boys who called after them in the
streets thought so too, until Richard had well punched all their heads,
when their opinions underwent a sudden change.

Another household incident that fixed itself in Burton's mind was the
loss of their "elegant and chivalrous French chef," who had rebelled
when ordered to boil a gigot. "Comment, madame," he replied to Mrs.
Burton, "un--gigot!--cuit a l'eau, jamais! Neverre!" And rather than
spoil, as he conceived it, a good leg of mutton he quitted her service.
[38] Like most boys, Burton was fond of pets, and often spent hours
trying to revive some bird or small beast that had met with misfortune,
a bias that affords a curious illustration of the permanence of
character. The boy of nine once succeeded in resuscitating a favourite
bullfinch which had nearly drowned itself in a great water jug--and
we shall find the man of sixty-nine, on the very last day of his life,
trying to revive a half-drowned robin.

4. At School, Richmond, 1829.

In 1829 the Burtons returned to England and took a house in Maids
of Honour Row, Richmond, while Richard and Edward were sent to a
preparatory school at Richmond Green--a handsome building with a paddock
which enclosed some fine old elms--kept by a "burly savage," named the
Rev. Charles Delafosse. Although the fees were high, the school was
badly conducted, and the boys were both ill-taught and ill-fed. Richard
employed himself out of school hours fighting with the other boys, and
had at one time thirty-two affairs of honour to settle. "On the first
occasion," he says, "I received a blow in the eye, which I thought most
unfair, and having got my opponent down I proceeded to hammer his head
against the ground, using his ears by way of handles. My indignation
knew no bounds when I was pulled off by the bystanders, and told to let
my enemy stand up again. 'Stand up!' I cried, 'After all the trouble
I've had to get the fellow down.'" [39]

Of the various countries he knew, Burton hated England most. Would he
ever, he asked see again his "Dear France." And then Fate, who revels in
irony, must needs set him to learn as a school task, of all the poems in
English, Goldsmith's Traveller! So the wretched boy, cursing England in
his heart, scowling and taking it out of Goldsmith by daubing his pages
with ink, sat mumbling:

"Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam
His first, best country ever is at home." [40]

By and by, to Burton's