I AM ENTERED AT COPENHAGEN ACADEMY.
Agreeable, too, as I found it to be whirled between the hedgerows
behind five splendid horses; to catch the ostlers run out with the
relays; to receive blue glimpses of the Channel to southward; to dive
across dingles and past farm-gates under which the cocks and hens
flattened themselves in their haste to give us room; to gaze back
over the luggage and along the road, and assure myself that the rival
coach (the Self-Defence) was not overtaking us--yet Falmouth, when
we reached it, was best of all; Falmouth, with its narrow streets and
crowd of sailors, postmen, 'longshoremen, porters with wheelbarrows,
and passengers hurrying to and from the packets, its smells of pitch
and oakum and canvas, its shops full of seamen's outfits and
instruments and marine curiosities, its upper windows where parrots
screamed in cages, its alleys and quay-doors giving peeps of the
splendid harbour, thronged--to quote Miss Plinlimmon again--"with
varieties of gallant craft, between which the trained nautical eye
may perchance distinguish, but mine doesn't."
The residential part of Falmouth rises in neat terraces above the
waterside, and of these Delamere Terrace was by no means the least
respectable. The brass doorplate of No. 7--"Copenhagen Academy for
the Sons of Gentlemen. Principal, the Rev. Philip Stimcoe, B.A.
(Oxon.)"--shone immaculate; and its window-blinds did Mrs. Stimcoe
credit, as Miss Plinlimmon remarked before ringing the bell.
Mrs. Stimcoe herself opened the door to us, in a full lace cap and a
maroon-coloured gown of state. She was a gaunt, hard-eyed woman,
tall as a grenadier, remarkable for a long upper lip decorated with
two moles. She excused her condescension on the ground that the
butler was out, taking the pupils for a walk; and conducted us to the
parlour, where Mr. Stimcoe sat in an atmosphere which smelt faintly
of sherry.
Mr. Stimcoe rose and greeted us with a shaky hand. He was a thin,
spectacled man, with a pendulous nose and cheeks disfigured by a
purplish cutaneous disorder (which his wife, later on, attributed to
his having slept between damp sheets while the honoured guest of a
nobleman, whose name I forget). He wore a seedy clerical suit.
While shaking hands he observed that I was taller than he had
expected; and this, absurdly enough, is all I remember of the
interview, except that the room had two empty bookcases, one on
either side of the chimney-breast; that the fading of the wallpaper
above the mantelpiece had left a patch recording where a clock had
lately stood (I conjectured that it must be at Greenwich, undergoing
repairs); that Mrs. Stimcoe produced a decanter of sherry--a wine
which Miss Plinlimmon abominated--and poured her out a glassful, with
the remark that it had been twice round the world; that Miss
Plinlimmon supposed vaguely "the same happened to a lot of things in
a seaport like Falmouth;" and that somehow this led us on to Mr.
Stimcoe's delicate health, and this again to the subject of damp
sheets, and this finally to Mrs. Stimcoe's suggesting that Miss
Plinlimmon might perhaps like to have a look at my bedroom.
The bedroom assigned to me opened out of Mrs. Stimcoe's own.
("It will give him a sense of protection. A child feels the first
few nights away from home.") Though small, it was neat, and,
for a boy's wants, amply furnished; nay, it contained at least one
article of supererogation, in the shape of a razor-case on the
dressing-table. Mrs. Stimcoe swept this into her pocket with a turn
of the hand, and explained frankly that her husband, like most
scholars, was absent-minded. Here she passed two fingers slowly
across her forehead. "Even in his walks, or while dressing, his
brain wanders among the deathless compositions of Greece and Rome,
turning them into English metres--all cakes especially"--she must
have meant alcaics--"and that makes him leave things about."
I had fresh and even more remarkable evidence of Mr. Stimcoe's
absent-mindedness two minutes later, when, the sheets having been
duly inspected, we descended to the parlour again; for, happening to
reach the doorway some paces ahead of the two ladies, I surprised him
in the act of drinking down Miss Plinlimmon's sherry.
The interview was scarcely resumed before a mortuary silence fell on
the room, and I became aware that somehow my presence impeded the
discussion of business.
"I think perhaps that Harry would like to run out upon the terrace
and see the view from his new home," suggested Mrs. Stimcoe, with
obvious tact.
I escaped, and went in search of the commodious playground, which I
supposed to lie in the rear of the house; but, reaching a back yard,
I suddenly found myself face to face with three small boys, one
staggering with the weight of a pail, the two others bearing a full
washtub between them; and with surprise saw them set down their
burdens at a distance and come tip-toeing towards me in a single
file, with theatrical gestures of secrecy.
"Hallo!" said I.
"Hist! Be dark as the grave!" answered the leader, in a
stage-whisper. He was a freckly, narrow-chested child, and needed
washing. "You're the new boy," he announced, as though he had
tracked me down in that criminal secret.
"Yes," I owned. "Who are you?"
"We are the Blood-stained Brotherhood of the Pampas, now upon the
trail!"
"Look here," said I, staring down at him, "that's nonsense!"
"Oh, very well," he answered promptly; "then we're the 'Backward Sons
of Gentlemen'--that's down in the prospectus--and we're fetching
water for Mother Stimcoe, because the turncock cut off the company's
water this morning! See? But you won't blow the gaff on the old
girl, will you?"
"Are you all there is, you three?" I asked, after considering them a
moment.
"We're all the boarders. My name's Ted Bates--they call me Doggy
Bates--and my father's a captain out in India; and these are Bob
Pilkington and Scotty Maclean. You may call him Redhead, being too
big to punch; and, talking of that, you'll have to fight Bully
Stokes."
"Is he a day-boy?" I asked.
"He's cock of Rogerses up the hill, and he wants it badly.
Stimcoes and Rogerses are hated rivals. If you can whack Bully
Stokes for us--"
"But Mrs. Stimcoe told me that you were taking a walk with the
butler," I interrupted.
Master Bates winked.
"Would you like to see him?"
He beckoned me to an open window, and we gazed through it upon a bare
back kitchen, and upon an extremely corpulent man in an armchair,
slumbering, with a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his head to
protect it from the flies. Master Bates whipped out a pea-shooter,
and blew a pea on to the exposed lobe of the sleeper's ear.
"D--n!" roared the corpulent one, leaping up in wrath. But we were
in hiding behind the yard-wall before he could pull the bandanna from
his face.
"He's the bailiff," explained Master Bates. "He's in possession.
Oh, you'll get quite friendly with him in time. Down in the town
they call him Mother Stimcoe's lodger, he comes so often. But, I
say, don't go and blow the gaff on the old girl."
On our way to the coach-office that evening I felt--as the saying
is--my heart in my mouth. Miss Plinlimmon spoke sympathetically of
Mr. Stimcoe's state of health, and with delicacy of his
absent-mindedness, "so natural in a scholar." I discovered long
afterwards that Mr. Stimcoe, having retired to cash a note for her,
had brought back a strong smell of brandy and eighteen-pence less
than the strict amount of her change. I knew in my heart that my new
schoolmaster and his wife were a pair of frauds, and yet I choked
down the impulse to speak. Perhaps Master Bates's loyalty kept me on
my mettle.
The dear soul and I bade one another farewell, she not without tears.
The coach bore her away; and I walked back through the crowded
streets with my spirits down in my boots, and my fists thrust deep
into the pockets of my small-clothes.
In this dejected mood I reached the Market Strand just as Captain
Coffin came up it from the Plume of Feathers public-house, cursing
and striking out with his stick at a mob of small boys.