Chapter 23

Squire Pollard's son and many other sons destined to make their parents' hearts ache had gone to this school, then it was not so bad a place of education, perhaps the simple farmer and his wife would have found out sooner, but the pupils had not only learned vice but also deceit.

Benjamin was naturally too bright to be stupid, or else he would not have chosen it, and there would be nothing at Heminster Grammar School to hinder him from being stupid of the first order, but in any case, he grew as intelligent as a gentleman, so that his father and mother were proud of his wit to treat him when he comes home for the holidays; He takes them as evidence of his refinement and though it is the practical effect of such refinement that causes him to express contempt for his parents' domestic ways and simple ignorance.

By the time he was eighteen, he had become an articled clerk in a solicitor's office at Heiminster, for he refused to become "a mere active peasant", that is, to be