at-expeditions, which were intensely popular
in the school, gave noble exercise to the faculties. It was always a
great matter to see, just as the school met, some observant boy appear,
cap in hand, before the master, and intimate the fact of an arrival at
the shore, by the simple words, "Peat-boat, Sir." The master would then
proceed to name a party, more or less numerous, according to the
exigency; but it seemed to be matter of pretty correct calculation that,
in the cases in which the peat claim was disputed, it required about
twenty boys to bring home the twenty peats, or, lacking these, the
compensatory sail or spar. There were certain ill-conditioned boatmen
who almost always resisted, and who delighted to tell us--invariably,
too, in very bad English--that our perquisite was properly the hangman's
perquisite,[2] made over to us because we were _like him_; not
seeing--blockheads as they were!--that the very admission established in
full the rectitude of our claim, and gave to us, amid our dire perils
and faithful contendings, the strengthening consciousness of a just
quarrel. In dealing with these recusants, we used ordinarily to divide
our forces into two bodies, the larger portion of the party filling
their pockets with stones, and ranging themselves on some point of
vantage, such as the pier-head; and the smaller stealing down as near
the boat as possible, and mixing themselves up with the purchasers of
the peats. We then, after due warning, opened fire upon the boatmen;
and, when the pebbles were hopping about them like hailstones, the boys
below commonly succeeded in securing, under cover of the fire, the
desired boathook or oar. And such were the ordinary circumstances and
details of this piece of Spartan education; of which a townsman has told
me he was strongly reminded when boarding, on one occasion, under cover
of a well-sustained discharge of musketry, the vessel of an enemy that
had been stranded on the shores of Berbice.

The parish schoolmaster was a scholar and an honest man, and if a boy
really wished to learn, _he_ certainly could teach him. He had attended
the classes at Aberdeen during the same sessions as the late Dr. Mearns,
and in mathematics and the languages had disputed the prize with the
Doctor; but he had failed to get on equally well in the world; and now,
in middle life, though a licentiate of the Church, he had settled down
to be what he subsequently remained--the teacher of a parish s