of a gentleman – I was ill-prepared for Mr Hostler’s school, where a somewhat different tone prevailed.
On arriving at Mr Hostler’s, we were shown into a comfortably-furnished but small room, and were informed that Mr Hostler would come very soon. After about five minutes the door opened, and a short, broad, dark man entered. His eyes were dark and piercing, and his aquiline nose gave him, to my mind, the appearance of a hawk. Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “How do you do, Mr Shepard? Lucky to get a nomination for your boy, and lucky I’ve got room for him. Another day and you’d have been too late.” Mr Hostler turned his hawk-like eyes on me and said, “You don’t look well: are you ill?”
“No, thank you; I’m a little tired – that’s all.”
“He’s for the Academy?” said Mr Hostler to my father.
“Yes, for the Royal Engineers.”
“Ah! you must work hard, and we’ll make something of you here, you may depend. I think, Mr Shepard, I’d better take him at once, and show him in the school. ‘Go to harness at once’ is my motto.”
Before I had quite realised my position, I had bid my father good-bye, had cast a longing look after him, and felt a choking feeling in my throat, and a sensation of utter loneliness came over me as I knew I was alone, without a friend near.
Mr Hostler took a long look at me, and then, in quite a different tone to that in which he had spoken to my father, said, —
“Come along, youngster. You are like a young bear, I see; all your trouble’s to come. You’ve a lot before you, I can tell you.”
I followed Mr Hostler out of the room, down about half-a-dozen steps, and into a courtyard, where I heard a noise of voices making so great a din that it was impossible to distinguish the words. These sounds came from a long building on the left, to which Mr Hostler led me. He opened a door and pushed me in before him, when I saw one of the most extraordinary sights that I had ever witnessed.
In the room were a number of tables, at which were sitting about fifty boys in about five rows. The majority of these boys were swinging backwards and forwards, like pendulums the wrong end uppermost; others had their hands pressed over their ears, and their heads bent down over a book; the whole of them were repeating words or sentences, portions of which only were audible amidst the deafening din.
In after years, when I have stood at night near a tropical swamp, and have listened to the deafening noise of a thousand bull-frogs, I have always had recalled to me my first visit to the schoolroom of Mr Hostler’s cram-school at Woolwich.
Upon our entering the schoolroom several boys looked up from their books, and the noise for an instant decreased; then, from the far end of the room, a shrill voice exclaimed, “Because the triangle ABC is similar to the triangle DEF, therefore the side AB is to the side DE.” Then a chorus of voices drowned the first voice, and again the uproar proceeded.
“Stop a minute, boys!” said Mr Hostler in a loud voice. “Here’s a new boy – Shepard’s his name. He’s going into the Royal Engineers. I say, Beck, you look out, or he’ll beat you!”
As this speech was made to the whole school, I made a bow – such a one as my father had taught me to make to a lady. A titter ran round the various tables as I did so, and I distinctly saw one boy make a grimace at me.
“Here, Monk,” said Mr Hostler; “you take Shepard; set him his Euclid, and see what he knows in Swat.”
The person addressed was a hard-featured man, with a surly look about him, who, handing me a book, said, —
“What do you know?”
“No Euclid,” I replied.
“Don’t know any Euclid? Why, how old are you?”
“Nearly fifteen,” I replied.
“Oh I nearly fifteen and don’t know any Euclid! and you’re going to be an engineer?”
“Yes,” I replied; “I’m going to be an engineer.”
“Don’t you wish you may get it?” said Mr Monk. “Now learn these definitions,” he continued, “and let’s see what you can do.”
The book now placed before me was the mysterious Euclid, my first acquaintance with which I was now to make. I looked at the first sentence under the definitions, and thought I had never seen a more extraordinary statement than that there made, —
“A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude.”
I read this over two or three times, but each time I read it and thought over it the statement seemed more and more curious. On looking further down the page, I saw that “a line was length without breadth,” which seemed to me quite a mistake; for, however thin a line might appear to the naked eye, yet I knew, from my experience with the microscope in connexion with natural history, that the thinnest spider’s web always showed some breadth when it was looked at through a microscope. It occurred to me that, amidst the noise and confusion that went on in this school, it was possible that the fact of looking at a line through a microscope had never been thought of by any one; and as I felt quite certain that it was impossible that a line could exist without breadth, I determined to point this out to Mr Monk.
Watching for an opportunity to catch his eye, I half rose from my seat as I saw him looking at me. He immediately came to where I was sitting, and said, —
“What’s the matter? You’ve only your definitions to learn; can’t you understand them?”
“Not quite,” I said; “but I think this about a line having no breadth is wrong; for, however thin a line may appear, it looks thick if you bring a microscope to see it through.”
As soon as I commenced speaking to Mr Monk, the boys at the table ceased their sing-song noise and listened to what I was saying. There was a look of astonishment in their faces as I spoke, which quickly changed to a broad grin when they heard what I said; and when Mr Monk said in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, you’ve found that Euclid’s wrong, eh? and that we are all a pack of fools? Now, you just learn three more definitions for your cheek, you young puppy?” the boys actually roared with laughter.
“You want a lot taken out of you, I can see,” continued Monk, “and I’ll pretty soon do it; so mind what you’re at.”
I don’t know whether surprise or anger predominated in my mind at the result of my first attempt to show I thought on what I learnt, as well as attempted to learn it by rote. Such downright rudeness I had never before experienced, and I could scarcely believe that the boys around me were the sons of gentlemen, although I had been told by Howard that Hostler’s was a first-class school, where none but gentlemen’s sons were admitted.
I blushed scarlet at the remark made to me, and felt inclined to explain my meaning, but somehow the words would not come, and I therefore gazed steadily at the pages of my book, wondering how it was I seemed so different from other boys. Whilst thus meditating, I raised my eyes to the boy opposite me; he was a cross-looking, sturdy boy, about my own age, and was occupied, as were the rest, in swinging backwards and forwards, whilst he repeated, in a loud tone, “A is to B as B is to C,” etc.
When this boy saw me looking at him, he made a face at me, and said, “Don’t look at me!” As, however, I continued looking at him, he suddenly lowered himself, so that his head only appeared above the table, and, before I suspected what he was doing, I received a tremendous kick on
