Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen into the upper school, and could make bold with Eutropius and Cæsar—by aid of an English version—and as much as six lines of Ovid. Some even said that I might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form, being of a persevering nature; albeit, by full consent of all (except my mother), thick-headed. But that would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition beyond a farmer's son; for there is but one form above it, and that made of masterful scholars, entitled rightly "monitors." So it came to pass, by the grace of God, that I was called away from learning, whilst sitting at the desk of the junior first in the upper school, and beginning the Greek verb τύπτω.
![Tiverton](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Lorna_Doone_-_Tiverton.png/450px-Lorna_Doone_-_Tiverton.png)
My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could have learned φιλέω, ten pages further on, being all he himself could manage, with plenty of stripes to help him. I know that he hath more head than I—though never will he have such body; and am thankful to have stopped betimes, with a meek and wholesome head-piece.
But if you doubt of my having been there, because now I know so little, go and see my name, "John Ridd," graven on that very form. Forsooth, from the time I was strong enough to open a knife and to spell my name, I began to grave it in the oak, first of the block whereon I sate, and then of the desk in front of it, according as I was promoted from one to other of them: and there my grandson reads it now, at this present time of writing, and hath fought a boy for scoffing at it—"John Ridd his name,"—and done again in "winkeys," a mischievous but cheerful device, in which we took great pleasure.