



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Gentleman Cadet
His Career and Adventures at the Royal Military Academy
Woolwich By Lt. Col. A.W. Drayson
Illustrations by C.J. Staniland
Published by Griffith and Farran, London.

The Gentleman Cadet, by Lt. Col. A.W. Drayson.

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THE GENTLEMAN CADET, BY LT. COL. A.W. DRAYSON.

PREFACE.

The following pages contain a history of the life of a Woolwich Cadet as
it was about thirty years ago.  The hero of the tale is taken through
the then usual routine of a cram-school at Woolwich, and from thence
passed into the Royal Military Academy.  The reformation that has taken
place--both in the preparatory schools and also at the Academy--may be
judged of by those who read this book and are acquainted with existing
conditions.  The habits and life of a Cadet of the present day are well
known, but the singular laws and regulations--written and unwritten--in
former times may not be so generally understood; and, as memory of the
past fades away, the following pages have been penned, to give a history
of the singular life and manners of the old Cadet.  The work has no
other pretensions than to give this history, and to afford amusement to
the young aspirant for military glory.

_Southsea, September_, 1874.

CHAPTER ONE.

MY HOME LIFE.

On the borders of the New Forest, in Hampshire, stands an old-fashioned
thatch-roofed family-house, surrounded by cedars and firs, with a
clean-shaved, prim-looking lawn opposite the drawing-room windows, from
which a magnificent view was visible of the forest itself and the
Southampton waters beyond.  In that house I was born; and there I passed
the first fourteen years of my existence in a manner that must be
briefly recorded, in order to make the reader acquainted with my state
of education previous to a somewhat eventful career in a more busy
scene.

My father had been intended for the Church, but having at Cambridge
taken a dislike to holy orders, and finding himself left, by the death
of my grandfather, sole possessor of a sum of about thirty thousand
pounds invested in Consols, he decided to live an easy life, and enjoy
himself, instead of taking up any profession--an error that caused him
to be what may be called "a mistake" all his life, and which was the
cause of much suffering to me.

Having devoted some eight or ten years to travelling and seeing the
world, my father married, and selected for his wife the youngest of
seven daughters of a very worthy but very poor clergyman in Wiltshire,
who bore him two daughters and myself; after which she sickened and died
at the early age of twenty-six.

In order to have some one to whom he could entrust the care of his three
children, my father took into his house his eldest sister, who was some
fifteen years his senior, and to whom was given the sole charge of
myself and my two sisters.  Aunt Emma, as we used to term her, was my
abhorrence; she had a singular facility of making herself disagreeable,
especially with us young people.  That she used to teach us our letters
and our reading and writing was certainly kind on her part--at least, so
she assured me--but she had a way of teaching that was not one at all
suitable to gaining the esteem or affection of a child.  Her principal
object in teaching seemed to be to impress on us children that we were
the most stupid, dull, and lazy children in the world, whom it was
little short of martyrdom to try to teach; whilst we were informed that
she, as a child and as a schoolgirl, had always been famous for
quickness in learning, attention to her studies, and love to her
schoolmistress.

We were also being daily impressed with the idea that we were awfully
wicked and selfish, and quite unworthy of any kindness from her or our
father, whilst we were also accused of having a bad motive for
everything we did.

Aunt Emma was a great expert in slapping.  Often have I lain in bed and
cried for hours at the remembrance of the unmerited and severe slaps
that my poor little delicate sister had received during the day from
Aunt Emma.  There was, I feel glad to say, no real anger in those
feelings, but a sense of utter misery and regret that Aunt Emma should
feel so little for the unhappiness she caused, and for the injustice of
which she was guilty.  I was a child then, and I had yet to learn that
there are people in the world who take a delight in making others
unhappy, who attribute to all, except themselves, bad, selfish, or
spiteful motives for every word and act, and to whom the world is an
enemy on which they are justified in renting their spleen.

It may seem to the reader out of place to speak thus of Aunt Emma, but
as she had much to do with my early life, and as her specialities must
then be brought forward, there is really no object in concealing either
her weaknesses or defects.

At the date to which I am referring, some forty years ago, there was a
great taste in many private families for immoderate physicking.  Aunt
Emma possessed this taste in no small degree; that she believed in its
efficacy there can be no doubt, because she used to physic herself with
the same generous freedom that she bestowed on us children.  Each spring
we regularly, for some five weeks, were put through a course of
brimstone and treacle; each morning we were given a spoonful of treacle
in which the gritty brimstone had been stirred with a free hand.  If we
looked pale or tired, or were more than ordinarily stupid at our
lessons, Aunt Emma decided