204 When we Old Fogeys were Boys. 



on such a game would have been sent to Coventry by the 

 whole school, and I fancy the betting was a very small 

 matter. 



Sometimes prisoners get restless and break out into 

 insubordination, and it is the case too in lunatic asylums 

 and occasionally in schools. I never can understand to this 

 day why or wherefore a large number of boys, seventy or 

 eighty at least, suddenly took a violent dislike to half a load 

 of hay which was left on a canal bridge. The waggon had 

 been overloaded, and the farmer had carted half away, and 

 the waggon was waiting for the return of the horses. 

 Someone suggested "Let us pitch this waggon into the 

 river." Now the farmer was a popular man, as he never 

 split upon us if we did any mischief, and he winked at the 

 fellows shooting in the water-meadows and on his farm. 

 No doubt, being a tenant of the College, he took care of 

 himself when he paid his rent. Somehow the demon of 

 mischief was abroad, and in a few minutes the waggon, 

 under the influence of many hands and a lever or two 

 toppled grandly sideways ; there was a crash, the side of 

 the bridge disappeared, and nothing was visible but four 

 waggon wheels in the air, above the water, to the great as- 

 tonishment of some bargees who were coming with a barge 

 quick round the corner, and who, with great difficulty stopped 

 her " way " before the barge charged the waggon, for which 

 event we were anxiously looking. Again, one window of 

 new Commoners — an ugly, workhouse-like building, which 

 looked into the school quadrangle — being accidentally 

 broken, the boys suddenly hated all the windows and 

 smashed the lot, just as they did with the new slates of 

 College Mill, the colours of which they disapproved. The 

 curious part of their eccentric proceedings was, that all the 

 school seemed seized with the same madness, and the steady 

 fellows who never fell into scrapes hardly, broke out the 



