comb, lay them on the ground, hunt out the
queen, and having discovered her amidst the
bustle and the buzz of thousands, restore the
combs to the hive, and again close it
unstung and unmolested by any of the
community.

Our school consisted of eight boarders, all of
Unitarian families, of whom Exeter furnished
four, Bridport two, and Sidmouth two. One-
half of them—- the three oldest and the youngest
—- have been gathered to their fathers. One
died lately: Joseph Hounsell, a most lovable
and excellent man, to whose memory his fellow-
townsmen have erected a laudatory monument
Another, Edmund Butcher, was the son of the
author of some of the most beautiful hymns in
our language, among which is that beginning—-

Stand still, refulgent orb of day,
A Jewish hero cries,
So shall at last an angel say,
And tear it from the skies.
A flame, intenser than the sun,
Will melt the golden urn.

The school was not without its recommendations,
but the teaching was carried on at one
house, while we were domiciled and were fed
(under contract) at another. But unfortunately
our master fell in love with the daughter of the
Apiarian. She was no favourite, and the rude
rustics sometimes inquired of the enamoured
minister, " How'z Miss Saucer-eyes?" I
remember a dreadful burst of indignation when
one of his own congregation put to him the
question; but the " love-affair" did undoubtedly
tend to the neglect of the duties of the school.
The boys were hypercritical; on one occasion,
when the master did not make his appearance
at the proper time, they blackened all the desks
with ink, and when he entered and inquired
what it meant, a boy had the boldness, the
effrontery, to say: "They have gone into
mourning for your absence, sir!" Another
time a still graver practical joke gave a more
emphatic lesson to the teacher. He was, as
usual, non inventus——" gone a courting." Under
the schoolroom was a cellar, to which you
descended by a dark steep flight of stairs. In the
centre was a pump, used to supply the wants of
the house, and in one corner a heap of coals
for winter use. To the cellar the boys retreated.
They cut off the two bottom steps,
and pumped and pumped till there was a foot
or two of water in the cellar. They then ensconced
themselves on the coal-heap, and waited
for the master's return. He came at last: it was
night; found the school vacant, and, hearing a
noise below, seized a candle and dashed down
the staircase; he of course fell face foremost
into the water, which was thoroughly saturated
with coal-dust. The candle was extinguished;
the boys escaped in the darkness, and left their
drenched, disordered, and dismayed master to
recover himself and reach the upper regions as
best he could. He had his revenge, as far as
a good flogging of the whole school could give
it, but I thought the boys almost enjoyed the
castigation, and consoled themselves with having
had the best of the sport.

How are discipline and dignity lost in schools!
Mainly by want of firmness and truthfulness.
Respect always, affection generally, must
connect the scholar with the teacher. One more
example in illustration it may be traced to
the blindness of love.

We were accustomed, accompanied by our
master, to take country walks, and those walks
had rare attractions. The beauty and brightness
of the Devonian rivers, of which the pebbly Teign
was in our immediate neighbourhood; the charms
of tracing the brooks and streamlets to their
sources in the hills; the wild woodland scenery;
the cascades, of which one of the most
picturesque is that of Beckyfall, reached through the
pretty village of Manaton; the many cromlechs
and dolmens, with their Druidical associations;
the lofty tors; the granite boulders which
seem to girdle the edges of the moor;
Cranbrook and its supposed Roman intrenchment;
ruined bridges; perilous fords; mountain passes,
known to local but not to general fame: all in
turn were visited—- those afar on our half-
holidays—- those near in our everyday rambles.
One afternoon the master led us off for a long
excursion. When about a mile from the town,
he told us that he had slipped over a stone, had
seriously sprained his ankle, must return home
without delay to seek some appliance for
the mitigation of his suffering; and, having
strictly enjoined us to return over the same
road by which we had come, he left us, limping
and with an expression of sore anguish on his
countenance. What evil genius tempted us to
disobedience I know not, but fearing no
betrayal and no discovery, we circumambulated
the road to enter it by the very opposite end
to that through which we had made our sortie,
when, coming near a stile, we heard the words,
"Humid seal of soft affection!" and saw——O
strange and perplexing discovery, equally so to
him and to us,——saw our late-disabled master
with his arm round the waist of his beloved,
reading to her, with touching emphasis, the final
lines of Rogers's charming song:

Love's first snowdrop——virgin kiss!

There was more blushing than kissing on that
memorable occasion. We received no
reprimand for our aberrations. Our sin was covered,
if not by charity, by condonation. Our master,
in fact, was at our mercy.

And yet I never think of those meannesses
without a certain sneaking fondness for the
man. I remember the encouragement he gave
me when, in an essay on Death, he found the
line, "Monarchs must die as well as meaner
men." I had pilfered the phrase from a book
I had been reading; but though I was half
ashamed of the undeserved praise, I had not
courage enough to own the plagiarism. But
I do remember how one of the boys was put
to open shame when, after receiving enthusiastic
eulogiums for an autograph MS. poem on
orchard robbery, which he read vehemently as