A LESSON IN THE AENEID
In those days Stonnington was a very pretty village, and such it
continued to be until it was ravaged by a railway. With the railway came
all that is hideous and foul, and from it fled all that is comely. The
cattle-shed, called by rail-highwaymen “the Station,” with its roof of
iron Pan-pipes and red bull's-eyes stuck on stack-poles, whistles and
stares where the grand trees stood and the village green lay sleeping.
On the site of the gray-stone grammar school is an “Operative
Institute,” whose front (not so thick as the skin of a young ass) is
gayly tattooed with a ringworm of wind-bricks. And the old manor-house,
where great authors used to dine, and look out with long pipes through
the ivy, has been stripped of every shred of leaf, and painted red and
yellow, and barge-boarded into “the Temperance Tap.”
Ere ever these heathen so furiously raged, there was peace and content,
and the pleasure of the eyes, and of neighborly feeling abundance.
The men never burst with that bubble of hurry which every man now is
inflated with; and the women had time enough to mind one another's
affairs, without which they grow scandalous. And the trees, that kept
company with the houses, found matter for reflection in their calm blue
smoke, and the green crop that promised a little grove upon the roof.
So that as the road went up the hill, the traveller was content to leave
his legs to nature, while his eyes took their leisure of pleasant views,
and of just enough people to dwell upon.
At the top of the hill rose the fine old church, and next to it, facing
on the road itself, without any kind of fence before it, stood the
grammar school of many generations. This was a long low building, ridged
with mossy slabs, and ribbed with green, where the drip oozed down
the buttresses. But the long reach of the front was divided by a gable
projecting a little into the broad high-road. And here was the way,
beneath a low stone arch, into a porch with oak beams bulging and a
bell-rope dangling, and thence with an oaken door flung back into the
dark arcade of learning.
This was the place to learn things in, with some possibility of keeping
them, and herein lay the wisdom of our ancestors. Could they ever have
known half as much as they did, and ten times as much as we know, if
they had let the sun come in to dry it all up, as we do? Will even the
fourteen-coated onion root, with its bottom exposed to the sun, or will
a clever puppy grow long ears, in the power of strong daylight?
The nature and nurture of solid learning were better understood when
schools were built from which came Shakespeare and Bacon and Raleigh;
and the glare of the sun was not let in to baffle the light of the
eyes upon the mind. And another consideration is that wherever there is
light, boys make a noise, which conduces but little to doctrine; whereas
in soft shadow their muscles relax, and their minds become apprehensive.
Thus had this ancient grammar school of Stonnington fostered many
scholars, some of whom had written grammars for themselves and their
posterity.
The year being only at the end of March, and the day going on for five
o'clock, the light was just right, in the long low room, for correction
of manners and for discipline. Two boys had been horsed and brushed up
well, which had strengthened the conscience of all the rest, while sobs
and rubs of the part affected diffused a tender silence. Dr. Swinks,
the head-master, was leaning back in his canopied oaken chair, with the
pride inspired by noble actions.
“What wonderfully good boys!” Dolly whispered, as she peeped in through
the dark porch with Faith, while her father was giving the horses in
charge to the hostler from the inn across the way; “I declare that I
shall be frightened even to look at Mr. Scudamore, if this is a specimen
of what he does. There is scarcely a boy looking off his book. But
how old he does look! I suppose it must be the effect of so much hard
teaching.”
“You silly thing,” her sister answered; “you are looking at the great
head-master. Mr. Scudamore is here at the bottom of the school. Between
these big hinges you can see him; and he looks as young as you do.”
Miss Dolly, who dearly loved any sly peep, kept her light figure back
and the long skirt pulled in, as she brought her bright eyes to the slit
between the heavy black door and the stone-work. And she speedily gave
her opinion.
“He is nothing but a regular frump. I declare I am dreadfully
disappointed. No wonder the title did not come on! He is nothing but a
very soft-natured stupe. Why, the boys can do what they like with him!”
Certainly the scholars of the Virgil class, which Blyth Scudamore was
dealing with, had recovered from the querimonies of those two sons of
Ovid, on the further side of Ister, and were having a good laugh at the
face of “Captain Scuddy,” as they called their beloved preceptor. For
he, being gifted with a gentle sense of humor, together with a patient
love of the origin of things, was questing in his quiet mind what had
led a boy to render a well-known line as follows: “Such a quantity of
salt there was, to season the Roman nation.” Presently he hit upon the
clue to this great mystery. “Mola, the salted cake,” he said; “and the
next a little error of conjugation. You have looked out your words,
Smith, but chanced upon the wrong ones.”
“Oh, Captain Scuddy,” cried the head boy, grinning wisely, though he
might have made just the same blunder himself; “after that, do tell
us one of your sea-stories. It will strike five in about five minutes.
Something about Nelson, and killing ten great Frenchmen.”
“Oh, do,” cried the other little fellows, crowding round him. “It is
ever so much better than Virgil, Captain Scuddy!”
“I am not Captain Scuddy, as I tell you every day. I'm afraid I am a
great deal too good-natured with you. I shall have to send a dozen of
you up to be caned.”
“No, you couldn't do that if you tried, Captain Scuddy. But what are you
thinking of, all this time? There are two pretty ladies in riding-habits
peeping at you from the bell porch. Why, you have got sweethearts,
Captain Scuddy! What a shame of you never to have told us!”
The youngest and fairest of all the boys there could scarcely have
blushed more deeply than their classical tutor did, as he stooped for
his hat, and shyly went between the old desks to the door in the porch.
All the boys looked after him with the deepest interest, and made
up their minds to see everything he did. This was not at all what he
desired, and the sense of it increased his hesitation and confusion. Of
the Admiral's lovely daughters he had heard while in the navy, and
now he was frightened to think that perhaps they were come here to
reconnoitre him. But luckily the Admiral was by this time to the fore,
and he marched into the school-room and saluted the head-master.
“Dr. Swinks,” he said, “I am your very humble servant, Vice-Admiral of
the Blue, Charles Darling, and beg a thousand pardons for intrusion on
deep learning. But they tell me that your watch is over in some half a
minute. Allow me to ask for the son of an old friend, Blyth Scudamore,
late of the Diomede frigate, but now of this ancient and learned grammar
school. When his labors are over, I would gladly speak with him.”
“Boys may go,” the head-master pronounced, as the old clock wheezed
instead of striking. “Sir, my valued young coadjutor is advancing from
the fourth form toward you.”
The Doctor was nice in his choice of words, and prided himself on
Johnsonian precision, but his young coadjutor's advance was hardly to be
distinguished from a fine retreat. Like leaves before the wind, the
boys rushed out by a back door into the play-ground, while the master
solemnly passed to his house, with a deep slow bow to the ladies; and
there was poor Scudamore--most diffident of men whenever it came to
lady-work--left to face the visitors with a pleasing knowledge that his
neckcloth was dishevelled, and his hair sheafed up, the furrows of his
coat broadcast with pounce, and one of his hands gone to sleep from
holding a heavy Delphin for three-quarters of an hour.
As he came out thus into the evening light, which dazed his blue eyes
for a moment, Miss Dolly turned away to hide a smile, but Faith, upon
her father's introduction, took his hand and looked at him tenderly. For
she was a very soft-hearted young woman, and the tale of his troubles
and goodness to his mother had moved her affection toward him, while
as one who was forever pledged--according to her own ideas--to a hero
beyond comparison, she was able to regard young men with mercy, and with
pity, if they had none to love. “How hard you have been at work!” she
said; “it makes us seem so lazy! But we never can find any good thing to
do.”
“That's a cut at me,” cried the Admiral. “Scudamore, when you come to my
age, be wiser than to have any daughters. Sure enough, they find no good
to do; and they not only put all the fault of that on me, but they make
me the victim of all the mischief they invent. Dolly, my darling, wear
that cap if it fits. But you have not shaken hands with Mr. Scudamore
yet. I hope you will do so, some hundreds of times.”
“Not all at once, papa; or how thankful he would be! But stop, I have
not got half my glove off; this fur makes them stick so.”
Miss Dolly was proud of her hands, and lost few chances of getting them
looked at. Then with a little smile, partly at herself for petulance,
partly to him for forgiveness, she offered her soft warm rich white
hand, and looked at him beautifully as he took it. Alack and alas for
poor “Captain Scuddy”!
His eyes, with a quick shy glance, met hers; and hers with soft inquiry
answered, “I wonder what you think of me?” Whenever she met a new face,
this was her manner of considering it.
“Scudamore, I shall not allow you any time to think about it,” Admiral
Darling broke in suddenly, so that the young man almost jumped.
“Although you have cut the service for a while, because of our stingy
peacefulness, you are sure to come back to us again when England wants
English, not Latin and Greek. I am your commanding officer, and my
orders are that you come to us from Saturday till Monday. I shall send
a boat--or at least I mean a buggy--to fetch you, as soon as you are off
duty, and return you the same way on Monday. Come, girls, 'twill be dark
before we are home; and since the patrols were withdrawn, I hear there's
a highwayman down this road again. That is one of the blessings
of peace, Scudamore; even as Latin and Greek are. 'Apertis otia
portis'--Open the gates for laziness. Ah, I should have done well at old
Winton, they tell me, if I had not happened to run away to sea.”