DAWSON'S, THE GATE INTO HELL
I
A letter from Peter to Stephen:
_Dear, dear Steve,
There's a noise going on and boys are throwing paper and things and
there's another boy jogging my elbows so that I can't hold my pen. Dear
Steve, I hope that you are very, very happy as I am. I am very happy
here. I am in the bottom form because my sums are so awful and my master
beat me for them yesterday but he is nothing to father. I was top in the
essay. I like football--I have a friend who is called Galion (I don't
think that is the right way to spell it. He says that it is like a
treasure-ship). He is a nice boy and Mrs. Trussit was his father's
housekeeper once; his father writes stories. There is a boy I hate
called Cheeseman, and one called Pollock. Please give my love to Mrs.
Brant, the cows, Mollie and the pigs, Mr. and Mrs. Figgis, Mr. Tan and
all my friends. Dear Steve, I love you very, very, very much. I am very
happy.
Your loving friend,
Peter Westcott._
A letter from Stephen to Peter:
_Dear Mr. Peter,
I have thought every day of you and I was mighty glad to get your bit
of a letter fearing that, maybe, thiccy place in Devon might have driven
your old friends out of your head. I am no hand with a pen and it is
taking me a time to write this so I will just say that I'm right glad
you're happy and that I'll greet the day I see you again, and that's
it's poor trade here without you.
I am always, your friend,
Stephen Brant._
But Peter had lied in his letter. He was not in any way happy at all. He
had lied because he knew that it would have hurt Stephen if he had
told him the truth--and the truth was something that must be met with
clenched teeth and shoulders set back.
Taking him at the end of the first week one finds simple bewilderment
and also a conviction that silence is the best policy. He was placed in
the lowest form because of his ignorance of Latin and Mathematics, and
here every one was younger and weaker. During school hours there was
comparative peace, and he sat with perplexed brow and inky fingers, or
was sent down to the bottom for inattention. It was not inattention but
rather a complete incapacity for grasping the system on which everything
worked. Meanwhile in this first week he had earned a reputation and
made three friends, and although he did not know it that was not a bad
beginning.
On the day after his arrival Peter, after midday dinner, standing
desolately in the playground and feeling certain that he ought to be
playing football somewhere but completely ignorant as to the place where
lists commonly hung, saw another new boy and hailed him. This boy he had
noticed before--he was shapeless of body, with big, round, good-tempered
eyes, and he moved more slowly than any one whom Peter had ever seen.
Nothing stirred him; he did not mind it when his ears were pulled or his
arms twisted, but only said slowly, “Oh, drop it!” To this wonderful boy
Peter made approach.
“Can you tell me where the lists are for football? I ought to have been
playing yesterday only I didn't know where to look.”
The slow boy smiled. “I'm going to look myself,” he said, “come on.”
And then two things happened. First sauntering down the playground there
came a boy whom Peter had noticed on that first morning in school--some
one very little older than Peter and not very much bigger, but with a
grace, a dignity, an air that was very wonderful indeed. He was a dark
boy with his hair carelessly tossed over his forehead; he was very clean
and he had beautiful hands. To Peter's rough and clumsy figure he seemed
everything that a boy should be, and, in his mind, he had called him
“Steerforth.” As this boy approached there suddenly burst into view a
discordant crowd with some one in their midst. They were shouting and
laughing, and Peter could hear that some one was crying. The crowd
separated and formed a ring and danced shouting round a very small and
chubby boy who was standing crying quite desperately, with his head
buried in his arm. Every now and then the infant was knocked by one
boy in the ring into another boy's arms, and so was tossed from side to
side.
The hopeless sound of the chubby one's crying caused Peter suddenly to
go red hot somewhere inside his chest, and like a bullet from a gun he
was into the middle of the circle. “You beasts! You beasts,” he sobbed
hysterically. He began to hit wildly, with his head down, at any one
near him, and very soon there was a glorious mêlée. The crowd roared
with laughter as they flung the two small boys against one another, then
suddenly one of the circle got a wild blow in the eye from Peter's fist
and went staggering back, another was kicked in the shins, a third was
badly winded. Peter had lost all sense of place or time, of reason or
sanity; he was wild with excitement, and the pent-up emotions of the
last five days found magnificent overwhelming freedom. He did not
know whether he were hit or no, once he was down and in an instant up
again--once a face was close to his and he drove hard at the mouth--but
he was small and his arms and legs were short. Indeed it would have gone
badly with him had there not been heard, in all the roar of battle, the
mystic whisper “Binns,” and in an instant, as the snow flies before the
sun, so had that gallant crowd disappeared. Only the small cause of the
disturbance and Peter remained. The tall form of a master passed slowly
down the playground, but it appeared that he had seen nothing, and he
did not speak. The small boy was gazing at Peter with wide-opened eyes,
large in a white face on which were many tear stains. Peter, who was
conscious now that blood was pouring from a cut in his cheek, that one
of his teeth was missing and that one of his eyes was fast closing, was
about to speak to him when he was aware that his “Steerforth” had sprung
from nowhere and was advancing gracefully to meet him. Peter's heart
beat very fast.
The boy smiled at him and held out his hand.
“I say, shake hands. You've got pluck--my eye! I never saw such a rag!”
Peter shook hands and was speechless.
“What's your name?”
“Westcott.”
“Mine's Cardillac. It isn't spelt as it's spoken, you know.
C-a-r-d-i-l-l-a-c. I'm in White's--what do you say to places next each
other at table?”
“Rather.” Peter's face was crimson. “Thanks most awfully.” He stammered
in his eagerness.
“Right you are--see you after chapel.” The boy moved away.
Peter said something to the infant whom he had delivered, and was
considering where he might most unobtrusively wash when he was once more
conscious of some one at his elbow. It was the slow boy who was smiling
at him.
“I say, you're a sight. You'd better wash, you know.”
“Yes, I was just thinking of that only I didn't quite know where to go.”
“Come with me--I'll get round Mother Gill all right. She likes me.
You've got some cheek. Prester and Banks Mi, and all sorts of fellows
were in that crowd. You landed Prester nicely.” He chuckled. “What's
your name?”
“Westcott.”
“Mine's Galleon.”
“Galleon?” Peter's eyes shone. “I say, you didn't ever have a
housekeeper called Mrs. Trussit?”
“Trussit? Yes, rather, of course I remember, when I was awfully small.”
“Why, she's ours now! Then it must be your father who writes books!”
“Yes, rather. He's most awfully famous!”
Peter stopped still, his mouth open with excitement.
Of all the amazing things! What doesn't life give you if you trust it!
II
But before it became a question of individuals there is the place to be
considered. This Dawson's of twenty years ago does not exist now nor,
let us pray the Fates, are there others like it. It is not only with
bitterness that a boy whom Dawson's had formed would look back on it
but also with a dim, confused wonder that he had escaped with a straight
soul and a straight body from that Place. There were many, very many
indeed, who did not escape, and it would indeed have been better
for them all had they died before they were old enough to test its
hospitality. If any of those into whose hands this story of Peter may
fall were, by the design of God, themselves trained by the place of
which I speak, they will understand that all were not as fortunate as
Peter--and for those others there should be sympathy....
To Peter indeed it all came very slowly because he had known so little
before. He had not been a week in the place before there were very
many things that he was told--there were other things that he saw for
himself.
There is, for instance, at the end of the third week, the incident of
Ferris, the Captain of the School. He was as a God in Peter's eyes, he
was greater, more wonderful than Stephen, than any one in the world. His
word was law....
One late afternoon Peter cleaned plates for him in his study, and Ferris
watched him. Ferris was kind and talked about many things out of his
great wisdom, and then he asked Peter whether he would always like to be
his fag, and Peter, delighted, said “Yes.”
Then Ferris smiled and spoke, dropping his voice. Three weeks earlier
Peter would not have understood, but now he understood quite well and he
went very white and broke from the room, leaving the plates where they
were--and Cheeseman became Ferris' fag--
This was all very puzzling and perplexing to Peter.
But after that first evening when he had hidden his head in the
greatcoat and cried, he had shown no sign of fear and he soon found
that, on that side of Life, things became easy. He was speedily left
alone, and indeed he must have been, in spite of his small size,
something of a figure even then.
His head was so very firm on his shoulders, his grey eyes were so
very straight, and his lip curled in a disagreeable way when he was
displeased; he was something of the bulldog, and even at this early
period the First and Second forms showed signs of meek surrender to his
leadership. But he was, of course, not happy--he was entirely miserable.
He would be happier later on when he had been able to arrange all these
puzzling certainties so different from those dazzling imaginations that
he had painted. How strange of him to have been so glad to leave Stephen
and the others--even old Curtis! What could he have thought was coming!
He remembered as though it had been another life that Christmas Eve, the
fight, the beating, the carols....
And yet, with it all, with the dreariness and greyness and fierceness
and dirtiness of it all, he would not change it for those earlier
things--this was growing, this was growing up!
He was certainly happier after his meeting with Cardillac--“Cards” as he
was always called. Here was a hero indeed! Not to displace, of course,
Stephen, who remained as a stained-glass window remains, to be looked
at and treasured and remembered--but here was a living wonder! Every
movement that Cards made was astounding, and not only Peter felt it.
Even the masters seemed to suggest that he was different from the rest
and watched him admiringly. Cards was only fourteen, but he had seen the
world. He had been with his mother (his father was dead) about Europe,
he knew London, he had been to the theatres; school, he gave them all to
understand, was an interim in the social round. He took Peter's worship
very easily and went for walks with him and talked in a wonderful way.
He admired Peter's strength.
Peter found that Galleon--Bobby Galleon--was disappointing, not very
interesting. He had never read his father's books, and he couldn't tell
Peter very much about the great man; he was proud of him but rather
reserved. He had not many ideas about anything and indeed when he went
for a walk with Peter was usually very silent, although always in a good
temper. Cards thought Galleon very dull and never spoke to him if he
could avoid doing so, and Peter was sometimes quite angry with Galleon
because he would “turn up so” when one might have had Cards to oneself.
Peter's main feeling about it all when half term arrived was that one
must just stand with one's back to the wall if one was to avoid being
hurt. He did not now plunge into broils to help other people; he found
that it did not in reality help them and that it only meant that he got
kicked as well as the other boy. One's life was a diligent watchfulness
with the end in view of avoiding the enemy. The enemy was to be found
in any shape and form; there was no security by night or day, but on the
whole life was safer if one spoke as little as possible and stuck to the
wall. There were Devils--most certainly Devils--roaming the world, and
as he watched the Torture and the Terror and then the very dreadful
submission, he vowed with clenched lips that he would never Submit...and
so gradually he was learning the truth of that which Frosted Moses had
spoken...
Cornwall, meanwhile--the Grey Hill, Scaw House, the hills above
Truro--remained to him during these weeks, securely hidden.
III
There remains to be chronicled of that first term only the Comber Fight
and, a little conversation, one windy day, with Galleon. The small boy,
by name Beech Minimus, whom Peter had defended on that earlier occasion,
had attached himself with unswerving fidelity to his preserver. He
was round and fat, and on his arrival had had red cheeks and sparkling
eyes--now he was pale and there were lines under his eyes; he started if
any one spoke to him, and was always eager to hide when possible. Peter
was very sorry for him, but, after a month of the term had passed he
had, himself, acquired the indifference of those that stand with their
backs to the wall. Beech would go on any kind of errand for him and
would willingly have died for him had it been required of him--he did
indeed during the hours that he was left in peace in his dormitory,
picture to himself wonderful scenes in which he saved Peter from
horrible deaths and for his own part perished.
It may have been that he clung to Peter partly because there was more
safety in his neighbourhood, for amongst the lower school boys at any
rate, very considerable fear of Peter was to be noticed, but Beech's
large eyes raised to the other boy's face or his eager smile as he did
something that Peter required of him, spoke devotion.
Beech Minimus was forced, however, for the good of his soul, to suffer
especial torture between the hours of eight and nine in the evening. It
was the custom that the Lower School should retire from preparation at
eight o'clock, it being supposed that at that hour the Lower School went
to bed. But Authority, blinded by trustful good nature and being engaged
at that hour with its wine and dinner, left the issue to chance and the
Gods, and human nature being what it is, the Lower School triumphed in
freedom. There was a large, empty class room at the back of the building
where much noise might safely be made, and in this place and at
this hour followed the nightly torture of Beech and his minute
companions--that torture named by the Gods, “Discipline,” by the
Authorities, “Boys will be Boys,” by the Parent, “Learning to be a Man,”
and by the Lower School “A Rag.” Beech and his companions had not as yet
a name for it. Peter was, as a rule, left to his own thoughts and
spent the hours amongst the greatcoats in the passage reading David
Copperfield or talking in whispers to Bobby Galleon. But nevertheless he
was not really indifferent, he was horribly conscious even in his sleep,
of Beech's shrill “Oh! Comber, don't! Please, Comber, oh!” and Beech
being in the same dormitory as himself he noticed, almost against his
will, that shivering little mortal as he crept into bed and cowered
beneath the sheets wondering whether before morning he would be tossed
in sheets or would find his bed drenched in water or would be beaten
with hair brushes. Peter's philosophy of standing it in silence and
hitting back if he were himself attacked was scarcely satisfactory in
Beech's case, and, again and again, his attention would be dragged away
from his book to that other room where some small boys were learning
lessons in life.
The head of this pleasant sport was one Comber, a large, pale-faced boy,
some years older than his place in the school justified, but of a crass
stupidity, a greedy stomach and a vicious cruelty. Peter had already met
him in football and had annoyed him by collaring him violently on one
occasion, it being the boy's habit, owing to his size and reputation, to
run down the field in the Lower School game, unattacked. Peter's hatred
of him grew more intense week by week; some days after Mid-Term, it
had swollen into a passion. He finally told Bobby Galleon one day at
luncheon that on that very evening he was going to defy this Comber.
Galleon besought him not to do this, pointing out Comber's greater
strength and the natural tendency of the Lower School to follow their
leader blindly. Peter said nothing in reply but watched, when eight
o'clock had struck and the Lower School had assembled in the class room,
for his moment. It was a somewhat piteous spectacle. Comber and some
half a dozen friends in the middle of the room, and forty boys ranging
in years from eight to twelve, waiting with white faces and propitiatory
smiles, eager to assist in the Torture if they only might themselves be
spared.
“Now you chaps,” this from Comber--“we'll have a Gauntlet. I votes we
make young Beech run first.”
“Rather! Come on, Beech--you've jolly well got to.”
“Buck up, you funk!” from those relieved that they were themselves, for
the instant, safe.
Peter was sitting on a bench at the back of the room--he stood on the
bench and shouted, “You're a beast. Comber.”
There was immediate silence--every one turned first to Comber, and then
back to Peter. Comber paused in the preparation of the string whip that
he was making, and his face was crimson.
“Oh, it's you, you young skunk, is it? Bring him here some of you
fellows.”
Eager movements were made in his direction, but Peter, still standing on
his bench, shouted: “I claim a fight.”
There was silence again--a silence now of incredulity and amazement.
But there was nothing to be done; if any one claimed a fight, by all the
rules and traditions of Dawson's he must have it. But that Westcott, a
new boy and in the bottom form should challenge Comber! Slowly, and
as it were against their will, hearts beat a little faster, faces
brightened. Of course Westcott would be most hopelessly beaten, but
might not this prove the beginning of the end of their tyrant?
Meanwhile, Comber between his teeth: “All right, you young devil, I'll
give you such a hiding as you damned well won't forget. Then we'll treat
you properly afterwards.”
A ring was made, and there was silence, so that the prefects might not
be attracted, because fighting in the Lower School was forbidden. Coats
were taken off and Peter faced Comber with the sensation of attacking a
mountain. Peter knew nothing about fighting at all, but Comber had long
subsisted on an easy reputation and he was a coward at heart. There
swung into Peter's brain the picture of The Bending Mule, the crowding
faces, the swinging lamp, Stephen with the sledge-hammer blow...it was
the first time for weeks that he had thought of Treliss.
He was indifferent--he did not care; things could not be worse, and he
did not mind what happened to him, and Comber minded very much indeed,
and he had not been hit in the face for a long time. His arms went round
like windmills, and the things that he would like to have done were
to pull Peter's hair from its roots and to bite him on the arm. As the
fight proceeded and he knew that his face was bleeding and that the end
of his nose had no sensation in it at all he kicked with his feet and
was conscious of cries that he was not playing the game. Infuriated that
his recent supporters should so easily desert him, he now flung himself
upon Peter, who at once gave way beneath the bigger boy's weight. Comber
then began to bite and tear and scratch, uttering shrill screams of
rage and kicking on the floor with his feet. He was at once pulled
away, assured by those dearest friends who had so recently and merrily
assisted him in his “rags” that he was not playing the game and was no
sportsman. He was moreover a ludicrous sight, his trousers being torn,
one blue-black eye staring from a confused outline of dust and blood,
his hair amazingly on end.
There were also many cries of “Shame, Comber,” “Dirty game,” and even
“Well played young Westcott!”
He knew as he wept bitter tears into his blood-stained hands that his
reign was at an end.
There were indeed, for the time at any rate, no more “rags,” and Peter
might, an he would, have reigned magnificently over the Lower School.
But he was as silent and aloof as ever, and was considered “a sidey
devil, but jolly plucky, by Gad.”
And for himself he got at any rate the more continued companionship of
Cards, who languidly, and, perhaps a younger Sir Willoughby Patterne
“with a leg,” admired his muscle.
IV
Finally, towards the end of the term, Peter and Bobby Galleon may be
seen sitting on a high hill. It is a Sunday afternoon in spring, and far
away there is a thin line of faintly blue hills. Nearer to view
there are grey heights more sharply outlined and rough, like drawing
paper--painted with a green wood, a red-roofed farm, a black church
spire, and a brown ploughed field. Immediately below them a green hedge
hanging over a running stream that has caught the blue of the sky. Above
them vast swollen clouds flooding slowly with the faint yellow of the
coming sunset, hanging stationary above the stream and seeming to have
flung to earth some patches of their colour in the first primroses below
the hedge. A rabbit watches, his head out of his hole.
The boys' voices cut the air.
“I say, Bobby, don't you ever wonder about things--you never seem to
want to ask questions.”
“No, I don't suppose I do. I'm awfully stupid. Father says so.”
“It's funny your being stupid when your father's so clever.”
“Do you mind my being stupid?”
“No--only I'd like you to want to know things--things like what people
are like inside--their thinking part I mean, not their real insides.
People like Mother Gill and old Binns and Prester Ma: and then what
one's going to do when one's grown up--you never want to know that.”
“No, it'll just come I suppose. Of course, I shan't be clever like the
governor.”
“No, I don't think you will.”
Once again: “Do you mind my being so stupid, Peter?”
“No--I'm awfully stupid too. But I like to wonder about things.
There was once a man I met at home with rings and things who lived in
London....” Peter stops, Galleon wouldn't be interested in that.
“Anyhow, you know, you've got Cards--he's an awfully clever chap.”
“Yes, he's wonderful,” Peter sighs, “and he's seen such a lot of
things.”
“Yes, but you know I don't think Cards really cares for you as much as
I do.” This is an approach to sentiment, and Peter brushes it hastily
aside:
“I like you both awfully. But I say, won't it be splendid to be grown up
in London?”
“I don't know--lots of fellows don't like it.”
“That's nothing,” Peter says slowly, “to do with its not being
splendid!”
And the rabbit, tired of listening to such tiresome stuff, thinks that
they must be very young boys indeed.