FLEE MING'S FATHER xvii 



great roasts at the fire, the tables in the servants' hall laid for 

 thirty or forty for a month together ; of the daily press of 

 neighbours, many of whom, Frew ens, Lords, Bishops, Batchellors, 

 and Dynes, were also kinsfolk ; and the parties ' under the 

 great spreading chestnuts of the old fore court,' where the 

 young people danced and made merry to the music of the 

 village band. Or perhaps, in the depth of winter, the father 

 would bid young Charles saddle his pony ; they would ride 

 the thirty miles from Northiam to Stowting, with the snow to 

 the pony's saddle girths, and be received by the tenants like 

 princes. 



This life of delights, with the continual visible comings 

 and goings of the golden aunt, was well qualified to relax the 

 fibre of the lads. John the heir, a yeoman and a fox-hunter, 

 c loud and notorious with his whip and spurs,' settled down into 

 a kind of Tony Lumpkin, waiting for the shoes of his father and 

 his aunt. Thomas Frewen, the youngest, is briefly dismissed as 

 * a handsome beau ; ' but he had the merit or the good fortune to 

 become a doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he 

 was not empty-handed for the war of life. Charles, at the day- 

 school of Northiam, grew so well acquainted with the rod, 

 that his floggings became matter of pleasantry and reached the 

 ears of Admiral Buckner, Hereupon that tall, rough-voiced, 

 formidable uncle entered with the lad into a covenant : every time 

 that Charles was thrashed he was to pay the Admiral a penny ; 

 every day that he escaped, the process was to be reversed. ' I 

 recollect,' writes Charles, ' going crying to my mother to be taken 

 to the Admiral to pay my debt.' It would seem by these terms 

 the speculation was a losing one ; yet it is probable it paid 

 indirectly by bringing the boy under remark. The Admiral 

 was no enemy to dunces ; he loved courage, and Charles, while 

 yet little more than a baby, would ride the great horse into the 

 pond. Presently it was decided that here was the stuff of a fine 

 sailor ; and at an early period the name of Charles Jenkin was 

 entered on a ship's books. 



From Northiam he was sent to another school at Boonshill, 

 near Eye, where the master took ' infinite delight ' in strapping 



