LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



children had found a lark's nest in the grass near the foot of a tall 

 poplar, which still stands opposite the east windows of Walton Hall. 

 Charles, overflowing with fun, swallowed one of the eggs, shell and all. 

 His sister, in an agony of terror lest her brother should be poisoned, 

 ran off and told her mother of the dreadful occurrence. Mrs Water- 

 ton, not knowing what her son might have eaten, forthwith gave him 

 a mustard emetic, and he could never afterwards endure the taste of 

 mustard. 



At ten years of age Waterton was sent to school, and seventy 

 years afterwards, March 26, 1862, he wrote the recollections which 

 follow of that early time : 



" Towards the close of the last century a Catholic school was 

 founded at Tudhoe village, some four or five miles from the vener- 

 able city of Durham. The Reverend Arthur Storey, a profound 

 Latin scholar, was the master. My father put me under Mr Storey's 

 care about the year 1792. Mr Storey engaged a holy and benevolent 

 priest, by name Robert Blacoe, to help him in the school. He was 

 ill in health, having severely injured himself in his escape over the 

 walls of Douai, at the commencement of the French Revolution. 

 To this good priest succeeded another, the Reverend Joseph Shep- 

 herd. He was a very correct disciplinarian, and, one morning, whilst 

 he was treating me to the unwelcome application of a birch-rod, I 

 flew at the calf of his leg, and made him remember the sharpness of 

 my teeth. I wish I had them now ; but no one has a right to lament 

 the loss when he is fourscore years of age. In the days of Mr Shep- 

 herd priests always wore breeches and worsted stockings ; so these 

 were no defence against the teeth of an enraged boy, writhing under 

 a correctional scourge. 



. " But now, let me enter into the minutiae of Tudhoe School. Mr 

 Storey had two wigs, one of which was of a flaxen colour, without 

 powder, and had only one lower row of curls. The other had two 

 rows, and was exceedingly well powdered. When he appeared in 

 the schoolroom with this last wig on, I knew that I was safe from 

 the birch, as he invariably went to Durham, and spent the day there 

 But when I saw that he had his flaxen wig on, my countenance fell. 

 He was in the schoolroom all day, and I was too often placed in a 



