And in that time, old Cop, the porter (so called because
he hath copper boots to keep the wet from his stomach,
and a nose of copper also, in right of other waters),
his place is to stand at the gate, attending to the
flood-boards grooved into one another, and so to watch
the torrents rise, and not be washed away, if it please
God he may help it. But long ere the flood hath
attained this height, and while it is only waxing,
certain boys of deputy will watch at the stoop of the
drain-holes, and be apt to look outside the walls
when Cop is taking a cordial. And in the very
front of the gate, just without the archway, where
the ground is paved most handsomely, you may see in
copy-letters done a great P.B. of white pebbles.
Now, it is the custom and the law that when the invading
waters, either fluxing along the wall from below the
road-bridge, or pouring sharply across the meadows
from a cut called Owen’s Ditch—and
I myself have seen it come both ways—upon
the very instant when the waxing element lips though
it be but a single pebble of the founder’s letters,
it is in the license of any boy, soever small and
undoctrined, to rush into the great school-rooms, where
a score of masters sit heavily, and scream at the
top of his voice, “P.B.”
Then, with a yell, the boys leap up, or break away
from their standing; they toss their caps to the black-beamed
roof, and haply the very books after them; and the
great boys vex no more the small ones, and the small
boys stick up to the great ones. One with another,
hard they go, to see the gain of the waters, and the
tribulation of Cop, and are prone to kick the day-boys
out, with words of scanty compliment. Then the
masters look at one another, having no class to look
to, and (boys being no more left to watch) in a manner
they put their mouths up. With a spirited bang
they close their books, and make invitation the one
to the other for pipes and foreign cordials, recommending
the chance of the time, and the comfort away from
cold water.
But, lo! I am dwelling on little things and the
pigeons’ eggs of the infancy, forgetting the
bitter and heavy life gone over me since then.
If I am neither a hard man nor a very close one, God
knows I have had no lack of rubbing and pounding to
make stone of me. Yet can I not somehow believe
that we ought to hate one another, to live far asunder,
and block the mouth each of his little den; as do
the wild beasts of the wood, and the hairy outrangs
now brought over, each with a chain upon him.
Let that matter be as it will. It is beyond me
to unfold, and mayhap of my grandson’s grandson.
All I know is that wheat is better than when I began
to sow it.
