Part 35 (1/2)
TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER.
About six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom and Arthur were sitting one night before supper beginning their verses, Arthur suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said: ”Tom, do you know anything of Martin?”
”Yes,” said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted to throw his Gradus ad Parna.s.sum[1] on to the sofa; ”I know him pretty well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum[2] things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about in his pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some hedge-hogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what besides.”
[1] #Gradus ad Parna.s.sum#: a dictionary specially designed to aid pupils in writing Greek and Latin verses.
[2] #Rum#: queer.
”I should like very much to know him,” said Arthur; ”he was next to me in the form to-day, and he'd lost his book and looked over mine, and he seemed so kind and gentle that I liked him very much.”
”Ah, poor old Madman, he's always losing his books,” said Tom, ”and getting called up and floored because he hasn't got them.”
”I like him all the better,” said Arthur.
”Well, he's great fun, I can tell you,” said Tom, throwing himself back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. ”We had such a game with him one day last half. He had been trying chemical experiments and kicking up horrid stenches for some time in his study, till I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor. Anyhow, one day, a little before dinner, when he came down from the library, the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the Hall. East and I and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously we stared, for he doesn't come in like that once a year, unless it is a wet day and there's a fight in the Hall. 'East,' says he, 'just come and show me Martin's study.' 'Oh, here's a game,' whispered the rest of us, and we all cut up-stairs after the Doctor, East leading. As we got into the New Row, which was hardly wide enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, click, click, click, we heard in the old Madman's den.
Then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went to like fun; the Madman knew East's step, and thought there was going to be a siege.
”'It's the Doctor, Martin. He's here, and wants to see you,' sings out East.
”Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, and there was the old Madman standing, looking precious scared; his jacket off, his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms all covered with anchors, and arrows, and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor-boy's, and a stench fit to knock you down coming out. 'Twas all the Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in under his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and half-poisoned.
”'What can you be about, Martin?' says the Doctor; 'you really musn't go on in this way--you're a nuisance to the whole pa.s.sage.'
”'Please, sir, I was only mixing up this powder; there isn't any harm in it;' and the Madman seized nervously on his pestle and mortar, to show the Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, and went on pounding; click, click, click. He hadn't given six clicks before, puff! up went the whole into a great blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across the study, and back we tumbled into the pa.s.sage. The magpie[3] fluttered down into the court, swearing, and the Madman danced out, howling, with his fingers in his mouth. The Doctor caught hold of him, and called to us to fetch some water. 'There, you silly fellow,' said he, quite pleased, though, to find he wasn't much hurt, 'you see you don't know the least what you are doing with all these things; and now, mind, you must give up practising chemistry by yourself.' Then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, and I saw he had to bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled; but he said, quite gravely, 'Here, you see, you've been making all these foolish marks on yourself, which you can never get out, and you'll be very sorry for it in a year or two. Now come down into the housekeeper's room, and let us see if you are hurt.' And away went the two, and we all stayed and had a regular turn-out of the den, till Martin came back with his hand bandaged and turned us out. However, I'll go and see what he's after, and tell him to come in after prayers to supper.” And away went Tom to find the boy in question, who dwelt in a little study by himself in New Row.
[3] #Magpie#: a bird which can be taught to speak like the parrot.
The aforesaid Martin whom Arthur had taken such a fancy for was one of those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are, I fear, still) quite out of their places at a public school. If we knew how to use our boys, Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a natural philosopher. He had a pa.s.sion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew more of them and their habits than any one in Rugby, except perhaps the Doctor, who knew everything. He was also an experimental chemist on a small scale, and had made unto himself an electric machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to venture into his study. And this was by no means an adventure free from excitement; for, besides the probability of a snake dropping on to your head, or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting into your breeches' pocket in search of food, there was the animal and chemical odor to be faced, which always hung about the den, and the chance of being blown up in some of the many experiments which Martin was always trying, with the most wonderful results in the shape of explosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. Of course, poor Martin, in consequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in the house. In the first place, he half poisoned all his neighbors, and they in turn were always on the look-out to pounce upon any of his numerous live stock and drive him frantic by enticing his pet old magpie out of his window into a neighboring study, and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked in beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited a study looking into a small court some ten feet across, the window of which was completely commanded by those of the studies opposite in the sick-room row, these latter being at a slightly higher elevation. East and another boy of an equally tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, and had expended huge pains and time in the preparation of instruments of annoyance for the behoof of Martin and his live colony. One morning an old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord, outside Martin's window, in which were deposited an amateur nest[4] containing four young, hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Martin's life for the time being, and which he was currently a.s.serted to have hatched upon his own person. Early in the morning and late at night he was to be seen half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his callow[5] brood. After deep cogitation,[6] East and his chum had spliced a knife on to the end of a fis.h.i.+ng rod; and having watched Martin out, had, after half an hour's severe sawing, cut the string by which the basket was suspended, and tumbled it on to the pavement below, with hideous remonstrance from the occupants. Poor Martin, returning from his short absence, collected the fragments and replaced his brood (except one whose neck had been broken in the descent) in their old location, suspending them this time by string and wire twisted together, defiant of any sharp instrument which his persecutors could command. But, like the Russian engineers at Sebastopol,[7] East and his chum had an answer for every move of the adversary; and the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a pea-shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear exactly upon the spot which Martin had to occupy while tending his nurslings. The moment he began to feed, they began to shoot; in vain did the enemy himself invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavor to answer the fire while he fed the young birds with his other hand; his attention was divided, and his shots flew wild, while every one of theirs told on his face and hands, and drove him into howlings and imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce[8] the nest in a corner of his already too well-filled den.
[4] #Amateur nest#: here, a nest made by himself.
[5] #Callow#: unfledged; without feathers.
[6] #Cogitation#: thought.
[7] #Sebastopol#: a fortified town in the Crimea; the scene of a siege in the Crimean War.
[8] #Ensconce#: to place in a protected place.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEN.
The door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of his own invention, for the sieges were frequent by the neighbors when any unusually ambrosial[9] odor spread itself from the den to the neighboring studies. The door-panels were in a normal[10] state of smash, but the frame of the door resisted all besiegers, and behind it the owner carried on his varied pursuits; much in the same state of mind, I should fancy, as a border-farmer[11] lived in, in the days of the old moss-troopers,[12] when his hold might be summoned or his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day.
[9] #Ambrosial#: here, delicious, in an ironical sense.
[10] #Normal#: usual; regular.