Boarding-school days

Front matter

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Contents

— oo CHAPTER I.

PAGE Fiy-LEAF PENCILINGS. —CoMRADES’ OUTLINES AND MINE Own, J . e ° . ° ° a — _ 1 CHAPTER II.

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Chapter I. Fly-leaf Pencilings. — Comrades’ Out— Lines And Mine Own

BETWEEN Squeers (who, though the creature of imagination, is said to be, in meanness and cruelty, the type of certain school-masters who once swayed the birch in Yorkshire) and Dr. Arnold there is an infinite distance ; yet, if the records of Smike’s sufferings are revolting, we cannot read the pages of Tom Brown’s school-days at Rugby without pain. If the pendulum of facts never swings beyond the extreme of Nicholas Nickleby’s experience in boarding-schools, the same pendulum, we may conclude, never passes the point of more fortunate boarding-school days than Tom Brown’s.

At the best, the régime we speak of is a severe and critical exposure of a boy’s welfare and happiness. Think of the vast power and influence in the hands of the school-master, one as prone to error as any man, yet sitting alone in judgment, and dispensing reward and punishment from the scales of Justice his own weak hands hold; think that, whilst corporal punishment is now forbidden even in the army and navy, and parents themselves hesitate to enforce it, the boarding-school principal, without trial or jury, cuts with his rattan through the young hands to the pliant characters, the tender hearts, and the delicate pride and self-respect of those forming for manhood beneath ~ his sway ; think of the estrangement from home, at this important period, of those to whom home influences should be so precious; think of the exposure to the diverse and dangerous examples of thirty, forty, or sixty other boys — with them day and night; think what the sensitive, and weakly in body or mind, suffer from the physical exposures, from homesickness, from the jeers, im- ‘positions, and cruelties of their comrades! True, that some escape harm from any of these evils, ‘but how many, how very many, are thereby injured in body or mind, spirit or pride, for all after-life ?

Boys are proverbially cruel. To their eyes — the eyes of a boarding-school community — the sin of sins is Innocence; wherefore, the new boy, unless he has already touched and tasted worldly pitch, is made the subject of practical jokes, or bullied, until he has put aside all ‘ greenness.” If all males went through the boarding-school training, the only human evergreens would be females. ‘Innocence,’ some one says, ‘is the foliage of youth.” Then boarding-school life, I say, is the autumn to nip verdure. Yes; in the system we discourse of, not only is innocence the sin of sins, but physical strength and courage are the highest virtues.

Among the romances I have read is one a chapter of which treats of the hero’s boarding-school : ‘*¢ An institution for the rising generation, in which the ways of the world are so successfully imitated that, in the qualities of foresight, cunning, duplicity, and general selfishness, the boy may indeed be said to be ‘father to the man.’” Enlarging on its evils, the author adds, further on: “ A little boy, with all his affections developing themselves ; loving, and playful, and happy; not ashamed to be fond of his sisters, and thinking mamma all that is beautiful, and graceful, and good, is to be torn from that home which is to him an earthly paradise, and transferred to a place of which we had better not ask the urchin his own private Opinion.” .... ‘* We appeal to every mother — and it is a mother who is best capable of judging for a child — whether her darling returns to: her improved in her eyes after his first half-year at school? She looks in vain for the pliant, affectionate disposition, that a word from her used to be capable of moulding at will, and finds, instead, a stubborn, self-sufficient spirit, that has been called forth by harsh treatment’ and intercourse with the mimic world of boys; more selfish and more conventional, because less characteristic than that of men. He is impatient of her tenderness now, nay, half-ashamed to return it, and thinks it

manly to make light of those affections and en-

dearments by which he once set such store. Hard-

ships, buffetings, adversity, all these are good for

the youth, but for heaven’s sake, spare the child.” But, as Tupper tells us, —

‘f There is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth; Nor is any poison so deadly that it serveth not some wholesome use.’?

The boarding-school is the leech to families apoplectic of children. Perhaps it is the only place. for some hardened youngster, as the State-prison is the propria domus of burglars and cut-throats ; or perhaps it rescues some from foolish, injudicious parents. And sometimes, but how rarely, where the teachings and examples of parents have found good, strong soils, and home influences remain cherished and unsullied in honest, sturdy natures —and all these are the parts of strong characters —and such characters are joined to not too few years, then its “hardships, buffetings, adversity, are good for the youth.”

No matter to which of those basses I belonged, yet, though I remember sorrows, pains, and trials, my boarding-school experience is thought over with pleasure. But I was at one which I believe to have been the best of the kind. Its principal was a man whom almost all of his pupils will ever think of with love and respect. The stormy days of the past are fortunately not so vividly remembered as its seasons of sunshine and joy. We bit through the skin and rind of homesickness, strangers, bullying, torment, and injustice, to find some sweetness at the core ; and it is that pleasant part principally that I now wish to recall with my pen.

Many a poor fellow in the dirt and brutality of the forecastle — whose ‘home is the rolling deep ” —can tell us how “Tom Cringle’s Log,” or Maryatt, misled him; and “ Robinson Crusoe” is the ignis fatuus accountable for many a bone lodged in the ocean-coral, or wrapped in the sea-weed, or for the skeleton that lies bleaching on the lone barren island of far-off seas. It was Miss Edgeworth, I think, who wrote that fascinating little story, “Barring Out.” What boy has not read it? Well, I hold that good lady responsible for THAT agnis fatuus which danced and flickered before me while I gladly agreed in the parental proposition of boarding-school, and which still led me on until I was fairly in the quagmire of homesickness and torment. All through my school career I constantly beheld the same treacherous spark of fancy twinkling here and there ; now over the principal’s head, to whom it lent the appearance of a tyrant, and then above some necessarily stringent rule or enactment, which it made to appear arbitrary and unjust, inducing, and making tempting, many a scheme of mutiny and rebellion, to which there were never wanting bold leaders.

The first fortnight — what a homesick, wretched period of my existence! Lately, I picked out of my mother’s letter-bag some of the daily records of those two weeks, and read them in wonderment.

Could it be that I was ever such a simple-hearted, affectionate, sentimental little boy? It seemed as if I were reading the memorials of some other person, whose boyhood was so full of feeling, delicacy, and tenderness, that, like such romance characters, manhood was never reached. I thought that boy must have died away from home—an unappreciated soul. “Poor little devil,” thought I, with contemptuous pity, my eyes glowing the while over the touching pages, so carefully traced ; ‘why, what a soft! he ought to have stayed at home.” Yes; there sat I, a rough, hardy man, blowing a cloud, by permission, in my mother’s room, and ruthlessly rummaging, with a joke here and there, over the little woods strewn thick with the dead leaves of many a summer, to that mother, who, with half a smile and half a tear, understood my fun, as but a thin sheet of ice over the feelings evoked. Coming again to my own signature, I had to take the pipe from my mouth and ask: “Mother, did J really write these letters? Do you recognize in me the black sheep, the toughhearted, the dear, gushing little boy in his first term at school ?”

It is true that an unsophisticated youth (commonly called among his comrades “ green ’un’’), with warm home affections, will write more genuine love-letters to his mother, in his first year at boarding-school, than he will ever after write to sweetheart or wife.

In my bedroom were four other boys. The lord

FLY—LEAF PENCILINGS. — OUTLINES. T of our room, indeed, the king of the school, had the bed next to mine. From an injury received in infancy he was lame, one of his lower limbs being almost powerless, and the other having suffered somewhat; but he was gifted with immense strength of arms. His chest and shoulders were those of a boy Hercules. Having obstinacy and undaunted pluck, besides a strong, clear, vigorous mind, and a jolly, frank disposition, he was the most popular boy in the school, and exerted the strongest influence. His nickname was “ Rough.” Rough occupied the bed on my right ; on my left was my brother. At the further end of the room was one of the finest characters in the school, known by the cognomen “Brick ;’’ perhaps because he was such a thorough good fellow. Next to him was “ Drake Gracie.”

Asa usual thing, perfect quiet reigned in the bedrooms after the hour for retiring—nine ; but sometimes the risk of punishment was taken to have a little shindy, and when the teacher, who had charge of the conduct of a certain set of rooms, was absent, or otherwise engaged, those under his rule were sure to take advantage of the occurrence. Of course, a whispered conversation could always be indulged in, but at such other times as I have alluded to, songs and pillow-fights were fully enjoyed. The first acquaintance I made at school was Rough. He sang remarkably well, whistled superbly, and was passionately fond of music.

On the second or third night of my new life, my neighbor Rough, as soon as the lights were put out, commenced, like a nightingale, his whistle. His selections, being melancholy, accorded with my feelings, and as I was equally fond of music, and an adept at piping, I joined melodies, coming in with a second. As my audacity was musical, Rough said not a word, but seemed to try my range, whistling every good thing he could lay his lips to. I knew all the popular operatic airs, and my répertoire was not limited. Finally, he paused, and then came the nearest approach to a kind word I had heard since my introduction among forty strangers. ‘Good! greeny; but where in the mischief did you learn all those? Like music, eh? Well, try first, and [ll go second.”’ So we went on, until a stern voice out of the darkness called: “Stop that whistling immediately: have no more of it!’ Deep silence, as if we had been asleep for hours, and then, as I heard the creaking of the tutor’s steps dying away down the hall, there was a rustling in my neighbor’s bed, and I noticed, by the dim light from the window, that Rough was perched on his foot-board. In a loud voice, and with solemn emphasis, he chanted (I did not know whether it was a crow of defiance to the departing teacher or his usual evening prayer; at any rate, it shocked me terribly then) :— ‘MATTHEW, MArk, LUKE, and JoHN, Guard the bed that I lay on!

Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head;

One to watch, one to pray, And two to bear my soul away!”’

And tumbling back on his blankets, with an “ amen,” he was snoring away in a minute more, as if the devotions just expressed were the most soothing sentiments he could have uttered. In the first days of our acquaintance, when I foolishly rebelled against his sway, and refused the obedience and respect he required from his room-mates, he would often quietly and sternly swing himself to wherever I happened to be, and unless I escaped by my better legs, would in a moment pull me to the floor, and then, having got a grab of me in those terrible arms, the vice grew tighter and tighter until I submitted, or he feared to increase the squeeze. My pommeling and biting were useless. Rough was as tough as he was strong. But nevertheless, and though I was a new boy and he one of the oldest, our friendship grew. That was many years ago; and now, Rough, a quiet, philosophizing, musical man, visits my country home sometimes, and, amidst considerable tobacco-smoke, musical sounds, and clustering recollections of our boyhood’s “auld lang syne,’ we pass days together in the happiness of friendship.

In the pillow-fights, by putting out of the way some ghostly, night-walking tutor, we conducted things with the assistance of history, though its decisions were oftentimes reversed. Rough was Richard Coeur de Lion; Drake Gracie was the fierce, active, nerve-strung Saladin; Frederick I. of Germany appeared in that dear old fellow, my brother; Brick was the gallant but jealous Philip of France; and I, the perfidious Archduke of Austria, in whose dungeons the Saracens’ admired enemy, “ Melech Ric,’ was immured so long. But as we made history, Saracen and French king, with German and Austrian, were allied against the redoubtable Coeur de Lion, and the contest was generally one way. Impetuous Richard would sound the war-cry, ‘“ Up, sleepy-heads! up, sovereigns of the eastern world!” and whack his ponderous club of feathers upon my snoring head. In a moment all was mélée. My brother scrambled to avenge the Austrian; Saladin charged swiftly on the English rear, and brave Philip came rushing to the contest. Rough’s head would take it heavily for a while, until his strong arms had a chance for a clean, vigorous blow, when down would go two or three assailants, tumbling off the bedsides, or keeling over the foot-board. Then enraged Richard, having driven the enemy from his borders, pursued them, scrambling from bed to bed, while we, more active, dodged beneath them, or kept beyond his reach. At length, having exhausted our zeal and endurance, and left many an aching head, fiery Coeur de Lion would drive some unfortunate sovereign, decked in the unwarrior-like, but Zouavy night-shirt, into a corner of Europe, and there lamm him to his heart’s content. Sometimes, however, though it was but seldom,

Richard was worsted by combined strength and previously arranged strategy.

The history of each such campaign appeared the next day from Drake Gracie’s ready pen; and as it was passed from desk to desk of the actors thereof, its correctness was quarreled over, as Lord Mahon and President Sparks disputed over the records of the American Revolution.

Brick was a general favorite with the teachers as well as with the boys. His frank, handsome face, and evident impress of a bright and noble character, were recommendations which, added to his well-known candor and integrity, insured his enviable popularity. Our old French teacher — the character of our little community — conceived an almost paternal affection for him. Monsieur Alphonse was one of those Gallic anomalies of eccentricity, irritability, impatience, pedantry, want of dignity, and affectionate tender-heartedness, in well-polished, slightly patched, sharp-pointed boots, and otherwise clothed in rather peculiar, if not quaint garments sprinkled with snuff, that we sometimes kindly smile over, or irresistibly pity, in the pages of old novels, or that we see represented with humor, and almost pathos at times, on the stage; Monsieur Tourbillon, for instance, in Bourcicault’s “* Parents and Guardians.”” Jam reminded of him just here, because we all loved to tease him, and one day, Brick, with a boy’s thoughtlessness, I would say cruelty if speaking of any one else, provoked Monsieur Alphonse toofar. The old Frenchman’s face clouded with wrath ; but as he regarded its cause, the darkness broke to a childish sadness, and tears trickled down beside the fat nose, as, in a voice trembling with emotion, he said: “Ah! B-rr-ens-mad” (Brinsmade was the surname), “ B-rr-ens-mad, why you do me so? have I not always love you as my son?’’ And then his feelings were too turbulent for words. ‘The immense silk handkerchief, dusty, and odorous with snuff and garlic, was pulled from his pocket; a sob, a sneeze, and a violent: blowing of the nose restored him, and our lesson was resumed.

Brinsmade! my boyhood’s companion, my partner in many an exciting adventure, in many a long summer Saturday’s ramble, who learned with me to swim and pull an oar in the clear waters of the Croton; my room-mate and class-mate in those thoughtless days gone by, afterward my chum at Cambridge — always my dear friend. Alas! never again will we meet to recall the years we passed together! He fell at Antietam; gallantly fulfilling what he believed his duty, with affections at the North cherished almost as fondly as his ties at the South, without hatred or prejudice to bring to the battle, that noble fellow went down before the fire of a Massachusetts regiment, in which two of his closest friends were leading companions. Little we thought, handling the musket in the old school-day drills, that the comrades of those hours would, a few years later, have to turn their bayonets against one another’s breasts.

Boys caricature one another with a word — the nickname. How with a pet expression, that comes you know not how, and yet sticks afterwards as a leech, one’s faults, misfortunes, or eccentricities are put in short-hand. Like pulling the hat down over a man’s eyes, —the good-looking, or dignified, or gentlemanly wearer is made ridiculous, but the rowdy is only made to appear more of a rowdy, and the merry-andrew to look more the buffoon, —the unfortunate’s natural features are covered by a guise, which, though it fits snugly as possible, is hard to remove. We had a “ Traddles,” whose cognomen was won because of the same peculiarity as distinguished David Copperfield’s school-friend: he was a comical fellow, and, instead of sums, figured the most ridiculous skeletons, each one having an individual character as full of fun and oddity as Doyle’s or Cruikshank’s sketches of fleshy forms. He had really a genius in that gaunt, bony line. I always thought he would become in manhood a cemetery artist, and imagined how happy he would be carving death-heads, and cross-bones, and Father Time on vaults and tombstones. But I met him lately; he had forgotten (he said, with a bite at the end of his cigar) that he.had ever had any such peculiarity or nickname ; and I found him a very steady young man, in the enjoyment of fortune, and with no apparent taste for post-mortem anatomy. Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis ?

We had a “ Lilliput,” and of course “ Fatties,”

“ Nellies,” and “ Peggies;” a tall, good-hearted fellow, with curls “ambrosial,” but unfortunately red, got the sobriquet, “ Light-house.” But “ Pudding-Head!” Have I not a reader to recognize that familiar name of the best of school-fellows ? He was of the same genus as “ Peggotty,” the brothers ‘“ Cheeryble,” and ‘“ Captain Cuttle,” and who does not love them? He was honest and rough as the best of them; as simple-minded, as true and soft-hearted, with the same reverence for women, and brave as Curtius. When new at school his amiability and ingenuousness made him the butt for jokes and bullying, and he had been among us nearly six months before a snap of a wet towel on his bare back proved the period to many impositions. The aggressor was the largest and strongest boy in the school, but in a terrible fight of about twenty minutes, he was as badly treated as was the Englishman Mace years after. A new character, who entered the school some time afterwards, with a reputation for wonderful strength and skill, envied our Hector’s fame, and contrived to draw Pudding-Head into a fight. He succeeded, and, though a fellow of the best pluck and power, was so completely used up in the encounter that, as a Western boy expressed it among a knot of companions talking over the eventful fight: “I tell you, fellows, Knowles was just chawed up.”

The illustrious deeds of the forefathers of ancient Rome, we are told, were preserved in the recitations of fathers to sons, and publicly chanted on the days of feasts and celebrations. How often, too, in the enchantment of Scott, do we about the generous board and blazing fire-place of castle or baronial hall, listen to the bard and harper proudly narrating with brave music the legends of the battles, and prowess of their ancestors. So— gyes, even with as much interest and pride, in each boarding-school community, are the exploits of old boys —the romances of a few years back— preserved and repeated from term to term. Encounters with the “ townies,” a victory of some daring fellow over some unpopular tutor, a successful runaway and its incidents, the talent of such an one, are all recorded, and perhaps added to by set to set. In that way do no doubt those battles of that simple-hearted, amiable, plucky old Pudding-Head, find bards and glowing hearers in those same gray stone walls to-day. Of a wet winter afternoon’s play-hour, about some popular desk in the old school-room, dusky in the fading light ; or in summer, lying in the green orchard around the trunk of a veteran apple-tree, whose remains form the story-teller’s throne, I can see now the clustering group of boys; or in the hour after bed-time, when the lights «ce all out, I see the room-mate squatting, wrapped in blankets, on and about the bed of one nrobably the eldest, who recounts in a low voice the \ule he heard from perhaps a contemporary of the hero’s.

Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat may account for my forgetting Pudding-Head’s well-known valor, and one evening insulting the good fellow, until he slapped my face, and I pitched over the monitor’s desk, and into an affray, from which I came out with the blackest and most swollen of eyes and the goriest of noses. Thanks to the interference of others, and the forbearance of my generous adversary, I escaped with no worse punishment. But as one who had put on the gloves with Jackson, or crossed swords with Admirable Crichton, might thereafter brag of the honor, so I, to this day, am proud to smooth out that feather in my self-esteem, though it was attained in defeat. From that time were we the warmest friends ; yes, and afterwards I saw him conquered, and to me was his captivity told. Miss R , your victims have been many, but what conquest (intentional or accidental) more complete than that over the big heart of that school-boy ? Do I hear you answer: “ That over you, interrogator?” That big, tough fellow of fifteen confided to me with womanly emotion his passion. No doubt, the memories of first love were often cherished and honored companions of his true, manly heart, in many a Southern bivouac and march. The enchantress of those boarding-school days, making so many of us alternately happy and miserable, exerted a greater influence than she imagined perhaps. On drill or parade her presence was as the hope of glory ‘o the actual soldier; and on the twenty-second of February, that golden day of all the year to the fortunate orators, to win her approving words, or her soft white hand in the dance following our exercises, was to more than realize the sweets of later fame.

In a boarding-school experience of four years and a half, I was at different times under the instruction of about twenty tutors, and I do not remember any one of those who was not faithful to his duties as an instructor; but, as a general thing, there their interest in the boys stopped. Few, very few, attempted any influence otherwise with us; and there were fifty or sixty boys, whose characters were to be understood and directed, whose principles were to be formed and elevated, whose tastes were to be controlled, whose sympathies and affections should have been won and guided to good; the tender, quick-growing shoots of character of so many were left to the culture of one person. ‘That principal was constantly earnest and active in his efforts to read and improve the diversities of character and mind intrusted to his charge, and I am astonished that he was able to reach and direct for good as many as he did, seeing how often the parent fails with only one or two. As in a wood or orchard growing thickly together, the outside older trees feel the strengthening influences of sun and atmosphere, whilst those less hardy, overshadowed and crowded by their neighbors, and getting neither wholesome warmth nor invigorating breezes, are dwarfed and injured, never afterwards recovering their rightful stature; and when some, grown on the same acre, are valuable and thrifty, they haying .been unreached by the good influences which nurtured their companions, bear neither fruit nor foliage; so it is in the growing wood of schoolboys. The eye, the heart, and the mind of one man— be that eye ever so true, be that heart ever so tender, be that mind ever so searching — cannot find out and penetrate the dark places, the hidden influences and young tendencies, cannot warm and inspire the good seeds, cannot understand the peculiarities, and justly estimate the characters of all beneath his government. From which it results that some few are guided and cultivated for the best, while many are neglected or misunderstood.

Among my school-mates I could cite many whose school career must remain a regret and injury to them to this day, who possess no affectionate remembrances of those boyhood days, and think with no pride of the spot where they tarried ; their good impulses unappealed to, and their dispositions misunderstood or wrongly bent, by those who might have skillfully urged them to nobleness. Could some one have spoken the right word, the kind word — acted in the judicious and friendly way to reach the good spring of action, what a slough of mire they might have emerged from? ‘There were some, I know, who have been rescued and started afresh on high dry ground. There were trees that, could sun and air have reached them, would have grown to strength and goodliness.

Further on in these pages I record a remarkable instance of such rescue and new life in a sketch of Charley Balch’s metamorphosis.

What of those school-days pleasanter to recall than the Saturdays in spring, when Charley and I, and perhaps one or two others, strayed off with hatchet and lunch-basket for a day of enjoyment. Spring, with its essence of glad poetry, dancing in our blood and brains, making winter seem like a prison-cell escaped, and itself the riches of freedom and beauty. Ah! old comrades, I would like to push my way again with you up over the hills that roll back from the Hudson, shouting in the appreciation of a boyhood’s Saturday. I would like to bivouac again at mid-day by those rampant little brooks, that seemed actually crazy with joy —that joined with our boyish shouts of laughter, and bubbled and splashed in their gladness to give us beakers of their health and spirit.

And those warm, humming, sleepy days of summer, or the golden-aired, hazy autumn days, when every sound was musical, and we, not far from the great tree and the simple, white Dutch church, where Major André was taken, and near the bridge that once resounded with the mad, galloping hoofs of the headless horseman’s devilish steed, heard again the “ Legend of Sleepy Hollow;” where we climbed the lithe hickories to bend them, swinging to the ground, and sought out some venerable oak, of great stature, from whose height we might look down on the blue of the Hudson, and its white sail-dots, or in whose sturdy arms we heard from our best companion, Charley, tales as full of romance as the season. Dear Sleepy Hollow! the happy valley of those boarding-school days, in Irving’s words I say: “Tf ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.” )

Boarding-school days! The failures and successes, disgraces and honors of that mimic world ; its friendships and enmities, its poetry and prose, its trials and dreariness, its pleasure and fun. The vacations of happiness, unalloyed save by the Nemesis of return; the long terms, their days and weeks nearer release, tallied with almanac and pins ; each month noted thankfully from my bed, as the moonlight passed from one to another of the tall, stiff poplars in the procession on the hill, and the kind, hope-assuring beams wove themselves into the drowsy thoughts of home, and the happy dreams of boyhood’s sleep.

Chapter II. The Midnight Coast

THE keen edge which life has in youth — that intensity of thought, action, and feeling — tones down and rounds off as manhood has constantly to mow where weeds, nettles, and wire-grass grow among the grain. At forty, one almost forgets the flashing edge of youth, — how it looked, how it felt; how sharply and deliciously it cut, and, too, how badly the smallest stone in the swathway nicked its keenness. But at rare times we may suddenly recall and appreciate what years of strife, schemes, and ambition have hidden from us; may realize at moments how, before the weighty cares and troubles of later years sprung up, the earth was a garden — a wild one it is true, where poisonous poppies and ivies grew side by side with violets and roses,— but yet a garden. “I would I were a boy again,” though we may hum it without a sigh, is more than tune or song to us as limbs stiffen and wrinkles multiply, and our hearts unconsciously leave the possessions of the Present to stretch back again for the Romance of Boyhood, —its friendships, its chivalry, its ignorant and daring self-reliance ; to fight again the school battles ; and perhaps eager to catch a reflection, however slight, of that glorious halo of ingenuous, impassioned zest adorning every boyish ane and jest — every youthful overflow.