40 THE BOY. 



his letter to Principal Baird, ' or in procuring victuals, 

 we spent in acting little dramatic pieces, of which I 

 sketched out the several plans, leaving the dialogue to 

 be supplied by the actors. Robbers, buccaneers, out- 

 laws of every description, were the heroes of these 

 dramas. They frequently, despite of my arrangements 

 to the contrary, terminated in skirmishes of a rather 

 tragic cast, in which, with our spears of elder and 

 swords of hazel, we exchanged pretty severe blows. We 

 were sometimes engaged, too, in conflicts with other 

 boys, in which, as became a leader, I distinguished 

 myself by a cool yet desperate courage. Nor was I 

 entitled to the rank I held from only the abilities which 

 I displayed in framing plays and in fighting. I swam, 

 climbed, leaped, and wrestled better than any other lad 

 of my years and inches in the place.' 



With schooling, in the mean time, it fared as ill as 

 possible. Hugh had made up his mind not to learn, 

 and he could neither be coaxed nor beaten out of his 

 determination. Sooth to say, he had become a self- 

 willed, turbulent lad, and the haziness of conception on 

 the subject of meum and tuum, indicated by potato-pilfer- 

 ing and orchard-robbing, was not the darkest shade 

 which we have to bring into harmony at this period, as 

 we best may, with the idyllic brightness of his boyhood. 

 In the letter to Principal Baird and elsewhere, he 

 mentions a fact or two which he omits from the Schools 

 and Schoolmasters, but which cannot be withheld con- 

 sistently with biographic veracity. 



Setting his schoolmaster, his uncles, and his mother 

 at defiance, he played truant three weeks out of four, 

 and cast off every trammel of authority. Distressed and 

 alarmed, his relatives tried force. The stubborn will and 

 intrepid spirit which he had inherited from his father 



