THE LANCHESTER TRADITION
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
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‘FOR THIS I HAD BORNE HIM.’
THE LANCHESTER TRADITION.
WHEN EVERY TREE WAS GREEN.
THE AWAKENING OF BITTLESHAM.
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THE LANCHESTER
TRADITION
BY G. F. BRADBY
AUTHOR OF ‘DICK,’ ‘WHEN EVERY TREE WAS GREEN,’
‘THE AWAKENING OF BITTLESHAM,’ ETC.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1919
FIRST EDITION _September, 1913_
_Reprinted_ _January, 1914_
_Reprinted_ _August, 1919_
[_All rights reserved_]
PREFACE
This is a school story; but Chiltern School has yet to be founded and
the masters and boys who figure in the following pages have never
existed outside the author’s brain. It is necessary to say so much,
partly because most stories of this kind have admittedly dealt with
particular schools, and partly because many readers have very little
idea of the workings of the imaginative faculty. At all events, when
a professional man ventures to write fiction, they insist on seeing
history or caricature, and proceed to affix labels; for there is
a general assumption that professional men, and schoolmasters in
particular, are necessarily devoid of imagination.
Once more then, Chiltern is not a real school and its masters are
not real masters. But, though not real, they are not impossible--at
least, so the author believes. For men, like boys, are unconsciously
moulded by their environment and tend to conform to types; and, given a
school like Chiltern, there would probably be masters like the Chiltern
masters.
G. F. B.
_June, 1913._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE ELECTION 1
II. MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 14
III. EXIT DR. GUSSY 29
IV. THE FIRST SKIRMISH 43
V. MR. TIPHAM 56
VI. THE CLOVEN HOOF 69
VII. THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 79
VIII. THE PARENTS’ COMMITTEE 92
IX. “GOD’S IN HIS HEAVEN” 103
X. THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 114
XI. MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE AND MEETS WITH A REBUFF 126
XII. THE EXPLOSION 139
XIII. IN DARK PLACES 151
XIV. THE DAY OF DECISION 164
XV. AFTERMATH 176
THE LANCHESTER TRADITION
CHAPTER I
THE ELECTION
Chiltern School lies just outside the sleepy little town of the same
name. Its motto is “Providendo nec timendo,” and its colours--a happy
combination of cerise, orange, and green--are a familiar sight in all
parts of the Empire. But the school itself, though second to none in
the opinion of Chilternians, who should be the best judges, is not seen
so often by the general public as its colours, because it can only be
reached by a branch line and the time-table is a difficulty. It owes
its inaccessibility to the foresight of its governors who, at the time
when railways were invented, succeeded in keeping the main line at a
distance; so when the present chairman comes down for Speech-day he
generally travels in a motor-car.
Its stone walls are grey with age or green with creepers. Later
generations have relieved the monotony by adding blocks of buildings in
variegated brick, and nowhere can the genius of Sir George Honeymead,
the famous mid-Victorian architect, be studied to greater advantage.
But of recent years taste has swung back in favour of uniformity, and
whenever a famous Old Chilternian dies--and there are many famous Old
Chilternians--an attempt is made to perpetuate his memory by converting
the brick into stone. The sick-house, the gymnasium, the workshops, and
the lodge have already been transformed; and it is generally understood
that, when a certain aged statesman is taken to his rest, the Great
Hall will undergo a similar change--unless, indeed, a new chemical
laboratory is considered to have prior claims.
The school owes its existence to the generosity of one John Buss,
a local farrier, who migrated to London in the early years of the
seventeenth century, prospered in his business, and bequeathed a
school and a hospital to his native place. Antiquarians have been at
pains to prove that what John Buss really did was to endow an ancient
but struggling institution that had existed on the same site ever
since Benedictine days, and that the history of Chiltern stretches
back into the dark ages before even William of Wykeham was born.
But the long gap between the suppression of the monasteries and the
seventeenth century is hard to bridge satisfactorily, and John Buss is
still regarded, officially, as the creator of the famous school. The
property which he bequeathed in East London has of late years greatly
deteriorated in value, and, when the prior claims of the hospital have
been met, the school only nets £92 3_s._ 11_d._ per annum out of the
endowments. The Liberal papers, however, have not yet discovered this
fact, and, when politics are dull, they demand that the revenues of
Chiltern shall be restored to the nation and a University for working
men built and endowed with the same. This contention helps to keep
the memory of John Buss green outside the walls of Chiltern, and
there are some who see in him a pioneer of Democracy and a prophet
of the University Extension movement. Be that as it may, Chiltern
at the present moment is rich because rich men are content to pay
large fees in order that their sons may have the privilege of being
educated, exclusively, with the sons of other rich men. The junior
masters are of opinion that these large fees should be made still
larger, and the salaries of the junior masters raised in proportion;
but the senior masters scout this proposal as mercenary. The senior
masters at Chiltern are popularly supposed to be better paid than the
senior masters at any other school. Whether this is so or not, it is
impossible to say for certain; for the senior masters at Chiltern only
talk of their salaries to the surveyor of taxes, and, even then, they
do so reluctantly.
The town of Chiltern lives to a great extent upon the school, and
the authorised tradesmen, who enjoy a practical monopoly, have a
lively faith in the value of the goods supplied by them to “the young
gentlemen”; which faith is convincingly reflected in the prices they
charge. In the unauthorised trades, that is to say amongst tobacconists
and dealers in motor-cycles, air-guns, and translations of the
Classics, competition tends to keep prices down. Nevertheless, these
illicit traders are always supposed to have done remarkably well in the
palmy days of Dr. Gussy.
Notwithstanding this bond of union, there is a traditional feeling of
hostility on the part of the town towards the school. This is due, in
part, to the fact that the school people are supposed to look down upon
the town people, but, still more, to a widely prevalent belief that,
somehow or other, the school has defrauded the town of the farrier’s
benefactions. As this belief is entirely without foundation, it is
likely to be lasting.
The country round Chiltern is pretty if not exciting. There is a round
hill (called by the masters “Soracte,” and by the natives “the Sow’s
Back”) at a convenient distance from the school, which commands a view
over four counties and enables such of the staff as are inclined to
obesity to retain a semblance of their youthful shape. In spring the
landscape is white with cherry and pear blossom, and in autumn the
apples make a cheerful show. There are quiet lanes, peaceful farms, and
irritable farmers, who make unreasonable complaints when “the young
gentlemen” break down their hedges, tread down their young wheat, or
pillage their orchards.
The climate is of the kind that is commonly called salubrious; for
anæmic boys it is generally considered bracing, but it is also
recommended as temperate for those who are afflicted with delicate
chests. Like all schools in England, public or private, Chiltern
stands on gravel, and the drains are of the most approved and
up-to-date pattern. Both the gravel and the up-to-dateness of the
drains are vouched for by the school porter. The school-rooms are for
the most part dark, but of great historic interest, and possessed
of an indefinable charm. This charm, and the sense of continuity
with a remote past, are generally regarded as an adequate substitute
for ventilation. Indeed, many of the senior masters at Chiltern are
strongly opposed to ventilation in any form, and prefer their air with
a “bouquet.”
The playing fields, locally known as Colonus, are amongst the noblest
in England, and are said to have been the scene of a sanguinary battle
between the Danes and the Saxons. The School Antiquarian Society
occasionally indulges in feverish bouts of digging, in the hope of
unearthing bones or some other memorial of the fray; but, hitherto,
they have failed to discover anything but stones and the bowl of a clay
pipe. A stream, which flows at the far end of the grounds, provides
the school with a unique swimming-bath (_vide_ prospectus). Under
Dr. Gussy’s thoughtful régime the banks of this stream were planted
thickly with rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs, which afford a
reasonably secure retreat, on Sundays, for such of the scholars as wish
to enjoy a quiet pipe without the fatigue of pedestrian exercise. But
etiquette requires that boys who have not yet reached their fourth Term
shall smoke elsewhere.
In spite, however, of its ancient school-rooms, noble grounds, and
salubrious climate, Chiltern would probably never have become one of
_the_ public schools of England if it had not been for Dr. Lanchester.
When Abraham Lanchester became headmaster, at the end of the eighteenth
century, he found the place little more than a county grammar school;
he left it an institution of National, almost Imperial, importance.
Chiltern has lived ever since on the memory of Dr. Lanchester. It
is natural, therefore, that he should be worshipped as the second
and greater founder of the community. John Buss is honoured for his
picturesque figure and his priceless gift of antiquity, but Lanchester
is the presiding deity. His statue stands in the centre of the great
quadrangle, his portrait looks down from the walls of the Great
Hall; the library, the workshops, and other lesser buildings, or
additions to buildings, are called after his name; and every foreign
preacher in the School Chapel, whether he is pleading for peace or
war, for Christian unity or Church defence, for social service or
Imperial expansion, closes his peroration with an appeal to the
memory of Abraham Lanchester. The Lanchester tradition permeates
the place like an atmosphere, invisible but stimulating. It is
difficult to analyse, for, like all great truths, it states itself
in different terms to different minds and has a special message for
each. To the general public it stands for the Classics and faith
in the educational value of Latin verse. To the masters it means a
firm belief in the efficacy of the methods, or absence of method,
to which they have become attached through long habit. To the Old
Chilternians it embodies the social ideas and customs with which they
grew up; and to the boys themselves, if it means anything more than a
name, it represents a certain immutability and fixity of things, an
as-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever-shall-be attitude towards
life that appeals to their best conservative instincts. Any change
in the hour of a lesson or the colour of a ribbon is regarded as an
outrage on the Lanchester tradition, and is popularly supposed to make
the dead hero turn in his grave.
In connection with the school tradition it should, perhaps, be
mentioned that there is a life of the great man by a friend and
contemporary, and that there is nothing in it to suggest that Dr.
Lanchester was so acutely sensitive to change. He seems, indeed, to
have impressed his biographer as a restless spirit, with new and rather
daring ideas about education. Bound in the school colours and stamped
with the school crest, this volume is frequently given as a prize, and
figures on many a Chiltern bookshelf. But it is seldom read, except by
Germans and Nonconformist ministers; for it is ponderously written,
and Chiltern is more concerned with the memory than with the life of
its great headmaster. In fact, the tradition is an oral rather than a
written tradition, and it is perpetually renewed. Chiltern claims to
receive a continuous stream of inspiration from its second founder; and
the current of the stream runs strongly against change.
But a moment came in the history of the school, when the Lanchester
tradition and all that it stands for was threatened with a
violent overhauling, if not a complete extinction. After a reign
of four-and-twenty years, to all outward appearance peaceful and
prosperous, Dr. Gussy suddenly discovered that he had had enough of it
and accepted a vacant Deanery. And then the Governing Body, or Council
as it is properly called, in one of those fits of absent-mindedness
to which governing bodies are liable, elected as his successor a
comparatively young man of unorthodox views and no practical experience.
The election was one of the seven wonders of the scholastic world.
There had been more than a score of candidates for the vacant post,
including a successful curate and an unsuccessful army coach; but it
was known that only two of them were in the running, Henry Guthridge
and the Rev. Ignatius Lawrence. Mr. Guthridge was a layman and an
Old Chilternian; he had served an apprenticeship of five years as
assistant master at the school, and had since filled the post of
Hilbert Professor and Lecturer at Oxford. Dr. Lawrence, a clergyman
of advanced Anglican views, hailed from Cambridge, and had won a
certain reputation as headmaster of St. Cuthbert’s, in the north of
England. Mr. Guthridge was the official candidate of the staff, and
it was believed that he would carry the day, in spite of the Bishop,
who was known to be strongly opposed to the appointment of a layman.
As for the Rev. Septimus Flaggon, whose name, to everybody’s surprise,
was added as a third to the select list, nobody treated his claims
seriously. Fellow of an obscure college, tutor to a foreign prince,
and subsequently president of some educational institution in Wales,
his youth and inexperience ruled him out of serious consideration. It
transpired, moreover, that he owed his place among the select to some
powerful influence in the background. Some said that he was being run
by a member of the Royal family; others suspected the Prime Minister;
others, again, the Russian Ambassador. But all agreed that he was,
where he was, _honoris causa_ and as a matter of form. The choice
obviously lay between Guthridge and Lawrence, with the odds in favour
of Guthridge, in spite of his laymanship.
However, when the Council met at Grandborough, the county town, to come
to a decision, it was found that the Bishop had canvassed strongly and
that lay and clerical forces were exactly evenly divided. The Chairman
of the Council, a man of moderate views, disliked clerical domination
but was also averse from the appointment of an Old Chilternian; so he
declined to give a casting vote in favour of either candidate. Neither
side would budge an inch, and the contention grew sharp between them.
Twice Mr. Guthridge and Dr. Lawrence were called separately from the
dingy room in which, together with Mr. Flaggon, they were awaiting
their fate, and submitted to a lengthy cross-examination, in the hope
that one or other of them would say something to turn the evenly
balanced scales. But neither succeeded in detaching the necessary vote.
At length the Chairman, who had a train to catch and a dinner depending
on the train, looked at his watch and hinted at an alternative
solution. Had the Council sufficiently considered the claims of the
third candidate, a man of great promise with very influential backing?
Compromise is an essential feature of the English character, and long
hours of enervating discussion, in a stuffy room on a July afternoon,
are favourable to its rapid growth. The Council was exhausted, and Mr.
Flaggon had some striking testimonials. His orders were a sop to the
Bishop, and his reputed unorthodoxy appealed to the lay party. So, at
the eleventh hour, Mr. Flaggon was called into the Council Chamber.
His appearance was satisfactory, and his answers to a few questions
that were put to him by the Chairman and the Bishop gave no offence.
He seemed a providential way out of an impossible situation, and
withdrew, at the end of the interview, amidst encouraging smiles. Five
minutes later, to the chagrin of his rivals and his own surprise, he
was invited once more into the Council Chamber and informed that he was
headmaster elect of Chiltern. After which the Chairman left hurriedly
to catch his train.
At Chiltern the triumph of Guthridge was awaited with quiet confidence.
Nobody, except Dr. Gussy, believed that the Council would dare to
disregard the explicit wishes of the masters and the personal claims of
the only Old Chilternian who was standing--the one man, in fact, who
was qualified to carry on, intact, the great Lanchester tradition. So,
when the astonishing news came through that Flaggon, and not Guthridge,
was the man, it was received at first with blank incredulity, followed
immediately afterwards by a burst of passionate resentment. Who was
Flaggon, what was Flaggon, who had ever heard or dreamed of Flaggon?
The masters were seen talking and gesticulating in excited groups in
the great quadrangle.
“It’s an insult,” cried Mr. Pounderly, shaking his clenched fist, “a
deliberate insult, aimed at the whole staff. I say a deliberate insult!”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Bent the cynic (every staff possesses a
cynic), “it’s merely another instance of the ironic humour for which
the Council is famous.” Mr. Cox, the Nestor of Chiltern, shook his head
sadly from side to side with a far-away look in his eyes; Mr. Black,
the senior mathematician, was for petitioning the Council, at once, to
revoke its decision; and when Mr. Chase, the moderate man (every staff
possesses at least one moderate who reads the _Spectator_), expressed
a timid hope that the newcomer would be given a fair chance, he was
within an ace of being lynched. Even the school porter, a man of solemn
demeanour and grave reticence, expressed the opinion that the choice
was “hominous.”
As for Dr. Gussy, who, without committing himself publicly, had worked
hard for Dr. Lawrence in private, he was completely prostrated by the
blow. Scarcely could he bring himself to make the official announcement
to the school in the Great Hall; and, when he did so, it was with the
voice and gestures of the Roman prætor announcing after Thrasymene,
“We have lost a great battle.” For several days he affected to regard
himself as superseded, set aside, and sulked like Achilles in his tent.