He went to a Dame’s school, where his first teacher said that she had never had so troublesome a pupil, that his head was like a colander; but Harry puts the case more pathetically when he tells his mother that ‘Mrs. Harris says if we go on, we shall kill her, and we do go on,’ regretfully adding, ‘and yet she does not die.’ A schoolmate of these days says that Harry lisped very much, and that the boys used to tease him about it. He was also so slow about his lessons that they called him thickhead. But when school was out Harry entered the realms he loved. From his home on the market-place he had only to go outside the door to be at once in touch with the active world whose economic problems appealed to him so keenly. He made friends among the country folk, and talked of their crops and the money they would bring, and noted in his childish mind the rise and fall in the price of wheat. [Sidenote: The Circus.] Then to the same open space came all sorts of travelling shows. Sometimes the circus spread its mysterious tents, and when the children were dragged away from the wild beasts and the seductive freaks and put to bed, the little Fawcetts would stealthily creep to the bedroom window overlooking the market and see the lights shining on all the wonderful but forbidden marvels, and hear the hurdy-gurdy and the band mix their triumphal blare with the solemn striking of the clock in the near-by cathedral. [Sidenote: Boarding-School.] In 1841 Harry’s father took a delightful farmhouse at Longford, about three miles south of Salisbury, with delectable streams full of fish. Harry loved to fish every day, and hated lessons, but, alas! grim fate backed the lessons, and sent him ruthlessly to school. He went as a boarder to Mr. Sopp at Alderbury, a few miles away. There are many tales showing that Harry loved the fleshpots and that he had been much indulged at home. He writes, ‘I have begun Ovid—I hate it.’ ‘This is a beastly school—milk and water, no milk—bread and butter, no butter. Please give a quarter’s notice.’ And still more heartrending was the prayer to his mother, ‘Please when the family has quite finished with the ham bone, send it to me.’ Imagination can supply the effect of this on the family circle, and guess what a well-covered ham bone was shipped to the starving Harry. Starving or no, he grew immensely stronger and larger, and though he never admitted that he got enough to eat at any school, he became ultimately reconciled to his exile. He used to come home often for half-holidays, and to go to Longford and revel in all country delights. Then began the close friendships with the cottagers about him which meant so much to him and influenced all his life.