12 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



stomach, when no more eggs with unbroken ends remained to cany- 

 on the war of Easter Week.* 



" The little black and white bitch once began to snarl, and then 

 to bark at me, when I was on a roving expedition in quest of hens' 

 nests. I took up half a brick and knocked it head over heels. Mr 

 Storey was watching me at the time from one of the upper windows ; 

 but I had not seen him, until I heard the sound of his magisterial 

 voice. He beckoned me to his room there and then, and whipped 

 me soundly for my pains. 



" Four of us scholars stayed at Tudhoe during the summer vacation, 

 when all the rest had gone home. Two of these had dispositions 

 as malicious as those of two old apes. One fine summer's morning 

 they decoyed me into a field (I was just then from my mother's 

 nursery) where there was a flock of geese. They assured me that 

 the geese had no right to be there ; and that it was necessary we 

 should kill them, as they were trespassing on our master's grass. 

 The scamps then furnished me with a hedge-stake. On approach- 

 ing the flock, behold the gander came out to meet me ; and whilst 

 he was hissing defiance at us, I struck him on the neck, and killed 

 him outright. My comrades immediately took to flight, and on 

 reaching the house informed our master of what I had done. But 

 when he heard my unvarnished account of the gander's death, he did 

 not say one single unkind word to me, but scolded most severely 

 the two boys who had led me into the scrape. The geese belonged 

 to a farmer named John Hey, whose son Ralph used to provide me 

 with birds' eggs. Ever after when I passed by his house, some 

 of the children would point to me and say, ' Yaw -killed aur 

 guise/ 



" At Bishop Auckland, there lived a man by the name of Charles 

 the Painter. He played extremely well on the Northumberland bag- 



* The practice of presenting children with stained eggs at Easter was once uni- 

 versal throughout Christendom. The egg combats at Tudhoe resembled the snail- 

 ohell contests which Southey says " he never saw or heard of" except at a school 

 to which he was sent near Bristol. " The shells were placed against each other, 

 point to point, and pressed till one was broken in. This was called conquering, 

 and the shell which remained unhurt acquired value in proportion to the number 

 over which it had triumphed." [ED.] 



