A Child of the Age (Adams)/Chapter 1
A CHILD OF THE AGE
I
I
At some time in my earliest childhood I must, I think, have lived near a wind-mill: for I have, every now and then, ever since I can remember, seen one in the middle of a tender yellowy-golden band of sunset on a sandy elevation. Somewhere, perhaps below in the house in which I am, a canary, cageless, with upward-throbbing throat, sings.
And then I know a darker vision: a darker vision of a slanting planked floor, with an uncertain atmosphere therein, and a sound from thereout, as of a ship on the sea. A dim-rayed lamp oscillates in the middle. A woman is up in one of the berths, soothing and giving suck to a baby fractious with sleep and misery. In the far corner is a huddled tartan-petticoated lump-round, with two protruding bare knees—a child unkempt, dirty, miserable, afraid of some heavy coming footstep. I know in some way that I am the child.
And then comes yet another vision, but lighter, and in a broader scene. A red-cheeked woman rolls a perambulator and a quiet little boy down a cindery path in the shine of a moist sunset. They stop by a grey, sweating, barred gate. (There are four or five bars: not less.) In a little, the boy struggles out from the tarpaulin of the perambulator on to the clammy earth: crosses the tall wet rank grasses: climbs on to the gate, and looks at a band of tender yellowy-gold down by the horizon, which is to him a new revelation of his earliest dreams. For on that day that tender yellowy-gold band and far sky of light seem to him to contain faint outlines of great white-winged angels: beyond, a chasm of clearer purer light; and beyond, God.
Now everything changes. My next recollection of a certain fixed occasion brings with it an acquaintance, often strangely minute and distinct, of myself and of the life that was around me. Thus:—
From standing with some wistfulness in the twilight road, I turn slowly away, shoulders rounded, collar awry, hands deep in my pockets: slouch to the right, along the second side (at right angles to the road) of the wall, and there stop—thinking.
A white duck hurries waddling, filled with anxiousness, across the grass farther on, and paddles her bill in the edge of the stream. And I walk with big strides till I am parallel to her: reach the wooden bridge (duck the while paddling her bill in the stream's border of watery mud):—give one look at a hole in the bank from which trickles the thick inky, sluggish drain-fluid; and enter the porch.
No one in the kitchen. The clock tick-tacking with big silent swing: the plates, with their ruddy flickering fire-light, in rows: the lamp not lit yet.
Then I hear a motion as of some one shoving a jar on to a shelf in the pantry: cross quickly through the kitchen: down the red-tiled passage (up come two or three loose tiles with a collapsed fall), catching a semi-earthy smell from under the cellar door (some one's in the pantry: Anne, I think): run upstairs two steps at a time: turn down the dark passage: reach the ladder foot: climb up: shove open the door: enter the dim garret: go on to the window: look out over the graveyard, and then turn and begin to take in, half-unconsciously, the red-painted lines on the card over the washing-stand: 'I love them that love Me, and those that seek Me early shall find Me.'
At that I turn again: go back to the window, and, with a knee on the white-painted window-sill, look out into the twilight sky, in which I see vaguely the tall dark wild rook-trees with their black broad tops, the many gravestones, and the small church to the right.
Then:
'Ber-tie!'
The word, rising a note, startles me, half-thrills me. Anne is at the foot of the ladder.
Up she steps: shoves the door open altogether, and at once begins:
'Lor', Master Bertie, why you look as if you'd bin seein' a ghost out in the graveyard, you do. Gracious alive, the eyes of him! Did you ever now?…'
'What do you want?' I ask. 'If you want me for tea, I'm not coming. Tell Mrs. Purchis so.'
Anne urges that Mrs. Purchis is in such a bad temper this evening. And it being his last night too, eh? And it isn't good for him to drop off his victuals like that, and he going away to school to-morrow, and hasn't eat anything to speak of this week,—considerin'.
I take to my old attitude, with my knee upon the white-painted window-sill, now faint and dim, and look through the dark rook-trees into the darkening fields. Anne continues: 'Which she does hope he doesn't bear any malice. Master Bertie, and him going away tomorrow, to school, and might never see her again, but they both be dead and buried before then; and, if it wasn't that … (Then, sharply): But she always did say, and we'd see who was right or not, that that boy would come to no'
I leap to her.
'I will throw you down the ladder,' I say, catching her by the arm, 'if you don't go …'
She, rather frightened, goes.
All that evening I sat on the sill, looking out across the churchyard to the hedge and the rook-trees. The black shadows grew broader and deeper. There was no moon. A light wind was singing through a crack in the lead-work, close by my ear. And at last Timothy Goodwin, the sexton, came limping along the London Road with a lantern: unlocked the gates, locked them again, carefully, after him: limped to old Mr. Atkin's grave, and began cutting the grass on it with a clinking shears, having put down the lantern by him.
I watched him and thought about things.
Presently he lifted up his light: put it down again and began on another patch. Then he took up his light and stood for a moment, brushing the knees of his corduroys with his hand: then turned, and limped towards the gates. I smiled through the tears that were in my eyes and on my cheeks. If I had been there with old Timothy, I would have put my arms round his neck and kissed him.
On he limped over the grass, through the tombs, over the sanded walk, the lantern-light passing before him; till now, he reached the gates: unlocked them: has gone out: re-locked them.—And there he goes, jogging over furrows and hollows like a Will-o'-the-wisp, up the London Road.
The clock in the square dark church-tower struck out the hour.
An impulse came to me. I went to the bed and down onto my knees; but then, remembering that He—God—was up above in the sky, I clasped my two hands together, and looked up to Him, and said:
'Dear God, You are a long, long way away from me: right up in the deep, blue sky, higher than all the darkness, and farther away than even the sun, and the moon, and the stars.—But I love You! oh, I love You! because You know everything I think about, and everything that I want to do. And I pray that You won't let me die till I am very old and have done all the things I want to do. But please help me to be a great man. Through Jesus Christ our blessed Lord, Amen.'
Then I got up, and undressed, and slipping into bed, was soon asleep.
The next morning Mr. Purchis and I came up by train to some large station, where we got out and crossed to another platform. As we were going, he, having me by the hand, told me to tie my white woollen comforter round my arm, so that 'the Colonel's man' might know me at the other end. I was put into a third-class compartment: Mr. Purchis gave me a shake by the hand, and turned and went away down the platform. I did not care to watch him more than a few yards or so. I did not care to look at the other passengers. It all seemed like a sort of dream, and I did not think I was going anywhere in particular.
There were a good many other people in the carriage. Some got in: some got out: I didn't notice them much.
After a long time (it was growing darker now) an old lady next me, who'd been asleep, awoke and took a basket from under the seat and put it upon her knees, and, in a little, said to me that we were 'close to London now, my dear.' I said: 'Thank you!' and looked out of the window.
Then the train stopped by a long planked platform, and the people (three now) all rose up. A clergyman got out first and pulled a glazed bag along the floor down to him. Then the old lady got out, and her daughter (as I thought) handed her down the basket and got out too.
After a little I went up to the other window and pressed my face against the pane and looked for 'the Colonel's man.' Then I thought that he mightn't be able to know me without the white-comfortered arm, so I put it out through the door, and waited.
All at once a man with thin legs in brown trousers came out from between two old ladies with band-boxes right up to me. He touched his hat. This was 'the Colonel's man.'
We took a cab and went across London, and stopped in a square before another large station, but not so large a one as the first. A porter undid the door, and we got out, and the box was taken down, and put on to a trolly, and we followed it into the station. There it was tilted beside two others onto its head (the trolly I mean), and we had ten minutes to wait before the train-gate was open.
'The Colonel's man' began talking to the porter about something. I went on a little and stood and looked at some pictures hung up by a newspaper stall. One was of a great ship in the docks, going to be launched. As I was looking—
'Come along,' said 'the Colonel's man,' taking me by the hand, 'the gate's open.'
We went along the platform together and got into a carriage pretty far up. I sat silent: and every now and then my eyelids drooped, and my head moved forward, and I nearly fell. I should very much like to have lain down and gone to sleep in a cool clean white bed.
At last we came, after many short stops, to a stop, and 'the Colonel's man' put his hand on my arm: and then I was lifted down, and we went out, I just behind him, a porter carrying the box. At the door in the cool evening wind, 'the Colonel's man' agreed with a boy to take the box up to Park Road for sixpence. And we all set off.
After a little 'the Colonel's man' and I wore ahead. It was a steep hill, and I felt rather tired but not so sleepy now. We went on slowly, till he stopped and said: 'Give us a hand. It is a bit of a pull up this hill, young 'un, ain't it—eh?'
I gave him my hand and we went on again till, passing through the light of a tall lamp-post and through an open gate, we stood on the flagstone before a low doorway. 'The Colonel's man' pulled at the bell-handle. A bell rang. Then, in a little, we heard steps and the door was opened by a maid with a white apron and cap.
'Well, good-bye, my lad,' said 'the Colonel's man,' turning to me, 'I'm about at the end of my part o' the business, I reckon. Good luck to ye, sir, good luck to ye!'
He put his hand on my shoulder, and passed out through the gate and into the darkness. I looked after him slowly. The maid stamped her feet on the ground. 'Where's your box?' said she.
At that moment the boy with the wheel-barrow and the box appeared under the lamp-post at the corner, some little way off. She must have seen him.
'Oh, that's it,' said she, 'I suppose he's paid all right?'
'Yes: "the Colonel's man" paid him,' I said.
'Then you'd better go into the dining-room. Give us your keys first.' (I found and gave her the key of my box)—'That's it.' She pointed to the door in the left side of the hall.
I crossed the oil-cloth carpet: opened the door, and went in.
A large fire was burning with a flickering light. It flickered on the black glazy table-cloth of a long thin table in the middle of the room, and on another running at right angles to it across the right side of the room, in a broad half-bay window. Outside there was a veranda, and the dark evening.
I went to the bench and, half upon it, leant my face in my arms on the cool table-cloth. The things around me were all in a sort of noise above my ears. I could not weep soft tears: the tears were dried behind my eyes. But, after a little, I seemed to grow dreary: and could have wished to sleep.…
I took to no one. One or two fellows made up to me a little at first; but I just answered them and turned away, neither caring to talk to them or let them talk to me. It was not that I was homesick: I had no home. I did not know what it was.
I like Wallace better than any of the others. Neither of us ever have jam or cake: he has not even 3d. a week like me. He loves his little belly. He'll always go to Harris's, the grub shop, for anyone who'll give him a good big bit of the stuff they're getting. (Of course you're licked if you're caught going, except on Saturdays and Wednesdays from two to three.) And I have often told him that I think it is beastly of him to do it; but he doesn't care, so long as he gets the grub. That's one reason why I don't care to talk to him about some things I know of. I tell him tales, and all that; but that's different.
Whittaker is an old beast. He's fond of caning us I'm sure. When you go into the library on Saturdays after school, to get three strokes if you've had more than twelve mistakes in dictation, he won't let you kneel down loose, as if you were praying, but he makes you bend up over till you're quite tight. It's very nasty going tight again after the first one.
Mrs. Whittaker is a humbug. She says '’umble' and '’otel' and '’ospital,' and says it's right to say them that way. She listens to what the fellows say, and then tells the Reverend, and they catch it. Likewise she reads fellows' letters. She corrects fellows' letters home, and makes them say that Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker are very kind to them, and other things. Besides, she tells lies. She has two babies, little brats that squawl. I hate her.
I don't mind the work much, especially the history. Latin's rather rot, and so is geography and arithmetic. I like poetry best: we have a book full of it. The first poem is called 'The Universal Prayer,' by A. Pope. The one I like best is called 'A Psalm of Life,' by H. W. Longfellow.
One Saturday night when Cookie was bathing me—you see, that particular night I was rather funny, having been out on the Heath alone—(of course I should have been punished, perhaps licked, if I'd been caught; we were never allowed out except we got leave, in twos)—and thinking about all sorts of things, and particularly that I should die before I was twenty. So, as Cookie was bathing me, I asked her if she knew what
'For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem,'
meant. She didn't—Then I asked her about the other things in it, one by one; but she didn't seem to understand them much either.
Well, after I'd gone up to the dormitory (I was first that night), while the others were up at prayers, she came in quite quietly as I was lying looking at the white ceiling, and sat down on the bed by me and took out a little round hot pasty, and said I was to eat it while she was cutting my nails. So she drew back the cubicle curtain, and I got out of the clothes, and she began to cut my nails. And while I was sitting in that way, eating the hot pasty, I thought I'd like to tell her the 'Psalm of Life': so I asked her if she'd care to hear it. She said 'Yes.' So I began to tell it her. She'd finished cutting by the time I'd got about half through, and sat with my foot in her lap, looking at me, till I'd done it. Then we heard them coming down from prayers: so she told me to jump into bed, and tucked me up and gave me a kiss, and said:
'I hope it won't make you conceited, Master Leicester, but you're the best-looking of the boarders. And I hope you'll be happy.'
I didn't think of this till Wallace told me on Monday night that Cookie had left. And afterwards Mrs. Whittaker said Cookie was a thief and had stolen a lot of her things, but I didn't believe it.
At the end of the term we were examined by a gentleman who came from Glastonbury School, where Whittaker was when he was a kid. Blake was his name. I liked him. We were all examined together in English and Scripture, and he said that I was the brightest boy of the lot, and he said it to the Reverend too, when he came in at one o'clock and they were standing talking together at the door.
The next day was Speech-day. We most of us had pieces of poetry, Shakespeare or out of the poetry-book, to say. We were supposed to choose our own pieces. I was just head of my form by the term marks (there were only five in it. Black, Campbell, Morris, Wallace, and I), and I chose the 'Psalm of Life.' Currie (the undermaster) didn't mind; and so I learnt it again, a little excited: I mean, I read it over with the book, and repeated it again and again, to make sure I hadn't forgotten any of it.
I sat in my place, waiting for my turn, with my lips rather dry, and every now and then I shivered as if a draught came upon me through an opened door: but I wasn't really afraid. I was a little excited, I say; and yet it seemed somehow like a dream and I couldn't notice anyone's face.
At last my turn came. It was after Whitman's. I got up shivering, and I thought I shouldn't have breath to say it all with. But when I got up on to the green-baize platform, and stood in the middle, and looked down over them, the ladies in their white and coloured dresses, and the men, and the boys—all at once the shivering went away from me altogether, and I turned my head straight to Mr. Blake at the table at the side, and smiled to him. He smiled too, but only in his eyes. And I began:—
'Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.'
And my voice rose, growing stronger and clearer, and at last I did not see anything there at all, not even the coloured mass of the dresses, but only a warm gold air all round me, and something singing softly all round me like far-off sunshiny water.
Then all at once I laughed, and, though the tears were quite full in my eyes, I could have shouted out, I felt so bold and brave and ready for it all, even for when I should have to die and be buried in the cold dark earth. And my voice rang as I said:
'Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints in the sands of time;
Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing shall take heart again.
—Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.'
Towards the end I had grown sadder a little, and, now it was all said and over, I stood there for a moment with my head bent down looking at the ground of the room below the green-baize platform. It seemed some time, but I dare say it was only a moment, but when they all began to clap, and I looked up quickly and saw them all round me, I hated them all in my heart and could have seen them die and not stirred.—Not all! All but one: Mr. Blake. I seemed to love him a little.
And he nodded and smiled to me again with his eyes, and I smiled back to him as I went down. And after that I did not hate the others any more; for I did not think of them.
The next thing I remember was that I heard the Reverend saying:
'This prize is adjudged by Mr. Blake to Leicester, but, as he is only a new boy this term, he retires in favour of Whitman (whose recitation of Marc Antony's speech over the body of Cæsar is highly creditable to him) and he receives the certificate.'
I cared neither for the prize nor for the certificate. I do not quite know what I was thinking about: but it was about something very far away, by the tops of blue misty mountains, and down the middle trickled a black stream from bowl to bowl. It was very sweet. So that when the prize-giving was over, and they went out crowding, I still sat in my place for a little, puzzled because the mountain and the black stream had gone away with a trail of mist.
Then, as I sat like that, thinking about the trail of mist that went away with the mountain and the stream, Mr. Blake came, bending his head, in through the far doorway. I looked at him.
Seeing me, he stepped down the passage between the chairs, and came to me on the form, and put his hand on to my shoulder lightly, and smiled with his lips. But I couldn't smile back again; for the mountain and the stream had gone away from me.
'You did well, little man,' he said at last. 'Where did you learn to recite poetry like that?'
'Yes, but I did not understand it all,' I said, 'the two first verses, I mean, and I don't care for the rest, till the last bit. But that is grand!' I looked up into his eyes.
He patted my shoulder twice gently:
'You go too quick, you go too quick, child! What can't you understand in the first two verses?'
'"And the soul is dead that slumbers"'
'Well?'
'What does it mean?'
'And that the soul, which only slumbers, is dead.'
'But what does that mean?'
'Dead: that is, that there is an end of it. Some people (such foolish people!) say that when you die, there is an end of you. That is, that you have no soul. No such place as heaven! no such person as God! Longfellow says: Do not tell me that man's soul, which when we die only slumbers and will awake, perhaps soon, perhaps late, perhaps never at all, in a perfected state of beauty in heaven—is dead, finished, ended, over, when a man dies and his body corrupts and turns into dust.… Do you see?'
'Yes,' I said, 'I see.'
There was a pause for a moment. Then:
'Would you like to go to Glastonbury when you are older?' he said.
'Is Glastonbury a big school? How many fellows are there?' I asked.
'Not so big as many others: my old school, for instance, Winchester. But there are quite enough: two hundred. What do you think?'
'Would you be there?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said, 'I should be there.' He did not seem to be thinking about me then.
I looked at him. My look seemed to recall him from somewhere.
'Listen!' he said suddenly, brightening and bending down; 'don't brood so much, little man. You hear me, don't you? Don't go thinking about things till they grow hateful to you. Try to be bright and merry. Be with the other fellows more.… I was right, there? You aren't much? "They're such fools!" hey?' (He laughed.) 'Well, you mustn't mind that. You're not always wise, are you?… You don't think I'm sermoning you?'
'No,' I said, 'I see.'
A pause.
He smiled again.
'At any rate,' he said, and pinched my cheek gently, 'Mr. Whittaker has given me permission to write to your guardian, Colonel James, as well as promised to write himself, about your going to Glastonbury. You would like to go?'
'Yes,' said I, 'I should—if you would be there.'
'In all probability, I should,' he said.
'I,' I began, 'I …' but did not go on.
And it was somehow with this that we parted.
I watched him go up along the passage between the chairs and, bending, through the far door. And then I felt that I wished I had said something to him, but I did not know what.
In the holidays we (Wallace and I) had breakfast and dinner with the Reverend and Mrs. W., but had our tea alone. I liked that: but Wallace talked too much. And we might go out as we liked on to the Heath or into Greenwich Park, but not down into the town. Three or four times I chanced it, and went to the Painted Chamber, which Campbell had told me of, saying that there were fine pictures of sea-fights there and some of Nelson. I liked to be there: I liked most of all to look at the picture of Nelson being taken up into heaven, for I thought I too should be taken up into heaven some day, when I had done great things and was dead. Then there was the picture of him all bloody and wounded, as he ran up on deck in the middle of the fight: and the relics. I liked the holidays.
Next term wasn't much different from last; except that some of the fellows were allowed, in June and July, to go down to the Greenwich baths early on two mornings in the week to bathe. I tried to get the Reverend to let me go, but he wouldn't.
In the next holidays he, and Mrs. W., and the brats, and Jane (the new cook), went to the sea-side, leaving Alice (the maid) to look after us two. (Thomas, the page-boy, didn't stay in the house then. I don't know why.) I liked that better still. I was out almost all day long, on the Heath, in the Park, down by the river. Once I went up the river as far as Westminster in a boat. That was rare sport. Some men played on a harp and a clarionet, and the music almost made me cry. Wallace hadn't the pluck to come, though Alice offered to lend him the money.
The next term was very bad. I had chilblains: only on the feet though. Wallace had them on his hands and ears. And it was so cold and dull in the Christmas holidays, that I was almost glad when the term began again.
A week after it had begun, I had a letter from Colonel James, and Mrs. W. said I must answer it. So I had to write an answer in prep, one night and show it to Mrs. W. after prayers in the drawing-room. She said it was 'so peculiar,' and scratched out most of it, and told me what else to write. So next day I made a fair copy, and, having shown it her, it was put in an envelope which I directed as she read out and spelled to me, and then she put a stamp on it, and I went out and posted it.
Mr. Blake didn't come to examine us this term: another gentleman did, Mr. Saunders, a friend of the Reverend's, who'd been at Oxford with him. But the first day of the holidays I had a letter from Mr. Blake, and he said that he was sorry he hadn't written to me before; he had often thought about it, but he had such a great deal to do that he found it very hard to write to anyone. Perhaps when I had grown up, and had a great deal to do, I should find it the same. But what he was sorriest about was, that he was going away from Glastonbury to another school, Penhurst, and so we should not see one another there as he had hoped, and he hoped I had hoped, we should; but I would perhaps find when I got there that I was not quite a stranger, but that there was at least one fellow who would take an interest in me and help me, as much as it was good that I should be helped. And I was to be sure and write to him whenever I liked, for he would always be glad to hear from me. I thought it was a very kind letter and it almost made me cry, that about being sure to write to him whenever I liked, for he would always be glad to hear from me. I hadn't known till then that I was going to Glastonbury, but, when I asked the Reverend if I was, he said, Yes, in another two years or so, perhaps.—But I didn't write to Mr. Blake: I didn't like to, somehow.
In the midsummer term I was allowed to go to the Greenwich baths in the early mornings twice a week with the fellows that went. Langholm, a big fellow of eighteen who'd been at a public school, promised the Reverend he'd look after me and teach me to swim. So he did. And I soon learnt. And he said I was the pluckiest little devil he ever saw in his life. I liked him to say that.
In the middle of the next midsummer term I had a letter from Colonel James. (He used only to write to me once a year, about Christmas.)—He told me that I was going to Glastonbury next term, and a lot of stuff about industriously pursuing my studies, and that 'a good knowledge of the classics, more especially of Cicero, was the foundation of all that was worth knowing in the humaniora': which I didn't understand, and didn't want to. Cicero was rather a fool, I think.—Mrs. Whittaker, he said, would see that my clothes, etc., were in a fit condition, and she had also been informed that I might have two shillings over and above my usual pocket-money. I felt rather older after that. I didn't tell anyone about it though.
The Whittakers went away to the seaside, as usual, leaving Wallace and me with Margaret, the new maid. (There were always new maids.) I enjoyed these holidays. I bought a pipe and some tobacco, and smoked it one day in Greenwich Park, but I was very nearly ill and very dizzy, and thought I would never do it again. I did though, not liking to be beaten by it; but at last I found the tobacco and matches came expensive, and so left off.
The Whittakers came back early in September, and then I had a new suit bought, and a lot of shirts and drawers and things, so as to be ready to go to Glastonbury.