These changes of place naturally brought changes in John Sterling's schoolmasters:nor were domestic tragedies wanting,still more important to him.New brothers and sisters had been born;two little brothers more,three little sisters he had in all;some of whom came to their eleventh year beside him,some passed away in their second or fourth:but from his ninth to his sixteenth year they all died;and in 1821only Anthony and John were left.[5]How many tears,and passionate pangs,and soft infinite regrets;such as are appointed to all mortals!In one year,I find,indeed in one half-year,he lost three little playmates,two of them within one month.His own age was not yet quite twelve.For one of these three,for little Edward,his next younger,who died now at the age of nine,Mr.Hare records that John copied out,in large school-hand,a _History of Valentine and Orson_,to beguile the poor child's sickness,which ended in death soon,leaving a sad cloud on John.
Of his grammar and other schools,which,as I said,are hardly worth enumerating in comparison,the most important seems to have been a Dr.
Burney's at Greenwich;a large day-schoo]and boarding-school,where Anthony and John gave their attendance for a year or two (1818-19)from Blackheath."John frequently did themes for the boys,"says Anthony,"and for myself when I was aground."His progress in all school learning was certain to be rapid,if he even moderately took to it.A lean,tallish,loose-made boy of twelve;strange alacrity,rapidity and joyous eagerness looking out of his eyes,and of all his ways and movements.I have a Picture of him at this stage;a little portrait,which carries its verification with it.In manhood too,the chief expression of his eyes and physiognomy was what I might call alacrity,cheerful rapidity.You could see,here looked forth a soul which was winged;which dwelt in hope and action,not in hesitation or fear.Anthony says,he was "an affectionate and gallant kind of boy,adventurous and generous,daring to a singular degree."Apt enough withal to be "petulant now and then;"on the whole,"very self-willed;"doubtless not a little discursive in his thoughts and ways,and "difficult to manage."I rather think Anthony,as the steadier,more substantial boy,was the Mother's favorite;and that John,though the quicker and cleverer,perhaps cost her many anxieties.Among the Papers given me,is an old browned half-sheet in stiff school hand,unpunctuated,occasionally ill spelt,--John Sterling's earliest remaining Letter,--which gives record of a crowning escapade of his,the first and the last of its kind;and so may be inserted here.A very headlong adventure on the boy's part;so hasty and so futile,at once audacious and impracticable;emblematic of much that befell in the history of the man!
"_To Mrs.Sterling,Blackheath_.
"21st September,1818.
"DEAR MAMMA,--I am now at Dover,where I arrived this morning about seven o'clock.When you thought I was going to church,I went down the Kent Road,and walked on till I came to Gravesend,which is upwards of twenty miles from Blackheath;at about seven o'clock in the evening,without having eat anything the whole time.I applied to an inkeeper (_sic_)there,pretending that I had served a haberdasher in London,who left of (_sic_)business,and turned me away.He believed me;and got me a passage in the coach here,for I said that I had an Uncle here,and that my Father and Mother were dead;--when I wandered about the quays for some time,till I met Captain Keys,whom I asked to give me a passage to Boulogne;which he promised to do,and took me home to breakfast with him:but Mrs.Keys questioned me a good deal;when I not being able to make my story good,I was obliged to confess to her that I had run away from you.Captain Keys says that he will keep me at his house till you answer my letter.
"J.STERLING."
Anthony remembers the business well;but can assign no origin to it,--some penalty,indignity or cross put suddenly on John,which the hasty John considered unbearable.His Mother's inconsolable weeping,and then his own astonishment at such a culprit's being forgiven,are all that remain with Anthony.The steady historical style of the young runaway of twelve,narrating merely,not in the least apologizing,is also noticeable.
This was some six months after his little brother Edward's death;three months after that of Hester,his little sister next in the family series to him:troubled days for the poor Mother in that small household on Blackheath,as there are for mothers in so many households in this world!I have heard that Mrs.Sterling passed much of her time alone,at this period.Her husband's pursuits,with his Wellesleys and the like,often carrying him into Town and detaining him late there,she would sit among her sleeping children,such of them as death had still spared,perhaps thriftily plying her needle,full of mournful affectionate night-thoughts,--apprehensive too,in her tremulous heart,that the head of the house might have fallen among robbers in his way homeward.