Henry Northcote

by J. C. Snaith

“Hence his hostility to those abnormal egotisms which are known as ‘greatness’?”

“As far as the average person can see, that appears to go down to the root of the matter.”

“Well, sir,” said the young advocate, “permit me to take a slight parable out of my own experience to refute this supposition.”

“Pray do so.”

The advocate selected as a preliminary a second cigar from the case of the solicitor, and resettled himself in comfort in the corner of the vehicle.

“All my life,” said Northcote, “from the farthest day to which my memory goes back, I have been persecuted with the consciousness of my own importance. In all my dealings with others, in the daily outlook upon my surroundings, not only have I been unable to detach myself from my own private entity, but I have also been obsessed with the knowledge that that entity was so much more powerful than any with which it happened to come in contact. As you will believe, a feeling of that kind spelt serious inconvenience to its possessor. At my private school I was the recipient of many cuffs in my capacity of a shy, nervous, and intensely self-centred child who detested games. It grew to be a special function of my youthful companions, and also that of every self-respecting master, to ‘knock the nonsense out of Northcote.’ However, so far from knocking it out, these disinterested efforts appeared to knock it farther in. And when in the fulness of time I ascended to the ampler region of a public school, my sufferings were materially increased. I was shunned, I was tormented, an opprobrious name was fastened upon me; and had not the fire which burned so intensely at the centre of myself kept me warm in spirit, life would have become intolerable.

“It was a consciousness of personal power haunting me day and night which caused me to scorn the gods of the little world in which I found myself, and to disregard the petty conventions which mean so much in every phase of human life. Accordingly I was marked out as an object of hatred and ridicule. However, as years went on, and I came to be endowed with the somewhat unusual physical frame which you may have observed I possess, I determined in a somewhat cynical spirit of revenge to devote myself to one of those stupid and unmeaning exercises, my contempt for which was one of the most potent causes of my unpopularity. Never before had I condescended to approach one of the usual school ‘games,’ other than in a spirit of levity; but when I awoke to the discovery that nature had somewhat ironically endowed me with a power of muscle, a suppleness of limb, and a bulk of inches which would in themselves make me the envy of every athlete in the school, I determined to turn them to account. It was in no spirit of open competition with those whom I despised that I resolved to become the most accomplished football-player who had ever appeared in the school. It was my somewhat curious method of avenging all the insults, all the barbarous forms of injustice, that had been wreaked upon me. I might have requited my assailants in other ways, but I was too proud to employ the methods of those whom I felt to be my mental, physical, and moral inferiors. Therefore I gave myself up to this mechanical exercise, and an abnormal concentration of will-power which I have always possessed, in conjunction with remarkable physical gifts, had the result for which I had prayed.

“When this new prowess was first bruited abroad it was received with derision. But in spite of an organized public opinion which in every walk of life assails the unconventional, this ability became a source of distress to the expert. ‘It comes to this,’ said the captain of the School Fifteen, after a House cup-tie in which dismay had been carried into the camp of the opposition, ‘if this sort of thing goes on, we shall have to think about playing “Cad” Northcote for the School.’ The shouts of derision with which this prophecy was received are still in my ears. However ‘this sort of thing’ continued to go on, and sure enough, to the amazement of men and gods, the day dawned on which ‘Cad’ Northcote did play for the School. He dominated the scene of action in every game in which he took part; but such was the strength of public opinion that the ruling powers withheld his ‘cap’ until the very last moment, the eve of the chief game of the year. It was the match against our great school rivals, a neighboring seminary, of which, sir, I discern by certain unfortunate tricks of manner that you are an alumnus.”

“Never mind about that,” said the solicitor; “get on with your story. It is enormously interesting. Did you play against us in the great match?”

“Yes, I played against you in the great match. The ‘fez’ of the School Fifteen, which should have been mine weeks before, was duly presented to me on the eve of ‘Waterloo,’ for although it was a dreadful crime to be ‘unpopular,’ it was yet highly necessary to ‘take on’ the French. And I recall now with some amusement the manner in which I contrived to flout the amour propre of the venerable institution into whose service I was pressed. Instead of turning out in the garish colors with which I had been honored at the eleventh hour, I appeared upon the scene in a costume of the most immaculate whiteness. As soon as the captain beheld this apparition on the field of play, he came to me and said insolently: ‘Northcote, what do you mean by getting yourself up like this? Go back at once and put on the School colors.’ I rejoined: ‘I play for the School in my own colors on my own terms. I would like you to understand that if I am with you, I am not of you.’ There was a hurried consultation among my fourteen fellow players, and although their sense of outrage was enormous, that was neither the time nor the place to indulge it.