Ernest Bracebridge | Page 8

for instance, as pads from which we may spring, and on which we may alight, but clumsy fellows will attempt to leap from their heels or jump down on them; however, I'll tell you what I know about the matter another time. He has us taught to row and swim, and climb and ride. He says that they are essential accomplishments for people who have to knock about the world, as all of us will have to do. He has always told us that we must labour before we can be fed; it is the lot of humanity. If we by any chance neglected to do what he ordered, we had to go without our dinner or breakfast, as the case might be; so you see we have learned to depend a good deal upon ourselves, and to feel that if we do not try our best to get on, no one else will help us."
"Oh, yes! I understand now why you are so different to most new boys," answered Buttar. "Well, your father is a sensible man, there's no doubt of it. I got on pretty well when I first came, much from the same reason. My mother never let us have our own way, always gave us plenty to do, and taught us to take care of ourselves without our nurses continually running after us. Now I have seen big fellows come here, who cried if they were hit, were always eating cakes and sweet things, and sung out when they went to bed for the maid-servant to put on their night-caps; these sort of fellows are seldom worth much, either in school or out of it. They fudge their lessons and shirk their work at play; regular do-nothing Molly Milksops, I call them."
And the two boys laughed heartily at the picture Buttar had so well drawn.
Off each room was a washing-place, well supplied with running water, and a bath for those boys who could not bathe in the pond. Ernest's bed was pointed out to him. Approaching it, he knelt down, and while most of the boys were washing, said his prayers. Only one boy in a shrill voice cried out in the middle of them, Amen. When Ernest rose up he looked round to try and discover who had used the expression. All were silent, and pretended to be busily employed in getting into bed; two or three were chuckling as if something witty had been said.
"I will not ask who said, Amen," remarked Ernest in a serious voice. "But remember, school-fellows, you are mocking, not a poor worm like me, but God Almighty, our Maker." Saying this, he placed his head on his pillow.
"A very odd fellow," observed two or three of the boys; "I wonder how he will turn out."
CHAPTER TWO.
ERNEST'S FIRST DAYS AT SCHOOL.
The next morning, when he got up, Ernest was told, after prayers, to take his seat on a vacant bench at the bottom of the school, till the Doctor had time to examine him. He felt rather nervous about his examination, for he had been led to suppose it a very awful affair. At last the Doctor called him up and asked him what books he had read. Ernest ran through a long list; Sir Walter Scott's novels, and Locke on the Human Understanding, were among them. The Doctor smiled as he enumerated them.
"I fear that they will not stand you in good stead here, my man; the books I mean are Greek and Latin books. What have you read of them?"
"None, sir, right through. I know a great number of words, and can put them together, and papa and I sometimes talk Latin and Greek together, just as easily as we do French and German and Italian."
"I have no doubt that you will do in the end," observed Doctor Carr. "I make a rule, however, to put boys who have not read certain books in the class in which those books are about to be read, and let them work their way up. I reserve the power of removing a boy up as rapidly as I think fit, so that if you are diligent I have no doubt that you will rapidly rise in the school."
Ernest thanked the Doctor, and in the forenoon went up with his new class. He felt rather ashamed at finding himself among so many little boys, and still more at the bungling, hesitating way in which they said their lessons. They were just beginning Caesar. He found that he could quickly turn it into English, but he took his dictionary that he might ascertain the exact meaning of each word. The Doctor called up his class that day, though he generally heard only the upper classes. Ernest began at the bottom, but before the