’The rude will shuffle through with ease enough:
Great schools best suit the sturdy and the rough.’
Cowper.
At school Griffith was very happy, and brilliantly
successful, alike in study and sport, though sports
were not made prominent in those days, and triumphs
in them were regarded by the elders with doubtful
pride, lest they should denote a lack of attention
to matters of greater importance. All his achievements
were, however, poured forth by himself and Clarence
to Emily and me, and we felt as proud of them as
if they had been our own.
Clarence was industrious, and did not fail in his
school work, but when he came home for the holidays
there was a cowed look about him, and private revelations
were made over my sofa that made my flesh creep.
The scars were still visible, caused by having been
compelled to grasp the bars of the grate bare-handed;
and, what was worse, he had been suspended outside
a third story window by the wrists, held by a schoolfellow
of thirteen!
‘But what was Griff about?’ I demanded,
with hot tears of indignation.
’Oh, Win!—that’s what they
call him, and me Slow—he said it would
do me good. But I don’t think it did, Eddy.
It only makes my heart beat fit to choke me whenever
I go near the passage window.’
I could only utter a vain wish that I had been there
and able to fight for him, and I attacked Griff on
the subject on the first opportunity.
‘Oh!’ was his answer, ’it is only
what all fellows have to bear if there’s no
pluck in them. They tried it on upon me, you
know, but I soon showed them it would not do’—with
the cock of the nose, the flash of the eyes, the
clench of the fist, that were peculiarly Griff’s
own; and when I pleaded that he might have protected
Clarence, he laughed scornfully. ’As
to Slow, wretched being, a fellow can’t help
bullying him. It comes as natural as to a cat
with a mouse.’ On further and reiterated
pleadings, Griff declared, first, that it was the
only thing to do Slow any good, or make a man of
him; and next, that he heartily wished that Winslow
junior had been Miss Clara at once, as the fellows
called him—it was really hard on him (Griff)
to have such a sneaking little coward tied to him
for a junior!
I particularly resented the term Slow, for Clarence
had lately been the foremost of us in his studies;
but the idea that learning had anything to do with
the matter was derided, and as time went on, there
was vexation and displeasure at his progress not being
commensurate with his abilities. It would have
been treason to schoolboy honour to let the elders
know that though a strong, high-spirited popular
boy like ‘Win’ might venture to excel big
bullying dunces, such fair game as poor ‘Slow’
could be terrified into not only keeping below them,
but into doing their work for them. To him
Cowper’s ‘Tirocinium’ had only too
much sad truth.
