The Interpreter Part 3

"Egerton to come up."

Egerton goes up accordingly, with many misgivings, and embarks, like a desperate man, on the loathed _infandum Regina jubes_.

The result may be gathered from March's observations as he returns me the book.

"Not a line correct, sir; stand down, sir; the finest pa.s.sage of the poet shamefully mangled and defaced; it is a perfect disgrace to Everdon. Remain in till five, sir; and repeat the whole lesson to Mr.

Manners."

"Please, sir, I tried to learn it, sir; indeed I did, sir."

"Don't tell me, sir; _tried_ to learn it, indeed. If it had been French or German, or--or any of these useless branches of learning, you would have had it by heart fast enough; but Latin, sir, Latin is the foundation of a gentleman's education; Latin you were sent here to acquire, and Latin, sir" (with an astounding rap on the desk), "you _shall_ learn, or I'll know the reason why."

I may remark that March, though an excellent scholar, professed utter contempt for all but the dead languages.

I determined to make one more effort to save my half-holiday.

"Please, sir, if I might look over it once more, I could say it when the second cla.s.s goes down; please, sir, won't you give me another chance?"

March was not, in schoolboy parlance, "half a bad fellow," and he did give me another chance, and I came up to him once more at the conclusion of school, having repeated the whole forty lines to myself without missing a word; but, alas! when I stood again on the step which led up to the dreaded desk, and gave away the book into those uncompromising hands, and heard that stern voice with its "Now, sir, begin," my intellects forsook me altogether, and while the floor seemed to rock under me, I made such blunders and confusion of the chief's oration to the love-sick queen, as drove March to the extremity of that very short tether which he was pleased to call his "patience," and drew upon myself the dreaded condemnation I had fought so hard to escape.

"Remain in, sir, till perfect, and repeat to Mr. Manners, without a mistake--Mr. Manners, you will be kind enough to see, _without a mistake_! Boys!" (with another rap of the cane) "school's up." March locks his desk with a bang, and retires. Mr. Manners puts on his hat.

Forty boys burst instantaneously into tumultuous uproar, forty pairs of feet scuffle along the dusty boards, forty voices break into song and jest and glee, forty spirits are emanc.i.p.ated from the prison-house into freedom and air and suns.h.i.+ne--forty, all save one.

So again I turn to the _infandum Eegina Jubes_, and sit me down and cry.

I had gone late to school, but I was a backward child in everything save my proficiency in modern languages. I had never known a mother, and the little education I had acquired was picked up in a desultory manner here and there during my travels with my father, and afterwards in a gloomy old library at Alton Grange, his own place in the same county as Mr.

March's school. My father had remained abroad till his affairs made it imperative that he should return to England, and for some years we lived in seclusion at Alton, with an establishment that even my boyish penetration could discover was reduced to the narrowest possible limits.

I think this was the idlest period of my life. I did no lessons, unless my father's endeavour to teach me painting, an art that I showed year after year less inclination to master, could be called so. I had but few ideas, yet they were very dear ones. I adored my father; on him I lavished all the love that would have been a mother's right; and having no other relations--none in the world that I cared for, or that cared for me, even nurse Nettich having remained in Hungary--my father was all-in-all. I used to wait at his door of a morning to hear him wake, and go away quite satisfied without letting him know. I used to watch him for miles when he rode out, and walk any distance to meet him on his way home. To please him I would even mount a quiet pony that he had bought on purpose for me, and dissemble my terrors because I saw they annoyed my kind father. I was a very shy, timid, and awkward boy, shrinking from strangers with a fear that was positively painful, and liking nothing so well as a huge arm-chair in the gloomy oak wainscoted library, where I would sit by the hour reading old poetry, old plays, old novels, and wandering about till I lost myself in a world of my own creating, full of beauty and romance, and all that ideal life which we must perforce call nonsense, but which, were it reality, would make this earth a heaven. Such was a bad course of training for a boy whose disposition was naturally too dreamy and imaginative, too deficient in energy and practical good sense. Had it gone on I must have become a madman; what is it but madness to live in a world of our own? I shall never forget the break-up of my dreams, the beginning, to me, of hard practical life.

I was coiled up in my favourite att.i.tude, buried in the depths of a huge arm-chair in the library, and devouring with all my senses and all my soul the pages of the _Morte d'Arthur_, that most voluminous and least instructive of romances, but one for which, to my shame be it said, I confess to this day a sneaking kindness. I was gazing on Queen Guenever, as I pictured her to myself, in scarlet and ermine and pearls, with raven hair plaited over her queenly brow, and soft violet eyes, looking kindly down on mailed Sir Launcelot at her feet. I was holding Arthur's helmet in the forest, as the frank, handsome, stalwart monarch bent over a sparkling rill and cooled his sunburnt cheek, and laved his chestnut beard, whilst the sunbeams flickered through the green leaves and played upon his gleaming corslet and his armour of proof. I was feasting at Camelot with the Knights of the Round Table, jesting with Sir Dinadam, discussing grave subjects of high import with Sir Gawain, or breaking a lance in knightly courtesy with Sir Tristram and Sir Bore; in short, I was a child at a spectacle, but the spectacle came and went, and grew more and more gorgeous at will. In the midst of my dreams in walked my father, and sat down opposite the old arm-chair.

"Vere," said he, "you must go to school."

The announcement took away my breath: I had never, in my wildest moments, contemplated such a calamity.

"To school, papa; and when?" I mustered up courage to ask, clinging like a convict to the hope of a reprieve.

"The first of the month, my boy," answered my father, rather bullying himself into firmness, for I fancy he hated the separation as much as I did; "Mr. March writes me that his scholars will reunite on the first of next month, and he has a vacancy for you. We must make a man of you, Vere; and young De Rohan, your Hungarian friend, is going there too.

You will have lots of playfellows, and get on very well, I have no doubt; and Everdon is not so far from here, and--and--you will be very comfortable, I trust; but I am loth to part with you, my dear, and that's the truth."

I felt as if I could have endured martyrdom when my father made this acknowledgment. I could do anything if I was only coaxed and pitied a little; and when I saw he was so unhappy at the idea of our separation, I resolved that no word or look of mine should add to his discomfort, although I felt my heart breaking at the thoughts of bidding him good-bye and leaving the Grange, with its quiet regularity and peaceful a.s.sociations, for the noise and bustle and discipline of a large school.

Queen Guenever and Sir Launcelot faded hopelessly from my mental vision, and in their places rose up stern forms of harsh taskmasters and satirical playfellows, early hours, regular discipline, Latin and Greek, and, worst of all, a continual bustle and a life in a crowd.

There were two peculiarities in my boyish character which, more than any others, unfitted me for battling with the world. I had a morbid dread of ridicule, which made me painfully shy of strangers. I have on many an occasion stood with my hand on the lock of a door, dreading to enter the room in which I heard strange voices, and then, plunging in with a desperate effort, have retired again as abruptly, covered with confusion, and so nervous as to create in the minds of the astonished guests a very natural doubt as to my mental sanity. The other peculiarity was an intense love of solitude. I was quite happy with my father, but if I could not enjoy his society, I preferred my own to that of any other mortal. I would take long walks by myself--I would sit for hours and read by myself--I had a bedroom of my own, into which I hated even a servant to set foot--and perhaps the one thing I dreaded more than all besides in my future life was, that I should never, never, be _alone_.

How I prized the last few days I spent at home; how I gazed on all the well-known objects as if I should never see them again; how the very chairs and tables seemed to bid me good-bye like old familiar friends.

I had none of the lively antic.i.p.ations which most boys cherish of the manliness and independence arising from a school-life; no long vista of cricket and football, and fame in their own little world, with increasing strength and stature, to end in a tailed coat, and even whiskers! No, I hated the idea of the whole thing. I expected to be miserable at Everdon, and, I freely confess, was not disappointed.

CHAPTER VII

PLAY

Dinner was over, and play-time begun for all but me, and again I turned to the _infandum Regina jubes_, and sat me down to cry.

A kind hand, grimed with ink, was laid on my shoulder, a pair of soft blue eyes looked into my face, and Victor de Rohan, my former playfellow, my present fast friend and declared "chum," sat down on the form beside me, and endeavoured to console me in distress.

"I'll help you, Egerton," said the warm-hearted lad; "say it to me; March is a beast, but Manners is a good fellow; Manners will hear you now, and we shall have our half-holiday after all."

"I can't, I can't," was my desponding reply. "Manners won't hear me, I know, till I am perfect, and I never can learn this stupid sing-song story. How I hate Queen Dido--how I hate Virgil. You should read about Guenever, Victor, and King Arthur! I'll tell you about them this afternoon;" and the tears came again into my eyes as I remembered there was no afternoon for me.

"Try once more," said Victor; "I'll get Manners to hear you; leave it to me; I know how to do it. I'll ask Ropsley." And Victor was off into the playground ere I was aware, in search of this valuable auxiliary.

Now, Ropsley was the mainspring round which turned the whole of our little world at Everdon. If an excuse for a holiday could be found, Ropsley was entreated to ask the desired favour of March. If a quarrel had to be adjusted, either in the usual course of ordeal by battle, or the less decisive method of arbitration, Ropsley was always invited to see fair play. He was the king of our little community. It was whispered that he could spar better than Manners, and construe better than March: he was certainly a more perfect linguist--as indeed I could vouch for from my own knowledge--than Schwartz, who came twice a week to teach us a rich German-French. We saw his boots were made by Hoby, and we felt his coats could only be the work of Stulz, for in those days Poole was not, and we were perfectly willing to believe that he wore a scarlet hunting-coat in the Christmas holidays, and had visiting cards of his own. In person he was tall and slim, with a pale complexion, and waving, soft brown hair: without being handsome, he was distinguished-looking; and even as a boy, I have seen strangers turn round and ask who he was; but the peculiar feature of his countenance was his light grey eye, veiled with long black eyelashes. It never seemed to kindle or to waver or to wink; it was always the same, hard, penetrating, and unmoved; it never smiled, though the rest of his features would laugh heartily enough, and it certainly never wept. Even in boyhood it was the eye of a cool, calculating, wary man. He knew the secrets of every boy in the school, but no one ever dreamt of cross-questioning Ropsley. We believed he only stayed at Everdon as a favour to March, who was immensely proud of his pupil's gentlemanlike manners and appearance, as well as of his scholarly proficiency, although no one ever saw him study, and we always expected Ropsley was "going to leave this half." We should not have been the least surprised to hear he had been sent for by the Sovereign, and created a peer of the realm on the spot; with all our various opinions, we were unanimous in one creed--that nothing was impossible for Ropsley, and he need only try, to succeed. For myself, I was dreadfully afraid of this luminary, and looked up to him with feelings of veneration which amounted to positive awe.

Not so Victor; the young Hungarian feared, I believe, nothing on earth, and _respected_ but little. He was the only boy in the school who, despite the difference of age, would talk with Ropsley upon equal terms; and if anything could have added to the admiration with which we regarded the latter, it would have been the accurate knowledge he displayed of De Rohan's family, their history, their place in Hungary, all their belongings, as if he himself had been familiar with Edeldorf from boyhood. But so it was with everything; Ropsley knew all about people in general better than they did themselves.

Victor rushed back triumphantly into the schoolroom, where I still sat desponding at my desk, and Ropsley followed him.

"What's the matter, Vere?" he asked, in a patronising tone, and calling me by my Christian name, which I esteemed a great compliment. "What's the matter?" he repeated; "forty lines of Virgil to say; come, that's not much."

"But I _can't_ learn it," I urged. "You must think me very stupid; and if it was French, or German, or English, I should not mind twice the quant.i.ty, but I cannot learn Latin, and it's no use trying."

The older boy sneered; it seemed so easy to him with his powerful mind to get forty lines of hexameters by heart. I believe he could have repeated the whole _aeneid_ without book from beginning to end.

"Do you want to go out to-day, Vere?" said he.

I clasped my hands in supplication, as I replied, "Oh! I would give anything, _anything_, to get away from this horrid schoolroom, and 's.h.i.+rk out' with Victor and Bold."

The latter, be it observed, was a dog in whose society I took great delight, and whom I kept in the village, at an outlay of one s.h.i.+lling per week, much to the detriment of my personal fortune.

"Very well," said the great man; "come with me to Manners, and bring your book with you."

So I followed my deliverer into the playground, with the _infandum Regina_ still weighing heavily on my soul.

Manners, the usher, was playing cricket with some dozen of the bigger boys, and was in the act of "going for a sixer." His coat and waistcoat were off, and his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves tucked up, disclosing his manly arms bared to the elbow; and Manners was in his glory, for, notwithstanding the beard upon his chin, our usher was as very a boy at heart as the youngest urchin in the lower cla.s.s. A dandy, too, was Manners, and a wight of an imaginative turn of mind, which chiefly developed itself in the harmless form of bright visions for the future, teeming with romantic adventures, of which he was himself to be the hero. His past he seldom dwelt upon. His aspirations were military--his ideas extravagant. He was great on the Peninsula and Lord Anglesey at Waterloo; and had patent boxes in his high-heeled boots that only required the addition of heavy clanking spurs to complete the illusion that Mr. Manners ought to be a cavalry officer. Of his riding he spoke largely; but his proficiency in this exercise we had no means of ascertaining. There were two things, however, on which Manners prided himself, and which were a source of intense amus.e.m.e.nt to the urchins by whom he was surrounded:--these were, his personal strength, and his whiskers; the former quality was encouraged to develop itself by earnest application to all manly sports and exercises; the latter ornaments were cultivated and enriched with every description of "nutrifier,"

"regenerator," and "unguent" known to the hairdresser or the advertiser.

Alas! without effect proportioned to the perseverance displayed; two small patches of fluff under the jaw-bones, that showed to greatest advantage by candlelight, being the only evidence of so much painstaking and cultivation thrown away. Of his muscular prowess, however, it behoved us to speak with reverence. Was it not on record in the annals of the school that when the "King of Naples," our dissipated pieman, endeavoured to justify by force an act of dishonesty by which he had done Timmins minor out of half-a-crown, Manners stripped at once to his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and "went in" at the Monarch with all the vigour and activity of some three-and-twenty summers against three-score? The Monarch, a truculent old ruffian, with a red neckcloth, half-boots, and one eye, fought gallantly for a few rounds, and was rather getting the best of it, when, somewhat unaccountably, he gave in, leaving the usher master of the field. Ropsley, who gave his friend a knee, _secundum artem_, and urged him, with frequent injunctions, to "fight high,"

attributed this easy victory to the forbearance of their antagonist, who had an eye to future trade and mercantile profits; but Manners, whose account of the battle I have heard more than once, always scouted this view of the transaction.

"He went down, sir, as if he was shot," he would say, doubling his arm, and showing the muscles standing out in bold relief. "Few men have the biceps so well developed as mine, and he went down _as if he was shot_.

If I had hit him as hard as I could, sir, I _must_ have killed him!"

Our usher was a good-natured fellow, notwithstanding.

"I'll hear you in ten minutes, Egerton," said he, "when I have had my innings;" and forthwith he stretched himself into att.i.tude, and prepared to strike.