A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
"Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hairbreadth 'scapes."--_Shakespeare._
TOM DISCLOSES NOTHING.
When Tom came back into school after a couple of days in the
sick-room, he found matters much changed for the better, as East had
led him to expect. Flashman's brutality had disgusted most of his
intimate friends, even, and his cowardice had once more been made
plain to the house; for Diggs had encountered him on the morning after
the lottery, and after high words on both sides had struck him, and
the blow was not returned. However, Flashey was not unused to this
sort of thing, and had lived through as awkward affairs before, and,
as Diggs had said, fed and toadied himself back into favor again. Two
or three of the boys who had helped to roast Tom came up and begged
his pardon, and thanked him for not telling anything. Morgan sent for
him, and was inclined to take the matter up warmly, but Tom begged him
not to do it; to which he agreed, on Tom's promising to come to him at
once in the future,--a promise which I regret to say he didn't keep.
Tom kept Harkaway all to himself, and won the second prize in the
lottery, some thirty shillings, which he and East contrived to spend
in about three days, in the purchase of pictures for their study, two
new bats and a cricket-ball, all the best that could be got, and a
supper of sausages, kidneys, and beef-steak pies to all the rebels.
Light come, light go; they wouldn't have been comfortable with money
in their pockets in the middle of the half.[1]
[1] #The half#: the half-year.
RULE BREAKING.
The embers of Flashman's wrath, however, were still smouldering, and
burst out every now and then in sly blows and taunts, and they both
felt that they hadn't quite done with him yet. It wasn't long,
however, before the last act of that drama came, and with it the
end of bullying for Tom and East at Rugby. They now often stole
out into the Hall at nights, incited thereto, partly by the hope
of finding Diggs there and having a talk with him, partly by the
excitement of doing something which was against the rules; for,
sad to say, both of our youngsters, since their loss of character
for steadiness in their form, had got into the habit of doing
things which were forbidden, as a matter of adventure; just in
the same way, I should fancy, as men fall into smuggling, and for the
same sort of reasons,--thoughtlessness in the first place. It never
occurred to them to consider why such and such rules were laid down;
the reason was nothing to them, and they only looked upon rules as a
sort of challenge from the rule-makers, which it would be rather bad
pluck in them not to accept; and then again, in the lower parts of the
school they hadn't enough to do. The work of the form they could
manage to get through pretty easily, keeping a good enough place to
get their regular yearly remove; and not having much ambition beyond
this, their whole superfluous steam was available for games and
scrapes. Now, one rule of the house which it was a daily pleasure of
all such boys to break, was that after supper all fags, except the
three on duty in the passages, should remain in their own studies
until nine o'clock; and if caught about the passages or Hall, or in
one another's studies, they were liable to punishments or caning. The
rule was stricter than its observance; for most of the sixth spent
their evenings in the fifth-form room, where the library was, and the
lessons were learnt in common. Every now and then, however, a
praepostor would be seized with a fit of district visiting, and would
take a tour of the passages and Hall, and the fags' studies. Then, if
the owner were entertaining a friend or two, the first kick at the
door and ominous[2] "Open here" had the effect of the shadow of a hawk
over a chicken-yard; every one cut to cover[3]--one small boy diving
under the sofa, another under the table, while the owner would hastily
pull down a book or two and open them, and cry out in a meek voice:
"Hullo, who's there?" casting an anxious eye round, to see that no
protruding leg or elbow could betray the hidden boys. "Open, sir,
directly; it's Snooks." "Oh, I'm very sorry; I didn't know it was you,
Snooks;" and then with well-feigned zeal, the door would be opened,
young Hopeful praying that that beast Snooks mightn't have heard the
scuffle caused by his coming. If a study was empty, Snooks proceeded
to draw[4] the passages and Hall to find the truants.
[2] #Ominous#: foretelling evil.
[3] #Cut to cover#: ran to a hiding-place.
[4] #Draw#: to force a creature to leave its hiding-place.
THE BRUISED WORM WILL TURN.
Well, one evening, in forbidden hours, Tom and East were in the Hall.
They occupied the seats before the fire nearest the door, while Diggs
sprawled, as usual, before the further fire. He was busy with a copy
of verses, and East and Tom were chatting together in whispers, by the
light of the fire, and splicing a favorite old fives'-bat which had
sprung.[5] Presently a step came down the bottom passage; they
listened a moment, assured themselves that it wasn't a praepostor, and
then went on with their work, and the door swung open, and in walked
Flashman. He didn't see Diggs, and thought it a good chance to keep
his hand in; and as the boys didn't move for him, struck one of them,
to make them get out of his way.
[5] #Sprung#: become strained or cracked.
"What's that for?" growled the assaulted one.
"Because I choose. You've no business here; go to your study."
"You can't send us."
"Can't I? Then I'll thrash you if you stay," said Flashman, savagely.
"I say, you two," said Diggs, from the end of the Hall, rousing up and
resting himself on his elbow, "you'll never get rid of that fellow
till you lick him. Go in at him, both of you--I'll see fair play."
ACCOUNTS SQUARED WITH FLASHMAN.
Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. East looked at Tom.
"Shall we try?" said he. "Yes," said Tom, desperately. So the two
advanced on Flashman, with clenched fists and beating hearts. They
were about up to his shoulder, but tough boys of their age, and in
perfect training; while he, though strong and big, was in poor
condition from his monstrous habit of stuffing and want of exercise.
Coward as he was, however, Flashman couldn't swallow such an insult as
this; besides, he was confident of having easy work, and so faced the
boys, saying, "You impudent young blackguards!" Before he could finish
his abuse they rushed in on him, and began pummelling at all of him
which they could reach. He hit out wildly and savagely, but the full
force of his blows didn't tell; they were too near him. It was long
odds, though, in point of strength, and in another minute Tom went
plunging backward over the form, and Flashman turned to demolish East
with a savage grin. But now Diggs jumped down from the table on which
he had seated himself. "Stop there," shouted he, "the round's
over--half a minute time allowed."
"What the----is it to you?" faltered Flashman, who began to lose
heart.
"I'm going to see fair, I tell you," said Diggs, with a grin, and
snapping his great red fingers; "'tisn't fair for you to be fighting
one of them at a time. Are you ready, Brown? Time's up."
The small boys rushed in again. Closing they saw was their best
chance, and Flashman was wilder and more flurried than ever; he caught
East by the throat, and tried to force him back on the iron-bound
table; Tom grasped his waist, and remembering the old throw he had
learned in the Vale from Harry Winburn, crooked his leg inside
Flashman's, and threw his weight forward. The three tottered for a
moment, then over they went on to the floor, Flashman striking his
head against a form in the Hall.
PENALTIES OF WAR.
The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay there still. They
began to be frightened. Tom stooped down, and then cried out, scared
out of his wits, "He's bleeding awfully; come here, East, Diggs--he's
dying!"
"Not he," said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table; "it's all
sham--he's only afraid to fight it out."
East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted Flashman's head, and he
groaned.
"What's the matter?" shouted Diggs.
"My skull's fractured," sobbed Flashman.
"Oh, let me run for the housekeeper," cried Tom. "What shall we do!"
"Fiddlesticks! it's nothing but the skin broken," said the relentless
Diggs, feeling his head. "Cold water and a bit of rag's all he'll
want."
"Let me go," said Flashman, surlily, sitting up; "I don't want your
help."
"We're really very sorry," began East.
"Hang your sorrow," answered Flashman, holding his handkerchief to the
place; "you shall pay for this, I can tell you, both of you." And he
walked out of the Hall.
"He can't be very bad," said Tom, with a deep sigh, much relieved to
see his enemy march so well.
"Not he," said Diggs, "and you'll see you won't be troubled with him
any more. But, I say, your head's broken too--your collar is covered
with blood."
"Is it, though?" said Tom, putting up his hand; "I didn't know it."
"Well, mop it up, or you'll have your jacket spoilt. And you have got
a bad eye, Scud; you'd better go and bathe it well in cold water."
"Cheap enough, too, if we've done with our old friend Flashey," said
East, as they made up-stairs to bathe their wounds.
They had done with Flashman in one sense, for he never laid finger on
either of them again; but whatever harm a spiteful heart and venomous
tongue could do them, he took care should be done. Only throw dirt
enough, and some of it is sure to stick; and so it was with the fifth
form and the bigger boys in general, with whom he associated more or
less, and they not at all. Flashman managed to get Tom and East into
disfavor, which did not wear off for some time after the author of it
had disappeared from the School world. This event, much prayed for by
the small fry in general, took place a few months after the above
encounter. One fine summer evening, Flashman had been regaling himself
on gin-punch, at Brownsover; and having exceeded his usual limits,
started home uproarious. He fell in with a friend or two coming back
from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the
weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity
of drink which Flashman had already on board. The short result was,
that Flashey became beastly drunk; they tried to get him along, but
couldn't; so they chartered[6] a hurdle[7] and two men to carry him.
One of the masters came upon them and they naturally enough fled.
The flight of the rest raised the master's suspicions, and the good
angel of the fags incited him to examine the freight, and, after
examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to the School-house; and
the Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flashman, arranged for his
withdrawal next morning.
[6] #Chartered#: hired.
[7] #Hurdle#: a framework of twigs.
FATE OF LIBERATORS.
The evil that men, and boys, too, do, lives after them. Flashman was
gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still felt the effects of his
hate. Besides, they had been the movers of the strike against unlawful
fagging. The cause was righteous,--the result had been triumphant to a
great extent; but the best of the fifth, even those who had never
fagged the small boys, or had given up the practice cheerfully,
couldn't help feeling a small grudge against the first rebels. After
all, their form had been defied--on just grounds, no doubt; so just
indeed, that they had at once acknowledged the wrong, and remained
passive in the strife; had they sided with Flashman and his set, the
rebels must have given way at once. They couldn't help, on the whole,
being glad that they had so acted, and that the resistance had been
successful against such of their own form as had shown fight; they
felt that law and order had gained thereby, but the ringleaders they
couldn't quite pardon at once. "Confoundedly coxy those young rascals
will get, if we don't mind," was the general feeling.
So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If the Angel Gabriel were
to come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most
abominable and unrighteous vested interest[8] which this poor old
world groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for
many years, probably for centuries, not only with the upholders of
said vested interest, but with the respectable mass of the people whom
he had delivered. They wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names
appear with his in the papers; they would be very careful how they
spoke of him in the Palaver[9] or at their clubs. What can we expect,
then, when we have only poor gallant blundering men like Kossuth,
Garibaldi, Mazzini[10] and righteous causes which do not triumph in
their hands,--men who have holes enough in their armor, God knows,
easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their lounging chairs,
and having large balances[11] at their bankers? But you are brave,
gallant boys, who hate easy chairs, and have no balances or bankers.
You only want to have your heads set straight, to take the right side;
so bear in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are
nine times out of ten in the wrong, and that if you see a man or
a boy striving earnestly on the weak side, however wrong-headed or
blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the cry against him.
If you can't join him and help him, and make him wiser, at any rate
remember that he has found something in the world which he will fight
and suffer for, which is just what you have got to do for yourselves;
and so think and speak of him tenderly.
[8] #Vested interest#: a fixed estate; here, a deeply rooted
evil or abuse.
[9] #The Palaver#: a nickname for Parliament.
[10] #Kossuth#, etc.: patriots and reformers.
[11] #Balances#: money deposited to one's credit.
THE ISHMAELITES.
So East, and Tom, the Tadpole, and one or two more, became a sort of
young Ishmaelites,[12] their hands against every one, and every one's
hand against them. It has been already told how they got to war with
the masters and the fifth form, and with the sixth it was much the
same. They saw the praepostors cowed by or joining with the fifth, and
shirking their own duties; so they didn't respect them, and rendered
no willing obedience. It had been one thing to clean out studies for
sons of heroes like old Brooke, but was quite another to do the like
for Snooks and Green, who had never faced a good scrummage at
foot-ball, and couldn't keep the passages in order at night. So they
only slurred through their fagging just well enough to escape a
licking, and not always that, and got the character of sulky,
unwilling fags. In the fifth-form room, after supper, when such
matters were often discussed and arranged, their names were forever
coming up.
[12] #Ishmaelites#: outcasts.
"I say, Green," Snooks began one night, "isn't that new boy, Harrison,
your fag?"
"Yes, why?"
"Oh, I know something of him at home, and should like to excuse him;
will you swop?"
"Who will you give me?"
"Well, let's see; there's Willis, Johnson--No, that won't do. Yes, I
have it, there's young East; I'll give you him."
"Don't you wish you may get it?" replied Green. "I'll give you two for
Willis, if you like?"
"Who then?" asks Snooks.
"Hall and Brown."
"Wouldn't have 'em as a gift."
"Better than East, though, for they aren't quite so sharp," said
Green, getting up and leaning his back against the mantel-piece; he
wasn't a bad fellow, and couldn't help not being able to put down the
unruly fifth form. His eye twinkled as he went on. "Did I ever tell
you how the young vagabond sold me[13] last half?"
[13] #Sold me#: tricked or outwitted me.
"No--how?"
"Well, he never half cleaned my study out, only just stuck the
candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the crumbs on to the floor. So
at last I was mortal angry, and had him up, and made him go through
the whole performance under my eyes: the dust the young scamp made
nearly choked me, and showed that he hadn't swept the carpet before.
Well, when it was all finished: 'Now, young gentleman,' says I, 'mind,
I expect this to be done every morning--floor swept, table-cloth taken
off and shaken, and everything dusted.' 'Very well,' grunts he. Not a
bit of it, though--I was quite sure in a day or two that he never took
the table-cloth off even. So I laid a trap for him; I tore up some
paper and put half a dozen bits on my table one night, and the cloth
over them as usual. Next morning, after breakfast, up I came, pulled
off the cloth, and sure enough there was the paper, which fluttered
down on to the floor. I was in a towering rage. 'I've got you now,'
thought I, and sent for him, while I got out my cane. Up he came, as
cool as you please, with his hands in his pockets. 'Didn't I tell you
to shake my table-cloth every morning?' roared I. 'Yes,' says he. 'Did
you do it this morning?' 'Yes.' 'You young liar! I put these pieces of
paper on the table last night, and if you'd taken the table-cloth off
you'd have seen them, so I'm going to give you a good licking.' Then
my youngster takes one hand out of his pocket, and just stoops down
and picks up two of the bits of paper, and holds them out to me. There
was written on each, in great round text: 'Harry East, his mark.' The
young rogue had found my trap out, taken away my paper, and put some
of his there, every bit ear-marked.[14] I'd a great mind to lick him
for his impudence, but, after all, one has no right to be laying
traps, so I didn't. Of course I was at his mercy till the end of the
half, and in his weeks my study was so frowzy[15] I couldn't sit in
it."
[14] #Ear-marked#: marked with a private mark.
[15] #Frowzy#: dirty, slovenly.
"They spoil one's things so, too," chimed in a third boy. "Hall and
Brown were night-fags last week; I called fag, and gave them my
candlesticks to clean; away they went, and didn't appear again. When
they'd had time enough to clean them three times over I went out to
look after them. They weren't in the passages, so down I went into the
Hall where I heard music, and there I found them sitting on the table,
listening to Johnson, who was playing the flute, and my candlesticks
stuck between the bars well into the fire, red hot, clean spoiled;
they've never stood straight since, and I must get some more. However,
I gave them both a good licking; that's one comfort."
MISFORTUNE THICKENS.
Such were the sort of scrapes they were always getting into; and so,
partly by their own faults, partly from circumstances, partly from the
faults of others, they found themselves outlaws,[16] ticket-of-leave
men,[17] or what you will in that line; in short, dangerous parties,
and lived the sort of hand-to-mouth, wild, reckless life, which such
parties have to put up with. Nevertheless, they never quite lost favor
with young Brooke, who was now the cock of the House,[18] and just
getting into the sixth; and Diggs stuck to them like a man, and gave
them store of good advice, by which they never in the least profited.
[16] #Outlaws#: persons deprived of the protection of the law.
[17] #Ticket-of-leave men#: convicts allowed to go at large
upon their good behavior.
[18] #Cock of the House#: leader of the School.
And even after the House mended, and law and order had been restored,
which soon happened after young Brooke and Diggs got into the sixth,
they couldn't easily or at once return into the paths of steadiness,
and many of the old wild out-of-bounds habits stuck to them as firmly
as ever. While they had been quite little boys, the scrapes they got
into in the School hadn't much mattered to any one; but now they were
in the upper school, all wrong-doers from which were sent up straight
to the Doctor at once; so they began to come under his notice; and
as they were a sort of leaders in a small way amongst their own
contemporaries, his eye, which was everywhere, was upon them.
It was a toss-up[19] whether they turned out well or ill, and so they
were just the boys who caused the most anxiety to such a master. You
have been told of the first occasion on which they were sent up to the
Doctor, and the remembrance of it was so pleasant, that they had much
less fear of him than most boys of their standing had. "It's all his
looks," Tom used to say to East, "that frightens fellows; don't you
remember, he never said anything to us my first half-year, for being
an hour late for locking up?"
[19] #A toss-up#: the merest chance; toss of a copper.
The next time Tom came before him, however, the interview was of a
very different kind. It happened just about the time at which we have
now arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into which our
hero now managed to tumble.
THE AVON.
The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not a very clear stream, in
which chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful
enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack,[20] but no fish
worth sixpence either for sport or food. It is, however, a capital
river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good
reaches[21] for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and
at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the School. This mile of water is
rented, or used to be rented, for bathing purposes, by the Trustees of
the School, for the boys. The foot-path to Brownsover[22] crosses the
river by "the Planks," a curious old single-plank bridge, running for
fifty or sixty yards into the flat meadows on each side of the river,
for in the winter there are frequent floods. Above the Planks were
the bathing-places for the smaller boys,--Sleath's, the first
bathing-place where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved
to the bathing-men (three steady individuals who were paid to attend
daily through the summer to prevent accidents) that they could swim
pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on to Anstey's, about
one hundred and fifty yards below. Here there was a hole about six
feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins
struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of
themselves for having been out of their depths. Below the Planks came
larger and deeper holes, the first of which was Wratislaw's, and the
last Swift's, a famous hole ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and
thirty yards across, from which there was a fine swimming reach right
down to the mill. Swift's was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms,
and had a spring-board[23] and two sets of steps; the others had one
set of steps each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys,
though each House addicted itself more to one hole than to another.
The School-house at this time affected[24] Wratislaw's hole, and Tom
and East, who had learnt to swim like fishes, were to be found there
as regular as the clock through the summer always twice, and often
three times a day.
[20] #Small jack#: young pike.
[21] #Reaches#: straight pieces of water.
[22] #Brownsover#: a neighboring village.
[23] #Spring-board#: a long board projecting over the water,
used by divers.
[24] #Affected#: preferred.
DISPUTED RIGHTS OF FISHING.
Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right also to fish at
their pleasure over the whole of this part of the river, and would not
understand that the right (if any) only extended to the Rugby side. As
ill-luck would have it, the gentleman who owned the opposite bank,
after allowing it for some time without interference, had ordered his
keepers[25] not to let the boys fish on his side; the consequence of
which had been, that there had been first wranglings and then fights
between the keepers and boys; and so keen had the quarrel become, that
the landlord and his keepers, after a ducking had been inflicted on
one of the latter, and a fierce fight ensued thereon, had been up to
the Great School at calling-over to identify the delinquents, and it
was all the Doctor himself and five or six masters could do to keep
the peace. Not even his authority could prevent the hissing, and so
strong was the feeling, that the four praepostors of the week walked up
the school with their canes, shouting s-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e at the
top of their voices. However, the chief offenders for the time were
flogged and kept in bounds, but the victorious party had brought a
nice hornet's nest about their ears. The landlord was hissed at the
School-gates as he rode past, and when he charged his horse at the mob
of boys, and tried to thrash them with his whip, was driven back by
cricket-bats and wickets, and pursued with pebbles and fives'-balls;
while the wretched keepers' lives were a burden to them, from having
to watch the water so closely.
[25] #Keepers#: gamekeepers employed on all great estates to
protect the game and fish. In England, game and fish, except
in navigable waters, are the private property of the
land-owners.
The School-house boys of Tom's standing, one and all as a protest
against this tyranny and cutting short of their lawful amusements,
took to fishing in all ways, and especially by means of night-lines.
The little tackle-maker[26] at the bottom of the town would soon have
made his fortune had the rage lasted, and several of the barbers began
to lay in fishing-tackle. The boys had this great advantage over their
enemies, that they spent a large portion of the day in nature's garb
by the river side, and so, when tired of swimming, would get out on
the other side and fish, or set night-lines, till the keepers hove
in sight, and then plunge in and swim back and mix with the other
bathers, and the keepers were too wise to follow across the stream.
[26] #Tackle-maker#: one who makes fishing-tackle.
CHAFFING A KEEPER.
While things were in this state, one day Tom and three or four others
were bathing at Wratislaw's, and had, as a matter of course, been
taking up and resetting night-lines. They had all left the water, and
were sitting or standing about at their toilets, in all costumes from
a shirt upward, when they were aware of a man in a velveteen
shooting-coat approaching from the other side. He was a new keeper, so
they didn't recognize or notice him, till he pulled up right opposite
and began:--
"I see'd some of you young gentlemen over this side a fishing just
now."
"Hullo, who are you? what business is that of yours, old
Velveteens?"[27]
[27] #Velveteens#: alluding to the keeper's velveteen suit.
"I'm the new under-keeper, and master's told me to keep a sharp look
out on all o' you young chaps. And I tells 'ee I mean business, and
you'd better keep on your own side, or we shall fall out."
"Well, that's right, Velveteens--speak out and let's know your mind at
once."
"Look here, old boy," cried East, holding up a miserable coarse fish
or two and a small jack, "would you like to smell 'em, and see which
bank they lived under?"
"I'll give you a bit of advice, keeper," shouted Tom, who was sitting
in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river; "you'd better go
down there to Swift's where the big boys are; they're beggars[28] at
setting lines, and'll put you up to a wrinkle or two for catching the
five-pounders." Tom was nearest to the keeper, and that officer, who
was getting angry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to
take note of him for future use. Tom returned his gaze with a steady
stare, and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the middle of a
favorite School-house song:--
"As I and my companions
Were setting of a snare,
The gamekeeper was watching us,
For him we did not care:
For we can wrestle and fight, my boys,
And jump out anywhere,
For it's my delight of a likely[29] night
In the season of the year."
The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of laughter, and
the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief.
The boys thought no more of the matter.
[28] #Beggars#: here, wonderful chaps.
[29] #Likely#: suitable; convenient.
But now came on the May-fly season; the soft, hazy summer weather lay
sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, and the green and gray
flies flickered with their graceful lazy up-and-down flight over the
reeds and the water and the meadows, in myriads upon myriads. The
May-flies must surely be the lotus-eaters[30] of the ephemerae;[31] the
happiest, laziest, carelessest fly that dances and dreams out his few
hours of sunshiny life by English rivers.
[30] #Lotus-eaters#: the lotus was a plant fabled by the
ancients to make strangers who ate of it forget their native
land and lead a dreamy, happy, careless life. See Homer's
Odyssey, IX., and Tennyson's poem, "The Lotus-eaters."
[31] #Ephemerae#: Insects which live a very short time;
literally, but a day.
Every little pitiful coarse fish in the Avon was on the alert for the
flies, and gorging his wretched carcass with hundreds daily, the
gluttonous rogues! and every lover of the gentle craft was out to
avenge the poor May-flies.
THE RETURN MATCH WITH VELVETEENS.
So one fine Thursday afternoon, Tom having borrowed East's new rod,
started by himself to the river. He fished for some time with small
success: not a fish would rise at him; but as he prowled along the
bank, he was presently aware of mighty ones feeding in a pool on the
opposite side, under the shade of a huge willow tree. The stream was
deep here, but some fifty yards below was a shallow, for which he made
off hot-foot:[32] and forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn
prohibitions of the Doctor, and everything else, pulled up his
trousers, plunged across, and in three minutes was creeping along on
all-fours toward the clump of willows.
[32] #Hot-foot#: with all haste.
It isn't often that great chub, or any other coarse fish, are in
earnest about anything, but just then they were thoroughly bent on
feeding, and in half an hour Master Tom had deposited three thumping
fellows at the foot of the giant willow. As he was baiting for a
fourth pounder, and just going to throw in again, he became aware of a
man coming up the bank not one hundred yards off. Another look told
him that it was the under-keeper. Could he reach the shallow before
him? No, not carrying his rod. Nothing for it but the tree, so Tom
laid his bones to it, shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging up
his rod after him. He had just time to reach and crouch along a huge
branch some ten feet up, which stretched out over the river, when the
keeper arrived at the clump. Tom's heart beat fast as he came under
the tree; two steps more and he would have passed, when, as ill-luck
would have it, the gleam on the scales of the dead fish caught his
eye, and he made a dead point at the foot of the tree. He picked up
the fish one by one; his eye and touch told him that they had been
alive and feeding within the hour. Tom crouched lower along the
branch, and heard the keeper beating the clump. "If I could only get
the rod hidden," thought he, and began gently shifting it to get it
alongside of him: "willow-trees don't throw out straight hickory
shoots twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck?" Alas! the keeper
catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and then of Tom's
hand and arm.
"Oh, be up ther' be ee?" says he, running under the tree. "Now you
come down this minute."
"Treed at last," thinks Tom, making no answer, and keeping as close
as possible, but working away at the rod, which he takes to pieces:
"I'm in for it, unless I can starve him out." And then he begins to
meditate getting along the branch for a plunge, and scramble to the
other side; but the small branches are so thick, and the opposite bank
so difficult, that the keeper will have lots of time to get round by
the ford before he can get out, so he gives that up. And now he hears
the keeper beginning to scramble up the trunk. That will never do; so
he scrambles himself back to where his branch joins the trunk, and
stands with lifted rod.
"Hullo, Velveteens! mind your fingers if you come any higher!"
The keeper stops and looks, and then with a grin says: "Oh, be you, be
it, young measter? Well, here's luck. Now I tells ee to come down at
once, and 't'll be best for ee."
"Thank'ee, Velveteens, I'm very comfortable," said Tom, shortening the
rod in his hand, and preparing for battle.
"Werry well, please yourself," says the keeper, descending, however,
to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank; "I bean't in no
hurry, so you may take your time. I'll learn ee to gee[33] honest
folks names afore I've done with ee."
[33] #Gee#: give.
"My luck as usual," thinks Tom; "what a fool I was to give him a
black.[34] If I'd called him 'keeper,' now, I might get off. The
return match[35] is all his way."
[34] #Black#: a nickname.
[35] #Return match#: the end of the affair.
VELVETEENS' REVENGE.
The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill and light it,
keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately across the branch,
looking at keeper,--a pitiful sight for men and fishes. The more he
thought of it, the less he liked it. "It must be getting near second
calling-over," thinks he. Keeper smokes on stolidly. "If he takes me
up, I shall be flogged safe enough. I can't sit here all night. Wonder
if he'll rise at silver."[36]
[36] #Rise at silver#: let one off for money.
"I say, keeper," said he meekly, "let me go for two bob?"[37]
[37] #Bob#: a shilling.
"Not for twenty neither," grunts his persecutor.
And so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and the sun
came slanting in through the willow branches, and telling of
locking-up near at hand.
"I'm coming down, keeper," said Tom at last, with a sigh, fairly tired
out. "Now, what are you going to do?"
"Walk ee up to school, and give ee over to the Doctor; them's my
orders," says Velveteens, knocking the ashes out of his fourth pipe,
and standing up and shaking himself.
"Very good," said Tom; "but hands off, you know. I'll go with you
quietly, so no collaring or that sort of thing."
Keeper looked at him a minute--"Werry good," said he, at last; and so
Tom descended, and wended his way drearily by the side of the keeper
up to the School-house, where they arrived just at locking-up. As they
passed the School-gates, the Tadpole and several others who were
standing there caught the state of things, and rushed out, crying,
"Rescue!" but Tom shook his head, so they only followed to the
Doctor's gate, and went back sorely puzzled.
How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the last time that Tom
was up there, as the keeper told the story, not omitting to state how
Tom had called him blackguard names. "Indeed, sir," broke in the
culprit, "it was only Velveteens." The Doctor only asked one question.
"You know the rule about the banks, Brown?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then wait for me to-morrow, after the first lesson."
"I thought so," muttered Tom.
"And about the rod, sir?" went on the keeper. "Master's told we as we
might have all the rods--"
"Oh, please, sir," broke in Tom, "the rod isn't mine." The Doctor
looked puzzled, but the keeper, who was a good-hearted fellow, and
melted at Tom's evident distress, gave up his claim. Tom was flogged
next morning, and a few days afterward met Velveteens, and presented
him with a half a crown for giving up the rod claim, and they became
sworn friends; and I regret to say that Tom had many more fish from
under the willow that May-fly season, and was never caught again by
Velveteens.
MORE SCRAPES.
It wasn't three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, were again
in the awful presence. This time, however, the Doctor was not so
terrible. A few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch
the balls that went off the Court. While standing watching the game,
they saw five or six nearly new balls hit on the top of the School. "I
say, Tom," said East, when they were dismissed, "couldn't we get those
balls somehow?"
"Let's try, anyhow."
So they reconnoitered the walls carefully, borrowed a coal-hammer from
old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one or two attempts
scaled the School, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of
fives'-balls. The place pleased them so much that they spent all their
spare time there scratching and cutting their names on the top of
every tower; and at last, having exhausted all other places, finished
up with inscribing H. EAST, T. BROWN, on the minute-hand of the great
clock. In the doing of which, they held the minute-hand, and disturbed
the clock's economy. So next morning, when masters and boys came
trooping down to prayers, and entered the quadrangle, the injured
minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the hour. They all pulled
up, and took their time. When the hour struck, doors were closed, and
half the School late. Thomas being set to make inquiry, discovers
their names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly; and they are
sent for, a knot of their friends making derisive and pantomimic
allusions to what their fate will be, as they walk off.
But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it,
and only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart, and a
lecture on the likelihood of such exploits ending in broken bones.
THE DOCTOR REIGNING.
Alas! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the town; and
as several rows and other disagreeable accidents had of late taken
place on these occasions, the Doctor gives out, after prayers in the
morning, that no boy is to go down into the town. Wherefore East and
Tom, for no earthly pleasure except that of doing what they are told
not to do, start away, after second lesson, and making a short circuit
through the fields, strike a back lane which leads into the town, go
down it, and run plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into the
High Street. The master in question, though a very clever, is not a
righteous man; he has already caught several of his own pupils, and
gives them lines to learn, while he sends East and Tom, who are not
his pupils, up to the Doctor; who, on learning that they had been at
prayers in the morning, flogs them soundly.
The flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice of their
captor was rankling in their minds; but it was just the end of the
half, and on the next evening but one Thomas knocks at their door, and
says the Doctor wants to see them. They look at one another in silent
dismay. What can it be now? Which of their countless wrong-doings can
he have heard of officially? However, it's no use delaying, so up they
go to the study. There they find the Doctor, not angry, but very
grave. "He has sent for them to speak to them very seriously before
they go home. They have each been flogged several times in the
half-year for direct and wilful breaches of rules. This cannot go on.
They are doing no good to themselves or others, and now they are
getting up in the School, and have influence. They seem to think that
rules are made capriciously, and for the pleasure of the masters; but
this is not so, they are made for the good of the whole School, and
must and shall be obeyed. Those who thoughtlessly or wilfully break
them, will not be allowed to stay at the School. He should be sorry if
they had to leave, as the School might do them both much good, and
wishes them to think very seriously in the holidays over what he has
said. Good-night."
And so the two hurry off horribly scared; the idea of having to leave
has never crossed their minds and is quite unbearable.
As they go out they meet at the door old Holmes, a sturdy, cheery
praepostor of another house, who goes in to the Doctor; and they hear
his genial, hearty greeting of the new-comer, so different to their
own reception, as the door closes, and return to their study with
heavy hearts, and tremendous resolves to break no more rules.
Five minutes afterward the master of their form, a late arrival and a
model young master, knocks at the Doctor's study-door. "Come in!" and
as he enters the Doctor goes on to Holmes--"you see I do not know
anything of the case officially; and if I take any notice of it at
all, I must publicly expel the boy. I don't wish to do that, for I
think there is some good in him. There's nothing for it but a good
sound thrashing." He paused to shake hands with the master, which
Holmes does also, and then prepares to leave.
"I understand. Good-night, sir."
"Good-night, Holmes. And remember," added the Doctor, emphasizing the
words, "a good sound thrashing before the whole house."
The door closed on Holmes; and the Doctor, in answer to the puzzled
look of his lieutenant, explained shortly.
"A gross case of bullying. Wharton, the head of the house, is a very
good fellow, but slight and weak, and severe physical pain is the only
way to deal with such a case; so I have asked Holmes to take it up. He
is very careful and trustworthy, and has plenty of strength. I wish
all the sixth had as much. We must have it here, if we are to keep
order at all."
Now, I don't want any wiseacres[38] to read this book; but if they
should, of course they will prick up their long ears, and howl, or
rather bray, at the above story. Very good, I don't object; but what
I have to add for you boys is this, that Holmes called a levy of his
house after breakfast next morning, made them a speech on the case
of bullying in question, and then gave the bully a "good sound
thrashing"; and that years afterward, that boy sought out Holmes and
thanked him, saying it had been the kindest act which had ever been
done to him, and the turning-point in his character; and a very good
fellow he became, and a credit to his School.
[38] #Wiseacres#: those who make undue pretentions to wisdom.
After some other talk between them, the Doctor said, "I want to speak
to you about two boys in your form, East and Brown; I have just been
speaking to them. What do you think of them?"
"Well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless and full of
spirits--but I can't help liking them. I think they are sound good
fellows at the bottom."
"I am glad of it. I think so, too. But they make me very uneasy. They
are taking the lead a good deal amongst the fags in my house, for they
are very active, bold fellows. I should be sorry to lose them, but I
sha'n't let them stay if I don't see them gaining character and
manliness. In another year they may do great harm to all the younger
boys."
"Oh, I hope you won't send them away," pleaded their master.
"Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after any
half-holiday, that I sha'n't have to flog one of them next morning,
for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite dread seeing either of
them."
They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doctor began
again:--
"They don't feel that they have any duty or work to do in the School,
and how is one to make them feel it?"
"I think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, it
would steady him. Brown is the more reckless of the two, I should say;
East wouldn't get into so many scrapes without him."
"Well," said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, "I'll think of
it." And they went on to talk of other subjects.
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS.
_PART II._
"I hold it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
_Tennyson's_ "_In Memoriam._"
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE TIDE TURNED.
"Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide.
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil
side.
* * * * *
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands
aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified."
_Lowell._
The turning-point in our hero's school career had now come, and the
manner of it was as follows: On the evening of the first day of the
next half-year, Tom, East, and another School-house boy, who had just
been dropped at the Spread Eagle by the old Regulator, rushed into the
matron's room in high spirits, such as all real boys are in when they
first get back, however fond they may be of home.
"Well, Mrs. Wixie," shouted one, seizing on the methodical, active
little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stowing away the linen of the
boys who had already arrived into their several pigeon-holes, "here we
are again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let us help you put the things
away."
WHO'S COME BACK?
"And, Mary," cried another (she was called indifferently by either
name), "who's come back? Has the Doctor made old Jones leave? How many
new boys are there?"
"Am I and East to have Gray's study? You know you promised to get it
for us if you could," shouted Tom.
"And am I to sleep in Number 4?" roared East.
"How's old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally?"
"Bless the boys!" cried Mary, at last getting in a word, "Why, you'll
shake me to death. There, now do go away up to the housekeeper's room
and get your suppers; you know I haven't time to talk--you'll find
plenty more in the house. Now, Master East, do let those things
alone--you're mixing up three new boys' things." And she rushed at
East, who escaped round the open trunks holding up a prize.
"Hullo, look here, Tommy," shouted he, "here's fun!" and he brandished
above his head some pretty little nightcaps, beautifully made and
marked, the work of loving fingers in some distant country home. The
kind mother and sisters, who sewed that delicate stitching with aching
hearts, little thought of the trouble they might be bringing on the
young head for which they were meant. The little matron was wiser, and
snatched the caps from East before he could look at the name on them.
"Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if you don't go," said she;
"there is some capital cold beef and pickles up stairs, and I won't
have you old boys in my room first night."
"Hurrah for the pickles! Come along, Tommy; come along, Smith. We
shall find out who the young count is, I'll be bound; I hope he'll
sleep in my room. Mary's always vicious first week."
THE SADDLE IS PUT ON TOM.
As the boys turned to leave the room, the matron touched Tom's arm,
and said, "Master Brown, please stop a minute, I want to speak to
you."
"Very well, Mary. I'll come in a minute; East, don't finish the
pickles--"
"Oh, Master Brown," went on the little matron, when the rest had gone,
"you're to have Gray's study, Mrs. Arnold says. And she wants you to
take in this young gentleman. He's a new boy, and thirteen years old,
though he doesn't look it. He's very delicate, and has never been from
home before. And I told Mrs. Arnold I thought you'd be kind to him,
and see that they don't bully him at first. He's put into your form,
and I've given him the bed next to yours in Number 4; so East can't
sleep there this half."
Tom was rather put about by this speech. He had got the double study
which he coveted, but here were conditions attached which greatly
moderated his joy. He looked across the room, and in the far corner of
the sofa was aware of a slight pale boy, with large blue eyes and
light fair hair, who seemed ready to shrink through the floor. He saw
at a glance that the little stranger was just the boy whose first
half-year at a public school would be misery to himself if he were
left alone, or constant anxiety to any one who meant to see him
through his troubles. Tom was too honest to take in the youngster and
then let him shift for himself; and if he took him as his chum instead
of East, where were all his pet plans of making night-lines and
slings, and plotting expeditions to Brownsover Mills and Caldecott's
Spinney? East and he had made up their minds to get this study, and
then every night from locking-up till ten they would be together to
talk about fishing, read Marryat's novels,[1] and sort birds' eggs.
And this new boy would most likely never go out of the close, and
would be afraid of wet feet, and always getting laughed at, and called
Molly, or Jenny, or some derogatory[2] feminine nickname.
[1] #Marryat's novels#: stories of the sea and of adventure,
by Captain Marryat.
[2] #Derogatory#: here, contemptuous; belittling.
The matron watched him for a moment, and saw what was passing in his
mind, and so, like a wise negotiator, threw in an appeal to his warm
heart. "Poor little fellow," said she, in almost a whisper, "his
father's dead, and he's got no brothers. And his mamma, such a kind,
sweet lady, almost broke her heart at leaving him this morning; and
she said one of his sisters was like to die of decline, and so--"
"Well, well," burst in Tom, with something like a sigh at the effort.
"I suppose I must give up East. Come along, young un. What's your
name? We'll go and have some supper and then I'll show you our study."
"His name's George Arthur," said the matron, walking up to him with
Tom, who grasped his little delicate hand as the proper preliminary to
making a chum of him, and felt as if he could have blown him away.
"I've had his books and things put into the study, which his mamma has
had new papered, and the sofa covered, and new green-baize curtains
over the door." (The diplomatic matron threw this in, to show that the
new boy was contributing largely to the partnership comforts.) "And
Mrs. Arnold told me to say," she added, "that she should like you both
to come up to tea with her. You know the way, Master Brown, and the
things are just gone up, I know."
TEA WITH THE DOCTOR.
Here was an announcement for Master Tom! He was to go up to tea the
first night, just as if he were a sixth or fifth form boy, and of
importance in the school world, instead of the most reckless young
scapegrace amongst the fags. He felt himself lifted on to a higher
social and moral platform at once. Nevertheless, he couldn't give up
without a sigh the idea of the jolly supper in the housekeeper's room
with East and the rest, and a rush round to all the studies of his
friends afterward, to pour out the deeds and wonders of the holidays,
to plot fifty plans for the coming half-year, and to gather news of
who had left, and what new boys had come, who had got who's study, and
where the new praepostors slept. However, Tom consoled himself with
thinking that he couldn't have done all this with the new boy at his
heels, and so marched off along the passages to the Doctor's private
house with his young charge in tow, in monstrous good humor with
himself and all the world.
It is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell how the two young
boys were received in that drawing-room. The lady who presided there
is still living, and has carried with her to her peaceful home in the
North the respect and love of all those who ever felt and shared that
gentle and high-bred hospitality. Ay, many is the brave heart now
doing its work and bearing its load in country curacies, London
chambers, under the Indian sun, and in Australian towns and clearings,
which looks back with fond and grateful memory to that School-house
drawing-room, and dates much of its highest and best training to the
lessons learnt there.
Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder children, there were
one of the young masters, young Brooke, who was now in the sixth, and
had succeeded to his brother's position and influence, and another
sixth-form boy, talking together before the fire. The master and young
Brooke, now a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years
old, and powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom, to his
intense glory, and then went on talking; the other did not notice
them. The hostess, after a few kind words, which led the boys at once
and insensibly to feel at their ease, and to begin talking to one
another, left them with her own children while she finished a letter.
The young ones got on fast and well, Tom holding forth about a
prodigious pony he had been riding out hunting, and hearing stories of
the winter glories of the lakes,[3] when tea came in, and immediately
after the Doctor himself.
[3] #The lakes#: Dr. Arnold and family, during the vacations,
made their home in the lake district in the northwestern part
of England.
How frank, and kind, and manly was his greeting to the party by the
fire! It did Tom's heart good to see him and young Brooke shake hands
and look one another in the face; and he didn't fail to remark that
Brooke was nearly as tall and quite as broad as the Doctor. And his
cup was full, when in another moment his master turned to him with
another warm shake of the hand, and, seemingly oblivious of all the
late scrapes which he had been getting into, said: "Ah, Brown, you
here! I hope you left your father and all well at home?"
"Yes, sir, quite well."
"And this is the little fellow who is to share your study. Well, he
doesn't look as we should like to see him. He wants some Rugby air,
and cricket. And you must take him some good long walks, to Bilton
Grange, and Caldecott's Spinney, and show him what a pretty little
country we have about here."
Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his visits to Bilton Grange were
for the purpose of taking rooks' nests (a proceeding strongly
discountenanced by the owner thereof), and those to Caldecott's
Spinney were prompted chiefly by the conveniences for setting
night-lines. What didn't the Doctor know? And what a noble use he
always made of it! He almost resolved to abjure rookpies and
night-lines forever. The tea went merrily off, the Doctor now talking
of holiday doings, and then of the prospects of the half-year, what
chance there was for the Balliol scholarship, whether the eleven[4]
would be a good one. Everybody was at his ease, and everybody felt
that he, young as he might be, was of some use in the little
school-world, and had a work to do there.
[4] #The eleven#: the number of players selected by a club to
play a cricket match.
Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, and the young boys a
few minutes afterward took their leave, and went out of the private
door which led from the Doctor's house into the middle passage.
ARTHUR'S DEBUT.
At the fire, at the further end of the passage, was a crowd of boys in
loud talk and laughter. There was a sudden pause when the door opened,
and then a great shout of greeting as Tom was recognized marching down
the passage.
"Hullo, Brown, where do you come from?"
"Oh, I've been to tea with the Doctor," says Tom, with great dignity.
"My eye!" cried East. "Oh, so that's why Mary called you back; and you
didn't come to supper. You lost something,--that beef and pickles was
no end good."
"I say, young fellow," cried Hall, detecting Arthur, and catching him
by the collar, "what's your name? Where do you come from? How old are
you?"
Tom saw Arthur shrink back, and look scared as all the group turned to
him, but thought it best to let him answer, just standing by his side
to support in case of need.
"Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire."
"Don't call me 'sir,' you young muff. How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"Can you sing?"
The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. Tom struck in--"You be
hanged, Tadpole. He'll have to sing, whether he can or not, Saturday
twelve weeks, and that's long enough off yet."
"Do you know him at home, Brown?"
"No; but he's my chum in Gray's old study, and it's near prayer-time,
and I haven't had a look at it yet. Come along, Arthur."
Away went the two, Tom longing to get his charge safe under cover,
where he might advise him on his deportment.
"What a queer chum for Tom Brown," was the comment at the fire; and it
must be confessed so thought Tom himself, as he lighted his candle,
and surveyed the new green-baize curtains and the carpet and sofa with
much satisfaction.
"I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us so cozy! But
look here now; you must answer straight up when the fellows speak to
you, and don't be afraid. If you're afraid, you'll get bullied. And
don't you say you can sing; and don't you ever talk about home, or
your mother and sisters."
Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry.
"But please," said he, "mayn't I talk about--about home to you?"
"Oh, yes, I like it. But don't talk to boys you don't know, or they'll
call you home-sick, or mamma's darling, or some such stuff. What a
jolly desk! is that your's? And what stunning binding! why, your
school-books look like novels."
And Tom was soon deep in Arthur's goods and chattels, all new and good
enough for a fifth-form boy, and hardly thought of his friends outside
till the prayer-bell rang.
I have already described the School-house prayers; they were the same
on the first night as on the other nights, save for the gaps caused by
the absence of those boys who came late, and the line of new boys who
stood altogether at the further table,--of all sorts and sizes, like
young bears with all their trouble to come, as Tom's father had said
to him when he was in the same position. He thought of it as he looked
at the line, and poor little slight Arthur standing with them, and as
he was leading him up-stairs to Number 4, directly after prayers, and
showing him his bed. It was a huge, high, airy room, with two large
windows looking on to the School close. There were twelve beds in the
room; the one in the furthest corner by the fire-place occupied by the
sixth-form boy who was responsible for the discipline of the room, and
the rest by boys in the lower fifth and other junior forms, all fags
(for the fifth-form boys, as has been said, slept in rooms by
themselves). Being fags, the eldest of them was not more than about
sixteen years old, and were all bound to be up and in bed by ten; the
sixth-form boys came to bed from ten to a quarter-past (at which time
the old verger came round to put the candles out), except when they
sat up to read.
LESSON NO. 1.
Within a few minutes, therefore, of their entry, all the other boys
who slept in Number 4 had come up. The little fellows went quietly to
their own beds, and began undressing and talking to each other in
whispers; while the elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on
one another's beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little
Arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. The idea of
sleeping in the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his
mind before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could
hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an
effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked at Tom, who was
sitting at the bottom of his bed talking and laughing.
"Please, Brown," he whispered, "may I wash my face and hands?"
"Of course, if you like," said Tom, staring; "that's your
washhand-stand under the window, second from your bed. You'll have to
go down for more water in the morning if you use it all." And on he
went with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly from between the beds
out to his washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby drawing
for a moment on himself the attention of the room.
On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his washing and
undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then looked round more
nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in
bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light burned
clear, the noise went on. It was a trying moment for the poor little
lonely boy; however, this time he didn't ask Tom what he might or
might not do, but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had done
every day from his childhood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the
cry and beareth the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man in
agony.
Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that
his back was toward Arthur, and he didn't see what had happened, and
looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three boys
laughed and sneered, and a big brutal fellow, who was standing in the
middle of the room, picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling
boy, calling him a snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole and
the next moment the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the
head of the bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it
on his elbow.
"Confound you, Brown, what's that for?" roared he, stamping with pain.
"Never mind what I mean," said Tom, stepping on to the floor, every
drop of blood in his body tingling; "if any fellow wants the other
boot, he knows how to get it."
What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the
sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. Tom and
the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the
old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in
another minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting their door
with his usual "Goodnight, gen'lm'n."
There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken
to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the
pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood of
memories which chased one another through his brain, kept him from
thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, his heart leaped, and he
could hardly keep himself from springing out of bed and rushing about
the room. Then the thought of his own mother came across him, and the
promise he had made at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel
by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his
head on the pillow, from which it might never rise; and he lay down
gently and cried as if his heart would break. He was only fourteen
years old.
It was no light act of courage in those days, my dear boys, for a
little fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A few years
later, when Arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the school, the
tables turned; before he died, in the School-house at least, and I
believe in the other house, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom
had come to school in other times. The first few nights after he came
he did not kneel down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the
candle was out, and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest
some one should find him out. So did many another poor little fellow.
Then he began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in
bed, and then that it didn't matter whether he was kneeling, or
sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to pass with Tom, as with
all who will not confess their Lord before men; and for the last year
he had probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen times.
Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his
heart was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice of all others which
he loathed was brought in and burned in on his own soul. He had lied
to his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it?
And then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost
scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was,
dared not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in swearing to
himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and
cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done
that night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell his
mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace came to
him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The
morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that
he could not afford to let one chance slip. Several times he faltered,
for the devil showed him first all his old friends calling him "Saint"
and "Square-toes," and a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that
his motives would be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone
with the new boy; whereas it was his duty to keep all means of
influence, that he might do good to the largest number. And then came
the more subtle temptation, "Shall I not be showing myself braver than
others by doing this? Have I any right to begin it now? Ought I not
rather to pray in my own study, letting other boys know that I do so,
and trying to lead them to do it, while in public at least I should go
on as I have done?" However, his good angel was too strong that night,
and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but
resolved to follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in which
he had found peace.
TOM LEARNS HIS LESSON.
Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and
waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in
the face of the whole room knelt down to pray. Not five words could he
say--the bell mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in the
room--what were they all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on
kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his
inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of
the publican,[5] "God be merciful to me a sinner!" He repeated them
over and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose from his
knees comforted and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. It was
not needed; two other boys besides Arthur had already followed his
example, and he went down to the Great School with a glimmering of
another lesson in his heart,--the lesson that he who has conquered his
own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world; and that
other one which the old prophet learnt in the cave in Mount Horeb,
when he hid his face, and the still small voice asked: "What doest
thou here, Elijah?"[6] that however we may fancy ourselves alone on
the side of good, the King and Lord of men is nowhere without his
witnesses; for in every society, however seemingly corrupt and
godless, there are those who have not bowed the knee to Baal.[7]
[5] #Publican#: here, a revenue or tax collector. See Luke
xviii. 13.
[6] #Elijah#: see 1 Kings xix. 9.
[7] #Baal#: an idol; hence any great wickedness.
He found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be
produced by his act. For a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh
when he knelt down, but this passed off soon, and one by one all the
other boys but three or four followed the lead. I fear that this was
in some measure due to the fact that Tom could probably have thrashed
any boy in the room except the praepostor; at any rate, every boy knew
that he would try upon very slight provocation, and didn't choose to
run the risk of a hard fight because Tom Brown had taken a fancy to
say his prayers. Some of the small boys of Number 4 communicated the
new state of things to their chums, and in several other rooms the
poor little fellows tried it on; in one instance or so, where the
praepostor heard of it and interfered very decidedly, with partial
success; but in the rest, after a short struggle, the confessors were
bullied or laughed down, and the old state of things went on for some
time longer. Before either Tom Brown or Arthur left the School-house,
there was no room in which it had not become the regular custom. I
trust it is so still, and that the old heathen state of things has
gone out forever.
CHAPTER II.
THE NEW BOY.
"And Heaven's rich instincts in him grew,
As effortless as woodland nooks
Send violets up and paint them blue."--_Lowell._
TOM'S RESPONSIBILITIES.
I do not mean to recount all the little troubles and annoyances which
thronged upon Tom at the beginning of this half-year, in his new
character of bear-leader to a gentle little boy straight from home.
He seemed to himself to have become a new boy again, without any of
the long-suffering and meekness indispensable for supporting that
character with moderate success. From morning till night he had the
feeling of responsibility on his mind; and, even if he left Arthur in
their study or in the close for an hour, was never at ease till he had
him in sight again. He waited for him at the doors of the school after
every lesson and every calling-over; watched that no tricks were
played him and none but the regulation questions asked; kept his
eye on his plate at dinner and breakfast, to see that no unfair
depredations were made upon his viands; in short, as East remarked,
cackled after him like a hen with one chick.
Arthur took a long time thawing, too, which made it all the harder
work; was sadly timid; scarcely ever spoke unless Tom spoke to him
first; and, worst of all, would agree with him in everything, the
hardest thing in the world for a Brown to bear. He got quite angry
sometimes, as they sat together of a night in their study, at this
provoking habit of agreement, and was on the point of breaking out a
dozen times with a lecture upon the propriety of a fellow having a
will of his own and speaking out, but managed to restrain himself by
the thought that he might only frighten Arthur, and the remembrance of
the lesson he had learnt from him on his first night at Number 4. Then
he would resolve to sit still, and not say a word till Arthur began;
but he was always beat at that game, and had presently to begin
talking in despair, fearing lest Arthur might think he was vexed at
something if he didn't, and dog-tired of sitting tongue-tied.
It was hard work! But Tom had taken it up, and meant to stick to it,
and go through with it, so as to satisfy himself; in which resolution
he was much assisted by the chaffing of East and his other friends,
who began to call him "dry-nurse," and otherwise to break their small
wit on him. But when they took other ground, as they did every now and
then, Tom was sorely puzzled.
EAST'S ADVICE.
"Tell you what, Tommy," East would say, "you'll spoil young Hopeful
with too much coddling. Why can't you let him go about by himself, and
find his own level? He'll never be worth a button, if you go on
keeping him under your skirts."
"Well, but he isn't fit to fight his own way yet; I'm trying to get
him to do it every day--but he's very odd. Poor little beggar! I can't
make him out a bit. He isn't a bit like anything I've ever seen or
heard of--he seems all over nerves; anything you say seems to hurt him
like a cut or a blow."
"That sort of boy's no use here," said East; "he'll only spoil. Now,
I'll tell you what to do, Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box
made, and put him in with plenty of cotton-wool, and a pap-bottle,[1]
labelled 'with care--this side up,' and send him back to mamma."
[1] #Pap-bottle#: a nursing-bottle.
"I think I shall make a hand of him, though," said Tom, smiling, "say
what you will. There's something about him, every now and then, which
shows me he's got pluck somewhere in him. That's the only thing, after
all, that'll wash,[2] isn't it, old Scud? But how to get at it and
bring it out?"
[2] #Wash#: stand; hold its colors.
Tom took one hand out of his breeches' pocket and stuck it in his back
hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one
method of invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously
puzzled look, and presently looked up and met East's eyes. That young
gentleman slapped him on the back, and then put his arm around his
shoulders, as they strolled through the quadrangle together. "Tom,"
said he, "blest if you aren't the best old fellow ever was--I do like
to see you go into a thing. Hang it, I wish I could take things as you
do, but I never can get higher than a joke. Everything's a joke. If I
was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk,[3]
but I couldn't help laughing at it for the life of me."
[3] #In a blue funk#: horribly frightened.
"Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great fives'-court."
"Hullo, though, that's past a joke," broke out East, springing at the
young gentleman who addressed them, and catching him by the collar.
"Here, Tommy, catch hold of him t'other side before he can holla."
AN EPISODE.
The youth was seized, and dragged struggling out of the quadrangle
into the School-house hall. He was one of the miserable little pretty,
white-handed, curly-headed boys, petted and pampered by some of the
big fellows, who wrote their verses for them, taught them to drink,
and use bad language, and did all they could to spoil them for
everything in this world and the next. One of the avocations in which
these young gentlemen took particular delight was in going about and
getting fags for their protectors, when those heroes were playing any
game. They carried about pencil and paper with them, putting down the
names of all the boys they sent, always sending five times as many as
were wanted, and getting all those thrashed who didn't go. The present
youth belonged to a house which was very jealous of the School-house,
and always picked out School-house fags when he could find them.
However, this time he'd got the wrong pig by the ear. His captors
slammed the great door of the hall, and East put his back against it,
while Tom gave the prisoner a shake-up, took away his list, and stood
him up on the floor, while he proceeded leisurely to examine that
document.
"Let me out! let me go!" screamed the boy in a furious passion. "I'll
go and tell Jones this minute, and he'll give you both the biggest
thrashing you ever had."
"Pretty little dear," said East, patting the top of his hat; "listen
to him, Tom. Nicely brought-up young man, isn't he, though?"
"Let me alone----you," roared the boy, foaming with rage, and kicking
at East, who quietly tripped him up, and deposited him on the floor in
a place of safety.
"Gently, young fellow," said he, "'tisn't improving for little
whippersnappers like you to be indulging in such language; so you stop
that, or you'll get something you won't like."
"I'll have you both licked when I get out, that I will," rejoined the
boy, beginning to snivel.
"Two can play at that game, mind you," said Tom, who had finished his
examination of the list. "Now you just listen here. We've just come
across the fives'-court, and Jones has four fags there already, two
more than he wants. If he'd wanted us to change, he'd have stopped us
himself. And here, you little blackguard, you've got seven names down
on your list besides ours, and five of them School-house." Tom walked
up to him and jerked him on to his legs; he was by this time whining
like a whipped puppy.
"Now just listen to me. We aren't going to fag for Jones. If you tell
him you've sent us, we'll each of us give you such a thrashing as
you'll remember." And Tom tore up the list and threw the pieces into
the fire.
"And mind you, too," said East, "don't let me catch you again sneaking
about the School-house, and picking up our fags. You haven't got the
sort of hide to take a sound licking kindly;" and he opened the door
and sent the young gentleman flying into the quadrangle, with a
parting kick.
"Nice boy, Tommy," said East, shoving his hands into his pockets and
strolling to the fire.
"Worst sort we breed," responded Tom, following his example. "Thank
goodness no big fellow ever took to petting me."
"You'd never have been like that," said East. "I should like to have
put him in a museum: Christian young gentleman, nineteenth century,
highly educated. Stir him up with a long pole, Jack, and hear him
swear like a drunken sailor! He'd make a respectable public open its
eyes, I think."
"Think he'll tell Jones?" said Tom.
"No," said East. "Don't care if he does."
"Nor I," said Tom; and they went back to talk about Arthur.
The young gentleman had brains enough not to tell Jones, reasoning
that East and Brown, who were noted as some of the toughest fags in
the school, wouldn't care three straws for any licking Jones might
give them, and would be likely to keep their words as to passing it on
with interest.
LESSON NO. 2.
After the above conversation, East came a good deal to their study,
and took notice of Arthur; and soon allowed to Tom that he was a
thorough little gentleman, and would get over his shyness all in good
time; which much comforted our hero. He felt every day, too, the value
of having an object in his life, something that drew him out of
himself; and, it being the dull time of the year, and no games going
about which he much cared, was happier than he had ever yet been at
school, which was saying a great deal.
The time which Tom allowed himself away from his charge was from
locking-up till supper-time. During this hour or hour and a half he
used to take his fling, going round to the studies of all his
acquaintance, sparring or gossiping in the hall, now jumping the old
iron-bound tables, or carving a bit of his name on them, then joining
in some chorus of merry voices; in fact, blowing off his steam, as we
should now call it.
This process was so congenial[4] to his temper, and Arthur showed
himself so pleased at the arrangement, that it was several weeks
before Tom was ever in their study before supper. One evening,
however, he rushed in to look for an old chisel, or some corks, or
other article essential to his pursuit for the time being, and, while
rummaging about in the cupboards, looked up for a moment, and was
caught at once by the figure of poor little Arthur. The boy was
sitting with his elbows on the table, and his head leaning on his
hands, and before him an open book, on which his tears were falling
fast. Tom shut the door at once, and sat down on the sofa by Arthur,
putting his arm round his neck.
[4] #Congenial#: agreeable.
"Why, young un! what's the matter?" said he, kindly. "You aren't
unhappy, are you?"
"Oh, no, Brown," said the little boy, looking up with great tears in
his eyes; "you are so kind to me, I'm very happy."
"Why don't you call me Tom? lots of boys do that I don't like half so
much as I do you. What are you reading, then? Hang it, you must come
about with me, and not mope yourself," and Tom cast down his eyes on
the book, and saw it was the Bible. He was silent for a minute, and
thought to himself, "Lesson Number 2, Tom Brown;" and said, gently:--
"I'm very glad to see this, Arthur, and ashamed that I don't read the
Bible more myself. Do you read it every night before supper, while I'm
out?"
"Yes."
"Well, I wish you'd wait till afterward, and then we'd read together.
But, Arthur, why does it make you cry?"
"Oh, it isn't that I'm unhappy. But at home, while my father was
alive, we always read the lessons[5] after tea; and I love to read
them over now, and try to remember what he said about them. I can't
remember all, and I think I scarcely understand a great deal of what I
do remember. But it all comes back to me so fresh that I can't help
crying sometimes to think that I shall never read them again with
him."
[5] #Lessons#: here, portions of Scripture.
ARTHUR'S HOME.
Arthur had never spoken of his home before, and Tom hadn't encouraged
him to do so, as his blundering schoolboy reasoning made him think
that Arthur would be softened and less manly for thinking of home. But
now he was fairly interested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled
beer; while with very little encouragement Arthur launched into his
home history, and the prayer-bell put them both out sadly when it rang
to call them to the hall.
From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, and, above all, of
his father, who had been dead about a year, and whose memory Tom soon
got to love and reverence almost as much as his own son did.
Arthur's father had been the clergyman of a parish in the Midland
Counties,[6] which had risen into a large town during the war,[7] and
upon which the hard years which followed had fallen with fearful
weight. The trade had been half ruined; and then came the old sad
story of masters reducing their establishments, men turned off, and
wandering about, hungry and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the
thought of wives and children starving at home, and the last sticks of
furniture going to the pawnshop: children taken from school, and
lounging about the dirty streets and courts,[8] too listless almost to
play, and squalid in rags and misery. And then the fearful struggle
between the employers and men; lowerings of wages, strikes, and the
long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a
riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry.[9] There is no need here to
dwell upon such tales; the Englishman into whose soul they have not
sunk deep is not worthy the name; you English boys for whom this book
is meant (God bless your bright faces and kind hearts!) will learn it
all soon enough.
[6] #Midland Counties#: the central counties.
[7] #The war#: probably the war against Napoleon.
[8] #Courts#: places; short streets closed at one end.
[9] #County yeomanry#: that is, with the calling out of the
militia of the county to quell the riots.
Into such a parish and state of society Arthur's father had been
thrown at the age of twenty-five, a young married parson, full of
faith, hope and love. He had battled with it like a man, and had
lots of fine Utopian[10] ideas about the perfectibility of mankind,
glorious humanity and such-like knocked out of his head: and a real
wholesome Christian love for the poor, struggling, sinning men, of
whom he felt himself one, and with and for whom he spent fortune, and
strength and life, driven into his heart. He had battled like a man,
and gotten a man's reward. No silver teapots or salvers,[11] with
flowery inscriptions, setting forth his virtues and the appreciation
of a genteel parish; no fat living or stall,[12] for which he never
looked, and didn't care; no sighs and praises of comfortable
dowagers[13] and well got-up young women who worked him slippers,
sugared his tea, and adored him as "a devoted man"; but a manly
respect, wrung from the unwilling souls of men who fancied his order
their natural enemies; the fear and hatred of every one who was false
or unjust in the district, were he master or man; and the blessed
sight of women and children daily becoming more human and more
homely,[14] a comfort to themselves and to their husbands and fathers.
[10] #Utopian#: fanciful.
[11] #Salver#: a tray.
[12] #Fat living or stall#: a high-salaried parish; stall: an
office in the church.
[13] #Dowager#: the widow of a person of wealth and rank.
[14] #Homely#: fond of home; domestic.
These things of course took time, and had to be fought for with toil
and sweat of brain and heart, and with the life-blood poured out. All
that, Arthur[15] had laid his account to give, and took as a matter of
course; neither pitying himself, nor looking on himself as a martyr,
when he felt the wear and tear making him feel old before his time,
and the stifling air of fever-dens telling on his health. His wife
seconded him in everything. She had been rather fond of society, and
much admired and run after before her marriage; and the London world
to which she had belonged pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she married
the young clergyman, and went to settle in that smoky hole, Turley, a
very nest of Chartism[16] and Atheism, in a part of the country which
all the decent families had had to leave for years. However, somehow
or other she didn't seem to care. If her husband's living[17] had been
amongst green fields and near pleasant neighbors, she would have liked
it better,--that she never pretended to deny. But there they were; the
air wasn't bad, after all; the people were very good sort of
people,--civil to you if you were civil to them, after the first
brush; and they didn't expect to work miracles, and convert them all
off-hand into model Christians. So he and she went quietly among the
folk, talking to and treating them just as they would have done people
of their own rank. They didn't feel that they were doing anything out
of the common way, and so were perfectly natural and had none of that
condescension or consciousness of manner which so out-rages the
independent poor. And thus they gradually won respect and confidence;
and after sixteen years he was looked up to by the whole neighborhood
as _the_ just man, _the_ man to whom masters and men could go in their
strikes, and in all their quarrels and difficulties, and by whom the
right and true word would be said without fear or favor. And the women
had come round to take her advice, and go to her as a friend in all
their troubles, while all the children worshipped the ground she trod
on.
[15] #Arthur#: here, young Arthur's father.
[16] #Chartism#: the principles of a political party which
demanded universal suffrage and other radical reforms. The
chartists were regarded much as the anarchists are now.
[17] #Living#: parish.
They had three children, two daughters and a son, little Arthur, who
came between his sisters. He had been a very delicate boy from his
childhood; they thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so
he had been kept at home and taught by his father, who had made a
companion of him, and from whom he had gained good scholarship, and a
knowledge of, and an interest in, many subjects which boys in general
never come across till they are many years older.
Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had settled
that he was strong enough to go to school; and, after much debating
with himself, had resolved to send him there, a desperate fever broke
out in the town; most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors,
ran away; the work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to
their work. Arthur and his wife both caught the fever, of which he
died in a few days, and she recovered, having been able to nurse him
to the end, and store up his last words. He was sensible to the last,
and calm and happy, leaving his wife and children with fearless trust
for a few years in the hands of the Lord and Friend who had lived and
died for him, and for whom he, to the best of his power, had lived and
died. His widow's mourning was deep and gentle; she was more affected
by the request of the Committee of a Free-thinking club, established
in the town by some of the factory hands (which he had striven against
with might and main, and nearly suppressed), that some of their number
might be allowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything else. Two
of them were chosen, who with six laboring men, his own fellow-workmen
and friends, bore him to his grave,--a man who had fought the Lord's
fight even unto the death. The shops were closed and the factories
shut that day in the parish, yet no master stopped the day's wages;
but for many a year afterward the towns-folk felt the want of that
brave, hopeful, loving parson, and his wife, who had lived to teach
them mutual forbearance and helpfulness, and had _almost_ at last
given them a glimpse of what this old world would be, if people would
live for God and each other, instead of for themselves.
What has all this to do with our story? Well, my dear boys, let a
fellow go on in his own way, or you won't get anything out of him
worth having. I must show you what sort of a man it was who had
brought up little Arthur, or else you won't believe in him, which
I am resolved you shall do; and you won't see how he, the timid,
weak boy, had points in him from which the bravest and strongest
recoiled, and made his presence and example felt from the first on
all sides, unconsciously to himself, and without the least attempt at
proselytizing.[18] The spirit of his father was in him, and the Friend
to which his father had left him did not neglect the trust.
[18] #Proselytizing#: converting to one's particular opinions.
RESULTS OF LESSON NO. 2.
After supper that night, and almost nightly for years afterwards, Tom
and Arthur, and by degrees East occasionally, and sometimes one,
sometimes another of their friends, read a chapter of the Bible
together, and talked it over afterwards. Tom was at first utterly
astonished, and almost shocked, at the sort of way in which Arthur
read the book, and talked about the men and women whose lives were
there told. The first night they happened to fall on the chapters
about the famine in Egypt,[19] and Arthur began talking about
Joseph[20] as if he were a living statesman; just as he might have
talked about Lord Grey and the Reform Bill;[21] only that they were
much more living realities to him. The book was to him, Tom saw, the
most vivid and delightful history of real people, who might do right
or wrong, just like any one who was walking about in Rugby,--the
Doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. But the astonishment
soon passed off, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book
became at once and forever to him the great human and divine book, and
the men and women, whom he had looked upon as something quite
different from himself, became his friends and counsellors.
[19] See Genesis xli.
[20] See Genesis xxxvii.
[21] #Lord Grey#: he introduced a famous bill for
parliamentary reform which was passed in 1832.
TOM IS STIFF-NECKED.
For our purposes, however, the history of one night's reading will be
sufficient, which must be told here, now we are on the subject, though
it didn't happen till a year afterwards, and long after the events
recorded in the next chapter of our story.
Arthur, Tom, and East were together one night, and read the story of
Naaman coming to Elisha to be cured of his leprosy.[22] When the
chapter was finished, Tom shut his Bible with a slap.
[22] See 2 Kings, Chapter V.
"I can't stand that fellow Naaman," said he, "after what he'd seen and
felt, going back and bowing himself down in the house of Rimmon,
because his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. I wonder Elisha
took the trouble to heal him. How he must have despised him!"
"Yes, there you go off as usual; with a shell on your head," struck in
East, who always took the opposite side to Tom; half from love of
argument, half from conviction. "How do you know he didn't think
better of it? how do you know his master was a scoundrel? His letter
doesn't look like it, and the book doesn't say so."
"I don't care," rejoined Tom; "why did Naaman talk about bowing down,
then, if he didn't mean to do it? He wasn't likely to get more in
earnest when he got back to court and away from the prophet."
"Well, but Tom," said Arthur, "look what Elisha says to him: 'Go in
peace.' He wouldn't have said that if Naaman had been in the wrong."
"I don't see that that means more than saying: 'You're not the man I
took you for.'"
"No, no, that won't do at all," said East; "read the words fairly, and
take men as you find them. I like Naaman, and think he was a very fine
fellow."
"I don't," said Tom, positively.
"Well I think East is right," said Arthur; "I can't see but what it's
right to do the best you can, though it mayn't be the best absolutely.
Every man isn't born to be a martyr."
"Of course, of course," said East; "but he's on one of his pet
hobbies. How often have I told you, Tom, that you must drive a nail
where it'll go."
"And how often have I told you," rejoined Tom, "that it'll always go
where you want, if you only stick to it and hit hard enough. I hate
half measures and compromises."
"Yes, he's a whole hog man, is Tom. Must have the whole animal, hair
and teeth, claws and tail," laughed East. "Sooner have no bread, any
day, than half the loaf."
"I don't know," said Arthur; "it's rather puzzling; but aren't most
right things got by proper compromises? I mean where the principle
isn't given up."
THE BROWN COMPROMISE.
"That's just the point," said Tom; "I don't object to a compromise
where you don't give up your principle."
"Not you," said East, laughingly. "I know him of old, Arthur, and
you'll find him out some day. There isn't such a reasonable fellow in
the world, to hear him talk. He never wants anything but what's right
and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's
everything that he wants, and nothing that you want. And that's his
idea of a compromise. Give me the Brown compromise when I'm on his
side."
"Now, Harry," said Tom, "no more chaff--I'm serious. Look here--this
is what makes my blood tingle;" and he turned over the pages of his
Bible and read: "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to
the king, O Nebuchadnezzar,[23] we are not careful to answer thee in
this matter. If it _be_ so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver
us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine
hand, O king. But _if not_, be it known unto thee, O king, that we
will _not_ serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou
hast set up." He read the last verse twice, emphasizing the _nots_,
and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual pleasure, and were
hard to part with.
[23] See Daniel iii.
They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said: "Yes, that's a
glorious story, but it doesn't prove your point, Tom, I think. There
are times when there is only one way, and that the highest; and then
the men are found to stand in the breach."
"There's always a highest way, and it's always the right one," said
Tom. "How many times has the Doctor told us that in his sermons in the
last year, I should like to know?"
"Well, you aren't going to convince us, is he, Arthur? No Brown
compromise to-night," said East, looking at his watch. "But it's past
eight, and we must go to first lesson. What a bore!"
So they took down their books and fell to work; but Arthur didn't
forget, and thought long and often over the conversation.
CHAPTER III.
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND.
"Let Nature be your teacher:
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect--
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."--_Wordsworth._
TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER.
About six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom and Arthur
were sitting one night before supper beginning their verses, Arthur
suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said: "Tom, do you know anything
of Martin?"
"Yes," said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted
to throw his Gradus ad Parnassum[1] on to the sofa; "I know him pretty
well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He's called
Madman, you know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of
rum[2] things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to
carry them about in his pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some
hedge-hogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one knows what
besides."
[1] #Gradus ad Parnassum#: a dictionary specially designed to
aid pupils in writing Greek and Latin verses.
[2] #Rum#: queer.
"I should like very much to know him," said Arthur; "he was next to me
in the form to-day, and he'd lost his book and looked over mine, and
he seemed so kind and gentle that I liked him very much."
"Ah, poor old Madman, he's always losing his books," said Tom, "and
getting called up and floored because he hasn't got them."
"I like him all the better," said Arthur.
"Well, he's great fun, I can tell you," said Tom, throwing himself
back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. "We had such a
game with him one day last half. He had been trying chemical
experiments and kicking up horrid stenches for some time in his study,
till I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor. Anyhow,
one day, a little before dinner, when he came down from the library,
the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the Hall. East
and I and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously
we stared, for he doesn't come in like that once a year, unless it is
a wet day and there's a fight in the Hall. 'East,' says he, 'just come
and show me Martin's study.' 'Oh, here's a game,' whispered the rest
of us, and we all cut up-stairs after the Doctor, East leading. As we
got into the New Row, which was hardly wide enough to hold the Doctor
and his gown, click, click, click, we heard in the old Madman's den.
Then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts went to like fun; the
Madman knew East's step, and thought there was going to be a siege.
"'It's the Doctor, Martin. He's here, and wants to see you,' sings out
East.
"Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, and there was
the old Madman standing, looking precious scared; his jacket off, his
shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms all covered
with anchors, and arrows, and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like
a sailor-boy's, and a stench fit to knock you down coming out. 'Twas
all the Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East and I, who were
looking in under his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was
standing on the window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and looking
disgusted and half-poisoned.
"'What can you be about, Martin?' says the Doctor; 'you really musn't
go on in this way--you're a nuisance to the whole passage.'
"'Please, sir, I was only mixing up this powder; there isn't any harm
in it;' and the Madman seized nervously on his pestle and mortar,
to show the Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, and went on
pounding; click, click, click. He hadn't given six clicks before,
puff! up went the whole into a great blaze, away went the pestle and
mortar across the study, and back we tumbled into the passage. The
magpie[3] fluttered down into the court, swearing, and the Madman
danced out, howling, with his fingers in his mouth. The Doctor caught
hold of him, and called to us to fetch some water. 'There, you silly
fellow,' said he, quite pleased, though, to find he wasn't much hurt,
'you see you don't know the least what you are doing with all these
things; and now, mind, you must give up practising chemistry by
yourself.' Then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, and I saw
he had to bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled; but he said, quite
gravely, 'Here, you see, you've been making all these foolish marks on
yourself, which you can never get out, and you'll be very sorry for it
in a year or two. Now come down into the housekeeper's room, and let
us see if you are hurt.' And away went the two, and we all stayed and
had a regular turn-out of the den, till Martin came back with his hand
bandaged and turned us out. However, I'll go and see what he's after,
and tell him to come in after prayers to supper." And away went Tom to
find the boy in question, who dwelt in a little study by himself in
New Row.
[3] #Magpie#: a bird which can be taught to speak like the
parrot.
The aforesaid Martin whom Arthur had taken such a fancy for was one of
those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are, I fear,
still) quite out of their places at a public school. If we knew how to
use our boys, Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a
natural philosopher. He had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects,
and knew more of them and their habits than any one in Rugby, except
perhaps the Doctor, who knew everything. He was also an experimental
chemist on a small scale, and had made unto himself an electric
machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to
administer small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to
venture into his study. And this was by no means an adventure free
from excitement; for, besides the probability of a snake dropping on
to your head, or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting into
your breeches' pocket in search of food, there was the animal and
chemical odor to be faced, which always hung about the den, and the
chance of being blown up in some of the many experiments which Martin
was always trying, with the most wonderful results in the shape of
explosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. Of course, poor
Martin, in consequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in
the house. In the first place, he half poisoned all his neighbors, and
they in turn were always on the look-out to pounce upon any of his
numerous live stock and drive him frantic by enticing his pet old
magpie out of his window into a neighboring study, and making the
disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked in beer and sugar. Then
Martin, for his sins, inhabited a study looking into a small court
some ten feet across, the window of which was completely commanded by
those of the studies opposite in the sick-room row, these latter being
at a slightly higher elevation. East and another boy of an equally
tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, and
had expended huge pains and time in the preparation of instruments of
annoyance for the behoof of Martin and his live colony. One morning an
old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord, outside
Martin's window, in which were deposited an amateur nest[4] containing
four young, hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Martin's life for
the time being, and which he was currently asserted to have hatched
upon his own person. Early in the morning and late at night he was to
be seen half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his
callow[5] brood. After deep cogitation,[6] East and his chum had
spliced a knife on to the end of a fishing rod; and having watched
Martin out, had, after half an hour's severe sawing, cut the string by
which the basket was suspended, and tumbled it on to the pavement
below, with hideous remonstrance from the occupants. Poor Martin,
returning from his short absence, collected the fragments and replaced
his brood (except one whose neck had been broken in the descent) in
their old location, suspending them this time by string and wire
twisted together, defiant of any sharp instrument which his
persecutors could command. But, like the Russian engineers at
Sebastopol,[7] East and his chum had an answer for every move of the
adversary; and the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a
pea-shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear
exactly upon the spot which Martin had to occupy while tending his
nurslings. The moment he began to feed, they began to shoot; in vain
did the enemy himself invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavor to answer
the fire while he fed the young birds with his other hand; his
attention was divided, and his shots flew wild, while every one of
theirs told on his face and hands, and drove him into howlings and
imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce[8] the nest in a corner
of his already too well-filled den.
[4] #Amateur nest#: here, a nest made by himself.
[5] #Callow#: unfledged; without feathers.
[6] #Cogitation#: thought.
[7] #Sebastopol#: a fortified town in the Crimea; the scene of
a siege in the Crimean War.
[8] #Ensconce#: to place in a protected place.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEN.
The door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of his own
invention, for the sieges were frequent by the neighbors when any
unusually ambrosial[9] odor spread itself from the den to the
neighboring studies. The door-panels were in a normal[10] state of
smash, but the frame of the door resisted all besiegers, and behind it
the owner carried on his varied pursuits; much in the same state of
mind, I should fancy, as a border-farmer[11] lived in, in the days of
the old moss-troopers,[12] when his hold might be summoned or his
cattle carried off at any minute of night or day.
[9] #Ambrosial#: here, delicious, in an ironical sense.
[10] #Normal#: usual; regular.
[11] #Border-farmer#: one who lived on the border between
Scotland and England.
[12] #Moss-troopers#: so called from the mosses or bogs on the
border; plunderers who infested the border. They sometimes
summoned the farmers to open the doors of their "holds"
(fortified houses), to them.
"Open, Martin, old boy--it's only I, Tom Brown."
"Oh, very well, stop a moment." One bolt went back. "You're sure East
isn't there?"
"No, no, hang it, open." Tom gave a kick, the other bolt creaked, and
he entered the den.
Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long by five wide, and
seven feet high. About six tattered schoolbooks, and a few chemical
books, taxidermy,[13] Stanley on Birds, and an odd volume of
Bewick,[14] the latter in much better preservation, occupied the top
shelves. The other shelves, where they had not been cut away and used
by the owner for other purposes, were fitted up for the abiding-places
of birds, beasts and reptiles. There was no attempt at carpet or
curtain. The table was entirely occupied by the great work of Martin,
the electric machine, which was covered carefully with the remains of
his table-cloths. The jackdaw cage occupied one wall, and the other
was adorned by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing-irons, and his tin
candle-box, in which he was for the time being endeavoring to raise a
hopeful young family of field-mice. As nothing should be let to lie
useless, it was well that the candle-box was thus occupied, for
candles Martin never had. A pound was issued to him weekly as to
the other boys, but as candles were available capital, and easily
exchangeable for birds' eggs or young birds, Martin's pound invariably
found its way in a few hours to Howlett, the bird-fancier's,[15] in
the Bilton road, who could give a hawk's or nightingale's egg or young
linnet in exchange. Martin's ingenuity was therefore forever on the
rack to supply himself with a light; just now he had hit upon a grand
invention, and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton-wick issuing
from a ginger-beer bottle full of some doleful composition. When light
altogether failed him, Martin would loaf about by the fires in the
passages or Hall, after the manner of Diggs, and try to do his verses
or learn his lines by the fire-light.
[13] #Taxidermy#: the art of stuffing the skins of animals.
[14] #Bewick#: an English artist distinguished for wood
engraving. His most famous work was a "History of British
Birds."
[15] #Bird-fancier#: one who keeps birds for sale.
THE INVITATION.
"Well, old boy, you haven't got any sweeter in the den this half. How
that stuff in the bottle smells! Never mind, I'm not going to stop,
but you come up after prayers to our study; you know young Arthur;
we've got Gray's study. We'll have a good supper and talk about birds'
nesting."
Martin was evidently highly pleased at the invitation, and promised to
be up without fail.
As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and fifth form boys had
withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of their own rooms, and the
rest, or democracy, had sat down to their supper in the Hall, Tom and
Arthur, having secured their allowances of bread and cheese, started
on their feet to catch the eye of the praepostor of the week, who
remained in charge during supper, walking up and down the Hall. He
happened to be an easy-going fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to
their "Please may I go out?" and away they scrambled to prepare for
Martin a sumptuous banquet. This, Tom had insisted on, for he was
in great delight on the occasion; the reason of which delight must
be expounded. The fact was that this was the first attempt at a
friendship of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom hailed it as a
grand step. The ease with which he himself became hail-fellow-well-met
with anybody, and blundered into and out of twenty friendships a
half-year, made him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at Arthur's
reserve and loneliness. True, Arthur was always pleasant, and even
jolly, with any boys who came with Tom to their study; but Tom felt
that it was only through him, as it were, that his chum associated
with others, and that but for him Arthur would have been dwelling in a
wilderness. This increased his consciousness of responsibility; and
though he hadn't reasoned it out and made it clear to himself, yet
somehow he knew that this responsibility, this trust which he had
taken on him without thinking about it, head-over-heels in fact, was
the centre and turning-point of his school-life, that which was to
make him or mar him; his appointed work and trial for the time being.
And Tom was becoming a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the
dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily growing
in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and
well-principled boy must, when he finds himself for the first time
consciously at grips with self and the devil. Already he could turn
almost without a sigh from the School-gates, from which had just
scampered off East and three or four others of his own particular set,
bound for some jolly lark not quite according to law, and involving
probably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-laborers, the skipping
dinner or calling-over, over some of Phoebe Jennings' beer and a very
possible flogging at the end of all as a relish. He had quite got over
the stage in which he would grumble to himself; "Well, hang it, it's
very hard of the Doctor to have saddled me with Arthur. Why couldn't
he have chummed him with Fogey, or Tompkin, or any of the fellows who
never do anything but walk round the close, and finish their copies
the first day they're set?" But although all this was past, he longed,
and felt that he was right in longing, for more time for the
legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing and fishing within
bounds, in which Arthur could not yet be his companion; and he felt
that when the young un (as he now generally called him) had found a
pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should be able to give
more time to the education of his own body with a clear conscience.
TOM'S WORK.
And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he almost hailed it
as a special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the reasons he
gave for it--what providences are?) that Arthur should have singled
out Martin of all fellows for a friend. "The old Madman is the very
fellow," thought he; "he will take him scrambling over half the
country after birds' eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and climb
like an Indian, and not teach him a word of anything bad, or keep
him from his lessons. What luck!" And so, with more than his usual
heartiness, he dived into his cupboard and hauled out an old
knucklebone of ham, and two or three bottles of beer, together with
the solemn pewter[16] only used on state occasions; while Arthur,
equally elated at the easy accomplishment of his first act of
volition[17] in the joint establishment, produced from his side a
bottle of pickles and a pot of jam, and cleared the table. In a minute
or two the noise of the boys coining up from supper was heard, and
Martin knocked and was admitted, bearing his bread and cheese, and the
three fell to with hearty good-will upon the viands, talking faster
than they ate, for all shyness disappeared in a moment before Tom's
bottled beer and hospitable ways. "Here's Arthur a regular young
town-mouse, with a natural taste for the woods, Martin, longing to
break his neck climbing trees, and with a passion for young snakes."
[16] #Pewter#: pewter mugs and plates.
[17] #Volition#: will.
THE SUPPER.
"Well, I say," spurted out Martin, eagerly, "will you come to-morrow,
both of you, to Caldecott's Spinney, then? for I know of a kestrel's
nest,[18] up a fir-tree--I can't get at it without help; and Brown,
you can climb against any one."
[18] #Kestrel#: a bird of the hawk kind.
"Oh, yes, do let us go," said Arthur; "I never saw a hawk's nest, nor
a hawk's egg."
"You just come down to my study, then, and I'll show you five sorts,"
said Martin.
"Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection in the house, out and
out," said Tom; and then Martin, warming with unaccustomed good cheer
and the chance of a convert, launched out into a proposed
birds'-nesting campaign, betraying all manner of important secrets; a
golden-crested wren's nest near Butlins's Mound, a moor-hen that was
sitting on nine eggs in a pond down the Barby road, and a kingfisher's
nest in a corner of the old canal above Brownsover Mill. He had heard,
he said, that no one had ever got a kingfisher's nest out perfect, and
that the British Museum or the Government, or somebody had offered
L100 to any one who could bring them a nest and eggs not damaged. In
the middle of which astounding announcement, to which the others were
listening with open ears, and already considering the application of
the L100, a knock came at the door, and East's voice was heard craving
admittance.
"There's Harry," said Tom; "we'll let him in--I'll keep him steady,
Martin. I thought the old boy would smell out the supper."
The fact was that Tom's heart had already smitten him for not asking
his "fidus Achates"[19] to the feast, although only an extempore[20]
affair; and, though prudence and the desire to get Martin and Arthur
together alone at first had overcome his scruples, he was now heartily
glad to open the door, broach another bottle of beer, and hand over
the old ham-knuckle to the searching of his friend's pocket-knife.
[19] #Fidus Achates#: faithful friend.
[20] #Extempore#: off-hand.
"Ah, you greedy vagabonds!" said East, with his mouth full, "I knew
there was something going on when I saw you cut off out of the Hall so
quick with your suppers."
"Well, old Madman, and how goes the birds'-nesting campaign? How's
Howlett? I expect the young rooks'll be out in another fortnight, and
then my turn comes."
"There'll be no young rooks fit for pies for a month yet; shows how
much you know about it," rejoined Martin, who, though very good
friends with East, regarded him with considerable suspicion for his
propensity to practical jokes.
"Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub and mischief," said
Tom; "but young rook-pie, specially when you've had to climb for the
rooks, is very pretty eating. However, I say, Scud, we're all going
after a hawk's nest to-morrow, in Caldecott's Spinney; and if you'll
come and behave yourself, we'll have a stunning climb."
"And a bathe in Aganippe.[21] Hooray! I'm your man."
[21] #Ag'a-nip'pe#: a famous Grecian fountain; here, the name
is applied to some stream or pool.
"No; no bathing in Aganippe; that's where our betters go."
"Well, well, never mind. I'm for the hawk's nest and anything that
turns up."
And, his hunger appeased, East departed to his study; "that sneak
Jones," as he informed them, who had just got into the sixth, and
occupied the next study, having instituted a nightly visitation upon
East and his chum, to their no small discomfort.
When he was gone, Martin rose to follow, but Tom stopped him. "No one
goes near New Row," said he, "so you may just as well stop here and do
your verses, and then we'll have some more talk. We'll be no end
quiet; besides, no praepostor comes here now--we havn't been visited
once this half."
So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the three fell to
work with Gradus and dictionary upon the morning's Vulgus.
They were three very fair examples of the way in which such tasks were
done at Rugby, "in the consulship of Plancus."[22] And doubtless the
method is little changed, for there is nothing new under the sun,
especially at schools.
[22] #In the consulship of Plancus#: here, meaning in the time
of Dr. Arnold.
VULGUSES.
Now be it known unto all you boys who are at schools which do not
rejoice in the time-honored institution of the Vulgus (commonly
supposed to have been established by William of Wykeham[23] at
Winchester, and imported to Rugby by Arnold, more for the sake of
the lines which were learnt by heart with it, than for its own
intrinsic[24] value, as I've always understood), that it is a short
exercise, in Greek or Latin verse, on a given subject, the minimum[25]
number of lines being fixed for each form. The master of the form
gave out at fourth lesson on the previous day the subject for next
morning's Vulgus, and at first lesson each boy had to bring his Vulgus
ready to be looked over; and with the Vulgus, a certain number of
lines from one of the Latin or Greek poets then being construed in the
form had to be got by heart. The master at first lesson called up each
boy in the form in order, and put him on in the lines. If he couldn't
say them, or seem to say them, by reading them off the master's or
some other boy's book who stood near, he was sent back, and went below
all the boys who did so say or seem to say them; but in either case
his Vulgus was looked over by the master, who gave and entered in his
book, to the credit or discredit of the boy, so many marks as the
composition merited. At Rugby, Vulgus and lines were the first lesson
every other day in the week, or Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; and
as there were thirty-eight weeks in the school year, it is obvious to
the meanest capacity that the master of each form had to set one
hundred and fourteen subjects every year, two hundred and twenty-eight
every two years, and so on. Now to persons of moderate invention this
was a considerable task, and human nature being prone to repeat
itself, it will not be wondered that the master gave the same subjects
sometimes over again after a certain lapse of time. To meet and rebuke
this bad habit of the masters, the schoolboy mind, with its accustomed
ingenuity, had invented an elaborate[26] system of tradition. Almost
every boy kept his own Vulgus, written out in a book, and these books
were duly handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition has gone
on till now) I suppose the popular boys, in whose hands bequeathed
Vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with three or four
Vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in "more worlds than
one," which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. At any rate, such
lucky fellows had generally one for themselves and one for a friend
in my time. The only objection to the traditionary method of doing
your Vulguses was, the risk that the successions might have become
confused, and so that you and another follower of traditions should
show up the same identical Vulgus some fine morning; in which case,
when it happened, considerable grief was the result--but when did such
risk hinder boys or men from short cuts and pleasant paths?
[23] #William of Wykeham#: the founder of Winchester College,
the oldest of the great public schools of England. Here Dr.
Arnold fitted for Oxford.
[24] #Intrinsic#: inward, real, true.
[25] #Minimum#: least.
[26] #Elaborate#: prepared or thought out with great care.
THE SCIENCE OF VERSE-MAKING.
Now in the study that night, Tom was the upholder of the traditionary
method of Vulgus doing. He carefully produced two large Vulgus books,
and began diving into them, and picking out a line here, and an ending
there (tags, as they were vulgarly called), till he had gotten all
that he thought he could make fit. He then proceeded to patch his tags
together with the help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous[27] and
feeble result of eight elegiac[28] lines, the minimum quantity for his
form, and finishing up with two highly moral lines extra, making ten
in all, which he cribbed[29] entire from one of his books, beginning,
"O genus humanum,"[30] and which he himself must have used a dozen
times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, of whatever
nation or language under the sun, was the subject. Indeed, he began to
have great doubts whether the master wouldn't remember them, and so
only threw them in as extra lines, because in any case they would call
off attention from the other tags, and if detected, being extra lines,
he wouldn't be sent back to do two more in their place, while if they
passed muster again he would get marks for them.
[27] #Incongruous#: ill-fitting.
[28] #Elegiac#: a kind of verse generally used in expressing
sorrow and lamentation.
[29] #Cribbed#: stole, copied.
[30] #O genus humanum#: O human race.
The second method pursued by Martin may be called the dogged, or
prosaic, method. He, no more than Tom, took any pleasure in the task,
but having no old Vulgus books of his own, or any one's else, could
not follow the traditionary method, for which, too, as Tom remarked,
he hadn't the genius. Martin then proceeded to write down eight lines
in English, of the most matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into
his head; and to convert these, line by line, by main force of Gradus
and dictionary, into Latin that would scan.[31] This was all he
cared for, to produce eight lines with no false quantities[32] or
concords;[33] whether the words were apt, or what the sense was,
mattered nothing; and, as the article was all new, not a line beyond
the minimum did the followers of the dogged method ever produce.
[31] #Scan#: contain the right number of syllables with the
accents in the proper places.