CHAPTER XVII. SELF-DEFENCE.
It appeared to me now, that my education might fairly be entrusted to myself, at least until after Christmas-time; but whether it was, that my dear parents were eager to push me on with learning, or else that they had enjoyed enough of my company for the present, the issue was settled against me, and without another week of holidays. Jack Windsor was in the same box with me; and his mother and mine laid their heads together, and came to the conclusion that Dr. Rumbelow had acted very badly. With the aid of a noble "manual of epistolary correspondence," they indited a joint letter to the new bishop, which must have grieved his upright soul. He answered right humbly, and in few words, that he grieved as deeply as they could do, at the utter subversion of a wholesome school; which would not have happened, if he could have helped it. But he had never been the owner, and only acted under the will of Trustees, who had not consulted him, when he left. Feeling the deepest interest in his beloved pupils of many happy years, he watched the result with sad apprehension, but could not interfere with it. But for any, whose parents desired their removal from the influence of wild doctrines, he could with high confidence recommend an orthodox, and most efficient teacher, an old pupil of his own at Oxford, an accurate scholar, and most active man, now doing excellent work in the Church. This was the Reverend St. Simon Cope, curate of St. Athanasius, a District church in Kentish Town.
Armed with this letter, the two ladies went to see Mr. Cope; and came back in high feather, perfectly full of him, and of new ideas. I could not understand their talk at all, and perhaps that was more than they did themselves. However, I made out that I was to get up at half-past five next Monday, put a strap-load of Greek on my back, and knock, at half-past six exactly, at the corner-house in Torriano Square.
All this I accomplished, not without some groans, and was met at the door by Mr. Cope himself. I wanted to have a good look at him, but entirely failed to manage it; so wholly did my nature fall under the influence of his, that when I went home at night, and father said,
"Well, Tommy, what is the new chap like?"
I could only answer, "I don't know. He is not like any man I ever saw before."
"Did he whack you, Tommy?" went on my father; "you must want it, after all this time."
"He!" I exclaimed with a lofty air; "he need never whack any fellow. I can tell that."
Of this wonderful man, it might truly be said, that he was wholly free from selfishness. Can anything, half so strange as that, be declared of any other human being? That my own little body should go up into the air, is exceptional, though not unparalleled. But for the human mind to leave the ground, is an outrage on the laws of gravitation, ten thousandfold as rare as any I have yet accomplished. And now that I have time to consider it calmly, this must have been the reason, why I could not make him out, even with my outward eyes. And probably this was the reason, why we all admired, obeyed in an instant, and thoroughly revered him; and yet we found our spirits rise, when we got away to people more of our own cast.
This gentleman never was in a hurry, but always calm and gentle, and quite ready to be interrupted; yet the quantity of work he got through in a day was enough for ten men of his strength. Twice every day, he had service in his church, without even a clerk to help him, and four hours every day he spent in visiting poor people. Moreover, he always had in hand some article for the great Reviews, and a heap of other careful work; and besides all this, (and I dare say the hardest of the lot to deal with) a score of us day-pupils, to be taught, and fed, and tended. Yet never was one of us ready with a lesson, without the master being there to hear him. And he more than heard us; he poured his own mind, with all its clear and vivid power, as far into our thick brains as ever it would go, so that even Jack Windsor (who had no more taste in his head than a lignified turnip) told me, going home one night, that Horace was a fine chap after all, when you came to know what he was driving at. No other man in the world could have brought our Jack to that conclusion.
Now, in spite of all this, and the spending of every penny that he earned among the poor, the Reverend St. Simon Cope was not loved at all in Kentish Town; except by a few half-starving outcasts, and a good many ladies with nothing to do. And the reason of this was as plain as a pole—he was one of the "High-church parsons," whom the free-will of the Briton will never accept.
Under the care of this excellent man, I got on very fast in "Nescience," (as the Epistemonicon gentlemen called the classics), and history, and theology, and everything else except their own fads. From my very sad deficiency in weight, I never was a fighter, though often tempted grievously; but Jack Windsor was happily enabled to prove, that which has been proved perpetually in Town and Gown disputations, to wit, the clear superiority in conflict of the true Academic element.
For, as we came home about noon of a Saturday, with five days and a half of Greek inside us,—in a place where a bridge was, we were met, only Jack Windsor and myself, by a maniple—if they deserve the term—from the now adulterous Partheneion. These were fellows of the lewder sort, who had taken up gladly with all the new stuff, and were rank with all Chemical mixtures. Without looking twice at them, we could see they desired to give us a hiding. And they began the base unequal conflict, by casting very hard stones at us. With pleasure, and without disgrace (considering the force of numbers against us) we would have fled, by the road that had brought us; but they had provided against this measure, by posting large boys behind us. There was nothing around us, but a world of thumps; and the air was darkened with impending fists.
"Stop a bit; hold hard;" cried Jack Windsor, with his back against the coping of the bridge; "give us fair play, you lot of sneaking cowards. I see a chap, who has been at our house, and squibbed a wasp's nest with me. Let me speak a moment to Bob Stubbs. Now, Bob, I know you were an honourable chap, till you got among dirty foreigners. I don't want to fight you, 'cos we always were good friends. But pick out the biggest of your scientific lot, and let me have a fair turn with him; while Tommy here tackles some fellow of his size. You must all be going to the bad, up there; if you bring a score of fellows to pitch into two. In the old days, we always allowed fair play."
Being English boys, they were moved by this; and after some little talk, two rings were formed—one for Jack and his antagonist, and the other, alas! for me and mine. Loth as I was to fight, it seemed better than to be pounded passively; and so I pulled off my coat, and squared up, as my father had shown me he used to do. And, whether by reason of his ancient system being more practical than the new lights, or whether in virtue of my own quickness, in hopping away when knocked at, I may say, without any exaggeration, that I hit the other fellow more than he hit me; until I was grieved to see him bleed, and then I put down my fists, and shook hands with him.
But my own little combat was no more in comparison with Jack Windsor's, than the skirmish between two charioteers of the "Iliad," while their heroes fight. Jack was in earnest, and knew no remorse. He had been hit on the forehead by a stone, and could swear that the fellow before him was the one who threw it. Moreover, this boy had shouted, "Come on, Suds!" with a most contemptuous toss of his head, being bigger than Jack, though not so strong, for our Jack was built up like a milestone.
"Come on, Suds," he shouted; "come on, my lad of lather!"
"I'll lather you, if I can," said Jack.
The battle was long, and quick with a spirit of trenchant valour, on either side. I did not see the beginning, because I was strenuously occupied with my own engagement; but that being brought to a happy conclusion, the boy I had conquered joined me, with much good will, in observing the other fight. And here let me mention that his name was Bellows, Jeremiah Bellows of Blackpool, a prominent orator, as everybody knows, of the Liberal party, by and by.
When Bellows, and I, came up to look, there was no mistaking the nature of the fray. Very little time had been lost in repose between the rounds, and the action had been so vigorous, and so well sustained, that on either side now it was a harder job to fetch the breath, than to give the blow. Whichever might conquer, there could be no doubt that the fight was a credit to his school.
Happily for us, the "noble science of self-defence" was not yet one of the thirty-two taught by the four Professors. Otherwise Jack would have long been vanquished, for he had not much of polemical skill; and I was astonished at his endurance, having always found him peaceful. But I knew, by the way his lips were set, and his square style of going forward, that his mind was made up, to be knocked to pieces, sooner than knock under.
This was a lesson to me, than which I have never had a better one in all my life. There was scarcely a pin to choose between those two, in the matter of affliction. Jack had got one eye quite bunged up, and his enemy had both eyes half-way closed; the nose of our Jack was gone in at the middle, and that of his adversary at the end; and their other contusions might pretty nearly match. Yet Jack won, all of a heap. And why? Because he would rather be killed, than yield. The other fellow would rather yield, than stand the very smallest chance of being killed.
So when Jack came up for another good round, his enemy sate, and looked at him, and thought it would be wiser to negotiate. He was not by any means whacked, he declared, and he went on to prove it, though still sitting down—as Britannia never lets her tail drop now, without elevating her tongue, to stand for it—but his mind was made up, not to incur further danger of blood-guiltiness.
After all the insults put upon him, Jack would not let him off, without a clearer understanding.
"Either you are whacked, or not," said he; "if you are whacked, say so straightforrard, and I will shake hands with you. If you are not, stand up again."
This was plain English, the only sensible thing in a case of that kind. The other boy looked about; but saw no way to shuffle out of it, having not yet been Prime Minister.
"I don't mean to fight any more," he said, "until I perceive the necessity of it. At the same time, you can see yourself, that I am not a bit afraid of you. Every one who knows me will bear me out in that. I could prove it, if I had time; but there goes the dinner-bell, and we all must run. Not from you, mind, not from you; only because we are obliged to bolt."
Likely enough, there are people who would be glad to make light of this victory; as they do with all those we always lose, while blowing up the trumpet in the very new moon, if ever we cannot help winning one. But Jack, and I, took a natural view of the facts we ourselves had created. Science had bitten the dust before the powers of ancient literature, though the latter had struggled at fearful odds; and seven of the boys, who had seen it, persuaded their parents to take them from the Gorgon, and apprentice them again to the gentle Muse, who only strikes in self-defence. And as soon as my father and mother heard it—by reason of my bruises, one of which required raw beefsteak,—they were for ever confirmed in their perception of their own wisdom.
But alas! I scarcely know how to tell the next event in my sad career. Gladly would I leave it all untold, save by mine enemies; if the latter would only tell it truly, or leave it untold falsely. But this it is hopeless to expect. There is a certain rancour in all persons of loose politics; wherewith—to put it liberally—nature, abhorring a vacuum, has stopped the vast gap of their principles. And this pervasive bitterness, when not obtaining vent enough, as it fairly might do upon one another, sometimes sets them raking up the private life, and domestic history, of those who are not like themselves.
It has been related, some way back, that the great authorities of our parish, having been urged by fussy people—most of whom paid no rates at all—to abate, what they were pleased to call, the nuisance of our wholesome smell, had arrived at last at a resolution, to cure the air of our chimney-tops, by carrying a big culvert through the valley, a hundred yards below. How this was to effect that purpose, none of us clearly understood; but as it would not come near our works, yet saved them from being grumbled at, we accepted the conviction of the public, that it must prove a perfect cure. And reasoning by analogy, we expected no stroke to be struck, for a score of happy years yet to come.
But Joe Cowl, that same chimney-sweep who had tried to summon father, told all his friends, till he quite believed, that he never had been the same man, since the time my father syringed him. If this had been true, how much it would have been to his benefit, and his neighbours'! But being scant of introspection, he positively made a grievance of it! He contrived to push himself on the Committee appointed by the Vestry, for the drainage of Maiden valley, for no other reason in the world, than that he hoped to pester us, by carrying out that noisome scheme. As everybody said, there was no reason for such hurry; the valley had been a valley for more thousands of years than we could count, without wanting a bodkin put along it. In wet weather it drained itself; and in dry weather what was there to drain? The Lord had made it, as seemed Him best; and could any ratepayer improve His works?
Nevertheless, by stirring up, and rushing about with his best clothes on, and grouting (like a pig, with his ring come out) and writing, every other day, to every paper that would print his stuff, Chimney-sweep Cowl robbed all the parish of the pleasure of considering the next thing to be done. For he made them actually begin this job, at very little more than three years from the time of their voting it urgent, and not very much over two years from the time they raised the cash for it. But we let him see, when it was begun, that we were rather pleased than otherwise; and father went down and told Cowl himself, with as pleasant a smile as need be seen, that he would lend them a spare wheel-barrow, if they would put new gudgeons in; and as a large ratepayer of St. Pancras, he would try to keep them to their work. And it is a sad thing now to think of, that if he had been a bad-tempered man, and shunned them altogether, he might have been alive, while I write this.
Perhaps no man in London, except the Reverend St. Simon Cope, worked harder now than my father did. Not from any narrow-minded hankering after bullion; nor the common doom of our species, to find its final cause, as well as case, in specie; but from the stern resolution of a man, to turn out a good article, at a good figure, and to keep his own finger, and no others, in his pie. Mr. John Windsor had been trying very hard, to dip his own ladle into our warm vats; but while father valued him most highly as a friend, and would eagerly have done anything whatever, that lay in his power, to help him; he found it lie more and more beyond his power, to let him come into his yard just now. Plump and portly as Mr. Windsor was, and equally blunt at either end, my father kept calling him—as soon as he was gone—the thin end of the wedge, and telling dear mother to be very careful, not to say a word to let him in. This was exactly in accordance with my mother's own view of the case; and she said, that she first had insisted upon it, and that if Mrs. Windsor came sounding her for ever—as she did, even on a Sunday—it would take her a long time to discover any hollow place in her presence of mind. For she always answered.
"Oh, my dear, what do I care for odious business? You know, how much sooner you would hear me talk, about delightful Happystowe, and the sun coming over the sea, and the shrimps, and the shameful proceedings of the bathing females—for I never can call them ladies—and that dear good Lady Towers-Twentifold, who longed so extremely to make my acquaintance; and has written once more, for my Tommy to go down, and spend the holidays with his old friend, Sir Roland, at Twentifold Towers. What a pity it is, that we live so far asunder!"
"But don't you think, dear," Mrs. Windsor asked demurely, "that when the wind was blowing towards the windows of the Tower, her ladyship might object a little to the—the flavour of Mr. Upmore's operations?"