<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER XIII—MR. PERRIN LISTENS WHILE THEY ALL MAKE SPEECHES </h2>
<h3> I. </h3>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE next day, its
brilliant sun and hard, shining cold, brought in its train great things.</p>
<p>The last day of the Christmas term was in some ways greater than the last
day of the summer term, because it was a more private family affair.</p>
<p>One addressed one's ancestors, one arrayed one's traditions,
one fashioned one's history, with flags and flowers and orations,
but it was in the midst of the family that it was done.</p>
<p>Parents—mothers and fathers and cousins—were indeed there, but
they, too, must recognize that it was not for their immediate individual
Johnny or Charles that these things were done, but rather for the great
worship and recognition of Sir Marmaduke Boniface.</p>
<p>Sir Marmaduke Boniface has hitherto received no mention in this slender
history, but his importance in any chronicle of Moffatt's cannot be
over-estimated. He was a Cornish; magnate, living and dying some hundred
years ago, growing rich in the pursuit of jam, building large stone
mansions out of that same delicacy, fat, pompous, and fading at last into
a heavy stone monument in the corner of the church at the bottom of the
Brown Hill—a great man in his day and in his place, amongst other
things the founder of Moffatt's.</p>
<p>It was not very long ago; outside the confines of Cornwall he had been
perhaps but vaguely recognized—perchance, perchance, the surest
foundation of an extravagant record.... No matter, here we have our
tradition, and let us make the best possible use of it.</p>
<p>But this Marmadukery—a hideous word, but it serves—spread far
beyond that stout originator. It was the spirit of the public school, the
<i>esprit de corps</i> signified by the School song (it began “Procul
in Cornubia,” and was violently shouted at stated intervals during
the year), the splendid appeal “to our fathers who have played in
these fields before us”—this was the cry that these banners
and orations signified. Moffatt's was not a very old school, true—but
shout enough about some founder or other and the smallest boy will have
tears in his eyes and a proud swelling at his breast. Sir Marmaduke
becomes medieval, mystic, “the great, good man” of history,
and Moffatt's is “one of our good old schools. There's
nothing like our public school system, you know—has its faults, of
course; but tradition—that 's the Thing.”</p>
<p>The stout figure of Sir Marmaduke hangs heavy over the day. Everyone feels
it—everyone feels a great many other things as well, but Sir
Marmaduke is the Thing.</p>
<p>He was the Thing in some vague, blind way even to Mrs. Comber, so that he
kept coming into the confused but happy conversation to which she treated
anxious parents on the morning of this great day. Mothers arrived in great
numbers on these occasions, and these three great days of the three terms
were to Mrs. Comber the happiest and most confused events in the year.
They marked an approaching freedom, they marked the immediate return of
her own children, and they marked an amazing number of things that ought
to be done at once, with the confusing feeling about Sir Marmaduke also in
the air.</p>
<p>But to-day she was happy; this horrible, terrible term was almost over.
She had been so sure that something dreadful was going to happen, and
nothing dreadful had happened, after all. They were safe—or almost
safe—and her dear Isabel and Isabel's young man would be out
of the place before they knew where they were. Then her own Freddie had
last night, suddenly, before going to bed, taken her in his arms and
kissed her as he had never kissed her before. Oh! things were going to be
all right... they were escaping for a time at any rate. In the thought of
the holidays, of a month's freedom, everything that had happened
during the term was swiftly becoming faint and vague and distant.</p>
<p>Now she was smiling in her sitting-room with four mothers about her, one
very fat and one very thin, one in blue and one in gray, and they all sat
very stiff in their chairs and listened to what she had to say.</p>
<p>She had a great deal to say, because she was feeling so happy, and
happiness always provoked volubility, but she made the mistake of talking
to all four of them at once, and they, in vain, like anglers at a pool,
flung, desperately, hurried little sentences at her, but secured no
attention. Beyond and above it all was the shadow of Sir Marmaduke.</p>
<p>But her happiness, when she drove them at length from her, caught at the
advancing figure of Isabel, with a cry and a clasp of the hand: “My
dear!—no, we 've only got a minute, because lunch is early—one
o'clock, and cold—you don't mind, do you, dear; but
there's to be <i>such</i> a dinner to-night, and I've just had
four mothers, and wise is n't the word for what I've been,
although I confused all their children as I always do, bless their hearts.
But, oh! the term's over, and I could go on my knees and thank
Heaven that it is, because I 've never hated anything so much, and
if it had lasted another week I should have struck off Mrs. Dormer's
head for the way she's treating you, for dead sure certain—”</p>
<p>“Archie's not coming back, you know,” Isabel
interrupted.</p>
<p>“Oh, my dear, I knew. He went and saw Moy-Thompson last week, and of
course it's the wisest thing, and I only wish my Freddie was as
young and we'd be off from here tomorrow.” She stopped and
sighed a little and looked through the window at the hard, shining ground,
the stiff, bare trees, the sharp outline of the buildings. “But it's
no use wishing,” she went on cheerfully enough, “and we won't
any of us think of next term at all but only of the blessed month of
freedom that's in front of us.” Her voice softened; she put
her hand on Isabel's arm. “All the same, my dear, I'm
glad you and Archie are getting away from it all. It was touching him, you
know.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I saw it,” the girl answered. “And I don't
want him to schoolmaster again if he can help it. I think with father's
help he 'll be able to get a Government office of some sort.”
She hesitated, then said, smiling a little, “Are you and Mr. Comber—”
She stopped.</p>
<p>“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber bruskily, “we are—and
there 's no doubt that things are better than they have been. I
suppose marriage is always like that: there 's the thrilling time at
first, and then you find it is n't there any longer and you've
got to make up your mind to getting along. Things rub you up, you know,
and I'm sure I 've been as tiresome as anything, and then
there's a good big row and the air's cleared—and shall I
wear that big yellow hat or the black one this afternoon?”</p>
<p>“The black one fits the day better,” said Isabel
absent-mindedly. She was wondering whether the time would ever come when
she and Archie would feel ordinary about each other.</p>
<p>“But isn't it funny,” she went on, “that here we
are at the end of the term, and already, with the holiday beginning, all
our quarrels and fights about things like that silly umbrella are seeming
impossible? It was all too absurd, and yet I was as angry as anyone.”</p>
<p>“It all comes,” said Mrs. Comber, “of our living too
close. Now that we're going to spread out over the holidays, we
're as friendly as anything, although really, my dear, I hate Mrs.
Dormer as much as ever”—which was difficult to believe when
that lady arrived at a quarter-past two to pick up Mrs. Comber and Isabel
and to go with them to the prize-giving.</p>
<p>Her dress was obviously very stiff and difficult, with a high, black neck
to it, with little ridges of whalebone all around it, and out of this she
spoke and smiled. The two ladies were very pleasant to one another as they
walked down the path to the school hall.</p>
<p>“And where are you going for your Christmas vacation, Mrs. Comber?”</p>
<p>“I really don't know. It depends so much on the boys and the
housemaid. I mean the housemaid's given notice, you know, because I
had to speak to her about breathing when handing round the vegetables; and
she gave notice on the spot, as they all do when I speak to them, and
unless I can get another, I really don't think I shall ever be able
to get away.”</p>
<p>“Really, what servants are coming to!” Mrs. Dormer was
struggling with her collar like a dog. “Poor Mrs. Comber, I am <i>so</i>
sorry—of course management's the thing, but we haven't
all the gift and can't expect to have it.”</p>
<p>“And Mrs. Dormer, I do hope that you are going to be here over
Christmas, so that we can keep each other company. It would be <i>so</i>
nice if you and Mr. Dormer would come to us on Boxing evening, even if I
have n't got a housemaid, and I heard of a very likely one from Mrs.
Rose yesterday—quite a nice girl she sounded—who's been
under-parlormaid at Colonel Forster's now for the last five years,
and never a fault to find with her except a tendency to catching cold,
which made her sniff at times.”</p>
<p>“Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Comber; but my husband and I are hoping to
spend a few days in London about that time. Otherwise we should have loved—”</p>
<p>For so much charity is the presence of Sir Marmaduke Boniface responsible.</p>
<h3> II. </h3>
<p>Sir Marmaduke, and all that his coming signified, was also responsible for
clearing the air in other directions. Young Traill found, on this morning,
that people were very much pleasanter to him than they had hitherto been.
The coming holidays were obviously to be a truce, and, as he was not
returning next term, it was an end of things so far as he was concerned.
He could not feel proud of it all. The events of the term had shown him
that he was not nearly so fine a fellow as he had thought himself. His
pride, his temper, his irritation—all these things were lions with
which he had never fought before: now they must always, for the future, be
consciously kept in check.</p>
<p>He was tired, exhausted, worn-out. He was very glad that he was going away—now
he would be able to have Isabel to himself, and they might, together,
forget this horrible nightmare of a term. He looked on the buildings of
Moffatt's as the iron prison of some hideous dream. He could not
sleep for the thought of it. Last night he had had some bad dream... he
could not remember now what it had been, but he had wakened suddenly in a
great panic, to imagine that someone was closing his door. Of course it
had only been the wind, but he hoped that he would sleep properly
to-night.</p>
<p>At any rate he was glad that people were going to be pleasant to him on
this last day of the term. The stout Miss Madder, Dormer, Clinton—they
all seemed to be sorry that he was going, in spite of all the trouble that
he had made. He did not think of Perrin....</p>
<p>Then he suddenly remembered Birkland. He would go and say good-by to him.</p>
<p>He climbed the steep stairs and found the little man busily packing. The
floor was covered with packing cases, books lay about in piles, and the
air was full of dust.</p>
<p>“Hullo!” said Traill, coughing in the doorway, “what's
all this?”</p>
<p>“Hullo!” said Birkland, looking up. “I'm glad you
've come. I was coming round to see you, if you hadn't. I'm
off for good.”</p>
<p>“Off for good!” Traill stared in astonishment.</p>
<p>“Well, for good or bad. The things that have happened this term have
finally screwed me up to a last attempt. One more struggle before I die—nothing
can be worse than this—I gave notice last week.”</p>
<p>“What are you going to do?” asked Traill.</p>
<p>“I don't know—it's mad enough, I expect. But I've
saved a tiny hit of money that will keep me for a time. I shall have a
shot at anything. Nothing can he as bad as this—nothing!”</p>
<p>He stood up, looking grim and scant enough in his shirt-sleeves with dust
on his cheeks and his hair on end.</p>
<p>“Well, I'm damned!” said Traill. “Well, after all,
I'm on the same game. I don't know what I'm going to do
either. We 're both in the same box.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” said Birkland, “you've got youth and a
beautiful lady to help you. I'm alone, and most of the spirit's
knocked out of me after twenty years of this; but I'm going to have
a shot—so wish me luck!”</p>
<p>“Why, of course I do,” said Traill, coming up to him. “We
'll do it together—we 'll see heaps of each other.”</p>
<p>“Ah! heaps!” said Birkland, shaking his head. “No, I'm
too dry and dusty a stick by this time for young fellows like you. No, I'm
better alone. But I 'll come and see you one day.”</p>
<p>“You were quite right,” said Traill suddenly, “in what
you said about the place the evening at the beginning of the term when I
came in to see you. You were quite right.”</p>
<p>“Poor boy,” said Birkland, looking at him affectionately,
“you had a hard dose of it. Perhaps it was all for the best, really.
It drove you out. If I'd been treated to that kind of row at the
beginning, I mightn't have been here twenty years. And, after all,
you met Miss Desart here.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Traill, “that makes it worth it fifty times
over.”</p>
<p>“And now,” went on Birkland grimly, “this afternoon you
shall see the closing scene of our pageant. You shall see our glory, our
tradition. You will hear the head of our body state his satisfaction with
the term's work, proclaim his delight at the friendly spirit that
pervades the school, allude, through the great Sir Marmaduke Boniface,
maker of strawberry jam, to our ancient and honorable tradition in which
we all, from the eldest to the youngest, have our humble share.” He
spread his arms. “Oh! the mockery of it! To get out of it!—to
get out of it! And now, at last, after twenty years, I'm going. If
it hadn't been for you, Traill, I believe I'd be here still.
Well, perhaps it's to breaking stones on a road that I'm
going... at any rate, it won't be this.”</p>
<p>And so here, too, Sir Marmaduke Boniface is remembered and has his
influence.</p>
<h3> III. </h3>
<p>But with all these fine spirits, with all this stir and friendly feeling,
with all this preparation for a great event, Mr. Perrin had little to do.
This morning had, in no way, been for him a reconciling or a triumph at
approaching freedom. After some three or four hours' troubled and
confused sleep he awoke to the humiliating, maddening consciousness that
he had again, now for the second time, missed his chance.</p>
<p>This one thing that he had thought he could do he had missed once more;
not even at this last, blind vengeance was he any good.</p>
<p>To-morrow it would be too late; Traill, his enemy, would be gone, they
would all be gone, and he would return, next term, the same insignificant
creature at whom they had all laughed for so long; and then it would be
worse than ever, because Traill would have escaped him, and in the distant
ages it would be told how once there had been a young man, straight from
the University, who had flung him to the ground and trampled on him, and
beaten him, in all probability, with his own umbrella....</p>
<p>Ah, no! it was not to be borne—the thing must be done; there must be
no missing of an opportunity this third time.</p>
<p>He heard the Repetition that morning with a vacant mind. Somerset-Walpole
knew nothing about it, but for once in his life he suffered no punishment.
Perrin thought afterwards that Garden Minimus had looked at him as though
he would like to speak to him, but he could not think of Garden Minimus
now—there were other more important things to think about.</p>
<p>Of course it must be done that night—there was only one night left.
Afterwards he thought that he would go down to the sea and drown himself.
He had heard that drowning was rather pleasant.</p>
<p>His mind was busy, all that morning, with the things that everyone would
say afterwards. He wished very much that he could stay behind in some way
that he might hear what they said. At any rate, they would be able to
laugh at him no longer; he would appear to all of them as something
terrible, portentous, awful... that, at any rate, was a satisfaction. Miss
Desart, of course, would be sorry. That was a pity, because he did not
wish to hurt Miss Desart; but, in the end, it would be all for the best,
because she was much too good for a man like Traill and would only be
unhappy if she married him.</p>
<p>What a scene there would be when they found Traill in bed with his throat
cut!—no, they would not laugh at him again!</p>
<p>He spoke to nobody that morning; but, when Repetition was over, he went
back to his room and sat there, quite still, in his chair, looking in
front of him, with the door closed.</p>
<p>And then Traill came up and spoke to him just as he was on his way up to
the school for the speeches.</p>
<p>He smiled and said, “Oh! I say, Perrin, do let us make it all up—now
that term is over, and I 'm not coming back. I do hate to think that
we should not part friends—it's all been my stupid fault, and
I am so very sorry.”</p>
<p>But Perrin did not stop, nor answer. He walked straight up the path with
his eyes looking neither to the left nor the right. After all, you couldn't
shake hands with a man whose throat you were going to cut in the evening.
He heard Traill's exasperated “Oh! very well,” and then
he passed into Big School.</p>
<p>He stepped into the hall as unobtrusively as possible. The boys were
always there first, and it was their way to cheer the masters as they came
in. If you were very popular, they cheered you loudly; if you were
unpopular, they cheered you not at all. Perrin had no illusions about his
popularity, and the silence on his entrance did not therefore surprise
him, but matters were not improved by the roar of cheering that greeted
Traill. Ah, well! they would never cheer him again.</p>
<p>The boys were placed in rows down the room according to their forms, and
the masters sat where they pleased. Perrin stationed himself in a corner
by the wall at the back; he fastened his eyes on the platform and kept
them there until the end of the ceremonies—no one noticed him—no
one spoke to him—not for him were their songs and festivals.</p>
<p>The raised platform at the end of the hall was surrounded with flowers,
and ranged against the wall, seated on hard, uncertain chairs were the
Governing Body, or as many of the Governing Body as had spared time to
come.</p>
<p>These were for the most part large, serious, elderly gentlemen, with stout
bodies, and shining, beady eyes; their immovability implied that they
considered that the business would be sooner over were they passive and as
nonexistent as possible—they all wore a considerable amount of
watch-chain.</p>
<p>In front of them was a long, black table, and on this were ranged the
prizes—a number of impossibly shiny volumes that might have been
biscuit-tins, for all the reading that they seemed to contain. Beside them
in a wooden armchair was seated a little man like a sparrow, in patent
leather boots and a high, white collar, whose smile was intermittent, but
regular.</p>
<p>This was Sir Arthur Spalding, who had been asked to give away the prizes,
because ten other gentlemen had been invited and refused. On the other
side of the table the Rev. Moy-Thompson tried to express geniality and
authority by the curves of his fingers and the bend of his head; he
stroked his beard at intervals. In the front rows the ladies were seated:
Mrs. Comber, large and smiling, in purple; Mrs. Moy-Thompson, endeavoring
to escape her husband's eye, but drawn thither continually as though
by a magnet; the Misses Madder, Mrs. Dormer, Isabel, and many parents.</p>
<p>The proceedings opened with a speech from the Rev. Moy-Thompson. He
alluded, of course, in the first place to Sir Marmaduke Boniface, “our
founder, hero, and example”; then by delicate stages to Sir Arthur
Spalding, whose patent leather boots simply shone with delight at the
pleasant things that were said. This preface over, he dilated on the
successes of the term. K. Somers had been made a Commissioner of Police in
Orang-Mazu-Za (cheers); W. Binnors had been fifteenth in an examination
that had something to do with Tropical Diseases (more cheers); M. Watson
had received the College Essay Prize at St. Catherine's College,
Cambridge; and C. Duffield had obtained a second class in the first part
of the Previous Examination at the same university (frantic cheering,
because Duffield had been last year's captain of the Rugby
football.) All this, Mr. Moy-Thompson said, was exceedingly encouraging,
and they could not help reflecting that Sir Marmaduke Boniface, were he
conscious of these successes, would be extremely pleased (cheers). Passing
on to the present term, he was delighted to be able to say that never, in
all his long period as headmaster, could he remember a more equable and
energetic term (cheers). As a term it had been marked perhaps by no events
of special magnitude, but rather by the cordial friendliness of all those
concerned. Masters and boys, they had all worked together with a will. It
was a familiar saying that “a nation was blessed that had no history”—well,
that applied to such a term as the one just concluded (cheers). If he
might allude once more to their excellent Founder, he was quite sure that
Sir Marmaduke Boniface was precisely the kind of man to rejoice in this
spirit of friendship (cheers). He must here allude for a moment to his
staff. Surely a headmaster had never been surrounded with so pleasant a
body of men—men who understood exactly the kind of <i>esprit de
corps</i> necessary if a school's work were to be properly carried
on; men who put aside all private feelings for the one great purpose of
making Moffatt's a great school—that was, he truly believed,
the one aim and object of every man and boy in Moffatt's—they
might be sure that was the one and only aim and object that he ever kept
before him. He had nothing more to do but introduce Sir Arthur Spalding,
who would give away the prizes.</p>
<p>Mr. Moy-Thompson sat down, hot and inspired, amidst a burst of frantic
cheering and clapping, but was suddenly chilled by the consciousness of
Mr. Perrin's eyes glaring at him in the strangest manner across the
room. He shifted his chair a little to the left, so that a boy's
head intervened. The Governing Body at the conclusion of his speech moved
their heads to the right, then to the left, smiled once, and resumed their
immovability.</p>
<p>Sir Arthur Spalding was nervous, but found courage to say that he believed
in our public schools—that was the thing that made men of us—he
should never forget what he himself owed to Harrow. He should like to say
one thing to the boys—that they were not to think that winning
prizes was everything. We couldn't all win prizes; let those who
failed to obtain them remember that “slow and steady wins the race.”
It wasn't always the boys who won prizes who got on best afterwards.
No—um—ah—he never used to win prizes at school himself.
It wasn't always the boys—here he pulled himself up and
remembered that he had said it before. There was something else that he'd
wanted to say, but he'd quite forgotten what it was. Here he was
conscious of Mr. Perrin's eyes and thought that he'd never
seen anything so discouraging. He did not seem to be able to escape them.
What a dangerous-looking man!</p>
<p>So he hurriedly concluded. Just one word he'd like to leave them
from our great poet Tennyson—! He looked for the little piece of
paper on which he had written the verse. He could not find it; he searched
his pockets—no—where had he put it? Lady Spalding, in the
third row, suffered horrible agonies. He recovered himself and was vague.
He would advise them all to read Tennyson, a fine poet, a very fine poet—yes—and
now he would give away the prizes.</p>
<h3> IV. </h3>
<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Perrin up to the commencement of Mr. Moy-Thompson's
speech, had been merely conscious that a period of waiting had, so to
speak, “to be put in.” He was not aware, in the very least,
that his eyes were causing both Sir Arthur Spalding and Mr. Moy-Thompson
acute discomfort; he was not aware that boys were looking at him, watching
him with eager curiosity and nudging one another, speculatively. He was
not aware that Isabel's eyes were upon him, eyes of pity “because
he looked so queer, as though he had a headache.”</p>
<p>He stood there, beside the small round-eyed boys of the First and Second
Forms, staring in front of him, without moving. The first words of
Moy-Thompson's speech fell upon his ears unconsciously. It did not
matter what they said, it did not matter what they thought, the case at
issue was between himself and Traill and he faced that with an irritated
impatience at these tiresome hours that kept him from his eager
realization.</p>
<p>He began slowly to understand the things that Moy-Thompson was saying. And
suddenly it was as though he had, morally and mentally, taken himself,
forcibly, out of one room into another—out of a room in which there
was only Traill's figure, gray, shadowy, by the door, otherwise
dark, obscured by a clinging mist... a dangerous place... into a place
that had for its furniture tangible things, things like this speech that
Moy-Thompson was making, things that had to do with no especial figure,
but rather with a vast, intolerable condition, with a system.</p>
<p>What was he saying?... How dare he? Perrin moved impatiently in his place.
He looked at the row of faces raised to the platform, the silly, stupid
faces. <i>That</i> Mrs. Thompson in her thin black dress with her bony
neck; <i>that</i> silly, cheerful Mrs. Comber in her bulging, flaming
garments; <i>that</i> Lady Spalding, so stiff and sharp, as though she
were of any importance to anyone—all of them listening to these
things that Moy-Thompson was saying, and believing them, believing
these... Lies!</p>
<p>Traill was almost forgotten as Perrin stepped a little forward from the
wall in order that he might hear better. The sight of Moy-Thompson's
face up there on the platform smiling, so complacent, patriarchal with
that white beard wagging at the end of it, brought the blood to his head.
He clenched his thin hands. What were the other men doing that they could
stand there and listen to these lies? Why did they not step forward and
tell the truth to all those stupid women and those fat governors, to the
little man with the shining boots on the platform? They knew that these
thing were lies. Had not this term been hell, had it not been slow torture
for them all, had not that man with the white beard full knowledge of
these lies that he was telling? What was his private quarrel with Traill
as compared with this monstrous injustice? He was pale now, with a long
red mark against the white of his cheek. He had stepped right away from
the wall and the small boys of the First and Second Forms were watching
him.</p>
<p>It came upon him suddenly, like a flash from the lightning of heaven, that
it was for him to escape these things. He had suffered more than the
others, he knew better than they the things that were done in this place!
Something was going round in his head like a red-hot wire, but he
remembered, even at that confused moment, that scene a few days before in
the common room, when they had all been so nearly stirred to revolt by
Birkland. What if he were to break the bonds?... What rot! what rot! what
rot! He could have shouted it to the roof—“Lies! Lies! Lies!”</p>
<p>There was a little stir and rustle as Moy-Thompson finished his speech—ladies'
dresses moved against the chairs, boots slipped along the floor—and
then a burst of cheering and clapping. Perrin rubbed his hands against one
another—they were hot and dry and something rather like a bobbin on
a latch went up and down in his throat—his eyes were burning. He
moved a little further from the wall and a little nearer to the central
gangway between the blocks of boys.</p>
<p>And now Sir Arthur Spalding stood nervously behind the glittering copies
of “Tennyson's Poems,” Sir Robert Ball's “Wonders
of the Heavens,” “The Works of Spencer,” and other
volumes of our admirable classics. They began with the bottom of the
school, and a small fat boy with a crimson face, boots that creaked like a
badly-oiled door and were shaped like Chinese boats, staggered up to the
platform. A lady, prominent for her size and large picture hat moved
eagerly in her chair, clapped vehemently with her white gloves and so
proclaimed herself a mother.</p>
<p>Sir Arthur Spalding had every intention of making a pleasant speech to
each prizewinner—“something that they could remember
afterwards, you know”—and began to say something to the small
and red-faced boy, but was startled by the sound of eager, anticipatory
breathing close to his ear. Turning round, he discovered that three more
small boys were waiting anxiously for their turn and that others were
coming up the room. He therefore hurried along with “Here you are,
my boy. Remember that prizes aren't everything in life—hope
you 'll read it—delightful book.”</p>
<p>Mr. Perrin watched these boys passing up and down with eager eyes. He must
wait—now was not the time, but soon there would be another speech to
thank the absurd man with the boots for giving the prizes away. To his
excited fancy it seemed to him now that the rest of the staff were looking
at him as though they knew what he was going to do. They must have felt as
indignant as he did at those lies that this man had been telling them. But
those governors should know the truth for once at any rate and in a way
that they should not forget... strangely, in the back of his mind he
wished that his mother could be present....</p>
<p>The senior boys were going up for their prizes now and were cheered
according to their popularity. The Cricket captain, an enormous fellow,
had secured something for Mathematics, and the room burst into a tempest
of applause as he moved heavily up to the platform. He seemed very pleased
with it all, Mr. Perrin thought, and received his prize with a flushed
face and a friendly smile, and yet he had always been one of the leading
rebels in the school. How easily these people were subdued, with a book
and a few pleasant words—fool! Mr. Perrin's breath came
quicker as he watched the boy stumble back to his seat.</p>
<p>Then, the prizes delivered, Mr. Moy-Thompson rose to say a few words. It
had been very gratifying, he said, to all of them to have so distinguished
a visitor as Sir Arthur Spalding amongst them that afternoon. It must have
been difficult for Sir Arthur to have found time amongst so many
engagements to come and spend an afternoon with them. (Cheers—Sir
Arthur conveys a sense of hurry and confusion and looks at his shirt cuffs
as though his engagements were written down there.) They on their part
were greatly the gainers because there was no one in the room, however
young, however inexperienced, who would not remember, as long as he lived,
those words of encouragement and cheer. Indeed, it was not only for the
winners of prizes that life was intended (here Mr. Moy-Thompson repeated
many of Sir Arthur Spalding's remarks and the governors moved
restlessly in their chairs), but (and here Mr. Moy-Thompson started on a
new note) it might not be, perhaps, presumptuous of him to hope that it
was not only for them that afternoon might have pleasant memories. For Sir
Arthur Spalding also, he might hope, there would be times in the future
when he would look back and remember that he had seen, for an instant at
least, one of our British public schools in one of its happiest and most
prosperous phases. He might flatter himself—</p>
<p>“It 's all lies!”</p>
<p>The voice cut into the quiet and solemnity of the occasion like a knife.
To the small hoys of the First and Second Forms, tired already of the
over-long ceremony, their eyes wandering restlessly about the room, there
may perhaps have been no surprise. They had watched that strange master of
theirs—“that old ass Pompous”—seen his edging from
the wall into the center of the room, seen his eyes burning, his hands
clenching and unclenching, his lips moving. To them that sudden cry, that
sudden lifting of a fist as though he would strike the patriarch to his
feet, could have come with no uncalculated emotion. But to the rest, to
the governors heavily somnolent, to Sir Arthur Spalding plaintively
desiring his tea, to Mrs. Moy-Thompson, to Mrs. Comber, the matrons, the
staff, the rest of the school, it came driving through the place like a
wind, “What? Who?...” They rose in their places, they uttered
little cries, they stood on the forms, but no one stopped that voice—they
were held, paralyzed.</p>
<p>And there were very few there who, in after days, forgot that strange
figure, standing in the back of the room, the light of the high window
upon him, his thin figure strung to its tensest, his hand raised, his
gaunt cheeks white, his eyes on fire....</p>
<p>“It's lies, all lies!” The words came tumbling out one
upon another. “I don't care—I must speak. Ladies and
gentlemen,”—he caught his throat for a moment with his hand—“I
know that this is no occasion for saying those things, but no one else has
the courage—the courage. It is not true what he has been saying”—he
pointed a vehement, trembling finger at the white patriarch. “We are
unhappy here, all of us. We are downtrodden by that man—we are not
paid enough—we are not considered at all—never considered—everything
is wrong—we all hate each other—we hate <i>him</i>—he
hates <i>us</i>—we are unhappy—it is all hell.”</p>
<p>He felt that his voice was quivering. He knew that he was shaking from
head to foot. He cried once more querulously, “It is all hell
here... hell!”</p>
<p>And then, suddenly, with head hanging and his hands dropping hopelessly to
his side, he turned and, amidst an intense silence, left the room by the
wide doors behind him.</p>
<p>There rose, like the murmur of the sea, from the body of the school:</p>
<p>“It 's Perrin.”</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
<hr />
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />