tea-table, wore a curl on his fair forehead, and tied his neck-cloth with
a melancholy grace. He was a decent scholar and mathematician, and taught
Pen as much as the lad was ever disposed to learn, which was not much.
For Pen had soon taken the measure of his tutor, who, when he came riding
into the court-yard at Fairoaks on his pony, turned out his toes so
absurdly, and left such a gap between his knees and the saddle, that it
was impossible for any lad endowed with a sense of humour to respect such
an equestrian. He nearly killed Smirke with terror by putting him on his
mare, and taking him a ride over a common, where the county fox-hounds
(then bunted by that staunch old sportsman, Mr. Hardhead, of
Dumplingbeare) happened to meet. Mr. Smirke, on Pen's mare, Rebecca (she
was named after Pen's favourite heroine, the daughter of Isaac of York),
astounded the hounds as much as he disgusted the huntsman, laming one of
the former by persisting in riding amongst the pack, and receiving a
speech from the latter, more remarkable for energy of language, than any
oration he had ever heard since he left the bargemen on the banks of
Isis.

Smirke confided to his pupil his poems both Latin and English; and
presented to Mrs. Pendennis a volume of the latter, printed at Clapham,
his native place. The two read the ancient poets together, and rattled
through them at a pleasant rate, very different from that steady grubbing
pace with which the Cistercians used to go over the classic ground,
scenting out each word as they went, and digging up every root in the
way. Pen never liked to halt, but made his tutor construe when he was at
fault, and thus galloped through the Iliad and the Odyssey, the tragic
playwriters, writers, and the charming wicked Aristophanes (whom he vowed
to be the greatest poet of all). But he went at such a pace that, though
he certainly galloped through a considerable extent of the ancient
country, he clean forgot it in after-life, and had only such a vague