The vanity of eighteen is long dead, and I can recall with amusement that I had serious misgivings for the school's future after I should have left. For five years and more it had been all my world. I remembered the veneration with which, as a fag, I had gazed on the gladiators of the Eleven and the Witan of the Sixth—gazed and flushed with self-consciousness and shy gratification when one of them ordered me to carry his books across Great Court. In time I too had made my way into the Sixth; there was at first nothing very wonderful or dignified about the position, but by no immoderate stretch of imagination I could fancy myself venerated as I had venerated the heroes of five years before. And without doubt I looked proudly on my work in the Monitorial Council: we had been strict but not harsh, reserved but not aloof, reformers but not iconoclasts—statesmen to a man. At every point we seemed superior to our immediate predecessors, and the only bitterness in our cup was brought by the reflection that this Golden Age would so soon pass away. It was inconceivable that youngsters like Marlowe, Clayton or Dennis could fill our shoes. They were boys. I remember that Loring and I took Clayton on one side and revealed some few of the secrets of our successful rule; I remember, too, how extraordinarily Clayton resented our patronage....
The recorded history of the last two terms is meagre, but I recollect that O'Rane came twice into conflict with authority before we parted. The first time was an unhappy occasion when the May-Day celebrations of the Melton carpet-makers coincided with one of his periodical outbursts. A plethoric meeting of somnolent workmen was being somewhat furtively held in the more somnolent market square; moist, earnest speakers declaimed under a hot sun to a listless audience. When Dainton and I passed through the square, oratory was getting worsted, and the meeting was summoning resolution to spend the rest of the warm May afternoon in sleep. Then O'Rane appeared galvanically from the West. And soon afterwards from the East, with dragging steps and eyes glued to his book, came Burgess in cap and cassock, his pockets swollen with the books he had bought in Grantham's.
That night O'Rane spent forty-five minutes in the Head's house—an unusual time for anything but sentence of expulsion. Loring and I were walking up and down Great Court with our watches in our hands, prepared to intercede with speeches of incredible eloquence if the worst came to the worst. Through the bright, unblinded library windows we could see Raney pleading; the back of Burgess's white head was visible above his chair, motionless, and seemingly inexorable.
"What's happened?"
The door had opened slowly and shut with a clang. O'Rane was walking towards us with a white face that belied his jaunty step.
"It's not to occur again." The anticlimax was an unintentional trick of phrasing. "Well, it won't. I can't work that lay a second time. D'you know he sacked me within five seconds of my entering the room? I—had—to—fight—for—very—life." He breathed hard, linked arms and marched us off for a walk around the Cloisters.
"Drive ahead," said Loring.
"'Laddie, thy portion is with the malefactors. Get thee gone, and walk henceforth in outer darkness.' I say, the old man's formidable when he's angry. I said nothing, and he waved me to the door. I didn't move. 'Get thee gone, laddie,' he thundered, 'and let not the sun of to-morrow rise to find thee in this place.' I asked him what I'd done; he sort of suggested that I really knew all the time. I told him my version." O'Rane stopped and drew back a step with arms outstretched. "I told him I'd found that sweet May-Day meeting with potbellied whimperers gassing over an Eight Hour Day and drinking enough beer to drown 'emselves in. The May-Days I know were the ones where the mob broke up half Turin and were shot down by the soldiery: they were men with something to fight for—and ready to fight for it. These sodden voter vermin! If they'd organize with their cursed votes—if they'd fight—if they'd do anything—if they were in earnest——! My God, your English Labour!" His utterance quickened and his voice grew animated to the point of passion. "I told these scabrous dogs to put their lousy shoulders to the wheel. God knows what I didn't call 'em, but they were too sodden to mind, and I found I was speaking in French half the time. Then they got an idea I'd come over from Paris to champion them, and they cheered no end. So I taught 'em the 'Marseillaise,' and half-way through the second verse Burgess drifted into view. I told him in his library as I'm telling you here...."
"I hope to the Lord you didn't!" Loring interjected.
"I told him every last word." The Cloisters echoed with his excitement. "You bat-ears, you don't understand! He did!"