CHAPTER II. EARLY EDUCATORS: WISE AND OTHERWISE
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CHAPTER II
EARLY EDUCATORS: WISE AND OTHERWISE
"Write injuries in dust, and kindnesses in marble.
S. PROUT NEWCOMBE.
OF the happy home of our childhood my sister Ann thus writes, --
"The Mill, at that time, was a paradise for a child, and especially for a boy. There was the extensive copse, in the springtime full of catkins, bluebells, violets, and birds' nests; in the Autumn, of nuts, blackberries and wild raspberries. There was fishing, rabbit-catching, snow-balling, and no end of amusements.
"The greatest fun we had was with the grass-cart --a large, square frame on low wooden wheels--a better toy for children could not be devised. We wheeled each other about in it; we were horses and riders by turns. We took it up the hills, and then we all got in and let the thing run down the steep hill of itself. Shockingly dangerous it really was; and how, up in those hills, we shrieked and screamed and laughed, and nobody came to silence or molest us.
"The few rules that it was necessary to establish we were required implicitly and promptly to obey, but we were not wearied and distracted with incessant mandates. A raised voice was seldom heard. Taking advantage of some little lull in the storm, as she sat at her work, mother would call distinctly 'Alfred,' or whoever she might want, and then, when she had got the ringleader by her side, looking inquiringly into her face, she would quietly communicate her wishes."
Ever since the fifth year of my life, I have had upon my forehead a deep scar, and, whenever my attention has been directed to this, it recalls to my mind an early friend to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude.
When I was about three years old, to my great delight, a Newfoundland dog, named Nelson, was purchased. It was long before the faithful animal could be persuaded to stay anywhere away from his first
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master, so that he had to be tied up, for many weeks, close to the straw-yard which was our much frequented play ground, and, as I was the little three-year-old toddler supposed to most need his friendship, to me was awarded the great honour and pleasure of taking his food and water to him. Thus he naturally became attached to me before he cared much for anyone else, so that, for more than a year before he so cleverly managed to save my life, we were seldom far apart.
"We were playing together, one fine summer afternoon, on the road bridge over the stream that separates East from West Lavington, when I fell off the bridge into rather shallow water about nine feet below, pitching on my head, and driving into my forehead a pointed stone which stunned me and caused me to bleed profusely.
Poor Nelson must have been puzzled what to do with me, as the banks of the stream were too high on both sides of the bridge to make it possible for him to drag me out of the water there, and they continued high all the way down on the side nearest home, towards which he would have dragged me if he could. A little way down the stream, there was a low water meadow which was the only possible place where he could find a landing place for me, and here he contrived to drag me up the low bank and to lay me high and dry on the grass.
His next business was to give the alarm, and to get someone to come to me, and this required even more sagacity than getting me out of the water had done. He was about five hundred yards from the mill door which he was never allowed to enter. It was a double door, the lower half of which was always shut. Galloping furiously back to this door, and despising all rules and regulations, he jumped over the half door into the mill, from which he was immediately and sternly ordered out by my brother Edward. Seeing that he was not understood, Nelson jumped back over the door again, and galloped, with all the antics he could think of, towards me, and then back as near to Edward as Edward would allow. Edward now noticed the blood on the white hair of the dog, and concluded that he had better follow him. Satisfied that he had at last succeeded in obtaining help, Nelson took the nearest cut through the stream, and galloped back to lick my forehead.
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Unfortunately, my dear mother had been excessively alarmed by seeing and hearing the frantic dog from her bedroom window, and she was at my side before I had recovered any degree of consciousness. Soon after she had bandaged my forehead, I proved that I was not dead by a severe attack of sickness.
After that adventure, no one ever scolded me for making such a pet of Nelson, and it was generally conceded that I had a right to think as much as I did of my preserver.
Although the power to swim would not have saved me from the accident whose history I have just related, it naturally made my mother very anxious that I should learn that accomplishment. I could soon gratify this wish of hers, and, before long, had the pleasure of taking our miller's daughter, Matilda Hancock, out of the water just in time to save her life. How many times, in after years in New Zealand, I have owed my life to the fact that the happy hours spent in playing with my brothers and Nelson in the stream at Russell Mill, had made me a strong, confident swimmer.
Both father and mother valued courage in their boys and did all they could to cultivate it, and one thing that kept Nelson in favour with mother, and every one else, was that I was always willing to go anywhere, at any time of night, as long as Nelson was with me. The road from the mill to Lavington lay alongside a dreary wood which was, of course, said to be haunted, and injudicious servants and neighbours would often express surprise that so young a boy would go there alone at night. My brother Samuel, who was the most truly courageous boy I ever knew, had done the same before me. He had also introduced me to a great evening attraction at Lavington, which was Uncle Thomas's malt house, where our cousins and other boys congregated of an evening, and kept up tales and fun of all sorts. After Samuel left for boarding school, I sometimes went there by myself, and, on one of these evenings, ghost stories formed the chief topic of conversation, and I was asked if I was not afraid to go home alone. I replied that I was not alone, and pointed to Nelson, which caused a laugh at the idea of a dog being able to act as a protector against a ghost. When, on my homeward way, I had reached one of the celebrated ghost haunts, I saw a big boy come through the fence with a white shirt over his
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clothes. Nelson would always take off anyone's hat when I gave him a certain signal, and, in doing so, often gave a great scare to the person on whom he operated, so that I could not often practise him in that accomplishment. I thought this would be the best way to meet my friend in the white shirt; but, when I gave the usual signal, instead of taking off his hat, Nelson took him by the collar and pulled him down on his back, whereupon the ghost began to cry for mercy in a voice that was very familiar to me. When the blubbering boy was restored to his legs, he said, "I'll tell your vather that you zet that gurt zavage dog on me." I feared that he might do so, so I said nothing about this adventure at home; but, at the malt house, it created quite a sensation in favour of Nelson and against the would-be ghost.
The first governess employed in our household was Miss Lyndall, an aunt of Olive Schreiner, the author of "The Story of an African Farm." My mother was much attached to her. She married the Rev. Mr Holland, a missionary, and went out to Africa. She was a brave, energetic woman and did great service in the cause of African regeneration. In the history of this work her name is one of the foremost.
The governess who had the task of taking me seriously in hand was Miss Stoneham, a lady whom I must always remember with veneration. She was a bright, lively, clever, high-principled woman, whose pleasant, well-featured face was very deeply scarred as the result of small-pox. It would take volumes to give an idea of all that I owe her, or of all the provocation she received from me; but one little story will show what we both were, and will explain why I was so early removed from her splendid tuition.
It was on a fine evening in May, 1829, that Miss Stoneham took us all to pay a visit to mother's sister, Aunt Willett (the grandmother of Mrs Cunnington whose philanthropic work is well known in New Zealand), who, having experienced reverses of fortune, had opened a mental hospital in the town of East Lavington.
Whilst Miss Stoneham and the girls talked to aunt, John Willett, a boy a few years older than myself, took me round amongst the patients, including one in a padded room whom we saw through the bars of his door. This unfortunate man was giving utterance to the most
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horrible oaths. I had always a good verbal memory, and, on this occasion, I carried off two or three of this man's sentences that seemed to haunt me quite as correctly as I had ever learned Watts' hymns. I often repeated them to myself in a voice that I thought no one could hear. Mother was a little deaf, but Miss Stoneham's ears were very sharp.
A few days after this visit, I was turned back with my lessons, and sat down to relearn them in no very amiable mood. I ventured to mutter a sentence that I had learned so much better at the mental hospital. Miss Stoneham overheard me, and was horrified, as well she might be.
She at once sent me to my bedroom, and communicated with my mother. I was sentenced to some days on bread and water, in my bedroom, and was absolutely forbidden to again enter the stable where my mother always disliked to see me because she suspected that from it I brought bad language into the schoolroom.
Though I never could understand what fascination was on me to repeat words I had first heard with a shrinking horror, I felt angry with Miss Stoneham's sharp ears for hearing them. My bedroom window was just over the front door, out of which Miss Stoneham usually strolled after school. On my wash-stand there was an old half-pint cup, the handle of which was cracked at one end. I put a little water in it, and watched for her appearance, intending to throw the water over her and then disappear. But the handle of the cup broke off in my hand, so that cup and all went down at her feet. The cup broke to pieces on the path, and I saw her stoop and pick up every particle of it, which I had no doubt she was collecting as evidence against me. But nothing more did I ever hear of it. In the evening, one of my sisters brought in another cup, which she said Miss Stoneham had told her to do; but she did not know why nor where the new cup came from. That cup secured my heart and confidence for Miss Stoneham. She might have done anything she liked with me afterwards; but, unfortunately for me, I was not left under her care.
As soon as my eldest sister, Sarah, was able to take her place, Miss Stoneham left us to become Governess in my Aunt Willett's family.
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During Sarah's reign as preceptress, the life and interest of the school-room were greatly enhanced by the presence of two very juvenile and extremely pretty pupils who came daily, at first in the "bauble coach" drawn, not by "the gardener Robin," but by a stout nursemaid, and afterwards on donkey-back, managing their little steeds with much ease and grace. These were Uncle Richard's two daughters, Ann and Sarah Box. Ann's very pretty ringlets would perhaps have given her the palm for beauty; but she was altogether too correct and cautious to afford us much fun, whilst Sarah's irrepressible tongue was our constant amusement. Their education had been far less repressive than ours. Their father was no object of awe to them, and had never convinced them that "children should be seen and not heard." Sarah was most outspoken in her opinions of persons and things, and the quaintness of her remarks was heightened by a difficulty she experienced in the pronunciation of the letter r, and by the wonderful amount of righteous indignation her face could express. Her strong and voluntary expressions of opinion with regard to our various merits and demerits were long afterwards used as household words amongst us.
After it had been decided that I could no longer be taught by Miss Stoneham, I was sent to a day-school at West Lavington kept by a Congregational Minister without a charge, who used to set our tasks without note or comment, and then employ himself in writing sermons, whilst we employed ourselves in cutting his desk or drawing his likeness. In this way I should have entirely lost two years, only that my mother, finding that I learned nothing at school, taught me a great deal in the evenings at home.
After losing about two years at the Rev. J. P. 's school, that gentleman gave up the business, and I was transferred, as a boarder, to the care of another Congregational Minister at East Lavington. I don't know why I was sent as a boarder, but I believe that it was, firstly, to keep me out of the stables, and, secondly, to increase the small income of the Rev. T. S.
Mr S. was an active, persevering, systematic, passionate man, who would have succeeded in most occupations, though he was unfit to preach the gospel or to be trusted with a child. Still, as a teacher, he was
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a great improvement upon Mr P. Most of Mr P.'s scholars were transferred to him at the same time as myself. We came with very slovenly habits, and Mr S. resolved to drive them out of us.
At first, he was a great believer in not sparing the rod, and, as he struck passionately, there was a great consumption of hazel sticks, so that he was sometimes without a stick to use. This was the case one day when I was reading the Bible to him in class. I said "saith" when I ought to have said "said." He said to me, "You will find a great curse at the end of this book, sir, on those who alter any part of it." This set me off in a reverie as to how a minister could make such a profane use of those solemn words that conclude the Book of Revelations, and, soon afterwards, when I should have said "saith," I said "said." Mr S. jumped from his desk, closed his Bible, and, holding it with both hands, struck me a violent blow on the head with it. I fell to the ground. I was stunned for a moment, but soon staggered to my seat, and, without orders or leave, the rest of the class went to theirs, giving no uncertain expression of their opinion of the use he had been making of his Bible. The stunning had alarmed him. He was evidently ashamed of what he had done, and would have made it up with me there and then, but the attitude of his audience prevented him.
The next day was Friday, and I was to go home, for the first time, to spend Saturday and Sunday. When school was over I went home, but we never carried any tales there. In the evening of the same day, Friday, I was learning my lessons in a shady lane near the house, when Mr S. came suddenly upon me. He made an ample apology, and said he was sure that we would get on better in future; and so we did. He never struck me again, but taught me all he could, and I learned far more from him than from any other master.
During the last winter that I was a boarder with Mr S. in the parsonage house on the high ground, I often saw hay or corn stacks burning in the evening on the high hills and downs. The poor, hungry, uneducated farm labourers of Wiltshire were suffering extreme want and misery from the operation of the Corn Laws which made food dear and employment scarce and badly paid; and the landlords in and out of Parliament, were too often able to make them believe that the repeal of
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those iniquitous laws would lower wages and lessen the demand for labour. The result was that many of the poor men actually believed that the cause of their distress was the threshing of corn by machinery instead of by the hand flail, and, arming themselves with sticks, demanded permission to carry out the threshing machines and burn them. Where that demand was refused, they frequently revenged the denial by burning the farmers' unprotected field stacks. It was only six or seven shillings a week that the poor fellows demanded or hoped to get. How little did they think that their sons would soon be getting fifteen shillings a week, as well as much cheaper food, by the repeal of the Corn Laws, and by the extended use of greatly improved machinery.
On the 29th of March, 1833, my long stay at the parsonage house came to an end, and, on the first Monday morning afterwards, my father drove me with him to Bristol where I was to live in father's Bristol house with my brother Samuel and my cousin (afterwards my brother-in-law) Tom Box, who had lately begun to manage a large Bristol bakery. I was to go as a day scholar to the academy of Dr. Alfred Day, LL.D., where I was to begin learning Latin.
There were fifty-five boys at Dr. Day's school. Many of them were the sons of distinguished citizens, and plainly exhibited pride in their wealth or pedigree, which was something quite new to me, as both father and mother had taught us to lift our hats to worth, not to wealth or pedigree. Most, perhaps all, of the boys were more expensively dressed than I was, and they soon came to the conclusion that I was a baker's son and called me "Doughy." Most of them were older than I was, but I don't think any of them were stronger, so that I was in no danger of any tyranny being practised upon me.
The doctor employed me very often as monitor to teach his Latin learners the English grammar, and I found that not one of them had been taught that most useful science as well as my mother had taught it to me, and this certainly made the big boys treat "the baker's son" with more respect than they would otherwise have done.
