Sinister Street · Book II · Chapter 2 4 (3/3)

Huc omnis turba ad ripas effusa ruebat,

Matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita

Magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptœque puellœ,

Impositique rogis juvenes ante ora parentum;

Quam multa in silvis auctumni frigore primo

Lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto

Quam multœ glomerantur aves ubi frigidus annus

Trans pontum fugat et terris immittit apricis.

Compare, said the commentator, Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

In Vallombrosa.

As Michael mentally repeated the thunderous English line, a surge of melancholy caught him up to overwhelm his thoughts. In some way those words expressed what he was feeling at this moment, so that he could gain relief from the poignancy of his joy here in the darkness close to Alan with the unfathomable valley of the Thames beneath, by saying over and over again:

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

In Vallombrosa.

“Damn, damn, damn, damn,” cried Alan suddenly. “Exams on Monday! Damn, damn, damn, damn.”

“I must go home and swat tonight,” said Michael.

“So must I,” sighed Alan.

“Walk with me to the station,” Michael asked.

“Oh, rather,” replied Alan.

Soon Michael was jolting back to Kensington in a stuffy carriage of hot Richmond merrymakers, while all the time he sat in the corner, saying over and over again:

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

In Vallombrosa.

All Saturday night and all Sunday Michael worked breathlessly for those accursed examinations: but at the end of them he and Alan were bracketed equal, very near the tail of the Upper Fourth A. Dr. Brownjohn sent for each of them in turn, and each of them found the interview very trying.

“What do you mean by it?” roared the Headmaster to Michael. “What do you mean by it, you young blackguard? Um? Look at this list. Um? It’s a contemptible position for a Scholar. Down here with a lump of rabbit’s brains, you abominable little loafer. Um? If you aren’t in the first five boys of the Lower Fifth next term, I’ll kick you off the Foundation. What good are you to the School? Um? None at all.”

As Dr. Brownjohn bellowed forth this statement, his mouth opened so wide that Michael instinctively shrank back as if from a crater in eruption.

“You don’t come here to swagger about,” growled the Headmaster. “You come here to be a credit to your school. You pestilent young jackanapes, do you suppose I haven’t noticed your idleness? Um? I notice everything. Get out of my sight and take your hands out of your pockets, you insolent little lubber. Um?”

Michael left the Headmaster’s room with an expression of tragic injury: in the corridor was a group of juniors.

“What the devil are you kids hanging about here for?” Michael demanded.

“All right, sidey Fane,” they burbled. Michael dashed into the group and grabbed a handful of caps which he tossed into the dusty complications of the Laocoön. To their lamentations he responded by thrusting his hands deep down into his pockets and whistling “Little Dolly Daydreams, pride of Idaho.” The summer term would be over in a few days, and Michael was sorry to say goodbye to Alan, who was going to Norway with his father and mother and would therefore not be available for the whole of the holidays. Indeed, he was leaving two days before School actually broke up. Michael was wretched without Alan and brooded over the miseries of life that so soon transcended the joys. On the last day of term, he was seized with an impulse to say goodbye to Mr. Caryll, an impulse which he could not understand and was inclined to deplore. However, it was too strong for his conventions, and he loitered behind in the confusion of merry departures.

“Goodbye, sir,” he said shyly.

Mr. Caryll took off two pairs of spectacles and examined Michael through the remaining pair, rasping out the familiar cough as he did so.

“Now, you great booby, what do you want?” he asked.

“Goodbye, sir,” Michael said, more loudly.

“Oh, goodbye,” said Mr. Caryll. “You’ve been a very idle boy”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“and I”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“I don’t think I ever knew such an idle boy before.”

“I’ve had a ripping time in your class, sir,” said Michael.

“What do you mean?”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“are you trying to be impudent?” exclaimed Mr. Caryll, hastily putting on a second pair of spectacles to cope with the situation.

“No, sir. I’ve enjoyed being in your class. I’m sorry I was so low down in the list. Goodbye, sir.”

Mr. Caryll seemed to realize at last that Michael was being sincerely complimentary, so he took off all the pairs of spectacles and beamed at him with an expression of the most profound benignity.

“Oh, well”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“we can’t all be top”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“but it’s a pity you should be so very low down”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“you’re a Scholar too, which makes it much worse. Never mind. Good boy at heart”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“better luck in your next form”⁠—cough⁠—cough. “Hope you’ll enjoy yourself on your holidays.”

“Goodbye, sir. Thanks awfully,” said Michael. He turned away from the well-loved classroom of old Caryll that still echoed with the laughter of the Upper Fourth A.

“And don’t work too hard”⁠—cough⁠—cough, was Mr. Caryll’s last joke.

In the corridor Michael caught up the lantern-jawed boy who had prophesied this year’s pleasure at the beginning of last autumn.

“Just been saying goodbye to old Christmas,” Michael volunteered.

“He’s a topper,” said Lantern-jaws. “The best old boy that ever lived. I wish I was going to be in his form again next term.”

“So do I,” said Michael. “We had a clinking good time. So long. Hope you’ll have decent holidays.”

“So long,” said the lantern-jawed boy lugubriously, dropping most of his mathematical books. “Same to you.”

When Michael was at home, he took a new volume of Henty into the garden and began to read. Suddenly he found he was bored by Henty. This knowledge shocked him for the moment. Then he went indoors and put For Name and Fame, or Through Afghan Passes back on the shelf. He surveyed the row of Henty’s books gleaming with olivine edges, and presently he procured brown paper and with Cook’s assistance wrapped up the dozen odd volumes. At the top he placed a slip of paper on which was written “Presented to the Boys’ Library by C. M. S. Fane.” Michael was now in a perplexity for literary recreation, until he remembered Don Quixote. Soon he was deep in that huge volume, out of the dull world of London among the gorges and chasms and waterfalls of Castile. Boyhood’s zenith had been attained: Michael’s imagination was primed for strange emotions.