The Hill Part 26

"Rodney paved the way for Nelson," Mr. Desmond observed. "I look upon him as one of our greatest Harrovians. We ought to have a building to Rodney's memory. I put him before Peel or Byron."

"Oh, I say, father----" Hot protest from Caesar.

"Act before word, Harry; practice before precept. Rodney was a man of action. I should like to have been Rodney."

"I should like to have been Sheridan," said Caesar. "I often look at his name on the third panel of the Fourth Form Room."

He glanced at his father, who smiled, knowing that a delicate compliment was intended, for enthusiastic admirers had spoken of Charles Desmond as the Richard Brinsley Sheridan of the modern House of Commons. The father said curtly--

"A sky-rocket, my dear Harry." Then he turned to John. "And of all our famous Harrovians whom would you like to take as a pattern, young John?"

John hesitated. Two or three of the guests present were celebrities.

Amongst them was England's greatest critic sitting beside an amba.s.sador.

There happened to be a lull in the talk. All looked curiously at John.

"I'd like to be another Lord Shaftesbury," he said slowly.

"Good! Capital!" Mr. Desmond nodded his head. "I knew him well." He poured out anecdote after anecdote ill.u.s.trating the character and temperament of the statesman-philanthropist: his self-sacrifice, his devotion to an ideal, his curious exclusiveness, his refinement, his faith in an aristocracy never diminished by the indefatigable zeal wherein he laboured to better the condition of the poor. "If every rich man were animated by Shaftesbury's spirit," said Mr. Desmond, in conclusion, "extreme poverty would be wiped out of England, and yet we should retain all that makes life charming and profitable. He was no leveller, save of foul rookeries. First and last he believed in order, particularly his own--a true n.o.bleman. And the inspiration of his great career came to him on the Hill."

"Indeed?" said the Critic.

"John Verney will tell you all about it," said Mr. Desmond, glancing cheerily at our hero. His was ever the habit to draw out the humblest of his guests.

So John recited how young Anthony Ashley, standing on the Hill, just below the churchyard, chanced to see a pauper's coffin fall to the ground and burst open, revealing the pitiful corpse within, and how he had exclaimed in horror, "Good heavens! Can this be permitted simply because the man was poor and friendless?" And how, then and there, the boy had sworn to devote his powers to the amelioration of poverty-stricken lives.

"Yes," said Mr. Desmond. "He told me that the next fifteen minutes decided his career. Ah, he succeeded greatly. Why, when I was at Harrow we used to cross from Waterloo to Euston through some of the worst slums in the world. You boys can't realize what they looked like. And Shaftesbury's work and example wiped them out of our civilization."[27]

When John returned to his uncle's house of Verney Boscobel (his home since his father's death), Caesar Desmond accompanied him. Then it seemed to John that his cup brimmed, that everything he desired had been granted unto him. Verney Boscobel stood in the heart of the great forest, one of the few large manors within that splendid demesne. The boys arrived at Lyndhurst Road Station late in the evening, long after dusk, and were driven in darkness through Bartley and Minstead up to the high-lying moors of Stoneycross. Next morning, early, John woke his friend, and opened the shutters.

"Jolly morning," he said. "Have a look at the Forest, old chap."

Caesar jumped out of bed, and drew a long breath.

"Ah!" he exclaimed; "it's fairyland."

Frost had silvered all things below. Above, motionless upon the blue heavens, as if still frozen by the icy fingers of a December night, were some aerial transparencies of aqueous vapour, amethystine in colour, with edges of white foam. In the east, obscured, but not concealed, by grey mist, hung the crimson orb of the sun. From it faint rays shot forth, touching the clouds beneath, which, roused, so to speak, out of sleep, drifted lethargically in a southerly direction.

"Underneath the young grey dawn A mult.i.tude of dense, white, fleecy clouds Were wandering in thick flocks, ...

Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind."

Desmond drew in his breath, sighing with purest delight. From the lawns encompa.s.sing the house his eyes strayed into a glade of bracken, gold gleaming through silver--a glade shadowed by n.o.ble oaks and beeches, with one birch tree in the middle of it surpa.s.singly graceful. Upon this each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply against the sky.

Beyond the glade stretched the moor, rugged, bleak, and treeless, sloping sharply upward. Beyond the moor lay the Forest--belts of firs darkly purple; and flanking these the irregular ma.s.ses of oaks and beeches, varying in tint from palest lavender to rose and brown, some still in shadow, some in ever-increasing glow of sunlight; not one the same and each in itself containing a thousand differing forms, yet all harmonious parts of the resplendent whole.

"I'm so glad you like my home," said John. "Shall we have a gallop before breakfast? It's only a white frost."

So they galloped away into fairyland, returning with mortal appet.i.tes to the oak-panelled dining-hall, whence a Verney had ridden forth to join his kinsman, Sir Edmund, in arms for the King upon the distant field of Edge Hill. After breakfast the boys explored the quaint old house; and John showed Caesar the twenty-bore gun, and promised his guest much rabbit-shooting, and two days' hunting, at least, with the New Forest Hounds, and some pike-fis.h.i.+ng, and possibly an encounter with a big grayling--which, later, the boys saw walloping about in the Test above Broadlands--a splendid fish, once hooked by John, and lost--a three-pounder, of course.

O golden age! You will never forget that Christmas--will you, John? If you live to be Prime Minister of England, the memory of those first days alone with your friend will remain green when the colour has been sucked by Time out of everything else. Fifty years hence, maybe, you will see Caesar's curly head and his blue eyes full of fun and life, and you will hear his joyous laughter--peal upon peal--echoing through the corridors of Verney Boscobel. Your mother took him to her heart--didn't she? And all the servants, from butler to scullery maid, voted him the jolliest, cheeriest boy that ever came to Hamps.h.i.+re. Why, Mrs. Osman, the cook, with a temper like tinder from too much heat, refused flatly to let Caesar make toffee in her kitchen. But just then a barrel-organ turned up, and before she could open her mouth, Caesar was dancing a polka with her; and after that he could make toffee, or hay, or anything else, wherever and whenever he pleased.

When they returned to the Manor, John hoped and prayed that this blessed intimacy would continue. It did--for a time. The three boys got their remove, and found themselves in the Second Fifth, where they proposed to linger till after the summer term. Lovell and Scaife seemed inseparable, and bridge began again, apparently an inexhaustible source of amus.e.m.e.nt and excitement. Then came the Torpid matches; and John, as Lawrence predicted, was captain of the c.o.c.k-house Eleven--the first great victory of the Manorites. During the term, Scaife and Desmond won no races, being in age betwixt and between winners of Upper and Lower School races. Scaife refused to train. Desmond took a few runs, but abandoned them for racquets, the chief game in the Easter term, but only played regularly by boys whose purses are well lined. John confined his attention to "Squash." Caesar played "Harder" with the Demon. The three worked together as of yore. John now perceived that Scaife had joined a clique pledged to fight Reform. It was in the air that something might happen. Warde eyed the big fellows shrewdly, as if measuring weapons. He confounded some by asking them to dine with him. At dessert he would talk of sport, or games, or politics--everything, in fine, except "shop." The more worthy came away from these pleasant evenings with rather a hangdog expression, as if they had been receiving goods under false pretences. John and Desmond were made especially welcome. And, after dinner, John, whose voice had not yet cracked, would sing, to Mrs.

Warde's accompaniment, such songs as "O Bay of Dublin, my heart yu're throublin'," or "Think of me sometimes," or Handel's "Where'er you walk." The Caterpillar made no secret of a pa.s.sion for Iris Warde, and became a dangerous rival of one of the younger masters. He talked to Warde about genealogies and hunting, topics of conversation in which they had a common interest outside Harrow. John guessed that Warde was making an effort to secure Egerton, who, for his part, took the world as he found it, consorting alike with John and his friends, and also with Lovell and Co. From the Caterpillar John learned that Beaumont-Greene had begun to play bridge.

"Scaife and Lovell are skinning the beast," he added confidentially.

"Green he is, and no error."

"Ructions soon," said John.

"I don't believe it," replied the Caterpillar. "Take my word, Warde knows what he's about. He's playing up to the younger members of the house--you, Caesar, and you, Jonathan--and he's letting the others slide."

"Giving 'em rope," said John, "to hang 'emselves."

"Well, now, there's something in that. That hadn't occurred to me. What?

You think that he's eggin' 'em on, eh? Eggin' 'em on!"

"I think that, if I were you, Caterpillar, I'd cut loose from that gang."

"They've made it rather warm for you."

"I don't care a hang about that."

As a matter of fact, John's life had been made very unpleasant by the fast set. Upon the other hand, the Duffer, Fluff, and many Lower School boys reckoned him their leader and adviser. And--such is the irony of Fate--John's popularity with friends caused him more anxiety than unpopularity with enemies. Towards the end of the term, Desmond spoke of applying to Warde for a certain room to be shared by himself and John.

John had to decline an arrangement desired pa.s.sionately, because he had indiscreetly promised not to chuck the Duffer. Caesar dropped the subject. After this, John noticed a slight coldness. He wondered whether Caesar were jealous, jealousy being John's own besetting sin. Finally, he came to the conclusion that his friend might be not jealous but unreasonable. In any case, during the last three weeks of the term, John saw less of Caesar, and more--more, indeed, than he wanted--of the Duffer and Fluff.

And then came the paralysing news that Desmond had promised to spend ten days with Scaife's people, that a Professional had been hired, and that both boys were going to give their undivided energies to cricket.

Afterwards, John often wondered whether Scaife, with truly demoniac insight into Desmond's character, had let him go, so as to seize him with more tenacious grasp when an opportunity presented itself.

As soon as John saw Caesar after the Easter holidays, he knew that, temporarily, at any rate, he had lost his friend. Caesar, indeed, was demonstratively glad to see him, and dragged him off next day to walk to a certain bridge where a few short weeks before the boys had carved their names upon the wooden railing, surrounding them with a circle and the Crossed Arrows. But Caesar could talk of nothing else but Scaife and cricket. They had both "come on" tremendously. Scaife's people had a splendid cricket-ground.

Poor John! If he could have submerged the Scaife cricket-ground and the Scaife family by nodding his head, I fear that he would have nodded it, although he told himself that he was an ungenerous beast and cad not to sympathize with his pal.

And before the boys got back to the Manor, Caesar said, not without a blush, that he had learned to play bridge.

"I shall teach you, Jonathan."

"No."

"I say--yes."

"You're not going to play with Lovell and that beast Beaumont-Greene?"

"The Demon says no cards this term, when lock-up's late. And look here, Jonathan, I've made the Demon promise to make the peace between Lovell and you. You'll play for the House, of course, and we must all pull together, as Warde says."

John might have smiled at this opportune mention of Warde, but sense of humour was swamped in apprehension. Desmond went on to talk about Scaife.

"He'll make 'em sit up, you see! The 'pro.' we had is the finest cover-point in England. I never saw such a chap. He dashes at the ball.

Hit it as hard as you please, he runs in, picks it up, and snaps it back to the wicket-keeper as easy as if he was playing pitch and toss. And, by Jove! the Demon can do it. You wait. I never saw any fellow like him.