Captain Mugford: Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors
Page 6
CHAPTER SIX.
DISSENSIONS IN CAMP.
For every afternoon of those beautiful June and July days we rowed fortwo hours, from five to seven. Our studies were not relaxed in themorning, and our hours for swimming were regularly enjoyed, but theabsorbing topic of thought and conversation was the approachingboat-race. Twice on Saturday afternoons we had seen Captain Mugford andMr Clare pulling in their boat. They did not condescend to practiseoftener, but we noticed that they worked in earnest when they did row.With the confidence of youth we feared not, feeling sanguine that wemust beat them.
There was a vein of discord, however, in our little colony. AlfredHigginson and my brother Drake, who only differed by a few months inage, in other respects differed greatly, and had never been able, sinceour first acquaintance, to get along together. Alfred Higginson was ofa nervous, sensitive disposition, quick in temper, and easily provoked.His tastes were fastidious. He was an excellent scholar, (much betterthan my brother Drake), and very fond of reading. He entered fully intoall our sports, but preferred fishing, sailing, and swimming to ourrougher harder amusements. He drew excellently, landscape and marineviews and figures. He was a healthy, active boy, and could beat us allin running. I have said his was a quick temper, but it was a forgivingone. If he laughed not as loud and often as many of us, he caused us tolaugh oftener than any, for he had a quick dry humour and witty tongue.When it came to chaffing, he was always conqueror.
My brother Drake was entirely unlike Alfred Higginson. He was a hardy,rough, jolly boy, overflowing with fun and animal life, what is called a"regular boy." Never quiet--laughing, singing, whistling all the time,heels over head in everything, pitching into his studies asirrepressibly as into his games, but with more success in the latter,though he was a fair student; better in his mathematics and otherEnglish studies than in the languages. The only reading he cared forwas that of travel and adventure, voyages of whalemen and discoveries,histories of pirates, Indian scenes, hunting stories, war histories,Walter Scott's novels, "Gulliver's Travels," and the unequalled"Robinson Crusoe." Everything he could find about the Crusaders herevelled in, and even went at Latin with a rush when, Caesar and Neposbeing put aside, the dramatic narrative of Virgil opened to him, and theadventures of the Trojan heroes became his daily lesson. But that hehad to feed his interest, crumb by crumb, painfully gathered bydictionary and grammar, made him chafe. He enjoyed it, though, with allof us, when, after each day's recitation--after we boys had marred andblurred the elegance and spirit of Virgil's eloquence with all sorts oflaboured, limping translations, that made Mr Clare fairly writhe in hischair--our tutor would drop a word of commendation for Walter's betterrendering of the poem, and then read the lesson himself, and go over inadvance the one for the next day. Then the ribs and decks of ourschoolroom in the wrecked brig melted away as the scenes of the Aeneidsurrounded us. The dash of the waves we heard was on the Trojan shore,or the coast of Latium, as we wandered with storm-tossed Aeneas. Or wewalked the splendid court of Dido, or were contending in battle with thewarlike Turnus for our settlement in Latium. Turnus and the fierceMezentius were Drake's favourites. He never liked Aeneas, who wasalways Alfred Higginson's hero. Those readings were often disturbed byDrake's exclamations. His overflowing, outspoken disposition could notbe restrained when his interest was powerfully enlisted; and as MrClare read, in his clear, impassioned manner, some exciting passage,Drake would shout out an exclamation of encouragement or satisfactionwith a favourite warrior, and bring down his fist on the desk, asanother favourite was discomfited or came to grief. I remember verywell how often Drake was reproved for such unseasonable enthusiasm,which always caused an after sarcasm or witticism from Alfred Higginson;and I distinctly recall how, notwithstanding the formality ofschool-hours, when we came to the single combat between Aeneas andTurnus, and the death of the latter, Drake flung his book from thetable, and shouted out in an angry voice, "I'll bet anything Virgiltells fibs!"
Those readings were treats to all of us. Drake having told CaptainMugford of them, and discussed the incidents that vexed him with theCaptain, got him so interested that he asked Mr Clare to allow him tocome in at the close of our recitations. Of course that favour wasreadily granted, and after that time the Captain always made one of theauditors. He used to laugh and shake over Drake's excitement, and yetentered into it himself, and I have seen salt drops running down hischeeks and Mr Clare's, as the latter rendered in a voice slightlytrembling some of the pathetic passages in which Virgil is soexquisitely beautiful.
I am glad to write of those lessons in the old brig's carcass, for theyare remembered so pleasantly. Moreover, it came naturally in drawing mydear brother Drake's character, and the effect of those heroicalclassics influenced, in a manner very quixotic, the crisis of thecontinued quarrel between Drake and Alfred Higginson, to which we arecoming. The great dissimilarity in the characters of the two was areason for their want of sympathy and agreement, one with the other, butthe causes of the open warfare which existed between them were thefaults of each--the irritability, slight conceit, and stinging tongue ofAlfred Higginson; the teasing practices, want of toleration for thefeelings and peculiarities of others, and a certain recklessness ofDrake's. And yet they were both noble boys, with nothing false orungenerous or underhanded about either of them.
Ever since we had come to the cape, their skirmishes of words anddisagreement had been continual, and several more tangible collisions,where blows had been exchanged between them, were nipped in the bud byWalter and the others of us, and once by the Captain, who, wrought up bytheir quarrelsomeness, separated them pretty fiercely, and, holding eachat arm's length, told them that, if there was any fighting to be doneamong his crew, he must have a hand in it. Then he laughed one of hisbars of rollicking "ha-has," and dropped the boys with the injunctionthat if they had another "mill," he should certainly let their fathersknow. "Now, boys, try if you cannot get along better, and when you havea quarrel again, bring it to Mr Clare or to me, and we will settle itbetter than your blows and frowns can do."
You remember how Drake knocked Alfred from the footboard of his bed onthe occasion of our night meeting to get up the boat-race. That was agood example of Drake's reckless rudeness, proceeding merely from hisboisterous disposition, but somehow those outbreaks were always directedto Alfred, just as the rough points of Alfred's disposition were sure tobe turned to Drake. That fall had hurt Alfred, and from the date of thecommencement of our boat-practice, the war between the two had waxedhotter and hotter. The contest seemed only to amuse Harry Higginson,but Walter--our mentor, my conscientious, tender-hearted brother, wholed us all in games as well as in lessons--worried over it, and each dayhe exhorted the two to govern their tempers, and, with great tact anddecision, whenever he saw a storm brewing, managed to throw oil upon thewaters. However, his influence did not heal up the difference, and inabout a fortnight, a few days before the intended race, there occurredduring our afternoon boat-practice a little row between the twoantagonists, which proved a final skirmish before the severe butludicrous battle which crowned the civil war.
We were rowing in Bath Bay as usual, Walter pulling the stroke oar, andHarry Higginson the bow, whilst Drake and Alfred held the intermediatepositions, Drake sitting behind Alfred--that is, nearer the bow. I hadmy place at the tiller.
Alfred Higginson had made a very ridiculous blunder in a Frenchtranslation that morning. Such a thing was unusual for him, and wassuch a comical one that it set the others of the class in a roar oflaughter. Drake was so extravagantly affected by Alf's blunder that MrClare had to stop his laughter, which was half genuine and halfpretence, by ordering him out of the room. Even then we heard himha-ha-ing outside. Poor Alfred was terribly mortified, and did notrecover his composure even when the school-hours were over, and thefirst greeting he received, on emerging from the house, was from Drake,who immediately mimicked Alfred's mistake, and performed a variety ofantics supposed to proceed from convulsions of
mirth. On the way to theboat, Drake continued to tease Alfred. Walter reproved him continually,and even took hold of him once to compel him to stop; but he was in oneof his most boisterous moods, and was so very funny that he kept everyone but Alfred in shouts of laughter. But Alfred lashed him with thebitterest satire, and, as they say, sometimes "made him laugh on theother side of his mouth," until by the time we had reached the bay Drakehad subsided into silence, and the tight closing of his lips, and quickwalk, proved that Alfred's sharp wit was more fatal than Drake's broadfun. Both of the boys rowed sullenly, and we all felt that a storm wasbrewing. In the final round, when we made the course at our best andtimed the performance, so as to notice what improvement we were making,Alfred caught a crab with his oar, in consequence of which the head ofDrake's oar hit him sharply in the back. The mortification of a missstroke is enough to anger a boatman, but coming as it did after themorning's blunder in class, and made, too, a pain of the flesh byDrake's blow, it was too much for Alfred's temper, and as Drakeincreased the irritation by calling him an "awkward lout," and thenmimicking the blunder of translation with the accompaniment of a shoutof laughter, Alfred turned quickly, and hit his opponent a stinging blowin the face.
In a moment the two boys grappled each other, and in a shorter periodthan it takes my pen to write it, the boat was upset, and we were all inthe water. The combatants still clung to one another, and disappearedtogether. The adage, however, that "discretion is the better part ofvalour," enforced by such a deep, cold plunge, bore proof; for the irateyouths came to the surface apart, and we all struck out for the rocks,distant about eighty yards. We climbed like half-drowned rats up theshore, where the fight was not resumed. Its very strange continuationwas postponed until the Saturday after the boat-race, which must bereserved for another chapter. We, however, read then, in the faces ofthe discomfited antagonists, as plainly as you read here--
"To be continued."