The bell, however, had no sooner ceased to jingle, than they stopped short, and, turning round, stared at the master, as much as to say, "What are we to do now ?" This was too much for the patience of the man of method, which my previous stupidity had already nearly exhausted.

Dashing forward into the middle of the room, he struck me violently on the shoulders with his ferule, and snatching the rope out of my hand, exclaimed, with a stentorian voice, and genuine Yorkshire accent.

"Prodigy of ignorance! dost not even know how to ring a bell?
Must I myself instruct thee ?" He then commenced pulling at the bell with such violence, that long before half the school was dismissed the rope broke, and the rest of the boys had to depart without their accustomed music.
But I must not linger here, though I could say much about the school and the pedagogue highly amusing and diverting, which, however, I suppress, in order to make way for matters of yet greater interest.

On we went, northward, northward! and, as we advanced, I saw that the country was becoming widely different from those parts of merry England in which we had previously travelled.

It was wilder, and less cultivated, and more broken with hills and hillocks.