LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. II 



place called Crook Hall, where they may be said to have been the 

 foundations of the future college of Ushaw. I myself, too, consider 

 that I have a right to claim a mite of merit, having contributed to 

 the bodily support of those who laboured for Ushaw at its birth. 

 Their task was that of giants, in perpetual work, ' Tanta molis erat 

 JRomanam condere gentem? 



" But let us return to Tudhoe. In my time it was a peaceful, 

 healthy, farming village, and abounded in local curiosities. Just on 

 the king's highway, betwixt Durham and Bishop-Auckland, and one 

 field from the school, there stood a public-house called the ' White 

 Horse,' and kept by a man of the name of Charlton. He had a 

 real gaunt English mastiff, half-starved for want of food, and so 

 ferocious that nobody but himself dared to approach it. This pub- 

 lican had also a mare, surprising in her progeny ; she had three foals, 

 in three successive years, not one of which had the least appearance 

 of a tail. 



" One of Mr Storey's powdered wigs was of so tempting an aspect, 

 on the shelf where it was laid up in ordinary, that the cat actually 

 kittened in it. I saw her and her little ones all together in the 

 warm wig. He also kept a little white and black bitch, apparently 

 of King Charles's breed. One evening, as we scholars were returning 

 from a walk, Chloe started a hare, which we surrounded and cap- 

 tured, and carried in triumph to oily Mrs Atkinson, who begged us 

 a play-day for our success. 



" On Easter Sunday Mr Storey always treated us to ' Pasche eggs/ 

 They were boiled hard in a concoction of whin-flowers, which ren- 

 dered them beautifully purple. We used them for warlike purposes, 

 by holding them betwixt our forefinger and thumb with the sharp 

 end upwards, and as little exposed as possible. An antagonist then 

 approached, and with the sharp end of his own egg struck this egg. 

 If he succeeded in cracking it, the vanquished egg was his ; and he 

 either sold it for a halfpenny in the market, or reserved it for his 

 own eating. When all the sharp ends had been crushed, then the 

 blunt ends entered into battle. Thus nearly every Pasche egg in 

 the school had its career of combat. The possessor of a strong egg 

 with a thick shell would sometimes vanquish a dozen of his oppo- 

 ' nents, all of which the conqueror ultimately transferred into his own 



