CHAPTER III—ARTHUR MAKES A
FRIEND.
“Let Nature be your teacher:
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings.
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things.
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art:
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.”
WORDSWORTH.
About six weeks after the beginning of the half,
as Tom and Arthur were sitting one night before supper beginning their verses,
Arthur suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said, “Tom, do you know anything of
Martin?”
“Yes,” said Tom, taking his hand out of his back
hair, and delighted to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum on to the sofa; “I know
him pretty well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called
Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum
things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about
in his pocket; and I'll be bound he's got some hedgehogs and rats in his
cupboard now, and no one knows what besides.”
“I should like very much to know him,” said
Arthur; “he was next to me in the form to-day, and he'd lost his book and
looked over mine, and he seemed so kind and gentle that I liked him very much.”
“Ah, poor old Madman, he's always losing his
books,” said Tom, “and getting called up and floored because he hasn't got
them.”
“I like him all the better,” said Arthur.
“Well, he's great fun, I can tell you,” said Tom,
throwing himself back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. “We had
such a game with him one day last half. He had been kicking up horrid stinks
for some time in his study, till I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told
the Doctor. Anyhow, one day a little before dinner, when he came down from the
library, the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the hall. East
and I and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously we stared,
for he don't come in like that once a year, unless it is a wet day and there's
a fight in the hall. 'East,' says he, 'just come and show me Martin's study.'
'Oh, here's a game,' whispered the rest of us; and we all cut upstairs after
the Doctor, East leading. As we got into the New Row, which was hardly wide
enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, click, click, click, we heard in the
old Madman's den. Then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went to like
fun. The Madman knew East's step, and thought there was going to be a siege.
“'It's the Doctor, Martin. He's here and wants to
see you,' sings out East.
“Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door
opened, and there was the old Madman standing, looking precious scared—his
jacket off, his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms all
covered with anchors and arrows and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a
sailor-boy's, and a stink fit to knock you down coming out. 'Twas all the
Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in under
his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the window-sill,
all his feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and half-poisoned.
“'What can you be about, Martin?' says the Doctor.
'You really mustn't go on in this way; you're a nuisance to the whole passage.'
0277m
Original
“'Please, sir, I was only mixing up this powder;
there isn't any harm in it. And the Madman seized nervously on his pestle and
mortar, to show the Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, and went on
pounding—click, click, click. He hadn't given six clicks before, puff! up went
the whole into a great blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across the study,
and back we tumbled into the passage. The magpie fluttered down into the court,
swearing, and the Madman danced out, howling, with his fingers in his mouth.
The Doctor caught hold of him, and called to us to fetch some water. 'There,
you silly fellow,' said he, quite pleased, though, to find he wasn't much hurt,
'you see you don't know the least what you're doing with all these things; and
now, mind, you must give up practising chemistry by yourself.' Then he took
hold of his arm and looked at it, and I saw he had to bite his lip, and his
eyes twinkled; but he said, quite grave, 'Here, you see, you've been making all
these foolish marks on yourself, which you can never get out, and you'll be
very sorry for it in a year or two. Now come down to the housekeeper's room,
and let us see if you are hurt.' And away went the two, and we all stayed and
had a regular turn-out of the den, till Martin came back with his hand bandaged
and turned us out. However, I'll go and see what he's after, and tell him to
come in after prayers to supper.” And away went Tom to find the boy in
question, who dwelt in a little study by himself, in New Row.
The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken such a
fancy for, was one of those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are,
I fear, still) quite out of their places at a public school. If we knew how to
use our boys, Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a natural
philosopher. He had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew more of
them and their habits than any one in Rugby—except perhaps the Doctor, who knew
everything. He was also an experimental chemist on a small scale, and had made
unto himself an electric machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and
glory to administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to
venture into his study. And this was by no means an adventure free from
excitement; for besides the probability of a snake dropping on to your head or
twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting into your breeches-pocket in
search of food, there was the animal and chemical odour to be faced, which
always hung about the den, and the chance of being blown up in some of the many
experiments which Martin was always trying, with the most wondrous results in
the shape of explosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. Of course,
poor Martin, in consequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in the
house. In the first place, he half-poisoned all his neighbours, and they in
turn were always on the lookout to pounce upon any of his numerous live-stock,
and drive him frantic by enticing his pet old magpie out of his window into a
neighbouring study, and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked
in beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited a study looking into a
small court some ten feet across, the window of which was completely commanded
by those of the studies opposite in the Sick-room Row, these latter being at a
slightly higher elevation. East, and another boy of an equally tormenting and
ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, and had expended huge pains
and time in the preparation of instruments of annoyance for the behoof of Martin
and his live colony. One morning an old basket made its appearance, suspended
by a short cord outside Martin's window, in which were deposited an amateur
nest containing four young hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Martin's
life, for the time being, and which he was currently asserted to have hatched
upon his own person. Early in the morning and late at night he was to be seen
half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his callow brood.
After deep cogitation, East and his chum had spliced a knife on to the end of a
fishing-rod; and having watched Martin out, had, after half an hour's severe
sawing, cut the string by which the basket was suspended, and tumbled it on to
the pavement below, with hideous remonstrance from the occupants. Poor Martin,
returning from his short absence, collected the fragments and replaced his
brood (except one whose neck had been broken in the descent) in their old
location, suspending them this time by string and wire twisted together,
defiant of any sharp instrument which his persecutors could command. But, like
the Russian engineers at Sebastopol, East and his chum had an answer for every
move of the adversary, and the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a
pea-shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear exactly upon
the spot which Martin had to occupy while tending his nurslings. The moment he
began to feed they began to shoot. In vain did the enemy himself invest in a
pea-shooter, and endeavour to answer the fire while he fed the young birds with
his other hand; his attention was divided, and his shots flew wild, while every
one of theirs told on his face and hands, and drove him into howlings and
imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce the nest in a corner of his
already too-well-filled den.
His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious
bolts of his own invention, for the sieges were frequent by the neighbours when
any unusually ambrosial odour spread itself from the den to the neighbouring
studies. The door panels were in a normal state of smash, but the frame of the
door resisted all besiegers, and behind it the owner carried on his varied
pursuits—much in the same state of mind, I should fancy, as a border-farmer
lived in, in the days of the moss-troopers, when his hold might be summoned or
his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day.
“Open, Martin, old boy; it's only I, Tom Brown.”
“Oh, very well; stop a moment.” One bolt went
back. “You're sure East isn't there?”
“No, no; hang it, open.” Tom gave a kick, the other
bolt creaked, and he entered the den.
Den indeed it was—about five feet six inches long
by five wide, and seven feet high. About six tattered school-books, and a few
chemical books, Taxidermy, Stanley on Birds, and an odd volume of Bewick, the
latter in much better preservation, occupied the top shelves. The other
shelves, where they had not been cut away and used by the owner for other
purposes, were fitted up for the abiding-places of birds, beasts, and reptiles.
There was no attempt at carpet or curtain. The table was entirely occupied by
the great work of Martin, the electric machine, which was covered carefully
with the remains of his table-cloth. The jackdaw cage occupied one wall; and
the other was adorned by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing irons, and his tin
candle-box, in which he was for the time being endeavouring to raise a hopeful
young family of field-mice. As nothing should be let to lie useless, it was
well that the candle-box was thus occupied, for candles Martin never had. A
pound was issued to him weekly, as to the other boys; but as candles were
available capital, and easily exchangeable for birds' eggs or young birds,
Martin's pound invariably found its way in a few hours to Howlett's the
bird-fancier's, in the Bilton road, who would give a hawk's or nightingale's
egg or young linnet in exchange. Martin's ingenuity was therefore for ever on
the rack to supply himself with a light. Just now he had hit upon a grand
invention, and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton wick issuing from a
ginger-beer bottle full of some doleful composition. When light altogether
failed him, Martin would loaf about by the fires in the passages or hall, after
the manner of Diggs, and try to do his verses or learn his lines by the
firelight.
“Well, old boy, you haven't got any sweeter in the
den this half. How that stuff in the bottle stinks! Never mind; I ain't going
to stop; but you come up after prayers to our study. You know young Arthur.
We've got Gray's study. We'll have a good supper and talk about bird-nesting.”
Martin was evidently highly pleased at the
invitation, and promised to be up without fail.
As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and
fifth form boys had withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of their own room,
and the rest, or democracy, had sat down to their supper in the hall, Tom and
Arthur, having secured their allowances of bread and cheese, started on their
feet to catch the eye of the praepostor of the week, who remained in charge
during supper, walking up and down the hall. He happened to be an easy-going
fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to their “Please may I go out?” and away
they scrambled to prepare for Martin a sumptuous banquet. This Tom had insisted
on, for he was in great delight on the occasion, the reason of which delight
must be expounded. The fact was that this was the first attempt at a friendship
of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom hailed it as a grand step. The ease
with which he himself became hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, and blundered
into and out of twenty friendships a half-year, made him sometimes sorry and
sometimes angry at Arthur's reserve and loneliness. True, Arthur was always
pleasant, and even jolly, with any boys who came with Tom to their study; but
Tom felt that it was only through him, as it were, that his chum associated
with others, and that but for him Arthur would have been dwelling in a
wilderness. This increased his consciousness of responsibility; and though he
hadn't reasoned it out and made it clear to himself yet somehow he knew that
this responsibility, this trust which he had taken on him without thinking
about it, head over heels in fact, was the centre and turning-point of his
school-life, that which was to make him or mar him, his appointed work and
trial for the time being. And Tom was becoming a new boy, though with frequent
tumbles in the dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily
growing in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and
well-principled boy must, when he finds himself for the first time consciously
at grips with self and the devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh
from the School-gates, from which had just scampered off East and three or four
others of his own particular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite according
to law, and involving probably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-labourers,
the skipping dinner or calling-over, some of Phoebe Jennings's beer, and a very
possible flogging at the end of all as a relish. He had quite got over the
stage in which he would grumble to himself—“Well, hang it, it's very hard of
the Doctor to have saddled me with Arthur. Why couldn't he have chummed him
with Fogey, or Thomkin, or any of the fellows who never do anything but walk
round the close, and finish their copies the first day they're set?” But
although all this was past, he longed, and felt that he was right in longing,
for more time for the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing, and
fishing, within bounds, in which Arthur could not yet be his companion; and he
felt that when the “young un” (as he now generally called him) had found a
pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should be able to give more time
to the education of his own body with a clear conscience.
And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he
almost hailed it as a special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the
reasons he gave for it—what providences are?) that Arthur should have singled
out Martin of all fellows for a friend. “The old Madman is the very fellow,”
thought he; “he will take him scrambling over half the country after birds'
eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and climb like an Indian, and not teach
him a word of anything bad, or keep him from his lessons. What luck!” And so,
with more than his usual heartiness, he dived into his cupboard, and hauled out
an old knuckle-bone of ham, and two or three bottles of beer, together with the
solemn pewter only used on state occasions; while Arthur, equally elated at the
easy accomplishment of his first act of volition in the joint establishment,
produced from his side a bottle of pickles and a pot of jam, and cleared the
table. In a minute or two the noise of the boys coming up from supper was
heard, and Martin knocked and was admitted, bearing his bread and cheese; and
the three fell to with hearty good-will upon the viands, talking faster than
they ate, for all shyness disappeared in a moment before Tom's bottled-beer and
hospitable ways. “Here's Arthur, a regular young town-mouse, with a natural
taste for the woods, Martin, longing to break his neck climbing trees, and with
a passion for young snakes.”
“Well, I say,” sputtered out Martin eagerly, “will
you come to-morrow, both of you, to Caldecott's Spinney then? for I know of a
kestrel's nest, up a fir-tree. I can't get at it without help; and, Brown, you
can climb against any one.”
“Oh yes, do let us go,” said Arthur; “I never saw
a hawk's nest nor a hawk's egg.”
“You just come down to my study, then, and I'll
show you five sorts,” said Martin.
“Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection in
the house, out and out,” said Tom; and then Martin, warming with unaccustomed
good cheer and the chance of a convert, launched out into a proposed
bird-nesting campaign, betraying all manner of important secrets—a
golden-crested wren's nest near Butlin's Mound, a moor-hen who was sitting on
nine eggs in a pond down the Barby road, and a kingfisher's nest in a corner of
the old canal above Brownsover Mill. He had heard, he said, that no one had
ever got a kingfisher's nest out perfect, and that the British Museum, or the
Government, or somebody, had offered 100 pounds to any one who could bring them
a nest and eggs not damaged. In the middle of which astounding announcement, to
which the others were listening with open ears, and already considering the
application of the 100 pounds, a knock came to the door, and East's voice was
heard craving admittance.
“There's Harry,” said Tom; “we'll let him in. I'll
keep him steady, Martin. I thought the old boy would smell out the supper.”
The fact was, that Tom's heart had already smitten
him for not asking his fidus Achates to the feast, although only an extempore
affair; and though prudence and the desire to get Martin and Arthur together
alone at first had overcome his scruples, he was now heartily glad to open the
door, broach another bottle of beer, and hand over the old ham-knuckle to the
searching of his old friend's pocket-knife.
“Ah, you greedy vagabonds,” said East, with his
mouth full, “I knew there was something going on when I saw you cut off out of
hall so quick with your suppers. What a stunning tap, Tom! You are a wunner for
bottling the swipes.”
“I've had practice enough for the sixth in my
time, and it's hard if I haven't picked up a wrinkle or two for my own
benefit.”
“Well, old Madman, and how goes the bird-nesting
campaign? How's Howlett? I expect the young rooks'll be out in another
fortnight, and then my turn comes.”
“There'll be no young rooks fit for pies for a
month yet; shows how much you know about it,” rejoined Martin, who, though very
good friends with East, regarded him with considerable suspicion for his
propensity to practical jokes.
“Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub
and mischief,” said Tom; “but young rook pie, specially when you've had to
climb for them, is very pretty eating.—However, I say, Scud, we're all going
after a hawk's nest to-morrow, in Caldecott's Spinney; and if you'll come and
behave yourself, we'll have a stunning climb.”
“And a bathe in Aganippe. Hooray! I'm your man.”
“No, no; no bathing in Aganippe; that's where our
betters go.”
“Well, well, never mind. I'm for the hawk's nest,
and anything that turns up.”
And the bottled-beer being finished, and his
hunger appeased, East departed to his study, “that sneak Jones,” as he informed
them, who had just got into the sixth, and occupied the next study, having
instituted a nightly visitation upon East and his chum, to their no small
discomfort.
When he was gone Martin rose to follow, but Tom
stopped him. “No one goes near New Row,” said he, “so you may just as well stop
here and do your verses, and then we'll have some more talk. We'll be no end
quiet. Besides, no praepostor comes here now. We haven't been visited once this
half.”
So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and
the three fell to work with Gradus and dictionary upon the morning's vulgus.
They were three very fair examples of the way in
which such tasks were done at Rugby, in the consulship of Plancus. And doubtless
the method is little changed, for there is nothing new under the sun,
especially at schools.
Now be it known unto all you boys who are at
schools which do not rejoice in the time-honoured institution of the vulgus
(commonly supposed to have been established by William of Wykeham at
Winchester, and imported to Rugby by Arnold more for the sake of the lines
which were learnt by heart with it than for its own intrinsic value, as I've
always understood), that it is a short exercise in Greek or Latin verse, on a
given subject, the minimum number of lines being fixed for each form.
The master of the form gave out at fourth lesson
on the previous day the subject for next morning's vulgus, and at first lesson
each boy had to bring his vulgus ready to be looked over; and with the vulgus,
a certain number of lines from one of the Latin or Greek poets then being
construed in the form had to be got by heart. The master at first lesson called
up each boy in the form in order, and put him on in the lines. If he couldn't
say them, or seem to say them, by reading them off the master's or some other
boy's book who stood near, he was sent back, and went below all the boys who
did so say or seem to say them; but in either case his vulgus was looked over
by the master, who gave and entered in his book, to the credit or discredit of
the boy, so many marks as the composition merited. At Rugby vulgus and lines
were the first lesson every other day in the week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and
Saturdays; and as there were thirty-eight weeks in the school year, it is
obvious to the meanest capacity that the master of each form had to set one
hundred and fourteen subjects every year, two hundred and twenty-eight every
two years, and so on. Now, to persons of moderate invention this was a
considerable task, and human nature being prone to repeat itself, it will not
be wondered that the masters gave the same subjects sometimes over again after
a certain lapse of time. To meet and rebuke this bad habit of the masters, the
schoolboy mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented an elaborate system
of tradition. Almost every boy kept his own vulgus written out in a book, and
these books were duly handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition has
gone on till now) I suppose the popular boys, in whose hands bequeathed
vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with three or four vulguses on any
subject in heaven or earth, or in “more worlds than one,” which an unfortunate
master can pitch upon. At any rate, such lucky fellows had generally one for
themselves and one for a friend in my time. The only objection to the
traditionary method of doing your vulguses was the risk that the successions
might have become confused, and so that you and another follower of traditions
should show up the same identical vulgus some fine morning; in which case, when
it happened, considerable grief was the result. But when did such risk hinder
boys or men from short cuts and pleasant paths?
Now in the study that night Tom was the upholder
of the traditionary method of vulgus doing. He carefully produced two large
vulgus-books, and began diving into them, and picking out a line here, and an
ending there (tags, as they were vulgarly called), till he had gotten all that
he thought he could make fit. He then proceeded to patch his tags together with
the help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous and feeble result of eight
elegiac lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up with two
highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed entire from one
of his books, beginning “O genus humanum,” and which he himself must have used
a dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, of whatever
nation or language under the sun, was the subject. Indeed he began to have
great doubts whether the master wouldn't remember them, and so only throw them
in as extra lines, because in any case they would call off attention from the
other tags, and if detected, being extra lines, he wouldn't be sent back to do
more in their place, while if they passed muster again he would get marks for
them.
The second method, pursued by Martin, may be
called the dogged or prosaic method. He, no more than Tom, took any pleasure in
the task, but having no old vulgus-books of his own, or any one's else, could
not follow the traditionary method, for which too, as Tom remarked, he hadn't
the genius. Martin then proceeded to write down eight lines in English, of the
most matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into his head; and to convert
these, line by line, by main force of Gradus and dictionary into Latin that
would scan. This was all he cared for—to produce eight lines with no false
quantities or concords: whether the words were apt, or what the sense was,
mattered nothing; and as the article was all new, not a line beyond the minimum
did the followers of the dogged method ever produce.
The third, or artistic method, was Arthur's. He
considered first what point in the character or event which was the subject
could most neatly be brought out within the limits of a vulgus, trying always
to get his idea into the eight lines, but not binding himself to ten or even
twelve lines if he couldn't do this. He then set to work as much as possible
without Gradus or other help, to clothe his idea in appropriate Latin or Greek,
and would not be satisfied till he had polished it well up with the aptest and
most poetic words and phrases he could get at.
A fourth method, indeed, was used in the school,
but of too simple a kind to require a comment. It may be called the vicarious method,
obtained amongst big boys of lazy or bullying habits, and consisted simply in
making clever boys whom they could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, and
construe it to them afterwards; which latter is a method not to be encouraged,
and which I strongly advise you all not to practise. Of the others, you will
find the traditionary most troublesome, unless you can steal your vulguses
whole (experto crede), and that the artistic method pays the best both in marks
and other ways.
The vulguses being finished by nine o'clock, and
Martin having rejoiced above measure in the abundance of light, and of Gradus
and dictionary, and other conveniences almost unknown to him for getting
through the work, and having been pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses
there whenever he liked, the three boys went down to Martin's den, and Arthur
was initiated into the lore of birds' eggs, to his great delight. The exquisite
colouring and forms astonished and charmed him, who had scarcely ever seen any
but a hen's egg or an ostrich's, and by the time he was lugged away to bed he
had learned the names of at least twenty sorts, and dreamed of the glorious
perils of tree-climbing, and that he had found a roc's egg in the island as big
as Sinbad's, and clouded like a tit-lark's, in blowing which Martin and he had
nearly been drowned in the yolk.
