The Golden Scarecrow | Page 2

had, however, during these years at Mr.
Lasher's, this great over mastering ambition.
In his sleep, at any rate, he was a hero; in the wide-awake world he was,
in the opinion of almost every one, a fool. He was exactly the type of
boy whom the Rev. William Lasher could least easily understand. Mr.
Lasher was tall and thin (his knees often cracked with a terrifying
noise), blue-black about the cheeks hooked as to the nose, bald and
shining as to the head, genial as to the manner, and practical to the
shining tips of his fingers. He has not, at Cambridge, obtained a rowing
blue, but "had it not been for a most unfortunate attack of scarlet
fever-----" He was President of the Clinton St. Mary Cricket Club, 1890
(matches played, six; lost, five; drawn, one) knew how to slash the ball
across the net at a tennis garden party, always read the prayers in
church as though he were imploring God to keep a straighter bat and
improve His cut to leg, and had a passion for knocking nails into walls,
screwing locks into doors, and making chicken runs. He was, he often
thanked his stars, a practical Realist, and his wife, who was fat, stupid,
and in a state of perpetual wonder, used to say of him, "If Will hadn't
been a clergyman he would have made such an engineer. If God had
blessed us with a boy, I'm sure he would have been something
scientific. Will's no dreamer." Mr. Lasher was kindly of heart so long
as you allowed him to maintain that the world was made for one type of
humanity only. He was as breezy as a west wind, loved to bathe in the
garden pond on Christmas Day ("had to break the ice that morning"),
and at penny readings at the village schoolroom would read extracts
from "Pickwick," and would laugh so heartily himself that he would
have to stop and wipe his eyes. "If you must read novels," he would say,
"read Dickens. Nothing to offend the youngest among us--fine breezy

stuff with an optimism that does you good and people you get to know
and be fond of. By Jove, I can still cry over Little Nell and am not
ashamed of it."
He had the heartiest contempt for "wasters" and "failures," and he was
afraid there were a great many in the world. "Give me a man who is a
man," he would say, "a man who can hit a ball for six, run ten miles
before breakfast and take his knocks with the best of them. Wasn't it
Browning who said,
"'God's in His heaven, All's right with the world.'
Browning was a great teacher--after Tennyson, one of our greatest.
Where are such men to-day!"
He was, therefore, in spite of his love for outdoor pursuits, a cultured
man.
It was natural, perhaps, that he should find Hugh Seymour "a pity."
Nearly everything that he said about Hugh Seymour began with the
words----
"It's a pity that----"
"It's a pity that you can't get some red into your cheeks, my boy."
"It's a pity you don't care about porridge. You must learn to like it."
"It's a pity you can't even make a little progress with your
mathematics."
"It's a pity you told me a lie because----"
"It's a pity you were rude to Mrs. Lasher. No gentleman----"
"It's a pity you weren't attending when----"
Mr. Lasher was, very earnestly, determined to do his best for the boy,
and, as he said, "You see, Hugh, if we do our best for you, you must do

your best for us. Now I can't, I'm afraid, call this your best."
Hugh would have liked to say that it was the best that he could do in
that particular direction (very probably Euclid), but if only he might be
allowed to try his hand in quite another direction, he might do
something very fine indeed. He never, of course, had a chance of
saying this, nor would such a declaration have greatly benefited him,
because, for Mr. Lasher, there was only one way for every one and the
sooner (if you were a small boy) you followed it the better.
"Don't dream, Hugh," said Mr. Lasher, "remember that no man ever did
good-work by dreaming. The goal is to the strong. Remember that."
Hugh, did remember it and would have liked very much to be as strong
as possible, but whenever he tried feats of strength he failed and looked
foolish.
"My dear boy, _that's_ not the way to do it," said Mr. Lasher; "it's a
pity that you don't listen to what I tell you."
II
A very remarkable fact about Mr. Lasher was this--that he paid no
attention whatever to the