AFTER THE MATCH.
"----Some food we had."--_Shakspere._
[Greek: ês potos hadys.]--THEOCR. _Id._
AS the boys scattered away from the ground, and East leaning on Tom's
arm, and limping along, was beginning to consider what luxury they
should go and buy for tea to celebrate that glorious victory, the two
Brookes came striding by. Old Brooke caught sight of East, and stopped;
put his hand kindly on his shoulder and said, "Bravo, youngster, you
played famously; not much the matter, I hope?"
"No, nothing at all," said East, "only a little twist from that
charge."
"Well, mind and get all right for next Saturday;" and the leader passed
on, leaving East better for those few words than all the opodeldoc in
England would have made him, and Tom ready to give one of his ears for
as much notice. Ah! light words of those whom we love and honour, what a
power ye are, and how carelessly wielded by those who can use you!
Surely for these things also God will ask an account.
"Tea's directly after locking-up, you see," said East, hobbling along as
fast as he could, "so you come along down to Sally Harrowell's; that's
our school-house tuck-shop--she bakes such stunning murphies, we'll have
a penn'orth each for tea; come along, or they'll all be gone."
Tom's new purse and money burnt in his pocket; he wondered, as they
toddled through the quadrangle and along the street, whether East would
be insulted if he suggested further extravagance, as he had not
sufficient faith in a pennyworth of potatoes. At last he blurted out,--
"I say, East, can't we get something else besides potatoes? I've got
lots of money, you know."
"Bless us, yes, I forgot," said East, "you've only just come. You see
all my tin's been gone this twelve weeks, it hardly ever lasts beyond
the first fortnight; and our allowances were all stopped this morning
for broken windows, so I haven't got a penny. I've got a tick at
Sally's, of course; but then I hate running it high, you see, towards
the end of the half, 'cause one has to shell out for it all directly one
comes back, and that's a bore."
Tom didn't understand much of this talk, but seized on the fact that
East had no money, and was denying himself some little pet luxury in
consequence. "Well, what shall I buy?" said he; "I'm uncommon hungry."
"I say," said East, stopping to look at him and rest his leg, "you're a
trump, Brown. I'll do the same by you next half. Let's have a pound of
sausages, then; that's the best grub for tea I know of."
"Very well," said Tom, as pleased as possible; "where do they sell
them?"
"Oh, over here, just opposite;" and they crossed the street and walked
into the cleanest little front room of a small house, half parlour, half
shop, and bought a pound of most particular sausages; East talking
pleasantly to Mrs. Porter while she put them in paper, and Tom doing the
paying part.
From Porter's they adjourned to Sally Harrowell's, where they found a
lot of School-house boys waiting for the roast potatoes, and relating
their own exploits in the day's match at the top of their voices. The
street opened at once into Sally's kitchen, a low, brick-floored room,
with large recess for fire, and chimney-corner seats. Poor little Sally,
the most good-natured and much enduring of womankind, was bustling about
with a napkin in her hand, from her own oven to those of the neighbours'
cottages, up the yard at the back of the house. Stumps, her husband, a
short, easy-going shoemaker, with a beery humorous eye and ponderous
calves, who lived mostly on his wife's earnings, stood in a corner of
the room, exchanging shots of the roughest description of repartee with
every boy in turn. "Stumps, you lout, you've had too much beer again
to-day." "'Twasn't of your paying for, then."--"Stumps's calves are
running down into his ankles, they want to get to grass." "Better be
doing that, than gone altogether like yours," &c. &c. Very poor stuff it
was, but it served to make time pass; and every now and then Sally
arrived in the middle with a smoking tin of potatoes, which were cleared
off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running oft to the
house with "Put me down two-penn'orth, Sally;" "Put down three-penn'orth
between me and Davis," &c. How she ever kept the accounts so straight as
she did, in her head and on her slate, was a perfect wonder.
East and Tom got served at last, and started back for the School-house
just as the locking-up bell began to ring; East on the way recounting
the life and adventures of Stumps, who was a character. Amongst his
other small avocations, he was the hind carrier of a sedan-chair, the
last of its race, in which the Rugby ladies still went out to tea, and
in which, when he was fairly harnessed and carrying a load, it was the
delight of small and mischievous boys to follow him and whip his calves.
This was too much for the temper even of Stumps, and he would pursue his
tormentors in a vindictive and apoplectic manner when released, but was
easily pacified by twopence to buy beer with.
The lower school-boys of the School-house, some fifteen in number, had
tea in the lower-fifth school, and were presided over by the old verger
or head-porter. Each boy had a quarter of a loaf of bread and pat of
butter, and as much tea as he pleased; and there was scarcely one who
didn't add to this some further luxury, such as baked potatoes, a
herring, sprats, or something of the sort; but few, at this period of
the half-year, could live up to a pound of Porter's sausages, and East
was in great magnificence upon the strength of theirs. He had produced a
toasting-fork from his study, and set Tom to toast the sausages, while
he mounted guard over their butter and potatoes; "'cause," as he
explained, "you're a new boy, and they'll play you some trick and get
our butter, but you can toast just as well as I." So Tom, in the midst
of three or four more urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and
the sausages at the same time before the huge fire, till the latter
cracked; when East from his watch-tower shouted that they were done; and
then the feast proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and
emptied, and Tom imparted of the sausages in small bits to many
neighbours, and thought he had never tasted such good potatoes or seen
such jolly boys. They on their parts waived all ceremony, and pegged
away at the sausages and potatoes, and, remembering Tom's performance in
goal, voted East's new crony a brick. After tea, and while the things
were being cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the talk on
the match still went on; and those who had them to show, pulled up their
trousers and showed the hacks they had received in the good cause.
They were soon however all turned out of the school, and East conducted
Tom up to his bedroom, that he might get on clean things and wash
himself before singing.
"What's singing?" said Tom, taking his head out of his basin, where he
had been plunging it in cold water.
"Well, you are jolly green," answered his friend from a neighbouring
basin. "Why, the last six Saturdays of every half, we sing of course;
and this is the first of them. No first lesson to do, you know, and lie
in bed to-morrow morning."
"But who sings?"
"Why everybody, of course; you'll see soon enough. We begin directly
after supper, and sing till bed-time. It ain't such good fun now though
as in the summer half, 'cause then we sing in the little fives' court,
under the library, you know. We take our tables, and the big boys sit
round, and drink beer; double allowance on Saturday nights; and we cut
about the quadrangle between the songs, and it looks like a lot of
robbers in a cave. And the louts come and pound at the great gates, and
we pound back again, and shout at them. But this half we only sing in
the hall. Come along down to my study."
Their principal employment in the study was to clear out East's table,
removing the drawers and ornaments and table-cloth; for he lived in the
bottom passage, and his table was in requisition for the singing.
Supper came in due course at seven o'clock, consisting of bread and
cheese and beer, which was all saved for the singing; and directly
afterwards the fags went to work to prepare the hall. The School-house
hall, as has been said, is a great long high room, with two large fires
on one side, and two large iron-bound tables, one running down the
middle, and the other along the wall opposite the fireplaces. Around the
upper fire the fags placed the tables in the form of a horse-shoe, and
upon them the jugs with the Saturday night's allowance of beer. Then
the big boys used to drop in and take their seats, bringing with them
bottled beer and song-books; for although they all knew the songs by
heart, it was the thing to have an old manuscript book descended from
some departed hero, in which they were all carefully written out.
The sixth-form boys had not yet appeared; so, to fill up the gap, an
interesting and time-honoured ceremony was gone through. Each new boy
was placed on the table in turn, and made to sing a solo, under the
penalty of drinking a large mug of salt and water if he resisted or
broke down. However, the new boys all sing like nightingales to-night,
and the salt water is not in requisition; Tom, as his part, performing
the old west-country song of "The Leather Bottèl" with considerable
applause. And at the half-hour down come the sixth and fifth form boys,
and take their places at the tables, which are filled up by the next
biggest boys, the rest, for whom there is no room at the table, standing
round outside.
The glasses and mugs are filled, and then the fugleman strikes up the
old sea song--
"A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
And a wind that follows fast," &c.
which is the invariable first song in the School-house, and all the
seventy voices join in, not mindful of harmony, but bent on noise, which
they attain decidedly; but the general effect isn't bad. And then follow
the "British Grenadiers," "Billy Taylor," "The Siege of Seringapatam,"
"Three Jolly Postboys," and other vociferous songs in rapid succession,
including the "Chesapeake and Shannon," a song lately introduced in
honour of old Brooke; and when they come to the words--
"Brave Broke he waved his sword, crying, Now my lads, aboard,
And we'll stop their playing Yankee-doodle-dandy oh!"
you expect the roof to come down. The sixth and fifth know that "brave
Broke" of the Shannon was no sort of relation to our old Brooke. The
fourth-form are uncertain in their belief, but for the most part hold
that old Brooke _was_ a midshipman then on board his uncle's ship. And
the lower school never doubt for a moment that it was our old Brooke who
led the boarders, in what capacity they care not a straw. During the
pauses the bottled-beer corks fly rapidly, and the talk is fast and
merry, and the big boys, at least all of them who have a fellow-feeling
for dry throats, hand their mugs over their shoulders to be emptied by
the small ones who stand round behind.
Then Warner, the head of the house, gets up and wants to speak, but he
can't, for every boy knows what's coming; and the big boys who sit at
the tables pound them and cheer; and the small boys who stand behind
pound one another, and cheer, and rush about the hall cheering. Then
silence being made, Warner reminds them of the old School-house custom
of drinking the healths, on the first night of singing, of those who are
going to leave at the end of the half. "He sees that they know what he
is going to say already--(loud cheers)--and so won't keep them, but only
ask them to treat the toast as it deserves. It is the head of the
eleven, the head of big-side football, their leader on this glorious
day--Pater Brooke!"
And away goes the pounding and cheering again, becoming deafening when
old Brooke gets on his legs: till, a table having broken down, and a
gallon or so of beer been upset, and all throats getting dry, silence
ensues, and the hero speaks, leaning his hands on the table, and bending
a little forwards. No action, no tricks of oratory; plain, strong, and
straight, like his play.
"Gentlemen of the School-house! I am very proud of the way in which you
have received my name, and I wish I could say all I should like in
return. But I know I shan't. However, I'll do the best I can to say what
seems to me ought to be said by a fellow who's just going to leave, and
who has spent a good slice of his life here. Eight years it is, and
eight such years as I can never hope to have again. So now I hope you'll
all listen to me--(loud cheers of 'that we will')--for I'm going to talk
seriously. You're bound to listen to me; for what's the use of calling
me 'pater,' and all that, if you don't mind what I say? And I'm going to
talk seriously, because I feel so. It's a jolly time, too, getting to
the end of the half, and a goal kicked by us first day--(tremendous
applause)--after one of the hardest and fiercest day's play I can
remember in eight years--(frantic shoutings). The school played
splendidly, too, I will say, and kept it up to the last. That last
charge of theirs would have carried away a house. I never thought to see
anything again of old Crab there, except little pieces, when I saw him
tumbled over by it--(laughter and shouting, and great slapping on the
back of Jones by the boys nearest him). Well, but we beat 'em--(cheers).
Aye, but why did we beat 'em? answer me that--(shouts of 'your play.')
Nonsense! 'Twasn't the wind and kick-off either--that wouldn't do it.
'Twasn't because we've half-a-dozen of the best players in the school,
as we have. I wouldn't change Warner, and Hedge, and Crab, and the young
un, for any six on their side--(violent cheers.) But half-a-dozen
fellows can't keep it up for two hours against two hundred. Why is it,
then? I'll tell you what I think. It's because we've more reliance on
one another, more of a house feeling, more fellowship than the school
can have. Each of us knows and can depend on his next hand man
better--that's why we beat 'em to-day. We've union, they've
division--there's the secret--(cheers). But how's this to be kept up?
How's it to be improved? That's the question. For I take it, we're all
in earnest about beating the school, whatever else we care about. I know
I'd sooner win two School-house matches running than get the Balliol
scholarship any day--(frantic cheers).
"Now, I'm as proud of the house as any one. I believe it's the best
house in the school, out-and-out--(cheers). But it's a long way from
what I want to see it. First there's a deal of bullying going on. I know
it well. I don't pry about and interfere; that only makes it more
underhand, and encourages the small boys to come to us with their
fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so we should be worse off than
ever. It's very little kindness for the sixth to meddle generally--you
youngsters, mind that. You'll be all the better football players for
learning to stand it, and to take your own parts, and fight it through.
But depend on it, there's nothing breaks up a house like bullying.
Bullies are cowards, and one coward makes many; so good-bye to the
School-house match if bullying gets ahead here. (Loud applause from the
small boys, who look meaningly at Flashman and other boys at the
tables.) Then there's fuddling about in the public-houses, and drinking
bad spirits, and punch, and such rot-gut stuff. That won't make good
drop-kicks or chargers of you, take my word for it. You get plenty of
good beer here, and that's enough for you; and drinking isn't fine or
manly, whatever some of you may think of it.
"One other thing I must have a word about. A lot of you think and say,
for I've heard you, 'There's this new Doctor hasn't been here so long as
some of us, and he's changing all the old customs. Rugby, and the
School-house especially, are going to the dogs. Stand up for the good
old ways, and down with the Doctor!' Now I'm as fond of old Rugby
customs and ways as any of you, and I've been here longer than any of
you, and I'll give you a word of advice in time, for I shouldn't like to
see any of you getting sacked. 'Down with the Doctor!' is easier said
than done. You'll find him pretty tight on his perch, I take it, and an
awkwardish customer to handle in that line. Besides now, what customs
has he put down? There was the good old custom of taking the linch-pins
out of the farmers' and bagmen's gigs at the fairs, and a cowardly
blackguard custom it was. We all know what came of it; and no wonder the
Doctor objected to it. But, come now, any of you, name a custom that he
has put down."
"The hounds," calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a green cutaway with
brass buttons and cord trousers, the leader of the sporting interest,
and reputed a great rider and keen hand generally.
"Well, we had six or seven mangey harriers and beagles belonging to the
house, I'll allow, and had had them for years, and that the Doctor put
them down. But what good ever came of them? Only rows with all the
keepers for ten miles round; and big-side Hare and Hounds is better fun
ten times over. What else?"
No answer.
"Well, I won't go on. Think it over for yourselves: you'll find, I
believe, that he don't meddle with any one that's worth keeping. And
mind now, I say again, look out for squalls, if you will go your own
way, and that way ain't the Doctor's, for it'll lead to grief. You all
know that I'm not the fellow to back a master through thick and thin. If
I saw him stopping football, or cricket, or bathing, or sparring, I'd be
as ready as any fellow to stand up about it. But he don't--he encourages
them; didn't you see him out to-day for half-an-hour watching us? (loud
cheers for the Doctor;) and he's a strong, true man, and a wise one too,
and a public-school man too. (Cheers.) And so let's stick to him, and
talk no more rot, and drink his health as the head of the house. (Loud
cheers.) And now I've done blowing up, and very glad I am to have done.
But it's a solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a place which one has
lived in and loved for eight years; and if one can say a word for the
good of the old house at such a time, why, it should be said, whether
bitter or sweet. If I hadn't been proud of the house and you--aye, no
one knows how proud--I shouldn't be blowing you up. And now let's get
to singing. But before I sit down I must give you a toast to be drunk
with three-times-three and all the honours. It's a toast which I hope
every one of us, wherever he may go hereafter, will never fail to drink
when he thinks of the brave bright days of his boyhood. It's a toast
which should bind us all together, and to those who've gone before, and
who'll come after us here. It is the dear old school-house--the best
house of the best school in England!"
My dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or do belong, to
other schools and other houses, don't begin throwing my poor little book
about the room, and abusing me and it, and vowing you'll read no more
when you get to this point. I allow you've provocation for it. But, come
now--would you, any of you, give a fig for a fellow who didn't believe
in, and stand up for his own house and his own school? You know you
wouldn't. Then don't object to my cracking up the old School-house,
Rugby. Haven't I a right to do it, when I'm taking all the trouble of
writing this true history for all your benefits? If you ain't satisfied,
go and write the history of your own houses in your own times, and say
all you know for your own schools and houses, provided it's true, and
I'll read it without abusing you.
The last few words hit the audience in their weakest place; they had
been not altogether enthusiastic at several parts of old Brooke's
speech; but "the best house of the best school in England" was too much
for them all, and carried even the sporting and drinking interests off
their legs into rapturous applause, and (it is to be hoped) resolutions
to lead a new life and remember old Brooke's words; which, however,
they didn't altogether do, as will appear hereafter.
But it required all old Brooke's popularity to carry down parts of his
speech; especially that relating to the Doctor. For there are no such
bigoted holders by established forms and customs, be they never so
foolish or meaningless, as English school-boys--at least, as the
school-boy of our generation. We magnified into heroes every boy who had
left, and looked upon him with awe and reverence, when he revisited the
place a year or so afterwards, on his way to or from Oxford or
Cambridge; and happy was the boy who remembered him, and sure of an
audience as he expounded what he used to do and say, though it were sad
enough stuff to make angels, not to say head-masters, weep.
We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit which had obtained
in the school as though it had been a law of the Medes and Persians, and
regarded the infringement or variation of it as a sort of sacrilege. And
the Doctor, than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking for old school
customs which were good and sensible, had, as has already been hinted,
come into most decided collision with several which were neither the one
nor the other. And as old Brooke had said, when he came into collision
with boys or customs, there was nothing for them but to give in or take
themselves off; because what he said had to be done, and no mistake
about it. And this was beginning to be pretty clearly understood; the
boys felt that there was a strong man over them, who would have things
his own way; and hadn't yet learned that he was a wise and loving man
also. His personal character and influence had not had time to make
itself felt, except by a very few of the bigger boys, with whom he came
more directly in contact; and he was looked upon with great fear and
dislike by the great majority even of his own house. For he had found
school, and school-house, in a state of monstrous license and misrule,
and was still employed in the necessary but unpopular work of setting up
order with a strong hand.
However, as has been said, old Brooke triumphed, and the boys cheered
him and then the Doctor. And then more songs came, and the healths of
the other boys about to leave, who each made a speech, one flowery,
another maudlin, a third prosy, and so on, which are not necessary to be
here recorded.
Half-past nine struck in the middle of the performance of "Auld Lang
Syne," a most obstreperous proceeding; during which there was an immense
amount of standing with one foot on the table, knocking mugs together
and shaking hands, without which accompaniments it seems impossible for
the youth of Britain to take part in that famous old song. The
under-porter of the School-house entered during the performance, bearing
five or six long wooden candlesticks, with lighted dips in them, which
he proceeded to stick into their holes in such part of the great tables
as he could get at; and then stood outside the ring till the end of the
song, when he was hailed with shouts.
"Bill, you old muff, the half-hour hasn't struck." "Here, Bill, drink
some cocktail," "Sing us a song old boy," "Don't you wish you may get
the table?" Bill drank the proffered cocktail not unwillingly, and
putting down the empty glass, remonstrated, "Now, gentlemen, there's
only ten minutes to prayers, and we must get the hall straight."
Shouts of "No, no!" and a violent effort to strike up "Billy Taylor" for
the third time. Bill looked appealingly to old Brooke, who got up and
stopped the noise. "Now then, lend a hand, you youngsters, and get the
tables back; clear away the jugs and glasses. Bill's right. Open the
windows, Warner." The boy addressed, who sat by the long ropes,
proceeded to pull up the great windows, and let in a clear fresh rush of
night air, which made the candles flicker and gutter, and the fires
roar. The circle broke up, each collaring his own jug, glass, and
song-book; Bill pounced on the big table, and began to rattle it away to
its place outside the buttery-door. The lower-passage boys carried off
their small tables, aided by their friends, while above all, standing on
the great hall-table, a knot of untiring sons of harmony made night
doleful by a prolonged performance of "God save the King." His Majesty
King William IV. then reigned over us, a monarch deservedly popular
amongst the boys addicted to melody, to whom he was chiefly known from
the beginning of that excellent, if slightly vulgar, song in which they
much delighted--
"Come, neighbours all, both great and small,
Perform your duties here,
And loudly sing 'live Billy our king,'
For bating the tax upon beer."
Others of the more learned in songs also celebrated his praises in a
sort of ballad, which I take to have been written by some Irish
loyalist. I have forgotten all but the chorus, which ran--
"God save our good King William, be his name for ever blessed:
He's the father of all his people, and the guardian of all the rest."
In troth, we were loyal subjects in those days, in a rough way. I trust
that our successors make as much of her present Majesty, and, having
regard to the greater refinement of the times, have adopted or written
other songs equally hearty, but more civilized, in her honour.
Then the quarter to ten struck, and the prayer-bell rang. The sixth and
fifth form boys ranged themselves in their school order along the wall,
on either side of the great fives, the middle fifth and upper-school
boys round the long table in the middle of the hall, and the
lower-school boys round the upper part of the second long table, which
ran down the side of the hall furthest from the fires. Here Tom found
himself at the bottom of all, in a state of mind and body not at all fit
for prayers, as he thought; and so tried hard to make himself serious,
but couldn't, for the life of him, do anything but repeat in his head
the choruses of some of the songs, and stare at all the boys opposite,
wondering at the brilliancy of their waistcoats, and speculating what
sort of fellows they were. The steps of the head-porter are heard on the
stairs, and a light gleams at the door. "Hush!" from the fifth-form boys
who stand there, and then in strides the Doctor, cap on head, book in
one hand, and gathering up his gown in the other. He walks up the
middle, and takes his post by Warner, who begins calling over the names.
The Doctor takes no notice of anything, but quietly turns over his book
and finds the place, and then stands, cap in hand and finger in book,
looking straight before his nose. He knows better than any one when to
look, and when to see nothing; to-night is singing night, and there's
been lots of noise and no harm done; nothing but beer drunk, and nobody
the worse for it; though some of them do look hot and excited. So the
Doctor sees nothing, but fascinates Tom in a horrible manner as he
stands there, and reads out the Psalm in that deep, ringing, searching
voice of his. Prayers are over, and Tom still stares open-mouthed after
the Doctor's retiring figure, when he feels a pull at his sleeve, and
turning round, sees East.
"I say, were you ever tossed in a blanket?"
"No," said Tom; "why?"
"'Cause there'll be tossing to-night, most likely, before the sixth come
up to bed. So if you funk, you just come along and hide, or else they'll
catch you and toss you."
"Were you ever tossed? Does it hurt?" inquired Tom.
"Oh yes, bless you, a dozen times," said East, as he hobbled along by
Tom's side up-stairs. "It don't hurt unless you fall on the floor. But
most fellows don't like it."
They stopped at the fireplace in the top passage, where were a crowd of
small boys whispering together, and evidently unwilling to go up into
the bedrooms. In a minute, however, a study door opened, and a
sixth-form boy came out, and off they all scuttled up the stairs, and
then noiselessly dispersed to their different rooms. Tom's heart beat
rather quick as he and East reached their room, but he had made up his
mind. "I shan't hide, East," said he.
"Very well, old fellow," replied East, evidently pleased; "no more shall
I--they'll be here for us directly."
The room was a great big one, with a dozen beds in it, but not a boy
that Tom could see, except East and himself. East pulled off his coat
and waistcoat, and then sat on the bottom of his bed, whistling, and
pulling off his boots; Tom followed his example.
A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door opens, and in rush
four or five great fifth-form boys, headed by Flashman in his glory.
Tom and East slept in the further corner of the room, and were not seen
at first.
"Gone to ground, eh?" roared Flashman; "push 'em out then, boys! look
under the beds:" and he pulled up the little white curtain of the one
nearest him. "Who-o-op," he roared, pulling away at the leg of a small
boy, who held on tight to the leg of the bed, and sung out lustily for
mercy.
"Here, lend a hand, one of you, and help me pull out this young howling
brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I'll kill you."
"Oh, please, Flashman, please, Walker, don't toss me! I'll fag for you,
I'll do anything, only don't toss me."
"You be hanged," said Flashman, lugging the wretched boy along, "'twont
hurt you,----you! Come along, boys, here he is."
"I say, Flashy," sung out another of the big boys, "drop that; you heard
what old Pater Brooke said to-night I'll he hanged if we'll toss any
one against their will--no more bullying. Let him go, I say."
Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey, who rushed
headlong under his bed again, for fear they should change their minds,
and crept along underneath the other beds, till he got under that of the
sixth-form boy, which he knew they daren't disturb.
"There's plenty of youngsters don't care about it," said Walker. "Here,
here's Scud East--you'll be tossed, won't you, young un?" Scud was
East's nickname, or Black, as we called it, gained by his fleetness of
foot.
"Yes," said East, "if you like, only mind my foot."
"And here's another who didn't hide. Hullo! new boy; what's your name,
sir?"
"Brown."
"Well, Whitey Brown, you don't mind being tossed?"
"No," said Tom, setting his teeth.
"Come along then, boys," sung out Walker; and away they all went,
carrying along Tom and East, to the intense relief of four or five other
small boys, who crept out from under the beds and behind them.
"What a trump Scud is!" said one. "They won't come back here now."
"And that new boy, too; he must be a good plucked one."
"Ah! wait till he has been tossed on to the floor; see how he'll like it
then!"
Meantime the procession went down the passage to Number 7, the largest
room, and the scene of tossing, in the middle of which was a great open
space. Here they joined other parties of the bigger boys, each with a
captive or two, some willing to be tossed, some sullen, and some
frightened to death. At Walker's suggestion, all who were afraid were
let off, in honour of Pater Brooke's speech.
Then a dozen big boys seized hold of a blanket dragged from one of the
beds. "In with Scud, quick! there's no time to lose." East was chucked
into the blanket. "Once, twice, thrice, and away;" up he went like a
shuttlecock, but not quite up to the ceiling.
"Now, boys, with a will," cried Walker, "once, twice, thrice, and away!"
This time he went clean up, and kept himself from touching the ceiling
with his hand; and so again a third time, when he was turned out, and up
went another boy. And then came Tom's turn. He lay quite still, by
East's advice, and didn't dislike the "once, twice, thrice;" but the
"away" wasn't so pleasant. They were in good wind now, and sent him slap
up to the ceiling first time, against which his knees came rather
sharply. But the moment's pause before descending was the rub, the
feeling of utter helplessness, and of leaving his whole inside behind
him sticking to the ceiling. Tom was very near shouting to be set down,
when he found himself back in the blanket, but thought of East, and
didn't; and so took his three tosses without a kick or a cry, and was
called a young trump for his pains.
He and East, having earned it, stood now looking on. No catastrophe
happened, as all the captives were cool hands, and didn't struggle. This
didn't suit Flashman. What your real bully likes in tossing, is when the
boys kick and struggle, or hold on to one side of the blanket, and so
get pitched bodily on to the floor; it's no fun to him when no one is
hurt or frightened.
"Let's toss two of them together, Walker," suggested he.
"What a cursed bully you are, Flashy!" rejoined the other. "Up with
another one."
And so no two boys were tossed together, the peculiar hardship of which
is, that it's too much for human nature to lie still then and share
troubles; and so the wretched pair of small boys struggle in the air
which shall fall a-top in the descent, to the no small risk of both
falling out of the blanket, and the huge delight of brutes like
Flashman.
But now there's a cry that the præpostor of the room is coming; so the
tossing stops, and all scatter to their different rooms: and Tom is left
to turn in, with the first day's experience of a public school to
meditate upon.