In such a siege there was but little scope for deeds of individual gallantry. It was a long monotony of hardship and suffering, nobly endured, and terminating in one of the greatest triumphs ever recorded in the long roll of British victories.
G. A. Henty.
[Chapter 1]: "Something Like An Adventure."
Had Mr. Tulloch, the headmaster and proprietor of a large school at Putney, been asked which was the most troublesome boy in his school, he would probably have replied, without hesitation, "Bob Repton."
But, being a just and fair-minded man, he would have hastened to qualify this remark, by adding:
"Most troublesome, but by no means the worst boy. You must understand that. He is always in scrapes, always in mischief. In all my experience I have never before come across a boy who had such an aptitude for getting into trouble; but I have nothing else to say against him. He is straightforward and manly. I have never known him to tell a lie, to screen himself. He is an example to many others in that way. I like the boy, in spite of the endless trouble he gives, and yet there is scarcely a day passes that I am not obliged to cane him; and even that does him no good, as far as I can see, for he seems to forget it, five minutes after it is over. I wonder, sometimes, if he has really got hardened, and doesn't feel it.
"He is sharp, and does his lessons well. I have no difficulty with him, on that score; but he is a perfect imp of mischief."
With such characteristics, it need hardly be said that Bob Repton was one of the most popular boys at Tulloch's school.
School life was, in those days--for it was in August, 1778, that Bob was at Tulloch's--a very different thing to what it is, at present. Learning was thrashed into boys. It was supposed that it could only be instilled in this manner; and although some masters were, of course, more tyrannical and brutal than others, the cane was everywhere in use, and that frequently. Lads, then, had far less liberty and fewer sports than at present; but as boys' spirits cannot be altogether suppressed, even by the use of the cane, they found vent in other ways, and there was much more mischief, and more breaking out of bounds, than now take place. Boys were less trusted, and more harshly treated; in consequence of which there was a kind of warfare between the masters and the boys, in which the masters, in spite of their canes, did not always get the best of it.
Bob Repton was nearly fifteen. He was short, rather than tall for his age, but squarely built and strong. His hair could never be got to lie down, but bristled aggressively over his head. His nose was inclined to turn up, his gray eyes had a merry, mischievous expression, and his lips were generally parted in a smile. A casual observer would have said that he was a happy-go-lucky, merry, impudent-looking lad; but he was more than this. He was shrewd, intelligent, and exceptionally plucky; always ready to do a good turn to others, and to take more than his fair share of blame, for every scrape he got into. He had fought many battles, and that with boys older than himself, but he had never been beaten. The opinion, generally, among the boys was that he did not feel pain and, being caned so frequently, such punishment as he got in a fight was a mere trifle to him.