“John! and Jim!” she said at last, slowly rising. “You may resume your horrid cigar, Harold. I did not expect to get much sense out of you, and I am therefore not disappointed. On this sheet of paper you will find the names we have decided upon. You will note that—at the earnest request of your wife—the paternal name does find a place, but Jim!” She transfixed him again, then went gliding to the door, which father opened and bowed her away.
Then he almost ran to the window, and like the naughty old boy he must have been, I fear he relit that horrid cigar, singing lightly to himself as he hunted for the matches.
Now one’s birth and baptism may seem very trivial matters to linger over, especially when one has a life-story like my brother’s and mine to tell. But events and adventures too will crowd each other fast enough ere long. For the brief present I am like some strong swimmer, who is about to commit himself to battle with the waves of a storm-tossed ocean, and who, before he takes the plunge, gazes once around and casts a longing, lingering look behind.
Besides, one’s boyhood’s days or childhood’s hours are the happiest, without doubt, that ever fall to our lot here below, and we do not know this till they are for ever fled. Yes, I grant you that this stage of our existence is not exempt from grief and sorrow, and very real these look while they last, though they are easily chased away or kissed away as the case may be. Then there is stern education to come up day after day like a terrible task-master.
As far as my brother and I were concerned, education assumed the corporeal form of Aunt Serapheema. My father’s study—properly dusted and disinfected in order to thoroughly exorcise the ghost of Colonel McReady’s cigars—became our schoolroom, the high-backed armchair our prim preceptor’s throne. Mind you, we always did think auntie somewhat prim, though it would be neither polite nor politic to tell her so. Auntie was not only fearfully and wonderfully made as regards angularity, but she was wonderfully clever as well. I tremble even yet when I think of how she used to come down upon us with dates—figuratively speaking, and how appallingly she used to hurl “ographies” and “ologies” at our poor little frightened faces. I always did think that dates—with the exception of the sticky eating sort—and “ologies” and “ographies” were sent into the world like thorns and thistles, just to prick and punish unfortunate boys.
Auntie used to wear glasses—two pairs at once; and it was not when she looked at you right straight through these glasses that she appeared dreadful, but when she glanced sternly over them.
She carried, or swayed as a sceptre, a long oaken pointer. It was not very thick, but very hard and far-reaching, and when it came down on your knuckles—oh, it always left a red mark, and sounded as if the clock were striking one. It struck one very often every forenoon.
Even out of school auntie had a way of addressing any person that commanded attention, but alone with her in the schoolroom her voice was positively thrilling.
It was only natural that both my brother’s attention and mine should waver or wander at times. Well, my father’s first manly word in the barrack square used to make every soldier stiffen, as it were; but it was nothing to auntie’s caution. Nowhere near it in regal pomposity.
“Reginald, look towards me!” or—“Rupert Domville, I am talking.”