In the same spirit I find him writing about the same time as to a new cricket club, which was starting under very favourable auspices in Berkshire, and in which he had been asked to take a leading part: “I shall certainly not join the A. C. Club; and as for Tom, I should think his joining more improbable still. Cricket is over for both of us, except accidentally.”
In this spirit he took to his new work; and, going into it heartily and thoroughly, found it very pleasant. He occupied Byron House at Harrow, with his pupils, in which his old friend Mr. M. Arnold afterwards lived. There were several of his old schoolfellows, and college friends, among the Masters; and I, and others of his old friends, used to run down occasionally, on half-holidays, from London, and play football or cricket with the boys, amongst whom the prestige of his athletic career of course made him a great favourite and hero. Thus he got as much society as he cared for, and found time, in the intervals of his regular work, for a good deal of general reading. In fact, I never knew him more cheerful than during these years of what most of us regarded as lost time, and in which we certainly expected he would have been bored, and disappointed. This would not have been so perhaps had he proved unsuccessful; but his pupils got on well in the school and their father soon found him out, and appreciated him. At the beginning of the first long vacation he writes home:—
“Mr. Beaumont, finding I am fond of a gun, has most kindly offered me a week’s shooting on his moors. I could easily manage it, and meet you in London in time to visit Lady Salusbury. You will not think, I know well, that I like shooting better than home; and if you would like to see me before you go to London, pray say so, and the moors will not occupy another thought in my head. It is not everyone who would have taken the trouble to find out that I liked shooting and I feel Mr. Beaumont’s kindness; in fact, he seems as generous as a prince to everyone with whom he has anything to do.”
But it was in his own family, where he would have wished for it most, that the reward came most amply. He became in these years the trusted adviser of your grandfather on all family matters, and especially with respect to his three youngest brothers. The direction of their education was indeed almost handed over to him, and nothing could exceed the admiration and devotion with which they soon learnt to regard him. The eldest of them was sent to Harrow in 1848 to be under his eye, and you may judge of the sort of supervision he exercised by this specimen of his reports:—
“I think he has been suffering the usual reaction which takes place when a boy goes to a new school. He worked hard at first, and then, finding he had a good deal of liberty and opportunity of amusement, grew slack. He is too fond of exercise to be naturally fond of work, as some boys are who are blessed with small animal spirits; and he is not yet old enough to see clearly the object of education, and the obligation of work. I have no doubt he will very soon find this out; but, if not, it will very soon be forced on his notice by the unpleasantness of being beaten by his contemporaries.”
Speaking of his letters of advice to the boys, your grandfather writes:—
“They have given me at least as much pleasure as them. You are doing a very kind thing in the most judicious way, and have assisted the stimulus which they required. Good leaders make a steady-going team, and allow the coachman to turn round on his box. Arthur [the youngest] will in his turn benefit by these fellows, I doubt not. You would, I think, be pleased to see how naturally he takes to cricket. In fact, take him altogether, he is a very good specimen of a six-year-old.”
But perhaps nothing will show you in a short space what he was to his younger brothers so well as one of their own letters to him, and one of his to your grandmother. The first is from your uncle Harry, written almost at the end of his first half at Rugby:—
“My dear George,
“I am very much obliged to you for writing such a capital letter to me the other day, and for all your kind advice, which you may be sure is not entirely thrown away. I remember all the kind advice you gave me last winter, as we were coming from skating at Benham. You warned me from getting into ‘tick,’ and you said you were sure I should be able to act upon your good advice, and from that moment I determined not to go on tick, without I could possibly help. I haven’t owed a penny to anyone this half-year, and I don’t mean to owe anybody anything in the money way; and I have not spent all my money yet, and if I have not got enough to last me till the end of the half-year, I am determined not to tick; and I heartily thank God that I have elder brothers to guide me and advise me; I am afraid I should have done badly without them. You advised me also in your kind letter to work steadily. I fancy I am placed pretty decently; the form I am in is the upper remove. I keep low down in my form, principally from not knowing my Kennedy’s grammar. I find it very hard to say by heart. I should have been placed higher, I think, if I had known it; and I should advise Arthur to begin it now, if he is coming to Rugby, which I hope he is. He will find it disagreeable now, but he would find it worse if he did not know it when he came here. I think if you would be kind enough to write to him, and show him how necessary it is for him to learn it, he would be only too glad to do it. I think the great fault in me is, not so much forgetfulness, but a not having a determination to do a thing at the moment. I put it off. But I have, I am sorry to say, innumerable other faults. Mamma sent me a book of prayers, which I read whenever I have got time, and I say my prayers every night and morning, and I pray for all of you. I have now mentioned, I think, everything that you seemed anxious about in your letter.”