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_ Next morning Theobald and Christina arose feeling a little tired
from their journey, but happy in that best of all happiness, the
approbation of their consciences. It would be their boy's fault
henceforth if he were not good, and as prosperous as it was at all
desirable that he should be. What more could parents do than they
had done? The answer "Nothing" will rise as readily to the lips of
the reader as to those of Theobald and Christina themselves.
A few days later the parents were gratified at receiving the
following letter from their son -
"My Dear Mamma,--I am very well. Dr Skinner made me do about the
horse free and exulting roaming in the wide fields in Latin verse,
but as I had done it with Papa I knew how to do it, and it was
nearly all right, and he put me in the fourth form under Mr Templer,
and I have to begin a new Latin grammar not like the old, but much
harder. I know you wish me to work, and I will try very hard. With
best love to Joey and Charlotte, and to Papa, I remain, your
affectionate son, ERNEST."
Nothing could be nicer or more proper. It really did seem as though
he were inclined to turn over a new leaf. The boys had all come
back, the examinations were over, and the routine of the half year
began; Ernest found that his fears about being kicked about and
bullied were exaggerated. Nobody did anything very dreadful to him.
He had to run errands between certain hours for the elder boys, and
to take his turn at greasing the footballs, and so forth, but there
was an excellent spirit in the school as regards bullying.
Nevertheless, he was far from happy. Dr Skinner was much too like
his father. True, Ernest was not thrown in with him much yet, but
he was always there; there was no knowing at what moment he might
not put in an appearance, and whenever he did show, it was to storm
about something. He was like the lion in the Bishop of Oxford's
Sunday story--always liable to rush out from behind some bush and
devour some one when he was least expected. He called Ernest "an
audacious reptile" and said he wondered the earth did not open and
swallow him up because he pronounced Thalia with a short i. "And
this to me," he thundered, "who never made a false quantity in my
life." Surely he would have been a much nicer person if he had made
false quantities in his youth like other people. Ernest could not
imagine how the boys in Dr Skinner's form continued to live; but yet
they did, and even throve, and, strange as it may seem, idolised
him, or professed to do so in after life. To Ernest it seemed like
living on the crater of Vesuvius.
He was himself, as has been said, in Mr Templer's form, who was
snappish, but not downright wicked, and was very easy to crib under.
Ernest used to wonder how Mr Templer could be so blind, for he
supposed Mr Templer must have cribbed when he was at school, and
would ask himself whether he should forget his youth when he got
old, as Mr Templer had forgotten his. He used to think he never
could possibly forget any part of it.
Then there was Mrs Jay, who was sometimes very alarming. A few days
after the half year had commenced, there being some little extra
noise in the hall, she rushed in with her spectacles on her forehead
and her cap strings flying, and called the boy whom Ernest had
selected as his hero the "rampingest--scampingest--rackety--tackety-
-tow -row-roaringest boy in the whole school." But she used to say
things that Ernest liked. If the Doctor went out to dinner, and
there were no prayers, she would come in and say, "Young gentlemen,
prayers are excused this evening"; and, take her for all in all, she
was a kindly old soul enough.
Most boys soon discover the difference between noise and actual
danger, but to others it is so unnatural to menace, unless they mean
mischief, that they are long before they leave off taking turkey-
cocks and ganders au serieux. Ernest was one of the latter sort,
and found the atmosphere of Roughborough so gusty that he was glad
to shrink out of sight and out of mind whenever he could. He
disliked the games worse even than the squalls of the class-room and
hall, for he was still feeble, not filling out and attaining his
full strength till a much later age than most boys. This was
perhaps due to the closeness with which his father had kept him to
his books in childhood, but I think in part also to a tendency
towards lateness in attaining maturity, hereditary in the Pontifex
family, which was one also of unusual longevity. At thirteen or
fourteen he was a mere bag of bones, with upper arms about as thick
as the wrists of other boys of his age; his little chest was pigeon-
breasted; he appeared to have no strength or stamina whatever, and
finding he always went to the wall in physical encounters, whether
undertaken in jest or earnest, even with boys shorter than himself,
the timidity natural to childhood increased upon him to an extent
that I am afraid amounted to cowardice. This rendered him even less
capable than he might otherwise have been, for as confidence
increases power, so want of confidence increases impotence. After
he had had the breath knocked out of him and been well shinned half
a dozen times in scrimmages at football--scrimmages in which he had
become involved sorely against his will--he ceased to see any
further fun in football, and shirked that noble game in a way that
got him into trouble with the elder boys, who would stand no
shirking on the part of the younger ones.
He was as useless and ill at ease with cricket as with football, nor
in spite of all his efforts could he ever throw a ball or a stone.
It soon became plain, therefore, to everyone that Pontifex was a
young muff, a mollycoddle, not to be tortured, but still not to be
rated highly. He was not however, actively unpopular, for it was
seen that he was quite square inter pares, not at all vindictive,
easily pleased, perfectly free with whatever little money he had, no
greater lover of his school work than of the games, and generally
more inclinable to moderate vice than to immoderate virtue.
These qualities will prevent any boy from sinking very low in the
opinion of his school-fellows; but Ernest thought he had fallen
lower than he probably had, and hated and despised himself for what
he, as much as anyone else, believed to be his cowardice. He did
not like the boys whom he thought like himself. His heroes were
strong and vigorous, and the less they inclined towards him the more
he worshipped them. All this made him very unhappy, for it never
occurred to him that the instinct which made him keep out of games
for which he was ill adapted, was more reasonable than the reason
which would have driven him into them. Nevertheless he followed his
instinct for the most part, rather than his reason. Sapiens suam si
sapientiam norit. _
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