Young Phillip Maddison

by Henry Williamson

  Bird of the wilderness, blithesome and cumberless

  which had been accepted by the three editors in the Sixth Form until the senior English Master pointed out that it was by James Hogg, “the Ettrick shepherd lad”. To this master Phillip was “no ordinary potato”, a boy of considerable intelligence which almost invariably was misapplied. He might find his place, the English Master once declared, in a circus; this was after he had appeared, one day at school luncheon, with a white rat on his shoulder. After this successful exhibition, Phillip had brought to the playing field at various times a pair of tame jackdaws called Jack and Jill, which disorganised an inter-house cricket match by flying down to perch on their foster-parent’s head while he was fielding at cover point, and crying raucously to be fed. Then he had a tame jay called Jerry, which could not be kept out of the pavilion where doughnuts and cheese-cakes were sold; on another occasion he had turned up with a young brown owl, its baby-fluff still dreamy upon soft tawny feathers. This creature, pursued by sparrows, had flown off among the adjoining chimney pots and presumably taken thereafter to the wilds of Lee and the wide, flat extent of cabbage fields stretching to Eltham and beyond.

  Richard had permitted these birds in the garden at home, and even in the house. Indeed, they had come into the bedrooms soon after sunrise, ejaculating, screaming, and in the case of the owl, chissicking for food. The jay had been the most inquisitive: morning after morning, soon after sunrise, Phillip had awakened to feel the bird perching on his head, industriously searching through his hair. Richard did not mind the occasional droppings about the house; the birds reminded him of his own boyhood, and, in particular, of his Father, for whom now he had much imaginative sympathy. Although nothing could condone the fact that his Father had failed in his duty to his Mother, yet, looking back, Richard saw that he had had some provocation—his Mother had not really been able to share his Father’s life.

  *

  The term no ordinary potato was used in good-natured tolerance by the Senior English Master of what originally had been “The Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth in the Borough”. Under the Elizabethan Letters Patent a body of governors had been appointed, but the establishment of the school faltered for want of funds; endowments were lacking, despite occasional gifts, such as that of a local resident who by his Will dated 7 December 1574 bequeathed, Item 1 doe give towards the ereccon of the free scoole twenty shillings, and another who gave the churchwardens of the parish towards theire chargs in the perfectinge their assurances for the contynewaunce and maynteynaunce of theire free schoole there the somme of fyve poundes.

  Religious quarrels and persecutions made it a period of fear, submission, and uncertainty, until the Founder devoted life, and fortune, to the establishment of all the best orders and exercises in use at the Free Schooles at Westminster, Paul’s and Merchant Taylors’ School, and in the Public Free School at Eaton.

  *

  In such details Phillip had not the slightest interest, although Hetty, having bought a History of the Borough, had tried to share with him her own enthusiasm for the past, which had been kindled in her by listening to Mr. Mundy, when he came to sup with Papa.

  Hetty had also met Mr. Graham, the author of the History, a most charming and elderly gentleman who had himself been at the school nearly forty years before. He was a bachelor, and devoted his life, apart from his work in the War Office in Whitehall, which had been recognised with the award of the M.V.O., between Antiquarianism and the furtherance of the social life of the school, particularly of the boys in their sports, games and pastimes.

  Mr. Graham was usually to be seen on Saturday afternoons at Colt Park. In his high crowned black felt hat, always carrying an umbrella and wearing a cloak, with camera ever ready to snap groups upon the cricket or football fields, cross-country runs, or in the tented lines during the summer camp at Bisley, the tall, gentle figure of the distinguished Old Boy, with his flowing grey moustaches, was to be seen among the boys. Mr. Graham was the embodiment of tolerance and kindliness without exception, of devotion to the living material of his Alma Mater. Within his own home as a child he had been nurtured in love, from both his parents in balance. He was the selfless patron of the gentle Victorian age and ideal. There was seldom a Saturday afternoon when Mr. Graham did not leave Colt Park without three or four boys accompanying him, sure of hot buttered crumpets with poached eggs, pastries, buns, doughnuts, and seed-cake in the tea-shop opposite the tram-stop at Lee Green.

  Phillip was often one of the invited, since he usually managed to be about as the welcome figure, gently prodding turf with the ferrule of his unrolled umbrella, lingered near the pavilion after football on Saturday afternoon in winter. Another boy, often invited, was Milton, now of the first eleven in both cricket and football.

  History flowed through the life of this amiable patron, history was a living spirit to this bystander who never, by word or deed, strove to communicate his thoughts and beliefs directly. He was the good shepherd, whose dog never barks; whose eyes are as the shepherd’s eyes, alive with the light of natural intelligence, which works with the flock by endowed thought, and knows direction of duty by a glance, a lift of the hand, a murmur: an animal which has never felt the strokes of pain without which lesser men deem such natures, and human life too, to be incorrigible. Life to this Friend of the School was for the purpose of high endeavour, to be lived for beauty, truth, and modesty in achievement.

  Mr. Graham was of a generation which was soon to vanish from the Borough, even with the last traces of the county of Kent. In his earlier years he was by no means unique; he was a Christian gentleman, whose bearing had in some part been modulated by the possession of a private income. Mr. Graham had confided his interest in Phillip to Hetty: he thought that the boy showed signs of a talent for literature. It was his hope that one day the School would produce a boy whose work would do for it what the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays had done for Rugby.

  From Mr. Graham’s History of the Borough Hetty had learned many interesting things about the past. She shared with her father a love of history and literature, limited as the scope was. They had read and discussed Pepy’s Diary, The Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, some of the novels of Thomas Hardy; and, from early years, there had been the readings, after supper, from the duodecimo set of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.

  *

  Hetty wondered how Phillip, with his inability to learn Latin, would have fared at his school in the reign of Elizabeth, when the scholars in the upper forms had to speak to one another, and to the ushers, in Latin only. From Mr. Graham’s book she learned that the school hours then were from seven o’clock in the spring and summer, and an hour later in the winter, to four o’clock in the afternoon, with an hour and a half for dinner and play. There were Praepostors appointed weekly to report misdemeanours both in and out of school, and neither masters nor boys were allowed to wear long curl’d, frizzled, powdered or ruffin-like hair, but shall cut their Hair and wear it in such sort and manner that both the beauty of their Foreheads may be seen. They were not to use any clamorous cries nor casting stones nor fighting, nor use any rude or uncivil word or cries, nor to be whitlers or gravers of names in about the windows or other places. They were not to indulge in unlawful or hurtful pastimes as footballe, dice or cards or any game for money, nor to swim or wash in the river without leave.

  Boys, she thought, were very much the same in those days, as now. The Elizabethan scholars were allowed shooting with long bows, stool-ball, running, wrestling, leaping, and other inoffensive exercises. As for holidays, there were three weeks at Christmas, and a fortnight at Easter and Whitsuntide, with Shrove Monday and Tuesday.

  Elbows on the plush table-cover, Hetty looked up from the book.

  “You ought to read this, dear, I am sure you would find it most interesting, how arithmetic was taught at your school, all that while ago—think of it, more than three hundred years!”

  “Oh Mother, why must you talk about that mouldy b
ook! Can’t you see I’m busy? Anyhow, we have enough of that sort of muck at school. What’s the good of it all? Anyway, I bet I’ve failed in my matriculation. The results will be out any day now. Oh lor’. Well, if you must, show me.”

  Under protest, he glanced at the book.

  “Just read that piece, dear, and see how the scholar replied to his master in those days. I think it is rather funny!”

  “Oh, very well.”

  Phillip gabbled, in mock of the Magister, as the Headmaster was called.

  “‘Foure men gette a bootye or prise in tyme of warre’—why the bloke can’t even spell!—‘The prise is in valewe of mony 8190 £, and bicause the men be not of like degree’—that’s me and Cranmer, after pinching the impedimenta of the Fordesmill Troop under old Purley-Prout—‘therfore their shares may not be equall, but the chieffest person will haue of the bootye the third parte, and the tenth part ouer: the second will haue a quarter and the tenth part ouer’—half a mo’!”

  Phillip decided to read it like a parson. He parted his black hair in the middle, and pressed each side on his head, like a jackdaw’s wings. Then he folded a sheet of paper, for a “dog-collar,” and continued in a droning voice,

  “‘The second will haue a quarter and the tenthe parte ouer; the third will haue the syxt part: and so there is left for the fourth man a very small portion, but such is his lot (whether he be pleased or wroth)—’—and I bet he was using ‘clamorous cries’, Henrietta!—to continue, my dear friends—‘he must be content with one XX part of the pray—’ yea, verily, I bet afterwards he drank all of the XXX barrel as well, dear brethren—‘Now I demaunde of you, what shall euery manne haue to his share?’” He flung down the book.

  “Jumping Jehosophat, what a frightful sum!”

  Doris was laughing so much that she almost fell from her chair. Thus encouraged, Phillip picked up the book again, and continued in a high, falsetto voice,

  “Scholar. ‘You must be fayne to answere to your owne question, Magister, els it is not lyke to be answered at this tyme’. Strike me pink, it must have been a bit of Merry England in those days, if boys could really give answers like that! ‘I don’t know; ask me’, that’s what ‘Scholar’ says, in effect! Fancy answering like that to Flib! Phew!! Ten cuts with the cane, while studying the pattern of his study carpet!”

  Flib was the nickname of the Magister, from his initials.

  “There’s another page, dear,” said Hetty, “which tells how the Founder of your School was put in prison, for standing up for the Earl of Essex, after he had been beheaded. It is very, very sad, but then that is life. Do read it to us, won’t you?”

  “‘Standing up for the Earl of Essex after he had been beheaded’! Mother, I ask you! Surely the poor devil would be lying down, after losing his boko? You call that history! Seriously, Mum, do you know where my jar of preserving compound is? I want to skin that plover I found dead on the Seven Fields yesterday tonight—whatever are you laughing at?”

  Hetty laughed till the tears came. Weakly she pointed a finger at Phillip. “Plover—found dead yesterday tonight——” she managed to say.

  *

  When Phillip was interested in a subject he would work, if he set his mind to it. During the recent examinations he had found the Arithmetic paper easy, despite preceding mental strain and flurry.

  The ironic thing about his paper was that he was sharply suspect by the Magister for the very excellence of an unexpected performance, in connection with a disturbing letter received from the University people, which drew the Magister’s attention to the paper of another boy who had, said the letter, presumably sat next to Maddison, since his surname also began with the letter M.

  Before the scene that followed one January morning in the Magister’s study, it is necessary first to describe the scholastic achievements of the Headmaster of Phillip’s school.

  He was, racially speaking, of Viking stock. Phillip, like Hetty, was a Celt. The Magister felt keen delight in problems of mathematics, which in the higher regions, as he thought of them, approached the poetry of universal truth. Mankind, in his belief, was finally perfectible; but only by transmuting the brute forces of the material universe into truths of the Spirit which ruled the cosmos mathematically. Beethoven, and Goethe, in this way of thinking, had expressed the same truths in music and poetry which were explicit in thought demonstrated by pure mathematikos.

  The Magister was a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Science of London University. He had a twin brother, who resembled him in every particular. Between them in their University Arts course they had obtained the first and second places in the honours’ list for English History, Language, and Literature; their M.A. degrees were obtained by examination in Logic, Philosophy and Economics; and again they took first and second places in their year.

  The Magister had in addition taken a research course in Psychology for Ph.D. at Freiburg, under Professor Munsterberg, who had later gone to Harvard University, but did not qualify for the degree by residence. Before coming to his present post, he had been headmaster of a northern school which numbered amongst it alumni Laurence Sterne and Sir Robert Peel. Like his twin brother—who had gone to Colham Grammar School in the West Country—the Magister was also Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Member of the British Psychological Society.

  He had come to the school when it had been enlarged, just after the Great Winter of 1895, when Phillip had been born. The school’s number had been under one hundred; in scarcely more than a dozen years, it had increased to just short of three hundred. That was at the beginning of what was called the Renaissance of National Education. Under the Board established in 1901, the “Age of the Secondary School” had begun.

  Because of ambition, because of his restless energy which was devoted to the mental well-being of nearly three hundred boys, the Magister was, intellectually speaking, the antithesis of Mr. Graham, the bachelor Old Boy with the unrolled umbrella, gentle smile, and soft voice.

  And while the Second Master, the Housemasters, and the form masters of Heath School also strove, instilled, corrected, and punished, yet they were impersonal, and by that very impersonality were, paradoxically, human personalities. The Magister was personal in his aspiration, exhortation, and occasional anger—until the ultimate occasion of caning, when it became a ritual of catharsis, for the good of the caned alone. He loomed, big and terrifying, just and righteous, ever keen and dynamic, over the acquiescent and often evasive spirits of the youths who were submissive to his mental power, to his exhortatory will.

  The Magister’s ideal was, in effect, to put an old head on young shoulders.

  The Magister expected his pupils to have an adult sense of honour, a perspective of maturity beyond the torments and desires of the growing flesh.

  The Magister was always in tension for duty, duty, Duty towards a new Golden Age beyond the cup of Socratic hemlock.

  The Magister was a Victorian.

  *

  One morning, Milton, sitting near the head of the form in the back row of the classroom, threw a note, twisted up, when the Magister’s back was turned, to Phillip sitting in the front row. Covertly opening the screw of paper, Phillip read the pencilled sentence, and was immediately puzzled.

  Don’t say we spoke to each other during the Arith. Exam.

  Tear this up.

  Phillip looked across to Milton. Milton put his finger to his lips, and pointed to the Magister who was drawing a formula in chalk upon the blackboard. Whatever did Milton mean?

  Slowly he tore the note into little pieces, then having chewed them, rubbed them into pellets between finger and thumb, and hid them in the turn-ups of his trousers.

  At eleven o’clock, when there was a five-minute break, the Magister asked Milton and Maddison to follow him into his Study. Seating himself at his bureau before the standing boys, he took up a letter from his desk: then fixing his pale-blue eyes upon Phillip, he said that in the Arit
hmetic paper of the Oxford Senior Examination Milton had got the correct answers to some of the problems, but with incorrect working-out. Maddison’s paper on the contrary, had the correct answers and the correct working-out. They had sat next to one another. The question was, had there been any communication of results between them, during or after the examination?

  “I have already spoken to Milton, Maddison. Now I have called you to stand before me, to hear what you have to say.”

  Phillip was amazed. He could not understand it. Had Milton cribbed from him? Milton? It was impossible!

  He could not face the Magister’s keen eyes. His voice was knotted in his throat.

  “Come, Maddison, I am waiting!”

  The Magister’s eyes were on Phillip’s face. A closed face, he was thinking: a secretive face: an evasive face: an untruthful face: a little face: a face of vague ruminations: a face of weak moral fibre: a face without character.

  “Come sir, I am waiting!” The voice had a ring of impatience.

  Phillip swallowed, and then managed to stammer, “I—I—d-don’t know, sir.”

  “Did you speak to Milton at any time before your papers were collected?”

  Phillip had his eyes fixed on the Magister’s desk. Drip, drip went the sweat under his armpits.

  “Milton, be so good as to repeat what you told me,” the Magister said, in a softer voice.

  Milton, with a slightly breathless smile upon his blue-eyed open face, said, as though he had rehearsed the words,

  “If you please, sir, just before the papers were collected, I saw in an instant by mental calculation, that some of my answers were incorrect. I had already made my mental calculations, sir, viva voce to myself, so I quickly wrote down the answers I had worked out in my head. I can work better in my head than on paper, sir, for some reason.”