There is a certain sort of fellow--we who are used to studying boys all
know him well enough--of whom you can predicate with almost positive
certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure to have
a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but one. Tom
Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give
a full, true, and correct account of Tom's only single combat with a
school-fellow, let those young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or
who think a good set-to with the weapons which God has given to us all,
an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly, affair, just skip this
chapter at once, for it won't be to their taste.
It was not at all usual in those days for two school-house boys to have
a fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained,
hard-headed fellow came up, who would never be happy unless he was
quarreling with his nearest neighbors, or when there was some
class-dispute between the fifth-form and the fags, for instance, which
required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side
tacitly, who settled the matter by a good, hearty mill. But for the most
part the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the
boxing-gloves, kept the school-house boys from fighting one another. Two
or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the
hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at
all, knew all his neighbors' prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a
nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy
in the house. But of course no such experience could be gotten as
regarded boys in other houses; and as most of the other houses were more
or less jealous of the school-house, collisions were frequent.
After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know?
From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the
business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man.
Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be
they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickedness in
high places, or Russians, or border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry,
who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.
It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men to uplift their
voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they
don't follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own
piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better
world without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn't be our
world; and therefore I am dead against crying peace when there is no
peace, and isn't meant to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folk
fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but I'd a deal sooner
see them doing that, than that they should have no fight in them. So
having recorded, and being about to record, my hero's fights of all
sorts, with all sorts of enemies, I shall now proceed to give an account
of his passage-at-arms with the only one of his school-fellows whom he
ever had to encounter in this manner.
It was drawing toward the close of Arthur's first half-year, and the May
evenings were lengthening out. Locking-up was not till eight o'clock,
and everybody was beginning to talk about what he would do in the
holidays. The shell,[6] in which form all our _dramatis personae_ now
are, were reading among other things the last book of "Homer's Iliad,"
and had worked through it as far as the speeches of the women over
Hector's body. It is a whole school-day, and four or five of the
school-house boys (among whom are Arthur, Tom and East) are preparing
third lesson together. They have finished the regulation forty lines,
and are for the most part getting very tired, notwithstanding the
exquisite pathos of Helen's lamentation. And now several long
four-syllabled words come together, and the boy with the dictionary
strikes work.
[Footnote 6: _Shell_ is the name applied, in some public schools, to a
sort of intermediate class.]
"I am not going to look out any more words," says he; "we've done the
quantity. Ten to one we shan't get so far. Let's go out into the close."
"Come along, boys," cries East, always ready to leave the grind, as he
called it; "our old coach is laid up, you know, and we shall have one of
the new masters, who's sure to go slow and let us down easy."
So an adjournment to the close was carried _nem. con._,[7] little
Arthur not daring to lift up his voice; but, being deeply interested in
what they were reading, he stayed quietly behind, and learned on for his
own pleasure.
[Footnote 7: _Nemine contradicente_ is a Latin expression meaning _no
one speaking in opposition_.]
As East had said, the regular master of the form was unwell, and they
were to be heard by one of the new masters, quite a young man, who had
only just left the university. Certainly it would be hard lines, if, by
dawdling as much as possible in coming in and taking their places,
entering into long-winded explanations of what was the usual course of
the regular master of the form, and others of the stock contrivances of
boys for wasting time in school, they could not spin out the lesson so
that he should not work them through more than the forty lines; as to
which quantity there was a perpetual fight going on between the master
and his form, the latter insisting, and enforcing by passive resistance,
that it was the prescribed quantity of Homer for a shell lesson, the
former that there was no fixed quantity, but that they must always be
ready to go on to fifty or sixty lines if there were time within the
hour. However, notwithstanding all their efforts, the new master got on
horribly quick; he seemed to have the bad taste to be really interested
in the lesson, and to be trying to work them up into something like
appreciation of it, giving them good spirited English words, instead of
the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered poor old Homer; and
construing over each piece himself to them, after each boy, to show them
how it should be done.
Now the clock strikes the three quarters; there is only a quarter of an
hour more; but the forty lines are all but done. So the boys, one after
another, who are called up, stick more and more, and make balder and
ever more bald work of it. The poor young master is pretty near beat by
this time, and feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his
fingers against somebody else's head. So he gives up altogether the
lower and middle parts of the form, and looks round in despair at the
boys on the top bench to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a
spark or two, and who will be too chivalrous to murder the most
beautiful utterances of the most beautiful woman of the old world. His
eye rests on Arthur, and he calls him up to finish construing Helen's
speech. Whereupon all the other boys draw long breaths, and begin to
stare about and take it easy. They are all safe; Arthur is the head of
the form, and sure to be able to construe, and that will tide on safely
till the hour strikes.
Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek before construing it,
as the custom is. Tom, who isn't paying much attention, is suddenly
caught by the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines:
[Greek: alla su ton g' epeessi maraiphamenos katrukes,
Sae t' aganophrosunae kai sois aganois epeessin.][1]
[Footnote 1: Pope's free rendering of these lines is as follows:
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents softened all my pain.]
He looks up at Arthur. "Why, bless us," thinks he, "what can be the
matter with the young 'un? He's never going to get floored. He's sure to
have learned to the end." Next moment he is reassured by the spirited
tone in which Arthur begins construing, and betakes himself to drawing
dogs' heads in his notebook, while the master, evidently enjoying the
change, turns his back on the middle bench and stands before Arthur,
beating a sort of time with his hand and foot and saying "Yes, yes,"
"very well," as Arthur goes on.
But as he nears the fatal two lines, Tom catches that falter and again
looks up. He sees that there is something the matter--Arthur can hardly
get on at all. What can it be?
Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down altogether, and fairly bursts
out crying, and dashes the cuff of his jacket across his eyes, blushing
up to the roots of his hair, and feeling as if he should like to go down
suddenly through the floor. The whole form are taken aback; most of them
stare stupidly at him, while those who are gifted with presence of mind
find their places and look steadily at their books, in hopes of not
catching the master's eye and getting called up in Arthur's place.
The master looks puzzled for a moment, and then seeing, as the fact is,
that the boy is really affected to tears by the most touching thing in
Homer, perhaps in all profane poetry put together, steps up to him and
lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying, "Never mind, my little
man, you've construed very well. Stop a minute, there's no hurry."
Now, as luck would have it, there sat next above Tom that day, in the
middle bench of the form, a big boy, by name Williams, generally
supposed to be the cock of the shell, therefore, of all the school below
the fifths. The small boys, who are great speculators on the prowess of
their elders, used to hold forth to one another about Williams' great
strength, and to discuss whether East or Brown would take a licking from
him. He was called Slogger Williams, from the force with which it was
supposed he could hit. In the main, he was a rough, good-natured fellow
enough, but very much alive to his own dignity. He reckoned himself the
king of the form, and kept up his position with a strong hand,
especially in the matter of forcing boys not to construe more than the
legitimate forty lines. He had already grunted and grumbled to himself
when Arthur went on reading beyond the forty lines. But now that he had
broken down just in the middle of all the long words, the slogger's
wrath was fairly roused.
"Sneaking little brute," muttered he, regardless of prudence, "clapping
on the waterworks just in the hardest place; see if I don't punch his
head after fourth lesson."
"Whose?" said Tom, to whom the remark seemed to be addressed.
"Why, that little sneak, Arthur's," replied Williams.
"No, you shan't," said Tom.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom with great surprise for a
moment, and then giving him a sudden dig in the ribs with his elbow,
which sent Tom's books flying on the floor, and called the attention of
the master, who turned suddenly round, and seeing the state of things,
said:
"Williams, go down three places, and then go on."
The slogger found his legs very slowly, and proceeded to go below Tom
and two other boys with great disgust, and then turning round and facing
the master said:
"I haven't learned any more, sir; our lesson is only forty lines."
"Is that so?" said the master, appealing generally to the top bench. No
answer.
"Who is the head boy of the form?" said he, waxing wroth.
"Arthur, sir," answered three or four boys, indicating our friend.
"Oh, your name's Arthur. Well now, what is the length of your regular
lesson?"
Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said, "We call it only forty lines,
sir."
"How do you mean, you call it?"
"Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain't to stop there, when there's time to
construe more."
"I understand," said the master. "Williams, go down three more places,
and write me out the lesson in Greek and English. And now, Arthur,
finish construing."
"Oh! would I be in Arthur's shoes after fourth lesson?" said the little
boys to one another; but Arthur finished Helen's speech without any
further catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which ended third
lesson. Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying fourth lesson,
during which Williams was bottling up his wrath; and when five struck,
and the lessons for the day were over, he prepared to take summary
vengeance on the innocent cause of his misfortune.
Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the rest, and on coming
out into the quadrangle, the first thing he saw was a small ring of
boys, applauding Williams, who was holding Arthur by the collar.
"There, you young sneak," said he, giving Arthur a cuff on the head with
his other hand, "what made you say that--"
"Hullo!" said Tom, shouldering into the crowd, "you drop that, Williams;
you shan't touch him."
"Who'll stop me?" said the slogger, raising his hand again.
"I," said Tom; and suiting the action to the word, struck the arm which
held Arthur's arm so sharply, that the slogger dropped it with a start,
and turned the full current of his wrath on Tom.
"Will you fight?"
"Yes, of course."
"Huzza, there's going to be a fight between Slogger Williams and Tom
Brown!"
The news ran like wild-fire about, and many boys were on their way to
tea at their several houses turned back, and sought the back of the
chapel, where the fights come off.
"Just run and tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small
school-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just
stopping for a moment to poke his head into the school-house hall, where
the lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom Brown and
Slogger Williams."
Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs, butter, sprats, and
all the rest to take care of themselves. The greater part of the
remainder follow in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying their
food in their hands to consume as they go. Three or four only remain,
who steal the butter of the more impetuous, and make to themselves an
unctuous feast.
In another minute East and Martin tear through the quadrangle carrying a
sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just as the combatants are
beginning to strip.
Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he stripped off his
jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his handkerchief round his
waist, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves for him: "Now, old boy, don't you
open your mouth to say a word, or try to help yourself a bit, we'll do
all that; you keep all your breath and strength for the slogger." Martin
meanwhile folded the clothes, and put them under the chapel rails; and
now Tom, with East to handle him and Martin to give him a knee, steps
out on the turf, and is ready for all that may come: and here is the
slogger too, all stripped, and thirsting for the fray.
[Illustration: "A FIGHT!"]
It doesn't look a fair match at first glance: Williams is nearly two
inches taller, and probably a long year older than his opponent, and he
is very strongly made about the arms and shoulders; "peels well," as the
little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say; who stand outside
the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active
part in the proceedings. But down below he is not so good by any means;
no spring from the loins, and feebleish, not to say shipwrecky, about
the knees. Tom, on the contrary, though not half so strong in the arms,
is good all over, straight, hard, and springy from neck to ankle, better
perhaps in his legs than anywhere. Besides, you can see by the clear
white of his eye and fresh bright look of his skin, that he is in
tip-top training, able to do all he knows; while the slogger looks
rather sodden, as if he didn't take much exercise and ate too much
tuck.[9] The time-keeper is chosen, a large ring made, and the two stand
up opposite one another for a moment, giving us time just to make our
little observations.
[Footnote: 9. _Tuck_ is a slang name for pastry or sweetmeats.]
"If Tom'll only condescend to fight with his head and heels," as East
mutters to Martin, "we shall do."
But seemingly he won't for there he goes in, making play with both
hands. Hard all, is the word; the two stand to one another like men;
rally follows rally in quick succession, each fighting as if he thought
to finish the whole thing out of hand. "Can't last at this rate," say
the knowing ones, while the partisans of each make the air ring with
their shouts and counter-shouts, of encouragement, approval and
defiance.
"Take it easy, take it easy--keep away, let him come after you,"
implores East, as he wipes Tom's face after the first round with a wet
sponge, while he sits back on Martin's knee, supported by the Madman's
long arms, which tremble a little from excitement.
"Time's up," calls the time-keeper.
"There he goes again, hang it all!" growls East as his man is at it
again as hard as ever. A very severe round follows, in which Tom gets
out and out the worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his legs, and
deposited on the grass by a right-hander from the slogger. Loud shouts
rise from the boys of slogger's house, and the school-house are silent
and vicious, ready to pick quarrels anywhere.
[Illustration: TOM SITS ON MARTIN'S KNEE]
"Two to one in half-crowns on the big 'un," says Rattle, one of the
amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning waistcoat, and puffy,
good-natured face.
"Done!" says Groove, another amateur of quieter look, taking out his
note-book to enter it--for our friend Rattle sometimes forgets these
little things.
Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the sponges for the next round,
and has set two other boys to rub his hands.
"Tom, old boy," whispers he, "this may be fun for you, but it's death to
me. He'll hit all the fight out of you in another five minutes, and then
I shall go and drown myself in the island ditch. Feint him--use your
legs! draw him about! he'll lose his wind then in no time, and you can
go into him. Hit at his body too, we'll take care of his frontispiece by
and by."
Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already that he couldn't go
in and finish the slogger off at mere hammer and tongs, so changed his
tactics completely in the third round. He now fights cautious, getting
away from and parrying the slogger's lunging hits, instead of trying to
counter, and leading his enemy a dance all round the ring after him.
"He's funking; go in, Williams," "Catch him up," "Finish him off,"
scream the small boys of the slogger party.
"Just what we want," thinks East, chuckling to himself, as he sees
Williams, excited by these shouts and thinking the game in his own
hands, blowing himself in his exertions to get to close quarters again,
while Tom is keeping away with perfect ease.
They quarter over the ground again and again, Tom always on the
defensive.
The slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly blown.
"Now then, Tom," sings out East dancing with delight. Tom goes in in a
twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, and gets away again before the
slogger can catch his wind; which when he does he rushes with blind fury
at Tom, and being skillfully parried and avoided, over-reaches himself
and falls on his face, amid terrific cheers from the school-house boys.
"Double your two to one?" says Groove to Rattle, note-book in hand.
"Stop a bit," says the hero, looking uncomfortably at Williams, who is
puffing away on his second's knee, winded enough, but little the worse
in any other way.
After another round the slogger too seems to see that he can't go in and
win right off, and has met his match or thereabouts. So he too begins to
use his head and tries to make Tom lose patience and come in before his
time. And so the fight sways on, now one, and now the other, getting a
trifling pull.
Tom's face begins to look very one-sided--there are little queer bumps
on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but East keeps the wet
sponge going so scientifically, that he comes up looking as fresh and
bright as ever. Williams is only slightly marked in the face, but by the
nervous movement of his elbows you can see that Tom's body blows are
telling. In fact, half the vice of the slogger's hitting is neutralized,
for he daren't lunge out freely for fear of exposing his sides. It is
too interesting by this time for much shouting, and the whole ring is
very quiet.
"All right, Tommy," whispers East; "hold on's the horse that's to win.
We've got the last. Keep your head, old boy."
But where is Arthur all this time? Words cannot paint the poor little
fellow's distress. He couldn't muster courage to come up to the ring,
but wandered up and down from the great fives'-court to the corner of
the chapel rails, now trying to make up his mind to throw himself
between them, and try to stop them; then thinking of running in and
telling Mary, the matron, who he knew would instantly report it to the
doctor. The stories he had heard of men being killed in prize-fights
rose up horribly before him.
Once only, when the shouts of "Well done, Brown!" "Huzza for the
school-house!" rose higher than ever, he ventured up to the ring,
thinking the victory was won. Catching sight of Tom's face in the state
I have described, all fear of consequences vanishing out of his mind, he
rushed straight off to the matron's room, beseeching her to get the
fight stopped, or he should die.
But it's time for us to get back to the close. What is this fierce
tumult and confusion? The ring is broken, and high and angry words are
being bandied about; "It's all fair,"--"It isn't"--"No hugging": the
fight is stopped. The combatants, however, sit there quietly, tended by
their seconds, while their adherents wrangle in the middle. East can't
help shouting challenges to two or three of the other side, though he
never leaves Tom for a moment, and plies the sponges as fast as ever.
The fact is, that at the end of the last round, Tom seeing a good
opening, had closed with his opponent, and after a moment's struggle had
thrown him heavily, by the help of the fall he had learned from his
village rival in the vale of White Horse. Williams hadn't the ghost of a
chance with Tom at wrestling; and the conviction broke at once on the
slogger faction, that if this were allowed their man must be licked.
There was a strong feeling in the school against catching hold and
throwing, though it was generally ruled all fair within certain limits;
so the ring was broken and the fight stopped.
The school-house are overruled--the fight is on again, but there is to
be no throwing; and East in high wrath threatens to take his man away
after the next round (which he don't mean to do, by the way), when
suddenly young Brooke comes through the small gate at the end of the
chapel. The school-house faction rush to him. "Oh, hurra! now we shall
get fair play."
"Please, Brooke, come up, they won't let Tom Brown throw him."
"Throw whom?" says Brooke, coming up to the ring. "Oh! Williams, I see.
Nonsense! of course he may throw him if he catches him fairly above the
waist."
Now, young Brooke, you're in the sixth, you know, and you ought to stop
all fights. He looks hard at both boys. "Anything wrong?" says he to
East, nodding at Tom.
"Not a bit."
"Not beat at all?"
"Bless you, no! heaps of fight in him. Ain't there, Tom?"
Tom looks at Brooke and grins.
"How's he?" nodding at Williams.
"So, so; rather done, I think, since his last fall. He won't stand above
two more."
"Time's up!" the boys rise again and face one another. Brooke can't find
it in his heart to stop them just yet, so the round goes on, the slogger
waiting for Tom, and reserving all his strength to hit him out should he
come in for the wrestling dodge again, for he feels that that must be
stopped, or his sponge will soon go up in the air.
And now another newcomer appears on the field, to-wit, the under-porter,
with his long brush and great wooden receptacle for dust under his arm.
He has been sweeping out the schools.
"You'd better stop, gentlemen," he says; "the doctor knows that Brown's
fighting--he'll be out in a minute."
"You go to Bath, Bill," is all that that excellent servitor gets by his
advice. And being a man of his hands, and a stanch upholder of the
school-house, he can't help stopping to look on for a bit, and see Tom
Brown, their pet craftsman, fight a round.
It is grim earnest now, and no mistake. Both boys feel this, and summon
every power of head, hand, and eye to their aid. A piece of luck on
either side, a foot slipping, a blow getting well home, or another fall,
may decide it. Tom works slowly round for an opening; he has all the
legs, and can choose his own time: the slogger waits for the attack, and
hopes to finish it by some heavy right-handed blow. As they quarter
slowly over the ground, the evening sun comes out from behind a cloud
and falls full on Williams' face. Tom starts in; the heavy right hand is
delivered, but only grazes his head. A short rally at close quarters,
and they close: in another moment the slogger is thrown again heavily
for the third time.
"I'll give you three to two on the little one in half-crowns," said
Groove to Rattle.
"No, thank 'ee," answers the other, diving his hands further into his
coat-tails.
Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of the doctor's library
suddenly opens, and he steps into the close, and makes straight for the
ring, in which Brown and the slogger are both seated on their seconds'
knees for the last time.
"The doctor! the doctor!" shouts some small boy who catches sight of
him, and the ring melts away in a few seconds, the small boys tearing
off, Tom collaring his jacket and waistcoat, and slipping through the
little gate by the chapel, and round the corner to Harrowell's with his
backers, as lively as need be; Williams and his backers making off not
quite so fast across the close; Groove, Rattle and the other bigger
fellows trying to combine dignity and prudence in a comical manner, and
walking off fast enough, they hope, not to be recognized, and not fast
enough to look like running away.
Young Brooke alone remains on the ground by the time the doctor gets
there, and touches his hat, not without a slight inward qualm.
"Hah! Brooke. I am surprised to see you here. Don't you know that I
expect the sixth to stop fighting?"
Brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had expected, but he was
rather a favorite with the doctor for his openness and plainness of
speech; so blurted out, as he walked by the doctor's side, who had
already turned back:
"Yes, sir, generally. But I thought you wished us to exercise a
discretion in the matter, too--not to interfere too soon."
"But they have been fighting this half-hour and more," said the doctor.
"Yes, sir, but neither was hurt. And they're the sort of boys who'll be
all the better friends now, which they wouldn't have been if they had
been stopped any earlier--before it was so equal."
"Who was fighting with Brown?" said the doctor.
"Williams, sir, of Thompson's. He is bigger than Brown, and had the best
of it at first, but not when you came up, sir. There's a good deal of
jealousy between our house and Thompson's, and there would have been
more fights if this hadn't been let go on, or if either of them had had
much the worst of it."
"Well but, Brooke," said the doctor, "doesn't this look a little as if
you exercised your discretion by only stopping a fight when the
school-house boy is getting the worst of it?"
Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather graveled.
"Remember," added the doctor, as he stopped at the turret-door, "this
fight is not to go on--you'll see to that. And I expect you to stop all
fights in future at once."
"Very-well, sir," said young Brooke, touching his hat, and not sorry to
see the turret-door close, behind the doctor's back.
Meantime Tom and the stanchest of his adherents had reached Harrowell's,
and Sally was bustling about to get them a late tea, while Stumps had
been sent off to Tew, the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef for Tom's
eye, so that he might show well in the morning. He was not a bit the
worse except a slight difficulty in his vision, a singing in his ears,
and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a cold-water bandage, while he
drank lots of tea, and listened to the babel of voices talking and
speculating of nothing but the fight, and how Williams would have given
in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe), and how on
earth the doctor could have gotten to know of it--such bad luck! He
couldn't help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn't won; he
liked it better as it was, and felt very friendly to the slogger. And
then poor little Arthur crept in and sat down quietly near him, and kept
looking at him and the raw beef with such plaintive looks, that Tom at
last burst out laughing.
"Don't make such eyes, young 'un," said he, "there's nothing the
matter."
"Oh, but Tom, are you much hurt? I can't bear thinking it was all for
me."
"Not a bit of it, don't flatter yourself. We were sure to have had it
out sooner or later."
"Well, but you won't go on, will you? You'll promise me you won't go
on."
"Can't tell about that--all depends on the houses. We're in the hands of
our countrymen, you know. Must fight for the school-house flag, if so
be."
And now, boys all, three words before we quit the subject. I have put in
this chapter on fighting of malice prepense, partly because I want to
give you a true picture of what every-day school life was in my time and
partly because of the cant and twaddle that's talked of boxing and
fighting with fists now-a-days. Even Thackeray has given in to it; and
only a few weeks ago there was some rampant stuff in the _Times_ on the
subject.
Boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will sometimes fight. Fighting
with fists is the natural English way for English boys to settle their
quarrels. What substitute for it is there, or ever was there, among any
nation under the sun? What would you like to see take its place?
Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and football. Not one
of you will be the worse, but very much the better for learning to box
well. Should you never have to use it in earnest, there's no exercise in
the world so good for the temper, and for the muscles of the back and
legs.
As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. When the time
comes, if it ever should, that you have to say "Yes" or "No" to a
challenge to fight, say "No" if you can--only take care you make it
clear to yourselves why you say "No." It's a proof of the highest
courage, if done from true Christian motives. It's quite right and
justifiable, if done from a simple aversion to physical pain and danger.
But don't say "No" because you fear a licking, and say or think it's
because you fear God, for that's neither Christian nor honest. And if
you do fight, fight it out; and don't give in while you can stand and
see.