CHAPTER VII 



In the Upper School " Plug " Batley transplants the big 

 Tree Irascible Powell Stuart Wortley Learning German 

 Through the Lower Fifth into the Fifth Death of my 

 Mother Through the Fifth into the Twenty My first 

 Breech-loader My first Grouse An astounding Drive to 

 Saltersgate Moor Shooting at Daybreak 



IN my second term at the school I was in the Lower 

 Vth, the division of it over which the Rev. C. T. 

 Arnold presided. He was a somewhat ponderous 

 gentleman whom we called " Plug," and really that name 

 gave quite a good general impression of him. I got on well 

 with him, but I remember little of his methods of teaching 

 except that once he gave us a subject on which to write 

 Latin and English verse, the one to be a translation of 

 the other. There was a big tree in the Close, so near to 

 the old chapel that certain improvements in the building 

 could not be carried out, for the tree was so highly 

 esteemed that the idea of felling it was not for a moment 

 entertained. A way out of the difficulty was found by 

 a man named Batley, who undertook to move the tree 

 a distance of about fifty yards and establish it well and 

 flourishing in its new site. What is more, he and his men 

 did the work with perfect success, and it was at the begin- 

 ning of their enterprise that we were told to write Latin 

 and English verse on the subject. 



Unimportant things remain strangely in the memory 

 while memorable ones are forgotten, and so it is that even 

 now I can recall how I wrote : 



Batleius ille, quem videtis hospites, 

 Ait redemptor esse callidissimus. 



That Batley there whom, stranger folk, 



You see before your eyes, 

 A bold contractor boasts to be, 



But not more bold than wise. 



80 



