t in the boy,
especially when he discovered that, though dreamy and forgetful, Hugh's
abilities were still of a high order. His work was, in fact, always
easy to him, though he was entirely destitute of ambition. Certain
scenes impressed themselves on the boy's mind with extraordinary
vividness. Mr. Russell, the schoolmaster, used to read out every week
a passage for the boys to turn into verse. He read finely, and Hugh
noticed, with a curious surprise, that Mr. Russell was almost
invariably affected to tears by his reading. But, on the other hand, a
scene which he saw, when he and certain other boys were waiting to have
their exercises looked over, was for years a kind of nightmare to him.
There was a slow and stupid boy in the class, whom Mr. Russell chose to
consider obstinate, and who was severely caned, in the presence of the
others, for mistakes in his exercise. Even ten years after, Hugh could
remember with a species of horror the jingling of the keys in Mr.
Russell's pocket, as he took them out to unlock the drawer where the
cane lay. Perhaps this proved a salutary lesson for Hugh, for the
terror that such an incident might befall himself, caused him to take
an amount of trouble over his exercises which he would certainly not
otherwise have bestowed.

On Sunday evenings Mr. Russell read aloud to the upper boys in his
drawing-room; and this was a happy time for Hugh; he loved to sit in a
deep chair, and feast his eyes upon the pictures, the china, the warm
carpet and curtains of the fire-lit room, and the books that he heard
read had a curious magic for him. Mr. Russell never seemed to take any
particular notice of him, and Hugh used to feel that he was despised
for his want of _savoir faire_, his slovenliness, his timidity; and it
was a great surprise to discover, long after, a bundle of letters from
Mr. Russell to his father, in which he found his abilities and
shortcomings discussed with extraordinary penetration.

Hugh played no games at his school; there was not then the organisation
of school games which has since grown up. His favourite occupation was
wandering about the big grounds, to which certain boys were admitted,
or joining in the walks, which a dozen boys, conducted by a peevish or
good-tempered usher, as the case might be, used to take in the
neighbourhood of the school. The high garden-walls, with the
mysterious posterns, the huge horse-chestnuts looking over the leaded
tops of the cl