S my bodily strength increased, I became, out of school, the leader in all sports and mischief; but, in school, I was in the lowest class. I was determined not to apply to learning, and to defy punishment. Indeed I do not recollect that any of the boys acquired useful knowledge there. When satisfied with the ascendancy I had gained over my schoolfellows, I turned my whole thoughts to the possibility of revenging myself on the master. I first tried my hand on his under-strapper. Having formed a party of the most daring of my myrmidons, I planned and executed a castigation for our tutor. Once a week we were refreshed by long country-walks; in the course of one of these the tutor sat down to rest himself; the boys, not acquainted with the plot, were busy gathering nuts; my chosen band loitered near, preparing rods; when I, backed by three of the strongest, fell suddenly upon our enemy. I got my hand round his dirty cravat, which I continued twisting; the others seized his arms and legs, and threw him on his back. A halloo brought six or seven more. He several times nearly succeeded in shaking us off; but I never resigned my hold, and when his struggles had driven away one boy, another took his place; till, completely overcome, he entreated us, as well as he could articulate, to have mercy, and not to strangle him. I griped him the tighter, till the sweat dropped from his brow like rain from the eaves of a pig's-sty. then gave him a sample of flogging he could never forget. The upshot of this is told in a few words. On my return to school, our pastor and master, (for he was clerical,) began to have an inkling of what I and his pupils were capable. The We dreadful narrative which the usher gave of my violence awakened a dread that the sacredness of his vocation, and sacerdotal robes, had been alone respected by our despair of successful opposition; that having once tasted of the sweets of victory, we might be presumptuous enough flatly to refuse obedience to his commands: that my influence and example encouraged others, and that he would daily lose ground in his authority. This castigation of the usher astonished him. He opened his eyes to the necessity of using more decisive steps, and of making an example of me, before I was so hardened in my audacity, as perhaps to attempt or execute some plot against him. His caution came too late. He called me to him, standing three steps above me on a raised platform. The boys, like young horses, when they learn their power, were unruly. I stood not as I had done, drooping before his angry glances, but upright, and full of confidence, looking him in the face without quailing. He accused me-I pleaded my justification—he grew angry-my blood mounted to my forehead-he struck me-and I, with one sudden exertion, seized him by the legs, when he fell heavily on the back of his head. The usher, writing-master, and others, came to his aid; but all the boys sat silent and exulting, awaiting the result in wonder.. I, unwilling to be seized by the usher, who, between fear of the boys and duty to his employer, stood irresolute, rushed out of the school-room into the garden, and there was I in triumph. I resolved that nothing should or could compel me to continue in the school, which determination I should long before have made, but from awe of my father's dreadful severity. I had borne two years of such suffering as few could have sustained; nature could endure no more. I was now desperate, and therefore without hope or fear. I received a message, by one of the servants, to go into the house. After some hesitation I went. I was confined in a bed-room by myself, and at supper-time bread and water was brought-spare diet certainly,. but not much worse than the usual fare. I saw no one but the servant. Next day the same solitude-the same spare diet. At night a bit of candle was left to light me to bed; I know not what impelled me, I suppose the hope of release, not revenge-I set fire to the bed-curtains. The bed was in a 39 bright flame, the smoke arose in clouds: without a thought of escape I viewed their progress with boyish delight; the wainscot and wood-work were beginning to burn, the fire crackling up the walls, while I could hardly breathe for smoke. The servant returned for the candle, and as the door opened the I cried out, "Look here, draught augmented the flame. George, I have lighted a fire myself, you said I should have The man's shrieks gave the none, though it was so cold." alarm. There was little furniture in this condemned hold, and the fire was extinguished. I was removed to another room, where a man sat up all night with me in custody; and I remember I exulted in the dread they all had of me. They called it arson, treason, and blasphemy-these accusations made some impression, because I was ignorant of their meaning. I did not see my reverend preceptor-perhaps his head ached; nor was I permitted to see any of my comrades,—the latter pained me; nay, I was not permitted to see my brother, lest I should infect him. The next morning I was despatched home under a guard. My father was-O happy chance !-absent. An unexpected He and considerable fortune had been bequeathed to him. returned, and, either softened by his good luck, or from good policy, he never opened his lips to me on the subject. But he said to my mother, "You seem to have influence over your If I give him up. you can induce him to act rationally, be it so; if not, he must find another home." I was then about eleven years old. son. To give an idea of the progress I made at this birchen school, my father, one day after dinner, conversing with my mother on the monstrous price of learning, and hinting that a parish-school in the village, to which he was compelled to contribute, would have done as well, said, turning to me, "Come, Sir, what have you learnt?" "Learnt!" I ejaculated, speaking in a hesitating voice, for my mind misgave me as to what was to follow. "Is that the way to address me? Speak out, you dunce! and say, Sir! Do you take me for a foot-boy?" raising his voice to a roar, which utterly drove out of my head what little the school-master had, with incredible toil and punishment, "What do you know in Latin?" "Latin, Sir? I don't know Latin, Sir!" "Not Latin, you idiot! nothing but Latin." "Yes, Sir;-cyphering." Why, I thought they taught "Well, how far did you proceed in arithmetic?" "No, Sir!-they taught me cyphering and writing." My father looked grave. "Can you work the rule of three, you dunce?" "Rule of three, Sir!" "Do you know subtraction? Come, you blockhead, answer me! Can you tell me, if five are taken from fifteen, how many remain ?" "Five and fifteen, Sir, are-" counting on my fingers, but missing my thumb, "are-are-nineteen, Sir!" "What! you incorrigible fool!—Can you repeat your multiplication table?" "What table, Sir?" Then turning to my mother, he said: "Your son is a downright idiot, Madam,-perhaps knows not his own name. Write your name, you dolt! 66 Write, Sir! I can't write with that pen, Sir; it is not my "Spell, Sir?" I was so confounded that I misplaced the vowels. He arose in wrath, overturned the table, and bruised his shins in attempting to kick me, as I dodged him, and rushed out of the room. CHAPTER V. Oh, gold! why call we misers miserable? And scorn his temperate board, as none at all, Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring. BYRON. Y father, notwithstanding his increased fortune, did not increase his expenditure; nay, he established, if possible a stricter system of economy. He had experienced greater enjoyment in the accumulation of wealth than in the pleasures of social life. The only symptom he ever shewed of imagination, was in castle-building; but his fabrications were founded on a more solid basis than is usually to be met with among the visions of day-dreamers. No unreal mockery of fairy scenes of bliss found a resting-place in his bosom. Ingots, money, lands, houses and tenements, constituted his dreams. He became a mighty arithmetician, by the aid of a ready reckoner, his pocket companion; he set down to a fraction, the sterling value of all his, and his wife's relations, the heirs at law, their nearest of kin, their ages, and the state of their constitutions. The insurance-table was examined to calculate the value of their lives; to this he added the probable chances arising from diseases, hereditary and acquired, always forgetting his own gout. He then determined to regulate his conduct accordingly; to maintain the most friendly intercourse with his wealthy connections, and to keep aloof from poor ones. Having no occasion to borrow, his aversion to lending amounted to antipathy. All his discourses, with those whom he suspected to be needy, were interlarded with the wise sayings of the prudent and niggardly; and the distrust and horror he expressed at the slightest allusion to loans, unbacked by security and interest, had the effect of making the most impudent and adventurous desist from essaying him, and continue in their necessities, or beg, or rob, |