IV

The British schoolboy, considered in a genial light by those who have

made him their special study, has not been found to be either observant

or imaginative. Or, rather, it would be well to say that his powers of

observation, having been highly specialised within a certain limited

tract of thought and experience (bounded mainly by cricket and

football), are but faint without these bounds; while it is one of the

chiefest works of the System to kill, destroy, smash and bring to

nothing any powers of imagination he may have originally possessed. For

if this were not done thoroughly, neither a Conservative nor a Liberal

administration would be possible, the House of Commons itself would

cease to exist, the Episcopus (var. Anglicanus) would go the way of the

Great Bustard; a "muddling through somehow" (which must have been _the_

brightest jewel in the British crown, wrung from King John by the

barons) would become a lost art. And, since all these consequences would

be clearly intolerable, the great Public Schools have perfected a very

thorough system of destroying the imaginative toxin, and few cases of

failure have been so far reported.

Still, there are facts which not even the densest dullards, the most

complete boobies, can help seeing; and a good many of the boys found

themselves wondering "what was the matter with Meyrick" when they saw

him at Chapel on the Sunday morning. The news of his astounding

violences both of act and word on the night before had not yet

circulated generally. Bates was attending to that department, but hadn't

had time to do much so far; and the replies of Pelly and Rawson to

enquiries after black eyes and a potato-like nose were surly and

misleading. Afterwards, when the tale was told, when Bates, having

enlarged the incidents to folk-lore size, showed Pelly lying in a pool

of his own blood, Rawson screaming as with the torments of the lost and

Meyrick rolling out oaths--all original and all terrible--for the space

of a quarter of an hour, then indeed the school was satisfied; it was no

wonder if Meyrick did look a bit queer after the achievement of such an

adventure. The funk of aforetime had found courage; the air of rapture

was easily understood. It is probable that if, in the nature of things,

it had been possible for an English schoolboy to meet St. Francis of

Assisi, the boy would have concluded that the saint must have just made

200 not out in first-class cricket.

But Ambrose walked in a strange light; he had been admitted into worlds

undreamed of, and from the first brightness of the sun, when he awoke in

the morning in his room at the Grange, it was the material world about

him, the walls of stone and brick, the solid earth, the sky itself, and

the people who talked and moved and seemed alive--these were things of

vision, unsubstantial shapes, odd and broken illusions of the mind. At

half-past seven old Toby, the man-of-all-work at the old Grange banged

at his door and let his clean boots fall with a crash on the boards

after the usual fashion. He awoke, sat up in bed, staring about him. But

what was this? The four walls covered with a foolish speckled paper,

pale blue and pale brown, the white ceiling, the bare boards with the

strip of carpet by the bedside: he knew nothing of all this. He was not

horrified, because he knew that it was all non-existent, some plastic

fantasy that happened to be presented for the moment to his brain. Even

the big black wooden chest that held his books (_Parker_, despised by

Horbury, among them) failed to appeal to him with any sense of reality;

and the bird's-eye washstand and chest of drawers, the white water-jug

with the blue band, were all frankly phantasmal. It reminded him of a

trick he had sometimes played: one chose one's position carefully, shut

an eye and, behold, a mean shed could be made to obscure the view of a

mountain! So these walls and appurtenances made an illusory sort of

intrusion into the true vision on which he gazed. That yellow washstand

rising out of the shining wells of the undying, the speckled walls in

the place of the great mysteries, a chest of drawers in the magic garden

of roses--it had the air of a queer joke, and he laughed aloud to

himself as he realized that he alone knew, that everybody else would

say, "That is a white jug with a blue band," while he, and he only, saw

the marvel and glory of the holy cup with its glowing metals, its

interlacing myriad lines, its wonderful images, and its hues of the

mountain and the stars, of the green wood and the faery sea where, in a

sure haven, anchor the ships that are bound for Avalon.

For he had a certain faith that he had found the earthly presentation

and sacrament of the Eternal Heavenly Mystery.

He smiled again, with the quaint smile of an angel in an old Italian

picture, as he realized more fully the strangeness of the whole position

and the odd humours which would relieve to play a wonderful game of

make-believe; the speckled walls, for instance, were not really there,

but he was to behave just as if they were solid realities. He would

presently rise and go through an odd pantomine of washing and dressing,

putting on brilliant boots, and going down to various mumbo-jumbo

ceremonies called breakfast, chapel and dinner, in the company of

appearances to whom he would accord all the honours due to veritable

beings. And this delicious phantasmagoria would go on and on day after

day, he alone having the secret; and what a delight it would be to "play

up" at rocker! It seemed to him that the solid-seeming earth, the dear

old school and rocker itself had all been made to minister to the

acuteness of his pleasure; they were the darkness that made the light

visible, the matter through which form was manifested. For the moment he

enclosed in the most secret place of his soul the true world into which

he had been guided; and as he dressed he hummed the favourite school

song, "Never mind!"

"If the umpire calls 'out' at your poor second over,

If none of your hits ever turns out a 'rover,'

If you fumble your fives and 'go rot' over sticker,

If every hound is a little bit quicker;

If you can't tackle rocker at all, not at all,

And kick at the moon when you try for the ball,

Never mind, never mind, never mind--if you fall,

Dick falls before rising, Tom's short ere he's tall,

Never mind!

Don't be one of the weakest who go to the wall:

Never mind!"

Ambrose could not understand how Columbus could have blundered so

grossly. Somehow or other he should have contrived to rid himself of his

crew; he should have returned alone, with a dismal tale of failure, and

passed the rest of his days as that sad and sorry charlatan who had

misled the world with his mad whimsies of a continent beyond the waters

of the Atlantic. If he had been given wisdom to do this, how great--how

wonderful would his joys have been! They would have pointed at him as he

paced the streets in his shabby cloak; the boys would have sung songs

about him and his madness; the great people would have laughed

contemptuously as he went by. And he would have seen in his heart all

that vast far world of the west, the rich islands barred by roaring

surf, a whole hemisphere of strange regions and strange people; he would

have known that he alone possessed the secret of it. But, after all,

Ambrose knew that his was a greater joy even than this; for the world

that he had discovered was not far across the seas, but within him.

Pelly stared straight before him in savage silence all through

breakfast; he was convinced that mere hazard had guided that crushing

blow, and he was meditating schemes of complete and exemplary

vengeance. He noticed nothing strange about Meyrick, nor would he have

cared if he had seen the images of the fairies in his eyes. Rawson, on

the other hand, was full of genial civility and good fellowship; it was

"old chap" and "old fellow" every other word. But he was far from

unintelligent, and, as he slyly watched Meyrick, he saw that there was

something altogether unaccustomed and incomprehensible. Unknown lights

burned and shone in the eyes, reflections of one knew not what; the

expression was altered in some queer way that he could not understand.

Meyrick had always been a rather ugly, dogged-looking fellow; his black

hair and something that was not usual in the set of his features gave

him an exotic, almost an Oriental appearance; hence a story of Rawson's

to the effect that Meyrick's mother was a nigger woman in poor

circumstances and of indifferent morality had struck the school as

plausible enough.

But now the grimness of the rugged features seemed abolished; the face

shone, as it were, with the light of a flame--but a flame of what fire?

Rawson, who would not have put his observations into such terms, drew

his own conclusions readily enough and imparted them to Pelly after

Chapel.

"Look here, old chap," he said, "did you notice young Meyrick at

breakfast?"

Pelly simply blasted Meyrick and announced his intention of giving him

the worst thrashing he had ever had at an early date.

"Don't you try it on," said Rawson. "I had my eye on him all the time.

He didn't see I was spotting him. He's cracked; he's dangerous. I

shouldn't wonder if he were in a strait waistcoat in the County Lunatic

Asylum in a week's time. My governor had a lot to do with lunatics, and

he always says he can tell by the eyes. I'll swear Meyrick is raging

mad."

"Oh, rot!" said Pelly. "What do you know about it?"

"Well, look out, old chap, and don't say I didn't give you the tip. Of

course, you know a maniac is stronger than three ordinary men? The only

thing is to get them down and crack their ribs. But you want at least

half a dozen men before you can do it."

"Oh, shut up!"

So Rawson said no more, remaining quite sure that he had diagnosed

Ambrose's symptoms correctly. He waited for the catastrophe with a

dreadful joy, wondering whether Meyrick would begin by cutting old

Horbury's throat with his own razor, or whether he would rather steal

into Pelly's room at night and tear him limb from limb, a feat which, as

a madman, he could, of course, accomplish with perfect ease. As a matter

of fact, neither of these events happened. Pelly, a boy of the bulldog

breed, smacked Ambrose's face a day or two later before a huge crowd of

boys, and received in return such a terrific blow under the left ear

that a formal fight in the Tom Brown manner was out of the question.

Pelly reached the ground and stayed there in an unconscious state for

some while; and the other boys determined that it would be as well to

leave Meyrick to himself. He might be cracked but he was undoubtedly a

hard hitter. As for Pelly, like the sensible fellow that he was, he

simply concluded that Meyrick was too good for him. He did not quite

understand it; he dimly suspected the intrusion of some strange forces,

but with such things he had nothing to do. It was a fair knock-out, and

there was an end of it.

Bates had glanced up as Ambrose came into the dining-room on the Sunday

morning. He saw the shining face, the rapturous eyes, and had silently

wondered, recognising the presence of elements which transcended all his

calculations.

Meanwhile the Lupton Sunday went on after its customary fashion. At

eleven o'clock the Chapel was full of boys. There were nearly six

hundred of them there, the big ones in frock-coats, with high, pointed

collars, which made them look like youthful Gladstones. The younger boys

wore broad, turn-down collars and had short, square jackets made

somewhat in the Basque fashion. Young and old had their hair cut close

to the scalp, and this gave them all a brisk but bullety appearance. The

masters, in cassock, gown and hood, occupied the choir stalls. Mr.

Horbury, the High Usher, clothed in a flowing surplice, was taking

Morning Prayer, and the Head occupied a kind of throne by the altar.

The Chapel was not an inspiring building. It was the fourteenth century,

certainly, but the fourteenth century translated by 1840, and, it is to

be feared, sadly betrayed by the translators. The tracery of the windows

was poor and shallow; the mouldings of the piers and arches faulty to a

degree; the chancel was absurdly out of proportion, and the pitch-pine

benches and stalls had a sticky look. There was a stained-glass window

in memory of the Old Luptonians who fell in the Crimea. One wondered

what the Woman of Samaria by the Well had to do either with Lupton or

the Crimea. And the colouring was like that used in very common, cheap

sweets.

The service went with a rush. The prayers, versicles and responses, and

psalms were said, the officiant and the congregation rather pressing

than pausing--often, indeed, coming so swiftly to cues that two or three

words at the end of one verse or two or three at the beginning of the

next would be lost in a confused noise of contending voices. But

_Venite_ and _Te Deum_ and _Benedictus_ were rattled off to frisky

Anglicans with great spirit; sometimes the organ tooted, sometimes it

bleated gently, like a flock of sheep; now one might have sworn that the

music of penny whistles stole on the ear, and again, as the organist

coupled up the full organ, using suddenly all the battery of his stops,

a gas explosion and a Salvation Army band seemed to strive against one

another. A well-known nobleman who had been to Chapel at Lupton was

heard to say, with reference to this experience: "I am no Ritualist,

heaven knows--but I confess I like a hearty service."

But it was, above all, the sermon that has made the Chapel a place of

many memories. The Old Boys say--and one supposes that they are in

earnest--that the tall, dignified figure of the Doctor, standing high

above them all, his scarlet hood making a brilliant splash of colour

against the dingy, bilious paint of the pale green walls, has been an

inspiration to them in all quarters of the globe, in all manner of

difficulties and temptations.

One man writes that in the midst of a complicated and dangerous deal on

the Stock Exchange he remembered a sermon of Dr. Chesson's called in the

printed volume, "Fighting the Good Fight."

"You have a phrase amongst you which I often hear," said the Head. "That

phrase is 'Play the game,' and I wish to say that, though you know it

not; though, it may be, the words are often spoken half in jest; still,

they are but your modern, boyish rendering of the old, stirring message

which I have just read to you.

"Fight the Good Fight.' 'Play the Game.' Remember the words in the storm

and struggle, the anxiety and stress that may be--nay, must be--before

you--etc., etc., etc."

"After the crisis was over," wrote the Stock Exchange man, "I was

thankful that I _had_ remembered those words."

"That voice sounding like a trumpet on the battle-field, bidding us all

remember that Success was the prize of Effort and Endurance----" So

writes a well-known journalist.

"I remembered what the Doctor said to us once about 'running the race,'"

says a young soldier, recounting a narrow escape from a fierce enemy,

"so I stuck to my orders."

Ambrose, on that Sunday morning, sat in his place, relishing acutely all

the savours of the scene, consumed with inward mirth at the thought that

this also professed to be a rite of religion. There was an aimless and

flighty merriment about the chant to the _Te Deum_ that made it

difficult for him to control his laughter; and when he joined in the

hymn "Pleasant are Thy courts above," there was an odd choke in his

voice that made the boy next to him shuffle uneasily.

But the sermon!

It will be found on page 125 of the _Lupton Sermons_. It dealt with the

Parable of the Talents, and showed the boys in what the sin of the man

who concealed his Talent really consisted.

"I daresay," said the Head, "that many of the older amongst you have

wondered what this man's sin really was. You may have read your Greek

Testaments carefully, and then have tried to form in your minds some

analogy to the circumstances of the parable--and it would not surprise

me if you were to tell me that you had failed.

"What manner of man was this? I can imagine your saying one to another.

I shall not be astonished if you confess that, for you at least, the

question seems unanswerable.

"Yes; Unanswerable to you. For you are English boys, the sons of English

gentlemen, to whom the atmosphere of casuistry, of concealment, of

subtlety, is unknown; by whom such an atmosphere would be rejected with

scorn. You come from homes where there is no shadow, no dark corner

which must not be pried into. Your relations and your friends are not of

those who hide their gifts from the light of day. Some of you, perhaps,

have had the privilege of listening to the talk of one or other of the

great statesmen who guide the doctrines of this vast Empire. You will

have observed, I am sure, that in the world of politics there is no vain

simulation of modesty, no feigned reluctance to speak of worthy

achievement. All of you are members of this great community, of which

each one of us is so proud, which we think of as the great inspiration

and motive force of our lives. Here, you will say, there are no Hidden

Talents, for the note of the English Public School (thank God for it!)

is openness, frankness, healthy emulation; each endeavouring to do his

best for the good of all. In our studies and in our games each desires

to excel to carry off the prize. We strive for a corruptible crown,

thinking that this, after all, is the surest discipline for the crown

that is incorruptible. If a man say that he loveth God whom he hath not

seen, and love not his brother whom he hath seen! Let your light _shine_

before men. Be sure that we shall never win Heaven by despising earth.

"Yet that man hid his Talent in a napkin. What does the story mean? What

message has it for us to-day?

"I will tell you.

"Some years ago during our summer holidays I was on a walking tour in a

mountainous district in the north of England. The sky was of a most

brilliant blue, the sun poured, as it were, a gospel of gladness on the

earth. Towards the close of the day I was entering a peaceful and

beautiful valley amongst the hills, when three sullen notes of a bell

came down the breeze towards me. There was a pause. Again the three

strokes, and for a third time this dismal summons struck my ears. I

walked on in the direction of the sound, wondering whence it came and

what it signified; and soon I saw before me a great pile of buildings,

surrounded by a gloomy and lofty wall.

"It was a Roman Catholic monastery. The bell was ringing the Angelus, as

it is called.

"I obtained admittance to this place and spoke to some of the unhappy

monks. I should astonish you if I mentioned the names of some of the

deluded men who had immured themselves in this prison-house. It is

sufficient to say that among them were a soldier who had won distinction

on the battle-field, an artist, a statesman and a physician of no mean

repute.

"Now do you understand? Ah! a day will come--you know, I think, what

that day is called--when these poor men will have to answer the

question: 'Where is the Talent that was given to you?'

"'Where was your sword in the hour of your country's danger?'

"'Where was your picture, your consecration of your art to the service

of morality and humanity, when the doors of the great Exhibition were

thrown open?'

"'Where was your silver eloquence, your voice of persuasion, when the

strife of party was at its fiercest?'

"'Where was your God-given skill in healing when One of Royal Blood lay

fainting on the bed of dire--almost mortal--sickness?'

"And the answer? 'I laid it up in a napkin.' And now, etc., etc."

Then the whole six hundred boys sang "O Paradise! O Paradise!" with a

fervour and sincerity that were irresistible. The organ thundered till

the bad glass shivered and rattled, and the service was over.

V

Almost the last words that Ambrose had heard after his wonderful awaking

were odd enough, though at the time he took little note of them, since

they were uttered amidst passionate embraces, amidst soft kisses on his

poor beaten flesh. Indeed, if these words recurred to him afterwards,

they never made much impression on his mind, though to most people they

would seem of more serious import than much else that was uttered that

night! The sentences ran something like this:

"The cruel, wicked brute! He shall be sorry all his days, and every blow

shall be a grief to him. My dear! I promise you he shall pay for

to-night ten times over. His heart shall ache for it till it stops

beating."

There cannot be much doubt that this promise was kept to the letter. No

one knew how wicked rumours concerning Mr. Horbury got abroad in Lupton,

but from that very day the execution of the sentence began. In the

evening the High Usher, paying a visit to a friend in town, took a short

cut through certain dark, ill-lighted streets, and was suddenly

horrified to hear his name shrieked out, coupled with a most disgusting

accusation. His heart sank down in his breast; his face, he knew, was

bloodless; and then he rushed forward to the malpassage whence the voice

seemed to proceed.

There was nothing there. It was a horrid little alley, leading from one

slum to another, between low walls and waste back-gardens, dismal and

lampless. Horbury ran at top speed to the end of it, but there was

nothing to be done. A few women were gossiping at their doors, a couple

of men slouched past on their way to the beer-shop at the corner--that

was all. He asked one of the women if she had seen anybody running, and

she said no, civilly enough--and yet he fancied that she had leered at

him.

He turned and went back home. He was not in the mood for paying visits.

It was some time before he could compose his mind by assuring himself

that the incident, though unpleasant, was not of the slightest

significance. But from that day the nets were about his feet, and his

fate was sealed.

Personally, he was subjected to no further annoyance, and soon forgot

that unpleasant experience in the back-street. But it seems certain that

from that Sunday onwards a cloud of calumny overshadowed the High Usher

in all his ways. No one said anything definite, but everyone appeared to

be conscious of something unpleasant when Horbury's name was mentioned.

People looked oddly at one another, and the subject was changed.

One of the young masters, speaking to a colleague, did indeed allude

casually to Horbury as Xanthias Phoceus. The other master, a middle-aged

man, raised his eyebrows and shook his head without speaking. It is

understood that these muttered slanders were various in their nature;

but, as has been said, everything was indefinite, intangible as

contagion--and as deadly to the master's worldly health.

That horrible accusation which had been screamed out of the alley was

credited by some; others agreed with the young master; while a few had a

terrible story of an idiot girl in a remote Derbyshire village. And the

persistence of all these fables was strange.

It was four years before Henry Vibart Chesson, D. D., ascended the

throne of St. Guthmund at Dorchester; and all through those four years

the fountain of evil innuendo rose without ceasing. It is doubtful how

far belief in the truth of these scandals was firm and settled, or how

far they were in the main uttered and circulated by ill-natured people

who disliked Horbury, but did not in their hearts believe him guilty of

worse sins than pompousness and arrogance. The latter is the more

probable opinion.

Of course, the deliberations of the Trustees were absolutely secret, and

the report that the Chairman, the Marquis of Dunham, said something

about Caesar's wife is a report and nothing more. It is evident that the

London press was absolutely in the dark as to the existence of this

strange conspiracy of vengeance, since two of the chief dailies took the

appointment of the High Usher to the Headmastership as a foregone

conclusion, prophesying, indeed, a rule of phenomenal success. And then

Millward, a Winchester man, understood to be rather unsound on some

scholastic matters--"not _quite_ the right man"; "just a _little_ bit of

a Jesuit"--received the appointment, and people did begin to say that

there must be a screw loose somewhere. And Horbury was overwhelmed, and

began to die.

The odd thing was that, save on that Sunday night, he never saw the

enemy; he never suspected that there was an enemy; And as for the

incident of the alley, after a little consideration he treated it with

contempt. It was only some drunken beast in the town who knew him by

sight and wished to be offensive, in the usual fashion of drunken

beasts.

And there was nothing else. Lupton society was much too careful to allow

its suspicions to be known. A libel action meant, anyhow, a hideous

scandal and might have no pleasant results for the libellers. Besides,

no one wanted to offend Horbury, who was suspected of possessing a

revengeful temper; and it had not dawned on the Lupton mind that the

rumours they themselves were circulating would eventually ruin the High

Usher's chances of the Headmastership. Each gossip heard, as it were,

only his own mutter at the moment. He did not realize that when a great

many people are muttering all at once an ugly noise of considerable

volume is being produced.

It is true that a few of the masters were somewhat cold in their manner.

They lacked the social gift of dissimulation, and could not help showing

their want of cordiality. But Horbury, who noticed this, put it down to

envy and disaffection, and resolved that the large powers given him by

the Trustees should not be in vain so far as the masters in question

were concerned.

Indeed, C. L. Wood, who was afterwards Headmaster of Marcester and died

in Egypt a few years ago, had a curious story which in part relates to

the masters in question, and perhaps throws some light on the

extraordinary tale of Horbury's ruin.

Wood was an old Luptonian. He was a mighty athlete in his time, and his

records for the Long Jump and Throwing the Cricket Ball have not been

beaten at Lupton to this day. He had been one of the first boarders

taken at the Old Grange. The early relations between Horbury and himself

had been continued in later life, and Wood was staying with his former

master at the time when the Trustee's decision was announced. It is

supposed, indeed, that Horbury had offered him a kind of unofficial, but

still important, position in the New Model; in fact, Wood confessed over

his port that the idea was that he should be a kind of "Intelligence

Department" to the Head. He did not seem very clear as to the exact

scope of his proposed duties. We may certainly infer, however, that

they would have been of a very confidential nature, for Wood had jotted

down his recollections of that fatal morning somewhat as follows:

"I never saw Horbury in better spirits. Indeed, I remember thinking that

he was younger than ever--younger than he was in the old days when he

was a junior master and I was in the Third. Of course, he was always

energetic; one could not disassociate the two notions of Horbury and

energy, and I used to make him laugh by threatening to include the two

terms in the new edition of my little book, _Latin and English

Synonyms_. It did not matter whether he were taking the Fifth, or

editing Classics for his boys, or playing rocker--one could not help

rejoicing in the vivid and ebullient energy of the man. And perhaps this

is one reason why shirkers and loafers dreaded him, as they certainly

did.

"But during those last few days at Lupton his vitality had struck me as

quite superhuman. As all the world knows, his succession to the

Headmastership was regarded by everyone as assured, and he was,

naturally and properly, full of the great task which he believed was

before him. This is not the place to argue the merits or demerits of the

scheme which had been maturing for many years in his brain.

"A few persons who, I cannot but think, have received very imperfect

information on the subject, have denounced Horbury's views of the modern

Public School as revolutionary. Revolutionary they certainly were, as an

express engine is revolutionary compared to an ox-waggon. But those who

think of the late Canon Horbury as indifferent to the good side of

Public School traditions knew little of the real man. However, were his

plans good or bad, they were certainly of vast scope, and on the first

night of my visit he made me sit up with him till two o'clock while he

expounded his ideas, some of which, as he was good enough to say, he

trusted to me to carry out. He showed me the piles of MS. he had

accumulated: hundreds of pages relating to the multiple departments of

the great organisation which he was to direct, or rather to create;

sheets of serried figures, sheaves of estimates which he had caused to

be made out in readiness for immediate action.

"Nothing was neglected. I remember seeing a note on the desirability of

compiling a 'Lupton Hymn Book' for use in the Chapel, and another on the

question of forming a Botanical Garden, so that the school botany might

be learned from 'the green life,' as he beautifully expressed it, not

from dry letterpress and indifferent woodcuts. Then, I think, on a

corner of the 'Botany Leaf' was a jotting--a mere hasty scrawl, waiting

development and consideration: 'Should we teach Hindustani? Write to

Tucker _re_ the Moulvie Ahmed Khan.'

"I despair of giving the reader any conception of the range and

minuteness of these wonderful memoranda. I remember saying to Horbury

that he seemed to be able to use the microscope and the telescope at the

same time. He laughed joyously, and told me to wait till he was really

at work. 'You will have your share, I promise you,' he added. His high

spirits were extraordinary and infectious. He was an excellent

_raconteur_, and now and again, amidst his talk of the New Lupton which

he was about to translate from the idea into substance, he told some

wonderful stories which I have not the heart to set down here. _Tu ne

quaesieris._ I have often thought of those lines when I remember

Horbury's intense happiness, the nervous energy which made the delay of

a day or two seem almost intolerable. His brain and his fingers tingled,

as it were, to set about the great work before him. He reminded me of a

mighty host, awaiting but the glance of their general to rush forward

with irresistible force.

"There was not a trace of misgiving. Indeed, I should have been utterly

astonished if I had seen anything of the kind. He told me, indeed, that

for some time past he had suspected the existence of a sort of cabal or

clique against him. 'A. and X., B. and Y., M. and N., and, I think, Z.,

are in it,' he said, naming several of the masters. 'They are jealous,

I suppose, and want to make things as difficult as they can. They are

all cowards, though, and I don't believe one of them--except, perhaps,

M.--would fail in obedience, or rather in subservience, when it comes to

the point. But I am going to make short work of the lot.' And he told me

his intention of ridding the school of these disaffected elements. 'The

Trustees will back me up, I know,' he added, 'but we must try to avoid

all unnecessary friction'; and he explained to me a plan he had thought

of for eliminating the masters in question. 'It won't do to have

half-hearted officers on our ship,' was the way in which he put it, and

I cordially agreed with him.

"Possibly he may have underrated the force of the opposition which he

treated so lightly; possibly he altogether misjudged the situation. He

certainly regarded the appointment as already made, and this, of course,

was, or appeared to be, the conviction of all who knew anything of

Lupton and Horbury.

"I shall never forget the day on which the news came. Horbury made a

hearty breakfast, opening letters, jotting down notes, talking of his

plans as the meal proceeded. I left him for a while. I was myself a

good deal excited, and I strolled up and down the beautiful garden at

the Old Grange, wondering whether I should be able to satisfy such a

chief who, the soul of energy himself, would naturally expect a like

quality in his subordinates. I rejoined him in the course of an hour in

the study, where he was as busy as ever--'snowed up,' as he expressed

it, in a vast pile of papers and correspondence.

"He nodded genially and pointed to a chair, and a few minutes later a

servant came in with a letter. She had just found it in the hall, she

explained. I had taken a book and was reading. I noticed nothing till

what I can only call a groan of intense anguish made me look up in

amazement--indeed, in horror--and I was shocked to see my old friend,

his face a ghastly white, his eyes staring into vacancy, and his

expression one of the most terrible--_the_ most terrible--that I have

ever witnessed. I cannot describe that look. There was an agony of grief

and despair, a glance of the wildest amazement, terror, as of an

impending awful death, and with these the fiercest and most burning

anger that I have ever seen on any human face. He held a letter clenched

in his hand. I was afraid to speak or move.

"It was fully five minutes before he regained his self-control, and he

did this with an effort which was in itself dreadful to contemplate--so

severe was the struggle. He explained to me in a voice which faltered

and trembled with the shock that he had received, that he had had very

bad news--that a large sum of money which was absolutely necessary to

the carrying out of his projects had been embezzled by some unscrupulous

person, that he did not know what he should do. He fell back into his

chair; in a few minutes he had become an old man.

"He did not seem upset, or even astonished, when, later in the day, a

telegram announced that he had failed in the aim of his life--that a

stranger was to bear rule in his beloved Lupton. He murmured something

to the effect that it was no matter now. He never held up his head

again."

This note is an extract from _George Horbury: a Memoir_. It was written

by Dr. Wood for the use of a few friends and privately printed in a

small edition of a hundred and fifty copies. The author felt, as he

explains in his brief _Foreword_, that by restricting the sale to those

who either knew Horbury or were especially interested in his work, he

was enabled to dwell somewhat intimately on matters which could hardly

have been treated in a book meant for the general public.

The extract that has been made from this book is interesting on two

points. It shows that Horbury was quite unaware of what had been going

on for four years before Chesson's resignation and that he had entirely

misinterpreted the few and faint omens which had been offered him. He

was preparing to break a sulky sentinel or two when all the ground of

his fortalice was a very network of loaded mines! The other point is

still more curious. It will be seen from Wood's story that the terrific

effect that he describes was produced by a letter, received some hours

before the news of the Trustees' decision arrived by telegram. "Later in

the day" is the phrase in the Memoir; as a matter of fact, the final

deliberation of the Lupton Trustees, held at Marshall's Hotel in

Albemarle Street, began at eleven-thirty and was not over till

one-forty-five. It is not likely that the result could have reached the

Old Grange before two-fifteen; whereas the letter found in the hall must

have been read by Horbury before ten o'clock. The invariable breakfast

hour at the Old Grange was eight o'clock.

C. L. Wood says: "I rejoined him in the course of an hour," and the

letter was brought in "a few minutes later." Afterwards, when the fatal

telegram arrived, the Memoir notes that the unfortunate man was not

"even astonished." It seems to follow almost necessarily from these

facts that Horbury learnt the story of his ruin from the letter, for it

has been ascertained that the High Usher's account of the contents of

the letter was false from beginning to end. Horbury's most excellent and

sagacious investments were all in the impeccable hands of "Witham's"

(Messrs. Witham, Venables, Davenport and Witham), of Raymond Buildings,

Gray's Inn, who do not include embezzlement in their theory and practice

of the law; and, as a matter of fact, the nephew, Charles Horbury, came

into a very handsome fortune on the death of his uncle--eighty thousand

pounds in personality, with the Old Grange and some valuable ground

rents in the new part of Lupton. It is as certain as anything can be

that George Horbury never lost a penny by embezzlement or, indeed, in

any other way.

One may surmise, then, the real contents of that terrible letter. In

general, that is, for it is impossible to conjecture whether the writer

told the whole story; one does not know, for example, whether Meyrick's

name was mentioned or not: whether there was anything which carried the

reader's mind to that dark evening in November when he beat the

white-faced boy with such savage cruelty. But from Dr. Wood's

description of the wretched man's appearance one understands how utterly

unexpected was the crushing blow that had fallen upon him. It was a

lightning flash from the sky at its bluest, and before that sudden and

awful blast his whole life fell into deadly and evil ruin.

"He never held up his head again." He never lived again, one may say,

unless a ceaseless wheel of anguish and anger and bitter and unavailing

and furious regret can be called life. It was not a man, but a shell,

full of gall and fire, that went to Wareham; but probably he was not the

first of the Klippoth to be made a Canon.

As we have no means of knowing exactly what or how much that letter told

him, one is not in a position to say whether he recognised the

singularity--one might almost say, the eccentricity--with which his

punishment was stage-managed. _Nec deus intersit_ certainly; but a

principle may be pushed too far, and a critic might point out that,

putting avenging deities in their machines on one side, it was rather

going to the other extreme to bring about the Great Catastrophe by means

of bad sherry, a trying Headmaster, boiled mutton, a troublesome

schoolboy and a servant-maid. Yet these were the agents employed; and it

seems that we are forced to the conclusion that we do not altogether

understand the management of the universe. The conclusion is a dangerous

one, since we may be led by it, unless great care is exercised, into the

worst errors of the Dark Ages.

There is the question, of course, of the truthfulness or falsity of the

various slanders which had such a tremendous effect. The worst of them

were lies--there can be little doubt of that--and for the rest, it may

be hinted that the allusion of the young master to Xanthias Phoceus was

not very far wide of the mark. Mrs. Horbury had been dead some years,

and it is to be feared that there had been passages between the High

Usher and Nelly Foran which public opinion would have condemned. It

would be difficult to tell the whole story, but the girl's fury of

revenge makes one apt to believe that she was exacting payment not only

for Ambrose's wrongs, but for some grievous injury done to herself.

But before all these things could be brought to their ending, Ambrose

Meyrick had to live in wonders and delights, to be initiated in many

mysteries, to discover the meaning of that voice which seemed to speak

within him, denouncing him because he had pried unworthily into the

Secret which is hidden from the Holy Angels.