clothes, followed. 'My poor boy,' Old Bob
would say, when he had got the criminal
'hoisted,' 'I am sorry for thee. I told thee
how it would be. I said I would whip thee
if thou didst not behave better, and—I will.'
Swish!

The chastisement generally lasted about
five minutes. Old Bob never inflicted more
than half-a-dozen stripes, but he waited a
considerable time between them, partly that
each might have its full effect, partly that he
might improve the occasion for the edification
of the other delinquent. 'You'll be the
next, Sir,' he would tell the latter: 'You'll
be the next!' A prediction usually soon
fulfilled.

Old Bob had a very high idea of the force
of example. Incredible as it may appear, it
is a fact that he would send a troublesome
pupil to see an execution. I once witnessed
his doing this. The boy in question, was
incorrigibly mischievous, and given to roguish
pranks. Addressing him by name, Old Bob
said, 'There is a man to be hanged this
morning. Go and see him, my boy. Thou art a
bad boy, and it will do thee good. You,'—
turning to an elder boy,—'you go with him
and take charge of him.' Truly this was
carrying out the principle of the 'good old
school.'

For high crimes and misdemeanours the
penalty was flogging in public. Swearing
and profanity were the chief of these. At
prayers we used to kneel along the two forms
in the middle of the school. The 'candle-
custodes' alone remained at their desks during
evening-prayer time. One of these young
gentlemen, once upon a night, got a copper cap,
and employed his devotional leisure in fixing
it on the head of a nail. The moment the
final 'Amen' was uttered, before we could
rise, he exploded the cap. The report was
terrific in the silence of the large schoolroom.
Old Bob insisted on the name of the
transgressor being surrendered, and flogged him
instantly on the spot. His rage on this
occasion was extreme, and was mingled with
a strange agitation. The next day this was
explained. 'What was it thou didst let off
last night?' demanded Old Bob of the
irreverent youth, who was one of his
particularly bad boys. 'A percussion cap,' was
the answer. 'Per-per-what?' 'Percussion
cap, Sir.' 'Hum!' said Old Bob, musingly,
'I won't expel thee this time, Sir,—I won't
expel thee.' He evidently did not know
what a percussion-cap was, whilst, dimly
understanding that it was not exactly a firearm,
he seemed relieved from the suspicion
that his scholar had attempted his life.

Such implicit confidence had Old Bob in
birch, that he imagined he could absolutely
whip us up Parnassus, and he very often
flogged a boy for not being able to do his
verses. 'I'll make thee a poet, my boy,' he
used to say, 'or the rod shall.' Flagellation
formed so essential a part of his system, that
he had a large quantity of birch-broom kept
constantly at hand in an old cabinet, which
may have belonged to the Monastery of Rood
itself. The rod-boy—one of the scholars
appointed to the office—not only 'hoisted' the
sufferer, and had the custody of the birch,
but also manufactured the rods: and soundly
was he drubbed by us, if he did not carefully
knock the buds out of them. I think James
—who shared the power of the scourge—
insisted that his rods should not be tampered
with. At any rate, the skin upon which he
operated looked afterwards as if it had
received a charge of small shot. Such correction,
it is obvious, might be repeated a little too
often; and it was a rule of Old Bob's that no
boy should be flogged more than once a
week. Some, however, were flogged regularly
as the week came round. I recollect one boy
with whom this was the case for a long time:
owing, I believe, to his sheer inability to
construe Virgil. I heard of him in after-life;
oh, Heaven! such a stupid man!

A minor species of correction was inflicted
with the cane, generally on the hands. Old
Bob confined himself to two 'spats' on the
tips of the fingers; or, as he called them,
'summits of the digits.' In spite of the
sufferer's attempts to dodge him, he generally
hit these sensitive points exactly, to his
manifest delight. James struck from four to six
blows across the palm with all his strength.
I have seen a little boy cast himself on the
floor and writhe in the agony of this torture.

James, at the time to which I am referring,
appeared to be upwards of fifty. Perhaps he
looked older than he was, through powdering
his hair. He was much more hasty and
irascible than his father. He punished violently
and promptly. Old Bob, on the other hand,
would sometimes say, 'I won't whip thee
now, my boy; but I will whip thee. Not
now—no. I'll let it hang over thy head.'
And so he did, occasionally, for some weeks;
and whipped him at last. James was rather
a better scholar, and somewhat worse
informed in other respects than Old Bob. He
had small regard for a plodding student, and
great partiality for anyone who could make
neat verses. It being a tenet with him that
not a moment should ever be wasted, he
insisted on our taking books into the hall to
read during meals. In conformity with this
principle, it was said that, having a benefice
in the neighbourhood at which he preached
weekly, he used to drive there, reading
Horace, with his whip stuck upright in his
vehicle. These itinerary studies ended, as
might have been foreseen, in a serious
accident; his horse running at its own sweet
will over a cow in the road, and spilling him.
He had a preposterous antipathy to the least
noise, and his appearance in the school
produced an awful silence immediately. James's
greatest defect was the absolute dependence
which he placed on the word of the inferior
masters. In answer to a complaint from one