Free Portrait of Elmbury by John Moore Page B

reading Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
and Cæsar’s
De Bello Gallico
, which I knew practically by heart; so I decided to do no work until the tasks set for preparation became more interesting.
    Unfortunately Mr. Chorlton, who had instilled into me a love of the classics, had also communicated to me his own contempt for mathematics; so I decided to give up all mathetical studies also. I remained in the same form, called Upper Shell B, for three years, which was a record for the school.
    But when I was not engaged in avoiding work or in escaping the consequences of having done none (exercises which required more application and ingenuity than I should have expended on the work itself) I read everything I could lay hands on, from Kipling to Shelley, from Surtees to Keats. I read all the plays of Shakespeare, including
Timon of Athens
; the poetry of Meredith and the prose of Thomas Love Peacock; the whole of
Man and Superman
, and
Tristram Shandy
four times. I even read
The Golden Asse
; it was discovered in my desk and confiscated as “indecent literature.” Two Elephant-hawk caterpillars, and a lot of Burnet moth cocoons, were also found in the desk and confiscated at the same time.
    I became a kind of anarchist. On O.T.C. field days I deserted, hid in trees, and looked for birds’ nests. I refused to play football, and went fishing for perch in a farmer’s pond instead. As a punishment I was sent for long runs; this pleased me, because instead of running I concealed myself in a chalk quarry and looked for fossils. In form I never even attempted to solve the problems of Euclid, but instead decorated the foolscap sheet with maps of Elmbury, its confluent streams and rivers, itsrabbit-warren back-streets, its roads and lanes which led to a dozen delightful villages, all infallibly drawn from memory. And on another sheet I made a calendar of all the dreary days, and blacked them out one by one, and counted daily the remainder, until the holidays came round again.
    Release from this anarchic and unhappy existence came unexpectedly before I was seventeen. My uncle was old and likely soon to retire; his promising sons had been killed in the war; the “family tradition” would be broken unless I joined the firm. It was suggested to me that if I liked to go into his office I could leave school at once. I wasn’t enthusiastic about the office; but I passionately hated school, and I left it immediately, unregretful and unregretted.
The Facts of Life
    During my last summer holidays a second attempt was made to teach me the Facts of Life. The vicar, who was still borrowing wildly in order that he might be still more wildly generous, presented me with three expensive books and a spinning-reel and unexpectedly asked me to go fishing with him. This surprised me, for I didn’t know he was an angler; and I didn’t want to go, because it was the day of Elmbury Mop Fair. This was Elmbury’s annual saturnalia, roundabouts were set up in the streets, and stalls which sold sticky gingerbread, and booths where you could have your fortune told, or see the Fattest Woman in the World, and the Hairiest, and the smallest Pigmy, and the Web-footed Man, and the Nameless Delights of Paris. I should have liked to have spent the afternoon at the Fair, visiting these marvels and shying at coconuts; but it would be impolite to refuse the parson’s invitation, so I rigged him up a rod, dug some worms, and we set out. It was soon apparent that the man had never fished before; because he could not bring himself to impale his worm, and I had to do it for him. We sat in silence and watched our motionless floats. It began to rain. He cleared his throat. I had a terrible premonition that he was going toask me if I knew the Facts of Life; and sure enough a moment later he began:
    â€œForgive me asking, dear boy … but your father being dead … as a great friend of your mother … and your parish priest … I