be not fond
of brawl and violence (in the manner of our Lynn), yet is wont to flood
into a mighty head of waters when the storms of rain provoke it; and
most of all when its little co-mate, called the Taunton Brook--where
I have plucked the very best cresses that ever man put salt on--comes
foaming down like a great roan horse, and rears at the leap of the
hedgerows. Then are the gray stone walls of Blundell on every side
encompassed, the vale is spread over with looping waters, and it is a
hard thing for the day-boys to get home to their suppers.

And in that time, old Cop, the porter (so called because he hath copper
boots to keep the wet from his stomach, and a nose of copper also, in
right of other waters), his place is to stand at the gate, attending to
the flood-boards grooved into one another, and so to watch the torrents
rise, and not be washed away, if it please God he may help it. But long
ere the flood hath attained this height, and while it is only waxing,
certain boys of deputy will watch at the stoop of the drain-holes, and
be apt to look outside the walls when Cop is taking a cordial. And in
the very front of the gate, just without the archway, where the ground
is paved most handsomely, you may see in copy-letters done a great
P.B. of white pebbles. Now, it is the custom and the law that when
the invading waters, either fluxing along the wall from below the
road-bridge, or pouring sharply across the meadows from a cut called
Owen's Ditch--and I myself have seen it come both ways--upon the very
instant when the waxing element lips though it be but a single pebble of
the founder's letters, it is in the license of any boy, soever small
and undoctrined, to rush into the great school-rooms, where a score of
masters sit heavily, and scream at the top of his voice, "P.B."

Then, with a yell, the boys leap up, or break away from their standing;
they toss their caps to the black-beamed roof, and haply the very books
after them; and the great boys vex no more the small ones, and the small
boys stick up to the great ones. One with another, hard they go, to see
the gain of the waters, and the tribulation of Cop, and are prone to
kick the day-boys out, with words of scanty compliment. Then the masters
look at one another, having no class to look to, and (boys being no more
left to watch) in a manner they put their mouths up. With a spirited
bang they close their books, and make invitation the one to the other
for pi