Part 12

He was just an Irish soldier's son; a real boy in real life, and his name was Tim, and that was the only name he had besides his surname which was Gamelyn. And somehow he was perfectly happy. But one day he found an old book and read about a boy whose name was Victor; and the more he read about Victor the more ardent was his wish to be like Victor, and he wished that he had been called Victor--for Victor was a genius and a gentleman, and all things which Victor put his hands to were crowned with success. But Tim's name was Tim Gamelyn, which was unfortunate; and when he went to an English school at Margate they called him, because his hair was red, "Carrots" which was heartbreaking.

In the book nobody had ever jeered at Victor or called him nicknames; they would have been dealt with very severely, besides they would not have dared; he was far too heroic. So Tim became very furious when the other fellows called him "Carrots." But the more he showed his dislike for this name the more the boys made use of it, also when they had time to spare--they warmed their hands in the imaginary heat radiated by his ruddy hair. It was impossible to uphold any dignity under the circumstances, and he began to wonder what Victor would have done in a like predicament. But then Victor's hair was rich and brown and curly, and no one could have said a word against it; Tim's was red and of the kind that fate keeps in stock of the humble and low, and it made a little lump come up in his throat when he realized it. Then the football season on, Victor, Tim well remembered, had gone in for every kind of athletic sport. When he had first arrived at a strange boarding school he had refused, with a heedless laugh, to say whether he could play or not. Victor did not even deign to go near the football field for a month. But ten minutes before the Match of the year commenced he suddenly made up his mind to play. During the first half of the game Victor had "laid low"; he was waiting. Then his eyes flashed, and his lithe, active figure flashed up the field sending the ball into the posts like a shot from a gun, thus scoring the first and only goal. He had then fainted away; and a beautiful girl had exclaimed "A-a-a-a-a-h," and had hurried to him with a smelling-bottle and much sympathy. When he recovered, he sat up and made an apology for stopping the game and was loudly cheered by both teams. This was the model which Tim had to keep in his mind's eye. In one or two ways he succeeded, and in others he failed--failed dismally.

When Tim came to ask questions about football at Thetford Grammar School he found it was quite another thing. In the first place the boys all spoke to him in that specially offensive you're-only-a-little-kid sort of way. They also took it for granted that he had never seen a football in his life. He found it impossible to refuse (with a careless laugh) to say whether he had ever kicked a ball before. He was told that he would have to play in the next school practice match, and that if he could kick a ball, he might be allowed to play in a real match one fine day. When the first practice game commenced, Tim remembered that an enthusiastic crowd had run by Victor's side, shouting wildly: "Hurrah! hurrah for Victor." It is true that a few of the smaller boys shouted at him. But what they shouted was: "Put a bit of life into it, old Carrots!" and "Go it, Rufus! You'll never score a goal if you kick the ball in that mother-may-I-have-an-orange style." During the first part of the game Tim was rather quiet--he was waiting for a golden opportunity, just as Victor had waited. It came when the forwards were in full movement, and the ball came travelling neatly along the line on the right wing. It finally came to rest at Tim's feet, and he, avoiding a man who darted at him, raced forward a few yards. Then something, which came through the air like a Whitehead Torpedo, sent him spinning backwards on the grass. Amidst roars of laughter from the other fellows, the Whitehead Torpedo, (who was a boy and smaller than Tim), spun round, ran the ball a few dozen yards, and sent it soaring away with a vent kick straight for the goal. There was a moment of silence. The ball pitched fair and square on the top bar, and then trickled gently between the posts.

A howl of joy went up from the small fry who had been "ragging" Tim all the time.

Tim sat up and looked about him. He had not fainted, but he felt very sick and dizzy, and nobody sympathised with him. A small freckle-faced boy was standing over him.

"The ground is slippery to-day," he grinned, extending a hand to the unfortunate Tim, who lay on the sludgy, squdgy mud gasping like a recently-landed trout.

Tim accepted, and scrambled painfully to his feet. The pomp of battle had departed from him.

A few weeks afterwards, as Tim was walking across the water meadows, he saw a youth of serious and agricultural appearance throwing a poor, defenceless little terrier into the mill stream. Every time the miserable little animal crawled up on to the river bank the youth hurled it into the deep water again. Now, that was the kind of thing that Victor was very down on. In every chapter Victor punished people for cruelty to animals. Victor's blood always boiled at such a sight--moreover, his strong arm always shot out, his eyes always flashed, and the great hulking coward always lay prone at his feet begging for mercy with clasped hands. So Tim gathered together his recollections of Victor's stock phrases, and advanced on the stolid youth:

"You cowardly ruffian! Have you no feelings that you ill-treat a man's best friend in that way?"

The stolid-looking youth seemed slightly astonished. He thrust his face forward and shook his fist under Tim's nose. "Not your blooming business," he said. "You shift."

"You've got no right," began Tim.

"Right!" The youth's note was fierce. Then he took poor Tim by the scruff of his neck, and observed that he had been teaching the pup to swim because he was water-shy, and that it was good for all kinds of pups to know how to swim. Then he pushed Tim into the water after the pup in order to teach him to keep his mouth shut and mind his own business.

Tim went away with the idea (perfectly correct) that the stolid-looking youth's hands that had gripped his neck and the seat of his knickers were very strong, and another impression that even Victor would not have stood an earthly chance against such a fellow. And it was just then that he was aware of a little grey idea floating in the background of his mind that Victor was a bit of a prig--also a fraud. It annoyed him that any such notion should occur to him that the glory of his hero was an illusion, and he shook his head to get rid of it. Then his brain sent a "wireless" that Victor might be all right in a little toy world of his own, peopled entirely by heroes and scoundrels, and with all the scoundrels physically contemptible; but that he would have done less brilliantly in the mixed-up old world that we have got at present.

Suddenly, as from a clear sky, came a bolt of common-sense to Tim, and he realized he had been a fond and foolish jay. And that was why, when he had finished prep that evening, he exchanged a copy, bound in calf, of Victor the Valiant for two oranges and a catapult.

Of course, the reaction set in. Tim was sent up to the station to bring home a new bicycle for the head master, and he was especially warned not to ride it--just to walk it. Of course he tried to ride it down Castle Hill, and collided violently with a milk cart. He returned with what had been a new machine. So the Head made him write out one hundred times:

And since he cannot spend or use aright The little time here given in his trust; But wasteth it in weary underlight Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust, He naturally clamours to inherit The Everlasting Future that his merit May have full scope--as surely is most just.

And Tim muttered, "All right, keep your hair on, Ben!"

"H'm;" said the Head, overhearing Tim. "Write it out two hundred times for your insolent conduct."

That was the start of his demoralisation. According to the laws of the Medes and Persians, and the laws of Victor the Valiant, disaster and dishonour would be the end of this! It was not at all the way Victor would have behaved. As a matter of fact on one occasion when a master had been idiotic enough to give Victor a hundred lines, the valiant one had replied: "Pardon me, sir, but if I may be so presumptuous I think I can call your attention to the fact that you--unintentionally, of course--are treating me too severely." And the master had at once seen the error of his ways and relieved Victor of the imposition.

Tim failed to get the verse written out in the stipulated time and the imposition was trebled. Also he gathered up another hundred lines for "failure to attend prayers" and this placed him in a state of hopeless bankruptcy.

When he wrote home to his mother. Here is what he said:

"DEAREST MOTHER:

"I got two hundred lines for breaking the Head's bicycle yesterday. Give my love to Dad. I got another hundred lines to-day for not being present at prayers. But don't you worry--I am not really bad--God has forgotten me, that is all.

"Your loving Son, "TIM."

And Tim--such was his natural depravity--did not much care. So callous and indifferent did he become that he ceased to be hurt when the boys called him "Carrots." In fact he laughed. And as he no longer objected when he was called "Carrots" the boys dropped that name, and the shortest one survived. The boys started to call him "Tims" and in a few months he had won their affection from the lowest fag to the highest lad in the school.

Two years afterwards, by dint of practice and pluck he had so far advanced that he ran second in the quarter-mile at the Sports. Of course this was not very heroic. He was rewarded for this feat of strength with a patent egg-boiler, which was of no sort of use to him, and, as he discovered afterwards, of no use to anybody else. But he was exceedingly proud of the thing and also exceedingly careful to conceal this fact from the other boys.

He became, to sum up his attitude, less and less like Victor. But it is not to be presumed that he was sinking into mental nothingness. He was not perhaps quite so refined in his language as he might have been, he used slang, and sometimes was inclined to hang his hat on the floor and talk back. He was rather untidy in his dress. But certain compensating qualities of the highest value were appearing in Tim. He had gathered to himself a plentiful supply of gumption--genius is all right, but if it comes to a slow-down gumption is better. His hatred of "swank" reached the point of unreasoning prejudice. He made many mistakes; but depend upon this: the man who has never made a mistake has never made anything else worth having.

And Tim never became a great soldier, or a great sailor, or anything great. But he had good spirits, and he concealed about his person a heart of gold; and after he left Thetford Grammar School, boys found that somehow the games in the old playground seemed flat and spiritless. They said that things weren't as they used to be in Tim's time.