Rattlin the Reefer Part 4

The absolution absolved me not. The "Te Deum laudamus" was to me more a source of tears than of praise; and the "O be joyful in the Lord" has often made me intensely sorrowful in the school-room. In all honesty, I don't think that, for a whole half-year, I once escaped my Sunday flogging. It came as regularly as the baked rice-puddings. I began to look upon the thing as a matter of course; and, if any person should doubt the credibility of this, or any other account of these my school-boy days, happily there are several now living who can vouch for its veracity, and if I am dared to the proof by anyone by whose conviction I should feel honoured, that proof will I most certainly give.

I have stated all this, from what I believe to be a true reverence for wors.h.i.+p, to make the offices of religion a balm and a blessing, to prove that there is a cheris.h.i.+ng warmth in the glory of light that surrounds the throne of Exhaustless Benevolence, and that the Deity cannot be worthily called upon by young hearts stricken by degrading fears, and fainting under a Moloch-inspired dread. Notwithstanding my eccentric life, I have ever been the ardent, the unpretending, though the unworthy adorer of the Great Being, whose highest attribute is the "Good." I have had reason to be so.

The man who has acknowledged his Creator amidst his most stupendous works, who has recognised his voice in the ocean storm, who has confessed his providence amidst the slaughter of battle, and witnessed the awful universality of that adoration that is wafted to Him from all nations, under all forms, from the simple smiting of the breast of the penitent solitary one, to the sublime pealings of the choral hymn, buoyed upon the resounding notes of the thunder-tongued organ in the high and dim cathedral,--the man who has witnessed and acutely felt all this, and has no feelings of piety, or deference to religion, must be endued with a heart hardened beyond the flintiness, as the Scriptures beautifully express it, "of the nether millstone."

But my _forte_ is not the serious. I am intent, and quiet, and thoughtful, only under the influence of great enjoyment. When I have most cause to deem myself blessed, or to call myself triumphant, it is then that I am stricken with a feeling of undesert, that I am grave with humility, or sad with the thought of human instability. But, on the eve of battle, on the yardarm in the tempest, or amidst the dying in the pest-house, say, O ye companions of my youth, whose jest was the most constant, whose laugh the loudest? Yet the one feeling was not real despondence, nor the other real courage. In the first place, it is no more than the soul looking beyond this world for the real; in the second, she is trifling in this world with the ideal. However, as in these pages I intend to attempt to be tolerably gay, it may be fairly presumed that I am very considerably unhappy, and dull, perhaps, as the perusal of these memoirs may make my readers.

As such great pains were _taken_, at least by me, in my religious education, it is not to be wondered at that I should not feel at all sedentary on the Sunday afternoons after church-time. In fact, I affected any position rather than the sitting one. But all the Sundays were not joyless to me. One, in particular, though the former part of it had been pa.s.sed in sickening fear, and the middle in torturing pain, its termination was marked with a heartfelt joyousness, the cause of which I must record as a tribute of grat.i.tude due to one of the "not unwashed," but muddy-minded mult.i.tude.

I was stealing along mournfully under the play-ground wall with no hasty or striding step, not particularly wis.h.i.+ng any rough or close contact of certain parts of my dress with my person, my pa.s.sing schoolmates looking upon me in the manner that Shakespeare so beautifully describes the untouched deer regard the stricken hart. My soul was very heavy, and full of dark wonder. The sun was setting, and, to all living, it is either a time of solemn peace, or of instinctive melancholy when looked upon by the solitary one. Of a sudden I was roused from my gloom by the well-known, yet long missed shout of "Ralph! Ralph!" and, looking up, I discovered the hard-featured, grinning physiognomy of Joe Brandon, actually beaming with pleasure, on the top of the wall. How glad he was! How glad I was! He had found me! Instead of seeking the Lord in his various conventicles on the Sunday, he had employed that day, invariably, after I had been taken from his house, in reconnoitring the different boarding-schools in the vicinity, and at some distance from the metropolis. To this, no doubt, he was greatly instigated by the affection of my nurse, but I give his own heart the credit of its being a labour of love. The wall being too high to permit us to shake hands, at my earnest entreaty, he went round to the front; but, after having made known his desire,--literally, "a pampered menial drove him from the door." Well, the wall, if not open to him, was still before and above him, and he again mounted it. Our words were few, as the boys began to cl.u.s.ter around me. He let drop to me fourpence-halfpenny, folded in a piece of brown paper, and disappeared. Oh, how I prize that pilgrim visit! Forget it, I never can! That meeting was to me a one bright light on my dark and dreary path. It enabled me to go forward; there was not much gloom between me and happier days--perhaps the light of joy that that occurrence shed enabled me to pa.s.s over the trial. It might have been that, at that period, I could have borne no more, and should have sunk under my acc.u.mulated persecutions. I will not say that so it was, for there is an elasticity in early youth that recovers itself against much--yet I was at that time heavy indeed with exceeding hopelessness. All I can say to the sneerer is, I wish, that at the next conclave of personages who may be a.s.sembled to discuss the destinies of nations, there may be as much of the milk of human kindness and right feelings among them as there was between me and the labouring sawyer, Joe Brandon, the one being at the top, and the other at the bottom of the wall.

The next Sunday, Brandon was again on the wall with a prodigious plum-cake. A regular cut-and-come-again affair: it fell to the ground with a heaviness of sound that beat the falling of Corporal Trim's hat all to ribbons. To be sure, the corporal's fell as if there had been a quant.i.ty of "clay kneaded in the crown of it," whilst mine was kneaded with excellent dough. The Sunday after, there was the same appearance, varied with gingerbread, and then--for years, I neither saw, nor heard of him. Poor Joseph was threatened with the constable, and was put to no more expense for cakes for his foster-son.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

PRAY REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER--RUMOURS OF WARS--PRECEDED BY SCHOLASTIC ELOCUTION, AND SUCCEEDED BY A COLD DINNER, DARKNESS, AND DETERMINATION.

I shall now draw the dolorous recital of what I have termed my epoch of despondency to a close. The fifth of November was approaching; I had been at school nearly two years, and had learned little but the hard lesson "to bear," and that I had well studied. I had, as yet, made no friends. Boys are very tyrannical and very generous by fits. They will bully and oppress the outcast of a school, because it is the fas.h.i.+on to bully and oppress him--but they will equally magnify their hero, and are sensitively alive to admiration of feats of daring and wild exploit.

With them, bravery is the first virtue, generosity the second. They crouch under the strong for protection, and they court the lavish from self-interest. In all this they differ from men in nothing but that they act more undisguisedly. Well, the fifth of November was fast approaching, on which I was to commence the enthusiastic epoch of my schoolboy existence. I was now twelve years of age. Almost insensible to bodily pain by frequent magisterial and social thras.h.i.+ngs, tall, strong of my age, reckless, and fearless. The scene of my first exploit was to be amidst the excitement of a "barring out," but of such a "barring out" that the memory of it remains in the vicinity in which it took place to this day.

I have before said that the school contained never less than two hundred and fifty pupils--sometimes it amounted to nearly three hundred. At the time of which I am about to speak, it was very full, containing, among others, many young men. The times are no more when persons of nineteen and twenty suffered themselves to be horsed, and took their one and two dozen with edification and humility. At this age we now cultivate moustaches, talk of our Joe Mantons, send a friend to demand an explanation, and all that sort of thing. Oh! times are much improved!

However, at that period, the birch was no visionary terror. Infliction or expulsion was the alternative! and as the form of government was a despotism--like all despotisms--it was subject, at intervals, to great convulsions. I am going to describe the greatest under the reign of Root the First.

Mr Root was capricious. Sometimes he wore his own handsome head well powdered; at others, curled without powder; at others, straight, without powder or curls. He was churchwarden; and then, when his head was full of his office, it was also full of flour, and full of ideas of his own consequence and infallibility. On a concert night, and in the ball-room, it was curled, and then it was full of amatory conquests; and, as he was captain in the Cavalry Volunteers, on field days his hair was straight and lank--martial ardour gave him no time to attend to the fripperies of the c.o.xcomb. These are but small particulars, but such are very important in the character of a great man. With his hair curled, he was jocular, even playful; with it lank, he was a great disciplinarian--had military subordination strong in respect--and the birch gyrated freely; but when he was full blown in powder, he was unbearable,--there was then combined all the severity of the soldier and the dogmatism of the pedagogue, with the self-sufficiency and domineering nature of the c.o.xcomb and churchwarden.

On the memorable fifth of November, Mr Root appeared in the school-room, with his hair elaborately powdered.

The little boys trembled. Lads by fifteens and twenties wanted to go out under various pretences. The big boys looked very serious and very resolved. It was twelve o'clock, and some thirty or forty--myself always included--were duly flogged, it being "his custom at the hour of noon." When the periodical operation was over, at which there was much spargefication of powder from his whitened head, he commanded silence.

Even the flagellated boys contrived to hush up their sobs, the shuffling of feet ceased, those who had colds refrained from blowing their noses; and, after one boy was flogged for coughing, he thus delivered himself:--

"Young gentlemen, it has been customary--customary it has been, I say-- for you to have permission to make a bonfire in the lower field, and display your fireworks, on this anniversary of the fifth of November.

Little boys, take your dictionaries, and look out for the word 'anniversary.'"

A bustle for the books, while Mr Root plumes himself, and struts up and down. Two boys fight for the same dictionary; one of them gets a plunge on the nose, which makes him cry out--he is immediately horsed, and flogged for speaking; and, rod in hand, Mr Root continues:--

"Young gentlemen, you know my method--my method is well known to you, I say,--to join amus.e.m.e.nt with instruction. Now, young gentlemen, the great conflagration--tenth, ninth, and eighth forms, look out the word 'conflagration'--the great conflagration, I say, made by this pyrotechnic display--seventh, sixth, and fifth forms, turn up the word 'pyrotechnic.' Mr Reynolds (the head cla.s.sical master,) you will particularly oblige me by not taking snuff in that violent way whilst I am speaking, the sniffling is abominable."

"Turn up the word 'sniffling,'" cries a voice from the lower end of the school. A great confusion--the culprit remains undiscovered, and some forty, at two suspected desks, are fined three-halfpence apiece. Mr Root continues, with a good deal of indignation:--"I sha'n't allow the bonfire no more--no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither--no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the acc.u.mulated pile of combustibles, I say--for the combustible pile that you have acc.u.mulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with the pole and tar-barrel, shall be sold, and the money put in the poor-box next Sunday, which I, as one of the churchwardens shall hold at the church-porch; for a charity sermon will, on that day, be preached by the Reverend Father in G.o.d, the Lord Bishop of Bristol. It is our duty, as Christians, to give eleemosynary aid to the poor;--let all cla.s.ses but the first and second look out the word 'eleemosynary.' I say, to the poor eleemosynary aid should be given.

You will also give up all the fire-works that you may have in your play-boxes, for the same laudable purpose. The servant will go round and collect them after dinner. I say, by the servant after dinner they shall all be collected. Moreover, young gentlemen, I have to tell you, that the churchwardens, and the authorities in the town, are determined to put down Guy Faux, and he shall be put down accordingly. So now, young gentlemen, you'd better take your amus.e.m.e.nts before dinner, for you will have no holiday in the afternoon, and I shall not suffer anyone to go out after tea, for fear of mischief." Having thus spoken, he dismissed the school, and strode forth majestically.

Oh, reader! can you conceive the dismay, the indignation, and the rage that the Court of Aldermen would display, if, when sitting down hungrily to a civic feast, they were informed that all the eatables and potatories were carried off by a party headed by Mr Scales? Can you conceive the fury that would burn in the countenances of a whole family of lordly sinecurists, at being informed, upon official authority, that henceforth their salaries would be equal to their services? No, all this you cannot conceive; nor turtle-desiring aldermen, nor cate-fed sinecurists, could, under these their supposed tribulations, have approached, in fury and hate, the meekest-spirited boys of Mr Root's school, when they became fully aware of the extent of the tyrannous robbery about to be perpetrated. Had they not been led on by hope? Had they not trustingly eschewed Banbury-cakes--sidled by longingly the pastrycook's--and piously withstood the temptation of hard-bake, in order that they might save up their pocket-money for this one grand occasion? and even after this, their hopes and their exertions to end in smoke? Would that it were even that; but it was decided that there should be neither fire nor smoke. Infatuated pedagogue! Unhappy decision!

The boys did not make use of the permission to go out to play. They gathered together unanimously, in earnest knots--rebellion stalked on tip-toe from party to party: the little boys looked big, and the big boys looked bigger, and the young men looked magnificent. The half-boarders whispered their fears to the ushers, the ushers spoke under their breaths to the under-masters, the under-masters had cautious conversation with the head Latin, French, and mathematical tutors, and these poured their misgivings into the ears of the awful _Dominus_ himself; but he only shook his powdered head in derision and disdain.

On that cold, foggy fifth of November, we all sat down to a dinner as cold as the day, and with looks as dark as the atmosphere. Amidst the clatter of knives and forks, the rumour already ran from table to table that a horse and cart was just going to remove the enormous pile of combustibles collected for the bonfire. We had good spirits amongst us.

There was an air of calm defiance on a great many. The reason was soon explained, for, before we rose from our repast, huge volumes of red flame rose from the field,--the pile had been fired in twenty places at once, and, at this sight, a simultaneous and irrepressible shout shook the walls of the school-room. The maid-servants who were attending the table, shrieking, each in her peculiar musical note, hurried out in confusion and fear; and there was a rush towards the door by the scholars, and some few got downstairs. However, the masters soon closed the door, and those who had escaped were brought back. The shutters of the windows that looked out upon the fire, were closed; and thus, in the middle of the day, we were reduced to a state almost of twilight.

Every moment expecting actual collision with their pupils, the masters and ushers, about sixteen in number, congregated at the lower end of the room near the door, for the double purpose of supporting each other, and of making a timely escape. The half-suppressed hubbub among three hundred boys, confined in partial darkness, grew stronger each moment; it was like the rumbling beneath the earth, that precedes the earthquake. No one spoke as yet louder than the other--the master-voice had not yet risen. That dulled noise seemed like a far-off humming, and had it not been so intense, and so very human, it might have been compared to the wrath of a myriad of bees confined in the darkness of their hives, with the queen lying dead amongst them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

HARD WORDS THE PRECURSORS OF HARD BLOWS--A TURN-UP, TO BE APPREHENDED, BUT NOT MERELY OF POLYSYLLABLES--RALPH COMMENCES RAVING--ROOT RESISTING--THE LATTER GETS THE WHIP-HAND OF US.

Whilst this commotion was going on in the school-room, Mr Root was active in the field, endeavouring, with the aid of the men-servants, to pluck as much fuel from the burning pile as possible. The attempt was nearly vain. He singed his clothes, and burnt his hands, lost his hat in the excitement and turmoil, and sadly discomposed his powdered ringlets. Advices were brought to him (we must now use the phrase military) of the demonstration made by the young gentlemen in the schoolroom. He hurried with the pitchfork in his hand, which he had been using, and appeared at the entrance of his pandemonium, almost, considering his demoniac look, in character. He made a speech, enforced by thumping the handle of the fork against the floor, which speech, though but little attended to, was marked by one singularity. He did not tell the lads to turn up any of his hard words. However, he hoped that the young gentlemen had yet sense of propriety enough left, to permit the servants to clear the tables of the plates, knives, forks, and other dinner appurtenances. This was acceded to by shouts of "Let them in--let them in." The girls and the two school men-servants came in, one of the latter being the obnoxious hoister, and they were permitted to perform their office in a dead silence. It speaks well for our sense of honour, and respect for the implied conditions of the treaty, when it is remembered that this abhorred Tom, the living instrument of our tortures, and on whose back we had most of us so often writhed, was permitted to go into the darkest corners of the room unmolested, and even uninsulted. When the tables were cleared, then rung out exultingly the shout of "Bar him out--bar him out!"

"I never yet," roared out Mr Root, "was barred out of my own premises, and I never will be!" He was determined to resist manfully, and, if he fell, to fall like Caesar, in the capitol, decorously: so, as togae are not worn in our uncla.s.sical days, he retired to prepare himself for the contention, by getting his head newly powdered, telling his a.s.sistants to keep the position they still held, at all hazards, near the door.

Before I narrate the ensuing struggle--a struggle that will be ever remembered in the town in which it took place, and which will serve anyone that was engaged in it, as long as he lives, to talk of with honest enthusiasm, even if he has been happy enough to have been engaged in real warfare; it is necessary to describe exactly the battle-field.

The school was a parallelogram, bowed at one end, and about the dimensions of a moderately-sized chapel. It was very lofty, and, at the bowed end, which looked into the fields, there were three large windows built very high, and arched after the ecclesiastical fas.h.i.+on. One of the sides had windows similar to those at the end. The school-room was entered from the house by a lobby, up into which lobby, terminated a wide staircase, from the play-ground. The school-room was therefore entered from the lobby by only one large folding door. But over this end there was a capacious orchestra supported by six columns, which orchestra contained a very superb organ. The orchestra might also be entered from the house, but from a floor and a lobby above that which opened into the school-room. Consequently, at the door-end of the school-room, there was a s.p.a.ce formed of about twelve or fourteen feet, with a ceiling much lower than the rest of the building, and which s.p.a.ce was bounded by the six pillars that supported the gallery above. This low s.p.a.ce was occupied by the masters and a.s.sistants--certainly a strong position, as it commanded the only outlet. The whole edifice was built upon rows of stone columns, that permitted the boys a sheltered play-ground beneath the school-room in inclement or rainy weather. The windows being high from the floor within doors, and very high indeed from the ground without, they were but sorry and dangerous means of communication, through which, either to make an escape, or bring in succours or munitions should the siege be turned to a blockade. It was, altogether, a vast, and, when properly fitted up, a superb apartment, and was used for the monthly concerts and the occasional b.a.l.l.s.

Time elapsed. It seemed that we were the party barred in, instead of the master being the party barred out. The ma.s.s of rebellion was as considerable as any Radical could have wished; and, as yet, as disorganised as any Tory commander-in-chief of the forces could have desired. However, Mr Root did not appear; and it having become completely dark, the boys themselves lighted the various lamps. About six or seven o'clock there was a stir among the learned guard at the door, when at length Mr Reynolds, the head cla.s.sical master, having wrapped the silver top of his great horn snuff-box, in a speech, mingled, very appropriately, with Latin and Greek quotations, wished to know what it was precisely that the young gentlemen desired, and he was answered by fifty voices at once, "Leave to go into the fields, and let off the fireworks."

After a pause, a message was brought that this could not be granted; but, upon the rest of the school going quietly to bed, permission would be given to all the young gentlemen above fifteen years of age to go down to the town until eleven o'clock. The proposal was refused with outcries of indignation. We now had many leaders, and the shouts "Force the door!" became really dreadful. Gradually the lesser boys gave back, and the young men formed a dense front line, facing the sixteen masters, whose position was fortified by the pillars supporting the orchestra, and whose rear was strengthened by the servants of the household. As yet, the scholars stood with nothing offensive in their hands, and with their arms folded in desperate quietude. At last, there was a voice a good way in the _rear_, which accounts for the bravery of the owner, that shouted, "Why don't you rally, and force the door?" Here Monsieur Moineau, a French emigre, and our Gallic tutor, cried out l.u.s.tily, "You shall force that door, never--_jamais, jamais_--my pretty _garcons, mes chers pupils_, be good, be quiet--go you couch yourselves--les _feux d'artifice_! bah! they worth noding at all--you go to bed. Ah, ah, _demain_--all have _conge_--one two, half-holiday--but you force this door--_par ma foi, e--jamais_--you go out, one, two, three, _four_--go over dis _corps_, of Antoine Auguste Moineau."

We gave the brave fellow a hearty cheer for his loyalty; and, I have no doubt, had he he been allowed to remain, he would have been trampled to death on his post. He had lost his rank, his fortune, everything but his self-respect, in the quarrel of his king, who had just fallen on the scaffold; he had a great respect for const.i.tuted authority, and was sadly grieved at being obliged to honour heroism in spite of himself, when arrayed against it.

Let us pause over these proceedings, and return to myself. As the rebellion increased, I seemed to be receiving the elements of a new life. My limbs trembled, but it was with a fierce joy. I ran hither and thither exultingly--I pushed aside boys three or four years older than myself--I gnashed my teeth, I stamped, I clenched my hands,--I wished to harangue, but I could not find utterance, for the very excess of thoughts. At that moment I would not be put down; I grinned defiance in the face of my late scorners; I was drunk with the exciting draught of contention. The timid gave me their fireworks, the brave applauded my resolution, and, as I went from one party to another, exhorting more by gesture than by speech, I was at length rewarded by hearing the approving shout of "Go it, Ralph Rattlin!"

I am not fearful of dwelling too much upon the affair. It must be interesting to those amiabilities called the "rising generation," the more especially as a "barring out" is now become matter of history.

Alas! we shall never go back to the good old times in that respect, notwithstanding we are again snugly grumbling under a Whig government.

Let us place at least one "barring out" upon record, in order to let the Radicals see, and seeing, hope, when they find how nearly extremes meet--what a slight step there is from absolute despotism to absolute disorganisation.

Things were in this state, the boys encouraging each other, when, to our astonishment, Mr Root, newly-powdered, and attended by two friends, his neighbours, made his appearance in the orchestra, and incontinently began a speech. I was then too excited to attend to it; indeed, it was scarcely heard for revilings and shoutings. However, I could contain myself no longer, and I, even I, though far from being in the first rank, shouted forth, "Let us out, or we will set fire to the school-room, and, if we are burnt, you will be hung for murder." Yes, I said those words--I, who now actually start at my own shadow--I, who when I see a stalwart, whiskered and moustached fellow coming forward to meet me, modestly pop over on the other side--I, who was in a fit of the trembles the whole year of the comet!

"G.o.d bless me," said Mr Root, "it is that vagabond Rattlin! I flogged the little incorrigible but eight hours ago, and now he talks about burning my house down. There's grat.i.tude for you! But I'll put a stop to this at once--young gentlemen, I'll put a stop to this at once! I'm coming down among you to seize the ringleaders, and that good-for-nothing Rattlin. Ah! the monitors, and the heads of all the cla.s.ses shall be flogged; the rest shall be forgiven, if they will go quietly to bed, and give up all their fireworks." Having so said, he descended from above with his friends, and, in about a quarter of an hour afterwards, armed with a tremendous whip, he appeared among his satellites below.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

MUCH EXCELLENT, AND CONSEQUENTLY USELESS, DIPLOMACY DISPLAYED--A TRUCE, AND MANY HEADS BROKEN--THE BATTLE RAGES; AND, AT LENGTH, THE PUERILES ACHIEVE THE VICTORY.

The reader must not suppose that, while masters and scholars were ranged against each other as antagonists, they were quiet as statues. There was much said on both sides, reasonings, entreaties, expostulations, and even jocularity pa.s.sed, between the adverse, but yet quiescent ranks.

In this wordy warfare the boys had the best of it, and I'm sure the ushers had no stomach for the fray--if they fought, they must fight, in some measure, with their hands tied; for their own judgment told them that they could not be justified in inflicting upon their opponents any desperate wounds. In fact, considering all the circ.u.mstances, though they a.s.severated that the boys were terribly in the wrong, they could not say that Mr Root was conspicuously in the right.

When Mr Root got among his myrmidons, he resolutely cried, "Gentlemen a.s.sistants, advance, and seize Master Atkinson, Master Brewster, Master Davenant, and especially Master Rattlin;" the said Master Rattlin having very officiously wriggled himself into the first rank. Such is the sanct.i.ty of established authority, that we actually gave back, with serried files however, as our opponents advanced. All had now been lost, even our honour, had it not been for the gallant conduct of young Henry Saint Albans, a natural son of the Duke of Y---, who was destined for the army, and, at that time, studying fortification, and to some purpose--for, immediately behind our front ranks, and while Mr Root was haranguing and advancing, Saint Albans had arranged the desks quite across the room, in two tiers, one above the other; the upper tier with their legs in the air, no bad subst.i.tute for chevaux-de-frise. In fact, this manoeuvre was an antic.i.p.ation of the barricades of Paris. When the boys came to the obstacle, they made no difficulty of creeping under or jumping over it; but for the magisterial Mr Root, fully powdered; or the cla.s.sical master, full of Greek; or the mathematical master, conscious of much Algebra, to creep under these desks, would have been infra dig, and for them to have leapt over was impossible. The younger a.s.sistants might certainly have performed the feat, but they would have been but scurvily treated for their trouble, on the wrong side of the barricade.

When two antagonist bodies cannot fight, it is no bad pastime to parley.

Saint Albans was simultaneously and unanimously voted leader, though we had many older than he, for he was but eighteen. A glorious youth was that Saint Albans! Accomplished, generous, brave, handsome, as are all his race, and of the most bland and sunny manners that ever won woman's love, or softened man's asperity. He died young--where? Where should he have died, since this world was deemed by Providence not deserving of him, but amidst the enemies of his country, her banners waving victoriously above, and her enemies flying before, his bleeding body?

Henry now stood forward as our leader and spokesman: eloquently did he descant upon all our grievances, not forgetting mouldy bread, caggy mutton, and hebdomadal meat pies. He represented to Mr Root the little honour that he would gain in the contest, and the certain loss--the damage to his property and to his reputation--the loss of scholars, and of profit; and he begged him to remember that every play-box in the school-room was filled with fireworks, and that they were all determined,--and sorry he was in this case to be obliged to uphold such a determination,--they were one and all resolved, if permission were not given, to let off the fireworks out of doors, they would in--the consequences be on Mr Root's head. His speech was concluded amidst continued "Bravos!" and shouts of "Now, now!"

Old Reynolds, our cla.s.sic, quietly stood by, and taking snuff by handfuls, requested, nay, entreated Mr Root to pa.s.s it all off as a joke, and let the boys, with due restrictions, have their will. Mr Root, with a queer attempt at looking pleasant, then said, "He began to enter into the spirit of the thing--it was well got up--there could be really nothing disrespectful meant, since Mr Henry Saint Albans was a party to it (be it known that Henry was an especial favourite), and that he was inclined to humour them, and look upon the school in the light of a fortress about to capitulate. He therefore would receive a flag of truce, and listen to proposals."