Chương Chương 28 · 第28章

. Ernest had heard awful accounts of Dr Skinner’s temper, and of the

bullying which the younger boys at Roughborough had to put up with at

the hands of the bigger ones. He had now got about as much as he could

stand, and felt as though it must go hard with him if his burdens of

whatever kind were to be increased. He did not cry on leaving home, but

I am afraid he did on being told that he was getting near Roughborough.

His father and mother were with him, having posted from home in their

own carriage; Roughborough had as yet no railway, and as it was only

some forty miles from Battersby, this was the easiest way of getting

there.

On seeing him cry, his mother felt flattered and caressed him. She said

she knew he must feel very sad at leaving such a happy home, and going

among people who, though they would be very good to him, could never,

never be as good as his dear papa and she had been; still, she was

herself, if he only knew it, much more deserving of pity than he was,

for the parting was more painful to her than it could possibly be to

him, etc., and Ernest, on being told that his tears were for grief at

leaving home, took it all on trust, and did not trouble to investigate

the real cause of his tears. As they approached Roughborough he pulled

himself together, and was fairly calm by the time he reached Dr

Skinner’s.

On their arrival they had luncheon with the Doctor and his wife, and

then Mrs Skinner took Christina over the bedrooms, and showed her where

her dear little boy was to sleep.

Whatever men may think about the study of man, women do really believe

the noblest study for womankind to be woman, and Christina was too much

engrossed with Mrs Skinner to pay much attention to anything else; I

daresay Mrs Skinner, too, was taking pretty accurate stock of

Christina. Christina was charmed, as indeed she generally was with any

new acquaintance, for she found in them (and so must we all) something

of the nature of a cross; as for Mrs Skinner, I imagine she had seen

too many Christinas to find much regeneration in the sample now before

her; I believe her private opinion echoed the dictum of a well-known

head-master who declared that all parents were fools, but more

especially mothers; she was, however, all smiles and sweetness, and

Christina devoured these graciously as tributes paid more particularly

to herself, and such as no other mother would have been at all likely

to have won.

In the meantime Theobald and Ernest were with Dr Skinner in his

library—the room where new boys were examined and old ones had up for

rebuke or chastisement. If the walls of that room could speak, what an

amount of blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear witness

to!

Like all houses, Dr Skinner’s had its peculiar smell. In this case the

prevailing odour was one of Russia leather, but along with it there was

a subordinate savour as of a chemist’s shop. This came from a small

laboratory in one corner of the room—the possession of which, together

with the free chattery and smattery use of such words as “carbonate,”

“hyposulphite,” “phosphate,” and “affinity,” were enough to convince

even the most sceptical that Dr Skinner had a profound knowledge of

chemistry.

I may say in passing that Dr Skinner had dabbled in a great many other

things as well as chemistry. He was a man of many small knowledges, and

each of them dangerous. I remember Alethea Pontifex once said in her

wicked way to me, that Dr Skinner put her in mind of the Bourbon

princes on their return from exile after the battle of Waterloo, only

that he was their exact converse; for whereas they had learned nothing

and forgotten nothing, Dr Skinner had learned everything and forgotten

everything. And this puts me in mind of another of her wicked sayings

about Dr Skinner. She told me one day that he had the harmlessness of

the serpent and the wisdom of the dove.

But to return to Dr Skinner’s library; over the chimney-piece there was

a Bishop’s half length portrait of Dr Skinner himself, painted by the

elder Pickersgill, whose merit Dr Skinner had been among the first to

discern and foster. There were no other pictures in the library, but in

the dining-room there was a fine collection, which the doctor had got

together with his usual consummate taste. He added to it largely in

later life, and when it came to the hammer at Christie’s, as it did not

long since, it was found to comprise many of the latest and most

matured works of Solomon Hart, O’Neil, Charles Landseer, and more of

our recent Academicians than I can at the moment remember. There were

thus brought together and exhibited at one view many works which had

attracted attention at the Academy Exhibitions, and as to whose

ultimate destiny there had been some curiosity. The prices realised

were disappointing to the executors, but, then, these things are so

much a matter of chance. An unscrupulous writer in a well-known weekly

paper had written the collection down. Moreover there had been one or

two large sales a short time before Dr Skinner’s, so that at this last

there was rather a panic, and a reaction against the high prices that

had ruled lately.

The table of the library was loaded with books many deep; MSS. of all

kinds were confusedly mixed up with them,—boys’ exercises, probably,

and examination papers—but all littering untidily about. The room in

fact was as depressing from its slatternliness as from its atmosphere

of erudition. Theobald and Ernest as they entered it, stumbled over a

large hole in the Turkey carpet, and the dust that rose showed how long

it was since it had been taken up and beaten. This, I should say, was

no fault of Mrs Skinner’s but was due to the Doctor himself, who

declared that if his papers were once disturbed it would be the death

of him. Near the window was a green cage containing a pair of turtle

doves, whose plaintive cooing added to the melancholy of the place. The

walls were covered with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and on

every shelf the books stood in double rows. It was horrible. Prominent

among the most prominent upon the most prominent shelf were a series of

splendidly bound volumes entitled “Skinner’s Works.”

Boys are sadly apt to rush to conclusions, and Ernest believed that Dr

Skinner knew all the books in this terrible library, and that he, if he

were to be any good, should have to learn them too. His heart fainted

within him.

He was told to sit on a chair against the wall and did so, while Dr

Skinner talked to Theobald upon the topics of the day. He talked about

the Hampden Controversy then raging, and discoursed learnedly about

“Praemunire”; then he talked about the revolution which had just broken

out in Sicily, and rejoiced that the Pope had refused to allow foreign

troops to pass through his dominions in order to crush it. Dr Skinner

and the other masters took in the Times among them, and Dr Skinner

echoed the _Times_’ leaders. In those days there were no penny papers

and Theobald only took in the _Spectator_—for he was at that time on

the Whig side in politics; besides this he used to receive the

_Ecclesiastical Gazette_ once a month, but he saw no other papers, and

was amazed at the ease and fluency with which Dr Skinner ran from

subject to subject.

The Pope’s action in the matter of the Sicilian revolution naturally

led the Doctor to the reforms which his Holiness had introduced into

his dominions, and he laughed consumedly over the joke which had not

long since appeared in _Punch_, to the effect that Pio “No, No,” should

rather have been named Pio “Yes, Yes,” because, as the doctor

explained, he granted everything his subjects asked for. Anything like

a pun went straight to Dr Skinner’s heart.

Then he went on to the matter of these reforms themselves. They opened

up a new era in the history of Christendom, and would have such

momentous and far-reaching consequences, that they might even lead to a

reconciliation between the Churches of England and Rome. Dr Skinner had

lately published a pamphlet upon this subject, which had shown great

learning, and had attacked the Church of Rome in a way which did not

promise much hope of reconciliation. He had grounded his attack upon

the letters A.M.D.G., which he had seen outside a Roman Catholic

chapel, and which of course stood for _Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem_. Could

anything be more idolatrous?

I am told, by the way, that I must have let my memory play me one of

the tricks it often does play me, when I said the Doctor proposed _Ad

Mariam Dei Genetricem_ as the full harmonies, so to speak, which should

be constructed upon the bass A.M.D.G., for that this is bad Latin, and

that the doctor really harmonised the letters thus: _Ave Maria Dei

Genetrix_. No doubt the doctor did what was right in the matter of

Latinity—I have forgotten the little Latin I ever knew, and am not

going to look the matter up, but I believe the doctor said _Ad Mariam

Dei Genetricem_, and if so we may be sure that _Ad Mariam Dei

Genetricem_, is good enough Latin at any rate for ecclesiastical

purposes.

The reply of the local priest had not yet appeared, and Dr Skinner was

jubilant, but when the answer appeared, and it was solemnly declared

that A.M.D.G. stood for nothing more dangerous than _Ad Majorem Dei

Gloriam_, it was felt that though this subterfuge would not succeed

with any intelligent Englishman, still it was a pity Dr Skinner had

selected this particular point for his attack, for he had to leave his

enemy in possession of the field. When people are left in possession of

the field, spectators have an awkward habit of thinking that their

adversary does not dare to come to the scratch.

Dr Skinner was telling Theobald all about his pamphlet, and I doubt

whether this gentleman was much more comfortable than Ernest himself.

He was bored, for in his heart he hated Liberalism, though he was

ashamed to say so, and, as I have said, professed to be on the Whig

side. He did not want to be reconciled to the Church of Rome; he wanted

to make all Roman Catholics turn Protestants, and could never

understand why they would not do so; but the Doctor talked in such a

truly liberal spirit, and shut him up so sharply when he tried to edge

in a word or two, that he had to let him have it all his own way, and

this was not what he was accustomed to. He was wondering how he could

bring it to an end, when a diversion was created by the discovery that

Ernest had begun to cry—doubtless through an intense but inarticulate

sense of a boredom greater than he could bear. He was evidently in a

highly nervous state, and a good deal upset by the excitement of the

morning, Mrs Skinner therefore, who came in with Christina at this

juncture, proposed that he should spend the afternoon with Mrs Jay, the

matron, and not be introduced to his young companions until the

following morning. His father and mother now bade him an affectionate

farewell, and the lad was handed over to Mrs Jay.

O schoolmasters—if any of you read this book—bear in mind when any

particularly timid drivelling urchin is brought by his papa into your

study, and you treat him with the contempt which he deserves, and

afterwards make his life a burden to him for years—bear in mind that it

is exactly in the disguise of such a boy as this that your future

chronicler will appear. Never see a wretched little heavy-eyed mite

sitting on the edge of a chair against your study wall without saying

to yourselves, “perhaps this boy is he who, if I am not careful, will

one day tell the world what manner of man I was.” If even two or three

schoolmasters learn this lesson and remember it, the preceding chapters

will not have been written in vain.