"Pip" Part 7

The form gave no sign, though Brown minor and Pip were exhibiting symptoms of incipient apoplexy; and Mr. Hanbury came to the conclusion that this comedy had better cease. But the luckless Mumford, his eye still firmly adhering to the keyhole, continued,--

"Hallo! there's the Head. Hope he meets some of those chaps. Very slack, their not goin' to their cla.s.srooms till five minutes past the hour. Wonder where Ham is. Downstairs, I expect, cadging beer off the butler. He'll probably be tight when he--"

At this point, flattered by the deferential silence with which his remarks were being received, and desirous of observing the effect of this last sally on his fellows, the doomed youth turned from the keyhole to the room. The first object which met his eye was his form-master. The effect was remarkable. Mumford's eyes, already bulging from long straining at the keyhole, nearly fell from his head; he turned deadly pale; and finally, with a whoop of terror, he dashed from the room, never stopping till he reached the seclusion of his study in his tutor's house.

He was not punished, for Ham knew well that no further penalty was required. The Lower Sh.e.l.l, however, unanimously voted Mumford "an abject blighter," and restored Pip to his old post.

Nearly a year pa.s.sed. Pip was now fifteen. He had stayed at the preparatory school for a year longer than most boys, owing to an attack of mumps; but his appearance was so youthful and his mental abilities so limited, that he might easily have pa.s.sed, as his friend Mumford frequently remarked, for twelve. Mr. Hanbury was not often puzzled by a boy's brain, but in Pip's case he had to admit himself baffled.

"I can't make the boy out," he said to his colleague, the Reverend William Mortimer (usually called "Uncle Bill"), who was Pip's house-tutor. "He has a wonderful memory, but is either unable or unwilling to think. He prefers to learn a page of easy history by heart, and repeat it like a parrot, rather than read it through and give me the substance of it in his own words."

"Anything for a change," grunted Uncle Bill. "I would cheerfully barter my entire form of imbeciles for one such youth. Look here: here is Atkinson, with the body of a camel and the mind of a hedgehog, who has been in my form for three years, and thinks that _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is a good ending for a hexameter. And that boy's mother came and called on me last term for an hour and a half, and confided to me that a boy of Lancelot's eager spirit and delicate organism might be inclined to overwork himself. I suppose this other boy's mother,--no, by the way, he hasn't got one,--his father is a big West-End doctor. The boy must have been left very much to himself in his childhood. He has never read a story-book in his life, and the cricket news is all that he reads in the papers."

"Ah! is he a cricketer?" said Hanbury.

"On paper: his real performances are very moderate. He will tell you the batting and bowling average of every first-cla.s.s cricketer, though."

"I don't think I have come across him in that line yet. I am glad he knows something. Well, I am off to my cla.s.sroom."

"What? At this hour of the afternoon?"

"Yes; a meeting with a few young friends to discuss various points in the history of Samson. Four of them, including our young friend.

Infernal rot, these Sunday preparations! The boys don't learn the work, and the average form-master can't explain it. They ought to be lumped together on Monday mornings for you to take, padre."

"Quite right, my son," replied Uncle Bill. "Last term Kifford told his form that a phylactery was a kind of musical instrument. Well, cut along. Be gentle with them."

It was a very hot afternoon in June. Hanbury found four discontented young persons awaiting him. He was wont to be lenient over the Scripture lesson, and a misplaced confidence in this fact had led the quartette to their downfall.

"Now, let us get this business finished," he said briskly. "Are you all ready to be questioned?"

The quartette expressed their readiness to endure the most searching cross-examination.

"Very well, then. Sit down quickly and write out, in your own words, an account of the events in chapter thirteen."

Four pens began to scratch, three vigorously, the last more diffidently.

At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hanbury called a halt.

"Show it up," he said.

Four inky ma.n.u.scripts were laid before him.

"Let me see," he continued. "Manoah--angel--sacrifice--Nazarite--yes."

He glanced swiftly through the papers. "You can go, you three; but you, my young friend,"--he laid a heavy hand on Pip's unkempt head,--"will stay and talk to me."

There was a hasty scuttling of feet, the banging of a door, and Pip was left alone with his master.

Pip sighed and glanced out of the window, through which came the regular knock, knock, of innumerable bats against innumerable b.a.l.l.s all along the long line of nets.

"Come along to my study," said Hanbury. "No, no, I'm not going to execute you this time," as Pip looked a little apprehensive.

Mr. Hanbury occupied two rooms in a corner of Mr. Mortimer's house, and thither Pip was conducted.

"Now, young man, sit down in that armchair."

Pip obeyed, and took his seat on the extreme edge.

"You are a queer customer," said Mr. Hanbury meditatively. "You know ten times as much about that chapter as Marsh or Stokes or Fox, and yet you produced this. Look at it."

It certainly was an interesting doc.u.ment. Pip, unable to grasp the main facts of the simple narrative set forth, had adopted the, to him, easier expedient of learning the chapter, or portions of it, by heart. The result was a curious framework of absolutely valueless but fairly correct quotations, and an utter absence of anything in the shape of coherent information.

"_And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years._"

"_And an angel appeared unto the woman and said...._"

"_And the woman came to her husband and said...._"

Here the ma.n.u.script came to an inky termination.

"What are these blanks for?" inquired Ham.

"I couldn't remember what they said, sir," explained Pip, "so I put blanks."

"H'm; I see. It gives their remarks rather an expurgated appearance, though. But look here, old man," he continued, not unkindly, "one quarter of the labour that you spent on learning this stuff by heart--you have got the first verse quite correct, you see--would have enabled you, if rightly applied, to give the gist of the story in your own words, which was all I wanted. Now, wouldn't it?"

Pip looked at him honestly.

"No, sir," he said.

"But, good gracious, when you read a novel--say Sherlock Holmes--do you find it easier to learn it by heart rather than gather the meaning as you go along?"

"I have never read a novel, sir," said Pip.

"Well, then, any book?"

"I have never read any books, except the ones in school, sir."

"I see I am dealing with a phenomenon," said Mr. Hanbury. "My poor friend, do you mean to say that your knowledge of books is bounded by Caesar and Arabella Buckley? What did you do in your extreme youth?

Didn't you ever read fairy tales? Haven't you heard of Cinderella or Jack the Giant-Killer?"

"No, sir."

"Why, your par--" Mr. Hanbury stopped. He remembered what Father William had told him, and he realised that home without a mother may indeed be a strange place.

There was a pause. Pip, well back in his chair now, sat looking curiously at this large man, who appeared to be genuinely distressed by his ignorance of fairy tales. Presently the master continued,--

"Then you never read anything?"

"Yes, the papers, sir."