Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/30

 have never since doubted, justified me in quitting him abruptly. One morning before the arrival of the headmaster I had a contest with one of the boys about something I have altogether forgotten. He complained to an usher, but, as the ushers were not permitted to punish the boys, this one promised to report me for misconduct. On the arrival of the master he did so, and Mr. Bleckley, who was perhaps disturbed by some personal trouble, immediately laid hold of me, stretched me over a desk, according to his practice, and administered a sharp discipline with a leather strap. When he had finished he faced me and demanded, "Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?" Though the result proved a great inconvenience to me I can never regret what happened as a test of character. "Say," I roared, "I say it is too late to ask for my defence after I have been punished; and that I will never suffer you to lay hands on me again." I seized my cap and vanished out of the school. Mr. Bleckley reported the facts to my mother, not ungenerously, I think, but I could not be induced to submit again to his authority. With the assistance of a student preparing for Maynooth, and in concert with my constant chum Mat Trumble, I read at home, to replace, as far as I could, the direction of a competent teacher.

Next to books perhaps before books a boy's earliest craving is for friends. I had three friends at that time who shared my whole life, and who in after years associated themselves with me in my public career, and continued till death my intimates and confidants. One was my schoolfellow, Mat Trumble, who was afterwards an occasional writer in the Nation; another was Henry MacManus, the artist, who ten years later, with John Hogan, the sculptor, presented to O'Connell, at the monster meeting of Mullaghmast, a National Cap (which the English journalists insisted on identifying as the crown of Ireland); the third, Terence Bellew MacManus, who a quarter of a century later appeared in arms at Ballingarry, while I was a prisoner in Newgate, and in 1870 had a public funeral, so abnormal in extent and enthusiasm that it may be described as an historical event. By a happy accident these three young men represented three totally distinct elements of Irish society. Terence