one, or whose lock inside was of a solid construction. I was at once inaugurated into my room with rites worthy of a Vehmgericht in their solemnity, and of freemasonry in the secresy which was preserved about them. The only fragment of the ceremonial which I feel I can divulge, is that all my washing utensils, brushes, soap and combs, were put into the basin I had used, and that etiquette forbade my getting out of bed to rescue them until the morning. Such was Weston as it appeared to me on a nearer investigation; and as I lay down in my little bed, after having been fagged up and down to open and shut windows and to perform every variety of menial office-which aggravated me because it was arbitrary and tyrannical, as well as being contrary to the regulations-I was ready to exclaim in the words of my motto "Nehmt euch meiner an!" And nobody, except our friend Mephistopheles, could have had the impudence to reply to my piteous tale that I had come to exactly the best place for me. CHAPTER IV. PERSECUTION: AND WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. "I blame not those who with what care they can Went with him, and saw all the game he played?" CowPER. WHAT a title for a chapter on school life! It takes one back to the days of the early Protestants, and to the time when the Inquisition reigned supreme over a large portion of the civilized world. The Papists, at all events, persecuted their antagonists, who would have done the same by them had they had the power; they tormented those who disagreed with them on important points of theology, whereas I was ready to agree in everything, if it would have saved me but one pinch or one kick. There is something indescribably low and mean in a boy who is in the habit of pinching, which is a very poor description of teasing; it is a safe way of inflicting pain, for it leaves no mark, and it is cowardly, inasmuch as a master will generally not notice it, and the boy who suffers is usually in no position for resenting it. Those long months passed away so slowly that one thought they would never come to an end, and so void of interest and liveliness, that, on looking back to them, no anecdote occurs to me, and no day seems to call for any special notice. Day after day the same persecutors, week after week the same bullying. Fagging was general in the playground; balls had to be fetched, and hats and coats carried about for great dunces, perhaps below their slaveys in the school. In the bedrooms also-long dreary passages, cold, damp, and dark, lighted by some melancholy lantern hung up half way up the stairs-the same tyranny existed, the same irregular servitude went on. Always on the watch for a master on his way up stairs to stop some tumult, every irregularity was conducted in perfect silence; and to cry out would subject the victim to the indignation of the whole school as a tell-tale, and to all their contempt as a sneak. Perhaps that feeling of holding by one another, of treating the masters as an inimical race, and of never telling tales, under even the greatest provocation, was the one vital spark in the dull shade of Weston, and might have been fanned into a bright flame of selfrespect, self-government, and good feeling. But when I was there it was relied upon as their safeguard by the big dunces; who, however, occasionally failed in impressing upon the younger ones the great importance of the somewhat false motto 'honour' among schoolboys, and got into well deserved scrapes for their reported misconduct. Their persecutions, too, were of a very odd character-they relied so entirely upon the coarseness or cruelty of their inventions for success in eliciting the applause of the bystanders. I remember one case among many which may perhaps give my readers an insight into my objections to Weston. It was a cold wintry night, and I had hardly fallen asleep, when a band of conspirators entered the room, and before I was well awake, I felt myself seized upon and carried out into the passage; a lucifer was ignited, and a watchman's lamp was lighted. The wind whistled and blew round every corner, as winds will near the seaside; while the waves roared upon the shingly beach, irritated by half a gale from the east. I had heard sundry whisperings among my noted foes, but had, I fancied, conciliated the strongest of them by cleaning out his desk and putting all his drawers in order that night before we went to bed: alas! I had only abased myself unnecessarily. He it was who had stolen the large round bath out of my room, before bed-time, and bored the holes in the sides for the ropes to pass through which were to hold me down in it. I was stripped of what little covering I had on, placed in a sitting posture in the bath, and tied down. Water was then poured in to the depth of about two inchesnot over me, for then, first coming in contact with the warmth of my skin, it would not have struck so |