First experience at Hopkinson House School. It is amongst the masters
that I hope to find spiritual companionship. I do not do so. Apology
of Mr. Muglington. I am struck by a football. Subsequent apology of
Mr. Beerthorpe. Degraded habits of my fellow-scholars. A fearful
discovery and its sequel. Amazing ineptitude of Mr. Lorton.
Concerted assault upon my person. I am rescued by my father, who
procures a public apology.
OWING to the successive delays imposed by my general ill-health, the
assault upon my person by Desmond O’Flaherty, the sudden invasion of the
ring-worm, and the cranial nudity wrought by the ointment, it was not
until I was nearly fourteen that I was at last able to attend school;
and even then it was perhaps doubtful whether my father should have
recommended it. For, although by that time my health was somewhat less
precarious, the chastening experiences that I had been called upon to
endure had naturally lifted me, in almost every respect, far above the
plane of most of my contemporaries. And while it was true, of course,
that in Simeon and Silas Whey I should find sympathetic and well-liked
comrades, I was so much older, both mentally and spiritually, than such
of their acquaintances as I had chanced to meet that it was only amongst
the masters that there seemed any reasonable hope of obtaining an equal
and appropriate companionship.
It was to this end, therefore, while endeavouring at the same time to
place my services at the disposal of my fellow-scholars, that I resolved
from the outset to encourage my tutors to perceive in me a staunch and
valuable associate. For the first few days this was not of course easy,
owing to the natural confusion incident upon a new term, and it was only
by the interjection of an occasional informative remark that I was
enabled to adumbrate my ultimate purpose.
Thus when our form-master, a Mr. Muglington, asked me if I knew the
capital of Belgium, I replied that while I had not as yet enjoyed the
opportunity of paying the town a personal visit, I had been credibly
informed that it was known as Brussels, so indissolubly associated with
the well-known brassica.[2] Though he was a repellent-looking man with a
ginger moustache, I had nevertheless accompanied the words with a
friendly smile. But he merely stared at me in what I was compelled to
recognise as a singularly crude and offensive fashion.
Footnote 2:
The botanical family that includes the sprout. I am now convinced that
Mr. Muglington did not know this.
“Let me see,” he said, “I think your name is Carp.”
“Augustus Carp,” I replied, “of Angela Gardens.”
“Then kindly remember,” he said, “to confine yourself in future to the
information asked for and nothing else.”
It was of course the speech of a peculiarly narrow-minded and vindictive
man, fortuitously thrust into a position of authority that had evidently
nourished his worst propensities. But I had not as yet realized how
deplorably typical he was of the class to which he belonged, and it was
a considerable time before I could restrain the sobs that his infamous
words had provoked. Nor did he fail to take a further and dastardly
advantage of my emotion.
“Perhaps,” he observed, with a malignant sneer, “when you’ve quite
finished chewing the cud, you’d be so kind as to oblige us by
enumerating the principal exports of Finland.”
Afterwards, I am glad to say, thanks to the instant and imperative
demand of my father, he was obliged to apologise to me both in my
father’s presence and in that of the head master, Mr. Septimus Lorton.
But it was not an apology, as I discerned at once, founded on any real
and heart-felt contrition, and although I assured him that, so far as I
was concerned, he might consider the incident closed, it was perfectly
apparent to me that I could never in the future admit him to the
privileges of friendship.
Nor was I destined to receive a more satisfying response from the next
advance that it seemed my duty to make. Excused on moral grounds from
the study of French by a special stipulation of my father, I was
permitted instead to take extra lessons in German from a Mr. Beerthorpe.
A stoutly-built man with extremely short sight, corrected by lenses of
exceptional thickness, I was at first attracted to this person by an
expression of what I soon discovered was a spurious amiability. I was
also distressed to find him almost universally alluded to by the first
syllable of his name only, to which the letter y, not originally present
in it, had been appended by way of suffix.
Whether or not he was aware of this I did not of course know, but both
as an act of kindness and in justice to myself, I felt it incumbent on
me to seek the earliest chance of dissociating myself from such a
practice. I accordingly took the opportunity one day, when he was acting
as arbitrator in a game of football in the playground, of approaching
him and touching him on the elbow and suggesting that I should like to
have a few words with him.
“Eh, what?” he said. “Foul,” and he then blew a blast, I remember, on a
small whistle. Taken unawares, I could not refrain from shuddering a
little, and instinctively put my hands to my ears.
“Well, what is it?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Perhaps we might withdraw,” I replied, “to some quieter place.”
“But what’s the trouble?” he said. “Look out,” and he abruptly leapt
back to avoid the oncoming football. Not so fortunate, and left entirely
unprotected by Mr. Beerthorpe’s sudden retreat, I received the full
impact of the hurtling projectile upon the upper part of my neck and my
left ear, and for some moments I was entirely unable to proceed with the
conversation. Indeed had the missile been of the egg-shaped variety
frequently employed, I understand, in the same barbarous pursuit, the
blow might well have had the most serious, if not fatal, consequences.
Nor could I help feeling a trifle disheartened to perceive, when I had
regained my powers of speech, that Mr. Beerthorpe was still callously
blowing his whistle in a remote corner of the playground. Under such
circumstances many another lad would have been deflected from his
purpose. But in spite of what followed, I have always been glad to
remember that I did not allow myself to be deterred. Approaching him a
second time, I again touched his elbow.
“Good God,” he said, “are you still there?”
Naturally flinching a little at the expletive, I reminded him that I had
still something to communicate.
“Oh, all right,” he said. “Come along then.”
He handed his instrument to a neighbouring boy.
“Well, what is it?” he asked.
We entered an empty schoolroom.
“Perhaps I may first,” I said, “ask you to accept this.”
It was a box of chocolates weighing half a pound and tastefully adorned
with a lemon-coloured ribbon.
“It is merely a token,” I proceeded, “albeit I hope an acceptable one,
of a desire to inaugurate friendly relations.”
For a moment he stared at it with his mouth open and then made a rasping
noise in the back of his throat.
“But look here,” he said, “you don’t mean to tell me that you’ve
interrupted a game of football just to bring me in here and give me half
a pound of chocolates?”
“Not wholly,” I said, “nor even principally, though I am naturally a
little wounded by your tone of voice. But I also desired to inform you
that you were the subject of a prevalent indignity from which personally
I have strongly dissented.”
“Good God!” he said. “What on earth do you mean?”
After flinching a second time, I lowered my voice a little.
“I thought you ought to know,” I said, “that you are very generally
referred to—I trust without foundation—as Beery.”
For perhaps twelve, or it might have been thirteen, seconds, the silence
was only broken by the cries of the footballers. But I observed that his
cheeks were suffused with blood and his myopic eyes beginning to bulge.
It was a repulsive sight, and then, like Mr. Muglington, he stood
revealed in his true character. No less intoxicated than the former with
the petty authority conferred by his position, his general conduct, as
well as his verbiage, was even coarser and more debased.
“Look here,” he said, “young What’s-your-name, I don’t know your name,
and I don’t want to. But if I have any more of your insolence I shall
report you to the headmaster. And now you can clear out and take your
chocolates with you.”
Stung to the quick, and with the tears running down my cheeks, I
nevertheless held up my hand.
“One moment,” I said. “You have misapprehended me, and it was perhaps
foolish of me to have supposed that it could have been otherwise. But I
must clearly point out to you, both for my own sake and that of the
school to which we both belong, that it will be rather I who shall be
obliged to report you for the language that I have listened to this
day.”
Florid to an extreme that I have seldom seen equalled, he opened his
mouth once or twice in silence. Then he wiped his forehead with the back
of his hand.
“I had rather flattered myself,” he said, “on my temperance.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “I am obliged to remind you that you have
twice openly invoked the Deity.”
“Good God!” he gasped.
I opened the door for him.
“That makes the third time,” I said. “You will hear more of this.”
I had preserved my self-control, but it was only with an effort that
left me pitiably weak and wretched and induced a gastritis that robbed
me of several minutes’ sleep as well as of most of my evening meal.
Thanks, however, to a second and even more trenchant interview between
my father and Mr. Lorton, during which it transpired that Mr. Beerthorpe
was the father of five unfortunate children, he too was obliged to
apologise to me and give me an undertaking to restrain his blasphemy.
But, as my father agreed, it was an apology obviously given with the
utmost reluctance and affording no hope of the happier communion to
which I had at one time looked forward.
Meanwhile I had not neglected my fellow-students, unattractive to me as
most of them were, and more than once had I offered my spiritual
services to an inexperienced or erring class-mate. That these had been
fruitless I am not prepared to say. But it was perhaps not surprising,
considering the standard of the masters, that the general moral status
of their pupils should have left almost everything to be desired. Such a
rule, for example, as that forbidding the ingestion of sweetmeats during
the hours set apart for study was daily infringed, not only by the
younger boys, but by many far older than myself. Exhibitions, too, of
personal violence were only too common in the playground, and I had even
heard boys, presumably the sons of gentlemen, making use of the word
damn.[3]
Footnote 3:
I repeat this with regret. But truth is often best served, I have
found, by being completely outspoken.
It was not until nearly half-term, however, under the eyes of Mr.
Lorton, and in the most sacred hour of the scholastic week, that I
suddenly became conscious of the existence of an evil that for a moment
completely paralysed me. Himself an organiser rather than a scholar, a
proprietor rather than a professor, Mr. Lorton confined himself, in
respect of actual teaching, to the exposition of the Holy Scriptures.
For this purpose he visited each class once a week in rotation, the
text-book employed being the Lorton Bible for Schools, published by his
brother, Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. We had been studying, I remember, the
Second Book of Kings, and considering the evil reign of Pekahiah, when
Mr. Lorton suddenly asked the head boy of the form if he could tell him
the name of his successor.
This was of course Pekah, the son of Remaliah, with whom I had been
familiar for several years. But unfortunately my position in the centre
of the class forbade my giving an immediate answer. Nevertheless I
perceived, as boy after boy mutely revealed the depths of his ignorance,
that I had probably been destined by the grace of Providence to become
the means of their enlightenment. What was my horror, then, on this
beautiful autumn day, with the November sunlight slanting through the
window, to observe Harold Harper, the boy on my left, and Henry Hancock,
the boy on my right, each studying the Second Book of Kings under the
shelter conferred by his desk. Objectionable lads as I knew them both to
be, I had never dreamed them to have been capable of this, and when
Henry Hancock rose in his place and without a tremor said, “Pekah, son
of Remaliah,” it was as though each syllable had been a knife deeply
plunged into my very vitals. Pale with wrath I rose to my feet.
“Sir,” I cried, “Henry Hancock was deceiving you. He read his answer
from the open Scripture.”
There was a deathly pause.
“And not only that,” I said, “but Harold Harper was prepared to do the
same.”
Mr. Lorton removed his eye-glasses.
“Hancock and Harper,” he said, “stand up.”
They did so, but with marked reluctance.
“Hancock and Harper,” he said, “is this true?”
They were silent. But their faces betrayed them, as did Harper’s Bible,
that slipped to the floor.
“Hancock and Harper,” said Mr. Lorton, “I am ashamed of you. You must
each write me out fifty lines.”
“But, sir,” I cried, “in justice to myself, who knew the correct answer
without committing sacrilege, nay, in justice to my fellow-scholars, to
say nothing of Holy Writ, surely these lads must be subjected to some
less trivial and severer penalty.”
Mr. Lorton readjusted his glasses. Then he removed them again and began
to wipe them.
“Hanper and Harcock,” he said, “I mean Harcock and Hanper, as Carp has
reminded you, you have sinned very grievously. But I hope—er—this
publicity, this publicity, I say, will not be lacking in its due effect
upon you.”
“But, sir,” I cried, “these are mere words.”
“They are very serious ones,” he said, “very serious ones. Also, as I
said, you will each write me fifty lines. And now perhaps Smith Major
can tell us who Argob was.”
Petrified by the levity with which the very owner of the school was able
to endure so shattering an exposure, I remained standing for several
seconds, wholly unable to utter a syllable. And when I sank at last,
stunned and unsupported, into the seat from which I had so lately risen,
it was as though my boyhood (and indeed this was actually the case) had
been finally snatched from me for ever. Nor was this the end. For, when
we emerged into the playground, I found myself surrounded by an
opprobrious mob, evidently suborned by Harper and Hancock for the
purposes of physical assault and battery. Thrust from one to the other,
my collar was disarranged, I was several times smitten upon the face,
and it was only by the exercise of my utmost lung-power that I succeeded
in attracting adult attention. Indeed I am almost certain that I
observed Mr. Muglington and Mr. Beerthorpe lurking supine behind a
curtain, and it was by no less a person than my own father that I was
ultimately removed from danger.
Collecting an account a couple of streets away, he had instantly
recognised my screams, and, abandoning everything, had rushed to my aid
just as Mr. Lorton hurried into the playground. But my father was first,
and never shall I forget the stentorian thunder of his tones. Seizing in
each hand one of my lesser persecutors, he shook them like thistles
before the wind, while time after time, breaking into his highest
falsetto, he overtopped even my most piercing note. Colourless and
stricken, a little group of masters stood huddled against the wall of
the house, while an ever-growing stream of neighbours and local
tradesmen began to throng every inch of the asphalt. Then, with a final
and supreme imprecation, he flung the two ruffians into the midst of
their fellows, and clasping me to his bosom, clove his way through the
now vociferously applauding multitude. It was perhaps the greatest
moment of his career, but like myself he had to pay the penalty for it,
and for the following two weeks we were confined in adjacent bedrooms,
while my mother had to wait upon us night and day. Afterwards, shaken as
he was, he had a third interview with Mr. Lorton, insisting upon and
obtaining a public apology as the only alternative to legal proceedings.
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