Mercer did not say any more just then, and I seemed to glide back into the cottage, where Mrs Roff was frying eel in a pan over the fire, and just as they had asked me to supper, and I was taking my place, a big bell began to ring, and Mercer shouted,—
“Now, Burr junior, time to get up.”
I started and looked round, to see that the sunshine was flooding the room, and that the occupants of the other beds were sitting up grinding their knuckles into their eyes, and yawning as if in chorus.
Chapter Six.
We were none the worse for our adventure at the pond, and I very soon settled down to my school life, finding it, as life is, a mixture of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, all just as intense to the boy fifty or sixty years ago as it is now that schools are conducted upon very different principles, and a much higher grade of education is taught.
Perhaps a great deal of the teaching at Meade Place would be looked upon now as lax; but in those days the Doctor’s school bore a very high character for the boys it had turned out, many of whom had gone into the East India Company’s Service, and the principal drawing-room was decorated with presents sent to him by old pupils, Indian jars and cabinets, brass lotahs and trays, specimens of weapons from Delhi, and ivory carvings; while from pupils who had gone to China and Japan, came bronzes, porcelain, screens, and lacquer of the most beautiful kind.
Neither were the ladies forgotten, Mrs Browne and her daughters being well furnished with Indian scarves, muslin, and Canton crape shawls.
It was, of course, on account of his connection with so many officers that my uncle had chosen this school as the one most likely to prepare me for my future career.