Tell England Part 19

It had been a grey, dull day, but, just before retiring, the sun came out and shamed the clouds into a sullen withdrawal. Then it went under, leaving behind it a glorious red glow and the hope of better things in the morning. All this I was in the mood to notice, for, though trying to be indifferent to destiny, I was heavy and dispirited. I did not see how I could ever do right again, since Radley's determination and my own had been insufficient to brace me for the onslaught. It was evident that mine was the stuff from which criminals were made.

And, as the red glow departed and the darkness gathered, if there was one lonely boy in the world, languidly despairing, it was I.

Many times I found myself uttering aloud such slang expressions as: "Oh, my hat! If only I had told the beastly truth for the third time! Dash it, why didn't I? Why the deuce didn't I?" I addressed myself as: "You blithering, blithering fool!" And my temples began to ache and now and then to hammer. For, always in these my early days of p.u.b.erty, excitement and worry produced such immediate sensuous results.

Radley sent for me at last, and it was a relief to go. He was very kind. Frankly, I believe he was pleased to have his new favourite in his room again. I was indeed his hobby at present.

"Have I ever bullied you at the nets," he said, "for stepping back to a straight ball?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, the universal habit of 'stepping back' is exactly parallel to that of arguing with conscience. The habit grows; one's wicket always falls after a few straight b.a.l.l.s; and one's batting goes from bad to worse. Never mind, you stood up splendidly to the first two straight b.a.l.l.s and scored boundaries off both. That shows you are getting into your old form. You are out of practice a bit, that's all."

And I went out of his room, feeling sure that for some time I would be very good.

--7

I always left Radley's room, feeling that I could blast a way through every mountain. And it was not long after he had received my mother's letter with its allusion to my lack of a father, that he addressed himself to a bigger mountain than any of these little trumpery hills that you have watched me conquering. He invited me to his room one evening, and sat me in an armchair opposite him: and then he talked, while I watched the fire getting redder, as the room grew darker. Soon he came unhesitatingly to a subject that I was just at an age to understand. He spoke so fearlessly as to be quite unrestrained and natural. Nevertheless, I was glad that the room was getting darker, as I felt that my cheeks were red and hot. And when he said: "You mustn't mind my talking to you like this," I could only reply: "Oh, it's all right, sir."

But, once again, I left his room feeling that, though already I had had my reverses in the moral contest of which he spoke, I would win through in the end.

CHAPTER VI

AN INTERLUDE

In the summer holidays of that year I received a letter from Doe inviting me to spend a few days with him at his Cornish home on the Fal. Radley, he told me, was already his guest.

There was some excitement the morning I left home for this adventure into the West Country. My mother had clothed me in a new dark-blue suit. Her son must look his best, she said. She insisted on my wearing a light-blue tie, for "it matched the colour of my eyes." I rather opposed this on the ground that it was "all dashed silly."

But she disarmed me by pointing out that I was _her_ doll and not my own, and the only one she had had since she was my age, which was a century ago--a terrible lie, as she looked about twenty-seven. She carried her point with a kiss, called me her Benjamin, tied the tie very gingerly, and subsequently disarranged it completely by hugging me to say good-bye, as though I were off for a lifetime.

Alone in my corner seat I was rolled over the Trail of Beauty that the line of the Great Western follows. And I watched the telegraph wires switchbacking from post to post, as we sped along.

When we steamed into Falmouth station, I easily distinguished Radley's majestic figure standing on the platform, with Doe actually hanging on his arm--a thing I would never have dared to do. In fact, I guessed that Doe was doing it for my benefit. Our young host was in a light grey suit that would have brought tears to the eyes of Kensingtowe's administrators, who stipulate for dark garments only: and, evidently, he had been allowed to dictate to his tailor, for the suit was an exact copy of one that Radley had worn during the previous term. He looked more than ever like his nickname, "the Gray Doe."

Next morning the sun blazed out over England's loveliest stream, the Fal, as, widening, it flowed seaward. We hurried down to the foot of Doe's garden, where a rustic boat-house sheltered his private vessel, the _Lady Fal_. Doe stepped into its stern, and I into its bows, and Radley took the oars. With a few masterly manoeuvres he turned the boat into midstream, and then pulled a rapid and powerful stroke towards Tresillian Creek, where we had decided to bathe. We touched the bank at a suitable landing-place, disembarked, and prepared to undress.

The events of this day linger with me like a string of jewels; and the bathe was one of the brightest of them all. There was a race between Doe and myself to be first in the water. As I tossed off my clothes, the excitement of antic.i.p.ation was inflating me. I would surprise them with my swimming.

My mother had taught me to swim. We began our studies in the bath, when I was still a baby, she leaning over the side and directing my splas.h.i.+ng limbs. We achieved the desired result some years later in the French seas off Boulogne. She never could swim a stroke herself, but was splendid in the book-work of the thing. Since those days she had given me unlimited opportunities to acquire perfection. So now, Radley and Doe, my masters, you should learn a thing or two!

The undressing race resulted in a dead-heat, but whereas Doe contented himself with a humble jump into the stream, I contrived to execute a racing dive. Glorious immersion! It was lovely, oh, lovely! The embrace of the cool river seemed entrancing, and I remained a fathom down, experiencing one continuous delight.

Unfortunately I was under water longer than my breath would hold out, and came to the view of Radley and Doe, choking and spluttering and splas.h.i.+ng. Anxious to retrieve my reputation, for I was detestably conceited about my art, I started off for a long, speedy swim, displaying my best racing stroke. Back again, at an even faster pace, I got entangled with Doe, who greeted me a little jealously with: "Gracious! Where did you learn to swim like that?"

Radley's mouth was set, and he remained mercilessly silent. He wasn't going to teach me conceit.

Soon we were clothed again, and back in the boat with untidy wet hair and stinging eyes, but with the glow of health warming our bodies.

Throughout the day we plied our craft over the Fal, lunching up King Harry Reach, and taking tea not far from Truro. When we turned the head of the _Lady Fal_ for home, the sun was sinking fast, and Radley pulled his swiftest, as he wished to be at Graysroof before dark. So I lay in the bows and wondered at the straightness of his back, and Doe nestled in the stern and admired the width of his chest.

We glided over the surface: and there were no sounds anywhere, save the rushes kissing the reeds, the water lapping the sides of the boat, the little fishes chattering beneath, and the rhythmic music of Radley's graceful feathering, which sounded like the flutter of a bird upon the wing.

To dwell upon this beautiful evening is to recover a little of its serene exaltation. I like to recall it as one of those days about which we ask ourselves why we did not value them more when we had them. I speak of it here, because, in the soothing peace of the Fal that twilight, the aesthetic seemed to stir in me--not so as to wake, but so as to wake soon. I felt some vague premonition of all the love, the sentiment, and the sorrow which would be mine in the manhood that was brightening to a pale, but tinted, dawn.

_Part II: Long, Long Thoughts_

CHAPTER VII

CAUGHT ON THE BEATEN TRACK

--1

I am sixteen now, and the marks on the dormitory wall show me that I am many inches nearer the height of my ambition, which is the height of Radley. Second in importance, Kensingtowe has a new headmaster, an extraordinary phenomenon in the scholastic heavens, a long man of callow years and restless activity, with a stoop and a pointing forefinger. He has a quaint habit, when addressing a bewildered pupil, of prefacing his remarks, be they gracious or d.a.m.natory, with the formula: "Ee, bless me, my man." (Nowadays none of us speaks to a schoolfellow without beginning: "Ee, bless me, my man.") "Salome"

we call the entertaining creature. This nickname adhered like a barnacle to him, immediately after he had employed, in his exegesis of the Greek narrative of Herodias' daughter, the expression: "Now, if I had been Salome--"

Ill fares it with a youth, if he has his hands in his pockets and is seen by Salome. Before he is aware of the great presence, that stoop overhangs him, that forefinger points to the tip of his nose, and a drawling voice says with rhythmic emphasis: "Ee, bless me, my man, you've _got_--your _hands_--in your _pockets_. Take off your spectacles, sir. I'm _going_--to _smack_--your _face_."

And he can put his foot down, too. The Bramhallites recently organised a very successful punitive raid on the local errand boys, who were getting too uppish, and now he has stopped all "exeats"

for the members of Bramhall House. The town is out of bounds.

Third in importance is my quarrel with Edgar Doe. It began, I think, with his jealousy of me as Radley's new favourite. Then he has apparently thrown over all desire for glory in the cricket world and decided that, for an elect mind such as his, a reputation for intellectual brilliance is the only seemly fame. He delights to shock us by boldly saying that he would rather win the Horace Prize than his First Eleven Colours; and is actually at work, I believe, on a translation of the Odes into English verse. At any rate, he is two forms ahead of Penny and me, and has joined the Intellectuals.

He has views on the Pre-Raphaelites, Romanticism, and the Housing Question.

Maybe, too, I have been very willing for the quarrel to proceed, because he will persist in his collusion with that mystery-man, Freedham.

Archibald Pennybet is the same as ever, unless, perhaps, his eyelids are drooping a little more in satisfaction with himself, and his nostrils becoming more sensitive to the inferiority of everybody else.

In a rash moment, one half-holiday, Penny and I made use of the privilege, to which we became ent.i.tled when we completed two years at Kensingtowe, of strolling across to the Preparatory School and organising a cricket match between some of the younger "Sucker-boys." Not being allowed to go down to the town, we thought there might be fun in playing the heavy autocrat at the "Nursery."

"We'll make these beastly little maggots sit up, unless they play properly," said Penny. "There shall be no fooling when _we_ umpire."

The Suckers received us with gratifying awe. One of them in a moment of forgetfulness called Pennybet "sir." He accepted it without remark, as his due.

For half-an-hour we did well. Six b.a.l.l.s went to every "over," no more and no less. Our decisions, when we were appealed to, were given promptly and decisively. But the boys were so small, and the play was so bad, that the novelty soon wore off. Our feeling of importance died away, when we realised we were umpiring in a match where the stumps were kept in position by the bails, and there was no one who could bowl a straight ball, or anyone who could hit it, if he did. The wicket-keeper, also, gave Penny much trouble; and sulked because he had been forbidden to stop the swift bowler's deliveries by holding a coat in front of him and allowing the ball to become entangled in its folds. My fellow-umpire had occasion to speak very seriously to him. "Really," he said, "you're a stench in my nostrils. Mr. Ray, who's kindly umpiring for you at the other end, never gave me half the cheek you do, when _he_ was a kid." For a second the little boy wondered if he had made a mistake and Penny was really a master.

Having given eight b.a.l.l.s to an over, I got bored and retired to my position at square-leg, displeased with the condition on which our privilege was granted that, having organised a game, we were to remain at our posts to the end. Someone awoke Penny, who walked with a yawn to the bowler's wicket, and, graciously putting into his mouth a huge green fruit-ball, offered by one of the more minute players, said with this obstruction on his tongue:

"Plo-ay."

When the twenty-eighth ball of that over had been bowled, I went across to Penny, presented my compliments, and intimated that six b.a.l.l.s const.i.tuted an over. In a reply of some length he showed that he had a sucked fruit-ball in his mouth, which he must of necessity finish before he called "over," as the word required a certain rounding of the lips, and the confectionery might shoot out of his mouth at the effort. An impertinent little junior echoed my criticism.