MY LAST HALF.

My vacation pa.s.sed very quietly till within ten days of its termination, at which time Miss Stanley came to stay at the Heronry. I soon went over to call, and found everything much as it was formerly, except that the pedantic cousin was not mentioned. I soon after learnt that he had behaved very discreditably at Oxford and had been obliged to leave, and that his match had been broken off by Miss Stanley.

It is a curious fact, but it is one that experience has taught us, that in almost every case where a man a.s.sumes a superiority over all others, and is always endeavouring to expose weak points or want of knowledge in others whilst he thrusts his only slender information forward, that man is an impostor, and, if found out, will generally "go to the bad." This was the case with Snipson, with Stanley, and with many others we have known; and, if others will recall their own experiences, we believe they also will find they are led to the same conclusion. There is no necessity for a really clever man to be always blowing his own trumpet; his actual works will show what he has in him; whereas a shallow-pated impostor is always trying by tricks to arrive at a notoriety to which he never could attain by fair work and genuine compet.i.tion, and so loses no opportunity of taking a prominent position for want of a.s.sumption.

I found that Miss Stanley had seen Howard several times in London, and p.r.o.nounced him "charming." It was supposed that Howard would have to go to Southampton on some duty, and if so he was expected to pa.s.s a few days at the Heronry. Now, had it been any one else, I believe I should have been jealous, for, although I had ceased to be spoony on Miss Stanley, yet I liked her society, and should not have felt happy in knowing she was much with any one else. He, however, was an exception.

Each time I met Howard I found that my latest experience had given me the capacity to appreciate in him some quality which had before escaped my observation, whereas when I met other men whom I had known when I was a boy, and of whom I had thought most highly, I found them to be rough, uncultivated, and unintellectual--the change really being in myself, not in them.

I looked forward to Howard's visit to the Heronry, for I hoped then to see more of him and to get more at his mind than I had been able to do in the bustle and gaiety of London. I also wanted to compare his knowledge of mathematics, etc, with mine, in order to see whether the course at the Academy that I had gone through was as sound as it used to be a few years previously.

It wanted only five days to the date at which I had to leave for Woolwich, when Howard came down to the Heronry, and I was asked over to dine and stop the next day. Before I had been half an hour in the house I discovered that Howard and Helen Stanley seemed to be equally pleased with each other, and I felt that my presence was not always looked upon as agreeable. I was not, therefore, surprised when on the next day Howard told me in the strictest confidence that he and Miss Stanley were engaged, and that they were going to be married when he was a captain, which he hoped to be in about a year.

It being the object of this tale to describe the life of a Woolwich cadet thirty years ago, we must leave our friend Howard and the charming Helen at the Heronry, and return once more to the busy scene of my early labours and compet.i.tion at Woolwich.

On returning to the Academy for my fifth half-year I found I was promoted to corporal, and was third senior. This promotion gave me a pair of epaulettes, which I put on, and wore with great pride. It was the first promotion I had received, and I can fairly say that no step in rank or position that fortune has since favoured me with ever produced one-tenth of the pleasure that I experienced at eighteen years of age in being made a corporal.

My life at Woolwich was now very agreeable. I had made the acquaintance of friends in the neighbourhood, and also in London. I usually went on leave from Sat.u.r.day afternoon to Sunday evening, staying during the time with friends. At the Academy, being a corporal gave me certain privileges and authority, whilst every neux was to all intents and purposes my slave. I had every prospect of taking a high position in my batch, and after four months at the a.r.s.enal, in the practical cla.s.s, I should obtain my commission, and start as an officer in either the Artillery or Engineers.

The friends at whose houses I visited congratulated me on my excellent prospects, and seemed to think I was excessively lucky in having such a chance before me.

One of my friends was a retired colonel, who had been through the whole of the Peninsular war, was at Waterloo, and had left the service many years. He was a soldier of the old school, considered the service everything, and that there was only one profession for a gentleman, viz, the army.

After dinner, and when he and I were _tete-a-tete_, he used to indulge in various hints and opinions as regards the conduct and character of an officer and a gentleman.

"An officer," he used to say, "must be the most honourable and gentlemanly of men. He must resent instantly the slightest insult. If a man even looks insultingly at you, have him out at once. If the day ever does come (as I fear the radical tendency of the age seems to indicate) that duelling is done away with, a sn.o.b and a bully will be able to ride roughshod over a gentleman, and there will be no redress.

An officer, too, must learn his profession. It is a mistake to think that an officer should be above his work. He ought to know everything and do everything better than his men. More than once in my service, when I commanded a troop of Dragoons, I have taken off my coat and shown a private how to clean a horse.

"An officer, too, ought to be able to take his wine, and yet show no signs of it. I can't recommend you any royal road to this," said the colonel, "except practice. I should like to tell you, also," he continued, "that many young officers make or mar their reputation daring their first night at mess. I remember once in my old regiment there was a young cornet joined us, who looked all right, and talked all right, but at mess he had to carve some beef for the colonel. He helped the colonel, and sent him a plate laden with two thick slices of beef, and a lump of fat big enough to choke a dog. 'Good heavens!' said the colonel, 'what does that young fellow mean by sending me this ma.s.s of food? Does he not know I can come again if I want more? Take my plate away; the fellow has spoiled my dinner!'

"We were now all rather doubtful about our new cornet, who, however, had plenty of money, and had come from one of our first public schools; and sure enough our suspicions proved to be correct--the cloven hoof had peeped out in the overladen plate of beef. The cornet proved to be the only son of a retired contract butcher, who had made a large fortune during the war, and had retired to the country and had tried to make his son a gentleman, but he couldn't do it, sir; the plate of beef exposed him."

These and other similar precepts were instilled into me by my old friend daring the time that I took my first practice under his tuition of testing the strength of my head _versus_ the strength of his port wine, and I am happy to say that I gained the colonel's approval one Sat.u.r.day evening in an unexpected manner as follows:--

A party of four had been at dinner, all military men. We had sat over our wine a fair time, and, charmed with the conversation, I had done full justice to the port. The colonel then proposed a rubber of whist, at which game he was an adept, and required me to take a hand. I played a fair game of whist for a youngster, and so made up the fourth.

Luckily I was on that night a good card-holder, and was the colonel's partner, and we won. He was delighted, for his whole heart was in the game. When we broke up he gave me a pat on the back and said, "Shepard, I always thought well of you, but I never formed so high an opinion of your talents and power as to-night. You may talk about your examinations in Euclid and mathematics, for which a fellow is crammed like a parrot for months, as a test of a man's brains and his fitness for a soldier; I think it's nearly all bosh, and gives no fair test; but if I see a young man do what you've done to-night, that is, put a bottle of port under his waistcoat and afterwards play a quiet, steady rubber, and remember whether the twelfth or thirteenth card is the best, I know that fellow has a good head. I believe there is not one youngster in twenty can do this now-a-day. They are all weeds--haven't the stamina and backbone they used to have--and the Englishman is degenerating to a great extent, I believe, in consequence of the inordinate use of tobacco."

Daring the present half-year I had taken up cricket, and was very successful as a "fielder," though my batting was not first-rate. I was good enough, however, to play in the Eleven against the Officers of the Artillery--a match we played each year--and made double figures in my score, and caught out two of the officers.

Although I was nearly always on leave from Sat.u.r.day to Sunday for the "whole shay," as it was termed, yet I on one occasion did not go. The result was that I had command of the first company at church-parade, and marched past on the barrack-field before going to church. Several times I had been in the ranks when we had marched past on Sundays, but this was the first time I had ever commanded the company. There was a great crowd to see us march past and to hear the band, and the company was praised for its steadiness. I remembered well my feelings as a schoolboy when I saw a cadet in a similar position to that I now occupied, and I regretted that I had not now the same delight in being where I was that I fancied formerly I should have. It was not a want of enthusiasm, for I had still plenty of that left; but I felt as if I were performing a mere act of business, and was more occupied in seeing that the ranks kept line and proper distance than I was in the thought of commanding the company.

Somehow I had grown to understand that hard work and thought were the means to all success, and that now, when I happened to be senior corporal, it was merely in consequence of others being absent, and that I had attained this position by hard work. I must confess I felt disappointed with myself, for I did not experience one-hundredth part of the pleasure I should have felt had it been possible to transfer me instantly from a schoolboy at Hostler's to the position I now occupied.

One little incident, however, as we were marching off, did gave me temporary gratification. As I gave to the company the words "Right turn!" "Left wheel!" and we marched across the gravel to the chapel, I pa.s.sed close to three of Mr Hostler's masters, who were there with his boys. There was not a face among the boys I recognised. All had changed; but the masters I knew, and I saw they had pointed me out to the youngsters. For a moment the misery of my life at Hostler's came across me, and a vivid remembrance of the sneering self-sufficiency of one of these tutors, as he tried to impress upon me that I was too stupid to ever learn mathematics. I muttered to myself "Pig-headed idiot!" as I recalled this man's proceeding, and now noticed a sort of self-complacency in his manner as he was probably explaining to Hostler's boys that he had trained me for Woolwich.

This my fifth half-year seemed to pa.s.s more quickly than a week did when I was a neux, and we again began to talk about examinations and our vacation. To me the final trial was now coming, for although we worked at various subjects in the practical cla.s.s, yet the work did not count.

There was no examination, and our relative positions in the batch were unaltered when once we joined the practical cla.s.s.

I had succeeded in all the drawings I had done during the half-year, and had adopted a general polishing up in the various branches of study, for our position in the cla.s.s for commissions was decided by the amount of marks we obtained as a total for all subjects.

Day pa.s.sed after day, and it was within a fortnight of the examination when I received a letter from Mr Rouse, asking if I would come and pa.s.s Sat.u.r.day and Sunday with him.

On receipt of this letter I felt ashamed of never having once been to see the man to whom alone I was indebted for pa.s.sing into the Academy.

I accepted the invitation, and on Sat.u.r.day afternoon found myself sitting in Mr Rouse's drawing-room, chatting with him a sort of shoppy conversation about examinations, marks, cramming, etc.

Mr Rouse was a man who never disappointed me. Whenever I met him, as I did often in afterlife, he invariably showed himself a genius. He was one of those sound thinkers and careful reasoners who are the real discoverers of truths, and who in almost every case remain unknown and unhonoured by the world; whilst superficial men, merely veneered with science by their contact with him, would chatter in learned societies, and be reported in newspapers, and bowed down to as authorities by the ignorant, who could not tell the electro-plated from the real metal.

Even when I was a student at Rouse's he used to amuse us by reading out from the papers descriptions of various matters supposed to be scientifically written; he would then criticise these and show us that the writer was evidently unacquainted with his subject, and had written it at so much per line.

I was glad to find what an interest he had taken in my career at the Academy; he had noted exactly how I had done at all my examinations, and he said he was very nearly writing to me daring my third half-year to come and work with him occasionally, as he feared I might not pa.s.s the probationary examination.

During the evening he put me up to what he called useful dodges in connexion with working various branches of higher mathematics, and I found my evening not only interesting, but profitable, as I made several notes which I could think over and which would be useful to me at my final examination. He gave me also great encouragement about the future, and said that he believed the time would come when the officers of both the Engineers and Artillery would take a higher position in the scientific and literary world than they then did. "You have a capital preparatory course at Woolwich," he remarked, "and when you get your commission you could build on this. It has often struck me that it is odd how few officers of either Artillery or Engineers have ever made a mark in the world out of their profession, or have come out as leaders in science, and this in the future is sure to be remedied."

Mr Rouse was right at the time, but since those days a change has occurred, the two corps having produced several men distinguished in subjects not strictly professional.

I returned to the Academy with a feeling of "wound-upness," and occupied myself in thinking about my coming examination. From being very sickly as a boy (due I believe entirely to the physicking of my aunt), I had become strong and particularly healthy, and found I could stand both mental and bodily work without feeling either much. I took care, however, to follow Mr Rouse's advice, viz, to work my body by exercise after I had worked my brain, and to get as much fresh air as possible after a long bout of "swatting." I never attempted to learn anything when I felt tired, and never forced myself to work; by these means I felt certain I got more knowledge into my head than I should have done had I followed the same plan that several cadets followed of working nearly all night with wet cloths round their heads and a dozen books before them.

It was impossible to avoid being anxious about the examination, but I endeavoured to follow my old plan of not driving off everything to the last, and then trying to catch up time by working night and day. I had a sort of idea that the mind was like one's digestion in some respects, and the way to treat it was to treat it reasonably, and not to expect it to digest in a week as much mental food as it ought to have in three months. Some cadets did adopt this plan, and they generally failed, and not unusually knocked themselves up.

The first day of the examination commenced, and I found the first paper contained what we should term some very dodgy questions both in mechanics and trigonometry. I saw through the catches, and brought out neat answers, which made me tolerably confident they were correct.

Our examinations took nine days altogether, and then day after day the results came out, and we added our marks together, speculating how the next list of marks would alter our relative positions. Until the drawing and mathematical marks came out, I stood twelfth of the batch, but having obtained within one mark of the full amount in drawing, and being second in mathematics, I made up a total that made me third of the batch, which consisted of twenty-five qualified for commissions, or at least for the practical cla.s.s, which was to all intents the same thing as qualifying for commission.

Such a result was to me very satisfactory, and was far beyond what I dreamed of even in my most sanguine moments during my trials at Mr Hostler's. If any prophetic genius had hinted to the young gentlemen at Mr Hostler's that Bob Shepard, who was leaving because he was so stupid that he could not be taught mathematics, would beat all the boys in the school, and would succeed in being second in mathematics at the Academy, this prophet would have found few who put faith in him, for it would have been considered impossible except by magic. A certain kind of magic was, however, practised, and this was by means of the system which Mr Rouse adopted, viz, of calmly reasoning out problems and deliberating on them, and taking a wide and general view of a subject instead of trying to follow blindly rules and systems, uninfluenced by reason or common sense.

There was one small piece of "swagger," as it might be fairly termed, which I could not resist, and this was to pay a visit to Mr Hostler's now I had pa.s.sed all my examinations successfully, and hear what he had to say for himself. I would not call on Hostler himself, but called to see a boy whose brother had been a cadet, and who had asked me to have a look at the youngster at Hostler's.

I was shown into the small drawing-room that I remembered so well.

There was the same table-cover, the same things on the mantelpiece, the same books, the same pictures as when I went into that room to meet Hostler, and to be told I must give up all chance of Woolwich, as I had no head for mathematics or Euclid. It flashed across me that probably scores of other boys had had their prospects rained in consequence of being put under the change of selfish and bigoted men, who had only one system of teaching, and whose method was unsuited to the mind of the boy on whom they acted. In that room a straw would have turned the scale, and I might have left that place with a stamp of stupidity on me which I should never have had the chance of removing all my life, unless, as really happened, I had gone to Mr Rouse's, and had pa.s.sed my examinations well.

As I was thus meditating, the door opened and Mr Hostler came in.

"Ah, Shepard!" he exclaimed, "I am very glad to see you. How are you?"

"Quite well, Mr Hostler. I've called to see young Barnes. Is he in?"

"Oh yes, he's in. I hope you'll come into the schoolroom and see him; it does the boys good to see a cadet there who has been prepared for the Academy by me, and who has distinguished himself as you have done. I feel very proud of it I can tell you!"

"You forget, Mr Hostler; you didn't prepare me for the Academy, but gave me up as too stupid to learn mathematics."

"Oh, nothing of the kind, Shepard, you're quite mistaken. I gave you all the groundwork, and you only wanted just a little polishing up, which could be better done by a private tutor like Rouse than in a large school like mine, where we work in cla.s.ses. No, don't think I'm going to be robbed of the merit of preparing you; besides, you were not three months with Rouse, and here you were over a year. Facts speak for themselves. Depend on it, you pa.s.sed and got on so well just because you were well grounded here, and saw my system of preparing, which is good."

I was not then old enough to answer these misrepresentations of Hostler's, but I knew how false they were, and yet how firmly they would convince the majority of outsiders that to Hostler was due the merit of having trained me for Woolwich. I found afterwards that he had told his boys that I was his special pupil, and that he had also claimed me, in his sort of advertis.e.m.e.nt list, as one who had been trained by him.

Such men succeed in the world as a rule, for the general public judge from superficial evidence, and rarely have the time, if they had the inclination, to look closely into matters that do not specially affect their interests.

The case would appear thus:--

"Shepard, a cadet who stood second in mathematics at the Academy, was prepared by Mr Hostler for twelve months, and then sent to finish details at Mr Rouse's for three months, during part of which time he was ill with hooping-cough. He pa.s.sed in well, and came out well.

Honour, then, is due to Mr Hostler for his excellent training, and great credit is reflected on his school."