When I returned to Harnish I was still wretchedly ill, and the constant sickness under which I suffered, with the extreme and often unjust severity of Mr. Kilvert, made the next half year a very miserable one. In the three years and a half which I had spent at Harnish, I had been taught next to nothing—all our time having been frittered in learning Psalms by heart, and the Articles of the Church of England (I could say the whole thirty-nine straight off when eleven years old), &c. Our history was what Arrowsmith's Atlas used to describe Central Africa to be—"a barren country only productive of dates." I could scarcely construe even the easiest passages of Cæsar. Still less had I learned to play at any ordinary boys' games; for, as we had no playground, we had naturally never had a chance of any. I was glad of any change. It was delightful to leave Harnish for good at Christmas, 1846, and the prospect of Harrow was that of a voyage of adventure.
In January 1847 my mother took me to Harrow. Dr. Vaughan was then headmaster, and Mr. Simpkinson, who had been long a curate of Hurstmonceaux, and who had been consequently one of the most familiar figures of my childhood, was a master under him, and, with his handsome, good-humoured sister Louisa, kept the large house for boys beyond the church, which is still called "The Grove." It was a wonderfully new life upon which I entered; but though a public school was a very much rougher thing then than it is now, and though the fagging for little boys was almost ceaseless, it would not have been an unpleasant life if I had not been so dreadfully weak and sickly, which sometimes unfitted me for enduring the roughness to which I was subjected. As a general rule, however, I looked upon what was intended for bullying as an additional "adventure," which several of the big boys thought so comic, that they were usually friendly to me and ready to help me: one who especially stood my friend was a young giant—Twisleton, son of Lord Saye and Sele. One who went to Harrow at the same time with me was my connection Harry Adeane,[38] whose mother was Aunt Lucy's sister, Maude Stanley of Alderley. I liked Harry very much, but though he was in the same house, his room was so distant that we saw little of each other; besides, my intense ignorance gave me a very low place in the school, in the Lower Fourth Form. It was a great amusement to write to my mother all that occurred. In reading it, people might imagine my narration was intended for complaint, but it was nothing of the kind: indeed, had I wished to complain, I should have known my mother far too well to complain to her.
To MY MOTHER.
"Harrow, Jan. 29, 1847.—When I left you, I went to school and came back to pupil room, and in the afternoon had a solitary walk to the skating pond covered with boys. … In the evening two big boys rushed up, and seizing Buller (another new boy) and me, dragged us into a room where a number of boys were assembled. I was led into the midst. Bob Smith[39] whispered to me to do as I was bid and I should not be hurt. On the other side of the room were cold chickens, cake, fruit, &c., and in a corner were a number of boys holding open little Dirom's mouth, and pouring something horrible stirred up with a tallow-candle down his throat. A great boy came up to me and told me to sing or to drink some of this dreadful mixture. I did sing—at least I made a noise—and the boys were pleased because I made no fuss, and loaded me with oranges and cakes.
"This morning being what is called a whole holiday, I have had to stay in three hours more than many of the others because of my slowness in making Latin verses. This evening Abel Smith sent for me to his room, and asked me if I was comfortable, and all sorts of things."
"Jan. 21.—What do you think happened last night? Before prayers I was desired to go into the fifth form room, as they were having some game there. A boy met me at the door, ushered me in, and told me to make my salaam to the Emperor of Morocco, who was seated cross-legged in the middle of a large counterpane, surrounded by twenty or more boys as his serving-men. I was directed to sit down by the Emperor, and in the same way. He made me sing, and then jumped off the counterpane, as he said, to get me some cake. Instantly all the boys seized the counterpane and tossed away. Up to the ceiling I went and down again, but they had no mercy, and it was up and down, head over heels, topsy-turvy, till some one called out 'Satus'—and I was let out, very sick and giddy at first, but soon all right again. … I am not much bullied except by Davenport, who sleeps in my room."
"Jan. 22.—To-day it has snowed so hard that there has been nothing but snow-balling, and as I was coming out of school, hit by a shower of snowballs, I tumbled the whole way down the two flights of stairs headlong from the top to the bottom."
"Jan. 23.—Yesterday I was in my room, delighted to be alone for once, and very much interested in the book I was reading, when D. came in and found the fire out, so I got a good licking. He makes me his fag to go errands, and do all he bids me, and if I don't do it, he beats me, but I don't mind much. However, I have got some friends, for when I refused to do my week-day lessons on a Sunday, and was being very much laughed at for it, some one came in and said, 'No, Hare, you're quite right; never mind being laughed at.' However I am rather lonely still with no one to speak to or care about me. Sometimes I take refuge in Burroughs' study, but I cannot do that often, or he would soon get tired of me. I think I shall like Waldegrave,[40] a new boy who has come, but all the others hate him. Blomfield[41] is a nice boy, but his room is very far away. Indeed, our room is so secluded, that it would be a very delightful place if D. did not live in it. In playtime I go here, there, and everywhere, but with no one and doing nothing. Yet I like Harrow very much, though I am much teased even in my form by one big boy, who takes me for a drum, and hammers on my two sides all lesson-time with doubled fists. However, Miss Simmy says, if you could see my roses you would be satisfied."
"Jan. 30.—There are certain fellows here who read my last letter to you, and gave me a great lecture for mentioning boys' names; but you must never repeat what I say: it could only get me into trouble. The other night I did a desperate thing. I appealed to the other boys in the house against D. Stapleton was moved by my story, and Hankey and other boys listened. Then a boy called Sturt was very much enraged at D., and threatened him greatly, and finally D., after heaping all the abuse he could think of upon me, got so frightened that he begged me to be friends with him. I cannot tell you how I have suffered and do suffer from my chilblains, which have become so dreadfully bad from going out so early and in all weathers."
"Feb. 2.—To-day, after half-past one Bill, I went down the town with Buller and met two boys called Bocket and Lory. Lory and I, having made acquaintance, went for a walk. This is only the second walk I have had since I came to Harrow. I am perpetually 'Boy in the House.'"
"Feb. 10.—To-day at 5 minutes to 11, we were all told to go into the Speech-room (do you remember it?), a large room with raised benches all round and a platform in the middle and places for the monitors. I sat nearly at the top of one of these long ranges. Then Dr. Vaughan made a speech about snow-balling at the Railway Station (a forbidden place), where the engine-drivers and conductors had been snow-balled, and he said that the next time, if he could not find out the names of the guilty individuals, the whole school should be punished. To-day the snow-balling, or rather ice-balling (for the balls are so hard you can hardly cut them with a knife), has been terrific: some fellows almost have their arms broken with them."
"Feb. 12.—I am in the hospital with dreadful pains in my stomach. The hospital is a large room, very quiet, with a window looking out into the garden, and two beds in it. Burroughs is in the other bed, laid up with a bad leg. … Yesterday, contrary to rule, Dr. Vaughan called Bill, and then told all the school to stay in their places, and said that he had found the keyhole of the cupboard in which the rods were kept stopped up, and that if he did not find out before one o'clock who did it, he would daily give the whole school, from the sixth form downwards, a new pun, of the severest kind. … There never was anything like the waste of bread here, whole bushels are thrown