"Because of the rhymes. I was quite astonished myself to find how they
came; and I also remembered a charm for nettlerash, and some awfully
peculiar sayings just at the right moment."
And Walters also declared he'd done better than he expected to do. He
seemed rather flustered about it, and wouldn't give any details; but he
was highly excited, and inked up to the eyes, as you might say. He gave
me the idea of a chap who'd been cribbing.
Macmullen looked rather a pale yellow colour, which he always does look
at moments of great excitement, especially just before his innings at
cricket. He wouldn't say a word to a soul until he'd gone to his botany
book and read up a lot of stuff. Then he felt better.
As to Tomkins, he told me privately, as his cousin, that he had got in
the names of no less than forty-five plants and seven grasses.
"That _must_ settle it," he said. And I said I thought so too.
Mr. Briggs corrected the essays that night, and prepared some notes upon
them for the Doctor to read when the time of announcing the winner came.
We all stared jolly hard at Briggs during prep. the next day, and
Steggles, who has no fear of old Briggs, asked him who had won. But
Briggs merely told him to mind his own business.
After prayers the next day the Doctor stopped in the chapel, which was
also a school-room, and told everybody to remain in his place.
Then he whispered to Corkey major, and Corkey went off, and presently
came back with a very swagger book bound in red leather and having a
yellow back with gold letters upon it.
The Doctor dearly likes these occasions; and so do we, because it means
missing at least one class for certain. When he once fairly begins
talking, he keeps at it. Now he had the four essays on the desk in
front of him, and the prize; and then he spoke to Briggs, and Briggs led
up Macmullen and Tomkins and Smythe and Walters.
They knew this was coming, and had all prepared to a certain extent. I
noticed that Smythe had borrowed a green tie from Webster, and that Mac.
had turned his usual hue at times of excitement. Walters was still inky,
despite pumice stone.
"We have now, my boys, to make our annual award of the 'Harold Bolsover'
prize for English composition," began the Doctor. "Mr. Bolsover, whose
name is now not unfavourably known to his countrymen as an ingenious
fabricator of romance, was educated at this seminary. To me it fell to
instruct his incipient intellect and lift the vacuity of his childish
mind upwards and onwards into the light of knowledge and religion.
"The art of fiction, while it must not be considered a very lofty or
important pursuit, may yet be regarded as a permissible career if the
motives that guide the pen are elevated, and a high morality is the
author's first consideration. Lack of leisure does not permit me to
read story books myself; but I have little doubt that Mr. Bolsover's
work is all that it should be from the Christian standpoint, and I feel
confident that those lessons of charity, patience, loyalty, and honour,
which he learnt from my own lips, have borne worthy fruit in his
industrious brain.
"The work I have selected for the 'Bolsover' prize is _Gilpin on Forest
Scenery_--a book which leads us from Nature to the contemplation of the
Power above and behind Nature; a book wherein the reverend author has
excelled himself and presented to our minds the loftiest thoughts, and
to our eyes the most noble scenes, that his observance could record, and
his skill compass within the space of a volume.
"For this notable reward four lads have entered in competition, and
their emulation was excited by the theme of 'Wild Flowers,' which your
senior master, Mr. Briggs, very happily selected. Wild flowers are the
jewellery of our hedgerows, scattered lavishly by Nature's own generous
hand to gladden the dusty wayside--to bring a smile to the face of the
wanderer in the highway, and brightness to the eyes of the weary
traveller by flood and field. None of you can have overlooked them. On
your road to your sport--even in the very grass whereon you pursue your
pastimes--the wild flowers abound. They deck the level sward; they smile
at us from the cricket-field; they help to gladden the hour of mimic
victory, or soften the bitter moment of failure, as we return defeated
to the silent throng at the pavilion rails.
"Now, I have before me the thoughts of Nicol Macmullen, Norman Tomkins,
Huxley Smythe, and Rupert Walters on this subject; and I very much
regret to say that not one of them has produced anything which may be
considered worthy of Merivale, worthy of Mr. Bolsover, or worthy of
themselves. I do not overlook their tender years; I am not forgetting
that to a mind like my own or that of Mr. Briggs--richly stored with all
the best and most beautiful utterances on this subject--the crudities of
immaturity must come with the profound and pitiful significance of
contrast. No, no--I judge these four achievements from no impossible
standard of perfection. I know too well how little can be expected from
the boy who is but entering upon his teens--I am too familiar with the
meagre attainments of the average lad of one decade to ask for
impossible accuracy, for poetic thought, or pious sentiments; but
certain qualities I have the right to expect--nay, demand----"