"It was close to this spot that one of the few adventures occurred which marked,in my mind,my boyish days with importance.When loitering beyond the castle,on the way to school,with a brother somewhat older than myself,who was uniformly my champion and protector,we espied a round sloe high up in the hedge-row.We determined to obtain it;and I do not remember whether both of us,or only my brother,climbed the tree.However,when the prize was all but reached,--and no alchemist ever looked more eagerly for the moment of projection which was to give him immortality and omnipotence,--a gruff voice startled us with an oath,and an order to desist;and Iwell recollect looking back,for long after,with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered farmer,armed with a bill-hook,and vowing our decapitation;nor did I subsequently remember without triumph the eloquence whereby alone,in my firm belief,my brother and myself had been rescued from instant death.
"At the entrance of the little town stood an old gateway,with a pointed arch and decaying battlements.It gave admittance to the street which contained the church,and which terminated in another street,the principal one in the town of C----.In this was situated the school to which I daily wended.I cannot now recall to mind the face of its good conductor,nor of any of his scholars;but I have before me a strong general image of the interior of his establishment.
I remember the reverence with which I was wont to carry to his seat a well-thumbed duodecimo,the _History of Greece_by Oliver Goldsmith.
I remember the mental agonies I endured in attempting to master the art and mystery of penmanship;a craft in which,alas,I remained too short a time under Mr.R----to become as great a proficient as he made his other scholars,and which my awkwardness has prevented me from attaining in any considerable perfection under my various subsequent pedagogues.But that which has left behind it a brilliant trait of light was the exhibition of what are called 'Christmas pieces;'things unknown in aristocratic seminaries,but constantly used at the comparatively humble academy which supplied the best knowledge of reading,writing,and arithmetic to be attained in that remote neighborhood.
"The long desks covered from end to end with those painted masterpieces,the Life of Robinson Crusoe,the Hunting of Chevy-Chase,the History of Jack the Giant-Killer,and all the little eager faces and trembling hands bent over these,and filling them up with some choice quotation,sacred or profane;--no,the galleries of art,the theatrical exhibitions,the reviews and processions,--which are only not childish because they are practiced and admired by men instead of children,--all the pomps and vanities of great cities,have shown me no revelation of glory such as did that crowded school-room the week before the Christmas holidays.But these were the splendors of life.
The truest and the strongest feelings do not connect themselves with any scenes of gorgeous and gaudy magnificence;they are bound up in the remembrances of home.
"The narrow orchard,with its grove of old apple-trees against one of which I used to lean,and while I brandished a beanstalk,roar out with Fitzjames,--'Come one,come all;this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I!'--while I was ready to squall at the sight of a cur,and run valorously away from a casually approaching cow;the field close beside it,where I rolled about in summer among the hay;the brook in which,despite of maid and mother,I waded by the hour;the garden where I sowed flower-seeds,and then turned up the ground again and planted potatoes,and then rooted out the potatoes to insert acorns and apple-pips,and at last,as may be supposed,reaped neither roses,nor potatoes,nor oak-trees,nor apples;the grass-plots on which I played among those with whom I never can play nor work again:all these are places and employments,--and,alas,playmates,--such as,if it were worth while to weep at all,it would be worth weeping that I enjoy no longer.
"I remember the house where I first grew familiar with peacocks;and the mill-stream into which I once fell;and the religious awe wherewith I heard,in the warm twilight,the psalm-singing around the house of the Methodist miller;and the door-post against which Idischarged my brazen artillery;I remember the window by which I sat while my mother taught me French;and the patch of garden which I dug for--But her name is best left blank;it was indeed writ in water.
These recollections are to me like the wealth of a departed friend,a mournful treasure.But the public has heard enough of them;to it they are worthless:they are a coin which only circulates at its true value between the different periods of an individual's existence,and good for nothing but to keep up a commerce between boyhood and manhood.I have for years looked forward to the possibility of visiting L----;but I am told that it is a changed village;and not only has man been at work,but the old yew on the hill has fallen,and scarcely a low stump remains of the tree which I delighted in childhood to think might have furnished bows for the Norman archers."[3]
In Cowbridge is some kind of free school,or grammar-school,of a certain distinction;and this to Captain Sterling was probably a motive for settling in the neighborhood of it with his children.Of this however,as it turned out,there was no use made:the Sterling family,during its continuance in those parts,did not need more than a primary school.The worthy master who presided over these Christmas galas,and had the honor to teach John Sterling his reading and writing,was an elderly Mr.Reece of Cowbridge,who still (in 1851)survives,or lately did;and is still remembered by his old pupils as a worthy,ingenious and kindly man,"who wore drab breeches and white stockings."Beyond the Reece sphere of tuition John Sterling did not go in this locality.