A Child of the Age (Adams)/Chapter 2
II
At Glastonbury I first kept a diary. Here is an extract from it:
'I don't like any of the fellows here. The fellows in my study are fools, all in the third form, and so of course we are always having our study windows catapulted, and then get it stopped out of allowance. (Pocket-money.) I haven't had a penny since I came, and that's a month! Then look at the big fellows! They none of them care a bit about fairness!—I was sitting on the table in the hall yesterday evening after call-over when Leslie, a big bully in the Remove, shoved me off as he was going by, for nothing at all! I fell on to the form, and the form went over and I hit my head against one of the iron posts. I got up and ran after him up the stairs and caught him up in the passage just before the door of his bedroom. Then I said to him, "I beg your pardon, Leslie; but why did you shove me off the table? I did nothing to you." In a moment he said, "What damned cheek!" (All the fellows say "damn" here. No one thinks anything of it.) And caught me a kick would have sent me over, if it hadn't been for the wall. As it was, I got my coat all whited and bumped my head again on the other side.'
I kept this diary for the first month I was at Glastonbury. After that, repetitions became more frequent, and at last one half-holiday late in October, more than a week behind, I in a pet gave it up, and put the book containing it at the back of my locker in the hall.
The term dragged on wearily.
It grew colder and colder. I got chilblains, first on my feet and then on my hands, at last suffering torments with them. And the bread and meat were often quite uneatable, and what else was there to live on?
It was a somewhat strange feeling of pleasure, I remember, that which came over me after I had eaten my first dinner in the holidays in the house of Mr. Jones, the solicitor. I suppose Colonel James paid for me. I didn't care for them. Mr. Jones was only at home in the evenings, and didn't speak to me much then. But I was happy enough; for I could just go where I liked and Mrs. Jones didn't bother if I didn't come in to lunch in the middle of the day so long as I told her I wasn't going to. At first I felt rather odd going 'out of bounds'; but that wore off. Mrs. Jones is a fat lady, good-humoured and, altogether, not bad; but she's always asking me questions about myself and Craven and Mrs. Craven and the other masters and the ladies they're married to. As if I knew anything about them!
The snow was down then everywhere; it was cold too; but I had some new thick red woollen gloves, and my chilblains were much better, and I didn't mind it. One day I asked Eliza the cook (I liked her pretty well: she reminded me of Cookie) to give me some bread and butter and an apple; for the sun was shining and I wanted to go out for a long walk into the country. I like walking along the roads like that, looking at the snow all glistening, and now and then a little bird hopping about or, out by Raymond wood, even a rabbit loppeting along over the white under the trees. Well, after I'd been walking some way, a big man cracking a whip in front of a horse and a manure-cart caught me up, and I walked beside him a little, for he had a nice face, till he spoke to me. And then we got on so well together that I told him a great many things that I had read in books about lions, and tigers, and rhinoceroses, and boa-constrictors and many other animals; and, at last, that I myself was writing a book, in which a good many of these things I had been telling him were to be introduced; but more especially I told him about the snakes, some of which were to try to stop Jugurtha in a secret passage as he was coming to kill his brother. For Jugurtha was the name of the hero. He was an illegitimate son of Mastanabal, king of Numidia: that meant that his father and mother weren't married; but in those days (many, many hundreds of years before our blessed Lord came) people sometimes did have children without being married. I had read about some others like that, in the Classical Dictionary.
But the carter kept silence and I, fearing from this and a look I had taken at his face, that there was some weakness in this early stage of my book, hastened to add that I knew it was a little funny, that part, but as it happened hundreds of years before our blessed Lord came or any of us were born, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much, after all? The carter agreed that 'it was odd, too;—at they early times!' Which rather relieved me.
It couldn't have been much further on than that, that I said good-bye to him and turned back to get home again. But I lost my way.
It was colder now, and darker. The sunlight had gone away from everything but a few clouds behind overhead, and, after a little, when I turned to look, it had gone away from all of them but two. I trudged on again. After another little, I began to feel my legs tired, and turned back again to see about the sunlight. It was all gone now. Then I wished I was at home. But the shadows were all coming down thicker and thicker, and the road was so slippery, and my legs more tired and more tired, and I couldn't hold my shoulders up. Then I saw a man coming along on the left side of the road under the trees and was afraid: then forgot that and went on up to him, but, when I saw him nearer and, at last, what an old man he was, with bleared eyes and a red neck-cloth tied round his throat, although I was almost sure I'd lost the way, I was afraid he was going to catch hold of me: so how dare I stop and say to him: 'Can you tell me, please, which is the road to Glastonbury?' He went on by me, and I went on by him, and under the trees, and on along the road, and he did nothing.
It was almost dark, black I mean, when I came to a farm. I had met no one else but the old man with the bleared eyes and the red neck-cloth. I was very tired.
I stopped at a gate and looked into the farm-yard, where the pond was frozen over and a light shone in one of the small farm windows. I did not like to go in and ask anyone to tell me the way: besides, I had begun to think about some of the fellows and what they had done to me till I hated almost everybody, and could have lain down in the snow and gone to sleep and died and been carried up by angels past the moon into heaven.
All at once a woman ran out with a flutter in her dress, across the yard into a dark outhouse. I did not stir: I stood thinking about dying and being buried.—And so, in a little, coming back more slowly, she saw me standing there with bent head looking through the second gate-bar.
She stopped. Then came and asked me what I wanted? And then, somehow, she had the gate open, and was trying to get me in by the hand and I pulling back a little.
Well, the end of it was that we went together up the yard to the door by the small window with the light in it, and in, into the light warm kitchen: and she sat me down in a chair by the fire, and, when I wouldn't answer anything to her but turned away my head, I don't know quite why (but I still wished I were dead and buried and no one knew anything about me), she got up again, and cut a thick piece of bread, and put a lot of butter upon it and then sugar, and went with a glass and brought it back full of warm milk, and came and knelt down by me again and began to coax me. And now there was a big lump in my throat, and I kept swallowing it, but it kept coming back again. And at last, when I wouldn't look at her she put down the bread and butter and sugar and the milk on the piece of carpet, and lifted up my face with her hand under my chin, and laughed into my face with hers, her lips and her eyes, and then called me 'a saucy boy' and gave me a kiss (and how fresh and red and soft her lips were!).—Why, I just threw my arms round her neck and began crying and laughing and laughing and crying and wondering where I'd been to all this time, and in the end gave her a kiss on the lips, and we were great friends. I don't know how it happened, but somehow or other I told her all about Robinson Crusoe, and ever so many other things besides. And, then her husband, John, came in.—And, when I was going away with John, she put two great apples, one into each of my trouser pockets, and said I must be sure and come and see her again and tell her some more about 'all they fine things in the pictur' books.' And so John and I set off together, turning every now and then to wave our hands to Mary at the door in the middle of the light and she waving hers; till the road wound round and we went by it and couldn't see her any more. Then I began to be tired again and, in a little, John lifted me up on to his back, and I fell asleep, I suppose, and didn't wake up till he put me down on Mr. Jones's door-step.
And so we parted. For the term began two days after that, and, as they were both snow-stormy, Mrs. Jones wouldn't let me go out to see Mary and John. And I did not know how to write to them, for they hadn't told me where to. I had quite forgotten about its being so near the end of the holidays.
We had a new monitor in the bedroom this term—Bruce. (Martin, the old one, had left.) Everyone called him a surly devil, but I didn't mind him so much. This was how my liking for him began. One day, early in the term, he was taking Lower Round. Football is compulsory. There are three Rounds, Upper, Lower and Middle. One or two fellows in the Team, or pretty high up in the Second Fifteen, always 'take' Middle and Lower Round, that is, they see the small boys play up, kicking them, etc,—Well, one day he was 'taking' Lower Round, when Leslie, who's in the Team too, took to playing back on the other side, so as to show off. Then I thought I'd like to see if I couldn't charge him and, when a chance came and Leslie had the ball and was dribbling past a lot of us small boys, I ran at him with all my might, and we both went over. But I got the cramp. He was up and off again pretty quickly; but, of course, I couldn't do much but sprawl about. But Bruce, who must have been close behind, came up and put his hands under my armpits and lifted me up like a child (I remember how I somehow liked to be lifted up in that way by him) and asked, was I hurt? The game had swept off to the other side of the field.
'No,' I said, looking up into his face, 'it's only the cramp in my calf. It'll go in a moment. I've had it before like that.'
He made me play three-quarters back for the rest of the game and, once or twice, as he passed me asked if I was all right now? To which I answered, 'Thank you, yes.' I liked him after that in a different way to what I had before.
Sometimes, if we were alone in the room together, as before dinner washing our hands and brushing our hair, he would talk to me, about nice things. But the moment any of the other fellows came up, he always stopped and went on doing what he was doing in silence. I don't mind that either. I believe he thinks the other fellows are fools like I do. At night he never speaks without some one speaking to him, and then he won't make a conversation. Everyone hates him, even the small boys.
The last few days of that term were very warm. There was a talk of having cricket and river-bathing: at any rate rackets began and, I think, some boating was done. Football of course had stopped a few weeks before the Sports, so as to get the field ready: I mean the Rounds had stopped; but there was always 'little game' in the Circus field for anyone who cared to go up. I liked better going walks by the river or about the fields. I liked to whistle as I went along: sometimes even I hummed tunes. The spring makes one feel so glad somehow.
One half-holiday, I remember, I got as far up the river as Morley Mill.
Just past there the bank is very high and thickly wooded. I began to go up, intending to sit there and look round a bit: there was not time to go on to the mill. Up I went by the narrow path, and all at once came upon Bruce, lying at full length on a piece of grass with a bundle of flowers and a small microscope-sort-of-thing, in his hand, through which he was looking at something. He did not notice me.—Then some earth rolled away from under my foot and went down rustling, and he raised his head slowly and saw me, and said:
'Hullo, Leicester. Is that you?'
I could think of nothing to say but, Yes, and stood still.
'What brought you out so far as this?' asked he.
'I don't know. I'm fond of walking, especially by the river.'
'Are you fond of flowers?'
'Yes.—You mean looking at them under microscopes and things? I have never done that; but I like flowers. They are so … so pleasant somehow.'
His chin flattened on his coat as he looked down, holding a grass in the fingers of the arm he leant on.
At last I said:
'You have polished that stone nicely, Bruce.'
He looked up.
'I didn't polish it! It is a piece of limestone. Would you like to look at it?'
'Thank you,' I said, 'I would.'
He held the piece of stone and the microscope for me to look. I was surprised at the beautiful shapes inlaid on it. He explained that they were shells.
I asked if I might look at some of the flowers through the microscope. Certainly, said he; had I never looked through a microscope before?
'Never, Bruce,' I said, looking up and into his eyes. He turned his onto the dried grass.
Then somehow we began to talk about birds, and he told me about how they paired in the spring.
He was sure birds had a sense of the beautiful. Darwin thinks so.
He paused, and ended, looking up over the tops of the trees below us.
After a little:
'Who is Darwin?' I said.
He looked round, and then to me:
'The biggest man, maybe, that has ever lived,' he said.
'Do you mean he's the greatest man who ever lived?' I asked.
'Yes.'
'I don't think he's as great a man as Sir Walter Scott,' I said.
'What do you know of Sir Walter Scott?'
'I have read two of his novels, Ivanhoe and The Talisman, and I am going to read them all. There are thirty-one. I counted them yesterday.'
'Yes?'
A pause.
Then, after a little, I asked him if he was not leaving this term? He said, Yes.
'Are you going to Oxford or Cambridge?'
'To neither. I am going to London.'
'Why don't you go to the 'Varsity?'
'Because I don't want to. I don't see the good of it.' Another pause. I sat with my hands clasped round my knees, looking over the river. Suddenly I thought I would ask him something. So I said:
'Bruce.'
'Yes.'
'Would you ever like . . . to be a great man—a big man?'
He looked at me with a gather in his brows:
'Well,' he said, 'I suppose I might. Why?'
'Oh, I only wondered. I shall be a great man some day, before I die. And I like to think about it when I'm low, low in my spirits I mean. Now yesterday, as I was standing by my locker, I got hit in the eye with a board (crust of bread) by a fellow, and it hurt me very much and almost made me cry with anger; it seemed so unfair. But, when I got up into my room and thought about it a little, I didn't mind much. For, when Leslie dies, no one will ever speak about him again or be sorry for him, but, when I am dead, people will often speak about me and be sorry for me and like me. It's very nice to think of people liking you when you're dead, I think. . . .'
I sat looking into the lower sky, not remembering Bruce. But all at once I heard him talking in a strange voice, and started and looked at him.
He saw me looking at him and jumped up, before I noticed what his face was like.
'You're a rum little beggar!' he said. Then sat down again, and went on:
'Do you tell everyone all this sort of thing?'
'No, I've never told anyone of it before, I don't think. Why should I?'
He blew softly through his lips:
'Ph-o-o . . . Fellows do. Do you know Clayton?'
'No.'—I shook my head.
'Or . . . Gildea?'
'Well . . . a few days ago I was writing lines in my study after second lesson, and he came round for some ink, and we talked a little then. That's all I know of him.'
A pause.
Then he:
'Take my advice, and have nothing to do with Gildea'
Another pause.
'Why?' asked I. 'He's rather a nice fellow, isn't he?'
'Because . . . He'll do you no good.'
'I don't twig that, quite.'
'It's no matter,' he said. 'You'll find plenty of things you can't twig, I expect, before you are a great man.—Now you had better be starting back,' he added, getting up, 'or you'll be late for call-over.'
He took out his watch and stood looking at the face for a little.
I got up, turned away, and began to descend the hill. He passed me a few fields farther on without even a nod.
I never talked with him any more. A week or so after, the term ended, and then, of course, he left.
Those holidays began badly. I went out to Raymond to see Mary the first Monday. When I got to the farm I found it shut up, and, after I had tried at every door to find if there was anyone inside, went away sadly, feeling very lonely. I only walked out that way once again in the holidays. It was still shut up. I did not try to discover if there was anyone inside.
Still, these midsummer holidays were, on the whole, by far the happiest time I had ever spent. I was on the river almost every moment that I could be, sculling about in a whiff I got from one of the boat-owners of the town, with a £5 note sent to me by Colonel James at the end of July. I bathed a great deal, I see myself swimming down the red-brown river between the thickly-wooded banks on either side: down past 'the snag,' to where the river grows shallower and the sunlight filters through into the water-grasses. Can see myself dive, and go with large arm-strides over the pebbly weedy bottom: now rolling over a luxuriant wavy head of soft green, now turning to face the current; and all in the fairy light of flowing water that the sun shines upon. Again, can see myself driving my light boat down the twilight stream, or, resting on my oars, drifting slowly with soft harmonious-moving thoughts.
III
The next midsummer holidays, to which I had looked forward eagerly, were a disappointment. The weather was bad, chill, windy, and rainy. I forsook my boating at last: took to long walks over the wet fields, with sadness through all my thoughts. In the end, dreams became almost nightly, fantastic dreams, never quite nightmares, although the shadow of nightmare