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Richard was woken the following morning by his alarm, and proceeded to wash and dress himself while he waited for breakfast. Martha came in carrying his meal just as he was coming out of the bathroom.

“You have the morning to yourself,” Martha stated as she cleaned the fire while he ate, “Mr Hobbs will be here after lunch to test you. Had you anything in mind for what you wanted to do today?”

The boy simply pointed at the semi-complete map of the gardens he was constructing. Martha was impressed by the boy’s artwork. About three-quarters of the grounds had accurately been plotted in pencil, and he was slowly filling in the details with pastels.

At two in the afternoon, he was called down to the library by Mrs Medlock. Upon entering the grand room, lined from floor to ceiling on every wall with bookcases, he spotted an older gentleman standing and looking out one of the windows.

The young boy approached the grey-haired austere-looking man and stood waiting for him to say something. Mr Hobbs slowly turned to face the boy and regarded him closely, looking down on him over his large nose. The elder man was the epitome of a schoolmaster, surveying the boy as though he were a speck of dirt, his posture commanding respect; he deliberately designed his actions to be intimidating.

Richard looked on respectfully as he had been taught. One must always revere one’s elders. However, while deference must be given to age and position, and politeness maintained, respect was something to be earned. Richard was not intimidated by the older man and after bowing politely, simply stood looking straight ahead, waiting for instruction.

Mr Hobbs continued his silent inspection of the boy, waiting for the lad to become uncomfortable and start fidgeting, as most of the boys made to stand in front of him did. After several minutes of silence, it became apparent that the child was not going to react.

“I have been told that you have lost the power of speech,” the teacher stated, “I find this highly strange, but I won’t press the matter yet.”

The somewhat-threatening tone of the statement caused Richard to be uneasy. However, he did not let it show.

“On the desk you will find a pen and paper, please be seated and I will dictate you a passage of text to write to test your ability,” Mr Hobbs instructed. The boy nodded and then proceeded to sit down. Checking the fountain pen was working and contained sufficient ink from the pot, he nodded to indicate he was ready.

The headmaster then read out a pre-prepared passage. Starting slowly, the man increased his speed until the boy was struggling to keep up. After a few sentences, the man sped up again, in an attempt to intimidate the boy and see how he reacted to pressure. The reaction from the boy caught Mr Hobbs by surprise. Instead of signalling the man to slow down, or complaining about the speed, the boy switched to a second sheet of paper and started writing in shorthand.

Finishing the paragraph, the teacher came to a halt. As soon as he stopped talking, Richard returned to writing on the original sheet of paper, copying the text from his abbreviated notes. Mr Hobbs walked round the back of the boy and looked over his shoulder as he completed writing up the dictation.

Although not familiar with the stenographic form in use, he could see that the boy must have been taught how to perform dictation. Seeing the brevity of the shorthand, the teacher realised that no matter how fast he spoke, the young man could keep up. Instead, he continued to dictate at a speed so that Richard didn’t need to switch to the abbreviated form. The educator detected a slight smile as the child realised that the velocity of dictation had dropped.

This exercise continued for the next ten minutes with progressively harder language. Nothing seemed to faze Richard, and although there were a few mistakes on words he had never heard before, he had successfully demonstrated that his skills in writing were excellent.

The teacher then proceeded to write passages of text onto the blackboard without any punctuation, capitalisation, or breaks, and then got the boy to add in the missing syntax. Each time the boy completed the task without fuss, and more importantly, correctly.

Mr Hobbs continued to write passages on the board with various grammatical errors, each of which Richard instantly spotted and corrected.

Not finding anything to fault the boy with on his English language skills, the teacher decided to move on to mathematics, first testing addition and then subtraction by writing out six-figure numbers and getting the boy to solve the problems. After completing ten of each, it was obvious that the boy was having no trouble with the simple equations. Mr Hobbs then started to call out multiplication problems from the one to twelve times tables, with the boy instantly writing down the answer in each case, although on a few he seemed to hesitate for a second before writing the correct answer.

The next task given was multiplication of large numbers. Given two five-digit figures, Richard was asked to multiply them together. The boy duly complied and proceeded to calculate the answers using long multiplication. The exercise was repeated several more times, until the teacher was satisfied that the boy could cope with multiplication without difficulty.

Mr Hobbs then asked Richard to divide 144,585 by 153. The boy quickly wrote down the answer, but the teacher couldn’t work out the method he used. It looked like long division, but involved addition in an extra column down the side.

Puzzled, the teacher set a second problem; again, the boy repeated the same method, arriving at the answer but by unknown means.

The third time the teacher asked the boy to explain his method. The boy demonstrated the ‘double division’ technique he was utilising. He multiplied the divisor by 2, 4 and 8. Then placing the highest of the three answers that was smaller than the digits of the dividend below the original number, he filled the spaces to the right with zeros. To the side he placed the multiplier plus the same number of zeros in a column to the right. Subtracting the two numbers in the first column, he then repeated the process until no remainder was left. Adding the numbers of the second column gave the answer to the division.

Mr Hobbs checked the answers by completing the same problems using his method, saying aloud his method to the puzzled-looking boy, who, the teacher concluded, must not have been ever taught the traditional method. Both methods seemed always to arrive at the same answer. After much consideration, the teacher concluded that the boy’s method, although longer, was in some ways easier to apply. He decided that it didn’t matter which method was used. The important fact was that the boy could arrive at the correct answer in each case.

Deciding there was nothing to fault in the boy’s arithmetic, the headmaster moved on to harder subjects including algebra, trigonometry, statistical analysis and calculus. Having exhausted his own knowledge on the subject, Mr Hobbs couldn’t come up with a problem the boy didn’t know how to solve.

He then decided to query Richard on his scientific knowledge. His first question was whether he ever read any scientific journals. When the child eagerly wrote down a list of academic titles that he read when given the opportunity, listing his favourite individual papers, including many by prominent scientists such as William Buckland, Charles Darwin, and Christian Doppler, the headmaster decided it was pointless to even question further. His own knowledge on the fast-moving developments in science were probably well behind the boy.

Teaching in the local school, mainly to people who would never become anything more than farm hands or domestic servants, he concentrated on the three Rs and not much else.

They had already been at the assessment for nearly three hours when Lord Headley, interested in seeing how the evaluation was going, decided to sneak quietly into the library to see how they were getting on. Richard was feverously scribbling on the blackboard as Lord Headley approached. The child’s full concentration was on his task.

Seeing the other man come near, Mr Hobbs gestured that he should stay quiet. Samuel crept round to where he could observe what the boy was writing, or in fact drawing. On the board was slowly taking shape a map of the world. Although not wholly accurate, the outline of the continents was clearly recognisable. What was amazing was that the boy was currently filling in the outlines of every country and its capital.

Skimming over the picture being formed, Lord Headley couldn’t initially spot any errors. After several more minutes, the boy came to a halt and started to scratch his head. He then wrote under his creation, “I know some are missing, but I can’t remember where they go.” Shrugging his shoulders, Richard put the chalk down, and sat in a chair in exhaustion.

“I asked the boy to make a list of countries and their capitals, this is what he produced,” Mr Hobbs stated, “Do you think he has accomplished the task?”

Taking the atlas handed to him, Lord Headley walked up to the board and started to examine the creation before him, “I don’t think I could even list this many countries, let alone put them in place on a map as accurately as this. While not drawn fully to scale, it appears most of the countries and cities are roughly in the right place.”

“There are no maps visible in this room, and I didn’t give him access to any before he started. That is done from memory,” Mr Hobbs declared.

“Amazing, you certainly know your geography, young man,” Samuel replied.

“It’s not just geography; it’s the same with every task I give him. He could trounce any of my school leavers. He has enough skill to pass not only the normal level exams, but also the higher exams for eighteen year olds. I suspect his level of academic knowledge could probably beat university graduates,” Mr Hobbs stated. “If he could actually talk, and he wasn’t so young, I would consider employing him in the school as a teacher.”

Richard audibly gasped at this revelation and sat open-mouthed in shock. He knew he was answering the questions correctly for the most part, but had no idea on just how hard the material had in fact been.

“You want my advice, forget trying to school him. There is only one thing he needs to learn in order to be able to walk into whatever profession he chooses,” Mr Hobbs stated as he rose to his feet, smiling. “Learn to talk.”

There was a noted change in attitude from Mr Hobbs. He no longer was looking down on the boy, but treating him as an equal, something that he only did very rarely and never to one so young. Shaking hands with the two family members, the schoolteacher departed, leaving them both in shock.

“I guess that there is no need for me to employ a tutor for you,” Lord Headley declared. “Please take advantage of this library and by all means order any literature you feel you need. I agree with Mr Hobbs, the one thing you need to do is try to recover your power of speech.”

Richard smiled and nodded at his uncle. It was perhaps time to end his silence, but he had issues to deal with first.

The boy went to bed early that evening, exhausted from the testing. The nightmares that plagued him over the past months, once again returned to disturb his sleep. It was around one in the morning when he woke to the sound of creaking. For a few moments, in a state of being semi-awake, he could swear he heard someone moving about in the space above his ceiling.

Sitting up, he listened closely for any further sound, but none came. Assuming that he must have been imagining things, he laid back down and tried to go back to sleep.