This he rendered: "With a check golf-skirt and a bag of clubs."
There was a wild roar of laughter and Finney went very red. Again he controlled himself and merely said: "Quite good. But you might keep your jokes till the end of the hour."
At last an event occurred which he could not overlook. Cartwright was translating Tacitus and he had a book open under his desk. The words flowed smoothly, with unwonted smoothness, for Cartwright was slow of wit. At the end of the chapter Finney remarked: "Are you aware, Cartwright, that you have reproduced the excellent translation by Messrs Church and Brobribb word for word?"
"Have I, sir?" answered Cartwright with astonishment.
"You have. And what is your explanation?"
Cartwright reflected.
"Only that great minds think alike," he said at last.
"I shall report you to the headmaster," shouted Finney above the roar of laughter.
Hitherto he had shrunk from informing Foskett of the way things went. He had been afraid that any such move might be taken as a proof of his own incompetence. Foskett might reasonably hold that it was a master's business to look after himself and that a man who couldn't deal with an Upper Sixth couldn't deal with anyone. And he had heard in the common-room that Foskett was remarkably fond of his prefects and would even back them against the masters, because he regarded them as more valuable allies in strengthening his own position with the rank and file of the school. After all, the masters were employees and far too deeply concerned with the problem of earning a living to do any harm to Foskett: they would be unwilling to resign, because, even if they found posts, it would mean loss of seniority at the new school. Distinctly he had the whip hand over them; but the prefects were harder to control and demanded more respect. So the masters had grown chary of reporting matters to the Head, and Finney had been warned that such a policy might lead to snubs. But on this occasion there was plainly nothing else to do.
Foskett spoke gravely to Cartwright for ten minutes on the subject of example, and matters went on as before. Cartwright was captain of football at the time.
So Finney continued to suffer, and because Finney suffered Martin inevitably suffered too. The ragging got on his nerves and he began to dread those long hours with their mirth and tragedy. At last he could bear it no longer, and he determined to speak to Cartwright and his allies and to point out how miserable they were making Finney: the man was a human being after all, he would say, and as an enemy he was not worth their efforts.
At first it seemed an easy thing to do, but when the time for action came he shrank from the task. It would be so strange, so opposed to all traditions. And Martin was distinctly one of the class of people who hate asking questions or worrying tradesmen or exacting their rights: he would rather have put up with a badly cut suit than protest to his tailor. He was not afraid of Cartwright, but he was undeniably afraid of asking Cartwright to be kind to Finney: it was just the kind of task which Martin most dreaded. He could imagine Cartwright's tolerant smile, the slight raising of the brows, the polite: 'Oh, certainly!' It would be painful, it would be intolerable!
But it would have to be done. One final jest, one final look of despair on Finney's face convinced him. So he nerved himself bravely for the crusade. Cartwright was, as he had foreseen, quite nice about it: he agreed that it was not good form to behave as the Fourth did, and Warren and the others assented. Martin had struck the right note when he used the phrase 'good form,' for no member of a Public School, young or old, can stand the imputation that he is not a gentleman. Martin was astonished at the ease and success of his task and was angry with himself for not having acted before. Henceforward Finney taught in peace and even made Cartwright begin to display a keen interest in Pindar. It was a thorough change and altered the whole aspect of Finney's work: he could forget the unspeakable Fourth-formers if he could really care about his work for the Sixth. His relief was obvious, and Martin, eagerly watching for every expression of it, felt justly grateful.
Finney could not guess the real cause of the new behaviour. For a moment he thought that perhaps his manner was becoming more imperious and that he had made definite progress in his efforts to acquire authority. But, on reflection, he had to abandon this flattering hypothesis, and he ultimately attributed the change to the growth of a collective conscience and the recognition that scholarship exams were dangerously near and that it might be as well to work seriously. That he could have made such a mistake showed that he still had much to learn about his pupils. But, from the pragmatic standpoint, his ignorance was for his own good: had he known that he was merely the recipient of charity, 'the something bitter' might have risen and destroyed the new-born happiness.
In December Martin, who was now seventeen and a half years old, went up to Oxford to compete for a scholarship in Classics. Foskett had encouraged him to wait another year, but John Berrisford held that boys should be free from the pettiness of school life before they were nineteen and advised Martin to go up early: this course would give him another twelve months for Civil Service preparation if necessary. Martin himself had no desire for another year at Elfrey, for, without positively disliking the place, he wanted freedom. His prefecture had brought him more trouble than release, and the Finneys, while they had undoubtedly refined his tastes and broadened his views, had also inevitably rendered him more discontented with the limitations of a society which drove him to silence or to crudity.
Martin was not a remarkable classic and never learned to sympathise with the somewhat pedantic traditions of a classical training, nor had he the imitative faculty necessary for the composition of good prose and verse in Greek or Latin; his work was always sound and often interesting; but he never acquired the infallible dexterity of touch which is the fruit of perfect sympathy with classical modes of thought and expression. His translation into English showed more style than accuracy, and he preferred rather to play loosely with ideas and to follow the literary and social questions arising from a study of the ancient literatures than to apply himself vigorously to pure scholarship. There never had been any doubt about his being an Oxford man. His tastes and abilities, his family connections and his project of entering the Civil Service all pointed in one direction. Moreover, he had somehow been obsessed with a notion that all Cambridge colleges, with the exception of King's and Trinity, were like public schools continued. Had not Heseltine gone to Cambridge? But Oxford would be very different; for how could Oxford, the home of Shelley and Swinburne and Morris, be anything but beautiful and brilliant? Martin was thrilled by the exquisite promise of life: Oxford would be heavenly, and heaven—well, heaven would be all atheism and epigrams. The paradox pleased him and he wondered whether it was the sort of remark he would make to his college debating society next October. But first of all, he sadly remembered, there was this affair of scholarships.
He entered for a small group and gave King's pride of place. It had been his father's college and was in many ways suitable. Its scholarships were neither too hard nor too easy to win. It was a small college in the first rank and commanded universal respect. It prided itself on being successful, not brazenly, like Balliol, but with discretion, unassumingly.
In spite of the opinions of poets, literary gentlemen and writers of guide-books, it is possible to maintain that Oxford is not a nice place in which to live, much less to work. In December it is, on the whole, at its worst, and it was on the second Monday of that month that Martin arrived in the city. Term had ended on the previous Saturday, and only a few undergraduates were to be seen wandering about the deserted streets with a bored and lost expression. Oxford has a double personality: in term it serves efficiently as a crowded pleasure resort; in the vacation it is one of those cities, like Bruges la morte, whose justification is in the past and the memorials of the past. A compromise is fatal and undergraduates must exist in hundreds or not at all. A soft drizzle fell from a yellow, smudgy sky and the streets were covered with a particularly loathsome mud. As he drove down from the station to King's (he was to have rooms in college), Martin was horrified: he felt that he had never seen a more lamentable place. To be rattled in a hansom down George Street and then brought face to face with the front quad of Balliol is not an inspiring method of approach to beauty. But King's was more presentable.
An aged man, who looked dyspeptic and morose, staggered out of the lodge and asked Martin's name: then he summoned a brisk underling, immaculately dressed in a bowler hat and dark blue suit. The underling picked up his bag and guided him up three flights of rickety stairs into a dingy apartment, mainly remarkable for the smallness of its windows. Outside the door Martin had seen the word 'Snutch.'
"Mr Snutch's," said the underling. "These will be yours." Then, to Martin's great surprise and at the expense of his own perfect trousers, he knelt humbly down and lit the fire. It seemed incredible that one so magnificent should stoop to light a fire. Then he said: "Your scout will be in at six, sir," and vanished.
Martin turned to survey the room. On the walls were some extraordinary banners or ribbons, on two of which were the words:
Ahwamkee University.
There were some photographs, plainly American, and a large engraving called 'Love's Pathway.' On the wide expanse of shelves there stood six lonely books—five large volumes on Law and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. At the beginning of each was written: 'E libris Theo. K. Snutch.' Martin was tempted to amend the inscription to 'E libris sex Theo. K. Snutch.' On the mantelpiece were some athletic trophies. Mr Snutch's residence at Oxford, at three hundred a year, was not altogether unjustified: he could terrifically throw the hammer.
Next, Martin found a penny paper calledThe Universityand eagerly glanced through it to discover the quality of Oxford journalism. There were jokes about Socialists with red ties and there was an open letter to the varsity heavy-weight boxer. It began, 'Dear Chuckles,' and ended with best wishes for 'the dear little girl who will some day take the ring with you.' The reader was not even spared the allusion to the possible appearance of 'Chucklets.'
"My god!" said Martin. He began to wonder whether he hadn't made a mistake in refusing to go to Cambridge.
The room was depressing, so he put on his overcoat and walked out into the rain: he went down St Olde's to the river. In those days horse-drawn trams still rattled slowly through the streets, making a feeble pretence of antiquity. It angered Martin that in this town, with its new yellow banks and new college buildings, such hypocrisy should go on and that people should confuse the relics of medieval squalor with the works of medieval beauty. He came from a clean town of the hills, and the clinging dirt and the sordid grime and meanness of St Ebbs seemed haunting and insistent. Before Tom Tower and the spacious splendour of Christ Church there was a common slum; he had never pictured Oxford a place of slums. The Thames, too, had been in flood for two or three weeks, and in the playing-fields across the river goal-posts stood up amid acres of water, gauntly desolate. As he passed out along the Abingdon Road he found meadows where the floods had receded and left the grass rotten and stinking. The straggling squalor of Oxford's edge only served to increase his despair: he had expected to find a city with dreaming spires, and so far he had found merely a slum, with yellow gasworks. Only now and then did he catch a glimpse which charmed him. As he turned back and climbed the hill to Carfax he began to loathe the place. But it must be remembered that he had had an inadequate lunch and was under the shadow of an exam.
On returning to Snutch's rooms he found that the fire had almost gone out. With the aid ofThe Universityhe managed to create a fitful gleam, but it gave no heat. Someone was moving about in the rooms opposite, another scholarship candidate presumably, a rival—damn him! Martin began to think about tea: he did not know what to do and his scout was not coming till six. Ultimately he went out to the Cadena Café: it was full of young women from North Oxford who sat in mackintoshes, feeding with desperate gaiety.
After he came back to Snutch's rooms and read a shilling novel which he had found in the bedder. Soon after six the scout appeared and told Martin that he could dine in the hall at seven: he was a large, grimy man and sniffed prodigiously. Dinner in hall was very trying. Half-a-dozen dons sat at the high table trying to pretend by forced conversation that they were not thoroughly sick of one another: about thirty schoolboys sat shyly on the long benches, apprehensive, miserable. Here and there would be two from the same school, chatting with animation and appearing to be very much in the know about Life and the varsity: elsewhere strangers were huddled together, some silent, others making fitful conversation. Financial distinctions were not forgotten, and the candidates from Public Schools had gravitated to one table, those from Grammar Schools to another. Martin found himself by the side of a red-faced, ingenuous boy, who asked for the water and then said:
"The Harlequins are better than ever this year."
Martin assented, and added: "What's your school?"
"Rugby. What's yours?"
"I'm from Elfrey. Have you anyone else in here?"
"No. We had four up for Balliol this year."
"That's a lot. Are the results out?"
"Yes, this afternoon. We got a schol. and an exhibition."
"That was jolly good."
The dialogue became more and more technical and immensely dull.
The Rugbeian was plainly a bore and after dinner Martin fled from the college: he found a new cinema in Broad Street and went in. Presently some undergraduates who were stopping up for a few days at the end of term came cheerily in and shouted vaguely.
An obsequious manager pleaded with them and they wandered down the gangway looking for company: it did not seem very hard to find. Martin watched their progress with interest and began to wonder whether the girl next him wanted to talk. She had dropped her wrist-bag once and he had picked it up: during the course of the proceedings his eye had been caught by the glitter of a light grey stocking. She wasn't, he had to admit, beautiful. But she was alone, and so was he. Did she, on the other hand, want him to talk? The dropping of the bag might have been an accident. Besides, what did one say? Martin cursed his inexperience and racked his brains for a conversational lead. He could hardly make some remark about the films: that would be obvious and heavy. Something light was wanted: but what? Why on earth couldn't she drop the bag again? He would take the hint this time. His mind became a blank and he felt acutely miserable. At the end of the film he rose and walked away in despair. He stopped at the back of the hall and noticed one of the varsity men glance round and then move quickly into his place before the lights were again turned out. Martin returned to college, read some more of Snutch's novel, and went to bed.
Till Friday night Martin was kept hard at work doing papers in the college hall. On Tuesday morning he had to write an essay on the relations of the artist and the State, an obvious subject, perhaps, but pleasing. It was the only paper which he enjoyed. Afterwards he was kept hard at work with Unseens and Compositions. Never in his life had he felt more irritable or more intellectually impotent. The yellow blanket of mist hung over Oxford continually: the hall smelled abominably of stale gravy and recent meals, and, worst of all, the pens supplied to such as did not bring their own were quills; consequently the stuffy room was never free from a maddening scratch and squeak. A youth with a sloping brow and waving, faultless hair who sat next Martin made great play with his quill: he was a 'dog' whose doggishness took the form of a graceful abandon in his dress; he wore soft collars and long woolly waistcoats and dilapidated pumps. He held his quill between his first and second fingers, and he wrote splashily with brave flourishes and a spasmodic squeak; also he had a habit of marching out majestically half-an-hour before the time for a paper was finished. Martin wondered whether this implied that he was immensely bad or immensely good: he feared the latter. Altogether he was a fascinating and disconcerting neighbour, and one morning Martin, struggling with verses that would not 'come,' wanted to kill him.
Another cause of depression was the presence of boys
from Grammar Schools. Martin was no snob, but he could not keep himself unspotted from Public School tradition, and he felt that these smug-looking youths were rivals in a way that the dull Rugbeian never could be. He was certain that they were far better scholars than he was, that they had worked like slaves and could translate anything ever written in Greek or Latin: he might have escaped much mental suffering had he known that, even if they had been so brilliant (and in reality they were amazingly dull), the dons are, with a few exceptions, well rooted in class tradition and are not going to sacrifice the Public Schools on the altar of modern honesty. But Martin did not know these things, and when he saw the Grammar School candidates parading the town with little crested caps on the backs of their heads and greasy curls sticking bravely up in front, the natural dislike of the rival was fused with the Public School man's loathing of inferior form. There was one unforgettable person who came every day to King's wearing a black overcoat and black kid gloves: his cap had a little silver button gleaming over the inevitable curl. He looked both wise and good.
On the Thursday evening Martin glanced through the rough copy of his Latin verse. There he found—
"via strata patebatHostibus; ardentes surgunt ducemque sequuntur."
True that the lines did not sound beautiful: in a copy of twenty-two lines you must have one or two dull moments. But "via strata" and "ducem"—two false quantities in a line and a half. How could he have done it? He flung the rough copy into the fire and swore violently. Silver Button wouldn't make false quantities: Silver Button would have learned about 'dux' and 'duco' when he was twelve—so had Martin. But then Silver Button wouldn't, couldn't, forget. Martin was convinced now that, as far as a scholarship was concerned, he might as well never have entered.
He wandered morosely into the streets: it started to rain and he took refuge in the cinema. For half-an-hour he watched the films and, more particularly, an amorous couple in front. A girl came and sat on his right: she was distinctly attractive and her chin, poised daintily in the air, conveyed an exquisite invitation: the rest of her face was hidden by hat. He began to feel, as before, self-conscious and miserable. This time he would speak, must speak ... but how? The couple in front had reached their limit in proximity. Suddenly her foot touched his and with a surreptitious glance he saw below the brim of that entrancing hat. She was perfect. She had taken off her glove and her hand lay on her lap: before Martin knew what he was doing, he had taken it and pressed it. The girl turned abruptly round, snatched her hand away, and said coldly:
"Please leave me alone."
Martin obeyed, blushing furiously. "I'm very sorry," he muttered, but she took no notice. He sat gazing in front of him, humiliated and tortured. What a fool he had been! Why hadn't he said something and made an opening?
The film clicked monotonously on. One fact alone flamed across his mind: he must get out before the film was over. He couldn't endure the raising of the lights. But either he would have to crush past the girl on his right or else go out to the left, a journey which would involve forcing his way through a long row of stout people. Both alternatives were unpleasant.
The film was ending. The music had ceased to ripple and begun to sob, always a proof of impending embraces. The hero and heroine were rolling great lurid eyes at one another. The lights went up. Martin pushed his way out to the left past the stout and sulky: then he hurried back through the rain to Snutch's gloomy chambers. There was nothing to do but to contemplate his own blunders classic and modern. He told himself that he had made a rotten shot and received a nasty snub. If he had only been aiming at something worth having, he wouldn't have minded. But what, after all, was the use of a girl to him? And why on earth had he wanted to grab her sticky hand—for it had been sticky. He knew now that he hadn't really wanted to do it, for its own sake: he had wanted to do it because other people did it. Now it all seemed so hugely silly. "I suppose love's all right," he thought to himself. "But this hand and kiss business is piffle."
On Friday evening Martin returned to Elfrey in a state of advanced pessimism. Early in the next week he learned that he had been elected to a classical scholarship at King's College. He gazed blankly at the telegram and the words 'via strata' and 'ducem' flashed before his mind.
It was quite incredible, but it was true.
Martin spent his last two terms without effort and without emotion. The fact that he was a scholar elect of King's College, Oxford, caused him to feel in some strange way that his career was made and that there was nothing more to be done. So he chattered to Finney on Sunday afternoons, read poetry (condescendingly now) at Mrs Berney's Saturday soirees, and enjoyed the modern novelists when he should have been doing his prep. He had found a copy of Butler'sWay of All Fleshin his uncle's study: this he read with joy and lent to the more worthy members of the Upper Sixth. A book with an appeal so universal naturally made an effect: it seemed to crystallise the religious experience of all. Martin was eager to discover whether Foskett had read it and consequently alluded to it at some length in an essay on 'Recent Aspects of Evolution,' in which he courageously let himself go. Foskett made no allusion to Butler and merely wrote on the last sheet: 'Good, but lacks balance. Don't dogmatise on subjects of this kind. Many of your ideas, though well put, are crude.' Martin groaned as he read the criticism. If Foskett had been a bigoted parson and had lectured him on the perils of free thought, he could have looked on himself as a martyr and enjoyed the nursing of a grievance: if, on the other hand, the strength and sincerity of the essay had been genuinely praised, Martin's vanity would have been gratified. But this kindly tolerance, so well meant, was infuriating; it was typical Foskettism. Perhaps what contributed most to Martin's disgust was the lurking suspicion that his ideas were, after all, a trifle crude.
With Foskett, Martin was never in sympathy. He was out of touch with all the causes for which Foskett stood, and it was among the small set of desperately serious and religious boys that the headmaster found his champions. The very fact that he had not taken orders seemed to them, perhaps justly, proof of the deepest faith: in after life they would all have signed photographs in their studies and point him out to their sons. 'That's old Foskett,' they would say. 'Fine character. Great influence.' But the popular verdict was against Foskett. The really strong man can get his way without criticism: he says 'Do' and people just crumple up and do it. When Foskett said 'Do,' things were done as a rule, but the doer had a habit of saying, as he went grudgingly to his work: 'Silly ass, thinks he's a Blood-and-ironer.' Martin said of him to his uncle: 'He's quite efficient and all that, and he's bound to get on. As crushers go, he might be a lot worse.'
And that was the common view.
Foskett took the Upper Sixth in composition and Greek plays. Martin could not help admiring Foskett's fair copies which showed undoubted feeling for the classical languages, but he could never quite endure his enthusiasm for the Greek drama. When Foskett enjoyed literature in public, it always seemed as though he was saying sternly to himself: 'This is good stuff and we've got to like it.' He would stride up and down the room with the text of a play, chanting the iambics or the choruses as though they were everything in the world to him, and all the time Martin felt that it couldn't mean so much to him, just because he sought beauty with a fervour so literary and so incessant. With Martin, appreciation was a thing of moods, coming swiftly and as swiftly departing: he could not understand how Foskett's enjoyment remained always at high pressure: it must, he thought, be artificial. Foskett's affection for Euripides was the most unconvincing of enthusiasms: how could a man so far removed from Euripides in taste and temperament really appreciate that passionate rebel of genius? Martin could have tolerated an open enemy, a thorough conservative who called Euripides a botcher, and a dirty-minded botcher at that: but Foskett's liberal attitude, sweetly reasonable to the extent of being nauseous, was harder to endure. It was not so much that Foskett had set out to like Euripides because Euripides was fashionable once again, though that of course was possible: but it was his determination to be fair at all costs that was fatal. Foskett was so pertinaciously fair, so eager to do justice to both sides of the literary problem that Martin considered that he didn't in the end properly understand or sympathise with either side. It occurred to him that compromise is always necessary in human affairs and usually fatal. And so while Foskett declaimed the Electra and gave out the points to be noticed for and against such treatment of the tragic theme, Martin shuddered and sometimes sulked. Intellectual isolation is not good for the manners, and Foskett found Martin difficult: the two remained always at a distance, never openly hostile, and never sympathetic.
Few Public School boys are critical of the institutions amid which they are brought up, but it was natural for Martin to ponder, as he idled through his last two terms, on the value of the things he had learnt and of the habits in which he had been trained. He had been interested in H. G. Wells' pungent comments on the way we manage education, and he was fascinated by the sweeping schemes of reconstruction. Was all this classical business, he asked himself, just a waste of time and effort? Was he just groping at the door of a treasure-house whose contents had long ago been rifled? He resolved to consult Finney.
Though Finney was now always charitably treated by the Upper Sixth, his warfare with the Upper Fourth was telling on him. Even in a few months he had lost vivacity and ambition, for he was beginning to suffer from the spiritual blight that attacks every unsuccessful schoolmaster in his time. In a year or two he would be shrivelled up into an irritable bunch of nerves, his ability wasted, his hopes stifled. Martin could foresee no escape for Finney, unless by some lucky chance he could get back to Oxford: but that was impossible, for those who leave Oxford rarely return.
Finney was willing enough to talk, but Martin was disappointed with the conversation. He was a Liberal both in politics and disposition, and as a result he had no point of view: he was angry about things and could suggest little reform, but there was no comprehensive unity or vitality in his ideas. He was the kind of man who makes great play with the word 'efficiency.'
"We aren't clear enough," he used to say, "about what we want. We chatter airily at congresses about education, but we never really formulate our wants and bully people into doing things. We don't train our teachers or tell them what is needed ... we just plug them down. Besides the schools aren't to blame: we've got to keep in touch with the two big varsities, and if they insist on everybody mugging up just enough Greek to be a nuisance, we've got to see about the mugging.
"And on the other side there are the parents. We don't get the boys till they are thirteen or fourteen, fashioned all ready in many ways. I don't know what the parents do want, but they certainly don't want education. Ask any housemaster about the letters they write: they're nearly always economic. Why does this cost extra and why doesn't Harry get that free?"
"I suppose that's fairly natural," said Martin.
"Of course. But it shouldn't be all. It's typical of the British attitude. You buy your son an education costing so much, as you would buy him a suit of clothes. They don't care twopence about the teaching or the curriculum, except in so far as it concerns passing exams and leads to money. Parents write about Tom's chances for Sandhurst, but who ever writes about his classics? It's all taken for granted, even its sickening narrowness. No one ever heard of a parent slanging the headmaster because his son didn't know who wroteThe Alchemistor because he thought Chopin was a music hall comedian."
"Do you suppose," asked Martin, "that fifty per cent of the Elfreyan parents know there is a play calledThe Alchemist?"
"Well, I wouldn't bet on it," said Finney. "Still there it all is. Ignorance and muddle. We've got so horribly linked up. Union may be strength, but strength may be tyranny. Capital is all knotted together. Labour soon will be, and Education is in the same way. We can't change without the others changing, the others can't change without the varsities——"
"And the varsities won't change till public opinion blows them to bits," added Martin. "So it all comes back to the dear oldvox populi."
"I suppose so," said Finney wearily. "Come and have some tea."
Although he found Finney's suggestions disappointing, Martin continued to ponder occasionally on the phenomena of school life, and when he went to Devonshire for the Easter holidays he took the opportunity of questioning his uncle, for whose views he had a great respect. John Berrisford was always willing to talk after his third glass of port and he welcomed Martin's questions.
"Of course you know," he said, "that though I'm a revolutionary in politics and economics, I'm a sound Tory about institutions and the things that matter, like beef and beer. So I believe in the Public Schools and the Universities, not because they're good, but because theyare. Everything that is, must be an expression of human nature, and, being rather an optimist, I think it has some good in it. Anyhow, we can't take human nature and twist it about, as social reformers want to do. The people who cry out for Censors of Art seem to imagine that Art makes public opinion. It may do so now and then, but it's much more important to realise that public opinion makes current art. Art is the emergence of what people are feeling and thinking, and our schools, like our art, must be an expression of the national self."
"But the national self," said Martin, "is pretty stiff."
"That is true, but it doesn't matter. My idea is that, being Englishmen, we ought to make the best of it. Smash international capitalism, which is hellish, and stick to any good things England can give. Of course if you like to turn your destructive criticism on our school system you can knock it to pieces in a minute, just as you can knock out Socialism, or the Co-operative Commonwealth, or any other sensible proposition. A half-educated person can criticise anything; it takes a man to appreciate.
"No, it's no use battering the Public Schools. They are there, so let's make the best of them. They may not teach very much, but men learn to behave reasonably and not to get on one another's nerves. Tell me: if you had to live on a desert island for six months with one other man, would you take a chap with ideas who had been co-educated or privately educated and generally fad-educated or an unintellectual but reasonable man from Elfrey, a person you could always rely on, if it was only to be dull?"
Martin wanted the Elfreyan.
"Well, that says a lot for the schools. You can't smash them until you have smashed the British Character: of course that would be a capital thing to do, but it's a stiff proposal, and while we are waiting let's make the best of it. I quite expect that at times you must have been sick to death of Elfrey, but didn't you like it on the whole?"
"I think I did," answered Martin reflectively.
"Exactly. You liked the chaps, because, with all their intellectual limitations, they're reliable. You know they won't play dirty tricks behind your back. You liked your study and you liked cooking enormous and hideously indigestible meals and gorging until all was blue. You liked shutting the window on a cold night and collecting a crowd and raising such a frowst that the air was solid and the windows steamed. You liked smoking your secret cigarette and discussing who was going to be the school wicket-keeper three years hence and who was the worst bat in first-class cricket. Am I right?"
"Absolutely."
Mr Berrisford started a new cigar with satisfaction. "Good. Then the system hasn't altered altogether. Oh yes, and you liked some of your classics?"
"Most of them, when I could escape the notes and grammarian's drivel."
"The classics are worth sticking to. It's no good these scientists talking about translations being as good. They aren't and there's an end of it. Good translations have their uses, but they aren't the real thing. We don't read Homer to find out what happened. So let's thank God for Homer and philosophy and leave psychology and applied mechanics to the Life Force."
Mr Berrisford had certainly a definite point of view, and he did not fall between the two stools of acceptance and sweeping reconstruction as Finney seemed to. So Martin was not only amused but influenced and on his return to Elfrey for the summer term gave up worrying about the pros and cons of Public School education. He determined to enjoy himself, and he knew that in order to enjoy himself he must have an interest. It couldn't be concerned with art, because in that case he would have to keep it to himself. It must be a common interest, a part of school life. Ultimately, he fixed upon the bowling of googlies.
His batting had always been respectable and had won him a place in his house team for two summers, and now, as Rayner was likely to be engaged in school matches, or practice games, Martin became house captain on most afternoons. Ever since the day when, as a small boy being tried in 'firsts,' he had shivered with terror in the field and dreaded more than death itself the agony of the fumbled catch, he had always envied house captains. Now was his chance: he could become a slow bowler. He believed that most things in this world can be achieved by bluff and a little hard work, and it seemed a simple thing to get wickets if you had unlimited power of keeping yourself on and had terrorised your fielders into holding on to anything. And so, weary of the Upper Sixth and Foskett and even Finney, and wearier far of wondering whether the Public Schools were right, and how and when the Trade Unions would take them over, he found comfort in the googly.
During the holidays he had put up a stump on the Berrisfords' lawn, and practised leg-breaks, waiting patiently for the desired freak which should turn from the off. Sometimes it had come, but Martin never had the least notion why it came: still the essential and undeniable fact was that it had come. On the second night of term he put it to Rayner that he was intending to bowl googlies.
"My hat!" said Rayner. "And you'll be house captain usually!"
"Exactly," answered Martin. "That is the point."
Rayner smiled grimly. "Think of the house, old man!" he exclaimed.
"I shall. Really I do break both ways."
"And how often do you bounce?"
"That depends. Anyhow it's the googly man's privilege to pitch one ball in six on his own toss. Have you ever seen young Jack Hearne?"
Rayner neglected the question. "Look here!" he said, "are you really going to bowl?"
"Rather! But I'll make you an offer. If I don't take ten wickets in the first fortnight with an average under eighteen, I'll never do it again."
"Done!" said Rayner confidently.
Martin triumphantly kept his side of the agreement. The ordinary house pitches were rough and ready, the ordinary house player a slogger. Martin's ordinary ball was well pitched up and apparently simple. But he had had his eye on two or three small boys in the junior team who, though poor bats, could run like hares in 'the country' and hold on to anything they touched. These he translated to the first, to the vast indignation of several clumsy hitters who were moved down in their stead. The policy was a success. Martin used to go on first before the other side were set and occasionally got a victim in the slips or enticed a steady man in front of his wicket. Then he made way for orthodox 'fast rights,' but after the fall of five or six wickets he would polish off the tail with atrocious slow stuff. His small boys were scattered far away and interfered considerably with an adjacent game: they had plenty to do and were given an ice for every catch they held. Martin soon found it an expensive amusement and became extremely unpopular with the tenants of the neighbouring pitch.
He never sulked if he were 'knocked off,' an unusual trait in a house captain and a cause of popularity with his team. And the fielders knew that he only pretended to mind when catches were dropped: Martin was incapable of being ruffled by a mere game. As a result the eleven played keenly and with efficiency. Though Berney's had only one man, Rayner, in the school eleven they succeeded in reaching the final of the Cock House matches. They were to play, just before the end of term, their old enemy, Randall's.
Martin now became thoroughly engrossed in cricket. He neglected to work for one or two school prizes, but he knew that he could get a leaving scholarship without difficulty. Thus he became a more prominent figure in the house and was, on the whole, much happier than in the days of reading and thinking. He abandoned Wells the social theorist for Wells the fantastic romancer and combinedWisden's Almanacwith Arnold Bennett for his literature in prep-time. He knew now that he couldn't bowl googlies at all: on the house pitches it depended on the lie of the land which way the ball broke. But he kept up the fraud for his own amusement, and continued to take the wickets to which his confidence entitled him.
The school were laying five to one on Randall's, who had far the better record and were as usual a hard-hitting, level, ugly lot. Berney's won the toss and only made a hundred and thirty on a good wicket. Martin's first ball bumped a little and he poked it into slip's hands: Rayner made twelve and was run out. The runs were made by Martin's small protégés, who scored by fluky shots over and through the slips. It was a disgraceful display. Randall's knocked up two hundred and fifty. Martin was bowling unusually well and consequently never looked like taking a wicket. The batsmen played forward correctly and stayed for hours. Even when in despair he tossed up the most tempting half-volleys, they were content to play him along the ground for one. Randall's never risked anything when a cup was at stake.
In the second innings Rayner put up a fine century and Martin made a pleasing thirty: had he resisted the temptation to cut "the uncuttable," he would have stayed in and served his house better. But Martin could not play cricket in that spirit. The rest did little this time and Randall's was left with only eighty to make.
The score stood at fifty for two when Rayner, who was, of course, captain when he played for the house, put on Martin to bowl. Spectators were moving to the tuck-shop to drown grief or express elation. Martin knew that it was all over and sent down, by way of a change, a fast, straight ball. Randall's captain was expecting something very different, mistimed it, and was bowled: his successor scraped nervously at a leg-break and was caught at the wicket. The next man survived three balls: the last delivery of the over was monstrous. It was pitched very short and went slowly away to leg: the batsman hit under it and was taken far out. A gift indeed. The score was now fifty for five wickets and the tuck-shop began to empty again.
Randall's were not the sort of people one suspected of having nerves. But to lose three wickets in one over of the last innings is startling, and Randall's were rattled, despite their stodginess. Martin's second over was weak in direction and pitiable in length, but he might have been Barnes for the respect he received. It was another maiden. Martin knew well enough that if one batsman had the sense to go for his bowling and treat it according to its merits the match was finished. He took another wicket with a slow leg-break and then a brawny youth named Coxwell came in. He had been warned by his frantic housemaster 'to lash at 'em.' He did so and scored three fours in succession.
During Martin's next over Coxwell was at his end. He saw now that the secret was discovered and that Randall's would knock off their runs with impunity: he could imagine the gloating joy of Randall's, all the greater because victory had been in doubt: Berney's would be in the position of the mouse set free and recaptured. In his anger Martin bowled an amazing ball. He had really meant to send up a "googly," but it pitched half-way to the wicket and scarcely left the ground. The batsman drove it back and Martin, stooping quickly, just touched it with his left hand: the ball crashed into the wickets. Coxwell, who was backing-up, was a yard outside the crease. The batsman who might have won the match had been run out by a gross fluke. "The stars in their courses," said Martin to Rayner, as they waited for the next man. The score was sixty-five for seven.
Martin took all three remaining wickets, or rather the batsmen handed him their lives. They came in half dead with fear (was not a cup at stake?) and demanded their own extinction. The first played forward to a slow half-volley and was caught and bowled, the next put his leg in front of the straight ball on the leg stump, the last was caught off a slow full toss. That was how Berney's won the cup.
Rayner walked home silently with Martin. "You great man!" was all he could say.
"It was the great god Funk," answered Martin. "They just asked to get out."
"You certainly bowled muck," admitted Rayner. "But it was all sheer joy."
And though they pretended to treat the matter as a great jest, they both felt a very genuine pleasure because they had won the cup for Berney's.
That evening the captain of the School Eleven, who had heard that Martin had taken seven wickets for twelve and thereby rendered Berney's cock house, gave him his Second Eleven colours. He had not seen Martin bowl.
Martin took the news to Rayner. "Well that," said Rayner, "fairly puts the lid on it."
Together they shook the walls with laughter. Life is occasionally dramatic, and the finale of Martin's school career had certainly a touch of comedy.
It is commonly believed that boys undergo regrets and deep emotions when they leave school. But Martin noticed that only a few Elfreyans were moved at the thought of saying good-bye: some were charmed by the prospect of entering a world of unlimited smokes and drinks and girls and motor bicycles, others by the prospect of intellectual as well as practical freedom. There were some who really regretted the end of life's first act, boys who had enjoyed the games and the friendships and were now passing to office work without the freedom of three or four years' residence at the university. But those who were more fortunate were eager as a rule to be up and off. Martin had been amused by his last term with its athletic adventures and he had come to appreciate to the full his uncle's advice about making the best of existing institutions. Rayner, too, was a good sort and an excellent friend. But the prospect of Oxford, notwithstanding his gloomy foretaste of the place, attracted him undeniably—no, he could not be moved.
On the last Sunday night Foskett delivered an address and ended with a special appeal to those who were leaving to remember the honour and welfare of their house and their school as well as their king and country. But Martin was wondering all the time whether it were more satisfactory to have won colours for good, solid cricket or to have extorted a cup by mere bluff. There was something pleasant indeed in the thought that a real cricketer would go on with his career, whereas Martin would never dare to call himself a bowler at Oxford: on the other hand, there was an exquisite piquancy in the consideration that he had set out to 'do' cricket and had very successfully done it. Also he had 'done' Randall's, and he was still boy enough to hate the rival house with a fervent loathing. As the organ thundered out the farewell hymn, he decided that to succeed in a fraud which does no real harm is a very gratifying process. Then he pulled himself together and sang dutifully.