Chapter Four

As soon as I was clear of the door, I looked up into Ben’s 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 can’t do either—more’s the pity; and you are flogged, because without flogging, little boys can’t 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 O’Gallagher, 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 mother’s house. Ben, who probably had a great respect for learning, in consequence of his having none himself, gave a military salute to Mr O’Gallagher, saying, with his hand still to his hat, “A new boy, sir, come to school.”

“Oh, by the powers! don’t I know him?” cried Mr O’Gallagher; “it’s 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 that’s his dinner in the basket I presume; lave that too. He’ll 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 pedagogue—I 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 O’Gallagher 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 mother’s 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.

“Why don’t you bring back my ruler, you spalpeen?” said Mr O’Gallagher. “Be quick, Johnny Target, or it will end in a blow-up.”

The boy, who was not a little confused with the blow, sufficiently recovered his senses to obey the order, and whimpering as he came up, returned the ruler to the hands of Mr O’Gallagher.

“That tongue of yours will get you into more trouble than it will business, I expect, Johnny Target; it’s an unruly member, and requires a constant ruler over it.” Johnny Target rubbed his head and said nothing.

“Master Keene,” said he, after a short pause, “did you see what a tundering tump on the head that boy got just now, and do you know what it was for?”

“No,” replied I.

“Where’s your manners, you animal? No ‘If you plase.’ For the future, you must not forget to say, ‘No, sir,’ or, ‘No, Mr O’Gallagher.’ D’ye mind me—now say yes—what?”

“Yes, what!”

“Yes, what! you little ignoramus; say ‘yes, Mr O’Gallagher,’ and recollect, as the parish clerk says, ‘this is the last time of asking.’”

“Yes, Mr O’Gallagher.”

“Ah! now you see, there’s nothing like coming to school—you’ve learn’t manners already; and now, to go back again, as to why Johnny Target had the rap on the head, which brought tears into his eyes? I’ll just tell you, it was for talking; you see, the first thing for a boy to learn, is to hold his tongue, and that shall be your lesson for the day; you’ll just sit down there and if you say one word during the whole time you are in the school, it will end in a blow-up; that means, on the present occasion, that I’ll skin you alive as they do the eels, which being rather keen work, will just suit your constitution.” I had wit enough to feel assured that Mr O’Gallagher was not to be trifled with, so I took my seat, and amused myself with listening to the various lessons which the boys came up to say, and the divers punishments inflicted—few escaped. At last, the hour of recreation and dinner arrived, the boys were dismissed, each seized his basket, containing his provisions, or ran home to get his meal with his parents: I found myself sitting in the school-room tête-à-tête with Mr O’Gallagher, and feeling very well inclined for my dinner I cast a wistful eye at my basket, but I said nothing; Mr O’Gallagher, who appeared to have been in thought, at last said—

“Mr Keene, you may now go out of school, and scream till you’re hoarse, just to make up for lost time.”

“May I take my dinner, sir?” inquired I.

“Is it your dinner you mane?—to be sure you may; but, first, I’ll just look into the basket and its contents; for you see, Mr Keene, there’s some victuals that don’t agree with larning; and if you eat them, you’ll not be fit for your work when your play-hours are over. What’s easy of digestion will do; but what’s bad for little boys’ stomachs may get you into a scrape, and then it will end in a blow-up; that is, you’ll have a taste of the ferrule or the rod—two assistants of mine, to whom I’ve not yet had the pleasure of introducing you—all in good time. If what I’ve hear of you be true, you and they will be better acquainted afore long.”

Mr O’Gallagher then examined the contents of my basket; my aunt Milly had taken care that I should be well provided: there was a large paper of beef sandwiches, a piece of bread and cheese, and three or four slices of seed-cake. Mr O’Gallagher opened all the packages, and, after a pause, said—

“Now, Master Keene, d’ye think you would ever guess how I came by all my larning, and what I fed upon when it was pumped into me? Then I’ll tell you; it was dry bread, with a little bit of cheese when I could get it, and that wasn’t often. Bread and cheese is the food to make a scholar of ye; and mayhap one slice of the cake mayn’t much interfere, so take them, and run away to the play-ground as fast as you can; and, d’ye hear me, Master Keene, recollect your grace before meat—‘For what we have received, the Lord make us truly thankful.’ Now, off wid you. The rest of the contents are confiscated for my sole use, and your particular benefit.”

Mr O’Gallagher grinned as he finished his oration; and he looked so much like a wild beast, that I was glad to be off as fast as I could. I turned round as I went out of the door, and perceived that the sandwiches were disappearing with wonderful rapidity; but I caught his eye: it was like that of a tiger’s at his meal, and I was off at redoubled speed.

Chapter Five

As soon as I gained the play-ground, which was, in fact, nothing more than a small piece of waste land, to which we had no more claim than any other people, I sat down by a post, and commenced my dinner off what Mr O’Gallagher had thought proper to leave me. I was afraid of him, it is true, for his severity to the other boys convinced me that he would have little mercy upon me, if I dared to thwart him; but indignation soon began to obtain the mastery over my fears and I began to consider if I could not be even with him for his barefaced robbery of my dinner; and then I reflected whether it would not be better to allow him to take my food if I found out that by so doing he treated me well; and I resolved, at all events, to delay a little. The hour of play was now over, and a bell summoned us all to school; I went in with the others and took my seat where Mr O’Gallagher had before desired me.

As soon as all was silent, my pedagogue beckoned me to him.

“Now, Mr Keene,” said he, “you’ll be so good as to lend me your ears—that is, to listen while I talk to you a little bit. D’ye know how many roads there are to larning? Hold your tongue. I ask you because I know you don’t know, and because I’m going to tell you. There are exactly three roads: the first is the eye, my jewel; and if a lad has a sharp eye like yours, it’s a great deal that will get into his head by that road; you’ll know a thing when you see it again, although you mayn’t know your own father—that’s a secret only known to your mother. The second road to larning, young spalpeen, is the ear; and if you mind all people say, and hear all you can, you’ll gain a great many truths and just ten times as much more in the shape of lies. You see the wheat and the chaff will come together, and you must pick the latter out of the former at any seasonable future opportunity. Now we come to the third road to larning, which is quite a different sort of road; because, you see, the two first give us little trouble, and we trot along almost whether we will or not: the third and grand road is the head itself, which requires the eye and the ear to help it; and two other assistants, which we call memory and application; so you see we have the visual, then the aural, and then the mental roads—three hard words which you don’t understand, and which I shan’t take the trouble to explain to such an animal as you are; for I never throw away pearls to swine, as the saying is. Now, then, Mr Keene, we must come to another part of our history. As there are three roads to larning, so there are three manes or implements by which boys are stimulated to larn: the first is the ruler, which you saw me shy at the thick skull of Johnny Target, and you see’d what a rap it gave him; well, then, the second is the ferrule—a thing you never heard of, perhaps; but I’ll show it you; here it is,” continued Mr O’Gallagher, producing a sort of flat wooden ladle with a hole in the centre of it. “The ruler is for the head, as you have seen; the ferrule is for the hand. You have seen me use the ruler; now I’ll show you what I do with the ferrule.”

“You Tommy Goskin, come here, sir.”

Tommy Goskin put down his book, and came up to his master with a good deal of doubt in his countenance.

“Tommy Goskin, you didn’t say your lesson well to-day.”

“Yes I did, Mr O’Gallagher,” replied Tommy, “you said I did yourself.”

“Well then, sir, you didn’t say it well yesterday,” continued Mr O’Gallagher.

“Yes I did, sir,” replied the boy, whimpering.

“And is it you who dares to contradict me?” cried Mr O’Gallagher; “at all events, you won’t say it well to-morrow, so hold out your right hand.”

Poor Tommy held it out, and roared lustily at the first blow, wringing his fingers with the smart.

“Now your left hand, sir; fair play is a jewel; always carry the dish even.”

Tommy received a blow on his left hand, which was followed up with similar demonstrations of suffering.

“There sir you may go now,” said Mr O’Gallagher, “and mind you don’t do it again; or else there’ll be a blow-up. And now Master Keene, we come to the third and last, which is the birch for the tail—here it is—have you ever had a taste?”

“No, sir,” replied I.

“Well, then, you have that pleasure to come, and come it will, I don’t doubt, if you and I are a few days longer acquainted. Let me see—”

Here Mr O’Gallagher looked round the school, as if to find a culprit; but the boys, aware of what was going on, kept their eyes so attentively to their books, that he could not discover one; at last he singled out a fat chubby lad.

“Walter Puddock, come here, sir.”

Walter Puddock came accordingly; evidently he gave himself up for lost.

“Walter Puddock, I just have been telling Master Keene that you’re the best Latin scholar in the whole school. Now, sir, don’t make me out to be a liar—do me credit,—or, by the blood of the O’Gallaghers, I’ll flog ye till you’re as thin as a herring. What’s the Latin for a cocked hat, as the Roman gentlemen wore with their togeys?”

Walter Puddock hesitated a few seconds, and then, without venturing a word of remonstrance, let down his trousers.

“See now the guilty tief, he knows what’s coming. Shame upon you, Walter Puddock, to disgrace your preceptor so, and make him tell a lie to young Master Keene. Where’s Phil Mooney? Come along, sir, and hoist Walter Puddock: it’s no larning that I can drive into you, Phil, but it’s sartain sure that by your manes I drive a little into the other boys.”

Walter Puddock, as soon as he was on the back of Phil Mooney, received a dozen cuts with the rod, well laid on. He bore it without flinching, although the tears rolled down his cheeks.

“There, Walter Puddock, I told you it would end in a blow-up; go to your dictionary, you dirty blackguard, and do more credit to your education and superior instruction from a certain person who shall be nameless.”

Mr O’Gallagher laid the rod on one side, and then continued—

“Now, Master Keene, I’ve just shown you the three roads to larning, and also the three implements to persuade little boys to larn; if you don’t travel very fast by the three first, why you will be followed up very smartly by the three last—a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, any day; and one thing more, you little spalpeen, mind that there’s more mustard to the sandwiches to-morrow, or else it will end in a blow-up. Now you’ve got the whole theory of the art of tuition, Master Keene; please the pigs, we’ll commence with the practice to-morrow.”

My worthy pedagogue did not address me any more during that day; the school broke up at five, and I made haste home, thinking over all that had passed in the school-room.

My granny and mother were both anxious to know what had passed; the first hoped that I had been flogged, the second that I had not, but I refused to communicate. I assumed a haughty, indifferent air, for I was angry with my mother, and as for my grandmother, I hated her. Aunt Milly, however, when we were alone, did not question me in vain. I told her all that had passed; she bade me be of good heart, and that I should not be ill-treated if she could help it.

I replied, that if I were ill-treated, I would have my revenge somehow or another. I then went down to the barracks, to the rooms of Captain Bridgeman, and told him what had occurred. He advised me to laugh at the ruler, the ferrule, and the rod. He pointed out to me the necessity of my going to school and learning to read and write, at the same time was very indignant at the conduct of Mr O’Gallagher, and told me to resist in every way any injustice or tyranny, and that I should be sure of his support and assistance, provided that I did pay attention to my studies.

Fortified by the advice and protection of my two great friends, I made up my mind that I would learn as fast as I could, but if treated ill, that I would die a martyr, rather than yield to oppression; at all events, I would, if possible, play Mr O’Gallagher a trick for every flogging or punishment I received; and with this laudable resolution I was soon fast asleep, too fast even to dream.