Humphrey Bold | Page 2

any concern,
since I ate four hearty meals a day, with perhaps an apple or a hunk of
bread in between; while as for sleeping, Mistress Pennyquick was wont
to declare, five out of the seven mornings in the week, when she woke
me, that she knew I would sleep my brains away. This prediction
scarcely troubled me, and since the motherly creature never disturbed

me until I had slept a good nine hours by the clock, I do not think she
was really distressed on this score.
Until I reached my eleventh birthday I did not go to school, being
taught to read and write and cipher by my father himself. But one day
he set me before him on his horse and rode into Shrewsbury, where,
after a solemn interview with Mr. Lloyd, the master, I was put into the
accidence class at King Edward's famous school. As we rode back, I
remember that my father, who was generally so silent, talked to me
more than ever before, about school, and work, and the great men who
had been in past time pupils in the same school, notably Sir Phillip
Sidney. And from that day I used to trudge every morning, barring
holidays, into the town, and say my hic, haec, hoc as well, I verily
believe, as the rest of my schoolfellows.
But with the opening of my school days I began to know what misery
was. My lessons gave me little trouble, and the masters were kind
enough; but among the boys there were two who, before long, kept me
in a constant state of terror. They were older than I by some four or five
years, and in school I never saw them; but outside they used to waylay
me, tormenting me in many ingenious ways. Looking back now I see
that much of my terror was needless. They seldom ill-treated me in act;
but knowing, I suppose, that the imagination is often very apprehensive
in weakly bodies like mine, they took a delight in threatening me,
conjuring up all manner of imaginary horrors, and so working on me
that my sleep was disturbed by hideous nightmares. I told nobody of
what I suffered, and when Mistress Pennyquick noticed that I was pale
and heavy-eyed sometimes in the morning, she did but suppose it was
due to a closer application to books than I had known formerly, and
forthwith increased my daily allowance of milk.
My father, if he had known of these doings, would doubtless have
taken strong measures to put a stop to them, for the older, though not
the worse, of the two bullies was a nephew of his own. His sister was
married to Sir Richard Cludde, of a notable family whose seat lay north
of Shrewsbury, towards Wem, and it was his only son, named Richard
after his father, who made one of this precious couple of harriers. There

was little coming and going between the houses of the two families, for
Mr. Ellery had not approved his sister's match, Sir Richard's character
being not of the best, and heartily disliked the fine-lady airs which she
put on when she became wife of a baronet; while she on her side
resented her brother's cold looks, and nourished a special grievance
against him when he adopted me and announced that he would name
me his heir. I make no doubt that she gave tongue to her feeling in the
hearing of her son Dick, for among the many taunts which he and his
boon fellow Cyrus Vetch cast at me was that I was what they pleased to
call a "charity child."
I have mentioned Cyrus Vetch. If I feared Dick Cludde, I both feared
and hated his companion. Cyrus was the son of a well-to-do merchant
of the town--a man little in stature, but stout, and wondrous big in self
esteem. He was the owner of much property, already one of the twelve
aldermen, and ambitious, folk said, to arrive at the highest dignity a
citizen of Shrewsbury could attain and wear the chain of mayor about
his bulldog neck. He doted on his son, who certainly did not take after
his father so far as looks went, for he was a tall, lanky fellow with a
sallow face, the alderman's countenance being as red as raw beef.
Hating Cyrus as I did, and not without cause, as will be seen hereafter, I
may be a trifle unjust in my recollection of him; but I seem to see again
a weasel face, with a pair of little restless cunning eyes, and lips that
were shaped to a perpetual sneer. As to the sharpness of his tongue I
know my memory does not play me false: Dick Cludde's taunts bruised,
but Cyrus Vetch's