Short Fiction M. R. James (good book recommendations TXT) đ
- Author: M. R. James
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âFrom the way in which you said that, I gather that you have.â
âI really donât know; but this is what was in my mind. It happened at my private school thirty odd years ago, and I havenât any explanation of it.
âThe school I mean was near London. It was established in a large and fairly old houseâ âa great white building with very fine grounds about it; there were large cedars in the garden, as there are in so many of the older gardens in the Thames valley, and ancient elms in the three or four fields which we used for our games. I think probably it was quite an attractive place, but boys seldom allow that their schools possess any tolerable features.
âI came to the school in a September, soon after the year 1870; and among the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland boy, whom I will call McLeod. I neednât spend time in describing him: the main thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy in any wayâ ânot particularly good at books or gamesâ âbut he suited me.
âThe school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boys there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and there were rather frequent changes among them.
âOne termâ âperhaps it was my third or fourthâ âa new master made his appearance. His name was Sampson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale, black-bearded man. I think we liked him: he had travelled a good deal, and had stories which amused us on our school walks, so that there was some competition among us to get within earshot of him. I remember tooâ âdear me, I have hardly thought of it since then!â âthat he had a charm on his watch-chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it. It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin; there was an effigy of some absurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth, and he had had cut on itâ ârather barbarouslyâ âhis own initials, G. W. S., and a date, 24 July, 1865. Yes, I can see it now: he told me he had picked it up in Constantinople: it was about the size of a florin, perhaps rather smaller.
âWell, the first odd thing that happened was this. Sampson was doing Latin grammar with us. One of his favourite methodsâ âperhaps it is rather a good oneâ âwas to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to illustrate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Of course that is a thing which gives a silly boy a chance of being impertinent: there are lots of school stories in which that happensâ âor anyhow there might be. But Sampson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on with him. Now, on this occasion he was telling us how to express remembering in Latin: and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb memini, âI remember.â Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence such as âI remember my father,â or âHe remembers his book,â or something equally uninteresting: and I dare say a good many put down memino librum meum, and so forth: but the boy I mentionedâ âMcLeodâ âwas evidently thinking of something more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have our sentences passed, and get on to something else, so some kicked him under the desk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look sharp. But he didnât seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had put down nothing at all. So I jogged him again harder than before and upbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect. He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a couple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was the last, or nearly the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to say to the boys who had written meminiscimus patri meo and the rest of it, it turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and McLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was nothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come. He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been some sort of trouble. âWell,â I said, âwhat did you get?â âOh, I donât know,â said McLeod, ânothing much: but I think Sampsonâs rather sick with me.â âWhy, did you show him up some rot?â âNo fear,â he said. âIt was all right as far as I could see: it was like this: Mementoâ âthatâs right enough for remember, and it takes a genitiveâ âmemento putei inter quatuor taxos.â âWhat silly rot!â I said. âWhat made you shove that down? What does it mean?â âThatâs the funny part,â said McLeod. âIâm not quite sure what it does mean. All I know is, it just came into my head and I corked it down. I know what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sort of picture of it in my head: I believe it means âRemember the well among the fourââ âwhat are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?â âMountain ashes, I sâpose you mean.â âI never heard of them,â said McLeod; âno, Iâll tell youâ âyews.â âWell, and what did Sampson say?â âWhy, he was jolly odd about it. When he read it he got up and went to the mantelpiece and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me. And then
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