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    be 4 * charitable and forgiving as Mrs Rivers implored me to be ; but my tormentors had the art of rousing the savage again , afcd despite j £ o < wl resolves ^ despite my very pride , which urged me merely to despise ;" zMfts again violent and rebellious ; again punished , again vowing revenge dud longing to obtain it . **—Vol . ii , f > . 190 . . This introduces an event which terminated his career as a school-boy . The usher had learnt that he had some j > ets— £ family of field mice—and demanded the key of his room : —

    * ' I cannot dwell on the puerile , yet hideous minutiae of such a scene ; the loud voice , the blow , the key torn from me , the roar of malice with which my pets were hailed , the call for the cat . My blood ran cold ; some slave— -among boys even there are slaves—threw into the room iiie tiger animal ; the usher showed her her prey , but , before she could spring , I caught her up , and whirled her out of the window . The usher gave me a blow with a stick ; I was a well grown boy , and a match § vc him unarmed ; he struck me on the head , and then drew out a knife ,

    that he might himself commence the butcher s work on my favourites : stunned by the blow , but casting aside all the cherished calm I had hitherto maintained , my blood boiling , my whole frame convulsed with passion , I sprung on him . We both fell on the ground , his knife was in his hand , open ; in our struggle I seized the weapon , and the fellow got cut in the head—of course I inflicted the wound ; but had , neither before

    nor at the time , the intention . Our struggle was furious , we were both in a state of frenzy , and an open knife at such a moment can hardly fail to do injury . I saw the blood pouring from his temple , and his efforts slacken . I jumped up , called furiously for help , and when the servants and boys rushed into the room , I made my escape . I leaped from the

    window , high as it was , and alighting almost by a miracle , unhurt on the turf below , I made my way with all speed across the fields . Methonght the guilt of murder was on my soul , and yet I felt exultation that at fist , I , a boy , had brought upon the head of my foe some of the tortures which he had so often inflicted upon me . By this desperate act , I believed that I had severed the chords that bound me to the vilest servitude . I knew

    not but houseless want would be my reward , but I felt light as air , and free as a bird . "—Vol . ii , p . 191—3 . If we have succeeded in giving any conception of jtbe two characters , which , fully to appreciate , it is necessary tpjrejul the book itself , our readers are in some degree prepared for their future fortunes ; or if not , the parting scene between tl *§ m will serve to point to its probabilities . Three years had intervened since Falkner ' s last act at school , from the consequences

    of which he had been saved by Mrs Hivers . He had been at the military college , and was on the eve of departure for India-He had watched , together with Alithea , the death ^ bed of her mother , and all the interval of his studies had been spent in her society . She was now under the guardianship of jfear fother , who had returned from sea , an 4 who had voughi y spurned the offered suit of Falkwer for his daughter " * hand , regarding him aa a presumptuous boy . for daring t <> # nike jj

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    talkner . 233

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1837, page 233, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1830/page/43/