rely for an act of
kindness. We had a boy named Bryan Salvin, from Croxdale Hall. He was a
dull, sluggish, and unwieldy lad, quite incapable of climbing exertions.
Being dissatisfied with the regulations of the establishment, he came to
me one Palm Sunday, and entreated me to get into the schoolroom through
the window, and write a letter of complaint to his sister Eliza in York.
I did so, having insinuated myself with vast exertion through the iron
stanchions which secured the window; '_sed revocare gradum_.' Whilst I
was thrusting might and main through the stanchions, on my way
out--suddenly, oh, horrible! the schoolroom door flew open, and on the
threshold stood the Reverend Mr. Storey--a fiery, frightful, formidable
spectre! To my horror and confusion I drove my foot quite through a pane
of glass, and there I stuck, impaled and imprisoned, but luckily not
injured by the broken glass. Whilst I was thus in unexpected captivity,
he cried out, in an angry voice, 'So you are there, Master Charles, are
you?' He got assistance, and they pulled me back by main force. But as
this was Palm Sunday my execution was obligingly deferred until Monday
morning.

"But let us return to Tudhoe. In my time it was a peaceful, healthy
farming village, and abounded in local curiosities. Just on the king's
highway, betwixt Durham and Bishop-Auckland, and one field from the
school, there stood a public-house called the 'White Horse,' and kept by
a man of the name of Charlton. He had a real gaunt English mastiff,
half-starved for want of food, and so ferocious that nobody but himself
dared to approach it. This publican had also a mare, surprising in her
progeny; she had three foals, in three successive years, not one of which
had the least appearance of a tail.

"One of Mr. Storey's powdered wigs was of so tempting an aspect, on the
shelf where it was laid up in ordinary, that the cat actually kittened in
it. I saw her and her little ones all together in the warm wig. He also
kept a little white and black bitch, apparently of King Charles's breed.
One evening, as we scholars were returning from a walk, Chloe started a
hare, which we surrounded and captured, and carried in triumph to oily
Mrs. Atkinson, who begged us a play-day for our success.

"On Easter Sunday Mr. Storey always treated us to 'Pasche eggs.' They
were boiled hard in a concoction of whin-flowers, which rendered them
beautifully purple. We used them for warlike