CHAPTER V 



Oakfield House Preparatory School Mr J. M. Furness and the 

 Canes " Mother " Davidson Port and Bread and Butter 

 Concerning Rujjby Football The Hacking Game I get 

 used to it " Louts " and Rows with them Harry Verelst 

 and the Snowball I see a Man in the Stocks Why not 

 Stocks for Conscientious Objectors ? The French Master 

 and his painful Books Head of the School Effects of Get- 

 learning-quick Tuition Mat. Furness " Having it Down " 

 Departure to the Big School 



AFTER Easter, 1864, I was taken by my mother 

 to Rugby, where we spent a night at the George 

 Hotel, and went the next morning to see Mr 

 Frank Kitchener, a friend of the Rhodes' family (Thirsk), 

 who was one of the masters at the Big School and also, 

 I believe, a near relative of Lord Kitchener that was to be. 

 He no doubt gave useful advice as to my future, and 

 in due course we proceeded to Oakfield House, the pre- 

 paratory school over which the Rev. J. M. Furness then 

 presided, and there I was left, but not until the matron, 

 " Mother " Davidson, a stout, florid, comfortable old 

 Scotchwoman, had been interviewed, and charged with 

 many instructions as to my welfare, one of which was that 

 I was to have a glass of Port, with bread and butter, at 

 ii A.M. each day. This instruction was faithfully carried 

 out during all the time I was at Oakfield House, and I 

 don't think I ever liked Port better than on those occasions. 

 It might be thought from my early and nervous begin- 

 nings, so far as schooling went, that I should have had a 

 bad time at Oakfield House to start with, but it was not 

 so at all, and I cannot recall that I had any trouble 

 whatever. There were fifty or sixty boys at this school, 

 including those from the town, and Mr Furness was, no 

 doubt, a good and capable master : a middle-sized, wiry 

 man, with mutton-chop whiskers inclined to bush, and a 



63 



