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"I want to know, General Joubert," I said, "whether England has declared war against us, or whether we are taking the lead. And another thing, what sort of general have I to report myself to at Volksrust?" The old warrior, without looking up or immediately answering me, drew various cryptic and hieroglyphic pothooks and figures on the paper before him.
I could speak as well as an actor, as far as pronunciation goes; but I could hardly read words of one syllabile; and as to writing, I couldn't make pothooks and hangers respectably. To this day, I can no more spell than old Ned Skene can. What was a worse sort of ignorance was that I had no idea of fair play.
Then they hastily pried away a fireboard which closed the great fireplace, and looked smilingly upon the crane and its pothooks and the familiar iron dogs which had been imprisoned there in darkness for many months. They brought in the materials for an old-fashioned fire, backlog, forestick, and crowsticks, and presently seated themselves before a crackling blaze.
Paul's anxiety rose still higher; but when the teacher, a kind old man with a white stubby beard and greasy waistcoat, took him on his knee and showed him a beautiful, many-colored picture-book, he felt calmer; only the many strange faces that stared at him from the benches seemed to forebode no good to him. He had to take the lowest place, and during two hours made pothooks on a slate.
An indescribable character of faded gentility that attached to the house I sought, and made it unlike all the other houses in the street though they were all built on one monotonous pattern, and looked like the early copies of a blundering boy who was learning to make houses, and had not yet got out of his cramped brick-and-mortar pothooks reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber.
If he could but maintain that uncompromising dramatic flavour to the end, his epistle should be worth the trouble of deciphering, for he penned a vile scrawl of pothooks. The times are too troublous and the province is in too dangerous a condition to admit of an act that might draw the eyes of the Keeper of the Seals upon Lavedan.
Coombe stepped to the little table and bestowed a casual glance on the pencil marks. "What is she doing?" he asked as casually of Dowson. "She is learning to make pothooks, my lord," Dowson answered. "She's a child that wants to be learning things. I've taught her her letters and to spell little words. She's quick and old enough, your lordship." "Learning to read and write!" exclaimed Feather.
It was, therefore, only a momentary sense of choking he experienced, as he laid the manuscripts on the leaf of Mr. Hopkins's chair, and said, "Shall I ring the bell, Sir?" "If you please, Mr. Sterling. Now, Millicent, dear, whose name shall have the honor of standing as witness on this document? There is Aunt Peggy, is good at using pothooks, but not so good at making them.
So soon as Robert was of proper age, his father sent him over to the road-side school at Long Benton, kept by Rutter, the parish clerk. But the education which Rutter could give was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending beyond the primer and pothooks.
Polly's pothooks, as her father called them, were pictures in her father's eyes. She could dash off straight lines of writing, line after line, with sharp-pointed angles and long-tailed letters, in a manner which made her father proud of the money which he had spent on her education. So Polly was told to write the letter, and after many expressions of surprise, Polly wrote the letter that evening.
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