The Early Life of Mark Rutherford | Page 9

The Latin and Greek in the upper school were not good for much, but Latin in the lower school--Greek was not taught--consisted almost entirely in learning the Eton Latin grammar by heart, and construing Cornelius Nepos. The boys in the lower school were a very rough set. About a dozen were better than the others, and kept themselves apart.
The recollections of school are not interesting to me in any way, but it is altogether otherwise with playtime and holidays. School began at seven in the morning during half the year, but later in winter. At half-past eight or nine there was an interval of an hour for breakfast. It was over when I got home, and I had mine in the kitchen. It was dispatched in ten minutes, and my delight in cold weather then was to lie in front of the fire and read Chambers' Journal. Blessings on the brothers Chambers for that magazine and for the Miscellany, which came later! Then there was Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales of Ulysses. It was on a top shelf in the shop, and I studied it whilst perched on the shop ladder. Another memorable volume was a huge atlas-folio, which my sister and I called the Battle Book. It contained coloured prints, with descriptions of famous battles of the British Army. We used to lug it into the dining-room in the evening, and were never tired of looking at it. A little later I managed to make an electrical machine out of a wine bottle, and to produce sparks three-quarters of an inch long. I had learned the words "positive" and "negative", and was satisfied with them as an explanation, although I had not the least notion what they meant, but I got together a few friends and gave them a demonstration on electricity.
Never was there a town better suited to a boy than Bedford at that time for out-of-door amusements. It was not too big--its population was about 10,000--so that the fields were then close at hand. The Ouse--immortal stream--runs through the middle of the High Street. To the east towards fenland, the country is flat, and the river is broad, slow, and deep. Towards the west it is quicker, involved, fold doubling almost completely on fold, so that it takes sixty miles to accomplish thirteen as the crow flies. Beginning at Kempston, and on towards Clapham, Oakley, Milton, Harrold, it is bordered by the gentlest of hills or rather undulations. At Bedford the navigation for barges stopped, and there were very few pleasure boats, one of which was mine. The water above the bridge was strictly preserved, and the fishing was good. My father could generally get leave for me, and more delightful days than those spent at Kempston Mill and Oakley Mill cannot be imagined. The morning generally began, if I may be excused the bull, on the evening before, when we walked about four miles to bait a celebrated roach and bream hole. After I got home, and just as I was going to bed, I tied a long string round one toe, and threw the other end of the string out of window, so that it reached the ground, having bargained with a boy to pull this end, not too violently, at daybreak, about three-quarters of an hour before the time when the fish would begin to bite well. At noon we slept for a couple of hours on the bank. In the evening we had two hours more sport, and then marched back to town. Once, in order to make a short cut, we determined to swim the river, which, at the point where we were, was about sixty feet wide, deep, and what was of more consequence, bordered with weeds. We stripped, tied our clothes on the top of our heads and our boots to one end of our fishing lines, carrying the other end with us. When we got across we pulled our boots through mud and water after us. Alas! to our grief we found we could not get them on, and we were obliged to walk without them. Swimming we had been taught by an old sailor, who gave lessons to the school, and at last I could pick up an egg from the bottom of the overfall, a depth of about ten feet. I have also been upset from my boat, and had to lie stark naked on the grass in the sun till my clothes were dry. Twice I have been nearly drowned, once when I wandered away from the swimming class, and once when I could swim well. This later peril is worth a word or two, and I may as well say them now. I was staying by the sea-side, and noticed as I was lying on