Part 5

The sisters read. On the following Lady-day, James Cheshire had turned over his farm advantageously to another, and he, his wife, Nancy, and the old servant, Mary Spendlove, all embarked at Liverpool, and transferred themselves to the United States, and then to the State of Illinois. Five-and-twenty years have rolled over since that day. We could tell a long and curious story of the fortunes of James Cheshire and his family: from the days when, half repenting of his emigration and his purchase, he found himself in a rough country, amid rough and spiteful squatters, and lay for months with a brace of pistols under his pillow, and a great sword by his bedside for fear of robbery and murder. But enough, that at this moment, James Cheshire, in a fine cultivated country, sees his ample estate cultivated by his sons, while as Colonel and Magistrate he dispenses the law and receives the respectful homage of the neighbourhood. Nancy Dunster, now styled Mrs. Dunster, the Mother in Israel—the promoter of schools and the councillor of old and young—still lives. Years have improved rather than deteriorated her short and stout exterior. The long exercise of wise thoughts and the play of benevolent feelings, have given even a sacred beauty to her homely features. The dwarf has disappeared, and there remains instead, a grave but venerable matron,—honoured like a queen.

LETTER FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE OLD LADY.

Gracious, Mr. Conductor (which is like an omnibus) what a nice new journal you have got! And ‘Household Words’ too; _that’s_ what I like! I’ve often thought that if the world could hear _my_ household words, some people would be wiser for them. Sir, if you are not above receiving advice and information from an old woman, I will give you some. I will just chatter to you as I do to the boys and girls down in my part of the country here, without any ceremony. I have bought two pens and a quire of paper, and I’ll write down a few things; but my spectacles are bad, and my pen is not over steady.

I may observe, in limmony, that you will soon discover me to be a well edicated woman. I have lived a long life, and have always picked up knowledge fast, taking four meals of it a day. Especially, you will find that my medical attainments are considerable. I’m not one of your women who go costing their husbands a whole till-full of money every year for doctor’s bills. As a mother of a family—and—though you wouldn’t believe it, Mr. Editor, if you was to look at me—I’ve had as many as eighteen,—I felt it my duty, as the mother of a family, to acquire the knowledge that was necessary for the preservation of my children’s lives. I have bought or borrowed a large number of medical books, and studied them so well, that if the dear children had been spared me long enough,—whereas thirteen died young, and one an infant, which was quite owing to the nurse having forgot to give it its Godfrey three nights running,—if they had all lived, I should have been surrounded by a very healthy family, and they would have owed to me, every one of them, their blooming looks. Of the five that survive, Edward is delicate, and Tom is rather daft, but the other three are in strong health, and prove what a blessing it was their mother took such care of them.

Some one of you gentlemen has been a writing about Lucifer-matches. Lucifers, indeed! Is that your improvement of the people? Yah! If folks were wise they would send Lucifer his matches back, and not be indebted to him any longer for them. None of us ever lost our jawbones over a tinder-box in my young days. But you must have improvements. Don’t you know that you pay for civilisation with health. Look at me. I am eighty-two; but we used flint and steel when I was young. Turn to the British and Foreign Medical Review of a few years ago, there you will see what I mean. There’s an account in it, of the new disease begotten by lucifer-matches; by the phosphorus. It’s this: a worker in the manufactory has a hollow tooth, it generally begins there, resembles tooth-ache; then there is inflammation about it; the periosteum of the lower jaw becomes inflamed; the bone dies: a man is recorded to have picked his lower jawbone out of his chin as we pulled winkles out of their shells, when winkles were eaten, in the good old times. It’s true that forewarned is forearmed. Great care is taken in lucifer factories on a large scale; those who work over the phosphorus have their mouths shielded, I believe, and so on: but then, what a thing it is! Here’s your march of improvement! A new luxury, a new disease.

You have been looking over Water-works; isn’t beer good enough for the folks now-a-days? To be sure one cannot wash in beer, but it’s not much need one has for washing. I saw a little boy the other day, bothering about a cabstand; he wanted a bucket of water, but the tap was locked—and could be unlocked only for the horses. He said there was no water in his alley, and he looked as if there were no water in the world. I gave him twopence to go and buy a pint of beer, and went on, feeling that I had done a charitable action. Water indeed! Don’t you think, Mr. Conductor, that some of you reformers carry the thing a little bit too far? I wrote the other day to a grandson of mine, he sets up for a sanitary reformer, and because I was angry at a little rapscallion who stole three pounds of Wiltshire bacon (a nice lean piece) from my kitchen dresser, what does he write and say? I know what I wrote and said in answer very well. _He_ never darkens my doors again, and it’s 2000_l._ he will be out of pocket one of these days. I’ll just copy his impudence. He says—

‘Let it be supposed, grandmother, that you were born in one of the thousand London alleys; that you were nursed with milk and opiates by a mother able or willing to pay small attention to your wants. Your first recollection is of having ‘scalled head,’ a disgusting skin disease, begotten among dirt, with which poor ragged children are infested. Then you remember the death of a brother who was your baby playmate. He died of a fever. You remember other deaths, and how you pondered much in a child’s way, while playing with a pool of filth, upon this fever, what it was. You remember the pool in your undrained alley, when it was not quite so bad as it is now. You remember how you laboured three times a week, when water was turned on for two hours at the common tap, how you laboured for your mother to supply her want of it, and came with your bucket into competition with the tenants of the other houses, all eager to lay in a stock. You remember how you enjoyed a wash when you could get it; how you saw your mother strive to wash a tub full of linen in a pipkin full of water, and the precious juice then could not be thrown away until you had aided her attempt to scrub the floors with it. You remember how your father died of a fever, and you slept so near his corpse that when you were restless in the night once, you were awakened by your hand touching upon its cold face. You remember how your mother moaned by day, and how you heard her sob in the night season. So much, that now and then you went to kiss her. You remember when your elder sister drowned herself, nobody ever told you why;—you think you know why. How your mother went out, when she could, for a day’s work, but was too ragged and too dirty to find many patrons. How she took to gin-drinking, lost her old love for you, and her old memories. How you wished that you could find employment, but could find none for the ragged little wretch. How you begged some pence, and bought some oranges, and prayed to God that you might be honest in a trade however small. How you were taken by a policeman before a magistrate, who said that he must put you down. How you were sent to prison, and came out shaking your little fists against Society, who made you be the dirty thief you are.’

There! I can’t copy any more for rage. There’s a fellow, to address a woman of my years! But he’ll live to repent it, Sir, when I am dead and gone. My hand shakes so after copying this insolence, that I can’t hold my pen any more to-day; besides, it has got bad, and there is nobody now here to mend it. I should like my letter to be put first in your next number; let it have large print and a great many capitals.

A SAMPLE OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

BY AN OLD BOY.

All the particulars of the ensuing narration are strictly matters of fact, except the proper names of places and persons, as we used to say at Rood Priory, better known, in its time, as Roberts’s, better still as Old Bob’s; the Establishment for Young Gentlemen—much as Old Bob would have been enraged to hear it called so—which I am about to describe.

Rood Priory was so called from standing near the site of that monastery. Though really a private school, it was conducted after the manner of a public one. Situated in the same Cathedral Town with the College of St. Joseph, it maintained, indeed, a sort of rivalry with that foundation. I was sent to Rood Priory—or Old Bob’s—about twenty-four years ago. The school had then been kept by Old Bob for, I suppose, half a century, and had existed long before. Old Bob’s was one of those genuine specimens of the good old school, in which scarcely anything whatever was taught except the Latin and Greek languages; and they were inculcated principally by the rod. Its scholars, when first I became one of them, mustered nearly a hundred; their number had been greater still. The youngest of us were not more than five or six years old; some of the eldest were verging upon twenty, and might have shaved without affectation. We were divided into six classes, or as we called them, Parts: of which the sixth was the lowest. Our range of study extended from the rudiments of Latin, in the last Part, to Virgil, Horace, Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Terence, and Greek Tragedy, in the second and first. The first was also called the senior Part. It was allowed various peculiar privileges, and its members, the senior boys, were never flogged, except for high crimes and misdemeanors. They were a sort of monitors, and had to keep order in the school and dining-hall; duties which devolved on them by turns. In fact, Old Bob made them act as his police. The first four Parts did Latin verses, to the composition of which the greater portion of two days in each week was devoted. The general impression at Rood Priory was that Latin versification was the highest possible achievement of the human intellect. Annually, the senior boys competed for a prize in Latin Hexameters. The successful performances were recited at our Public Speaking, which took place at the close of the Midsummer half year. Their Latinity was perfect for the best of reasons; they were arrangements of phrases which had been really penned by Ovid and Virgil.

The native Muse was cultivated a little, too. We were required to commit portions of the ‘Elegant Extracts’ to memory: and the senior boys also wrote English prize-poems, which were clever imitations of the mannerisms (only) of Pope and Dryden.

The ‘usual branches of a solid English education’ were certainly in a rather stunted condition at Old Bob’s. Arithmetic was taught ostensibly; we had to write out a given number of sums weekly, done by what means no matter, in a book. One boy, I recollect, by the particular request of his parents, learned mathematics; that is to say, getting Euclid’s propositions by rote. Geography was sometimes mentioned among us—in connexion with the Argonautic Expedition for instance, or the Garden of the Hesperides. English History we read in classes during the fortnight before the vacations, Old Bob probably conceiving it expedient that his scholars should, if questioned by their friends on the subject, appear to know that there was some difference between William the Conqueror and Oliver Cromwell. Sometimes Milton’s Paradise Lost was substituted for our historical reading, namely, for Goldsmith’s Abridgment. We received rather less instruction in Astronomy than may be presumed to have fallen to the share of Galileo’s judges, and we utterly ignored the use of any globes except those in use at football and cricket. Some few, at their friends’ express stipulation, learned French, Drawing, and Dancing, on sufferance, and grievously against the grain of Old Bob, who considered that modern languages and accomplishments could be acquired during the holidays, or picked up in after-life anyhow; and who suspected that at Rood Priory they were mere pretexts for shirking severer lessons. Certainly these studies involved no whipping, and were interspersed with considerable amusement, at the expense of the French teacher at least, and his countryman the dancing-master.

Our school-house was a large detached building of red brick, slate-roofed, lighted by tall round-arched windows, and entered by a porch, in which vestibule to our Temple of Learning inert or peccant neophytes were castigated. The hall, or refectory, was also detached. We slept, some at Old Bob’s private residence, others in adjoining or adjacent buildings connected with it. The schoolroom, for about a fourth of its height, was wainscoted with dark oak, richly carved with names, each letter of which had been engraven at the risk of a flagellation. The desks, similarly adorned, extended on either side along the wall at right angles with it, interrupted, on that to the left of the entrance, by the two fire-places, senior and junior. Everything among us was thus distinguished; we had a senior and junior field, or playground; a senior and junior fives-court; and a senior, secundus, and junior bridge on the river in which we used to bathe. The boys of every particular Part sat together; each had his own private compartment of the desk, termed his ‘scob.’ A list of the names of the occupants of each desk, in the order of their rank, was pasted on the wall over it. The junior, that is the lowest, had the care of the lighting materials, and was thence styled the ‘Candle-custos.’ There were three seats for the masters; one at the top of the school, another at the bottom, and a third at the side, between the two fire-places. They resembled Professors’ chairs, and during lessons we were stationed in front of them. A large time-piece above the middle chair regulated our operations. Down the whole length of the school, in front of either series of desks, ran a form, the two forms enabling us to be marshalled along them, on occasion, in a couple of lines, leaving an open space in the middle wherein Old Bob could walk to and fro with his cane.

The order of things thus constituted was governed supremely by the Reverend James Roberts, M.A., Senior, otherwise Old Bob; secondarily, by his son, the Rev. James Roberts, M.A., Junior, behind his back called James. In subordination to them we had three other classical masters, and an English master, as he was termed. The business of the latter was to teach writing and arithmetic, to call us of a morning, to distribute among us our ‘battlings,’ or pocket-money, and to summon us at the end of play-hours into school. His hair was light and woolly, he cleared his throat with a bleating noise before he spoke, he had a grave sleepy expression, and prominent teeth; and, of course, we called him ‘Sheep.’ He was a very honest, worthy fellow, but he talked fine; he could not sound the letter h, nor utter a Greek or Latin word without, if possible, making a false quantity; his duties (being English) were looked upon as rather menial, and the science which he professed was accounted mercantile and vulgar; wherefore, on the whole, our somewhat aristocratic community despised this excellent gentleman very much.

Old Bob, in the face, was rather like Socrates: in form, save as to the shoulders, he strongly resembled Punch. His similitude, however, to the sage, was merely physiognomical, unless the ability to have disputed with him in his own vernacular may be added to it. He was intimately versed in what are termed the liberal sciences, though I doubt if, in his case, they had the mollifying effect ascribed to them in the Eton Latin Grammar. With no other kind of science was he acquainted, except that of managing his own affairs. In this, truly, he was a tolerable proficient, and had made money by his school. But if his acquirements were limited, they were sound; and his intellect, though not comprehensive, was strong. He would sometimes say to a clever but eccentric boy—for he used to thee-and-thou us like a Quaker—‘Thou hast every sense, my boy, but common sense.’ Of this faculty, in a practical acceptation, he possessed a fair share himself. Old Bob had a fine sense of justice, too, in his way, and he administered his flogging system reasonably and equitably—as far as rationality or equity were consistent with such a system. There was also not a little benevolence in Old Bob’s composition. It is true that his eyes could not help twinkling when he caught a boy in any mischief, and contrived, to hit him, neatly, on a tense and sensitive part. But I do not think that he flogged principally, or in very great measure, for the love of flogging. He had a traditional belief in the virtues of the rod. He looked upon birch as a necessary stimulant, not knowing that stimulants, whether in the mental or animal economy, are not ordinarily necessary. Then, on the other hand, he was very attentive to the health and comfort of his boys. He took especial care that our meat and other provisions should be of the very best kind; and if his scholars were well flogged, they were also well fed and well cared for.

Old Bob, when first I knew him, was nearly eighty years of age, but hale and robust still. Divers legends were extant respecting the strong man whom he had knocked down in his youth. He dressed the character of the old schoolmaster, from the shovel-hat and powdered bald head to the gaiters, as correctly as if he had proposed to act it in a farce. His voice, I may here remark, was much like Mr. Farren’s in Sir Peter Teazle; only it was slower, deeper, more powerful, and abounded in strong and prolonged emphasis. He was very fond of spouting—in an academical way—and I think I see him now teaching us to gesticulate, by putting himself in an attitude, and giving us an idea of Cicero.

In general, Old Bob was good-tempered, patient, and forbearing, not punishing without fair warning, and then with deliberate dignity. But on peculiar provocation, as by anything like the exhibition of a mutinous spirit, especially on the part of a big boy, he lost all control of himself. His face grew pale, his eyes twinkled ominously, he would puff his cheeks out, and his whole form appeared actually to swell. Then, pulling up his nether garments—a habit with him when in a rage—and his voice shaking with passion, he would exclaim, ‘Take care, Sir. Let me not hear thee say that again. If thou dost, I’ll whip thee. I’d whip thee if thou wast as high as the house! I’d whip thee if thou wast as big as Goliath!! I’d whip thee if thou wast an angel from Heaven!!!’ And it was generally understood among us that he would have done it in either case.

A flogging at the hands of Old Bob was ordinarily the consequence of a series of offences or shortcomings. Sometimes a pupil, often within a brief period, had been guilty of a false concord or quantity. Sometimes he had been caught out of bounds, or had in some other way infringed Old Bob’s ordinances. Sometimes he was denounced for misconduct or idleness by one of the masters. A very common case of punishment would occur thus: Old Bob would suddenly call for the ‘Classicus’ of a part which was under a junior master. The ‘Classicus’ was a register of our respective performances in learning. The eye of Old Bob would light on a succession of bad marks standing opposite the name of some unlucky fellow. He then gradually raised his eyebrows, and began to whiff and whistle. Presently he repeated the delinquent’s name aloud, and proceeded, whistling and whiffing still at each word, to read out the adjoined record, ‘Bradshaw!’ he would cry; ‘Bradshaw!—Hi! hi! hi!—_Malè—malè—malè—mediocriter—malè—quam pessimè—quam pessimè—quam pessimè_——I’ll whip thee!’ And he put down the book, and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead. ‘Bring me the rod!—Bradshaw!—Come here to me, my worthy, good Sir. I’ll _whip_ thee. _I_ will! Go into the porch!’ So saying, he gave the culprit a shove at the nape of the neck, which almost sent him sprawling headlong. ‘Rod—boy—the rod! Jones—you—Brown you—go in.’ These boys were to keep the porch doors. ‘Robinson—go too.’ The fourth boy was wanted to sustain the drapery of the victim. ‘And here—you, Sir—Smith!—you—go in as well.’ This last was some youth who had been misbehaving himself lately, and whom Old Bob compelled to witness the infliction, that he might profit by it in the way of example. They all went into the porch, and Old Bob, hitching up his smallclothes, followed. ‘My poor boy,’ Old Bob would say, when he had got the criminal ‘hoisted,’ ‘I am sorry for thee. I told thee how it would be. I said I would whip thee if thou didst not behave better, and—_I will_.’ Swish!

The chastisement generally lasted about five minutes. Old Bob never inflicted more than half-a-dozen stripes, but he waited a considerable time between them, partly that each might have its full effect, partly that he might improve the occasion for the edification of the other delinquent. ‘You’ll be the next, Sir,’ he would tell the latter: ‘You’ll be the next!’ A prediction usually soon fulfilled.

Old Bob had a very high idea of the force of example. Incredible as it may appear, it is a fact that he would send a troublesome pupil to see an execution. I once witnessed his doing this. The boy in question, was incorrigibly mischievous, and given to roguish pranks. Addressing him by name, Old Bob said, ‘There is a man to be hanged this morning. Go and see him, my boy. Thou art a bad boy, and it will do thee good. You,’—turning to an elder boy,—‘you go with him and take charge of him.’ Truly this was carrying out the principle of the ‘good old school.’

For high crimes and misdemeanours the penalty was flogging in public. Swearing and profanity were the chief of these. At prayers we used to kneel along the two forms in the middle of the school. The ‘candle-custodes’ alone remained at their desks during evening-prayer time. One of these young gentlemen, once upon a night, got a copper cap, and employed his devotional leisure in fixing it on the head of a nail. The moment the final ‘Amen’ was uttered, before we could rise, he exploded the cap. The report was terrific in the silence of the large schoolroom. Old Bob insisted on the name of the transgressor being surrendered, and flogged him instantly on the spot. His rage on this occasion was extreme, and was mingled with a strange agitation. The next day this was explained. ‘What was it thou didst let off last night?’ demanded Old Bob of the irreverent youth, who was one of his particularly bad boys. ‘A percussion cap,’ was the answer. ‘Per-per-what?’ ‘Percussion cap, Sir.’ ‘Hum!’ said Old Bob, musingly, ‘I won’t expel thee _this_ time, Sir,—I won’t _expel_ thee.’ He evidently did not know what a percussion cap was, whilst, dimly understanding that it was not exactly a firearm, he seemed relieved from the suspicion that his scholar had attempted his life.