_To feed were best at home_.
MACBETH.
[Greek verse]
ILIAD IX.
PRINCE HENRY. _Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer_?
POINS. _Why_, _a prince should not be so loosely studied as to
remember so weak a composition_.
PRINCE HENRY. _Belike then my appetite was not princely got_; _for_,
_by my troth_, _I do now remember the poor creature_, _small beer_.
_But_, _indeed_, _these humble considerations make me out of love with
my greatness_.
2 HENRY IV.
"Who ought to take the command, in the event of anything happening to
your lordship?" asked Wellington's officers on an occasion in the
Peninsular War. "Beresford," the great strategist answered, after
reflection. And then, in answer to their surprised looks: "If it were a
question of handling troops, some of you fellows might do as well,
perhaps better than he; but what we now want is someone to _feed_ our
men." {46}
This story, and the countenance of the epic and royal personages of our
mottoes, is our excuse for passing on to treat of the ignoble topic of
knives and forks, and to describe how three times a day our colony was
fed. It is a topic which could not be left outside a narrative which
seeks to "show how fields were won."
If our readers will follow the master of the week as he makes his round
of the tea-tables at a quarter to seven on a winter evening, he will
witness a cheerful scene not wanting in picturesqueness. The vista of
the corridor is filled with three very long and very narrow tables, and
the boys of as many houses seated at them. The subdued light, which
streams from numerous but feeble oil-lamps through the atmosphere of
fragrant vapour steamed up by the tea-urns, falls with Rembrandtesque
contrast of light and shadow on the long ranks of faces. There is that
hum of quiet animation which seems always to exhale along with the aroma
of the Chinese leaf. From the urn, where the house matron mounts guard
up to the Sixth Form end of the table, where the head of the house is
jotting down the list of absentees from the roll-call, the cloth is
thickly studded with the viands in tins and jars, rich and various in
colour, with which the schoolboy adds succulence to his meal. We open a
door out of the dim corridor, and enter a room with three more houses
seated round its walls. The sense of animation rises with the warmth and
brightness of the fire which roars in the grate. We collect the lists,
and move on to another and another room, till we have seen the last of
the eleven houses in a severely simple servants'-hall on the basement
floor. Thence we return to the wind and rain outside.
If we came here at dinner-time, we should see the housemaster at the head
of his table, and his wife or members of his family at the other end. The
scene would be quite wanting in the picturesque, but no sense of comfort
would make amends for it. For it is dark, especially in the centre of
the corridor, and the carver of those vast joints never knows when he
will strike his elbow against the walls or passers-by; while the
incidence of draughts is clearly enough defined by here and there a coat-
collar turned up in self-defence; for neither the glass front door, nor
the wooden porch, nor our massive porter can effectually keep out the
weather. Dinner here is a stern bit of the day's work, to be discharged
with a serious fortitude.
We have described how we eat, but said nothing yet of what was eaten. Yet
our practical narrative cannot ignore the matter. Certain delicate
subjects, however, are best treated dialectically, and perhaps we could
not here do better than record a dialogue which we think we must have
overheard between Grumbler and Cheerful, two dramatic characters not
unknown to readers of the School Magazine some year ago:
_Cheer_. Have you read that jolly letter in _The Times_, on
"Uppingham by the Sea?"
_Grumb_. Yes, I have; and the writer says, "The commissariat was on
the whole good." I must say that surprises me.
_Cheer_. Why where was it at fault, then?
_Grumb_. Where? It was at fault all round. Look at the
puddings--everlastingly smoked!
_Cheer_. Yes; but the commissariat is not puddings.
_Grumb_. Well then, the coals--all chips and small dust; at least,
when there _were_ any.
_Cheer_. But the commissariat is not coals.
_Grumb_. Then the cold plates your gravy froze on!
_Cheer_. My good fellow, who ever heard of hot plates on a picnic?
_Grumb_. How about the vegetables then, that never came to table
except to make believe there was something in the Irish stew? or what
do you call the thing they sometimes served out for butter?
_Cheer_. Ah! well! "a rose by any other name"--you know the rest. But
still, the commissariat isn't bad because the butter was so sometimes.
_Grumb_. Oh! of course, you can say the Commissariat (if you spell it
with a big C) doesn't mean the meat, or the soup, or the puddings, or
the greens, or the butter, or the coals, or the rest of it--but if it
isn't these, I should like to know what it is.
_Cheer_. (_loftily_). My good friend, it is easy for you to say this
thing or the other was not to your fancy, but it was not quite so easy
a matter for our landlord to provide a daily supply of meat, bread,
and dairy stuff for some four hundred people; especially as it had to
be organised for the occasion, without previous experience. I take it
if you knew how the farmers had to be coaxed to sell us their butter,
how green things couldn't be had in the markets for love or money, and
if you knew how many miles of railway those beeves travelled to and
fro between pasture, slaughter-house, and kitchen, before their weary
joints rested on our table, I say you would thank the commissariat
that you hadn't something worth grumbling about. I am glad we never
were on famine rations. I asked to live, not to live well.
_Grumb_. (_a trifle ashamed, but dogged_). Why, of course, I don't
mean to say things might not have been worse. Still I stick to it,
they were not nice.
_Cheer_. But you'll admit the commissariat did its work: the army was
fed. After all, the proof of a pudding is _not_ the eating of it, it
is how you feel after it. Now, people are not starved who look the
strong healthy fellows ours did when they went home after the first
term of it. No 'famine marks' in those firm, brown faces, eh? And
then, tell me, did the Rutland pastures ever yield such juicy mutton,
or flow so abundantly with milk?
_Grumb_. Enough, enough; you have it. Only I won't be told I was
revelling in comfort when I was doing nothing of the kind. I'll bear
it, but I won't grin and say I like it; I'll say nothing against it if
it's better not, but I shan't say what is untrue in favour of it.
[_Exeunt arm-in-arm_.]
Our two interlocutors fairly exhaust the facts of the case between them,
and the historian, who can serve no purpose by trying to think things
better or worse than they were, will silence neither. We give our honest
praise to the organisers of the food supply for their effectual
performance of a very heavy, vexatious, and precarious task, the scale of
which we have been brought by inquiry to estimate at its true magnitude.
At the same time we will spare such sympathy as the dignity of the matter
demands for the sufferers from tough beef, tub butter, smoked puddings,
cold potatoes, and congealed gravy, and not mislead any refugee
schoolmaster of the future into the belief that he can dine in the
wilderness as comfortably as in Pall Mall.