head-master's house, which was in a pleasant, open part of the town, on
the road leading to the race-course, just beyond the well-known
Salutation Hotel. Besides these, there were rather a large number of day
scholars,--I forget how many, perhaps fifty or sixty,--and in those days
the schoolhouse was a ground floor under the old theatre. We marched
down thither in the morning under the control of an usher, who was
always with us in our walks. This usher, whose name I well remember, but
do not choose to print, was a vulgar, overbearing man whom it was
difficult to like, yet at the same time we all felt that he was a very
valuable master. Boys feel the difference between a master who is a
gentleman and one who falls short of that ideal. We were clearly aware
that the head-master, Mr. Cape, was a gentleman, and that the usher was
not. Nevertheless, in spite of his occasional coarseness and even
brutality, the usher was a painstaking, honest fellow, who did his duty
very energetically. His best quality, which I appreciate far more now
than I did then, was an extreme readiness to help a willing boy in his
work, by clearly explaining those difficulties that are likely to stop
him in his progress. Mr. Cape was more an examiner than a teacher, at
least for us; with the private pupils he may have been more didactic.
The usher evidently liked to be asked; he was extremely helpful to me,
and thanks to him chiefly I made very rapid progress at Doncaster.
Unfortunately an occasional injustice made it difficult to be so
grateful to him as we ought to have been. Here is an example. One
evening in the playground he told me to get on the back of another boy,
and then thrashed me with a switch from an apple-tree. I begged to be
told for what fault this punishment was inflicted, and the only answer
he condescended to give me was that a master owed no explanation to a
schoolboy. Down to the present time I have never been able to make out
what the punishment was for, and strongly suspect that it was simply to
exercise the usher's arm, which was a powerful one. He was a fair