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DOCTOR BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS.

London:

Chapman and Hall

DOCTOR BIRCH.

THE DOCTOR AND HIS STAFF.

|There is no need to say why I became Assistant Master and Professor of the English and French languages, flower-painting, and the German flute, in Doctor Birch's Academy, at Rodwell Regis. Good folks may depend on this that there was good reason for my leaving lodgings near London, and a genteel society, for an under-master's desk in that old school. I promise you, the fare at the Usher's table, the getting up at five o'clock in the morning, the walking out with little boys in the fields, Miss Birch's vulgar insolence, Jack Birch's glum condescension, and the poor old Doctor's patronage, were not matters in themselves pleasurable: and that that patronage and those dinners were sometimes cruel hard to swallow. Never mind--my connexion with the place is over now, and I hope they have got a more efficient under-master.

Jack Birch is partner with his father the Doctor, and takes some of the classes. About his Greek I can't say much; but I will construe him in Latin any day. A more supercilious little prig, a more empty pompous little coxcomb I never saw. His white neckcloth looked as if it choked him. He used to try and look over that starch upon me and Prince the assistant, as if we were a couple of footmen. He didn't do much business in the school; but occupied his time in writing sanctified letters to the boys' parents, and in composing dreary sermons to preach to them.

After Jack Birch had taken his degree at Oxford--a process which he effected with great difficulty--this place, which used to be called "Birch's," "Dr. Birch's Academy," and what not, became suddenly "Archbishop Wigsby's College of Rodwell Regis." They took down the old blue board with the gold letters, which has been used to mend the pig- stye since. Birch had a large school-room run up in the Gothic taste, with statuettes, and a little belfry, and a bust of Archbishop Wigsby in the middle of the school. He put the six senior boys into caps and gowns, which had rather a good effect as the lads sauntered down the street of the town, but which certainly provoked the contempt and hostility of the bargemen; and so great was his rage for academic costumes and ordinances, that he would have put me myself into a lay gown, with red knots and fringes, but that I flatly resisted, and said that a writing-master had no business with such paraphernalia.

He keeps the flogging department in his own hands; finding that his son was too savage. He has awful brows and a big voice. But his roar frightens nobody. It is only a lion's skin, or, so to say, a muff.

Little Mordant made a picture of him with large ears, like a well-known domestic animal, and had his own justly boxed for the caricature. The Doctor discovered him in the fact, and was in a flaming rage, and threatened whipping at first; but in the course of the day an opportune basket of game arriving from Mordant's father, the Doctor became mollified, and has burnt the picture with the ears. However I have one wafered up in my desk by the hand of the same little rascal: and the frontispiece of this very book is drawn from it.

THE COCK OF THE SCHOOL.

Well, I have seen Generals capering on horseback at the head of their crimson battalions; Bishops sailing down cathedral aisles, with downcast eyes, pressing their trencher caps to their hearts with their fat white hands; College heads when her Majesty is on a visit; the Doctor in all his glory at the head of his school on Speech-day, a great sight,--and all great men these.

I have never met the late Mr. Thomas Cribb, but I have no doubt should have regarded him with the same feeling of awe with which I look every day at George Champion, the cock of Dr. Birch's school.

When, I say, I reflect as I go up and set him a sum, that he could whop me in two minutes, double up Prince and the other assistant, and pitch the Doctor out of window, I can't but think how great, how generous, how magnanimous a creature this is, that sits quite quiet and good-natured, and works his equation, and ponders through his Greek play. He might take the schoolroom pillars and pull the house down if he liked. He might close the door, and demolish every one of us like Antar, the lover of Ibla; but he lets us live. He never thrashes anybody without a cause, when woe betide the tyrant or the sneak!

Champion's affair with the Young Tutbury Pet, who was down here in training,--with Black the Bargeman,--with the three head boys of Doctor Wapshot's academy, whom he caught maltreating an outlying day-boy of ours, &c.,--are known to all the Rodwell Regis men. He was always victorious. He is modest and kind, like all great men. He has a good, brave, honest understanding. He cannot make verses like young Pinder, or read Greek like Lawrence the Prefect, who is a perfect young abyss of learning, and knows enough, Prince says, to furnish any six first-class men; but he does his work in a sound, downright way, and he is made to be the bravest of soldiers, the best of country parsons, an honest English gentleman wherever he may go.

Like all great men, George is good-humoured and lazy. There is a particular bench in the play-ground on which he will loll for hours on half-holidays, and is so affable that the smallest boys come and speak to him. It is pleasant to see the young cubs frisking round the honest lion. His chief friend and attendant, however, is young Jack Hall, whom he saved when drowning, out of the Miller's Pool. The attachment of the two is curious to witness. The smaller lad gambolling, playing tricks round the bigger one, and perpetually making fun of his protector. They are never far apart, and of holidays you may meet them miles away from the school. George sauntering heavily down the lanes with his big stick, and little Jack larking with the pretty girls in the cottage windows.

George has a boat on the river, in which, however, he commonly lies smoking, whilst Jack sculls him. He does not play at cricket, except when the school plays the county, or at Lord's in the holidays. The boys can't stand his bowling, and when he hits, it is like trying to catch a cannon-ball. I have seen him at tennis. It is a splendid sight to behold the young fellow bounding over the court with streaming yellow hair, like young Apollo in a flannel jacket.

The other head boys are Lawrence the Captain, Bunce, famous chiefly for his magnificent appetite, and Pitman, sur-named Roscius, for his love of the drama. Add to these Swanky, called Macassar, from his partiality to that condiment, and who has varnished boots, wears white gloves on Sundays, and looks out for Miss Pinkerton's school as it passes into church.

THE LITTLE SCHOOL-ROOM.

|What they call the little school-room is a small room at the other end of the great school; through which you go to the Doctor's private house, and where Miss Raby sits with her pupils. She has a half-dozen very small ones over whom she presides and teaches them in her simple way, until they are big or learned enough to face the great school-room. Many of them are in a hurry for promotion, the graceless little simpletons, and know no more than their elders when they are well off.

She keeps the accounts, writes out the bills, superintends the linen and sews on the general shirt-buttons. Think of having such a woman at home to sew on one's shirt-buttons! But peace, peace, thou foolish heart!

Miss Raby is the Doctor's niece. Her mother was a beauty ; and she married a pupil in the old Doctor's time, who was killed afterwards, a Captain in the East India service, at the siege of Bhurtpore. Hence a number of Indian children come to the Doctor's, for Raby was very much liked, and the uncle's kind reception of the orphan has been a good speculation for the school-keeper.

It is wonderful how brightly and gaily that little quick creature does her duty. She is the first to rise, and the last to sleep, if any business is to be done. She sees the other two women go off to parties in the town without even so much as wishing to join them. It is Cinderella, only contented to stay at home--content to bear Zoe's scorn and to admit Flora's superior charms,--and to do her utmost to repay her uncle for his great kindness in housing her.

So, you see, she works as much as three maid-servants for the wages of one. She is as thankful when the Doctor gives her a new gown, as if he had presented her with a fortune: laughs at his stories most good-humouredly, listens to Zoe's scolding most meekly, admires Flora with all her heart, and only goes out of the way when Jack Birch shows his sallow face: for she can't bear him, and always finds work when he comes near.

How different she is when some folks approach her! I won't be presumptuous; but I think, I think, I have made a not unfavourable impression in some quarters. However, let us be mum on this subject. I like to see her, because she always looks good-humoured; because she is always kind, because she is always modest, because she is fond of those poor little brats--orphans some of them,--because she is rather pretty, I dare say, or because I think so, which comes to the same thing.

Though she is kind to all, it must be owned she shows the most gross favouritism towards the amiable children. She brings them cakes from dessert, and regales them with Zoe's preserves; spends many of her little shillings in presents for her favourites, and will tell them stories by the hour. She has one very sad story about a little boy, who died long ago; the younger children are never weary of hearing about him; and Miss Raby has shown to one of them a lock of the little chap's hair, which she keeps in her work-box to this day.

THE DEAR BROTHERS.

The Doctor.

Mr. Tipper, Uncle to the Masters Boxall.

Boxall Major, Boxall Minor, Brown, Jones, Smith,

Robinson, Tiffin Minimus.

B. Go it old Boxall.

J. Give it him young Boxall.

R. Pitch into him old Boxall.

S. Two to one on young Boxall.

If you could see his grammar, it is a perfect curiosity of dog's ears. The leaves and cover are all curled and ragged. Many of the pages are worn away, with the rubbing of his elbows as he sits poring over the hopeless volume, with the blows of his fists as he thumps it madly, or with the poor fellow's tears. You see him wiping them away with the back of his hand, as he tries and tries, and can't do it.

The Doctor has operated upon Hulker , but the boy was so little affected you would have thought he had taken chloroform. Birch is weary of whipping now, and leaves the boy to go his own gait. Prince, when he hears the lesson, and who cannot help making fun of a fool, adopts the sarcastic manner with Master Hulker, and says, "Mr. Hulker, may I take the liberty to inquire if your brilliant intellect has enabled you to perceive the difference between those words which grammarians have defined as substantive and adjective nouns?--if not, perhaps Mr. Ferdinand Timmins will instruct you." And Timmins hops over Hulker's head.

I wish Prince would leave off girding at the poor lad. He's an only son, and his mother is a widow woman, who loves him with all her might. There is a famous sneer about the suckling of fools and the chronicling of small beer; but remember it was a rascal who uttered it.

A WORD ABOUT MISS BIRCH.

The Doctor is a pompous and outwardly severe man--but inwardly weak and easy: loving a joke and a glass of port wine. I get on with him, therefore, much better than Mr. Prince, who scorns him for an ass, and under whose keen eyes the worthy Doctor writhes like a convicted impostor; and many a sunshiny afternoon would he have said, "Mr. T., Sir, shall we try another glass of that yellow sealed wine which you seem to like?" , had not the old harridan of a Zoe been down upon us, and insisted on turning me out with her miserable weak coffee. She a mother indeed! A sour milk generation she would have nursed. She is always croaking, scolding, bullying,--yowling at the housemaids, snarling at Miss Raby, bowwowing after the little boys, barking after the big ones. She knows how much every boy eats to an ounce; and her delight is to ply with fat the little ones who can't bear it, and with raw meat those who hate underdone. It was she who caused the Doctor to be eaten out three times; and nearly created a rebellion in the school because she insisted on his flogging Goliah Longman.

The only time that woman is happy is when she comes in of a morning to the little boys' dormitories with a cup of hot Epsom salts, and a sippet of bread. Boo!--the very notion makes me quiver. She stands over them. I saw her do it to young Byles only a few days since--and her presence makes the abomination doubly abominable.

But besides this, I have another way of keeping her in order.

Whenever she is particularly odious or insolent to Miss Raby, I have but to introduce raspberry jam into the conversation, and the woman holds her tongue. She will understand me. I need not say more.

A TRAGEDY.

If he is a good-hearted boy, as I have reason to think, the very first thing he will do, before inspecting the contents of the hamper, or cutting into them with the knife which Master Brown has so considerately lent him; will be to read over the letter from home which lies on the top of the parcel. He does so, as I remark to Miss Raby , with a flushed face and winking eyes. Look how the other boys are peering into the basket as he reads.--I say to her, "Isn't it a pretty picture?" Part of the letter is in a very large hand. That is from his little sister. And I would wager that she netted the little purse which he has just taken out of it, and which Master Lynx is eyeing.

"You are a droll man, and remark all sorts of queer things," Miss Raby says, smiling, and plying her swift needle and fingers as quick as possible.

"I am glad we are both on the spot, and that the little fellow lies under our guns as it were, and so is protected from some such brutal school-pirates as young Duval for instance, who would rob him probably of some of those good things, good in themselves, and better because fresh from home. See, there is a pie as I said, and which I dare say is better than those which are served at our table , a cake of course, a bottle of currant wine, jam-pots, and no end of pears in the straw.

"With this money little Briggs will be able to pay the tick which that imprudent child has run up with Mrs. Ruggles; and I shall let Briggs Major pay for the pencil-case which Bullock sold to him.--It will be a lesson to the young prodigal for the future.

"But, I say, what a change there will be in his life for some time to come, and at least until his present wealth is spent! The boys who bully him will mollify towards him, and accept his pie and sweetmeats. They will have feasts in the bed-room; and that wine will taste more deliciously to them than the best out of the Doctor's cellar. The cronies will be invited. Young Master Wagg will tell his most dreadful story and sing his best song for a slice of that pie. What a jolly night they will have! When we go the rounds at night, Mr. Prince and I will take care to make a noise before we come to Briggs's room, so that the boys may have time to put the light out, to push the things away, and to scud into bed. Doctor Spry may be put in requisition the next morning..."

"Nonsense! you absurd creature," cries out Miss Raby, laughing; and I lay down the twelfth pen very nicely mended.

"Yes; after luxury comes the doctor, I say; after extravagance, a hole in the breeches pocket. To judge from his disposition, Briggs Major will not be much better off a couple of days hence than he is now, and, if I am not mistaken, will end life a poor man. Brown will be kicking his shins before a week is over, depend upon it. There are boys and men of all sorts, Miss R.--there are selfish sneaks who hoard until the store they daren't use grows mouldy--there are spendthrifts who fling away, parasites who flatter and lick its shoes, and snarling curs who hate and envy, good fortune."--I put down the last of the pens, brushing away with it the quill-chips from her desk first, and she looked at me with a kind wondering face. I brushed them away, clicked the pen-knife into my pocket, made her a bow, and walked off--for the bell was ringing for school.

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