A School Story 2 2
"I came to the school in a September, soon after the year 1870; and among
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland boy,whom I will call McLeod. I needn't spend time in describing him: the mainthing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy inany way - not particularly good at books or games - but he suited me."The school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boysthere as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, andthere were rather frequent changes among them."One term - perhaps it was my third or fourth - a new master made hisappearance. His name was Sampson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale,black-bearded man. I think we liked him: he had travelled a good deal, andhad stories which amused us on our school walks, so that there was somecompet.i.tion among us to get within earshot of him. I remember too - dear me,I have hardly thought of it since then - that he had a charm on hiswatch-chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it.It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin; there was an effigy of someabsurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth,and he had had cut on it - rather barbarously - his own initials, G.W.S.,and a date, 24 July, 1865. Yes, I can see it now: he told me he had pickedit up in Constantinople: it was about the size of a florin, perhaps rathersmaller."Well, the first odd thing that happened was this. Sampson was doingLatin grammar with us. One of his favourite methods - perhaps it is rather agood one - was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads toill.u.s.trate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Of course that is athing which gives a silly boy a chance of being impertinent: there are lotsof school stories in which that happens - or any-how there might be. ButSampson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on withhim. Now, on this occasion he was telling us how to express remembering inLatin: and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb
memini, 'I remember.' Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence suchas 'I remember my father,' or 'He remembers his book,' or something equallyuninteresting: and I dare say a good many put down memino librum meum, andso forth: but the boy I mentioned - McLeod - was evidently thinking ofsomething more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have oursentences pa.s.sed, and get on to something else, so some kicked him under thedesk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to looksharp. But he didn't seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he hadput down nothing at all. So I jogged him again harder than before andupbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect.He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about acouple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was thelast, or nearly the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to sayto the boys who had written meminiscimus patri meo and the rest of it, itturned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, andMcLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There wasnothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come.He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been somesort of trouble. 'Well,' I said, 'what did you get?' 'Oh, I don't know,'said McLeod, 'nothing much: but I think Sampson's rather sick with me.''Why, did you show him up some rot?' 'No fear,' he said. 'It was all rightas far as I could see: it was like this: Memento - that's right enough forremember, and it takes a genitive, - memento putei inter quatuor taxos.''What silly rot!' I said. 'What made you shove that down? What does itmean?' 'That's the funny part,' said McLeod. 'I'm not quite sure what itdoes mean. All I know is, it just came into my head and I corked it down. Iknow what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sortof picture of it in my head: I believe it means "Remember the well among thefour" - what are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?''Mountain ashes, I s'pose you mean.' 'I never heard of them,' said McLeod;'no, I'll tell you - yews.' 'Well, and what did Sampson say?' 'Why, he wasjolly odd about it. When he read it he got up and went to the mantel-pieceand stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me.And then he said, without turning round, and rather quiet, "What do yousuppose that means?" I told him what I thought; only I couldn't remember thename of the silly tree: and then he wanted to know why I put it down, and Ihad to say something or other. And after that he left off talking about it,and asked me how long I'd been here, and where my people lived, and thingslike that: and then I came away: but he wasn't looking a bit well.'