ithout receiving a single blow of any
consequence. He also labours under the additional disadvantage of being
a new fellow, and of not knowing any one here. Arthur in a former battle
put his finger out of joint, and as soon as it is recovered they are to
have a regular battle in the playing fields.

Other encounters are described with equal zest, especially one where
'the honour of Liverpool was bravely sustained,' superior weight and
size having such an advantage over toughness and strength, that the foe
of Liverpool was too badly bruised and knocked about to appear in
school. On another occasion, 'to the great joy' of the narrator, an
oppidan vanquished a colleger, though the colleger fought so furiously
that he put his fingers out of joint, and went back to the classic
studies that soften manners, with a face broken and quite black. The
Windsor and Slough coaches used to stop under the wall of the playing
fields to watch these desperate affrays, and once at least in these
times a boy was killed. With plenty of fighting went on plenty of
flogging; for the headmaster was the redoubtable Dr. Keate, with whom
the appointed instrument of moral regeneration in the childish soul was
the birch rod; who on heroic occasions was known to have flogged over
eighty boys on a single summer day; and whose one mellow regret in the
evening of his life was that he had not flogged far more. Religious
instruction, as we may suppose, was under these circumstances reduced to
zero; there was no trace of the influence of the evangelical party, at
that moment the most active of all the religious sections; and the
ancient and pious munificence of Henry VI. now inspired a scene that was
essentially little better than pagan, modified by an official church of
England varnish. At Eton, Mr. Gladstone wrote of this period forty years
after, 'the actual teaching of Christianity was all but dead, though
happily none of its forms had been surrendered.'[23]

Science even in its rudiments fared as ill as its eternal rival,
theology. There was a mathematical master, but nobody learned anything
from him, or took any notice of him. In his anxiety for position the
unfortunate man asked Keate if he might wear a cap and gown. 'That's as
you please,' said Keate. 'Must the boys touch their hats to me?' 'That's
as they please,' replied the genial doctor.[24] Gladstone first picked
up a little mathematics, not at Eton, but during the holidays, going to
Liverpool