112

GIFFORD IS BROUGHT BACK.

fourteen? Most boys think going to sea "great fun"; and a passion for the ocean, is a very common feature in a lad's character; but Gifford, having had all "the rough," and very little of "the smooth," of a naval life, always remembered that small coasting bark with horror; probably he would never have been extricated from such a life, had not one of his godfather's fellow-townsmen, from Ashburton, in Devonshire, Gifford's birth-place, having occasion to visit Dartmouth, after he had been a sailor about a year, seen him on board the skiff, and been moved with pity at the squalid, half-starved condition of the luckless boy.

When this man went back again to Ashburton, he gossiped about Gifford; and many censures having been passed on his godfather, for sending him to sea, on account of the boy's condition, such comments, luckily, reached that worthy's ears.

He did not care if the boy starved or not; but he did mind being called "cruel," for such treatment of an orphan; so Gifford was sent for back again.

Well, boy; what do you want to do now?" gruffly enquired his only protector, on his return. "Go to school, and learn to read," was the answer. So, after a little grumbling at the expense, he was sent to school in the town.

"He will be a dunce," had remarked the schoolmaster, on first seeing a small, puny, sickly-looking child; in appearance eleven, though, then, nearly fifteen years of age; but it turned out very

differently. At the expiration of a year, such had been his diligence, and so great his determination to learn, that Bill Gifford was always at the top of his class.

This pre-eminence had the same effect at this school, as superiority ever exercises in a wider sphere. Jealous of him, his companions roughly taunted him with his parent's misfortunes, and were not always over-particular in the names they called him; chiefly the effects of jealousy, as his family circumstances were well known in Ashburton. Nature had made him retiring and sensitive; and this treatment made him morbid. He avoided the play-ground; and learnt his lessons, whilst the others played at football or cricket.

The lessons they hated-he loved; and arithmetic was his "darling pursuit," as he himself called it; and that served to develop his almost more than extraordinary memory; the faculty by which Gifford may be said to have chiefly risen in life.

Be that as it may, his application was rewarded; and in a year's time from his going to school, he was competent to assist his master in hearing the younger classes; the trifle which he earned occasionally in this way was always laid out in books, or, pens, ink, and paper. He hoped to be, in time, sufficiently proficient to aspire to the post of schoolmaster itself, on his master's retirement or death. Silently looking forward to what seemed to him, then, the limit to his ambition,

114

THE COBBLER'S 'PRENTICE.

he worked steadily on, and became head-boy of the school.

His views, however, were not those of the godfather on whom he was dependent. That man apprenticed him to a cobbler; and told him to hold his tongue, when William ventured to remonstrate, and would not hear a word against that step.

"You are a most fortunate boy," said he ; "your mother died in the workhouse; your little brother, too. So, hoity-toity, don't let me have any objections against being a cobbler-for a cobbler you shall be."

Remonstrance was in vain. All the hapless youth could falter out was useless. To add to his misfortunes, he was bound apprentice to a very bad-tempered, low kind of cobbler, whom nothing ever could satisfy; while he would swear at, and rate poor Gifford, as if he were a dog; and not only that, but beat him when he was able to find any excuse for so doing.

The cobbler, however, had a son who was better educated than himself, and in a lazy, idle kind of way, liked reading, and had a smattering of knowledge.

This boy was a selfish fellow; and this bad trait in his master's son, had a very curious effect on Gifford's destiny. I shall call him Henry, by way of distinction. Henry was able to spare a little pocket money, now and then, to buy a book with; and one day, in a fit of generosity, he gave

THE ALGEBRA-BOOK.

115

his father's apprentice a treatise on algebra, that he had picked up at a book-stall for an old song.

The treasure was eagerly accepted-but alas ! unintelligible; as Gifford had no knowledge of simple equations, and so could not understand it. What was to be done? When Henry was asked his opinion, the generous fit was past, and he was not then disposed to be friendly in the matter.

"Pooh," said he contemptuously, in reply to Gifford's questions; "leave learning alone. What's the good of a workhouse brat, like you, studying algebra." Henry said this coarsely and vulgarly, yet, all the while, respecting the lad's yearning desire "to learn."

Some few days later, his master sent Gifford out to take a pair of boots home. Passing a bookstall, he lingers to gaze on the treasures, he yet may not even hope to possess. Amongst them is "Fenning's Introduction to Algebra," and he notices, with a sigh of regret for his poverty, that it is marked up at a shilling.

There was no use coveting it, as he had not a shilling in the world; but on his return home, he persuaded Henry to purchase it, and lend it to him. That selfish boy, all the more eager to have something that another could not obtain, bought it, but refused to lend it to Gifford, who yet was determined to have it. He watched Henry secrete it in a cupboard, and when he was asleep that night Gifford got up, and stealthily opening its hiding place, borrowed the hidden book.

He

116

STUDY BY STEALTH.

managed to do this every night in succession for a month, Henry never suspecting that his dog-in the-manger selfishness had been defeated. However, one night, hearing Gifford shut his door too abruptly, he jumped out of bed, and followed him unseen into the loft that the latter slept in. Watching him quietly, and all the while unperceived by the luckless Gifford, his surprise was indeed excited at this wonderful love for algebra, which had induced a boy to study it in the dead of night, while others slept, after all the day's labour. Henry felt surprised, but also angry-angry at his book being borrowed without leave; so in revenge he aroused his father, the old cobbler.

No word now is too bad for poor Bill, who is convicted, the book in his hand, eagerly poring over its contents, as he sits up in his bed, by the light of a bit of tallow candle set in a bottle.

He is peremptorily desired to give up the book, his candle taken away, and his ears boxed; after which he is left to his repose on his usual couch, a bundle of straw in the hay-loft.

He did not, however, much care, since, after a month's study, his good memory knew "Fenning's Introduction" by heart; and, with that key, he could now acquire the contents of his own book.

Sir Edward Bulwer, in "What will he do with it," makes a cobbler describe that occupation as being more conducive to reflection than any other. "For," says that great novelist's man of leather, "a cobbler sits by hisself, and talks with hisself,