Glengarry Schooldays

R >> Ralph Connor >> Glengarry Schooldays


"Man alive! Thomas, he's mighty queer," Hughie explained to his friend.
"When he sits there with his feet on the stove smoking away and reading
something or other, and letting them all gabble like a lot of ducks,
it just makes me mad. But when he wakes up he puts the fear of death on
you, and when he reads he makes you shiver through and through. You know
that long rigmarole, 'Friends, Romans, countrymen'? I used to hate
it. Well, sir, he told us about it last Friday. You know, on Friday
afternoons we don't do any work, but just have songs and reading, and
that sort of thing. Well, sir, last Friday he told us about the big row
in Rome, and how Caesar was murdered, and then he read that thing to
us. By gimmini whack! it made me hot and cold. I could hardly keep from
yelling, and every one was white. And then he read that other thing, you
know, about Little Nell. Used to make me sick, but, my goodness alive!
do you know, before he got through the girls were wiping their eyes, and
I was almost as bad, and you could have heard a pin drop. He's mighty
queer, though, lazy as the mischief, and always smiling and smiling, and
yet you don't feel like smiling back."

"Do you like him?" asked Thomas, bluntly.

"Dunno. I'd like to, but he won't let you, somehow. Just smiles at you,
and you feel kind of small."

The reports about the master were conflicting and disquieting, and
although Hughie was himself doubtful, he stood up vehemently for him at
home.

"But, Hughie," protested the minister, discussing these reports, "I am
told that he actually smokes in school."

Hughie was silent.

"Answer me! Does he smoke in school hours?"

"Well," confessed Hughie, reluctantly, "he does sometimes, but only
after he gives us all our work to do."

"Smoke in school hours!" ejaculated Mrs. Murray, horrified.

"Well, what's the harm in that? Father smokes."

"But he doesn't smoke when he is preaching," said the mother.

"No, but he smokes right afterwards."

"But not in church."

"Well, perhaps not in church, but school's different. And anyway, he
makes them read better, and write better too," said Hughie, stoutly.

"Certainly," said his father, "he is a most remarkable man. A most
unusual man."

"What about your sums, Hughie?" asked his mother.

"Don't know. He doesn't bother much with that sort of thing, and I'm
just as glad."

"You ought really to speak to him about it," said Mrs. Murray, after
Hughie had left the room.

"Well, my dear," said the minister, smiling, "you heard what Hughie
said. It would be rather awkward for me to speak to him about smoking. I
think, perhaps, you had better do it."

"I am afraid," said his wife, with a slight laugh, "it would be just as
awkward for me. I wonder what those Friday afternoons of his mean," she
continued.

"I am sure I don't know, but everywhere throughout the section I hear
the children speak of them. We'll just drop in and see. I ought to visit
the school, you know, very soon."

And so they did. The master was surprised, and for a moment appeared
uncertain what to do. He offered to put the classes through their
regular lessons, but at once there was a noisy outcry against this on
the part of the school, which, however, was effectually and immediately
quelled by the quiet suggestion on the master's part that anything but
perfect order would be fatal to the programme. And upon the minister
requesting that the usual exercises proceed, the master smilingly
agreed.

"We make Friday afternoons," he said, "at once a kind of reward day for
good work during the week, and an opportunity for the cultivation of
some of the finer arts."

And certainly he was a master in this business. He had strong dramatic
instincts, and a remarkable power to stimulate and draw forth the
emotions.

When the programme of singing, recitations, and violin-playing was
finished, there were insistent calls on every side for "Mark Antony." It
appeared to be the 'piece de resistance' in the minds of the children.

"What does this mean?" inquired the minister, as the master stood
smiling at his pupils.

"Oh, they are demanding a little high tragedy," he said, "which I
sometimes give them. It assists in their reading lessons," he explained,
apologetically, and with that he gave them what Hughie called, "that
rigmarole beginning, 'Friends, Romans, countrymen,'" Mark Antony's
immortal oration.

"Well," said the minister, as they drove away from the school, "what do
you think of that, now?"

"Marvelous!" exclaimed his wife. "What dramatic power, what insight,
what interpretation!"

"You may say so," exclaimed her husband. "What an actor he would make!"

"Yes," said his wife, "or what a minister he would make! I understand,
now, his wonderful influence over Hughie, and I am afraid."

"O, he can't do Hughie any harm with things like that," replied her
husband, emphatically.

"No, but Hughie now and then repeats some of his sayings about--about
religion and religious convictions, that I don't like. And then he is
hanging about that Twentieth store altogether too much, and I fancied
I noticed something strange about him last Friday evening when he came
home so late."

"O, nonsense," said the minister. "His reputation has prejudiced you,
and that is not fair, and your imagination does the rest."

"Well, it is a great pity that he should not do something with himself,"
replied his wife. "There are great possibilities in that young man."

"He does not take himself seriously enough," said her husband. "That is
the chief trouble with him."

And this was apparently Jack Craven's opinion of himself, as is evident
from his letter to his college friend, Ned Maitland.


"Dear Ned:--

"For the last two months I have been seeking to adjust myself to my
surroundings, and find it no easy business. I have struck the land
of the Anakim, for the inhabitants are all of 'tremenjous' size, and
indeed, 'tremenjous' in all their ways, more particularly in their
religion. Religion is all over the place. You are liable to come upon a
boy anywhere perched on a fence corner with a New Testament in his hand,
and on Sunday the 'tremenjousness' of their religion is overwhelming.
Every other interest in life, as meat, drink, and dress, are purely
incidental to the main business of the day, which is the delivering,
hearing, and discussing of sermons.

"The padre, at whose house I am very happily quartered, is a
'tremenjous' preacher. He has visions, and gives them to me. He gives
me chills and thrills as well, and has discovered to me a conscience, a
portion of my anatomy that I had no suspicion of possessing.

"The congregation is like the preacher. They will sit for two hours,
and after a break of a few minutes they will sit again for two hours,
listening to sermons; and even the interval is somewhat evenly divided
between their bread and cheese in the churchyard and the discussion of
the sermon they have just listened to. They are great on theology. One
worthy old party tackled me on my views of the sermon we had just heard;
after a little preliminary sparring I went to my corner. I often wonder
in what continent I am.

"The school, a primitive little log affair, has much run to seed, but
offers opportunity for repose. I shall avoid any unnecessary excitement
in this connection.

"In private life the padre is really very decent. We have great smokes
together, and talks. On all subjects he has very decided opinions, and
in everything but religion, liberal views. I lure him into philosophic
discussions, and overwhelm him with my newest and biggest metaphysical
terms, which always reduce his enormous cocksureness to more reasonable
dimensions.

"The minister's wife is quite another proposition. She argues, too,
but unfortunately she asks questions, in the meekest way possible
acknowledging her ignorance of my big terms, and insisting upon
definitions and exact meanings, and then it's all over with me. How
she ever came to this far land, heaven knows, and none but heaven can
explain such waste. Having no kindred soul to talk with, I fancy she
enjoys conversation with myself, (sic) revels in music, is transported
to the fifth heaven by my performance on the violin, but evidently
pities me and regards me as dangerous. But, my dear Maitland, after
a somewhat wide and varied experience of fine ladies, I give you my
verdict that here among the Anakim, and in this wild, woody land, is
a lady fine and fair and saintly. She will bother me, I know. Her son
Hughie (he of the bear), of whom I told you, the lad with the face of
an angel and the temper of an angel, but of a different color--her son
Hughie she must make into a scholar. And no wonder, for already he has
attained a remarkable degree of excellence, by the grace, not of the
little log school, however, I venture to shy. His mother has been at
him. But now she feels that something more is needed, and for that
she turns to me. You will be able to see the humor of it, but not the
pathos. She wants to make a man out of her boy, 'a noble, pure-hearted
gentleman,' and this she lays upon me! Did I hear you laugh? Smile not,
it is the most tragic of pathos. Upon me, Jack Craven, the despair of
the professors, the terror of the watch, the--alas! you know only too
well. My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, and before I could cry,
'Heaven forbid that I should have a hand in the making of your boy!'
she accepted my pledge to do her desire for her young angel with the
OTHER-angelic temper.

"And now, my dear Ned, is it for my sins that I am thus pursued? What
is awaiting me I know not. What I shall do with the young cub I have
not the ghostliest shadow of an idea. Shall I begin by thrashing him
soundly? I have refrained so far; I hate the role of executioner. Or
shall I teach him boxing? The gloves are a great educator, and are at
times what the padre would call 'means of grace.'

"But what will become of me? Shall I become prematurely aged, or shall I
become a saint? Expect anything from your most devoted, but most sorely
bored and perplexed,

"J. C."



CHAPTER XII

THE DOWNFALL


In one point the master was a great disappointment to Hughie; he could
not be persuaded to play shinny. The usual challenge had come up from
the Front, with its more than usual insolence, and Hughie, who now
ranked himself among the big boys, felt the shame and humiliation to be
intolerable. By the most strenuous exertions he started the game
going with the first fall of snow, but it was difficult to work up
any enthusiasm for the game in the face of Foxy's very determined and
weighty opposition, backed by the master's lazy indifference. For,
in spite of Hughie's contempt and open sneers, Foxy had determined to
reopen his store with new and glowing attractions. He seemed to have a
larger command of capital than ever, and he added several very important
departments to his financial undertaking.

The rivalry between Hughie and Foxy had become acute, but besides this,
there was in Hughie's heart a pent-up fierceness and longing for revenge
that he could with difficulty control. And though he felt pretty certain
that in an encounter with Foxy he would come off second best, and though
in consequence he delayed that encounter as long as possible, he never
let Foxy suspect his fear of him, and waited with some anxiety for the
inevitable crisis.

Upon one thing Hughie was resolved, that the challenge from the Front
should be accepted, and that they should no longer bear the taunt of
cowardice, but should make a try, even though it meant certain defeat.

His first step had been the organization of the shinny club. His next
step was to awaken the interest of the master. But in vain he enlarged
upon the boastfulness and insolence of the Front; in vain he recounted
the achievements of their heroes of old, who in those brave days had won
victory and fame over all comers for their school and county; the master
would not be roused to anything more than a languid interest in the
game. And this was hardly to be wondered at, for shinny in the snow upon
the roadway in front of the school was none too exciting. But from
the day when the game was transferred to the mill-pond, one Saturday
afternoon when the North and South met in battle, the master's
indifference vanished, for it turned out that he was an enthusiastic
skater, and as Hughie said, "a whirlwind on the ice."

After that day shinny was played only upon the ice, and the master,
assuming the position of coach, instituted a more scientific style of
game, and worked out a system of combined play that made even small
boys dangerous opponents to boys twice their size and weight. Under his
guidance it was that the challenge to the Front was so worded as to
make the contest a game on ice, and to limit the number of the team to
eleven. Formerly the number had been somewhat indefinite, varying from
fifteen to twenty, and the style of play a general melee. Hughie was
made captain of the shinny team, and set himself, under the master's
direction, to perfect their combination and team play.

The master's unexpected interest in the shinny game was the first and
chief cause of Foxy's downfall as leader of the school, and if Hughie
had possessed his soul in patience he might have enjoyed the
spectacle of Foxy's overthrow without involving himself in the painful
consequences which his thirst for vengeance and his vehement desire to
accomplish Foxy's ruin brought upon him.

The story of the culmination of the rivalry between Hughie and Foxy is
preserved in John Craven's second letter to his friend Edward Maitland.
The letter also gives an account of the master's own undoing--an undoing
which bore fruit to the end of his life.


"Dear Ned:--

"I hasten to correct the false impression my previous letter must have
conveyed to you. It occurs to me that I suggested that this school
afforded unrivaled opportunities for repose. Further acquaintance
reveals to me the fact that it is the seething center of the most
nerve-racking excitement. The life of the school is reflected in the
life of the community, and the throbs of excitement that vibrate from
the school are felt in every home of the section. We are in the thick
of preparations for a deadly contest with the insolent, benighted,
boastful, but hitherto triumphant Front, in the matter of shinny. You
know my antipathy to violent sports, and you will find some difficulty
in picturing me an enthusiastic trainer and general director of the
Twentieth team, flying about, wildly gesticulating with a club, and
shrieking orders, imprecations, cautions, encouragements, in the most
frantic manner, at as furious a company of little devils as ever went
joyously to battle.

"Then, as if this were not excitement enough, I am made the unwitting
spectator of a truly Homeric contest, bloodier by far than many of those
fought on the plains of windy Troy, between the rival leaders of the
school, to wit, Hughie of the angelic face and OTHER-angelic temper, and
an older and much heavier boy, who rejoices in the cognomen of 'Foxy,'
as being accurately descriptive at once of the brilliance of his foliage
and of his financial tactics.

"It appears that for many months this rivalry has existed, but I
am convinced that there is more in the struggle than appears on the
surface. There is some dark and deadly mystery behind it all that only
adds, of course, to the thrilling interest it holds for me.

"Long before I arrived on the arena, which was an open space in the
woods in front of what Foxy calls his store, wild shrieks and yells fell
upon my ears, as if the aboriginal denizens of the forest had returned.
Quietly approaching, I soon guessed the nature of the excitement, and
being unwilling to interfere until I had thoroughly grasped the ethical
and other import of the situation, I shinned up a tree, and from this
point of vantage took in the spectacle. It appeared from Foxy's violent
accusations that Hughie had been guilty of wrecking the store, which,
by the way, the latter utterly despises and contemns. The following
interesting and striking conversation took place:

"'What are you doing in my store, anyway?' says he of the brilliant
foliage. 'You're just a thief, that's what you are, and a sneaking
thief.'

"Promptly the lie comes back. 'I wasn't touching your rotten stuff!' and
again the lie is exchanged.

"Immediately there is demand from the spectators that the matter be
argued to a demonstration, and thereupon one of the larger boys, wishing
to precipitate matters and to furnish a casus belli, puts a chip upon
Hughie's shoulder and dares Foxy to knock it off. But Hughie flings the
chip aside.

"'Go away with yourself and your chip. I'm not going to fight for any
chip.'

"Yells of derision, 'Cowardy, cowardy, custard,' 'Give him a good
cuffing, Foxy,' 'He's afraid,' and so forth. And indeed, Hughie appears
none too anxious to prove his innocence and integrity upon the big and
solid body of his antagonist.

"Foxy, much encouraged by the clamor of his friends, deploys in force in
front of his foe, shouting, 'Come on, you little thief!'

"'I'm not a thief! I didn't touch one of your things!'

"'Whether you touched my things or not, you're a thief, anyway, and you
know you are. You stole money, and I know it, and you know it yourself.'

"To this Hughie strangely enough makes no reply, wherein lies the
mystery. But though he makes no reply he faces up boldly to Foxy and
offers battle. This is evidently a surprise to Foxy, who contents
himself with threats as to what he can do with his one hand tied behind
his back, and what he will do in a minute, while Hughie waits, wasting
no strength upon words.

"Finally Foxy strides to his store door, and apparently urged to frenzy
by the sight of the wreckage therein, comes back and lands a sharp cuff
on his antagonist's ear.

"It is all that is needed. As if he had touched a spring, Hughie flew
at him wildly, inconsequently making a windmill of his arms. But
fortunately he runs foul of one of Foxy's big fists, and falls back
with spouting nose. Enthusiastic yells from Foxy's following. And Foxy,
having done much better than he expected, is encouraged to pursue his
advantage.

"Meantime the blood is being mopped off Hughie's face with a snowball,
his tears flowing equally with his blood.

"'Wait till to-morrow,' urges Fusie, his little French fidus Achates.

"'To-morrow!' yells Hughie, suddenly. 'No, but now! I'll kill the lying,
sneaking, white-faced beast now, or I'll die myself!' after which heroic
resolve he flings himself, blood and tears, upon the waiting Foxy, and
this time with better result, for Foxy, waiting the attack with arms up
and eyes shut, finds himself pummeled all over the face, and after a few
moments of ineffectual resistance, turns, and in quite the Homeric way
seeks safety in flight, followed by the furious and vengeful Achilles,
and the jeering shouts of the bloodthirsty but disappointed rabble.

"As I have said, the mystery behind it remains unsolved, but Foxy's
reign is at an end, and with him goes the store, for which I am devoutly
thankful.

"I would my tale ended here with the downfall of Foxy, but, my dear Ned,
I have to record a sadder and more humiliating downfall than that--the
abject and utter collapse of my noble self. I have once more played
the fool, and played into the hands of the devil, mine own familiar and
well-beloved devil.

"The occasion I need not enlarge upon; it always waits. A long day's
skate, a late supper with some of the wilder and more reckless outcasts
of this steady-going community that frequent the back store, results in
my appearing at the manse door late at night, very unsteady of leg and
incoherent of speech. By a most unhappy chance, a most scurvy trick
my familiar devil played upon me, the door is opened by the minister's
wife. I can see her look of fear, horror, and loathing yet. It did
more to pull me together than a cold bath, so that I saved myself the
humiliation of speech and escaped to my room.

"And now, what do you think? Reproaches, objurgations, and final
dismissal on the part of the padre, tearful exhortations to repentance
on the part of his wife? Not a bit. If you believe me, sir, my unhappy
misadventure remains a secret with her. She told not a soul. Remarkably
fine, I call that. And what more, think you? A cold and haughty reserve,
or a lofty pity, with the fearful expectation of judgment? Not in
the least. Only a little added kindness, a deeper note to the frank,
sympathetic interest she has always shown, and that is all. My dear
chap, I offered to leave, but when she looked at me with those great
hazel-brown eyes of hers and said, 'Why should you go? Would it be
better for you any place else?' I found myself enjoying the luxury of
an entirely new set of emotions, which I shall not analyze to you. But
I feel more confident than ever that I shall either die early or end in
being a saint.

"And now, do you know, she persists in ignoring that anything has taken
place, talks to me about her young men and her hopes for them, the work
she would do for them, and actually asks my assistance! It appears that
ever since their Great Revival, which is the beginning of days to them,
events being dated from before the Great Revival or after, some of
these young men have a desire to be ministers, or think they have. It is
really her desire, I suspect, for them. The difficulty is, preparation
for college. In this she asks my help. The enormous incongruity of
the situation does not appear to strike her, that I, the--too many
unutterable things--should be asked to prepare these young giants, with
their 'tremenjous' religious convictions, for the ministry; nevertheless
I yield myself to do anything and everything she lays upon me. I repeat,
I shall without doubt end in being a saint myself, and should not be
surprised to find myself with these 'tremenjous' young men on the way
to Holy Orders. Fancy the good Doctor's face! He would suspect a lurking
pleasantry in it all.

"This letter, I know, will render chaotic all your conceptions of me,
and in this chaos of mind I can heartily sympathize. What the next
chapter will be, God only knows! It depends upon how my familiar devil
behaves himself. Meantime, I am parleying with him, and with some
anxiety as to the result subscribe myself,

"Your friend,

"J. C."



CHAPTER XIII

THE FIRST ROUND


The challenge from the Front was for the best two out of three, the
first game to be played the last day of the year. Steadily, under
Craven's coaching, the Twentieth team were perfected in their systematic
play; for although Craven knew nothing of shinny, he had captained the
champion lacrosse team of the province of Quebec, and the same general
rules of defense and attack could be applied with equal success to the
game of shinny. The team was greatly strengthened by the accession of
Thomas Finch and Don Cameron, both of whom took up the school again with
a view to college. With Thomas in goal, Hughie said he felt as if a big
hole had been filled up behind him.

The master caused a few preliminary skirmishes with neighboring teams
to be played by way of practice, and by the time the end of the year had
come, he felt confident that the team would not disgrace their school.
His confidence was not ill-founded.

"We have covered ourselves with glory," he writes to his friend Ned
Maitland, "for we have whipped to a finish the arrogant and mighty
Front. I am more than ever convinced that I shall have to take a few
days off and get away to Montreal, or some other retired spot, to
recover from the excitement of the last week.

"Under my diligent coaching, in which, knowing nothing whatever of
shinny, I have striven to introduce something of the lacrosse method,
our team got into really decent fighting trim. Under the leadership of
their captain, who has succeeded in infusing his own fierce and furious
temper into his men, they played like little demons, from the drop of
the ball till the game was scored. 'Furious' is the word, for they and
their captain play with headlong fury, and that, I might say, is about
their only defect, for if they ever should run into a bigger team, who
had any semblance of head about them, and were not merely feet, they
would surely come to grief.

"I cannot stay to recount our victory. Let it suffice that we were
driven down in two big sleigh-loads by Thomas Finch, the back wall of
our defense, and Don Cameron, who plays in the right of the forward
line, both great, strapping fellows, who are to be eventually, I
believe, members of my preparatory class.

"The Front came forth, cheerful, big, confident, trusting in the might
of their legs. We are told that the Lord taketh no pleasure in the legs
of man, and this is true in the game of shinny. Not legs alone, but
heart and head win, with anything like equal chances.

"Game called, 2:30; Captain Hughie has the drop; seizes the ball, passes
it to Fusie, who rushes, passes back to Hughie, who has arrived in the
vicinity of the enemy's goal, and shoots, swift and straight, a goal.
Time, 30 seconds.