" This is a depressing picture; and there are plenty more
like it. Dr. Butler, the master of Harrow, meeting the poor little
draggletail urchin in the yard, desired to know, in awful accents, how so
dirty a boy dared to show himself near the school! "He must have known me,
had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of
flogging me constantly. Perhaps," adds his victim, "he did not recognize
me by my face!" But it is comforting to learn, in another place, that
justice overtook the oppressor. "Dr. Butler only lived to be Dean of
Peterborough; but his successor (Dr. Longley) became Archbishop of
Canterbury." There is a great deal of Trollopian morality in the fate of
these two men, the latter of whom "could not have said anything ill-
natured if he had tried."
Black care, however, continued to sit behind the horseman with harrowing
persistence. A certain Dr. Drury (another schoolmaster) punished him on
suspicion of "some nameless horror," of which the unfortunate youngster
happened to be innocent. When, afterward, the latter fact began to be
obvious, "he whispered to me half a word that perhaps he had been wrong.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145