"HAM"
THE schoolmaster realises early in his career that he is not a
universally popular person. If he keeps his boys in order and compels
them to work, they dislike him heartily; if he allows them to do as they
please they despise him; if he is cheerful and jocose in his demeanour,
they consider him "a funny ass"; if he is austere and academic, they
call him "a gloomy swine." If he endeavours, by strong measures, to call
sinners to repentance, he is said to have done so from personal spite;
and if he shows kindness to the few righteous persons whom he may
encounter in his form, he is accused of favouritism. After he has been
at school a short time he realises this, and it distresses him.
Sometimes he goes so far as to decide that he has mistaken his vocation,
and he resigns and becomes a school inspector. But presently he notices
that elderly and revered colleagues have laughed and grown fat under
this treatment for thirty years, and indeed look upon the seething
indignation of their subjects as the salt of life. This comforts him. He
tries again, and presently discovers that it is possible to be the hated
oppressor of his form in public and their familiar friend and trusted
adviser in private. Collective hostility vanishes under the influence of
a cup of tea or an evening on the river, and individual friendship takes
its place. Last of all as he grows older, comes that continuous calm
which marks his older colleagues: for he knows now that Jinks minor and
Muggins tertius, who sit in the back row with lowering brows and
grinding teeth, chafing under his tyranny and preaching sedition at
intervals, will one day come and sit in his armchairs, with their feet
on his mantelpiece, bearded or sunburned or distinguished, and will
convey to him, if not in words, at any rate by their demeanour, their
heartfelt thanks for the benefits which he lavished upon them with so
unsparing a hand in the grand old days in the Shell or the Remove or the
Lower Fifth. That is his reward. Men have died for less.
Now, Mr. Hanbury, lord and master of the Lower Shell, a sort of
intellectual dust-heap on the Modern side at Grandwich School, was
specially favoured by the gods in that he received his reward more
quickly than most. He was twenty-nine; he had been a famous Cricket
Blue, and he enjoyed the respectful admiration of countless boys, who
listened eagerly to his small talk, felt proud when he spoke to them
unofficially, and endeavoured to imitate his bowling action.
He also possessed other qualifications. He loved his work, he took
immense pains to understand each of his boys, and he endeavoured by
daily admonition and occasional castigation to goad his form into
respectability.
For in truth they were a poor lot. Why they were called the Shell was a
mystery,--the Sieve would have described them better. Large, cumbrous
persons, with small heads and colossal feet, with vacant faces and
incipient beards, stuck in its meshes and remained there forever, while
their more youthful and slippery brethren wriggled through. Most masters
resigned their posts after a year of the Lower Shell, with the result
that that glorious company were constantly entrusted to the newest and
rawest recruit on the staff. Consequently discipline was lax; and when
the Head rather apologetically handed the form over to Mr. Hanbury, it
became instantly apparent that the ultimate result would be the collapse
of Hanbury or the reformation of the Shell.
The latter alternative came to pass, but not before both sides had
distinguished themselves in several engagements.
Mr. Hanbury had to teach his form self-respect. Long experience had
taught them that they were incapable as a body of producing good work;
and being constitutionally averse to half-measures, they were
accustomed, rather than turn out a second-rate article, to turn out
nothing at all. Like the Tenth, who do not dance, the Lower Shell did
not work.
They therefore looked upon it as a breach of academic etiquette when Mr.
Hanbury violently assaulted three of their most distinguished members,
for no other reason than that they, following the immemorial custom of
the form, omitted for three consecutive evenings to do any "prep." With
ready acumen the Shell also discovered that their new form-master had no
sense of humour. Else why, when Elphinstone, commonly known as
"Top-knot," let loose a blackbird from a bandbox during the history
hour, and every one else present was convulsed with honest mirth, should
Mr. Hanbury, with an absolutely fatuous affectation of solemnity, have
made absurd remarks about teaching small boys manners, and have laid
such violent hands on Elphinstone as to make it necessary for that
enterprising ornithologist to take his meals from off the mantelpiece
for the next three days?
Besides being a tyrant and a dullard, their form-master, they observed,
was not even a gentleman. When Crabbe major, a youth of determined
character and litigious habits, took the trouble to stay behind and
point out to Mr. Hanbury that by depriving him (Crabbe major) of all
his marks for the week for the paltry indiscretion of cribbing from
Jones, Mr. Hanbury was outraging the most elementary principles of
justice (Jones's involuntary aid being not worth even an hour's marks),
his treatment of Crabbe was undignified and flippant to the last degree.
"Look here, my dear young Christian friend," he had said, "just cut away
to your tea, and be thankful you are in a condition to sit down to it."
Crabbe disregarded the utter grossness of this innuendo.
"My people, sir," he remarked, "will not be pleased if I go home at the
end of the term without any marks."
"Is that all?" replied Mr. Hanbury. "Step round to my room before your
cab comes and I'll send you home all over them. Now, hook it, and don't
be a young ass again."
A reply in the worst possible taste, the form decided.
Mr. Hanbury, or "Ham" as he was usually called, had been in charge of
the Lower Shell some four years, and had long reduced that chaotic
assembly to respectability, and even intelligence. It was the first
morning of a new term, and he had just entered his classroom, and was
engaged in greeting his pupils. The ceremony over, he mounted his
throne and addressed the multitude,--
"Having said 'How do you do?' to all of you, I will now proceed to say
'Good-bye' to some of you. Hood down to Aitchison, you are promoted. Out
you go! Mr. Mayor is anxious to make your acquaintance."
Ten sheepish youths rose up and filed out.
"Now, move up, all of you. We shall have some recruits in presently.
Brown minor, you have not got your remove, but you are now in the proud
position of head boy of this form. Hallo! here come our friends from the
Lower Regions."
Eleven far more sheepish youths here entered the room, headed by a small
boy in spectacles, who made his entrance some way ahead of his fellows
with a suddenness that suggested propulsion from the rear. All took up a
retired position on the back bench.
"Now, sort yourselves," continued Ham. "Old guard, close up! Then the
promotions, then the new boys in alphabetical order."
This arrangement left the form in something like order. At the head sat
Mr. Brown minor; at the tail a small and alert youth with black hair, a
face freckled like a plover's egg, and solemn eyes.
The Commander-in-Chief addressed them,--
"Brown minor, you are unanimously elected first lieutenant. You must
remind me to set preparation every night, and you will write the same on
the board in a fair round hand, that he who runs for tea may read. You,
sir,--let me see, Wilmot: thank you" (addressing the solemn youth at the
foot of the form)--"are hereby appointed scavenger. Your duties will be
explained to you by Mr. Brown. They relate chiefly to the tidiness of
this room. You have obtained this important post solely because of your
position in the alphabet. If you had had the misfortune to be called
Atkins or Absalom, you would have failed to do so. We will now proceed
to the orders of the day."
And this was Pip's first encounter with one of his lifelong friends.
The friendship did not form itself all at once. For a year they
struggled together, Mr. Hanbury to find something that Pip could learn,
Pip to find something that "Ham" could teach. Pip, it must be confessed,
was no genius, even from Thomas Carlyle's point of view, and he retained
the post of scavenger for the whole of his first year in the form.
Otherwise, he was well content. He acquired friends, notably one
Mumford, whose superior position in the alphabet was his sole
qualification for exemption from the post of scavenger.
The duties of that official, by the way, were not arduous. He was
expected to open the windows wide for two minutes between each hour, to
pick up stray ink-pots, and keep the blackboard clean. There were other
duties of an unofficial nature attached to the post, the chief of which
was to stand with an eye glued to the keyhole until the master for the
hour loomed upon the horizon, and then to herald his approach by a cry
of "Cave!" whereupon the form would betake themselves to their seats
with an alacrity which varied inversely with the master's reputation for
indulgence.
One day Mr. Hanbury thoughtlessly came by an unexpected route, and was
at the door-handle before Pip realised that he was near. Consequently
Pip was thrown heavily on to his back with a contused eye; and after
listening throughout the hour to facetious remarks from Ham about Sister
Anne and Horatius Cocles, endured the further indignity of being kicked
by a select committee of the Lower Shell, who afterwards deposed him
from his high office, and appointed Mumford in his stead.
Pip's services, however, were speedily requisitioned again, for Mumford
proved but a broken reed. He was by nature deliberate in his movements,
and the form were more than once taken by surprise owing to their
watchman's remissness at the keyhole. His last performance, that which
brought Pip back to office, was of such an exceptional nature, and took
the fancy of the school to such an extent, that it is to this day
preserved among the unwritten archives of Grandwich, bracketed equal
with the occasion on which Plumbley minor walked into the French
classroom whistling, with a bandbox containing a nest of field-mice
under his arm, only to discover, after liberating the mice, that the
Head was sitting in the French master's place.
Mumford one day stood crouching at his keyhole. All around him surged
the Lower Shell, busily employed in obliterating the traces of a brief
but sanguinary combat between Jenkins and MacFarlane. The fight had
arisen over some small matter of an international character, and after
four spirited rounds it was decided that honours so far were equally
divided, and that the final round had better be postponed until the
interval before dinner. The form accordingly settled down in their
places, and with a passing admonition to Mumford to persevere in his
vigil, betook themselves to conversation until Ham should be pleased to
put in an appearance. As that tyrant had not yet appeared at the far end
of the corridor outside, Mumford decided that this was a good
opportunity for retiring for a brief moment from his post to his locker,
for purposes of refreshment. But fortune was against him. Mr. Hanbury
had been out to see the ground-man on some cricket business, and
consequently came up to his classroom by that abominable "alternative
route." He entered the room quietly, and after walking to his desk was
on the point of reprimanding Mumford, whose head was buried in his
locker, for being out of his seat, when his words were arrested by the
somewhat eccentric behaviour of that remarkable youth. Mumford left his
locker, and having thrust a biscuit into his cheek, walked across the
room to the door, where he bent down and applied his eye to the keyhole.
The form sat spellbound; and Mr. Hanbury was too astonished to break the
silence.
Meanwhile the infatuated Mumford, having finished his biscuit, proceeded
to describe to his classmates the movements of the enemy outside.
"All right!" he remarked cheerfully. "Not in sight yet--only Wilkes and
Jordan. There's the Badger now. What cheer, Badger, old man?" (The
Badger was the Senior Science Master.)
The form gave no sign, though Brown minor and Pip were exhibiting
symptoms of incipient apoplexy; and Mr. Hanbury came to the conclusion
that this comedy had better cease. But the luckless Mumford, his eye
still firmly adhering to the keyhole, continued,--
"Hallo! there's the Head. Hope he meets some of those chaps. Very
slack, their not goin' to their classrooms till five minutes past the
hour. Wonder where Ham is. Downstairs, I expect, cadging beer off the
butler. He'll probably be tight when he--"
At this point, flattered by the deferential silence with which his
remarks were being received, and desirous of observing the effect of
this last sally on his fellows, the doomed youth turned from the keyhole
to the room. The first object which met his eye was his form-master. The
effect was remarkable. Mumford's eyes, already bulging from long
straining at the keyhole, nearly fell from his head; he turned deadly
pale; and finally, with a whoop of terror, he dashed from the room,
never stopping till he reached the seclusion of his study in his tutor's
house.
He was not punished, for Ham knew well that no further penalty was
required. The Lower Shell, however, unanimously voted Mumford "an abject
blighter," and restored Pip to his old post.
Nearly a year passed. Pip was now fifteen. He had stayed at the
preparatory school for a year longer than most boys, owing to an attack
of mumps; but his appearance was so youthful and his mental abilities so
limited, that he might easily have passed, as his friend Mumford
frequently remarked, for twelve. Mr. Hanbury was not often puzzled by a
boy's brain, but in Pip's case he had to admit himself baffled.
"I can't make the boy out," he said to his colleague, the Reverend
William Mortimer (usually called "Uncle Bill"), who was Pip's
house-tutor. "He has a wonderful memory, but is either unable or
unwilling to think. He prefers to learn a page of easy history by heart,
and repeat it like a parrot, rather than read it through and give me the
substance of it in his own words."
"Anything for a change," grunted Uncle Bill. "I would cheerfully barter
my entire form of imbeciles for one such youth. Look here: here is
Atkinson, with the body of a camel and the mind of a hedgehog, who has
been in my form for three years, and thinks that _De mortuis nil nisi
bonum_ is a good ending for a hexameter. And that boy's mother came and
called on me last term for an hour and a half, and confided to me that a
boy of Lancelot's eager spirit and delicate organism might be inclined
to overwork himself. I suppose this other boy's mother,--no, by the way,
he hasn't got one,--his father is a big West-End doctor. The boy must
have been left very much to himself in his childhood. He has never read
a story-book in his life, and the cricket news is all that he reads in
the papers."
"Ah! is he a cricketer?" said Hanbury.
"On paper: his real performances are very moderate. He will tell you the
batting and bowling average of every first-class cricketer, though."
"I don't think I have come across him in that line yet. I am glad he
knows something. Well, I am off to my classroom."
"What? At this hour of the afternoon?"
"Yes; a meeting with a few young friends to discuss various points in
the history of Samson. Four of them, including our young friend.
Infernal rot, these Sunday preparations! The boys don't learn the work,
and the average form-master can't explain it. They ought to be lumped
together on Monday mornings for you to take, padre."
"Quite right, my son," replied Uncle Bill. "Last term Kifford told his
form that a phylactery was a kind of musical instrument. Well, cut
along. Be gentle with them."
It was a very hot afternoon in June. Hanbury found four discontented
young persons awaiting him. He was wont to be lenient over the Scripture
lesson, and a misplaced confidence in this fact had led the quartette to
their downfall.
"Now, let us get this business finished," he said briskly. "Are you all
ready to be questioned?"
The quartette expressed their readiness to endure the most searching
cross-examination.
"Very well, then. Sit down quickly and write out, in your own words, an
account of the events in chapter thirteen."
Four pens began to scratch, three vigorously, the last more diffidently.
At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hanbury called a halt.
"Show it up," he said.
Four inky manuscripts were laid before him.
"Let me see," he continued. "Manoah--angel--sacrifice--Nazarite--yes."
He glanced swiftly through the papers. "You can go, you three; but you,
my young friend,"--he laid a heavy hand on Pip's unkempt head,--"will
stay and talk to me."
There was a hasty scuttling of feet, the banging of a door, and Pip was
left alone with his master.
Pip sighed and glanced out of the window, through which came the regular
knock, knock, of innumerable bats against innumerable balls all along
the long line of nets.
"Come along to my study," said Hanbury. "No, no, I'm not going to
execute you this time," as Pip looked a little apprehensive.
Mr. Hanbury occupied two rooms in a corner of Mr. Mortimer's house, and
thither Pip was conducted.
"Now, young man, sit down in that armchair."
Pip obeyed, and took his seat on the extreme edge.
"You are a queer customer," said Mr. Hanbury meditatively. "You know ten
times as much about that chapter as Marsh or Stokes or Fox, and yet you
produced this. Look at it."
It certainly was an interesting document. Pip, unable to grasp the main
facts of the simple narrative set forth, had adopted the, to him, easier
expedient of learning the chapter, or portions of it, by heart. The
result was a curious framework of absolutely valueless but fairly
correct quotations, and an utter absence of anything in the shape of
coherent information.
"_And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the
Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the
Philistines forty years._"
"_And an angel appeared unto the woman and said...._"
"_And the woman came to her husband and said...._"
Here the manuscript came to an inky termination.
"What are these blanks for?" inquired Ham.
"I couldn't remember what they said, sir," explained Pip, "so I put
blanks."
"H'm; I see. It gives their remarks rather an expurgated appearance,
though. But look here, old man," he continued, not unkindly, "one
quarter of the labour that you spent on learning this stuff by
heart--you have got the first verse quite correct, you see--would have
enabled you, if rightly applied, to give the gist of the story in your
own words, which was all I wanted. Now, wouldn't it?"
Pip looked at him honestly.
"No, sir," he said.
"But, good gracious, when you read a novel--say Sherlock Holmes--do you
find it easier to learn it by heart rather than gather the meaning as
you go along?"
"I have never read a novel, sir," said Pip.
"Well, then, any book?"
"I have never read any books, except the ones in school, sir."
"I see I am dealing with a phenomenon," said Mr. Hanbury. "My poor
friend, do you mean to say that your knowledge of books is bounded by
Caesar and Arabella Buckley? What did you do in your extreme youth?
Didn't you ever read fairy tales? Haven't you heard of Cinderella or
Jack the Giant-Killer?"
"No, sir."
"Why, your par--" Mr. Hanbury stopped. He remembered what Father William
had told him, and he realised that home without a mother may indeed be a
strange place.
There was a pause. Pip, well back in his chair now, sat looking
curiously at this large man, who appeared to be genuinely distressed by
his ignorance of fairy tales. Presently the master continued,--
"Then you never read anything?"
"Yes, the papers, sir."
"Come, that's better. What part?"
"All the cricket."
"Are you a keen cricketer, then?"
"I'm no good, sir, but I am keen."
"Well, trot down and change, and then we'll go to the field and I'll run
over your points at a net. We will see if you are as good a cricketer as
you are a scholar. Stay and have some cake first. Perhaps you will
excuse me if I smoke a pipe. Masters have their vices, you see. I
haven't smoked for nearly three hours."
So the pair sat, Pip with a large piece of cake balanced delicately on
his knee, morbidly anxious not to spill crumbs on the floor; and Hanbury
lolling back in his armchair, smoking his pipe and surveying this sturdy
youth before him, who knew every cricketer's average and had never heard
of Cinderella.
As Pip was changing into flannels a few minutes later he encountered
Mumford.
"Come to the grub-shop," said that hero.
"Can't," said Pip shortly. "Seen the comb anywhere?"
"Comb? What for?" said Mumford, who considered parting the hair during
term-time an affectation.
"My hair, of course, silly swine," replied Pip, without heat.
"You must be cracked! Come to the grub-shop," reiterated his friend.
"Can't. Promised to go to a net with Ham."
And Pip, having worked up the conversation to this artistic climax,
departed, leaving Mumford, who was not an athlete, in a state of
incoherent amazement.
Mr. Hanbury presently arrived at the net, with two more small boys
picked up on the way. Each was given an innings, with a little helpful
coaching, Pip coming last. He stood up to the bowling manfully, and
occasionally slogged one of his weaker brethren; but his bat was
anything but straight, and Ham bowled him at will.
"M' yes," said Mr. Hanbury, "you are only an average lot of batsmen. Can
any of you bowl?"
There was a respectful chorus of "No, sir," as custom demanded.
"Well, try. I am going to have a knock."
Pip and company bowled a few laborious overs, and speedily proved that
their estimate of their own powers was based upon truth, their preceptor
treating their deliveries with little ceremony.
Finally they were ranged in a semicircle, and Ham gave them fielding
practice.
Here Pip felt more at home. He was quick on his feet and possessed a
"nippy" pair of hands. His ground fielding was especially good.
"Hallo!" cried Mr. Hanbury, as Pip got to a ball which kept low down on
his left, and returned it particularly smartly; "which hand did you
throw in that ball with, young man?"
Pip surveyed two grubby paws doubtfully.
"I think it was my left, sir," he said apologetically. "I can't help it
sometimes."
"Ambidextrous, eh? Catch this. Now, throw it in again--left hand."
Pip did so, wondering.
"Do you ever bowl left-handed?" was the next inquiry.
"No, sir."
"Well, just come to a net for a few minutes. You other people can cut
off to tea now."
The tea-bell had just rung, and the field was emptying rapidly.
"Now, my son," said the master, "you are going to bowl to me with your
left hand. Plug them in."
Pip did so. His first ball was a fast half-volley, and was promptly
treated as it deserved.
"Now, another. Take my ball. The groundboy will field yours."
Pip, full of importance at having some one to field for him, bowled
again. This time he sent down a good length ball. Mr. Hanbury stepped
out to it, played right outside it, and next moment his leg-stump was
lying on the ground. He was clean bowled.