At School with an Old Dragoon. GHUZNEE VILLA. (Being Introductory.) "D° you know where Captain Blunt lives, my man?" I asked of a huge sailor who was lounging against a balk of timber on the pier at Compton-by-the-Sea. "Know Cap'en Blunt's? Why, bless your heart alive, sir! there ain't a man, woman, nor child in Compton as don't know the Cap'en. Shall I show your honour the way?" "Ye-es; but how about my luggage?" I asked, pointing to my portmanteau and other property lying on the nearly deserted pier. It was dinner time, and as a natural consequence not a single porter was to be seen. "Oh, they traps 'll be safe enough till I can feṭch a barrer, and land 'em up at the Cap'en's; here you, Jim!" he hallooed out, with stentorian lungs, to a shock-headed lad sorting out fishing-lines a little dis B tance off, "you jest lend a hand here, and keep your eye on these pokemanties, while I step up to Cap'en Blunt's. And don't ye go playing none of yere games, lest I wallop ye!" he added in a warning voice, as the lad slouched up to mount sentry over my personal effects. "I don't play no games, never," muttered the boy in a tone of injured innocence-keeping, however, carefully out of reach of his father's long arm; and we started up the wooden pier for the shore. Being very fond of the sea, I had come round from London in a trading steamer, instead of making the ordinary railway journey to Compton, and had been dropped, like a waif from the ocean, on the pier-head, while the vessel, which was not even moored for a moment in my honour, resumed her journey to the port of destination some twenty miles further down the southern coast. In fact, I was not due at Captain Blunt's establishment (where I was engaged to teach history, geography, the elements of fortification and so forth to over a dozen boys destined for the military, naval, and civil services) until the next day, and hardly knew how far I might be welcome in thus taking the proprietor unawares. All doubts, however, on that head were dissipated when my guide "landed me," as he called it, on the doorsteps of Ghuznee Villa, and a `well-made, wiry gentleman, whose bronzed and scarred face wore a most pleasant smile, came forward, shook me cordially by both hands, and said,— "Mr. Orme, I presume? You are welcome, sir, heartily welcome, to my house; pray come in, and make yourself at home.” I had never before been 'out' (as it is called); indeed, I had only just left my University to take up this appointment; and Captain Blunt's warm and evidently sincere reception of a stranger, who was joining him as an untried dependent, was as pleasant as it was unexpected. For I may as well at once confess that my head was filled with all sorts of horrible stories of the bodily and mental sufferings endured by ushers (for so I regarded the whole class of teachers, whether they were called professors, masters, or any other title) at the hands of proprietors, and I had come quite prepared to be little better than a slavish drudge, until my fortunes, which had met with a sad and sudden. reverse, should materially improve. But from the first moment that my eyes encountered the kindly, genial gaze of Captain Blunt's, I knew that, at least as far as he was concerned, my preconceived notions were utterly false; while his affectionate, almost fatherly, manner put me at once at my ease. Bidding "Big Ben," by which name he addressed my stalwart guide, fetch up |