SELF-DEFENCE.
It appeared to me now, that my education might fairly be entrusted to
myself, at least until after Christmas-time; but whether it was, that my
dear parents were eager to push me on with learning, or else that they
had enjoyed enough of my company for the present, the issue was settled
against me, and without another week of holidays. Jack Windsor was in
the same box with me; and his mother and mine laid their heads together,
and came to the conclusion that Dr. Rumbelow had acted very badly. With
the aid of a noble "manual of epistolary correspondence," they indited a
joint letter to the new bishop, which must have grieved his upright
soul. He answered right humbly, and in few words, that he grieved as
deeply as they could do, at the utter subversion of a wholesome school;
which would not have happened, if he could have helped it. But he had
never been the owner, and only acted under the will of Trustees, who had
not consulted him, when he left. Feeling the deepest interest in his
beloved pupils of many happy years, he watched the result with sad
apprehension, but could not interfere with it. But for any, whose
parents desired their removal from the influence of wild doctrines, he
could with high confidence recommend an orthodox, and most efficient
teacher, an old pupil of his own at Oxford, an accurate scholar, and
most active man, now doing excellent work in the Church. This was the
Reverend St. Simon Cope, curate of St. Athanasius, a District church in
Kentish Town.
Armed with this letter, the two ladies went to see Mr. Cope; and came
back in high feather, perfectly full of him, and of new ideas. I could
not understand their talk at all, and perhaps that was more than they
did themselves. However, I made out that I was to get up at half-past
five next Monday, put a strap-load of Greek on my back, and knock, at
half-past six exactly, at the corner-house in Torriano Square.
All this I accomplished, not without some groans, and was met at the
door by Mr. Cope himself. I wanted to have a good look at him, but
entirely failed to manage it; so wholly did my nature fall under the
influence of his, that when I went home at night, and father said,
"Well, Tommy, what is the new chap like?"
I could only answer, "I don't know. He is not like any man I ever saw
before."
"Did he whack you, Tommy?" went on my father; "you must want it, after
all this time."
"He!" I exclaimed with a lofty air; "he need never whack any fellow. I
can tell that."
Of this wonderful man, it might truly be said, that he was wholly free
from selfishness. Can anything, half so strange as that, be declared of
any other human being? That my own little body should go up into the
air, is exceptional, though not unparalleled. But for the human mind to
leave the ground, is an outrage on the laws of gravitation, ten
thousandfold as rare as any I have yet accomplished. And now that I have
time to consider it calmly, this must have been the reason, why I could
not make him out, even with my outward eyes. And probably this was the
reason, why we all admired, obeyed in an instant, and thoroughly revered
him; and yet we found our spirits rise, when we got away to people more
of our own cast.
This gentleman never was in a hurry, but always calm and gentle, and
quite ready to be interrupted; yet the quantity of work he got through
in a day was enough for ten men of his strength. Twice every day, he had
service in his church, without even a clerk to help him, and four hours
every day he spent in visiting poor people. Moreover, he always had in
hand some article for the great Reviews, and a heap of other careful
work; and besides all this, (and I dare say the hardest of the lot to
deal with) a score of us day-pupils, to be taught, and fed, and tended.
Yet never was one of us ready with a lesson, without the master being
there to hear him. And he more than heard us; he poured his own mind,
with all its clear and vivid power, as far into our thick brains as ever
it would go, so that even Jack Windsor (who had no more taste in his
head than a lignified turnip) told me, going home one night, that Horace
was a fine chap after all, when you came to know what he was driving at.
No other man in the world could have brought our Jack to that
conclusion.
Now, in spite of all this, and the spending of every penny that he
earned among the poor, the Reverend St. Simon Cope was not loved at all
in Kentish Town; except by a few half-starving outcasts, and a good many
ladies with nothing to do. And the reason of this was as plain as a
pole--he was one of the "High-church parsons," whom the free-will of the
Briton will never accept.
Under the care of this excellent man, I got on very fast in "Nescience,"
(as the _Epistemonicon_ gentlemen called the classics), and history, and
theology, and everything else except their own fads. From my very sad
deficiency in weight, I never was a fighter, though often tempted
grievously; but Jack Windsor was happily enabled to prove, that which
has been proved perpetually in Town and Gown disputations, to wit, the
clear superiority in conflict of the true Academic element.
For, as we came home about noon of a Saturday, with five days and a half
of Greek inside us,--in a place where a bridge was, we were met, only
Jack Windsor and myself, by a maniple--if they deserve the term--from
the now adulterous _Partheneion_. These were fellows of the lewder sort,
who had taken up gladly with all the new stuff, and were rank with all
Chemical mixtures. Without looking twice at them, we could see they
desired to give us a hiding. And they began the base unequal conflict,
by casting very hard stones at us. With pleasure, and without disgrace
(considering the force of numbers against us) we would have fled, by the
road that had brought us; but they had provided against this measure, by
posting large boys behind us. There was nothing around us, but a world
of thumps; and the air was darkened with impending fists.
"Stop a bit; hold hard;" cried Jack Windsor, with his back against the
coping of the bridge; "give us fair play, you lot of sneaking cowards. I
see a chap, who has been at our house, and squibbed a wasp's nest with
me. Let me speak a moment to Bob Stubbs. Now, Bob, I know you were an
honourable chap, till you got among dirty foreigners. I don't want to
fight you, 'cos we always were good friends. But pick out the biggest of
your scientific lot, and let me have a fair turn with him; while Tommy
here tackles some fellow of his size. You must all be going to the bad,
up there; if you bring a score of fellows to pitch into two. In the old
days, we always allowed fair play."
Being English boys, they were moved by this; and after some little talk,
two rings were formed--one for Jack and his antagonist, and the other,
alas! for me and mine. Loth as I was to fight, it seemed better than to
be pounded passively; and so I pulled off my coat, and squared up, as my
father had shown me he used to do. And, whether by reason of his ancient
system being more practical than the new lights, or whether in virtue of
my own quickness, in hopping away when knocked at, I may say, without
any exaggeration, that I hit the other fellow more than he hit me; until
I was grieved to see him bleed, and then I put down my fists, and shook
hands with him.
But my own little combat was no more in comparison with Jack Windsor's,
than the skirmish between two charioteers of the "Iliad," while their
heroes fight. Jack was in earnest, and knew no remorse. He had been hit
on the forehead by a stone, and could swear that the fellow before him
was the one who threw it. Moreover, this boy had shouted, "Come on,
Suds!" with a most contemptuous toss of his head, being bigger than
Jack, though not so strong, for our Jack was built up like a milestone.
"Come on, Suds," he shouted; "come on, my lad of lather!"
"I'll lather you, if I can," said Jack.
The battle was long, and quick with a spirit of trenchant valour, on
either side. I did not see the beginning, because I was strenuously
occupied with my own engagement; but that being brought to a happy
conclusion, the boy I had conquered joined me, with much good will, in
observing the other fight. And here let me mention that his name was
Bellows, Jeremiah Bellows of Blackpool, a prominent orator, as everybody
knows, of the Liberal party, by and by.
When Bellows, and I, came up to look, there was no mistaking the nature
of the fray. Very little time had been lost in repose between the
rounds, and the action had been so vigorous, and so well sustained, that
on either side now it was a harder job to fetch the breath, than to give
the blow. Whichever might conquer, there could be no doubt that the
fight was a credit to his school.
Happily for us, the "noble science of self-defence" was not yet one of
the thirty-two taught by the four Professors. Otherwise Jack would have
long been vanquished, for he had not much of polemical skill; and I was
astonished at his endurance, having always found him peaceful. But I
knew, by the way his lips were set, and his square style of going
forward, that his mind was made up, to be knocked to pieces, sooner than
knock under.
This was a lesson to me, than which I have never had a better one in all
my life. There was scarcely a pin to choose between those two, in the
matter of affliction. Jack had got one eye quite bunged up, and his
enemy had both eyes half-way closed; the nose of our Jack was gone in at
the middle, and that of his adversary at the end; and their other
contusions might pretty nearly match. Yet Jack won, all of a heap. And
why? Because he would rather be killed, than yield. The other fellow
would rather yield, than stand the very smallest chance of being killed.
So when Jack came up for another good round, his enemy sate, and looked
at him, and thought it would be wiser to negotiate. He was not by any
means whacked, he declared, and he went on to prove it, though still
sitting down--as Britannia never lets her tail drop now, without
elevating her tongue, to stand for it--but his mind was made up, not to
incur further danger of blood-guiltiness.
After all the insults put upon him, Jack would not let him off, without
a clearer understanding.
"Either you are whacked, or not," said he; "if you are whacked, say so
straightforrard, and I will shake hands with you. If you are not, stand
up again."
This was plain English, the only sensible thing in a case of that kind.
The other boy looked about; but saw no way to shuffle out of it, having
not yet been Prime Minister.
"I don't mean to fight any more," he said, "until I perceive the
necessity of it. At the same time, you can see yourself, that I am not a
bit afraid of you. Every one who knows me will bear me out in that. I
could prove it, if I had time; but there goes the dinner-bell, and we
all must run. Not from you, mind, not from you; only because we are
obliged to bolt."
Likely enough, there are people who would be glad to make light of this
victory; as they do with all those we always lose, while blowing up the
trumpet in the very new moon, if ever we cannot help winning one. But
Jack, and I, took a natural view of the facts we ourselves had created.
Science had bitten the dust before the powers of ancient literature,
though the latter had struggled at fearful odds; and seven of the boys,
who had seen it, persuaded their parents to take them from the Gorgon,
and apprentice them again to the gentle Muse, who only strikes in
self-defence. And as soon as my father and mother heard it--by reason of
my bruises, one of which required raw beefsteak,--they were for ever
confirmed in their perception of their own wisdom.
But alas! I scarcely know how to tell the next event in my sad career.
Gladly would I leave it all untold, save by mine enemies; if the latter
would only tell it truly, or leave it untold falsely. But this it is
hopeless to expect. There is a certain rancour in all persons of loose
politics; wherewith--to put it liberally--nature, abhorring a vacuum,
has stopped the vast gap of their principles. And this pervasive
bitterness, when not obtaining vent enough, as it fairly might do upon
one another, sometimes sets them raking up the private life, and
domestic history, of those who are not like themselves.
It has been related, some way back, that the great authorities of our
parish, having been urged by fussy people--most of whom paid no rates at
all--to abate, what they were pleased to call, the nuisance of our
wholesome smell, had arrived at last at a resolution, to cure the air of
our chimney-tops, by carrying a big culvert through the valley, a
hundred yards below. How this was to effect that purpose, none of us
clearly understood; but as it would not come near our works, yet saved
them from being grumbled at, we accepted the conviction of the public,
that it must prove a perfect cure. And reasoning by analogy, we expected
no stroke to be struck, for a score of happy years yet to come.
But Joe Cowl, that same chimney-sweep who had tried to summon father,
told all his friends, till he quite believed, that he never had been the
same man, since the time my father syringed him. If this had been true,
how much it would have been to his benefit, and his neighbours'! But
being scant of introspection, he positively made a grievance of it! He
contrived to push himself on the Committee appointed by the Vestry, for
the drainage of Maiden valley, for no other reason in the world, than
that he hoped to pester us, by carrying out that noisome scheme. As
everybody said, there was no reason for such hurry; the valley had been
a valley for more thousands of years than we could count, without
wanting a bodkin put along it. In wet weather it drained itself; and in
dry weather what was there to drain? The Lord had made it, as seemed
Him best; and could any ratepayer improve His works?
Nevertheless, by stirring up, and rushing about with his best clothes
on, and grouting (like a pig, with his ring come out) and writing, every
other day, to every paper that would print his stuff, Chimney-sweep Cowl
robbed all the parish of the pleasure of considering the next thing to
be done. For he made them actually begin this job, at very little more
than three years from the time of their voting it urgent, and not very
much over two years from the time they raised the cash for it. But we
let him see, when it was begun, that we were rather pleased than
otherwise; and father went down and told Cowl himself, with as pleasant
a smile as need be seen, that he would lend them a spare wheel-barrow,
if they would put new gudgeons in; and as a large ratepayer of St.
Pancras, he would try to keep them to their work. And it is a sad thing
now to think of, that if he had been a bad-tempered man, and shunned
them altogether, he might have been alive, while I write this.
Perhaps no man in London, except the Reverend St. Simon Cope, worked
harder now than my father did. Not from any narrow-minded hankering
after bullion; nor the common doom of our species, to find its final
cause, as well as case, in _specie_; but from the stern resolution of a
man, to turn out a good article, at a good figure, and to keep his own
finger, and no others, in his pie. Mr. John Windsor had been trying very
hard, to dip his own ladle into our warm vats; but while father valued
him most highly as a friend, and would eagerly have done anything
whatever, that lay in his power, to help him; he found it lie more and
more beyond his power, to let him come into his yard just now. Plump and
portly as Mr. Windsor was, and equally blunt at either end, my father
kept calling him--as soon as he was gone--the thin end of the wedge, and
telling dear mother to be very careful, not to say a word to let him in.
This was exactly in accordance with my mother's own view of the case;
and she said, that she first had insisted upon it, and that if Mrs.
Windsor came sounding her for ever--as she did, even on a Sunday--it
would take her a long time to discover any hollow place in her presence
of mind. For she always answered.
"Oh, my dear, what do I care for odious business? You know, how much
sooner you would hear me talk, about delightful Happystowe, and the sun
coming over the sea, and the shrimps, and the shameful proceedings of
the bathing females--for I never can call them ladies--and that dear
good Lady Towers-Twentifold, who longed so extremely to make my
acquaintance; and has written once more, for my Tommy to go down, and
spend the holidays with his old friend, Sir Roland, at Twentifold
Towers. What a pity it is, that we live so far asunder!"
"But don't you think, dear," Mrs. Windsor asked demurely, "that when the
wind was blowing towards the windows of the Tower, her ladyship might
object a little to the--the flavour of Mr. Upmore's operations?"