Guy Livingstone Part 1

Guy Livingstone.

by George A. Lawrence.

CHAPTER I.

"Neque imbellem feroces Progenerant aquilae columbam."

It is not a pleasant epoch in one's life, the first forty-eight hours at a large public school. I have known strong-minded men of mature age confess that they never thought of it without a s.h.i.+ver. I don't count the home-sickness, which perhaps only affects seriously the most innocent of _debutants_, but there are other thousand and one little annoyances which make up a great trouble. If there were nothing else, for instance, the unceasing query, "What's your name?" makes you feel the possession of a cognomen at all a serious burden and bar to advancement in life.

A dull afternoon toward the end of October; the sky a neutral tint of ashy gray; a bitter northeast wind tearing down the yellow leaves from the old elms that girdle the school-close of ----; a foul, clinging paste of mud and trampled gra.s.s-blades under foot, that chilled you to the marrow; a mob of two hundred lower boys, vicious with cold and the enforcement of keeping goal through the first football match of the season--in the midst, I, who speak to you, feeling myself in an eminently false position--there's the _mise en scene_.

My small persecutors had surrounded me, but had hardly time to settle well to their work, when one of the players came by, and stopped for an instant to see what was going on. The match had not yet begun.

There was nothing which interested him much apparently, for he was pa.s.sing on, when my despondent answer to the everlasting question caught his ear. He turned round then--

"Any relation to Hammond of Holt?"

I replied, meekly but rather more cheerfully, that he was my uncle.

"I know him very well," the new-comer said. "Don't bully him more than you can help, you fellows; I'll wait for you after calling over, Hammond. I should like to ask you about the squire."

He had no time to say more, for just then the ball was kicked off, and the battle began. I saw him afterward often during that afternoon, always in the front of the rush or the thick of the scrimmage, and I saw, too, more than one player limp out of his path disconsolately, trying vainly to dissemble the pain of a vicious "hack."

I'll try to sketch Guy Livingstone as he appeared to me then, at our first meeting.

He was about fifteen, but looked fully a year older, not only from his height, but from a disproportionate length of limb and development of muscle, which ripened later into the rarest union of activity and strength that I have ever known. His features were very dark and pale, too strongly marked to be called handsome; about the lips and lower jaw especially there was a set sternness that one seldom sees before the beard is grown. The eyes were very dark gray, nearly black, and so deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress was well adapted for displaying his deep square chest and sinewy arms--a close-fitting jersey, and white trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the cap, orange velvet, fronted with a silver Maltese cross.

The few words he had spoken worked an immediate change in my favor. I heard one of my tormentors say, not without awe, "The Count knows his people at home;" and they not only left me in peace, but, a little later, some of them began to tell me of a recent exploit of Guy's, which had raised him high in their simple hero-wors.h.i.+p, and which, I dare say, is still enumerated among the feats of the brave days of old by the f.a.gs over their evening small-beer.

To appreciate it, you must understand that the highest form in the school--the sixth--were regarded by the f.a.gs and other subordinate cla.s.ses with an inexpressible reverence and terror. They were considered as exempt from the common frailties of schoolboy nature: no one ventured to fix a limit to their power. Like the G.o.ds of the Lotus-eater, they lay beside their nectar, rarely communing with ordinary mortals except to give an order or set a punishment. On the form immediately below them part of their glory was reflected; these were a sort of hemitheoi, awaiting their translation into the higher Olympus of perfected omnipotence.

In this intermediate state flourished, at the time I speak of, one Joseph Baines, a fat, small-eyed youth, with immense pendent pallid cheeks, rejoicing in the _sobriquet_ of "b.u.t.tons," his father being eminent in that line in the Midland Metropolis. The son was Brummagem to the back-bone. He was intensely stupid; but, having been a fixture at ---- beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, he had slowly gravitated on into his present position, on the old Ring principle, "weight must tell." I believe he had been bullied continuously for many years, and now, with a dull, pertinacious malignity, was biding his time, intending, on his accession to power, to inflict full reprisals on those below him; or, in his own expressive language, "to take it out of 'em, like smoke." He was keeping his hand in by the perpetration of small tyrannies on all whom he was not afraid to meddle with; but hitherto, from a lingering suspicion, perhaps, that it was not quite safe, he had never annoyed Livingstone.

It was on a Sat.u.r.day night, the hebdomadal Saturnalia, when the week's work was over, and no one had any thing to do; the heart of Joseph was jocund with pork chops and mulled beer, and, his evil genius tempting him, he proposed to three of his intimates "to go and give the Count a turn." Nearly every one had a nickname, and this had been given to Guy, partly, I think, from his haughty demeanor, partly from a prevalent idea that this German dignity was dormant somewhere in his family. When the _quartette_ entered, Guy knew perfectly what they came for, but he sat quite still and silent, while two of them held him down by the arms in his chair.

"I think you'd look very well with a cross on, Count," Baines said, "so keep steady while we decorate you."

As he spoke he was mixing up a paste with tallow and candle-snuff, and, when it was ready, came near to daub the cross on Livingstone's forehead.

The two who held him had been quite deceived by his unexpected tranquillity, and had somewhat relaxed their gripe as they leaned forward to witness the operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously, that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a bra.s.s-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke the force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended there and then; as it was, b.u.t.tons fell like a log, and, rolling once over on his face, lay there bleeding and motionless.

While the a.s.sistants were too much astounded to detain him, Guy walked out without a glance at his prostrate enemy; and going straight to the head of the house, told him what had happened. The character of the aggressor was so well known, that, when they found he was not seriously hurt, they let Guy off easy with "two books of the _Iliad_ to write out in Greek." b.u.t.tons kept the sick-room for ten days, and came out looking more pasty than ever, with his pleasant propensities decidedly checked for the time.

In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of marble weighing him down, the old b.u.t.ton-maker sleeps with his father (to pluralize his ancestors would be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in his stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-people the same ingenuity of torture which in old times nearly drove the f.a.gs to rebellion. He is a Demosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at the Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad face, marring the plat.i.tude of its smooth-shaven respectability, still burns angrily a dark red scar--Guy's sign-manual--which he will carry to his grave.

The exultation of the lower school over this exploit was boundless.

Fifty energetic admirers contended for the honor of writing out the punishment inflicted on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in Herodotus, preserved the fatal candlestick as an inestimable relic, wreathing its stem with laurel and myrtle, in imitation of the honors paid by Athens to the sword that slew the Pisistratid.

CHAPTER II.

"My only books Were woman's looks, And folly all they taught me."

The Count bore his honors very calmly, though every week some fresh feat of bodily strength or daring kept adding to his popularity. It was no slight temptation to his vanity; for, as some one has said truly, no successful adventurer in after-life ever wins such undivided admiration and hearty partisans as a school hero. The _prestige_ of the liberator among the Irish peasantry comes nearest to it, I think; or the feeling of a clan, a hundred years ago, toward their chief. It must be very pleasant to be quoted so incessantly and believed in so implicitly, and to know that your decisions are so absolutely without appeal. From that first day when he interfered in my favor, Guy never ceased to accord me the aegis of his protection, and it served me well; for, then as now, I was strong neither in body nor nerve. Yet our tastes, save in one respect, were as dissimilar as can be imagined. The solitary conformity was, that we were both, in a desultory way, fond of reading, and our favorite books were the same. Neither would do more school-work than was absolutely necessary, but at light literature of a certain cla.s.s we read hard.

I don't think Guy's was what is usually called a poetical temperament, for his taste in this line was quite one-sided. He was no admirer of the picturesque, certainly. I have heard him say that his idea of a country to live in was where there was no hill steep enough to wind a horse in good condition, and no wood that hounds could not run through in fifteen minutes; therein following the fancy of that eminent French philosopher, who, being invited to climb Ben Lomond to enjoy the most magnificent of views, responded meekly, "_Aimez-vous les beautes de la Nature? Pour moi, je les abhorre_." Can you not fancy the strident emphasis on the last syllable, revealing how often the poor materialist had been victimized before he made a stand at last?

All through Livingstone's life the real was to predominate over the ideal; and so it was at this period of it. He had a great dislike to purely sentimental or descriptive poetry, preferring to all others those battle-ballads, like the _Lays of Rome_, which stir the blood like a trumpet, or those love-songs which heat it like rough strong wine.

He was very fond of Homer, too. He liked the diapason of those sonorous hexameters, that roll on, sinking and swelling with the ebb and flow of a stormy sea. I hear his voice--deep-toned and powerful even at that early age--finis.h.i.+ng the story of Poseidon and his beautiful prize--their bridal-bed laid in the hollow of a curling wave--

_"Porphureon d' ara k.u.ma peristathe, oure ison, Kurtothen, krupsen de Theon thneten te gunaika."_

And yet they say that the glorious old Sciote was a myth, and the Odyssey a magazine worked out by clever contributors. They might as well a.s.sert that all his marshals would have made up one Napoleon.

I remember how we used to pa.s.s in review the beauties of old time, for whom "many drew swords and died," whose charms convulsed kingdoms and ruined cities, who called the stars after their own names.

Ah! Gyneth and Ida, peerless queens of beauty, it was exciting, doubtless, to gaze down from your velveted gallery on the mad tilting below, to see ever and anon through the yellow dust a kind, handsome face looking up at you, pale but scarcely reproachful, just before the horse-hoofs trod it down; ah! fairest Ninons and Dianas--prizes that, like the Whip at Newmarket, were always to be challenged for--you were proud when your reckless lover came to woo, with the blood of last night's favorite not dry on his blade; but what were your fatal honors compared to those of a reigning toast in the rough, ancient days? The demiG.o.ds and heroes that were suitors did not stand upon trifles, and the contest often ended in the extermination of all the lady's male relatives to the third and fourth generation. People then took it quite as a matter of course--rather a credit to the family than otherwise.

Guy and I discussed, often and gravely, the relative merits of Evadne the violet-haired, Helen, Cleopatra, and a hundred others, just as, on the steps of White's, or in the smoking-room at the "Rag," men compare the points of the _debutantes_ of the season.

His knowledge of feminine psychology--it _must_ have been theoretical, for he was not seventeen--implied a study and depth of research that was quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker s.e.x was any thing but high; nearly, indeed, identical with that formed by the learned lady who, to the question, "Did she think the virtue of any single one of her sisterhood impregnable?" replied "_C'est selon_." He often used to astonish my weak mind by his observations on this head. I did not know till afterward that Sir Henry Fallowfield, the Ba.s.sompierre of his day, came for the Christmas pheasant-shooting every year into Guy's neighborhood, and that he had already imbibed lessons of questionable morality, sitting at the gouty feet of that evil Gamaliel.

He spoke of and to women of every cla.s.s readily whenever he got the chance, always with perfect _aplomb_ and self-possession; and I have heard older men remark since, that in him it did not appear the precocity of "the rising generation," but rather the confidence of one who knew his subject well. Perhaps the fact of his father having died when he was an infant, and his having always been suzerain among his women at home, may have had something to do with this. An absurd instance of what I have been saying happened just before Guy left.

By time-honored custom, four or five of the Sixth were invited every week to dine with the head master. They were not, strictly speaking, convivial, those solemn banquets; where the host was condescendingly affable, and his guests cheerful, as it were, under protest; resembling somewhat the entertainments in the captain's cabin, where the chief is unpopular.

Our Archididascalus was a kind-hearted, honest man, albeit, by virtue of his office, somewhat strict and stern. You could read the _Categories_ in the wrinkles of his colorless face, and contested pa.s.sages of Thucydides in the crows'-feet round his eyes. The everlasting grind at the educational tread-mill had worn away all he might once have had of imagination; he translated with precisely the same intonations the Tusculan _Disputations_ and--_Eros anikate machan._

He had lately taken to himself a wife, his junior by a score of years.

The academic atmosphere had not had time then to freeze her into the dignity befitting her position; when I met her ten years later, she was steady and staid enough, poor thing, to have been the wife of Grotius.

Guy sat next to her that evening, and before the first course was over a decided flirtation was established. The pretty hostess, albeit wife of a doctor and daughter of a dean, had evidently a strong coquettish element in her composition, and a very slight spark was sufficient to relight the _veteris vestigia flammae._

For some time her husband did not seem to realize the position; but gradually his sentences grew rare and curt; he opened his mouth, no longer to let fall the pearls of his wisdom, but to stop it with savory meat; finally this last resource failed, and he sat, looking wrathfully but helplessly on the proceedings at the other end of the table--a lamentable instance of prostrated ecclesiastical dignity. His disgust, however, was far exceeded by the horror of one of the party, a meek, cadaverous-looking boy, whose parents lived in the town, and who was wont to regard the head master as the vicegerent of all powers, civil and sacerdotal--I am not sure he did not include military as well. I caught him looking several times at the door and the ceiling with a pale, guilty face, as if he expected some immediate visitation to punish the sacrilege. However, heaven, which did not interrupt the feast of Atreus or of Tereus (till the dessert), allowed us to finish our dinner in peace. During the interval when we sat alone over his claret, our host revived a little; but utterly relapsed in the drawing-room, where things went on worse than ever. Guy leaned over the fair Penelope (such was her cla.s.sical and not inappropriate name) while she was singing, and over her sofa afterward, evidently considering himself her legitimate proprietor for the time, and regarding the husband, as he hovered round them, in the light of an unauthorized intruder. The latter would have given any thing, once or twice, to have interfered, I am sure; but, apart from, the extreme ridicule of the thing, he was in his own house, and as hospitable as Saladin.

It was a great scene, when, at parting, she gave Guy the camellia that she wore at her breast; the doctor gasped thrice convulsively and said no word; but I wonder how she accounted afterward for the smile and blush which answered some whispered thanks? There are certain limits that even the historian dares not transgress; a veil falls between the profane and the thalamus of an LL.D.; but I rather imagine she had a hard time of it that night, the poor little woman! Let us hope, in charity, that she held her own.

When the Count was questioned as to the conversation that had pa.s.sed, he declined to give any particulars, merely remarking that "he had to thank Dr. ---- for for a very pleasant evening, and he hoped everyone had enjoyed themselves very much"--which was philanthropic, to say the least of it.

I don't know if it was our imagination, but we fancied that when the head master called up Livingstone in form after this, he did so with an air of grave defiance, such as a duelist of the Old Regime may have worn when, doffing his plumed hat, he said to his adversary, "_En garde!_"

There was little time to make observations, for shortly afterward Guy went up to Oxford, whither, six months later, I followed him.