some kind of pal of his in
old times, near Sydney, and got him to come and keep school.

He was a curious man, this Mr. Howard. What he had been or done none
of us ever knew, but he spoke up to one of the squatters that said
something sharp to him one day in a way that showed us boys that he
thought himself as good as he was. And he stood up straight and looked
him in the face, till we hardly could think he was the same man that
was so bent and shambling and broken-down-looking most times. He used
to live in a little hut in the township all by himself. It was just big
enough to hold him and us at our lessons. He had his dinner at the inn,
along with Mr. and Mrs. Lammerby. She was always kind to him, and made
him puddings and things when he was ill. He was pretty often ill, and
then he'd hear us our lessons at the bedside, and make a short day of
it.

Mostly he drank nothing but tea. He used to smoke a good deal out of a
big meerschaum pipe with figures on it that he used to show us when he
was in a good humour. But two or three times a year he used to set-to
and drink for a week, and then school was left off till he was right.
We didn't think much of that. Everybody, almost, that we knew did the
same--all the men--nearly all, that is--and some of the women--not
mother, though; she wouldn't have touched a drop of wine or spirits to
save her life, and never did to her dying day. We just thought of it
as if they'd got a touch of fever or sunstroke, or broke a rib or
something. They'd get over it in a week or two, and be all right again.

All the same, poor old Mr. Howard wasn't always on the booze, not by
any manner of means. He never touched a drop of anything, not even
ginger-beer, while he was straight, and he kept us all going from nine
o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon, summer and winter,
for more than six years. Then he died, poor old chap--found dead in his
bed one morning. Many a basting he gave me and Jim with an old malacca
cane he had with a silver knob to it. We were all pretty frightened of
him. He'd say to me and Jim and the other boys, 'It's the best chance
of making men of yourselves you ever had, if you only knew it. You'll be
rich farmers or settlers, perhaps magistrates, one of these days--that
is, if you're not hanged. It's you, I mean,' he'd say, pointing to me
and Jim and the Dalys; 'I believe some of you WILL be hanged unless
you change a good deal. It's cold blood and bad blood th