Part 10

To-morrow we go away to Aldershot for the annual camp; another school year is over and I now have two years to look back over. I don't know that my experience has taught me much yet, except a distrust of the old men. I still love boys as much as ever, though not in the mass. I hate them at school lectures when they cough in order to make a nervous lecturer break down, or when they express mock approval by prolonged ironic laughter and stamping of feet. I hate them most of all when they choose to "rag" an unfortunate master who can't keep order in hall or at "roll." I always funk taking both these ceremonies, though I have never had any trouble except in my dreams. If I did I suppose I should half-kill the boy nearest to me and let out with my fists all round.

I like boys best singly in my rooms. Chichester makes up to me for lack of wife or sister or brother. I am never happy when he is out of my sight. He has shown up a prodigious quantity of good verse and some short stories, all of which I store away in the hope that some day I shall have collected enough to publish.

I've got a new idea in English composition with the lower forms. I take in a copy of a really good picture and get them to describe it: as a model for this I read Pater's description of the "Mona Lisa" with a copy staring them in the face as I read. I don't know where I got this idea from, but I find that it brings out a good deal of latent talent from boys who can never express themselves on paper in normal circumstances.

I wish it could be possible to have school without the first and last days of term: they are never-ending. At the beginning one misses all the comforts of civilization and mourns the absence of all society: at the end, after a strenuous turmoil of thirteen weeks there is nothing whatever left to do. Marks are all added up, examination papers corrected, reports written, prize sheets made, clothes packed. Boys besiege one's rooms with requests for photographs, and with a catch in the throat say good-bye. They are going into the firm, going up to the University, going abroad--going to the ends of the earth on their different missions, and Radchester will know them no more. Their office another will take and one gasps at the handful that will be left to carry on the glorious traditions of the House and school. The last day is pitiable.

Most masters are unfeignedly glad to get away. I never am. I sometimes chafe about the eighth or ninth week, but by the thirteenth I have become so used to the life that I hate the thought of any change. I have learnt to do without civilization. I just want my boys by my side always: I want to go on teaching English. I don't mind a holiday from mathematics. I wish I could find the soul of algebra and geometry. It's hard to make a moral lesson out of a circle. I am not Sir Thomas Browne. I shall miss my daily bickerings with Jimmy Haye and Montagu in hall. I shall miss the cricket and the bathing; above all, I shall miss Chichester and the rug. Luckily he is coming to camp this year. Camp lets one down gently. Gradually the longing for society steals over one again and the strenuous ten days' soldiering makes one pine for clean sheets and mufti, ordinary hours and meals at a table, but while it lasts it's just one great picnic.

VIII

_August 10, 1911_

It's been a good camp in every way. I was battalion scout most of the time and had the extraordinary luck to outwit a whole section of Cameronians (regulars) in one field-day while I was investigating behind the enemy's lines. What an ideal country for fighting this is, with all the pine-trees and the long stretch of Laffan's Plain and Cæsar's Camp. I wish that Radchester could be burnt down and rebuilt somewhere on these Surrey hills. Every evening I used to tramp over to the Aldershot baths from Farnborough, tired as I was, and then back to join the riotous "sing-songs." I find that one gets through a good deal of money at the canteens. I always want to eat like a pig and drink like a fish at the finish of each day's manœuvres. I have never been so bronzed as I am this year: my face is almost black with the sun and the dust. We had some excellent fights during the ten days, not always as on the programme. We had a first-class row with the Melton corps. They "swank" as if they owned the whole camp, so we let all their tents down one night. There was a battle royal and an inquiry the next day, when about eight Generals all gave tongue and talked about the honour of the Army. You can't suddenly pretend that a schoolboy ceases to be a schoolboy because you dress him up in khaki. He will have his "rags," whatever Guardsmen say.

There was, too, the usual smoking row. As a matter of fact, the great majority of fellows don't smoke in camp: they can afford to wait till the holidays begin. It is an education in itself to meet all the people from the other schools, to see how those with the great names take it for granted that they are cock-of-the-walk and "hold up" the canteens, while members of less well-known schools have to wait.

As a matter of fact, the officers' mess is the place to learn things. I dined there one night as a guest. I had no idea that Oxford and Cambridge were, or could be responsible for, such bounders as I met on that one evening. Good-hearted fellows for the most part, but it was ludicrous to see them in the same mess with these _pukka_ officers of the Grenadiers and Coldstreams. They are keen on their job, too, but without the ghost of an idea how to behave, or how to speak the King's English. They are indescribably funny to watch as they sidle up to the Colonels and Generals and try to adopt a sort of Army attitude to life. There are heaps of men here whom I used to know at Oxford; most of them, however, are in the regulars and not O.T.C. men at all.

One of the "stunts" is for the boys to get the General or some big "nut" to go to tea in their tents. They provide a palatial meal and the wretched old man has to gorge himself nearly sick in order to please these fifteen-year-olds, who would be tremendously upset if he didn't eat all that was offered to him. But the man we all stand in dread of is the Brigade Sergeant-Major, who has a voice of thunder, and puts the fear of God into every one who comes near him, officer and man alike. He seems to be a walking encyclopædia; there is nothing he doesn't know and he requires absolute perfection every time. I must say ten days of this life make our puny efforts at school to be smart look pretty cheap. Here we really get the hang of things: at school somehow we nearly always fail. It's partly competition and the ever-present fact that we have a reputation to keep up.

_August 15, 1911_

I have just had four days in town as an aftermath. The comparison between London and camp is extraordinary. I'd no idea my love for London was so deep-rooted. There hangs over London an ever-present air of success, of money-making and money-spending. The shops tempt you, the hotels tempt you, the theatres tempt you, everything tempts you. I fed well and met all sorts of interesting people, among them Chichester. He lives at Hampton Court and I had one great afternoon on the river with his sisters, himself and his mother. They appear to be very wealthy and at dinner, to which I stayed, there was such a variety of wines that I got nervous as to which wine to put in which glass. I believe I got them all wrong, except the liqueurs, but I don't think they noticed. How Chichester can bear the bleak savagery of Radchester after the rich comforts of his own home, I can't conceive.

Some day I am to go back and stay with him. He appears to spend his holidays boating, motoring, riding, playing billiards, going to theatres, reading and writing. I never met people who put one so quickly at one's ease. Although they are rich they don't seem to worry about Society: they do none of the _right_ things, for which Heaven be praised. They just enjoy life to the full and take each blessing as it comes. They have less of the snob in them than any people I have ever met. They appear to be unduly grateful to me for what I have done for Tony. My hat! The boot's on the other foot: what has Tony not done for me?

_August 23, 1911_

After a glorious week with my uncle in Dawlish, during which time I bathed and walked a good deal, I am back in town again. I love Devon: the coast scenery fills me with ecstatic delight and I thank God every minute that I am alive and strong to enjoy the good things of life.

I got into conversation with heaps of strangers of both sexes, and heard views of life that I am sure never enter the heads of my colleagues: when I am asked, as I frequently am, what I do in life, they always think I am lying when I say I am a schoolmaster, and laugh good-humouredly as if I had said something supremely funny when I mention that Oxford was once my University: apparently all young men claim to be "college boys": it's part of the game. Their whole conversation is one vast lie. But it does no one any harm and gives them a sense of romance: they get right away from the humdrum existence of the shop-counter and the office, and for a fortnight imagine themselves to be dukes and duchesses. But they miss half the joy that Devon provides by not scouring the country. Their programme is to rise late, dress with lavish care in the most glaring and tasteless colours, and slowly promenade up and down the Front. It is all very pretty and harmless and would delight the heart of O. Henry. They miss entirely the thousands of joyous little creeks with which the coast is studded: they never try to discover the secret charm of the moor. They prefer listening to the comic songs of the coons to the birds on the hillside, and the band on the Promenade to the rush of wind in the ears as one stands on the cliffs.

I wish I could write a novel. But I lack every faculty necessary for it. I can't observe properly: I can't describe the effect that scenery has on me. I am too nervous to probe into the inner history of sad-eyed women and dour-faced men. That they have their passionate loves and hates, of course I know, but these every man keeps in the secret places of the heart. Your Devonian is not the sort of man to wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at. I came back to London two nights ago, with my uncle, and he took me to several plays. When I am in town I'm never satisfied unless I can put in two theatres a day. I am just as excited at the rise of a curtain or the tuning up of the orchestra to-day as I used to be when I was a small kid. To be able to see in the flesh all these great actors, of whom we only hear dimly in our fastness of Radchester, is a delight not less than, if very different from, the sight of the red loam of Devon, or a great stag breaking from cover with the hounds close upon his heels.

_September 26, 1911_

I spent a week with the Chichesters at Hampton and had a joyful time in company with Tony. After leaving them I went home because my mother suddenly developed rheumatic fever and was seriously ill. I read aloud to her for about three hours every day from Ford Madox Hueffer's "Ladies Whose Bright Eyes" and W. L. Courtney's "In Search of Egeria."

I have heard from the Head Master that Anstruther is to have Marshall's house. Anstruther! Ye Gods! He is two terms junior to me. I hear that the Begum of Bhopal wants me to coach her son in Constantinople. That would be fun. Think of the experience! I wanted to clinch with the offer at once, but my mother made me promise not to. Heaven knows what it would have led to. I should have seen the world, met all the best people, and perhaps found a good job at the end of it.

IX

_October 13, 1911_

Back again at Radchester. As usual there are a few rows on. Two of the parson members of the staff are quarrelling because Tomson (the High Church one) will call the Communion "Eucharist," and will talk about the "Catholic" instead of the Protestant Church. Mathews on the other hand calls the altar the communion-table. A battle royal is in progress. I believe Tomson will have to go. This is a very Low Church school and any one who crosses himself or indulges in any ritualistic practices is looked upon as inclined to papistry.

It seems a strange thing to make such a fuss about. Both Mathews and Tomson are good, conscientious workers, and the school will be the poorer if either of them leaves. Another row concerns me. It is commonly thought by some members of my form that Chichester has been "sneaking" to me about their methods of work, a pretty laughable idea when one thinks how little Chichester cares about any one in the school, much less in his form. We never talk about school matters at all. We talk books and philosophy. Anyway, I have lately been boycotted by my form, by Montague and Haye and most of the school.

I'm reading Stevenson's and Meredith's Letters. I've got rather a passion for letter-writers. The Paston Letters, Dorothy Osborne's, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's, Horace Walpole's, Gray's, Lamb's and Cowper's all gave me lasting pleasure. One feels at last as if one really was beginning to see the inner workings of the minds of great geniuses when you close a volume of their intimate correspondence--but I prefer Stevenson's and Meredith's to all the others. They show such wonderful cheeriness in the face of adversity, such love for their friends and wives, such an interest in literature and in life. They are so splendidly natural and speak from the heart. We hear the very voice of the man we have learnt to love in public talking intimately in his own home.

We have just had an amazing masters' meeting in which the following motions were carried:

(i) Masters are forbidden to see more of one boy than another!

(ii) Masters are forbidden to have any boys in their room except for "turned" work.

(iii) Masters are forbidden to hear "turned" work in their rooms except between 9 and 1.

(iv) Lower School boys are not to be allowed in any House other than their own without a written leave from their House-masters.

(v) Boys must never be given the run of a master's rooms.

(vi) In future every one will stand all through the offertory in the Communion service.

There were heaps more, but these were the funniest. Anything more priceless than the solemn conclave of old dears passing these resolutions one by one, with here and there an amendment (always rejected without discussion) I never saw. If they think that all this tomfoolery will prevent me from seeing all I want to of Tony, they are mistaken. It wasn't altogether aimed at me. Apparently quite a number of the younger masters make friends with the boys. For the life of me I can't see why they shouldn't. Anyway these "rules" aren't going to make any difference to me. All through this ridiculous meeting I found myself repeating Edith Sichel's priceless aphorism: "There is nothing that cannot be imagined by people of no imagination." It ought to be inscribed over the mantelpiece of every Common Room.

_December 19, 1911_

We have had some good field-days lately, notably one where I was in command of a small force, which was told off to harass a large advancing troop by repeated ambushes. I nearly ran my people off their feet, but it was rare fun. We just appeared in the most unlikely places, forced the enemy to waste time by deploying, let them get quite close and then scattered and met again farther back along the line and repeated the manœuvre. The whole business was overwhelmingly successful for we delayed their advance until it ceased to be of any effect. I prefer this sort of tactical scheme to the usual one of merely putting out outposts or an advanced guard. The only way to interest boys in the Corps is to give them some one to fight against every time. I found this out when I started the night scouts. I have been allowed twenty minutes nightly in which to practise my specialist scouts in getting used to working in the dark. It was futile merely getting them accustomed to using their night eyes; unless we opposed one another and tried to track each other down, the whole business failed of its object.

As soon as we had sides they all became ten times more enthusiastic: both their sight and hearing became more acute: there were some titanic struggles and much good resulted from these tactics. It is an eerie business, searching on a pitch-black night inch by inch, over a ploughed field, for an enemy that you expect to pounce upon you from behind if he gets the chance. Of course Hallows and Co. did their best to prevent my having these boys out, on the ground that they would catch cold--and then that they might get into mischief. For once I carried my point and had my own way.

I notice that I'm leaving the school buildings far less frequently than I used to do when I first came here. I have very little temptation to go off to Scarborough for a "razzle" at the theatre or the Winter Gardens. About twice a term suffices now. I don't quite know why. Of course I'm reading much more and I sit up taking notes for books that I mean some day to write. I still refuse to play "bridge." I go to the "club" and sing, dance, eat and drink on rare occasions, but normally I don't go out of my rooms much at night.

I don't spend more time in Common Room than I can help. I just play my games, work out my schemes in form on the teaching of English and mathematics, write innumerable letters and try my hand occasionally on original topics for articles.

Of late the _Pioneer_ has taken several sporting sketches of mine, which has put a new heart in me.

_December 31, 1911_

Last term ended very quietly. I saw a great deal of Tony in spite of all the silly new regulations.

It was grand to be back in London again: I spent five days with the Chichesters at Hampton and we feasted right royally and went to two shows a day. On Christmas Eve I went down to see my father and mother, who were staying in Bath for the waters. After the riotous orgies at the Chichesters I thought I should find Bath boring. I arrived late at night and was struck by the lights twinkling from hills on every side. My people had got "digs" close under the shadow of the Abbey. I was glad to come to a place which had such a wonderful eighteenth-century flavour, and expected to find out many new truths about Jane Austen, Fielding, Sheridan, Doctor Johnson, Beau Nash and all the other celebrities, but no one in Bath seemed to take any notice of the past. The present was gay enough for them.

So many Army men retire to Bath with a progeny of daughters all of marriageable age, but possessed of no dowry, that they almost wait in a queue outside the station to fasten on to any strange young man who appears. It took me some time to fathom this. I found every one exceedingly kind and hospitable. I could wish I were a better dancer. These Assembly Room shows are glorious, but they make me abominably nervous. I feel all the time gauche and awkward in the presence of these resplendent youngsters: they can all dance superbly, and in the first place I am afraid that the cheapness of my clothes militates against me, and then that no girl could possibly really want to dance with me when she could secure one of these subalterns or rich young squires. All the same once I got into the swing of the thing it was all right. I always found some partners who fitted my steps exactly: I endured agonies with some tall and unresponsive creatures, who obviously were only giving me a "duty" dance, but with small girls like Ruth Harding I got on famously. To enjoy a dance to the full one ought to know one's partner intimately and dance with her for the entire night. At the last two dances I got Ruth to dance with me most of the evening, which apparently scandalized some of the clique which I am supposed to have joined. There can be no place in the British Isles where tongues wag so unceasingly as in Bath. It is like sitting through a scene in "The School for Scandal" to hear the modern Lady Sneerwell and Mrs. Candour chattering about faithless wives. Not one in a hundred of their stories could possibly be true, or else we are living in a most depraved age. It is the first time in my life that I've heard people openly discuss these things. I can't say that I like it. Ruth is a good little soul. She knows nothing about eighteenth-century history but is quite keen to learn. We have explored Prior Park and Castle Combe, and have searched every street in order to find out where all the greater celebrities lived in the great days. In some ways the place has not changed at all since the age of Jane Austen. At one of the Assembly Room dances I met exact replicas of Catherine Morland, Emma, and Mr. Collins. They almost employed the same phraseology. Quaintly enough, not one of them had ever read a word of Jane Austen.

My father and mother love the life here. We take my mother out in a Bath chair into the gardens and she gazes at all the smartly dressed passers-by. My father has got to know all the local clergy: sometimes he takes duty at one of the churches. We have a great number of callers and there is never a lack of anything to do. It is a welcome change from the dullness of our village at home. One of the joys of life here for me is beagling. I go out three times a week with the Wick or the Trowbridge Beagles. I doubt whether there are a finer set of people living than the average beaglers.

They are usually poor (they can't afford to ride), they are passionately addicted to open-air life and are hence sound in mind and limb. Although one feels at times after a heavy run as if one would drop dead from fatigue before one got home, yet the sense of exhaustion is soon ousted by a sense of wild exhilaration in the hunt, the scenery, the people you meet, and the physical fitness of your body. It is so splendid just to turn up at some country house and there, among the sherry and the sandwiches, get into conversation with some flapper or schoolboy or old colonel, all of whom are full of tales of past historic runs and anticipations of the day's sport.

One day we ran from Trowbridge right on to Salisbury Plain, and lost the hounds in the dark by Edington Church--and had to scour the lonely hills for them until eight o'clock. This was on a night when I had promised to take Ruth and two other girls to hear the D'Oyley Carte Company. I got to the theatre at a quarter to ten.

_January 19, 1912_

I spent most of my days with Ruth for the rest of the holidays, doing all the correct things, having tea _tête-à-tête_ at Fortt's, going to the theatre on Friday nights (the fashionable night in Bath), walking over Lansdown and down the Avon valley, beagling together (that was best of all: she is a superb athlete) and dancing together whenever possible. Her parents and mine have become firm friends and we are as thick as thieves. I am not in love with her, but she's about the best pal I ever had, which is saying a good deal.

I hear that Bath has been waiting anxiously to hear the announcement of our engagement. What a place! Why on earth can't a man have a girl friend without eternally being suspected of marriage? Ruth and I have never kissed or done anything except treat each other as bosom friends, which we certainly are and probably always shall be.

In spite of the insidious temptations of Bath, to crawl round looking at the shops all day, or to explore the highways and by-ways of Somerset, I have both read and written a good deal.