SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.
POOR old Benjy! the "rheumatiz" has much to answer for all through
English country sides, but it never played a scurvier trick than in
laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a green old age. The
enemy, which had long been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and
trying his strength against Benjy's on the battle-field, of his hands
and legs, now, mustering all his forces began laying siege to the
citadel, and overrunning the whole country. Benjy was seized in the back
and loins; and though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon clear
enough that all which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would have to
give in before long.
It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and
frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master Tom, and bait
his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint old
country stories; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some
hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby the
turnspit terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he
might have tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over before Benjy
could have got near him.
Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive
power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age, and
was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. He feared
much too lest Master Tom should fall back again into the hands of
Charity and the women. So he tried everything he could think of to get
set up. He even went an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer
mortals, who--say what we will, and reason how we will--do cure simple
people of diseases of one kind or another without the aid of physic; and
so get to themselves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for
themselves and their dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a
simple folk such as the dwellers in the Vale of White Horse. Where this
power, or whatever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man
whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the neighbourhood;
a receiver of stolen goods, giver of love-potions, and deceiver of silly
women; the avowed enemy of law and order, of justices of the peace,
headboroughs, and gamekeepers. Such a man in fact as was recently caught
tripping, and deservedly dealt with by the Leeds justices, for seducing
a girl who had come to him to get back a faithless lover, and has been
convicted of bigamy since then. Sometimes, however, they are of quite a
different stamp, men who pretend to nothing, and are with difficulty
persuaded to exercise their occult arts in the simplest cases.
Of this latter sort was old farmer Ives, as he was called, the "wise
man" to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as usual), in the early
spring of the year next after the feast described in the last chapter.
Why he was called "farmer" I cannot say, unless it be that he was the
owner of a cow, a pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained on
about an acre of land enclosed from the middle of a wild common, on
which probably his father had squatted before lords of manors looked as
keenly after their rights as they do now. Here he had lived no one knew
how long, a solitary man. It was often rumoured that he was to be turned
out and his cottage pulled down, but somehow it never came to pass; and
his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the
passing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord's steward, who
often rode by with a covetous eye on the enclosure, still unmolested.
His dwelling was some miles from our village; so Benjy, who was half
ashamed of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise
much ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom thither
without exciting suspicion. However, one fine May morning he managed to
borrow the old blind pony of our friend the publican, and Tom persuaded
Madam Brown to give him a holiday to spend with old Benjy, and to lend
them the Squire's light cart, stored with bread and cold meat and a
bottle of ale. And so the two in high glee started behind old Dobbin,
and jogged along the deep-rutted plashy roads, which had not been mended
after their winter's wear, towards the dwelling of the wizard. About
noon they passed the gate which opened on to the large common, and old
Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed out a little deep
dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny stream. As they crept up
the hill the tops of a few birch-trees came in sight, and blue smoke
curling up through their delicate light boughs; and then the little
white thatched home and patch of enclosed ground of farmer Ives, lying
cradled in the dingle, with the gay gorse common rising behind and on
both sides; while in front, after traversing a gentle slope, the eye
might travel for miles and miles over the rich vale. They now left the
main road and struck into a green tract over the common marked lightly
with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at
the rough gate of farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron-grey
old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose, busied in one of
his vocations. He was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick
beast which had been sent up to be cured. Benjy hailed him as an old
friend, and he returned the greeting cordially enough, looking however
hard for a moment both at Benjy and Tom, to see whether there was more
in their visit than appeared at first sight. It was a work of some
difficulty and danger for Benjy to reach the ground, which however he
managed to do without mishap; and then he devoted himself to
unharnessing Dobbin, and turning him out for a graze ("a run" one could
not say of that virtuous steed) on the common. This done, he extricated
the cold provisions from the cart, and they entered the farmer's wicket;
and he, shutting up the knife with which he was taking maggots out of
the cow's back and sides, accompanied them towards the cottage. A big
old lurcher got up slowly from the door-stone, stretching first one hind
leg and then the other, and taking Tom's caresses and the presence of
Toby, who kept however at a respectful distance, with equal
indifference.
"Us be cum to pay'e a visit. I've a been long minded to do't for old
sake's sake, only I vinds I dwont get about now as I'd use to't. I be so
plaguy bad wi' th' rumatiz in my back." Benjy paused, in hopes of
drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailment without further
direct application.
"Ah, I see as you bean't quite so lissom as you was," replied the farmer
with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door; "we bean't so
young as we was, nother on us, wuss luck."
The farmer's cottage was very like those of the better class of
peasantry in general. A snug chimney corner with two seats, and a small
carpet on the hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the
fireplace, a dresser with shelves on which some bright pewter plates and
crockeryware were arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs and
settles, some framed samplers, and an old print or two, and a bookcase
with some dozen volumes on the walls, a rack with flitches of bacon, and
other stores fastened to the ceiling, and you have the best part of the
furniture. No sign of occult art is to be seen, unless the bundles of
dried herbs hanging to the rack and in the ingle, and the row of
labelled phials on one of the shelves, betoken it.
Tom played about with some kittens who occupied the hearth, and with a
goat who walked demurely in at the open door, while their host and Benjy
spread the table for dinner--and was soon engaged in conflict with the
cold meat, to which he did much honour. The two old men's talk was of
old comrades and their deeds, mute inglorious Miltons of the Vale, and
of the doings thirty years back--which didn't interest him much, except
when they spoke of the making of the canal, and then indeed he began to
listen with all his ears, and learned to his no small wonder that his
dear and wonderful canal had not been there always--was not in fact so
old as Benjy or farmer Ives, which caused a strange commotion in his
small brain.
After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart which Tom had on the
knuckles of his hand, and which the family doctor had been trying his
skill on without success, and begged the farmer to charm it away. Farmer
Ives looked at it, muttered something or another over it, and cut some
notches in a short stick, which he handed to Benjy, giving him
instructions for cutting it down on certain days, and cautioning Tom not
to meddle with the wart for a fortnight. And then they strolled out and
sat on a bench in the sun with their pipes, and the pigs came up and
grunted sociably and let Tom scratch them; and the farmer, seeing how he
liked animals, stood up and held his arms in the air and gave a call,
which brought a flock of pigeons wheeling and dashing through the
birch-trees. They settled down in clusters on the farmer's arms and
shoulders, making love to him and scrambling over one another's backs to
get to his face; and then he threw them all off, and they fluttered
about close by, and lighted on him again and again when he held up his
arms. All the creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite
unlike their relations elsewhere; and Tom begged to be taught how to
make all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the
farmer only gave one of his grim chuckles.
It wasn't till they were just ready to go, and old Dobbin was harnessed,
that Benjy broached the subject of his rheumatism again, detailing his
symptoms one by one. Poor old boy! He hoped the farmer could charm it
away as easily as he could Tom's wart, and was ready with equal faith to
put another notched stick into his other pocket, for the cure of his own
ailments. The physician shook his head, but nevertheless produced a
bottle and handed it to Benjy with instructions for use. "Not as 't'll
do'e much good--leastways I be afeared not," shading his eyes with his
hand and looking up at them in the cart; "there's only one thing as I
knows on, as'll cure old folks like you and I o' th' rhumatis."
"Wot be that then, farmer?" inquired Benjy.
"Churchyard mould," said the old iron-grey man, with another chuckle.
And so they said their good-byes and went their ways home. Tom's wart
was gone in a fortnight, but not so Benjy's rheumatism, which laid him
by the heels more and more. And though Tom still spent many an hour with
him, as he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney corner when
it was cold, he soon had to seek elsewhere for his regular companions.
Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother in her visits to
the cottages, and had thereby made acquaintance with many of the village
boys of his own age. There was Job Rudkin, son of widow Rudkin, the most
bustling woman in the parish. How she could ever have had such a stolid
boy as Job for a child must always remain a mystery. The first time Tom
went to their cottage with his mother Job was not in-doors, but he
entered soon after, and stood with both hands in his pockets staring at
Tom. Widow Rudkin who would have had to cross Madam to get at young
Hopeful--a breach of good manners of which she was wholly
incapable--began a series of pantomime signs, which only puzzled him,
and at last, unable to contain herself longer, burst out with, "Job!
Job! where's thy cap?"
"What! beant'e on ma' head, mother?" replied Job, slowly extricating one
hand from a pocket and feeling for the article in question; which he
found on his head sure enough, and left there, to his mother's horror
and Tom's great delight.
Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted boy, who ambled about
cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds and ends for
every one, which, however, poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to
embrangle. Everything came to pieces in his hands, and nothing would
stop in his head. They nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf.
But, above all there was Harry Winburn, the quickest and best boy in the
parish. He might be a year older than Tom, but was very little bigger,
and he was the Crichton of our village boys. He could wrestle and climb
and run better than all the rest, and learned all that the schoolmaster
could teach him faster than that worthy at all liked. He was a boy to be
proud of, with his curly brown hair, keen grey eye, straight active
figure, and little ears and hands and feet, "as fine as a lord's," as
Charity remarked to Tom one day, talking as usual great nonsense. Lords'
hands and ears and feet are just as ugly as other folks' when they are
children, as any one may convince themselves if they like to look. Tight
boots and gloves, and doing nothing with them, I allow make a difference
by the time they are twenty.
Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his young brothers were still
under petticoat government, Tom, in search of companions, began to
cultivate the village boys generally more and more. Squire Brown, be it
said, was a true blue Tory to the backbone, and believed honestly that
the powers which be were ordained of God, and that loyalty and steadfast
obedience were men's first duties. Whether it were in consequence or in
spite of his political creed, I do not mean to give an opinion, though I
have one; but certain it is, that he held therewith divers social
principles not generally supposed to be true blue in colour. Foremost of
these, and the one which the Squire loved to propound above all others,
was the belief that a man is to be valued wholly and solely for that
which he is in himself, for that which stands up in the four fleshly
walls of him, apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and all externals
whatsoever. Which belief I take to be a wholesome corrective of all
political opinions, and, if held sincerely, to make all opinions equally
harmless, whether they be blue, red, or green. As a necessary corollary
to this belief, Squire Brown held further that it didn't matter a straw
whether his son associated with lords' sons, or ploughmen's sons,
provided they were brave and honest. He himself had played football and
gone birds'-nesting with the farmers whom he met at vestry and the
labourers who tilled their fields, and so had his father and grandfather
with their progenitors. So he encouraged Tom in his intimacy with the
boys of the village, and forwarded it by all means in his power, and
gave them the run of a close for a playground, and provided bats and
balls and a football for their sports.
Our village was blessed amongst other things with a well-endowed school.
The building stood by itself, apart from the master's house, on an angle
of ground where three roads met; an old grey stone building with a steep
roof and mullioned windows. On one of the opposite angles stood Squire
Brown's stables and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which
towered a great elm-tree; on the third stood the village carpenter and
wheelwright's large open shop, and his house and the schoolmaster's,
with long low eaves under which the swallows built by scores.
The moment Tom's lessons were over, he would now get him down to this
corner by the stables, and watch till the boys came out of school. He
prevailed on the groom to cut notches for him in the bark of the elm, so
that he could climb into the lower branches, and there he would sit
watching the school door, and speculating on the possibility of turning
the elm into a dwelling-place for himself and friends after the manner
of the Swiss Family Robinson. But the school hours were long and Tom's
patience short, so that soon he began to descend into the street, and go
and peep in at the school door and the wheelwright's shop, and look out
for something to while away the time. Now the wheelwright was a choleric
man, and, one fine afternoon, returning from a short absence, found Tom
occupied with one of his pet adzes, the edge of which was fast vanishing
under our hero's care. A speedy flight saved Tom from all but one sound
cuff on the ears, but he resented this unjustifiable interruption of his
first essays at carpentering, and still more the further proceedings of
the wheelwright, who cut a switch and hung it over the door of his
workshop, threatening to use it upon Tom if he came within twenty yards
of his gate. So Tom, to retaliate, commenced a war upon the swallows who
dwelt under the wheelwright's eaves, whom he harassed with sticks and
stones, and being fleeter of foot than his enemy, escaped all punishment
and kept him in perpetual anger. Moreover his presence about the school
door began to incense the master, as the boys in that neighbourhood
neglected their lessons in consequence: and more than once he issued
into the porch, rod in hand, just as Tom beat a hasty retreat. And he
and the wheelwright, laying their heads together, resolved to acquaint
the Squire with Tom's afternoon occupations; but in order to do it with
effect, determined to take him captive and lead him away to judgment
fresh from his evil doings. This they would have found some difficulty
in doing, had Tom continued the war single-handed, or rather
single-footed, for he would have taken to the deepest part of Pebbly
Brook to escape them; but, like other active powers, he was ruined by
his alliances. Poor Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to school with the
other boys, and one fine afternoon, about three o'clock (the school
broke up at four), Tom found him ambling about the street, and pressed
him into a visit to the school porch. Jacob, always ready to do what he
was asked, consented, and the two stole down to the school together. Tom
first reconnoitred the wheelwright's shop, and seeing no signs of
activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered at once an
advance of all his troops upon the school porch. The door of the school
was ajar, and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognised
and opened a correspondence with the invaders. Tom waxing bold, kept
putting his head into the school and making faces at the master when his
back was turned. Poor Jacob, not in the least comprehending the
situation, and in high glee at finding himself so near the school, which
he had never been allowed to enter, suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm,
pushed by Tom, and ambling three steps into the school, stood there,
looking round him and nodding with a self-approving smile. The master,
who was stooping over a boy's slate, with his back to the door, became
aware of something unusual, and turned quickly round. Tom rushed at
Jacob, and began dragging him back by his smock-frock, and the master
made at them, scattering forms and boys in his career. Even now they
might have escaped, but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the
crafty wheelwright, who had been watching all their proceedings. So they
were seized, the school dismissed, and Tom and Jacob led away to Squire
Brown as lawful prize, the boys following to the gate in groups, and
speculating on the result.
The Squire was very angry at first, but the interview, by Tom's
pleading, ended in a compromise. Tom was not to go near the school till
three o'clock, and only then if he had done his own lessons well, in
which case he was to be the bearer of a note to the master from Squire
Brown, and the master agreed in such case to release ten or twelve of
the best boys an hour before the time of breaking up, to go off and play
in the close. The wheelwright's adzes and swallows were to be for ever
respected; and that hero and the master withdrew to the servants' hall,
to drink the Squire's health, well satisfied with their day's work.
The second act of Tom's life may now be said to have begun. The war of
independence had been over for some time: none of the women now, not
even his mother's maid, dared offer to help him in dressing or washing.
Between ourselves, he had often at first to run to Benjy in an
unfinished state of toilet; Charity and the rest of them seemed to take
a delight in putting impossible buttons and ties in the middle of his
back; but he would have gone without nether integuments altogether
sooner than have had recourse to female valeting. He had a room to
himself, and his father gave him sixpence a week pocket-money. All this
he had achieved by Benjy's advice and assistance. But now he had
conquered another step in life, the step which all real boys so long to
make; he had got amongst his equals in age and strength, and could
measure himself with other boys; he lived with those whose pursuits and
wishes and ways were the same in kind as his own.
The little governess who had lately been installed in the house found
her work grow wondrously easy, for Tom slaved at his lessons in order to
make sure of his note to the schoolmaster. So there were very few days
in the week in which Tom and the village boys were not playing in their
close by three o'clock. Prisoner's base, rounders, high-cock-a-lorum,
cricket, football, he was soon initiated into the delights of them all;
and though most of the boys were older than himself, he managed to hold
his own very well. He was naturally active and strong, and quick of eye
and hand, and had the advantage of light shoes and well-fitting dress,
so that in a short time he could run and jump and climb with any of
them.
They generally finished their regular games half an hour or so before
tea-time, and then began trials of skill and strength in many ways. Some
of them would catch the Shetland pony who was turned out in the field,
and get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue,
enjoying the fun, would gallop off for fifty yards, and then turn round,
or stop short and shoot them on to the turf, and then graze quietly on
till he felt another load; others played peg-top or marbles, while a few
of the bigger ones stood up for a bout at wrestling. Tom at first only
looked on at this pastime, but it had peculiar attractions for him, and
he could not long keep out of it. Elbow and collar wrestling as
practised in the western counties was, next to back-swording, the way to
fame for the youth of the Vale; and all the boys knew the rules of it,
and were more or less expert. But Job Rudkin and Harry Winburn were the
stars, the former stiff and sturdy, with legs like small towers, the
latter pliant as india-rubber, and quick as lightning. Day after day
they stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand and then the other,
and grappled and closed and swayed and strained, till a well-aimed crook
of the heel or thrust of the loin took effect, and a fair back-fall
ended the matter. And Tom watched with all his eyes, and first
challenged one of the less scientific, and threw him; and so one by one
wrestled his way up to the leaders.
Then indeed for months he had a poor time of it; it was not long indeed
before he could manage to keep his legs against Job, for that hero was
slow of offence, and gained his victories chiefly by allowing others to
throw themselves against his immoveable legs and loins. But Harry
Winburn was undeniably his master; from the first clutch of hands when
they stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on his back on the
turf, he felt that Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily,
Harry's bright unconsciousness, and Tom's natural good temper, kept them
from ever quarrelling; and so Tom worked on and on, and trod more and
more nearly on Harry's heels, and at last mastered all the dodges and
falls except one. This one was Harry's own particular invention and pet;
he scarcely ever used it except when hard pressed, but then out it came,
and as sure as it did, over went poor Tom. He thought about that fall at
his meals, in his walks, when he lay awake in bed, in his dreams,--but
all to no purpose; until Harry one day in his open way suggested to him
how he thought it should be met, and in a week from that time the boys
were equal, save only the slight difference of strength in Harry's
favour which some extra ten months of age gave. Tom had often afterwards
reason to be thankful for that early drilling, and above all for having
mastered Harry Winburn's fall.
Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys would wander all over
the neighbourhood; sometimes to the downs, or up to the camp, where they
cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks
soaring, and the "peert" bird, as Harry Winburn called the grey plover,
gorgeous in his wedding feathers; and so home, racing down the Manger
with many a roll among the thistles, or through Uffington-wood to watch
the fox cubs playing in the green rides; sometimes to Rosy Brook, to cut
long whispering reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of; sometimes
to Moor Mills, where was a piece of old forest land, with short browsed
turf and tufted brambly thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst
which rumour declared that a raven, last of his race, still lingered; or
to the sand-hills, in vain quest of rabbits; and bird's-nesting, in the
season, anywhere and everywhere.
The few neighbours of the Squire's own rank every now and then would
shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a party of boys with Tom
in the middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or great
bundles of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or
other spoil of wood, brook, or meadow; and Lawyer Red-tape might mutter
to Squire Straightback at the Board, that no good would come of the
young Browns, if they were let run wild with all the dirty village boys,
whom the best farmers' sons even would not play with. And the Squire
might reply with a shake of his head, that _his_ sons only mixed with
their equals, and never went into the village without the governess or a
footman. But, luckily, Squire Brown was full as stiff-backed as his
neighbours, and so went on his own way; and Tom and his younger
brothers, as they grew up, went on playing with the village boys,
without the idea of equality or inequality (except in wrestling,
running, and climbing,) ever entering their heads, as it doesn't till
it's put there by Jack Nastys or fine ladies' maids.
I don't mean to say it would be the case in all villages, but it
certainly was so in this one; the village boys were full as manly and
honest, and certainly purer, than those in a higher rank; and Tom got
more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a private school,
where he went when he was nine years old, than he had from his village
friends from the day he left Charity's apron-strings.
Great was the grief amongst the village school-boys when Tom drove off
with the Squire, one August morning, to meet the coach on his way to
school. Each of them had given him some little present of the best that
he had, and his small private box was full of peg-tops, white marbles
(called "alley-taws" in the Vale), screws, birds'-eggs, whip-cord,
jews-harps, and other miscellaneous boys' wealth. Poor Jacob
Doodle-calf, in floods of tears, had pressed upon him with spluttering
earnestness his lame pet hedgehog (he had always some poor broken-down
beast or bird by him); but this Tom had been obliged to refuse by the
Squire's order. He had given them all a great tea under the big elm in
their playground, for which Madam Brown had supplied the biggest cake
ever seen in our village; and Tom was really as sorry to leave them as
they to lose him, but his sorrow was not unmixed with the pride and
excitement of making a new step in life.
And this feeling carried him through his first parting with his mother
better than could have been expected. Their love was as fair and whole
as human love can be, perfect self-sacrifice on the one side, meeting a
young and true heart on the other. It is not within the scope of my
book, however, to speak of family relations, or I should have much to
say on the subject of English mothers,--ay, and of English fathers, and
sisters, and brothers too.
Neither have I room to speak of our private schools: what I have to say
is about public schools, those much-abused and much-belauded
institutions peculiar to England. So we must hurry through Master Tom's
year at a private school as fast as we can.
It was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentleman, with another
gentleman as second master; but it was little enough of the real work
they did--merely coming into school when lessons were prepared and all
ready to be heard. The whole discipline of the school out of lesson
hours was in the hands of the two ushers, one of whom was always with
the boys in their playground in the school, at meals--in fact, at all
times and everywhere, till they were fairly in bed at night.
Now the theory of private schools is (or was) constant supervision out
of school; therein differing fundamentally from that of public schools.
It may be right or wrong; but if right, this supervision surely ought to
be the especial work of the head-master, the responsible person. The
object of all schools is not to ram Latin and Greek into boys, but to
make them good English boys, good future citizens; and by far the most
important part of that work must be done, or not done, out of school
hours. To leave it, therefore, in the hands of inferior men, is just
giving up the highest and hardest part of the work of education. Were I
a private schoolmaster, I should say, let who will hear the boys their
lessons, but let me live with them when they are at play and rest.
The two ushers at Tom's first school were not gentleman, and very poorly
educated, and were only driving their poor trade of usher to get such
living as they could out of it. They were not bad men, but had little
heart for their work, and of course were bent on making it as easy as
possible. One of the methods by which they endeavoured to accomplish
this, was by encouraging tale-bearing, which had become a frightfully
common vice in the school in consequence, and had sapped all the
foundations of school morality. Another was, by favouring grossly the
biggest boys, who alone could have given them much trouble; whereby
those young gentlemen became most abominable tyrants, oppressing the
little boys in all the small mean ways which prevail in private schools.
Poor little Tom was made dreadfully unhappy in his first week, by a
catastrophe which happened to his first letter home. With huge labour he
had, on the very evening of his arrival, managed to fill two sides of a
sheet of letter-paper with assurances of his love for dear mamma, his
happiness at school, and his resolves to do all she would wish. This
missive, with the help of the boy who sat at the desk next him, also a
new arrival, he managed to fold successfully; but this done, they were
sadly, put to it for means of sealing. Envelopes were then unknown, they
had no wax, and dared not disturb the stillness of the evening
school-room by getting up and going to ask the usher for some. At length
Tom's friend, being of an ingenious turn of mind, suggested sealing with
ink, and the letter was accordingly stuck down with a blob of ink, and
duly handed by Tom, on his way to bed, to the housekeeper to be posted.
It was not till four days afterwards, that that good dame sent for him,
and produced the precious letter, and some wax, saying, "Oh, Master
Brown, I forgot to tell you before, but your letter isn't sealed." Poor
Tom took the wax in silence and sealed his letter, with a huge lump
rising in his throat during the process, and then ran away to a quiet
corner of the playground and burst into an agony of tears. The idea of
his mother waiting day after day for the letter he had promised her at
once, and perhaps thinking him forgetful of her, when he had done all in
his power to make good his promise, was as bitter a grief as any which
he had to undergo for many a long year. His wrath then was
proportionately violent when he was aware of two boys, who stopped close
by him, and one of whom, a fat gaby of a fellow, pointed at him and
called him "Young mammy-sick!" Whereupon Tom arose, and giving vent thus
to his grief and shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose, and made
it bleed--which sent that young worthy howling to the usher, who
reported Tom for violent and unprovoked assault and battery. Hitting in
the face was a felony punishable with flogging, other hitting only a
misdemeanour--a distinction not altogether clear in principle. Tom
however escaped the penalty by pleading "primum tempus;" and having
written a second letter to his mother, enclosing some forget-me-nots,
which he picked on their first half-holiday walk, felt quite happy
again, and began to enjoy vastly a good deal of his new life.
These half-holiday walks were the great events of the week. The whole
fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers for Hazeldown,
which was distant some mile or so from the school. Hazeldown measured
some three miles round, and in the neighbourhood were several woods full
of all manner of birds and butterflies. The usher walked slowly round
the down with such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in
all directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher had
completed his round, and accompany him home. They were forbidden,
however, to go anywhere except on the down and into the woods, the
village being especially prohibited, where huge bulls'-eyes and unctuous
toffy might be procured in exchange for coin of the realm.
Various were the amusements to which the boys then betook themselves. At
the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of
Tom's own downs. This mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at
a game called by the queer name of "mud-patties." The boys who played
divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the
mound. Then, all parties having provided themselves with many sods of
turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at
the bottom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing upon all sides
under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory
with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a
moment, clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged. It was
a good rough dirty game, and of great use in counteracting the sneaking
tendencies of the school. Then others of the boys spread over the downs,
looking for the holes of humble-bees and mice, which they dug up without
mercy, often (I regret to say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice,
and (I do not regret to say) getting well stung by the humble-bees.
Others went after butterflies and birds'-eggs in their seasons; and Tom
found on Hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little blue
butterfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his
own downs, and dug out his first sand-martin's nest. This latter
achievement resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins built in a high
bank close to the village, consequently out of bounds; but one of the
bolder spirits of the school, who never could be happy unless he was
doing something to which risk attached, easily persuaded Tom to break
bounds and visit the martin's bank. From whence it being only a step to
the toffy-shop, what could be more simple than to go on there and fill
their pockets; or what more certain than that on their return, a
distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly
detect the forbidden smell of bulls'-eyes, and, a search ensuing,
discover the state of the breeches-pockets of Tom and his ally?
This ally of Tom's was indeed a desperate hero in the sight of the boys,
and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something approaching thereto.
Which reputation came to him in this wise. The boys went to bed at
eight, and of course consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour or
two, telling ghost-stories by turns. One night when it came to his turn,
and he had dried up their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that
he would make a fiery hand appear on the door; and to the astonishment
and terror of the boys in his room, a hand, or something like it, in
pale light, did then and there appear. The fame of this exploit having
spread to the other rooms, and being discredited there, the young
necromancer declared that the same wonder would appear in all the rooms
in turn, which it accordingly did; and the whole circumstances having
been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual, that functionary,
after listening about at the doors of the rooms, by a sudden descent
caught the performer in his night-shirt, with a box of phosphorus in his
guilty hand. Lucifer-matches and all the present facilities for getting
acquainted with fire were then unknown; the very name of phosphorus had
something diabolic in it to the boy-mind; so Tom's ally, at the cost of
a sound flogging, earned what many older folk covet much--the very
decided fear of most of his companions.
He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad one. Tom stuck to him
till he left, and got into many scrapes by so doing. But he was the
great opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school, and the open
enemy of the ushers; and so worthy of all support.
Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at the school, but somehow
on the whole it didn't suit him, or he it, and in the holidays he was
constantly working the Squire to send him at once to a public school.
Great was his joy then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in
October, 183-, a fever broke out in the village, and the master having
himself slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at
a day's notice to their respective homes.
The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom to see that young
gentleman's brown merry face appear at home, some two months before the
proper time, for Christmas holidays: and so after putting on his
thinking cap, he retired to his study and wrote several letters; the
result of which was that one morning at the breakfast-table, about a
fortnight after Tom's return, he addressed his wife with--"My dear, I
have arranged that Tom shall go to Rugby at once, for the last six weeks
of this half-year, instead of wasting them riding and loitering about
home. It is very kind of the Doctor to allow it. Will you see that his
things are all ready by Friday, when I shall take him up to town, and
send him down the next day by himself."
Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, and merely suggested a
doubt whether Tom were yet old enough to travel by himself. However,
finding both father and son against her on this point, she gave in like
a wise woman, and proceeded to prepare Tom's kit for his launch into a
public school.