CHAPTER IX
CORAM POPULO
On the notice-board in the colonnade there was a sudden announcement which no new boy could understand. It was to the effect that Professor Abinger would pay his annual visit on the Monday and Tuesday of the following week. Neither Carpenter nor Rutter had ever heard his name before, and, on the way up the hill to second school, they inquired of Rawlinson, the small fellow in his own house whom Haigh had begun reviling on the first morning of the term.
"Who's Abinger?" repeated Rawlinson. "You wait and see! You'll love him, Tiger, as much as I do!"
"Why shall I?" asked Jan, who liked Rawlinson, and only envied him his callous gaiety under oppression.
"Because he'll get us off two days of old Haigh," said Rawlinson, capering as though the two days would never end.
"Don't hustle!"
"I'm not hustling. I take my oath I'm not. Grand old boy, Abinger, besides being just about the biggest bug alive on elocution!"
"Who says so?"
"Jerry, for one! Anyhow he comes down twice a year, and takes up two whole days, barring first school and private work; that's why Abinger's a man to love."
"But what does he do? Give us readings all the time?" asked Chips, one of whose weaknesses was the inane question.
"Give us readings? I like that!" cried Rawlinson, shouting with laughter. "It's the other way about, my good ass!"
"Do we have to read to him?"
"Every mother's son of us, before the whole school, and all the masters and the masters' wives!"
Chips went on asking questions, and Jan was only silent because he took a greater interest in the answers than he cared to show. The ordeal foreshadowed by Rawlinson was indeed rather alarming to a new boy with an accent which had already exposed him to some contumely. Yet his ear, sharpened by continual travesties of his speech, informed Jan that he was by no means the only boy in the school whose vowels were of eccentric breadth. It was a point on which he was not unduly sensitive, but, in his heart, only too willing to improve. He was, however, more on his guard against the outlandish word and the rustic idiom, which still cropped up in his conversation, but could not possibly affect his reading aloud. The result of the last reflection was that Jan subdued his fears, and rejoiced with Rawlinson at the prospect of a break in the term's work.
Their joy was enhanced by the obvious exasperation of Haigh, who scarcely concealed from his form his own opinion of Professor Abinger and the impending function. Many were his covert sneers, and loud his angry laughter, as he hit upon something for the Middle Remove to declaim piecemeal between them. The chosen passage was taken almost at random from one of Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, which for some reason formed a standard work throughout the school, and which drew from Haigh the next thing to a personal repudiation of the volume in his hands. It was at least plain that means and end shared his cordial disapproval, but outward loyalty clipped the spoken word, and the form were not surprised when he finished with a more satisfying fling at Jan.
"Some of you fellows in Mr. Heriot's house," said Haigh, "may perhaps find time to rehearse Rutter in the few words that are likely to fall to his tender mercies. Otherwise we may trust him to disgrace us before everybody."
Indignant glances were cast at Jan's hangdog head by those who wished to stand well with Haigh; one within reach dealt him a dexterous kick upon the shins; and Jan took it all with leaden front, for that was his only means of getting the least bit even with his adult tormentor. Nevertheless, on the Sunday evening, when one could sit in another's study after lock-up by special leave, and Jan and Chips had availed themselves of the privilege, Hans Andersen was the author that each had open before him, as the pair munched their way through a bag of biscuits bought with their Saturday allowance.
They were not disappointed in the elderly gentleman who opened his campaign next morning. He had an admirable platform presence, and a fine histrionic face in a cascade of silvery hair. Nor had he made many of his opening observations—in a voice like a silver bell—before the youngest of his new hearers perceived that Professor Abinger was really as distinguished as he looked. He was evidently the companion of even more distinguished men. He spoke of the statesmen and the judges whom he had specially coached for the triumphs of their political and forensic careers. He mentioned a certain Cabinet Minister as a particularly painstaking pupil in his younger days. He laid the scene of a recent personal experience in a ducal mansion, and that led him into an indiscreet confession involving an even more illustrious name. Professor Abinger seemed quite embarrassed by his inadvertence; and the Head Master, who had taken a side seat on his own platform, might have been seen frowning at his watch, which he closed with a very loud snap. But the two new boys in the Middle Remove saw how difficult it must be for a member of such exalted circles to avoid all mention of his most intimate acquaintance. And when Rawlinson looked at them and laughed, they nodded their complete agreement with his estimate of the eminent professor.
"When I look about me in this schoolroom," concluded Mr. Abinger somewhat hastily, as he beamed upon the serried ranks before him, "and when I see the future generals and admirals, bishops and statesmen, lawyers and physicians of high standing—men of mark in every sphere—even Peers of the Realm itself—who hear me now, whom I myself am about to hear in my turn—when I dip into your futures far as human eye can see—then I realise afresh the very wide responsibility—the—the imperial importance—of these visits to this school!"
There might have been applause; a certain amount of sly merriment there was; but Mr. Thrale prevented the one, and cut the other mighty short, by sternly summoning the Upper Fourth.
There was a scraping and shambling of feet in the rows behind the Middle Remove, and up to the platform trooped the pioneer force. Jan could only think of the narrowness of his escape—he had heard that the forms were called up in any order—and he was wondering whether there was so much to fear after all, from such a perfect gentleman and jolly old bay, when Evan Devereux passed quite close to him with the other pioneers. And Evan's ears were red to the tip—Evan who looked neat and dapper enough to stand up before the world—Evan who was a gentleman if there was one in the school!
The Upper Fourth huddled together on the platform, each boy with a fat blue volume of Hans Christian Andersen open at the fatal place. Then, at a sign from the Head Master, the captain of the form took a step forward, threw out his chest like a man, and plunged into the middle of one of the tales with a couple of sentences that made the rafters ring. The professor stood smiling his approval at the intrepid youth's side, and Mr. Thrale nodded his head as he called for the second boy in form's order. The successful performer sidled to the end of an empty bench immediately below the platform, and sat down against the wall. His place was taken by one bent on following his good example, but in too great a hurry to get it over. "'A myrtle stood in a pot in the window,'" he had begun in a breath, when the Head Master exclaimed "Three o'clock!" in portentous tones, and the second performer melted from the platform like a wraith.
"That's the worst he does to you," whispered Carpenter, who had been making his usual inquiries. "It only means coming in at three for another shot with the other failures."
Meanwhile the professor was pointing out the second boy's mistake. He laid it down as the first of first principles that a distinct pause must separate the subject of any sentence from its predicate; he added that he had preached that doctrine in that place for so many years that he had hoped it was unnecessary to begin preaching it again; but perhaps he had never had the advantage of meeting his young friend before? His young friend had to rise in his place of premature retirement, next but one to the wall, and confess with burning cheeks that such was not the case. And when the point had been duly laboured, proceedings were resumed by a lad who cleared the obstacle with an audaciously protracted pause after the word "myrtle."
It was an obstacle at which many fell throughout the morning, the three o'clock sentence being promptly pronounced upon each; but there were other interludes more entertaining to the audience and more trying to the temporary entertainer. There were several stammerers who were made to beat time and to release a syllable at each beat; and there was more than one timid child to be paternally conducted by the professor to the very far end of the huge room, and made to call out, "Can you hear my voice?" until the Head Master at his end signified that he could. ("No, I can't!" he replied very sternly on one occasion.) There were even a few mirthful seconds supplied by Devereux, of all fellows, over something which Jan quite failed to follow, but which made him almost as hot and miserable as Evan had turned upon the platform.
Devereux, however, had looked rather nervous all the time; as he waited his turn at Abinger's elbow he seemed uncomfortably conscious of himself; and he stepped into the breach at last as though the cares of the school were on his insignificant shoulders. Jan felt for him so keenly as to hold his breath. Evan had to utter an extravagant statement about a bottle, but his reading was no worse than nervous until he came to the word "exhilarated." He said "exhilyarated." The professor invited him to say it again, and with the request his paternal smile broadened into a grin of less oppressive benevolence. It was a very slight change of expression, which had occurred more than once before, but on this occasion it filled Jan with a sudden revulsion of feeling towards Professor Abinger. Then Evan said "ex-hill-yarated," making a mountain of the hill, and a stern voice cried "Three o'clock!" The unlucky culprit looked utterly wretched and crestfallen, and yet so attractive in his trouble that the professor himself was seen to intercede on his behalf. But a still sterner voice reiterated "Three o'clock!"
That was all, and it was so quickly over that Devereux was himself again before the Upper Fourth returned in a body to their place. Indeed, he came back smiling, and with a jaunty walk, as some criminals foot it from the dock. But Jan could not catch his eye, though his own were soft with a sympathy which he longed to show, but only succeeded in betraying to Carpenter.
"I might have known you were hustling," Jan said to Rawlinson, as they got out nearly an hour later than from ordinary second school. "I say, though, I do bar that old brute—don't you?"
"What! When he's coached a Cabinet Minister, and been staying as usual with the same old dukes and dukesses?"
"If he ever did," said Jan, his whole mind poisoned by the treatment meted out to Evan. "It's easy enough for him to stand up there scoring off chaps. I'd like to score off him!"
"Well, you wouldn't be the first. He was properly scored off once, by a chap called Bewicke in the Upper Sixth. Come my way," said Rawlinson, "and I'll tell you. Bewicke had heard that opening speech about the Cabinet Minister, and all the rest of it, so often that he knew the whole thing by heart, and used to settle down to sleep as soon as old Abinger got a start. So one time Jerry catches him safe in the arms of Morpheus, and says, 'Bewicke, he good enough to get up and repeat to the school the substance of Professor Abinger's last remarks.' So Bewicke gets up, blinking, not having heard a blooming word, and begins: 'The other day, when I had the privilege of being an honoured guest of his Grace the Duke of' 'Three o'clock!' says Jerry, and they say Bewicke was jolly near bunked. It was before my time, worse luck! I wish I'd heard it, don't you? I say, we were lucky to escape this morning, weren't we? But I'm not sure I don't wish we'd got it over, myself."
Four of the lower forms had been polished off between ten and twelve-thirty, and three more followed in the hour-and-a-half of third school; but the Middle Remove was not one of the three. There remained only second school on the second day—a half-holiday—and Carpenter had heard that much of the morning would be devoted to a Sixth Form Competition for the Abinger Medal. He had also learnt for a fact that all the forms were not always called upon, and Jan agreed that in that case they were beginning to stand an excellent chance of being missed out. However, no sooner were the proceedings resumed on a pink and frosty morning, than the bolt fell for the Middle Remove.
The big schoolroom looked abnormally big as Jan took a shy peep down from the platform. It seemed to contain four thousand boys instead of four hundred. It felt as cold as an empty church. The Head Master's fingers looked blue with a joiner's pencil poised between them over a school list; and as he sat with bent head and raised ear his breath was just visible against his sombre gown. But Professor Abinger in black spats and mittens was brisker and crisper and more incisive than on the previous day; his paternal smile broke more abruptly into the grin of impaired benevolence; his flowing mane looked merely hoary, and his silvery voice had rather the staccato ring of steel.
He might almost have heard Haigh's opinion of him, he was so hard upon that form. The passage which Haigh had chosen was from a story called "The Mermaid," and the very first reader had to say "colossal mussel shells"—perhaps a better test of sobriety than of elocution—but Abinger would have it repeated until a drunken man could have done it better and the whole school was in a roar. Jan set his teeth at the back of the little knot upon the platform: he knew what he would do rather than make them laugh like that. But no one else made them laugh like that, though Buggins was asked whether he had been born within sound of Bow Bells, and created some amusement by the rich intonation of his denial. Gradually the little knot melted, and the bench below the platform filled up. Jan began reading over and over to himself the sentences that seemed certain to fall to him, as he was still doing when Carpenter left his side and lurched into the centre of the platform.
Now, poor Chips happened to have had a bad night with his tiresome malady, but on his speech it had the effect of a much more common disorder.
"The bleached bodes of bed," he began, valiantly, and was still making a conscientious pause after the subject of the sentence when a hand fell on his shoulder and the wretched Chips was looking Professor Abinger in the face.
"Have you got a cold?" inquired the professor, with his most sympathetic smile.
"Yes, sir," said Carpenter, too shy to explain the permanent character of the cold by giving it its proper name.
"Then stand aside, and blow your nose," said the professor, grinning like a fatherly fiend, "while the next boy reads."
Jan was the next boy, and the last; and he strode forward too indignant on his friend's account to think of himself, and cut straight into the laugh at Carpenter's expense. Nothing, in fact, could have given Jan such a moral fillip at the last moment. He cried out his bit aggressively at the top of his voice, but forgot none of the rules laid down, and even felt he had come through with flying colours. He saw no smile upon the sea of faces upturned from the body of the schoolroom. Not a syllable fell from the Head Master on his right. Yet he was not given his dismissal, and was consequently about to begin another sentence when Professor Abinger took the book from Jan's hand.
"I think you must hear yourself as others hear you," said he. "Have the goodness to listen to me." And he read: "'The bleached bawnes of men who had perished at sea and soonk belaw peeped forth from the arms of soome, w'ile oothers clootched roodders and sea chests or the skeleeton of some land aneemal; and most horreeble of all, a little mermaird whom they had caught and sooffercairted.' There!" cried the professor, holding up his hand to quell the shouts of laughter. "What do you think of that?"
Jan stood dumfounded by his shame and rage, a graceless and forbidding figure enough, with untidy hair and a wreck of a tie, and one lace trailing: a figure made to look even meaner than it was by the spruce old handsome man at his side.
"What dost tha' think o' yon?" pursued the professor, dropping into dialect with ready humour.
"It's not what I said," muttered Jan, so low that his questioner alone could hear.
"Not what you said, eh? We'll take you through it. How do you pronounce 'bones'?"
No answer, but a firmer cast to the jaw of Jan, a less abject droop of the shoulders, a good inch more in actual stature.
"B, o, n, e, s!" crooned the professor, showing all his teeth.
But Jan had turned into a human mule. And the silence in the great room had suddenly grown profound.
"Well, we'll try something else," said the professor, consulting the text somewhat unsteadily, and speaking in a rather thin voice. "Let us hear you say the word 'sunk.' S, u, n, k—sunk. Now, if you please, no more folly. You are wasting all our time."
Jan had forgotten that; the reminder caused him a spasm of satisfaction. Otherwise he was by this time as entirely aware of his folly as anybody else present; but it was too late to point it out to him; it was too late to think of it now; his head was burning, his temples throbbed, his tongue clave. He could not have spoken now if he had tried. But it would have taken a better man than Abinger to make him try. And the better man sat by without a word, pale, stern, and troubled with a complex indignation.
"I can do nothing with this boy," said Abinger, turning to him with just a tremor in his thin high tones. "I must leave him to you, Mr. Thrale."
"Twelve o'clock!" cried the other with ominous emphasis; and as he stabbed the school list with his joiner's pencil, the Middle Remove rose and returned down the gangway to their accustomed place.
Jan went with them as one walking in his sleep. And Carpenter followed Jan with a tragic face and tears very near the surface. But as one sees furthest before rain, so Chips saw a good deal as he walked back blinking for his life. And one of the things he happened to see was Evan Devereux and the fellow next him doubled up in fits of laughter.
The Head Master usually sat in judgment on the culprits of the day without vacating his oaken throne in the Upper Sixth class-room until the first of them knelt down for his deserts. But the Abinger visitation upset everything; and on this occasion, when the campaign ended with the award of a medal to the præpostor who had done least violence to a leading article in the day's Times, Mr. Thrale remained on his platform in conversation with Professor Abinger while the school filed out form by form. Meanwhile three delinquents besides Jan awaited his arrival on the scene of trial and execution, while a number of the smaller fry pressed their noses to the diamond panes of the windows overlooking the school yard; and the public gallery in a criminal court could not have been better patronised for a notorious case than were these windows to-day.
One of the other malefactors had brought a slip of paper which he showed to Jan; on it was set forth a crime of a type which Mr. Thrale was at that time taking Draconic measures to stamp out of the school. "Hornton says πεποιηκασι is a Dative Plural . . . I think he deserves a good flogging," the committing master had written, and signed the warrant with his initials. Jan had just reached that hieroglyph when in sailed their judge and executioner in his cap and gown.
The boy who deserved the good flogging advanced and delivered his certificate of demerit. Mr. Thrale examined the damning document, and when he came to the pious opinion at the end, exclaimed with simple fervour, "So do I!" With that he opened his desk and took out his cane, and the boy who deserved it knelt down with stolid alacrity. The venerable executioner then gathered half his gown into his left hand, and held it away at arm's length to give free play to his right. And there followed eight such slashing cuts as fetched the dust from a taut pair of trousers, and sent their wearer waddling stiffly from the room.
"Wasn't padded," whispered one of those left to Jan, who put an obvious question with a look, which was duly answered with a wink.
Meanwhile a sturdy youth in round spectacles was being severely interrogated, and replying promptly and earnestly, without lowering his glasses from the awful aspect of the flogging judge.
"You may go," said Mr. Thrale at length. "Your honesty has saved you. Trevor next. I've heard about you, Trevor; kneel down, shirker!"
And the wily Trevor not only knelt with futile reluctance, but writhed impotently during his castigation, though the eight strokes made half the noise of the other eight; and once up he went his way serenely with another wink at Jan.
Now by these days Jan had discovered that out of his pulpit Mr. Thrale was sufficiently short and sharp of speech, rough and ready of humour, with a trick of talking down to fellows in their own jargon as well as over their heads in parables. "Sit down, Rutter, and next time you won't sit down so comfortably!" he had rapped out at Jan when the Middle Remove went to construe to the Head Master early in the term. And it was next time now.
Jan was left alone in the presence, and that instant became ashamed to find he was already trembling. He had not trembled on the platform before the whole school; his blood had been frozen then, now it was bubbling in his veins. He was being looked at. That was all. He was receiving such a look as he had never met before, a look from wide blue eyes with hidden fires in them, and dilated nostrils underneath, and under them a mouth that looked as though it would never, never open.
It did at last.
"Rebel!" said a voice of unutterable scorn. "Do you know what they do with rebels, Rutter?"
"No, sir."
It never occurred to Jan not to answer now.
"Shoot them! You deserve to be shot!"
Jan felt he did. The parable was not over his diminished head; it might have been carefully concocted from uncanny knowledge of his inmost soul. All the potential soldier in him—the reserve whom this General alone called out—was shamed and humbled to the dust.
"You are not only a rebel," the awful voice went on, "but a sulky rebel. Some rebels are good men gone wrong; there's some stuff in them; but a sulky rebel is neither man nor devil, but carrion food for powder."
Jan agreed with all his contrite heart; he had never seen himself in his true colours before, had never known how vile it was to sulk; but now he saw, and now he knew, and the firing-party could not have come too quick.
The flogging judge had resumed his carved oak seat of judgment behind the desk. Jan had not seen him do it—he had seen nothing but those pregnant eyes and lips—but there he was, and in the act of putting his homely weapon back in the desk. Jan could have groaned. He longed to expiate his crime.
"Thrashing is too good for you," the voice resumed. "Have you any good reason to give me for keeping a sulky rebel in a standing army? Any reason for not drumming him out?"
Drumming him out! Expelling him! Sending him back to the Norfolk rectory, and thence very likely straight back to the nearest stables! More light rushed over Jan. He had seen his enormity; now he saw his life, what it had been, what it was, what it might be again.
"Oh, sir," he cried, "I know I speak all wrong—I know I speak all wrong! You see—you see"
But he broke down before he could explain, and the more piteously because now he felt he never could explain, and this hard old man would never, never understand. That is the tragic mistake of boys—to feel they can never be understood by men!
Yet already the hard old man was on his feet again, and with one gesture he had cleared the throng from the diamond-paned windows, and laid tender hand upon Jan's heaving shoulder.
"I do see," he said, gently. "But so must you, Rutter—but so must you!"