Читать книгу The Master; a Novel - Israel Zangwill - Страница 10

âGentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child,

Pity my simplicity,

And suffer me to come to Thee.â

The children took up the burden, sifting themselves instinctively into trebles and seconds in a harmony loud enough to rouse the hibernating bear. Billyâs face returned to its normal pallor, and Mattâs to its abstraction.

In the school-room—a bare, plastered room, cold and uninviting, with a crowd of boys and girls at its notched pine desks—he continued pensive. There was nothing to distract his abstraction, for even Ruth Hailey was away. The geography lesson roused him to a temporary attention. London flitted across his dreams—the Halifax of England, that mighty city in which pictures were saleable for actual coin, and a mighty picture-maker, the Matt Strang of England, was paid for play as if for work. But the reading-book, with its menu of solid stories and essays, peppered with religious texts, restored him to his reveries. McTavit, who was shaping quills with his knife, called upon him to commence the chapter; but he stared at the little pedagogue blankly, unaware of the call. He was noting dreamily how his jagged teeth showed beneath the thin, snuffy upper lip, and the trick the mouth had of remaining wide open after it had ceased talking. He tried to analyze why McTavit was not smiling. Months ago, seeking to make his figures smile, the boy had discovered the rident effect of a wide mouth, and now he essayed to analyze the subtle muscular movements that separate the sublime from the ridiculous. Suddenly the haunting thought recurred to him with a new application. Even McTavitâs freckled face would one day be frozen—those twitching eyelids still, the thin wide lips shut forever. How long more would he stride about his motley school-room, scattering blows and information? Would he come to a stop in the school-room as the clock sometimes did, grown suddenly silent, its oil congealed by the intense cold? Or would Death find him in bed, ready stretched? And the restless boys and girls around him—good God!—they, too, would one day be very peaceful—mere blocks—Carroty Kitty, who was pinching Amy Warrenâs arm, and Peter Besant, who was throwing those pellets of bread, and even Simon the Sneakâs wagging tongue would be still as a plummet. They would all grow rigid alike, not all at once, nor in one way, but some very soon, perhaps, and others when they were grown tall, and yet others when they were bent and grizzled; some on sea and some on land, some in this part of the map and some in that, some peacefully, some in pain; petrified one by one, ruthlessly, remorselessly, impartially; till at last all the busy hubbub was hushed, and of all that lively crew of youngsters not one was left to feel the sun and the rain. The pity of it thrilled him; even McTavitâs freckled face grew softer through the veil of mist. Then, as his vision cleared, he saw the face was really darker: strange emotions seemed to agitate it.

âSo yeâre obstinate, are ye?â it screamed, with startling suddenness. At the same instant something shining flew through the air, and, whizzing past Mattâs ear, sent back a little thud from behind. Matt turned his head in astonishment, and saw a penknife quivering in the wall. He turned back in fresh surprise, and saw that McTavitâs face had changed, lobster-like, from black to red, as its owner realized how near had been Mattâs (and his own) escape.

âEh, awake at last, sleepy-head,â he blustered. âThereâs na gettinâ your attention. Well, what are ye starinâ at? Are ye na goinâ to fetch me my knife?â

âIâm not a dog,â answered Matt, sullenly.

âThen dinna bark! Ye think because yeâve lost your father yeâre preevileged—to lose your manners,â he added, with an epigrammatic afterthought that mollified him more than an apology. âIâm verra obleeged to you,â he concluded, with elaborate emphasis, as Simon the Sneak handed him the knife.

âNow, then, sleepy-head,â he said again, âpârâaps yeâll read your paragraph—thatâs richt, Simon; show him the place.â

McTavit hailed from Cape Breton Isle, and was popularly supposed to soliloquize in Gaelic. This hurt him when he proposed to the postmistress, who had been to boarding-school in Truro. She declared she would not have a man who did not speak good English.

âI do speak guid English,â he protested, passionately. âMebbe not in the school-room, when Iâm talkinâ only to my pupils, and it dinna matter, but in private and in society Iâm most parteecular.â

McTavit was still a bachelor, and still spoke guid English. When the reading-lesson had come to an end, Matt was left again to his own thoughts, for while poor McTavit gave the juniors an exercise in grammar which they alleviated by gum-chewing, Matt and a few other pupils were allotted the tranquillizing task of multiplying in copy-books £3949 17s. 11¾d. by 7958. The sums were so colossal that Matt wondered whether they existed in the world; and if so, how many pictures it would be necessary to make to obtain them. An awful silence brooded over the room, for when written exercises were on, the pupils took care to do their talking silently, lest they should be suspected of copying, this being what they were doing. There was a little museum case behind McTavitâs desk, containing stuffed skunks and other animals and local minerals lovingly collected by him—stilbite and heulandite and quartz and amethyst and spar and bits of jasper and curiously clouded agate, picked up near Cape Blomidon amid the débris of crumbling cliffs. At such times McTavit would stand absorbed in the contemplation of his treasures, his rod carelessly tucked under his arm, as one âthe world forgetting, by the world forgot.â Then the tension of silence became positively painful, for the school-room had long since discovered that the museum case was a reflector, and McTavit, though he prided himself on the secret of his Argus eye, never caught any but novices not yet initiated into the traditions. Imagine, therefore, the shock both to him and the room, when to-day the acute stillness was broken by a loud cry of âBang! bang! bang!â An irresistible guffaw swept over the school, and under cover of the laughter the cute and ready collogued as to âanswers.â

âSilence!â thundered McTavit. âWho was that?â

In the even more poignant silence of reaction a small still voice was heard.

âPlease, sir, it was me,â said Matt, remorsefully.

âOh, it was you, was it? Then hereâs bang! bang! bang! for ye.â And as he spoke the angry little man accentuated each âbangâ with a vicious thwack. Then his eye caught sight of Mattâs copy-book. In lieu of ranged columns of figures was a rough pen-and-ink sketch of a line of great war-ships overhung by smoke-clouds, and apparently converging all their batteries against one little ship, on whose deck a stalwart man stood solitary, wrapped in a flag.

McTavit choked with added rage.

âD-defacinâ your books agen. What—what dâye call that?â he spluttered.

âBlockade,â said Matt, sulkily.

âBlockhead!â echoed McTavit, and was so pleased with the universal guffaw (whereof the cute and ready took advantage to compare notes as before) that he contented himself with the one slash that was necessary to drive the jest home. But it was one slash too much. Mattâs vocal cannonade had been purely involuntary, but he was willing to suffer for his over-vivid imagination. The last insult, however—subtly felt as an injury to his dead father, too—set his blood on fire. He suddenly remembered that this blockhead was, at any rate, the âheadâ of a family; that he could no longer afford to be degraded before the little ones, who were looking on with pain and awe. He rose and walked towards the door.

âWhere are ye goinâ?â cried McTavit.

âTo find Captain Kiddâs treasure. Iâve learned all I want to know,â said Matt.

âYeâd better come back.â

Matt turned, walked back to his seat, possessed himself of his half-empty copy-book, and walked to the door.

âGood-bye, you fellers,â he said, cheerfully, as he passed out. The girls he ignored.

McTavit gave chase with raised rod, regardless of the pandemonium that rose up in his wake. Matt was walking slowly across the field, with Sprat leaping up to lick his face. The dog had rejoined him. McTavit went back, his rod hanging down behind.

Matt walked on sadly, his blood cooled by the sharp air. Another link with the past was broken forever. He looked back at the simple wooden school-house, with the ensign of smoke fluttering above its pitched roof; kinder memories of McTavit surged at his heart—his little jests at the expense of the boys, his occasional reminiscences of his native Cape Breton and of St. John, New Brunswick, with its mighty cathedral, the Life of Napoleon he had lent him last year, his prowess with line and hook the summer he boarded with the Strangs in lieu of school-fees, and then—with a sudden flash—came the crowning recollection of his talent for cutting turreted castles, and tigers, and anything you pleased, out of the close-grained biscuits and the chunks of buckwheat-cake the children brought for lunch. Mattâs thoughts went back to the beginnings of his school career, when McTavit had spurred him on to master the alphabet by transforming his buckwheat-cake into any animal from ass to zebra. He remembered the joy with which he had ordered and eaten his first elephant. Pausing a moment to cut a stick and drive Sprat off with it, he walked back into the wondering school-room.

âPlease, sir, Iâm sorry I went away so rudely,â he said, âand Iâve cut you a new birch rod.â

McTavit was touched.

âThank you,â he said, simply, as he took it. âWhatâs the matter?â he roared, seeing Simon the Sneakâs hand go up.

âPlease, sir, hednât you better try if he hesnât split it and put a hair in?â

âGrand idea!â yelled McTavit, grimly. âHowâs that?â

And the new birch rod made its trial slash at the raised hand.