I was never
spared; and was not even allowed to run to and fro between our house
and the school without a daily purgatory. No doubt my appearance
was against me. I remember well, when I was still the junior boy
in the school, Dr. Butler, the head-master, stopping me in the
street, and asking me, with all the clouds of Jove upon his brow
and the thunder in his voice, whether it was possible that Harrow
School was disgraced by so disreputably dirty a boy as I! Oh, what
I felt at that moment! But I could not look my feelings. I do not
doubt that I was dirty;--but I think that he was cruel. He must
have known me had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was
in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognise
me by my face.
At this time I was three years at Harrow; and, as far as I can
remember, I was the junior boy in the school when I left it.
Then I was sent to a private school at Sunbury, kept by Arthur
Drury. This, I think, must have been done in accordance with the
advice of Henry Drury, who was my tutor at Harrow School, and my
father's friend, and who may probably have expressed an opinion that
my juvenile career was not proceeding in a satisfactory manner at
Harrow. To Sunbury I went, and during the two years I was there,
though I never had any pocket-money, and seldom had much in the
way of clothes, I lived more nearly on terms of equality with other
boys than at any other period during my very prolonged school-days.
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