where dangled the bell-rope, the cause of all my sufferings. I should
have passed it--for my confusion was so great, that I was quite at a loss
to comprehend what all this could mean, and almost believed myself under
the influence of an ugly dream--but now the boys, who were seated in
advance in the row, arose with one accord, and barred my farther
progress; and one, doubtless more sensible than the rest, seizing the
rope, thrust it into my hand. I now began to perceive that the dismissal
of the school, and my own release from torment, depended upon this
selfsame rope. I therefore, in a fit of desperation, pulled it once or
twice, and then left off, naturally supposing that I had done quite
enough. The boys who sat next the door, no sooner heard the bell, than
rising from their seats, they moved out at the door. The bell, however,
had no sooner ceased to jingle, than they stopped short, and, turning
round, stared at the master, as much as to say, "What are we to do now?"
This was too much for the patience of the man of method, which my
previous stupidity had already nearly exhausted. Dashing forward into
the middle of the room, he struck me violently on the shoulders with his
ferule, and, snatching the rope out of my hand, exclaimed, with a
stentorian voice, and genuine Yorkshire accent, "Prodigy of ignorance!
dost not even know how to ring a bell? Must I myself instruct thee?" He
then commenced pulling at the bell with such violence, that long before
half the school was dismissed the rope broke, and the rest of the boys
had to depart without their accustomed music.

But I must not linger here, though I could say much about the school and
the pedagogue highly amusing and diverting, which, however, I suppress,
in order to make way for matters of yet greater interest. On we went,
northward, northward! and, as we advanced, I saw that the country was
becoming widely different from those parts of merry England in which we
had previously travelled. It was wilder, and less cultivated, and more
broken with hills and hillocks. The people, too, of those regions
appeared to partake of something of the character of their country. They
were coarsely dressed; tall and sturdy of frame; their voices were deep
and guttural; and the half of the dialect which they spoke was
unintelligible to my ears.

I often wondered where we could be going, for I was at this time about as
ignorant of geography as I was of most other things.