Frank Mildmay | Page 2

have watched with the most assiduous care. Her ruling
passions were suspicion and avarice, written in legible characters in her
piercing eyes and sharp-pointed nose. She never supposed us capable of
telling the truth, so we very naturally never gave ourselves the trouble
to cultivate a useless virtue, and seldom resorted to it unless it
answered our purpose better than a lie. This propensity of Mrs
Higginbottom converted our candour and honesty into deceit and fraud.
Never believed, we cared little about the accuracy of our assertions;
half-starved through her meanness and parsimony, we were little
scrupulous as to the ways and means provided we could satisfy our
hunger; and thus we soon became as great adepts in the elegant

accomplishments of lying and thieving, under her tuition, as we did in
Greek and Latin under that of her husband.
A large orchard, fields, garden, and poultry-yard, attached to the
establishment, were under the care and superintendence of the mistress,
who usually selected one of the boys as her prime minister and
confidential adviser. This boy, for whose education his parents were
paying some sixty or eighty pounds per annum, was permitted to pass
his time in gathering up the windfalls; in watching the hens, and
bringing in their eggs when their cackling throats had announced their
safe accouchement; looking after the broods of young ducks and
chickens, et hoc genus omne; in short, doing the duty of what is usually
termed the odd man in the farm-yard. How far the parents would have
been satisfied with this arrangement, I leave my readers to guess; but to
us who preferred the manual to mental exertion, exercise to restraint,
and any description of cultivation to that of cultivating the mind, it
suited extremely well; and accordingly no place in the gift of
government was ever the object of such solicitude and intrigue, as was
to us schoolboys the situation of collector and trustee of the eggs and
apples.
I had the good fortune to be early selected for this important post, and
the misfortune to lose it soon after, owing to the cunning and envy of
my schoolfellows and the suspicion of my employers. On my first
coming into office, I had formed the most sincere resolutions of
honesty and vigilance; but what are good resolutions when discouraged
on the one hand by the revilings of suspicion, and assailed on the other
by the cravings of appetite? My morning's collection was exacted from
me to the very last nut, and the greedy eyes of my mistress seemed to
inquire for more. Suspected when innocent, I became guilty out of
revenge; was detected and dismissed. A successor was appointed, to
whom I surrendered all my offices of trust, and having perfect leisure, I
made it my sole business to supplant him.
It was an axiom in mathematics with me at that time, though not found
in Euclid, that wherever I could enter my head, my whole body might
follow. As a practical illustration of this proposition, I applied my head

to the arched hole of the hen-house door, and by scraping away a little
dirt, contrived to gain admittance, and very speedily transferred all the
eggs to my own chest. When the new purveyor arrived, he found
nothing but "a beggarly account of empty boxes;" and his
perambulations in the orchard and garden, for the same reason, were
equally fruitless. The pilferings of the orchard and garden I confiscated
as droits; but when I had collected a sufficient number of eggs to
furnish a nest, I gave information of my pretended discovery to my
mistress, who, thinking she had not changed for the better, dismissed
my successor, and received me into favour again. I was, like many
greater men, immediately reinstated in office when it was discovered
that they could not do without me. I once more became chancellor of
the hen-roost and ranger of the orchard, with greater power than I had
possessed before my disgrace. Had my mistress looked half as much in
my face as she did into my hatful of eggs, she would have read my guilt;
for at that unsophisticated age I could blush, a habit long since
discarded in the course of my professional duties.
In order to preserve my credit and my situation, I no longer contented
myself with windfalls, but assisted nature in her labours, and greatly
lightened the burthen of many a loaded fruit-tree; by these means, I not
only gratified the avarice of my mistress at her own expense, but also
laid by a store for my own use. On my restoration to office, I had an
ample fund in my exchequer to answer all present demands; and, by a
provident and industrious anticipation, was enabled to lull the
suspicions of my employers, and