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CHAPTER I
ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION
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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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