The Research Magnificent | Page 6

combination of apparently stout heart and manifestly weak stomach had exercised
the Minchinghampton intelligence profoundly.
On one or two other occasions Benham had shown courage of the same rather
screwed-up sort. He showed it not only in physical but in mental things. A boy named
Prothero set a fashion of religious discussion in the school, and Benham, after some
self-examination, professed an atheistical republicanism rather in the manner of Shelley.
This brought him into open conflict with Roddles, the History Master. Roddles had
discovered these theological controversies in some mysterious way, and he took upon
himself to talk at Benham and Prothero. He treated them to the common misapplication
of that fool who "hath said in his heart there is no God." He did not perceive there was
any difference between the fool who says a thing in his heart and one who says it in the
dormitory. He revived that delectable anecdote of the Eton boy who professed disbelief
and was at once "soundly flogged" by his head master. "Years afterwards that boy came
back to thank ----"
"Gurr," said Prothero softly. "STEW--ard!"
"Your turn next, Benham," whispered an orthodox controversialist.
"Good Lord! I'd like to see him," said Benham with a forced loudness that could scarcely
be ignored.
The subsequent controversy led to an interview with the head. From it Benham emerged
more whitely strung up than ever. "He said he would certainly swish me if I deserved it,
and I said I would certainly kill him if he did."
"And then?"
"He told me to go away and think it over. Said he would preach about it next Sunday. . . .
Well, a swishing isn't a likely thing anyhow. But I would. . . . There isn't a master here I'd
stand a thrashing from--not one. . . . And because I choose to say what I think! . . . I'd run
amuck."
For a week or so the school was exhilarated by a vain and ill- concealed hope that the
head might try it just to see if Benham would. It was tantalizingly within the bounds of
possibility. . . .
These incidents came back to White's mind as he turned over the newspapers in the upper
drawer of the bureau. The drawer was labelled "Fear--the First Limitation," and the
material in it was evidently designed for the opening volume of the great unfinished book.
Indeed, a portion of it was already arranged and written up.
As White read through this manuscript he was reminded of a score of schoolboy

discussions Benham and he and Prothero had had together. Here was the same old
toughness of mind, a kind of intellectual hardihood, that had sometimes shocked his
schoolfellows. Benham had been one of those boys who do not originate ideas very freely,
but who go out to them with a fierce sincerity. He believed and disbelieved with
emphasis. Prothero had first set him doubting, but it was Benham's own temperament
took him on to denial. His youthful atheism had been a matter for secret consternation in
White. White did not believe very much in God even then, but this positive disbelieving
frightened him. It was going too far. There had been a terrible moment in the dormitory,
during a thunderstorm, a thunderstorm so vehement that it had awakened them all, when
Latham, the humourist and a quietly devout boy, had suddenly challenged Benham to
deny his Maker.
"NOW say you don't believe in God?"
Benham sat up in bed and repeated his negative faith, while little Hopkins, the Bishop's
son, being less certain about the accuracy of Providence than His aim, edged as far as he
could away from Benham's cubicle and rolled his head in his bedclothes.
"And anyhow," said Benham, when it was clear that he was not to be struck dead
forthwith, "you show a poor idea of your God to think he'd kill a schoolboy for honest
doubt. Even old Roddles--"
"I can't listen to you," cried Latham the humourist, "I can't listen to you.
It's--HORRIBLE."
"Well, who began it?" asked Benham.
A flash of lightning lit the dormitory and showed him to White white-faced and ablaze
with excitement, sitting up with the bed- clothes about him. "Oh WOW!" wailed the
muffled voice of little Hopkins as the thunder burst like a giant pistol overhead, and he
buried his head still deeper in the bedclothes and gave way to unappeasable grief.
Latham's voice came out of the darkness. "This ATHEISM that you and Billy Prothero
have brought into the school--"
He started violently at another vivid flash, and every one remained silent, waiting for the
thunder. . . .
But White remembered no more of the controversy because he had made a frightful
discovery that filled and blocked his mind. Every