My Days of Adventure | Page 6

or more from
the sea, the school occupied a building called "The Gables," and was an
offshoot of a former ancient school connected with the famous parish
church. In my time this "academy" was carried on as a private venture
by a certain James Anthony Bown, a portly old gentleman of
considerable attainments.
I was unusually precocious in some respects, and though I frequently
got into scrapes by playing impish tricks--as, for instance, when I
combined with others to secure an obnoxious French master to his chair
by means of some cobbler's wax, thereby ruining a beautiful pair of
peg-top trousers which he had just purchased--I did not neglect my
lessons, but secured a number of "prizes" with considerable facility.
When I was barely twelve years old, not one of my schoolfellows--and
some were sixteen and seventeen years old--could compete with me in
Latin, in which language Bown ended by taking me separately. I also
won three or four prizes for "excelling" my successive classes in
English grammar as prescribed by the celebrated Lindley Murray.
In spite of my misdeeds (some of which, fortunately, were never
brought home to me), I became, I think, somewhat of a favourite with
the worthy James Anthony, for he lent me interesting books to read,
occasionally had me to supper in his own quarters, and was now and

then good enough to overlook the swollen state of my nose or the
blackness of one of my eyes when I had been having a bout with a
schoolfellow or a young clodhopper of the village. We usually fought
with the village lads in Love Lane on Sunday evenings, after getting
over the playground wall. I received firstly the nickname of Moses,
through falling among some rushes whilst fielding a ball at cricket; and
secondly, that of Noses, because my nasal organ, like that of Cyrano de
Bergerac, suddenly grew to huge proportions, in such wise that it
embodied sufficient material for two noses of ordinary dimensions. Its
size was largely responsible for my defeats when fighting, for I found it
difficult to keep guard over such a prominent organ and prevent my
claret from being tapped.
Having generations of printers' ink mingled with my blood, I could not
escape the unkind fate which made me a writer of articles and books. In
conjunction with a chum named Clement Ireland I ran a manuscript
school journal, which included stories of pirates and highwaymen,
illustrated with lurid designs in which red ink was plentifully employed
in order to picture the gore which flowed so freely through the various
tales. My grandmother Vaughan was an inveterate reader of the London
Journal and the Family Herald, and whenever I went home for my
holidays I used to pounce upon those journals and devour some of the
stories of the author of "Minnegrey," as well as Miss Braddon's
"Aurora Floyd" and "Henry Dunbar." The perusal of books by
Ainsworth, Scott, Lever, Marryat, James Grant, G. P. R. James, Dumas,
and Whyte Melville gave me additional material for storytelling; and so,
concocting wonderful blends of all sorts of fiction, I spun many a yarn
to my schoolfellows in the dormitory in which I slept--yarns which
were sometimes supplied in instalments, being kept up for a week or
longer.
My summer holidays were usually spent in the country, but at other
times I went to London, and was treated to interesting sights. At
Kensington, in my earlier years, I often saw Queen Victoria and the
Prince Consort with their children, notably the Princess Royal
(Empress Frederick) and the Prince of Wales (Edward VII). When the
last-named married the "Sea-King's daughter from over the sea"--since

then our admired and gracious Queen Alexandra--and they drove
together through the crowded streets of London on their way to
Windsor, I came specially from Eastbourne to witness that triumphal
progress, and even now I can picture the young prince with his round
chubby face and little side-whiskers, and the vision of almost
tearfully-smiling beauty, in blue and white, which swept past my eager
boyish eyes.
During the Easter holidays of 1864 Garibaldi came to England. My
uncle, Frank Vizetelly, was the chief war-artist of that period, the
predecessor, in fact, of the late Melton Prior. He knew Garibaldi well,
having first met him during the war of 1859, and having subsequently
accompanied him during his campaign through Sicily and then on to
Naples--afterwards, moreover, staying with him at Caprera. And so my
uncle carried me and his son, my cousin Albert, to Stafford House
(where he had the entrée), and the grave-looking Liberator patted us on
the head, called us his children, and at Frank Vizetelly's request gave us
photographs of himself. I then little imagined that I should next see him
in France, at the close of the