Now the daily output of the letter-bag, with the mysterious discussions that ensued thereon,[240] had speedily informed us that Uncle Thomas was intrusted with a mission—a mission, too, affecting ourselves. Uncle Thomas’s missions were many and various. A self-important man, one liking10 the business while protesting that he sank under the burden, he was the missionary11, so to speak, of our remote habitation. The matching a ribbon, the running down to the stores, the interviewing a cook—these and similar duties lent constant colour and variety to his vacant life in London, and helped to keep down his figure. When the matter, however, had in our presence to be referred to with nods and pronouns, with significant hiatuses and interpolations in the French tongue, then the red flag was flown, the storm-cone hoisted12, and by a studious pretence13 of inattention we were not long in plucking out the heart of the mystery.
To clinch14 our conclusion, we descended15 suddenly and together on Martha; proceeding16, however, not by simple inquiry17 as to facts—that would never have done; but by informing her that the air was full of school and that we[241] knew all about it, and then challenging denial. Martha was a trusty soul, but a bad witness for the defence, and we soon had it all out of her. The word had gone forth18, the school had been selected; the necessary sheets were hemming19 even now, and Edward was the designated and appointed victim.
It had always been before us as an inevitable20 bourne, this strange unknown thing called school; and yet—perhaps I should say consequently—we had never seriously set ourselves to consider what it really meant. But now that the grim spectre loomed21 imminent22, stretching lean hands for one of our flock, it behoved us to face the situation, to take soundings in this uncharted sea and find out whither we were drifting. Unfortunately the data in our possession were absolutely insufficient23, and we knew not whither to turn for exact information. Uncle Thomas could have told us all about it, of course; he had been there himself, once, in the dim and misty24 past. But an unfortunate conviction, that nature had intended him for a humorist, tainted25 all his evidence, besides[242] making it wearisome to hear. Again, of such among our contemporaries as we had approached, the trumpets26 gave forth an uncertain sound. According to some it meant larks27, revels28, emancipation29, and a foretaste of the bliss30 of manhood. According to others—the majority, alas31!—it was a private and peculiar32 Hades, that could give the original institution points and a beating. When Edward was observed to be swaggering round with a jaunty33 air and his chest stuck out, I knew that he was contemplating34 his future from the one point of view. When, on the contrary, he was subdued35 and unaggressive, and sought the society of his sisters, I recognised that the other aspect was in the ascendant. ‘You can always run away, you know,’ I used to remark consolingly on these latter occasions; and Edward would brighten up wonderfully at the suggestion, while Charlotte melted into tears before her vision of a brother with blistered36 feet and an empty belly37, passing nights of frost ’neath the lee of windy haystacks.
It was to Edward, of course, that the situation[243] was chiefly productive of anxiety; and yet the ensuing change in my own circumstances and position furnished me also with food for grave reflexion. Hitherto I had acted mostly to orders. Even when I had devised and counselled any particular devilry, it had been carried out on Edward’s approbation38, and—as eldest—at his special risk. Henceforward I began to be anxious of the bugbear Responsibility, and to realise what a soul-throttling thing it is. True, my new position would have its compensations. Edward had been masterful exceedingly, imperious, perhaps a little narrow; impassioned for hard facts, and with scant39 sympathy for make-believe. I should now be free and untrammelled; in the conception and the carrying out of a scheme, I could accept and reject to better artistic40 purpose.
It would, moreover, be needless to be a Radical41 any more. Radical I never was, really, by nature or by sympathy. The part had been thrust on me one day, when Edward proposed to foist43 the House of Lords on our small republic. The principles of the thing he set forth[244] learnedly and well, and it all sounded promising44 enough, till he went on to explain that, for the present at least, he proposed to be the House of Lords himself. We others were to be the Commons. There would be promotions45, of course, he added, dependent on service and on fitness, and open to both sexes; and to me in especial he held out hopes of speedy advancement46. But in its initial stages the thing wouldn’t work properly unless he were first and only Lord. Then I put my foot down promptly47, and said it was all rot, and I didn’t see the good of any House of Lords at all. ‘Then you must be a low Radical!’ said Edward, with fine contempt. The inference seemed hardly necessary, but what could I do? I accepted the situation, and said firmly, Yes, I was a low Radical. In this monstrous48 character I had been obliged to masquerade ever since; but now I could throw it off, and look the world in the face again.
And yet, did this and other gains really outbalance my losses? Henceforth I should, it was true, be leader and chief; but I should[245] also be the buffer49 between the Olympians and my little clan50. To Edward this had been nothing; he had withstood the impact of Olympus without flinching51, like Teneriffe or Atlas52 unremoved. But was I equal to the task? And was there not rather a danger that for the sake of peace and quietness I might be tempted53 to compromise, compound, and make terms? sinking thus, by successive lapses54, into the Blameless Prig? I don’t mean, of course, that I thought out my thoughts to the exact point here set down. In those fortunate days of old one was free from the hard necessity of transmuting55 the vague idea into the mechanical inadequate56 medium of words. But the feeling was there, that I might not possess the qualities of character for so delicate a position.
The unnatural57 halo round Edward got more pronounced, his own demeanour more responsible and dignified58, with the arrival of his new clothes. When his trunk and play-box were sent in, the approaching cleavage between our brother, who now belonged to the future, and ourselves, still claimed by the past, was accentuated[246] indeed. His name was painted on each of them, in large letters, and after their arrival their owner used to disappear mysteriously, and be found eventually wandering round his luggage, murmuring to himself, ‘Edward ——,’ in a rapt remote sort of way. It was a weakness, of course, and pointed8 to a soft spot in his character; but those who can remember the sensation of first seeing their names in print will not think hardly of him.
As the short days sped by and the grim event cast its shadow longer and longer across our threshold, an unnatural politeness, a civility scarce canny59, began to pervade60 the air. In those latter hours Edward himself was frequently heard to say ‘Please,’ and also ‘Would you mind fetchin’ that ball?’ while Harold and I would sometimes actually find ourselves trying to anticipate his wishes. As for the girls, they simply grovelled61. The Olympians, too, in their uncouth62 way, by gift of carnal delicacies63 and such-like indulgence, seemed anxious to demonstrate that they had hitherto misjudged this one of us. Altogether the situation grew strained[247] and false, and I think a general relief was felt when the end came.
We all trooped down to the station, of course; it is only in later years that the farce64 of ‘seeing people off’ is seen in its true colours. Edward was the life and soul of the party; and if his gaiety struck one at times as being a trifle overdone65, it was not a moment to be critical. As we tramped along, I promised him I would ask Farmer Larkin not to kill any more pigs till he came back for the holidays, and he said he would send me a proper catapult,—the real lethal66 article, not a kid’s plaything. Then suddenly, when we were about half-way down, one of the girls fell a-snivelling.
The happy few who dare to laugh at the woes67 of sea-sickness will perhaps remember how, on occasion, the sudden collapse68 of a fellow-voyager before their very eyes has caused them hastily to revise their self-confidence and resolve to walk more humbly69 for the future. Even so it was with Edward, who turned his head aside, feigning70 an interest in the landscape. It was but for a moment; then he recollected71 the hat he was[248] wearing—a hard bowler72, the first of that sort he had ever owned. He took it off, examined it, and felt it over. Something about it seemed to give him strength, and he was a man once more.
At the station, Edward’s first care was to dispose his boxes on the platform so that every one might see the labels and the lettering thereon. One did not go to school for the first time every day! Then he read both sides of his ticket carefully; shifted it to every one of his pockets in turn; and finally fell to chinking of his money, to keep his courage up. We were all dry of conversation by this time, and could only stand round and stare in silence at the victim decked for the altar. And, as I looked at Edward, in new clothes of a manly73 cut, with a hard hat upon his head, a railway ticket in one pocket and money of his own in the other—money to spend as he liked and no questions asked!—I began to feel dimly how great was the gulf74 already yawning betwixt us. Fortunately I was not old enough to realise, further, that here on this little platform the old[249] order lay at its last gasp75, and that Edward might come back to us, but it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could things ever be the same again.
When the train steamed up at last, we all boarded it impetuously with the view of selecting the one peerless carriage to which Edward might be intrusted with the greatest comfort and honour; and as each one found the ideal compartment76 at the same moment, and vociferously77 maintained its merits, he stood some chance for a time of being left behind. A porter settled the matter by heaving him through the nearest door; and as the train moved off, Edward’s head was thrust out of the window, wearing on it an unmistakable first-quality grin that he had been saving up somewhere for the supreme78 moment. Very small and white his face looked, on the long side of the retreating train. But the grin was visible, undeniable, stoutly79 maintained; till a curve swept him from our sight, and he was borne away in the dying rumble80, out of our placid81 backwater, out into the busy world of rubs and knocks and competition, out into the New Life.
When a crab82 has lost a leg, his gait is still more awkward than his wont83, till Time and healing Nature make him totus teres atque rotundus once more. We straggled back from the station disjointedly; Harold, who was very silent, sticking close to me, his last slender prop42, while the girls in front, their heads together, were already reckoning up the weeks to the holidays. Home at last, Harold suggested one or two occupations of a spicy84 and contraband85 flavour, but though we did our manful best there was no knocking any interest out of them. Then I suggested others, with the same want of success. Finally we found ourselves sitting silent on an upturned wheelbarrow, our chins on our fists, staring haggardly into the raw new conditions of our changed life, the ruins of a past behind our backs.
And all the while Selina and Charlotte were busy stuffing Edward’s rabbits with unwonted forage86, bilious87 and green; polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved88 and swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting materials for new bows and arrows, whips, boats,[251] guns, and four-in-hand harness, against the return of Ulysses. Little did they dream that the hero, once back from Troy and all its onsets89, would scornfully condemn90 their clumsy but laborious91 armoury as rot and humbug92 and only fit for kids! This, with many another like awakening93, was mercifully hidden from them. Could the veil have been lifted, and the girls permitted to see Edward as he would appear a short three months hence, ragged94 of attire95 and lawless of tongue, a scorner of tradition and an adept96 in strange new physical tortures, one who would in the same half-hour dismember a doll and shatter a hallowed belief,—in fine, a sort of swaggering Captain, fresh from the Spanish Main,—could they have had the least hint of this, well, then perhaps——. But which of us is of mental fibre to stand the test of a glimpse into futurity? Let us only hope that, even with certain disillusionment ahead, the girls would have acted precisely97 as they did.
And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as children and long afterwards,[252] we are never allowed to guess how the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear not only to others but to ourselves, a very short time hence. So we pass, with a gusto and a heartiness98 that to an onlooker99 would seem almost pathetic, from one droll100 devotion to another misshapen passion; and who shall dare to play Rhadamanthus, to appraise101 the record, and to decide how much of it is solid achievement, and how much the merest child’s play?
The End
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1
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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syllogism
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| n.演绎法，三段论法 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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clinch
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| v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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hemming
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| 卷边 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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prop
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| vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山 | |
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foist
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| vt.把…强塞给，骗卖给 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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promotions
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| 促进( promotion的名词复数 )； 提升； 推广； 宣传 | |
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advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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buffer
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| n.起缓冲作用的人(或物)，缓冲器；vt.缓冲 | |
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clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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51
flinching
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的现在分词 ) | |
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atlas
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| n.地图册，图表集 | |
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53
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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transmuting
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的现在分词 ) | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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canny
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| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
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pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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grovelled
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| v.卑躬屈节，奴颜婢膝( grovel的过去式和过去分词 )；趴 | |
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uncouth
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| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
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delicacies
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| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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overdone
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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lethal
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| adj.致死的；毁灭性的 | |
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woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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feigning
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| 假装，伪装( feign的现在分词 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bowler
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| n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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75
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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76
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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vociferously
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| adv.喊叫地，吵闹地 | |
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78
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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80
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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81
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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82
crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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83
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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84
spicy
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| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
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85
contraband
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| n.违禁品，走私品 | |
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86
forage
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| n.(牛马的)饲料，粮草；v.搜寻，翻寻 | |
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87
bilious
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| adj.胆汁过多的；易怒的 | |
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88
raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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onsets
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| 攻击，袭击（onset的复数形式） | |
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90
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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92
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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93
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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heartiness
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| 诚实，热心 | |
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99
onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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100
droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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101
appraise
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| v.估价，评价，鉴定 | |
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