The grammar-school might
consist of a hundred and fifty of all ages under age. It was divided
into five classes, taught by four masters, the chief teaching the
fourth and fifth himself. As in England, the fifth, sixth forms, and
monitors, are heard by the head masters."
Of his class-fellows at the grammar-school there are many, of course,
still alive, by whom he is well remembered;[14] and the general
impression they retain of him is, that he was a lively, warm-hearted,
and high-spirited boy--passionate and resentful, but affectionate and
companionable with his schoolfellows--to a remarkable degree venturous
and fearless, and (as one of them significantly expressed it) "always
more ready to give a blow than take one." Among many anecdotes
illustrative of this spirit, it is related that once, in returning
home from school, he fell in with a boy who had on some former
occasion insulted him, but had then got off unpunished--little Byron,
however, at the time, promising to "pay him off" whenever they should
meet again. Accordingly, on this second encounter, though there were
some other boys to take his opponent's part, he succeeded in
inflicting upon him a hearty beating. On his return home, breathless,
the servant enquired what he had been about, and was answered by him
with a mixture of rage and humour, that he had been paying a debt, by
beating a boy according to promise; for that he was a Byron, and would
never belie his motto, "_Trust Byron_.
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