The Gentleman Cadet Part 8

It was after I had been a fortnight at Rouse's that one morning, as I read out the answers to my night's work, Mr Rouse said, "Number six question is one you must look at carefully, for when you are at the Academy you will have many such questions in your half-yearly examinations there."

"Do you think I have a chance of pa.s.sing, then?" I exclaimed.

"Certainly; every chance, if you continue going on as well as you have done."

These words were long remembered; they gave me hope, and they excited my ambition. If I could only pa.s.s, what a blow it would be for Hostler!

and what a surprise for many of the boys there, who had put me down as not only a dunce, but as too stupid to learn! I could not, however, believe there was more than a chance of success, though I had hopes now, especially when I found how easily I could solve many of the most difficult questions that Mr Rouse set me.

Week after week pa.s.sed, and I was pushed on with a rapidity that surprised me. I pa.s.sed through the earlier rules of algebra, came to simple equations, understood them; pa.s.sed on to quadratics, and at length came to cubics. Mr Rouse's method of teaching was perfect. To him there was no such thing as a difficulty; if he found that I was puzzled at anything, he at once came to the rescue, and a.s.serted that "it was a very simple thing." In a few words he would give an explanation which made the problem thoroughly clear, and often caused me to wonder how I could have been so stupid as not to see clearly before he explained the difficulty to me.

On several occasions Mr Rouse had willingly consented to my going to the theatre, his object seeming to be to give all the liberty he could, and to impress on his pupils the importance of self-dependence.

Three months after joining Mr Rouse I was working at subjects that only the first and most advanced cla.s.s attempted at Hostler's. I could scarcely believe that all this was real. It had been so impressed on me at Hostler's that I was intensely stupid, and that even a clever boy could not reach the first cla.s.s from where I had been in less than a year, that I began to fear I must be cramming and had not a thorough sound knowledge of the subjects I was supposed to have learnt.

One day I suggested this difficulty to Mr Rouse, telling him how slowly boys went on at Hostler's, compared to the rate at which I had advanced.

Mr Rouse replied that, instead of cramming, he hoped I had thought carefully over and thoroughly understood what I had done, and he believed I was less crammed than Mr Hostler's boys, whom he knew learnt most things by rote like parrots.

As regards their Euclid I knew this opinion was correct, for I understood now far more of geometry than I felt certain any of Hostler's boys did. I could turn problems upside down, and prove principles as well as mere cases, this proficiency being due to the clear and quiet way in which Mr Rouse would explain the various propositions.

Nothing could be more satisfactory than my progress up to within a month of the examination. I felt considerable hope myself, although I could not get over the feeling that the head boys at Hostler's must know much more than I knew. One morning, however, on waking, I had a very bad fit of coughing; during the day it became worse. I scarcely slept the following night, and on the next day I learnt that I had a bad attack of hooping-cough.

Mr Rouse looked very grave at the intelligence given him by the doctor, for he knew that I had to pa.s.s a medical as well as a mental examination, and that the doctor would not allow me to pa.s.s if I had the hooping-cough.

I had now to keep my bed, and was soon leached and blistered, but the cough clung to me most obstinately, and so shook me that I felt too ill to work. I was in this state to within a week of the examination, but I had made up my mind I would take my chance at Woolwich, and well or ill I would go up.

It has often since those days occurred to me that there is in the human mind and human will some power which, if exercised, has the effect of driving off or overcoming sickness; men, it is said, often sink and die from despondency, whilst others, by pure energy as it were, get well.

To give in, as it were, to sickness often seems to increase the disease, whilst to fight against it staves it off.

Whether the will to get well was the cause or the effect of the improvement I cannot state, but I suddenly improved wonderfully, and three days before the examination I scarcely coughed at all, though I was weak and felt barely able to walk.

The evening before the examination I started with Mr Rouse for Woolwich, and we took up our quarters at the King's Arms Hotel. There were several other candidates staying in the house, who, I understood, were going up for the examination on the morrow.

Previous to going to bed Mr Rouse sat chatting with me in our sitting-room, giving me hints about the examination. "You must remember," he said, "that your success or failure does not depend on what you have done or what you have learnt either with me or at Hostler's, but it depends solely on what you write on your paper to-morrow. I have known boys fail at examinations merely on account of carelessness at the examination. They knew a problem well, but they wrote so carelessly, and described so loosely, that the examiner concluded they knew nothing about the matter. After you have finished a paper, read over slowly and patiently what you have written, and you will almost always find you have made some absurdly simple mistake. I have known men go to an examination as it is said a Dutchman did at a ditch. He ran a mile to get up his speed, and was then so done that, instead of jumping over, he jumped into the ditch. Concentrate all your power on the work in hand; take the easiest questions first, and when you find a difficulty you can't get over, go on to another question; then you will sometimes find, on going back, that you can at once get over what before defeated you. Above all things, keep quite calm and thoughtful, and do not lose your head or get into a funk."

These and other similar precepts Mr Rouse gave me, as modern youths would style them, as "straight tips," and I thought over them before I went to sleep, and impressed them on my memory.

I woke early on the following morning, and though I tried hard to avoid feeling anxious, yet I could not forget that the whole of my future career hinged on what I did on that and the following days of examination. If I failed, a slur would be on me for life, though perhaps undeserved. If I succeeded, I believed I should accomplish what many considered, if not impossible, at least improbable.

After an early breakfast I walked with Mr Rouse towards the Academy, where the examination was to be held, and on the common was joined by five of my old schoolfellows from Hostler's.

"What, Shepard!" said one of them, "you don't mean to say you are going to try the examination? Why, I heard you'd given it up!"

"Oh, I'm going to try, just for the fun of the thing," I replied.

"If I'd been you I'd have cut the affair, for it's far better to withdraw than to have the discredit of being spun."

"How Hostler will laugh when he hears of your coming up!" said another of my old schoolfellows.

"Fraser!" shouted another boy to some one I saw about a hundred yards ahead, "come here! here's your old antagonist, Shepard?"

Fraser waited for us to join him, and then said, "How are you, Shepard?

You're looking deuced seedy. What's the matter, and what are you doing here?"

"I've had a bad cough," I replied, "and am coming up just for the fun of the examination."

"Why, you don't expect you've a chance, do you?" he continued. "Hostler told us you had given it up as the wisest plan."

"Oh, I don't suppose I've any chance," I said; "at least, not with you fellows, but I thought I would come up to see what the examination was like."

"And have it always said of you that you'd been spun at Woolwich. I think you're a m.u.f.f for your pains."

On entering the Academy grounds we were shown to one of the cadets'

rooms, where we had to pa.s.s a medical examination. The marks of leeches and blisters on my chest at once attracted the doctor's attention, and he declined to pa.s.s me, and sent me at once before a Board.

To meet this Board I had to walk down to the hospital near the barracks, which I did with a sergeant of Artillery to show me the way; and I soon found myself being tapped on the chest and examined by the doctors as if I were a piece of goods they were about to buy. As good luck would have it I did not cough, or I might never have had a chance for my examination. But after a slight consultation I was pa.s.sed, and was sent back to the Academy to commence my examination.

I was shown into a fair-sized room, where I found about forty boys at work. They had already an hour's start of me, and a short, smart-looking officer, who gave me a printed paper of questions, advised me to lose no time, as I was already behindhand.

"Now for the actual trial," I said to myself, as I looked over the paper, which contained twelve questions in arithmetic and the earlier part of algebra. A feeling of delight came over me as I read this paper, for out of the twelve questions there were eight almost exactly similar to questions I had worked out with Mr Rouse.

I commenced my work without delay, but deliberately and carefully. The answers came out without difficulty, and I was tolerably certain that every question but one I had done correctly. When the time was up I gave my paper to the officer, left the Academy, and met Mr Rouse on the common, to whom I related the style of questions, and described how I had treated them.

"You ought to have done well if you have been careful," said Rouse, "and I am glad to find that I was correct in my surmise as to the style of questions you would have. The style varies from time to time, but there seems a kind of order in which they return, and on this I trained you.

This afternoon you will very likely have a catch equation among the quadratics, such as _x_ = 6. You remember that, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," I replied; "I can work that out in my head."

"You must be careful about your Euclid, too," he continued; "they lay great stress on that, and cramming won't do for Euclid, because they give you a variation from the book, in order to test if you know principles."

In the afternoon a second paper was given me; and there, sure enough, I found the identical equation that Mr Rouse had told me of. This I solved at once, and, looking carefully round, saw that several boys were in difficulties, and seemed to be unable to advance.

During the afternoon I felt certain I had done well, and now my only fear was for my Euclid, which would come off on the morrow.

That evening Mr Rouse said, "I believe you will have one of five problems I can name in the first, second, and third books of Euclid, so if you are not too tired we will just go over them to-night."

An hour was devoted to the explanation of certain propositions, and I, as before, went to bed early, but was at least two hours before going to sleep, occupied in thinking over the various subjects we had worked at.

On reaching the Academy on the following morning I found all the candidates a.s.sembled in the room in which we had worked on the previous day. From this room the candidates were sent for one by one, in order to be examined in Euclid.

When it came to my turn I was shown into a small room, in which I found three officers and a civilian seated at a table, whilst opposite to them was a large black board.

"Mr Shepard," said the civilian, "will you tell us what the 20th proposition of the first book of Euclid treats of?"

As this question was slowly and deliberately put I felt a strange feeling of nervousness come over me. It suddenly occurred to me, "Suppose I broke down here?" I knew if I did I should be spun to a certainty, and the idea for a moment quite unnerved me. There was a dead silence for about a minute, then, in half-broken sentences, I replied, "To prove two sides greater than the third."

"Very well," continued the same gentleman; "will you now draw a figure on that board, and prove the problem, and be kind enough not to prove the same two sides to be greater than the third side that are proved in Euclid?"

I took a piece of chalk, and, though my hand trembled, I drew the first line, and then thought which two sides I should prove to be those greater than the third. As I thought over this, my nervousness seemed to leave me, and I saw nothing but the board and the problem. It would have been no matter to me whether four people or four hundred had been present, for I forgot my audience. I experienced no difficulty in demonstrating the problem, thanks to Mr Rouse's training; and having then demonstrated two other problems--one in the third, one in the second book--I was told that that would do.