north, to which, for some time past, our corps had been
slowly advancing. I was sent to the school of the place, which chanced
to be a day school. It was a somewhat extraordinary one, and a somewhat
extraordinary event occurred to me within its walls.

It occupied part of the farther end of a small plain, or square, at the
outskirts of the town, close to some extensive bleaching fields. It was
a long low building of one room, with no upper story; on the top was a
kind of wooden box, or sconce, which I at first mistook for a
pigeon-house, but which in reality contained a bell, to which was
attached a rope, which, passing through the ceiling, hung dangling in the
middle of the school-room. I am the more particular in mentioning this
appurtenance, as I had soon occasion to scrape acquaintance with it in a
manner not very agreeable to my feelings. The master was very proud of
his bell, if I might judge from the fact of his eyes being frequently
turned to that part of the ceiling from which the rope depended. Twice
every day, namely, after the morning and evening tasks had been gone
through, were the boys rung out of school by the monotonous jingle of
this bell. This ringing out was rather a lengthy affair, for, as the
master was a man of order and method, the boys were only permitted to go
out of the room one by one; and as they were rather numerous, amounting,
at least, to one hundred, and were taught to move at a pace of suitable
decorum, at least a quarter of an hour elapsed from the commencement of
the march before the last boy could make his exit. The office of
bell-ringer was performed by every boy successively; and it so happened
that, the very first day of my attendance at the school, the turn to ring
the bell had, by order of succession, arrived at the place which had been
allotted to me; for the master, as I have already observed, was a man of
method and order, and every boy had a particular seat, to which he became
a fixture as long as he continued at the school.

So, upon this day, when the tasks were done and completed, and the boys
sat with their hats and caps in their hands, anxiously expecting the
moment of dismissal, it was suddenly notified to me, by the urchins who
sat nearest to me, that I must get up and ring the bell. Now, as this
was the first time that I had been at the school, I was totally
unacquainted with the process, which I had never seen, and, indeed, had
never heard of till that mome