Æt. 1-13.]

"An Ancient Dame."

15

educated himself." The fiery orthodoxy of the tutor, in spite of his newly-acquired theological battery, was no match for the dogmatism of the father of the wranglers. James writes, evidently with gleeful remembrance of the scene: "Mr. rushed at him single-handed; words waxed very warm; the Unitarian's arms flew about like the sweeps of a windmill. We were ordered not to listen to the profane babbler, but we could not help hearing our tutor scream in a very loud voice, 'But you won't let me get a word in edgeways.' 'And I don't mean to,' replied his adversary, in still louder tones. I fear he had the fight pretty much his own way, for our tutor said that he was a nasty, rude man, and forbade us to speak to him again." Do we not see them? That raw young man, with his thin veneering of theological lore, and that hot-blooded Welsh mathematician, butting against each other in direst conflict?

Again, how graphically he tells the story of that abominable old Welshwoman, "an ancient dame, rheumatic and lame," who "was got on top of the coach by means of a ladder and ropes, two or three men pushing and pulling with all their might"! The driver, an ex-colonel in the army, rated at the old dame, and "vowed he would not stop the coach for such a time. However, they at last got her up, and she sat coughing and groaning. We soon began to speculate about her descent, and it became a matter of conjecture as to how she was to be got down. Two or three hours afterwards we arrived at Harlech, and the horses were changed. While this was being done the colonel and other passengers darted in to get some refreshment. Old mother was cruelly left on the box to take care of herself. Thinking, of course, that she was safely housed, the money for her fare had not been taken. Not two minutes elapsed

in fact the colonel only gave himself time to swallow a hasty glass of beer, when he returned to look at his new Lo! that ancient dame had jumped down, baskets, bundles, and all, and had given him the slip. If he cursed her in his heart because she took such a long time to get up, he cursed her ten times more because she took such a short time to get down! It was the joke of the day—even the colonel could not help laughing, although he had lost his money."

Poor little James had now reached the age when children begin to be uncomfortably conscious of their own personal appearance and deficiencies. Though he was in later life singularly free from susceptibility of this kind, and never seemed to wince beneath any most pointed personalities that might be thrust at him by maliciously-minded friends, there is a touch of boyish pain in the following record. An overflow of third-class passengers had filled their compartment with a number of roisterers, who cursed and swore forth profane vulgarities all the way home. "I perfectly well recollect," he writes, "that one of these cursers, much to my annoyance, noticed that I had lost my thumb, and I was very impressed, as he was the first stranger" (brutal fellow !) "that had remarked it to me."

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL-DAYS.

(1860-62.)

"My bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin' yet."

Old Scotch Ballad.

VERY shortly after the Welsh tour referred to in the last chapter, the tutor left to take a curacy. What was to be done with the boys? James was now thirteen, and not very easy for a tutor to manage. Good-natured and warm-hearted, but withal quick-tempered, and an inveterate tease: capable of great industry when the subject as that of natural history-interested him; but otherwise seemingly incorrigibly idle, and utterly averse to apply himself to the dull routine of the classical mill: it was evident to his parents that he and his brother Joseph ought to go to school. It was only, however, after long thought and some demur that it was finelly decided that they should enter the Temple School at Brighton.

"Alas!" he writes, "it was only a private school, and we were allowed to go home every Saturday to stop till Monday morning."

The home-bred boy was at first, naturally enough, very unhappy. The memory of the day when he was left, pale, nervous, and shivering, in the school-room, among his new companions, always clung to him. Do. not most of us recall such a moment? The kindly manner of the head-master, however, made things easier for both the brothers, and they soon fell into their places.

Hannington criticises with some severity the private tutor and private school system, with frequent visits home, under which, by a mistaken kindness, he had been brought up. He writes in his journal, "I knew absolutely nothing, the result of private tutorage, and I was put into the fourth class, which was bottom but one." Again, speaking of the time when he left school, he adds: "I only remained at school until I was fifteen and a half, and then left for business, with as bad an education as possible; I may say as bad as my father's was good. I was no more fit to leave school than to fly, and yet I was then in the first class. So much for private tutors and private schools. I believe that both systems are equally pernicious." All of which I transcribe without either endorsing the opinion or otherwise, except so far as to remind the reader that what is one boy's poison may be another boy's food. As regards a boy of Hannington's type, it can scarcely be doubted. that the system he condemns was open to serious objections. As he says of himself: "I was naturally idle, and would not learn of myself, and I was unfortunate enough always to be sent to places where I was not driven to learn. Would that I had been driven!" In the later years of his short life, his industry and application were unwearied and immense. No one could accuse him of trifling with his time, or of the smallest degree of self-indulgence. He was scrupulously painstaking in the execution of any work which he undertook, and his undertakings he meted out to himself with no scant hand. But no one can doubt that his university course, upon which so much of a man's future depends, would have been quite other than it was, perhaps even a brilliant one, had he possessed the advantage of a more thorough and systematic early training.

Æt. 13-15.]

Intelligent and Conscientious.

19

Hannington had plenty of intelligence; was as sharp as a needle; quick to learn what he chose to learn; and what he once learned he always retained. Volatile and excitable as he was, he could be serious enough when the occasion seemed to demand it, and in the midst of all his extravagances a certain solid good sense generally kept him within bounds, so that he never committed any act which could cause himself or others serious regret. He soon became a prime favorite at school, both with the masters and boys. That the former should have been the case is more strange than the latter. He soon proved himself to be a confirmed "pickle." He thus reports himself: "I was always very excitable and noisy, and was called 'Mad Jim.' In fact, I was one day reported to the head-master as 'verging on insanity,' and was severely punished." He once lit a bonfire in the middle of his dormitory; at another time pelted the German master with his rejected papers; and we are not much surprised to learn that, on one particularly unlucky day, he was caned more than a dozen times," till, smarting in every inch of his body, he had serious thoughts of running away.

66

The head-master, however, was most judicious and kind. Whatever was lacking in his pupil's education, the fault could not be laid upon the threshold of the pedagogue. He liked the giddy boy, into whose truly lovable nature he saw, and easily secured his affection in return. Hannington was sensitively conscientious and trustworthy. Hatred of a lie was inborn and inbred in him. He might always be entirely relied upon to carry out anything that he had once undertaken, and that not only in the letter, but in the spirit. His word was, in the most rigid sense, his bond. This fidelity of mind was developed in him very early.