Читать книгу Pip - Ian Hay - Страница 13

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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.