It is very difficult to describe my feelings during this conversation. I had twice been surprised at discovering my ignorance during the past few days, and now I had a surprise in discovering that I was possessed of a skill in drawing which was above the average. I used to amuse myself when at home in drawing on a slate vessels and boats that I had seen when I had gone down to Lymington or Beaulieu, but that there was any great difficulty in drawing such things I had never imagined, or had I the slightest idea that other boys could not do so well—if not better than I did.
I was certainly pleased to find that there was something in which I was not a dunce; and although I was a laughing-stock of the school on account of my ignorance of mathematics and Euclid, I was held up as something unusually clever in drawing.
“Shepard,” said Mr Hostler, “I am glad to find you can do something well, but it’s a pity you have wasted your time in learning only drawing, to the neglect of mathematics. Drawing never passed a boy into the Academy, and it doesn’t count much afterwards. Very well, Mr Walkwell, make a good artist of him, and he’ll then have a profession always ready for him in case he wants it; but I wish, for his sake, he’d some knowledge of Euclid, and less of drawing.”
From that day Mr Walkwell paid great attention to my instruction, and I improved rapidly under his tuition, and after some dozen lessons I was considered the best in the drawing-class.
Chapter Five.
Mr Hostler’s Cram-School.
It was the practice for our school to be taken out for a walk on Sunday mornings, and to go on to the barrack-field at Woolwich, to see the march past previous to the troops going to church. At this march past the splendid band of the Royal Artillery used to play at the head of the regiment, whilst immediately following the band, and heading the regiment, were two companies of gentlemen cadets.
At the church-parade on Sundays the cadets turned out in full-dress, which consisted of white trowsers, a blue tailed coat with red facings, a shako and plume. Such a dress now would look old-fashioned, but to my boyish eyes it seemed in those days the pattern of neatness, and of a soldierlike appearance.