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Cornugaya Directory 02
Page 05
This good lady, whose name by the way was Bromfield, had a fine high
temper of her own, or thought it politic to affect one. One night
when the boys were particularly noisy she burst like a hurricane
into the hall, collared a youngster, and told him he was "the ramp-
ingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the
whole school." Would Mrs. Newton have been able to set the aunt and
the dog before us so vividly if she had been more highly educated?
Would Mrs. Bromfield have been able to forge and hurl her
thunderbolt of a word if she had been taught how to do so, or indeed
been at much pains to create it at all? It came. It was her [Greek
text]. She did not probably know that she had done what the
greatest scholar would have had to rack his brains over for many an
hour before he could even approach. Tradition says that having
brought down her boy she looked round the hall in triumph, and then
after a moment's lull said, "Young gentlemen, prayers are excused,"
and left them.
They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their habits,
and, on the part of the mother, much affection for their young. The
second female described was upon a tree when first discovered, with
her mate and two young ones (a male and a female). Her first impulse
was to descend with great rapidity and make off into the thicket with
her mate and female offspring. The young male remaining behind, she
soon returned to the rescue. She ascended and took him in her arms, at
which moment she was shot, the ball passing through the forearm of the
young one, on the way to the heart of the mother....
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