In all my childhood I can only remember one single punishment, among not a few which I received, which I resented--and for years I never quite forgot it. Some one had robbed a very favourite apple tree in our orchard--an escapade of which I was perfectly capable, but in this instance had not had the satisfaction of sharing. Some evidence had been lodged against me, of which I was not informed, and I therefore had no opportunity to challenge it. I was asked before a whole class of my schoolmates if I had committed the act, and at once denied it. Without any hearing I was adjudged guilty, and promptly subjected to the punishment of the day--a good birching. On every occasion on which we were offered the alternative of detention, we invariably "plumped" for the rod, and got it over quickly, and, as we considered, creditably--taking it smiling as long as we could. But that one act of injustice, the disgrace which it carried of making me a liar before my friends, seared my very soul. I vowed I would get even whatever it cost, and I regret to say that I hadn't long to wait the opportunity. For I scored both the apples and the lie against the punishment before many months. Nor was I satisfied then. It rankled in my mind both by day and by night; and it taught me an invaluable lesson--never to suspect or condemn rashly. It was one of Dr. Arnold's boys at Rugby, I believe, who summed up his master's character by saying, "The head was a beast, but he was always a just beast." At fourteen years of age my brother was sent to Repton, to the house of an uncle by marriage--an arrangement which has persuaded me never to send boys to their relatives for training. My brother's pranks were undoubtedly many, but they were all boyish and legitimate ones. After a time, however, he was removed at his own request, and sent to Clifton, where he was head of the school, and the school house also, under Dr. Percival, the late Bishop of Hereford. From there he took an open scholarship for Oxford. It was most wisely decided to send us to separate schools, and therefore at fourteen I found myself at Marlborough--a school of nearly six hundred resident boys, on entering which I had won a scholarship. CHAPTER II SCHOOL LIFE