Fathers of Men. Hornung Ernest William

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СКАЧАТЬ so the manly unaffected voice, and a few odd phrases on which it dwelt in gentler tones, were not altogether lost upon Jan. Nevertheless, when he went up to dormitory, after biscuits (which he heard called “dog-rocks”) and milk, and another dreary half-hour in the empty study, the last thing he feared or thought about was the kind of difficulty which had beset little Arthur in a certain chapter of Tom Brown which had not appealed to Jan. And all this may be why he was so much impressed by what happened in the little dormitory at the top of the house, when he and his three companions were undressing for bed.

      Joyce, the captain of the dormitory, who proved to be a rather delicate youth with a most indelicate vocabulary, suddenly ceased firing, as it were, and commanded silence for “bricks.”

      “Know what 'bricks’ are?” asked Bingley, who occupied the “tish” adjoining Jan’s, and turned out to be a boy of his own age, instead of the formidable figure of his imagination.

      “It’s your prayers,” said Joyce, with such an epithet that Jan could not possibly believe him.

      “You are a brute, Joyce!” cried Crabtree, poking a clever red head through his curtains.

      “Nevertheless, my boy,” rejoined Joyce, imitating a master through his nose, “I know what bricks are, and I say them.”

      “Obvious corruption of prex,” began Crabtree, in didactic fashion, when Joyce cut him short with a genial malediction, and silence reigned for the best part of a minute.

      Jan went on his knees with the others, though he had not done so the night before, and his lips moved through the Lord’s Prayer; but in his heart he was marvelling at the language of the nice tall fellow in the far corner. It was the kind of language he had often heard in the stables, but it was the last kind that he had expected to hear in a public school; and somehow it shocked him, for the first time in his life. But on the whole he was thankful to find himself in such pleasant company in dormitory, and it came to him to express his thankfulness while he was on his knees.

      Nothing occurred, as they lay talking in the dark, to modify the new boy’s feeling on this point; nor had he subsequent occasion to revise a triple opinion which might well have proved premature in one case or the other. It revealed on the contrary an unusually sound instinct for character. Joyce’s only foible was his fondness for free language. He had a redeeming sense of humour, and it was in treatment rather than in choice of subject that he erred. Crabtree was irreproachable in conversation, and a kindly creature in his cooler moods; but he suffered from the curse of intellect, was precociously didactic and dogmatic, and had a temperament as fiery as his hair. Bingley was a lively, irresponsible, curly-headed dog, who enjoyed life in an insignificant position both in and out of school. The other two had nicknames which were not for the lips of new boys; but Jan called Bingley “Toby” after the first night.

      Prayers were in houses on the first morning of the term, and nothing else happened before or after breakfast until the whole school assembled in the big schoolroom at ten o’clock to hear the new school order. Jan pulled his cap over his eyes as he found himself wedged in a crowd from all the houses, converging at the base of the worn stone spiral stair up and down which he had trotted at his ease between the papers of the previous day. Now he was slowly hoisted in the press, the breath crushed from his body, his toes only occasionally encountering a solid step, a helpless atom in a monster’s maw. At the top of the stone stairs, however, and through the studded oak door, there was room for all; but here it was necessary to uncover face and head; and yet none that he knew of old was revealed to Jan’s close though furtive scrutiny.

      Carpenter, who had come with him, and squeezed into the next seat, watched the watcher in his turn, and then whispered:

      “He’s not come back yet.”

      “Who’s not?”

      “Evan Devereux. I asked a fellow in his house.”

      “What made you think of him now?”

      “Oh, nothing. I only thought you might be looking to see if he was here.”

      “Well, perhaps I was,” said Jan, with grumpy candour. “But I’m sure I don’t care where he is.”

      “No more do I, goodness knows!” said Carpenter.

      And between three and four hundred chattered on all sides with subdued but ceaseless animation; the præpostors keeping order more or less, but themselves chatting to each other as became the first morning of the term. Then suddenly there fell an impressive silence. The oak door opened with a terrible click of the latch, like the cocking of a huge revolver, and in trooped all the masters, cap in hand and gown on shoulders, led by a little old man with a kindly, solemn, and imperious air. And Jan felt that this could only be Mr. Thrale, the Head Master, but Carpenter whispered:

      “That’s Jerry!”

      “Who?”

      “Old Thrale, of course, but everybody calls him Jerry.”

      And Jan liked everybody’s impudence as Mr. Thrale took his place behind a simple desk on the dais, and read out the new list, form by form, as impressively as Holy Writ.

      The first names that Jan recognised were those of Loder, the captain of his house, and Cave major, its most distinguished representative on tented field; they were in the Upper and Lower Sixth respectively. Joyce was still in the Remove, as captain of the form, but Crabtree had gained a double remove from the Lower to the Upper Fifth. Next in Jan’s ken came Shockley – the fellow who had threatened to make him wish he was dead – and then most thrillingly – long before either expected it – Carpenter’s name and his own in quick succession.

      “What form will it be?” whispered Jan into the other’s ear.

      “Middle Remove,” purred Carpenter. “And we don’t have to fag after all!”

      Devereux was the next and the last name that Jan remembered hearing: it was actually in the form below his!

      The new boys had already learnt that it was customary for the masters to take their forms in hall in their own houses; they now discovered that Mr. Haigh, the master of the Middle Remove, had just succeeded to the most remote of all the hill houses – the one house in fact on the further slope of the hill. Thither his new form accordingly repaired, and on the good ten minutes’ walk Carpenter and Rutter had their heads violently knocked together by Shockley, for having the cheek to get so high and to escape fagging their first term.

      “But you needn’t think you have,” he added, ominously. “If you young swots come flying into forms it takes the rest of us two years to get to – by the sweat of our blessed brows – by the Lord Harry you shall have all the swot you want! You’ll do the construe for Buggins and me and Eyre major every morning of your miserable lives!”

      Buggins (who rejoiced in a real name of less distinction, and a strong metropolitan accent) was climbing the hill arm-in-arm with Eyre major (better known as Jane), his echo and his shadow in one distended skin. Buggins embroidered Shockley’s threats, and Eyre major contributed a faithful laugh. But Jan heard them all unmoved, and thought the less of Carpenter when his thinner skin changed colour.

      Mr. Haigh gave his new form a genial welcome, vastly reassuring those who knew least about him by laughing uproariously at points too subtle for their comprehension. He was a muscular man with a high colour and a very clever head. His hair was turning an effective grey about the temples, his body bulging after the manner of bodies no longer really young and energetic. Energy he had, however, of a spasmodic and intemperate order, though he only showed it on this СКАЧАТЬ