hot; so he stayed by this well and began to drink. and there on that great stone he saw the shining fish, and so he rested, and built an altar and a church of willow boughs, and offered the sacrifice not only for the quick and the dead, but for all the wild beasts of the woods and the streams. "and when this blessed ilar rang his holy bell and began to offer, there came not only the prince and his servants, but all the creatures of the wood. there, under the hazel boughs, you might see the hare, which flies so swiftly from men, come gently and fall down, weeping greatly on account of the passion of the son of mary. and, beside the hare, the weasel and the pole-cat would lament grievously in the manner of penitent sinners; and wolves and lambs together adored the saint's hierurgy; and men have beheld tears streaming from the eyes of venomous serpents when ilar agios uttered 'curiluson' with a loud voice--since the serpent is not ignorant that by its wickedness sorrow came to the whole world. and when, in the time of the holy ministry, it is necessary that frequent alleluyas should be chanted and vociferated, the saint wondered what should be done, for as yet none in that place was skilled in the art of song. then was a great miracle, since from all the boughs of the wood, from every bush and from every green tree, there resounded alleluyas in enchanting and prolonged harmony; never did the bishop of rome listen to so sweet a singing in his church as was heard in this wood. for the nightingale and thrush and blackbird and blackcap, and all their companions, are gathered together and sing praises to the lord, chanting distinct notes and yet concluding in a melody of most ravishing sweetness; such was the mass of the fisherman. nor was this all, for one day as the saint prayed beside the well he became aware that a bee circled round and round his head, uttering loud buzzing sounds, but not endeavouring to sting him. to be short; the bee went before ilar, and led him to a hollow tree not far off, and straightway a swarm of bees issued forth, leaving a vast store of wax behind them. this was their oblation to the most high, for from their wax ilar sant made goodly candles to burn at the offering; and from that time the bee is holy, because his wax makes light to shine upon the gifts." this was part of the story that ambrose's father read to him; and they went again to see the holy well. he looked at the few broken and uneven stones that were left to distinguish it from common wells; and there in the deep green wood, in the summer afternoon, under the woven boughs, he seemed to hear the strange sound of the saint's bell, to see the woodland creatures hurrying through the undergrowth that they might be present at the offering. the weasel beat his little breast for his sins; the big tears fell down the gentle face of the hare; the adders wept in the dust; and all the chorus of the birds sang: "alleluya, alleluya, alleluya!" once they drove a long way from the wern, going towards the west, till they came to the great mountain, as the people called it. after they had turned from the high road they went down a narrow lane, and this led them with many windings to a lower ridge of the mountain, where the horse and trap were put up at a solitary tavern. then they began to toil upward on foot, crossing many glistening and rejoicing streams that rushed out cold from the limestone rock, mounting up and up, through the wet land where the rare orchis grew amongst the rushes, through hazel brakes, through fields that grew wilder as they still went higher, and the great wind came down from the high dome above them. they turned, and all the shining land was unrolled before them; the white houses were bright in the sunlight, and there, far away, was the yellow sea and the two islands, and the coasts beyond. nicholas meyrick pointed out a tuft of trees on a hill a long way off and told his son that the wern was hidden beyond it; and then they began to climb once more, till they came at last to the line where the fields and hedges ended, and above there was only the wild mountain land. and on this verge stood an old farmhouse with strong walls, set into the rock, sheltered a little from the winds by a line of twisted beeches. the walls of the house were gleaming white, and by the porch there was a shrub covered with bright yellow flowers. mr. meyrick beat upon the oak door, painted black and studded with heavy nails. an old man, dressed like a farmer, opened it, and ambrose noticed that his father spoke to him with something of reverence in his voice, as if he were some very great person. they sat down in a long room, but dimly lighted by the thick greenish glass in the quarried window, and presently the old farmer set a great jug of beer before them. they both drank heartily enough, and mr. meyrick said: "aren't you about the last to brew your own beer, mr. cradock?" "iss; i be the last of all. they do all like the muck the brewer sends better than _cwrw dda_." "the whole world likes muck better than good drink, now." "you be right, sir. old days and old ways of our fathers, they be gone for ever. there was a blasted preacher down at the chapel a week or two ago, saying--so they do tell me--that they would all be damned to hell unless they took to ginger-beer directly. iss indeed now; and i heard that he should say that a man could do a better day's work on that rot-belly stuff than on good beer. wass you ever hear of such a liarr as that?" the old man was furious at the thought of these infamies and follies; his esses hissed through his teeth and his r's rolled out with fierce emphasis. mr. meyrick nodded his approval of this indignation. "we have what we deserve," he said. "false preachers, bad drink, the talk of fools all the day long--even on the mountain. what is it like, do you think, in london?" there fell a silence in the long, dark room. they could hear the sound of the wind in the beech trees, and ambrose saw how the boughs were tossed to and fro, and he thought of what it must be like in winter nights, here, high upon the great mountain, when the storms swept up from the sea, or descended from the wilds of the north; when the shafts of rain were like the onset of an army, and the winds screamed about the walls. "may we see it?" said mr. meyrick suddenly. "i did think you had come for that. there be very few now that remember." he went out, and returned carrying a bunch of keys. then he opened a door in the room and warned "the young master" to take care of the steps. ambrose, indeed, could scarcely see the way. his father led him down a short flight of uneven stone steps, and they were in a room which seemed at first quite dark, for the only light came from a narrow window high up in the wall, and across the glass there were heavy iron bars. cradock lit two tall candles of yellow wax that stood in brass candlesticks on a table; and, as the flame grew clear, ambrose saw that he was opening a sort of aumbry constructed in the thickness of the wall. the door was a great slab of solid oak, three or four inches thick--as one could see when it was opened--and from the dark place within the farmer took an iron box and set it carefully upon the floor, mr. meyrick helping him. they were strong men, but they staggered under the weight of the chest; the iron seemed as thick as the door of the cupboard from which it was taken, and the heavy, antique lock yielded, with a grating scream, to the key. inside it there was another box of some reddish metal, which, again, held a case of wood black with age; and from this, with reverent hands, the farmer drew out a veiled and splendid cup and set it on the table between the two candles. it was a bowl-like vessel of the most wonderful workmanship, standing on a short stem. all the hues of the world were mingled on it, all the jewels of the regions seemed to shine from it; and the stem and foot were encrusted with work in enamel, of strange and magical colours that shone and dimmed with alternating radiance, that glowed with red fires and pale glories, with the blue of the far sky, the green of the faery seas, and the argent gleam of the evening star. but before ambrose had gazed more than a moment he heard the old man say, in pure welsh, not in broken english, in a resonant and chanting voice: "let us fall down and adore the marvellous and venerable work of the lord god almighty." to which his father responded: "agyos, agyos, agyos. mighty and glorious is the lord god almighty, in all his works and wonderful operations. curiluson, curiluson, curiluson." they knelt down, cradock in the midst, before the cup, and ambrose and his father on either hand. the holy vessel gleamed before the boy's eyes, and he saw clearly its wonder and its beauty. all its surface was a marvel of the most delicate intertwining lines in gold and silver, in copper and in bronze, in all manner of metals and alloys; and these interlacing patterns in their brightness, in the strangeness of their imagery and ornament, seemed to enthral his eyes and capture them, as it were, in a maze of enchantment; and not only the eyes; for the very spirit was rapt and garnered into that far bright world whence the holy magic of the cup proceeded. among the precious stones which were set into the wonder was a great crystal, shining with the pure light of the moon; about the rim of it there was the appearance of faint and feathery clouds, but in the centre it was a white splendour; and as ambrose gazed he thought that from the heart of this jewel there streamed continually a shower of glittering stars, dazzling his eyes with their incessant motion and brightness. his body thrilled with a sudden ineffable rapture, his breath came and went in quick pantings; bliss possessed him utterly as the three crowned forms passed in their golden order. then the interwoven sorcery of the vessel became a ringing wood of golden, and bronze, and silver trees; from every side resounded the clear summons of the holy bells and the exultant song of the faery birds; he no longer heard the low-chanting voices of cradock and his father as they replied to one another in the forms of some antique liturgy. then he stood by a wild seashore; it was a dark night, and there was a shrilling wind that sang about the peaks of the sharp rock, answering to the deep voices of the heaving sea. a white moon, of fourteen days old, appeared for a moment in the rift between two vast black clouds, and the shaft of light showed all the savage desolation of the shore--cliffs that rose up into mountains, into crenellated heights that were incredible, whose bases were scourged by the torrents of hissing foam that were driven against them from the hollow-sounding sea. then, on the highest of those awful heights, ambrose became aware of walls and spires, of towers and battlements that must have touched the stars; and, in the midst of this great castle, there surged up the aspiring vault of a vast church, and all its windows were ablaze with a light so white and glorious that it was as if every pane were a diamond. and he heard the voices of a praising host, or the clamour of golden trumpets and the unceasing choir of the angels. and he knew that this place was the sovereign perpetual choir, cor-arbennic, into whose secret the deadly flesh may scarcely enter. but in the vision he lay breathless, on the floor before the gleaming wall of the sanctuary, while the shadows of the hierurgy were enacted; and it seemed to him that, for a moment of time, he saw in unendurable light the mystery of mysteries pass veiled before him, and the image of the slain and risen. for a brief while this dream was broken. he heard his father singing softly: "gogoniant y tâd ac y mab ac yr yspryd glân." and the old man answered: "agya trias eleeson ymas." then again his spirit was lost in the bright depths of the crystal, and he saw the ships of the saints, without oar or sail, afloat on the faery sea, seeking the glassy isle. all the whole company of the blessed saints of the isle of britain sailed on the adventure; dawn and sunset, night and morning, their illuminated faces never wavered; and ambrose thought that at last they saw bright shores in the dying light of a red sun, and there came to their nostrils the scent of the deep apple-garths in avalon, and odours of paradise. * * * * * when he finally returned to the presence of earthly things he was standing by his father; while cradock reverently wrapped the cup in the gleaming veils which covered it, saying as he did so, in welsh: "remain in peace, o holy and divine cup of the lord. henceforth i know not whether i shall return to thee or not; but may the lord vouchsafe me to see thee in the church of the firstborn which is in heaven, on the altar of the sacrifice which is from age unto ages." ambrose went up the steps and out into the sunshine on the mountain side with the bewilderment of strange dreams, as a coloured mist, about him. he saw the old white walls, the yellow blossoms by the porch; above, the wild, high mountain wall; and, below, all the dear land of gwent, happy in the summer air, all its woods and fields, its rolling hills and its salt verge, rich in a golden peace. beside him the cold water swelled from the earth and trickled from the grey rock, and high in the air an exultant lark was singing. the mountain breeze was full of life and gladness, and the rustling and tossing of the woods, the glint and glimmer of the leaves beneath, made one think that the trees, with every creature, were merry on that day. and in that dark cell beneath many locks, beneath wood and iron, concealed in golden, glittering veils, lay hidden that glorious and awful cup, glass of wonderful vision, portal and entrance of the spiritual place. his father explained to him something of that which he had seen. he told him that the vessel was the holy cup of teilo sant, which he was said to have received from the lord in the state of paradise, and that when teilo said mass, using that chalice, the choir of angels was present visibly; that it was a cup of wonders and mysteries, the bestower of visions and heavenly graces. "but whatever you do," he said, "do not speak to anyone of what you have seen to-day, because if you do the mystery will be laughed at and blasphemed. do you know that your uncle and aunt at lupton would say that we were all mad together? that is because they are fools, and in these days most people are fools, and malignant fools too, as you will find out for yourself before you are much older. so always remember that you must hide the secrets that you have seen; and if you do not do so you will be sorry." mr. meyrick told his son why old cradock was to be treated with respect--indeed, with reverence. "he is just what he looks," he said, "an old farmer with a small freehold up here on the mountain side; and, as you heard, his english is no better than that of any other farmer in this country. and, compared with cradock, the duke of norfolk is a man of yesterday. he is of the tribe of teilo the saint; he is the last, in direct descent, of the hereditary keepers of the holy cup; and his race has guarded that blessed relic for thirteen hundred years. remember, again, that to-day, on this mountain, you have seen great marvels which you must keep in silence." poor ambrose! he suffered afterwards for his forgetfulness of his father's injunction. soon after he went to lupton one of the boys was astonishing his friends with a brilliant account of the crown jewels, which he had viewed during the christmas holidays. everybody was deeply impressed, and young meyrick, anxious to be agreeable in his turn, began to tell about the wonderful cup that he had once seen in an old farmhouse. perhaps his manner was not convincing, for the boys shrieked with laughter over his description. a monitor who was passing asked to hear the joke, and, having been told the tale, clouted ambrose over the head for an infernal young liar. this was a good lesson, and it served ambrose in good stead when one of the masters having, somehow or other, heard the story, congratulated him in the most approved scholastic manner before the whole form on his wonderful imaginative gifts. "i see the budding novelist in you, meyrick," said this sly master. "besant and rice will be nowhere when you once begin. i suppose you are studying character just at present? let us down gently, won't you? [to the delighted form.] we must be careful, mustn't we, how we behave? 'a chiel's amang us takin' notes,'" etc. etc. but meyrick held his tongue. he did not tell his form master that he was a beast, a fool and a coward, since he had found out that the truth, like many precious things, must often be concealed from the profane. a late vengeance overtook that foolish master. long years after, he was dining at a popular london restaurant, and all through dinner he had delighted the ladies of his party by the artful mixture of brutal insolence and vulgar chaff with which he had treated one of the waiters, a humble-looking little italian. the master was in the highest spirits at the success of his persiflage; his voice rose louder and louder, and his offensiveness became almost supernaturally acute. and then he received a heavy earthen casserole, six quails, a few small onions and a quantity of savoury but boiling juices full in the face. the waiter was a neapolitan. the hours of the night passed on, as ambrose sat in his bedroom at the old grange, recalling many wonderful memories, dreaming his dreams of the mysteries, of the land of gwent and the land of vision, just as his uncle, but a few yards away in another room of the house, was at the same time rapt into the world of imagination, seeing the new lupton descending like a bride from the heaven of headmasters. but ambrose thought of the great mountain, of the secret valleys, of the sanctuaries and hallows of the saints, of the rich carven work of lonely churches hidden amongst the hills and woods. there came into his mind the fragment of an old poem which he loved: "in the darkness of old age let not my memory fail, let me not forget to celebrate the beloved land of gwent. if they imprison me in a deep place, in a house of pestilence, still shall i be free, when i remember the sunshine upon mynydd maen. there have i listened to the singing of the lark, my soul has ascended with the song of the little bird; the great white clouds were the ships of my spirit, sailing to the haven of the almighty. equally to be held in honour is the site of the great mountain, adorned with the gushing of many waters- sweet is the shade of its hazel thickets, there a treasure is preserved, which i will not celebrate, it is glorious, and deeply concealed. if teilo should return, if happiness were restored to the cymri, dewi and dyfrig should serve his mass; then a great marvel would be made visible. o blessed and miraculous work, then should my bliss be as the bliss of angels; i had rather behold this offering than kiss the twin lips of dark gwenllian. dear my land of gwent, _o quam dilecta tabernacula_! thy rivers are like precious golden streams of paradise, thy hills are as the mount syon- better a grave on twyn barlwm than a throne in the palace of the saxons at caer-ludd." and then, by the face of contrast, he thought of the first verse of the great school song, "rocker," one of the earliest of the many poems which his uncle had consecrated to the praise of the dear old school: "once on a time, in the books that bore me, i read that in olden days before me lupton town had a wonderful game, it was a game with a noble story (lupton town was then in its glory, kings and bishops had brought it fame). it was a game that you all must know, and 'rocker' they called it, long ago. _chorus._ "look out for 'brooks,' or you're sure to drown, look out for 'quarries,' or else you're down- that was the way 'rocker' to play- once on a day that was the way, once on a day, that was the way that they used to play in lupton town." thinking of the two songs, he put out his light and, wearied, fell into a deep sleep. iv the british schoolboy, considered in a genial light by those who have made him their special study, has not been found to be either observant or imaginative. or, rather, it would be well to say that his powers of observation, having been highly specialised within a certain limited tract of thought and experience (bounded mainly by cricket and football), are but faint without these bounds; while it is one of the chiefest works of the system to kill, destroy, smash and bring to nothing any powers of imagination he may have originally possessed. for if this were not done thoroughly, neither a conservative nor a liberal administration would be possible, the house of commons itself would cease to exist, the episcopus (var. anglicanus) would go the way of the great bustard; a "muddling through somehow" (which must have been _the_ brightest jewel in the british crown, wrung from king john by the barons) would become a lost art. and, since all these consequences would be clearly intolerable, the great public schools have perfected a very thorough system of destroying the imaginative toxin, and few cases of failure have been so far reported. still, there are facts which not even the densest dullards, the most complete boobies, can help seeing; and a good many of the boys found themselves wondering "what was the matter with meyrick" when they saw him at chapel on the sunday morning. the news of his astounding violences both of act and word on the night before had not yet circulated generally. bates was attending to that department, but hadn't had time to do much so far; and the replies of pelly and rawson to enquiries after black eyes and a potato-like nose were surly and misleading. afterwards, when the tale was told, when bates, having enlarged the incidents to folk-lore size, showed pelly lying in a pool of his own blood, rawson screaming as with the torments of the lost and meyrick rolling out oaths--all original and all terrible--for the space of a quarter of an hour, then indeed the school was satisfied; it was no wonder if meyrick did look a bit queer after the achievement of such an adventure. the funk of aforetime had found courage; the air of rapture was easily understood. it is probable that if, in the nature of things, it had been possible for an english schoolboy to meet st. francis of assisi, the boy would have concluded that the saint must have just made 200 not out in first-class cricket. but ambrose walked in a strange light; he had been admitted into worlds undreamed of, and from the first brightness of the sun, when he awoke in the morning in his room at the grange, it was the material world about him, the walls of stone and brick, the solid earth, the sky itself, and the people who talked and moved and seemed alive--these were things of vision, unsubstantial shapes, odd and broken illusions of the mind. at half-past seven old toby, the man-of-all-work at the old grange banged at his door and let his clean boots fall with a crash on the boards after the usual fashion. he awoke, sat up in bed, staring about him. but what was this? the four walls covered with a foolish speckled paper, pale blue and pale brown, the white ceiling, the bare boards with the strip of carpet by the bedside: he knew nothing of all this. he was not horrified, because he knew that it was all non-existent, some plastic fantasy that happened to be presented for the moment to his brain. even the big black wooden chest that held his books (_parker_, despised by horbury, among them) failed to appeal to him with any sense of reality; and the bird's-eye washstand and chest of drawers, the white water-jug with the blue band, were all frankly phantasmal. it reminded him of a trick he had sometimes played: one chose one's position carefully, shut an eye and, behold, a mean shed could be made to obscure the view of a mountain! so these walls and appurtenances made an illusory sort of intrusion into the true vision on which he gazed. that yellow washstand rising out of the shining wells of the undying, the speckled walls in the place of the great mysteries, a chest of drawers in the magic garden of roses--it had the air of a queer joke, and he laughed aloud to himself as he realized that he alone knew, that everybody else would say, "that is a white jug with a blue band," while he, and he only, saw the marvel and glory of the holy cup with its glowing metals, its interlacing myriad lines, its wonderful images, and its hues of the mountain and the stars, of the green wood and the faery sea where, in a sure haven, anchor the ships that are bound for avalon. for he had a certain faith that he had found the earthly presentation and sacrament of the eternal heavenly mystery. he smiled again, with the quaint smile of an angel in an old italian picture, as he realized more fully the strangeness of the whole position and the odd humours which would relieve to play a wonderful game of make-believe; the speckled walls, for instance, were not really there, but he was to behave just as if they were solid realities. he would presently rise and go through an odd pantomine of washing and dressing, putting on brilliant boots, and going down to various mumbo-jumbo ceremonies called breakfast, chapel and dinner, in the company of appearances to whom he would accord all the honours due to veritable beings. and this delicious phantasmagoria would go on and on day after day, he alone having the secret; and what a delight it would be to "play up" at rocker! it seemed to him that the solid-seeming earth, the dear old school and rocker itself had all been made to minister to the acuteness of his pleasure; they were the darkness that made the light visible, the matter through which form was manifested. for the moment he enclosed in the most secret place of his soul the true world into which he had been guided; and as he dressed he hummed the favourite school song, "never mind!" "if the umpire calls 'out' at your poor second over, if none of your hits ever turns out a 'rover,' if you fumble your fives and 'go rot' over sticker, if every hound is a little bit quicker; if you can't tackle rocker at all, not at all, and kick at the moon when you try for the ball, never mind, never mind, never mind--if you fall, dick falls before rising, tom's short ere he's tall, never mind! don't be one of the weakest who go to the wall: never mind!" ambrose could not understand how columbus could have blundered so grossly. somehow or other he should have contrived to rid himself of his crew; he should have returned alone, with a dismal tale of failure, and passed the rest of his days as that sad and sorry charlatan who had misled the world with his mad whimsies of a continent beyond the waters of the atlantic. if he had been given wisdom to do this, how great--how wonderful would his joys have been! they would have pointed at him as he paced the streets in his shabby cloak; the boys would have sung songs about him and his madness; the great people would have laughed contemptuously as he went by. and he would have seen in his heart all that vast far world of the west, the rich islands barred by roaring surf, a whole hemisphere of strange regions and strange people; he would have known that he alone possessed the secret of it. but, after all, ambrose knew that his was a greater joy even than this; for the world that he had discovered was not far across the seas, but within him. pelly stared straight before him in savage silence all through breakfast; he was convinced that mere hazard had guided that crushing blow, and he was meditating schemes of complete and exemplary vengeance. he noticed nothing strange about meyrick, nor would he have cared if he had seen the images of the fairies in his eyes. rawson, on the other hand, was full of genial civility and good fellowship; it was "old chap" and "old fellow" every other word. but he was far from unintelligent, and, as he slyly watched meyrick, he saw that there was something altogether unaccustomed and incomprehensible. unknown lights burned and shone in the eyes, reflections of one knew not what; the expression was altered in some queer way that he could not understand. meyrick had always been a rather ugly, dogged-looking fellow; his black hair and something that was not usual in the set of his features gave him an exotic, almost an oriental appearance; hence a story of rawson's to the effect that meyrick's mother was a nigger woman in poor circumstances and of indifferent morality had struck the school as plausible enough. but now the grimness of the rugged features seemed abolished; the face shone, as it were, with the light of a flame--but a flame of what fire? rawson, who would not have put his observations into such terms, drew his own conclusions readily enough and imparted them to pelly after chapel. "look here, old chap," he said, "did you notice young meyrick at breakfast?" pelly simply blasted meyrick and announced his intention of giving him the worst thrashing he had ever had at an early date. "don't you try it on," said rawson. "i had my eye on him all the time. he didn't see i was spotting him. he's cracked; he's dangerous. i shouldn't wonder if he were in a strait waistcoat in the county lunatic asylum in a week's time. my governor had a lot to do with lunatics, and he always says he can tell by the eyes. i'll swear meyrick is raging mad." "oh, rot!" said pelly. "what do you know about it?" "well, look out, old chap, and don't say i didn't give you the tip. of course, you know a maniac is stronger than three ordinary men? the only thing is to get them down and crack their ribs. but you want at least half a dozen men before you can do it." "oh, shut up!" so rawson said no more, remaining quite sure that he had diagnosed ambrose's symptoms correctly. he waited for the catastrophe with a dreadful joy, wondering whether meyrick would begin by cutting old horbury's throat with his own razor, or whether he would rather steal into pelly's room at night and tear him limb from limb, a feat which, as a madman, he could, of course, accomplish with perfect ease. as a matter of fact, neither of these events happened. pelly, a boy of the bulldog breed, smacked ambrose's face a day or two later before a huge crowd of boys, and received in return such a terrific blow under the left ear that a formal fight in the tom brown manner was out of the question. pelly reached the ground and stayed there in an unconscious state for some while; and the other boys determined that it would be as well to leave meyrick to himself. he might be cracked but he was undoubtedly a hard hitter. as for pelly, like the sensible fellow that he was, he simply concluded that meyrick was too good for him. he did not quite understand it; he dimly suspected the intrusion of some strange forces, but with such things he had nothing to do. it was a fair knock-out, and there was an end of it. bates had glanced up as ambrose came into the dining-room on the sunday morning. he saw the shining face, the rapturous eyes, and had silently wondered, recognising the presence of elements which transcended all his calculations. meanwhile the lupton sunday went on after its customary fashion. at eleven o'clock the chapel was full of boys. there were nearly six hundred of them there, the big ones in frock-coats, with high, pointed collars, which made them look like youthful gladstones. the younger boys wore broad, turn-down collars and had short, square jackets made somewhat in the basque fashion. young and old had their hair cut close to the scalp, and this gave them all a brisk but bullety appearance. the masters, in cassock, gown and hood, occupied the choir stalls. mr. horbury, the high usher, clothed in a flowing surplice, was taking morning prayer, and the head occupied a kind of throne by the altar. the chapel was not an inspiring building. it was the fourteenth century, certainly, but the fourteenth century translated by 1840, and, it is to be feared, sadly betrayed by the translators. the tracery of the windows was poor and shallow; the mouldings of the piers and arches faulty to a degree; the chancel was absurdly out of proportion, and the pitch-pine benches and stalls had a sticky look. there was a stained-glass window in memory of the old luptonians who fell in the crimea. one wondered what the woman of samaria by the well had to do either with lupton or the crimea. and the colouring was like that used in very common, cheap sweets. the service went with a rush. the prayers, versicles and responses, and psalms were said, the officiant and the congregation rather pressing than pausing--often, indeed, coming so swiftly to cues that two or three words at the end of one verse or two or three at the beginning of the next would be lost in a confused noise of contending voices. but _venite_ and _te deum_ and _benedictus_ were rattled off to frisky anglicans with great spirit; sometimes the organ tooted, sometimes it bleated gently, like a flock of sheep; now one might have sworn that the music of penny whistles stole on the ear, and again, as the organist coupled up the full organ, using suddenly all the battery of his stops, a gas explosion and a salvation army band seemed to strive against one another. a well-known nobleman who had been to chapel at lupton was heard to say, with reference to this experience: "i am no ritualist, heaven knows--but i confess i like a hearty service." but it was, above all, the sermon that has made the chapel a place of many memories. the old boys say--and one supposes that they are in earnest--that the tall, dignified figure of the doctor, standing high above them all, his scarlet hood making a brilliant splash of colour against the dingy, bilious paint of the pale green walls, has been an inspiration to them in all quarters of the globe, in all manner of difficulties and temptations. one man writes that in the midst of a complicated and dangerous deal on the stock exchange he remembered a sermon of dr. chesson's called in the printed volume, "fighting the good fight." "you have a phrase amongst you which i often hear," said the head. "that phrase is 'play the game,' and i wish to say that, though you know it not; though, it may be, the words are often spoken half in jest; still, they are but your modern, boyish rendering of the old, stirring message which i have just read to you. "fight the good fight.' 'play the game.' remember the words in the storm and struggle, the anxiety and stress that may be--nay, must be--before you--etc., etc., etc." "after the crisis was over," wrote the stock exchange man, "i was thankful that i _had_ remembered those words." "that voice sounding like a trumpet on the battle-field, bidding us all remember that success was the prize of effort and endurance----" so writes a well-known journalist. "i remembered what the doctor said to us once about 'running the race,'" says a young soldier, recounting a narrow escape from a fierce enemy, "so i stuck to my orders." ambrose, on that sunday morning, sat in his place, relishing acutely all the savours of the scene, consumed with inward mirth at the thought that this also professed to be a rite of religion. there was an aimless and flighty merriment about the chant to the _te deum_ that made it difficult for him to control his laughter; and when he joined in the hymn "pleasant are thy courts above," there was an odd choke in his voice that made the boy next to him shuffle uneasily. but the sermon! it will be found on page 125 of the _lupton sermons_. it dealt with the parable of the talents, and showed the boys in what the sin of the man who concealed his talent really consisted. "i daresay," said the head, "that many of the older amongst you have wondered what this man's sin really was. you may have read your greek testaments carefully, and then have tried to form in your minds some analogy to the circumstances of the parable--and it would not surprise me if you were to tell me that you had failed. "what manner of man was this? i can imagine your saying one to another. i shall not be astonished if you confess that, for you at least, the question seems unanswerable. "yes; unanswerable to you. for you are english boys, the sons of english gentlemen, to whom the atmosphere of casuistry, of concealment, of subtlety, is unknown; by whom such an atmosphere would be rejected with scorn. you come from homes where there is no shadow, no dark corner which must not be pried into. your relations and your friends are not of those who hide their gifts from the light of day. some of you, perhaps, have had the privilege of listening to the talk of one or other of the great statesmen who guide the doctrines of this vast empire. you will have observed, i am sure, that in the world of politics there is no vain simulation of modesty, no feigned reluctance to speak of worthy achievement. all of you are members of this great community, of which each one of us is so proud, which we think of as the great inspiration and motive force of our lives. here, you will say, there are no hidden talents, for the note of the english public school (thank god for it!) is openness, frankness, healthy emulation; each endeavouring to do his best for the good of all. in our studies and in our games each desires to excel to carry off the prize. we strive for a corruptible crown, thinking that this, after all, is the surest discipline for the crown that is incorruptible. if a man say that he loveth god whom he hath not seen, and love not his brother whom he hath seen! let your light _shine_ before men. be sure that we shall never win heaven by despising earth. "yet that man hid his talent in a napkin. what does the story mean? what message has it for us to-day? "i will tell you. "some years ago during our summer holidays i was on a walking tour in a mountainous district in the north of england. the sky was of a most brilliant blue, the sun poured, as it were, a gospel of gladness on the earth. towards the close of the day i was entering a peaceful and beautiful valley amongst the hills, when three sullen notes of a bell came down the breeze towards me. there was a pause. again the three strokes, and for a third time this dismal summons struck my ears. i walked on in the direction of the sound, wondering whence it came and what it signified; and soon i saw before me a great pile of buildings, surrounded by a gloomy and lofty wall. "it was a roman catholic monastery. the bell was ringing the angelus, as it is called. "i obtained admittance to this place and spoke to some of the unhappy monks. i should astonish you if i mentioned the names of some of the deluded men who had immured themselves in this prison-house. it is sufficient to say that among them were a soldier who had won distinction on the battle-field, an artist, a statesman and a physician of no mean repute. "now do you understand? ah! a day will come--you know, i think, what that day is called--when these poor men will have to answer the question: 'where is the talent that was given to you?' "'where was your sword in the hour of your country's danger?' "'where was your picture, your consecration of your art to the service of morality and humanity, when the doors of the great exhibition were thrown open?' "'where was your silver eloquence, your voice of persuasion, when the strife of party was at its fiercest?' "'where was your god-given skill in healing when one of royal blood lay fainting on the bed of dire--almost mortal--sickness?' "and the answer? 'i laid it up in a napkin.' and now, etc., etc." then the whole six hundred boys sang "o paradise! o paradise!" with a fervour and sincerity that were irresistible. the organ thundered till the bad glass shivered and rattled, and the service was over. v almost the last words that ambrose had heard after his wonderful awaking were odd enough, though at the time he took little note of them, since they were uttered amidst passionate embraces, amidst soft kisses on his poor beaten flesh. indeed, if these words recurred to him afterwards, they never made much impression on his mind, though to most people they would seem of more serious import than much else that was uttered that night! the sentences ran something like this: "the cruel, wicked brute! he shall be sorry all his days, and every blow shall be a grief to him. my dear! i promise you he shall pay for to-night ten times over. his heart shall ache for it till it stops beating." there cannot be much doubt that this promise was kept to the letter. no one knew how wicked rumours concerning mr. horbury got abroad in lupton, but from that very day the execution of the sentence began. in the evening the high usher, paying a visit to a friend in town, took a short cut through certain dark, ill-lighted streets, and was suddenly horrified to hear his name shrieked out, coupled with a most disgusting accusation. his heart sank down in his breast; his face, he knew, was bloodless; and then he rushed forward to the malpassage whence the voice seemed to proceed. there was nothing there. it was a horrid little alley, leading from one slum to another, between low walls and waste back-gardens, dismal and lampless. horbury ran at top speed to the end of it, but there was nothing to be done. a few women were gossiping at their doors, a couple of men slouched past on their way to the beer-shop at the corner--that was all. he asked one of the women if she had seen anybody running, and she said no, civilly enough--and yet he fancied that she had leered at him. he turned and went back home. he was not in the mood for paying visits. it was some time before he could compose his mind by assuring himself that the incident, though unpleasant, was not of the slightest significance. but from that day the nets were about his feet, and his fate was sealed. personally, he was subjected to no further annoyance, and soon forgot that unpleasant experience in the back-street. but it seems certain that from that sunday onwards a cloud of calumny overshadowed the high usher in all his ways. no one said anything definite, but everyone appeared to be conscious of something unpleasant when horbury's name was mentioned. people looked oddly at one another, and the subject was changed. one of the young masters, speaking to a colleague, did indeed allude casually to horbury as xanthias phoceus. the other master, a middle-aged man, raised his eyebrows and shook his head without speaking. it is understood that these muttered slanders were various in their nature; but, as has been said, everything was indefinite, intangible as contagion--and as deadly to the master's worldly health. that horrible accusation which had been screamed out of the alley was credited by some; others agreed with the young master; while a few had a terrible story of an idiot girl in a remote derbyshire village. and the persistence of all these fables was strange. it was four years before henry vibart chesson, d. d., ascended the throne of st. guthmund at dorchester; and all through those four years the fountain of evil innuendo rose without ceasing. it is doubtful how far belief in the truth of these scandals was firm and settled, or how far they were in the main uttered and circulated by ill-natured people who disliked horbury, but did not in their hearts believe him guilty of worse sins than pompousness and arrogance. the latter is the more probable opinion. of course, the deliberations of the trustees were absolutely secret, and the report that the chairman, the marquis of dunham, said something about cæsar's wife is a report and nothing more. it is evident that the london press was absolutely in the dark as to the existence of this strange conspiracy of vengeance, since two of the chief dailies took the appointment of the high usher to the headmastership as a foregone conclusion, prophesying, indeed, a rule of phenomenal success. and then millward, a winchester man, understood to be rather unsound on some scholastic matters--"not _quite_ the right man"; "just a _little_ bit of a jesuit"--received the appointment, and people did begin to say that there must be a screw loose somewhere. and horbury was overwhelmed, and began to die. the odd thing was that, save on that sunday night, he never saw the enemy; he never suspected that there was an enemy; and as for the incident of the alley, after a little consideration he treated it with contempt. it was only some drunken beast in the town who knew him by sight and wished to be offensive, in the usual fashion of drunken beasts. and there was nothing else. lupton society was much too careful to allow its suspicions to be known. a libel action meant, anyhow, a hideous scandal and might have no pleasant results for the libellers. besides, no one wanted to offend horbury, who was suspected of possessing a revengeful temper; and it had not dawned on the lupton mind that the rumours they themselves were circulating would eventually ruin the high usher's chances of the headmastership. each gossip heard, as it were, only his own mutter at the moment. he did not realize that when a great many people are muttering all at once an ugly noise of considerable volume is being produced. it is true that a few of the masters were somewhat cold in their manner. they lacked the social gift of dissimulation, and could not help showing their want of cordiality. but horbury, who noticed this, put it down to envy and disaffection, and resolved that the large powers given him by the trustees should not be in vain so far as the masters in question were concerned. indeed, c. l. wood, who was afterwards headmaster of marcester and died in egypt a few years ago, had a curious story which in part relates to the masters in question, and perhaps throws some light on the extraordinary tale of horbury's ruin. wood was an old luptonian. he was a mighty athlete in his time, and his records for the long jump and throwing the cricket ball have not been beaten at lupton to this day. he had been one of the first boarders taken at the old grange. the early relations between horbury and himself had been continued in later life, and wood was staying with his former master at the time when the trustee's decision was announced. it is supposed, indeed, that horbury had offered him a kind of unofficial, but still important, position in the new model; in fact, wood confessed over his port that the idea was that he should be a kind of "intelligence department" to the head. he did not seem very clear as to the exact scope of his proposed duties. we may certainly infer, however, that they would have been of a very confidential nature, for wood had jotted down his recollections of that fatal morning somewhat as follows: "i never saw horbury in better spirits. indeed, i remember thinking that he was younger than ever--younger than he was in the old days when he was a junior master and i was in the third. of course, he was always energetic; one could not disassociate the two notions of horbury and energy, and i used to make him laugh by threatening to include the two terms in the new edition of my little book, _latin and english synonyms_. it did not matter whether he were taking the fifth, or editing classics for his boys, or playing rocker--one could not help rejoicing in the vivid and ebullient energy of the man. and perhaps this is one reason why shirkers and loafers dreaded him, as they certainly did. "but during those last few days at lupton his vitality had struck me as quite superhuman. as all the world knows, his succession to the headmastership was regarded by everyone as assured, and he was, naturally and properly, full of the great task which he believed was before him. this is not the place to argue the merits or demerits of the scheme which had been maturing for many years in his brain. "a few persons who, i cannot but think, have received very imperfect information on the subject, have denounced horbury's views of the modern public school as revolutionary. revolutionary they certainly were, as an express engine is revolutionary compared to an ox-waggon. but those who think of the late canon horbury as indifferent to the good side of public school traditions knew little of the real man. however, were his plans good or bad, they were certainly of vast scope, and on the first night of my visit he made me sit up with him till two o'clock while he expounded his ideas, some of which, as he was good enough to say, he trusted to me to carry out. he showed me the piles of ms. he had accumulated: hundreds of pages relating to the multiple departments of the great organisation which he was to direct, or rather to create; sheets of serried figures, sheaves of estimates which he had caused to be made out in readiness for immediate action. "nothing was neglected. i remember seeing a note on the desirability of compiling a 'lupton hymn book' for use in the chapel, and another on the question of forming a botanical garden, so that the school botany might be learned from 'the green life,' as he beautifully expressed it, not from dry letterpress and indifferent woodcuts. then, i think, on a corner of the 'botany leaf' was a jotting--a mere hasty scrawl, waiting development and consideration: 'should we teach hindustani? write to tucker _re_ the moulvie ahmed khan.' "i despair of giving the reader any conception of the range and minuteness of these wonderful memoranda. i remember saying to horbury that he seemed to be able to use the microscope and the telescope at the same time. he laughed joyously, and told me to wait till he was really at work. 'you will have your share, i promise you,' he added. his high spirits were extraordinary and infectious. he was an excellent _raconteur_, and now and again, amidst his talk of the new lupton which he was about to translate from the idea into substance, he told some wonderful stories which i have not the heart to set down here. _tu ne quæsieris._ i have often thought of those lines when i remember horbury's intense happiness, the nervous energy which made the delay of a day or two seem almost intolerable. his brain and his fingers tingled, as it were, to set about the great work before him. he reminded me of a mighty host, awaiting but the glance of their general to rush forward with irresistible force. "there was not a trace of misgiving. indeed, i should have been utterly astonished if i had seen anything of the kind. he told me, indeed, that for some time past he had suspected the existence of a sort of cabal or clique against him. 'a. and x., b. and y., m. and n., and, i think, z., are in it,' he said, naming several of the masters. 'they are jealous, i suppose, and want to make things as difficult as they can. they are all cowards, though, and i don't believe one of them--except, perhaps, m.--would fail in obedience, or rather in subservience, when it comes to the point. but i am going to make short work of the lot.' and he told me his intention of ridding the school of these disaffected elements. 'the trustees will back me up, i know,' he added, 'but we must try to avoid all unnecessary friction'; and he explained to me a plan he had thought of for eliminating the masters in question. 'it won't do to have half-hearted officers on our ship,' was the way in which he put it, and i cordially agreed with him. "possibly he may have underrated the force of the opposition which he treated so lightly; possibly he altogether misjudged the situation. he certainly regarded the appointment as already made, and this, of course, was, or appeared to be, the conviction of all who knew anything of lupton and horbury. "i shall never forget the day on which the news came. horbury made a hearty breakfast, opening letters, jotting down notes, talking of his plans as the meal proceeded. i left him for a while. i was myself a good deal excited, and i strolled up and down the beautiful garden at the old grange, wondering whether i should be able to satisfy such a chief who, the soul of energy himself, would naturally expect a like quality in his subordinates. i rejoined him in the course of an hour in the study, where he was as busy as ever--'snowed up,' as he expressed it, in a vast pile of papers and correspondence. "he nodded genially and pointed to a chair, and a few minutes later a servant came in with a letter. she had just found it in the hall, she explained. i had taken a book and was reading. i noticed nothing till what i can only call a groan of intense anguish made me look up in amazement--indeed, in horror--and i was shocked to see my old friend, his face a ghastly white, his eyes staring into vacancy, and his expression one of the most terrible--_the_ most terrible--that i have ever witnessed. i cannot describe that look. there was an agony of grief and despair, a glance of the wildest amazement, terror, as of an impending awful death, and with these the fiercest and most burning anger that i have ever seen on any human face. he held a letter clenched in his hand. i was afraid to speak or move. "it was fully five minutes before he regained his self-control, and he did this with an effort which was in itself dreadful to contemplate--so severe was the struggle. he explained to me in a voice which faltered and trembled with the shock that he had received, that he had had very bad news--that a large sum of money which was absolutely necessary to the carrying out of his projects had been embezzled by some unscrupulous person, that he did not know what he should do. he fell back into his chair; in a few minutes he had become an old man. "he did not seem upset, or even astonished, when, later in the day, a telegram announced that he had failed in the aim of his life--that a stranger was to bear rule in his beloved lupton. he murmured something to the effect that it was no matter now. he never held up his head again." this note is an extract from _george horbury: a memoir_. it was written by dr. wood for the use of a few friends and privately printed in a small edition of a hundred and fifty copies. the author felt, as he explains in his brief _foreword_, that by restricting the sale to those who either knew horbury or were especially interested in his work, he was enabled to dwell somewhat intimately on matters which could hardly have been treated in a book meant for the general public. the extract that has been made from this book is interesting on two points. it shows that horbury was quite unaware of what had been going on for four years before chesson's resignation and that he had entirely misinterpreted the few and faint omens which had been offered him. he was preparing to break a sulky sentinel or two when all the ground of his fortalice was a very network of loaded mines! the other point is still more curious. it will be seen from wood's story that the terrific effect that he describes was produced by a letter, received some hours before the news of the trustees' decision arrived by telegram. "later in the day" is the phrase in the memoir; as a matter of fact, the final deliberation of the lupton trustees, held at marshall's hotel in albemarle street, began at eleven-thirty and was not over till one-forty-five. it is not likely that the result could have reached the old grange before two-fifteen; whereas the letter found in the hall must have been read by horbury before ten o'clock. the invariable breakfast hour at the old grange was eight o'clock. c. l. wood says: "i rejoined him in the course of an hour," and the letter was brought in "a few minutes later." afterwards, when the fatal telegram arrived, the memoir notes that the unfortunate man was not "even astonished." it seems to follow almost necessarily from these facts that horbury learnt the story of his ruin from the letter, for it has been ascertained that the high usher's account of the contents of the letter was false from beginning to end. horbury's most excellent and sagacious investments were all in the impeccable hands of "witham's" (messrs. witham, venables, davenport and witham), of raymond buildings, gray's inn, who do not include embezzlement in their theory and practice of the law; and, as a matter of fact, the nephew, charles horbury, came into a very handsome fortune on the death of his uncle--eighty thousand pounds in personality, with the old grange and some valuable ground rents in the new part of lupton. it is as certain as anything can be that george horbury never lost a penny by embezzlement or, indeed, in any other way. one may surmise, then, the real contents of that terrible letter. in general, that is, for it is impossible to conjecture whether the writer told the whole story; one does not know, for example, whether meyrick's name was mentioned or not: whether there was anything which carried the reader's mind to that dark evening in november when he beat the white-faced boy with such savage cruelty. but from dr. wood's description of the wretched man's appearance one understands how utterly unexpected was the crushing blow that had fallen upon him. it was a lightning flash from the sky at its bluest, and before that sudden and awful blast his whole life fell into deadly and evil ruin. "he never held up his head again." he never lived again, one may say, unless a ceaseless wheel of anguish and anger and bitter and unavailing and furious regret can be called life. it was not a man, but a shell, full of gall and fire, that went to wareham; but probably he was not the first of the klippoth to be made a canon. as we have no means of knowing exactly what or how much that letter told him, one is not in a position to say whether he recognised the singularity--one might almost say, the eccentricity--with which his punishment was stage-managed. _nec deus intersit_ certainly; but a principle may be pushed too far, and a critic might point out that, putting avenging deities in their machines on one side, it was rather going to the other extreme to bring about the great catastrophe by means of bad sherry, a trying headmaster, boiled mutton, a troublesome schoolboy and a servant-maid. yet these were the agents employed; and it seems that we are forced to the conclusion that we do not altogether understand the management of the universe. the conclusion is a dangerous one, since we may be led by it, unless great care is exercised, into the worst errors of the dark ages. there is the question, of course, of the truthfulness or falsity of the various slanders which had such a tremendous effect. the worst of them were lies--there can be little doubt of that--and for the rest, it may be hinted that the allusion of the young master to xanthias phoceus was not very far wide of the mark. mrs. horbury had been dead some years, and it is to be feared that there had been passages between the high usher and nelly foran which public opinion would have condemned. it would be difficult to tell the whole story, but the girl's fury of revenge makes one apt to believe that she was exacting payment not only for ambrose's wrongs, but for some grievous injury done to herself. but before all these things could be brought to their ending, ambrose meyrick had to live in wonders and delights, to be initiated in many mysteries, to discover the meaning of that voice which seemed to speak within him, denouncing him because he had pried unworthily into the secret which is hidden from the holy angels. iii i one of ambrose meyrick's favourite books was a railway timetable. he spent many hours in studying these intricate pages of figures, noting times of arrival and departure on a piece of paper, and following the turnings and intersections of certain lines on the map. in this way he had at last arrived at the best and quickest route to his native country, which he had not seen for five years. his father had died when he was ten years old. this result once obtained, the seven-thirty to birmingham got him in at nine-thirty-five; the ten-twenty for the west was a capital train, and he would see the great dome of mynydd mawr before one o'clock. his fancy led him often to a bridge which crossed the railway about a mile out of lupton. east and west the metals stretched in a straight line, defying, it seemed, the wisdom of euclid. he turned from the east and gazed westward, and when a red train went by in the right direction he would lean over the bridge and watch till the last flying carriage had vanished into the distance. he imagined himself in that train and thought of the joy of it, if the time ever came--for it seemed long--the joy in every revolution of the wheels, in every whistle of the engine; in the rush and in the rhythm of this swift flight from that horrible school and that horrible place. year after year went by and he had not revisited the old land of his father. he was left alone in the great empty house in charge of the servants during the holidays--except one summer when mr. horbury despatched him to a cousin of his who lived at yarmouth. the second year after his father's death there was a summer of dreadful heat. day after day the sky was a glare of fire, and in these abhorred midlands, far from the breath of the sea and the mountain breeze, the ground baked and cracked and stank to heaven. a dun smoke rose from the earth with the faint, sickening stench of a brick-field, and the hedgerows swooned in the heat and in the dust. ambrose's body and soul were athirst with the desire of the hills and the woods; his heart cried out within him for the waterpools in the shadow of the forest; and in his ears continually he heard the cold water pouring and trickling and dripping from the grey rocks on the great mountain side. and he saw that awful land which god has no doubt made for manufacturers to prepare them for their eternal habitation, its weary waves burning under the glaring sky: the factory chimneys of lupton vomiting their foul smoke; the mean red streets, each little hellway with its own stink; the dull road, choking in its dust. for streams there was the wand, running like black oil between black banks, steaming here as boiling poisons were belched into it from the factory wall; there glittering with iridescent scum vomited from some other scoundrel's castle. and for the waterpools of the woods he was free to gaze at the dark green liquor in the tanks of the sulphuric acid factory, but a little way out of town. lupton was a very rising place. his body was faint with the burning heat and the foulness of all about him, and his soul was sick with loneliness and friendlessness and unutterable longing. he had already mastered his bradshaw and had found out the bridge over the railway; and day after day he leaned over the parapet and watched the burning metals vanishing into the west, into the hot, thick haze that hung over all the land. and the trains sped away towards the haven of his desire, and he wondered if he should ever see again the dearly loved country or hear the song of the nightingale in the still white morning, in the circle of the green hills. the thought of his father, of the old days of happiness, of the grey home in the still valley, swelled in his heart and he wept bitterly, so utterly forsaken and wretched seemed his life. it happened towards the end of that dreadful august that one night he had tossed all through the hours listening to the chiming bells, only falling into a fevered doze a little while before they called him. he woke from ugly and oppressive dreams to utter wretchedness; he crawled downstairs like an old man and left his breakfast untouched, for he could eat nothing. the flame of the sun seemed to burn in his brain; the hot smoke of the air choked him. all his limbs ached. from head to foot he was a body of suffering. he struggled out and tottered along the road to the bridge and gazed with dim, hopeless eyes along the path of desire, into the heavy, burning mist in the far distance. and then his heart beat quick, and he cried aloud in his amazed delight; for, in the shimmering glamour of the haze, he saw as in a mirror the vast green wall of the great mountain rise before him--not far, but as if close at hand. nay, he stood upon its slope; his feet were in the sweet-smelling bracken; the hazel thicket was rustling beneath him in the brave wind, and the shining water poured cold from the stony rock. he heard the silver note of the lark, shrilling high and glad in the sunlight. he saw the yellow blossoms tossed by the breeze about the porch of the white house. he seemed to turn in this vision and before him the dear, long-remembered land appeared in its great peace and beauty: meadows and cornfield, hill and valley and deep wood between the mountains and the far sea. he drew a long breath of that quickening and glorious air, and knew that life had returned to him. and then he was gazing once more down the glittering railway into the mist; but strength and hope had replaced that deadly sickness of a moment before, and light and joy came back to his eyes. the vision had doubtless been given to him in his sore and pressing need. it returned no more; not again did he see the fair height of mynydd mawr rise out of the mist. but from that day the station on the bridge was daily consecrated. it was his place of refreshment and hope in many seasons of evil and weariness. from this place he could look forward to the hour of release and return that must come at last. here he could remind himself that the bonds of the flesh had been broken in a wonderful manner; that he had been set free from the jaws of hell and death. fortunately, few people came that way. it was but a by-road serving a few farms in the neighbourhood, and on the sunday afternoon, in november, the head's sermon over and dinner eaten, he betook himself to his tower, free to be alone for a couple of hours, at least. he stood there, leaning on the wall, his face turned, as ever, to the west, and, as it were, a great flood of rapture overwhelmed him. he sank down, deeper, still deeper, into the hidden and marvellous places of delight. in his country there were stories of the magic people who rose all gleaming from the pools in lonely woods; who gave more than mortal bliss to those who loved them; who could tell the secrets of that land where flame was the most material substance; whose inhabitants dwelt in palpitating and quivering colours or in the notes of a wonderful melody. and in the dark of the night all legends had been fulfilled. it was a strange thing, but ambrose meyrick, though he was a public schoolboy of fifteen, had lived all his days in a rapt innocence. it is possible that in school, as elsewhere, enlightenment, pleasant or unpleasant, only comes to those who seek for it--or one may say certainly that there are those who dwell under the protection of enchantments, who may go down into the black depths and yet appear resurgent and shining, without any stain or defilement of the pitch on their white robes. for these have ears so intent on certain immortal songs that they cannot hear discordant voices; their eyes are veiled with a light that shuts out the vision of evil. there are flames about these feet that extinguish the gross fires of the pit. it is probable that all through those early years ambrose's father had been charming his son's heart, drawing him forth from the gehenna-valley of this life into which he had fallen, as one draws forth a beast that has fallen into some deep and dreadful place. various are the methods recommended. there is the way of what is called moral teaching, the way of physiology and the way of a masterly silence; but mr. meyrick's was the strange way of incantation. he had, in a certain manner, drawn the boy aside from that evil traffic of the valley, from the stench of the turmoil, from the blows and the black lechery, from the ugly fight in the poisonous smoke, from all the amazing and hideous folly that practical men call life, and had set him in that endless procession that for ever and for ever sings its litanies in the mountains, going from height to height on its great quest. ambrose's soul had been caught in the sweet thickets of the woods; it had been bathed in the pure water of blessed fountains; it had knelt before the altars of the old saints, till all the earth was become a sanctuary, all life was a rite and ceremony, the end of which was the attainment of the mystic sanctity--the achieving of the graal. for this--for what else?--were all things made. it was this that the little bird sang of in the bush, piping a few feeble, plaintive notes of dusky evenings, as if his tiny heart were sad that it could utter nothing better than such sorry praises. this also celebrated the awe of the white morning on the hills, the breath of the woods at dawn. this was figured in the red ceremony of sunset, when flames shone over the dome of the great mountain, and roses blossomed in the far plains of the sky. this was the secret of the dark places in the heart of the woods. this the mystery of the sunlight on the height; and every little flower, every delicate fern, and every reed and rush was entrusted with the hidden declaration of this sacrament. for this end, final and perfect rites had been given to men to execute; and these were all the arts, all the far-lifted splendour of the great cathedral; all rich carven work and all glowing colours; all magical utterance of word and tones: all these things were the witnesses that consented in the one offering, in the high service of the graal. to this service also, together with songs and burning torches and dyed garments and the smoke of the bruised incense, were brought the incense of the bruised heart, the magic torches of virtue hidden from the world, the red dalmatics of those whose souls had been martyred, the songs of triumph and exultation chanted by them that the profane had crushed into the dust; holy wells and water-stoups were fountains of tears. so must the mass be duly celebrated in cor-arbennic when cadwaladr returned, when teilo agyos lifted up again the shining cup. perhaps it was not strange that a boy who had listened to such spells as these should heed nothing of the foolish evils about him, the nastiness of silly children who, for want of wits, were "crushing the lilies into the dunghill." he listened to nothing of their ugly folly; he heard it not, understood it not, thought as little of it as of their everlasting chatter about "brooks" and "quarries" and "leg-hits" and "beaks from the off." and when an unseemly phrase did chance to fall on his ear it was of no more import or meaning than any or all of the stupid jargon that went on day after day, mixing itself with the other jargon about the optative and the past participle, the oratio obliqua and the verbs in [greek: mi]. to him this was all one nothingness, and he would not have dreamed of connecting anything of it with the facts of life, as he understood life. hence it was that for him all that was beautiful and wonderful was a part of sanctity; all the glory of life was for the service of the sanctuary, and when one saw a lovely flower it was to be strewn before the altar, just as the bee was holy because by its wax the gifts are illuminated. where joy and delight and beauty were, there he knew by sure signs were the parts of the mystery, the glorious apparels of the heavenly vestments. if anyone had told him that the song of the nightingale was an unclean thing he would have stared in amazement, as though one had blasphemed the sanctus. to him the red roses were as holy as the garments of the martyrs. the white lilies were pure and shining virtues; the imagery of the _song of songs_ was obvious and perfect and unassailable, for in this world there was nothing common nor unclean. and even to him the great gift had been freely given. so he stood, wrapt in his meditations and in his ecstasy, by the bridge over the midland line from lupton to birmingham. behind him were the abominations of lupton: the chimneys vomiting black smoke faintly in honour of the sabbath; the red lines of the workmen's streets advancing into the ugly fields; the fuming pottery kilns, the hideous height of the boot factory. and before him stretched the unspeakable scenery of the eastern midlands, which seems made for the habitation of english nonconformists--dull, monotonous, squalid, the very hedgerows cropped and trimmed, the trees looking like rows of roundheads, the farmhouses as uninteresting as suburban villas. on a field near at hand a scientific farmer had recently applied an agreeable mixture consisting of superphosphate of lime, nitrate of soda and bone meal. the stink was that of a chemical works or a texel cheese. another field was just being converted into an orchard. there were rows of grim young apple trees planted at strictly mathematical intervals from one another, and grisly little graves had been dug between the apple trees for the reception of gooseberry bushes. between these rows the farmer hoped to grow potatoes, so the ground had been thoroughly trenched. it looked sodden and unpleasant. to the right ambrose could see how the operations on a wandering brook were progressing. it had moved in and out in the most wasteful and absurd manner, and on each bank there had grown a twisted brake of trees and bushes and rank water plants. there were wonderful red roses there in summer time. now all this was being rectified. in the first place the stream had been cut into a straight channel with raw, bare banks, and then the rose bushes, the alders, the willows and the rest were being grubbed up by the roots and so much valuable land was being redeemed. the old barn which used to be visible on the left of the line had been pulled down for more than a year. it had dated perhaps from the seventeenth century. its roof-tree had dipped and waved in a pleasant fashion, and the red tiles had the glow of the sun in their colours, and the half-timbered walls were not lacking in ruinous brace. it was a dilapidated old shed, and a neat-looking structure with a corrugated iron roof now stood in its place. beyond all was the grey prison wall of the horizon; but ambrose no longer gazed at it with the dim, hopeless eyes of old. he had a breviary among his books, and he thought of the words: _anima mea erepta est sicut passer de laqueo venantium_, and he knew that in a good season his body would escape also. the exile would end at last. he remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him--the story of eos amherawdur (the emperor nightingale). very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the emperor eos, who was above all the kings of the tylwydd têg, as the emperor of rome is head over all the kings of the earth. so that even gwyn ap nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the isle of britain, was but the man of eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. eos had his court in a vast forest, called wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between caerwent and caermaen, which is also called the city of the legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the waterfloods. here, then, was the palace of eos, built of the finest stones after the roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. for the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the emperor. if he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. but on common days they spread the emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of normandi. and sir caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command--go, count the drops of water that are in the uske river. but if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for eos hung the walls of it with dawn and sunset. he lit it with the sun and moon. there was a well in it called ocean. and nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which eos might hear mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. but eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. what, then, did he do? nothing less than this. he divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. and all the other birds said: "this is a contemptible stranger." the eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. in short never was anyone so despised as was eos by all the chorus of the birds. but wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the isle of britain. ambrose had heard the song from the faery regions. he had heard it in swift whispers at his ear, in sighs upon his breast, in the breath of kisses on his lips. never was he numbered amongst the despisers of eos. ii mr. horbury had suffered from one or two slight twinges of conscience for a few days after he had operated on his nephew. they were but very slight pangs, for, after all, it was a case of flagrant and repeated disobedience to rules, complicated by lying. the high usher was quite sincere in scouting the notion of a boy's taking any interest in norman architecture, and, as he said to himself, truly enough, if every boy at lupton could come and go when and how he pleased, and choose which rules he would keep and which disobey--why, the school would soon be in a pretty state. still, there was a very faint and indistinct murmur in his mind which suggested that meyrick had received, in addition to his own proper thrashing, the thrashings due to the head, his cook and his wine merchant. and horbury was rather sorry, for he desired to be just according to his definition of justice--unless, indeed justice should be excessively inconvenient. but these faint scruples were soon removed--turned, indeed, to satisfaction by the evident improvement which declared itself in ambrose meyrick's whole tone and demeanour. he no longer did his best to avoid rocker. he played, and played well and with relish. the boy was evidently all right at heart: he had only wanted a sharp lesson, and it was clear that, once a loafer, he was now on his way to be a credit to the school. and by some of those secret channels which are known to masters and to masters alone, rather more than a glimmering of the truth as to rawson's black eyes and pelly's disfigured nose was vouchsafed to horbury's vision, and he was by no means displeased with his nephew. the two boys had evidently asked for punishment, and had got it. it served them right. of course, if the swearing had been brought to his notice by official instead of by subterranean and mystic ways, he would have had to cane meyrick a second time, since, by the public school convention, an oath is a very serious offence--as bad as smoking, or worse; but, being far from a fool, under the circumstances he made nothing of it. then the lad's school work was so very satisfactory. it had always been good, but it had become wonderfully good. that last greek prose had shown real grip of the language. the high usher was pleased. his sharp lesson had brought forth excellent results, and he foresaw the day when he would be proud of having taught a remarkably fine scholar. with the boys ambrose was becoming a general favourite. he learned not only to play rocker, he showed pelly how he thought that blow under the ear should be dealt with. they all said he was a good fellow; but they could not make out why, without apparent reason, he would sometimes burst out into loud laughter. but he said it was something wrong with his inside--the doctors couldn't make it out--and this seemed rather interesting. in after life he often looked back upon this period when, to all appearance, lupton was "making a man" of him, and wondered at its strangeness. to boys and masters alike he was an absolutely normal schoolboy, busy with the same interests as the rest of them. there was certainly something rather queer in his appearance; but, as they said, generously enough, a fellow couldn't help his looks; and, that curious glint in the eyes apart, he seemed as good a luptonian as any in the whole six hundred. everybody thought that he had absolutely fallen into line; that he was absorbing the _ethos_ of the place in the most admirable fashion, subduing his own individuality, his opinions, his habits, to the general tone of the community around him--putting off, as it were, the profane dust of his own spirit and putting on the mental frock of the brotherhood. this, of course, is one of the aims--rather, _the_ great aim--of the system: this fashioning of very diverse characters into one common form, so that each great public school has its type, which is easily recognisable in the grown-up man years after his school days are over. thus, in far lands, in india and egypt, in canada and new zealand, one recognises the brisk alertness of the etonian, the exquisite politeness of harrow, the profound seriousness of rugby; while the note of lupton may, perhaps, be called finality. the old luptonian no more thinks of arguing a question than does the holy father, and his conversation is a series of irreformable dogmas, and the captious person who questions any one article is made to feel himself a cad and an outsider. thus it has been related that two men who had met for the first time at a certain country house-party were getting on together capitally in the evening over their whisky and soda and cigars. each held identical views of equal violence on some important topic--home rule or the transvaal or free trade--and, as the more masterful of the two asserted that hanging was too good for blank (naming a well-known statesman), the other would reply: "i quite agree with you: hanging is too good for blank." "he ought to be burned alive," said the one. "that's about it: he ought to be burned at the stake," answered the other. "look at the way he treated dash! he's a coward and a damned scoundrel!" "perfectly right. he's a damned cursed scoundrel!" this was splendid, and each thought the other a charming companion. unfortunately, however, the conversation, by some caprice, veered from the iniquities of blank and glanced aside to cookery--possibly by the track of irish stew, used metaphorically to express the disastrous and iniquitous policy of the great statesman with regard to ireland. but, as it happened, there was not the same coincidence on the question of cookery as there had been on the question of blank. the masterful man said: "no cookery like english. no other race in the world can cook as we do. look at french cookery--a lot of filthy, greasy messes." now, instead of assenting briskly and firmly as before the other man said: "been much in france? lived there?" "never set foot in the beastly country! don't like their ways, and don't care to dine off snails and frogs swimming in oil." the other man began then to talk of the simple but excellent meals he had relished in france--the savoury _croûte-au-pot_, the _bouilli_--good eating when flavoured by a gherkin or two; velvety _épinards au jus_, a roast partridge, a salad, a bit of roquefort and a bunch of grapes. but he had barely mentioned the soup when the masterful one wheeled round his chair and offered a fine view of his strong, well-knit figure--as seen from the back. he did not say anything--he simply took up the paper and went on smoking. the other men stared in amazement: the amateur of french cookery looked annoyed. but the host--a keen-eyed old fellow with a white moustache, turned to the enemy of frogs and snails and grease and said quite simply: "i say, mulock, i never knew you'd been at lupton." mulock gazed. the other men held their breath for a moment as the full force of the situation dawned on them, and then a wild scream of laughter shrilled from their throats. yells and roars of mirth resounded in the room. their delight was insatiable. it died for a moment for lack of breath, and then burst out anew in still louder, more uproarious clamour, till old sir henry rawnsley, who was fat and short, could do nothing but choke and gasp and crow out a sound something between a wheeze and a chuckle. mulock left the room immediately, and the house the next morning. he made some excuse to his host, but he told enquiring friends that, personally, he disliked bounders. the story, true or false, illustrates the common view of the lupton stamp. "we try to teach the boys to know their own minds," said the headmaster, and the endeavour seems to have succeeded in most cases. and, as horbury noted in an article he once wrote on the public school system, every boy was expected to submit himself to the process, to form and reform himself in accordance with the tone of the school. "i sometimes compare our work with that of the metal founder," he says in the article in question. "just as the metal comes to the foundry _rudis indigestaque moles_, a rough and formless mass, without the slightest suggestion of the shape which it must finally assume, so a boy comes to a great public school with little or nothing about him to suggest the young man who, in eight or nine years' time, will say good-bye to the dear old school, setting his teeth tight, restraining himself from giving up to the anguish of this last farewell. nay, i think that ours is the harder task, for the metal that is sent to the foundry has, i presume, been freed of its impurities; we have to deal rather with the ore--a mass which is not only shapeless, but contains much that is not metal at all, which must be burnt out and cast aside as useless rubbish. so the boy comes from his home, which may or may not have possessed valuable formative influences; which we often find has tended to create a spirit of individualism and assertiveness; which, in numerous cases, has left the boy under the delusion that he has come into the world to live his own life and think his own thoughts. this is the ore that we cast into our furnace. we burn out the dross and rubbish; we liquefy the stubborn and resisting metal till it can be run into the mould--the mould being the whole tone and feeling of a great community. we discourage all excessive individuality; we make it quite plain to the boy that he has come to lupton, not to live his life, not to think his thoughts, but to live _our_ life, to think _our_ thoughts. very often, as i think i need scarcely say, the process is a somewhat unpleasant one, but, sooner or later, the stubbornest metal yields to the cleansing, renewing, restoring fires of discipline and public opinion, and the shapeless mass takes on the shape of the great school. only the other day an old pupil came to see me and confessed that, for the whole of his first year at lupton, he had been profoundly wretched. 'i was a dreamy young fool,' he said. 'my head was stuffed with all sorts of queer fancies, and i expect that if i hadn't come to lupton i should have turned out an absolute loafer. but i hated it badly that first year. i loathed rocker--i did, really--and i thought the fellows were a lot of savages. and then i seemed to go into a kind of cloud. you see, sir, i was losing my old self and hadn't got the new self in its place, and i couldn't make out what was happening. and then, quite suddenly, it all came out light and clear. i saw the purpose behind it all--how we were all working together, masters and boys, for the dear old school; how we were all "members one of another," as the doctor said in chapel; and that i had a part in this great work, too, though i was only a kid in the third. it was like a flash of light: one minute i was only a poor little chap that nobody cared for and who didn't matter to anybody, and the next i saw that, in a way, i was as important as the doctor himself--i was a part of the failure or success of it all. do you know what i did, sir? i had a book i thought a lot of--_poems and tales_ of edgar allan poe. it was my poor sister's book; she had died a year before when she was only seventeen, and she had written my name in it when she was dying--she knew i was fond of reading it. it was just the sort of thing i used to like--morbid fancies and queer poems, and i was always reading it when the fellows would let me alone. but when i saw what life really was, when the meaning of it all came to me, as i said just now, i took that book and tore it to bits, and it was like tearing myself up. but i knew that writing all that stuff hadn't done that american fellow much good, and i didn't see what good i should get by reading it. i couldn't make out to myself that it would fit in with the doctor's plans of the spirit of the school, or that i should play up at rocker any better for knowing all about the "fall of the house of usher," or whatever it's called. i knew my poor sister would understand, so i tore it up, and i've gone straight ahead ever since--thanks to lupton.' _like a refiner's fire._ _i_ remembered the dreamy, absent-minded child of fifteen years before; i could scarcely believe that he stood before--keen, alert, practical, living every moment of his life, a force, a power in the world, certain of successful achievement." such were the influences to which ambrose meyrick was being subjected, and with infinite success, as it seemed to everybody who watched him. he was regarded as a conspicuous instance of the efficacy of the system--he had held out so long, refusing to absorb the "tone," presenting an obstinate surface to the millstones which would, for his own good, have ground him to powder, not concealing very much his dislike of the place and of the people in it. and suddenly he had submitted with a good grace: it was wonderful! the masters are believed to have discussed the affair amongst themselves, and horbury, who confessed or boasted that he had used sharp persuasion, got a good deal of _kudos_ in consequence. iii a few years ago a little book called _half-holidays_ attracted some attention in semi-scholastic, semi-clerical circles. it was anonymous, and bore the modest motto _crambe bis cocta_; but those behind the scenes recognised it as the work of charles palmer, who was for many years a master at lupton. his acknowledged books include a useful little work on the accents and an excellent summary of roman history from the fall of the republic to romulus augustulus. the _half-holidays_ contains the following amusing passage; there is not much difficulty in identifying the n. mentioned in it with ambrose meyrick. "the cleverest dominie sometimes discovers"--the passage begins--"that he has been living in a fool's paradise, that he has been tricked by a quiet and persistent subtlety that really strikes one as almost devilish when one finds it exhibited in the person of an english schoolboy. a good deal of nonsense, i think, has been written about boys by people who in reality know very little about them; they have been credited with complexities of character, with feelings and aspirations and delicacies of sentiment which are quite foreign to their nature. i can quite believe in the dead cat trick of stalky and his friends, but i confess that the incident of the british flag leaves me cold and sceptical. such refinement of perception is not the way of the boy--certainly not of the boy as i have known him. he is radically a simple soul, whose feelings are on the surface; and his deepest laid schemes and manoeuvres hardly call for the talents of a sherlock holmes if they are to be detected and brought to naught. of course, a good deal of rubbish has been talked about the wonderful success of our english plan of leaving the boys to themselves without the everlasting supervision which is practised in french schools. as a matter of fact, the english schoolboy is under constant supervision; where in a french school one wretched usher has to look after a whole horde of boys, in an english school each boy is perpetually under the observation of hundreds of his fellows. in reality, each boy is an unpaid _pion_, a watchdog whose vigilance never relaxes. he is not aware of this; one need scarcely say that such a notion is far from his wildest thoughts. he thinks, and very rightly, doubtless, that he is engaged in maintaining the honour of the school, in keeping up the observance of the school tradition, in dealing sharply with slackers and loafers who would bring discredit on the place he loves so well. he is, no doubt, absolutely right in all this; none the less, he is doing the master's work unwittingly and admirably. when one thinks of this, and of the compulsory system of games, which ensures that every boy shall be in a certain place at a certain time, one sees, i think, that the phrase about our lack of supervision _is_ a phrase and nothing more. there is no system of supervision known to human wit that approaches in thoroughness and minuteness the supervision under which every single boy is kept all through his life at an english public school. "hence one is really rather surprised when, in spite of all these unpaid assistants, who are the whole school, one is thoroughly and completely taken in. i can only remember one such case, and i am still astonished at the really infernal ability with which the boy in question lived a double life under the very eyes of the masters and six hundred other boys. n., as i shall call him, was not in my house, and i can scarcely say how i came to watch his career with so much interest; but there was certainly something about him which did interest me a good deal. it may have been his appearance: he was an odd-looking boy--dark, almost swarthy, dreamy and absent in manner, and, for the first years of his school life, a quite typical loafer. such boys, of course, are not common in a big school, but there are a few such everywhere. one never knows whether this kind will write a successful book, or paint a great picture, or go to the devil--from my observation i am sorry to say that the last career is the most usual. i need scarcely say that such boys meet with but little encouragement; it is not the type which the public school exists to foster, and the boy who abandons himself to morbid introspection is soon made to feel pretty emphatically that he is matter in the wrong place. of course, one may be crushing genius. if this ever happened it would be very unfortunate; still, in all communities the minority must suffer for the good of the majority, and, frankly, i have always been willing to run the risk. as i have hinted, the particular sort of boy i have in my mind turns out in nine cases out of ten to be not a genius, but that much more common type--a blackguard. "well, as i say, i was curious about n. i was sorry for him, too; both his parents were dead, and he was rather in the position of the poor fellows who have no home life to look forward to when the holidays are getting near. and his obstinacy astonished me; in most cases the pressure of public opinion will bring the slackest loafer to a sense of the error of his ways before his first term is ended; but n. seemed to hold out against us all with a sort of dreamy resistance that was most exasperating. i do not think he can have had a very pleasant time. his general demeanour suggested that of a sage who has been cast on an island inhabited by a peculiarly repulsive and degraded tribe of savages, and i need scarcely say that the other boys did their best to make him realise the extreme absurdity of such behaviour. he was clever enough at his work, but it was difficult to make him play games, and impossible to make him play up. he seemed to be looking through us at something else; and neither the boys nor the masters liked being treated as unimportant illusions. and then, quite suddenly, n. altered completely. i believe his housemaster, worn out of all patience, gave him a severe thrashing; at any rate, the change was instant and marvellous. "i remember that a few days before n.'s transformation we had been discussing the question of the cane at the weekly masters' meeting. i had confessed myself a very half-hearted believer in the efficacy of the treatment. i forget the arguments that i used, but i know that i was strongly inclined to favour the 'anti-baculist party,' as the head jocosely named it. but a few months later when n.'s housemaster pointed out n. playing up at football like a young demon, and then with a twinkle in his eye reminded me of the position i had taken up at the masters' meeting, there was nothing for it but to own that i had been in the wrong. the cane had certainly, in this case, proved itself a magic wand; the sometime loafer had been transformed by it into one of the healthiest and most energetic fellows in the whole school. it was a pleasure to watch him at the games, and i remember that his fast bowling was at once terrific in speed and peculiarly deadly in its accuracy. "he kept up this deception, for deception it was, for three or four years. he was just going up to oxford, and the whole school was looking forward to a career which we knew would be quite exceptional in its brilliance. his scholarship papers astonished the balliol authorities. i remember one of the fellows writing to our head about them in terms of the greatest enthusiasm, and we all knew that n.'s bowling would get him into the university eleven in his first term. cricketers have not yet forgotten a certain performance of his at the oval, when, as a poetic journalist observed, wickets fell before him as ripe corn falls before the sickle. n. disappeared in the middle of term. the whole school was in a ferment; masters and boys looked at one another with wild faces; search parties were sent out to scour the country; the police were communicated with; on every side one heard the strangest surmises as to what had happened. the affair got into the papers; most people thought it was a case of breakdown and loss of memory from overwork and mental strain. nothing could be heard of n., till, at the end of a fortnight, his housemaster came into our room looking, as i thought, puzzled and frightened. "'i don't understand,' he said. 'i've had this by the second post. it's in n.'s handwriting. i can't make head or tail of it. it's some sort of french, i suppose.' "he held out a paper closely written in n.'s exquisite, curious script, which always reminded me vaguely of some oriental character. the masters shook their heads as the manuscript went from hand to hand, and one of them suggested sending for the french master. but, as it happened, i was something of a student of old french myself, and i found i could make out the drift of the document that n. had sent his master. "it was written in the manner and in the language of rabelais. it was quite diabolically clever, and beyond all question the filthiest thing i have ever read. the writer had really exceeded his master in obscenity, impossible as that might seem: the purport of it all was a kind of nightmare vision of the school, the masters and the boys. everybody and everything were distorted in the most horrible manner, seen, we might say, through an abominable glass, and yet every feature was easily recognisable; it reminded me of swift's disgusting description of the yahoos, over which one may shudder and grow sick, but which one cannot affect to misunderstand. there was a fantastic episode which i remember especially. one of us, an ambitious man, who for some reason or other had become unpopular with a few of his colleagues, was described as endeavouring to climb the school clock-tower, on the top of which a certain object was said to be placed. the object was defended, so the writer affirmed, by 'the dark birds of night,' who resisted the master's approach in all possible and impossible manners. even to indicate the way in which this extraordinary theme was treated would be utterly out of the question; but i shall never forget the description of the master's face, turned up towards the object of his quest, as he painfully climbed the wall. i have never read even in the most filthy pages of rabelais, or in the savagest passages of swift, anything which approached the revolting cruelty of those few lines. they were compounded of hell-fire and the cloaca maxima. "i read out and translated a few of the least abominable sentences. i can hardly say whether the feeling of disgust or that of bewilderment predominated amongst us. one of my colleagues stopped me and said they had heard enough; we stared at one another in silence. the astounding ability, ferocity and obscenity of the whole thing left us quite dumbfounded, and i remember saying that if a volcano were suddenly to belch forth volumes of flame and filth in the middle of the playing fields i should scarcely be more astonished. and all this was the work of n., whose brilliant abilities in games and in the schools were to have been worth many thousands a year to x., as one of us put it! this was the boy that for the last four years we had considered as a great example of the formative influences of the school! this was the n. who we thought would have died for the honour of the school, who spoke as if he could never do enough to repay what x. had done for him! as i say, we looked at one another with faces of blank amazement and horror. at last somebody said that n. must have gone mad, and we tried to believe that it was so, for madness, awful calamity as it is, would be more endurable than sanity under such circumstances as these. i need scarcely say that this charitable hypothesis turned out to be quite unfounded: n. was perfectly sane; he was simply revenging himself for the suppression of his true feelings for the four last years of his school life. the 'conversion' on which we prided ourselves had been an utter sham; the whole of his life had been an elaborately organised hypocrisy maintained with unfailing and unflinching skill term after term and year after year. one cannot help wondering when one considers the inner life of this unhappy fellow. every morning, i suppose, he woke up with curses in his soul; he smiled at us all and joined in the games with black rage devouring him. so far as one can say, he was quite sincere in his concealed opinions at all events. the hatred, loathing and contempt of the whole system of the place displayed in that extraordinary and terrible document struck me as quite genuine; and while i was reading it i could not help thinking of his eager, enthusiastic face as he joined with a will in the school songs; he seemed to inspire all the boys about him with something of his own energy and devotion. the apparition was a shocking one; i felt that for a moment i had caught a glimpse of a region that was very like hell itself. "i remember that the french master contributed a characteristic touch of his own. of course, the headmaster had to be told of the matter, and it was arranged that m. and myself should collaborate in the unpleasant task of making a translation. m. read the horrible stuff through with an expression on his face that, to my astonishment, bordered on admiration, and when he laid down the paper he said: "'_eh bien: maître françois est encore en vie, évidemment. c'est le vrai renouveau de la renaissance; de la renaissance en très mauvaise humeur, si vous voulez, mais de la renaissance tout-de-même. si, si; c'est de la crû véritable, je vous assure. mais, notre bon n. est un rabelais qui a habité une terre affreusement sèche._' "i really think that to the frenchman the terrible moral aspect of the case was either entirely negligible or absolutely non-existent; he simply looked on n.'s detestable and filthy performance as a little masterpiece in a particular literary _genre_. heaven knows! one does not want to be a pharisee; but as i saw m. grinning appreciatively over this dung-heap i could not help feeling that the collapse of france before germany offered no insoluble problem to the historian. "there is little more to be said as to this extraordinary and most unpleasant affair. it was all hushed up as much as possible. no further attempts to discover n.'s whereabouts were made. it was some months before we heard by indirect means that the wretched fellow had abandoned the balliol scholarship and the most brilliant prospects in life to attach himself to a company of greasy barnstormers--or 'dramatic artists,' as i suppose they would be called nowadays. i believe that his subsequent career has been of a piece with these beginnings; but of that i desire to say nothing." the passage has been quoted merely in evidence of the great success with which ambrose meyrick adapted himself to his environment at lupton. palmer, the writer, who was a very well-meaning though intensely stupid person, has told the bare facts as he saw them accurately enough; it need not be said that his inferences and deductions from the facts are invariably ridiculous. he was a well-educated man; but in his heart of hearts he thought that rabelais, _maria monk, gay life in paris and la terre_ all came to much the same thing. iv in an old notebook kept by ambrose meyrick in those long-past days there are some curious entries which throw light on the extraordinary experiences that befell him during the period which poor palmer has done his best to illustrate. the following is interesting: "i told her she must not come again for a long time. she was astonished and asked me why--was i not fond of her? i said it was because i was so fond of her, that i was afraid that if i saw her often i could not live. i should pass away in delight because our bodies are not meant to live for long in the middle of white fire. i was lying on my bed and she stood beside it. i looked up at her. the room was very dark and still. i could only just see her faintly, though she was so close to me that i could hear her breathing quite well. i thought of the white flowers that grew in the dark corners of the old garden at the wern, by the great ilex tree. i used to go out on summer nights when the air was still and all the sky cloudy. one could hear the brook just a little, down beyond the watery meadow, and all the woods and hills were dim. one could not see the mountain at all. but i liked to stand by the wall and look into the darkest place, and in a little time those flowers would seem to grow out of the shadow. i could just see the white glimmer of them. she looked like the flowers to me, as i lay on the bed in my dark room. "sometimes i dream of wonderful things. it is just at the moment when one wakes up; one cannot say where one has been or what was so wonderful, but you know that you have lost everything in waking. for just that moment you knew everything and understood the stars and the hills and night and day and the woods and the old songs. they were all within you, and you were all light. but the light was music, and the music was violet wine in a great cup of gold, and the wine in the golden cup was the scent of a june night. i understood all this as she stood beside my bed in the dark and stretched out her hand and touched me on the breast. "i knew a pool in an old, old grey wood a few miles from the wern. i called it the grey wood because the trees were ancient oaks that they say must have grown there for a thousand years, and they have grown bare and terrible. most of them are all hollow inside and some have only a few boughs left, and every year, they say, one leaf less grows on every bough. in the books they are called the foresters' oaks. if you stay under them you feel as if the old times must have come again. among these trees there was a great yew, far older than the oaks, and beneath it a dark and shadowy pool. i had been for a long walk, nearly to the sea, and as i came back i passed this place and, looking into the pool, there was the glint of the stars in the water. "she knelt by my bed in the dark, and i could just see the glinting of her eyes as she looked at me--the stars in the shadowy waterpool! * * * * * "i had never dreamed that there could be anything so wonderful in the whole world. my father had told me of many beautiful and holy and glorious things, of all the heavenly mysteries by which those who know live for ever, all the things which the doctor and my uncle and the other silly clergymen in the chapel ...[1] because they don't really know anything at all about them, only their names, so they are like dogs and pigs and asses who have somehow found their way into a beautiful room, full of precious and delicate treasures. these things my father told me of long ago, of the great mystery of the offering. [footnote 1: a highly rabelaisian phrase is omitted.] "and i have learned the wonders of the old venerable saints that once were marvels in our land, as the welch poem says, and of all the great works that shone around their feet as they went upon the mountains and sought the deserts of ocean. i have seen their marks and writings cut on the edges of the rocks. i know where sagramnus lies buried in wlad morgan. and i shall not forget how i saw the blessed cup of teilo agyos drawn out from golden veils on mynydd mawr, when the stars poured out of the jewel, and i saw the sea of the saints and the spiritual things in cor-arbennic. my father read out to me all the histories of teilo, dewi, and iltyd, of their marvellous chalices and altars of paradise from which they made the books of the graal afterwards; and all these things are beautiful to me. but, as the anointed bard said: 'with the bodily lips i receive the drink of mortal vineyards; with spiritual understanding wine from the garths of the undying. may mihangel intercede for me that these may be mingled in one cup; let the door between body and soul be thrown open. for in that day earth will have become paradise, and the secret sayings of the bards shall be verified.' i always knew what this meant, though my father told me that many people thought it obscure or, rather, nonsense. but it is just the same really as another poem by the same bard, where he says: "'my sin was found out, and when the old women on the bridge pointed at me i was ashamed; i was deeply grieved when the boys shouted rebukes as i went from caer-newydd. how is it that i was not ashamed before the finger of the almighty? i did not suffer agony at the rebuke of the most high. the fist of rhys fawr is more dreadful to me than the hand of god.' "he means, i think, that our great loss is that we separate what is one and make it two; and then, having done so, we make the less real into the more real, as if we thought the glass made to hold wine more important than the wine it holds. and this is what i had felt, for it was only twice that i had known wonders in my body, when i saw the cup of teilo sant and when the mountains appeared in vision, and so, as the bard says, the door is shut. the life of bodily things is _hard_, just as the wineglass is hard. we can touch it and feel it and see it always before us. the wine is drunk and forgotten; it cannot be held. i believe the air about us is just as substantial as a mountain or a cathedral, but unless we remind ourselves we think of the air as nothing. it is not _hard_. but now i was in paradise, for body and soul were molten in one fire and went up in one flame. the mortal and the immortal vines were made one. through the joy of the body i possessed the joy of the spirit. and it was so strange to think that all this was through a woman--through a woman i had seen dozens of times and had thought nothing of, except that she was pleasant-looking and that the colour of her hair, like copper, was very beautiful. "i cannot understand it. i cannot feel that she is really nelly foran who opens the door and waits at table, for she is a miracle. how i should have wondered once if i had seen a stone by the roadside become a jewel of fire and glory! but if that were to happen, it would not be so strange as what happened to me. i cannot see now the black dress and the servant's cap and apron. i see the wonderful, beautiful body shining through the darkness of my room, the glimmering of the white flower in the dark, the stars in the forest pool. "'o gift of the everlasting! o wonderful and hidden mystery! many secrets have been vouchsafed to me. i have been long acquainted with the wisdom of the trees; ash and oak and elm have communicated to me from my boyhood, the birch and the hazel and all the trees of the green wood have not been dumb. there is a caldron rimmed with pearls of whose gifts i am not ignorant. i will speak little of it; its treasures are known to bards. many went on the search of caer-pedryfan, seven alone returned with arthur, but my spirit was present. seven are the apple trees in a beautiful orchard. i have eaten of their fruit, which is not bestowed on saxons. i am not ignorant of a head which is glorious and venerable. it made perpetual entertainment for the warriors; their joys would have been immortal. if they had not opened the door of the south, they could have feasted for ever, listening to the song of the fairy birds of rhiannon. let not anyone instruct me concerning the glassy isle, in the garments of the saints who returned from it were rich odours of paradise. all this i knew and yet my knowledge was ignorance, for one day, as i walked by caer-rhiu in the principal forest of gwent, i saw golden myfanwy, as she bathed in the brook tarógi. her hair flowed about her. arthur's crown had dissolved into a shining mist. i gazed into her blue eyes as it were into twin heavens. all the parts of her body were adornments and miracles. o gift of the everlasting! o wonderful and hidden mystery! when i embraced myfanwy a moment became immortality!'[2] [footnote 2: translated from the welsh verses quoted in the notebook.] "and yet i daresay this 'golden myfanwy' was what people call 'a common girl,' and perhaps she did rough, hard work, and nobody thought anything of her till the bard found her bathing in the brook of tarógi. the birds in the wood said, when they saw the nightingale: 'this is a contemptible stranger!' "_june 24._ since i wrote last in this book the summer has come. this morning i woke up very early, and even in this horrible place the air was pure and bright as the sun rose up and the long beams shone on the cedar outside the window. she came to me by the way they think is locked and fastened, and, just as the world is white and gold at the dawn, so was she. a blackbird began to sing beneath the window. i think it came from far, for it sang to me of morning on the mountain, and the woods all still, and a little bright brook rushing down the hillside between dark green alders, and air that must be blown from heaven. there is a bird that sings in the valley of the soar. dewi and tegfeth and cybi preside over that region; sweet is the valley, sweet the sound of its waters. there is a bird that sings in the valley of the soar; its voice is golden, like the ringing of the saints' bells; sweet is the valley, echoing with melodies. there is a bird that sings in the valley of the soar; tegfeth in the south won red martyrdom. her song is heard in the perpetual choirs of heaven. there is a bird that sings in the valley of the soar; dewi in the west had an altar from paradise. he taught the valleys of britain to resound with alleluia. there is a bird that sings in the valley of the soar; cybi in the north was the teacher of princes. through him edlogan sings praise to heaven. there is a bird that sings in the valley of the soar when shall i hear again the notes of its melody? when shall i behold once more gwladys in that valley?'[3] [footnote 3: the following translation of these verses appeared in _poems from the old bards_, by taliesin, bristol, 1812: "in soar's sweet valley, where the sound of holy anthems once was heard from many a saint, the hills prolong only the music of the bird. in soar's sweet valley, where the brook with many a ripple flows along, delicious prospects meet the eye, the ear is charmed with _phil'mel's_ song. in soar's sweet valley once a maid, despising worldly prospects gay, resigned her note in earthly choirs which now in heaven must sound alway. in soar's sweet valley david preached; his gospel accents so beguiled the savage britons, that they turned their fiercest cries to music mild. in soar's sweet valley cybi taught to haughty prince the holy law, the way to heaven he showed, and then the subject tribes inspired with awe. in soar's sweet valley still the song of phil'mel sounds and checks alarms. but when shall i once more renew those heavenly hours in gladys' arms?" "taliesin" was the pseudonym of an amiable clergyman, the reverend owen thomas, for many years curate of llantrisant. he died in 1820, at the great age of eighty-four. his original poetry in welsh was reputed as far superior to his translations, and he made a very valuable and curious collection of "cymric antiquities," which remains in manuscript in the keeping of his descendants.] "when i think of what i know, of the wonders of darkness and the wonders of dawn, i cannot help believing that i have found something which all the world has lost. i have heard some of the fellows talking about women. their words and their stories are filthy, and nonsense, too. one would think that if monkeys and pigs could talk about their she-monkeys and sows, it would be just like that. i might have thought that, being only boys, they knew nothing about it, and were only making up nasty, silly tales out of their nasty, silly minds. but i have heard the poor women in the town screaming and scolding at their men, and the men swearing back; and when they think they are making love, it is the most horrible of all. "and it is not only the boys and the poor people. there are the masters and their wives. everybody knows that the challises and the redburns 'fight like cats,' as they say, and that the head's daughter was 'put up for auction' and bought by the rich manufacturer from birmingham--a horrible, fat beast, more than twice her age, with eyes like pig's. they called it a splendid match. "so i began to wonder whether perhaps there are very few people in the world who know; whether the real secret is lost like the great city that was drowned in the sea and only seen by one or two. perhaps it is more like those shining isles that the saints sought for, where the deep apple orchards are, and all the delights of paradise. but you had to give up everything and get into a boat without oar or sails if you wanted to find avalon or the glassy isle. and sometimes the saints could stand on the rocks and see those islands far away in the midst of the sea, and smell the sweet odours and hear the bells ringing for the feast, when other people could see and hear nothing at all. "i often think now how strange it would be if it were found out that nearly everybody is like those who stood on the rocks and could only see the waves tossing and stretching far away, and the blue sky and the mist in the distance. i mean, if it turned out that we have all been in the wrong about everything; that we live in a world of the most wonderful treasures which we see all about us, but we don't understand, and kick the jewels into the dirt, and use the chalices for slop-pails and make the holy vestments into dish-cloths, while we worship a great beast--a monster, with the head of a monkey, the body of a pig and the hind legs of a goat, with swarming lice crawling all over it. suppose that the people that they speak of now as 'superstitious' and 'half-savages' should turn out to be in the right, and very wise, while we are all wrong and great fools! it would be something like the man who lived in the bright palace. the palace had a hundred and one doors. a hundred of them opened into gardens of delight, pleasure-houses, beautiful bowers, wonderful countries, fairy seas, caves of gold and hills of diamonds, into all the most splendid places. but one door led into a cesspool, and that was the only door that the man ever opened. it may be that his sons and his grandsons have been opening that one door ever since, till they have forgotten that there are any others, so if anyone dares to speak of the ways to the garden of delight or the hills of gold he is called a madman, or a very wicked person. "_july 15._ the other day a very strange thing happened. i had gone for a short walk out of the town before dinner on the dunham road and came as far as the four ways where the roads cross. it is rather pretty for lupton just there; there is a plot of grass with a big old elm tree in the middle of it, and round the tree is a rough sort of seat, where tramps and such people are often resting. as i came along i heard some sort of music coming from the direction of the tree; it was like fairies dancing, and then there were strange solemn notes like the priests' singing, and a choir answered in a deep, rolling swell of sound, and the fairies danced again; and i thought somehow of a grey church high on the cliff above a singing sea, and the fair people outside dancing on the close turf, while the service was going on all the while. as i came nearer i heard the sea waves and the wind and the cry of the seagulls, and again the high, wonderful chanting, as if the fairies and the rocks and the waves and the wild birds were all subject to that which was being done within the church. i wondered what it could be, and then i saw there was an old ragged man sitting on the seat under the tree, playing the fiddle all to himself, and rocking from side to side. he stopped directly he saw me, and said: "'ah, now, would your young honour do yourself the pleasure of giving the poor old fiddler a penny or maybe two: for lupton is the very hell of a town altogether, and when i play to dirty rogues the reel of the warriors, they ask for something about two obadiahs--the devil's black curse be on them! and it's but dry work playing to the leaf and the green sod--the blessing of the holy saints be on your honour now, this day, and for ever! 'tis but a scarcity of beer that i have tasted for a long day, i assure your honour.' "i had given him a shilling because i thought his music so wonderful. he looked at me steadily as he finished talking, and his face changed. i thought he was frightened, he stared so oddly. i asked him if he was ill. "'may i be forgiven,' he said, speaking quite gravely, without that wheedling way he had when he first spoke. 'may i be forgiven for talking so to one like yourself; for this day i have begged money from one that is to gain red martyrdom; and indeed that is yourself.' "he took off his old battered hat and crossed himself, and i stared at him, i was so amazed at what he said. he picked up his fiddle, and saying 'may you remember me in the time of your glory,' he walked quickly off, going away from lupton, and i lost sight of him at the turn of the road. i suppose he was half crazy, but he played wonderfully." iv i the materials for the history of an odd episode in ambrose meyrick's life are to be found in a sort of collection he made under the title "concerning gaiety." the episode in question dates from about the middle of his eighteenth year. "i do not know"--he says--"how it all happened. i had been leading two eager lives. on the outside i was playing games and going up in the school with a rush, and in the inside i was being gathered more and more into the sanctuaries of immortal things. all life was transfigured for me into a radiant glory, into a quickening and catholic sacrament; and, the fooleries of the school apart, i had more and more the sense that i was a participant in a splendid and significant ritual. i think i was beginning to be a little impatient with the outward signs: i _think_ i had a feeling that it was a pity that one had to drink wine out of a cup, a pity that kernels seemed to imply shells. i wanted, in my heart, to know nothing but the wine itself flowing gloriously from vague, invisible fountains, to know the things 'that really are' in their naked beauty, without their various and elaborate draperies. i doubt whether ruskin understood the motive of the monk who walked amidst the mountains with his eyes cast down lest he might see the depths and heights about him. ruskin calls this a narrow asceticism; perhaps it was rather the result of a very subtle aestheticism. the monk's inner vision might be fixed with such rapture on certain invisible heights and depths, that he feared lest the sight of their visible counterparts might disturb his ecstasy. it is probable, i think, that there is a point where the ascetic principle and the aesthetic become one and the same. the indian fakir who distorts his limbs and lies on spikes is at the one extreme, the men of the italian renaissance were at the other. in each case the true line is distorted and awry, for neither system attains either sanctity or beauty in the highest. the fakir dwells in _surfaces_, and the renaissance artist dwelt in _surfaces_; in neither case is there the inexpressible radiance of the invisible world shining through the surfaces. a cup of cellini's work is no doubt very lovely; but it is not beautiful in the same way as the old celtic cups are beautiful. "i think i was in some danger of going wrong at the time i am talking about. i was altogether too impatient of surfaces. heaven forbid the notion that i was ever in danger of being in any sense of the word a protestant; but perhaps i was rather inclined to the fundamental heresy on which protestantism builds its objection to what is called ritual. i suppose this heresy is really manichee; it is a charge of corruption and evil made against the visible universe, which is affirmed to be not 'very good,' but 'very bad'--or, at all events, too bad to be used as the vehicle of spiritual truth. it is extraordinary by the way, that the thinking protestant does not perceive that this principle damns all creeds and all bibles and all teaching quite as effectually as it damns candles and chasubles--unless, indeed, the protestant thinks that the logical understanding is a competent vehicle of eternal truth, and that god can be properly and adequately defined and explained in human speech. if he thinks _that_, he is an ass. incense, vestments, candles, all ceremonies, processions, rites--all these things are miserably inadequate; but they do not abound in the horrible pitfalls, misapprehensions, errors which are inseparable from speech of men used as an expression of the church. in a savage dance there may be a vast deal more of the truth than in many of the hymns in our hymn-books. "after all, as martinez said, we must even be content with what we have, whether it be censers or syllogisms, or both. the way of the censer is certainly the safer, as i have said; i suppose because the ruin of the external universe is not nearly so deep nor so virulent as the ruin of men. a flower, a piece of gold, no doubt approach their archetypes--what they were meant to be--much more nearly than man does; hence their appeal is purer than the speech or the reasoning of men. "but in those days at lupton my head was full of certain sentences which i had lit upon somewhere or other--i believe they must have been translations from some eastern book. i knew about a dozen of these maxims; all i can remember now are: "_if you desire to be inebriated: abstain from wine._" "_if you desire beauty: look not on beautiful things._" "_if you desire to see: let your eyes be blindfolded._" "_if you desire love: refrain from the beloved._" "i expect the paradox of these sayings pleased me. one must allow that if one has the inborn appetite of the somewhat subtle, of the truth not too crudely and barely expressed, there is no such atmosphere as that of a public school for sharpening this appetite to an edge of ravening, indiscriminate hunger. think of our friend the colonel, who is by way of being a _fin gourmet_; imagine him fixed in a boarding-house where the meals are a repeating cycle of irish stew, boiled rabbit, cold mutton and salt cod (without oyster or any other sause)! then let him out and place him in the café anglais. with what a fierce relish would he set tooth into curious and sought-out dishes! it must be remembered that i listened every sunday in every term to one of the doctor's sermons, and it is really not strange that i gave an eager ear to the voice of _persian wisdom_--as i think the book was called. at any rate, i kept nelly foran at a distance for nine or ten months, and when i saw a splendid sunset i averted my eyes. i longed for a love purely spiritual, for a sunset of vision. "i caught glimpses, too, i think, of a much more profound _askesis_ than this. i suppose you have the _askesis_ in its simplest, most rationalised form in the case of bill the engine-driver--i forget in what great work of _theologia moralis_ i found the instance; perhaps bill was really _quidam_ in the original, and his occupation stated as that of _nauarchus_. at all events, bill is fond of four-ale; but he had perceived that two pots of this beverage consumed before a professional journey tended to make him rather sleepy, rather less alert, than he might be in the execution of his very responsible duties. hence bill, considering this, wisely contents himself with _one_ pot before mounting on his cab. he has deprived himself of a sensible good in order that an equally sensible but greater good may be secured--in order that he and the passengers may run no risks on the journey. next to this simple asceticism comes, i suppose, the ordinary discipline of the church--the abandonment of sensible goods to secure spiritual ends, the turning away from the type to the prototype, from the sight of the eyes to the vision of the soul. for in the true asceticism, whatever its degree, there is always action to a certain end, to a perceived good. does the self-tormenting fakir act from this motive? i don't know; but if he does not, his discipline is not asceticism at all, but folly, and impious folly, too. if he mortifies himself merely for the sake of mortifying himself; then he defiles and blasphemes the temple. this in parenthesis. "but, as i say, i had a very dim and distant glimpse of another region of the _askesis_. mystics will understand me when i say that there are moments when the dark night of the soul is seen to be brighter than her brightest day; there are moments when it is necessary to drive away even the angels that there may be place for the highest. one may ascend into regions so remote from the common concerns of life that it becomes difficult to procure the help of analogy, even in the terms and processes of the arts. but suppose a painter--i need not say that i mean an artist--who is visited by an idea so wonderful, so super-exalted in its beauty that he recognises his impotence; he knows that no pigments and no technique can do anything but grossly parody his vision. well, he will show his greatness by _not_ attempting to paint that vision: he will write on a bare canvass _vidit anima sed non pinxit manus_. and i am sure that there are many romances which have never been written. it was a highly paradoxical, even a dangerous philosophy that affirmed god to be rather _non-ens_ than _ens_; but there are moods in which one appreciates the thought. "i think i caught, as i say, a distant vision of that night which excels the day in its splendour. it began with the eyes turned away from the sunset, with lips that refused kisses. then there came a command to the heart to cease from longing for the dear land of gwent, to cease from that aching desire that had never died for so many years for the sight of the old land and those hills and woods of most sweet and anguished memory. i remember once, when i was a great lout of sixteen, i went to see the lupton fair. i always liked the great booths and caravans and merry-go-rounds, all a blaze of barbaric green and red and gold, flaming and glowing in the middle of the trampled, sodden field against a background of lupton and wet, grey autumn sky. there were country folk then who wore smock-frocks and looked like men in them, too. one saw scores of these brave fellows at the fair: dull, good jutes with flaxen hair that was almost white, and with broad pink faces. i liked to see them in the white robe and the curious embroidery; they were a note of wholesomeness, an embassage from the old english village life to our filthy 'industrial centre.' it was odd to see how they stared about them; they wondered, i think, at the beastliness of the place, and yet, poor fellows, they felt bound to admire the evidence of so much money. yes, they were of old england; they savoured of the long, bending, broad village street, the gable ends, the grave fronts of old mellow bricks, the thatched roofs here and there, the bulging window of the 'village shop,' the old church in decorous, somewhat dull perpendicular among the elms, and, above all, the old tavern--that excellent abode of honest mirth and honest beer, relic of the time when there were men, and men who _lived_. lupton is very far removed from hardy's land, and yet as i think of these country-folk in their smock-frocks all the essence of hardy is distilled for me; i see the village street all white in snow, a light gleaming very rarely from an upper window, and presently, amid ringing bells, one hears the carol-singers begin: '_remember adam's fall, o thou man._' "and i love to look at the whirl of the merry-go-rounds, at the people sitting with grave enjoyment on those absurd horses as they circle round and round till one's eyes were dazed. drums beat and thundered, strange horns blew raucous calls from all quarters, and the mechanical music to which those horses revolved belched and blazed and rattled out its everlasting monotony, checked now and again by the shriek of the steam whistle, groaning into silence for a while: then the tune clanged out once more, and the horses whirled round and round. "but on this fair day of which i am speaking i left the booths and the golden, gleaming merry-go-rounds for the next field, where horses were excited to brief madness and short energy. i had scarcely taken up my stand when a man close by me raised his voice to a genial shout as he saw a friend a little way off. and he spoke with the beloved accent of gwent, with those tones that come to me more ravishing, more enchanting than all the music in the world. i had not heard them for years of weary exile! just a phrase or two of common greeting in those chanting accents: the fair passed away, was whirled into nothingness, its shouting voices, the charging of horses, drum and trumpet, clanging, metallic music--it rushed down into the abyss. there was the silence that follows a great peal of thunder; it was early morning and i was standing in a well-remembered valley, beside the blossoming thorn bush, looking far away to the wooded hills that kept the east, above the course of the shining river. i was, i say, a great lout of sixteen, but the tears flooded my eyes, my heart swelled with its longing. "now, it seemed, i was to quell such thoughts as these, to desire no more the fervent sunlight on the mountain, or the sweet scent of the dusk about the runnings of the brook. i had been very fond of 'going for walks'--walks of the imagination. i was afraid, i suppose, that unless by constant meditation i renewed the shape of the old land in my mind, its image might become a blurred and fading picture; i should forget little by little the ways of those deep, winding lanes that took courses that were almost subterranean over hill and vale, by woodside and waterside, narrow, cavernous, leaf-vaulted; cool in the greatest heats of summer. and the wandering paths that crossed the fields, that led one down into places hidden and remote, into still depths where no one save myself ever seemed to enter, that sometimes ended with a certain solemnity at a broken stile in a hedgerow grown into a thicket--within a plum tree returning to the savage life of the wood, a forest, perhaps, of blue lupins, and a great wild rose about the ruined walls of a house--all these ways i must keep in mind as if they were mysteries and great secrets, as indeed they were. so i strolled in memory through the pageant of gwent: 'lest i should forget the region of the flowers, lest i should become unmindful of the wells and the floods.' "but the time came, as i say, when it was represented to me that all this was an indulgence which, for a season at least, must be pretermitted. with an effort i voided my soul of memory and desire and weeping; when the idols of doomed twyn-barlwm, and great mynydd maen, and the silver esses of the usk appeared before me, i cast them out; i would not meditate white caerleon shining across the river. i endured, i think, the severest pains. de quincey, that admirable artist, that searcher into secrets and master of mysteries, has described my pains for me under the figure of the opium eater breaking the bonds of his vice. how often, when the abominations of lupton, its sham energies, its sham morals, its sham enthusiasms, all its battalia of cant surged and beat upon me, have i been sorely tempted to yield, to suffer no more the press of folly, but to steal away by a secret path i knew, to dwell in a secure valley where the foolish could never trouble me. sometimes i 'fell,' as i drank deep then of the magic well-water, and went astray in the green dells and avenues of the wildwood. still i struggled to refrain my heart from these things, to keep my spirit under the severe discipline of abstention; and with a constant effort i succeeded more and more. "but there was a yet deeper depth in this process of _catharsis_. i have said that sometimes one must expel the angels that god may have room; and now the strict ordinance was given that i should sever myself from that great dream of celtic sanctity that for me had always been _the_ dream, the innermost shrine in which i could take refuge, the house of sovran medicaments where all the wounds of soul and body were healed. one does not wish to be harsh; we must admit, i suppose, that moderate, sensible anglicanism must have _something_ in it--since the absolute sham cannot very well continue to exist. let us say, then, that it is highly favourable to a respectable and moral life, that it encourages a temperate and well-regulated spirit of devotion. it was certainly a very excellent and (according to her lights) devout woman who, in her version of the _anima christi_ altered 'inebriate me' to 'purify me,' and it was a good cleric who hated the vulgate reading, _calix meus inebrians_. my father had always instructed me that we must conform outwardly, and bear with _dearly beloved brethren_; while we celebrated in our hearts the ancient mass of the britons, and waited for cadwaladr to return. i reverenced his teaching, i still reverence it, and agree that we must conform; but in my heart i have always doubted whether moderate anglicanism be christianity in any sense, whether it even deserves to be called a religion at all. i do not doubt, of course, that many truly religious people have professed it: i speak of the system, and of the atmosphere which emanates from it. and when the public school _ethos_ is added to this--well, the resultant teaching comes pretty much to the dogma that heaven and the head are strict allies. one must not degenerate into ecclesiastical controversy; i merely want to say that i never dreamed of looking for religion in our chapel services. no doubt the _te deum_ was _still the te deum_, but the noblest of hymns is degraded, obscured, defiled, made ridiculous, if you marry it to a tune that would disgrace a penny gaff. personally, i think that the airs on the piano-organs are much more reverend compositions than anglican chants, and i am sure that many popular hymn tunes are vastly inferior in solemnity to _'e dunno where 'e are_. "no; the religion that led me and drew me and compelled me was that wonderful and doubtful mythos of the celtic church. it was the study--nay, more than the study, the enthusiasm--of my father's life; and as i was literally baptized with water from a holy well, so spiritually the great legend of the saints and their amazing lives had tinged all my dearest aspirations, had become to me the glowing vestment of the great mystery. one may sometimes be deeply interested in the matter of a tale while one is wearied or sickened by the manner of it; one may have to embrace the bright divinity on the horrid lips of the serpent of cos. or, on the other hand, the manner--the style--may be admirable, and the matter a mere nothing but a ground for the embroidery. but for me the celtic mythos was the perfect thing, the king's daughter: _omnis gloria ejus filiæ regis ab, intus, in fimbriis aureis circumamicta varietatibus_. i have learned much more of this great mystery since those days--i have seen, that is, how entirely, how absolutely my boyhood's faith was justified; but even then with but little knowledge i was rapt at the thought of this marvellous knight-errantry, of this christianity which was not a moral code, with some sort of metaphorical heaven held out as a reward for its due observance, but a great mystical adventure into the unknown sanctity. imagine a bishop of the established church getting into a boat without oar or sails! imagine him, if you can, doing anything remotely analagous to such an action. conceive the late archbishop tait going apart into the chapel at lambeth for three days and three nights; then you may well conceive the people in the opposite bank being dazzled with the blinding supernatural light poured forth from the chapel windows. of course, the end of the celtic church was ruin and confusion--but don quixote failed and fell, while sancho panza lived a fat, prosperous peasant. he inherited, i think, a considerable sum from the knight, and was, no doubt, a good deal looked up to in the village. "yes; the celtic church was the company of the great errantry, of the great mystery, and, though all the history of it seems but a dim and shadowy splendour, its burning rose-red lamp yet glows for a few, and from my earliest childhood i was indoctrinated in the great rite of cor-arbennic. when i was still very young i had been humoured with the sight of a wonderful relic of the saints--never shall i forget that experience of the holy magic of sanctity. every little wood, every rock and fountain, and every running stream of gwent were hallowed for me by some mystical and entrancing legend, and the thought of this high spiritual city and its blessed congregation could, in a moment, exercise and drive forth from me all the ugly and foolish and gibbering spectres that made up the life of that ugly and foolish place where i was imprisoned. "now, with a sorrowful farewell, i bade good-bye for a brief time (as i hoped it would be) to this golden legend; my heart was emptied of its treasures and its curious shows, and the lights on the altars were put out, and the images were strictly veiled. hushed was the chanting in the sovereign and perpetual choir, hidden were the high hallows of the saints, no more did i follow them to their cells in the wild hills, no more did i look from the rocks in the west and see them set forth for avalon. alas! "a great silence seemed to fall upon me, the silence of the depths beneath the earth. and with the silence there was darkness. only in a hidden place there was reserved the one taper--the light of conformity, of a perfect submission, that from the very excess of sorrow and deprivation drew its secret but quintessential joy. i am reminded, now that i look back upon this great purgation of the soul, of the story that i once read of the arabic alchemist. he came to the caliph haroun with a strange and extravagant proposal. haroun sat in all his splendour, his viziers, his chamberlains, his great officers about him, in his golden court which displayed all the wonders and superfluities of the east. he gave judgment; the wicked were punished, the virtuous were rewarded; god's name was exalted, the prophet was venerated. there came before the commander of the faithful a poor old man in the poor and ragged robes of a wandering poet; he was oppressed by the weight of his years, and his entrance was like the entrance of misery. so wretched was his appearance that one of the chamberlains, who was well acquainted with the poets, could not help quoting the well-known verses: "'between the main and a drop of rain the difference seen is nothing great. the sun so bright and the taper's light are alike and one save in pomp and state. in the grain of sand and in all the land what may ye arraign as disparate? a crust of bread and a king's board spread will hunger's lust alike abate. with the smallest blade or with host arrayed the ruler may quench his gall and hate. a stone in a box and a quarry of rocks may be shown to be of an equal freight. with a sentence bold or with gold untold the lover may hold or capture his mate. the king and the bard may alike be debarred from the fold of the lord compassionate.'" "the commander of the faithful praised god, the merciful, the compassionate, the king of the day of judgment, and caused the chamberlain to be handsomely rewarded. he then enquired of the old man for what reason he came before him, and the beggar (as, indeed, he seemed) informed the caliph that he had for many years prosecuted his studies in magic, alchemy, astrology and geomancy and all other curious and surprising arts, in spain, grand cairo, the land of the moors, india, china, in various cities of the infidels; in fact, in every quarter of the world where magicians were to be found. in proof of his proficiency he produced a little box which he carried about him for the purpose of his geomantic operations and asked anyone who was willing to stand forth, that he might hear his whole life, past, present and future. the caliph ordered one of his officers to submit himself to this ordeal, and the beggar having made the points in the sand, and having erected the figure according to the rules of the geomantic art, immediately informed the officer of all the most hidden transactions in which he had been engaged, including several matters which this officer thought had been secrets locked in his own breast. he also foretold his death in a year's time from a certain herb, and so it fell out, for he was strangled with a hempen cord by order of the caliph. in the meantime, the commander of the faithful and all about him were astonished, and the beggar magician was ordered to proceed with his story. he spoke at great length, and everyone remarked the elegance and propriety of his diction, which was wanting in no refinement of classical eloquence. but the sum of his speech was this--that he had discovered the greatest wonder of the whole world, the name of which he declared was asrar, and by this talisman he said that the caliph might make himself more renowned than all the kings that had ever reigned on the earth, not excepting king solomon, the son of david. this was the method of the operation which the beggar proposed. the commander of the faithful was to gather together all the wealth of his entire kingdom, omitting nothing that could possibly be discovered; and while this was being done the magician said that he would construct a furnace of peculiar shape in which all these splendours and magnificences and treasures of the world must be consumed in a certain fire of art, prepared with wisdom. and at last, he continued, after the operation had endured many days, the fire being all the while most curiously governed, there would remain but one drop no larger than a pearl, but glorious as the sun to the moon and all the starry heavens and the wonders of the compassionate; and with this drop the caliph haroun might heal all the sorrows of the universe. both the commander of the faithful and all his viziers and officers were stupefied by this proposal, and most of the assemblage considered the beggar to be a madman. the caliph, however, asked him to return the next day in order that his plans might receive more mature consideration. "the beggar prostrated himself and went forth from the hall of audience, but he returned no more, nor could it be discovered that he had been seen again by anyone. "'but one drop no larger than a pearl,' and 'where there is nothing there is all.' i have often thought of those sentences in looking back on that time when, as chesson said, i was one of those 'light-hearted and yet sturdy and reliable young fellows to whose hands the honour and safety of england might one day be committed.' i cast all the treasures i possessed into the alembic; again and again they were rectified by the heat of the fire 'most curiously governed'; i saw the 'engendering of the crow' black as pitch, the flight of the dove with silver wings, and at last sol rose red and glorious, and i fell down and gave thanks to heaven for this most wonderful gift, the 'sun blessed of the fire.' i had dispossessed myself of all, and i found that i possessed all; i had thrown away all the money in my purse, and i was richer than i had ever been; i had died, and i had found a new life in the land of the living. "it is curious that i should now have to explain the pertinency of all that i have written to the title of this note--concerning gaiety. it should not be necessary. the chain of thought is almost painfully obvious. but i am afraid it is necessary. "well: i once read an interesting article in the daily paper. it was written apropos of some shakespearean celebrations or other, and its purport was that modern england was ever so much happier than mediæval or elizabethian england. it is possible that an acute logician might find something to say on this thesis; but my interest lay in the following passages, which i quote: "'merrie england,' with its maypoles and its whitsun ales, and its shrove-tide jousts and junketings is dead for us, from the religious point of view. the england that has survived is, after all, a greater england still. it is puritan england.... the spirit has gone. surely it is useless to revive the form. wherefore should the may queen be "holy, wise, and fair," if not to symbolise the virgin mary? and as for shrove-tide, too, what point in jollity without a fast to follow?' "the article is not over-illuminating, but i think the writer had caught a glimpse of the truth that there is a deep relation between mirth and sanctity; that no real mirth is possible without the apprehension of the mysteries as its antecedent. the fast and the feast are complementary terms. he is right; there is no point in jollity unless there is a fast or something of the nature of a fast to follow--though, of course, there is nothing to hinder the most advanced thinker from drinking as much fusel-oil and raw russian spirit as he likes. but the result of this course is not real mirth or jollity; it is perhaps more essentially dismal than a 'tea' amongst the protestant dissenters. and, on the other hand, true gaiety is only possible to those who have fasted; and now perhaps it will be seen that i have been describing the preparations for a light-hearted festival. "the cloud passed away from me, the restrictions and inhibitions were suddenly removed, and i woke up one morning in dancing, bubbling spirits, every drop of blood in my body racing with new life, my nerves tingling and thrilling with energy. i laughed as i awoke; i was conscious that i was to engage in a strange and fantastic adventure, though i had not the remotest notion of what it was to be." ii ambrose meyrick's adventure was certainly of the fantastic order. his fame had long been established on a sure footing with his uncle and with everybody else, and mr. horbury had congratulated him with genuine enthusiasm on his work in the examinations--the summer term was drawing to a close. mr. horbury was ambrose's trustee, and he made no difficulty about signing a really handsome cheque for his nephew's holiday expenses and outfit. "there," he said "you ought to be able to do pretty well on that. where do you think of going?" ambrose said that he had thought of north devon, of tramping over exmoor, visiting the doone country, and perhaps of working down to dartmoor. "you couldn't do better. you ought to try your hand at fishing: wonderful sport in some of those streams. it mightn't come off at first, but with your eye and sense of distance you'll soon make a fine angler. if you _do_ have a turn at the trout, get hold of some local man and make him give you a wrinkle or two. it's no good getting your flies from town. now, when i was fishing in hampshire----" mr. horbury went on; but the devil of gaiety had already dictated a wonderful scheme to ambrose, and that night he informed nelly foran that she must alter her plans; she was to come with him to france instead of spending a fortnight at blackpool. he carried out this mad device with an ingenuity that poor mr. palmer would certainly have called "diabolical." in the first place, there was to be a week in london--for nelly must have some clothes; and this week began as an experience of high delight. it was not devoid of terror, for masters might be abroad, and ambrose did not wish to leave lupton for some time. however, they neither saw nor were seen. arriving at st. pancras, the luggage was left in the station, and ambrose, who had studied the map of london, stood for a while on the pavement outside scott's great masterpiece of architecture and considered the situation with grave yet humorous deliberation. nelly proved herself admirably worthy of the adventure; its monstrous audacity appealed to her, and she was in a state of perpetual subdued laughter for some days after their arrival. meyrick looked about him and found that the euston road, being squalid and noisy, offered few attractions; and with sudden resolution he took the girl by the arm and steered into the heart of bloomsbury. in this charmingly central and yet retired quarter they found rooms in a quiet byway which, oddly enough, looked on a green field; and under the pleasant style of mr. and mr. lupton they partook of tea while the luggage was fetched by somebody--probably a husband--who came with a shock of red, untidy hair from the dark bowels of the basement. they screamed with mirth over the meal. mr. horbury had faults, but he kept a good table for himself, his boys and his servants; and the exotic, quaint flavour of the "bread" and "butter" seemed to these two young idiots exquisitely funny. and the queer, faint, close smell, too, of the whole house--it rushed out at one when the hall door was opened: it was heavy, and worth its weight in gold. "i never know," ambrose used to say afterwards, "whether to laugh or cry when i have been away for some time from town, and come back and smell that wonderful old london aroma. i don't believe it's so strong or so rare as it used to be; i have been disappointed once or twice in houses in quite shabby streets. it was _there_, of course, but--well, if it were a vintage wine i should say it was a second growth of a very poor year--margaux, no doubt, but a margaux of one of those very indifferent years in the early 'seventies. or it may be like the smell of grease-paints; one doesn't notice it after a month or two. but i don't think it is. "still," he would go on, "i value what i can smell of it. it brings back to me that afternoon, that hot, choking afternoon of ever so many years ago. it was really tremendously hot--ninety-two degrees, i think i saw in the paper the next day--and when we got out at st. pancras the wind came at one like a furnace blast. there was no sun visible; the sky was bleary--a sort of sickly, smoky yellow, and the burning wind came in gusts, and the dust hissed and rattled on the pavement. do you know what a low public-house smells like in london on a hot afternoon? do you know what london bitter tastes like on such a day--the publican being evidently careful of his clients' health, and aware of the folly of drinking cold beverages during a period of extreme heat? i do. nelly, poor dear, had warm lemonade, and i had warm beer--warm chemicals, i mean. but the odour! why doesn't some scientific man stop wasting his time over a lot of useless rubbish and discover a way of bottling the odour of the past? "ah! but if he did so, in a phial of rare crystal with a stopper as secure as the seal of solimaun ben daoud would i preserve one most precious scent, inscribing on the seal, within a perfect pentagram, the mystic legend 'no. 15, little russell row.'" the cat had come in with the tea-tray. he was a black cat, not very large, with a decent roundness of feature, and yet with a suggestion of sinewy skinniness about him--the skinniness of the wastrel, not of the poor starveling. his bright green eyes had, as ambrose observed, the wisdom of egypt; on his tomb should be inscribed "the justified in sekht." he walked solemnly in front of the landlady, his body describing strange curves, his tail waving in the air, and his ears put back with an expression of intense cunning. he seemed delighted at "the let," and when nelly stroked his back he gave a loud shriek of joy and made known his willingness to take a little refreshment. they laughed so heartily over their tea that when the landlady came in to clear the things away they were still bubbling over with aimless merriment. "i likes to see young people 'appy," she said pleasantly, and readily provided a latchkey in case they cared to come in rather late. she told them a good deal of her life: she had kept lodgings in judd street, near king's cross--a nasty, noisy street, she called it--and she seemed to think the inhabitants a low lot. she had to do with all sorts, some good some bad, and the business wasn't what it had been in her mother's day. they sat a little while on the sofa, hand in hand still consumed with the jest of their being there at all, and imagining grotesque entrances of mr. horbury or dr. chesson. then they went out to wander about the streets, to see london easily, merrily, without bothering the monument, or the british museum, or madame tussaud's--finally, to get something to eat, they didn't know when or where or how, and they didn't in the least care! there was one "sight" they were not successful in avoiding: they had not journeyed far before the great portal of the british museum confronted them, grandiose and gloomy. so, by the sober way of great russell street, they made their way into tottenham court road and, finally, into oxford street. the shops were bright and splendid, the pavement was crowded with a hurrying multitude, as it seemed to the country folk, though it was the dullest season of the year. it was a great impression--decidedly london was a wonderful place. already ambrose felt a curious sense of being at home in it; it was not beautiful, but it was on the immense scale; it did something more than vomit stinks into the air, poison into the water and rows of workmen's houses on the land. they wandered on, and then they had the fancy that they would like to explore the regions to the south; it was so impossible, as ambrose said, to know where they would find themselves eventually. he carefully lost himself within a few minutes of oxford street. a few turnings to right and then to left; the navigation of strange alleys soon left them in the most satisfactory condition of bewilderment; the distinctions of the mariner's compass, its pedantry of east and west, north and south, were annihilated and had ceased to be; it was an adventure in a trackless desert, in the australian bush, but on safer ground and in an infinitely more entertaining scene. at first they had passed through dark streets, georgian and augustan ways, gloomy enough, and half deserted; there were grave houses, with many stories of windows, now reduced to printing offices, to pickle warehouses, to odd crafts such as those of the metal assayer, the crucible maker, the engraver of seals, the fabricator of boule. but how wonderful it was to see the actual place where those things were done! ambrose had read of such arts, but had always thought of them as existing in a vague void--if some of them even existed at all in those days: but there in the windows were actual crucibles, strange-looking curvilinear pots of grey-yellowish ware, the veritable instruments of the magnum opus, inventions of arabia. he was no longer astonished when a little farther he saw a harpsichord, which had only been a name to him, a beautiful looking thing, richly inlaid, with its date--1780--inscribed on a card above it. it was now utterly wonderland: he could very likely buy armour round the corner; and he had scarcely formed the thought when a very fine sixteenth-century suit, richly damascened, rose up before him, handsomely displayed between two black jacks. these were the comparatively silent streets; but they turned a corner, and what a change! all the roadway, not the pavement only, seemed full of a strolling, chatting, laughing mob of people: the women were bareheaded, and one heard nothing but the roll of the french "r," torrents of sonorous sound trolled out with the music of happy song. the papers in the shops were all french, ensigns on every side proclaimed "vins fins," "beaune supérieur": the tobacconists kept their tobacco in square blue, yellow and brown packets; "charcuterie" made a brave and appetising show. and here was a "café restaurant: au château de chinon." the name was enough; they could not dine elsewhere, and ambrose felt that he was honouring the memory of the great rabelais. it was probably not a very good dinner. it was infinitely better than the soho dinner of these days, for the quarter had hardly begun to yield to the attack of art, intellect and the suburbs which, between them, have since destroyed the character and unction of many a good cook-shop. ambrose only remembered two dishes; the _pieds de porc grillés_ and the salad. the former he thought both amusing and delicious, and the latter was strangely and artfully compounded of many herbs, of little vinegar, of abundant provençal oil, with the _chapon_, or crust rubbed with garlic, reposing at the bottom of the bowl after madame had "tormented" the ingredients--the salad was a dish from fairyland. there be no such salads now in all the land of soho. "let me celebrate, above all, the little red wine," says ambrose in a brief dithyrambic note. "not in any mortal vineyard did its father grape ripen; it was not nourished by the warmth of the visible sun, nor were the rains that made it swell common waters from the skies above us. not even in the chinonnais, sacred earth though that be, was the press made that caused its juices to be poured into the _cuve_, nor was the humming of its fermentation heard in any of the good cellars of the lower touraine. but in that region which keats celebrates when he sings the 'mermaid tavern' was this juice engendered--the vineyard lay low down in the south, among the starry plains where is the _terra turonensis celestis_, that unimaginable country which rabelais beheld in his vision where mighty gargantua drinks from inexhaustible vats eternally, where pantagruel is athirst for evermore, though he be satisfied continually. there, in the land of the crowned immortal tosspots was that wine of ours vintaged, red with the rays of the dog-star, made magical by the influence of venus, fertilised by the happy aspect of mercury. o rare, superabundant and most excellent juice, fruit of all fortunate stars, by thee were we translated, exalted into the fellowship of that tavern of which the old poet writes: _mihi est propositum in taberna mori!_" there were few english people in the château de chinon--indeed, it is doubtful whether there was more than one--the ménage lupton excepted. this one compatriot happened to be a rather remarkable man--it was carrol. he was not in the vanguard of anything; he knew no journalists and belonged to no clubs; he was not even acquainted in the most distant manner with a single person who could be called really influential or successful. he was an obscure literary worker, who published an odd volume every five or six years: now and then he got notices, when there was no press of important stuff in the offices, and sometimes a kindly reviewer predicted that he would come out all right in time, though he had still much to learn. about a year before he died, an intelligent reading public was told that one or two things of his were rather good; then, on his death, it was definitely discovered that the five volumes of verse occupied absolutely unique ground, that a supreme poet had been taken from us, a poet who had raised the english language into a fourth dimension of melody and magic. the intelligent reading public read him no more than they ever did, but they buy him in edition after edition, from large quarto to post octavo; they buy him put up into little decorated boxes; they buy him on japanese vellum; they buy him illustrated by six different artists; they discuss no end of articles about him; they write their names in the carrol birthday book; they set up the carrol calendar in their boudoirs; they have quotations from him in westminster abbey and st. paul's cathedral; they sing him in the famous carrol cycle of song; and, last and best of all, a brilliant american playwright is talking even now of dramatising him. the carrol club, of course, is ancient history. its membership is confined to the ranks of intellect and art; it invites to its dinners foreign princes, bankers, major-generals and other persons of distinction--all of whom, of course, are intensely interested in the master's book; and the record and praise of the club are in all the papers. it is a pity that carrol is dead. he would not have sworn: he would have grinned. even then, though he was not glorious, he was observant, and he left a brief note, a sort of thumb-nail sketch, of his impressions that night at the château de chinon. "i was sitting in my old corner," he says, "wondering why the devil i wrote so badly on the whole, and what the devil i was going to do with the subject that i had tackled. the dinner was not so bad at the old château in those days, though now they say the plate-glass is the best dish in the establishment. i liked the old place; it was dingy and low down and rather disreputable, i fancy, and the company was miscellaneous french with a dash of italian. nearly all of us knew each other, and there were regulars who sat in the same seat night after night. i liked it all. i liked the coarse tablecloths and the black-handled knives and the lead spoons and the damp, adhesive salt, and the coarse, strong, black pepper that one helped with a fork handle. then there was madame sitting on high, and i never saw an uglier woman nor a more good-natured. i was getting through my roast fowl and salad that evening, when two wonderful people came in, obviously from fairyland! i saw they had never been in such a place in all their lives before--i don't believe either of them had set foot in london until that day, and their wonder and delight and enjoyment of it all were so enormous that i had another helping of food and an extra half-bottle of wine. i enjoyed them, too, in their way, but i could see that _their_ fowl and _their_ wine were not a bit the same as mine. _i_ once knew the restaurant they were really dining at--grand café de paradis--some such name as that. he was an extraordinary looking chap, quite young, i should fancy, black hair, dark skin, and such burning eyes! i don't know why, but i felt he was a bit out of his setting, and i kept thinking how i should like to see him in a monk's robe. madame was different. she was a lovely girl with amazing copper hair; dressed rather badly--of the people, i should imagine. but what a gaiety she had! i couldn't hear what they were saying, but one had to smile with sheer joy at the sight of her face--it positively danced with mirth, and a good musician could have set it to music, i am sure. there was something a little queer--too pronounced, perhaps--about the lower part of her face. perhaps it would have been an odd tune, but i know i should have liked to hear it!" ambrose lit a black caporal cigarette--he had bought a packet on his way. he saw an enticing bottle, of rotund form, paying its visits to some neighbouring tables, and the happy fools made the acquaintance of benedictine. "oh, yes, it is all very well," ambrose has been heard to say on being offered this agreeable and aromatic liqueur, "it's nice enough, i daresay. but you should have tasted the _real_ stuff. i got it at a little cafe in soho some years ago--the château de chinon. no, it's no good going there now, it's quite different. all the walls are plate-glass and gold; the head waiter is called maître d'hôtel, and i am told it's quite the thing, both in southern and northern suburbs, to make up dinner parties at the château--everything most correct, evening dress, fans, opera cloaks, 'hide-seek' champagne, and stalls afterwards. one gets a glimpse of bohemian life that way, and everybody says it's been such a queer evening, but quite amusing, too. but you can't get the real benedictine there now. "where can you get it? ah! i wish i knew. _i_ never come across it. the bottle looks just the same, but it's quite a different flavour. the phylloxera may be responsible, of course, but i don't think it is. perhaps the bottle that went round the table that night was like the powder in _jekyll and hyde_--its properties were the result of some strange accident. at all events, they were quite magical." the two adventurers went forth into the maze of streets and lost themselves again. heaven knows where they went, by what ways they wandered, as with wide-gleaming eyes, arm locked in arm, they gazed on an enchanted scene which they knew must be london and nothing else--what else could it be? indeed, now and again, ambrose thought he recognized certain features and monuments and public places of which he had read; but still! that wine of the château was, by all mundane reckonings, of the smallest, and one little glass of benedictine with coffee could not disturb the weakest head: yet was it london, after all? what they saw was, doubtless, the common world of the streets and squares, the gay ways and the dull, the broad, ringing, lighted roads and the dark, echoing passages; yet they saw it all as one sees a mystery play, through a veil. but the veil before their eyes was a transmuting vision, and its substance was shot as if it were samite, with wonderful and admirable golden ornaments. in the eastern tales, people find themselves thus suddenly transported into an unknown magical territory, with cities that are altogether things of marvel and enchantment, whose walls are pure gold, lighted by the shining of incomparable jewels; and ambrose declared later that never till that evening had he realized the extraordinary and absolute truth to nature of the _arabian nights_. those who were present on a certain occasion will not soon forget his rejoinder to "a gentleman in the company" who said that for truth to nature he went to george eliot. "i was speaking of men and women, sir," was the answer, "not of lice." the gentleman in question, who was quite an influential man--some whisper that he was an editor--was naturally very much annoyed. still, ambrose maintained his position. he would even affirm that for crude realism the eastern tales were absolutely unique. "of course," he said, "i take realism to mean absolute and essential truthfulness of description, as opposed to merely conventional treatment. zola is a realist, not--as the imbeciles suppose--because he described--well, rather minutely--many unpleasant sights and sounds and smells and emotions, but because he was a poet, a seer; because, in spite of his pseudo-philosophies, his cheap materialisms, he saw the true heart, the reality of things. take _la terre_; do you think it is 'realistic' because it describes minutely, and probably faithfully, the event of a cow calving? not in the least; the local vet. who was called in could probably do all that as well, or better. it is 'realist' because it goes behind all the brutalities, all the piggeries and inhumanities, of those frightful people, and shows us the strange, mad, transcendent passion that lay behind all those things--the wild desire for the land--a longing that burned, that devoured, that inflamed, that drove men to hell and death as would a passion for a goddess who might never be attained. remember how 'la beauce' is personified, how the earth swells and quickens before one, how every clod and morsel of the soil cries for its service and its sacrifice and its victims--i call _that_ realism. "the _arabian nights_ is also profoundly realistic, though both the subject-matter and the method of treatment--the technique--are very different from the subject-matter and the technique of zola. of course, there may be people who think that if you describe a pigsty well you are a 'realist,' and if you describe an altar well you are 'romantic.' ... i do not know that the mental processes of crétins form a very interesting subject for discussion." one may surmise, if one will, that the sudden violence of the change was a sufficient cause of exaltation. that detestable lupton left behind; no town, but a collection of stink and poison factories and slave quarters; that more detestable school, more ridiculous than the academy of lagado; that most detestable routine, games, lessons and the doctor's sermons--the transition was tremendous to the freedom of fabled london, of the unknown streets and unending multitudes. ambrose said he hesitated to talk of that walk, lest he should be thought an aimless liar. they strolled for hours seeing the most wonderful things, the most wonderful people; but he declared that the case was similar to that of the benedictine--he could never discover again the regions that he had perambulated. somewhere, he said, close to the château de chinon there must be a passage which had since been blocked up. by it was the entrance to fairyland. when at last they found little russell row, the black cat was awaiting them with an expression which was pleased and pious, too; he had devoured the greater portion of that quarter-pound of dubious butter. ambrose smoked black cigarettes in bed till the packet was finished. iii it was an amazing week they spent in london. for a couple of days nelly was busied in getting "things" and "odds and ends," and, to her credit, she dressed the part most admirably. she abjured all the imperial purples, the mediterranean blues, the shrieking lilacs that her class usually affects, and appeared at last a model of neat gaiety. in the meantime, while these shopping expeditions were in progress, while nelly consulted with those tall, dark-robed, golden-haired and awful elegances which preside over the last mysteries of the draper and milliner, ambrose sat at home in little russell row and worked out the outlines of some fantasies that had risen in his mind. it was, in fact, during these days that he made the notes which were afterwards expanded into the curious _defence of taverns_, a book which is now rare and sought after by collectors. it is supposed that it was this work that was in poor palmer's mind when the earnest man referred with a sort of gloomy reticence to meyrick's later career. he had, in all probability, not read a line of it; but the title was certainly not a very pleasing one, judged by ordinary scholastic standards. and it must be said that the critical reception of the book was not exactly encouraging. one paper wondered candidly why such a book was ever written or printed; another denounced the author in good, set terms as an enemy of the great temperance movement; while a third, a monthly reviewer, declared that the work made his blood boil. yet even the severest moralists should have seen by the epigraph that the apes and owls and antiques hid mysteries of some sort, since a writer whose purposes were really evil and intemperate would never have chosen such a motto as: _jalalúd-din praised the behaviour of the inebriated and drank water from the well_. but the reviewers thought that this was unintelligible nonsense, and merely a small part of the writer's general purpose to annoy. the rough sketch is contained in the first of the _note books_, which are still unpublished, and perhaps are likely to remain so. meyrick jotted down his hints and ideas in the dingy "first floor front" of the bloomsbury lodging-house, sitting at the rosewood "davenport" which, to the landlady, seemed the last word in beautiful furniture. the ménage rose late. what a relief it was to be free of the horrible bells that poisoned one's rest at lupton, to lie in peace as long as one liked, smoking a matutinal cigarette or two to the accompaniment of a cup of tea! nelly was acquiring the art of the cigarette-smoker by degrees. she did not like the taste at all at first, but the wild and daring deviltry of the practice sustained her, and she persevered. and while they thus wasted the best hours of the day, ambrose would make to pass before the bottom of the bed a long procession of the masters, each uttering his characteristic word of horror and astonishment as he went by, each whirled away by some invisible power in the middle of a sentence. thus would enter chesson, fully attired in cassock, cap and gown: "meyrick! it is impossible? are you not aware that such conduct as this is entirely inconsistent with the tone of a great public school? have the games ..." but he was gone; his legs were seen vanishing in a whirlwind which bore him up the chimney. then horbury rose out of the carpet: "plain living and clear thinking are the notes of the system. a spartan discipline--meyrick! do you call this a spartan discipline? smoking tobacco and reposing with ..." he shot like an arrow after the head. "we discourage luxury by every means in our power. boy! this is luxury! boy, boy! you are like the later romans, boy! heliogabalus was accustomed ..." the chimney consumed palmer also; and he gave place to another. "roughly speaking, a boy should be always either in school or playing games. he should never be suffered to be at a loose end. is this your idea of playing games? i tell you, meyrick ..." the game amused nelly, more from its accompanying "business" and facial expression than from any particular comprehension of the dialogue. ambrose saw that she could not grasp all the comedy of his situations, so he invented an idyll between the doctor and a notorious and flamboyant barmaid at the "bell." the fame of this lady ran great but not gracious through all lupton. this proved a huge success; beginning as a mere episode, it gathered to itself a complicated network of incidents and adventures, of wild attempts and strange escapes, of stratagems and ambushes, of disguises and alarms. indeed, as ambrose instructed nelly with great solemnity, the tale, at first an idyll, the simple, pastoral story of the loves of the shepherd chesson and the nymph bella, was rapidly becoming epical in its character. he talked of dividing it into twelve books! he enlarged very elaborately the defeat of the suitors. in this the dear old head, disguised as a bookmaker, drugged the whisky of the young bloods who were accustomed to throng about the inner bar of the "bell." there was quite a long passage describing the compounding of the patent draught from various herbs, the enormous cook at the head's house enacting a kind of canidia part, and helping in the concoction of the dose. "mrs. belper," the doctor would observe, "this is _most_ gratifying. i had no idea that your knowledge of simples was so extensive. do i understand you to affirm that those few leaves which you hold in your hand will produce marked symptoms?" "bless your dear 'art, doctor chesson, and if you'll forgive me for talking so to such a learned gentleman, and so good, i'm sure, but you'll find there's nothing in the world like it. often and often have i 'eard my pore old mother that's dead and gone these forty year come candlemas ..." "mrs. belper, mrs. belper, i am surprised at you! are you not aware that the judicial committee of the privy council has pronounced the observance of the festival you so lightly name to be of a highly superstitious nature? your deceased mother, you were saying, will have entered into her reward forty years ago on february the second of next year? is not this the case?" "these forty years came febbymas, i mean, and a good woman she was, and never have i seen a larger wart on the nose and her legs bad as bad for years and years!" "these details, though, no doubt, of high personal interest, seem hardly germane to our present undertaking. however, mrs. belper, proceed in your remarks." "and thank you kindly, sir, and not forgetting you are a clergyman--but there! we can't all of us be everything. and my pore mother, as i was saying, sir, she said, again and again, that if she'd been like some folks she'd a made a fortune in golden money from this very yarb i'm a-showing you, sir." "dear me, mrs. belper! you interest me deeply. i have often thought how wrong it is of us to neglect, as undoubtedly we _do_ neglect, the bounteous gifts of the kindly earth. your lamented mother used this specific with remarkable success?" "lord a mercy, doctor 'chesson! elephants couldn't a stood against it, nor yet whales, being as how it's stronger than the strongest gunpowder that was ever brewed or blasted, and miles better than the nasty rubbidge you get in them doctors' shops, and a pretty penny they make you pay for it and no better than calomel, if you ask me, sir. but be it the strongest of the strong, i'll take my gospel oath it's weak to what my pore mother made, and that anybody in much moddle parish would tell you, for man, woman or child who took one of mrs. marjoram's mixtures and got over it, remember it, he would, until his dying day. and my pore old mother, she was that funny--never was a cheerfuller woman, i do believe, and when tom copus, the lame fiddler, he got married, pore mother! though she could hardly walk, her legs was that bad, come she would, and if she didn't slip a little of the mixture into the beer when everybody was looking another way! pore, dear soul! as she said herself afterwards, 'mirth becomes marriage,' and so to be sure it does, and merry they all were that day that didn't touch the beer, preferring spirits, which pore mother couldn't get at, being locked up--a nasty, mean trick, i call it, and always will." "enough, mrs. belper, enough! you have amply satisfied me as to the potency of the late mrs. marjoram's pharmacopoeia. we will, if you have no objection, mrs. belper, make the mixture--to use the words of shakespeare--'slab and thick.'" "and bless your kind 'art, sir, and a good, kind master you've always been to me, if you 'aven't got enough 'ere to lay out all the lupton town, call me a dutchwoman, and that i never was, nor pore belper neither." "certainly not, mrs. belper. the dutch belong to a different branch of the great teutonic stock, or, if identity had ever existed, the two races have long been differentiated. i think, mrs. belper, that the most eminent physicians have recognised the beneficial effects of a gentle laxative during the treacherous (though delightful) season of spring?" "law bless you, sir, you're right, as you always are, or why, doctor? as my pore mother used to say when she made up the mixture: 'scour 'em out is the right way about!' and laugh she would as she pounded the stuff up till i really thought she would 'a busted, and shaking like the best blancmanges all the while." "mrs. belper, you have removed a weight from my mind. you think, then, that i shall be freed from all unfair competition while i pay my addresses to my young friend, miss floyer?" "as free you will be, doctor chesson, sir, as the little birds in the air; for not one of them young fellers will stand on his feet for days, and groans and 'owls will be the best word that mortal man will speak, and bless you they will with their dying breath. so, sir, you'll 'ave the sweet young lady, bless her dear 'art, all to yourself, and if it's twins, don't blame me!" "mrs. belper, your construction, if i may say so, is somewhat proleptic in its character. still, i am sure that your meaning is good. ha! i hear the bell for afternoon school." the doctor's voice happened to be shrill and piercing, with something of the tone of the tooth-comb and tissue-paper; while the fat cook spoke in a suety, husky contralto. ambrose reproduced these peculiarities with the gift of the born mimic, adding appropriate antic and gesture to grace the show, and nelly's appreciation of its humours was intense. day by day new incidents and scenes were added. the head, in the pursuit of his guilty passion, hid in the coal-cellar of the "bell," and, rustling sounds being heard, evaded detection for a while by imitating the barks of a terrier in chase of a rat. nelly liked to hear the "wuff! wuff! wuff!" which was introduced at this point. she liked also the final catastrophe, when the odd man of the "bell" burst into the bar and said: "dang my eyes, if it ain't the doctor! i seed his cap and gown as he run round and round the coals on all fours, a-growling 'orrible." to which the landlady rejoined: "don't tell your silly lies here! how _could_ he growl, him being a clergyman?" and all the loafers joined in the chorus: "that's right, tom; why _do_ you talk such silly lies as that--him being a clergyman?" they laughed so loud and so merrily over their morning tea and these lunacies that the landlady doubted gravely as to their marriage lines. she cared nothing; they had paid what she asked, money down in advance, and, as she said: "young gentlemen _will_ have their fun with the young ladies--so what's the good of talking?" breakfast came at length. they gave the landlady a warning bell some half-hour in advance, so the odd food was, at all events, not cold. afterwards nelly sallied off on her shopping expeditions, which, as might have been expected, she enjoyed hugely, and ambrose stayed alone, with his pen and ink and a fat notebook which had captured his eye in a stationer's window. under these odd circumstances, then, he laid the foundations of his rare and precious _defence of taverns_, which is now termed by those fortunate enough to possess copies as a unique and golden treatise. though he added a good deal in later years and remodelled and rearranged freely, there is a certain charm of vigour and freshness about the first sketch which is quite delightful in its way. take, for example, the description of the whole world overwhelmed with sobriety: a deadly absence of inebriation annulling and destroying all the works and thoughts of men, the country itself at point to perish of the want of good liquor and good drinkers. he shows how there is grave cause to dread that, by reason of this sad neglect of the dionysiac mysteries, humanity is fast falling backward from the great heights to which it had ascended, and is in imminent danger of returning to the dumb and blind and helpless condition of the brutes. "how else," he says, "can one account for the stricken state in which all the animal world grows and is eternally impotent? to them, strange, vast and enormous powers and faculties have been given. consider, for example, the curious equipments of two odd extremes in this sphere--the ant and the elephant. the ant, if one may say so, is very near to us. we have our great centres of industry, our black country and our slaves who, if not born black, become black in our service. and the ants, too, have their black, enslaved races who do their dirty work for them, and are, perhaps, congratulated on their privileges as sharing in the blessings of civilisation--though this may be a refinement. the ant slaves, i believe, will rally eagerly to the defence of the nest and the eggs, and they say that the labouring classes are liberal to the core. nay; we grow mushrooms by art, and so they. in some lands, i think, they make enormous nests which are the nuisance and terror of the country. we have manchester and lupton and leeds, and many such places--one would think them altogether civilised. "the elephant, again, has many gifts which we lack. note the curious instinct (or intuition, rather) of danger. the elephant knows, for example, when a bridge is unsafe, and refuses to pass, where a man would go on to destruction. one might examine in the same way all the creatures, and find in them singular capacities. "yet--they have no art. they see--but they see not. they hear--and they hear not. the odour in their nostrils has no sweetness at all. they have made no report of all the wonders that they knew. their houses are, sometimes, as ingenious as a chemical works, but never is there any beauty for beauty's sake. "it is clear that their state is thus desolate, because of the heavy pall of sobriety that hangs over them all; and it scarcely seems to have occurred to our 'temperance' advocates that when they urge on us the example and abstinence of the beasts they have advanced the deadliest of all arguments against their nostrum. the laughing jackass is a teetotaller, doubtless, but no sane man should desire to be a laughing jackass. "but the history of the men who have attained, who have done the glorious things of the earth and have become for ever exalted is the history of the men who have quested the cup. dionysius, said the greeks, _civilised_ the world; and the bacchic mystery was, naturally, the heart and core of greek civilisation. "note the similitudes of vine and vineyard in old testament. "note the quest of the san graal. "note rabelais and _la dive bouteille_. "place yourself in imagination in a gothic cathedral of the thirteenth century and assist at high mass. then go to the nearest little bethel, and look, and listen. consider the difference in the two buildings, in those who worship in one and listen and criticise in the other. you have the difference between the inebriated and the sober, displayed in their works. as little bethel is to tintern, so is sobriety to inebriation. "modern civilisation has advanced in many ways? yes. bethel has a stucco front. this material was quite unknown to the builders of tintern abbey. advanced? what is advancement? freedom from excesses, from extravagances, from wild enthusiasms? small protestant tradesmen are free from all these things, certainly. but is the joy of adulteration to be the last goal, the final initiation of the race of men? _cælumque tueri_--to sand the sugar? "the flagons of the song of songs did not contain ginger-beer. "but the worst of it is we shall not merely descend to the beasts. we shall fall very far below the beasts. a black fellow is good, and a white fellow is good. but the white fellow who 'goes fantee' does not become a negro--he becomes something infinitely worse, a horrible mass of the most putrid corruption. "if we can clear our minds of the horrible cant of our 'civilisation,' if we can look at a modern 'industrial centre' with eyes purged of illusions, we shall have some notion of the awful horror to which we are descending in our effort to become as the ants and bees--creatures who know nothing of calix inebrians. "i doubt if we can really make this effort. blacks, stinks, desolations, poisons, hell's nightmare generally have, i suspect, worked themselves into the very form and mould of our thoughts. we are sober, and perhaps the tavern door is shut for ever against us. "now and then, perhaps, at rarer and still rarer intervals, a few of us will hear very faintly the far echoes of the holy madness within the closed door: _"when up the thyrse is raised, and when the sound of sacred orgies flies 'around, around.'_ "which is the _sonus epulantium in æterno convivio_. "but this we shall not be able to discern. very likely we shall take the noise of this high choir for the horrid mirth of hell. how strange it is that those who are pledged officially and ceremonially, as it were, to a rite of initiation which figures certainly a feast, should in all their thoughts and words and actions be continually blaspheming and denying all the uses and ends of feastings and festivals. "this is not the refusal of the _species_ for the sake of enjoying perfectly the most beautiful and desirable _genus_; it is the renouncing of species and genus, the pronouncing of good to be evil. the universal being denied, the particular is degraded and defiled. what is called 'the drink curse' is the natural and inevitable result and sequence of the 'protestant reformation.' if the clear wells and fountains of the magic wood are buried out of sight, then men (who must have drink) will betake them to the slime ponds and poison pools. "in the graal books there is a curse--an evil enchantment--on the land of logres because the mystery of the holy vessel is disregarded. the knight sees the dripping spear and the shining cup pass before him, and says no word. he asks no question as to the end and meaning of this ceremony. so the land is blasted and barren and songless, and those who dwell in it are in misery. "every day of our lives we see the graal carried before us in a wonderful order, and every day we leave the question unasked, the mystery despised and neglected. yet if we could ask that question, bowing down before these heavenly and glorious splendours and hallows--then every man should have the meat and drink that his soul desired; the hall would be filled with odours of paradise, with the light of immortality. "in the books the graal was at last taken away because of men's unworthiness. so it will be, i suppose. even now, the quester's adventure is a desperate one--few there be that find it. "ventilation and sanitation are well enough in their way. but it would not be very satisfactory to pass the day in a ventilated and sanitated hell with nothing to eat or drink. if one is perishing of hunger and thirst, sanitation seems unimportant enough. "how wonderful, how glorious it would be if the kingdom of the great drinkers could be restored! if we could only sweep away all the might of the sober ones--the factory builders, the poison makers, the politicians, the manufacturers of bad books and bad pictures, together with little bethel and the morality of mr. mildmay, the curate (a series of negative propositions)--then imagine the great light of the great inebriation shining on every face, and not any work of man's hands, from a cathedral to a penknife, without the mark of the tavern upon it! all the world a great festival; every well a fountain of strong drink; every river running with the new wine; the sangraal brought back from sarras, restored to the awful shrine of cor-arbennic, the oracle of the _dive bouteille_ once more freely given, the ruined vineyard flourishing once more, girt about by shining, everlasting walls! then we should hear the old songs again, and they would dance the old dances, the happy, ransomed people, commensals and compotators of the everlasting tavern." the whole treatise, of which this extract is a fragment in a rudimentary and imperfect stage, is, of course, an impassioned appeal for the restoration of the quickening, exuberant imagination, not merely in art, but in all the inmost places of life. there is more than this, too. here and there one can hear, as it were, the whisper and the hint of deeper mysteries, visions of a great experiment and a great achievement to which some men may be called. in his own words: "within the tavern there is an inner tavern, but the door of it is visible to few indeed." in ambrose's mind in the after years the stout notebook was dear, perhaps as a substitute for that aroma of the past in a phial which he has declared so desirable an invention. it stood, not so much for what was written in it as for the place and the circumstances in which it was written. it recalled little russell row and nelly, and the evenings at the château de chinon, where, night by night, they served still stranger, more delicious meats, and the red wine revealed more clearly its high celestial origin. one evening was diversified by an odd encounter. a middle-aged man, sitting at an adjoining table, was evidently in want of matches, and ambrose handed his box with the sympathetic smile which one smoker gives to another in such cases. the man--he had a black moustache and a small, pointed beard--thanked him in fluent english with a french accent, and they began to talk of casual things, veering, by degrees, in the direction of the arts. the frenchman smiled at meyrick's enthusiasm. "what a life you have before you!" he said. "don't you know that the populace always hates the artist--and kills him if it can? you are an artist and mystic, too. what a fate! "yes; but it is that applause, that _réclame_ that comes after the artist is dead," he went on, replying to some objection of ambrose's; "it is that which is the worst cruelty of all. it is fine for burns, is it not, that his stupid compatriots have not ceased to utter follies about him for the last eighty years? scotchmen? but they should be ashamed to speak his name! and keats, and how many others in my country and in yours and in all countries? the imbeciles are not content to calumniate, to persecute, to make wretched the artist in his lifetime. they follow him with their praise to the grave--the grave that they have digged! praise of the populace! praise of a race of pigs! for, you see, while they are insulting the dead with their compliments they are at the same time insulting the living with their abuse." he dropped into silence; from his expression he seemed to be cursing "the populace" with oaths too frightful to be uttered. he rose suddenly and turned to ambrose. "artist--and mystic. yes. you will probably be crucified. good evening ... and a fine martyrdom to you!" he was gone with a charming smile and a delightful bow to "madame." ambrose looked after him with a puzzled face; his last words had called up some memory that he could not capture; and then suddenly he recollected the old, ragged irish fiddler, the player of strange fantasies under the tree in the outskirts of lupton. he thought of his phrase about "red martyrdom"; it was an odd coincidence. iv the phrases kept recurring to his mind after they had gone out, and as they wandered through the lighted streets with all their strange and variegated show, with glittering windows and glittering lamps, with the ebb and flow of faces, the voices and the laughter, the surging crowds about the theatre doors, the flashing hansoms and the omnibuses lumbering heavily along to strange regions, such as turnham green and castlenau, cricklewood and stoke newington--why, they were as unknown as cities in cathay! it was a dim, hot night; all the great city smoked as with a mist, and a tawny moon rose through films of cloud far in the vista of the east. ambrose thought with a sudden recollection that the moon, that world of splendour, was shining in a farther land, on the coast of the wild rocks, on the heaving sea, on the faery apple-garths in avalon, where, though the apples are always golden, yet the blossoms of enchantment never fade, but hang for ever against the sky. they were passing a half-lit street, and these dreams were broken by the sudden clanging, rattling music of a piano-organ. for a moment they saw the shadowy figures of the children as they flitted to and fro, dancing odd measures in the rhythm of the tune. then they came into a long, narrow way with a church spire in the distance, and near the church they passed the "church-shop"--roman, evidently, from the subjects and the treatment of the works of art on view. but it was strange! in the middle of the window was a crude, glaring statue of some saint. he was in bright red robes, sprinkled with golden stars; the blood rained down from a wound in his forehead, and with one hand he drew the scarlet vestment aside and pointed to the dreadful gash above his heart, and from this, again, the bloody drops fell thick. the colours stared and shrieked, and yet, through the bad, cheap art there seemed to shine a rapture that was very near to beauty; the thing expressed was so great that it had to a certain extent overcome the villainy of the expression. they wandered vaguely, after their custom. ambrose was silent; he was thinking of avalon and "red martyrdom" and the frenchman's parting salutation, of the vision in one of the old books, "the man clothed in a robe redder and more shining than burning fire, and his feet and his hands and his face were of a like flame, and five angels in fiery vesture stood about him, and at the feet of the man the ground was covered with a ruddy dew." they passed under an old church tower that rose white in the moonlight above them. the air had cleared, the mist had floated away, and now the sky glowed violet, and the white stones of the classic spirit shone on high. from it there came suddenly a tumult of glad sound, exultant bells in ever-changing order, pealing out as if to honour some great victory, so that the mirth of the street below became but a trivial restless noise. he thought of some passage that he had read but could not distinctly remember: a ship was coming back to its haven after a weary and tempestuous voyage over many dreadful seas, and those on board saw the tumult in the city as their sails were sighted; heard afar the shouts of gladness from the rejoicing people; heard the bells from all the spires and towers break suddenly into triumphant chorus, sounding high above the washing of the waves. ambrose roused himself from his dreams. they had been walking in a circle and had returned almost to the street of the château, though, their knowledge of the district being of an unscientific character, they were under the impression that they were a mile or so away from that particular point. as it happened, they had not entered this street before, and they were charmed at the sudden appearance of stained glass lighted up from within. the colour was rich and good; there were flourished scrolls and grotesques in the renaissance manner, many emblazoned shields in ruby and gold and azure; and the centre-piece showed the court of the beer king--a jovial and venerable figure attended by a host of dwarfs and kobolds, all holding on high enormous mugs of beer. they went in boldly and were glad. it was the famous "three kings" in its golden and unreformed days, but this they knew not. the room was of moderate size, very low, with great dark beams in the white ceiling. white were the walls; on the plaster, black-letter texts with vermilion initials praised the drinker's art, and more kobolds, in black and red, loomed oddly in unsuspected corners. the lighting, presumably, was gas, but all that was visible were great antique lanterns depending from iron hooks, and through their dull green glass only a dim radiance fell upon the heavy oak tables and the drinkers. from the middle beam an enormous bouquet of fresh hops hung on high; there was a subdued murmur of talk, and now and then the clatter of the lid of a mug, as fresh beer was ordered. in one corner there was a kind of bar; behind it a couple of grim women--the kobolds apparently--performed their office; and above, on a sort of rack, hung mugs and tankards of all sizes and of all fantasies. there were plain mugs of creamy earthenware, mugs gaudily and oddly painted with garlanded goats, with hunting scenes, with towering castles, with flaming posies of flowers. then some friend of the drunken, some sage who had pried curiously into the secrets of thirst, had made a series of wonders in glass, so shining and crystalline that to behold them was as if one looked into a well, for every glitter of the facets gave promise of satisfaction. there were the mugs, capacious and very deep, crowned for the most part not with mere plain lids of common use and make, but with tall spires in pewter, richly ornamented, evident survivals from the middle ages. ambrose's eyes glistened; the place was altogether as he would have designed it. nelly, too, was glad to sit down, for they had walked longer than usual. she was refreshed by a glass of some cool drink with a borage flower and a cherry floating in it, and ambrose ordered a mug of beer. it is not known how many of these _krugs_ he emptied. it was, as has been noted, a sultry night, and the streets were dusty, and that glass of benedictine after dinner rather evokes than dismisses the demon of thirst. still, munich beer is no hot and rebellious drink, so the causes of what followed must probably be sought for in other springs. ambrose took a deep draught, gazed upward to the ceiling, and ordered another mug of beer for himself and some more of the cool and delicate and flowery beverage for nelly. when the drink was set upon the board, he thus began, without title or preface: "you must know, nelly dear," he said, "that the marriage of panurge, which fell out in due time (according to the oracle and advice of the holy bottle), was by no means a fortunate one. for, against all the counsel of pantagruel and of friar john, and indeed of all his friends, panurge married in a fit of spleen and obstinacy the crooked and squinting daughter of the little old man who sold green sauce in the rue quincangrogne at tours--you will see the very place in a few days, and then you will understand everything. you do not understand that? my child, that is impiety, since it accuses the zeitgest, who is certainly the only god that ever existed, as you will see more fully demonstrated in huxley and spencer and all the leading articles in all the leading newspapers. _quod erat demonstrandum._ to be still more precise: you must know that when i am dead, and a very great man indeed, many thousands of people will come from all the quarters of the globe--not forgetting the united states--to lupton. they will come and stare very hard at the old grange, which will have an inscription about me on the wall; they will spend hours in high school; they will walk all round playing fields; they will cut little bits off 'brooks' and 'quarries.' then they will view the sulphuric acid works, the chemical manure factory and the free library, and whatever other stink-pots and cesspools lupton town may contain; they will finally enjoy the view of the midland railway goods station. then they will say: '_now_ we understand him; _now_ one sees how he got all his inspiration in that lovely old school and the wonderful english country-side.' so you see that when i show you the rue quincangrogne you will perfectly understand this history. let us drink; the world shall never be drowned again, so have no fear. "well, the fact remains that panurge, having married this hideous wench aforesaid, was excessively unhappy. it was in vain that he argued with his wife in all known languages and in some that are unknown, for, as she said, she only knew two languages, the one of touraine and the other of the stick, and this second she taught panurge _per modum passionis_--that is by beating him, and this so thoroughly that poor pilgarlic was sore from head to foot. he was a worthy little fellow, but the greatest coward that ever breathed. believe me, illustrious drinkers and most precious.... nelly, never was man so wretched as this panurge since paradise fell from adam. this is the true doctrine; i heard it when i was at eleusis. you enquire what was the matter? why, in the first place, this vile wretch whom they all called--so much did they hate her--la vie mortale, or deadly life, this vile wretch, i say: what do you think that she did when the last note of the fiddles had sounded and the wedding guests had gone off to the 'three lampreys' to kill a certain worm--the which worm is most certainly immortal, since it is not dead yet! well, then, what did madame panurge? nothing but this: she robbed her excellent and devoted husband of all that he had. doubtless you remember how, in the old days, panurge had played ducks and drakes with the money that pantagruel had given him, so that he borrowed on his corn while it was still in the ear, and before it was sown, if we enquire a little more closely. in truth, the good little man never had a penny to bless himself withal, for the which cause pantagruel loved him all the more dearly. so that when the dive bouteille gave its oracle, and panurge chose his spouse, pantagruel showed how preciously he esteemed a hearty spender by giving him such a treasure that the goldsmiths who live under the bell of st. gatien still talk of it before they dine, because by doing so their mouths water, and these salivary secretions are of high benefit to the digestion: read on this, galen. if you would know how great and glorious this treasure was, you must go to the library of the archevêché at tours, where they will show you a vast volume bound in pigskin, the name of which i have forgotten. but this book is nothing else than the list of all the wonders and glories of pantagruel's wedding present to panurge; it contains surprising things, i can tell you, for, in good coin of the realm alone, never was gift that might compare with it; and besides the common money there were ancient pieces, the very names of which are now incomprehensible, and incomprehensible they will remain till the coming of the coqcigrues. there was, for instance, a great gold sol, a world in itself, as some said truly, and i know not how many myriad myriad of étoiles, all of the finest silver that was ever minted, and anges-gardiens, which the learned think must have been first coined at angers, though others will have it that they were the same as our angels; and, as for roses de paradis and couronnes immortelles, i believe he had as many of them as ever he would. beauties and joys he was to keep for pocket-money; small change is sometimes great gain. and, as i say, no sooner had panurge married that accursed daughter of the rue quincangrogne than she robbed him of everything, down to the last brass farthing. the fact is that the woman was a witch; she was also something else which i leave out for the present. but, if you will believe me, she cast such a spell upon panurge that he thought himself an absolute beggar. thus he would look at his sol d'or and say: 'what is the use of that? it is only a great bright lump: i can see it every day.' then when they said, 'but how about those anges-gardiens?' he would reply, 'where are they? have you seen them? _i_ never see them. show them to me,' and so with all else; and all the while that villain of a woman beat, thumped and belaboured him so that the tears were always in his eyes, and they say you could hear him howling all over the world. everybody said that he had made a pretty mess of it, and would come to a bad end. "luckily for him, this ... witch of a wife of his would sometimes doze off for a few minutes, and then he had a little peace, and he would wonder what had become of all the gay girls and gracious ladies that he had known in old times--for he had played the devil with the women in his day and could have taught ovid lessons in _arte amoris_. now, of course, it was as much as his life was worth to mention the very name of one of these ladies, and as for any little sly visits, stolen endearments, hidden embraces, or any small matters of that kind, it was _good-bye, i shall see you next nevermas_. nor was this all, but worse remains behind; and it is my belief that it is the thought of what i am going to tell you that makes the wind wail and cry of winter nights, and the clouds weep, and the sky look black; for in truth it is the greatest sorrow that ever was since the beginning of the world. i must out with it quick, or i shall never have done: in plain english, and as true as i sit here drinking good ale, not one drop or minim or drachm or pennyweight of drink had panurge tasted since the day of his wedding! he had implored mercy, he had told her how he had served gargantua and pantagruel and had got into the habit of drinking in his sleep, and his wife had merely advised him to go to the devil--she was not going to let him so much as look at the nasty stuff. '"touch not, taste not, smell not," is my motto,' said she. she gave him a blue ribbon, which she said would make up for it. 'what do you want with drink?' said she. 'go and do business instead, it's much better for you.' "sad, then, and sorry enough was the estate of poor panurge. at last, so wretched did he become, that he took advantage of one of his wife's dozes and stole away to the good pantagruel, and told him the whole story--and a very bad one it was--so that the tears rolled down pantagruel's cheeks from sheer grief, and each teardrop contained exactly one hundred and eighteen gallons of aqueous fluid, according to the calculations of the best geometers. the great man saw that the case was a desperate one, and heaven knew, he said, whether it could be mended or not; but certain it was that a business such as this could not be settled in a hurry, since it was not like a game at shove-ha'penny to be got over between two gallons of wine. he therefore counselled panurge to have patience and bear with his wife for a few thousand years, and in the meantime they would see what could be done. but, lest his patience should wear out, he gave him an odd drug or medicine, prepared by the great artist of the mountains of cathay, and this he was to drop into his wife's glass--for though he might have no drink, she was drunk three times a day, and she would sleep all the longer, and leave him awhile in peace. this panurge very faithfully performed, and got a little rest now and again, and they say that while that devil of a woman snored and snorted he was able, by odd chances once or twice, to get hold of a drop of the right stuff--good old stingo from the big barrel--which he lapped up as eagerly as a kitten laps cream. others there be who declare that once or twice he got about his sad old tricks, while his ugly wife was sleeping in the sun; the women on the maille make no secret of their opinion that his old mistress, madame sophia, was seen stealing in and out of the house as slyly as you please, and god knows what goes on when the door is shut. but the tourainians were always sad gossips, and one must not believe all that one hears. i leave out the flat scandal-mongers who are bold enough to declare that he kept one mistress at jerusalem, another at eleusis, another in egypt and about as many as are contained in the seraglio of the grand turk, scattered up and down in the towns and villages of asia; but i do believe there was some kissing in dark corners, and a curtain hung across one room in the house could tell odd tales. nevertheless, la vie mortale (a pest on her!) was more often awake than asleep, and when she was awake panurge's case was worse than ever. for, you see, the woman was no piece of a fool, and she saw sure enough that something was going on. the stingo in the barrel was lower than of rights, and more than once she had caught her husband looking almost happy, at which she beat the house about his ears. then, another time, madame sophia dropped her ring, and again this sweet lady came one morning so strongly perfumed that she scented the whole place, and when la vie woke up it smelt like a church. there was fine work then, i promise you; the people heard the bangs and curses and shrieks and groans as far as amboise on the one side and luynes on the other; and that year the loire rose ten feet higher than the banks on account of panurge's tears. as a punishment, she made him go and be industrial, and he built ten thousand stink-pot factories with twenty thousand chimneys, and all the leaves and trees and green grass and flowers in the world were blackened and died, and all the waters were poisoned so that there were no perch in the loire, and salmon fetched forty sols the pound at chinon market. as for the men and women, they became yellow apes and listened to a codger named calvin, who told them they would all be damned eternally (except himself and his friends), and they found his doctrine very comforting, and probable too, since they had the sense to know that they were more than half damned already. i don't know whether panurge's fate was worse on this occasion or on another when his wife found a book in his writing, full from end to end of poetry; some of it about the wonderful treasure that pantagruel had given him, which he was supposed to have forgotten. some of it verses to those old light-o'-loves of his, with a whole epic in praise of his mistress-in-chief, sophia. then, indeed, there was the very deuce to pay; it was bread and water, stripes and torment, all day long, and la vie swore a great oath that if he ever did it again he should be sent to spend the rest of his life in manchester, whereupon he fell into a swoon from horrid fright and lay like a log, so that everybody thought he was dead. "all this while the great pantagruel was not idle. perceiving how desperate the matter was, he summoned the thousand and first great oecumenical council of all the sages of the wide world, and when the fathers had come, and had heard high mass at st. gatien's, the session was opened in a pavilion in the meadows by the loire just under the lanterne of roche corbon, whence this council is always styled the great and holy council of the lantern. if you want to know where the place is you can do so very easily, for there is a choice tavern on the spot where the pavilion stood, and there you may have _malelotte_ and _friture_ and amber wine of vouvray, better than in any tavern in touraine. as for the history of the acts of this great council, it is still a-writing, and so far only two thousand volumes in elephant folio have been printed _sub signo lucernæ cum permissu superiorum_. however, as it is necessary to be brief, it may be said that the holy fathers of the lantern, after having heard the whole case as it was exposed to them by the great clerks of pantagruel, having digested all the arguments, looked into the precedents, applied themselves to the doctrine, explored the hidden wisdom, consulted the canons, searched the scriptures, divided the dogma, distinguished the distinctions and answered the questions, resolved with one voice that there was no help in the world for panurge, save only this: he must forthwith achieve the most high, noble and glorious quest of the sangraal, for no other way was there under heaven by which he might rid himself of that pestilent wife of his, la vie mortale. "and on some other occasion," said ambrose, "you may hear of the last voyage of panurge to the glassy isle of the holy graal, of the incredible adventures that he achieved, of the dread perils through which he passed, of the great wonders and marvels and compassions of the way, of the manner in which he received the title plentyn y tonau, which signifies 'child of the waterfloods,' and how at last he gloriously attained the vision of the sangraal, and was most happily translated out of the power of la vie mortale." "and where is he now?" said nelly, who had found the tale interesting but obscure. "it is not precisely known--opinions vary. but there are two odd things: one is that he is exactly like that man in the red dress whose statue we saw in the shop window to-night; and the other is that from that day to this he has never been sober for a single minute. "_calix meus inebrians quam præclarus est!_" v ambrose took a great draught from the mug and emptied it, and forthwith rapped the lid for a fresh supply. nelly was somewhat nervous; she was afraid he might begin to sing, for there were extravagances in the history of panurge which seemed to her to be of alcoholic source. however, he did not sing; he lapsed into silence, gazing at the dark beams, the hanging hops, the bright array of the tankards and the groups of drinkers dotted about the room. at a neighbouring table two germans were making a hearty meal, chumping the meat and smacking their lips in a kind of heavy ecstasy. he had but little german, but he caught scraps of the conversation. one man said: "heavenly swine cutlets!" and the other answered: "glorious eating!" "nelly," said ambrose, "i have a great inspiration!" she trembled visibly. "yes; i have talked so much that i am hungry. we will have some supper." they looked over the list of strange eatables and, with the waiter's help, decided on leberwurst and potato-salad as light and harmless. with this they ate crescent loaves, sprinkled with caraway seeds: there was more munich lion-brew and more flowery drink, with black coffee, a _fine_ and a maraschino to end all. for nelly the kobolds began to perform a grotesque and mystic dance in the shadows, the glass tankards on the rack glittered strangely, the white walls with the red and black texts retreated into vast distances, and the bouquet of hops seemed suspended from a remote star. as for ambrose, he was certainly not _ebrius_ according to the baron's definition; he was hardly _ebriolus_; but he was sensible, let us say, of a certain quickening of the fancy, of a more vivid and poignant enjoyment of the whole situation, of the unutterable gaiety of this mad escape from the conventions of lupton. "it was a thursday night," said ambrose in the after years, "and we were thinking of starting for touraine either the next morning or on saturday at latest. it will always be bright in my mind, that picture--the low room with the oak beams, the glittering tankards, the hops hanging from the ceiling, and nelly sitting before me sipping the scented drink from a green glass. it was the last night of gaiety, and even then gaiety was mixed with odd patterns--the frenchman's talk about martyrdom, and the statue of the saint pointing to the marks of his passion, standing in that dyed vesture with his rapt, exultant face; and then the song of final triumph and deliverance that rang out on the chiming bells from the white spire. i think the contrast of this solemn undertone made my heart all the lighter; i was in that odd state in which one delights to know that one is not being understood--so i told poor nelly 'the story of panurge's marriage to la vie mortale; i am sure she thought i was drunk! "we went home in a hansom, and agreed that we would have just one cigarette and then go to bed. it was settled that we would catch the night boat to dieppe on the next day, and we both laughed with joy at the thought of the adventure. and then--i don't know how it was--nelly began to tell me all about herself. she had never said a word before; i had never asked her--i never ask anybody about their past lives. what does it matter? you know a certain class of plot--novelists are rather fond of using it--in which the hero's happiness is blasted because he finds out that the life of his wife or his sweetheart has not always been spotless as the snow. why should it be spotless as the snow? what is the hero that he should be dowered with the love of virgins of paradise? i call it cant--all that--and i hate it; i hope angel clare was eventually entrapped by a young person from piccadilly circus--she would probably be much too good for him! so, you see, i was hardly likely to have put any very searching questions to nelly; we had other things to talk about. "but this night i suppose she was a bit excited. it had been a wild and wonderful week. the transition from that sewage-pot in the midlands to the abbey of theleme was enough to turn any head; we had laughed till we had grown dizzy. the worst of that miserable school discipline is is that it makes one take an insane and quite disproportionate enjoyment in little things, in the merest trifles which ought really to be accepted as a matter of course. i assure you that every minute that i spent in bed after seven o'clock was to me a grain of paradise, a moment of delight. of course, it's ridiculous; let a man get up early or get up late, as he likes or as he finds best--and say no more about it. but at that wretched lupton early rising was part of the infernal blether and blatter of the place, that made life there like a long dinner in which every dish has the same sauce. it may be a good sauce enough; but one is sick of the taste of it. according to our bonzes there, getting up early on a winter's day was a high virtue which acquired merit. i believe i should have liked a hard chair to sit in of my own free will, if one of our old fools--palmer--had not always been gabbling about the horrid luxury of some boys who had arm-chairs in their studies. unless you were doing something or other to make yourself very uncomfortable, he used to say you were like the 'later romans.' i am sure he believed that those lunatics who bathe in the serpentine on christmas day would go straight to heaven! "and there you are. i would awake at seven o'clock from persistent habit, and laugh as i realised that i was in little russell row and not at the old grange. then i would doze off again and wake up at intervals--eight, nine, ten--and chuckle to myself with ever-increasing enjoyment. it was just the same with smoking. i don't suppose i should have touched a cigarette for years if smoking had not been one of the mortal sins in our bedlam decalogue. i don't know whether smoking is bad for boys or not; i should think not, as i believe the dutch--who are sturdy fellows--begin to puff fat cigars at the age of six or thereabouts; but i do know that those pompous old boobies and blockheads and leather-skulls have discovered exactly the best way to make a boy think that a packet of rosebuds represents the quintessence of frantic delight. "well, you see how it was, how little russell row--the dingy, the stuffy, the dark retreat of old bloomsbury--became the abode of miraculous joys, a bright portion of fairyland. ah! it was a strong new wine that we tasted, and it went to our heads, and not much wonder. it all rose to its height on that thursday night when we went to the 'three kings' and sat beneath the hop bush, drinking lion-brew and flowery drink as i talked extravagances concerning panurge. it was time for the curtain to be rung down on our comedy. "the one cigarette had become three or four when nelly began to tell me her history; the wine and the rejoicing had got into her head also. she described the first things that she remembered: a little hut among wild hills and stony fields in the west of ireland, and the great sea roaring on the shore but a mile away, and the wind and the rain always driving from across the waves. she spoke of the place as if she loved it, though her father and mother were as poor as they could be, and little was there to eat even in the old cabin. she remembered mass in the little chapel, an old, old place hidden way in the most desolate part of the country, small and dark and bare enough except for the candles on the altar and a bright statue or two. st. kieran's cell, they called it, and it was supposed that the mass had never ceased to be said there even in the blackest days of persecution. quite well she remembered the old priest and his vestments, and the gestures that he used, and how they all bowed down when the bell rang; she could imitate his quavering voice saying the latin. her own father, she said, was a learned man in his way, though it was not the english way. he could not read common print, or write; he knew nothing about printed books, but he could say a lot of the old irish songs and stories by heart, and he had sticks on which he wrote poems on all sorts of things, cutting notches on the wood in oghams, as the priest called them; and he could tell many wonderful tales of the saints and the people. it was a happy life altogether; they were as poor as poor could be, and praised god and wanted for nothing. then her mother went into a decline and died, and her father never lifted up his head again, and she was left an orphan when she was nine years old. the priest had written to an aunt who lived in england, and so she found herself one black day standing on the platform of the station in a horrible little manufacturing village in lancashire; everything was black--the sky and the earth, and the houses and the people; and the sound of their rough, harsh voices made her sick. and the aunt had married an independent and turned protestant, so she was black, too, nelly thought. she was wretched for a long time, she said. the aunt was kind enough to her, but the place and the people were so awful. mr. deakin, the husband, said he couldn't encourage popery in his house, so she had to go to the meeting-house on sunday and listen to the nonsense they called 'religion'--all long sermons with horrible shrieking hymns. by degrees she forgot her old prayers, and she was taken to the dissenters' sunday school, where they learned texts and heard about king solomon's temple, and jonadab the son of rechab, and jezebel, and the judges. they seemed to think a good deal of her at the school; she had several prizes for bible knowledge. "she was sixteen when she first went out to service. she was glad to get away--nothing could be worse than farnworth, and it might be better. and then there were tales to tell! i never have had a clearer light thrown on the curious and disgusting manners of the lower middle-class in england--the class that prides itself especially on its respectability, above all, on what it calls 'morality'--by which it means the observance of one particular commandment. you know the class i mean: the brigade of the shining hat on sunday, of the neat little villa with a well-kept plot in front, of the consecrated drawing-room, of the big bible well in evidence. it is more often chapel than church, this tribe, but it draws from both sources. it is above all things shiny--not only the sunday hat, but the furniture, the linoleum, the hair and the very flesh which pertain to these people have an unwholesome polish on them; and they prefer their plants and shrubs to be as glossy as possible--this _gens lubrica_. "to these tents poor nelly went as a slave; she dwelt from henceforth on the genteel outskirts of more or less prosperous manufacturing towns, and she soon profoundly regretted the frank grime and hideousness of farnworth. a hedgehog is a rough and prickly fellow--better his prickles than the reptile's poisonous slime. the tales that yet await the novelist who has courage (what is his name, by the way?), who has the insight to see behind those venetian blinds and white curtains, who has the word that can give him entrance through the polished door by the encaustic porch! what plots, what pictures, what characters are ready for his cunning hand, what splendid matter lies unknown, useless, and indeed offensive, which, in the artist's crucible, would be transmuted into golden and exquisite perfection. do you know that i can never penetrate into the regions where these people dwell without a thrill of wonder and a great desire that i might be called to execute the masterpieces i have hinted at? do you remember how zola, viewing these worlds from the train when he visited london, groaned because he had no english, because he had no key to open the treasure-house before his eyes? he, of course, who was a great diviner, saw the infinite variety of romance that was concealed beneath those myriads of snug commonplace roofs: i wish he could have observed in english and recorded in french. he was a brave man, his defence of dreyfus shows that; but, supposing the capacity, i do not think he was brave enough to tell the london suburbs the truth about themselves in their own tongue. "yes, i walk down these long ways on sunday afternoons, when they are at their best. sometimes, if you choose the right hour, you may look into one 'breakfast room'--an apartment half sunken in the earth--after another, and see in each one the table laid for tea, showing the charming order and uniformity that prevail. tea in the drawing-room would be, i suppose, a desecration. i wonder what would happen if some chance guest were to refuse tea and to ask for a glass of beer, or even a brandy and soda? i suppose the central lake that lies many hundreds of feet beneath london would rise up, and the sinful town would be overwhelmed. yes: consider these houses well; how demure, how well-ordered, how shining, as i have said; and then think of what they conceal. "generally speaking, you know, 'morality' (in the english suburban sense) has been a tolerably equal matter. i shouldn't imagine that those 'later romans' that poor old palmer was always bothering about were much better or worse than the earlier babylonians; and london as a whole is very much the same thing in this respect as pekin as a whole. modern berlin and sixteenth-century venice might compete on equal terms--save that venice, i am sure, was very picturesque, and berlin, i have no doubt is very piggy. the fact is, of course (to use a simple analogy), man, by his nature, is always hungry, and, that being the case, he will sometimes eat too much dinner and sometimes he will get his dinner in odd ways, and sometimes he will help himself to more or less unlawful snacks before breakfast and after supper. there it is, and there is an end of it. but suppose a society in which the fact of hunger was officially denied, in which the faintest hint at an empty stomach was considered the rankest, most abominable indecency, the most detestable offence against the most sacred religious feelings? suppose the child severely reprimanded at the mere mention of bread and butter, whipped and shut up in a dark room for the offence of reading a recipe for making plum pudding; suppose, i say, a whole society organised on the strict official understanding that no decent person ever is or has been or can be conscious of the physical want of food; that breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper are orgies only used by the most wicked and degraded wretches, destined to an awful and eternal doom? in such a world, i think, you would discover some very striking irregularities in diet. facts are known to be stubborn things, but if their very existence is denied they become ferocious and terrible things. coventry patmore was angry, and with reason, when he heard that even at the vatican the statues had received the order of the fig-leaf. "nelly went among these manichees. she had been to the world beyond the venetians, the white muslin curtains and the india-rubber plant, and she told me her report. they talk about the morality of the theatre, these swine! in the theatre--if there is anything of the kind--it is a case of a wastrel and a wanton who meet and part on perfectly equal terms, without deceit or false pretences. it is not a case of master creeping into a young girl's room at dead of night, with a bible under his arm--the said bible being used with grotesque skill to show that 'master's' wishes must be at once complied with under pain of severe punishment, not only in this world, but in the world to come. every sunday, you must remember, the girl has seen 'master' perhaps crouching devoutly in his pew, perhaps in the part of sidesman or even church-warden, more probably supplementing the gifts of the pastor at some nightmarish meeting-house. 'master' offers prayer with wonderful fervour; he speaks to the lord as man to man; in the emotional passages his voice gets husky, and everybody says how good he is. he is a deacon, a guardian of the poor (gracious title!), a builder and an earnest supporter of the british and foreign bible society: in a word, he is of the great middle-class, the backbone of england and of the protestant religion. he subscribes to the excellent society which prosecutes booksellers for selling the decameron of boccaccio. he has from ten to fifteen children, all of whom were found by mamma in the garden. "'mr. king was a horrible man,' said nelly, describing her first place; 'he had a great greasy pale face with red whiskers, and a shiny bald head; he was fat, too, and when he smiled it made one feel sick. soon after i got the place he came into the kitchen. missus was away for three days, and the children were all in bed. he sat down by the hearth and asked whether i was saved, and did i love the lord as i ought to, and if i ever had any bad thoughts about young men? then he opened the bible and read me nasty things from the old testament, and asked if i understood what it meant. i said i didn't know, and he said we must approach the lord in prayer so that we might have grace to search the scriptures together. i had to kneel down close to him, and he put his arm round my waist and began to pray, as he called it; and when we got up he took me on his knee and said he felt to me as if i were his own daughter.' "there, that is enough of mr. king. you can imagine what the poor child had to go through time after time. on prayer-meeting nights she used to put the chest of drawers against her bedroom door: there would be gentle, cautious pushes, and then a soft voice murmuring: 'my child, why is your heart so bad and stubborn?' i think we can conceive the general character of 'master' from these examples. 'missus,' of course, requires a treatise to herself; her more frequent failings are child-torture, secret drinking and low amours with oily commercial travellers. "yes, it is a hideous world enough, isn't it? and isn't it a pleasant thought that you and i practically live under the government of these people? 'master' is the 'man in the street,' the 'hard-headed, practical man of the world,' 'the descendant of the sturdy puritans,' whose judgment is final on all questions from poetics to liturgiology. we hardly think that this picture will commend itself to the 'man in the street'--a course of action that is calculated to alienate practical men. pleasant, isn't it? _suburbia locuta est: causa finita est._ "i suppose that, by nature, these people would not be so very much more depraved than the ordinary african black fellow. their essential hideousness comes, i take it, from their essential and most abominable hypocrisy. you know how they are always prating about bible teaching--the 'simple morality of the gospel,' and all that nauseous stuff? and what would be the verdict, in this suburban world, on a man who took no thought for the morrow, who regulated his life by the example of the lilies, who scoffed at the idea of saving money? you know perfectly well that his relations would have him declared a lunatic. _there_ is the villainy. if you are continually professing an idolatrous and unctuous devotion to a body of teaching which you are also persistently and perpetually disregarding and disobeying in its plainest, most simple, most elementary injunctions, well, you will soon interest anglers in search of bait. "yes, such is the world behind the india-rubber plant into which nelly entered. i believe she repelled the advances of 'master' with success. her final undoing came from a different quarter, and i am afraid that drugs, not biblical cajoleries, were the instruments used. she cried bitterly when she spoke of this event, but she said, too; 'i will kill him for it!' it was an ugly story, and a sad one, alas!--the saddest tale i ever listened to. think of it: to come from that old cabin on the wild, bare hills, from the sound of the great sea, from the pure breath of the waves and the wet salt wind, to the stenches and the poisons of our 'industrial centres.' she came from parents who had nothing and possessed all things, to our civilisation which has everything, and lies on the dung-heap that it has made at the very gates of heaven--destitute of all true treasures, full of sores and vermin and corruption. she was nurtured on the wonderful old legends of the saints and the fairies; she had listened to the songs that her father made and cut in oghams; and we gave her the penny novelette and the works of madame chose. she had knelt before the altar, adoring the most holy sacrifice of the mass; now she knelt beside 'master' while he approached the lord in prayer, licking his fat white lips. i can imagine no more terrible transition. "i do not know how or why it happened, but as i listened to nelly's tale my eyes were opened to my own work and my own deeds, and i saw for the first time my wickedness. i should despair of explaining to anyone how utterly innocent i had been in intention all the while, how far i was from any deliberate design of guilt. in a sense, i was learned, and yet, in a sense, i was most ignorant; i had been committing what is, doubtless a grievous sin, under the impression that i was enjoying the greatest of all mysteries and graces and blessings--the great natural sacrament of human life. "did i not know i was doing wrong? i knew that if any of the masters found me with nelly i should get into sad trouble. certainly i knew that. but if any of the masters had caught me smoking a cigarette, or saying 'damn,' or going into a public-house to get a glass of beer, or using a crib, or reading rabelais, i should have got into sad trouble also. i knew that i was sinning against the 'tone' of the great public school; you may imagine how deeply i felt the guilt of such an offence as that! and, of course, i had heard the boys telling their foolish indecencies; but somehow their nasty talk and their filthy jokes were not in any way connected in my mind with my love of nelly--no more, indeed, than midnight darkness suggests daylight, or torment symbolises pleasure. indeed, there was a hint--a dim intuition--deep down in my consciousness that all was not well; but i knew of no reason for this; i held it a morbid dream, the fantasy of an imagination over-exalted, perhaps; i would not listen to a faint voice that seemed without sense or argument. "and now that voice was ringing in my ears with the clear, resonant and piercing summons of a trumpet; i saw myself arraigned far down beside the pestilent horde of whom i have just spoken; and, indeed, my sin was worse than theirs, for i had been bred in light, and they in darkness. all heedless, without knowledge, without preparation, without receiving the mystic word, i had stumbled into the shrine, uninitiated i had passed beyond the veil and gazed upon the hidden mystery, on the secret glory that is concealed from the holy angels. woe and great sorrow were upon me, as if a priest, devoutly offering the sacrifice, were suddenly to become aware that he was uttering, all inadvertently, hideous and profane blasphemies, summoning satan in place of the holy spirit. i hid my face in my hands and cried out in my anguish. "do you know that i think nelly was in a sense relieved when i tried to tell her of my mistake, as i called it; even though i said, as gently as i could, that it was all over. she was relieved, because for the first time she felt quite sure that i was altogether in my senses; i can understand it. my whole attitude must have struck her as bordering on insanity, for, of course, from first to last i had never for a moment taken up the position of the unrepentant but cheerful sinner, who knows that he is being a sad dog, but means to continue in his naughty way. she, with her evil experience, had thought the words i had sometimes uttered not remote from madness. she wondered, she told me, whether one night i might not suddenly take her throat in my hands and strangle her in a sudden frenzy. she hardly knew whether she dreaded such a death or longed for it. "'you spoke so strangely,' she said; 'and all the while i knew we were doing wrong, and i wondered.' "of course, even after i had explained the matter as well as i could she was left to a large extent bewildered as to what my state of mind could have been; still, she saw that i was not mad, and she was relieved, as i have said. "i do not know how she was first drawn to me--how it was that she stole that night to the room where i lay bruised and aching. pity and desire and revenge, i suppose, all had their share. she was so sorry, she said, for me. she could see how lonely i was, how i hated the place and everybody about it, and she knew that i was not english. i think my wild welsh face attracted her, too. "alas! that was a sad night, after all our laughter. we had sat on and on till the dawn began to come in through the drawn blinds. i told her that we must go to bed, or we should never get up the next day. we went into the bedroom, and there, sad and grey, the dawn appeared. there was a heavy sky covered with clouds and a straight, soft rain was pattering on the leaves of a great plane tree opposite; heavy drops fell into the pools in the road. "it was still as on the mountain, filled with infinite sadness, and a sudden step clattering on the pavement of the square beyond made the stillness seem all the more profound. i stood by the window and gazed out at the weeping, dripping tree, the ever-falling rain and the motionless, leaden clouds--there was no breath of wind--and it was as if i heard the saddest of all music, tones of anguish and despair and notes that cried and wept. the theme was given out, itself wet, as it were, with tears. it was repeated with a sharper cry, a more piteous supplication; it was re-echoed with a bitter utterance, and tears fell faster as the raindrops fell plashing from the weeping tree. inexorable in its sad reiterations, in its remorseless development, that music wailed and grew in its lamentation in my own heart; heavy it was, and without hope; heavy as those still, leaden clouds that hung motionless in heaven. no relief came to this sorrowing melody--rather a sharper note of anguish; and then for a moment, as if to embitter bitterness, sounded a fantastic, laughing air, a measure of jocund pipes and rushing violins, echoing with the mirth of dancing feet. but it was beaten into dust by the sentence of despair, by doom that was for ever, by a sentence pitiless, relentless; and, as a sudden breath shook the wet boughs of the plane tree and a torrent fell upon the road, so the last notes of that inner music were to me as a burst of hopeless weeping. "i turned away from the window and looked at the dingy little room where we had laughed so well. it was a sad room enough, with its pale blue, stripy-patterned paper, its rickety old furniture and its feeble pictures. the only note of gaiety was on the dressing-table, where poor little nelly had arranged some toys and trinkets and fantasies that she had bought for herself in the last few days. there was a silver-handled brush and a flagon of some scent that i liked, and a little brooch of olivines that had caught her fancy; and a powder-puff in a pretty gilt box. the sight of these foolish things cut me to the heart. but nelly! she was standing by the bedside, half undressed, and she looked at me with the most piteous longing. i think that she had really grown fond of me. i suppose that i shall never forget the sad enchantment of her face, the flowing of her beautiful coppery hair about it; and the tears were wet on her cheeks. she half stretched out her bare arms to me and then let them fall. i had never known all her strange allurement before. i had refined and symbolised and made her into a sign of joy, and now before me she shone disarrayed--not a symbol, but a woman, in the new intelligence that had come to me, and i longed for her. i had just enough strength and no more." epilogue it is unfortunate--or fortunate: that is a matter to be settled by the taste of the reader--that with this episode of the visit to london all detailed material for the life of ambrose meyrick comes to an end. odd scraps of information, stray notes and jottings are all that is available, and the rest of meyrick's life must be left in dim and somewhat legendary outline. personally, i think that this failure of documents is to be lamented. the four preceding chapters have, in the main, dealt with the years of boyhood, and therefore with a multitude of follies. one is inclined to wonder, as poor nelly wondered, whether the lad was quite right in his head. it is possible that if we had fuller information as to his later years we might be able to dismiss him as decidedly eccentric, but well-meaning on the whole. but, after all, i cannot be confident that he would get off so easily. certainly he did not repeat the adventure of little russell row, nor, so far as i am aware, did he address anyone besides his old schoolmaster in a rabelaisian epistle. there are certain acts of lunacy which are like certain acts of heroism: they are hardly to be achieved twice by the same men. but meyrick continued to do odd things. he became a strolling player instead of becoming a scholar of balliol. if he had proceeded to the university, he would have encountered the formative and salutary influence of jowett. he wandered up and down the country for two or three years with the actors, and writes the following apostrophe to the memory of his old company. "i take off my hat when i hear the old music, for i think of the old friends and the old days; of the theatre in the meadows by the sacred river, and the swelling song of the nightingales on sweet, spring nights. there is no doubt that we may safely hold with plato his opinion, and safely may we believe that all brave earthly shows are but broken copies and dim lineaments of immortal things. therefore, i hope and trust that i shall again be gathered unto the true hathaway company _quæ sursum est_, which is the purged and exalted image of the lower, which plays for ever a great mystery in the theatre of the meadows of asphodel, which wanders by the happy, shining streams, and drinks from an eternal cup in a high and blissful and everlasting tavern. _ave, cara sodalitas, ave semper._" thus does he translate into wild speech _crêpe_ hair and grease paints, dirty dressing-rooms and dirtier lodgings. and when his strolling days were over he settled down in london, paying occasional visits to his old home in the west. he wrote three or four books which are curious and interesting in their way, though they will never be popular. and finally he went on a strange errand to the east; and from the east there was for him no returning. it will be remembered that he speaks of a celtic cup, which had been preserved in one family for many hundred years. on the death of the last "keeper" this cup was placed in meyrick's charge. he received it with the condition that it was to be taken to a certain concealed shrine in asia and there deposited in hands that would know how to hide its glories for ever from the evil world. he went on this journey into unknown regions, travelling by ragged roads and mountain passes, by the sandy wilderness and the mighty river. and he forded his way by the quaking and dubious track that winds in and out among the dangers and desolations of the _kevir_--the great salt slough. he came at last to the place appointed and gave the word and the treasure to those who know how to wear a mask and to keep well the things which are committed to them, and then set out on his journey back. he had reached a point not very far from the gates of west and halted for a day or two amongst christians, being tired out with a weary pilgrimage. but the turks or the kurds--it does not matter which--descended on the place and worked their customary works, and so ambrose was taken by them. one of the native christians, who had hidden himself from the miscreants, told afterwards how he saw "the stranger ambrosian" brought out, and how they held before him the image of the crucified that he might spit upon it and trample it under his feet. but he kissed the icon with great joy and penitence and devotion. so they bore him to a tree outside the village and crucified him there. and after he had hung on the tree some hours, the infidels, enraged, as it is said, by the shining rapture of his face, killed him with their spears. it was in this manner that ambrose meyrick gained red martyrdom and achieved the most glorious quest and adventure of the sangraal. the end books by arthur machen the house of souls the secret glory the hill of dreams far off things the three impostors (in preparation) https://archive.org/details/publicschoollife00waug public school life * * * * * * countries of the mind middleton murry demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net ibsen and his creation professor janko lavrin cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net the return walter de la mare cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net * * * * * * public school life boys parents masters by alec waugh author of 'the loom of youth,' 'pleasure,' etc. [illustration: logo] london: 48 pall mall w. collins sons & co. ltd. glasgow melbourne auckland copyright, 1922 manufactured in great britain a dedicatory letter to arnold lunn _december 6, 1921_: my dear arnold,--it was with genuine surprise that i read the other day, while turning over the pages of _the harrovians_, the date 1913 upon the title-page. only eight years ago, and since then so much has happened. what a long while it seems since _the harrovians_ was the most borrowed book in the house, and we passed the hours of evening hall, that should have been spent in the study of irregular verbs, in eager discussions on your book. it was a revelation to us--we schoolboys of 1913. it explained us to ourselves. we thought then that the last word on the subject had been said. but one can never say the last word on such a subject as the public schools, especially in a novel. in a novel one is constrained to tell a story or to reveal a character. in _the harrovians_ you dealt with the public school system only in as far as it effected the development of peter, and in _loose ends_ you found yourself equally fettered with regard to maurice. it is for this reason that i feel there is still room for a book such as this, which, though a narrative, has for its object simply the analysis and presentation of public school life. at any rate i hope that you may think, when you come to read it, that it was worth doing. if you do not, well then at least here is your name after the title-page in grateful tribute to many pleasant hours spent in the company of yourself and of your books, and in the hope of many more such hours. for their sake, if not for its own sake, please accept this book, and believe me, as ever, your sincere friend, alec waugh. contents chap. page i. introductory 1 ii. the preparatory school 20 iii. the new boy 38 iv. the second year 60 v. athleticism 76 vi. the true ethics of cribbing 91 vii. morality and the romantic friendship 124 viii. the middle years 161 ix. prefectship 171 x. the last term 198 xi. the old boy as schoolmaster and parent 215 xii. some suggestions: the leaving age with regard to morals 231 xiii. the leaving age with regard to athletics 256 xiv. conclusion 263 chapter i introductory twenty years ago a father said to his son, who had just come down from oxford with a batting average of 35.7: 'for ten years, my boy, you have been playing cricket all through the summer at my expense. you can now either come into my business and play first-class cricket during your month's holiday in august, or, if you want to continue to play cricket all through the season, you can go down to the oval and apply to be taken on as a professional.' the moral, the obvious moral, that is to say, is admirable. and the elderly gentleman whom i overheard repeating this story in the pavilion, leant back in his seat and affirmed proudly, though with a deep sense of the passage of good things, that it was in such a spirit that the game had been played when he was young. 'that's what cricket meant to the studds, the lyttletons, the fosters. we didn't have any of these amateur professionals, none of these fine fellows who get found soft jobs by their county committees. what's the difference, i should like to know, between the fellow who gets paid five pounds a match and the fellow who is presented with the directorship of a ladies' corset factory at a comfortable salary, and who has only to go to the office once a week to sign his name in the directors' attendance book?' the elderly gentleman shrugged his shoulders with disgust. he was quite right, of course. there are too many cricketers who make as much money out of the game as any professional, yet are entitled to put initials before their name upon the score card. and the father was quite right when he insisted on the industry of his son. he was none the less right because things probably failed to turn out as they had been planned. they rarely do. we can guess what happened. for a year the son worked hard. during his month's holiday he made a couple of centuries in first-class cricket, and various papers commenting on this achievement expressed their regret that so promising a cricketer should only be available in august. it is needless to add that the other members of the family saw to it that these references did not escape the attention of their father. next season the county started so well, that by the end of may it stood at the head of the championship, and the young financier was entreated to turn out for the yorkshire match in the middle of june. on such an occasion parental discipline was naturally relaxed. and an innings of 87 on a tricky wicket was followed by an invitation to play for the gentlemen at lords. parental pride was flattered. next season the same thing happened, only more frequently. there was, in fact, an understanding that he was available for all the important matches, and very soon not only the fixtures with middlesex, kent, and surrey, came to be regarded as important, but also those with hampshire, gloucestershire, somerset, and worcester. indeed, in five years' time the son found himself playing county cricket steadily from may to august and as an amateur. things happen like that. still the pact, as the elderly gentleman in the pavilion asserted, had been made in the right spirit. and it was, after all, a family affair. but the fine distinction between the amateur and the amateur professional is defined only by the obvious moral to this story, and the subtler moral had passed unnoticed by the elderly reactionary in the pavilion. a young man, twenty-three years of age, has been expensively educated for some ten to twelve years. and he is faced at the end of his education, when it is assumed, that is to say, that he is equipped with the knowledge and trained ability that will enable him to take up that portion of the world's work for which he is best fitted, with two alternatives. either he can go into his father's business, or else he can lose his caste and sign on as a professional cricketer. it occurred neither to the father nor to the son nor to the elderly gentleman who repeated the story in the pavilion that any other alternative was possible, or, indeed, desirable. the son was not in a position to say to his father: 'of course i wouldn't become a pro. but i'm really not keen on your business. i shouldn't be a success at it. i'd rather do something else.' he could not say that, because there was nothing else for him to do. six years earlier he could have gone to sandhurst. if he had worked harder at school he might possibly have passed into the egyptian civil service. it is possible that his blue would have obtained for him a schoolmastership, but his gulf in mods, would have limited his choice of schools. and the prospects of a junior master at a second-rate public school are not inviting. so, whatever his own inclinations might have been, he had to accept his father's offer. it is here that we find the true moral of the story; and we ask ourselves whether this young man was, in spite of his ten years at oxford and at a public school, really educated. he had learnt how to make centuries in county cricket, and he had acquired a certain quantity of uncorrelated information. but he had not developed the ability to perform properly the type of work for which he was best fitted, nor, indeed, had he discovered what that type of work might be. as likely as not his father's business was the last that he should have chosen. we all react from our surroundings, and he had probably become heartily sick of his father's particular form of 'shop.' he had so often sat wearily at the dinner table, fingering his bread, piling the salt into pyramids on the edge of the cruet, while his father had explained to his mother the minute details of his latest deal. 'you see, my dear, i bought in at twenty-six....' of all hideous employments the buying and selling of shares had seemed to him the weariest. and yet there was nothing for him but to accept a desk beside a telephone with the files of the _financial news_ spread out before him. he can have brought no enthusiasm to his work. out of a sense of duty, and in order to improve his own position, he may have worked hard during the winter months, but he must have worked without pleasure, with his work not as an end but as a means. yet nothing in a man's life is of more importance than his profession. if he does not enjoy his work he values too highly the privileges that success in it will bring to him. he asks too much of his private life, and if he is disappointed, he embarks on a desperate search for pleasure. half of the discontent of modern life, the discontent that expresses itself in endless parties, dances, and entertainments, can be traced to the reactions of men and women engaged in uncongenial employment. and so we return again to that first question. can we call a man educated who has not discovered in what capacity he is most likely to be of service to society, or who, having discovered it, has not taken steps to qualify himself for that profession. that, in a sentence, is the case against the english public school. a system stands or falls by its products. and it is only natural that parents who are not particularly well off, and who have no private business into which they can draft their children, should ask themselves whether or not a public school education is worth the considerable personal sacrifice that will be entailed if their sons are to be sent to wellington, clifton, or uppingham. 'we want to do the best for tommy,' they say. 'but after spending £250 a year on him for five years what do we get in return? tommy is not clever enough to pass into the civil service; he may get a mastership on a salary only slightly better than that of a metropolitan policeman. is it worth it?' when the head master to whom these doubts are carried, commences to enlarge on the moral qualities that are revealed and strengthened by 'the honest give and take of public school life,' the parent is still unsatisfied. 'are you quite sure?' they say. 'of course we know it's all exaggerated, but where there's smoke, you know, and one has heard....' is it surprising that under such circumstances the mandarins of the public school profession should have erected a barricade of prejudice between themselves and criticism. their maintenance is at stake. they have to persuade the parent that he is getting his money's worth. otherwise he will send his son to a day school, or, worse still, to some pension in rome or brussels. and so it has happened that any critic of the public schools is immediately driven into a false position. for so long the public schools have been accepted with an unquestioning reverence--for so long, that is to say, the authorities have been able to persuade the world that the goods they are selling are the best, in fact the only goods upon the market--that if any one breathes a word against them now he is labelled a revolutionary; it is assumed that politically he is a socialist, that he wishes to substitute co-operation for competition, that he is a harbinger of red ruin, concealing a bomb intended for william of wykeham's tower or the green sward of agar's plough; that his programme involves the complete destruction of the existing fabric, and that he proposes to erect about its ruins some bizarre construction of eugenics and modernity. nothing, as a matter of fact, is further from the truth. the majority of assailants are anything but socialists. they consider an enlightened oligarchy the ideal form of government, and their chief quarrel with the public schools is the absence of that enlightened oligarchy. no one wants to destroy the public schools. no one would be so foolish. but we do maintain that the public school system--a very old, a very magnificent, a very venerable mansion--stands in drastic need of repair. it is some years since the drains were attended to; electric light is more serviceable than gas; the tapestries are a little moth-eaten; the books in the library are dusty. the house wants to be spring cleaned. it is easy, of course, to say that, but it is very difficult to know how to set about it. our institutions are mirrors in which are reflected our personal imperfections. they can be no better than ourselves; and the merchants of panaceas take for granted a world which has left behind it envy, greed, malice, and desire. to that degree of perfection we shall never attain, but we can at any rate be honest with one another. and there is no side of english life about which rulers and ruled, fathers and sons, old and young have been so consistently dishonest with one another in the past as they have been about the standards and ideals of the english public schools. it is the old trouble of the merchant and his goods, and though the english public schools do not insert double-column advertisements in the daily papers, they are at least beholden not to prejudice the value of their stock. the greengrocer does not inform you that, on the whole, his potatoes are not bad, considering that he bought them from a farmer with a leaking shed. a head master does not tell a parent that, if he is going to send his son to a public school, his own school is not worse than any other. yet the same man who views with grave suspicion eulogies of a patent medicine, accepts complacently the house-master's assurance that tommy is improving enormously both morally and intellectually under his care. a schoolmaster spends a large part of his life boosting the value of his goods, and in time, of course, he comes to believe that every word of what he says is true. the commercial traveller of two years' experience will wink his eye: 'i spun him the tale!' but the commercial traveller of ten years' experience has a solemn countenance. 'people know good stuff when they see it.' a few weeks ago i was staying in the country with some friends, and was taken over by them to the prize-giving of the preparatory school at which their sons were being educated. the ceremony was enacted in the gymnasium. the staff sat at the end of the room on a raised dais, in the centre of which was a table covered with 'calf-bound mementoes of industry.' behind this table stood the head master. he was a large, genial, middle-aged man, rubicund with a surfeit of golf, and he smiled down upon the school and upon its parents. 'well, you boys,' he said, 'i want to tell you how pleased i am with the way you've backed me up this term. you've worked hard and you've played hard: i don't really know how long it is since we've had such a thoroughly satisfactory term: of course there are one or two young gentlemen'--and at this point a twinkle appeared in the corner of his eye--'who have been a little, well, shall we say, difficult; but that's past history, we won't say anything more about it; and, as a whole, as i've already said, i don't think i've ever had such a satisfactory set of fellows.' there were a few more remarks of mutual congratulation, and then he proceeded to the distribution of the prizes. afterwards i had a chat with one of the assistant masters, with whom i happened to be on fairly intimate terms. 'a wonderful fellow, the head,' he told me. 'do you know he's made that same speech at prize-giving for the last twenty years. hardly a phrase different. he wants to send the parents away in a good temper. they'll get their account to-morrow. of course he doesn't know that's why he's doing it. but it's the reason right enough. and how clever that bit is about the young gentlemen who've been a little troublesome. it makes every mother feel that her boy is better than her neighbour's.' i suggested that such an opinion was likely to be revised under the influence of the terminal report. 'not a bit of it,' he answered. 'all our reports are strictly censored. we write them out on a piece of foolscap and the head gets them typed; but where we write "lazy and unintelligent," the parents read "moderate." you can take my word for it that the boy who gets "moderate" in his report from here is one of earth's best dunces.' that was, of course, at a private school; but, even at the most prosperous public schools there is a tacit understanding that parents should be stroked down after the manner of refractory cats. the half-term report contains frequently enough a quantity of pungent critical writing, but the parental visit to the school is invariably the occasion for much conversational flattery. freddie, unless he has become involved in any particularly unfortunate adventure, is the object of restrained, perhaps qualified, but still potential commendation. the father is assured by the house-master that everything is going on splendidly: 'a little low in form, perhaps, rather too boisterous at times in the day room, but a sound fellow at heart, the sort of fellow that the house will be proud of one day.' and the mother's qualms are put at rest by the house-master's wife. 'the tone of the house is so excellent, you see. no bullying at all, and freddie's manners are so charming. every one likes him.' it is possible that if the house-master were taken to task in the privacy of his own study, he might be persuaded to confess himself a pragmatist. 'one has to keep them quiet,' he might say. 'the young rascal'll get on all right as long as they don't start meddling with him.' but it is hard to be honest with oneself. the schoolmaster cannot help regarding the parent in much the same way that the junior subaltern regarded the brigadier. we all know what happened when the runner brought the news that at such an hour the brigadier would visit lieutenant jones's gun emplacements. lieutenant jones specially called the brigadier's attention to what he knew would please him. he put his smartest men on guard. he assured the brigadier that everything was going quite all right, that the men were perfectly comfortable and that the supply of rations was adequate; lieutenant jones did everything, in fact, to get the brigadier into the next trench as soon as possible. which was, of course, all very rational. the brigadier's interest in lieutenant jones's gun emplacements was remote and theoretical, and either way was of small importance. but it is a different thing altogether when house-masters wave parents out of the way with comfortable excuses. it establishes at once a dishonest relationship. the schoolmaster does not trust the parent. he regards him as a nuisance that periodically has to be appeased. and, as long as things go smoothly, he is content to leave him in the dark. there is no co-operation. and that is absolutely fatal. it means that the two people who are chiefly responsible for the boy's welfare are working at cross purposes. the trouble does not end there. for between the parents themselves there is frequently an incomplete mutual appreciation of the difficulties of school life. women, in the nature of things, can only know about public schools what men choose to tell them. that is usually remarkably little. many a husband encourages in his wife the illusion that before he met her his life was a vague, indeterminate, ineffectual thing, the incidents of which are unworthy to be recorded. and many others on such matters as public school life consider that a lie that saves friction is justifiable. it is so easy to see how it happens. husband and wife are sitting after dinner on either side of the fireplace. the wife has just finished reading _the harrovians_, and she looks up with a puzzled, unhappy look. 'harold, dear,' she says, 'it's not like that really, is it? if it were true i couldn't think of sending freddie to such a place.' and what is harold to say? he has read _the harrovians_. he knows that substantially it is true, but equally well he knows that if he acknowledges this to his wife his domestic life for the next six years will be complicated by incessant arguments and anxieties. to begin with he will have to spend many evenings of discussion before he can persuade his wife of the advisability of sending freddie to rugby. and afterwards there will be constant uneasiness. his wife will fret. she will want to pay visits to rugby, to interview the head master, to ask her son uncomfortable questions. his own life would become unbearable. and a lie smooths out so much. 'oh, no, dear, quite unlike the rugby of my day. an exaggerated picture of a bad house in a bad school, that's all it is.' such a situation must arise fairly frequently. and at least one instance of it has come within the circle of my own experience. while i was a prisoner in germany i lent a copy of my school story, _the loom of youth_, to a fellow-prisoner, who had expressed a wish to read it. a few days later he returned it to me with such a flattering display of enthusiasm that, in a moment of unusual generosity i promised to send him a copy on our return. the sequel reached me a few days later. he had returned to his room and remarked that waugh had promised to give him a copy of that book of his, 'the thing that's all full of oaths. i don't know what i shall do with it,' he said. 'i shall have to be jolly careful that my wife doesn't read it.' if one may generalise from such an incident, and i believe that one may, for it has its root in the eternal indolence of human nature, then not only schoolmasters and parents, but fathers and mothers are working at cross purposes. and so the boy finds himself alone, stranded in a society the nature of which he has to discover for himself. he never regards his house-master as one working in co-operation with his parents for the welfare of his soul. schoolmasters will be to him a separate caste. and although he will never reason this out with himself, he will appreciate it intuitively in the natural cunning with which he will exploit one or the other in the furtherance of his own ends. i do not mean that he is deceitful. but he may want to specialise in history, or to abandon german in favour of greek, and he will think whether he would do better to approach his father or his house-master. there is a sort of dual monarchy, and if one sovereign is opposed to a favourite scheme, it is but natural to try one's fortune with the other. his parents' interest in his school life must appear to him superficial. when his father comes down at half term, he has to answer innumerable questions as to his prowess on the cricket field; and very often indeed the chief pleasure that his athletic successes brings him is the thought of the delight that his father will experience. but the intimate side of his school life, his thoughts, his friendships, his troubles, his ambitions, do not enter into his relationship with his parents. in the same way his house-master's interest in his home life seems to him superficial. on his return to school he is asked a few questions about the theatres he has visited; whether he is in training for the football; has he done any private work? not a word of his intimate life. the boy ceases to regard his school life as a continuation of his home life. the two are entirely separate, and it depends on the temperament of the individual as to which of the two he will consider the more important. we hear a great deal of talk about the influence of the home; it is, indeed, the stock argument of the pedagogue who would shelve his own responsibility on to other shoulders, but i believe that its influence is greatly overrated. home and school present to the average boy two watertight compartments. they are different lives, a different technique is required. and human nature has at least one property of the chameleon. a schoolboy sets out, therefore, to discover school life for himself. he knows what his parents expect him to make of it; he has a fairly shrewd idea of what his schoolmaster expects him to make of it. it remains for him to investigate school life as his companions have made it. naturally he does not announce his investigations. he lets his parents think what they like and his schoolmasters think what they like. he goes his own way. and it is thus that school life as it is, differs so enormously from the traditional concept of it. there must be always a gulf between the reality and the imagined idea. but in public school life the gulf is between, not the schoolboy reality and his idea of it, but between the schoolboy reality, and the confused idea of it that is held by parents and masters. it is two degrees from the truth. in consequence, when any one does attempt to tell the truth there is an outburst of indignant protest. and the worst of it is that it is an honest outburst. when head masters write to the press and say 'these accusations are entirely false,' they honestly believe what they say. that is what makes everything so difficult. they have forgotten their own schooldays, and for so long they have been persuading parents of the value of a public school education that they have come to believe in their own advertisements. and yet what they have come to believe is far more remarkable than the truth. in sermons and addresses they assure the boy and his parents that school life is a miniature of the larger world; which is the statement of a fact: yet every subsequent act and utterance is in contradiction to this initial axiom. for, if that larger world did really resemble the official concept of school life, what a bizarre, what an extravagant affair it would be. it would be filled with high lights, with breathless escapades, with impossible heroics. it has been accepted as quite credible that a boy should be capable of the most extreme and loathsome brutalities, that a percentage of every school should spend its life in gambling and heavy drinking, that at least one prefect in every school should contract inconvenient liabilities at the baron's arms, and that to extricate himself he should forge his house-master's signature. indeed, anything may happen provided that the course of life follows a simple process of right and wrong which leads to the triumph of virtue and the downfall of vice. it is something like a lyceum melodrama. and, though we can all manage to enjoy for a couple of hours the fine sensationalism of _the beggar girl's wedding_, we should hardly accept its values as a philosophical background for our daily life. and yet that has actually happened in the case of the public schools. mr p. g. wodehouse, in his delightful _mike_, makes psmith say to a new acquaintance: 'are you the bully, the pride of the school, or the boy who is led astray and takes to drink in chapter sixteen?' such figureheads exist in the popular imagination. the world believes in bullies, in villains, in straight heroes and in the weak character who goes wrong, but is saved through the influence of either the hero or the head master, or the head master's daughter, or through the sermon of an occasional preacher. it is all very jolly, of course, and no doubt the world would be a far more comfortable place if it were possible to label and pigeonhole all our friends and acquaintances. but life cannot be simplified by any arbitrary process. we have our standards of conduct, but they are shifting and relative. they are the measures that each successive society arranges for what it considers to be its convenience. and we accept them for what they are. at a public school, however, a traditional conception has formed a code of rules for the convenience of a society that does not exist. which is confusing: and when desmond coke wrote in _the bending of a twig_ a very entertaining skit on the behaviour of a boy who had read a number of school stories, and went to shrewsbury expecting to find bullies behind every cloister, schoolmasters laughed over the book, but did not read into it any criticism of themselves. and yet there is nothing that we need more than an honest facing of the facts of public school life. facts are a solid neutral ground on which parents and boys and masters may meet to discuss their ideals and their difficulties. and, in the course of that discussion, they may discover, as likely as not, a way out of their troubles. the hope of this book is to provide that statement of facts. it does not set out as an educational treatise. it accepts the public schools as the system best suited to the material with which it deals. it suggests no new system of teaching. it does not advocate co-education. it does not advance any plea for montessor methods. it will contain no discussion of the advantages of greek over german. there will be no appendix with time-tables and suggested curriculum. for, as things are now, it does not matter whether sanscrit is substituted for mathematics: the boy will learn equally little of either. it is intended as a human study of public school life, as an attempt to break down that conspiracy of silence, that relationship of evasion and deceit that exists officially between parents, boys, and masters; and from time to time it will suggest solutions. it is, of course, only an attempt. for no one person can see more than a side of the truth. however impartial we try to be, we can see in a situation only what the limitations of our personality allow us. we are all at tether. during the last three years many public men have visited russia; they have been honest men, and we know quite well that they went there with the firm intention of telling nothing but the truth. but, before they went, we could have told them exactly what they would say on their return. yet the analogy does not quite hold good. for we, too, have gone, each of us, to a public school with a preconceived idea of what school life would be, and each of us in turn has had that conception destroyed by actuality, and each in turn has had to create for himself his own picture. it follows then that there must in each picture be a certain measure of truth. chapter ii the preparatory school we hear much of the embarrassed misery of a boy's first week at school. and, certainly, it is pretty wretched. mr vachell compared it to the first plunge into an ice-cold swimming bath: the sudden shock, and, afterwards, the glory of a swim. but it is the inaction, the loneliness of the first week that is so difficult. it is more like standing on the edge of the swimming bath on a cold day waiting for the signal that will start the race. and yet the change must have been a great deal more difficult for our parents than it was for us. the preparatory school system is of more or less recent growth, and, when one considers how much one learnt at a preparatory school, in _esprit de corps_, in patience, in sportsmanship, in the give and take of a communal life, one wonders how an earlier generation managed to survive the first term. school life by all accounts was a fairly barbarous business in the eighties, and by what strange roads our parents came to those rough waters. some came straight from home, some from private tutors: the majority from the old-fashioned dame school. it is not surprising that the preparatory schools should have so increased in number and improved in quality. for the preparatory school fulfils a most important function, and it fulfils it extremely efficiently. it is what it sets out to be, a school that will take a small boy almost from the nursery, and train him in the course of four or five years to take his place in a large public school. the task that the head master of a preparatory school has to tackle is not, however, anything like so hard as that which confronts the head master of a public school. for a public school has to equip a boy for life; and life is vast, indeterminate, a swiftly moving river that is never the same from one moment to another. the preparatory school, on the other hand, has only to equip a boy for a public school, and the public school is a fixed quantity. as regards curriculum, the task is simple. the required standard of education is known. a certain percentage in the common entrance examination has to be obtained. the school has not to discover the career for which its individual members are best suited. it has merely to decide which of them are good enough to be trained specially for scholarships. the main object of the preparatory school, however, is to produce presentable specimens of society, boys who will do the right thing in the right circumstances. and this the preparatory school does admirably well. it is at a preparatory school that boys learn manners, courtesy, the proper behaviour in the presence of ladies. but these things, you may say, a boy will learn at home. no doubt he ought to, but any preparatory schoolmaster will disabuse you on that point. how many small boys of seven who have not been to a school will, when they are handed a plate of cakes, take the one nearest to them rather than the one of which they fancy the appearance. how many small boys will think of opening a door for a lady, of offering her his chair when she enters the room, of apologising to his hostess if he arrives late for breakfast. these are the little things that a boy learns at a preparatory school and that he will learn nowhere else; at all good schools a great value is placed on these points of etiquette; if anything, 'good manners' are rather overdone, and the precipitate charge of twelve or thirteen urchins towards a door handle is likely to prove embarrassing to the lady visitor who has risen from her chair. at my own school, for instance, music lessons always took place immediately after lunch; so that, if lunch was a little late, the first boys were allowed to leave the table before grace. it was a rule, however, that no boy should ever leave the dining-room till he had asked the permission of the ladies. and many visitors were much perplexed by the repeated inaudible apologies of nervous small boys who came stumbling towards them between two close-packed tables. the good manners of a preparatory school boy are indeed slightly pedagogic. their elbows are pressed into their sides when they eat, their wrists are raised above the table, and, in a precise voice, they request permission to trouble their next door neighbour for the salt. they are like the critics who insist that a sonnet is not a sonnet if the last lines of the sestet form a couplet. but it is a fault on the right side. for manners, as well as morals, relax in the greater freedom of a public school, and at the age of fifteen one has managed to substitute ease for stiffness. it is, indeed, impossible to say how much one learns at a preparatory school. at the age of ten one has not the necessary detachment to view oneself as an objective reality. it is impossible, for instance, to remember where, or when, was learnt the spirit of comradeship and sportsmanship that is, perhaps, the most lovable quality of the old public school boy. it is hardly inherited. for the average small boy is greedy, selfish, and acquisitive; and, when one is given leg before to a left-hand round the wicket bowler who is turning the ball from the off, the temptation to protest against the umpire's decision is natural. the primitive man, indeed, would have uprooted a stump and walked to the other end of the pitch. where does one learn to turn straight round and walk towards the pavilion? i think it is at the preparatory school. a small boy knows that he has got to play cricket like a sportsman; he knows that a sportsman does not question the umpire's decision; and he is terribly afraid of doing the wrong thing in the presence of his schoolfellows. the first time he is given out caught at the wicket off his pad, a blind anger seizes him. his mouth opens to make a protest. the same thing happened last year when he was playing cricket in the garden with his brother and sister, and, when they insisted that he was out, he sat down in the middle of the field and howled till they told him he could continue his innings. the temptation to repeat the experiment is considerable. but he dare not make any exhibition of himself. he would be mercilessly ragged; and so he returns to his seat under the trees and contents himself with the announcement that jones is a mean sneak who was trying to get a revenge for the kicking he got that morning. and of course the incident will be repeated. umpires make mistakes in first-class cricket: small boys make them with a melancholy frequency on lower grounds, and few batsmen are satisfied with an l.b.w. decision. the young cricketer has many opportunities of displaying the christian qualities of patience and restraint, and every time the temptation to sit down in the middle of the pitch and howl grows weaker. 'the monster custom is angel yet in this,' and, by the time he goes to his public school, his features have learnt to assume a good-natured smile, and he says something about it being all in the game and that last week he had a decision in his favour. i am inclined to think that in that example can be found the essence of preparatory school life; the habits of courtesy and sportsmanship are acquired till they become a second nature. we are told that man is a logical creature, that when he has been properly educated it will be possible for forty million people to live in one country without competition; that in an enlightened society there will be no need for policemen, for every man will instinctively appreciate what is right. it may be so. no one knows what the world will be like two thousand years hence. but, in the meantime, i think we do wisely to train small boys as we train an animal. we thrash our dog if he plays havoc in our neighbour's chicken run, and we rag the small boy who disputes the umpire's decision. the dog does not chase chickens again, nor does the small boy argue in the middle of the pitch. it is a strange business, though, this acquiring of social habits, and, though preparatory school life has been only dealt with in a small way by educationalists and novelists, the process is certainly interesting. everything, to allow for the subsequent relaxation at the public school, is slightly overdone, and the small boy tends to become a prig. it is only natural that he should. by nature he is at that time a somewhat poisonous little beast. he is the victim of numberless petty faults and jealousies; and when he becomes reformed he is self-righteous. he would never think of sneaking, of course, but he would not hesitate to whisper just as a master is coming into the class-room, 'oh, shut up, jones.' he always enjoys putting some one else in the wrong, and arnold lunn has, in _the harrovians_, an incident that provides an admirable example of this attitude. a member of the school has just died. he was not a popular boy; he was not distinguished in games or work. no one really minded, but the school felt bound to present a countenance of appropriate melancholy. a certain clayford, however, had a set of stamps he wished to sell, and he accosted cheerfully a couple of boys who were discussing the last hours of their lost comrade. 'i say, you chaps, like to buy a complete set of borneos surcharged labuan?' 'not to-day, thank you,' said peter stiffly. 'we're not much interested in stamps _to-day_,' added morgan. it is a perfect picture. and as there is no stricter moralist than the potential rake, there is no one with a more rigid code of honour than the preparatory school boy. 'owning up' becomes a fetish. popular opinion drives the wretched urchin into the head master's study. i remember once that on the eve of a school match a member of the eleven went sick with a headache. there was immediate consternation. ferguson might not be a good bowler, his batting was indifferent and he missed his catches more often than not, but he was a distinct improvement on evans, the twelfth man. the chances of a victory were prejudiced: and then some one recollected that that morning smith had smacked ferguson's head in the changing room. it also happened that, for the moment, smith was extremely unpopular. morison's people had just paid their half-term visit to the school, and when the head had brought morison's mother into the room, smith had not stood up. it had been a direct insult to morison's mater. every one had said so, and none of us would listen to smith's excuse that he had had his back to the door, and was filling his fountain pen, a combination of circumstances that rendered a sudden leap to the feet impossible. 'don't argue, smith; you're a cad.' that's what every one had said; and when it was remembered that smith had punched ferguson's head that morning, the fury of popular opinion knew no limit. 'you've lost the match, i hope you know; you'll have to own up, of course,' we said. smith was resentful. he did not see why he should. 'because, smith, that is what a gentleman does under such circumstances.' smith was still obstinate. he did not see why ferguson should have got a headache just because of this. people had had their heads punched before without getting headaches. there was a murmur of contumely. 'but that wasn't an ordinary punch, smith; you hit him with all your force.' the suggestion that it was not an ordinary punch flattered smith's pride. he, too, was inclined to think that there had been about that punch a certain something. he grudgingly admitted that it had been a pretty hard smack. 'even so, though, i don't see how things are going to be made any better by my owning up.' such an attitude was opposed to every idea of preparatory school honour. there was a shudder of supreme contempt. 'perhaps _you_ don't, smith.' and there the argument stopped. but for the rest of the day smith's life was made miserable. every time any one passed him they said: 'owned up yet?' no one would talk to him at tea-time; when he joined a group afterwards the group dispersed and he was left alone. finally, of two evils, confession appeared to him the less, and, after prayers, he pushed open the door of the head master's study and blurted out to the accompaniment of big quivering sobs that he had punched ferguson's head in the changing-room and given him a headache, and, perhaps, lost the match. a couple of years ago i went down to my old school, and, just before lunch, when the whole school was collected in the hall, the head master announced that he wanted the name of the boy who had left the tap running in the bathroom. there was a slight commotion in a far corner; one boy was being nudged and pressed forward. there was a whisper of 'go on, hunter.' all eyes were turned in his direction. there was no course for hunter but to come forward into the open and confess. and yet, as likely as not, some one else was the offender. it was the sort of offence that any one might commit. it is not easy to remember what one has forgotten. no doubt he thought he had turned off the tap, otherwise he would hardly have left the bathroom; yet he might very likely have done it. his companions told him that he had, and his faith in their loving kindness was not sufficient for him to have wondered why they had not repaired his mistake. if hunter had not owned up he would have had to say definitely that he had not left the tap running, and that he could not truthfully have done. so he owned up. the fear of being thought a coward very often makes the preparatory school boy confess to sins that he has never committed, and it is usually the ones who are most often in trouble who find themselves in this position. after all, if you are always getting into scrapes, are always engaged in some misadventure, it is very hard to tell whether, on a particular occasion, you are innocent or not. the head master comes into a class-room in the afternoon. 'now look here, you fellows,' he says, 'you know i've told you that i won't have you running down that steep path to the football field. you are bound to fall down; you must walk. i've told you that a hundred times. now the matron tells me that she saw one of you running down there this morning. i want to know that boy's name.' what is jones mi. to do? he has run down that path so often. whether or not he did so that morning he cannot remember. he has had so much to think about since then. yet, suppose he did run down the hill, and suppose that some one saw him. if he does not own up, he will be called a coward all over the school. far better 'own up,' and receive some small punishment. indeed, it may be said that the jones mi.'s of the world form a rule for themselves, that they own up to every offence of which they are not dead certain that they are innocent. head masters, like batsmen, have to have the benefit of the doubt. it is equally difficult to acknowledge innocence in the midst of crime. at my old school there was an excellent rule that for half an hour after lunch we should sit in our class-rooms and read quietly. one afternoon this peaceful siesta was disturbed by a loud and fierce and general discussion of the superiority of yorkshire cricket over that of lancashire. the particular class-room unfortunately happened to be situated beneath the nursery of the head master's children, and the angry voices of the disputants roused from her slumbers a recent addition to the family. the complaints of a very indignant nurse forced a very busy master to disturb the repose of that restful half-hour after lunch. on this occasion the usual formula was reversed. he did not ask the names of the boys who had been talking, he asked for the names of the boys who had not been talking. now, as it happened, i had taken no part in the argument. i am a middlesex supporter, i had just received as a birthday present a bound volume of _chums_, i was also, at the time, in popular disfavour. so i had seated myself in a far corner of the room and read steadily, with my fingers pressed into my ears. but i did not dare to say so. i should never have been forgiven. it would have been the action of a conscientious objector. no one would have believed me. i realised how hopelessly out of things i should feel while the rest of the school were receiving their punishment. suppose a half-holiday was stopped--what on earth should i do with a half-holiday all to myself? i should be much happier working out theorems in a class-room. and it was also possible that i might have said something that some one had overheard--at any rate, i was not going to risk it. i sat silent at my desk and accepted meekly the common lot. from the outside a preparatory school looks very much like a miniature public school. it presents the same features, the same routine, the same curriculum; there is even some attempt at a prefectorial system. superficially they have much in common. but there the resemblance ends. the scale of values is altogether different. indeed the preparatory school is very like the public school of traditional conception. talbot baines reed is only read by boys of under thirteen; and boys of under thirteen have moulded themselves after his image. there are, of course, none of the high-lights, the heroism, the sacrifice. there are no nocturnal visits to ostlers; but otherwise it is not unlike _the fifth form at st dominic's_. the smallest boys do resemble the 'tadpoles' of that popular romance. in spite of frequent visits to the bathroom their hands and collars are continually smeared with ink; when they go for walks at least one of them falls into the ditch and cuts his trousers; they are all dog-eared except at meal times and at the start of the morning's work. and they have the same attitude to life. they are continually forming rival gangs; they are on the brink of feuds and jealousies. they side against one another. each boy in turn becomes the object of general dislike. there is a certain amount of bullying, a great deal more than there is at most public schools. new boys, for instance, are subjected to an inquisition. they are asked what their father is, and whether they would rather be a bigger ass than they look, or look a bigger ass than they are. at a public school only one boy in every twenty gets really ragged, and usually for obvious reasons. but at a preparatory school every one has to put up with a certain amount of persecution. there is a good deal of sycophancy, and the independent learn many lessons. but when all is said and done, the really big difference between the preparatory and the public school is the absence of the cult of athleticism. the scholar is entitled to and receives as much respect as the cricketer and for obvious reasons. the preparatory school has to contend with a far more competitive system than the public school. schools have their ups and downs. numbers rise and fall, but a public school that has a name can be always certain of the support of its old boys. it has a firmly established tradition. only a few preparatory schools, on the other hand, possess this questionable advantage. the name of only a few are familiar. none of them would justify the journalist in the employment of his cliché 'a household word.' the preparatory school depends largely on the energy and personality of one man, and the scholars are, after all, his exhibition blooms. he may produce cricketer after cricketer, but the public school will take all the credit. we speak of hedges and chapman and stevens as products of tonbridge, uppingham, and u.c.s. respectively. we do not know where they learnt the groundwork of the game. the scholar, however, comes into prominence while he is still at his preparatory school. the name of the school is put after the name of the successful candidate. it is the scholar, not the cricketer, who advertises a school. if the head master of a preparatory school told you that seven of his old boys were at that time playing in their public school eleven, you would not feel that he was entitled to any extravagant credit. if, however, he told you that in one year seven of his boys had won scholarships you would be considerably impressed. the boys themselves naturally, of course, are more interested in cricket than in greek, but they appreciate that scholastic triumph has a marketable value, and the school officially is prouder of its winchester scholar than of its slow left-hand bowler. the small boy who goes home for the holidays knows that he can impress his uncle by the announcement that hughes got the second eton scholarship, but that the statement that they beat southdown by 100 runs and that evans took seven wickets for twenty-three will elicit only a polite 'really.' it is exactly the opposite at a public school. the new boy will proudly announce that the captain of his house had played for notts. there is a standard by which one can judge public school cricket and football; there is no more a standard for the performances of preparatory school athletes than there is for the startling figures of the village fast bowler. naturally there is more excitement when a new boy shows an uncanny apprehension of the theorems of geometry than over a new boy who brings the ball back naturally from the off. as a result the preparatory master is inclined to push the clever boys on too fast. it is the one real mistake that the preparatory school makes, and it should be noticed. for it is serious. a boy of eighteen can stand the strain of systematic coaching; a boy of twelve cannot. the preparatory scholar is more often than not a hot-house product. he has drawn on his reserves too early; his mind has been forced into a groove at the start. he is trained like a pet pomeranian, and he is kept in blinkers; he is not allowed to explore bye-paths that are of interest to him. that would be prejudicial to his chances. he has to keep on the straight road of scholarship. he may get his scholarship; he probably will, for such preparatory schools are specialists at the game, but, in the long run, it does not pay. the boy has been forced too soon and he is stale by the time he gets to his public school. it is very interesting to note how often, in the course of a year or two, boys who did not get scholarships are higher up in the school than their successful rivals: a man who starts the half-mile at a hundred yards pace leads at the end of the first lap, but he does not win the race. and the preparatory school master is inclined to forget that, while a winchester scholarship is the whole race for him, it is only the first lap for the boy. he naturally wants the credit of the scholarship for his school, but on the other hand he has to be unselfish. he has to ask himself whether, in the long run, it is not better for the boy to carry on with the general routine and take the scholarship examination in his stride. if he succeeds well and good; if not, there is plenty of time. and the wise parent will insist on this. the boy himself, however, realises that his world is that of the green leaf and the bud. it is a time of sowing. and the fruits will show elsewhere. he knows that his career will only start when he reaches his public school. the fact is always being forced upon his attention. 'this sort of thing is all very well here,' his masters will tell him, 'but it won't work at your public school.' in the same way the commandant at sandhurst used to adjure us in his speeches, 'to keep always before you the thought of the day when you will join your regiment.' there is the fear and the attraction of the unknown future. and, for the sake of it, a boy will work far harder than he would otherwise have done. he looks beyond the rewards and position that his own school offers. it is not enough to be in the highest form, not enough to be in the first eleven. he must improve himself so as to be able to take a high place in the next stage of his career. a public school boy, on the other hand, regards the honours that his school has to offer as an end sufficient in themselves. in occasional addresses he is adjured to think of the day when he will have to step out of that cloistered peace into the rush and traffic of life; but that day is distant. he has little ambition beyond 'a ribboned coat' and a seat at the high table. his horizon is contracted, and his behaviour is that of those who do not believe in a survival after death. he places an undue value upon the immediate and the present. the preparatory school boy always looks ahead to a future stage of life. and so it is that, when the last day at school comes, he is not the victim of the surprised sentimentality that overcomes the public school boy. he has begun to feel that he has outgrown his surroundings. he has chafed at the restraint of childhood. he has felt that success or failure is of little importance: so soon he will be making a fresh start. he has lived in the future. he has spent long summer evenings reading the history of his new school. he has studied photographs of its buildings; he has pored over old numbers of the school magazines, and has formed a romantic conception of the giants of whose prowess he has read. the future opens before him with limitless opportunities, and he can face it with an eager confidence after his five long years of discipline. how long they have taken in the passing, and yet in retrospect how flat they appear, how colourless, how tiresome. nothing has happened; day has followed day. ah, well, that is over now. life is to begin. the new boy sets out hungry for experience. on the last day at his preparatory school he is addressed, in company with the other boys who are leaving, by the head master. his egotism is flattered by the assurance that the honour of his old school lies in his hands. he is told that he will need a firm upper lip and a stout heart. he listens to a recommendation of honesty, truthfulness, and courage--all this he has heard before. he has read so many school stories. and then, suddenly, he is startled by a warning against temptations, the nature of which he imperfectly understands. his curiosity is roused. he learns that if he yields to these temptations his career will be spoilt, his health and brain will be ruined. how this fate is going to be brought about he is not certain, but he agrees with his head master that it is a fatality at all costs to be avoided. he asks a friend for enlightenment and receives a superior answer of: 'oh, don't you know!' which makes him think that his friend knows even less about it than he does. at any rate this particular temptation has not yet presented itself, and the acknowledgment of its existence fades from his contemplation of a golden future. chapter iii the new boy alpha and omega are the most widely known letters of the greek alphabet. and the first and last weeks of a public school career have inspired more essays and sermons than the other two hundred and fifty weeks put together. yet in neither the beginning nor the end is to be found the essence of school life. the last week is a period of agreeable sentiment. the first of embarrassed loneliness. the new boy feels that he has no part in the life of the school. on that first afternoon, when he has said good-bye to his parents, and turns to walk away from the station, the school buildings, chapel, studies, cloisters, assume in the mellow september sunlight the prospect of a distant city that one day he may be privileged to enter. at present he is outside it, as he stands at the edge of the courts, forlorn in his black tie and wide brimmed straw hat, while the stream of boys in bowler hats and gaily coloured ties pours up from the station. on all sides he hears shouts of welcome, snatches of eager conversation. no one takes the least notice of him. he is an unrecognised foreigner. during supper, he sits silent and nervous among the new boys at the day-room table. from time to time he casts hesitating glances at the raised table where the prefects sit. what giants they seem. he wonders which is featherstone, the head of the house?[1] is that imposing figure with the black hair brushed back from his forehead, the g. o. evans, who made 121 in the public school's match at lords? can it be possible that he and they are members of the same society? a prefect rises from the high table and leaves the hall. immediately forms are pushed back and the long narrow passage leading to the dormitories is filled with sound. the new boy is taken with the stream. what will happen to him now, he wonders? he has always understood that most of the ragging takes place in the dormitories. will all new boys be subjected to some common lot? in a way he almost hopes that they will. he may thus be given an opportunity of showing his courage. he will be marked down at once as 'a bit of a sport.' but nothing happens. he walks timidly into the large airy room with its bare boards, its row of wash-hand stands and red-quilted beds. he sees his bag lying in the middle of the floor. three hours earlier when he and his parents had been shown round by the house-master's wife, he had placed his bag on the corner bed. it had seemed to him a good idea to reserve that particular bed. he would then be open to attack only on one side. memories of horatius cocles had stirred his imagination. but some one else is already undressing there. he picks up his bag, and is about to place it on the bed nearest him when a warning voice informs him that jones has bagged that bed. he looks round him in dismay. there are only two vacant beds. 'may i have that one?' he asks. the boy with the warning voice looks surprised at being questioned. 'i should think so,' he says, 'unless hughes wants it. he had it last term.' the new boy does not know whether or not he dare begin to undress beside the bed that hughes may possibly commandeer. he stands irresolute; then decides to take the risk. there is nothing to choose between the two positions, and hughes would probably prefer a change. he begins slowly to undress. no one takes the least notice of him. no one evinces the slightest inclination to test the courage of the new man. no hardened bully enters with a blanket. it is possible that two blasé young gentlemen from another dormitory will stroll in 'just to have a look at the new men,' will make a cursory examination, and having expressed their disgust at 'such an appalling crew,' will seek better fortune elsewhere. that will be all. the inquisition of preparatory school terrors is a myth. this generation is not more timid than its predecessors, but it is more subtle. the boy who has just ceased to be labelled 'new' wishes to impress his importance on the new boy. forty years ago he achieved this object by putting the new boy on a chair and throwing boots at him. the appeal to physical force was not, however, invariably successful. sometimes the small boy retaliated, and there is no reason why a boy of thirteen should not be a match for one of fourteen. at any rate the 'year older' has accepted the twentieth century doctrine that the easiest way to impress a person is to ignore him. and so the boy of a year's standing assumes an air of olympian superiority. the new man is beneath his notice. he prefers to lean in the doorway of the dormitory, and talk of the days when 'meredith had that far bed, and johnstone had the wash-hand stand beneath the window.' he will casually let fall the names of the mighty and note their effect on the young. in the daytime he is probably quite an insignificant person, low in form and a funk at football. he can only appear great in the presence of his juniors during the quarter of an hour between supper and lights out. he therefore takes enormous pains to secure the admiration of those whom he affects to despise. it is the same everywhere. at sandhurst, on the first night of each term, the seniors used to cluster round the piano and sing till 'rooms' with incredible violence and discord. it was done entirely to impress the juniors, and on the whole i am inclined to think it was successful. the junior is a shy person, and the din has on him an effect not unlike that of an intensive bombardment. as the junior sits in a far corner of the anteroom, cowed and unhappy by an exhibition that is being conducted, though he does not know it, entirely for his benefit, so does the new boy lie back in bed on his first night, wondering what it is all about. the jargon puzzles him; the attitude to life puzzles him. the boy with the warning voice is lamenting that he has got his 'budge.' 'rotten luck,' he says. 'i should like to have stopped in old moke's for at least a year. i did just well enough in each paper to avoid being bottled. fourteenth i came out, and now they've started a new form, so we've all got shoved up.' the rest of the dormitory express sympathy. then some one wonders whether davenport will turn 'pi' now he's a 'pre'; the opinion is expressed that ferguson will find himself pretty lonely now that wodehouse has left. a lot of people have apparently been waiting a long time to kick him with impunity. some one says, 'let's make up the fifteen,' and the rival claims of bradshaw and murray are carefully weighed. and all the while four wretched new boys listen in silent, confused wonderment. the conversation gradually becomes spasmodic. there are longer and longer pauses between the conclusion of one topic and the introduction of another. 'well,' says the senior boy, 'about time we were going to sleep. good-night all.' there is a murmur of 'good-night': silence: and then again the warning voice. 'oh, but i say, stewart, what about the new men's concert?' there is immediate interest among the senior members. of course, they had forgotten that ... the new men's concert. 'too late now,' says stewart. 'let's have it on sunday.' 'hear that, you new fellows; you must all have a song by sunday. good-night.' but there is little sleep for the new boy. where is he? what has happened to him? such a little while ago he was secure, garrisoned, sheltered by his home. only twelve hours. he begins to wish that he had not been so anxious to leave his prep. why hadn't he stayed on there another year? he would have been head of the school. at this very moment if he had not been so absurdly impetuous he would be turning over to go to sleep, having wished his dormitory 'good-night.' just as stewart had done. the thought of the concert terrifies him. he is a bad singer. will they make him stand on a chair? will they throw boots at him if his voice quavers, or if he forgets the words? it will be a long-drawn agony. and for a couple of days he is made wretched by the prospect of this ordeal. it allows him no peace of mind. in form, on the football field, as he walks up to the tuck shop, the disquieting thought descends to torture him. but in the end it is a very tame affair. it takes place after lights out, and new boys, as well as lovers, win a strange courage of the darkness. moreover, the object of the concert is to amuse the senior members of the dormitory, and bad singing amuses no one. myself, i remember being stopped before i had completed one verse of 'the british grenadiers,' whereas the boy next to me, who had an agreeable treble voice was made to sing, 'put on your ta-ta, little girlie,' every other night for the rest of the term. the concert is practically the sole direct ordeal that a new boy has to face: yet it is probable that he would, on the whole, prefer the old-fashioned methods. it is better to be ragged than to be ignored. and he spends most of his first week wondering whether he has done the right thing. it is especially difficult if he finds himself placed high in the school. the lower forms are mainly composed of new boys, companions in calamity, and the master in charge of the second is lenient during the early days. it is different for the boy who finds himself in the lower fifth, or upper fourth. as likely as not there is only one other new boy in his house in the same form, and, when he cannot find that particular boy, there is no one to whom he may turn for advice. he soon learns that it is not wise to carry his troubles to his seniors. he may find himself in his house-master's study, waiting to hand in the list of books he will require, and suddenly he remembers that he has forgotten to put down his latin prose book on the list; he has also forgotten what latin prose book his form uses. he casts a despairing eye round the room and recognises, leaning against a bookcase the languid, supercilious figure of watney. what luck, he thinks, watney has been in the upper fourth two years. he is sure to know. the new boy edges towards him. 'please,' he asks, 'what latin prose book do we use?' his query is met by a look of amazed, outraged disapproval. watney looks him up and down. then at last: 'who are "we"?' he says. the experiment is not repeated. the new boy arrives in form without his latin prose book and is threatened with an imposition. the geography of the school is very puzzling. no new boy could be expected to gather much help from the information that his class-room is 'under the library, up on the right, next to uncle ned's.' for at least a week he is always entering the wrong form room. in the lower forms it is customary for the master to glance round the class, see that five boys are missing, and send the senior member in search of them as a matter of course. indeed the first week of term is very pleasant for the senior member of the lower forms. he spends most of his time searching for lost lambs, and he is in no frantic haste to complete his task. but that is in the lower form, and, in the middle and upper schools, form masters do not care to have their time wasted. the absence of jones mi. is not regarded as a joke. nicknames are confusing. the new boy does not realise that 'crusoe' and mr robinson are the same person. and, when he finds himself a quarter of an hour late in mr robinson's class-room, his excuse that he thought he had to go to 'mr crusoe' is not an official success. he is always on the brink of a mistake. probably his life is further complicated by the fact that he is playing rugby football for the first time, and, for at least a month, his performances on the field can give him little satisfaction and less amusement. in the course of two or three puntabouts he is taught by his house-captain how to pack and how to take a pass. he is then drafted on to pick ups and house-games to fare as best he may. he fares extremely badly. he hangs about on the edge of the scrum. he catches hold of his opponents when they are dribbling and attempts an association barge when they are running. for a long time he never touches the ball with his hands at all, and on the rare occasions when he discovers it at his feet, he takes a terrific rout at it and is contemptuously informed that he is not playing soccer. he is playing with boys older and heavier than himself. he has little chance of acquiring self-confidence: no footballer is really any use till he has scored a try, and that day is slow in coming. the new boy's chief anxiety on the field is to avoid the notice of any house caps that may be on the touchline. at half-time he will rub worm-casts on his knees to present an appearance of muddy valour. he is terribly afraid he will be reported and beaten for slacking. this fate rarely, as a matter of fact, overtakes a small boy. a beating for slackness is usually reserved for the boy about half-way up the house who has committed no definite offence, but has been making a nuisance of himself generally.[2] slackness on the field is the excuse for an official reprimand, and its effect is usually salutary. this, however, the new boy does not know. games, when the house-captain is on the touchline, become a misery. during his first term he looks forward to the first fifteen matches chiefly because on those days he will not himself have to play. but it is in his spare time that he most acutely feels himself outside the general life of the school. he is oppressed by liberty. he does not know what to do with it. at his preparatory school an elaborate time-table was posted on the notice-board, and every moment of his day was pigeonholed. a boy had no excuse for not knowing at any given time what he ought to be doing, and where he ought to be doing it. there was constant supervision. but, at a public school, provided a boy answers his name at roll-call, and fulfils his social engagements in the form room and on the football field, no one worries much what he is doing during the rest of the time. he can search for plovers' eggs, or hunt for fossils, or develop photographs, or overeat at the tuck shop. he is his own master, and this the new boy cannot understand. when he has changed after football on a half-holiday he asks himself: 'what ought i to be doing now?' the answer is, of course: 'nothing in particular. whatever you like.' a disconcerting answer, for there is nothing in particular that he wants to do. the day room is inhospitable. the big chairs round the fire are occupied by the mighty. the library is only of less interest to him than the museum. the tuck shop at such an hour is full of bloods in whose presence he feels embarrassed. he wanders disconsolately round the courts. all the other new boys seem to have found something to do (a common delusion this). in the end he succeeds in finding some one equally lonely with whom he goes for a walk: and a walk, unless one is a botanist, is such a strange way of spending an afternoon, that i have since wondered whether any one after his first term ever goes for a walk at school without an ulterior motive, except when he is in training. it is a strange business that first term, and its importance is, i think, overrated. it is not public school life. it is composed of the hesitations, the reactions of a novice. school life is on the other side of it. the new boy sees that life in fragments. it puzzles him. he tries to fit it into shape with the scale of values he acquired at his preparatory school. and fails. the preparatory school belongs to childhood, the public school to adolescence. the new boy understands little of what is going on round him. indeed there is no person whose testimony can be less relied upon than that of the new boy of four weeks' standing. he never knows what he should, and what he should not, believe. the new life is so strange to him that he is prepared to accept any absurdity for the truth. the veriest nincompoop can pull his leg. the following story is true. it was the custom in my house for the matron to put out clean underclothes for each boy on saturday evening. on my first saturday i noticed that no clean pants had been put out for me. i asked an elder boy why this was. 'oh, don't you know?' he said, 'we only have clean pants twice a term.' i believed him. the matron thought that i, in common with many others, did not start wearing pants till well into the winter. in consequence i wore the same pair till the second week in november. it is the same with regard to the more serious issues of school life. mischief is often caused by the mistaken ideas that new boys give their parents of what does and what does not go on in their house. i was provided the other day with a good example. at a certain house in a famous school it was the practice of the house-master's wife to sit at the day-room table for lunch. the idea was admirable. the house-master's wife was a sympathetic woman who wished to recall to the small boys the regenerating atmosphere of their homes. the results, however, were unfortunate. the small boys became communicative. in their innocence they repeated stories of which the true significance had escaped them. in their ignorance they misinterpreted stories of which the nature happened to be direct. in neither case did the reputation of certain light-hearted sportsmen on the va. table rise in the official esteem. indeed of that particular house there was composed a limerick, the exact wording of which has more humour than propriety, to the effect that the house reports of the sixth form table were written by the fags. few parents, however, would accept this explanation. officially the first term is usually an unqualified success. the new boy is not distracted from his studies by the stress of house politics nor by the ambitions of the football field. the weekly form order is his chief excitement. and it would be surprising, considering the qualified enthusiasm with which the majority of the form welcome this occurrence, if the new boy did not soon find himself in the running for promotion. there is, indeed, little else for him to do.[3] he lives in a world of his own. he sees a good deal of new boys in other houses, and the usual question in break on saturday morning is: 'where were you this week?' his offences against discipline are inconsiderable. it is 'side' for a new boy to rag in the day room, in the changing room, and in the dormitories. that is the privilege of his seniors. he is not hardened enough to rag in form. he still regards work as important. i remember once seeing a very small and inoffensive scholar crumple up a sheet of paper and fling it at the head of his chemistry master. he maintained, however, that he was aiming at the waste-paper basket, and, though the excuse was not accepted, the offender's subsequent performances on the cricket field have inclined me to think he spoke the truth. at any rate this is the sole piece of audacity on the part of a new boy that i have witnessed. indeed the new boy who does not return home with a thundering good report is a well-placed candidate for expulsion. most of us start well. how many public school boys would have to confess that they won their only prize in their first term. the new boy returns home as from a roman triumph. the indulgent father is prodigal of largess and theatre-tickets. his secretary is instructed to type out the report and send copies of it to aunts and uncles and his former head master. it is a great occasion, and we do well to make the most of it. it does not come twice. the change begins, i suppose, on the first evening of the second term, when the novice, clad appropriately in bowler hat and coloured tie, is accosted by a member of the form into which he has been promoted and informed that he will be expected to do the 'con' for them that term. there is no threat. it is merely the announcement of an arrangement for mutual help. the old stagers who have slowly moved up the school, with the danger of superannuation camping on their trail, consider that their last terms should pass in a soft tranquility. they expect the newcomer to provide them with that peace. 'here,' they say, 'is a smart lad who has got his promotion straight away; he can be of great service to us.' it is a form of practical communism of which the scholar is particularly the victim. there is a general conscription of intellect. scholars are expected to do the work of the bloods. 'you are paid to come here,' say the great men, 'you must prove yourselves worthy of your hire.' arnold lunn has described how the captain of his house used to hold an educational raffle. slips of paper on which were written: 'greek prose'; 'latin prose'; 'essay,' were placed in a hat and the scholars took their chance of drawing a blank. i can still hear the voice of the school fast-bowler shouting over the banisters to a wretched goggle-eyed youth, 'no. 69, becke, and shove it in my study before prayers.' but the scholar is an exceptional person, and the novice who is accosted in the courts has an easier fate. he does not have to do other people's work. he merely has to do his own out loud. he is, moreover, a privileged person. he does not have to look the words up in a dictionary. that is the task of another member of the combination. he is spared the hack work of translation. it is for him to discover the sense. at a first glance it would seem that this arrangement would be to the advantage of the new boy; certainly it will ensure his industry. there is no chance of his scamping his work. the fate of others depends on his efficiency, and it does not pay him to guess at the sense. i remember once translating _remotis arbielis, surrexit e lectulo_, 'having kicked off his bedclothes he rose from his bed.' no one questioned the interpretation, so i proceeded to the next sentence. none of us luckily was put on to translate that passage, but i can recall now the icy looks of the other members of the combination when the sentence was correctly rendered. i made a bolt for it afterwards, but they caught me. i did not guess again. the form interpreter is never able to say to himself: 'i went on to con yesterday, and i went on the day before, there's not the least likelihood of my being put on to-day. i shan't prepare it.' he has to labour for the general good, and probably, by the end of the term, he knows the latin and greek books pretty well. but he has not only learnt the correct rendering of certain obscure classical passages; he has learnt also, through contact with older boys, the correct public school attitude to work and the relative importance of football and mathematics. this is what he learns. it is the business of the school to win their matches and to produce first-class footballers and cricketers; it is the business of the house to win their house matches and to produce as many colours as possible. it is the business of every individual member of the school to subscribe to this creed. the value of scholastic achievements is relative. it is a feather in the cap of a double first to be privileged to wear the dark blue ribbon of the sixth. but it is not a necessary achievement. scholars, on the other hand, should work. they are no use to the school at games. it is for them to do what little lies within their power; a scholarship has its value. the school likes to get scholarships. it is a side show, of course, but a creditable side show. and the fourth former, after recounting the feats of lewis in the big school match, comments on the fact that bevan won a balliol scholarship in the same way that the village greengrocer will say: 'oh, yes, sir, we have a drapery department, too.' real brains are accorded a sort of grudging admiration. they are entitled to respect. a fellow has done his job well. it may not be an important job, but he has done it. our fourth former remembers the parable of the talents. the balliol scholar has converted his one talent into two. the boy, however, who, without being a scholar, shows unusual signs of industry, is a swot. valuable time is wasted. the school is divided into two parts: the scholars and the rest. the rest brings to its work whatever energy is saved from its more arduous activities. no one thinks any the less of a man for being low in form. slackness on the football field is anti-social. in the long category of an unpopular boy's offence the final evidence of worthlessness is the statement: 'he doesn't even work.' even that resort, 'that last infirmity,' is denied him. what purpose has his existence? these are the articles of faith; these are the conventions. and the new boy who is ambitious, who wishes to win the respect and admiration of his comrades realises that athletic prowess will win him a position that is beyond the reach of the liveliest intellect. he begins to look on his work as a side show. it does not particularly matter what happens to him in the class-room. it would be nice to reach the sixth. there are agreeable privileges. but it is not of first importance. no sooner has he decided this, than he discovers that his form work is intolerably dull. of course he does. he brings no enthusiasm to it. the masters who can inspire the indifferent are rare. and the mind wanders from the inky desks, the hunched row of shoulders, and the far voice of a master droning monotonously, to the swimming bath and the cricket field. will butler get the cricket cup? did frobisher get his firsts because he was worth them, or because he was in the captain's house? these topics offer inviting prospects; speculation follows speculation till suddenly the tired voice breaks into the day-dream: 'will you continue now, please, dunkin?' there is a scuffle as dunkin collects his books and thoughts. there is a whisper of: 'where's the place?' 'what does _crates favorum_ mean?' and the delinquent begins to stumble through his lines in a fashion that may, or may not, result in an imposition. to the unresponsive the atmosphere is one of intolerable listlessness. he makes another discovery, namely, that during his first term he did far more work than was strictly necessary. that he should discover the idiosyncracies of certain masters was a matter of course. sooner or later he would have been bound to learn that in old mouldy's he could pin the repetition on to the back of the boy in front of him, that the moke's mathematical class provided him with an admirable opportunity for writing the imposition that his house-master had given him the evening before. a good batsman soon sizes up the opposing fieldsmen; he knows whether he can risk a single to cover, or whether there is one for a throw when the ball goes slowly to third man. that is part of the game. the new boy makes more important discoveries than that. he comes to understand the intricacies of the set system by which the middle and upper schools learn french, german, science, and mathematics. for the days have passed when a boy learnt only latin and greek and a little french grammar. a liberal education is supposed to give him a general idea of a wide number of subjects. a choice of subjects is allowed, and it is hard to arrange a fair system of marking that will bring the boy who does german into line with the boy who does greek. each school tackles the situation in a different way, but each system probably leaves a loophole for the idle. it could hardly be otherwise, and it is enough to describe one system and the tactics that are adopted to cope with it. this particular system works as follows: it is accepted that the only universal subjects, that is, the only subjects that are studied by the whole form under the same master, are latin and english, and, under english, are to be included history, literature, geography, and divinity. on the marks earned in these subjects the form order and promotion depends. all other subjects, greek, german, french, science, and mathematics are treated independently of the form order and are taught in sets of varying standards. it would seem to be a very sound scheme. a boy, for instance, may be a bad historian and a poor classic, but a fine mathematician. if all subjects were included in the same order he would be kept back by his bad english and latin and would have to do algebra that he had long outgrown, yet at the same time his mathematical ability would place him in a form where the english and classics would be too difficult for him. under the set system it is possible for the boy to reach the highest set in the school at mathematics and yet remain in the shell or lower fourth. during his first term the new boy worked with equal industry at form and set subjects. during his second term he realises that he is wasting his energy. proficiency in greek will not help him to secure his promotion into the lower fifth; whereas, if he takes things easily at greek, he will be able to spend more time on history and latin. indeed, it might be said that the wily one 'makes a book' in form and set subjects. he appreciates the need of reserve strength. he ought always to have a little in hand. he casts his eye down his time-table. there is no reason why he should not spare himself during the hour in the laboratory. the time might be so much more profitably devoted to his latin 'con'; and at the time, of course, he will not consider the possibility of allowing such an arrangement to divert in any way his classical activities in 'prep' on the previous night. far from it. he will have an opportunity to revise. he again studies his time-table. french with 'bogus.' a little relaxation there is possible. greek with 'crusoe,' however, presents difficulties. crusoe is something of a martinet; he expects lessons to be prepared, and he has a way of remembering what impositions he has set. he will have to work hard for crusoe. indeed it would be as well if he tried an honest, or the equivalent for an honest term's work for crusoe. is not the next set conducted by the moke on admirably communal grounds. in the moke's every one helps every one. there is no haste, no envy, no striving for position. a few scholars hurry through on their way to balliol scholarships. they do not matter. they are only ripples on the surface of that calm, deep pool. sometimes 'the book is made' the other way. a member of the school eleven has at last reached the lower fifth, and is content for a term or two to rest upon his achievements. he decides to do just enough work to avoid being bottled. he realises, however, that it will be as well for his father's peace of mind if a few single figures appear after his name in the report. and so he devotes himself to chemistry and french. two subjects appear on the time-table for each evening's preparation. and it is a bad day when it is impossible to dismiss at least one of them in a quarter of an hour. examinations present difficulties. and it is here that the new boy, at the end of the summer term, makes his first serious compromise with the rigid code of ethics that he has brought with him from his preparatory school. why should he not crib in set subjects. they are unimportant. promotion does not depend on them. he is not taking an unfair advantage of any one else. he will only do just well enough to avoid having to do the paper again. why should he have to spend hours sweating up a useless subject. it is absurd. besides, cribbing is rather an exciting game. it is a daring feat to smuggle the principal parts of the irregular verb, into a waistcoat pocket. it needs courage to open a french dictionary beneath the desk. he will be able to talk about it afterwards, and fellows will say he is a sport. it is the first step, and afterwards the compromise becomes increasingly easy. he returns home at the end of his first year fortified with a deal of worldly wisdom. he looks forward to the next year hopefully. he knows where he is now. he has learnt the tricks of the trade. it is all going to be splendid fun. footnotes: [1] i have used throughout this book the idiom of my own school. the head of a house or of the school is the head boy in work. the captainship of a house or of the school is a term applicable only to athletic prominence. [2] i am speaking of the average house. there are frequent occasions, of course, in bad houses where this privilege of the house-captain is abused. [3] it has even been known for a new boy to work in his spare time. chapter iv the second year and it is splendid fun. let us make no mistake about that. it is splendid fun. for the ordinary boy, for all those, that is to say, who have not been designed by nature for the contemptuous entertainment of their companions, nothing is much better than the second and third years. it is a light-hearted, swash-buckling period. the anxieties of the fag have been forgotten, the responsibilities of the sixth former are still remote. the second yearer can rag, and his ragging is not taken seriously. at the end of the term house-masters do not address him solemnly and appeal to his better nature. they beat him, and that makes it a square fight. he knows where he is. he has to remain on the right side of the law. if he passes the limit, he knows what to expect. later on the issue will be complicated by his position: for a while he can afford to be an irresponsible free-lance. it is a happy time of eager unreflecting action. there is a good deal of noisiness and 'showing off.' but it is harmless. a boy has just begun to find himself. he is free at last. at his preparatory school he was always under the eye of authority. his freedom was enmeshed by a network of regulations. his first year at his public school his freedom was fettered by nervousness and prejudice. that is over now. i sometimes think that we love charlie chaplin so dearly because he does all the things we have not the courage to do ourselves. when a waiter hurries past us with a pile of plates, how delightful it would be, we think, to drive our feet between his legs; who would not love to hurl a brick at a retreating foe; who is not tempted to crook his walking-stick round the ankles of the pompous. we never do these things; not as we should like to do them. but we come as near as we ever shall come to the attainment of this desire during our second year at school. on a small scale it is permitted us to destroy furniture. we can pull chairs from beneath an unsuspecting foe. the strings of a hammock have been cut to the discomfiture of the occupant. the terminal bill for breakages is often considerable, but no one is ever really hurt. for what little bullying exists nowadays the second and third yearers are in the main responsible. the effect of a new-found freedom is intoxicating. and there is always a boy in every house who is an irresistible butt. there is a compound german word that means 'face-that-invites-a-box-on-the-ear.' and such a physiognomy is the invariable possession of at least one scholar; in its own way the magnetic influence of such ugliness is as irresistible as the charm of a pretty woman. one has only to see that particular brand of face to want to heave a boot at it. one refrains seldom. it used to be held that every house contains one bully. it would be truer to say that every house contains one boy who is bullied. most boys go through their schooldays without being subjected to any bullying, but most boys indulge in a little spasmodic bullying themselves. it is a sort of bull baiting, and it is in the main good-natured. four or five fellows are sitting in a study after tea. there are still twenty minutes before lock-up, and the conversation has grown desultory. they all feel a little bored. one of them suggests that they should go and see how that ass 'sniffy' is getting on. it is a popular suggestion, and a raid is made upon sniffy's study. sniffy is discovered working. this is considered to be a disgrace to the house, and sniffy is informed of the fact. he invites his guests to get out. 'but, my dear sniffy, what hospitality! surely you are going to offer us a chair! no? then we must teach you manners!' sniffy's chair is suddenly jerked from under him and sniffy is flung forward on to his table. he jumps up and lets fly at one of his assailants. it is no fun ragging some one who does not retaliate, and proceedings are soon less cordial. in the end sniffy's study is pretty effectively wrecked. this happens about once a fortnight, but, beyond this, i am inclined to think that, except in a bad house, there is very little bullying now in public schools. the tone of a house changes far more quickly than the tone of a school. and, in every school, there is usually a thoroughly bad house. as a house-master grows old he tends to leave the management of the house more and more in the hands of his prefects. as long as his prefects are efficient all goes well; but, sooner or later, a weak head is bound to come, and then the swash-buckling element gets out of hand. one of the houses when i first went to school had got into this state. the head boy was easy-going, and there were in the day room two members of the first fifteen who had in school failed to reach the lower fourth and who were thorough 'wrong 'uns.' terrible tales of refined torture used to be repeated in the upper dormitories, and i can well believe that life there was pretty wretched. but i always distrust second-hand accounts. nothing is more easily distorted than the story of atrocities, and, for my part, i have neither been a victim, nor the witness of any serious bullying. the only case that reached official notice during my time savoured strongly of the ludicrous. a parent had complained that his son had been ill-treated, and all the house prefects were summoned into the head master's presence. the offenders were leaning nervously against the wall; their victim was enduring tortures of self-consciousness; the head master was fingering his pen, and the avenging father blocked up the entire fireplace. there was a dead silence. we were all hard put to it not to smile. the offenders looked so much smaller than the prey. at last proceedings were opened by the boy's parent. he followed the traditional line. he had been a boy. he knew what boys were. he knew the public school code of honour. he loathed sneaking. his boy had not sneaked. the confession had been dragged out of him. what he, the father, wanted, was not punishment, but the assurance that such a thing would not happen again. 'and now, john,' he concluded, 'show the head master that bruise upon your arm.' very sheepishly the boy drew off his coat, rolled up his sleeve and revealed a bruise, certainly of extensive proportions. 'how did they do that?' asked the chief. 'by flicking him with wet towels, head master,' said the parent. a simultaneous denial came from both offenders. 'we didn't make that bruise, sir.' 'but did you flick him?' asked the chief. 'well, sir; yes.' 'then how on earth can you tell that you did not make that bruise?' there was a moment's silence, during which the smaller of the offenders surveyed the wound with an almost envious eye. 'it couldn't have been me, sir,' he said at last. 'i can't flick well enough to have done that.' i hope i may be pardoned for retelling this story, which i have already told elsewhere. but it seems to me to interpret perfectly the attitude towards bullying that exists in most houses. no doubt there was a great deal of bullying fifty years ago. and people think that what was true of the rugby of _tom brown's schooldays_ is true of the shrewsbury of to-day. they still think that the three chief sins of a public school are bullying, stealing, and midnight escapades into the town. but those days have passed. in desmond coke's _the bending of a twig_ the new boy who sought for bullies behind every cloister quickly won the nickname of don q. it is usually during the course of his fourth term that a boy first begins to swear. for swearing is, on the whole, confined to members of the middle school. it is side for a fag to swear, and an oath, except on rare occasions, is considered beneath the dignity of a blood. he is supposed to dwell in an olympian fastness beyond the reach of inconvenience, where the need for violent language is infrequently presented. for the second yearer, however, life is full of emotion that demands to be registered forcibly. i can never quite see why so many people refuse to believe that a schoolboy's conversation is punctuated with 'damns' and 'bloodys.' we employ the idiom of our surroundings. a boy does not swear at home; at school he does. and there is no particular reason why he should not. an oath means little to him. he knows that some indecency is implied. but the meaning of the word is not defined by his use of it. he rarely employs it appropriately. he recommends the most contradictory performances. a powerful expression is needed. he wishes the world to know that he has been moved powerfully either to anger, or to delight. that is all. any word that would have this effect would suit him, and i remember a dormitory captain insisting that the only expletive to be used in his presence should be 'daggers'; this crasis satisfied every one. the language a boy uses is no index to his character. swearing and 'talking smut' are very different things. it is also in his fourth term that a boy who is anything of an athlete begins to discover himself on the football field. he finds himself scoring tries in home games. he is noticed by the bloods as a coming man. he makes friends among his seniors. he is no longer outside the life of the school. the road of ambition lies clear and straight before him. it is marked out in distinct stages. he learnt, of course, during his first term that a house cap may put one hand in his trouser pockets, that a seconds may put both, that a first may walk across the sixth form green in break; but these facts were distant in the imagination like the ritual of a mediæval court: they now become realities. in a year, he reminds himself, he will be in his house fifteen. the year after he should get his house cap. in four years he should be a first. it might, indeed, be maintained that the blood system is at the same time the magnet and the expression of the second yearer's ambition. the blood would not value his performances so highly were he not encouraged by others in the belief that he is of supreme importance. and, at fifteen, one idealises the future. it seems splendid to be a blood, to play for the school against blackheath, to saunter across the courts with one's hands in one's pockets, one's books stuck under one's arms; to be on terms of friendly intercourse with masters, to be beyond the reach of punishment. and, because the future seems so glorious, the second yearer idealises the dwellers in it. in the same way that in chelsea the latest poet or draughtsman can disregard the social laws of property and of propriety, in the eyes of the junior the blood can do no wrong. his voice is hushed when a blood passes him in the cloisters. if one should speak to him, he blushes and stammers and feels proud of it for days. the blood naturally endeavours to realise the popular conception of himself. he owes his position to it. for the higher up the school we go, the less important the blood appears, and, when our time comes to sit at the high table, we can hardly believe that we are occupying the same chair that meredith sat in four years ago. it is absurd. how the house must have come down. to think of that little ass, barton, being a prefect. how short a time since he was playing in junior house games and getting cursed for funking. and for ourselves--it is only yesterday that we were trembling, a diffident new boy, at the far corner of the day-room table. we cannot but believe our generation to be vastly inferior to those that have preceded it, and we do not think otherwise even when we win the senior cricket cup, although in meredith's year the house was beaten by an innings in the first round. it is not in our nature to desire, or even value highly, what we possess. the last year is often a disappointment. no such foreknowledge mars the enjoyment and anticipation of the second yearer. it is indeed hard to imagine a more fortunate combination of circumstances. from an agreeable present he surveys the prospect of a delightful future. the days may pass slowly, or swiftly, as they will--their passage will be a long enchantment. it is during this period that a boy gets through the majority of his ragging in form. now the ragging of masters is a very specialised art. the master holds all the cards. he has behind him the marshalled forces of the law. he can cane, he can give lines. he has every implement, physical and moral, for the preservation of order. he ought to be able to keep order. yet the boy usually wins. indeed, i often wonder how a master, who has once begun to be ragged, can ever hope to regain order. he is fighting a confident foe. the new boy learns during his first week that 'one can do anything one likes in musty's.' musty stands no chance. he enters the form room nervously; he is on the lookout for trouble; he is afraid to turn his back on the class when he is working on the blackboard. for ten minutes there is silence, a suspicious silence, perhaps, but still a silence. musty tells himself that if any one attempts to break that silence he will make him sorry for it. he will punish the first whisper: that is the only way. and then, suddenly, from the back of the room, comes an ominous sound. it is not a cough: it is not a sneeze: it is a hideous nasal and vocal croak that musty has learnt to recognise as the prelude to rebellion. he observes that some one is cramming a handkerchief into his mouth, and is choking in the subdued manner of one who is unsuccessfully stifling a laugh. musty decides on action. 'jones, take that handkerchief out of your mouth immediately, and you'll spend the afternoon doing me a hundred lines.' jones withdraws the handkerchief from his chin, and his face assumes an expression of outraged innocence. 'but, sir----' he begins. 'a hundred and fifty lines,' snaps musty. at this point the democracy of the class feels that its independence has been violated. there is a murmur of disapproval. and a tall, cadaverous youth rises from the front desk. 'please, sir----' 'silence, evans.' 'no, sir, but really,' evans persists, 'i must explain to you, sir, that the younger jones is suffering from a very severe cold.' 'yes, sir, i am,' blurts out the victim. 'and the matron said i was not to play football this afternoon.' at this point musty should, of course, be firm. 'i am sorry,' he should say, 'but, at the same time, that will allow you, jones, to do me two hundred lines instead of a hundred and fifty. and perhaps you, evans, will do me a hundred and fifty. thank you. we will now proceed with the lesson.' such tactics might succeed. but musty hesitates; for a moment he wonders whether jones is telling him the truth. and the delay is fatal. already other members have started to produce testimonials to jones mi.'s integrity and disease. 'he really is awfully bad, sir. my study's next door to him, and he was coughing all last night. he made such a noise that i was only able to do you three problems instead of six!' a general conversation begins. members cease even to address the chair. when evans assures musty that 'jones would never tell a lie,' power retorts that the other day jones sold him a watch as new which went smash at once. 'dirty little liar, i call him!' 'you wait till afterwards,' is jones's reply. and, by the time honour has been vindicated, there is no chance of restoring order that day. the class is already out of hand. jones mi. has the general permission to sneeze as often as he likes, a permission of which he generously avails himself. such a disturbance should have been quelled by a firm hand. masters have to run the risk of being unfair. there is, of course, the possibility that jones's cold may have been genuine, but his previous record should preclude it to a 100 to 1 chance. at any rate, it is unlikely that jones would be anxious to carry the case to the head master. criminals avoid bow street. it is not usually, however, so easy to distinguish the preliminary manoeuvres. when, for instance, a boy walks quickly up to the master's desk and says that he thinks there is a peculiar smell in the room, the master is taken off his guard. he assumes interest. he walks to where the boy was sitting and sniffs. a polite boy rises and asks respectfully if anything is the matter. 'no, nothing,' says the master, 'jones thought there was a curious smell where he was sitting.' the interest of the form is quickened. there is a general sound of sniffing. 'well, sir, now that jones comes to mention it, i do seem to recognize--i don't quite know what it is, sir.' 'come, come,' says the master, 'that'll do.' 'no, but really, sir, i don't know if it's quite healthy. do you think the drains are all right?' the information is hazarded that there have been several cases of typhoid recently in the town. 'it must be the drains.' then some one suggests that it may be the gas. the school custos is notoriously careless in these matters. the suggestion is welcomed. at any rate it deserves investigation. and such investigations, when conducted by twenty clumsy boys, whose clumsy feet are shod with heavy boots, are a long and noisy business. books fall with a clatter on to the floor. the hindquarters of the inoffensive are accidentally kicked. smith endeavours to jump from one desk to another, misses his footing and crashes on the desk. musty is lost. he stands in the middle of the room. he says 'come, now!' a great many times. he varies it occasionally with 'that'll do.' he asks smith whether he considers that what he is doing 'is really necessary.' at last a piping unrecognisable voice rises from the far corner. 'it isn't the gas. it must be musty himself. he never washes.' in most schools there are at least two masters who are the continual victims of such treatment. such ragging, however, is too simple to content the truly adventurous. the mustys of the scholastic world are objects of contempt, and we prefer to respect our enemies. it is far more entertaining to rag a disciplinarian. one has to guard oneself. the master has all the weapons. among other things the ragster has to work. if he is unexpectedly put on to con, flounders through a couple of lines and breaks down completely at the third, he has played into his opponent's hand. he has deserved the imposition that he will most certainly get. the ragster must prepare his work. that is part of his defence. he cannot say to himself: 'i have been on twice running. i shall not go on to-day.' if he makes a cheeky remark in form, the master's just retort is: 'jones, you seem to like talking. i think you had better translate the next passage.' and, if jones translates the passage successfully he feels that he is one up. such ragging is very different from the general rag of the complete incompetent. it is a free-lance affair. it is an art. the majority of masters meet it in some form or other. it is only a few who are subjected to displays in which the whole form take part. yet it is a puzzle to find out how exactly this ill-fortune selects its particular victims. personality is limited. there are only a few who have a real genius for teaching. the majority are merely competent. and competence must fall before invention. why is it that some are ragged and others not. the ragged master may be an excellent fellow. he may be good at games; he may be just as exemplary a member of society as his colleagues, and yet he is selected for this refined torture. there are some masters for whom one never works hard; one does enough and no more to avoid being bottled. one sits in the class-room for long, sultry, tedious hours; the insipid sunlight moves across the wall. one watches a fly crawl up the window-pane. one writes 'is a fool' upon the desk after the inscribed name of an enemy. one sticks a compass into the back of the man in front. perhaps one revises the next hour's lesson. it may be that there is an imposition to be completed. the minutes pass slowly; one longs for the strike of the clock. and yet no one attempts to enliven the hour with some geniality. the few attempts that are made are spasmodic and unsuccessful. we had a master who was nicknamed, i never knew why, marchand. and, one day, a boy who was doing translation paused at the french word _marchand_. 'please, sir,' he said, 'i don't know what _marchand_ means.' there was no laugh, not even a titter. we were all too surprised. the master's face did not alter. 'it means merchant, smith,' he said, 'and you will stay behind afterwards and speak to me.' he received six of the best. and it was, no doubt, such a master who made the historic retort to the boy who, during an hour that was devoted to the discussion of old testament history, inquired what 'harlot' meant. 'a harlot, jones,' the master answered, 'is a lady who finds herself in unfortunate circumstances, and you will take two hundred lines.' if such an answer had been made by musty, the boy would have expostulated freely; other members of the form would have interested themselves in the cause of justice. as it is, smith gets his half-dozen and jones his two hundred lines, and the world says 'silly ass!' there are certain masters who inspire neither industry nor insubordination, and yet i suppose that once they, too, had their hour of trial. so much depends on the first impression. arnold lunn has recounted in _the harrovians_ the story of one crabbe, who was so unmercifully ragged that he had to leave at the end of his first term. 'he went on to another school where his reputation had not preceded him. he opened his first lesson by setting a boy a hundred lines for sneezing. after having successfully established a reputation for unbridled ferocity, he was able, by slow degrees, to relapse into his natural kindly self.' it is typical of much. the master who has once allowed himself to be ragged is lost for ever. he may beat, he may line, he will never restore order. his only chance is to try elsewhere. the ragging of prefects is of very much the same order. there is less of it, because the head of the house has a way of jumping suddenly on the turbulent. 'i hear you were ragging beetle last night in hall. you've got to stop it--see? and you're going to get six as a warning!' the head of the house has more authority than an assistant master. if a boy felt that an assistant master was unjust he might very well complain to the head master. but no boy would care to appeal against a boy--that would be sneaking. a good head of the house sees to it that none of the prefects are indiscriminately ragged, but there is always one of them for whom the rest of the house has but little respect, and to whom the taking of prep is always an anxiety. he beats and lines more than the rest of the prefects put together. but it has small effect. indeed the second yearer acquires a hardened hide. punishment is no deterrent to him; it is merely a pawn in the game. chapter v athleticism by this time the new boy may be truly said to have reached the inner circle of a public school philosophy. he knows to what gods he must bow the knee. and he serves dutifully before the altar of the god of sport. the cult of athleticism has been for a long while the target at which the enemies of the public school have launched their abuse. and until this cult is understood, it is impossible to understand the standards and the scale of values of a public school. every community must have a religion of sorts, a faith to which all faiths are subservient, a service which makes the first demands. a man, when called to decide between two claims, must be able to know which way his duty lies. he may not follow the claim of duty, but he should be able to distinguish which it is. in some communities it is the observance of social custom, in another the making of money is all important, in one the honour of the regiment, in a second the teaching of the scriptures. at a public school it is athletic prominence. the position of a school is decided by its performances on the field. if two men in a club are discussing the merits of a certain school, the first consideration will be athletics. 'oh, yes,' they will say. 'fernhurst stands very well just now. it beat tonford and merton last season, and it's got two fellows in the varsity eleven.' the social status of a school is judged, not by the number of balliol scholars it has produced, but by the quality of the schools it plays. 'oh, marestone can't be much of a place,' you will hear said. 'they only play a few grammar schools.' this fact the new boy realises at once. his father's friends are impressed when he can tell them that his school has beaten haileybury. they display a mild interest at his casual reference to bennett's scholarship. the new boy reads in the daily papers enthusiastic articles on the performances of the school eleven, and he learns that haslett is being watched by the county authorities. there is an air of publicity about every school match. there will be reports in the newspapers. the new boy feels himself to be participating in a function of considerable general interest. all over the country people will be wondering what will chance in this particular encounter. he is on the spot. the press accentuates his keenness. how could he, in the face of such a testimony, doubt the supreme importance of athletics. we believe in the goods that are most widely advertised. who ever read an article on the prospects of the various competitors for a certain exam. who has read in the _times_ that 'enormous interest is being taken in the approaching scholarship examinations. clifton has several promising scholars. marston may be poor at unseen, but he is very deft in his handling of latin prose, and he has a good ear for hexameters. haileybury, on the other hand, place their faith in johnson, a steady, industrious worker who can be trusted to perform consistently in all subjects....' yet, two or three times a week, we can read in the _sportsman_ that fernhurst has a vastly improved side and that with evans back again in the three-quarter line, is hopeful of emerging triumphantly from the approaching contest with tonford. public school sport is awarded at the present moment a preposterous amount of publicity. it is bad for the schools; it is bad for the boys themselves, and, as far as one can gather, it has not helped english sport to any appreciable degree. it encourages in schools the belief that games matter more than anything else. very often it makes boys swelled-headed, certainly it makes them think they are bigger than they are, and is preparing for them a big disappointment. it is so easy to appear a giant among pigmies. in my own short experience i can remember more than one player who was described while at school as being an england batsman in the making, and who now experiences a difficulty in getting into the county side. every summer we know by name a whole host of public school cricketers that are never heard of afterwards. they have averages of sixty during their last term; their exploits are described in fervid journalese. they go up to oxford, fail to reach double figures in the freshmen's match, and are quickly submerged in college cricket. others go up with enormous reputations, making centuries in the trial match, and then find that there is a difference between club and county cricket. they just get their blue with a batting average of twenty-five; they play for the county during august and do nothing exceptional. they are just average cricketers, useful members of a side and nothing more. in the meanwhile the journalists are shrieking of the natural offbreak of a sixteen-year-old rugbeian. this particular type of writer resembles the literary critic who hails every new poet as a 'second keats,' and every new novelist as 'a second hardy,' but loses interest in his discoveries after the appearance of their fourth book. there is no need to dive back into past history. we can find enough examples in post-war cricket. n. e. partridge in 1919 had a batting average of 43, and took 71 wickets for under 12 runs each. he had a magnificent press. next to stevens, and perhaps hedges, he was the most discussed boy cricketer of the year. on the strength of this boosting he very nearly received an invitation to play for the gentlemen at lords. as a matter of fact, i am not certain that he did not actually receive an invitation, and that his head master refused to let him go--but on that point i am not certain. at any rate his claims were seriously advanced by a great many reputable judges of the game, among whom i think sydney pardon has to be included. he went up to cambridge with a tremendous reputation; he did only moderately. at one time, indeed, it seemed improbable that he would get his blue. last season he did nothing exceptional for warwickshire. i may, of course, be misjudging a cricketer whom i have never seen play, but everything would seem to suggest that partridge will develop into nothing more exciting than the average county cricketer.[4] we could also take the example of l. p. hedges. i spent the summer of 1918 in a german prison camp; but even to that distant city came news of the brilliant tonbridge batsman who was greater even than hutchings. during the summer of 1919 the assiduous student of the _sportsman_ heard much of him. every week appeared the score of some fresh triumph, and, to crown it all, came that brilliant 163 at lords. it was a gorgeous show. i was thankful not to be fielding at coverpoint. but, let it be whispered gently, the bowling did not look particularly difficult, and, though hedges's innings was dazzling, a quite ordinary batsman should, off the same bowling, have been able to help himself to a generous allowance of fours. that particular innings marked, i suppose, the height of hedges's career from the point of view of press publicity and popular esteem; the height had been reached, that is to say, before his qualities had been placed on the open market and tested by the stress of three days' cricket and the accuracy of professional bowling. we do not hear much of hedges nowadays. he has played useful cricket for oxford and for kent; but he has done nothing sensational. and yet, when i saw him last summer make a 50 against middlesex at lords, i could not help feeling that he is a better bat to-day than he was in 1919, and that that 50 in an important match, against confident bowling, and while woolley was scratching uncomfortably at the over end, was in every way a finer performance than his 163 of two years earlier. he drove haig and durston through the covers as easily as in 1919 he had plastered the ring with boundaries. and yet the pressmen remained calm. it is vain and it is unfair to attempt to form a judgment of a person whose wares are not upon the open market. no one can tell who is, and who is not, going to prove a test match cricketer. equally it is impossible to tell from public school form which boys are potential cricketers. who, for example, who saw in 1910 f. h. knott and d. j. knight batting in the public school's match at lords realised that knight was going to develop into an incomparably greater batsman than knott. and yet sportsmen continue to write about boy cricketers with the seriousness that they devote to hobbs. they draw the most ridiculous comparisons. i discovered last summer in one of the most influential daily papers the following passage in the account of the public school's match at lords: 'there is probably no cricketer, with the exception of r. h. spooner, who sees the ball more quickly than j. l. guise.' now anything much more ridiculous i can hardly imagine. it is like the literary critic, who shall be nameless, who described the work of a minor poet, who shall be also nameless, as having given him more pleasure than anything since the first flights of swinburne. it is preposterous to speak of guise, who is an extremely promising cricketer, as seeing the ball more quickly than any batsman except spooner. it all depends on what manner of ball he is seeing. in the eton match he, no doubt, saw allen's deliveries with considerable speed. spooner, however, was in the habit of seeing in this manner the deliveries of cotter, tarrant, and schwarz. speed of eye is relative to the quality of the bowling. i should hesitate to call myself a batsman, but there is a type of ball that i can see with incredible rapidity. it is bowled to me, alas, too occasionally, in village matches. it is medium paced, it pitches on the middle stump, a little more than half-way down the pitch, and it turns away ever so slightly towards the leg. any one can look a good bat who is opposed to bad bowling. and i maintain that it is no sort of sense indulging in wild panegyrics about schoolboys who have never been tested by first-class bowling. if a boy seems promising the county authorities should give him a trial, and, if he does well, then let the pressmen get busy. every one is so terrified lest a good man may be overlooked. but how unlikely that is if the county authorities are at all keen. trial matches can be arranged. visits can be paid to schools. there is no need for this hectic discovery of twenty spooners every season. the school figures of players like stevens and chapman and hubert ashton would have been quite sufficient to ensure a proper trial for them. and the fact remains that in spite of this press work amateur cricket is at a lower ebb now than it has ever been before. the gentlemen and players match has become too one-sided to stimulate interest in anything save individual performances. very few amateurs are good enough to play for england. douglas is; and he was not one of the marked men of cricket articles. his entrance was as untheatrical as his batting. d. j. knight, is on his form of 1919, the second best batsman in the country; stevens, at his best, is a great match-winning factor; tennyson and fender are useful players. but it is impossible to maintain that there are to-day any amateur batsmen comparable with maclaren, spooner, fry, stoddart, and jackson, than the cricketers, that is to say, who passed unheralded on their merits into first-class cricket. the low standard of amateur cricket cannot be argued away. and this trumpeting of the press could only be excused, could it be proved to further the interests of amateur sport in england. instead of furthering those interests, it works against them. it makes games at a public school too much of a business and too little of a sport. it introduces professionalism. and i am prepared to wonder how far one really enjoys one's games at school. one is frightfully excited about them; one is very pleased when one does well and depressed if one does badly. one works oneself into a state of nervous misery before a match, and one of hysterical excitement after it. victory and defeat mean a great deal. and it was with a real surprise that i realised a few months ago at the end of a very pleasant season that, although i should continue to play football for another ten years, and cricket, i hope, for another forty, i should never again really care whether the side for which i am playing wins or loses--care, that is to say, as i cared at school about a house match. in club cricket and football one asks for a good game in pleasant company, and victory is incidental. while one is playing, of course, one is keen, but one will not brood afterwards over one's mistakes,--not as one does after a school match. there is, i suppose, no public school man under the sun who does not now and again on some winter evening drop his paper on his knees and curse himself because, fifteen years ago, he missed a catch at an important crisis--that is one of the things one never ceases to regret. that awful moment when one picks up the ball with tingling fingers and tosses it back to the bowler; it is for all time a vivid memory. one does not feel like that about an ordinary catch in an ordinary club game. one is annoyed with oneself; one is sorry for the bowler; one apologises to the captain, but one remembers that one is out, after all, to enjoy oneself. that is the difference between school and club cricket. at school one is not out to enjoy oneself. it is a business, this getting of runs and taking of wickets. there are cups for house matches, and there are cups for batting and bowling averages, and it is a sin to miss a catch. there are few worse things than the anxiety attendant on those who play on the fringe of a school side. not only is one worried about one's own performances, but about one's rivals. if one has made a duck oneself one cannot, in spite of one's patriotism, be anxious for a particular rival to retrieve the fortunes of the side with a century. a first eleven cap is valued far too highly for such unselfishness. it is equally little fun to be a member of a bad fifteen. one is subjected to a series of complaints and recriminations. one grows sick of the whole business. and i can remember during the first winter of the war the relief with which we learnt that the tonbridge match had been scratched. we had a poor side. we knew that we should be thoroughly trounced, and that, for the next week, the lives of those who had not distinguished themselves would be made wretched. we never for a moment questioned the justice of this tyranny. the lord our god was a jealous god. we had to serve him. but we were not sorry that an occasion for his wrath should be removed. i very much doubt whether the actual playing of games was as pleasant at school as it is outside it. the intensity and rapture are irrecoverable. there is nothing to compare with the elation that follows a victory over a stronger side. but in the long run i find cricket more enjoyable to-day than i did six years ago. it is less complicated. one takes a day off from one's work and spends it in agreeable company. one can field out all day and never take a wicket, miss a couple of catches, and then crown everything by making a duck, and yet thoroughly enjoy oneself. at school that would have been a rotten day, and one would have spent the evening in deep despondency. yet everything is in favour of one enjoying one's game at school. it is so simple. one strolls down after lunch in a leisurely fashion to the field. one changes one's boots in the pavilion. a hot bath is waiting for one afterwards. but, in order to play football after one has left, one has to rush off to catch impossible trains from impossible stations. one has no time for lunch. the train always seems to start at 1.18. there is as likely as not a long walk from the station. one changes in a converted army hut; one is more than a little tired before the game starts. there are no proper baths afterwards, and one has to hurry, or one will miss the only train to town: for it is amazing the number of football fields which are on loop lines with trains at hourly intervals. and yet, personally, i enjoy my football now a great deal more than i ever did at school. it would not be just, however, to lay the blame of this professionalism to the account of the sporting press. journalists are rarely responsible for anything. they do not lead public opinion. they follow it or, if they are clever, they anticipate it. had not the worship of athleticism been already firmly established in the schools themselves it would never have occurred to them to run it as a stunt. the journalist spends most of his time searching for a town of blind men over which he, with his one eye, may rule. and the journalist discovered that the public school had enthroned an unofficial king who had not received his due of public recognition. the journalist decided to officialise his position. to this king was paid extensive homage; and, as there is no more pleasant reading for ladies-in-waiting than court gossip, he commenced a column of court news. but he did not set up the court, or crown the king. he is only a herald. and we must regard these tiresome articles as a proof, but not a cause of this peculiar ritual. the trumpeting of the herald adds certainly to the glamour of the court, but his absence would not start a revolution. if not another article appeared on public school sport, the cult of athleticism would still continue; it would continue because as things are at present there is no other focus for the enthusiasm and partisanship of a boy of seventeen. there is really little else about which a schoolboy could reasonably become excited. indeed it is hard to see what other results could have been expected from such a combination of circumstances. four hundred boys are divided into ten houses. they are encouraged to feel an intense loyalty for their house and for their school. they are told that it is up to them to make their house the best house in the school, and their school the best school in the country. they set out in all good faith to accomplish their task. in what, they ask themselves, does the goodness of a house consist. it is not much sense to speak to them of the moral tone of a house or school. they desire a tangible manifestation of virtue, 'an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.' and the only available outward and visible sign is the row of silver challenge cups on the dining-hall mantelpiece. it is natural to assume that the house which has the most cups is the best house; a school can only prove its superiority over another school by victory on the football field. scholarships are an indirect form of competition. for the best boys from one school may not come into touch with the best boys of another. but a victory by 30 points is a direct statement of a fact. the victorious school is superior to the defeated school. it is in athletic contests alone that a house or school can express a united will, can become indeed one person. the loyalty of a boy for his house or school is a fine thing, but it renders athletic worship almost inevitable. were there not this intense house and school feeling individual boys would cultivate their individual tastes; forty boys would be grouped together for convenience of boarding--that is all a house would be. but as soon as a boy comes to regard himself as a member of a fine community, he feels a natural pride and loyalty in its performances and in its welfare. there is no other focus for partisanship: form work is uninteresting. boxing, fives, the corps, and the gymnasium are side shows. cricket and football are what count. a boy must have a religion of sorts. he must have some ideal to which the demands of his own temperament may become subservient. on this worship of games is based the scale of social values. the ethics of cribbing, for example, are based entirely on the assumption that a success in form is of inconsiderable importance; it is permissible for a boy to crib in order to save his energies for worthier causes. the blood system is built on an intense admiration for those who are upholding the honour of the house, and is an expression of the small boy's longing to reach such a position himself. the attitude to morality on the part of masters is intimately connected with athletics, and on the boy's part, the belief that a member of a school side is, _ipso facto_, an invaluable asset to the school, allows the blood to do very much what he likes; as long, in fact, as a boy can satisfy his companions and himself that he is exerting all his power on the football field, he can amuse himself in other ways as he thinks fit. there is no other criterion for a boy's worthiness, or unworthiness, as a member of a house, and the half-bloods consider that a very big responsibility has descended on them. they have to keep the house up to the mark. the big men cannot bother themselves about individuals. but the half-bloods who are, as it were, emissaries between heaven and earth, can investigate closely the behaviour of the coming generation. they can notice who is showing signs of slackness. they individually give themselves enormous airs. they form a sort of improvement society. i remember that, in the course of one term, our house lost every challenge cup that it had possessed. this was considered a disgrace. and several of us decided that it was for us to reform the house. we did not consider ourselves to stand in any need of improvement. but we used to wander round the studies between tea and hall inquisitioning fags and scholars, asking them what use they thought they were to house or school, and informing them that they would be well advised to make more strenuous efforts. it was, i suppose, a form of bullying; or rather perhaps an aid to vanity. what we really needed was for some one to kick us hard. no one did, however. it seemed to occur to no one else, any more than it did to us, that there were objects of a public school education other than the acquiring of caps and cups. you might as well expect an indian priest to doubt the omnipotence of buddha. footnote: [4] the proofs of this book were corrected in april. should anything unforeseen change during the cricket season, before its appearance, i can only plead the fallibility of the prophet. chapter vi the true ethics of cribbing the boy who thus exhausts in ragging the residue of energy that the football field allows him, has, it follows, to be careful not to burn the candle at both ends. he has to spare himself, and to spare himself he abandons the spasmodic cribbing of his first year's summer examination for sustained, systematic methods. now the true ethics of this subject are as little understood as those relating to any other sphere of public school life. cribbing is generally regarded as a dishonest practice to which only the ignoble few have regular resort. the habitual cribber is as morally lost as a thief. for what, after all, is cribbing, say our aunts, but the stealing of marks from your companions. 'when you crib,' they tell us, 'and say that you are not stealing, you argue from the standpoint of the housemaid who would return conscientiously the sixpence you have left on your dressing-table, but would not think twice of filling a medicine bottle with your best brandy and handing it over to her young man.' while we are at our preparatory schools we are inclined to agree with this. we ourselves would never think of cribbing. at a preparatory school it is not done. but at a public school we learn otherwise. to the public school boy cribbing is not dishonest. it is not wrong, because it is not anti-social. there are no doubt somewhere, if we could discover them, fixed immutable standards of righteousness. but we have not found them yet. in the meantime we are content to frame conventions that alter with each generation to safeguard what we consider to be our comfort. we put a thief in prison because we are anxious to protect our property. his actions are anti-social. they are only anti-social, however, because we happen to value our property. we should not object if he took from us what we did not prize. it is thus indeed that the dustman earns his living. and the public school boy does not usually set much greater value on his marks than the housewife on her egg-shells. i remember reading several years ago a short story that appeared in _the captain_. it was about an american who came to an english public school. on the result of a certain examination depended the position of head boy in the house, and the american broke into the head master's study and extracted the examination paper. the theft was, however, discovered, and the american summoned to the head master's study for an interview that was the certain prelude to expulsion. this fact was made known to him. 'waal,' he said, 'i guess that's fair. my father often said to me when a big bluff fails, it's down and out for the guy that misses.' the head master was surprised. he appreciated the difference between a big bluff and a piece of calculated deceit. he saw that the american had, because of the atmosphere of business in which he had been brought up, a standard different from his own. the american had honestly believed himself to be attempting 'a big bluff.' now, in the world at large, ignorance of the law is no excuse. if it were, law court procedure would be infinitely complex. at school, however, the intention matters more than the result. the means are set before the end. the head master in the story realised that the american's offence was actually far less serious than it appeared, and the american was not expelled. in this case, of course, the theft of the examination paper was definitely anti-social. it was a real theft. the american was endeavouring to acquire a position that others valued through means not at the disposal of his competitors. but this story, which appeared in a paper the moral tone of which has necessarily to be above suspicion, establishes officially the principle that the seriousness of an offence depends largely on the attitude adopted to it by the offender. and therein lie the true ethics of cribbing. what public opinion approves cannot be anti-social. only a few recognise the distinction between the immoral and the anti-social. and public opinion is, on the whole, inclined to condone cribbing. every boy is anxious to be a power in his house; he wants to be a prefect, he looks forward to the day when he will be safe from authority, will be, indeed, authority itself. but he knows that, without unduly exerting himself in the class-room, he will be able to achieve prominence through success at football. a house cap has to sit at the va table: as a second, probably, and certainly as a first, he will be raised to the dignity of the dais; thence the process of seniority will carry him quickly to his prefectship. it is assumed that by that time the same process of seniority will have carried him to the upper fifth. (it is hard to avoid being promoted once a year.) the hours spent in the class-room are a dull setting for the vivid hues of the life that lies outside it. occasionally the setting is relieved by a bright patch of colour--an ingenious rag, a successful piece of cribbing--but, on the whole, it is dull and monotonous. a boy works spasmodically, sometimes to get a promotion, sometimes to secure the good-will of a master he admires, sometimes to reach a form where it will be only rarely necessary for him to prepare his work. and he cribs more or less consistently out of laziness, to avoid being bottled, to save himself trouble, to be able to devote as much of his evening as is possible to more sympathetic forms of employment. he does not consider he is doing anything wrong. he knows that, if he is caught, he will be punished. but then he sees the relationship of boys and masters as a long, intermittent struggle, a game played in good faith, with fixed rewards and penalties. he does not expect his conduct to be condoned officially. his form master has set him so many lines of virgil to prepare. it is assumed that he will take an hour to prepare those lines properly. however, with the help of dr giles's translation, he has managed to prepare those lines satisfactorily in twenty minutes. he has gained, therefore, forty minutes; naturally the master demands, and exacts, a reparation. but his companions do not mind. and he regards as anti-social only what will offend them. if he were a thief it would be in their eyes that he would be guilty. but a theft only becomes criminal when the injured party has taken proceedings against the offender. in this case no proceedings have been taken. he has not been reported to the head master, nor has he been kicked round the cloisters. he considers himself to be innocent. indeed, popular opinion is far more likely to be directed against the boy who is scrupulously honest. his behaviour may be anti-social. there was a form, for instance, in which it was the custom for the boys to correct their own papers and give up their own marks. they would pass their papers to the next boy but two. the answers would be read out and the marks awarded. when all the answers had been given the marks would be added up. 'any one over 90?' a couple of hands would rise. 'any one over 95?' one of the hands would sink. 'right,' said the master. 'divide all marks by 11.' the names of the boys would then be read out in turn, and the marks earned by each would be delivered by the corrector. now the correction of exercises and the addition of marks entails a measure of labour, and no one does unnecessary work. it had become the custom, therefore, to doze pleasantly while the answers were being given out, to insert various hieroglyphics in the margin, and to return at the conclusion an average total. the system had been in existence a long while, and it was known that the top mark usually lay somewhere between 100 and 90; a top mark of over 110 or beneath 80 would rouse comment, perhaps inspire investigation, and that was, of course, the last thing the form desired. so that, when the form master said any one 'over 90' some one on the front bench raised a hand. it happened in rotation more or less; at the end of the term there was little to choose between the top ten in the marks for those particular exercises. certainly whatever difference there was could be easily counteracted by superior proficiency in some other field. all went well till a certain miller was promoted into this particular form. miller was a prig: he came from an undistinguished house. he was excessively industrious. he had the prude's morality. he was desperately honest. he corrected the papers passed to him accurately and gave up the right mark. during his first week in the form, when the top mark was 91, miller gave up 63. the form master was surprised; miller had corrected the paper of quite a senior member of the form. 'really, jones,' he said, 'i'm surprised.' jones also was surprised. after the lesson he expressed his surprise with a well-aimed kick that landed miller at the foot of the second landing. he considered that no further explanation was required. he was wrong. the next day, when the top mark was 103 he received 57. on the occasion of this second essay in originality the whole form decided to interest itself in miller's welfare. there was an informal meeting at the end of the hour, in which miller was given to understand that on this system exercises had been marked in the middle fifth for upwards of twenty years. tradition had approved the system. the form was conservative. it meant to uphold that tradition. in earnest of its intention it proceeded to demonstrate what defensive method it would adopt. miller made no answer, but the next day he not only returned jones's paper with 65 at the head of it, but when a certain burton announced that the paper he had marked was worth 103, miller said something to the effect that the maximum was 93. such a thing had never happened before in the middle fifth. it was an orderly form, but there was very nearly a popular demonstration. burton's honour had been questioned. the form master agreed that such an imputation had not been made upon a boy during the five-and-twenty years that he had sat in that class-room. 'we'll go through the questions one by one and see what the maximum is.' now, luckily for burton, the master had not kept a check upon the marks. he had gone through question after question, saying after each: 'now let me see, i think that should be worth 10,' or 'that 15.' so that, when he went through the questions again, he appealed, on each occasion, to the head boy of the form. 'how many did i give you for that, evans?' and, on each occasion, evans was generous. once miller timidly suggested that for question 6, 15 marks and not 30 had been the maximum, but there was a complete unanimity of opinion among the rest of the form. 'thirty, sir, certainly it was 30. it must have been--i've got 23 down to firth for that, sir.' miller was overruled. the maximum was finally discovered to be 130. 'so you see, miller,' said the master, 'you've not only questioned burton's word, but you've been inattentive during the lesson. you will do me 200 lines, and if you will hand me up jones's paper i will correct it myself.' with this generous addition to the maximum jones received a heavy mark. after such a disaster the form felt certain that miller would bow to the convention; but there is no limit to the obstinacy of the martyr: miller continued to mark according to order. he was kicked, but kicking was of no avail. his own paper was undermarked. this, too, was unavailing. finally the form decided to accept him as an inevitable affliction. they ceased to kick him. each of the ten top boys took it in turn to sit two places away from him so that no one person should suffer unduly from the general evil. and the one who sat two places on the other side of miller had instructions to over-mark his paper so that he should be got out of the form as speedily as possible. at the end of the term miller was promoted; and the middle fifth relapsed into its placid communal existence. now miller's conduct would no doubt appear worthy of the most intense approval. he had behaved like the hero of the school sermon. he had done what every new boy is adjured to do. he had taken a firm stand against a dishonest practice. he had been bullied, but he had remained firm. his honour had withstood the shock of his opponents. such a splendid example would shine like a candle in a dark cathedral, and from this simile the preacher, as a runner reaching the straight, can stride into the rounded periods of his peroration. 'if only others of you would light your candle from that flame; if only in that large cathedral there were a hundred burning candles instead of one, how soon would not the whole building be filled with light. the beautiful tracery of the roof would emerge from shadow. a soft glow would be shed on the strong carved pillars. the brasses would glimmer on the wall. the splendid architecture of the building would be plain. so is it with the human soul.' we have heard that sermon many times. miller is a splendid handle for rhetoric, but his behaviour remains anti-social. if it is wrong to place oneself in a position of inequitable advantage, it is equally wrong to place a rival in a position of inequitable disadvantage: and that is what miller had done. jones had done his work as thoroughly and as conscientiously as the others, but he had received lower marks for it, because miller had chosen to apply to it a standard that was not imposed on that of his companions. it is not unfair in a hundred yards' sprint to start a second before the pistol is fired if you know that the other runners are going to do likewise, but it is hard lines on the one runner who is compelled to wait for the proper signal. true morality plays an insignificant part in business and competition. we all have different ideas of what is sport. if w. g.'s much-criticised running out of jones in the test match of 1880 had taken place at a house match at school, we can assume that w. g., whatever his batting average, would not have been invited to play for the school again. what is moral and what is anti-social become practically synonymous terms as long as every one starts fair and plays the game by the same code of rules. no one must be allowed opportunities that are not at the disposal of his opponents. and, in the case of the middle fifth's corrections, the rules of the game ordered generous marking and no great gulf between the first and last. miller played the game by different rules. the form was righteously indignant. it is doubtful even whether miller's immortal soul drew sustenance from the conflict. it was probably confirmed in its priggishness. certainly miller became, in the course of time, a highly officious prefect. i do not know what fortune the 'romance of destiny' may hold in store for him, but i can imagine that he will occupy some post of prim, precise officialdom. he will create nothing. whereas evans's opportunism is largely responsible for the rapidly increasing market for messrs. ----'s patent cookers. the schoolmaster asserts that between himself and his form there exists a compact of square dealing. but the signature of the form has not been obtained, and it is an agreement every clause of which is very clearly to the advantage of the schoolmaster and to the disadvantage of the form. the form does not recognise the treaty. it refuses to commit itself, and indeed in this singular document the true nature of cribbing has not been defined. the exact line between cribbing and co-operation has not been drawn. we are safe when dealing with 'con,' that is to say, the translation of greek or latin into english. we know, for instance, that boys are allowed to prepare their work together. two brains are better than one. well and good. but, if two soldiers have to dig a trench one uses the pick and the other the shovel. so it is with latin 'con.' one boy looks up the meaning of the words in a dictionary; the other unravels the sense. that means that the boy who looks up the words never brings his mind to bear on the translation of the text. yet such a combination is accepted as fair by any master. and, once this combination has been accepted, a master's position becomes logically impossible. for it must be remembered that a schoolboy has a fairly sound grasp of consecutive reasoning. he studies the theorems of geometry. he struggles with the dialectic of plato. he is capable, that is to say, of following out to their logical conclusion such lines of argument as will, in the end, assuage his conscience. he could construct, for instance, an imaginary conversation between socrates and his form master. _soc._: you object, mr. featherbrain, to the cribbing that is prevalent in your form? _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: now, as i am inexperienced in this matter, never having been myself to a public school, perhaps you will be so kind as to make me better acquainted with the methods adopted by these members of your form. _mr. f._: certainly. some of the boys use english translations with which to prepare their virgil and homer. others copy the greek prose of their more clever companions, inserting, from time to time, certain gross errors that they expect will throw me off the scent. _soc._: i understand. now, in this matter of english translations: you expect each boy to prepare his virgil by himself, and to produce in form the results of solitary unaided labour? _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: if, therefore, you discovered one boy asking another to explain to him a difficult passage, you would punish him severely? _mr. f._: no. you have misunderstood me. i should not. _soc._: but how is that? have you not just told me that each boy must produce in form the results of solitary, unaided labour? _mr. f._: certainly, but we allow boys to prepare their 'con' together. _soc._: i understand. on the assumption that two brains are better than one, you permit two boys to unravel the sense together. _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: now, if two people attempt a certain task, what procedure would they follow? would they not divide the task into two portions. if two men are building a house one man stands at the top of a ladder and lays the bricks that his companion, who is standing below, throws up to him. _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: time would be wasted were each man to do the same work: that is to say, were two ladders to be placed against the wall and were the two men to descend and ascend the ladder carrying bricks to the top? _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: therefore, we may assume that in all tasks that are undertaken by two persons, the work is divided into two duties? _mr. f._: but i do not see, socrates, that this line of reasoning has any bearing on the subject we are preparing to discuss. _soc._: that may very well be, for, as i have told you, i am ignorant of these matters and have come to you for guidance. it does seem to me, however, that in this matter of translation, which is the discovery of an unknown thing, the unknown may be divided into two parts. _mr. f._: how is that? _soc._: when a boy reads over the passage that he has to translate, two things are unknown to him: the general meaning of the passage and certain words in the passage. that is so, is it not? _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: then do you not think that two boys, before setting out to translate a passage, would make some arrangement by which one of them should be responsible for unravelling the sense, while the other should look up the unknown words in a dictionary. _mr. f._: it is possible. _soc._: and to which of the two would be entrusted the task of unravelling the sense. _mr. f._: to the cleverer, undoubtedly. _soc._: therefore the less clever would do the drudge work: that is to say, he would never bring his mind to bear upon the passage: and the imaginative work would be done for him by his companion. _mr. f._: it would seem so, socrates. _soc._: yet the system is approved as an honest one by the authorities and the work of the drudge is accepted as solitary and unaided labour. _mr. f._: that is so, socrates. _soc._: now, is this task of translation limited to the co-operation of two persons, or may three or more persons take their share in it? _mr. f._: as many persons may take their share in it as may conveniently be crowded into a study measuring eight feet by four. _soc._: i understand. suppose now that three persons are preparing a passage together. we have agreed, have we not, that this work can be divided into two duties only? _mr. f._: that is so. _soc._: then what share of the work will the third partner take? _mr. f._: he will act as a reserve and will bring assistance to either party when it is necessary. _soc._: but, to whom have we allotted the task of unravelling the sense: to the cleverest, have we not? if the help of the third party, then, is only requested when the cleverest finds himself in difficulties, does it seem to you likely that the third party will succeed where one cleverer than himself has failed? _mr. f._: it is unlikely. _soc._: and, if this third party is higher and more important than the second party, it is unlikely, is it not, that he will content himself with what we have admitted to be the drudge's work of looking up words in a dictionary? _mr. f._: it is unlikely. _soc._: then the third party will do nothing save profit by the industry of his two companions, and the work that he will produce in the class-room next day will, strictly speaking, be not his at all, but theirs. _mr. f._: it would seem so, socrates. _soc._: now, let us take a further example. for i am anxious to discover at what exact point the work that a boy produces in form will cease to be, in the official eye, the result of solitary and unaided labour. suppose that the third party is a member of the eleven, who has various social duties: it is possible, is it not, that he would prefer to spend over his translation less than the three-quarters of an hour that his two companions require? _mr. f._: it is possible. _soc._: then, is it impossible that he might arrange for the cleverer of the two to come to him after breakfast and explain to him in twenty minutes the meaning of the passage? _mr. f._: it is possible. _soc._: and such an arrangement would be accepted by you? _mr. f._: i do not see that i could object. _soc._: now let us suppose that the cleverer of the two finds that he will have to clean his corps clothes during the twenty minutes between breakfast and chapel. he will feel himself bound in honour, and also by fear, to translate the passage to the third party, but he will obviously be unable to do it in person. is it not likely, therefore, that he will write out the meaning of the passage and hand it to the third party? would such conduct be unacceptable to you? _mr. f._: i do not know, socrates. _soc._: but, surely in your own mind you have clearly defined the line that separates what is honest from what is dishonest. surely that is your profession--to teach the young to distinguish between what is good and what is not good? _mr. f._: that is so, socrates. _soc._: then do you see any real difference between hearing a translation and reading a translation? is there any difference between a meaning that is apprehended through the ear and a meaning that is apprehended through the eyes; for are not both eyes and ears channels through which meanings are carried to the brain? _mr. f._: it would seem so, and, when you put it that way, i can distinguish no essential difference. _soc._: very good: then we have established that it is fair for a boy to come to his study after breakfast, find in his hand a written translation of his virgil, and, with that written translation, prepare in twenty minutes his morning's lesson. _mr. f._: it would seem so, socrates. _soc._: if, however, he were to take from his drawer a printed translation of virgil, and with that prepare his morning's lesson, you would consider him capable of dishonest behaviour and you would report him to the head master. _mr. f._: most certainly, socrates. _soc._: in what, then, lies the essential difference between the printed translation and the one that was copied out for him by his companion? _mr. f._: but that is surely obvious. _soc._: it is not to me, and it is for this reason that i seek enlightenment of you. for to me it seems that the work produced in form by the boy who has studied the printed translation is every bit as much the result of solitary and unaided labour as that which is informed by the study of a written translation. but is it that you appreciate a difference between the written and the printed word? _mr. f._: perhaps that is it, socrates. _soc._: then would you allow a boy during the holidays to copy out one of dr. giles's aids to the classics? _mr. f._: most certainly not. _soc._: then it is not between the written and the printed word that the difference lies? _mr. f._: it would seem not. _soc._: then where does it lie? _mr. f._: i do not know, socrates. _soc._: then we must surely assume that there is no difference; and we must further add that you have not dealt honestly with your form in so severely punishing them for conduct that you, yourself, are not able logically to condemn. _mr. f._: as ever, socrates, you have succeeded in making me say what i did not mean to say. _soc._: then, in order that you may extricate yourself, let us consider this question of the prose. _mr. f._: certainly. for, here at least, my position is impregnable. _soc._: i, too, am certain of it, and, in order that i may know the true nature of the offence, you will, i hope, permit me to ask you certain questions. you say that the more stupid members of your form are in the habit of copying the exercises of their more clever comrades? _mr. f._: that is so. _soc._: now is it a rule that a boy may not give another assistance in his latin prose? _mr. f._: certainly. _soc._: the position is not the same as that of the latin translation, where two boys were permitted to co-operate? _mr. f._: certainly not. _soc._: i presume that you have explained to your form the essential difference that exists between the nature of latin 'con' and latin prose. _mr. f._: how do you mean, socrates? _soc._: why, surely, if in the preparation of latin 'con,' which is the translation of latin into english, two boys are allowed to co-operate, and, if in the preparation of latin prose, which is the translation of english into latin, they are not allowed to co-operate, it follows that there must be some essential difference in the nature of the two studies. _mr. f._: it would seem so, socrates. _soc._: it would certainly seem so, and this difference you have, no doubt, made clear to your form, for, at present, i must confess myself unable to discover in what it consists. the exercise of latin prose as of latin 'con,' for each study is the translation of a language and the correct rendering of the idiom of that language into the language and idiom of another tongue, is no doubt intended to train, inform, and quicken the intelligence. each would appear to be branches of the same study, and for each the same method of instruction should be employed. you tell me, however, that there is between these two branches an essential difference. _mr. f._: you are right, socrates, and, though i cannot explain the difference in so many words, its nature is plain to me. _soc._: of that, mr. featherbrain, i am certain. i understand that you apprehend this fine distinction as you apprehended the fine distinction between the written and the printed 'crib.' we should consider, though, whether this distinction is equally plain to your form. such intuitive knowledge may be denied to them, and, if they sin through ignorance, their sin is slighter than if they sinned through knowledge. tell me, now, whether, if you overheard one member of your form say to another on the way to chapel: 'i'm absolutely tied up with that piece of prose. shall i put it in o. r. or o. o.?' would you immediately report that boy to the head master? _mr. f._: i should not. _soc._: you would no more report him than if you had overheard him asking his friend to make clear to him a passage of virgil that had puzzled him. _mr. f._: that is so. _soc._: do you not think, therefore, that the boy who knows he is allowed to ask for help in his latin 'con,' and who does not know for what reason he is not allowed to ask for help in his latin prose, who has never, that is to say, been able to apprehend the fine difference between the nature of the two studies, is likely to consider that the same technique is permissible for both branches, and would not that third party of whom we spoke and who is in the habit of getting his latin 'con' done for him by his friend, consider himself morally justified in accepting the same assistance in his latin prose? _mr. f._: but i have told him that it is not allowed. _soc._: certainly, but good can only come from a reasoned knowledge of what is good, and you have not explained to him in what his fault consists. moreover, if you have granted him permission to seek advice in small matters, you must tell him at what exact point the thirst for information becomes dishonest; a line must be drawn between what is good and what is bad. is a boy responsible for a percentage of his prose, and, if so, for what percentage. have you made these things plain to him? _mr. f._: i have not, o socrates. _soc._: then how do you expect the unformed mind of a boy to draw this line for himself. it would seem to me, mr. featherbrain, that you are not training the youth as it should be trained, when you order its conduct not by the results of logical deduction but by arbitrary ruling. for if in your own mind you are not certain at what exact point the good becomes the bad, and indeed are not certain of what the bad consists; what confusion must you not expect to discover in the minds of those that are taught by you. you must remember that on the football and cricket field a boy is under orders which he accepts, but of whose moral nature he is ignorant. he knows that if he is offside in football a free kick is awarded to the other side; he knows that if he knocks the ball forward with his hands a scrum is given. he has made a mistake. he has committed a tactical, but not a moral offence. the rulings of the rugby union are arbitrary and subject to frequent alteration; whereas the rulings concerning what is good and what is bad are fixed and irradicable. is it not likely, therefore, that a boy will come to regard your rulings in these matters of cribbing as arbitrary rulings that may be altered. his life is a game, you must always remember that, and it is on that basis that he accepts it. he knows that he will be punished if he uses a crib; he knows that you appear to apprehend a distinction between the written and printed word; he knows also that you have discovered a difference in the nature of the studies of translation and prose, and that while you will allow him to ask advice on certain points you will not allow him to seek advice on the whole, though at the same time you do not define the point at which these same certain points cease to be certain points and become sufficiently part of the whole to be called the whole. can you expect him, then, to regard such a system as anything but the complicated rulings of a game played between you and him. and can you expect him to attach to these regulations any moral significance. on the cricket field he places his leg in front of the wicket and tries to hit a short length ball over square-leg's head. if he misses the ball he is leg before, and goes to the pavilion. in his study he prepares his translation with a crib; he is discovered by his house master; he goes to the head master. and it is in this spirit, mr. featherbrain, that your form deceives you. you have to make clear to the young many things before you can expect them to attach a moral significance to what has no logical proof. there may be flaws in the argument, for the socratic method is insidious, but i have not, myself, been able to discover them. the ethics of cribbing from the master's point of view are illogical. the exact point where co-operation starts and cribbing begins is not fixed. cribbing goes by form and houses. its activities expand and contract according to the demands of popular opinion. it is always communal. there is a conscription of intellect and knowledge. no boy would prejudice his chances of winning his house cap; but most boys would assist their most dangerous rivals in promotion. we hear in chapel sad stories of the large and brutal bully who cribs steadily throughout the term and wrests the prize from the pure innocent who looked up every word in a large lewis & short. but it rarely happens like that. no one cribs for a prize, because few really want a prize. occasionally cribbing wins a prize, but it is usually through a fluke. a boy is particularly nervous about the results of a certain paper. he takes elaborate precautions to make sure that he will not have to spend the last saturday of term rewriting the paper, and, in consequence, unexpectedly discovers himself at the head of the list. i recall one such instance in particular, and, because it seems to me so singularly appropriate, i may be pardoned, i trust, for retelling a story that i have incorporated elsewhere. divinity in the army class was a casual affair; a knowledge of the old testament not being considered a necessary part of the intellectual equipment of a subaltern, the sandhurst authorities did not examine candidates on the subject, and both the form and its master regarded the hour's lesson on sunday morning as a pause in the exertions of the week. the yearly divinity examination always occasioned, therefore, a measure of panic among the soldiers, for the form master, when confronted with irrefutable proofs of his own indolence, was in the habit of punishing not only the form but himself by keeping in for two hours on the last saturday those of the form who had failed to score an adequate percentage. during the preceding days feverish and spasmodic attempts were made to cope successfully with the complicated relations of kings and prophets. one year, however, the form was fortunate. a certain mallaby, while searching in the class-room just before lock-up for a book he thought he had left there, saw lying among the papers on the master's desk, the rough draft of the questions for the divinity exam. in surprised delight he copied them all down. according to the popular conception of schoolboy honour, mallaby, being a potential thief, would have kept the information to himself. being a boy, however, he imparted it to his companions. the form entered the examination room in a mood of quiet confidence, and left it in a mood of deep content. two days later, however, it was announced that this year the annual interest of a bequest would be devoted to a series of divinity papers throughout the school. the next day mallaby learnt that he was head of the army class in divinity. his conscience was fluttered. he could not, he felt, take a prize which he would have won through cribbing. it would be dishonest. it would be stealing. he announced his intention of explaining matters to the chief. this announcement was not, however, received with the enthusiasm that should have welcomed the imminence of so noble, so disinterested, so sacrificial a performance. the form was indeed seriously perturbed. it explained to mallaby that, if he went to the chief, he would be queering not only his own pitch, but theirs as well, and that there were certain members of form who did not stand well enough in the eyes of authority to be able to risk such an addition to their score of discovered crimes. 'and, after all,' they said, 'why shouldn't you take the prize? we all knew the questions; you took the trouble to prepare them. you worked hard, and prizes are the reward of hard work. you've worked for the prize, harder than we did. therefore you deserve the prize. and let's have no more of this nonsense about confession.' in these matters each form and each house works out its own salvation. in some houses cribbing is not general, and in some forms cribbing is not general; and, in such cases, cribbing is anti-social. it might be urged that boys from houses that do not crib find themselves at a disadvantage in relation to boys from houses that do. but life usually manages to adjust itself, and a boy's position in form is chiefly important as regards the relation it bears to that of the other members of his house. it does not matter much to a boy in the school house if he is passed by a boy in buller's. it will not affect his seniority in his own house, and it is his seniority in his own house that matters. only a very few are concerned with the specialised rivalry of the upper sixth that decides who will be the official head of the school. scholastically the ambition of few passes outside their house. in games it is different. but then the eleven is not a fluid body like the sixth; it is a close corporation, and once the reputation of being the best slow left-hand bowler is lost, the chance of a ribboned coat grows distant. i remember once a parson from the east end preaching a sermon in the school chapel, in which he intimated that in comparison with the loathsome atrocities that had for setting the mile end road, a schoolboy merely played at sin. this was reassuring to certain genial sportsmen who had hitherto been unable to view with any confidence the prospect of immortality: and the phrase 'playing at sin' passed into the vocabulary of the school. to such an extent, indeed, that the head master was forced to deliver a special midweek address, in which he pointed out that the degree of sin was relative to environment, and that the moral offences of a man who had been nurtured in surroundings of bestiality and filth were less grave than those of the boy who had spent his childhood in the clean atmosphere of a decent home. the complacence of the aforesaid sportsmen was broken. not only were their offences as serious as those of their less fortunately placed brethren, they were actually more grave: a disquieting reflection. but i have often felt inclined to question, not the irrefutable logic of the head master's sermon, but the truth of that original contention about 'playing at sin.' are, that is to say, the vices of the lower orders actually more startling than those of mayfair? are they more startling? i wonder: a higher standard of civilisation refines our pleasures, quickens our powers of appreciation, makes us more subtle, more complex; does it not also sharpen the edge of misbehaviour? it is a point on which perhaps casanova would be able to enlighten us. but, certainly, in the matter of cribbing, the methods of the lower forms are clumsy, unimaginative, bourgeois in comparison with those of the fifths and sixths. a master who expects to discover in the third the guile of the fifths will be disappointed; and, equally, the master who has successfully combated the guile of the lower second may discover himself completely outwitted by the middle sixth. in the lower school the use of the actual crib is rare. it is easy for the sixth former to possess himself of a translation. the everyman series contains excellent renderings of thucydides and plato. the loeb library is not useless. gilbert murray may be a poet, but his translations of euripides have proved of assistance to many a harassed student. jebb's version of sophocles is to be found in the shelves of the school library. it is a different job to find a crib of ovid and livy. dr. giles has done some excellent research work, but questions are apt to be asked about bona fide students; an address such as 'the school house, fernhurst,' is likely to wake suspicion, and the third former has not read enough french novels to appreciate the value of the _poste restante_. he considers that a crib is more trouble than it is worth. and what is cribbing but laziness! moreover, he has a distrust of cribs. he is naturally stupid or he would be higher in the school, and he knows that when a boy gives the right meaning to the wrong words there are unpleasant investigations. he prefers to rely on the inspiration of the moment: as a result the offences of the lower second are trivial. they rarely reach the green baize of the head master's study. one boy looks over another's paper, another is prompted during 'con,' there is a strange similarity between two latin proses, an unusual mistake is repeated in several exercises. the offender is beaten afterwards, and no more is heard about it. as a matter of fact there is less cribbing in the lower school than in the upper. opportunities are rare and the example of hardened criminals is absent. the second yearer only becomes a practised deceiver under the influence of his seniors, and there are not many third yearers in the lower school. higher up it is different. but it is to be doubted whether the effects of cribbing are as serious as they are depicted. the case against them comes under two main headings: (1) the moral issue; (2) the expediency issue. with the moral issue i have already dealt. most boys crib at school, but the public school man is straighter in business than the self-made man and the american. nearly all men will boast in their clubs of the way they bamboozled 'old moke,' of how they pinned up the rep. on the back of the boy in front, and of how they used to strip off the cover of the translation book and sew it round one of dr. giles's publications; but the man who has forced a young inventor into a hard contract remains silent. it is a matter that he prefers to keep to himself. i do not believe that cribbing saps the moral sense. the expediency issue is more complicated. and, on the surface, it does seem that the use of a crib is the very worst thing for a boy who hopes to win scholarships and fellowships. it is a short cut. he does not need to use his brain. his thinking is done for him. that is true, but there are points on the other side. he is set fifty lines of virgil to prepare. if he comes into form next morning with those lines half learnt he will derive little benefit from the hour's lesson. the whole time he will be worrying at the sense. he will not be able to give his full attention to the points of grammar and history that will arise in the course of the hour. if, on the other hand, he is free from the anxiety of failure he is able to give his full attention to what is perhaps the more important part of the lesson. also a boy remembers what he has worked out for himself; and a crib used intelligently provides just enough struggle to impinge the result of the effort on the memory. and the wise do use a crib intelligently. they not only want to know their 'con' for the next day: they also wish to be able to remember it for the examination. they, therefore, read a sentence over first in the original. some one wonders what a certain word means. the word is looked up. then a shot is made at the sense, not a very serious shot perhaps, and speedy reference is made to the crib. the english is read out loud. 'now, how does he get that out of it?' some one asks. there is a minute of tussle and explanation--then all is clear. and the next sentence is read out loud. that is the way to use a crib. and if one has worked out for oneself, even if it be with the aid of a crib, the meaning of a long passage of virgil, one remembers that passage. i have forgotten now nearly all my greek and latin, but i can still read currently and with pleasure the eclogues, for which i used a crib. whereas the memory of other books, through which i struggled honestly, but less successfully, has faded altogether. for the average member of the sixth i believe the intelligent use of a crib is to be recommended. a greater number of lines could be prepared at one time, and there would be leisure for acquiring that knowledge that comes to us indirectly from the classics. plato is a window through which we see the gymnasiums of ancient greece. but it will be shuttered for those to whom the struggle is ever with correct rendering and syntax. the real scholar, whose life will be spent largely with the classics, must avoid short cuts; he should glory in difficulties that will quicken his wits: he has his whole life before him. he does not have to pass, as the rest of us do, swiftly into a world of politics and business. and, indeed, the real scholar realises this. i can recall few instances in which a boy with a really fine brain has deadened his perceptions by the use of translations. the scholar, when he reaches the sixth, and is no longer forced to write the proses and prepare the translations of his less clever comrades, prefers to work alone, if not in the company of boys who are equally brilliant. but the real scholar is the exception. this book is written for, and about, the average schoolboy. i know that in the matter of cribbing i am pleading a lost cause. cribbing will always, of course, be a forbidden thing; therein lies its charm. but it is important that master and parents should realise in what light these questions appear to the boy. a boy is frequently misunderstood. he is accused of dishonesty. he resents the accusation, but he is unable to explain why his offence does not deserve so stern a label. he is tempted to lose heart, to console himself with the reflection that 'they don't understand,' and so further estrange himself from sympathy and mutual understanding. the boy stands before the house master and lets the wind of words flow over him. what use is it for him to attempt an explanation. if he argues his punishment will be increased. it is better to assume contrition; to say, 'yes, sir, i hadn't seen it in that light before,' and to be more clever another time. it would be far more just were the master to regard cribbing as a boy regards it: as a game, to be punished effectively when discovered, but not to be associated with the welfare of the human spirit. if school authorities wish, however, to find a lasting cure they have in their own hands the remedy. they will not achieve their ends through increased vigilance; that will only make the boy more clever. they should make work more interesting. there is little cribbing in form where boys are interested in what they are learning. boys are not anxious to learn what a master is not anxious to teach. laziness begets laziness, and cribbing is a form of laziness. systematic cribbing will not disappear till popular opinion regards as important success or failure in the class-room. success at games is considered important; games are, in consequence played fairly. but, as popular opinion sets no value on school work, it does not seem to matter much what happens in school hours. success in form needs to be brought into some sort of relationship with success at football. athletic prowess will always, naturally, and perhaps rightly, be rated more highly than intellectual achievement. but that is no reason why intellectual achievement should be disparaged in the case of all save the brilliant few whose feats are received with a mild enthusiasm. at sandhurst we used to have weekly examinations, and, as far as i remember, there was no cribbing at all in these exams. to a certain extent promotion depended on one's performance in them, and each g. c. was anxious to work out the problems for himself so as to be able to judge how much, or how little, progress he had made. this did not mean that we were more interested in topography than late cuts, but that we realised that, at this stage of our career proficiency in topography would be of service to us. i believe that a similar state of affairs would exist at a public school were the social values to be readjusted. cribbing, like so much else in public school life, is a side-shoot of athleticism. chapter vii morality and the romantic friendship it is at this period, also, of a boy's development that the moral question assumes a definite significance. there is no phase of school life that is more generally misunderstood and misrepresented, and there is no phase that a writer tackles with greater misgiving and disinclination. he is confronted with the barricaded prejudices of a vested interest, with the tremulous ignorance of mothers who seek to be deceived, with the conspiracy of silence that exists between boys, parents, and masters, and, last of all, with the wilful jealousy of the yellow press that is only too ready to decry the value of what it is pleased to call the 'trades union of snobbery.' there are times, indeed, when it seems better to acquiesce in that conspiracy of silence rather than to give those speculators in contention another opportunity of mud-slinging. there are times when it seems hopeless to attempt to explain the nature of public school morality to those who have not themselves been to a public school. it is like looking at a stained-glass window from the outside. one reminds oneself that for many years, without, perhaps, any very disastrous results, we have muddled along in contented ignorance and self-deceit. why not leave things where they are? why stir up trouble? and yet the moral question is such an essential part of school life, it exercises such an influence on the development of the boy; indirectly it colours so considerably the attitude of the master to every other phase of school life, that it is impossible to omit all reference to it in a detailed study such as this, and, if it is impossible to avoid mention of it, it is fatal to content oneself, as one may very well do in a novel, with stray suggestions and inferences. a novel is an abstraction. one compresses into a few pages the action of several years, so that one has to suggest rather than to state. one can withhold one's own opinion, one is under no compunction to generalise from the incidents one selects. one is telling a story or interpreting a personality. only rarely is one constructing a thesis. in a novel it is not difficult to deal with the moral question. most good school stories have touched more or less indirectly on some side of it. ivor brown and compton mackenzie have both dealt subtly with an intricate relationship. hugh walpole, if less originally, faced the same situation more courageously, while arnold lunn in _loose ends_ has interpreted the boy as opposed to the official attitude to this issue with extreme effectiveness. the novelist is constrained to discuss only that part of the question that affects the action of the story. that is one of the great charms of story-telling: one can touch lightly without need of explanation on the most delicate situations. one can say only as much as one wants to say, and say it, what is more, obliquely. in a book such as this, however, one must deal with the subject thoroughly if at all. one must tackle every side of it. one is bound to follow one's thought through to the end. and that is a thing that no one cares to do in public. it was said of a certain intrepid rugby player that he had not the brains to be afraid. it is certainly true that many soldiers lost their nerve after they had been once wounded, and that few soldiers were really frightened till they had seen what a shell could do; it may well be that at twenty-three one has not sufficient experience of the world to realise what risks one runs through honesty. the first difficulty, especially for those who, without having been to a public school themselves, are the fathers of present or prospective public school boys, is to start investigations with a clear mind. this feat the majority never manage to accomplish. for the moral question in schools is concerned with the relationship of two members of the same sex. now such a relationship is counted in the world at large an unmentionable and unforgivable sin. it is regarded with horror by the average man. it is a penal offence. the man who enters into such a relationship is abnormal, and, as such, is considered a menace to society. but the same standards are not applicable to school life. a man was intended by nature to marry at eighteen. the average villager, clerk, pit-boy, work-boy begins 'walking out' with a girl at the age of fifteen or sixteen; the public school boy has no such opportunities of courtship. three hundred boys are spending three-quarters of their lives in a monastic world; from the beginning of the term to the end the only women to whom they have the opportunity of speaking are the matron and the house master's wife. they have never any chances of seeing girls of their own class and of their own age. at a particularly susceptible period, therefore, they have no natural object for their affections. the youngest boys are only thirteen, the eldest are between eighteen or nineteen. in such circumstances it would be surprising if there were no uncomfortable complications. the public school system is, in this respect, unnatural; one must expect unnatural results. the trouble is to discover what those results are. for, although people speak glibly enough of immorality in public schools, it is extremely doubtful whether they realise of what exactly that immorality consists. it is a convenient phrase, but beyond it there is the conspiracy of silence. schoolmasters prefer to deal with straight issues. they dislike the subtleties of action and character which are of such charm to the psychologist. they like to say, 'this is an offence.' finer shades of meaning trouble them. at least that is their official attitude. and so it has come to be generally accepted that public school morality resolves itself into one main issue: that is, the corruption of a small boy by a big one. to protect the new boy from this danger elaborate precautions are taken. it is on this point that a boy is given advice before he goes to school. he is warned never to make friends with boys bigger than himself; it is against this danger that the majority of school sermons are directed. and, of course, this is a very convenient attitude for the schoolmaster to adopt. the offence is obviously so grave that there can be no cause to withhold complete official condemnation; it is also so rare that the head master is able to assure prospective parents of the excellent tone of the school. for i am convinced that the deliberate seduction of a smaller boy is an extremely rare occurrence. there are, of course, certain houses--probably there is one at every school--in which a good-looking boy stands very little chance of remaining straight. but i have not been in such a house and i can speak with no authority. i have heard, certainly, some astonishing stories of what can be tolerated in a really bad house; but, second-hand reports, especially on such matters, can only be accepted with reserve. certainly in the average house cases of corruption are very rare. few boys have the nerve, the assurance, or the adroitness to attempt such a task. a man of twenty-five will set out deliberately to seduce a housemaid, but the schoolboy in such matters is a novice. if a senior boy is casually attracted by the appearance of a smaller boy, he asks a friend lower down in the house to make inquiries as to the morals of the small boy. if the 'go-between' discovers that the small boy is 'straight,' the elder boy lets the matter fall from his mind. there are others who are not. if, on the other hand, the attraction is more than casual, the chances of seduction are even more remote. it is unlikely that the affection will be reciprocated. and, if a boy is really fond of another boy, the last thing he would wish would be to subject his friend to unwelcome advances. when a boy first falls in love with a girl the thought of sexual intimacy is, often, unattractive. it is only when his love is returned that he really desires it. it is fatal to confuse the processes of life at large with the processes of life in a monastic system. because young men seduce young women with regrettable frequency, it is assumed that much the same sort of thing is happening at a public school. and, parents believing this, are reassured; they are certain that their dear child when young will be strong enough to resist the passive temptation; they are equally certain that their dear child when nearly a man would not, for one moment, consider the possibility of active sin. and this amiable delusion schoolmasters encourage. it saves them a lot of trouble. they say one thing in public and another in private. but the jekyll and hyde business breeds confusion. they forget what they should believe and what they should not believe. they are agreed only on this: that any attempt at criticism, at explanation, at interpretation shall be counteracted with a concerted unanimity of opinion. they will deny hotly the prevalence of any such practices, they will make slighting references to the bad house in the bad school. they will complete their defence by asserting that for what faults there are the parents are alone responsible in that they had not sufficiently warned their sons of the evils of a public school--evils, be it noted, that they had previously assured the parent did not exist outside the perverted imagination of the critic. and yet it is amazing what these same apologists will be prepared to believe about any institution other than their own. six years ago sandhurst had an extremely bad name. every kind of debauch was rumoured to flourish there. sobriety was only more unpopular than purity. the g. c.'s secreted whisky beneath their beds, and actresses within them. the glittering temptations of st anthony allured the unwary in the tea-shops of camberley. and i remember being shown, before i went there, a letter that had been sent to the parents of a prospective cadet by his head master. 'i hope,' the letter ran, 'that arthur is aware of the temptations to which he will be subjected. concupiscence seems to be the chief topic of conversation and the sole sunday afternoon amusement of the cadets.' it all sounded fearfully exciting. but it proved very tame. indeed i am inclined to think that, on the whole, fewer temptations presented themselves to me during the eight months i spent at sandhurst than during any other period of my time in the army. a fellow could do what he liked. no pressure was put on him to drink or gamble, or pursue loose women. he was none the less respected for being straight, nor the more admired for being crooked. a community such as this which exerts pressure on the individual in neither direction, i should be prepared to call as moral as any that is likely to be found this side of heaven, yet this head master, who would, no doubt, repudiate hotly the least suggestion that immorality in his own school was anything but a spasmodic and occasional phenomenon, was ready to believe that sandhurst was a cesspool of all the vices that flourished so gracefully in the days of petronius arbiter. in our investigations we are not likely to be helped far by schoolmasters. they are constrained by the laws of exchange and mart to vindicate the quality of their wares. it is generally assumed for the purposes of dialectic that there are two classes of persons: the normal and the abnormal, and that all normal people follow the same process of development from birth to death. to disprove this havelock ellis collected at the end of certain volumes of his psychology authenticated histories of men whose development he claimed to be normal, but whose histories were as different from one another as apples are from plums. in the face of such evidence it is dangerous to dogmatise on the gradual discovery of the sexual impulse by public school boys during adolescence. the most one can say is that the majority of them come to a public school innocent and ignorant, and that they leave it certainly not ignorant and with a relative degree of innocence. this at least is sure--that between the years of thirteen and nineteen the impulse will have become powerfully defined and that each boy will have had to come to terms with its direction and control. now the important point seems to me to be this: the sexual impulse is a force on the proper direction of which depends, to a large extent, the happiness of a man's life; and marriage is the course into which it should be directed. no one, i think, will deny that. we may talk of the liberation of the sexes, of greater facilities for divorce, of the right of each man and woman to repair a mistake caused by the first surprise of a newly-awakened instinct; but there can be no questioning the assertion that monogamy is the ideal, and that while nothing can be more wretched than an ill-harmonised relationship, in the lifelong devotion of man and woman is to be found the surest happiness. that is the standard by which public school morality should be judged. but it is not the standard by which it is officially, and indeed generally, judged. a public school is only a phase, a prelude in the sexual development of a man. head masters are inclined to mistake it for the completed rhythm. in the same way that the head master of a preparatory school specially coaches a boy for a scholarship, not realising that what for him is the whole race is for the boy but a first lap, so the head master of a public school regards the preservation of innocence between the years of 13 and 19 as the entire battle. as far as i can make out this attitude is adopted by nearly every unscientific writer on the subject. if the matter ended there it would, of course, be simple. rigid policemanship and supervision and a system of spies would probably be effective. they might stamp out impurity to a large extent; they would also destroy the discipline of independence, of trust and of authority that one learns at a public school. the matter is far less simple. the public school system is unnatural. through unnatural channels, therefore, a natural impulse has to flow into a natural course. let us see, more or less, what happens. we have assumed that an ignorant and innocent boy arrives at his public school at the age of thirteen, and, to simplify the matter further, we will assume that the boy is not particularly good-looking, and is not, therefore, likely to win the patronage of his seniors. for the first weeks everything is so strange that he lives in a world of his own fashioning. later on, as he begins to enter the life of the school, he is puzzled by references to an offence the nature of which he does not understand. he hears some one described as being 'smutty.' he does not in any way connect this with the elaborate address that was delivered to him on the last day at his prep. indeed i knew of a new boy who informed his parents on a postcard that a rather decent chap in his house had been nearly sacked for 'smut.' 'is this,' he asked, 'anything serious?' he received in reply a reassuring letter telling him that he need not worry about such things just yet. it is the fashion nowadays to demand open discussion of all subjects; there must be no secrets. parents are told that they are guilty of criminal negligence if they do not instruct their sons and daughters in the physiology of sex. and, no doubt, it will be maintained that at this point the father should have written his son a long letter explaining to him the nature of the temptation to which he would be exposed. that is the fashion nowadays. no doubt the victorians suffered from an excessive reserve. we have gone to the other extreme. we are trying to reduce love to an exact science. on the whole, i suppose that the instruction of children by parents depends entirely on the individual case. but at such a time it would be very easy for the parents to become embarrassed and lose the boy's sympathy. the number of boys who learn from their parents more than a vague idea of motherhood is probably small. and at a public school it is the physiology of fatherhood that occupies the boy's attention. we are given to understand that in the first place a boy must be corrupted by another boy. but this is not generally the case. a boy usually manages to corrupt himself. he has overheard the conversation of older boys, he has discussed different problems with his companions; the atmosphere of school life with its continual references to immorality in sermons and addresses, have made him precociously curious. he evolves for himself the practice of private immorality. a boy's knowledge of sex necessarily is very fragmentary, and on many points he is actually misinformed. he has a preposterous idea, for instance, of the effects that this habit will have upon his health. syphilis is not more dangerous. his hair will drop out, he will go blind, his brain will soften. probably he will go mad. numerical considerations mean nothing to him: once a thief always a thief. the idea of restrained disorder does not occur to him. he suffers from the misery of an incommunicable grief. he is apart from his fellows. if he told them his secret, he thinks that they would despise him. he becomes morbidly introspective. he makes vows to break himself of the habit, fails, and despises himself. he begins to search for the symptoms of his approaching physical and intellectual collapse. if he makes a duck at cricket, misses a catch in a house game, or fails badly in his repetition, he tells himself that the process has begun. there are times when he wants to steal away by himself like an animal that is sick. there are others in which he wishes at all costs to mix with his companions, to take part in any rag that is afoot; to this cause can be invariably attributed the mingled rowdyism and moodiness of certain boys. the idea that such practices are physically injurious is encouraged by the master. it appears to him the most sure preventative. there are, indeed, occasions when masters are so misinformed that they actually believe in these terrible vengeances of the body. for schoolmasters who, of all people, ought to know most of hygiene and physiology, are, for the most part, woefully ignorant of them. it would be indeed interesting to discover what percentage of public school house masters have read any serious medical writing. they are only too willing to believe that such habits have the disastrous results they prophesy. and of course it has not, unless it is practised to excess and unless the subject is particularly feeble. it is foolish to throw lighted matches about the place, but the habit only becomes dangerous when the matches are flung on inflammable material. it so happens that the greater part of active immorality in schools takes place between boys of fifteen and sixteen; not, as is more frequently imagined, between junior and senior boys. such relationships are usually of brief duration. they pass with the dawn of the romantic friendship. and it is here that i feel most acutely the difficulty of my task. it is almost impossible to explain to some one who has not been to a public school the nature of one of these romantic friendships. in a book called _pleasure_ i published a story dealing with such a friendship. the majority of old public school boys who read it seemed to like it. but none of the men who had not been to a public school could make head or tail of it. they told me in their reviews of it that it was absurd, mawkish, and unhealthy. it may be so. it may be that i wrote the story badly. i can only repeat that old public school boys liked it. and indeed it is a difficult thing to explain. for what is a romantic friendship but the falling in love of one boy with another. such a relationship seems preposterous. i can only repeat that the public school system is unnatural, and that one must expect unnatural results from it. what, after all, is to be expected? a boy of seventeen is passing through a highly romantic period. his emotions are searching for a focus. he is filled with wild, impossible loyalties. he longs to surrender himself to some lost cause. he hungers for adventures. on occasions he even goes so far as to express himself in verse, an indiscretion that he will never subsequently commit. and what focus does a public school provide for this eager emotionalism? there are the fierce contests of the football field, but they are, when all is said and done, the business of life, the cause for his existence. they are an enthusiasm he shares with three hundred others. he longs for something more intimate, more personal; he is, in fact, in love with love; he does not see a girl of his own age, of his own class, from one end of the term to the other; it is in human nature to accept the second best. in this environment there is nothing unnatural about the attraction exercised by a small boy over an elder one. a small boy is the nearest approach possible to the feminine ideal. indeed a small boy at a public school has many of the characteristics that a man would hope and expect to find in a woman. he is small, weak, and stands in need of protection. he is remote as a woman is, in that he moves in a different circle of school life, with different friends, different troubles, different ambitions. he is an undiscovered country. the emotion experienced is genuine, and usually takes the elder boy by surprise. in a man's love for a woman there is often a degree of premeditation. a man looks at a woman and wonders if he could ever come to fall in love with her. as he walks homewards from her drawing-room he asks himself whether or not he is in love with her. he analyses his emotions; very often he persuades himself he is in love with her when in reality he is not. either way he is prepared. but the schoolboy is taken off his guard. he has not realised it is possible that he should fall in love with another boy. he has no previous experience which will enable him to recognise the symptoms. he has heard older boys spoken of as being 'keen' on some one or other, but he has associated such an assertion with the references in sermons to the corruption of a young mind. he does not, therefore, know what is happening when he finds himself becoming increasingly interested in some quite small boy. he has noticed him playing a plucky game on the lower and has congratulated him. they have happened to meet on the way up from hall and have walked across together to the studies. they have smiled when they passed each other as they changed from one class-room to another in break. the elder boy is surprised: he is still more surprised when he finds himself frequently walking into the smaller boy's study on no very necessary errand, to borrow a book he does not want or to return a book he has not borrowed; and that he should stop there to talk for an indefinite period. the day on which he has not seen or spoken to his small friend is empty for him. he does not understand his increasing wish for the company of an admittedly inferior person. but it is all very delightful. he is desperately anxious to appear in his best light. he makes strenuous, and often successful, efforts to abandon certain habits he had contracted. he may even work harder in form, and certainly he will make superhuman efforts on the football field, feeling that success will render him more attractive. he wonders what the small boy thinks of him, and persuades one whose social position lies midway between the two of them to make inquiries. the growing intimacy is a rich enchantment. he becomes curious, and, in a way, jealous of the life that his friend is leading; their standards, their environment, their friends are so different. he knows instinctively that one has more in common with one's contemporaries than with those who lie outside the circle of one's immediate interests, and this knowledge distresses him. there are times when he feels intensely miserable, others when he feels radiantly happy. at any rate he is living more intensely and less selfishly than he did before. he is on a distinctly higher plane of emotional tension. indeed in its beginnings such a friendship is certainly good for the elder boy and probably for the younger one; at any rate there is the comfortable knowledge that he has an elder friend to whom he can turn for sympathy and advice; and he is protected thus from many of the dangers to which his good looks might otherwise expose him. the environment of school life does not allow, however, the friendship to retain its first freshness. it becomes conscious of itself. it is noticed by other members of the house: 'hallo, jones,' they say, 'seen anything of morrison this morning?' jones, being the elder, is embarrassed by what seems to him an accusation of weakness. morrison is flattered to think that others have recognised and perhaps envied the patronage. jones begins to make inquiries of his friends, and a series of confidences convinces him that he has reached the condition of being 'keen' on morrison. this conviction places his friendship on an entirely different and, to a certain extent, official basis. if he had been left alone it is not improbable that he would have made no such discovery. as morrison would never have more than liked him, his feeling for the smaller boy would not have become defined. their friendship would have remained in the strictest sense of the word, platonic. but so frail a flower could not hope to flourish for long in the rigid atmosphere of a public school. everything in a public school has to conform to type; there are rules for the proper ordering of every situation. friendship, like personality, has to pass through the mint. in order to follow the technique of such relationships, the official point of view towards them has to be understood. the house master on this point finds himself in extreme difficulty. and, indeed, there is no point on which schoolmasters as a whole waver quite so much. they realise, for the most part, that it is natural, if unfortunate, for boys to feel like this. at the same time they have to discountenance such friendships. where actual misconduct is concerned, they think themselves to be on safe ground. and, as they believe that immorality in schools consists in the main of the corruption of small boys by big boys, they are able to speak with unrestrained violence against the majority of such friendships. they adjure their prefects to suppress at once the least sign of intimacy between a small and a big boy. they, themselves, watch carefully to see whether any of their seniors are evincing an interest in members of the day room. every one in a school knows that a friendship between two boys of different positions will be viewed seriously by authority. a boy is given to understand that the romantic emotion he feels for a smaller boy is an emotion that is unworthy of him and of its object, and should consequently be suppressed. such teaching is absolutely wrong. the emotions that a boy has for a smaller boy are as natural as those that he would feel for a girl were he not restrained by an unnatural system. it is wrong to make a boy say to himself: 'i ought not to feel like this.' such teaching is responsible for many of the mistakes that a boy will make when he becomes a man; it arbitrarily defines the form which the romantic friendship takes. a boy is surprised by a new, delightful, interesting emotion. he feels strangely happy. under its inspiration he works better and plays his games harder. he is told it is wrong to feel as he is feeling. but that he cannot believe. the emotions that are condemned in the pulpit and in confirmation addresses must in their essentials be different from those that he is feeling. that must be lust, the mere desire for sensation. this, on the other hand, is love. and so the public school boy of sixteen makes the discovery that love is in its highest form unphysical. the truth of this intuition is established for him by public opinion and by the course of his own experience. the slightest suggestion of indecent conduct between the big and the small boy is regarded by boys as well as masters as the unforgivable offence. it is hard to know exactly how important a part these friendships play in the life of a boy. it has often been said that the novelist falsifies life by writing too much about love, that except at certain periods of a man's life love occupies only a small part of his attention; he is caught up by other interests. this argument, however, is no sounder than the objection raised by an old lady against the number of nudes displayed at the paris salon. 'it's so absurd,' she said, 'one-half of these portraits are nudes, and think how small a part of our life we spend without any clothes on.' a beautiful woman is most beautiful when she is naked, and a man's life is most interesting when he is in love. the condensation and indeed the actual elimination of whole periods must in a novel always falsify life for those who demand a direct transcription of it. if you were to record one average day of a man's life on gramophone and cinema and exhibit the result at the alhambra you would empty the theatre in an hour. a story-teller recounts only what is of interest. he is a good or a bad story-teller according to the degree of his ability to discern what is, and what is not, of interest. he merely indicates the passage of the unimportant. the man, therefore, who draws direct conclusions from a school story, would imagine that a schoolboy spends his entire time in form ragging masters, and, when not ragging, in cribbing, and that the rest of his time is divided between the fierce rivalries of the football field and the intrigues of romantic friendships. such, it is needless to say, is not the case. the story-teller has only written of what seemed to him to be of interest. he has omitted, and he has expected his reader to realise out of his own experience that he has omitted, the long, tedious hours of good behaviour, the ordered harmony of routine. the romantic friendship has a modest place in the schoolboy's scale of values, but its nature is curious enough. it has the great charm of the forbidden. it is mixed with fear. even after the first interest has waned, its setting makes it a delightful toy that no one would willingly throw away. it is the flavouring to the routine. there is usually a 'go between' who carries messages from one to the other. and the glance across a table stating that the intermediary has something of interest to disclose is one of the exciting moments of the day, as exciting as the post is to a recluse or the arrival of rations to a soldier. there are jealousies and intrigues. there is the interchange of notes--the joy of a secret. there are carefully arranged appointments. on sundays there will be meetings in some prearranged point outside the town, at which each will arrive by a different route, and they will sit in a wood and talk till the afternoon has waned and the chiming of the abbey clock warns them that roll-call is imminent. it is not surprising that such an adventure should appeal irresistibly to a schoolboy. when such a friendship is ended either by the appearance of a rival, or more frequently through the inclination of the smaller boy, who has risen in the school and feels that such a position is beneath his dignity, the elder boy feels an immense gap in his life. the immediate sense of anticipation has gone. there is nothing particular to which he may look forward. he is bored. often he drifts into such another friendship out of loneliness. authority adopts towards these friendships a wavering attitude. it realises that such a friendship does not necessarily imply the least indecency, that it often, on the other hand, has a very salubrious effect on the elder boy, but it still is vividly aware of the danger. suppose something went wrong; suppose there was a grave scandal, on whose shoulders would the responsibility rest. we can well imagine a resentful father asking a head master why, if he was aware of the existence of such a friendship, he did not take immediate steps to stop it. 'you knew about this,' he would say, 'while my son was still innocent: why did you not protect him? why should you knowingly subject him to such a risk?' the head master has always to be thinking of what a boy's parents will say. it is difficult for him to work on the plan of 'circumstances alter cases.' he would thus lay himself open to the accusation of favouritism. 'you didn't stop cartright and evans, sir,' is a weapon for which a master has no shield. there is usually a compromise.[5] the attitude of authority is one of nervous hesitance. the schoolboy, as in all other cases, evolves his own standards from his own life. it remains to be seen what are the actual effects on the partners in a relationship that must have a large influence on their subsequent development. the first objection raised by authority is that it is very bad for a small boy to be petted and treated like a girl. and such is an undoubted fact. the small boy who is taken up by a 'blood' makes a very good thing out of it. he gets first-hand information on a number of disputed points. he knows two or three hours before any one else in the day room who is going to be given his house cap and who his seconds. he has a position among his contemporaries. favours are sought through him. his friends get leave off house runs and are allowed to watch first eleven matches when others have to attend pick ups. he is immune from the assaults of the swash-bucklers, for no one would willingly run the risk of making himself unpopular with the bloods. he gets his 'con' done for him, and, after football, he will sit in front of a warm study fire. he has many privileges, and, of course, it is very bad for him. how far the effects last into manhood i cannot say with any degree of certainty. i am inclined to think that they pass more quickly than is popularly imagined. but the small boy who is taken up by his seniors gets very little out of his schooldays. if he gets taken up by a 'blood' he has a fairly good time while that blood is still at school. but it is by no means certain that he will be taken up by a blood, and he may very likely find himself an object of fierce jealousy between two fellows in the middle school, both of whom he likes, but for neither of whom he feels any strong attachment. neither of them is sufficiently important to claim a monopoly. between them they contrive to make his life wretched for him. they worry him with notes and with pleas for an appointment. each tries to persuade him to have nothing to do with the other. the whole of his spare time is divided between them. and the small boy who is unable to see why he should not choose what friends he likes, grows more and more impatient. at the end of a term's wrangling he decides to speak to neither of them again. but the life even of the favoured-of-the-mighty has its disadvantages. the hours that he spends in the day room are numbered, so that he makes few friends among his contemporaries. the majority of them dislike him; nearly all of them are jealous and distrust him. they are afraid to say things in his presence for fear that they will be repeated. his only friends are those who hope to be able to gain some advantages from him. his life is made none too comfortable in the dormitory. he is accepted as being in a higher social position than the rest of the room, which is, of course, flattering to his pride; but it is not nice when every occupant of the room only speaks when he is spoken to. he feels himself apart. the evenings in the dormitory which, with their sing-songs, their football matches, and long talks, provide such delightful material for reminiscence, are for him cheerless. it cannot be too often repeated that the biggest mistake a boy can make at a public school is to form friendships outside the circle of his contemporaries. the good-looking boy makes friends so easily among his seniors, and the successful athlete can, if he wants, after a year or two choose his friends among boys who have been at school a couple of years longer than he has. it is very exciting for a boy to feel that he is outstripping his contemporaries, to be able to nod to fellows in the fifteen and eleven, but, in the long run, it does not pay. the big man leaves, and the social aspirant is left stranded. i have seen it happen so many times. one term a boy seems to be surrounded with friends. his life is a continual course of tea parties and suppers. an arm always lies through his as he walks down to the field, or to the tuck shop. and then, suddenly, a generation passes; he is left an anachronism without his friends. his contemporaries do not welcome him. they have made their own friends. if he has reached his prominence as an athlete he will be able to make friends in other houses, and, before long, in his own house. to the athlete everything is forgiven. but the boy who has become the associate of bloods not through any quality of his own, but merely because he is good-looking, never makes friends with his contemporaries. they have been jealous of him and have distrusted him a long time. there was a time when they longed for the big boy to go, so that they could 'jolly well boot the little swine.' but members of the sixth form table consider it beneath their dignity to indulge emotions that are the exclusive property of fags. they remain coldly distant. it may be that for the favoured small boy these years of loneliness adjust the balance and teach him those lessons of fortitude and independence that he should have learnt in the day room. but it is an unhappy time. he can hardly look back on his schooldays without regret. he would wish things had turned out otherwise. and it is not thus that we should look back on our schooldays. certainly i could wish nothing worse for any friend of mine than to be taken up as a small boy. there remains to be considered the effect that such friendships have on the elder boy. and it is generally conceded that though they may on occasions do harm to the smaller boy, they usually prove of benefit to the elder boy. authority confines its objection to the secrecy that is involved. an eyebrow is raised at the interchange of notes and the carefully arranged sunday afternoon walks. 'this is bad, this is bad,' says authority. 'there would be no need for all this secrecy if the thing were honest and straightforward. they are both ashamed of themselves really. they wish to hide the thing away from their masters and their comrades. it is a bad thing for a boy, the harbouring of a secret. it will prey upon his mind. he will be forced to lie within himself. he will be unable to look us squarely in the face. he will never be free from worry.' now all this about the subtle poison of a secret life is very true (though it is a fact seldom taken into account in the question of self abuse), but it is not at all applicable to the romantic friendship. the secret is an open secret. neither party is ashamed of it. and the pretence of a secret is little more than part of a delightful game. a child in a nursery lays a deck chair on the blue carpet and imagines he is sailing the high seas in a schooner, while with a poker to his shoulder he shoots an albatross for breakfast. twelve years later he signs notes with a false name, rolls them into a pellet, conveys them to a messenger and imagines he is a diplomat. the sending of notes is nothing but a game. otherwise no one would write them, carry them, nor read them: for they are most unnecessary, and most dangerous. people will drop them in the cloisters, or put them in their waistcoat pockets and then leave their waistcoats in the matron's room to have a button sewn on them. the writing of notes has upset more careers than the rustling of silk or the creaking of shoes. and yet they will always be written, for they are a prelude to adventure. moreover, a certain measure of secrecy is prudent. if you have stolen a man's greatcoat you do not call at his house next day wearing it; and the schoolboy sees no reason why he should parade his affection before his head master's study window. only the ass courts trouble. prefects who are well aware of the existence of such a friendship do not wish to have their attention called to it officially. there are things they prefer not to notice. if a member of the eleven and a new boy started out together for a walk under the shade of the school buildings the heads of their houses would reluctantly feel themselves forced to take some sort of action. they would be extremely annoyed with the school slow bowler for his lack of tact. a prefect is usually on the side of the house. masters, however, are pleased to imagine that a pact has been signed between the schoolboy and themselves which binds the schoolboy to confess to any fault he may have committed, and to answer any leading questions that may be put to him. the schoolboy does not look on things in this light. he knows that there is no such agreement. there are certain things he wants to do, the doing of which, if known, will render him liable to punishment. when the wish to do these overrides the fear of punishment he takes all reasonable precautions to avoid detection, and proceeds to break the inconvenient rule. it is up to the master to find him out. if the master came down to the dining-hall one evening and said: 'now, look here, there have been complaints that some fellows, i don't say you, but fellows in the school, have been getting out at night and going down to the eversham arms. if any one of you here has been getting out at night, i want him to come to my study afterwards and tell me.' if a house master were to do that, the guilty one would not feel himself under the least compunction to own up. he has run a big risk in getting out of the boothole window at half-past eleven. it was up to the master to catch him then. if a form master were to call a member of his form aside and say to him: 'jones, last term you were bottom of the form; this term you have reached single figures. last term you had to write me a hundred lines nearly every time i put you on to construe; this term you have not failed once. i cannot understand it. are you working honestly?' jones would reply: 'yes, sir.' he would not feel that he was telling a lie. he would feel, on the other hand, that his form master had taken an unfair advantage of him in putting him a leading question. no one thinks a murderer lies because he says, 'not guilty, my lord.' it is the law of england that the crown has to prove the defendant guilty. a schoolboy considers himself entitled to the same rights as the murderer and the thief. a master has to find him out. and it is quite absurd to say that a boy's soul is going to suffer because of the secrecy he imposes on himself in the course of a romantic friendship. there are a lot of things that a boy is not anxious that his house master should know, and of which no one could expect him to be ashamed. to smuggle into the dormitory a chicken, a loaf of bread, and a pound of cheese in preparation for a midnight feast is a natural and, according to one's point of view, a worthy act; but it is not a performance the success of which one would be in a hurry to confide in one's house master. when a schoolboy deceives a master he does not feel he is deceiving an individual, but an impersonal body. in the same way do we call the grocer's attention to the omission of a pound of butter on our weekly books, but skilfully conceal from the income-tax assessor a number of interesting facts. a lie is hardly a lie if the person telling it does not consider it so. we may dismiss altogether the assertion that romantic friendships are bad because they entail secrecy. if, then, the objection of secrecy is to be discounted, it would at first sight appear that for the elder boy these friendships are, on the whole, good things. the emotion experienced is a noble one; it is unselfish, it makes considerable demands on the patience and self-control of the subject; it encourages the bigger boy to work hard and play his games harder; it protects him from many of the dangers of school life, and yet i believe that its results are, in the long run, more serious for the elder than for the younger boy. it is the worst possible prelude to the sexual life of a man. it sends a boy into the world with an entirely false view of the normal sexual relations of men and women; it is a hindrance to him in marriage. a boy of sixteen experiences for a younger boy the emotion that he would naturally at such a period feel for a girl of his own age. he is surprised into a new relationship, and he is told that the relationship can only remain worthy of him as long as it remains platonic. sexual emotion is, he is given to understand, unclean. during adolescence he will be subjected to a force that he must, at all costs, resist. that is the official attitude, and it is the attitude of nearly every unscientific writer on the subject. a schoolmaster considers the moral question from the point of view of the policeman. 'here,' he says, 'is something that must be suppressed.' various writers suggest various remedies. the popular idea is to sublimate the passions, to provide another focus. schoolmasters usually select the focus that is most near to the boy's interests: namely, athletics. they encourage the athletic worship, because a boy who really wishes to excel in this will not run the risk of losing his proficiency by weakening practices. this panacea has not worked too well, and the band of earnest idealists has begun to clamour for a more spiritual focus: poetry, art, religion. which is all very jolly, but gets us no nearer to solving the main problem of how a natural force is to be directed through an unnatural channel into a natural one. it is no sort of use to place a lump of granite in front of the unnatural channel and say: 'this is forbidden.' the stream will only select another course, and very likely one that will not lead it to the natural waters. it is, i admit, an extremely difficult question, but that does not alter the fact that it is being treated in an entirely wrong manner. the boy is told that sexual emotion is wrong; he assumes, therefore, that love to be truly love must be sexless. he draws fine distinctions between love and lust. a decent fellow, he says, would never want to do anything like that with some one for whom he really cared. and nothing happens in the course of his romantic friendship to make him reconsider this opinion. it is probable that his affection will not be returned; and, indeed, why should it be? under such circumstances it is natural that a big boy should be attracted by a smaller boy because the smaller boy is the nearest approach to the feminine ideal. it would be quite unnatural for a small boy to be attracted by a bigger boy who would be to him as far as possible removed from femininity. the small boy likes the elder boy, is grateful for his kindness to him, is perhaps even mildly fond of him; nothing more. as, therefore, there is no response to the elder boy, it is impossible for the natural rhythm of mutually felt emotion to carry them out of the reach of conventional standards, and the friendship is too sacred to the elder boy to allow passage to the itch of sensation; while the small boy, even if he happened to be casual among his contemporaries on such matters, would be restrained by the shyness that he must always feel in the presence of a senior boy and by the inevitable embarrassment at finding himself the object of an emotion he does not understand. nothing happens, therefore, to disabuse the conviction that love in its purest form is sexless. as a boy is, however, on the whole an amoral creature, he sees no reason why he should not misconduct himself with a person for whom he has no respect. he is not sullying a fine romance. it is a different thing altogether; this is a thing of sensation. a bachelor refrains from prostitutes more often through fear of illness than through reverence for a moral code. there is at school a type that corresponds to the prostitute from whom boys refrain, when they do refrain, for many mixed reasons, of which fear of expulsion is generally not one. boys are not afraid of punishments, nor do they think that a punishable offence is necessarily a moral offence. that point must always be kept in mind. punishments to a boy's mind are part of the game that is played between him and authority. the boy has his own scale of values. he would think an immoral act highly reprehensible if he were at the time engaged in a romantic friendship, but he could square his conscience to it if he happened to be emotionally free. the reasons why a boy commits an immoral act are so many and so complex that inquiry into them for the purpose of a generalisation is unprofitable. it may be that he has had a quarrel with his small friend, it may be that he is bored, or that he is curious; he may think it the 'blood' thing to do. if he is literary he may be in search of some equivalent for the emotional reactions of decadent poetry. the confessions that a boy makes himself must always be accepted with reserve. the confessional is a subtle form of flattery. it titillates the egotism; it is a self-indulgence. madame bovary used to invent small crimes because she enjoyed the romantic atmosphere of the confessional, and though most schoolboys would stand in no need of such invention, they create the most ingenious setting for their offences. they feel what they want to feel. they have derived emotion at second hand from some book, or the confidence of an elder brother; they want to make themselves believe that they are interesting. the most trivial affair is embellished with a wealth of motive that would have delighted henry james. sometimes they lie quite conscientiously. a boy was once asked by his house master whether he felt that confirmation had been of any assistance to him. it had not, but the boy felt that it was up to him to pretend that it had. the house master obviously expected it; it was a social decency, on a par with the assurance to a hostess that one had spent a most delightful evening. the boy was inclined to think that he swore less than he had done. the master's interest was aroused. where had he learnt to swear? the boy had, of course, acquired this knowledge in the day room. he realised, however, that this was one of the things that one did not confess. he said he had learnt it from some navvies in the holidays. more questions were asked. 'oh, yes,' the boy said, 'my people allow me to do more or less what i like. i wander all over the place.' it was quite untrue, but it confirmed the house master in his belief that all the faults of a public school could be attributed to the ignorance and foolishness of parents. he developed the idea in a letter which he contributed to a well-known weekly. it is never safe to generalise from a boy's confession, and house masters would do well in such cases to base their conclusions on their own experience and on their previous knowledge of the boy's character. in their investigations, however, of the moral question, there is one motive that they can almost certainly rule out: the motive of strong personal attraction. such an act would be opposed to the ethics of school society, and a boy only rarely does what he, himself, feels to be wrong. he is inclined to enter a world of women with the idea that the sexual impulse can only be gratified with a woman he does not love. he realises that in marriage it is necessary for the procreation of children. but he regards it chiefly from his point of view as a 'remedy against sin,' and on the woman's part an act of gracious compliance. it is thus that a man comes to divide women into classes: one's sisters' friends, and the rest. there is little need to elaborate the results of such an attitude. the subject has been discussed exhaustively. on this rock many marriages have been shipwrecked. it can do little in cases of strong mutual feeling. passion harmonises all things; the rhythm of love takes its own course. but where the woman has not been deeply moved before marriage, where she knows her future husband only slightly, and is timid in his presence, then the preconceived formula of the 'pure girl' will achieve havoc. the woman will sink herself in motherhood, and the man will seek elsewhere diversion. a cynic has remarked that the man who marries a girl because she appeals to his higher nature will spend the rest of his life among those who appeal to his lower nature. and, like all epigrams, that remark presents a facet of the truth. it is now generally accepted that there is no more dangerous heresy than the idea that one does not 'feel like that about a decent girl.' much has been written on the subject. but the causes of the heresy have not been sufficiently investigated. it is said, 'boys are badly brought up.' children, we are told, should be brought to regard their bodies as temples, and there the matter is left. but this heresy is, i am certain, very largely the natural result of the public school system. it is confined to the upper and upper-middle classes, to those, that is, who have been to public schools. the collier and the peasant have no such fanciful illusions. divorce must naturally be more common in circles where men and women have leisure to indulge their emotions, where temptations are frequent, where the imagination is most vivid, the longing for the unattainable most acute. but, even so, any student of character cannot but feel that the married lives of public school men are less happy than those of the lower classes. all through the discussion of this delicate subject i have used marriage as the norm. it includes all other considerations. there are those who are shocked to learn of the existence of immorality in public schools, and the socialist press is only too ready for an opportunity of slinging mud at the object of its envy. but, however a boy is brought up, it is unlikely that he would pass unscathed through adolescence. curiosity is as irresistible as fear. it is the power of the unknown. the moral offences of a public school boy are disgusting enough, but because they are so entirely physical they have little lasting effect on him. they play indeed a very casual part in his life. nothing is at stake. the romantic friendship, on the other hand, is the dawn of love; it is a delicate and deep emotion; it is the most exciting thing that up to then has happened to a boy; it touches his senses and his soul. and, because he experiences this emotion for the first time in an unnatural environment, his natural reaction is misdirected and misinformed. it is important that we should find some remedy. footnote: [5] it may here be mentioned that in girls' schools such friendships would seem to be common, and no great objection taken to them. unnatural vice between women is not, of course, a criminal offence. its existence is not widely recognised. and it has never been treated very seriously by men. but it was surprising to read a few months ago in a leading london newspaper an article on 'schoolgirls,' which accepted such friendships among girls as an amusing topic for popular journalism. the editor would probably have had a fit if a similar article on romantic friendships in public schools had been submitted to him. the attitude of the man who has not been to a public school to this side of school life is a mixture of ignorance and astonished horror. chapter viii the middle years desmond coke has described in _the bending of a twig_, the middle years of a public school career as being slow to pass, but swift in retrospect. he devoted two chapters to them--'see-saw down' and 'see-saw up.' and those chapter headings convey more clearly than a long analysis the nature of that period. to begin with it is 'see-saw down.' the boy is confused with his new-found liberty; the future stretches endlessly before him. there is plenty of time. there is no need for hurry. and so he rags and wastes his time and makes, on the whole, a pretty general nuisance of himself. his house reports are worse at the end of every term. his parents grow worried; they remember the bright promise of that first term: the prize, the promotion, the glowing panegyric. the arrival of the blue envelope during the second week of the holidays is the occasion of considerable domestic stress. on such a morning one remembers that one has promised to spend the day with a friend at richmond. and then suddenly, when the revel is at its height, some chance incident or conversation forces a boy to realise that he has not so much time as he had thought, that the weeks are passing, that, already, the end has drawn close to him. clifford bax, in one of his many beautiful poems, has described a man's first appreciation of the approach of age. 'there is a certain mid-way hour in life which startles every man, when the tide turns and, wave on wave, we hear death coming on.' in the same way the boy discovers that the half of his schooldays are at an end, that he has put them to little use. and, as the temporal quality of life drives the epicurean to gather with what eager haste he may, flowers that for him will soon have blossomed, the sense of passing days defines and directs for the schoolboy the course of ambition. it is perhaps the first moment of conscious thought, of objective reasoning. the days of unreflecting action are at an end. he is no longer a child playing in a nursery. he is a man, subject to the laws of time and space, a mortal man aware of his mortality. now this sudden change, which partakes of the nature of a conversion, owes its existence, as often as not, to some perfectly trivial occurrence. the stage is not set appropriately. there is no long heart to heart talk with a schoolmaster, a parent, or a friend at the end of which the boy leaps to his feet, claps his hand to his forehead, and exclaims: 'i see the evil of my ways.' such dramatic moments, i suppose, take place occasionally, but they are the exception. the boy has reached that stage of his development when the idea of time can become an actuality to him, and some quite casual incident will bring this actuality before him. it is possible, of course, that this reformation may be effected by a conversation. but it will be an unrehearsed effect. one is walking down to hall, and, through the open door of the changing room overhears some uncomplimentary statement of one's worth. the statement need not be made by a particular friend. indeed, it will probably be more effective if it is not. we accept with composure the criticisms of our friends, our relatives, our enemies. wherever there is an intimate relationship there is friction. we know that, at times, we must be intensely annoying to our friends, because they are at times so intensely annoying to ourselves. little tricks, traits of character, intonations of the voice that we should hardly notice in those to whom we are indifferent, exasperate us in those for whom we care. we expect our friends at times to say nasty things about us. we are too conscious of our own delinquencies. but impersonal criticism is unpleasant; it is like an unfavourable review that is unsigned. if we cannot reassure ourselves with the knowledge that our assailant is either jealous of us or dislikes us, or thinks we pay too many attentions to his wife; if, that is to say, we can detect in this criticism no ulterior motive, but simply a dispassionate impersonal disapproval of ourselves and of our work, then we do indeed feel that the need for drastic self-criticism is immediate. when, therefore, jones on his way down to hall overhears ferguson, who is in another form, who has never been brought into contact with him, who has no possible reason for feeling envious or jealous, remark that jones is the sort of fellow whom the house could get on very well without, he goes quickly to his study and communes with himself. at the beginning of my third year at school, when i was very happy, very light-hearted, very boisterous, and, i suppose, rather obnoxious generally, i was standing at the counter of the tuck shop waiting to be served with a poached egg and a sausage. i experienced considerable difficulty in catching the eye of the waitress, and for the better announcing of my presence i took a knife out of the basket and beat it upon the zinc covering of the counter. the waitress, who was harassed by the number of orders, turned round impatiently: 'oh, do be quiet, mr. waugh,' she said, 'i don't know what's come over you lately. you used to be such a nice quiet boy when you first came.' several people laughed, but her remark was a shock to me. i had not the slightest romantic interest in her. i did not care greatly what opinion she held of my moral worth, but i had not before realised that it was possible for a change of which i was myself ignorant to take place within me, that a process of degeneration could take its slow effect, altering me in the eyes of others, leaving me unaltered in my own, that, like rust on iron, environment could corrode temperament. that chance remark had a most profound effect on me. it gave me a sudden insight into the secret forces that lie under the surface of life. i do not know whether from the outside i appeared afterwards a different person. one cannot focus the impression one has of oneself and the impression one makes on others. but to myself i know that i was different. and some such revelation invariably comes to a boy during his period of school life. in novels and stories we attribute it to some emotional crisis. the reason of the change is less important than that there should be change, and that the reader should be able to realise that for such a change there was a reason. but, actually, the reason is usually trivial enough. it may be that a boy's pride has been rebuffed; some one has got a house cap before him. he begins to reassure himself with the old dope: 'there is plenty of time. it doesn't matter. i'll catch him later on.' but for once the old dope does not work. he realises with a shock that there is less time than he had thought. he has allowed his rival to get too far ahead. a house cap is only two stages distant from a first. he may not have time to catch him up. in the light of the discovery he revises his whole career. he asks himself whither he is drifting. he sees that he has passed beyond the stage of a vague promise into one of definite rivalry and achievement. the prospects of the beginner are always golden. his wares are not yet for sale in the open market. he has not entered into competition with his contemporaries. a young professional makes a century during his first month of first-class cricket and is immediately the object of generous enthusiasm. the reporter can write of him as ecstatically as he will. the professional has not yet reached representative cricket. at school a slow left-hand bowler takes eight wickets for twenty-seven in a house match. he is spoken of at once as the coming man. for another season he will continue to take wickets in house matches to the delight of every one. then he will enter the lists of representative cricket. he will play on uppers, and it will have to be decided, not whether he is a good slow left-hand bowler, but whether he is better than evans in buller's, and morrison in wilkes's. it is so easy to say of a boy of fifteen: 'some day he will be captain of the house.' we can all of us exclaim at the beginning of a marathon: 'what a beautiful runner that fellow is.' it is after ten miles have been run and the runners have sorted themselves out that the real race begins. it is the appreciation of this moment that ends the 'see-saw down' period and sees the start of the 'see-saw up.' it must not be imagined, however, that this process of see-saw up involves a complete moral, spiritual, and intellectual reformation; it sometimes does; more usually it means that the schoolboy looks at the same life from a different angle. his standards, his scale of values remain unaltered. he feels that he has not adjusted himself properly to their demands. he has been making an ass of himself: he has been ragging about, he has allowed opportunities to slip past him. 'it won't do,' he tells himself. 'i must stop all this. i must settle down.' such a resolution involves, to a certain extent, an appreciation of imminent responsibilities; a boy realises that a series of desperate escapades will prejudice his prospects of prefectship; it often results in the exchange of a positive for a negative manner of life. the sixth former, the potential scholar of balliol, is spurred by such an experience to really hard work. for him a turning-point has been reached. it is different, however, for the second eleven colour who has reached the lower fifth after three years of spasmodic cribbing. he has been in the past a free-lance, an irresponsible ragster. he decides that the time has come for him to settle down. if the lower fifth is, as it often is, a comfortable backwater, he is content to rest there. he sits on a back bench, and plays an occasional part in the life of the form. while he was a ragster he had to work. a well-prepared lesson was his armour. now that he no longer rags he need no longer work; he is content to be inoffensive, agreeable, somnolent. he considers that between himself and his form master there is an unwritten pact by which each agrees to leave the other alone. it is as though he said: 'your time, mr. featherbrain, is fully occupied between the ragsters and the industrious. you have to keep a constant watch upon the ragster. you have to teach the industrious. that is a whole-time job. why worry about me? you need not keep a watch upon me. it is agreed that i shall do no ragging. and why try to teach me anything. your energies are wasted upon me. i don't want to learn anything. you may lead a horse to the water, you know. why worry yourself and me! there are all those other fellows who want to learn.' and the master, usually, signs the contract. he is a busy man. the temptation is very great. he excuses himself in the common room by speaking of 'fellows like dear old thomas; good-natured chaps, but with absolutely no brains. latin and greek are flung away on them. but they'll make fine empire builders.' and so the boy who has settled down spends the greater part of his day wool-gathering in vacuous laziness. to nothing that happens between chapel and lunch can he bring the least enthusiasm. his thoughts are fixed on the more thrilling encounters of the football field. his whole life, indeed, is centred on sport, and on the most entertaining methods he can discover for the better employing of his spare time. all his energy, all his enthusiasm, is concentrated into one, or perhaps two, focuses. it is not surprising that he should become tolerably proficient at games and a source of moral anxiety to prefects and house masters. is the pursuit of athletic success a sufficiently engrossing occupation for such a boy? that is the question that a house master unconsciously puts to himself. he must put it to himself, but his attitude to this particular type of boy is based on a non-committal answer to this question: the answer--'perhaps; but it's up to you.' the house master, therefore, does all in his power to persuade the boy that the acquiring of a first fifteen cap is his immediate object in life. he will not state his case in words; but he will omit the uncomfortable topic of form work in conversations, and discuss at length the prospects of the house in the senior matches. if he does not succeed in directing the entire energy of the boy on games, the results of such a failure may be disastrous. a fellow of seventeen who has nothing particular to do is bound to find himself in mischief. this fact is realised by both parents and house masters, and those boys who are good neither at games nor work usually leave at about this period. it is the falling out of the unsuccessful runner in a long race. it is no good going on. the leaders are too far ahead. the gap between the senior and the junior is thus considerably increased. the stepping-stones have been removed. a boy of eighteen at the start of his last year sees very few of his contemporaries sitting at the sixth form table. of the eight or nine boys who came there with him, only three are left, and the fifth form table is filled by fellows two or three years junior to himself, with whom he has but a slight acquaintance. it is always the 'blood' who is asked to stop on that extra year. the insignificant are encouraged by silence to retire. 'thou shalt not kill, yet needst not strive officiously to keep alive.' by the time the boy comes to be a prefect he is able to feel himself supreme, not only because of the system that is at his back. chapter ix prefectship prefectship is the coping-stone of a public school education. the boy who leaves without becoming a prefect has missed, we are continually assured, the most important part of his school career. and yet what percentage of an old boys' list, i wonder, reaches the dignity of house prefectship. one gets the impression sometimes that every one, provided he stays on long enough, becomes a prefect. all school stories follow a convention. they open with the new boy closing behind him the green-baize door of the head master's study, gazing wistfully down a long corridor at the end of which is the oak door of the day room. from behind that door comes to him the sound of laughter and eager conversation. there is the unknown, mysterious world he has to enter. that is how every school story opens. and every school story closes on the departure of a hero crowned with athletic and academic honours. the space in between is occupied with the 'see-saw up' process. how else a school story is to be constructed i do not know. it has to be narrative rather than dramatic. but it gives the impression that public school life for the average boy is a slow voyage from fag to prefect. indeed, if _peg's paper_ printed school stories, 'from fag to prefect' would probably be the title. such a tale would, however, be little more generally applicable than a tale of army life entitled 'from bugler to brigadier.' the majority of schoolboys do not become prefects. but the people in whose hands the framing of the convention lies think they do, because they did themselves. the dwellers in mayfair think london consists of a few drawing-rooms and a few restaurants. the schoolmaster naturally follows the conventional course, otherwise he would not be a schoolmaster. if he had not reached the upper sixth he would not be in a position to teach. if he had not reached the eleven he would not be a games master. the story-writer may not be an athlete, but it is hardly possible that a man who can write an interesting book should have failed to make some mark at school if he had stayed out his full time. and so there has grown up a tendency to ignore entirely the careers of the insignificant, which form the background for more striking exploits. and yet, as always, the insignificant are in the majority. a couple of years ago i spent an afternoon in the company of some friends at the school where their son was completing his second term. it was a warm afternoon and we naturally walked down to the cricket field. on the upper a senior house match, which we should have liked to have watched, was in progress. our small guide assured us, however, that this would be impossible. 'it isn't our house, you see, and the fellows would think it awful niff of me to watch another house playing. but there's a house game of our own going on down there.' realising that it was impossible to overcome the novice's fear of doing the wrong thing, we reluctantly, slowly, and with backward glances, followed our young friend to the far end of a big field, where a ridiculous junior house game was being played on a sloping and bumping pitch. the small boy was, however, more interested in his friends than in the cricket. beyond this game there was the pick up. now i do not believe that i had ever before watched a pick up at all closely. i had imagined that the cricket would be pretty bad, that firm-footed batsmen would mow full pitches towards long on, that wides would be only more frequent than the fall of wickets, that every third scoring stroke would be in the nature of a chance. i had never, however, anticipated anything approaching the complete impotence of that game. the batsmen could not hit the ball hard, indeed it was only on rare occasions that they managed to connect the bat with the ball. there was no need for any fieldsmen, with the possible exception of long-stop, to stand more than twenty-five yards from the wicket. the bowler's main object appeared to be the keeping down of wides. every game has its own technique; this game was certainly not cricket as it is played generally, and, no doubt, the victorious side was the one that bowled fewest wides. for no other reason would any captain have kept on either of those two bowlers for a second over. and i could not help wondering what a public school career stood for in the lives of those pitiably ineffectual cricketers. it is possible that one or two of them might be brilliant scholars, or that a few played football successfully, though this i am prepared to doubt; for the true sportsman is self-declared the moment that he walks on to a field. it seemed to me incredible that any one who had played any game successfully could tolerate the miserable travesty of sport that was being enacted on that sloping, bumping pitch. but even if there were a few exceptions, even if one or two were destined for privilege and authority and a name upon the honour boards, the fate of the majority was certain. they would remain inconspicuous, belonging to that large tribe of those whose names on the old boys' list are vaguely familiar to us, but with whom we can connect not one incident, anecdote, or conversation. they pass and they leave no mark behind them. they never rise to a position of responsibility. they never learn to wield authority. they never acquire, that is to say, those qualities of administration that have made english rule so tolerant and so universally respected. what can public school life mean to such as these? i put the question, but i cannot answer it. i do not know. public school life is designed as a slow voyage from fag to prefectship, and, even if only a minority complete that voyage, it is the process and the stages of that voyage we have here to represent and interpret. it should, however, be here set on record that, be the advantages or disadvantages of the public school system what they may, a great many public school boys never partake of them. from the distance of early years the obligations of prefectship seems slight in comparison with their enormous privileges. a prefect does not have to answer his name at roll; he can wander round the studies without leave during hall. he has fags to clean his study, to wash his plates, to light his fire, to carry his books down to chapel in the morning. he can inflict punishment without being liable to it. the new boy who has recently been caned, in his opinion most unjustly, for whispering in prayers, looks forward to his day of revenge. the life of a prefect must be free from all the cares that so perplex him. prefects can never be troubled with impositions and imperfectly prepared exercises. he glances up to the sixth form table and contemplates the majesty of meredith with his neatly-tied tie, and hair brushed back immaculately from his forehead. what master would have the cheek to 'bottle' meredith? the very idea is unthinkable. meredith has the invulnerable infallibility of a god. the small boy reconsiders this view as he rises in the school. the horizon narrows. but even when he reaches the sixth form table he sees prefectship in terms of freedom rather than of service. and it would, of course, be absurd to maintain that the obligations outweigh the privileges. they do not: but they are none the less considerable. if a prefect is found playing the ass, ragging in the studies, or cutting lock up, he would be neither lined nor beaten; but the twenty minutes interview with the chief would be far worse than any caning. he would feel humbled, he would feel thoroughly ashamed of himself, he would have done a rotten thing. punishments have ceased to be a pawn in a game between boy and master. and, when a prefect realises this, he realises also that this particular game is finished. the degree to which a prefect appreciates his obligation, depends a good deal on the way his house master treats him. the boy who is trusted usually proves himself worthy of that trust. i do not mean in everything. if a master says to a boy: 'now, jones, i am going to let you prepare your lessons in your study in future. i trust you to work,' jones feels himself under no obligation to work. by going to his study he is sparing the master the irksome duty of supervision. that is a fair bargain. he has saved the master work and the master has saved him work. in matters of form work a boy will never cease to regard his relationship with his master as that of the hunter and hunted. he will find when he reaches the sixth form that instead of being told to prepare fifty lines of virgil, he is expected to prepare as much work as is possible in the time at his disposal. if, when put on to construe in form he states as an excuse for an unsuccessful effort, that the fifty line limit has been passed, he will be handled roughly: 'my dear evans,' the head master will say, 'you have ceased to be in the lower fourth. you don't work to scale. if you haven't had time to prepare the passage, say so, and i won't put you on, but whatever you do don't bring forward that middle school excuse about fifty lines.' the new arrival will look abashed, but he will not feel that he has been put upon his honour to do an hour's work every night. he may possibly prepare next time, with the aid of a crib, an extra dozen lines, but he will do it as quickly as he can. he feels differently, however, about what happens outside the class-room. when an excuse is accepted because he is a prefect that would not be accepted without a long cross-examination were he not a prefect, a boy considers himself to have been put on his honour. i will give an example. the o.t.c. was, with us, practically compulsory; ninety-seven per cent. of the school was in it, and that three per cent. was garrisoned with doctors' certificates. like all compulsory things it was extremely unpopular. we used to employ elaborate devices to get leave off. in break we used to visit the matron and suggest that our health required some castor oil. if possible we would retain the dose in our mouths till we got safely into the passage and then deposit it in our handkerchiefs. when this was impossible we swallowed it. a dose alone was not a sufficient excuse. we had to assume faintness, sickness, or some other indisposition during afternoon school. it was an intricate business that rarely proved successful. the authorities were prepared for it. corps parade was on friday, and one friday after i had become a prefect, i decided that never before had i felt less like doing squad drill. i had a headache, i had not finished my latin prose, we were playing dulwich the next day and i was anxious to be as fresh as possible. i had also very, very slightly twisted my ankle. remembering my courage in the days of castor oil i thought it worth making an attempt to get leave off. on this occasion i went to the head master. i informed him of my injury, and was about to embark on a lengthy explanation of the accident when the head master cut me short. 'oh, yes, waugh, of course, that'll be quite all right. i hope you'll be fit for to-morrow.' i felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. because i was a prefect, my word had been accepted without examination and without proof. i was trusted to tell the truth. and yet i actually had produced as feeble an excuse as a fellow in the lower fourth. i went on parade that afternoon, and from then onwards i never tried to get off anything unless i was absolutely certain that i could have got off it without the influence of prefectship. and whatever may be urged against the inflated opinion of himself that the power to exert authority may give a boy, i can only believe that this sense of duty, this obligation to be true to himself is an invaluable experience. it comes out in all sorts of ways. i remember an old colour once telling me at the end of the season that he had not enjoyed his cricket half as much as he had the previous year. i was surprised. 'i should have thought you'd have enjoyed it much more,' i said; 'you haven't had to worry about your colours; you've been certain of your place; you've been able to play whatever sort of game you liked.' 'that's just what i have not been able to do,' he replied. 'last year i was a free-lance. i took risks. i had a dip when i wanted to, and when we played unimportant matches against the town and the regiment, i thought more about hitting a couple of sixes than making a big score. but i can't do that now. i'm captain of my house. i spend half my evenings trying to persuade those young asses in the junior side that seven singles between cover and mid off are of more use to the side than the most tremendous six. if they see me going in and chucking away my wicket in a school match, they'd think me a pretty sort of captain, wouldn't they? i've got to set an example of sorts.' and, though the captious may maintain that it would have been more to the point if that particular sportsman had worried a little less about the example he was setting on the cricket field and a little more about the example he was setting in the form room and the studies, virtue is virtue wheresoever it is found and in whatsoever garb it is adorned. it is a good thing to feel that an example has to be set and to decide to set it. it is the high privilege of service. there are occasions when the setting of example grows not only irksome, but pointless. throughout one winter my whole dormitory and myself subjected ourselves to the miseries of a freezing cold bath because neither party had the face to own itself defeated. in the first warm day of october the whole house ran cheerily to the shower bath down a long passage that faced east and was filled with sunlight. but when the november frosts came on, the long run down the passage in bare feet with a small towel gathered round our loins became increasingly unattractive. by the time we reached the bath we were thoroughly cold and the zinc tubs under the cascade of water were not enticing. each morning fewer feet pattered down the passage. but my dormitory maintained its courage. as long as i went on having a bath i knew that they would go on having one, and as long as they went on having one i knew that i should have to also. there were mornings when i longed to say: 'look here, you fellows, you don't want to have a bath. nor do i. let's chuck it.' the words were sometimes on the tip of my tongue. but just as i was about to utter them some one would rise from his bed, reluctantly divest himself of his pyjamas, wrap a towel round himself, and run out into the passage. after that retreat was hopeless. the thing had to be seen through. not one of us missed his bath throughout the term. it may have been good for us: i don't know. most things that are supposed to be are unpleasant. as so often happens with preconceived ideas, the only duties of prefectship which present any terrors to the imagination of the new boy turn out singularly simple. most boys are self-conscious; they dread a silence, they hate being conspicuous. they regard, therefore, the taking of hall and the reading of the house list at roll as terrible ordeals. they are not so really. one is a little nervous lest the pitch of one's voice may sound curious as one shouts out the name of the top boy on the list: but it doesn't: not unless one is very odd. and the taking of hall is simple, unless one goes down there with an established reputation for inefficiency. in such a case the prefect does stand a poor look-out, as poor a look-out as the master who has proved himself weak. but such reputations are not easily acquired, and the possessors of them are well advised to bribe some hardier colleague to take their places. no attempt is made to rag the average prefect. he goes down on his first night fully prepared to inflict a violent punishment on any harbinger of insubordination. he may even carry down with him his swagger stick as a cautionary signal. but it is unlikely that he will be called upon to use it. the chief embarrassment, indeed, of taking hall is the importunities of small boys who come and ask one to help them with their translation. one hums and hahs, looks at the notes and the vocabulary and discovers how extremely hard it is to translate livy without a crib. to a great extent the proficiency of the prefectorial system depends on the house master. if prefects admire and respect their house master, the tone of the house will almost certainly be a good one. if they dislike him the tone may very likely be a good one. it is a toss up. dislike and fear often go together. and a prefect who dislikes, and thinks he is disliked, by his house master may very well decide out of affronted dignity to perform his duties thoroughly. 'the old beast hates me,' he says; 'he thinks i'm no good. i'll jolly well show him!' dislike is, at any rate, a positive emotion. it will produce something. nothing, on the other hand, is more fatal than the sort of genial, indifferent good-natured friendship that so often exists between a house master and his prefects. in chowdler, g. f. bradly has drawn just such a house master. chowdler pretends to be the elder brother: he talks of 'good old jones' and 'dear old joe.' he has the prefects up in his study for heart to heart manly talks. and the prefects listen, agree with what he says, echo, when they speak, his own sentiments, and generally hoodwink him. they treat him as he treats them. they call him 'good old chowdler,' and leave it at that. when there is a conscientious and an officious head of the house things go fairly quietly; when the head of the house is a lazy, sociable creature, the house runs itself, and with results that would cause little pleasure were they published to the mandarins of the common room. no new house master, arnold lunn says, has to face a more difficult task than he whose predecessor has earned the reputation of being a sport. the house master who always announces to the head boy his intention of visiting the studies is popular enough, but he has a rotten house. yet, however badly the prefectorial system may on occasions work, it is impossible to dispense with it. it is not so much the need for a heavy hand as the need for a scapegoat. some one must be responsible to the supreme authority for any disturbance that may take place. if a house master enters the day room during 'prep.' and finds that an impromptu concert is in progress, he knows that it would be impossible for him to disentangle the muddled evidence of interested witnesses. he could never find out what it was all about, how it started, who started it, what happened next. he makes, therefore, one person responsible for the maintenance of order in the day room during 'prep.' he puts a house prefect there on duty. when, therefore, he interrupts an unseemly brawl, he does not concern himself with the incidents of the affair; brown's face may be plastered with red ink, the head of evans may be slowly extricating itself from the wastepaper basket, ferguson may be withdrawing a battered compass from the unprotected quarters of an enemy. he does not notice that. he does not punish brown and ferguson and evans. he asks the prefect in charge for an explanation. if the explanation is not satisfactory that prefect is relieved of office. it is the knowledge of this fate that inspires the industry of prefects. this system is the basis for all administration, for the delegation of all responsibility. it rarely fails. when i shared a study with another prefect we divided eight fags between us. the best of these eight we appointed fag-master. 'you will do no fagging yourself, marston,' we told him. 'to each of the other seven fags will be allotted one day of the week. you will see that they do their job. if the fire goes out, you will be beaten.' during the whole of that winter our fire never went out once. it is a regrettable fact, but a true one, that human beings will only work under the influence of a bribe, or of a threat. in the wide world it is usually a bribe. one may not threaten the foreman of an oil works. he has his union behind him. but there are no trade unions for fags: a judicious threat works wonders. and, when all other forces weaken, the wish to retain office helps the prefect to his task. were there no prefects, no scapegoats, there would be no order. they are the exchange of hostages. suppose an attempt was made to run a house without them? how long do you imagine that it would last? five days, six days, a week? yes, perhaps as long as that: not longer: certainly i would not give it longer than a week. such an experiment might be tried at the end of a long and unsatisfactory term during which several of the prefects had, at some time or another, come into collision with official ruling. and the climax might have been reached, shall we say, on the last tuesday of the term, when the head of the house was discovered during 'prep.' playing the organ in the big school. next day, after lunch, the house would be astonished by the following announcement: 'i don't know,' the house master would say, 'whether i approve of the prefectorial system or not--that's neither here nor there. at any rate it has not worked well with my present set of prefects, and, for the rest of the term i propose to dispense with them. i shall occupy during preparation the small study at the end of the passage, and the house tutor will supervise preparation in the day room. i shall occupy the small single dormitory by the fire escape. that is all.' it is possible, is it not, as the sudden resolution of an overworked, exasperated man who had not paused to consider the results of his decision. well, what would happen then? we can guess to a certain extent. it is, at least, a subject of interesting speculation. what would happen to a house that had no prefects? for a couple of days all would go smoothly, i imagine. the house would behave like a whipped dog. its tail would be tucked between its legs. the prefects would make an ineffectual stand upon their dignity. then the possibilities of the situation would become apparent. authority spreads a veneer over the boisterous spirits of a boy of eighteen. but at heart he remains a ragster. in a couple of years' time, as an undergraduate or a medical student, he will be destroying furniture and organising preposterous bonfires. and, when authority is taken from him, he feels once again the old itch to enter the lists, to try one last throw with the marshalled forces of officialdom. it may, for instance, occur to morcombe, the head of the house, that, though he has ceased to be a house prefect, he remains a school prefect, and that, outside the precincts of his house, he is still a force. when, therefore, he sees jones mi. flinging stones against the cloisters, he orders jones to appear before him that evening after roll. it is after roll, during the silence of first hall, that punishments are inflicted. and, that night, the house master, sitting in his narrow study at the end of the passage, will be astonished to hear the silence broken by a series of resounding bangs. he hurries down the passage and discovers jones mi. straightening himself beside the water pipes, one hand ruefully stroking his trousers, while the head of the house proudly surveying his handiwork, delivers a last word of admonishment and taps his cane against his boots. 'but what on earth, morcombe, is the meaning of this?' says the house master. 'i had occasion, sir, to beat a boy.' 'but you've no right to beat a boy. you're not a prefect any longer.' 'i was punishing him, sir, for a school and not a house offence. he was throwing stones against the cloisters. as a school prefect i felt myself bound to take official notice of his action.' 'but you know quite well, morcombe,' the house master would answer hotly, 'that you've no right to do anything of the sort. you are only quibbling.' 'then am i to understand, sir, that i have ceased to be a school prefect.' 'you are to understand you have no authority over any one in this house.' 'but that will make it difficult for me, sir; if i were to discover a boy in this house and a boy in another house smoking on a sunday afternoon, i should be able to order the boy from another house to put out his cigarette and return to school at once, but the boy in my own house i should have to leave where he was. it would be suggested that i was favouring my own house.' it is unlikely that the house master will have a reply; he will order morcombe to return to his study and to cease being impertinent. it depends on the courage of morcombe and the respect he has for his house master whether five minutes later there will be a tap on the door of the narrow study at the end of the passage and a quiet voice will ask: 'please, sir, i hope you'll excuse my worrying you, but i am not quite certain whether you said i was, or was not, a school prefect. you see, sir, it's my turn to read the lessons in chapel to-morrow. i wondered whether i ought to run round and tell the head master that i am no longer privileged to read them.' there will be several such imbroglios. whether or not the term will end without an actual conflagration is problematic. on the whole i should say that the chances were even. it is the end of the term. spirits run high, constant supervision is impossible. on the last morning but one, for instance, there is no early chapel. there is a long lie in bed. the house master will return to his own part of the house to shave, bathe himself, and dress. there is no one left in the dormitories with any authority. every one is good-tempered and excited with a surplus store of animal spirits. there is a lively exchange of compliments which terminate in a pillow being flung across the room. there is a moment's nervous hush. the power of the prefectorial system dies hard: a week ago such an act would have been dealt with instantly and severely. and, even now, a single word would be sufficient to restore order. but the prefect takes no notice. he sees no reason why he should exert himself in the interests of one who considers his services to be of no further use to him. he feels justifiably aggrieved. the house master considers he can run the house himself--well then, let him run it. he has asked for no assistance from his prefects. he can therefore expect none. the pillow is returned. it is inaccurately flung, however, and the contents of a water jug streams across the floor. again there is a brief embarrassment. but the prefect reassures his dormitory. 'my dear fellows, don't worry about me,' he says, 'i have no authority over you. there is no need for you to take the slightest notice of anything i say or do. indeed i'm not at all certain that i shan't take a hand in it. ferrers, you brute, take that.' and with the sudden flick of the forearm that in the cricket field had proved so disastrous to the batsman who had risked a short run to cover, the unerring discharge of a pillow has prostrated the startled ferrers. from that moment mischief is afoot. it takes what course it will. and that course will probably involve the overturning of a good many jugs, the stripping of innumerable beds, the splitting of several pillows. in a brief while the air will be filled with feathers, the floor with mattresses and soaking sheets. and when, an hour later, the house master is summoned by an indignant matron to view the battlefield, who will be held responsible? to whose account is he to debit the broken jugs and the torn pillows? whom can he deprive of office? he will, no doubt, collect the house in his study; every one will spend the last day inscribing a georgic or an eclogue. but the house will feel that it has triumphed. what, after all, can the house master say? if he begins to criticise morcombe the reply is obvious. 'but i tried to stop it, sir, i did my best. but they wouldn't take any notice of me, sir. i had no authority over them.' if the house master is wise he will say as little as possible. he will announce the punishment, and the next term place more trust in his prefects. however bad an individual set of prefects may be, without them things would be a good deal worse. s. p. b. mais in his first, and perhaps best, book dealing with public schools, devoted a chapter to the various types of prefects, the effect that office had on each type, and the use each type made of its privileges. he maintained that certain types were unfitted for authority, and that no boy who had not a view of life that passed beyond the limits of school should be given such authority. that is no doubt the ideal, but it is impracticable. a house master has to make the most of the material at his disposal: if he is dissatisfied he must blame himself. he has had his five years in which to fashion the malleable substance to his fancy. if a boy is high in form and a school colour and has been several years in the house, it is impossible to pass him over in favour of a junior boy who is lower in form and a less successful athlete. prefectship has to go by seniority. the moment it was felt that office went to the boys in whom the house master happened to have most faith, the word 'favouritism' would be run like a corroding poison through the system of the house. the favourite would be universally distrusted and disliked. a certain class of boy would develop the 'conspiracy complex' that every hand was against him, and, in time, he would become what he imagined others took him for. such a system would encourage endless sycophancy. if the house master were married, his wife would play too large a part in the politics of his house. there would be those who would not hesitate to ingratiate themselves with her in the hope that at the critical moment her influence might turn the scales in their favour. when a boy whom his house master dislikes reaches the point where, in course of seniority he would have to be made a prefect, the house master has only two courses open: either he must make the boy a prefect, or he must write to the father saying, though he has nothing definite against his son, he does not feel that he is the sort of boy who ought to be made a prefect, and he must ask the father, therefore, to remove his son from the school at the end of the summer. he can do nothing else. he cannot keep on a boy whose claims he has passed over deliberately and without cause. what house master, on the other hand, is going to write such a letter to a parent. the parent is bound to object. he will appeal to the head master. 'you have nothing against my son,' he will say. 'during the four years he has been at school he has never been in any serious trouble. he has worked hard and he has played hard. i have always regarded prefectship as the crown of a public school education. i sent my son to you rather than to some other educational establishment because i wished him to have the invaluable experience of being a prefect in a public school. and now, at the end, when he has reached this position, you say, without giving any reason, that he is not a fit person to occupy it. it is scandalous.' and even were the head master to endorse his subaltern's verdict, were he to say: 'that is all very true, mr evans, but a house master is the best judge of the type of boy that he wants to have as a prefect. i am very sorry, but we must abide by his decision,' the reputation of the school would suffer. old boys would discuss the verdict in their clubs. 'that's no school for my son,' they would say. 'prefectship depends on the caprice of a house master. and, if by the time one gets high in the house, one's told one's got to go--why, if that had happened in my case i know i'd never have become captain of the eleven. my house master would have got rid of me long before i had got my colours.' gray heads would shake seriously over the port; the numbers of the school would sink. seniority may, now and again, bring most unsuitable persons to authority, but it is a far more satisfactory system than any that would be based on the choice and dislike of one person. certainly many unlikely people reach the high-backed chair of the sixth form table. and a house master must often wonder how will taste the strange stew that is simmering--a compound of so many unknown ingredients. in spite of experience, he is always guessing. but the changes are less considerable than might be expected, or it would be truer to say, perhaps, that the changes follow a more or less ordinary course. a boy's attitude on reaching office is ordered by what he has read and by example. the ragster usually becomes a martinet. he has read of the reformation of prince hal; the epigram about kildare ruling all ireland is the one piece of elizabethan history that his memory has retained. how nice he feels it will be to surprise every one. what a shock it will be to his old companions. every one must have said of him: 'oh, park'll be all right. he's such a ragster himself, he's sure to go pretty easy!' in his first week, therefore, he canes a quite senior boy for playing the piano too loudly in the changing room. he becomes in a short while extremely unpopular and a general terror. if on the start of the school year one were asked to tell which of the new prefects one would be best advised to avoid, one would almost certainly place one's finger on the boy who had been most frequently in trouble during the previous term. there is no sign, however, by which we can detect the officious type of prefect who speaks solemnly of his responsibilities and makes life extremely unpleasant for his house and for his old companions. it is impossible to tell on whom this germ is going to settle. it need not be the reformed rake: perhaps because rakes reform so seldom. it is not necessarily the religious boy, or the intellectual boy. but on some one that germ is sure to settle, and it is of all the germs the most annoying. there is nothing more exasperating than the officious prefect. on the third evening of the term he walks into the study of a former associate, looks confoundedly uncomfortable, seats himself on the table, and then, after a moment's embarrassed silence, permits his features to assume an expression of austere dignity, and says:-'jones, you confided in me two terms ago a little secret, you'll remember what it was. well, i feel that it is my unpleasant duty, now that i am a prefect, to report this matter to the head of the house. he will take what action he thinks fit.' jones sits back in his chair, a look of horrified disgust upon his face. 'but, my dear fellow,' he says, 'you couldn't possibly--i mean i told you that in confidence. you couldn't be such a sneak!' the prefect would shake his head. 'you do not understand. it is not sneaking. you would not call it sneaking on the part of a policeman if he arrested an old friend whom he found breaking into a house. this is an official duty that has nothing to do with our personal relationship.' jones is tempted to say that in another minute personal relationships will have a good deal to do with the matter, but he appreciates the necessity for tact. he talks, he argues, he cajoles; his patience is tried to the last degree. it is difficult to discuss a matter on grounds of personal and practical expediency when the other party refuses to desert the platform of high morality. in the end probably jones is promised silence in return for reformation, and, as the door closes behind his old friend, he murmurs: 'put not your trust in princes.' the officious prefect is not content with the exposure of confidences received during his period of probation, he endeavours to unearth present scandals, and this is a point on which popular opinion is very strong. the moral tone of the house is not considered to be the concern of the house prefect. that is the province of the house master and the head boy. the position of the head boy is a little difficult to define. he is the intermediary between mortality and olympus. he is supposed to be above suspicion. he is the only person who is allowed to do anything out of 'a sense of duty.' if a house prefect interferes in the private affairs of another, an ulterior motive is always suggested, and the suggestion is probably justified. whether or not a head boy is justified in unearthing scandal is an open point. there are those who will maintain that he should only take notice of what actually hits him in the face. the reason being that what hits the head of the house in the face will, sooner or later, inflict a similar shock to the physiognomy of the house master. and this should be avoided. in the first place, the house master will lose his high opinion of his head boy; in the second, a scandal that might have been prevented will reach official notice. indeed, there are not a few who will go so far as to assert that the function of a head boy is that of the taster, the impersonal critic who says: 'no, that is going too far.' he is the aeroplane photograph of a strategic position, that shows what gun emplacements are obvious and which are not. and, according to this line of argument, head boys should only concern themselves with the obvious; what was not apparent to them would certainly not be apparent to a house master; there is no need for them to play at sherlock holmes. but this is a point on which the vote has not been taken. there are several schools of thought: all schools of thought are, however, joined in the denial of the right of the head boy to report to the house master anything save a case of insubordination or disloyalty on the part of a brother prefect. a head boy, it is felt, should be able to deal with the discipline and conduct of the house himself. to report is to confess a failure. to the house prefect no such fine shades of motive are ascribed. he is not considered to be above suspicion, and he is allowed to indulge certain corresponding weaknesses. his business is to see that order is kept; the new prefect forms numberless resolutions. he is acutely conscious of his dignity, his bearing partakes of the solemnity of malvolio. he wonders whether he ought to remain on terms of such easy familiarity with certain rowdy elements in the house. a prefect should not have too many friends. he should be the calm, implacable judge, impersonal, impartial, with bandaged eyes. he is very haughty for a day or two. but within a fortnight he has recovered. he becomes sociable once more. he walks down to the field with his old friends. he does not wonder whether it is wise or unwise to exchange confidences with those whose conduct one day he may be forced to view with official disapproval. he takes notice of, and deals with, only those problems that crop up from time to time. he acquires a wholesome tolerance of other people's business, a tolerance that slips over the border of indifference, but remains an admirable social lubricant. it is this indifference, this refusal to be upset about trivial matters that can be left to adjust themselves, that is the secret of the success of british administration. other nations and classes do not seem to possess it. the artisan when put in a position of authority bothers about the unimportant, he gives himself no peace, and he gives those under him no peace. there is constant friction. troops almost invariably prefer to be under the command of public school men rather than of 'rankers.' chapter x the last term the last year, and especially the last term, is popularly supposed to be the happiest of a public school career. and it is possible that this may be so in the case of an industrious, worthy, but not particularly brilliant fellow who reaches in his last year the privileges of house prefectship, the immunities of the lower sixth and the social hall-mark of a second fifteen cap. at last, after a struggle of five years, he has extricated himself from the rut. for the 'blood,' however, for the double first who has stayed on an extra year to be captain of the eleven, these last terms are a disappointment. he has reached the limits of ambition. for a while he is attracted by the charm of his new offices, but he can discern beyond them no fresh fields to conquer. he is embarrassed by the finality of his position. he cannot value what he possesses. he wonders what is coming next. he scores tries in school matches, he makes centuries on the upper, but he had already done that before. 'the doing savours of disrelish.' he is expected to score tries and make centuries. the cheer that greets him as he grounds the ball between the posts has not the surprised enthusiasm that rippled down the touchline two years ago when he amazed every one by giving two consecutive dummies and beating the whole defence. he is expected to do well, and when he is a little below his form, there is a feeling that he has lost the school the match. interest is focussed on the performance of the new men. a century by shepherd causes more excitement than a century by hobbs. hobbs is established. the world has formed its estimate of his qualities. there is little new to be said about him. he belongs to the present and the past. shepherd belongs to the future. he is a subject of speculation. and so the double first at the end of the match hears far less talk of his own performances than he did a year earlier. he is taken for granted. it is all: 'what a beautiful drop that was of smith's, he'll be a fine player in two years' time.' he would not analyse his discontent. but it is there the whole time. there is no longer a life of marked stages in front of him. he can peer now over the wall of school. he is worried, too, by the increasingly acute demands of his physical nature, by the restraints that are imposed on it. very often a quite popular boy makes himself generally disliked during his last year on account of this irritation that expresses itself in bad temper, jealousy, and outbursts of unreasoning vindictiveness. the last term is especially difficult. a boy finds himself freed from the conditions that had for the five previous years directed his conduct. he had always thought of 'next term.' now he realises suddenly that there is going to be no next term. he is no longer leading the normal life of his companions. on all sides of him preparations are being made for the future. jones has decided to share the games study with evans instead of smith. plans are being made for the arrangement of the dormitories. ambitions are carefully tended, careers are nursed. so and so is worried because some one else has got his firsts before him. dunston is distressed because he has been caught cribbing: 'there goes my chance of house prefectship.' and the boy who is about to leave slowly realises that these considerations have no longer any meaning for him. if he is caught cribbing he is concerned only with his immediate punishment. if some one gets his colours before him it does not matter. he has done with the troubles of seniority. the old life is falling from him. he is perplexed, not seeing clearly what lies in front of him. six years seemed such a long time. he had not paused to wonder what lay beyond them. he had come to regard that last sunday in the school chapel as a final stage. school stories always ended there: in the same way that romances always closed on marriage, or on death. and, though now he would be no doubt ready to admit that a man's life did not end at the altar, and might even be prepared to consider the possibility of an existence beyond the grave, he had not considered such speculation profitable or entertaining. and, in the same way that at a later point of his career he will awake with a start six months after marriage and ask himself whether it is all over: 'heavens!' he will say, 'i can't be finished with; what's going to happen now?' so, during his last term, he discovers that this stage has not the finality he had supposed. something has got to happen next. school life was, after all, no more than a prelude. he had valued too highly the enticing emoluments it had to offer. and he does not see what new prizes life will hold for him. if he is going to oxford he may toy with the prospect of athletic honours. but unless he is particularly gifted, or particularly conceited, he will appreciate the vast degree of specialised rivalry to which he will be subjected. if he is going into business he will envisage, perhaps, the days of affluence and power, of private secretaries and private telephones; but all that is a very long way off. there is no immediate focus for his ambition. there is no particular reason why he should not, if he wishes, make as big a nuisance of himself as his fancy pleases. he is passing from one phase of discipline to another; and because the nature of neither is definite, he considers himself free. a last term is often indeterminate and ineffectual. now if the discovery that school life is only a prelude is made by an unimaginative athlete during these last weeks, we can confidently assume that it will be made a good deal sooner by a boy of originality and independence, especially by one who has not entered with any great zest into the conflict of athletic distinction, and has, therefore, been in a sense above the battle. he realises a good year and a half before he has to leave that life in its fullest is to be encountered beyond the limits of a cloistered world. the discovery does not contribute to his content. he knows that if he wishes to win a scholarship he will have to stay on his full time, and he feels that he is marking time, that he is sitting in the stalls of a theatre waiting for the curtain to go up. now that is a most unsatisfactory position to be in. in the theatre we kick our heels, read our programmes, turn round to see if we can recognise a friend, speculate on the possibility of innocence in the lady who is sitting in the front row of the dress circle. one does anything to make the quarter of an hour pass quickly. the imaginative schoolboy behaves in a similar fashion. he frets and grows impatient. he assumes an intellectual snobbery. he despises the majority of his companions and labels them as philistines. he disparages the values of athletics and exalts in essays and in the debating society the literary standards of the nineties. it is possible that on saturday evening he will leave a carnation standing in green ink in the hope of emulating his divinities. he is encouraged in his rebellion by the indignant astonishment of the master, who refuses to regard his outburst as a very natural and, on the whole, harmless pose. he is lectured severely on the dignity of his position. he replies in a cryptic epigram. he even criticises the public school system--an unforgivable offence. being unacquainted with the ways of systems, and feeling that his personal liberty is curtailed, he considers that for this curtailment the public school system is solely and peculiarly responsible. he will not allow that all systems oppress the individual, that systems are made for the service of the many, and that it is for the individualist to decide whether the privileges he will receive by consenting to remain with the mass compensate for the unpleasant restrictions that are placed on the free play of his personality. it is, after all, the first system with which he has contracted an intimate relationship, and in the same way that a monogamist considers his wife worse than anybody else's, the schoolboy delights, in spite of a deep affection for his own school, in hurling at the public school system all manner of accusations, in which the word sausage machine is not infrequently repeated. there are such boys in every school. age is an arbitrary definition of development. many boys reach the age of seventeen, and stay there for the rest of their lives; others are twenty-five years old before they have done with their teens. when a boy is tired of school he has outgrown school. and there is only one sure remedy--to take him away. but there are the claims of a university career; there is the parent's natural wish that his son should gain a scholarship; it is often impracticable for the boy to leave: in such circumstances we can only recommend on the part of the masters a general leniency. such outbursts should not be taken seriously. the school, as a whole, is not concerned with the unusual behaviour of those who, by the possession of brains, are already considered slightly abnormal. and the jester who is disregarded may well become a monk. if, however, a boy feels that notice is being taken of him, he allows his flattered vanity to dictate to him. he cultivates his pose; he wonders how best he may shock the mid-victorianism of the common room, and there is the danger that the pose may, in the course of time, become part of his intellectual equipment. sermons and addresses inform us that in the last term is to be found the significance of school life. but, as i have previously tried to show, the last term is no more significant than the first. the new boy is outside school, pausing on the fringe, his eyes full of a sheltered curiosity. the boy who is about to leave is equally outside school; he looks backwards and he looks forwards; the continuity of his life is about to be broken; its rhythm is temporarily suspended. he is no longer leading the same life as his companions. and it is vain to compare the new boy with the boy that is about to leave, and by analysing and examining the change that there is between them to arrive at the meaning of school life. they are two entirely different people. one is a child; the other is a man. the change that must necessarily have taken place during this passage is so considerable that it is impossible to say how much of it is due to environment and how much to physical growth. you might send a man of thirty to timbuctoo, recall him at the end of four years, and, examining the change in him apprehend the significance of timbuctoo society. he went a man and he returned a man. what change there was in him could be attributed directly to the wholesome, or unwholesome, atmosphere of timbuctoo. you cannot follow this line of reasoning with a public school boy. a parent cannot say: 'six years ago i sent you a young, innocent boy, industrious, honest, truthful. you have returned to me a young man who knows more than i consider it proper that he should know, whose sole object appears to be to extract from life as much pleasure as is commensurate with a minimum of work, a young man, moreover, who considers that a lie told to an official is not a lie. look what you have done!' but that is not a fair attitude. anyhow, during those six years, a boy must to a certain extent have lost his innocence; most young men of nineteen place the claims of personal indulgence before those of work. most young men look on life as a game that is played between themselves and a perfectly ridiculous antiquated body which is called 'government,' and whom it is permissible to hoodwink, misinform, or otherwise deceive whenever the opportunity is presented. the corroding forces of knowledge must make themselves felt during those six years. it is unreasonable and absurd to attribute their effects solely to the public school system. one can, however, by examining the mental state of a boy a week after he has left school, form some estimate of what he has learnt at such considerable expense to his parents. in the first place, he has acquired an extremely valuable social technique. a public school education is a passport. its assailants would describe it as the membership of a select trades union. an old public school boy can enter a new mess without feeling any great embarrassment. he knows how to comport himself in the more superficial of the situations in which he will from time to time discover himself. all of which is distinctly valuable. he has also learnt to understand the type of man with whom he will have most dealing. he is admitted, that is to say, to terms of good fellowship with a very large number of persons. he will be treated by them as a decent chap till he proves himself otherwise. he will have enough in common with them to be able to bridge superficially the uncertain moments that precede friendship. if he were introduced to a man at his club, he would have no difficulty in finding a congenial topic of conversation, during which conversation he would be able to decide whether or not the man to whom he had been introduced was likely to prove a sympathetic companion. he would have learnt, through the exercise of these qualities in a communal life, patience and tolerance of a certain kind. a tolerance, that is to say, that might condemn a man on the cut of his coat, the colour of his ties, or the use of an incorrect idiom, but would allow each man to lead his own private life provided he wore the conventional uniform. such a tolerance may be described as snobbish and narrow, but is an admirable social lubricant. an old public school boy would be unlikely, for instance, to cause trouble to a mess or company or cricket club by injudicious interference. he will have learnt that it is not easy for an assorted collection of men to live together without occasionally getting on each other's nerves, and he will have learnt, in consequence, the value of tact and compromise. he will also have learnt a version of his duty towards his neighbours. he would not tell a lie to a friend unless it was absolutely necessary, and he would never let a friend down. he has the sense of loyalty developed to a high degree. all of which goes down on the credit side of the ledger. on the debit side, however, there are enough entries to make the cashier wonder whether, or no, the account is overdrawn. it is amazing how little knowledge the average public school boy has managed to acquire. he has rushed from one class room to another, learning french for one hour, and history for another, and science for a third. he has worked at each of these subjects spasmodically according to the particular form and set in which he has happened at the time to find himself. for a whole year on end he may have neglected french because he was under a lazy master. then, at the end of the year, on finding himself in a higher and more strenuous form, he may have made feverish efforts for a couple of terms, to the detriment of his mathematics and history, with the result that there is an enormous gap in his knowledge. whole periods of history are a blank to him. he has acquired a certain quantity of uncorrelated information. within a few years what little connection there was between the appreciation of these isolated facts will have slipped away. there will remain a few phrases, a few catchwords, a few dates--an admirable framework indeed for social, moral, and political prejudice. the average public school boy knows, i imagine, a great deal less than the continental school product. not only has he learnt little, but he has not been encouraged to use his brains. he does not, indeed, regard his brain as a possession to be valued highly and carefully trained. he will get out of bed five minutes earlier than he need do in the morning to wave his legs about his head and do exercises with his arms that will improve his physical condition, but he would never think of learning a dozen lines of english verse to improve his memory. no one ever appears to have impressed on him the fact that at thirty-five he will have to abandon football; that, by the time he is fifty, he will be bowling very slow stuff indeed, and will be grateful to the opposing captain who offers him a runner. yet, at sixty, his brain will, if properly cared for, be as powerful as it has ever been. now i do not want to suggest that boys should devote their whole spare time to the reading of poetry; literature is only a part of life; but i do maintain that every public school boy should take some part in the intellectual life of the world, that he should be able to discover as much interest in his mind as in his body. at present he does not. he has very little inner life. he depends far too much on outside interests, on games during the term, and theatres during the holidays. if he has to rely on his own devices, he is woefully deficient. this fact was brought home to me vividly by my experience as a prisoner of war in germany. the average officer had no resources of his own; he could draw no sustenance from the contemplative side of life. he mooned round the square, wondering how soon he could decently set about his next meal, longing sadly for the lights of piccadilly. in the evenings, when he had to return to his room, he spent the three or four hours before lights were extinguished engraving rather aimless pictures on the lids of cigar boxes. it was a pathetic sight to see a man of twenty-eight, in the prime of life, sitting down night after night to fiddle about with a knife, a piece of wood, and a box of paints. he derived no pleasure from it. it was a narcotic. as long as his hands were employed his brain could go to sleep, and he needed to contemplate no longer the tedious procession of days that lay before him. every man should have sufficient part in the intellectual interests of life to be able to keep his intelligence active for eight months in surroundings that provide no physical outlets. the public school boy has derived little satisfaction from his work. he has laboured spasmodically with expediency as the goal. promotion has promised certain attendant privileges, and the historical sixth lies, calm and pleasant, like a lake in the desert. there is to be found a rest 'for all who come.' it is a sure port after the shipwrecks of the fourths and fifths. the traveller need work no more; he has laboured faithfully, let him enter into the joy of his lord. he returns one holidays having gained his second eleven colours. paternal pride is flattered, and the spirit of welcome is only partially relaxed by the accompanying report. about a week later the following conversation takes place over a glass of port. _son_: i say, father, don't you think all these classics are rather a waste of time? _father_: well, i don't know, my boy. i did them myself, you know. _son_: of course, father, of course; but things were a bit different then, and besides you were so much better at them than i am. _father_: oh, well, if you put it like that, my boy, well, perhaps--- _son_: you see, father, i thought it would be rather a good idea for me to read history. _father_: history, my boy, whatever for? _son_: well, i was thinking of taking up politics, father, and anyway, history scholarships are awfully easy to get. that ass, kenneth, got one--you know, the fellow in the school house with the yellow hair. if you'd just drop a line to chief, father, i'm sure he would be only too glad.... one more pilgrim has arrived at mecca. the higher up the school one goes, the less work one does. after a few terms the habit of work is lost, and the only real diligence is displayed by that melancholy type of scholar who is trained like a pet pomeranian. this is not an ideal apprenticeship for life. it starts a boy with an entirely false idea of the position that his work should occupy in his life. i do not wish to seem parsonic, but, if the experience of practically every big man that has ever lived means anything to us, we do know that a man's happiness, or unhappiness, depends in the main on whether his employment is congenial to him. work is the finest antidote to boredom. and a public school boy has not realised this by the time he is on the threshold of his career. he does not consider that the choice of his career should be the expression of his temperament. he drifts into the most accessibly remunerative job. he brings to it no enthusiasm. the trouble is that school life lasts too long and is far too jolly. six years is a long time. a boy of thirteen can hardly be expected to realise that it is only a prelude. the years pass so happily, the pursuit of ambition is so engrossing that he has no time to consider whether the prizes he is winning have any lasting value. as the new boy he longs to be captain of the school: and, having set himself a task, he does not shrink from the contest. school life is so vast, so varied, so many-coloured that it would be difficult for a boy to relinquish his hold upon the ambition that lies close to him in favour of the shadowy ambitions of the life that lies beyond it. school life is too big a pedestal for the statue that is to be placed on it. it dwarfs what it should present. the boy finds on leaving school that an entirely different technique is required. it is not that the standards are changed, but the whole manner of life is altered. his school career was divided neatly into stages. he could at any moment consult a house list and see how he was progressing on the road to authority. at such a period he should have reached the fifth table. if he were one day to get into the fifteen, he should by his sixteenth birthday have got his house cap. everything was mapped out. the rungs of the ladder were labelled. colt's cap, house cap, seconds, firsts, fourth form, fifth form, sixth. in business he finds no such ladder. his abilities are placed upon the open market. he is fighting an intangible foe. he has to come to terms with himself. he feels that he is driving into the void. he also finds that he has to rearrange his scale of values. athletic distinction is not greatly prized in wall street, and the young man who, when asked to present his qualifications, remarks that his batting average was over thirty, without a single not-out score to help it, is likely to receive a rude shock. i spent a few months before i went to sandhurst in the inns of court o.t.c. (a corps that had, by that time, ceased to be composed of ex-public school men), and it was a blow to discover that the fact that i had been in my school eleven and fifteen made not the slightest impression on any of the n.c.o.'s. it may be that a readjustment of one's standards is a healthy experience. but that is hardly the attitude that officials could safely adopt. the public school system is supposed to produce trained citizens, who are in harmony with their environment. and that is exactly what the public school boy is not. he tries to tackle life with the scale of values that he learnt to apprehend at school. and it is not an easy task. some, indeed, never accomplish it. they never readjust themselves. they surround themselves with old friends, revisit their old schools, endeavour to recapture the old atmosphere. they regret vaguely that something has passed. like jurgen, they return in quest of their youth, but the distorted shadow of sereda prevents them from entering completely their former selves. in _the harrovians_ arnold lunn makes two of his characters discuss this question. 'there's west, for example,' peter said, 'he'll never be such a blood again. he hasn't any brains. he couldn't even struggle into the upper school, but he's a mighty man here. rather a pity, i think, that life should reach its highest point at nineteen. this ought only to be a beginning.' that states the case. chapter xi the old boy as schoolmaster and parent fears for the future and regrets for the past are alike forgotten during the last week. there are sad moments, but, as arnold lunn remarked, 'there is a world of difference between the pleasant sorrow of sentiment and the more real depression that coincides with an overdraft at the bank.' the last week is passed in a mood that i once heard described as 'happy-sad.' on the last sunday in chapel the boy who is leaving endeavours to summon the appropriate emotion. he knows how he ought to feel. he has been instructed by so many stories. he is, in a way, an actor in a drama. he knows that the fag on the other side of the aisle is looking at him, is saying to himself: 'this is jones's last chapel. what is he feeling?' and, like an actor, jones does not want to disappoint his audience. he feels as he should feel. there is a lump at the back of his throat. but, on the whole, leaving is an exciting experience. there is the auction of study furniture, when pictures that cost five shillings when they were new, fetch seven and six in their fourth year of service. there are the calls to be paid to masters, the 'good-byes' and 'good lucks.' it is the abdication of office when one is at the height of one's authority. it is a fine gesture that 'immeasurable power, unsated to resign,' to be able to step straight out from the lighted room, before the corroding forces of change have begun to work, and before habit has dulled applause. the exit is made at exactly the right moment. the curtain falls on a dramatic climax. and how rarely that happens. in a temper of wistful sentimentality and self-satisfaction, arrayed in the colours of the old boys' society, the ex-public school boy leans out of the carriage window, waves good-bye to the friends who are catching a later train, makes and extracts promises to write, and watches as the train moves out of the station the familiar landmarks slip one by one behind him. a sentimental, that is to say, a superficial emotion passes quickly. and it depends on the kind of life which awaits a boy, whether or not this sentimental regret will be followed by an acute sense of loss. if he is going up to the university or to some remunerative and interesting employment, it is probable that he will forget school altogether in the fascination of a new life. if, however, he is destined for some dull unromantic post in the city, the thought of school will for a long time wake in him a deep, hopeless nostalgia. he will bring no enthusiasm to his work, and, as he sits at his high desk, balancing ledgers, computing insurance policies, adjusting income-tax returns, he will compare the monotony of his routine with the coloured movement and variety of school. as he walks to his office he will remind himself that at this moment the morning chapel is just ending. the school will be pouring across the courts. if he were there he would be walking arm in arm with some friend of his to the class-room, stopping on the way some intelligent friend to demand the elucidation of certain tiresome theorems. as he returns to the office after lunch he will say to himself: 'if i were there now i should be changing for football. i should have before me the prospect of a hard game and a bath afterwards, and a long, lazy evening in front of the games study fire.' and, at the end of the day, on his return to his home or diggings, he is lonely with the recollection of how often at such a time he has sat in the class-room waiting impatiently for the clock to strike, waiting for the moment of freedom when he can gather his books under his arm and rush back to the house to tea, to the four delightful hours of friendship and discussion that lie in that enchanted period between lock-up and lights out. school life never means so much to a boy as it does during his few months after he has left it. for he sees it transfigured in his imagination; he remembers nothing of the tiresome demands of routine, nothing of the friction between boys and masters, nothing of the long boring hours in form when he watched the patch of sunlight drift across the wall, nothing of the anxieties, the annoyances, the restrictions of a cloistered life. he sees it purged of the accidental, a city of his own fashioning. it does not last, of course, this intense nostalgia. no young man can live for very long in the past. new interests come to him, he finds new fields for his ambition. he makes friends in his office. he joins a tennis club, he takes dancing lessons. he sets out in search of life. he ceases, at every vacant moment of the day, to compute what he would be doing were he at school instead of at an office. he thinks of the innings he intends to play next saturday: his eyes pick out on the carpet an imaginary spot ten feet away from him, and he considers what shot he would play to a ball that pitched on it; he also perhaps wonders what exactly that charming lady with whom he had danced the night before, had meant when she had said, with a peculiar inflection in her voice: 'you're growing up.' his correspondence with his old friends becomes spasmodic. he no longer writes to his house master once a month. the arrival of a letter with the school crest on it ceases to excite him as it did. the school magazine becomes full of names that are meaningless to him. he notes with disgust that baxter, in his day a miserable little squirt, has got into the eleven; and that that goggle-eyed ass, barton, is head of the school. he asks himself at christmas whether it is worth his while to renew his subscription, and decides that it is not. from time to time he reads in _the sportsman_ of the feats of his school fifteen, and remarks without enthusiasm that 'fernhurst must be pretty strong this year.' his school life has dropped from him as a coat that he has outgrown. it belongs to the past, and he is living in the future. school will not mean much to him for another twenty years, till the time comes, that is to say, when he will have to send his son to school. then will he recover his youth, and live again his school days in his son, only more intensely, because he will be living them in his imagination. in the achievements of his son he will recognise the ghost of his old ambitions. his son's career will be more personal to him than his own. he will take more pleasure in his son's successes than the boy will himself. indeed a great deal of a boy's pleasure in his success lies in his appreciation of the happiness that it will bring to his father. at no time in their lives do father and son come so close to one another as during these years. and it is at first sight surprising that this intimacy should not produce that common ground on which difficulties may be openly discussed and quarrels healed. for in spite of this intimacy, the relations between father and son are very often superficial. this statement may appear self-contradictory, but a little examination will show that this is not so. we do not necessarily confide in the people we love best. let any man think of his friends and acquaintances, and he may be surprised to discover that he knows a great deal more about his acquaintances than his friends. i do not lay it down as a fact that he will make this discovery. i merely say that he may make it; certainly a great many will. at school, where one has a vast number of acquaintances and a few friends, i used to wonder sometimes how best one could draw the dividing line between a friend and an acquaintance. and i decided that the difference lay in silence, that with a friend one could be silent, whereas with an acquaintance one could not. if a friend walked into one's study when one was busy, one smiled and went on with one's work; the friend picked up a book and read. but if an acquaintance came in, one immediately stopped what one was doing; one felt that silence would become embarrassing. in the same way one does not, in the company of a real friend, feel the need of personal confidences. one likes being with him. that is enough. one sits over a fire and talks spasmodically, with long silences drifting into the conversation. but with a person of whom one is not particularly fond, such desultory conversation is not adequate. an acquaintance is not, in himself, sufficiently interesting--he is interesting in what he has done, or is doing. the need for confidences is essential. and so it is that most of us have acquaintances to whom we recount all our discreditable exploits, our romances, our financial enterprises, with whom we seem, in fact, remarkably intimate, but whose absence, were they to pass out of our lives, we should not greatly regret. the man who knows most about us very often matters least to us. this is not a generalisation. one cannot generalise about an abstraction like friendship, that has a different meaning and a different message for every individual man. but such relationships are a common experience; they are the more common in the degree that their subjects are the more reserved. and there is no more reserved class than that of past and present public school boys. this is, at any rate, the only explanation that i can find for the superficial relations between son and father that are spread over so deep a trust and intimacy. they accept without appreciating this superficiality. the father comes down at half term, and he goes for a walk arm in arm with his son, along the slopes. they discuss home affairs and the external activities of school: football shop, cricket shop, house politics. they rarely touch on the boy's inner life; the father can only guess at what his boy is doing and thinking. underneath their love for each other they are strangers. on the important issues of school life they are both driven to accept the verdict of the house master or head master. and he, although he is working in the dark on both sides of him, is their only intermediary. but the relationships between parents and children are too intricate for so short a book as this. indeed, i doubt whether it is possible ever to tackle satisfactorily a subject, the nature of which alters with every individual case. one would be lost at once in a labyrinth of generalisations and exceptions; lytton strachey made no attempt to write a history of the victorian era. he selected and analysed a few specimens; that is, i believe, the only way in which to deal with the complex subject of parenthood. and it can only be thus dealt with by the story-teller, by the man who says: 'i care nothing for general principles. but this is how things went for one family.' in a general study such as this, it is quite impossible to dogmatise from individual cases. but i would submit this facet of the relationship between father and son as an important one in the study of school society. it throws the need for co-operation almost entirely on the schoolmaster. it makes his responsibility greater than he knows. now there are three types of men to whom the scholastic profession makes its chief appeal. there is the brilliant scholar, the man with the double first, who will turn out to be either completely incompetent, or will become a head master. there is the athlete who takes a third, or at best a second in mods, and on the strength of a blue, returns as games master to his old school. lastly, there is the idealist, the man who regards teaching as a calling and not a trade, the man who may be either an impossible crank or, in his own line, a genius. the first class of master plays, on the whole, a small part in the politics of school life. if he is incompetent he is ragged in form and his opinion carries no weight in the common room. if he is successful, he is a bird of passage, on his way to some rich head-mastership. he may become a house master for a while, but he is always looking beyond his immediate surroundings. he is ambitious. he does not regard one school as his compass. always he is just outside the drama. the second class, however, forms the backbone of tradition. the old boy comes back to his old school with an intense loyalty and with the intention of staying there for the rest of his life. his ambition is to have the best house in the best school in the best county. he is usually a very fine fellow indeed, but he represents eternally the spirit of reaction. he lives in the standards of his youth. he has had no opportunity of testing those standards in another environment. his whole life has moved within the circle of one school. he imbibed as a boy the public school spirit, and he did not outgrow that spirit at the university--hardly a proof of mental elasticity. he has no sense of progress or of change in the world for which he is training the young. as things have been, so shall they be. the old boy turned house master is the most powerful force in the common room. he is the chief obstacle that the enthusiast has to face. with regard to the enthusiast, one is tempted to put an asterisk against the heading and a footnote, '_vide_ the novels of s. p. b. mais _passim_,' and leave it at that. for mr. mais knows more about the reception of this type of master than any other man in the kingdom. he has himself a genius for teaching. i cannot imagine a better english master. he inspires enthusiasm in the confirmed slacker. he is an invaluable asset to any staff, and yet nearly everywhere he has been met by opposition. his own story, as set forth in _a schoolmaster's diary_, is typical of the young movement. only there is this difference, that, whereas mr. mais has never yielded to the reactionary influences, the majority of young masters conform to the custom of the country. their position is extremely difficult. they leave oxford with high ambitions. they have dissected and analysed the system, they have discovered the vital spot; they are eager to put their reforms into action. they have wonderful schemes for inspiring boys with a love of the beautiful, with an interest in politics and life. they are prepared to be ruthless in their battle; they will neither ask nor give quarter. they will not be fettered to the reactionary indolence of the intolerant and the effete. they have a mission and a purpose. they bring a sword. they arrive at school with a quenchless ardour. like the small boy home for the holidays, they want to do everything on the first day. before they have had time to look round they are suggesting schemes for founding literary and dramatic circles: they want to open a political debating society where there shall be files of _the nation_ and _the daily news_. they start a mile race at the speed of a hundred yards and find themselves alone in the void. every one else is going at a very leisurely pace. there is no need for hurry. their whole life is before them. the school has been in existence a very long while. it is moving in its own time to its duly appointed ends. the young enthusiast grows impatient: like most intense people he is tactless and makes mistakes. he ignores his colleagues, or interferes with their arrangements. he creates an atmosphere of opposition. this is, of course, what he has anticipated. the fight, he feels, is going to begin. but the nature of the fight is very different from what he had expected. it is not waged with the intolerant and the effete, but with men whom he cannot help admiring. he cannot make himself hate his enemies. the old boy house master, it cannot be too often repeated, is a very fine fellow. and his point of view is reasonable. he has given his youth, his energy, his ambition to his school. he has cared for nothing else. he has allowed many of the good things of life to pass him because of this unwavering devotion, and it is natural that he should resent the intrusion of a young fellow who has not had time to learn to love the school, but who wants to overturn the most cherished privileges. and his methods are so impeccably direct and honest. he does not go behind the young man's back to the head master. he has the young man into his study for a chat; he looks him straight in the face. he says: 'come now, we've got to have this out.' and the young man finds it so desperately hard not to admire him. he endeavours to open a discussion: he states his case. for a moment he seems to forget the personal issue in the case. confidence comes back to him. he develops his argument, and then, just when he feels that his grip is closing on the contest, he is beaten by that disarming sentimentality which is the most powerful of all the old boy's weapons. 'my dear fellow,' he will say, 'you have your point of view and i have mine. we are both in our own ways working for the good of the school; why must we quarrel? we are fighting the same fight. but we can do nothing unless we stand together. i've given my whole life to the cause; you are just beginning.' the acceptance of this offer of friendship and co-operation means defeat. the young man knows it. but it is so hard to refuse. the rebel in any sphere of life has no harder task than the cutting adrift from his own caste and the subsequent alliance with men of different upbringing and different standards. he sees, on the one hand, a vast number of noble, if bigoted men, men whom he can trust and admire. and, on the other side, as a setting for the few idealists in whose principles he believes, the arrayed forces of envy, greed, and malice. the temptation to cling to what he knows and what secretly he admires is too great. most of the young enthusiasts give way soon. they join the forces of reaction. and those that stand out are inevitably broken. what chance have they after all? the modern intellectual is something of a negativist. his tolerance is composed of indifference and uncertainty. he sees life in the words of jurgen as a 'wasteful and inequitable process,' and does not discern clearly how to alter it. his philosophy is a series of disappointments. he is bound to go down before a bigotry that is certain of itself. the forces of reaction are so powerfully entrenched. the old boy house master knows exactly what he wants and how he proposes to get it. he advances down a straight road. his enemies pause and wonder and question themselves. the bigot usually makes the best administrator. he is not worried by abstractions. he is certain of his ends and can devote all his attention to the means. the tolerant head master, the man who sees both points of view, is overcome in the end by preponderating faith and sincerity of reaction. the new man is invariably subjugated, or else is made to go. no head master would be anxious to take his side. the games master type is intensely popular with parents and old boys. he represents for them the public school spirit. he is a fixed, immutable principle in which they can place their trust. they would be intensely worried were they to learn that the head master had taken the side of a new man against their old friend. the subject would be discussed in the clubs: 'there's trouble brewing at fernhurst,' they would say. 'this new head master is a liberal. he's quarrelling with old aiken. i don't like the look of it.' and the position of the school would be shaken. parents would send their sons elsewhere. the numbers would drop. unpleasant questions would be put to the head master at the next meeting of the governors. it is the old trouble of the merchant and his goods. parents have to be placated. they have been assured that 'all is for the best in the best of all possible schools'; and, when they hear rumours of dissension they naturally imagine that something must be wrong with that particular school. it is not so everywhere. they remind the head master of his own official utterances. and it is not easy after prophesying smooth things to satisfy the complaints of those who find them hard. a head master has to reach his ends through infinite tact and patience and through a long series of compromises. he has to be something of an opportunist. he has to give reasons other than the true ones for what he does. he has to promote progress secretly, while he advocates conservatism. and it is hard to remain true to oneself while playing the jekyll and hyde game. motives become involved; there is too much diplomacy, and the forces of reaction, whatever else they be, are distinctly honest. certainly he cannot allow the clumsy enthusiasm of a young man to complicate his vexed existence. and the young man has either to break or bend. usually he bends. he has, after all, to consider his own career. he compromises with himself. he manages to persuade himself that he is not really yielding, but that he is adopting different tactics, attacking the enemy from another side. he decides to do his work of reform quietly, without ostentation. other people can do their own way if they like. that compromise is the start of a long process of self-deception. when he becomes a house master it will be so simple to put off parents with excuses. he will be able to justify himself, to say: 'these are stupid folk. they will worry me if i encourage them. i have my work to do. i must pacify them and get on with it.' and so the circle completes itself. the young man who sets out to reform school life, who brought to the task a fine, untried energy, ends in evasion, compromise and self-deception. boys, parents, and masters are working at cross purposes. there are certainly a large number of entries on the debit side of the ledger. it remains to be decided what hand has written these entries and whether it is possible to erase them. to a large extent they are due to four things: the moral issue; the cult of athleticism, which is regarded as an antidote to immorality; the conspiracy of silence that exists between parents and boys and masters, and the long period a boy spends at school--the six years that separate so unduly the junior from the senior, that accentuate the blood system, that erect a wall shutting out the world at large. school life is too much of a walled garden, too much of a world in itself. it has remained monastic, it has not established contact with the movements of the hour. chapter xii some suggestions: the leaving age with regard to morals the ardent idealists with their thousand pretty schemes for the regeneration of mankind, find no difficulty in allotting a few panaceas to the public school. we hear of the 'new world' and of the 'new spirit,' and there is glib talk about the phoenix and the ashes. a few laws have to be passed, a few peasants educated and there will be an end of competition. 'the strong will support the weak, the clever work unselfishly for the general good. wealth and intellect will be placed at the service of the state. the relations of the sexes will be ordered by eugenics.' it is all very jolly, and unless to-day one subscribes unfalteringly to this belief in a new world, one is called a reactionary and a materialist. the millennium, we are told, is round the corner. the finest intellects of thirty centuries may have failed to find it, but the farm labourer has only to spend a few half-hours with an english grammar to discover it at his feet. it must be very nice to believe all that, to be able to comfort oneself in dark moments with the assurance that for one's children's children life will be a happy hunting ground. it must be a drug more potent than laudanum, more sweet than hashish. but it is of small avail in the dust and traffic of humanity. in the case of the public schools we shall do well to examine what is at hand and prescribe what cures we may, without the indulgence of distant speculation. the four main objects of criticism, then, are the moral question, the evil of athleticism, the false scale of values that is inculcated at a public school, and the subsequent conspiracy of silence. on the moral question the advanced idealists have talked more and to less purpose than on any other phase of school life. they have written of the discovery of the soul, of the unfolding of the flower. they have maintained that through art and literature the boy's emotional nature will be directed to a higher, a nobler conception of life. the psycho-analyst speaks of 'sublimation,' and they have fastened on to this cliché. was not this what they had been saying so long, in other words--the sublimation of the sexual impulse? now, in the case of a celibate priest or a maiden lady it is, no doubt, highly desirable and perhaps possible to sublimate an impulse which has been and in all probability will be, denied natural satisfaction. but it is a pretty hopeless job to sublimate an impulse that has every hope and prospect of complete, direct, and natural realisation; and that is the task that the advocates of flowers and poetry and the dawn have set themselves. if we are to change the moral tone of a public school we shall have to find either an alternative system, or we shall have to modify in some way the existing system. two alternatives are offered: co-education and the day school. in neither case should immorality be general or serious, and the number of romantic friendships correspondingly slight. it seems hardly possible that a normal healthy boy would be attracted by a smaller boy when, at a school like bedales, he would be constantly in the company of young and charming scholars. and though the day boarder lives for the greater part of his day in a monastic society, he spends the majority of his spare time outside it. and during the week-ends he has full opportunity to continue any romance on which he may have embarked during the previous holidays. although it is only possible for me to speak here from second-hand information, it can be assumed, i think, that at the co-educational and day school the moral question must sink to comparative unimportance. it has to be considered, however, whether this relegation compensates for the consequent disadvantages. co-education is, of course, a new game, and it is difficult to write of it with confidence. at a lecture that i gave about three years ago, a young woman rose from the back of the hall and asked 'what mr. waugh thought about co-education?' i had, as a matter of fact, thought about it very little, but i felt that i could hardly confess as much. i said, therefore, something about 'co-education being excellent for delicate and sensitive boys who would find public schools too rough for them.' the young woman then indignantly demanded what the girls had done to deserve the companionship of only delicate and sensitive boys. it was an unanswerable protest, but having since then thought the matter over more carefully, i believe that, if the same question were put to me to-day i should make the same reply. it may be that such a reply would be based only on prejudice and a preconceived idea. but, after all, the evil that one knows is better than the evil that one does not know. and who would wish away his school days. if you were to ask a small boy of thirteen whether he would prefer to go to uppingham or bedales, he would promptly reply 'uppingham.' if, two years later, you were to say to him: 'would you rather have gone to bedales than uppingham?' he would reply: 'lord, no.' if at the end of his last term, when it was all over, you were to ask him whether he regretted his choice, he would say: 'good god, no!' and, twenty years afterwards, when the time had come for him to decide where he should send his son, were you to ask him yet again: 'bedales or uppingham?' he would reply without hesitation, 'uppingham.' why, after all, should he depart from an old allegiance. he knows nothing of bedales, nothing of the troubles and adversities that his son will have to face there. he will be unable to help him, he will be denied that greatest privilege of fatherhood, the unquestioning trust of the son who knows that his father has trod every inch of the way before him. father and son rarely come so close to one another as they do during those five years at a public school. they are living practically the same life; the father finds his lost youth in the son. is it likely that he will abandon such a certainty for a supposed and uncertain good. the public school system was formed round certain distinct traits in the british character. it is the expression of the national temperament. nearly every one is happy at a public school. it is the manner of life that we enjoy, that is in sympathy with our tastes and customs. the reformers may say what they will. you cannot turn a dog from the food it loves. this attitude to co-education may be illogical, it may be prejudiced, it may be reactionary--i do not know. one can only restate the fact that we are content to be old-fashioned people. the case of the day school cannot be so summarily dismissed. at a first sight indeed it appears to possess all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of a public school. a boy acquires _esprit de corps_, but is saved from wild partisanship. he strengthens the qualities of courage and independence as fully as he would at a public school, and the home influence is maintained. his moral lapses, if any, are likely to be occasioned by the attractions of the other sex. my friend, mr. oscar browning, has indeed often assured me that the day school is the only possible solution of the difficulty, and in a symposium on the english public schools he wrote that 'house rivalries and the overwhelming importance of house matches cannot exist in day schools where boys live with their families, nor is school life likely to be so communal.' many other educational authorities, whose testimony one must respect, have expressed their faith in day schools. certainly the claim of the day school must be carefully examined. and it is with diffidence that i approach the task. at most boarding schools the day boy is looked down upon. for some obscure reason the day boy always seems to be inferior to the boarder. he is rarely prominent in games or work. one ceases, indeed, to regard him as a member of the school. he comes into form, he writes his prose, he attends corp parade, he plays his games. but, at six o'clock, when the bell rings for tea and the intimate life of the day begins, he collects his books and hurries across the courts and passes into another life. the period between lock-up and lights out is in retrospect the most charming part of the day. the troubles of the day are over. lessons have to be prepared in prep., but they will not be heard till the next morning. time enough to worry about that after breakfast. it is after tea that one packs twelve people into a study measuring eight feet by four and discusses the prospects of the house in the two cock, the 'latest case,' and evans's chance of getting into the fifteen. prep. is but a pause in the discussions of these momentous trivialities. after prayers there is an hour in which to brew coffee and renew the endlessly attractive conversation. these are the times of friendship and good feeling, and they are lost to the day boarder. like the new boy, he is outside the life of the school. he moves in a different environment; he has different interests, he cannot enter into the eager loyalties and aversions of house politics. in a school such as clifton, where there are a large number of day boys, the position is, of course, different. the day boy there occupies a definite social status. instead of being attached to a house for games, he is grouped into that sector of the town in which he happens to live. his friends are leading much the same life as he is. but it can scarcely be denied that the day boarder loses a great deal of the charm of a communal life. what does he gain to compensate for that loss? he is protected to a large extent from the moral lapses peculiar to a public school. he will develop through normal channels. though, as he will in chapel and in his school listen to addresses that are based on the accepted official attitude, it is a little doubtful whether he will find himself in this respect much more satisfactorily educated than the boarder. at any rate he should be saved the disquieting experiences of a romantic friendship, and he will be less of a slave to the partisanship and house feeling. but does he gain anything else? we hear a great deal about the value of home influence, but what does home mean for the day boy? he rushes home at the end of the day, has his tea, and then settles down to prepare his lessons. by the time he has finished them it is time for him to go to bed. he has had little opportunity for talking either to his father or his mother. in the morning he has only time to rush his breakfast and hurry off to school. it must be remembered also that the parents who send their sons to day schools are usually not particularly well off. it is one thing to come home at the end of a hard day to the quiet seclusion of a warm and cosy study where everything will be quiet and undisturbed. it is another thing to come back to a house that is making strenuous efforts to get things straight before the master of the house returns. middle-aged business men expect to find things made snug for them; they do not want schoolboys kicking about the place at the end of the day. nothing is more uncomfortable than breakfast in the average suburban family. there is the flutter over the post, the opening and shutting of the paper, the constant glances at the clock. there is a banging of doors, and running up of stairs, and the shouting over banisters. a sigh of relief is heard when the front door closes behind the wage-earner. in a large, well-run house the domestic machinery moves so smoothly that it is unnoticed. in a small suburban villa these moments of arrival and departure provide constant friction, and it is from the small suburban villa that the majority of day boarders are recruited. in consequence the day boy starts his day's work at a disadvantage. it is like playing a cricket match on an opponent's ground. one arrives a little jaded. the boarder is on the spot. he has twenty-five minutes' leisure between chapel and breakfast. it is possible, of course, that he will pass these twenty-five minutes in a feverish attempt to prepare the 'con' for which he had been allotted an hour on the time-table of the previous night. but that is his own fault. he has every chance of starting the day fresh. i cannot think that the rush of getting off in the morning and the journey to school can be good for a boy of fifteen. it is a strain for a full-grown man. that twenty minutes' jolt in tubes and lifts is exhausting. no one arrives at the office perfectly fresh. by the time one gets back at night one is really tired. the tube journey at the end of a hard day completes one's weariness. and on top of that weariness the day boarder has to do an hour and a half's preparation. it is not the ideal setting for successful work. the day boy is also leading two lives at the same time. he cannot shut them away in watertight compartments. they overlap. it is, no doubt, for the business man a great privilege and a great relief to be able to return at the end of the day to a quiet evening in his wife's company. but then he has not got to work at home, and work implies friction. the worker wants an absence of outside influences. he wants the company of quiet folk who make no particular demands on his energy and patience, with whom his relations are superficial and for whom he does not particularly care. many writers make a failure of marriage because they put their study too near their nursery. the imaginative worker wants to be alone, not only while he is working, but for an hour before he starts working and for an hour after he has finished working. in many ways the army is the ideal career for a writer. he can do his two hours' writing after tea, have his bath and change, and go down to the ante-room, where he can read his paper quietly and chat superficially with people who make no demands on him. wherever there is an intimate relationship there is friction. the proper adjustment of his work to his personal life is the most delicate task a man has to tackle. it is beyond the compass of a small boy. for the very reason that a boy loves his parents there will be friction; a strain will be placed, that is to say, upon his energy and patience. the boarder has fewer worries and, in consequence, is happier than the day boy. the advocates of 'home influence' must also remember that the day boy takes his home for granted. we cannot appreciate the value of anything till we have either lost it, or become separated from it. home means a great deal to the boarder. holidays mark for him a complete change of life, to the day boy holidays mean little save the pleasurable cessation of certain irksome duties. he can stay in bed longer in the morning, he has not got to hurry his breakfast, a free day lies in front of him. he will not have to waste his time over latin prose and thucydides. during the term-time he has, except during week-ends, very few opportunities of intimate conversation with his parents, and because he has come to regard their presence as a natural environment he does not, during the holidays, make, as the boarder does, special efforts to see as much of them as possible. the influence of a place need be no more effective because one happens to live in it than the influence of a person because one happens to be in his, or her, company. it depends on the value set on the place or person. the boarder values his home more highly than the day boy. the influence of home is more likely to be felt by him than by the day boy. letters from home are an event in the boarder's life. they mean more than a walk on sunday morning, and the hours are counted to the half-term visit. the day boy also comes far less into contact with masters than the boarder does. indeed the head master of a school can only have a superficial knowledge of the boys that are entrusted to him. he sees them in the form room and on the cricket field. but he does not watch the development of the boy's character through his reactions towards and away from the intrigues, romances, and jealousies of house politics. there is no constant theme, only a few uncertain _motifs_. the head master has not sufficient material upon which to work. the discovery of so many clues is denied to him. every boy at some time or other must pause and wonder how much his head master really knows about him. it is a subject, for most of us, of disquieting conjecture. but the day boy can dismiss it with an easy conscience. school for him is a place in which he works and plays, but does not live. indeed he is a child of no man's land, passing between two countries, a true citizen of neither. there are those who say that parents are the only people who understand their children, and will maintain that it is criminal to take young boys away from their parents at an impressionable age and place them in charge of schoolmasters who can know nothing about them. but parents are, as a matter of fact, as likely to make mistakes as any one else. we find in anything what we bring to it. and parents expecting their sons to be brave, truthful, obedient, clever, find them so. an outside opinion is of extreme value, and a house master or a head master is the ideal person to give it. when a house master and a father meet on equal grounds and discuss the son's welfare honestly, the auspices could hardly be more fortunate. they so rarely meet, because parents and schoolmasters do not trust each other, because they have adopted the false position of buyer and seller; the combination remains, however, none the less ideal. i do not myself see what advantages the day school possesses over the boarding school, save those that are concerned with a particular facet of morality, and beyond the weakening of a partisanship that is inclined to put a boy in blinkers. there are some very fine day schools in the country, but the day school, especially of recent years, has tended to become an alternative for parents with large families who cannot afford to send their sons to expensive boarding schools. and, after all, the suggestion that day schools should be generally substituted for boarding schools is obviously impracticable. many of the finest public schools are situated in remote parts of the country, others in small towns that were once honoured with a monastery. how are these venerable institutions to be converted into day schools. a few retired colonels might possibly form a colony in shoreham and send their sons to lancing. a convenient train would take them to brighton, where they might walk on the promenade and recall the reckless adventures of their youth. but civilisation draws us to big towns for our livelihood. however much the stockbroker might wish to send his son as a day boarder to shrewsbury, he would find it quite impossible to do so. the town of shrewsbury would provide no scope for his activities. he could not possibly settle there. a scheme that would involve the complete alteration of the public school system can only be called a revolution. a reformer has to work on his existing material. he cannot say--wash it out and start again. he cannot put back the clock. mr. oscar browning has said that when he went to eton in 1851 only five schools could lay claim to the dignity of being called a public school. there must be at least fifty first-class public schools to-day; they are nearly all boarding schools, and every few years a comparatively unknown school proves itself a worthy competitor to older foundations. it is not the slightest use to say, even if we believed it, that day schools are better than boarding schools and leave the matter there. a politician might with equal ability draw up an elaborate defence of the feudal system. it may very well be that we should be all more happy if we could reconstruct society on a feudal basis: we might just as well express a belief that our efficiency would be increased were a kindly providence to dower us with wings. it may be, though i doubt it, that the advocates of the day school are in the right, that under such a system of education immorality and the blood system would pass. but it is for us to discover some method by which the existing system may be so modified as to produce of itself the required change. now it is very tempting for a controversialist, when he has completed the arraignment of his enemies, to slip hastily over the policy he himself proposes to adopt. i wonder how many letters have been addressed to the press during the last seven years in which the writer, having stated in strong terms the calamities to which a certain line of thought or policy has reduced the country, has demanded in a final paragraph that 'something should be done before it is too late.' he suggests perhaps a 'change of spirit.' it is a good weapon that 'change of spirit.' we can all of us, when occasion demands, indulge in spirited invective; we can all detect numberless flaws and inequalities in the existing social system. why, for instance, does our income run to three instead of to four figures. why are we paying away a third of that small sum in income-tax? the flow of indignation is swift, and by the time we have written our 950 words, it is not hard to devote the remaining '50' to a general appeal for 'some one to do something before it is too late.' every contributor to the press has saved his argument like that some time or another. and, in the case of public schools, the trouble is that we can do little save repeat the parrot cry of 'a change of spirit.' for it is 'a change of spirit' more than anything else that is needed. we are kept wondering, however, how that change is to be effected. s. p. b. mais used to say that 'literature would save us.' but literature is only a part of life, one channel of self-expression, and in the case of mr. mais one is troubled by the knowledge that he, himself, is in many ways the ideal schoolmaster. he has a genius for teaching. he happens to have taught literature and mathematics, and because he taught them so successfully he has imagined that they are the panacea. he is too modest to realise any subject that he taught would have assumed the qualities of a panacea, that it was he and not his subject that was important. he could rouse his form, if he wished, to a high pitch of enthusiasm by a lecture on the properties of cherry boot polish. but 'he is alone, the arabian bird.' martin browne suggests religion. and, no doubt, for the truly religious boy many of the difficulties of school life would be smoothed out. unfortunately, however, religion plays, and will play, a small part in a boy's life at school. a boy has been told to believe certain things by his parents, and he has accepted these beliefs unquestioningly and without enthusiasm. they have not been tested by experience. they are not real to him. religion, in its truest form, rises out of the conflict of a man's life. faith is subconscious thought. i do not think you can expect the average small boy to be deeply influenced by religion. his religion, if he has one, is an unswerving devotion to his house and school. he would be ready to sacrifice himself for what he considered to be the school's service. forty years ago a captain of my old house died after a kick on the head received in the three cock, the big house match of the year. the brass on the chapel wall which is dedicated to his memory,- 'te duce, care puer, pueri cum lusimus olim optimus in cursu quem sequeremur eras caelestem exacto tetigisti limite metam; fratribus ab, fratrem detur ad astra sequi.' appealed far more to our imagination than the story of early martyrs. action rather than contemplation is the essence of school life. i am aware that many will disagree with this assertion. both martin browne and jack hood made in their books a great point of religious teaching and early confirmation, but i cannot help feeling that in this respect they are exceptional; certainly if they had not been exceptional they would not have written books; religion has meant a lot to them, and they feel that it should do the same for others. it is a mistake we all make in our different spheres. the poet thinks he will reform the world by placing the poems of shelley in the hands of trade union officials; and the small craftsman sees life redeemed by hand weaving and hand pottery. we all think that the prop that has supported us will support others. it is part of our egotism. for the many, to whom faith is not intuitive, religion needs a solid foundation of experience. a change of spirit requires a change of setting, and i am inclined to think that this would be provided were boys to leave school at seventeen instead of nineteen. it would not, perhaps, from the point of view of the moral question, cause a very great diminution in the actual immorality between boys of the same age and the same social position. but it certainly would improve matters. as things are at present, the boy of fifteen and a half occupies a pleasantly irresponsible position. he has left behind him the anxieties of the day room, and the responsibilities of seniority are still far distant. his peccadilloes are not taken seriously. he can rag in form and smash windows in the studies without prejudice to his future. he has imbibed the example of prince hal. for a while he may rollick with falstaff at the boar's head. time enough to settle down when the privileges of power draw nearer him. for a good year and a half he may make merry. the lowering of the age limit would telescope events; it would reduce the period of revelry to a couple of months. no sooner would a boy have ceased to be a fag than he would be under the eye of authority as a candidate for responsibility. a display of rhodomontade would prejudice his future. he would play for safety; and such considerations would certainly place a check on his moral lapses. he would think twice. if he was discovered he would have no time to recover his position by subsequent good behaviour. he would be passed over in the struggle for promotion. to a certain extent the lowering of the age limit would prevent that type of immorality that takes place between boys of the same age and same position, but only to a certain extent. there always will be such misconduct in schools; it will never be possible to stamp it out entirely, but it is possible to overrate its seriousness. certainly the romantic friendship is more important, and it is because of the romantic friendship that i advocate so strongly the lowering of the age limit. i have said that the romantic friendship is the natural growth of an unnatural system; but even a natural growth develops soon or late, according to the soil in which it is planted and the climate by which it is nourished. the presence of boys of 18 to 19, by their example, force this growth like a hot-house atmosphere. in a boy of eighteen the sexual impulse has become defined. he understands the implications of its symptoms. he is old enough to be married. but the boy of sixteen is not so sure of himself. in him the impulse is wavering and undetermined. he does not understand the nature of the emotions that are moving him. and he only comes to understand it through the example of elder boys. if a boy were told nothing of the existence of romantic friendships, of their technique, of the complicated moral code that allows this and denies that, if his curiosity were not continually quickened by stray references in sermons and addresses, i believe that he would not, at the age of seventeen, have realised that the friendship he felt for a smaller boy was essentially different from that which he was feeling for his contemporaries. it would be a deeper, an intenser friendship, but he would not see that it possessed a different nature. why should he? the schoolboy has read _the hill_. he expects every verney to find a desmond. so much has been written about the lasting friendships of school life. every boy must have his 'special friend.' why should he be any different from his fellows? there would be moments when he might wish to caress his friend, but he would immediately smother such a wish, feeling it to be foolish, girlish, unworthy of him. he would be too young, he would not have the intellectual independence to be able to say to himself: 'this is what i want. and what i want is natural to me. damn anything else!' shadowy imaginings would haunt his reveries, but they would never become defined in action. for a boy of eighteen it is different. his impulses are strong; he knows now exactly what he wants. and he is prepared to get what he wants. he knows that the emotions he feels for a small boy are of a different nature altogether from the friendship that he feels for his contemporaries, and the fact that there are boys in the school old enough to have defined these emotions, provides a hot-house atmosphere for the development of younger boys. to most people life comes at second hand. they learn from books, cinemas, and plays what are the appropriate emotions and the correct procedure for any given situation. the public school boy is no less conventional than his elders. he allows his inclinations to be directed into the accepted course. he is surprised, in the first place, by a delightful and unexpected emotion; but the surprise soon passes. he has formed just such another attachment as has been formed by practically every senior boy in his house. he exchanges confidences, he seeks the advice of some older boy, and follows the convention. if there were no senior boys, no example, and no convention, the first surprise of charmed bewilderment would endure. in the course of time it might very well be that out of that first romantic story would grow a deep, mutual, and lasting friendship. but such a development is hardly possible in an unnatural society where children and fully grown men are herded indiscriminately together. the example of elder boys, moreover, not only defines the nature of half-perceived emotions; it also forces emotions that would otherwise remain a long while in bud. there are many who consider it is the blood thing to have a _jeune ami_; that such a relationship is the privilege of a house colour. they want to be talked about. they have themselves spoken when juniors with bated breath of supposed 'cases.' they would like to be spoken of like that themselves, to feel themselves moving in an atmosphere of conjecture and intrigue, to gather an added sense of their own importance. besides this itch, a natural one, to occupy the limelight by copying the customs of the great, there is the subtle influence of indirect example. in the same way that a boy who goes often to the theatre and the cinema and observes there the charming processes of love, begins to long for tenderness, and caresses, and endearments, so does the schoolboy who hears on all sides romantic confidences, find himself drawn into the glittering circle. this lure would at least be removed by the lowering of the age limit. that it would solve all the difficulties i would not for a moment maintain. we cannot imagine a world in which men and women will not desert or betray each other; in which husbands will remain faithful and the unmarried chaste. why should we expect school life, which is the world in little, to be so startlingly different. parents refuse to believe that their own children are mortal: 'these things,' they say, 'may happen to our neighbour's children. they do not happen to our own.' and schoolmasters are only too anxious to reassure them. parents have such faith in their sons that they will believe in the most superficial testimonials. they are so anxious to be deceived. for this reason i believe that a mere statement of facts has value. there is much clamour to-day for reconstruction, and the controversialist who has not a cut and dried scheme for regenerating the world is looked on with disfavour. but on sex questions, which are after all intensely personal questions, which concern the individual in the first place and society in the second, only the superficial will dogmatise. i cannot do better than quote from havelock ellis's general preface to _the psychology of sex_:- 'a resolve slowly grew up within me,' he writes, 'one main part of my life-work should be to make clear the problem of sex. that was more than twenty years ago. since then i can honestly say that in all that i have done that resolve has never been far from my thoughts.... now that i have, at length, reached the time for beginning to publish my results, these results scarcely seem to me large. as a youth i had hoped to settle problems for those that came after; now i am quietly content if i do little more than state them. for even that, i now think, is much. it is, at least, the half of knowledge. in this particular field the evil of ignorance is magnified by our efforts to suppress that which can never be suppressed, though in the effort of suppression it may become perverted.' if this is the conclusion at the end of his work and of his life, of perhaps the greatest living authority on sex, by what right does the amateur produce cheerful remedies. in the case of the public school it is indeed something to state the problems. there is so much ignorance to dispel; the ignorance of mothers, the ignorance of fathers who have themselves not been to a public school, the conspiracy of silence of boys, old boys and masters. too much and, at the same time, too little, is made of immorality. schoolmasters assure us that its appearance is occasional, but their attitude to it is that of a doctor who suspects that his patient is suffering from a malignant disease and watches all the time for signs of it to appear. the schoolmaster is always afraid lest he may be sitting on a volcano. he encourages the athletic cult as a preventative, in the belief that the boy who is keen on games will not wish to endanger his health, and that the boy who has played football all the afternoon and has boxed between tea and lock-up will be too tired to embark on any further adventures. it does not occur to him that the boy will be equally too tired to do his prep. such encouragement of the athletic cult is a confession of failure. it is as though the master were to say: 'i know i cannot interest you in your work. i know that unless i look after you, you will land yourself in all manner of mischief. a man must have a god of sorts, therefore make unto yourself whatsoever manner of god you choose, and i will see that it receives a fitting reverence.' the public school code of honour, the majority of the standards, indeed, of school life are dependent on the athletic worship, and the athletic worship is in its turn largely dependent, not so much on the moral question, as on the official attitude to the moral question. too much energy has been devoted to the damming of trickles, while on another side of the hill the main stream has passed into the valley, laying waste the plains. greater honesty between boys, parents, and masters would undoubtedly achieve much. but more than a change of spirit is required. if no boy was allowed to stay on at school after the term in which he became seventeen years old, i believe that the moral question would, to a large extent, simplify itself. chapter xiii the leaving age with regard to athletics but it is not only on account of the moral question that i would advocate the lowering of the age limit. such a reform would, i believe, make its influence felt on every side of school life. it would not alter, but it would modify certain conditions. the blood system would still exist, but less acutely. the gap between the junior and senior would be small. at present a man of nineteen who has been tried for his county eleven appears to the junior as a gorgeous giant. he and his friends live in a world apart, and they know it. a good three years separates him from the anxieties and indignities of the day room. no one, save his actual contemporaries, remember him as being anything but a blood. he is, and has been, a prince among mankind. he idles through his last two years, a very splendid, a very attractive figure; but, as we have already seen, his is hardly the ideal apprenticeship for life. if the leaving age were fixed at seventeen instead of nineteen, so proud a position would be unattainable. there would still be bloods, still elegant creatures to saunter across the courts, languidly arm in arm. but a certain refinement would be missing. the languor would be less certain of itself, it would seem to fear a sudden assault and a fierce shout of 'jones, you young swine, what right have you to shove on side?' there is a difference between the blood of eighteen and the blood of sixteen. it is only four terms since the blood of sixteen was suffering the last exaction of the law. he remembers vividly being beaten for ragging in the dormitories; it is not so long since he was a fag. if we were suddenly transplanted on a magic carpet into the luxury of an eastern court we should stand for some time in dazed bewilderment, marvelling at what had happened to us, wondering who were these comely ethiopians that prostrated themselves before us. for quite five minutes we should lack the courage to give an order. the blood of sixteen feels like this; can he have achieved so swiftly his ambition? it is only yesterday that he was trembling in the presence of the great. by the time he has recovered from his bewilderment and is preparing to exert his authority his year of office is at an end. not only, moreover, is the sixteen year old blood unable to hold so exalted an opinion of his own importance, but his immediate juniors refuse to recognise him as the gilded figure of romance. the men on the fifth form table remember when the head of the house helped them to wreck bennett's study. they cannot feel him to be so vastly superior to themselves. it is different for the blood of eighteen. he has passed slowly through many circles to the dignity of an olympian. he has served his period of probation. he was not a colt's cap one season and the next a colour. he took a year to pass from house cap to seconds, and another year from seconds to firsts. he discovered himself gradually. he rose slowly to his greatness. by the time he has reached his last year the days of conflict are infinitely remote. he can hardly believe it possible that he was ever caned. he is, in fact, a great deal too old for a public school. and as things are now it is impossible for any, save the exceptional boy, to reach a position of authority till he is eighteen, or at least seventeen. a great many boys do undoubtedly leave between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, but by doing so they lose the most valuable lessons they should learn at school. a boy who leaves before he has been a house prefect fails to put the coping stone to his education. the responsibilities of prefectship are an invaluable experience. and when the house master begs the parent to let 'arthur stop on another year,' the parent naturally gives way. and it is, of course, always the wrong type of person who stays on that extra year. it is the clever, the brilliant, the athletic boy, the boy who already stands out above his contemporaries and in the course of the next year will be even more prominent, that is encouraged to remain. it would not matter if the dull boy stayed on another year. his natural talents would not be sufficient to lift him to the rarefied atmosphere of olympus. it is the second eleven colour who is urged to stay on to get his firsts. the fast bowler who is asked to captain the side next year, the exhibitioner who hopes that another year's work will win him a scholarship at balliol. the great become more great, and, as their undistinguished contemporaries fall out of the race, the gap between the prefect and the fag grows more pronounced. the intermediate steps are few and dimly seen. it is not surprising that the blood system should gloriously flourish. it would not so flourish were the leaving age to be fixed at seventeen. we have the proof of this in the knowledge of what happened during the war, when the big men left suddenly in august, 1914, when boys of sixteen sat at the sixth form table, and when no one stayed on at school after his eighteenth birthday. war conditions were, of course, abnormal. it was inevitable that at such a time the rewards of school life should lose their value. it was impossible to feel the old excitement about the result of a house match when the morning paper had brought with it the story of neuve chapelle. the winning of cups and the gaining of colours ceased to be an end in themselves. for the boy who was prevented by lack of years from joining the army in 1914 school life became a period of probation, of marking time. life in its fullest sense was waiting for him on the other side; no prefect ever looked forward to oxford more eagerly than those of us who were still at school in 1915 looked forward to the day when we should join the army. our imagination was quickened by the stories told us by old boys returning from depôts and from the front. was it possible that smith, who had played with us only eight months earlier in the two cock, should be in charge of a company in the front line trenches? we fretted at our tether; our eyes were fixed on the future. we scorned the prizes that lay to our hand. we began to reconstruct our scale of values: it was not only the giants of the football field who were winning honours for themselves and for the school in france. queer, insignificant fellows who had never risen above the upper fourth, and had never been in the running for a house cap, came home on leave with the blue and white riband of the military cross. we began to realise that it was not only the blood that was entitled to our respect. the blood system received a rude shock in august, 1914. it will never, unless we become involved in social revolution, receive such another. i believe, however, that it would be considerably modified were the leaving age to be altered. there would be also less hooliganism and less bullying. the third yearer would no longer be in a position of reckless freedom. studies would still be stripped, scholars would still be ragged, but the process would be compressed. the swash-buckling element would find itself sooner in authority. the scholar would reach sooner the immunity of the sixth. and the prefect would be no less capable of keeping order. for, after all, the prefect owes his power as much to the system that is behind him as to himself. but perhaps the greatest difference that the change would effect would be in the boy's attitude to his own life. six years is a very long time to be in one place. i remember at the end of my first year overhearing a conversation between the barber and a boy who was leaving the next day. 'well, mr. meredith,' the barber was saying, 'i suppose this is the last time i shall cut your hair. i have cut it a good many times.' 'i have been in this town,' said meredith, 'for ten years: five years at the prep, and five years at the school. i'm jolly well sick of it.' it is certainly a mistake to send a boy to the prep. of the school to which he will one day go. ten years is too long. but six is too long, too--at that age. it is not easy for any one under thirty to picture himself in six years' time. we look back and remember ourselves six years ago in the discomfort and disquiet of khaki. what a lot has happened since then. who can tell what the next six years may hold? very few men under thirty can look far ahead, and the new boy at a public school who can see his life mapped out for six years naturally does not look beyond them. he hardly realises that there is a world outside. he will have to travel so far before he reaches it. he comes to consider his public school not as a prelude, but as the whole sphere in which his personality has to move. certain prizes and certain honours await him. he does not pause to think whether those prizes and those honours will be of much or little service to him after he has put the cloistered world behind him. not only is he incapable of viewing his life under the hard light of eternity, he is incapable of viewing it under the light of the fifty odd years of traffic that wait for him among phenomena. he accepts unquestioningly the standards and values of his school. he does not feel that he is preparing for a contest. that phase of endeavour belonged to his 'prep.' he has started the race. there is a big difference between four years and six. it is a wall over which even the fag can peer on tiptoe. the passage of ambitions and loyalties and jealousies is much more swift. it is possible to consider four years as a prelude; and as soon as public school life is regarded as a prelude the scale of values becomes changed. the boy begins to wonder whether he is doing his best to fit himself for after life. he will cease to be contented with the honours that come to him on the way. because his school is a fixed institution, because the scope of his masters is fixed within its walls, there is a tendency to regard him as an inhabitant and not a sojourner there. that is what the schoolboy should never be allowed to forget--that he is passing through one phase of his life into another; it is because he has forgotten that that he so often pauses bewildered and irresolute on the threshold of life. chapter xiv conclusion were the moral question to be tackled sensibly, and were the reduction of the age limit to modify the 'blood' system, and insist upon the fact that school life is only a prelude, i believe that athletics would occupy their proper place in the life of the school. the social force of religion depends, to a large extent, on the appreciation of the importance of what will follow the 'here and now.' during the war, when the future was insecure, and no one could see anything certainly beyond the limits of a fortnight's leave, the country plunged recklessly in search of pleasure. no one looked ahead. no one paused to consider what would be the harvest of their sowing. the eyes of the preparatory school boy are fixed upon the future. he knows that the successes and failures of the moment are unimportant. he knows that a strenuous contest lies in wait for him. in consequence there is at a preparatory school little of the fanatical devotion that colours the fabric of public school life. i remember a house master once saying that it was impossible for a member of a house side to do much work while the house matches were in progress. and, as the house matches covered a period of six weeks, this was a pretty generous allowance. at the same time the house master only spoke the truth: it was practically impossible to do much work during the house matches term; we could think of little else. every evening we would discuss at considerable length the afternoon's punt-about and the morrow's match. we would devise schemes for the better outwitting of our opponents. we would discuss the weakness and strength of individual players. and the majority of masters, certainly of house masters, shared this fervour. it is true that a certain house master, when presented with the excuse for an indifferent prose that house matches were too exciting, remarked: 'i don't know whom they excite, they don't excite me.' but this assertion was belied by his subsequent behaviour on the touchline. during house matches there is an educational moratorium. in peace time the energies and interests of a nation are directed into a thousand different channels, but in war time every interest is secondary to that of war. and, while house matches are in progress, the atmosphere of a house is not unlike that of a nation that is at war. individual members may have their private troubles, but they realise that these troubles are of small account at such a time. and, though it is no doubt admirable for the individual to feel himself of less importance than the community, it will hardly be conceded that self-negation in such a cause is likely to prove of any very permanent value to him. now there are those who will urge that boy nature cannot be altered, that it is natural for a boy to worship games, and that you cannot expect him to be otherwise. but that i shall never believe is so. for myself, i know that i play cricket and football as keenly as i did seven years ago, that i spend a great many evenings with a wisden in my hands; but that i manage to get through a fair amount of work between each january and december. that is not in itself a fair argument. one cannot arraign the enthusiasms of sixteen before the enthusiasms of twenty-three any more than one can arraign the enthusiasms of twenty-three before those of forty. there is no more fallacious argument than the 'when you have reached my age, young man.' at different stages of our life we are vexed by different problems. at twenty-three our sexual life is of vast importance; it stretches before us, a wide field for courage, enterprise, adventure. in the man of forty, curiosity has been satisfied. he has settled many of the problems that perplexed him when he was a young man. and he says: 'my dear fellow, all this that is worrying you does not really matter.' but he is wrong. it does matter to a young man of twenty. and nothing is trivial that has ever exercised deeply the human spirit. in a world that is in flux the permanence or impermanence of any emotion is of less matter than its intensity while it lasts. sooner or later everything must desert us. is the brain a useless possession because it will one day soften. are teeth less efficacious now because one day they will decay. is a young man of twenty going to listen to the impotent man of sixty who mutters: 'young man, the charms of woman are a snare and an illusion. when you have reached my age you will be no longer moved by them.' for that is where the 'when you are my age, young man,' argument finally lands us. and it is not fair to say to a boy of seventeen: 'this mad excitement about games is absurd. in six years even you will have outgrown it.' it is for us to decide whether this mad excitement is the natural expression of a boy's temperament, or whether it is the peculiar growth of a peculiar environment. i will take as an example sandhurst as it was in the autumn of 1916. it was composed almost entirely of boys straight from the public schools, and i should imagine that the average age of a company was about eighteen, the age, that is to say, at which most of them would have been about to start on their last year. they brought with them the standards of public school life. one would have expected them to establish their standards at sandhurst. they did nothing of the sort. there was nothing that bore the least approach to a blood system. there were seniors and juniors, that was all. there was no fierce cult of athleticism. the g.c. who scored tries in company matches was not granted a general permission to drive his bayonet through college furniture. in the daily life games played a prominent part. indeed, the under officer whose company did not make use of the ground allotted to it would have had to face an unpleasant half-hour with the commandant. but games never became the business of life. they were played for their own sake. they were untouched by professionalism. if a three-quarter missed a pass five yards from the line he did not bury himself in a far corner of the anteroom, apart from the gaiety of his companions. the average company side played just as keenly as a house fifteen at school. while we were on the field we were as desperately anxious to win. but we did not spend the morning in a state of nervous irritation, nor did the issue of the contests drive us to deep despondency, or to hysterical elation. a certain intensity had passed. yet i do not think that ever before had i derived such pleasure from the actual playing of the game as i did at sandhurst. one would not, of course, hold up a military institution as the model for an educational system. but, from the point of view of athletics, the sandhurst that i knew in the winter of 1916 and the spring of 1917 possessed all the merits and none of the faults that one associates with the average public school. and yet that sandhurst was composed of the same boys that a few months earlier had, at their public schools, rigidly observed the exacting ritual of the great god of sport. reasons for this change are not difficult to find, and it may be noticed that they are in line with the improvements suggested in an earlier chapter. there is no blood system, because there is little disparity of age between the g.c.'s. juniors belong to a lower caste than the seniors, but they inhabit that lower world without worrying much about what is happening in the superior world. contact between the two is not established. there is a hard dividing line. a junior may not sit on a certain side of the anteroom. there is no social fluidity. one is one thing or the other. athletic worship in school was due largely, i suggested, to the absence of any other focus for a boy's enthusiasm. at sandhurst several such focuses were provided. to begin with, the work was interesting. the morning was not a mere succession of tiresome hours relieved by a quarter of an hour's break. the g.c. did not listen to lectures and tactics with the listless condescension that he had paid formerly to the greek syntax; he realised that the knowledge of the subjects he was studying would be of practical value to him at a later date. he was anxious to be a good officer. he was, therefore, interested in his work. he was also at sandhurst for a very little while. he regarded sandhurst quite definitely as the anteroom to a career; he never imagined it to be anything else. in a few months he would have joined his regiment. the honours he won at sandhurst would be of little value in themselves, and were only worth the gaining in as far as they would enhance the reputation which he would take with him to his regiment. a sandhurst cadet was always looking beyond the present. nor did the officers in charge of companies feel any compunction to prescribe athleticism as an antidote to immorality. in the first place, they were not responsible for the g.c.'s moral welfare, nor was there, indeed, any occasion for alarm. the amount of immoral conduct between g.c.'s, if there was any, must have been extremely small. such conduct is essentially _faute de mieux_: women were abundantly available for those who wanted them. and in a town such as camberley there were endless opportunities for innocent romance. the three main causes for athleticism were removed, and in consequence there was no athleticism. now it is obviously impossible for all these conditions to be introduced into a public school. there must be a disparity of age, schoolmasters must feel some anxiety about the morals of the boys that are to be entrusted to them. but, if we can show that the complete removal of certain conditions of public school life can entirely remove certain evils, we can only assume that the modification of these conditions would cause considerable improvement. the smaller the disparity of age between the eldest and the youngest boy, the less intense will be the blood system. the shorter the period that a boy spends at school, the less will be the tendency to regard school life as the complete compass of his life. the supply of another focus for a boy's enthusiasm will diminish the strength of his athletic ardour. the greater the honesty in tackling the moral question, the less will masters feel themselves forced to recommend athleticism as an antidote to immorality. and these changes are, i believe, possible without altering appreciably the principle of public school education. the supply of other focuses may, at first glance, seem a highly difficult job. it may, indeed, be advanced that were there another focus, athleticism could not exist in its present state, and that there would be no need for a reduction of the age limit. but i am inclined to think that it would be hardly possible to run any school which contained boys of thirteen and boys of nineteen and not have a blood system and an athletic worship. the forces of a natural inclination are too strongly entrenched behind the barricade of six years. the masters do not stand a fair chance. but the weakening of one force means the strengthening of another. a lowering of the barricade by a couple of years would give the other side a chance of contending equally. the moment a boy realised that the prizes of school life had only a temporary value, he would question his blind devotion to the religion of athleticism. he would wonder whether other things were not worth while. his allegiance would be divided. but the passing of regulations cannot in themselves effect a reformation. they can be of great assistance; they can support and they can protect. they cannot build. and, in the study of public school life, we have to return in the end to the point from which we started. boys and parents and schoolmasters must meet on a common ground and discuss their mutual welfare. they can do nothing till they are honest with each other, till they face the facts together. when they had once done that they would not find the road hopelessly barricaded. the solutions that i have, from time to time, suggested in these chapters, would, i believe, prove beneficial. but it is as a statement of facts, an analysis of certain conditions, tendencies, and lines of thought, that i would chiefly submit this book to the consideration of parents and schoolmasters and those others who are interested in these questions. for nothing can be done till the conspiracy of silence, the policy of evasion and self-deception, the diplomacy of the merchant and his goods is broken down, till, that is to say, parents and schoolmasters meet on the common ground of co-operation, till they can look each other in the face and say: 'things are so, and it is for us to find a remedy.' glasgow: w. collins sons and co. ltd. some new publications _from_ messrs collins' list published from their london offices, 48 pall mall, s.w. note.--_messrs collins will always be pleased to send lists of their forthcoming books to any one who will send name and address._ old england bernard gilbert royal 8vo, cloth, 20/net a god's-eye view of a village. this book is unique in english literature both in conception and treatment. the author presents a whole community to the reader, taking for his subject our largest social unit--an english village--where everybody knows everything about every one. he has taken a typical village during one day of the war and given a camera obscura presentment of the multitudinous intrigues, ambitions, desires, disputes, relationships, and interests which thread its fabric so closely. there is no hero or heroine, for the author presents some hundreds of characters, each all important to himself. these speak their own thoughts, throw startling sidelights on their neighbours; and from the whole, a picture of a village community takes definite shape. the author has snapped his village at one instant on one day, so that there is no 'action.' the village is frozen motionless whilst the reader inspects each inhabitant. there is no sentimentalism, no 'kailyard' gloss; the villagers expressing themselves with immense force from the earl to the mole-catcher. mr gilbert has done intensely for the english countryside what balzac did for his nation on a great scale. not only is each of the great array of characters set forth vividly, but the larger problems of the countryside are illuminated from various angles. a map of the village shows every cottage, some fifty genealogical trees explain the relationships of the villagers, and a 'who's who' gives full information about each inhabitant. the author has taken three years to write this book, and it is the fruit of a life-time's close observation. all who were born in the country or have any interest in rural life and problems must be interested in _old england_. the carpenter and his kingdom dr alexander irvine crown 8vo, cloth, 7/6 net dr irvine has already secured a very high place in the affections of the people of this country through his books, _my lady of the chimney corner_ and _the souls of poor folk_. _the carpenter and his kingdom_, as the name denotes, is a life of christ, a re-interpretation of his life as seen by a very simple yet very subtle, very human yet very wise idealist and christian. no writer on social tendencies after the war has failed to point out the great loss of prestige suffered by the churches. speaking broadly, they are regarded with a disinterested tolerance almost amounting to contempt by the great majority of people, and this attitude has as its general effect a marked decrease in 'belief' in christianity. dr irvine's book may prove a very real antidote to that progressive agnosticism, for he still believes that the life of christ is the greatest example mankind has ever been given, and that the influence of his message is vastly greater than that of any other single influence in history. but to show that he has to draw a new picture of christ emphasising his humanity as well as his divinity, and make his teaching intelligible to a society still hardly approaching convalescence after a prolonged and virulent disease. it is an original, beautiful, and timely book. a london mosaic w. l. george small crown 4to, cloth 15/net. illustrations by p. forbes-robertson a series of brilliant satirical sketches of london places and london people by one of the most popular novelists of the day. mr george is always interesting and his point of view original and challenging. he knows london intimately and loves her well, but his affection does not blunt his critical sense. to go with him to the café royal and listen as he points out and discusses the great ones sitting therein; to follow him on his pilgrimage 'in search of vice'; to accompany him to theatre or music hall, are most amusing and instructive experiences which no lover of london should miss. mr philippe forbes-robertson's illustrations perfectly interpret the mood of the book. south with scott capt. e. r. g. r. evans c.b., d.s.o., r.n. demy 8vo, cloth, 10/6 net with photogravure portrait of captain evans captain evans was second in command of the british antarctic expedition commanded by captain scott, and took over captain scott's position as leader after his death. it will be remembered that, during the war, captain evans was in command of h.m.s. _broke_, which, together with h.m.s. _swift_, engaged six german destroyers, sinking two and torpedoing a third. it is an interesting, intimate, racy, and absorbing account of the expedition compressed into a comparatively small compass, and fully brings out the intense difficulties the expedition had to face, the heroism displayed by every member of the party, and the magnificent scientific results obtained. labour: the giant with the feet of clay shaw desmond demy 8vo, cloth, 10/6 net mr shaw desmond is very well known as a versatile writer and as a great champion of the labour cause. his book, therefore, is of singular interest at the present time. it is a critical and sympathetic analysis of the labour movement from the inside, by a man who, after being a member of the labour party for fourteen years, is frankly disillusioned. in what amounts to a sweeping but reasoned indictment, the writer shows the 'feet of clay' of the labour movement, and claims that though outwardly united the movement is split from crown to heel by fundamentally opposed ideals, tactics, and objectives, that it might collapse at any moment, and that such 'success' as has been obtained has been purchased at the price of principle. in so doing he gives many vivid and revealing portraits of great labour figures of the last generation, from keir hardie to rosa luxemburg, 'the red tigress.' the book is not merely destructive, the latter portion is given over to a constructive examination of the problems facing democracy with a very interesting foreshadowing of what the writer calls 'the new democracy' or 'the spiritual democracy.' he shows not only how labour may set its house in order but how the house of society itself may be saved from that 'unrest' which is slowly destroying it. mr desmond's writing is at once stimulating and suggestive, instructive and illuminating, and will certainly be widely discussed. the island of youth edward shanks author of _the queen of china_, _the people of the ruins_, etc. small crown 8vo, cloth, 5/net _the island of youth_ is the fourth volume of verse by a poet whose powers have been steadily maturing. two years ago mr shanks's _the queen of china_ won the hawthornden prize, and the present volume contains all the poems he has since written. it contains one long poem, a beautiful idyll in blank verse, and a number of short poems. mr shanks's language is refreshingly pure and his rhythm refreshingly musical, in an age which has made many attempts to glorify gibberish and raucous discord. he is, as all good poets must be, at once original and in the stream of national tradition, and in no respect more traditional than in his affection for and knowledge of the english landscape which has breathed its fragrance into so much of our great poetry in all ages. those who know his previous books, or the selections from them in _georgian poetry_, do not need to be told this, and those unacquainted with mr shanks's previous work can be most emphatically assured that they will not be disappointed in _the island of youth_. it is one of those books familiarity with which breeds an ever deepening admiration and love. ibsen and his creation janko lavrin crown 8vo, cloth, 7/6 net this is a further contribution to 'psycho-criticism' by mr janko lavrin, whose able study of dostoevsky was so favourably received. his aim is to present a new and original solution of the central problem of ibsen, and to show how ibsen's individual psychological conflict is worked out in his plays. mr lavrin reveals in a new light the great significance of ibsen as a representative of modern consciousness, and in so doing illuminates not only ibsen's dilemma but also our own. last studies in criminology h. b. irving demy 8vo, cloth, 15/net. with photogravure portrait of h. b. irving with the death of h. b. irving one of the most remarkable figures of the english stage disappeared, for not only was he an actor of great merit, but a man of very versatile mental attainments. his bent was always towards criminological study, and his various studies in crime and criminals are familiar to many readers. these, the last of his essays, will be read with great attention. they are mainly studies of persons accused but not convicted of crime, men such as adolph beck; and the element of uncertainty that attaches to so many of these cases gives them an added point of interest for so subtle and penetrating a mind as that of the late mr h. b. irving. from waterloo to the marne count pietro orsi small crown 4to, cloth, 15/net this is a book which should be read by all those who wish to arrive at an accurate knowledge of the causes and condition which led up to and provoked the great world war of 1914-1918, and are responsible for the world unrest of to-day. the author, the well-known italian professor of international history, describes in this book, clearly and logically, the rise, the ebb and flow of the international democratic spirit which floods the world of to-day. he shows the nexus which unites all races and nations of the world into one coherent whole, and traces with admirable clarity the birth, life, and struggles of that desire for popular liberty which first penetrated into every corner of europe with the armies of the great napoleon. it is a compendium of the history of each country of the world, and should be read by each student who not only wishes to familiarise himself with the history of the last century of his own country, but desires also to gain a solid acquaintance of that of the remaining countries of the globe. the arrangement of the book is excellent and original; the libraries of every nation have been ransacked for its compilation, and the work, without being in the least degree scrappy, gives all the salient points of universal history. this historical encyclopedia should be in the hands of every thinking man. the riddle of the rhine victor lefebure demy 8vo, 10/6 net this book establishes beyond any shadow of doubt the importance of chemical warfare in the recent war and its supreme significance for the future. it shows, in addition, the intimate connection between the new war method and chemical, scientific, and industrial development. what chemical steps must be taken for national safety in an armed or disarmed world? what international disarmament measures can be taken in this field? it proves beyond refutation that if the second question remains unanswered all other disarmament measures are farcical. these general questions, although of enormous importance, were, however, all introduced by the menace and critical war activities of the german organic chemical or dye combine. this menace still exists, and can only be removed by a redistribution of the organic chemical forces of the world. a history of english furniture percy macquoid, r.i. with plates in colour after shirley slocombe, and numerous illustrations selected and arranged by the author; in four volumes: i.--the age of oak ii.--the age of walnut iii.--the age of mahogany iv.--the age of satinwood £21 net per set, or £5 5s. net per volume. size, 15 in. 11 in.; bound in red buckram, gilt. _with a new index._ the subject has been divided into four periods, the first dating from 1500 to 1660, comprising furniture that can be attributed to the renaissance, and its evolution from the gothic. the second from 1660 to 1720, when the change is varied by the restoration and dutch influence, followed by a distinctly assertive english spirit. the third period covers the introduction from france of fresh ideas in design, clearly marking another change, lasting from 1720 to 1770. the fourth, 1770-1820, which was inspired by an affectation for all things classical. while the book only purports to deal with english furniture, it is obvious that reference is freely made to foreign styles in order to keep the matter in perspective. _illustrated prospectus will be sent on application._ classics for children. tom brown at rugby by an old boy (thomas hughes). edited by clara weaver robinson. boston, u.s.a. ginn & company, publishers. 1902 entered, according to act of congress, in the year 1888, by ginn & company, in the office of the librarian of congress, at washington. all rights reserved. typography by j. s. cushing & co., boston, u.s.a. presswork by ginn & co., boston, u.s.a. introduction. in these days of zealous reform in school methods, it is well to keep in mind the true aim of all education,--the right development of character. it is important that our children acquire extensive knowledge, and sound habits of thought; it is imperative that they become honest, steadfast, and manly. dr. arnold, as head-master of rugby school, was eminently successful in attaining this object. in "tom brown's school days," mr. hughes has caught, and immortalized, the spirit of his old teacher's work. while the book emphasizes the peculiar moral earnestness of dr. arnold's pupils, it is free from all suspicion of cant. those who enjoy its pages should read also dean stanley's admirable life of the great schoolmaster. we trust that it will be many years before we cease to read the life of mr. hughes in his daily works of goodwill to his fellow-men. the notes have been prepared for children in the grammar school, as explained in mr. ginn's preface to the "lady of the lake," in this series. a few passages have been omitted from the original text, in the belief that it will thus be better adapted for the use of american schoolboys; and the typographical errors of former editions have been corrected. n. l. r. canton, n.y., _october_ 20, 1888. contents. part i. chapter i. the brown family 1 chapter ii. the "veast" 24 chapter iii. sundry wars and alliances 49 chapter iv. the stage coach 73 chapter v. rugby and foot-ball 92 chapter vi. after the match 118 chapter vii. settling to the collar 139 chapter viii. the war of independence 163 chapter ix. a chapter of accidents 189 part ii. chapter i. how the tide turned 215 chapter ii. the new boy 230 chapter iii. arthur makes a friend 246 chapter iv. the bird-fanciers 264 chapter v. the fight 281 chapter vi. fever in the school 303 chapter vii. harry east's dilemmas and deliverances 324 chapter viii. tom brown's last match 343 chapter ix. finis 370 index to notes 381 thomas hughes. thomas hughes is a native of the royal county of berkshire, england. from the nursery windows of the old farmhouse in uffington, where he was born, in 1823, he delighted in looking out on that famous white horse hill which he describes in the opening chapters of "tom brown's school days." his father was such an english squire as he represents tom's father to be, and his grandfather was vicar of the parish, and therefore a man of a good deal of local influence. when a child, young hughes must have become familiar with the old parish church, which dates almost from the time of william the conqueror, and which has within it some roman brickwork which carries one back to the days when agricola's legions were building walled towns in britain. thus the lad's earliest recollections would naturally be of these two landmarks--the ivy-grown church, with its twenty and more generations buried round it, and the great chalk hill whose rudely carved white horse can be seen gleaming in the sunshine full ten miles away, just as it did when alfred the great cut it to commemorate his victory over the northmen a thousand years ago. thomas had a brother george, who was a little older than he, and who was his opposite in many respects. from him he learned many lessons which helped to shape his after life. george was quick to turn his hand to anything, and a lover of all out-door sports; if they had a spice of danger in them, so much the better. thomas, on the other hand, was naturally both awkward and timid; the sound of a gun frightened him; and a pet pony soon found that, while george was his master, he was thomas's, and meant to keep so. thomas was ashamed of what he called his two left hands, with which he never seemed to get the right hold of anything the first time. he was still more ashamed of his timidity. that feeling of fear he could not prevent. eventually, however, he did better; he so mastered it that he could bravely face what he feared, so making duty stand him in the stead of that mere physical courage, which is often but another name for insensibility to danger. when he reached the age of seven he went to twyford to school. here he found how easy it is to get a nickname, and how hard it is to get rid of it. one of his first lessons related to greek literature and to the history of cadmus, who was said to have "first carried letters from asia to greece." instead of asking the question in the book, the master demanded, "what was cadmus?" this new way of questioning disconcerted the class, who were prepared to tell who cadmus was, but not what he was. but young hughes, remembering the letter-carrier at uffington, suddenly jumped up and shouted out, "i can tell! cadmus was a postman, sir!" from that day the boy was christened "cadmus" by his companions, a name which, for convenience' sake, was soon shortened to "cad,"--a particularly aggravating abbreviation, since in england a "cad" is the exact opposite of a gentleman. then all sorts of ingenious and mischievous changes were rung on it until poor "cadmus" was in a fair way of being driven wild with torment. wherever he went the walls echoed with the jeering cry. but luckily for him his brother george happened to hear a big fellow teasing the lad, and rushing up with clenched fist and blazing eyes, thrashed the bully so soundly that after that thomas enjoyed entire immunity from the objectionable title. after about three years at twyford, the two brothers were sent to the school at rugby, then under the mastership of doctor arnold, who proved himself to be the ablest teacher in england; not because he taught his boys more than any other educator, but because more than any other he awakened in them the true spirit of manhood. "tom brown's school days" is a record of the eight happy years that the lads spent under the doctor's influence. from rugby they went to oxford, where thomas hughes graduated at oriel college in 1845. the timid "cadmus" of twyford not only passed through rugby with credit to himself in foot-ball, in greek verses, and in the manly art of self-defence, but he got a "double first" at oxford--that is, the highest honors in the mathematics and the classics--and was elected captain of the 'varsity crew and captain of the university eleven at cricket as well. it was while young hughes was at oriel that the corn law agitation reached its height. a heavy duty on all imported grain had made bread so dear that thousands of english workmen, with their families, were brought to the verge of starvation. john bright earnestly espoused their cause and urged parliament to repeal a tax that enriched a few at the expense of a suffering multitude. elliott, the "corn law rhymer," stirred the feelings of the masses with his impassioned appeals in verse, so that all over the country hollow-cheeked artisans were repeating the lines,- "england! what for mine and me, what hath bread-tax done for thee? * * * * * cursed thy harvest, cursed thy land, hunger-stung thy skill'd right hand." thomas hughes became a convert to the liberal movement, which shortly after succeeded in repealing a tariff that had been the cause of such wide-spread misery. from that day his sympathies have always been with those classes who are called to earn the least and endure the most; and when in 1848 he was admitted to the bar at lincoln's inn, london, he had got the name of being a radical and a reformer in politics--a name, then, rather more dreadful to steady-going, conservative english country gentlemen of the "squire brown" type than that of mad dog. but long before this the young man had got over his dread of opprobrious names, and his fear of those who have nothing harder to hurl. with a few other resolute spirits he set himself to work to organize those joint-stock industries and business enterprises which have since developed into the colossal co-operative stores of london and the cotton mills of oldham, representing many millions of capital, the combined savings of thrifty artisans and other persons of small means. in all this, mr. hughes's avowed object has been "to make england the best place for workingmen to live in that the sun ever shone upon." whether that can be done or not in this age of the world is certainly open to question, but it is equally certain that there can be no possible harm in making the attempt. that the workingmen have appreciated the effort is evident from the fact that they elected mr. hughes to parliament in 1865. it is said that ordinarily the expense of getting into the house of commons--an unpaid body--averages about $75,000, which the candidate or his friends must be prepared to spend. but in lambeth, a district of london, inhabited almost wholly by poor men, two hundred of mr. hughes's admirers came forward and worked night and day without receiving a single shilling of any man's money, solely with the determination of seeing their candidate succeed. since then, the writer of "tom brown's school days" would certainly have broken down from overwork if he had not been, as he says, an "angular saxon" and a muscular christian as well. during his nine years' pull in the political harness he earned the double honor of helping forward the cause of the people and at the same time he so won the regard of the crown that he received the appointment of queen's counsel. while member of parliament mr. hughes was likewise carrying on a large and lucrative law practice, acting as president of the workingmen's college, which he was instrumental in founding; serving as referee in disputes between manufacturers and their employees in such a way as to get the respect and good-will of both; serving also as director in co-operative banks, coal mines, cotton mills, machine shops, grocery stores, land and building associations; besides being chief manager of the crystal palace company, and colonel in a volunteer rifle corps. yet well known as mr. hughes is for his manifold political and philanthropic services, he is still better known by his books. though with him literature has been rather a recreation than a vocation, yet his fame seems destined to rest on it, and especially on his "tom brown," which has been pronounced "the best description of public school life that ever has been, or is ever likely to be, written." this famous work, published in 1858, was followed the next year by "the scouring of the white horse," a story of his favorite white horse hill. three years later came "tom brown at oxford," then "the life of alfred the great," and lastly his "memoirs of a brother" and his "manliness of christ," besides scores, if not hundreds, of magazine and review articles and letters to london and american papers. in 1870 mr. hughes made the tour of this country, receiving such a welcome from his many friends as "tom brown" was sure to get from both old and young. ten years afterward he undertook to establish an english colony in the cumberland mountains of east tennessee. it was called rugby, and it was founded in the hope that it might be useful to many educated young men of good families who could find no opening worthy of their powers at home. as he said, "of the many sad sights in england there is none sadder than this, of first-rate human material going helplessly to waste, and in too many cases beginning to sour and taint, instead of strengthening the national life." a hundred years before, franklin had expressed the same conviction in his pithy maxim, "'tis hard for an empty bag to stand upright." it was to fill these vacant lives with honest work and its rewards that thomas hughes started his emigration to the wilds of tennessee. there, co-operation was to be tried in farming, cattle-raising, lumbering, and trade, thus saving the community of workers from that "infinite terror of not making money," which carlyle declared was the only thing that now stirred deep fear in the souls of his countrymen. many an ardent young man fresh from the old rugby of "tom brown" fame fondly hoped that the new, western rugby might enable him to say with tennyson's "northern farmer," as he listened to the music of his horse's hoofs on the road home from market,- "proputty, proputty, proputty,--that's what i 'ears 'em saäy"; but, unfortunately, the "proputty" will not always come even at the bidding of hard work and active brains. the tennessee enterprise has not commanded success, though doubtless, as addison would say, it has done better--it has deserved it. since the inauguration of the movement mr. hughes has been appointed county judge of cheshire, and now makes his home in the quaint old town of chester, the county seat. he is verging on the limit of that threescore and ten which the psalmist allotted as the measure of human life. few men in our day can look back over a busier or more fruitful career. the awkward and timid boy has shown the world what rare force of self-conquest, of persevering growth, of grappling with difficulties, and of successful achievement was to come out of that unpromising beginning. because of this, we are all debtors to the author of "tom brown"; not only for his books, but still more because we see that these books are the frank expression of a brave, earnest, and untiring spirit. d. h. m. tom brown's school days. _part i._ chapter i. the brown family. "i'm the poet of white horse vale, sir, with liberal notions under my cap."--_ballad._ the browns have become illustrious by the pen of thackeray and the pencil of doyle,[1] within the memory of the young gentlemen who are now matriculating[2] at the universities. notwithstanding the well-merited but late fame which has now fallen upon them, any one at all acquainted with the family must feel that much has yet to be written and said before the british nation will be properly sensible of how much of its greatness it owes to the browns. for centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, they have been subduing the earth in most english counties, and leaving their mark in american forests and australian uplands. wherever the fleets and armies of england have won renown, there stalwart sons of the browns have done yeomen's[3] work. with the yew bow and cloth-yard shaft[4] at cressy and agincourt[5]--with the brown bill[6] and pike under the brave lord willoughby--with culverin and demi-culverin[7] against spaniards and dutchmen--with hand-grenade[8] and sabre, and musket and bayonet, under rodney[9] and st. vincent, wolfe and moore, nelson and wellington, they have carried their lives in their hands; getting hard knocks and hard work in plenty, which was, on the whole, what they looked for, and the best thing for them; and little praise or pudding, which indeed they, and most of us, are better without. talbots[10] and stanleys, st. maurs, and such-like folk have led armies and made laws time out of mind; but those noble families would be somewhat astounded--if the accounts ever came to be fairly taken--to find how small their work for england has been by the side of that of the browns. [1] #doyle#: an english artist noted for his humorous and satirical designs. [2] #matriculating#: entering. [3] #yeomen#: small independent farmers. they have generally constituted the best part of the english army. [4] #cloth-yard shaft#: an arrow a yard in length. [5] #cressy and agincourt#: english victories over the french in 1346 and 1415. [6] #bill#: a combined spear and battle-axe. [7] #culverin and demi-culverin#: ancient forms of cannon. [8] #hand-grenade#: a kind of bomb or shell thrown by hand. [9] #rodney#, etc.: famous english naval and military commanders. [10] #talbots#, etc.: noted family names of the english nobility. these latter, indeed, have until the present generation rarely been sung by poet, or chronicled by sage. they have wanted their "sacer vates,"[11] having been too solid to rise to the top by themselves, and not having been largely gifted with the talent of catching hold of, and holding on tight to, whatever good things happened to be going--the foundation of the fortunes of so many noble families. but the world goes on its way, and the wheel turns, and the wrongs of the browns, like other wrongs, seem in a fair way to get righted. and this present writer, having for many years of his life been a devout brown-worshipper, and moreover having the honor of being nearly connected with an eminently respectable branch of the great brown family, is anxious, so far as in him lies, to help the wheel over, and throw his stone[12] on to the pile. [11] #"sacer vates"#: inspired bard or poet. [12] #throw his stone#, etc.: help to build their cairn or monument. the brown character. however, gentle reader, or simple reader, whichever you may be, lest you should be led to waste your precious time upon these pages, i make so bold as at once to tell you the sort of folk you'll have to meet and put up with, if you and i are to jog on comfortably together. you shall hear at once what sort of folk the browns are, at least my branch of them; and then if you don't like the sort, why cut the concern at once, and let you and i cry quits before either of us can grumble at the other. in the first place, the browns are a fighting family. one may question their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question. wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are going, there the brown who is nearest must shove in his carcass. and these carcasses for the most part answer very well to the characteristic propensity; they are a square-headed and snake-necked generation, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest, and thin in the flank, carrying no lumber. then for clanship,[13] they are as bad as highlanders; it is amazing the belief they have in one another. with them there is nothing like the browns, to the third and fourth generation. "blood is thicker than water," is one of their pet sayings. they can't be happy unless they are always meeting one another. never was such people for family gatherings, which, were you a stranger, or sensitive, you might think had better not have been gathered together. for during the whole time of their being together they luxuriate in telling one another their minds on whatever subject turns up; and their minds are wonderfully antagonistic, and all their opinions are downright beliefs. till you've been among them some time and understand them, you can't think but that they are quarrelling. not a bit of it; they love and respect one another ten times the more after a good set family arguing bout,[14] and go back, one to his curacy,[15] another to his chambers,[16] and another to his regiment, freshened for work, and more than ever convinced that the browns are the height of company. [13] #clanship#: here, the holding together of a class, tribe, or family. [14] #bout#: contest. [15] #curacy#: parish. [16] #chambers#: law offices. this family training, too, combined with their turn for combativeness, makes them eminently quixotic.[17] they can't let anything alone which they think going wrong. they must speak their mind about it, annoying all easy-going folk; and spend their time and money in having a tinker at it, however hopeless the job. it is an impossibility to a brown to leave the most disreputable lame dog on the other side of a stile. most other folk get tired of such work. the old browns, with red faces, white whiskers, and bald heads, go on believing and fighting to a green old age. they have always a crotchet[18] going, till the old man with a scythe[19] reaps and garners them away for troublesome old boys as they are. and the most provoking thing is, that no failures knock them up, or make them hold their hands, or think you, or me, or other sane people in the right. failures slide off them like july rain off a duck's back feathers. jem and his whole family turn out bad, and cheat them one week, and the next they are doing the same thing for jack; and when he goes to the treadmill,[20] and his wife and children to the workhouse, they will be on the look-out for bill to take his place. [17] #quixotic#: romantic or visionary [18] #crotchet#: whim, notion, "hobby." [19] #old man with a scythe#: father time. [20] #treadmill#: a wheel on which prisoners were formerly compelled to work. tom brown's birthplace. however, it is time for us to get from the general to the particular; so, leaving the great army of browns, who are scattered over the whole empire on which the sun never sets, and whose general diffusion i take to be the chief cause of that empire's stability, let us at once fix our attention upon the small nest of browns in which our hero was hatched, and which dwelt in that portion of the royal county of berks,[21] which is called the vale of white horse. [21] #berks#: berkshire, a county west of london. it is called "royal" because it is the seat of windsor castle. the vale of the white horse gets its name from the gigantic image of a horse cut through the turf in the side of a chalk hill. tradition says it was done over a thousand year ago, to commemorate a great victory over the danes by alfred. most of you have probably travelled down the great western railway as far as swindon. those of you who did so with your eyes open have been aware, soon after leaving the didcot station, of a fine range of chalk hills running parallel with the railway on the left-hand side as you go down, and distant some two or three miles, more or less, from the line. the highest point in the range is the white horse hill, which you come in front of just before you stop at the shrivenham station. if you love english scenery and have a few hours to spare, you can't do better, the next time you pass, than stop at the farringdon road or shrivenham station, and make your way to that highest point. and those who care for the vague old stories that haunt country-sides all about england, will not, if they are wise, be content with only a few hours' stay; for, glorious as the view is, the neighborhood is yet more interesting for its relics of by-gone times. i only know two english neighborhoods thoroughly, and in each, within a circle of five miles, there is enough of interest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. i believe this to be the case almost throughout the country, but each has a special attraction, and none can be richer than the one i am speaking of and going to introduce you to very particularly; for on this subject i must be prosy; so those that don't care for england in detail may skip the chapter. the old boy mourneth over young england. o young england! young england! you who are born into these racing railroad times, when there's a great exhibition, or some monster sight every year, and you can get over a couple of thousand miles of ground for three pound ten,[22] in a five weeks' holiday, why don't you know more of your own birthplaces? you're all in the ends of the earth it seems to me, as soon as you get your necks out of the educational collar for midsummer holidays, long vacations, or what not. going round ireland, with a return ticket, in a fortnight; dropping your copies of tennyson on the tops of swiss mountains; or pulling down the danube in oxford racing-boats. and when you get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the steam off, and lie on your backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by the last batch of books from mudie's library, and half bored to death. [22] #three pound ten# (shillings): the english shilling is about twenty five cents, and the pound may be called five dollars. well, well! i know it has its good side. you all patter french more or less, and perhaps german; you have seen men and cities, no doubt, and have your opinions, such as they are, about schools of painting, high art, and all that; have seen the pictures at dresden[23] and the louvre,[24] and know the taste of sauer-kraut.[25] all i say is, you don't know your own lanes and woods and fields. though you may be chock-full of science, not one in twenty of you knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or bee-orchis,[26] which grows in the next wood or on the down[27] three miles off, or what the bog-bean and wood-sage are good for. and as for the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farm-houses, the place where the last skirmish was fought in the civil wars,[28] where the parish butts[29] stood, where the last highwayman turned to bay, where the last ghost was laid[30] by the parson, they're gone out of date altogether. [23] #dresden#: a city of germany, noted for its treasures of art. [24] #the louvre#: an ancient palace in paris, containing vast collections of sculptures and paintings. [25] #sauer-kraut#: a german dish, prepared from cabbage. [26] #bee-orchis# (orkis): a wild-flower resembling a bee. [27] #down#: a barren hill of chalk or sand. [28] #civil wars#: those between parliament and king charles i., in the seventeenth century. [29] #butts#: targets for archery practice. before the invention of gunpowder they were set up by law in every parish. [30] #laid#: dispelled by religious ceremonies. now, in my time, when we got home by the old coach, which put us down at the cross-roads with our boxes, the first day of the holidays, and had been driven off by the family coachman, singing "dulce domum"[31] at the top of our voices, there we were, fixtures, till black monday[32] came round. we had to cut out our own amusements within a walk or a ride of home. and so we got to know all the country folk, and their ways and songs and stories, by heart; and went over the fields and woods and hills again and again, till we made friends of them all. we were berkshire, or gloucestershire, or yorkshire boys: and you're young cosmopolites,[33] belonging to all counties and no countries. no doubt it's all right; i dare say it is. this is the day of large views and glorious humanity, and all that; but i wish backsword play[34] hadn't gone out in the vale of white horse, and that that confounded great western hadn't carried away alfred's hill to make an embankment. [31] #dulce domum#: sweet home. [32] #black monday#: the end of the holidays. vales in general. but to return to the said vale of white horse, the country in which the first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid. as i said, the great western now runs right through it, and it is a land of large rich pastures, bounded by ox-fences, and covered with fine hedgerow timber, with here and there a nice little gorse[35] or spinney,[36] where abideth poor charley,[37] having no other cover[38] to which to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed out some fine november morning by the old berkshire.[39] those who have been there, and well mounted, only know how he and the staunch little pack who dash after him--heads high and sterns low, with a breast-high scent--can consume the ground at such times. there being little plow-land, and few woods, the vale is only an average sporting country, except for hunting. the villages are straggling, queer old-fashioned places, the houses being dropped down without the least regularity, in nooks and out-of-the-way corners, by the sides of shadowy lanes and footpaths, each with its patch of garden. they are built chiefly of good gray-stone and thatched;[40] though i see that within the last year or two the red brick cottages are multiplying, for the vale is beginning to manufacture largely both bricks and tiles. there are lots of waste ground by the side of the roads in every village, amounting often to village greens, where feed the pigs and ganders of the people; and these roads are old-fashioned, homely roads very dirty and badly made, and hardly endurable in winter, but pleasant jog-trot roads, running through the great pasture lands, dotted here and there with little clumps of thorns, where the sleek kine are feeding, with no fence on either side of them, and a gate at the end of each field, which makes you get out of your gig (if you keep one), and gives you a chance of looking about you every quarter of a mile. [33] #cosmopolites#: citizens of the world at large, familiar with all countries. [34] #backsword play#: the game of single-stick, or fencing with cudgels. [35] #gorse#: a thick, prickly, evergreen shrub, which grows wild and bears beautiful yellow flowers. [36] #spinney#: a small grove filled with undergrowth. [37] #charley#: a fox. [38] #cover#: a retreat, or hiding-place. [39] #old berkshire#: an association of hunters. [40] #thatched#: roofed with straw or reeds. one of the moralists whom we sat under in our youth--was it the great richard swiveller,[41] or mr. stiggins?[42] says, "we are born in a vale, and must take the consequences of being found in such a situation." these consequences, i for one am ready to encounter. i pity people who wern't born in a vale. i don't mean a flat country, but a vale; that is, a flat country bounded by hills. the having your hill _always_ in view, if you choose to turn toward him, that's the essence of a vale. there he is forever in the distance, your friend and companion; you never lose him as you do in hilly districts. [41] #richard swiveller#: a jolly character who lives by his wits. see dickens's "old curiosity shop." [42] #mr. stiggins#: a hypocritical parson. see dickens's "pickwick papers." the old roman camp. and then what a hill is the white horse hill! there it stands right above all the rest, nine hundred feet above the sea, and the boldest, bravest shape for a chalk hill that you ever saw. let us go up to the top of him, and see what is to be found there. ay, you may well wonder, and think it odd you never heard of this before; but, wonder or not as you please, there are hundreds of such things lying about england, which wiser folk than you know nothing of, and care nothing for. yes, it's a magnificent roman camp,[43] and no mistake, with gates, and ditch, and mounds, all as complete as it was twenty years after the strong old rogues left it. here, right up on the highest point, from which they say you can see eleven counties, they trenched round all the table-land, some twelve or fourteen acres, as was their custom, for they couldn't bear anybody to overlook them, and made their eyrie.[44] the ground falls away rapidly on all sides. was there ever such turf in the whole world? you sink up to your ankles at every step, and yet the spring of it is delicious. there is always a breeze in the "camp," as it is called and here it lies just as the romans left it, except that cairn,[45] on the east side, left by her majesty's corps of sappers and miners[46] the other day, when they and the engineer officer had finished their sojourn there, and their surveys for the ordnance map[47] of berkshire. it is altogether a place that you won't forget--a place to open a man's soul and make him prophesy, as he looks down on that great vale spread out as the garden of the lord before him, and wave on wave of the mysterious downs behind; and to the right and left the chalk hills running away into the distance, along which he can trace for miles the old roman road, "the ridgeway" ("the rudge" as the country folk call it), keeping straight along the highest back of the hills; such a place as balak[48] brought balaam to, and told him to prophesy against the people in the valley beneath. and he could not, neither shall you, for they are a people of the lord who abide there. [43] #roman camp#: the romans, when they conquered england, about 78 a.d., built a stronghold here. [44] #eyrie#: the nest of a bird of prey; here, a gathering-place for roman soldiers. [45] #cairn#: a heap of stones set up to mark a spot. [46] #sappers and miners#: usually, soldiers employed in working on trenches and fortifications or in undermining those of an enemy; here, engaged in surveying. [47] #ordnance map#: an official or government map. [48] #balak#: see numbers xxii. battle of ashdown. and now we leave the camp, and descend toward the west, and are on the ashdown. we are treading on heroes. it is sacred ground for englishmen, more sacred than all but one or two fields where their bones lie whitening. for this is the actual place where our alfred[49] won his great battle, the battle of ashdown "æscendum" in the chroniclers), which broke the danish power, and made england a christian land. the danes held the camp and the slope where we are standing--the whole crown of the hill, in fact. "the heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground," as old asser[50] says, having wasted everything behind them from london, and being just ready to burst down on the fair vale, alfred's own birthplace and heritage. and up the heights came the saxons,[51] as they did at the alma.[52] "the christians led up their line from the lower ground. there stood also on that same spot a single thorn-tree, marvellous stumpy (which we ourselves with our very own eyes have seen)." bless the old chronicler![53] does he think nobody ever saw the "single thorn-tree" but himself? why, there it stands to this very day, just on the edge of the slope, and i saw it not three weeks since; an old single thorn-tree, "marvellous stumpy." at least, if it isn't the same tree, it ought to have been, for it's just in the place where the battle must have been won or lost--"around which, as i was saying, the two lines of foemen came together in battle with a huge shout. and in this place one of the two kings of the heathen and five of his earls fell down and died, and many thousands of the heathen side in the same place." after which crowning mercy, the pious king, that there might never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the country-side, carved out on the northern side of the chalk hill under the camp, where it is almost precipitous, the great saxon white horse, which he who will may see from the railway, and which gives its name to the vale over which it has looked these thousand years and more. [49] #alfred#: alfred the great, king of the west saxons, 871. he defeated the danes, who had overrun most of england, at ashdown, and compelled them to make a treaty of peace. he is justly considered one of the noblest and wisest of the english sovereigns; and the thousandth anniversary of his birth was celebrated in 1849, at wantage, berks. [50] #asser#: a contemporary of alfred; he wrote his life. [51] #saxons#: a name given to certain german tribes who conquered britain, in the fifth century. the name england came from the angles, a people of the same stock, who settled in the east and north of the island. from these anglo-saxons the english have in great part descended. [52] #alma#: a river in the crimea where a desperate battle was fought between the russians and the allied english and french in 1854. [53] #chronicler#: asser, from whom this is quoted. right down below the white horse is a curious deep and broad gully called "the manger," into one side of which the hills fall with a series of the most lovely sweeping curves, known as the "giant's stairs"; they are not a bit like stairs, but i never saw anything like them anywhere else, with their short green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer and thistle-down gleaming in the sun, and the sheep-paths running along their sides like ruled lines. the other side of the manger is formed by the dragon's hill, a curious little round self-confident fellow, thrown forward from the range, and utterly unlike everything round him. on this hill some deliverer of mankind--st. george[54] the country folk used to tell me--killed a dragon. whether it were st. george, i cannot say; but surely a dragon was killed there, for you may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and more by token[55] the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the hill-side. [54] #st. george#: the patron saint of england. [55] #more by token#: as a sign or proof that this is so. passing along the ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we come to a little clump of young beech and firs, with a growth of thorn and privet[56] underwood. here you may find nests of the strong down-partridge and pewit, but take care that the keeper[57] isn't down upon you; and in the middle of it is an old cromlech,[58] a huge flat stone raised on seven or eight others, and led up to by a path, with large single stones set up on each side. this is wayland smith's cave,[59] a place of classic fame now; but as sir walter[60] has touched it, i may as well let it alone, and refer you to kenilworth for the legend. [56] #privet#: a shrub much used for hedges. [57] #keeper#: the gamekeeper, a man kept on great estates to look after the game. [58] #cromlech#: a rude tomb built by the first inhabitants of britain. [59] #wayland smith's cave#: a "supernatural smith" who shod horses on payment of sixpence. [60] #sir walter#: sir walter scott. the thick deep wood which you see in the hollow, about a mile off, surrounds ashdown park, built by inigo jones.[61] four broad alleys are cut through the wood, from circumference to centre, and each leads to one face of the house. the mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes, studded with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. it was a wise lord craven,[62] i think, who pitched his tent there. [61] #inigo jones#: a celebrated architect of the 17th century. [62] #lord craven#: the owner of the estate on which the "white horse" is located. the "seven barrows" farm. passing along the ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land. the downs, strictly so called, are no more; lincolnshire farmers have been imported, and the long fresh slopes are sheep-walks[63] no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. one of these improvers lives over there at the "seven barrows"[64] farm, another mystery of the great downs. there are the barrows still, solemn and silent, like ships in the calm sea, the sepulchres of some sons of men. but of whom? it is three miles from the white horse, too far for the slain of ashdown to be buried there--who shall say what heroes are waiting there? but we must get down into the vale again, and so away by the great western railway to town, for time and the printer's devil press; and it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. at the bottom, however, there is a pleasant public,[65] whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air is provocative of thirst. so we pull up under an old oak which stands before the door. [63] #sheep-walks#: sheep pastures, for which the "downs" are much used. [64] #barrows#: ancient burial mounds. [65] #public#: a public house. the blowing stone. "what is the name of your hill, landlord?" "blawing stwun hill, sir, to be sure." [reader. "_sturm?_" author. "_stone_, stupid; the blowing _stone_."] "and of your house? i can't make out the sign." "blawing stwun, sir," says the landlord, pouring out his old ale from a toby philpot jug,[66] with a melodious crash, into the long-necked glass. "what queer names!" say we, sighing at the end of our draught, and holding out the glass to be replenished. "bean't queer at all, as i can see, sir," says mine host, handing back our glass, "seeing that this here is the blawing stwun itself"; putting his hand on a square lump of stone, some three feet and a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian[67] rat-holes, which lies there close under the oak, under our very nose. we are more than ever puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale, wondering what will come next. "like to hear un,[68] sir?" says mine host, setting down toby philpot on the tray, and resting both hands on the "stwun." we are ready for anything; and he, without waiting for a reply, applies his mouth to one of the rat-holes. something must come of it, if he doesn't burst. good heavens! i hope he has no apoplectic tendencies. yes, here it comes, sure enough, a grewsome[69] sound between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, and up the hill-side, and into the woods at the back of the house, a ghost-like awful voice. "um[70] do say, sir," says mine host, rising, purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out of the stwun, "as they used in old times to warn the country-side, by blawing the stwun when the enemy was a comin'--and as how folks could make un heered then for seven mile round; leastways, so i've heerd lawyer smith say, and he knows a smart sight about them old times." we can hardly swallow lawyer smith's seven miles, but could the blowing of the stone have been a summons, a sort of sending the fiery cross[71] round the neighborhood in the old times? what old times? who knows? we pay for our beer, and are thankful. "and what's the name of the village just below, landlord?" "kingstone lisle, sir." "fine plantations[72] you've got here." "yes, sir, the squire's[73] 'mazin' fond of trees and such like." "no wonder. he's got some real beauties to be fond of. good-day, landlord." "good-day, sir, and a pleasant ride to 'e."[74] [66] #toby philpot jug#: a large brown pitcher, shaped like a jolly old gentleman of the olden time. [67] #antediluvian#: before the deluge. [68] #un#: it; also him or her. [69] #grewsome#: frightful. [70] #um#: they. [71] #fiery cross#: a cross, the ends of which had been fired and then extinguished in blood. it was sent round by the chiefs of clans in time of war, to summon their followers. [72] #plantations#: groves of trees set out in regular order. [73] #squire#: a country gentleman. [74] #'e#: thee or you. farringdon and pusey. and now, my boys, you whom i want to get for readers, have you had enough? will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me begin my story or will you have some more of it? remember, i've only been over a little bit of the hill-side yet, what you could ride round easily on your ponies in an hour. i'm only just come down into the vale, by blowing stone hill, and if i once begin about the vale, what's to stop me? you'll have to hear all about wantage, the birthplace of alfred, and farringdon, which held out so long for charles i. (the vale was near oxford, and dreadfully malignant;[75] full of throgmortons, puseys, and pyes, and such like, and their brawny retainers). did you ever read thomas ingoldsby's "legend of hamilton tighe"?[76] if you haven't, you ought to have. well, farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea; his real name was hampden pye, and the pyes were the great folk at farringdon. then there's pusey. you've heard of the pusey horn,[77] which king canute gave to the puseys of that day, and which the gallant old squire, lately gone to his rest (whom berkshire freeholders[78] turned out of last parliament, to their eternal disgrace, for voting according to his conscience), used to bring out on high days, holidays, and bonfire nights. and the splendid old cross church at uffington, the uffingas town; how the whole country-side teems with saxon names and memories! and the old moated grange[79] at compton, nestled close under the hill-side, where twenty marianas[80] may have lived, with its bright water-lilies in the moat, and its yew walk "the cloister walk," and its peerless terraced gardens. there they all are, and twenty things besides, for those who care about them, and have eyes. and these are the sort of things you may find, i believe, every one of you, in any common english country neighborhood. [75] #malignant#: the parliamentary or puritan party during the civil wars of charles i. called those who adhered to the king "malignants." [76] #tighe#: this legend relates a conspiracy by which young tighe was led into the thick of a fight and killed. [77] #pusey horn#: the pusey family hold their estate not by a title deed, but by a horn, given, it is said, to william pecote (perhaps an ancestor of the puseys) by canute, a danish king of england in the eleventh century. the horn bears the following inscription: "i, king canute, give william pecote this horn to hold by thy land." [78] #freeholders#: landowners. [79] #moated grange#: a farm or estate surrounded by a broad deep ditch for defence in old times. [80] #marianas#: mariana, a beautiful woman, one of the most lovable of shakespeare's characters. see "measure for measure." will you look for them under your own noses, or will you not? well, well, i've done what i can to make you, and if you will go gadding over half europe now every holiday, i can't help it. i was born and bred a west-countryman,[81] thank god! a wessex man, a citizen of the noblest saxon kingdom of wessex, a regular "angular saxon,"[82] the very soul of me "adscriptus glebæ."[83] there's nothing like the old country-side for me, and no music like the twang of the real old saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from the veritable chaw[84] in the white horse vale; and i say with "gaarge ridler," the old west-country yeoman, "throo aall the waarld owld gaarge would bwoast, commend me to merry owld england mwoast; while vools[85] gwoes prating vur and nigh, we stwops at whum,[86] my dog and i."[a] [a] for this old song see hughes's "scouring of the white horse." [81] #west-countryman#: a west of england man. [82] #angular saxon#: a play on the words _anglo-saxon_. [83] #adscriptus glebæ#: attached to the soil. [84] #chaw#: "chaw bacon," a nickname for an english peasant. [85] #vools#: fools. [86] #whum#: home. squire brown and his household. here at any rate lived and stopped at home squire brown, j. p.[87] for the county of berks, in a village near the foot of the white horse range. and here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and brought up sons and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the times. and his wife dealt out stockings, and calico[88] shirts, and smock frocks,[89] and comforting drinks to the old folks with the "rheumatiz," and good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes clubs going, for yule-tide,[90] when the bands of mummers[91] came round dressed out in ribbons and colored paper caps, and stamped round the squire's kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernacular[92] the legend of st. george and his fight, and the ten-pound doctor,[93] who plays his part at healing the saint--a relic, i believe, of the old middle-age mysteries.[94] it was the first dramatic representation which greeted the eyes of little tom, who was brought down into the kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the mature age of three years. tom was the eldest child of his parents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the family characteristics in great strength. he was a hearty, strong boy from the first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all round the neighborhood. and here in the quiet, old-fashioned country village, under the shadow of the everlasting hills, tom brown was reared, and never left it till he went first to school when nearly eight years of age, for in those days change of air twice a year was not thought absolutely necessary for the health of all her majesty's lieges.[95] [87] #j. p.#: justice of the peace. [88] #calico#: white cotton cloth called calico in england, to distinguish it from print. [89] #smock frocks#: coarse white frocks worn by farm laborers. [90] #yule-tide#: christmas. clubs are formed by the poor several months in advance, to furnish coal, clothes, and poultry for christmas time,--each member contributing a few pence weekly. [91] #mummers#: maskers, merrymakers in fantastic costumes. [92] #vernacular#: one's native tongue. [93] #ten-pound doctor#: a quack doctor. [94] #mysteries#: rude dramatic plays of a religious character, once very popular. [95] #lieges#: loyal subjects. the old boy abuseth moving on. i have been credibly informed, and am inclined to believe, that the various boards of directors of railway companies, those gigantic jobbers[96] and bribers, while quarrelling about everything else, agreed together some ten years back to buy up the learned profession of medicine, body and soul. to this end they set apart several millions of money, which they continually distribute judiciously among the doctors, stipulating only this one thing, that they shall prescribe change of air to every patient who can pay, or borrow money to pay, a railway fare, and see their prescription carried out. if it be not for this, why is it that none of us can be well at home for a year together? it wasn't so twenty years ago,--not a bit of it. the browns didn't go out of the county once in five years. a visit to reading or abingdon twice a year, at assizes or quarter sessions[97] which the squire made on his horse, with a pair of saddle-bags containing his wardrobe--a stay of a day or two at some country neighbor's--or an expedition to a county ball or the yeomanry review--[98] made up the sum of the brown locomotion in most years. a stray brown from some distant county dropped in every now and then; or from oxford, on grave nag, an old don[99] contemporary of the squire; and were looked upon by the brown household and the villagers with the same sort of feeling with which we now regard a man who has crossed the rocky mountains, or launched a boat on the great lake in central africa. the white horse vale, remember, was traversed by no great road; nothing but country parish roads, and these very bad. only one coach ran there, and this one only from wantage to london, so that the western part of the vale was without regular means of moving on, and certainly didn't seem to want them. there was the canal, by the way, which supplied the country-side with coal, and up and down which continually went the long barges with the big black men lounging by the side of the horses along the towing-path, and the women in bright-colored handkerchiefs standing in the sterns steering. standing, i say, but you could never see whether they were standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being out of sight in the cozy little cabins which occupied some eight feet of the stern and which tom brown pictured to himself as the most desirable of residences. his nurse told him that those good-natured-looking women were in the constant habit of enticing children into the barges and taking them up to london and selling them, which tom wouldn't believe, and which made him resolve as soon as possible to accept the oft-proffered invitation of these sirens[100] to "young master," to come in and have a ride. but as yet the nurse was too much for tom. [96] #jobbers#: speculators or members of corrupt political rings. [97] #assizes or quarter sessions#: sessions of courts of justice. [98] #yeomanry review#: a review of the county militia. [99] #don#: a nickname for a university professor. [100] #sirens#: sea-nymphs who enticed sailors into their power by their singing, and then devoured them. the old boy approveth moving on. yet why should i, after all, abuse the gadabout propensities of my countrymen? we are a vagabond nation now, that's certain, for better, for worse. i am a vagabond; i have been away from home no less than five distinct times in the last year. the queen sets us the example--we are moving on from top to bottom. little dirty jack, who abides in clement's inn[101] gateway, and blacks my boots for a penny, takes his month's hop-picking[102] every year as a matter of course. why shouldn't he? i am delighted at it. i love vagabonds, only i prefer poor to rich ones;-couriers[103] and ladies' maids, imperials[104] and travelling carriages are an abomination unto me--i cannot away with them. but for dirty jack, and every good fellow who, in the words of the capital french song, moves about, "comme le limaçon, portant tout son bagage, ses meubles, sa maison,"[105] on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a merry road-side adventure, and steaming supper in the chimney-corners of road-side inns, swiss châlets,[106] hottentot kraals,[107] or wherever else they like to go. so having succeeded in contradicting myself in my first chapter (which gives me great hopes that you will all go on, and think me a good fellow, notwithstanding my crotchets), i shall here shut up for the present, and consider my ways; having resolved to "sar' it out,"[108] as we say in the vale, "holus bolus,"[109] just as it comes, and then you'll probably get the truth out of me. [101] #clement's inn#: formerly a college and residence for law students in london. it is now given up to law offices. [102] #hop-picking#: all the vagabonds of london go to kent and surrey in the autumn to pick hops for the farmers, regarding the work as a kind of vacation frolic. [103] #courier#: a person hired by wealthy travellers to go in advance and engage rooms at hotels, etc. [104] #imperial#: the best seat on a french diligence or stage-coach. [105] #comme le limaçon#, etc.: like the snail, carrying all his baggage, his furniture, and his house. [106] #chalet# (shal-ay'): a swiss herdsman's hut. [107] #kraal#: a hottentot hut or village. [108] #"sar' it out"#: deal it out. [109] #"holus bolus"#: all at once. chapter ii. the "veast." "and the king commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth neither fairs nor markets be kept in church-yards, for the honor of the church."--_statutes_: 13 edw. i. stat. ii. chap. vi. as that venerable and learned poet[1] (whose voluminous works we all think it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't read often) most truly says, "the child is father to the man;" _a fortiori_,[2] therefore he must be father to the boy." so, as we are going at any rate to see tom brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any farther (which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there is no knowing but what we may), let us have a look at the life and environments[3] of the child, in the quiet country village to which we were introduced in the last chapter. [1] #learned poet#: wordsworth; the quotation, which follows, is from "my heart leaps up." [2] #a fortiori#: for a stronger reason. [3] #environments#: surroundings. tom brown's nurse. tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his nurse. that functionary[4] was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brain[5] girl, lately taken by tom's mother, madam brown, as she was called, from the village school to be trained as nursery-maid. madam brown was a rare trainer of servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for profession it was, and gave her more trouble by half than many people take to earn a good income. her servants were known and sought after for miles round. almost all the girls who attained a certain place in the village school were taken by her, one or two at a time, as house-maids, laundry-maids, nursery-maids, or kitchen-maids, and, after a year or two's drilling, were started in life amongst the neighboring families, with good principles and wardrobes. one of the results of this system was the perpetual despair of mrs. brown's cook and own maid, who no sooner had a notable[6] girl made to their hands, than missus was sure to find a good place for her and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the school. another was, that the house was always full of young girls with clean, shining faces; who broke plates and scorched linen, but made an atmosphere of cheerful homely life about the place, good for every one who came within its influence. mrs. brown loved young people, and in fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. they were more like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a mother or aunt than as a mistress. [4] #functionary#: one charged with the performance of a duty. [5] #scatter-brain#: thoughtless. [6] #n[)o]table#: industrious, smart. tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly,--she seemed to have two left hands and no head; and so mrs. brown kept her on longer than usual that she might expend her awkwardness and forgetfulness upon those who would not judge and punish her too strictly for them. charity lamb was her name. it had been the immemorial habit of the village to christen children either by bible names, or by those of the cardinal[7] and other virtues; so that one was forever hearing in the village street, or on the green, shrill sounds of "prudence! prudence! thee cum' out o' the gutter"; or "mercy! drat[8] the girl, what bist[9] thee a doin' wi' little faith?" and there were ruths, rachels, keziahs, in every corner. the same with the boys; they were benjamins, jacobs, noahs, enochs. i suppose the custom has come down from puritan[10] times--there it is, at any rate, very strong still in the vale. [7] #cardinal#: chief. [8] #drat#: plague take. [9] #bist#: art. [10] #puritan#: the puritans were those who were dissatisfied with the english church and wished to _purify_ it, as they said, from certain ceremonies. they quite generally gave their children bible names. tom brown's first rebellion. well, from early morn till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in the cold tub before putting him to bed, charity and tom were pitted against one another. physical power was as yet on the side of charity, but she hadn't a chance with him wherever head-work was wanted. this war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when charity escorted her charge to a neighboring farm-house which supplied the browns, and where by his mother's wish, master tom went to drink whey,[11] before breakfast. tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome, and there was seldom a morning that he did not manage to secure a handful of hard curds, in defiance of charity and the farmer's wife. the latter good soul was a gaunt angular woman, who, with an old black bonnet on the top of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her gown tucked through her pocket holes, went clattering about the dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens.[12] charity was some sort of niece of the old lady's, and was consequently free of the farm-house and garden, into which she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip and flirtation with the heir-apparent,[13] who was a dawdling fellow, never out at work as he ought to have been. the moment charity had found her cousin, or any other occupation, tom would slip away; and in a minute shrill cries would be heard from the dairy: "charity, charity, thee lazy huzzy, where bist?" and tom would break cover,[14] hands and mouth full of curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface of the great muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing the repose of the great pigs. here he was in safety, as no grown person could follow without getting over his knees; and the luckless charity, while her aunt scolded her from the dairy-door, for being "allus hankering about arter our willum, instead of minding master tom," would descend from threats to coaxing, to lure tom out of the muck, which was rising over his shoes and would soon tell a tale on his stockings for which she would be sure to catch it from missus's maid. [11] #whey#: in making cheese the milk separates, the thick part forming curd, and the watery portion whey. [12] #pattens#: wooden-soled shoes. [13] #heir-apparent#: the legal heir. [14] #break cover#: come out from his hiding-place. tom brown's abettors--noah. tom had two abettors in the shape of a couple of old boys, noah and benjamin by name, who defended him from charity, and expended much time upon his education. they were both of them retired servants of former generations of the browns. noah crooke was a keen, dry old man of almost ninety, but still able to totter about. he talked to tom quite as if he were one of his own family, and indeed had long completely identified the browns with himself. in some remote age he had been the attendant of a miss brown, and had conveyed her about the country on a pillion.[15] he had a little round picture of the identical gray horse caparisoned with the identical pillion, before which he used to do a sort of fetish[16] worship and abuse turnpike roads and carriages. he wore an old full-bottomed wig,[17] the gift of some dandy old brown whom he had valeted[18] in the middle of last century, which habiliment master tom looked upon with considerable respect, not to say fear; and indeed his whole feeling toward noah was strongly tainted with awe; and when the old gentleman was gathered to his fathers, tom's lamentation over him was not unaccompanied by a certain joy at having seen the last of the wig: "poor old noah, dead and gone," said he, "tom brown so sorry! put him in the coffin, wig and all!" [15] #pillion#: a seat, for a woman, attached to the hinder part of a saddle. [16] #fetish#: an idol. [17] #full-bottomed wig#: this was a large wig worn by all men of fashion in the last century. [18] #valeted#: served; (from _valet_, a gentleman's private servant). tom brown's abettors--benjy. but old benjy was young master's real delight and refuge. he was a youth by the side of noah, scarce seventy years old. a cheery, humorous, kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of vale gossip, and of all sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above all for children. it was he who bent the first pin with which tom extricated his first stickleback[19] out of "pebbly brook," the little stream which ran through the village. the first stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous red and blue gills. tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his death, and became a fisherman from that day. within a month from the taking of the first stickleback, benjy had carried off our hero to the canal, in defiance of charity; and between them, after a whole afternoon's pop-joying,[20] they had caught three or four coarse fish and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a half ounces each, which tom bore home in rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and which she received like a true mother with equal rapture, instructing the cook nevertheless, in a private interview, not to prepare the same for the squire's dinner. charity had appealed against old benjy in the meantime, representing the dangers of the canal banks; but mrs. brown, seeing the boy's inaptitude for female guidance, had decided in benjy's favor, and from thenceforth the old man was tom's dry nurse. and as they sat by the canal watching their little green and white float,[21] benjy would instruct him in the doings of deceased browns. how his grandfather, in the early days of the great war, when there was much distress and crime in the vale, and the magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a big stick in his hand, and held the petty sessions[22] by himself. how his great uncle, the rector, had encountered and laid the last ghost, who had frightened the old women, male and female, of the parish, out of their senses, and who turned out to be the blacksmith's apprentice, disguised in drink and a white sheet. it was benjy too who saddled tom's first pony, and instructed him in the mysteries of horsemanship, teaching him to throw his weight back and keep his hand low; and who stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school when tom rode his little shetland into the cottage and round the table, where the old dame and her pupils were seated at their work. [19] #stickleback#: a small fish. [20] #pop-joying#: nibbling by fish. [21] #float#: a cork or bit of wood attached to a fish-line. [22] #petty sessions#: a criminal court held by a justice of the peace. benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the vale for their prowess in all athletic games. some half-dozen of his brothers and kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of his body; he had shared benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his old dragoon's[23] sword and pistol, which hung over the mantle-piece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks, with which benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester,[24] against the picked men of wiltshire, and somersetshire,[25] in many a good bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side. for he had been a famous back-sword man in his young days, and a good wrestler at elbow and collar. our veast. back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holiday pursuits of the vale,--those by which men attained fame,--and each village had its champion. i suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked then, than they are now; at any rate, they seemed to have more time and energy for the old pastimes. the great times for back-swording came round once a year, in each village at the feast. the vale "veasts" were not the common statute feasts[26], but much more ancient business. they are literally, so far as one can ascertain, feasts of the dedication, _i.e._, they were first established in the church-yard on the day on which the village church was opened for public worship, which was on the wake or festival of the patron saint, and have been held on the same day in every year since that time. [23] #dragoons#: soldiers who serve on foot or on horseback, as occasion requires. [24] #old gamester#: a person skilled in the game of single-stick or back sword. [25] #wiltshire and somersetshire#: counties west of berkshire. [26] #statute feasts#: festivals established by law. there was no longer any remembrance of why the "veast" had been instituted, but nevertheless it had a pleasant and almost sacred character of its own. for it was then that all the children of the village, wherever they were scattered, tried to get home for a holiday to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, bringing with them their wages or some little gift from up the country for the old folk. perhaps for a day or two before, but at any rate on "veast-day" and the day after, in our village, you might see strapping, healthy young men and women from all parts of the country going round from house to house in their best clothes, and finishing up with a call on madam brown, whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to the best advantage, or how best to expend the same for the benefit of the old folk. every household, however poor, managed to raise a "feast-cake" and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast-time,--for feast-cake is very solid and full of huge raisins. moreover feast-time was the day of reconciliation for the parish. if job higgins and noah freeman hadn't spoken for the last six months, their "old women" would be sure to get it patched up by that day. and though there was a good deal of drinking and low vice in the booths[27] of an evening, it was pretty well confined to those who would have been doing the like "veast or no veast"; and, on the whole, the effect was humanizing and christian. in fact, the only reason why this is not the case still, is that gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as usual, forgotten the poor. they don't attend the feasts themselves, and call them disreputable, whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them also, and they become what they are called. class amusements, be they for dukes or plow-boys, always become nuisances and curses to a country. the true charm of cricket[28] and hunting is, that they are still, more or less sociable and universal; there's a place for every man who will come and take his part. [27] #booths#: temporary sheds, etc., for the sale of refreshments, pedlers' goods, and the like. [28] #cricket#: the english national game of ball. approach of veast-day. no one in the village enjoyed the approach of "veast-day" more than tom, in the year in which he was taken under old benjy's tutelage.[29] the feast was held in a large green field at the lower end of the village. the road to farringdon ran along one side of it, and the brook by the side of the road; and above the brook was another large gentle-sloping pasture-land, with a foot-path running down it from the church-yard; and the old church, the originator of all the mirth, towered up with its gray walls and lancet windows[30] overlooking and sanctioning the whole, though its own share therein had been forgotten. at the point where the foot-path crossed the brook and road, and entered on the field where the feast was held, was a long, low, roadside inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large, white, thatched farm-house, where dwelt an old sporting farmer, a great promoter of the revels. [29] #tutelage#: guardianship. [30] #lancet windows#: high, narrow windows of the earliest gothic architecture. past the old church, and down the foot-path, pottered[31] the old man and the child, hand in hand, early on the afternoon of the day before the feast, and wandered all around the ground which was already being occupied by the "cheap jacks,"[32] with their green-covered carts and marvellous assortment of wares, and the booths of more legitimate[33] small traders with their tempting arrays of fairings[34] and eatables; and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wily indians. but the object of most interest to benjy, and of course to his pupil, also, was the stage of rough planks, some four feet high, which was being put up by the village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling; and after surveying the whole tenderly, old benjy led his charge away to the roadside inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the browns, and speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for the morrow's prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts forty years back, to which tom listened with all his ears and eyes. [31] #pottered#: walked slowly, sauntered. [32] #"cheap jacks"#: pedlers. [33] #legitimate#: lawful. [34] #fairings#: ribbons, toys, and other small articles sold for presents. morning of the veast. but who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church bells were ringing a merry peal and old benjy appeared in the servants' hall, resplendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of old yellow buckskins[35] and top-boots,[36] which he had cleaned for and inherited from tom's grandfather; a stout thorn-stick in his hand, and a nosegay of pinks and lavender in his button-hole, and led away tom in his best clothes, and two new shillings in his breeches pockets? those two, at any rate, look like enjoying the day's revel. [35] #buckskins#: buckskin breeches. [36] #top-boots#: high boots. they quicken their pace when they get into the church-yard, for already they see the field thronged with country folk, the men in clean white smocks or velveteen or fustian[37] coats, with rough plush waistcoats of many colors, and the women in the beautiful scarlet cloak, the usual outdoor dress of west-country women in those days, and which often descended in families from mother to daughter, or in new-fashioned stuff[38] shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don't become them half so well. the air resounds with the pipe and tabor,[39] and the drums and trumpets of the showmen shouting at the doors of their caravans,[40] over which tremendous pictures of the wonders to be seen within hang temptingly; while through all rises the shrill "root-too-too-too" of mr. punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe[41] of his satellite. [37] #fustian#: coarse cloth. [38] #stuff#: woollen. [39] #pipe and tabor#: fife and drum. [40] #caravans#: show wagons. [41] #pan-pipe#: several pipes or fifes fastened together in a row, and blown by an attendant or "satellite," in the punch and judy show. "lawk a' massey, mr. benjamin," cries a stout motherly woman in a red cloak as they enter the field, "be that you? well, i never! you do look purely.[42] and how's the squire, and madam, and the family?" [42] #purely#: nicely. benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has left our village for some years, but has come over for "veast-day" on a visit to an old gossip--and gently indicates the heir apparent of the browns. "bless his little heart! i must gi' un a kiss. here, susannah, susannah!" cries she, raising herself from the embrace, "come and see mr. benjamin and young master tom. you minds[43] our sukey, mr. benjamin? she be growed a rare slip of a wench[44] since you seen her, tho' her'll be sixteen come martinmas[45]. i do aim[46] to take her to see madam to get her a place." [43] #minds#: remember. [44] #wench#: a young peasant girl. [45] #martinmas#: the feast of st. martin, nov. 11. [46] #aim#: intend. and sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of old school-fellows, and drops a courtesy to mr. benjamin. and elders come up from all parts to salute benjy, and girls who have been madam's pupils to kiss master tom. and they carry him off to load him with fairings; and he returns to benjy, his hat and coat covered with ribbons, and his pockets crammed with wonderful boxes, which open upon ever new boxes and boxes, and popguns and trumpets, and apples, and gilt gingerbread from the stall of angel heavens, sole vender thereof, whose booth groans with kings and queens, and elephants, and prancing steeds, all gleaming with gold. there was more gold on angel's cakes than there is ginger in those of this degenerate age. skilled diggers might yet make a fortune in the church-yards of the vale by carefully washing the dust of the consumers of angel's gingerbread. alas! he is with his namesakes, and his receipts have, i fear, died with him. the jingling match. and then they inspect the penny peep-show, at least tom does, while old benjy stands outside and gossips, and walks up the steps, and enters the mysterious doors of the pink-eyed lady and the irish giant, who do not by any means come up to their pictures; and the boa will not swallow his rabbit, but there the rabbit is waiting to be swallowed,--and what can you expect for tuppence?[47] we are easily pleased in the vale. now there is a rush of the crowd, and a tinkling bell is heard, and shouts of laughter; and master tom mounts on benjy's shoulders, and beholds a jingling match in all its glory. the games are begun, and this is the opening of them. it is a quaint[48] game, immensely amusing to look at; and as i don't know whether it is used in your counties, i had better describe it. a large roped ring is made, into which are introduced a dozen or so of big boys and young men who mean to play; these are carefully blinded and turned loose into the ring, and then a man is introduced not blind-folded, with a bell hung round his neck, and his two hands tied behind him. of course, every time he moves, the bell must ring, as he has no hand to hold it, and so the dozen blind-folded men have to catch him. this they cannot always manage if he is a lively fellow, but half of them always rush into the arms of the other half, or drive their heads together, or tumble over; and then the crowd laughs vehemently, and invents nicknames for them on the spur of the moment, and they, if they be choleric, tear off the handkerchiefs which blind them, and not unfrequently pitch into one another, each thinking that the other must have run against him on purpose. it is great fun to look at a jingling match certainly, and tom shouts and jumps on old benjy's shoulders at the sight, until the old man feels weary, and shifts him to the strong young shoulders of the groom, who has just got down to the fun. [47] #tuppence#: two pence or four cents; the english penny, being equal to two cents. [48] #quaint#: odd, old-fashioned. and now, while they are climbing the pole in another part of the field, and muzzling in a flour-tub[49] in another, the old farmer whose house, as has been said, overlooks the field, and who is master of the revels, gets up the steps on to the stage, and announces to all whom it may concern that a half-sovereign[50] in money will be forthcoming for the old gamester who breaks most heads; to which the squire and he have added a new hat. [49] #muzzling in a flour-tub#: running their heads into a tub of flour to fish out prizes. [50] #half-sovereign#: ten shillings ($2.50). the amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate the men of the immediate neighborhood, but not enough to bring any very high talent from a distance; so, after a glance or two round, a tall fellow, who is a down shepherd,[51] chucks his hat on to the stage and climbs up the steps, looking rather sheepish. the crowd, of course, first cheer, then chaff[52] as usual, as he picks up his hat and begins handling the sticks to see which will suit him. [51] #down shepherd#: a shepherd on the downs or chalk hills. [52] #chaff#: make fun, ridicule. the back-swording. "wooy,[53] willum smith, thee canst plaay wi' he[54] arra[55] daay," says his companion to the blacksmith's apprentice, a stout young fellow of nineteen or twenty. willum's sweetheart is in the "veast" somewhere, and has strictly enjoined him not to get his head broke at back-swording, on pain of her highest displeasure; but as she is not to be seen (the women pretend not to like to see the back-sword play, and keep away from the stage), and as his hat is decidedly getting old, he chucks it on to the stage, and follows himself, hoping that he will only have to break other people's heads, or that after all rachel won't really mind. [53] #wooy#: why. [54] #he#: here, him. [55] #arra#: any. then follows the greasy cap, lined with fur, of a half-gipsy, poaching,[56] loafing fellow who travels the vale not for much good, i fancy: "full twenty times was peter feared for once that peter was respected,"[b] [b] wordsworth's "peter bell." in fact. and then three or four other hats, including the glossy castor[57] of joe willis, the self-elected and would-be champion of the neighborhood, a well-to-do young butcher of twenty-eight or thereabouts, and a great strapping fellow, with his full allowance of bluster. this is a capital show of gamesters, considering the amount of the prize; so, while they are picking their sticks and drawing their lots, i think i must tell you, as shortly as i can, how the noble old game of back-sword is played; for it has sadly gone out of late, even in the vale, and maybe you have never seen it. [56] #poaching#: game-stealing. [57] #castor#: a tall silk hat. the weapon is a good stout ash-stick with a large basket-handle,[58] heavier and some what shorter than a common single-stick. the players are called "old gamesters"--why, i can't tell you--and their object is simply to break one another's head: for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten, and has to stop. a very slight blow with the sticks will fetch blood, so that it is by no means a punishing pastime, if the men don't play on purpose, and savagely, at the bodies and arms of their adversaries. the old gamester going into action only takes off his hat and coat, and arms himself with a stick; he then loops the fingers of his left hand in a handkerchief or strap, which he fastens round his left leg, measuring the length, so that when he draws it tight with his left elbow in the air, that elbow shall just reach as high as his crown. thus you see, so long as he chooses to keep his left elbow up, regardless of cuts, he has a perfect guard for the left side of his head. then he advances his right hand above and in front of his head, holding his stick across, so that its point projects an inch or two over his left elbow; and thus his whole head is completely guarded, and he faces his man armed in like manner; and they stand some three feet apart, often nearer, and feint,[59] and strike, and return at one another's head, until one cries "hold," or blood flows. in the first case they are allowed a minute's time, and go on again; in the latter, another pair of gamesters are called on. if good men are playing, the quickness of the return is marvellous; you hear the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his stick along palings, only heavier; and the closeness of the men in action to one another gives it a strange interest, and makes a spell at back-swording a very noble sight. [58] #basket-handle#: a handle protected by wicker-work. [59] #feint#: to pretend to make a thrust or to give a blow. joe and the gipsy. they are all suited now with sticks, and joe willis and the gipsy man have drawn the first lot. so the rest lean against the rails of the stage, and joe and the dark man meet in the middle, the boards having been strewed with sawdust; joe's white shirt and spotless drab breeches and boots contrasting with the gipsy's coarse blue shirt and dirty green velveteen breeches and leather gaiters. joe is evidently turning up his nose at the other, and half insulted at having to break his head. the gipsy is a tough, active fellow, but not very skilful with his weapon, so that joe's weight and strength tell in a minute; he is too heavy metal for him; whack, whack, whack, come his blows, breaking down the gipsy's guard, and threatening to reach his head every moment. there it is at last--"blood, blood!" shouted the spectators, as a thin stream oozes out slowly from the roots of his hair, and the umpire[60] calls to them to stop. the gipsy scowls at joe under his brows in no pleasant manner, while master joe swaggers about, and makes attitudes, and thinks himself, and shows that he thinks himself, the greatest man in the field. [60] #umpire#: judge or referee. then follow several stout sets-to between the other candidates for the new hat, and at last come to the shepherd and willum smith. this is the crack set-to of the day. they are both in famous wind, and there is no crying "hold"; the shepherd is an old hand, and up to all the dodges; he tries them one after another, and very nearly gets at willum's head by coming in near, and playing over his guard at the half-stick, but somehow willum blunders through, catching the stick on his shoulders, neck, sides, every now and then, anywhere but on his head, and his returns are heavy and straight, and he is the youngest gamester and a favorite in the parish, and his gallant stand brings down shouts and cheers, and the knowing ones think he'll win if he keeps steady, and tom, on the groom's shoulder, holds his hands together, and can hardly breathe for excitement. alas for willum! his sweetheart, getting tired of female companionship, has been hunting the booths to see where he can have got to, and now catches sight of him on the stage in full combat. she flushes and turns pale; her old aunt catches hold of her saying: "bless 'ee,[61] child, doan't 'ee go a'nigst[62] it;" but she breaks away and runs toward the stage calling his name. willum keeps up his guard stoutly, but glances for a moment toward the voice. no guard will do it, willum, without the eye. the shepherd steps round and strikes, and the point of his stick just grazes willum's forehead, fetching off the skin, and the blood flows, and the umpire cries "hold," and poor willum's chance is up for the day. but he takes it very well, and puts on his old hat and coat, and goes down to be scolded by his sweetheart, and led away out of mischief. tom hears him say coaxingly as he walks off:-"now doan't ee, rachel! i wouldn't ha' done it, only i wanted summut[63] to buy ee a fairing wi', and i be as vlush[64] o' money as a twod[65] o' veathers."[66] [61] #'ee#: thee, you. [62] #a'nigst#: near. [63] #summut#: something or somewhat. [64] #vlush#: flush. [65] #twod#: a toad. [66] #veathers#: feathers. "thee minds what i tells ee," rejoins rachel, saucily, "and doan't ee keep blethering[67] about fairings." tom resolves in his heart to give willum the remainder of his two shillings after the back-swording. [67] #blethering#: talking nonsense. joe willis had all the luck to-day. his next bout ends in an easy victory, while the shepherd has a tough job to break his second head; and when joe and the shepherd meet, and the whole circle expect and hope to see him get a broken crown, the shepherd slips in the first round, and falls against the rails, hurting himself so that the old farmer will not let him go on, much as he wishes to try; and that imposter, joe (for he is certainly not the best man) struts and swaggers about the stage the conquering gamester, though he hasn't had five minutes' really trying play. a new "old gamester." joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the money in it, and then, as if a thought strikes him, and he doesn't think his victory quite acknowledged down below, walks to each face of the stage, and looks down, shaking the money, and chaffing, as how he'll stake hat and money and another half sovereign, "agin any gamester as hasn't played already." cunning joe! he thus gets rid of willum and the shepherd who is quite fresh again. no one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming down, when a queer old hat, something like a doctor of divinity's shovel,[68] is chucked on the stage, and an elderly quiet man steps out, who has been watching the play, saying he should like to cross a stick "wi' the prodigalish young chap." [68] #shovel#: a broad-brimmed hat turned up at the sides. it was formerly much worn by clergymen of the church of england. the crowd cheer and begin to chaff joe, who turns up his nose and swaggers across to the sticks. "imp'dent old wos-bird!"[69] says he, "i'll break the bald head on un to the truth." [69] #wos-bird#: a bird that steals corn. the old boy is very bald, certainly, and the blood will show fast enough if you touch him, joe. joe out of luck. he takes off his long-flapped coat, and stands up in a long-flapped waistcoat, which sir roger de coverley[70] might have worn when it was new, picks out a stick, and is ready for master joe, who loses no time, but begins his old game, whack, whack, whack, trying to break down the old man's guard by sheer strength. but it won't do--he catches every blow close by the basket: and though he is rather stiff in his returns, after a minute walks joe about the stage, and is clearly a staunch old gamester. joe now comes in, and making the most of his height, tries to get over the old man's guard at half stick, by which he takes a smart blow in the ribs and another on the elbow, and nothing more. and now he loses wind and begins to puff, and the crowd laugh: "cry, 'hold,' joe--thee's met thy match!" instead of taking good advice and getting his wind, joe loses his temper and strikes at the old man's body. [70] #sir roger de coverley#: a typical old country gentleman of delightful simplicity of character. see addison's "spectator." "blood, blood!" shout the crowd, "joe's head's broke!" who'd have thought it? how did it come? that body-blow left joe's head unguarded for a moment, and with one turn of the wrist the old gentleman has picked a neat bit of skin off the middle of his forehead; and though he won't believe it, and hammers on for three more blows despite of the shouts, is then convinced by the blood trickling into his eyes. poor joe is sadly crestfallen, and fumbles in his pocket for the other half-sovereign, but the old gamester won't have it. "keep thy money, man, and gi's[71] thy hand," says he, and they shake hands; but the old gamester gives the hat to the shepherd, and, soon after, the half-sovereign to willum, who thereout decorates his sweetheart with ribbons to his heart's content. [71] #gi's#: give us. "who can a[72] be! wur[73] do a cum from?" ask the crowd. and it soon flies about that the west-country champion, who played a tie[74] with shaw, the life-guardsman[75] at "vizes"[76] twenty years before, has broken joe willis's crown for him. [72] #a#: he. [73] #wur#: where. [74] #tie#: a contest in which neither side gains the victory. [75] #life-guardsman#: one of the queen's body-guard. [76] #"vizes"#: a contraction of devizes, a town in wiltshire. the revels are over. how my country fair is spinning out! i see i must skip the wrestling, and the boys jumping in sacks, and rolling wheelbarrows blindfolded; and the donkey-race, and the fight which arose thereout, marring the otherwise peaceful "veast," and the frightened scurrying away of the female feast-goers, and descent of squire brown, summoned by the wife of one of the combatants to stop it, which he wouldn't start to do till he had got on his top-boots. tom is carried away by old benjy, dog-tired and surfeited with pleasure, as the evening comes on and the dancing begins in the booths; and though willum and rachel in her new ribbons, and many another good lad and lass, don't come away just yet, but have a good step out and enjoy it, and get no harm thereby, yet we, being sober folk, will just stroll away up through the church-yard, and by the old yew-tree; and get a quiet dish of tea and bit of talk with our gossips, as the steady ones of our village do, and so to bed. the old boy moralizeth on veasts. that's a fair, true sketch, as far as it goes, of one of the larger village feasts in the vale of berks, when i was a little boy. they are much altered for the worse, i am told. i haven't been at one these twenty years, but i have been at the statute fairs in some west-country towns, where servants are hired, and greater abominations cannot be found. what village feasts have come to, i fear, in many cases, may be read in the pages of "yeast,[77]" though i never saw one so bad--thank god! do you want to know why? it is because, as i said before, gentlefolk and farmers have left off joining or taking any interest in them. they don't either subscribe to the prizes, or go down and enjoy the fun. [77] #yeast#: a novel by charles kingsley. is this a good or a bad sign? i hardly know. bad, sure enough, if it only arises from the further separation of classes consequent on twenty years of buying cheap and selling dear, and its accompanying overwork; or because our sons and daughters have their hearts in london club-life, or so-called society, instead of in the old english home duties; because farmers' sons are aping fine gentlemen, and farmers' daughters caring more to make bad foreign music than good english cheeses. good, perhaps, if it be that the time for the old "veast" has gone by, that it is no longer the healthy, sound expression of english country holiday-making; that, in fact, we as a nation have got beyond it, and are in a transition state, feeling for and soon likely to find some better substitute. only i have just got this to say before i quit the text. don't let reformers of any sort think that they are going really to lay hold of the working boys and young men of england by any educational grapnel[78] whatever, which hasn't some _bona fide_[79] equivalent for the games of the old country "veast" in it; something to put in the place of the back-swording and wrestling and racing; something to try the muscles of men's bodies, and the endurance of their hearts, and to make them rejoice in their strength. in all the new-fangled comprehensive plans which i see, this is all left out; and the consequence is that your great mechanics' institutes end in intellectual priggism;[80] and your christian young men societies in religious pharisaism. [78] #grapnel#: a grappling hook. [79] #bona fide#: real. [80] #priggism#: affectation, conceit. advice to young swells. well, well, we must bide our time. life isn't all beer and skittles,--but beer and skittles,[81] or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every englishman's education. if i could only drive this into the heads of you rising parliamentary lords and young swells who "have your ways made for you," as the saying is,--you who frequent palaver houses[82] and west-end clubs,[83] waiting, always ready to strap yourselves on to the back of poor dear old john,[84] as soon as the present used-up lot (your fathers and uncles), who sit there on the great parliamentary-majorities' pack-saddle, and make believe they are guiding him with their red-tape[85] bridle, tumble, or have to be lifted off. [81] #skittles#: the game of ninepins. [82] #palaver houses#: talk houses--the houses of parliament. [83] #west-end clubs#: clubs in the fashionable quarter of london. [84] #old john#: john bull. [85] #red-tape#: official routine and formalism. i don't think much of you yet--i wish i could; though you do go talking and lecturing up and down the country to crowded audiences, and are busy with all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism, and circulating libraries and museums, and heaven only knows what besides, and try to make us think, through newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, of the working classes. but, bless your hearts, we "aren't so green," though lots of us of all sorts toady[86] you enough certainly, and try to make you think so. [86] #toady#: flatter. i'll tell you what to do now; instead of all this trumpeting and fuss, which is only the old parliamentary-majority dodge over again--just you go each of you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give, up t'other line) and quietly make three or four friends, real friends among us. you'll find a little trouble in getting at the right sort, because such birds don't come lightly to your lure,--but found they may be. take, say, two out of the professions, lawyer, parson, doctor--which you will; one out of trade, and three or four out of the working-classes, tailors, engineers, carpenters, engravers--there's plenty of choice. let them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask them to your homes; introduce them to your wives and sisters, and get introduced to theirs, give them good dinners, and talk to them about what is really at the bottom of your hearts; and box, and run, and row with them, when you have a chance. do all this honestly as man to man, and by the time you come to ride old john, you'll be able to do something more than sit on his back, and may feel his mouth with some stronger bridle than a red-tape one. ah, if you only would! but you have got too far out of the right rut, i fear. too much over civilization, and the deceitfulness of riches. it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. more's the pity. i never came across but two of you who could value a man wholly and solely for what was in him; who thought themselves verily and indeed of the same flesh and blood as john jones, the attorney's clerk, and bill smith, the costermonger,[87] and could act as if they thought so. [87] #costermonger#: a fruit and vegetable pedler. chapter iii. sundry wars and alliances. "poor old benjy! the "rheumatiz" has much to answer for all through english country-sides,[1] but it never played a scurvier trick than in laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a green old age. the enemy, which had long been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and trying his strength against benjy's on the battlefield of his hands and legs, now, mustering all his forces, began laying siege to the citadel, and overrunning the whole country. benjy was seized in the back and loins; and though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon clear enough that all which could be beaten of poor old benjy would have to give in before long. [1] #country-sides#: country districts. it was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with master tom, and bait his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint old country stories; and when tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with toby, the turnspit[2] terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he might have tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over before benjy could have got near him. [2] #turnspit#: a kind of dog, formerly trained to turn a spit for roasting meat. cheery and unmindful of himself as benjy was, this loss of locomotive power bothered him greatly. he had got a new object in his old age, and was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. he feared much, too, lest master tom should fall back again into the hands of charity and the women. so he tried everything he could think of to get set up. he even went on an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer mortals, who--say what we will and reason how we will--do cure simple people of diseases of one kind or another without the aid of physic; and so get to themselves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for themselves and their dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a simple folk such as the dwellers in the vale of white horse. where this power, or whatever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the neighborhood; a receiver of stolen goods, the avowed enemy of law and order. sometimes, however, they are of quite a different stamp, men who pretend to know nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult[3] arts in the simplest cases. benjy resorts to a "wise man." of this latter sort was old farmer ives, as he was called, the "wise man" to whom benjy resorted (taking tom with him as usual), in the early spring of the year next after the feast described in the last chapter. why he was called "farmer" i cannot say, unless it be that he was the owner of a cow, a pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained on about an acre of land inclosed from the middle of a wild common, on which probably his father had squatted before lords of manors[4] looked as keenly after their rights as they do now. here he had lived no one knew how long, a solitary man. it was often rumored that he was to be turned out and his cottage pulled down, but somehow it never came to pass; and his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the passing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord's steward, who often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure, still unmolested. his dwelling was some miles from our village; so benjy, who was half ashamed of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise much ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and tom thither without exciting suspicion. however, one fine may morning he managed to borrow the old blind pony of our friend the publican,[5] and tom persuaded madam brown to give him a holiday to spend with old benjy, and to lend them the squire's light cart, stored with bread and cold meat and a bottle of ale. and so the two in high glee started behind old dobbin, and jogged along the deep-rutted plashy roads, which had not been mended after their winter's wear, toward the dwelling of the wizard. about noon they passed the gate which opened on to the large common, and old dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while benjy pointed out a little deep dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny stream. as they crept up the hill the tops of a few birch-trees came in sight, and blue smoke curling up through their delicate light boughs; and then the little white thatched home and inclosed ground of farmer ives, lying cradled in the dingle,[6] with the gay gorse common rising behind and on both sides; while in front, after traversing a gentle slope, the eye might travel for miles and miles over the rich vale. they now left the main road and struck into a green track over the common, marked lightly with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of farmer ives. here they found the farmer, an iron-gray old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose busied in one of his vocations. he was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick beast which had been sent up to be cured. benjy hailed him as an old friend, and he returned the greeting cordially enough, looking, however, hard for a moment both at benjy and tom, to see whether there was more in their visit than appeared at first sight. it was a work of some difficulty and danger for benjy to reach the ground, which, however, he managed to do without mishap; and then he devoted himself to unharnessing dobbin, and turning him out for a graze ("a run" one could not say of that virtuous steed) on the common. this done, he extricated the cold provisions from the cart, and they entered the farmer's wicket;[7] and he, shutting up the knife with which he was at work, accompanied them toward the cottage. a big old lurcher[8] got up slowly from the doorstone, stretching first one hind leg, and then the other, and taking tom's caresses and the presence of toby, who kept, however, at a respectful distance, with equal indifference. [3] #occult#: secret or magical. [4] #manor#: the estate of a lord. [5] #publican#: an innkeeper. [6] #dingle#: a narrow valley. [7] #wicket#: gate. [8] #lurcher#: a dog that lies in wait for game, more used by poachers or men that steal game than by sportsmen. "us be come to pay ee a visit. i've a been long minded to do't for old sake's sake, only i vinds i dwont get about now as i'd used to't. i be so plaguy bad wi' th' rhumatiz in my back." benjy paused, in hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailment without further direct application. "ah, i see as you bean't quite so lissom[9] as you was," replied the farmer, with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door. "we bean't so young as we was, nother[10] on us, wuss luck." [9] #lissom#: limber. [10] #nother#: neither. the "wise man's" surroundings. the farmer's cottage was very like those of the better class of peasantry in general. a snug chimney-corner with two seats and a small carpet on the hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the fire-place, a dresser[11] with shelves, on which some bright pewter plates and crockery-ware were arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs and settles,[12] some framed samplers[13] and an old print or two, and a book-case with some dozen volumes on the walls, a rack with flitches[14] of bacon and other stores fastened to the ceiling, and you have the best part of the furniture. no sign of occult art is to be seen, unless the bundles of dried herbs hanging to the rack and in the ingle,[15] and the row of labelled vials on one of the shelves betoken it. [11] #dresser#: a sideboard or cupboard. [12] #settle#: a bench. [13] #sampler#: a pattern for needlework. [14] #flitch#: a side of bacon. [15] #ingle#: chimney-corner. tom played about with some kittens who occupied the hearth, and with a goat who walked demurely in at the open door, while their host and benjy spread the table for dinner--and was soon engaged in conflict with the cold meat, to which he did much honor. the two old men's talk was of old comrades and their deeds, mute inglorious miltons[16] of the vale, and of the doings thirty years back--which didn't interest him much, except when they spoke of the making of the canal; and then, indeed, he began to listen with all his ears, and learned, to his no small wonder, that his dear and wonderful canal had not been there always--was not, in fact, as old as benjy or farmer ives, which caused a strange commotion in his small brain. [16] #"mute, inglorious miltons"#: see gray's "elegy." after dinner benjy called attention to a wart which tom had on the knuckles of his hand, and which the family doctor had been trying his skill on without success, and begged the farmer to charm it away. farmer ives looked at it, muttered something or another over it, and cut some notches in a short stick, which he handed to benjy, giving him instructions for cutting it down on certain days, and cautioning tom not to meddle with the wart for a fortnight. and then they strolled out and sat on a bench in the sun with their pipes, and the pigs came up and grunted sociably and let tom scratch them; and the farmer, seeing how he liked animals, stood up and held his arms in the air and gave a call, which brought a flock of pigeons wheeling and dashing through the birch-trees. they settled down in clusters on the farmer's arms and shoulders, making love to him and scrambling over one another's back to get to his face; and then he threw them all off, and they fluttered about close by, and lighted on him again and again when he held up his arms. all the creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite unlike their relations elsewhere; and tom begged to be taught how to make all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the farmer only gave one of his grim chuckles. benjy's rheumatism. it wasn't till they were just ready to go, and old dobbin was harnessed, that benjy broached the subject of his rheumatism again, detailing his symptoms one by one. poor old boy! he hoped the farmer could charm it away as easily as he could tom's wart, and was ready with equal faith to put another notched stick into his other pocket for the cure of his ailments. the physician shook his head, but nevertheless produced a bottle and handed it to benjy with instructions for use. "not as t'll do ee much good--leastways i be afeared not," shading his eyes with his hand and looking up at them in the cart; "there's only one thing as i knows on, as'll cure old folks like you and i o' th' rhumatiz." "wot be that, then, farmer?" inquired benjy. "church-yard mold," said the old iron-gray man with another chuckle. and so they said their good-byes and went their ways home. tom's wart was gone in a fortnight, but not so benjy's rheumatism, which laid him by the heels more and more. and though tom still spent many an hour with him, as he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney-corner when it was cold, he soon had to seek elsewhere for his regular companions. tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother in her visits to the cottages, and had thereby made acquaintances with many of the village boys of his own age. there was job rudkin, son of widow rudkin, the most bustling woman in the parish. how she could ever have had such a stolid[17] boy as job for a child, must always remain a mystery. the first time tom went to their cottage with his mother, job was not indoors, but he entered soon after, and stood with both hands in his pockets staring at tom. widow rudkin, who would have had to cross madam to get at young hopeful--a breach of good manners of which she was wholly incapable--began a series of pantomime signs, which only puzzled him, and at last, unable to contain herself longer, burst out with, "job! job! where's thy cap?" [17] #stolid#: dull. "what! beant ee on ma head, mother?" replied job, slowly extricating one hand from a pocket and feeling for the article in question; which he found on his head sure enough, and left there, to his mother's horror and tom's great delight. then there was poor jacob dodson, the half-witted boy, who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds and ends, for every one, which, however, poor jacob managed always hopelessly to embrangle.[18] everything came to pieces in his hands, and nothing would stop in his head. they nicknamed him jacob doodle-calf. [18] #embrangle#: mix up. but above all there was harry winburn, the quickest and best boy in the parish. he might be a year older than tom, but was very little bigger, and he was the crichton[19] of our village boys. he could wrestle and climb and run better than all the rest, and learned all that the schoolmaster could teach him faster than that worthy at all liked. he was a boy to be proud of, with his curly brown hair, keen gray eye, straight active figure, and little ears and hands and feet--"as fine as a lord's," as charity remarked to tom one day, talking as usual great nonsense. lords' hands and ears and feet are just as ugly as other folks' when they are children, as any one may convince himself if he likes to look. tight boots and gloves, and doing nothing with them, i allow make a difference by the time they are twenty. [19] #crichton#: a scottish gentleman of the sixteenth century, called for his learning and skill "the admirable crichton." toryism of squire brown. now that benjy was laid on the shelf, and his young brothers were still under petticoat government, tom, in search of companions, began to cultivate the village boys generally more and more. squire brown, be it said, was a true blue[20] tory[21] to the backbone, and believed honestly that the powers which be were ordained of god, and that loyalty and steadfast obedience were man's first duties. whether it were in consequence or in spite of his political creed, i do not mean to give an opinion, though i have one; but certain it is, that he held therewith divers social principles not generally supposed to be true blue in color. foremost of these, and the one which the squire loved to propound above all others, was the belief that a man is to be valued wholly and solely for that which he is in himself, for that which stands up in the four fleshy walls of him, apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and all externals whatsoever. which belief i take to be a wholesome corrective of all political opinions, and, if held sincerely, to make all opinions equally harmless, whether they be blue, red or green. as a necessary corollary[22] to this belief, squire brown held further that it didn't matter a straw whether his son associated with lords' sons or plowmen's sons, provided they were brave and honest. he himself had played foot-ball and gone birds'-nesting with the farmers whom he met at vestry[23] and the laborers who tilled their fields, and so had his father and grandfather, with their progenitors.[24] so he encouraged tom in his intimacy with the boys of the village, and forwarded it by all means in his power, and gave them the run of a close[25] for a playground, and provided bats and balls and a foot-ball for their sports. [20] #true blue#: genuine. [21] #tory#: a member of the conservative party in politics. [22] #corollary#: an inference from something before stated. [23] #vestry#: parish meeting. [24] #progenitors#: forefathers. [25] #close#: any inclosed place; here, probably a field. tom's watch-tower by the school. our village was blessed, amongst other things, with a well-endowed school. the building stood by itself, apart from the master's house, on an angle of ground where three roads met; an old gray stone building, with a steep roof and mullioned[26] windows. on one of the opposite angles stood squire brown's stables and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which towered a great elm-tree; on the third, stood the village carpenter and wheelwright's large open shop, and his house and the schoolmaster's, with long, low eaves under which the swallows built by scores. [26] #mullioned#: subdivided by slender, upright bars or columns. the moment tom's lessons were over, he would now get him down to this corner by the stables, and watch till the boys came out of school. he prevailed on the groom to cut notches for him in the bark of the elm, so that he could climb into the lower branches, and there he would sit watching the school-door, and speculating on the possibility of turning the elm into a dwelling-place for himself and friends after the manner of the swiss family robinson.[27] but the school hours were long and tom's patience short; so that he soon began to descend into the street, and go and peep in at the school-door and the wheelwright's shop, and look out for something to while away the time. now the wheelwright was a choleric[28] man, and one fine afternoon, returning from a short absence, found tom occupied with one of his pet adzes, the edge of which was fast vanishing under our hero's care. a speedy flight saved tom from all but one sound cuff on the ears, but he resented this unjustifiable interruption of his first essays at carpentering, and still more the further proceedings of the wheelwright, who cut a switch and hung it over the door of his workshop, threatening to use it upon tom if he came within twenty yards of his gate. so tom, to retaliate, commenced a war upon the swallows who dwelt under the wheelwright's eaves, whom he harassed with sticks and stones, and being fleeter of foot than his enemy, escaped all punishment, and kept him in perpetual anger. moreover, his presence about the school-door began to incense the master, as the boys in that neighborhood neglected their lessons in consequence: and more than once he issued into the porch, rod in hand, just as tom beat a hasty retreat. and he and the wheelwright, laying their heads together, resolved to acquaint the squire with tom's afternoon occupations; but, in order to do it with effect, determined to take him captive and lead him away to judgment fresh from his evil doings. this they would have found some difficulty in doing, had tom continued the war single-handed, or rather single-footed, for he would have taken to the deepest part of pebbly brook to escape them; but, like other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances. poor jacob doodle-calf could not go to the school with the other boys, and one fine afternoon, about three o'clock (the school broke up at four) tom found him ambling about the street, and pressed him into a visit to the school-porch. jacob, always ready to do what was asked, consented, and the two stole down to the school together. tom first reconnoitered[29] the wheelwright's shop, and seeing no signs of activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered at once an advance of all his troops upon the school-porch. the door of the school was ajar, and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognized and opened a correspondence with the invaders. tom, waxing bold, kept putting his head into the school and making faces at the master when his back was turned. poor jacob, not in the least comprehending the situation, and in high glee at finding himself so near the school, which he had never been allowed to enter, suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm, pushed by tom, and ambling three steps into the school, stood there, looking round him and nodding with a self-approving smile. the master who was stooping over a boy's slate, with his back to the door, became aware of something unusual, and turned quickly round. tom rushed at jacob, and began dragging him back by his smock-frock, and the master made at them, scattering forms[30] and boys in his career. even now they might have escaped, but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the crafty wheelwright, who had been watching all their proceedings. so they were seized, the school dismissed, and tom and jacob led away to squire brown as lawful prizes, the boys following to the gate in groups, and speculating on the result. [27] #swiss family robinson#: a story of the adventures of a shipwrecked family on a desert island. [28] #choleric#: inclined to anger. [29] #reconnoitered#: here, examined in a general way or at a little distance. defeat, capture, peace. the squire was very angry at first, but the interview, with tom's pleading, ended in a compromise. tom was not to go near the school till three o'clock, and only then if he had done his own lessons well, in which case he was to be the bearer of a note to the master from squire brown; and the master agreed in such case to release ten or twelve of the best boys an hour before the time of breaking up, to go off and play in the close. the wheelwright's adzes and swallows were to be forever respected; and that hero and the master withdrew to the servants' hall,[31] to drink the squire's health, well satisfied with their day's work. [30] #forms#: benches. [31] #servants' hall#: the servants' dining-room. the second act of tom's life may now be said to have begun. the war of independence had been over for some time; none of the women now, not even his mother's maid, dared offer to help him in dressing or washing. between ourselves, he had often at first to run to benjy in an unfinished state of toilet. charity and the rest of them seemed to take a delight in putting impossible buttons and ties in the middle of his back; but he would have gone without nether[32] integuments[33] altogether, sooner than have had recourse to female valeting. he had a room to himself, and his father gave him sixpence a week pocket-money. all this he had achieved by benjy's advice and assistance. but now he had conquered another step in life, the step which all real boys so long to make; he had got amongst his equals in age and strength, and could measure himself with other boys; he lived with those whose pursuits and wishes and ways were the same in kind as his own. [32] #nether#: lower. [33] #integuments#: garments. play and work. the little governess, who had lately been installed in the house, found her work grow wondrously easy, for tom slaved at his lessons in order to make sure of his note to the schoolmaster. so there were very few days in the week in which tom and the village boys were not playing in their close by three o'clock. prisoner's base,[34] rounders, high-cock-a-lorum, cricket, foot-ball, he was soon initiated into the delights of them all; and though most of the boys were older than himself, he managed to hold his own very well. he was naturally active and strong, and quick of eye and hand, and had the advantage of light shoes and well-fitting dress, so that in a short time he could run and jump and climb with any of them. [34] #prisoner's base#, etc.: boys' games. riding and wrestling. they generally finished their regular games half an hour or so before tea-time, and then began trials of skill and strength in many ways. some of them would catch the shetland pony who was turned out in the field, and get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue, enjoying the fun, would gallop off for fifty yards and then turn round, or stop short and shoot them on to the turf, and then gaze quietly on till he felt another load; others played at peg-top or marbles, while a few of the bigger ones stood up for a bout at wrestling. tom at first only looked on at this pastime, but it had peculiar attractions for him, and he could not long keep out of it. elbow and collar wrestling, as practised in the western counties, was, next to back-swording, the way to fame for the youth of the vale; and all the boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less expert. but job rudkin and harry winburn were the stars, the former stiff and sturdy, with legs like small towers, the latter pliant as india-rubber and quick as lightning. day after day they stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand and then the other, and grappled, and closed, and swayed, and strained, till a well-aimed crook of the heel or thrust of the loin took effect, and a fair backfall ended the matter. and tom watched with all his eyes, and first challenged one of the less scientific, and threw him; and so one by one wrestled his way up to the leaders. then indeed for months he had a poor time of it; it was not long indeed before he could manage to keep his legs against job, for that hero was slow of offence, and gained his victories chiefly by allowing others to throw themselves against his immovable legs and loins, but harry winburn was undeniably his master; from the first clutch of hands when they stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on his back on the turf, he felt that harry knew more and could do more than he. luckily harry's bright unconsciousness, and tom's natural good temper, kept them from ever quarrelling; and so tom worked on and on, and trod more and more nearly on harry's heels, and at last mastered all the dodges and falls except one. this one was harry's own particular invention and pet; he scarcely ever used it except when hard pressed, but then out it came, and, as sure as it did, over went poor tom. he thought about that fall at his meals, in his walks, when he lay awake in bed, in his dreams,--but all to no purpose; until harry one day in his open way suggested to him how he thought it should be met, and in a week from that time the boys were equal, save only the slight difference of strength in harry's favor, which some extra ten months of age gave. tom had often afterward reason to be thankful for that early drilling, and above all for having mastered harry winburn's fall. besides their home games, on saturdays the boys would wander all over the neighborhood; sometimes to the downs or up to the camp, where they cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks soaring, and the "peert" bird, as harry winburn called the gray plover, gorgeous in his wedding feathers; and so home, racing down the manger with many a roll among the thistles, or through uffington-wood to watch the fox-cubs playing in the green rides;[35] sometimes to rosy brook, to cut long whispering reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of; sometimes to moor mills, where was a piece of old forest land, with short browsed turf and tufted brambly thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst which rumor declared that a raven,[36] last of his race, still lingered; or to the sand hills, in vain quest of rabbits; and birds'-nesting, in the season, anywhere and everywhere. [35] #green rides#: roads cut through woods or pleasure grounds. [36] #raven#: a large black bird of the crow family. earliest playmates. the few neighbors of the squire's own rank every now and then would shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a party of boys with tom in the middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or great bundles of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or other spoil of wood, brook, or meadow, and lawyer redtape might mutter to squire straightback at the board, that no good would come of the young browns, if they were let run wild with all the dirty village boys, whom the best farmers' sons even would not play with. and the squire might reply with a shake of his head, that _his_ sons only mixed with their equals, and never went into the village without a governess or a footman.[37] but, luckily, squire brown was full as stiff-backed as his neighbors, and so went on his own way; and tom and his younger brothers, as they grew up, went on playing with the village boys, without the idea of equality or inequality (except in wrestling, running, and climbing) ever entering their heads, as it doesn't till it's put there by over-nice people or fine ladies' maids. [37] #footman#: a man-servant in livery. i don't mean to say it would be the case in all villages, but it certainly was so in this one; the village boys were full as manly and honest, and certainly purer than those in a higher rank; and tom got more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a private school, where he went when he was nine years old, than he had from his village friends from the day he left charity's apron-strings. first school. great was the grief amongst the village school-boys when tom drove off with the squire, one august morning, to meet the coach on his way to school. each of them had given him some little present of the best that he had, and his small private box was full of peg-tops, white marbles (called "alley taws" in the vale), screws, birds'-eggs, whipcord, jews-harps, and other miscellaneous boys' wealth. poor jacob doodle-calf, in floods of tears, had pressed upon him, in spluttering earnestness, his lame pet hedgehog (he had always some poor broken-down beast or bird by him); but this tom had been obliged to refuse by the squire's order. he had given them all a great tea under the big elm in their playground, for which madam brown had supplied the biggest cake ever seen in our village; and tom was really as sorry to leave them as they to lose him, but his sorrow was not unmixed with the pride and excitement of making a new step in life. and this feeling carried him through his first parting with his mother better than could have been expected. their love was as fair and whole as human love can be, perfect self-sacrifice on the one side, meeting a young and true heart on the other. it is not within the scope of my book, however, to speak of family relations, or i should have much to say on the subject of english mothers,--ay, and of english fathers, and sisters, and brothers, too. of private schools. neither have i room to speak of our private schools; what i have to say is about public schools,[38] those much-abused and much-belauded[39] institutions peculiar to england. so we must hurry through master tom's year at a private school as fast as we can. [38] #public schools#: a name given to certain large and richly endowed schools in england which are chiefly patronized by wealthy men. they are wholly unlike the public schools of the united states. eton, harrow, winchester, rugby, and westminster are among the best known of this class of schools. [39] #belauded#: praised. it was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentleman, with another gentleman as second master; but it was little enough of the real work they did,--merely coming into school when lessons were prepared and already to be heard. the whole discipline of the school out of lesson hours was in the hands of the two ushers,[40] one of whom was always with the boys in their playground, in the school, at meals,--in fact, at all times and everywhere, till they were fairly in bed at night. [40] #usher#: an under-teacher. now, the theory of private schools is (or was) constant supervision out of school; therein differing fundamentally from that of public schools. it may be right or wrong; but, if right, this supervision surely ought to be the especial work of the head-master, the responsible person. the object of all schools is not to cram latin and greek into boys, but to make them good english boys, good future citizens; and by far the most important part of that work must be done, or not done, out of school hours. to leave it, therefore, in the hands of inferior men, is just giving up the highest and hardest part of the work of education. were i a private schoolmaster, i should say, let who will hear the boys their lessons, but let me live with them when they are at play and rest. the two ushers in tom's first school were not gentlemen, were very poorly educated, and were only driving their poor trade of usher to get such living as they could out of it. they were not bad men, but had little heart for their work, and, of course, were bent on making it as easy as possible. one of the methods by which they endeavored to accomplish this was by encouraging tale-bearing, which had become a frightfully common vice in the school in consequence, and had sapped all the foundations of school morality. another was, by grossly favoring the biggest boys, who alone could have given them much trouble; whereby those young gentlemen became most abominable tyrants, oppressing the little boys in all the small mean ways which prevail in private schools. tom's first letter home. poor little tom was made dreadfully unhappy in his first week, by a catastrophe which happened to his first letter home. with huge labor he had, on the very evening of his arrival, managed to fill two sides of a sheet of letter-paper with the assurances of his love for dear mamma, his happiness at school, and his resolves to do all she would wish. this missive,[41] with the help of the boy who sat at the desk next him, also a new arrival, he managed to fold successfully; but this done they were sadly put to it for means of sealing. envelopes were then unknown, they had no wax, and dared not disturb the stillness of the evening school-room by getting up and going to ask the usher for some. at length, tom's friend, being of an ingenious turn of mind, suggested sealing with ink, and the letter was accordingly stuck down with a blob of ink, and duly handed by tom on his way to bed, to the housekeeper to be posted. it was not till four days afterward that the good dame sent for him, and produced the precious letter and some wax saying, "oh, master brown, i forgot to tell you before, but your letter isn't sealed." poor tom took the wax in silence and sealed his letter, with a huge lump rising in his throat during the process, and then ran away to a quiet corner of the playground, and burst into an agony of tears. the idea of his mother waiting day after day for the letter he had promised her at once, and perhaps thinking him forgetful of her, when he had done all in his power to make good his promise, was as bitter a grief as any which he had to undergo for many a long year. his wrath then was proportionately violent when he was aware of two boys, who stopped close by him, and one of whom, a fat gaby[42] of a fellow, pointed at him and called him "young mammy-sick!" whereupon tom arose, and giving vent thus to his grief and shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose, and made it bleed,--which sent that young worthy howling to the usher, who reported tom for violent and unprovoked assault and battery. hitting in the face was a felony[43] punishable with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanor,--a distinction not altogether clear in principle. tom, however, escaped the penalty by pleading "primum tempus,"[44] and having written a second letter to his mother, inclosing some forget-me-nots, which he picked on their first half-holiday walk, felt quite happy again, and began to enjoy vastly a good deal of his new life. [41] #missive#: anything to be sent; hence, a letter. [42] #gaby#: a dunce. [43] #felony#: a serious offence or crime. [44] #primum tempus#: first time. these half-holiday walks were the great events of the week. the whole fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers for hazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the school. hazeldown measured some three miles round, and in the neighborhood were several woods full of all manner of birds and butterflies. the usher walked slowly round the down with such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in all directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher had completed his round, and accompany him home. they were forbidden, however, to go anywhere except on the down and into the woods; the village had been especially prohibited, where huge bulls'-eyes[45] and unctuous toffee[46] might be procured in exchange for coin of the realm. [45] #bulls'-eyes and toffee#: the former are hard balls of sugar, the latter a kind of candy made of brown sugar and butter. [46] #bulls'-eyes and toffee#: the former are hard balls of sugar, the latter a kind of candy made of brown sugar and butter. the amusements. various were the amusements to which the boys then betook themselves. at the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of tom's own downs. this mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the queer name of "mud-patties." the boys who played divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the mound. then all parties, having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing upon all sides under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged. it was a good, rough, dirty game, and of great use in counteracting the sneaking tendencies of the school. then others of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the holes of humble bees[47] and mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (i regret to say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice, and (i do not regret to say) getting well stung by the humble bees. others went after butterflies and birds'-eggs in their seasons; and tom found on hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little blue butterfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his own downs, and dug out his first sand-martin's nest. this latter achievement resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins build in a high bank close to the village, consequently out of bounds;[48] but one of the bolder spirits of the school, who never could be happy unless he was doing something to which risk attached, easily persuaded tom to break bounds and visit the martin's bank. from whence, it being only a step to the toffee shop, what could be more simple than to go on there and fill their pockets? or what more certain than that on their return, a distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly detect the forbidden smell of bulls'-eyes, and, a search ensuing, discover the state of the breeches' pockets of tom and his ally? [47] #humble bees#: "bumble-bees." [48] #bounds#: the school limits, beyond which boys are not to go without permission. the reprobate. this ally of tom's was indeed a desperate hero in the sight of the boys, and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something approaching thereto. which reputation came to him in this wise. the boys went to bed at eight, and, of course, consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour or two, telling ghost stories by turns. one night when it came to his turn, and he had dried up their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery hand appear on the door; and, to the astonishment and terror of the boys in his room, a hand, or something like it, in pale light, did then and there appear. the fame of this exploit having spread to the other rooms, and being discredited there, the young necromancer[49] declared that the same wonder would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did; and the whole circumstances having been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual, that functionary, after listening about the doors of the rooms, by a sudden descent caught the performer in his nightshirt, with a box of phosphorus[50] in his guilty hand. lucifer-matches and all the present facilities for getting acquainted with fire were then unknown: the very name of phosphorus had something diabolic in it to the boy mind; so tom's ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, earned what many older folks covet much,--the very decided fear of most of his companions. [49] #necromancer#: (one who communes with the dead) a conjurer. [50] #phosphorus#: the yellowish, inflammable substance used in making common matches--in a pure state it burns on exposure to air. matches--called "lucifers" or "light-bringers"--were invented in england about 1829. previous to that time the only way of striking a light was by flint and steel, the spark being caught on a bit of tinder (half-burnt rag) which was then blown into a blaze. he was a remarkable boy and by no means a bad one. tom stuck to him till he left, and got into many scrapes by so doing. but he was the great opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school; and the open enemy of the ushers; and so worthy of all support. tom imbibed a fair amount of latin and greek at the school, but somehow on the whole it didn't suit him, or he it, and in the holidays he was constantly working the squire to send him at once to a public school. great was his joy, then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in october, 183-, a fever broke out in the village; and the master having himself slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at a week's notice to their respective homes. the squire was not quite so pleased as master tom to see that young gentleman's brown, merry face appear at home, some two months before the proper time, for the christmas holidays; and so, after putting on his thinking-cap, he retired to his study and wrote several letters, the result of which was, that one morning at the breakfast-table, about a fortnight after tom's return, he addressed his wife with: "my dear, i have arranged that tom shall go to rugby[51] at once, for the last six weeks of this half-year, instead of wasting them, riding and loitering about home. it is very kind of the doctor[52] to allow it. will you see that his things are all ready by friday, when i shall take him up to town, and send him down the next day by himself!" [51] #rugby#: a small village in warwickshire on the river avon, nearly in the centre of england. it is the seat of rugby school,--one of the great public schools,--and was founded by lawrence sheriff, a native of the neighboring village of brownsover, in the reign of queen elizabeth. the school owes its fame chiefly to dr. arnold, who became head master in 1827, and held the position until his death in 1842. [52] #doctor#: dr. arnold. mrs. brown was prepared for the announcement, and merely suggested a doubt whether tom were yet old enough to travel by himself. however, finding both father and son against her on this point, she gave in, like a wise woman, and proceeded to prepare tom's kit[53] for his launch into a public school. [53] #kit#: here, clothes. chapter iv. the stage coach. "let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot, give me the speed of the tantivy trot." _coaching song by r. e. e. warburton, esq._ "now, sir, time to get up, if you please. tally-ho[1] coach for leicester'll be round in half an hour, and don't wait for nobody." so spake the boots[2] of the peacock inn, islington,[3] at half-past two o'clock on the morning of a day in the early part of november, 183-, giving tom at the same time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting down a candle and carrying off his shoes to clean. [1] #tally-ho#: the cry with which huntsmen urge on their hounds; here, a name given to a fast coach. [2] #boots#: a servant in an inn who blacks boots, etc. [3] #islington#: a northern suburb of london. tom arrives in town. tom and his father arrived in town from berkshire the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that the birmingham coaches which ran from the city did not pass through rugby, but deposited their passengers at dunchurch, a village three miles distant on the main road, where said passengers had to wait for the oxford and leicester coach in the evening, or to take a post-chaise,[4] had resolved that tom should travel down by the tally-ho, which diverged from the main road and passed through rugby itself. and as the tally-ho was an early coach, they had driven out to the peacock to be on the road. [4] #post-chaise#: a hired carriage. tom had never been in london, and would have liked to have stopped at the belle sauvage,[5] where they had been put down by the star,[6] just at dusk, that he might have gone roving about those endless, mysterious, gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds, excited him so that he couldn't talk even. but as soon as he found that the peacock arrangement would get him to rugby by twelve o'clock in the day, whereas otherwise he wouldn't be there till the evening, all other plans melted away; his one absorbing aim being to become a public-school boy as fast as possible, and six hours sooner or later seeming to him of the most alarming importance. [5] #belle sauvage#: a famous old inn, formerly in the centre of london. [6] #star#: the name of the coach which brought the squire and tom to london. tom and his father had alighted at the peacock at about seven in the evening; and having heard with unfeigned joy the paternal order at the bar, of steaks and oyster-sauce for supper in half an hour, and seen his father seated cosily by the bright fire in the coffee-room with the paper in his hand, tom had run out to see about him, had wondered at all the vehicles passing and repassing, and had fraternized with the boots and hostler, from whom he ascertained that the tally-ho was a tip-top goer, ten miles an hour including stoppages, and so punctual that all the road set their clocks by her. squire brown's parting words. then being summoned to supper, he had regaled himself in one of the bright little boxes[7] of the peacock coffee-room, on the beefsteak and unlimited oyster-sauce; had at first attended to the excellent advice which his father was bestowing on him and then begun nodding, from the united effects of the fire and the lecture. till the squire, observing tom's state, and remembering that it was nearly nine o'clock, and that the tally-ho left at three, sent the little fellow off to the chambermaid, with a shake of the hand (tom having stipulated in the morning before starting, that kissing should now cease between them) and a few parting words. [7] #boxes#: inclosed places for eating. "and now, tom, my boy," said the squire, "remember you are going, at your own earnest request, to be chucked into this great school, like a young bear, with all your troubles before you,--earlier than we should have sent you perhaps. if schools are what they were in my time, you'll see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul bad talk. but never fear. you tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn't have your mother and sister hear, and you'll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you." the allusion to his mother made tom feel rather choky, and he would have liked to have hugged his father well, if it hadn't been for the recent stipulation. as it was, he only squeezed his father's hand, and looked bravely up and said: "i'll try, father." "i know you will, my boy. is your money all safe?" "yes," said tom, diving into one pocket to make sure. "and your keys," said the squire. "all right," said tom, diving into the other pocket. "well, then, good-night. god bless you! i'll tell boots to call you, and be up to see you off." tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a brown study,[8] from which he was roused in a clean little attic, by that buxom[9] person calling him a little darling, and kissing him as she left the room; which indignity he was too much surprised to resent. and still thinking of his father's last words, and the look with which they were spoken, he knelt down and prayed that, come what might, he might never bring shame or sorrow on the dear folk at home. [8] #brown study#: meditation without any particular object of thought. [9] #buxom#: rosy with health, merry. the squire's meditations. indeed, the squire's last words deserved to have their effect, for they had been the result of much anxious thought. all the way up to london he had pondered what he should say to tom by way of parting advice; something that the boy could keep in his head ready for use. by way of assisting meditation, he had even gone the length of taking out his flint and steel and tinder, and hammering away for a quarter of an hour till he had manufactured a light for a long cheroot,[10] which he silently puffed; to the no small wonder of coachee, who was an old friend, and an institution on the bath road; and who always expected a talk on the prospects and doings, agricultural and social, of the whole country when he carried the squire. [10] #cheroot#: a kind of cigar. to condense the squire's meditation, it was somewhat as follows: "i won't tell him to read his bible, and love and serve god; if he doesn't do that for his mother's sake and teaching, he won't for mine. shall i go into the sort of temptations he'll meet with? no, i can't do that. never do for an old fellow to go into such things with a boy. he won't understand me. do him more harm than good, ten to one. shall i tell him to mind his work, and say he's sent to school to make himself a good scholar? well, but he isn't sent to school for that,--at any rate not for that mainly. i don't care a straw for greek particles, or the digamma;[11] no more does his mother. what is he sent to school for? well, partly because he wanted so to go. if he'll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling englishman, and a gentleman, and a christian, that's all i want," thought the squire; and upon this view of the case he framed the last words of advice to tom, which were well enough suited to his purpose. [11] #digamma#: an ancient letter of the greek alphabet. greek particles are prepositions and conjunctions--hence nice or difficult points of greek grammar. the tally-ho. for they were tom's first thoughts as he tumbled out of bed at the summons of boots, and proceeded rapidly to wash and dress himself. at ten minutes to three he was down in the coffee-room in his stockings, carrying his hat-box, coat, and comforter in his hand, and there he found his father nursing a bright fire, and a cup of hot coffee and a hard biscuit[12] on the table. [12] #hard biscuit#: cracker. "now then, tom, give us your things here, and drink this; there's nothing like starting warm, old fellow." tom addressed himself to the coffee, and prattled away while he worked himself into his shoes and his great-coat, well warmed through,--a petersham coat with velvet collar, made tight after the abominable fashion of those days. and just as he was swallowing his last mouthful, winding his comforter round his throat, and tucking the ends into the breast of his coat, the horn sounds, boots looks in and says, "tally-ho, sir;" and they hear the ring and the rattle of the four fast trotters and the town-made drag[13] as it dashes up to the peacock. [13] #drag#: a four-horse coach. "anything for us, bob?" says the burly guard,[14] dropping down from behind, and slapping himself across the chest. [14] #guard#: a person having charge of a mail-coach, a conductor. "young genl'm'n, rugby; three parcels, leicester; hamper[15] o' game, rugby" answers ostler. [15] #hamper#: a large, strongly made packing basket. "tell young gent to look alive," says guard, opening the hind-boot[16] and shooting in the parcels after examining them by the lamps. "here, shove the portmanteau[17] up a-top,--i'll fasten him presently. now then, sir, jump up behind." [16] #hind-boot#: a place at the end of a coach for luggage. [17] #portmanteau#: travelling bag. "good-by, father--my love at home." a last shake of the hand. up goes tom, the guard catching his hat-box and holding on with one hand, while with the other he claps the horn to his mouth. toot, toot, toot! the ostlers let go their heads, the four bays plunge at the collar, and away goes the tally-ho into the darkness, forty-five seconds from the time they pulled up; ostler, boots, and the squire stand looking after them under the peacock lamp. "sharp work!" says the squire, and goes in again to his bed, the coach being well out of sight and hearing. tom stands up on the coach and looks back at his father's figure as long as he can see it, and then the guard, having disposed of his luggage, comes to an anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other preparations for facing the three hours before dawn; no joke for those who minded cold, on a fast coach in november, in the reign of his late majesty. a november ride in old times. i sometimes think that you boys of this generation are a deal tenderer fellows than we used to be. at any rate you are much more comfortable travellers, for i see every one of you with his rug or plaid,[18] and other dodges for preserving the caloric,[19] and most of you going in those fuzzy, dusty, padded, first-class carriages.[20] it was another affair altogether, a dark ride on the top of the tally-ho, i can tell you, in a tight petersham coat, and your feet dangling six inches from the floor. then you knew what cold was, and what it was to be without legs, for not a bit of feeling had you in them after the first half hour. but it had its pleasures,--the cold, dark ride. first there was the consciousness of silent endurance, so dear to every englishman,--of standing out against something, and not giving in. then there was the music of the rattling harness, and the ring of the horses' feet on the hard road, and the glare of the two bright lamps through the steaming hoar-frost,[21] over the leader's ears, into the darkness; and the cheery toot of the guard's horn, to warn some drowsy pikeman[22] or the ostler at the next change; and the looking forward to daylight--and last, but not least, the delight of returning sensation in your toes. [18] #rug or plaid#: a thick shawl or other wrap. [19] #caloric#: here, heat of the body. [20] #first-class carriages#: in england the railway cars (called "carriages") are divided into first, second, and third class. [21] #hoar-frost#: frozen dew. [22] #pikeman#: the man who takes toll on a turnpike. then the break of dawn and the sunrise, where can they be ever seen in perfection but from a coach roof? you want motion and change and music to see them in their glory; not the music of singing men and singing women, but good silent music, which sets itself in your own head, the accompaniment of work and getting over the ground. the tally-ho is past st. albans,[23] and tom is enjoying the ride, though half frozen. the guard, who is alone with him on the back of the coach, is silent, but has muffled tom's feet up in straw, and put the end of an oat-sack over his knees. the darkness has driven him inward, and he has gone over his little past life, and thought of all his doings and promises, and of his mother and sister, and his father's last words; and has made fifty good resolutions, and means to bear himself like a brave brown as he is, though a young one. then he has been forward into the mysterious boy-future, speculating as to what sort of a place rugby is, and what they do there, and calling up all the stories of public schools which he has heard from big boys in the holidays. he is chock full of hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, and kicks his heels against the backboard, and would like to sing, only he doesn't know how his friend the silent guard might take it. [23] #st. albans#: about twenty miles north of london. "pulling up." and now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage,[24] and the coach pulls up at a little road-side inn with huge stables behind. there is a bright fire gleaming through the red curtains of the bar-window, and the door is open. the coachman catches his whip into a double thong, and throws it to the ostler; the steam of the horses rises straight up into the air. he has put them along over the last two miles, and is two minutes before his time. he rolls down from the box and into the inn. the guard rolls off behind. "now, sir," says he to tom, "you just jump down, and i'll give you a drop of something to keep the cold out." [24] #stage#: division of a journey. tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or, indeed, in finding the top of the wheel with his feet, which may be in the next world, for all he feels; so the guard picks him off the coach-top, and sets him on his legs, and they stump off into the bar, and join the coachman and the other outside passengers. here a fresh-looking barmaid serves them each with a glass of early purl[25] as they stand before the fire, coachman and guard exchanging business remarks. the purl warms tom up and makes him cough. [25] #purl#: a hot drink made of beer and other ingredients. "rare tackle[26] that, sir, of a cold morning," says the coachman, smiling. "time's up." they are out again and up; coachee the last, gathering the reins into his hands and talking to jem, the ostler, about the mare's shoulder, and then swinging himself up on to the box,--the horses dashing off in a canter before he falls into his seat. toot-toot-tootle-too goes the horn, and away they are again, five-and-thirty miles on their road (nearly half way to rugby, thinks tom), and the prospect of breakfast at the end of the stage. [26] #tackle#: stuff. morning sights and doings. and now they begin to see, and the early life of the country-side comes out: a market cart or two, men in smock-frocks going to their work, pipe in mouth, a whiff of which is no bad smell this bright morning. the sun gets up, and the mist shines like silver gauze. they pass the hounds jogging along to a distant meet,[27] at the heels of the huntsman's hack,[28] whose face is about the color of the tails of his old pink,[29] as he exchanges greetings with the coachman and guard. now they pull up at a lodge,[30] and take on board a well-muffled-up sportsman, with his gun-case and carpet-bag. an early up-coach meets them and the coachmen gather up their horses, and pass one another with the accustomed lift of the elbow, each team doing eleven miles an hour, with a mile to spare behind, if necessary. and here comes breakfast. [27] #meet#: a gathering of huntsmen for a hunt. [28] #hack#: here, nag or horse kept for rough riding. [29] #old pink#: a red hunting-coat. [30] #lodge#: a gentleman's house. "twenty minutes here, gentlemen," says the coachman, as they pull up at half-past seven at the inn-door. breakfast. have we not endured nobly this morning, and is not this a worthy reward for much endurance? there is the low dark wainscoted[31] room hung with sporting prints; the hat-stand (with a whip or two standing up in it belonging to bagmen,[32] who are still snug in bed) by the door; the blazing fire, with the quaint old glass over the mantel-piece, in which is stuck a large card with the lists of the meets for the week of the county hounds. the table covered with the whitest of cloths and of china, and bearing a pigeon pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mammoth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wooden trencher.[33] and here comes in the stout head waiter, puffing under a tray of hot viands; kidneys and a steak, transparent rashers[34] and poached eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee and tea all smoking hot. the table can never hold it all; the cold meats are removed to the sideboard; they were only put on for show and to give us an appetite. and now fall on, gentlemen all. it is a well-known sporting house, and the breakfasts are famous. two or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop in, and are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we all are. [31] #wainscoted#: lined with boards or panels. [32] #bagmen#: commercial travellers. [33] #trencher#: a large wooden plate. [34] #rashers#: thin slices of bacon. "tea or coffee, sir?" says head waiter, coming round to tom. "coffee, please," says tom with his mouth full of muffin and kidneys; coffee is a treat to him, tea is not. our coachman, i perceive, who breakfasts with us, is a cold-beef man. he also eschews hot potations, and addicts himself to a tankard of ale, which is brought him by the barmaid. sportsman looks on approvingly, and orders a ditto for himself. tom has eaten kidney and pigeon pie, and imbibed coffee, till his little skin is as tight as a drum; and then has the further pleasure of paying head waiter out of his own purse, in a dignified manner, and walks out before the inn-door to see the horses put to. this is done leisurely and in a highly finished manner by the ostlers, as if they enjoyed the not being hurried. coachman comes out with his way-bill,[35] and puffing a fat cigar which the sportsman has given him. guard emerges from the tap,[36] where he prefers breakfasting, licking round a tough-looking doubtful cheroot, which you might tie round your finger, and three whiffs of which would knock any one else out of time. [35] #way-bill#: a list of passengers in a public vehicle. [36] #tap#: bar-room. the pinks[37] stand about the inn-door lighting cigars and waiting to see us start, while their hacks are led up and down the market-place on which the inn looks. they all know our sportsman, and we feel a reflected credit when we see him chatting and laughing with them. [37] #pinks#: huntsmen. "now, sir, please," says the coachman; all the rest of the passengers are up; the guard is locking up the hind-boot. "a good run to you," says the sportsman to the pinks, and is by the coachman's side in no time. "let 'em go, dick!" the ostlers fly back, drawing off the cloths from their glossy loins, and away we go through the market-place and down the high street,[38] looking in at the first-floor[39] windows, and seeing several worthy burgesses[40] shaving thereat; while all the shop-boys who are cleaning the windows, and the house-maids who are doing the steps, stop and looked pleased as we rattle past, as if we were a part of their legitimate morning's amusement. we clear the town, and are well out between the hedgerows again as the town clock strikes eight. [38] #high street#: the main street. [39] #first-floor#: the floor above the ground-floor,--the second story. [40] #burgess#: a citizen or voter in a town. guard discourses on rugby. the sun shines almost warmly, and breakfast has oiled all springs and loosened all tongues. tom is encouraged by a remark or two of the guard's between the puffs of his oily cheroot, and besides is getting tired of not talking. he is too full of his destination to talk about anything else; and so asks the guard if he knows rugby. "goes through it every day of my life. twenty minutes before twelve down--ten o'clock up." "what sort of a place is it, please?" says tom. guard looks at him with a comical expression. "werry out-o'-the-way place, sir, no paving to streets, nor no lighting. 'mazin' big horse and cattle fair in autumn--lasts a week--just over now. takes town a week to get clean after it. fairish hunting country. but slow place, sir, slow place; off the main road, you see--only three coaches a day, 'an one on 'em a two-oss van,[41] more like a hearse nor[42] a coach--regulator[43]--comes from oxford. young genl'm'n at school calls her pig and whistle, and goes up to college by her (six miles an hour) when they goes to enter. belong to school, sir?" [41] #van#: a large light-covered wagon. [42] #nor#: than. [43] #regulator#: the name of the rival coach. "yes," says tom, not unwilling for a moment that the guard should think him an old boy; but then having some qualms as to the truth of the assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume the character of an old boy he couldn't go on asking the questions he wanted, added--"that is to say, i'm on my way there. i'm a new boy." the guard looked as if he knew this quite as well as tom. "you're werry late, sir," says the guard; "only six weeks to-day to the end of the half."[44] tom assented. "we takes up fine loads this day six weeks, and monday and tuesday arter.[45] hopes we shall have the pleasure of carrying you back." [44] #half#: the half year. [45] #arter#: after. tom said he hoped they would; but he thought within himself that his fate would probably be the pig and whistle.[46] [46] #pig and whistle#: as oxford lies on the direct road between rugby and white horse vale, tom would naturally return by this coach. pea-shooters. "it pays uncommon cert'nly," continues the guard. "werry free with their cash is the young genl'm'n. but, lor' bless you, we gets into such rows all 'long the road, what wi' their pea-shooters,[47] and long whips and hollering, and upsetting every one as comes by; i'd a sight sooner carry one or two on 'em, sir, as i may be a carryin' of you now, than a coach-load." [47] #pea-shooters#: tin tubes used by boys for blowing peas at a mark. "what do they do with the pea-shooters?" inquires tom. "do wi' 'em! why, peppers every one's faces as we comes near, 'cept the young gals, and breaks windows wi' them, too, some on 'em shoots so hard. now 'twas just here last june, as we was a driving up the first-day boys,[48] they was mendin' a quarter-mile of road, and there was a lot of irish chaps, reg'lar roughs, a breaking stones. as we comes up, 'now boys,' says young gent on the box (smart young fellow, and desper't reckless), 'here's fun! let the pats have it about the ears.' 'god's sake, sir,' says bob (that's my mate the coachman), 'don't go for to shoot at 'em, they'll knock us off the coach.' 'coachee,' says young my lord, 'you ain't afraid; hoora, boys! let 'em have it.' 'hoora!' sings out the others, and fill their mouths chuck full of peas to last the whole line. bob, seeing as 'twas to come, knocks his hat over his eyes, hollers to his 'osses, and shakes 'em up, and away we goes up to the line on 'em, twenty miles an hour. the pats begin to hoora, too, thinking it was a runaway, and first lot on 'em stands grinnin' and wavin' their old hats as we comes abreast on 'em; and then you'd ha' laughed to see how took aback and choking savage they looked, when they gets the peas a stinging all over 'em. but bless you, the laugh weren't all of our side, sir, by a long way. we was going so fast, and they was so took aback, that they didn't take what was up till we was half-way up the line. then 'twas 'look out all,' surely. they howls all down the line fit to frighten you, some on 'em runs arter us and tries to clamber up behind, only we hits 'em over the fingers and pulls their hands off; one as had had it very sharp act'ly[49] runs right at the leaders, as though he'd ketch 'em by the heads, only luck'ly for him he misses his tip[50] and comes over a heap o' stones first. the rest picks up stones, and gives it us right away till we gets out of shot, the young gents holding out werry manful with the pea-shooters and such stones as lodged on us, and a pretty many there was, too. then bob picks hisself up again, and looks at young gent on box werry solemn. bob'd had a rum un[51] in the ribs, which'd like to ha' knocked him off the box, or made him drop the reins. young gent on box picks hisself up, and so does we all, and looks round to count damage. box's head[52] cut open and his hat gone; 'nother young gent's hat gone; mine knocked in at the side, and not one on us as wasn't black and blue somewheres or another, most on 'em all over. two pounds ten to pay for damage to paint, which they subscribed for there and then, and give bob and me a extra half-sovereign each; but i wouldn't go down that line again not for twenty half-sovereigns." and the guard shook his head slowly, and got up and blew a clear brisk toot-toot. [48] #first-day boys#: probably those that went up at the beginning of the term. [49] #act'ly#: actually. [50] #tip#: here, mark. [51] #rum un#: here, a hard blow. [52] #box's head#: that is, the head of the "young gent" sitting on the seat ("box") with the driver. "what fun!" said tom, who could scarcely contain his pride at this exploit of his future schoolfellows. he longed already for the end of the half that he might join them. "'tain't such good fun, though, sir, for the folks as meets the coach, nor for we who has to go back with it next day. them irishers last summer had all got stones ready for us, and was all but letting drive, and we'd got two reverend gents aboard, too. we pulled up at the beginning of the line, and pacified them, and we're never going to carry no more pea-shooters, unless they promises not to fire where there is a line of irish chaps a stone-breaking." the guard stopped and pulled away at his cheroot, regarding tom benignantly the while. "oh, don't stop! tell us something more about the pea-shooting." an old yeoman. "well, there'd like to have been a pretty piece of work over it at bicester, a while back. we was six mile from the town, when we meets an old square-headed gray-haired yeoman chap, a jogging along quite quiet. he looks up at the coach, and just then a pea hits him on the nose, and some catches his cob[53] behind and makes him dance up on his hind legs. i see'd the old boy's face flush and look plaguy awkward, and i thought we was in for somethin' ugly. [53] #cob#: a short, stout horse. "he turns his cob's head, and rides quietly after us, just out of shot. how that ere cob did step! we never shook him off not a dozen yards in the six miles. at first the young gents was werry lively on him: but afore we got in, seeing how steady the old chap come on, they was quite quiet, and laid their heads together what they should do. some was for fighting, some for axing his pardon. he rides into the town close after us, comes up when we stops, and says the two as shot at him must come before a magistrate; and a great crowd comes round, and we couldn't get the 'osses to. but the young uns they all stand by one another, and says all or none must go, and as how they'd fight it out, and have to be carried. just as 'twas gettin' serious, and the old boy and the mob was going to pull 'em off the coach, one little fellow jumps up and says: 'here--i'll stay--i'm only going three miles further. my father's name's davis, he's known about here, and i'll go before the magistrate with this gentleman.' 'what! be thee parson davis's son?' says the old boy. 'yes,' says the young un. 'well, i be mortal sorry to meet thee in such company, but for thy father's sake and thine (for thee bi'st[54] a brave young chap) i'll say no more about it.' didn't the boys cheer him, and the mob cheered the young chap--and then one of the biggest gets down, and begs his pardon werry gentlemanly for all the rest, saying as they all had been plaguy vexed from the first, but didn't like to ax his pardon till then, 'cause they felt they hadn't ought to shirk the consequences of their joke. and then they all got down, and shook hands with the old boy, and asked him to all parts of the country, to their homes, and we drives off twenty minutes behind time with cheering and hollering as if we was county members.[55] but, lor' bless you, sir," says the guard smacking his hand down on his knee and looking full into tom's face, "ten minutes arter they was all as bad as ever." [54] #bi'st#: "beest," art. [55] #county members#: members of parliament. blow-hard and his yarns. tom showed such undisguised and open-mouthed interest in his narrations, that the old guard rubbed up his memory, and launched out into a graphic history of all the performances of the boys on the road for the last twenty years. off the road he couldn't go; the exploit must have been connected with horses or vehicles to hang in the old fellow's head. tom tried him off his own ground once or twice, but found he knew nothing beyond, and so let him have his head, and the rest of the road bowled easily away; for old blow-hard (as the boys called him) was a dry old file,[56] with much kindness and humor, and a capital spinner of a yarn when he had broken the neck of his day's work, and got plenty of ale under his belt. [56] #file#: a shrewd person. what struck tom's youthful imagination most, was the desperate and lawless character of most of the stories. was the guard hoaxing him? he couldn't help hoping that they were true. it's very odd how almost all english boys love danger; you can get ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or swim a stream, when there's a chance of breaking their limbs or getting drowned, for one who'll stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits or bowls.[57] [57] #quoits or bowls#: quoits are iron rings pitched at short stakes set in the ground. bowls are tenpins. the runners. the guard had just finished an account of a desperate fight which had happened at one of the fairs between the drovers and the farmers with their whips, and the boys with cricket-bats and wickets,[58] which arose out of a playful but objectionable practice of the boys going round to the public houses and taking the linch-pins out of the wheels of the gigs, and was moralizing upon the way in which the doctor, "a terrible stern man he'd heard tell," had come down upon several of the performers, "sending three on 'em off next morning, each in a po-chay[59] with a parish constable," when they turned a corner and neared the milestone, the third from rugby. by the stone two boys stood, their jackets buttoned tight, waiting for the coach. [58] #wickets#: stakes which are driven into the ground as a mark for the ball in playing cricket. [59] #po-chay#: a post-chaise; a hired chaise. "look here, sir," says the guard, after giving a sharp toot-toot, "there's two on 'em, out and out runners they be. they comes out about twice or three times a week, and spurts a mile alongside of us." and as they came up, sure enough, away went two boys along the footpath, keeping up with the horses; the first a light, clean-made fellow going on springs, the other, stout and round shouldered, laboring in his pace, but going as dogged as a bull-terrier. old blow-hard looked on admiringly. "see how beautiful that there un holds hisself together, and goes from his hips, sir," said he; "he's a 'mazin' fine runner. now many coachmen as drives a first-rate team'd put it on and try and pass 'em. but bob, sir, bless you, he's tender-hearted; he'd sooner pull in a bit if he see'd 'em a gettin' beat. i do b'lieve, too, as that there un'd sooner break his heart than let us go by him afore next milestone." at the second milestone the boys pulled up short, and waved their hats to the guard, who had his watch out and shouted "4.56," thereby indicating that the mile had been done in four seconds under the five minutes. they passed several more parties of boys, all of them objects of the deepest interest to tom, and came in sight of the town at ten minutes before twelve. tom fetched a long breath, and thought he had never spent a pleasanter day. before he went to bed he had quite settled that it must be the greatest day he should ever spend, and didn't alter his opinion for many a long year,--if he has yet. chapter v. rugby and foot-ball. "--foot and eye opposed in dubious strife."--_scott._ arrival at rugby. "and so here's rugby, sir, at last, and you'll be in plenty of time for dinner at the school-house, as i tell'd you," said the old guard, pulling his horn out of its case, and tootle-tooing away; while the coachman shook up his horses, and carried them along the side of the school-close, round dead-man's corner, past the school-gates, and down the high street to the spread eagle; the wheelers in a spanking trot, and leaders cantering, in a style which would not have disgraced "cherry bob," "ramping, stamping, tearing, swearing billy harwood," or any other of the old coaching heroes. tom's heart beat quick as he passed the great schoolfield or close, with its noble elms, in which several games at foot-ball were going on, and tried to take in at once the long line of gray buildings, beginning with the chapel, and ending with the school-house, the residence of the head-master, where the great flag was lazily waving from the highest round tower. and he began already to be proud of being a rugby boy, as he passed the school-gates with the oriel window[1] above, and saw the boys standing there, looking as if the town belonged to them, and nodding in a familiar manner to the coachman, as if any one of them would be quite equal to getting on the box and working the team down the street as well as he. [1] #oriel window#: a bay-window. the great window over the arch is a striking feature of the rugby gateway. tom finds a patron. one of the young heroes, however, ran out from the rest, and scrambled up behind; where, having righted himself, and nodded to the guard, with "how do, jem?" he turned short round to tom, and, after looking him over for a minute, began: "i say, you fellow, is your name brown?" "yes," said tom, in considerable astonishment; glad, however, to have lighted on some one already who seemed to know him. "ah, i thought so; you know my old aunt, miss east; she lives somewhere down your way in berkshire. she wrote to me that you were coming to-day, and asked me to give you a lift."[2] [2] #lift#: assistance of any kind. tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronizing air of his new friend, a boy of just about his own height and age, but gifted with the most transcendent coolness and assurance, which tom felt to be aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn't for the life of him help admiring and envying,--especially when young my lord begins hectoring two or three long, loafing fellows, half porter, half stableman, with a strong touch of the blackguard, and in the end arranges with one of them, nicknamed cooey, to carry tom's luggage up to the school-house for sixpence. "and heark'ee, cooey, it must be up in ten minutes, or no more jobs from me. come along, brown." and away swaggers the young potentate, with his hands in his pockets, and tom at his side. "all right, sir," says cooey, touching his hat, with a leer and a wink at his companions. "hullo, though!" says east, pulling up, and taking another look at tom, "this'll never do. haven't you got a hat? we never wear caps here. only the louts wear caps. bless you, if you were to go into the quadrangle[3] with that thing on, i--don't know what'd happen." the very idea was quite beyond young master east, and he looked unutterable things. [3] #quadrangle#: a square piece of ground inclosed by buildings. english schools and colleges are quite generally built round a quadrangle or "quod" as it is commonly called. tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that he had a hat in his hat-box; which was accordingly at once extracted from the hind-boot, and tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend called it. but this didn't quite suit his fastidious taste in another minute, being too shiny; so, as they walk up the town, they dive into nixon's, the hatter's, and tom is arrayed, to his utter astonishment, and without paying for it, in a regulation cat-skin[4] at seven and sixpence; nixon undertaking to send the best hat up to the matron's room, school-house, in half an hour. [4] #regulation cat-skin#: the hat prescribed by custom or school law. "you can send in a note for a tile[5] on monday, and make it all right, you know," said the mentor.[6] "we're allowed two seven-and-sixers a half, besides what we bring from home." [5] #tile#: a tall silk hat. [6] #mentor#: a wise counsellor. see homer's odyssey. tom by this time began to be conscious of his new social position and dignities, and to luxuriate in the realized ambition of being a public-school boy at last, with a vested right of spoiling two seven-and-sixers in half a year.[7] [7] #two seven-and-sixers#, etc.: _i.e._, two hats, for each half year, costing seven shillings and sixpence ($1.80) each. "you see," said his friend, as they strolled up toward the school-gates, in explanation of his conduct, "a great deal depends on how a fellow cuts up at first. if he's got nothing odd about him, and answers straightforward, and holds his head up, he gets on. now you'll do very well as to rig, all but that cap. you see i'm doing the handsome thing by you, because my father knows yours; besides, i want to please the old lady. she gave me half-a-sov.[8] this half, and perhaps'll double it next, if i keep in her good books."[9] [8] #half-a-sov.#: half a sovereign ($2.50). [9] #keep in her good books#: keep on good terms with her. there's nothing for candor like a lower-school boy, and east was a genuine specimen,--frank, hearty and good-natured, well satisfied with himself and his position, and chock full of life and spirits, and all the rugby prejudices and traditions which he had been able to get together in the long course of one-half year during which he had been at the school-house. and tom, notwithstanding his bumptiousness,[10] felt friends with him at once, and began sucking in all his ways and prejudices, as fast as he could understand them. [10] #bumptiousness#: domineering manner. introduction to the matron. east was great in the character of cicerone;[11] he carried tom through the great gates, where were only two or three boys. these satisfied themselves with the stock questions--"you fellow, what's your name? where do you come from? how old are you? where do you board? and, what form[12] are you in?"--and so they passed on through the quadrangle and a small court-yard, upon which looked down a lot of little windows (belonging, as his guide informed him, to some of the school-house studies),[13] into the matron's room, where east introduced tom to that dignitary; made him give up the key of his trunk, that the matron might unpack his linen, and told the story of the hat and of his own presence of mind; upon the relation whereof the matron laughingly scolded him, for the coolest new boy in the house; and east, indignant at the accusation of newness, marched tom off into the quadrangle, and began showing him the schools, and examining him as to his literary attainments; the result of which was a prophecy that they would be in the same form, and could do their lessons together. [11] #cicerone#: guide. [12] #form#: here, class. [13] #studies#: small private rooms occupied by the rugby boys (two in a room) for study. they are distinct from the bed-rooms. east's study. "and now come in and see my study; we shall have just time before dinner; and afterward, before calling-over,[14] we'll do the close." [14] #calling-over#: roll-call. tom followed his guide through the school-house hall, which opens into the quadrangle. it is a great room, thirty feet long and eighteen high, or thereabouts, with two great tables running the whole length, and two large fire-places at the side, with blazing fires in them, at one of which some dozen boys were standing and lounging, some of whom shouted to east to stop; but he shot through with his convoy,[15] and landed him in the long dark passages, with a large fire at the end of each, upon which the studies opened. into one of these, in the bottom passage, east bolted with our hero, slamming and bolting the door behind them, in case of pursuit from the hall, and tom was for the first time in a rugby boy's citadel. [15] #convoy#: literally, a merchant-vessel protected by a ship-of-war; here, a person under the care of another. he hadn't been prepared for separate studies, and was not a little astonished and delighted with the palace in question. it wasn't very large certainly, being about six feet long by four broad. it couldn't be called light, as there were bars and a grating to the window; which little precautions were necessary in the studies on the ground-floor looking out into the close, to prevent the exit of small boys after locking up, and the entrance of contraband articles. but it was uncommonly comfortable to look at, tom thought. the space under the window at the further end was occupied by a square table covered with a reasonably clean and whole red and blue check table-cloth; a hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one side, running up to the end and making a seat for one, or by sitting close, for two at the table; and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat to another boy, so that three could sit and work together. the walls were wainscoted half-way up, the wainscot being covered with green baize, the remainder with a bright-patterned paper, on which hung three or four prints, of dog's heads, grimaldi[16] winning the aylesbury steeple-chase,[17] amy robsart,[18] the reigning waverley beauty of the day, and tom crib[19] in a posture of defence, which did no credit to the science[20] of that hero, if truly represented. over the door was a row of hat-pegs, and on each side book-cases with cupboards at the bottom; shelves and cupboards being filled indiscriminately with school-books, a cup or two, a mouse-trap, and candlesticks, leather straps, a fustian bag, and some curious-looking articles which puzzled tom not a little, until his friend explained that they were climbing irons, and showed their use. a cricket-bat and small fishing-rod stood up in one corner. [16] #grimaldi#: the name of a race-horse. [17] #steeple-chase#: a race between horsemen across country to see which can first reach a certain distant object, as a church steeple. [18] #amy robsart#: the heroine of scott's waverley novel, "kenilworth." [19] #tom crib#: a noted pugilist. [20] #science#: boxing or pugilistic science. "our own" and the use thereof. this was the residence of east and another boy in the same form, and had more interest for tom than windsor castle,[21] or any other residence in the british isles. for was he not about to become the joint owner of a similar home, the first place he could call his own? one's own,--what a charm there is in the words! how long it takes boy and man to find out their worth! how fast most of us hold on to them! faster and more jealously, the nearer we are to that general home, into which we can take nothing, but must go naked as we came into the world. when shall we learn that he who multiplieth possessions multiplieth troubles, and that the one single use of things which we call our own is that they may be his who hath need of them? [21] #windsor castle#: the principal residence of the english monarchs. it is on the thames, about twenty miles west of london. "and shall i have a study like this, too?" said tom. "yes, of course, you'll be chummed with some fellow on monday, and you can sit here till then." "what nice places!" "they're well enough," answered east, patronizingly, "only uncommon cold at nights sometimes. gower--that's my chum--and i make a fire with paper on the floor after supper generally, only that makes it so smoky." "but there's a big fire out in the passage," said tom. "precious little we get out of that though," said east; "jones the præpostor[22] has the study at the fire end, and he has rigged up an iron rod and green baize curtains across the passage, which he draws at night, and sits there with his door open, so he gets all the fire, and hears if we come out of our studies after eight, or make a noise. however, he's taken to sitting in the fifth-form room lately, so we do get a bit of fire now sometimes; only keep a sharp look-out that he don't catch you behind his curtain when he comes down,--that's all." [22] #præpostors#: the members of the sixth form, the highest class in the school. they were charged with the duty of looking after the other boys. tom's first rugby dinner. a quarter past one now struck, and the bell began tolling for dinner, so they went into the hall and took their places, tom at the very bottom of the second table, next to the præpostor (who sat at the end to keep order there), and east a few paces higher. and now tom for the first time saw his future school-fellows in a body. in they came, some hot and ruddy from foot-ball or long walks, some pale and chilly from hard reading[23] in their studies, some from loitering over the fire at the pastry-cook's, dainty mortals, bringing with them pickles and sauce-bottles to help them with their dinners. and a great big-bearded man, whom tom took for a master, began calling over the names, while the great joints were being rapidly carved on the third table in the corner by the old verger[24] and the housekeeper. tom's turn came last, and meanwhile he was all eyes, looking first with awe at the great man who sat close to him, and was helped first, and who read a hard-looking book all the time he was eating: and when he got up and walked off to the fire, at the small boys round him, some of whom were reading, and the rest talking in whispers to one another, or stealing one another's bread, or shooting pellets,[25] or digging their forks through the table-cloth. however, notwithstanding his curiosity, he managed to make a capital dinner by the time the big man called "stand up!" and said grace. [23] #reading#: studying. [24] #verger#: here, the porter. [25] #pellets#: wads of paper. as soon as dinner was over, and tom had been questioned by such neighbors as were curious as to his birth, parentage, education, and other like matters, east, who evidently enjoyed his new dignity of patron and mentor, proposed having a look at the close,[26] which tom, athirst for knowledge, gladly assented to, and they went out through the quadrangle and passed the fives' court,[27] into the great play-ground. [26] #close#: this close or play-ground contains something over thirteen acres. [27] #fives' court#: the space set apart for playing fives, a game resembling tennis. "that's the chapel you see," said east, "and there just behind it is the place for fights; you see it's most out of the way of the masters, who all live on the other side and don't come by here after the first lesson or callings-over. that's when the fights come off. and all this part where we are is the little side-ground, right up to the trees, and on the other side of the trees is the big side-ground, where the great matches are played. and there's the island[28] in the farthest corner; you'll know that well enough next half, when there's island fagging.[29] i say, it's horrid cold! let's have a run across;" and away went east, tom close behind him. east was evidently putting his best foot foremost, and tom, who was mighty proud of his running, and not a little anxious to show his friend that although a new boy he was no milk-sop, laid himself down to the work in his very best style. right across the close they went, each doing all he knew, and there wasn't a yard between them, when they pulled up at the island-moat. [28] #island#: the island no longer exists. [29] #fagging#: the power given the sixth form, by authority and the custom of the school, to require the boys of the lower forms or classes to do errands, and act as servants generally. the system still has its defenders who regard it as a means of discipline. "i say," said east, as soon as he got his wind, looking with much increased respect at tom, "you aren't a bad scud, not by no means. well, i'm warm as toast now." white trousers in november. "but why do you wear white trousers in november?" said tom. he had been struck by this peculiarity in the costume of almost all the school-house boys. "why, bless us, don't you know?--no, i forgot. why, to-day's the school-house match. our house plays the whole of the school at foot-ball.[30] and we all wear white trousers to show 'em we don't care for hacks.[31] you're in luck to come to-day. you just will see a match; and brooke's going to let me play in quarters. that's more than he'll do for any other lower-school boy, except james, and he is fourteen." [30] #foot-ball#: foot-ball is the great game at rugby. it first became popular in america under the rugby rules, which, though modified, are still the basis of the game as now played. [31] #hacks#: kicks on the shins. "who is brooke?" "why, that big fellow who called over at dinner, to be sure. he's cock of the school, and head of the school-house side, and the best kick and charger in rugby." "oh, but do show me where they play. and tell me about it. i love foot-ball so, and have played all my life. won't brooke let me play?" "not he," said east, with some indignation; "why, you don't know the rules,--you'll be a month learning them. and then it's no joke playing-up, in a match, i can tell you. quite another thing from your private school games. why, there's been two collar-bones broken this half, and a dozen fellows lamed. and last year a fellow had his leg broken." tom listened with the profoundest respect to this chapter of accidents, and followed east across the level ground till they came to a sort of gigantic gallows of two poles eighteen feet high, fixed upright in the ground some fourteen feet apart, with a cross-bar running from one to the other at the height of ten feet or thereabouts. east discourseth on foot-ball. "this is one of the goals," said east, "and you see the other across there, right opposite, under the doctor's wall. well, the match is for the best of three goals; whichever side kicks two goals wins: and it won't do, you see, just to kick the ball through these posts, it must go over the cross-bar; any height'll do, so long as it's between the posts. you'll have to stay in goal to touch the ball when it rolls behind the posts, because if the other side touch it they have a try at goal. then we fellows in quarters, we play just about in front of goal here, and have to turn the ball and kick it back before the big fellows on the other side can follow it up. and in front of us all the big fellows play, and that's where the scrummages are mostly." tom's respect increased as he struggled to make out his friend's technicalities,[32] and the other set to work to explain the mysteries of "off your side," "drop-kicks," "punts," "places," and the other intricacies of the great science of foot-ball. [32] #technicalities#: here, phrases peculiar to foot-ball. "but how do you keep the ball between the goals?" said he; "i can't see why it mightn't go right down to the chapel." "why, that's out of play," answered east. "you see this gravel walk running down all along this side of the playing-ground, and the line of elms opposite on the other? well, they're the bounds. as soon as the ball gets past them, it's in touch, and out of play. and then whoever first touches it, has to knock it straight out amongst the players-up, who make two lines with a space between them, every fellow going on his own side. aren't there just fine scrummages then! and the three trees you see there which come out into the play, that's a tremendous place when the ball hangs there, for you get thrown against the trees, and that's worse than any hack." tom wondered within himself, as they strolled back again towards the fives' court, whether the matches were really such break-neck affairs as east represented, and whether, if they were, he should ever get to like them and play-up well. calling-over. he hadn't long to wonder, however, for the next minute east cried out: "hurra; here's the punt-about--come along and try your hand at a kick." the punt-about is the practice-ball, which is just brought out and kicked about anyhow from one boy to another before callings-over and dinner, and at other odd times. they joined the boys who had brought it out, all small school-house fellows, friends of east; and tom had the pleasure of trying his skill, and performed very creditably, after first driving his foot three inches into the ground, and then nearly kicking his leg into the air, in vigorous efforts to accomplish a drop-kick after the manner of east. presently more boys and bigger came out, and boys from other houses on their way to callings-over, and more balls were sent for. the crowd thickened as three o'clock approached; and when the hour struck, one hundred and fifty boys were hard at work. then the balls were held, the master of the week came down in cap and gown[33] to calling-over, and the whole school of three hundred boys swept into the big school[34] to answer to their names. [33] #cap and gown#: it is customary in england for holders of academic degrees to wear at times the appropriate cap and gown indicating their grade and college. [34] #the big school#: the name of one of the school buildings at rugby. "i may come in, mayn't i?" said tom, catching east by the arm and longing to feel one of them. "yes, come along, nobody'll say anything. you won't be so eager to get into calling-over after a month," replied his friend; and they marched into the big school together, and up to the further end, where that illustrious form, the lower fourth, which had the honor of east's patronage for the time-being, stood. the master mounted into the high desk by the door, and one of the præpostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the other three marching up and down the middle of the school with their canes,[35] calling out "silence, silence!" the sixth form stood close by the door on the left, some thirty in number, mostly great, big, grown men, as tom thought, surveying them from a distance with awe. the fifth form behind them, twice their number, and not quite so big. these on the left; and on the right the lower fifth, shell,[36] and all the junior forms in order; while up the middle marched the three præpostors. [35] #canes#: light, limber rattans used as rods. [36] #shell#: the lower fourth form or class. then the præpostor who stands by the master calls out the names, beginning with the sixth form; and as he calls, each boy answers "here" to his name, and walks out. some of the sixth stop at the door to turn the whole string of boys into the close; it is a great match day, and every boy in the school will-he, nill-he,[37] must be there. the rest of the sixth go forward into the close, to see that no one escapes by any of the side gates. [37] #will-he, nill-he#: willing or not. "they trust to our honor." to-day, however, being the school-house match, none of the school-house præpostors stay by the door to watch for truants of their side; there is _carte blanche_[38] to the school-house fags to go where they like: "they trust to our honor," as east proudly informs tom; "they know very well that no school-house boy would cut the match.[39] if he did, we'd very soon cut him,[40] i can tell you." [38] #carte blanche#: literally, a white card to be filled up as one pleases; hence, unlimited power. [39] #cut the match#: refuse to be present at the game. [40] #cut him#: drop his society. the master of the week being short-sighted, and the præpostors of the week small, and not well up to their work, the lower-school boys employ the ten minutes which elapse before their names are called, in pelting one another vigorously with acorns, which fly about in all directions. the small præpostors dash in every now and then, and generally chastise some quiet, timid boy, who is equally afraid of acorns and canes, while the principal performers get dexterously out of the way; and so calling-over rolls on somehow, much like the big world, punishments lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer, cross-grained way, but the end coming somehow, which is after all the great point. and now the master of the week has finished, and locked up the big school; and the præpostors of the week come out, sweeping the last remnant of the school fags,--who had been loafing about the corners, by the fives' court, in hopes of a chance of bolting before them, into the close. "hold the punt-about!" "to the goals!" are the cries, and all stray balls are impounded[41] by the authorities; and the whole mass of boys move up toward the two goals, dividing as they go into three bodies. that little band on the left, consisting of from fifteen to twenty boys, tom amongst them, who are making for the goal under the school-house wall, are the school-house boys who are not to play-up, and have to stay in goal. the larger body moving to the island goal are the school boys in a like predicament. the great mass in the middle are the players-up, both sides mingled together; they are hanging their jackets, and all who mean real work, their hats, waistcoats, neck-handkerchiefs, and braces,[42] on the railings round the small trees; and there they go by twos and threes up to their respective grounds. there is none of the color and tastiness of get up, you will perceive, which lends such a life to the present game at rugby, making the dullest and worst fought match a pretty sight. now, each house has its own uniform of cap and jersey, of some lively color; but at the time we are speaking of, plush caps had not yet come in, or uniforms of any sort, except the school-house white trousers, which are abominably cold to-day; let us get to work, bare-headed and girded with our plain leather strap,--but we mean business, gentlemen. [41] #impounded#: locked up. [42] #braces#: suspenders. old brooke's generalship. and now that the two sides have fairly sundered, and each occupies its own ground, and we get a good look at them, what absurdity is this? you don't mean to say that those fifty or sixty boys, in white trousers, many of them quite small, are going to play that huge mass opposite? indeed i do, gentlemen; they're going to try, at any rate, and won't make such a bad fight of it either, mark my word: for hasn't old brooke won the toss, with his lucky half-penny, and got choice of goals and kick-off? the new ball you may see lie there quite by itself, in the middle, pointing toward the school or island goal; in another minute it will be well on its way there. use that minute in remarking how the school-house side is drilled. you will see, in the first place, that the sixth form boy who has charge of goal has spread his force (the goal-keepers) so as to occupy the whole space behind the goal-posts at distances of about five yards apart; a safe and well-kept goal is the foundation of all good play. old brooke is talking to the captain of quarters; and now he moves away. see how that youngster spreads his men (the light brigade) carefully over the ground, half-way between their own goal and the body of their own players-up (the heavy brigade). these again play in several bodies; there is young brooke and the bull dogs--mark them well--they are the "fighting brigade," the "die-hards," larking[43] about at leap-frog to keep themselves warm, and playing tricks on one another. and on each side of old brooke, who is now standing in the middle of the ground and just going to kick-off, you see a separate wing of players-up, each with a boy of acknowledged prowess to look to--here warner, and there hedge; but over all is old brooke, absolute as he of russia,[44] but wisely and bravely ruling over willing and worshipping subjects, a true foot-ball king. his face is earnest and careful as he glances a last time over his array, but full of pluck and hope; the sort of look i hope to see in my general when i go out to fight. [43] #larking#: frolicking. [44] #he of russia#: the czar. the school side is not organized in the same way. the goal-keepers are all in lumps, anyhow and nohow; you can't distinguish between the players-up and the boys in quarters, and there is divided leadership; but with such odds in strength and weight, it must take more than that to hinder them from winning; and so their leaders seem to think, for they let the players-up manage themselves. a scrummage. but now look; there is a slight move forward of the school-house wings; a shout of "are you ready?" and loud affirmative reply. old brooke takes half a dozen quick steps, and away goes the ball spinning toward the school goal; seventy yards before it touches ground, and at no point above twelve or fifteen feet high, a model kick-off; and the school-house cheer and rush on; the ball is returned, and they meet it and drive it back amongst the masses of the school already in motion. then the two sides close, and you can see nothing for minutes but a swaying crowd of boys, at one point violently agitated. that is where the ball is, and there are the keen players to be met, and the glory and the hard knocks to be got. you hear the dull thud of the ball, and the shouts of "off your side," "down with him," "put him over," "bravo." this is what we call "a scrummage," gentlemen, and the first scrummage in a school-house match was no joke in the consulship of plancus.[45] [45] #in the consulship of plancus#: meaning, perhaps, at the time when "old brooke" was leader. but see! it has broken; the ball is driven out on the school-house side, and a rush of the school carries it past the school-house players-up. "look out in quarters," brooke's and twenty other voices ring out. no need to call, though; the school-house captain of quarters has caught it on the bound, dodges the foremost school-boys who are heading the rush, and sends it back with a good drop-kick well into the enemy's country. and then follows rush upon rush, and scrummage upon scrummage, the ball now driven through into the school-house quarters, and now into the school goal; for the school-house have not lost the advantage which the kick-off and a slight wind gave them at the outset, and are slightly "penning" their adversaries. you say you don't see much in it all; nothing but a struggling mass of boys, and a leathern ball, which seems to excite them all to great fury, as a red rag does a bull. my dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except that the boys would be men, and the balls iron; but a battle would be worth your looking at, for all that, and so is a foot-ball match. you can't be expected to appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which a game is lost and won; it takes an old player to do that, but the broad philosophy of foot-ball you can understand if you will. come along with me a little nearer, and let us consider it together. how to go in. the ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest, and they close rapidly around it in a scrummage; it must be driven through now by force or skill, till it flies out on one side or the other. look how differently the boys face it! here come two of the bull-dogs, bursting through the outsiders; in they go, straight to the heart of the scrummage, bent on driving that ball out on the opposite side. that is what they mean to do. my sons, my sons! you are too hot; you have gone past the ball, and must struggle now right through the scrummage, and get round and back again to your own side before you can be of any further use. here comes young brooke; he goes in as straight as you, but he keeps his head, and backs and bends, holding himself still behind the ball, and driving it furiously when he gets the chance. take a leaf out of his book, you young chargers. here comes speedicut and flashman, the school-house bully, with shouts and great action. won't you two come up to young brooke, after locking up, by the school-house fire, with "old fellow, wasn't that just a splendid scrummage by the three trees!" but he knows you and so do we. you don't really want to drive that ball through that scrummage, chancing all hurt for the glory of the school-house--but to make us think that's what you want--a vastly different thing; and fellows of your sort will never go through more than the skirts of a scrummage, where it's all push and no kicking. we respect boys who keep out of it, and don't sham going in; but you--we had rather not say what we think of you. then the boys who are bending and watching on the outside, mark them--they are most useful players, the dodgers; who seize on the ball the moment it rolls out from amongst the chargers, and away with it across to the opposite goal; they seldom go into the scrummage, but must have more coolness than the chargers; as endless as are boys' characters, so are their ways of facing or not facing a scrummage at foot-ball. young brooke's rush. three quarters of an hour are gone; first winds are failing, and weight and numbers beginning to tell. yard by yard the school-house have been driven back, contesting every inch of ground. the bull-dogs are the color of mother earth from shoulder to ankle, except young brooke, who has a marvellous knack of keeping his legs. the school-house are being penned in their turn, and now the ball is behind their goal, under the doctor's wall. the doctor and some of his family are there looking on, and seem as anxious as any boy for the success of the school-house. we get a minute's breathing time before old brooke kicks out, and he gives the word to play strongly for touch, by the three trees. away goes the ball, and the bull-dogs after it, and in another minute there is a shout of "in touch," "our ball." now's your time, old brooke, while your men are still fresh. he stands with the ball in his hand, while the two sides form in deep lines opposite one another; he must strike it straight out between them. the lines are thickest close to him, but young brooke and two or three of his men are shifting up further, where the opposite line is weak. old brooke strikes it out straight and strong, and it falls opposite his brother. hurra! that rush has taken it right through the school line, and away past the three trees, far into their quarters, and young brooke and the bull-dogs are close upon it. the school leaders rush back, shouting "look out in goal!" and strain every nerve to catch him, but they are after the fleetest foot in rugby. there they go straight for the school goal-posts, quarters scattering before them. one after another the bull-dogs go down, but young brooke holds on. "he is down," no! a long stagger, but the danger is past; that was the shock of crew, the most dangerous of dodgers. and now he is close to the school goal, the ball not three yards before him. there is a hurried rush of the school fags to the spot, but no one throws himself on the ball, the only chance, and young brooke has touched it right under the school goal-post. the school leaders come up furious, and administer toco[46] to the wretched fags nearest at hand; they may well be angry, for it is all lombard street[47] to a china orange[48] that the school-house kick a goal with the ball touched in such a good place. old brooke, of course, will kick it out, but who shall catch and place it? call crab jones. here he comes, sauntering along with a straw in his mouth, the queerest, coolest fish in rugby; if he were tumbled into the moon this minute, he would just pick himself up without taking his hands out of his pockets or turning a hair. but it is a moment when the boldest charger's heart beats quick. old brooke stands with the ball under his arm motioning the school back; he will not kick out till they are all in goal, behind the posts; they are all edging forward, inch by inch, to get nearer for the rush at crab jones, who stands there in front of old brooke to catch the ball. if they can reach and destroy him before he catches, the danger is over; and with one and the same rush they will carry it right away to the school-house goal. fond[49] hope! it is kicked out and caught beautifully. crab strikes his heel into the ground, to mark the spot where the ball was caught, beyond which the school line may not advance; but there they stand, five deep, ready to rush the moment the ball touches the ground. take plenty of room! don't give the rush a chance of reaching you! place it true and steady! trust crab jones--he has made a small hole with his heel for the ball to lie on, by which he is resting on one knee, with his eye on old brooke. "now!" crab places the ball at the word, old brooke kicks, and it rises slowly and truly as the school rush forward. [46] #toco#: probably kicks and cuffs. [47] #lombard street#: the centre of the banking business in london. [48] #china orange#: a sweet orange. [49] fond: here, foolish. a goal. then a moment's pause, while both sides look up at the spinning ball. there it flies, straight between the two posts, some five feet above the cross-bar, an unquestioned goal; and a shout of real genuine joy rings out from the school-house players-up, and a faint echo of it comes over the close from the goal-keepers under the doctor's wall. a goal in the first hour--such a thing hasn't been done in the school-house match these five years. "over!" is the cry; the two sides change goals, and the school-house goal-keepers come threading their way across through the masses of the school; the most openly triumphant of them, amongst whom is tom, a school-house boy of two hours' standing, getting their ears boxed in the transit. tom, indeed, is excited beyond measure, and it is all the sixth-form boy, kindest and safest of goal-keepers, has been able to do, to keep him from rushing out whenever the ball has been near their goal. so he holds him by his side, and instructs him in the science of touching. at this moment griffith, the itinerant[50] vender of oranges from hill morton, enters the close with his heavy baskets; there is a rush of small boys upon the little pale-faced man, the two sides mingling together, subdued by the great goddess thirst, like the english and french by the streams in the pyrenees.[51] the leaders are past oranges and apples, but some of them visit their coats, and apply innocent-looking ginger-beer bottles to their mouths. it is no ginger-beer though, i fear, and will do you no good. one short, mad rush, and then a stitch in the side, and no more honest play; that's what comes of those bottles. [50] #itinerant#: wandering. [51] #pyrenees#: an allusion to the french and english wars in spain. but now griffith's baskets are empty, the ball is placed again midway, and the school are going to kick-off. their leaders have sent their lumber into goal, and rated the rest soundly, and one hundred and twenty picked players-up are there, bent on retrieving the game. they are to keep the ball in front of the school-house goal, and then to drive it in by sheer strength and weight. they mean heavy play and no mistake, and so old brooke sees; and places crab jones in quarters just before the goal, with four or five picked players, who are to keep the ball away to the sides, where a try at goal, if obtained, will be less dangerous than in front. he, himself, and warner and hedge, who have saved themselves until now, will lead the charges. "are you ready?" "are you ready?" "yes." and away comes the ball kicked high in the air, to give the school time to rush on and catch it as it falls. and here they are amongst us. meet them like englishmen, you school-house boys, and charge them home. now is the time to show what mettle is in you--and there shall be a warm seat by the hall fire, and honor to-night for him who does his duty in the next half-hour. and they are well met. again and again the cloud of their players-up gathers before our goal, and comes threatening on, and warner or hedge, with young brooke and the relics of the bull-dogs, break through and carry the ball back; and old brooke ranges the field like job's war-horse; the thickest scrummage parts asunder before his rush, like the waves before a clipper's bows; his cheery voice rings over the field, and his eye is everywhere. and if these miss the ball, and it rolls dangerously in front of our goal, crab jones and his men have seized it, and sent it away towards the sides with the unerring drop-kick. this is worth living for; the whole sum of school-boy existence gathered up into one straining, struggling half-hour, a half-hour worth a year of common life. east's charge. the quarter to five has struck, and the play slackens for a minute before goal; but there is crew, the artful dodger, driving the ball in behind our goal, on the island side, where our quarters are weakest. is there no one to meet him? yes, look at little east! the ball is just at equal distances between the two, and they rush together, the young man of seventeen, and the boy of twelve, and kick it at the same moment. crew passes on without a stagger; east is hurled forward by the shock, and plunges on his shoulder, as if he would bury himself in the ground; but the ball rises straight into the air, and falls behind crew's back, while the "bravos" of the school-house attest the pluckiest charge of all that hard-fought day. warner picks east up lame and half-stunned, and he hobbles back into goal, conscious of having played the man. and now the last minutes are come, and the school gather for their last rush, every boy of the hundred and twenty who has a run left in him. reckless of the defence of their own goal, on they come across the level big-side ground, the ball well down amongst them, straight for our goal, like the column of the old guard up the slope at waterloo.[52] all former charges have been child's play to this. warner and hedge have met them, but still on they come. the bull-dogs rush in for the last time; they are hurled over or carried back, striving hand, foot, and eyelids. old brooke comes sweeping round the skirts of the play, and, turning short round, picks out the very heart of the scrummage, and plunges in. it wavers for a moment--he has the ball! no, it has passed him, and his voice rings out clear over the advancing tide: "look out in the goal." crab jones catches it for a moment; but before he can kick, the rush is upon him and passes over him; and he picks himself up behind them with his straw in his mouth, a little dirtier, but as cool as ever. the ball rolls slowly in behind the school-house goal, not three yards in front of a dozen of the biggest school players-up. [52] #waterloo#: (in belgium) the scene of the crushing defeat of the french in 1815, by the allied forces under the duke of wellington, by which the power of napoleon was finally broken. the old guard was the emperor's favorite body of troops, and was considered irresistible. tom's first exploit. there stands the school-house præpostor, safest of goal-keepers, and tom brown by his side, who has learned his trade by this time. now is your time, tom. the blood of all the browns is up, and the two rush in together, and throw themselves on the ball, under the very feet of the advancing column; the præpostor on his hands and knees arching his back, and tom all along on his face. over them topple the leaders of the rush, shooting over the back of the præpostor, but falling flat on tom, and knocking all the wind out of his small carcass. "our ball," says the præpostor, rising with his prize, "but get up there, there's a little fellow under you." they are hauled and roll off him, and tom is discovered a motionless body. old brooke picks him up. "stand back, give him air," he says; and then, feeling his limbs, adds, "no bones broken. how do you feel, young un?" "hah-hah!" gasps tom, as his wind comes back, "pretty well, thank you--all right." "who is he?" says brooke. "oh, it's brown, he's a new boy; i know him," says east, coming up. "well, he is a plucky youngster, and will make a player," says brooke. and five o'clock strikes. "no side"[53] is called, and the first day of the school-house match is over. [53] #no side#: a drawn game. chapter vi. after the match. "----some food we had."--_shakespeare._ [greek: "ês potos hadus."]--_theocr., id._ celebrating the victory. as the boys scattered away from the ground, and east, leaning on tom's arm and limping along, was beginning to consider what luxury they should go and buy for tea to celebrate that glorious victory, the two brookes came striding by. old brooke caught sight of east and stopped, put his hand kindly on his shoulder, and said, "bravo, youngster! you played famously. not much the matter, i hope?" "no, nothing at all," said east; "only a little twist from that charge." "well, mind and get all right for next saturday;" and the leader passed on, leaving east better for those few words than all the opodeldoc[1] in england would have made him, and tom ready to give one of his ears for as much notice. ah! light words of those whom we love and honor, what a power ye are, and how carelessly wielded by those who can use them! surely for these things, also, god will ask an account. [1] #opodeldoc#: a liniment. "tea's directly after locking-up, you see," said east, hobbling along as fast as he could, "so you come along down to sally harrowell's; that's our school-house tuck-shop,[2]--she bakes such stunning murphies, we'll have a penn'orth each for tea; come along, or they'll all be gone." [2] #tuck-shop#: cook or pastry shop. tom's new purse and money burnt in his pocket; he wondered, as they toddled through the quadrangle and along the street, whether east would be insulted if he suggested further extravagance, as he had not sufficient faith in a pennyworth of potatoes. at last he blurted out,-"i say, east, can't we get something else besides potatoes? i've got lots of money, you know." "bless us, yes, i forgot," said east, "you've only just come. you see all my tin's been gone this twelve weeks; it hardly ever lasts beyond the first fortnight; and our allowances were all stopped this morning for broken windows, so i haven't got a penny. i've got a tick[3] at sally's of course; but then i hate running it high, you see, towards the end of the half, 'cause one has to shell out for it all directly one comes back, and that's a bore."[4] [3] #tick#: credit. [4] #bore#: an annoyance. tom didn't understand much of this talk, but seized on the fact that east had no money, and was denying himself some little pet luxury in consequence. "well, what shall i buy?" said he; "i'm uncommon hungry." "i say," said east, stopping to look at him and rest his leg, "you're a trump, brown. i'll do the same by you next half. let's have a pound of sausages, then; that's the best grub for tea i know of." "very well," said tom, as pleased as possible; "where do they sell them?" "oh, over here, just opposite;" and they crossed the street and walked into the cleanest little front room of a small house, half parlor, half shop, and bought a pound of most particular sausages; east talking pleasantly to mrs. porter while she put them in paper, and tom doing the paying part. harrowell's. from porter's they adjourned to sally harrowell's, where they found a lot of school-house boys waiting for the roast potatoes, and relating their own exploits in the day's match at the top of their voices. the street opened at once into sally's kitchen, a low bricked-floored room, with large recess for fire, and chimney-corner seats. poor little sally, the most good-natured and much enduring of woman-kind, was bustling about with the napkin in her hand, from her own oven to those of the neighbors' cottages, up the yard at the back of the house. stumps, her husband, a short easy-going shoemaker, with a beery, humorous eye and ponderous calves, who lived mostly on his wife's earnings, stood in a corner of the room, exchanging shots of the roughest description of repartee with every boy in turn. "stumps, you lout, you've had too much beer again to-day." "'twasn't of your paying for, then." "stumps's calves are running down into his ankles; they want to get to grass." "better be doing that, than gone altogether like yours," etc., etc. very poor stuff it was, but it served to make time pass; and every now and then sally arrived in the middle with a smoking tin of potatoes, which was cleared off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running off to the house with "put me down two-penn'orth, sally;" "put down three penn'orth between me and davis," etc. how she ever kept the accounts so straight as she did, in her head and on her slate, was a perfect wonder. east and tom got served at last, and started back for the school-house just as the locking-up bell began to ring; east on the way recounting the life and adventures of stumps, who was a character. amongst his other small avocations, he was the hind carrier of a sedan-chair,[5] the last of its race, in which the rugby ladies still went out to tea, and in which, when he was fairly harnessed and carrying a load, it was the delight of small and mischievous boys to follow him and whip his calves. this was too much for the temper even of stumps, and he would pursue his tormentors in a vindictive and apoplectic manner when released, but was easily pacified by twopence to buy beer with. [5] #sedan-chair#: a kind of covered chair for carrying a single person, borne on poles by two men. tea and its luxuries. the lower-school boys of the school-house, some fifteen in number, had tea in the lower-fifth school, and were presided over by the old verger or head-porter. each boy had a quarter of a loaf of bread and pat of butter, and as much tea as he pleased; and there was scarcely one who didn't add to this some further luxury, such as baked potatoes, a herring, sprats, or something of the sort; but few, at this period of the half-year, could live up to a pound of porter's sausages, and east was in great magnificence upon the strength of theirs. he had produced a toasting-fork from his study, and set tom to toast the sausages, while he mounted guard over their butter and potatoes; "'cause," as he explained, "you're a new boy, and they'll play you some trick and get our butter, but you can toast just as well as i." so tom, in the midst of three or four more urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and the sausages at the same time before the huge fire, till the latter cracked, when east from his watch-tower shouted that they were done, and then the feast proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and emptied, and tom imparted of the sausages in small bits to many neighbors, and thought he had never tasted such good potatoes or seen such jolly boys. they on their part waived all ceremony, and pegged away at the sausages and potatoes, and, remembering tom's performance in goal, voted east's new crony a brick. after tea, and while the things were being cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the talk on the match still went on; and those who had them to show, pulled up their trousers and showed the hacks they had received in the good cause. they were soon however all turned out of the school, and east conducted tom up to his bedroom, that he might get on clean things and wash himself before singing. "what singing?" said tom, taking his head out of his basin, where he had been plunging it in cold water. "well, you are jolly green," answered his friend from a neighboring basin. "why, the last six saturdays of every half, we sing, of course, and this is the first of them. no first lesson to do, you know, and lie in bed to-morrow morning." "but who sings?" "why, everybody, of course; you'll see soon enough. we begin directly after supper, and sing till bed-time. it isn't such good fun now though as in the summer half, 'cause then we sing in the little fives' court, under the library you know, and we cut about the quadrangle between the songs, and it looks like a lot of robbers in a cave. and the louts[6] come and pound at the great gate, and we pound back again, and shout at them. but this half we only sing in the hall. come along down to my study." [6] #louts#: here, town men or boys, "outsiders." their principal employment in the study was to clear out east's table, removing the drawers and ornaments and table-cloth; for he lived in the bottom passage, and his table was in requisition for the singing. supper. supper came in due course at seven o'clock, consisting of bread and cheese and beer, which was all saved for the singing; and directly afterward the fags went to work to prepare the hall. the school-house hall, as has been said, is a great long high room, with two large fires on one side, and two large iron-bound tables, one running down the middle, and the other along the wall opposite the fire-places. around the upper fire the fags placed the tables in the form of a horse-shoe, and upon them the jugs[7] with the saturday night's allowance of beer. then the big boys used to drop in and take their seats, bringing their song-books with them; for although they all knew the songs by heart, it was the thing to have an old manuscript book descended from some departed hero, in which they were all carefully written out. [7] #jugs#: pitchers. the sixth-form boys had not yet appeared; so to fill up the gap, an interesting and time-honored ceremony was gone through. each new boy was placed on the table in turn, and made to sing a solo, under the penalty of drinking a large mug of salt and water, if he resisted or broke down. however, the new boys all sing like nightingales to-night, and the salt water is not in requisition; tom, as his part, performing the old west-country song of "the leather bottèl," with considerable applause. and at the half-hour down come the sixth and fifth-form boys, and take their places at the tables, which are filled up by the next biggest boys; the rest, for whom there is no room at the table, standing round outside. brooke's honors. the glasses and mugs are filled, and then the fugle-man[8] strikes up the old sea song:- "a wet sheet and a flowing sea, and a wind that follows fast," etc., which is the invariable first song in the school-house, and all the seventy voices join in, not mindful of harmony, but bent on noise, which they attain decidedly, but the general effect isn't bad. and then follow the "british grenadiers," "billie taylor," "the siege of seringapatam," "three jolly post-boys," and other vociferous songs in rapid succession, including the "chesapeake and shannon,"[9] a song lately introduced in honor of old brooke; and when they come to the words:- "brave broke he waved his sword, crying, now, my lads, aboard, and we'll stop their playing yankee-doodle-dandy, oh," you expect the roof to come down. the sixth and fifth know that "brave broke" of the shannon was no sort of relation to our old brooke. the fourth form are uncertain in their belief, but for the most part hold that old brooke _was_ a midshipman then on board his uncle's ship. and the lower-school never doubt for a moment that it was our old brooke who led the boarders, in what capacity they care not a straw. [8] #fugle-man#: leader. [9] #chesapeake and shannon#: a song on the famous naval duel off boston harbor, in 1813, between the american frigate chesapeake, and the british ship shannon. the english gained the victory; but later, the americans effectually beat them. then warner, the head of the house, gets up and wants to speak, but he can't, for every boy knows what's coming; and the big boys who sit at the tables pound them and cheer; and the small boys who stand behind pound one another and cheer, and rush about the hall cheering. then silence being made, warner reminds them of the old school-house custom of drinking the healths, on the first night of singing, of those who are going to leave at the end of the half. he sees that they know what he is going to say already--(loud cheers)--and so won't keep them, but only ask them to treat the toast as it deserves. "it is the head of the eleven, the head of big-side foot-ball, their leader on this glorious day--pater[10] brooke!" [10] #pater brooke#: father brooke, because he was now an "old boy" about to graduate. brooke discourseth on union. and away goes the pounding and cheering again, becoming deafening when old brooke gets on his legs; till, a table having broken down, and all throats getting dry, silence ensues, and the hero speaks, leaning his hands on the table, and bending a little forward. no action, no tricks of oratory; plain, strong, and straight, like his play. "gentlemen of the school-house! i am very proud of the way in which you have received my name, and i wish i could say all i should like in return. but i know i sha'n't. however, i'll do the best i can to say what seems to me ought to be said by a fellow who's just going to leave, and who has spent a good slice of his life here. eight years, it is, and eight such years as i can never hope to have again. so now i hope you'll all listen to me--(loud cheers of "that we will")--for i am going to talk seriously. you're bound to listen to me, for what's the use of calling me 'pater,' and all that, if you don't mind what i say? and i am going to talk seriously, because i feel so. it's a jolly time, too, getting to the end of the half, and a goal kicked by us first day--(tremendous applause)--after one of the hardest and fiercest day's play i can remember in eight years--(frantic shoutings). the school played splendidly, too, i will say, and kept it up to the last. that last charge of theirs would have carried away a house. i never thought to see anything again of old crab there, except little pieces, when i saw him tumbled over by it--(laughter and shouting, and great slapping on the back of jones by the boys nearest him). well, but we beat 'em--(cheers). ay, but why did we beat 'em? answer me that--(shouts of "your play"). nonsense! 'twasn't the wind and kick-off either--that wouldn't do it. 'twasn't because we've half a dozen of the best players in the school, as we have. i wouldn't change warner, and hedge, and crab, and the young un, for any six on their side--(violent cheers). but half a dozen fellows can't keep it up for two hours against two hundred. why is it, then? i'll tell you what i think. its because we've more reliance on one another, more of a house feeling, more fellowship than the school can have. each of us knows and can depend on his next-hand man better--that's why we beat 'em to-day. we've union, they've division--there's the secret--(cheers). but how's this to be kept up? how's it to be improved? that's the question. for i take it, we're all in earnest about beating the school, whatever else we care about. i know i'd sooner win two school-house matches running than get the balliol scholarship[11] any day--(frantic cheers). [11] #balliol scholarship#: a scholarship in balliol college, one of the leading colleges of oxford. such scholarships are frequently worth from $800 to $1000 a year. "now, i'm as proud of the house as any one. i believe it's the best house in the school, out-and-out--(cheers). but it's a long way from what i want to see it. first, there's a deal of bullying going on. i know it well. i don't pry about and interfere; that only makes it more underhand, and encourages the small boys to come to us with their fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so we should be worse off than ever. it's very little kindness for the sixth to meddle generally--you youngsters, mind that. you'll be all the better foot-ball players for learning to stand it, and to take your own parts, and fight it through. but depend on it, there's nothing breaks up a house like bullying. bullies are cowards, and one coward makes many; so good-by to the school-house match if bullying gets ahead here. (loud applause from the small boys, who look meaningly at flashman and other boys at the tables.) then there's fuddling about in the public-houses, and drinking bad spirits, and punch, and such wretched stuff. that won't make good drop-kicks or chargers of you, take my word for it; and drinking isn't fine or manly, whatever some of you may think of it. "one other thing i must have a word about. a lot of you think and say, for i've heard you, 'there's this new doctor[12] hasn't been here so long as some of us, and he's changing all the old customs. rugby, and the school-house especially, are going to the dogs. stand up for the good old ways, and down with the doctor!' now, i'm as fond of old rugby customs and ways as any of you, and i've been here longer than any of you, and i'll give you a word of advice in time, for i shouldn't like to see any of you getting sacked. 'down with the doctor,' is easier said than done. you'll find him pretty tight on his perch, i take it, and an awkwardish customer to handle in that line. besides, now, what customs has he put down? there was the good old custom of taking the linch-pins out of the farmers' and bagmen's gigs at the fairs, and a cowardly blackguard custom it was. we all know what came of it, and no wonder the doctor objected to it. but, come now, any of you, name a custom that he has put down." [12] #doctor#: doctor arnold. he became head-master of rugby in 1828. he was a power for good in every direction. he reconstructed the school system, and put the boys on their honor, never in any way questioning their word, so that it came to be a saying in the school, "that it was a shame to tell arnold a lie; he always believes one." perhaps no teacher in england was so beloved or had such influence. "the hounds," calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a green cutaway with brass buttons and cord trousers, the leader of the sporting interest, and reputed a great rider and a keen hand generally. "well, we had six or seven mangy harriers and beagles[13] belonging to the house, i'll allow, and had had them for years, and the doctor put them down. but what good ever came of them? only rows with all the keepers[14] for ten miles round; and big-side hare and hounds[15] is better fun ten times over. what else?" [13] #harriers and beagles#: dogs used for hunting hares. [14] #keepers#: game-keepers. [15] #hare and hounds#: next to foot-ball, this is the great sport at rugby. several boys representing the hares, start to run a certain course, and are shortly after followed by the whole school as hounds. in some cases thirteen miles have been run in less than an hour and a half. no answer. standeth up for "the doctor." "well, i won't go on. think it over for yourselves; you'll find, i believe, that he doesn't meddle with any one that's worth keeping. and mind now, i say again, look out for squalls, if you will go your own way, and that way isn't the doctor's, for it'll lead to grief. you all know that i am not the fellow to back a master through thick and thin. if i saw him stopping foot-ball, or cricket, or bathing, or sparring,[16] i'd be as ready as any fellow to stand up about it. but he doesn't--he encourages them. didn't you see him put to-day for half an hour watching us?--(loud cheers for the doctor)--and he's a strong true man, and a wise one too, and a public-school man too. (cheers.) and so let's stick to him, and talk no more stuff, and drink his health as the head of the house. (loud cheers.) and now i have done blowing up, and very glad i am to have done. but it's a solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a place which one has lived in and loved for eight years; and if one can say a word for the good of the old house at such a time, why, it should be said, whether bitter or sweet. if i hadn't been proud of the house and you--ay, no one knows how proud--i shouldn't be blowing you up. and now let's get to singing. but before i sit down i must give you a toast, to be drunk with three-times-three and all the honors. it's a toast which i hope every one of us, wherever he may go hereafter, will never fail to drink when he thinks of the brave bright days of his boyhood. it's a toast which should bind us all together, and to those who've gone before, and who'll come after us here. it is the dear old school-house--the best house of the best school in england!" [16] #sparring#: boxing. school idolatries. my dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or do belong, to other schools and other houses, don't begin throwing my poor little book about the room, and abusing me and it, and vowing you'll read no more when you get to this point. i allow you've provocation for it. but, come now--would you, any of you, give a fig for a fellow who didn't believe in, and stand up for, his own house and his own school? you know you wouldn't. then don't object to my cracking up the old school-house, rugby. haven't i a right to do it, when i'm taking all the trouble of writing this true history for all of your benefits? if you aren't satisfied, go and write the history of your own houses in your own times, and say all you know for your own schools and houses, provided it's true, and i'll read it without abusing you. the last few words hit the audience in their weakest place; they had been not altogether enthusiastic at several parts of old brooke's speech; but "the best house of the best school of england," was too much for them all, and carried even the sporting and drinking interests off their legs into rapturous applause, and (it is to be hoped) resolutions to lead a new life and remember old brooke's words; which, however, they didn't altogether do, as will appear hereafter. but it required all old brooke's popularity to carry down parts of his speech: especially that relating to the doctor. for there are no such bigoted holders by established forms and customs, be they never so foolish or meaningless, as english schoolboys, at least the schoolboys of our generation. we magnified into heroes every boy who had left, and looked upon him with awe and reverence, when he revisited the place a year or so afterwards, on his way to or from oxford or cambridge; and happy was the boy who remembered him, and sure of an audience as he expounded what he used to do and say, though it were sad enough stuff to make angels, not to say head-masters, weep. "the doctor" and his works. we looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit which had obtained in the school as though it had been a law of the medes and persians,[17] and regarded the infringement or variation of it a sort of sacrilege. and the doctor, than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking for old school customs, which were good and sensible, had, as has already been hinted, come into most decided collision with several which were neither the one nor the other. and as old brooke had said, when he came into collision with boys or customs, there was nothing for them but to give in or take themselves off; because what he said had to be done, and no mistake about it. and this was beginning to be pretty clearly understood; the boys felt that there was a strong man over them, who would have things his own way; and hadn't yet learned that he was a wise and loving man also. his personal character and influence had not had time to make itself felt, except by a very few of the bigger boys with whom he came more directly in contact; and he was looked upon with great fear and dislike by the great majority even of his own house. for he had found school and school-house in a state of monstrous license and misrule, and was still employed in the necessary but unpopular work of setting up order with a strong hand. [17] #medes and persians#: ancient nations of the east; noted for their adherence to the laws of their forefathers. however, as has been said, old brooke triumphed, and the boys cheered him, and then the doctor. and then more songs came, and the healths of the other boys about to leave, who each made a speech, one flowery, another maudlin,[18] a third prosy, and so on, which are not necessary to be here recorded. [18] #maudlin#: silly. half-past nine struck in the middle of the performance of "auld lang syne," a most obstreperous proceeding; during which there was an immense amount of standing with one foot on the table, knocking mugs together and shaking hands, without which accompaniments it seems impossible for the youth of britain to take part in that famous old song. the under-porter of the school-house entered during the performance, bearing five or six long wooden candlesticks, with lighted dips[19] in them, which he proceeded to stick into their holes in such part of the great tables as he could get at; and then stood outside the ring till the end of the song, when he was hailed with shouts. [19] #dips#: cheap tallow candles. "bill, you old muff,[20] the half-hour hasn't struck." [20] #muff#: usually a soft, useless kind of person; here, codger. "sing us a song, old boy." "don't you wish you may get the table?" bill remonstrated: "now, gentlemen, there's only ten minutes to prayers, and we must get the hall straight." shouts of "no, no!" and a violent effort to strike up "billie taylor" for the third time. bill looked appealingly to old brooke, who got up and stopped the noise. "now, then, lend a hand, you youngsters, and get the tables back, clear away the jugs[21] and glasses. bill's right. open the windows, warner." the boy addressed, who sat by the long ropes, proceeded to pull up the great windows, and let in a clear fresh rush of night air, which made the candles flicker and gutter and the fires roar. the circle broke up, each collaring his own jug, glass, and song-book; bill pounced on the big table, and began to rattle it away to its place outside the buttery-door. the lower-passage boys carried off their small tables, aided by their friends, while above all, standing on the great hall table, a knot of untiring sons of harmony made night doleful by a prolonged performance of "god save the king." his majesty king william iv.[22] then reigned over us, a monarch deservedly popular amongst the boys addicted to melody, to whom he was chiefly known from the beginning of that excellent, if slightly vulgar song in which they much delighted:- "come, neighbors all, both great and small, perform your duties here, and loudly sing 'live billy our king,' for bating[23] the tax upon beer." [21] #jugs#: pitchers. [22] #william iv.#: 1830 to 1837. [23] #bating#: lowering. last loyal strains. others of the more learned in songs also celebrated his praises in a sort of ballad, which i take to have been written by some irish loyalists. i have forgotten all but the chorus, which ran:- "god save our good king william, be his name forever blest, he's the father of all his people, and the guardian of all the rest." in truth we were loyal subjects in those days, in a rough way. i trust that our successors make as much of her present majesty, and, having regard to the greater refinement of the times, have adopted or written other songs equally hearty, but more civilized, in her honor. prayers. then the quarter to ten struck, and the prayer-bell rang. the sixth and fifth form boys ranged themselves in their school order along the wall, on either side of the great fires, the middle fifth and upper-school boys around the long table in the middle of the hall, and the lower-school boys round the upper part of the second long table, which ran down the side of the hall furthest from the fires. here tom found himself at the bottom of all, in a state of mind and body not at all fit for prayers, as he thought; and so tried hard to make himself serious, but couldn't for the life of him do anything but repeat in his head the choruses of some of the songs, and stare at all the boys opposite, wondering at the brilliancy of their waistcoats, and speculating what sort of fellows they were. the steps of the head-porter are heard on the stairs, and a light gleams at the door. "hush!" from the fifth-form boys who stand there, and then in strides the doctor, cap on head, book in one hand, and gathering up his gown in the other. he walks up the middle, and takes his post by warner, who begins calling over the names. the doctor takes no notice of anything, but quietly turns over his book, and finds the place, and then stands, cap in hand, and finger in book, looking straight before his nose. he knows better than any one when to look, and when to see nothing; to-night is singing-night, and there's been lots of noise and no harm done. so the doctor sees nothing, but fascinates tom in a horrible manner, as he stands there, and reads out the psalm in that deep, ringing, searching voice of his. prayers are over, and tom still stares open-mouthed after the doctor's retiring figure, when he feels a pull at his sleeve, and turning round, sees east. tossing. "i say, were you ever tossed in a blanket?" "no," said tom; "why?" "'cause there'll be tossing to-night, most likely, before the sixth come up to bed. so if you funk,[24] you just come along and hide, or else they'll catch you and toss you." [24] #funk#: feel afraid. "were you ever tossed? does it hurt," inquired tom. "oh, yes, bless you, a dozen times," said east, as he hobbled along by tom's side up-stairs. "it doesn't hurt unless you fall on the floor. but most fellows don't like it." they stopped at the fire-place in the top passage, where were a crowd of small boys whispering together, and evidently unwilling to go up into the bedrooms. in a minute, however, a study door opened, and a sixth-form boy came out, and off they all scuttled up the stairs, and then noiselessly dispersed to their different rooms. tom's heart beat rather quick as he and east reached their room, but he had made up his mind. "i sha'n't hide, east," said he. "very well, old fellow!" replied east, evidently pleased; "no more shall i--they'll be here for us directly." the room was a great big one, with a dozen beds in it, but not a boy that tom could see, except east and himself. east pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and then sat on the bottom of the bed, whistling, and pulling off his boots. tom followed his example. a noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door opens, and in rush four or five great fifth-form boys, headed by flashman in his glory. tom and east slept in the further corner of the room, and were not seen at first. "gone to ground, eh?" roared flashman; "push 'em out then, boys! look under the beds;" and he pulled up the little white curtain of the one nearest him. "who-o-op," he roared, pulling away at the leg of a small boy, who held on tight to the leg of the bed, and sung out lustily for mercy. "here, lend a hand, one of you, and help me pull out this young howling brute. hold your tongue, sir, or i'll kill you!" "oh, please, flashman, please, walker, don't toss me! i'll fag for you, i'll do anything, only don't toss me." "you be hanged," said flashman, lugging the wretched boy along, "'twon't hurt you,----you! come along! boys, here he is." "i say flashey," sung out another one of the big boys, "drop that; you heard what old pater brooke said to-night. i'll be hanged if we'll toss any one against his will--no more bullying. let him go, i say." flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey, who rushed headlong under his bed again, for fear they should change their minds, and crept along underneath the other beds, till he got under that of the sixth-form boy, which he knew they daren't disturb. east and tom devote themselves. "there's plenty of youngsters don't care about it," said walker. "here, here's scud east--you'll be tossed, won't you, young un?" scud was east's nickname, or "black," as we called it, gained by his fleetness of foot. "yes," said east, "if you like, only mind my foot." "and here's another who didn't hide. hullo! new boy; what's your name, sir?" "brown." "well, whitey brown, you don't mind being tossed?" "no," said tom, setting his teeth. "come along, then, boys," sung out walker, and away they all went, carrying along tom and east, to the intense relief of four or five other small boys, who crept out from under the beds and behind them. "what a trump scud is!" said one. "they won't come back here now." "and that new boy, too; he must be a good plucky one." "ah, wait until he has been tossed on to the floor; see how he'll like it then!" meantime the procession went down the passage to no. 7, the largest room, and the scene of the tossing, in the middle of which was a great open space. here they joined other parties of the bigger boys, each with a captive or two, some willing to be tossed, some sullen, and some frightened to death. at walker's suggestion, all who were afraid were let off, in honor of pater brooke's speech. then a dozen big boys seized hold of a blanket, dragged from one of the beds. "in with scud, quick! there's no time to lose." east was chucked into the blanket. "once, twice, thrice, and away!" up he went like a shuttle-cock, but not quite up to the ceiling. "now, boys, with a will!" cried walker. "once, twice, thrice, and away!" this time he went clear up, and kept himself from touching the ceiling with his hands; and so again a third time, when he was turned out, and up went another boy. and then came tom's turn. he lay quite still, by east's advice, and didn't dislike the "once, twice, thrice," but the "away" wasn't so pleasant. they were in good wind now, and sent him slap up to the ceiling the first time, against which his knees came rather sharply. but the moment's pause before descending was the rub, the feeling of utter helplessness, and of leaving his whole inside behind him sticking to the ceiling. tom was very near shouting to be set down, when he found himself back in the blanket, but thought of east, and didn't; and so took his three tosses without a kick or a cry, and was called a young trump for his pains. a bully's refinements. he and east, having earned it, stood now looking on. no catastrophe happened, as all the captives were cool hands, and didn't struggle. this didn't suit flashman. what your real bully likes in tossing, is when the boys kick and struggle, or hold on to one side of the blanket, and so get pitched bodily on to the floor; it's no fun to him when no one is hurt or frightened. "let's toss two of them together, walker," suggested he. "what a cursed bully you are, flashey!" rejoined the other. "up with another one." and so after all, the two boys were not tossed together. the peculiar hardship of which tossing, is that it's too much for human nature to lie still then and share troubles; and so the wretched pair of small boys struggle in the air which shall fall atop in the descent, to the no small risk of both falling out of the blanket, and the huge delight of brutes like flashman. but now there's a cry that the præpostor of the room is coming; so the tossing stops, and all scatter to their different rooms, and tom is left to turn in with the first day's experience of a public school to meditate upon. chapter vii. settling to the collar. "says giles, 'tis mortal hard to go; but if so be's i must. i means to follow arter he as goes hisself the fust."--_ballad._ everybody, i suppose, knows the dreamy, delicious state in which one lies, half asleep, half awake, while consciousness begins to return, after a sound night's rest in a new place which we are glad to be in, following upon a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. there are few pleasanter pieces of life. the worst of it is that they last such a short time; for, nurse them as you will, by lying perfectly passive in mind and body, you can't make more than five minutes or so of them. after which time the stupid, obtrusive, wakeful entity[1] which we call "i," as impatient as he is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force himself back again, and take possession of us down to our very toes. waking up; movements of bogle. it was in this state that master tom lay at half-past seven on the morning following the day of his arrival, and from his clean little white bed watched the movements of bogle (the generic name[2] by which the successive shoeblacks of the school-house were known), as he marched round from bed to bed, collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and depositing clean ones in their places.[3] [1] #entity#: being. [2] #generic name#: class name. [3] "no englishman ever blacks his own shoes," said an english visitor to mr. lincoln. "well, whose shoes does he black then?" was the president's reply. there he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in the universe he was, but conscious that he had made a step in life which he had been anxious to make. it was only just light as he looked lazily out of the wide windows, and saw the tops of the great elms, and the rooks circling about, and cawing remonstrances to the lazy ones of their commonwealth, before starting in a body for the neighboring plowed fields. the noise of the room door closing behind bogle, as he made his exit with the shoe-basket under his arm, roused him thoroughly, and he sat up in bed and looked round the room. what in the world could be the matter with his shoulders and loins? he felt as if he had been severely beaten all down his back, the natural results of his performance at his first match. he drew up his knees and rested his chin on them, and went over all the events of yesterday, rejoicing in his new life, what he had seen of it, and all that was to come. presently one or two of the other boys roused themselves, and began to sit up and talk to one another in low tones. then east, after a roll or two, came to an anchor, also, and, nodding to tom, began examining his ankle. "what a pull,"[4] said he, "that it's lie-in-bed morning, for i shall be as lame as a tree, i think." [4] #pull#: lucky thing. it was sunday morning, and sunday lectures had not yet been established; so that nothing but breakfast intervened between bed and eleven o'clock chapel,--a gap by no means easy to fill up; in fact, though received with the correct amount of grumbling, the first lecture instituted by the doctor shortly afterward was a great boon to the school. it was lie-in-bed, and no one was in a hurry to get up, especially in rooms where the sixth-form boy was a good-tempered fellow, as was the case in tom's room, and allowed the small boys to talk and laugh, and do pretty much what they pleased, so long as they didn't disturb him. his bed was a bigger one than the rest, standing in the corner by the fire-place, with a washing-stand and large basin by the side, where he lay in state, with his white curtains tucked in so as to form a retiring place; an awful subject of contemplation to tom, who slept nearly opposite, and watched the great man rouse himself and take a book from under his pillow, and begin reading, leaning his head on his hand, and turning his back to the room. soon, however, a noise of striving urchins arose, and muttered encouragements from the neighboring boys, of--"go it, tadpole!" "now, young green!" "haul away his blanket!" "slipper him on the hands!" young green and little hall, commonly called tadpole, from his great black head and thin legs, slept side by side far away by the door, and were forever playing one another tricks, which usually ended, as on this morning, in open and violent collision: and now, unmindful of all order and authority, there they were each hauling away at the other's bed-clothes with one hand, and with the other, armed with a slipper, belaboring whatever portion of the body of his adversary came within reach. getting up. "hold that noise, up in the corner!" called out the præpostor, sitting up and looking round his curtains; and the tadpole and young green sank down into their disordered beds, and then, looking at his watch, added: "hullo, past eight!--whose turn for hot water?" (where the præpostor was particular in his ablutions, the fags in his room had to descend in turn to the kitchen, and beg or steal hot water for him; and often the custom extended further, and two boys went down every morning to get a supply for the whole room.) "east's and tadpole's," answered the senior fag, who kept the rota.[5] [5] #rota#: list. "i can't go," said east; "i'm dead lame." "well, be quick, some of you, that's all," said the great man, as he turned out of bed, and putting on his slippers, went out into the great passage which runs the whole length of the bedrooms, to get his sunday habiliments out of his portmanteau. "let me go for you," said tom to east. "i should like it." "well, thank'ee, that's a good fellow. just pull on your trousers, and take your jug[6] and mine. tadpole will show you the way." [6] #jug#: here, a large water-pitcher. and so tom and the tadpole, in night-shirts and trousers, started off down-stairs, and through "thos's hole," as the little buttery, where candles and beer and bread and cheese were served out at night, was called; across the school-house court, down a long passage, and into the kitchen; where, after some parley with the stalwart, handsome cook, who declared that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot water, and returned with all speed and great caution. as it was, they narrowly escaped capture by some privateers[7] from the fifth-form rooms, who were on the look-out for the hot-water convoys, and pursued them up to the very door of their room, making them spill half their load in the passage. "better than going down again, though," tadpole remarked, "as we should have had to do, if those beggars had caught us." [7] #privateers#: literally, ships owned by private individuals licensed to plunder an enemy in war. the "close" before chapel. by the time that the calling-over bell rang, tom and his new comrades were all down, dressed in their best clothes, and he had the satisfaction of answering "here" to his name for the first time, the præpostor of the week having put it in at the bottom of his list. and then came breakfast, and a saunter about the close and town with east, whose lameness only became severe when any fagging had to be done. and so they whiled away the time until morning chapel. it was a fine november morning, and the close soon became alive with boys of all ages, who sauntered about on the grass, or walked round the gravel-walk, in parties of two or three. east, still doing the cicerone, pointed out all the remarkable characters to tom as they passed: osbert, who could throw a cricket ball from the little side ground over the rook-trees to the doctor's wall; gray, who had got the balliol scholarship, and, what east evidently thought of much more importance, a half-holiday for the school by his success; thorne, who had run ten miles in two minutes over the hour; black, who had held his own against the cock of the town in the last row with the louts; and many more heroes, who then and there walked about and were worshipped, all trace of whom has long since vanished from the scene of their fame; and the fourth-form boy who reads their names rudely cut out on old hall tables, or painted upon the big side-cupboard (if hall tables and big side-cupboards still exist), wonders what manner of boys they were. it will be the same with you who wonder, my sons, whatever your prowess may be, in cricket, or scholarship, or foot-ball. two or three years, more or less, and then the steadily advancing, blessed wave will pass over your names as it has passed over ours. nevertheless, play your games and do your work manfully--see only that that be done, and let the remembrance of it take care of itself. morning and afternoon chapel. the chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and tom got in early, took his place in the lowest row, and watched all the other boys come in and take their places, filling row after row; and tried to construe[8] the greek text which was inscribed over the door with the slightest possible success, and wondering which of the masters, who walked down the chapel and took their seats in the exalted boxes at the end, would be his lord. and then came the closing of the doors, and the doctor, in his robes, and the service, which, however, didn't impress him much, for his feeling of wonder and curiosity was too strong. and the boy on one side of him was scratching his name on the oak paneling in front, and he couldn't help watching to see what the name was, and whether it was well scratched; and the boy on the other side went to sleep and kept falling against him; and on the whole, though many boys even in that part of the school, were serious and attentive, the general atmosphere was by no means devotional; and when he got out into the close again, he didn't feel at all comfortable, or as if he had been to church. [8] #construe#: translate. but at afternoon chapel it was quite another thing. he had spent the time after dinner in writing home to his mother, and so was in a better frame of mind: and his first curiosity was over, and he could attend more to the service. as the hymn after the prayers was being sung, and the chapel was getting a little dark, he was beginning to feel that he had been really worshipping. and then came that great event in his, as in every rugby boy's life of that day,--the first sermon from the doctor. the sermon. more worthy pens than mine have described that scene--the oak pulpit standing out by itself above the school seats; the tall, gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice, now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light infantry bugle, of him who stood there sunday after sunday, witnessing and pleading for his lord, the king of righteousness and love and glory, with whose spirit he was filled, and in whose power he spoke; the long lines of young faces, rising tier above tier down the whole length of the chapel, from the little boy's who had just left his mother to the young man's who was going out next week into the great world rejoicing in his strength. it was a great and solemn sight, and never more so than at this time of the year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit and at the seats of the præpostors of the week, and the soft twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, deepening into darkness in the high gallery behind the organ. but what was it, after all, which seized and held these three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes, on sunday afternoons? true, there always were boys scattered up and down the school, who in heart and head were worthy to hear and able to carry away the deepest and wisest words spoken. but these were a minority always, generally a very small one, often so small a one as to be countable on the fingers of your hand. what was it that moved and held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish boys, who feared the doctor with our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth: who thought more of our sets[9] in the school than of the church of christ, and put the traditions of rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily life above the laws of god? we couldn't enter into half that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge of our own hearts or the knowledge of one another; and little enough of the faith, hope, and love needed to that end. but we listened, as all boys in their better moods will listen (ay, and men, too, for the matter of that), to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. it was not the cold clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm living voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. and so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life: that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death. and he who roused this consciousness in them showed them at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood there before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band. the true sort of captain, too, for a boy's army, one who had no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood. other sides of his character might take hold of and influence boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and undaunted courage which more than anything else won his way to the hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them believe first in him, and then in his master. [9] #sets#: classes, social groups or cliques. the doctor's first hold. it was this quality, above all others, which moved such boys as our hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him except excess of boyishness; by which i mean animal life in its fullest measure, good-nature and honest impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and thoughtlessness enough to sink a three-decker.[10] and so, during the next two years, in which it was more than doubtful whether he would get good or evil from the school, and before any steady purpose or principle grew up in him, whatever his week's sins or shortcomings might have been, he hardly ever left the chapel on sunday evenings without a serious resolve to stand by and follow the doctor, and a feeling that it was only cowardice (the incarnation[11] of all other sins in such a boy's mind) which hindered him from doing so with all his heart. [10] #three-decker#: an old-fashioned man-of-war of the largest size. [11] #incarnation#: embodiment. the next day tom was duly placed in the third form, and began his lessons in a corner of the big school.[12] he found the work very easy, as he had been well grounded and knew his grammar by heart; and, as he had no intimate companion to make him idle (east and his other school-house friends being in the lower fourth, the form above him), soon gained golden opinions from his master, who said he was placed too low, and should be put out at the end of the half-year. so all went well with him in school, and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to his mother, full of his own success, and the unspeakable delights of a public school. [12] #big school#: one of the school buildings. in the house too all went well. the end of the half-year was drawing near, which kept everybody in a good humor, and the house was ruled well and strongly by warner and brooke. true, the general system was rough and hard, and there was bullying in nooks and corners, bad signs for the future; but it never got further, or dared show itself openly, stalking about the passages and hall and bedrooms, and making the life of the small boys a continual fear. house-fagging. tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the first month, but in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege hardly pleased him; and east and others of his young friends discovering this, kindly allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night-fagging and cleaning studies. these were the principal duties of the fags in the house. from supper until nine o'clock, three fags taken in order stood in the passages, and answered any præpostor who called fag, racing to the door, the last comer having to do the work. this consisted generally of going to the buttery for beer and bread and cheese (for the great men did not sup with the rest, but had each his own allowance, in his study or the fifth-form room), cleaning candlesticks and putting in new candles, toasting cheese, and carrying messages about the house; and tom, in the first blush of his hero-worship, felt it a high privilege to receive orders from, and be the bearer of the supper of old brooke. and besides this night-work each præpostor had three or four fags specially allotted to him, of whom he was supposed to be the guide, philosopher, and friend, and who in return for these good offices had to clean out his study every morning by turns, directly after first lesson and before he returned from breakfast. and the pleasure of seeing the great men's studies, and looking at their pictures, and peeping into their books, made tom a ready substitute for any boy who was too lazy to do his own work. and so he gained the character of a good-natured, willing fellow, who was ready to do a turn for any one. in all the games, too, he joined with all his heart, and soon became well versed in all the mysteries of foot-ball, by continual practice at the school-house little-side, which played daily. hare and hounds. the only incident worth recording here, however, was his first run at hare and hounds. on the last tuesday but one of the half-year, he was passing through the hall after dinner, when he was hailed with shouts from tadpole and several other fags seated at one of the long tables, the chorus of which was "come and help us tear up scent." tom approached the table in obedience to the mysterious summons, always ready to help, and found the party engaged in tearing up old newspapers, copy-books, and magazines into small pieces, with which they were filling four large canvas bags. "it's the turn of our house to find scent for big-side hare and hounds," exclaimed tadpole; "tear away, there's no time to lose before calling-over." "i think it's a great shame," said another small boy, "to have such a hard run for the last day." "which run is it?" cried tadpole. "oh, the barby run, i hear," answered the other; "nine miles at least, and hard ground; no chance of getting in at the finish, unless you're a first-rate scud." "well, i'm going to have a try," said tadpole; "it's the last run of the half." "i should like to try, too," said tom. "well, then leave your waistcoat behind, and listen at the door, after calling-over, and you'll hear where the meet is." after calling-over, sure enough, there were two boys at the door calling out: "big-side hare and hounds meet at white hall"; and tom, having girded himself with a leather strap, and left all superfluous clothing behind, set off for white hall, an old gable-ended[13] house some quarter of a mile from the town, and east, whom he had persuaded to join, notwithstanding his prophecy that they could never get in, as it was the hardest run of the year. [13] #gable-ended#: having a triangular end from the eaves or cornice to the top. the meet and the first burst. at the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, and tom felt sure, from having seen many of them run at foot-ball, that he and east were more likely to get in than they. after a few minutes' waiting, two well-known runners, chosen for the hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, compared their watches with those of young brooke and thorne, and started off at a long, slinging trot across the fields in the direction of barby. then the hounds clustered round thorne, who explained shortly, "they're to have six minutes' law.[14] we run to the cock,[15] and every one who comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares'll be counted, if he has been round barby church." then came a minute's pause or so, and then the watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through the gate-way into the field which the hares had first crossed. here they break into a trot, scattering over the field to find the first traces of the scent which the hares throw out as they go along. the old hounds make straight for the likely points, and in a minute a cry of "forward" comes from one of them, and the whole pack quickening their pace make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent first, and the two or three nearest to him, are over the first fence, and making play along the hedge-row in the long grass-field beyond. the rest of the pack rush at the gap already made, and scramble through, jostling one another. "forward" again, before they are half through; the pace quickens into a sharp run, the tail hounds all straining to get up to the lucky leaders. they are gallant hares, and the scent lies thick right across another meadow and into a plowed field, where the pace begins to tell; then over a good wattle[16] with a ditch on the other side, and down a large pasture studded with old thorns, which slopes down to the first brook; the great leicestershire[17] sheep charge away across the field as the pack comes racing down the slope. the brook is a small one, and the scent lies right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever; not a turn or a check to favor the tail hounds, who strain on, now trailing in a long line, many a youngster beginning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart beat like a hammer, and the bad plucked ones thinking that after all it isn't worth while to keep it up. [14] #six minutes' law#: six minutes' start. [15] #the cock#: a noted inn. [16] #wattle#: a gate or fence made of sticks woven together. [17] #leicestershire#: a county joining warwickshire. tom, east, and the tadpole had a good start, and are well up for such young hands, and, after rising the slope and crossing the next field, find themselves up with the leading hounds, who have overrun the scent, and are trying back; they have come a mile and a half in about eleven minutes, a pace which shows that it is the last day. about twenty-five of the original starters only show here, the rest having already given in; the leaders are busy making casts[18] into the fields on the left and right, and the others get their second winds. [18] #casts#: sallies or explorations in different directions. then comes the cry of "forward" again, from young brooke, from the extreme left, and the pack settle down to work again steadily and doggedly, the whole keeping pretty well together. the scent, though still good, is not so thick; there is no need of that, for in this part of the run every one knows the line which must be taken, and so there are no casts to be made, but good downright running and fencing to be done. all who are now up mean coming in, and they come to the foot of barby hill without losing more than two or three more of the pack. this last straight two miles and a half is always a vantage-ground[19] for the hounds, and the hares know it well; they are generally viewed on the side of barby hill, and all eyes are on the look-out for them to-day. but not a sign of them appears, so now will be the hard work for the hounds, and there is nothing for it but to cast about for the scent, for it is now the hares' turn, and they may baffle the pack dreadfully in the next two miles. [19] #vantage-ground#: a place of advantage. ill fares it now with our youngsters that they are school-house boys, and so follow young brooke, for he takes the wide casts round to the left, conscious of his own powers, and loving the hard work. for if you would consider for a moment, you small boys, you would remember that the cock, where the run ends, lies far out to the right, on the dunchurch road, so that every cast you take to the left is so much extra work. and at this stage of the run, when the evening is closing in already, no one remarks whether you run a little cunning or not, so you should stick to those crafty hounds who keep edging away to the right, and not follow a prodigal like young brooke, whose legs are twice as long as yours and of cast-iron, wholly indifferent to one or two miles, more or less. however, they struggle after him, panting and plunging along, tom and east pretty close, and tadpole, whose big head begins to pull him down, some thirty yards behind. the first check. now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which they can hardly drag their legs, and they hear faint cries for help from the wretched tadpole, who has fairly stuck fast. but they have too little run left in themselves to pull up for their own brothers. three fields more, and another check, and then "forward," called away to the extreme right. the two boys' souls die within them; they can never do it. young brooke thinks so, too, and says, kindly: "you'll cross a lane after next field, keep down it, and you'll hit the dunchurch road below the cock," and then, steams away for the run in, in which he's sure to be first, as if he were just starting. they struggle on across the next field, the "forwards" getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. the whole hunt is out of earshot, and all hope of coming in is over. no go. "hang it all!" broke out east, as soon as he had got wind enough, pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered with dirt, and lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still, cold air. "i told you how it would be. what a thick[20] i was to come! here we are dead beat, and yet i know we're close to the run in, if we knew the country." [20] #thick#: fool. "well," said tom, mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment, "it can't be helped. we did our best, anyhow. hadn't we better find this lane, and go down it as young brooke told us?" "i suppose so--nothing else for it," grunted east. "if ever i go out last day again," growl--growl--growl. so they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold, puddly ruts, and beginning to feel how the run had taken it out of them. the evening closed in fast, and clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary. consequences. "i say, it must be locking-up, i should think," remarked east, breaking the silence; "it's so dark." "what if we're late?" said tom. "no tea, and sent up to the doctor," answered east. the thought didn't add to their cheerfulness. presently a faint halloo was heard from an adjoining field. they answered it, and stopped, hoping for some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate some twenty yards ahead crawled the wretched tadpole, in a state of collapse; he had lost a shoe in the brook, and had been groping in it up to his elbows in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of a boy seldom has been seen. the sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was some degrees more wretched than they. they also cheered him, as he was no longer under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields. and so in better heart the three plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. at last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came out on a turnpike road, and there paused bewildered, for they had lost all bearings, and knew not whether to turn to the right or left. luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering along the road, with one lamp lighted, and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a heavy coach, which after a moment's suspense, they recognized as the oxford coach, the redoubtable pig and whistle. it lumbered slowly up, and the boys mustering their last run, caught it as it passed, and began clambering up behind, in which exploit east missed his footing, and fell flat on his nose along the road. then the others hailed the old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed to take them in for a shilling; so there they sat on the back seat, drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold, and jogged into rugby some forty minutes after locking-up. their reception. five minutes afterward, three small, limping, shivering figures steal along through the doctor's garden, and into the house by the servants' entrance (all the other gates have been closed long since), where the first thing they light upon in the passage is old thomas, ambling along, candle in one hand and keys in the other. he stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. "ah! east, hall, and brown, late for locking-up. must go up to the doctor's study at once." "well, but thomas, mayn't we go and wash first? you can put down the time, you know." "doctor's study d'rectly you come in--that's the orders," replied old thomas, motioning toward the stairs at the end of the passage which led up into the doctor's house; and the boys turned ruefully down it, not cheered by the old verger's muttered remark, "what a pickle they boys be in!" thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, but they construed it as indicating the doctor's state of mind. upon the short flight of stairs they paused to hold counsel. "who'll go in first?" inquires tadpole. "you--you're the senior," answered east. "catch me--look at the state i'm in," rejoined hall, showing the arms of his jacket. "i must get behind you two." "well, but look at me," said east indicating the mass of clay behind which he was standing; "i'm worse than you, two to one; you might grow cabbages on my trousers." "that's all down below, and you can keep your legs behind the sofa," said hall. "here, brown, you're the show figure--you must lead." "but my face is all muddy," argued tom. "oh, we're all in one boat, for that matter; but, come on, we're only making it worse, dawdling here." "well, just give us a brush then," said tom: and they began trying to rub off the superfluous dirt from each other's jackets, but it was not dry enough, and the rubbing made them worse; so in despair they pushed through the swing door at the head of the stairs, and found themselves in the doctor's hall. "that's the library door," said east, in a whisper, pushing tom forward. the sound of merry voices and laughter came from within, and his first hesitating knock was unanswered. but at the second, the doctor's voice said, "come in," and tom turned the handle, and he, with the others behind him, sidled into the room. the doctor looked up from his task; he was working away with a great chisel at the bottom of a boy's sailing-boat, the lines of which he was no doubt fashioning on the model of one of nicias's galleys.[21] round him stood three or four children; the candles burnt brightly on a large table at the further end, covered with books and papers, and a great fire threw a ruddy glow over the rest of the room. all looked so kindly and homely,[22] and comfortable, that the boys took heart in a moment, and tom advanced, from behind the shelter of the great sofa. the doctor nodded to the children, who went out, casting curious and amused glances at the three young scarecrows. [21] #nicias's galleys#: grecian boats under the command of nicias, a famous general. [22] #homely#: homelike. their explanation. "well, my little fellows," began the doctor, drawing himself up with his back to the fire, the chisel in one hand and his coat-tails in the other; and his eyes twinkling as he looked them over; "what makes you so late?" "please, sir, we've been out big-side hare and hounds, and lost our way." "hah! you couldn't keep up, i suppose?" "well, sir," said east, stepping out, and not liking that the doctor should think lightly of his running powers, "we got round barby all right, but then--" "why, what a state you're in, my boy!" interrupted the doctor, as the pitiful condition of east's garments was fully revealed to him. "that's the fall i got, sir, in the road," said east, looking down at himself; "the old pig came by--" "the what?" said the doctor. "oxford coach, sir," explained hall. "hah! yes, the regulator," said the doctor. "and i tumbled on my face, trying to get up behind," went on east. "you're not hurt, i hope?" said the doctor. "oh, no, sir." "well, now, run up-stairs, all three of you, and get clean things on, and then tell the housekeeper to give you some tea. you're too young to try such long runs. let warner know i've seen you. good-night." "good-night, sir." and away scuttled the three boys in high glee. "what a brick, not to give us even twenty lines to learn!" said the tadpole, as they reached their bedroom; and in half an hour afterward they were sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room at a sumptuous tea, with cold meat, "twice as good a grub as we should have got in the hall," as the tadpole remarked with a grin, his mouth full of buttered toast. all their grievances were forgotten, and they were resolving to go out the first big-side next half, and thinking hare and hounds the most delightful of games. last days. a day or two afterward the great passage outside the bedrooms was cleared of the boxes and portmanteaus, which went down to be packed by the matron, and great games of chariot-racing, and cock-fighting, and bolstering[23] went on in the vacant space, the sure sign of a closing half-year. [23] #bolstering#: fights with pillows and bolsters. then came the making up of parties for the journey home, and tom joined a party who were to hire a coach, and post with four horses to oxford. then the last saturday on which the doctor came round to each form to give out the prizes, and hear the masters' last report of how they and their charges had been conducting themselves; and tom, to his huge delight, was praised, and got his remove into the lower fourth, in which all his school-house friends were. on the next tuesday morning, at four o'clock, hot coffee was going on in the housekeeper's and matron's rooms: boys wrapped in great-coats and mufflers were swallowing hasty mouthfuls, rushing about, tumbling over luggage, and asking questions all at once of the matron; outside the school-gates were drawn up several chaises and the four-horse coach which tom's party had chartered, the post-boys[24] in their best jackets and breeches, and a cornopean[25] player, hired for the occasion, blowing away, "a southerly wind and a cloudy day," waking all peaceful inhabitants half-way down the high street. [24] #post-boys#: the boys that drove the coach and the post-chaises. [25] #cornopean#: a kind of trumpet. every minute the bustle and hubbub increased; porters staggered about with boxes and bags, the cornopean played louder. old thomas sat in his den with a great yellow bag by his side, out of which he was paying journey money to each boy, comparing by the light of a solitary dip the dirty crabbed little list in his own handwriting, with the doctor's list, and the amount of his cash; his head was on one side, his mouth screwed up, and his spectacles dim from early toil. he had prudently locked the door, and carried on his operations through the window, or he would have been driven wild and lost all his money. "thomas, do be quick; we shall never catch the highflyer[26] at dunchurch." [26] #highflyer#: name of a coach. "that's your money, all right, green." "hullo, thomas, the doctor said i was to have two-pound-ten; you've only given me two pound." i fear that master green is not confining himself strictly to truth. thomas turns his head more on one side than ever, and spells away at the dirty list. green is forced away from the window. "here, thomas, never mind him, mine's thirty shillings." "and mine too," "and mine," shouted others. one way or another, the party to which tom belonged all got packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the cornopean playing frantically, "drops of brandy," in allusion, probably, to the slight potations in which the musicians and post-boys had been already indulging. all luggage was carefully stowed away inside the coach and in the front and hind boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. five or six small boys, with pea-shooters, and the cornopean player, got up behind; in front the big boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because they are now gentlemen at large[27]--and this is the most correct public method of notifying the fact. [27] #at large#: free from restraint. off. "robinson's coach will be down the road in a minute; it has gone up to bird's to pick up--we'll wait till they're close, and make a race of it," says the leader. "now, boys, half a sovereign apiece if you beat 'em into dunchurch by one hundred yards." "all right, sir," shouted the grinning post-boys. down comes robinson's coach in a minute or two with a rival cornopean, and away go the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys cheering, horns playing loud. there is a special providence over schoolboys as well as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five miles, sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the roofs exchanging volleys of peas, now nearly running over a post-chaise which had started before them, now half-way up a bank, now with a wheel-and-a-half over a yawning ditch; and all this in a dark morning, with nothing but their own lamps to guide them. however, it is all over at last, and they have run over nothing but an old pig in southam street; the last peas are distributed in the corn market[28] at oxford, where they arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast at the angel, which they are made to pay for accordingly. here the party breaks up, all going now different ways: and tom orders out a chaise and pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shillings left in his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home. [28] #corn market#: one of the principal streets of oxford. dulce domum. "where to, sir?" "red lion, farringdon," says tom, giving ostler a shilling. "all right, sir. red lion, jem," to the post-boy, and tom rattles away toward home. at farringdon, being known to the innkeeper, he gets that worthy to pay for the oxford horses, and forward him in another chaise at once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal mansion, and squire brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pounds ten shillings for the posting expenses from oxford. but the boy's intense joy at getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the good character he brings, and the brave stories he tells of rugby, its doings and delights, soon mollify the squire, and three happier people didn't sit down to dinner that day in england (it is the boy's first dinner at six o'clock at home, great promotion already), than the squire and his wife and tom brown, at the end of his first half-year at rugby. chapter viii. the war of independence. "they are slaves who will not choose hatred, scoffing, and abuse, rather than in silence shrink from the truth they needs must think. they are slaves who dare not be in the right with two or three." _lowell, "stanzas on freedom."_ the lower fourth. the lower-fourth form, in which tom found himself at the beginning of the next half-year, was the largest form in the lower school, and numbered upward of forty boys. young gentlemen of all ages, from nine to fifteen, were to be found there, who expended such part of their energies as was devoted to latin and greek, upon a book of livy, the bucolics[1] of virgil, and the hecuba[2] of euripides, which were ground out in small daily portions. the driving of this unlucky lower fourth must have been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it was the most unhappily constituted of any in the school. here stuck the great stupid boys, who for the life of them could never master the accidence;[3] the objects alternately of mirth and terror to the youngsters, who were daily taking them up, and laughing at them in lesson, and getting kicked by them for so doing in play-hours. there were no less than three unhappy fellows in tail coats, with incipient down on their chins, whom the doctor and the master of the form were always endeavoring to hoist into the upper school, but whose parsing and construing resisted the most well-meant shoves. then came the mass of the form, boys of eleven and twelve, the most mischievous and reckless age of british youth, of whom east and tom brown were fair specimens. as full of tricks as monkeys, and of excuses as irish women, making fun of their master, one another, and their lessons, argus[4] himself would have been puzzled to keep an eye on them; and as for making them steady or serious for half an hour together, it was simply hopeless. the remainder of the form consisted of young prodigies of nine or ten, who were going up the school at the rate of a form a half-year, all boys' hands and wits being against them in their progress. it would have been one man's work to see that the precocious youngsters had fair play; and as the master had a good deal besides to do, they hadn't, and were forever being shoved down three or four places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their jackets whitened, and their lives otherwise made a burden to them. [1] #bucolics#: short poems on country life. [2] #hecuba#: the name of a play. [3] #accidence#: the rudiments of grammar. [4] #argus#: in mythology, a monster with a hundred eyes. the lower fourth, and all the forms below it, were heard in the great school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons before coming in, but were whipped into school three-quarters of an hour before the lessons began by their respective masters, and there, scattered about on the benches, with dictionary and grammar, hammered out their twenty lines of virgil and euripides in the midst of babel.[5] the masters of the lower school walked up and down the great school together during this three-quarters of an hour, or sat in their desks reading or looking over copies, and keeping such order as was possible. but the lower fourth was just now an overgrown form, too large for any one man to attend to properly, and consequently the elysium[6] or ideal form of the young scapegraces who formed the staple[7] of it. [5] #babel#: confusion. see genesis, chapter xi. [6] #elysium#: in mythology, a dwelling-place for happy souls after death; hence, any delightful place. [7] #staple#: principal part. tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a good character, but the temptations of the lower fourth soon proved too strong for him, and he rapidly fell away, and became as unmanageable as the rest. for some weeks, indeed, he succeeded in maintaining the appearance of steadiness, and was looked upon favorably by his new master, whose eyes were first opened by the following little incident. besides the desk which the master himself occupied, there was another large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great school, which was untenanted. to rush and seize upon this desk, which was ascended by three steps, and held four boys, was the great object of ambition of the lower-fourthers; and the contentions for the occupation of it bred such disorder, that at last the master forbade its use altogether. this of course was a challenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it, and as it was capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely, it was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto.[8] small holes were cut in the front, through which the occupants watched the masters as they walked up and down, and as lesson-time approached, one boy at a time stole out and down the steps, as the masters' backs were turned, and mingled with the general crowd on the forms below. tom and east had successfully occupied the desk some half-dozen times, and were grown so reckless that they were in the habit of playing small games with fives'-balls inside, when the masters were at the other end of the big school. one day, as ill-luck would have it, the game became more exciting than usual, and the ball slipped through east's fingers, and rolled slowly down the steps, and out into the middle of the school, just as the masters turned in their walk, and faced round upon the desk. the young delinquents watched their master, through the look-out holes, marching slowly down the school straight upon their retreat, while all the boys in the neighborhood of course stopped their work to look on; and not only were they ignominiously drawn out, and caned over the hand then and there, but their characters for steadiness were gone from that time. however, as they only shared the fate of some three-fourths of the rest of the form, this did not weigh heavily upon them. [8] #veto#: the act of forbidding; a prohibition. monthly examinations. in fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the matter were the monthly examinations, when the doctor came round to examine their form, for one long awful hour, in the work which they had done in the preceding month. the second monthly examination came round soon after tom's fall, and it was with anything but lively anticipations that he and the other lower-fourth boys came in to prayers on the morning of the examination day. prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, and before they could get construes of a tithe[9] of the hard passages marked in the margin of their books, they were all seated round, and the doctor was standing in the middle, talking in whispers to the master. tom couldn't hear a word which passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book; but he knew by a kind of magnetic instinct that the doctor's under lip was coming out, and his eye beginning to burn, and his gown getting gathered up more and more tightly in his left hand. the suspense was agonizing, and tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to make an example of the school-house boys. "if he would only begin," thought tom, "i shouldn't mind." [9] #tithe#: a tenth. at last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called out was not brown. he looked up for a moment, but the doctor's face was too awful; tom wouldn't have met his eye for all he was worth, and buried himself in his book again. triste lupus. the boy who was called up first was a clever,[10] merry school-house boy, one of their set; he was some connection of the doctor's and a great favorite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so was selected for the first victim. [10] #clever#: bright, smart. "triste lupus stabulis,"[11] began the luckless youngster, and stammered through some eight or ten lines. [11] #"triste lupus stabulis"#: "the wolf is fatal to the flocks." "there, that will do," said the doctor, "now construe." on common occasions, the boy could have construed the passage well enough, probably, but now his head was gone. "triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf," he began. a shudder ran through the whole form, and the doctor's wrath fairly boiled over; he made three steps up to the construer, and gave him a good box on the ear. the blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so taken by surprise that he started back; the form[12] caught the back of his knees, and over he went on to the floor behind. there was a dead silence over the whole school; never before and never again while tom was at school did the doctor strike a boy in lesson. the provocation must have been great. however, the victim had saved his form[13] for that occasion, for the doctor turned to the top bench, and put on the best boys for the rest of the hour; and though, at the end of the lesson, he gave them all such a rating[14] as they did not forget, this terrible field-day passed over without any severe visitations in the shape of punishments or floggings. forty young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the "sorrowful wolf," in their different ways before second lesson. [12] #form#: here, bench. [13] #form#: here, class. [14] #rating#: scolding. but a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered, as tom found, and for years afterward he went up the school without it, and the masters' hands were against him and his against them. and he regarded them, as a matter of course, as his natural enemies. misrule and its causes. matters were not so comfortable either in the house as they had been, for old brooke left at christmas, and one or two others of the sixth-form boys at the following easter. their rule had been rough, but strong and just in the main, and a higher standard was beginning to be set up; in fact, there had been a short foretaste of the good time which followed some years later. just now, however, all threatened to return into darkness and chaos again. for the new præpostors were either small young boys, whose cleverness had carried them up to the top of the school while, in strength of body and character, they were not yet fit for a share in the government; or else big fellows of the wrong sort, boys whose friendships and tastes had a downward tendency, who had not caught the meaning of their position and work, and felt none of its responsibilities. so under this no-government the school-house began to see bad times. the big fifth-form boys, who were a sporting and drinking set, soon began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if they were præpostors, and to bully and oppress any one who showed signs of resistance. the bigger sort of sixth-form boys just described soon made common cause with the fifth, while the smaller sort, hampered by their colleagues'[15] desertion to the enemy, could not make head against them. so the fags were without their lawful masters and protectors, and ridden over rough-shod by a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, and whose only right over them stood in their bodily powers; and, as old brooke had prophesied, the house by degrees broke up into small sets and parties, and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he set so much store by, and with it much of the prowess in games, and the lead in all school matters, which he had done so much to keep up. [15] #colleagues#: associates. the old boy moralizeth thereon. in no place in the world has individual character more weight than at a public school. remember this, i beseech you, all you boys who are getting into the upper forms. now is the time, in all your lives, probably, when you may have more wide influence, for good or evil, on the society you live in, than you ever can have again. quit[16] yourselves like men, then; speak up, and strike out if necessary for whatsoever is true, and manly, and lovely, and of good report; never try to be popular, but only to do your duty and help others to do theirs, and you may leave the tone of feeling in the school higher than you found it, and so be doing good, which no living soul can measure, to generations of your countrymen yet unborn. for boys follow one another in herds like sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have rarely any settled principles. every school, indeed, has its own traditionary standard of right and wrong, which cannot be transgressed with impunity, marking certain things as low and blackguard, and certain others as lawful and right. this standard is ever varying, though it changes only slowly, and little by little; and, subject only to such standard, it is the leading boys for the time being who give the tone to all the rest, and make the school either a noble institution for the training of christian englishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil than he would if he were turned out to make his way in london streets, or anything between these two extremes. [16] #quit#: acquit, behave. the change for the worse in the school-house, however, didn't press very heavily on our youngsters for some time; they were in a good bedroom, where slept the only præpostor left who was able to keep thorough order, and their study was in his passage; so, though they were fagged more or less, and occasionally kicked or cuffed by the bullies, they were, on the whole, well off; and the fresh, brave school-life, so full of games, adventures, and good fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold their troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill-usage of the big boys in the house. it wasn't till some year or so after the events recorded above, that the præpostor of their room and passage left. none of the other sixth-form boys would move into their passage, and, to the disgust and indignation of tom and east, one morning after breakfast they were seized upon by flashman, and made to carry down his books and furniture into the unoccupied study which he had taken. from this time they began to feel the weight of the tyranny of flashman and his friends, and, now that trouble had come home to their own doors, began to look out for sympathizers and partners amongst the rest of the fags; and meetings of the oppressed began to be held, and murmurs to arise, and plots to be laid, as to how they should free themselves and be avenged on their enemies. the shoe begins to pinch. while matters were in this state, east and tom were one evening sitting in their study. they had done their work for first lesson, and tom was in a brown study, brooding like a young william tell, upon the wrongs of fags in general, and his own in particular. "i say, scud," said he, at last, rousing himself to snuff the candle, "what right have the fifth-form boys to fag us as they do?" "no more right than you have to fag them," answered east, without looking up from an early number of "pickwick,"[17] which was just coming out, and which he was luxuriously devouring, stretched on his back on the sofa. [17] #"the pickwick papers"#: a humorous novel by charles dickens. tom relapsed into his brown study, and east went on reading and chuckling. the contrast of the boys' faces would have given infinite amusement to a looker-on, the one so solemn and big with mighty purpose, the other radiant and bubbling over with fun. "do you know, old fellow, i've been thinking it over a good deal," began tom, again. "oh, yes, i know, fagging you are thinking of. hang it all--but listen here, tom--here's fun. mr. winkle's horse--" "and i've made up my mind," broke in tom, "that i won't fag except for the sixth." "quite right, too, my boy," cried east, putting his finger on the place and looking up; "but a pretty peck of troubles you'll get into, if you're going to play that game. however, i'm all for a strike myself, if we can get others to join--it's getting too bad." "can't we get some sixth-form fellow to take it up?" asked tom. "well, perhaps we might; morgan would interfere, i think. only," added east, after a moment's pause, "you see we should have to tell him about it, and that's against school principles. don't you remember what old brooke said about learning to take our own parts?" "ah, i wish old brooke were back again--it was all right in his time." "why, yes, you see then the strongest and best fellows were in the sixth, and the fifth-form fellows were afraid of them, and they kept good order; but now our sixth-form fellows are too small, and the fifth don't care for them, and do what they like in the house." "and so we get a double set of masters," cried tom, indignantly; "the lawful ones, who are responsible to the doctor at any rate, and the unlawful--the tyrants, who are responsible to nobody." "down with the tyrants!" cried east; "i'm all for law and order, and hurra for a revolution!" "i shouldn't mind if it were only for young brooke now," said tom, "he's such a good-hearted, gentlemanly fellow, and ought to be in the sixth--i'd do anything for him. but that blackguard flashman, who never speaks to one without a kick or an oath--" "the cowardly brute," broke in east, "how i hate him! and he knows it too--he knows that you and i think him a coward. what a bore that he's got a study in this passage! don't you hear them now at supper in his den? brandy punch going, i'll bet. i wish the doctor would come out and catch him. we must change our study as soon as we can." "change or no change, i'll never fag for him again," said tom, thumping the table. the explosion. "fa-a-a-ag!" sounded along the passage from flashman's study. the two boys looked at one another in silence. it had struck nine, so the regular night fags had left duty, and they were the nearest to the supper-party. east sat up, and began to look comical, as he always did under difficulties. "fa-a-a-ag!" again. no answer. "here, brown! east! you cursed young skulks," roared out flashman, coming to his open door, "i know you are in--no shirking." tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as noiselessly as he could; east blew out the candle. "barricade the first," whispered he. "now, tom, mind, no surrender." "trust me for that," said tom, between his teeth. the siege. in another minute they heard the supper-party turn out and come down the passage to their door. they held their breath, and heard whispering, of which they only made out flashman's words, "i know the young brutes are in." then came summonses to open, which being unanswered, the assault commenced; luckily the door was a good strong oak one, and resisted the united weight of flashman's party. a pause followed, and they heard a besieger remark, "they are in safe enough--don't you see how the door holds at top and bottom? so the bolts must be drawn. we should have forced the lock long ago." east gave tom a nudge, to call attention to this scientific remark. then came attacks on particular panels, one of which at last gave way to the repeated kicks; but it broke inward, and the broken pieces got jammed across, the door being lined with green baize, and couldn't easily be removed from outside; and the besieged, scorning further concealment, strengthened their defences by pressing the end of their sofa against the door. so, after one or two more ineffectual efforts, flashman & co. retired, vowing vengeance in no mild terms. the first danger over, it only remained for the besieged to effect a safe retreat, as it was now near bed-time. they listened intently, and heard the supper-party resettle themselves, and then gently drew back first one bolt and then the other. presently the convivial[18] noises began again steadily. "now, then, stand by for a run," said east, throwing the door wide open, and rushing into the passage, closely followed by tom. they were too quick to be caught, but flashman was on the lookout, and sent an empty pickle-jar whizzing after them, which narrowly missed tom's head, and broke into twenty pieces at the end of the passage. "he wouldn't mind killing one, if he wasn't caught," said east, as they turned the corner. [18] #convivial#: relating to a feast; festal. the rebels in council. there was no pursuit, so the two turned into the hall, where they found a knot of small boys around the fire. their story was told--the war of independence had broken out--who would join the revolutionary forces? several others present bound themselves not to fag for the fifth form at once. one or two only edged off, and left the rebels. what else could they do? "i've a good mind to go to the doctor straight," said tom. "that'll never do--don't you remember the levy[19] of the school last half?" put in another. [19] #levy#: a meeting of the pupils. in fact, the solemn assembly, a levy of the school, had been held, at which the captain of the school had got up, and, after premising[20] that several instances had occurred of matters having been reported to the masters, that this was against public morality and school tradition; that a levy of the sixth had been held on the subject, and they had resolved that the practice must be stopped at once; and given out that any boy, in whatever form, who should thenceforth appeal to a master, without having first gone to some præpostor and laid the case before him, should be thrashed publicly and sent to coventry.[21] [20] #premising#: saying to begin with [21] #sent to coventry#: excluded from their society. a counsellor of the rebels "well, then, let's try the sixth. try morgan," suggested another. "no use"--"babbling won't do," was the general feeling. "i'll give you fellows a piece of advice," said a voice from the end of the hall. they all turned with a start, and the speaker got up from a bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a shake; he was a big, loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown too far through his jacket and trousers. "don't you go to anybody at all--you just stand out; say you won't fag--they'll soon get tired of licking you. i've tried it on years ago with their forerunners." "no! did you? tell us how it was," cried a chorus of voices, as they clustered round him. "well, just as it is with you. the fifth form would fag us, and i and some more struck, and we beat 'em. the good fellows left off directly, and the bullies who kept on soon got afraid." "was flashman here then?" "yes! and a dirty little snivelling, sneaking fellow he was too. he never dared join us, and used to toady[22] the bullies by offering to fag for them, and peaching[23] against the rest of us." [22] #toady#: seek favor in a mean way. [23] #peaching#: telling. "why wasn't he cut,[24] then?" said east. [24] #cut#: the same as "sent to coventry." "oh, toadies never get cut, they're too useful. besides, he has no end of great hampers from home, with wine and game in them; so he toadied and fed himself into favor." "the mucker." the quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off up-stairs, still consulting together, and praising their new counsellor, who stretched himself out on the bench before the hall fire again. there he lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by name diggs, and familiarly called "the mucker."[25] he was young for his size, and a very clever fellow, nearly at the top of the fifth. his friends at home, having regard, i suppose, to his age, and not to his size and place in the school, hadn't put him into tails;[26] and even his jackets were always too small; and he had a talent for destroying clothes, and making himself look shabby. he wasn't on terms with flashman's set, who sneered at his dress and ways behind his back, which he knew, and revenged himself by asking flashman the most disagreeable questions, and treating him familiarly whenever a crowd of boys were around him. neither was he intimate with any of the other bigger boys, who were warned off by his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow; besides, amongst other failings, he had that of impecuniosity[27] in a remarkable degree. he brought as much money as other boys to school, but got rid of it in no time, no one knew how. and then, being also reckless, borrowed from any one, and when his debts accumulated and creditors pressed, would have an auction in the hall of everything he possessed in the world, selling even his schoolbooks, candlestick, and study table. for weeks after one of these auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, he would live about in the fifth-form room and hall, doing his verses on old letter-backs and odd scraps of paper, and learning his lessons no one knew how. he never meddled with any little boy, and was popular with them, though they all looked on him with a sort of compassion, and called him "poor diggs," not being able to resist appearances, or to disregard wholly even the sneers of their enemy flashman. however, he seemed equally indifferent to the sneers of big boys and the pity of small ones, and lived his own queer life with much apparent enjoyment to himself. it is necessary to introduce diggs thus particularly, as he not only did tom and east good service in their present warfare, as is about to be told, but soon afterward, when he got into the sixth, chose them for his fags, and excused them from study-fagging,[28] thereby earning unto himself eternal gratitude from them, and all who are interested in their history. [25] #the mucker#: the sloven. [26] #tails#: a tail coat. [27] #impecuniosity#: want of money. [28] #study-fagging#: clearing up his study-room. the war rages. and seldom had small boys more need of a friend, for the morning after the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in all its violence. flashman laid wait, and caught tom before second lesson, and receiving a point blank "no" when told to fetch his hat, seized him and twisted his arm, and went through the other methods of torture in use. "he couldn't make me cry, tho'," as tom said triumphantly to the rest of the rebels, "and i kicked his shins well, i know." and soon it crept out that a lot of the fags were in league, and flashman excited his associates to join him in bringing the young vagabonds to their senses; and the house was filled with constant chasings, and sieges, and lickings of all sorts; and in return, the bullies' beds were pulled to pieces, and drenched with water, and their names written upon the walls with every insulting epithet which the fag invention could furnish. the war in short raged fiercely; but soon, as diggs had told them, all the better fellows in the fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public feeling began to set against flashman and his two or three intimates, and they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, but, being thorough bad fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private. flashman was an adept in all ways, but above all in the power of saying cutting and cruel things, and could often bring tears to the eyes of boys in this way, which all the thrashings in the world wouldn't have wrung from them. and as his operations were being cut short in other directions, he now devoted himself chiefly to tom and east, who lived at his own door, and would force himself into their study whenever he found a chance, and sit there, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a companion, interrupting all their work, and exulting in the evident pain which every now and then he could see he was inflicting on one or the other. the storm had cleared the air for the rest of the house, and a better state of things now began than there had been since old brooke had left; but an angry, dark spot of thunder-cloud still hung over the end of the passage, where flashman's study and that of east and tom lay. he felt that they had been the first rebels, and that the rebellion had been to a great extent successful; but what above all stirred the hatred and bitterness of his heart against them was that, in the frequent collisions which there had been of late, they had openly called him coward and sneak,--the taunts were too true to be forgiven. while he was in the act of thrashing them they would roar out instances of his funking at foot-ball, or shirking some encounter with a lout of half his own size. these things were all well enough known in the house, but to have his own disgrace shouted out by small boys, to feel that they despised him, to be unable to silence them by any amount of torture, and to see the open laugh and sneer of his own associates (who were looking on, and took no trouble to hide their scorn from him, though they neither interfered with his bullying nor lived a bit the less intimately with him) made him beside himself. come what might, he would make those boys' lives miserable. so the strife settled down into a personal affair between flashman and our youngsters; a war to the knife, to be fought out in the little cockpit[29] at the end of the bottom passage. [29] #cockpit#: here, probably, a recess or small place. the weak to the wall. flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old, and big and strong of his age. he played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted, and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was; and having a bluff, off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. even in the school-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept up, and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only tolerated, but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries; although young brooke scarcely spoke to him, and one or two others of the right sort showed their opinion of him whenever a chance offered. but the wrong sort happened to be in the ascendant just now, and so flashman was a formidable enemy for small boys. this soon became plain enough. flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the house. one by one most of the other rebels fell away from them, while flashman's cause prospered, and several other fifth-form boys began to look black at them and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. by keeping out of bounds, or at all events out of the house and quadrangle, all day, and carefully barring themselves in at night, east and tom managed to hold on without feeling very miserable; but it was as much as they could do. greatly were they drawn then toward old diggs, who, in an uncouth way, began to take a good deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to their study when flashman was there, who immediately decamped in consequence. the boys thought that diggs must have been watching. diggs's bankruptcy. when, therefore, about this time, an auction was one night announced to take place in the hall, at which, amongst the superfluities of other boys, all diggs's penates[30] for the time being were going to the hammer, east and tom laid their heads together, and resolved to devote their ready cash (some four shillings sterling[31]) to redeem such articles as that sum would cover. accordingly, they duly attended to bid, and tom became the owner of two lots of diggs's things: lot 1, price one-and-threepence, consisting (as the auctioneer remarked) of a "valuable assortment of old metals," in the shape of a mouse-trap, a cheese-toaster without a handle, and a sauce-pan;[32] lot 2, a villanous dirty table-cloth and green-baize curtain: while east, for one-and-sixpence purchased a leather paper-case, with a lock but no key, once handsome, but now much the worse for wear. but they had still the point to settle, of how to get diggs to take the things without hurting his feelings. this they solved by leaving them in his study, which was never locked when he was out. diggs, who had attended the auction, remembered who had bought the lots and came to their study soon after, and sat silent for some time, cracking his great red finger-joints. then he laid hold of their verses,[33] and began looking over and altering them, and at last got up, and turning his back to them, said: "you're uncommon good-hearted little beggars,[34] you two--i value that paper-case; my sister gave it me last holidays--i won't forget;" and so tumbled out into the passage, leaving them somewhat embarrassed, but not sorry that he knew what they had done. [30] #penates#: roman household gods; hence, most precious things. [31] #sterling#: english money. [32] #sauce-pan#: a vessel for boiling and stewing. [33] #verses#: latin verses. [34] #beggars#: here, fellows. the derby lottery. the next morning was saturday, the day on which the allowances of one shilling a week were paid, an important event to spendthrift youngsters; and great was the disgust amongst the small fry, to hear that all the allowances had been impounded for the derby[35] lottery. that great event in the english year, the derby, was celebrated at rugby in those days by many lotteries. it was not an improving custom, i own, gentle reader, and led to making books[36] and betting, and other objectionable results; but when our great houses of palaver[37] think it right to stop the nation's business on that day, and many of the members bet heavily themselves, can you blame us boys for following the example of our betters?--at any rate we did follow it. first, there was the great school lottery, where the first prize was six or seven pounds; then each house had one or more separate lotteries. these were all nominally[38] voluntary, no boy being compelled to put in his shilling who didn't choose to do so; but besides flashman, there were three or four other fast sporting young gentlemen in the school-house, who considered subscription a matter of duty and necessity, and so to make their duty come easy to the small boys, quietly secured the allowances in a lump when given out for distribution, and kept them. it was no use grumbling--so many fewer tartlets and apples were eaten and fives'-balls bought on that saturday; and after locking-up, when the money would otherwise have been spent, consolation was carried to many a small boy, by the sound of the night-fags shouting along the passages, "gentlemen sportsmen of the school-house, the lottery's going to be drawn in the hall." it was pleasant to be called a gentleman sportsman--also to have a chance of drawing a favorite horse.[39] [35] #derby#: a famous english horse-race (pronounced darby). [36] #books#: an arrangement of bets on a race recorded in a book, and so calculated that the book-maker generally wins something, whatever the result. [37] #houses of palaver#: parliament never sits on derby day. [38] #nominally#: in name only. [39] #drawing a favorite horse#: the names of the horses running at the derby were written on folded slips of paper, and those who drew the winning names got the prizes. the hall was full of boys, and at the head of one of the long tables stood the sporting interest, with a hat before them in which were the tickets folded up. one of them then began calling out a list of the house; each boy as his name was called drew a ticket from the hat and opened it; and most of the bigger boys, after drawing, left the hall directly to go back to their studies or the fifth-form room. the sporting interest had all drawn blanks, and they were sulky accordingly; neither of the favorites had yet been drawn, and it had come down to the upper fourth. so now, as each small boy came up and drew his ticket, it was seized and opened by flashman, or some others of the standers-by. but no great favorite is drawn until it comes to the tadpole's turn, and he shuffles up, and draws, and tries to make off, but is caught, and his ticket is opened like the rest. "here you are! wanderer! third favorite," shouts the opener. "i say, just give me my ticket, please," remonstrates tadpole. "hullo, don't be in a hurry," breaks in flashman, "what'll you sell wanderer for now?" "i don't want to sell," rejoins tadpole. "oh, don't you? now listen, you young fool--you don't know anything about it; the horse is no use to you. he won't win, but i want him as a hedge.[40] now i'll give you half-a-crown[41] for him." tadpole holds out, but between threats and cajoleries[42] at length sells half for one-shilling-and-sixpence, about a fifth of its fair market value; however, he is glad to realize anything, and as he wisely remarks: "wanderer mayn't win, and the tizzy[43] is safe anyhow." [40] #hedge#: here, a guard against loss. [41] #half-a-crown#: an english silver coin, two shillings and sixpence, or sixty cents. [42] #cajoleries#: coaxing by flatteries. [43] #tizzy#: here, the one and sixpence. tom draws the favorite. east presently comes up, and draws a blank. soon after comes tom's turn; his ticket, like the others, is seized and opened. "here you are then," shouts the opener, holding it up: "harkaway! by jove, flashy, your young friend's in luck." "give me the ticket," says flashman with an oath, leaning across the table with open hand, and his face black with rage. "wouldn't you like it?" replies the opener, not a bad fellow at the bottom, and no admirer of flashman. "here, brown, catch hold," and he hands the ticket to tom, who pockets it; whereupon flashman makes for the door at once, that tom and the ticket may not escape, and there keeps watch until the drawing is over, and all the boys are gone, except the sporting set of five or six, who stay to compare books, make bets and so on; tom, who doesn't choose to move while flashman is at the door, and east, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble. the sporting set now gathered around tom. public opinion wouldn't allow them actually to rob him of his ticket, but any humbug or intimidation by which he could be driven to sell the whole or part at an under value was lawful. "now, young brown, come, what'll you sell me harkaway for? i hear he isn't going to start. i'll give you five shillings for him," begins the boy who had opened the ticket. tom, remembering his good deed, and moreover in his forlorn state wishing to make a friend, is about to accept the offer, when another cries out, "i'll give you seven shillings." tom hesitated and looked from one to the other. "no, no!" said flashman, pushing in, "leave me to deal with him; we'll draw lots for it afterward. now, sir, you know me--you'll sell harkaway to us for five shillings, or you'll repent it." "i won't sell a bit of him," answered tom shortly. "you hear that now!" said flashman, turning to the others. "he's the coxiest[44] young blackguard in the house--i always told you so. we're to have all the trouble and risk of getting up the lotteries for the benefit of such fellows as he." [44] #coxiest#: most conceited, impudent. flashman forgets to explain what risks they ran, but he speaks to willing ears. gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as men. "that's true--we always draw blanks," cried one. "now, sir, you shall sell half, at any rate." "i won't," said tom, flushing up to his hair, and lumping them all in his mind with his sworn enemy. roasting a fag. "very well, then, let's roast him," cried flashman, and catches hold of tom by the collar; one or two of the boys hesitate, but the rest join in. east seizes tom's arm and tries to pull him away, but he is knocked back by one of the boys, and tom is dragged along struggling. his shoulders are pushed against the mantle-piece, and he is held by main force before the fire. poor east, in more pain even than tom, suddenly thinks of diggs, and darts off to find him. "will you sell now for ten shillings?" says one boy who is relenting. tom only answers by groans and struggles. "i say, flashey, he has had enough," says the same boy, dropping the arm he holds. "no, no, another turn'll do it," answers flashman. but poor tom is done already, turns deadly pale, and his head falls forward on his breast, just as diggs, in frantic excitement, rushes into the hall with east at his heels. "you cowardly brutes!" is all he can say as he catches tom from them and supports him to the hall table. "good god! he's dying. here, get some cold water--run for the housekeeper." flashman and one or two others slink away; the rest, ashamed and sorry, bend over tom or run for water, while east darts off for the housekeeper. water comes, and they throw it on his hands and face, and he begins to come to. "mother!"--the words came feebly and slowly--"it's very cold to-night." poor old diggs is blubbering like a child. "where am i?" goes on tom, opening his eyes. "ah! i remember now," and he shut his eyes again and groaned. "i say," is whispered, "we can't do any more good, and the housekeeper will be here in a minute," and all but one steal away; he stays with diggs, silent and sorrowful, and fans tom's face. the housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and tom soon recovers enough to sit up. there is a smell of burning; she examines his clothes, and looks up inquiringly. the boys are silent. "how did he come so?" no answer. "there's been some bad work here," she adds, looking very serious, "and i shall speak to the doctor about it." still no answer. "hadn't we better carry him to the sick-room?" suggests diggs. "oh, i can walk now," says tom; and, supported by east and the housekeeper, goes to the sick-room. the boy who held his ground is soon amongst the rest, who are all in fear of their lives. "did he peach?" "does she know about it?" "not a word--he's a staunch little fellow." and pausing a moment, he adds: "i'm sick of this work: what brutes we've been!" meantime tom is stretched on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, with east by his side, while she gets wine and water and other restoratives. "are you much hurt, dear old boy?" whispered east. "only the back of my legs," answered tom. they are indeed badly scorched, and part of his trousers burnt through. but soon he is in bed with cold bandages. at first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and getting taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmuring:- "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."[45] last days of the war. but after a sound night's rest, the old boy-spirit comes back again. east comes in reporting that the whole house is with him, and he forgets everything except their old resolve, never to be beaten by that bully flashman. [45] job iii. 17. not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them; and though the doctor knew all that she knew that morning, he never knew any more. i trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school, and that lotteries and betting-books have gone out; but i am writing of schools as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the good. chapter ix. a chapter of accidents. "wherein i [speak] of most disastrous chances, of moving accidents by flood and field, of hairbreadth 'scapes."--_shakespeare._ tom discloses nothing. when tom came back into school after a couple of days in the sick-room, he found matters much changed for the better, as east had led him to expect. flashman's brutality had disgusted most of his intimate friends, even, and his cowardice had once more been made plain to the house; for diggs had encountered him on the morning after the lottery, and after high words on both sides had struck him, and the blow was not returned. however, flashey was not unused to this sort of thing, and had lived through as awkward affairs before, and, as diggs had said, fed and toadied himself back into favor again. two or three of the boys who had helped to roast tom came up and begged his pardon, and thanked him for not telling anything. morgan sent for him, and was inclined to take the matter up warmly, but tom begged him not to do it; to which he agreed, on tom's promising to come to him at once in the future,--a promise which i regret to say he didn't keep. tom kept harkaway all to himself, and won the second prize in the lottery, some thirty shillings, which he and east contrived to spend in about three days, in the purchase of pictures for their study, two new bats and a cricket-ball, all the best that could be got, and a supper of sausages, kidneys, and beef-steak pies to all the rebels. light come, light go; they wouldn't have been comfortable with money in their pockets in the middle of the half.[1] [1] #the half#: the half-year. rule breaking. the embers of flashman's wrath, however, were still smouldering, and burst out every now and then in sly blows and taunts, and they both felt that they hadn't quite done with him yet. it wasn't long, however, before the last act of that drama came, and with it the end of bullying for tom and east at rugby. they now often stole out into the hall at nights, incited thereto, partly by the hope of finding diggs there and having a talk with him, partly by the excitement of doing something which was against the rules; for, sad to say, both of our youngsters, since their loss of character for steadiness in their form, had got into the habit of doing things which were forbidden, as a matter of adventure; just in the same way, i should fancy, as men fall into smuggling, and for the same sort of reasons,--thoughtlessness in the first place. it never occurred to them to consider why such and such rules were laid down; the reason was nothing to them, and they only looked upon rules as a sort of challenge from the rule-makers, which it would be rather bad pluck in them not to accept; and then again, in the lower parts of the school they hadn't enough to do. the work of the form they could manage to get through pretty easily, keeping a good enough place to get their regular yearly remove; and not having much ambition beyond this, their whole superfluous steam was available for games and scrapes. now, one rule of the house which it was a daily pleasure of all such boys to break, was that after supper all fags, except the three on duty in the passages, should remain in their own studies until nine o'clock; and if caught about the passages or hall, or in one another's studies, they were liable to punishments or caning. the rule was stricter than its observance; for most of the sixth spent their evenings in the fifth-form room, where the library was, and the lessons were learnt in common. every now and then, however, a præpostor would be seized with a fit of district visiting, and would take a tour of the passages and hall, and the fags' studies. then, if the owner were entertaining a friend or two, the first kick at the door and ominous[2] "open here" had the effect of the shadow of a hawk over a chicken-yard; every one cut to cover[3]--one small boy diving under the sofa, another under the table, while the owner would hastily pull down a book or two and open them, and cry out in a meek voice: "hullo, who's there?" casting an anxious eye round, to see that no protruding leg or elbow could betray the hidden boys. "open, sir, directly; it's snooks." "oh, i'm very sorry; i didn't know it was you, snooks;" and then with well-feigned zeal, the door would be opened, young hopeful praying that that beast snooks mightn't have heard the scuffle caused by his coming. if a study was empty, snooks proceeded to draw[4] the passages and hall to find the truants. [2] #ominous#: foretelling evil. [3] #cut to cover#: ran to a hiding-place. [4] #draw#: to force a creature to leave its hiding-place. the bruised worm will turn. well, one evening, in forbidden hours, tom and east were in the hall. they occupied the seats before the fire nearest the door, while diggs sprawled, as usual, before the further fire. he was busy with a copy of verses, and east and tom were chatting together in whispers, by the light of the fire, and splicing a favorite old fives'-bat which had sprung.[5] presently a step came down the bottom passage; they listened a moment, assured themselves that it wasn't a præpostor, and then went on with their work, and the door swung open, and in walked flashman. he didn't see diggs, and thought it a good chance to keep his hand in; and as the boys didn't move for him, struck one of them, to make them get out of his way. [5] #sprung#: become strained or cracked. "what's that for?" growled the assaulted one. "because i choose. you've no business here; go to your study." "you can't send us." "can't i? then i'll thrash you if you stay," said flashman, savagely. "i say, you two," said diggs, from the end of the hall, rousing up and resting himself on his elbow, "you'll never get rid of that fellow till you lick him. go in at him, both of you--i'll see fair play." accounts squared with flashman. flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. east looked at tom. "shall we try?" said he. "yes," said tom, desperately. so the two advanced on flashman, with clenched fists and beating hearts. they were about up to his shoulder, but tough boys of their age, and in perfect training; while he, though strong and big, was in poor condition from his monstrous habit of stuffing and want of exercise. coward as he was, however, flashman couldn't swallow such an insult as this; besides, he was confident of having easy work, and so faced the boys, saying, "you impudent young blackguards!" before he could finish his abuse they rushed in on him, and began pummelling at all of him which they could reach. he hit out wildly and savagely, but the full force of his blows didn't tell; they were too near him. it was long odds, though, in point of strength, and in another minute tom went plunging backward over the form, and flashman turned to demolish east with a savage grin. but now diggs jumped down from the table on which he had seated himself. "stop there," shouted he, "the round's over--half a minute time allowed." "what the----is it to you?" faltered flashman, who began to lose heart. "i'm going to see fair, i tell you," said diggs, with a grin, and snapping his great red fingers; "'tisn't fair for you to be fighting one of them at a time. are you ready, brown? time's up." the small boys rushed in again. closing they saw was their best chance, and flashman was wilder and more flurried than ever; he caught east by the throat, and tried to force him back on the iron-bound table; tom grasped his waist, and remembering the old throw he had learned in the vale from harry winburn, crooked his leg inside flashman's, and threw his weight forward. the three tottered for a moment, then over they went on to the floor, flashman striking his head against a form in the hall. penalties of war. the two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay there still. they began to be frightened. tom stooped down, and then cried out, scared out of his wits, "he's bleeding awfully; come here, east, diggs--he's dying!" "not he," said diggs, getting leisurely off the table; "it's all sham--he's only afraid to fight it out." east was as frightened as tom. diggs lifted flashman's head, and he groaned. "what's the matter?" shouted diggs. "my skull's fractured," sobbed flashman. "oh, let me run for the housekeeper," cried tom. "what shall we do!" "fiddlesticks! it's nothing but the skin broken," said the relentless diggs, feeling his head. "cold water and a bit of rag's all he'll want." "let me go," said flashman, surlily, sitting up; "i don't want your help." "we're really very sorry," began east. "hang your sorrow," answered flashman, holding his handkerchief to the place; "you shall pay for this, i can tell you, both of you." and he walked out of the hall. "he can't be very bad," said tom, with a deep sigh, much relieved to see his enemy march so well. "not he," said diggs, "and you'll see you won't be troubled with him any more. but, i say, your head's broken too--your collar is covered with blood." "is it, though?" said tom, putting up his hand; "i didn't know it." "well, mop it up, or you'll have your jacket spoilt. and you have got a bad eye, scud; you'd better go and bathe it well in cold water." "cheap enough, too, if we've done with our old friend flashey," said east, as they made up-stairs to bathe their wounds. they had done with flashman in one sense, for he never laid finger on either of them again; but whatever harm a spiteful heart and venomous tongue could do them, he took care should be done. only throw dirt enough, and some of it is sure to stick; and so it was with the fifth form and the bigger boys in general, with whom he associated more or less, and they not at all. flashman managed to get tom and east into disfavor, which did not wear off for some time after the author of it had disappeared from the school world. this event, much prayed for by the small fry in general, took place a few months after the above encounter. one fine summer evening, flashman had been regaling himself on gin-punch, at brownsover; and having exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. he fell in with a friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink which flashman had already on board. the short result was, that flashey became beastly drunk; they tried to get him along, but couldn't; so they chartered[6] a hurdle[7] and two men to carry him. one of the masters came upon them and they naturally enough fled. the flight of the rest raised the master's suspicions, and the good angel of the fags incited him to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to the school-house; and the doctor, who had long had his eye on flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning. [6] #chartered#: hired. [7] #hurdle#: a framework of twigs. fate of liberators. the evil that men, and boys, too, do, lives after them. flashman was gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still felt the effects of his hate. besides, they had been the movers of the strike against unlawful fagging. the cause was righteous,--the result had been triumphant to a great extent; but the best of the fifth, even those who had never fagged the small boys, or had given up the practice cheerfully, couldn't help feeling a small grudge against the first rebels. after all, their form had been defied--on just grounds, no doubt; so just indeed, that they had at once acknowledged the wrong, and remained passive in the strife; had they sided with flashman and his set, the rebels must have given way at once. they couldn't help, on the whole, being glad that they had so acted, and that the resistance had been successful against such of their own form as had shown fight; they felt that law and order had gained thereby, but the ringleaders they couldn't quite pardon at once. "confoundedly coxy those young rascals will get, if we don't mind," was the general feeling. so it is, and must be always, my dear boys. if the angel gabriel were to come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most abominable and unrighteous vested interest[8] which this poor old world groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for many years, probably for centuries, not only with the upholders of said vested interest, but with the respectable mass of the people whom he had delivered. they wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear with his in the papers; they would be very careful how they spoke of him in the palaver[9] or at their clubs. what can we expect, then, when we have only poor gallant blundering men like kossuth, garibaldi, mazzini[10] and righteous causes which do not triumph in their hands,--men who have holes enough in their armor, god knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their lounging chairs, and having large balances[11] at their bankers? but you are brave, gallant boys, who hate easy chairs, and have no balances or bankers. you only want to have your heads set straight, to take the right side; so bear in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in the wrong, and that if you see a man or a boy striving earnestly on the weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the cry against him. if you can't join him and help him, and make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the world which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you have got to do for yourselves; and so think and speak of him tenderly. [8] #vested interest#: a fixed estate; here, a deeply rooted evil or abuse. [9] #the palaver#: a nickname for parliament. [10] #kossuth#, etc.: patriots and reformers. [11] #balances#: money deposited to one's credit. the ishmaelites. so east, and tom, the tadpole, and one or two more, became a sort of young ishmaelites,[12] their hands against every one, and every one's hand against them. it has been already told how they got to war with the masters and the fifth form, and with the sixth it was much the same. they saw the præpostors cowed by or joining with the fifth, and shirking their own duties; so they didn't respect them, and rendered no willing obedience. it had been one thing to clean out studies for sons of heroes like old brooke, but was quite another to do the like for snooks and green, who had never faced a good scrummage at foot-ball, and couldn't keep the passages in order at night. so they only slurred through their fagging just well enough to escape a licking, and not always that, and got the character of sulky, unwilling fags. in the fifth-form room, after supper, when such matters were often discussed and arranged, their names were forever coming up. [12] #ishmaelites#: outcasts. "i say, green," snooks began one night, "isn't that new boy, harrison, your fag?" "yes, why?" "oh, i know something of him at home, and should like to excuse him; will you swop?" "who will you give me?" "well, let's see; there's willis, johnson--no, that won't do. yes, i have it, there's young east; i'll give you him." "don't you wish you may get it?" replied green. "i'll give you two for willis, if you like?" "who then?" asks snooks. "hall and brown." "wouldn't have 'em as a gift." "better than east, though, for they aren't quite so sharp," said green, getting up and leaning his back against the mantel-piece; he wasn't a bad fellow, and couldn't help not being able to put down the unruly fifth form. his eye twinkled as he went on. "did i ever tell you how the young vagabond sold me[13] last half?" [13] #sold me#: tricked or outwitted me. "no--how?" "well, he never half cleaned my study out, only just stuck the candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the crumbs on to the floor. so at last i was mortal angry, and had him up, and made him go through the whole performance under my eyes: the dust the young scamp made nearly choked me, and showed that he hadn't swept the carpet before. well, when it was all finished: 'now, young gentleman,' says i, 'mind, i expect this to be done every morning--floor swept, table-cloth taken off and shaken, and everything dusted.' 'very well,' grunts he. not a bit of it, though--i was quite sure in a day or two that he never took the table-cloth off even. so i laid a trap for him; i tore up some paper and put half a dozen bits on my table one night, and the cloth over them as usual. next morning, after breakfast, up i came, pulled off the cloth, and sure enough there was the paper, which fluttered down on to the floor. i was in a towering rage. 'i've got you now,' thought i, and sent for him, while i got out my cane. up he came, as cool as you please, with his hands in his pockets. 'didn't i tell you to shake my table-cloth every morning?' roared i. 'yes,' says he. 'did you do it this morning?' 'yes.' 'you young liar! i put these pieces of paper on the table last night, and if you'd taken the table-cloth off you'd have seen them, so i'm going to give you a good licking.' then my youngster takes one hand out of his pocket, and just stoops down and picks up two of the bits of paper, and holds them out to me. there was written on each, in great round text: 'harry east, his mark.' the young rogue had found my trap out, taken away my paper, and put some of his there, every bit ear-marked.[14] i'd a great mind to lick him for his impudence, but, after all, one has no right to be laying traps, so i didn't. of course i was at his mercy till the end of the half, and in his weeks my study was so frowzy[15] i couldn't sit in it." [14] #ear-marked#: marked with a private mark. [15] #frowzy#: dirty, slovenly. "they spoil one's things so, too," chimed in a third boy. "hall and brown were night-fags last week; i called fag, and gave them my candlesticks to clean; away they went, and didn't appear again. when they'd had time enough to clean them three times over i went out to look after them. they weren't in the passages, so down i went into the hall where i heard music, and there i found them sitting on the table, listening to johnson, who was playing the flute, and my candlesticks stuck between the bars well into the fire, red hot, clean spoiled; they've never stood straight since, and i must get some more. however, i gave them both a good licking; that's one comfort." misfortune thickens. such were the sort of scrapes they were always getting into; and so, partly by their own faults, partly from circumstances, partly from the faults of others, they found themselves outlaws,[16] ticket-of-leave men,[17] or what you will in that line; in short, dangerous parties, and lived the sort of hand-to-mouth, wild, reckless life, which such parties have to put up with. nevertheless, they never quite lost favor with young brooke, who was now the cock of the house,[18] and just getting into the sixth; and diggs stuck to them like a man, and gave them store of good advice, by which they never in the least profited. [16] #outlaws#: persons deprived of the protection of the law. [17] #ticket-of-leave men#: convicts allowed to go at large upon their good behavior. [18] #cock of the house#: leader of the school. and even after the house mended, and law and order had been restored, which soon happened after young brooke and diggs got into the sixth, they couldn't easily or at once return into the paths of steadiness, and many of the old wild out-of-bounds habits stuck to them as firmly as ever. while they had been quite little boys, the scrapes they got into in the school hadn't much mattered to any one; but now they were in the upper school, all wrong-doers from which were sent up straight to the doctor at once; so they began to come under his notice; and as they were a sort of leaders in a small way amongst their own contemporaries, his eye, which was everywhere, was upon them. it was a toss-up[19] whether they turned out well or ill, and so they were just the boys who caused the most anxiety to such a master. you have been told of the first occasion on which they were sent up to the doctor, and the remembrance of it was so pleasant, that they had much less fear of him than most boys of their standing had. "it's all his looks," tom used to say to east, "that frightens fellows; don't you remember, he never said anything to us my first half-year, for being an hour late for locking up?" [19] #a toss-up#: the merest chance; toss of a copper. the next time tom came before him, however, the interview was of a very different kind. it happened just about the time at which we have now arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into which our hero now managed to tumble. the avon. the river avon at rugby is a slow and not a very clear stream, in which chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack,[20] but no fish worth sixpence either for sport or food. it is, however, a capital river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good reaches[21] for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the school. this mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for bathing purposes, by the trustees of the school, for the boys. the foot-path to brownsover[22] crosses the river by "the planks," a curious old single-plank bridge, running for fifty or sixty yards into the flat meadows on each side of the river, for in the winter there are frequent floods. above the planks were the bathing-places for the smaller boys,--sleath's, the first bathing-place where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved to the bathing-men (three steady individuals who were paid to attend daily through the summer to prevent accidents) that they could swim pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on to anstey's, about one hundred and fifty yards below. here there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of themselves for having been out of their depths. below the planks came larger and deeper holes, the first of which was wratislaw's, and the last swift's, a famous hole ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and thirty yards across, from which there was a fine swimming reach right down to the mill. swift's was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms, and had a spring-board[23] and two sets of steps; the others had one set of steps each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys, though each house addicted itself more to one hole than to another. the school-house at this time affected[24] wratislaw's hole, and tom and east, who had learnt to swim like fishes, were to be found there as regular as the clock through the summer always twice, and often three times a day. [20] #small jack#: young pike. [21] #reaches#: straight pieces of water. [22] #brownsover#: a neighboring village. [23] #spring-board#: a long board projecting over the water, used by divers. [24] #affected#: preferred. disputed rights of fishing. now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right also to fish at their pleasure over the whole of this part of the river, and would not understand that the right (if any) only extended to the rugby side. as ill-luck would have it, the gentleman who owned the opposite bank, after allowing it for some time without interference, had ordered his keepers[25] not to let the boys fish on his side; the consequence of which had been, that there had been first wranglings and then fights between the keepers and boys; and so keen had the quarrel become, that the landlord and his keepers, after a ducking had been inflicted on one of the latter, and a fierce fight ensued thereon, had been up to the great school at calling-over to identify the delinquents, and it was all the doctor himself and five or six masters could do to keep the peace. not even his authority could prevent the hissing, and so strong was the feeling, that the four præpostors of the week walked up the school with their canes, shouting s-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e at the top of their voices. however, the chief offenders for the time were flogged and kept in bounds, but the victorious party had brought a nice hornet's nest about their ears. the landlord was hissed at the school-gates as he rode past, and when he charged his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to thrash them with his whip, was driven back by cricket-bats and wickets, and pursued with pebbles and fives'-balls; while the wretched keepers' lives were a burden to them, from having to watch the water so closely. [25] #keepers#: gamekeepers employed on all great estates to protect the game and fish. in england, game and fish, except in navigable waters, are the private property of the land-owners. the school-house boys of tom's standing, one and all as a protest against this tyranny and cutting short of their lawful amusements, took to fishing in all ways, and especially by means of night-lines. the little tackle-maker[26] at the bottom of the town would soon have made his fortune had the rage lasted, and several of the barbers began to lay in fishing-tackle. the boys had this great advantage over their enemies, that they spent a large portion of the day in nature's garb by the river side, and so, when tired of swimming, would get out on the other side and fish, or set night-lines, till the keepers hove in sight, and then plunge in and swim back and mix with the other bathers, and the keepers were too wise to follow across the stream. [26] #tackle-maker#: one who makes fishing-tackle. chaffing a keeper. while things were in this state, one day tom and three or four others were bathing at wratislaw's, and had, as a matter of course, been taking up and resetting night-lines. they had all left the water, and were sitting or standing about at their toilets, in all costumes from a shirt upward, when they were aware of a man in a velveteen shooting-coat approaching from the other side. he was a new keeper, so they didn't recognize or notice him, till he pulled up right opposite and began:-"i see'd some of you young gentlemen over this side a fishing just now." "hullo, who are you? what business is that of yours, old velveteens?"[27] [27] #velveteens#: alluding to the keeper's velveteen suit. "i'm the new under-keeper, and master's told me to keep a sharp look out on all o' you young chaps. and i tells 'ee i mean business, and you'd better keep on your own side, or we shall fall out." "well, that's right, velveteens--speak out and let's know your mind at once." "look here, old boy," cried east, holding up a miserable coarse fish or two and a small jack, "would you like to smell 'em, and see which bank they lived under?" "i'll give you a bit of advice, keeper," shouted tom, who was sitting in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river; "you'd better go down there to swift's where the big boys are; they're beggars[28] at setting lines, and'll put you up to a wrinkle or two for catching the five-pounders." tom was nearest to the keeper, and that officer, who was getting angry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to take note of him for future use. tom returned his gaze with a steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the middle of a favorite school-house song:- "as i and my companions were setting of a snare, the gamekeeper was watching us, for him we did not care: for we can wrestle and fight, my boys, and jump out anywhere, for it's my delight of a likely[29] night in the season of the year." the chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of laughter, and the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief. the boys thought no more of the matter. [28] #beggars#: here, wonderful chaps. [29] #likely#: suitable; convenient. but now came on the may-fly season; the soft, hazy summer weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows by avon side, and the green and gray flies flickered with their graceful lazy up-and-down flight over the reeds and the water and the meadows, in myriads upon myriads. the may-flies must surely be the lotus-eaters[30] of the ephemeræ;[31] the happiest, laziest, carelessest fly that dances and dreams out his few hours of sunshiny life by english rivers. [30] #lotus-eaters#: the lotus was a plant fabled by the ancients to make strangers who ate of it forget their native land and lead a dreamy, happy, careless life. see homer's odyssey, ix., and tennyson's poem, "the lotus-eaters." [31] #ephemeræ#: insects which live a very short time; literally, but a day. every little pitiful coarse fish in the avon was on the alert for the flies, and gorging his wretched carcass with hundreds daily, the gluttonous rogues! and every lover of the gentle craft was out to avenge the poor may-flies. the return match with velveteens. so one fine thursday afternoon, tom having borrowed east's new rod, started by himself to the river. he fished for some time with small success: not a fish would rise at him; but as he prowled along the bank, he was presently aware of mighty ones feeding in a pool on the opposite side, under the shade of a huge willow tree. the stream was deep here, but some fifty yards below was a shallow, for which he made off hot-foot:[32] and forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the doctor, and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and in three minutes was creeping along on all-fours toward the clump of willows. [32] #hot-foot#: with all haste. it isn't often that great chub, or any other coarse fish, are in earnest about anything, but just then they were thoroughly bent on feeding, and in half an hour master tom had deposited three thumping fellows at the foot of the giant willow. as he was baiting for a fourth pounder, and just going to throw in again, he became aware of a man coming up the bank not one hundred yards off. another look told him that it was the under-keeper. could he reach the shallow before him? no, not carrying his rod. nothing for it but the tree, so tom laid his bones to it, shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging up his rod after him. he had just time to reach and crouch along a huge branch some ten feet up, which stretched out over the river, when the keeper arrived at the clump. tom's heart beat fast as he came under the tree; two steps more and he would have passed, when, as ill-luck would have it, the gleam on the scales of the dead fish caught his eye, and he made a dead point at the foot of the tree. he picked up the fish one by one; his eye and touch told him that they had been alive and feeding within the hour. tom crouched lower along the branch, and heard the keeper beating the clump. "if i could only get the rod hidden," thought he, and began gently shifting it to get it alongside of him: "willow-trees don't throw out straight hickory shoots twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck?" alas! the keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and then of tom's hand and arm. "oh, be up ther' be ee?" says he, running under the tree. "now you come down this minute." "treed at last," thinks tom, making no answer, and keeping as close as possible, but working away at the rod, which he takes to pieces: "i'm in for it, unless i can starve him out." and then he begins to meditate getting along the branch for a plunge, and scramble to the other side; but the small branches are so thick, and the opposite bank so difficult, that the keeper will have lots of time to get round by the ford before he can get out, so he gives that up. and now he hears the keeper beginning to scramble up the trunk. that will never do; so he scrambles himself back to where his branch joins the trunk, and stands with lifted rod. "hullo, velveteens! mind your fingers if you come any higher!" the keeper stops and looks, and then with a grin says: "oh, be you, be it, young measter? well, here's luck. now i tells ee to come down at once, and 't'll be best for ee." "thank'ee, velveteens, i'm very comfortable," said tom, shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for battle. "werry well, please yourself," says the keeper, descending, however, to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank; "i bean't in no hurry, so you may take your time. i'll learn ee to gee[33] honest folks names afore i've done with ee." [33] #gee#: give. "my luck as usual," thinks tom; "what a fool i was to give him a black.[34] if i'd called him 'keeper,' now, i might get off. the return match[35] is all his way." [34] #black#: a nickname. [35] #return match#: the end of the affair. velveteens' revenge. the keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill and light it, keeping an eye on tom, who now sat disconsolately across the branch, looking at keeper,--a pitiful sight for men and fishes. the more he thought of it, the less he liked it. "it must be getting near second calling-over," thinks he. keeper smokes on stolidly. "if he takes me up, i shall be flogged safe enough. i can't sit here all night. wonder if he'll rise at silver."[36] [36] #rise at silver#: let one off for money. "i say, keeper," said he meekly, "let me go for two bob?"[37] [37] #bob#: a shilling. "not for twenty neither," grunts his persecutor. and so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and the sun came slanting in through the willow branches, and telling of locking-up near at hand. "i'm coming down, keeper," said tom at last, with a sigh, fairly tired out. "now, what are you going to do?" "walk ee up to school, and give ee over to the doctor; them's my orders," says velveteens, knocking the ashes out of his fourth pipe, and standing up and shaking himself. "very good," said tom; "but hands off, you know. i'll go with you quietly, so no collaring or that sort of thing." keeper looked at him a minute--"werry good," said he, at last; and so tom descended, and wended his way drearily by the side of the keeper up to the school-house, where they arrived just at locking-up. as they passed the school-gates, the tadpole and several others who were standing there caught the state of things, and rushed out, crying, "rescue!" but tom shook his head, so they only followed to the doctor's gate, and went back sorely puzzled. how changed and stern the doctor seemed from the last time that tom was up there, as the keeper told the story, not omitting to state how tom had called him blackguard names. "indeed, sir," broke in the culprit, "it was only velveteens." the doctor only asked one question. "you know the rule about the banks, brown?" "yes, sir." "then wait for me to-morrow, after the first lesson." "i thought so," muttered tom. "and about the rod, sir?" went on the keeper. "master's told we as we might have all the rods--" "oh, please, sir," broke in tom, "the rod isn't mine." the doctor looked puzzled, but the keeper, who was a good-hearted fellow, and melted at tom's evident distress, gave up his claim. tom was flogged next morning, and a few days afterward met velveteens, and presented him with a half a crown for giving up the rod claim, and they became sworn friends; and i regret to say that tom had many more fish from under the willow that may-fly season, and was never caught again by velveteens. more scrapes. it wasn't three weeks before tom, and now east by his side, were again in the awful presence. this time, however, the doctor was not so terrible. a few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went off the court. while standing watching the game, they saw five or six nearly new balls hit on the top of the school. "i say, tom," said east, when they were dismissed, "couldn't we get those balls somehow?" "let's try, anyhow." so they reconnoitered the walls carefully, borrowed a coal-hammer from old stumps, bought some big nails, and after one or two attempts scaled the school, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of fives'-balls. the place pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time there scratching and cutting their names on the top of every tower; and at last, having exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing h. east, t. brown, on the minute-hand of the great clock. in the doing of which, they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock's economy. so next morning, when masters and boys came trooping down to prayers, and entered the quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the hour. they all pulled up, and took their time. when the hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school late. thomas being set to make inquiry, discovers their names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly; and they are sent for, a knot of their friends making derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their fate will be, as they walk off. but the doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it, and only gives them thirty lines of homer to learn by heart, and a lecture on the likelihood of such exploits ending in broken bones. the doctor reigning. alas! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the town; and as several rows and other disagreeable accidents had of late taken place on these occasions, the doctor gives out, after prayers in the morning, that no boy is to go down into the town. wherefore east and tom, for no earthly pleasure except that of doing what they are told not to do, start away, after second lesson, and making a short circuit through the fields, strike a back lane which leads into the town, go down it, and run plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into the high street. the master in question, though a very clever, is not a righteous man; he has already caught several of his own pupils, and gives them lines to learn, while he sends east and tom, who are not his pupils, up to the doctor; who, on learning that they had been at prayers in the morning, flogs them soundly. the flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice of their captor was rankling in their minds; but it was just the end of the half, and on the next evening but one thomas knocks at their door, and says the doctor wants to see them. they look at one another in silent dismay. what can it be now? which of their countless wrong-doings can he have heard of officially? however, it's no use delaying, so up they go to the study. there they find the doctor, not angry, but very grave. "he has sent for them to speak to them very seriously before they go home. they have each been flogged several times in the half-year for direct and wilful breaches of rules. this cannot go on. they are doing no good to themselves or others, and now they are getting up in the school, and have influence. they seem to think that rules are made capriciously, and for the pleasure of the masters; but this is not so, they are made for the good of the whole school, and must and shall be obeyed. those who thoughtlessly or wilfully break them, will not be allowed to stay at the school. he should be sorry if they had to leave, as the school might do them both much good, and wishes them to think very seriously in the holidays over what he has said. good-night." and so the two hurry off horribly scared; the idea of having to leave has never crossed their minds and is quite unbearable. as they go out they meet at the door old holmes, a sturdy, cheery præpostor of another house, who goes in to the doctor; and they hear his genial, hearty greeting of the new-comer, so different to their own reception, as the door closes, and return to their study with heavy hearts, and tremendous resolves to break no more rules. five minutes afterward the master of their form, a late arrival and a model young master, knocks at the doctor's study-door. "come in!" and as he enters the doctor goes on to holmes--"you see i do not know anything of the case officially; and if i take any notice of it at all, i must publicly expel the boy. i don't wish to do that, for i think there is some good in him. there's nothing for it but a good sound thrashing." he paused to shake hands with the master, which holmes does also, and then prepares to leave. "i understand. good-night, sir." "good-night, holmes. and remember," added the doctor, emphasizing the words, "a good sound thrashing before the whole house." the door closed on holmes; and the doctor, in answer to the puzzled look of his lieutenant, explained shortly. "a gross case of bullying. wharton, the head of the house, is a very good fellow, but slight and weak, and severe physical pain is the only way to deal with such a case; so i have asked holmes to take it up. he is very careful and trustworthy, and has plenty of strength. i wish all the sixth had as much. we must have it here, if we are to keep order at all." now, i don't want any wiseacres[38] to read this book; but if they should, of course they will prick up their long ears, and howl, or rather bray, at the above story. very good, i don't object; but what i have to add for you boys is this, that holmes called a levy of his house after breakfast next morning, made them a speech on the case of bullying in question, and then gave the bully a "good sound thrashing"; and that years afterward, that boy sought out holmes and thanked him, saying it had been the kindest act which had ever been done to him, and the turning-point in his character; and a very good fellow he became, and a credit to his school. [38] #wiseacres#: those who make undue pretentions to wisdom. after some other talk between them, the doctor said, "i want to speak to you about two boys in your form, east and brown; i have just been speaking to them. what do you think of them?" "well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless and full of spirits--but i can't help liking them. i think they are sound good fellows at the bottom." "i am glad of it. i think so, too. but they make me very uneasy. they are taking the lead a good deal amongst the fags in my house, for they are very active, bold fellows. i should be sorry to lose them, but i sha'n't let them stay if i don't see them gaining character and manliness. in another year they may do great harm to all the younger boys." "oh, i hope you won't send them away," pleaded their master. "not if i can help it. but now i never feel sure, after any half-holiday, that i sha'n't have to flog one of them next morning, for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. i quite dread seeing either of them." they were both silent for a minute. presently the doctor began again:-"they don't feel that they have any duty or work to do in the school, and how is one to make them feel it?" "i think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, it would steady him. brown is the more reckless of the two, i should say; east wouldn't get into so many scrapes without him." "well," said the doctor, with something like a sigh, "i'll think of it." and they went on to talk of other subjects. tom brown's school days. _part ii._ "i hold it truth, with him who sings to one clear harp in divers tones, that men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things." _tennyson's_ "_in memoriam._" chapter i. how the tide turned. "once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide. in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side. * * * * * then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, doubting in his abject spirit, till his lord is crucified." _lowell._ the turning-point in our hero's school career had now come, and the manner of it was as follows: on the evening of the first day of the next half-year, tom, east, and another school-house boy, who had just been dropped at the spread eagle by the old regulator, rushed into the matron's room in high spirits, such as all real boys are in when they first get back, however fond they may be of home. "well, mrs. wixie," shouted one, seizing on the methodical, active little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stowing away the linen of the boys who had already arrived into their several pigeon-holes, "here we are again, you see, as jolly as ever. let us help you put the things away." who's come back? "and, mary," cried another (she was called indifferently by either name), "who's come back? has the doctor made old jones leave? how many new boys are there?" "am i and east to have gray's study? you know you promised to get it for us if you could," shouted tom. "and am i to sleep in number 4?" roared east. "how's old sam, and bogle, and sally?" "bless the boys!" cried mary, at last getting in a word, "why, you'll shake me to death. there, now do go away up to the housekeeper's room and get your suppers; you know i haven't time to talk--you'll find plenty more in the house. now, master east, do let those things alone--you're mixing up three new boys' things." and she rushed at east, who escaped round the open trunks holding up a prize. "hullo, look here, tommy," shouted he, "here's fun!" and he brandished above his head some pretty little nightcaps, beautifully made and marked, the work of loving fingers in some distant country home. the kind mother and sisters, who sewed that delicate stitching with aching hearts, little thought of the trouble they might be bringing on the young head for which they were meant. the little matron was wiser, and snatched the caps from east before he could look at the name on them. "now, master east, i shall be very angry if you don't go," said she; "there is some capital cold beef and pickles up stairs, and i won't have you old boys in my room first night." "hurrah for the pickles! come along, tommy; come along, smith. we shall find out who the young count is, i'll be bound; i hope he'll sleep in my room. mary's always vicious first week." the saddle is put on tom. as the boys turned to leave the room, the matron touched tom's arm, and said, "master brown, please stop a minute, i want to speak to you." "very well, mary. i'll come in a minute; east, don't finish the pickles--" "oh, master brown," went on the little matron, when the rest had gone, "you're to have gray's study, mrs. arnold says. and she wants you to take in this young gentleman. he's a new boy, and thirteen years old, though he doesn't look it. he's very delicate, and has never been from home before. and i told mrs. arnold i thought you'd be kind to him, and see that they don't bully him at first. he's put into your form, and i've given him the bed next to yours in number 4; so east can't sleep there this half." tom was rather put about by this speech. he had got the double study which he coveted, but here were conditions attached which greatly moderated his joy. he looked across the room, and in the far corner of the sofa was aware of a slight pale boy, with large blue eyes and light fair hair, who seemed ready to shrink through the floor. he saw at a glance that the little stranger was just the boy whose first half-year at a public school would be misery to himself if he were left alone, or constant anxiety to any one who meant to see him through his troubles. tom was too honest to take in the youngster and then let him shift for himself; and if he took him as his chum instead of east, where were all his pet plans of making night-lines and slings, and plotting expeditions to brownsover mills and caldecott's spinney? east and he had made up their minds to get this study, and then every night from locking-up till ten they would be together to talk about fishing, read marryat's novels,[1] and sort birds' eggs. and this new boy would most likely never go out of the close, and would be afraid of wet feet, and always getting laughed at, and called molly, or jenny, or some derogatory[2] feminine nickname. [1] #marryat's novels#: stories of the sea and of adventure, by captain marryat. [2] #derogatory#: here, contemptuous; belittling. the matron watched him for a moment, and saw what was passing in his mind, and so, like a wise negotiator, threw in an appeal to his warm heart. "poor little fellow," said she, in almost a whisper, "his father's dead, and he's got no brothers. and his mamma, such a kind, sweet lady, almost broke her heart at leaving him this morning; and she said one of his sisters was like to die of decline, and so--" "well, well," burst in tom, with something like a sigh at the effort. "i suppose i must give up east. come along, young un. what's your name? we'll go and have some supper and then i'll show you our study." "his name's george arthur," said the matron, walking up to him with tom, who grasped his little delicate hand as the proper preliminary to making a chum of him, and felt as if he could have blown him away. "i've had his books and things put into the study, which his mamma has had new papered, and the sofa covered, and new green-baize curtains over the door." (the diplomatic matron threw this in, to show that the new boy was contributing largely to the partnership comforts.) "and mrs. arnold told me to say," she added, "that she should like you both to come up to tea with her. you know the way, master brown, and the things are just gone up, i know." tea with the doctor. here was an announcement for master tom! he was to go up to tea the first night, just as if he were a sixth or fifth form boy, and of importance in the school world, instead of the most reckless young scapegrace amongst the fags. he felt himself lifted on to a higher social and moral platform at once. nevertheless, he couldn't give up without a sigh the idea of the jolly supper in the housekeeper's room with east and the rest, and a rush round to all the studies of his friends afterward, to pour out the deeds and wonders of the holidays, to plot fifty plans for the coming half-year, and to gather news of who had left, and what new boys had come, who had got who's study, and where the new præpostors slept. however, tom consoled himself with thinking that he couldn't have done all this with the new boy at his heels, and so marched off along the passages to the doctor's private house with his young charge in tow, in monstrous good humor with himself and all the world. it is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell how the two young boys were received in that drawing-room. the lady who presided there is still living, and has carried with her to her peaceful home in the north the respect and love of all those who ever felt and shared that gentle and high-bred hospitality. ay, many is the brave heart now doing its work and bearing its load in country curacies, london chambers, under the indian sun, and in australian towns and clearings, which looks back with fond and grateful memory to that school-house drawing-room, and dates much of its highest and best training to the lessons learnt there. besides mrs. arnold and one or two of the elder children, there were one of the young masters, young brooke, who was now in the sixth, and had succeeded to his brother's position and influence, and another sixth-form boy, talking together before the fire. the master and young brooke, now a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years old, and powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to tom, to his intense glory, and then went on talking; the other did not notice them. the hostess, after a few kind words, which led the boys at once and insensibly to feel at their ease, and to begin talking to one another, left them with her own children while she finished a letter. the young ones got on fast and well, tom holding forth about a prodigious pony he had been riding out hunting, and hearing stories of the winter glories of the lakes,[3] when tea came in, and immediately after the doctor himself. [3] #the lakes#: dr. arnold and family, during the vacations, made their home in the lake district in the northwestern part of england. how frank, and kind, and manly was his greeting to the party by the fire! it did tom's heart good to see him and young brooke shake hands and look one another in the face; and he didn't fail to remark that brooke was nearly as tall and quite as broad as the doctor. and his cup was full, when in another moment his master turned to him with another warm shake of the hand, and, seemingly oblivious of all the late scrapes which he had been getting into, said: "ah, brown, you here! i hope you left your father and all well at home?" "yes, sir, quite well." "and this is the little fellow who is to share your study. well, he doesn't look as we should like to see him. he wants some rugby air, and cricket. and you must take him some good long walks, to bilton grange, and caldecott's spinney, and show him what a pretty little country we have about here." tom wondered if the doctor knew that his visits to bilton grange were for the purpose of taking rooks' nests (a proceeding strongly discountenanced by the owner thereof), and those to caldecott's spinney were prompted chiefly by the conveniences for setting night-lines. what didn't the doctor know? and what a noble use he always made of it! he almost resolved to abjure rookpies and night-lines forever. the tea went merrily off, the doctor now talking of holiday doings, and then of the prospects of the half-year, what chance there was for the balliol scholarship, whether the eleven[4] would be a good one. everybody was at his ease, and everybody felt that he, young as he might be, was of some use in the little school-world, and had a work to do there. [4] #the eleven#: the number of players selected by a club to play a cricket match. soon after tea the doctor went off to his study, and the young boys a few minutes afterward took their leave, and went out of the private door which led from the doctor's house into the middle passage. arthur's debut. at the fire, at the further end of the passage, was a crowd of boys in loud talk and laughter. there was a sudden pause when the door opened, and then a great shout of greeting as tom was recognized marching down the passage. "hullo, brown, where do you come from?" "oh, i've been to tea with the doctor," says tom, with great dignity. "my eye!" cried east. "oh, so that's why mary called you back; and you didn't come to supper. you lost something,--that beef and pickles was no end good." "i say, young fellow," cried hall, detecting arthur, and catching him by the collar, "what's your name? where do you come from? how old are you?" tom saw arthur shrink back, and look scared as all the group turned to him, but thought it best to let him answer, just standing by his side to support in case of need. "arthur, sir. i come from devonshire." "don't call me 'sir,' you young muff. how old are you?" "thirteen." "can you sing?" the poor boy was trembling and hesitating. tom struck in--"you be hanged, tadpole. he'll have to sing, whether he can or not, saturday twelve weeks, and that's long enough off yet." "do you know him at home, brown?" "no; but he's my chum in gray's old study, and it's near prayer-time, and i haven't had a look at it yet. come along, arthur." away went the two, tom longing to get his charge safe under cover, where he might advise him on his deportment. "what a queer chum for tom brown," was the comment at the fire; and it must be confessed so thought tom himself, as he lighted his candle, and surveyed the new green-baize curtains and the carpet and sofa with much satisfaction. "i say, arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us so cozy! but look here now; you must answer straight up when the fellows speak to you, and don't be afraid. if you're afraid, you'll get bullied. and don't you say you can sing; and don't you ever talk about home, or your mother and sisters." poor little arthur looked ready to cry. "but please," said he, "mayn't i talk about--about home to you?" "oh, yes, i like it. but don't talk to boys you don't know, or they'll call you home-sick, or mamma's darling, or some such stuff. what a jolly desk! is that your's? and what stunning binding! why, your school-books look like novels." and tom was soon deep in arthur's goods and chattels, all new and good enough for a fifth-form boy, and hardly thought of his friends outside till the prayer-bell rang. i have already described the school-house prayers; they were the same on the first night as on the other nights, save for the gaps caused by the absence of those boys who came late, and the line of new boys who stood altogether at the further table,--of all sorts and sizes, like young bears with all their trouble to come, as tom's father had said to him when he was in the same position. he thought of it as he looked at the line, and poor little slight arthur standing with them, and as he was leading him up-stairs to number 4, directly after prayers, and showing him his bed. it was a huge, high, airy room, with two large windows looking on to the school close. there were twelve beds in the room; the one in the furthest corner by the fire-place occupied by the sixth-form boy who was responsible for the discipline of the room, and the rest by boys in the lower fifth and other junior forms, all fags (for the fifth-form boys, as has been said, slept in rooms by themselves). being fags, the eldest of them was not more than about sixteen years old, and were all bound to be up and in bed by ten; the sixth-form boys came to bed from ten to a quarter-past (at which time the old verger came round to put the candles out), except when they sat up to read. lesson no. 1. within a few minutes, therefore, of their entry, all the other boys who slept in number 4 had come up. the little fellows went quietly to their own beds, and began undressing and talking to each other in whispers; while the elder, amongst whom was tom, sat chatting about on one another's beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. poor little arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. the idea of sleeping in the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. he could hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked at tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed talking and laughing. "please, brown," he whispered, "may i wash my face and hands?" "of course, if you like," said tom, staring; "that's your washhand-stand under the window, second from your bed. you'll have to go down for more water in the morning if you use it all." and on he went with his talk, while arthur stole timidly from between the beds out to his washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby drawing for a moment on himself the attention of the room. on went the talk and laughter. arthur finished his washing and undressing, and put on his night-gown. he then looked round more nervously than ever. two or three of the little boys were already in bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. the light burned clear, the noise went on. it was a trying moment for the poor little lonely boy; however, this time he didn't ask tom what he might or might not do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had done every day from his childhood, to open his heart to him who heareth the cry and beareth the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man in agony. tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that his back was toward arthur, and he didn't see what had happened, and looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. then two or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big brutal fellow, who was standing in the middle of the room, picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him a snivelling young shaver. then tom saw the whole and the next moment the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow. "confound you, brown, what's that for?" roared he, stamping with pain. "never mind what i mean," said tom, stepping on to the floor, every drop of blood in his body tingling; "if any fellow wants the other boot, he knows how to get it." what would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. tom and the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in another minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting their door with his usual "goodnight, gen'lm'n." there were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken to heart before they slept. but sleep seemed to have deserted the pillow of poor tom. for some time his excitement, and the flood of memories which chased one another through his brain, kept him from thinking or resolving. his head throbbed, his heart leaped, and he could hardly keep himself from springing out of bed and rushing about the room. then the thought of his own mother came across him, and the promise he had made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside, and give himself up to his father, before he laid his head on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down gently and cried as if his heart would break. he was only fourteen years old. it was no light act of courage in those days, my dear boys, for a little fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at rugby. a few years later, when arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the school, the tables turned; before he died, in the school-house at least, and i believe in the other house, the rule was the other way. but poor tom had come to school in other times. the first few nights after he came he did not kneel down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was out, and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest some one should find him out. so did many another poor little fellow. then he began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in bed, and then that it didn't matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, or lying down. and so it had come to pass with tom, as with all who will not confess their lord before men; and for the last year he had probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen times. poor tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his heart was the sense of his own cowardice. the vice of all others which he loathed was brought in and burned in on his own soul. he had lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his god. how could he bear it? and then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do. the first dawn of comfort came to him in swearing to himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that night. then he resolved to write home next day and tell his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. and then peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. the morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that he could not afford to let one chance slip. several times he faltered, for the devil showed him first all his old friends calling him "saint" and "square-toes," and a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his motives would be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with the new boy; whereas it was his duty to keep all means of influence, that he might do good to the largest number. and then came the more subtle temptation, "shall i not be showing myself braver than others by doing this? have i any right to begin it now? ought i not rather to pray in my own study, letting other boys know that i do so, and trying to lead them to do it, while in public at least i should go on as i have done?" however, his good angel was too strong that night, and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in which he had found peace. tom learns his lesson. next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in the face of the whole room knelt down to pray. not five words could he say--the bell mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in the room--what were they all thinking of him? he was ashamed to go on kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. at last, as it were from his inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of the publican,[5] "god be merciful to me a sinner!" he repeated them over and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose from his knees comforted and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. it was not needed; two other boys besides arthur had already followed his example, and he went down to the great school with a glimmering of another lesson in his heart,--the lesson that he who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world; and that other one which the old prophet learnt in the cave in mount horeb, when he hid his face, and the still small voice asked: "what doest thou here, elijah?"[6] that however we may fancy ourselves alone on the side of good, the king and lord of men is nowhere without his witnesses; for in every society, however seemingly corrupt and godless, there are those who have not bowed the knee to baal.[7] [5] #publican#: here, a revenue or tax collector. see luke xviii. 13. [6] #elijah#: see 1 kings xix. 9. [7] #baal#: an idol; hence any great wickedness. he found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be produced by his act. for a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh when he knelt down, but this passed off soon, and one by one all the other boys but three or four followed the lead. i fear that this was in some measure due to the fact that tom could probably have thrashed any boy in the room except the præpostor; at any rate, every boy knew that he would try upon very slight provocation, and didn't choose to run the risk of a hard fight because tom brown had taken a fancy to say his prayers. some of the small boys of number 4 communicated the new state of things to their chums, and in several other rooms the poor little fellows tried it on; in one instance or so, where the præpostor heard of it and interfered very decidedly, with partial success; but in the rest, after a short struggle, the confessors were bullied or laughed down, and the old state of things went on for some time longer. before either tom brown or arthur left the school-house, there was no room in which it had not become the regular custom. i trust it is so still, and that the old heathen state of things has gone out forever. chapter ii. the new boy. "and heaven's rich instincts in him grew, as effortless as woodland nooks send violets up and paint them blue."--_lowell._ tom's responsibilities. i do not mean to recount all the little troubles and annoyances which thronged upon tom at the beginning of this half-year, in his new character of bear-leader to a gentle little boy straight from home. he seemed to himself to have become a new boy again, without any of the long-suffering and meekness indispensable for supporting that character with moderate success. from morning till night he had the feeling of responsibility on his mind; and, even if he left arthur in their study or in the close for an hour, was never at ease till he had him in sight again. he waited for him at the doors of the school after every lesson and every calling-over; watched that no tricks were played him and none but the regulation questions asked; kept his eye on his plate at dinner and breakfast, to see that no unfair depredations were made upon his viands; in short, as east remarked, cackled after him like a hen with one chick. arthur took a long time thawing, too, which made it all the harder work; was sadly timid; scarcely ever spoke unless tom spoke to him first; and, worst of all, would agree with him in everything, the hardest thing in the world for a brown to bear. he got quite angry sometimes, as they sat together of a night in their study, at this provoking habit of agreement, and was on the point of breaking out a dozen times with a lecture upon the propriety of a fellow having a will of his own and speaking out, but managed to restrain himself by the thought that he might only frighten arthur, and the remembrance of the lesson he had learnt from him on his first night at number 4. then he would resolve to sit still, and not say a word till arthur began; but he was always beat at that game, and had presently to begin talking in despair, fearing lest arthur might think he was vexed at something if he didn't, and dog-tired of sitting tongue-tied. it was hard work! but tom had taken it up, and meant to stick to it, and go through with it, so as to satisfy himself; in which resolution he was much assisted by the chaffing of east and his other friends, who began to call him "dry-nurse," and otherwise to break their small wit on him. but when they took other ground, as they did every now and then, tom was sorely puzzled. east's advice. "tell you what, tommy," east would say, "you'll spoil young hopeful with too much coddling. why can't you let him go about by himself, and find his own level? he'll never be worth a button, if you go on keeping him under your skirts." "well, but he isn't fit to fight his own way yet; i'm trying to get him to do it every day--but he's very odd. poor little beggar! i can't make him out a bit. he isn't a bit like anything i've ever seen or heard of--he seems all over nerves; anything you say seems to hurt him like a cut or a blow." "that sort of boy's no use here," said east; "he'll only spoil. now, i'll tell you what to do, tommy. go and get a nice large band-box made, and put him in with plenty of cotton-wool, and a pap-bottle,[1] labelled 'with care--this side up,' and send him back to mamma." [1] #pap-bottle#: a nursing-bottle. "i think i shall make a hand of him, though," said tom, smiling, "say what you will. there's something about him, every now and then, which shows me he's got pluck somewhere in him. that's the only thing, after all, that'll wash,[2] isn't it, old scud? but how to get at it and bring it out?" [2] #wash#: stand; hold its colors. tom took one hand out of his breeches' pocket and stuck it in his back hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one method of invoking wisdom. he stared at the ground with a ludicrously puzzled look, and presently looked up and met east's eyes. that young gentleman slapped him on the back, and then put his arm around his shoulders, as they strolled through the quadrangle together. "tom," said he, "blest if you aren't the best old fellow ever was--i do like to see you go into a thing. hang it, i wish i could take things as you do, but i never can get higher than a joke. everything's a joke. if i was going to be flogged next minute, i should be in a blue funk,[3] but i couldn't help laughing at it for the life of me." [3] #in a blue funk#: horribly frightened. "brown and east, you go and fag for jones on the great fives'-court." "hullo, though, that's past a joke," broke out east, springing at the young gentleman who addressed them, and catching him by the collar. "here, tommy, catch hold of him t'other side before he can holla." an episode. the youth was seized, and dragged struggling out of the quadrangle into the school-house hall. he was one of the miserable little pretty, white-handed, curly-headed boys, petted and pampered by some of the big fellows, who wrote their verses for them, taught them to drink, and use bad language, and did all they could to spoil them for everything in this world and the next. one of the avocations in which these young gentlemen took particular delight was in going about and getting fags for their protectors, when those heroes were playing any game. they carried about pencil and paper with them, putting down the names of all the boys they sent, always sending five times as many as were wanted, and getting all those thrashed who didn't go. the present youth belonged to a house which was very jealous of the school-house, and always picked out school-house fags when he could find them. however, this time he'd got the wrong pig by the ear. his captors slammed the great door of the hall, and east put his back against it, while tom gave the prisoner a shake-up, took away his list, and stood him up on the floor, while he proceeded leisurely to examine that document. "let me out! let me go!" screamed the boy in a furious passion. "i'll go and tell jones this minute, and he'll give you both the biggest thrashing you ever had." "pretty little dear," said east, patting the top of his hat; "listen to him, tom. nicely brought-up young man, isn't he, though?" "let me alone----you," roared the boy, foaming with rage, and kicking at east, who quietly tripped him up, and deposited him on the floor in a place of safety. "gently, young fellow," said he, "'tisn't improving for little whippersnappers like you to be indulging in such language; so you stop that, or you'll get something you won't like." "i'll have you both licked when i get out, that i will," rejoined the boy, beginning to snivel. "two can play at that game, mind you," said tom, who had finished his examination of the list. "now you just listen here. we've just come across the fives'-court, and jones has four fags there already, two more than he wants. if he'd wanted us to change, he'd have stopped us himself. and here, you little blackguard, you've got seven names down on your list besides ours, and five of them school-house." tom walked up to him and jerked him on to his legs; he was by this time whining like a whipped puppy. "now just listen to me. we aren't going to fag for jones. if you tell him you've sent us, we'll each of us give you such a thrashing as you'll remember." and tom tore up the list and threw the pieces into the fire. "and mind you, too," said east, "don't let me catch you again sneaking about the school-house, and picking up our fags. you haven't got the sort of hide to take a sound licking kindly;" and he opened the door and sent the young gentleman flying into the quadrangle, with a parting kick. "nice boy, tommy," said east, shoving his hands into his pockets and strolling to the fire. "worst sort we breed," responded tom, following his example. "thank goodness no big fellow ever took to petting me." "you'd never have been like that," said east. "i should like to have put him in a museum: christian young gentleman, nineteenth century, highly educated. stir him up with a long pole, jack, and hear him swear like a drunken sailor! he'd make a respectable public open its eyes, i think." "think he'll tell jones?" said tom. "no," said east. "don't care if he does." "nor i," said tom; and they went back to talk about arthur. the young gentleman had brains enough not to tell jones, reasoning that east and brown, who were noted as some of the toughest fags in the school, wouldn't care three straws for any licking jones might give them, and would be likely to keep their words as to passing it on with interest. lesson no. 2. after the above conversation, east came a good deal to their study, and took notice of arthur; and soon allowed to tom that he was a thorough little gentleman, and would get over his shyness all in good time; which much comforted our hero. he felt every day, too, the value of having an object in his life, something that drew him out of himself; and, it being the dull time of the year, and no games going about which he much cared, was happier than he had ever yet been at school, which was saying a great deal. the time which tom allowed himself away from his charge was from locking-up till supper-time. during this hour or hour and a half he used to take his fling, going round to the studies of all his acquaintance, sparring or gossiping in the hall, now jumping the old iron-bound tables, or carving a bit of his name on them, then joining in some chorus of merry voices; in fact, blowing off his steam, as we should now call it. this process was so congenial[4] to his temper, and arthur showed himself so pleased at the arrangement, that it was several weeks before tom was ever in their study before supper. one evening, however, he rushed in to look for an old chisel, or some corks, or other article essential to his pursuit for the time being, and, while rummaging about in the cupboards, looked up for a moment, and was caught at once by the figure of poor little arthur. the boy was sitting with his elbows on the table, and his head leaning on his hands, and before him an open book, on which his tears were falling fast. tom shut the door at once, and sat down on the sofa by arthur, putting his arm round his neck. [4] #congenial#: agreeable. "why, young un! what's the matter?" said he, kindly. "you aren't unhappy, are you?" "oh, no, brown," said the little boy, looking up with great tears in his eyes; "you are so kind to me, i'm very happy." "why don't you call me tom? lots of boys do that i don't like half so much as i do you. what are you reading, then? hang it, you must come about with me, and not mope yourself," and tom cast down his eyes on the book, and saw it was the bible. he was silent for a minute, and thought to himself, "lesson number 2, tom brown;" and said, gently:-"i'm very glad to see this, arthur, and ashamed that i don't read the bible more myself. do you read it every night before supper, while i'm out?" "yes." "well, i wish you'd wait till afterward, and then we'd read together. but, arthur, why does it make you cry?" "oh, it isn't that i'm unhappy. but at home, while my father was alive, we always read the lessons[5] after tea; and i love to read them over now, and try to remember what he said about them. i can't remember all, and i think i scarcely understand a great deal of what i do remember. but it all comes back to me so fresh that i can't help crying sometimes to think that i shall never read them again with him." [5] #lessons#: here, portions of scripture. arthur's home. arthur had never spoken of his home before, and tom hadn't encouraged him to do so, as his blundering schoolboy reasoning made him think that arthur would be softened and less manly for thinking of home. but now he was fairly interested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled beer; while with very little encouragement arthur launched into his home history, and the prayer-bell put them both out sadly when it rang to call them to the hall. from this time arthur constantly spoke of his home, and, above all, of his father, who had been dead about a year, and whose memory tom soon got to love and reverence almost as much as his own son did. arthur's father had been the clergyman of a parish in the midland counties,[6] which had risen into a large town during the war,[7] and upon which the hard years which followed had fallen with fearful weight. the trade had been half ruined; and then came the old sad story of masters reducing their establishments, men turned off, and wandering about, hungry and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the thought of wives and children starving at home, and the last sticks of furniture going to the pawnshop: children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty streets and courts,[8] too listless almost to play, and squalid in rags and misery. and then the fearful struggle between the employers and men; lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry.[9] there is no need here to dwell upon such tales; the englishman into whose soul they have not sunk deep is not worthy the name; you english boys for whom this book is meant (god bless your bright faces and kind hearts!) will learn it all soon enough. [6] #midland counties#: the central counties. [7] #the war#: probably the war against napoleon. [8] #courts#: places; short streets closed at one end. [9] #county yeomanry#: that is, with the calling out of the militia of the county to quell the riots. into such a parish and state of society arthur's father had been thrown at the age of twenty-five, a young married parson, full of faith, hope and love. he had battled with it like a man, and had lots of fine utopian[10] ideas about the perfectibility of mankind, glorious humanity and such-like knocked out of his head: and a real wholesome christian love for the poor, struggling, sinning men, of whom he felt himself one, and with and for whom he spent fortune, and strength and life, driven into his heart. he had battled like a man, and gotten a man's reward. no silver teapots or salvers,[11] with flowery inscriptions, setting forth his virtues and the appreciation of a genteel parish; no fat living or stall,[12] for which he never looked, and didn't care; no sighs and praises of comfortable dowagers[13] and well got-up young women who worked him slippers, sugared his tea, and adored him as "a devoted man"; but a manly respect, wrung from the unwilling souls of men who fancied his order their natural enemies; the fear and hatred of every one who was false or unjust in the district, were he master or man; and the blessed sight of women and children daily becoming more human and more homely,[14] a comfort to themselves and to their husbands and fathers. [10] #utopian#: fanciful. [11] #salver#: a tray. [12] #fat living or stall#: a high-salaried parish; stall: an office in the church. [13] #dowager#: the widow of a person of wealth and rank. [14] #homely#: fond of home; domestic. these things of course took time, and had to be fought for with toil and sweat of brain and heart, and with the life-blood poured out. all that, arthur[15] had laid his account to give, and took as a matter of course; neither pitying himself, nor looking on himself as a martyr, when he felt the wear and tear making him feel old before his time, and the stifling air of fever-dens telling on his health. his wife seconded him in everything. she had been rather fond of society, and much admired and run after before her marriage; and the london world to which she had belonged pitied poor fanny evelyn when she married the young clergyman, and went to settle in that smoky hole, turley, a very nest of chartism[16] and atheism, in a part of the country which all the decent families had had to leave for years. however, somehow or other she didn't seem to care. if her husband's living[17] had been amongst green fields and near pleasant neighbors, she would have liked it better,--that she never pretended to deny. but there they were; the air wasn't bad, after all; the people were very good sort of people,--civil to you if you were civil to them, after the first brush; and they didn't expect to work miracles, and convert them all off-hand into model christians. so he and she went quietly among the folk, talking to and treating them just as they would have done people of their own rank. they didn't feel that they were doing anything out of the common way, and so were perfectly natural and had none of that condescension or consciousness of manner which so out-rages the independent poor. and thus they gradually won respect and confidence; and after sixteen years he was looked up to by the whole neighborhood as _the_ just man, _the_ man to whom masters and men could go in their strikes, and in all their quarrels and difficulties, and by whom the right and true word would be said without fear or favor. and the women had come round to take her advice, and go to her as a friend in all their troubles, while all the children worshipped the ground she trod on. [15] #arthur#: here, young arthur's father. [16] #chartism#: the principles of a political party which demanded universal suffrage and other radical reforms. the chartists were regarded much as the anarchists are now. [17] #living#: parish. they had three children, two daughters and a son, little arthur, who came between his sisters. he had been a very delicate boy from his childhood; they thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so he had been kept at home and taught by his father, who had made a companion of him, and from whom he had gained good scholarship, and a knowledge of, and an interest in, many subjects which boys in general never come across till they are many years older. just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had settled that he was strong enough to go to school; and, after much debating with himself, had resolved to send him there, a desperate fever broke out in the town; most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors, ran away; the work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to their work. arthur and his wife both caught the fever, of which he died in a few days, and she recovered, having been able to nurse him to the end, and store up his last words. he was sensible to the last, and calm and happy, leaving his wife and children with fearless trust for a few years in the hands of the lord and friend who had lived and died for him, and for whom he, to the best of his power, had lived and died. his widow's mourning was deep and gentle; she was more affected by the request of the committee of a free-thinking club, established in the town by some of the factory hands (which he had striven against with might and main, and nearly suppressed), that some of their number might be allowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything else. two of them were chosen, who with six laboring men, his own fellow-workmen and friends, bore him to his grave,--a man who had fought the lord's fight even unto the death. the shops were closed and the factories shut that day in the parish, yet no master stopped the day's wages; but for many a year afterward the towns-folk felt the want of that brave, hopeful, loving parson, and his wife, who had lived to teach them mutual forbearance and helpfulness, and had _almost_ at last given them a glimpse of what this old world would be, if people would live for god and each other, instead of for themselves. what has all this to do with our story? well, my dear boys, let a fellow go on in his own way, or you won't get anything out of him worth having. i must show you what sort of a man it was who had brought up little arthur, or else you won't believe in him, which i am resolved you shall do; and you won't see how he, the timid, weak boy, had points in him from which the bravest and strongest recoiled, and made his presence and example felt from the first on all sides, unconsciously to himself, and without the least attempt at proselytizing.[18] the spirit of his father was in him, and the friend to which his father had left him did not neglect the trust. [18] #proselytizing#: converting to one's particular opinions. results of lesson no. 2. after supper that night, and almost nightly for years afterwards, tom and arthur, and by degrees east occasionally, and sometimes one, sometimes another of their friends, read a chapter of the bible together, and talked it over afterwards. tom was at first utterly astonished, and almost shocked, at the sort of way in which arthur read the book, and talked about the men and women whose lives were there told. the first night they happened to fall on the chapters about the famine in egypt,[19] and arthur began talking about joseph[20] as if he were a living statesman; just as he might have talked about lord grey and the reform bill;[21] only that they were much more living realities to him. the book was to him, tom saw, the most vivid and delightful history of real people, who might do right or wrong, just like any one who was walking about in rugby,--the doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. but the astonishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became at once and forever to him the great human and divine book, and the men and women, whom he had looked upon as something quite different from himself, became his friends and counsellors. [19] see genesis xli. [20] see genesis xxxvii. [21] #lord grey#: he introduced a famous bill for parliamentary reform which was passed in 1832. tom is stiff-necked. for our purposes, however, the history of one night's reading will be sufficient, which must be told here, now we are on the subject, though it didn't happen till a year afterwards, and long after the events recorded in the next chapter of our story. arthur, tom, and east were together one night, and read the story of naaman coming to elisha to be cured of his leprosy.[22] when the chapter was finished, tom shut his bible with a slap. [22] see 2 kings, chapter v. "i can't stand that fellow naaman," said he, "after what he'd seen and felt, going back and bowing himself down in the house of rimmon, because his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. i wonder elisha took the trouble to heal him. how he must have despised him!" "yes, there you go off as usual; with a shell on your head," struck in east, who always took the opposite side to tom; half from love of argument, half from conviction. "how do you know he didn't think better of it? how do you know his master was a scoundrel? his letter doesn't look like it, and the book doesn't say so." "i don't care," rejoined tom; "why did naaman talk about bowing down, then, if he didn't mean to do it? he wasn't likely to get more in earnest when he got back to court and away from the prophet." "well, but tom," said arthur, "look what elisha says to him: 'go in peace.' he wouldn't have said that if naaman had been in the wrong." "i don't see that that means more than saying: 'you're not the man i took you for.'" "no, no, that won't do at all," said east; "read the words fairly, and take men as you find them. i like naaman, and think he was a very fine fellow." "i don't," said tom, positively. "well i think east is right," said arthur; "i can't see but what it's right to do the best you can, though it mayn't be the best absolutely. every man isn't born to be a martyr." "of course, of course," said east; "but he's on one of his pet hobbies. how often have i told you, tom, that you must drive a nail where it'll go." "and how often have i told you," rejoined tom, "that it'll always go where you want, if you only stick to it and hit hard enough. i hate half measures and compromises." "yes, he's a whole hog man, is tom. must have the whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail," laughed east. "sooner have no bread, any day, than half the loaf." "i don't know," said arthur; "it's rather puzzling; but aren't most right things got by proper compromises? i mean where the principle isn't given up." the brown compromise. "that's just the point," said tom; "i don't object to a compromise where you don't give up your principle." "not you," said east, laughingly. "i know him of old, arthur, and you'll find him out some day. there isn't such a reasonable fellow in the world, to hear him talk. he never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants, and nothing that you want. and that's his idea of a compromise. give me the brown compromise when i'm on his side." "now, harry," said tom, "no more chaff--i'm serious. look here--this is what makes my blood tingle;" and he turned over the pages of his bible and read: "shadrach, meshach, and abednego answered and said to the king, o nebuchadnezzar,[23] we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. if it _be_ so, our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, o king. but _if not_, be it known unto thee, o king, that we will _not_ serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." he read the last verse twice, emphasizing the _nots_, and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual pleasure, and were hard to part with. [23] see daniel iii. they were silent a minute, and then arthur said: "yes, that's a glorious story, but it doesn't prove your point, tom, i think. there are times when there is only one way, and that the highest; and then the men are found to stand in the breach." "there's always a highest way, and it's always the right one," said tom. "how many times has the doctor told us that in his sermons in the last year, i should like to know?" "well, you aren't going to convince us, is he, arthur? no brown compromise to-night," said east, looking at his watch. "but it's past eight, and we must go to first lesson. what a bore!" so they took down their books and fell to work; but arthur didn't forget, and thought long and often over the conversation. chapter iii. arthur makes a friend. "let nature be your teacher: sweet is the lore which nature brings; our meddling intellect mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things we murder to dissect- enough of science and of art; close up those barren leaves; come forth, and bring with you a heart that watches and receives."--_wordsworth._ troubles of a boy-philosopher. about six weeks after the beginning of the half, as tom and arthur were sitting one night before supper beginning their verses, arthur suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said: "tom, do you know anything of martin?" "yes," said tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted to throw his gradus ad parnassum[1] on to the sofa; "i know him pretty well. he's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. he's called madman, you know. and never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum[2] things about him. he tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about in his pocket, and i'll be bound he's got some hedge-hogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what besides." [1] #gradus ad parnassum#: a dictionary specially designed to aid pupils in writing greek and latin verses. [2] #rum#: queer. "i should like very much to know him," said arthur; "he was next to me in the form to-day, and he'd lost his book and looked over mine, and he seemed so kind and gentle that i liked him very much." "ah, poor old madman, he's always losing his books," said tom, "and getting called up and floored because he hasn't got them." "i like him all the better," said arthur. "well, he's great fun, i can tell you," said tom, throwing himself back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. "we had such a game with him one day last half. he had been trying chemical experiments and kicking up horrid stenches for some time in his study, till i suppose some fellow told mary, and she told the doctor. anyhow, one day, a little before dinner, when he came down from the library, the doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the hall. east and i and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously we stared, for he doesn't come in like that once a year, unless it is a wet day and there's a fight in the hall. 'east,' says he, 'just come and show me martin's study.' 'oh, here's a game,' whispered the rest of us, and we all cut up-stairs after the doctor, east leading. as we got into the new row, which was hardly wide enough to hold the doctor and his gown, click, click, click, we heard in the old madman's den. then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went to like fun; the madman knew east's step, and thought there was going to be a siege. "'it's the doctor, martin. he's here, and wants to see you,' sings out east. "then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, and there was the old madman standing, looking precious scared; his jacket off, his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms all covered with anchors, and arrows, and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor-boy's, and a stench fit to knock you down coming out. 'twas all the doctor could do to stand his ground, and east and i, who were looking in under his arms, held our noses tight. the old magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and half-poisoned. "'what can you be about, martin?' says the doctor; 'you really musn't go on in this way--you're a nuisance to the whole passage.' "'please, sir, i was only mixing up this powder; there isn't any harm in it;' and the madman seized nervously on his pestle and mortar, to show the doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, and went on pounding; click, click, click. he hadn't given six clicks before, puff! up went the whole into a great blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across the study, and back we tumbled into the passage. the magpie[3] fluttered down into the court, swearing, and the madman danced out, howling, with his fingers in his mouth. the doctor caught hold of him, and called to us to fetch some water. 'there, you silly fellow,' said he, quite pleased, though, to find he wasn't much hurt, 'you see you don't know the least what you are doing with all these things; and now, mind, you must give up practising chemistry by yourself.' then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, and i saw he had to bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled; but he said, quite gravely, 'here, you see, you've been making all these foolish marks on yourself, which you can never get out, and you'll be very sorry for it in a year or two. now come down into the housekeeper's room, and let us see if you are hurt.' and away went the two, and we all stayed and had a regular turn-out of the den, till martin came back with his hand bandaged and turned us out. however, i'll go and see what he's after, and tell him to come in after prayers to supper." and away went tom to find the boy in question, who dwelt in a little study by himself in new row. [3] #magpie#: a bird which can be taught to speak like the parrot. the aforesaid martin whom arthur had taken such a fancy for was one of those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are, i fear, still) quite out of their places at a public school. if we knew how to use our boys, martin would have been seized upon and educated as a natural philosopher. he had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew more of them and their habits than any one in rugby, except perhaps the doctor, who knew everything. he was also an experimental chemist on a small scale, and had made unto himself an electric machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to venture into his study. and this was by no means an adventure free from excitement; for, besides the probability of a snake dropping on to your head, or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting into your breeches' pocket in search of food, there was the animal and chemical odor to be faced, which always hung about the den, and the chance of being blown up in some of the many experiments which martin was always trying, with the most wonderful results in the shape of explosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. of course, poor martin, in consequence of his pursuits, had become an ishmaelite in the house. in the first place, he half poisoned all his neighbors, and they in turn were always on the look-out to pounce upon any of his numerous live stock and drive him frantic by enticing his pet old magpie out of his window into a neighboring study, and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked in beer and sugar. then martin, for his sins, inhabited a study looking into a small court some ten feet across, the window of which was completely commanded by those of the studies opposite in the sick-room row, these latter being at a slightly higher elevation. east and another boy of an equally tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, and had expended huge pains and time in the preparation of instruments of annoyance for the behoof of martin and his live colony. one morning an old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord, outside martin's window, in which were deposited an amateur nest[4] containing four young, hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of martin's life for the time being, and which he was currently asserted to have hatched upon his own person. early in the morning and late at night he was to be seen half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his callow[5] brood. after deep cogitation,[6] east and his chum had spliced a knife on to the end of a fishing rod; and having watched martin out, had, after half an hour's severe sawing, cut the string by which the basket was suspended, and tumbled it on to the pavement below, with hideous remonstrance from the occupants. poor martin, returning from his short absence, collected the fragments and replaced his brood (except one whose neck had been broken in the descent) in their old location, suspending them this time by string and wire twisted together, defiant of any sharp instrument which his persecutors could command. but, like the russian engineers at sebastopol,[7] east and his chum had an answer for every move of the adversary; and the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a pea-shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear exactly upon the spot which martin had to occupy while tending his nurslings. the moment he began to feed, they began to shoot; in vain did the enemy himself invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavor to answer the fire while he fed the young birds with his other hand; his attention was divided, and his shots flew wild, while every one of theirs told on his face and hands, and drove him into howlings and imprecations. he had been driven to ensconce[8] the nest in a corner of his already too well-filled den. [4] #amateur nest#: here, a nest made by himself. [5] #callow#: unfledged; without feathers. [6] #cogitation#: thought. [7] #sebastopol#: a fortified town in the crimea; the scene of a siege in the crimean war. [8] #ensconce#: to place in a protected place. the philosopher's den. the door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of his own invention, for the sieges were frequent by the neighbors when any unusually ambrosial[9] odor spread itself from the den to the neighboring studies. the door-panels were in a normal[10] state of smash, but the frame of the door resisted all besiegers, and behind it the owner carried on his varied pursuits; much in the same state of mind, i should fancy, as a border-farmer[11] lived in, in the days of the old moss-troopers,[12] when his hold might be summoned or his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day. [9] #ambrosial#: here, delicious, in an ironical sense. [10] #normal#: usual; regular. [11] #border-farmer#: one who lived on the border between scotland and england. [12] #moss-troopers#: so called from the mosses or bogs on the border; plunderers who infested the border. they sometimes summoned the farmers to open the doors of their "holds" (fortified houses), to them. "open, martin, old boy--it's only i, tom brown." "oh, very well, stop a moment." one bolt went back. "you're sure east isn't there?" "no, no, hang it, open." tom gave a kick, the other bolt creaked, and he entered the den. den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long by five wide, and seven feet high. about six tattered schoolbooks, and a few chemical books, taxidermy,[13] stanley on birds, and an odd volume of bewick,[14] the latter in much better preservation, occupied the top shelves. the other shelves, where they had not been cut away and used by the owner for other purposes, were fitted up for the abiding-places of birds, beasts and reptiles. there was no attempt at carpet or curtain. the table was entirely occupied by the great work of martin, the electric machine, which was covered carefully with the remains of his table-cloths. the jackdaw cage occupied one wall, and the other was adorned by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing-irons, and his tin candle-box, in which he was for the time being endeavoring to raise a hopeful young family of field-mice. as nothing should be let to lie useless, it was well that the candle-box was thus occupied, for candles martin never had. a pound was issued to him weekly as to the other boys, but as candles were available capital, and easily exchangeable for birds' eggs or young birds, martin's pound invariably found its way in a few hours to howlett, the bird-fancier's,[15] in the bilton road, who could give a hawk's or nightingale's egg or young linnet in exchange. martin's ingenuity was therefore forever on the rack to supply himself with a light; just now he had hit upon a grand invention, and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton-wick issuing from a ginger-beer bottle full of some doleful composition. when light altogether failed him, martin would loaf about by the fires in the passages or hall, after the manner of diggs, and try to do his verses or learn his lines by the fire-light. [13] #taxidermy#: the art of stuffing the skins of animals. [14] #bewick#: an english artist distinguished for wood engraving. his most famous work was a "history of british birds." [15] #bird-fancier#: one who keeps birds for sale. the invitation. "well, old boy, you haven't got any sweeter in the den this half. how that stuff in the bottle smells! never mind, i'm not going to stop, but you come up after prayers to our study; you know young arthur; we've got gray's study. we'll have a good supper and talk about birds' nesting." martin was evidently highly pleased at the invitation, and promised to be up without fail. as soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and fifth form boys had withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of their own rooms, and the rest, or democracy, had sat down to their supper in the hall, tom and arthur, having secured their allowances of bread and cheese, started on their feet to catch the eye of the præpostor of the week, who remained in charge during supper, walking up and down the hall. he happened to be an easy-going fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to their "please may i go out?" and away they scrambled to prepare for martin a sumptuous banquet. this, tom had insisted on, for he was in great delight on the occasion; the reason of which delight must be expounded. the fact was that this was the first attempt at a friendship of his own which arthur had made, and tom hailed it as a grand step. the ease with which he himself became hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, and blundered into and out of twenty friendships a half-year, made him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at arthur's reserve and loneliness. true, arthur was always pleasant, and even jolly, with any boys who came with tom to their study; but tom felt that it was only through him, as it were, that his chum associated with others, and that but for him arthur would have been dwelling in a wilderness. this increased his consciousness of responsibility; and though he hadn't reasoned it out and made it clear to himself, yet somehow he knew that this responsibility, this trust which he had taken on him without thinking about it, head-over-heels in fact, was the centre and turning-point of his school-life, that which was to make him or mar him; his appointed work and trial for the time being. and tom was becoming a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily growing in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and well-principled boy must, when he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self and the devil. already he could turn almost without a sigh from the school-gates, from which had just scampered off east and three or four others of his own particular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite according to law, and involving probably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-laborers, the skipping dinner or calling-over, over some of phoebe jennings' beer and a very possible flogging at the end of all as a relish. he had quite got over the stage in which he would grumble to himself; "well, hang it, it's very hard of the doctor to have saddled me with arthur. why couldn't he have chummed him with fogey, or tompkin, or any of the fellows who never do anything but walk round the close, and finish their copies the first day they're set?" but although all this was past, he longed, and felt that he was right in longing, for more time for the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing and fishing within bounds, in which arthur could not yet be his companion; and he felt that when the young un (as he now generally called him) had found a pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should be able to give more time to the education of his own body with a clear conscience. tom's work. and now what he so wished for had come to pass; he almost hailed it as a special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the reasons he gave for it--what providences are?) that arthur should have singled out martin of all fellows for a friend. "the old madman is the very fellow," thought he; "he will take him scrambling over half the country after birds' eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and climb like an indian, and not teach him a word of anything bad, or keep him from his lessons. what luck!" and so, with more than his usual heartiness, he dived into his cupboard and hauled out an old knucklebone of ham, and two or three bottles of beer, together with the solemn pewter[16] only used on state occasions; while arthur, equally elated at the easy accomplishment of his first act of volition[17] in the joint establishment, produced from his side a bottle of pickles and a pot of jam, and cleared the table. in a minute or two the noise of the boys coining up from supper was heard, and martin knocked and was admitted, bearing his bread and cheese, and the three fell to with hearty good-will upon the viands, talking faster than they ate, for all shyness disappeared in a moment before tom's bottled beer and hospitable ways. "here's arthur a regular young town-mouse, with a natural taste for the woods, martin, longing to break his neck climbing trees, and with a passion for young snakes." [16] #pewter#: pewter mugs and plates. [17] #volition#: will. the supper. "well, i say," spurted out martin, eagerly, "will you come to-morrow, both of you, to caldecott's spinney, then? for i know of a kestrel's nest,[18] up a fir-tree--i can't get at it without help; and brown, you can climb against any one." [18] #kestrel#: a bird of the hawk kind. "oh, yes, do let us go," said arthur; "i never saw a hawk's nest, nor a hawk's egg." "you just come down to my study, then, and i'll show you five sorts," said martin. "ay, the old madman has got the best collection in the house, out and out," said tom; and then martin, warming with unaccustomed good cheer and the chance of a convert, launched out into a proposed birds'-nesting campaign, betraying all manner of important secrets; a golden-crested wren's nest near butlins's mound, a moor-hen that was sitting on nine eggs in a pond down the barby road, and a kingfisher's nest in a corner of the old canal above brownsover mill. he had heard, he said, that no one had ever got a kingfisher's nest out perfect, and that the british museum or the government, or somebody had offered £100 to any one who could bring them a nest and eggs not damaged. in the middle of which astounding announcement, to which the others were listening with open ears, and already considering the application of the £100, a knock came at the door, and east's voice was heard craving admittance. "there's harry," said tom; "we'll let him in--i'll keep him steady, martin. i thought the old boy would smell out the supper." the fact was that tom's heart had already smitten him for not asking his "fidus achates"[19] to the feast, although only an extempore[20] affair; and, though prudence and the desire to get martin and arthur together alone at first had overcome his scruples, he was now heartily glad to open the door, broach another bottle of beer, and hand over the old ham-knuckle to the searching of his friend's pocket-knife. [19] #fidus achates#: faithful friend. [20] #extempore#: off-hand. "ah, you greedy vagabonds!" said east, with his mouth full, "i knew there was something going on when i saw you cut off out of the hall so quick with your suppers." "well, old madman, and how goes the birds'-nesting campaign? how's howlett? i expect the young rooks'll be out in another fortnight, and then my turn comes." "there'll be no young rooks fit for pies for a month yet; shows how much you know about it," rejoined martin, who, though very good friends with east, regarded him with considerable suspicion for his propensity to practical jokes. "scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub and mischief," said tom; "but young rook-pie, specially when you've had to climb for the rooks, is very pretty eating. however, i say, scud, we're all going after a hawk's nest to-morrow, in caldecott's spinney; and if you'll come and behave yourself, we'll have a stunning climb." "and a bathe in aganippe.[21] hooray! i'm your man." [21] #ag´a-nip´pe#: a famous grecian fountain; here, the name is applied to some stream or pool. "no; no bathing in aganippe; that's where our betters go." "well, well, never mind. i'm for the hawk's nest and anything that turns up." and, his hunger appeased, east departed to his study; "that sneak jones," as he informed them, who had just got into the sixth, and occupied the next study, having instituted a nightly visitation upon east and his chum, to their no small discomfort. when he was gone, martin rose to follow, but tom stopped him. "no one goes near new row," said he, "so you may just as well stop here and do your verses, and then we'll have some more talk. we'll be no end quiet; besides, no præpostor comes here now--we havn't been visited once this half." so the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the three fell to work with gradus and dictionary upon the morning's vulgus. they were three very fair examples of the way in which such tasks were done at rugby, "in the consulship of plancus."[22] and doubtless the method is little changed, for there is nothing new under the sun, especially at schools. [22] #in the consulship of plancus#: here, meaning in the time of dr. arnold. vulguses. now be it known unto all you boys who are at schools which do not rejoice in the time-honored institution of the vulgus (commonly supposed to have been established by william of wykeham[23] at winchester, and imported to rugby by arnold, more for the sake of the lines which were learnt by heart with it, than for its own intrinsic[24] value, as i've always understood), that it is a short exercise, in greek or latin verse, on a given subject, the minimum[25] number of lines being fixed for each form. the master of the form gave out at fourth lesson on the previous day the subject for next morning's vulgus, and at first lesson each boy had to bring his vulgus ready to be looked over; and with the vulgus, a certain number of lines from one of the latin or greek poets then being construed in the form had to be got by heart. the master at first lesson called up each boy in the form in order, and put him on in the lines. if he couldn't say them, or seem to say them, by reading them off the master's or some other boy's book who stood near, he was sent back, and went below all the boys who did so say or seem to say them; but in either case his vulgus was looked over by the master, who gave and entered in his book, to the credit or discredit of the boy, so many marks as the composition merited. at rugby, vulgus and lines were the first lesson every other day in the week, or tuesdays, thursdays and saturdays; and as there were thirty-eight weeks in the school year, it is obvious to the meanest capacity that the master of each form had to set one hundred and fourteen subjects every year, two hundred and twenty-eight every two years, and so on. now to persons of moderate invention this was a considerable task, and human nature being prone to repeat itself, it will not be wondered that the master gave the same subjects sometimes over again after a certain lapse of time. to meet and rebuke this bad habit of the masters, the schoolboy mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented an elaborate[26] system of tradition. almost every boy kept his own vulgus, written out in a book, and these books were duly handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition has gone on till now) i suppose the popular boys, in whose hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with three or four vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in "more worlds than one," which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. at any rate, such lucky fellows had generally one for themselves and one for a friend in my time. the only objection to the traditionary method of doing your vulguses was, the risk that the successions might have become confused, and so that you and another follower of traditions should show up the same identical vulgus some fine morning; in which case, when it happened, considerable grief was the result--but when did such risk hinder boys or men from short cuts and pleasant paths? [23] #william of wykeham#: the founder of winchester college, the oldest of the great public schools of england. here dr. arnold fitted for oxford. [24] #intrinsic#: inward, real, true. [25] #minimum#: least. [26] #elaborate#: prepared or thought out with great care. the science of verse-making. now in the study that night, tom was the upholder of the traditionary method of vulgus doing. he carefully produced two large vulgus books, and began diving into them, and picking out a line here, and an ending there (tags, as they were vulgarly called), till he had gotten all that he thought he could make fit. he then proceeded to patch his tags together with the help of his gradus, producing an incongruous[27] and feeble result of eight elegiac[28] lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up with two highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed[29] entire from one of his books, beginning, "o genus humanum,"[30] and which he himself must have used a dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, of whatever nation or language under the sun, was the subject. indeed, he began to have great doubts whether the master wouldn't remember them, and so only threw them in as extra lines, because in any case they would call off attention from the other tags, and if detected, being extra lines, he wouldn't be sent back to do two more in their place, while if they passed muster again he would get marks for them. [27] #incongruous#: ill-fitting. [28] #elegiac#: a kind of verse generally used in expressing sorrow and lamentation. [29] #cribbed#: stole, copied. [30] #o genus humanum#: o human race. the second method pursued by martin may be called the dogged, or prosaic, method. he, no more than tom, took any pleasure in the task, but having no old vulgus books of his own, or any one's else, could not follow the traditionary method, for which, too, as tom remarked, he hadn't the genius. martin then proceeded to write down eight lines in english, of the most matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into his head; and to convert these, line by line, by main force of gradus and dictionary, into latin that would scan.[31] this was all he cared for, to produce eight lines with no false quantities[32] or concords;[33] whether the words were apt, or what the sense was, mattered nothing; and, as the article was all new, not a line beyond the minimum did the followers of the dogged method ever produce. [31] #scan#: contain the right number of syllables with the accents in the proper places. [32] #false quantities#: long syllables placed where short ones should be used or the reverse. [33] #concord#: the agreement of words in construction, as adjectives with nouns in gender, number, and case. the third, or artistic method, was arthur's. he considered first what point in the character or event which was the subject could most neatly be brought out within the limits of a vulgus; trying always to get his idea into the eight lines, but not binding himself to ten or even twelve lines if he couldn't do this. he then set to work, as much as possible without gradus or other help, to clothe his idea in appropriate latin or greek, and would not be satisfied till he had polished it well up with the aptest and most poetic words and phrases he could get at. a fourth method indeed was used in the school, but of too simple a kind to require comment. it may be called the vicarious[34] method, obtained amongst big boys of lazy or bullying habits, and consisted simply in making clever boys whom they could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, and construe it to them afterward; which latter is a method not to be encouraged, and which i strongly advise you all not to practise. of the others, you will find the traditionary most troublesome, unless you can steal the vulguses whole (_experto crede_),[35] and that the artistic method pays the best, both in marks and other ways. [34] #vicarious#: acting for another. here it means, having it done for em by another. [35] #experto crede#: believe one who has had experience. martin's den. the vulguses being finished by nine o'clock, and martin having rejoiced above measure in the abundance of light, and of gradus and dictionary, and other conveniences almost unknown to him for getting through the work, and having been pressed by arthur to come and do his verses there whenever he liked, the three boys went down to martin's den, and arthur was initiated into the lore of birds' eggs, to his great delight. the exquisite coloring and forms astonished and charmed him who had scarcely even seen any but a hen's egg or an ostrich's, and by the time he was lugged away to bed he had learned the names of at least twenty sorts, and dreamed of the glorious perils of tree climbing, and that he had found a roc's[36] egg in the island as big as sindbad's[37] and clouded like a titlark's, in blowing[38] which, martin and he had nearly been drowned in the yolk. [36] #roc#: a monstrous, imaginary bird. [37] #sindbad#: a sailor in the "arabian nights' tales," who had many wonderful adventures. [38] #blowing#: two small holes are made at opposite ends of an egg, and the contents are then blown out by the breath. chapter iv. the bird-fanciers. "i have found out a gift for my fair, i have found where the wood-pigeons breed: but let me the plunder forbear, she would say 'twas a barbarous deed."--_rowe._ "and now, my lad, take them five shilling, and on my advice in future think; so billy pouched them all so willing, and got that night disguised in drink."--_m s. ballad._ tom put out. the next morning at first lesson tom was turned back in his lines, and so had to wait till the second round, while martin and arthur said theirs all right and got out of school at once. when tom got out and ran down to breakfast at harrowell's they were missing, and stumps informed him that they had swallowed down their breakfast and gone off together,--where, he couldn't say. tom hurried over his own breakfast, and went first to martin's study and then to his own, but no signs of the missing boys were to be found. he felt half angry and jealous of martin,--where could they be gone? he learnt second lesson with east and the rest in no very good temper, and then went out into the quadrangle. about ten minutes before school martin and arthur arrived in the quadrangle breathless, and catching sight of him, arthur rushed up all excitement and with a bright glow on his face. "oh, tom, look here," cried he, holding out three moor-hen's eggs; "we have been down the barby road to the pool martin told us of last night, and just see what we've got." tom wouldn't be pleased, and only looked out for something to find fault with. "why, young un," said he, "what have you been after? you don't mean to say you've been wading?" the tone of reproach made poor little arthur shrink up in a moment and look piteous, and tom, with a shrug of his shoulders, turned his anger on martin. "well, i didn't think, madman, that you'd have been such a muff as to let him be getting wet through at this time of day. you might have done the wading yourself." "so i did, of course, only he would come in, too, to see the nest. we left six eggs in; they'll be hatched in a day or two." "hang the eggs!" said tom; "a fellow can't turn his back for a moment, but all his work's undone. he'll be laid up for a week for this precious lark, i'll be bound." "indeed, tom, now," pleaded arthur, "my feet aren't wet, for martin made me take off my shoes, stockings and trousers." "but they are wet and dirty, too--can't i see?" answered tom, "and you'll be called up and floored[1] when the master sees what a state you're in. you haven't looked at second lesson, you know." oh, tom, you old humbug! you to be upbraiding any one with not learning his lessons. if you hadn't been floored yourself now at first lesson, do you mean to say you wouldn't have been with them? and you've taken away all poor little arthur's joy and pride in his first birds' eggs, and he goes and puts them down in the study, and takes down his books with a sigh, thinking he has done something horribly wrong, whereas he has learnt on in advance much more than will be done at second lesson. [1] #floored#: silenced or put back in his lesson for not having learned it properly. but the old madman hasn't, and gets called up and makes some frightful shots, losing about ten places, and all but getting floored. this somewhat appeases tom's wrath, and by the end of the lesson he has regained his temper. and afterward in their study he begins to get right again, as he watches arthur's intense joy at seeing martin blowing the eggs and glueing them carefully on to bits of cardboard, and notes the anxious, loving looks which the little fellow casts sidelong at him. and then he thinks, "what an ill-tempered beast i am! here's just what i was wishing for last night come about, and i'm spoiling it all," and in another five minutes has swallowed the last mouthful of his bile,[2] and is repaid by seeing his little sensitive plant expand again, and sun itself in his smiles. [2] #bile#: here, anger. after dinner the madman is busy with the preparations for their expedition, fitting new straps on to his climbing-irons, filling large pill-boxes with cotton-wool, and sharpening east's small axe. they carry all their munitions[3] into calling-over, and directly afterward, having dodged such præpostors as are on the look-out for fags at cricket, the four set off at a smart trot down the lawford footpath straight for caldecott's spinney and the hawk's nest. [3] #munitions#: supplies. birds'-nesting. martin leads the way in high feather.[4] it is quite a new sensation to him getting companions, and he finds it very pleasant, and means to show them all manner of proofs of his science and skill. "brown and east may be better at cricket and foot-ball and games," thinks he, "but out in the fields and woods see if i can't teach them something." he has taken the leadership already, and strides away in front, with his climbing-irons strapped under one arm, his pecking-bag[5] under the other, and his pockets and hat full of pill-boxes, cotton-wool, and other et ceteras.[6] each of the others carries a pecking-bag, and east his hatchet. [4] #high feather#: high spirits. [5] #pecking-bag#: a strong bag to carry pebbles in. [6] #et ceteras#: things of a like kind. when they had crossed three or four fields without a check, arthur began to lag, and tom seeing this shouted to martin to pull up a bit: "we aren't out hare and hounds--what's the good of grinding on at this rate?" "there's the spinney," said martin, pulling up on the brow of a slope, at the bottom of which lay lawford brook, and pointing to the top of the opposite slope; "the nest is in one of those high fir-trees at this end. and down by the brook there, i know of a sedge-bird's nest; we'll go and look at it coming back." "oh, come on, don't let us stop," said arthur, who was getting excited at the sight of the wood; so they broke into a trot again, and were soon across the brook, up the slope, and into the spinney. here they advanced as noiselessly as possible, lest keepers or other enemies should be about, and stopped at the foot of a tall fir, at the top of which martin pointed out with pride the kestrel's nest, the object of their quest. "oh, where! which is it?" asks arthur, gaping up in the air, and having the most vague idea of what it would be like. "there, don't you see!" said east, pointing to a lump of mistletoe[7] in the next tree, which was a beech; he saw that martin and tom were busy with the climbing-irons, and couldn't resist the temptation of hoaxing. arthur stared and wondered more than ever. [7] #mistletoe#: an evergreen plant which grows on various trees. "well, how curious! it doesn't look a bit like i expected," said he. "very odd birds, kestrels," said east, looking waggishly at his victim who was still star-gazing. "but i thought it was in a fir-tree?" objected arthur. "ah, don't you know? that's a new sort of fir which old caldecott brought from the himalayas." "really," said arthur; "i'm glad i know that--how unlike our firs they are! they do very well, too, here, don't they? the spinney's full of them." "what's that humbug he's telling you?" cried tom, looking up, having caught the word himalayas, and suspecting what east was after. "only about this fir," said arthur, putting his hand on the stem of the beech. "fir!" shouted tom; "why, you don't mean to say, young un, you don't know a beech when you see one?" poor little arthur looked terribly ashamed, and east exploded in laughter which made the wood ring. "i've hardly ever seen any trees," faltered arthur. "what a shame to hoax him, scud!" cried martin. "never mind, arthur you shall know more about trees than he does in a week or two." "and isn't that the kestrel's nest, then?" asked arthur. "that! why that's a piece of mistletoe. there's the nest, that lump of sticks up in this fir." "don't believe him, arthur," struck in the incorrigible east. "i just saw an old magpie go out of it." martin did not deign to reply to this sally, except by a grunt, as he buckled the last buckle of his climbing-irons; and arthur looked reproachfully at east without speaking. but now came the tug of war. it was a very difficult tree to climb until the branches were reached, the first of which was some fourteen feet up, for the trunk was too large at the bottom to be swarmed;[8] in fact, neither of the boys could reach more than half round it with their arms. martin and tom, both of whom had irons on, tried it without success at first; the fir bark broke away where they stuck the irons in as soon as they leaned any weight on their feet, and the grip of their arms wasn't enough to keep them up; so, after getting up three or four feet, down they came slithering[9] to the ground, barking their arms and faces. they were furious, and east sat by laughing and shouting at each failure: "two to one on the old magpie!" [8] #swarmed#: climbed by embracing with arms and legs. [9] #slithering#: sliding. "we must try a pyramid," said tom at last. "now, scud, you lazy rascal, stick yourself against the tree!" "i dare say! and have you standing on my shoulders with the irons on: what do you think my skin's made of?" however, up he got, and leaned against the tree, putting his head down and clasping it with his arms as far as he could. "now, then, madman," said tom, "you next." "no, i'm lighter than you, you go next." so tom got on east's shoulders, and grasped the tree above, and then martin scrambled up on to tom's shoulders, amidst the totterings and the groanings of the pyramid, and, with a spring which sent his supporters howling to the ground, clasped the stem some ten feet up, and remained clinging; for a moment or two they thought he couldn't get up, but then, holding on with arms and teeth, he worked first one iron, then the other firmly into the bark, got another grip with his arms, and in another minute had hold of the lowest branch. "all up with old magpie now," said east; and, after a minute's rest, up went martin, hand over hand, watched by arthur with fearful eagerness. "isn't it very dangerous?" said he. "not a bit," answered tom; "you can't hurt if you only get a good hand-hold. try every branch with a good pull before you trust it, and then up you go." martin was now amongst the small branches close to the nest, and away dashed the old bird, and soared up above the trees, watching the intruder. "all right--four eggs!" shouted he. "take' em all!" shouted east; "that'll be one apiece." "no, no! leave one, and then she won't care," said tom. we boys had an idea that birds couldn't count, and were quite content as long as you left one egg. i hope it is so. martin carefully put one egg into each of his boxes and the third into his mouth, the only other place of safety, and came down like a lamp-lighter. all went well till he was within ten feet of the ground, when, as the trunk enlarged, his hold got less and less firm, and at last down he came with a run, tumbling on to his back on the turf, spluttering and spitting out the remains of the great egg, which had broken by the jar of his fall. "ugh, ugh! something to drink--ugh! it was addled,"[10] spluttered he, while the wood rang again with the merry laughter of east and tom. [10] #addled#: rotten. then they examined the prizes, gathered up their things, and went off to the brook, where martin swallowed huge draughts of water to get rid of the taste; and they visited the sedge-bird's[11] nest, and from thence struck across the country in high glee, beating[12] the hedges and brakes as they went along; and arthur at last, to his intense delight, was allowed to climb a small hedge-row oak for a magpie's nest with tom, who kept all around him like a mother, and showed him where to hold and how to throw his weight; and though he was in a great fright, didn't show it; and was applauded by all for his lissomeness. [11] #sedge-bird#: a bird living in the sedge or water-grass on the banks of streams. [12] #beating#: rousing or driving out birds and game. they crossed a road soon afterward, and there close to them lay a heap of charming pebbles. pecking. "look here," shouted east, "here's luck! i've been longing for some good honest pecking this half hour. let's fill the bags, and have no more of this foozling[13] birds'-nesting." [13] #foozling#: dull, stupid. no one objected, so each boy filled the fustian bag he carried full of stones; they crossed into the next field, tom and east taking one side of the hedges, and the other two the other side. noise enough they made certainly, but it was too early in the season for the young birds, and the old birds were too strong on the wing for our young marksmen, and flew out of shot after the first discharge. but it was great fun, rushing along the hedgerows, and discharging stone after stone at blackbirds and chaffinches,[14] though no result in the shape of slaughtered birds was obtained; and arthur soon entered into it, and rushed to head back the birds, and shouted, and threw, and tumbled into ditches and over and through hedges, as wild as the madman himself. [14] #chaffinch#: a fine song-bird. presently the party, in full cry after an old blackbird (who was evidently used to the thing and enjoyed the fun, for he would wait till they came close to him and then fly on for forty yards or so; and with an impudent flicker of his tail, dart into the depths of the quickset),[15] came beating down a high double hedge, two on each side. [15] #quickset#: a kind of hedge. "there he is again;" "head him;" "let drive;" "i had him there;" "take care where you're throwing, madman;" the shouts might have been heard a quarter of a mile off. they were heard some two hundred yards off by a farmer and two of his shepherds, who were doctoring sheep in a fold in the next field. what is larceny? now the farmer in question rented a house and yard situated at the end of the field in which the young bird-fanciers had arrived, which house and yard he didn't occupy or keep any one else in. nevertheless, like a brainless and unreasoning briton, he persisted in maintaining on the premises a large stock of cocks, hens, and other poultry. of course all sorts of depredators visited the place from time to time; foxes and gipsies wrought havoc in the night; while in the day-time, i regret to have to confess, that visits from the rugby boys, and consequent disappearances of ancient and respectable fowls, were not unfrequent. tom and east had during the period of their outlawry visited the barn in question for felonious[16] purposes, and on one occasion had conquered and slain a duck there and borne away the carcass triumphantly, hidden in their handkerchiefs. however, they were sickened of the practice by the trouble and anxiety which the wretched duck's body caused them. they carried it to sally harrowell's, in hopes of a good supper; but she, after examining it, made a long face, and refused to dress or have anything to do with it. [16] #felonious#: unlawful. the troublesome duck. then they took it into their study, and began plucking it themselves; but what to do with the feathers, where to hide them? "good gracious, tom, what a lot of feathers a duck has!" groaned east, holding a bag full in his hand, and looking disconsolately at the carcass, not yet half plucked. "and i do think he's getting high,[17] too, already," said tom, smelling at him cautiously, "so we must finish him up soon." [17] #high#: tainted; beginning to spoil. "yes, all very well, but how are we to cook him? i'm sure i'm not going to try it on in the hall or passages; we can't afford to be roasting ducks about, our character's too bad." "i wish we were rid of the brute," said tom, throwing him on the table in disgust. and after a day or two more it became clear that got rid of he must be; so they packed him and sealed him up in brown paper, and put him in the cupboard of an unoccupied study, where he was found in the holidays by the matron, a grewsome body. they had never been duck-hunting there since, but others had, and the bold yeoman was very sore on the subject, and bent on making an example of the first boys he could catch. so he and his shepherds crouched behind the hurdles, and watched the party who were approaching all unconscious. why should that old guinea-fowl be lying out in the hedge just at this particular moment of all the year? who can say? guinea-fowls always are--so are all other things, animals, and persons--requisite for getting one into scrapes, always ready when any mischief can come of them. at any rate, just under east's nose popped out the old guinea-hen, scuttling along and shrieking: "come back, come back," at the top of her voice. either of the other three might perhaps have withstood the temptation, but east first lets drive the stone he has in his hand at her, then rushes to turn her into the hedge again. he succeeds, and then they are all at it for dear life, up and down the hedge in full cry, the "come back, come back," getting shriller and fainter every minute. meantime, the farmer and his men steal over the hurdles and creep down the hedge toward the scene of action. they are almost within a stone's throw of martin, who is pressing the unlucky chase hard, when tom catches sight of them, and sings out: "louts, 'ware[18] louts, your side! madman, look ahead!" and then catching hold of arthur, hurries him away across the fields towards rugby as hard as they can tear. had he been by himself, he would have stayed to see it out with the others, but now his heart sinks, and all his pluck goes. the idea of being led up to the doctor with arthur for bagging fowls, quite unmans and takes half the run out of him. [18] #'ware#: beware! look out! running for a convoy. however, no boys are more able to take care of themselves than east and martin; they dodge the pursuers, slip through a gap, and come pelting after tom and arthur, whom they catch up in no time; the farmer and his men are making a good run about a field behind. tom wishes to himself that they had made off in any other direction, but now they are all in for it together and must see it out. "you won't leave the young un, will you?" says he, as they haul poor little arthur, already losing wind from the fright, through the next hedge. "not we," is the answer from both. the next hedge is a stiff one; the pursuers gain horribly on them, and they only just pull arthur through, with two great rents in his trousers, as the foremost shepherd comes up on the other side. as they start into the next field, they are aware of two figures walking down the footpath in the middle of it, and recognize holmes and diggs taking a constitutional.[19] those good-natured fellows immediately shout "on." "let's go to them and surrender," pants tom. agreed. and in another minute the four boys, to the great astonishment of those worthies, rush breathless up to holmes and diggs, who pull up to see what is the matter; and then the whole is explained by the appearance of the farmer and his men, who unite their forces and bear down on the knot of boys. [19] #a constitutional#: a walk for the health. there is no time to explain, and tom's heart beats frightfully quick, as he ponders: "will they stand by us?" the farmer makes a rush at east, and collars him; and that young gentleman, with unusual discretion, instead of kicking his shins, looks appealingly at holmes, and stands still. "hullo there, not so fast," says holmes, who is bound to stand up for them till they are proved in the wrong. "now, what's all this about?" "i've got the young varmint at last, have i?" pants the farmer; "why, they've been a-skulking about my yard and stealing my fowls, that's where 'tis; and if i doan't have they flogged for it, every one on 'em, my name ain't thompson." a debate. holmes looks grave, and diggs's face falls. they are quite ready to fight, no boys in the school more so; but they are præpostors, and understand their office; and can't uphold unrighteous causes. "i haven't been near his old barn this half," cries east. "nor i," "nor i," chime in tom and martin. "now, willum, didn't you see 'em there last week?" "ees,"[20] seen 'em, sure enough," says willum, grasping a prong he carried, and preparing for action. [20] #ees#: yes. the boys deny stoutly, and willum is driven to admit that, "if it worn't they, 'twas chaps as like 'em as two peas'n";[21] and "leastway,[22] he'll swear he see'd them two in the yard last martinmas," indicating east and tom. [21] #peas'n#: peas. [22] #leastway#: at any rate. holmes has had time to meditate. "now, sir," says he to willum, "you see you can't remember what you have seen, and i believe the boys." "i doan't care," blusters the farmer, "they was arter my fowls to-day; that's enough for i. willum, you catch hold o' t'other chap. they've been a-sneaking about this two hours, i tells ee!" shouted he, as holmes stands between martin and willum, "and have druv a matter of a dozen young pullets pretty nigh to death." "oh, there's a whacker!" cried east; "we haven't been within a hundred yards of his barn; we haven't been up here above ten minutes, and we've seen nothing but a tough old guinea-hen, who ran like a greyhound." "indeed, that's all true, holmes, upon my honor," added tom; "we weren't after his fowls; guinea-hen ran out of the hedge under our feet, and we've seen nothing else." "drat their talk! thee catch hold o' t'other, willum, and come along wi' un." "farmer thompson," said holmes, warning off willum and the prong with his stick, while diggs faced the other shepherd, cracking his fingers like pistol-shots, "now listen to reason. the boys haven't been after your fowls, that's plain." "tells ee i seed 'em. who be you, i should like to know?" "never you mind, farmer," answered holmes. "and now i'll just tell you what it is--you ought to be ashamed of yourself for leaving all that poultry about, with no one to watch it, so near the school. you deserve to have it all stolen. so if you choose to come up to the doctor with them, i shall go with you, and tell him what i think of it." the farmer began to take holmes for a master; besides, he wanted to get back to his flock. corporal punishment was out of the question, the odds were too great; so he began to hint at paying for the damage. arthur jumped at this, offering to pay anything, and the farmer immediately valued the guinea-hen at half a sovereign. "half a sovereign!" cried east, now released from the farmer's grip; "well, that is a good one! the old hen isn't hurt a bit, and she's seven years old, i know, and as tough as whipcord; she couldn't lay another egg to save her life." it was at last settled that they should pay the farmer two shillings and his man one shilling, and so the matter ended, to the unspeakable relief of tom, who hadn't been able to say a word, being sick at heart at the idea of what the doctor would think of him; and now the whole party of boys marched off down the woodpath toward rugby. holmes, who was one of the best boys in the school, began to improve the occasion. "now, you youngsters," said he, as he marched along in the middle of them, "mind this: you're very well out of this scrape. don't you go near thompson's barn again, do you hear?" profuse promises from all, especially east. lecture on school larceny. "mind, i don't ask questions," went on mentor, "but i rather think some of you have been there before this after his chickens. now, knocking over other people's chickens, and running off with them is stealing. it's an ugly word, but that's the plain english of it. if the chickens were dead and lying in a shop, you wouldn't take them, i know that, any more than you would apples out of griffith's basket: but there's no real difference between chickens running about and apples on a tree, and the same articles in a shop. i wish our morals were sounder in such matters. there's nothing so mischievous as these school distinctions, which jumble up right and wrong, and justify things in us for which poor boys would be sent to prison." and good old holmes delivered his soul on the walk home of many wise sayings, and, as the song says:- "gee'd 'em[23] a sight of good advice"; which same sermon sank into them all more or less, and very penitent they were for several hours. but truth compels me to admit that east at any rate forgot it all in a week, but remembered the insult which had been put upon him by farmer thompson, and with the tadpole and other hare-brained youngsters, committed a raid on the barn soon afterward, in which they were caught by the shepherds and severely handled, besides having to pay eight shillings--all the money they had in the world--to escape being brought up to the doctor. [23] #gee'd 'em#: gave them. arthur seals his friendship. martin became a constant inmate in the joint study from this time, and arthur took to him so kindly that tom couldn't resist slight fits of jealousy, which, however, he managed to keep to himself. the kestrel's eggs had not been broken, strange to say, and formed the nucleus of arthur's collection, at which martin worked heart and soul; and introduced arthur to hewlett the bird-fancier, and instructed him in the rudiments of the art of stuffing. in token of his gratitude, arthur allowed martin to tattoo a small anchor on one of his wrists, which decoration, however, he carefully concealed from tom. before the end of the half-year he had become a bold climber and good runner, and, as martin had foretold, knew twice as much about trees, birds, flowers, and many other things, as our good-hearted and facetious young friend harry east. chapter v. the fight. "surgebat macnevisius et mox jactabat ultro, pugnabo tuâ gratiâ feroci hoc mactwoltro."--_etonian._ fighting in general. there is a certain sort of fellow--we who are used to studying boys all know him well enough--of whom you can predicate[1] with almost positive certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure to have a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but one. tom brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give a full, true, and correct account of tom's only single combat with a schoolfellow in the manner of our old friend _bell's life_,[2] let those young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to with the weapons which god has given us all, an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at once, for it won't be to their taste. [1] #predicate#: say or assert. [2] #bell's life#: a london sporting journal. it was not at all usual in those days for two school-house boys to have a fight. of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was quarrelling with his nearest neighbors, or when there was some class dispute between the fifth form and the fags, for instance, which required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side tacitly,[3] who settled the matter by a good hearty mill.[4] but, for the most part, the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing gloves, kept the school-house boys from fighting one another. two or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the hall or fifth form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at all knew all his neighbors' prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy in the house. but, of course, no such experience could be gotten as regarded boys in other houses; and as most of the other houses were more or less jealous of the school-house, collisions were frequent. [3] #tacitly#: without words, silently. [4] #mill#: a set-to or fight. after all, what would life be without fighting, i should like to know? from the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man. every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself or spiritual wickedness in high places, or russians, or border-ruffians, or bill, tom, or harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them. it is no good for quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their voices against fighting. human nature is too strong for them, and they don't follow their own precepts. every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. the world might be a better world without fighting, for anything i know, but it wouldn't be our world; and therefore i am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn't meant to be. i am as sorry as any man to see folks fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but i'd a deal sooner see them doing that, than that they should have no fight in them. so having recorded, and being about to record, my hero's fights of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies, i shall now proceed to give an account of his passage-at-arms with the only one of his school-fellows whom he ever had to encounter in this manner. how the fight arose. it was drawing toward the close of arthur's first half-year, and the may evenings were lengthening out. locking-up was not till eight o'clock, and everybody was beginning to talk about what he would do in the holidays. the shell, in which form all our _dramatis personæ_[5] now are, were reading amongst other things the last book of homer's "iliad,"[6] and had worked through it as far as the speeches of the women over hector's[7] body. it is a whole school-day, and four or five of the school-house boys (amongst whom are arthur, tom, and east) are preparing third lesson together. they have finished the regulation forty lines, and are for the most part getting very tired, notwithstanding the exquisite pathos of helen's[8] lamentation. and now several long four-syllable words come together, and the boy with the dictionary strikes work. [5] #dramatis personæ#: persons represented in a drama or in a story. [6] #homer's iliad#: a greek epic poem relating the siege of ilium or troy. [7] #hector#: a trojan hero slain in the siege of troy. [8] #helen#: a beautiful grecian princess whose abduction by paris of troy caused the trojan war. "i am not going to look out any more words," says he; "we've done the quantity. ten to one we sha'n't get so far. let's go out into the close." "come along, boys," cries east, always ready to leave "the grind," as he called it; "our old coach[9] is laid up, you know, and we shall have one of the new masters, who's sure to go slow and let us down easy." [9] #coach#: teacher or tutor. so an adjournment to the close was carried _nem con._,[10] little arthur not daring to uplift his voice; but, being deeply interested in what they were reading, stayed quietly behind, and learned on for his own pleasure. [10] #nem. con.#: no one objecting. as east had said, the regular master of the form was unwell, and they were to be heard by one of the new masters, quite a young man, who had only just left the university. certainly it would be hard lines, if, by dawdling as much as possible in coming in and taking their places, entering into long-winded explanations of what was the usual course of the regular master of the form, and others of the stock contrivances of boys for wasting time in school, they could not spin out the lesson so that he should not work them through more than the forty lines; as to which quantity there was a perpetual fight going on between the master and his form, the latter insisting, and enforcing by passive resistance, that it was the prescribed quantity of homer for a shell lesson,[11] the former that there was no fixed quantity, but that they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty lines if there were time within the hour. however, notwithstanding all their efforts, the new master got on horribly quick; he seemed to have the bad taste to be really interested in the lesson, and to be trying to work them up into something like appreciation of it, giving them good spirited english words, instead of the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered poor old homer, and construing over each piece himself to them, after each boy, to show them how it should be done. [11] #shell lesson#: a lesson for the shell, or lower fourth form or class. now the clock strikes the three-quarters; there is only a quarter of an hour more, but the forty lines are all but done. so the boys, one after another, who are called up, stick more and more, and make balder and even more bald work of it. the poor young master is pretty near beat by this time, and feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his fingers against somebody else's head. so he gives up altogether the lower and middle parts of the form, and looks around in despair at the boys on the top bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a spark or two, and who will be too chivalrous[12] to murder the most beautiful utterances of the most beautiful woman of the old world. his eye rests on arthur, and he calls him up to finish construing helen's speech. whereupon all the other boys draw long breaths, and begin to stare about and take it easy. they are all safe; arthur is at the head of the form, and sure to be able to construe, and that will tide on safely till the hour strikes. [12] #chivalrous#: here, gallant, polite. arthur proceeds to read out the passage in greek before construing it, as the custom is. tom, who isn't paying much attention, is suddenly caught by the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines:- [greek: "alla su ton g' epeessi paraiphamenos katerukes, sê t' aganophrosunê kai sois aganois epeessin."][13] he looks up at arthur. "why, bless us," thinks he, "what can be the matter with the young un? he's never going to get floored! he's sure to have learnt to the end!" next moment he is reassured by the spirited tone in which arthur begins construing, and betakes himself to drawing dogs' heads in his note-book, while the master, evidently enjoying the change, turns his back on the middle bench, and stands before arthur, beating a sort of time with his hand and foot, and saying: "yes, yes," "very well," as arthur goes on. [13] "thou didst take my part with kindly admonitions, and restrain their tongues with soft address and gentle words."--_bryant's translation._ but as he nears the fatal two lines, tom catches that falter, and again looks up. he sees that there is something the matter: arthur can hardly get on at all. what can it be? suddenly at this point arthur breaks down altogether, and fairly bursts out crying, and dashes the cuff of his jacket across his eyes, blushing up to the roots of his hair, and feeling as if he should like to go down suddenly through the floor. the whole form are taken aback; most of them stare stupidly at him, while those who are gifted with presence of mind find their places, and look steadily at their books, in hopes of not catching the master's eye, and getting called up in arthur's place. the master looked puzzled for a moment, and then seeing, as the fact is, that the boy is really affected to tears by the most touching thing in homer, perhaps in all profane[14] poetry put together, steps up to him and lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying: "never mind, my little man, you've construed very well. stop a minute, there's no hurry." [14] #profane#: here, not sacred. now, as luck would have it, there sat next above tom on that day, in the middle bench of the form, a big boy, by name williams, generally supposed to be the cock of the shell, therefore of all the schools below the fifths. the small boys, who are great speculators on the prowess of their elders, used to hold forth to one another about williams's great strength, and to discuss whether east or brown would take a licking from him. he was called slogger[15] williams, from the force with which it was supposed he could hit. in the main, he was a rough, good-natured fellow enough, but very much alive to his own dignity. he reckoned himself the king of the form, and kept up his position with the strong hand, especially in the matter of forcing boys not to construe more than the legitimate forty lines. he had already grunted and grumbled to himself, when arthur went on reading beyond the forty lines. but now that he had broken down just in the middle of all the long words, the slogger's wrath was fairly aroused. [15] #slogger#: a "slugger," a hard hitter. "sneaking little brute," muttered he, regardless of prudence, "clapping on the water-works just in the hardest place; see if i don't punch his head after fourth lesson." "whose?" said tom, to whom the remark seemed addressed. "why, that little sneak arthur's," replied williams. "no, you sha'n't," said tom. "hullo!" exclaimed williams, looking at tom with great surprise for a moment, and then giving him a sudden dig in the ribs with his elbow, which sent tom's book flying on to the floor, and called the attention of the master, who turned suddenly round, and seeing the state of things, said:-"williams, go down three places, and then go on." the slogger found his legs very slowly, and proceeded to go below tom and two other boys with great disgust, and then, turning round and facing the master, said: "i haven't learnt any more, sir; our lesson is only forty lines." "is that so?" said the master, appealing generally to the top bench. no answer. "who is the head boy of the form?" said he, waxing wroth. "arthur, sir," answered three or four boys, indicating our friend. "oh, your name's arthur. well, now, what is the length of your regular lesson?" arthur hesitated a moment, and then said: "we call it only forty lines, sir." "how do you mean, you call it?" "well, sir, mr. graham says we aren't to stop there, when there's time to construe more." "i understand," said the master. "williams, go down three more places, and write me out the lesson in greek and english. and now, arthur, finish construing." "oh, would i be in arthur's shoes after fourth lesson?" said the little boys to one another: but arthur finished helen's speech without any further catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which ended third lesson. another hour was occupied in preparing and saying fourth lesson, during which williams was bottling up his wrath; and when five struck, and the lessons for the day were over, he prepared to take summary[16] vengeance on the innocent cause of his misfortune. [16] #summary#: quick, short. the challenge. tom was detained in school a few minutes after the rest, and on coming out into the quadrangle, the first thing he saw was a small ring of boys, applauding williams, who was holding arthur by the collar. "there, you young sneak," said he, giving arthur a cuff on the head with his other hand, "what made you say that--" "hullo!" said tom, shouldering into the crowd, "you drop that, williams; you sha'n't touch him." "who'll stop me?" said the slogger, raising his hand again. "i," said tom; and suiting the action to the word, he struck the arm which held arthur's arm so sharply that the slogger dropped it with a start, and turned the full current of his wrath on tom. "will you fight?" "yes, of course." "huzzah! there is going to be a fight between slogger williams and tom brown." the news ran like wildfire about, and many boys who were on their way to tea at their several houses turned back, and sought the back of the chapel, where the fights came off. "just run and tell east to come and back me," said tom, to a small school-house boy, who was off like a rocket to harrowell's, just stopping for a moment to poke his head into the school-house hall, where the lower boys were already at tea, and singing out: "fight! tom brown and slogger williams." up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs, butter, sprats[17], and all the rest to take care of themselves. the greater part of the remainder follow in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying their food in their hands to consume as they go. three or four only remain, who steal the butter of the more impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous[18] feast. [17] #sprats#: a kind of small fish. [18] #unctuous#: fat, oily. in another minute east and martin tear through the quadrangle, carrying a sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just as the combatants are beginning to strip. tom felt he had got his work cut out[19] for him, as he stripped off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. east tied his handkerchief round his waist, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves for him. "now, old boy, don't you open your mouth to say a word, or try to help yourself a bit--we'll do all that; you keep all your breath and strength for the slogger." martin meanwhile folded the clothes, and put them under the chapel rails; and now tom, with east to handle him, and martin to give him a knee,[20] steps out on the turf, and is ready for all that may come; and here is the slogger too, all stripped, and thirsting for the fray. [19] #cut out#: prepared, ready. [20] #to handle him and give him a knee#: to give him assistance between the rounds of the fight. early rounds. it doesn't look a fair match at first glance; williams is nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older than his opponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms and shoulders--"peels well," as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs,[21] say; who stand outside the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active part in the proceedings. but down below he is not so good by any means; no spring from the loins, and feeblish, not to say shipwrecky about the knees. tom, on the contrary, though not half so strong in the arms, is good all over, straight, hard, and springy, from neck to ankle, better perhaps in his legs than anywhere. besides, you can see by the clear white of his eye, and fresh bright look of his skin, that he is in tip-top training, able to do all he knows; while the slogger looks rather sodden,[22] as if he didn't take much exercise and ate too much tuck.[23] the time-keeper is chosen, a large ring made, and the two stand up opposite one another for a moment, giving us time just to make our little observations. [21] #amateurs#: here, those who enjoy and understand the art of pugilism, without being proficient in it. [22] #sodden#: here, soft. [23] #tuck#: sweet stuff. "if tom'll only condescend to fight with his head and heels," as east murmurs to martin, "we shall do." but seemingly he won't, for there he goes in, making play[24] with both hands. hard all,[25] is the word; the two stand to one another like men; rally follows rally in quick succession, each fighting as if he thought to finish the whole thing out of hand. "can't last at this rate," say the knowing ones, while the partisans[26] of each make the air ring with their shouts and counter-shouts of encouragement, approval and defiance. [24] #making play#: using. [25] #hard all#: do your best. [26] #partisans#: adherents, "backers." "take it easy, take it easy--keep away, let him come after you," implores east, as he wipes tom's face after the first round with a wet sponge, while he sits back on martin's knee, supported by the madman's long arms, which tremble a little from excitement. "time's up," calls the time-keeper. "there he goes again, hang it all!" growled east, as his man is at it again as hard as ever. a very severe round follows, in which tom gets out and out the worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his legs, and deposited on the grass by a right-hander from the slogger. loud shouts rise from the boys of slogger's house and the school-house are silent and vicious, ready to pick quarrels anywhere. "two to one in half-crowns on the big un," says rattle, one of the amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning[27] waistcoat, and puffy, good-natured face. [27] #thunder-and-lightning#: probably showy, flashy. "done!" says groove, another amateur of quieter look, taking out his note-book to enter it, for our friend rattle sometimes forgets these little things. head fighting. meantime east is freshening up tom with the sponges for next round, and has set two other boys to rub his hands. "tom, old boy," whispers he, "this may be fun for you, but it's death to me. he'll hit all the fight out of you in another five minutes, and then i shall go and drown myself in the island ditch. feint[28] him--use your legs! draw him about! he'll lose his wind then in no time, and you can go into him. hit at his body too; take care of his frontispiece[29] by and by." [28] #feint#: make a pretended attack. [29] #frontispiece#: face. tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already that he couldn't go in and finish the slogger off at mere hammer and tongs, so changed his tactics completely in the third round. he now fights cautiously, getting away from and parrying[30] the slogger's lunging hits,[31] instead of trying to counter,[32] and leading his enemy a dance all round the ring after him. "he's funking--go in, williams;" "catch him up;" "finish him off," screamed the small boys of the slogger party. [30] #parrying#: warding off. [31] #lunging hits#: straight-out blows. [32] #counter#: to give a return blow. "just what we want," thinks east, chuckling to himself, as he sees williams, excited by these shouts and thinking the game in his own hands, blowing himself in his exertions to get close quarters again, while tom is keeping away with perfect ease. they quarter[33] over the ground again and again, tom always on the defensive. [33] #quarter#: to move about. the slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly blown.[34] [34] #blown#: out of breath. "now, then, tom," sings out east, dancing with delight. tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two heavy body-blows, and gets away again before the slogger can catch his wind; which when he does he rushes with blind fury at tom, and being skilfully parried and avoided, overreaches himself and falls on his face, amidst terrific cheers from the school-house boys. "double your two to one?" says groove to rattle, note-book in hand. "stop a bit," says that hero, looking uncomfortably at williams, who is puffing away on his second's knee, winded[35] enough, but little the worse in any other way. [35] #winded#: out of breath. steady all. after another round the slogger too seems to see that he can't go in and win right off, and has met his match or thereabouts. so he too begins to use his head,[36] and tries to make tom lose his patience, and come in before his time. and so the fight sways on, now one, and now the other getting a trifling pull.[37] [36] #use his head#: be more careful. [37] #pull#: advantage. tom's face begins to look very one-sided,--there are little queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but east keeps the wet sponge going so scientifically that he comes up looking as fresh and bright as ever. williams is only slightly marked in the face, but by the nervous movement of his elbows you can see that tom's body-blows are telling. in fact, half the vice of the slogger's hitting is neutralized, for he daren't lunge out freely for fear of exposing his sides. it is too interesting by this time for much shouting, and the whole ring is very quiet. "all right, tommy," whispers east; "hold on's the horse that's to win. we've got the last. keep your head,[38] old boy." [38] #keep your head#: keep cool. but where is arthur all this time? words cannot paint the poor little fellow's distress. he couldn't muster courage to come up to the ring, but wandered up and down from the great fives' court to the corner of the chapel rails--now trying to make up his mind to throw himself between them, and try to stop them; then thinking of running in and telling his friend mary, who he knew would instantly report to the doctor. the stories he had heard of men being killed in prize fights rose up horribly before him. once only, when the shouts of "well done, brown!" "huzzah for the school-house!" rose higher than ever, he ventured up to the ring, thinking the victory was won. catching sight of tom's face in the state i have described, all fear of consequences vanishing out of his mind, he rushed straight off to the matron's room, beseeching her to get the fight stopped, or he should die. the ring broken. but it's time for us to get back to the close. what is this fierce tumult and confusion? the ring is broken, and high and angry words are being bandied about; "it's all fair"--"it isn't"--"no hugging;" the fight is stopped. the combatants, however, sit there quietly, tended by their seconds, while their adherents wrangle in the middle. east can't help shouting challenges to two or three of the other side, though he never leaves tom for a moment, and plies the sponges as fast as ever. the fact is, that at the end of the last round, tom, seeing a good opening, had closed with his opponent, and after a moment's struggle, had thrown him heavily, by the help of the fall he had learned from his village rival in the vale of white horse. williams hadn't the ghost of a chance with tom at wrestling, and the conviction broke at once on the slogger faction that if this were allowed, their man must be licked. there was a strong feeling in the school against catching hold and throwing, though it was generally ruled all fair within certain limits; so the ring was broken, and the fight stopped. the school-house are overruled--the fight is on again, but there is to be no throwing; and east, in high wrath, threatens to take his man away after next round (which he doesn't mean to do, by the way), when suddenly young brooke comes through the small gate at the end of the chapel. the school-house faction rush to him. "oh, hurrah! now we shall get fair play." "please, brooke come up; they won't let tom brown throw him." "throw whom?" says brooke, coming up to the ring. "oh, williams! i see. nonsense! of course he may throw him, if he catches him fairly above the waist." now, young brooke, you're in the sixth you know, and you ought to stop all fights. he looks hard at both boys. "anything wrong?" says he to east, nodding at tom. "not a bit." "not beat at all?" "bless you, no! heaps of fight in him. isn't there, tom?" tom looked at brooke and grins. "how's he?" nodding at williams. "so so; rather done, i think, since, his last fall. he won't stand above two more." the last round. "time's up!" the boys rise again, and face one another. brooke can't find it in his heart to stop them just yet; so the round goes on, the slogger waiting for tom, and reserving all his strength to hit him out should he come in for the wrestling dodge again; for he feels that that must be stopped, or his sponge[39] will soon go up in the air. [39] #sponge#: in a pugilistic encounter the sponge is thrown up as an acknowledgment of defeat. and now another new-comer appears on the field, to wit, the under-porter, with his long brush and great wooden receptacle for dust under his arm. he has been sweeping out the schools. "you'd better stop, gentlemen," he says; "the doctor knows that brown's fighting--he'll be out in a minute." "you go to bath,[40] bill," is all that that excellent servitor gets by his advice. and being a man of his hands,[41] and a staunch upholder of the school-house, can't help stopping to look on for a bit, and see tom brown, their pet craftsman, fight a round. [40] #go to bath#: shut up; mind your business. [41] #of his hands#: of sturdy make; able to use his fists. it is grim earnest now, and no mistake. both boys feel this, and summon every power of head, hand, and eye to their aid. a piece of luck on either side, a foot slipping, a blow getting well home, or another fall may decide it. tom works slowly round for an opening; he has all the legs and can choose his own time; the slogger waits for the attack, and hopes to finish it by some heavy right-handed blow. as they quarter slowly over the ground, the evening sun comes out from behind a cloud, and falls full on williams's face. tom darts in, the heavy right-hand is delivered, but only grazes his head. a short rally at close quarters, and they close; in another moment the slogger is thrown again heavily for the third time. "i'll give you three to two on the little one in half-crowns," said groove to rattle. "no, thankee," answers the other, diving his hands further into his coat-tails. the doctor arrives. just at this stage of the proceedings the door of the turret[42] which leads to the doctor's library suddenly opens, and he steps into the close, and makes straight for the ring, in which brown, and the slogger were both seated on their seconds' knees for the last time. [42] #turret#: a small tower. "the doctor! the doctor!" shouts one small boy who catches sight of him, and the ring melts away in a few seconds, the small boys tearing off, tom collaring his jacket and waistcoat, and slipping through the little gate by the chapel, and round the corner to harrowell's with his backers, as lively as need be; williams and his backers making off not quite so fast across the close; groove, rattle, and the other bigger fellows trying to combine dignity and prudence in a comical manner, and walking off fast enough, they hope, not to be recognized, and not fast enough to look like running away. young brooke alone remains on the ground by the time the doctor gets there, and touches his hat, not without a slight inward qualm. "hah! brooke. i am surprised to see you here. don't you know that i expect the sixth to stop fighting." brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had expected, but he was rather a favorite with the doctor for his openness and plainness of speech; so blurted out as he walked by the doctor's side, who had already turned back:-"yes, sir, generally. but i thought you wished us to exercise a discretion in the matter, too--not to interfere too soon." "but they have been fighting this half-hour and more," said the doctor. "yes, sir; but neither was hurt. and they're the sort of boys who'll be all the better friends now, which they wouldn't have been if they had been stopped any earlier--before it was so equal." "who was fighting with brown?" said the doctor. "williams, sir, of thompson's. he is bigger than brown, and had the best of it at first, but not when you came up, sir. there's a good deal of jealousy between our house and thompson's, and there would have been more fights if this hadn't been let go on, or if either of them had had much the worst of it." "well, but, brooke," said the doctor, "doesn't this look a little as if you exercised your discretion by only stopping a fight when the school-house boy is getting the worst of it." brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather gravelled.[43] [43] #gravelled#: embarrassed, confused. "now remember," added the doctor, as he stopped at the turret door, "this fight is not to go on--you'll see to that. and i expect you to stop all fights in future at once." "very well, sir," said young brooke, touching his hat, and not sorry to see the turret-door close behind the doctor's back. evening after the fight. meantime tom and the staunchest of his adherents had reached harrowell's, and sally was bustling about to get them a late tea, while stumps had been sent off to tew, the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef for tom's eye, which was to be healed off-hand, so that he might show well in the morning. he was not a bit the worse except a slight difficulty in his vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a cold water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the babel of voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how williams would have given in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe), and how on earth the doctor could have got to know of it--such bad luck! he couldn't help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn't won; he liked it better as it was, and felt very friendly to the slogger. and then poor little arthur crept in and sat down quietly near him, looking at him and the raw beef with such plaintive looks that tom at last burst out laughing. "don't make such eyes, young un," said he, "there's nothing the matter." "oh, but, tom, are you much hurt? i can't bear thinking it was all for me." "not a bit of it, don't flatter yourself. we were sure to have it out, sooner or later." "well, but you won't go on, will you? you'll promise me you won't go on?" "can't tell about that--all depends on the houses. we're in the hands of our countrymen, you know. must fight for the school-house flag, if so be." however, the lovers of the science[44] were doomed to disappointment this time. directly after locking-up, one of the night-fags knocked at tom's door. [44] #the science#: "the manly science of self-defence." "brown, young brooke wants you in the sixth-form room." the shake-hands. up went tom to the summons, and found the magnates[45] sitting at their supper. [45] #magnates#: here, the upper class boys. "well, brown," said young brooke, nodding to him, "how do you feel?" "oh, very well, thank you; only i've sprained my thumb, i think." "sure to do that in a fight. well, you hadn't the worst of it, i could see. where did you learn that throw?" "down in the country, when i was a boy." "hullo! why, what are you now? well, never mind, you're a plucky fellow. sit down and have some supper." tom obeyed, by no means loath. he ate and drank, listening to the pleasant talk, and wondering how soon he should be in the fifth, and one of that much-envied society. as he got up to leave, brooke said: "you must shake hands to-morrow morning; i shall come and see that done after first lesson." and so he did. and tom and the slogger shook hands with great satisfaction and mutual respect. and for the next year or two, whenever fights were being talked of, the small boys who had been present shook their heads wisely, saying: "ah! but you should just have seen the fight between slogger williams and tom brown!" the old boy's rules. and now, boys all, three words before we quit the subject. i have put in this chapter on fighting, of malice prepense,[46] partly because i want to give you a true picture of what every-day school life was in my time, and not a kid-glove and go-to-meeting-coat-picture; and partly because of the cant[47] and twaddle that's talked of boxing and fighting with fists nowadays. even thackeray has given in to it; and only a few weeks ago there was some rampant stuff in the _times_ on the subject, in an article on field sports. [46] #malice prepense#: with deliberate purpose. [47] #cant#: hypocritical or meaningless talk. boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will sometimes fight. fighting with fists is the natural and english way for english boys to settle their quarrels. what substitute for it is there, or ever was there, amongst any nation under the sun? what would you like to see take its place? learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and foot-ball. not one of you will be the worse, but very much the better for learning to box well. should you never have to use it in earnest, there is no exercise in the world so good for the temper, and for the muscles of the back and legs. as to fighting, keep out of it if you can by all means. when the time comes, if it ever should, that you have to say "yes" or "no" to a challenge to fight, say "no" if you can,--only take care you make it clear to yourselves why you say "no." it's a proof of the highest courage, if done from true christian motives. it's quite right and justifiable, if done from a simple aversion to physical pain and danger. but don't say "no" because you fear a licking, and say or think it's because you fear god, for that's neither christian nor honest. and if you do fight, fight it out; and don't give in while you can stand and see. chapter vi. fever in the school. "this is our hope for all that's mortal, and we too shall burst the bond; death keeps watch beside the portal, but 'tis life that dwells beyond."--_john sterling._ two years have passed since the events recorded in the last chapter, and the end of the summer half-year is again drawing on. martin has left and gone on a cruise in the south pacific in one of his uncle's ships; the old magpie, as disreputable as ever, his last bequest[1] to arthur, lives in the joint study. arthur is nearly sixteen, and at the head of the twenty, having gone up the school at the rate of a form a half-year. east and tom have been much more deliberate in their progress, and are only a little way up the fifth form. great strapping boys they are, but still thorough boys, filling about the same place in the house that young brooke filled when they were new boys, and much the same sort of fellows. constant intercourse with arthur has done much for both of them, especially for tom; but much remains yet to be done, if they are to get all the good out of rugby which is to be got there in these times. arthur is still frail and delicate, with more spirit than body; but, thanks to his intimacy with them and martin, has learned to swim, run, and play cricket, and has never hurt himself by too much reading. [1] #bequest#: something given by will. death in the school. one evening, as they were all sitting down to supper in the fifth-form room, some one started a report that a fever had broken out at one of the boarding-houses; "they say," he added, "that thompson is very ill, and that dr. robertson has been sent for from northampton." "then we shall all be sent home," cried another. "hurrah! five weeks' extra holidays, and no fifth-form examination." "i hope not," said tom; " there'll be no marylebone match[2] then at the end of the half." [2] #marylebone match# (merrybun): a match by the london cricket club of that name. it is the leading cricket club of the world. the celebrated lord's grounds in london are its property. some thought one thing, some another; many didn't believe the report; but the next day, tuesday, dr. robertson arrived, and stayed all day, and had long conferences with the doctor. on wednesday morning, after prayers, the doctor addressed the whole school. there were several cases of fever in different houses, he said; but dr. robertson, after the most careful examination, had assured him that it was not infectious, and that if proper care were taken, there could be no reason for stopping the school work at present. the examinations were just coming on, and it would be very unadvisable to break up now. however, any boys who chose to do so were at liberty to write home, and if their parents wished it, to leave at once. he should send the whole school home if the fever spread. the next day arthur sickened, but there was no other case. before the end of the week thirty or forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed on. there was a general wish to please the doctor, and a feeling that it was cowardly to run away. the doctor's sermon. on the saturday thompson died, in the bright afternoon, while the cricket-match was going on as usual on the big-side ground: the doctor coming from his death-bed, passed along the gravel-walk at the side of the close, but no one knew what had happened till the next day. at morning lecture it began to be rumored, and by afternoon chapel was known generally; and a feeling of seriousness and awe at the actual presence of death among them came over the whole school. in the long years of his ministry the doctor perhaps never spoke words which sank deeper than some of those in that day's sermon. "when i came yesterday from visiting all but the very death-bed of him who has been taken from us, and looked around upon all the familiar objects and scenes within our own ground, where your common amusements were going on with your common cheerfulness and activity, i felt there was nothing painful in witnessing that; it did not seem in any way shocking or out of tune with those feelings which the sight of a dying christian must be supposed to awaken. the unsuitableness in point of natural feeling between scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness did not at all present itself. but i did feel that if at that moment any of those faults had been brought before me which sometimes occur amongst us; had i heard that any of you had been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had i heard from any quarter the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had i heard or seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools by affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then the unsuitableness of any of these things with the scene i had just quitted would indeed have been most intensely painful. and why? not because such things would really have been worse than at any other time, but because at such a moment the eyes are opened really to know good and evil, because we then feel what it is so to live that death becomes an infinite blessing, and what it is so to live also, that it were good for us if we had never been born." tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety about arthur, but he came out cheered and strengthened by those grand words, and walked up alone to their study. and when he sat down and looked round, and saw arthur's straw hat and cricket-jacket hanging on their pegs, and marked all his neat little arrangements, not one of which had been disturbed, the tears indeed rolled down his cheeks; but they were calm and blessed tears, and he repeated to himself, "yes, geordie's[3] eyes are opened--he knows what it is so to live that death becomes an infinite blessing. but do i? o god, can i bear to lose him?" [3] #geordie#: georgie (his full name was george arthur). arthur's illness. the week passed mournfully away. no more boys sickened, but arthur was reported worse each day, and his mother arrived early in the week. tom made many appeals to be allowed to see him, and several times tried to get up to the sick-room; but the housekeeper was always in the way, and at last spoke to the doctor, who kindly but peremptorily forbade him. thompson was buried on the tuesday; and the burial service, so soothing and grand always, but beyond all words solemn when read over a boy's grave to his companions, brought tom much comfort, and many strange new thoughts and longings. he went back to his regular life, and played cricket and bathed as usual; it seemed to him that this was the right thing to do, and the new thoughts and longings became more brave and healthy for the effort. the crisis came on saturday, the day week that thompson had died; and during that long afternoon tom sat in his study reading his bible, and going every half hour to the housekeeper's room, expecting each time to hear that the gentle and brave little spirit had gone home. but god had work for arthur to do; the crisis passed--on sunday evening he was declared out of danger; on monday he sent a message to tom that he was almost well, had changed his room, and was to be allowed to see him the next day. it was evening when the housekeeper summoned him to the sick-room. arthur was lying on the sofa by the open window, through which the rays of the western sun stole gently, lighting up his white face and golden hair. tom remembered a german picture of an angel which he knew; often had he thought how transparent and golden and spirit-like it was; and he shuddered to think how like it arthur looked, and felt a shock as if his blood had all stopped short, as he realized how near the other world his friend must have been to look like that. never till that moment had he felt how his little chum had twined himself round his heart-strings; and as he stole gently across the room and knelt down, and put his arm round arthur's head on the pillow, he felt ashamed and half angry at his own red and brown face, and the bounding sense of health and power which filled every fibre of his body, and made every movement of mere living a joy to him. he needn't have troubled himself; it was this very strength and power so different from his own which drew arthur so to him. arthur laid his thin, white hand, on which the blue veins stood out so plainly, on tom's great brown fist, and smiled at him, and then looked out of the window again, as if he couldn't bear to lose a moment of the sunset, into the tops of the great feathery elms, round which the rooks were circling and clanging, returning in flocks from their evening's foraging-parties. the elms rustled, the sparrows in the ivy just outside the window chirped and fluttered about, quarrelling, and making it up again; the rooks, young and old, talked in chorus; and the merry shouts of the boys, and the sweet click of cricket-bats, came up cheerily from below. convalescence. "dear george," said tom, "i am so glad to be let up to see you at last. i've tried hard to come so often, but they wouldn't let me before." "oh, i know, tom; mary has told me every day about you, and how she was obliged to make the doctor speak to you to keep you away. i'm very glad you didn't get up, for you might have caught it, and you couldn't stand being ill with all the matches going on. and you're in the eleven, too, i hear--i'm so glad." "yes, isn't it jolly?" said tom, proudly; "i'm ninth, too. i made forty at the last pie-match,[4] and caught three fellows out. so i was put in above jones and tucker. tucker's so savage, for he was head of the twenty-two." [4] #pie-match#: a match for a supper. "well, i think you ought to be higher yet," said arthur, who was as jealous for the renown of tom in games, as tom was for his as a scholar. "never mind, i don't care about cricket or anything now you are getting well, geordie; and i shouldn't have hurt, i know, if they'd have let me come up,--nothing hurts me. but you'll get about now, directly, won't you? you won't believe how clean i've kept the study. all your things are just as you left them; and i feed the old magpie just when you used, though i have to come in from big-side for him, the old rip. he won't look pleased all i can do, and sticks his head first on one side and then on the other, and blinks at me before he'll begin to eat, till i'm half inclined to box his ears. and whenever east comes in you should see him hop off to the window, dot and go one,[5] though harry wouldn't touch a feather of him now." [5] #dot and go one#: with a skipping movement. arthur laughed. "old gravey has a good memory; he can't forget the sieges of poor martin's den in old times." he paused a moment and then went on. "you can't think how often i've been thinking of old martin since i've been ill; i suppose one's mind gets restless, and likes to wander off to strange, unknown places. i wonder what queer new pets the old boy has got; how he must be revelling in the thousand new birds, beasts, and fishes." tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a moment. "fancy him on a south-sea island, with the cherokees or patagonians, or some such wild niggers" (tom's ethnology[6] and geography were faulty, but sufficient for his needs); "they'll make the old madman cock medicine-man[7] and tattoo him all over. perhaps he's cutting about now all blue, and has a squaw and a wigwam. he'll improve their boomerangs,[8] and be able to throw them, too, without having old thomas sent after him by the doctor to take them away." [6] #ethnology#: that science which treats of races of men. [7] #cock medicine-man#: chief doctor. [8] #boomerang#: a throw-stick in use as a weapon among the natives of australia. it is so shaped that when thrown at any object it returns to the thrower. memories. arthur laughed at the remembrance of the boomerang story, but then looked grave again, and said: "he'll convert all the island, i know." "yes, if he doesn't blow it up first." "do you remember, tom, how you and east used to laugh at him and chaff him, because he said he was sure the rooks all had calling-over or prayers, or something of that sort, when the locking-up bell rang? well, i declare," said arthur, looking up seriously into tom's laughing eyes, "i do think he was right. since i've been lying here, i've watched them every night; and do you know, they really do come and perch, all of them, just about locking-up time; and then first there's a regular chorus of caws, and then they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two or three in different trees, caw solos, and then off they all go again, fluttering about and cawing anyhow till they roost." "i wonder if the old blackies[9] do talk," said tom, looking up at them. "how they must abuse me and east, and pray for the doctor for stopping the singing!" [9] #blackies#: rooks. "there! look, look!" cried arthur, "don't you see the old fellow without a tail coming up? martin used to call him the 'clerk.'[10] he can't steer himself. you never saw such fun as he is in a high wind, when he can't steer himself home, and gets carried right past the trees, and has to bear up again and again before he can perch." [10] #clerk#: a clergyman's assistant--he reads the responses in the english church service. the locking-up bell began to toll, and the two boys were silent, and listened to it. the sound soon carried tom off to the river and the woods, and he began to go over in his mind the many occasions on which he had heard that toll coming faintly down the breeze, and had to pack his rod in a hurry, and make a run for it, to get in before the gates were shut. he was aroused with a start from his memories by arthur's voice, gentle and weak from his late illness. "tom, will you be angry if i talk to you very seriously?" "no, dear old boy, not i, but aren't you faint, arthur, or ill? what can i get you? don't say anything to hurt yourself now--you are very weak; let me come up again." "no, no, i sha'n't hurt myself; i'd sooner speak to you now, if you don't mind. i've asked mary to tell the doctor that you are with me, so you needn't go down to calling-over; and i mayn't have another chance, for i shall most likely have to go home for change of air to get well, and mayn't come back this half." "oh, do you think you must go away before the end of the half? i'm so sorry. it's more than five weeks yet to the holidays, and all the fifth-form examinations, and half the cricket-matches to come yet. and what shall i do all that time alone in our study? why, arthur, it will be more than twelve weeks before i see you again. oh, hang it, i can't stand that! besides, who's to keep me up to working at the examination-books? i shall come out bottom of the form, as sure as eggs is eggs." more lessons. tom was rattling on, half in joke, half in earnest, for he wanted to get arthur out of his serious vein, thinking it would do him harm; but arthur broke in:-"oh, please, tom, stop, or you'll drive all i had to say out of my head. and i'm already horribly afraid i'm going to make you angry." "don't gammon,[11] young un," rejoined tom (the use of the old name, dear to him from old recollections, made arthur start and smile, and feel quite happy); "you know you aren't afraid, and you've never made me angry since the first month we chummed together. now i'm going to be quite sober for a quarter of an hour, which is more than i am once in a year; so make the most of it; heave ahead, and pitch into me right and left." [11] #gammon#: pretend. "dear tom, i'm not going to pitch into you," said arthur, piteously; "and it seems so cocky in me to be advising you, who've been my back-bone ever since i've been at rugby, and have made the school a paradise to me. ah, i see i shall never do it, unless i go head-over-heels at once, as you said when you taught me to swim. tom, i want you to give up using vulgus-books and cribs."[12] [12] #cribs#: translations, "ponies." arthur sank back on to his pillow with a sigh, as if the effort had been great; but the worst was now over, and he looked straight at tom, who was evidently taken aback. he leant his elbows on his knees, and stuck his hands into his hair, whistled a verse of "billie taylor," and then was quite silent for another minute. not a shade crossed his face, but he was clearly puzzled. at last he looked up, and caught arthur's anxious look, took his hand, and said simply:-"why, young un?" "because you're the honestest boy in rugby, and that isn't honest." "i don't see that." "what were you sent to rugby for?" "well, i don't know exactly--nobody ever told me. i suppose because all boys are sent to a public-school in england." "but what do you think yourself? what do you want to do here and to carry away?" tom thought a minute. "i want to be a 1 at cricket and foot-ball, and all the other games, and to make my hands keep my head against any fellow, lout or gentleman. i want to get into the sixth before i leave, and to please the doctor; and i want to carry away just as much latin and greek as will take me through oxford respectably. there now, young un, i never thought of it before, but that's pretty much about my figure. isn't it all on the square? what have you got to say to that?" "why, that you are pretty sure to do all that you want, then." "well, i hope so. but you've forgot one thing, what i want to leave behind me. i want to leave behind me," said tom, speaking slow, and looking much moved, "the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy, or turned his back on a big one." arthur pressed his hand, and after a moment's silence went on: "you say, tom, you want to please the doctor. now, do you want to please him by what he thinks you do, or by what you really do?" "by what i really do, of course." "does he think you use cribs and vulgus-books?" tom felt at once that his flank was turned,[13] but he couldn't give in. "he was at winchester himself," said he; "he knows all about it." [13] #his flank was turned#: he was taken at a disadvantage. "yes, but does he think _you_ use them? do you think he approves of it?" "you young villain!" said tom, shaking his fist at arthur, half vexed and half pleased. "i never think about it. hang it--there, perhaps he doesn't. well, i suppose he doesn't." tom's confessions. arthur saw that he had got his point; he knew his friend well, and was wise in silence as in speech. he only said, "i would sooner have the doctor's good opinion of me as i really am than any man's in the world." after another minute, tom began again; "look here, young un, how on earth am i to get time to play the matches this half, if i give up cribs? we're in the middle of that long crabbed chorus in the agamemnon;[14] i can only just make head or tail of it with the crib. then there's pericles' speech coming on in thucydides, and 'the birds' to get up for the examination, besides the tacitus." tom groaned at the thought of his accumulated labors. "i say, young un, there's only five weeks or so left to the holidays; mayn't i go on as usual for this half? i'll tell the doctor about it some day, or you may." arthur looked out of the window; the twilight had come on, and all was silent. he repeated, in a low voice, "in this thing the lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of rimmon, to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and i bow down myself in the house of rimmon, when i bow down myself in the house of rimmon, the lord pardon thy servant in this thing."[15] [14] #agamemnon#, etc.: a greek tragedy. thucydides was a greek historian; "the birds," a greek comedy; tacitus, a latin historian. [15] 2 kings v. 18. not a word more was said on the subject, and the boys were again silent,--one of those blessed, short silences in which the resolves which color a life are so often taken. tom out-generalled. tom was the first to break it. "you've been very ill indeed, haven't you, geordie?" said he, with a mixture of awe and curiosity, feeling as if his friend had been in some strange place or scene, of which he could form no idea, and full of the memory of his own thoughts during the last week. "yes, very. i'm sure the doctor thought i was going to die. he gave me the sacrament last sunday, and you can't think what he is when one is ill. he said such brave, and tender, and gentle things to me, i felt quite light and strong after it, and never had any more fear. my mother brought our old medical man, who attended me when i was a poor sickly child; he said my constitution was quite changed, and that i'm fit for anything now. if it hadn't, i couldn't have stood three days of this illness. that's all, thanks to you, and the games you've made me fond of." "more thanks to old martin," said tom; "he's been your real friend." "nonsense, tom; he never could have done for me what you have." "well, i don't know; i did little enough. did they tell you--you won't mind hearing it now, i know--that poor thompson died last week? the other three boys are getting quite round, like you." "oh, yes, i heard of it." then tom, who was quite full of it, told arthur of the burial service in the chapel, and how it had impressed him and, he believed, all the other boys. "and though the doctor never said a word about it," said he, "and it was a half-holiday and match day, there wasn't a game played in the close all the afternoon, and the boys all went about as if it were sunday." "i'm very glad of it," said arthur. "but, tom, i've had such strange thoughts about death lately. i've never told a soul of them, not even my mother. sometimes i think they're wrong, but, do you know, i don't think in my heart i could be sorry at the death of any of my friends." tom was taken quite aback. "what in the world is the young un after now?" thought he; "i've swallowed a good many of his crotchets, but this altogether beats me. he can't be quite right in his head." he didn't want to say a word, and shifted about uneasily in the dark; however, arthur seemed to be waiting for an answer, so at last he said: "i don't think i quite see what you mean, geordie. one's told so often to think about death, that i've tried it on sometimes, especially this last week. but we won't talk of it now. i'd better go--you're getting tired, and i shall do you harm." "no, no, indeed i'm not, tom; you must stop till nine, there's only twenty minutes. i've settled you shall stop till nine. and oh! do let me talk to you--i must talk to you. i see it's just as i feared. you think i'm half mad, don't you now?" "well, i did think it odd what you said, geordie, as you ask me." arthur's fever. arthur paused a moment, and then said quickly, "i'll tell you how it all happened. at first, when i was sent to the sick-room, and found that i had really got the fever, i was terribly frightened. i thought i should die, and i could not face it for a moment. i don't think it was sheer cowardice at first, but i thought how hard it was to be taken away from my mother and sisters, and you all, just as i was beginning to see my way to many things, and to feel that i might be a man, and do a man's work. to die without having fought, and worked, and given one's life away, was too hard to bear. i got terribly impatient, and accused god of injustice, and strove to justify myself; and the harder i strove the deeper i sank. then the image of my dear father often came across me, but i turned from it. whenever it came, a heavy numbing throb seemed to take hold of my heart, and say, 'dead--dead--dead.' and i cried out, 'the living, the living shall praise thee o god; the dead cannot praise thee.[16] there is no work in the grave;[17] in the night no man can work. but i can work. i can do great things. i _will_ do great things. why wilt thou slay me?' and so i struggled and plunged, deeper and deeper, and went down into a living black tomb. i was alone there, with no power to stir or think; alone with myself; beyond the reach of all human fellowship; beyond christ's reach, i thought, in my nightmare. you, who are brave and bright and strong, can have no idea of that agony, pray to god you never may. pray as for your life." [16] isa. xxxviii. 19. [17] eccl. ix. 10. arthur stopped--from exhaustion, tom thought; but what between his fear lest arthur should hurt himself, his awe, and longing for him to go on, he couldn't ask, or stir to help him. arthur's vision. presently he went on, but quite calm and slow. "i don't know how long. i was in that state. for more than a day, i know; for i was quite conscious, and lived my outer life all the time, and took my medicines, and spoke to my mother, and heard what they said. but i didn't take much note of time; i thought time was over for me, and that that tomb was what was beyond. well, on last sunday morning, as i seemed to lie in that tomb, alone, as i thought, forever and ever, the black dead wall was cleft in two, and i was caught up and borne into the light by some great power, some living mighty spirit. tom, do you remember the living creatures and the wheels in ezekiel?[18] it was just like that: 'when they went, i heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host; when they stood, they let down their wings'--'and they went every one straight forward;--whither the spirit was to go they went, and they turned not when they went.' and we rushed through the bright air, which was full of myriads of living creatures, and paused on the brink of a great river. and the power held me up, and i knew that that great river was the grave, and death dwelt there; but not the death i had met in the black tomb,--that i felt was gone forever. for on the other bank of the great river i saw men and women and children rising up pure and bright, and the tears were wiped from their eyes, and they put on glory and strength, and all weariness and pain fell away. and beyond were a multitude which no man could number, and they worked at some great work; and they who rose from the river went on and joined in the work. they all worked, and each worked in a different way, but all at the same work. and i saw there my father, and the men in the old town whom i knew when i was a child; many a hard stern man, who never came to church, and whom they called atheist and infidel. there they were, side by side with my father, whom i had seen toil and die for them, and women and little children, and the seal[19] was on the foreheads of all. and i longed to see what the work was, and could not; so i tried to plunge into the river, for i thought i would join them, but i could not. then i looked about to see how they got into the river. and this i could not see, but i saw myriads on this side, and they too worked, and i knew that it was the same work; and the same seal was on their foreheads. and though i saw that there was toil and anguish in the work of these, and that most that were working were blind and feeble, yet i longed no more to plunge into the river, but more and more to know what the work was. and as i looked i saw my mother and my sisters, and i saw the doctor, and you, tom, and hundreds more whom i knew. and at last i saw myself, too, and i was toiling and doing ever so little a piece of the great work. then it all melted away, and the power left me, and as it left me i thought i heard a voice say: 'the vision is for an appointed time; though it tarry, wait for it, for in the end it shall speak and not lie, it shall surely come, it shall not tarry.'[20] it was early morning i know then, it was so quiet and cool, and my mother was fast asleep in the chair by my bedside; but it wasn't only a dream of mine. i know it wasn't a dream. then i fell into a deep sleep, and only woke after afternoon chapel; and the doctor came and gave me the sacrament as i told you. i told him and my mother i should get well--i knew i should; but i couldn't tell them why. tom," said arthur, gently, after another minute, "do you see why i could not grieve now to see my dearest friend die? it can't be--it isn't all fever or illness. god would never have let me see it so clear if it wasn't true. i don't understand it all yet--it will take me my life, and longer, to do that--to find out what the work is." [18] ezek. i. 24. [19] #seal#: here, mark of acceptance. [20] hab. ii. 3. arthur's mother. when arthur stopped, there was a long pause. tom could not speak; he was almost afraid to breathe, lest he should break the train of arthur's thoughts. he longed to hear more, and to ask questions. in another minute nine o'clock struck, and a gentle tap at the door called them both back into the world again. they did not answer, however, for a moment, and so the door opened and a lady came in, carrying a candle. she went straight to the sofa, and took hold of arthur's hand, and then stooped down and kissed him. "my dearest boy, you feel a little feverish again. why didn't you have lights? you've talked too much, and excited yourself in the dark." "oh, no, mother, you can't think how well i feel. i shall start with you to-morrow for devonshire. but, mother, here's my friend, here's tom brown--you know him?" "yes indeed, i've known him for years," she said, and held out her hand to tom, who was now standing up behind the sofa. this was arthur's mother; tall, and slight, and fair, with masses of golden hair drawn back from the broad white forehead, and the calm blue eye meeting his so deep and open,--the eye that he knew so well, for it was his friend's over again, and the lovely tender mouth that trembled while he looked. she stood there a woman of thirty-eight, old enough to be his mother, and one whose face showed the lines that must be written on the faces of good men's wives and widows,--but he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. he couldn't help wondering if arthur's sisters were like her. tom held her hand, and looked her straight in the face; he could neither let it go nor speak. "now, tom," said arthur, laughing, "where are your manners? you'll stare my mother out of countenance." tom dropped the little hand with a sigh. "there, sit down, both of you. here, dearest mother, there's room here," and he made a place on the sofa for her. "tom, you needn't go; i'm sure you won't be called up at first lesson." tom felt that he would risk being floored at every lesson for the rest of his natural school-life sooner than go; so sat down. "and now," said arthur, "i have realized one of the dearest wishes of my life,--to see you two together." tom's rewards. and then he led away the talk to their home in devonshire, and the red bright earth, and the deep green combes,[21] and the peat[22] streams like cairngorm[23] pebbles, and the wild moor[24] with its high cloudy tors[25] for a giant background to the picture,--till tom got jealous, and stood up for the clear chalk streams, and the emerald water meadows and great elms and willows of the dear old royal county, as he gloried to call it. and the mother sat on quiet and loving, rejoicing in their life. the quarter-to-ten struck, and the bell rang for bed, before they had well begun their talk as it seemed. [21] #combes#: valleys. [22] #peat#: a kind of turf used as fuel. [23] #cairngorm#: a yellow or brown variety of crystallized quartz found in cairngorm, scotland. [24] #moor#: an extensive waste plain covered with heath. [25] #tors#: high-pointed hills or rocks. then tom rose with a sigh to go. "shall i see you in the morning, geordie?" said he, as he shook his friend's hand. "never mind, though; you'll be back next half, and i sha'n't forget the house of rimmon." arthur's mother got up and walked with him to the door, and there gave him her hand again, and again his eyes met that deep loving look, which was like a spell upon him. her voice trembled slightly as she said, "good-night,--you are one who knows what our father has promised to the friend of the widow and the fatherless. may he deal with you as you have dealt with me and mine!" tom was quite upset; he mumbled something about owing everything good in him to geordie--looked in her face again, pressed her hand to his lips, and rushed down stairs to his study, where he sat till old thomas came kicking at the door to tell him his allowance[26] would be stopped if he didn't go off to bed. (it would have been stopped anyhow, but that he was a great favorite with the old gentleman, who loved to come out in the afternoon into the close to tom's wicket, and bowl slow twisters[27] to him, and talk of the glories of bygone surrey[28] heroes, with whom he had played in former generations.) [26] #allowance#: spending-money. [27] #twisters#: balls thrown with a twisting motion. [28] #surrey#: a county in the south of england. so tom roused himself, and took up his candle to go to bed; and then for the first time was aware of a beautiful new fishing-rod, with old eton's[29] mark on it, and a splendidly bound bible, which lay on his table, on the title-page of which was written: "tom brown, from his affectionate and grateful friends, frances jane arthur; george arthur." [29] #eton#: a noted maker of fishing-rods, etc. i leave you all to guess how he slept, and what he dreamt of. chapter vii. harry east's dilemmas and deliverances. "the holy supper is kept indeed, in whatso we share with another's need- not that which we give, but what we share, for the gift without the giver is bare: who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." _lowell_, "_the vision of sir launfal._" tom springs his mine. the next morning, after breakfast, tom, east, and gower met as usual to learn their second lessons together. tom had been considering how to break his proposal of giving up the crib to the others, and having found no better way (as indeed none better can ever be found by man or boy), told them simply what had happened; how he had been to see arthur, who had talked to him upon the subject, and what he had said; and for his part he had made up his mind, and wasn't going to use cribs any more; and being quite sure of his ground, took the high and pathetic tone, and was proceeding to say, "how, that, having learned his lessons with them for so many years, it would grieve him much to put an end to the arrangement, and he hoped at any rate that, if they wouldn't go on with him, they should still be just as good friends, and respect one another's motives--but----" here the other boys, who had been listening with open eyes and ears, burst in:-"stuff and nonsense!" cried gower. " here, east, get down the crib and find the place." "oh, tommy, tommy!" said east, proceeding to do as he was bidden, "that it should ever have come to this. i knew arthur'd be the ruin of you some day, and you of me. and now the time's come"--and he made a doleful face. "i don't know about ruin," answered tom; "i know that you and i would have had the sack[1] long ago, if it hadn't been for him. and you know it as well as i." [1] #had the sack#: got expelled. "well, we were in a baddish way before he came, i own; but this new crotchet of his is past a joke." "let's give it a trial, harry; come--you know how often he has been right and we wrong." "now, don't you two be jawing away about young squaretoes,"[2] struck in gower. "he's no end of a sucking wiseacre,[3] i dare say, but we've no time to lose, and i've got the fives'-court at half-past nine." [2] #squaretoes#: an over-precise or "goody-good" sort of a person. [3] #sucking wiseacre#: a young solomon. "i say, gower," said tom, appealingly, "be a good fellow, and let's try if we can't get on without the crib." "what! in this chorus?[4] why, we sha'n't get through ten lines." [4] #chorus#: the chorus of a greek play. "i say, tom," cried east, having hit on a new idea, "don't you remember, when we were in the upper fourth, and old momus[5] caught me construing off the leaf of a crib which i'd torn out and put in my book, and which would float out on to the floor, he sent me up to be flogged for it?" [5] #momus#: the god of ridicule; here, a nickname for a teacher. "yes, i remember it very well." "well, the doctor, after he'd flogged me, told me himself that he didn't flog me for using a translation, but for taking it into lesson, and using it there, when i hadn't learnt a word before i came in. he said there was no harm in using a translation to get a clew to hard passages, if you tried all you could first to make them out without." "did he, though?" said tom, "then arthur must be wrong." "of course he is," said gower, "the little prig! we'll only use the crib when we can't construe without it. go ahead, east." results of the explosion. and on this agreement they started: tom, satisfied with having made this confession, and not sorry to have a _locus penitentiæ_,[6] and not to be deprived altogether of the use of his old and faithful friend. [6] #locus penitentiæ#: a place or opportunity for repentance or reformation. the boys went on as usual, each taking a sentence in turn, and the crib being handed to the one whose turn it was to construe. of course tom couldn't object to this, as was it not simply lying there to be appealed to in case the sentence should prove too hard altogether for the construer? but it must be owned that gower and east did not make very tremendous exertions to conquer their sentences before having recourse to its help. tom, however, with the most heroic virtue and gallantry rushed into his sentence, searching in a high-minded manner for nominative and verb, and turning over his dictionary frantically for the first hard word that stopped him. but in the meantime gower, who was bent on getting to fives, would peep quietly into the crib, and then suggest, "don't you think this is the meaning?" "i think you must take it this way, brown;" and as tom didn't see his way to not profiting by these suggestions, the lesson went on about as quickly as usual, and gower was able to start for fives'-court within five minutes of the half-hour. when tom and east were left face to face, they looked at one another for a minute, tom puzzled and east chock-full of fun, and then burst into a roar of laughter. the enemy's defence. "well, tom," said east, recovering himself, "i don't see any objection to the new way. it's about as good as the old one, i think; besides the advantage it gives one of feeling virtuous, and looking down on one's neighbors." tom shoved his hand into his back hair. "i'm not so sure," said he; "you two fellows carried me off my legs; i don't really think we tried one sentence fairly. are you sure you remember what the doctor said to you?" "yes. and i'll swear i couldn't make out one of my sentences to-day. no, nor ever could. i really don't remember," said east, speaking slowly and impressively, "to have come across one latin or greek sentence this half that i could go and construe by the light of nature. whereby i am sure providence intended cribs to be used." "the thing to find out," said tom, meditatively, "is how long one ought to grind at a sentence without looking at the crib. now, i think, if one fairly looks out all the words one doesn't know, and then can't hit it, that's enough." "to be sure, tommy," said east, demurely, but with a merry twinkle in his eye. "your new doctrine, too, old fellow," added he, "when one comes to think of it, is a cutting at the root of all school morality. you'll take away mutual help, brotherly love, or, in the vulgar tongue, 'giving construes,' which i hold to be one of our highest virtues. for how can you distinguish between getting a construe from another boy and using a crib? hang it, tom, if you're going to deprive all our school-fellows of the chance of exercising christian benevolence and being good samaritans, i shall cut the concern." "i wish you wouldn't joke about it, harry. it's hard enough to see one's way, a precious sight harder than i thought last night. but i suppose there's a use and an abuse of both, and one'll get straight enough somehow. but you can't make out anyhow that one has a right to use old vulgus-books and copy-books." "hullo, more heresy! how fast a fellow goes down hill when once he gets his head before his legs! listen to me, tom. not use old vulgus-books! why, you goth,[7] aren't we to take the benefit of the wisdom, and admire and use the work of past generations? not use old copy-books! why, you might as well say we ought to pull down westminster abbey, and put up a go-to-meeting-shop with churchwarden windows;[8] or never read shakespeare, but only sheridan knowles.[9] think of all the work and labor that our predecessors have bestowed on these very books, and are we to make their work of no value?" [7] #goth#: a barbarian. [8] #churchwarden windows#: probably cheap, narrow windows. [9] #sheridan knowles#: a writer of popular plays. "i say, harry, please don't chaff; i'm really serious." "and, then, is it not our duty to consult the pleasure of others rather than our own; and, above all, that of our masters? fancy, then, the difference to them in looking over a vulgus which has been carefully touched and retouched by themselves and others, and which must bring them a sort of dreamy pleasure, as if they'd met the thought or expression of it somewhere or another,--before they were born, perhaps,--and that of cutting up, and making picture-frames round all your and my false quantities and other monstrosities. why, tom, you wouldn't be so cruel as never to let old momus hum over the 'o genus humanum' again, and then look up doubtingly through his spectacles, and end by smiling and giving three extra marks for it; just for old sake's sake, i suppose." "well," said tom, getting up in something as like a huff as he was capable of, "it's deuced hard that when a fellow's really trying to do what he ought, his best friends'll do nothing but chaff him and try to put him down." and he stuck his books under his arm, and his hat on his head, preparatory to rushing out into the quadrangle, to testify with his own soul of the faithlessness of friendships. "now don't be an ass, tom," said east, catching hold of him; "you know me well enough by this time; my bark's worse than my bite. you can't expect to ride your new crotchet without anybody's trying to make him kick you off: especially as we shall have to go on foot still. but now sit down, and let's go over it again. i'll be as serious as a judge." then tom sat himself down on the table, and waxed eloquent about all the righteousness and advantages of the new plan, as was his wont whenever he took up anything; going into it as if his life depended upon it, and sparing no abuse which he could think of, of the opposite method, which he denounced as ungentlemanly, cowardly, mean, lying, and no one knows what besides. "very cool of tom," as east thought, but didn't say, "seeing as how he only came out of egypt[10] himself last night at bed-time." [10] #came out of egypt#: escaped from bondage, began a new course of life. "well, tom," said he, at last, "you see, when you and i came to school there were none of these sort of notions. you may be right--i dare say you are. only what one has always felt about the masters is that it's a fair trial of skill and last[11] between us and them--like a match at foot-ball, or a battle. we're natural enemies in school, that's the fact. we've got to learn so much latin and greek and do so many verses, and they've got to see that we do it. if we can slip the collar, and do so much less without getting caught, that's one to us. if they can get more out of us, or catch us shirking, that's one to them. all's fair in war, but lying. if i run my luck against theirs, and go into school without looking at my lessons, and don't get called up, why am i a snob[12] or a sneak? i don't tell the master i've learnt it. he's got to find out whether i have or not; what's he paid for? if he calls me up, and i get floored, he makes me write it out in greek and english. very good; he's caught me, and i don't grumble. i grant you, if i go and snivel to him, and tell him i've really tried to learn it, but found it so hard without a translation, or say i've had a toothache, or any humbug of that kind, i'm a snob. that's my school morality; it's served me, and you too, tom, for the matter of that, these five years. and it's all clear and fair, no mistake about it. we understand it, and they understand it, and i don't know what we're to come to with any other." [11] #last#: endurance. [12] #snob#: here, a mean-spirited fellow; one destitute of manliness. the truce. tom looked at him pleased, and a little puzzled. he had never heard east speak his mind seriously before, and couldn't help feeling how completely he had hit his own theory and practice up to that time. "thank you, old fellow," said he. "you're a good old brick to be serious and not put out with me. i said more than i meant, i dare say, only you see i know i'm right; whatever you and gower and the rest do, i shall hold on--i must. and as it's all new and an up-hill game, you see, one must hit hard and hold on tight at first." "very good," said east; "hold on and hit away, only don't hit under the line."[13] [13] #don't hit under the line#: don't take unfair advantage. "but i must bring you over, harry, or i sha'n't be comfortable. now, i'll allow all you've said. we've always been honorable enemies with the masters. we found a state of war when we came, and went into it of course. only don't you think things are altered a good deal? i don't feel as i used to the masters. they seem to me to treat one quite differently." "yes, perhaps they do," said east; "there's a new set, you see, mostly, who don't feel sure of themselves yet. they don't want to fight till they know the ground." "i don't think it's only that," said tom. "and then the doctor, he does treat one so openly, and like a gentleman, and as if one was working with him." "well, so he does," said east; "he's a splendid fellow, and when i get into the sixth i shall act accordingly. only you know he has nothing to do with our lessons now, except examining us. i say, though, "looking at his watch, "it's just the quarter. come along." arthur goes home. as they walked out they got a message, to say "that arthur was just starting and would like to say good-bye"; so they went down to the private entrance of the school-house, and found an open carriage, with arthur propped up with pillows in it, looking already better, tom thought. they jumped up on to the steps to shake hands with him, and tom mumbled thanks for the presents he had found in his study, and looked round anxiously for arthur's mother. east, who had fallen back into his usual humor, looked quaintly at arthur, and said:-"so you've been at it again, through that hot-headed convert of yours there. he's been making our lives a burden to us all the morning about using cribs. i shall get floored to a certainty at second lesson, if i'm called up." arthur blushed and looked down. tom struck in:-"oh, it's all right. he's converted already; he always comes through the mud, after us, grumbling and spluttering." the clock struck, and they had to go off to school, wishing arthur a pleasant holiday, tom lingering behind a moment to send his thanks and love to arthur's mother. the siege reopens. tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, and succeeded so far as to get east to promise to give the new plan a fair trial. encouraged by his success, in the evening, when they were sitting alone in the large study, where east lived now almost, "vice[14] arthur on leave," after examining the new fishing-rod, which both pronounced to be the genuine article ("play[15] enough to throw a midge[16] tied on a single hair against the wind, and strength enough to hold a grampus[17]") they naturally began talking about arthur. tom, who was still bubbling over with last night's scene and all the thoughts of the last week, and wanting to clinch and fix the whole in his own mind, which he could never do without first going through the process of belaboring somebody else with it all, suddenly rushed into the subject of arthur's illness, and what he had said about death. [14] #vice# (v[=i]-s[=e]): in place of. [15] #play#: lightness, elasticity. [16] #midge#: a gnat or small fly. [17] #grampus#: a whale-like fish. east had given him the desired opening; after a seriocomic grumble, "that life wasn't worth having now they were tied to a young beggar who was always 'raising his standard';[18] and that he, east, was like a prophet's donkey, who was obliged to struggle on after the donkey-man who went after the prophet; that he had none of the pleasure of starting the new crotchets, and didn't half understand them, but had to take the kicks and carry the luggage as if he had all the fun," he threw his legs up on to the sofa, and put his hands behind his head, and said:-"well, after all, he's the most wonderful little fellow i ever came across. there isn't such a meek, humble boy in the school. hanged if i don't think now really, tom, that he believes himself a much worse fellow than you or i, and that he doesn't think he has more influence in the house than dot bowles, who came last quarter, and isn't ten yet. but he turns you and me round his little finger, old boy--there's no mistake about that." and east nodded at tom sagaciously. [18] #raising his standard#: advancing, improving. "now or never!" thought tom; so, shutting his eyes and hardening his heart, he went straight at it, repeating all that arthur had said, as near as he could remember it, in the very words, and all he had himself thought. the life seemed to ooze out of it as he went on, and several times he felt inclined to stop, give it all up, and change the subject. but somehow he was borne on, he had a necessity upon him to speak it all out, and did so. at the end he looked at east with some anxiety, and was delighted to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful and attentive. the fact is, that in the stage of his inner life at which tom had lately arrived, his intimacy with and friendship for east could not have lasted if he had not made him aware of, and a sharer in, the thoughts that were beginning to exercise him. nor indeed could the friendship have lasted if east had shown no sympathy with these thoughts; so that it was a great relief to have unbosomed himself, and to have found that his friend could listen. friendship. tom had always had a sort of instinct that east's levity was only skin-deep; and this instinct was a true one. east had no want of reverence for anything that he felt to be real, but he was one of those natures that burst into what is generally called recklessness and impiety the moment they feel that anything is being poured upon them for their good, which does not come home to their inborn sense of right, or which appeals to anything like self-interest in them. daring and honest by nature, and outspoken to an extent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a constant fund of animal health and spirits which he did not feel bound to curb in any way, he had gained for himself with the steady part of the school (including as well those who wished to appear steady as those who really were so) the character of a boy with whom it would be dangerous to be intimate; while his own hatred of everything cruel, or underhand, or false, and his hearty respect for what he could see to be good and true, kept off the rest. tom, besides being very like east in many points of character, had largely developed in his composition the capacity for taking the weakest side. this is not putting it strongly enough; it was a necessity with him; he couldn't help it any more than he could eating or drinking. he could never play on the strongest side with any heart at foot-ball or cricket, and was sure to make friends with any boy who was unpopular, or down on his luck. now, though east was not what is generally called unpopular, tom felt more and more every day, as their characters developed, that he stood alone, and did not make friends among their contemporaries; and therefore sought him out. tom was himself much more popular, for his power of detecting humbug was much less acute, and his instincts were much more sociable. he was at this period of his life, too, largely given to taking people for what they gave themselves out to be; but his singleness of heart, fearlessness and honesty were just what east appreciated, and thus the two had been drawn into great intimacy. this intimacy had been interrupted by tom's guardianship of arthur. friendship tested. east had often, as has been said, joined them in reading the bible, but their discussion had almost always turned upon the characters of the men and women of whom they read, and not become personal to themselves. in fact, the two had shrunk from personal religious discussion, not knowing how it might end; and fearful of risking a friendship very dear to both, and which they felt somehow, without quite knowing why, would never be the same, but either tenfold stronger or sapped[19] at its foundation, after such communing together. [19] #sapped#: undermined. what a bother all this explaining is! i wish we could get on without it. but we can't. however, you'll all find, if you haven't found it out already, that a time comes in every human friendship when you must go down into the depths of yourself, and lay bare what is there to your friend, and wait in fear for his answer. a few moments may do it; and it may be (most likely will be, as you are english boys) that you will never do it but once. but done it must be, if the friendship is to be worth the name. you must find what is there, at the very root and bottom of one another's hearts; and if you are at one there, nothing on earth can, or at least ought to, sunder you. east's confessions. east had remained lying down until tom finished speaking, as if fearing to interrupt him; he now sat up at the table and leant his head on one hand, taking up a pencil with the other, and working little holes with it in the table cover. after a bit he looked up, stopped the pencil, and said: "thank you very much, old fellow; there's no other boy in the house would have done it for me but you or arthur. i can see well enough," he went on, after a pause, "all the best big fellows look on me with suspicion; they think i'm a devil-may-care, reckless young scamp. so i am,--eleven hours out of twelve,--but not the twelfth. then all our contemporaries worth knowing follow suit, of course; we're very good friends at games and all that, but not a soul of them but you and arthur ever tried to break through the crust, and see whether there was anything at the bottom of me: and then the bad ones i won't stand, and they know that." "don't you think that's half fancy, harry?" "not a bit of it," said east, bitterly, pegging away with his pencil. "i see it all plain enough. bless you, you think everybody's as straightforward and kind-hearted as you are." "well, but what's the reason of it? there must be a reason. you can play all the games as well as any one, and sing the best songs, and are the best company in the house. you fancy you're not liked, harry. it's all fancy." "i only wish it was, tom. i know i could be popular enough with all the bad ones, but that i won't have, and the good ones won't have me." "why not?" persisted tom; "you don't drink or swear, or get out at night; you never bully, or cheat at lessons. if you only showed you liked it, you'd have all the best fellows in the house running after you." "not i," said east. then, with an effort, he went on: "i'll tell you what it is. i never stop during the sacrament. i can see, from the doctor downward, how that tells against me." "yes, i've seen that," said tom, "and i've been very sorry for it, and arthur and i have talked about it. i've often thought of speaking to you, but it's so hard to begin on such subjects. i'm very glad you've opened it. now, why don't you!" "i've never been confirmed,"[20] said east. [20] #confirmed#: admitted to church membership; here, to that of the church of england. "not been confirmed!" said tom, in astonishment. "i never thought of that. why weren't you confirmed with the rest of us nearly three years ago? i always thought you'd been confirmed at home." "no," answered east, sorrowfully; "you see this was how it happened. last confirmation was soon after arthur came, and you were so taken up with him, i hardly saw either of you. well, when the doctor sent round for us about it, i was living mostly with green's set--you know the sort. they all went in--i dare say it was all right, and they got good by it; i don't want to judge them. only all i could see of their reasons drove me just the other way. 'twas 'because the doctor liked it'; no boy got on who didn't stay the sacrament; it was 'the correct thing,' in fact, like having a good hat to wear on sundays. i couldn't stand it. i didn't feel that i wanted to lead a different life, i was very well content as i was, and i wasn't going to sham religious to curry favor[21] with the doctor, or any one else." [21] #curry favor#: seek favor by flattery and the like. east stopped speaking, and pegged away more diligently than ever with his pencil. tom was ready to cry. he felt half sorry at first that he had been confirmed himself. he seemed to have deserted his earliest friend, to have left him by himself at his worst need for those long years. he got up and went and sat by east, and put his arm over his shoulder. "dear old boy," he said, "how careless and selfish i've been! but why didn't you come and talk to arthur and me?" "i wish to heaven i had," said east, "but i was a fool. it's too late talking of it now." "why too late? you want to be confirmed now, don't you?" "i think so," said east. "i've thought about it a good deal; only often i fancy i must be changing, because i see it's to do me good here--just what stopped me last time. and then i go back again." tom's prescription. "i'll tell you now how 'twas with me," said tom, warmly. "if it hadn't been for arthur, i should have done just as you did. i hope i should. i honor you for it. but then he made it out just as if it was taking the weak side before all the world--going in once for all against everything that's strong and rich and proud and respectable, a little band of brothers against the whole world. and the doctor seemed to say so, too, only he said a great deal more." "ah!" groaned east, "but there again, that's just another of my difficulties whenever i think about the matter. i don't want to be one of your saints, one of your elect,[22] whatever the right phrase is. my sympathies are all the other way; with the many, the poor wretches who run about the streets and don't go to church. don't stare, tom; mind, i'm telling you all that's in my heart,--as far as i know it,--but it's all a muddle. you must be gentle with me if you want to land me.[23] now i've seen a deal of this sort of religion: i was bred up in it, and i can't stand it. if nineteen-twentieths of the world are to be left to uncovenanted mercies,[24] and that sort of thing, which means in plain english to go to destruction and the other twentieth are to rejoice at it all, why--" [22] #elect#: chosen to salvation; one of the favored few. [23] #land me#: here, persuade me. [24] #uncovenanted mercies#: that is, to such mercies as god will grant to the heathen or those outside the church. "oh i but, harry, they're not, they don't," broke in tom, really shocked. "oh! how i wish arthur hadn't gone! i'm such a fool about these things. but it's all you want, too, east; it is indeed. it cuts both ways somehow--being confirmed and taking the sacrament. it makes you feel on the side of all the good and all the bad, too, of everybody in the world. only there's some great, dark, strong power, which is crushing you and everybody else. that's what christ conquered, and we've got to fight. what a fool i am. i can't explain. if arthur were only here!" "i begin to get a glimmering of what you mean," said east. "i say, now," said tom, eagerly, "do you remember how we both hated flashman?" "of course i do," said east; "i hate him still. what then?" "well, when i came to take the sacrament, i had a great struggle about that. i tried to put him out of my head; and when i couldn't do that, i tried to think of him as evil, as something that the lord who was loving me hated, and which i might hate too. but it wouldn't do. i broke down; i believe christ himself broke me down; and when the doctor gave me the bread and wine, and leaned over me praying, i prayed for poor flashman, as if it had been you or arthur." east buried his face in his hands on the table. tom could feel the table tremble. at last he looked up. "thank you again, tom," said he; "you don't know what you may have done for me to-night. i think i see now how the right sort of sympathy with poor wretches is got at." "and you'll stop for the sacrament next time, won't you?" said tom. "can i, before i'm confirmed?" "go and ask the doctor." "i will." that very night, after prayers, east followed the doctor and the old verger bearing the candle, up stairs. tom watched and saw the doctor turn round when he heard foot-steps following him closer than usual, and say "hah, east! do you want to speak to me, my man?" "if you please, sir;" and the private door closed, and tom went to his study in a state of great trouble of mind. the effect thereof. it was almost an hour before east came back; then he rushed in breathless. "well, it's all right," he shouted, seizing tom by the hand. "i feel as if a ton weight were off my mind." "hurrah!" said tom. "i knew it would be, but tell us all about it." "well i just told him all about it. you can't think how kind and gentle he was,--the great grim man, whom i've feared more than anybody on earth. when i stuck, he lifted me, just as if i had been a little child. and he seemed to know all i'd felt, and to have gone through it all. and i burst out crying,--more than i have done this five years,--and he sat down by me, and stroked my head; and i went blundering on, and told him all; much worse things than i've told you. and he wasn't shocked a bit, and didn't snub me, or tell me i was a fool, and it was all nothing but pride or wickedness, though i dare say it was. and he didn't tell me not to follow out my thoughts, and he didn't give me any cut-and-dried explanation. but when i'd done he just talked a bit,--i can hardly remember what he said, yet; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, and strength, and light; and to bear me up, and plant me on a rock, where i could hold my footing, and fight for myself. i don't know what to do, i feel so happy. and it's all owing to you, dear old boy!" and he seized tom's hand again. "and you're to come to the communion?" said tom. "yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays." tom's delight was as great as his friend's. but he hadn't yet had out all his own talk, and was bent on improving the occasion; so he proceeded to propound arthur's theory about not being sorry for his friends' death, which he had hitherto kept in the background, and by which he was much exercised;[25] for he didn't feel it honest to take what pleased him and throw over the rest, and was trying vigorously to persuade himself that he should like all his best friends to die off-hand. [25] #exercised#: made thoughtful or anxious. but east's powers of remaining serious were exhausted, and in five minutes he was saying the most ridiculous things he could think of, till tom was almost getting angry again. despite of himself, however, he couldn't help laughing and giving it up, when east appealed to him with: "well, tom, you aren't going to punch my head, i hope, because i insist on being sorry when you get to earth?"[26] [26] #when you get to earth#: when you are buried. and so their talk finished for that time, and they tried to learn first lesson, with very poor success, as appeared next morning, when they were called up and narrowly escaped being floored, which ill-luck, however, did not sit heavily on either of their souls. chapter viii. tom brown's last match. "heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping; the fruit of dreamy hoping is, waking, blank despair." _clough_, "_ambarvalia._" the curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama,--for hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must of necessity have an end. well, well! the pleasantest things must come to an end. i little thought last long vacation, when i began these pages to help while away some spare time at a watering-place, how vividly many an old scene, which had lain hid away for years in some dusty old corner of my brain, would come back again, and stand before me clear and bright as if it had happened yesterday. the book has been a most grateful task to me, and i only hope that all you, my dear young friends, who read it (friends assuredly you must be if you get as far as this), will be half as sorry to come to the last stage as i am. not but what there has been a solemn and sad side to it. as the old scenes became living, and the actors in them became living, too, many a grave in the crimea and distant india, as well as in the quiet church-yards of our dear old country, seemed to open and send forth their dead, and their voices, and looks, and ways were again in one's ears and eyes, as in the old school-days. but this was not sad; how should it be, if we believe as our lord has taught us? how should it be, when one more turn of the wheel, and we shall be by their sides again, learning from them again, perhaps, as we did when we were new boys? then there were others of the old faces so dear to us once, who had somehow or another just gone clean out of sight--are they dead or living? we know not, but the thought of them brings no sadness with it. wherever they are, we can well believe they are doing god's work, and getting his wages. school memories. but are there not some, whom we still see sometimes in the streets, whose haunts and homes we know, whom we could probably find almost any day in the week if we were set to do it, yet from whom we are really further than we are from the dead, and from those who have gone out of our ken?[1] yes, there are and must be such; and therein lies the sadness of old school memories. yet of these our old comrades, from whom more than time and space separate us, there are some by whose sides we can feel sure that we shall stand again when time shall be no more. we may think of one another now as dangerous fanatics or narrow bigots, with whom no truce is possible, from whom we shall only sever more and more to the end of our lives, whom it would be our respective duties to imprison or hang, if we had the power. we must go our way, and they theirs, as long as flesh and spirit hold together; but let our own rugby poet speak words of healing for this trial:- "to veer how vain! on, onward strain, brave barks! in light, in darkness, too; through winds and tides one compass guides,- to that, and your own selves, be true. "but, o blithe breeze! and o great seas! though ne'er, that earliest parting past, on your wide plain they join again, together lead them home at last. "one port, methought, alike they sought, one purpose hold where'er they fare, o bounding breeze! o rushing seas! at last, at last, unite them there!"--_clough._[2] this is not mere longing, it is prophecy. so over these two, our old friends who are friends no more, we sorrow not as men without hope. it is only for those who seem to us to have lost compass and purpose, and to be driven helplessly on rocks and quicksands; whose lives are spent in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil; for self alone, and not for their fellow-men, their country, or their god, that we must mourn and pray without sure hope and without light; trusting only that he, in whose hands they are as well as we are, who has died for them as well as for us, who sees all his creatures- "with larger, other eyes than ours, to make allowance for us all,"[3]-will, in his own way and at his own time, lead them also home. [1] #ken#: knowledge. [2] #clough#: poem of "qua cursum ventus." [3] #tennyson#: "in memoriam." * * * * * the end of the half-year. another two years have passed, and it is again the end of the summer half-year at rugby; in fact, the school has broken up. the fifth-form examinations were over last week, and upon them have followed the speeches, and the sixth-form examinations for exhibitions;[4] and they, too, are over now. the boys have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the town boys and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked leave to stay in their houses to see the result of the cricket-matches. for this year the wellesburn return match and the marylebone match are played at rugby, to the great delight of the town and neighborhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring young cricketers who have been reckoning for the last three months on showing off at lord's grounds.[5] [4] #exhibitions#: allowances of money, etc., made to certain scholars at oxford and cambridge. the boys of the sixth form, who were preparing for the universities, were competing for these. [5] #lord's grounds#: see note on marylebone, p. 304. the doctor started off for the lakes[6] yesterday morning, after an interview with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of thomas, at which he arranged in what school the cricket dinners were to be, and all other matters necessary for the satisfactory carrying out of the festivities; and warned them as to keeping all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having the gates closed by nine o'clock. [6] #lakes#: dr. arnold spent his vacations at his country place of fox howe in westmoreland, in the beautiful lake region of the northwest of england. cricket-matches. the wellesburn match was played out with great success yesterday, the school winning by three wickets;[7] and to-day the great event of the cricketing year, the marylebone match, is being played. what a match it has been! the london eleven came down by an afternoon train yesterday, in time to see the end of the wellesburn match; and as soon as it was over, their leading men and umpire inspected the ground, criticising it rather unmercifully. the captain of the school eleven, and one or two others, who had played the lord's match before, and knew old mr. aislabie and several of the lord's men, accompanied them; while the rest of the eleven looked on from under the three trees with admiring eyes, and asked one another the names of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how many runs each of them had made in the late matches in _bell's life_. they looked such hard-bitten,[8] wiry, whiskered fellows, that their young adversaries felt rather desponding as to the result of the morrow's match. the ground was at last chosen, and two men set to work to water and roll it; and then, there being yet some half-hour of daylight, some one had suggested a dance on the turf. the close was half full of citizens and their families, and the idea was hailed with enthusiasm. the cornopean-player was still on the ground; in five minutes the eleven, and half a dozen of the wellesburn and marylebone men got partners somehow or another, and a merry country dance was going on, to which every one flocked, and new couples joined in every minute, till there were a hundred of them going down the middle and up again--and the long line of school-buildings looked gravely down on them, every window glowing with the last rays of the western sun, and the rooks clanged about in the tops of the old elms, greatly excited, and resolved on having their country dance, too, and the great flag flapped lazily in the gentle western breeze. altogether it was a sight which would have made glad the heart of our brave old founder, lawrence sheriff,[9] if he were half as good a fellow as i take him to have been. it was a cheerful sight to see, but what made it so valuable in the sight of the captain of the school eleven was, that he saw there his young hands shaking off their shyness and awe of the lord's men, as they crossed hands and capered about on the grass together; for the strangers entered into it all, and threw away their cigars, and danced and shouted like boys, while old mr. aislabie stood by looking on in his white hat, leaning on a bat, in benevolent enjoyment. "this hop will be worth thirty runs[10] to us to-morrow, and will be the making of raggles and johnson," thinks the young leader, as he revolves many things in his mind, standing by the side of mr. aislabie, whom he will not leave for a minute, for he feels that the character of the school for courtesy is resting on his shoulders. [7] #by three wickets#: three players yet to bat. [8] #hard-bitten#: keen. [9] #lawrence sheriff#: see note on rugby, p. 72. [10] #runs#: the running from one wicket to the other by the batsmen. the game depends on these runs. but when a quarter to nine struck, and he saw old thomas beginning to fidget about with the keys in his hand, he thought of the doctor's parting monition, and stopped the cornopean at once, notwithstanding the loud-voiced remonstrances from all sides; and the crowd scattered away from the close, the eleven all going into the school-house, where supper and beds were provided by the doctor's orders. deep had been the consultations at supper as to the order of going in, who should bowl the first over,[11] whether it would be best to play steady or freely; and the youngest hands declared that they shouldn't be a bit nervous, and praised their opponents as the jolliest fellows in the world, except, perhaps, their old friends, the wellesburn men. how far a little good-nature from their elders will go with the right sort of boys! [11] #over#: a certain number of balls pitched in succession from one side. the morning had dawned bright and warm, to the intense relief of many an anxious youngster, up betimes to mark the signs of the weather. the eleven went down in a body before breakfast for a plunge in the cold bath in the corner of the close. the ground was in splendid order, and soon after ten o'clock, before spectators had arrived, all was ready, and two of the lord's men took their places at the wicket; the school, with the usual liberality of young hands, having put their adversaries in first. old bailey stepped up to the wicket, and called play, and the match has begun. * * * * * the marylebone match. "oh, well bowled! well bowled, johnson!" cries the captain, catching up the ball and sending it high above the rook-trees, while the third marylebone man walks away from the wicket, and old bailey gravely sets up the middle stump[12] again and puts the bails[13] on. [12] #middle stump#: the middle stake of a wicket. [13] #bails#: two small, round sticks laid across the top of a wicket. "how many runs?" away scamper three boys to the scoring-table,[14] and are back again in a minute amongst the rest of the eleven, who are collected together in a knot between wickets. [14] #scoring-table#: a table where the reckoning of the game is kept. "only eighteen runs, and three wickets down!" "huzzah for old rugby!" sings out jack raggles, the long-stop,[15] toughest and burliest of boys, commonly called "swiper jack";[16] and forthwith stands on his head and brandishes his legs in the air in triumph, till the next boy catches hold of his heels and throws him over on his back. [15] #long-stop#: a person who stands behind the wicket-keeper to stop the balls that escape him. [16] #swiper jack#: hard-hitting jack. "steady there; don't be such an ass, jack," says the captain; "we haven't got the best wicket. ah, look out now at cover-point,"[17] adds he, as he sees a long-armed, bare-headed, slashing-looking player coming to the wicket. "and, jack, mind your hits; he steals more runs than any man in england." [17] #cover-point#: the person who stops a ball or the act of stopping it. and they all find that they have got their work to do now; the new-comer's off-hitting is tremendous, and his running like a flash of lightning. he is never in his ground, except when his wicket is down. nothing in the whole game so trying to boys; he has stolen three byes[18] in the first ten minutes, and jack raggles is furious, and begins throwing over savagely to the further wicket, until he is sternly stopped by the captain. it is all that young gentleman can do to keep his team[19] steady, but he knows that everything depends on it, and faces his work bravely. the score creeps up to fifty, the boys begin to look blank, and the spectators, who are now mustering strong, are very silent. the ball flies off his bat to all parts of the field, and he gives no rest and no catches to any one. but cricket is full of glorious chances, and the goddess who presides over it loves to bring down the most skilful players. johnson, the young bowler, is getting wild; and bowls a ball almost wide to the off;[20] the batter steps out and cuts it beautifully to where cover-point is standing very deep; in fact, almost off the ground. the ball comes skimming and twisting along about three feet from the ground; he rushes at it, and it sticks somehow or other in the fingers of his left hand, to the utter astonishment of himself and the whole field. [18] #byes#: runs on balls that have passed the wicket-keeper. [19] #team#: one of the parties or sides in a game. [20] #off#: to the right of the batsman. such a catch hasn't been made in the close for years, and the cheering is maddening. "pretty cricket," says the captain, throwing himself on the ground by the deserted wicket, with a long breath; he feels that a crisis has past. i wish i had space to describe the match; how the captain stumped the next man off a leg-shooter,[21] and bowled small cobs[22] to old mr. aislabie, who came in for the last wicket. how the lord's men were out by half-past twelve o'clock for ninety-eight runs. how the captain of the school eleven went in first to give his men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful style; how rugby was only four behind in the first innings[23] what a glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form school, and how the cover-point hitter sang the most topping[24] comic songs, and old mr. aislabie made the best speeches that ever were heard, afterward. but i haven't space, that's the fact, and so you must fancy it all and carry yourselves on to half-past seven o'clock, when the school are again in, with five wickets down, and only thirty-two runs to make to win. the marylebone men played carelessly in their second innings, but they are working like horses now to save the match. [21] #stumped off a leg-shooter#: perhaps to put a man out of play by knocking down his wicket. [22] #cobs#: balls peculiarly bowled. [23] #innings#: turns for using the bat. [24] #topping#: wonderful. some old friends. there is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up and down the close; but the group to which i beg to call your special attention is there on the slope of the island, which looks toward the cricket-ground. it consists of three figures: two are seated on the bench, and one on the ground at their feet. the first, a tall, slight, and rather gaunt man, with a bushy eyebrow, and a dry, humorous smile, is evidently a clergyman. he is carelessly dressed, and looks rather used up, which isn't much to be wondered at, seeing that he has just finished six weeks of examination work: but there he basks, and spreads himself out in the evening sun, bent on enjoying life, though he doesn't quite know what to do with his arms and legs. surely it is our friend the young master, whom we have had glimpses of before, but his face has gained a great deal since we last came across him. and by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, straw hat, the captain's belt, and the untanned yellow cricket-shoes which all the eleven wear, sits a strapping figure, near six feet high, with ruddy tanned face and whiskers, curly brown hair, and a laughing, dancing eye. he is leaning forward, with his elbows resting on his knees, and dandling his favorite bat, with which he has made thirty or forty runs to-day, in his strong brown hands. it is tom brown, grown into a young man nineteen years old, a præpostor and captain of the eleven, spending his last day as a rugby boy, and let us hope as much wiser as he is bigger since we last had the pleasure of coming across him. and at their feet on the warm dry ground, similarly dressed, sits arthur, turkish fashion, with his bat across his knees. he, too, is no longer a boy, less of a boy in fact than tom, if one may judge from the thoughtfulness of his face, which is somewhat paler, too, than one could wish; but his figure, though slight, is well knit and active, and all his old timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by silent quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as he listens to the broken talk between the other two, in which he joins now and then. all three are watching the game eagerly, and joining in the cheering that follows every good hit. it is pleasing to see the easy friendly footing which the pupils are on with their master, perfectly respectful, yet with no reserve and nothing forced in their intercourse. tom has clearly abandoned the old theory of "natural enemies" in this case at any rate. their talk. but it is time to listen to what they are saying, and see what we can gather out of it. "i don't object to your theory," says the master, "and i allow you have made a fair case for yourself. but, now, in such books as aristophanes, for instance, you've been reading a play this half with the doctor, haven't you?" "yes, 'the knights,'"[25] answered tom. [25] #"the knights"#: a greek comedy by aristoph´anes. "well, i'm sure you would have enjoyed the wonderful humor of it twice as much if you had taken more pains with your scholarship." "well, sir, i don't believe any boy in the form enjoyed the set-tos[26] between cleon and the sausage-seller more than i did--eh, arthur?" said tom, giving him a stir with his foot. [26] #set-tos#: fights or encounters of any kind. "yes, i must say he did," said arthur. "i think, sir, you've hit upon the wrong book there." "not a bit of it," said the master. "why, in those very passages of arms, how can you thoroughly appreciate them unless you are masters of the weapons? and the weapons are the language, which you, brown, have never half worked at; and so, as i say, you must have lost all the delicate shades of meaning which make the best part of the fun." "oh! well played--bravo, johnson!" shouted arthur, dropping his hat and clapping furiously, and tom joined in with a "bravo, johnson!" which might have been heard at the chapel. "eh! what is it? i didn't see," inquired the master; "they only got one run, i thought?" "no, but such a ball, three-quarters length, and coming straight for his leg-bail.[27] nothing but that turn of the wrist could have saved him, and he drew it away to leg[28] for a safe one. bravo, johnson!" [27] #leg-bail#: part of the wicket. [28] #to leg#: to the left and rear. "how well they are bowling, though," said arthur; "they don't mean to be beat, i can see." "there, now," struck in the master "you see that's just what i have been preaching this half-hour. the delicate play is the true thing. i don't understand cricket, so i don't enjoy those fine draws[29] which you tell me are the best play, though when you or raggles hit a ball hard away for six,[30] i am as delighted as any one. don't you see the analogy?" [29] #draws#: good play by the batsman. [30] #hard away for six#: to the best advantage. "yes, sir," answered tom, looking up roguishly, "i see; only the question remains whether i should have got most good by understanding greek particles or cricket thoroughly. i'm such a thick, i never should have had time for both." "i see you are an incorrigible," said the master, with a chuckle; "but i refute you by an example. arthur there has taken in greek and cricket, too." "yes, but no thanks to him; greek came natural to him. why, when he first came i remember he used to read herodotus[31] for pleasure, as i did don quixote,[32] and couldn't have made a false concord if he tried ever so hard--and then i looked after his cricket." [31] #herodotus#: an early greek writer, "the father of history." [32] #don quixote#: a spanish romance. "out! bailey has given him out--do you see, tom?" cries arthur. " how foolish of them to run so hard!" "well, it can't be helped, he has played very well. whose turn is it to go in?" "i don't know; they've got your list in the tent." "let's go and see," said tom, rising; but at this moment jack raggles and two or three more came running to the island moat. "oh, brown, mayn't i go in next?" shouts the swiper. "whose name is next on the list?" says the captain. "winter's, and then arthur's," answers the boy who carries it; "but there are only twenty-six runs to get, and no time to lose. i heard mr. aislabie say that the stumps must be drawn at a quarter past eight exactly." "oh, do let the swiper go in," chorus the boys; so tom yields against his better judgment. "i dare say now i've lost the match by this nonsense," he says, as he sits down again; "they'll be sure to get jack's wicket in three or four minutes; however, you'll have the chance, sir, of seeing a hard hit or two," adds he, smiling, and turning to the master. "come, none of your irony, brown," answers the master. "i'm beginning to understand the game scientifically. what a noble game it is, too!" "isn't it? but it's more than a game. it's an institution." "yes," said arthur, "the birth-right of british boys old and young, as _habeas corpus_[33] and trial by jury are of british men." [33] #habeas corpus#: a writ for bringing a prisoner before a judge and inquiring into the cause of his detention, its object being to prevent illegal imprisonment. "the discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches, is so valuable, i think," went on the master; "it ought to be such an unselfish game. it merges the individual in the eleven; he doesn't play that he may win, but that his side may." "that's very true," said tom, "and that's why foot-ball and cricket, now one comes to think of it, are much better games than fives or hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to win for one's self, and not that one's side may win." "and then the captain of the eleven!" said the master, "what a post is his in our school-world! almost as hard as the doctor's; requiring skill and gentleness and firmness, and i know not what other rare qualities." "which doesn't he wish he may get!" said tom, laughing; "at any rate he hasn't got them yet, or he wouldn't have been such a flat[34] as to let jack raggles go in, out of his turn." [34] #flat#: fool. "ah, the doctor never would have done that," said arthur, demurely. "tom, you've a great deal to learn yet in the art of ruling." "well, i wish you'd tell the doctor so, then, and get him to let me stop till i'm twenty. i don't want to leave, i'm sure." "what a sight it is," broke in the master, "the doctor as a ruler! perhaps ours is the only little corner in the british empire which is thoroughly, wisely, and strongly ruled just now. i'm more and more thankful every day of my life that i came here to be under him." "so am i, i'm sure," said tom; " and more and more sorry that i've got to leave." "every place and thing one sees here reminds one of some wise act of his," went on the master. "this island now--you remember the time, brown, when it was first laid out in small gardens, and cultivated by frost-bitten fags in february and march?" "of course i do," said tom; "didn't i hate spending two hours in the afternoon grubbing in the tough dirt with the stump of a fives'-bat? but turf-cart[35] was good fun enough." [35] #turf-cart#: tom, with the other boys, used to decorate the "island" in the school-grounds with turf and flowers, which they stole "out of all the gardens in rugby for the easter show." they took the "turf-cart" for this purpose. the "island," by the way, no longer exists. "i dare say it was, but it was always leading to fights with the townspeople; and then the stealing flowers out of all the gardens in rugby for the easter show was abominable." "well, so it was," said tom, looking down, "but we fags couldn't help ourselves. but what has that to do with the doctor's ruling?" "a great deal, i think," said the master; "what brought island-fagging to an end?" "why, the easter speeches were put off till midsummer," said tom, "and the sixth had gymnastic poles put up here." "well, and who changed the time of the speeches, and put the idea of gymnastic poles into the heads of their worships,[36] the sixth form?" said the master. [36] #worships#: here, mock titles of honor. "the doctor, i suppose," said tom. " i never thought of that." "of course you didn't," said the master, "or else, fag as you were, you would have shouted with the whole school against putting down old customs. and that's the way that all the doctor's reforms have been carried out when he has been left to himself,--quietly and naturally, putting a good thing in the place of a bad, and letting the bad die out; no wavering and no hurry,--the best thing that could be done for the time-being, and patience for the rest." "just tom's own way," chimed in arthur, nudging tom with his elbow, "driving a nail where it will go"; to which allusions tom answered by a sly kick. "exactly so," said the master, innocent of the allusion and by-play. jack raggles's innings. meantime jack raggles, with his sleeves tucked up above his great brown elbows, scorning pads and gloves, has presented himself at the wicket; and, having run one for a forward drive off johnson's, is about to receive his first ball. there are only twenty-four runs to make, and four wickets to go down, a winning match if they play decently steady. the ball is a very swift one, and rises fast, catching jack on the outside of the thigh, and bounding away, as if from india-rubber, while they run two for a leg-bye[37] amidst great applause and shouts from jack's many admirers. the next ball is a beautifully pitched ball for the outer stump, which the reckless and unfeeling jack catches hold of, and hits right round to leg for five, while the applause is deafening; only seventeen runs to get with four wickets,--the game is all but ours! [37] #leg-bye#: the ball glances from the batsman's leg. it is over now, and jack walks swaggering about his wicket, with his bat over his shoulder, while mr. aislabie holds a short parley with his men. then the cover-point hitter, that cunning man, goes on to bowl slow twisters. jack waves his hand triumphantly toward the tent, as much as to say: "see if i don't finish it all off now in three hits!" alas, my son jack! the enemy is too old for thee. the first ball of the over, jack steps out and meets, swiping[38] with all his force. if he had only allowed for the twist! but he hasn't, and so the ball goes spinning up straight in the air as if it would never come down again. away runs jack, shouting and trusting to the chapter of accidents, but the bowler runs steadily under it, judging every spin, and calling out: "i have it," catches it, and playfully pitches it on to the back of the stalwart jack, who is departing with a rueful countenance. [38] #swiping#: not a scientific hit. "i knew how it would be," says tom, rising. "come along; the game's getting very serious." so they leave the island and go to the tent, and after deep consultation arthur is sent in, and goes off to the wicket with a last exhortation from tom to play steady and keep his bat straight. to the suggestions that winter is the best bat left tom only replies: "arthur is the steadiest, and johnson will make the runs if the wicket is only kept up." "i am surprised to see arthur in the eleven," said the master, as they stood together in front of the dense crowd, which was now closing in round the ground. "well, i'm not quite sure that he ought to be in for his play,"[39] said tom, "but i couldn't help putting him in. it will do him so much good, and you can't think what i owe him." [39] #his play#: his skill. the finish. the master smiled. the clock strikes eight, and the whole field becomes fevered with excitement. arthur, after two narrow escapes, scores one; and johnson gets the ball. the bowling and fielding are superb, and johnson's batting worthy the occasion. he makes here a two and there a one, managing to keep the ball to himself, and arthur backs up and runs perfectly; only eleven runs to make now, and the crowd scarcely breathe. at last arthur gets the ball again, and actually drives it forward for two, and feels prouder than when he got the three best prizes, at hearing tom's shout of joy, "well played, well played, young un!" but the next ball is too much for a young hand, and his bails fly different ways. nine runs to make, and two wickets to go down--it is too much for human nerves. before winter can get in,[40] the omnibus which is to take the lord's men to the train pulls up at the side of the close, and mr. aislabie and tom consult, and give out that the stumps will be drawn after the next over. and so ends the great match. winter and johnson carry out their bats, and, it being a one day's match, the lord's men are declared the winners, they having scored the most in the first innings. [40] #winter can get in#: before winter can get a chance to play. but such a defeat is a victory; so think tom and all the school eleven, as they accompany their conquerors to the omnibus, and send them off with three ringing cheers, after mr. aislabie had shaken hands all round, saying to tom, "i must compliment you, sir, on your eleven, and i hope we shall have you for a member if you come up to town."[41] [41] #town#: london. as tom and the rest of the eleven were turning back into the close, and everybody was beginning to cry out for another country dance, encouraged by the success of the night before, the young master, who was just leaving the close, stopped him, and asked him to come up to tea at half-past eight, adding, "i won't keep you more than half an hour, and ask arthur to come up, too." "i'll come up with you directly, if you'll let me," said tom, "for i feel rather melancholy, and not quite up to the country dance and supper with the rest." "do, by all means," said the master; "i'll wait for you." so tom went off to get his boots and things from the tent, to tell arthur of the invitation, and to speak to his second in command about stopping the dancing and shutting up the close as soon as it grew dusk. arthur promised to follow as soon as he had had a dance. so tom handed his things over to the man in charge of the tent, and walked quietly away to the gate where the master was waiting, and the two took their way together up the hillmorton road. shut out. of course they found the master's house locked up, and all the servants away in the close, about this time, no doubt, footing it away on the grass with extreme delight to themselves, and in utter oblivion of the unfortunate bachelor, their master, whose one enjoyment in the shape of meals was his "dish of tea" (as our grandmothers called it) in the evening; and the phrase was apt in his case, for he always poured his out into the saucer before drinking. great was the good man's horror at finding himself shut out of his own house. had he been alone he would have treated it as a matter of course, and would have strolled contentedly up and down his gravel-walk until some one came home; but he was hurt at the stain on his character of host, especially as the guest was a pupil. however, the guest seemed to think it a great joke, and presently, as they poked about round the house, mounted a wall, from which he could reach a passage window; the window, as it turned out, was not bolted, so in another minute tom was in the house and down at the front door, which he opened from inside. the master chuckled grimly at this burglarious entry, and insisted on leaving the hall-door and two of the front windows open, to frighten the truants on their return; and then the two set about foraging for tea, in which operation the master was much at fault, having the faintest possible idea of where to find anything, and being moreover wondrously short-sighted; but tom, by a sort of instinct, knew the right cupboards in the kitchen and pantry, and soon managed to place on the snuggery[42] table better materials for a meal than had appeared there probably during the reign of his tutor, who was then and there initiated, amongst other things, into the excellence of that mysterious condiment, a dripping cake. the cake was newly baked, and all rich and flaky; tom had found it reposing in the cook's private cupboard, awaiting her return; and, as a warning to her, they finished it to the last crumb. the kettle sang away merrily on the hob[43] of the snuggery, for, notwithstanding the time of year, they lighted a fire, throwing both the windows wide open at the same time; the heaps of books and papers were pushed away to the other end of the table, and the great solitary engravings of king's college chapel[44] over the mantle-piece looked less stiff than usual, as they settled themselves down in the twilight to the serious drinking of tea. [42] #snuggery#: a small, cosy room. [43] #hob#: that part of a grate on which things are placed to be kept hot. [44] #king's college chapel#: a chapel of king's college, cambridge. it is celebrated for its architectural beauty. harry east. after some talk on the match, and other indifferent subjects, the conversation came naturally back to tom's approaching departure, over which he began again to moan. "well, we shall miss you quite as much as you will miss us," said the master. "you are the nestor[45] of the school now, are you not?" [45] #nestor#: oldest member of the school. "yes, ever since east left," answered tom. "by the bye, have you heard from him?" "yes; i had a letter in february, just before he started for india to join his regiment." "he will make a capital officer." "ay, won't he?" said tom, brightening; "no fellow could handle boys better, and i suppose soldiers are very like boys. and he'll never tell them to go where he won't go himself. no mistake about that,--a braver fellow never walked." "his year in the sixth will have taught him a good deal that will be useful to him now." "so it will," said tom, staring into the fire. "poor dear harry," he went on, "how well i remember the day we were put out of the twenty.[46] how he rose to the situation, and burnt his cigar-cases, and gave away his pistols, and pondered on the constitutional authority[47] of the sixth and his new duties to the doctor, and the fifth form, and the fags. ay, and no fellow ever acted up to them better, though he was always a people's man,--for the fags, and against constituted authorities.[48] he couldn't help that, you know. i'm sure the doctor must have liked him?" said tom, looking up inquiringly. [46] #the twenty#: the fifth form. [47] #constitutional authority#: here, the authority established by school customs. [48] #constituted authorities#: here, the upper-class boys. "the doctor sees the good in every one, and appreciates it," said the master, dogmatically;[49] "but i hope east will get a good colonel. he won't do if he can't respect those above him. how long it took him, even here, to learn the lesson of obeying." [49] #dogmatically#: positively. "well, i wish i were alongside of him," said tom. "if i can't be at rugby, i want to be at work in the world, and not dawdling away three years at oxford." work in the world. "what do you mean by 'at work in the world'?" said the master, pausing, with his lips close to the saucerful of tea, and peering at tom over it. "well, i mean real work; one's profession; whatever one will have really to do, and make one's living by. i want to be doing some real good, feeling that i am not only at play in the world," answered tom, rather puzzled to find out himself what he really did mean. "you are mixing up two very different things in your head, i think, brown," said the master, putting down the empty saucer, "and you ought to get clear about them. you talk of 'working to get your living,' and 'doing some real good in the world,' in the same breath. now, you may be getting a very good living in a profession, and yet doing no good at all in the world, but quite the contrary at the same time. keep the latter before you as your one object, and you will be right, whether you make a living or not; but if you dwell on the other, you'll very likely drop into mere money-making, and let the world take care of itself for good or evil. don't be in a hurry about finding your work in the world for yourself; you are not old enough to judge for yourself yet, but just look about you in the place you find yourself in, and try to make things a little better and honester there. you'll find plenty to keep your hand in at oxford, or wherever else you go. and don't be led away to think this part of the world important, and that unimportant. every corner of the world is important. no man knows whether this part or that is most so, but every man may do some honest work in his own corner." and then the good man went on to talk wisely to tom of the sort of work which he might take up as an undergraduate, and warned him of the prevalent university sins, and explained to him the many and great differences between university and school life; till the twilight changed into darkness, and they heard the truant servants stealing in by the back entrance. the doctor's work. "i wonder where arthur can be," said tom, at last, looking at his watch; "why, it's nearly half-past nine already." "oh, he is comfortably at supper with the eleven, forgetful of his oldest friends," said his master. "nothing has given me greater pleasure," he went on, "than your friendship for him; it has been the making of you both." "of me, at any rate," answered tom; "i should never have been here now but for him. 'twas the luckiest chance in the world that sent him to rugby, and made him my chum." "why do you talk of lucky chances?" said the master. "i don't know that there are any such things in the world; at any rate there was neither luck nor chance in that matter." tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went on: "do you remember when the doctor lectured you and east at the end of one half-year, when you were in the shell, and had been getting into all sorts of scrapes?" "yes, well enough," said tom: "it was the half-year before arthur came." "exactly so," answered the master. "now i was with him a few minutes afterward, and he was in great distress about you two. and, after some talk, we both agreed that you in particular wanted some object in the school beyond games and mischief; for it was quite clear that you never would make the regular school-work your first object. and so the doctor, at the beginning of the next half-year, looked out the best of the new boys, and separated you and east, and put the young boy into your study, in the hope that when you had somebody to lean on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier yourself, and get manliness and thoughtfulness. and i can assure you he has watched the experiment ever since with great satisfaction. ah! not one of you boys will ever know the anxiety you have given him, or the care with which he has watched over every step in your school lives." a new light. up to this time, tom had never wholly given in to or understood the doctor. at first he had thoroughly feared him. for some years, as i have tried to show, he had learned to regard him with love and respect, and to think him a very great, and wise, and good man. but as regarded his own position in the school, of which he was no little proud, tom had no idea of giving any one credit for it but himself; and the truth to tell, was a very self-conceited young gentleman on the subject. he was wont to boast that he had fought his own way fairly up the school, and had never made up to, or been taken up by any big fellow or master, and that it was now quite a different place from what it was when he first came. and, indeed, though he didn't actually boast of it, yet in his secret soul he did to a great extent believe that the great reform in the school had been owing quite as much to himself as to any one else. arthur, he acknowledged, had done him good, and taught him a good deal, so had other boys in different ways, but they had not had the same means of influence on the school in general; and as for the doctor, why he was a splendid master, but every one knew that masters could do very little out of school hours. in short, he felt on terms of equality with his chief, so far as the social state of the school was concerned, and thought that the doctor would find it no easy matter to get on without him. moreover, his school toryism[50] was still strong, and he looked still with some jealousy on the doctor, as somewhat of a fanatic in the matter of change; and thought it very desirable for the school that he should have some wise person (such as himself) to look sharply after vested[51] school rights, and see that nothing was done to the injury of the republic without due protest. [50] #toryism#: here, adherence to the established customs of the school. [51] #vested#: long established; fixed. it was a new light to him to find that, besides teaching the sixth, and governing and guiding the whole school, editing classics, and writing histories, the great headmaster had found time in those busy years to watch over the career, even of him, tom brown, and his particular friends--and, no doubt, of fifty other boys at the same time; and all this without taking the least credit to himself, or seeming to know, or let any one else know, he ever thought particularly of any boy at all. hero-worship. however, the doctor's victory was complete from that moment, over tom brown, at any rate. he gave way, at all points, and the enemy marched right over him,--cavalry, infantry, and artillery, and the land transport corps, and the camp followers. it had taken eight long years to do it, but now it was done thoroughly, and there wasn't a corner of him left which didn't believe in the doctor. had he returned to school again, and the doctor began in the half-year by abolishing fagging, and foot-ball, and the saturday half-holiday, or all or any of the most cherished school institutions, tom would have supported him with the blindest faith. and so, after a half confession of his previous short-comings, and sorrowful adieus to his tutor, from whom he received two beautifully bound volumes of the doctor's sermons, as a parting present, he marched down to the school-house, a hero-worshipper who would have satisfied the soul of thomas carlyle[52] himself. [52] #thomas carlyle#: a distinguished british author, died 1881. one of his best-known books is "heroes and hero worship." there he found the eleven at high jinks after supper, jack raggles shouting comic songs, and performing feats of strength; and was greeted by a chorus of mingled remonstrances at his desertion and joy at his reappearance. and falling in with the humor of the evening was soon as great a boy as all the rest; and at ten o'clock was chaired[53] round the quadrangle, on one of the hall benches, borne aloft by the eleven, shouting in chorus, "for he's a jolly good fellow," while old thomas, in a melting mood, and the other school-house servants stood looking on. [53] #chaired#: here, carried. and the next morning after breakfast he squared up all the cricketing accounts, went round to his tradesmen and other acquaintances, and said his hearty good-byes; and by twelve o'clock was in the train, and away for london, no longer a school-boy, and divided his thoughts between hero-worship, honest regrets over the long stage of his life which was now slipping out of sight behind him, and hopes and resolves for the next stage, upon which he was entering, with all the confidence of a young traveller. chapter ix. finis. "strange friend, past, present, and to be; loved deeplier, darklier understood; behold, i dream a dream of good, and mingle all the world with thee."--_tennyson._ in the summer of 1842, our hero stopped once again at the well-known station; and, leaving his bag and fishing-rod with the porter, walked slowly and sadly up towards the town. it was now july. he had rushed away from oxford the moment the term was over, for a fishing ramble in scotland with two college friends, and had been for three weeks living on oat-cake and mutton-hams, in the wildest parts of skye.[1] they had descended one sultry evening on the little inn at kyle rhea ferry, and, while tom and another of the party put their tackle together and began exploring the stream for a sea-trout for supper, the third strolled into the house to arrange for their entertainment. presently, he came out in a loose blouse and slippers, a short pipe in his mouth, and an old newspaper in his hand, and threw himself on the heathery scrub[2] which met the shingle,[3] within easy hail of the fishermen. there he lay, the picture of free-and-easy, loafing, hand-to-mouth young england, "improving his mind," as he shouted to them, by the perusal of the fortnight-old weekly paper, soiled with the marks of toddy-glasses and tobacco-ashes, the legacy of the last traveller, which he had hunted out from the kitchen of the little hostelry,[4] and, being a youth of a communicative turn of mind, began imparting the contents to the fishermen as he went on. [1] #skye#: an island off the west coast of scotland. [2] #scrub#: stunted shrubs. [3] #shingle#: a pebbly beach. [4] #hostelry#: inn. "what a bother they are making about these wretched corn-laws![5] here's three or four columns full of nothing but sliding-scales and fixed duties.[6] hang this tobacco, it's always going out! ah, here's something better,--a splendid match between kent and england, brown! kent winning by three wickets. felix fifty-six runs without a chance, and not out!" [5] #corn-laws#: laws imposing a heavy tax on imported grain. they made bread dear, and caused great distress among the laboring classes in england. [6] #sliding-scales and fixed duties#: different kinds of revenue tax. tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him twice, answered only with a grunt. "anything about the goodwood?"[7] called out the third man. [7] #goodwood#: a famous annual horse-race. "rory o'more drawn. butterfly colt amiss," shouted the student. "just my luck," grumbled the inquirer, jerking his flies[8] off the water, and throwing again with a heavy sullen splash, and frightening tom's fish. [8] #flies#: artificial flies used as bait. "i say, can't you throw lighter over there? we aren't fishing for grampuses," shouted tom across the stream. "hullo, brown! here's something for you," called out the reading man next moment; "why, your old master, arnold[9] of rugby, is dead." [9] #arnold#: dr. arnold died suddenly at the school on sunday morning, june 12, 1842, the day before his forty-seventh birthday. tom's hand stopped half-way in his cast,[10] and his line and flies went all tangling round and round his rod; you might have knocked him over with a feather. neither of his companions took any notice of him, luckily; and with a violent effort he set to work mechanically to disentangle his line. he felt completely carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if he had lost his standing-point in the invisible world. besides which, the deep loving loyalty which he had felt for his old leader made the shock intensely painful. it was the first great wrench of his life, the first gap which the angel death had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and beaten down and spiritless. well, well! i believe it was good for him and for many others in like case, who had to learn by that loss that the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, and good; but that he upon whom alone it can stand and lean will knock away all such props in his own wise and merciful way, until there is no ground or stay left but himself, the rock of ages, upon whom alone a sure foundation for every soul of man is laid. [10] #cast#: throw. as he wearily labored at his line, the thought struck him: "it may be all false, a mere newspaper lie," and he strode up to the recumbent smoker. "let me look at the paper," said he. "nothing else in it," answered the other, handing it up to him listlessly.[11] "hullo, brown! what's the matter, old fellow--aren't you well?" [11] #listlessly#: carelessly. "where is it?" said tom, turning over the leaves, his hand trembling, and his eyes swimming, so that he could not read. "what? what are you looking for?" said his friend, jumping up and looking over his shoulder. "that--about arnold," said tom. "oh, here," said the other, putting his finger on the paragraph. tom read it over and over again; there could be no mistake of identity, though the account was short enough. "thank you," said he at last, dropping the paper; "i shall go for a walk; don't you and herbert wait supper for me." and away he strode, up over the moor at the back of the house, to be alone, and master his grief if possible. his friend looked after him, sympathizing and wondering; and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, walked over to herbert. after a short parley,[12] they walked together up to the house. [12] #parley#: conversation. "i'm afraid that confounded newspaper has spoiled brown's fun for this trip." "how odd that he should be so fond of his old master," said herbert. yet they, also, were both public-school men. the two, however, notwithstanding tom's prohibition, waited supper for him, and had everything ready when he came back some half an hour afterward. but he could not join in their cheerful talk, and the party was soon silent, notwithstanding the efforts of all three. one thing only had tom resolved, and that was that he couldn't stay in scotland any longer; he felt an irresistible longing to get to rugby, and then home, and soon broke it to the others, who had too much tact to oppose. so by daylight the next morning he was marching through ross-shire, and in the evening hit the caledonian canal, took the next steamer, and travelled as fast as boat and railway could carry him to the rugby station. as he walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid of being seen, and took the back streets; why, he didn't know; but he followed his instinct. at the school-gates he made a dead pause; there was not a soul in the quadrangle,--all was lonely, and silent, and sad. so with another effort he strode through the quadrangle, and into the school-house offices.[13] [13] #offices#: servants' apartments. he found the little matron in her room in deep mourning, shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved nervously about; she was evidently thinking of the same subject as he, but he couldn't begin talking. "where shall i find thomas?" said he at last, getting desperate. "in the servants' hall, i think, sir. but won't you take anything?" said the matron, looking rather disappointed. "no, thank you," said he, and strode off again to find the old verger, who was sitting in his little den as of old, puzzling over hieroglyphics.[14] [14] #hieroglyphics#: here, writing not easily read. he looked up through his spectacles, as tom seized his hand and wrung it. "ah! you heard all about it, sir, i see," said he. tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe-board, while the old man told his tale, and wiped his spectacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint, homely, honest sorrow. by the time he had done, tom felt much better. "where is he buried, thomas?" said he at last. "under the altar in the chapel,[15] sir," answered thomas. "you'd like to have the key, i dare say." [15] #chapel#: the late matthew arnold wrote the following lines on his father's tomb in the chapel:- "o strong soul, by what shore tarriest thou now? for that force, surely, has not been left vain! somewhere, surely, afar, in the sounding labor-house vast of being, is practised that strength, zealous, beneficent, firm! "yes, in some far-shining sphere, conscious or not of the past, still thou performest the word of the spirit in whom thou dost live,- prompt, unwearied, as here! "still thou upraisest with zeal the humble good from the ground, sternly repressest the bad! still, like a trumpet, dost rouse those who with half-open eyes tread the border-land dim 'twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st, succorest!--this was thy work, 'this was thy life upon earth.' "but thou would'st not _alone_ be saved, my father! _alone_ conquer and come to thy goal, leaving the rest in the wild. therefore to thee it was given many to save with thyself; and at the end of thy days, o faithful shepherd! to come, bringing thy sheep in thy hand." _rugby chapel, november, 1857._--_matthew arnold._ "thank you, thomas--yes, i should very much." and the old man fumbled among his bunch, and then got up, as though he would go with him; but after a few steps stopped short, and said: "perhaps you'd like to go by yourself, sir?" tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were handed to him with an injunction to be sure and lock the door after him, and bring them back before eight o'clock. he walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into the close. the longing which had been upon him and driven him thus far, like the gad-fly[16] in the greek legends, giving him no rest in mind or body, seemed all of a sudden not to be satisfied, but to shrivel up, and pall.[17] "why should i go on? it's no use," he thought, and threw himself at full length on the turf, and looked vaguely and listlessly at all the well-known objects. there were a few of the town-boys playing cricket, their wicket pitched on the best piece in the middle of the big-side ground,--a sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a captain of the eleven. he was very nearly getting up to go and send them off. "pshaw! they won't remember me. they've more right there than i," he muttered. and the thought that his sceptre had departed, and his mark was wearing out, came home to him for the first time, and bitterly enough. he was lying on the very spot where the fights came off; where he himself had fought six years ago his first and last battle. he conjured up the scene till he could almost hear the shouts of the ring, and east's whisper in his ear; and looking across the close to the doctor's private door, half expected to see it open, and the tall figure in cap and gown come striding under the elm-trees toward him. [16] #gad-fly#: a gad-fly sent by juno to torment io, a beautiful maiden whom jupiter had transformed into a heifer. [17] #pall#: lose strength. no, no! that sight could never be seen again. there was no flag flying on the round tower;[18] the school-house windows were all shuttered up; and when the flag went up again, and the shutters came down, it would be to welcome a stranger. all that was left on earth of him whom he had honored, was lying cold and still under the chapel floor. he would go in and see the place once more, and then leave it once for all. new men and new methods might do for other people; let those who would, worship the rising star; he at least would be faithful to the sun which had set. and so he got up, and walked to the chapel door and unlocked it, fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on his own selfish sorrow. [18] #round tower#: the entrance to the head-master's residence at rugby is through this tower over which a flag generally flies. he passed through the vestibule[19] and then paused for a moment to glance over the empty benches. his heart was still proud and high, and he walked up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat himself down there to collect his thoughts. [19] #vestibule#: entrance hall or anteroom. and, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order not a little. the memories of eight years were all dancing through his brain, and carrying him about whither they would; while beneath them all, his heart was throbbing with a dull sense of a loss that could never be made up to him. the rays of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted windows above his head, and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit little by little. and he turned to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then, leaning forward with his head on his hands, groaned aloud, "if he could only have seen the doctor again for one five minutes, have told him all that was in his heart, what he owed to him, how he loved and reverenced him, and would, by god's help, follow his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all without a murmur. but that he should have gone away forever without knowing it all, was too much to bear. but am i sure that he does not know it all?"--the thought made him start. "may he not even now be near me, in this very chapel? if he be, am i sorrowing as he would have me sorrow--as i should wish to have sorrowed when i shall meet him again?" he raised himself up and looked round; and after a minute rose and walked humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat down on the very seat which he had occupied on his first sunday at rugby. and then the old memories rushed back again, but softened and subdued, and soothing him as he felt himself carried away by them. and he looked up at the great painted window above the altar, and remembered how when a little boy he used to try not to look through it at the elm-trees and the rooks, before the painted glass came--and the subscription for the painted glass, and the letter he wrote home for money to give to it. and there, down below, was the very name of the boy who sat on his right hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the oak panelling. and then came the thought of all his old schoolfellows; and form after form of boys, nobler and braver and purer than he, rose up and seemed to rebuke him. could he not think of them, and what they had felt and were feeling, they who had honored and loved from the first the man whom he had taken years to know and love? could he not think of those yet dearer to him who were gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, and were now without a husband or a father? then the grief which he began to share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose up once more, and walked up the steps to the altar, and, while the tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully, to lay down there his share of a burden which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own strength. here let us leave him--where better could we leave him than at the altar, before which he had first caught a glimpse of the glory of his birth-right,[20] and felt the dawning of the bond which links all living souls together in one brotherhood--at the grave, beneath the altar, of him who had opened his eyes to see that glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that bond? [20] #birth-right#: here, the highest manhood. (see ephesians iv. 13.) and let us not be hard on him, if at that moment his soul is fuller of the tomb and him who lies there than of the altar and him of whom it speaks. such stages have to be gone through, i believe, by all young and brave souls who must win their way, through hero worship, to the worship of him who is the king and lord of heroes. for it is only through our mysterious human relationships, through the love, and tenderness, and purity of mothers, and sisters, and wives, through the strength, and courage, and wisdom of fathers, and brothers, and teachers, that we can come to the knowledge of him, in whom alone the love, and the tenderness, and the purity, and the strength, and the courage, and the wisdom of all these dwell for ever and ever in perfect fulness. index to notes. [d.h.m.] a, 44 accidence, 163 achates, 257 act'ly, 87 addled, 271 adscriptus glebæ, 18 affected, 202 a fortiori, 24 agamemnon, 314 aganippe, 258 agincourt, 2 aim, 35 alfred, 11 allowance, 322 alma, 12 amateur nest, 250 amateurs, 290 ambrosial, 251 amy robsart, 97 angular saxon, 18 a'nigst, 41 antediluvian, 15 argus, 164 arnold, dr., 372 arra, 37 arter, 85 arthur, 239 asser, 12 assizes, 21 at large, 160 baal, 228 babel, 165 backsword, 8 bagmen, 82 bails, 349 balak, 11 balances, 197 balliol, 127 barrows, 14 basket handle, 38 bath, 296 bating, 133 beagles, 128 beating, 271 bee-orchis, 7 beggars, 182, 205 belauded, 66 belle sauvage, 74 bell's life, 281 bequest, 303 berks, 5 berkshire, 8 bewick, 252 big school, 147 bile, 266 bill, 2 bird-fancier, 253 birth-right, 379 biscuit, 77 bist, 26 bi'st, 89 black, 208 blackies, 310 black monday, 7 blethering, 41 blowing, 263 blown, 293 bob, 208 bolstering, 158 bona fide, 45 books, 95, 182 boomerang, 310 booths, 32 boots, 73 border-farmer, 251 bore, 119 bounds, 70 bout, 4 bowls, 90 boxes, 74 box's head, 87 braces, 106 break cover, 27 brownsover, 201 brown study, 75 buckskins, 34 bucolics, 163 bulls'-eyes, 69 bumptiousness, 95 burgess, 84 butts, 7 buxom, 76 byes, 350 cairn, 10 cairngorm, 321 cajoleries, 184 calico, 19 calling over, 96 callow, 250 caloric, 79 camp, 10 canes, 105 cant, 301 cap and gown, 104 caravans, 34 cardinal, 26 carlyle, 369 carte blanche, 105 cast, 372 castor, 38 casts, 152 catskin, 94 chaff, 37 chaffinch, 272 chaired, 369 chalet, 23 chambers, 4 chapel, 375 charley, 8 chartered, 195 chartism, 239 chaw, 19 cheap jacks, 33 cheroot, 76 chesapeake and shannon, 124 china orange, 112 chivalrous, 285 choleric, 58 chorus, 325 chronicler, 12 churchwarden windows, 328 cicerone, 95 civil wars, 7 clanship, 3 clement's inn, 22 clerk, 310 clever, 167 close, 57, 100 cloth-yard shaft, 2 coach, 284 cob, 88 cobs, 351 cock, the, 150 cock, 309 cock of the house, 200 cockpit, 180 cogitation, 250 colleagues, 169 combes, 321 comme, etc., 23 concord, 261 confirmed, 338 congenial, 236 constituted authorities, 364 constitutional, 275 constitutional authority, 364 construe, 144 convivial, 174 convoy, 97 corn-laws, 371 corn market, 161 cornopean, 159 corollary, 57 cosmopolite, 8 costermonger, 48 counter, 292 country sides, 49 county members, 89 courier, 22 courts, 238 coventry, 175 cover, 8, 191 coverley, 43 cover-point, 350 coxiest, 185 cressy, 2 cribbed, 261 cribs, 312 crichton, 56 cricket, 32 cromlech, 14 crotchet, 4 culverin, 2 curacy, 4 curry favor, 338 cut, 105, 176, 191 cut out, 290 derby, 182 derogatory, 218 digamma, 77 dingle, 51 dips, 132 doctor, 127 dogmatically, 364 don, 21 don quixote, 355 dot, 309 dowager, 238 down, 7 down shepherd, 37 doyle, 1 drag, 77 dragoons, 30 dramatis personæ, 283 drat, 26 draw, 191 drawing, 183 draws, 354 dresden, 7 dresser, 53 dulce domum, 7 'e, 17 ear-marked, 199 earth, 342 ee, 41 ees, 276 egypt, 330 elaborate, 260 elect, 339 elegiac, 260 eleven, 221 elijah, 228 elysium, 165 embrangle, 56 ensconce, 251 entity, 139 environments, 24 ephemeræ, 206 et ceteras, 267 ethnology, 309 eton, 323 exercised, 342 exhibitions, 346 experto crede, 262 extempore, 257 eyrie, 10 fagging, 101 fairings, 33 fat living, 238 feint, 39, 292 felonious, 273 felony, 68 fetish, 28 fiery cross, 16 file, 90 first-class carriages, 79 first-day boys, 86 first-floor, 84 fives' court, 100 flank, 314 flat, 356 flies, 371 flitch, 53 float, 29 floored, 265 fond, 113 foot-ball, 101 footman, 64 foozling, 271 form, 168 forms, 60 freeholders, 18 frontispiece, 292 frowzy, 199 fugle-man, 124 functionary, 24 funk, 135, 232 fustian, 34 gable ended, 150 gaby, 68 gad-fly, 376 gamester, 30 gammon, 312 gee, 208 gee'd 'em, 279 generic, 139 genus, 261 geordie, 306 get in, 360 gi's, 43 goodwood, 371 gorse, 8 goth, 328 gradus, 246 grampus, 333 grapnel, 45 gravelled, 298 green rides, 64 grewsome, 16 grey, 242 grimaldi, 97 guard, 78 habeas corpus, 356 hack, 81 hacks, 101 half, 190 half-a-crown, 184 half-a-sov., 95 half-sovereign, 37 hamper, 78 hand-grenade, 2 handle, 290 hands, 296 hard all, 291 hard away, 354 hard-bitten, 347 hare and hounds, 28 harriers, 128 he, 37 head, 293, 294 hector, 283 hecuba, 163 hedge, 184 heir-apparent, 27 helen, 283 herodotus, 355 hieroglyphics, 374 high, 273 high feather, 266 highflyer, 160 high street, 84 hind-boot, 78 hoar-frost, 79 hob, 363 holus bolus, 23 homely, 157, 239 homer's iliad, 283 hop-picking, 22 horn, 17 hostelry, 371 hot-foot, 206 houses of palaver, 182 humble-bees, 70 impecuniosity, 177 imperial, 22 impounded, 106 incarnation, 147 incongruous, 260 ingle, 53 inigo jones, 14 innings, 351 integuments, 61 intrinsic, 259 ishmaelites, 197 island, 101 islington, 73 itinerant, 114 jack, 201 j. p., 19 jobbers, 20 john, 46 jug, 15, 142 jugs, 132 keeper, 13 keepers, 203 ken, 344 kestrel, 256 king's college chapel, 363 kit, 72 knee, 290 knights, 353 kossuth, 196 kraal, 23 laid, 7 lakes, 346 lancet windows, 32 land me, 339 larking, 108 last, 330 law, 150 learned poet, 24 leastway, 276 leg, 354 leg-bail, 354 leg-bye, 359 legitimate, 33 leg-shooter, 351 leicestershire, 151 lessons, 237 levy, 175 lieges, 20 life-guardsman, 44 lift, 93 likely, 205 line, 331 lissom, 52 listlessly, 372 living, 239 locus penitentiæ, 326 lodge, 82 lombard street, 112 long-stop, 349 lord craven, 14 lord grey, 242 lord's grounds, 346 lotus-eaters, 205 louts, 123 louvre, 7 lunging hits, 292 lupus, 167 lurcher, 52 magnates, 300 magpie, 248 malice prepense, 301 malignant, 17 manor, 50 map, 11 marianas, 18 marryat, 218 marylebone, 304 martinmas, 35 match, 208 matriculating, 1 maudlin, 132 medes and persians, 131 medicine-man, 309 meet, 81 mentor, 94 mercies, 339 midge, 333 midland, 237 mill, 282 miltons, 53 minds, 35 minimum, 259 missive, 67 mistletoe, 268 moated grange, 18 momus, 325 moor, 321 more by token, 13 moss-troopers, 252 mucker, 177 muff, 132 mullioned, 58 mummers, 19 munitions, 266 muzzling, 37 mysteries, 20 necromancer, 71 nem. con., 284 nestor, 363 nether, 61 nicias's galleys, 157 nominally, 182 nor, 85 normal, 251 no side, 117 n[)o]table, 25 nother, 53 occult, 50 off, 350 offices, 374 old berkshire, 8 old john, 46 old man with a scythe, 4 ominous, 191 opodeldoc, 118 ordnance map, 11 oriel window, 92 outlaws, 200 over, 348 palaver, 182, 196 palaver houses, 46 pall, 376 pan-pipe, 34 pap-bottle, 232 parley, 373 parrying, 292 partisans, 291 pater brooke, 125 pattens, 27 peaching, 176 peas'n, 276 pea-shooters, 85 peat, 321 pecking-bag, 267 pellets, 100 pence, 36 penates, 181 penny, 36 petty sessions, 29 pewter, 255 phosphorus, 71 pickwick papers, 171 pie match, 308 pig and whistle, 85 pikeman, 79 pillion, 28 pink, 81 pinks, 83 pipe, 34 plancus, 109, 258 plantations, 16 play, 291, 333, 360 poaching, 38 po-chay, 91 pop-joying, 29 portmanteau, 78 post-boys, 159 post-chaise, 73 pottered, 33 pound, 6 præpostors, 99 predicate, 281 premising, 175 priggism, 46 primum tempus, 68 prisoner's base, 61 privateers, 142 privet, 13 profane, 286 progenitors, 57 proselytizing, 242 public, 15 publican, 51, 228 public schools, 66 pull, 140, 293 purely, 35 puritan, 26 purl, 81 pusey horn, 17 pyrenees, 114 quadrangle, 94 quaint, 36 quantities, 261 quarter, 293 quarter sessions, 21 quickset, 272 quit, 170 quixotic, 4 quoits, 90 rashers, 82 rating, 168 raven, 64 reaches, 201 reading, 99 reconnoitered, 59 red tape, 46 regulation catskin, 94 regulator, 85 richard swiveller, 9 rodney, 2 roc, 263 roman camp, 10 rota, 142 round tower, 376 rug, 79 rugby, 72 rum, 246 rum un, 87 runs, 348 russia, 108 sacer vates, 2 sack, 325 salver, 238 sampler, 53 sapped, 336 sappers and miners, 11 sar' it out, 23 sauce-pan, 181 sauer-kraut, 7 saxon, 18 saxons, 12 scan, 261 scatter-brain, 24 science, 98 scoring-table, 349 scrub, 370 scythe, 4 seal, 319 sebastopol, 251 sedan-chair, 121 sedge-bird, 271 servants' hall, 61 sessions, 21 set-tos, 353 sets, 146 settle, 53 seven and sixers, 95 sheep-walks, 14 shell, 105 shell lesson, 284 sheridan knowles, 328 sheriff, 348 shilling, 6 shingle, 370 shovel, 42 side, 117 silver, 208 sindbad, 263 sirens, 22 sir roger de coverley, 43 sir walter, 14 six minutes' law, 150 skittles, 46 skye, 370 sliding-scales, 371 slithering, 269 slogger, 287 smock frocks, 19 snob, 330 snuggery, 362 sodden, 291 sold, 198 somersetshire, 30 sovereign, 37 sparring, 129 spinney, 8 sponge, 296 sprats, 289 spring-board, 202 sprung, 192 squaretoes, 325 squire, 17 stage, 80 st. albans, 80 stall, 238 standard, 333 staple, 165 star, 74 statute feasts, 31 steeple-chase, 97 sterling, 181 st. george, 13 stickleback, 28 stiggins, mr., 9 stolid, 55 stone, 3 studies, 96 study-fagging, 178 stuff, 34 stump, 349 stumped, 354 summary, 288 summut, 41 surrey, 322 swarmed, 269 swiper jack, 350 swiping, 359 swiss family robinson, 58 swiveller, richard, 9 tabor, 34 tacitly, 282 tackle, 81 tackle-maker, 204 tails, 177 talbots, 2 tally-ho, 73 tap, 83 taxidermy, 252 team, 350 technicalities, 103 ten-pound doctor, 20 thatched, 9 thick, 154 three-decker, 147 three pound ten, 6 thunder-and-lightning, 292 tick, 119 ticket-of-leave-men, 200 tie, 44 tighe, 17 tile, 94 tip, 87 tithe, 167 tizzy, 184 toady, 47, 176 toby philpot jug, 15 toco, 112 toffee, 69 tom crib, 98 top-boots, 34 topping, 351 tors, 321 tory, 57 toryism, 368 toss-up, 201 town, 361 treadmill, 5 trencher, 82 true blue, 57 tuck, 291 tuck-shop, 119 tuppence, 36 turf-cart, 357 turnspit, 49 turret, 297 tutelage, 32 twenty, the, 364 twisters, 322 twod, 41 two seven and sixers, 95 um, 16 umpire, 40 un, 16 uncovenanted mercies, 339 unctuous, 290 usher, 66 utopian, 238 valeted, 28 van, 85 vantage-ground, 152 veathers, 41 velveteens, 204 verger, 100 vernacular, 19 verses, 182 vested, 368 vested interest, 196 vestibule, 377 vestry, 57 veto, 165 vicarious, 262 vice, 332 vizes, 44 vlush, 41 volition, 256 vools, 19 wainscoted, 82 war, the, 237 'ware, 274 wash, 232 waterloo, 116 wattle, 151 way-bill, 83 wayland smith's cave, 14 wench, 35 west-countryman, 18 west end clubs, 46 whey, 26 whum, 19 wicket, 52 wickets, 90, 346 wig, 28 will-he, nill-he, 105 william iv., 133 wiltshire, 30 winded, 293 windsor castle, 98 wiseacre, 325 wiseacres, 213 wooy, 37 worships, 358 wos-bird, 42 wur, 44 wykeham, 259 yeast, 45 yeomanry, 21, 238 yeomen, 1 yule-tide, 19 transcriber's notes 1. passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. 2. passages in bold are indicated by #bold#. 3. footnotes have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the end of the paragraph referring to the particular footnote. 4. the original text includes greek characters. for this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations. 5. obvious punctuation errors have been silently corrected, such as, addition of missing period at the end of sentences, etc. 6. other than the changes listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. 