The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, bart., M.P., formerly known as «Tommy Upmore»

At the sound of their names, these gentlemen appeared. Conscience, and prudence, alike induced me to push Jack Windsor in front of me, because he was both broad and thick.

CHAPTER XVI.
NO EXTRAS

Being older now, by several years, than when I had expected to be cut up all alive, and having been taught by Professor Megalow, that science is not of necessity cruel, I managed to sleep pretty well that night, and resolved to be brave in the morning. And truly there was no great need for courage; which rather disappointed me, and cast a slur upon my value, as a boy of exceptional interest. Not one of the four Professors took the trouble to look twice at me; each had his whole time taken up, in fighting for his own tongue, and purse. Their payment was to be by head of pupils – whether they fitted the head, or not – and being four in number, they put universal knowledge into four departments, each with a bigger name than the other. And each of our chaps, without ever having heard what the meaning of these big names was, had to put down his own (however short it might be) under sixteen columns, out of thirty-two, headed with the titles of the mysterious studies. Each of the Professors was to take eight sciences, for the subjects of his lectures; and most unfairly we were not allowed to know the human names presiding over each humanity. Every single boy of us wanted to sign to be under Professor Chocolous; not only because (as a general rule) great fun can be had with a German, and he is nearly always easy-tempered, familiar, and kind-hearted; but also because we had heard of his ambition to transmit a nascent tail to his descendants, and what could be finer than to help in its establishment? And next to him, we wanted to be under Mullicles, although about him we knew very little; except that he looked very soft, and expected to be disintegrated, without notice, into his component particles. On the other hand, Brachipod was as sharp, and full of points, as a cupping instrument; and Jargoon as dry, and creaky with long words, as a slow steam-roller pounding granite.

With heavy dismay I sate down, and gazed at the broad sheet laid before me. At the top were placed alphabetically the names of the thirty-two sciences proposed; names which it must have been anguish to conceive, agony to pronounce, and despair to remember. Under each name was a column, for the hapless victim to inscribe his own; and at the bottom a merciful notice – "No pupil need enter for more than sixteen of the above studies, during the present term. But all will be expected, in the ensuing term, to proceed to those which they now pretermit. The fee for each course of lectures is one guinea, payable in advance."

Although I could get on with Homer pretty well, and had read the first book of Herodotus, and one of "Porson's Four," and some Xenophon, it took me a long time to make out the name of any one of those sciences. I turned to my Lexicon, and sought for some, and for others I hunted in my Latin Dictionary, and seemed to get near some, but not to be sure; while of others there was no vestige. I was not aware yet, that the authors of these words are as rash with the Classics, as they are with logic, and maltreat the dead languages, as freely as the living.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," Jack Windsor said; "I'll go in for all thirty-two; and let father stump up, if he's got the blunt for it. Here goes 'John Windsor,' thirty twice over."

What a flood of light those plain words shed on my foggy, and thickly-fibred brain, unwitting as yet of the Athenian prototypes of all the Pansophists, pea for pea, in the pods of Aristophanes! The blunt was the point of all points with these hungry professors; and none could be got out of me. And yet, I should never have thought of that, without Jack's plain way of putting it. So I squared my elbow, and sprang my pen, and took care that the ink in it was not too round, and I said, "Don't jerk my elbow, Jack; it is no time for larks of any sort." And then I wrote, in fair hand, across all thirty-two columns, these simple words. "Father don't pay for extras. They tried it on before, but he would not have it. Signed, Thomas Upmore; witness, John Windsor."

This was a bold stroke of mine; and it succeeded, as a bold stroke often does, when it has the force of truth behind it. As soon as all these signatures of zealots for new learning (of whom a great many could not spell their own names) had been received in "Council," by our new Principal, and his four "highly-cultured coadjutors" – oh Lord, where is good English buried? – there came a squeaky call, from their sacred cell (as different from old Rum's sonorous, "send him hither," as the cry of a mouse behind the wainscot is from the roar of a lion) and the boy who had the longest ears made it out to be – "the presence of Thomas Upmore is required."

Now, I never had any great amount of pluck, which is a steadfast element; while all my elements were light and fleeting, and never would stand up together (as in a fine character they must do) without going up into the air, and turning round. A miserable shiver went through my heart, and turned my bright cheeks to a sad pale blue – so the other fellows said; though it recked me naught what manner of boy I might be, to look at.

"Tommy, keep your pecker up;" Jack Windsor hit me a slap on the back, to impress this counsel, which would have taken all my breath away, if it had not been gone already; "think of your dad, and all the money he is making. Stick well up to them, that's the only ticket. Make them all shake in their shoes, dear Tommy. They will send for me next. If you frighten them well, you will give me pluck to go on with it."

This was all very nice, from his own point of view; but I heartily wished that he had to go first, to show me the right way of doing it.

"Oh, Jack, you are so brave," I said, "if you would only come with me, and make believe you had been sent for too, I should take it so very kind of you!"

"Don't you wish you may catch it?" he replied, turning round, to be ready for the path of retreat.

"Well, at any rate, come to the door," said I; "to know that you are there, will be better than nothing."

"Oh bother, don't be such a funk," Jack answered; "why, Tommy, they won't eat you." And he took good care that they should not eat him, by bolting, as fast as his fat legs would go.

None of this tended to relieve my mind; but I tried to remember Achilles, and Hector, and all the brave men I had been reading of; yet in spite of them all, I took good care, so far as trembling hands allowed, to leave the door behind me open. It was now in my power, after fifteen years of growth, to go at such a pace with the wind behind me – and any wind blowing from a scientific point would surely find itself behind me – that if I could only get one yard's start, all the science yet invented – with the Devil at the tail of it – might break its wind without coming up with me. Dat vires animus. The whole of my animus was up and eager. I thought of all these wise men in our clot-pit; and out of despair I plucked hope, and defiance.

The longest dining-table in our hall, which would take thirty boys, and their plates, on each side, had been proved to be not half long enough for the length of the papers necessary for the lantern jaws of science. Accordingly, three long boards, upon which Dr. Rumbelow's Hermes had cleaned our knives, had been brought from his out-house, and set up, with green baize over them, to carry ink and papers. Our new master sat at the end of this length, with a brace of Professors, on his right hand and his left. To my innermost parts I recalled these four, and was amazed to find that they knew not me. Principal Crankhead waved his hand, for me to stand silent at the bottom of the table; and then they all turned round, and stared at me, with the exception of Herr Chocolous, who stood, with his chair pushed under the table, to assert his upright principles. And he seemed to me to be labouring not to laugh.

"The name of this pupil appears to be Thomas Upmore," began Mr. Crankhead, "the son of Bucephalus Upmore, a gentleman residing in a place called Maiden Lane. Instead of expressing his preference for sixteen of the subjects proposed for his study, he has stated very briefly, that his father declines to pay for what he calls extras. He does not appear to have realized that these are the essential parts of all true education. Boy, what do you come here for?"

"If you please, sir, to be taught," I said, with a courage which surprised me, "to learn 'whatever is necessary for a liberal education,' according to what Dr. Rumbelow says to parents and guardians, in this paper." I pulled an old circular of the Partheneion from my pocket, and spread it on the table. "But father gave out, from the first, that he never would pay a shilling for extras; unless they agreed to take it out in soap."

"Take out science in soap, indeed!" muttered Professor Brachipod, forgetting how much he had done in that way; though certainly without intending it.

"Well, Upmore, tell us, if you can remember," Principal Crankhead went on, without deigning to notice old Rum's prospectus, "what are the extras, as you call them, which your father has refused to pay for?"

"Drilling, and drawing, and dancing, sir, and washing, and French, and bacon for breakfast, sixpence a time for the delicate boys; and I think there was something about new-laid eggs."

"Zere is no sooch ting, I vill not allow it pass" – broke in Professor Chocolous, "vat you call ze new-laid egg have no right to be so called, because – "

"Because it is generally stale, Professor. Well, Upmore, we seem to have ascertained what your father considered objectionable. But none of them belong to the domain of science. Your mind is a little confused, perhaps, as is only natural, at your age, after giving so much of it to Greek and Latin. Now take a fresh paper, and put your initials – we shall understand them – in the sixteen columns of your selection. Sit down, my lad; we shall teach you something yet."

Certainly my mind was now confused, neither by Latin nor Greek, but by the proximity of such a mass of learning, and its manner of foreclosing me. With a fog of big words spreading over my eyes, and pouring in at my ears, as I tried to sound them, I took up the pen which had been thrown to me; then I put it in my mouth, and said to myself – "it can't matter much what I sign; I'll go in for the biggest of the lot, to brag of them. Father likes something that he can't pronounce."

There was no word of less than five syllables there, and a good many of them went up to eleven. These I picked out, to learn first, with my thumbnail, after counting upon all ten fingers; and then I fell back on the decasyllabic branches of wisdom, and got my sixteen. But, before putting anything down in ink – which my father would have had to pay for, unless he went down to the County Court – I found in my mouth a little bit of the stuff (a twisted, brittle, filmy stuff it is), which may be the nerve of the quill for aught I know; and it saved me most happily from knowing what its name is.

For it got very easily into my throat, – so widely was that poor throat agape, at the prospect of all those tremendous words – and I put the feather-end in, to try to pull it out; and then I began to chew the harl; and who ever did that, without improving what he was going to write at first? Those gentlemen still were as eager as ever, that I should be shut up and done with; while I became unable to share their hurry, and desirous to see the case clearly.

"If you please, sir," I said, from the bottom of the table, after getting on a stool to be heard all up it; "the meaning of this paper is, that I am going to learn all this, for nothing."

Mr. Crankhead stared at the men of science, and with one accord they stared at him; and they would have been amused at my mistake, if it had not been too serious.

"Upmore, you have a great deal yet to learn;" the Principal spoke severely; "do you imagine that Science has ever imparted her blessings, for nothing?"

"I am sure, I did not know, sir," I replied; "but you said that all these were essential parts of true education; and old Rum says – Dr. Rumbelow, I mean, – in this paper, that all those are included in the money for the term."

"But we have changed all that, my boy. Our ideas of what education is are entirely different from those of the obsolete system, under which you have been trained hitherto."

"Then if you please, sir, my father ought to have had a new paper sent him, before he sent me back to school; or how can he tell what he is to pay? I am sure, that he won't pay a farthing more than he had to pay last quarter."

"Thomas Upmore, you may go;" the new Principal said, quite loftily, after whispering, and receiving whispers; "you need not return to the schoolroom at all, or to any part of these premises, except where your clothes and books are. You are too benighted, and contumacious, to deserve any higher education; such as you expect to get for nothing. Branker, see that this boy does not communicate with the other boys. Pack all his things up, and put him in a cab."

Thus was I discharged, very rudely as I thought, from the poor old Partheneion, now entitled the Epistemonicon; and I could not help crying at the manner of it, because people would say that I had been expelled.

But Branker, the new man-of-all-work, who seemed to care little about his place, at the sight of a shilling in my hand, allowed me to have a word or two, in the passage, with Jack Windsor.

"Jack, they have given me the sack," I said; "because I wouldn't put my name down, for father to pay sixteen guineas extra. If I had, I should have been whacked at both ends, for certain. He would have whacked me for doing it; and they would have whacked me worse, for not getting the tin. You have put down your dad for thirty-two guineas. Mind that, and I wish you luck of it."

"Stop the cab, Tommy; stop the cab," cried Jack; "I'll come away with you, in five minutes. I must go in and tell them, I did it for a lark. Why, I should get double the hiding that you would. My governor has got such a host of kids."

I ran to fetch Grip, that he might run behind, and I waited in the cab, for about two minutes, and then out rushed Jack, without any hat on, and jumped in, and banged up the glass, and shouted, "Jarvey, off for Maiden Lane, as hard as you can go!" Then we got out of sight in the back of the cab, and laughed, through the tears on our cheeks, at going home.

So it came to pass, that the boiling-interest was not represented any longer, in those halls of science. When my father heard what I had done, he shook my hand very heartily, and said that he never could have thought I had so much pluck; and he would not mind paying half again as much, but honestly, and on the square, you know, for my education to go on all right; and he would send them his bills, just to let them see what a sight of money their establishment had lost.

"And what language, I should like to know, was all that science to be put in? Elamites, Parthians, Medes, at least" – he said, as he looked at the paper of the fees – "to be any good value, for sixteen guineas."

"No, father," I answered; "it was all to be told us in English, every word of it; only very big words of course, such words as you couldn't make head or tail of."

"None the more honest for that," said father; "why, they make them out of their own heads! I could do that, if I chose to try. Greek and Latin is what I pay for; and this new lot don't know nought of it. If it wasn't for my knowledge of the law, I'd have a defamation action against them, for sending my only son home in a cab like this, and not have the manners to pay the fare! They have done the same thing to Jack Windsor, you say. Every mouth in the Lane will be full of it to-morrow. If John Windsor would go snacks, I should feel half inclined to consider about consulting a Solicitor. And I believe it would pay; I do believe it would. I am a public man now, and under Government I act; and such a man should not have his son kicked out, by a bunch of those dirty Professors."

"Bubbly, don't open old wounds," advised mother; "our Tommy is come home, and I am deeply thankful for it. How could they help getting rid of him, when they never could have taught him half he knows? They knew that he had served his time with their master, the great Professor Megalow; and how could they open their mouths before him? And how could they hold up their heads before Tommy, when they thought of the pit he led them into?"

"Aha, I see! That's it," cried father; "well, I musn't be angry with them after all. One good turn deserves another. And talking of that, we shall have no pits left, if what I was told to-day is true. The Vestry are going to send a man and two boys, all up through our valley, in the course of next month, with sticks and a line, to take measurements, and all the rest of it, for this drainage scheme. Well, it won't hurt us; but I doubt very greatly whether the smell they are sure to make will be wholesome for my workmen. I must try to leave more of my stuff about, to keep the air fresh and the bad smells away. Sophy, I must be off; you might give me a nip of Hollands, before I light my pipe. And while I am at work, you and Tommy can put your heads together, concerning the next thing to be done with a young scamp, who has been expelled from school."

CHAPTER XVII.
SELF-DEFENCE

It appeared to me now, that my education might fairly be entrusted to myself, at least until after Christmas-time; but whether it was, that my dear parents were eager to push me on with learning, or else that they had enjoyed enough of my company for the present, the issue was settled against me, and without another week of holidays. Jack Windsor was in the same box with me; and his mother and mine laid their heads together, and came to the conclusion that Dr. Rumbelow had acted very badly. With the aid of a noble "manual of epistolary correspondence," they indited a joint letter to the new bishop, which must have grieved his upright soul. He answered right humbly, and in few words, that he grieved as deeply as they could do, at the utter subversion of a wholesome school; which would not have happened, if he could have helped it. But he had never been the owner, and only acted under the will of Trustees, who had not consulted him, when he left. Feeling the deepest interest in his beloved pupils of many happy years, he watched the result with sad apprehension, but could not interfere with it. But for any, whose parents desired their removal from the influence of wild doctrines, he could with high confidence recommend an orthodox, and most efficient teacher, an old pupil of his own at Oxford, an accurate scholar, and most active man, now doing excellent work in the Church. This was the Reverend St. Simon Cope, curate of St. Athanasius, a District church in Kentish Town.

Armed with this letter, the two ladies went to see Mr. Cope; and came back in high feather, perfectly full of him, and of new ideas. I could not understand their talk at all, and perhaps that was more than they did themselves. However, I made out that I was to get up at half-past five next Monday, put a strap-load of Greek on my back, and knock, at half-past six exactly, at the corner-house in Torriano Square.

All this I accomplished, not without some groans, and was met at the door by Mr. Cope himself. I wanted to have a good look at him, but entirely failed to manage it; so wholly did my nature fall under the influence of his, that when I went home at night, and father said,

"Well, Tommy, what is the new chap like?"

I could only answer, "I don't know. He is not like any man I ever saw before."

"Did he whack you, Tommy?" went on my father; "you must want it, after all this time."

"He!" I exclaimed with a lofty air; "he need never whack any fellow. I can tell that."

Of this wonderful man, it might truly be said, that he was wholly free from selfishness. Can anything, half so strange as that, be declared of any other human being? That my own little body should go up into the air, is exceptional, though not unparalleled. But for the human mind to leave the ground, is an outrage on the laws of gravitation, ten thousandfold as rare as any I have yet accomplished. And now that I have time to consider it calmly, this must have been the reason, why I could not make him out, even with my outward eyes. And probably this was the reason, why we all admired, obeyed in an instant, and thoroughly revered him; and yet we found our spirits rise, when we got away to people more of our own cast.

This gentleman never was in a hurry, but always calm and gentle, and quite ready to be interrupted; yet the quantity of work he got through in a day was enough for ten men of his strength. Twice every day, he had service in his church, without even a clerk to help him, and four hours every day he spent in visiting poor people. Moreover, he always had in hand some article for the great Reviews, and a heap of other careful work; and besides all this, (and I dare say the hardest of the lot to deal with) a score of us day-pupils, to be taught, and fed, and tended. Yet never was one of us ready with a lesson, without the master being there to hear him. And he more than heard us; he poured his own mind, with all its clear and vivid power, as far into our thick brains as ever it would go, so that even Jack Windsor (who had no more taste in his head than a lignified turnip) told me, going home one night, that Horace was a fine chap after all, when you came to know what he was driving at. No other man in the world could have brought our Jack to that conclusion.

Now, in spite of all this, and the spending of every penny that he earned among the poor, the Reverend St. Simon Cope was not loved at all in Kentish Town; except by a few half-starving outcasts, and a good many ladies with nothing to do. And the reason of this was as plain as a pole – he was one of the "High-church parsons," whom the free-will of the Briton will never accept.

Under the care of this excellent man, I got on very fast in "Nescience," (as the Epistemonicon gentlemen called the classics), and history, and theology, and everything else except their own fads. From my very sad deficiency in weight, I never was a fighter, though often tempted grievously; but Jack Windsor was happily enabled to prove, that which has been proved perpetually in Town and Gown disputations, to wit, the clear superiority in conflict of the true Academic element.

For, as we came home about noon of a Saturday, with five days and a half of Greek inside us, – in a place where a bridge was, we were met, only Jack Windsor and myself, by a maniple – if they deserve the term – from the now adulterous Partheneion. These were fellows of the lewder sort, who had taken up gladly with all the new stuff, and were rank with all Chemical mixtures. Without looking twice at them, we could see they desired to give us a hiding. And they began the base unequal conflict, by casting very hard stones at us. With pleasure, and without disgrace (considering the force of numbers against us) we would have fled, by the road that had brought us; but they had provided against this measure, by posting large boys behind us. There was nothing around us, but a world of thumps; and the air was darkened with impending fists.

"Stop a bit; hold hard;" cried Jack Windsor, with his back against the coping of the bridge; "give us fair play, you lot of sneaking cowards. I see a chap, who has been at our house, and squibbed a wasp's nest with me. Let me speak a moment to Bob Stubbs. Now, Bob, I know you were an honourable chap, till you got among dirty foreigners. I don't want to fight you, 'cos we always were good friends. But pick out the biggest of your scientific lot, and let me have a fair turn with him; while Tommy here tackles some fellow of his size. You must all be going to the bad, up there; if you bring a score of fellows to pitch into two. In the old days, we always allowed fair play."

Being English boys, they were moved by this; and after some little talk, two rings were formed – one for Jack and his antagonist, and the other, alas! for me and mine. Loth as I was to fight, it seemed better than to be pounded passively; and so I pulled off my coat, and squared up, as my father had shown me he used to do. And, whether by reason of his ancient system being more practical than the new lights, or whether in virtue of my own quickness, in hopping away when knocked at, I may say, without any exaggeration, that I hit the other fellow more than he hit me; until I was grieved to see him bleed, and then I put down my fists, and shook hands with him.

But my own little combat was no more in comparison with Jack Windsor's, than the skirmish between two charioteers of the "Iliad," while their heroes fight. Jack was in earnest, and knew no remorse. He had been hit on the forehead by a stone, and could swear that the fellow before him was the one who threw it. Moreover, this boy had shouted, "Come on, Suds!" with a most contemptuous toss of his head, being bigger than Jack, though not so strong, for our Jack was built up like a milestone.

"Come on, Suds," he shouted; "come on, my lad of lather!"

"I'll lather you, if I can," said Jack.

The battle was long, and quick with a spirit of trenchant valour, on either side. I did not see the beginning, because I was strenuously occupied with my own engagement; but that being brought to a happy conclusion, the boy I had conquered joined me, with much good will, in observing the other fight. And here let me mention that his name was Bellows, Jeremiah Bellows of Blackpool, a prominent orator, as everybody knows, of the Liberal party, by and by.

When Bellows, and I, came up to look, there was no mistaking the nature of the fray. Very little time had been lost in repose between the rounds, and the action had been so vigorous, and so well sustained, that on either side now it was a harder job to fetch the breath, than to give the blow. Whichever might conquer, there could be no doubt that the fight was a credit to his school.

Happily for us, the "noble science of self-defence" was not yet one of the thirty-two taught by the four Professors. Otherwise Jack would have long been vanquished, for he had not much of polemical skill; and I was astonished at his endurance, having always found him peaceful. But I knew, by the way his lips were set, and his square style of going forward, that his mind was made up, to be knocked to pieces, sooner than knock under.

This was a lesson to me, than which I have never had a better one in all my life. There was scarcely a pin to choose between those two, in the matter of affliction. Jack had got one eye quite bunged up, and his enemy had both eyes half-way closed; the nose of our Jack was gone in at the middle, and that of his adversary at the end; and their other contusions might pretty nearly match. Yet Jack won, all of a heap. And why? Because he would rather be killed, than yield. The other fellow would rather yield, than stand the very smallest chance of being killed.

So when Jack came up for another good round, his enemy sate, and looked at him, and thought it would be wiser to negotiate. He was not by any means whacked, he declared, and he went on to prove it, though still sitting down – as Britannia never lets her tail drop now, without elevating her tongue, to stand for it – but his mind was made up, not to incur further danger of blood-guiltiness.

After all the insults put upon him, Jack would not let him off, without a clearer understanding.

"Either you are whacked, or not," said he; "if you are whacked, say so straightforrard, and I will shake hands with you. If you are not, stand up again."

This was plain English, the only sensible thing in a case of that kind. The other boy looked about; but saw no way to shuffle out of it, having not yet been Prime Minister.

"I don't mean to fight any more," he said, "until I perceive the necessity of it. At the same time, you can see yourself, that I am not a bit afraid of you. Every one who knows me will bear me out in that. I could prove it, if I had time; but there goes the dinner-bell, and we all must run. Not from you, mind, not from you; only because we are obliged to bolt."

Likely enough, there are people who would be glad to make light of this victory; as they do with all those we always lose, while blowing up the trumpet in the very new moon, if ever we cannot help winning one. But Jack, and I, took a natural view of the facts we ourselves had created. Science had bitten the dust before the powers of ancient literature, though the latter had struggled at fearful odds; and seven of the boys, who had seen it, persuaded their parents to take them from the Gorgon, and apprentice them again to the gentle Muse, who only strikes in self-defence. And as soon as my father and mother heard it – by reason of my bruises, one of which required raw beefsteak, – they were for ever confirmed in their perception of their own wisdom.

But alas! I scarcely know how to tell the next event in my sad career. Gladly would I leave it all untold, save by mine enemies; if the latter would only tell it truly, or leave it untold falsely. But this it is hopeless to expect. There is a certain rancour in all persons of loose politics; wherewith – to put it liberally – nature, abhorring a vacuum, has stopped the vast gap of their principles. And this pervasive bitterness, when not obtaining vent enough, as it fairly might do upon one another, sometimes sets them raking up the private life, and domestic history, of those who are not like themselves.

It has been related, some way back, that the great authorities of our parish, having been urged by fussy people – most of whom paid no rates at all – to abate, what they were pleased to call, the nuisance of our wholesome smell, had arrived at last at a resolution, to cure the air of our chimney-tops, by carrying a big culvert through the valley, a hundred yards below. How this was to effect that purpose, none of us clearly understood; but as it would not come near our works, yet saved them from being grumbled at, we accepted the conviction of the public, that it must prove a perfect cure. And reasoning by analogy, we expected no stroke to be struck, for a score of happy years yet to come.