Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth
Page 374
Those are mistaken who think that young people cannot be interested in such things: if no mystery be made of the technical parts of business, young people easily learn them, and they early take an interest in the affairs of their parents, instead of learning to separate their own views from those of their friends. Charles, young as he was, at this time, was employed by his aunt frequently to copy, and sometimes to write, letters of business for her. He drew out a careful inventory of all the furniture before it was disposed of; he took lists of all the books and papers: and at this work, however tiresome, he was indefatigable, because he was encouraged by the hope of being useful. This ambition had been early excited in his mind.
When Mrs. Howard had settled her affairs, she took a small neat house near Westminster school, for the purpose of a boarding-house for some of the Westminster boys. This plan she preferred, because it secured an independent means of support, and at the same time enabled her, in some measure, to assist in her nephew’s education, and to enjoy his company. She was no longer able to afford a sufficient salary to a well-informed private tutor; therefore she determined to send Charles to Westminster school; and, as he would board with her, she hoped to unite by this scheme, as much as possible, the advantages of a private and of a public education. Mr. Russell desired still to have the care of Mrs. Howard’s nephew; he determined to offer himself as a tutor at Westminster school; and, as his acquirements were well known to the literary world, he was received with eagerness.
“My dear boy,” said Mrs. Howard to her nephew, when he first went to Westminster, “I shall not trouble you with a long chapter of advice: do you remember that answer of the oracle, which seemed to strike you so much the other day, when you were reading the life of Cicero?”
“Yes,” said Charles, “I recollect it — I shall never forget it. When Cicero asked how he should arrive at the height of glory, the oracle answered, ‘By making his own genius, and not the opinion of the people, the guide of his life.’”
“Well,” said Mrs. Howard, smiling, “if I were your oracle, and you were to put the same question to me, I think I should make you nearly the same answer; except that I should change the word genius into good sense; and, instead of the people, I should say the world, which, in general, I think, means all the silly people of one’s acquaintance. Farewell: now go to the Westminster world.”
Westminster was quite a new world to young Howard. The bustle and noise at first astonished his senses, and almost confounded his understanding; but he soon grew accustomed to the din, and familiarized to the sight of numbers. At first, he thought himself much inferior to all his companions, because practice had given them the power of doing many things with ease, which to him appeared difficult, merely because he had not been used to them. In all their games and plays, either of address or force, he found himself foiled. In a readiness of repartee, and a certain ease and volubility of conversation, he perceived his deficiency; and though he frequently was conscious that his ideas were more just, and his arguments better, than those of his companions, yet he could not at first bring out his ideas to advantage, or manage his arguments so as to stand his ground against the mixed raillery and sophistry of his school fellows. He had not yet the tone of his new society, and he was as much at a loss as a traveller in a foreign country, before he understands the language of a people who are vociferating round about him. As fast, however, as he learned to translate the language of his companions into his own, he discovered that there was not so much meaning in their expressions as he had been inclined to imagine whilst they had remained unintelligible: but he was good-humoured and good-natured, so that, upon the whole, he was much liked; and even his inferiority, in many little trials of skill, was, perhaps, in his favour. He laughed with those that laughed at him, let them triumph in his awkwardness, but still persisted in new trials, till at last, to the great surprise of the spectators, he succeeded.
The art of boxing cost him more than all the rest; but as he was neither deficient in courage of mind nor activity of body, he did not despair of acquiring the necessary skill in this noble science — necessary, we say, for Charles had not been a week at Westminster before he was made sensible of the necessity of practising this art in his own defence. He had yet a stronger motive; he found it necessary for the defence of one who looked up to him for protection.
There was at this time at Westminster, a little boy of the name of Oliver, a Creole, lively, intelligent, open-hearted, and affectionate in the extreme, but rather passionate in his temper, and adverse to application. His literary education had been strangely neglected before he came to school, so that his ignorance of the common rudiments of spelling, reading, grammar, and arithmetic, made him the laughing-stock of the school. The poor boy felt inexpressible shame and anguish; his cheek burned with blushes, when every day, in the public class, he was ridiculed and disgraced; but his dark complexion, perhaps, prevented those blushes from being noticed by his companions, otherwise they certainly would have suppressed, or would have endeavoured to repress, some of their insulting peals of laughter. He suffered no complaint or tear to escape him in public; but his book was sometimes blistered with the tears that fell when nobody saw them: what was worse than all the rest he found insurmountable difficulties, at every step, in his grammar. He was unwilling to apply to any of his more learned companions for explanations or assistance. He began to sink into despair of his own abilities, and to imagine that he must for ever remain, what indeed he was every day called, a dunce. He was usually flogged three times a week. Day after day brought no relief, either to his bodily or mental sufferings: at length his honest pride yielded, and he applied to one of the elder scholars for help. The boy to whom he applied was Augustus Holloway, Alderman Holloway’s son, who was acknowledged to be one of the best Latin scholars at Westminster. He readily helped Oliver in his exercises, but he made him pay most severely for this assistance, by the most tyrannical usage; and, in all his tyranny, he thought himself fully justifiable, because little Oliver, beside his other misfortunes, had the misfortune to be a fag.
There may be — though many schoolboys will, perhaps, think it scarcely possible — there may be, in the compass of the civilised world, some persons so barbarously ignorant as not to know what is meant by the term fag. To these it may be necessary to explain, that at some English schools it is the custom, that all little boys, when they first go to school, should be under the dominion of the elder boys. These little boys are called fags, and are forced to wait upon and obey their master-companions. Their duties vary in different schools. I have heard of its being customary in some places, to make use of a fag regularly in the depth of winter instead of a warming-pan, and to send the shivering urchin through ten or twenty beds successively to take off the chill of cold for their luxurious masters. They are expected, in most schools, to run of all the elder boys’ errands, to be ready at their call, and to do all their high behests. They must never complain of being tired, or their complaints will, at least, never be regarded, because, as the etymology of the word implies, it is their business to be tired. The substantive fag is not to be found in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary; but the verb to fag is there a verb neuter, from fatigo, Latin, and is there explained to mean, “to grow weary, to faint with weariness.” This is all the satisfaction we can, after the most diligent research, afford the curious and learned reader upon the subject of fags in general.
In particular, Mr. Augustus Holloway took great delight in teasing his fag, little Oliver. One day it happened that young Howard and Holloway were playing at nine-pins together, and little Oliver was within a few yards of them, sitting under a tree, with a book upon his knees, anxiously trying to make out his lesson. Holloway, whenever the nine-pins were thrown down, called to Oliver, and made him come from his book and set them up again: this he repeatedly did, in spite of Howard’s remonstrances, who always offered to set up the nine-pins, and who said it teased the poor little fellow to call him every minute from what he was about.
Howard did not at all enjoy the diversion of hunting the poor boy about in this manner, and he said, with some indignation,
“How is it possible, Holloway, that the boy can get his lesson, if you interrupt him every instant?”
“Pooh! what signifies his foolish lesson?”
“It signifies a great deal to him,” replied Howard: “you know what he suffered this morning because he had not learned it.”
“Suffered! why, what did he suffer?” said Holloway, upon whose memory the sufferings of others made no very deep impression. “Oh, ay, true — you mean he was flogged: more shame for him! — why did not he mind and get his lesson better?”
“I had not time to understand it rightly,” said Oliver, with a deep sigh; “and I don’t think I shall have time to-day either.”
“More shame for you,” repeated Holloway: “I’ll lay any bet on earth, I get all you have to get in three minutes.”
“Ah, you, to be sure,” said Oliver, in a tone of great humiliation; “but then you know what a difference there is between you and me.”
Holloway misunderstood him; and, thinking he meant to allude to the difference in their age, instead of the difference of their abilities, answered sharply,
“When I was your age, do you think I was such a dunce as you are, pray?”
“No, that I am sure you never were,” said Oliver; “but perhaps you had some good father or mother, or somebody, who taught you a little before you came to school.”
“I don’t remember any thing about that,” replied Holloway; “I don’t know who was so good as to teach me, but I know I was so good as to learn fast enough, which is a goodness, I’ve a notion, some folks will never have to boast of — so trot, and fetch the bowl for me, do you hear, and set up the nine-pins. You’ve sense enough to do that, have not you? and as for your lesson, I’ll drive that into your head by and by, if I can,” added he, rapping with his knuckles upon the little boy’s head.
“As to my lesson,” said the boy, putting aside his head from the insulting knuckles, “I had rather try and make it out by myself, if I can.”
“If you can!” repeated Holloway, sneering; “but we all know you can’t.”
“Why can’t he, Holloway?” exclaimed Howard, with a raised voice, for he was no longer master of his indignation.
“Why can’t he?” repeated Holloway, looking round upon Howard, with a mixture of surprise and insolence. “You must answer that question yourself, Howard: I say he can’t.”
“And I say he can, and he shall,” replied Howard; “and he shall have time to learn: he’s willing, and, I’ll answer for it, able to learn; and he shall not be called a dunce; and he shall have time; and he shall have justice.”
“Shall! shall! shall!” retorted Holloway, vociferating with a passion of a different sort from Howard’s. “Pray, sir, who allowed you to say shall to me? and how dare you to talk in this here style to me about justice? — and what business have you, I should be glad to know, to interfere between me and my fag? What right have you to him, or his time either? And if I choose to call him a dunce forty times a day, what then? he is a dunce, and he will be a dunce to the end of his days, I say, and who is there thinks proper to contradict me?”
“I,” said Howard, firmly; “and I’ll do more than contradict you — I’ll prove that you are mistaken. Oliver, bring your book to me.”
“Oliver, stir at your peril!” cried Holloway, clinching his fist with a menacing gesture: “nobody shall give any help to my fag but myself, sir,” added he to Howard.
“I am not going to help him, I am only going to prove to him that he may do it without your help,” said Howard.
The little boy sprang forward, at these words, for his book; but his tormentor caught hold of him, and pulling him back, said, “He’s my fag! do you recollect, sir, he’s my fag?”
“Fag or no fag,” cried Howard, “you shall not make a slave of him.”
“I will! I shall! I will!” cried Holloway, worked up to the height of tyrannical fury: “I will make a slave of him, if I choose it-a negro-slave, if I please!”
At the sound of negro-slave, the little Creole burst into tears. Howard sprang forward to free him from his tyrant’s grasp: Holloway struck Howard a furious blow, which made him stagger backwards.
“Ay,” said Holloway, “learn to stand your ground, and fight, before you meddle with me, I advise you.”
Holloway was an experienced pugilist, and he knew that Howard was not; but before his defiance had escaped his lips, he felt his blow returned, and a battle ensued. Howard fought with all his soul; but the body has something to do, as well as the soul, in the art of boxing, and his body was not yet a match for his adversary’s. After receiving more blows than Holloway, perhaps, could have borne, Howard was brought to the ground.
“Beg my pardon, and promise never to interfere between me and my fag any more,” said Holloway, standing over him triumphant: “ask my pardon.”
“Never,” said the fallen hero: “I’ll fight you again, in the same cause, whenever you please; I can’t have a better;” and he struggled to rise.
Several boys had, by this time, gathered round the combatants, and many admired the fortitude and spirit of the vanquished, though it is extremely difficult to boys, if not to men, to sympathize with the beaten. Every body called out that Howard had had enough for that night; and though he was willing to have renewed the battle, his adversary was withheld by the omnipotence of public opinion. As to the cause of the combat, some few inquired into its merits, but many more were content with seeing the fray, and with hearing, vaguely, that it began about Howard’s having interfered with Holloway’s fag in an impertinent manner.
Howard’s face was so much disfigured, and his clothes were so much stained with blood, that he did not wish to present himself such a deplorable spectacle before his aunt; besides, no man likes to be seen, especially by a woman, immediately after he has been beaten; therefore, he went directly to bed as soon as he got home, but desired that one of his companions, who boarded at Mrs. Howard’s, would, if his aunt inquired for him at supper, tell her “that he had been beaten in a boxing match, but hoped to be more expert after another lesson or two.” This lady did not show her tenderness to her nephew by wailing over his disaster: on the contrary, she was pleased to hear that he had fought in so good a cause.
The next morning, as soon as Howard went to school, he saw little Oliver watching eagerly for him.
“Mr. Howard — Charles,” said he, catching hold of him, “I’ve one word to say: let him call me dunce, or slave, or negro, or what he will, don’t you mind any more about me — I can’t bear to see it,” said the affectionate child: “I’d rather have the blows myself, only I know I could not bear them as you did.”
Oliver turned aside his head, and Howard, in a playful voice, said, “Why, my little Oliver, I did not think you were such a coward: you must not make a coward of me.”
No sooner did the boys go out to play in the evening, than Howard called to Oliver, in Holloway’s hearing, and said, “If you want any assistance from me, remember, I’m ready.”
“You may be ready, but you are not able,” cried Holloway, “to give him any assistance — therefore, you’d better be quiet: remember last night.”
“I do remember it perfectly,” said Howard, calmly.
“And do you want any more? — Come, then, I’ll tell you what, I’ll box with you every day, if you please, and when you have conquered me, you shall have my fag all to yourself, if you please; but, till then, you shall have nothing to do with him.”
“I take you at your word,” said Howard, and a second battle began. As we do not delight in fields of battle, or hope to excel
, like Homer, in describing variety of wounds, we shall content ourselves with relating, that after five pitched battles, in which Oliver’s champion received bruises of all shapes and sizes, and of every shade of black, blue, green, and yellow, his unconquered spirit still maintained the justice of his cause, and with as firm a voice as at first he challenged his constantly victorious antagonist to a sixth combat.
“I thought you had learned by this time,” said the successful pugilist, “that Augustus Holloway is not to be conquered by one of woman breed.” To this taunt Howard made no reply; but whether it urged him to superior exertion, or whether the dear-bought experience of the five preceding days had taught him all the caution that experience only can teach, we cannot determine; but, to the surprise of all the spectators, and to the lively joy of Oliver, the redoubted Holloway was brought, after an obstinate struggle, fairly to the ground. Every body sympathized with the generous victor, who immediately assisted his fallen adversary to rise, and offered his hand in token of reconciliation. Augustus Holloway, stunned by his fall, and more by his defeat, returned from the field of battle as fast as the crowd would let him, who stopped him continually with their impertinent astonishment and curiosity; for though the boasted unconquerable hero had pretty evidently received a black eye, not one person would believe it without looking close in his face; and many would not trust the information of their own senses, but pressed to hear the news confirmed by the reluctant lips of the unfortunate Augustus. In the meantime, little Oliver, a fag no longer, exulting in his liberty, clapped his joyful hands, sang, and capered round his deliverer.—”And now,” said he, fixing his grateful, affectionate eyes upon Howard, “you will suffer no more for me; and if you’ll let me, I’ll be your fag. Do, will you? pray let me! I’ll run of your errands before you can say one, two, three, and away: only whistle for me,” said he, whistling, “and I’ll hear you, wherever I am. If you only hold up your finger when you want me, I’m sure I shall see it; and I’ll always set up your nine-pins, and fly for your ball, let me be doing what I will. May I be your fag?”