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Way of All Flesh, The
CHAPTER XLIII
Samuel Butler
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       _ So important did Theobald consider this matter that he made a
       special journey to Roughborough before the half year began. It was
       a relief to have him out of the house, but though his destination
       was not mentioned, Ernest guessed where he had gone.
       To this day he considers his conduct at this crisis to have been one
       of the most serious laches of his life--one which he can never think
       of without shame and indignation. He says he ought to have run away
       from home. But what good could he have done if he had? He would
       have been caught, brought back and examined two days later instead
       of two days earlier. A boy of barely sixteen cannot stand against
       the moral pressure of a father and mother who have always oppressed
       him any more than he can cope physically with a powerful full-grown
       man. True, he may allow himself to be killed rather than yield, but
       this is being so morbidly heroic as to come close round again to
       cowardice; for it is little else than suicide, which is universally
       condemned as cowardly.
       On the re-assembling of the school it became apparent that something
       had gone wrong. Dr Skinner called the boys together, and with much
       pomp excommunicated Mrs Cross and Mrs Jones, by declaring their
       shops to be out of bounds. The street in which the "Swan and
       Bottle" stood was also forbidden. The vices of drinking and
       smoking, therefore, were clearly aimed at, and before prayers Dr
       Skinner spoke a few impressive words about the abominable sin of
       using bad language. Ernest's feelings can be imagined.
       Next day at the hour when the daily punishments were read out,
       though there had not yet been time for him to have offended, Ernest
       Pontifex was declared to have incurred every punishment which the
       school provided for evil-doers. He was placed on the idle list for
       the whole half year, and on perpetual detentions; his bounds were
       curtailed; he was to attend junior callings-over; in fact he was so
       hemmed in with punishments upon ever side that it was hardly
       possible for him to go outside the school gates. This unparalleled
       list of punishments inflicted on the first day of the half year, and
       intended to last till the ensuing Christmas holidays, was not
       connected with any specified offence. It required no great
       penetration therefore, on the part of the boys to connect Ernest
       with the putting Mrs Cross's and Mrs Jones's shops out of bounds.
       Great indeed was the indignation about Mrs Cross who, it was known,
       remembered Dr Skinner himself as a small boy only just got into
       jackets, and had doubtless let him have many a sausage and mashed
       potatoes upon deferred payment. The head boys assembled in conclave
       to consider what steps should be taken, but hardly had they done so
       before Ernest knocked timidly at the head-room door and took the
       bull by the horns by explaining the facts as far as he could bring
       himself to do so. He made a clean breast of everything except about
       the school list and the remarks he had made about each boy's
       character. This infamy was more than he could own to, and he kept
       his counsel concerning it. Fortunately he was safe in doing so, for
       Dr Skinner, pedant and more than pedant though he was, had still
       just sense enough to turn on Theobald in the matter of the school
       list. Whether he resented being told that he did not know the
       characters of his own boys, or whether he dreaded a scandal about
       the school I know not, but when Theobald had handed him the list,
       over which he had expended so much pains, Dr Skinner had cut him
       uncommonly short, and had then and there, with more suavity than was
       usual with him, committed it to the flames before Theobald's own
       eyes.
       Ernest got off with the head boys easier than he expected. It was
       admitted that the offence, heinous though it was, had been committed
       under extenuating circumstances; the frankness with which the
       culprit had confessed all, his evidently unfeigned remorse, and the
       fury with which Dr Skinner was pursuing him tended to bring about a
       reaction in his favour, as though he had been more sinned against
       than sinning.
       As the half year wore on his spirits gradually revived, and when
       attacked by one of his fits of self-abasement he was in some degree
       consoled by having found out that even his father and mother, whom
       he had supposed so immaculate, were no better than they should be.
       About the fifth of November it was a school custom to meet on a
       certain common not far from Roughborough and burn somebody in
       effigy, this being the compromise arrived at in the matter of
       fireworks and Guy Fawkes festivities. This year it was decided that
       Pontifex's governor should be the victim, and Ernest though a good
       deal exercised in mind as to what he ought to do, in the end saw no
       sufficient reason for holding aloof from proceedings which, as he
       justly remarked, could not do his father any harm.
       It so happened that the bishop had held a confirmation at the school
       on the fifth of November. Dr Skinner had not quite liked the
       selection of this day, but the bishop was pressed by many
       engagements, and had been compelled to make the arrangement as it
       then stood. Ernest was among those who had to be confirmed, and was
       deeply impressed with the solemn importance of the ceremony. When
       he felt the huge old bishop drawing down upon him as he knelt in
       chapel he could hardly breathe, and when the apparition paused
       before him and laid its hands upon his head he was frightened almost
       out of his wits. He felt that he had arrived at one of the great
       turning points of his life, and that the Ernest of the future could
       resemble only very faintly the Ernest of the past.
       This happened at about noon, but by the one o'clock dinner-hour the
       effect of the confirmation had worn off, and he saw no reason why he
       should forego his annual amusement with the bonfire; so he went with
       the others and was very valiant till the image was actually produced
       and was about to be burnt; then he felt a little frightened. It was
       a poor thing enough, made of paper, calico and straw, but they had
       christened it The Rev. Theobald Pontifex, and he had a revulsion of
       feeling as he saw it being carried towards the bonfire. Still he
       held his ground, and in a few minutes when all was over felt none
       the worse for having assisted at a ceremony which, after all, was
       prompted by a boyish love of mischief rather than by rancour.
       I should say that Ernest had written to his father, and told him of
       the unprecedented way in which he was being treated; he even
       ventured to suggest that Theobald should interfere for his
       protection and reminded him how the story had been got out of him,
       but Theobald had had enough of Dr Skinner for the present; the
       burning of the school list had been a rebuff which did not encourage
       him to meddle a second time in the internal economics of
       Roughborough. He therefore replied that he must either remove
       Ernest from Roughborough altogether, which would for many reasons be
       undesirable, or trust to the discretion of the head master as
       regards the treatment he might think best for any of his pupils.
       Ernest said no more; he still felt that it was so discreditable to
       him to have allowed any confession to be wrung from him, that he
       could not press the promised amnesty for himself.
       It was during the "Mother Cross row," as it was long styled among
       the boys, that a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed at
       Roughborough. I mean that of the head boys under certain conditions
       doing errands for their juniors. The head boys had no bounds and
       could go to Mrs Cross's whenever they liked; they actually,
       therefore, made themselves go-betweens, and would get anything from
       either Mrs Cross's or Mrs Jones's for any boy, no matter how low in
       the school, between the hours of a quarter to nine and nine in the
       morning, and a quarter to six and six in the afternoon. By degrees,
       however, the boys grew bolder, and the shops, though not openly
       declared in bounds again, were tacitly allowed to be so. _