by F. Anstey
7. _Cutting the Knot_
"A Crowd is not Company; And Faces are but a Gallery of Pictures;And Talke but a _Tinckling Cymball_, where there is no _Love_." --BACON.
Once more Mr. Bultitude rose betimes, dressed noiselessly, and stoledown to the cold schoolroom, where one gas-jet was burning palely--forthe morning was raw and foggy.
This time, however, he was not alone. Mr. Blinkhorn was sitting at hislittle table in the corner, correcting exercises, with his chilly handscased in worsted mittens. He looked up as Paul came in, and noddedkindly.
Paul went straight to the fire, and stood staring into it withlack-lustre eye, too apathetic even to be hopeless, for the work ofenlightening the Doctor seemed more terrible and impossible than ever,and he began to see that, if the only way of escape lay there, he hadbetter make up his mind with what philosophy he could to adapt himselfto his altered circumstances, and stay on for the rest of the term.
But the prospect was so doleful and so blank, that he drew a heavy sighas he thought of it. Mr. Blinkhorn heard it, and rose awkwardly from therickety little writing-table, knocking over a pile of marble-coveredcopy-books as he did so.
Then he crossed over to Paul and laid a hand gently on his shoulder."Look here," he said: "why don't you confide in me? Do you think I'mblind to what has happened to you? I can see the change in you--ifothers cannot. Why not trust me?"
Mr. Bultitude looked up into his face, which had an honest interest andkindliness in it, and his heart warmed with a faint hope. If this youngman had been shrewd enough to guess at his unhappy secret, might he notbe willing to intercede with the Doctor for him? He lookedgood-natured--he would trust him.
"Do you mean to say really," he asked, with more cordiality than he hadspoken for a long time, "that you--see--the--a--the difference?"
"I saw it almost directly," said Mr. Blinkhorn, with mild triumph.
"That's the most extraordinary thing," said Paul, "and yet it ought tobe evident enough, to be sure. But no, you can't have guessed the realstate of things!"
"Listen, and stop me if I'm wrong. Within the last few days a greatchange has been at work within you. You are not the idle, thoughtless,mischievous boy who left here for his holidays----"
"No," said Paul, "I'll swear I'm not!"
"There is no occasion for such strong expressions. But, at all events,you come back here an altogether different being. Am I right in sayingso?"
"Perfectly," said Paul, overjoyed at being so thoroughly understood,"perfectly. You're a very intelligent young man, sir. Shake hands. Why,I shouldn't be surprised, after that, if you knew how it all happened?"
"That too," said Mr. Blinkhorn smiling, "I can guess. It arose, I doubtnot, in a wish?"
"Yes," cried Paul, "you've hit it again. You're a conjurer, sir, by Gadyou are!"
"Don't say 'by Gad,' Bultitude; it's inconsistent. It began, I wassaying, in a wish, half unconscious perhaps, to be something other thanwhat you had been----"
"I was a fool," groaned Mr. Bultitude, "yes, that was the way it began!"
"Then insensibly the wish worked a gradual transformation in your nature(you are old enough to follow me?)."
"Old enough for him to follow _me_!" thought Paul; but he was toopleased to be annoyed. "Hardly gradual I should say," he said aloud."But go on, sir, pray go on. I see you know all about it."
"At first the other part of you struggled against the new feelings. Youstrove to forget them--you even tried to resume your old habits, yourformer way of life--but to no purpose; and when you came here, you foundno fellowship amongst your companions----"
"Quite out of the question!" said Paul.
"Their pleasures give you no delight----"
"Not a bit!"
"They, on their side, perhaps misunderstand your lack of interest intheir pursuits. They cannot see--how should they?--that you have alteredyour mode of life, and when they catch the difference between you andthe Richard Bultitude they knew, why, they are apt to resent it."
"They are," agreed Mr. Bultitude: "they resent it in a confoundeddisagreeable way, you know. Why, I assure you, that only last night Iwas----"
"Hush," said Mr. Blinkhorn, holding up one hand, "complaints areunmanly. But I see you wonder at my knowing all this?"
"Well," said Paul, "I am rather surprised."
"What would you say if I told you I had undergone it myself in my time?"
"You don't mean to tell me there are _two_ Garuda Stones in thismiserable world!" cried Paul, thoroughly astonished.
"I don't know what you mean now, but I can say with truth that I toohave had my experiences--my trials. Months ago, from certain signs, Inoticed, I foresaw that this was coming upon you."
"Then," said Mr. Bultitude, "I think, in common decency, you might havewarned me. A post-card would have done it. I should have been betterprepared to meet this, then!"
"It would have been worse than fruitless to attempt to hurry on thecrisis. It might have even prevented what I fondly hoped would come topass."
"Fondly hoped!" said Paul, "upon my word you speak plainly, sir."
"Yes," said Mr. Blinkhorn. "You see I knew the Dick Bultitude that was,so well; he was frolicksome, impulsive, mischievous even, but under itall there lay a nature of sterling worth."
"Sterling worth!" cried Paul. "A scoundrel, I tell you, a heartless,selfish young scoundrel. Call things by their right names, if youplease."
"No, no," said Mr. Blinkhorn, "this extreme self-depreciation is morbid,very morbid. There was no actual vice."
"No actual vice! Why, God bless my soul, do you call ingratitude--thebasest, most unfilial, most treacherous ingratitude--no vice, sir? Youmay be a very excellent young man, but if you gloss over things in thatfashion, your moral sense must be perverted, sir--strangely perverted."
"There were faults on both sides, I fear," said Mr. Blinkhorn, growinga little scandalised by the boy's odd warmth of expression. "I haveheard something of what you had to bear with. On the one hand, a father,undemonstrative, stern, easily provoked; on the other, a son,thoughtless, forgetful, and at times it may be even wilful. But you aretoo sensitive; you think too much of what seems to me a not unnatural(although of course improper) protest against coldness and injustice. Ishould be the last to encourage a child against a parent, but, tocomfort your self-reproach, I think it right to assure you that, in myjudgment, the outburst you refer to was very excusable."
"Oh," said Paul, "you do? You call that comfort? Excusable! Why, whatthe dooce do you mean, sir? You're taking the other side now!"
"This is not the language of penitence, Bultitude," said poor Mr.Blinkhorn, disheartened and bewildered. "Remember, you have put off theOld Man now!"
"I'm not likely to forget _that_," said Paul; "I only wish I could seemy way to putting him on again!"
"You want to be your old self again?" gasped Mr. Blinkhorn.
"Why, of course I do," said Paul angrily; "I'm not an idiot!"
"You are weary of the struggle so soon?" said the other with reproach.
"Weary? I tell you I'm sick of it! If I had only known what was in storefor me before I had made such a fool of myself!"
"This is horrible!" said Mr. Blinkhorn--"I ought not to listen to you."
"But you must," urged Paul; "I tell you I can't stand it any longer. I'mnot fit for it at my age. You must see that yourself, and you must makeGrimstone see it too!"
"Never!" said Mr. Blinkhorn firmly. "Nor do I see how that would helpyou. I will not let you go back in this deplorable way. You must nerveyourself to go on now in the path you have chosen; you must force yourschoolfellows to love and respect you in your new character. Come, takecourage! After all, in spite of your altered life, there is no reasonwhy you should not be a frank and happy-hearted boy, you know."
"A frank and happy-hearted fiddlestick!" cried Paul rudely (he was sodisgusted at the suggestion); "don't talk rubbish, sir! I thought youwere going to show me some way o
ut of all this, and instead of that,knowing the shameful way I've been treated, you can stand there andcalmly recommend me to stay on here and be happy-hearted and frank!"
"You must be calm, Bultitude, or I shall leave you. Listen to reason.You are here for your good. Youth, it has been beautifully said, is thespringtime of life. Though you may not believe it, you will never behappier than you are now. Our schooldays are----"
But Mr. Bultitude could not tamely be mocked with the very platitudesthat had brought him all his misery--he cut the master short in aviolent passion. "This is too much!" he cried--"you shall not palm offthat miserable rubbish on me. I see through it. It's a plot to keep mehere, and you're in it. It's false imprisonment, and I'll write to the_Times_. I'll expose the whole thing!"
"This violence is only ridiculous," said Mr. Blinkhorn. "If I were nottoo pained by it, I should feel it my duty to report your language tothe Doctor. As it is, you have bitterly disappointed me; I can'tunderstand it at all. You seemed so subdued, so softened lately. Butuntil you come to me and say you regret this, I must decline to haveanything more to say to you. Take your book and sit down in your place!"
And he went back to his exercises, looking puzzled and pained. The factwas, he was an ardent believer in the Good Boy of a certain order ofschool tales--the boy who is seized with a sudden conviction of theintrinsic baseness of boyhood, and does all in his power to get rid ofthe harmful taint; the boy who renounces his old comrades and hisnatural tastes (which after all seldom have any serious harm in them),to don a panoply of priggishness which is too often kick-proof.
This kind of boy is rare enough at most English schools, but Mr.Blinkhorn had been educated at a large Nonconformist College, where"Revivals" and "Awakenings" were periodical, and undoubtedly did producechanges of character violent enough, but sadly short in duration.
He was always waiting for some such boy to come to him with hisconfession of moral worthlessness and vows of unnatural perfection, andwas too simple and earnest and good himself to realise that such statesof the youthful mind are not unfrequently merely morbid and hysterical,and too often degenerate into Pharisaism, or worse still, hypocrisy.
So when he noticed Mr. Bultitude's silence and depression, his studiedwithdrawal from the others and his evident want of sympathy with them,he believed he saw the symptoms of a conscience at work, and that he hadfound his reformed boy at last.
It was a very unfortunate misunderstanding, for it separated Paul from,perhaps, the only person who would have had the guilelessness to believehis incredible story, and the good nature to help him to find escapefrom his misfortunes.
Mr. Bultitude on his part was more angry and disgusted than ever. Hebegan to see that there was a muddle somewhere, and that his identitywas unsuspected still. This young man, for all his fair speaking andpretended shrewdness, was no conjurer after all. He was left to rely onhis own resources, and he had begun to lose all confidence in theirpower to extricate him.
As he brooded over this, the boys straggled down as before, and lookedover their lessons for the day in a dull, lifeless manner. The cold,unsatisfying breakfast, and the half-hour assigned to "chevy," followedin due course, and after that Paul found himself set down with a classto await the German master, Herr Stohwasser.
He had again tried to pull himself together and approach the Doctor withhis protest, but no sooner did he find himself near his presence thanhis heart began to leap wildly and then retired down towards his boots,leaving him hoarse, palpitating, and utterly blank of ideas.
It was no use--and he resigned himself for yet another day of unwelcomeinstruction.
The class was in a little room on the basement floor, with a linen-presstaking up one side, some bare white deal tables and forms, and, on thewalls, a few coloured German prints. They sat there talking andlaughing, taking no notice of Mr. Bultitude, until the German mastermade his appearance.
He was by no means a formidable person, though stout and tall. He worebig round owlish spectacles, and his pale broad face and long nose,combined with a wild crop of light hair and a fierce beard, gave him theincongruous appearance of a sheep looking out of a gun-port.
He took his place with an air of tremendous determination to enforce ahard morning's work on the book they were reading--a play of Schiller's,of the plot of which, it is needless to say, no one of his pupils had orcared to have the vaguest notion, having long since condemned the wholesubject, with insular prejudice, as "rot."
"Now, please," said Herr Stohwasser, "where we left off last term. Thirdact, first scene--Court before Tell's house. Tell is vid the carpenteraxe, Hedwig vid a domestig labour occupied. Walter and Wilhelm in thedepth sport with a liddle gross-bow. Biddlegom, you begin. Walter(sings)."
But Biddlecomb was in a conversational mood, and willing to postpone thetask of translation, so he merely inquired, with an air of extremeinterest, how Herr Stohwasser's German Grammar was getting on.
This was a subject on which (as he perhaps knew) the German never couldresist enlarging, for in common with most German masters, he was givingbirth to a new Grammar, which, from the daring originality of its plan,and its extreme simplicity, was destined to supersede all other similarworks.
"Ach," he said, "it is brogressing. I haf just gompleted a gomprehensivetable of ze irregular virps, vith ze eggserzizes upon zem. And zere isfurther an appendeeks which in itself gontains a goncise view of all zevort-blays possible in the Charman tong. But, come, let us gontinue vithour Tell!"
"What are vort-blays?" persisted Biddlecomb insidiously, having no ideaof continuing with his Tell just yet.
"A vort-blay," exclaimed Herr Stohwasser; "it is English, nicht so? Asporting vid vorts--a 'galembour'--a--Gott pless me, vat you call a'pon.'"
"Like the one you made when you were a young man?" Jolland called outfrom the lower end of the table.
"Yes; tell us the one you made when you were a young man," the classentreated, with flattering eagerness.
Herr Stohwasser began to laugh with slow, deep satisfaction; thesatisfaction of a successful achievement. "Hah, you remember dat!" hesaid, "ah, yes, I make him when a yong man; but, mind you, he was not apon--he was a '_choke_.' I haf told you all about him before."
"We've forgotten it," said Biddlecomb: "tell it us again."
As a matter of fact this joke, in all its lights, was tolerably familiarto most of them by this time, but, either on its individual merits, orperhaps because it compared favourably with the sterner alternative oftranslating, it was periodically in request, and always met withevergreen appreciation.
Herr Stohwasser beamed with the pride of authorship. Like the celebratedScotchman, he "jocked wi' deeficulty," and the outcome of so muchlabour was dear to him.
"I zent him into ze Charman _Kladderadatch_ (it is a paper like your_Ponch_). It--mein choke--was upon ze Schleswig-Holstein gomplication;ze beginning was in this way----"
And he proceeded to set out in great length all the circumstances whichhad given materials for his "choke," with the successive processes bywhich he had shaped and perfected it, passing on to a recital of themasterpiece itself, and ending up by a philosophical analysis of thesame, which must have placed his pupils in full possession of the point,for they laughed consumedly.
"I dell you zis," he said, "not to aggustom your minds vid frivolity andlightness, but as a lesson in ze gonstruction of ze langwitch. If youcan choke in Charman, you will be able also to gonverse in Charman."
"Did the German what's-its-name print your joke?" inquired Coggs.
"It has not appeared yet," Herr Stohwasser confessed; "it takes a longtime to get an imbortant choke like that out in brint. But I vait--Iwrite to ze editor every week--and I vait."
"Why don't you put it in your Grammar?" suggested Tipping.
"I haf--ze greater part of it--(it vas a long choke, but I gompressedhim). If I haf time, some day I will make anozer liddle choke toaggompany, begause I vant my Crammar to be a goot Crammar, youunderstandt. And now to our Tell. Really
you beople do noding butchadder!"
All this, of course, had no interest for Mr. Bultitude, but it left himfree to pursue his own thoughts in peace, and indeed this lesson wouldnever have been recorded here, but for two circumstances which willpresently appear, both of which had no small effect on his fortunes.
He sat nearest the window, and looked out on the pinched and droopinglaurels in the enclosure, which were damp with frost melting in thesunshine. Over the wall he could see the tops of passing vehicles, thecountry carrier's cart, the railway parcels van, the fly from thestation. He envied even the drivers; their lot was happier than his!
His thoughts were busy with Dick. Oddly enough, it had scarcely occurredto him before to speculate on what he might be doing in his absence; hehad thought chiefly about himself. But now he gave his attention to thesubject, what new horrors it opened up! What might not become of hiswell-conducted household under the rash rule of a foolish schoolboy! Theoffice, too--who could say what mischief Dick might not be doing there,under the cover of his own respectable form?
Then it might seem good to him any day to smash the Garuda Stone, andafter that there would be no hope of matters being ever set right again!
And yet, miserable coward and fool that he was, with everythingdepending upon his losing no time to escape, he could not screw up hiscourage, and say the words that were to set him free.
All at once--and this is one of the circumstances that make the Germanlesson an important stage in this story--an idea suggested itself to himquite dazzling by its daring and brilliancy.
Some may wonder, when they hear what it was, why he never thought of itbefore, and it is somewhat surprising, but by no means withoutprecedent. Artemus Ward has told us somewhere of a ferocious bandit whowas confined for sixteen years in solitary captivity, before the notionof escape ever occurred to him. When it did, he opened the window andgot out.
Perhaps a similar passiveness on Mr. Bultitude's part was due to a verynatural and proper desire to do everything without scandal, and in alegitimate manner; to march out, as it were, with the honours of war.Perhaps it was simple dullness. The fact remains that it was not tillthen that he saw a way of recovering his lost position, without thedisagreeable necessity of disclosing his position to anyone at CrichtonHouse.
He had still--thank Heaven--the five shillings he had given Dick. He hadnot thrown them away with the other articles in his mad passion. Fiveshillings was not much, but it was more than enough to pay for athird-class fare to town. He had only to watch his opportunity, slipaway to the station, and be at home again, defying the usurper, beforeanyone at Crichton House had discovered his absence.
He might go that very day, and the delight of this thought--the completereaction from blank despair to hope--was so intense that he could nothelp rubbing his hands stealthily under the table, and chuckling withglee at his own readiness of resource.
When we are most elated, however, there is always a counteracting agentat hand to bring us down again to our proper level, or below it. TheRoman general in the triumph never really needed the slave in thechariot to dash his spirits--he had his friends there already; theguests at an Egyptian dinner must have brought their own skeletons.
There was a small flaxen-haired little boy sitting next to Mr.Bultitude, seemingly a quite inoffensive being, who at this stage servedto sober him by furnishing another complication.
"Oh, I say, Bultitude," he piped shrilly in Paul's ear, "I forgot allabout it. Where's my rabbit?"
The unreasonable absurdity of such a question annoyed him excessively."Is this a time," he said reprovingly, "to talk of rabbits? Mind yourbook, sir."
"Oh, I daresay," grumbled little Porter, the boy in question: "it's allvery well, but I want my rabbit."
"Hang it, sir," said Paul angrily, "do you suppose I'm sitting on it?"
"You promised to bring me back a rabbit," persisted Porter doggedly;"you know you did, and it's a beastly shame. I mean to have thatrabbit, or know the reason why."
At the other end of the table Biddlecomb had again dexterously alluredHerr Stohwasser into the meshes of conversation; this time upon thequestion (_a propos de bottes_) of street performances. "I vill tell youa gurious thing," he was saying, "vat happened to me de oder day ven Ivas valking down de Strandt. I saw a leedle gommon dirty boy with a tallround hat on him, and he stand in a side street right out in de road,and he take off his tall round hat, and he put it on de ground, and hestand still and look zo at it. So I shtop too, to see vat he vould donext. And bresently he take out a large sheet of baper and tear it infour pieces very garefully, and stick zem round de tall round hat, andput it on his head again, and zen he set it down on de grount and lookat it vonce more, and all de time he never speak von vort. And I lookand look and vonder vat he would do next. And a great growd of beoplescom, and zey look and vonder too. And zen all at once de leedle dirtyboy he take out all de paper and put on de hat, and he valk avay,laughing altogetter foolishly at zomzing I did not understand at all. Ihaf been thinking efer since vat in the vorldt he do all zat nonsencefor. And zere is von ozer gurious thing I see in your London streets zatvery same day. Zere vas a poor house cat dat had been by a cab overrunas I passed by, and von man vith a kind varm heart valk up and stamp iton de head for to end its pain. And anozer man vith anozer kind heart,he gom up directly and had not seen de cat overrun, but he see de firstman stamping and he knock him down for ill-treating animals; it wasquite gurious to see; till de policeman arrest dem both for fighting.Goggs, degline 'Katze,' and gif me ze berfect and bast barticiple of'kampfen,' to fight." This last relapse into duty was caused by thesudden entrance of the Doctor, who stood at the door looking on for sometime with a general air of being intimately acquainted with Schiller asan author, before suggesting graciously that it was time to dismiss theclass.
Wednesday was a half-holiday at Crichton House, and so, soon afterdinner, Paul found himself marshalled with the rest in a processionbound for the football field. They marched two and two, Chawner andthree of the other elder boys leading with the ball and four goal-postsornamented with coloured calico flags, and Mr. Blinkhorn and Mr. Tinklerbringing up the rear.
Mr. Bultitude was paired with Tom Grimstone, who, after eyeing himaskance for some time, could control his curiosity no longer.
"I say, Dick," he began, "what's the matter with you this term?"
"My name is not Dick," said Paul stiffly.
"Oh, if you're so particular then," said Tom: "but, without humbug, whatis the matter?"
"You see a change then," said Paul, "you do see a difference, eh?"
"Rather!" said Tom expressively. "You've come back what I call a beastlysneak, you know, this term. The other fellows don't like it; they'llsend you to Coventry unless you take care."
"I wish they would," said Paul.
"You don't talk like the same fellow either," continued Tom; "you usesuch fine language, and you're always in a bait, and yet you don't stickup for yourself as you used to. Look here, tell me (we were alwayschums), is it one of your larks?"
"Larks!" said Paul. "I'm in a fine mood for larks. No, it's not one ofmy larks."
"Perhaps your old governor has been making a cad of himself then, andyou're out of sorts about it."
"I'll thank you not to speak about him in that way," said Paul, "in mypresence."
"Why," grumbled Tom, "I'm sure you said enough about him yourself lastterm. It's my belief you're imitating him now."
"Ah," said Paul, "and what makes you think that?"
"Why, you go about strutting and swelling just like he did when he cameabout sending you here. I say, do you know what Mums said about himafter he went away?"
"No," said Paul, "your mother struck me as a very sensible andagreeable woman--if I may say so to her son."
"Well, Mums said your governor seemed to leave you here just like theyleave umbrellas at picture galleries, and she believed he had alarge-sized money-bag inside him instead of a heart."
"Oh!" said Paul, with g
reat disgust, for he had thought Mrs. Grimstone awoman of better taste; "your mother said that, did she? Vastlyentertaining to be sure--ha, ha! He would be pleased to know she thoughtthat, I'm sure."
"Tell him, and see what he says," suggested Tom; "he is an awful bruteto you though, isn't he?"
"If," growled Mr. Bultitude, "slaving from morning till night to provideeducation and luxury for a thankless brood of unprofitable young vipersis 'being a brute,' I suppose he is."
"Why, you're sticking up for him now!" said Tom. "I thought he was sostrict with you. Wouldn't let you have any fun at home, and never tookyou to pantomimes?"
"And why should he, sir, why should he? Tell me that. Tell me why a manis to be hunted out of his comfortable chair after a well-earned dinner,to go and sit in a hot theatre and a thorough draught, yawning at themiserable drivel managers choose to call a pantomime? Now in my youngdays there _were_ pantomimes. I tell you, sir, I've seen----"
"Oh, if you're satisfied, I don't care!" said Tom, astonished at thisapparent change of front. "If you choose to come back and play thecorker like this, it's your look-out. Only, if you knew what Sproulemajor said about you just now----"
"I don't want to know," said Paul; "it doesn't concern me."
"Perhaps it doesn't concern you what pa thinks either? Dad told Mumslast night that he was altogether at a loss to know how to deal withyou, you had come back so queer and unruly. And he said, let me see, oh,he said that 'if he didn't see an alteration very soon he should resortto more drastic measures'--drastic measures is Latin for a whopping."
"Good gracious!" thought Paul, "I haven't a moment to lose! he might'resort to drastic measures' this very evening. I can't change my natureat my time of life. I must run for it, and soon."
Then he said aloud to Tom, "Can you tell me, my--my young friend, if,supposing a boy were to ask to leave the field--saying for instance thathe was not well and thought he should be better at home--whether hewould be allowed to go?"
"Of course he would," said Tom, "you ought to know that by this time.You've only to ask Blinkhorn or Tinkler; they'll let you go rightenough."
Paul saw his course quite clearly now, and was overcome with relief andgratitude. He wrung the astonished Tom's hand warmly; "Thank you," hesaid, briskly and cheerfully, "thank you. I'm really uncommonly obligedto you. You're a very intelligent boy. I should like to give yousixpence."
But although Tom used no arguments to dissuade him, Mr. Bultituderemembered his position in time, and prudently refrained from suchill-judged generosity. Sixpences were of vital importance now, when heexpected to be starting so soon on his perilous journey.
And so they reached the field where the game was to be played, and wherePaul was resolved to have one desperate throw for liberty and home. Hewas more excited than anxious as he thought of it, and it certainly didseem as if all the chances were in his favour, and that fortune musthave forsaken him indeed, if anything were allowed to prevent hisescape.