“Well, they are almost all clergymen, but that makes no difference. They are generally good fellows, and take a lot of interest in our sports, which is natural enough, for many of them have been great cricketers or great oarsmen—that is, they have rowed in their university boat. A master who has done that sort of thing is more looked up to by the boys, and is thought more of, than fellows who have never done anything in particular. The sort of fellows who have always been working and reading, and have come out high at the universities, are of course very good teachers, but they don’t understand boys half as well as the others do.”
“But why should you respect a master who has been, as you say, good at sports, more than one who has studied hard?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly. Of course it is very creditable to a man to have taken a high degree; but somehow or other one does have a lot of respect for a fellow who you know could thrash any blackguard who had a row with him in a couple of minutes—just the same as one feels a respect for an officer who has done all sorts of brave actions. I heard, some time ago, that one of our masters had been appointed to a church in some beastly neighbourhood in Birmingham or one of those manufacturing towns, and the people were such a rough lot that he could do nothing with them at first. But one day, when he was going along the street, he saw a notorious bully thrashing a woman, and he interfered. The fellow threatened him; and he quietly turned in, and gave him the most tremendous thrashing he had ever had, in about three minutes. After that he got to be greatly liked, and did no end of good in his parish. I suppose there was just the same feeling among those fellows as there is with us at school.”
“It seems impossible,” Rubini said, in a tone almost of awe, “that a minister should fight with his hands against a ruffian of that kind.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Frank replied: “if you saw a big ruffian thrashing a woman or insulting a lady, or if even he insulted yourself, what would you do? I am supposing, of course, that you were not in uniform, and did not wear a sword.”
“I do not know what I should do,” Rubini said gravely. “I hope I should fly at him.”
“Yes; but if he were bigger and stronger, and you could not box, what would be the good of that? He would knock you down, and perhaps kick you almost to death, and then finish thrashing the woman.”
The three friends looked gravely at each other.
“Yes; but you say that this man was a priest, a clergyman?” Maffio urged.
“Yes; but you must remember that he was also a man, and there is such a thing as righteous anger. Why should a man look on and see a woman ill-treated without lifting his hand to save her, simply because he is a clergyman? No, no, Maffio. You may say what you like, but it is a good thing for a man to have exercised all his muscles as a boy, and to be good at sports, and have learned to use his fists. It is good for him, whether he is going to be a soldier, or a colonist in a wild country, or a traveller, or a clergyman. I am saying nothing against learning; learning is a very good thing, but certainly among English boys we admire strength and skill more than learning, and I am quite sure that as a nation we have benefited more by the one than the other. If there was not one among us who had ever opened a Latin or Greek book, we should still have extended our empire as we have done, colonised continents, conquered India, and held our own, and more, against every other nation by land and sea, and become a tremendous manufacturing and commercial country.”