"His Career and Adventures at the Royal Military Academy Woolwich" (continued 5)

It is not in the nature of man, especially of a very young one, or of woman either, to reason or criticise very closely the truth or foundation of flattery. We stretch many points to make us ready to believe there are grounds for what is said. I had been so unjustly abused by Snipson when his neux, that the conceit had been too much taken out of me, and I had lost too much of that self-possession which we all ought to possess in order to make way in the world. The flattery of Miss Stanley, therefore, came on me with all the charm of novelty, and as I thought over what she had said, I felt bound to acknowledge that praise was due to me for the manner in which I had passed through my hard trials at Hostler’s, had succeeded at my examinations, and stood the bullying of my first half-year at the Academy. Any way, it was most agreeable to be in the society of a young lady who seemed to think I deserved to be praised and commended for what I had done.

The first few days of my visit at the Heronry passed like a dream. I was as happy as a bird, but was fast drifting into love with Helen. She, however, seemed a very wise young lady, who could talk with me, sing with me, flirt with me, but apparently not be in love with me. I had myself made all sorts of desperate resolves. I should get my commission, distinguish myself in some way, and then propose for Helen. The details of our future life I had not worked out, nor did I consider that I had not calculated the future beyond the period at which I should be twenty-one. Although the time passed rapidly and agreeably, yet I knew I had learnt much in the first three days I was at the Heronry. I had begun a new study, etc, the investigation of the peculiarities and inconsistencies of the feminine mind.

At breakfast, on the fourth morning of my visit, Helen Stanley announced to the General that Charles would arrive that afternoon. I looked up surprised at this remark, for I had never heard of a “Charles,” and did not know whom he was. Seeing my look of curiosity, Miss Stanley said, “Charles is my cousin. He is at Oxford, and is coming here for a few days. He is very clever, I hear; so you two will get on well together, I hope.”

I instantly felt certain that cousin Charles and I should not get on well together, and I was most anxious to discover, if possible, whether there was any other relationship between Helen and cousin Charles besides that of cousinship. Miss Stanley, however, gave me no clue, and seemed to avoid being alone with me during the morning, so that I had no opportunity of learning anything except that cousin Charles was at Oxford and very clever.

At the expected time cousin Charles, whose surname I ascertained was also Stanley, arrived at the Heronry. I saw him get out of the vehicle he had driven in, and approach the house. From the experience I had gained of men during the past two years I could judge tolerably well of what a young man was by his appearance, and the instant I saw Charles Stanley I concluded that he was “a conceited prig.” I entered the drawing-room soon after his arrival, and was introduced to him as Gentleman Cadet Shepard. Stanley nearly closed his eyes as he looked at me for half a minute, and then held out two fingers to me to shake. I just touched his hand and then turned towards the window and looked out on the view, whilst I was estimating in my own mind the value and worthlessness of Mr Charles Stanley.

It was soon evident to me that Stanley was on very intimate terms with his cousin Helen, also that he admired her very much. I also became conscious that he was not favourably impressed with me, and I made up my mind that we should certainly not get on well during our visit.

At dinner that evening Stanley fired his first shot at me, and it certainly hit its mark, for I was made to look very small whilst he aired his knowledge before Helen Stanley.

I happened to mention that I had seen a hawk hovering over the poultry-yard in the afternoon, and I thought it possible that some young chicken might be carried off.

“By hawk,” said Stanley, “do you mean the ‘Tinnunculus alaudarius’ or the ‘Accipiter Nisus’?”

“I mean what we call here the kestrel,” I replied.

Stanley put his glass in his eye and looked at me, and said, “Dear me! I was told you were a very clever naturalist.”

“I don’t think natural history consists in giving long names to animals,” I said, “but in knowing their habits.”

“Indeed?” said Stanley. “But I am afraid you don’t learn much classics at Woolwich.”

“None after we enter,” I replied. “We then learn only useful things, and don’t cram our heads with pedantic knowledge.”

“I’m very sorry to see the youngsters of the present day so radical in their ideas,” said Stanley, addressing the General. “There is no training for a gentleman equal to a thorough classical education.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said the General. “Of course you Oxford men think there’s nothing like leather, but I would sooner have my son know French and German well, than Greek and Latin, and the latter would be more practically useful to him than the former; and as to a mathematical education, it is essential in the present day. I fancy that your great classics are usually men who live more in the past than for the present or future, and that won’t do now.”

“A man who is not a good classic is always making himself ridiculous because he is sure to make a false quantity, and his ignorance is seen by others.”

“Ah, that’s a sort of pedantry,” replied the General, “which is what I set my face against. Your classic belongs to a large school, and prides himself immensely on his knowledge. He only values men according to what he finds they know of classics. Now, this is a mistake. You will find that horse-jockeys and stablemen do the same. If you make a remark to a horsey man, showing you are not up in horse slang, he at once sets you down as a muff, for he has only one standard of excellence, viz, knowledge of horses, just as you have of classics. Just now you took it out of Shepard there about the Latin names of hawks, and then you seemed to think that knowing these names made a naturalist. This I don’t agree to. Now, I’d back Shepard to tell quicker than you a summer from a winter cage when he saw one.”

“I think I could tell that,” replied Stanley.

“How?” inquired the General.

“Well, the winter cage ought to be warmer and hung on the sunny side of the house, and perhaps covered with something to keep the cold wind out.”

A shout of laughter from the General, in which both I and Miss Stanley joined, interrupted Stanley in his remarks. He looked annoyed and surprised, and seemed waiting for an explanation.

“There!” said the General, “you have done worse than make a false quantity; you have shown you know nothing of what I meant. You must know that ‘a cage’ means in the forest a squirrel’s nest, and that the squirrel makes a summer and a winter cage—one of sticks, the other of moss.”

We had several other little “passages of arms” during dinner, much, I fancied, to the amusement of Helen Stanley, who seemed to enjoy seeing her cousin taken down a little.

On the following morning a ride was proposed to see one of the largest beech-trees in the forest, which was in Eyeworth Wood. The party consisted of my youngest sister, Miss Stanley, Stanley, and myself. We had scarcely mounted our horses before I saw that Stanley was a very indifferent rider. He tried his best to conceal the fact, but it was of no use. The pony he was riding was a well-bred forest pony, strong, and high spirited. The animal seemed (as horses soon do) to have discovered that his rider was an indifferent horseman, and began to play various tricks, much to the discomfiture of Stanley, who kept his seat with difficulty. I could see that Stanley was fast losing his temper, and when his cousin told him to keep his hands lower, and not to jerk the pony’s mouth, he seemed to be ready to quarrel with any one.

“I see what you mean,” Stanley replied, looking at me. “These forest brutes require riding more in the butcher-boy style.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s the way—more like a butcher-boy and less like a tailor!”

I thought Stanley would have hit me with his whip. He raised it, and probably would have done so; but his pony, seeing the whip raised, bounded off, and deposited Stanley on his back on the turf.

We saw he was not hurt, so out attention was turned to catching his pony, which we soon succeeded in doing, when he mounted again and safely accomplished the remainder of his ride.

Miss Stanley was nearly the whole time by my side, and I found myself more and more charmed with her. I was flattered by her manner, and felt that there would be great satisfaction in gaining her approval in my future career at Woolwich.

“I shall always look out for your name in the papers,” she said, “to see when you get any prizes. I saw your name in the Times as having passed when I was at Brussels, and I was so glad.”

“I am not likely to get any prizes,” I replied, “except my commission; that will be a good prize.”

“Oh, you are certain to get some if you try for them! Why, see how well you have done already. I am certain if young men had some one to back them up, and give them encouragement, there would not be so many failures as there are. I think there is nothing so charming as an intellectual, clever man!”

I did not know what to reply to this remark, for I was not only very young but very inexperienced at that time, and was not aware of a fact which I believe experience has since taught me, viz, that young ladies usually like a man who is not intellectual, but who can talk any amount of what is termed nonsense, whilst it is usually middle-aged ladies who seek after intellect and prefer the society of those who possess it.

A week passed at General Holloway’s like a dream, and it came to an end as suddenly, as the General was taken seriously ill, and we all had to leave. Before I left I had confessed to Helen Stanley that I was desperately in love with her, and that I should never be happy without her; but to my utter discomfiture she informed me that she was engaged to her cousin, and had been so from a child, though she did not care for him one bit. I believed fully when I heard this that I should never be happy again, and that I should wander about one of those “blighted beings” that one hears and reads of, and occasionally sees, who have been disappointed in love, and who never recover from it; but I am happy to say that, though for many days I felt terribly desolate, and seemed to live without a purpose, yet before I had been a week at the Academy I had begun to laugh at my own folly in having fallen in love in less than a week with Miss Helen Stanley.

Chapter Fifteen.

Life as an Old Cadet.

There is scarcely a more marked difference between the condition of a master and a slave than there was thirty years ago between the state of an old cadet and a neux. On joining the Academy at my fourth half I became an old cadet, and possessed all the rights and privileges of my exalted position. I had now full liberty to wear my chin-strap up, to go out without straps to my trousers, to fag any last-joined or second-half cadet, and, in fact, to do very much as I liked. I was second in my room, the head of the room being a corporal one batch senior to me; the third of the room was a second-half cadet, and the fourth a last-joined.

It was now my turn to send for various last-joined cadets, and call upon them to sing songs, make odes to the moon, and speeches in favour of fagging; and I must own that there was very great delight in exercising this authority. Among the last-joined in my division were two of Hostler’s boys, who were considerably more advanced than I was when I was at school with them. Now, however, there was a great gulf between us, and I found it necessary to let them know it, for their education had been very much neglected, as they actually gave me a familiar nod and said, “How do, Shepard?” when they first met me at the Academy, they being in plain clothes and last-joined, I in uniform and an old cadet.

Although I followed the usual routine of fagging the neuxes on every possible occasion, I strictly avoided what I had considered cruelty when I was myself a neux; so that such amusements as angles of 45 degrees, flipping round tables, climbing stools, etc, I set my face against, and endeavoured to discourage in others.

I made up my mind to work this half-year very hard, and to try and prove to all my friends that I had some brains and could pass examinations well. There was a prize given for mathematics in the class in which I was; but this was almost certain to fall to the cadet who was first in my class the last half-year. I, however, hoped to hold my position of sixth in mathematics, if not to take some places, and thus to show that it was neither by fudging nor by a fluke that I had passed so well at the last examination. I had now every opportunity for working; I was not worried by fears of being fagged or disturbed in any way, and could be as quiet as I liked in my room. When a neux got rather forward and seemed likely to pass an old cadet, there was immediately a pressure brought to bear on the junior to prevent him from working. I had not been forward enough in my first or second half to be a dangerous competitor, so I never was warned to leave off “swatting,” but others had been. In the same class with me there were no cadets more than one half junior to me, so there was no reason to bring the “old cadet” influence to bear, even had I thought such a proceeding right, which I did not, so we all worked on our merits.

Perhaps, as far as exciting incidents happened, my fourth half-year was the most barren of all. The routine through which I had passed had caused me to thoroughly enjoy what would otherwise probably never have been looked upon as an enjoyment. To go to bed and know that I could go to sleep with no risk of being disturbed for the purpose of going to some room to sing, or make speeches, was in itself a luxury, and I believe in afterlife there are few people who so thoroughly enjoy themselves as those who in their younger days have had to rough it on service or in savage or uncivilised countries.

Sitting, as we are at present, in a snug room, the windows rattling and the house actually shaking with the south-east gale blowing, we feel the greatest satisfaction in comparing our present condition with that of some years ago, when we were tossing about in the Bay of Biscay in a leaky vessel, short of water and provisions. As we hear the rain dash against our windows at night, and remember that our roof is waterproof, we feel a singular pleasure in thinking what a comfort it is not being in our old bell-tent in the far South, through which the rain would come like a sieve, and which sometimes required us to go out in the rain and slacken the peg-lines, in order to prevent their contraction by wet from pulling up the pegs and dropping the wet tent on us. By comparisons we to a great extent learn to appreciate and enjoy, and the comparison between my position during my first, and fourth half-year, as a cadet was such as to make me thoroughly enjoy my life.

There was much in those days that cadets had to complain of, but which defects have since been remedied. Formerly any cadet seen smoking was liable to discharge. If a cadet were seen to enter a billiard-room he would stand a fair chance of being rusticated. Trifling offences were also not unfrequently treated as most grievous crimes, and favouritism, that fatal enemy to all discipline, to all true energy, and to all satisfaction with the service, was not unknown at the Academy.

As an example of the severe punishment sometimes inflicted formerly for apparently light offences, a cadet, head of a room, had not reported the second of his room for marking his cupboard by means of a needle arrow blown from a tube. The cupboard of course was marked and slightly damaged, and the head of the room was given seven days’ arrest for neglect in not reporting the case.

There was in those days a sort of struggle going on between the cadets and the authorities, relative to cadets being put on their honour to own to certain offences committed by them, and which there was no evidence on which to convict them other than their own confession. The cadets were advocates for the system of honour, which may be explained by the following case:—

On the Common there was a house which had on its gates some grotesque figures in stone. These figures attracted the attention of the cadets, who periodically used to remove them, and place them on another gate. When the parade was formed the officer on duty used to call, “Fall out the gentlemen who removed the figures from the house on the Common!” and instantly the culprits would fall out, and would receive a much lighter punishment than if they had been discovered without their own confession.

This system worked very well until it became whispered among the cadets that one of the non-commissioned officers attached to the Academy used to practise a system of espionage, and used to watch cadets into a certain public-house on Shooter’s Hill, where they used to assemble to smoke and talk of an afternoon. This fact became known, and instantly the cadets, by universal opinion, agreed that this was a breach of faith on the part of the authorities, and consequently they refused any longer to be “on honour.” For a time there was a sort of strike between the cadets and the authorities, during which some amusing adventures occurred.

In our division there was an old cadet who had been a corporal, but had been reduced for having what was called a “grog party” in his room. This cadet decided to have another party after roll-call, and to bar out the officer on duty, in case he tried to enter the division. To accomplish this, the cadet procured several powerful screws, and actually screwed up the door between the officers’ quarters and the division. We all agreed “on honour” not to reveal who the cadet was who performed the deed, and waited in expectation of the event.

At about half-past ten we had all assembled in the room of the cadet named, and were very jolly singing, when the neux who had been put on watch over the door reported that the officer was trying to enter. Immediately we all took off our boots, and went to our rooms and got into bed with wonderful rapidity, for we anticipated what would follow. The officer, failing to enter by the side door, soon came round to the front, which we had not attempted to secure, and entering the room of the cadet who had entertained us, asked him what he meant by making such a disturbance, and who it was who had fastened up the door. The cadet looked much surprised, and said he had heard the noise, but could not tell where it was; and that he could not tell anything about the door being fastened.

Each of our rooms was visited, but we were all in bed and shammed being asleep, and pretended we knew nothing of the noise that had taken place.

On the following morning there was no response to the request of the officer on duty, that the gentleman would fall out who had nailed up the door communicating with the officers’ quarters. The consequence was that the whole division were confined to the enclosure, with the threat that they would be so confined until the cadet who had screwed up the door came forward.

A consultation was now held among the seniors, and it was agreed to appeal, as there was no proof that the act was committed by any cadet actually belonging to the division, the time at which the screwing was performed was not known, and if it was done before roll-call it might easily be done by any cadet of another division. These probabilities having been brought forward and represented, the authorities released the cadets of our division, and we flattered ourselves we had gained a victory.

Some time after this event, the same cadet put in practice a very bold scheme, which was not discovered during the term. His room was on the ground-floor, and the window, like all others, was guarded by cross-bars, arranged diamond-shape. The cadet was very small and thin, and he had found that he could, by removing one entire cross of iron, open four of the diamond patterns. Having procured a file made out of a watch-spring, he sawed the iron bars in two; secured them temporarily with putty, so that they did not show unless closely examined; then removing these after roll-call, he squeezed himself through, and was at liberty. According to his own account, he had wonderful adventures of a night, as he on one occasion pretended to be a highwayman, on another a ghost; but the wonderful part of the affair was, that he was never found out, and it was not till six months afterwards that it was discovered the iron bars had been sawn and were held together only by putty.

It was, I believe, a fact that, just at this time, there was less real bullying than there used to be when I first joined; any way, I saw less of it. A healthier tone also seemed to prevail at the Academy—a condition I attributed to a certain extent to the departure of Snipson, and one or two other similar characters—for it is surprising the influence produced in a large establishment by one or two bad style of men. We had started a pack of beagles, and used to run a drag, and now and then turn out a hare, or rabbit, for a hunt. This brought running and athletic exercises into popular favour, and I soon took a most prominent position at the Academy as a runner and boxer.

It is often amusing to look back upon the cause of disputes or quarrels, and to see how absurd they are after all, and how out of the merest trifles gigantic events are produced, the original cause of which is not unfrequently forgotten. There was a cadet named Baldock, who was older and bigger than I was, and who was very proud of his skill as a boxer. He was supposed to be the best pugilist at the Academy, and thirty years ago using one’s fists well was looked upon in a very different light from what it now is. More than once Baldock and I had put on the gloves and had a friendly spar, and I was tolerably certain I was the better boxer of the two—thanks to Howard’s training. No one, however, seemed to be aware of this, not even Baldock, because I had always touched him very lightly when I could have hit him hard, and he had consequently no evidence of my capacity as a hitter.

One Friday evening we were boxing, when one of the cadets commenced chaffing him, and telling him he was getting two hits for one; this caused him to lose his temper, and, getting a chance, he struck me a tremendous blow fair on the forehead. I was nearly knocked over by this, but recovered myself, and, after a dodge or two, got equally as fair a hit at Baldock. For three or four minutes we—struck away at each other in earnest; Baldock then said, “It’s lucky for you we’ve gloves on.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied; “I’d sooner have them off.”

In less than a minute our gloves were off and a ring was formed, seconds appointed, and we set to work deliberately to fight, for no other reason than to try who was the best man.

I had almost instantly decided what course to adopt in the encounter. Baldock was bigger and I believed stronger than I was, and was a good boxer; but I, from always running, especially with the beagles, was in the best condition. I was also quicker and more active on my legs than he was, and had great confidence in my hitting power. I at once found I had a great advantage in Baldock underrating me, for in the first round he tried to finish me off at once, and I consequently caught him three or four sharp hits without his once breaking through my guard or getting a blow home. This evidently annoyed him, and he did not use his head as well as he might have done. His advantages, therefore, were to some extent lost, and I certainly got the best of the first two rounds.

After this Baldock got more steady, and we fought on like two prizefighters for nearly three quarters of an hour, when the cadets round interfered and stopped us, victory having failed to declare on either side. We shook hands at the termination of the affair, and, as is not unusually the case, became the best of friends—so much so that in less than a fortnight afterwards Baldock was my assistant in a row, in which we were enabled to acquit ourselves creditably.

Baldock and I were walking one afternoon from Eltham, through the fields by Shooter’s Hill Wood, when we came to a stile on which two “louts,” as we termed them, were sitting. On our coming near them they did not attempt to move, but sat grinning at us.

“Why don’t you get off that stile,” said Baldock, “when you see people coming?”

“You can get through the ’edge as you’re a cat,” said one of them, “we ain’t a going to move for you!”

In an instant Baldock seized one of the louts by the legs and tumbled him backwards over the stile; he then jumped over, and I followed him; but as I did so I received a blow on the back of the head from a stone thrown by the lout on the stile. I was nearly stunned by the blow, but, recovering myself, called to Baldock to come back and thrash them. We both turned and walked towards the two men, who shouted, “Come on! we ain’t afraid of you!”

They certainly looked as if they were not afraid, and as if they ought not to be, for they were half as big again as we were, and in their rough clothes and great hob-nailed boots looked even bigger. The affair was a splendid example of skill and training versus brute force. The two louts had probably never before encountered opponents who were skilled in the use of their fists, and they merely swung their fists round without meaning. The consequence was, that in about seven minutes the louts were half blind, their noses were bleeding, and they were telling us they had had enough.

“Take care how you insult gentlemen cadets again,” said Baldock, “for there are fifty cadets who can thrash us with one hand!”

This was his farewell remark as we doubled off without a scratch or touch, except on our knuckles, from the blows we had given. “I think,” said Baldock, “that cram of mine about the cadets will make the louts careful; and I tell you what, Shepard, I’d a deuced deal rather have you alongside of me in a fight than against me. How splendidly you dodged that fellow’s round blows, and gave it him straight between the eyes! You’ll be as good a boxer as Howard, who used to be so famed at the shop.”

“Howard taught me how to box,” I said.

“The deuce he did! Ah, then, I don’t mind having fought you for an hour without making much impression on you. I never knew that before. Howard has a tremendous reputation, and I believe deserves it.”

The half-year was now drawing to a close, and we were all thinking about the examinations. I adopted the same plan that I had formerly, and used to work very hard in academy, and of a night used to think over various problems and test what I actually knew. The head of my room never saw me working out of study hours, and fancied I was not going in to do much; and with him one of the six cadets ahead of me used to work of an evening, whilst I used to read books of sporting or travels. When all was quiet, however, I used to think over various questions, and felt tolerably certain I knew these better than if I had superficially gone over them with another cadet. I was much amused at the general idea that I should go back again near the bottom of the class, as it was not likely I should fluke again, as it was supposed I had last examination. I, however, waited my time, and determined to be very careful at the examination, and not be too sure I had done a question correctly until I had read it over a second time.

The mathematical examination at length commenced in my class, and I was surprised to find the cadet absent whom every one thought would be first. I soon heard that he was taken ill the evening before, and had gone to hospital, every one believing he had worked too hard, as he was known to have kept up lights for several nights previous to the examination.

I read over the examination paper, and believed I could do each question. I commenced them in order, and arranged my Work very carefully and neatly, and before half the attendance was over I had finished them all. I then carefully read over each of my answers, and corrected some errors that I discovered in the working, and in fact re-did the questions that were wrong. I never took my attention once off my paper after commencing, and at length, when satisfied I had done all I knew, I found I had still an hour to spare. I then took a look round the room, and saw the Inspector in the octagon talking to the mathematical master, and looking at me. I felt certain I was the subject of conversation, and I instantly remembered the suspicion there had been of my having fudged last half. I also saw that the desks had been arranged so that near me were the worst mathematicians in the class, so that, even had it been possible for me to see their work, I could not have gained advantage from it. I saw also that some of the cadets who had beaten me last examination were in difficulties. There is no mistaking this at an examination; there was the usual red-flushed face, the unsettled positions, the biting of nails, the perpetual dipping of the pen in the ink, and yet writing nothing, indicating that there was a fix somewhere. Seeing the Inspector still in the octagon, I took up my paper, and gave it the master, who asked me if I had done all the questions.

“I think I have,” I replied.

“Very well, then, you may leave the room,” said the Inspector.

I went out and had a game of rackets to take away the heady feeling I had about me; then went and read the papers, and did not look at a book before going in for my afternoon examination.

Again I set to work in the same deliberate way, and found that I could, as I believe, do all the questions. The examination in mathematics lasted two days, and I believed I had done far better than at my last trial; but there is always great uncertainty as regards what one has really accomplished, mistakes being made which we never dream of, and usually fail to discover if we read over our own answers, even half a dozen times.

The examination in other subjects, such as fortifications, geometrical drawing, French, German, etc, I did well in, but as mathematics counted most, I hoped for much out of that.

It was usual formerly to continue studies after the examinations, and we therefore sometimes managed to obtain information from the masters as to how we had done. Believing I might gain some information, I made an excuse for asking the master how I had done, or if he knew yet how any one had done. I saw a pleasant expression in the mathematician’s face, who said, “In the first two papers you are several marks ahead of anybody. Have you done as well in the others?”

“I think I have,” I replied.

“I’m very glad of it, as I told the Inspector I believed you would come out well.”

This information I kept to myself, and waited patiently for the whole examination to be made known, though I could not help being amused at hearing many of the cadets below me speaking of it as a certainty that they were sure to take my place, as I had not worked at all.

The morning at length arrived when the marks were to be read out, and we all rushed into academy and waited with great anxiety to hear the result of the examination. The master took the paper in his hand very deliberately, put on his spectacles, and said, “Silence, gentlemen, if you please, and I will read out the marks for the mathematical examination.”

We were all as quiet as mice, and waited, pencil in hand, for the news. The master then said, “First”—and after waiting half a minute, as though to increase our curiosity, repeated—“First, Mr Shepard; decimal 78. Second, Mr Hackland; decimal 75. Third, Mr Bowden; decimal 8”—and so on.

When my name was read out as first I could scarcely forbear a smile. I knew it was a total surprise to the whole class, and to me it was unexpected, for I never hoped to get higher than third or fourth; and on finding myself first, I would not at the time have changed places with a lord. Helen Stanley came to my mind, and I thought what she would say when she heard I was first, and saw my name in the paper as having gained the second mathematical prize. I lost interest in the reading out of the marks after the first half dozen names had been given. The cadet who stood third had what we called “a shorter coarse” than I had, and was lower than I was, because he gained less marks, though he had done slightly better than I had in his shorter subjects, gaining decimal 8 in what he had done. He was a cadet who had joined three months after me, and who had come to the Academy knowing enough mathematics to pass him through without any further trouble, his father having been a Cambridge Wrangler, who had taught him algebra about the same time he taught him his letters.

After the reading out of the marks I was congratulated by several cadets, whilst surprise was expressed as to how I had done so well, when, as was supposed, I had never worked out of academy. In reality, I believe I had worked my brain more than any other cadet in the class, and to this was mainly due my success, for I had developed a power of independent and intense thought, which made thinking easy, and enabled me to solve problems which a superficial or unthinking system of working never would have enabled me to solve.

For several days after the examination I felt very happy, little dreaming that a disappointment was in store for me, for the fact of being first in an examination had on all previous occasions secured the mathematical prize. I believed I should not have been first had not the best man been compelled to go to hospital; but this I looked on as the fortune of war, like a horse breaking down in its training. Just before the public examination, however, I learnt that I was not to receive the prize, but that it was to be given to Bowden, who was third, the reason assigned being that he was junior to me in joining the Academy, and had gained a higher decimal than I had. This was my first disappointment and my first experience of what I at least believed to be injustice. During the half-year I had passed Bowden, and during the previous half-year I had come from nearly last of the class to within two places of him. These facts made me feel half angry, half disappointed, and produced on me a sort of irritation that nearly induced me to become insubordinate, for I could not help fancying that favouritism had something to do with the selection. I, however, made no appeal, and took the matter as patiently as I could.

It seemed now tolerably certain that the next half-year I should qualify for my commission, and might hope to be in the first four or five of my batch—a position that I never hoped to attain after I had been three months at the Academy, and which seemed impossible when I was straggling to cram at Mr Hostler’s academy.

The next half-year I should become a corporal, and should be one of the seniors, and should, consequently, have far more authority than I possessed as an old cadet only. It would be my last also at the Academy, for on joining the practical class we were removed to the Arsenal, and there occupied so exalted a rank that we did not mix much with cadets at the Upper Academy, as it was termed, in consequence of its standing on higher ground than the cadet barracks at the Arsenal.

I must confess that when I saw Bowden called from his seat at the public examination, and given the second prize for mathematics, which was delivered to him by a handsome old officer, I felt that if our merits had been fairly weighed I ought to have received the prize; but probably, had I received it, his feelings might have been similar. It is hard to be treated with injustice, but we are all inclined to fancy more or less that our merits are never fully acknowledged, and when certain men are selected for honours, while we are left out in the cold, that our claims were greater than theirs, and that we are victims to favouritism or want of perception in those who ought to have seen our value.

Although I did well in other branches of study, I stood no chance of gaining a prize in anything except mathematics. In drawing I was good, but there were several cadets much better, whom I was not likely to pass or excel.

Just before the vacation I received an invitation from Howard to pass a week with him in London, where he was staying on leave. Such a chance was not to be refused, so on leaving the Academy I went to town and found Howard in lodgings not far from his club. He was very glad to see me, and congratulated me on my success at the Academy, and gave it as his opinion that I had been “chowsed” out of the prize for mathematics.

During the week I passed with Howard in London, I, for the first time, had a taste of what London life was like. Out of the six evenings I was twice at the opera, once at the Haymarket theatre, once at a ball, to which Howard took me, once at a bachelors’ gathering at Evans’s, and the remaining night at Howard’s club. For a week this kind of life, from its novelty, was pleasant, but I made up my mind that it was a mistake, and that the quiet of the forest was healthier and better both for mind and body.

We visited the Row in the morning and the park in the afternoon, and saw certainly some of the most beautiful women in the world, for, no matter where we may travel or what nations we may visit, we come back and see in old England that her daughters are unrivalled.

As I sauntered on with Howard through the crowd I wondered how Helen Stanley would compare with some of the beauties I saw, and, as often happens to us when we think of a person, whom should I suddenly meet but the lady about whom I was thinking. The instant I saw her I knew there was something about her—I could not say what—which made her look different from those near her. She was natural and rather plainly dressed, and not what is, we believe, technically called “made up.” There was no paint or powder, false hair, or strengthened eyebrows, and she therefore seemed like a looker-on on the boards of a theatre where all the others were dressed up to act parts. She was only in town for a short time, and hoped to be down at the Heronry before my vacation was over.

“How is your cousin?” I inquired.

“I believe quite well,” replied Miss Stanley; “but I have seen little of him in the last three months, and shall see less now.”

I looked at Miss Stanley inquiringly, and site read my look correctly, for she volunteered in a low tone the information that it was all off between them.

“That is a thorough genuine, nice girl,” said Howard, as we parted from her. “Who is she?”

I explained to him all I knew about her, and he again declared she was charming. That he thought so, there was no doubt.

Chapter Sixteen.

My Last Half.

My vacation passed very quietly till within ten days of its termination, at which time Miss Stanley came to stay at the Heronry. I soon went over to call, and found everything much as it was formerly, except that the pedantic cousin was not mentioned. I soon after learnt that he had behaved very discreditably at Oxford and had been obliged to leave, and that his match had been broken off by Miss Stanley.

It is a curious fact, but it is one that experience has taught us, that in almost every case where a man assumes a superiority over all others, and is always endeavouring to expose weak points or want of knowledge in others whilst he thrusts his only slender information forward, that man is an impostor, and, if found out, will generally “go to the bad.” This was the case with Snipson, with Stanley, and with many others we have known; and, if others will recall their own experiences, we believe they also will find they are led to the same conclusion. There is no necessity for a really clever man to be always blowing his own trumpet; his actual works will show what he has in him; whereas a shallow-pated impostor is always trying by tricks to arrive at a notoriety to which he never could attain by fair work and genuine competition, and so loses no opportunity of taking a prominent position for want of assumption.

I found that Miss Stanley had seen Howard several times in London, and pronounced him “charming.” It was supposed that Howard would have to go to Southampton on some duty, and if so he was expected to pass a few days at the Heronry. Now, had it been any one else, I believe I should have been jealous, for, although I had ceased to be spoony on Miss Stanley, yet I liked her society, and should not have felt happy in knowing she was much with any one else. He, however, was an exception. Each time I met Howard I found that my latest experience had given me the capacity to appreciate in him some quality which had before escaped my observation, whereas when I met other men whom I had known when I was a boy, and of whom I had thought most highly, I found them to be rough, uncultivated, and unintellectual—the change really being in myself, not in them.

I looked forward to Howard’s visit to the Heronry, for I hoped then to see more of him and to get more at his mind than I had been able to do in the bustle and gaiety of London. I also wanted to compare his knowledge of mathematics, etc, with mine, in order to see whether the course at the Academy that I had gone through was as sound as it used to be a few years previously.

It wanted only five days to the date at which I had to leave for Woolwich, when Howard came down to the Heronry, and I was asked over to dine and stop the next day. Before I had been half an hour in the house I discovered that Howard and Helen Stanley seemed to be equally pleased with each other, and I felt that my presence was not always looked upon as agreeable. I was not, therefore, surprised when on the next day Howard told me in the strictest confidence that he and Miss Stanley were engaged, and that they were going to be married when he was a captain, which he hoped to be in about a year.

It being the object of this tale to describe the life of a Woolwich cadet thirty years ago, we must leave our friend Howard and the charming Helen at the Heronry, and return once more to the busy scene of my early labours and competition at Woolwich.

On returning to the Academy for my fifth half-year I found I was promoted to corporal, and was third senior. This promotion gave me a pair of epaulettes, which I put on, and wore with great pride. It was the first promotion I had received, and I can fairly say that no step in rank or position that fortune has since favoured me with ever produced one-tenth of the pleasure that I experienced at eighteen years of age in being made a corporal.

My life at Woolwich was now very agreeable. I had made the acquaintance of friends in the neighbourhood, and also in London. I usually went on leave from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening, staying during the time with friends. At the Academy, being a corporal gave me certain privileges and authority, whilst every neux was to all intents and purposes my slave. I had every prospect of taking a high position in my batch, and after four months at the Arsenal, in the practical class, I should obtain my commission, and start as an officer in either the Artillery or Engineers.

The friends at whose houses I visited congratulated me on my excellent prospects, and seemed to think I was excessively lucky in having such a chance before me.

One of my friends was a retired colonel, who had been through the whole of the Peninsular war, was at Waterloo, and had left the service many years. He was a soldier of the old school, considered the service everything, and that there was only one profession for a gentleman, viz, the army.

After dinner, and when he and I were tête-à-tête, he used to indulge in various hints and opinions as regards the conduct and character of an officer and a gentleman.

“An officer,” he used to say, “must be the most honourable and gentlemanly of men. He must resent instantly the slightest insult. If a man even looks insultingly at you, have him out at once. If the day ever does come (as I fear the radical tendency of the age seems to indicate) that duelling is done away with, a snob and a bully will be able to ride roughshod over a gentleman, and there will be no redress. An officer, too, must learn his profession. It is a mistake to think that an officer should be above his work. He ought to know everything and do everything better than his men. More than once in my service, when I commanded a troop of Dragoons, I have taken off my coat and shown a private how to clean a horse.

“An officer, too, ought to be able to take his wine, and yet show no signs of it. I can’t recommend you any royal road to this,” said the colonel, “except practice. I should like to tell you, also,” he continued, “that many young officers make or mar their reputation daring their first night at mess. I remember once in my old regiment there was a young cornet joined us, who looked all right, and talked all right, but at mess he had to carve some beef for the colonel. He helped the colonel, and sent him a plate laden with two thick slices of beef, and a lump of fat big enough to choke a dog. ‘Good heavens!’ said the colonel, ‘what does that young fellow mean by sending me this mass of food? Does he not know I can come again if I want more? Take my plate away; the fellow has spoiled my dinner!’

“We were now all rather doubtful about our new cornet, who, however, had plenty of money, and had come from one of our first public schools; and sure enough our suspicions proved to be correct—the cloven hoof had peeped out in the overladen plate of beef. The cornet proved to be the only son of a retired contract butcher, who had made a large fortune during the war, and had retired to the country and had tried to make his son a gentleman, but he couldn’t do it, sir; the plate of beef exposed him.”

These and other similar precepts were instilled into me by my old friend daring the time that I took my first practice under his tuition of testing the strength of my head versus the strength of his port wine, and I am happy to say that I gained the colonel’s approval one Saturday evening in an unexpected manner as follows:—

A party of four had been at dinner, all military men. We had sat over our wine a fair time, and, charmed with the conversation, I had done full justice to the port. The colonel then proposed a rubber of whist, at which game he was an adept, and required me to take a hand. I played a fair game of whist for a youngster, and so made up the fourth. Luckily I was on that night a good card-holder, and was the colonel’s partner, and we won. He was delighted, for his whole heart was in the game. When we broke up he gave me a pat on the back and said, “Shepard, I always thought well of you, but I never formed so high an opinion of your talents and power as to-night. You may talk about your examinations in Euclid and mathematics, for which a fellow is crammed like a parrot for months, as a test of a man’s brains and his fitness for a soldier; I think it’s nearly all bosh, and gives no fair test; but if I see a young man do what you’ve done to-night, that is, put a bottle of port under his waistcoat and afterwards play a quiet, steady rubber, and remember whether the twelfth or thirteenth card is the best, I know that fellow has a good head. I believe there is not one youngster in twenty can do this now-a-day. They are all weeds—haven’t the stamina and backbone they used to have—and the Englishman is degenerating to a great extent, I believe, in consequence of the inordinate use of tobacco.”

Daring the present half-year I had taken up cricket, and was very successful as a “fielder,” though my batting was not first-rate. I was good enough, however, to play in the Eleven against the Officers of the Artillery—a match we played each year—and made double figures in my score, and caught out two of the officers.

Although I was nearly always on leave from Saturday to Sunday for the “whole shay,” as it was termed, yet I on one occasion did not go. The result was that I had command of the first company at church-parade, and marched past on the barrack-field before going to church. Several times I had been in the ranks when we had marched past on Sundays, but this was the first time I had ever commanded the company. There was a great crowd to see us march past and to hear the band, and the company was praised for its steadiness. I remembered well my feelings as a schoolboy when I saw a cadet in a similar position to that I now occupied, and I regretted that I had not now the same delight in being where I was that I fancied formerly I should have. It was not a want of enthusiasm, for I had still plenty of that left; but I felt as if I were performing a mere act of business, and was more occupied in seeing that the ranks kept line and proper distance than I was in the thought of commanding the company.

Somehow I had grown to understand that hard work and thought were the means to all success, and that now, when I happened to be senior corporal, it was merely in consequence of others being absent, and that I had attained this position by hard work. I must confess I felt disappointed with myself, for I did not experience one-hundredth part of the pleasure I should have felt had it been possible to transfer me instantly from a schoolboy at Hostler’s to the position I now occupied.

One little incident, however, as we were marching off, did gave me temporary gratification. As I gave to the company the words “Right turn!” “Left wheel!” and we marched across the gravel to the chapel, I passed close to three of Mr Hostler’s masters, who were there with his boys. There was not a face among the boys I recognised. All had changed; but the masters I knew, and I saw they had pointed me out to the youngsters. For a moment the misery of my life at Hostler’s came across me, and a vivid remembrance of the sneering self-sufficiency of one of these tutors, as he tried to impress upon me that I was too stupid to ever learn mathematics. I muttered to myself “Pig-headed idiot!” as I recalled this man’s proceeding, and now noticed a sort of self-complacency in his manner as he was probably explaining to Hostler’s boys that he had trained me for Woolwich.

This my fifth half-year seemed to pass more quickly than a week did when I was a neux, and we again began to talk about examinations and our vacation. To me the final trial was now coming, for although we worked at various subjects in the practical class, yet the work did not count. There was no examination, and our relative positions in the batch were unaltered when once we joined the practical class.

I had succeeded in all the drawings I had done during the half-year, and had adopted a general polishing up in the various branches of study, for our position in the class for commissions was decided by the amount of marks we obtained as a total for all subjects.

Day passed after day, and it was within a fortnight of the examination when I received a letter from Mr Rouse, asking if I would come and pass Saturday and Sunday with him.

On receipt of this letter I felt ashamed of never having once been to see the man to whom alone I was indebted for passing into the Academy. I accepted the invitation, and on Saturday afternoon found myself sitting in Mr Rouse’s drawing-room, chatting with him a sort of shoppy conversation about examinations, marks, cramming, etc.

Mr Rouse was a man who never disappointed me. Whenever I met him, as I did often in afterlife, he invariably showed himself a genius. He was one of those sound thinkers and careful reasoners who are the real discoverers of truths, and who in almost every case remain unknown and unhonoured by the world; whilst superficial men, merely veneered with science by their contact with him, would chatter in learned societies, and be reported in newspapers, and bowed down to as authorities by the ignorant, who could not tell the electro-plated from the real metal.

Even when I was a student at Rouse’s he used to amuse us by reading out from the papers descriptions of various matters supposed to be scientifically written; he would then criticise these and show us that the writer was evidently unacquainted with his subject, and had written it at so much per line.

I was glad to find what an interest he had taken in my career at the Academy; he had noted exactly how I had done at all my examinations, and he said he was very nearly writing to me daring my third half-year to come and work with him occasionally, as he feared I might not pass the probationary examination.

During the evening he put me up to what he called useful dodges in connexion with working various branches of higher mathematics, and I found my evening not only interesting, but profitable, as I made several notes which I could think over and which would be useful to me at my final examination. He gave me also great encouragement about the future, and said that he believed the time would come when the officers of both the Engineers and Artillery would take a higher position in the scientific and literary world than they then did. “You have a capital preparatory course at Woolwich,” he remarked, “and when you get your commission you could build on this. It has often struck me that it is odd how few officers of either Artillery or Engineers have ever made a mark in the world out of their profession, or have come out as leaders in science, and this in the future is sure to be remedied.”

Mr Rouse was right at the time, but since those days a change has occurred, the two corps having produced several men distinguished in subjects not strictly professional.

I returned to the Academy with a feeling of “wound-upness,” and occupied myself in thinking about my coming examination. From being very sickly as a boy (due I believe entirely to the physicking of my aunt), I had become strong and particularly healthy, and found I could stand both mental and bodily work without feeling either much. I took care, however, to follow Mr Rouse’s advice, viz, to work my body by exercise after I had worked my brain, and to get as much fresh air as possible after a long bout of “swatting.” I never attempted to learn anything when I felt tired, and never forced myself to work; by these means I felt certain I got more knowledge into my head than I should have done had I followed the same plan that several cadets followed of working nearly all night with wet cloths round their heads and a dozen books before them.

It was impossible to avoid being anxious about the examination, but I endeavoured to follow my old plan of not driving off everything to the last, and then trying to catch up time by working night and day. I had a sort of idea that the mind was like one’s digestion in some respects, and the way to treat it was to treat it reasonably, and not to expect it to digest in a week as much mental food as it ought to have in three months. Some cadets did adopt this plan, and they generally failed, and not unusually knocked themselves up.

The first day of the examination commenced, and I found the first paper contained what we should term some very dodgy questions both in mechanics and trigonometry. I saw through the catches, and brought out neat answers, which made me tolerably confident they were correct.

Our examinations took nine days altogether, and then day after day the results came out, and we added our marks together, speculating how the next list of marks would alter our relative positions. Until the drawing and mathematical marks came out, I stood twelfth of the batch, but having obtained within one mark of the full amount in drawing, and being second in mathematics, I made up a total that made me third of the batch, which consisted of twenty-five qualified for commissions, or at least for the practical class, which was to all intents the same thing as qualifying for commission.

Such a result was to me very satisfactory, and was far beyond what I dreamed of even in my most sanguine moments during my trials at Mr Hostler’s. If any prophetic genius had hinted to the young gentlemen at Mr Hostler’s that Bob Shepard, who was leaving because he was so stupid that he could not be taught mathematics, would beat all the boys in the school, and would succeed in being second in mathematics at the Academy, this prophet would have found few who put faith in him, for it would have been considered impossible except by magic. A certain kind of magic was, however, practised, and this was by means of the system which Mr Rouse adopted, viz, of calmly reasoning out problems and deliberating on them, and taking a wide and general view of a subject instead of trying to follow blindly rules and systems, uninfluenced by reason or common sense.

There was one small piece of “swagger,” as it might be fairly termed, which I could not resist, and this was to pay a visit to Mr Hostler’s now I had passed all my examinations successfully, and hear what he had to say for himself. I would not call on Hostler himself, but called to see a boy whose brother had been a cadet, and who had asked me to have a look at the youngster at Hostler’s.

I was shown into the small drawing-room that I remembered so well. There was the same table-cover, the same things on the mantelpiece, the same books, the same pictures as when I went into that room to meet Hostler, and to be told I must give up all chance of Woolwich, as I had no head for mathematics or Euclid. It flashed across me that probably scores of other boys had had their prospects rained in consequence of being put under the change of selfish and bigoted men, who had only one system of teaching, and whose method was unsuited to the mind of the boy on whom they acted. In that room a straw would have turned the scale, and I might have left that place with a stamp of stupidity on me which I should never have had the chance of removing all my life, unless, as really happened, I had gone to Mr Rouse’s, and had passed my examinations well.

As I was thus meditating, the door opened and Mr Hostler came in.

“Ah, Shepard!” he exclaimed, “I am very glad to see you. How are you?”

“Quite well, Mr Hostler. I’ve called to see young Barnes. Is he in?”

“Oh yes, he’s in. I hope you’ll come into the schoolroom and see him; it does the boys good to see a cadet there who has been prepared for the Academy by me, and who has distinguished himself as you have done. I feel very proud of it I can tell you!”

“You forget, Mr Hostler; you didn’t prepare me for the Academy, but gave me up as too stupid to learn mathematics.”

“Oh, nothing of the kind, Shepard, you’re quite mistaken. I gave you all the groundwork, and you only wanted just a little polishing up, which could be better done by a private tutor like Rouse than in a large school like mine, where we work in classes. No, don’t think I’m going to be robbed of the merit of preparing you; besides, you were not three months with Rouse, and here you were over a year. Facts speak for themselves. Depend on it, you passed and got on so well just because you were well grounded here, and saw my system of preparing, which is good.”

I was not then old enough to answer these misrepresentations of Hostler’s, but I knew how false they were, and yet how firmly they would convince the majority of outsiders that to Hostler was due the merit of having trained me for Woolwich. I found afterwards that he had told his boys that I was his special pupil, and that he had also claimed me, in his sort of advertisement list, as one who had been trained by him. Such men succeed in the world as a rule, for the general public judge from superficial evidence, and rarely have the time, if they had the inclination, to look closely into matters that do not specially affect their interests.

The case would appear thus:—

“Shepard, a cadet who stood second in mathematics at the Academy, was prepared by Mr Hostler for twelve months, and then sent to finish details at Mr Rouse’s for three months, during part of which time he was ill with hooping-cough. He passed in well, and came out well. Honour, then, is due to Mr Hostler for his excellent training, and great credit is reflected on his school.”

I saw my young acquaintance, who was sent for at my request, as I declined to be made a parade of in the schoolroom, and bidding Mr Hostler farewell, I left his establishment, which I never entered again, and never saw Mr Hostler again, though the scenes through which I passed at his school even now sometimes haunt me in the form of nightmares, when I dream I am again a boy at that place, who has failed in his Euclid, and cannot make the three sides of a triangle join, and who is waiting for his three cuts on the hand.

Chapter Seventeen.

Finale.

My career at what may be termed the Academy (proper) terminated with the examinations named in the last chapter. I returned home to rest as it were on my laurels, for I had to pass no farther examinations in order to obtain my commission, and had merely to go through a practical course connected with the various branches in the Arsenal, and also a course of surveying, after which there was the public examination, which was a mere farce, and we were then commissioned in the order in which we stood.

Before finally leaving the Academy I once more paid a visit to Mr Rouse and dined with him, where I met a Cambridge man who had just left Cambridge and had taken a Master of Arts degree. When I left Woolwich my coarse in mathematics consisted of plane and spherical trigonometry, conic sections, statics and dynamics, properties of roofs and arches, hydrostatics, projectiles, and the deferential and integral calculus. In this course I had obtained a very good decimal, and therefore might be said to have a fair knowledge of the subjects. I was, therefore, anxious to compare my mathematical knowledge with that of a Master of Arts of Cambridge, and discover, if possible, how much longer it would take me to work up to the extent requisite to become M.A. To my surprise I found that the gentleman from Cambridge knew only as much mathematics as I did when I was in the second class, and, in fact, if I had been at Cambridge instead of at Woolwich, I should have been distinguished all my life as M.A., and should, of course, have been looked on as an authority on such matters as mathematics by people who had no other means of testing one’s qualifications than by the literary annex after one’s name.

I suggested to Mr Rouse that this system of conferring distinguishing honours on men from one or two Universities, which honours carried weight with the public, seemed unfair to those men who were trained at other well-known places, such as Woolwich, where no honours were given, but where they had gone beyond the course required to gain the honours at the Universities.

I had a long discussion with Mr Rouse relative to the course of training at Woolwich in my time, and from what I told him we both agreed that the course was not practical enough for a soldier, and that too much time was occupied in theoretical matters which were never likely to be of use to us in afterlife.

“It is,” said Mr Rouse, “one of the most certain of all things, that men who teach any subject for any length of time gradually grow to refine, as I may term it, on that subject, and go on from theory to theory, and lose sight of the fact that to all practical men, such as soldiers must be to be useful, theory may be even a dangerous study. Mathematicians,” he continued, “are especially liable to drift into these habits, and often forget that the object of mathematics is to supply a means of obtaining results, so that they are means to an end, not the end itself. Too, as a practical man, require to know some theory, such as the general rules of mechanics, the way in which trigonometrical formulas are obtained, and so on; but I don’t think it is necessary, especially in the short time you have for each subject at Woolwich, that you should devote too long a time to mere theoretical problems.”

The defects that I experienced after leaving Woolwich were that I found considerable difficulty in writing a clear account of any event in a concise and grammatical manner, so that had I been called on to write a despatch, and describe officially some action or battle, my production would have been discreditable. I could solve an abstruse question in dynamics, but I could not write three sentences in English correctly. Again, as regards the method of conducting discipline with soldiers, what their pay was, how they were paid, how men were treated for various offences, etc, I was as ignorant as a civilian, and there was then no preparatory training for an officer after joining the Artillery by means of which he could learn these matters. The Engineers had then, as now, a course of study at Chatham, after obtaining their commissions, by which such subjects were learnt.

Defects such as the above-named have since been almost entirely removed, whilst various other matters have been improved at the Academy, especially as regards the feeding of the cadets, which thirty years ago was simply disgraceful.

Bullying and even fagging have ceased to exist; and although there may be, as there always will be, in large establishments, some young men who are disposed to be bullies, and some others whose manners or appearance cause them to be unpopular, yet no recognised system of senior and junior, or of fagging, exists at Woolwich.

Thirty years ago the defect at the Academy was the hard life that cadets lived; their food was bad, and their punishment for small offences severe. If there is a defect at the present time at Woolwich, it is that the cadet’s comfort is too much cared for, and when he has, as he surely must have, in even peace time, to rough it, he will not, as we did, say, “Well, it’s better than being a cadet,” but he will probably compare the damp walls of a room in some Fort with his snug room at the Academy, and the absence of many luxuries will be felt the more, because as a mere cadet they were considered essential for him. Taking it all in all, however, we may fairly claim that at the present time the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich is perfect of its kind, and the training given there will compare favourably with that of any military college on the Continent; that it was not always as well regulated this tale will probably induce many to think.

Any curious or interested person may learn all about the Academy as it is, but the strange life led by a cadet thirty years ago—the singular inconsistency of highly honourable conduct in some matters, and proceedings which can only be termed “brutal” in others—exhibits peculiarities in the character of English youths which we do not believe is entirely worn out in large educational establishments at the present day.

In this tale it has not been our object to moralise, or even to suggest, but merely to give a history of the life of a Woolwich Cadet thirty years ago, and as the cadet’s career may fairly be said to terminate when he joined the practical class, we draw the curtain over the future life of Gentleman Cadet Bob Shepard.

The End.

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Preface

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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