She was timid and vacillating from wifely
habit, whilst motherly anxiety goaded her to be persistent and almost
irritable on the subject. Habitually regarding her own wishes and views
as worthless, she quoted the Woods at every turn of her arguments, which
was a mistake, for my father was sufficiently like the rest of his
neighbours not to cotton very warmly to people whose tastes,
experiences, and lines of thought were so much out of the common as
those of the ex-convict and his wife. Moreover, he had made up his mind,
and when one has done that, he is proof against seventy men who can
render a reason.
To rumours which accused "Crayshaw's" of undue severity, of discomfort,
of bad teaching and worse manners, my father opposed arguments which he
allowed were "old-fashioned" and which were far-fetched from the days of
our great-grandfather.
A strict school-master was a good school-master, and if more parents
were as wise as Solomon on the subject of the rod, Old England would not
be discredited by such a namby-pamby race as young men of the present
day seemed by all accounts to be. It was high time the boys did rough it
a bit; would my mother have them always tied to her apron-strings? Great
Britain would soon be Little Britain if boys were to be brought up like
young ladies.
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