174 THE SMUGGLER. 



Now what education had that poor boy received? The 

 people of the neighbouring village would have said a very good 

 one; for there was what is called a charity school in the 

 neighbourhood, where he had been taught to read and write, 

 and cast accounts. But this was teaching ', not education. 

 Oh, fatal mistake ! When will Englishmen learn to discriminate 

 between the two? His education had been at home, in that 

 miserable hut, by that wretched woman, by her companions in 

 vice and crime! What had all the teaching he had received 

 at the school done for him, but placed weapons in the hand of 

 wickedness? Had education formed any part of the system 

 of the school where he was instructed; had he been taught 

 how best to use the gifts that were imparted; had he been 

 inured to regulate the mind that was stored; had he been 

 habituated to draw just conclusions from all he read, instead 

 of merely being taught to read, that would have been in some 

 degree education, and it might have corrected, to a certain 

 point, the darker schooling he received at home. Well might 

 the great philosopher, who in some things most grossly mis- 

 used the knowledge he himself possessed, pronounce that 

 " Knowledge is power;" but, alas! he forgot to add, that it is 

 power for good or evil! That poor child had been taught 

 that which to him might have been either a blessing or a bane ; 

 but all his real education had been for evil ; and there he stood, 

 corrupted to the heart's core. 



" I say, Mother Ray," he exclaimed, "that smells cursed 

 nice; can't you give us a drop before the coves come?" 



" No, no, you young devil," replied the old woman with a 

 grin; "one can't tell when they'll show their mugs at the 

 door, and it wouldn't do for them to find you gobbling up 

 their stuff. But bring me that big porringer, and we'll put 

 by enough for you and me. I've nimmed one-half of the 

 yellow-boy they sent, so we'll have a quart of moonshine to- 

 morrow to help it down.'' 



"I could get it very well down without," answered Little 

 Starlight, bringing her a large earthen pot with a cracked cover, 

 into which she ladled out about half a gallon of the soup. 



"There, take and put that far under the bed in t'other 

 room," said the old woman, adding several expletives of so 

 peculiar and unpleasant a character, that I must omit them ; 

 and, indeed, trusting to the reader's imagination, I shall be<>; 



