A Severe Dominie.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1887, Page 2

A Severe Dominie.

The ghastliest school legend I ever heard was at Mr Poppleton's academy for young gentlemen from nine to fourteen years of age. I have since had reasons to believe that Borne particulars of it were borrowed from a dreadful incident that happened during the last century at the University of Cambridge ; but all Poppleton's boys bet lieved it to be original, Indigenous, and tiue in every particular, and co of course did I. The discipline of the school was severe in my timo, but my Poppleton was said to have been an angol of mercy compared to his father, who presided over the establishment before him. In his latter £ciye, however, his conduct had been almost Christian ; he came in (to the educational business) like a lion, but went out like a lamb, in consequence of the following incident :— A young gentleman— Bodger by name -had been sent to this school at the beginning of the Easter term : whereas, from his delicate constitution and nervous temperament, he ought to have been sent to a girls' school. The wicked Poppleton so terrified him that he ran away the next day, but was overtaken by P. upon a pony, and brought back captive, it was averred, with a rope round his neck. He was sent to his dormitory with the comforting remark to sleep upon that on the morrow morning he would be caned to within an inch of his life, but no measures were taken for his security. It was thought the broken-apirited youth would not dare to run away again. When morning came, however, no Bodger was to be found. The wicked Poppleton started off once more on ponyback with the rope, bub when he returned in the evening he had nobody at the end of it. The country was scoured and a number of little boys were taken up but none of them the right one. Bodger's papa arrived posthaste on the fifth day of his son's absence and " pitched into Poppleton" to that extent that there was no school for a week afterwards. There was even a vague report that Bodger, senior, had slain the common ! enemy, but the delight which that intelligence infused in every youthful bosom was only temporary. The headmaster reappeared, but without his cane. His evil temper was subdued, and the boys took the greatest possible advantage of it. They chalked up, " Who killed young Bodger ?" and " Who hid the body ?" upon the palings round his private garden in the largest Roman hands. On his front door were once found tho words " Who ate him?" engraved so deeply that they had to be erased with a plane. And yet these terrible inuendoes were hardly less ■awful than the thing which had actually occurred. There was a certain room o\ er the laundry where the boxes which the boys brought with them were kept until they went home for the holidays, and nothing else was kept there, so that it was not visited for months together. Into this apartment poor Bodger had fled, and shut himself up in his own box— which was near to him, perhaps, as having come from his home. It was the story of the " Mistletoe Bough," with this sad addition, that he could have got out if he liked, for there was no spring lock. The unusual number of blue-bottle flies which came in and out of the room through a crevice in the dcor at last attracted somebody to the spot. This

hideous incident was the thing most in" sisted upon by narrators of the story, and con sidercd most satisfactory by the hearerß* We never saw a blue-bottle fly at Poppleton without exclaiming "Hooray, here's Boclgev !" or something to that effect.— From school legends, by James Payn.