He
was bored, for in his heart he hated Liberalism, though he was ashamed to
say so, and, as I have said, professed to be on the Whig side. He did
not want to be reconciled to the Church of Rome; he wanted to make all
Roman Catholics turn Protestants, and could never understand why they
would not do so; but the Doctor talked in such a truly liberal spirit,
and shut him up so sharply when he tried to edge in a word or two, that
he had to let him have it all his own way, and this was not what he was
accustomed to. He was wondering how he could bring it to an end, when a
diversion was created by the discovery that Ernest had begun to
cry--doubtless through an intense but inarticulate sense of a boredom
greater than he could bear. He was evidently in a highly nervous state,
and a good deal upset by the excitement of the morning, Mrs Skinner
therefore, who came in with Christina at this juncture, proposed that he
should spend the afternoon with Mrs Jay, the matron, and not be
introduced to his young companions until the following morning. His
father and mother now bade him an affectionate farewell, and the lad was
handed over to Mrs Jay.
O schoolmasters--if any of you read this book--bear in mind when any
particularly timid drivelling urchin is brought by his papa into your
study, and you treat him with the contempt which he deserves, and
afterwards make his life a burden to him for years--bear in mind that it
is exactly in the disguise of such a boy as this that your future
chronicler will appear.
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