“Well, sir,” said the old man, smiling, as we met at the appointed spot about one o’clock, “now for Hawkshead school! I hope you have brought all your stock of patience with you, and no appetite for any thing beyond my little adventures on my first appearance under the frown of a schoolmaster.”
“Speaking of appetites,” said I, interrupting him, “and seeing what I now see before me, reminds me of a good joke against myself, which took place when I first knew Manchester. I was standing upon this bridge, (or rather its predecessor the old bridge, for the Victoria was not then built,) at this hour of the day, when suddenly I saw a rush of men, women, and children upon it, from the Manchester side, which astonished me not a little. I should think there could not be fewer than three or four hundred of them: all posting along at a great pace, with a good deal of anxiety and determination written on their countenances; and, though they said not a word to each other, with evidently one common object in view. They were rather shabbily dressed, and clearly belonged to one class of society. The imagination immediately conjured up various startling reasons for this unexpected concourse, such as a fire, a fight, or a radical meeting. Seeing one solitary individual who was standing still, like myself, to let the crowd pass by, and whose countenance seemed to express that he was quite aware of the cause of this irruption into Salford, I could not resist the temptation of speaking to him, and said—‘My good friend, where are all these people going to!’ ‘To their dinners,’ said he, quietly and with a grin on his face, that made me ashamed of my ignorance, and which raises a smile on my cheek every time I see the same sight, which any man may do who stands here at one o’clock in the day, and sees the workmen of Manchester hasten home to their dinners in Salford.”
“Many a marvellous story,” said the old man, “has arisen out of a much less plausible foundation.
“Well, sir, to my tale.—There stood I, an anxious and trembling little boy, for the first time in my life at the door of a school. What a large and awful place I thought it! The very outside frightened me almost beyond endurance, and then, I thought, what is going on within! My fears were more than realized on entrance; for the first thing that caught my eye was the head master himself,—old Bowman, sitting in awful state at the head of the school, with a great buzz wig on his head, and a most formidable ferula lying on the desk before him. The old oak benches, cut and carved with names, some of which, insignificant as they then were, are now recorded in the history of our country, seemed formidable in my eyes, as compared with the smaller articles of the same kind in my own home; and the sight of so many boys all gathered together, and all busy at their own occupations, made my poor little head almost spin round in confusion. I and my companions were, of course, as new comers, placed on the lowest form, and had to wait our turn to be called upon by the master of the lower school. During that time I had leisure to look around me, which I did with fear and trembling. At the head of the school, next to the master, sat Joshua Prince, of whom I had often heard as the first boy in the school, and a great favourite with the master. With what a feeling of admiration did I regard him! He was the son of a miller in the neighbourhood; but having shown great talents in early life, his parents determined to give him a good education and send him to college, in hopes that he might hereafter rise to eminence and distinction. Nor did he disappoint their expectations. He carried off the highest honours of his university, and is now one of the proudest boasts of Hawkshead school—thanks to good old archbishop Sandys for having built and endowed it! I don’t know how it is, sir, but I am as proud of Joshua Prince, and my old school, as if I had succeeded like Joshua in the world, instead of being what I am! Well, at last we were called up; and never shall I forget the anxiety of that moment! Of course, I was at the bottom of my class, and some boys much older and bigger than myself were at the top. But I now found the advantage of my good mother’s early care, and soon discovered that I was by no means the worst scholar among them. At last we came to spelling:—‘Spell kingdom,’ said the master to the first boy in the class, in a voice of thunder.—‘K, i, n, d, o, m,’ said the boy; (and that boy, you must know, was Tom Hebblethwaite, the very person whom you saw last summer cutting off the old cock’s tail—I dare say he was thinking of me at the very time)—‘k, i, n, d, o, m,’ said Tom: ‘g,’ exclaimed I from the bottom of the class. ‘That’s right,’ said the master, ‘stand up!’ So there was I, raised at once from the bottom to the top, covered with glory! Tom made room for me very slowly, but the eye of the master was upon him, and he gave way. At last the day was over, and, as I thought, most triumphantly for myself: but I was wofully mistaken! No sooner had the school broken up, and the masters left for their own homes, than I saw Tom approaching me in the school-yard, evidently with no friendly intentions. ‘So!’ said he, ‘you think yourself, I dare say, a very fine fellow—I think you a mother’s darling,’—accompanying this very civil speech with a box on the ear. My blood was roused at this, more especially as he sneered at my mother, which to my feelings was past endurance; and, though scarcely half his size, I turned fiercely round upon him, and fairly knocked him down! ‘A battle! a battle!’ was immediately the cry through the school-yard; and though half the boys had seemed to be dispersed for their homes, yet somehow their ears seemed to catch this delightful sound in a most extraordinary manner, and the whole school was round us in an incredibly short space of time. A ring was immediately formed, and due preparations were made for the contest, according to the laws of that brutal sport which had prevailed in the school from time immemorial,—Joshua Prince being at the head. How I felt the injustice of that moment! and though I have in some degree changed my opinion on the subject since, yet I feel much of that injustice to the present day. My opponent, as I have said, was almost twice my size and strength, and was actuated by the worst and most malignant feelings,—jealousy and revenge: I had nothing to support me, except a sense of injustice done me, and a resolution to obtain a character for manliness which I knew to be essential to a school-boy. I hoped, therefore, that the bystanders would see the unfairness of such a contest, and interfere in my behalf. But no; they were too anxious for what they called ‘the sport,’ to give one thought to the merits of the case. I looked imploringly at Joshua Prince, expecting to see a friend in him at least; but his eye was inexorable, and, like the rest, he was eager for the battle. We fought—he for revenge, I for honour—but in despair! As might be expected, I was severely bruised and beaten, yet I scorned to yield the victory as long as I was able to resist, and the issue was what neither of the combatants expected. In his eagerness to secure the victory, Tom at last struck me when I was on the ground. A cry of ‘foul, foul,’ was immediately raised, and I was taken up from the ground and carried round the yard by my schoolfellows, and formally proclaimed victor by the whole school! Tom was forced to admit the justice of this decision, and slunk away full of shame and disappointment. So there was I, like many another conqueror, with no other laurels to show as the fruit of my victory than the injuries which I had received during the contest. It is true I had gained the respect of my schoolfellows, but I had paid dearly for it, both in body and mind. A cloud had been cast over the sunshine of my first school-day; and what was worse, I had, in this plight, to face the anger of my father, and the anxious looks of my poor expecting mother.”
CHAPTER VI.
I’ve wander’d far, I’ve wander’d near,
I’ve liv’d with low and high,
But ne’er knew I a thing so dear
As my own Mother’s eye!It swell’d with grief, when grief was mine;
It beam’d, when joy was given;
On earth no sun like it could shine—
How glows it now, in Heaven!
“How changed to my eye was now that mountain road, by which, in the early morning, I had hastened, full of joy and expectation, to Hawkshead School! Not that there was any change in reality; for the evening sun shone as bright in the West over my returning path, as its morning beams had gilded my eastern track. The cows were once more lowing in the valleys for the evening milking. The cuckoos were shouting to each other from glen to glen, as if they alone had a right to be heard in their own domain. The lark was whistling a highland fling in the sunbeams, and dancing to his own merry music in the very centre of the sky. But all this was lost upon me; for my spirits had sunk to the very lowest point of despair, and I was thinking, in melancholy sadness, of the reception I should meet with at home, all black and bruised as I was; and of the blank which would sadden my poor mother’s face, when she hastened to meet me, and hear my account of the adventures of the day. My little companions, to do them justice, sympathized with my feelings; for though they said little to comfort me, yet they restrained their boyish mirth within a reasonable compass; and tried to conduct themselves as if nothing particular had happened—all that could be expected from youths like them. I shall never forget my feelings when Dash rushed out, wagging his tail, and bounding with joy at my approach, and then, suddenly looking me in the face, turned round with his tail between his legs, and ran into the house as though he had been guilty of some serious doggish fault, and expected instant chastisement! ‘Surely,’ thought I, ‘if Dash does not know me, my own mother wont!’ and so it proved; for at first sight she hardly recollected who it was, so changed was I in appearance. But her experience in the history of schoolboys was much greater than my own; and I saw at once that she comprehended the whole matter before I had said a word to her. She looked deadly pale for a moment; but all she said was,—‘My dear boy, are you to blame for this?’ ‘No, mother, I am NOT,’ said I, with a firmness which I saw at once carried conviction to her heart, and I felt I had made peace with one of my parents. But the worst, I knew, and so did my mother, was yet to come. My father was of another stamp, and viewed matters in another light. He saw, too, and comprehended at a glance what had happened; but, quite independent of the right or wrong of the question, his determination was that all such proceedings should be put down with the strong hand. I saw, therefore, that I was to be severely beaten; for my father was not one who did these things by halves. It was not anger, it was not want of feeling, that impelled him to this course; it was a strong, though in this case surely a mistaken, sense of duty. My mother and I, both knowing his character and feelings, knew it was in vain to remonstrate; so I stood with terror, and my poor mother stood as pale as death, prepared for the worst. Just at that moment, and when the feelings of all the party, my father’s included, were almost past endurance, the door flew open with some violence, and Joshua Prince stood in the middle of the room! ‘Dont strike the boy,’ said he, in a firm voice that seemed resolved to be listened to, ‘dont strike the boy, for he does not deserve it.’ Had an angel from heaven appeared to us at that moment, my mother and I could not have been more delighted, nor hardly more startled than we at first were at his most unexpected and most timely appearance; and in truth, I believe my father was not the least relieved of the whole party. The uplifted rod dropped by his side, as it were by instinct; and he looked at Joshua with an expression of respect which led me to hope that the crisis of my fate was past. In the neighbourhood of large grammar schools there is always much interest felt in their proceedings among those inhabitants of the district who have little or no immediate connexion with them. They are proud of the success of the best scholars—even those who are no scholars whatever themselves—and the head boy of a school is always spoken of with great respect, especially by those who are in any way connected with the place, either through their children or their own early education. My father, therefore, had a strong feeling of almost reverence for Joshua Prince, though he had hardly ever seen him before; and would have at once obeyed him, even in a matter less agreeable to his feelings. The rod, therefore, at once fell idly to his side.
“‘I thought it possible,’ continued Joshua, ‘that you might beat him, and so I came to tell you that he does not deserve it. He was ill-used by Tom Hebblethwaite, and he fought like a man. Send him to school to-morrow, and I will see that he comes by no harm—good night!’—and Joshua disappeared in the gloom. Now, sir, you may talk of great and generous actions, but I do not think you will easily mention one which, as far as it goes, will surpass this of Joshua Prince. You will recollect that he was, after all, but a boy; young and thoughtless; delighted with the battle, and pleased that he had done justice to the conqueror, if such I could be called. He lived down the valley towards Newby Bridge, nearly four miles from school, and in almost an opposite direction to Yewdale. Yet all at once, when more than half way home, and with the prospect of supper before a hungry boy brightening as he goes, it flashes across his mind that I may possibly be chastised undeservedly for the day’s occurrences, and he hesitates not a moment as to what steps he should take. He turns aside across hill and valley, bog and stream, where there is no footpath even for the goat, forgets his supper and his evening fishing-rod, and all to save a little boy whom he never saw before from a beating which, from its frequency at school, and from the way in which he had encouraged the battle, he might have been expected to care very little about. Nor was it the beating that he cared about. It was its injustice that dwelt upon his mind. The brave have an instinctive admiration of bravery; and he did not like to think that the little boy should be ill-used, or rather misunderstood, who had shown such firmness and courage in the school-yard. These were Joshua’s motives; and verily he had his reward. The gratitude towards him of our whole family, including my sister, (of whom I shall speak by and by,) was such that there was nothing that we would not have done for his sake. Yet he never seemed to expect any thing; or to show that he thought himself to have done any thing extraordinary. He paid me very little attention at school; none, in fact, beyond what he showed to most of the younger boys; except that when any injury was attempted towards me by any of those who were stronger than myself, he was always ready to see justice done me. Favouritism he scrupulously avoided. An acquaintance between us thus commenced, which ripened almost into friendship as I grew older, and before he left us for college. But, what is most remarkable, his kindness towards me seemed to increase, rather than diminish, by absence. Many a kind message of advice did he send me by fellow-pupils while I remained at school; and he has more than once visited me in my quiet dwelling in Salford, though he has had an earl’s son under his care; and has brought him to see the ways of Manchester, and taught him to sympathize with its toiling population. These, sir, are the links, which bind all the parts of English society together, stronger than chains of brass! These good old schools are like rivets which run through the whole body politic; hence it was that the earl’s son, Joshua Prince, and your humble servant, became fast friends for life!”
The old man’s face glowed as he said this, with a feeling which showed that he was a patriot to the back bone. His poverty, and his age, in the ardour of the moment, were quite forgotten.—His school-days were as fresh on his mind as if they had hardly yet passed away; and I felt thankful to Providence as I experienced how deeply he has infused happiness into natures and conditions where the hasty observer might scarcely be able to observe a trace of it.
He continued—“I will not detain you longer with the history of my school-days; I have something far more important, and I hope, more interesting to speak of,—my first religious impressions. But I cannot help just mentioning one early companion who was soon lost to us all, but whose character made a deep impression upon myself and many of my school-fellows. He was but the son of a poor labourer, but showed an early talent for poetry, and produced some pieces of very great merit, which I wish I could recollect now, as they would be a comfort to me in my solitary hours; but he sank, in decline, to an early grave; and all his verses, I fear, died with him; for though many of his poems were committed by his school-fellows to memory, yet none have recorded any of them in writing.”