26 THE EARLY DAYS OF 



lilt inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt 

 In numerum* 



A village schoolmaster no\v-a-days, I am glad to say, would get a 

 month at the treadmill, with a sinister caution as to his future 

 behaviour, if he beat a boy as I was beaten at school, and when, 

 on m}' arrival home, I was undressed and put to bed by my tender- 

 hearted nurse, she viewed my back with the utmost horror and 

 indignation. But she was told that as the punishment had been 

 administered by reverend men called to the tninistry, I must have 

 deserved every blow I got. 



I don't remember however that she was ever told who had called 

 them, and I was far too young, and inexperienced to demand an 

 enquiry with even the faintest scintilla of success. 



In after years, when I looked up the Latin grammar, to which in 

 the meanwhile, some sensible and humane scholar had added an 

 English translation, it seemed easy enough, and I wondered why I 

 ever found any difficulty in understanding it, until I caught an 

 ordinary boy of eight years old, and began teaching him : then the 

 mystery was solved at once. 



When I was still a little chap, and when there was but one school- 

 room for us all, some fifth form boys became stage-struck, and much 

 to my delight, gave a small theatrical performance, which I saw very 

 well by standing on a desk. 



The play was of a nature very agreeable to bo3^s, and was called, 

 1 think, "Storming the Robbers' Den." Although no properties were 

 forthcoming, the scene was supposed to lie at a castle, surrounded 

 by a gloomy forest, which the band of robbers looked on as their 

 own. Suddenly a scout gave notice, that an attacking party had 

 arrived close by, and hardly were the words out of his mouth, than 

 a number of assailants appeared upon the scene, and a desperate 

 hand to hand encounter took place at once. Each party was armed 



* "With lifted arm-> they oriler every blow, 



And chime their .sounding haminerb in a row." 



Dry Jen's Translation 



