by T. Smollett
CHAPTER FIVE
A BRIEF DETAIL OF HIS EDUCATION.
Nothing could have more seasonably happened to confirm the good opinionwhich the colonel entertained of Ferdinand's principles. His intentionstowards the boy grew every day more and more warm; and, immediately afterthe peace of Passarowitz, he retired to his own house at Presburg, andpresented young Fathom to his lady, not only as the son of a person towhom he owed his life, but also as a lad who merited his peculiarprotection and regard by his own personal virtue. The Countess, who wasan Hungarian, received him with great kindness and affability, and herson was ravished with the prospect of enjoying such a companion. Inshort, fortune seemed to have provided for him an asylum, in which hemight be safely trained up, and suitably prepared for more importantscenes of life than any of his ancestors had ever known.
He was not, in all respects, entertained on the footing of his youngmaster; yet he shared in all his education and amusements, as one whomthe old gentleman was fully determined to qualify for the station of anofficer in the service; and, if he did not eat with the Count, he wasevery day regaled with choice bits from his table; holding, as it were, amiddle place between the rank of a relation and favourite domestic.Although his patron maintained a tutor in the house, to superintend theconduct of his heir, he committed the charge of his learning to theinstructions of a public school; where he imagined the boy would imbibe alaudable spirit of emulation among his fellows, which could not fail ofturning out to the advantage of his education. Ferdinand was entered inthe same academy; and the two lads proceeded equally in the paths oferudition; a mutual friendship and intimacy soon ensued, and,notwithstanding the levity and caprice commonly discernible in thebehaviour of such boys, very few or rather no quarrels happened in thecourse of their communication. Yet their dispositions were altogetherdifferent, and their talents unlike. Nay, this dissimilarity was thevery bond of their union; because it prevented that jealousy andrivalship which often interrupts the harmony of two warm contemporaries.
The young Count made extraordinary progress in the exercises of theschool, though he seemed to take very little pains in the cultivation ofhis studies; and became a perfect hero in all the athletic diversions ofhis fellow-scholars; but, at the same time, exhibited such a bashfulappearance and uncouth address, that his mother despaired of ever seeinghim improved into any degree of polite behaviour. On the other hand,Fathom, who was in point of learning a mere dunce, became, even in hischildhood, remarkable among the ladies for his genteel deportment andvivacity; they admired the proficiency he made under the directions ofhis dancing-master, the air with which he performed his obeisance at hisentrance and exit; and were charmed with the agreeable assurance andlively sallies of his conversation; while they expressed the utmostconcern and disgust at the boorish demeanour of his companion, whoseextorted bows resembled the pawings of a mule, who hung his head insilence like a detected sheep-stealer, who sat in company under the mostawkward expressions of constraint, and whose discourse never exceeded thesimple monosyllables of negation and assent.
In vain did all the females of the family propose to him young Fathom, asa pattern and reproach. He remained unaltered by all their efforts andexpostulations, and allowed our adventurer to enjoy the triumph of hispraise, while he himself was conscious of his own superiority in thosequalifications which seemed of more real importance than the mereexteriors and forms of life. His present ambition was not to make afigure at his father's table, but to eclipse his rivals at school, and toacquire an influence and authority among these confederates.Nevertheless, Fathom might possibly have fallen under his displeasure orcontempt, had not that pliant genius found means to retain his friendshipby seasonable compliances and submission; for the sole study, or at leastthe chief aim of Ferdinand, was to make himself necessary and agreeableto those on whom his dependence was placed. His talent was in thisparticular suited to his inclination; he seemed to have inherited it fromhis mother's womb; and, without all doubt, would have raised upon it amost admirable superstructure of fortune and applause, had not it beeninseparably yoked with a most insidious principle of self-love, that grewup with him from the cradle, and left no room in his heart for the leastparticle of social virtue. This last, however, he knew so well how tocounterfeit, by means of a large share of ductility and dissimulation,that, surely, he was calculated by nature to dupe even the most cautious,and gratify his appetites, by levying contributions on all mankind.
So little are the common instructors of youth qualified to judge thecapacities of those who are under their tutelage and care, that Fathom,by dint of his insinuating arts, made shift to pass upon the schoolmasteras a lad of quick parts, in despite of a natural inaptitude to retain hislessons, which all his industry could never overcome. In order toremedy, or rather to cloak this defect in his understanding, he hadalways recourse to the friendship of the young Count, who freelypermitted him to transcribe his exercises, until a small accidenthappened, which had well-nigh put a stop to these instances of hisgenerosity.--The adventure, inconsiderable as it is, we shall record, asthe first overt act of Ferdinand's true character, as well as anillustration of the opinion we have advanced touching the blind andinjudicious decisions of a right pedagogue.
Among other tasks imposed by the pedant upon the form to which our twocompanions belonged, they were one evening ordered to translate a chapterof Caesar's Commentaries. Accordingly the young Count went to work, andperformed the undertaking with great elegance and despatch. Fathom,having spent the night in more effeminate amusements, was next morning somuch hurried for want of time, that in his transcription he neglected toinsert a few variations from the text, these being the terms on which hewas allowed to use it; so that it was verbatim a copy of the original.As those exercises were always delivered in a heap, subscribed with theseveral names of the boys to whom they belonged, the schoolmaster chancedto peruse the version of Ferdinand, before he looked into any of therest, and could not help bestowing upon it particular marks ofapprobation. The next that fell under his examination was that of theyoung Count, when he immediately perceived the sameness, and, far fromimputing it to the true cause, upbraided him with having copied theexercise of our adventurer, and insisted upon chastising him upon thespot for his want of application.
Had not the young gentleman thought his honour was concerned, he wouldhave submitted to the punishment without murmuring; but he inherited,from his parents, the pride of two fierce nations, and, being overwhelmedwith reproaches for that which he imagined ought to have redounded to hisglory, he could not brook the indignity, and boldly affirmed, that hehimself was the original, to whom Ferdinand was beholden for hisperformance. The schoolmaster, nettled to find himself mistaken in hisjudgment, resolved that the Count should have no cause to exult in thediscovery he had made, and, like a true flogger, actually whipped him forhaving allowed Fathom to copy his exercise. Nay, in the hope ofvindicating his own penetration, he took an opportunity of questioningFerdinand in private concerning the circumstances of the translation, andour hero, perceiving his drift, gave him such artful and ambiguousanswers, as persuaded him that the young Count had acted the part of aplagiary, and that the other had been restrained from doing himselfjustice, by the consideration of his own dependence.
This profound director did not fail, in honour of his own discernment, towhisper about the misrepresentation, as an instance of the young Count'sinsolence, and Fathom's humility and good sense. The story wascirculated among the servants, especially the maids belonging to thefamily, whose favour our hero had acquired by his engaging behaviour; andat length it reached the ears of his patron, who, incensed at his son'spresumption and inhospitality, called him to a severe account, when theyoung gentleman absolutely denied the truth of the allegation, andappealed to the evidence of Fathom himself. Our adventurer wasaccordingly summoned by the father, and encouraged to declare the truth,with an assurance of his constant protection; upon which Ferdinand verywisely fell upon his knees, and, while the tear
s gushed from his eyes,acquitted the young Count of the imputation, and expressed hisapprehension, that the report had been spread by some of his enemies, whowanted to prejudice him in the opinion of his patron.
The old gentleman was not satisfied of his son's integrity by thisdeclaration; being naturally of a generous disposition, highlyprepossessed in favour of the poor orphan, and chagrined at theunpromising appearance of his heir, he suspected that Fathom was overawedby the fear of giving offence, and that, notwithstanding what he hadsaid, the case really stood as it had been represented. In thispersuasion, he earnestly exhorted his son to resist and combat with anyimpulse he might feel within himself, tending to selfishness, fraud, orimposition; to encourage every sentiment of candour and benevolence, andto behave with moderation and affability to all his fellow-creatures. Helaid upon him strong injunctions, not without a mixture of threats, toconsider Fathom as the object of his peculiar regard; to respect him asthe son of the Count's preserver, as a Briton, a stranger, and, aboveall, an helpless orphan, to whom the rights of hospitality were doublydue.
Such admonitions were not lost upon the youth, who, under the rough huskof his personal exhibition, possessed a large share of generoussensibility. Without any formal professions to his father, he resolvedto govern himself according to his remonstrances; and, far fromconceiving the least spark of animosity against Fathom, he looked uponthe poor boy as the innocent cause of his disgrace, and redoubled hiskindness towards him, that his honour might never again be calledin question, upon the same subject. Nothing is more liable tomisconstruction than an act of uncommon generosity; one half of the worldmistake the motive, from want of ideas to conceive an instance ofbeneficence that soars so high above the level of their own sentiments;and the rest suspect it of something sinister or selfish, from thesuggestions of their own sordid and vicious inclinations. The youngCount subjected himself to such misinterpretation, among those whoobserved the increased warmth of civility and complaisance in hisbehaviour to Ferdinand. They ascribed it to his desire of stillprofiting by our adventurer's superior talents, by which alone theysupposed him enabled to maintain any degree of reputation at school; orto the fear of being convicted by him of some misdemeanour of which heknew himself guilty. These suspicions were not effaced by the conduct ofFerdinand, who, when examined on the subject, managed his answers in sucha manner, as confirmed their conjectures, while he pretended to refutethem, and at the same time acquired to himself credit for hisextraordinary discretion and self-denial.
If he exhibited such a proof of sagacity in the twelfth year of his age,what might not be expected from his finesse in the maturity of hisfaculties and experience? Thus secured in the good graces of the wholefamily, he saw the days of his puerility glide along in the mostagreeable elapse of caresses and amusement. He never fairly plunged intothe stream of school-education, but, by floating on the surface, imbibeda small tincture of those different sciences which his master pretendedto teach. In short, he resembled those vagrant swallows that skim alongthe level of some pool or river, without venturing to wet one feather intheir wings, except in the accidental pursuit of an inconsiderable fly.Yet, though his capacity or inclination was unsuited for studies of thiskind, he did not fail to manifest a perfect genius in the acquisition ofother more profitable arts. Over and above the accomplishments ofaddress, for which he hath been already celebrated, he excelled all hisfellows in his dexterity at fives and billiards; was altogetherunrivalled in his skill at draughts and backgammon; began, even at theseyears, to understand the moves and schemes of chess; and made himself amere adept in the mystery of cards, which he learned in the course of hisassiduities and attention to the females of the house.