Hugh found, in the morning, that there was no danger of his not hearing
the bell. Its clang clang startled him out of a sound sleep; and he was
on his feet on the floor almost before his eyes were open. The boys who
were more used to the bell did not make quite so much haste. They
yawned a few times, and turned out more slowly; so that Hugh had the
great tin wash basin to himself longer than the rest. There was a basin
to every three boys; and, early as Hugh began, his companions were
impatient long before he had done. At first, they waited, in curiosity
to see what he was going to do after washing his face; when he went
further, they began to quiz; but when they found that he actually
thought of washing his feet, they hooted and groaned at him for a dirty
brat.
"Dirty!" cried Hugh, facing them, amazed, "Dirty for washing my feet!
Mother says it is a dirty trick not to wash all over every day."
Phil told him that was stuff and nonsense here. There was no room and
no time for such home-doings. The boys all washed their heads and feet
on Saturdays. He would soon find that he might be glad to get his face
and hands done in the mornings.
The other boys in the room were, or pretended to be, so disgusted with
the very idea of washing feet in a basin, that they made Hugh rinse and
rub out the tin basin several times before they would use it, and then
there was a great bustle to get down-stairs at the second bell. Hugh
pulled his brother's arm, as Phil was brushing out of the room, and
asked, in a whisper, whether there would be time to say his prayers.
"There will be prayers in the school-room. You must be in time for
them," said Phil. "You had better come with me."
"Do wait one moment, while I just comb my hair."
Phil fidgeted, and others giggled, while Hugh tried to part his hair, as
Susan had taught him. He gave it up, and left it rough, thinking he
would come up and do it when there was nobody there to laugh at him.
The school-room looked chilly and dull, as there was no sunshine in it
till the afternoon; and still Mr Tooke was not there, as Hugh had hoped
he would be. Mrs Watson and the servants came in for prayers, which
were well read by the usher; and then everybody went to business:--
everybody but Hugh and Holt, who had nothing to do. Class after class
came up for repetition; and this repetition seemed to the new boys an
accomplishment they should never acquire. They did not think that any
practice would enable them to gabble, as everybody seemed able to gabble
here. Hugh had witnessed something of it before,--Phil having been wont
to run off at home, "Sal, Sol, Ren et Splen," to the end of the passage,
for the admiration of his sisters, and so much to little Harry's
amusement, that Susan, however busy she might be, came to listen, and
then asked him to say it again, that cook might hear what he learned at
school. Hugh now thought that none of them gabbled quite so fast as
Phil: but he soon found out, by a glance or two of Phil's to one side,
that he was trying to astonish the new boys. It is surprising how it
lightened Hugh's heart to find that his brother did not quite despise,
or feel ashamed of him, as he had begun to think: but that he even took
pains to show off. He was sorry too when the usher spoke sharply to
Phil, and even rapped his head with the cane, asking him what he
spluttered out his nonsense at that rate for. Thus ended Phil's
display; and Hugh felt as hot, and as ready to cry, as if it had
happened to himself.
Perhaps the usher saw this; for when he called Hugh up, he was very
kind. He looked at the Latin grammar he had used with Miss Harold, and
saw by the dogs'-ears exactly how far Hugh had gone in it, and asked him
only what he could answer very well. Hugh said three declensions, with
only one mistake. Then he was shown the part that he was to say
to-morrow morning; and Hugh walked away, all the happier for having
something to do, like everybody else. He was so little afraid of the
usher, that he went back to him to ask where he had better sit.
"Sit! O! I suppose you must have a desk, though you have nothing to
put in it. If there is a spare desk, you shall have it: if not, we will
find a corner for you somewhere."
Some of the boys whispered that Mrs Watson's footstool, under her
apron, would do: but the usher overheard this, and observed that it took
some people a good while to know a new boy; and that they might find
that a little fellow might be as much of a man as a big one. And the
usher called the oldest boy in the school, and asked him to see if there
was a desk for little Proctor. There was: and Hugh put into it his two
or three school-books, and his slate; and felt that he was now indeed a
Crofton boy. Then, the usher was kinder than he had expected; and he
had still to see Mr Tooke, of whom he was not afraid at all. So Hugh's
spirits rose, and he liked the prospect of breakfast as well as any boy
in the school.
There was one more rebuff for him, first, however. He ran up to his
room, to finish combing his hair, while the other boys were thronging
into the long room to breakfast. He found the housemaids there, making
the beds; and they both cried "Out! Out!" and clapped their hands at
him, and threatened to tell Mrs Watson of his having broken rules, if
he did not go this moment Hugh asked what Mrs Watson would say to his
hair, if he went to breakfast with it as it was. One of the maids was
good-natured enough to comb it for him, for once: but she said he must
carry a comb in his pocket; as the boys were not allowed to go to their
rooms, except at stated hours.
At last, Hugh saw Mr Tooke. When the boys entered school at nine
o'clock, the master was at his desk. Hugh went up to his end of the
room, with a smiling face, while Tom Holt hung back; and he kept
beckoning Tom Holt on, having told him there was nothing to be afraid
of. But when, at last, Mr Tooke saw him, he made no difference between
the two, and seemed to forget having ever seen Hugh. He told them he
hoped they would be good boys, and would do credit to Crofton; and then
he asked Mr Carnaby to set them something to learn. And this was all
they had to do with Mr Tooke for a long while.
This morning in school, from nine till twelve, seemed the longest
morning these little boys had ever known. When they remembered that the
afternoon would be as long, and every morning and afternoon for three
months, their hearts sank. Perhaps, if any one had told them that the
time would grow shorter and shorter by use, and at last, when they had
plenty to do, almost too short, they would not have believed it, because
they could not yet feel it. But what they now found was only what every
boy and girl finds, on beginning school, or entering upon any new way of
life.
Mr Carnaby, who was busy with others, found it rather difficult to fill
up their time. When Hugh had said some Latin, and helped his companion
to learn his first Latin lesson, and both had written a copy, and done a
sum, Mr Carnaby could not spare them any more time or thought, and told
them they might do what they liked, if they only kept quiet, till school
was up. So they made out the ridiculous figures which somebody had
carved upon their desks, and the verses, half rubbed out, which were
scribbled inside: and then they reckoned, on their slates, how many days
there were before the Christmas holidays;--how many school-days, and how
many Sundays. And then Hugh began to draw a steamboat in the Thames, as
seen from the leads of his father's house; while Holt drew on his slate
the ship in which he came over from India. But before they had done,
the clock struck twelve, school was up, and there was a general rush
into the playground.
Now Hugh was really to see the country. Except that the sun had shone
pleasantly into his room in the morning, through waving trees, nothing
had yet occurred to make him feel that he was in the country. Now,
however, he was in the open air, with trees sprinkled all over the
landscape, and green fields stretching away, and the old church tower
half-covered with ivy. Hugh screamed with pleasure; and nobody thought
it odd, for almost every boy was shouting. Hugh longed to pick up some
of the shining brown chestnuts which he had seen yesterday in the road,
under the trees; and he was now cantering away to the spot, when Phil
ran after him, and roughly stopped him, saying he would get into a fine
scrape for the first day, if he went out of bounds.
Hugh had forgotten there were such things as bounds, and was not at all
glad to be reminded of them now. He sighed as he begged Phil to show
him exactly where he might go and where he might not Phil did so in an
impatient way, and then was off to trap-ball, because his party were
waiting for him.
The chestnut-trees overhung one corner of the playground, within the
paling: and in that corner Hugh found several chestnuts which had burst
their sheaths, and lay among the first fallen leaves. He pocketed them
with great delight, wondering that nobody had been before him to secure
such a treasure. Agnes should have some; and little Harry would find
them nice playthings. They looked good to eat too; and he thought he
could spare one to taste; so he took out his knife, cut off the point of
a fine swelling chestnut, and tasted a bit of the inside. Just as he
was making a face over it, and wondering that it was so nasty, when
those which his father roasted in the fire-shovel on Christmas-day were
so good, he heard laughter behind him, and found that he was again doing
something ridiculous, though he knew not what: and in a moment poor Hugh
was as unhappy as ever.
He ran away from the laughing boys, and went quite to the opposite
corner of the playground, where a good number of his schoolfellows were
playing ball under the orchard-wall. Hugh ran hither and thither, like
the rest, trying to catch the ball; but he never could do it; and he was
jostled, and thrown down, and another boy fell over him; and he was told
that he knew nothing about play, and had better move off.
He did so, with a heavy heart, wondering how he was ever to be like the
other boys, if nobody would take him in hand, and teach him to play, or
even let him learn. Remembering what his mother expected of him, he
tried to sing, to prevent crying, and began to count the pales round the
playground, for something to do. This presently brought him to a tree
which stood on the very boundary, its trunk serving instead of two or
three pales. It was only a twisted old apple-tree; but the more twisted
and gnarled it was, the more it looked like a tree that Hugh could
climb; and he had always longed to climb a tree. Glancing up, he saw a
boy already there, sitting on the fork of two branches, reading.
"Have you a mind to come up?" asked the boy.
"Yes, sir, I should like to try and climb a tree. I never did."
"Well, this is a good one to begin with. I'll lend you a hand; shall
I?"
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't call me, `sir.' I'm only a schoolboy, like you. I am Dan Firth.
Call me Firth, as I am the only one of the name here. You are little
Proctor, I think--Proctor's brother."
"Yes: but, Firth, I shall pull you down, if I slip."
"Not you: but I'll come down, and so send you up to my seat, which is
the safest to begin with. Stand off."
Firth swung himself down, and then, showing Hugh where to plant his
feet, and propping him when he wanted it, he soon seated him on the
fork, and laughed good-naturedly when Hugh waved his cap over his head,
on occasion of being up in a tree. He let him get down and up again
several times, till he could do it quite alone, and felt that he might
have a seat here whenever it was not occupied by any one else.
While Hugh sat in the branches, venturing to leave hold with one hand,
that he might fan his hot face with his cap, Firth stood on the rail of
the palings, holding by the tree, and talking to him. Firth told him
that this was the only tree the boys were allowed to climb, since Ned
Reeve had fallen from the great ash, and hurt his spine. He showed what
trees he had himself climbed before that accident; and it made Hugh
giddy to think of being within eight feet of the top of the lofty elm in
the churchyard, which Firth had thought nothing of mounting.
"Did anybody teach you?" asked Hugh.
"Yes; my father taught me to climb, when I was younger than you."
"And had you anybody to teach you games and things, when you came here?"
"No: but I had learned a good deal of that before I came; and so I soon
fell into the ways here. Have you anybody to teach you?"
"No--yes--why, no. I thought Phil would have showed me things; but he
does not seem to mind me at all." And Hugh bit his lip, and fanned
himself faster.
"Ah! He attends to you more than you think."
"Does he? Then why--but what good does it do me?"
"What good? His holding off makes you push your own way. It lets you
make friends for yourself."
"I have no friends here," said Hugh.
"Yes, you have. Here am I. You would not have had me, if you had been
at Proctor's heels at this moment."
"Will you be my friend, then?"
"That I will."
"What, a great boy like you, that sits reading in a tree! But I may
read here beside you. You said there was room for two."
"Ay; but you must not use it yet,--at least, not often, if you wish to
do well here. Everybody knows I can play at anything. From the time I
became captain of the wall at fives, I have had liberty to do what I
like, without question. But you must show that you are up to play,
before they will let you read in peace and quiet."
"But how can I, if--if--"
"Once show your spirit,--prove that you can shift for yourself, and you
will find Phil open out wonderfully. He and you will forget all his
shyness then. Once show him that he need not be ashamed of you--"
"Ashamed of me!" cried Hugh, firing up.
"Yes. Little boys are looked upon as girls in a school till they show
that they are little men. And then again, you have been brought up with
girls,--have not you?"
"To be sure; and so was he."
"And half the boys here, I dare say. Well, they are called Bettys
till--"
"I am not a Betty," cried Hugh, flashing again.
"They suppose you are, because you part your hair, and do as you have
been used to do at home."
"What business have they with my hair? I might as well call them Bruins
for wearing theirs shaggy."
"Very true. They will let you and your hair alone when they see what
you are made of; and then Phil will--"
"He will own me when I don't want it; and now, when he might help me,
there he is, far off, never caring about what becomes of me!"
"O yes, he does. He is watching you all the time. You and he will have
it all out some day before Christmas, and then you will see how he
really cares about you. Really your hair is very long,--too like a
girl's. Shall I cut it for you?"
"I should like it," said Hugh, "but I don't want the boys to think I am
afraid of them; or to begin giving up to them."
"You are right there. We will let it alone now, and cut it when it
suits our convenience."
"What a nice place this is, to be sure!" cried Hugh, as the feeling of
loneliness went off. "But the rooks do not make so much noise as I
expected."
"You will find what they can do in that way when spring comes,--when
they are building."
"And when may we go out upon the heath, and into the fields where the
lambs are?"
"We go long walks on Saturday afternoons; but you do not expect to see
young lambs in October, do you?"
"O, I forgot I never can remember the seasons for things."
"That shows you are a Londoner. You will learn all those things here.
If you look for hares in our walks, you may chance to see one; or you
may start a pheasant; but take care you don't mention lambs, or
goslings, or cowslips, or any spring things; or you will never hear the
last of it."
"Thank you: but what will poor Holt do? He is from India, and he knows
very little about our ways."
"They may laugh at him; but they will not despise him as they might a
Londoner. Being an Indian, and being a Londoner, are very different
things."
"And yet how proud the Londoners are over the country! It is very odd."
"People are proud of their own ways all the world over. You will be
proud of being a Crofton boy, by-and-by."
"Perhaps I am now, a little," said Hugh, blushing.
"What, already? Ah! You will do, I see. I have known old people proud
of their age, and young people of their youth. I have seen poor people
proud of their poverty; and everybody has seen rich people proud of
their wealth. I have seen happy people proud of their prosperity, and
the afflicted proud of their afflictions. Yes; people can always manage
to be proud: so you have boasted of being a Londoner up to this time;
and from this time you will hold your head high as a Crofton boy."
"How long? Till when?"
"Ah! Till when? What next! What do you mean to be afterwards?"
"A soldier, or a sailor, or a great traveller, or something of that
kind. I mean to go quite round the world, like Captain Cook."
"Then you will come home, proud of having been round the world; and you
will meet with some old neighbour who boasts of having spent all his
life in the house he was born in."
"Old Mr Dixon told mother that of himself, very lately. Oh dear, how
often does the postman come?"
"You want a letter from home, do you? But you left them only yesterday
morning."
"I don't know how to believe that,--it seems such an immense time! But
when does the postman come?"
"Any day when he has letters to bring,--at about four in the afternoon.
We see him come, from the school-room; but we do not know who the
letters are for till school breaks up at five."
"O dear!" cried Hugh, thinking what the suspense must be, and the
disappointment at last to twenty boys, perhaps, for one that was
gratified. Firth advised him to write a letter home before he began to
expect one. If he did not like to ask the usher, he himself would rule
the paper for him, and he could write a bit at a time, after his lessons
were done in the evening, till the sheet was full.
Hugh then told his grievance about the usher, and Firth thought that
though it was not wise in Hugh to prate about Crofton on the top of the
coach, it was worse to sit by and listen without warning, unless the
listener meant to hold his own tongue. But he fancied the usher had
since heard something which made him sorry; and the best way now was for
Hugh to bear no malice, and remember nothing more of the affair than to
be discreet in his future journeys.
"What is the matter there?" cried Hugh. "O dear! Something very
terrible must have happened. How that boy is screaming!"
"It is only Lamb again," replied Firth. "You will soon get used to his
screaming. He is a very passionate boy--I never saw such a passionate
fellow."
"But what are they doing to him?"
"Somebody is putting him into a passion, I suppose. There is always
somebody to do that."
"What a shame!" cried Hugh.
"Yes: I see no wit in it," replied Firth. "Anybody may do it. You have
only to hold your little finger up to put him in a rage."
Hugh thought Firth was rather cool about the matter. But Firth was not
so cool when the throng opened for a moment, and showed what was really
done to the angry boy. Only his head appeared above ground. His
schoolfellows had put him into a hole they had dug, and had filled it up
to his chin, stamping down the earth, so that the boy was perfectly
helpless, while wild with rage.
"That is too bad!" cried Firth. "That would madden a saint."
And he jumped down from the paling and ran towards the crowd. Hugh,
forgetting his height from the ground, stood up in the tree, almost as
angry as Lamb himself, and staring with all his might to see what he
could. He saw Firth making his way through the crowd, evidently
remonstrating, if not threatening. He saw him snatch a spade from a boy
who was flourishing it in Lamb's face. He saw that Firth was digging,
though half-a-dozen boys had thrown themselves on his back, and hung on
his arms. He saw that Firth persevered till Lamb had got his right arm
out of the ground, and was striking everywhere within reach. Then he
saw Firth dragged down and away, while the boys made a circle round
Lamb, putting a foot or hand within his reach, and then snatching it
away again, till the boy yelled with rage at the mockery.
Hugh could look on no longer. He scrambled down from the tree,
scampered to the spot, burst through the throng, and seized Lamb's hand.
Lamb struck him a heavy blow, taking him for an enemy; but Hugh cried
"I am your friend," seized his hand again, and tugged till he was first
red and then black in the face, and till Lamb had worked his shoulders
out of the hole, and seemed likely to have the use of his other arm in a
trice.
Lamb's tormentors at first let Hugh alone in amazement; but they were
not long in growing angry with him too. They hustled him--they pulled
him all ways--they tripped him up; but Hugh's spirit was roused, and
that brought his body up to the struggle again and again. He wrenched
himself free, he scrambled to his feet again, as often as he was thrown
down; and in a few minutes he had plenty of support. Phil was taking
his part, and shielding him from many blows. Firth had got Lamb out of
the hole, and the party against the tormentors was now so strong that
they began to part off till the struggle ceased. Firth kept his grasp
of the spade; for Lamb's passion still ran so high that there was no
saying what might be the consequences of leaving any dangerous weapon
within his reach. He was still fuming and stamping, Hugh gazing at him
the while in wonder and fear.
"There stands your defender, Lamb," said Firth, "thinking he never saw a
boy in a passion before. Come, have done with it for his sake: be a
man, as he is. Here, help me to fill up this hole--both of you. Stamp
down the earth, Lamb. Tread it well--tread your anger well down into
it. Think of this little friend of yours here--a Crofton boy only
yesterday."
Lamb did help to fill the hole, but he did not say a word--not one word
to anybody till the dinner-bell rang. Then, at the pump, where the
party were washing their hot and dirty and bruised hands, he held out
his hand to Hugh, muttering, with no very good grace--
"I don't know what made you help me, but I will never be in a passion
with you;--unless you put me out, that is."
Hugh replied that he had come to help because he never could bear to see
anybody _made worse_. He always tried at home to keep the little boys
and girls off "drunk old Tom," as he was called in the neighbourhood.
It was such a shame to make anybody worse! Lamb looked as if he was
going to fly at Hugh now: but Firth put his arm round Hugh's neck, and
drew him into the house, saying in his ear--
"Don't say any more that you have no friends here. You have me for one;
and you might have had another--two in one morning--but for your plain
speaking about drunk old Tom."
"Did I say any harm?"
"No--no harm," replied Firth, laughing. "You will do, my boy--when you
have got through a few scrapes. I'm your friend, at any rate."