Chapter Five.
School Troubles.
The sorrows of thy youthful day Shall make thee wise in coming years! The brightest rainbows ever play Above the fountains of our tears.
Mackay.
Walter jumped up and began to dress at once; Eden, still looking pale and frightened, soon followed his example, and recognised him with a smile of gratitude. None of the other five boys who occupied the room thought of stirring until the chapel-bell began to ring, which left them the ample space of a quarter of an hour for their orisons, ablutions, and all other necessary preparations!
Walter, who was now half-dressed, glanced at them as they got up, to discover the owner of the slipper, which he still kept in his possession. He watched for the one-sandalled enemy as eagerly as Pelias may be supposed to have done. First Jones tumbled out of bed, not even deigning a surly recognition, but Jones had his right complement of slippers. Then two other fellows, named Anthony and Franklin, not quite so big as Jones; their slippers were all right. Then Cradock, who looked a little shyly at Eden, and, after a while, told him that he was only playing a joke the night before, and was sorry for having frightened him; and last, Harpour, the biggest of the lot. Harpour was one of those fellows who are to be found in every school, and who are always dangerous characters: a huge boy, very low down in the forms, very strong, very stupid in work, rather good-looking, generally cut by the better sort, unredeemed by any natural taste or accomplishment, wholly without influence except among little boys (whom he alternately bullied and spoilt), and only kept at school by his friends, because they were rather afraid of him, and did not quite know what to do with him. They called it “keeping him out of mischief,” but the mischief he did at school was a thousandfold greater than any which he could have done elsewhere; for, except at school, he would have been comparatively powerless to do any positive harm.
By the exhaustive process of reasoning, Walter had already concluded that Harpour must have been his nocturnal disturber; and, accordingly, after thrusting a foot into a slipper, Harpour began to exclaim, “Hallo! where’s my other slipper? Confound it, I shall be late; I can’t dress; where’s my other slipper?”
Wishing to leave him without escape from the necessity of betraying himself to have been the author of last night’s raid, Walter made no sign, until Harpour, who had not any time to lose, said to him—
“Hi! you new chap, have you got my slipper?”
“I’ve got a slipper,” said Walter, blandly.
“The deuce you have. Then give it here, this minute.”
“I captured it off someone’s leg, who was under my bed last night,” said Walter, giving it into Harpour’s hand.
“The deuce you did!”
“Yes; and I smacked the fellow with it, as I will do again, if he comes again.”
“The deuce you will! Then take that for your impudence,” said Harpour, intending to bring down the slipper on his shoulder; but Walter dodged down, and parrying the blow with his arm, sent the slipper in a graceful parabola across the wash-hand-stand into Jones’s basin.
“So, so,” said Harpour, “you’re a pretty cool hand, you are! Well, I’ve no time to settle accounts with you now, or I should be late for chapel. But—”
A significant pantomime explained the remainder of the sentence, and then Harpour, standing in his one slipper, hastily adjourned to his toilet. Walter, being dressed in good time, knelt down for a few moments of hearty prayer, helped poor Eden, who was as helpless as though he had been always dressed by a servant, to finish dressing, and ran across the court into the chapel just as the bell stopped. There were still two minutes before the door was shut, and he occupied them by watching the boys as they streamed in, many of them with their waistcoats only half buttoned, and others with the water-drops still dangling from their hastily combed hair. He saw Tracy saunter in very neat, but with a languid air of disapprobation, blushing withal as he entered; Eden, whose large eyes looked bewildered until he caught sight of Walter and sat down beside him; Kenrick, beaming as ever, who nodded to him as he passed by; Henderson, who, notwithstanding the time and place, found opportunity to whisper to him a hope that he had washed his desirable person in clear water; Plumber looking as if his credulity had been gorged beyond endurance; Daubeny, with eyes immovably fixed in the determination to know his lessons that day; and lastly, Harpour, who had just time to scuffle in hot, breathless, and exceedingly untidy, as the chaplain began the opening sentence.
“Where am I to go now?” asked Eden, when chapel was over.
“Well, Eden, I know as little as you. You’d better ask your tutor. Here, Kenrick,” said Walter, “which of those black gowns is Mr Robertson?—this fellow’s tutor and mine.”
Kenrick pointed out one of the masters, to whom Eden went; and then Walter asked, “Where am I to go to Mr Paton’s form?”
“Here, let me lead the victim to the sacrifice,” said Henderson. “O for a wreath of cypress or funeral yew, or—”
“Nettles?” suggested Kenrick.
“Observe, new boy,” said Henderson, “your eternal friend’s delicate insinuation that you are a donkey. Here, come with me and I’ll take you to be patted on.” Henderson’s exuberant spirits prevented his ever speaking without giving vent to slang, bad puns, or sheer good-humoured nonsense.
“Aren’t you in that form, Kenrick?” asked Walter, as he saw him diverging to the right.
“Oh no! dear me, no!” said Henderson. “I am, but the eternal friend is at least two forms higher; he, let me tell you, is a star of no ordinary magnitude; he’s in the Thicksides”—meaning the Thucydides’ class. “You’ll require no end of sky-climbing before you reach his altitude. And now, victim, behold your sacrificial priest,” he said, placing Walter at the end of a table among some thirty boys who were seated in front of a master’s desk in the large schoolroom, in various parts of which other forms were also beginning work under similar superintendence. When all the forms were saying lessons at the same time it may be imagined that the room was not very still, and that a master required good lungs who had to teach and talk there for hours.
Not that Mr Paton’s form contributed very much to the quota of general noise. Although Henderson had chaffed Daubeny on his virtuous stillness, yet all the boys sat very nearly as quiet as Dubbs himself during school hours. Even Henderson and such mercurial spirits were awed into silence and sobriety. You would hardly have known that in that quarter of the room there was a form at all. Quicksilver itself would have lost its volatility under Mr Paton’s manipulation.
It was hard at first sight to say why this was. Certainly Mr Paton set many punishments, but so did other masters, who had not half his success. The secret was that Mr Paton was something of a routinier, and that was the word which, if he had known it, Kenrick would have used to describe him. If he set an imposition, the imposition must be done, and must be done at a certain time, without appeal, and causa indicta. Mr Paton was as deaf as Pluto to all excuses, and as inexorable as Rhadamanthus in his retributive dispensations. Neither Orpheus nor Amphion would have moved him. Orpheus might have made all the desks and forms dance round as they listened to his song, but he could never have got Mr Paton to let off fifty lines; and Amphion would have been equally unsuccessful even if the walls of the court had come as petitioners in obedience to his strains. As for remitting a lesson, Mr Paton would not have done it if Saint Cecilia had offered him the whole wreath of red and white roses which the admiring angels twined in her golden hair.
Mr Paton’s rule was not the leaden rule of Lesbos (Aristophanes, Nic. Eth., v. 14.); it could not be bent to suit the diversities of individual character, but was a rule iron and inflexible, which applied equally to all. His measure was that of Procrustes; the cleverest boys could not stretch themselves beyond it, the dullest were mechanically pulled into its dimensions. Hence some fared hardly under it; yet let me hasten to say that, on the whole, with the great number of average boys, it was a success. The discipline which he established was perfect, and though many boys winced under it at the time, it was valuable to all of them, especially to those of an idle or sluggish tendency; and as it was rigid just as well as severe, they often learned to look back upon it with gratitude and respect.
After a time the form went up to say a lesson. Each boy was put on in turn. When it came to Walter’s turn Mr Paton first inquired his name, which he entered with extreme neatness in his class-book—a book in which there was not a single blot from the first page to the last. He then put him on as he had put on the rest.
“I had no book, sir, and didn’t know what the lesson was,” said Walter.
“Excuses, sir, excuses!” said Mr Paton sternly. “You mean that you haven’t learnt the lesson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A bad beginning, Evson; bring me no excuses in future. You must write the lesson out.” And an ominous entry implying this fact was written by Walter’s freshly-entered name. Most men would have excused the first punishment, and contented themselves with a word of admonition; but this wasn’t Mr Paton’s way. He held with Escalus that—
“Mercy is not itself that oft looks so!
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.”
(Measure for Measure, act two, scene 1.)
Now it happened that Walter hated excuses, and had always looked on them as first cousins to lies, and he determined never again to render to Mr Paton any reason which could by any possibility be construed into an excuse. He therefore had to undergo a large amount of punishment, which he flattered himself could not by any possibility have been avoided.
On this occasion Henderson was also turned, and with him a boy named Bliss. It was quite impossible for Henderson to be unemployed on some nonsense, and heedless of the fact that he was himself Bliss’s companion in misfortune, he opened a poetry-book, and taking Lycidas as his model, sat unusually still, while he occupied himself in composing a “Lament for Blissidas,” beginning pathetically—
“Poor Blissidas is turned; turned ere his prime
Young Blissidas, and hath not left his peer;
Who would not weep for Blissidas? He knew
Himself to say his Rep.—but give him time—
He must not quaff his glass of watery beer
Unchaffed, or write, his paper ruled and lined,
Without the meed of some melodious jeer.”
“I’ll lick you, Flip, after school,” said the wrathful Bliss, shaking his fist, as Henderson began to whisper to him this monody.
“Why do they call you Flip?” asked Walter laughing.
“Short for Flibberty-gibbet,” said Bliss.
“Bliss, Henderson, and Evson, do me two hundred lines each,” said Mr Paton; and so on this, his first morning in school, a second punishment was entered against Walter’s name.
“Whew-w-w... abomination of... spoken of by... hush!” was Henderson’s whispered comment. “I call that hard lines.” But he continued his “Lament for Blissidas” notwithstanding, introducing Saint Winifred and other mourners over Bliss’s fate, and ending with the admonition that in writing the lines he was—
“To touch the tender tops of various quills,
And mind and dot his quaint enamelled i’s.”
When Walter asked his tutor for the paper on which to write his punishment, Mr Robertson said to him, “Already, Evson!” in a tone of displeasure, and with a sarcasm hardly inferior to that of Talleyrand’s celebrated “Déjà.” “Two hundred lines and a lesson to write out already!” Bitter; with no sign of sympathy, without one word of inquiry, of encouragement for the future, or warning about the past; no advice given, no interest shown; no wonder that Walter never got on with his tutor.
The days that began for Walter from this time were days of darkness and disappointment. He was not deficient in natural ability, but he had undergone no special training for Saint Winifred’s School, and consequently many things were new to him in which other boys had been previously trained. The practice of learning grammar by means of Latin rules was particularly trying to him. He could have easily mastered the facts which the rules were intended to impress, but the empirical process suggested for arriving at the facts he could not remember, even if he could have construed the crabbed Latin in which it was conveyed. His father, too, had never greatly cultivated his powers of memory, and hence he felt serious difficulty at first with the long lessons that had to be learnt by heart.
Mr Paton’s system was simply this. If a boy failed in a lesson from any mundane cause whatever, he had to write it out; if he failed to bring it written out, he had to write it twice; if he was turned in a second lesson he was sent to detention, i.e., he was kept in during play hours; if this process was long-continued he was sent to the headmaster in disgrace, and ran the chance of being flogged as an incorrigible idler. Mr Paton, who was devoted to a system, made no allowance for difference of ability, or for idiosyncrasies of temperament; he was a truly good man, at bottom a really kind-hearted man, and a genuine Christian; but the system which he had adopted was his “idol of the cave,” and, as we said before, the Kavwv molubdinos was unknown to him.
Now, the way the system worked on Walter was this: he failed in lessons because they were so new to him that he found it impossible to master them. He was not accustomed to work in such a crowded and noisy place as the great schoolroom, and the early hour for going to bed left little time for evening work. Accordingly he often failed, and whenever he did, the impositions, or detentions, or both, took away from his available time for mastering his difficulties, and as this necessitated fresh failures, every single punishment became frightfully accumulative, and, alas! before three weeks were over, Walter was “sent up for bad” to the headmaster. By this he felt degraded and discouraged to the last degree. Moreover, harm was done to him in many other ways. Conscious that all this disgrace had come upon him without any serious fault of his own, and even in spite of his direct and strenuous efforts, he became oppressed with a sense of injustice and undeserved persecution. The apparent uselessness of every attempt to shake himself free from these trammels of routine rendered him desperate and reckless, and the serious diminution of his hours for play and exercise made him dispirited and out-of-sorts. And all this brought on a bitter fit of homesickness, during which he often thought of writing home and imploring to be removed from the school, or even of taking his deliverance into his own hands, and running away himself. But he knew that his father and mother were already distressed beyond measure to hear of the mill-round of punishment and discredit into which he had fallen, and about which he frankly informed them; so for their sakes he determined to bear-up a little longer.
Walter was getting a bad name as an idler, and was fast losing his self-respect. And when that sheet-anchor is once lost, anything may happen to the ship; however gay its trim, however taut its sides, however delicate and beautiful the curve of its prow, it may drive before the gale, it may be dashed pitilessly among the iron rocks, or stranded hopelessly upon the harbour bar. A little more of this discipline, and a boy naturally noble-hearted and capable, might have been transformed into a mere moon-calf, like poor Plumber, or a cruel and vicious bully, like Harpour or Jones.
Happily our young Walter was saved by other influences from losing his self-respect. He was saved from it by one or two kindly and genial friendships; by success in other lines, and by the happy consciousness that his presence at Saint Winifred’s was a help and comfort to some who needed such assistance with sore need.
One afternoon he was sitting disconsolately on a bench which ran along a blank wall on one side of the court, doing absolutely nothing. He was too disgusted with the world and with himself even to take up a novel. It was three o’clock, and the court was deserted for the playground, as a match had been announced that afternoon between the sixth-form and the school, at which all but a very few (who never did anything but loaf about), were either playing or looking on. To sit with his head bent down, on a bench in an empty court doing nothing while a game was going on, was very unlike the Walter Evson of six weeks before; but at that moment Walter was weary of detention, which was just over; he was burdened with punishments, he was half sick for want of exercise, and he was too much out of spirits to do anything. Kenrick and Henderson had noticed and lamented the change in him. Not exactly knowing the causes of his ill-success, they were astonished to find so apparently clever a boy taking his place among the sluggards and dunces. With this, however, they concerned themselves less than with the settled gloom which was falling over him, and which rendered him much less available when they wanted to refresh themselves by talking a little nonsense, or amusing themselves in any other way. On this day, guessing how it was likely to be, Kenrick had proposed not to join the game until detention was over, and then to make Evson come up and play; and Henderson had kindly offered to stay with him, and add his persuasions to his friend’s.
As they came out ready dressed for football, they caught sight of him.
“Come along, old fellow; you’re surely going to fight for the school against the sixth,” said Kenrick.
“Isn’t it too late?”
“No; anyone is allowed a quarter of an hour’s grace.”
“Excuse number one bowled down,” said Henderson.
“But I’m not dressed; I shan’t have time to put on my Jersey.”
“Never mind, you’ll only want your cap and belt, and can play in your shirt-sleeves.”
“There goes excuse number two; so cut along,” said Henderson, “and get your belt. We’ll wait for you here. Why, the eternal friend’s getting as wasted with misery as the daughter of Babylon,” said Henderson, as Walter ran off.
“Yes,” said Kenrick. “I don’t like to see that glum look instead of the merry face he came with. Never mind; the game’ll do him good; I never saw such a player; he looks just like the British lion when he gets into the middle of the fray; plunges at everything, and shakes his mane. Here he is; come along.”
They ran up and found a hotly-contested game swaying to and fro between the goals; and Walter, who was very active and a first-rate runner, was soon in the thick of it. As the evenness of the match grew more apparent the players got more and more excited. It had been already played several times, and no base had been kicked, except once by each side, when the scale had been turned by a heavy wind. Hence they exhibited the greatest eagerness, as school and sixth alike held it a strong point of honour to win, and a shout of approval greeted any successful catch or vigorous kick.
Whenever the ball was driven beyond the bounds, it was kicked straight in, generally a short distance only, and the players on both sides struggled for it as it fell. During one of these momentary pauses Kenrick whispered to Walter, “I say, Evson, next time it’s driven outside I’ll try to get it, and if you’ll stand just beyond the crowd I’ll kick it to you, and you can try a run.”
“Thanks,” said Walter eagerly, “I’ll do my best.” The opportunity soon occurred. Kenrick ran for the ball; a glance showed him where Walter was standing; he kicked it with precision, and not too high, so that there was no time for the rest to watch where it was likely to descend. Walter caught it, and before the others could recover from their surprise, was off like an arrow. Of course, the whole of the opposite side were upon him in a moment, and he had to be as quick as a deer, and as wary as a cat. But now his splendid running came in, and he was, besides, rather fresher than the rest. He dodged, he made wide détours, he tripped some and sprang past others, he dived under arms and through legs, he shook off every touch, wrenched himself free from one capturer by leaving in his hands the whole shoulder of his shirt, and got nearer and nearer to the goal. At last he saw that there was one part of the field comparatively undefended; in this direction he darted like lightning—charged and spilt, by the vehemence of his impulse, two fellows who stood with outstretched arms to stop him—seized the favourable instant, and by a swift and clever drop-kick, sent the ball flying over the bar amid deafening cheers, just as half the other side flung him down and precipitated themselves over his body.
The run was so brilliant and so plucky, and the last burst so splendid, that even the defeated side could hardly forbear to cheer him. As for the conquerors, their enthusiasm knew no bounds; they shook Walter by the hand, patted him on the back, clapped him, and at last lifted him on their shoulders for general inspection. As yet he was known to very few, and “Who’s that nice-looking little fellow who got the school a base?” was a question which was heard on every side.
“That’s Evson; Evson; Evson, a new fellow,” answered Kenrick, Henderson, and all who knew him, as fast as they could, in reply to the general queries. They were proud to know him just then, and this little triumph occurred in the nick of time to raise poor Walter in his own estimation.
“Thanks, Kenrick, thanks,” he said, warmly grasping his friend’s hand, as they left the field. “They ought to have cheered you, not me, for if it hadn’t been for you I should not have got that base.”
“Pooh!” was the answer; “I couldn’t have got it myself under any circumstances; and even if I could, it is at least as much pleasure to me that you should have done it.”
Of all earthly spectacles few are more beautiful, and in some respects more touching, than a friendship between two boys, unalloyed by any taint of selfishness, indiscriminating in its genuine enthusiasm, delicate in its natural reserve. It is not always because the hearts of men are wiser, purer, or better than the hearts of boys, that “summae puerorum amicitia: saepe cum toga deponuntur.”
Chapter Six.
A Burst of Wilfulness.
—Nunquamne reponam
Vexatus toties?
Juvenal i. i.
Although Walter’s football triumphs prevented him from losing self-respect and sinking into wretchlessness or desperation, they did not save him from his usual arrears of punishment and extra work. Besides this, it annoyed him bitterly to be always, and in spite of all effort, bottom, or nearly bottom, of his form. He knew that this grieved and disappointed his parents nearly as much as himself, and he feared that they would not understand the reason which, in his case, rendered it excusable—viz., the enormous amount of purely routine work for which other boys had been prepared by previous training, and in which, under his present discouragements and inconveniences, he felt it impossible to recover ground. It was hard to be below boys to whom he knew himself to be superior in every intellectual quality; it was hard for a boy really clever and lively, to be set down at once as an idler and dunce. And it made Walter very miserable. For meanwhile Mr Paton had taken quite a wrong view of his character. He answered so well at times, construed so happily, and showed such bright flashes of intelligence and interest in parts of his work, that Mr Paton, making no allowances for new methods and an untrained memory, set him down, by an error of judgment, as at once able and obstinate, capable of doing excellently, and wilfully refusing to do so. This was a phase of character which always excited his indignation; and it was for the boy’s own sake that he set himself to correct it, if possible. On both sides, therefore, there was some misunderstanding, and a consequent exacerbation of mind which told injuriously on their daily intercourse.
Walter’s vexation and misery reached its acme on the receipt by his father of his first school character, which document his father sent back for Walter’s own perusal, with a letter which, if not actually reproachful, was at least uneasy and dissatisfied in tone.
For the character itself Walter cared little, knowing well that it was founded throughout on misapprehension; but his father’s letter stirred the very depths of his heart, and made them turbid with passion and sorrow. He received it at dinner-time, and read it as he went across the court to the detention-room, of which he was now so frequent an occupant. It was a bright September day, and he longed to be out at some game, or among the hills, or on the shore. Instead of that, he was doomed for his failures to two long weary hours of mechanical pen-driving, of which the results were torn up when the two hours were over. He had had no exercise for the last week; all his spare time had been taken up with impositions; Mr Robertson had given him a severe and angry lecture that morning; even Mr Paton, who rarely used strong language, had called him intolerable and incorrigible, and had threatened a second report to the headmaster, because this was the tenth successive Greek grammar lesson in which he had failed. Added to all this, he was suffering from headache and lassitude. And now his father’s letter was the cumulus of his misfortunes. A rebellious, indignant, and violent spirit rose in him. Was he always, for no fault of his own, to be bullied, baited, driven, misunderstood, and crushed in this way? If it was of no use trying to be good, and to do his duty, how would it do to try the other experiment—to fling off the trammels of duty and principle altogether; to do all those things which inclination suggested and the moral sense forbade; to enjoy himself; to declare himself on the side of pleasure and self-indulgence? Certainly this would save him from much unpleasantness and annoyance in many ways. He was young, vigorous, active; he might easily make himself more popular than he was with the boys; and as for the authorities, do what he would, it appeared that he could hardly be in worse disrepute than now. Vice bade high: as he thought of it all, his pen flew faster, and his pulse seemed to send the blood bounding through his veins as he tightened the grasp of his left-hand round the edge of the desk.
Hitherto the ideal which he had set before him, as the standard to be attained during his school-life, had been one in which a successful devotion to duty, and a real effort to attain to “godliness and good learning,” had borne the largest share. But on this morning a very different ideal rose before him; he would abandon all interest in school work, and only aim at being a gay, high-spirited boy, living solely for pleasure, amusement, and self-indulgence. There were many such around him—heroes among their schoolfellows, popular, applauded, and proud. Sin seemed to sit lightly and gracefully upon them. Endowed as he was with every gift of person and appearance, to this condition at least he felt that he could easily attain. It was an ideal not, alas! unnatural to the perilous age:
“Which claims for manhood’s vice the privilege
Of boyhood—when young Dionysius seems
All joyous as he burst upon the East
A jocund and a welcome conqueror;
And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea
She rose, and floated in her pearly shell
A laughing girl; when lawless will erects
Honour’s gay temple on the Mount of God,
And meek obedience bears the coward’s brand;
While Satan in celestial panoply
With Sin, his lady, smiling by his side,
Defies all heaven to arms.”
Yes; he would follow the multitude to do all the evil which he saw being done around him; it looked a joyous and delightful prospect. He gazed on the bright vision of sin, on the iridescent waters of pleasure; and did not know that the brightness was a mirage of the burning desert, the iridescence a film of corruption over a stagnant pool.
The letter from home was his chief stumbling-block. He loved his father and mother with almost passionate devotion; he clung to his home with an intensity of concentrated love. He really had tried to please them, and to do his best; but yet they didn’t seem to give him credit for it. Look at this cold reproachful letter; it maddened him to think of it.
There was only one thing which checked him. It was a little voice, which had been more silent lately, because other and passionate tones were heard more loudly; but yet even from a child poor Walter had been accustomed to listen with reverence to its admonitions. It was a voice behind him saying—“This is the way, walk ye in it,” now that he was turning aside to the right-hand or to the left. But the noble accents in which it whispered of patience were drowned just now in the clamorous turbulence of those other voices of appeal.
The two hours of detention were over, and the struggle was over too. Walter drew his pen with a fierce and angry scrawl over the lines he had written, showed them up to the master in attendance with a careless and almost impudent air, and was hardly out of the room before he gave a shout of emancipation and defiance. Impatience and passion had won the day.
He ran up to the playground as hard as he could tear to work off the excitement of his spirits, and get rid of the inward turmoil. On a grass bank at the far end of it he saw two boys seated, whom he knew at once to be Henderson and Kenrick, who, for a wonder, were reading, not green novels, but Shakespeare!
“I’ll tell you what it is, Henderson,” he said; “I can’t and I won’t stand this any longer. It’s the last detention breaks the boy’s back. I hate Saint Winifred’s, I hate Dr Lane, I hate Robertson, and I hate, hate, hate Paton!” he said, stamping angrily.
“Hooroop!” said Henderson; “so the patient Evson is on fire at last. Tell it not to Dubbs.”
“Why, Walter, what’s all this about?” asked Kenrick.
“Why, Ken,” said Walter, more quietly, “here’s a history of my life: Greek grammar, lines, detention, caning—caning, detention, lines, Greek grammar. I’m sick of it; I can’t and I won’t stand it any more.”
“Whether,” spouted Henderson, from the volume on his knee—
“‘Whether ’twere nobler for the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.
And by opposing end them!’”
“End them I will,” said Walter; “somehow, I’ll pay him out, depend upon it.”
“Recte si possis si non quocunque modo,” said Somers, the head of the school, whose fag Walter was, and who, passing by at the moment, caught the last sentence; “what is the excitement among you small boys?”
“The old story—pitching into Paton,” said Kenrick indifferently, and rather contemptuously; for he was a protégé of Somers, and felt annoyed that he should see Walter’s unreasonable display, the more so as Somers had asked him already, “why he was so much with that idle new fellow who was always being placed lag in his form?”
“What’s it all about?” asked Somers of Kenrick.
“Because he gets lines for missing his grammar, I suppose.” There was something in the tone which was especially offensive to Walter; for it sounded as if Kenrick wanted to show him the cold shoulder before his great friend, the head of the school.
“Oh, that all? Well, my dear fellow, the remedy’s easy; work at it a little harder;” and Somers walked on, humming a tune.
“I wonder what he calls harder,” said Walter, shaking his fist; “when I first came I used to get up quite early in the morning, and learn it till I was half-stupid; I wonder whether he ever did as much?”
“Well, but it’s no good abusing Paton,” said Kenrick; “of course, if you don’t know the lesson, he concludes you haven’t learnt it.”
“Thank you for nothing, Kenrick,” said Walter curtly; “come along, Flip.”
Kenrick was vexed; he was conscious of having shown a little coolness and want of sympathy; and he looked anxiously after Henderson and Walter as they walked away.
Presently he started up, and ran after them. “Don’t be offended, Walter, my boy,” he said, seizing his hand. “I didn’t mean to be cold just now; but, really, I don’t see why you should be so very wrathful with Paton; what can a master do if one fails in a lesson two or three times running? he must punish one, I suppose.”
“Hang Paton,” said Walter, shaking off his hand rather angrily, for he was now thoroughly out of temper.
“O, very well, Evson,” said Kenrick, whose chief fault was an intense pride, which took fire on the least provocation, and which made him take umbrage at the slightest offence; “catch me making an advance to you again. Henderson, you left your book on the grass;” and turning on his heel, he walked slowly away—heavy at heart, for he liked Walter better than any other boy in the school, and was half ashamed to break with him about such a trifle.
Henderson, apart from his somewhat frivolous and nonsensical tone, was a well-meaning fellow. When he was walking with Walter, he had intended to chaff him about his sudden burst of ill-temper, and jest away his spirit of revenge; but he saw that poor Walter was in no mood for jokes, and he quite lacked the moral courage to give good advice in a sober or serious way, or to recommend any course because it was right. This, at present, was beyond Henderson’s standard of good, so he left Walter and went back for his book.
And Walter, flinging into the schoolroom, found several spirits seven times more wicked than himself, and fed the fire of his wrath with the fuel of unbounded abuse, mockery, and scorn of Mr Paton, in which he was heartily abetted by the others, who hailed all indications that Walter was likely to become one of themselves. And that evening, instead of attempting to get up any of his work, Walter wasted the whole time of preparation in noise, folly, and turbulence; for which he was duly punished by the master on duty.
He got up next morning breathing, with a sense of defiance and enjoyment, his new atmosphere of self-will. He, of course, broke down utterly, more utterly than ever, in his morning lessons, and got a proportionately longer imposition. Going back to his place, he purposely flung down his books on the desk, one after another with a bang; and for each book which he had flung down, Mr Paton gave him a hundred lines, whereupon he laughed sarcastically, and got two hundred more. Conscious that the boys were watching with some amusement this little exhibition of temper and trial of wills, he then took out a sheet of paper, wrote on it, in large letters, the words Two Hundred Lines for Mr Paton, and, amid the tittering of the form, carried it up to Mr Paton’s desk.
This was the most astoundingly impudent and insubordinate act which had ever been done to Mr Paton for years, and it was now his turn to be angry. But mastering his anger with admirable determination, he merely said, “Evson, you must be beside yourself this morning; it is very rarely, indeed, that a new boy is so far gone in disobedience as this. I have no hesitation in saying that you are the most audacious and impertinent new boy with whom I have ever had to deal. I must cane you in my room after detention, to which you will of course go.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Walter, with a smile of impudent sang froid; and the form tittered again as he walked noisily to his seat. But Mr Paton, allowing for his violent frame of mind, took no notice of this last affront.
Whereupon Walter, taking another large piece of paper, and a spluttering quill pen, wrote on it, with a great deal of scratching—
Due from Evson to Mr Paton.
For missing lesson... 100 lines.
For laying down books... 300 lines.
For laughing... 200 lines.
For writing 200 lines... A caning.
Detention, of course. Thank you for nothing.
And on the other side of the sheet he wrote in large letters—“No Go!” Which, being done, he passed the sheet along the form pour encourager les autres.
“Evson,” said Mr Paton, quietly, “bring me that paper.”
Walter took it up—looking rather alarmed this time—but with the side “No go!” uppermost.
“What is this, Evson?”
“Number ninety, sir,” said Walter, amid the now unconcealed laughter of the rest, who knew very well that he had intended it for “No go.”
Mr Paton looked curiously at Walter for a minute, and then said, “Evson, Evson, I could not have thought you so utterly foolish. Well, you know that each fresh act must have its fresh punishment. You must leave the room now, and besides all your other punishments I must also report you to the headmaster. You can best judge with what result.”
This was a mistake of Mr Paton’s—a mistake of judgment only—for which he cannot be blamed. But it was a disastrous mistake. Had he been at all a delicate judge or reader of the phenomena of character, he would have observed at once that at that moment there was a wild spirit of anger, a rankling sense of injustice and persecution in Walter’s heart, which no amount of punishment could have cowed. Walter just then might without the least difficulty have been goaded into some act of violence which would have rendered expulsion from the school an unavoidable consequence. So easy is it to petrify the will, to make a boy bad in spite of himself, and to spoil, with no intentions but those of kindliness and justice, the promise of a fair young life. For when the will has once been suffered to grow rigid by obstinacy—a result which is very easy to avoid—no power on earth can bend it at the time. Had Mr Paton sent Walter out of the room before; had he at the end said, “Evson, you are not yourself to-day, and I forgive you,” Walter would have been in a moment as docile and as humble as a child. But as it was, he left the room quite coolly, with a sneer on his lips, and banged the door; yet the next moment, when he found himself in the court alone, unsupported by the countenance of those who enjoyed his rebelliousness, he seated himself on a bench in the courtyard, hung his head on his breast, and burst into a flood of tears. If any friend could have seen him at that moment, or spoken one word in season, how much pain the poor boy might have been saved! Kenrick happened to cross the court; the moment Walter caught sight of him he sat with head erect and arms folded, but Kenrick was not to be deceived. He had caught one glimpse of Walter first; he saw his eyes wet with tears, and knew that he was in trouble. He hung on his foot doubtfully for one moment—but then his pride came in; he remembered the little pettish repulse in the playground the day before; the opportunity was lost, and he walked slowly on. And Walter’s heart grew as hard within him as a stone.
Chapter Seven.
Vogue La Galère.
Ah! Diamond, thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done.
Life of Sir I. Newton.
That afternoon Mr Paton, going into the Combination Room, where the masters often met, threw himself into one of the armchairs with an unwonted expression of vexation and disgust on his usually placid features.
“Why, what’s the matter with you, Paton?” asked Mr Robertson. “Is to-day’s Times too liberal for your notions, or what?”
“No,” said Mr Paton; “but I have just been caning Evson, a new boy, and the fellow’s stubborn obstinacy and unaccountable coolness annoy me exceedingly.”
“O yes; he’s a pupil of mine, I’m sorry to say, and he has never been free from punishment since he came. Even your Procrustean rule seems to fail with him, Paton. What have you been obliged to cane him for?”
Mr Paton related Walter’s escapade.
“Well, of course you had no choice but to cane him,” replied his colleague, “for such disobedience; but how did he take it?”
“In the oddest way possible. He came in with punctilious politeness, obviously assumed, with sarcastic intentions. When I took up the cane he stood with arms folded, and a singularly dogged look; in fact, his manner disarmed me. You know I detest caning, and I really could not do it, never having had occasion for it for months together. I gave him two cuts, and then left off. ‘May I go, sir?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said, and he left the room with a bow and a ‘Thank you, sir.’ I am really sorry for the boy; for as I was obliged to send him to Dr Lane, he will probably get another flogging from him.”
“What a worthless boy he must be,” answered Mr Robertson.
“No, not exactly worthless; there’s something about him I can’t help liking; but most impudent and stubborn.”
“Excuse me,” said Mr Percival, another of the masters, who had been listening attentively to the conversation; “I humbly venture to think that you’re both mistaken in that boy. I like him exceedingly, and think him as promising a lad as any in the school. I never knew any boy behave more modestly and respectfully.”
“Why, how do you know anything of him?” asked Mr Robertson in surprise.
“Only by accident. I had once or twice noticed him among the detenus, and being sorry to think that a new boy should be an habitué of the extra schoolroom, I asked him one day why he was sent. He told me that it was for failing in a lesson, and when I asked why he hadn’t learnt it, he said, very simply and respectfully, ‘I really did my very best, sir; but it’s all new work to me.’ Look at the boy’s innocent, engaging face, and you will be sure that he was telling me the truth.
“I’m afraid,” continued Mr Percival, “you’ll think this very slight ground for setting my opinion against yours; but I was pleased with Evson’s manner, and asked him to come and take a stroll on the shore, that I might know something more of him. Do you know, I never found a more intelligent companion. He was all life and vivacity; it was quite a pleasure to be with him. Being new to the sea, he didn’t know the names of the commonest things on the shore, and if you had seen his face light up as he kept picking up whelk’s eggs, and mermaid’s purses, and zoophytes, and hermit-crabs, and bits of plocamium or coralline, and asking me all I could tell him about them, you would not have thought him a stupid or worthless boy.”
“I don’t know, Percival; you are a regular conjuror. All sorts of ne’er-do-wells succeed under your manipulation. You’re a first-rate hand at gathering grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles. Why, even out of that Caliban, old Woods, you used to extract a gleam of human intelligence.”
“He wasn’t a Caliban at all. I found him an excellent fellow at heart; but what could you expect of a boy who, because he was big, awkward, and stupid, was always getting flouted on all sides? Sir Hugh Evans is not the only person who disliked being made a ‘vlouting-stog.’”
“You must have some talisman for transmuting boys if you consider old Woods an excellent fellow, Percival. I found him a mass of laziness and brute strength. Do give me your secret.”
“Try a little kindness and sympathy. I have no other secret.”
“I’m not conscious of failing in kindness,” said Mr Robertson drily. “My fault, I think, is being too kind.”
“To clever, promising, bright boys—yes; to unthankful and evil boys (excuse me for saying so)—no. You don’t try to descend to their dull level, and so understand their difficulties. You don’t suffer fools gladly, as we masters ought to do. But, Paton,” he said, turning the conversation, which seemed distasteful to Mr Robertson, “will you try how it succeeds to lay the yoke a little less heavily on Evson?”
“Well, Percival, I don’t think that I’ve consciously bullied him. I can’t make my system different to him and other boys.”
“My dear Paton, forgive my saying that I don’t think that a rigid system is the fairest; summa lex summa crux. Fish of very different sorts and sizes come to our nets, and you can’t shove a turbot through the same mesh that barely admits a sprat.”
“I’ll think of what you say; but I must leave him in Dr Lane’s hands now,” said Mr Paton.
“Who, I heartily hope, won’t flog him,” said Mr Percival.
“Why? I don’t see how he can do otherwise.”
“Because it will simply drive him to despair; because, if I know anything of his character, it will have upon him an effect incalculably bad.”
“I hope not,” said Mr Paton.
The conversation dropped, and Mr Percival resumed his newspaper.
When Walter went to Dr Lane in the evening, the Doctor inquired kindly and carefully into the nature of his offence. This, unfortunately, was clear enough, and Walter was far too ingenuous to attempt any extenuation of it. Even if he had not been intentionally idle, it was plain, on his own admission, that he had been guilty of the greatest possible insubordination and disrespect. These offences were rare at Saint Winifred’s, and especially rare in a new boy. Puzzled as he was by conduct so unlike the boy’s apparent character, and interested by his natural and manly manner, yet Dr Lane had in this case no alternative but the infliction of corporal punishment.
Humiliated again, and full of bitter anger, Walter returned to the great schoolroom, where he was received with sympathy and kindness by the others in his class. It was the dark part of the evening before tea-time, and the boys, sitting idly round the fire, were in an apt mood for folly and mischief. They began a vehement discussion about Paton’s demerits, and called him every hard name they could invent. Walter took little part in this, for he was smarting too severely under the sense of oppression to find relief in mere abuse; but, from his flashing eyes and the dark scowl that sat so ill on his face it was evident that a bad spirit had obtained the thorough mastery over all his better and gentler impulses.
“Can’t we do something to serve the fellow out?” said Anthony, one of the boys in Walter’s dormitory.
“But what can we do?” asked several.
“What, indeed?” asked Henderson, mockingly; and as it was his way to quote whatever he had last been reading, he began to spout from the peroration of a speech which he had seen in the paper—“Aristocracy, throned on the citadel of power, and strong in—”
“What a fool you are, Henderson,” observed Franklin, another of the group; “I’ll tell you what we can do: we’ll burn that horrid black book in which he enters the detentions and impositions.”
“Poor book!” said Henderson; “what pangs of conscience it will suffer in the flames! Give it not the glory of such martyrdom. Walter,” he continued, in a lower voice, “I hope that you’ll have nothing to do with this humbug?”
“I will though, Henderson; if I’m to have nothing but canings and floggings, I may just as well be caned and flogged for something as for nothing.”
“The desk’s locked,” said Anthony; “we shan’t be able to get hold of the imposition-book.”
“I’ll settle that,” said Walter; “here, just hand me the poker, Dubbs.”
“I shall do no such thing,” said Daubeny quietly, and his reply was greeted with a shout of derision.
“Why, you poor coward, Dubbs,” said Franklin, “you couldn’t get anything for handing the poker.”
“I never supposed I could, Franklin,” he answered; “and as for being a coward, the real cowardice would be to do what’s absurd and wrong for fear of being laughed at or being kicked. Well, you may hit me,” he said quietly, as Franklin twisted his arm tightly round, and hit him on it, “but you can’t make me do what I don’t choose.”
“We’ll try,” said Franklin, twisting his arm still more tightly, and hitting harder.
“You’ll try in vain,” answered Daubeny, though the tears stood in his eyes at the violent pain.
“Drop his arm, you Franklin,” indignantly exclaimed Henderson, who, though he was always teasing Daubeny, was very fond of him; “drop his arm, or, by Jove! you’ll find that two can play at that. Dubbs is quite right, and you’re a set of asses if you think you’ll do any good by burning the punishment book. I’ve got the poker, and you shan’t have it to knock the desk open. I suppose Paton can afford sixpence to buy another book; and enter a tolerable fresh score against you for this besides.”
“But he won’t remember my six hundred lines, and four or five detentions,” said Walter. “Here, give me the poker.”
“Pooh! pooh! Evson, of course he’ll remember them. Here, I’ll help you with the lines; I’ll do a couple of hundred for you, and the rest you can write with two pens at a time; it won’t take you an hour. I’ll show you the two-pen dodge; I’ll admit you into the two-pen-etralia. Like Milton, you shall ‘touch the slender tops of various quills.’ No, no,” he continued, in a playful tone in order not to make Walter in a greater passion than he was, “you can’t have the poker; anyone who wants that must take it from me vi et armis.”
“It doesn’t matter; this’ll do as well; and here goes,” said Walter, seizing a wooden stool. “There’s the desk open for you,” he said, as he brought the top of the stool with a strong blow against the lid, and burst the lock with a great crash.
“My eyes! we shall get into a row,” said Franklin, opening his eyes to illustrate his exclamation.
“Well, what’s done’s done; let’s all take our share,” said Anthony, diving his hand into the desk. “Here’s the imposition-book for you, and here goes leaf number one into the fire; you can tear out the next if you like, Franklin.”
“Very well,” said Franklin; “in for a penny in for a pound; there goes the second leaf.”
“And here the third; over ankles over knees,” said Barton, another of those present.
“Proverbial Fool-osophy,” observed Henderson, contemptuously, as Burton handed him the book. “Shall I be a silly sheep like the rest of you, and leap over the bridge because your leader has? I suppose I must, though it’s very absurd.” He wavered and hesitated; sensible enough to disapprove of so useless a proceeding, he yet did not like to be thought afraid. He minded what fellows would think.
“Do what’s right,” said Daubeny, “and shame the devil. Here, give me the book. Now, you fellows, you’ve torn out these leaves, and done quite mischief enough. Let me put the book back, and don’t be like children who hit the fender against which they’ve knocked their heads.”
“Or dogs that bite the stick they’ve been thrashed with,” said Henderson. “You’re right, Dubbs, and I respect you; ay, you fellows may sneer if you like, but I advised you not to do it, and I won’t make myself an idiot because you do.”
“Never mind,” drawled Howard Tracy. “I hate Paton, and I’ll do anything to spite him,” whereupon he snatched the book from Daubeny, and threw it entire into the flames. Poor Tracy had been even in more serious scrapes with Mr Paton than Walter had; his vain manner was peculiarly abhorrent to the master, who took every opportunity of snubbing him; but nothing would pierce through the thick cloak of Tracy’s conceit, and fully satisfied with himself, his good looks, and his aristocratic connections, he sat down in contented ignorance, and despised learning too much to be in the least put out by being invariably the last in his form.
“What, is there nothing left for me to burn?” said Walter, who sat glowering on the high iron fender, and swinging his legs impatiently. “Let’s see what else there is in the desk. Here are a pack of old exercises, apparently; they’ll make a jolly blaze. Stop, though, are they old exercises? Well, never mind; if not, so much the better. In they shall go.”
“Stop! what are you doing, Walter?” said Henderson, catching him by the arm; “you know these can’t be old exercises. Paton always puts them in his waste-paper basket, not in his desk. Oh, Walter, what have you done?”
“The outside sheets were exercises anyhow,” said Walter gloomily. “Here, it’s no good trying to save them now, whatever they were” (for Henderson was attempting to rake them out between the bars); “they’re done for now,” and he pressed down the thick mass of foolscap into the reddest centre of the fire, and held it there until nothing remained of it but a heap of flaky crimson ashes.
A dead silence followed, for the boys felt that now, at any rate, they were “in for it.”
The sound of the tea-bell prevented further mischief; and as Henderson thrust his arm through Walter’s, he said, “Oh, Evson, I wish you hadn’t done that! I wish I’d got you to come away before. What a passionate fellow you are!”
“Well, it’s done now,” said Walter, already beginning to soften, and to repent of his fatuity.
“What can we do?” said Henderson anxiously.
“Take the consequences, that’s all,” answered Walter.
“Hadn’t you better go and tell Paton about it at once instead of letting him find it out?”
“No,” said Walter; “he’s done nothing but bully me, and I don’t care.”
“Then let me go,” said his friend earnestly. “I know Paton well; I’m sure he’d be ready to forgive you, if I explained it all to him.”
“You’re very good, Flip; but don’t go:—it’s too late.”
“Well, Walter, you mustn’t think that I had no share in this because of being afraid. I was one of the group, and I’ll share the punishment with you, whatever it is. I hope for your sake it won’t be found out.”
But if Henderson had seen a little deeper he would have hoped that it would be found out, for there is nothing that works quicker ruin to any character than undiscovered sin. It was happy for Walter that his wrong impulses did not remain undiscovered; happy for him that they came so rapidly to be known and to be punished.
It was noised through the school in five minutes that Evson, one of the new fellows, had smashed open Paton’s desk and burned the contents. “What an awful row he’ll get into!” was the general comment. Walter heard Kenrick inquiring eagerly about it as they sat at tea; but Kenrick didn’t ask him about it, though they sat so near each other. After the foolish, proud manner of sensitive boys, Walter and Kenrick, though each liked the other none the less, were not on speaking terms. Walter, less morbidly proud than Kenrick, would not have suffered this silly alienation to continue had not his attention been occupied by other troubles. Neither of them, therefore, liked to be the first to break the ice, and now in his most serious difficulty Walter had lost the advice and sympathy of his most intimate friend.
The fellows seemed to think that he must inevitably be expelled for this fracas. The poor boy’s thoughts were very, very bitter as he laid his head that night on his restless pillow, remembered what an ungovernable fool he had been, and dreamt of his happy and dear-loved home. How strangely he seemed to have left his old, innocent life behind him, and how little he would have believed it possible, two months ago, that he could by any conduct of his own have so soon incurred, or nearly incurred, the penalty of expulsion from Saint Winifred’s School.
He had certainly yielded very quickly to passion, and he felt that in consequence he had made his position more serious than that of other boys who were in every sense of the word twice as bad as himself. But what he laid to the score of his ill-luck was in truth a very happy providence by which punishment was sent speedily and heavily upon him, and so his evil tendencies, mercifully nipped in the bud, crushed with a tender yet with an iron hand before they had expanded more blossoms and been fed by deeper roots. He might have been punished less speedily had his faults been more radical, or his wrong-doings of a deeper dye.