“He taught in Thunday Thcoolth in Twaddleton.”
Alas! I had not even that scanty qualification, and I did not apply. The suitors at Y. have much to be thankful for.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] A recently created H.M.I. assures me that the method of appointment by the Sovereign is unaltered. I apologise.
CHAPTER IX
ARCADIA
“I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.”—As You Like It.
The Lord President might appoint, but the Secretary disappoints, and he ordered me to Norfolk, there to act as second inspector to the Rev. F. Synge. The alternative, for there were two places to be filled up, was Oxford, and I was a good deal annoyed at my billet. At Oxford I could have dined in hall and common-room, read my Times at the Union, and at the same time have been within easy reach of my home. But I have reason to believe that there were thorns on the Oxford rose-trees: certainly my successful rival made a very short stay in the Civil Service.
Of Norfolk I knew nothing, and it seemed intolerably remote. In those days it had no golf links, and its Broads were as little frequented as Lake Balaton. Its railway system was arranged on the plan of the Roman camp: there was a Via Principalis running north and south; King’s Lynn to Wells, Norwich, and London: and a cross line (I forget the Latin term) running east and west—Yarmouth to Norwich and Ely. The traveller who wished to wander in the back streets of the county, drove, rode, or walked. Safety bicycles were not yet: the Boneshaker was not tempting, and the Spider was perilous. Add to this a curious collection of third-class inns, and the climate of Siberia. There were days in spring when one left home in the morning with a bright blue sky overhead and a N.W. wind far more attractive than Kingsley’s north-easter: but with little warning the sky would be overcast, and whirlwinds of rain, snow, or sleet would drive one to depths of misery, and back to the third-class inn, where the chimney smoked, and there were woolly mutton chops for dinner.
There were days in April at Yarmouth, for by some perversity of judgment Yarmouth school inspections had been fixed in April, when the black east wind, fresh from the Ural Mountains, paid no more heed to the impediment offered by a brick wall than would the Röntgen rays to a deal door. There were days in June when a pitiless sun scorched the traveller till about five in the afternoon, at which time a sea-breeze from the east rose up and afflicted his throat and lungs with all the diseases that begin with a cold and end in ’itis. At such times the parched light soil rose up in clouds, and much real property changed hands.
Let me offer you the local anecdote of the parts about Brandon and Thetford, where Suffolk and Norfolk meet: