All four put on a little side about it the Sunday before, and a good
many other fellows wished they had gone in, because the papers had to be
written in the Doctor’s own study, and there are some magnificent
pictures and marble statues in that room such as are very seldom seen by
the lower school.
I asked each one after breakfast on the appointed day how he felt; and
Tomkins said, "Hopeful"; and Macmullen said, "Much as usual"; and Smythe
said, "Sleepy, because I’ve been awake nearly all night remembering
rhymes I’ve heard my father say"; and Walters said he had a sort of
rather horrid wish that _his_ father had died the term before, because
he didn’t think his mother would ever have made him go in for a thing he
hated so much as this.
*III*
Two hours were allowed for the essay, and by good luck I happened to
meet the four chaps just as they came out. So I got their ideas fresh
on what they’d done. Curiously enough, all four were hopeful. Tomkins,
of course, I knew would be, and probably also Macmullen, but Smythe and
even Walters seemed to fancy they had a chance too. This astonished me
a good deal. So I said to Smythe—
"How the dickens d’you think any stuff you can have done would be near
to what my cousin Tomkins has done?"
And he said—
"Because of the rhymes. I was quite astonished myself to find how they
came; and I also remembered a charm for nettlerash, and some awfully
peculiar sayings just at the right moment."
And Walters also declared he’d done better than he expected to do. He
seemed rather flustered about it, and wouldn’t give any details; but he
was highly excited, and inked up to the eyes, as you might say. He gave
me the idea of a chap who’d been cribbing.
Macmullen looked rather a pale yellow colour, which he always does look
at moments of great excitement, especially just before his innings at
cricket. He wouldn’t say a word to a soul until he’d gone to his botany
book and read up a lot of stuff. Then he felt better.
As to Tomkins, he told me privately, as his cousin, that he had got in
the names of no less than forty-five plants and seven grasses.
"That _must_ settle it," he said. And I said I thought so too.
Mr. Briggs corrected the essays that night, and prepared some notes upon
them for the Doctor to read when the time of announcing the winner came.
We all stared jolly hard at Briggs during prep. the next day, and
Steggles, who has no fear of old Briggs, asked him who had won. But
Briggs merely told him to mind his own business.
After prayers the next day the Doctor stopped in the chapel, which was
also a school-room, and told everybody to remain in his place.
Then he whispered to Corkey major, and Corkey went off, and presently
came back with a very swagger book bound in red leather and having a
yellow back with gold letters upon it.
The Doctor dearly likes these occasions; and so do we, because it means
missing at least one class for certain. When he once fairly begins
talking, he keeps at it. Now he had the four essays on the desk in
front of him, and the prize; and then he spoke to Briggs, and Briggs led
up Macmullen and Tomkins and Smythe and Walters.
They knew this was coming, and had all prepared to a certain extent. I
noticed that Smythe had borrowed a green tie from Webster, and that Mac.
had turned his usual hue at times of excitement. Walters was still inky,
despite pumice stone.
"We have now, my boys, to make our annual award of the ’Harold Bolsover’
prize for English composition," began the Doctor. "Mr. Bolsover, whose
name is now not unfavourably known to his countrymen as an ingenious
fabricator of romance, was educated at this seminary. To me it fell to
instruct his incipient intellect and lift the vacuity of his childish
mind upwards and onwards into the light of knowledge and religion.
"The art of fiction, while it must not be considered a very lofty or
important pursuit, may yet be regarded as a permissible career if the
motives that guide the pen are elevated, and a high morality is the
author’s first consideration. Lack of leisure does not permit me to
read story books myself; but I have little doubt that Mr. Bolsover’s
work is all that it should be from the Christian standpoint, and I feel
confident that those lessons of charity, patience, loyalty, and honour,
which he learnt from my own lips, have borne worthy fruit in his
industrious brain.
"The work I have selected for the ’Bolsover’ prize is _Gilpin on Forest
Scenery_—a book which leads us from Nature to the contemplation of the
Power above and behind Nature; a book wherein the reverend author has
excelled himself and presented to our minds the loftiest thoughts, and
to our eyes the most noble scenes, that his observance could record, and
his skill compass within the space of a volume.
"For this notable reward four lads have entered in competition, and
their emulation was excited by the theme of ’Wild Flowers,’ which your
senior master, Mr. Briggs, very happily selected. Wild flowers are the
jewellery of our hedgerows, scattered lavishly by Nature’s own generous
hand to gladden the dusty wayside—to bring a smile to the face of the
wanderer in the highway, and brightness to the eyes of the weary
traveller by flood and field. None of you can have overlooked them. On
your road to your sport—even in the very grass whereon you pursue your
pastimes—the wild flowers abound. They deck the level sward; they smile
at us from the cricket-field; they help to gladden the hour of mimic
victory, or soften the bitter moment of failure, as we return defeated
to the silent throng at the pavilion rails.
"Now, I have before me the thoughts of Nicol Macmullen, Norman Tomkins,
Huxley Smythe, and Rupert Walters on this subject; and I very much
regret to say that not one of them has produced anything which may be
considered worthy of Merivale, worthy of Mr. Bolsover, or worthy of
themselves. I do not overlook their tender years; I am not forgetting
that to a mind like my own or that of Mr. Briggs—richly stored with all
the best and most beautiful utterances on this subject—the crudities of
immaturity must come with the profound and pitiful significance of
contrast. No, no—I judge these four achievements from no impossible
standard of perfection. I know too well how little can be expected from
the boy who is but entering upon his teens—I am too familiar with the
meagre attainments of the average lad of one decade to ask for
impossible accuracy, for poetic thought, or pious sentiments; but
certain qualities I have the right to expect—nay, demand——"
Here Steggles whispered to me—
"Blessed if I don’t think he’s going to cane them!"
"Certain qualities Mr. Harold Bolsover has also the right to expect and
demand. Do we find them in these essays before us? Reluctantly I
reply, we do not. But in order that you may judge whether your
head-master is unreasonable, that you of the upper school may estimate
the nature of the efforts upon which I base this adverse criticism, I
propose to read brief extracts from each and from all of them.
"The initial error of the boy Nicol Macmullen appears to be a total
misconception of the theme he was invited to illuminate. He begins his
essay as follows."
The Doctor made a frightful rustling among Mac.’s papers, and everybody
looked at Mac. He had not expected this, and his mouth worked very
rummily, and his head went down between his shoulders, and he showed his
under teeth and stared in a frightfully fixed way at the boot of Smythe,
who sat next to him.
Then Dr. Dunstan began—
"’WILD FLOWERS.
"’By Nicol Macmullen.
"’The vegetable kingdom is a very large one. John Ray, a native of
Sussex, did much to advance the study of it. He was born in 1628, and
died in 1705. There was a history of plants written three hundred years
before Christ. Linnæus was the man who invented the sexual system—a
very useful invention. It is a stepping-stone. He first mentioned it
in 1736. Seaweeds are also a part of the vegetable kingdom, but they
have no flowers, and so may be dismissed without further mention. Also
Algæ. Of leaves, it may be said that some fall and some do not. At
least, speaking strictly, all fall, and this is called a deciduous tree;
but not all at once, and this is called an evergreen. Glands occur in
the tissue of the leaves, and they also have hairs. Buds also have
hairs. The organs of plants is almost the largest subject in the
vegetable kingdom, but I have no time to mention more than one or two
organs to-day. The root descends into the soil, the stems rise aloft,
and the flowers bud out at the ends of them. Mistletoe and broom-rape
are called parasites, because they live on other trees, instead of being
on their own.
"’Coming now to flowers, we find that they may be divided into two main
families: wild and garden. We shall dismiss garden flowers, as they do
not belong to our subject, but wild flowers are the most beautiful
things in the vegetable kingdom. Especially honeysuckle and
blackberries. Many others will occur to the reader also. The flower is
the _tout ensemble_ of those organs which are concerned in
reproduction.’"
The Doctor stopped and put down Macmullen’s essay. For my part, I was
simply amazed at the amount Mac. knew, and I think everybody else was;
but, strangely enough, the Doctor didn’t like it.
"From this point our author quotes verbatim out of the pages of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_," continued Dr. Dunstan. "As an effort of
memory the result is highly creditable, and Macmullen will have acquired
a great deal of botanical knowledge which may possibly be of service to
him in his future career; but as an essayist on wild flowers he is
exceedingly evasive, and his effort fails radically and fundamentally.
The subject is obviously not one that appeals to him. There is no
sympathy, no love of his theme; above all, no moral deductions.
Macmullen’s mind has not been uplifted. He has, in fact, failed."
Mac. didn’t seem to care as much as you would have thought. He told me
afterwards he felt so thankful when the Doctor shut up about him and
turned to Tomkins, that he forgot everything else but relief.
Tomkins became red when the Doctor picked up his essay; but it soon
faded away—I mean the redness.
"Now here," said Dr. Dunstan, "we are met by an attempt of a very
different character. The boy Tomkins appears to think that there is
nothing more to be said about the flowers of the field than to utter
their names. His prose lacks dignity; there is a feverish desire to
tell us what everything is called. There is no poetry, no feeling.
Vagueness, indeed, we have, but vagueness is not poetry, though to
uncritical minds it may sometimes pass for such. This is how Tomkins
approaches his subject. There is a breathlessness, a feeling of haste,
as if somebody was chasing Tomkins along the road while he was making
his researches. This, unless Tomkins has been guilty of trespass—an
alternative I refuse to consider—is difficult to explain."
The Doctor then gave us a bit out of Tomkins—
"’As one walks down a country lane, one can often hardly see the leaves
for the flowers. They burst upon the view in millions. The hedges are
thronged with them; the scent is overpowering. Turn where you will, they
greet the bewildered eye. They hang from the trees and spring from the
earth; they twine also—as, for instance, briony and convolvuluses. At a
single glance I take in dog-roses; campions of several sorts, including
white; shepherd’s purse—a weed; strawberry, primroses, cuckoo-flower,
violet, bugle, herb robert, and also other wild geraniums of various
kinds. They are in a crowded mass, all struggling for life. Stitchwort,
nettle, archangel, cock’s-foot grass, clematis, dock, heath, furze,
bog-moss, darnel, dandelions, daisies, buttercups of sorts, marshmallow,
water-lilies, rushes and reeds, poppies and peppermint, also ferns—one
sees them all at a glance. Then, as one hastens swiftly onwards——’
"I gasp for breath," said the Doctor; "I absolutely refuse to hasten
swiftly onwards with Tomkins. At this breakneck pace he drags us through
that portion of the British flora at his command. There is doubtless
knowledge here; there is even reflection, as when he says, at the end of
his paper, that wild flowers ought to make us thankful for our eyesight
and for the lesser gift of smell. But, taken as a whole, we have no
balance, absolutely no repose, no light, and no shade. There is too
much hurry and bustle, too little feeling for the beauty attaching to
English scenery or English prose; too eager a desire to display
erudition in the empty matter of floral nomenclature."
So that was the end of Tomkins. He was frightfully disappointed; but he
felt so interested to know what wretched chaps like Smythe and Walters
had done that was better, that he forgot even to be miserable about
losing until afterwards.
Then the Doctor went for Smythe.
"Huxley Smythe next challenges our attention," he said. "Now, here we
are confronted with a still more amazing misunderstanding. Smythe
appears to know absolutely nothing whatever concerning wild flowers; but
he has seized this occasion to display an extraordinary amount of
peculiar information concerning other matters. He evidently imagines
that this will answer his purpose equally well. Moreover, he endeavours
to cast his work in a poetic form—with results that have bewildered even
me, despite my half-century of knowledge of the _genus puer_. I do not
say that rhyme is inadmissible. You shall not find me slow to encourage
originality of thought even among the least of you; but Smythe trusts
too little to himself and too much to other rhymsters—I will not call
them poets. He has committed to memory many verses of a trivial and
even offensive character. He has furnished me with a charm or
incantation to remove warts. Elsewhere he commits himself to sentiments
that may be described as flagrantly irreligious. It is true he glances
obliquely at his subject from time to time; but not in a spirit which
can admire or commend. We have, for instance, these lines—
"’Put yarrow under your pillow, they say,
You will see your true love the very next day.’
"’For pain in the stomach an excellent thing
Is tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.’
"’If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someone
Will be certain to die ere the year is done.’
"Whence Huxley Smythe has culled these pitiful superstitions I know
not," continued the Doctor; "but he appears to be a veritable storehouse
and compendium of them. They remind me only too painfully of a certain
tiger’s tail, though that incident is closed, and I desire to make no
further mention of it. Had our theme been folklore, or those crude,
benighted and indelicate fancies still prevailing among the bucolic
population, Smythe must have conquered, and easily conquered. It is not
so, however. He has chosen the occasion of the ’Bolsover’ competition
to reveal no little fantastic knowledge; but its lack of appropriate and
apposite qualities effectually disposes of his claim. I will give you a
last sample of his methods. _A propos_ of absolutely nothing, on page
four of his dissertation, Smythe submits this impertinence. He appears
suddenly to have recollected it and inserted it in the body of his work,
without the least consideration for its significance or my feelings.
"’There was an old man who lived in a wood
As you may plainly see,
And said he could do more work in a day
Than his wife could do in three.’"
The Doctor looked awful sternly at Smythe.
"This fragment—from some coarse old ballad, I suspect—is thrust upon me,
as one might brandish a club in the face of an unoffending citizen.
Smythe must chasten his taste and study the rudiments of logic and
propriety before again he ventures to challenge our attention with
original thoughts. Silence! Silence!" thundered the Doctor in
conclusion; because Smythe’s stuff made Steggles laugh out loud. Then
several other chaps laughed, and in trying not to laugh, Wolf minor
choked and made a noise, like a football exploding, that was far worse
than laughter.
"There remains the effort of Rupert Walters," went on Dr. Dunstan. "He
is the youngest of the competitors, and I find but little to praise in
his achievement; yet it indicates a shadow of promise and a shade of
imagination. Indeed, Mr. Briggs at first suspected that Walters had
availed himself of secret and dishonest assistance; but this, I rejoice
to know, is not the case. Walters has yet to learn to control the
discharge of ink from his pen, and in matters of orthography also there
is much to be desired for him—a remark which applies to all the
competitors save Macmullen—but he possesses a dim and misty nucleus of
feeling for the dignity of his native tongue. There is in his attempt a
suggestion that at some distant date, if he is spared, and if he labours
assiduously in the dead languages, Rupert Walters may control his living
speech with some approach to distinction. I select his most pleasing
passage."
The Doctor regarded young Walters over his spectacles for a moment with
a frightfully encouraging expression that he sometimes puts on when
things are going extra well. Then he read the pleasing passage, as he
called it.
"’Often, walking in the country far from home, you may see the briars
falling over the sides of the lanes, and the may trees white with bloom.
They look lovely against the blue sky; and a curious thing is that the
distant trees also look blue, and not green, by reason of distance.
Near at hand, yellow and red flowers may be dotted about; but when you
look along the lane, you only see haze, which is beautiful. If there is
a river flowing near by, it is also very beautiful indeed, especially
with water-lilies on it. And clouds are lovely too, if reflected in a
sheet of water beside which yellow irises spring up, and their foliage
looks rather bluish. If a trout rises, it makes white rings on the
water.’
"Now, here," said the Doctor, "is a humble effort to set down what the
eye of this tender boy has mirrored in the past. I need not tell you
how he spells ’irises,’ or ’curious,’ or ’beautiful.’ The fact remains
that he has distanced his competitors and achieved the ’Bolsover’ prize.
Come hither, Rupert Walters. Let me shake your hand, my lad!"
So that was the end of it, and Walters seemed more frightened than
anything. But he took his book, and the matter ended, and the four
chaps had their essays back, with Briggs’s red pencil remarks on them,
to send home to their people.
The extraordinary truth only came to me three days later, when I
happened to be having a talk with Walters and looking at his prize,
which was duller even than most prizes. I said—
"How the dickens did you remember that trees look blue seen a mile off?"
And he said—
"I didn’t remember it. If you’ll swear not to tell, I’ll explain. I
shall be rather glad to tell somebody."
So I swore. Then Walters said—
"I was just sitting biting my pen and drawing on the blotting-paper and
casting my eyes about and wondering what on earth to say, when I saw
right bang in front of me a great picture—a whacker—full of trees and a
lane, and water and hills, and every mortal thing, even to the flowers
dabbed about in front. Well—there you are! I just tried to put down
what I saw. And I did it only too well, if anything. Of course, in a
sort of way, it was cribbing; but then, of course, in another sort of
way, it wasn’t. Anyway, you’ve sworn not to tell—not even Tomkins; so
of course you won’t tell."
And of course I didn’t.
*THE CASE FOR FOWLE*
*No. VII*
*THE CASE FOR FOWLE*
*I*
It’s awful difficult to understand why some boys are liked and some
utterly barred. I’m nearly sixteen now, and I’ve been at Merivale for
years, but still I can’t see it. All I know is that the chaps most boys
like, I don’t, and the very few chaps I like, nobody else does. At
first I thought it was hampers and asked my mother to send me extra
large ones, which she did; and such hampers as mine were never seen
before in any school, I should think. But the boys ate my water-melons
and peaches and many such unusual things, just as if they were the
wretched windfalls that Masters gets from his father’s orchards, or the
feeble home-made jam and common or garden cakes that come to other
fellows on their birthdays. Then the very chaps that guzzle my rare
things pretend afterwards I’ve tried to poison them, and so on; and
young Gregson, who once ate half a bruised pineapple of mine that was a
bit off, got ill; and after that only certain chaps would take the
things I offered. And nobody once, all the time I’ve been here, has
ever offered me as much as a dry biscuit out of their beastly hampers.
I pointed this out to Travers, who, though no friend of mine, always
appeared to have more sense in a general way than most fellows; and he
said—
"You sneer so at chaps. You always make it so jolly clear your hampers
are the best in the world, that naturally they think you wouldn’t care
about their things. Besides, Steggles did offer you three ripe pears,
for I saw him do it."
"Yes," I said, "he did—just because he knew they were over-ripe and
thought to score off me. I knew why he had done it, and told him so."
"Then he offered them to me," said Travers, "so I can tell you that you
are quite wrong. I took them and ate them on the spot, and they were
perfectly good, decent pears. For once in a way Steggles was quite
straight and meant no harm at all."
Well, I saw after a bit that it wasn’t hampers, or anything of that
sort; and then I thought it was games. But I wasn’t going to make a
fool of myself at footling games for anybody, and I always did get out
of them when I could. However, it wasn’t altogether games either,
though certainly more games than hampers. Still, there were chaps who
didn’t play games any better than me—such as Richards, who always went
to matches and was keen about games, though useless himself, and Ford,
who made peculiar knots in rope, and Jameson, who drew pictures in the
chaps’ Latin grammars of the remarkable things mentioned in syntax.
Then another great thing, showing what mean beasts most boys are, is the
fact that if certain masters like certain boys, then other boys also
like them.
Once, and only once, I got jolly friendly with a master who was very
much disliked indeed by everybody else. I mean Browne. I never found
him bad at first, and he used me a good bit in many ways and nearly
always gave me full marks. But he changed frightfully over the business
of the blackboard, and it happened like this. You see, as Browne
thought well of me, he confided in me a bit out for walks; and I
confided in him; and he asked me a lot of questions concerning a lot of
boys; and, as I hated them all, I told him what he wanted to know. He
was frightfully obliged and said I was a power for good in the school;
and also said that such a boy as I am, without silly ideas about
sneaking, may be of the greatest use to masters if he really has the
welfare and interest of the school at heart. He also gave me a knife
and seemed pretty sure I should win several prizes at the end of the
term. In fact, we got very friendly and I certainly did him a very good
turn by helping him to understand why some boys didn’t like him, and
telling him what they said about him behind his back. He was greatly
obliged to me, and used the things I told him, and scored pretty badly
off some chaps as a result. It rather surprised them to find how much
he knew; but it didn’t make them like him any better. Then they began
to try and score off him, and finally, owing to an unfortunate accident,
I got mixed up in it.
Steggles did an unusual thing to young Frost. Steggles had borrowed the
matron’s scissors to cut his toe-nails, which were turning in and
tearing his toes and making them pour with blood. And after he had used
them and shortened his toe-nails by about half-an-inch or so, he kept
them and told the matron that he had lost them. Then came young Frost,
who was a sort of relation of Trelawny, who was at that time easily the
best-liked chap at Merivale.
Well, Steggles got young Frost up into the gym. alone, as he thought,
and told him it was the rule for new boys to have their hair cut close
to their heads, because they often brought infection to Merivale in that
way. So he cut all young Frost’s hair off; and I was there, hidden in a
corner reading a grown-up novel that I had found in Browne’s room.
Because Browne, as a great favour, used to allow me in his study to see
the remarkable things he has there—chiefly on the mantelpiece, including
photographs of well-known actresses, said to be signed by themselves.
So I saw Steggles cut off Frost’s hair, and I did not know Steggles had
seen me, but he had. And he made me swear not to tell, which I did; but
knowing that an oath is not binding when the good of the school is
involved, I told Browne about it, and he took the credit to himself over
it and taxed Steggles with it. Of course Steggles denied it, and it
couldn’t be proved, because young Frost had a rotten idea it would be
unsportsmanlike to sneak. So it came about that Browne couldn’t do
anything without getting me into a row, and accordingly nothing was done
to Steggles. But Steggles did a lot to me, because of course he knew I
was the only person who could have told Browne the truth, as young Frost
hadn’t.
Then a rather clever beast called Macmullen wrote a piece of poetry with
rhymes, and after about twenty copies of this poetry had been sent to me
anonymously written round picture-postcards, Macmullen got Travers to
print it up on the blackboard just before Browne’s mathematical lesson
came on.
So when he arrived, there it was staring at him; and it was so
exceedingly well printed that he could not possibly tell who had done
it.
_There is a young sneaker called Fowle_
_Who ought to be made to howl,_
_For the things that Browne knows,_
_Which you would not suppose,_
_All come from that blighter called Fowle._
I wanted to rub it out before Browne came, but of course the chaps
wouldn’t let me.
Browne read this carefully and took such a long time looking at it, that
Steggles said he was learning it by heart. Then he picked up the duster
and slowly rubbed it out. He made no remark whatever, and for the time
being the score rather missed fire on Browne. But it didn’t miss fire
on me, because the next day, when I was passing his study, Browne called
me in and asked me about it. He said—
"Who wrote that piece of impertinence on the blackboard yesterday?"
And I said—
"Macmullen invented it, sir, and Travers printed it up; but I don’t know
who told them there was a sort of understanding between us."
Then Browne was greatly enraged and said—
"How dare you say there is any understanding between us, Fowle? Such
impertinence I never heard! What do I know about you and your affairs,
excepting that you are deservedly a very unpopular boy! And I’ll thank
you not to bring any more of your mean tales to me. A tale-bearer is an
odious thing; so remember; no more sneaking, or it will be very much the
worse for you!"
I was so astonished that I couldn’t do anything but stare.
"Now be off about your business," said Browne, and I went.
That shows pretty well what Mr. Browne was, I should think. The beastly
ingratitude of the man seemed to me the most extraordinary thing that
had ever happened; and after that I never could do right with Browne,
and he sided against me and never would listen to me, even when I had to
tell him things in self-defence.
I could easily show again and again that I was in the right and other
chaps were in the wrong, or masters too, for that matter; but it was not
much good trying to convince people with the whole of them against me.
There was always a proper religious reason for the things I did, and
though sometimes they looked queer until explained, I always could
explain them. But after I got to be hated, nobody would so much as stop
to listen to the explanations—not even the Doctor.
Everybody said he was just and fair, though an old footler; but I know
very well he wasn’t, owing to the time when Corkey minimus dropped a
shilling in the playground and I found one there. Well, how could I know
that because Corkey mins. had lost a shilling and I had found one, the
one I had found was bound to be the identical same shilling that Corkey
had lost? I shall always say it was frightfully unfair to me to order
me to give up the shilling as the Doctor did, and then jaw me before the
whole school.
Once my father said to me, "Always act from high motives, Roger," and I
always did; but nobody ever gave me any credit for doing so; and when I
told the Doctor over the affair of Gurney’s tame white rabbit, which I
found wandering alone in the playground after dark and killed with a
cricket stump, for fear that it should starve to death, and was seen
doing it by Gurney, who came to look for it—when I told the Doctor I had
done this from the best motives and not because Gurney had taken me down
in class the day before—he said that I was deceiving myself and told me
that Satan had put it into my heart to kill Gurney’s rabbit. Really I
had only done it out of fear that a poor dumb creature would suffer; and
yet the Doctor misunderstood me in such a wicked and spiteful way, that
he caned me and made me dig a grave and bury the brute in front of the
whole school as a punishment.
As to my feelings, which are frightfully keen, nobody cares a button
about them and I have to do things, simply in self-defence, that I
should never do if I was treated fairly. Even Tin Lin Chow when he was
here had a better time than me, and I could tell you a lot of things you
wouldn’t believe in the matter of tortures, simply invented by Steggles
and others in order to be applied to me. Steggles has invented two sets
of tortures called ’mind tortures’ and ’body tortures’; and the mind
tortures are babyish, but the body tortures are well worth avoiding. So
I always pretend the mind tortures are the worst, whereas really only a
fool would care for them, as they mean nothing to anybody who is
religious.
But what I meant to tell you was a fair case of the sort of things that
happen to me and I have to endure. I was told that I was to be tried by
court-martial, and I said "Why?" and Trelawny, the champion fighter of
the school, put the case before me.
He said—
"It is well known in the lower school that you have got up more fights
between kids than any other chap."
He then mentioned seven fights which he had written down.
"Now," he said, "did you or did you not arrange those seven fights?"
He had a lot of witnesses present and so I said—
"Five of them I arranged, because I wanted to see if——"
He interrupted me.
"You go about asking chaps if they give one another ’best,’ and when
they say ’no,’ though they may be perfectly friendly, you go on at them
till you work up a fight."
I denied it, and he said, "You can reserve your beastly defence for the
court-martial. I’ve only got one more question to ask you at present,
namely, Have you ever fought anybody yourself?"
And I said—
"No, Trelawny, I never have, because it would be contrary to my
opinions."
Then he merely said I was a sticky and noxious worm that wanted
poisoning with rat poison, and that nothing more need be said before the
court-martial.
*II*
Well, the court-martial, though held by the sixth, was grossly unfair,
and the thing they decided to do was simply cruel bullying in a superior
form. To begin with, Macmullen, who is the champion speaker at our
debates, was the leading witness against me; whereas I had nobody to
speak for me, because though I was told three days before the trial to
get somebody to speak for me, of course nobody would; and I had to stick
up for myself, which was a thing I never could do. So I went down, and
the fools pretended to prove that I had arranged hundreds of fights and
been second at scores. And yet, somehow, I had never fought a single
fight myself from the time I came there. Dozens of kids were called to
witness at the court-martial that I had given them ’best’ rather than
fight them; and many were much younger than me, and one, called Foster,
was only eleven, though certainly he was a great fighter, and many boys
of fourteen had to give him best in the long run, though not till after
they had fought him and been licked. Well, just because my religious
opinions kept me from fighting anybody, and especially Foster, they
called me an insect and a coward and a disgrace to the school and so on.
Then Trelawny, as the head of the court-martial, gave a verdict and I
was sentenced to have a fight, whether I liked it or not. Inquiries
were made and finally the court-martial found a chap called Andrews, who
was in my class and whose age was just one week less than mine. This
Andrews and me they decided must fight; and when it was known, everybody
wanted to be second for Andrews and nobody wanted to be second for me.
Trelawny said we might have a week to train, and then the court-martial
broke up. It was a brutal bit of work altogether, and I found rather an
interesting thing, which was that Andrews felt quite differently to the
affair to me. I talked to him privately as soon as I could, and
pretended it was all rot and laughed at the whole thing. But he said it
wasn’t rot at all as far as he was concerned. He was a new boy and
rather keen to make friends and be well thought of; so he considered
this a jolly good opportunity and began to train as well as he knew how.
I saw at a glance that he could lick me, for I’d never learned fighting
and hated hurting anything, I’m sure, always; and I argued a good deal
with Andrews about it. He said that his father had told him that a
chance to make friends and distinguish himself would be sure to come.
And Andrews said no doubt his father was right, and that the chance had
come and that he was going to distinguish himself as much as he could on
me.
Well, of course I saw what had to be done. Just at that time I was
rather unfairly hated by Dr. Dunstan, because of an affair in the
playground. There was a fir-tree in it at one corner, and I had found
that turpentine came out if you cut notches in it. Well, into this
turpentine I stuck live ants and then burnt them up with a
burning-glass. It was nothing; but old Briggs, the writing master and
natural history master, discovered me doing it and must needs make a
ridiculous fuss. He told the Doctor and the Doctor made a ridiculous
fuss too and turned against me and hated me. So Dunstan was out of the
question, and there was only one other master I could tell, and that was
Monsieur Michel, the French master. But he was weak and useless in an
emergency like this; so finally I decided that the proper person to
approach would be Andrews himself.
That much was pretty easy to decide, but then came the question what to
say to him, and I was helped in this matter by a very lucky thing. It
came out in class that Andrews was an absolute flyer at geography, and
though not as good as me—me being head of the class in that
subject—still he jolly soon got second to me and stopped there. I am a
tremendous dab at geography myself; and if I knew as much about other
things I should be in the sixth; and if a good many things I
know—especially about religious saints—were regular subjects in school,
instead of being barred altogether, I should also be in the sixth.
And finding out the greatness of Andrews at geography gave me the idea I
wanted, which happened only just in time; because the day I spoke to him
was a Wednesday and the next Saturday was the day we had to fight.
I said—
"Aren’t you looking forward to Saturday?"
And he said—
"Yes, I am."
And I said—
"So am I, because I’m in training too; and I find that I fight
tremendously well, and I’m only sorry I hadn’t to fight a lot sooner."
But I couldn’t deceive him with this, for a moment; so I soon changed
the subject.
I introduced prizes and said that the Doctor was particularly keen about
the subject of geography and always gave the best prizes for that.
"I know," he said, "and I should have had a jolly good chance if it
hadn’t been for you."
"You would," I said. "In fact, but for me you would be a snip for it."
We talked a bit and then I said—
"I wonder if your father would rather you made your mark by fighting me,
or by winning the geography prize in your first term? Of course, to win
any prize in your first term is a great score for a chap."
He said that he hadn’t thought of it, and after I pressed him a lot, he
admitted that there was no doubt the prize would suit his mother best,
but he thought very likely if he won a fight it would suit his father
best.
He said—
"My father’s a soldier, and I’m going to be one; and so, naturally,
fighting is more in my line than geography."
But I doubted this, and, in fact, I proved that a mere fight was
nothing, whereas geography was a great deal and at least as much use to
a soldier as fighting—especially after he had lost a battle.
Finally he said that I might be right, but that it didn’t much matter as
I was bound to win the geography prize, and he was equally bound to lick
me next Saturday.
Then I made my great offer.
I said—
"Look here; I’m not afraid of fighting, or anything like that; but I’ve
got religious objections to it and, in fact, though your father might
like you to fight, my father would get into a frightful bate if I did.
Really it might be jolly serious for me, and it would not matter to my
father in the least whether I won the fight or lost it."
Andrews said that had nothing to do with him; so I went on and explained
how it might have a great deal to do with him.
I said—
"You see, if you lost the fight, your father would very likely be very
sick about it, and instead of getting rewarded, you might get nothing;
whereas, if the fight fell through and you merely said firmly you had no
reason for fighting me, and were not going to do it just because you
were ordered to, and then went and won the geography prize, that would
be a much greater score for you."
He admitted it might be, but didn’t see how he could beat me at
geography.
Then I said—
"If you refuse to fight me, you shall get the geography prize, because I
need not put down anything like all I know and can boss a lot of
questions purposely."
He said—
"It would please my mother and might do me a lot of good with my
grandmother."
And I said—
"It certainly would; and next term, if you still want a fight, I’ll
easily arrange one for you with somebody else, and then you can make it
all right with your father."
He said—
"Will you solemnly swear on human blood that you will boss the geography
paper and let me get the prize?"
And to show him how much in earnest I was, I took out my knife there and
then, and he pricked his finger and I pricked mine, and then I swore
that I would let him have the geography prize, and he swore that he
would refuse to fight me.
I felt that was a pretty good day’s work, and so did he; but I felt it
all the time, whereas Andrews only felt it in stray moments and, between
whiles, was jolly savage with himself for swearing the blood oath. He
was frightfully scorned for not fighting me, and the only thing that
comforted him, and that only in secret, was that his mother and
grandmother would be full of rejoicing in the holidays and richly reward
him for winning the geography prize.
In fact, he kept on so obstinately about his mother, that I began to
think about mine, and the sad grief it would be to her if I did not win
this prize as usual. After a time I realized that I had actually put
Andrews before my own dear mother, and I felt very shocked to think of
what I had done.
The end of the term began to get nearer and nearer, and the exams. were
going to begin soon. I tried hard not to think about geography and not
to think about my mother, but Andrews found the only subjects that
interested him were these subjects; and at last I simply had to avoid Andrews, because he kept on to such a sickening extent about what a score it would be to win it. |
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