But I wouldn't study; and the masters were all down on me as
an idler--though I shouldn't have been like that if they had known
how to teach--I have learned since what teaching is. As to the
holidays, they were the worst part of the year to me. When I was
left at school I was savage at not being let go home; and when I
went home my mother did nothing but find fault with my school-boy
manners. I was getting too big to be cuddled as her darling boy, you
understand. In fact, her treatment of me was just the old game with
the affectionate part left out. It wasn't pleasant, after being cock
of the school, to be made feel like a good-for-nothing little brat
tied to her apron-strings. When she saw that I was learning nothing
she sent me to another school at a place in the north called Panley.
I stayed there until I was seventeen; and then she came one day, and
we had a row, as usual. She said she wouldn't let me leave school
until I was nineteen; and so I settled that question by running away
the same night. I got to Liverpool, where I hid in a ship bound for
Australia. When I was starved out they treated me better than I
expected; and I worked hard enough to earn my passage and my
victuals. But when I wad left ashore in Melbourne I was in a pretty
pickle.
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