Further years of boyhood and additional crosses. Progress in study and
music. I excel at the game of Nuts in May. I am to go to Hopkinson
House School. But Providence again intervenes. I become a victim of
the ring-worm. Devastating effect of an ointment. Mr. Balfour Whey
and his sons. A brutal County Court judge. But my father obtains
damages.
PHYSICALLY shattered as I had been by the attack on my person by Desmond
O’Flaherty, the mental and spiritual consequences of this assault were
far more serious and prolonged. Awakened for the first time to the
contemporary existence of a depravity hitherto unsuspected by me, I was
unable for several weeks to regain my previous composure, or indeed to
venture unaccompanied beyond the precincts of the house. Nor could I
bear even to contemplate the introduction of a successor to Mrs.
O’Flaherty.
For that reason, although still in poor health, my mother was obliged to
resume her former duties, while my father was confirmed in his decision
to postpone my schooldays for another three or four years. To this he
had already been inclined, partly owing to the representations that I
myself had been compelled to make to him, and partly owing to his desire
to assist me as far as possible in bearing the crosses with which
Providence had entrusted me. Far beyond the average both in weight and
number, I can realize now of course what a privilege these were. But in
the earlier years of my boyhood they taxed my faith to its utmost
powers.
Many were the times, for instance, when after a long morning’s study,
merely interrupted by an occasional cup of cocoa, I turned with avidity
to a simple but abundant meal of roast pork and open jam tart, only to
find myself, an hour or two later, rolling in agony upon the sofa, or
even indeed summoned on certain occasions to yield it back whence it
came. This was perhaps the hardest lesson of all. But I am happy to say
that at last I learned it. And I can well remember the pride with which
my father, hurrying into the parlour with a convenient receptacle, first
found me consoling myself with some appropriate verses from an early
chapter of the book of Job.
That incident alone, as my father often used to say, was a complete
justification of his decision to postpone my school-life; and I am quite
confident that, had I been earlier subjected to the propinquity of
coarser-fibred boys, I should never have survived to render adult
service to the men and women of my time. Nor should I have made, I am
sure, such intellectual progress as I achieved between my sixth and
eleventh birthdays. Familiar from cover to cover not only with the Holy
Bible, but also with the Apocrypha, I had attained dexterity in simple
division, was acquainted with the geography of the British Isles, and
had read the history of England so far as the reign of Queen Anne.
Passionately devoted to music, I had taught myself to play from memory
the airs of a large number of well-known hymns, including several of the
more rapid and accentuated of the late Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Subject
to my father’s guidance, too, I ranged in boyish fashion amongst
literature of a lighter order. With some of the works of Longfellow, for
instance, I was soon so familiar as to be able to repeat them without a
mistake, and I can still recall the delight with which I read a work of
fiction in which Martin Luther was one of the characters portrayed.
Happy as I was, however, with some such volume as this, a pound or two
of chocolates, and my rabbit Isaiah, or to settle down for a long summer
afternoon with the Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer, I was
not averse from an occasional ramble in the company of my father, or
even from exercise of a more vehement order with younger and suitable
comrades. The chief of these latter was Emily Smith, the granddaughter
of Mrs. Emily Smith, my mother’s aunt, a gentle child, who was
unfortunately an albino, but of a deeply religious and sympathetic
nature.
A year or two older than myself, she lived with her grandmother at New
Cross, and in her company and that of some of her school companions, I
played several health-giving and mirthful games. One of our favourites,
I remember, was Hide and Go Seek, combining both physical and mental
exertion; and another, of which we were hardly less fond, was known as
Nuts in May.
For the purposes of this latter game those who proposed to take part
would first form themselves into two equal groups, the members of each
moiety then standing side by side, facing the same way and holding each
other’s hands. The two groups would then take up positions, each
opposite each, in joyous anticipation, and so arranged as to secure a
space between them sufficient for an alternating advance and retreat. By
a previous arrangement one of the two sides would then approximate
itself to the other, singing in unison and to an established melody, the
following humorously incongruous lines.
Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May,
Here we go gathering nuts in May
On a cold and frosty morning.
That we were not in fact doing so was of course obvious. But the
innocent laughter that the words always provoked in us was quite
sufficient, in the opinion of myself and my comrades, to rob them of any
semblance of deliberate untruthfulness.
It would then become the turn of the previously silent and stationary
players to advance singing a second stanza, in which they would merrily
inquire which of their number was to be chosen as symbolic of these nuts
in May. To them in reply the first group would designate a member of the
second, whereupon the second group would once more advance with the very
pertinent query:—
_Whom will you send to fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away,
fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away, fetch her_ (or _him_,
if it was myself) _away_,
_Whom will you send to fetch her_ (or _him_, if it was myself) _away_,
_On a cold and frosty morning_?
The members of the first group would then select one of their comrades
to be the emissary of conveyance, and to the same melody and with a
similar gesture, would announce their choice to the second group. A
pocket-handkerchief, folded upon itself diagonally, would then be
stretched upon the grass, parallel to and midway between the merry and
expectant companies of players. The symbolized nut and its would-be
gatherer would then face each other across the extended handkerchief,
grasp hands, and each earnestly endeavour to draw the other across the
separating fabric. To whomsoever was successful the other would then be
accorded as a member henceforward of the victor’s group, and the game
would proceed as before with ever-increasing mirth.
Ultimately it might happen, and indeed it often did, that one of the
sides would finally absorb the other, and the absorbing side usually
including myself, my services were naturally in the keenest demand. I
soon found in fact that, in spite of my ill-health, I was singularly
adapted to this form of recreation. Inheriting, as I did, to a very
great extent, my father’s powerful and sonorous voice, I was able to
throw myself with dominating effect into the preliminary vocal
exchanges, while my physique stood me in admirable stead in the later
stages of the game. For though I was short, with singularly slender
arms, my abdomen was large and well covered, while my feet, with their
exceptional length and breadth and almost imperceptible arches, enabled
me to obtain a tenacious hold of the ground upon which they were set.
So proficient in fact did I become that when I went to school I was
bitterly disappointed to find that this, my favourite game of play, was
not even included in the curriculum. In later years I have heard this
game criticized both on moral and physical grounds, and even my friend
and vicar, the Reverend Simeon Whey, has had grave doubts as to its
permissibility. On many occasions indeed we have sat far into the night
arguing about its effect on the Xtian character. But I am happy to say
that he has now gone so far as to approve of it for others. Indeed, as I
have more than once facetiously suggested to him, his real objections to
the game have been personal, founded on a lack of success in its
practice that may well have prejudiced his outlook. For though he is no
mean exponent of the game of Draughts, as well as that of Word Making
and Word Taking, at Nuts in May he has seldom if ever avoided being
drawn across the handkerchief. As the result of my protests, however, he
has continued to permit the game to be one of the brightest features of
our annual Sunday School gatherings; and most of our schoolmistresses, I
think, would be compelled to testify that I have retained all my
old-time skill.
In such fashion, then, I emerged into my twelfth year; and, albeit
with considerable misgivings, my father arranged at last for my entry
into a high-class school in the neighbourhood. Known as Hopkinson
House School for the Sons of Gentlemen, it was conveniently situated
in Jasmine Grove on the southern outskirts of Camberwell, and included
features in its dignified exterior of almost every type of
architecture. Approached by a semi-circular gravel drive with gates of
entry and exit, it was flanked on both sides, and isolated in the
rear, by an asphalt recreation-ground. Above the front steps, two
chocolate-coloured pillars supported a classical portico, and the
windows of the first-floor rooms were surmounted with characteristic
Gothic mouldings. The windows of the first, second and third storeys
were of a simpler Georgian pattern, but the roof was uplifted, at its
anterior corners, into castellated Norman turrets. Midway between
these, an Elizabethan gable formed a pleasing contrast, and the two
chimney-stacks, each bearing a lightning-conductor, were decorated
with Moorish relief work.
Conducted by a Mr. Septimus Lorton, the successor to Mr. Hopkinson, the
founder of the school, it was daily attended by some seventy or eighty
of the sons of the Peckham and Camberwell gentry. Concerning Mr. Lorton
I shall have more to say presently, but just about a week before what
was to have been my first term, a tender but inscrutable Providence once
again intervened. The agent of this new affliction was a parasite
commonly known, I understand, as the ring-worm, and within a brief
period it had established upon my head no less than four separate
colonies. That being the case, not only was my school-life yet a second
time postponed, but I was obliged to render up, under medical orders,
and that the extent of the malady might be the more easily discernible,
the greater proportion of my abundant and not unattractive chestnut
hair. To the first of these consequences I was reconciled with no great
difficulty, but to the second, I must confess, resignation was not so
easy; and for night after night my pillow was moistened with tears
scarcely restrained during the day. But worse was to follow. For upon
the appearance of a fifth and even more intractable settlement, the
doctor in charge of the case took the opportunity of prescribing a
wholly unjustifiable ointment. That it slew the parasites was
undoubtedly true. But such were the ravages of this violent medicament
that, to an accompaniment of the acutest distress, the whole of my hair
disappeared.
Even in this, however, probably up till then the darkest hour of my
existence, Providence had set a rainbow across my despair from which I
have never since failed to glean comfort. Roused to the very depths of
his indignant paternity, my father immediately began to take steps
against the doctor, while both Mrs. Emily Smith, the grandmother of my
little comrade, and the aunt that had stood with my mother’s mother at
the bottom of the stairs, provided me with velveteen skull-caps,
skilfully embroidered with forget-me-nots.
Perhaps the most fruitful, however, of the issues of this affliction,
apart from the damages that my father ultimately secured, was the
life-long friendship that it produced between ourselves and the Whey
family. A junior sidesman to my father at St. James-the-Least-of-All,
Mr. Balfour Whey was not only a rising solicitor, but the father of two
boys, Simeon and Silas. To the elder of these, Simeon, I have already
referred as the vicar of the parish in which I at present reside. But
Silas, since dead under distressing circumstances, to which I shall
refer in due course, was but half an hour younger, and they were usually
regarded as being twins.
Xtian lads of about my own age, and each with an impediment in his
speech, both were destined on this account for eventual ordination in
the Church of England. What knitted us together, however, at this
painful juncture was the curious fact that, in addition to others, both
of them were suffering like myself from an invasion of the ring-worm.
Adequately treated, however, they had retained their hair, and, as their
father immediately perceived, might for this reason prove invaluable
witnesses in the prosecution upon which we had determined.
[Illustration:
_From a portrait of the Aunt who stood and my mother’s mother at the
foot of the stairs_
]
In this Mr. Balfour Whey had already consented to act as my father’s
legal adviser, on the understanding that, if the case should fail, my
father should be exempt from the payment of charges, while, if it should
succeed, the damages should be shared between them on agreed and
equitable terms. An extremely forcible Hibernian barrister was then
engaged on a similar basis, and never shall I forget the noble
determination of these two earnest and devoted men. Fortified with the
assistance, somewhat expensive, but under the circumstances deemed
necessary, of an extremely adaptable, intelligent, and experienced
medical expert, they proved far too powerful both for the doctor, a
young man unrepresented by counsel, and even for the County Court judge,
a sinister-looking person evidently addicted to alcohol. Nevertheless it
was no easy fight and the bias of the judge was obvious from the outset.
Time after time when my father rose from his seat in the well of the
court to make ejaculations, he commanded him to be silent in a tone of
voice that no gentleman should have used to another. And once when my
mother’s aunt, Mrs. Emily Smith, and the aunt that had stood with my
mother’s mother at the foot of the stairs, rose simultaneously and
cried, “Oh, you story,” after an unveracious comment by the doctor, he
actually threatened to have them ejected by one of his underlings in the
court.
Nor was he more polite to my mother’s eight sisters, industrious young
women who had brought their knitting, even going so far as to say that,
if they continued to rattle their needles, he should have them similarly
transported. To this my father very naturally objected in one of his
most dignified and impassioned speeches, again cut short, though not
without the utmost difficulty, by this self-assertive and presumptuous
man. Even to Simeon and Silas Whey, each of whom had covered the Bible
with kisses, he behaved in such a fashion as entirely to rob them of
their natural joy in being in the witness-box. For though it was true,
and only to be expected, that their vocal disabilities were increased by
their excitement, he not only professed to consider them irrelevant but
brutally informed them that they were unintelligible. For a moment we
were stunned. But then, as one woman, my mother’s eight sisters rose to
their feet, as did Mrs. Balfour Whey, Mrs. Emily Smith, and the aunt
that had stood with my mother’s mother at the foot of the stairs. Led by
my father they shouted “Shame” in tones that shook the very roof, while
the Hibernian barrister, with a gesture that I have never seen equalled,
swept his papers from the desk before him, and sank speechless into his
seat.
It was such a scene as no one in the court had probably ever before
witnessed, and even the judge seemed slightly taken aback by the volume
of resentment that he had aroused. It was at any rate with a distinct
tremor and in markedly altered tones that he ordered the proceedings to
be resumed. And when I myself, as the prosecution’s last witness,
proceeded to take the oath in my velveteen skull-cap, his change of
colour was so manifest as to become the subject of general comment.
Keeping my face firmly towards him, upon the advice of my counsel, I
stood unshaken, albeit not unmoved, during the latter’s preliminary
remarks. Here was a lad, he said, in the soft and vibrant tones of the
convinced and accomplished pleader, the only lad, nay, the only child,
the solitary hope of his devoted parents. Too delicate hitherto to have
been sent to the school—the scholastic establishment for which his
abilities had long since qualified him, he had been happily expecting,
with all the ardour that His Honour would observe imprinted on his
countenance, to have entered this academy of learning some seven weeks
before. But what had happened? His Honour had heard. It was the subject
matter of this action. Not only had his career, since time was money,
been already seriously crippled, but he had been subjected to a personal
mutilation, the moral effect of which it was impossible to appraise. One
moment a happy—nay, he might almost say without unduly straining the
truth—one moment a happy, but not only a happy, a positively handsome
young gentleman, he had been reduced in the next, either by wilful
design, by malevolent neglect, or by an infamous want of knowledge, to
the spectacle that he would be obliged—how reluctantly His Honour could
imagine—to submit to His Honour’s inspection.
Here a low ripple of sympathy and horror broke involuntarily from most
of those present; and it was perhaps significant, as Mr. Whey remarked
to my father, that the judge took no steps to suppress it. Then, after a
brief question or two, since, as my counsel said, mine was an ordeal
that he dared not long prolong, he asked me to remove my velveteen
skull-cap and let His Honour see what was underneath. It was an effort.
But I achieved it, and the effect on the judge was instantaneous. In
spite of his pallor, he had still, up to that point, retained some
evidences of his gross habit of life. But now the last vestige of his
colour had left him, and he seemed visibly to have lost weight.
Contracted to pin-points, his pupils were fixed upon my scalp in a
haggard yet fascinating stare; and great beads of perspiration began to
glisten upon his forehead. Then, with a sharp expiration like that of a
punctured bicycle tyre, he covered his eyes for a moment with his hand,
and I knew instinctively, as I replaced my skull-cap, that the case was
won.
There were further arguments, of course, and technical exchanges, but to
everyone in court they must have seemed of little moment; and I was soon
being embraced by father, my aunts and great-aunts, in the happy
consciousness that right had triumphed. Nor was that all. For thanks to
the damages awarded, my father and myself were enabled to spend a month
at Scarborough, while a generous fee was paid by a well-known firm of
hair-restorers for a copy of a photograph of my head that my father had
thoughtfully taken. Two years later they paid a similar sum for a
photograph of the same area normally covered, both being subsequently
reproduced, under another name of course, and with the interval
diminished for commercial purposes, as illustrative of the effects of
what has since become, I believe, a very profitable commodity.
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