Reasons for remaining at Hopkinson House School. I pass from boyhood to
early young manhood. Expeditions both urban and rural in the company
of my dear father. An excellent and little-known diversion. Youthful
adventures by sea and land. But what is to be my career on leaving
school? Various alternatives prayerfully considered. A vision is
vouchsafed to us by Providence. A commercial Xtian. My first razor.
I HAVE frequently been asked, and I have but little doubt that hosts of
my readers will put the same query to me, why I did not, after such an
experience, transfer my attendance to another school. And I ought to say
at once, perhaps, that both my father and myself were strongly disposed
to this course. Having regard to the facts, however, that Hopkinson
House School was the only one in the neighbourhood for sons of
gentlemen; that my moral position had now been defined there beyond any
possibility of doubt; that the apologies elicited would probably secure
me in the future from any further corporal interference; and that both
Simeon and Silas Whey had expressed their horror at my treatment—in view
of these facts, we came to the conclusion that, for the present at any
rate, I had better remain there. That it could never be the same to me
was of course the case. But then my hopes had not been extravagant. And
although, as I have indicated, my boyhood had been ruthlessly plucked
from me like a geranium in full bud, my early young manhood found me
securer than ever in the approval of a wise and discerning Providence.
Apart from an occasional boil, too, and a somewhat intractable and
disfiguring affection known as acne, my health was giving rise to less
anxiety than for some time past, and I have always looked back on the
next two years as amongst the happiest of my life.
Necessarily thrown, as the result of what had happened, very largely
upon my own resources, I was agreeably surprised to find that these were
even richer and more varied than I had supposed; and I frequently
walked, on a Saturday afternoon, as far as Dulwich or Blackheath,
thoroughly contented with the company of none other than myself. What
was my joy, too, to discover, a couple of weeks after my fifteenth
birthday, that my voice had broken into a full-toned bass that promised
to be even more powerful than my father’s; and many a long hour did we
spend at the harmonium together in friendly competition over our
favourite hymns. Though he was rather more accurate than myself in the
matter of tune, in the matter of time there was little to choose between
us, while in the actual volume of sound produced I was soon my father’s
equal, if not his superior.
Nor was singing our only mutual occupation, for once a month, thanks to
my father’s generosity, we would journey to such a place of
instructional interest as the Tower of London or Sir John Soane’s
Museum. We even visited, I remember, the National Gallery of Art, with
its remarkable collection of hand-painted pictures; and I can still
recall the delicacy with which my father would intervene to shelter me
from any that contained an undraped female figure.
Perhaps our happiest times, however, were those spent with Nature during
my father’s annual fortnight’s holiday, when we would usually procure
lodgings at some such salubrious resort as Clacton-on-Sea or
Cliftonville near Margate. Here we would abandon ourselves to the
contemplation of the waves, and here, under my father’s skilful tuition,
I became quite an adept at an entrancing pursuit less well known, I
think, than it should be.
Consisting in the first place of the selection of a flat-shaped
stone—itself often a gleeful and difficult task—it then becomes the
object of the participators in the game to propel this seawards across
the surface of the ocean. Being heavier than water, it would naturally
be supposed that at the first impact with the latter the stone would
sink; and indeed, if projected by an unskilled player, this is what
usually eventuates. As I was happy to demonstrate, however, to our
Sunday School mistresses only last year at Southend, in the hands of a
careful and experienced performer this is by no means necessarily the
case. Supporting the stone, with its flatter surface downwards, on the
flexed middle finger of the thrower’s hand, his (or her) forefinger
should lie along its circumference, the thumb gently resting on its
superior surface. It should then be so cast as to travel horizontally,
its flat surface parallel to the surface of the water, with the
surprising result that, when at last it drops, it bounces into the air
again and proceeds onwards. Nay, it may even, in the hands of the most
expert, repeat this process two or three times, to the intense and
delighted fascination of those who have been privileged to witness him.
Not lacking in the element of competition, yet devoid of all possibility
of personal danger, affording healthful exercise, but at the same time
immune from the perils of over-exertion, it has always seemed strange to
me that, up to the present, it has played so small a part in our
national life. An island community, here if anywhere is a diversion that
should surely appeal to us; and I for one should rejoice to see the day
when, instead of the football ground and the tennis pitch, our coasts
should be thronged with eager young men and women enjoying this hygienic
and innocent pastime.
Nor did we confine ourselves, while at the sea-side, merely to
terrestrial amusement, and we would frequently indulge, for perhaps a
quarter of an hour, in the enjoyable practice of pedal immersion. Wholly
precluded, of course, for constitutional reasons, from the fuller
development of this art involved in swimming, we nevertheless found this
to be a most laughable and even exciting occupation; and I can recall at
least two occasions when, owing to a momentary inadversion, our
rolled-up trousers became partially submerged. A smart run home,
however, a cup of hot milk, and immediate retirement to bed sufficed, in
both instances, to protect us from any untoward results.
With my two friends, also, Simeon and Silas Whey, I had many hours of
fruitful companionship. Equally segregated with myself from the majority
of their schoolfellows, though less upon moral and intellectual than
purely physical grounds, they were yet earnest and high-minded lads with
many notably endearing qualities. Reticent to an extreme, partly, in the
case of Silas, owing to an initial difficulty in articulating anything
at all, and in the case of Simeon, owing to a kind of laryngeal click
from which he is still unfortunately a sufferer, they appeared to find a
comfort in my own natural eloquence that I was only too glad to bestow
upon them. In return for this, their ample pocket-money was always
entirely at my disposal, and many a pound of toffee and Turkish delight
was I able to enjoy at their expense. Like myself unaddicted to
athletics, and thereby preserved from its associated vices, they would
saunter for hours with me discussing some favourite Bible character or
humming in unison some well-known hymn; and we were further united, if
that were possible, in our eventual confirmation by the self-same
Bishop.
Nevertheless, as I have said, it was chiefly upon myself that I had to
depend for company; and in my walks abroad, my studies of the
shop-windows, and my exploration of the neighbouring churches, my
closest comrade was myself, and I can honestly say that I have never
regretted it. Nor must it be supposed that the hours so spent were
entirely devoid of legitimate adventure. On two or three occasions, for
instance, I was abruptly addressed by some surprised or suspicious
verger, and once, owing to ignorance of its usual closing hours, I was
incarcerated in a local cemetery. Confined by railings too lofty to
scale and too narrowly approximated to permit egress, for a few moments
the prospects were sufficiently black to cause a sensible quickening of
my pulse. A felicitous remark, however, addressed to an under-gardener,
secured my exit by a private gate, and I hurried home, not without
relief, but none the worse for my little mischance.
Nor shall I forget the thrill, perhaps a trifle guilty, with which I
discovered, soon after I was sixteen, how to descend from a vehicle in
motion without the sacrifice of an erect position. Hitherto, like my
father, when travelling by tram or omnibus, I had always insisted upon
complete immobility prior both to entrance into and departure from one
of these public conveyances; and many a conductor had been reported by
us both for failing to secure the requisite lack of motion. Upon my
sixteenth birthday, however, perceiving that the omnibus in which I was
journeying could not be brought to a standstill at the desired position,
I decided to alight from it notwithstanding, and boldly descended from
its posterior step.
Naturally leaving this at right angles, what was my rather rueful
amazement to discover myself, in the next instant, lying upon my side in
the roadway. At first I imagined that I must have stepped upon something
slippery or that some such article must have been adhering to my
footwear. But a minute examination both of these and the roadway failed
to reveal any such cause. Completely baffled, I made a second attempt,
but with an equally discomforting result, and time after time, in spite
of my utmost efforts, I was the victim of a similar loss of equilibrium.
Many a less determined and timider lad would indeed have given up the
venture, and again I ought to confess, perhaps, in view of municipal
regulations, that my pertinacity was not wholly defensible.
Robbed of candour, however, such a record as the present would lose the
greater part of its spiritual value; and while I am prepared to admit
that, in this particular instance, my youthful conduct may have been
open to misjudgment, I cannot concede that it was in any degree
incompatible with the highest expression of the Xtian character.
Refusing to be cast down, therefore, save in the most literal sense, I
continued dauntlessly with my efforts, to be rewarded at last with a
final success no less gratifying than entire. Failing to remain upright
in departing from the moving vehicle either at right angles to it or
with my back towards the driver, I found that by _facing in the same
direction_ I could not only descend from it with greater immunity, but
that by _running after it_, as it were, for two or three steps, I could
do so with complete integrity. Needless to say, having acquired this
knowledge, I only made use of it in an occasional emergency, and for
some years now, owing to declining success, I have discontinued the
practice altogether.
With the unfolding of my seventeenth year, however, I was definitely
approaching the great problems of adult life, and much of my time now
began to be occupied with the contemplation of my future career. Thanks
to the tempered foresight of my father, a firm believer as a rule in
unlimited families, in the exceptional circumstances of his own case he
had refrained from further parentage. On his demise, therefore, as he
had given me to understand, I should inherit some two thousand pounds,
this being the amount to which his insurance and savings would by then
probably have accrued. Should my mother survive him, I should of course
be expected, and would gladly, as I assured him, make her some
allowance. But her health was so precarious as to render this sacrifice
a very improbable necessity.
Devoid of anxiety, therefore, as to ultimate no less than immediate
penury, I could afford to regard the future with an adequate
deliberation, and I need scarcely say, perhaps, that the Church of
England was the subject of my first and most prolonged consideration.
Financially inadequate as were even its highest rewards, I was yet so
adapted to its every need that both my father and myself would have been
willing to overlook this very serious disadvantage. But to become
ordained presupposed an examination, and I had been seriously
handicapped in this particular respect by a proven disability, probably
hereditary in origin, to demonstrate my culture in so confined a form.
For a similar reason, even had I been attracted to it, the profession of
Medicine would have been unavailable, while from that of the Law, nobler
in every way, I was equally precluded. For some time, however, we
canvassed very carefully the strong claims of Diplomacy, for which in
many ways, as my father agreed with me, I was most admirably fitted. And
I am still convinced that both as attaché and ambassador I should have
found congenial and Xtian employment. Unhappily, however, such a career
involved the acquirement of the French language, with attendant dangers,
to which my father could not persuade himself to expose me. Whether he
was right in this is perhaps open to argument, and I have since met
several apparently devout men who have not only spoken this tongue with
reported fluency, but have deliberately sojourned in the country of its
origin. Personally, however, while reluctant to condemn them, I must
confess to sharing my father’s views, and I am happy in the knowledge
that the vicar of my parish holds precisely the same opinion. Abandoning
Diplomacy, therefore, we considered the Consolidated Water Board, in
which my father of course had considerable influence. But here, as in
the Church of England, the emoluments were unsatisfactory, while the
spiritual opportunities, of course, were far more restricted.
Thus step by step, as though by the hand of Providence—and indeed, as my
father said, it could have been by no other hand—we were slowly led to
the conclusion that in some branch of Commerce lay my future destiny.
Requiring no previous examinations, with liberal, nay illimitable,
monetary possibilities, this was the field—the highest, perhaps, of
all—that was now unfolded before our gaze. For a few moments, I
remember, we sat there speechless, one on each side of the parlour
table. Then my father rose and stood for another few moments with his
right hand resting on the harmonium. In his face there was a great joy,
not unmixed with solemnity. His eyes looked beyond me out towards
eternity. Indeed it was to eternity that he addressed himself.
“Augustus,” he said, “my son Augustus—a Xtian tradesman, preferably
wholesale.”
My mother came in to announce the supper. But almost impatiently he
motioned her aside.
“Oh, can’t you see,” he cried, “that we’re standing on Pisgah?”
For a moment, not comprehending him, she stared at his feet. Then very
softly she withdrew, and he came toward me with outstretched hands.
“A Xtian magnate,” he said, “a commercial Xtian—what better could I have
desired for you?”
Impulsively I kissed him, perhaps a little too impulsively. But he
scarcely flinched as he received the impact, merely remarking that, upon
the next day, he would present me with my first razor. Nor did he fail
to do so, partly reminded by myself, and partly by the appearance, early
the next morning, of a slight but painful urticaria or nettlerash in the
region of our most vehement facial adjustment. But that was a penalty,
as he several times assured me, that many a father would have been glad
to pay, and one that yielded, in less than a fortnight, to an inunction
embracing the oxide of zinc.
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