Chapter 4

SCENE. _The same, but the wall of sand-bags_ _bags is broken in many places. The dead lie half-buried beneath them._ CECIL _lies, badly wounded, against a gap in the wall, his rifle by his side._ HONOUR _and_ DUTY _kneel beside him tenderly. The last rays of the sun light up his painful smile._ THIRST _stands gloomily over him, and the wild flowers are peeping at him with sleepy eyes through the gap, while_ MOTHER EARTH _calls to them to go to bed._ FATHER SUN _leans sadly over the broken parapet._

CECIL (_slowly and with difficulty_). Honour, Duty, I thank you. You did not fail me.

HONOUR. You played the man, Cecil, as your father did before you.

DUTY. Your example it was that steadied your comrades, and kept craven fear at a distance. You saved the trench.

HONOUR. This is the beauty of manhood, to die for a good cause. There is no fairer thing in all God's world.

CECIL. I thank you. Good-night, Sun; good-night, Mother Earth. Think kindly of me. I don't think I was mad after all.

SUN. Good-night, brave lad. (_To_ MOTHER EARTH) I can hardly bear to look on so sad a sight.

CECIL. Good-night, Ragged Robins; good-night, Poppies. You have played your game, and I mine. Only they are different because we are different.

CHORUS OF FLOWERS. Good-night, dear Cecil. We are so very sorry that you are hurt.

(_Enter the_ MASTER, _flowers shyly following him._ HONOUR _and_ DUTY _raise_ CECIL _gently to a standing position._)

THE MASTER (_extending his arms with a loving smile_). "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

(CECIL, _with a look of wonder and joy, is borne forward._)

(_Curtain._)

XV

MY HOME AND SCHOOL[3]

A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I

MY HOME

What is one to say of home? It is difficult to know. I find that biographers are particular about the date of birth, the exact address of the babe, the social position and ancestry of the parent. I suppose that it is all that they can learn. But as an autobiographer I want to do something better; to give a picture of the home where, as I can now see, ideals, tastes, prejudices and habits were formed which have persisted through all the internal revolutions that have since upheaved my being.

[Footnote 3: "A Student" left a great deal of manuscript, among which this fragment of autobiography is not the least interesting.]

I try to form the picture in my mind, and a crowd of detail rushes in which completely destroys its simplicity and harmony. How hard it is to judge, even at this distance, what are the salient features. I must try, but I know that from the point of view of psychological development I may easily miss out the very factors which were really most important.

I remember a big house, in a row of other big houses, in a side street leading from the East Cliff at Brighton right up to the edge of the bare rolling downs. It was exactly like almost every other house in that part of Brighton--stucco fronted, with four stories and a basement, three windows in front on each of the upper stories, and two windows and a door on the ground floor and basement. At the back was a small garden, with flower beds surrounding a square of gravel, and a tricycle house in one corner. There was a back door in this garden, which gave on to a street of cottages. This back door was a point of strategic importance.

But I need not describe the house in detail. It was exactly like thousands of other houses built in the beginning of the nineteenth century. High, respectable, ugly and rather inconvenient, with many stairs, two or three big rooms, a lot of small ones and no bathroom. It was essentially a family house, intended for people of moderate means and large families. Nowadays they build houses which are prettier, and have bathrooms; but they are not meant for large families.

We were a large family, and a fairly noisy one. Moreover, we were singularly self-sufficing. We hadn't many friends, we didn't entertain much, we had dinner in the middle of the day, and supper in the evening.

There was my father who was a recluse, my mother who was essentially our mother, the two girls and four boys. I was an afterthought, being seven years younger than my next brother, who for seven years had been called B. (for baby), and couldn't escape from it even after my appearance.

In addition to these, B. and I both had inseparable friends, who lived within a stone's throw. Ronnie was my _alter ego_ till I was fourteen: so much so that I had no other friend. Even now, though our ways have kept us apart, and our interests and opinions are fundamentally different, we can sit in each other's rooms with perfect content. We know too much of each other for it to be possible to pretend to be what we are not. We sit and are ourselves, naked and unashamed so to speak, and it is very restful.

Pictures float before my mind. Let me select a few. I see a rather fat, stolid little boy in a big airy nursery at the top of the house, sitting in the middle of the floor playing with bricks. Outside it is gusty and wet, and the small boy hopes that he will be allowed to stay in all the afternoon, and play with bricks. But that is not to be. A small thin man, with gentle grey eyes, short curly beard, an old black greatcoat and a black square felt hat, comes in. The child must have some air. The child is resentful, but resigned, is wrapped up well, put in his pram and wheeled up and down the Madeira Road.

"Pa" didn't appear very much except on some such errand; but "Ma" was in and out all the time. "Ma" was everything, the only woman who has ever had my whole love, my whole trust and has made my heart ache with the desire to show my love.

A later picture. The boy is bigger, and not so fat. He no longer has a nurse. He has vacated the nursery, which is now tenanted by his big sisters. He has a little room all his own: a very small room, looking west. The south-west gales beat upon the window in the winter, and not so far away is the roar of the sea. It is good to curl up in a nice warm little bed, and listen to the howling of the wind and the waves.

In the morning come lessons from his eldest sister G. The schoolroom has rings and a trapeze, a bookshelf full of boys' books, and cupboards full of stone bricks, cannon and soldiers. The boy's mind is set on bricks and soldiers. Lessons and walks with "Ma" and his sisters or Ronnie and his nurse down the town are a nuisance. They interfere with the building of cathedrals and the settling of the destinies of nations by the arbitrament of war.

It was a stolid, placid boy, intensely wrapt up in his cathedrals and his generals, intensely devoted to "Ma," and regarding all else as rather a nuisance. Ronnie he liked. He liked going to tea with him, and going walks with him and his nurse; but they didn't have much in common except cricket. Ronnie had big soldiers which could not be knocked down by cannon balls, and which couldn't make history because they were few in number, and nearly all English. Mine were of every European power, and many Asiatic ones. They were diminutive and numerous, could take shelter in a forest of pine cones and were admirably suited to be mown down at the cannon's mouth. The King of England was a person with a fine figure. He had one leg and one arm, and the plume of his dragoon's helmet was shorn off; but his slight, erect figure still looked noble on a stately white palfrey. The French armies were usually commanded by Marshal Petit, a gay fellow with his full complement of limbs, who sat a horse well. He had a younger brother almost equally distinguished. I have no recollection of a King of France. He must have been a poor fellow. The Sultan of Turkey, the Khedive, and Li Hung Chang still live in my memory as persons of distinction; but I have no personal recollection of the Tsar, or the Emperors of Germany or Austria, or of the King of Italy, though I know they existed.

Into this placid existence turmoil would enter three times a year. The elder brothers, Hugh, Tommy and B., would come home for the holidays from Sandhurst and Rugby, and R. would appear, and become almost one of the family. Then would occur troublous times, with a few advantages and many disadvantages.

"Tommy" was a curiously solitary youth as I remember him, who played the 'cello with great perseverance and considerable success. At soldiers he was something of a genius, though his games were of an intricacy which failed to commend itself to me altogether. In his great soldier days he not only made history, but wrote it--a height to which I never attained.

In the holidays, cricket in the back garden became a great feature, and Tommy was a demon bowler. I fancy, too, that the very elaborate but highly satisfactory form of the game must have originated with him. In the back garden we not merely played cricket, but made history--cricket history. Two county sides were written out, and we batted alternately for the various cricketers, doing our best to imitate their styles. We bowled also in a rough imitation of the styles of the county bowlers whom we represented. This arrangement secured us against personal rivalry, kept up a tremendous interest in first-class cricket and enabled matches to continue, if necessary, for weeks at a time. It encouraged, too, a fair, impersonal and unprejudiced view of outside events.

In cricket, war and music we undoubtedly benefited by the holidays, especially in the summer, when we used to go to the country, often occupying a school-house with gym, cricket nets and a fair-sized garden. Ecclesiastical architecture suffered, however....

Hugh was a great and glorious person, a towering beneficent despot when he did appear.... As for me I adored him with whole-hearted hero-worship. He was the "protector of the poor," who kept the rest of us in order. He was a magnificent person who revolutionized the art of war by the introduction of explosives. He was a tremendous walker, and first taught me to love great tramps over the downs, to sniff appreciatively the glorious air and to love their bare, storm-swept outlines. Hugh stood for all that is wholesome, strenuous, out of doors in my life. Without him I should have been a mere sedentary. Among other things he was an enthusiastic boxer and gymnast. For these pursuits I sturdily feigned enthusiasm and suppressed timidity.

A few more pictures. First, Sunday morning. Gertrude goes off to Sunday School. She likes teaching and bossing. Hilda and Hugh, who are greater pals than brother and sister can often be, go off to St. James', where there will be good music and an interesting sermon. Tommy goes to St. Mark's, a good Protestant place, or to the beach, where curious and recondite doctrines are weekly disputed. B. goes to St. George's, protesting. There is plenty of room for his hat, there is a congenially aggressive spirit against Rome and it slightly irritates Ma. Pa is not up yet. Ma and I go to All Souls', because it is the nearest poor church, and Ma finds it easier to worship where there are no pew rents, and the seats are uncushioned, and there are few rich people. I am ever loyal to Ma.

I often wonder whether the reason why my family are all Churchgoers now is not that at that time we could choose our church.

The next picture is Sunday night. "Pa" and I, and perhaps some of the other boys, set out for St. Paul's, at the other end of the town. Then, after the service, follows an immense walk all through the slums of the town. We talk of Australia, where Pa once had a sheep run; of theology, of the past and the future. This weekly walk is something of a privilege, and rather solemn. It makes me feel older.

It is spring. I am at Rugby, and in the "San" with ophthalmia. The South African war is raging. Hugh is there. I am told that Hugh is dead. He has been shot in a glorious but futile charge at Paardeberg. I can't realize it. I am an object of interest, of envy almost, to the whole school. The flag is half-mast because my brother is dead. Every one is kind, touched. I put on an air as of a martyr.

I get a heartbroken letter from my mother. Will I come home? Or hadn't I better go to Uncle Jack's? If I go home we shall make each other worse. It is better for me than for Maurice, who is with the fleet in the Mediterranean with no one to comfort him.

Ma has had a great shock. She feels it desperately. She thinks all the others feel it as much. Except Hilda, we don't. There is a huge piece taken out of Ma's life and Hilda's life, because they were so unselfishly devoted to Hugh. Pa, also, has lost much, but he is a philosopher.

I go to Uncle Jack's and shoot rabbits. The holidays come and go. Tommy is at Oxford; I am at Rugby. Pa is immersed in theological speculation about the next world; B. is in the Mediterranean. Ma sends Gertrude and Hilda away for a long change. They go, and come back. Something about Ma frightens them. She and Pa come near Rugby and stay with Uncle Jack. The holidays come. I learn that for the first time for about twenty years Ma is to go away without Pa. I am to meet her at Hereford, and we are to go to Wales. Ma forgets things. She is more loving than ever, but her memory is going. We go to communion together in the little village church.

A few weeks later. We are back in Brighton. An Australian uncle and family are staying with us. Ma is ill in bed. I get up at 6 A.M., tramp over the downs and in a place I wot of, some five miles away, I gather heather for Ma. I run. I get back by 8.30. I find my uncle and cousins getting into a cab. Some one says, "How lovely! Are these for me?" I grip them in despair. They are for Ma. "Quite right," says someone. A day or two later my heather was placed, still blooming, on Ma's grave.

I was sixteen then. Six years later I return home from abroad. Within a few weeks of my return I am sitting in Pa's room in agony, listening to him fight for breath. The fight at last weakens. I hear him whisper, "Help! help!" I set my teeth. The others come in. There is silence. All is over. I am given my father's ring. It is my most treasured possession.

Henceforth all I have left of home is Hilda, for she alone is unmarried. Ever since my mother's death she has been my confidante. As far as was possible she has taken Ma's place in my life, and I have taken Hugh's place in hers. We are substitutes. For that reason as we get older we get to know each other better, and to know better how much we can give to each other. There is more criticism between us than there would have been between Ma and me, and Hilda and Hugh. But it has its advantages. We live apart, but we correspond weekly, and holiday together. It is all that is left of home, and it is infinitely precious.

Now that I have written these pages I can see as I have never seen before how much the child was father of the man. Since those home days I have had more variety of experience perhaps than falls to the lot of most men, and I would almost say more varied and more epoch-making friendships. Yet in these pages that I have written I seem to see all the essential and salient features of my character already mirrored and formed.

I am still by nature lethargic and placid. I could still occupy myself contentedly With bricks and soldiers, art and history, and trouble no one. But there is still that other element, instilled by Hugh--a love of the open air, of struggle with the elements, in lonely desert places.

I have never lost the craving for true religion, which induced my mother to go to a poor church to worship, and to visit the drunken and helpless in their slums. I have never lost the desire for her singleness of mind, and simple loyalty to Christ and His Church. At the same time I have never lost my father's inquiring spirit, broad view, love of doctrine tempered by reason and founded on history and tested by human experience. When these two beloved ones passed from this world I learnt the meaning of the text, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." My heart has never been wholly in this world.

So, too, I have always been a man of few friends. Ronnie has had many successors; but seldom more than one at a time. I have never cared much for society. My father and mother neither of them attached much importance to conventions, or to the fictitious values which society puts on clothes or money or position. I have always looked rather for some one to admire, some one whose ideals and personality were congenial, whatever their position or occupation. I have also, on the whole, always preferred comfort to show, simple to elaborate living. This I trace to the simple comfort and naturalness of my old home.

II

SCHOOL

I went to a day school kept by Ronnie's father when I was nine. At least, it was a day school for me; but nearly all the boys were boarders. I worked fairly hard, and got prizes. I was fairly good at cricket, and not much good at football. I had only one friend--Ronnie--and about two enemies, both of whom were day boys, and whom I should have liked to have fought if I had dared. My memories of the school are few. I best remember leaving home, and going back, and also playing cricket. Ronnie's father lives as a just and straightforward gentleman, who never caned a boy except for what was mean or dirty, and whom we all loved and respected. But then I have known and loved him and his wife all my life. If our house was a second home to Ronnie, theirs has always been a second home to me.

There was one master whom I liked, and who perhaps did something to develop my character. He was fond of poetry and history, and from him I learnt--an easy lesson for me--to love history; but what is more, he first gave me a glimmering idea, which was to develop long after, that the classics are literature, and not torture.

I left there to go to Rugby.

Never did a boy enter Rugby with better chances. The memory of my three brothers still lived in the house. They had all achieved distinction in games, and been leading prefects (or sixths as they are called at Rugby) in the house. Many masters remembered them for good, particularly Jacky, the housemaster, who had loved them all, especially Hugh.

In addition to this, one of the leading fellows in the house, who was afterwards to be captain of the school fifteen and cricket eleven, lieutenant in the corps, and one of the racquet pair, had been at my private school. I shared a study with another fellow who had been at my private school. Two boys accompanied me from there, one of whom was my next best friend to Ronnie. His parents were in India, and he had spent some of his holidays with Ronnie and me.

But though I loved Rugby and was happy there, I can't say I was a success. I made few friends, who have since, with one exception, drifted out of my life. I was too timid to enjoy Rugger. I never achieved distinction at cricket. I got into the sixth my last term, but hadn't the force of character to enjoy the prefectural powers which that fact conferred upon me. The fact is that I left when I was 16, and it is between 16 and 18 that the full enjoyment of school life comes and boys reap the harvest they have sown. Had I stayed another year I should have belonged to the leading generation, strengthened my friendships and developed what was latent in my character. As it was, I left at an unfortunate age. I was pushed into the sixth a year before my contemporaries. My friendships were only half formed, and I had only just begun to feel strength of body and mind developing in me.

As a junior I was too conscientious, and not light-hearted enough. I hardly had any adventures at Rugby, because I had an incurable instinct for keeping rules. I worked hard at mathematics and French, and my report generally read, "Good ability. Might exert himself more." At classics and chemistry I did as little work as possible, and any report generally read, "Hard-working but not bright."

On the whole I think I was pretty happy at Rugby; but I never look back to my school days as the happiest part of my life. I have had many happier times since. But still, my house was a good one. Jacky, the housemaster, was wonderfully kind and wise. He hardly ever interfered with the affairs of the house, but left it all--in appearance--to the "Sixths." Actually, nothing escaped him. The tone of the house was on the whole extraordinarily clean and wholesome, and the fellows who had dirty minds were a small minority, and easily avoided. At all events, very little of that sort of thing reached me.

At sixteen and a half I went to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, commonly known as "the Shop." There I spent the two most miserable years of my life, and made the second of my great friendships. In these days the Shop was still a pretty rough place, and at the moment it was unusually full. I think there were over 300 fellows there altogether, and there were about 70 in my term. My first experience was unfortunate. I was interviewing the Adjutant, a keen sportsman and a bit of a tartar. He eyed me unfavourably, asked what games I could play, and when I replied that I had no great proficiency in any he commented, "Humph, a good-for-nothing!" and dismissed me.

I am by nature slow, stolid and clumsy. I was bad at being "smart"; I was slow and clumsy at drill; map making and geometrical drawing were physical impossibilities to me; I was incredibly slow and stupid at machinery, mechanism and electricity. The only subject which interested me was military history. In my first term I dropped from about forty-fourth to about seventieth in my class, and I kept near the bottom until my fourth term, when I failed in my electricity exam., and had to stay one term more. In the same term I received a prize for the best essay on the lessons of the South African War.

Oh, the misery of those terms at Woolwich! I hated the work, the drill, the gym and even the riding school. I hated the officers, and above all I hated the spirit of the place. As far as I remember, the one eternal topic of conversation and subject of "wit" was the sexual relation. Of course the boys had never been taught sensibly anything about it. Consequently the place was continually circulated with filthy books, pictures, stories, etc. When I went there I was extraordinarily innocent, and devoid of curiosity. I had been recently the more disposed to purity through the death of my mother. At Woolwich I remained extraordinarily innocent and uncurious, letting the poisonous stream flow continually by me, shrinking from its stench, and finding more and more relief in my own company. I must have been a very unpleasant person at that time.

One friend I had. He was a small, compact, keen, and capable little Rugbian named F----. He was like me in that he had recently lost his parents, and was interested in religion and philosophy in a boyish way. Unlike me he rather enjoyed Woolwich. He had a lot of friends, was keen on riding and on a good deal of the work, and generally speaking plunged into life, taking the rough with the smooth, and both in good part. Although we have drifted far apart in ideals and sympathies, and though misunderstanding has come in and destroyed our friendship, I shall never cease to be grateful for all that F---- did for me in those days. He routed me out when I was in the blues, laughed at me, cheered me up and made me look at life with new eyes. Moreover he did this, as I know, in defiance of the set with whom he was friendly, who despised me for a milksop, and were at no pains to conceal the fact. But for F----, my life at the Shop would have been intolerable.

Besides him, I had a few associates, boys with whom I naturally associated for the simple reason that they, too, were left out of the main current of the life of the place. But they were not particularly congenial. One or two were hard workers. One was a great slacker, and more timid, physically and morally, than even I. He was a boy with a fatal facility for doing useless things moderately well, especially in the musical line. He was even more frightened of gym and horses than I was, and unlike me was not ashamed to show it. If the Shop was purgatory to me, it must have been hell to him.

My happiest times were week-ends spent at home. I used to arrive on Saturday evening and leave on Sunday evening. About now I began to get to know my father much better, and to develop my theological bent under his advice. In my disillusionment as to my capacity for military life I began to wish I had chosen the clerical profession. I think my father had the shrewdness to see that failure in one profession was not necessarily the sign of a "call" in another direction. Anyway, he did not discourage me; but spoke of five years in the Army as the best training for a parson.

I remember avowing my intention of becoming a parson to one of my more friendly acquaintances at the Shop, and he replied that I wouldn't set the Thames on fire, because I had such a monotonous voice.

In spite of seeking relief from my uncongenial surroundings in religion and theology, I did not join myself to any one else. There was a so-called "Pi Squad," or Bible class, held weekly, but I only went once, and didn't like it. I was always peculiarly sensitive about priggishness in those who professed themselves to be religious openly, and generally thought I detected priggishness in any "Bible circle" or similar institution that I came across. I think my theology mainly consisted in speculations about the future state--I remember I emphatically declined to believe in hell--and my religion consisted mainly in fairly regular attendance at Matins and Communion.

Another effect of the intensity with which I hated my surroundings was that I read a lot of good novels--George Eliot, the Brontës, Scott, Dickens, Jane Austen, Thackeray, Besant, etc. A book which I read over and over again was Arthur Benson's _Hill of Trouble, and other Stories_. Those legends, with their imaginative setting, charm of language and beautiful religious ideas were more restful to my unquiet spirit than anything else I read.

The actual conditions of life at the Shop were pretty barbaric. The aim was to make it as much like barracks as possible. Each term was housed in a different side of the square of buildings which form the Academy, and the fourth term were spread among the houses of the other terms as corporals. My first term I shared a room with three other fellows. I think it was the ugliest room I have ever lived in, without exception. It had high whitewashed brick walls. In each corner was a bed which folded up against the wall in the day time, and was concealed by a square of print curtains. There were a deal table, four windsor chairs, a shelf with four basins, and a cupboard with four lockers. All the woodwork was painted khaki. The contrast with the little study at Rugby, with its diamond-paned window, its matchboard panelling surmounted by a paper of one's own choosing, its ledge for photos and ornaments ("bim ledge" so called), its eggshell blue cupboards, baize curtains and window box, was striking.

It used to be the custom to go to and from the bathroom attired in a sponge, in connexion with which an amusing incident once happened.

A cadet in his second year was on the bathroom landing, when he perceived that the mother and sisters of another cadet were coming upstairs. From sounds in the bathroom he realized that they would meet a naked corporal just as they reached the landing. The door of the bathroom opened outwards, and with admirable presence of mind he rushed back, and putting his back against the door and his feet against the wall, imprisoned the corporal. The corporal, in the approved Shop version of Billingsgate, began to blaspheme at the top of his voice, so when the ladies reached the top of the stairs they saw a vision of a cadet with his feet to the wall and his back to a door singing at the top of his voice to drown a Commotion within!

On another occasion in my second year, when I was sharing a room with one other fellow, I had a sister to tea. On arriving in my room I found that my stablemate had been playing hockey, and was at the moment in the bathroom, having thoughtlessly left all his clothes in the room--mostly on the floor.

On the last day of my first term the corporals and officers were all absent at a farewell dinner to the former, and we received information that the third term were going to raid our house, with a view to "toshing" us in a cold bath. We therefore prepared for action. Every receptacle which would hold water was taken to the upper landing, full. Then all the chairs in the house were roped together, and placed on the stairs as an obstacle. The defenders then took up their position at the windows and at the top of the stairs. In due course the enemy's forces arrived, and stormed the stairs, under a heavy fire of water. The obstacle was at length destroyed, and a solid phalanx of wet bodies swarmed up the stairs. We formed a similar phalanx and charged to meet them. I happened to be first, and much to my discomfiture the enemy's phalanx parted in the middle, and I was rapidly passed down the stairs--a prisoner! Fortunately at the bottom I found a relieving party from the next house, making a diversion on the enemy's rear. With great valour we dragged down a foe, and toshed him in the bath that had been made ready for us. "The tosher toshed!"

The next day we surveyed the damage. All the chairs and banisters were broken, the whitewash was rubbed off the bricks by wet shoulders and nearly all the basins were broken. That day was the day of Lord Roberts's half-yearly inspection!

There was not such another battle until my third term, when we were the aggressors. This time the damage was even greater, for the defenders let down tables across the stairs as an obstacle, and we battered our way through with scaffolding poles. There were some casualties that day, owing to an indiscriminate use of mop handles.

On the day of Lord Roberts's inspection we had to change from parade dress to gym dress, and it was during the change that Lord Roberts inspected our quarters. He went into one room and found a fellow just half-way through his change--with nothing at all on! The room was called to attention, and with great presence of mind the boy dashed into the bed curtains and stood to attention there, while Lord Roberts had an animated conversation with him!

There were jolly moments in the life at the Shop. On Saturdays, after dinner, the unfortunates who had not got away for the week-end used to have "stodges" after dinner. Having put away a substantial dinner, we changed into flannels, and used to crowd into some one's room, and eat muffins and smoke cigars. I remember one night there were eighteen of us in one small room.

In order to go away for a week-end one had to obtain (1) an invitation, (2) permission from parent or guardian to accept the invitation. One week my brother, who was working at the Admiralty, offered his flat to myself and F----, as he was going to Brighton himself. Fleming wrote to his guardian--a Scotsman--for permission to stay with Captain Hankey. The guardian wrote back for more information. He saw by the Army List that Captain Hankey existed, but who were the Hankeys? etc., etc. F---- wrote back a furious letter, saying that he expected to have his friends accepted without question, and received the permission. We went. The awkward thing was that Captain Hankey was not there, and we shuddered to think of the rage of F----'s guardian if he should find out. Worse still, the guardian was supposed to be staying at the Oriental Club in Hanover Square, and my brother's flat was in Oxford Street! However, we didn't meet.

F---- and I neither of us knew London, and had the time of our lives. We dined at Frascati's--a palace of splendour in our eyes--and went to His Majesty's to see Beerbohm Tree in Ulysses. When it came to Hades, we held each other's hands! On Sunday we went to St. Peter's, Vere Street, but were so furious at being kept waiting for pew holders long after service had commenced, that we went on to the Audley Street Chapel, a most queer little place. It was full of monuments to the dependents of peers, in which the peers figured very largely and the dependents fared humbly--the epitome of flunkeydom. Among these tablets was one inscribed--

"To John Wilkes, Friend of Liberty."

Truly refreshing!

We finished the day at some old friends of mine, and voted the week-end a huge success.

When I went to Woolwich I was just on the verge of getting keen on games and beginning to feel self-confident, and to enjoy the fellowship of my comrades. Woolwich nipped this in the bud. I left with no self-confidence, having renounced games, and with a sense of solitariness among my comrades. I was a misanthrope, and the unhappiest sort of egotist--the kind that dislikes himself. To say the truth, too, I was then, and always have been, a bit of a funk, physically, which didn't make me happier. On the other hand, I was an omnivorous reader of everything which did not concern my profession, and a dabbler in military history.

I have sometimes thought that I was unconsciously a bit of a hero at Woolwich, standing out for purity and religion in an atmosphere of filth and blasphemy. I have come to the conclusion, however, that there was nothing in this. As to the general atmosphere, there is no doubt that it was singularly pernicious; even the officers and instructors contributed their quota of filthy jokes, and there was no religious instruction or influence at all except the parade service at the garrison church on Sunday, if one happened not to be on leave. But as to my heroism I am reluctantly compelled to be sceptical. I went as far as I felt my inclination, and stopped after a time because instinct was too strong the other way.

As I have said before, I have always had an insurmountable instinct for keeping rules. At school I could never bring myself to transgress, although I knew that transgression was the road to adventure. So at the Shop, however much I may have wished to be in the swim, my instinct for the moral and religious code of home was too strong for me. It required no self-control to prevent myself from slipping into blasphemy and filth. On the contrary, in order to do so I should have had to violate my strongest instincts, and exercised a will to evil much stronger than any will power that I possessed at that time. If, when I left Woolwich, I was comparatively pure, it was because nature did not allow me to be anything else.

To say the truth, I have never felt the sway of passions to anything like the same extent as most men seem to. I have never cared for the society of women for its sexual attraction. Consequently all my women friends have been just the same to me as my men friends--friends whom I could talk to about the things that interested me.

I don't boast of this, I only state the fact. I am not proud of it because I know that some passion is necessary to make heroes and even saints.

SOME NOTES ON THE FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY "HILDA"

I have before me as I write a pencil sketch, limned with considerable care, of a rather disagreeable looking young man, and beneath it is written--

"D.W.A.H., by Himself."

It is a profile. The eye has almost disappeared under the brow, the mouth is tightly closed to a degree that is quite unpleasant and there is a deliberate exaggeration of a slight defect he actually had--a tendency for the lower jaw to protrude a little. This little defect hardly any of his friends seem to have noticed, for most of them execrate it as a libel in the otherwise admittedly beautiful photograph at the beginning of this volume. The expression in the sketch is above all--dubious.

So did Donald see himself.

For the rest of us no doubt the lessons Mr. Haselden has for us in his caricatures, "ourselves as we see ourselves" and "as others see us," are necessary. But not for Donald. The drawing is pasted into an album which contains mainly Oxford College groups, and there is a certain unpleasant resemblance between it and his full face presentment in one of the groups--in which he has "the group expression" rather badly. Assuming it to have been drawn at Oxford, or not very long after he left, I think it must belong very nearly to a time when he was going off abroad on one of his long trips, and I had the sympathy of a dear old lady friend of ours on having to part with him. I remember replying, "Yes, it always seems as if peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety went with him when he goes!" She laughed a good deal, and then said, seriously, repeating over to herself the stately mounting sixteenth century phrases, "But it's quite true, you know!" I hardly think, though, that I should have said it of the young man in the sketch!

I am now going to make a comment or two on my brother's word-pictures as I should if he were by my side. But first I should like his readers to know and realize that both were written before the period of what I may call Donald's "Renaissance," a period that can be roughly marked by the publication of his first book, _The Lord of all Good Life_.

Up to then he had been struggling in vain for self-expression. How he had worked the amount of MSS. he has left alone proves--for we have it on a friend's testimony that "he tore up much of what he wrote"; and he also had experienced and suffered, violating his natural "timidity" and his in some ways, precarious health, for he had never got over certain weaknesses engendered by his illness in Mauritius--in his struggle to get a true basis for a solution of the meaning of life and of religion. What cost him most was the knowledge that he was frequently doubted and misunderstood by many of those whose approbation would have been very dear to him. This is proved by his constantly expressed gratitude to the one or two who never doubted him for one moment.

With the writing of this book, as we know, all his difficulties began to clear away, and at the same time he began to reap the harvest of love and admiration that he had sown in his toils to produce it. And the result was he opened out like a flower to the sun! No one can doubt this for a moment who has read his book of a year later, _The Student in Arms_, and rejoiced in the radiant happiness of its inspiration.

He had more than once said to me during the past two years, "You know it makes a _tremendous_ difference to me when people really _like_ me." No longer was it a case of "one friend at a time." The period for that was over and done with. He had come into his own. He was ready for a universal brotherhood, and no hand would ever be held out to him in vain.

It is impossible to believe that he does not now know of and appreciate all the beautiful tributes that have come to him since his "passing"--from the perfect wreath of immortelles weaved by Mr. Strachey to the sweet pansy of thought dropped by a little fellow V.A.D. of mine who said beautifully and courageously--though knowing him solely through his book--"We feel since he gave us his thought that he belongs a tiny bit to us, too," thus voicing the feeling of many.

I believe the paper entitled "My Home" to have been written at Oxford, and "School" not so very long after. In any case, I have definite proof of their both belonging to Donald's pre-"Renaissance" period, for the friendship with F----, that began at "the Shop" and went under a cloud for a time, was renewed with fresh vigour in 1914, and has burned brightly ever since. Only last July was I sent by him a letter of F----'s from the trenches, with the injunction, "Please put this among my treasures," and there is an allusion to a story told in this letter in the article entitled "Romance" of the present volume.

To return to "My Home," I question whether the love and devotion of "Hilda" and "Ma" for Hugh was so entirely unselfish. For my mother I fully believe, as for "Hilda," Hugh was the epitome of all that was fine, splendid and joyous in life. He was the glorious knight, the "preux chevalier" "sans peur et sans reproche," who rode forth at dawn with clean sword and shining armour, and all the world before him, yet keeping his heart for ever in his home. He was the child of her youth as Donald was the child of her maturity. Deep down in her wonderfully varied nature there were certain bottomless springs of courage, daring and enterprise which she herself had little chance of expressing and of which Hugh alone was the personification.

As long as I can remember Hugh had been my ideal and made all the interest and joy of life for me. Whether he were at home or abroad I never had a thought I did not share with him. When he died, the best part of me died too, or was paralysed rather, and Heaven knows what sort of a "substitute" I should have been for "Ma" to Donald, had not the baby Hugh come, just in time, with healing in his wings to restore life to the best part of me!

I am glad to think that Donald's "Autobiography" was written before 1914, for I know that even before that I was becoming more to him than a "substitute." I too have my memories and pictures!

It is May, 1915. I am in the country-house--cleaning is going on at home.

I get a letter to say that the Rifle Brigade may leave for France at any time, and that Donald _may_ get some "leave" on Saturday or Sunday.

I make a dash for town.

There I find a telegram of reckless and unconscionable length, running into two pages. He cannot come up--they may leave at any moment. It seems hardly worth while my bothering to come to Aldershot on the chance--he may be unable to leave barracks.

I write a return telegram--also of reckless and unconscionable length, and reply paid--it is a relief to do so--asking for a place of meeting at Aldershot to be suggested.

I get no answer at all, and on Sunday morning, in despair, I go over to see my aunt and cousin. My aunt is my mother's sister and a sportswoman. She counsels, "Go at all costs." Dorothy will come with me: Dorothy is Donald's best woman pal--she reminds him of his mother. She is all that is wholesome and comportable.

The element of enjoyment comes in, and I go home and pack a nice lunch.

We arrive at Aldershot.

There is no one on the platform to meet us, and we push our way through the turnstile.

There is Donald, on the outskirts of the waiting crowd--a tall, soldierly figure in the uniform of a private--for he has resigned his sergeant's stripes by now.

His face is very boyish--not the face of the photograph at the beginning of this book: that was taken after he had been to France, and had been wounded, and had written "A Passing in June," and "The Honour of the Brigade"--but a much younger face, really boyish.

He glances quickly and anxiously at every face that passes, and each time he is a little more disappointed--but he tries not to show it.

I am not tall and cannot catch his eye. It is like being at a play, watching him! All at once he sees me! Involuntarily a sudden quick spasm of joy passes across his face, absolutely transfiguring it.

He smooths it away quickly, for he is a Briton and does not like to show his feelings--but he has given himself away!

Dorothy and I shall never forget that look. And it was for _me_--at first he does not see Dorothy. When he does it is an added pleasure.

With _two_ ladies to escort he assumes a lordly air.

He had thought of everything. We would like some tea? Yes, all the big places are shut as it is Sunday, but he has marked down a little place on his way to the station.

It is a lovely day, and we are very happy!

The girl who waits upon us at the little tea place likes us, and so do the other Tommies and their friends who are having tea there.

We sit at little tables, but at very close quarters with each other, and we smile at them and they at us.

I have brought Donald some letters, which pleases him, and Dorothy has brought him some splendid socks, knitted by herself.

After tea we walk across an arid plain to a little wood, and sit down under the trees.

Donald changes to the new socks--those he had on were wringing wet!

He picks us little bunches of violets, hyacinths and wild strawberry flowers--we have them still.

We are very happy the whole of the day, and have my sandwiches and cake and fruit for supper, there under the trees. And here in thought let me leave "The Student in Arms," who was to me part son, best pal, brother, comrade, and counsellor on all subjects--and more than a little bit of grandpapa!

He could be so many different things because, as another friend and cousin said, "he seemed to know everything about everybody."

I like to think of those two fine spirits--Hugh and Donald--each with a hand to the tiny baby nephew, and a word of greeting for me when I go over the top.

THE END