10 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



very uncomfortable position at nightfall. But sometimes I had to 

 come in contact with the birch-rod for various frolics independent of 

 school erudition. I once smarted severely for an act of kindness. 

 We had a boy named Bryan Salvin, from Croxdale Hall. He was a 

 dull, sluggish, and unwieldy lad, quite incapable of climbing exer- 

 tions. Being dissatisfied with the regulations of the establishment, 

 he came to me one Palm Sunday, and entreated me to get into the 

 schoolroom through the window, and write a letter of complaint to 

 his sister Eliza in York. I did so, having insinuated myself with 

 vast exertion through the iron stanchions which secured the window; 

 1 sed revocare gradum? Whilst I was thrusting might and main 

 through the stanchions, on my way out, suddenly, oh, horrible ! 

 the schoolroom door flew open, and on the threshold stood the 

 Reverend Mr Storey a fiery, frightful, formidable spectre ! To my 

 horror and confusion I drove my foot quite through a pane of glass, 

 and there I stuck, impaled and imprisoned, but luckily not injured by 

 the broken glass. Whilst I was thus in unexpected captivity, he 

 cried out, in an angry voice, " So you are there, Master Charles, are 

 you?" He got assistance, and they pulled me back by main force. 

 But as this was Palm Sunday my execution was obligingly deferred 

 until Monday morning. 



" And thus I went on month after month, in sadness and in sun- 

 shine, in pleasure and in pain; the ordinary lot of adventurous 

 schoolboys in their thorny path to the temple of erudition. Some 

 time about the year '94 there came to Tudhoe four young grown-up 

 men, to study for the Church. These four young men all happened 

 to be endowed with giant appetites, but oily Mrs Atkinson, the 

 housekeeper, thought that, now and then upon a pinch, they might 

 struggle on with a short allowance. This was absolutely contrary to 

 the law of nature ; so they, seeing that I was a dashing and aspiring 

 lad, it was arranged amongst us that I should cater for them surrep- 

 titiously, from time to time, under the cover of the night. Accord- 

 ingly I stormed the larder, and filled my pockets full of bread and 

 cheese, &c. My exertions were always successful, and my move- 

 ments were never suspected, as I planned most cautiously during 

 the day what I had to mature in the dead of night. In due time 

 these four promising young men left Tudhoe, and were located at a 



