Among the boarders archery was practised, and by some of them with a skill almost rivalling that of Locksley in Sir Walter Scott’s novel of _Ivanhoe_. A carpenter in the town made for us bows of lancewood, and arrows of poplar, tipped with spikes of iron. With these we could not only split our “willow wand” at 80 yards distant, but the more skilful deemed an arrow hardly worth having until it had been baptized in the blood of blackbird or pigeon, and some of the neighbouring pigeon cotes suffered accordingly. The writer was presented with a bow made of bamboo, and arrows said to be poisoned, which a great traveller, then residing in Horncastle, had brought from the South Sea Islands. He lent these to a brother archer, who by mistake shot another boy in the calf of the leg. Great alarm was the result, but the poison must have lost its power, for no evil consequences ensued, except that the wounded party almost frightened himself into a state of fever. [Picture: Successive Head Masters, from 1818 to 1907] These, however, were among the less hardy of our sports. The good old Doctor’s great aim was to get us healthily engaged in the country. With this object he would say on a Monday morning to the bigger boys of the two highest classes, “Now, lads, if you will translate this book of Virgil, or Homer, or this Greek play, as quickly as you can, you shall have the rest of the week to spend as you like.” Put upon our mettle by such a challenge the work would be completed, by us perhaps on the Wednesday, and three days of varied enjoyment in country rambles would follow. In these days, when bird-nesting is forbidden as being “cruelty to animals,” it may horrify some of our readers to learn that the Doctor encouraged his pupils to collect eggs. On our excursions in early summer every hedge was carefully examined for many miles round, the tallest trees were climbed, or, as it was then called “swarmed,” in search of the eggs of hawk, carrion crow, woodpecker, &c.; those of the owl were found in the thick fir plantations, or those of the jackdaw in old ruins; the rarest specimens being presented to the Doctor himself, while commoner kinds were hung in festoons from the ceiling of our study at his residence. The two chief holidays at this season were the Queen’s Birthday, May 24th, and “Royal Oak Day,” May 29th. On these two days the boys were expected to decorate the school in the early hours of the morning; a _sine qua non_ being, that, on the Doctor’s arrival at 7.30 a.m., he should find his desk so filled with floral and arboreal adornments, that he could not enter it; whereat he would make the remark, repeated annually, “Well, boys! you have shut me out of my desk, so we must give up work for the day.” He also, on these occasions, often brought with him a daughter, and the two carefully looked into the decorated desk, when they were rewarded by finding the nest and eggs of a