Parkhurst Boys, and Other Stories of School Life

Once, and once only, did I play truant from Parkhurst, and that transgression was attended with consequences so tragical that to this day its memory is as vivid and impressive a...

I was born a dawdler. As an infant, if report speaks truly, I dawdled over my food, over my toilet, and over my slumbers. Nothing (so I am told) could prevail on me to stick ste...

_Being the impressions of foreign travel, communicated chiefly to a particular friend by Thomas Hooker, minor, of Rugby, during the course of a Continental tour in France and Sw...

Off at last! Hard work to get off, though; as if a fellow of fifteen wasn't old enough to take care of himself. Mother cut up as much as if I'd asked leave to go to my own funer...

"Now, Parkhurst, turn out sharp! They are going in first." So shouted Steel, the captain of our eleven, putting his head in at the door of the tent in which we were arraying our...

We know that it always is, or should be, embarrassing to a hero to recite the history of his own exploits. So if this simple narrative strikes the reader as defective, he must e...

"I tell you what it is, you fellows, I shall learn to swim!" The speaker was Bobby Jobson, a hero of some thirteen summers, who, in company with four of us, his schoolfellows, s...

"Adams is wanted down at the boat-house!" Such was the sound which greeted my ears one Saturday afternoon as I lolled about in the playground at Parkhurst, doing nothing. I jump...

The last Saturday before the summer holidays was invariably a great day at Parkhurst. The outdoor exercises of the previous ten months culminated then in the annual athletic spo...

So said Forwood, the "whipper-in" of the Parkhurst Hare and Hounds Club, to me, one March morning in the year 18--. I had no need to be reminded of the appointment; for this was...

The "Eliza"--that was the name of the coastguard's boat on which our heroes had embarked--was a middling-sized sea-going rowing boat, which, if it was just big enough by a littl...

It was a proud moment in my existence when Wright, captain of our football club, came up to me in school one Friday and said, "Adams, your name is down to play in the match agai...

How long Jack and I had lain there, curled up under the bows of the "Dreadnought" that stormy Christmas morning, I never knew. For I, like him, had succumbed to the drowsy influ...

De Prudhom did not often allow himself the luxury of an evening out during term time. But on this particular evening he was pledged to fulfil a long-standing engagement with an...

There are bullies and bullies. There is the big brother, for instance, who considers it as much part of his duty to administer an occasional cuff to his youthful relative, as he...

We were spending the winter of 185--, my young brother Jack and I, with our grandfather at Kingstairs, a quiet little seaside village not a hundred miles from the Nore.

Our heroes, who in all their anticipations had never calculated on anything but fine weather and unlimited rations and congenial occupation, began to entertain serious doubts as...

We had a fellow at Holmhurst School who rejoiced in the name of Alexander Magnus Bilk. But, as sometimes happens, our Alexander the Great did not in all respects resemble the he...

One might fancy at the first blush, that such a boy is one to be envied, admired, and caressed above all others. Never wrong! What would not some of us give to have the same sai...

What school is without its duffer, I wonder? Of course, none of us answer to the name, but we all know somebody who does, and it's a curious thing nobody ever thoroughly dislike...

We all know him. He might be a good-looking fellow, perhaps, if it weren't for the scowl over his eyes and the everlasting pout about his lips. He skulks about with his hands in...

It is a common complaint in these degenerate days that we live harder than our fathers did. Whatever we do we rush at. We bolt our food, and run for the train; we jump out of it...

It takes one a long time to discover that there is something wanting in the character of Ebenezer Ditto; and it takes a longer time still to make out exactly what that something...

A terrible scene might have been witnessed near the small town of Hexham, in Northumberland, one May afternoon in the year 1464. A great battle had just been fought and won. Civ...

A strange crowd thronged the Court of King's Bench one memorable day four and a half centuries ago. Nobles and commoners alike jostled their way into the sombre hall, every one...

Other fellows could not make out what was the matter, and as long as Bowler did not shirk the football match, and Gayford stuck up as usual for his house, they did not particula...

The autumn term at Swishford School was more than half over, and boys were waking up to the hope that after all the Christmas holidays, which seemed such a way off six weeks ago...

Like his namesake, the snake, he may be a showy enough looking fellow at first sight, he may have the knack of wriggling himself into your acquaintance, and his rattle may amuse...

A poor boy, meanly clad, and carrying in his hand a small bundle, trudged sadly along the road which led over the moor of Finsbury to Highgate. The first streak of dawn was scar...

Who doesn't know Growler, of our school? He was a sort of fellow nothing and nobody could satisfy. If Growler were a week in an African desert without a drop of water to drink,...

The eager crowd thronged the little Norman seaport of Barfleur. Knights in armour, gay ladies and merry children mingled in the narrow streets which led down to the bustling har...

Look at him! You could tell he was an untidy fellow at a single glance. One of his bootlaces is hanging loose, and the band of his scarf has slipped up above his collar. Though...

A youth was pacing restlessly to and fro in a wood bordering on the old town of Tours, in France. He was scarcely twenty years of age, and of a forbidding countenance. Cruelty a...

It was a strange moment in the history of England when the great King Henry the Eighth. ("Bluff King Hal," as his subjects called him) breathed his last. However popular he may...

The sun rose brightly over the little village of Crecy on the morning of Saturday, August 26, 1346. The golden corn was standing in the fields, the cattle were quietly grazing i...

In the courtyard of a Scottish castle, over which floated the royal banner, a curious scene might have been witnessed one morning nearly three centuries ago. The central figures...

The fellow's always in a row! No matter what it's about; no matter whose fault it is; no matter how he tried to keep out of it; it's always the same--he's in a row.

Fine feathers make fine birds. This is a proverb which a great many people in our country--especially young people--most devoutly believe in, and they show their belief in a ver...

"The king directs me here," said Sir Thomas, "to do a deed horrible and unworthy of a man. He demands that I should rid him of the two lads now lying in this Tower in my custody."

The fierce storm beats down on the gloomy Norman Castle of Falaise, in a deep dungeon of which lies imprisoned the boy Prince Arthur, lawful heir to the crown of England, but no...

A vast, disorderly rabble thronged the great open space of Smithfield, in London, on one side of which stood the venerable Abbey of Saint Bartholomew, now occupied by the hospit...

A scene of unwonted excitement was being enacted in Dublin. The streets were thronged with people, the houses were gay with flags, soldiers lined the paths, and nobles in their...