riumphantly repeated the collect I had broken down in the last
Sunday--'twas one without rhythm or alliteration: a most objectionable
collect--having achieved thus much, the small natural man in me
rebelled, and I vowed, as I straddled and spat about the stable-yard in
feeble imitation of the coachman, that lessons might go to the Inventor
of them. It was only geography that morning, any way: and the practical
thing was worth any quantity of bookish theoretic; as for me, I was
going on my travels, and imports and exports, populations and capitals,
might very well wait while I explored the breathing, coloured world
outside.

True, a fellow-rebel was wanted; and Harold might, as a rule, have been
counted on with certainty. But just then Harold was very proud. The week
before he had "gone into tables," and had been endowed with a new slate,
having a miniature sponge attached, wherewith we washed the faces of
Charlotte's dolls, thereby producing an unhealthy pallor which struck
terror into the child's heart, always timorous regarding epidemic
visitations. As to "tables," nobody knew exactly what they were,
least of all Harold; but it was a step over the heads of the rest, and
therefore a subject for self-adulation and--generally speaking--airs; so
that Harold, hugging his slate and his chains, was out of the question
now. In such a matter, girls were worse than useless, as wanting the
necessary tenacity of will and contempt for self-constituted authority.
So eventually I slipped through the hedge a solitary protestant, and
issued forth on the lane what time the rest of the civilised world was
sitting down to lessons.

The scene was familiar enough; and yet, this morning, how different
it all seemed! The act, with its daring, tinted everything with new,
strange hues; affecting the individual with a sort of bruised feeling
just below the pit of the stomach, that was intensified whenever his
thoughts flew back to the ink-stained, smelly schoolroom. And could
this be really me? or was I only contemplating, from the schoolroom
aforesaid, some other jolly young mutineer, faring forth under the
genial sun? Anyhow, here was the friendly well, in its old place, half
way up the lane. Hither the yoke-shouldering village-folk were wont to
come to fill their clinking buckets; when the drippings made worms of
wet in the thick dust of the road. They had flat wooden crosses inside
each pail, which floated on the top and (we were instructe