"Well, if you cannot get leave, I will teach you myself in the
play-hours, or at any odd times. You stay in so much, and play so
little with the other boys, that you will not mind that, I know," he
said, in a kind encouraging voice. "You will learn soon, I know, and
then we will walk together, and talk French, and you will learn more
rapidly than any one else."
"Thank you, sir! indeed, thank you!" said poor Ellis, the tears coming
into his eyes. "It is very kind to take so much trouble with a person
like me. I will do whatever you tell me."
"Then write home, and get leave to learn, and I will tell you what you
shall do in the meantime," replied the French master. "Get into your
head as large a vocabulary of words as you can collect. Put down in a
little pocket-book the French and English of everything you can think
of. Thus: write down, a boy, a man, a book, a desk, and I will show you
how to pronounce them properly. Here is a book; accept it from me; I
got it on purpose for you. Now write down a boy; now the French,
garcon. The _c_ you hear is soft. Roll the _r_ well in your mouth.
Repeat it frequently." Monsieur Malin made him write down numerous
other words, and repeated them over to him frequently till he had caught
their exact sounds. "Now, my boy, you have learned your first French
lesson," he observed. "Every day add as many words as these to your
vocabulary. Begin with the substantives; go on to the adjectives, next
the verbs; then study the construction of the language; the simple rules
of grammar; and lastly, in the same manner that you have learned single
words, collect the idioms of the language. Read constantly aloud, and
learn by heart interesting portions of modern French writings especially
the speeches of the best orators of the present day, and I can promise
you that in a very short time you will become a very fair French
scholar."
Ellis saw the wisdom of Monsieur Malin's advice, and implicitly followed
it. Bracebridge helped him, and they in a short time were able to
converse together. In the meantime Ellis got leave to learn French, and
some of the boys were very much surprised, and rather indignant, to find
him put in one of the upper classes.
"That's the fellow who pretended that he did not know French, and has
all the time been listening to us, and overhearing all we said,"
remarked Blackall, whose own knowledge of the language was so limited
that, at all events, it would have puzzled a Frenchman to have
comprehended him. "It's just like the sneak," he continued. "I wonder
how a chap like Bracebridge can patronise him, or how a big fellow like
Lemon can condescend to speak to him."
Though these remarks, as it was intended they should, reached the ears
both of Ernest and Lemon, they took no notice of them, and thus they did
Ellis no further harm. It is very sad that I should not have to recount
the pleasant sayings and doings of my schoolfellows; but as in the world
the worst actions of people often come most prominently forward, so they
do at school, and generally make the deepest impression. I know,
however, that even at this time there were many pleasant things said,
and amusing things done; that there was much good fellowship among us;
that we entered into our games with thorough heartiness; that we made
very satisfactory progress in our studies, and were generally happy and
contented. Indeed, the school was thoroughly well-conducted and ably
ruled. The dark spots I have been picturing arose entirely from the bad
tempers, dispositions, and ill-conduct of those ruled. So it is with
this world at large. It is admirably ordered, beautifully fashioned,
ruled with unbounded love, regularity, and justice. Men, and men alone,
have made all the blots and stains to be found in it; they have caused
all the irregularities and disorders which abound; all the misery, all
the suffering, all the wretchedness; we see they have themselves and
themselves only to blame; that is to say, man alone is at fault; man,
and sin which man introduced, beguiled by Satan. But up, boys! Do not
suppose that you are to yield to this state of things; to say that so
you find them, and that so you will let them be. No; far from that.
You are sent into the world to fight against them, to overcome them, to
strive with Satan, the prince of sin and lies, and all abominations,
with all your might and main. It is a glorious contest; it is worth
living for, if we did but understand it aright. The knights who went
out, as we are told of old, armed cap-a-pie, to do battle with
enchanters, and dragons, and monsters of all sorts, had not half so
glorious, so difficult, so perilous a contest to engage in. The writers
who invented those fables had, I suspect, a pretty clear notion of what
is the true destiny of man. The enchanters were the spirits of evil;
their necromancies the works of Satan; the dragons and monsters, the
ills, the difficulties, the obstacles to all good works which have to be
overcome. It was not the fashion to speak out great truths plainly in
those days, as it has happily become at the present time; and so
philosophers who held them wrapped them up in fables and allegories, the
true import of which only the wisest and most sagacious could
comprehend. The great truth that all men are sent into this world to
work, to fight, to strive with might and main, the Doctor tried to
impress on his pupils. He found it difficult, however, to make them
understand the matter. Many of them thought that they knew better than
he did on that subject. Some of them had been told at home, by ignorant
servants or injudicious friends, that they were born heirs to good
fortunes; that they were to go to school, and be good boys, and get
through their lessons as well as they could, and then they would go to
Oxford or Cambridge, because most gentlemen of any pretension went
there; and then that they would be able to live at home and amuse
themselves for the rest of their lives. Of course, such boys thought
that what the Doctor was saying could have nothing at all to do with
them, and could only refer to the children of poor people, who had
nothing to give them. The Doctor, suspecting what was in their
thoughts, surprised them very much by propounding the doctrine that no
one was exempt from the rule; that all mankind, from the sovereign on
his throne to the peasant in the field, are born to labour--to labour
with the head or to labour with the hands, often with both; or if not,
strictly speaking, with the hands, at all events with the mind and body.
"And what, think you, is the labour all men ought to engage in? What is
the great present object of labour?" asked the Doctor. "Why, I reply,
to do good to our fellow-creatures, to ameliorate their condition by
every means in our power."
No boys took in these truths more eagerly than did Bracebridge and
Ellis. They talked them over and over, and warmed with the glorious
theme. To the former they were not new. His father had propounded the
same to him long ago, but the Doctor's remarks gave them additional
strength and freshness.
"It is grand, indeed," exclaimed Ernest, "to feel what victories we have
to achieve, what enemies to overthrow; that if we do our duty we can
never be entirely defeated; and that, though success may be delayed, we
must be victorious at last; that there can be no hanging down of the
hands, no lassitude, no idleness, no want of occupation through life, no
want of excitement. I don't care what grumblers may say; I maintain,
with my father, that this is a very glorious world to live in, with all
its faults; and still more should we be grateful that we are placed in
it, when we remember that it is the stepping-stone to eternity."
Ernest was, perhaps, somewhat beyond his years in his remarks, but it
must be remembered that he was an unusual boy, and that there were not
many like him. Still he was but a boy. Anybody observing him would
probably have remarked that he was a good-looking, intelligent boy, but
might have failed to discover any super-excellencies in him. Indeed I
think that I have before remarked that he owed his success at school to
the fact, that all the talents he possessed by nature had been
judiciously cultivated, and allowed a full and free growth. Certainly
no boy stood higher in the estimation both of his master and
schoolfellows. He could not help discovering this, and he resolved by
all means to maintain and deserve their good opinion. He had sometimes
a difficult task in keeping to his resolution.
I have said that Blackall for some weeks had appeared to be much less
dictatorial and inclined to bully; but by degrees his former habits
returned with greater force, from having been put under some restraint
for a time. Ellis and Eden, and even Bouldon and Buttar, came in for a
share of his ill-treatment; so did a new boy, John Dryden by name, a
sturdy, independent little fellow, who, for his size, was as strong as
he was brave, but, of course, could not compete with a boy of so much
greater bulk and weight.
A considerable number of fellows vowed that they would stand this
conduct no longer; yet what could they do? Blackall alone might have
been managed; but several big fellows had united with him, and had taken
it into their heads that they should like to introduce fagging. They
got, indeed, two or three fellows--Dawson, Barber, and others--to
undertake to be fags, just to set the system going, those young
gentlemen hoping very soon to become masters themselves. They talked
very big about the matter; they thought it would be a very fine thing:
their school was first-rate as it was, and if fagging were introduced it
would be fully equal to any public school. Of course, the affair was to
be kept a great secret. There could be no doubt that the Doctor would
approve of it ultimately, but at first he might be startled; though he
never hesitated to introduce any alterations which were improvements, he
might possibly look upon fagging without that reverence which it
deserved as a time-honoured institution. He could not fail to
acknowledge that fagging was a very good thing; but then his school was
not a public school, however first-rate it might be as a private
establishment; and he might not wish to make it like a public school.
Thus the important subject was discussed for some time, till at last it
was decided that it would be wiser to begin quietly, at the same time in
due form. The big fellows who had resolved to be the masters determined
to draw up a paper, which the intended fags were to sign, agreeing to do
duty and to serve their masters as fags, according to the custom
established at all public and first-rate schools. Barber, Dawson, and
other advocates of the system, signed the precious document willingly
enough, and they managed to get some twenty other boys to do the same.
But when it was shown to Buttar and Bouldon, they turned it over and
over, and asked what it meant.
"Oh, don't you know?" exclaimed Dawson. "It's a plan we have got up for
becoming a public school."
"I'll tell you what," answered Buttar, bursting into a fit of laughter,
"I look upon the affair as a bit of arrant tom-foolery; and so you may
tell the donkeys who drew it up."
Dawson grew very red; but he had a respect for Buttar's knuckles, and so
he held his tongue. Bouldon had, meantime, recognised Blackall's
handwriting, and having a considerable amount of contempt for those
whose signatures were attached, he exhibited it in an unmistakable,
though certainly an unrefined manner, by holding up the paper, and
spitting into the middle of it. Then he folded it up, and crammed it
into Dawson's pocket. Dawson and he had had a set-to fight a little
time before, and though Dawson was the biggest fellow of the two, he had
ultimately declined continuing the combat. The action performed by
Bouldon was equivalent to a declaration of war to the knife with
Blackall and all the big fellows who supported the system he wished to
introduce. Dawson turned redder than ever, and looked very fierce at
him; but Tom closed his mouth, planted his feet firmly on the ground,
and doubling his fists, said--
"You'd better not attempt it, Dickey; you know me now."