ON BEING FOUND OUT.
At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one by one into a tool or hen house, (I was but a tender little thing just put into short clothes, and can't exactly say whether the house was for tools or hens,) and in that house to put our hands into a sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside it.I put my hand into the sack.My hand came out quite black.I went and joined the other boys in the schoolroom; and all their hands were black too.
By reason of my tender age (and there are some critics who, I hope, will be satisfied by my acknowledging that I am a hundred and fifty-six next birthday) I could not understand what was the meaning of this night excursion--this candle, this tool-house, this bag of soot.I think we little boys were taken out of our sleep to be brought to the ordeal.We came, then, and showed our little hands to the master; washed them or not--most probably, I should say, not--and so went bewildered back to bed.
Something had been stolen in the school that day; and Mr.Wiseacre having read in a book of an ingenious method of finding out a thief by making him put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue would shirk from doing), all we boys were subjected to the trial.
Goodness knows what the lost object was, or who stole it.We all had black hands to show the master.And the thief, whoever he was, was not Found Out that time.
I wonder if the rascal is alive--an elderly scoundrel he must be by this time; and a hoary old hypocrite, to whom an old schoolfellow presents his kindest regards--parenthetically remarking what a dreadful place that private school was; cold, chilblains, bad dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful!--Are you alive still, I say, you nameless villain, who escaped discovery on that day of crime? I hope you have escaped often since, old sinner.Ah, what a lucky thing it is, for you and me, my man, that we are NOTfound out in all our peccadilloes; and that our backs can slip away from the master and the cane!
Just consider what life would be, if every rogue was found out, and flogged coram populo! What a butchery, what an indecency, what an endless swishing of the rod! Don't cry out about my misanthropy.
My good friend Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell me, do you go to church? When there, do you say, or do you not, that you are a miserable sinner? and saying so do you believe or disbelieve it?
If you are a M.S., don't you deserve correction, and aren't you grateful if you are to be let off? I say again, what a blessed thing it is that we are not all found out!
Just picture to yourself everybody who does wrong being found out, and punished accordingly.Fancy all the boys in all the school being whipped; and then the assistants, and then the head master (Dr.Badford let us call him).Fancy the provost-marshal being tied up, having previously superintended the correction of the whole army.After the young gentlemen have had their turn for the faulty exercises, fancy Dr.Lincolnsinn being taken up for certain faults in HIS Essay and Review.After the clergyman has cried his peccavi, suppose we hoist up a bishop, and give him a couple of dozen! (Isee my Lord Bishop of Double-Gloucester sitting in a very uneasy posture on his right reverend bench.) After we have cast off the bishop, what are we to say to the Minister who appointed him? My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use personal correction to a boy of your age; but really...Siste tandem, carnifex! The butchery is too horrible.The hand drops powerless, appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut and brandish.I am glad we are not all found out, I say again; and protest, my dear brethren, against our having our deserts.
To fancy all men found out and punished is bad enough; but imagine all women found out in the distinguished social circle in which you and I have the honor to move.Is it not a mercy that a many of these fair criminals remain unpunished and undiscovered! There is Mrs.Longbow, who is for ever practising, and who shoots poisoned arrows, too; when you meet her you don't call her liar, and charge her with the wickedness she has done and is doing.There is Mrs.
Painter, who passes for a most respectable woman, and a model in society.There is no use in saying what you really know regarding her and her goings on.There is Diana Hunter--what a little haughty prude it is; and yet WE know stories about her which are not altogether edifying.I say it is best, for the sake of the good, that the bad should not all be found out.You don't want your children to know the history of that lady in the next box, who is so handsome, and whom they admire so.Ah me, what would life be if we were all found out, and punished for all our faults? Jack Ketch would be in permanence; and then who would hang Jack Ketch?
