The Interpreter: A Tale of the War

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

"He went down, sir, as if he was shot," he would say, doubling his arm, and showing the muscles standing out in bold relief. "Few men have the biceps so well developed as mine, and he went down as if he was shot. If I had hit him as hard as I could, sir, I must have killed him!"

Our usher was a good-natured fellow, notwithstanding.

"I'll hear you in ten minutes, Egerton," said he, "when I have had my innings;" and forthwith he stretched himself into attitude, and prepared to strike.

"Better give me your bat," remarked Ropsley, who was too lazy to play cricket in a regular manner. Of course, Manners consented; nobody ever refused Ropsley anything; and in ten minutes' time I had repeated the infandum Regina, and Ropsley had added some dozen masterly hits to the usher's score. Ropsley always liked another man's "innings" better than his own.

Now the regulations at Everdon, as they were excessively strict, and based upon the principle that Apollo should always keep the bow at the utmost degree of tension, so were they eluded upon every available opportunity, and set at nought and laughed at by the youngest urchins in the school. We had an ample playground for our minor sports, and a meadow beyond, in which we were permitted to follow the exhilarating pastime of cricket, the share of the younger boys in that exciting amusement being limited to a pursuit of the ball round the field, and a prompt return of the same to their seniors, doubtless a necessary ingredient in this noble game, but one which is not calculated to excite enthusiastic pleasure in the youthful mind. From the playground and its adjacent meadow it was a capital offence to absent oneself. All the rest of Somersetshire was "out of bounds"; and to be caught "out of bounds" was a crime for which corporal punishment was the invariable reward. At the same time, the offence was, so to speak, "winked at." No inquiries were made as to how we spent half-holidays between one o'clock and seven; and many a glorious ramble we used to have during those precious six hours in all the ecstasy of "freedom,"--a word understood by none better than the schoolboy. A certain deference was, however, exacted to the regulations of the establishment; by a sort of tacit compact, it seemed to be understood that our code was so far Spartan as to make, not the crime, but the being "found out," a punishable offence, and boys were always supposed to take their chance. If seen in the act of escaping, or afterwards met by any of the masters in the surrounding country, we were liable to be flogged; and to do March justice, we always were flogged, and pretty soundly, too. Under these circumstances, some little care and circumspection had to be observed in starting for our rambles. Certain steps had been made in the playground wall, where it was hidden from the house by the stem of a fine old elm, and by dropping quietly down into an orchard beyond--an orchard, be it observed, of which the fruit was always plucked before it reached maturity--and then stealing along the back of a thick, high hedge, we could get fairly away out of sight of the school windows, and so make our escape.

Now, on the afternoon in question we had planned an expedition in which Victor, and I, and my dog Bold had determined to be principal performers. Of the latter personage in the trio I must remark, that no party of pleasure on which we embarked was ever supposed to be perfect without his society. His original possessor was the "King of Naples," whom I have already mentioned, and who, I conclude, stole him, as he appeared one day tied to that personage by an old cotton handkerchief, and looking as wobegone and unhappy as a retriever puppy of some three months old, torn from his mamma and his brothers and sisters, and the comfortable kennel in which he was brought up, and transferred to the tender mercies of a drunken, poaching, dog-stealing ruffian, was likely to feel in so false a position. The "King" brought him into our playground on one of his tart-selling visits, as a specimen of the rarest breed of retrievers known in the West of England. The puppy seemed so thoroughly miserable, and looked up at me so piteously, that I forthwith asked his price, and after a deal of haggling, and a consultation between De Rohan and myself, I determined to become his purchaser, at the munificent sum of one sovereign, of which ten shillings (my all) were to be paid on the spot, and the other ten to remain, so to speak, on mortgage upon the animal, with the further understanding that he should be kept at the residence of the "King of Naples," who, in consideration of the regular payment of one shilling per week, bound himself to feed the same and complete his education in all the canine branches of plunging, diving, fetching and carrying, on a system of his own, which he briefly described as "fust-rate."

With a deal of prompting from Manners, I got through my forty lines; and he shut the book with a good-natured smile as Ropsley threw down the bat he had been wielding so skilfully, and put on his coat.

"Come and lunch with me at 'The Club,'" said he to Manners, whom he led completely by the nose; "I'll give you Dutch cheese, and sherry and soda-water, and a cigar. Hie! Vere, you ungrateful little ruffian, where are you off to? I want you."

I was making my escape as rapidly as possible at the mention of "The Club," a word which we younger boys held in utter fear and detestation, as being associated in our minds with much perilous enterprise and gratuitous suffering. The Club consisted of an old bent tree in a retired corner of the playground, on the trunk of which Ropsley had caused a comfortable seat to be fashioned for his own delectation; and here, in company with Manners and two or three senior boys, it was his custom to sit smoking and drinking curious compounds, of which the ingredients, being contraband, had to be fetched by us, at the risk of corporal punishment, from the village of Everdon, an honest half-mile journey at the least.

Ropsley tendered a large cigar to Manners, lit one himself, settled his long limbs comfortably on the seat, and gave me his orders.