But before penetrating into Weston’s Yard, where the new College buildings had recently been erected, we must cast one glance at the corner of the playing fields known as “Sixpenny”—just below what was then Miss Edgar, the dame’s, tumbledown old labyrinth of a house—the classic place for battles in the past, where I was to see many a famous fight in the next few years. From “Sixpenny” it was that in 1825 the great Lord Shaftesbury’s younger brother, Francis Ashley, was carried home to die from exhaustion after fighting with a boy of the name of Wood for the best part of two hours. I witnessed three fierce fights that were nearly as bad, and many lesser battles, but the subject is only worth alluding to because it is dead. There is no fighting now, I believe; perhaps, savage as it may seem to say so, that is not altogether an advantage. Dr. Hawtrey once said to me, “If two boys have a quarrel I would rather see them fight it out. They shake hands afterwards, and become firm friends; but this grudge-bearing is dreadful and has no end.” Boys form great friendships at school; they also form great antipathies. There was a boy at Eton, a few years older than myself, who was an arch-bully. For some reason he bore me a special spite; his methods of torture were curious and ingenious. If I saw him in the distance I fled. I have heard that he is a good, gentle, harmless old gentleman, a kind landlord, a Chairman of a Board of Guardians, greatly respected—but I should still dread to meet him. Venerable and imposing, very dear to us who loved him well, was the figure of Edward Craven Hawtrey, the Head Master of Eton. He was not a handsome man, indeed so far as features were concerned, he was distinctly the reverse; but he was tall and upright, with the dignity of a commander of boys or men. When he called Absence on the Chapel steps, dressed in his cassock and doctor’s gown, his presence was imposing. When he went out walking his attire was scrupulously neat, with as much smartness as might become a cleric of high degree. He always wore a frock-coat with a deep velvet collar, with which the high white cravat of those days and his silver hair, worn slightly, but not unduly long, made a fine contrast. Skilled “in the nice conduct of a clouded cane,” he looked essentially a gentleman, a clergyman of the best old school. He was a traveller, a man of the world, and a linguist, proficient in French, German and Italian, able to hold his own, and always welcome, in the political and learned society of many continental cities and universities. His personality was as well known in Paris, Rome, and the great German towns as in London or at Windsor. [Illustration: EDWARD CRAVEN HAWTREY, D.D., ETON COLLEGE. (_A sketch by a sixth form boy._)]