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THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 $s. net each. 
 
 DICK: A Story without a Plot. 
 Also 2s. net. 
 
 < FOR THIS I HAD BORNE HIM.' 
 
 THE LANCHESTER TRADI- 
 TION. 
 
 WHEN EVERY TREE WAS 
 GREEN. 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF 
 
 BITTLESHAM. 
 
 THE GREAT DAYS OF 
 VERSAILLES, ioj. 6d. net. 
 
 REAPING THE WHIRLWIND, 
 and other Poems. 3*. 6d. net. 
 
THE LANCHESTER 
 TRADITION 
 
 BY G. F. BRADBY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'DICK,' ' WHEN EVERY TREE WAS GREEN 
 ' THE AWAKENING OF BITTLESHAM,' ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
 1919 
 
First Edition . . September, 1913 
 Reprinted . . . January, 1914 
 Reprinted . . . August, 1919 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
r £ booZ 
 LZL> 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 This is a school story ; but Chiltern School 
 has yet to be founded and the masters and 
 boys who figure in the following pages have 
 never existed outside the author's brain. 
 It is necessary to say so much, partly because 
 most stories of this kind have admittedly 
 dealt with particular schools, and partly 
 because many readers have very little idea 
 of the workings of the imaginative faculty. 
 At all events, when a professional man 
 ventures to write fiction, they insist on 
 seeing history or caricature, and proceed to 
 affix labels ; for there is a general assumption 
 that professional men, and schoolmasters 
 in particular, are necessarily devoid of 
 imagination. 
 
 Once more then, Chiltern is not a real 
 school and its masters are not real masters. 
 But, though not real, they are not impossible 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 — at least, so the author believes. For 
 men, like boys, are unconsciously moulded 
 by their environment and tend to conform 
 to types ; and, given a school like Chiltern, 
 there would probably be masters like the 
 Chiltern masters. 
 
 G. F. B. 
 
 June, 1913. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Election 1 
 
 II. Mr. Flaggon Pays a Visit .... 14 
 
 III. Exit Dr. Gussy 29 
 
 IV. The First Skirmish 43 
 
 V. Mr. Tipham 56 
 
 VI. The Cloven Hoof 69 
 
 VII. The Affair of Le Willow .... 79 
 
 VIII. The Parents' Committee .... 92 
 
 IX. " God's in His Heaven " . . . .103 
 
 X. The Lanchester Letters .... 114 
 
 XI. Mr. Chowdler Wins a Battle and Meets 
 
 with a Rebuff 126 
 
 XII. The Explosion 139 
 
 XIII. In Dark Places 151 
 
 XIV. The Day of Decision 164 
 
 XV. Aftermath . 176 
 
THE 
 LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ELECTION 
 
 Chiltern School lies just outside the sleepy 
 little town of the same name. Its motto 
 is " Providendo nee timendo," and its colours 
 — a happy combination of cerise, orange, and 
 green — are a familiar sight in all parts of the 
 Empire. But the school itself, though second 
 to none in the opinion of Chilternians, who 
 should be the best judges, is not seen so 
 often by the general public as its colours, 
 because it can only be reached by a branch 
 line and the time-table is a difficulty. It 
 owes its inaccessibility to the foresight of 
 its governors who, at the time when railways 
 were invented, succeeded in keeping the 
 main line at a distance ; so when the present 
 chairman comes down for Speech-day he 
 generally travels in a motor-car. 
 
 Its stone walls are grey with age or green 
 
2 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 with creepers. Later generations have re- 
 lieved the monotony by adding blocks of 
 buildings in variegated brick, and nowhere 
 can the genius of Sir George Honeyniead, 
 the famous mid- Victorian architect, be studied 
 to greater advantage. But of recent years 
 taste has swung back in favour of uniformity, 
 and whenever a famous Old Chilternian 
 dies — and there are many famous Old 
 Chilternians — an attempt is made to per- 
 petuate his memory by converting the brick 
 into stone. The sick-house, the gymnasium, 
 the workshops, and the lodge have already 
 been transformed ; and it is generally under- 
 stood that, when a certain aged statesman 
 is taken to his rest, the Great Hall will undergo 
 a similar change — unless, indeed, a new 
 chemical laboratory is considered to have 
 prior claims. 
 
 The school owes its existence to the 
 generosity of one John Buss, a local farrier, 
 who migrated to London in the early years 
 of the seventeenth century, prospered in 
 his business, and bequeathed a school and 
 a hospital to his native place. Antiquarians 
 have been at pains to prove that what John 
 Buss really did was to endow an ancient 
 but struggling institution that had existed 
 on the same site ever since Benedictine days, 
 and that the history of Chiltern stretches 
 back into the dark ages before even William 
 
THE ELECTION 3 
 
 of Wykehani was born. But the long gap 
 between the suppression of the monasteries 
 and the seventeenth century is hard to bridge 
 satisfactorily, and John Buss is still regarded, 
 officially, as the creator of the famous school. 
 The property which he bequeathed in East 
 London has of late years greatly deteriorated 
 in value, and, when the prior claims of the 
 hospital have been met, the school only nets 
 £92 3s. lid. per annum out of the endowments. 
 The Liberal papers, however, have not yet 
 discovered this fact, and, when politics are 
 dull, they demand that the revenues of 
 Chiltern shall be restored to the nation and 
 a University for workiug men built and 
 endowed with the same. This contention 
 helps to keep the memory of John Buss 
 green outside the walls of Chiltern, and 
 there are some who see in him a pioneer of 
 Democracy and a prophet of the University 
 Extension movement. Be that as it may, 
 Chiltern at the present moment is rich because 
 rich men are content to pay large fees in 
 order that their sons may have the privilege 
 of being educated, exclusively, with the 
 sons of other rich men. The junior masters 
 are of opinion that these large fees should be 
 made still larger, and the salaries of the junior 
 masters raised in proportion; but the senior 
 masters scout this proposal as mercenary. 
 The senior masters at Chiltern are popularly 
 
4 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 supposed to be better paid than the senior 
 masters at any other school. Whether this is 
 so or not, it is impossible to say for certain ; 
 for the senior masters at Chiltern only talk 
 of their salaries to the surveyor of taxes, 
 and, even then, they do so reluctantly. 
 
 The town of Chiltern lives to a great 
 extent upon the school, and the authorised 
 tradesmen, who enjoy a practical monopoly, 
 have a lively faith in the value of the goods 
 supplied by them to " the young gentlemen " ; 
 which faith is convincingly reflected in the 
 prices they charge. In the unauthorised 
 trades, that is to say amongst tobacconists 
 and dealers in motor-cycles, air-guns, and 
 translations of the Classics, competition tends 
 to keep prices down. Nevertheless, these 
 illicit traders are always supposed to have 
 done remarkably well in the palmy days of 
 Dr. Gussy. 
 
 Notwithstanding this bond of union, there 
 is a traditional feeling of hostility on the part 
 of the town towards the school. This is due, 
 in part, to the fact that the school people 
 are supposed to look down upon the town 
 people, but, still more, to a widely prevalent 
 belief that, somehow or other, the school has 
 defrauded the town of the farrier's bene- 
 factions. As this belief is entirely without 
 foundation, it is likely to be lasting. 
 
 The country round Chiltern is pretty if 
 
THE ELECTION 5 
 
 not exciting. There is a round hill (called 
 by the masters " Soracte," and by the natives 
 "the Sow's Back ") at a convenient distance 
 from the school, which commands a view over 
 four counties and enables such of the staff as 
 are inclined to obesity to retain a semblance 
 of their youthful shape. In spring the land- 
 scape is white with cherry and pear blossom, 
 and in autumn the apples make a cheerful 
 show. There are quiet lanes, peaceful farms, 
 and irritable farmers, who make unreasonable 
 complaints when "the young gentlemen" 
 break down their hedges, tread down their 
 young wheat, or pillage their orchards. 
 
 The climate is of the kind that is commonly 
 called salubrious; for anaemic boys it is 
 generally considered bracing, but it is also 
 recommended as temperate for those who are 
 afflicted with delicate chests. Like all schools 
 in England, public or private, Chiltern stands 
 on gravel, and the drains are of the most 
 approved and up-to-date pattern. Both the 
 gravel and the up-to-dateness of the drains 
 are vouched for by the school porter. The 
 school-rooms are for the most part dark, 
 but of great historic interest, and possessed of 
 an indefinable charm. This charm, and the 
 sense of continuity with a remote past, are 
 generally regarded as an adequate substitute 
 for ventilation. Indeed, many of the senior 
 masters at Chiltern are strongly opposed to 
 
6 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 ventilation in any form, and prefer their air 
 with a " bouquet." 
 
 The playing fields, locally known as Colonus, 
 are amongst the noblest in England, and are 
 said to have been the scene of a sanguinary 
 battle between the Danes and the Saxons. 
 The School Antiquarian Society occasionally 
 indulges in feverish bouts of digging, in the 
 hope of unearthing bones or some other 
 memorial of the fray ; but, hitherto, they 
 have failed to discover anything but stones 
 and the bowl of a clay pipe. A stream, which 
 flows at the far end of the grounds, pro- 
 vides the school with a unique swimming- 
 bath (vide prospectus). Under Dr. Gussy's 
 thoughtful regime the banks of this stream 
 were planted thickly with rhododendrons and 
 other flowering shrubs, which afford a reason- 
 ably secure retreat, on Sundays, for such of 
 the scholars as wish to enjoy a quiet pipe 
 without the fatigue of pedestrian exercise. 
 But etiquette requires that boys who have 
 not yet reached their fourth Term shall 
 smoke elsewhere. 
 
 In spite, however, of its ancient school- 
 rooms, noble grounds, and salubrious climate, 
 Chiltern would probably never have become 
 one of the public schools of England if it had 
 not been for Dr. Lanchester. When Abraham 
 Lanchester became headmaster, at the end of 
 the eighteenth century, he found the place 
 
THE ELECTION 7 
 
 little more than a county grammar school ; 
 he left it an institution of National, almost 
 Imperial, importance. 
 
 Chiltern has lived ever since on the memory 
 of Dr. Lanchester. It is natural, therefore, 
 that he should be worshipped as the second 
 and greater founder of the community. John 
 Buss is honoured for his picturesque figure 
 and his priceless gift of antiquity, but Lan- 
 chester is the presiding deity. His statue 
 stands in the centre of the great quadrangle, 
 his portrait looks down from the walls of 
 the Great Hall ; the library, the workshops, 
 and other lesser buildings, or additions to 
 buildings, are called after his name; and 
 every foreign preacher in the School Chapel, 
 whether he is pleading for peace or war, 
 for Christian unity or Church defence, for 
 social service or Imperial expansion, closes 
 his peroration with an appeal to the memoiy 
 of Abraham Lanchester. The Lanchester 
 tradition permeates the place like an atmo- 
 sphere, invisible but stimulating. It is diffi- 
 cult to analyse, for, like all great truths, it 
 states itself in different terms to different 
 minds and has a special message for each. To 
 the general public it stands for the Classics 
 and faith in the educational value of Latin 
 verse. To the masters it means a firm belief 
 in the efficacy of the methods, or absence of 
 method, to which they have become attached 
 
8 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 through long habit. To the Old Chilternians 
 it embodies the social ideas and customs 
 with which they grew up ; and to the boys 
 themselves, if it means anything more than 
 a name, it represents a certain immutability 
 and fixity of things, an as-it-was-in-the- 
 beginning - is - n o w - and - ever - shall - be attitude 
 towards life that appeals to their best conserva- 
 tive instincts. Any change in the hour of a 
 lesson or the colour of a ribbon is regarded 
 as an outrage on the Lanchester tradition, 
 and is popularly supposed to made the dead 
 hero turn in his grave/ 
 
 In connection with the school tradition 
 it should, perhaps, be mentioned that there 
 is a life of the great man by a friend and 
 contemporary, and that there is nothing in it 
 to suggest that Dr. Lanchester was so acutely 
 sensitive to change. He seems, indeed, to 
 have impressed his biographer as a restless 
 spirit, with new and rather daring ideas about 
 education. Bound in the school colours and 
 stamped with the school crest, this volume 
 is frequently given as a prize, and figures on 
 many a Chiltern bookshelf. But it is seldom 
 read, except by Germans and Nonconformist 
 ministers ; for it is ponderously written, and 
 Chiltern is more concerned with the memory 
 than with the life of its great headmaster. 
 In fact, the tradition is an oral rather than 
 a written tradition, and it is perpetually 
 
THE ELECTION 9 
 
 renewed. Chiltern claims to receive a con- 
 tinuous stream of inspiration from its second 
 founder ; and the current of the stream runs 
 strongly against change. 
 
 But a moment came in the history of the 
 school, when the Lanchester tradition and all 
 that it stands for was threatened with a 
 violent overhauling, if not a complete extinc- 
 tion. After a reign of four-and-twenty years, 
 to all outward appearance peaceful and pros- 
 perous, Dr. Gussy suddenly discovered that he 
 had had enough of it and accepted a vacant 
 Deanery. And then the Governing Body, or 
 Council as it is properly called, in one of those 
 tits of absent-mindedness to which govern- 
 ing bodies are liable, elected as his successor 
 a comparatively young man of unorthodox 
 views and no practical experience. 
 
 The election was one of the seven wonders 
 of the scholastic world. There had been 
 more than a score of candidates for the vacant 
 post, including a successful curate and an 
 unsuccessful army coach ; but it was known 
 that only two of them were in the running, 
 Henry Guthridge and the Rev. Ignatius 
 Lawrence. Mr. Guthridge was a layman and 
 an Old Chilternian ; he had served an 
 apprenticeship of five years as assistant 
 master at the school, and had since filled 
 the post of Hilbert Professor and Lecturer 
 at Oxford. Dr. Lawrence, a clergyman 
 
 B 
 
10 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 of advanced Anglican views, hailed from 
 Cambridge, and had won a certain reputation 
 as headmaster of St. Cuthbert's, in the north 
 of England. Mr. Guthridge was the official 
 candidate of the staff, and it was believed that 
 he would carry the day, in spite of the Bishop, 
 who was known to be strongly opposed to the 
 appointment of a layman. As for the Rev. 
 Septimus Flaggon, whose name, to everybody's 
 surprise, was added as a third to the select 
 list, nobody treated his claims seriously. 
 Fellow of an obscure college, tutor to a foreign 
 prince, and subsequently president of some 
 educational institution in Wales, his youth 
 and inexperience ruled him out of serious 
 consideration. It transpired, moreover, that 
 he owed his place among the select to some 
 powerful influence in the background. Some 
 said that he was being run by a member of 
 the Royal family; others suspected the 
 Prime Minister; others, again, the Russian 
 Ambassador. But all agreed that he was, 
 where he was, honoris causa and as a matter of 
 form. The choice obviously lay between 
 Guthridge and Lawrence, with the odds in 
 favour of Guthridge, in spite of his laymanship. 
 However, when the Council met at Grand- 
 borough, the county town, to come to a 
 decision, it was found that the Bishop had 
 canvassed strongly and that lay and clerical 
 forces were exactly evenly divided. The 
 
THE ELECTION 11 
 
 Chairman of the Council, a man of moderate 
 views, disliked clerical domination but was 
 also averse from the appointment of an Old 
 Chilternian ; so he declined to give a casting 
 vote in favour of either candidate. Neither 
 side would budge an inch, and the conten- 
 tion grew sharp between them. Twice Mr. 
 Guthridge and Dr. Lawrence were called 
 separately from the dingy room in which, 
 together with Mr. Flaggon, they were awaiting 
 their fate, and submitted to a lengthy cross- 
 examination, in the hope that one or other 
 of them would say something to turn the 
 evenly balanced scales. But neither succeeded 
 in detaching the necessary vote. 
 
 At length the Chairman, who had a train 
 to catch and a dinner depending on the train, 
 looked at his watch and hinted at an alterna- 
 tive solution. Had the Council sufficiently 
 considered the claims of the third candidate, 
 a man of great promise with very influential 
 backing ? 
 
 Compromise is an essential feature of the 
 English character, and long hours of enervating 
 discussion, in a stuffy room on a July after- 
 noon, are favourable to its rapid growth. 
 The Council was exhausted, and Mr. Flaggon 
 had some striking testimonials. His orders 
 were a sop to the Bishop, and his reputed 
 unorthodoxy appealed to the lay party. So, 
 at the eleventh hour, Mr. Flaggon was 
 
12 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 called into the Council Chamber. His 
 appearance was satisfactory, and his answers 
 to a few questions that were put to him by 
 the Chairman and the Bishop gave no offence. 
 He seemed a providential way out of an 
 impossible situation, and withdrew, at the 
 end of the interview, amidst encouraging 
 smiles. Five minutes later, to the chagrin 
 of his rivals and his own surprise, he was 
 invited once more into the Council Chamber 
 and informed that he was headmaster elect 
 of Chiltern. After which the Chairman left 
 hurriedly to catch his train. 
 
 At Chiltern the triumph of Guthridge was 
 awaited with quiet confidence. Nobody, 
 except Dr. Gussy, believed that the Council 
 would dare to disregard the explicit wishes of 
 the masters and the personal claims of the 
 only Old Chilternian who was standing — the 
 one man, in fact, who was qualified to carry 
 on, intact, the great Lanchester tradition. 
 So, when the astonishing news came through 
 that Flaggon, and not Guthridge, was the man, 
 it was received at first with blank incredulity, 
 followed immediately afterwards by a burst 
 of passionate resentment. Who was Flaggon, 
 what was Flaggon, who had ever heard or 
 dreamed of Flaggon? The masters were 
 seen talking and gesticulating in excited 
 groups in the great quadrangle. 
 
 " It's an insult," cried Mr. Pounderly, shaking 
 
THE ELECTION 13 
 
 his clenched fist, " a deliberate insult, aimed 
 at the whole staff. I say a deliberate insult ! " 
 
 " On the contrary," said Mr. Bent the cynic 
 (every staff possesses a cynic), " it's merely 
 another instance of the ironic humour for 
 which the Council is famous." Mr. Cox, 
 the Nestor of Chiltern, shook his head sadly 
 from side to side with a far-away look in his 
 eyes ; Mr. Black, the senior mathematician, 
 was for petitioning the Council, at once, to 
 revoke its decision ; and when Mr. Chase, 
 the moderate man (every staff possesses 
 at least one moderate who reads the Spectator), 
 expressed a timid hope that the newcomer 
 would be given a fair chance, he was within 
 an ace of being lynched. Even the school 
 porter, a man of solemn demeanour and grave 
 reticence, expressed the opinion that the 
 choice was "hominous." 
 
 As for Dr. Gussy, who, without committing 
 himself publicly, had worked hard for Dr. 
 Lawrence in private, he was completely 
 prostrated by the blow. Scarcely could he 
 bring himself to make the official announce- 
 ment to the school in the Great Hall ; and, 
 when he did so, it was with the voice and 
 gestures of the Koman praetor announcing 
 after Thrasymene, " We have lost a great 
 battle." For several days he affected to 
 regard himself as superseded, set aside, and 
 sulked like Achilles in his tent. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MR. PLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 
 
 The election of Mr. Flaggon was followed 
 immediately by the resignation of Mr. Cox. 
 Mr. Cox was in the habit of resigning when- 
 ever his proposals were voted down or his 
 advice neglected. Dr. Gussy had, at various 
 times, received twelve such communications 
 from him and, on each occasion, had found 
 no difficulty in persuading Mr. Cox to re- 
 consider his decision. There is every reason 
 to suppose that Mr. Cox expected a similar 
 issue to his thirteenth act of protest. But 
 he had chosen his time badly. Dr. Gussy 
 merelysaid, " /no longer count," and forwarded 
 the letter to the headmaster elect. And the 
 headmaster elect, unfamiliar with Mr. Cox's 
 idiosyncrasies and much impressed by his 
 age, which was seventy-five, accepted the 
 resignation in a courteous and gracious spirit. 
 Mr. Cox had so long regarded himself as 
 an integral and necessary part of Chiltern 
 and the Lanchester tradition that he was 
 
MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 15 
 
 mortified to find how calmly his departure 
 was taken. His colleagues, indeed, were most 
 sympathetic, and said that his going would 
 be a terrible break with the past, and that 
 they would miss him increasingly. But they 
 added that they thought he had acted very 
 wisely in choosing this particular moment to 
 leave them ; and this was not the sort of 
 consolation that Mr. Cox expected or desired. 
 It is said that he still regards himself as the 
 first and most notable victim of the new 
 regime, and speaks contemptuously of " poor 
 old Gussy, who couldn't play a winning 
 hand even when he held all the trumps." 
 How exactly the hand should have been 
 played is not clear ; but the implication is 
 that Mr. Cox's resignation was the ace of 
 trumps, and that, rightly used, it would 
 have brought the Council to its senses and 
 prevented untold calamities. 
 
 But, if Mr. Cox's resignation was taken 
 calmly, Mr. Flaggon's appointment continued 
 to stir Chiltern to its lowest depths. Articles 
 were disinterred from the back numbers of 
 magazines, educational or otherwise, in which 
 Mr. Flaggon had spoken slightingly of the 
 public schools and public school methods ; 
 and the press was deplorable. The Liberal 
 dailies hailed the appointment as the begin- 
 niDg of a new era and the death-blow to 
 an antiquated tradition. Even a leading 
 
16 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 Conservative journal, which should have 
 known better, described the election as a 
 daring but interesting experiment, and pro- 
 ceeded to sketch an ideal curriculum, for 
 the benefit of the new headmaster, in which 
 Greek was abolished and its place taken 
 by compulsory military drill. The Council 
 blushed uneasily at finding itself suddenly in 
 the van of progress, and began to say harsh 
 things about its Chairman ; and its Chairman 
 was only partially comforted by an assurance 
 from the distinguished person behind the 
 scenes that they had chosen the best man in, 
 " a man who will think before he acts and 
 who will go far." For to the Chairman the 
 ideal headmaster was rather a man who 
 would mark time decorously than an explorer 
 of untrodden ways. 
 
 To the masters the suggestion that Chiltern 
 needed reforming — " turning inside out," they 
 called it — was, to say the least, unpalatable. 
 As practical men they despised the theorist ; 
 and, of all forms of theorist, the one that they 
 most disliked was the educational enthusiast — 
 the innovator, the impostor. Mr. Pounderly 
 went about with a scared face and mysterious 
 air, whispering "lamentable, lamentable" to 
 his colleagues ; and Mr. Woburn, the scientist, 
 who affected metaphors and frequently mixed 
 them, declared that, though the Classics 
 were undoubtedly overdone at Chiltern, he 
 
MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 17 
 
 hated the idea of a man who would always 
 be trying experiments and pulling them up 
 by the roots to see how they were shaping. 
 
 The idea of petitioning the Council against 
 the appointment had been abandoned, partly 
 on the advice of the moderates, but chiefly 
 for lack of support from the juniors. For, 
 on second thoughts, the juniors discovered 
 that they did not want the new headmaster 
 to be a nominee and creature of the veterans. 
 The senior masters at Chiltern were famous 
 for their longevity and for the tenacious way 
 in which they clung to the posts of vantage ; 
 and, if change meant only a gradual shifting 
 of the senior masters, there was something 
 to be said in favour of change. But it was 
 clearly understood that, if Mr. Flaggon 
 attempted to drive his staff along new and 
 unfamiliar ways, he would find them a most 
 awkward and intractable team to handle. 
 
 Amid the babel of tongues there was one 
 man who maintained what was, for him, 
 an attitude of unusual reserve. This was 
 Mr. Chowdler, the strong man of Chiltern. 
 Mr. Chowdler owed his reputation for strength, 
 not to any breadth of view or depth of 
 sympathetic insight, but to a sublime 
 unconsciousness of his own limitations. 
 Narrow but concentrated, with an aggressive 
 will and a brusque intolerance of all who 
 differed from him, he was a fighter who loved 
 
18 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 fighting for its own sake and who triumphed 
 through the sheer exhaustion of his enemies ; 
 and a Term in which he did not en^a^e in at 
 least one mortal combat was to him a blank 
 Term. A tall man, with broad shoulders, 
 round head, thin sandy hair, and full lips, 
 he caught the eye in whatever company he 
 might be, and his resonant voice arrested 
 attention. At golfing centres, in the holidays, 
 he was not always a very popular figure. 
 But his confident manner impressed parents, 
 and his was considered the house at Chiltern. 
 People often wondered why he had never 
 stood for headmasterships or sought a wider 
 scope for the exercise of power. In reality 
 he had never felt the need. He had so 
 completely identified himself with Chiltern 
 that it never even occurred to him to leave it ; 
 and his had for many years been the master 
 mind that shaped the destinies of the school. 
 
 In saying this we are not forgetting the 
 existence of Dr. Gussy. But Dr. Gussy, 
 though he had been the titular chief for 
 nearly a quarter of a century, had long ceased 
 to be the ruling spirit. In vulgar phrase, 
 he had allowed Mr. Chowdler to " run him," 
 and it was generally supposed to be weariness 
 of bondage rather than of power which had 
 induced him to resign before the completion of 
 his twenty-fifth year of office. In appearance 
 he was a complete contrast to his formidable 
 
ME. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 19 
 
 lieutenant. Small and rather fragile, with 
 silver-white hair and a refined, delicately 
 moulded face that suggested Dresden china, 
 he was the type of the old-fashioned 
 scholar. Though there was nothing command- 
 ing in his personality it was none the less 
 distinguished, and the thinness of a high- 
 pitched, and sometimes almost squeaky, voice 
 was atoned for by the perfection of his arti- 
 culation. In his younger days he had taken 
 a prominent place among the champions of 
 the Oxford Movement, and, if he had not 
 become a headmaster, he might have been 
 notorious as a theologian ; indeed, his com- 
 mentary on the Epistle of St. Clement is 
 admitted by all to be a remarkable work. 
 Fathers of Chiltern boys loved to hear him 
 read the lessons, and mothers frequently 
 remarked, " What a lovely face ! " But he 
 was by nature too refined and sensitive 
 to cope successfully with the robust methods 
 of Mr. Chowdler, and, after struggling fitfully 
 for some years, he had purchased compara- 
 tive peace by an irritable submission. Mrs. 
 Chowdler, an obtuse little woman who wor- 
 shipped her husband and imagined that 
 everybody at Chiltern shared her admira- 
 tion, used to say that "Harry" was the 
 headmaster's better self. She had herself 
 always been ready and willing to be a sister 
 to Mrs. Gussy ; but after a long series of 
 
20 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 pointed rebuffs she had abandoned the attempt, 
 and the relations between the two families 
 were official rather than cordial. 
 
 It was not likely that Mr. Chowdler 
 would approve of the new appointment; 
 indeed, he seldom approved of any arrange- 
 ment that was not of his own making. But 
 his attitude was one of amused banter rather 
 than of fierce hostility, and he spoke with a 
 good-natured smile of the " Empty Flaggon." 
 " Wait and see " was his advice. " You will 
 find that the place and its traditions are too 
 strong for the empty one. He may froth 
 and he may fume, but he can't hurt us. We 
 are strong enough to assimilate a whole 
 cellarful of Flaggons." 
 
 These and similar remarks made it clear 
 to the initiated that Mr. Chowdler proposed 
 to run the new headmaster, as he had run 
 his predecessor. 
 
 In the middle of July Mr. Flaggon paid 
 his first visit to Chiltern. The position of 
 a headmaster elect is a delicate one, and he 
 wisely declined to be introduced formally 
 to the school. If omens count for anything, 
 the circumstances of this visit were in- 
 auspicious ; for it coincided with a period 
 of four-and- twenty hours of continuous rain. 
 Mr. Flaggon carried away a general impression 
 of gloom and dripping umbrellas ; but one 
 incident, trivial in itself, left a permanent 
 
ME. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 21 
 
 record on his memory. During one of the 
 brief pauses in the downpour, he was walking 
 with Dr. Gussy across Colonus towards the 
 Lanchester workshops, and, on the way, 
 met three of the bigger boys who were 
 sauntering slowly in the opposite direction. 
 There was something about their gait and 
 manner which, if not exactly insolent, at 
 least suggested a complete absence of anything 
 like awe in the presence of their headmaster. 
 They gave a perfunctory salute ; and, before 
 they passed out of earshot, a voice, which 
 made no attempt to lower itself, remarked : 
 
 " Is that the new Gus ? " 
 
 "Looks like it," replied a second voice, 
 in the same devil-take-me-if-/-care tone, 
 " unless it's his shuvver." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon, who with the principles of 
 a democrat combined all the instincts of a 
 despot, lifted his eyebrows in surprise and 
 his fingers tightened unconsciously round the 
 handle of his umbrella. But Dr. Gussy 
 appeared to be quite unconcerned and made 
 no comment. 
 
 Under the depressing climatic conditions 
 the hours passed rather slowly. Dr. Gussy 
 was courtesy itself, but he found it impossible 
 to be cordial or communicative to a man who 
 was the last person he would have chosen as 
 his successor ; and Mr. Flaggon felt it a relief 
 when Mrs. Gussy carried him off to inspect 
 
22 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 the house and talk fixtures. Dr. Gussy had 
 wisely left all the business arrangements in 
 the hands of his wife, a capable woman with 
 all the capable woman's contempt for the 
 supposed ignorance of a young man and a 
 bachelor ; and it soon became evident that 
 Mrs. Gussy intended to take full advantage 
 of her superior knowledge. With a happy 
 mixture of adroitness and authority she 
 forced upon the incoming tenant the oldest 
 carpets and the least successful bits of furni- 
 ture ; and, with equal skill, she secured a 
 tacit permission to carry off some of the 
 more desirable fixtures. 
 
 "We are taking the tiles with us to the 
 Deanery," she would say, pointing to a fire- 
 place ; " but, of course, we shall leave you the 
 linoleum and that very useful deal cupboard. 
 They were both made for the room." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon had no desire to haggle, 
 but he had the Northerner's dislike of being 
 done ; and, before the round was over, 
 he found himself in revolt. Mrs. Gussy 
 described him afterwards as " close " ; and 
 Mr. Flaggon, in relating his experiences to his 
 mother, said that if Mrs. Gussy had been a 
 little less autocratic, she would have made 
 an excellent saleswoman. The youngest Miss 
 Gussy, a girl of seventeen and the only other 
 member of the family who was at home, 
 did not put in an appearance. She could not 
 
MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 23 
 
 bring herself to shake hands with the sup- 
 planter of her father, the " horrid man " 
 who was going to live in their house and enjoy 
 their garden. If Mr. Flaggon had been an 
 angel from Heaven, she would have hated 
 him with equal fervour. So she withdrew 
 for the day to the Pounderlys' and contented 
 herself with a glimpse of "the man" from 
 a window ; which glimpse confirmed her in 
 her worst forebodings. Mrs. Chowdler, who 
 had a talent for saying the wrong thing, 
 remarked that it would be "a very happy 
 coincidence" if Mr. Flaggon and Miss Gussy 
 took a fancy to each other, as it would give 
 a continuity to life at Chiltern and make the 
 impending change " so much less felt." With 
 the object of promoting such a match she 
 spoke warmly to the youngest Miss Gussy 
 of the new headmaster's personal appearance, 
 and was dismayed at the violent outburst 
 which her eulogy provoked. 
 
 In the evening, after dinner, Mr. Chowdler 
 called by arrangement and carried off his 
 new chief, nominally to introduce him over 
 a quiet pipe to a few colleagues, but really 
 to take his measure and begin the training 
 of which he was supposed to be in need. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon did not smoke, neither did 
 he drink; but he was placed in the easiest 
 of the study chairs, next to the fireplace, 
 and the colleagues lit their pipes and arranged 
 
24 THE LANCH ESTER TRADITION 
 
 themselves in a semicircle round the empty 
 grate. There is always something singularly 
 dispiriting about an empty grate on a wet 
 summer evening, and a semicircular formation 
 round it emphasises its forlornness. The 
 colleagues were conscious of a feeling of 
 constraint. After all that they had been 
 saying and thinking about him in the past 
 week, they were shy of being over-cordial 
 to their new chief, and some of them felt a 
 little as if they were taking part in a con- 
 spiracy, engineered by Chowdler, to exploit 
 the inexperience of the new man. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon, for his part, did not possess 
 the easy manner and command of small 
 talk which put strangers at their ease. 
 Though anxious to be friendly, he was by 
 nature reticent, one of those who, in new 
 surroundings, are more disposed to receive 
 impressions than to create them. So, after 
 a little desultory talk about the golf links, 
 and several ineffective openings that led 
 into blind alleys, the conversation suddenly 
 expired, and the colleagues found themselves 
 gazing desperately at three iron bars and some 
 unhealthy-looking green and yellow paper 
 behind them. 
 
 This was the psychological moment for 
 Mr. Chowdler. Hitherto he had been busy 
 pouring out whisky-and-sodas and struggling 
 with a refractory pipe ; but he now sat 
 
MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 25 
 
 down opposite the guest of the evening and 
 opened the main attack. 
 
 11 1 suppose," he began, " that you have 
 been hearing a good deal to-day about our 
 great headmaster Dr. Lanchester. Have you 
 ever studied his life ? " 
 
 " I have indeed," replied Mr. Flaggon ; 
 " in fact, it was one of the first books that 
 excited my interest in public school education. 
 It might, no doubt, have been better written ; 
 but it is, in its way, I think, one of the most 
 suggestive books in the English language." 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say that!" 
 cried Mr. Chowdler. " I'm so glad to hear 
 you say that ; because you know, we cling- 
 very, very faithfully here to our past and our 
 great Conservative tradition." 
 
 "Aren't you forgetting," said Mr. Flaggon 
 quickly, " that Dr. Lanchester was always 
 considered a Radical ? " 
 
 Mr. Chowdler had forgotten ; all Chiltern 
 was in the habit of forgetting this unpleasant 
 fact. But he would not own to any lapse 
 of memory, and his voice took on a note 
 of challenge as he replied : 
 
 "Oh, a name doesn't frighten me; there's 
 nothing in a name ; names are only the 
 coinage of the foolish. Lanchester was a 
 man of very Conservative instincts. He was 
 not one of those who love change for change's 
 sake. He was a restorer, not a destroyer." 
 
26 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 "It must be difficult to be the one without 
 the other," remarked Mr. Flaggon quietly ; 
 " and I have always heard that Dr. Lanchester 
 was both." 
 
 Antipathies are often physical as well 
 as moral, and the two men suddenly became 
 conscious of a kind of physical distaste for 
 one another. In Chowdler's fleshy limbs, 
 broad shoulders, bullet head, and aggressive 
 manner, Mr. Flaggon saw for the moment the 
 personification of that narrow but confident 
 prejudice which blocks progress and strangles 
 reform ; while Mr. Chowdler realised acutely 
 that " the man Flaggon " would easily get 
 on his nerves. There was an awkward pause 
 which Mr. Beadle filled by remarking : 
 
 " You must have found it very interesting 
 work tutoring a foreign prince." 
 
 But Mr. Chowdler, though momentarily 
 disconcerted, was not to be diverted from 
 his main purpose ; and, before Mr. Flaggon 
 could frame a reply, he interposed again 
 with : 
 
 "Talking of princes reminds me of some- 
 thing that happened to me a little while ago." 
 
 Mr. Chowdler had a large stock of anecdotes 
 with which his colleagues were painfully 
 familiar, for he was never afraid of repeating 
 himself. In theory Mr. Chowdler scorned 
 sentimentality and even sentiment, but in 
 practice his stories were nearly all of the 
 
MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT 27 
 
 sentimental order and related how small 
 boys had looked up at him wistfully, or 
 old boys had grasped his hand with mauJy 
 tears in their eyes. And both wistful small 
 boys and manly old boys had nearly always 
 contrived to say something illuminating about 
 the Lanchester tradition. 
 
 When once Mr. Chowdler was started, 
 he passed from one story to another without 
 a halt. Mr. Flaggon was conscious that 
 the anecdotes were being related not to him 
 but at him. However, he smiled when a 
 smile seemed to be expected, and looked 
 impressed where it was obviously the right 
 thing to look impressed. But, when his 
 host concluded the fifteenth story with the 
 remark, "And I think it's such a splendid 
 idea that the old traditions are being planted, 
 with the old flag, far away over the water, 
 in Saskatchewan," he could not help saying : 
 
 "Don't you think it would be better, 
 perhaps, if the Colonies were allowed to 
 create their own traditions and their own 
 ideals % If there is to be development, there 
 must be new forms ; and I always hope 
 that the colonies will have something new 
 to teach us some day." 
 
 Mr. Chowdler did not agree, and he said 
 so in words which produced another awkward 
 pause ; and Mr. Beadle once more came to 
 the rescue by remarking : 
 
28 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 " I suppose that they are very keen about 
 education in Wales ?" Which showed that 
 Mr. Beadle had been making a study of the 
 new headmaster's previous history. 
 
 When the marble clock on the mantelpiece 
 pointed to eleven, Mr. Flaggon rose to go. 
 A day with Dr. Gussy, and an evening spent 
 in the company of Mr. Chowdler, had induced 
 an unusual feeling of weariness. He and 
 his host shook hands at parting with every 
 outward appearance of friendliness ; but, as 
 he walked home under the dripping trees to 
 the Praetorium, as Dr. Gussy's house was 
 called, he was conscious that, amongst the 
 many problems that he would have to 
 face at Chiltern, Mr. Chowdler would almost 
 certainly be one of the most difficult. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EXIT DR. GUSSY 
 
 The last fortnight of the Term was largely 
 devoted to saying good-bye to Dr. Gussy. 
 It was traditional at Chiltern for a headmaster 
 to be received with curses and dismissed 
 with blessings ; and an unwritten law required 
 that, as his last Term drew to a close, words 
 of ill-omen should become few and fewer. 
 During the last fortnight, even Mr. Chowdler 
 gave up speaking of " silly old Fussy" and 
 substituted "poor old Gussy," or, more rarely, 
 11 dear old Gussy." 
 
 Dr. Gussy had never identified himself 
 very closely with the life of the school, nor 
 allowed himself to become absorbed in its 
 daily happenings ; his youngest daughter 
 probably knew far more about the inner 
 life of Chiltern than he did, and could address 
 by their nicknames boys of whom her father 
 had some difficulty in recalling the surname. 
 Outside interests had taken him frequently 
 from Chiltern, and the branch line (like all 
 
30 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 branch lines) made it easier to leave Chiltern 
 than to get back to it. He had often missed 
 important matches, his place had frequently 
 been empty at Sunday chapels, and he had 
 been known to confuse the identity of im- 
 portant people. A current story, of which 
 there were many variations, made him address 
 the senior fag of Mr. Cox's house as the 
 junior master on the staff. But his rule 
 was mild and his nature unsuspicious ; so 
 he had always enjoyed a fair measure of 
 popularity, and, during his last fortnight, 
 he was positively worshipped. 
 
 Dr. Gussy himself was quite unconscious 
 of any sins of omission. He was fond of 
 boasting that Chiltern was a school that 
 "ran itself"; and, as a proof of its good 
 discipline and high moral tone, he would 
 say, proudly, "For the last seven years I 
 haven't had to expel a single boy — not a 
 single boy." 
 
 This record greatly impressed anxious 
 parents, and had attracted to the school 
 several sons of the titled plutocracy, whose 
 sensitive natures required considerate and 
 tactful handling rather than the rough and 
 ready methods in vogue elsewhere. Dr. Gussy 
 was proud of the distinguished names that 
 figured on his school lists, and never had 
 Chiltern been more popular or more prosperous 
 than during the last seven years of his reign. 
 
EXIT DR. GUSSY 31 
 
 Needless to say, the Doctor received an 
 incredible number of presents. It was like 
 a second wedding. Each division of the 
 school gave its separate gift, and, at the 
 earnest request of Mrs. Gussy, who valued 
 spontaneity above all things, the boys were 
 left to make their own choice without 
 prompting from their elders. The Lower 
 School gave a Tantalus, big enough to blast 
 the reputation of the most saintly Dean ; 
 the Removes, a telescope of immense power, 
 because, in Dr. Gussy's sermons, there were 
 frequent allusions to the stars; the Fifths, 
 an invalid's chair of elaborate mechanical 
 cunning, and the Prefects a complete set 
 of engravings of Chiltern from its earliest 
 days, of which Dr. Gussy already had 
 duplicates in a portifollo. Only the Old 
 Boys, instead of giving anything to Dr. 
 Gussy personally, presented his picture to 
 the library (none might hang in the Great 
 Hall save Dr. Lanchester only), and, by a 
 happy thought, entrusted the painting of 
 it to an Old Chilternian whom Nature had 
 intended for a caricaturist, but who had 
 elected to win fame as a portrait-painter. 
 
 And to each division separately Dr. Gussy 
 made one of the felicitous little speeches 
 for which he was famous. To the Lower 
 School he said that, whenever he saw that 
 splendid Tantalus on his sideboard, for he 
 
32 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 should give it the place of honour on his 
 sideboard (those who knew Mrs. Gussy best 
 thought otherwise), he should remember the 
 kind thought of the givers and be with them 
 again in the spirit. (Cheers, but no laughter, 
 the Lower School being in too solemn a mood 
 to anticipate a jest.) To the Removes he 
 said that he would now be able, from his 
 peaceful Deanery, to watch the Removes, 
 through his telescope, studying their lessons 
 with the zeal and enthusiasm for which they 
 had always been famous. (Laughter and 
 applause.) To the Fifths he said that, when- 
 ever he reclined in that luxurious chair — 
 and he hoped that he would have time 
 and leisure at last to recline, occasionally, in 
 an easy-chair (suppressed amusement) — he 
 should always think of the happy, strenuous 
 days which he had lived amongst them and 
 for them ; for they had always been, and 
 always would be, very near to his heart. 
 (Emotion, and a murmur at the back of 
 " Good old Gussy.") To the Prefects he said 
 that, whenever he looked at those beautiful 
 and interesting prints — and he should look 
 at them daily, for they would be hanging 
 on his walls (cheers) — he would see the 
 dear old place repeopled again with the 
 faces that he had now before him, and take 
 courage in the thought of the simple, manly, 
 unostentatious, but whole-hearted devotion 
 
EXIT DR. GUSSY 33 
 
 to duty which had always been character- 
 istic of the Prefects at Chiltern, and which 
 had given its high moral tone to the 
 school that they loved so well. (Prolonged 
 sensation.) 
 
 But it is unnecessary to quote further. 
 It is enough to say that there was a general 
 atmosphere of mutual good-will and esteem, 
 in which impositions were daily remitted 
 (except by Mr. Black, who lacked imagination), 
 and everybody felt that he was an integral 
 part of a great institution, bound by ties 
 of personal devotion to the headmaster, 
 and doing yeoman's work. 
 
 One of the most successful functions of 
 this epoch was the farewell dinner, given by 
 the junior masters in Common Room to their 
 chief. Though the masters at Chiltern lived 
 in lodgings or in private houses of their own, 
 it was part of the Lanchester tradition that the 
 bachelors amongst them should dine together 
 once a week in Common Room. A spinster 
 lady, distantly connected with the school, 
 had bequeathed funds for this purpose ; and, 
 though the cooking was not recherche nor the 
 conversation of much general interest, the 
 weekly dinner was valued as a picturesque 
 ceremony in keeping with the atmosphere of 
 the place, and was hedged in with a rigorous 
 etiquette. Thus, when any member of the 
 community succumbed to matrimony, he was 
 
34 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 expelled with a quaint and time-honoured 
 ritual. Some awkwardness had arisen when 
 Mr. Flyte, after being formally " inhibited " 
 from " bread, beef, and trencher," was thrown 
 over by his fiancee at the eleventh hour ; 
 for the inhibition had always been regarded 
 as final and irrevocable, and there was no 
 precedent to serve as a guide. Mr. Flyte, 
 however, solved the difficulty with great 
 tact, by never applying for readmission 
 as a bachelor and allowing himself to be 
 reckoned, for dining purposes, as an honorary 
 widower. 
 
 But, though the etiquette was formal and 
 the Common Room dinner sacred to bachelors, 
 it was decided, unanimously, that a point 
 might be stretched in favour of a departing 
 chief. Dr. Gussy was invited, and Dr. Gussy 
 accepted. 
 
 The preparations were on an unusual scale 
 and were in the hands of Mr. Rankin, who 
 was good at that kind of thing and proud of 
 his savoir faire. An ice-pudding was ordered 
 from Smith's, the school confectioner ; the 
 library attendant and the under ground-man, 
 who waited, were put into dress clothes for 
 the occasion ; and Mr. Grady's sister kindly 
 arranged the flowers. Mr. Chase, the senior 
 member and president, provided a special 
 brand of champagne from his private cellars, 
 and there were three savouries and no less than 
 
EXIT DR. GUSSY 35 
 
 six liqueurs. Dr. Gussy was placed at the head 
 of the table, with Mr. Chase on his right aud the 
 newest appointment to the school on his left. 
 Dr. Gussy was but little known personally to 
 the younger members of his staff, and his 
 conduct had not always escaped criticism ; 
 for, when he had been suffering much at the 
 hands of Mr. Chowdler, he was in the habit, 
 to use a vulgar phrase, of " taking it out of" 
 the juniors whom he did not fear. But, on 
 this occasion, he was not only courteous but 
 anecdotal and intimate. For the first time, 
 Dr. Gussy and his junior masters discovered 
 each other ; and the discovery only added to 
 the pain of separation. The party broke up 
 at a late hour and everybody went home mur- 
 muring " dear old Gussy " ; except, of course, 
 dear old Gussy himself, who had been plied 
 generously with the ice-pudding and the six 
 liqueurs, and who, after a restless night, 
 woke up next morning with something of 
 a liver. 
 
 On the last night but two of Term there 
 was another and a more questionable display 
 of feeling. At the witching hour of eleven 
 p.m. a considerable portion of the school 
 (estimates of the exact numbers varied) pic- 
 turesquely clad in bed-clothes and pyjamas, 
 and armed with sackbuts, psalteries, dulcimers 
 and all kinds of music, appeared suddenly on 
 the headmaster's front lawn and proceeded 
 
36 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 to serenade their chief with a topical song, of 
 which the chorus ran as follows : 
 
 " Young sir, do not answer at random, 
 
 No boy should be seen on a tandem." 
 
 Oh, whatever we think of the Badger or Mink, 1 
 
 De Gussibus non disputandum. 
 
 A remnant of sanity kept the headmaster 
 from appearing in person, but his wife and the 
 youngest Miss Gussy, who were not insen- 
 sible to such attentions, showed themselves at 
 the open windows of the drawing-room and 
 were acclaimed uproariously — especially the 
 youngest Miss Gussy. 
 
 It was felt, however, amongst the staff, 
 that things were going a little farther than 
 was wise. Loyalty is all very well, but 
 loyalty should be tempered by discretion ; 
 and the housemasters came in for some 
 criticism on account of their supposed con- 
 nivance. Even Mr. Plummer, the most 
 confirmed of optimists, had misgivings, and 
 observed next day in Common Room : 
 
 " It really does look as if some of the 
 housemasters had been a little slack ; unless, 
 of course, the whole thing has been very much 
 exaggerated." 
 
 "It has, as you say," replied Mr. Bent, 
 " been very much exaggerated. There were, 
 in reality, no boys, no music, no song, no Miss 
 
 The Badger = Mr. Bent ; the Mink = Mr. Grady. 
 
EXIT DR. GUSSY 37 
 
 Gussy. The whole thing was a phantasm 
 of the living, an allegory, an unsubstantial 
 pageant that fades and leaves not a wrack 
 behind. I know it for a fact." 
 
 " "What do you mean ? " asked Mr. Plummer. 
 
 " I have questioned each of the house- 
 masters separately," replied Mr. Bent, " and 
 each has assured me, in tones of the 
 deepest conviction, that his own Prefects 
 can be trusted absolutely, and that it is, 
 moreover, physically and structurally im- 
 possible for any boy to leave that particular 
 house after dark without the knowledge of 
 his housemaster. Each has further informed 
 me that, if only the other housemasters would 
 take the same simple and common-sense 
 precautions, such scenes as the one we are 
 deploring to-day would be impossible. Now, 
 what do you say to that, Plummer ? You 
 are surely not such a cynic as to doubt the 
 word of a housemaster ?" 
 
 Mr. Chowdler treated the matter in a more 
 serious spirit. He had watched the unex- 
 pected apotheosis of Dr. Gussy without 
 enthusiasm — " sentiment run mad " he called 
 it — and the official countenance given to the 
 serenade by Mrs. and Miss Gussy filled him 
 with indignation. He felt that it was high 
 time for somebody to speak to the " silly old 
 man." When duty called, Mr. Chowdler was 
 not the man to shirk an UDpleasant task, and 
 
38 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 his sense of duty was sharpened by a strong 
 personal dislike of Mrs. and the youngest Miss 
 Gussy. He therefore appeared in the head- 
 master's study after lunch, wearing the 
 particular expression which Dr. Gussy had 
 learned to associate with some of the un- 
 pleasanter moments of his own life. 
 
 Now, Dr. Gussy had been as much surprised 
 as anybody at the sudden blaze of popularity 
 of which he had been the centre ; but, being 
 naive and not addicted to self-analysis, he had 
 throughly enjoyed it. Moreover, the days 
 of his bondage were almost accomplished, 
 and he no longer felt afraid of any man. So 
 he did what he had not done for many a long 
 day, namely, snapped his ringers in Mr. 
 Chowdler's face, and even told him not to 
 be an old woman — at least, so Mrs. Gussy 
 told her friends, and a Dean's wife must be 
 supposed to speak the truth. 
 
 Mr. Chowdler gave a somewhat different 
 version of the encounter, in which the honours 
 were made to rest with himself rather than 
 with his chief. But even he could not conceal 
 the fact that he had received a diplomatic 
 rebuff. He relieved his feelings by calling 
 together his house Prefects and giving them 
 one of his straight manly talks. " Things," 
 he said, " are shaky — you would probably call 
 them 'dicky' ; but I shall call them shaky — and 
 with anxious times ahead of us next Term, we 
 
EXIT DR. GUSSY 39 
 
 can't afford to be playing ducks and drakes 
 with our best traditions ; and, what with 
 weakness at the top and giddy heads at the 
 bottom, that's just what some folks are 
 beginning to do. You know what I am 
 referring to — that ridiculous scene last night. 
 I know what you think about it. You and 
 I understand each other, and we know where 
 the blame lies. We needn't dot the i's, but 
 there are certain houses, not a hundred miles 
 from here, which would be better for a taste 
 of our friend Archie's strong arm." Here " our 
 friend Archie," who was head of the eleven, 
 fidgeted uncomfortably. " Now, I want you 
 to remember," continued Mr. Chowdler im- 
 pressively, " that your influence ought not to 
 end with the house. I want you to talk sense 
 to giddy heads and to strengthen feeble knees. 
 I want you to set your candles on a hill 
 where the whole school can see them. I want 
 you, when everybody else is failing, to be 
 the pillars and the props of our grand old 
 Lanchester tradition." 
 
 The Prefects in Mr. Chowdler's house 
 were genuinely afraid of Mr. Chowdler, though 
 they had long learnt how to manage him. 
 They now looked portentously solemn, con- 
 fessed that they had heard rumours of the 
 impending "rag" beforehand, but had not 
 taken them seriously, and admitted that 
 Mr. Cox's house was not as good as it had 
 
40 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 once been. But they were much too tactful 
 and considerate to let out that, as holders 
 of the cricket trophy, they had themselves 
 headed the procession in a body. 
 
 The upshot of it all was that people were 
 just a little anxious as to what might happen 
 at the school concert on the last night of 
 Term. Even Dr. Gussy confessed privately 
 that he would be glad when the concert 
 was over. For a great many Old Chilternians 
 were expected for the occasion, and, when 
 Old Boys get together and become excited, 
 they are sometimes — not rowdy, of ;course, 
 but, perhaps, a little boisterous ; and then 
 the school catches the excitement and loses 
 its sense of proportion. Still, the boys at 
 Chiltern were all gentlemen ; and, if you 
 treat gentlemen as gentlemen, they may be 
 trusted to behave as gentlemen. Everybody 
 at Chiltern believed that, except, perhaps, Mr. 
 Bent, who was a cynic and believed nothing, 
 and Mr. Grady, the science master, whose 
 face always had a hunted expression and who 
 sometimes came out of school with mice 
 in his pockets and his hair full of flour. 
 
 However, in spite of forebodings, the con- 
 cert was not much more noisy than concerts 
 usually were at Chiltern. Dr. Gussy was 
 cheered to the echo, and, though he had taken 
 his official farewell of the school only half 
 an hour before, he was obliged to come on 
 
EXIT DR. GUSSY 41 
 
 to the platform and make another speech. 
 Mrs. Gussy smiled her acknowledgments 
 from her place, and the youngest Miss Gussy 
 was in tears. As for the school song, it 
 went with a roar that nearly lifted the roof 
 off the Great Hall. The song of Chiltern 
 is not essentially different from other school 
 songs. Without ever lapsing into poetry, it 
 maintains, throughout, a fair rhythm and 
 a high level of imbecility. Its opening verse 
 has served as a model to many imitations : 
 
 John Buss was a farrier bold, 
 And be turned his sweat into drops of gold ; 
 He fought hard battles, and when he died 
 He left a school for his country's pride, 
 The best of schools, that has won renown 
 From Chiltern chimes to the frontier town. 
 
 Chorus : John Buss, John of Us, 
 
 Played good cricket and made no fuss. 
 
 To realise the full possibilities of the song, 
 you must go to Chiltern and hear it sung : 
 especially the chorus, where, after the trebles 
 have piped "John Buss," the whole school 
 joins in with "John of Us." The effect is 
 electrical and intensely moving. 
 
 When the concert was over, the Old 
 Chilternians played a game of football in 
 Colonus by moonlight, and afterwards paraded 
 the town, arm in arm, singing school songs. 
 There were more than a hundred of them, and 
 
 D 
 
42 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 they sang in different keys ; so that the towns- 
 people did not have a very tranquil night. 
 
 And in the second week of the holidays, 
 when everybody had gone away and the 
 whole place was in confusion, Mr. Flaggon 
 came down unexpectedly and insisted on 
 making a more detailed inspection of the 
 school than had been possible during his first 
 visit; much to the annoyance of the porter, 
 whose mind was not as clear on that day 
 as he could have wished, though his face 
 was more solemn than ever. Amongst the 
 buildings visited was Mr. Cox's old house, 
 which was undergoing extensive repairs for 
 its new proprietor, Mr. Chase ; and there, 
 on certain walls, Mr. Flaggon found writing 
 which, though he did not fully understand 
 it, made him glad that he had accepted Mr. 
 Cox's resignation. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST SKIRMISH 
 
 Mr. Flaggon had come to Chiltern with a 
 determination to do great things for education. 
 He himself had had a hard struggle to win 
 to knowledge, and the phases of the struggle 
 had left their mark deeply imprinted on his 
 character. Born with a thirst for knowledge, 
 he had had to force his way, step by step, 
 to the fountain head ; and the narrow circum- 
 stances of a Cumberland vicarage had strewn 
 the path with difficulties. Old and musty 
 books spelled out by candlelight in his father's 
 study, then a scholarship at a decaying 
 provincial grammar school, and finally a 
 classical exhibition at a small Oxford College — 
 such had been the stages by which he had 
 made his way up the stream. And, when 
 he reviewed the past, he could not but 
 remember how brackish and unsatisfying 
 the water had often been in the channels 
 where he had been compelled to seek it. If 
 his thirst had been less insatiable, his own 
 
44 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 experiences might well have cured him of 
 the desire to drink. 
 
 To a childhood spent among the Cumbrian 
 Fells he owed a robust constitution and a 
 toughness of fibre that defied fatigue ; perhaps, 
 too, a certain gravity and reticence which 
 seem to come naturally to those who are 
 bred among mountains. Rather below middle 
 height, with a clear-cut face and an intellectual 
 forehead, his most striking feature was his 
 eyes — fearless, grey, receptive eyes, which 
 looked out upon the world with a quiet 
 but penetrating interest. A friend, who knew 
 him intimately, described them as seeing, 
 rather than speaking, eyes. 
 
 Of public schools he knew nothing from 
 the inside, and he had few opportunities 
 of studying public school men at his own 
 small college. In such as he came across 
 he had noted a certain self-sufficiency and 
 polite lack of interest in things intellectual, 
 which he put down to the narrowness of 
 their training. The circumstances of his own 
 upbringing had thrown him almost entirely 
 among boys and men who had to make their 
 own way in the world, and who were des- 
 perately intent on turning even half a talent 
 to profitable use. Their aims might be low 
 and their ambitions sordid, but there was 
 no trifling with opportunity, no deliberate 
 rejection of golden chances. He had had 
 
THE FIRST SKIRMISH 45 
 
 no practical experience of that large and 
 wealthy class of people who have been well 
 oif for two generations and whose children are 
 born with an assured future — the people, 
 in fact, who send their boys to the richer 
 public schools ; and he had yet to learn 
 how paralysing to the intellectual life an 
 assured future may be. In a word, he did 
 not yet understand the psychology of the 
 horse who refuses to drink when taken to the 
 water ; and, noticing that public school men 
 were, as a class, unintellectual, he assumed 
 that their minds had been starved, and that 
 their teachers set no store by intellect. 
 
 The idea of standing for a headmastership 
 had first been suggested to him by an acquaint- 
 ance whom chance had thrown in his way. 
 After securing his Fellowship, Mr. Flaggon had 
 accepted a post as tutor to a foreign prince, 
 partly because the work was light and he 
 needed a holiday, and partly because the 
 tutorship was a travelling one and he was 
 eager to see something of the world. Ten 
 days of continuous rain and snow on the 
 Riffel Alp had thrown him much into the 
 society of the great man behind the scenes 
 to whom allusion has already been made. 
 The great man was both an enthusiast for 
 education and a firm believer in ability ; he 
 even had the hardihood to maintain that 
 ability is of greater value than experience, and 
 
46 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 experiment more fruitful of results than the 
 accepted method of playing for safety. Being 
 a shrewd judge of men, he soon discerned, 
 beneath the tutor's quiet and unsensational 
 exterior, signs of exceptional power ; and he 
 did not lose sight of him. The Welsh appoint- 
 ment was largely his doing, and, when the 
 headmastership of Chiltern fell vacant, it 
 was he who wrote and suggested that Mr. 
 Flaggon should stand. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon himself had hardly regarded 
 his candidature even as a forlorn hope. It 
 was intended rather as a ballon d'essai, a 
 notice to the scholastic world that he con- 
 sidered himself a possible headmaster, and an 
 opportunity of ganging how that world would 
 regard his claims. Chiltern, as we have seen, 
 had no hesitation in brand in g his preten- 
 sions as presumptuous ; and Mr. Flaggon was 
 quite aware that the success of his audacious 
 move, which had come as a surprise to himself, 
 had been more than a disappointment to his 
 future colleagues. 
 
 But he was not dismayed by the difficulty 
 of the task that lay before him. His whole 
 life had been spent in overcoming difficulties, 
 and he had the quiet confidence of a man who 
 is sure of his own temper and accustomed to 
 succeed. As has been stated before, he 
 brought with him to his new work a great zeal 
 for the cause of education ; but he had no cut- 
 
THE FIRST SKIRMISH 47 
 
 and-dried theories of reform, no patent nostrum 
 of his own. He knew what education ought 
 to be, what it had been to himself — an indi- 
 vidual renaissance, a quickening of the highest 
 faculties of mind and spirit; and he knew 
 that that was precisely what public school 
 education was not. He was determined to 
 study the problem on the spot and to proceed 
 tentatively. The machinery, as he saw it, 
 was antiquated, the bill of fare obsolete, the 
 valley full of dry bones. But the dry bones 
 were only waiting for a revivifying spirit to 
 become clothed with flesh and to start into 
 life again. In his mind's eye he saw the boys 
 as hungry sheep who looked up and were not 
 fed. He had not yet become acquainted 
 with that particular breed of sheep that is 
 born without an appetite. 
 
 But ever since his first flying visit to the 
 school, Mr. Flaggon had begun to realise that 
 there were other problems behind the educa- 
 tional one which would claim the attention 
 of a headmaster. He had always taken on 
 trust the virtues that are considered in- 
 herent in the public school system — loyalty, 
 discipline, gentlemanly behaviour, and a 
 subordination of the individual will to the 
 interests of the community. In his under- 
 graduate days he had often experienced an 
 absurd sensation of being considered morally, 
 as well as socially, inferior to the more fortunate 
 
48 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 alumni of the great public schools. Old Boys 
 had talked to him with flashing eyes and 
 genuine conviction of the exceptional merits 
 of their own schools, and of the enhanced 
 value which they gave to life ; and he had 
 believed them. And what he believed of 
 other schools he had been taught to believe 
 as pre-eminently true of Chiltern. Chiltern 
 was the only institution of its kind about 
 which nobody had as yet written a schoolboy 
 story ; but it ranked amongst the aristocracy 
 of public schools, and, in the eyes of Chilter- 
 nians, even higher. And it had special charac- 
 teristics of its own. Somebody had said that 
 Chiltern turned out gentlemen rather than 
 scholars ; and somebody else, probably an 
 Old Chilternian, had added that you could 
 always tell a Chiltern boy from the way he 
 behaved in a drawing-room. Wealthy manu- 
 facturers sent their sons to Chiltern to acquire 
 the easy manners and social polish which 
 seemed natural to the place ; and to be an 
 Old Chilternian was an " open sesame " to 
 any club that was not primarily intellectual. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon had expected, therefore, to 
 find a somewhat low level of mental attain- 
 ments but a high standard of good breeding. 
 But, ever since his first visit, his mind had 
 been haunted by the picture of three vapid 
 youths strolling past their headmaster with 
 insolent unconcern and the blase voices saying : 
 
THE FIRST SKIRMISH 49 
 
 " Is that the new Gus ? " 
 
 11 Looks like it — unless it's his shuvver." 
 
 And then there was the writing on certain 
 walls in Mr. Cox's house. 
 
 This unfavourable impression was con- 
 firmed as he watched the boys in Chapel on 
 the first Sunday of the Term. There was an 
 air of insolence and swagger about the way 
 in which the bigger boys strolled in last and 
 lounged, instead of kneeling, during the 
 prayers. Signs of intelligence were frequent 
 between block and block ; and, even among 
 the smaller boys, there was often a kind of 
 self-consciousness and ; pose, which, though 
 he could not quite analyse the cause, affected 
 Mr. Flaggon unpleasantly. He had often heard 
 of the impressiveness of a school-chapel 
 service. There was certainly nothing im- 
 pressive about the service at Chiltern on the 
 first Sunday of the Term, except, perhaps, the 
 singing of the hymns — and that was much 
 more noisy than reverent. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon belonged to no definite party 
 in the Church. A dislike of labels and defi- 
 nitions, coupled with a strong desire to make 
 the Church inclusive rather than exclusive, 
 had won him the easy hatred of the dogmatists 
 and the reputation of being unorthodox. 
 His own religious views had been deeply 
 coloured by the life and example of his father, 
 a man of great but unrecognised power, who 
 
50 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 had cheerfully sacrificed all personal ambition 
 to work in an obscure Cumbrian parish. At 
 one period of his youth, his father's attitude 
 to life and cheerful acceptance of a lot so far 
 below his merits, had puzzled him ; and he 
 had allowed himself to wonder whether such 
 complete self-abnegation was commendable 
 or even right. But the extraordinary mani- 
 festations of grief which that father's death 
 provoked in the whole neighbourhood had 
 taught him to judge the value of work by a 
 different standard, and to realise that the 
 things of the spirit can never be adequately 
 measured in terms of the flesh. Hence- 
 forward, the life of duty, and faith in the indi- 
 vidual conscience, which had been the secret 
 of the father's influence, became the ideals of 
 the son, and, if he was attracted into the field 
 of education, it was largely because, to him, 
 education in its truest sense meant a lifting of 
 the veil from the spirit. But as he mounted 
 the Chiltern pulpit to deliver his first sermon 
 from the text "The letter killeth, but the 
 spirit maketh alive," he felt conscious, in- 
 stinctively and with something of a chill, that 
 the note he was going to sound was not a note 
 that would find an echo in the hearts of his con- 
 gregation. Here were no hungry sheep looking 
 up to be fed, but indifference, inertia, and an 
 unknown something that was probably worse 
 than either and possibly the cause of both. 
 
THE FIKST SKIRMISH 51 
 
 Mr. Flaggon was an interesting and a 
 distinguished preacher ; his worst enemies 
 admitted that. He had the gift of saying 
 what he meant, the happy phrase, and the 
 inevitable word. But, if his manner could 
 not but create a favourable impression, his 
 matter caused serious alarm amongst the staff, 
 and there was much shaking of heads after- 
 wards in the great quadrangle under the 
 shadow of Dr. Lauchester's statue. 
 
 " It's not so much the sermon," said Mr. 
 Pounderly in his most confidential tones ; 
 " it's the text that frightens me. There were 
 some points in the sermon, but the text was 
 full of innuendo." 
 
 "Surely," exclaimed Mr. Bent, "you are 
 not going to hang a dog for his collar ? " 
 
 "Pardon me!" said Mr. Pounderly, "I 
 hang no man. But, unless my judgment 
 is strangely at fault, that text, considering 
 the time and the place, spells upheaval." 
 
 " And the manner ! " chimed in Mr. Beadle, 
 " the assured, precocious manner ! The air 
 of confidence and authority ! I agree with 
 Pounderly that we are marked down for 
 slaughter; it is the death-knell of the Classics! " 
 
 And the two men walked off together 
 shaking their heads. 
 
 Mr. Chowdler did not content himself 
 with shaking his head afterwards in the 
 great quadrangle. He shook it frequently 
 
52 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 and emphatically during the sermon, in 
 order that everybody might know that he 
 was in complete disagreement with the 
 preacher. And on him fell the unpleasant 
 duty, as he phrased it, of making a reply 
 and restating the Lanchester position, on 
 the third Sunday of the Term. 
 
 For, needless to say, Mr. Chowdler was 
 in orders. No mere laymen could have 
 combined such a capacity for quarrelling 
 with so profound a conviction of his 
 own reasonableness and humility. In Mr. 
 Chowdler's hands religion became a weapon 
 to smite with. For choice, he smote lies, 
 cant, humbug, and Bible critics ; but, 
 occasionally, quite innocent and respectable 
 things found themselves floored by Mr. 
 Chowdler's massive fist and trampled under 
 his double-welted heel. For, when Mr. 
 Chowdler mounted the pulpit, necessity was 
 laid upon him to smite something or some- 
 body. There were men, like Mr. Plummer, 
 who doubted whether there would be much 
 scope in Heaven for Mr. Chowdler's type of 
 religion ; but, if they did not regard it as 
 the highest form of Christianity, they had 
 to admit that it was manly, and therefore 
 good for the boys. 
 
 But, on this third Sunday of the Term, 
 Mr. Chowdler was no ordinary smiter; he 
 was the incarnation of the Lanchester spirit 
 
THE FIRST SKIRMISH 53 
 
 repelling a German invasion. And his text, 
 "Hold fast to that which is good," was not 
 delivered like an ordinary text ; it was fired 
 like a six-inch shell full at the stall in which 
 the headmaster was sitting. Mr. Bent said, 
 afterwards, that he fully expected to see 
 Chowdler follow up the discharge of the 
 text by leaving the cover of the pulpit and 
 attacking with the bayonet. However, the 
 preacher spoke daggers but used none. 
 Change ? Yes, change was necessary, growth 
 was necessary ; but not change in essentials 
 and axioms, not change in the foundations. 
 Hold fast to the foundations, hold fast to 
 that which is good ! There was a tendency 
 in a restless, riotous age to imagine that, 
 because a thing lasted, because it was old 
 and venerable, it was therefore obsolete. 
 A fool's mistake ! Why, granite lasts, gold 
 lasts. Hold fast to the granite, hold fast 
 to the gold, hold fast to that which is good. 
 Again, there was a tendency in an age of 
 feverish and futile activity to assail whatever 
 is venerable, whatever has withstood the 
 destructiveness of man and the storms of 
 time. You tear up the mighty oak, and 
 replace it by what ? Tares ? Yes, too often 
 by tares, or at best by some finnikin exotic 
 treelet, such as you may see in gaudy Eastern 
 pots in decadent drawing-rooms. Once more, 
 hold fast to the mighty oak, hold fast to 
 
54 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 that which is good ! Fortunately, and God 
 be praised for it, they had in that place a 
 great example by which to guide their en- 
 deavours — Abraham Lanchcster, their great 
 headmaster, restorer not destroyer, whose 
 clear, sane intellect and genius, conservative 
 in the best and noblest meaning of the word, 
 had left them an imperishable birthright 
 and a priceless heritage. Hold fast to a 
 priceless heritage, hold fast to a great tradi- 
 tion, hold fast to that which is good ! 
 And so on for five-and-twenty minutes. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon was conscious that he was 
 being preached at, and he knew that the boys 
 knew it ; for they kept turning round con- 
 tinually to see how he was taking it. Mrs. 
 Chowdler, who watched him narrowly, main- 
 tained that he had been profoundly impressed 
 and " looked as if a new light had suddenly 
 dawned on him " ; but the general opinion 
 among the boys was that he hadn't " turned a 
 hair" and that it was impossible to be sure 
 whether he had really understood what " Old 
 Jowler " was driving at. 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that the sermon 
 gave Mr. Flaggon food for reflection ; he 
 certainly sat for some time afterwards in his 
 study, looking into the fire and apparently 
 thinking. But, whatever his thoughts may 
 have been, he kept them to himself and said 
 nothing. 
 
THE FIRST SKIRMISH 55 
 
 Mr. Chowdler's effort was much appreci- 
 ated on the staff, even by some who were 
 more prone to criticise than to praise. Mr. 
 Pounderly pronounced it statesmanlike, and 
 Mr. Black went so far as to say that it was 
 inspired. Mr. Bent's was the only voice that 
 called it " bosh," and he received a grave and 
 well -deserved rebuke from Mr. Plummer for his 
 lack of reverence. It was confidently assumed 
 by many that Mr. Chowdler's serious note of 
 warning, voicing, as it did, the general feeling 
 of the staff, would give Mr. Flaggon pause 
 and force him to recognise facts. But their 
 optimism was of short duration ; for, within 
 a few days, a notice asking every master to 
 send in a copy of his weekly routine, made it 
 clear to the most sanguine that the era of 
 change and experiment had begun. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MR. TTPHAM 
 
 It must be admitted that Mr. Flaggon was 
 not uniformly lucky in his early experiments. 
 This was notably the case in his first appoint- 
 ment to the staff. It has been already stated 
 that he knew nothing of public schools from 
 the inside, and, in selecting a successor to 
 Mr. Cox, he may have been too exclusively 
 influenced by the claims of intellect and have 
 taken too little account of other necessary 
 qualifications. Anyhow, he thought that the 
 intellectual side of the staff needed reinforc- 
 ing, and having a choice between a double 
 first and a double blue, he appointed the 
 double first. 
 
 Mr. Tipham brought with him from 
 Cleopas College, Cambridge, two more or 
 less fixed ideas; first, that art consists 
 in depicting disagreeable things in a dis- 
 agreeable way, and, secondly, that life in the 
 twentieth century is governed by two con- 
 flicting forces — convention, which is always 
 
MR. TIPHAM 57 
 
 wrong, and Nature, which is always right. 
 This theory had carried him not only safely 
 but brilliantly through his university career. 
 He had secured a first in both parts of the 
 Tripos ; he had played a prominent part in 
 the life of his own college and been quoted 
 outside it ; he had worn strange clothes, 
 founded a literary society in which thought 
 was made to perform queer antics in shackles 
 of its own imposing, and he had invented a 
 new savoury. His slightly tilted nose and 
 full cheeks gave him an air of confidence 
 which unfriendly critics described as conceit, 
 while the long brown hair, drawn back over 
 the temples and plastered down with fragrant 
 oils, the orange tie and loose green jacket, 
 proclaimed that he was one of those for whom 
 art is not merely a hobby but an integral part 
 of life. One glance at his face would have 
 informed any ordinarily shrewd observer that, 
 in approaching new problems and unfamiliar 
 ground, Mr. Tipham would not suffer from 
 diffidence. The late Victorians might have 
 called him untidy and even unwashed ; but 
 at no period in English history would he have 
 been branded as modest. 
 
 It was inevitable that Mr. Tipham should 
 fall foul of the Lanchester tradition. He 
 would have fallen foul of any tradition. But 
 he chose to defy it in most unnecessary and 
 offensive ways. He smoked as he walked 
 
58 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 clown to school from his lodgings, he refused 
 even a perfunctory homage to the claims 
 of age and seniority, and the scarf that he 
 wore almost permanently round his throat 
 (for Mr. Tipham was an indoor man and 
 sensitive to cold and damp) was a combination 
 of colours — the colours of the Brainstorm 
 Club — that shocked the moral sense of Chil- 
 tern by its unblushing oestheticism. Mr. 
 Chowdler took a violent dislike to him at 
 their first meeting, and missed no opportunity 
 of trying to put him down by heavy sarcasm. 
 But Mr. Tipham was an unsatisfactory butt ; 
 and when attacked he had a way of raising 
 his eyebrows and inquiring " How so ? " in 
 a bored and superior tone, which goaded 
 Mr. Chowdler to frenzy. 
 
 It was, indeed, soon evident that, if 
 the serious purpose of Mr. Tipham's life was 
 to teach the boys, his recreation consisted 
 in shocking the masters. To all the things 
 that they held sacred, the very things that 
 ought to have impressed him most, he applied 
 the same disparaging term, " mid- Victorian " 
 or " bourgeois." Even the weekly dinner in 
 Common Room, with its quaint ceremonial 
 and unique endowment, did not escape the 
 damning epithet. Before a fortnight had 
 elapsed, everybody went about saying that 
 that fellow Tipham was impossible. 
 
 Mr. Plummer, whose ideal (never, alas ! 
 
ME. TIPIIAM 5<J 
 
 to be realised in this world) was a united 
 staff, and who was also the last man to abandon 
 any sinner as irreclaimable, made a final 
 and unsuccessful effort to bring about a 
 better understanding. He gave a bachelor 
 dinner-party, to which he invited a few of 
 his own friends and the erring Mr. Tipham : 
 for Mr. Plummer had a touching belief that, 
 if you can only bring mutually antagonistic 
 people together over a glass of wine, they 
 will learn to know and like each other. 
 
 Mr. Plummer occupied comfortable rooms 
 in an old Georgian house that fronted the 
 High Street. Bit by bit, and with a rare 
 tact that spared natural susceptibilities, 
 he had weeded out the furniture and pictures 
 of his landlady and replaced them with his 
 own. His taste was eclectic and eminently 
 characteristic of pedagogic culture, and the 
 inevitable photographs of the Hermes of 
 Olympia and the Acropolis found a place 
 of honour amongst the equally inevitable 
 Arundels. His rooms were considered the best 
 rooms in Chiltern, and he was not infrequently 
 consulted by his colleagues on questions of art. 
 
 Mr. Tipham, for whose benefit Messrs. 
 Bent, Eankin, Grady, and Chase had been 
 brought together in the Georgian house, began 
 the evening badly by arriving ten minutes 
 late and in clothes which protested with un- 
 necessary vehemence against the narrowness 
 
60 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 of convention . At Chiltern it was the custom, 
 even at bachelor parties, for the guests to 
 wear dress clothes ; but Mr. Tipham scorned 
 custom. A flannel shirt of that neutral tint 
 which suggests either dirt or extreme age, 
 a Norfolk jacket which might well have 
 belonged to a tramp, and a pair of grey 
 flannel trousers which the same tramp might 
 conceivably have rejected, completed his 
 festive attire, the only note of colour being 
 provided by the bright orange tie which 
 flamed beneath an unshaven chin. As Mr. 
 Rankin said afterwards, he suggested a man 
 who has snatched up some clothes hurriedly 
 to run to the bathroom, rather than a guest 
 at a dinner-party. 
 
 But Mr. Tipham was quite unconscious of 
 the sudden drop in the temperature which 
 followed his entry. He shot a rapid and 
 critical glance round the room, and, walking 
 straight up to a small pastel drawing of a 
 youth's head that hung on one of the walls, 
 he tapped the glass lightly with his forefinger 
 and inquired : 
 
 " Where did you get that ? " 
 
 "That?" replied Mr. Plummer ; " oh, I 
 picked that up at Chartres for a few francs ; 
 but I don't know that I care very much for it." 
 
 " It's the best thing in the room," said 
 Mr. Tipham quietly ; " looks as if it might 
 possibly be an early Creusot." 
 
MR. TIPHAM 61 
 
 Nobody but Mr. Tipham had ever heard 
 of Creusot ; so the remark was not taken up, 
 and the party moved into the dining-room in 
 depressed silence. At dinner it soon became 
 apparent that Mr. Tipham was out to give 
 instruction on other matters than art. The 
 conversation had drifted, as conversation 
 often did at Chiltern, on to the subject of 
 boys. Mr. Grady had complained of their 
 carelessness in handling chemicals, which 
 resulted in frequent explosions, and their in- 
 capacity for anything like patient or syste- 
 matic research ; and Mr. Chase had pointed 
 out the superiority of the Classics in this 
 respect, in that they compelled a boy to think 
 and left no room for experiment. "You're 
 both right and both wrong," said Mr. Tipham 
 with easy assurance. "Chemistry can be 
 made very interesting and the Classics very 
 dull, and vice versd. The truth is that, if you 
 want to keep boys interested, you must make 
 things lively. / always chip in for part of 
 the time with something quite off the lesson. 
 To-day I gave them a little lecture on Green 
 Chartreuse." 
 
 Mr. Plummer, who had long been struggling 
 with a desire to snub tempered by a sense of 
 his duties as a host, now cleared his throat and 
 said, not without an effort : 
 
 "I suppose you had a good deal of ex- 
 perience before you came here ? " 
 
02 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 "No," replied Mr. Tipham tartly; "but I 
 happen to have been a boy myself." 
 
 And again the temperature fell by several 
 degrees. 
 
 Mr. Bent had so far held himself in reserve, 
 profoundly annoyed yet watching with a 
 certain cynical enjoyment the growing irrita- 
 tion of his colleagues and their inability to 
 clothe it in appropriate words. But when, 
 shortly afterwards, Mr. Tipham laid it 
 down as an axiom that " Dorian Grey " was 
 the greatest work of art that the human 
 intellect has ever produced, he saw his oppor- 
 tunity and began in his best ironic vein. 
 
 " It's refreshing to hear you say that ; so 
 few people ever venture, nowadays, to express 
 old-fashioned opinions ; and the Victorians 
 seldom get justice done to them by the rising 
 generation. I don't know that I agree with 
 you on this particular point, but I am de- 
 lighted to claim you as a Victorian." 
 
 If there was one thing which Mr. Tipham 
 disliked more than another it was to be 
 identified in any way with the Victorians ; 
 so he raised his eyebrows and said coldly, 
 "How so?" 
 
 If Mr. Bent had been wise he would have 
 left well alone ; as it was, he went on to 
 embroider the theme a little recklessly. " If 
 one wants to be in the swim nowadays," 
 he said, " one has to go into ecstasies over 
 
MR. TIPHAM 63 
 
 de Barsac or Roger Filkison. You read Roger 
 Filkison, of course ? " 
 
 Mr. Tipham admitted, with some reluc- 
 tance, that he did not. 
 
 " Oh, he's the man, you know," continued 
 Mr. Bent, " who writes the testimonials for 
 the liver and kidney pills — the neo-realism 
 they call it ; very clever and morbid. I 
 don't like it myself, but I know several 
 Cambridge men who think it the most 
 poignant literature since Verlaine." 
 
 As Messrs. Rankin and Grady were both 
 Cambridge men, the pleasantry fell flat, and 
 there was an awkward silence, till Mr. Tipham, 
 lifting his eyebrows again, said in his most 
 condescending manner : 
 
 " Ought one to be amused ? " 
 
 And, though Mr. Bent tried to look un- 
 concerned, everybody realised that he had 
 been rapped rather smartly over the knuckles. 
 After this unfortunate incident there was a 
 general feeling of constraint, which lasted 
 through the rest of dinner. But when Mr. 
 Chase had withdrawn to read prayers to his 
 house, and cigars had been lit in the sitting- 
 room, Mr. Tipham unbent once more and 
 became enthusiastic over the merits of the 
 post-impressionists — the dazzling designs of 
 Van Googlen, the superb greens of le Beaupere, 
 and the masterly way in which Grummer 
 painted flesh with one stroke of a glue-brush. 
 
64 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 " I don't count him amongst the greatest 
 masters," said Mr. Bent, who had recovered 
 his equanimity, " because he can't paint 
 pimples." 
 
 " Perhaps," replied Mr. Tipham loftily, " you 
 have never seen his ■ Lepers bathing.' " 
 
 " No, I haven't," said Mr. Bent warmly, 
 " and I can't say that I want to." 
 
 " But, in that case," remarked Mr. Tipham, 
 " you are hardly in a position to judge, are 
 you ? " 
 
 Soon after ten, Messrs. Bent, Rankin, 
 and Grady rose to go. Their host escorted 
 them to the door with rather a wan look, 
 for Mr. Tipham, instead of following their 
 example, had just lit a fresh cigarette and 
 dropped into the easy-chair vacated by Mr. 
 Bent. 
 
 " Conceited idiot ! " said Mr. Bent, when 
 the three men were in the street. 
 
 "He has a lot to learn about boys," added 
 Mr. Grady, with a shake of his head. 
 
 " Wants a good scrubbing with soap and 
 water, inside aud out," growled Mr. Rankin. 
 " But," he added, afterwards, privately to 
 Mr. Grady, " old Bent didn't get much change 
 out of him." 
 
 As for Mr. Tipham, he continued to smoke 
 cigarettes and instruct his host in the first 
 principles of art till well after midnight. 
 
 Among the boys Mr. Tipham was generally 
 
MR. TIPHAM 65 
 
 regarded as a freak, and his nickname, " The 
 Super-tramp," could hardly be regarded as 
 flattering. But he had his disciples. Mind 
 at Chiltern was held in little esteem, and, 
 where it existed, uncongenial surroundings 
 were apt to turn it sour. There were generally 
 a few boys in the highest forms (for the most 
 part boys of inferior physique and precocious 
 interests) who were always in a state of latent 
 revolt against a system which left them out of 
 account. They repaid contempt with scorn, 
 and the scorn was all the bitterer because it 
 seldom dared to express itself in words and 
 had to ferment inwardly. 
 
 To such boys Mr. Tipham appealed as a 
 breath from a wider world and a champion 
 of intellectual liberty. At the little dinners 
 in his lodgings, at which a wine, which had 
 the alluring title of a petit vin blanc, was 
 followed by liqueurs, tongues were unloosed, 
 and thought, if it was not always particularly 
 clear, was at least delightfully audacious ; 
 and the crudest speculation passed for philo- 
 sophy. Acting on a suggestion from their 
 master, three of the disciples determined to 
 found a school magazine in which Truth 
 should at last find a voice. It must be 
 admitted that the first and only number of 
 " Veritas " which saw the light, though not 
 deficient in schoolboy humour, was unneces- 
 sarily personal and occasionally lacking in 
 
66 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 good taste. It contained obvious allusions 
 to the headmaster, Mr. Grady, and many 
 other members of the staff; but the most 
 regrettable item of all was an imaginary 
 interview, in which, under the transparent 
 pseudonym of " Howler," Mr. Chowdler was 
 held up to ridicule and contempt. 
 
 " Veritas " achieved a sensational but all 
 too brief success. It sold like hot potatoes ; 
 but, within six hours of its publication, 
 Mr. Chowdler appeared in the headmaster's 
 study with thunder on his brow and a copy 
 of the offensive journal in his hand. The 
 venture had been anonymous ; but the 
 secret, like most school secrets, had been 
 badly kept, and both the names of the editors 
 and the complicity of Mr. Tipham were mat- 
 ters of common knowledge. Mr. Chowdler 
 demanded that the editors should be made 
 to apologise publicly before the whole school. 
 As for what happened to Mr. Tipham, he did 
 not care, for Mr. Tipham was beneath con- 
 tempt ; but the obvious course was probably 
 the right one. In pressing his demand Mr. 
 Chowdler was careful to explain that he was 
 actuated by no desire for personal revenge ; 
 he was thinking only of discipline. At all 
 costs discipline and the decencies of life must 
 be preserved. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon was much annoyed by the 
 whole occurrence. He had himself suggested 
 
MR. TIPHAM 67 
 
 to Mr. Tipham, when appointing him, the idea 
 of stimulating the boys to literary activity ; 
 but, needless to say, he had not intended 
 the literary activity to take the form of a 
 lampoon on Mr. Chowdler. However, he de- 
 precated extreme measures and endeavoured 
 to soothe the victim's ruffled feelings. The 
 unsold copies of " Veritas " were confiscated, 
 and its further publication suppressed. Mr. 
 Tipham, to borrow an expressive French 
 phrase, " had his head washed," and the editors 
 offered a full but private apology to Mr. 
 Chowdler. But Mr. Chowdler was not satisfied. 
 He maintained that "the empty one" had 
 behaved weakly to the boys and disloyally 
 to himself. " A paltry revenge," he said, " for 
 my sermon." Opinion on the staff was divided. 
 Mr. Chase and the moderates thought that, 
 on the whole, justice had been done. Mr. 
 Pounderly and the irreconcilables considered 
 that "poor Chowdler" had been sacrificed. 
 Nearly everybody was agreed that the head- 
 master was largely to blame ; for he and he 
 alone was responsible for appointing a man 
 like Tipham — " the Flaggonette," as he was 
 facetiously called. Mrs. Chowdler was quite 
 bewildered. 
 
 " I cannot understand," she said, " how 
 anyone can be so wicked and spiteful as to 
 write such things about Harry, for everybody 
 knows that my husband has gone out of his 
 
68 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 way to be kind and helpful to Mr. Tipham, 
 as indeed he always does to all the new 
 masters. And surely the headmaster must 
 see that, by not supporting Harry and properly 
 punishing the offenders, he will weaken his own 
 position and make himself very unpopular ; 
 for the boys worship Harry." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CLOVEN HOOP 
 
 As Mr. Flaggon passed, one October afternoon, 
 through the green door at the end of his 
 garden, which led into Colonus, the air was 
 full of voices that rose alternately to a frenzied 
 shriek or dropped to a kind of monotonous 
 chant. For the first round of house-matches 
 was in progress and reputations were being- 
 lost and won. 
 
 Chiltern prided itself on being different 
 from other schools, and Chiltern had a game 
 of football peculiar to itself. It was a more 
 manly game than any other code, and developed 
 higher moral qualities in those who played it. 
 As Mr. Chowdler said, no shirker, no humbug, 
 could hope to win laurels at the Chiltern game. 
 
 When Mr. Chowdler's house was com- 
 peting for laurels, Mr. Chowdler himself 
 walked excitedly up and down the touch-line 
 with a flushed face and protruding eyes, 
 shouting, in a voice that dominated all others, 
 instructions to his boys, such as, " Pass, Percy, 
 pass ! Feet, feet, Gerald ! Shoot, Basil, 
 
70 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 shoot, can't you ! Stick to it ! Good lads 
 all ! Well played, Harry ! Well played, sir ! " 
 For Mr. Chowdler always spoke to, and of, 
 his boys by their Christian names. As a sort 
 of tribal god, inspiring his children to deeds 
 of valour, Mr. Chowdler was invaluable ; but 
 as a coach he had his limitations. For he 
 had been brought up on the Rugby game 
 and was never accepted as an authority on 
 Chiltern football. Consequently his instruc- 
 tions were invariably ignored by the players. 
 But he continued to shout them in perfect 
 good faith, and they were regarded as an 
 inevitable, if irrelevant, feature of the game. 
 
 Mr. Chowdler was in a good temper, for his 
 house was winning easily, and Mr. Chowdler 
 liked to win easily. An enthusiast for all 
 forms of manly sport, he belonged to that 
 particular brand of good sportsmen who find 
 it easier to be chivalrous to a vanquished foe 
 than fair to a victorious one. Accordingly, 
 on the comparatively rare occasions on which 
 his house was beaten, Mr. Chowdler always 
 suspected the referee of partiality and his 
 opponents of rough play ; and, being an 
 outspoken man, he did not keep his suspicions 
 to himself. His own boys, less sensitive 
 perhaps on the point of honour than their 
 housemaster, sometimes regretted these out- 
 bursts, which did not add to the popularity 
 of the house. 
 
THE CLOVEN HOOF 71 
 
 But on the present occasion all was going- 
 well and Mr. Chowdler's temper was unruffled. 
 The Chaseites (late Coxites) were only serving 
 as a " sullen ground " to show oft" the " bright 
 metal " of their adversaries. So when he 
 caught sight of Mr. Flaggon approaching, 
 he left his post of observation on the touch- 
 line and went to meet him. 
 
 He was, indeed, feeling unusually well- 
 disposed towards the new headmaster, for 
 there had been a momentary rapprochement 
 between the two men. Two days before, Mr. 
 Chowdler had detected a boy in his Form 
 cribbing — an offence about which he felt very 
 strongly — and, acting on his advice, Mr. 
 Flaggon had flogged the culprit ; thus revert- 
 ing to an old tradition which in the last seven 
 years of Dr. Gussy's reign had become obsolete. 
 With a clear lead of two goals his " lads " 
 could safely be left to their own devices for a 
 few minutes, and it would be good for the new 
 man to see the Chiltern game played in the 
 true Chiltern spirit and interpreted by one 
 who was able to explain its ethical value. 
 For, after all, there might be possibilities in 
 the " empty one," and, rightly handled, he 
 seemed not incapable of being taught. 
 
 Mr. Chase apparently thought so too. He 
 was watching the defeat of his house with 
 gloomy stoicism from the opposite side of the 
 ground — a chivalrous Chowdler was always 
 
72 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 a little overwhelming — and, catching sight 
 of the two men in earnest conversation, he 
 nudged Mr. Bent, who was standing beside 
 him, and whispered : 
 
 " See that ? Chowdler's taking him in 
 hand ; same as poor old Gussy. Shouldn't 
 wonder if some of our friends haven't been 
 frightened with false fire after all." 
 
 "HV replied Mr. Bent. "Appearances 
 are often deceptive. Wait and see. Flaggon's 
 a dark horse, and there'll be surprises yet." 
 
 And the first of the surprises came about 
 a week later at a housemasters' meeting. 
 The meeting had been convened, nominally, 
 for the purpose of discussing the scale of 
 tradesmen's charges, which Mr. Flaggon 
 thought excessive ; but, at the close of it, 
 he said in the most matter-of-fact way : 
 
 " As we are here, I should like to say a few 
 words on another subject. I intend, in the 
 more or less near future, to introduce certain 
 changes into our curriculum with a view to 
 making our teaching more effective. I don't 
 know exactly yet what form those changes 
 will take ; but I have two things in my 
 mind. In the first place, I find that our 
 standard of scholarship is surprisingly low. 
 I notice that last year we did not get a 
 single scholarship of any importance at either 
 university." 
 
 " We have always discouraged pot-hunting 
 
THE CLOVEN HOOF 73 
 
 here," interrupted Mr. Poimderly. " We have 
 aimed at knowledge — not prizes." 
 
 " I know," said Mr. Flaggon ; " but it is 
 the level of knowledge that I find so low here ; 
 much lower, for example, than it is in several 
 other schools at which I have examined. And, 
 in the second place, I am convinced that the 
 average boy here (I am not speaking of the 
 scholar) is not getting quite the kind of educa- 
 tion which is best suited to his requirements." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon paused, and if a pin had 
 fallen it would have been distinctly audible, 
 so tense was the silence. The challenge had 
 been thrown down, but everybody waited 
 for a moment to feel the edge of his weapon 
 before rushing into the fray. 
 
 " I intend to do nothing rashly," continued 
 Mr. Flaggon. " I wish the whole subject to 
 be discussed thoroughly before we decide on 
 anything final, so that every point of view 
 may find its expression. And for that reason 
 I think it would be interesting, and perhaps 
 helpful, if we could obtain the views of at 
 least some of our parents on the subject." 
 
 There was a gasp ; and Mr. Beadle, the 
 authority on Plautus, rapped out : 
 
 " The parents have already expressed their 
 views by sending their sons to Chiltern." 
 
 "Not exactly," said the headmaster. "It 
 all depends on what alternatives they had." 
 
 " Surely," pleaded Mr. Pounderly, " surely, 
 
74 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 to call in the parents would be like calling in 
 the patient to advise the specialist." 
 
 " I don't think so," said Mr. Flaggon. " The 
 truer analogy would be to say that we are 
 like the specialist who consults the patient's 
 relatives about the patient's symptoms. And 
 the relatives are often able to give very 
 helpful information to the specialist." 
 
 " Do I understand you to propose," said 
 Mr. Chowdler in a voice of concentrated 
 irony, " that we should call in their uncles 
 and cousins and aunts and make a regular 
 symposium of it ? " 
 
 Mr. Flaggon winced, but he kept his 
 temper. 
 
 " I don't think," he said, "that in this case 
 there would be any practical advantage in 
 going beyond the parents. What I wanted 
 to say was, that I shall be very grateful if 
 housemasters will let me have the names and 
 addresses of any representative parents who 
 are likely to be interested in such a proposal. 
 I thought perhaps that we might arrange to 
 meet them, quite informally, some time in 
 November or at the beginning of December." 
 
 " What exactly do you mean by a repre- 
 sentative parent ? " asked Mr. Flyte, with the 
 air of a man who is putting a poser. 
 
 " I must really leave that to the discretion 
 of housemasters," replied Mr. Flaggon, with a 
 smile. 
 
THE CLOVEN HOOF 75 
 
 News of the impending parents' committee 
 ran through the staff like fire through gorse, 
 and soon all Chiltern was ablaze. Some 
 called it the thin edge of the wedge ; others, 
 the cloven hoof. The Liberals (for there were 
 a few Liberals even at Chiltern) said that 
 Flaggon was setting up a second Chamber to 
 override the decisions of Masters' Meetings ; 
 the Conservatives, that he was appealing to 
 Demos. All agreed that the innovation was a 
 blow to the prestige of the masters and an 
 infringement of their ancient rights. Even 
 Mr. Plummer felt and spoke strongly, and he 
 imparted his fears to Mr. Bent, as they were 
 taking the hill walk, commonly known as 
 the "Ushers' Grind," one sunny autumn 
 afternoon. 
 
 The friendship of Mr. Bent and Mr. 
 Plummer was founded on a complete dis- 
 similarity of tastes. It is true that they 
 shared a dislike of golf and motors, but in all 
 other respects they were in hearty disagree- 
 ment. Mr. Plummer's faith in man goaded 
 Mr. Bent almost into violence, and Mr. Bent's 
 distrust of human nature in general, and 
 middle-class human nature in particular, 
 filled Mr. Plummer with righteous indignation. 
 At the end of every walk the nerves of each 
 were raw and tingling ; but they never failed 
 to walk together twice or even thrice in the 
 course of every week. The particular form 
 
76 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 of quarrelling in which they indulged had 
 grown upon them like a drug habit, and neither 
 could do without it for long. 
 
 A stranger who knew them by reputation 
 but not by sight would inevitably have 
 mistaken each for the other. Mr. Plummer, 
 tall and thin, with a hooked nose, hollow 
 cheeks, and sallow complexion, looked the 
 embodiment of pessimism ; while Mr. Bent, 
 short, stout, with round eyes and a florid 
 face, ought to have been a born optimist. 
 Mr. « Rankin used to say that Providence 
 had designed the character of the one for the 
 person of the other, that a malicious fairy 
 had negotiated an exchange, and that they 
 sought each other's company because, apart, 
 they were both conscious of being incomplete. 
 
 But on this occasion, as we have said, 
 Mr. Plummer was inclined to be pessimistic. 
 
 " I don't like this idea," he said, " of calling 
 in an outside opinion. If the parents once 
 get it into their heads that they are able to 
 dictate, there will be an end of systematic 
 teaching." 
 
 " My good Plummer," replied Mr. Bent, 
 " there cannot possibly be an end, because 
 there has never been a beginning. Systematic 
 teaching indeed ! Why, a boy told me the 
 other day that he had been doing the same 
 French book ever since he came to the school 
 two years ago; and it is notorious that Cox 
 
THE CLOVEN HOOF 77 
 
 set one and the same Latin prose every Term 
 to his Form, and never looked it over." 
 
 " I was not thinking of organisation," said 
 Mr. Plummer, " I was speaking of principles ; 
 and I repeat, if the parents are allowed to 
 dictate the lines on which education is to 
 proceed, there will be an end of systematic 
 teaching." 
 
 " They will not dictate," said Mr. Bent ; 
 " they have no manuscript to dictate from. 
 Their theories on education are purely nega- 
 tive — I say, steady up the hill ! The only 
 thing they insist on is that their offspring 
 should not be taught to think or know. 
 Thought and knowledge are dangerous to the 
 existing social order and must be smothered 
 young, like the Princes in the Tower. Pro- 
 vided that they are smothered, the parents 
 don't care a rap what sort of pillow is used." 
 
 " Thought," said Mr. Plummer, " hardly 
 exists outside the middle classes." 
 
 " Knowledge," retorted Mr. Bent, " only 
 begins where middle-classdom ends. The art 
 of being middle class consists in shutting 
 yourself up in a detached house and only 
 recognising the people who come in at the 
 front door. Knowledge leads to the back 
 door and the streets, and is therefore fatal 
 to the art ; and knowledge is the goal of 
 education." 
 
 " If parents didn't believe in education," 
 
78 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 said Mr. Plummer, " tliey wouldn't send their 
 boys here." 
 
 w The English middle classes," said Mr. Bent, 
 "never have believed in education. The 
 Scotch did once, till they discovered the 
 superior merits of football ; but the English 
 never. And they send their sons here to be 
 inoculated against it — I say, do go a bit 
 slower. For choice they put them with 
 Chowdler, who returns them, in a few years, 
 finished specimens of Philistinism, with ortho- 
 dox views on Bible criticism and the off- 
 theory, and a complete lack of interest in 
 anything that really matters." 
 
 " I don't at all agree with you," said Mr. 
 Plummer ; " but, if the parents are such 
 hopeless idiots as you describe them, why 
 do you want to consult them ? " 
 
 " I don't," replied Mr. Bent. " But, if 
 they are such angels of light as you imagine 
 them, why do you object to asking for their 
 advice ? " 
 
 "You are paradoxical," snapped Mr. 
 Plummer. 
 
 " And you are illogical," panted Mr. Bent. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE AFFAIR OF IE WILLOW 
 
 While Mr. Clio well er was lamenting that 
 discipline was going to the clogs, the boys 
 were beginning to complain that liberty was 
 being destroyed. Some of them went so far 
 as to maintain that Chiltern was becoming a 
 regular preparatory school. For not only were 
 motor-bicycles forbidden (they had always 
 been that), but it was becoming positively 
 dangerous to ride them. Moreover, detection 
 entailed consequences. In the palmy days of 
 Dr. Gussy it had been the ambition of every 
 boy, caught in a misdemeanour, to be reported 
 to the headmaster ; and the appeal from 
 summary justice to Caesar had been one of the 
 most cherished privileges of Chiltern whilst 
 Dr. Gussy was Csesar. For Dr. Gussy believed 
 in talking — earnest, practical, confidential 
 talking. As the boys said, " Gus treated you 
 like a gentleman " ; whereas Flaggon — there 
 was no pleasure, nothing morally bracing, 
 about an interview with Flaggon. 
 
80 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 And other offences besides motor-biking 
 were being detected with alarming frequency. 
 Masters, who had hitherto been regarded as 
 quite inoffensive, seemed to take a pleasure 
 in appearing where they were least expected. 
 The truth is that, having less belief in Dr. 
 Gussy's talks than Dr. Gussy himself, they 
 had got into the habit of purposely avoiding 
 knowledge which they knew would lead to no 
 result ; but, finding that Mr. Flaggon was 
 prepared to act as well as talk, they resumed 
 their normal activities. 
 
 No inconsiderable factor in the growing 
 absence of security was the disappearance of 
 11 Whisky Toddler," the college porter. When 
 he paid his surprise visit to Chiltern in the 
 holidays, Mr. Flaggon had been conscious of a 
 subtle aroma about the place, which ceased 
 suddenly when he took leave of the porter ; 
 and the suddenness of the change had set him 
 wondering whether the extreme solemnity 
 of Mr. Todd was due solely to wisdom or was 
 partly induced by alcohol. The wonder did 
 not diminish on closer acquaintance, and an 
 unexpected visit to the Lodge, one evening, 
 settled all doubts. Mr. Todd was found in 
 a state of hilarious incoherence. It was, of 
 course, an accident — a toothache, and an old- 
 fashioned remedy, recommended by a friend, 
 which had produced unforeseen results in 
 one unused to spirituous liquors. Mr. Todd 
 
THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 81 
 
 refused with quiet dignity to purchase the 
 chance of reinstatement by taking the pledge 
 and spending a month in a home for inebriates. 
 He preferred to retire, at once, on a quarter's 
 salary and a small pension. 
 
 The boys, of course, had always known 
 that "Whisky Toddler" drank like a fish; 
 but opinion on the staff was acutely divided. 
 There is no question that has so many sides 
 to it as drink, nor one about which it is so hard 
 to arrive at any convincing conclusion. The 
 very fact that Mr. Todd's nose was red and 
 his eyes were watery was, to some, a proof of his 
 innocence. For people are sure to say that a 
 man with a red nose and watery eyes drinks ; 
 whereas anyone may have a red nose and 
 weak eyes without drinking, and it is horribly 
 unfair that a man should be treated as a moral 
 leper because of some physical infirmity. 
 There were many, therefore, besides Mr. 
 Plummer who believed, and still believe, 
 that poor Todd was " hardly treated " ; and 
 poor Todd said nothing to discourage their 
 belief. 
 
 His place was taken by a man of un- 
 prepossessing manners and abrupt activity — 
 Pigeon was his name. There was a certain 
 mystery about his past. Some said that he 
 had once been a spy in the pay of the Russian 
 police ; others, that he had been a proctor's 
 bulldog at Oxford ; others, that he had been a 
 
82 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 Scotland Yard detective. At all events, there 
 could be no doubt that it was as a detective 
 that he was brought by the "New Gus" to 
 Chiltern. A porter is assumed to possess 
 tact ; but Pigeon had none — no gift of shutting 
 his eyes on occasions when eyes are better 
 shut. And so it came to pass that he dis- 
 covered Mr. Chowdler's Praetor smoking 
 among the rhododendrons in Colonus, and 
 reported him to the headmaster. 
 
 At Chiltern the captain of every house 
 was called its " Praetor " and wielded vast 
 authority. In a post for which character 
 was the prime consideration, position in the 
 school was only of secondary importance. 
 Hence it happened that, though le Willow 
 had with difficulty fought his way into the 
 senior Fifth, he was Praetor of Mr. Chowdler's 
 house. But, though not distinguished in- 
 tellectually, he was captain designate of the 
 eleven for the succeeding year, a very fair 
 change bowler, and a bat with a most taking 
 style. He enjoyed the entire confidence of 
 his housemaster and the respect of his fellows. 
 It was regrettable, therefore, from every point 
 of view, that he should have been smoking 
 behind the rhododendrons in Colonus ; and still 
 more regrettable that, having been smoking, 
 he should have been discovered. 
 
 Enough has been said already of Mr. 
 Chowdler to make it clear that he was ada- 
 
THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 83 
 
 mantine on the question of discipline. But it 
 was a matter of common observation amongst 
 his colleagues that his attitude towards offences 
 underwent a considerable change when the 
 offender was one of his own boys. This is a 
 species of infirmity to which parents and 
 housemasters are peculiarly liable. In Mr. 
 Chowdler 's case it took the form of a 
 conviction that, though "his lads" might be 
 technically in the wrong, they were morally 
 quite sound ; and he always held that punish- 
 ment ought to take account of the character 
 of the offender. He was really pained by le 
 Willow's " thoughtlessness " ; but there were 
 extenuating circumstances. The boy was en- 
 couraged to smoke at home, and he had one of 
 those muddled old heads that find it so difficult 
 to draw the distinction between home and 
 school ; especially when the home is a good 
 one. The poor old fellow had admitted to 
 him (Chowdler), with a shake of his poor old 
 head and a look in his poor old eyes which 
 was really pathetic, that he knew he was a 
 " blighted ass." He was, in fact, just the kind 
 of boy for whom justice should be tempered 
 with mercy. 
 
 All this, and more, Mr. Chowdler said to 
 the headmaster on behalf of his Praetor, and 
 he was profoundly shocked when Mr. Flaggon, 
 after listening attentively to the counsel for 
 the defence, announced that he was going to 
 
84 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 deprive le Willow of his Prsetorship and 
 Prefectship, not merely temporarily, but for 
 the term of his natural life. " I fail to see 
 where the mercy comes in," growled Mr. 
 Chowdler. 
 
 " Perhaps in my not flogging him into the 
 bargain," replied Mr. Flaggon. " But, really, 
 I don't consider this a case for mercy. The 
 boy is in a position of trust. Five days ago 
 I called the Prefects together and spoke to 
 them about their duties, especially the duty 
 of setting a good example : and I mentioned 
 smoking by name. All the circumstances 
 aggravate the offence. I have no right to be 
 merciful." 
 
 "But probably he didn't understand," 
 pleaded Mr. Chowdler. "You don't know 
 what a business it is to drive any idea into that 
 poor, thick old head of his. The boy's as 
 honest as the daylight, but terribly obtuse." 
 
 "If he can't understand a plain speech 
 and a plain duty," replied Mr. Flaggon, "he 
 is certainly not fit to exercise power." 
 
 " You can't prevent a boy with such athletic 
 gifts and such a sunny nature from exercising 
 power by any official ukase," said Mr. Chowdler, 
 with increasing warmth. " If you destroy 
 his self-respect by a punishment which he feels 
 to be unjust, you take away from him all 
 motives for doing right ; you drive him into 
 evil courses." 
 
THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 85 
 
 " I intend my Prefects to govern," replied 
 Mr. Flaggon ; " and you can never get men or 
 boys to act responsibly unless you visit grave 
 breaches of duty on them heavily. I am sorry 
 for le Willow, if he is all that you describe 
 him ; but I cannot alter my decision." 
 
 " You admit then," snapped out Mr. 
 Chowdler, "that you are sacrificing the boy 
 to an abstract theory." 
 
 " I admit nothing of the kind," said Mr. 
 Flaggon. 
 
 A good many of the masters, who did not 
 share Mr. Chowdler's enthusiasm for le Willow, 
 approved of the headmaster's action ; and, 
 though they did not say so publicly, were 
 not sorry to see Mr. Chowdler's straying sheep 
 treated for once in a way like other people's 
 straying sheep. But Mr. Chowdler himself 
 made no attempt to conceal his displeasure 
 either from masters or boys. 
 
 " I don't call that kind of thing discipline," 
 he said; "I call it panic. A strong man 
 doesn't hit about wildly without caring where 
 the blow falls. With all his faults, dear old 
 Gussy was never unjust. Le Willow's too 
 good an old fellow at bottom to be soured for 
 long or lose his sunny nature. But that's 
 how criminals are made." 
 
 Mr. Chowdler's views received a striking 
 corroboration, at least in his own eyes, when, 
 three weeks later, le Willow was caught cribbing. 
 
86 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 It is true that Mr. Bent, his Form master, 
 had suspected him for the greater part of 
 two terms ; but, as Mr. Plummer said, sus- 
 picion proves nothing. In the midst of his 
 grief Mr. Chowdler was almost triumphant. 
 
 " What did I tell you ? " he exclaimed. 
 " You can see now for yourselves. That's 
 how boys are driven into evil courses." 
 
 But the headmaster, instead of recognising 
 the folly of his ways and apologising to Mr. 
 Chowdler and his ex-praetor, decided that, 
 ofter this second offence, the boy could not 
 remain in the school and must leave at the 
 end of the Term. 
 
 Dismiss the captain of next year's eleven, 
 a bat with the most taking style that had 
 been seen at Chiltern since the days of Goring 
 who played for England, and a very fair 
 change bowler into the bargain ! All Chiltern 
 was aghast, and even Mr. Chase, who usually 
 had something to say on behalf of the head- 
 master, admitted that it was an act of doubtful 
 wisdom. 
 
 To Mr. Chowdler it was not merely an act 
 of doubtful wisdom, it was a travesty of 
 justice, an outrage, a scandal — in fact almost 
 any strong word that you can think of. When 
 a man thinks as strongly as Mr. Chowdler 
 thought about some gross miscarriage of 
 justice, it is impossible for him to keep his 
 feelings to himself ; he would rather be guilty 
 
THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 87 
 
 of indiscretion than of a criminal silence ; 
 and soon boys, masters, and the parents and 
 relatives of the victim, were in full possession 
 of Mr. Chowdler's opinions on the subject. 
 
 Le Willow was well connected ; in fact, 
 as Mrs. Chowdler put it, he had a grandfather ; 
 and the grandfather wrote a letter to the 
 chairman of the Council which caused that 
 gentleman much concern. He wanted to 
 know why the dickens they had appointed to 
 Chiltern a headmaster who didn't know the 
 ABC of his profession. Expel from school a 
 promising lad for a boyish offence of which 
 they had all been guilty, probably, in their 
 day ! The thing was absurd. Boys and 
 masters alike were in a state of mutiny ; and 
 he called upon the chairman to intervene. 
 
 The chairman was perplexed ; for the grand- 
 father was no ordinary grandfather but a 
 man with a commanding name and a great 
 social position. After some hesitation he 
 wrote to the headmaster, disclaiming any 
 idea of interfering, but asking for information. 
 He wished, he said, to be in a position 
 to contradict certain reports, unfounded no 
 doubt, which were being circulated in the 
 London clubs and which might damage the 
 school. 
 
 Thus appealed to, Mr. Flaggon wrote a 
 detailed account of the affair and of the 
 principles which had guided his own action. 
 
88 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 He added that the tone and discipline of 
 Ohiltern were very different from what he had 
 been led to expect, and that le Willow, besides 
 being somewhat old for his place in the 
 school, was not a desirable asset. 
 
 The chairman shook his head dubiously 
 over this communication and murmured some- 
 thing about " new brooms " and " excess of 
 zeal " ; but he informed the grandfather 
 with much tact that, though the Council felt 
 great sympathy with him, they were unable 
 to interfere in a matter that directly con- 
 cerned the discipline of the school, and that 
 any appeal for mercy must be made to the 
 headmaster in person. As for le Willow, 
 he was sure that the boy had a brilliant 
 future in front of him, and he wished him 
 every success. 
 
 And there the matter ended, except that 
 the le Willow parents cursed Mr. Flaggon 
 by all the le Willow gods and threatened to 
 bring an action ; which threat they were wise 
 enough not to carry into effect. Also that Lord 
 Chalvey withdrew his son who was entered 
 for Mr. Chowdler's house in the following Term. 
 This was a contingency which Mr. Chowdler 
 had not foreseen when he started on his 
 campaign, and it did not help to reconcile 
 him to the headmaster. 
 
 And, while the chairman was actually pen- 
 ning his reply to the duke, one wet November 
 
THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 89 
 
 afternoon, Mr. Plummer and Mr. Bent were 
 once more pacing the " Ushers' Grind " in 
 mackintoshes. A steady drizzle had damped 
 their righting spirit, and taunts that usually 
 kindled flames had only produced a perfunc- 
 tory fizzle. At last Mr. Plummer said : 
 
 " I'm afraid the hoys haven't a great 
 respect for Flaggon." 
 
 " I shouldn't take Chowdler too seriously," 
 said Mr. Bent. 
 
 " I didn't say Chowdler," replied his com- 
 panion ; " I said the boys." 
 
 "I know you did," said Mr. Bent. "And 
 / said Chowdler, because I bet that he has 
 been telling you his story of the week — we 
 have all heard it — to wit, how little Simpkin 
 looked up at him with a wistful smile and 
 said, ■ Sir, do you think the new headmaster 
 understands anything about boys ? ' " 
 
 "Suppose he did!" said Mr. Plummer 
 defiantly. " What then ?" 
 
 " Only," replied Mr. Bent, " that it isn't a 
 very likely thing for a boy to say, on his own. 
 I know little Simpkin ; he's in my Form. All 
 Chowdler's pets are in my Form. A nasty, 
 greasy, oily little beast. He tried ' the wistful ' 
 on with me once, but never again." 
 
 " The fact that you think him oily and 
 greasy," retorted Mr. Plummer " is no proof 
 that he didn't say it." 
 
 " I never said it was," cried Mr. Bent, 
 
90 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 raising his voice, " and I don't doubt that 
 little Simpkin did say it and will say it again 
 till he gets another cue. What does amaze me 
 is that, with all his experience, Chowdler has 
 never learned that boys encourage us in our 
 illusions by quoting at us our own pet ideas 
 and phrases. It isn't conscious hypocrisy — 
 merely an instinct of self-preservation, or an 
 amiable desire to please. They approach us, 
 as we should approach some beast of uncertain 
 temper, with the sounds that experience has 
 shown to be most soothing." 
 
 "So you have said before," snorted Mr. 
 Plummer. " But, anyhow, you admit that 
 Chowdler has experience ; and Flaggon has 
 none. 
 
 " Pooh ! experience indeed ! " cried Mr. 
 Bent contemptuously. "What's experience? 
 A snare and a delusion, unless you can bring 
 an unbiassed mind to bear on it ; which 
 schoolmasters never can. The man who 
 looks at this view, for the first time, with the 
 naked eye, sees far more of it than the man 
 who looks at it for the hundredth time through 
 smoked glasses. Experience is the smoke on 
 the glasses ; it's the curse of our profession. 
 We are all much more efficient when we're 
 young than we ever are afterwards. Give 
 me the young and inexperienced man." 
 
 " Tipham, for example," said Mr. Plummer 
 drily. 
 
THE AFFAIR OF LE WILLOW 91 
 
 "Oh, Tipham's an exception," replied 
 Mr. Bent airily. "Tipham never was young. 
 He was born with a greased head, grey flannel 
 trousers, and a terror of being thought sane. 
 But I can tell you, Chowdler was ten times 
 more efficient as a master fifteen years ago, 
 when you and I first came to the school, than he 
 is now. We all become progressively greater 
 idiots as we grow ripe in experience." 
 
 " Bosh ! " said Mr. Plummer. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PARENTS' COMMITTEE 
 
 On the last day of November the much-talked- 
 of Parents' Committee met. Mr. Flaggon's 
 attention had been so fully occupied by other 
 and more pressing affairs that he had not had 
 time to prepare for the event as carefully as 
 he could have wished. Indeed, the purely 
 educational problem had lately taken a less 
 prominent place in his mind. But some dozen 
 parents had shown themselves sufficiently 
 interested in the proposal to promise their 
 personal support ; and, of these, seven actually 
 put in an appearance on the appointed day. 
 They included Lady Bellingham, a recognised 
 authority on Women's Education, and Sir 
 Philip Whaley, senior partner in a great 
 commercial house, director of several flourish- 
 ing companies, and a person of considerable 
 importance in the city. A successful stock- 
 broker, who happened to be visiting his boy 
 at Chiltern on the day, was pressed, reluc- 
 tantly, into the service at the eleventh hour 
 and made the numbers even. The meeting 
 
THE PARENTS' COMMITTEE 93 
 
 was held in the library, a handsome room 
 that opened out of the Great Hall, and 
 was intended to be quite informal. The 
 masters had all been invited to attend, but, 
 as attendance was optional, a great many of 
 them marked their disapproval by staying 
 away. A sense of duty, however, brought 
 Mr. Plummer and about a dozen others to 
 this new kind of Parliament, and Mr. Bent 
 was present, as he expressed it, for the sheer 
 fun of the thing. 
 
 The headmaster stated in a few words the 
 object of the gathering, and Lady Bellingham 
 opened the debate. Lady Bellingham was the 
 star of the occasion, and she had come 
 provided with a typewritten paper which she 
 proceeded to read with evident gusto. It was 
 rather a lengthy paper, and before it was over 
 Sir Philip Whaley and the stockbroker were 
 seen to yawn surreptitiously. The gist of it 
 was that children should be brought up among 
 beautiful things in order that what is beautiful 
 in them may be fostered and developed. 
 Nature is always beautiful, and in educating 
 the young we must trust more to Nature and 
 less to artificial restrictions. We must not 
 interfere with a beneficent purpose, and 
 Nature's purposes are always beneficent. 
 "Nursed on the great bosom of Nature" 
 beautiful children will grow up into beautiful 
 men and women. 
 
94 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 When Lady Bellingham had finished, Mr. 
 Bent, assuming his most impressive and 
 deferential manner, asked if he might put a 
 question. 
 
 " Certainly," replied Lady Bellingham 
 affably. 
 
 " I do not press," said Mr, Bent, " for any 
 definition of what you call ' beautiful things,' 
 because that might introduce the personal 
 element. But, when you urge that we should 
 impose no restrictions on Nature, I foresee 
 difficulties. Measles, for example, are a form 
 of Nature, and of course you would not wish 
 us to impose no restrictions on measles." 
 
 "Of course not," said Lady Bellingham, 
 with amused pity. 
 
 "Then might I ask," said Mr. Bent, 
 " what exactly we are to understand by 
 Nature ? " 
 
 "Nature," replied Lady Bellingham, "is 
 impossible to define. It is too vast, too 
 varied. But, roughly speaking, whatever is 
 beautiful is natural, and whatever is ugly is 
 unnatural." 
 
 " I see," said Mr. Bent. 
 
 Then Sir Philip Whaley, who had long been 
 chafing under an enforced silence, took up 
 his parable and spoke. Sir Philip possessed, 
 in an unusual degree, the charm of English 
 oratory — the gift, that is, of emphasising and 
 repeating the obvious and connecting his 
 
THE PARENTS' COMMITTEE 95 
 
 rounded phrases with ornamental " urns " 
 and"ers." 
 
 "You must look at education," he began, 
 "from what I venture to call the business 
 point of view. You schoolmasters are too 
 inclined, if you will forgive me for saying so, 
 to ignore, to leave out of account, the — um — er 
 — the business point of view. But, if you 
 are going to think Imperially, if, that is, you 
 are going to think in terms of Empire, in terms, 
 
 I say, of Empire, you cannot leave the business 
 point of view out of account — um — er — you 
 must take it into your calculations. For, 
 behind the Imperial problem, lies the business 
 problem. We city men are familiar with 
 this truth; it is a matter of common knowledge 
 amongst us ; but it is one of the things that 
 you schoolmasters, if you will pardon me for 
 saying so, are inclined to leave out of account." 
 
 " You are forgetting Nature," interrupted 
 Lady Bellingham. 
 
 " Pardon me, madam," replied Sir Philip, 
 " I amnot forgetting Nature, but I am looking 
 at it from the practical point of view — from 
 what I have ventured to call the business 
 point of view. Let me give you a concrete 
 instance of what I mean." Here Sir Philip 
 dropped his voice to a confidential tone. 
 
 II When I have a post in my office to fill — 
 I am speaking, mind you, of a post with pros- 
 pects attached to it, a real chance for a young 
 
96 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 fellow — um — er — well, what kind of a man do 
 I want to fill it ? A scholar ? No. A man 
 who can read Homer and write Latin verses ? 
 No. I am saying nothing against Homer as 
 Homer, mark you, but I am considering the 
 thing from the practical point of view. What 
 / want is a man who has learned shorthand 
 and can write commerical French — um — er — 
 and I don't find him — that's the point — 
 I don't find him in the public schools or the 
 universities ; as often as not I am obliged 
 in the end to bring in a foreigner — a German. 
 That's where the Germans are ahead of us. 
 Well, there you have it in a nutshell. The 
 public schools of England are not seriously 
 training their boys to take their proper place 
 in the business life of the Empire ; and the 
 Germans are. That," he concluded, bringing 
 his fist down on the table in front of him, 
 "that is what I mean by saying that you 
 ought to look at education from the business 
 point of view. I hope I have made myself 
 clear." 
 
 Sir Philip wiped his brow and looked 
 around with a complacent smile. The head- 
 master, whose face while the city oracle was 
 speaking had been a study, made no comment ; 
 but Mr. Bent leaned forward with knitted 
 brows and began : 
 
 " I have been much interested in what Sir 
 Philip Whaley has been telling us, but I am 
 
THE PARENTS' COMMITTEE 97 
 
 not sure whether I interpret him correctly. 
 Do I understand him to say that he wishes 
 shorthand and commercial French to form a 
 necessary part of the school curriculum % " 
 
 "I do," said Sir Philip, "most certainly I 
 do." 
 
 " I realise," continued Mr. Bent," " that for 
 anybody who is aspiring to a post in Sir Philip 
 Whaley's office, shorthand and commercial 
 French are a necessary branch of culture. 
 But what about the boys who are going in for 
 the learned or other professions — the Church, 
 for example ? Might not commercial French 
 be, to a future bishop, what Homer is to Sir 
 Philip himself, an ornamental but irrelevant 
 accomplishment? And we must not ignore 
 the bishops." 
 
 " You must specialise," said Sir Philip 
 grandly. " You must be prepared to fit every 
 boy with the special knowledge that he — 
 um — er — will require in the profession of his 
 choice. You schoolmasters, if you will forgive 
 me for saying so, do not sufficiently realise 
 the importance of specialising." 
 
 "The difficulty of specialising beyond a 
 certain point," said Mr. Flaggon, "lies in the 
 additional expense : and public school educa- 
 tion is costly enough already. Our problem 
 is to find a common basis of education for 
 all/' 
 
 Sir Philip was not accustomed to have his 
 
98 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 judgment disputed, and he met the objection 
 by repeating his previous remarks with am- 
 plifications. When he had finished for the 
 second time, a Mrs. Sparrow, who had been 
 making chirruping little noises to herself all 
 the while, seized the opportunity to say 
 that, for want of somebody better, she had 
 come to represent the mothers' point of view ; 
 and what mothers cared most about were just 
 the little things that men so often didn't 
 notice. She was sure that the food was all 
 that could be wished for or desired, and she 
 wasn't for a moment complaining about that. 
 But she did think that the boys weren't given 
 enough time to eat it in. She was horrified 
 at the way her own boy had learned to gobble 
 his food in the holidays, and all doctors were 
 agreed about the importance of eating slowly 
 and biting properly. That was one thing. 
 And, then, she did think that, for a big school, 
 the sick-house was rather a dreary place — 
 such bare unfurnished rooms and floors. 
 When her boy was ill last Easter Term and 
 she came down to see him, she went away 
 feeling quite depressed. Of course everybody 
 was most kind, and she knew that the school 
 doctor was a very clever man ; but she did 
 think that the sick-house might be made a 
 little more cheerful. That was the mothers' 
 point of view, and she hoped that Mr. Flaggon 
 would not mind her putting it ; for, after all 
 
THE PARENTS' COMMITTEE 99 
 
 a mother did know more about her own 
 children than anybody else did. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon said that he was always 
 delighted to hear what the mothers had to say, 
 and he would give due weight to Mrs. Sparrow's 
 suggestions ; but he thought that they were 
 perhaps straying a little beyond the scope 
 of the meeting, and he invited the other 
 parents to give their view on the main subject 
 under discussion, namely, education. 
 
 The other parents, thus appealed to, 
 explained that they had come to listen and 
 not to talk; but the stockbroker, who had 
 from the first exhibited symptoms of acute 
 boredom, remarked that, as he was there, 
 he might as well say what he knew that 
 most people thought, though apparently they 
 were afraid to say so. " If you ask me," 
 he said, leaning back in his chair and thrusting 
 his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, 
 " if you ask me, I don't think it matters a 
 rap ivhat you teach 'em. When I was at 
 school, / never did a stroke of work — had 
 a jolly good time, and I can't say that I'm 
 sorry for it. And I'm worth now " (here 
 Mr. Flaggon winced visibly) — " well, it doesn't 
 matter what I'm worth ; but I know that 
 I could buy up half the swots — that's what 
 we used to call them in my days — half the 
 swots who worked 'emselves silly over their 
 Latin and Greek and all that sort of gibberish. 
 
100 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 And when I sent my youngster here, I said 
 to him : ' You may work if you like ; you 
 can please yourself about that, and it's a 
 point you'll have to settle with your masters ; 
 but, if you want to please your dad, remember 
 that I'd a da— jolly sight sooner see you 
 head of your eleven than head of the school.' 
 That's what I said ; and I don't believe, 
 Mr. Headmaster, that you've got a finer 
 little sportsman in your school than my 
 youngster." 
 
 Long before the discussion was over 
 Mr. Flaggon realised that it had been a 
 mistake and would only give the enemy 
 cause to blaspheme. And he was not mistaken. 
 Lady Bellingham was the joy of Common 
 Room for weeks afterwards, and it was 
 humorously assumed that she had made 
 a convert of the headmaster. When a new 
 chimney appeared on the Lodge, everybody 
 said, " Flaggon is surrounding us with beautiful 
 things " ; when the rhododendrons at the 
 far end of Colonus were thinned out, it was, 
 " Flaggon is uncovering the great bosom of 
 Nature." And again, when a notice came 
 round about the wearing of great-coats, some- 
 body remarked that Flaggon was looking at 
 education from the mothers' point of view. 
 Mr. Chowdler, who had not been present 
 at the meeting, picked up all the best things 
 and added them to his repertory. In fact 
 
THE PARENTS' COMMITTEE 101 
 
 there was a regular carnival of wit, and the 
 wags had the time of their lives. 
 
 Only Mr. Bent affected to be agreeably 
 surprised. " They were," he said, " an 
 unusually intelligent set of parents — quite 
 unusually intelligent. Lady Bellingham, of 
 course, talked an amazing lot of drivel ; 
 you would expect that from a woman. Still, 
 she knows a great deal more than Chowdler 
 does ; for, though she can't express herself 
 rationally, she does realise in a vague way 
 that beauty is a form of truth, and that 
 education ought to mean something more 
 than Balbus-built-a-wall and the off-theory. 
 Even Mr. — I can't remember his name — 
 the stockbroker, has grasped what education 
 is not ; which is more than Chowdler ever 
 has. They offered him an inferior substitute 
 at the school where he spent his dazzling 
 youth, and, with the intuition of genius, he 
 divined that it was not worth his acceptance. 
 And probably it wasn't. And, then, the 
 silent ones ! How seldom you find four people 
 in any given room who are wise enough 
 to keep silence about a subject of which they 
 know nothing. Whaley was the only really 
 hopeless failure. Yes, they certainly were 
 an unusually intelligent set of parents." 
 
 "That's all very well," protested Mr. 
 Plummer, " but if / had said so, you would 
 have cursed me for my unreasoning optimism 
 
!0? ; THE: LANCASTER TRADITION 
 
 and made out that I was blinded by my 
 infatuation for the middle classes." 
 
 " Perhaps," replied Mr. Bent airily, 
 " perhaps. And very likely I should have 
 been right." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 " god's in his heaven " 
 
 " I always wonder, Bent," said Mr. Rankin, 
 as the two men met in Colonus on their way 
 to the ground where the Cock-house match 
 was about to begin — " I always wonder why 
 you, who pour such scorn on athleticism, 
 never by any chance miss a house-match." 
 
 " There are many things in this world to 
 wonder at," replied Mr. Bent ; "for instance, 
 why the sea is boiling hot and why Radicals 
 are the most inveterate Tories in private life. 
 But, as a matter of fact, it is not the football 
 that attracts me on these occasions so much 
 as the psychology of the competing house- 
 masters." 
 
 " Translate with brief notes," said his 
 companion. 
 
 " To an observer of human nature," Mr. 
 Bent explained, " nothing is so illuminating 
 as the behaviour of a housemaster when 
 his house is playing a match. Chowdler, of 
 course, is elemental, and offers few points of 
 interest; he has the naked simplicity of the 
 
104 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 savage or the sportsman — blatant in victory, 
 ungenerous in defeat. But Trimble is more 
 complex, and, therefore, more worthy of study. 
 If I join him, he will affect an air of complete 
 detachment and ask me for my views on 
 Welsh Disestablishment or Woman Suffrage ; 
 but he will interrupt himself at intervals to 
 murmur 'Fools ! asses ! idiots ! they deserve to 
 be beaten ! ' Of course they will be beaten ? " 
 
 "Don't be too sure of that!" said Mr. 
 Rankin. " Two of Chowdler's best men are 
 crocked, and Trimble's have come on a lot 
 lately." 
 
 " Chowdler being beaten," said Mr. Bent, 
 " is a much more amusing spectacle than 
 Chowdler winning. But I don't regard it as 
 possible. He always keeps a reserve force — 
 a kind of territorial army — of lean and hungry 
 veterans with Christian names, who have 
 grown old in the service of their country. 
 I am credibly informed, that his senior fag, 
 whom I see on the field, is a widower and 
 maintains a family of four at Brighton. 
 They all belong to the class which Chowdler 
 designates as "poor old" or "good old"; 
 and against this combination of age, godliness, 
 and thrift, no ordinary house eleven stands 
 a chance." 
 
 "Don't talk rot," said Mr. Rankin, 
 "i back Trimble's. They'll take a lot of 
 beating to-day." 
 
"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN" 105 
 
 The whole school and most of the masters 
 were out to watch the game. Mr. Tipham 
 was conspicuous in his post-impressionist 
 scarf, shouting ostentatiously for Trimble's. 
 Mr. Grady hovered uneasily on the outskirts, 
 with the hunted look on his face ; perhaps the 
 noise reminded him of his more uproarious 
 classes. Mrs. Chowdler and Mrs. Trimble were 
 seated in a reserved enclosure, exchanging 
 feline amenities. Their better halves wandered 
 about on opposite sides of the ground — Mr. 
 Chowdler on the touch-line, Mr. Trimble a 
 little in the rear of the spectators, in a 
 state of internal agitation which would have 
 made sitting impossible. For the game 
 was of a most thrilling description. In the 
 first half Trimble's did most of the attacking 
 and crossed over with a lead of one goal to 
 nothing. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right!" said Mr. Trimble 
 with assumed nonchalance to Mr. Bent, who 
 had just congratulated him on the results so 
 far obtained. "We shall go to pieces sure 
 enough in the second half ! my fellows have a 
 perfect genius for collapsing. The asses ! 
 If they hadn't bungled all their chances we 
 might have been three up." 
 
 It looked as if Mr. Trimble's gloomy 
 prophecy were going to be fulfilled ; for the 
 game had hardly been restarted when a foolish 
 misunderstanding among the Trimbleite backs 
 
106 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 enabled Chowdler's to equalise ; and, before 
 their opponents bad recovered from the shock 
 and consequent demoralisation, le Willow sent 
 in a lucky shot which put his side ahead. A 
 yell of triumph went up from the Chowdlerites 
 and their supporters, and Mr. Chowdler 
 himself, in spite of a heavy fur coat, leapt into 
 the air on the touch-line and beat his gloved 
 hands one against the other. 
 
 " Well played, Harry ! " he roared. " Well 
 played all ! Good lads ! Stick to it, stick 
 to it ! " 
 
 " Given away with a pound of tea ! " said 
 Mr. Trimble with a short mirthless laugh. 
 " That settles the game ; and I must say that 
 we thoroughly deserve to lose. Did you ever 
 see such football ! " 
 
 Mr. Trimble, though he was one of the 
 best housemasters at Chiltern, was a man of 
 rather insignificant appearance. The youngest 
 Miss Gussy had once said of him that he always 
 looked as if he were wearing somebody else's 
 cast-off clothes. On this particular after- 
 noon he had on an ulster of antique design 
 and faded yellow colour, which contrasted 
 unfavourably with the smart coat of his 
 rival and seemed to brand him as of inferior 
 rank. 
 
 " The moral effect of that last goal," said 
 Mr. Bent, whose sympathies were with the 
 ulster, "may be disastrous; but the game 
 
"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN" 107 
 
 is not over yet. I must confess that I am 
 beginning to be horribly excited. I have 
 not got your philosophic detachment, Trimble ; 
 and the sight of Chowdler on the touch-line, 
 clapping his great woollen gloves together, 
 always arouses most unchristian feelings in 
 me. I want to see him, not merely beaten, 
 but crushed, disgraced, annihilated. Well 
 played ! Oh, well played ! " 
 
 For the Trimbleites, stung by disaster, 
 had roused themselves to superhuman efforts 
 and were once more attacking fiercely. There 
 was a confused melee in front of Chowdler's 
 goal. Suddenly the referee blew his whistle, 
 and when the players separated it was seen 
 that a Chowdlerite was lying disabled on 
 the ground. 
 
 " Did you see that ? " cried Mr. Chowdler, 
 rushing up to Mr. Black, whom he spied in 
 his neighbourhood. 
 
 Mr. Black was a cautious man and shy 
 of committing himself to excitable colleagues, 
 so he replied : 
 
 " I was just looking the other way, so 
 I didn't see what happened ; but I fear 
 somebody is injured." 
 
 "It is one of the most deliberate and 
 foulest bits of play," said Mr. Chowdler in 
 a voice for all to hear, " that I have ever 
 witnessed. Shameful, shameful ! From this 
 moment I take no further interest in the game. 
 
108 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 Good God ! " he added suddenly, throwing 
 up his hands in a gesture of despair, "its 
 le Willow ! " And he hurried off to assist the 
 victim. 
 
 Le Willow had sprained an ankle and had 
 to be helped off the field. When he had been 
 removed and the players had resumed their 
 places, it became evident that the referee had 
 awarded a free kick. " All very well ! " 
 muttered Mr. Chowdler to Mr. Rankin, as 
 he hurried back to his post on the touch-line, 
 " but what's the use of a free kick when it 
 has cost you your best man ! " 
 
 It was indeed a poor consolation — merely 
 a black mark against an unscrupulous foe 
 who cared nothing for black marks. But 
 imagine Mr. Chowdler's horror, indignation, 
 and dismay, when he suddenly realised that 
 the free kick had been awarded, not for, but 
 against his house. 
 
 " Monstrous ! " he cried aloud, as if 
 appealing to the silent gods. " Monstrous ! 
 I saw the foul, I saw it myself. A perfectly 
 monstrous decision ! " 
 
 But, monstrous or not, such was the 
 decision and there was no appeal from it. 
 There was a moment of intense silence, and 
 then a moan went up from the Trimbleites 
 and a roar of triumph from the Chowdlerites 
 as the shot which should have equalised, 
 passed just over, instead of under, the bar. 
 
"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN" 109 
 
 For the next twenty minutes the Chowdlerite 
 goal was literally bombarded. Excitement, 
 it is true, made the shooting rather erratic ; 
 but, time after time, it looked as if the citadel 
 must fall. And it would have fallen, but for 
 Cheeny. When le Willow received his mortal 
 wound, Cheeny had stepped into his place 
 as leader ; and he was everywhere. It is 
 the right thing in the Chiltern game for the 
 leader to be everywhere ; that is one of the 
 features that has made of the Chiltern game 
 the great moral training that it is. So Cheeny 
 did his best to be ubiquitous, and played 
 such a game as had not been played in Colonus 
 within the memory of that generation — falling, 
 rising, charging and being charged, stopping 
 rushes, intercepting passes and spoiling shots. 
 And, after each unsuccessful attack on the 
 Chowdlerite goal, Mr. Trimble said calmly, 
 " That settles it ! Silly asses ! They deserve 
 to be beaten ! " 
 
 As for Mr. Chowdler, the perspiration 
 stood on his brow and there was a note of 
 almost despairing appeal in his familiar 
 rallying cry, " Good lads ! Good lads all ! 
 Stick to it, stick to it ! " But slowly, at the 
 back of his mind, a purpose was shaping 
 itself — a resolve that, if the impossible did 
 happen and Cheeny kept the goal intact, 
 then Cheeny should be his Prefect. For a 
 lad with such nerve and courage had proved 
 
110 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 himself fit to govern, even though he were 
 rather low in the school. 
 
 Meanwhile, as the minutes slipped away, 
 the excitement grew and grew, and there was 
 one continuous roar of Chovrdlers ! Jowlers ! 
 Trimbulls ! in all keys and every degree 
 of hoarseness. People leapt into the air, 
 slapped each other on the back, threw their 
 caps on the ground and trampled on them, 
 and performed all manner of strange and 
 inconsequent antics. Ten — eight — six — four 
 minutes more ! And then, just at the end, 
 amid howls of delight from their supporters, 
 the defence, with Cheeny at their head, broke 
 away ; and, when the whistle blew, the ball 
 was in mid-field and Chowdler's were left 
 victorious by two goals to one. 
 
 Mr. Chowdler was swept away by a wave 
 of intense, almost religious, emotion. Foul 
 play, monstrous decisions, past and present 
 wrongs were all forgotten for the moment. 
 If the headmaster had come up and grasped 
 him by the hand, he would have fallen upon 
 the headmaster's neck — he would have fallen 
 upon anybody s neck. Never since the relief 
 of Ladysmith, where his own son was be- 
 leaguered, had he experienced such a sense of 
 thankfulness, joy, and exultation. Perhaps 
 it was an unconscious association of ideas 
 which made him say to Mr. Tipham as he 
 passed him : 
 
"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN" 111 
 
 "Thank God! We have kept the flag 
 flying!" 
 
 " Where ? " asked Mr. Tipham icily. 
 
 But already Mr. Chowdler was far away. 
 He had caught sight of Mr. Trimble's retreating 
 figure, and was hurrying after him with the 
 chivalrous intention of pouring balm into 
 smarting wounds. Mr. Trimble was, indeed, 
 making off as fast as he could, in the hope of 
 avoiding an application of this particular 
 balm, which he had sampled on previous 
 occasions and which had always disagreed 
 with him. His nerves were tingling, and he 
 was conscious of a feeling of suppressed 
 irritation which, he knew, would give him 
 a broken night and spoil life for several days. 
 Suddenly, a heavy woollen glove descended 
 on to his shoulder and a manly voice panted 
 in his ear : 
 
 " Condolences, poor old boy, condo- 
 lences ! My turn to-day, yours, perhaps, to- 
 morrow ! " 
 
 " Hullo ! " said Mr. Trimble, turning round 
 and shuddering slightly under the caress. 
 " Is that you, Chowdler % I was looking for 
 you ; congratulations." 
 
 " Ta," said Mr. Chowdler, without removing 
 his hand. " Ta. We were a bit too good for 
 you, but you put up a tip-top fight. I'm 
 afraid your lot are a bit done up; it always 
 tells hardest on the beaten side. I expect 
 
112 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 my own lads have had very nearly as much 
 as they wanted. But what a game ! " 
 
 It is much easier to congratulate a suc- 
 cessful rival warmly than to receive his 
 condolences gratefully; and Mr. Trimble's 
 vexation pierced through his reply. 
 
 " It was indeed," he replied ; " the worst 
 exhibition I've ever seen in a Cock-house 
 match ! On to-day's form any ordinarily 
 respectable side ought to have whopped you, 
 but my lot were simply beneath contempt : 
 they didn't deserve to win. Plenty of spirit, 
 of course : one expects that ; but the very 
 worst football I've ever seen in Colonus." 
 
 Mr. Chowdler withdrew his hand and the 
 balm with it. As he said afterwards to his 
 wife, poor old Trimble never could take a 
 beating. 
 
 To Mr. Chowdler the victory did not mean 
 merely that his boys, by superior luck or skill, 
 had scored one goal more than the boys of 
 another house. It meant, somehow, that 
 the Lanchester tradition had been vindicated ; 
 that all that was best and noblest in the place, 
 all that made the past glorious and the present 
 fruitful, had, in the face of tremendous odds, 
 asserted itself in a supreme and convincing 
 manner. He was glad that his house had 
 taken the field with two of their best players 
 away, glad that le Willow had sprained his 
 ankle and that the referee had been flagrantly 
 
"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN" 113 
 
 unfair. All things had worked together for 
 good, and misfortunes which looked like 
 irretrievable disasters had only served to 
 enhance the moral sublimity of the victory. 
 "God's in his Heaven, all's right with the 
 world." 
 
 Something of all this Mr. Chowdler certainly 
 said to his house in the speech that he made 
 to them at prayers that evening ; and when, 
 on the following day, little Simpkin looked 
 up at him with a wistful smile ancl said, " Sir, 
 don't you think that the Lanchester tradition 
 comes out at football ? " he felt that the boys 
 had the root of the matter in them, too. And 
 he related the story to all his colleagues in 
 turn — and to some of them twice. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 
 
 The Term did not end without further 
 unpleasantness. The treatment of le Willow 
 had created a feeling of deep resentment in 
 the school, and this feeling was intensified 
 when Old Chilternians came down and said 
 that the place was becoming a regular Sunday 
 school, and that the new man deserved to be 
 shot. It was known, too, that some of the 
 masters shared the opinion of the Old 
 Chilternians, and "the Jowler" was generally 
 recognised as the champion who was foremost 
 in defending the old flag against attacks. 
 Mr. Chowdler himself was quite unconscious 
 that he had revealed his inner mind to the 
 boys or fanned the flame of disloyalty. But 
 there was no doubt that he talked with great 
 freedom to parents and old boys ; and neither 
 parents nor old boys are invariably discreet. 
 
 The upshot of it all was that, at the 
 school concert on the last night but one of 
 the Term, both Mr. Chowdler and le Willow 
 
THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 115 
 
 received a great ovation which contrasted 
 forcibly with the very faint cheering that 
 greeted the entrance of the headmaster. It 
 was said that there had even been hissing ; 
 but, while some maintained that it had pro- 
 ceeded from a group of old boys, and some 
 ascribed it to isolated members of Mr. 
 Chowdler's house, others asserted that there 
 had been nothing of the kind at all. Anyhow, 
 it was not very marked, and Mr. Flaggon 
 ignored it. He had a disconcerting way of con- 
 cealing his feelings, an air of impenetrability 
 which suggested, somehow, that he might 
 have a trump card up his sleeve. The boys 
 did not like him the better for this. Boys 
 feel more at home with a man who plays with 
 all his cards on the table. 
 
 But the school got a glimpse into the 
 working of their headmaster's mind when 
 they were summoned into the Great Hall, 
 just before the last chapel, to hear some 
 remarks which Mr. Flaggon thought it his 
 duty to address to them. The Term, he 
 said, had been an unsatisfactory Term. He 
 dwelt on the prevalence of cribbing, on the 
 general slackness of discipline and the ap- 
 parent absence of any healthy public opinion 
 on matters that were vital to the school. He 
 spoke sternly, but in measured language and 
 without exaggeration of bitterness, and he 
 ended with an appeal to the best traditions 
 
116 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 of the school and the better instincts of the 
 better boys. There were no threats ; but 
 everybody realised that the speech was in- 
 tended as a grave warning. 
 
 Many of the masters were considerably 
 impressed upon it. A few of the older ones, 
 however, headed by Mr. Chowdler, chose to 
 regard it as an unwarranted attack on them- 
 selves. The boys listened, as boys will 
 always listen to easy and effective speaking, 
 with every appearance of being moved ; and 
 the singing in chapel, immediately afterwards, 
 was unusually subdued. But, as soon as the 
 first effect had worn off and the tongues of the 
 scoffers were unloosed, the discontented spirit 
 reasserted itself again, and the opinion most 
 commonly expressed in the houses that night 
 was that they had been treated like preparatory 
 schoolboys. A few there were, chiefly boys 
 in the highest forms, who felt dimly that they 
 had been brought face to face with a real 
 man and a nobler conception of life than they 
 had hitherto realised ; but, as yet, they were 
 only few and they held their peace, leaving 
 the talking to the malcontents. 
 
 On the first morning of the holidays, the 
 headmaster had a long interview with Mr. 
 Chase. Mr. Chase was not altogether happy 
 about his house ; no more was Mr. Flaggon. 
 Indeed, he was not very happy about any of 
 the houses. In his dealings with offenders 
 
THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 117 
 
 who had been reported to him in the course 
 of the Term, he had been painfully struck by 
 a kind of moral hardness in them, an apparent 
 imperviousness to the influences that make 
 life a noble thing. It stamped itself on their 
 faces in a particular look which was half 
 defiant, half bored, and a sort of easy insolence 
 which seemed to mistake itself for good 
 breeding. And it was something new in his 
 experience. With the thoughtless, dare- 
 devil, and impetuous temperament his own 
 school days had made him familiar ; but this 
 was a new type, which seemed incapable of 
 repentance and met punishment and appeal 
 alike with the same callous indifference. 
 
 And, as he watched the boys' faces day by 
 day and week by week from his place in 
 chapel, he was conscious of a gradual deteriora- 
 tion in many of them. Bigger boys, who at 
 the beginning of the Term had suggested, with 
 all their uncouthness, something of the frank- 
 ness and spontaneity of healthy-minded youth, 
 were growing old and veiled and blase. Even 
 among the new boys there were some who had 
 exchanged the frank and grubby light-hearted- 
 ness, natural to their years, for a look of 
 self-conscious pertness that was decidedly 
 unpleasing. It seemed as if there were a 
 blight upon the place, some secret impalpable 
 influence that was poisoning the springs of 
 life. Mr. Flaggon had diagnosed it at first 
 
118 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 as a lack of discipline, and he had set himself 
 to fight the evil with heroic remedies. Cost 
 what it might, he would have discipline. 
 But he was beginning to suspect that indisci- 
 pline was only a symptom and that he had 
 not yet penetrated to the root of the mischief. 
 
 By his advice Mr. Chase, who was 
 conscientious if unimaginative, was getting 
 rid of some of the older boys in his house, 
 who had been vegetating for a long time in 
 the lower forms. He now suggested that the 
 housemaster should try to establish con- 
 fidential relations with some of the parents 
 of his new boys, and find out from them, if 
 possible, whether all was really well. Mr. 
 Chase looked dubious. " I don't quite like 
 it," he said. " It seems a little underhand — 
 rather like going behind people's backs ; 
 because I have been talking a good deal lately 
 to my Praetor and to some of the old boys, 
 and they all assure me that, though there is 
 a prejudice in the school against my house, 
 it is really quite right and as good as any. 
 Besides, I don't want to alarm parents un- 
 necessarily." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon concealed a slight feeling of 
 impatience. " AVe musn't," he said, " allow 
 ourselves to be bound by a more than Spanish 
 etiquette. We have got to do the very best 
 we can for the boys who are under us, and, if 
 we don't use whatever help the parents can 
 
THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 119 
 
 give us, we are surely guilty of a grave breach 
 of duty. And as for frightening them — no 
 sensible parent would be alarmed at being 
 asked to co-operate with us in the interests 
 of his child. Only, you must choose the right 
 parents ; for I'm really afraid there are some 
 who don't mind what happens to their sons, 
 provided they do well at their games and have 
 a good time." 
 
 Mr. Chase yielded to persuasion, and, when 
 he had gone, Mr. Flaggon sat down to a still 
 harder task. He had decided that he must 
 write to Mr. Chowdler. Ordinarily, in handling 
 a delicate situation, he preferred the spoken 
 to the written word. But in this case he 
 felt that he could write more calmly and 
 sympathetically than he could speak ; for 
 he was conscious that Mr. Chowdler's voice 
 and personality jarred upon him, and he feared 
 that, in an interview, this latent irritation 
 might betray itself in a tone or a gesture 
 which would embitter rather than end the 
 quarrel. Anyhow, something had to be done, 
 for the situation was rapidly becoming im- 
 possible. Mr. Flaggon was aware of Mr. 
 Chowdler's indiscretions. The knowledge had 
 come to him through various channels ; and, 
 once or twice lately, Mr. Chowdler's tone 
 and language to himself had been of a kind 
 which it is difficult for a headmaster to ignore 
 with dignity. 
 
120 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 The letter was a difficult one to compose, 
 and Mr. Flaggon weighed his words very 
 carefully. He tried to recall Mr. Chowdler to 
 a sense of elementary loyalty. He had, he 
 said, every respect for differences of opinion, 
 and he did not expect his own views or actions 
 to pass uncriticised. But there were limits 
 to the manner in which such criticisms could 
 be expressed without doing harm to the school, 
 and he was bound to say that, on several 
 occasions, Mr. Chowdler had — quite uncon- 
 sciously, no doubt — gone beyond those limits. 
 He disclaimed any personal animus, and ended 
 with a generous tribute to Mr. Chowdler's 
 many services to Cbiltern. 
 
 When he had read and re-read the letter 
 and marked it "private," he dispatched it by 
 a messenger and anxiously awaited the reply. 
 
 And he did not have long to wait. When- 
 ever his indiscretions were called in question, 
 Mr. Chowdler made great play with the word 
 " gossip." The headmaster, said Mr. Chowdler, 
 had evidently been listening to gossip, and 
 would do well to be more shy of it in the 
 future. He (Mr. Chowdler) had nothing to 
 reproach himself with, and he refused to be 
 held responsible for other folk's mistakes. 
 His advice had always been at the service of 
 the headmaster, but it had been consistently 
 ignored. People must lie in their beds as 
 they make them. 
 
THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 121 
 
 The headmaster sighed as he read this 
 answer to his appeal, but he felt that nothing 
 would be gained by continuing the corre- 
 spondence or dotting the "i's." He hoped 
 against hope that, though Mr. Chowdler was 
 incapable of admitting himself to be in the 
 wrong, he would lay the admonition to heart 
 and be more cautious in the future. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon spent the greater part of the 
 holidays at Chiltern, working a rough draft 
 of a new curriculum and mastering a great 
 mass of detail. It was rumoured that his 
 mother and sister were coming to live with 
 him in the summer; but at present they 
 were wintering abroad, and Mr. Flaggon was 
 alone. In the course of the holidays he 
 became more closely acquainted with Mr. 
 Bent. The two men, each out for a solitary 
 walk, had come from opposite footpaths into 
 the same lane. Neither was in search of 
 company, but, as both were obviously bound 
 in the same direction, escape was impossible. 
 
 "Hullo!" said Mr. Flaggon. "I didn't 
 know you were here still, Bent. I thought 
 you were sure to be in Switzerland." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Bent ; " I have shed my 
 youthful indiscretions. I still can't stand 
 Chiltern in the Easter or summer holidays, 
 but I have at last realised, with infinite relief, 
 that at Christmas no place is so attractive as 
 one's own fireside. It saves me a world of 
 
 i 
 
122 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 anxious thought and planning. I just run 
 up to town for the last week-end, and that 
 gives me the feeling, necessary to the peda- 
 gogue, of having been away and seen 
 things." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon had not had time or oppor- 
 tunity to become at all intimate with any of 
 his staff. He was, as we have said, by nature 
 rather shy and reticent, and the consciousness 
 of much latent hostility had made advances 
 unusually difficult. There had, of course, 
 been formal calls and dinner-parties ; but 
 neither calls nor dinner-parties lend them- 
 selves to the formation of friendships. 
 
 Mr. Bent had been a puzzle to him. The 
 flippancy of his tone and manner at masters' 
 meetings had often been annoying ; but he 
 had sometimes said things which suggested 
 ideals and a breadth of view at variance with 
 his apparent cynicism. When, therefore, as 
 they were passing his house, Mr. Bent said, 
 " Won't you come in and have a cup of tea ? " 
 Mr. Flaggon accepted the invitation. That 
 walk and tea led to other walks and other 
 teas. Mr. Bent recognised in the headmaster 
 a man of great mental alertness and wide 
 interests ; and Mr. Flaggon discovered an 
 unexpectedly serious vein in his companion, 
 veiled, as it often was, under an ironic humour. 
 As conversation became more intimate, Mr. 
 Bent ventured one day to express his inner 
 
THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 123 
 
 feelings about Chiltern and the Lanehester 
 tradition. 
 
 " We are haunted here," he said, " as you 
 have doubtless observed, by the ghost of 
 greatness ; and it won't let us speak, or think, 
 or do. Nothing is so paralysing (the preachers 
 call it inspiring) as the memory of a great 
 man. If I want a new Latin prose book, I 
 can't have it because Dr. Lanehester taught 
 out of the old one ; and if I want a window 
 that will open, it is impossible because 
 Lanehester didn't believe in ventilation. This, 
 of course, is fearful heresy, and men have died 
 on the scaffold for less." 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Mr. Flaggon with a laugh, 
 " that you are so prejudiced against Lanehester, 
 because I had a proposal to make to you. 
 I've just come into possession of some papers 
 of his, and I am going to ask you to look 
 through them for me and see if they contain 
 anything of real interest. I simply haven't 
 got time myself." 
 
 " Oh, of course, I wasn't crabbing the 
 real Lanehester," said Mr. Bent ; " it's only 
 his ghost that annoys me. The man was 
 an educational reformer, but the ghost is 
 only a glorified cricket 'pro.' What are the 
 papers ? " 
 
 "They have been sent me," replied the 
 headmaster, "by a Mrs. Core, whose grand- 
 father wrote the life of Dr. Lanehester. 
 
124 THE LANCIIESTER TRADITION 
 
 Probably the best things are in the book 
 already, but there may be a gem here and 
 there that has been passed over. Would you 
 care to do a little sifting ? " 
 
 " I should love it," said Mr. Bent. " You 
 see, we have done what the descendants of 
 prophet-slayers always do. "We have hidden 
 away our prophet under a showy tomb, built 
 out of the very stones that slew him. 
 I should vastly enjoy digging for his bones." 
 
 So Mr. Bent carried home, one day, a 
 boxful of old papers, and spent several 
 happy evenings going over them. The gem 
 of the collection was a little bundle of letters, 
 written to an intimate friend during the early 
 years of the doctor's headmastership, and 
 so outspoken in their comments on persons 
 and events that, apparently, the biographer 
 had been afraid to use them. Such phrases 
 as "I am determined, God willing, to lift 
 this school out of the mire into which it has 
 fallen. . . . The unruly spirit of the boys 
 troubles me less than the prejudice of the 
 masters. . . . Alexander the coppersmith" 
 (probably an allusion to the Rev. John 
 Alexander, at that time second master at 
 Chiltern) " does me much harm. ... I appre- 
 hend more and more clearly that a headmaster 
 must be a despot. . . . The moral and in- 
 tellectual deadness of these people to the 
 larger issues of education appals me" — 
 
THE LANCHESTER LETTERS 125 
 
 delighted Mr. Bent and whetted his appetite 
 for more. When he returned the papers at 
 the end of the week, he observed : 
 
 "There's matter enough here to blow up 
 Chiltern and half the county into the bargain. 
 Some of the letters are splendid and quite 
 new, but it would never do to publish them. 
 People would say they were an impudent 
 forgery. Lanchester was a much finer fellow 
 than I realised, and intensely modern. By 
 the way, I understood he had had difficulties, 
 but I never knew that he had to begin by 
 sacking a third of the school and two of the 
 
 senior " But a look on Mr. Flaggon's 
 
 face pulled him up abruptly. " That's the 
 worst of headmasters," he said to himself 
 afterwards. " The moment you begin to be 
 natural with them, you tumble up against 
 the official." 
 
 But Mr. Flaggon was not offended. He 
 had merely remembered, suddenly and with 
 a twinge of pain, the difficult problems 
 that confronted him, and what sharp remedies 
 he might be forced to employ before they 
 were finally solved. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE AND MEETS 
 WITH A REBUFF 
 
 When Term began again towards the end of 
 January, Mr. Tipham and his many-coloured 
 scarf were no longer a feature of Chiltern. 
 He had transferred himself to Cambridge and 
 tutorial work, feeling possibly that Cleopas 
 College and the undergraduate were in closer 
 touch with Nature than Chiltern and the 
 public schoolboy. Auyhow he was gone, and 
 his place had been taken by a young man of 
 less pronounced views, who wore spectacles 
 and listened deferentially to Mr. Chowdler. 
 
 Mr. Chowdler himself had returned in 
 splendid fighting form. He had spent the 
 greater part of the holidays at Sauersprudel, 
 and he had employed the time in wrestling 
 and prevailing. Long before " all the vulgar 
 people that Harry hates so " (we are quoting 
 from Mrs. Chowdler) nocked out to Switzer- 
 land at Christmas, Mr. Chowdler had dis- 
 covered Sauersprudel in the Spitzenthal and 
 
MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE 127 
 
 planted the British flag there. It is true that 
 all the English families who have visited the 
 place in Mr. Chowdler's wake speak of them- 
 selves as having discovered it too. But that 
 does not alter the fact that Mr. Chowdler was 
 the real Christopher Columbus of Sauersprudel 
 and the father of the Adler Hotel — at least 
 as a winter resort. 
 
 In the early days of the British occupation 
 the settlers were not numerous, but they 
 came regularly every winter. There were, 
 besides Mr. and Mrs. Chowdler, the Hon. 
 Fitzroy Plashy and party, Canon and Mrs. 
 Dubbin, Dr. Cushat and family, Mr. Weather- 
 bury, K.C., and a few others who had suddenly 
 realised that sunshine and frost are not 
 peculiar to the Engadine, and that Sauers- 
 prudel is much nearer to London than St. 
 Moritz is. These pioneers lived together on 
 fairly amicable terms, enjoying equal rights, 
 but possessing no written laws, no organised 
 constitution. 
 
 But, as the tide of cheap immigration 
 brought strange faces to the Adlerhof in ever 
 increasing numbers, the old patriarchal life 
 was bound to come to an end in favour of 
 some system more congenial to the British 
 temperament — one, that is to say, which 
 would classify the guests and admit of a dis- 
 tinction between governors and governed. 
 Accordingly, Mr. Chowdler and the original 
 
128 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 families took up the white man's burden, 
 formed themselves into a permanent com- 
 mittee, and set themselves to organise life 
 on the principles which have made sport 
 the thing it is. They created a skating 
 club, a tobogganing club, a ski-ing club, and 
 a curling club, each with rules and tests and 
 an etiquette of its own ; they appointed 
 competitions, and decided in what particular 
 form of dissipation the guests were to indulge 
 of an evening. In a word, they gave the 
 Adlerhof the blessings of a firm and orderly 
 government. With a prescriptive right to 
 the best rooms and the chief place at 
 feasts, they were the aristocracy of the 
 hotel, governing, as befits an aristocracy, 
 in the interests of the many, but holding 
 discreetly aloof. 
 
 Unfortunately, amongst Britons, one of 
 the first results of a firm government is a 
 factious and discontented Opposition ; and 
 the Adlerhof was no exception to the rule. 
 No sooner had Mr. Chowdler and his friends 
 assumed the cares of office than murmurs of 
 complaint began to be heard, feeble at first 
 but gathering strength with each successive 
 season. Wild young men and women, athirst 
 for bandy and bunny-hugs, for impossible 
 ski-jumps and noisy races along the corridors, 
 protested that they had not come out to be 
 drilled like schoolboys but to enjoy themselves ; 
 
ME. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE 129 
 
 and they began to question the authority 
 of the self-appointed committee. Profoundly 
 ignorant of the past history of the place and 
 of all that it owed to its aristocracy, they felt 
 no reverence for Mr. Chowdler and the Hon. 
 Fitzroy Plashy circling sedately round an 
 orange, and only wondered why the best 
 part of the rink was reserved for these old 
 fogeys and their friends. At last a moment 
 came when, conscious of their strength, they 
 passed from murmurs to action. When the 
 committee arranged a toboggan race, the 
 opposition organised a ski-ing competition ; 
 when the committee decreed a gymkhana, 
 the opposition engineered a dance ; and the 
 hotel was divided into hostile camps. 
 
 Things were in this critical state when, 
 on December 28, Mr. Chowdler arrived in 
 Sauersprudel to lend his powerful support 
 to the cause of law and order. His annual 
 appearance had always been treated as an 
 event of importance in the life of the hotel 
 — obsequious smiles from mine host and a 
 flutter among the servants. You would 
 have thought him a governor returning to 
 his colony, or a chieftain to his clan. But, 
 on this occasion, Mr. Chowdler, who had left 
 his wife at home, was met in the hall by the 
 landlord with a face of woe. The room 
 on the first floor with the south aspect, 
 the room that he had selected as his own 
 
130 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 in 1896 and which had been specially reserved 
 for him ever since, had been forcibly annexed 
 and occupied, a fortnight previously, by a 
 young English Herr who refused to turn out 
 for all the Chowdlers in creation. Would 
 Mr. Chowdler mind going into a room on the 
 other side of the passage for a few days — 
 a larger and a better room, though facing 
 north? The young Herr talked of leaving 
 very shortly. 
 
 "His name?" asked Mr. Chowdler curtly. 
 
 "Mr. Maurice Veal of London." 
 
 " Bring him to me," said Mr. Chowdler. 
 
 Impossible ; the young man had gone 
 out ski-ing for the day, taking his lunch 
 with him. 
 
 " Then send my boxes up to my room," 
 said Mr. Chowdler. "My own room mind. 
 I will arrange matters." 
 
 The landlord hesitated between fear of 
 Mr. Chowdler and the danger of losing a 
 wealthy customer who drank champagne 
 every night and paid exactly twice as much 
 for the room as Mr. Chowdler did. But 
 fear of Mr. Chowdler prevailed ; and, when 
 young Mr. Veal returned from his day's 
 sport at five in the afternoon, he found his 
 own effects in the passage and Mr. Chowdler, 
 in shirt sleeves, busily engaged in installing 
 himself in the disputed apartment. 
 
 Mr. Veal, though not deficient in bounce, 
 
MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE 131 
 
 was not remarkable for his physical propor- 
 tions. Perhaps a long and fatiguing day 
 in the snow, in the course of which he had 
 taken many severe falls, had damped his 
 spirits ; or, perhaps the sight of Mr. Chowdler 
 in shirt sleeves, with his broad shoulders, 
 bullet head, red face, and determined jaw, 
 was more formidable than anything he had 
 anticipated. At all events he lost his nerve, 
 and, after a little bluster and some futile 
 threats, he withdrew to abuse the landlord, 
 leaving Mr. Chowdler in possession. 
 
 "I engaged this room in 1896," Mr. 
 Chowdler shouted after him, "and I intend 
 to keep it." 
 
 And he kept it. 
 
 However, p the victory of the bedroom 
 did not end the campaign against the 
 committee ; it only spurred the enemy to 
 greater exertions. And young Veal, panting 
 for reverige, became the recognised leader 
 of a guerilla campaign. No step that the 
 committee took was allowed to pass unchal- 
 lenged ; no rule was made but it was straight- 
 way broken, no notice was posted without 
 provoking a counter-notice or a parody. 
 Half the hotel was on terms of active hostility 
 with the other half. The older men and 
 their wives stood by the committee, the 
 younger ones rallied round the banuer of 
 Veal. And a climax seemed to have been 
 
132 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 reached one afternoon, when Veal and a 
 friend dashed across the sacred enclosure, 
 where Messrs. Chowdler, Plashy and Weather- 
 bury were cutting figures, kicked away the 
 orange which formed the centre of their 
 evolutions, and spilled Mr. Chowdler — 
 accidentally, as they maintained; of set 
 purpose and malice aforethought, as others 
 asserted. After this anything was possible. 
 But the situation was saved by the timely 
 arrival of Lord Budleigh of Salterton and 
 his brother the Admiral. By a masterly 
 stroke of policy they were co-opted on to 
 the committee before they had been five 
 minutes in the hotel ; and the opposition 
 collapsed. For even in moments of the 
 wildest aberration, a hotelful of English 
 folk knows the value of a lord. Moreover, 
 Lord Budleigh was a man of courteous and 
 conciliatory manners, far less exclusive in 
 his behaviour than either Mr. Chowdler or 
 the Hon. Fitzroy Plashy, and tolerant of 
 the vagaries of youth ; while his brother the 
 Admiral, who was out to enjoy himself 
 and sublimely unconscious of anything amiss, 
 fraternised with everybody in the most natural 
 and friendly way. Within eight- and-forty 
 hours, Mr. Veal found himself without 
 followers and left the hotel. The committee 
 had triumphed, and, with the committee, 
 Mr. Chowdler. 
 
MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE 133 
 
 " There had been a little unpleasantness 
 before I arrived," he said afterwards, in de- 
 scribing the events, "but I soon settled all 
 that." 
 
 It will be readily understood, therefore, 
 that Mr. Chowdler was in no mood to tolerate 
 rebuffs when he returned to Chiltern. And 
 yet, as ill-luck would have it, a rebuff of 
 the most unexpected kind awaited him. 
 On the eve of his departure for Switzerland 
 he had written to the headmaster to intimate 
 that he wished to have Cheeny as a house 
 Prefect in the following term, and it would 
 therefore be convenient if the boy were made 
 a school Prefect at the same time. In all 
 his past experience a wish of this kind had 
 been equivalent to a command, and had only 
 needed the official endorsement of the head- 
 master. However, this time, on his return 
 from Sauersprudel, be found, not the official 
 endorsement he expected, but a note, 
 requesting him to come and see Mr. Flaggon 
 on the matter at his earliest convenience. 
 The interview was more surprising even than 
 the note. Mr. Flaggon, it appeared, intended, 
 when appointing Prefects, to take much 
 less account in future of mere athletic dis~ 
 tinction and much more of mental ability ; 
 "because," he said, "although I know that 
 there are often striking exceptions, brain 
 power and character are closely allied, and 
 
134 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 the boy who has brains is more likely to 
 understand and appreciate high ideals than 
 the boy who has none. I have gone into 
 Cheeny's claims very carefully ; and, except 
 for your high opinion of him, which of course 
 weighs with me, I can find no reason for 
 promoting him to such a responsible post. 
 He is quite low in the school and " 
 
 "Then you can't have seen him in the 
 Cock-house match last Term," interrupted 
 Mr. Chowdler angrily. 
 
 11 1 did," replied Mr. Flaggon. " I admired 
 his spirit and I envied him his agility. But 
 that kind of spirit alone doesn't make a 
 Prefect ; and I notice that all his masters 
 say of him that he collapses before any 
 difficulty in his work and is inclined to sulk." 
 
 Mr. Chowdler was too indignant to speak ; 
 but worse was in store ; for Mr. Flaggon 
 continued implacably : 
 
 " But there is another boy in your house 
 whom I am very glad to make a Prefect. 
 I mean Dennison. He has earned the honour 
 by his place in the school alone, and, so far 
 as I can judge — and I have been studying 
 him rather closely — he has qualities which 
 justify me in feeling very hopeful about 
 him." 
 
 Dennison ! Mr. Chowdler nearly had a 
 fit. Dennison ! One of those morbid, can- 
 tankerous, precocious boys, who have none 
 
MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE 135 
 
 of the good-fellowship, none of the joy of 
 life, that are the crown of youth. A boy 
 with a jealous, sour, carping disposition, 
 unpopular with his fellows and unresponsive 
 to his housemaster ; a boy without influence 
 and eaten up by an unhealthy egotism. 
 
 " You misjudge him," said Mr. Flaggon. 
 "The boy is reserved, rather sensitive, and 
 shy of expressing himself; but he has 
 character and a conscience. With guidance 
 and a little sympathy he will make a very 
 useful Prefect." 
 
 " Will make ! " Mr. Chowdler protested 
 vehemently. He knew the boy as only a 
 housemaster could know a boy, whereas the 
 headmaster was only judging superficially. 
 At no price would he accept Dennison as a 
 Prefect in his house. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Mr. Flaggon stiffly, " to 
 be obliged to force on you as Prefect a boy 
 with whom you are clearly so much out of 
 sympathy. But I have quite made up my 
 mind to make Dennison a school Prefect ; 
 and, of course, if he is a school Prefect, he 
 must be a house Prefect too." 
 
 " In that case," said Mr. Chowdler, 
 scarlet with passion, " I decline to be re- 
 sponsible for anything that may happen in 
 my house." 
 
 " Those are serious words for a housemaster 
 to use," said Mr. Flaggon gravely. 
 
136 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 " They were not spoken in jest/' retorted Mr. 
 Chowdler, as he left the study ; and, though 
 the headmaster made no reply, he realised 
 that things could not go on much longer on 
 this unsatisfactory footing. 
 
 From that moment Mr. Chowdler became 
 a man with an obsession. The mere mention 
 of the name Flaggon temporarily upset his 
 mental balance. In all the petty annoy- 
 ances of life he saw the hand of Flaggon, 
 and anybody who was not ready to curse 
 Flaggon by all his gods became at once 
 suspect. 
 
 At Chiltern, as in all intellectual societies, 
 the personal doings and idiosyncrasies of its 
 individual members formed the staple of daily 
 conversation ; and, before the Term was two 
 days old, Mr. Chowdler knew that Bent and 
 Flaggon had walked together in the holidays, 
 taken tea together, and, no doubt, conspired 
 together. He never had liked Bent — a cynical 
 egotist (all the people whom Mr. Chowdler 
 disliked were egotists) with dangerous princi- 
 ples. He shouldn't wonder if Bent had been 
 poisoning the "empty one's" mind against 
 Cheeny. Bent always had a grudge against 
 his boys. 
 
 Accordingly, coming across Bent one 
 morning in the masters' reading-room, which 
 adjoined the Common Room, he could not 
 resist the impulse to attack. 
 
MR. CHOWDLER WINS A BATTLE 137 
 
 " Well, Bent," he said, in tones of forced 
 geniality through which the sarcasm pierced 
 like a needle, " I'm told I ought to congratulate 
 you on your promotion. I hear that you 
 have been privileged to drink deep draughts 
 out of the Flaggon in the holidays. I hope 
 you found the beverage stimulating." 
 
 Mr. Bent had returned from his week-end 
 in town with a chill on the liver which made 
 him disagreeable to his friends and offen- 
 sive to his foes. He flushed with anger, 
 but forced himself to reply with affected 
 airiness. 
 
 "Very, thank you. And I suppose you 
 have been rapping tables and communicating 
 with the spook of Old Lanchester. Did he 
 tell you, by the way, that I have been reading 
 some unpublished letters of his, which are 
 rather sensational and upset most of your pet 
 theories about the tradition ? " 
 
 It came as a perpetual surprise to Mr. 
 Chowdler, whenever they had words, that 
 Bent did not know how to behave like a 
 gentleman or answer a civil question civilly. 
 But this went beyond all bounds. So he 
 drew himself up and replied with dignity : 
 
 " I am not in the habit of answering 
 flippant and offensive questions." 
 
 11 In that case," said Mr. Bent, suddenly 
 losing his self-control, " I should advise 
 you not to make offensive and impertinent 
 
138 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 remarks about matters which don't concern 
 you." 
 
 Which reply left Mr. Chowdler justly 
 indignant, and confirmed him in the belief 
 that Bent had had something to do with the 
 rejection of Cheeny. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE EXPLOSION 
 
 Other people than Mr. Chowdler were 
 dissatisfied with the state of affairs, though 
 none expressed disapproval with quite such 
 acrimony. For the first time for many years 
 the numbers in the school were down. This 
 was in part 'due to the deliberate action of 
 the headmaster. Veterans in the lower forms 
 of the school had been invited to " move on " ; 
 and the veterans were numerous. But there 
 was another reason for the shrinkage and one 
 on which Mr. Chowdler and his friends were 
 more inclined to lay stress ; namely, that 
 several names had been withdrawn at the 
 eleventh hour from the January entrance 
 list. From the nature of its clientele, Chiltern 
 was affected, more than most schools, by the 
 gossip of the London clubs ; and, in the 
 London clubs, opinion was not favourable to 
 the new regime. The case of le Willow had 
 created a most unfortunate impression. " Fin 
 not going to send my boy to a school where 
 
140 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 they sack for cribbing," said one parent to 
 another. " Cribbed myself when I was a 
 boy, and so did all my pals." 
 
 " The new man's no sportsman," added 
 a second, "and the boys simply can't stick 
 him." 
 
 "No more can the masters," interjected a 
 third. " I met one of them in Switzerland, 
 and, from what he said, I should say the 
 place was simply going to pot as fast as 
 it can." 
 
 In Mr. Chowdler's eyes the place un- 
 doubtedly was "going to pot." In season 
 and out of season he called everybody's 
 attention to this lamentable truth, and the 
 fact that he was unable to prevent it preyed 
 upon his mind. It preyed to such an extent 
 that a moment came when he committed an 
 act which brought on the inevitable crisis. 
 
 In the third week of Term the headmaster 
 convened a special masters' meeting to discuss 
 certain matters which he considered urgent. 
 Not only did he convene it for the particular 
 time at which Mr. Chowdler was accustomed 
 to play a round of golf, but the first item on 
 the programme was the question of Sunday 
 hours. 
 
 Now the Sunday arrangements at Chiltern 
 were perhaps unusual, but they were hallowed 
 by tradition and shared, in a way, the sacred 
 character of the day. Briefly, they left a 
 
THE EXPLOSION 141 
 
 clear break, interrupted only by tea, between 
 lunch at 1.30 and chapel at eight. Exact 
 contemporaries of Mr. Chowdler might have 
 recalled that, in his early clays, he himself 
 had viewed this long interval with disfavour. 
 But it is no reproach to a man to change 
 his mind, and, with a riper experience, Mr. 
 Chowdler had learned to love and value the 
 Chiltern Sunday. To himself it meant a long 
 country walk and a most refreshing snooze 
 afterwards ; but that was not the reason why 
 he valued it. He valued it because it was 
 so good for the boys ; because it gave them, 
 what no other school gives its boys, time to 
 know themselves, time for thought, and 
 especially home thoughts ; and because it 
 made of Sunday what Sunday ought to be, 
 " a morally recuperative day." " "We must 
 put our foot down," he said to his colleagues ; 
 " there must be no tampering with Sunday." 
 
 Masters' meetings at Chiltern were held 
 in the library. The headmaster and the 
 ten housemasters sat round an oak table ; 
 and others occupied chairs wherever chairs 
 happened to be. This disposition of forces 
 created a rather invidious distinction between 
 the juniors and the ten who often abused their 
 position to make important remarks in tones 
 which were inaudible to the rest of the 
 meeting. But the invidiousness was felt 
 more keenly by the juniors than by the ten. 
 
142 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 Mr. Flaggon disliked the arrangement for other 
 reasons. Seated at the head of the table, 
 primus inter jmres, he felt uncomfortably 
 close to the housemasters and inconveniently 
 removed from the rest of the staff; and, if 
 he wished to be heard by all, he had to raise 
 his voice and speak through, or over, his 
 immediate neighbours in a way that was 
 unpleasant for both. He sighed for a dais 
 and a more elevated seat, and, accordingly, 
 he had suggested tentatively to some of the 
 senior men the advisability of holding the 
 meetings elsewhere. But the suggestion had 
 given genuine pain. It was unthinkable that 
 Chiltern masters should meet anywhere but 
 under the portrait of Dr. Lanchester ; and the 
 only other portrait of Dr. Lanchester was in 
 the Great Hall, an obviously impossible place. 
 So, wishing to avoid unnecessary friction, 
 Mr. Flaggon had resigned himself to the 
 library for the present. Perhaps, as he sat 
 with his back to the portrait, he was less 
 conscious of inspiration than his colleagues. 
 
 It was therefore from the traditional place, 
 at the head of the oak table, that Mr. Flaggon 
 made the remarks which provoked a scene 
 memorable in the annals of Chiltern. It had 
 been borne in upon him, he said, by events 
 in the preceding Term, that the long inter- 
 val between dinner and chapel was fraught 
 with considerable danger. The danger was 
 
THE EXPLOSION 143 
 
 obviously greater in the summer Term than 
 in any other, when lock-up was later ; and, 
 some time in March, he proposed to consider 
 a complete rearrangement of the time-table 
 for the day. But, for the present, he wished 
 to make as little change as possible. He was 
 therefore going to ask housemasters to arrange 
 for a preparation in their houses at half-past 
 four on Sundays. Tea would be at 5.30 and 
 chapel at the usual time. 
 
 Mr. Chowdler had come to the meetiug 
 in the worst of tempers. Apart from the fact 
 that he was deeply attached to the status quo, 
 he had been deprived of his golf, and, being a 
 man full of habit of body, he could not afford 
 to miss his exercise. And so, the headmaster 
 had scarcely finished speaking, when he broke 
 in with no attempt to conceal his anger. 
 
 "It has always been customary," he said, 
 " to consult housemasters on matters of this 
 kind before raising them at a general meeting." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon lifted his eyebrows slightly, 
 but replied quite calmly : "I shall be glad to 
 consider any difficulties that may be put to 
 me in private ; but, in a matter of this kind, 
 on which I feel very strongly, I must decide 
 for myself and in accordance with my own 
 judgment." 
 
 "Do I understand," cried Mr. Chowdler, 
 raising his voice and glaring at his chief, 
 " that we are to have this ill-considered ukase 
 
144 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 thrust down our throats without discussion ? 
 Because, if so, let me say that that is an 
 indignity to which we are not accustomed." 
 
 " I think I have made it clear," said Mr. 
 Flaggon, '* that I do not propose to take a vote 
 on this question, and I have stated my reasons : 
 I wish to see the experiment tried." 
 
 " In that case," said Mr. Chowdler, turning 
 half round in his chair so as to face his 
 colleagues, " I, for one, shall decline to obey." 
 
 " I have noted your refusal with extreme 
 regret," replied Mr. Flaggon, so quietly that 
 the words would hardly have been heard 
 in the more distant parts of the room, if it had 
 not been for the intense silence that prevailed. 
 And then, before anybody had recovered from 
 the surprise and shock, he passed on to the 
 second item on the programme. 
 
 The rest of the business was dispatched 
 rapidly and without any of the irrelevant 
 comment which was usually a feature of 
 masters' meetings. Everybody was anxious 
 to get away, to breathe the fresh air, and to 
 take stock of his own and other people's 
 impressions. 
 
 "Chowler's downed him," whispered Mr. 
 Rankin, as the masters trooped into the great 
 quadrangle with grave and anxious faces. 
 
 " I don't know," replied the younger man 
 thus addressed. " It can't end there. And," 
 he added, " it ought not to end there." 
 
THE EXPLOSION 145 
 
 Whether Mr. Chowdler felt any secret 
 misgivings, it is impossible to say. Probably 
 not. By dint of always speaking of "the 
 empty one" he had persuaded himself that 
 Mr. Flaggon was essentially a weak, un- 
 meritable man who was aping the despot. 
 Besides, Mr. Chowdler was not an adept at 
 self-criticism, and was quite incapable of 
 looking at himself from the outside. Pre- 
 sumably, therefore, he regarded his display 
 of temper as an outburst of passionate but 
 righteousness indignation, a kind of prophetic 
 " Thus saith the Lord." And, as the day 
 ended without further incident, he may have 
 thought, with Mr. Rankin, that the man 
 Flaggon was " downed." 
 
 But, on the morrow, two things happened 
 which brought him face to face with some 
 very unpleasant facts. At first lesson a 
 notice came round to say that in future, on 
 Sunday afternoons, there would be prepara- 
 tion in houses at 4.30 o'clock; and, later on 
 in the morning, he received a letter from the 
 headmaster couched in the following terms : 
 
 Dear Mr. Chowdler, 
 
 I have put off writing till to-day in 
 the hope that some word from you would 
 enable me to take a course different from the 
 one which the events of yesterday and your 
 subsequent silence compel me to pursue. I 
 
146 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 hope that I shall never fear honest and out- 
 spoken criticism. But there are decencies to 
 be observed without which a headmaster's 
 position becomes impossible ; and your be- 
 haviour to myself yesterday leaves me no 
 alternative but to assume that you intended 
 deliberately to challenge my authority as 
 headmaster. It is with a grave sense of 
 responsibility and in no vindictive spirit that 
 I feel obliged to request you to send in your 
 resignation, to take effect at the end of the 
 present Term. Yours faithfully, 
 
 S. E. Flaggon. 
 
 The first effect of this letter on Mr. 
 Chowdler was so make him feel as if the solid 
 ground were crumbling away beneath him ; 
 but, the next moment, his combative spirit 
 reasserted itself, and, dashing to his writing- 
 table, he scribbled off what he afterwards 
 described as " a calm and dignified reply." 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I think we may speak to each other 
 in plain English. What you are pleased to 
 call a request for my resignation, / call a 
 notice of dismissal. I shall therefore exercise 
 my right of appeal (see "Statutes," p. 131, 
 Schedule D, Clause 4). The Council must 
 decide between us. Yours _ ^ 
 
 H. Chowdler. 
 
THE EXPLOSION 147 
 
 Mr. Flaggon verified the reference and 
 found that, by an old and unrepealed regula- 
 tion, Mr. Chowdler had indeed the right of 
 appeal to the Council against dismissal. He 
 therefore sent the following note : 
 
 Dear Mr. Chowdler, 
 
 I am informing the Chairman of the 
 Council of my decision and of the reasons 
 which have dictated it, by to-morrow evening's 
 post at latest. You must take whatever 
 steps you think right. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 S. E. Flaggon. 
 
 The fat, as at least half-a-dozen people said 
 spontaneously, was in the fire, and Chiltern 
 could think and talk of nothing else. There 
 was a general agreement that Chowdler's 
 behaviour at the meeting had passed the 
 limits of decorum ; but, while the seniors 
 maintained that the headmaster should have 
 ignored the offence in a man whose services 
 to the school were so notorious and of such 
 long standing, many of the juniors held that, 
 if Flaggon didn't give old Chowdler the boot, 
 he was done for. There was an equal difference 
 of opinion as to the probable issue of the 
 appeal. The moderates thought that there 
 was still room for compromise. Chowdler 
 could withdraw his offensive remarks and 
 
148 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 then Flaggon could withdraw his notice of 
 dismissal. Others, who knew Chowdler's 
 love of battle, were sure that he would fight 
 it out to the end and win. Others, again, did 
 not see how the Council could possibly throw 
 over a headmaster whom they had so recently 
 appointed. 
 
 To Mr. Plummer the whole episode was 
 painful in the extreme, and the ide„al of a 
 united staff seemed farther off than ever. 
 He was torn between two conflicting loyalties — 
 loyalty to an official chief, and loyalty to a 
 senior colleague. He expressed his inner 
 feelings to Mr. Bent on one of their frequent 
 walks, more from force of habit than because 
 he expected to find a sympathetic listener. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " one can't defend 
 the way Chowdler does things ; and nothing 
 could possibly have been worse than his 
 behaviour the other day. Still, one must 
 remember that he has had great provocation 
 — great provocation." 
 
 " That's just like you ! " replied Mr. Bent. 
 " Chowdler is for trailing his coat across 
 the green, and when he succeeds in tripping 
 somebody, you say that he has had great pro- 
 vocation. What provocation, pray ! Name ! " 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Plummer, " there was the 
 le Willow business to begin with." 
 
 "A matter of principle," said Mr. Bent. 
 " A headmaster who sacrificed his principles to 
 
THE EXPLOSION 149 
 
 a Chowdler, at the first summons, wouldn't 
 be fit to be a crossing-sweeper ! " 
 
 " And then there was his refusal to make 
 Cheeny Prefect," said Mr. Plummer doggedly. 
 
 " Again a question of principle ! " cried 
 his companion. "And you're talking as if 
 Chowdler were the captain of the ship and 
 Flaggon his second mate." 
 
 " No, I'm not," said Mr. Plummer. " But, 
 after Gussy, Chowdler's position under a new 
 man was bound to be difficult, and Flaggon 
 ought to have made allowances ; he ought 
 to have been more tactful." 
 
 " Tact on Chowdler," said Mr. Bent, " is 
 like a feather on a hippopotamus. Chowdler 
 doesn't ask for tact ; he demands uncon- 
 ditional surrender." 
 
 "Anyhow," persisted Mr. Plummer, " though 
 he does it badly, Chowdler represents what 
 many, if not most, of us feel. You know I'm 
 not one of the people who go shouting their 
 criticisms on the house-tops : but, candidly, 
 I don't approve of the new regime." 
 
 " What don't you approve of, pray ? " 
 asked Mr. Bent scornfully. " The weeding out 
 of the old and incompetent ? the attempt to 
 restore discipline ? the " 
 
 " I'm not going to particularise," said 
 Mr. Plummer, " but I distrust Flaggon's 
 whole attitude ; especially in a man who has 
 no experience. The boys are discontented, 
 
150 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 the staff is divided, the numbers are down, 
 and we're all wondering where it's going to 
 end." 
 
 " ■ Ye fools and uncircumcised in heart and 
 mind,' " burst out Mr. Bent, " ' ye do always 
 resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, 
 so do ye.' " 
 
 " That's blasphemous," cried Mr. Plummer. 
 
 " I believe that's what they said of Stephen," 
 replied Mr. Bent, recovering his composure. 
 " But, as a matter of fact, I was quoting from 
 an unpublished letter of Lanchester's ; and 
 he happened to be speaking of an eighteenth- 
 century Chowdler." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN DARK PLACES 
 
 It was obviously to the interest of all parties 
 that the appeal should be settled as soon as 
 possible. But the Council showed no haste 
 in coming to a decision. The delay was 
 ominous, for it seemed to indicate that they 
 regarded the question as an open one. 
 
 This being so, Mr. Pounderly and several 
 of his senior colleagues were anxious that the 
 staff should take combined action. There 
 was no doubt in Mr. Pounderly's mind as to 
 what form the combined action should take. 
 " If," he said, " the policy of cutting off the 
 heads of the tallest lilies receives official 
 sanction, it will not stop with Chowdler. 
 The lives and fortunes of all of us are at stake. 
 It is most important that at this crisis the 
 staff should show a united front." 
 
 It took many hours of patient argument 
 to persuade Mr. Pounderly that the front of 
 the staff was not, and could not be, united ; 
 and, when the unpalatable truth was at last 
 
152 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 forced in upon him, he went about his daily 
 duties once more wringing his hands and 
 whispering, " lamentable, lamentable." 
 
 However, he was to have an opportunity 
 of expressing his own views fully and in an 
 influential quarter. Mr. Benison-Benison, a 
 local magnate and a member of the Council, 
 had determined to get to the bottom of things 
 for himself. Mr. Benison-Beninson was one 
 of those honest and incapable men whom the 
 British public delights to honour, and his 
 idea of getting to the bottom of things was to 
 give an impartial hearing to one side only. 
 It was the method he had always adopted in 
 forming his opinions on political or theological 
 questions ; and he prided himself on his 
 freedom from prejudice. u I always make a 
 point of studying any controversial topic," he 
 would say, " before I make up my mind about 
 it." Consequently, when he set to work to 
 master the Chiltern problem, he could think 
 of no better way of doing so than by inter- 
 viewing personally Mr. Chowdler and his 
 friends. At much physical inconvenience to 
 himself, for he was crippled at the moment 
 by rheumatism, he drove over to Chiltern, 
 had a long talk with Mr. Chowdler, and, at 
 that gentleman's suggestion, had separate 
 interviews also with Mr. Pound erly, Mr. 
 Black, Mr. Beadle, and some others of the 
 faction. And, as a result of it all, he carried 
 
IN DARK PLACES 153 
 
 away " a very strong impression " that Mr. 
 Chowdler stood for the best interests of 
 the school, that Mr. Flaggon was the wrong 
 man in the wrong place, and that the masters, 
 as a body, would be very glad to see the last 
 of him. And this impression received a 
 striking corroboration from an entirely un- 
 prejudiced quarter. Mr. Benison-Benison had 
 occasion to call, on his return journey, at 
 Thrale's, the local motor and motor-cycle 
 shop ; and, in answer to some discreet feelers, 
 Mr. Thrale became voluble and stated con- 
 fidently that Mr. Flaggon was letting down 
 the school " terrible " and ruining the town, 
 and that the citizens looked confidently to 
 the Council to set matters straight over " this 
 here appeal that they talk of." 
 
 But, while the issue was still in doubt and 
 Chiltern was humming with excited gossip, 
 events occurred which turned all thoughts 
 for the moment into other channels. 
 
 Mr. Chase, acting on the advice of the 
 headmaster, had written in December to 
 the parents of three of his new boys, asking 
 them to find out, in the course of the holidays, 
 whether the moral tone of the house was 
 in a healthy condition ; and, if anything 
 was wrong, to communicate confidentially 
 with him. In each case he had received 
 a formal acknowledgment of his letter, and, 
 as nothing further had come of it, his mind 
 
154 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 was at ease. And then, suddenly, a bolt 
 fell from the blue. Mr. Chase received one 
 morning an eight-page letter, marked private 
 and confidential, which made him turn very 
 pale and entirely took away his appetite 
 for breakfast. The writer of this letter related 
 that he had, during the holidays, put certain 
 questions to his son, and, after some pressing, 
 had extracted from him a story which showed 
 that, from the moral point of view, the school 
 generally and Mr. Chase's house in particular 
 were in a very bad state. The boy, however, 
 had implored him not to say anything to 
 the authorities, as the two worst offenders 
 had left at Christmas and things were certain 
 to be much better next Term. He had, 
 however, by that morning's post, received 
 a letter from his boy, which revived all his 
 anxieties. The boy wrote that he was very 
 unhappy and wanted to be taken away. 
 " Under these circumstances," the father con- 
 cluded, "I feel bound, in the interests of 
 the school as well as of my own child, to 
 take you into my confidence ; and I have 
 written you a full account of all that I know. 
 I only beg that, in whatever steps you take, 
 you will manage to keep my boy's name 
 out of it. Dislike of being an informer, 
 and fear of the possible consequences to 
 himself, naturally weigh very heavily on 
 him. But, clearly, something must be done, 
 
IN DARK PLACES 4 155 
 
 and done at once ; and, if you wish it, I am 
 quite prepared to come to Chiltern myself 
 and see you about the matter." 
 
 Mr. Chase read the letter several times 
 with a strong sensation of physical nausea, 
 and sat for a while afterwards in his study 
 trying to think. "When the first shock had 
 passed off, he began to cherish a hope that 
 the boy might perhaps have exaggerated. 
 Now that he came to think of it, it struck 
 him that the boy was rather an excitable 
 boy and, very likely, inclined to be hysterical. 
 But he was an honourable man ; and, though 
 the facts, as related, were a reflection on his 
 own competence, he carried the letter straight 
 to the headmaster. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon guessed what must be passing 
 in his colleague's mind, and his manner was 
 both sympathetic and cordial. He thanked 
 Mr. Chase warmly for having taken him at 
 once into his confidence ; and, together, the 
 two men discussed what ought to be done, 
 Should the father be invited to come to 
 Chiltern and procure further and yet more 
 detailed information, or should they act 
 at once? Mr. Flaggon thought that there 
 was danger in delay. The boy might become 
 frightened and retract, or, possibly, give 
 a hint of what was brewing to a friend. 
 " Our best chance," he said, " of getting at 
 the whole truth is to strike at once while 
 
156 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 the offenders are off their guard ; and, if 
 the facts are as they have been stated, we 
 have enough to go upon. Besides, if the 
 father comes down and sees his son, everybody 
 will guess the source of our information ; 
 and we are bound in honour to keep the 
 boy's secret." Mr. Chase agreed; and, ac- 
 cordingly, that evening after locking up, 
 the headmaster went to Mr. Chase's house 
 and held a searching inquiry. Before it 
 was over, he knew a great many things 
 that he had not known before, and realised 
 how very vile, under its deceptive light- 
 heartedness, life can be in a bad house in 
 a bad school. 
 
 Next morning, at first lesson, a rumour 
 spread through a startled school that three 
 of the most prominent Chaseites had been 
 summarily expelled, and that others were to 
 leave at the end of the Term : and Mr. Chase, 
 who looked as though all joy had gone out 
 of life, confirmed the news to his colleagues. 
 Mr. Flaggon had determined to address the 
 school that evening after chapel ; but, before 
 he could do so, fresh developments occurred 
 which decided him to wait a little longer. 
 For, in the course of the day, Dennison, the 
 newly appointed Prefect, appeared in his study 
 with a pale face and twitching hands, and 
 asked if he might speak confidentially. The 
 permission was readily granted, and Dennison 
 
IN DARK PLACES 157 
 
 proceeded to unburden his soul. Everybody, 
 he said, had known for a long time that 
 Chase's house was " rotten," but he was afraid 
 his own house was not much better. Since 
 he had been Prefect, he thought there had 
 been an improvement ; but, a week ago, 
 he heard of something which had made 
 him very miserable. He didn't dare to tell 
 Mr. Chowdler ; and, though he had been 
 within an ace, more than once, of asking the 
 headmaster for advice, he had never quite 
 made up his mind to do so. It was impossible 
 to get the Prefects to act together, because 
 a Prefect was himself involved, and the others 
 wouldn't give him away. He had spent 
 sleepless nights worrying over the business ; 
 but now he felt that he must make a clean 
 breast of the whole matter. He wanted to 
 do his duty ; but he funked — there was 
 no other word for it — the deadly unpopularity 
 which was certain to be the result. 
 
 Mr. Flaggon first talked the boy into a 
 calmer mood and then showed him, quietly 
 and sympathetically, what his duty was. He 
 must remove the seal of confidence and en- 
 dure the unpopularity. The moral welfare of 
 countless boys, present and to come, was at 
 stake. And so, before he left the study, 
 Dennison had braced himself to the most 
 difficult act of courage that a boy can be 
 called on to perform — namely, to defy a 
 
158 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 traditional code of honour and to face social 
 ostracism. 
 
 An inquiry into Mr. Chowdler's house was 
 necessarily a much more difficult business than 
 an inquiry into Mr. Chase's. It was obviously 
 impossible for the headmaster to take Mr. 
 Chowdler into his confidence ; so, boys had to 
 be sent for separately and interviewed in his 
 own study. There was much coming and 
 going, much leakage of knowledge and 
 consequent reticence or denial. Mr. Flaggon 
 felt that he had never sifted things quite to 
 the bottom. But Dennison stuck to his 
 guns ; and, in the end, two boys, one of 
 whom was a Prefect, were expelled at once, 
 and four others were told that they must 
 leave at the end of the Term. 
 
 In the Prefect, Mr. Flaggon had long ago 
 recognised one of the three youths who had 
 impressed him so unfavourably on his first 
 visit to Chiltern. In spite of the clearest 
 evidence, this boy persisted in asserting his 
 innocence, and on hearing his sentence he 
 attempted a piece of insolent bluff. 
 
 " I shall appeal to Mr. Chowdler," he said, 
 " and, if he keeps me, I shall stay." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon made no reply, but stepped 
 quickly to the telephone. " Number 92 A . . . 
 is the police inspector in ? . . . no ? will 
 he be in at six o'clock this evening % . . . 
 Thanks. I may have to give somebody into 
 
IN DARK PLACES 159 
 
 custody ... No thanks, there's no immediate 
 hurry ... if I want him then, I'll ring 
 him up." 
 
 And before he had readjusted the receiver, 
 the boy, with a white face, blurted out, 
 "All right, sir, don't do that. I'll go at 
 once." And he left the study with his tail 
 between his legs. 
 
 And on the following morning the school 
 were summoned into the Great Hall at 
 the end of first lesson and heard some 
 words which nobody ever forgot. Anybody 
 but Mr. Chowdler would have been over- 
 whelmed by the sudden discovery of his 
 own blindness ; for, in the two boys who 
 had to leave so abruptly and for such 
 hideous offences, he had always seen the 
 true Chiltern type, the best product of the 
 Lanchester tradition. But Mr. Chowdler was 
 not an ordinary man. For a short time 
 indeed he did feel as if the solid ground were 
 crumbling again under his feet ; but, within 
 a few days, he had persuaded himself, first, 
 that if there had been mischief in his house 
 it was because " the man Flaggon " had taken 
 the control of it out of the proper hands ; 
 secondly, that boys had been bullied into 
 confessing to crimes that they had never com- 
 mitted ; and, thirdly, that there had been a 
 great deal of hysteria and exaggeration about 
 the whole business. 
 
160 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 On this occasion, however, Mr. Chowdler 
 found but few disciples. Mr. Flaggon's 
 prompt and fearless handling of the affair, 
 the words which he had spoken to the school, 
 his genuine hatred of the evil thing and, with 
 it all, his buoyant faith in the ultimate triumph 
 of good influences, had made a deep impres- 
 sion on the masters. They realised that, in 
 spite of youth and inexperience, the new head- 
 master was a man ; and not a few of them 
 felt that they had themselves been culpably 
 blind. 
 
 " It's no good," said one of the younger 
 men, who taught a low form in the school, 
 " it's no good saying that we didn't see and 
 couldn't be expected to see. We ought to 
 have seen ; the evidence was all around us. 
 Why, there are three kids in my form — new 
 last Term — who are different men since this 
 came out; different in their work and their 
 manner and everything. It's like people 
 waking up from a nightmare." 
 
 "And there's one in my form," said Mr. 
 Rankin, " who goes about looking as if he 
 were going to be hanged. I guess he's got 
 something pretty heavy on his conscience, 
 and he's mortally afraid of being swept into 
 the net." 
 
 But there was one point on which opinion 
 was not so unanimous. What would be the 
 effect on the reputation of the school of all 
 
IN DARK PLACES 161 
 
 these drastic expulsions ? Would not in- 
 tending parents take fright ? With numbers 
 already down, was this root-and-branch 
 method altogether wise — and was it really 
 necessary ? 
 
 Mr. Plummer shared these doubts ; and 
 he expressed them to Mr. Bent as they stood, 
 one bleak afternoon in March, on the Sow's 
 Back, looking over a grey and cheerless 
 landscape. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " I recognise that 
 Flaggon has come out of all this extra- 
 ordinarily well, and has taught us all a great 
 deal. Nothing, I'm sure, could have been 
 more impressive than the way he spoke 
 to the school, and I shall remember it as 
 long as I live. But, I must say, I don't 
 quite like this relentless pruning. Five 
 boys on the spot, and ten more at the 
 end of the Term ! It looks as if we were 
 forgetting that it's our duty to save as well 
 as to punish." 
 
 " I know," said Mr. Bent ; " the parable of 
 the lost sheep. But that parable, my dear 
 Plummer, was never meant for schoolmasters ; 
 we need to be reminded of our duty to the 
 ninety-and nine — we're always ready enough 
 to play the role of good shepherd. Besides, 
 you know the sequel." 
 
 " What sequel ? " asked Mr. Plummer. 
 
 " Don't you know," replied Mr. Bent, " that 
 
162 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 a month afterwards the lost sheep, having 
 acquired a taste for adventures, trotted oft* 
 into the wilderness again, taking with him this 
 time the rest of the flock, twenty-five per 
 cent, of whom got eaten by wolves and never 
 were heard of more ? No, my dear Plummer, 
 it's too risky." 
 
 "But one must take risks," insisted Mr. 
 Plummer, " if one is to do anything that is 
 worth doing : and, to refuse to take risks 
 when there's a chance of saving anybody 
 seems to me sheer cowardice." 
 
 " Ah yes," said Mr. Bent, " true enough, if 
 the risk were our risk — a danger to you and 
 me. But it isn't. The danger is to the 
 other boys — the boys who are here and the 
 boys who are coming. If you want to make a 
 public school a reformatory, you ought to be 
 honest with the parents ; you ought to say 
 to them frankly, 'I am keeping such and 
 such boys, whom I know to be dangerous, 
 because I think that the companionship of 
 your son may possibly do them good.' What 
 d'you suppose the parents would say to 
 that? What d'you imagine any of our 
 married colleagues would say, if you proposed 
 to plant a reformatory lad in the middle of 
 their young families, because you felt sure it 
 would be good for him and you weren't 
 going to be scared by the risks? Answer 
 me that ! " 
 
IN DARK PLACES 163 
 
 " There are reformatories and refor- 
 matories," replied Mr. Plummer sententiously. 
 " Anyhow," he added, as the dust-laden wind 
 swept down the road, " the prospect is gloomy 
 — and I shouldn't wonder if we had some 
 snow." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DAY OF DECISION 
 
 One evening, a week after this conversation, 
 Mr. Bent received a summons to see the 
 headmaster in his study after dinner ; so, 
 putting on his great-coat, for the wind was 
 still blowing keenly from the north-east, he 
 repaired to the Prsetorium. Mr. Flaggon was 
 seated at his table, writing letters, but he 
 waved his guest into an armchair and 
 wheeled his own chair round to face the fire. 
 
 " I have to make arrangements for next 
 Term," he began, with an abruptness that 
 was characteristic. "I am assuming that 
 I shall be here and that Chowdler will have 
 gone. In that case I want you to take his 
 house." 
 
 Mr. Bent was not altogether unprepared 
 for his offer, though he had never allowed 
 his thoughts to dwell much on the subject. 
 He paused for a few moments before 
 replying : 
 
 'It won't be a bed of roses— at least at 
 
THE DAY OF DECISION 165 
 
 first ; but a year ago I should not have 
 hesitated for a moment. To-day I know 
 my limitations better, and I am not sure 
 whether I have the necessary qualities." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon eyed him keenly for a moment, 
 and then said : 
 
 " I think you are more fitted for the post 
 than anyone else here — if you will follow 
 your better nature." 
 
 "Then I will do my best," said Mr. Bent, 
 "and trust that my better nature will pull 
 me through." 
 
 There was a pause before Mr. Flaggon 
 began again, somewhat hesitatingly : 
 
 " I think, perhaps, that it would be better 
 if this matter were kept private between us 
 two — for the present at all events. I am 
 thinking chiefly of your own position." 
 
 "You mean," said Mr. Bent, "that, if 
 certain things happen, I shall cut a better 
 figure if I am found seated on the top of 
 the fence than if I have come down definitely 
 on the wrong side." 
 
 Mr. Flaggon smiled. " I suppose I meant 
 something of the kind," he said, " though 
 I didn't put it to myself quite in that way. 
 The truth is that I am not at all sure about 
 the future. I have every right to assume that 
 the Council will support me against Chowdler ; 
 but, strictly between ourselves, they seem 
 to be hesitating, and I have been approached 
 
166 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 lately with suggestions of a compromise. 
 I can accept no compromise. It's not a 
 question of my own dignity — though a public 
 man has to consider that too : but, if I am 
 not to be headmaster tie facto as well as 
 de jure, I can serve no useful purpose by 
 remaining here ; and I shall go." 
 
 "In that case," said Mr. Bent, "there is 
 no need for secrecy; for, if you go, I shall 
 go too." 
 
 The headmaster coloured slightly. Ever 
 since he had been at Chiltern, and especially 
 in the last few weeks, he had felt his isolation 
 and aloofness as no inconsiderable part of 
 the burden. The sudden sense of fellowship 
 sent a warm glow through his veins ; but he 
 repressed his emotion and replied gravely : 
 
 "I hope you won't do that; you mustn't 
 do that. It is quite unnecessary, and it 
 would damage the school." 
 
 Mr. Bent got up from his chair, and, all 
 unconsciously, began to pace about the room. 
 His feelings were such that he could not 
 express them adequately in a sitting posture. 
 
 " I'm not speaking on the spur of the 
 moment," he began. "My mind was made 
 up long before I came into this study and 
 received your offer. For fifteen years I've 
 lived in an atmosphere of bunkum and make- 
 believe that have no relation to facts. That 
 kind of thing is bound to make a man 
 
THE DAY OF DECISION 167 
 
 either a humbug or a cynic. It has very 
 nearly made me a cynic ; and, though it's 
 very amusing to be a cynic, it isn't good 
 for one's immortal soul. If one's to be a 
 live man, one must have something definite 
 to do — something that one can believe in and 
 work for. I can appreciate and work for 
 your ideals — decency, order, and an education 
 that — that is educational. I know that I 
 shan't approve of all your methods — I'm 
 Oxford, and much too critical for that — and 
 you won't expect it of me. But I can not 
 endure to sink back again into unreality. 
 I have enough to live on ; not much but 
 enough ; and I can always get work — tutoring 
 or anything. But I will not face another 
 fifteen years of the off-theory and Chowdler's 
 version of the Lanchester tradition. I say," 
 he added suddenly, " I must apologise. In 
 my excitement I've been forgetting my 
 manners." 
 
 The two men shook hands warmly at 
 parting, and Mr. Flaggon was betrayed into 
 something that very closely resembled a 
 confidence. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " the long delay is 
 rather trying." 
 
 But the long delay was coming to an end, 
 and the day of decision was fixed at last. 
 Mr. Flaggon learnt it from the Chairman 
 of the Council : Mr. Chowdler and the masters 
 
168 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 were informed " privately and confidentially " 
 by Mr. Benison-Benison, and the boys heard 
 of it from the masters' wives. 
 
 On the morning of the fateful day, Mr. 
 Flaggon looked down the long rows of bowed 
 heads in chapel with peculiar feelings. He 
 was something of a fatalist, believing, as 
 he did, that there is special Providence in 
 the fall of a sparrow, and that a man is 
 false to his duty, however hazardous that 
 duty may be, if he allows himself to dwell 
 on the possibility of failure. But he could 
 not help wondering, that morning, whether 
 he would ever sit in his place again and feel 
 that his life's work lay there before him, and 
 that he had the power to do it. In the last 
 few weeks Chiltern had become to him some- 
 thing much more concrete than it had been 
 before, something that stirred his affections 
 and appealed to his sympathy. While 
 searching in dark places for the roots of the 
 parasite that was strangling the life of the 
 place, he had discovered the germs of much 
 that was healthy and even noble — individual 
 heroisms, boys ready, at a moment's call, 
 to do a man's work, knees which in the face 
 of fierce temptation had never bowed to 
 Baal ; and, with all its capacity for evil, 
 he had realised the immense possibilities 
 for good iD schoolboy nature. He was 
 conscious, too, of a change of attitude on 
 
THE DAY OF DECISION 169 
 
 the part of the staff. Rather shyly, rather 
 awkwardly, many, especially the younger 
 men, had made it clear to him by voice and 
 manner and gesture that they were with him. 
 There was an irony in the fate which might 
 give him the summons to quit at the very 
 moment when he had secured a firm grip 
 of the school and proved his right to rule. 
 Might give ? Very probably would give ; 
 for, in his heart of hearts, he had no great 
 faith 'in the Council that was to pronounce 
 judgment. 
 
 And, a few hours later, the councillors 
 were assembling at Grandborough to decide 
 between the headmaster and his rebellious 
 lieutenant. Most of them had come with 
 their minds more than half made up. That 
 Mr. Chowdler's conduct had exceeded the 
 courtesies of debate there could be no doubt ; 
 and, under ordinary circumstances, they would 
 have been shy of interfering between a head- 
 master and one of his assistants. But the 
 circumstances were not ordinary ; and the men 
 who were called upon to judge them were 
 much influenced by the opinion, commonly 
 expressed in Society (with a capital S), 
 that the new headmaster was a failure and 
 was letting the school down rapidly. They 
 gathered, too, from Mr. Benison-Benison that 
 this was also the opinion of the masters. 
 And, again, they had been much alarmed by 
 
170 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 the recent troubles. Rumour had put the 
 number of expulsions at 150; and, though 
 the councillors were now in possession of 
 the correct figures, the impression remained 
 that Chiltern, which had once seemed to 
 be founded on a rock, was crumbling away 
 before their very eyes. 
 
 " How do you intend to vote ? " said 
 Canon Braintree to Sir Arthur Tysoe, as 
 they entered the assembly room at the 
 " Blue Boar," which always served as Council- 
 chamber. 
 
 " I shall vote," said Sir Arthur, " for any 
 compromise that will save the assistant ; he 
 seems to be the better man. And you ? " 
 
 " I shall vote against the headmaster," 
 replied the Canon ; "of course, it will mean 
 his resignation, and may make us look a 
 little foolish in the eyes of the world. Still, 
 when one has made a mistake, the most 
 courageous course is to undo it as soon as 
 possible." 
 
 When the councillors had got through 
 a little preliminary chatting, they took their 
 seats round the long mahogany table and 
 the Chairman opened the proceedings. 
 
 " The business before us to-day," he began, 
 "is to consider an appeal from the Rev. 
 Henry Chowdler, assistant master at Chiltern, 
 against a notice of dismissal, received from 
 the headmaster on the 15th of February 
 
THE DAY OF DECISION 171 
 
 last, to take effect on and after the 7th of 
 April proximo. In accordance with Schedule 
 D, Clause 4 of the ' Statutes and Regulations,' 
 'any housemaster, or other master, not 
 being a dancing, writing or fencing master, 
 who shall have completed fifteen years of 
 continuous service on the staff' possesses 
 this right. As Mr. Chowdler is one of the 
 boarding-house masters at Chiltern and the 
 headmaster has confirmed the notice of dis- 
 missal in writing to your Chairman, the 
 appeal is in order. But you are no doubt 
 aware that, under Schedule E, Clause 7, 
 sub-section b, the Council is empowered to 
 refuse cognisance of such an appeal, if it 
 so thinks fit. This is a curious provision, 
 and was inserted, I believe, at a time when 
 Dr. Lanchester, who enjoyed the entire con- 
 fidence of his Council, was having trouble 
 with his staff. The first question therefore 
 before us is, whether or no the Council 
 will accept cognisance of the Rev. Henry 
 Chowdler's appeal ; and our decision in no 
 way prejudices any subsequent action we 
 may take when, and if, we proceed to con- 
 sider the appeal on its own merits." 
 
 The Chairman had rattled off his opening 
 remarks with the volubility of a man who is 
 accustomed to get through business quickly. 
 He paused for breath and was about to add 
 that, as the motion was presumably a merely 
 
172 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 formal one, he supposed there was no need 
 for discussing it, when the Bishop intervened. 
 
 Somebody has said that no cause is 
 irretrievably doomed until the Bishop of 
 Grandborough has made it his own. Like all 
 epigrams, this statement is only partially 
 true ; for the Bishop has championed many 
 winning causes, good as well as bad. But 
 his warmest admirers admit that, as a leader, 
 he is more successful in putting heart into his 
 followers than in winning over waverers. 
 
 " Technically," he began, " our Chairman is 
 correct, and the motion does not prejudge 
 the main issue; but, practically, it raises at 
 once, and in an acute form, the question of 
 confidence or no confidence in the headmaster. 
 If we had merely to decide between Mr. 
 Flaggon and Mr. Chowdler, there could be 
 no doubt as to what our decision would be ; 
 for every man in authority has a right to be 
 supported against unruly subordinates. But 
 we have not met here to judge between Mr. 
 Flaggon and his subordinate. We are all 
 aware that we have met to decide whether 
 it is right or expedient that Mr. Flaggon 
 should continue to be headmaster at all. 
 That is an unfortunate position for us to be in, 
 and, if my advice had been taken last July, 
 we should have avoided it. But we must 
 take the situation as we find it and face it 
 boldly. In my opinion Mr. Flaggon ought 
 
THE DAY OF DECISION 173 
 
 never to have been appointed and ought 
 not now to be continued in his office ; and I 
 have with me convincing proofs to clinch my 
 argument." 
 
 Here the Bishop produced a large blue 
 magazine, and held it up to show that there 
 was no deception. 
 
 " In this magazine," he continued, tapping 
 the cover, " there is an article by the Rev. 
 Septimus Flaggon, entitled ' Inspiration.' 
 When it was first brought to my notice, some 
 weeks ago, I wrote at once to Mr. Flaggon to 
 ask him whether he acknowledged the alleged 
 authorship, and, if so, whether he was prepared 
 to disavow certain passages in it, which I 
 had marked with a blue pencil. Mr. Flaggon 
 replied that the article in question had been 
 written several years ago, but that, after 
 re-reading it carefully, he saw nothing in it to 
 retract. That being so, I propose to read you 
 certain passages, from which you will be able 
 to judge for yourselves whether the writer 
 is a man who can safely be entrusted with 
 the spiritual guidance of the young in a Church 
 of England school." 
 
 The Chairman here pointed out that Mr. 
 Flaggon's theological opinions were irrelevant 
 to the question at issue, namely, whether or 
 no the Council should take cognisance of Mr. 
 Chowdler's appeal. But the Bishop was not 
 to be stopped, 
 
174 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 ''You will see the relevance," he said, 
 " when I have finished." And he proceeded 
 to read out the incriminating passages. To 
 about half the Council they seemed of the 
 mildest and most harmless nature ; and one 
 of the members said bluntly : 
 
 " I see no reason why a headmaster should 
 not hold these views, and preach them too 
 if he likes. If we are going to begin heresy- 
 huntiog, I believe we shall make a grave 
 mistake." 
 
 The discussion, having once been launched 
 on these troubled waters, was developed at 
 great length and with ever-increasing acrimony. 
 Inspiration was a subject which Mr. Benison- 
 Benison had made his own and on which 
 other members of the Council felt strongly. 
 In vain the Chairman tried to recall the 
 meeting to the real point at issue. He had 
 to give way before the demands of human 
 nature, and accept the inevitable. When at 
 last the question was put, the voting went 
 on strictly theological lines ; with the result 
 that the numbers for and against were exactly 
 equal. 
 
 The Chairman hesitated. On the one 
 hand he saw the unwisdom of practically 
 installing Mr. Chowdler as permanent Mayor 
 of the Palace at Chiltern. On the other hand, 
 if Mr. Flaggon were going to empty the school, 
 the financial situation would become difficult, 
 
THE DAY OF DECISION 175 
 
 and it might be better to do at once, what 
 would probably have to be done later — 
 namely, force his resignation. 
 
 The Bishop noted his hesitation, shrugged 
 his shoulders impatiently, and whispered 
 something to his neighbour. The words were 
 inaudible, but the Chairman guessed their 
 purport and his hesitation vanished. 
 
 " The question before us," he said, " being 
 whether or no the Council will take cognisance 
 of the appeal of the Rev. Henry Chowdler, 
 and the ayes and noes being equally divided, 
 I cast my vote in favour of the noes. As we 
 have no further business to transact, the 
 Council is adjourned to the 21st of June next, 
 when I hope that the plans and estimates 
 for the new sheds and pig-stye, to be erected 
 on the boundary field, will be ready for 
 approval." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 Mr. Chowdler took the blow standing. 
 " What else could you expect," he said 
 contemptuously, " from such a Council ! Like 
 master, like man ! " He did not even break 
 down when his house gave him an ova- 
 tion at prayers, such as might have greeted 
 a conqueror. It was not so much a 
 demonstration against the headmaster as 
 a display of tribal loyalty to a fallen chief; 
 and it had its touch of chivalry. 
 
 Mrs. Chowdler was completely bewildered. 
 She could not understand how anybody, having 
 to choose between Harry and that dreadful 
 Mr. Flaggon, could fail to choose Harry. 
 But she played up to her husband nobly. 
 " Of course," she said, " we never expected 
 anything else ; but Harry felt that it was 
 his duty to give the Council a last chance of 
 saving the school. They have rejected it, 
 and that is the end of Chiltern." Needless to 
 say, nobody contradicted her, and she was 
 the object of much silent sympathy. 
 
AFTERMATH 177 
 
 Some people supposed, and many hoped, 
 that, when the verdict was given against him, 
 Mr. Chowdler would leave at once or at least 
 withdraw from active life ; and the head- 
 master allowed it to be known in the Chowdler 
 circle, through Mr. Chase, that if such a step 
 were contemplated everything would be done 
 to make it easy. But Mr. Chowdler preferred 
 to die fighting. In deference to the entreaties 
 of his friends, he did indeed absent himself 
 from masters' meetings ; but, otherwise, his 
 presence was as much felt, his voice as often 
 heard, as ever. No martyr has ever stood at 
 the stake with a prouder or more defiant mien. 
 
 Now a martyrdom is always an unpleasant 
 business for others than the victim ; and one 
 of the spectators who felt the unpleasantness 
 most acutely was Mr. Bent. Mr. Bent re- 
 pudiated the title of sportsman, but he had 
 scruples and susceptibilities of his own. As 
 unacknowledged heir to Mr. Chowdler's house 
 he found his position a delicate one, and he 
 hesitated to proclaim his right to the suc- 
 cession while Mr. Chowdler was so very much 
 alive. It would have been comparatively 
 easy to speak the word while the battle was 
 still raging and the issue in doubt ; but he 
 had missed the psychological moment, and 
 to speak it now, smacked too much of a mean 
 triumph over a fallen foe, Therefore, when 
 people wondered in his presence who would 
 
178 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 succeed to the house, he held his peace and 
 felt a little like a boy who had committed 
 an offence and fears to own up to it. The 
 situation was particularly awkward, because 
 it was high time that he should be making 
 arrangements for moving in ; and the holidays 
 were short. 
 
 His friend Plummer put a finger, inad- 
 vertently, one afternoon on the raw place 
 and received a disagreeable shock. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, " who will get 
 Chowdler's house. It's very tactful of Flaggon 
 to keep it in abeyance ; but he'll have to make 
 the appointment soon — certainly before the end 
 of Term." 
 
 "Perhaps it'll be me" said Mr. Bent, 
 colouring slightly. 
 
 "Impossible!" cried Mr. Plummer in a 
 voice of genuine alarm. " You're joking, I 
 hope." 
 
 " Why impossible, pray ? " asked Mr. Bent, 
 in tones of unusual chilliness. 
 
 " Why, because ..." replied Mr. Plummer 
 irritably, ". . . it's really very difficult to 
 explain . . . but of all people you're the 
 very last who ought to succeed Chowdler. 
 Think what people would say ! " 
 
 " What would they say 1 " asked Mr. Bent 
 doggedly. 
 
 The task of enlightening an obtuse friend 
 as to what people are saying of him is a 
 
AFTERMATH 179 
 
 delicate one ; and Mr. Plummer couldn't 
 help thinking that Bent was singularly and 
 unexpectedly obtuse. 
 
 "Well, of course," he began, "it has been 
 said by ill-natured poople — when you became 
 a Flaggonite, you know, and seemed to be 
 seeing a good deal of him, that . . . Well, 
 in fact, that you had an axe of your own to 
 grind, and wanted " 
 
 "The women, I suppose," interrupted Mr. 
 Bent. 
 
 " I expect so," Mr. Plummer admitted. 
 
 Mr. Bent had always suspected that some- 
 thing of this kind would be said. But it is 
 one thing to have disagreeable suspicions, 
 and another to hear them confirmed. He 
 looked pained, and said after a short pause : 
 
 " And do you believe it ? " 
 
 " Of course not," cried Mr. Plummer. 
 " Nobody who knows you would believe any- 
 thing so ridiculous for the moment." 
 
 "Then I don't see why I should mind," 
 said Mr. Bent. 
 
 "But, my dear fellow," protested Mr. 
 Plummer, " you can surely see . . . and then 
 there are the boys. Have you thought about 
 them 1 Everybody knows — or at least thinks 
 — that you have a special ' down ' on that 
 house ; and the boys " 
 
 " You mean they'll fight ? " suggested Mr. 
 Bent. 
 
180 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 " Undoubtedly," replied his friend. 
 
 "Good!" cried Mr. Bent. "Excellent! 
 Then there'll be a fight; that's all. It will 
 be the making of me ; and, by the Lord 
 Harry, I'll smash 'em." 
 
 There was only one other incident in the 
 Term that could be called at all sensational. 
 At the last masters' meeting, about a week 
 before the holidays, Mr. Flaggon distributed 
 some printed papers, which were found to 
 be a rough draft of the summer hours for 
 Sunday, and a proposed new curriculum. 
 " I meant you to have these before," he said, 
 " but I fear I have been too busy. I propose to 
 discuss the whole question early next Term." 
 
 Mr. Beadle buried his head in his hands 
 but said nothing ; and almost everybody 
 felt a slight shock of pained surprise. This 
 was surely pushing the claims of the conqueror 
 ungenerously far! They had accepted their 
 new headmaster — had even begun to discover 
 qualities in him which extorted admiration. 
 But they expected that he, in his turn, would 
 make concessions, come at least part of the 
 way to meet them ; whereas, to choose this 
 particular moment for securing their tacit 
 assent to disputed principles, seemed an 
 unfair use of a delicate situation and 
 peculiar circumstances. And it was inevit- 
 able that they should think so ; for, as Mr. 
 Bent observed, they could not understand 
 
AFTERMATH 181 
 
 that what they were willing to accept as the 
 end, was to Mr. Flaggon only the beginning. 
 
 The remaining days of the Term lingered 
 like an unwelcome guest who does not know 
 how to take his leave. Everybody was 
 nervously anxious to have got through with- 
 out further shocks or excitement, to close a 
 tragic chapter and plunge into the waters of 
 oblivion before beginning a new page. For 
 the strain of the past weeks had been almost 
 intolerable. 
 
 And the end came at length, and in a 
 gloom that made the last chapel seem like 
 a funeral service. Dotted about among the 
 congregation were the boys who were leav- 
 ing under a cloud, and, in his stall on the 
 south wall of the nave, sat Mr. Chowdler, 
 red, unhappy, and defiant. Though he was 
 convinced of the necessity, Mr. Flaggon could 
 not but feel the pity of it all ; indeed, for a 
 moment, he experienced the sensations of a 
 humane executioner in the presence of his 
 victims. And worse was to come. For, as 
 he knelt for the last time in the school chapel, 
 Mr. Chowdler was suddenly overpowered by 
 his emotions, and his broad shoulders shook 
 with the sobs that he was powerless to control. 
 It was not remorse ; it was not even regret 
 for anything he had done. Something there 
 was of the bitterness of defeat, and something 
 of the grief of a sanguine man who has lost 
 
182 THE LANCHESTER TRADITION 
 
 an only child. Mr. Chowcller had loved 
 Chiltern with all the strength of a robust 
 and unimaginative nature ; and, in a few 
 short months, he had seen his roots in the 
 past and his heritage in the future destroyed, 
 utterly and for ever. The holy places had 
 been defiled and Jerusalem made a heap of 
 stones. 
 
 The headmaster saw and understood ; 
 and he had to make an unusual effort before 
 he was able to pronounce the blessing. 
 
 With the departure of Mr. Chowdler the 
 Lanchester tradition, according to one school 
 of thought, received its death-blow. Accord- 
 ing to another, it was really disinterred and 
 given a new lease of life ; and a pamphlet 
 containing some hitherto unpublished letters 
 of the great man, which can be obtained at 
 the school stationer's, lends some colour to 
 this view. 
 
 What Mr. Flaggon made of Chiltern and 
 how Mr. Bent fared with his house, may, 
 possibly, be told hereafter. For the present 
 we will leave them to fight out their battles 
 under the eyes of watchful colleagues and the 
 shadow of Dr. Lanchester's statue in the 
 great quadrangle. 
 
 THE END 
 
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