A Labrador Doctor | Page 7

out, they seemed
never to lessen perceptibly. On this account our minds, with the
merciless logic of childhood, gradually discounted the threatened
calamities.
This must have accounted for the lapse in our own conduct, and a sort
of comfortable satisfaction that the Almighty contented Himself in
merely counting noses in the pews. For even though it was my brother
who got into trouble, I shall never forget the harangue on impiety that
awaited us when a most unchristian sexton reported to our father that
the pew in front of ours had been found chalked on the back, so as to
make its occupants the object of undisguised attention from the rest of

the congregation. As circumstantial evidence also against us, he offered
some tell-tale squares of silver paper, on which we had been cooking
chocolates on the steam pipes during the sermon.
In all my childhood I can only remember one single punishment,
among not a few which I received, which I resented--and for years I
never quite forgot it. Some one had robbed a very favourite apple tree
in our orchard--an escapade of which I was perfectly capable, but in
this instance had not had the satisfaction of sharing. Some evidence had
been lodged against me, of which I was not informed, and I therefore
had no opportunity to challenge it. I was asked before a whole class of
my schoolmates if I had committed the act, and at once denied it.
Without any hearing I was adjudged guilty, and promptly subjected to
the punishment of the day--a good birching. On every occasion on
which we were offered the alternative of detention, we invariably
"plumped" for the rod, and got it over quickly, and, as we considered,
creditably--taking it smiling as long as we could. But that one act of
injustice, the disgrace which it carried of making me a liar before my
friends, seared my very soul. I vowed I would get even whatever it cost,
and I regret to say that I hadn't long to wait the opportunity. For I
scored both the apples and the lie against the punishment before many
months. Nor was I satisfied then. It rankled in my mind both by day
and by night; and it taught me an invaluable lesson--never to suspect or
condemn rashly. It was one of Dr. Arnold's boys at Rugby, I believe,
who summed up his master's character by saying, "The head was a
beast, but he was always a just beast."
At fourteen years of age my brother was sent to Repton, to the house of
an uncle by marriage--an arrangement which has persuaded me never
to send boys to their relatives for training. My brother's pranks were
undoubtedly many, but they were all boyish and legitimate ones. After
a time, however, he was removed at his own request, and sent to
Clifton, where he was head of the school, and the school house also,
under Dr. Percival, the late Bishop of Hereford. From there he took an
open scholarship for Oxford.
It was most wisely decided to send us to separate schools, and therefore

at fourteen I found myself at Marlborough--a school of nearly six
hundred resident boys, on entering which I had won a scholarship.
CHAPTER II
SCHOOL LIFE
Marlborough "College," as we say in England for a large University
preparatory school, is situated in Wiltshire, in a perfectly beautiful
country, close to the Savernake Forest--one of the finest in all England.
As everything and everybody was strange to me on my arrival, had I
been brought up to be less self-reliant the events of my first day or two
would probably have impressed themselves more deeply on my
memory than is the case. Some Good Samaritan, hearing that I was
bound for a certain house, allowed me to follow him from the station to
the inn--for a veritable old inn it was. It was one of those lovely old
wayside hostels along the main road to the west, which, with the
decline of coaching days, found its way into the market, and had fallen
to the hammer for the education of youth. Exactly how the adaptation
had been accomplished I never quite understood. The building formed
the end of a long avenue of trees and was approached through high
gates from the main road. It was flanked on the east side by other
houses, which fitted in somewhat inharmoniously, but served as
school-rooms, dining-hall, chapel, racquets and fives courts, studies,
and other dwelling-houses. The whole was entirely enclosed so that no
one could pass in or out, after the gates were shut, without ringing up
the porter from his lodge, and having one's name taken as being out
after hours. At least it was supposed that no one could, though we boys
soon found that