The Way of All Flesh Part 10

This was how it came to pa.s.s that their children were white and puny; they were suffering from _home-sickness_. They were starving, through being over-crammed with the wrong things. Nature came down upon them, but she did not come down on Theobald and Christina. Why should she?

They were not leading a starved existence. There are two cla.s.ses of people in this world, those who sin, and those who are sinned against; if a man must belong to either, he had better belong to the first than to the second.

CHAPTER XXVII

I will give no more of the details of my hero's earlier years. Enough that he struggled through them, and at twelve years old knew every page of his Latin and Greek Grammars by heart. He had read the greater part of Virgil, Horace and Livy, and I do not know how many Greek plays: he was proficient in arithmetic, knew the first four books of Euclid thoroughly, and had a fair knowledge of French. It was now time he went to school, and to school he was accordingly to go, under the famous Dr Skinner of Roughborough.

Theobald had known Dr Skinner slightly at Cambridge. He had been a burning and a s.h.i.+ning light in every position he had filled from his boyhood upwards. He was a very great genius. Everyone knew this; they said, indeed, that he was one of the few people to whom the word genius could be applied without exaggeration. Had he not taken I don't know how many University Scholars.h.i.+ps in his freshman's year? Had he not been afterwards Senior Wrangler, First Chancellor's Medallist and I do not know how many more things besides? And then, he was such a wonderful speaker; at the Union Debating Club he had been without a rival, and had, of course, been president; his moral character,--a point on which so many geniuses were weak--was absolutely irreproachable; foremost of all, however, among his many great qualities, and perhaps more remarkable even than his genius was what biographers have called "the simple-minded and child-like earnestness of his character," an earnestness which might be perceived by the solemnity with which he spoke even about trifles. It is hardly necessary to say he was on the Liberal side in politics.

His personal appearance was not particularly prepossessing. He was about the middle height, portly, and had a couple of fierce grey eyes, that flashed fire from beneath a pair of great bushy beetling eyebrows and overawed all who came near him. It was in respect of his personal appearance, however, that, if he was vulnerable at all, his weak place was to be found. His hair when he was a young man was red, but after he had taken his degree he had a brain fever which caused him to have his head shaved; when he reappeared, he did so wearing a wig, and one which was a good deal further off red than his own hair had been. He not only had never discarded his wig, but year by year it had edged itself a little more and a little more off red, till by the time he was forty, there was not a trace of red remaining, and his wig was brown.

When Dr Skinner was a very young man, hardly more than five-and-twenty, the head-masters.h.i.+p of Roughborough Grammar School had fallen vacant, and he had been unhesitatingly appointed. The result justified the selection. Dr Skinner's pupils distinguished themselves at whichever University they went to. He moulded their minds after the model of his own, and stamped an impression upon them which was indelible in after- life; whatever else a Roughborough man might be, he was sure to make everyone feel that he was a G.o.d-fearing earnest Christian and a Liberal, if not a Radical, in politics. Some boys, of course, were incapable of appreciating the beauty and loftiness of Dr Skinner's nature. Some such boys, alas! there will be in every school; upon them Dr Skinner's hand was very properly a heavy one. His hand was against them, and theirs against him during the whole time of the connection between them. They not only disliked him, but they hated all that he more especially embodied, and throughout their lives disliked all that reminded them of him. Such boys, however, were in a minority, the spirit of the place being decidedly Skinnerian.

I once had the honour of playing a game of chess with this great man. It was during the Christmas holidays, and I had come down to Roughborough for a few days to see Alethea Pontifex (who was then living there) on business. It was very gracious of him to take notice of me, for if I was a light of literature at all it was of the very lightest kind.

It is true that in the intervals of business I had written a good deal, but my works had been almost exclusively for the stage, and for those theatres that devoted themselves to extravaganza and burlesque. I had written many pieces of this description, full of puns and comic songs, and they had had a fair success, but my best piece had been a treatment of English history during the Reformation period, in the course of which I had introduced Cranmer, Sir Thomas More, Henry the Eighth, Catherine of Arragon, and Thomas Cromwell (in his youth better known as the _Malleus Monachorum_), and had made them dance a break-down. I had also dramatised "The Pilgrim's Progress" for a Christmas Pantomime, and made an important scene of Vanity Fair, with Mr Greatheart, Apollyon, Christiana, Mercy, and Hopeful as the princ.i.p.al characters. The orchestra played music taken from Handel's best known works, but the time was a good deal altered, and altogether the tunes were not exactly as Handel left them. Mr Greatheart was very stout and he had a red nose; he wore a capacious waistcoat, and a s.h.i.+rt with a huge frill down the middle of the front. Hopeful was up to as much mischief as I could give him; he wore the costume of a young swell of the period, and had a cigar in his mouth which was continually going out.

Christiana did not wear much of anything: indeed it was said that the dress which the Stage Manager had originally proposed for her had been considered inadequate even by the Lord Chamberlain, but this is not the case. With all these delinquencies upon my mind it was natural that I should feel convinced of sin while playing chess (which I hate) with the great Dr Skinner of Roughborough--the historian of Athens and editor of Demosthenes. Dr Skinner, moreover, was one of those who pride themselves on being able to set people at their ease at once, and I had been sitting on the edge of my chair all the evening. But I have always been very easily overawed by a schoolmaster.

The game had been a long one, and at half-past nine, when supper came in, we had each of us a few pieces remaining. "What will you take for supper, Dr Skinner?" said Mrs Skinner in a silvery voice.

He made no answer for some time, but at last in a tone of almost superhuman solemnity, he said, first, "Nothing," and then "Nothing whatever."

By and by, however, I had a sense come over me as though I were nearer the consummation of all things than I had ever yet been. The room seemed to grow dark, as an expression came over Dr Skinner's face, which showed that he was about to speak. The expression gathered force, the room grew darker and darker. "Stay," he at length added, and I felt that here at any rate was an end to a suspense which was rapidly becoming unbearable.

"Stay--I may presently take a gla.s.s of cold water--and a small piece of bread and b.u.t.ter."

As he said the word "b.u.t.ter" his voice sank to a hardly audible whisper; then there was a sigh as though of relief when the sentence was concluded, and the universe this time was safe.

Another ten minutes of solemn silence finished the game. The Doctor rose briskly from his seat and placed himself at the supper table. "Mrs Skinner," he exclaimed jauntily, "what are those mysterious-looking objects surrounded by potatoes?"

"Those are oysters, Dr Skinner."

"Give me some, and give Overton some."

And so on till he had eaten a good plate of oysters, a scallop sh.e.l.l of minced veal nicely browned, some apple tart, and a hunk of bread and cheese. This was the small piece of bread and b.u.t.ter.

The cloth was now removed and tumblers with teaspoons in them, a lemon or two and a jug of boiling water were placed upon the table. Then the great man unbent. His face beamed.

"And what shall it be to drink?" he exclaimed persuasively. "Shall it be brandy and water? No. It shall be gin and water. Gin is the more wholesome liquor."

So gin it was, hot and stiff too.

Who can wonder at him or do anything but pity him? Was he not head-master of Roughborough School? To whom had he owed money at any time? Whose ox had he taken, whose a.s.s had he taken, or whom had he defrauded? What whisper had ever been breathed against his moral character? If he had become rich it was by the most honourable of all means--his literary attainments; over and above his great works of scholars.h.i.+p, his "Meditations upon the Epistle and Character of St Jude"

had placed him among the most popular of English theologians; it was so exhaustive that no one who bought it need ever meditate upon the subject again--indeed it exhausted all who had anything to do with it. He had made 5000 pounds by this work alone, and would very likely make another 5000 pounds before he died. A man who had done all this and wanted a piece of bread and b.u.t.ter had a right to announce the fact with some pomp and circ.u.mstance. Nor should his words be taken without searching for what he used to call a "deeper and more hidden meaning." Those who searched for this even in his lightest utterances would not be without their reward. They would find that "bread and b.u.t.ter" was Skinnerese for oyster-patties and apple tart, and "gin hot" the true translation of water.

But independently of their money value, his works had made him a lasting name in literature. So probably Gallio was under the impression that his fame would rest upon the treatises on natural history which we gather from Seneca that he compiled, and which for aught we know may have contained a complete theory of evolution; but the treatises are all gone and Gallio has become immortal for the very last reason in the world that he expected, and for the very last reason that would have flattered his vanity. He has become immortal because he cared nothing about the most important movement with which he was ever brought into connection (I wish people who are in search of immortality would lay the lesson to heart and not make so much noise about important movements), and so, if Dr Skinner becomes immortal, it will probably be for some reason very different from the one which he so fondly imagined.

Could it be expected to enter into the head of such a man as this that in reality he was making his money by corrupting youth; that it was his paid profession to make the worse appear the better reason in the eyes of those who were too young and inexperienced to be able to find him out; that he kept out of the sight of those whom he professed to teach material points of the argument, for the production of which they had a right to rely upon the honour of anyone who made professions of sincerity; that he was a pa.s.sionate half-turkey-c.o.c.k half-gander of a man whose sallow, bilious face and hobble-gobble voice could scare the timid, but who would take to his heels readily enough if he were met firmly; that his "Meditations on St Jude," such as they were, were cribbed without acknowledgment, and would have been beneath contempt if so many people did not believe them to have been written honestly? Mrs Skinner might have perhaps kept him a little more in his proper place if she had thought it worth while to try, but she had enough to attend to in looking after her household and seeing that the boys were well fed and, if they were ill, properly looked after--which she took good care they were.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Ernest had heard awful accounts of Dr Skinner's temper, and of the bullying which the younger boys at Roughborough had to put up with at the hands of the bigger ones. He had now got about as much as he could stand, and felt as though it must go hard with him if his burdens of whatever kind were to be increased. He did not cry on leaving home, but I am afraid he did on being told that he was getting near Roughborough.

His father and mother were with him, having posted from home in their own carriage; Roughborough had as yet no railway, and as it was only some forty miles from Battersby, this was the easiest way of getting there.

On seeing him cry, his mother felt flattered and caressed him. She said she knew he must feel very sad at leaving such a happy home, and going among people who, though they would be very good to him, could never, never be as good as his dear papa and she had been; still, she was herself, if he only knew it, much more deserving of pity than he was, for the parting was more painful to her than it could possibly be to him, etc., and Ernest, on being told that his tears were for grief at leaving home, took it all on trust, and did not trouble to investigate the real cause of his tears. As they approached Roughborough he pulled himself together, and was fairly calm by the time he reached Dr Skinner's.

On their arrival they had luncheon with the Doctor and his wife, and then Mrs Skinner took Christina over the bedrooms, and showed her where her dear little boy was to sleep.

Whatever men may think about the study of man, women do really believe the n.o.blest study for womankind to be woman, and Christina was too much engrossed with Mrs Skinner to pay much attention to anything else; I daresay Mrs Skinner, too, was taking pretty accurate stock of Christina.

Christina was charmed, as indeed she generally was with any new acquaintance, for she found in them (and so must we all) something of the nature of a cross; as for Mrs Skinner, I imagine she had seen too many Christinas to find much regeneration in the sample now before her; I believe her private opinion echoed the dictum of a well-known head-master who declared that all parents were fools, but more especially mothers; she was, however, all smiles and sweetness, and Christina devoured these graciously as tributes paid more particularly to herself, and such as no other mother would have been at all likely to have won.

In the meantime Theobald and Ernest were with Dr Skinner in his library--the room where new boys were examined and old ones had up for rebuke or chastis.e.m.e.nt. If the walls of that room could speak, what an amount of blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear witness to!

Like all houses, Dr Skinner's had its peculiar smell. In this case the prevailing odour was one of Russia leather, but along with it there was a subordinate savour as of a chemist's shop. This came from a small laboratory in one corner of the room--the possession of which, together with the free chattery and smattery use of such words as "carbonate,"

"hyposulphite," "phosphate," and "affinity," were enough to convince even the most sceptical that Dr Skinner had a profound knowledge of chemistry.

I may say in pa.s.sing that Dr Skinner had dabbled in a great many other things as well as chemistry. He was a man of many small knowledges, and each of them dangerous. I remember Alethea Pontifex once said in her wicked way to me, that Dr Skinner put her in mind of the Bourbon princes on their return from exile after the battle of Waterloo, only that he was their exact converse; for whereas they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, Dr Skinner had learned everything and forgotten everything. And this puts me in mind of another of her wicked sayings about Dr Skinner.

She told me one day that he had the harmlessness of the serpent and the wisdom of the dove.

But to return to Dr Skinner's library; over the chimney-piece there was a Bishop's half length portrait of Dr Skinner himself, painted by the elder Pickersgill, whose merit Dr Skinner had been among the first to discern and foster. There were no other pictures in the library, but in the dining-room there was a fine collection, which the doctor had got together with his usual consummate taste. He added to it largely in later life, and when it came to the hammer at Christie's, as it did not long since, it was found to comprise many of the latest and most matured works of Solomon Hart, O'Neil, Charles Landseer, and more of our recent Academicians than I can at the moment remember. There were thus brought together and exhibited at one view many works which had attracted attention at the Academy Exhibitions, and as to whose ultimate destiny there had been some curiosity. The prices realised were disappointing to the executors, but, then, these things are so much a matter of chance. An unscrupulous writer in a well-known weekly paper had written the collection down. Moreover there had been one or two large sales a short time before Dr Skinner's, so that at this last there was rather a panic, and a reaction against the high prices that had ruled lately.

The table of the library was loaded with books many deep; MSS. of all kinds were confusedly mixed up with them,--boys' exercises, probably, and examination papers--but all littering untidily about. The room in fact was as depressing from its slatternliness as from its atmosphere of erudition. Theobald and Ernest as they entered it, stumbled over a large hole in the Turkey carpet, and the dust that rose showed how long it was since it had been taken up and beaten. This, I should say, was no fault of Mrs Skinner's but was due to the Doctor himself, who declared that if his papers were once disturbed it would be the death of him. Near the window was a green cage containing a pair of turtle doves, whose plaintive cooing added to the melancholy of the place. The walls were covered with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and on every shelf the books stood in double rows. It was horrible. Prominent among the most prominent upon the most prominent shelf were a series of splendidly bound volumes ent.i.tled "Skinner's Works."

Boys are sadly apt to rush to conclusions, and Ernest believed that Dr Skinner knew all the books in this terrible library, and that he, if he were to be any good, should have to learn them too. His heart fainted within him.

He was told to sit on a chair against the wall and did so, while Dr Skinner talked to Theobald upon the topics of the day. He talked about the Hampden Controversy then raging, and discoursed learnedly about "Praemunire"; then he talked about the revolution which had just broken out in Sicily, and rejoiced that the Pope had refused to allow foreign troops to pa.s.s through his dominions in order to crush it. Dr Skinner and the other masters took in the Times among them, and Dr Skinner echoed the _Times_' leaders. In those days there were no penny papers and Theobald only took in the _Spectator_--for he was at that time on the Whig side in politics; besides this he used to receive the _Ecclesiastical Gazette_ once a month, but he saw no other papers, and was amazed at the ease and fluency with which Dr Skinner ran from subject to subject.

The Pope's action in the matter of the Sicilian revolution naturally led the Doctor to the reforms which his Holiness had introduced into his dominions, and he laughed consumedly over the joke which had not long since appeared in _Punch_, to the effect that Pio "No, No," should rather have been named Pio "Yes, Yes," because, as the doctor explained, he granted everything his subjects asked for. Anything like a pun went straight to Dr Skinner's heart.

Then he went on to the matter of these reforms themselves. They opened up a new era in the history of Christendom, and would have such momentous and far-reaching consequences, that they might even lead to a reconciliation between the Churches of England and Rome. Dr Skinner had lately published a pamphlet upon this subject, which had shown great learning, and had attacked the Church of Rome in a way which did not promise much hope of reconciliation. He had grounded his attack upon the letters A.M.D.G., which he had seen outside a Roman Catholic chapel, and which of course stood for _Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem_. Could anything be more idolatrous?

I am told, by the way, that I must have let my memory play me one of the tricks it often does play me, when I said the Doctor proposed _Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem_ as the full harmonies, so to speak, which should be constructed upon the ba.s.s A.M.D.G., for that this is bad Latin, and that the doctor really harmonised the letters thus: _Ave Maria Dei Genetrix_.

No doubt the doctor did what was right in the matter of Latinity--I have forgotten the little Latin I ever knew, and am not going to look the matter up, but I believe the doctor said _Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem_, and if so we may be sure that _Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem_, is good enough Latin at any rate for ecclesiastical purposes.

The reply of the local priest had not yet appeared, and Dr Skinner was jubilant, but when the answer appeared, and it was solemnly declared that A.M.D.G. stood for nothing more dangerous than _Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_, it was felt that though this subterfuge would not succeed with any intelligent Englishman, still it was a pity Dr Skinner had selected this particular point for his attack, for he had to leave his enemy in possession of the field. When people are left in possession of the field, spectators have an awkward habit of thinking that their adversary does not dare to come to the scratch.

Dr Skinner was telling Theobald all about his pamphlet, and I doubt whether this gentleman was much more comfortable than Ernest himself. He was bored, for in his heart he hated Liberalism, though he was ashamed to say so, and, as I have said, professed to be on the Whig side. He did not want to be reconciled to the Church of Rome; he wanted to make all Roman Catholics turn Protestants, and could never understand why they would not do so; but the Doctor talked in such a truly liberal spirit, and shut him up so sharply when he tried to edge in a word or two, that he had to let him have it all his own way, and this was not what he was accustomed to. He was wondering how he could bring it to an end, when a diversion was created by the discovery that Ernest had begun to cry--doubtless through an intense but inarticulate sense of a boredom greater than he could bear. He was evidently in a highly nervous state, and a good deal upset by the excitement of the morning, Mrs Skinner therefore, who came in with Christina at this juncture, proposed that he should spend the afternoon with Mrs Jay, the matron, and not be introduced to his young companions until the following morning. His father and mother now bade him an affectionate farewell, and the lad was handed over to Mrs Jay.

O schoolmasters--if any of you read this book--bear in mind when any particularly timid drivelling urchin is brought by his papa into your study, and you treat him with the contempt which he deserves, and afterwards make his life a burden to him for years--bear in mind that it is exactly in the disguise of such a boy as this that your future chronicler will appear. Never see a wretched little heavy-eyed mite sitting on the edge of a chair against your study wall without saying to yourselves, "perhaps this boy is he who, if I am not careful, will one day tell the world what manner of man I was." If even two or three schoolmasters learn this lesson and remember it, the preceding chapters will not have been written in vain.