Rattlin the Reefer Part 2

The misery was unexpected--it was sudden--it was overwhelming. Brandon was toeing a chalked line on a heavy log of mahogany, unconscious of the mischief that was working at home. He afterwards told me, and I believe him, that he would have opposed the proceeding by force, if force had been requisite. A plain private or hired carriage drove up to the door, and, after ascertaining that the Brandons lived at the house, a business-like looking, elderly gentleman stepped out, paid every demand immediately, and ordered my best clothes on. When I was thus equipped, my nurse was told that she was perfectly welcome to the remainder of my effects, and that I must get into the carriage.

The good woman was thunderstruck. There was a scene. She raved, and I cried, and the four little Brandons, at least three of them, joined in the chorus of lamentation, because the naughty man was going to take brother Ralph away. I had been too well taught by old Ford, not to visit my indignation upon the shins and hands of the carrier away of captives, in well-applied kicks, and almost rabid bites. There was a great disturbance. The neighbours thought it very odd that the mother should allow her eldest son to be, carried off by force, by a stranger, before her eyes, in the middle of the day; but then it was suggested that "nothing could be well termed odd that concerned little Ralph Brandon, for hadn't he been bit last year by a mad dog, and, when so and so had all died raving, he had never nothing at all happen to him."

When the stranger heard this story of the mad dog (which, by-the-by, was fact, and I have the scars to this day), he shook me off, pale with consternation, and was, no doubt, extremely happy to find that my little teeth had not penetrated the skin. I believe that he heartily repented him of his office. At length he lost all patience. "Woman," said he, "send these people out of the room." When they had departed, marvelling, he resumed: "I cannot lose my time in altercation; I am commissioned to tell you, that if you keep the boy in one sense, you'll have to keep him in all. You may be sure that I would not trouble myself about such a little ill-bred wretch for a moment, if I did not act with authority, and by orders. Give up the child directly (I was now sobbing in her arms), take your last look at him, for you will never see him again. Come, hand the young gentleman into the carriage."

"I won't go," I screamed out.

"We shall soon see that, Master Rattlin," said he, dragging me along, resisting. I bawled out, "My name's not Master Rattlin--you're a liar-- and when father comes from the pit he'll wop you."

This threat seemed to have an effect the very reverse of what I had intended. Perhaps he thought that he had already enough to contend with, without the addition of the brawny arm of the sawyer. I was forcibly lifted up, placed in the coach, and, as it drove rapidly away, I heard, amidst the rattling of the wheels, the cries of her whom I loved as a mother, exclaiming, "My Ralph--my dear Ralph!"

Behold me, then, "hot with the fray, and weeping from the fight,"

confined in a locomotive prison with my sullen captor. I blubbered in one corner of the coach, and he surveyed me with stern indifference from the other. I had now fairly commenced my journey through life, but this beginning was anything but auspicious. At length, the carriage stopped at a place I have since ascertained to be near Hatton Garden, on Holborn Hill. We alighted, and walked into a house, between two motionless pages, excessively well dressed. At first, they startled me, but I soon discovered they were immense waxen dolls. It was a ready-made clothes warehouse into which we had entered. We went upstairs, and I was soon equipped with three excellent suits. My grief had now settled down into a sullen resentment, agreeably relieved, at due intervals, by breath-catching sobs. The violence of the storm had pa.s.sed, but its gloom still remained. Seeing the little gladness that the possession of clothes, the finest I had yet had, communicated to me, my director could not avoid giving himself the pleasurable relief of saying, "Sulky little brute!" A trunk being sent for, and my wardrobe placed in it, we then drove to three or four other shops, not forgetting a hatter's, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time I had a very tolerable fit-out. During all this time, not a word did my silent companion address to me.

At length, the coach no longer rattled over the stones. It now proceeded on more smoothly, and here and there the cheerful green foliage relieved the long lines of houses. After about a half-hour's ride, we stopped at a large and very old-fashioned house, built in strict conformity with the Elizabethan style of architecture, over the portals of which, upon a deep blue board, in very, very bright gold letters, flashed forth that word so awful to little boys, so big with a.s.sociations of long tasks and wide-spreading birch, the Greek-derived polysyllable, ACADEMY! Ignorant as I was, I understood it all in a moment. I was struck cold as the dew-damp grave-stone. I almost grew sick with terror. I was kidnapped, entrapped, betrayed. I had before hated school, my horror now was intense of "Academy." I looked piteously into the face of my persecutor, but I found there no sympathy.

"I want to go home," I roared out, and then burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

Home! what solace is there in its very sound! Oh, how that blessed asylum for the wounded spirit encloses within its sacred circle all that is comforting, and sweet, and holy! 'Tis there that the soul coils itself up and nestles like the dove in its own downiness, conscious that everything around breathes of peace, security, and love. Home!

henceforward, I was to have none, until, through many, many years of toil and misery, I should create one for myself. Henceforth, the word must bring to me only the bitterness of regret--henceforth I was to a.s.sociate with hundreds who had that temple in which to consecrate their household affections--but was, myself, doomed to be unowned, unloved, and homeless.

"I want to go home," I blubbered forth with the pertinacity of anguish, as I was constrained into the parlour of the truculent, rod-bearing, ferula-wielding Mr Root. I must have been a strange figure. I was taken from my nurse's in a hurry, and, though my clothes were quite new, my face ent.i.tled me to rank among the much vituperated unwashed. When a little boy has very dirty hands, with which he rubs his dirty, tearful face, it must be confessed that grief does not, in his person, appear under a very lovely form. The first impression that I made on him who was to hold almost everything that could const.i.tute my happiness in his power, was the very reverse of, favourable. My continued iteration of "I want to go home," was anything but pleasing to the pedagogue. The sentence itself is not music to a man keeping a boarding-school. With the intuitive perception of childhood, through my tears, my heart acknowledged an enemy. What my conductor said to him, did not tend to soften his feelings towards me. I did not understand the details of his communication, but I knew that I was as a captive, bound hand and foot, and delivered over to a foreign bondage. The interview between the contracting parties was short, and when over, my conductor departed without deigning to bestow the smallest notice upon the most important personage of this history. I was then rather twitched by the hand, than led, by Mr Root, into the middle of his capacious school-room, and in the midst of more than two hundred and fifty boys: my name was merely mentioned to one of the junior ushers, and the master left me. Well might I then apply that blundering, Examiner-be-praised line of Keats to myself, for like Ruth:--

"I stood all tears among the alien corn."

A few boys came and stared at me, but I attracted the kindness of none.

There can be no doubt but that I was somewhat vulgar in my manners, and my carriage was certainly quite unlike that of my companions. Some of them even jeered me, but I regarded them not. A real grief is armour-proof against ridicule. In a short time, it being six o'clock, the supper was served out, consisting of a round of bread, all the moisture of which had been allowed to evaporate, and an oblong, diaphanous, yellow substance, one inch and a half by three, that I afterwards learned might be known among the initiated as single Gloucester. There was also a pewter mug for each, three-parts filled with small beer. It certainly gave me, it was so small, a very desponding idea of the extent to which littleness might be carried; and it would have been too vapid for the toleration of any palate, had it not been so sour. As I sat regardless before this repast, in abstracted grief, I underwent the first of the thousand practical jokes that were hereafter to familiarise me with manual jocularity. My right-hand neighbour, jerking me by the elbow, exclaimed, "Hollo, you sir, there's Jenkins, on the other side of you, cribbing your bread." I turned towards the supposed culprit, and discovered that my informant had fibbed, but the informed against told me to look round and see where my cheese was. I did; it was between the mandibles of my kind neighbour on my right, and when I turned again to the left for an explanation, the rogue there had stripped my round of bread of all the crust. I cared not then for this double robbery, but having put the liquid before me, incautiously to my lips, sorrowful as I was, I cared for that. Joe Brandon never served me so. I drank that evening as little as I ate.

CHAPTER NINE.

I PROVE TO BE, NOT ONE IN A THOUSAND, BUT ONE IN A QUARTER OF THAT NUMBER, TO WHOM NO QUARTER WAS SHOWN--IN SPITE OF MY ENTREATIES I AM EVIL ENTREATED, AND AM NOT ONLY PLACED ON THE LOWEST FORM, BUT MADE EXCESSIVELY UNCOMFORTABLE ON MY SEAT OF HONOUR.

Heroes, statesmen, philosophers, must bend to circ.u.mstances, and so must little boys at boarding-school. I went to bed with the rest, and, like the rest, had my bed-fellow. Miserable and weary was that night to my infant heart. When I found I could do so un.o.bserved, I buried my face in the pillow, and wept with a perfect pa.s.sion of wretchedness.

I had a hard, a cruel life at that school. When I lived with my nurse, the boys in the street used to beat me because I was too much of the gentleman, and now the young gentlemen thrashed me for not coming up to their standard of gentility. I saw a tyrant in every urchin that was stronger than myself, and a derider in him that was weaker. The next morning after my arrival, a fellow a little bigger than myself, came up, and standing before me, gave me very deliberately as hard a slap in the face as his strength would permit. Half crying with the pain, and yet not wishing to be thought quarrelsome, I asked, with good-natured humility, whether that was done in jest or in earnest. The little insolent replied, in his school-boy wit, "Betwixt and between." I couldn't stand that; my pa.s.sion and my fist rose together, and hitting my oppressor midway between the eyes, "There's my betwixt and between,"

said I. His nose began to bleed, and when I went down into the school-room, the "new boy" had his hands well warmed with the ruler for fighting.

Alas! the first year of my academic life was one of unqualified wretchedness. For the two or three initiatory months, uncouth in speech, and vulgar in mien, with no gilded toy, rich plum-cake, or mint-new shilling to conciliate, I was despised and ridiculed; and when it was ascertained by my own confession that I was the son of a day-labourer, I was shunned by the aristocratic progeny of butchers, linen-drapers, and hatters. It took, at least, a half-dozen floggings to cure me of the belief that Joseph Brandon and his wife were my parents. It was the shortest road to conviction, and Mr Root prided himself upon short _cuts_ in imparting knowledge. I a.s.sure my readers they were severe ones.

Mr Root, the pedagogue of this immense school, which was situated in the vicinity of Islington, was a very stout and very handsome man, of about thirty. He had formerly been a subordinate where he now commanded, and his good looks had gained him the hand of the widow of his predecessor. He was very florid, with a cold dark eye; but his face was the most physical that I ever beheld. From the white, low forehead, to the well-formed chin, there was nothing on which the gazer could rest that spoke of intellectuality. There was "speculation in his eye," but it was the calculation of farthings. There was a pure ruddiness in his cheek, but it was the glow of matter, not that of mind. His mouth was well formed, yet pursed up with an expression of mingled vanity and severity. He was very robust, and his arm exceedingly powerful. With all these personal advantages, he had a shrill, girlish voice, that made him, in the execution of his cruelties, actually hideous. I believe, and I make the a.s.sertion in all honesty, that he received a sensual enjoyment by the act of inflicting punishment. He attended to no department of the school but the flagellative. He walked in about twelve o'clock, had all on the list placed on a form, his man-servant was called in, the lads horsed, and he, in general, found ample amus.e.m.e.nt till one. He used to make it his boast that he never allowed any of his ushers to punish. The hypocrite! the epicure! he reserved all that luxury for himself. Add to this, that he was very ignorant out of the Tutor's a.s.sistant, and that he wrote a most abominably good hand (that usual sign of a poor and trifle-occupied mind), and now you have a very fair picture of Mr Root. I have said that he was a most cruel tyrant: yet Nero himself ought not to be blackened; and I must say this for my master's humanity, that I had been at school two days before I was flogged; and then it was for the enormity of not knowing my own name. "Rattlin," said the pedagogue. No reply. "Master Rattlin," in a shriller tone. Answer there was none. "Master Ralph Rattlin." Many started, but "Ralph Brandon" thought it concerned not him. But it did indeed. I believe that I had been told my new name, but I had forgotten it in my grief, and now in grief and in pain I was again taught it.

When, for the first time, in reality, I tasted that acid and bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge, old Isaac's (my soldier schoolmaster) mock brushings were remembered with heartfelt regret.

At that time the road to learning was strewed neither with flowers nor palm-leaves, but with the instigating birch. The schoolmaster had not yet gone abroad, but he flogged most diligently at home, and, verily, I partook amply of that diligence. I was flogged full, and I was flogged fasting; when I deserved it, and when I did not; I was flogged for speaking too loudly, and for not speaking loud enough, and for holding my tongue. Moreover, one morning I rode the horse without the saddle, because my face was dirty, and the next, because I pestered the maid-servant to wash it clean. I was flogged because my shoes were dirty, and again because I attempted to wipe them clean with my pocket-handkerchief. I was flogged for playing, and for staying in the school-room and not going out to play. The bigger boys used to beat me, and I was then flogged for fighting. It is hard to say for what I was not flogged. Things, the most contradictory, all tended to one end, and that was my own. At length, he flogged me into serious ill-health, and then he stayed his hand, and I found relief on a bed of sickness. Even now I look back to those days of persecution with horror. Those were the times of large schools, rods steeped in brine (_actual fact_), intestine insurrections, the b.u.mping of obnoxious ushers, and the "barring out" of tyrannical masters. A school of this description was a complete place of torment for the orphan, the unfriended, and the deserted. Lads then stayed at school till they were eighteen and even twenty, and f.a.gging flourished in all its atrocious oppression.

CHAPTER TEN.

I GROW EGOTISTICAL, AND BEING PLEASED WITH MYSELF, GIVE GOOD ADVICE--A VISIT; AND A STRANGE JUMBLE OF TIRADES, TEARS, TUTORS, TENDERNESS, AND A TEA-KETTLE.

Let me now describe the child of nine years and a half old, that was forced to undergo this terrible ordeal. We will suppose that, by the aid of the dancing-master and the drill-sergeant, I have been cured of my vulgar gait, and that my c.o.c.kney accent has disappeared. Children of the age above-mentioned soon a.s.similate their tone and conversation with those around them. I was tall for my years, with a very light and active frame, and a countenance, the complexion of which was of the most unstained fairness. My hair light, glossy, and naturally, but not universally, curling. To make it appear in ringlets all over my head, would have been the effect of art; yet, without art it was wavy, and at the temples, forehead, and the back of the head, always in full circlets. My face presented a perfect oval, and my features were cla.s.sically regular. I had a good natural colour, the intensity of which ebbed and flowed with every pa.s.sing emotion. I was one of those dangerous subjects whom anger always makes pale. My eyes were decidedly blue, everything else that may be said to the contrary notwithstanding.

The whole expression of my countenance was very feminine, but not soft.

It was always the seat of some sentiment or pa.s.sion, and in its womanly refinement gave to me an appearance of const.i.tutional delicacy and effeminacy, that I certainly did not possess. I was decidedly a very beautiful child, and a child that seemed formed to kindle and return a mother's love, yet the maternal caress never blessed me; but I was abandoned to the tender mercies of a number of he-beings, by many of whom my vivacity was checked, my spirit humbled, and my flesh cruelly lacerated.

I dwell thus particularly on my school-day life, in order, in the first place, to prepare the reader for the singular events that follow; and in the second (and which forms by far the most important consideration, as I trust I am believed, and if _truth_ deserves credence, believed I am), to caution parents from trusting to the specious representations of any schoolmaster, to induce them to examine carefully and patiently into every detail of the establishment, or they may become a party to a series of cruelties, that may break the spirit, and, perhaps, shorten the life of their children. Unfortunately, the most promising minds are those that soonest yield to the effect of harsh discipline. The phlegmatic, the dull, and the commonplace vegetate easily through this state of probation. The blight that will destroy the rose, pa.s.ses ever harmlessly over the tough and earth-embracing weed.

I stayed at Mr Root's school for very nearly three years, and I shall divide that memorable period into three distinct epochs--the desponding, the devotional, and the mendacious. After I had been flogged into uncertain health, I was confined, for at least six weeks, to my room, and, when I was convalescent, it was hinted by the surgeon, in not unintelligible terms, to Mr Root, that if I did not experience the gentlest treatment, I might lose my life; which would have been very immaterial to Mr Root, had it not been a mathematical certainty that he would lose a good scholar at the same time. By-the-by, the meaning that a schoolmaster attaches to the words "good scholar," is one for whom he is paid well. Thus I was emphatically a good scholar; no doubt his very best. I was taught everything--at least his bill said so. He provided everything for me, and I stayed with him during the holidays. He, therefore, ceased to confer upon me his cruel attentions; and abandoned me to a neglect hardly less cruel. The boys were strictly enjoined to leave me alone, and they obeyed. I found a solitude in the midst of society.

A loneliness came over my young spirit. I was aweary, and I drooped like the tired bird, that alights on the ship, "far, far at sea." As that poor bird folds its wings, and sinks into peaceful oblivion, I could have folded my arms and have lain down to die with pleasure. My heart exhausted itself with an intense longing for a companion to love.

It wasted away all its substance in flinging out fibres to catch hold of that with which it might beat in unison. As turn the tendrils of the vine hither and thither to clasp something to adorn, and to repay support by beauty, so I wore out my young energies in a fruitless search for sympathy. I had nothing to love me, though I would have loved many if I had dared. There were many sweet faces among my school-fellows, to which I turned with a longing look, and a tearful eye. How menial I have been to procure a notice, a glance of kindness! I had nothing to give wherewith to bribe affection but services and labour, and those were either refused, or perhaps accepted with scorn. I was the only pariah among two hundred and fifty. There was a mystery and an obloquy attached to me, and the master had, by his interdiction, completely put me without the pale of society. I now said my lessons to the ushers with indifference--if I acquitted myself ill, I was unpunished--if well, unnoticed. My spirits began to give way fast, and I was beginning to feel the pernicious patronage of the servants. They would call me off the play-ground, on which I moped, send me on some message, or employ me in some light service. All this was winked at by the master, and as for the mistress, she never let me know that it occurred to her that I was in existence. It was evident that Mr Root had no objection to all this, for, in consideration of the money paid to him for my education, he was graciously pleased to permit me to fill the office of his kitchen-boy. But, before I became utterly degraded into the menial of the menials, a fortunate occurrence happened that put an end to my culinary servitude. To the utter surprise of Mr and Mrs Root, who expected nothing of the kind, a lady came to see me. What pa.s.sed between the parties, before I was ushered into the parlour appropriated to visitors, I know not; it was some time before I was brought in, as preparatory ablutions were made, and my clothes changed. When I entered, I found that it was "the lady." I remember that she was very superbly dressed, and I thought, too, the most beautiful apparition that I had ever beheld. The scene that took place was a little singular, and I shall relate it at full.

As I have rigidly adhered to truth, I have been compelled to state what I have to say in a form almost entirely narrative; and have not imitated those great historians, who put long speeches into the mouths of their kings and generals, very much suited to the occasions undoubtedly, and deficient only in one point--that is, accuracy. I have told only of facts and impressions, and not given speeches that it would have been impossible for me to have remembered. Yet, in this interview there was something so striking to my young imagination, that my memory preserved many sentences, and all the substance of what took place. There was wine and cake upon the table, and the lady looked a little fl.u.s.tered.

Mr Root was trying with a forty Chesterfieldean power to look amiable.

Mrs Root was very fidgety. As I appeared at the door timorously, the lady said to me, without rising, but extending her delicate white hand, "Come here to me, Ralph; do you not know me?"

I could get no further than the middle of the room, where I stood still, and burst out into a pa.s.sion of tears. Those sweet tones of tenderness, the first I had heard for nine months, thrilled like fire through my whole frame. It was a feeling so intense, that, had it not been agony, it would have been bliss.

"Good G.o.d!" said she, deeply agitated; "my poor boy, why do you cry?"

"Because--because you are so kind," said I, rushing forward to her extended arms; and, falling on my knees at her feet, I buried my face in her lap, and felt all happiness amidst my sobbings. She bent over me, and her tears trickled upon my neck. This did not last long. She placed me upon my feet, and drawing me to her side, kissed my cheeks, and my eyes, and my forehead. Her countenance soon became serene; and turning to my master, she said, quietly, "This, sir, is very singular."

"Yes, ma'am, Master Rattlin _is_ very singular. All clever boys are.

He knows already his five declensions, and the four conjugations, active and pa.s.sive. Come, Master Rattlin, decline for the lady the adjective felix--come, begin, nominative hic et haec et hoc felix."

"I don't know anything about it," said I, doggedly.

"I told you he was a _singular_ child," resumed the pedagogue, with a most awkward attempt at a smile.

"The singularity to which I allude," said the lady, "is his finding kindness so singular."

"Kind! bless you, my dear madam," said they both together; "you can't conceive how much we love the little dear."

"It was but yesterday," said Mrs Root, "that I was telling the lady of Mr Alderman Jenkins--we have the five Jenkinses, ma'am--that Master Rattlin was the sweetest, genteelist, and beautifullest boy in the whole school."

"It was but yesterday," said Mr Root, "that I was saying to Doctor Duncan (our respected rector, madam), that Master Rattlin had evinced such an uncommon talent, that we might, by-and-by, expect the greatest things from him. Not yet ten months with me, madam. Already in Phaedrus--the rule of three--and his French master gives the best account of him. He certainly has not begun to speak it yet, though he has made a vast progress in the French language. But it is Monsieur le Gros's system to make his pupils thoroughly master of the language before they attempt to converse in it. And his dancing, my dear madam-- Oh, it would do your heart good to see him dance. Such grace, such elasticity, and such happiness in his manner!"

A pause--and then they exclaimed together, with a long-drawn sentimental sigh, "And we both love him so."

"I am glad to hear so good an account of him," said the lady. "I hope, Ralph, that you love Mr and Mrs Root, for they seem very kind to you."

"No, I don't."

Mr and Mrs Root lifted their hands imploringly to heaven. "Not love me!" they both exclaimed together, with a tone of heartfelt surprise and wounded sensibility, that would have gone far to have made the fortune of a sentimental actor.

"Come here, sir, directly," said Mr Root. "Look me full in the face, sir. You are a singular boy, yet I _did_ think you loved me. Don't be frightened, Ralph, I would not give you _pain_ on any account; and you know I never did. Now tell me, my dear boy," gradually softening from the terrible to the tender, "tell me, my dear boy, why you fancy you do not love me. You see, madam, that I encourage sincerity--and like, at all times, the truth to be spoken out. Why don't you love me, Ralph dear?" pinching my ear with a spiteful violence, that was meant for gracious playfulness in the eyes of the lady, and an intelligible hint for myself. I was silent.

"Come, Ralph, speak your mind freely. No one will do you any harm for it, I am sure. Why don't you love Mr Root?" said the lady.