| 372 | 373 | 374 | 375 | 376 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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'Now, look at that lad, sir,' said the bachelor. 'You see that fellow?
Richard Evans his name is, sir. An amazing boy to learn, blessed with
a good memory, and a ready understanding, and moreover with a
good voice and ear for psalm-singing, in which he is the best among
us. Yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll never die in his bed;
he's always falling asleep in sermon-time - and to tell you the truth,
Mr Marton, I always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain
that it was natural to my constitution and I couldn't help it.'
This hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor
turned to another.
'
But if we talk of examples to be shunned,' said he, 'if we come to boys
that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here's the
one, and I hope you won't spare him. This is the lad, sir; this one with
the blue eyes and light hair. This is a swimmer, sir, this fellow - a
diver, Lord save us! This is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for plunging
into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing up a
blind man's dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain
and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank,
bewailing the loss of his guide and friend. I sent the boy two guineas
anonymously, sir,' added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper,
'
directly I heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he
hasn't the least idea that it came from me. '
Having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and
from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for
their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting
emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart
and were unquestionably referrable to his own precept and example.
Thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable
by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an
admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or
turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the
schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he
could have obeyed when he was a boy, had his life depended on it.
Hailing these little tokens of the bachelor's disposition as so many
assurances of his own welcome course from that time, the
schoolmaster parted from him with a light heart and joyous spirits,
and deemed himself one of the happiest men on earth. The windows of
the two old houses were ruddy again, that night, with the reflection of
the cheerful fires that burnt within; and the bachelor and his friend,
pausing to look upon them as they returned from their evening walk,
spoke softly together of the beautiful child, and looked round upon the
churchyard with a sigh.
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