Chapter Nine.
An Attempt to Introduce Fagging—A Game at Hockey.
The half-year sped on much as usual. Not a gleam of sunshine burst forth to dispel the clouds which hung lowering over the fair fame of poor Ellis. He was either too proud or too indifferent as to what was said of him to take any notice of the various tales—different versions of the same story—flying about the school to his discredit. Now and then Bracebridge heard of them, but he invariably replied that he believed them to be utterly false, and he always treated the boy who ventured to begin to narrate them to him with the scorn which a tale-bearer deserves. The tales at last reached the ears of the masters, but in so indefinite a form that they could take no notice of them, much less report them to the Doctor; but they had the bad effect of making them look upon poor Ellis as a black sheep, and of inducing them to treat him with suspicion. Wrong motives were assigned to all he did, and, with one exception, no one spoke kindly or encouragingly to him. The exception was Monsieur Malin. Ellis’s clever contrivance with the kite and carriage had won his regard; and though, to be sure, his reasoning might have been very incorrect, he could not fancy that so ingenious a boy could have been guilty of the conduct alleged against him, and which had brought him into such general disrepute. He talked the subject over with Bracebridge, who was delighted to find that Ellis had so powerful a friend. Monsieur Malin determined, therefore, to support Ellis. He called him up one day, and asked him if he would like to learn French.
Ellis said, “Yes, of him; if he could get leave.”
“Well, if you cannot get leave, I will teach you myself in the play-hours, or at any odd times. You stay in so much, and play so little with the other boys, that you will not mind that, I know,” he said, in a kind encouraging voice. “You will learn soon, I know, and then we will walk together, and talk French, and you will learn more rapidly than any one else.”
“Thank you, sir! indeed, thank you!” said poor Ellis, the tears coming into his eyes. “It is very kind to take so much trouble with a person like me. I will do whatever you tell me.”
“Then write home, and get leave to learn, and I will tell you what you shall do in the meantime,” replied the French master. “Get into your head as large a vocabulary of words as you can collect. Put down in a little pocket-book the French and English of everything you can think of. Thus: write down, a boy, a man, a book, a desk, and I will show you how to pronounce them properly. Here is a book; accept it from me; I got it on purpose for you. Now write down a boy; now the French, garçon. The c you hear is soft. Roll the r well in your mouth. Repeat it frequently.” Monsieur Malin made him write down numerous other words, and repeated them over to him frequently till he had caught their exact sounds. “Now, my boy, you have learned your first French lesson,” he observed. “Every day add as many words as these to your vocabulary. Begin with the substantives; go on to the adjectives, next the verbs; then study the construction of the language; the simple rules of grammar; and lastly, in the same manner that you have learned single words, collect the idioms of the language. Read constantly aloud, and learn by heart interesting portions of modern French writings especially the speeches of the best orators of the present day, and I can promise you that in a very short time you will become a very fair French scholar.”
Ellis saw the wisdom of Monsieur Malin’s advice, and implicitly followed it. Bracebridge helped him, and they in a short time were able to converse together. In the meantime Ellis got leave to learn French, and some of the boys were very much surprised, and rather indignant, to find him put in one of the upper classes.
“That’s the fellow who pretended that he did not know French, and has all the time been listening to us, and overhearing all we said,” remarked Blackall, whose own knowledge of the language was so limited that, at all events, it would have puzzled a Frenchman to have comprehended him. “It’s just like the sneak,” he continued. “I wonder how a chap like Bracebridge can patronise him, or how a big fellow like Lemon can condescend to speak to him.”
Though these remarks, as it was intended they should, reached the ears both of Ernest and Lemon, they took no notice of them, and thus they did Ellis no further harm. It is very sad that I should not have to recount the pleasant sayings and doings of my schoolfellows; but as in the world the worst actions of people often come most prominently forward, so they do at school, and generally make the deepest impression. I know, however, that even at this time there were many pleasant things said, and amusing things done; that there was much good fellowship among us; that we entered into our games with thorough heartiness; that we made very satisfactory progress in our studies, and were generally happy and contented. Indeed, the school was thoroughly well-conducted and ably ruled. The dark spots I have been picturing arose entirely from the bad tempers, dispositions, and ill-conduct of those ruled. So it is with this world at large. It is admirably ordered, beautifully fashioned, ruled with unbounded love, regularity, and justice. Men, and men alone, have made all the blots and stains to be found in it; they have caused all the irregularities and disorders which abound; all the misery, all the suffering, all the wretchedness; we see they have themselves and themselves only to blame; that is to say, man alone is at fault; man, and sin which man introduced, beguiled by Satan. But up, boys! Do not suppose that you are to yield to this state of things; to say that so you find them, and that so you will let them be. No; far from that. You are sent into the world to fight against them, to overcome them, to strive with Satan, the prince of sin and lies, and all abominations, with all your might and main. It is a glorious contest; it is worth living for, if we did but understand it aright. The knights who went out, as we are told of old, armed cap-à-pie, to do battle with enchanters, and dragons, and monsters of all sorts, had not half so glorious, so difficult, so perilous a contest to engage in. The writers who invented those fables had, I suspect, a pretty clear notion of what is the true destiny of man. The enchanters were the spirits of evil; their necromancies the works of Satan; the dragons and monsters, the ills, the difficulties, the obstacles to all good works which have to be overcome. It was not the fashion to speak out great truths plainly in those days, as it has happily become at the present time; and so philosophers who held them wrapped them up in fables and allegories, the true import of which only the wisest and most sagacious could comprehend. The great truth that all men are sent into this world to work, to fight, to strive with might and main, the Doctor tried to impress on his pupils. He found it difficult, however, to make them understand the matter. Many of them thought that they knew better than he did on that subject. Some of them had been told at home, by ignorant servants or injudicious friends, that they were born heirs to good fortunes; that they were to go to school, and be good boys, and get through their lessons as well as they could, and then they would go to Oxford or Cambridge, because most gentlemen of any pretension went there; and then that they would be able to live at home and amuse themselves for the rest of their lives. Of course, such boys thought that what the Doctor was saying could have nothing at all to do with them, and could only refer to the children of poor people, who had nothing to give them. The Doctor, suspecting what was in their thoughts, surprised them very much by propounding the doctrine that no one was exempt from the rule; that all mankind, from the sovereign on his throne to the peasant in the field, are born to labour—to labour with the head or to labour with the hands, often with both; or if not, strictly speaking, with the hands, at all events with the mind and body.