in the most familiar terms, and endeavour to dissuade him from practices which might affect his character as well as interest. He accordingly frankly told him the subject of the master's discourse; represented the disgrace he might incur by neglecting this warning; and, putting him in mind of his own situation, hinted the consequences of the commodore's displeasure, in case he should be brought to disapprove of his conduct. These insinuations made the greater impression as they were delivered with many expressions of friendship and concern. The young gentleman was not so raw, but that he could perceive the solidity of Mr. Jolter's advice, to which he promised to conform, because his pride was interested in the affair, and he considered his own reformation as the only means of avoiding that infamy which even in idea he could not bear.
His governor, finding him so reasonable, profited by these moments of reflection; and, in order to prevent a relapse, proposed that he should engage in some delightful study that would agreeably amuse his imagination, and gradually detach him from those connections which had involved him in so many troublesome adventures. For this purpose, he, with many rapturous encomiums, recommended the mathematics, as yielding more rational and sensible pleasures to a youthful fancy than any other subject of contemplation; and actually began to read Euclid with him that same afternoon.
Peregrine entered upon this branch of learning with all that warmth of application which boys commonly yield on the first change of study; but he had scarce advanced beyond the Pons Asinorum, when his ardour abated; the test of truth by demonstration did not elevate him to those transports of joy with which his preceptor had regaled his expectation; and before he arrived at the forty-seventh proposition, he began to yawn drearily, make abundance of wry faces, and thought himself but indifferently paid for his attention, when he shared the vast discovery of Pythagoras, and understood that the square of the hypotenuse was equal to the squares of the other two sides of a right-angled triangle. He was ashamed, however, to fail in his undertaking, and persevered with great industry, until he had finished the first four books, acquired plane trigonometry, with the method of algebraical calculation, and made himself well acquainted with the principles of surveying. But no consideration could prevail upon him to extend his inquiries farther in this science; and he returned with double relish to his former avocations, like a stream, which, being dammed, accumulates more force, and, bursting over its mounds, rushes down with double impetuosity.
Mr. Jolter saw with astonishment and chagrin, but could not resist the torrent. His behaviour was now no other than a series of license and effrontery; prank succeeded prank, and outrage followed outrage with surprising velocity. Complaints were every day preferred against him; in vain were admonitions bestowed by the governor in private, and menaces discharged by the masters in public; he disregarded the first, despised the latter, divested himself of all manner of restraint, and proceeded in his career to such a pitch of audacity, that a consultation was held upon the subject, in which it was determined that this untoward spirit should be humbled by a severe and ignominious flogging for the very next offence he should commit. In the mean time, Mr. Jolter was desired to write in the masters name to the commodore, requesting him to remove Tom Pipes from the person of his nephew, the said Pipes being a principal actor and abettor in all his malversations; and to put a stop to the monthly visitations of the mutilated lieutenant, who had never once failed to use his permission, but came punctual to a day, always fraught with some new invention. Indeed, by this time Mr. Hatchway was as well known, and much better beloved, by every boy in the school than the master who instructed him, and always received by a number of scholars, who used to attend Peregrine when he went forth to meet his friend, and conduct him to his lodging with public testimonies of joy and applause.
As for Tom Pipes, he was not so properly the attendant of Peregrine, as master of the revels of the whole school. He mingled in all their parties, and superintended the diversions, deciding between boy and boy, as if he acted by commission under the great seal. He regulated their motions by his whistle, instructed the young boys in the games of hustle-cap, leap-frog, and chuck-farthing; imparted to those of a more advanced age the sciences of cribbage and all-fours, together with the method of storming the castle, acting the comedy of Prince Arthur, and other pantomimes, as they commonly exhibited at sea; and instructed the seniors, who were distinguished by the appellation of bloods, in cudgel-playing, dancing the St. Giles's hornpipe, drinking flip, and smoking tobacco. These qualifications had rendered him so necessary and acceptable to the scholars, that exclusive of Perry's concern in the affair, his dismission, in all probability, would have produced some dangerous convulsion in the community. Jolter, therefore, knowing his importance, informed his pupil of the directions he had received, and very candidly asked how he should demean himself in the execution; for he durst not write to the commodore without this previous notice, fearing that the young gentleman, as soon as he should get an inkling of the affair, would follow the example, and make his uncle acquainted with certain anecdotes, which it was the governor's interest to keep concealed. Peregrine was of opinion that he should spare himself the trouble of conveying any complaints to the commodore; and if questioned by the master, assure him he had complied with his desire: at the same time he promised faithfully to conduct himself with such circumspection for the future, that the masters should have no temptation to revive the inquiry. But the resolution attending this extorted promise was too frail to last, and in less than a fortnight our young hero found himself entangled in an adventure from which he was not extricated with his usual good fortune.
CHAPTER XVII.
He is concerned in a dangerous Adventure with a certain Gardener—Sublimes his Ideas, commences Gallant, and becomes acquainted with Miss Emily Gauntlet.
He and some of his companions one day entered a garden in the suburbs, and, having indulged their appetites, desired to know what satisfaction they must make for the fruit they had pulled. The gardener demanded what, in their opinion, was an exorbitant price, and they with many opprobrious terms refused to pay it. The peasant, being surly and untractable, insisted upon his right; neither was he deficient or sparing in the eloquence of vulgar abuse. His guests attempted to retreat; a scuffle ensued, in which Peregrine lost his cap; and the gardener, being in danger from the number of his foes, called to his wife to let loose the dog, which instantly flew to his master's assistance, and, after having torn the leg of one and the shoulder of another, put the whole body of scholars to flight. Enraged at the indignity which had been offered them, they solicited a reinforcement of their friends, and, with Tom Pipes at their head, marched back to the field of battle. Their adversary, seeing them approach, called his apprentice, who worked at the other end of the ground, to his assistance, armed him with a mattock, while he himself wielded a hoe, bolted his door on the inside, and, flanked with his man and mastiff, waited the attack without flinching.
He had not remained three minutes in this posture of defence, when Pipes, who acted as the enemy's forlorn hope, advanced to the gate with great intrepidity, and, clapping his foot to the door, which was none of the stoutest, with the execution and despatch of a petard, split it into a thousand pieces. This sudden execution had an immediate effect upon the apprentice, who retreated with great precipitation, and escaped at a postern; but the master placed himself, like another Hercules, in the breach; and when Pipes, brandishing his cudgel, stepped forward to engage him, leveled his weapon with such force and dexterity at his head, that had the skull been made of penetrable stuff, the iron edge must have cleft his pate in twain. Casemated as he was, the instrument cut sheer even to the bone, on which it struck with such amazing violence, that sparks of real fire were produced by the collision. And let not the incredulous reader pretend to doubt the truth of this phenomenon, until he shall have first perused the ingenious Peter Kolben's Natural History of the Cape of Good Hope, where the inhabitants commonly used to strike fire with the shin-bones of lions which had been killed in that part of Africa.
Pipes, though a little disconcerted, far from being disabled by the blow, in a trice retorted the compliment with his truncheon, which, had not his antagonist expeditiously slipped his head aside, would have laid him breathless across his own threshold; but, happily for him, he received the salutation upon his right shoulder, which crashed beneath the stroke, and the hoe dropped