Most of the congregation looked upon the enormously lengthy services as so much extra school and took no interest in the responses, for years uttered by an old clerk named Gray, who was an Eton institution dating from 1809. With the lapse of years he had become somewhat deaf, and consequently made occasional blunders which were a constant source of amusement. Especially did his hearers delight in old Gray’s performances on certain festivals, such as the service for the queen’s accession, when he generally canonized her twice in the same verse of the Psalm. “And blessed be the name of Her Majesty for ever, and all the earth shall be full of Her Majesty.”
On the whole, the service was not conducted in a very reverent or attractive manner, and the impression which it would have seemed to convey was that every one, including the “Conduct,” was anxious to get through it as quickly as possible. A great day, however, was Oak Apple day, when the picturesque old service in memory of the Restoration of Charles II. was duly gone through, all the boys sporting oak leaves as a memento of the Merry Monarch of joyous memory. On all other occasions, however, the services proceeded with monotonous and unvarying regularity, which more or less still prevailed in the writer’s Eton days thirty years ago, though at that time they had been considerably brightened and no irreverence prevailed.
The chapel bell always stopped five minutes before the hour, but the Provost and Fellows never made their appearance till just as the clock struck; it seemed to be the object of all the bigger boys in the school to come in as nearly as possible at the same time as the College authorities did, yet without running it so fine as to cause a disagreeable rush at the last moment. These loiterers, always the “swells” of the school, took their places just before the entry upon their heels of the Sixth Form boys, who always headed the procession, which was closed by the Provost. His entry was the signal for the commencement of the service, and the “Conduct” or chaplain whose turn it was at once began. Everything was got through at a pretty good pace, though after about 1840 no slovenliness was to be observed.
A FATAL SQUIB
From time to time, of course, even in the days when irreverence was common, the boys were moved by some extraordinary service which impressed the most unthinking minds. One of these occasions was the funeral service of a boy named Grieve, son of the English physician to the Czar of Russia, at the commencement of the nineteenth century. On the 5th of November, then a day of much riot at Eton, poor Grieve had filled his pockets with what proved to him the instruments of death, in order to enjoy the frolics of the evening, which were suddenly ended when a young nobleman unluckily “squibbed,” as it was called, his unfortunate friend. Some of the fireworks which were in his pocket immediately ignited, which, communicating to the rest their deadly errand, exploded, and literally tore off a portion of flesh from his bones. The poor fellow’s screams were dreadful, and he died in four days’ time.
This sad affair threw a gloom over the school for a long time, and games and sports were almost forgotten. When the day came for Grieve’s burial, its awe was strongly augmented by the solemnity with which the funeral service (that most beautiful and sublime selection of prayers) was read by the headmaster, Dr. Goodall; indeed, among the whole body of upwards of five hundred boys, not a dry eye was to be seen. One of these has left on record how to his dying day he could never forget the impression made on his mind, when, with a trembling anticipation of the approaching procession, he heard the first words, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and his poignant emotion as the funeral procession slowly wound into the chapel and the sky-blue coffin[2] broke upon his sight.
An old Eton Sunday institution was “prose,” held in Upper School, where the Headmaster would read a few pithy moral sentences. As a rule it is to be feared these were pearls thrown before swine, and the swine-herd seemed to feel disgusted as he threw them. He then gave out the subjects of exercises for the ensuing week, and informed the boys what would be the amount of holidays in it.
In the old days a number of the Eton masters were not the earnest men who are to be found in the school to-day. At a time when the aristocracy possessed great power, it was not extraordinary that young noblemen should have been treated with a great measure of leniency. A certain tutor, for instance, behaved with great philosophy when one of his pupils, belonging to a great family, rolled him down the hundred steps, and reaped the reward by afterwards rising to a position of high eminence in the Church. Not a few masters were shackled by hide-bound conservatism, whilst a certain type of eighteenth century pedagogue was quite unfitted to inculcate learning.
Lo! on a pile of dusty folios thron’d,
Her Janus brows with dog’s-ear’d fool’s-cap crown’d,