i
a heavy cloud passed swiftly away before the wind that came with the night, and far in a clear sky the evening star shone with pure brightness, a gleaming world set high above the dark earth and the black shadows in the lane. in the ending of october a great storm had blown from the west, and it was through the bare boughs of a twisted oak that ambrose meyrick saw the silver light of the star. as the last faint flash died in the sky he leaned against a gate and gazed upward; and then his eyes fell on the dull and weary undulations of the land, the vast circle of dun ploughland and grey meadow bounded by a dim horizon, dreary as a prison wall. he remembered with a start how late it must be; he should have been back an hour before, and he was still in the open country, a mile away at least from the outskirts of lupton. he turned from the star and began to walk as quickly as he could along the lane through the puddles and the sticky clay, soaked with three weeks’ heavy rain.
he saw at last the faint lamps of the nearest streets where the shoemakers lived and he tramped hurriedly through this wretched quarter, past its penny shops, its raw public-house, its rawer chapel, with twelve foundation-stones on which are written the names of the twelve leading congregationalists of lupton, past the squalling children whose mothers were raiding and harrying them to bed. then came the free library, an admirable instance, as the lupton mercury declared, of the adaptation of gothic to modern requirements. from a sort of tower of this building a great arm shot out and hung a round clock-face over the street, and meyrick experienced another shock when he saw that it was even later than he had feared. he had to get to the other side of the town, and it was past seven already! he began to run, wondering what his fate would be at his uncle’s hands, and he went by “our grand old parish church” (completely “restored” in the early ‘forties), past the remains of the market-cross, converted most successfully, according to local opinion, into a drinking fountain for dogs and cattle, dodging his way among the late shoppers and the early loafers who lounged to and fro along the high street.
he shuddered as he rang the bell at the old grange. he tried to put a bold face on it when the servant opened the door, and he would have gone straight down the hall into the schoolroom, but the girl stopped him.
“master said you’re to go to the study at once, master meyrick, as soon as ever you come in.”
she was looking strangely at him, and the boy grew sick with dread. he was a “funk” through and through, and was frightened out of his wits about twelve times a day every day of his life. his uncle had said a few years before: “lupton will make a man of you,” and lupton was doing its best. the face of the miserable wretch whitened and grew wet; there was a choking sensation in his throat, and he felt very cold. nelly foran, the maid, still looked at him with strange, eager eyes, then whispered suddenly:
“you must go directly, master meyrick, master heard the bell, i know; but i’ll make it up to you.”
ambrose understood nothing except the approach of doom. he drew a long breath and knocked at the study door, and entered on his uncle’s command.
it was an extremely comfortable room. the red curtains were drawn close, shutting out the dreary night, and there was a great fire of coal that bubbled unctuously and shot out great jets of flame — in the schoolroom they used coke. the carpet was soft to the feet, and the chairs promised softness to the body, and the walls were well furnished with books. there were thackeray, dickens, lord lytton, uniform in red morocco, gilt extra; the cambridge bible for students in many volumes, stanley’s life of arnold, coplestone’s pr?lectiones academic?, commentaries, dictionaries, first editions of tennyson, school and college prizes in calf, and, of course, a great brigade of latin and greek classics. three of the wonderful and terrible pictures of piranesi hung in the room; these mr.
horbury admired more for the subject-matter than for the treatment, in which he found, as he said, a certain lack of the aurea mediocritas— almost, indeed, a touch of morbidity. the gas was turned low, for the high usher was writing at his desk, and a shaded lamp cast a bright circle of light on a mass of papers.
he turned round as ambrose meyrick came in. he had a high, bald forehead, and his fresh-coloured face was edged with reddish “mutton-chop” whiskers. there was a dangerous glint in his grey-green eyes, and his opening sentence was unpromising.
“now, ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of thing is not going to be tolerated any longer.”
perhaps it would not have fared quite so badly with the unhappy lad if only his uncle had not lunched with the head. there was a concatenation accordingly, every link in which had helped to make ambrose meyrick’s position hopeless. in the first place there was boiled mutton for luncheon, and this was a dish hateful to mr. horbury’s palate. secondly, the wine was sherry. of this mr. horbury was very fond, but unfortunately the head’s sherry, though making a specious appeal to the taste, was in reality far from good and teemed with those fiery and irritating spirits which make the liver to burn and rage. then chesson had practically found fault with his chief assistant’s work. he had not, of course, told him in so many words that he was unable to teach; he had merely remarked:
“i don’t know whether you’ve noticed it, horbury, but it struck me the other day that there was a certain lack of grip about those fellows of yours in the fifth. some of them struck me as muddlers, if you know what i mean: there was a sort of vagueness, for example, about their construing in that chorus. have you remarked anything of the kind yourself?”
and then, again, the head had gone on:
“and, by the way, horbury, i don’t quite know what to make of your nephew, meyrick. he was your wife’s nephew, wasn’t he? yes. well, i hardly know whether i can explain what i feel about the boy; but i can’t help saying that there is something wrong about him. his work strikes me as good enough — in fact, quite above the form average — but, to use the musical term, he seems to be in the wrong key. of course, it may be my fancy; but the lad reminds me of those very objectionable persons who are said to have a joke up their sleeve. i doubt whether he is taking the lupton stamp; and when he gets up in the school i shall be afraid of his influence on the other boys.”
here, again, the master detected a note of blame; and by the time he reached the old grange he was in an evil humour. he hardly knew which he found the more offensive — chesson’s dish or his discourse. he was a dainty man in his feeding, and the thought of the great fat gigot pouring out a thin red stream from the gaping wound dealt to it by the head mingled with his resentment of the indirect scolding which he considered that he had received, and on the fire just kindled every drop of that corrosive sherry was oil. he drank his tea in black silence, his rage growing fiercer for want of vent, and it is doubtful whether in his inmost heart he was altogether displeased when report was made at six o’clock that meyrick had not come in. he saw a prospect — more than a prospect — of satisfactory relief.
some philosophers have affirmed that lunatic doctors (or mental specialists) grow in time to a certain resemblance to their patients, or, in more direct language, become half mad themselves. there seems a good deal to be said for the position; indeed, it is probably a more noxious madness to swear a man into perpetual imprisonment in the company of maniacs and imbeciles because he sings in his bath and will wear a purple dressing-gown at dinner than to fancy oneself emperor of china. however this may be, it is very certain that in many cases the schoolmaster is nothing more or less than a bloated schoolboy: the beasts are, radically, the same, but morbid conditions have increased the venom of the former’s sting. indeed, it is not uncommon for well-wishers to the great public school system to praise their favourite masters in terms which admit, nay, glory in, this identity. read the memorial tributes to departed heads in a well-known and most respectable church paper. “to the last he was a big boy at heart,” writes canon diver of his friend, that illiterate old sycophant who brought up the numbers of the school to such a pitch by means of his conciliator policy to jews, turks, heretics and infidels that there was nothing for it but to make him a bishop. “i always thought he seemed more at home in the playing fields than in the sixth-form room. . . . he had all the english boy’s healthy horror of anything approaching pose or eccentricity. . . . he could be a severe disciplinarian when severity seemed necessary, but everybody in the school knew that a well-placed ‘boundary,’ a difficult catch or a goal well won or well averted would atone for all but the most serious offences.” there are many other points of resemblance between the average master and the average boy: each, for example, is intensely cruel, and experiences a quite abnormal joy in the infliction of pain. the baser boy tortures those animals which are not méchants. tales have been told (they are hushed up by all true friends of the “system”) of wonderful and exquisite orgies in lonely hollows of the moors, in obscure and hidden thickets: tales of a boy or two, a lizard or a toad, and the slow simmering heat of a bonfire. but these are the exceptional pleasures of the virtuosi; for the average lad there is plenty of fun to be got out of his feebler fellows, of whom there are generally a few even in the healthiest community. after all, the weakest must go to the wall, and if the bones of the weakest are ground in the process, that is their fault. when some miserable little wretch, after a year or two of prolonged and exquisite torture of body and mind, seeks the last escape of suicide, one knows how the old boys will come forward, how gallantly they will declare that the days at the “dear old school” were the happiest in their lives; how “the doctor” was their father and the sixth their nursing-mother; how the delights of the mahomedans’ fabled paradise are but grey and weary sport compared with the joys of the happy fag, whose heart, as the inspired bard of harrow tells us, will thrill in future years at the thought of the hill. they write from all quarters, these brave old boys: from the hard-won deanery, result of many years of indefatigable attack on the fundamental doctrines of the christian faith; from the comfortable villa, the reward of commercial activity and acuteness on the stock exchange; from the courts and from the camps; from all the high seats of the successful; and common to them all is the convincing argument of praise. and we all agree, and say there is nothing like our great public schools, and perhaps the only dissentient voices are those of the father and mother who bury the body of a little child about whose neck is the black sign of the rope. but let them be comforted: the boy was no good at games, though his torments were not bad sport while he lasted.
mr. horbury was an old luptonian; he was, in the words of canon diver, but “a big boy at heart,” and so he gave orders that meyrick was to be sent in the study directly he came in, and he looked at the clock on the desk before him with satisfaction and yet with impatience. a hungry man may long for his delayed dinner almost with a sense of fury, and yet at the back of his mind he cannot help being consoled by the thought of how wonderfully he will enjoy the soup when it appears at last. when seven struck, mr. horbury moistened his lips slightly. he got up and felt cautiously behind one of the bookshelves. the object was there, and he sat down again. he listened; there were footfalls on the drive. ah! there was the expected ring. there was a brief interval, and then a knock. the fire was glowing with red flashes, and the wretched toad was secured.
“now, ambrose, you must understand quite definitely that this sort of thing isn’t going to be tolerated any longer. this is the third time during this term that you have been late for lockup. you know the rules: six o’clock at latest. it is now twenty minutes past seven. what excuse have you to make? what have you been doing with yourself? have you been in the fields?”
“no, sir.”
“why not? you must have seen the resolution of the sixth on the notice-board of the high school? you know what it promised any boy who shirked rocker? ‘a good sound thrashing with tuds before the first thirty.’ i am afraid you will have a very bad time of it on monday, after graham has sent up your name to the room.”
there was a pause. mr. horbury looked quietly and lengthily at the boy, who stood white and sick before him. he was a rather sallow, ugly lad of fifteen. there was something of intelligence in his expression, and it was this glance that chesson, the headmaster, had resented. his heart beat against his breast, his breath came in gasps and the sweat of terror poured down his body. the master gazed at him, and at last spoke again.
“but what have you been doing? where have you been all this time?”
“if you please, sir, i walked over to selden abbey.”
“to selden abbey? why, it’s at least six miles away! what on earth did you want to go to selden abbey for? are you fond of old stones?”
“if you please, sir, i wanted to see the norman arches. there is a picture of them in parker’s glossary.”
“oh, i see! you are a budding antiquarian, are you, ambrose, with an interest in norman arches — eh? i suppose we are to look forward to the time when your researches will have made lupton famous? perhaps you would like to lecture to the school on st. paul’s cathedral? pray, what are your views as to the age of stonehenge?”
the wit was heavy enough, but the speaker’s position gave a bitter sting to his lash. mr. horbury saw that every cut had told, and, without prejudice to more immediate and acuter pleasures, he resolved that such biting satire must have a larger audience. indeed, it was a long time before ambrose meyrick heard the last of those wretched norman arches. the method was absurdly easy. “openings” presented themselves every day. for example, if the boy made a mistake in construing, the retort was obvious:
“thank you, meyrick, for your most original ideas on the force of the aorist. perhaps if you studied your greek grammar a little more and your favourite glossary of architecture a little less, it would be the better. write out ‘aorist means indefinite’ five hundred times.”
or, again, perhaps the classic orders were referred to. mr. horbury would begin to instruct the form as to the difference between ionic and doric. the form listened with poor imitation of interest. suddenly the master would break off:
“i beg your pardon. i was forgetting that we have a great architectural authority amongst us. be so kind as to instruct us, meyrick. what does parker say? or perhaps you have excogitated some theories of your own? i know you have an original mind, from the extraordinary quantities of your last copy of verse. by the way, i must ask you to write out ‘the e in venio is short’ five hundred times. i am sorry to interfere with your more important architectural studies, but i am afraid there is no help for it.”
and so on; while the form howled with amusement.
but mr. horbury kept these gems for future and public use. for the moment he had more exciting work on hand. he burst out suddenly:
“the fact is, ambrose meyrick, you’re a miserable little humbug! you haven’t the honesty to say, fair and square, that you funked rocker and went loafing about the country, looking for any mischief you could lay your hands on. instead of that you make up this cock-and-bull story of selden abbey and norman arches — as if any boy in his senses ever knew or cared twopence about such things! i hope you haven’t been spending the afternoon in some low public-house? there, don’t speak! i don’t want to hear any more lies. but, whatever you have been doing, you have broken the rules, and you must be taught that the rules have to be kept. stand still!”
mr. horbury went to the bookshelf and drew out the object. he stood at a little distance behind meyrick and opened proceedings with a savage cut at his right arm, well above the elbow. then it was the turn of the left arm, and the master felt the cane bite so pleasantly into the flesh that he distributed some dozen cuts between the two arms. then he turned his attention to the lad’s thighs and finished up in the orthodox manner, meyrick bending over a chair.
the boy’s whole body was one mass of burning, stinging torture; and, though he had not uttered a sound during the process, the tears were streaming down his cheeks. it was not the bodily anguish, though that was extreme enough, so much as a far-off recollection. he was quite a little boy, and his father, dead long since, was showing him the western doorway of a grey church on a high hill and carefully instructing him in the difference between “billetty” and “chevronny.”
“it’s no good snivelling, you know, ambrose. i daresay you think me severe, but, though you won’t believe me now, the day will come when you will thank me from your heart for what i have just done. let this day be a turning-point in your life. now go to your work.”
