FATHERS OF MEN
BOOKS BY E. W. HORNUNG
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
_The Raffles Series_
The Amateur Cracksman. 12mo, $1.25
Raffles. Illustrated. 12mo, 1.50
A Thief In the Night. Illustrated, 12mo, 1.50
Mr. Justice Raffles. 12mo, 1.50
Fathers of Men. _net_, 1.30
(postage extra)
The Camera Fiend. Illustrated. 12mo, _net_, 1.25
Stingaree. Illustrated. 12mo, 1.50
No Hero. 12mo, 1.25
At Large. 12mo, 1.50
Some Persons Unknown. 12mo, 1.25
Young Blood. 12mo, 1.25
My Lord Duke. 12mo, 1.25
A Bride from the Bush. 16mo, .75
The Rogue’s March. A Romance. 12mo, 1.50
FATHERS OF MEN
BY
E. W. HORNUNG
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published February, 1912
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BEHIND THE SCENES 1
II. CHANGE AND CHANCE 11
III. VERY RAW MATERIAL 21
IV. SETTLING IN 33
V. NICKNAMES 43
VI. BOY TO BOY 53
VII. REASSURANCE 62
VIII. LIKES AND DISLIKES 75
IX. CORAM POPULO 90
X. ELEGIACS 105
XI. A MERRY CHRISTMAS 123
XII. THE NEW YEAR 133
XIII. THE HAUNTED HOUSE 146
XIV. “SUMMER-TERM” 163
XV. SPRAWSON’S MASTERPIECE 174
XVI. SIMILIA SIMILIBUS 186
XVII. THE FUN OF THE FAIR 196
XVIII. DARK HORSES 212
XIX. FAME AND FORTUNE 225
XX. THE EVE OF OFFICE 240
XXI. OUT OF FORM 250
XXII. THE OLD BOYS’ MATCH 259
XXIII. INTERLUDE IN A STUDY 266
XXIV. THE SECOND MORNING’S PLAY 277
XXV. INTERLUDE IN THE WOOD 290
XXVI. CLOSE OF PLAY 304
XXVII. THE EXTREME PENALTY 317
XXVIII. “LIKE LUCIFER” 328
XXIX. CHIPS AND JAN 336
XXX. HIS LAST FLING 349
XXXI. VALE 360
FATHERS OF MEN
CHAPTER I
BEHIND THE SCENES
The two new boys in Heriot’s house had been suitably entertained at his
table, and afterwards in his study with bound volumes of _Punch_.
Incidentally they had been encouraged to talk, with the result that one
boy had talked too much, while the other shut a stubborn mouth tighter
than before. The babbler displayed an exuberant knowledge of
contemporary cricket, a more conscious sense of humour, and other little
qualities which told their tale. He opened the door for Miss Heriot
after dinner, and even thanked her for the evening when it came to an
end. His companion, on the other hand, after brooding over Leech and
Tenniel with a sombre eye, beat a boorish retreat without a word.
Heriot saw the pair to the boys’ part of the house. He was filling his
pipe when he returned to the medley of books, papers, photographic
appliances, foxes’ masks, alpen-stocks and venerable oak, that made his
study a little room in which it was difficult to sit down and impossible
to lounge. His sister, perched upon a coffin-stool, was busy mounting
photographs at a worm-eaten bureau.
“How I hate our rule that a man mayn’t smoke before a boy!” exclaimed
Heriot, emitting a grateful cloud. “And how I wish we didn’t have the
new boys on our hands a whole day before the rest!”
“I should have thought there was a good deal to be said for that,”
remarked his sister, intent upon her task.
“You mean from the boys’ point of view?”
“Exactly. It must be such a plunge for them as it is, poor things.”
“It’s the greatest plunge in life,” Heriot vehemently agreed. “But here
we don’t let them make it; we think it kinder to put them in an empty
bath, and then turn on the cold tap—after first warming them at our own
fireside! It’s always a relief to me when these evenings are over. The
boys are never themselves, and I don’t think I’m much better than the
boys. We begin by getting a false impression of each other.”
Heriot picked his way among his old oak things as he spoke; but at every
turn he had a narrow eye upon his sister. He was a lanky man, many years
her senior; his beard had grown grey, and his shoulders round, in his
profession. A restless energy marked all his movements, and was
traceable in the very obstacles to his present perambulations; they were
the spoils of the inveterate wanderer from the beaten track, who wanders
with open hand and eye. Spectacles in steel rims twinkled at each alert
turn of the grizzled head; and the look through the spectacles, always
quick and keen, was kindly rather than kind, and just rather than
compassionate.
“I liked Carpenter,” said Miss Heriot, as she dried a dripping print
between sheets of blotting-paper.
“I like all boys until I have reason to dislike them.”
“Carpenter had something to say for himself.”
“There’s far more character in Rutter.”
“He never opened his mouth.”
“It’s his mouth I go by, as much as anything.”
Miss Heriot coated the back of the print with starch, and laid it
dexterously in its place. A sheet of foolscap and her handkerchief—an
almost unfeminine handkerchief—did the rest. And still she said no
more.
“You didn’t think much of Rutter, Milly?”
“I thought he had a bad accent and——”
“Go on.”
“Well—to be frank—worse manners!”
“Milly, you are right, and I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to be frank with
you. Let the next print wait a minute. I like you to see something of
the fellows in my house; it’s only right that you should know something
about them first. I’ve a great mind to tell you what I don’t intend
another soul in the place to know.”
Heriot had planted himself in British attitude, heels to the fender.
Miss Heriot turned round on her stool. She was as like her brother as a
woman still young can be like a rather elderly man; her hair was fair,
and she had not come to spectacles; but her eyes were as keen and kindly
as his own, her whole countenance as sensible and shrewd.
“You can trust me, Bob,” she said.
“I know I can,” he answered, pipe in hand. “That’s why I’m going to tell
you what neither boy nor man shall learn through me. What type of lad
does this poor Rutter suggest to your mind?”
There was a pause.
“I hardly like to say.”
“But I want to know.”
“Well—then—I’m sure I couldn’t tell you why—but he struck me as more
like a lad from the stables than anything else.”
“What on earth makes you think that?” Heriot spoke quite sharply in his
plain displeasure and surprise.
“I said I couldn’t tell you, Bob. I suppose it was a general association
of ideas. He had his hat on, for one thing, when I saw him first; and it
was far too large for him, and crammed down almost to those dreadful
ears! I never saw any boy outside a stable-yard wear his hat like that.
Then your hunting was the one thing that seemed to interest him in the
least. And I certainly thought he called a horse a 'hoss’!”
“So he put you in mind of a stable-boy, did he?”
“Well, not exactly at the time, but he really does the more I think
about him.”
“That’s very clever of you, Milly—because it’s just what he is.”
Heriot’s open windows were flush with the street, and passing footfalls
sounded loud in his room; but at the moment there were none; and a clock
ticked officiously on the chimneypiece while the man with his back to it
met his sister’s eyes.
“Of course you don’t mean it literally?”
“Literally.”
“I thought his grandfather was a country parson?”
“A rural dean, my dear; but the boy’s father was a coachman, and the boy
himself was brought up in the stables until six months ago.”
“The father’s dead, then?”
“He died in the spring. His wife has been dead fourteen years. It’s a
very old story. She ran away with the groom.”
“But her people have taken an interest in the boy?”
“Never set eyes on him till his father died.”
“Then how can he know enough to come here?”
Heriot smiled as he pulled at his pipe. He had the air of a man who has
told the worst. His sister had taken it as he hoped she would; her face
and voice betokened just that kind of interest in the case which he
already felt strongly. It was a sympathetic interest, but that was all.
There was nothing sentimental about either of the Heriots; they could
discuss most things frankly on their merits; the school itself was no
exception to the rule. It was wife and child to Robert Heriot—the
school of his manhood—the vineyard in which he had laboured lovingly
for thirty years. But still he could smile as he smoked his pipe.
“Our standard is within the reach of most,” he said; “there are those
who would tell you it’s the scorn of the scholastic world. We don’t go
in for making scholars. We go in for making men. Give us the raw
material of a man, and we won’t reject it because it doesn’t know the
Greek alphabet—no, not even if it was fifteen on its last birthday!
That’s our system, and I support it through thick and thin; but it lays
us open to worse types than escaped stable-boys.”
“This boy doesn’t look fifteen.”
“Nor is he—quite—much less the type I had in mind. He has a head on
his shoulders, and something in it too. It appears that the vicar where
he came from took an interest in the lad, and got him on as far as Cæsar
and Euclid for pure love.”
“That speaks well for the lad,” put in Miss Heriot, impartially.
“I must say that it appealed to me. Then he’s had a tutor for the last
six months; and neither tutor nor vicar has a serious word to say
against his character. The tutor, moreover, is a friend of Arthur
Drysdale’s, who was captain of this house when I took it over, and the
best I ever had. That’s what brought them to me. The boy should take
quite a good place. I should be very glad to have him in my own form, to
see what they’ve taught him between them. I confess I’m interested in
him; his mother was a lady; but you may almost say he never saw her in
his life. Yet it’s the mother who counts in the being of a boy. Has the
gentle blood been hopelessly poisoned by the stink of the stables, or is
it going to triumph and run clean and sweet? It’s a big question, Milly,
and it’s not the only one involved.”
Heriot had propounded it with waving pipe that required another match
when he was done; through the mountain tan upon his face, and in the
eager eyes behind the glasses, shone the zeal of the expert to whom boys
are dearer than men or women. The man is rare; rarer still the woman who
can even understand him; but here in this little room of books and
antique lumber, you had the pair.
“I’m glad you told me,” said Miss Heriot, at length. “I fear I should
have been prejudiced if you had not.”
“My one excuse for telling you,” was the grave rejoinder. “No one else
shall ever know through me; not even Mr. Thrale, unless some special
reason should arise. The boy shall have every chance. He doesn’t even
know I know myself, and I don’t want him ever to suspect. It’s quite a
problem, for I must keep an eye on him more than on most; yet I daren’t
be down on him, and I daren’t stand up for him; he must sink or swim for
himself.”
“I’m afraid he’ll have a bad time,” said Miss Heriot, picking a print
from the water and blotting it as before. Her brother had seated himself
at another bureau to write his letters.
“I don’t mind betting Carpenter has a worse,” he rejoined without
looking up.
“But he’s so enthusiastic about everything?”
“That’s a quality we appreciate; boys don’t, unless there’s prowess
behind it. Carpenter talks cricket like a _Lillywhite_, but he doesn’t
look a cricketer. Rutter doesn’t talk about it, but his tutor says he’s
a bit of a bowler. Carpenter beams because he’s got to his public school
at last. He has illusions to lose. Rutter knows nothing about us, and
probably cares less; he’s here under protest, you can see it in his
face, and the chances are all in favour of his being pleasantly
disappointed.”
Heriot’s quill was squeaking as he spoke, for he was a man with the
faculty of doing and even thinking of more than one thing at a time; but
though his sister continued mounting photographs in her album with
extreme care, her mind was full of the two young boys who had come that
night to live under their roof for good or ill. She wondered whether her
brother was right in his ready estimate of their respective characters.
She knew him for the expert that he was; these were not the first boys
that she had heard him sum up as confidently on as brief an
acquaintance; and though her knowledge had its obvious limitations, she
had never known him wrong. He had a wonderfully fair mind. And yet the
boy of action, in whom it was possible to stimulate thought, would
always be nearer his heart than the thoughtful boy who might need
goading into physical activity. She could not help feeling that he was
prepared to take an unsympathetic view of the boy who had struck her as
having more in him than most small boys; it was no less plain that his
romantic history and previous disadvantages had already rendered the
other newcomer an object of sympathetic interest in the house-master’s
eyes. The material was new as well as raw, and so doubly welcome to the
workman’s hand. Yet the workman’s sister, who had so much of his own
force and fairness in her nature, felt that she could never like a sulky
lout, however cruel the circumstances which had combined to make him
one.
She felt a good deal more before the last print was in her album; in the
first place that she would see really very little of these two boys
until in years to come they rose to the Sixth Form table over which she
presided in hall. Now and then they might have headaches and be sent in
to keep quiet and look at the _Punches_; but she would never be at all
in touch with them until they were big boys at the top of the house; and
then they would be shy and exceedingly correct, of few words but not too
few, and none too much enthusiasm, like all the other big boys. And that
thought drew a sigh.
“What’s the matter?” came in an instant from the other bureau, where the
quill had ceased to squeak.
“I was thinking that, after all, these two boys have more individuality
than most who come to us.”
“One of them has.”
“Both, I think; and I was wondering how much will be left to either when
we run them out of the mould in five years’ time!”
Heriot came to his feet like an exasperated advocate.
“I know where you get that from!” he cried with a kind of jovial
asperity. “You’ve been reading some of these trashy articles that every
wiseacre who never was at a public school thinks he can write about them
now! That’s one of their stock charges against us, that we melt the boys
down and run them all out of the same mould like bullets. We destroy
individuality; we do nothing but reduplicate a type that thinks the same
thoughts and speaks the same speech, and upholds the same virtues and
condones the same vices. As if real character were a soluble thing! As
if it altered in its essence from the nursery to the cemetery! As if we
could boil away a strong will or an artistic temperament, a mean soul or
a saintly spirit, even in the crucible of a public school!”
His breezy confidence was almost overwhelming; but it did not overwhelm
his hearer, or sweep her with him to his conclusion. She had her own
point of view; more, she had her own coigne of observation. Not every
boy who had passed through the house in her time was the better for
having been there. She had seen the weak go under—into depths she could
not plumb—and the selfish ride serenely on the crest of the wave. She
had seen an unpleasant urchin grow into a more and more displeasing
youth, and inferiority go forth doubly inferior for the misleading
stamp—that precious stamp—which one and all acquired. She loved the
life as she saw it, perforce so superficially; it was a life that
appealed peculiarly to Miss Heriot, who happened to have her own
collegiate experience, an excellent degree of her own, and her own ideas
on education. But from the boys in her brother’s house she held
necessarily aloof; and in her detachment a clear and independent mind
lay inevitably open to questionings, misgivings, intuitions, for which
there was little time in his laborious days.
“But you admit it is a crucible,” she argued. “And what’s a crucible but
a melting-pot?”
“A melting-pot for characteristics, but not for character!” he cried.
“Take the two boys upstairs: in four or five years one will have more to
say for himself, I hope, and the other will leave more unsaid; but the
self that each expresses will be the same self, even though we have
turned a first-rate groom into a second-rate gentleman. 'The Child,’
remember, and not the school, 'is father of the Man.’”
“Then the school’s his mother!” declared Miss Heriot without a moment’s
hesitation.
Heriot gave the sudden happy laugh which his house was never sorry to
hear, and his form found the more infectious for its comparative rarity.
“Does she deny it, Milly? Doesn’t she rub it into every one of them in
Latin that even they can understand? Let’s only hope they’ll be fathers
of better men for the help of this particular _alma mater_!”
The house-master knocked out his pipe into a wooden Kaffir bowl, the
gift of some exiled Old Boy, and went off to bid the two new boys
good-night.