Adventures of a younger son ...

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Chapter I

Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker,

Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss ; But making money, slowly first, then quicker,

And adding still a little through each cross (Which will come over things) beats love and liquor. Byron.

My birth was unpropitious. I came into the world, branded and denounced as a vagrant ; for I was a younger son of a family, so proud of their antiquity , that even gout and mortgaged estates were traced, many generations back, on the genealogical tree, as ancient heirlooms of aristocratic origin, and therefore reverenced. In such a house a younger son was like the cub of a felon-wolf in good King Edgar's days, when a price was set upon his head. There have been laws compelling parents to destroy their puny offspring ; and a Spartan mother might have exclaimed with Othello, while extinguishing the life of her yet unconscious infant,

" I that am cruel, am yet merciful, I would not have thee linger in thy pain ; "

which was just and merciful, in comparison with the atrocious law of primogeniture. My grandfather was a general, and had little to give my father, his only son, but patronage in his profession. Nature, in some sort, made him amends

B by bestowing that which leads to fortune oftener than genius, virtue, or such discarded claimants — a handsome exterior set off by courtly manners. His youth was not distinguished by any marked peculiarity, running the course of the gallants of the day. Women, wine, the court, the camp, formed the theatre of his ambition, and there he was accounted to play his part well. In his twenty-fourth year he became enamoured of a lovely and gentle girl. His thoughts took a new turn. He discovered (for in that he was learned) that the passion was mutual ; and the only barrier to the completion of their wishes was fortune. Their families, but not their expectations, were equal. Youth and love are generally proof against the admonitions of parents and guardians. As to money, settlements, and deeds, first love is of too sincere and passionate a character to be controlled by worldly calculating selfishness, which, in after life, is mingled up more or less in all our dealings with women, and theirs with us. The noble and generous passions, animated by first love, often impress on the unsettled and fluctuating character .of youth a fixedness, which time cannot wholly destroy. Would to Heaven my father had united his fate with her's, for her worth has stood proof against time and change ! While he was labouring to overcome the impediments to his marriage, he was ordered with a party to recruit in the west. Thinking their separation temporary, they parted, as all those, under such circumstances, have parted, with protestations of eternal fidelity ; but, what is not so general, considering his being a gay soldier, he continued true to his oaths for three months.

At a ball, given by the county sheriff on his nomination, his daughter, an heiress, when desired by her father to give her hand, for the first dance, to the man of highest rank in the room, who happened to be the oldest, declared she would give it to the handsomest. She selected, my father, and with him she danced. This preference flattered him, and its being a subject of conversation gave birth to ideas which, otherwise, might not have entered his head. She was a dark, masculine woman of three and twenty ; but she was the richest, and that was enough to make her seem at least the mcst interesting. My father was naturally, or by the example of the world, of a selfish turn of mind. Rich and beautiful soon became synonymous terms with him. He received marked encouragement from the heiress. He saw those he had envied, envying him. Gold was his god, for he had daily experienced those mortifications to which the want of it subjected him : he determined to offer up his heart to the temple of Fortune alone, and waited but an opportunity of displaying his apostacy to love. The struggle with his better feelings was of short duration. He called his conduct prudence and filial obedience — and those are virtues — thus concealing its naked atrocity by a seemly covering. His letters grew briefer, and their interval greater, to the lady of his love — his visits became frequent to the lady of wealth. But why dwell on an occurrence so common in the world — the casting away of virtue and beauty for riches, though the devil gives them ? He married ; found the lady's fortune a great deal less, and the lady a great deal worse than he had anticipated ; went to town irritated and disappointed, with the consciousness of having merited his fate ; sunk part of his fortune in idle parade to satisfy his wife ; and, his affairs being embarrassed by the lady's extravagance, he was, at length, compelled to sell out of the army, and retire to economise in the country.

Malthus had not yet enlightened the world. Every succeeding year he reluctantly registered in the family Bible the birth of a living burthen. He cursed my mother's fertility, and the butcher's and baker's bills. He grew gloomy and desponding.

A bequest fell to him, and he seriously set about amassing money, which was henceforth the leading passion of his life. He became what is called a prudent man. If a poor relation applied to him, he talked of his duty to his wife and children; and when richest, complained most of his poverty, of extortion, and of the unconscionable price of every thing. He contended that he could not afford to send his children to school; learning was too dear; it was unnecessary, for his education at Westminster had proved of no benefit, as he had never since looked into the Greek, Latin, and all the books he had read there by compulsion ; yet he was not b 2 more ignorant than his neighbours. He knew the importance of money, and the necessity of accumulating it, and could calculate the value of learning. Perhaps he believed exclusively in the doctrine of innate talent. Knowledge, in his opinon, would come when called for. It would be time enough when our professions were determined on, to learn what was indispensable ; and as my brother's and mine would be that of arms, very little was necessary. He hated superfluity in any thing; besides, he had observed that those in his regiment who were addicted to books were the most troublesome, and their learning was no step to their advancement.

Chapter II

And oft In wantonness of spirit, plunging down Into their green and glassy gulphs, and making My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen By those above, till they wax'd fearful; then Returning with my grasp full of such tokens As show'd that I had search'd the deep, exulting With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep The long suspended breath, again I spurn'd The foam which broke around me, and pursued My track like a sea-bird. Byron.

My brother was tractable, mild, and uncomplaining. I was in continual scrapes. I insisted on following the bent of my inclinations ; and opposition only sharpened my desires. We were not allowed, among the many petty restrictions of our unkind governor, to stray off the gravelled paths in the garden. My brother submitted to this ; while I sought for compensation in our neighbour's gardens, returning from them with fruits and flowers in abundance. My brother was contented with his daily walk upon the common or the road ; I, with my pockets well filled with bread and apples, climbed the hills, or descended them to learn swimming in the rivers. I hated .all that thwarted me — parsons, pastors, and masters. Every thing I was directed cautiously to shun, as dangerous or wrong, I sought with avidity, as giving the most pleasure. Had I been treated with affection, or even with the show of it, I believe that I also should have been tractable, mild, and uncomplaining. Punishment and severity of all kinds were the only marks of paternal love that fell to my share, from my earliest remembrance.

My father had a fancy for a raven, that, with ragged wings, and a grave antique aspect, used to wander solitarily about the garden. He abhorred children ; and whenever he saw any of us, he used to chase us out of his walks. I was then five years old. Had the raven pitched on any other spot than the one he selected, the fruit-garden, I certainly should never liave disputed his right of possession. As it was, we had all, from the time we could walk, considered him and my father the two most powerful, awful, and tyrannical persons on earth. The raven was getting into years ; he had a grey and grisly look ; he halted on one leg ; his joints were stiff, his legs rough as the bark of a cork-tree, and he was covered with large warts : his eyes had a bleared and sinister expression ; and he passed most of his time idling in the sun under a south wall, against which grew the delicious plums of the garden. Many were the stratagems we used to lure him from the spot ; the garbage,, on which he gloated, was offered in vain. His moroseness and ferocity, and our difficulty in getting fruit, were insupportable. We tried to intimidate him with sticks, but w r ere too weak to make the least impression on his weatherhardened carcase; and we got the w r orst of it. I used, when I could do so slily, to throw stones at him, but this had no effect. Thus things continued. I had in vain sought for redress from the gardener and servants : they laughed at us, and jeered us.

One day I had a little girl for my companion, whom I had enticed from the nursery to go with me to get some fruit clandestinely. We slunk out, and entered the garden unobserved. Just as we were congratulating ourselves under a cherry tree, up comes the accursed monster of a raven. It was no longer to be endured. He seized hold of the little girl's frock ; she was too frightened to scream ; I did not hesitate an instant. I told her not to be afraid, and b 3 threw myself upon him. He let her go, and attacked me with bill and talon. I got hold of him by the neck, and, heavily lifting him up, struck his body against the tree and the ground ; but nothing seemed to hurt him. He was hard as a rock. Thus we struggled, I evidently the weaker party. The little girl, who was my favourite, said, :e I'll go and call the gardener !"

I said, " No ; he will tell my father : I will hang the old fellow " (meaning the raven, not my father) ; " give me your sash ! "

She did so, and with great exertion I succeeded, though I was dreadfully mauled, in fastening one end round the old tyrant's neck ; I then climbed the cherry tree, and, holding one end of the sash, I put it round a horizontal branch, when, jumping on the ground, I fairly succeeded in suspending my foe.

At this moment my brother came running towards me. When he saw the plight I was in, he was alarmed; but, on beholding our old enemy swinging in the air, he shouted for joy. Fastening the end of the sash, we commenced stoning him to death. After we were tired of that sport, and as he was, to all appearance, dead, we let him down. He fell on his side, when I seized hold of a raspberry-stake, to make sure of him by belabouring his head. To our utter amazement and consternation, he sprung up with a hoarse scream, and caught hold of me. Our first impulse was to run ; but he withheld me, so I again fell on him, calling to my brother for assistance, and bidding him lay fast hold of the riband, and to climb the tree. I attempted to prevent his escape. His look was now most terrifying : one eye was hanging out of his head, the blood coming from his mouth, his wings flapping the earth in disorder, and with a ragged tail, which I had half plucked by pulling at him during his first execution. He made a horrible struggle for existence, and I was bleeding all over. Now, with the aid of my brother, and as the raven was exhausted by exertion and wounds, we succeeded in gibbeting him again ; and then with sticks we cudgelled him to death, beating his head to pieces. Afterwards we tied a stone to him, and sunk him in a duck-pond.

A YOUNGER SON.

This was the first and most fearful duel I ever had. I mention it, childish though it be, not only because it lives vividly in my memory, but as it was an event that, in reviewing my after-life, seems evidently the first ring on which the links of a long chain have been formed. It shows how long I could endure annoyance and oppression, and that when at last excited, I never tried half measures, but proceeded to extremities without stop or pause. This was my grievous fault, and grievously have I repented it ; for I have destroyed, where, in justice, I was justified, but where, in mercy, I ought only to have corrected; and thus thestandersby have considered that, which I only thought a fair retaliation, revenge.

Chapter III

There arose From the near school-room voices that, alas! Were but one echo from a world of woes, The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes, Shelley.

Phrensied with new woes, Unused to bend, by hard compulsion bent. Keats.

Jn compliance with my father's notions respecting the inutility of early education, I was not sent to school till I was between nine and ten years old. I was then an unusually great, bony, awkward boy. Whilst my parents were in their daily discussion of the question as to the period at which the schooling of their sons was to commence, a trivial occurrence decided the question. I was perched on an apple tree, throwing the fruit down to my brother, when our father came on us suddenly. Every trifle put him in a passion. Commanding us to follow him, he walked rapidly on through the grounds, into the road, without entering the house. He led us towards the town and through the streets, without uttering a syllable, a distance of two miles. I followed with b 4 dogged indifference, yet at times inquired of my brother what he thought would be the probable result, but he made no reply. Arriving at the further extremity of the town, my father stopped, asked some questions inaudible to us, and stalked forward to a walled and dreary building. We followed our dignified father up a long passage ; he rung at a prison -looking entrance-gate; we were admitted into a court; then crossing a spacious dark hall, we were conducted into a small parlour, when the door was shut, and the servant left us. In ten minutes, which seemed an eternity, entered a dapper little man, carrying his head high in the air, with large bright silver buckles in his shoes, a stock buckled tightly round his neck, spectacled, and powdered. There was a formal precision about him, most fearful to a boy. A hasty glance from his hawk's eye, first at our father, and then at us, gave him an insight into the affair. With repeated bows to our father, he requested him to take a chair, and pointed with his finger for us to do the same. There was an impatience and rapidity in every thing he said ; which indicated that he liked doing and not talking.

( ' Sir," said our parent, ei I believe you are Mr. Sayers ? "

" Yes, sir."

" Have you any vacancies in your school ? "

" Yes, sir."

" Well, sir, will you undertake the charge of these ungovernable vagabonds ? I can do nothing with them. Why, sir, this fellow" (meaning me) " does more mischief in my house than your sixty boys can possibly commit in yours."

At this the pedagogue, moving his spectacles towards the sharpened tip of his nose, peered over them, measuring me from head to foot ; and clenching his hand, as if, in imagination, it already grasped the birch, gave an oblique nod, to intimate that he would subdue me. My inauguration proceeded —

" He is savage, incorrigible ! Sir, he will come to the gallows, if you do not scourge the devil out of him. I have this morning detected him in an act of felony, for which he deserves a halter. My elder son, sir, was instigated by him to be an accomplice ; for naturally he is of a better disposition." With this, my father, after arranging what was indispensable, bowed to Mr. Sayers, and without noticing us. withdrew.

Consider the outrage to my feelings. Torn from my home, without notice or preparation ; delivered, in bitter words, an outcast, into the power of a stranger ; and, a minute afterwards, to find myself in a slip of ground, dedicated to play, but, by its high walls and fastnesses, looking more like a prison -yard. Thirty or forty boys, from ^ve to fifteen years of age, stood around us, making comments, and asking questions. I wished the earth to open and bury me, and hide the torturing emotions with which my bosom swelled. Now that I look back, I repeat that wish with my whole soul; and could I have known the future, or but have dreamed of the destiny that awaited me, boy as I was, I would have dashed my brains out against the wall, where I leaned in sullenness and silence. My brother's disposition enabled him to bear his fate in comparative calmness ; but the red spots on his cheeks, the heavy eyelid, the suppressed voice, showed our feelings, though differing in acuteness, to be the same.

Miserable as I was during my school-days, the first was the bitterest. At supper, I remember, I was so choked with my feelings, that I could not swallow my dog-like food, arranged in scanty portions ; and my first relief was when, in my beggarly pallet, the rushlights extinguished, and surrounded by the snoring of the wearied boys — to me a sound of comfort — I could give vent to my overcharged heart in tears. I sobbed aloud ; but on any one's moving, as if awake, I held my breath till re-assured. Thus I sobbed on, and was not heard ; till the night was far advanced, and my pillow bathed in tears, when, outworn, I fell into a sleep, from which I was rudely shaken, unrefreshed, at seven in the morning. I then descended to the school-room.

Boys, acting under the oppression of their absolute masters, are cruel, and delight in cruelty. All that is evil in them is called forth ; all that is good repressed. They remember what they endured when consigned as bond-slaves ; the tricks, all brutish, that were played on them ;

the gibes at their simplicity ; their being pilfered by the cunning, and beaten by the strong ; and they will not allow a new comer to escape from the ordeal. Boys at school are taught cruelty, cunning, and selfishness : and he is their victim and fool who retains a touch of kindliness.

The master entered. He was one of those pedagogues cf, what is called, the old school. He had implicit faith in his divining rod, which he kept in continual exercise, applying it on all doubtful occasions. It seemed more like a house of correction than an academy of learning ; and when I thought on my father's injunction not to spare the rod, my heart sickened.

As my school-life was one scene of suffering, I am impelled to hasten it over as briefly as possible ; more particularly as the abuses, of which I complain, are, if not altogether remedied, at least mitigated. I was flogged seldom more than once a day, or caned more than once an hour. After I had become inured to it, I was callous ; and was considered by the master the most obdurate, violent, and incorrigible rascal that had ever fallen under his hands. Every variation of punishment was inflicted on me, without effect. As to kindness, it never entered into his speculations to essay it, since he, possibly, had not heard of such a thing.

In a short while I grew indifferent to shame and fear. Every kind and gentle feeling of my naturally affectionate disposition seemed subdued by the harsh and savage treatment of my master ; and I was sullen, vindictive, or insensible. Vain efforts — for they were ever vain — to avoid the disgrace of punishment, occupied the minds of others. I began by venting my rage on the boys, and soon gained that respect by fear, which I would not obtain by application to my book. I thus had my first lesson as to the necessity of depending on myself; and the spirit in me was gathering strength, in despite of every endeavour to destroy it, like a young pine flourishing in the cleft of a bed of granite.

A YOUNGER SON. 1J

Chapter IV

The relationship of father and son Is no more valid than a silken leash Where lions tug adverse ; if iove grow not From interchanged love through many years. Keats's MS.

He has cast nature off, which was his shield;

And nature casts him off, who is her shame. Shelley.

As my bodily strength increased, I became, out of school, the leader in all sports and mischief; but, in school, I was in the lowest class. I was determined not to apply to learning, and to defy punishment. Indeed, I do not recollect that any of the boys acquired useful knowledge there. When satisfied with the ascendancy I had gained over my schoolfellows, I turned my whole thoughts to the possibility of revenging myself on the master. I first tried my hand on his understrapper. Having formed a party of the most daring of my myrmidons, I planned and executed a castigation for our tutor. Once a week we were refreshed by long country walks ; in the course of one of these the tutor sat down to rest himself ; the boys, not acquainted with the plot, were busy gathering nuts ; my chosen band loitered near, preparing rods ; when I, backed by three of the strongest, fell suddenly upon our enemy. I got my hand round his dirty cravat, which I continued twisting ; the others seized his arms and legs, and threw him on his back. A halloo brought six or seven more. He several times nearly succeeded in shaking us off; but I never resigned my hold, and when his struggles had driven away one boy, another took his place m x till, completely overcome, he entreated us, as well as he could articulate, to have mercy, and not to strangle him. I griped him the tighter, till the sweat dropped from his brow like rain from the eaves of a pig's-sty. We then gave him a sample of flogging he could never forget.

The upshot of this is told in a few words. On my return to school, our pastor and master (for he was clerical), began to have an inkling of what I and his pupils were capable. The dreadful narrative which the usher gave of my violence awakened a dread that the sacredness of his vocation and sacerdotal robes had been alone respected by our despair of successful opposition ; that having once tasted of the sweets of victory, we might be presumptuous enough flatly to refuse obedience to his commands; that my influence and example encouraged others ; and that he would daily lose ground in his authority. This castigation of the usher astonished him. He opened his eyes to the necessity of using more decisive steps, and of making an example of me, before I was so hardened in my audacity, as perhaps to attempt or execute some plot against him. His caution came too late. He called me to him, standing three steps above me on a raised platform. The boys, like young horses, when they learn their power, were unruly. I stood, not as I had done, drooping before his angry glances, but upright, and full of confidence, looking him in the face without quailing. He accused me — I pleaded my justification — he grew angry — my blood mounted to my forehead — he struck me — and I, with one sudden exertion, seized him by the legs, when he fell heavily on the back of his head. The usher, writing-master, and others, came to his aid ; but all the boys sat silent and exulting, awaiting the result in wonder.

I, unwilling to be seized by the usher, who, between fear of the boys and duty to his employer, stood irresolute, rushed out of the schoolroom into the garden, and there was I in triumph. I resolved that nothing should or could compel me to continue in the school, which determination I should long before have made, but from awe of my father's dreadful severity. I had borne two years of such suffering as few could have sustained ; nature could endure no more. I was now desperate, and therefore without hope or fear. I received a message, by one of the servants, to go into the house. After some hesitation I went. I was confined in a bedroom by myself, and at supper-time bread and water was brought — spare diet certainly, but not much worse than the usual fare. I saw no one but the servant. Next day the same solitude — the same spare diet. At night a bit of candle was left to light me to bed ; I know not what impelled me, I suppose the hope of release, not revenge — I set fire to the bed-curtains. The bed was in a bright flame, the smoke arose in clouds : without a thought of escape I viewed their progress with boyish delight ; the wainscot and wood-work were beginning to burn, the fire crackling up the walls, while I could hardly breathe for smoke. The servant returned for the candle, and as the door opened the draught augmented the flame. I cried out, (i Look here, George, I have lighted a fire myself, you said I should have none, though it was so cold." The man's shrieks gave the alarm. There was little furniture in this condemned hold, and the fire was extinguished. I was removed to another room, where a man sat up all night with me in custody ; and I remember I exulted in the dread they all had of me. They called it -arson, treason, and blasphemy — these accusations made some impression, because I was ignorant of their meaning. I did not see my reverend preceptor — perhaps his head ached ; nor was I permitted to see any of my comrades, — the latter pained me : nay, I was not permitted to see my brother, lest I should infect him.

The next morning I was despatched home under a guard. My father was — O happy chance ! — absent. An unexpected and considerable fortune had been bequeathed to him. He returned, and, either softened by his good luck, or from good policy, he never opened his lips to me on the subject. But he said to my mother, " You seem to have influence over your son. I give him up. If you can induce him to act rationally, be it so ; if not, he must find another home." I was then about eleven years old.

To give an idea of the progress I made at this birchen school, my father, one day after dinner, conversing with my mother on the monstrous price of learning, and hinting that a parish school in the village, to which he was compelled to contribute, would have done as well, said, turning to me, c ' Come, sir, what have you learnt ? "

u Learnt !" I ejaculated, speaking in a hesitating voice, for my mind misgave me as to what was to follow.

" Is that the way to address me? Speak out, you dunce ! and say, Sir ! Do you take me for a footboy ? ' raising his voice to a roar, which utterly drove out of my head what little the schoolmaster had, with incredible toil and punishment, driven into it. (C What have you learnt, you raggamuffin ? What do you know?"

" Not much, sir ! "

et What do you know in Latin ? "

" Latin, sir ? I don't know Latin, sir ! "

" Not Latin, you idiot ! Why, I thought they taught nothing but Latin."

" Yes, sir; ciphering."

" Well, how far did you proceed in arithmetic ? "

" No, sir ! they taught me ciphering and writing."

My father looked grave. " Can you work the rule of three, you dunce ? "

" Rule of three, sir ! "

iC Do you know subtraction? Come, you blockhead, answer me ! Can you tell me, if five are taken from fifteen, how many remain ?"