A School Story 2 2

"I came to the school in a September, soon after the year 1870; and among
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the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland boy,

whom I will call McLeod. I needn't spend time in describing him: the main

thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy in

any way - not particularly good at books or games - but he suited me.

"The school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boys

there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and

there were rather frequent changes among them.

"One term - perhaps it was my third or fourth - a new master made his

appearance. His name was Sampson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale,

black-bearded man. I think we liked him: he had travelled a good deal, and

had stories which amused us on our school walks, so that there was some

compet.i.tion among us to get within earshot of him. I remember too - dear me,

I have hardly thought of it since then - that he had a charm on his

watch-chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it.

It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin; there was an effigy of some

absurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth,

and he had had cut on it - rather barbarously - his own initials, G.W.S.,

and a date, 24 July, 1865. Yes, I can see it now: he told me he had picked

it up in Constantinople: it was about the size of a florin, perhaps rather

smaller.

"Well, the first odd thing that happened was this. Sampson was doing

Latin grammar with us. One of his favourite methods - perhaps it is rather a

good one - was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to

ill.u.s.trate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Of course that is a

thing which gives a silly boy a chance of being impertinent: there are lots

of school stories in which that happens - or any-how there might be. But

Sampson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on with

him. Now, on this occasion he was telling us how to express remembering in

Latin: and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb

memini, 'I remember.' Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence such

as 'I remember my father,' or 'He remembers his book,' or something equally

uninteresting: and I dare say a good many put down memino librum meum, and

so forth: but the boy I mentioned - McLeod - was evidently thinking of

something more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have our

sentences pa.s.sed, and get on to something else, so some kicked him under the

desk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look

sharp. But he didn't seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had

put down nothing at all. So I jogged him again harder than before and

upbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect.

He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a

couple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was the

last, or nearly the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to say

to the boys who had written meminiscimus patri meo and the rest of it, it

turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and

McLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was

nothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come.

He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been some

sort of trouble. 'Well,' I said, 'what did you get?' 'Oh, I don't know,'

said McLeod, 'nothing much: but I think Sampson's rather sick with me.'

'Why, did you show him up some rot?' 'No fear,' he said. 'It was all right

as far as I could see: it was like this: Memento - that's right enough for

remember, and it takes a genitive, - memento putei inter quatuor taxos.'

'What silly rot!' I said. 'What made you shove that down? What does it

mean?' 'That's the funny part,' said McLeod. 'I'm not quite sure what it

does mean. All I know is, it just came into my head and I corked it down. I

know what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sort

of picture of it in my head: I believe it means "Remember the well among the

four" - what are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?'

'Mountain ashes, I s'pose you mean.' 'I never heard of them,' said McLeod;

'no, I'll tell you - yews.' 'Well, and what did Sampson say?' 'Why, he was

jolly odd about it. When he read it he got up and went to the mantel-piece

and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me.

And then he said, without turning round, and rather quiet, "What do you

suppose that means?" I told him what I thought; only I couldn't remember the

name of the silly tree: and then he wanted to know why I put it down, and I

had to say something or other. And after that he left off talking about it,

and asked me how long I'd been here, and where my people lived, and things

like that: and then I came away: but he wasn't looking a bit well.'