Читать книгу The Letters of Charles Sorley - Charles Hamilton Sorley - Страница 10

Table of Contents

On Thursday afternoon a party from the Mission at Tottenham came down to Marlborough and I was one of those who—being not engaged in cricket—had to take them round. We showed them over College, took them up to the field, gave them tea at the Master’s, and played croquet or bowls with them from 2.30-6.30, Some were quite respectable—almost mistakable for gentlemen till they opened their mouths—others were about as poor as they could be. Some were completely mummified and dazed, as if being led about in another world, but most were exceptionally lively and interesting—and oh! their intelligence! I took a couple of them up to the Museum, and they turned out to be disappointed Darwins. The amount I learned from them was simply stupendous. John (now try and think who John is) simply isn’t in it. They had twenty thousand humorous stories about the doings of toads and bugs; there wasn’t a shell for which they couldn’t give the Latin name. They were simply brimful of information and delighted to find someone to whom they could impart it. Others were earnest devotees of the Mission and told me with joy the amount of the collections for the last—how many?—years. And one was “very fond of pretty poetry.” And one was very anxious to study “you young lads.” And one had a sister in the service of the Duke of Marlborough, whom he fondly believed reigned over this part of the world. And a few—poor fellows—in clothes as old as themselves, would not talk a word, but they ate heartily and, I think, enjoyed themselves. But one and all considered that everything at Marlborough was of the best and finest and that Marlborough was a name and a place second only to Heaven; and after all that is the perfect state of mind. The day was mercifully fine, and they were undoubtedly very grateful, and I do not think they regretted the loss of a day’s pay and—in many cases, I think—the price of a new and startling suit of “hand-me-downs.”