"'As one walks down a country lane, one can often hardly see the leaves
for the flowers. They burst upon the view in millions. The hedges are
thronged with them; the scent is overpowering. Turn where you will, they
greet the bewildered eye. They hang from the trees and spring from the
earth; they twine also--as, for instance, briony and convolvuluses. At
a single glance I take in dog-roses; campions of several sorts,
including white; shepherd's purse--a weed; strawberry, primroses,
cuckoo-flower, violet, bugle, herb robert, and also other wild geraniums
of various kinds. They are in a crowded mass, all struggling for life.
Stitchwort, nettle, archangel, cock's-foot grass, clematis, dock, heath,
furze, bog-moss, darnel, dandelions, daisies, buttercups of sorts,
marshmallow, water-lilies, rushes and reeds, poppies and peppermint,
also ferns--one sees them all at a glance. Then, as one hastens swiftly
onwards----'
"I gasp for breath," said the Doctor; "I absolutely refuse to hasten
swiftly onwards with Tomkins. At this breakneck pace he drags us through
that portion of the British flora at his command. There is doubtless
knowledge here; there is even reflection, as when he says, at the end of
his paper, that wild flowers ought to make us thankful for our eyesight
and for the lesser gift of smell. But, taken as a whole, we have no
balance, absolutely no repose, no light, and no shade. There is too
much hurry and bustle, too little feeling for the beauty attaching to
English scenery or English prose; too eager a desire to display
erudition in the empty matter of floral nomenclature."
So that was the end of Tomkins. He was frightfully disappointed; but he
felt so interested to know what wretched chaps like Smythe and Walters
had done that was better, that he forgot even to be miserable about
losing until afterwards.
Then the Doctor went for Smythe.
"Huxley Smythe next challenges our attention," he said. "Now, here we
are confronted with a still more amazing misunderstanding. Smythe
appears to know absolutely nothing whatever concerning wild flowers; but
he has seized this occasion to display an extraordinary amount of
peculiar information concerning other matters. He evidently imagines
that this will answer his purpose equally well. Moreover, he endeavours
to cast his work in a poetic form--with results that have bewildered
even me, despite my half-century of knowledge of the _genus puer_. I do
not say that rhyme is inadmissible. You shall not find me slow to
encourage originality of thought even among the least of you; but Smythe
trusts too little to himself and too much to other rhymsters--I will not
call them poets. He has committed to memory many verses of a trivial
and even offensive character. He has furnished me with a charm or
incantation to remove warts. Elsewhere he commits himself to sentiments
that may be described as flagrantly irreligious. It is true he glances
obliquely at his subject from time to time; but not in a spirit which
can admire or commend. We have, for instance, these lines--
"'Put yarrow under your pillow, they say,
You will see your true love the very next day.'
"'For pain in the stomach an excellent thing
Is tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'
"'If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someone
Will be certain to die ere the year is done.'
"Whence Huxley Smythe has culled these pitiful superstitions I know
not," continued the Doctor; "but he appears to be a veritable storehouse
and compendium of them. They remind me only too painfully of a certain
tiger's tail, though that incident is closed, and I desire to make no
further mention of it. Had our theme been folklore, or those crude,
benighted and indelicate fancies still prevailing among the bucolic
population, Smythe must have conquered, and easily conquered. It is not
so, however. He has chosen the occasion of the 'Bolsover' competition
to reveal no little fantastic knowledge; but its lack of appropriate and
apposite qualities effectually disposes of his claim. I will give you a
last sample of his methods. _A propos_ of absolutely nothing, on page
four of his dissertation, Smythe submits this impertinence. He appears
suddenly to have recollected it and inserted it in the body of his work,
without the least consideration for its significance or my feelings.
"'There was an old man who lived in a wood
As you may plainly see,
And said he could do more work in a day
Than his wife could do in three.'"
The Doctor looked awful sternly at Smythe.
"This fragment--from some coarse old ballad, I suspect--is thrust upon
me, as one might brandish a club in the face of an unoffending citizen.
Smythe must chasten his taste and study the rudiments of logic and
propriety before again he ventures to challenge our attention with
original thoughts. Silence! Silence!" thundered the Doctor in
conclusion; because Smythe's stuff made Steggles laugh out loud. Then
several other chaps laughed, and in trying not to laugh, Wolf minor
choked and made a noise, like a football exploding, that was far worse
than laughter.
"There remains the effort of Rupert Walters," went on Dr. Dunstan. "He
is the youngest of the competitors, and I find but little to praise in
his achievement; yet it indicates a shadow of promise and a shade of
imagination. Indeed, Mr. Briggs at first suspected that Walters had
availed himself of secret and dishonest assistance; but this, I rejoice
to know, is not the case. Walters has yet to learn to control the
discharge of ink from his pen, and in matters of orthography also there
is much to be desired for him--a remark which applies to all the
competitors save Macmullen--but he possesses a dim and misty nucleus of
feeling for the dignity of his native tongue. There is in his attempt a
suggestion that at some distant date, if he is spared, and if he labours
assiduously in the dead languages, Rupert Walters may control his living
speech with some approach to distinction. I select his most pleasing
passage."
The Doctor regarded young Walters over his spectacles for a moment with
a frightfully encouraging expression that he sometimes puts on when
things are going extra well. Then he read the pleasing passage, as he
called it.
"'Often, walking in the country far from home, you may see the briars
falling over the sides of the lanes, and the may trees white with bloom.
They look lovely against the blue sky; and a curious thing is that the
distant trees also look blue, and not green, by reason of distance.
Near at hand, yellow and red flowers may be dotted about; but when you
look along the lane, you only see haze, which is beautiful. If there is
a river flowing near by, it is also very beautiful indeed, especially
with water-lilies on it. And clouds are lovely too, if reflected in a
sheet of water beside which yellow irises spring up, and their foliage
looks rather bluish. If a trout rises, it makes white rings on the
water.'
"Now, here," said the Doctor, "is a humble effort to set down what the
eye of this tender boy has mirrored in the past. I need not tell you
how he spells 'irises,' or 'curious,' or 'beautiful.' The fact remains
that he has distanced his competitors and achieved the 'Bolsover' prize.
Come hither, Rupert Walters. Let me shake your hand, my lad!"
So that was the end of it, and Walters seemed more frightened than
anything. But he took his book, and the matter ended, and the four
chaps had their essays back, with Briggs's red pencil remarks on them,
to send home to their people.
The extraordinary truth only came to me three days later, when I
happened to be having a talk with Walters and looking at his prize,
which was duller even than most prizes. I said--
"How the dickens did you remember that trees look blue seen a mile off?"