Ben took the tea-tray out of the room. He had been well drilled in and out of barracks.
Ill go down in the kitchen to father, cried I, for I was tired of sitting still.
No, you wont, sir, said my mother, you naughty boy; the kitchen is not the place for you, and if ever I hear of you smoking a pipe again
Captain Bridgeman smokes, replied I.
Yes, sir, he smokes cigars; but a child like you must not smoke a pipe.
And now come here, sir, said my granny, who had the lid of her snuff-box off, and held it open in her hand; what have you been doing with my snuff?
Why, granny, have I had your snuff-box the whole day?
How should I know?a boy like you, with every finger a fish-hook; I do believe you have; I only wish I could find you out. I had fresh snuff this morning.
Perhaps they made a mistake at the shop, mother, said aunt Milly; they are very careless.
Well, I cant tell: I must have some more; I cant take this.
Throw it in the fire, granny, said I; and Ill run with the box and get it full again.
Well, I suppose its the best thing I can do, replied the old woman, who went to the grate, and leaning over, poured the snuff out on the live coals. The result was a loud explosion and a volume of smoke, which burst out of the grate into her facethe dinner and lappets singed, her spectacles lifted from her nose, and her face as black as a sweeps. The old woman screamed, and threw herself back; in so doing, she fell over the chair upon which she had been sitting, and, somehow or another, tripped me up, and lay with all her weight upon me. I had been just attempting to make my escape during the confusionfor my mother and Milly were equally frightenedwhen I found myself completely smothered by the weight of my now almost senseless granny, and, as I have before mentioned, she was a very corpulent woman. Had I been in any other position I should not have suffered so much; but I had unfortunately fallen flat on my back, and was now lying with my face upwards, pressed upon by the broadest part of the old womans body; my nose was flattened, and my breath completely stopped. How long my granny might have remained there groaning I cannot tell; probably, as I was somewhat a spoiled child before this, it might have ended in her completely finishing me; but she was roused up from her state of half syncope by a vigorous attack from my teeth, which, in the agony of suffocation, I used with preternatural force of jaw from one so young. I bit right through everything she had on, and as my senses were fast departing, my teeth actually met with my convulsive efforts. My granny, roused by the extreme pain, rolled over on her side, and then it was that my mother and aunt, who supposed that I had made my escape from the room, discovered me lifeless, and black in the face. They ran to me, but I still held on with my teeth, nor could I be separated from my now screaming relative, until the admission of fresh air, and a plentiful sprinkling of cold water brought me to my senses, when I was laid on the sofa utterly exhausted. It certainly was a narrow escape, and it may be said that the biter was nearly bit. As for my granny, she recovered her fright and her legs, but she did not recover her temper; she could not sit down without a pillow on the chair for many days, and, although little was said to me in consequence of the danger I had incurred, yet there was an evident abhorrence of me on the part of the old woman, a quiet manner about my mother, and a want of her usual hilarity on the part of my aunt, which were to me a foreboding of something unpleasant. A few days brought to light what was the result of various whisperings and consultations. It was on a fine Monday morning, that Ben made his appearance at an unusually early hour; my cap was put on my head, my cloak over my shoulders; Ben took me by the hand, having a covered basket in the other, and I was led away like a lamb to the butcher. As I went out there was a tear in the eyes of my aunt Milly, a melancholy over the countenance of my mother, and a twinkling expression of satisfaction in my grandmothers eyes, which even her spectacles could not conceal from me: the fact was, my grandmother had triumphed, and I was going to school.
Chapter Four
As soon as I was clear of the door, I looked up into Bens face and said, Father, where are we going?
Well, replied he, I am going to take you to school.
School! What am I going to school for? replied I.
For biting your grandmother, I expect, in the first place, and to get a little learning, and a good deal of flogging, if what they say is true! I never was at school myself.
What do you learn, and why are you flogged?
You learn to read, and to write, and to count; I cant do eithermores the pity; and you are flogged, because without flogging, little boys cant learn anything.
This was not a very satisfactory explanation. I made no further inquiries, and we continued our way in silence until we arrived at the school door; there was a terrible buzz inside. Ben tapped, the door opened, and a volume of hot air burst forth, all the fresh air having been consumed in repeating the fresh lessons for the day. Ben walked up between the forms, and introduced me to the schoolmaster, whose name was Mr Thadeus OGallagher, a poor scholar from Ireland, who had set up an establishment at half-a-guinea a quarter for day scholars; he was reckoned a very severe master, and the children were kept in better order in his school than in any other establishment of the kind in the town; and I presume that my granny had made inquiries to that effect, as there were one or two schools of the same kind much nearer to my mothers house. Ben, who probably had a great respect for learning, in consequence of his having none himself, gave a military salute to Mr OGallagher, saying, with his hand still to his hat, A new boy, sir, come to school.
Oh, by the powers! dont I know him? cried Mr OGallagher; its the young gentleman who bit a hole in his grandmother; Master Keene, as they call him. Keen teeth, at all events. Lave him with me; and thats his dinner in the basket I presume; lave that too. Hell soon be a good boy, or it will end in a blow-up.
Ben put down the basket, turned on his heel, and left the schoolroom, and me standing by the throne of my future pedagogueI say throne, because he had not a desk, as schoolmasters generally have, but a sort of square daïs, about eighteen inches high, on which was placed another oblong superstructure of the same height, serving him for a seat; both parts were covered with some patched and torn old drugget, and upon subsequent examination I found them to consist of three old claret cases without covers, which he had probably picked up very cheap; two of them turned upside down, so as to form the lower square, and the third placed in the same way upside down, upon the two lower. Mr OGallagher sat in great dignity upon the upper one, with his feet on the lower, being thus sufficiently raised upon an eminence to command a view of the whole of his pupils in every part of the school. He was not a tall man, but very square built, with carroty hair and very bushy red whiskers; to me he appeared a most formidable person, especially when he opened his large mouth and displayed his teeth, when I was reminded of the sign of the Red Lion close to my mothers house. I certainly never had been before so much awed during my short existence as I was with the appearance of my pedagogue, who sat before me somewhat in the fashion of a Roman tribune, holding in his hand a short round ruler, as if it were his truncheon of authority. I had not been a minute in the school before I observed him to raise his arm; away went the ruler whizzing through the air, until it hit the skull of the lad for whom it was intended at the other end of the schoolroom. The boy, who had been talking to his neighbour, rubbed his poll, and whined.