was a scene I could call to mind, and I seemed to be again in Hampshire, enjoying my liberty. So engrossed was I with this fancy sketch, that at first I did not notice all the boys’ eyes turned on me with curiosity. I soon saw, however, that I was the object of general attention; and on looking round I saw Mr Walkwell leaning over me, watching what I was doing.
“New boy, give me that,” said Mr Walkwell; “you are idling.”
I gave up the paper, feeling certain that either three cuts on the hand or some other punishment would be given to me. Mr Walkwell looked at the drawing, and then at me, and then said, —
“Shepard, I must report you to Mr Hostler.”
“Please, sir, don’t!” I said; “I’ll never idle again.”
At that instant Mr Hostler came into the room and said, —
“Well, Mr Walkwell, how are you? Are the boys doing well?”
“Very fairly, sir, very fairly; but I have to report the new boy to you.”
“What, Shepard? Ah, I’m afraid he is a failure. Come here, Shepard!”
I got up from my seat and walked up to where Hostler and Walkwell were standing, feeling ready to faint from nervousness.
“New boy Shepard, Mr Hostler, has told me a story. I asked him if he could draw, and he said ‘No,’ and I have now seen him out of his own head draw this sketch, sir. Look at the curve of that yacht’s sails; see the way he has fore-shortened her; look how she rests on the water. Why, for a man that’s a work of art. That boy is an artist, sir, and he told me he couldn’t draw.”
It is very difficult to describe my feelings during this conversation. I had twice been surprised at discovering my ignorance during the past few days, and now I had a surprise in discovering that I was possessed of a skill in drawing which was above the average. I used to amuse myself when at home in drawing on a slate vessels and boats that I had seen when I had gone down to Lymington or Beaulieu, but that there was any great difficulty in drawing such things I had never imagined, or had I the slightest idea that other boys could not do so well – if not better than I did.
I was certainly pleased to find that there was something in which I was not a dunce; and although I was a laughing-stock of the school on account of my ignorance of mathematics and Euclid, I was held up as something unusually clever in drawing.
“Shepard,” said Mr Hostler, “I am glad to find you can do something well, but it’s a pity you have wasted your time in learning only drawing, to the neglect of mathematics. Drawing never passed a boy into the Academy, and it doesn’t count much afterwards. Very well, Mr Walkwell, make a good artist of him, and he’ll then have a profession always ready for him in case he wants it; but I wish, for his sake, he’d some knowledge of Euclid, and less of drawing.”
From that day Mr Walkwell paid great attention to my instruction, and I improved rapidly under his tuition, and after some dozen lessons I was considered the best in the drawing-class.
Chapter Five
Mr Hostler’s Cram-School
It was the practice for our school to be taken out for a walk on Sunday mornings, and to go on to the barrack-field at Woolwich, to see the march past previous to the troops going to church. At this march past the splendid band of the Royal Artillery used to play at the head of the regiment, whilst immediately following the band, and heading the regiment, were two companies of gentlemen cadets.
At the church-parade on Sundays the cadets turned out in full-dress, which consisted of white trowsers, a blue tailed coat with red facings, a shako and plume. Such a dress now would look old-fashioned, but to my boyish eyes it seemed in those days the pattern of neatness, and of a soldierlike appearance.
To me everything military possessed the charm of novelty, but I must own that nothing I had ever imagined previously came up, in my ideas, to the magnificent sight that I for the first time now witnessed. I had never before heard a military band, and I gazed with wonder at the immense display of musicians, headed by a splendid-looking man, arrayed in gold lace, and swinging a huge gold-headed stick, as tall as himself, which he dexterously manipulated in time with the music. There is always something spirit-stirring in the sound of martial music, and I stood entranced as the band marched past me, turned sharp to the left as though worked by machinery, and, wheeling about, faced me, as they continued the slow march they were playing.
“Here come the gentlemen cadets!” said some of the civilians, who by hundreds had assembled to see the Sunday march past. “Look how splendidly they march?”
“What a fine set of young fellows!”
I pushed myself into a front position as I heard these remarks, and saw advancing at a slow march a line of soldiers, moving as though they were part and parcel of each other. With heads erect, and shoulders well thrown back, this line advanced; the marching was perfect. As the leading company approached a flag, beside which were several officers, who I noticed were covered with medals, a tall cadet shouted, “Bear rank take open order!” and, coming out to the front, led the company onward. So new was the sight to me, so splendid did it all appear, and so imposing, that I felt a half-choking sensation as I looked at and admired every movement. As the leading cadet passed the flag I saw him go through some movement, which concluded with his raising his hand to his cap in what I knew must be a salute. I heard murmurs of applause among the bystanders, and the deep, decided voice of an old officer at the flagstaff exclaim, “Well marched, gentlemen; very well marched.”
There was a something, I don’t know what to call it, but it seemed like a flash of intelligence passed across the faces of the cadets as they heard these words. They marched on as rigidly as ever, not a cadet an inch before or behind his neighbour, but there was a sparkle in the eye of each cadet that showed the words spoken by the officer had been heard and appreciated by front and rear rank of the cadets.
“Who is that officer?” I heard a civilian ask.
“That is Lord Bloomfield, the commandant,” was the reply.
I looked at the commandant, and saw a handsome, soldierlike-looking man in a splendid uniform, but he was too far removed from me in years and rank to produce any special sympathy on my part; the hero of the day in my mind was the cadet who had given the order to open the ranks, whilst every one of the forty cadets forming the first company that had marched past was to me an object of admiration. At that moment I would have given much to have been one among that company, and to have marched past as they had marched.
As the cadets marched before us, I could hear some of my schoolfellows calling attention to several cadets who were known to them.
“There’s Duckworth, who passed third last Christmas,” said one of them. “He’s second of his batch now, and is sure of the Engineers, they say.”
“There’s Hobson in the rear rank, with the brass collar; he got second-class mathematical prize; and see how well Jackson marches; he’s an awful swell now since he got sixty runs and carried out his bat in the last match with the officers. Look at that brute Tims,” exclaimed another; “I hope he’ll be spun at his probationary, or he’ll be an awful bully as an old cadet when I am a neux.”
These and other similar remarks I heard near me, just as a feeling of utter misery came over me as I realised the fact that it was impossible I could ever be a cadet. What I had seen on that parade had instilled into me military ambition, and if I had then and there been offered the option of a peerage or of being a gentleman cadet, I am perfectly certain I should have jumped at the chance
