A mere tissue of errors and follies. But, such as it is,
you shall have one epoch of it, by which you may judge of the rest."
And so, without any farther prelude, he gave me the following anecdotes
of his early adventures.
BUCKTHORNE, OR THE YOUNG MAN OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
I was born to very little property, but to great expectations; which is
perhaps one of the most unlucky fortunes that a man can be born to. My
father was a country gentleman, the last of a very ancient and
honorable, but decayed family, and resided in an old hunting lodge in
Warwickshire. He was a keen sportsman and lived to the extent of his
moderate income, so that I had little to expect from that quarter; but
then I had a rich uncle by the mother's side, a penurious, accumulating
curmudgeon, who it was confidently expected would make me his heir;
because he was an old bachelor; because I was named after him, and
because he hated all the world except myself.
He was, in fact, an inveterate hater, a miser even in misanthropy, and
hoarded up a grudge as he did a guinea. Thus, though my mother was an
only sister, he had never forgiven her marriage with my father, against
whom he had a cold, still, immovable pique, which had lain at the
bottom of his heart, like a stone in a well, ever since they had been
school boys together. My mother, however, considered me as the
intermediate being that was to bring every thing again into harmony,
for she looked upon me as a prodigy - God bless her. My heart overflows
whenever I recall her tenderness: she was the most excellent, the most
indulgent of mothers. I was her only child; it was a pity she had no
more, for she had fondness of heart enough to have spoiled a dozen!
I was sent, at an early age, to a public school, sorely against my
mother's wishes, but my father insisted that it was the only way to
make boys hardy. The school was kept by a conscientious prig of the
ancient system, who did his duty by the boys intrusted to his care;
that is to say, we were flogged soundly when we did not get our
lessons. We were put into classes and thus flogged on in droves along
the highways of knowledge, in the same manner as cattle are driven to
market, where those that are heavy in gait or short in leg have to
suffer for the superior alertness or longer limbs of their companions.
For my part, I confess it with shame, I was an incorrigible laggard. I
have always had the poetical feeling, that is to say, I have always
been an idle fellow and prone to play the vagabond. I used to get away
from my books and school whenever I could, and ramble about the fields.
I was surrounded by seductions for such a temperament.
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