Pip : A Romance of Youth

  CHAPTER III

  "HAM"

  THE schoolmaster realises early in his career that he is not auniversally popular person. If he keeps his boys in order and compelsthem to work, they dislike him heartily; if he allows them to do as theyplease they despise him; if he is cheerful and jocose in his demeanour,they consider him "a funny ass"; if he is austere and academic, theycall him "a gloomy swine." If he endeavours, by strong measures, to callsinners to repentance, he is said to have done so from personal spite;and if he shows kindness to the few righteous persons whom he mayencounter in his form, he is accused of favouritism. After he has beenat 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 noticesthat elderly and revered colleagues have laughed and grown fat underthis treatment for thirty years, and indeed look upon the seethingindignation of their subjects as the salt of life. This comforts him. Hetries again, and presently discovers that it is possible to be the hatedoppressor of his form in public and their familiar friend and trustedadviser in private. Collective hostility vanishes under the influence ofa cup of tea or an evening on the river, and individual friendship takesits place. Last of all as he grows older, comes that continuous calmwhich marks his older colleagues: for he knows now that Jinks minor andMuggins tertius, who sit in the back row with lowering brows andgrinding teeth, chafing under his tyranny and preaching sedition atintervals, will one day come and sit in his armchairs, with their feeton his mantelpiece, bearded or sunburned or distinguished, and willconvey to him, if not in words, at any rate by their demeanour, theirheartfelt thanks for the benefits which he lavished upon them with sounsparing a hand in the grand old days in the Shell or the Remove or theLower Fifth. That is his reward. Men have died for less.

  Now, Mr. Hanbury, lord and master of the Lower Shell, a sort ofintellectual dust-heap on the Modern side at Grandwich School, wasspecially favoured by the gods in that he received his reward morequickly than most. He was twenty-nine; he had been a famous CricketBlue, and he enjoyed the respectful admiration of countless boys, wholistened eagerly to his small talk, felt proud when he spoke to themunofficially, and endeavoured to imitate his bowling action.

  He also possessed other qualifications. He loved his work, he tookimmense pains to understand each of his boys, and he endeavoured bydaily admonition and occasional castigation to goad his form intorespectability.

  For in truth they were a poor lot. Why they were called the Shell was amystery,--the Sieve would have described them better. Large, cumbrouspersons, with small heads and colossal feet, with vacant faces andincipient beards, stuck in its meshes and remained there forever, whiletheir more youthful and slippery brethren wriggled through. Most mastersresigned their posts after a year of the Lower Shell, with the resultthat that glorious company were constantly entrusted to the newest andrawest recruit on the staff. Consequently discipline was lax; and whenthe Head rather apologetically handed the form over to Mr. Hanbury, itbecame instantly apparent that the ultimate result would be the collapseof Hanbury or the reformation of the Shell.

  The latter alternative came to pass, but not before both sides haddistinguished themselves in several engagements.

  Mr. Hanbury had to teach his form self-respect. Long experience hadtaught them that they were incapable as a body of producing good work;and being constitutionally averse to half-measures, they wereaccustomed, rather than turn out a second-rate article, to turn outnothing at all. Like the Tenth, who do not dance, the Lower Shell didnot 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 ofthe form, omitted for three consecutive evenings to do any "prep." Withready acumen the Shell also discovered that their new form-master had nosense of humour. Else why, when Elphinstone, commonly known as"Top-knot," let loose a blackbird from a bandbox during the historyhour, and every one else present was convulsed with honest mirth, shouldMr. Hanbury, with an absolutely fatuous affectation of solemnity, havemade absurd remarks about teaching small boys manners, and have laidsuch violent hands on Elphinstone as to make it necessary for thatenterprising ornithologist to take his meals from off the mantelpiecefor 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 determinedcharacter and litigious habits, took the trouble to stay behind andpoint out to Mr. Hanbury that by depriving him (Crabbe major) of allhis marks for the week for the paltry indiscretion of cribbing fromJones, Mr. Hanbury was outraging the most elementary principles ofjustice (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 awayto 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 theend of the term without any marks."

  "Is that all?" replied Mr. Hanbury. "Step round to my room before yourcab comes and I'll send you home all over them. Now, hook it, and don'tbe 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 ofthe Lower Shell some four years, and had long reduced that chaoticassembly to respectability, and even intelligence. It was the firstmorning of a new term, and he had just entered his classroom, and wasengaged in greeting his pupils. The ceremony over, he mounted histhrone 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. Outyou 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 proudposition of head boy of this form. Hallo! here come our friends from theLower Regions."

  Eleven far more sheepish youths here entered the room, headed by a smallboy in spectacles, who made his entrance some way ahead of his fellowswith a suddenness that suggested propulsion from the rear. All took up aretired position on the back bench.

  "Now, sort yourselves," continued Ham. "Old guard, close up! Then thepromotions, then the new boys in alphabetical order."

  This arrangement left the form in something like order. At the head satMr. Brown minor; at the tail a small and alert youth with black hair, aface freckled like a plover's egg, and solemn eyes.

  The Commander-in-Chief addressed them,--

  "Brown minor, you are unanimously elected first lieutenant. You mustremind me to set preparation every night, and you will write the same onthe 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 thefoot of the form)--"are hereby appointed scavenger. Your duties will beexplained to you by Mr. Brown. They relate chiefly to the tidiness ofthis room. You have obtained this important post solely because of yourposition in the alphabet. If you had had the misfortune to be calledAtkins or Absalom, you would have failed to do so. We will now proceedto 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 theystruggled 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 retainedthe post of scavenger for the whole of his first year in the form.Otherwise, he was well content. He acquired friends, notably oneMumford, whose super
ior position in the alphabet was his solequalification for exemption from the post of scavenger.

  The duties of that official, by the way, were not arduous. He wasexpected to open the windows wide for two minutes between each hour, topick up stray ink-pots, and keep the blackboard clean. There were otherduties of an unofficial nature attached to the post, the chief of whichwas to stand with an eye glued to the keyhole until the master for thehour loomed upon the horizon, and then to herald his approach by a cryof "Cave!" whereupon the form would betake themselves to their seatswith an alacrity which varied inversely with the master's reputation forindulgence.

  One day Mr. Hanbury thoughtlessly came by an unexpected route, and wasat the door-handle before Pip realised that he was near. ConsequentlyPip was thrown heavily on to his back with a contused eye; and afterlistening throughout the hour to facetious remarks from Ham about SisterAnne and Horatius Cocles, endured the further indignity of being kickedby a select committee of the Lower Shell, who afterwards deposed himfrom his high office, and appointed Mumford in his stead.

  Pip's services, however, were speedily requisitioned again, for Mumfordproved but a broken reed. He was by nature deliberate in his movements,and the form were more than once taken by surprise owing to theirwatchman's remissness at the keyhole. His last performance, that whichbrought Pip back to office, was of such an exceptional nature, and tookthe fancy of the school to such an extent, that it is to this daypreserved among the unwritten archives of Grandwich, bracketed equalwith the occasion on which Plumbley minor walked into the Frenchclassroom whistling, with a bandbox containing a nest of field-miceunder his arm, only to discover, after liberating the mice, that theHead was sitting in the French master's place.

  Mumford one day stood crouching at his keyhole. All around him surgedthe Lower Shell, busily employed in obliterating the traces of a briefbut sanguinary combat between Jenkins and MacFarlane. The fight hadarisen over some small matter of an international character, and afterfour spirited rounds it was decided that honours so far were equallydivided, and that the final round had better be postponed until theinterval before dinner. The form accordingly settled down in theirplaces, and with a passing admonition to Mumford to persevere in hisvigil, betook themselves to conversation until Ham should be pleased toput in an appearance. As that tyrant had not yet appeared at the far endof the corridor outside, Mumford decided that this was a goodopportunity for retiring for a brief moment from his post to his locker,for purposes of refreshment. But fortune was against him. Mr. Hanburyhad been out to see the ground-man on some cricket business, andconsequently came up to his classroom by that abominable "alternativeroute." He entered the room quietly, and after walking to his desk wason the point of reprimanding Mumford, whose head was buried in hislocker, for being out of his seat, when his words were arrested by thesomewhat eccentric behaviour of that remarkable youth. Mumford left hislocker, and having thrust a biscuit into his cheek, walked across theroom 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 thesilence.

  Meanwhile the infatuated Mumford, having finished his biscuit, proceededto describe to his classmates the movements of the enemy outside.

  "All right!" he remarked cheerfully. "Not in sight yet--only Wilkes andJordan. There's the Badger now. What cheer, Badger, old man?" (TheBadger was the Senior Science Master.)

  The form gave no sign, though Brown minor and Pip were exhibitingsymptoms of incipient apoplexy; and Mr. Hanbury came to the conclusionthat this comedy had better cease. But the luckless Mumford, his eyestill firmly adhering to the keyhole, continued,--

  "Hallo! there's the Head. Hope he meets some of those chaps. Veryslack, their not goin' to their classrooms till five minutes past thehour. Wonder where Ham is. Downstairs, I expect, cadging beer off thebutler. He'll probably be tight when he--"

  At this point, flattered by the deferential silence with which hisremarks were being received, and desirous of observing the effect ofthis last sally on his fellows, the doomed youth turned from the keyholeto the room. The first object which met his eye was his form-master. Theeffect was remarkable. Mumford's eyes, already bulging from longstraining at the keyhole, nearly fell from his head; he turned deadlypale; 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'shouse.

  He was not punished, for Ham knew well that no further penalty wasrequired. The Lower Shell, however, unanimously voted Mumford "an abjectblighter," and restored Pip to his old post.

  Nearly a year passed. Pip was now fifteen. He had stayed at thepreparatory school for a year longer than most boys, owing to an attackof mumps; but his appearance was so youthful and his mental abilities solimited, that he might easily have passed, as his friend Mumfordfrequently remarked, for twelve. Mr. Hanbury was not often puzzled by aboy'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 ReverendWilliam Mortimer (usually called "Uncle Bill"), who was Pip'shouse-tutor. "He has a wonderful memory, but is either unable orunwilling 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 thesubstance of it in his own words."

  "Anything for a change," grunted Uncle Bill. "I would cheerfully bartermy entire form of imbeciles for one such youth. Look here: here isAtkinson, with the body of a camel and the mind of a hedgehog, who hasbeen in my form for three years, and thinks that _De mortuis nil nisibonum_ is a good ending for a hexameter. And that boy's mother came andcalled on me last term for an hour and a half, and confided to me that aboy of Lancelot's eager spirit and delicate organism might be inclinedto 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 musthave been left very much to himself in his childhood. He has never reada story-book in his life, and the cricket news is all that he reads inthe papers."

  "Ah! is he a cricketer?" said Hanbury.

  "On paper: his real performances are very moderate. He will tell you thebatting 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 heknows 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 inthe 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 lumpedtogether on Monday mornings for you to take, padre."

  "Quite right, my son," replied Uncle Bill. "Last term Kifford told hisform that a phylactery was a kind of musical instrument. Well, cutalong. Be gentle with them."

  It was a very hot afternoon in June. Hanbury found four discontentedyoung persons awaiting him. He was wont to be lenient over the Scripturelesson, and a misplaced confidence in this fact had led the quartette totheir downfall.

  "Now, let us get this business finished," he said briskly. "Are you allready to be questioned?"

  The quartette expressed their readiness to endure the most searchingcross-examination.

  "Very well, then. Sit down quickly and write out, in your own words, anaccount 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,--"willstay and talk to me."

  There was a hasty scuttling of feet, the banging of a door, and Pip wasleft alone with his master.

  Pip sighed and glanced out of the window, th
rough which came the regularknock, knock, of innumerable bats against innumerable balls all alongthe long line of nets.

  "Come along to my study," said Hanbury. "No, no, I'm not going toexecute you this time," as Pip looked a little apprehensive.

  Mr. Hanbury occupied two rooms in a corner of Mr. Mortimer's house, andthither 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 tentimes as much about that chapter as Marsh or Stokes or Fox, and yet youproduced this. Look at it."

  It certainly was an interesting document. Pip, unable to grasp the mainfacts of the simple narrative set forth, had adopted the, to him, easierexpedient of learning the chapter, or portions of it, by heart. Theresult was a curious framework of absolutely valueless but fairlycorrect quotations, and an utter absence of anything in the shape ofcoherent information.

  "_And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years._"

  "_And an angel appeared unto the woman and said...._"

  "_And the woman came to her husband and said...._"

  Here the manuscript came to an inky termination.

  "What are these blanks for?" inquired Ham.

  "I couldn't remember what they said, sir," explained Pip, "so I putblanks."

  "H'm; I see. It gives their remarks rather an expurgated appearance,though. But look here, old man," he continued, not unkindly, "onequarter of the labour that you spent on learning this stuff byheart--you have got the first verse quite correct, you see--would haveenabled you, if rightly applied, to give the gist of the story in yourown words, which was all I wanted. Now, wouldn't it?"

  Pip looked at him honestly.

  "No, sir," he said.

  "But, good gracious, when you read a novel--say Sherlock Holmes--do youfind it easier to learn it by heart rather than gather the meaning asyou go along?"

  "I have never read a novel, sir," said Pip.

  "Well, then, any book?"

  "I have never read any books, except the ones in school, sir."

  "I see I am dealing with a phenomenon," said Mr. Hanbury. "My poorfriend, do you mean to say that your knowledge of books is bounded byCaesar and Arabella Buckley? What did you do in your extreme youth?Didn't you ever read fairy tales? Haven't you heard of Cinderella orJack the Giant-Killer?"

  "No, sir."

  "Why, your par--" Mr. Hanbury stopped. He remembered what Father Williamhad told him, and he realised that home without a mother may indeed be astrange place.

  There was a pause. Pip, well back in his chair now, sat lookingcuriously at this large man, who appeared to be genuinely distressed byhis ignorance of fairy tales. Presently the master continued,--

  "Then you never read anything?"

  "Yes, the papers, sir."

  "Come, that's better. What part?"

  "All the cricket."

  "Are you a keen cricketer, then?"

  "I'm no good, sir, but I am keen."

  "Well, trot down and change, and then we'll go to the field and I'll runover your points at a net. We will see if you are as good a cricketer asyou are a scholar. Stay and have some cake first. Perhaps you willexcuse me if I smoke a pipe. Masters have their vices, you see. Ihaven't smoked for nearly three hours."

  So the pair sat, Pip with a large piece of cake balanced delicately onhis knee, morbidly anxious not to spill crumbs on the floor; and Hanburylolling back in his armchair, smoking his pipe and surveying this sturdyyouth before him, who knew every cricketer's average and had never heardof Cinderella.

  As Pip was changing into flannels a few minutes later he encounteredMumford.

  "Come to the grub-shop," said that hero.

  "Can't," said Pip shortly. "Seen the comb anywhere?"

  "Comb? What for?" said Mumford, who considered parting the hair duringterm-time an affectation.

  "My hair, of course, silly swine," replied Pip, without heat.

  "You must be cracked! Come to the grub-shop," reiterated his friend.

  "Can't. Promised to go to a net with Ham."

  And Pip, having worked up the conversation to this artistic climax,departed, leaving Mumford, who was not an athlete, in a state ofincoherent amazement.

  Mr. Hanbury presently arrived at the net, with two more small boyspicked up on the way. Each was given an innings, with a little helpfulcoaching, Pip coming last. He stood up to the bowling manfully, andoccasionally slogged one of his weaker brethren; but his bat wasanything but straight, and Ham bowled him at will.

  "M' yes," said Mr. Hanbury, "you are only an average lot of batsmen. Canany of you bowl?"

  There was a respectful chorus of "No, sir," as custom demanded.

  "Well, try. I am going to have a knock."

  Pip and company bowled a few laborious overs, and speedily proved thattheir estimate of their own powers was based upon truth, their preceptortreating their deliveries with little ceremony.

  Finally they were ranged in a semicircle, and Ham gave them fieldingpractice.

  Here Pip felt more at home. He was quick on his feet and possessed a"nippy" pair of hands. His ground fielding was especially good.

  "Hallo!" cried Mr. Hanbury, as Pip got to a ball which kept low down onhis left, and returned it particularly smartly; "which hand did youthrow in that ball with, young man?"

  Pip surveyed two grubby paws doubtfully.

  "I think it was my left, sir," he said apologetically. "I can't help itsometimes."

  "Ambidextrous, eh? Catch this. Now, throw it in again--left hand."

  Pip did so, wondering.

  "Do you ever bowl left-handed?" was the next inquiry.

  "No, sir."

  "Well, just come to a net for a few minutes. You other people can cutoff to tea now."

  The tea-bell had just rung, and the field was emptying rapidly.

  "Now, my son," said the master, "you are going to bowl to me with yourleft hand. Plug them in."

  Pip did so. His first ball was a fast half-volley, and was promptlytreated as it deserved.

  "Now, another. Take my ball. The groundboy will field yours."

  Pip, full of importance at having some one to field for him, bowledagain. This time he sent down a good length ball. Mr. Hanbury steppedout to it, played right outside it, and next moment his leg-stump waslying on the ground. He was clean bowled.