‘And I don’t think I am very far wrong in that last,’ he confided to the Reverend John. ‘Do you happen to know anything of one Raymond Martin?’
‘I was at College with a man of that name,’ the chaplain replied. ‘He was without form and void,* so far as I remember, but desperately earnest.’
‘He will address the Coll, on “Patriotism” next Saturday.’
‘If there is one thing our boys detest more than another it is having their Saturday evenings broken into. Patriotism has no chance beside “brewing.” ’
‘Nor art either. D’you remember our “Evening with Shakespeare”?’ The Head’s eyes twinkled. ‘Or the humorous gentleman with the magic-lantern?’
* * * * *
‘An’ who the dooce is this Raymond Martin, M.P.?’ demanded Beetle, when he read the notice of the lecture in the corridor. ‘Why do the brutes always turn up on a Saturday?’
‘Ouh! Reomeo, Reomeo. Wherefore art thou Reomeo?’ said M‘Turk over his shoulder, quoting the Shakespeare artiste of last term. ‘Well, he won’t be as bad as her, I hope. Stalky, are you properly patriotic? Because if you ain’t, this chap’s goin’ to make you.’
‘’Hope he won’t take up the whole of the evening. I suppose we’ve got to listen to him.’
‘’Wouldn’t miss him for the world,’ said M’Turk. ‘A lot of chaps thought that Romeo-Romeo woman was a bore. I didn’t. I liked her! ’Member when she began to hiccough in the middle of it? P’raps he’ll hiccough. Who-ever gets into the gym first, bags seats for the other two.’
* * * * *
There was no nervousness, but a brisk and cheery affability about Mr. Raymond Martin, M.P., as he drove up, watched by many eyes, to the Head’s house.
‘’Looks a bit of a bargee,’* was M’Turk’s comment. ‘’Shouldn’t be surprised if he was a Radical. He rowed the driver about the fare. I heard him.’
‘That was his giddy patriotism,’ Beetle explained.
After tea they joined the rush for seats, secured a private and invisible corner, and began to criticise. Every gas-jet was lit. On the little dais at the far end stood the Head’s official desk, whence Mr. Martin would discourse, and a ring of chairs for the masters.
Entered then Foxy, with official port, and leaned something like a cloth rolled round a stick against the desk. No one in authority was yet present, so the school applauded, crying: ‘What’s that, Foxy? What are you stealin’ the gentleman’s brolly for?—We don’t birch here. We cane! Take away that bauble!—Number off from the right’—and so forth, till the entry of the Head and the masters ended all demonstrations.
‘One good job—the Common-room hate this as much as we do. Watch King wrigglin’ to get out of the draught.’
‘Where’s the Raymondiferous Martin? Punctuality, my beloved ’earers, is the image o’ war—’
‘Shut up. Here’s the giddy Duke. Golly, what a dewlap!’ Mr. Martin, in evening dress, was undeniably throaty—a tall, generously-designed, pink-and-white man. Still, Beetle need not have been coarse.
‘Look at his back while he’s talkin’ to the Head. Vile bad from to turn your back on the audience! He’s a Philistine—a Bopper*—a Jebusite an’ a Hivite.’* M‘Turk leaned back and sniffed contemptuously.
In a few colourless words the Head introduced the speaker and sat down amid applause. When Mr. Martin took the applause to himself, they naturally applauded more than ever. It was some time before he could begin. He had no knowledge of the school—its tradition or heritage. He did not know that the last census showed that eighty per cent of the boys had been born abroad—in camp, cantonment, or upon the high seas; or that seventy-five per cent were sons of officers in one or other of the services—Willoughbys, Paulets, De Castros, Maynes, Randalls, after their kind—looking to follow their fathers’ profession. The Head might have told him this, and much more; but, after an hour-long dinner in his company, the Head decided to say nothing whatever. Mr. Raymond Martin seemed to know so much already.
He plunged into his speech with a long-drawn, rasping ‘Well, boys,’ that, though they were not conscious of it, set every young nerve ajar. He supposed they knew—hey?—what he had come down for? It was not often that he had an opportunity to talk to boys. He supposed that boys were very much the same kind of persons—some people thought them rather funny persons—as they had been in his youth.
‘This man,’ said M‘Turk, with conviction, ‘is the Gadarene Swine.’*
But they must remember that they would not always be boys. They would grow up into men, because the boys of today made the men of to-morrow, and upon the men of tomorrow the fair fame of their glorious native land depended.
‘If this goes on, my beloved ’earers, it will be my painful duty to rot this bargee.’ Stalky drew a long breath through his nose.
‘’Can’t do that,’ said M‘Turk. ‘He ain’t chargin’ anything for his Romeo.’
And so they ought to think of the duties and responsibilities of the life that was opening before them. Life was not all—he enumerated a few games, and, that nothing might be lacking to the sweep and impact of his fall, added ‘marbles.’ ‘Yes, life was not,’ he said, ‘all marbles.’
There was one tense gasp—among the juniors almost a shriek—of quivering horror. He was a heathen—an outcast—beyond the extremest pale of toleration—self-damned before all men! Stalky bowed his head in his hands. M‘Turk, with a bright and cheerful eye, drank in every word, and Beetle nodded solemn approval.
Some of them, doubtless, expected in a few years to have the honour of a commission from the Queen, and to wear a sword. Now, he himself had had some experience of these duties, as a Major in a volunteer regiment, and he was glad to learn that they had established a volunteer corps in their midst. The establishment of such an establishment conduced to a proper and healthy spirit, which, if fostered, would be of great benefit to the land they loved and were so proud to belong to. Some of those now present expected, he had no doubt—some of them anxiously looked forward to leading their men against the bullets of England’s foes; to confronting the stricken field in all the pride of their youthful manhood.
Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, she being made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several. With a large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, and trampled them under the well-intentioned feet of eloquence. In a raucous voice he cried aloud little matters, like the hope of Honour and the dream of Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their most intimate equals; cheerfully assuming that, till he spoke, they had never considered these possibilities. He pointed them to shining goals, with fingers which smudged out all radiance on all horizons. He profaned the most secret places of their souls with outcries and gesticulations. He bade them consider the deeds of their ancestors in such fashion that they were flushed to their tingling ears. Some of them—the rending voice cut a frozen stillness—might have had relatives who perished in defence of their country. [They thought, not a few of them, of an old sword in a passage, or above a breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth since they could walk.] He adjured them to emulate those illustrious examples; and they looked all ways in their extreme discomfort.
Their years forbade them even to shape their thoughts clearly to themselves. They felt savagely that they were being outraged by a fat man who considered marbles a game.
And so he worked towards his peroration—which, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors—while they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many many words, he reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. This—this was the concrete symbol of their land—worthy of all honour and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them—a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort.
They looked in silence. They ha
d certainly seen the thing before—down at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig went ashore on Braunton sands; above the roof of the Golf Club, and in Keyte’s window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eyes? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk.
The Head saved the situation by rising swiftly to propose a vote of thanks, and at his first motion the school clapped furiously, from a sense of relief.
‘And I am sure,’ he concluded, the gaslight full on his face, ‘that you will all join me in a very hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Raymond Martin for the most enjoyable address he has given us.’
To this day we shall never know the rights of the case. The Head vows that he did no such thing; or that, if he did, it must have been something in his eye; but those who were present are persuaded that he winked, once, openly and solemnly, after the word ‘enjoyable.’ Mr. Raymond Martin got his applause full tale. As he said, ‘Without vanity, I think my few words went to their hearts. I never knew boys could cheer like that.’
He left as the prayer-bell rang, and the boys lined up against the wall. The flag lay still unrolled on the desk, Foxy regarding it with pride, for he had been touched to the quick by Mr. Martin’s eloquence. The Head and the Common-room, standing back on the dais, could not see the glaring offence, but a prefect left the line, rolled it up swiftly, and as swiftly tossed it into a glove-and-foil locker.
Then, as though he had touched a spring, broke out the low murmur of content, changing to quick-volleyed hand-clapping.
They discussed the speech in the dormitories. There was not one dissentient voice. Mr. Raymond Martin, beyond question, was born in a gutter, and bred in a Board-school,* where they played marbles. He was further (I give the barest handful from great store) a Flopshus Cad, an Outrageous Stinker, a Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper (this was Stalky’s contribution), and several other things which it is not seemly to put down.
The volunteer cadet-corps fell in next Monday, depressedly, with a face of shame. Even then, judicious silence might have turned the corner.
Said Foxy: ‘After a fine speech like what you ’eard night before last, you ought to take ’old of your drill with re-newed activity. I don’t see how you can avoid comin’ out an’ marchin’ in the open now.’
‘Can’t we get out of it, then, Foxy?’ Stalky’s fine old silky tone should have warned him.
‘No, not with his giving the flag so generously. He told me before he left this morning that there was no objection to the corps usin’ it as their own. It’s a handsome flag.’
Stalky returned his rifle to the rack in dead silence, and fell out. His example was followed by Hogan and Ansell.
Perowne hesitated. ‘Look here, oughtn’t we—?’ he began.
‘I’ll get it out of the locker in a minute,’ said the Sergeant, his back turned. ‘Then we can—’
‘Come on!’ shouted Stalky. ‘What the devil are you waiting for? Dismiss! Break off.’
‘Why—what the—where the——?’
The rattle of Sniders, slammed into the rack, drowned his voice, as boy after boy fell out.
‘I—I don’t know that I shan’t have to report this to the Head,’ he stammered.
‘Report, then, and be damned to you,’ cried Stalky, white to the lips, and ran out.
* * * * *
‘Rummy thing!’ said Beetle to M‘Turk. ‘I was in the study, doin’ a simply lovely poem about the Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper, an’ Stalky came in, an’ I said “Hullo!” an’ he cursed me like a bargee, and then he began to blub like anything. Shoved his head on the table and howled. Hadn’t we better do something?’
M‘Turk was troubled. ‘P’raps he’s smashed himself up somehow.’
They found him, with very bright eyes, whistling between his teeth.
‘Did I take you in, Beetle? I thought I would. Wasn’t it a good draw? Didn’t you think I was blubbin’? Didn’t I do it well? Oh, you fat old ass!’ And he began to pull Beetle’s ears and cheeks, in the fashion that was called ‘milking.’
‘I knew you were blubbin’,’ Beetle replied composedly. ‘Why aren’t you at drill?’
‘Drill! What drill?’
‘Don’t try to be a clever fool. Drill in the gym.’
‘’Cause there isn’t any. The volunteer cadet-corps is broke up—disbanded—dead—putrid—corrupt—stinkin’. An’ if you look at me like that, Beetle, I’ll slay you too… . Oh yes, an’ I’m goin’ to be reported to the Head for swearin’.’
The Birthright
The miracle of our land’s speech—so known
And long received, none marvel when ’tis shown!
We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride
Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;
Nor with such arrant prodigality
Beneath her any pagan’s foot let lie …
Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days
To find and t’other half to bring to blaze:
Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan
The fiercer and more fiery heart of man:
Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies,
And Sapphires evening remembered skies:
Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show,
Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe;
And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ,
Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it.
Thereafter, in all manners worked and set,
Jade, coral, amber, crystal, ivories, jet,—
Showing no more than various fancies, yet,
Each a Life’s token or Love’s amulet… .
Which things, through timeless arrogance of use,
We neither guard nor garner, but abuse;
So that our scholars—nay, our children—fling
In sport or jest treasure to arm a King;
And the gross crowd, at feast or market, hold
Traffic perforce with dust of gems and gold!
The Propagation of Knowledge
Rudyard Kipling
The Army Class ‘English,’ which included the Upper Fifth, was trying to keep awake; for ‘English’ (Literature—Augustan epoch—eighteenth century) came at last lesson, and that, on a blazing July afternoon, meant after every one had been bathing. Even Mr. King found it hard to fight against the snore of the tide along the Pebble Ridge, and spurred himself with strong words.
Since, said he, the pearls of English Literature existed only to be wrenched from their settings and cast before young swine* rooting for marks, it was his loathed business—in anticipation of the Army Preliminary Examination which, as usual, would be held at the term’s end, under the auspices of an official Examiner sent down ad hoc*—to prepare for the Form a General Knowledge test—paper, which he would give them next week. It would cover their studies, up to date, of the Augustans and King Lear, which was the selected—and strictly expurgated—Army Exam, play for that year. Now, English Literature, as he might have told them, was not divided into water—tight compartments, but flowed like a river. For example, Samuel Johnson, glory of the Augustans and no mean commentator of Shakespeare, was but one in a mighty procession which——
At this point Beetle’s nodding brows came down with a grunt on the desk. He had been soaking and sunning himself in the open sea—baths built out on the rocks under the cliffs, from two-fifteen to four-forty.
The Army Class took Johnson off their minds. With any luck, Beetle would last King till the tea—bell. King rubbed his hands and began to carve him. He had gone to sleep to show his contempt (a) for Mr. King, who might or might not matter, and (b) for the Augustans, who none the less were not to be sneered at by one whose vast and om
nivorous reading, for which such extraordinary facilities had been granted (this was because the Head had allowed Beetle the run of his library), naturally overlooked such epigonoi* as Johnson, Swift, Pope, Addison, and the like. Harrison Ainsworth* and Marryat* doubtless appealed——
Even so, Beetle salt-encrusted all over except his spectacles, and steeped in delicious languors, was sliding back to sleep again, what ‘Taffy’ Howell, the leading light of the Form, who knew his Marryat as well as Stalky did his Surtees, began in his patent, noiseless whisper: ‘ “Allow me to observe—in the most delicate manner in the world—just to hint——” ’
‘Under pretext of studying literature, a desultory and unformed mind would naturally return, like the dog of Scripture——’*
‘ “You’re a damned trencher-scrapin’, napkin-carryin’, shillin’-seekin’, up-an’-down-stairs &c.” ’ Howell breathed.
Beetle choked aloud on the sudden knowledge that King was the ancient and eternal Chucks—later Count Shucksen—of Peter Simple.* He had not realised it before.
‘Sorry, sir. I’m afraid I’ve been asleep, sir,’ he sputtered.
The shout of the Army Class diverted the storm. King was grimly glad that Beetle had condescended to honour truth so far. Perhaps he would now lend awakened ear to a summary of the externals of Dr. Johnson, as limned by Macaulay.* And he read, with intention, the just historian’s outline of a grotesque figure with untied shoe-strings, that twitched and grunted, gorged its food, bit its finger-nails, and neglected its ablutions. The Form hailed it as a speaking likeness of Beetle; nor were they corrected..
Then King implored him to vouchsafe his comrades one single fact connected with Dr. Johnson which might at any time have adhered to what, for decency’s sake, must, Mr. King supposed, be called his mind.
The Complete Stalky & Co Page 27