New-York tribune., 1906-08-19
nOTHEBOYS HALL.
IT. Is IN Yorkshire and What
D;cE,cns KncSO about 1t.
Rowes. Yorkshire. August 8


sf1-'.. castle there. of which a single watch
W .,,.ins on the edge of the moOrs' with
80 I,,s for medieval bowmen in the crum-
- s- ,-..o,ro-k II is a dreary stone village.
g1g So. roadway. lined with a score or
- "a houses with tagged roofs. Ivy and
- % no, allowed TO grow on the weather.
6t9Oi'' .nd few dooryards are frightened
ssih humdrum Wesleyan chapel is
u 'r nU'.r $50 Norman Keep and a small gram
5OH. e over the way, with cOmmOdiOus
- So .,8 finely lighted rooms; and nearer
fsl'..1 ,f the village there is an old posting
y p'''1 clns,e7s OF connecting rooms on one
Sa- ,-,orm quadrangle. which is completed
Sc .,ner with coach houses and stables.
2 us eew signs OF verdure until the Norman
i'a' 18th its timeworn and defaced grave
=, =. * reached and among them. few yards
ne belfry. q neglected one is pointed out
-as,inC place Of wackfOrd Squeers- DOthe-
bicb the schoolmaster advertised in Lon
Wa =. an academic hall. on the principle that
- might call his house an island il he
,- above the church, at the end Of the vii
.,oes There is a long, rambling stone bar
= ,,,osite and beyond il there is a farm
n 4 hollow Of the bleak. wind-swept
- r,oor: but Dothcboys itself. at first glance
= the best point Of view. instead Of being a
I, lookingl' house. with a few struggling
..ri,5ings behind a barn and stable adjOin-
is 4 cheerful homelike structure. embOw
in trees. lawn and gardens. with roses
..i,,rn al every turn
ne old house had. indeed. SO pleasant an as
-. from the garden side as 1 approached it
and oil
!. ,ss gate OF an afectionate parting between
: "a man ana handsome girl offered so agree
4, a fail to my bookish portrait of the one
"a sipister Squeers and the red-crOpped Fanny,
s ringlets curled in five rows TO the top of her
IA that I fancied that 1 had been Tnisdirected
-s that Dotheboys was at the other end Of the
.siut village. Retracing my steps TO the Uni
IN and ordering luncheon in a cozy little par
r. 70 which / had been conducted through half
dozen connecting rooms. was speedily reas-
srad
Was Mr.. Dickens ever in this inn?'' asked
As hu1om landlady. who was waiting upon me
Nth a bustling. wideawake air.
Certainly This was the private room where
h took his meals and wrote his letters"
Surely the last house on the left. at the top
+ he road. is not Dotheboys?"
Yes II is the cid school There is no doubt
i3ai it. An old gentleman came here with his
gandchildren only a fortnight ago and told me
! bout the school He was long past seventy.
nd was boy a. the school about the time Mr.
Dickens wrote the book He said that every
ing about the bad treatment of the boys was
-1s he had brought his grandchildren with
IN TO show them the old school and to tell
4m how he had suffered there"
Ny luncheon had a distinct Dickens favor
GiT this disclosure; and when it was over I
I'D pleasant chat with the landlady's aunt.
Ehose mother had told her about the novelist's
Tsi 10 BoTes and the reputation of the school
7ss'er' MI. Shaw. who had been buried in the
1Hrchyard- He had two eyes, not one. and his
vas not the wrinbled and wicked face described
Nicholas Nickeby'': and while the school
ss not better than the class Of nurseries for
nsglected childhood which it represented. it
night have been worse. The worthy woman
lad heard much about it from her mother. who
72s disposed 10 think that Mr Shaw had not
m 50 brutal and bad man as AIr Squeers
-hs was not open to contradiction when Mr
r1kens had stated in the preface TO Nicholas
AiEiety" that Mr. Squeers was not an indi-
'l-1ai portrait drawn from life, but was broadly
asehed as the representative of a class of
i''kslIre scho7lmasters conspicuous for i'm
ls;aFe ignOranee and brutal cupidity" Yea
-e identifcaUon Of Mr.. Shaw's school with
5oiheboys has been accepted locally. without
aary for the grave in the churchyand, as a
'1diion as wen founded as the chronicle OF the
Norman watchtower OF the earlier legend OF the
2uan camp oS LaVatrae- Every child in the
minis -ha ,foF, t.a