“Oh! Grey’s Elegy!” said the Doctor; and then, as if forgetting where he was, he began repeating to himself,—
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.”
“The first boy,—what can you tell me about the curfew?” The first boy was well up in the curfew, and rattled off a “full, true, and particular account” of that fine old English institution, much to everybody’s satisfaction. The Doctor went on repeating two or three verses till he came to the line,—
“The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”
“What does that line mean?” he asked of a boy on the second desk.
The boy scarcely knew what it meant, but the boy below him did, and was quite eager for the question to be passed on. It was passed on, and the genius answered promptly, “Four old men.”
“Four rude old men,” shouted the next, seeing a chance.
“Four rude old men who used to sleep in church,” cried another, ready to cap all the rest.
The Doctor passed the question on no further; but gravely explained the meaning of the line, and then proceeded with his repetition in rather a sadder voice.
Now and again he stopped short and demanded an explanation of some obscure phrase, the answers to which were now correct, now hazy, now brilliantly original. On the whole it was not satisfactory; and when for a change the Doctor gave up reciting, and made the boys read, the effect was still worse. One boy, quite a master of elocution, spoilt the whole beauty of the lines,—