________________________________________________
_ So important did Theobald consider this matter that he made a
special journey to Roughborough before the half year began. It was
a relief to have him out of the house, but though his destination
was not mentioned, Ernest guessed where he had gone.
To this day he considers his conduct at this crisis to have been one
of the most serious laches of his life--one which he can never think
of without shame and indignation. He says he ought to have run away
from home. But what good could he have done if he had? He would
have been caught, brought back and examined two days later instead
of two days earlier. A boy of barely sixteen cannot stand against
the moral pressure of a father and mother who have always oppressed
him any more than he can cope physically with a powerful full-grown
man. True, he may allow himself to be killed rather than yield, but
this is being so morbidly heroic as to come close round again to
cowardice; for it is little else than suicide, which is universally
condemned as cowardly.
On the re-assembling of the school it became apparent that something
had gone wrong. Dr Skinner called the boys together, and with much
pomp excommunicated Mrs Cross and Mrs Jones, by declaring their
shops to be out of bounds. The street in which the "Swan and
Bottle" stood was also forbidden. The vices of drinking and
smoking, therefore, were clearly aimed at, and before prayers Dr
Skinner spoke a few impressive words about the abominable sin of
using bad language. Ernest's feelings can be imagined.
Next day at the hour when the daily punishments were read out,
though there had not yet been time for him to have offended, Ernest
Pontifex was declared to have incurred every punishment which the
school provided for evil-doers. He was placed on the idle list for
the whole half year, and on perpetual detentions; his bounds were
curtailed; he was to attend junior callings-over; in fact he was so
hemmed in with punishments upon ever side that it was hardly
possible for him to go outside the school gates. This unparalleled
list of punishments inflicted on the first day of the half year, and
intended to last till the ensuing Christmas holidays, was not
connected with any specified offence. It required no great
penetration therefore, on the part of the boys to connect Ernest
with the putting Mrs Cross's and Mrs Jones's shops out of bounds.
Great indeed was the indignation about Mrs Cross who, it was known,
remembered Dr Skinner himself as a small boy only just got into
jackets, and had doubtless let him have many a sausage and mashed
potatoes upon deferred payment. The head boys assembled in conclave
to consider what steps should be taken, but hardly had they done so
before Ernest knocked timidly at the head-room door and took the
bull by the horns by explaining the facts as far as he could bring
himself to do so. He made a clean breast of everything except about
the school list and the remarks he had made about each boy's
character. This infamy was more than he could own to, and he kept
his counsel concerning it. Fortunately he was safe in doing so, for
Dr Skinner, pedant and more than pedant though he was, had still
just sense enough to turn on Theobald in the matter of the school
list. Whether he resented being told that he did not know the
characters of his own boys, or whether he dreaded a scandal about
the school I know not, but when Theobald had handed him the list,
over which he had expended so much pains, Dr Skinner had cut him
uncommonly short, and had then and there, with more suavity than was
usual with him, committed it to the flames before Theobald's own
eyes.
Ernest got off with the head boys easier than he expected. It was
admitted that the offence, heinous though it was, had been committed
under extenuating circumstances; the frankness with which the
culprit had confessed all, his evidently unfeigned remorse, and the
fury with which Dr Skinner was pursuing him tended to bring about a
reaction in his favour, as though he had been more sinned against
than sinning.
As the half year wore on his spirits gradually revived, and when
attacked by one of his fits of self-abasement he was in some degree
consoled by having found out that even his father and mother, whom
he had supposed so immaculate, were no better than they should be.
About the fifth of November it was a school custom to meet on a
certain common not far from Roughborough and burn somebody in
effigy, this being the compromise arrived at in the matter of
fireworks and Guy Fawkes festivities. This year it was decided that
Pontifex's governor should be the victim, and Ernest though a good
deal exercised in mind as to what he ought to do, in the end saw no
sufficient reason for holding aloof from proceedings which, as he
justly remarked, could not do his father any harm.
It so happened that the bishop had held a confirmation at the school
on the fifth of November. Dr Skinner had not quite liked the
selection of this day, but the bishop was pressed by many
engagements, and had been compelled to make the arrangement as it
then stood. Ernest was among those who had to be confirmed, and was
deeply impressed with the solemn importance of the ceremony. When
he felt the huge old bishop drawing down upon him as he knelt in
chapel he could hardly breathe, and when the apparition paused
before him and laid its hands upon his head he was frightened almost
out of his wits. He felt that he had arrived at one of the great
turning points of his life, and that the Ernest of the future could
resemble only very faintly the Ernest of the past.
This happened at about noon, but by the one o'clock dinner-hour the
effect of the confirmation had worn off, and he saw no reason why he
should forego his annual amusement with the bonfire; so he went with
the others and was very valiant till the image was actually produced
and was about to be burnt; then he felt a little frightened. It was
a poor thing enough, made of paper, calico and straw, but they had
christened it The Rev. Theobald Pontifex, and he had a revulsion of
feeling as he saw it being carried towards the bonfire. Still he
held his ground, and in a few minutes when all was over felt none
the worse for having assisted at a ceremony which, after all, was
prompted by a boyish love of mischief rather than by rancour.
I should say that Ernest had written to his father, and told him of
the unprecedented way in which he was being treated; he even
ventured to suggest that Theobald should interfere for his
protection and reminded him how the story had been got out of him,
but Theobald had had enough of Dr Skinner for the present; the
burning of the school list had been a rebuff which did not encourage
him to meddle a second time in the internal economics of
Roughborough. He therefore replied that he must either remove
Ernest from Roughborough altogether, which would for many reasons be
undesirable, or trust to the discretion of the head master as
regards the treatment he might think best for any of his pupils.
Ernest said no more; he still felt that it was so discreditable to
him to have allowed any confession to be wrung from him, that he
could not press the promised amnesty for himself.
It was during the "Mother Cross row," as it was long styled among
the boys, that a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed at
Roughborough. I mean that of the head boys under certain conditions
doing errands for their juniors. The head boys had no bounds and
could go to Mrs Cross's whenever they liked; they actually,
therefore, made themselves go-betweens, and would get anything from
either Mrs Cross's or Mrs Jones's for any boy, no matter how low in
the school, between the hours of a quarter to nine and nine in the
morning, and a quarter to six and six in the afternoon. By degrees,
however, the boys grew bolder, and the shops, though not openly
declared in bounds again, were tacitly allowed to be so. _
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