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<h2> CHAPTER I </h2>
<h3> ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION </h3>
<p>If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of the
parish of Oare, in the county of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have
seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try
to set down in order, God sparing my life and memory. And they who light
upon this book should bear in mind not only that I write for the clearing
of our parish from ill fame and calumny, but also a thing which will, I
trow, appear too often in it, to wit—that I am nothing more than a
plain unlettered man, not read in foreign languages, as a gentleman might
be, nor gifted with long words (even in mine own tongue), save what I may
have won from the Bible or Master William Shakespeare, whom, in the face
of common opinion, I do value highly. In short, I am an ignoramus, but
pretty well for a yeoman.</p>
<p>My father being of good substance, at least as we reckon in Exmoor, and
seized in his own right, from many generations, of one, and that the best
and largest, of the three farms into which our parish is divided (or
rather the cultured part thereof), he John Ridd, the elder, churchwarden,
and overseer, being a great admirer of learning, and well able to write
his name, sent me his only son to be schooled at Tiverton, in the county
of Devon. For the chief boast of that ancient town (next to its woollen
staple) is a worthy grammar-school, the largest in the west of England,
founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604 by Master Peter Blundell,
of that same place, clothier.</p>
<p>Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen into the upper
school, and could make bold with Eutropius and Caesar—by aid of an
English version—and as much as six lines of Ovid. Some even said
that I might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form, being of a
perservering nature; albeit, by full consent of all (except my mother),
thick-headed. But that would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition
beyond a farmer's son; for there is but one form above it, and that made
of masterful scholars, entitled rightly 'monitors'. So it came to pass, by
the grace of God, that I was called away from learning, whilst sitting at
the desk of the junior first in the upper school, and beginning the Greek
verb [Greek word].</p>
<p>My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could have learned
[Greek word], ten pages further on, being all he himself could manage,
with plenty of stripes to help him. I know that he hath more head than I—though
never will he have such body; and am thankful to have stopped betimes,
with a meek and wholesome head-piece.</p>
<p>But if you doubt of my having been there, because now I know so little, go
and see my name, 'John Ridd,' graven on that very form. Forsooth, from the
time I was strong enough to open a knife and to spell my name, I began to
grave it in the oak, first of the block whereon I sate, and then of the
desk in front of it, according as I was promoted from one to other of
them: and there my grandson reads it now, at this present time of writing,
and hath fought a boy for scoffing at it—'John Ridd his name'—and
done again in 'winkeys,' a mischievous but cheerful device, in which we
took great pleasure.</p>
<p>This is the manner of a 'winkey,' which I here set down, lest child of
mine, or grandchild, dare to make one on my premises; if he does, I shall
know the mark at once, and score it well upon him. The scholar obtains, by
prayer or price, a handful of saltpetre, and then with the knife wherewith
he should rather be trying to mend his pens, what does he do but scoop a
hole where the desk is some three inches thick. This hole should be left
with the middle exalted, and the circumfere dug more deeply. Then let him
fill it with saltpetre, all save a little space in the midst, where the
boss of the wood is. Upon that boss (and it will be the better if a
splinter of timber rise upward) he sticks the end of his candle of tallow,
or 'rat's tail,' as we called it, kindled and burning smoothly. Anon, as
he reads by that light his lesson, lifting his eyes now and then it may
be, the fire of candle lays hold of the petre with a spluttering noise and
a leaping. Then should the pupil seize his pen, and, regardless of the
nib, stir bravely, and he will see a glow as of burning mountains, and a
rich smoke, and sparks going merrily; nor will it cease, if he stir
wisely, and there be a good store of petre, until the wood is devoured
through, like the sinking of a well-shaft. Now well may it go with the
head of a boy intent upon his primer, who betides to sit thereunder! But,
above all things, have good care to exercise this art before the master
strides up to his desk, in the early gray of the morning.</p>
<p>Other customs, no less worthy, abide in the school of Blundell, such as
the singeing of nightcaps; but though they have a pleasant savour, and
refreshing to think of, I may not stop to note them, unless it be that
goodly one at the incoming of a flood. The school-house stands beside a
stream, not very large, called Lowman, which flows into the broad river of
Exe, about a mile below. This Lowman stream, although it be not fond of
brawl and violence (in the manner of our Lynn), yet is wont to flood into
a mighty head of waters when the storms of rain provoke it; and most of
all when its little co-mate, called the Taunton Brook—where I have
plucked the very best cresses that ever man put salt on—comes
foaming down like a great roan horse, and rears at the leap of the
hedgerows. Then are the gray stone walls of Blundell on every side
encompassed, the vale is spread over with looping waters, and it is a hard
thing for the day-boys to get home to their suppers.</p>
<p>And in that time, old Cop, the porter (so called because he hath copper
boots to keep the wet from his stomach, and a nose of copper also, in
right of other waters), his place is to stand at the gate, attending to
the flood-boards grooved into one another, and so to watch the torrents
rise, and not be washed away, if it please God he may help it. But long
ere the flood hath attained this height, and while it is only waxing,
certain boys of deputy will watch at the stoop of the drain-holes, and be
apt to look outside the walls when Cop is taking a cordial. And in the
very front of the gate, just without the archway, where the ground is
paved most handsomely, you may see in copy-letters done a great P.B. of
white pebbles. Now, it is the custom and the law that when the invading
waters, either fluxing along the wall from below the road-bridge, or
pouring sharply across the meadows from a cut called Owen's Ditch—and
I myself have seen it come both ways—upon the very instant when the
waxing element lips though it be but a single pebble of the founder's
letters, it is in the license of any boy, soever small and undoctrined, to
rush into the great school-rooms, where a score of masters sit heavily,
and scream at the top of his voice, 'P.B.'</p>
<p>Then, with a yell, the boys leap up, or break away from their standing;
they toss their caps to the black-beamed roof, and haply the very books
after them; and the great boys vex no more the small ones, and the small
boys stick up to the great ones. One with another, hard they go, to see
the gain of the waters, and the tribulation of Cop, and are prone to kick
the day-boys out, with words of scanty compliment. Then the masters look
at one another, having no class to look to, and (boys being no more left
to watch) in a manner they put their mouths up. With a spirited bang they
close their books, and make invitation the one to the other for pipes and
foreign cordials, recommending the chance of the time, and the comfort
away from cold water.</p>
<p>But, lo! I am dwelling on little things and the pigeons' eggs of the
infancy, forgetting the bitter and heavy life gone over me since then. If
I am neither a hard man nor a very close one, God knows I have had no lack
of rubbing and pounding to make stone of me. Yet can I not somehow believe
that we ought to hate one another, to live far asunder, and block the
mouth each of his little den; as do the wild beasts of the wood, and the
hairy outrangs now brought over, each with a chain upon him. Let that
matter be as it will. It is beyond me to unfold, and mayhap of my
grandson's grandson. All I know is that wheat is better than when I began
to sow it.</p>
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