H.M.I.: Some Passages in the Life of One of H.M. Inspectors of Schools

But not all. I stopped in the hall to search my great-coat pocket for my pipe, and I overheard the farewell of the Archdeacon. Domestic circumstances called him home, and the Canon remained to see him off the premises. It fell to me, therefore, to break to the others the news that the venerable one would not join them. They bore up.

“He can’t take my new hat,” said the Rev. Patrick O’Brien, LL.D., “it hasn’t the curly brim: but he gets first pick of the umbrellas. I suppose he was created for some wise purpose, but he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t talk, and he doesn’t smoke. Hwat can ye do with um?” And he lit a fat cigar.

“Reminds me of what Topers of Brasenose said to the Professor,” commented an elderly rector named Oldbury: (Oxford; high and dry; broadcloth, silk hat, bit of a squarson; good old chap). “Do you remember Topers?” he asked me.

I pleaded comparative youth.

“Ah, of course. Well, Topers and another man were dining at Balliol High Table with one of the dons, and the only other don present was Professor Aldrich, who hated Topers and all his ways, and was infinitely disgusted to meet him as a guest. Topers was quick to see this, and excelled himself in wit and anecdote, while the Professor was mute. The dinner was prolonged: the undergraduates departed: even the scholar whose duty it was to say Grace was released, when Topers turned to his host, and pleaded for a bottle of that admirable Balliol port to mellow the Stilton. This was too much for Aldrich: he got up and said, ‘Gentlemen, you will find coffee in the Common-room, when you are ready for it,’ and he was stalking down the empty hall.

“Topers rose from his seat with tragic solemnity: ‘Go, sir,’ he said, with a majestic wave of his hand, ‘and take with you that appreciation of the good things of this world which Heaven has not given you, and the conversation of which we have heard not a word.’”

Ah me! As the others laughed, I saw the old Hall, now used as a library, the three black-gowned figures at High Table, the empty Hall half-lighted, and at the far end two or three scouts who were clearing away dishes, turning stupidly to stare at the short square don with firm-set chin and gleaming eyes; while John de Baliol, Dervorguilla, his wife, “and others, benefactors of this college,” in their gilt-framed pictures, looked on with the cold impartiality of Gallio.

“Topers was a brilliant man,” said Miller, free from his Archdeacon: “he had the marvellous gift of concentration which so few possess.”

“Would you call it absorption, Canon?” murmured Johnson: and there was a stifled laugh, which annoyed Miller: Topers’ weakness was notorious.

“Concentration, I prefer. Day after day he used to go to Parker’s, the bookseller’s in the Broad, and take up the new book of the day. As he stood there, he read in spite of all distractions, and picked the entire marrow of it before he came away. What a faculty for a barrister, a judge, a statesman to possess! Yet he did nothing but make epigrammatical remarks which are mostly forgotten. I never meet a man called Littler without thinking of Topers. Littler came up for vivâ voce in Collections: ‘Mr. Littler,’ said Topers with venomous looks, ‘your Greek prose is disgusting, your Latin prose is disgusting, your translation is disgusting, and your name is ungrammatical.’”

“What was his name?” asked Goodfellow, whose mind travels slowly.

“Topers,” said the narrator hastily, determined that there should be no more post mortems; and went on, while Goodfellow pondered on the grammatical defects of this proper noun: “It was severe; but a more caustic address is recorded of the great Dean Mansel. That eminent philosopher was examining a raw Cockney in Greek. The lad came to the word ‘hippos,’ which he pronounced ‘ippos,’ and translated ‘orse.’ ‘I can understand your calling it ORSE,’ drawled Mansel, ‘for I suppose your father and mother called it ORSE, and you never heard it called anything else: but I can’t conceive why you should call it IPPOS, because I don’t suppose they ever heard the expression.’”

“Mansel was great,” Oldbury remarked: “Tommy Short was brilliant: greatest and most brilliant was Henry Smith of Balliol. Did you ever hear his comment on the mathematical papers of two of his friends? Brown and Jones were in for what is called ‘Second Schools,’ that is to say, a pass in Mathematical Greats after the Classical Honours examination. ‘How did you get on to-day, Mr. Brown?’ he asked.

“Brown produced the paper of Questions: ‘In the Euclid I did that, and that, and that; I left out those, and I had a shot at those. In the Algebra I did those, and left out those.’

“‘Oh yes,’ said Smith, without faintest comment: ‘and Mr. Jones, what did he do?’

“‘In the Euclid he did those, and left out those; in the Algebra he did those and left out those.’

“‘Oh yes,’ said Smith with increased politeness: ‘then I should think he would be ploughed TOO.’”

What evil spirit prompted Robin Goodfellow to rush into the fray? When was any anecdote of his not condemned? Yet at this moment he started forward:

“I say, I heard a good story the other day,” he began, chuckling feebly at the reminiscence; “and I doubt if even you, Miller, ever heard it before. A woman brought her girl to be christened, and when the parson, you know, asked her to name the child, she said, ‘Luthy thir,’ because she lisped, don’t you know. ‘Lucifer!’ said the parson, ‘you might as well call him Beelzebub: I shall christen him John,’ and so he did. Good, wasn’t it?”

The story was not well received. “You’ve forgotten the end, Robin,” shouted one man: “when I first heard that story at a private school in Lancashire about thirty years ago, it went on:

“But the father muttered, ‘Tha’st called hoo Jahn, and hoo’s a wench.’” (General assent.)

The Canon rose wrathfully from his seat: “Goodfellow, you call that a new story! do you know that it is to be found in the ‘Life of St. Augustine,’ in the chapter describing his reception in Kent in the year 596? Where is the book?” And he went to the bookshelves, picked up a huge folio, and read with some fluency:

“Now that is very interesting,” interposed Johnson, to give the Canon time. “You see ‘Fons’ would not be the font, of course, but a spring: Augustine, no doubt, was preaching on a hillside, and at the foot in the meadow there would be a fons, or spring. I beg pardon for interrupting you, Miller.”

“Not at all,” said the Canon, grinning with complete understanding of the motive: he had spent the interval in careful study of the folio, and now resumed more easily:

“Is it ‘erat’ or ‘esset’?” enquired Johnson, with kindly concern for the Latinity of Augustine, or his biographer.

“‘Esset’ of course: it’s the vilest print,” said the Canon, smothering a laugh: “where was I? h’m, h’m”:

“There, Goodfellow, I think that settles the antiquity of your story.”

With furtive laughter we applauded the student of Augustine. Robin, who like Cedric at Torquilstone, was a little deaf in his Latin ear, asked to be allowed to read the passage for himself: but it happened most unfortunately that as the book was being handed to him, it fell, and the reference was lost, nor could it be found again. The conversation was hurriedly changed by Johnson, who congratulated the Canon on his intimate acquaintance with the Fathers, and also with the Latin language.

“Some of us,” he went on to say, “get a little rusty in our dead languages. Last month I was dining with my squire (who, you know, is a scholarly man) and a clerical friend, who shall be nameless, was there. The squire reads the lessons for me: he does it well, and the people like to hear him. After dinner he suddenly asked me whether in reading the Revelation he ought to say ‘õ-mĕgã’ as a dactyl with the accent on the O, or ‘õ mégger’ as two words, if you understand me. I said the latter might be right, but it would be as pedantic as Samarĩa, or Alexandrĩa: I preferred the former. And my clerical brother volunteered approval: he said it was õmĕgã in the original Hebrew. And he made the statement quite with the air of a man who had the gift of tongues more than we all. The squire stared, but we made no remark, and the fellow’s complacency was undisturbed.”

Oldbury remarked that not all of us lose our acquaintance with the classics. He had written lately to the Bishop in reply to a request for information as to church attendance: and had stated that on Sunday mornings the attendance was very good, especially in the case of aged people; but whether that was due to piety, or to the necessity of adducing regular church-going as a condition precedent of benefiting by Tomkins’ dole, he should be sorry to say. And the Bishop wrote back:

“Sit dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?”

Oldbury considered that neat. But Miller objected that it only went to show that even a bishop knew the second “Æneid.”

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” said a man opposite, who was the Diocesan Inspector of Religious Knowledge; “I was complaining to Squire B., who, you know, made his money in the Black Country, about the character of his schoolmaster, a notoriously intemperate man:

“‘Well of course,’ replied the squire, ‘if we ever found him drunk, we should give him his sine quâ non at once.’”

Goodfellow had been pondering silently. At this point he pushed his chair near Johnson’s, and whispered, “I say, did Joe Miller make up all that rot about St. Augustine?”

“My dear chap,” replied Johnson soothingly, “what, all that? ‘Bradley’s Exercises’ couldn’t have done it right off: it would have taken Cicero all his time.”

“Well, of course, it was a long story,” Robin admitted; and confidence was partially restored. A bold stroke of Miller’s completed the work. I think he must have overheard part of Robin’s question, as he passed behind us to concoct a parting drink for O’Brien. He returned with a post card in his hand.

“Talking of Latin reminds me that I got a Latin postcard from an old Oxford friend this morning, which you may like to hear:

“‘Dives quidam ad portas’—h’m, let me translate it to save time.”

“Which, I think, we may translate ‘give him twopence, and send him downstairs.’ Like to see the card, Goodfellow?” And Robin was satisfied, though the Latin was beyond his grasp. “Is it St. Augustine?” he asked.

“Ulpian, I think, from the style,” replied Miller; and Robin tacitly admitted Ulpian into the company of Early Fathers.

“I have a lot of these cards,” said Miller; “my friend supplies me with the Common Room anecdotes in this inexpensive manner. Here is another, which I give in English—for the sake of the Inspector:”

“What is the Attendĩte?” I asked.

“The 78th Psalm, ‘Attendĩte, popule,’ ‘Hear My law, O ye people’; 15th evening, don’t you know?”

“Short!” said Goodfellow: “it’s 73 verses!”

And he hasn’t seen the joke yet.

O’Brien finished his stirrup-cup, and obtained leave to go home: he had a seven miles’ drive. I was not sorry to lose him, for I disliked the man, though he had the merit of furnishing the diocese with a good story. It is said that when he went up for Ordination, the Bishop put him up for the night, or nights, at the Palace with the other candidates; and on the Saturday night, though there were no outside guests, the examining chaplains and the future priests and deacons made a large party at dinner. About half way through the meal the attention of all was arrested by the voice of Mr. O’Brien addressing the Bishop:

“Have ye read my sermon, my lord?” (It appears that each candidate had to submit a sample sermon for the episcopal criticism.)

“Not yet, Mr.—er——”

“O’Brien, my lord.”

“Mr. O’Brien, I have not yet had time: may I ask what is the subject that you have chosen?”

“It’s on the Atonement, my lord.”

The Bishop shuddered, and replied coldly: “You have chosen a very difficult subject, Mr. O’Brien.”

“Faith, my lord, it’s signs ye haven’t read it, or ye’d say it was easy enough.”

But he was ordained, and, still more surprising, he found a woman with money to marry him. With her money he bought a good living and settled down in the country. As the late Master of Trinity would have said, “The little time he could spare from the neglect of his parochial duties he devoted to the breeding of prize poultry;” and on that point his opinion was deemed valuable. Also he had the national fluency, and the Colonial and Continental Society offered him holiday chaplaincies in the choicest spots of Middle Europe.

“What is the name of Dr. O’Brien’s parish?” I asked the Canon, when he came back from the door: “I don’t meet him in any school.”

“Exby: he succeeded a very different man, old Wright, of whom many stories are told. It is not a college living, but Wright had been a don for many years, and, having a good bit of money, bought Exby sooner than wait any longer for Zedtown, his fat college living. He never married, and he kept up his Common Room habits, especially including the rubber, which was the delight of his life. But he was a very prudent man, and he didn’t like losing his money. If he was losing, he went to bed early: if he was winning, he would sit up all night, or as long as he could get the other men to sit up. One night, they say, he had a great run of luck, and went on playing till after the early hours of the morning: in fact, it was about five, when they heard a most fearful rumbling in the chimney, increasing in noise, till at last with a cloud of soot a black apparition in human form descended, and stood on the hearthstone.

“I may tell you in confidence that it was only the sweep: his proceedings were perfectly in order, but the servants had omitted to notify the Rector that the visit was impending.

“The gamblers, and especially the Rector, reasonably concluded that it was the Prince of Darkness, who had come to carry them off; and they started from the table. Old Wright dropped on his knees, and held up his trembling hands with a goodly assortment of trumps and court-cards, and stammered out:

“‘Spare me, oh, spare me, till I have finished the rubber.’”

All the “Ruri-deacons,” as Miller called them, knew the story; but familiarity with it even now cannot hinder me from laughing in sleepless hours of the night at the picture of the blear-eyed four, with shattered nerves, clinging to the table, and gazing at the still more startled sweep.

“I knew Wright,” said one on my right: “he told me he used to keep his store of money in £5 notes which he hid in a volume of Tillotson’s sermons in his study. I asked, ‘Why Tillotson?’ and he said, ‘Because it is not likely that a burglar would be fond of sermons, and if he was, he wouldn’t want to read Tillotson.’”

It needs some acquaintance with Tillotson to get the full aroma of this appreciation.

“He was a great man for schools, Inspector,” said another: “used to do all the thrashing for the schoolmistress; and one time he did his duty to a boy so nobly that the mother came to complain. ‘You know, parson,’ she said, ‘as Scripture says as a man should be merciful to his beast.’

“‘But he wasn’t my beast, Mrs. Green,’ retorted old Wright: and she was so much pleased with the homely repartee that she retired chuckling.”

“Have you met O’Brien’s new Curate, Rogers, yet?” said Johnson to the Rural Dean. “A very different man from our friend. He told me of a singular experience that befell a fellow student: he was, you know, formerly a Dissenter of sorts, and was educated at one of their colleges.”

“That accounts for the excellence of his preaching, I suppose?” said our cynical host.

“No doubt,” replied the narrator coolly; “any how, he is a good fellow. Well, at those colleges it is the custom to send out students to preach in outlying districts, both to give them the confidence that comes from experiments on vile bodies, and also to keep the cause together. One Saturday afternoon Rogers’ friend was sent off with instructions to go some miles by train; then to walk two miles to Blankby; and there to ask the way to Mudby, where one John Hodge would put him up for the night. He got all right to Blankby, and so on to Mudby. Then he enquired for Mr. Hodge.

“‘Which Mr.’Odge would ’a be?’

“He explained that he was going to preach at the chapel next day; and it was agreed that Jahn ’Odge o’ th’ owd farm, being great wi’ th’ chapel folk, was like to be the mon, and full directions were given. As that sort of people always tells you ‘right,’ when they mean ‘left,’ it was late and dark when the missioner arrived. Old Mrs. Hodge opened the door, and admitted his plea for hospitality. Her husband had not yet come in. It was a mere cottage, and the evening meal did not take long. Noticing that her guest was weary, the dame suggested, ‘’appen yo’d loike ta goo ta bed?’ He gladly agreed, and followed his hostess. As he went, it struck him that there were not many rooms, but it was not his affair, and he was soon in bed and asleep. He knew not at what later hour he felt a dig in the ribs, saw a light, and heard Mrs. Hodge’s voice:

“‘Thee move a bit furder on, yoong mon: theer’s me an’ my owd mon to coom yet.’”

“Oh, but that is good,” shouted Miller, “and I don’t care whether it is true or not. Not going away, Oldbury? Tell the Inspector the story of Wilberforce and Lady A. before you go. He has never heard it.”

“I always obey my Rural Dean,” said Oldbury. “The story was told me many years ago by a pillar of the Church, and I think it is little known.

“It was at the time of the Crimean War that the Bishop was dining at a solemn banquet given by one of the Peelite Ministry of that time. There were three or four ministers present, and among the ladies was an illustrious Marchioness, Lady A. She sat next to the Bishop, and when the solemnity of the statesmen had killed all other conversation, they became aware that the Church and the world were still full of life. And this is what they heard:

Lady A. Do you ever go down to Boreham now, Bishop?

Bishop. It is seldom that I can find time: but from old associations the place has a peculiar interest for me. Last year I was fortunate enough to be able to accept an invitation from my friend Mr. Goodheart, and at dinner I sat next a very worthy, elderly, man of the name of Polycarp, who in a very touching manner was recounting to me the many blessings which he had received in the course of a life prolonged beyond the usual limits.

Lady A. (stifling a yawn). Dear me, Bishop.

Bishop. Yes: and it appeared that he considered the chief of his blessings to be that he had had twenty-three children. And while I was trying to find words to express my opinion that some people might regard that as a not unmixed blessing, a black-eyed lady, whom I had observed to be listening with much attention to our conversation, leant across the table, and said with remarkable distinctness: ‘Only Sixteen by me, Mr. Polycarp.’”

“Good-night, Miller. Good-night, Mr. Inspector.”

Solvuntur risu tabulae; they all went home. But the night was still young, and Miller and I drew up our chairs to the fire.

“Good men, and true!” said the Rural Dean, turning over in his hands a bundle of the Oxford postcards. I was turning over in my mind the men to whom I had just bidden farewell. One puzzled me:

“Who was the big man with gold spectacles, sitting next O’Brien; hardly spoke a word all the time?” I asked.

“Gold spectacles? Oh, old Weights of Slobury; most worthy, but not lively. There is a story of him. It is said that when the new railway was being made through his parish, he one day paid a pastoral visit to the navvies’ huts; and having gained admission to one hut, he talked and read till the master grew weary, and suggested that it was about tea-time. Weights took the hint, and his leave. As he closed the door, the man pointed compassionately over his shoulder at the ponderously retreating figure, and muttered:

“‘Theer goos a good navvy—spiled.’”

“But here, Inspector,” he continued, “here is a postcard that will suit you. You were at Balliol, were you not?”

He gave it to me, and it may be anglicised thus: