Raymond by John Lang

IT was a sad day for Henry Raymond, when, at ten years of age, he quitted, for the first time, his parents' roof for the public grammar-school at Belford-upon-Thames. Being her only surviving child, and, as such, brought up by his mother with great tenderness, he deeply felt the shock of separation from her; and, as the post-chaise rattled along the high western road, his father, who accompanied him, had no little difficulty in keeping up his son's spirits, whose young heart quite sunk within him at the idea of the weeks and months that might elapse before he should again see his mother. Nor is this grief to be wondered at; for the change from home to school, where he has to "rough it" every hour of his life, is, to a susceptible and delicately-nurtured child, as painful and startling a one as it is possible to conceive. All is so repulsive--so unlike what he has been used to! The sky-blue milk, with the tiny penny roll for breakfast; the half-cold leg of fat Leicestershire mutton, washed down with indifferent swipes, for dinner; the thick wedge of stale bread, and Lilliputian allowance of the cheapest cheese, for supper; the loud ringing of the school bell in the morning, that rouses you from a dream of home to the drudgery of syntax and prosody; the awful master, with his cane and birch, cast-iron visage, and thundering voice; the tyrannical fagging system; the confinement on long winter evenings to the dim-lit, uncarpeted hall, where you have to fight for a seat by the fireside; the hard bed, shared perhaps with a bigger boy, who doubles the bolster under his own head, borrows your share of the sheets and blankets, and kicks you out if you are so unreasonable as to remonstrate; --all these, to say nothing of various minor miseries, have a most blighting effect on the feelings of a young and sensitive boy; and Henry Raymond felt them so acutely, that, for nearly a fortnight after the return of his father to London, not a night passed but his pillow was wet with tears.

But youth's sorrows, like April showers, are transitory; and in the course of a month Henry had become tolerably well reconciled to his lot. Being endowed with a quick apprehension and retentive memory, his school tasks were not the bugbears to him that they are to those of more limited capacity. He mastered them, when he pleased, with facility, and consequently soon grew into favour with his masters; while, at the same time, he won "golden opinions" from his class-fellows by his frankness, his good-humour, and his readiness to assist them in their exercises. As his constitution, though sound, was delicate, he did not enter with much avidity into the usual sports of boyhood; but, when the hours of study were over, he would wander alone the ruins of an abbey which bordered the playground, and there seat himself, with some favourite volume in his hand, or else remain behind in the school-room, poring over the books in the well-stored library.