CHAPTER I--THE BROWN FAMILY

“I'm the Poet of White Horse Vale, sir,

With liberal notions under my cap.”--Ballad

The Browns have become illustrious by the pen of Thackeray and the

pencil of Doyle, within the memory of the young gentlemen who are now

matriculating at the universities. Notwithstanding the well-merited but

late fame which has now fallen upon them, any one at all acquainted with

the family must feel that much has yet to be written and said before the

British nation will be properly sensible of how much of its greatness it

owes to the Browns. For centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way,

they have been subduing the earth in most English counties, and leaving

their mark in American forests and Australian uplands. Wherever the

fleets and armies of England have won renown, there stalwart sons of the

Browns have done yeomen's work. With the yew bow and cloth-yard shaft at

Cressy and Agincourt--with the brown bill and pike under the brave

Lord Willoughby--with culverin and demi-culverin against Spaniards and

Dutchmen--with hand-grenade and sabre, and musket and bayonet, under

Rodney and St. Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Wellington, they

have carried their lives in their hands, getting hard knocks and hard

work in plenty--which was on the whole what they looked for, and the

best thing for them--and little praise or pudding, which indeed they,

and most of us, are better without. Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs,

and such-like folk, have led armies and made laws time out of mind; but

those noble families would be somewhat astounded--if the accounts ever

came to be fairly taken--to find how small their work for England has

been by the side of that of the Browns.

These latter, indeed, have, until the present generation, rarely been

sung by poet, or chronicled by sage. They have wanted their sacer vates,

having been too solid to rise to the top by themselves, and not having

been largely gifted with the talent of catching hold of, and holding on

tight to, whatever good things happened to be going--the foundation of

the fortunes of so many noble families. But the world goes on its way,

and the wheel turns, and the wrongs of the Browns, like other wrongs,

seem in a fair way to get righted. And this present writer, having for

many years of his life been a devout Brown-worshipper, and, moreover,

having the honour of being nearly connected with an eminently

respectable branch of the great Brown family, is anxious, so far as in

him lies, to help the wheel over, and throw his stone on to the pile.

However, gentle reader, or simple reader, whichever you may be, lest you

should be led to waste your precious time upon these pages, I make so

bold as at once to tell you the sort of folk you'll have to meet and put

up with, if you and I are to jog on comfortably together. You shall hear

at once what sort of folk the Browns are--at least my branch of them;

and then, if you don't like the sort, why, cut the concern at once, and

let you and I cry quits before either of us can grumble at the other.

In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may question

their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no

question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are

going; there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his carcass.

And these carcasses, for the most part, answer very well to the

characteristic propensity: they are a squareheaded and snake-necked

generation, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest, and thin in

the flank, carrying no lumber. Then for clanship, they are as bad as

Highlanders; it is amazing the belief they have in one another.

With them there is nothing like the Browns, to the third and fourth

generation. “Blood is thicker than water,” is one of their pet sayings.

They can't be happy unless they are always meeting one another. Never

were such people for family gatherings; which, were you a stranger, or

sensitive, you might think had better not have been gathered together.

For during the whole time of their being together they luxuriate in

telling one another their minds on whatever subject turns up; and their

minds are wonderfully antagonistic, and all their opinions are downright

beliefs. Till you've been among them some time and understand them, you

can't think but that they are quarrelling. Not a bit of it. They love

and respect one another ten times the more after a good set family

arguing bout, and go back, one to his curacy, another to his chambers,

and another to his regiment, freshened for work, and more than ever

convinced that the Browns are the height of company.

This family training, too, combined with their turn for combativeness,

makes them eminently quixotic. They can't let anything alone which they

think going wrong. They must speak their mind about it, annoying all

easy-going folk, and spend their time and money in having a tinker at

it, however hopeless the job. It is an impossibility to a Brown to leave

the most disreputable lame dog on the other side of a stile. Most other

folk get tired of such work. The old Browns, with red faces, white

whiskers, and bald heads, go on believing and fighting to a green old

age. They have always a crotchet going, till the old man with the scythe

reaps and garners them away for troublesome old boys as they are.

And the most provoking thing is, that no failures knock them up, or make

them hold their hands, or think you, or me, or other sane people in

the right. Failures slide off them like July rain off a duck's back

feathers. Jem and his whole family turn out bad, and cheat them one

week, and the next they are doing the same thing for Jack; and when he

goes to the treadmill, and his wife and children to the workhouse, they

will be on the lookout for Bill to take his place.

However, it is time for us to get from the general to the particular;

so, leaving the great army of Browns, who are scattered over the whole

empire on which the sun never sets, and whose general diffusion I take

to be the chief cause of that empire's stability; let us at once fix our

attention upon the small nest of Browns in which our hero was hatched,

and which dwelt in that portion of the royal county of Berks which is

called the Vale of White Horse.

Most of you have probably travelled down the Great Western Railway as

far as Swindon. Those of you who did so with their eyes open have been

aware, soon after leaving the Didcot station, of a fine range of chalk

hills running parallel with the railway on the left-hand side as you go

down, and distant some two or three miles, more or less, from the line.

The highest point in the range is the White Horse Hill, which you come

in front of just before you stop at the Shrivenham station. If you love

English scenery, and have a few hours to spare, you can't do better,

the next time you pass, than stop at the Farringdon Road or Shrivenham

station, and make your way to that highest point. And those who care for

the vague old stories that haunt country-sides all about England, will

not, if they are wise, be content with only a few hours' stay; for,

glorious as the view is, the neighbourhood is yet more interesting

for its relics of bygone times. I only know two English neighbourhoods

thoroughly, and in each, within a circle of five miles, there is enough

of interest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. I believe

this to be the case almost throughout the country, but each has a

special attraction, and none can be richer than the one I am speaking of

and going to introduce you to very particularly, for on this subject I

must be prosy; so those that don't care for England in detail may skip

the chapter.

O young England! young England! you who are born into these racing

railroad times, when there's a Great Exhibition, or some monster sight,

every year, and you can get over a couple of thousand miles of ground

for three pound ten in a five-weeks' holiday, why don't you know more of

your own birthplaces? You're all in the ends of the earth, it seems to

me, as soon as you get your necks out of the educational collar, for

midsummer holidays, long vacations, or what not--going round Ireland,

with a return ticket, in a fortnight; dropping your copies of Tennyson

on the tops of Swiss mountains; or pulling down the Danube in Oxford

racing boats. And when you get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the

steam off, and lie on your backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by

the last batch of books from Mudie's library, and half bored to death.

Well, well! I know it has its good side. You all patter French more or

less, and perhaps German; you have seen men and cities, no doubt, and

have your opinions, such as they are, about schools of painting, high

art, and all that; have seen the pictures of Dresden and the Louvre,

and know the taste of sour krout. All I say is, you don't know your own

lanes and woods and fields. Though you may be choke-full of science, not

one in twenty of you knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or bee-orchis,

which grow in the next wood, or on the down three miles off, or what the

bog-bean and wood-sage are good for. And as for the country legends,

the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, the place where the last

skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the parish butts stood,

where the last highwayman turned to bay, where the last ghost was laid

by the parson, they're gone out of date altogether.

Now, in my time, when we got home by the old coach, which put us down at

the cross-roads with our boxes, the first day of the holidays, and had

been driven off by the family coachman, singing “Dulce Domum” at the top

of our voices, there we were, fixtures, till black Monday came round. We

had to cut out our own amusements within a walk or a ride of home. And

so we got to know all the country folk and their ways and songs and

stories by heart, and went over the fields and woods and hills, again

and again, till we made friends of them all. We were Berkshire, or

Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys; and you're young cosmopolites,

belonging to all countries and no countries. No doubt it's all right; I

dare say it is. This is the day of large views, and glorious humanity,

and all that; but I wish back-sword play hadn't gone out in the Vale of

White Horse, and that that confounded Great Western hadn't carried away

Alfred's Hill to make an embankment.

But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the country in which the

first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid. As I said, the

Great Western now runs right through it, and it is a land of large, rich

pastures bounded by ox-fences, and covered with fine hedgerow timber,

with here and there a nice little gorse or spinney, where abideth poor

Charley, having no other cover to which to betake himself for miles and

miles, when pushed out some fine November morning by the old Berkshire.

Those who have been there, and well mounted, only know how he and the

stanch little pack who dash after him--heads high and sterns low, with

a breast-high scent--can consume the ground at such times. There being

little ploughland, and few woods, the Vale is only an average sporting

country, except for hunting. The villages are straggling, queer,

old-fashioned places, the houses being dropped down without the least

regularity, in nooks and out-of-the-way corners, by the sides of shadowy

lanes and footpaths, each with its patch of garden. They are built

chiefly of good gray stone, and thatched; though I see that within the

last year or two the red-brick cottages are multiplying, for the Vale is

beginning to manufacture largely both bricks and tiles. There are lots

of waste ground by the side of the roads in every village, amounting

often to village greens, where feed the pigs and ganders of the people;

and these roads are old-fashioned, homely roads, very dirty and badly

made, and hardly endurable in winter, but still pleasant jog-trot roads

running through the great pasture-lands, dotted here and there with

little clumps of thorns, where the sleek kine are feeding, with no fence

on either side of them, and a gate at the end of each field, which makes

you get out of your gig (if you keep one), and gives you a chance of

looking about you every quarter of a mile.

One of the moralists whom we sat under in our youth--was it the great

Richard Swiveller, or Mr. Stiggins--says, “We are born in a vale, and

must take the consequences of being found in such a situation.” These

consequences I, for one, am ready to encounter. I pity people who

weren't born in a vale. I don't mean a flat country; but a vale--that

is, a flat country bounded by hills. The having your hill always in view

if you choose to turn towards him--that's the essence of a vale. There

he is for ever in the distance, your friend and companion. You never

lose him as you do in hilly districts.

And then what a hill is the White Horse Hill! There it stands right up

above all the rest, nine hundred feet above the sea, and the boldest,

bravest shape for a chalk hill that you ever saw. Let us go up to the

top of him, and see what is to be found there. Ay, you may well wonder

and think it odd you never heard of this before; but wonder or not, as

you please, there are hundreds of such things lying about England, which

wiser folk than you know nothing of, and care nothing for. Yes, it's a

magnificent Roman camp, and no mistake, with gates and ditch and mounds,

all as complete as it was twenty years after the strong old rogues left

it. Here, right up on the highest point, from which they say you can see

eleven counties, they trenched round all the table-land, some twelve or

fourteen acres, as was their custom, for they couldn't bear anybody to

overlook them, and made their eyrie. The ground falls away rapidly on

all sides. Was there ever such turf in the whole world? You sink up to

your ankles at every step, and yet the spring of it is delicious. There

is always a breeze in the “camp,” as it is called; and here it lies,

just as the Romans left it, except that cairn on the east side, left by

her Majesty's corps of sappers and miners the other day, when they and

the engineer officer had finished their sojourn there, and their surveys

for the ordnance map of Berkshire. It is altogether a place that you

won't forget, a place to open a man's soul, and make him prophesy, as

he looks down on that great Vale spread out as the garden of the Lord

before him, and wave on wave of the mysterious downs behind, and to the

right and left the chalk hills running away into the distance, along

which he can trace for miles the old Roman road, “the Ridgeway” (“the

Rudge,” as the country folk call it), keeping straight along the highest

back of the hills--such a place as Balak brought Balaam to, and told him

to prophesy against the people in the valley beneath. And he could not,

neither shall you, for they are a people of the Lord who abide there.

And now we leave the camp, and descend towards the west, and are on

the Ashdown. We are treading on heroes. It is sacred ground for

Englishmen--more sacred than all but one or two fields where their bones

lie whitening. For this is the actual place where our Alfred won his

great battle, the battle of Ashdown (“Aescendum” in the chroniclers),

which broke the Danish power, and made England a Christian land. The

Danes held the camp and the slope where we are standing--the whole crown

of the hill, in fact. “The heathen had beforehand seized the higher

ground,” as old Asser says, having wasted everything behind them from

London, and being just ready to burst down on the fair Vale, Alfred's

own birthplace and heritage. And up the heights came the Saxons, as

they did at the Alma. “The Christians led up their line from the

lower ground. There stood also on that same spot a single thorn-tree,

marvellous stumpy (which we ourselves with our very own eyes have

seen).” Bless the old chronicler! Does he think nobody ever saw the

“single thorn-tree” but himself? Why, there it stands to this very day,

just on the edge of the slope, and I saw it not three weeks since--an

old single thorn-tree, “marvellous stumpy.” At least, if it isn't the

same tree it ought to have been, for it's just in the place where the

battle must have been won or lost--“around which, as I was saying, the

two lines of foemen came together in battle with a huge shout. And in

this place one of the two kings of the heathen and five of his earls

fell down and died, and many thousands of the heathen side in the same

place.” * After which crowning mercy, the pious king, that there might

never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the country-side, carved out

on the northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, where it is

almost precipitous, the great Saxon White Horse, which he who will may

see from the railway, and which gives its name to the Vale, over which

it has looked these thousand years and more.

* “Pagani editiorem Iocum praeoccupaverant. Christiani ab

inferiori loco aciem dirigebant. Erat quoque in eodem loco

unica spinosa arbor, brevis admodum (quam nos ipsi nostris

propriis oculis vidimus). Circa quam ergo hostiles inter se

acies cum ingenti clamore hostiliter conveniunt. Quo in

loco alter de duobus Paganorum regibus et quinque comites

occisi occubuerunt, et multa millia Paganae partis in eodem

loco. Cecidit illic ergo Boegsceg Rex, et Sidroc ille senex

comes, et Sidroc Junior comes, et Obsbern comes,” etc.--

Annales Rerum Gestarum AElfredi Magni, Auctore Asserio.

Recensuit Franciscus Wise. Oxford, 1722, p.23.

Right down below the White Horse is a curious deep and broad gully

called “the Manger,” into one side of which the hills fall with a series

of the most lovely sweeping curves, known as “the Giant's Stairs.” They

are not a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them anywhere

else, with their short green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer

and thistle-down gleaming in the sun and the sheep-paths running along

their sides like ruled lines.

The other side of the Manger is formed by the Dragon's Hill, a curious

little round self-confident fellow, thrown forward from the range,

utterly unlike everything round him. On this hill some deliverer of

mankind--St. George, the country folk used to tell me--killed a dragon.

Whether it were St. George, I cannot say; but surely a dragon was killed

there, for you may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and more

by token the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the hillside.

Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we come to a

little clump of young beech and firs, with a growth of thorn and privet

underwood. Here you may find nests of the strong down partridge and

peewit, but take care that the keeper isn't down upon you; and in the

middle of it is an old cromlech, a huge flat stone raised on seven or

eight others, and led up to by a path, with large single stones set up

on each side. This is Wayland Smith's cave, a place of classic fame now;

but as Sir Walter has touched it, I may as well let it alone, and refer

you to “Kenilworth” for the legend.

The thick, deep wood which you see in the hollow, about a mile off,

surrounds Ashdown Park, built by Inigo Jones. Four broad alleys are cut

through the wood from circumference to centre, and each leads to one

face of the house. The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood,

as they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes

studded with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all

sides. It was a wise Lord Craven, I think, who pitched his tent there.

Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land.

The downs, strictly so called, are no more. Lincolnshire farmers have

been imported, and the long, fresh slopes are sheep-walks no more, but

grow famous turnips and barley. One of these improvers lives over there

at the “Seven Barrows” farm, another mystery of the great downs. There

are the barrows still, solemn and silent, like ships in the calm sea,

the sepulchres of some sons of men. But of whom? It is three miles from

the White Horse--too far for the slain of Ashdown to be buried there.

Who shall say what heroes are waiting there? But we must get down into

the Vale again, and so away by the Great Western Railway to town,

for time and the printer's devil press, and it is a terrible long and

slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. At the bottom, however, there

is a pleasant public; whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for

the down air is provocative of thirst. So we pull up under an old oak

which stands before the door.

“What is the name of your hill, landlord?”

“Blawing STWUN Hill, sir, to be sure.”

[READER. “Stuym?”

AUTHOR: “Stone, stupid--the Blowing Stone.”]

“And of your house? I can't make out the sign.”

“Blawing Stwun, sir,” says the landlord, pouring out his old ale from a

Toby Philpot jug, with a melodious crash, into the long-necked glass.

“What queer names!” say we, sighing at the end of our draught, and

holding out the glass to be replenished.

“Bean't queer at all, as I can see, sir,” says mine host, handing back

our glass, “seeing as this here is the Blawing Stwun, his self,” putting

his hand on a square lump of stone, some three feet and a half high,

perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian

rat-holes, which lies there close under the oak, under our very nose. We

are more than ever puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale, wondering

what will come next. “Like to hear un, sir?” says mine host, setting

down Toby Philpot on the tray, and resting both hands on the “Stwun.” We

are ready for anything; and he, without waiting for a reply, applies his

mouth to one of the ratholes. Something must come of it, if he doesn't

burst. Good heavens! I hope he has no apoplectic tendencies. Yes, here

it comes, sure enough, a gruesome sound between a moan and a roar, and

spreads itself away over the valley, and up the hillside, and into the

woods at the back of the house, a ghost-like, awful voice. “Um do say,

sir,” says mine host, rising purple-faced, while the moan is still

coming out of the Stwun, “as they used in old times to warn the

country-side by blawing the Stwun when the enemy was a-comin', and as

how folks could make un heered then for seven mile round; leastways, so

I've heered Lawyer Smith say, and he knows a smart sight about them old

times.” We can hardly swallow Lawyer Smith's seven miles; but could the

blowing of the stone have been a summons, a sort of sending the fiery

cross round the neighbourhood in the old times? What old times? Who

knows? We pay for our beer, and are thankful.

“And what's the name of the village just below, landlord?”

“Kingstone Lisle, sir.”

“Fine plantations you've got here?”

“Yes, sir; the Squire's 'mazing fond of trees and such like.”

“No wonder. He's got some real beauties to be fond of. Good-day,

landlord.”

“Good-day, sir, and a pleasant ride to 'ee.”

And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have you had

enough? Will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me

begin my story, or will you have more of it? Remember, I've only been

over a little bit of the hillside yet--what you could ride round easily

on your ponies in an hour. I'm only just come down into the Vale, by

Blowing Stone Hill; and if I once begin about the Vale, what's to stop

me? You'll have to hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and

Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles the First (the Vale was

near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant--full of Throgmortons, Puseys,

and Pyes, and such like; and their brawny retainers). Did you ever read

Thomas Ingoldsby's “Legend of Hamilton Tighe”? If you haven't, you ought

to have. Well, Farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea;

his real name was Hamden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at

Farringdon. Then there's Pusey. You've heard of the Pusey horn, which

King Canute gave to the Puseys of that day, and which the gallant old

squire, lately gone to his rest (whom Berkshire freeholders turned out

of last Parliament, to their eternal disgrace, for voting according to

his conscience), used to bring out on high days, holidays, and bonfire

nights. And the splendid old cross church at Uffington, the Uffingas

town. How the whole countryside teems with Saxon names and memories!

And the old moated grange at Compton, nestled close under the hillside,

where twenty Marianas may have lived, with its bright water-lilies

in the moat, and its yew walk, “the cloister walk,” and its peerless

terraced gardens. There they all are, and twenty things beside, for

those who care about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort of

things you may find, I believe, every one of you, in any common English

country neighbourhood.

Will you look for them under your own noses, or will you not? Well,

well, I've done what I can to make you; and if you will go gadding over

half Europe now, every holidays, I can't help it. I was born and bred

a west-country man, thank God! a Wessex man, a citizen of the noblest

Saxon kingdom of Wessex, a regular “Angular Saxon,” the very soul of me

adscriptus glebae. There's nothing like the old country-side for me,

and no music like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets

it fresh from the veritable chaw in the White Horse Vale; and I say with

“Gaarge Ridler,” the old west-country yeoman,--

“Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast,

Commend me to merry owld England mwoast;

While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh,

We stwops at whum, my dog and I.”

Here, at any rate, lived and stopped at home Squire Brown, J.P. for the

county of Berks, in a village near the foot of the White Horse range.

And here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and begat sons

and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of

the roads and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico

shirts, and smock frocks, and comforting drinks to the old folks with

the “rheumatiz,” and good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes'

clubs going, for yule-tide, when the bands of mummers came round,

dressed out in ribbons and coloured paper caps, and stamped round the

Squire's kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernacular the legend of

St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound doctor, who plays his

part at healing the Saint--a relic, I believe, of the old Middle-age

mysteries. It was the first dramatic representation which greeted the

eyes of little Tom, who was brought down into the kitchen by his nurse

to witness it, at the mature age of three years. Tom was the eldest

child of his parents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the

family characteristics in great strength. He was a hearty, strong boy

from the first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and

fraternizing with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions

all round the neighbourhood. And here, in the quiet old-fashioned

country village, under the shadow of the everlasting hills, Tom Brown

was reared, and never left it till he went first to school, when nearly

eight years of age, for in those days change of air twice a year was not

thought absolutely necessary for the health of all her Majesty's lieges.

I have been credibly informed, and am inclined to believe, that the

various boards of directors of railway companies, those gigantic jobbers

and bribers, while quarrelling about everything else, agreed together

some ten years back to buy up the learned profession of medicine, body

and soul. To this end they set apart several millions of money, which

they continually distribute judiciously among the doctors, stipulating

only this one thing, that they shall prescribe change of air to every

patient who can pay, or borrow money to pay, a railway fare, and see

their prescription carried out. If it be not for this, why is it that

none of us can be well at home for a year together? It wasn't so twenty

years ago, not a bit of it. The Browns didn't go out of the country once

in five years. A visit to Reading or Abingdon twice a year, at assizes

or quarter sessions, which the Squire made on his horse with a pair

of saddle-bags containing his wardrobe, a stay of a day or two at some

country neighbour's, or an expedition to a county ball or the yeomanry

review, made up the sum of the Brown locomotion in most years. A stray

Brown from some distant county dropped in every now and then; or from

Oxford, on grave nag, an old don, contemporary of the Squire; and were

looked upon by the Brown household and the villagers with the same sort

of feeling with which we now regard a man who has crossed the Rocky

Mountains, or launched a boat on the Great Lake in Central Africa. The

White Horse Vale, remember, was traversed by no great road--nothing but

country parish roads, and these very bad. Only one coach ran there, and

this one only from Wantage to London, so that the western part of the

Vale was without regular means of moving on, and certainly didn't

seem to want them. There was the canal, by the way, which supplied the

country-side with coal, and up and down which continually went the long

barges, with the big black men lounging by the side of the horses along

the towing-path, and the women in bright-coloured handkerchiefs standing

in the sterns steering. Standing I say, but you could never see whether

they were standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being

out of sight in the cozy little cabins which occupied some eight feet of

the stern, and which Tom Brown pictured to himself as the most desirable

of residences. His nurse told him that those good-natured-looking women

were in the constant habit of enticing children into the barges, and

taking them up to London and selling them, which Tom wouldn't

believe, and which made him resolve as soon as possible to accept the

oft-proffered invitation of these sirens to “young master” to come in

and have a ride. But as yet the nurse was too much for Tom.

Yet why should I, after all, abuse the gadabout propensities of my

countrymen? We are a vagabond nation now, that's certain, for better

for worse. I am a vagabond; I have been away from home no less than five

distinct times in the last year. The Queen sets us the example: we are

moving on from top to bottom. Little dirty Jack, who abides in Clement's

Inn gateway, and blacks my boots for a penny, takes his month's

hop-picking every year as a matter of course. Why shouldn't he? I'm

delighted at it. I love vagabonds, only I prefer poor to rich ones.

Couriers and ladies'-maids, imperials and travelling carriages, are an

abomination unto me; I cannot away with them. But for dirty Jack, and

every good fellow who, in the words of the capital French song, moves

about,

“Comme le limacon,

Portant tout son bagage,

Ses meubles, sa maison,”

on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a merry roadside

adventure, and steaming supper in the chimney corners of roadside inns,

Swiss chalets, Hottentot kraals, or wherever else they like to go. So,

having succeeded in contradicting myself in my first chapter (which

gives me great hopes that you will all go on, and think me a good fellow

notwithstanding my crotchets), I shall here shut up for the present,

and consider my ways; having resolved to “sar' it out,” as we say in the

Vale, “holus bolus” just as it comes, and then you'll probably get the

truth out of me.

CHAPTER II--THE “VEAST.”

“And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from

henceforth neither fairs nor markets be kept in Churchyards,

for the honour of the Church.”--STATUTES : 13 Edw. I. Stat.

II. cap. vi.

As that venerable and learned poet (whose voluminous works we all think

it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't read often)

most truly says, “The child is father to the man;” a fortiori,

therefore, he must be father to the boy. So as we are going at any rate

to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any farther

(which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there

is no knowing but what we may), let us have a look at the life and

environments of the child in the quiet country village to which we were

introduced in the last chapter.

Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at

the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his

nurse. That functionary was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brained

girl, lately taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as she was called, from

the village school to be trained as nurserymaid. Madam Brown was a rare

trainer of servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for

profession it was, and gave her more trouble by half than many people

take to earn a good income. Her servants were known and sought after for

miles round. Almost all the girls who attained a certain place in the

village school were taken by her, one or two at a time, as housemaids,

laundrymaids, nurserymaids, or kitchenmaids, and after a year or two's

training were started in life amongst the neighbouring families, with

good principles and wardrobes. One of the results of this system was the

perpetual despair of Mrs. Brown's cook and own maid, who no sooner had

a notable girl made to their hands than missus was sure to find a good

place for her and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the

school. Another was, that the house was always full of young girls, with

clean, shining faces, who broke plates and scorched linen, but made an

atmosphere of cheerful, homely life about the place, good for every one

who came within its influence. Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in

fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. They were more

like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a

mother or aunt than as a mistress.

Tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly--she seemed

to have two left hands and no head; and so Mrs. Brown kept her on longer

than usual, that she might expend her awkwardness and forgetfulness upon

those who would not judge and punish her too strictly for them.

Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the immemorial habit of the

village to christen children either by Bible names, or by those of the

cardinal and other virtues; so that one was for ever hearing in the

village street or on the green, shrill sounds of “Prudence! Prudence!

thee cum' out o' the gutter;” or, “Mercy! drat the girl, what bist thee

a-doin' wi' little Faith?” and there were Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs,

in every corner. The same with the boys: they were Benjamins, Jacobs,

Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from Puritan times.

There it is, at any rate, very strong still in the Vale.

Well, from early morning till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in

the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted

against one another. Physical power was as yet on the side of Charity,

but she hadn't a chance with him wherever headwork was wanted. This

war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when Charity

escorted her charge to a neighbouring farmhouse, which supplied the

Browns, and where, by his mother's wish, Master Tom went to drink whey

before breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a

decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome; and there

was seldom a morning that he did not manage to secure a handful of hard

curds, in defiance of Charity and of the farmer's wife. The latter good

soul was a gaunt, angular woman, who, with an old black bonnet on the

top of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her

gown tucked through her pocket-holes, went clattering about the dairy,

cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens. Charity was some sort of niece

of the old lady's, and was consequently free of the farmhouse and

garden, into which she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip

and flirtation with the heir-apparent, who was a dawdling fellow, never

out at work as he ought to have been. The moment Charity had found her

cousin, or any other occupation, Tom would slip away; and in a minute

shrill cries would be heard from the dairy, “Charity, Charity, thee lazy

huzzy, where bist?” and Tom would break cover, hands and mouth full of

curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface of the great muck reservoir

in the middle of the yard, disturbing the repose of the great pigs. Here

he was in safety, as no grown person could follow without getting over

their knees; and the luckless Charity, while her aunt scolded her from

the dairy door, for being “allus hankering about arter our Willum,

instead of minding Master Tom,” would descend from threats to coaxing,

to lure Tom out of the muck, which was rising over his shoes, and would

soon tell a tale on his stockings, for which she would be sure to catch

it from missus's maid.

Tom had two abettors, in the shape of a couple of old boys, Noah and

Benjamin by name, who defended him from Charity, and expended much time

upon his education. They were both of them retired servants of former

generations of the Browns. Noah Crooke was a keen, dry old man of almost

ninety, but still able to totter about. He talked to Tom quite as if he

were one of his own family, and indeed had long completely identified

the Browns with himself. In some remote age he had been the attendant

of a Miss Brown, and had conveyed her about the country on a pillion. He

had a little round picture of the identical gray horse, caparisoned

with the identical pillion, before which he used to do a sort of

fetish worship, and abuse turnpike-roads and carriages. He wore an old

full-bottomed wig, the gift of some dandy old Brown whom he had valeted

in the middle of last century, which habiliment Master Tom looked upon

with considerable respect, not to say fear; and indeed his whole feeling

towards Noah was strongly tainted with awe. And when the old gentleman

was gathered to his fathers, Tom's lamentation over him was not

unaccompanied by a certain joy at having seen the last of the wig. “Poor

old Noah, dead and gone,” said he; “Tom Brown so sorry. Put him in the

coffin, wig and all.”

But old Benjy was young master's real delight and refuge. He was a

youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old--a cheery, humorous,

kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of Vale gossip, and of all

sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above all for children.

It was he who bent the first pin with which Tom extracted his first

stickleback out of “Pebbly Brook,” the little stream which ran through

the village. The first stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous

red and blue gills. Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his

death, and became a fisherman from that day. Within a month from the

taking of the first stickleback, Benjy had carried off our hero to

the canal, in defiance of Charity; and between them, after a whole

afternoon's popjoying, they had caught three or four small, coarse fish

and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a half ounces each, which Tom

bore home in rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and which she

received like a true mother with equal rapture, instructing the cook

nevertheless, in a private interview, not to prepare the same for the

Squire's dinner. Charity had appealed against old Benjy in the meantime,

representing the dangers of the canal banks; but Mrs. Brown, seeing the

boy's inaptitude for female guidance, had decided in Benjy's favour, and

from thenceforth the old man was Tom's dry nurse. And as they sat by the

canal watching their little green-and-white float, Benjy would instruct

him in the doings of deceased Browns. How his grandfather, in the early

days of the great war, when there was much distress and crime in the

Vale, and the magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in

with a big stick in his hand, and held the petty sessions by himself.

How his great-uncle, the rector, had encountered and laid the last

ghost, who had frightened the old women, male and female, of the

parish out of their senses, and who turned out to be the blacksmith's

apprentice disguised in drink and a white sheet. It was Benjy, too,

who saddled Tom's first pony, and instructed him in the mysteries of

horsemanship, teaching him to throw his weight back and keep his hand

low, and who stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school when

Tom rode his little Shetland into the cottage and round the table, where

the old dame and her pupils were seated at their work.

Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the Vale for their

prowess in all athletic games. Some half-dozen of his brothers and

kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come

home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of his

body; he had shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his

old dragoon's sword and pistol, which hung over the mantelpiece, flanked

by a pair of heavy single-sticks with which Benjy himself had won renown

long ago as an old gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire and

Somersetshire, in many a good bout at the revels and pastimes of the

country-side. For he had been a famous back-swordman in his young days,

and a good wrestler at elbow and collar.

Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holiday pursuits of

the Vale--those by which men attained fame--and each village had its

champion. I suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked then

than they are now; at any rate, they seemed to have more time and energy

for the old pastimes. The great times for back-swording came round once

a year in each village; at the feast. The Vale “veasts” were not

the common statute feasts, but much more ancient business. They are

literally, so far as one can ascertain, feasts of the dedication--that

is, they were first established in the churchyard on the day on which

the village church was opened for public worship, which was on the wake

or festival of the patron saint, and have been held on the same day in

every year since that time.

There was no longer any remembrance of why the “veast” had been

instituted, but nevertheless it had a pleasant and almost sacred

character of its own; for it was then that all the children of the

village, wherever they were scattered, tried to get home for a holiday

to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, bringing with them their

wages or some little gift from up the country for the old folk. Perhaps

for a day or two before, but at any rate on “veast day” and the day

after, in our village, you might see strapping, healthy young men and

women from all parts of the country going round from house to house in

their best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam Brown,

whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to the best

advantage, or how best to expend the same for the benefit of the old

folk. Every household, however poor, managed to raise a “feast-cake”

and a bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table

ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast-time,

for feast-cake is very solid, and full of huge raisins. Moreover,

feast-time was the day of reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins

and Noah Freeman hadn't spoken for the last six months, their “old

women” would be sure to get it patched up by that day. And though there

was a good deal of drinking and low vice in the booths of an evening,

it was pretty well confined to those who would have been doing the like,

“veast or no veast;” and on the whole, the effect was humanising and

Christian. In fact, the only reason why this is not the case still is

that gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as

usual, forgotten the poor. They don't attend the feasts themselves, and

call them disreputable; whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them

also, and they become what they are called. Class amusements, be

they for dukes or ploughboys, always become nuisances and curses to a

country. The true charm of cricket and hunting is that they are still

more or less sociable and universal; there's a place for every man who

will come and take his part.

No one in the village enjoyed the approach of “veast day” more than Tom,

in the year in which he was taken under old Benjy's tutelage. The feast

was held in a large green field at the lower end of the village. The

road to Farringdon ran along one side of it, and the brook by the side

of the road; and above the brook was another large, gentle, sloping

pasture-land, with a footpath running down it from the churchyard; and

the old church, the originator of all the mirth, towered up with its

gray walls and lancet windows, overlooking and sanctioning the whole,

though its own share therein had been forgotten. At the point where the

footpath crossed the brook and road, and entered on the field where the

feast was held, was a long, low roadside inn; and on the opposite side

of the field was a large white thatched farmhouse, where dwelt an old

sporting farmer, a great promoter of the revels.

Past the old church, and down the footpath, pottered the old man and the

child hand-in-hand early on the afternoon of the day before the feast,

and wandered all round the ground, which was already being occupied

by the “cheap Jacks,” with their green-covered carts and marvellous

assortment of wares; and the booths of more legitimate small traders,

with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables; and penny

peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and

boa-constrictors, and wild Indians. But the object of most interest to

Benjy, and of course to his pupil also, was the stage of rough planks

some four feet high, which was being put up by the village carpenter for

the back-swording and wrestling. And after surveying the whole tenderly,

old Benjy led his charge away to the roadside inn, where he ordered a

glass of ale and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted

luxuries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine

host, another old servant of the Browns, and speculated with him on the

likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for the morrow's

prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts of forty years back, to

which Tom listened with all his ears and eyes.

But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church bells

were ringing a merry peal, and old Benjy appeared in the servants' hall,

resplendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of old

yellow buckskins and top-boots which he had cleaned for and inherited

from Tom's grandfather, a stout thorn stick in his hand, and a nosegay

of pinks and lavender in his buttonhole, and led away Tom in his best

clothes, and two new shillings in his breeches-pockets? Those two, at

any rate, look like enjoying the day's revel.

They quicken their pace when they get into the churchyard, for already

they see the field thronged with country folk; the men in clean, white

smocks or velveteen or fustian coats, with rough plush waistcoats of

many colours, and the women in the beautiful, long scarlet cloak--the

usual out-door dress of west-country women in those days, and which

often descended in families from mother to daughter--or in new-fashioned

stuff shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don't become them

half so well. The air resounds with the pipe and tabor, and the drums

and trumpets of the showmen shouting at the doors of their caravans,

over which tremendous pictures of the wonders to be seen within hang

temptingly; while through all rises the shrill “root-too-too-too” of Mr.

Punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe of his satellite.

“Lawk a' massey, Mr. Benjamin,” cries a stout, motherly woman in a red

cloak, as they enter the field, “be that you? Well, I never! You do look

purely. And how's the Squire, and madam, and the family?”

Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has left our village

for some years, but has come over for “veast” day on a visit to an old

gossip, and gently indicates the heir-apparent of the Browns.

“Bless his little heart! I must gi' un a kiss.--Here, Susannah,

Susannah!” cries she, raising herself from the embrace, “come and see

Mr. Benjamin and young Master Tom.--You minds our Sukey, Mr. Benjamin;

she be growed a rare slip of a wench since you seen her, though her'll

be sixteen come Martinmas. I do aim to take her to see madam to get her

a place.”

And Sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of old school-fellows, and

drops a curtsey to Mr. Benjamin. And elders come up from all parts to

salute Benjy, and girls who have been madam's pupils to kiss Master

Tom. And they carry him off to load him with fairings; and he returns

to Benjy, his hat and coat covered with ribbons, and his pockets crammed

with wonderful boxes which open upon ever new boxes, and popguns, and

trumpets, and apples, and gilt gingerbread from the stall of Angel

Heavens, sole vender thereof, whose booth groans with kings and queens,

and elephants and prancing steeds, all gleaming with gold. There

was more gold on Angel's cakes than there is ginger in those of

this degenerate age. Skilled diggers might yet make a fortune in the

churchyards of the Vale, by carefully washing the dust of the consumers

of Angel's gingerbread. Alas! he is with his namesakes, and his receipts

have, I fear, died with him.

And then they inspect the penny peep-show--at least Tom does--while old

Benjy stands outside and gossips and walks up the steps, and enters the

mysterious doors of the pink-eyed lady and the Irish giant, who do not

by any means come up to their pictures; and the boa will not swallow his

rabbit, but there the rabbit is waiting to be swallowed; and what can

you expect for tuppence? We are easily pleased in the Vale. Now there

is a rush of the crowd, and a tinkling bell is heard, and shouts of

laughter; and Master Tom mounts on Benjy's shoulders, and beholds a

jingling match in all its glory. The games are begun, and this is the

opening of them. It is a quaint game, immensely amusing to look at;

and as I don't know whether it is used in your counties, I had better

describe it. A large roped ring is made, into which are introduced

a dozen or so of big boys and young men who mean to play; these are

carefully blinded and turned loose into the ring, and then a man is

introduced not blindfolded; with a bell hung round his neck, and his two

hands tied behind him. Of course every time he moves the bell must ring,

as he has no hand to hold it; and so the dozen blindfolded men have to

catch him. This they cannot always manage if he is a lively fellow, but

half of them always rush into the arms of the other half, or drive their

heads together, or tumble over; and then the crowd laughs vehemently,

and invents nicknames for them on the spur of the moment; and they, if

they be choleric, tear off the handkerchiefs which blind them, and not

unfrequently pitch into one another, each thinking that the other must

have run against him on purpose. It is great fun to look at a jingling

match certainly, and Tom shouts and jumps on old Benjy's shoulders at

the sight, until the old man feels weary, and shifts him to the strong

young shoulders of the groom, who has just got down to the fun.

And now, while they are climbing the pole in another part of the field,

and muzzling in a flour-tub in another, the old farmer whose house, as

has been said, overlooks the field, and who is master of the revels,

gets up the steps on to the stage, and announces to all whom it may

concern that a half-sovereign in money will be forthcoming to the old

gamester who breaks most heads; to which the Squire and he have added a

new hat.

The amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate the men of the

immediate neighbourhood, but not enough to bring any very high talent

from a distance; so, after a glance or two round, a tall fellow, who is

a down shepherd, chucks his hat on to the stage and climbs up the steps,

looking rather sheepish. The crowd, of course, first cheer, and then

chaff as usual, as he picks up his hat and begins handling the sticks to

see which will suit him.

“Wooy, Willum Smith, thee canst plaay wi' he arra daay,” says his

companion to the blacksmith's apprentice, a stout young fellow of

nineteen or twenty. Willum's sweetheart is in the “veast” somewhere, and

has strictly enjoined him not to get his head broke at back-swording, on

pain of her highest displeasure; but as she is not to be seen (the women

pretend not to like to see the backsword play, and keep away from the

stage), and as his hat is decidedly getting old, he chucks it on to the

stage, and follows himself, hoping that he will only have to break other

people's heads, or that, after all, Rachel won't really mind.

Then follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a half-gipsy, poaching,

loafing fellow, who travels the Vale not for much good, I fancy:

“For twenty times was Peter feared

For once that Peter was respected,”

in fact. And then three or four other hats, including the glossy

castor of Joe Willis, the self-elected and would-be champion of

the neighbourhood, a well-to-do young butcher of twenty-eight or

thereabouts, and a great strapping fellow, with his full allowance of

bluster. This is a capital show of gamesters, considering the amount

of the prize; so, while they are picking their sticks and drawing their

lots, I think I must tell you, as shortly as I can, how the noble old

game of back-sword is played; for it is sadly gone out of late, even in

the Vale, and maybe you have never seen it.

The weapon is a good stout ash stick with a large basket handle, heavier

and somewhat shorter than a common single-stick. The players are called

“old gamesters”--why, I can't tell you--and their object is simply

to break one another's heads; for the moment that blood runs an inch

anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is

beaten, and has to stop. A very slight blow with the sticks will fetch

blood, so that it is by no means a punishing pastime, if the men don't

play on purpose and savagely at the body and arms of their adversaries.

The old gamester going into action only takes off his hat and coat, and

arms himself with a stick; he then loops the fingers of his left hand in

a handkerchief or strap, which he fastens round his left leg, measuring

the length, so that when he draws it tight with his left elbow in the

air, that elbow shall just reach as high as his crown. Thus you see, so

long as he chooses to keep his left elbow up, regardless of cuts, he

has a perfect guard for the left side of his head. Then he advances his

right hand above and in front of his head, holding his stick across, so

that its point projects an inch or two over his left elbow; and thus

his whole head is completely guarded, and he faces his man armed in like

manner; and they stand some three feet apart, often nearer, and feint,

and strike, and return at one another's heads, until one cries “hold,”

or blood flows. In the first case they are allowed a minute's time; and

go on again; in the latter another pair of gamesters are called on. If

good men are playing, the quickness of the returns is marvellous: you

hear the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his stick along palings,

only heavier; and the closeness of the men in action to one another

gives it a strange interest, and makes a spell at back-swording a very

noble sight.

They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and the gipsy man

have drawn the first lot. So the rest lean against the rails of the

stage, and Joe and the dark man meet in the middle, the boards having

been strewed with sawdust, Joe's white shirt and spotless drab breeches

and boots contrasting with the gipsy's coarse blue shirt and dirty green

velveteen breeches and leather gaiters. Joe is evidently turning up his

nose at the other, and half insulted at having to break his head.

The gipsy is a tough, active fellow, but not very skilful with his

weapon, so that Joe's weight and strength tell in a minute; he is too

heavy metal for him. Whack, whack, whack, come his blows, breaking down

the gipsy's guard, and threatening to reach his head every moment. There

it is at last. “Blood, blood!” shout the spectators, as a thin stream

oozes out slowly from the roots of his hair, and the umpire calls to

them to stop. The gipsy scowls at Joe under his brows in no pleasant

manner, while Master Joe swaggers about, and makes attitudes, and thinks

himself, and shows that he thinks himself, the greatest man in the

field.

Then follow several stout sets-to between the other candidates for the

new hat, and at last come the shepherd and Willum Smith. This is the

crack set-to of the day. They are both in famous wind, and there is no

crying “hold.” The shepherd is an old hand, and up to all the dodges. He

tries them one after another, and very nearly gets at Willum's head

by coming in near, and playing over his guard at the half-stick; but

somehow Willum blunders through, catching the stick on his shoulders,

neck, sides, every now and then, anywhere but on his head, and his

returns are heavy and straight, and he is the youngest gamester and a

favourite in the parish, and his gallant stand brings down shouts and

cheers, and the knowing ones think he'll win if he keeps steady; and

Tom, on the groom's shoulder, holds his hands together, and can hardly

breathe for excitement.

Alas for Willum! His sweetheart, getting tired of female companionship,

has been hunting the booths to see where he can have got to, and now

catches sight of him on the stage in full combat. She flushes and turns

pale; her old aunt catches hold of her, saying, “Bless 'ee, child,

doan't 'ee go a'nigst it;” but she breaks away and runs towards the

stage calling his name. Willum keeps up his guard stoutly, but glances

for a moment towards the voice. No guard will do it, Willum, without the

eye. The shepherd steps round and strikes, and the point of his stick

just grazes Willum's forehead, fetching off the skin, and the blood

flows, and the umpire cries, “Hold!” and poor Willum's chance is up for

the day. But he takes it very well, and puts on his old hat and coat,

and goes down to be scolded by his sweetheart, and led away out of

mischief. Tom hears him say coaxingly, as he walks off,--

“Now doan't 'ee, Rachel! I wouldn't ha' done it, only I wanted summut

to buy 'ee a fairing wi', and I be as vlush o' money as a twod o'

feathers.”

“Thee mind what I tells 'ee,” rejoins Rachel saucily, “and doan't 'ee

kep blethering about fairings.”

Tom resolves in his heart to give Willum the remainder of his two

shillings after the back-swording.

Joe Willis has all the luck to-day. His next bout ends in an easy

victory, while the shepherd has a tough job to break his second head;

and when Joe and the shepherd meet, and the whole circle expect and hope

to see him get a broken crown, the shepherd slips in the first round and

falls against the rails, hurting himself so that the old farmer will not

let him go on, much as he wishes to try; and that impostor Joe (for he

is certainly not the best man) struts and swaggers about the stage the

conquering gamester, though he hasn't had five minutes' really trying

play.

Joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the money into it, and then,

as if a thought strikes him, and he doesn't think his victory quite

acknowledged down below, walks to each face of the stage, and looks

down, shaking the money, and chaffing, as how he'll stake hat and money

and another half-sovereign “agin any gamester as hasn't played already.”

Cunning Joe! he thus gets rid of Willum and the shepherd, who is quite

fresh again.

No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming down,

when a queer old hat, something like a doctor of divinity's shovel, is

chucked on to the stage and an elderly, quiet man steps out, who has

been watching the play, saying he should like to cross a stick wi' the

prodigalish young chap.

The crowd cheer, and begin to chaff Joe, who turns up his nose and

swaggers across to the sticks. “Imp'dent old wosbird!” says he; “I'll

break the bald head on un to the truth.”

The old boy is very bald, certainly, and the blood will show fast enough

if you can touch him, Joe.

He takes off his long-flapped coat, and stands up in a long-flapped

waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Coverley might have worn when it was new,

picks out a stick, and is ready for Master Joe, who loses no time, but

begins his old game, whack, whack, whack, trying to break down the old

man's guard by sheer strength. But it won't do; he catches every blow

close by the basket, and though he is rather stiff in his returns,

after a minute walks Joe about the stage, and is clearly a stanch old

gamester. Joe now comes in, and making the most of his height, tries to

get over the old man's guard at half-stick, by which he takes a smart

blow in the ribs and another on the elbow, and nothing more. And now he

loses wind and begins to puff, and the crowd laugh. “Cry 'hold,' Joe;

thee'st met thy match!” Instead of taking good advice and getting his

wind, Joe loses his temper, and strikes at the old man's body.

“Blood, blood!” shout the crowd; “Joe's head's broke!”

Who'd have thought it? How did it come? That body-blow left Joe's head

unguarded for a moment; and with one turn of the wrist the old gentleman

has picked a neat little bit of skin off the middle of his forehead; and

though he won't believe it, and hammers on for three more blows despite

of the shouts, is then convinced by the blood trickling into his eye.

Poor Joe is sadly crestfallen, and fumbles in his pocket for the other

half-sovereign, but the old gamester won't have it. “Keep thy money,

man, and gi's thy hand,” says he; and they shake hands. But the old

gamester gives the new hat to the shepherd, and, soon after, the

half-sovereign to Willum, who thereout decorates his sweetheart with

ribbons to his heart's content.

“Who can a be?” “Wur do a cum from?” ask the crowd. And it soon flies

about that the old west-country champion, who played a tie with Shaw the

Lifeguardsman at “Vizes” twenty years before, has broken Joe Willis's

crown for him.

How my country fair is spinning out! I see I must skip the wrestling;

and the boys jumping in sacks, and rolling wheelbarrows blindfolded;

and the donkey-race, and the fight which arose thereout, marring the

otherwise peaceful “veast;” and the frightened scurrying away of the

female feast-goers, and descent of Squire Brown, summoned by the wife of

one of the combatants to stop it; which he wouldn't start to do till he

had got on his top-boots. Tom is carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired

and surfeited with pleasure, as the evening comes on and the dancing

begins in the booths; and though Willum, and Rachel in her new ribbons,

and many another good lad and lass don't come away just yet, but have

a good step out, and enjoy it, and get no harm thereby, yet we, being

sober folk, will just stroll away up through the churchyard, and by the

old yew-tree, and get a quiet dish of tea and a parley with our gossips,

as the steady ones of our village do, and so to bed.

That's the fair, true sketch, as far as it goes, of one of the larger

village feasts in the Vale of Berks, when I was a little boy. They

are much altered for the worse, I am told. I haven't been at one these

twenty years, but I have been at the statute fairs in some west-country

towns, where servants are hired, and greater abominations cannot be

found. What village feasts have come to, I fear, in many cases, may

be read in the pages of “Yeast” (though I never saw one so bad--thank

God!).

Do you want to know why? It is because, as I said before, gentlefolk and

farmers have left off joining or taking an interest in them. They don't

either subscribe to the prizes, or go down and enjoy the fun.

Is this a good or a bad sign? I hardly know. Bad, sure enough, if it

only arises from the further separation of classes consequent on twenty

years of buying cheap and selling dear, and its accompanying overwork;

or because our sons and daughters have their hearts in London club-life,

or so-called “society,” instead of in the old English home-duties;

because farmers' sons are apeing fine gentlemen, and farmers' daughters

caring more to make bad foreign music than good English cheeses. Good,

perhaps, if it be that the time for the old “veast” has gone by; that

it is no longer the healthy, sound expression of English country

holiday-making; that, in fact, we, as a nation, have got beyond it,

and are in a transition state, feeling for and soon likely to find some

better substitute.

Only I have just got this to say before I quit the text. Don't let

reformers of any sort think that they are going really to lay hold of

the working boys and young men of England by any educational grapnel

whatever, which isn't some bona fide equivalent for the games of the

old country “veast” in it; something to put in the place of the

back-swording and wrestling and racing; something to try the muscles

of men's bodies, and the endurance of their hearts, and to make them

rejoice in their strength. In all the new-fangled comprehensive plans

which I see, this is all left out; and the consequence is, that your

great mechanics' institutes end in intellectual priggism, and your

Christian young men's societies in religious Pharisaism.

Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles;

but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form

a good part of every Englishman's education. If I could only drive this

into the heads of you rising parliamentary lords, and young swells

who “have your ways made for you,” as the saying is, you, who frequent

palaver houses and West-end clubs, waiting always ready to strap

yourselves on to the back of poor dear old John, as soon as the present

used-up lot (your fathers and uncles), who sit there on the great

parliamentary-majorities' pack-saddle, and make believe they're guiding

him with their red-tape bridle, tumble, or have to be lifted off!

I don't think much of you yet--I wish I could--though you do go talking

and lecturing up and down the country to crowded audiences, and are

busy with all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism, and circulating

libraries and museums, and Heaven only knows what besides, and try to

make us think, through newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, of

the working classes. But bless your hearts, we “ain't so green,” though

lots of us of all sorts toady you enough certainly, and try to make you

think so.

I'll tell you what to do now: instead of all this trumpeting and fuss,

which is only the old parliamentary-majority dodge over again, just you

go, each of you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give

up t'other line), and quietly make three or four friends--real

friends--among us. You'll find a little trouble in getting at the right

sort, because such birds don't come lightly to your lure; but found

they may be. Take, say, two out of the professions, lawyer, parson,

doctor--which you will; one out of trade; and three or four out of the

working classes--tailors, engineers, carpenters, engravers. There's

plenty of choice. Let them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask

them to your homes; introduce them to your wives and sisters, and get

introduced to theirs; give them good dinners, and talk to them about

what is really at the bottom of your hearts; and box, and run, and row

with them, when you have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to

man, and by the time you come to ride old John, you'll be able to do

something more than sit on his back, and may feel his mouth with some

stronger bridle than a red-tape one.

Ah, if you only would! But you have got too far out of the right rut, I

fear. Too much over-civilization, and the deceitfulness of riches. It is

easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. More's the pity. I

never came across but two of you who could value a man wholly and solely

for what was in him--who thought themselves verily and indeed of the

same flesh and blood as John Jones the attorney's clerk, and Bill Smith

the costermonger, and could act as if they thought so.

CHAPTER III--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 battlefield 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, head-boroughs, 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 inclosed 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 inclosure 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 inclosed 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 track 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-gray 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 'ee a visit. I've a been long minded to do't for old

sake's sake, only I vinds I dwon't get about now as I'd used to't. I be

so plaguy bad wi' th' rheumatiz in my back.” Benjy paused, in hopes

of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailments 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 'ee much good--leastways I be afeard 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' rheumatiz.”

“Wot be that then, farmer?” inquired Benjy.

“Churchyard mould,” said the old iron-gray 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 indoors; 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! bean't 'ee 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

imbrangle. 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 gray 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 folk's when

they are children, as any one may convince himself if he likes 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 bird-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 gray 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 he soon 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 the 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 schoolporch. The door of the school

was ajar, and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognized

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 at 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 indiarubber 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 immovable 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 to 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 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 gray 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-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 Straight-back 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 stiffbacked 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-taps, 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 every where, 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 school-master, 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 gentlemen, 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 the good dame sent for him,

and produced the precious letter and some wax, saying, “O 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, inclosing 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 had been especially prohibited, where huge bull's-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 up on 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

bumble-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 was attached, easily persuaded Tom to

break bounds and visit the martins' 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 bull's-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 the 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 in 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.

CHAPTER IV--THE STAGE COACH.

“Let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot;

Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot.”

Coaching Song, by R.E.E. Warburton, Esq.

“Now, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tally-ho coach for

Leicester'll be round in half an hour, and don't wait for nobody.” So

spake the boots of the Peacock Inn Islington, at half-past two o'clock

on the morning of a day in the early part of November 183-, giving

Tom at the same time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting down a

candle; and carrying off his shoes to clean.

Tom and his father arrived in town from Berkshire the day before, and

finding, on inquiry, that the Birmingham coaches which ran from the city

did not pass through Rugby, but deposited their passengers at Dunchurch,

a village three miles distant on the main road, where said passengers

had to wait for the Oxford and Leicester coach in the evening, or to

take a post-chaise, had resolved that Tom should travel down by the

Tally-ho, which diverged from the main road and passed through Rugby

itself. And as the Tally-ho was an early coach, they had driven out to

the Peacock to be on the road.

Tom had never been in London, and would have liked to have stopped at

the Belle Savage, where they had been put down by the Star, just at

dusk, that he might have gone roving about those endless, mysterious,

gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds,

excited him so that he couldn't talk even. But as soon as he found that

the Peacock arrangement would get him to Rugby by twelve o'clock in the

day, whereas otherwise he wouldn't be there till the evening, all

other plans melted away, his one absorbing aim being to become a public

school-boy as fast as possible, and six hours sooner or later seeming to

him of the most alarming importance.

Tom and his father had alighted at the Peacock at about seven in the

evening; and having heard with unfeigned joy the paternal order, at the

bar, of steaks and oyster-sauce for supper in half an hour, and seen

his father seated cozily by the bright fire in the coffee-room with the

paper in his hand, Tom had run out to see about him, had wondered at all

the vehicles passing and repassing, and had fraternized with the boots

and hostler, from whom he ascertained that the Tally-ho was a tip-top

goer--ten miles an hour including stoppages--and so punctual that all

the road set their clocks by her.

Then being summoned to supper, he had regaled himself in one of the

bright little boxes of the Peacock coffee-room, on the beef-steak

and unlimited oyster-sauce and brown stout (tasted then for the first

time--a day to be marked for ever by Tom with a white stone); had at

first attended to the excellent advice which his father was bestowing

on him from over his glass of steaming brandy-and-water, and then

began nodding, from the united effects of the stout, the fire, and the

lecture; till the Squire, observing Tom's state, and remembering that it

was nearly nine o'clock, and that the Tally-ho left at three, sent the

little fellow off to the chambermaid, with a shake of the hand (Tom

having stipulated in the morning before starting that kissing should now

cease between them), and a few parting words:

“And now, Tom, my boy,” said the Squire, “remember you are going, at

your own earnest request, to be chucked into this great school, like a

young bear, with all your troubles before you--earlier than we should

have sent you perhaps. If schools are what they were in my time, you'll

see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul,

bad talk. But never fear. You tell the truth, keep a brave and kind

heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn't have your mother

and sister hear, and you'll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to

see you.”

The allusion to his mother made Tom feel rather choky, and he would have

liked to have hugged his father well, if it hadn't been for the recent

stipulation.

As it was, he only squeezed his father's hand, and looked bravely up and

said, “I'll try, father.”

“I know you will, my boy. Is your money all safe?

“Yes,” said Tom, diving into one pocket to make sure.

“And your keys?” said the Squire.

“All right,” said Tom, diving into the other pocket.

“Well, then, good-night. God bless you! I'll tell boots to call you, and

be up to see you off.”

Tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a brown study, from which he

was roused in a clean little attic, by that buxom person calling him a

little darling and kissing him as she left the room; which indignity

he was too much surprised to resent. And still thinking of his father's

last words, and the look with which they were spoken, he knelt down and

prayed that, come what might, he might never bring shame or sorrow on

the dear folk at home.

Indeed, the Squire's last words deserved to have their effect, for they

had been the result of much anxious thought. All the way up to London

he had pondered what he should say to Tom by way of parting

advice--something that the boy could keep in his head ready for use. By

way of assisting meditation, he had even gone the length of taking out

his flint and steel and tinder, and hammering away for a quarter of an

hour till he had manufactured a light for a long Trichinopoli cheroot,

which he silently puffed, to the no small wonder of coachee, who was an

old friend, and an institution on the Bath road, and who always expected

a talk on the prospects and doings, agricultural and social, of the

whole country, when he carried the Squire.

To condense the Squire's meditation, it was somewhat as follows: “I

won't tell him to read his Bible, and love and serve God; if he don't do

that for his mother's sake and teaching, he won't for mine. Shall I go

into the sort of temptations he'll meet with? No, I can't do that.

Never do for an old fellow to go into such things with a boy. He won't

understand me. Do him more harm than good, ten to one. Shall I tell him

to mind his work, and say he's sent to school to make himself a good

scholar? Well, but he isn't sent to school for that--at any rate,

not for that mainly. I don't care a straw for Greek particles, or the

digamma; no more does his mother. What is he sent to school for? Well,

partly because he wanted so to go. If he'll only turn out a brave,

helpful, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a Christian,

that's all I want,” thought the Squire; and upon this view of the case

he framed his last words of advice to Tom, which were well enough suited

to his purpose.

For they were Tom's first thoughts as he tumbled out of bed at the

summons of boots, and proceeded rapidly to wash and dress himself. At

ten minutes to three he was down in the coffee-room in his stockings,

carrying his hat-box, coat, and comforter in his hand; and there he

found his father nursing a bright fire, and a cup of hot coffee and a

hard biscuit on the table.

“Now, then, Tom, give us your things here, and drink this. There's

nothing like starting warm, old fellow.”

Tom addressed himself to the coffee, and prattled away while he worked

himself into his shoes and his greatcoat, well warmed through--a

Petersham coat with velvet collar, made tight after the abominable

fashion of those days. And just as he is swallowing his last mouthful,

winding his comforter round his throat, and tucking the ends into the

breast of his coat, the horn sounds; boots looks in and says, “Tally-ho,

sir;” and they hear the ring and the rattle of the four fast trotters

and the town-made drag, as it dashes up to the Peacock.

“Anything for us, Bob?” says the burly guard, dropping down from behind,

and slapping himself across the chest.

“Young gen'lm'n, Rugby; three parcels, Leicester; hamper o' game,

Rugby,” answers hostler.

“Tell young gent to look alive,” says guard, opening the hind-boot and

shooting in the parcels after examining them by the lamps. “Here; shove

the portmanteau up a-top. I'll fasten him presently.--Now then, sir,

jump up behind.”

“Good-bye, father--my love at home.” A last shake of the hand. Up goes

Tom, the guard catching his hatbox and holding on with one hand, while

with the other he claps the horn to his mouth. Toot, toot, toot! the

hostlers let go their heads, the four bays plunge at the collar, and

away goes the Tally-ho into the darkness, forty-five seconds from the

time they pulled up. Hostler, boots, and the Squire stand looking after

them under the Peacock lamp.

“Sharp work!” says the Squire, and goes in again to his bed, the coach

being well out of sight and hearing.

Tom stands up on the coach and looks back at his father's figure as long

as he can see it; and then the guard, having disposed of his luggage,

comes to an anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other preparations

for facing the three hours before dawn--no joke for those who minded

cold, on a fast coach in November, in the reign of his late Majesty.

I sometimes think that you boys of this generation are a deal tenderer

fellows than we used to be. At any rate you're much more comfortable

travellers, for I see every one of you with his rug or plaid, and other

dodges for preserving the caloric, and most of you going in, those

fuzzy, dusty, padded first-class carriages. It was another affair

altogether, a dark ride on the top of the Tally-ho, I can tell you, in a

tight Petersham coat, and your feet dangling six inches from the floor.

Then you knew what cold was, and what it was to be without legs, for not

a bit of feeling had you in them after the first half-hour. But it had

its pleasures, the old dark ride. First there was the consciousness of

silent endurance, so dear to every Englishman--of standing out against

something, and not giving in. Then there was the music of the rattling

harness, and the ring of the horses' feet on the hard road, and the

glare of the two bright lamps through the steaming hoar frost, over the

leaders' ears, into the darkness, and the cheery toot of the guard's

horn, to warn some drowsy pikeman or the hostler at the next change; and

the looking forward to daylight; and last, but not least, the delight of

returning sensation in your toes.

Then the break of dawn and the sunrise, where can they be ever seen in

perfection but from a coach roof? You want motion and change and music

to see them in their glory--not the music of singing men and singing

women, but good, silent music, which sets itself in your own head, the

accompaniment of work and getting over the ground.

The Tally-ho is past St. Albans, and Tom is enjoying the ride, though

half-frozen. The guard, who is alone with him on the back of the coach,

is silent, but has muffled Tom's feet up in straw, and put the end of an

oat-sack over his knees. The darkness has driven him inwards, and he

has gone over his little past life, and thought of all his doings and

promises, and of his mother and sister, and his father's last words; and

has made fifty good resolutions, and means to bear himself like a brave

Brown as he is, though a young one. Then he has been forward into the

mysterious boy-future, speculating as to what sort of place Rugby is,

and what they do there, and calling up all the stories of public schools

which he has heard from big boys in the holidays. He is choke-full of

hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, and kicks his heels against the

back-board, and would like to sing, only he doesn't know how his friend

the silent guard might take it.

And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage, and the coach

pulls up at a little roadside inn with huge stables behind. There is a

bright fire gleaming through the red curtains of the bar window, and

the door is open. The coachman catches his whip into a double thong, and

throws it to the hostler; the steam of the horses rises straight up

into the air. He has put them along over the last two miles, and is two

minutes before his time. He rolls down from the box and into the inn.

The guard rolls off behind. “Now, sir,” says he to Tom, “you just jump

down, and I'll give you a drop of something to keep the cold out.”

Tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or indeed in finding the top of the

wheel with his feet, which may be in the next world for all he feels;

so the guard picks him off the coach top, and sets him on his legs, and

they stump off into the bar, and join the coachman and the other outside

passengers.

Here a fresh-looking barmaid serves them each with a glass of early purl

as they stand before the fire, coachman and guard exchanging business

remarks. The purl warms the cockles of Tom's heart, and makes him cough.

“Rare tackle that, sir, of a cold morning,” says the coachman, smiling.

“Time's up.” They are out again and up; coachee the last, gathering the

reins into his hands and talking to Jem the hostler about the mare's

shoulder, and then swinging himself up on to the box--the horses dashing

off in a canter before he falls into his seat. Toot-toot-tootle-too goes

the horn, and away they are again, five-and-thirty miles on their road

(nearly half-way to Rugby, thinks Tom), and the prospect of breakfast at

the end of the stage.

And now they begin to see, and the early life of the country-side comes

out--a market cart or two; men in smock-frocks going to their work, pipe

in mouth, a whiff of which is no bad smell this bright morning. The sun

gets up, and the mist shines like silver gauze. They pass the hounds

jogging along to a distant meet, at the heels of the huntsman's back,

whose face is about the colour of the tails of his old pink, as he

exchanges greetings with coachman and guard. Now they pull up at a

lodge, and take on board a well-muffled-up sportsman, with his gun-case

and carpet-bag, An early up-coach meets them, and the coachmen gather

up their horses, and pass one another with the accustomed lift of the

elbow, each team doing eleven miles an hour, with a mile to spare behind

if necessary. And here comes breakfast.

“Twenty minutes here, gentlemen,” says the coachman, as they pull up at

half-past seven at the inn-door.

Have we not endured nobly this morning? and is not this a worthy reward

for much endurance? There is the low, dark wainscoted room hung with

sporting prints; the hat-stand (with a whip or two standing up in it

belonging to bagmen who are still snug in bed) by the door; the blazing

fire, with the quaint old glass over the mantelpiece, in which is stuck

a large card with the list of the meets for the week of the county

hounds; the table covered with the whitest of cloths and of china, and

bearing a pigeon-pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mammoth

ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wooden trencher. And

here comes in the stout head waiter, puffing under a tray of hot

viands--kidneys and a steak, transparent rashers and poached eggs,

buttered toast and muffins, coffee and tea, all smoking hot. The table

can never hold it all. The cold meats are removed to the sideboard--they

were only put on for show and to give us an appetite. And now fall on,

gentlemen all. It is a well-known sporting-house, and the breakfasts are

famous. Two or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop in, and

are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we all are.

“Tea or coffee, sir?” says head waiter, coming round to Tom.

“Coffee, please,” says Tom, with his mouth full of muffin and kidney.

Coffee is a treat to him, tea is not.

Our coachman, I perceive, who breakfasts with us, is a cold beef man.

He also eschews hot potations, and addicts himself to a tankard of ale,

which is brought him by the barmaid. Sportsman looks on approvingly, and

orders a ditto for himself.

Tom has eaten kidney and pigeon-pie, and imbibed coffee, till his little

skin is as tight as a drum; and then has the further pleasure of paying

head waiter out of his own purse, in a dignified manner, and walks out

before the inn-door to see the horses put to. This is done leisurely and

in a highly-finished manner by the hostlers, as if they enjoyed the not

being hurried. Coachman comes out with his waybill, and puffing a fat

cigar which the sportsman has given him. Guard emerges from the tap,

where he prefers breakfasting, licking round a tough-looking doubtful

cheroot, which you might tie round your finger, and three whiffs of

which would knock any one else out of time.

The pinks stand about the inn-door lighting cigars and waiting to see us

start, while their hacks are led up and down the market-place, on which

the inn looks. They all know our sportsman, and we feel a reflected

credit when we see him chatting and laughing with them.

“Now, sir, please,” says the coachman. All the rest of the passengers

are up; the guard is locking up the hind-boot.

“A good run to you!” says the sportsman to the pinks, and is by the

coachman's side in no time.

“Let 'em go, Dick!” The hostlers fly back, drawing off the cloths from

their glossy loins, and away we go through the market-place and down the

High Street, looking in at the first-floor windows, and seeing several

worthy burgesses shaving thereat; while all the shopboys who are

cleaning the windows, and housemaids who are doing the steps, stop and

look pleased as we rattle past, as if we were a part of their legitimate

morning's amusement. We clear the town, and are well out between the

hedgerows again as the town clock strikes eight.

The sun shines almost warmly, and breakfast has oiled all springs

and loosened all tongues. Tom is encouraged by a remark or two of the

guard's between the puffs of his oily cheroot, and besides is getting

tired of not talking. He is too full of his destination to talk about

anything else, and so asks the guard if he knows Rugby.

“Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty minutes afore twelve

down--ten o'clock up.”

“What sort of place is it, please?” says Tom.

Guard looks at him with a comical expression. “Werry out-o'-the-way

place, sir; no paving to streets, nor no lighting. 'Mazin' big horse and

cattle fair in autumn--lasts a week--just over now. Takes town a week to

get clean after it. Fairish hunting country. But slow place, sir, slow

place--off the main road, you see--only three coaches a day, and one on

'em a two-oss wan, more like a hearse nor a coach--Regulator--comes from

Oxford. Young genl'm'n at school calls her Pig and Whistle, and goes up

to college by her (six miles an hour) when they goes to enter. Belong to

school, sir?”

“Yes,” says Tom, not unwilling for a moment that the guard should think

him an old boy. But then, having some qualms as to the truth of the

assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume the character of an old

boy he couldn't go on asking the questions he wanted, added--“That is to

say, I'm on my way there. I'm a new boy.”

The guard looked as if he knew this quite as well as Tom.

“You're werry late, sir,” says the guard; “only six weeks to-day to the

end of the half.” Tom assented. “We takes up fine loads this day six

weeks, and Monday and Tuesday arter. Hopes we shall have the pleasure of

carrying you back.”

Tom said he hoped they would; but he thought within himself that his

fate would probably be the Pig and Whistle.

“It pays uncommon cert'nly,” continues the guard. “Werry free with their

cash is the young genl'm'n. But, Lor' bless you, we gets into such rows

all 'long the road, what wi' their pea-shooters, and long whips, and

hollering, and upsetting every one as comes by, I'd a sight sooner

carry one or two on 'em, sir, as I may be a-carryin' of you now, than a

coach-load.”

“What do they do with the pea-shooters?” inquires Tom.

“Do wi' 'em! Why, peppers every one's faces as we comes near, 'cept the

young gals, and breaks windows wi' them too, some on 'em shoots so hard.

Now 'twas just here last June, as we was a-driving up the first-day

boys, they was mendin' a quarter-mile of road, and there was a lot of

Irish chaps, reg'lar roughs, a-breaking stones. As we comes up, 'Now,

boys,' says young gent on the box (smart young fellow and desper't

reckless), 'here's fun! Let the Pats have it about the ears.' 'God's

sake sir!' says Bob (that's my mate the coachman); 'don't go for to

shoot at 'em. They'll knock us off the coach.' 'Damme, coachee,' says

young my lord, 'you ain't afraid.--Hoora, boys! let 'em have it.'

'Hoora!' sings out the others, and fill their mouths choke-full of peas

to last the whole line. Bob, seeing as 'twas to come, knocks his hat

over his eyes, hollers to his osses, and shakes 'em up; and away we goes

up to the line on 'em, twenty miles an hour. The Pats begin to hoora

too, thinking it was a runaway; and first lot on 'em stands grinnin'

and wavin' their old hats as we comes abreast on 'em; and then you'd ha'

laughed to see how took aback and choking savage they looked, when they

gets the peas a-stinging all over 'em. But bless you, the laugh weren't

all of our side, sir, by a long way. We was going so fast, and they was

so took aback, that they didn't take what was up till we was half-way

up the line. Then 'twas, 'Look out all!' surely. They howls all down the

line fit to frighten you; some on 'em runs arter us and tries to clamber

up behind, only we hits 'em over the fingers and pulls their hands off;

one as had had it very sharp act'ly runs right at the leaders, as though

he'd ketch 'em by the heads, only luck'ly for him he misses his tip and

comes over a heap o' stones first. The rest picks up stones, and gives

it us right away till we gets out of shot, the young gents holding out

werry manful with the pea-shooters and such stones as lodged on us, and

a pretty many there was too. Then Bob picks hisself up again, and looks

at young gent on box werry solemn. Bob'd had a rum un in the ribs,

which'd like to ha' knocked him off the box, or made him drop the reins.

Young gent on box picks hisself up, and so does we all, and looks round

to count damage. Box's head cut open and his hat gone; 'nother young

gent's hat gone; mine knocked in at the side, and not one on us as

wasn't black and blue somewheres or another, most on 'em all over. Two

pound ten to pay for damage to paint, which they subscribed for there

and then, and give Bob and me a extra half-sovereign each; but I

wouldn't go down that line again not for twenty half-sovereigns.” And

the guard shook his head slowly, and got up and blew a clear, brisk

toot-toot.

“What fun!” said Tom, who could scarcely contain his pride at this

exploit of his future school-fellows. He longed already for the end of

the half, that he might join them.

“'Taint such good fun, though, sir, for the folk as meets the coach, nor

for we who has to go back with it next day. Them Irishers last summer

had all got stones ready for us, and was all but letting drive, and we'd

got two reverend gents aboard too. We pulled up at the beginning of

the line, and pacified them, and we're never going to carry no more

pea-shooters, unless they promises not to fire where there's a line of

Irish chaps a-stonebreaking.” The guard stopped and pulled away at his

cheroot, regarding Tom benignantly the while.

“Oh, don't stop! Tell us something more about the pea-shooting.”

“Well, there'd like to have been a pretty piece of work over it at

Bicester, a while back. We was six mile from the town, when we meets an

old square-headed gray-haired yeoman chap, a-jogging along quite quiet.

He looks up at the coach, and just then a pea hits him on the nose, and

some catches his cob behind and makes him dance up on his hind legs. I

see'd the old boy's face flush and look plaguy awkward, and I thought we

was in for somethin' nasty.

“He turns his cob's head and rides quietly after us just out of shot.

How that 'ere cob did step! We never shook him off not a dozen yards

in the six miles. At first the young gents was werry lively on him; but

afore we got in, seeing how steady the old chap come on, they was quite

quiet, and laid their heads together what they should do. Some was for

fighting, some for axing his pardon. He rides into the town close after

us, comes up when we stops, and says the two as shot at him must come

before a magistrate; and a great crowd comes round, and we couldn't get

the osses to. But the young uns they all stand by one another, and says

all or none must go, and as how they'd fight it out, and have to be

carried. Just as 'twas gettin' serious, and the old boy and the mob was

going to pull 'em off the coach, one little fellow jumps up and says,

'Here--I'll stay. I'm only going three miles farther. My father's name's

Davis; he's known about here, and I'll go before the magistrate with

this gentleman.' 'What! be thee parson Davis's son?' says the old boy.

'Yes,' says the young un. 'Well, I be mortal sorry to meet thee in such

company; but for thy father's sake and thine (for thee bist a brave

young chap) I'll say no more about it.' Didn't the boys cheer him, and

the mob cheered the young chap; and then one of the biggest gets down,

and begs his pardon werry gentlemanly for all the rest, saying as they

all had been plaguy vexed from the first, but didn't like to ax his

pardon till then, 'cause they felt they hadn't ought to shirk the

consequences of their joke. And then they all got down, and shook hands

with the old boy, and asked him to all parts of the country, to their

homes; and we drives off twenty minutes behind time, with cheering and

hollering as if we was county 'members. But, Lor' bless you, sir,” says

the guard, smacking his hand down on his knee and looking full into

Tom's face, “ten minutes arter they was all as bad as ever.”

Tom showed such undisguised and open-mouthed interest in his narrations

that the old guard rubbed up his memory, and launched out into a graphic

history of all the performances of the boys on the roads for the last

twenty years. Off the road he couldn't go; the exploit must have been

connected with horses or vehicles to hang in the old fellow's head. Tom

tried him off his own ground once or twice, but found he knew nothing

beyond, and so let him have his head, and the rest of the road bowled

easily away; for old Blow-hard (as the boys called him) was a dry old

file, with much kindness and humour, and a capital spinner of a yarn

when he had broken the neck of his day's work, and got plenty of ale

under his belt.

What struck Tom's youthful imagination most was the desperate and

lawless character of most of the stories. Was the guard hoaxing him? He

couldn't help hoping that they were true. It's very odd how almost all

English boys love danger. You can get ten to join a game, or climb a

tree, or swim a stream, when there's a chance of breaking their limbs or

getting drowned, for one who'll stay on level ground, or in his depth,

or play quoits or bowls.

The guard had just finished an account of a desperate fight which had

happened at one of the fairs between the drovers and the farmers with

their whips, and the boys with cricket-bats and wickets, which arose out

of a playful but objectionable practice of the boys going round to the

public-houses and taking the linch-pins out of the wheels of the gigs,

and was moralizing upon the way in which the Doctor, “a terrible stern

man he'd heard tell,” had come down upon several of the performers,

“sending three on 'em off next morning in a po-shay with a parish

constable,” when they turned a corner and neared the milestone, the

third from Rugby. By the stone two boys stood, their jackets buttoned

tight, waiting for the coach.

“Look here, sir,” says the guard, after giving a sharp toot-toot;

“there's two on 'em; out-and-out runners they be. They comes out about

twice or three times a week, and spirts a mile alongside of us.”

And as they came up, sure enough, away went two boys along the footpath,

keeping up with the horses--the first a light, clean-made fellow going

on springs; the other stout and round-shouldered, labouring in his pace,

but going as dogged as a bull-terrier.

Old Blow-hard looked on admiringly. “See how beautiful that there un

holds hisself together, and goes from his hips, sir,” said he; “he's a

'mazin' fine runner. Now many coachmen as drives a first-rate team'd

put it on, and try and pass 'em. But Bob, sir, bless you, he's

tender-hearted; he'd sooner pull in a bit if he see'd 'em a-gettin'

beat. I do b'lieve, too, as that there un'd sooner break his heart than

let us go by him afore next milestone.”

At the second milestone the boys pulled up short, and waved their

hats to the guard, who had his watch out and shouted “4.56,” thereby

indicating that the mile had been done in four seconds under the five

minutes. They passed several more parties of boys, all of them objects

of the deepest interest to Tom, and came in sight of the town at ten

minutes before twelve. Tom fetched a long breath, and thought he had

never spent a pleasanter day. Before he went to bed he had quite settled

that it must be the greatest day he should ever spend, and didn't alter

his opinion for many a long year--if he has yet.

CHAPTER V--RUGBY AND FOOTBALL.

“Foot and eye opposed

In dubious strife.”--Scott.

“And so here's Rugby, sir, at last, and you'll be in plenty of time

for dinner at the School-house, as I telled you,” said the old guard,

pulling his horn out of its case and tootle-tooing away, while the

coachman shook up his horses, and carried them along the side of the

school close, round Dead-man's corner, past the school-gates, and down

the High Street to the Spread Eagle, the wheelers in a spanking trot,

and leaders cantering, in a style which would not have disgraced “Cherry

Bob,” “ramping, stamping, tearing, swearing Billy Harwood,” or any other

of the old coaching heroes.

Tom's heart beat quick as he passed the great schoolfield or close, with

its noble elms, in which several games at football were going on, and

tried to take in at once the long line of gray buildings, beginning

with the chapel, and ending with the School-house, the residence of the

head-master, where the great flag was lazily waving from the highest

round tower. And he began already to be proud of being a Rugby boy, as

he passed the schoolgates, with the oriel window above, and saw the boys

standing there, looking as if the town belonged to them, and nodding in

a familiar manner to the coachman, as if any one of them would be quite

equal to getting on the box, and working the team down street as well as

he.

One of the young heroes, however, ran out from the rest, and scrambled

up behind; where, having righted himself, and nodded to the guard, with

“How do, Jem?” he turned short round to Tom, and after looking him over

for a minute, began,--

“I say, you fellow, is your name Brown?”

“Yes,” said Tom, in considerable astonishment, glad, however, to have

lighted on some one already who seemed to know him.

“Ah, I thought so. You know my old aunt, Miss East. She lives somewhere

down your way in Berkshire. She wrote to me that you were coming to-day,

and asked me to give you a lift.”

Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronizing air of his new

friend, a boy of just about his own height and age, but gifted with

the most transcendent coolness and assurance, which Tom felt to be

aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn't for the life of him help

admiring and envying--especially when young my lord begins hectoring

two or three long loafing fellows, half porter, half stableman, with

a strong touch of the blackguard, and in the end arranges with one of

them, nicknamed Cooey, to carry Tom's luggage up to the School-house for

sixpence.

“And hark 'ee, Cooey; it must be up in ten minutes, or no more jobs from

me. Come along, Brown.” And away swaggers the young potentate, with his

hands in his pockets, and Tom at his side.

“All right, sir,” says Cooey, touching his hat, with a leer and a wink

at his companions.

“Hullo though,” says East, pulling up, and taking another look at Tom;

“this'll never do. Haven't you got a hat? We never wear caps here. Only

the louts wear caps. Bless you, if you were to go into the quadrangle

with that thing on, I don't know what'd happen.” The very idea was quite

beyond young Master East, and he looked unutterable things.

Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that he had

a hat in his hat-box; which was accordingly at once extracted from the

hind-boot, and Tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend

called it. But this didn't quite suit his fastidious taste in another

minute, being too shiny; so, as they walk up the town, they dive into

Nixon's the hatter's, and Tom is arrayed, to his utter astonishment, and

without paying for it, in a regulation cat-skin at seven-and-sixpence,

Nixon undertaking to send the best hat up to the matron's room,

School-house, in half an hour.

“You can send in a note for a tile on Monday, and make it all right, you

know,” said Mentor; “we're allowed two seven-and-sixers a half, besides

what we bring from home.”

Tom by this time began to be conscious of his new social position and

dignities, and to luxuriate in the realized ambition of being a public

school-boy at last, with a vested right of spoiling two seven-and-sixers

in half a year.

“You see,” said his friend, as they strolled up towards the

school-gates, in explanation of his conduct, “a great deal depends on

how a fellow cuts up at first. If he's got nothing odd about him, and

answers straightforward, and holds his head up, he gets on. Now, you'll

do very well as to rig, all but that cap. You see I'm doing the handsome

thing by you, because my father knows yours; besides, I want to please

the old lady. She gave me half a sov. this half, and perhaps'll double

it next, if I keep in her good books.”

There's nothing for candour like a lower-school boy, and East was a

genuine specimen--frank, hearty, and good-natured, well-satisfied with

himself and his position, and choke-full of life and spirits, and

all the Rugby prejudices and traditions which he had been able to get

together in the long course of one half-year during which he had been at

the School-house.

And Tom, notwithstanding his bumptiousness, felt friends with him at

once, and began sucking in all his ways and prejudices, as fast as he

could understand them.

East was great in the character of cicerone. He carried Tom through

the great gates, where were only two or three boys. These satisfied

themselves with the stock questions, “You fellow, what's your name?

Where do you come from? How old are you? Where do you board?” and, “What

form are you in?” And so they passed on through the quadrangle and

a small courtyard, upon which looked down a lot of little windows

(belonging, as his guide informed him, to some of the School-house

studies), into the matron's room, where East introduced Tom to that

dignitary; made him give up the key of his trunk, that the matron might

unpack his linen, and told the story of the hat and of his own presence

of mind: upon the relation whereof the matron laughingly scolded him for

the coolest new boy in the house; and East, indignant at the accusation

of newness, marched Tom off into the quadrangle, and began showing

him the schools, and examining him as to his literary attainments; the

result of which was a prophecy that they would be in the same form, and

could do their lessons together.

“And now come in and see my study--we shall have just time before

dinner; and afterwards, before calling over, we'll do the close.”

Tom followed his guide through the School-house hall, which opens into

the quadrangle. It is a great room, thirty feet long and eighteen high,

or thereabouts, with two great tables running the whole length, and

two large fireplaces at the side, with blazing fires in them, at one of

which some dozen boys were standing and lounging, some of whom shouted

to East to stop; but he shot through with his convoy, and landed him

in the long, dark passages, with a large fire at the end of each, upon

which the studies opened. Into one of these, in the bottom passage, East

bolted with our hero, slamming and bolting the door behind them, in

case of pursuit from the hall, and Tom was for the first time in a Rugby

boy's citadel.

He hadn't been prepared for separate studies, and was not a little

astonished and delighted with the palace in question.

It wasn't very large, certainly, being about six feet long by four

broad. It couldn't be called light, as there were bars and a grating to

the window; which little precautions were necessary in the studies on

the ground-floor looking out into the close, to prevent the exit of

small boys after locking up, and the entrance of contraband articles.

But it was uncommonly comfortable to look at, Tom thought. The space

under the window at the farther end was occupied by a square table

covered with a reasonably clean and whole red and blue check tablecloth;

a hard-seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one side, running up

to the end, and making a seat for one, or by sitting close, for two, at

the table and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat to another boy,

so that three could sit and work together. The walls were wainscoted

half-way up, the wainscot being covered with green baize, the remainder

with a bright-patterned paper, on which hung three or four prints of

dogs' heads; Grimaldi winning the Aylesbury steeple-chase; Amy Robsart,

the reigning Waverley beauty of the day; and Tom Crib, in a posture

of defence, which did no credit to the science of that hero, if truly

represented. Over the door were a row of hat-pegs, and on each side

bookcases with cupboards at the bottom, shelves and cupboards being

filled indiscriminately with school-books, a cup or two, a

mouse-trap and candlesticks, leather straps, a fustian bag, and some

curious-looking articles which puzzled Tom not a little, until his

friend explained that they were climbing-irons, and showed their use. A

cricket-bat and small fishing-rod stood up in one corner.

This was the residence of East and another boy in the same form, and had

more interest for Tom than Windsor Castle, or any other residence in

the British Isles. For was he not about to become the joint owner of a

similar home, the first place he could call his own? One's own! What a

charm there is in the words! How long it takes boy and man to find

out their worth! How fast most of us hold on to them--faster and more

jealously, the nearer we are to that general home into which we can

take nothing, but must go naked as we came into the world! When shall we

learn that he who multiplieth possessions multiplieth troubles, and that

the one single use of things which we call our own is that they may be

his who hath need of them?

“And shall I have a study like this too?” said Tom.

“Yes, of course; you'll be chummed with some fellow on Monday, and you

can sit here till then.”

“What nice places!”

“They're well enough,” answered East, patronizingly, “only uncommon cold

at nights sometimes. Gower--that's my chum--and I make a fire with paper

on the floor after supper generally, only that makes it so smoky.”

“But there's a big fire out in the passage,” said Tom.

“Precious little we get out of that, though,” said East. “Jones the

praepostor has the study at the fire end, and he has rigged up an iron

rod and green baize curtain across the passage, which he draws at night,

and sits there with his door open; so he gets all the fire, and hears if

we come out of our studies after eight, or make a noise. However, he's

taken to sitting in the fifth-form room lately, so we do get a bit of

fire now sometimes; only to keep a sharp lookout that he don't catch you

behind his curtain when he comes down--that's all.”

A quarter past one now struck, and the bell began tolling for dinner; so

they went into the hall and took their places, Tom at the very bottom

of the second table, next to the praepostor (who sat at the end to keep

order there), and East a few paces higher. And now Tom for the first

time saw his future school-fellows in a body. In they came, some hot

and ruddy from football or long walks, some pale and chilly from hard

reading in their studies, some from loitering over the fire at

the pastrycook's, dainty mortals, bringing with them pickles and

saucebottles to help them with their dinners. And a great big-bearded

man, whom Tom took for a master, began calling over the names, while the

great joints were being rapidly carved on the third table in the

corner by the old verger and the housekeeper. Tom's turn came last, and

meanwhile he was all eyes, looking first with awe at the great man, who

sat close to him, and was helped first, and who read a hard-looking book

all the time he was eating; and when he got up and walked off to the

fire, at the small boys round him, some of whom were reading, and the

rest talking in whispers to one another, or stealing one another's

bread, or shooting pellets, or digging their forks through the

tablecloth. However, notwithstanding his curiosity, he managed to make

a capital dinner by the time the big man called “Stand up!” and said

grace.

As soon as dinner was over, and Tom had been questioned by such of his

neighbours as were curious as to his birth, parentage, education, and

other like matters, East, who evidently enjoyed his new dignity of

patron and mentor, proposed having a look at the close, which Tom,

athirst for knowledge, gladly assented to; and they went out through the

quadrangle and past the big fives court, into the great playground.

“That's the chapel, you see,” said East; “and there, just behind it, is

the place for fights. You see it's most out of the way of the masters,

who all live on the other side, and don't come by here after first

lesson or callings-over. That's when the fights come off. And all this

part where we are is the little-side ground, right up to the trees; and

on the other side of the trees is the big-side ground, where the great

matches are played. And there's the island in the farthest corner;

you'll know that well enough next half, when there's island fagging. I

say, it's horrid cold; let's have a run across.” And away went East, Tom

close behind him. East was evidently putting his best foot foremost; and

Tom, who was mighty proud of his running, and not a little anxious

to show his friend that, although a new boy, he was no milksop, laid

himself down to work in his very best style. Right across the close they

went, each doing all he knew, and there wasn't a yard between them when

they pulled up at the island moat.

“I say,” said East, as soon as he got his wind, looking with much

increased respect at Tom, “you ain't a bad scud, not by no means. Well,

I'm as warm as a toast now.”

“But why do you wear white trousers in November?” said Tom. He had been

struck by this peculiarity in the costume of almost all the School-house

boys.

“Why, bless us, don't you know? No; I forgot. Why, to-day's the

School-house match. Our house plays the whole of the School at football.

And we all wear white trousers, to show 'em we don't care for hacks.

You're in luck to come to-day. You just will see a match; and Brooke's

going to let me play in quarters. That's more than he'll do for any

other lower-school boy, except James, and he's fourteen.”

“Who's Brooke?”

“Why, that big fellow who called over at dinner, to be sure. He's cock

of the school, and head of the School-house side, and the best kick and

charger in Rugby.”

“Oh, but do show me where they play. And tell me about it. I love

football so, and have played all my life. Won't Brooke let me play?”

“Not he,” said East, with some indignation. “Why, you don't know the

rules; you'll be a month learning them. And then it's no joke playing-up

in a match, I can tell you--quite another thing from your private school

games. Why, there's been two collar-bones broken this half, and a dozen

fellows lamed. And last year a fellow had his leg broken.”

Tom listened with the profoundest respect to this chapter of accidents,

and followed East across the level ground till they came to a sort of

gigantic gallows of two poles, eighteen feet high, fixed upright in the

ground some fourteen feet apart, with a cross-bar running from one to

the other at the height of ten feet or thereabouts.

“This is one of the goals,” said East, “and you see the other, across

there, right opposite, under the Doctor's wall. Well, the match is for

the best of three goals; whichever side kicks two goals wins: and it

won't do, you see, just to kick the ball through these posts--it must go

over the cross-bar; any height'll do, so long as it's between the posts.

You'll have to stay in goal to touch the ball when it rolls behind the

posts, because if the other side touch it they have a try at goal. Then

we fellows in quarters, we play just about in front of goal here, and

have to turn the ball and kick it back before the big fellows on the

other side can follow it up. And in front of us all the big fellows

play, and that's where the scrummages are mostly.”

Tom's respect increased as he struggled to make out his friend's

technicalities, and the other set to work to explain the mysteries

of “off your side,” “drop-kicks,” “punts,” “places,” and the other

intricacies of the great science of football.

“But how do you keep the ball between the goals?” said he; “I can't see

why it mightn't go right down to the chapel.”

“Why; that's out of play,” answered East. “You see this gravel-walk

running down all along this side of the playing-ground, and the line

of elms opposite on the other? Well, they're the bounds. As soon as the

ball gets past them, it's in touch, and out of play. And then whoever

first touches it has to knock it straight out amongst the players-up,

who make two lines with a space between them, every fellow going on his

own side. Ain't there just fine scrummages then! And the three trees you

see there which come out into the play, that's a tremendous place when

the ball hangs there, for you get thrown against the trees, and that's

worse than any hack.”

Tom wondered within himself, as they strolled back again towards the

fives court, whether the matches were really such break-neck affairs as

East represented, and whether, if they were, he should ever get to like

them and play up well.

He hadn't long to wonder, however, for next minute East cried out,

“Hurrah! here's the punt-about; come along and try your hand at a kick.”

The punt-about is the practice-ball, which is just brought out and

kicked about anyhow from one boy to another before callings-over and

dinner, and at other odd times. They joined the boys who had brought it

out, all small School-house fellows, friends of East; and Tom had the

pleasure of trying his skill, and performed very creditably, after first

driving his foot three inches into the ground, and then nearly kicking

his leg into the air, in vigorous efforts to accomplish a drop-kick

after the manner of East.

Presently more boys and bigger came out, and boys from other houses

on their way to calling-over, and more balls were sent for. The crowd

thickened as three o'clock approached; and when the hour struck, one

hundred and fifty boys were hard at work. Then the balls were held, the

master of the week came down in cap and gown to calling-over, and the

whole school of three hundred boys swept into the big school to answer

to their names.

“I may come in, mayn't I?” said Tom, catching East by the arm, and

longing to feel one of them.

“Yes, come along; nobody'll say anything. You won't be so eager to get

into calling-over after a month,” replied his friend; and they marched

into the big school together, and up to the farther end, where that

illustrious form, the lower fourth, which had the honour of East's

patronage for the time being, stood.

The master mounted into the high desk by the door, and one of the

praepostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the other three

marching up and down the middle of the school with their canes, calling

out, “Silence, silence!” The sixth form stood close by the door on the

left, some thirty in number, mostly great big grown men, as Tom thought,

surveying them from a distance with awe; the fifth form behind them,

twice their number, and not quite so big. These on the left; and on the

right the lower fifth, shell, and all the junior forms in order; while

up the middle marched the three praepostors.

Then the praepostor who stands by the master calls out the names,

beginning with the sixth form; and as he calls each boy answers “here”

to his name, and walks out. Some of the sixth stop at the door to turn

the whole string of boys into the close. It is a great match-day, and

every boy in the school, will he, nill he, must be there. The rest of

the sixth go forwards into the close, to see that no one escapes by any

of the side gates.

To-day, however, being the School-house match, none of the School-house

praepostors stay by the door to watch for truants of their side; there

is carte blanche to the School-house fags to go where they like. “They

trust to our honour,” as East proudly informs Tom; “they know very well

that no School-house boy would cut the match. If he did, we'd very soon

cut him, I can tell you.”

The master of the week being short-sighted, and the praepostors of the

week small and not well up to their work, the lower-school boys employ

the ten minutes which elapse before their names are called in pelting

one another vigorously with acorns, which fly about in all directions.

The small praepostors dash in every now and then, and generally chastise

some quiet, timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes,

while the principal performers get dexterously out of the way. And so

calling-over rolls on somehow, much like the big world, punishments

lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer,

cross-grained way, but the end coming somehow, which is, after all, the

great point. And now the master of the week has finished, and locked up

the big school; and the praepostors of the week come out, sweeping the

last remnant of the school fags, who had been loafing about the corners

by the fives court, in hopes of a chance of bolting, before them into

the close.

“Hold the punt-about!” “To the goals!” are the cries; and all stray

balls are impounded by the authorities, and the whole mass of boys moves

up towards the two goals, dividing as they go into three bodies. That

little band on the left, consisting of from fifteen to twenty boys, Tom

amongst them, who are making for the goal under the School-house wall,

are the School-house boys who are not to play up, and have to stay in

goal. The larger body moving to the island goal are the School boys in a

like predicament. The great mass in the middle are the players-up, both

sides mingled together; they are hanging their jackets (and all who mean

real work), their hats, waistcoats, neck-handkerchiefs, and braces, on

the railings round the small trees; and there they go by twos and

threes up to their respective grounds. There is none of the colour and

tastiness of get-up, you will perceive, which lends such a life to

the present game at Rugby, making the dullest and worst-fought match a

pretty sight. Now each house has its own uniform of cap and jersey, of

some lively colour; but at the time we are speaking of plush caps have

not yet come in, or uniforms of any sort, except the School-house

white trousers, which are abominably cold to-day. Let us get to work,

bare-headed, and girded with our plain leather straps. But we mean

business, gentlemen.

And now that the two sides have fairly sundered, and each occupies its

own ground, and we get a good look at them, what absurdity is this? You

don't mean to say that those fifty or sixty boys in white trousers, many

of them quite small, are going to play that huge mass opposite? Indeed I

do, gentlemen. They're going to try, at any rate, and won't make such

a bad fight of it either, mark my word; for hasn't old Brooke won the

toss, with his lucky halfpenny, and got choice of goals and kick-off?

The new ball you may see lie there quite by itself, in the middle,

pointing towards the School or island goal; in another minute it will be

well on its way there. Use that minute in remarking how the Schoolhouse

side is drilled. You will see, in the first place, that the sixth-form

boy, who has the charge of goal, has spread his force (the goalkeepers)

so as to occupy the whole space behind the goal-posts, at distances of

about five yards apart. A safe and well-kept goal is the foundation of

all good play. Old Brooke is talking to the captain of quarters, and

now he moves away. See how that youngster spreads his men (the light

brigade) carefully over the ground, half-way between their own goal and

the body of their own players-up (the heavy brigade). These again play

in several bodies. There is young Brooke and the bull-dogs. Mark them

well. They are the “fighting brigade,” the “die-hards,” larking about

at leap-frog to keep themselves warm, and playing tricks on one another.

And on each side of old Brooke, who is now standing in the middle of

the ground and just going to kick off, you see a separate wing of

players-up, each with a boy of acknowledged prowess to look to--here

Warner, and there Hedge; but over all is old Brooke, absolute as he

of Russia, but wisely and bravely ruling over willing and worshipping

subjects, a true football king. His face is earnest and careful as he

glances a last time over his array, but full of pluck and hope--the sort

of look I hope to see in my general when I go out to fight.

The School side is not organized in the same way. The goal-keepers

are all in lumps, anyhow and nohow; you can't distinguish between the

players-up and the boys in quarters, and there is divided leadership.

But with such odds in strength and weight it must take more than that to

hinder them from winning; and so their leaders seem to think, for they

let the players-up manage themselves.

But now look! there is a slight move forward of the School-house wings,

a shout of “Are you ready?” and loud affirmative reply. Old Brooke takes

half a dozen quick steps, and away goes the ball spinning towards the

School goal, seventy yards before it touches ground, and at no

point above twelve or fifteen feet high, a model kick-off; and the

School-house cheer and rush on. The ball is returned, and they meet it

and drive it back amongst the masses of the School already in motion.

Then the two sides close, and you can see nothing for minutes but a

swaying crowd of boys, at one point violently agitated. That is where

the ball is, and there are the keen players to be met, and the glory and

the hard knocks to be got. You hear the dull thud, thud of the ball, and

the shouts of “Off your side,” “Down with him,” “Put him over,” “Bravo.”

This is what we call “a scrummage,” gentlemen, and the first scrummage

in a School-house match was no joke in the consulship of Plancus.

But see! it has broken; the ball is driven out on the School-house side,

and a rush of the School carries it past the School-house players-up.

“Look out in quarters,” Brooke's and twenty other voices ring out. No

need to call, though: the School-house captain of quarters has caught it

on the bound, dodges the foremost School boys, who are heading the rush,

and sends it back with a good drop-kick well into the enemy's country.

And then follows rush upon rush, and scrummage upon scrummage, the ball

now driven through into the School-house quarters, and now into the

School goal; for the School-house have not lost the advantage which the

kick-off and a slight wind gave them at the outset, and are slightly

“penning” their adversaries. You say you don't see much in it

all--nothing but a struggling mass of boys, and a leather ball which

seems to excite them all to great fury, as a red rag does a bull. My

dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except that the

boys would be men, and the balls iron; but a battle would be worth

your looking at for all that, and so is a football match. You can't be

expected to appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which

a game is lost and won--it takes an old player to do that; but the broad

philosophy of football you can understand if you will. Come along with

me a little nearer, and let us consider it together.

The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest, and

they close rapidly around it in a scrummage. It must be driven through

now by force or skill, till it flies out on one side or the other.

Look how differently the boys face it! Here come two of the bulldogs,

bursting through the outsiders; in they go, straight to the heart of the

scrummage, bent on driving that ball out on the opposite side. That is

what they mean to do. My sons, my sons! you are too hot; you have gone

past the ball, and must struggle now right through the scrummage, and

get round and back again to your own side, before you can be of any

further use. Here comes young Brooke; he goes in as straight as you, but

keeps his head, and backs and bends, holding himself still behind the

ball, and driving it furiously when he gets the chance. Take a leaf out

of his book, you young chargers. Here comes Speedicut, and Flashman the

School-house bully, with shouts and great action. Won't you two come up

to young Brooke, after locking-up, by the School-house fire, with “Old

fellow, wasn't that just a splendid scrummage by the three trees?” But

he knows you, and so do we. You don't really want to drive that

ball through that scrummage, chancing all hurt for the glory of the

School-house, but to make us think that's what you want--a vastly

different thing; and fellows of your kidney will never go through more

than the skirts of a scrummage, where it's all push and no kicking. We

respect boys who keep out of it, and don't sham going in; but you--we

had rather not say what we think of you.

Then the boys who are bending and watching on the outside, mark them:

they are most useful players, the dodgers, who seize on the ball the

moment it rolls out from amongst the chargers, and away with it across

to the opposite goal. They seldom go into the scrummage, but must have

more coolness than the chargers. As endless as are boys' characters, so

are their ways of facing or not facing a scrummage at football.

Three-quarters of an hour are gone; first winds are failing, and weight

and numbers beginning to tell. Yard by yard the School-house have been

driven back, contesting every inch of ground. The bull-dogs are the

colour of mother earth from shoulder to ankle, except young Brooke, who

has a marvellous knack of keeping his legs. The School-house are being

penned in their turn, and now the ball is behind their goal, under the

Doctor's wall. The Doctor and some of his family are there looking on,

and seem as anxious as any boy for the success of the School-house. We

get a minute's breathing-time before old Brooke kicks out, and he gives

the word to play strongly for touch, by the three trees. Away goes the

ball, and the bull-dogs after it, and in another minute there is shout

of “In touch!” “Our ball!” Now's your time, old Brooke, while your men

are still fresh. He stands with the ball in his hand, while the two

sides form in deep lines opposite one another; he must strike it

straight out between them. The lines are thickest close to him, but

young Brooke and two or three of his men are shifting up farther,

where the opposite line is weak. Old Brooke strikes it out straight and

strong, and it falls opposite his brother. Hurrah! that rush has taken

it right through the School line, and away past the three trees, far

into their quarters, and young Brooke and the bull-dogs are close upon

it. The School leaders rush back, shouting, “Look out in goal!” and

strain every nerve to catch him, but they are after the fleetest foot

in Rugby. There they go straight for the School goal-posts, quarters

scattering before them. One after another the bull-dogs go down, but

young Brooke holds on. “He is down.” No! a long stagger, but the danger

is past. That was the shock of Crew, the most dangerous of dodgers. And

now he is close to the School goal, the ball not three yards before

him. There is a hurried rush of the School fags to the spot, but no

one throws himself on the ball, the only chance, and young Brooke has

touched it right under the School goal-posts.

The School leaders come up furious, and administer toco to the wretched

fags nearest at hand. They may well be angry, for it is all Lombard

Street to a china orange that the School-house kick a goal with the ball

touched in such a good place. Old Brooke, of course, will kick it

out, but who shall catch and place it? Call Crab Jones. Here he comes,

sauntering along with a straw in his mouth, the queerest, coolest fish

in Rugby. If he were tumbled into the moon this minute, he would just

pick himself up without taking his hands out of his pockets or turning

a hair. But it is a moment when the boldest charger's heart beats quick.

Old Brooke stands with the ball under his arm motioning the School back;

he will not kick out till they are all in goal, behind the posts. They

are all edging forwards, inch by inch, to get nearer for the rush at

Crab Jones, who stands there in front of old Brooke to catch the ball.

If they can reach and destroy him before he catches, the danger is over;

and with one and the same rush they will carry it right away to the

School-house goal. Fond hope! it is kicked out and caught beautifully.

Crab strikes his heel into the ground, to mark the spot where the ball

was caught, beyond which the school line may not advance; but there they

stand, five deep, ready to rush the moment the ball touches the ground.

Take plenty of room. Don't give the rush a chance of reaching you. Place

it true and steady. Trust Crab Jones. He has made a small hole with his

heel for the ball to lie on, by which he is resting on one knee, with

his eye on old Brooke. “Now!” Crab places the ball at the word, old

Brooke kicks, and it rises slowly and truly as the School rush forward.

Then a moment's pause, while both sides look up at the spinning ball.

There it flies, straight between the two posts, some five feet above the

cross-bar, an unquestioned goal; and a shout of real, genuine joy rings

out from the School-house players-up, and a faint echo of it comes over

the close from the goal-keepers under the Doctor's wall. A goal in the

first hour--such a thing hasn't been done in the School-house match

these five years.

“Over!” is the cry. The two sides change goals, and the School-house

goal-keepers come threading their way across through the masses of

the School, the most openly triumphant of them--amongst whom is Tom, a

School-house boy of two hours' standing--getting their ears boxed in

the transit. Tom indeed is excited beyond measure, and it is all the

sixth-form boy, kindest and safest of goal-keepers, has been able to do,

to keep him from rushing out whenever the ball has been near their

goal. So he holds him by his side, and instructs him in the science of

touching.

At this moment Griffith, the itinerant vender of oranges from Hill

Morton, enters the close with his heavy baskets. There is a rush of

small boys upon the little pale-faced man, the two sides mingling

together, subdued by the great goddess Thirst, like the English and

French by the streams in the Pyrenees. The leaders are past oranges and

apples, but some of them visit their coats, and apply innocent-looking

ginger-beer bottles to their mouths. It is no ginger-beer though, I

fear, and will do you no good. One short mad rush, and then a stitch in

the side, and no more honest play. That's what comes of those bottles.

But now Griffith's baskets are empty, the ball is placed again midway,

and the School are going to kick off. Their leaders have sent their

lumber into goal, and rated the rest soundly, and one hundred and twenty

picked players-up are there, bent on retrieving the game. They are to

keep the ball in front of the School-house goal, and then to drive it in

by sheer strength and weight. They mean heavy play and no mistake, and

so old Brooke sees, and places Crab Jones in quarters just before the

goal, with four or five picked players who are to keep the ball away to

the sides, where a try at goal, if obtained, will be less dangerous than

in front. He himself, and Warner and Hedge, who have saved themselves

till now, will lead the charges.

“Are you ready?” “Yes.” And away comes the ball, kicked high in the air,

to give the School time to rush on and catch it as it falls. And here

they are amongst us. Meet them like Englishmen, you Schoolhouse boys,

and charge them home. Now is the time to show what mettle is in you;

and there shall be a warm seat by the hall fire, and honour, and lots of

bottled beer to-night for him who does his duty in the next half-hour.

And they are well met. Again and again the cloud of their players-up

gathers before our goal, and comes threatening on, and Warner or Hedge,

with young Brooke and the relics of the bull-dogs, break through

and carry the ball back; and old Brooke ranges the field like Job's

war-horse. The thickest scrummage parts asunder before his rush, like

the waves before a clipper's bows; his cheery voice rings out over the

field, and his eye is everywhere. And if these miss the ball, and it

rolls dangerously in front of our goal, Crab Jones and his men

have seized it and sent it away towards the sides with the unerring

drop-kick. This is worth living for--the whole sum of school-boy

existence gathered up into one straining, struggling half-hour, a

half-hour worth a year of common life.

The quarter to five has struck, and the play slackens for a minute

before goal; but there is Crew, the artful dodger, driving the ball in

behind our goal, on the island side, where our quarters are weakest. Is

there no one to meet him? Yes; look at little East! The ball is just at

equal distances between the two, and they rush together, the young man

of seventeen and the boy of twelve, and kick it at the same moment. Crew

passes on without a stagger; East is hurled forward by the shock, and

plunges on his shoulder, as if he would bury himself in the ground;

but the ball rises straight into the air, and falls behind Crew's back,

while the “bravoes” of the School-house attest the pluckiest charge of

all that hard-fought day. Warner picks East up lame and half stunned,

and he hobbles back into goal, conscious of having played the man.

And now the last minutes are come, and the School gather for their last

rush, every boy of the hundred and twenty who has a run left in him.

Reckless of the defence of their own goal, on they come across the level

big-side ground, the ball well down amongst them, straight for our goal,

like the column of the Old Guard up the slope at Waterloo. All former

charges have been child's play to this. Warner and Hedge have met them,

but still on they come. The bull-dogs rush in for the last time; they

are hurled over or carried back, striving hand, foot, and eyelids. Old

Brooke comes sweeping round the skirts of the play, and turning short

round, picks out the very heart of the scrummage, and plunges in. It

wavers for a moment; he has the ball. No, it has passed him, and his

voice rings out clear over the advancing tide, “Look out in goal!” Crab

Jones catches it for a moment; but before he can kick, the rush is upon

him and passes over him; and he picks himself up behind them with his

straw in his mouth, a little dirtier, but as cool as ever.

The ball rolls slowly in behind the School-house goal, not three yards

in front of a dozen of the biggest School players-up.

There stands the School-house praepostor, safest of goal-keepers, and Tom

Brown by his side, who has learned his trade by this time. Now is

your time, Tom. The blood of all the Browns is up, and the two rush in

together, and throw themselves on the ball, under the very feet of the

advancing column--the praepostor on his hands and knees, arching his

back, and Tom all along on his face. Over them topple the leaders of the

rush, shooting over the back of the praepostor, but falling flat on Tom,

and knocking all the wind out of his small carcass. “Our ball,” says the

praepostor, rising with his prize; “but get up there; there's a little

fellow under you.” They are hauled and roll off him, and Tom is

discovered, a motionless body.

Old Brooke picks him up. “Stand back, give him air,” he says; and then

feeling his limbs, adds, “No bones broken.--How do you feel, young un?”

“Hah-hah!” gasps Tom, as his wind comes back; “pretty well, thank

you--all right.”

“Who is he?” says Brooke.

“Oh, it's Brown; he's a new boy; I know him,” says East, coming up.

“Well, he is a plucky youngster, and will make a player,” says Brooke.

And five o'clock strikes. “No side” is called, and the first day of the

School-house match is over.

CHAPTER VI--AFTER THE MATCH.

“Some food we had.”--Shakespeare.

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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,” etc. 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 was

cleared off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running

off to the house with “Put me down two-penn'orth, Sally;” “Put down

three-penn'orth between me and Davis,” etc. 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 out 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 tablecloth; 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 Bottel” 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,” etc.,

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.) “Ay, 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-house, 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

Schoolhouse 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's' 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 linchpins 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 mangy 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--ay, 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 me 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 of 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-boys 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 learnt 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 into 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 youths 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 the Fourth 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 blest;

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 fires, 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 farthest 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 upstairs. “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 farther 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 sang 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; “'twon't

hurt you,--you!--Come along, boys; here he is.”

“I say, Flashey,” sang out another of the big boys; “drop that; you

heard what old Pater Brooke said to-night. I'll be 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,” sang 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 the 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, Flashey!” rejoined the other. “Up with

another one.”

And so now 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 praepostor 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.

CHAPTER VII--SETTLING TO THE COLLAR.

“Says Giles, ''Tis mortal hard to go,

But if so be's I must

I means to follow arter he

As goes hisself the fust.'”--Ballad.

Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy, delicious state in which one

lies, half asleep, half awake, while consciousness begins to return

after a sound night's rest in a new place which we are glad to be in,

following upon a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are

few pleasanter pieces of life. The worst of it is that they last such

a short time; for nurse them as you will, by lying perfectly passive

in mind and body, you can't make more than five minutes or so of them.

After which time the stupid, obtrusive, wakeful entity which we call

“I”, as impatient as he is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force

himself back again, and take possession of us down to our very toes.

It was in this state that Master Tom lay at half-past seven on the

morning following the day of his arrival, and from his clean little

white bed watched the movements of Bogle (the generic name by which the

successive shoeblacks of the School-house were known), as he marched

round from bed to bed, collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and

depositing clean ones in their places.

There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in the universe he was,

but conscious that he had made a step in life which he had been anxious

to make. It was only just light as he looked lazily out of the wide

windows, and saw the tops of the great elms, and the rooks circling

about and cawing remonstrances to the lazy ones of their commonwealth

before starting in a body for the neighbouring ploughed fields. The

noise of the room-door closing behind Bogle, as he made his exit with

the shoebasket under his arm, roused him thoroughly, and he sat up in

bed and looked round the room. What in the world could be the matter

with his shoulders and loins? He felt as if he had been severely beaten

all down his back--the natural results of his performance at his first

match. He drew up his knees and rested his chin on them, and went over

all the events of yesterday, rejoicing in his new life, what he had seen

of it, and all that was to come.

Presently one or two of the other boys roused themselves, and began to

sit up and talk to one another in low tones. Then East, after a roll

or two, came to an anchor also, and nodding to Tom, began examining his

ankle.

“What a pull,” said he, “that it's lie-in-bed, for I shall be as lame as

a tree, I think.”

It was Sunday morning, and Sunday lectures had not yet been established;

so that nothing but breakfast intervened between bed and eleven o'clock

chapel--a gap by no means easy to fill up: in fact, though received with

the correct amount of grumbling, the first lecture instituted by

the Doctor shortly afterwards was a great boon to the School. It was

lie-in-bed, and no one was in a hurry to get up, especially in rooms

where the sixth-form boy was a good-tempered fellow, as was the case in

Tom's room, and allowed the small boys to talk and laugh and do pretty

much what they pleased, so long as they didn't disturb him. His bed was

a bigger one than the rest, standing in the corner by the fireplace,

with a washing-stand and large basin by the side, where he lay in state

with his white curtains tucked in so as to form a retiring place--an

awful subject of contemplation to Tom, who slept nearly opposite, and

watched the great man rouse himself and take a book from under his

pillow, and begin reading, leaning his head on his hand, and turning his

back to the room. Soon, however, a noise of striving urchins arose, and

muttered encouragements from the neighbouring boys of “Go it, Tadpole!”

“Now, young Green!” “Haul away his blanket!” “Slipper him on the hands!”

Young Green and little Hall, commonly called Tadpole, from his great

black head and thin legs, slept side by side far away by the door, and

were for ever playing one another tricks, which usually ended, as on

this morning, in open and violent collision; and now, unmindful of all

order and authority, there they were, each hauling away at the other's

bedclothes with one hand, and with the other, armed with a slipper,

belabouring whatever portion of the body of his adversary came within

reach.

“Hold that noise up in the corner,” called out the praepostor, sitting

up and looking round his curtains; and the Tadpole and young Green sank

down into their disordered beds; and then, looking at his watch, added,

“Hullo! past eight. Whose turn for hot water?”

(Where the praepostor was particular in his ablutions, the fags in his

room had to descend in turn to the kitchen, and beg or steal hot water

for him; and often the custom extended farther, and two boys went down

every morning to get a supply for the whole room.)

“East's and Tadpole's,” answered the senior fag, who kept the rota.

“I can't go,” said East; “I'm dead lame.”

“Well, be quick some of you, that's all,” said the great man, as he

turned out of bed, and putting on his slippers, went out into the great

passage, which runs the whole length of the bedrooms, to get his Sunday

habiliments out of his portmanteau.

“Let me go for you,” said Tom to East; “I should like it.”

“Well, thank 'ee, that's a good fellow. Just pull on your trousers, and

take your jug and mine. Tadpole will show you the way.”

And so Tom and the Tadpole, in nightshirts and trousers, started off

downstairs, and through “Thos's hole,” as the little buttery, where

candles and beer and bread and cheese were served out at night, was

called, across the School-house court, down a long passage, and into the

kitchen; where, after some parley with the stalwart, handsome cook, who

declared that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot

water, and returned with all speed and great caution. As it was, they

narrowly escaped capture by some privateers from the fifth-form rooms,

who were on the lookout for the hot-water convoys, and pursued them up

to the very door of their room, making them spill half their load in the

passage.

“Better than going down again though,” as Tadpole remarked, “as we

should have had to do if those beggars had caught us.”

By the time that the calling-over bell rang, Tom and his new

comrades were all down, dressed in their best clothes, and he had the

satisfaction of answering “here” to his name for the first time, the

praepostor of the week having put it in at the bottom of his list. And

then came breakfast and a saunter about the close and town with East,

whose lameness only became severe when any fagging had to be done. And

so they whiled away the time until morning chapel.

It was a fine November morning, and the close soon became alive with

boys of all ages, who sauntered about on the grass, or walked round the

gravel walk, in parties of two or three. East, still doing the cicerone,

pointed out all the remarkable characters to Tom as they passed: Osbert,

who could throw a cricket-ball from the little-side ground over

the rook-trees to the Doctor's wall; Gray, who had got the Balliol

scholarship, and, what East evidently thought of much more importance,

a half-holiday for the School by his success; Thorne, who had run ten

miles in two minutes over the hour; Black, who had held his own against

the cock of the town in the last row with the louts; and many more

heroes, who then and there walked about and were worshipped, all trace

of whom has long since vanished from the scene of their fame. And the

fourth-form boy who reads their names rudely cut on the old hall tables,

or painted upon the big-side cupboard (if hall tables and big-side

cupboards still exist), wonders what manner of boys they were. It will

be the same with you who wonder, my sons, whatever your prowess may be

in cricket, or scholarship, or football. Two or three years, more or

less, and then the steadily advancing, blessed wave will pass over your

names as it has passed over ours. Nevertheless, play your games and do

your work manfully--see only that that be done--and let the remembrance

of it take care of itself.

The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and Tom got in

early and took his place in the lowest row, and watched all the other

boys come in and take their places, filling row after row; and tried

to construe the Greek text which was inscribed over the door with the

slightest possible success, and wondered which of the masters, who

walked down the chapel and took their seats in the exalted boxes at the

end, would be his lord. And then came the closing of the doors, and the

Doctor in his robes, and the service, which, however, didn't impress him

much, for his feeling of wonder and curiosity was too strong. And the

boy on one side of him was scratching his name on the oak panelling

in front, and he couldn't help watching to see what the name was, and

whether it was well scratched; and the boy on the other side went to

sleep, and kept falling against him; and on the whole, though many boys

even in that part of the school were serious and attentive, the general

atmosphere was by no means devotional; and when he got out into the

close again, he didn't feel at all comfortable, or as if he had been to

church.

But at afternoon chapel it was quite another thing. He had spent the

time after dinner in writing home to his mother, and so was in a better

frame of mind; and his first curiosity was over, and he could attend

more to the service. As the hymn after the prayers was being sung, and

the chapel was getting a little dark, he was beginning to feel that he

had been really worshipping. And then came that great event in his, as

in every Rugby boy's life of that day--the first sermon from the Doctor.

More worthy pens than mine have described that scene--the oak pulpit

standing out by itself above the School seats; the tall, gallant form,

the kindling eye, the voice, now soft as the low notes of a flute, now

clear and stirring as the call of the light-infantry bugle, of him who

stood there Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord,

the King of righteousness and love and glory, with whose Spirit he was

filled, and in whose power he spoke; the long lines of young faces,

rising tier above tier down the whole length of the chapel, from the

little boy's who had just left his mother to the young man's who was

going out next week into the great world, rejoicing in his strength.

It was a great and solemn sight, and never more so than at this time of

year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit and at the

seats of the praepostors of the week, and the soft twilight stole over

the rest of the chapel, deepening into darkness in the high gallery

behind the organ.

But what was it, after all, which seized and held these three hundred

boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty

minutes, on Sunday afternoons? True, there always were boys scattered up

and down the School, who in heart and head were worthy to hear and able

to carry away the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these were

a minority always, generally a very small one, often so small a one as

to be countable on the fingers of your hand. What was it that moved

and held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish boys, who

feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven

or earth; who thought more of our sets in the School than of the Church

of Christ, and put the traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of

boys in our daily life above the laws of God? We couldn't enter into

half that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge of our own hearts or the

knowledge of one another, and little enough of the faith, hope, and love

needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in their better moods

will listen (ay, and men too for the matter of that), to a man whom we

felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against

whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It

was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from

serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the

warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and

calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily

and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought

home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life--that

it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered

by chance, but a battlefield ordained from of old, where there are no

spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life

and death. And he who roused this consciousness in them showed them at

the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole

daily life, how that battle was to be fought, and stood there before

them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band--the true sort

of captain, too, for a boy's army--one who had no misgivings, and gave

no uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make truce,

would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the

last drop of blood. Other sides of his character might take hold of

and influence boys here and there; but it was this thoroughness and

undaunted courage which, more than anything else, won his way to the

hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made

them believe first in him and then in his Master.

It was this quality above all others which moved such boys as our

hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him except excess of

boyishness--by which I mean animal life in its fullest measure, good

nature and honest impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and

thoughtlessness enough to sink a three-decker. And so, during the next

two years, in which it was more than doubtful whether he would get good

or evil from the School, and before any steady purpose or principle grew

up in him, whatever his week's sins and shortcomings might have been, he

hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday evenings without a serious resolve

to stand by and follow the Doctor, and a feeling that it was only

cowardice (the incarnation of all other sins in such a boy's mind) which

hindered him from doing so with all his heart.

The next day Tom was duly placed in the third form, and began his

lessons in a corner of the big School. He found the work very easy, as

he had been well grounded, and knew his grammar by heart; and, as he had

no intimate companions to make him idle (East and his other School-house

friends being in the lower fourth, the form above him), soon gained

golden opinions from his master, who said he was placed too low, and

should be put out at the end of the half-year. So all went well with him

in School, and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to his mother,

full of his own success and the unspeakable delights of a public school.

In the house, too, all went well. The end of the half-year was drawing

near, which kept everybody in a good humour, and the house was ruled

well and strongly by Warner and Brooke. True, the general system was

rough and hard, and there was bullying in nooks and corners--bad signs

for the future; but it never got farther, or dared show itself openly,

stalking about the passages and hall and bedrooms, and making the life

of the small boys a continual fear.

Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the first month, but

in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege hardly pleased him;

and East and others of his young friends, discovering this, kindly

allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night fagging

and cleaning studies. These were the principal duties of the fags in the

house. From supper until nine o'clock three fags taken in order stood in

the passages, and answered any praepostor who called “Fag,” racing to the

door, the last comer having to do the work. This consisted generally of

going to the buttery for beer and bread and cheese (for the great men

did not sup with the rest, but had each his own allowance in his study

or the fifth-form room), cleaning candlesticks and putting in new

candles, toasting cheese, bottling beer, and carrying messages about the

house; and Tom, in the first blush of his hero-worship, felt it a high

privilege to receive orders from and be the bearer of the supper of old

Brooke. And besides this night-work, each praepostor had three or four

fags specially allotted to him, of whom he was supposed to be the guide,

philosopher, and friend, and who in return for these good offices had to

clean out his study every morning by turns, directly after first lesson

and before he returned from breakfast. And the pleasure of seeing the

great men's studies, and looking at their pictures, and peeping into

their books, made Tom a ready substitute for any boy who was too lazy to

do his own work. And so he soon gained the character of a good-natured,

willing fellow, who was ready to do a turn for any one.

In all the games, too, he joined with all his heart, and soon became

well versed in all the mysteries of football, by continual practice at

the School-house little-side, which played daily.

The only incident worth recording here, however, was his first run at

hare-and-hounds. On the last Tuesday but one of the half-year he was

passing through the hall after dinner, when he was hailed with shouts

from Tadpole and several other fags seated at one of the long tables,

the chorus of which was, “Come and help us tear up scent.”

Tom approached the table in obedience to the mysterious summons, always

ready to help, and found the party engaged in tearing up old newspapers,

copy-books, and magazines, into small pieces, with which they were

filling four large canvas bags.

“It's the turn of our house to find scent for big-side hare-and-hounds,”

exclaimed Tadpole. “Tear away; there's no time to lose before

calling-over.”

“I think it's a great shame,” said another small boy, “to have such a

hard run for the last day.”

“Which run is it?” said Tadpole.

“Oh, the Barby run, I hear,” answered the other; “nine miles at least,

and hard ground; no chance of getting in at the finish, unless you're a

first-rate scud.”

“Well, I'm going to have a try,” said Tadpole; “it's the last run of the

half, and if a fellow gets in at the end big-side stands ale and bread

and cheese and a bowl of punch; and the Cock's such a famous place for

ale.”

“I should like to try too,” said Tom.

“Well, then, leave your waistcoat behind, and listen at the door, after

calling-over, and you'll hear where the meet is.”

After calling-over, sure enough there were two boys at the door, calling

out, “Big-side hare-and-hounds meet at White Hall;” and Tom, having

girded himself with leather strap, and left all superfluous clothing

behind, set off for White Hall, an old gable-ended house some quarter

of a mile from the town, with East, whom he had persuaded to join,

notwithstanding his prophecy that they could never get in, as it was the

hardest run of the year.

At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, and Tom felt sure, from

having seen many of them run at football, that he and East were more

likely to get in than they.

After a few minutes' waiting, two well-known runners, chosen for the

hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, compared their

watches with those of young Brooke and Thorne, and started off at a

long, slinging trot across the fields in the direction of Barby.

Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who explained shortly, “They're

to have six minutes' law. We run into the Cock, and every one who comes

in within a quarter of an hour of the hares'll be counted, if he has

been round Barby church.” Then came a minute's pause or so, and then the

watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through the gateway into the

field which the hares had first crossed. Here they break into a trot,

scattering over the field to find the first traces of the scent which

the hares throw out as they go along. The old hounds make straight for

the likely points, and in a minute a cry of “Forward” comes from one

of them, and the whole pack, quickening their pace, make for the spot,

while the boy who hit the scent first, and the two or three nearest to

him, are over the first fence, and making play along the hedgerow in the

long grass-field beyond. The rest of the pack rush at the gap already

made, and scramble through, jostling one another. “Forward” again,

before they are half through. The pace quickens into a sharp run, the

tail hounds all straining to get up to the lucky leaders. They are

gallant hares, and the scent lies thick right across another meadow and

into a ploughed field, where the pace begins to tell; then over a good

wattle with a ditch on the other side, and down a large pasture studded

with old thorns, which slopes down to the first brook. The great

Leicestershire sheep charge away across the field as the pack comes

racing down the slope. The brook is a small one, and the scent lies

right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever--not a turn or

a check to favour the tail hounds, who strain on, now trailing in a long

line, many a youngster beginning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his

heart beat like a hammer, and the bad-plucked ones thinking that after

all it isn't worth while to keep it up.

Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and are well up for such

young hands, and after rising the slope and crossing the next field,

find themselves up with the leading hounds, who have overrun the scent,

and are trying back. They have come a mile and a half in about eleven

minutes, a pace which shows that it is the last day. About twenty-five

of the original starters only show here, the rest having already given

in; the leaders are busy making casts into the fields on the left and

right, and the others get their second winds.

Then comes the cry of “Forward” again from young Brooke, from the

extreme left, and the pack settles down to work again steadily and

doggedly, the whole keeping pretty well together. The scent, though

still good, is not so thick; there is no need of that, for in this part

of the run every one knows the line which must be taken, and so there

are no casts to be made, but good downright running and fencing to be

done. All who are now up mean coming in, and they come to the foot of

Barby Hill without losing more than two or three more of the pack. This

last straight two miles and a half is always a vantage ground for the

hounds, and the hares know it well; they are generally viewed on the

side of Barby Hill, and all eyes are on the lookout for them to-day. But

not a sign of them appears, so now will be the hard work for the hounds,

and there is nothing for it but to cast about for the scent, for it is

now the hares' turn, and they may baffle the pack dreadfully in the next

two miles.

Ill fares it now with our youngsters, that they are School-house boys,

and so follow young Brooke, for he takes the wide casts round to the

left, conscious of his own powers, and loving the hard work. For if you

would consider for a moment, you small boys, you would remember that the

Cock, where the run ends and the good ale will be going, lies far out to

the right on the Dunchurch road, so that every cast you take to the left

is so much extra work. And at this stage of the run, when the evening is

closing in already, no one remarks whether you run a little cunning or

not; so you should stick to those crafty hounds who keep edging away to

the right, and not follow a prodigal like young Brooke, whose legs are

twice as long as yours and of cast-iron, wholly indifferent to one or

two miles more or less. However, they struggle after him, sobbing and

plunging along, Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole, whose big head

begins to pull him down, some thirty yards behind.

Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which they can hardly

drag their legs, and they hear faint cries for help from the wretched

Tadpole, who has fairly stuck fast. But they have too little run left

in themselves to pull up for their own brothers. Three fields more, and

another check, and then “Forward” called away to the extreme right.

The two boys' souls die within them; they can never do it. Young Brooke

thinks so too, and says kindly, “You'll cross a lane after next field;

keep down it, and you'll hit the Dunchurch road below the Cock,” and

then steams away for the run in, in which he's sure to be first, as

if he were just starting. They struggle on across the next field, the

“forwards” getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt

is out of ear-shot, and all hope of coming in is over.

“Hang it all!” broke out East, as soon as he had got wind enough,

pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered with dirt and

lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still, cold

air. “I told you how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here we

are, dead beat, and yet I know we're close to the run in, if we knew the

country.”

“Well,” said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment,

“it can't be helped. We did our best anyhow. Hadn't we better find this

lane, and go down it, as young Brooke told us?”

“I suppose so--nothing else for it,” grunted East. “If ever I go out

last day again.” Growl, growl, growl.

So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went

limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and beginning to feel

how the run had taken it out of them. The evening closed in fast, and

clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary.

“I say, it must be locking-up, I should think,” remarked East, breaking

the silence--“it's so dark.”

“What if we're late?” said Tom.

“No tea, and sent up to the Doctor,” answered East.

The thought didn't add to their cheerfulness. Presently a faint halloo

was heard from an adjoining field. They answered it and stopped, hoping

for some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate some twenty

yards ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse. He had

lost a shoe in the brook, and had been groping after it up to his elbows

in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of

boy seldom has been seen.

The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was some degrees

more wretched than they. They also cheered him, as he was no longer

under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields. And so, in

better heart, the three plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. At

last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came out on

a turnpike road, and there paused, bewildered, for they had lost all

bearings, and knew not whether to turn to the right or left.

Luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering along the road,

with one lamp lighted and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a

heavy coach, which after a moment's suspense they recognized as the

Oxford coach, the redoubtable Pig and Whistle.

It lumbered slowly up, and the boys, mustering their last run, caught

it as it passed, and began clambering up behind, in which exploit East

missed his footing and fell flat on his nose along the road. Then the

others hailed the old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed

to take them in for a shilling; so there they sat on the back seat,

drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold, and

jogged into Rugby some forty minutes after locking-up.

Five minutes afterwards three small, limping, shivering figures steal

along through the Doctor's garden, and into the house by the servants'

entrance (all the other gates have been closed long since), where the

first thing they light upon in the passage is old Thomas, ambling along,

candle in one hand and keys in the other.

He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. “Ah! East,

Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go up to the Doctor's study

at once.”

“Well but, Thomas, mayn't we go and wash first? You can put down the

time, you know.”

“Doctor's study d'rectly you come in--that's the orders,” replied old

Thomas, motioning towards the stairs at the end of the passage which led

up into the Doctor's house; and the boys turned ruefully down it, not

cheered by the old verger's muttered remark, “What a pickle they boys be

in!” Thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, but they construed

it as indicating the Doctor's state of mind. Upon the short flight of

stairs they paused to hold counsel.

“Who'll go in first?” inquires Tadpole.

“You--you're the senior,” answered East.

“Catch me. Look at the state I'm in,” rejoined Hall, showing the arms of

his jacket. “I must get behind you two.”

“Well, but look at me,” said East, indicating the mass of clay behind

which he was standing; “I'm worse than you, two to one. You might grow

cabbages on my trousers.”

“That's all down below, and you can keep your legs behind the sofa,”

said Hall.

“Here, Brown; you're the show-figure. You must lead.”

“But my face is all muddy,” argued Tom.

“Oh, we're all in one boat for that matter; but come on; we're only

making it worse, dawdling here.”

“Well, just give us a brush then,” said Tom. And they began trying to

rub off the superfluous dirt from each other's jackets; but it was not

dry enough, and the rubbing made them worse; so in despair they pushed

through the swing-door at the head of the stairs, and found themselves

in the Doctor's hall.

“That's the library door,” said East in a whisper, pushing Tom forwards.

The sound of merry voices and laughter came from within, and his first

hesitating knock was unanswered. But at the second, the Doctor's voice

said, “Come in;” and Tom turned the handle, and he, with the others

behind him, sidled into the room.

The Doctor looked up from his task; he was working away with a great

chisel at the bottom of a boy's sailing boat, the lines of which he was

no doubt fashioning on the model of one of Nicias's galleys. Round him

stood three or four children; the candles burnt brightly on a large

table at the farther end, covered with books and papers, and a great

fire threw a ruddy glow over the rest of the room. All looked so kindly,

and homely, and comfortable that the boys took heart in a moment, and

Tom advanced from behind the shelter of the great sofa. The Doctor

nodded to the children, who went out, casting curious and amused glances

at the three young scarecrows.

“Well, my little fellows,” began the Doctor, drawing himself up with

his back to the fire, the chisel in one hand and his coat-tails in the

other, and his eyes twinkling as he looked them over; “what makes you so

late?”

“Please, sir, we've been out big-side hare-and-hounds, and lost our

way.”

“Hah! you couldn't keep up, I suppose?”

“Well, sir,” said East, stepping out, and not liking that the Doctor

should think lightly of his running powers, “we got round Barby all

right; but then--”

“Why, what a state you're in, my boy!” interrupted the Doctor, as the

pitiful condition of East's garments was fully revealed to him.

“That's the fall I got, sir, in the road,” said East, looking down at

himself; “the Old Pig came by--”

“The what?” said the Doctor.

“The Oxford coach, sir,” explained Hall.

“Hah! yes, the Regulator,” said the Doctor.

“And I tumbled on my face, trying to get up behind,” went on East.

“You're not hurt, I hope?” said the Doctor.

“Oh no, sir.”

“Well now, run upstairs, all three of you, and get clean things on, and

then tell the housekeeper to give you some tea. You're too young to try

such long runs. Let Warner know I've seen you. Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir.” And away scuttled the three boys in high glee.

“What a brick, not to give us even twenty lines to learn!” said the

Tadpole, as they reached their bedroom; and in half an hour afterwards

they were sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room at a sumptuous

tea, with cold meat--“Twice as good a grub as we should have got in the

hall,” as the Tadpole remarked with a grin, his mouth full of buttered

toast. All their grievances were forgotten, and they were resolving to

go out the first big-side next half, and thinking hare-and-hounds the

most delightful of games.

A day or two afterwards the great passage outside the bedrooms was

cleared of the boxes and portmanteaus, which went down to be packed by

the matron, and great games of chariot-racing, and cock-fighting, and

bolstering went on in the vacant space, the sure sign of a closing

half-year.

Then came the making up of parties for the journey home, and Tom joined

a party who were to hire a coach, and post with four horses to Oxford.

Then the last Saturday, on which the Doctor came round to each form to

give out the prizes, and hear the master's last reports of how they

and their charges had been conducting themselves; and Tom, to his huge

delight, was praised, and got his remove into the lower fourth, in which

all his School-house friends were.

On the next Tuesday morning at four o'clock hot coffee was going on in

the housekeeper's and matron's rooms; boys wrapped in great-coats and

mufflers were swallowing hasty mouthfuls, rushing about, tumbling over

luggage, and asking questions all at once of the matron; outside the

School-gates were drawn up several chaises and the four-horse coach

which Tom's party had chartered, the postboys in their best jackets and

breeches, and a cornopean player, hired for the occasion, blowing away

“A southerly wind and a cloudy sky,” waking all peaceful inhabitants

half-way down the High Street.

Every minute the bustle and hubbub increased: porters staggered about

with boxes and bags, the cornopean played louder. Old Thomas sat in

his den with a great yellow bag by his side, out of which he was paying

journey-money to each boy, comparing by the light of a solitary dip the

dirty, crabbed little list in his own handwriting with the Doctor's list

and the amount of his cash; his head was on one side, his mouth screwed

up, and his spectacles dim from early toil. He had prudently locked the

door, and carried on his operations solely through the window, or he

would have been driven wild and lost all his money.

“Thomas, do be quick; we shall never catch the Highflyer at Dunchurch.”

“That's your money all right, Green.”

“Hullo, Thomas, the Doctor said I was to have two pound ten; you've only

given me two pound.” (I fear that Master Green is not confining himself

strictly to truth.) Thomas turns his head more on one side than ever,

and spells away at the dirty list. Green is forced away from the window.

“Here, Thomas--never mind him; mine's thirty shillings.” “And mine too,”

“And mine,” shouted others.

One way or another, the party to which Tom belonged all got packed and

paid, and sallied out to the gates, the cornopean playing frantically

“Drops of Brandy,” in allusion, probably, to the slight potations in

which the musician and postboys had been already indulging. All luggage

was carefully stowed away inside the coach and in the front and hind

boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. Five or six small

boys, with pea-shooters, and the cornopean player, got up behind; in

front the big boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because they

are now gentlemen at large, and this is the most correct public method

of notifying the fact.

“Robinson's coach will be down the road in a minute; it has gone up to

Bird's to pick up. We'll wait till they're close, and make a race of

it,” says the leader. “Now, boys, half a sovereign apiece if you beat

'em into Dunchurch by one hundred yards.”

“All right, sir,” shouted the grinning postboys.

Down comes Robinson's coach in a minute or two, with a rival cornopean,

and away go the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys cheering, horns

playing loud. There is a special providence over school-boys as well

as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five

miles--sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the

roofs exchanging volleys of peas; now nearly running over a post-chaise

which had started before them; now half-way up a bank; now with a wheel

and a half over a yawning ditch: and all this in a dark morning, with

nothing but their own lamps to guide them. However, it's all over at

last, and they have run over nothing but an old pig in Southam Street.

The last peas are distributed in the Corn Market at Oxford, where they

arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast

at the Angel, which they are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party

breaks up, all going now different ways; and Tom orders out a chaise and

pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shillings left in

his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home.

“Where to, sir?”

“Red Lion, Farringdon,” says Tom, giving hostler a shilling.

“All right, sir.--Red Lion, Jem,” to the postboy; and Tom rattles away

towards home. At Farringdon, being known to the innkeeper, he gets that

worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, and forward him in another chaise

at once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal

mansion, and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pound

ten shillings for the posting expenses from Oxford. But the boy's

intense joy at getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the

good character he brings, and the brave stories he tells of Rugby, its

doings and delights, soon mollify the Squire, and three happier people

didn't sit down to dinner that day in England (it is the boy's first

dinner at six o'clock at home--great promotion already) than the Squire

and his wife and Tom Brown, at the end of his first half-year at Rugby.

CHAPTER VIII--THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

“They are slaves who will not choose

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,

Rather than in silence shrink

From the truth they needs must think;

They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three.”

--LOWELL, Stanzas on Freedom.

The lower-fourth form, in which Tom found himself at the beginning

of the next half-year, was the largest form in the lower school, and

numbered upwards of forty boys. Young gentlemen of all ages from nine to

fifteen were to be found there, who expended such part of their energies

as was devoted to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, the “Bucolics”

of Virgil, and the “Hecuba” of Euripides, which were ground out in small

daily portions. The driving of this unlucky lower-fourth must have been

grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it was the most unhappily

constituted of any in the school. Here stuck the great stupid boys,

who, for the life of them, could never master the accidence--the objects

alternately of mirth and terror to the youngsters, who were daily taking

them up and laughing at them in lesson, and getting kicked by them for

so doing in play-hours. There were no less than three unhappy fellows in

tail coats, with incipient down on their chins, whom the Doctor and

the master of the form were always endeavouring to hoist into the upper

school, but whose parsing and construing resisted the most well-meant

shoves. Then came the mass of the form, boys of eleven and twelve, the

most mischievous and reckless age of British youth, of whom East and Tom

Brown were fair specimens. As full of tricks as monkeys, and of excuses

as Irishwomen, making fun of their master, one another, and their

lessons, Argus himself would have been puzzled to keep an eye on them;

and as for making them steady or serious for half an hour together,

it was simply hopeless. The remainder of the form consisted of young

prodigies of nine and ten, who were going up the school at the rate of

a form a half-year, all boys' hands and wits being against them in their

progress. It would have been one man's work to see that the precocious

youngsters had fair play; and as the master had a good deal besides

to do, they hadn't, and were for ever being shoved down three or four

places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their jackets whitened,

and their lives otherwise made a burden to them.

The lower-fourth, and all the forms below it, were heard in the great

school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons before coming in,

but were whipped into school three-quarters of an hour before the lesson

began by their respective masters, and there, scattered about on the

benches, with dictionary and grammar, hammered out their twenty lines

of Virgil and Euripides in the midst of babel. The masters of the

lower school walked up and down the great school together during this

three-quarters of an hour, or sat in their desks reading or looking over

copies, and keeping such order as was possible. But the lower-fourth

was just now an overgrown form, too large for any one man to attend

to properly, and consequently the elysium or ideal form of the young

scapegraces who formed the staple of it.

Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a good character,

but the temptations of the lower-fourth soon proved too strong for him,

and he rapidly fell away, and became as unmanageable as the rest.

For some weeks, indeed, he succeeded in maintaining the appearance of

steadiness, and was looked upon favourably by his new master, whose eyes

were first opened by the following little incident.

Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, there was another

large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great school, which was

untenanted. To rush and seize upon this desk, which was ascended by

three steps and held four boys, was the great object of ambition of the

lower-fourthers; and the contentions for the occupation of it bred such

disorder that at last the master forbade its use altogether. This, of

course, was a challenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it;

and as it was capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely,

it was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto. Small

holes were cut in the front, through which the occupants watched the

masters as they walked up and down; and as lesson time approached, one

boy at a time stole out and down the steps, as the masters' backs were

turned, and mingled with the general crowd on the forms below. Tom and

East had successfully occupied the desk some half-dozen times, and were

grown so reckless that they were in the habit of playing small games

with fives balls inside when the masters were at the other end of the

big school. One day, as ill-luck would have it, the game became more

exciting than usual, and the ball slipped through East's fingers, and

rolled slowly down the steps and out into the middle of the school, just

as the masters turned in their walk and faced round upon the desk. The

young delinquents watched their master, through the lookout holes, march

slowly down the school straight upon their retreat, while all the boys

in the neighbourhood, of course, stopped their work to look on; and not

only were they ignominiously drawn out, and caned over the hand then

and there, but their characters for steadiness were gone from that time.

However, as they only shared the fate of some three-fourths of the rest

of the form, this did not weigh heavily upon them.

In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the matter were

the monthly examinations, when the Doctor came round to examine their

form, for one long, awful hour, in the work which they had done in the

preceding month. The second monthly examination came round soon after

Tom's fall, and it was with anything but lively anticipations that he

and the other lower-fourth boys came in to prayers on the morning of the

examination day.

Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, and before they

could get construes of a tithe of the hard passages marked in the margin

of their books, they were all seated round, and the Doctor was standing

in the middle, talking in whispers to the master. Tom couldn't hear a

word which passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book; but he knew

by a sort of magnetic instinct that the Doctor's under-lip was coming

out, and his eye beginning to burn, and his gown getting gathered up

more and more tightly in his left hand. The suspense was agonizing, and

Tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to make an example of the

School-house boys. “If he would only begin,” thought Tom, “I shouldn't

mind.”

At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called out was not

Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the Doctor's face was too awful;

Tom wouldn't have met his eye for all he was worth, and buried himself

in his book again.

The boy who was called up first was a clever, merry School-house boy,

one of their set; he was some connection of the Doctor's, and a great

favourite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so was

selected for the first victim.

“Triste lupus stabulis,” began the luckless youngster, and stammered

through some eight or ten lines.

“There, that will do,” said the Doctor; “now construe.”

On common occasions the boy could have construed the passage well enough

probably, but now his head was gone.

“Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf,” he began.

A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor's wrath fairly

boiled over. He made three steps up to the construer, and gave him a

good box on the ear. The blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so

taken by surprise that he started back; the form caught the back of his

knees, and over he went on to the floor behind. There was a dead silence

over the whole school. Never before and never again while Tom was at

school did the Doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must have

been great. However, the victim had saved his form for that occasion,

for the Doctor turned to the top bench, and put on the best boys for the

rest of the hour and though, at the end of the lesson, he gave them all

such a rating as they did not forget, this terrible field-day passed

over without any severe visitations in the shape of punishments or

floggings. Forty young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the

“sorrowful wolf” in their different ways before second lesson.

But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered, as Tom

found; and for years afterwards he went up the school without it,

and the masters' hands were against him, and his against them. And he

regarded them, as a matter of course, as his natural enemies.

Matters were not so comfortable, either, in the house as they had

been; for old Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others of the

sixth-form boys at the following Easter. Their rule had been rough, but

strong and just in the main, and a higher standard was beginning to be

set up; in fact, there had been a short foretaste of the good time which

followed some years later. Just now, however, all threatened to return

into darkness and chaos again. For the new praepostors were either small

young boys, whose cleverness had carried them up to the top of the

school, while in strength of body and character they were not yet

fit for a share in the government; or else big fellows of the wrong

sort--boys whose friendships and tastes had a downward tendency, who had

not caught the meaning of their position and work, and felt none of its

responsibilities. So under this no-government the School-house began to

see bad times. The big fifth-form boys, who were a sporting and drinking

set, soon began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if they

were praepostors, and to bully and oppress any who showed signs of

resistance. The bigger sort of sixth-form boys just described soon made

common cause with the fifth, while the smaller sort, hampered by their

colleagues' desertion to the enemy, could not make head against them.

So the fags were without their lawful masters and protectors, and ridden

over rough-shod by a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, and

whose only right over them stood in their bodily powers; and, as old

Brooke had prophesied, the house by degrees broke up into small sets and

parties, and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he set so much

store by, and with it much of the prowess in games and the lead in all

school matters which he had done so much to keep up.

In no place in the world has individual character more weight than at

a public school. Remember this, I beseech you, all you boys who are

getting into the upper forms. Now is the time in all your lives,

probably, when you may have more wide influence for good or evil on the

society you live in than you ever can have again. Quit yourselves like

men, then; speak up, and strike out if necessary, for whatsoever

is true, and manly, and lovely, and of good report; never try to be

popular, but only to do your duty and help others to do theirs, and you

may leave the tone of feeling in the school higher than you found it,

and so be doing good which no living soul can measure to generations of

your countrymen yet unborn. For boys follow one another in herds like

sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have rarely any settled

principles. Every school, indeed, has its own traditionary standard of

right and wrong, which cannot be transgressed with impunity, marking

certain things as low and blackguard, and certain others as lawful and

right. This standard is ever varying, though it changes only slowly and

little by little; and, subject only to such standard, it is the leading

boys for the time being who give the tone to all the rest, and make

the School either a noble institution for the training of Christian

Englishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil than he

would if he were turned out to make his way in London streets, or

anything between these two extremes.

The change for the worse in the School-house, however, didn't press very

heavily on our youngsters for some time. They were in a good bedroom,

where slept the only praepostor left who was able to keep thorough order,

and their study was in his passage. So, though they were fagged more or

less, and occasionally kicked or cuffed by the bullies, they were, on

the whole, well off; and the fresh, brave school-life, so full of games,

adventures, and good-fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious

at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousand-fold their

troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill-usage

of the big boys in the house. It wasn't till some year or so after the

events recorded above that the praepostor of their room and passage left.

None of the other sixth-form boys would move into their passage, and, to

the disgust and indignation of Tom and East, one morning after breakfast

they were seized upon by Flashman, and made to carry down his books and

furniture into the unoccupied study, which he had taken. From this

time they began to feel the weight of the tyranny of Flashman and his

friends, and, now that trouble had come home to their own doors, began

to look out for sympathizers and partners amongst the rest of the fags;

and meetings of the oppressed began to be held, and murmurs to arise,

and plots to be laid as to how they should free themselves and be

avenged on their enemies.

While matters were in this state, East and Tom were one evening sitting

in their study. They had done their work for first lesson, and Tom was

in a brown study, brooding, like a young William Tell, upon the wrongs

of fags in general, and his own in particular.

“I say, Scud,” said he at last, rousing himself to snuff the candle,

“what right have the fifth-form boys to fag us as they do?”

“No more right than you have to fag them,” answered East, without

looking up from an early number of “Pickwick,” which was just coming

out, and which he was luxuriously devouring, stretched on his back on

the sofa.

Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went on reading and

chuckling. The contrast of the boys' faces would have given infinite

amusement to a looker-on--the one so solemn and big with mighty purpose,

the other radiant and bubbling over with fun.

“Do you know, old fellow, I've been thinking it over a good deal,” began

Tom again.

“Oh yes, I know--fagging you are thinking of. Hang it all! But listen

here, Tom--here's fun. Mr. Winkle's horse--”

“And I've made up my mind,” broke in Tom, “that I won't fag except for

the sixth.”

“Quite right too, my boy,” cried East, putting his finger on the place

and looking up; “but a pretty peck of troubles you'll get into, if

you're going to play that game. However, I'm all for a strike myself, if

we can get others to join. It's getting too bad.”

“Can't we get some sixth-form fellow to take it up?” asked Tom.

“Well, perhaps we might. Morgan would interfere, I think. Only,” added

East, after a moment's pause, “you see, we should have to tell him about

it, and that's against School principles. Don't you remember what old

Brooke said about learning to take our own parts?”

“Ah, I wish old Brooke were back again. It was all right in his time.”

“Why, yes, you see, then the strongest and best fellows were in the

sixth, and the fifth-form fellows were afraid of them, and they kept

good order; but now our sixth-form fellows are too small, and the fifth

don't care for them, and do what they like in the house.”

“And so we get a double set of masters,” cried Tom indignantly--“the

lawful ones, who are responsible to the Doctor at any rate, and the

unlawful, the tyrants, who are responsible to nobody.”

“Down with the tyrants!” cried East; “I'm all for law and order, and

hurrah for a revolution.”

“I shouldn't mind if it were only for young Brooke now,” said Tom; “he's

such a good-hearted, gentlemanly fellow, and ought to be in the sixth.

I'd do anything for him. But that blackguard Flashman, who never speaks

to one without a kick or an oath--”

“The cowardly brute,” broke in East--“how I hate him! And he knows it

too; he knows that you and I think him a coward. What a bore that he's

got a study in this passage! Don't you hear them now at supper in his

den? Brandy-punch going, I'll bet. I wish the Doctor would come out and

catch him. We must change our study as soon as we can.”

“Change or no change, I'll never fag for him again,” said Tom, thumping

the table.

“Fa-a-a-ag!” sounded along the passage from Flashman's study. The

two boys looked at one another in silence. It had struck nine, so the

regular night-fags had left duty, and they were the nearest to the

supper-party. East sat up, and began to look comical, as he always did

under difficulties.

“Fa-a-a-ag!” again. No answer.

“Here, Brown! East! you cursed young skulks,” roared out Flashman,

coming to his open door; “I know you're in; no shirking.”

Tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as noiselessly as he could;

East blew out the candle.

“Barricade the first,” whispered he. “Now, Tom, mind, no surrender.”

“Trust me for that,” said Tom between his teeth.

In another minute they heard the supper-party turn out and come down the

passage to their door. They held their breaths, and heard whispering, of

which they only made out Flashman's words, “I know the young brutes are

in.”

Then came summonses to open, which being unanswered, the assault

commenced. Luckily the door was a good strong oak one, and resisted the

united weight of Flashman's party. A pause followed, and they heard a

besieger remark, “They're in safe enough. Don't you see how the door

holds at top and bottom? So the bolts must be drawn. We should have

forced the lock long ago.” East gave Tom a nudge, to call attention to

this scientific remark.

Then came attacks on particular panels, one of which at last gave way

to the repeated kicks; but it broke inwards, and the broken pieces got

jammed across (the door being lined with green baize), and couldn't

easily be removed from outside: and the besieged, scorning further

concealment, strengthened their defences by pressing the end of their

sofa against the door. So, after one or two more ineffectual efforts,

Flashman and Company retired, vowing vengeance in no mild terms.

The first danger over, it only remained for the besieged to effect a

safe retreat, as it was now near bed-time. They listened intently, and

heard the supper-party resettle themselves, and then gently drew back

first one bolt and then the other. Presently the convivial noises began

again steadily. “Now then, stand by for a run,” said East, throwing the

door wide open and rushing into the passage, closely followed by Tom.

They were too quick to be caught; but Flashman was on the lookout, and

sent an empty pickle-jar whizzing after them, which narrowly missed

Tom's head, and broke into twenty pieces at the end of the passage.

“He wouldn't mind killing one, if he wasn't caught,” said East, as they

turned the corner.

There was no pursuit, so the two turned into the hall, where they found

a knot of small boys round the fire. Their story was told. The war of

independence had broken out. Who would join the revolutionary forces?

Several others present bound themselves not to fag for the fifth form

at once. One or two only edged off, and left the rebels. What else could

they do? “I've a good mind to go to the Doctor straight,” said Tom.

“That'll never do. Don't you remember the levy of the school last half?”

put in another.

In fact, the solemn assembly, a levy of the School, had been held, at

which the captain of the School had got up, and after premising that

several instances had occurred of matters having been reported to the

masters; that this was against public morality and School tradition;

that a levy of the sixth had been held on the subject, and they had

resolved that the practice must be stopped at once; and given out that

any boy, in whatever form, who should thenceforth appeal to a master,

without having first gone to some praepostor and laid the case before

him, should be thrashed publicly, and sent to Coventry.

“Well, then, let's try the sixth. Try Morgan,” suggested another. “No

use”--“Blabbing won't do,” was the general feeling.

“I'll give you fellows a piece of advice,” said a voice from the end

of the hall. They all turned round with a start, and the speaker got up

from a bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a

shake. He was a big, loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown

too far through his jacket and trousers. “Don't you go to anybody at

all--you just stand out; say you won't fag. They'll soon get tired of

licking you. I've tried it on years ago with their forerunners.”

“No! Did you? Tell us how it was?” cried a chorus of voices, as they

clustered round him.

“Well, just as it is with you. The fifth form would fag us, and I and

some more struck, and we beat 'em. The good fellows left off directly,

and the bullies who kept on soon got afraid.”

“Was Flashman here then?”

“Yes; and a dirty, little, snivelling, sneaking fellow he was too. He

never dared join us, and used to toady the bullies by offering to fag

for them, and peaching against the rest of us.”

“Why wasn't he cut, then?” said East.

“Oh, toadies never get cut; they're too useful. Besides, he has no end

of great hampers from home, with wine and game in them; so he toadied

and fed himself into favour.”

The quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off upstairs,

still consulting together, and praising their new counsellor, who

stretched himself out on the bench before the hall fire again. There

he lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by name Diggs, and familiarly

called “the Mucker.” He was young for his size, and a very clever

fellow, nearly at the top of the fifth. His friends at home, having

regard, I suppose, to his age, and not to his size and place in the

school, hadn't put him into tails; and even his jackets were always too

small; and he had a talent for destroying clothes and making himself

look shabby. He wasn't on terms with Flashman's set, who sneered at his

dress and ways behind his back; which he knew, and revenged himself

by asking Flashman the most disagreeable questions, and treating him

familiarly whenever a crowd of boys were round him. Neither was he

intimate with any of the other bigger boys, who were warned off by

his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow; besides, amongst other

failings, he had that of impecuniosity in a remarkable degree. He

brought as much money as other boys to school, but got rid of it in no

time, no one knew how; and then, being also reckless, borrowed from any

one; and when his debts accumulated and creditors pressed, would have

an auction in the hall of everything he possessed in the world, selling

even his school-books, candlestick, and study table. For weeks after

one of these auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, he would

live about in the fifth-form room and hall, doing his verses on old

letter-backs and odd scraps of paper, and learning his lessons no one

knew how. He never meddled with any little boy, and was popular with

them, though they all looked on him with a sort of compassion, and

called him “Poor Diggs,” not being able to resist appearances, or to

disregard wholly even the sneers of their enemy Flashman. However, he

seemed equally indifferent to the sneers of big boys and the pity of

small ones, and lived his own queer life with much apparent enjoyment to

himself. It is necessary to introduce Diggs thus particularly, as he not

only did Tom and East good service in their present warfare, as is about

to be told, but soon afterwards, when he got into the sixth, chose them

for his fags, and excused them from study-fagging, thereby earning unto

himself eternal gratitude from them and all who are interested in their

history.

And seldom had small boys more need of a friend, for the morning after

the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in all its violence. Flashman

laid wait, and caught Tom before second lesson, and receiving a

point-blank “No” when told to fetch his hat, seized him and twisted his

arm, and went through the other methods of torture in use. “He couldn't

make me cry, though,” as Tom said triumphantly to the rest of the

rebels; “and I kicked his shins well, I know.” And soon it crept

out that a lot of the fags were in league, and Flashman excited his

associates to join him in bringing the young vagabonds to their senses;

and the house was filled with constant chasings, and sieges, and

lickings of all sorts; and in return, the bullies' beds were pulled to

pieces and drenched with water, and their names written up on the walls

with every insulting epithet which the fag invention could furnish. The

war, in short, raged fiercely; but soon, as Diggs had told them, all

the better fellows in the fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public

feeling began to set against Flashman and his two or three intimates,

and they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, but being

thorough bad fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private.

Flashman was an adept in all ways, but above all in the power of saying

cutting and cruel things, and could often bring tears to the eyes of

boys in this way, which all the thrashings in the world wouldn't have

wrung from them.

And as his operations were being cut short in other directions, he now

devoted himself chiefly to Tom and East, who lived at his own door, and

would force himself into their study whenever he found a chance, and sit

there, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a companion, interrupting all

their work, and exulting in the evident pain which every now and then he

could see he was inflicting on one or the other.

The storm had cleared the air for the rest of the house, and a better

state of things now began than there had been since old Brooke had left;

but an angry, dark spot of thunder-cloud still hung over the end of the

passage where Flashman's study and that of East and Tom lay.

He felt that they had been the first rebels, and that the rebellion had

been to a great extent successful; but what above all stirred the

hatred and bitterness of his heart against them was that in the frequent

collisions which there had been of late they had openly called him

coward and sneak. The taunts were too true to be forgiven. While he

was in the act of thrashing them, they would roar out instances of his

funking at football, or shirking some encounter with a lout of half his

own size. These things were all well enough known in the house, but

to have his own disgrace shouted out by small boys, to feel that they

despised him, to be unable to silence them by any amount of torture, and

to see the open laugh and sneer of his own associates (who were looking

on, and took no trouble to hide their scorn from him, though they

neither interfered with his bullying nor lived a bit the less intimately

with him), made him beside himself. Come what might, he would make those

boys' lives miserable. So the strife settled down into a personal affair

between Flashman and our youngsters--a war to the knife, to be fought

out in the little cockpit at the end of the bottom passage.

Flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old, and big and strong

of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted,

and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was; and having

a bluff, off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable

powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in

general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of

his command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept

up, and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only

tolerated, but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries; although

young Brooke scarcely spoke to him, and one or two others of the right

sort showed their opinions of him whenever a chance offered. But the

wrong sort happened to be in the ascendant just now, and so Flashman

was a formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough.

Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, which could in

any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the

house. One by one most of the other rebels fell away from them, while

Flashman's cause prospered, and several other fifth-form boys began to

look black at them and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. By

keeping out of bounds, or at all events out of the house and quadrangle,

all day, and carefully barring themselves in at night, East and Tom

managed to hold on without feeling very miserable; but it was as much as

they could do. Greatly were they drawn then towards old Diggs, who, in

an uncouth way, began to take a good deal of notice of them, and once

or twice came to their study when Flashman was there, who immediately

decamped in consequence. The boys thought that Diggs must have been

watching.

When therefore, about this time, an auction was one night announced to

take place in the hall, at which, amongst the superfluities of other

boys, all Diggs's penates for the time being were going to the hammer,

East and Tom laid their heads together, and resolved to devote their

ready cash (some four shillings sterling) to redeem such articles as

that sum would cover. Accordingly, they duly attended to bid, and

Tom became the owner of two lots of Diggs's things:--Lot 1, price

one-and-threepence, consisting (as the auctioneer remarked) of a

“valuable assortment of old metals,” in the shape of a mouse-trap, a

cheese-toaster without a handle, and a saucepan: Lot 2, of a

villainous dirty table-cloth and green-baize curtain; while East, for

one-and-sixpence, purchased a leather paper-case, with a lock but no

key, once handsome, but now much the worse for wear. But they had still

the point to settle of how to get Diggs to take the things without

hurting his feelings. This they solved by leaving them in his study,

which was never locked when he was out. Diggs, who had attended the

auction, remembered who had bought the lots, and came to their study

soon after, and sat silent for some time, cracking his great red

finger-joints. Then he laid hold of their verses, and began looking over

and altering them, and at last got up, and turning his back to them,

said, “You're uncommon good-hearted little beggars, you two. I value

that paper-case; my sister gave it to me last holidays. I won't

forget.” And so he tumbled out into the passage, leaving them somewhat

embarrassed, but not sorry that he knew what they had done.

The next morning was Saturday, the day on which the allowances of one

shilling a week were paid--an important event to spendthrift youngsters;

and great was the disgust amongst the small fry to hear that all the

allowances had been impounded for the Derby lottery. That great event

in the English year, the Derby, was celebrated at Rugby in those days

by many lotteries. It was not an improving custom, I own, gentle reader,

and led to making books, and betting, and other objectionable results;

but when our great Houses of Palaver think it right to stop the nation's

business on that day and many of the members bet heavily themselves, can

you blame us boys for following the example of our betters? At any rate

we did follow it. First there was the great school lottery, where the

first prize was six or seven pounds; then each house had one or more

separate lotteries. These were all nominally voluntary, no boy being

compelled to put in his shilling who didn't choose to do so. But besides

Flashman, there were three or four other fast, sporting young gentlemen

in the Schoolhouse, who considered subscription a matter of duty and

necessity; and so, to make their duty come easy to the small

boys, quietly secured the allowances in a lump when given out for

distribution, and kept them. It was no use grumbling--so many fewer

tartlets and apples were eaten and fives balls bought on that Saturday;

and after locking-up, when the money would otherwise have been spent,

consolation was carried to many a small boy by the sound of the

night-fags shouting along the passages, “Gentlemen sportsmen of the

School-house; the lottery's going to be drawn in the hall.” It was

pleasant to be called a gentleman sportsman, also to have a chance of

drawing a favourite horse.

The hall was full of boys, and at the head of one of the long tables

stood the sporting interest, with a hat before them, in which were the

tickets folded up. One of them then began calling out the list of the

house. Each boy as his name was called drew a ticket from the hat, and

opened it; and most of the bigger boys, after drawing, left the hall

directly to go back to their studies or the fifth-form room. The

sporting interest had all drawn blanks, and they were sulky accordingly;

neither of the favourites had yet been drawn, and it had come down to

the upper-fourth. So now, as each small boy came up and drew his ticket,

it was seized and opened by Flashman, or some other of the standers-by.

But no great favourite is drawn until it comes to the Tadpole's turn,

and he shuffles up and draws, and tries to make off, but is caught, and

his ticket is opened like the rest.

“Here you are! Wanderer--the third favourite!” shouts the opener.

“I say, just give me my ticket, please,” remonstrates Tadpole.

“Hullo! don't be in a hurry,” breaks in Flashman; “what'll you sell

Wanderer for now?”

“I don't want to sell,” rejoins Tadpole.

“Oh, don't you! Now listen, you young fool: you don't know anything

about it; the horse is no use to you. He won't win, but I want him as a

hedge. Now, I'll give you half a crown for him.” Tadpole holds out, but

between threats and cajoleries at length sells half for one shilling and

sixpence--about a fifth of its fair market value; however, he is glad to

realize anything, and, as he wisely remarks, “Wanderer mayn't win, and

the tizzy is safe anyhow.”

East presently comes up and draws a blank. Soon after comes Tom's turn.

His ticket, like the others, is seized and opened. “Here you are then,”

shouts the opener, holding it up--“Harkaway!--By Jove, Flashey, your

young friend's in luck.”

“Give me the ticket,” says Flashman, with an oath, leaning across the

table with open hand and his face black with rage.

“Wouldn't you like it?” replies the opener, not a bad fellow at the

bottom, and no admirer of Flashman. “Here, Brown, catch hold.” And he

hands the ticket to Tom, who pockets it. Whereupon Flashman makes for

the door at once, that Tom and the ticket may not escape, and there

keeps watch until the drawing is over and all the boys are gone, except

the sporting set of five or six, who stay to compare books, make bets,

and so on; Tom, who doesn't choose to move while Flashman is at the

door; and East, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble. The

sporting set now gathered round Tom. Public opinion wouldn't allow them

actually to rob him of his ticket, but any humbug or intimidation by

which he could be driven to sell the whole or part at an undervalue was

lawful.

“Now, young Brown, come, what'll you sell me Harkaway for? I hear he

isn't going to start. I'll give you five shillings for him,” begins

the boy who had opened the ticket. Tom, remembering his good deed, and

moreover in his forlorn state wishing to make a friend, is about

to accept the offer, when another cries out, “I'll give you seven

shillings.” Tom hesitated and looked from one to the other.

“No, no!” said Flashman, pushing in, “leave me to deal with him; we'll

draw lots for it afterwards. Now sir, you know me: you'll sell Harkaway

to us for five shillings, or you'll repent it.”

“I won't sell a bit of him,” answered Tom shortly.

“You hear that now!” said Flashman, turning to the others. “He's the

coxiest young blackguard in the house. I always told you so. We're

to have all the trouble and risk of getting up the lotteries for the

benefit of such fellows as he.”

Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, but he speaks to willing

ears. Gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as men.

“That's true. We always draw blanks,” cried one.--“Now, sir, you shall

sell half, at any rate.”

“I won't,” said Tom, flushing up to his hair, and lumping them all in

his mind with his sworn enemy.

“Very well then; let's roast him,” cried Flashman, and catches hold of

Tom by the collar. One or two boys hesitate, but the rest join in. East

seizes Tom's arm, and tries to pull him away, but is knocked back by

one of the boys, and Tom is dragged along struggling. His shoulders are

pushed against the mantelpiece, and he is held by main force before the

fire, Flashman drawing his trousers tight by way of extra torture. Poor

East, in more pain even than Tom, suddenly thinks of Diggs, and darts

off to find him. “Will you sell now for ten shillings?” says one boy who

is relenting.

Tom only answers by groans and struggles.

“I say, Flashey, he has had enough,” says the same boy, dropping the arm

he holds.

“No, no; another turn'll do it,” answers Flashman. But poor Tom is done

already, turns deadly pale, and his head falls forward on his breast,

just as Diggs, in frantic excitement, rushes into the hall with East at

his heels.

“You cowardly brutes!” is all he can say, as he catches Tom from them

and supports him to the hall table. “Good God! he's dying. Here, get

some cold water--run for the housekeeper.”

Flashman and one or two others slink away; the rest, ashamed and

sorry, bend over Tom or run for water, while East darts off for the

housekeeper. Water comes, and they throw it on his hands and face, and

he begins to come to. “Mother!”--the words came feebly and slowly--“it's

very cold to-night.” Poor old Diggs is blubbering like a child. “Where

am I?” goes on Tom, opening his eyes, “Ah! I remember now.” And he shut

his eyes again and groaned.

“I say,” is whispered, “we can't do any good, and the housekeeper will

be here in a minute.” And all but one steal away. He stays with Diggs,

silent and sorrowful, and fans Tom's face.

The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and Tom soon recovers enough

to sit up. There is a smell of burning. She examines his clothes, and

looks up inquiringly. The boys are silent.

“How did he come so?” No answer. “There's been some bad work here,” she

adds, looking very serious, “and I shall speak to the Doctor about it.”

Still no answer.

“Hadn't we better carry him to the sick-room?” suggests Diggs.

“Oh, I can walk now,” says Tom; and, supported by East and the

housekeeper, goes to the sick-room. The boy who held his ground is soon

amongst the rest, who are all in fear of their lives. “Did he peach?”

“Does she know about it?”

“Not a word; he's a stanch little fellow.” And pausing a moment, he

adds, “I'm sick of this work; what brutes we've been!”

Meantime Tom is stretched on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, with

East by his side, while she gets wine and water and other restoratives.

“Are you much hurt, dear old boy?” whispers East.

“Only the back of my legs,” answers Tom. They are indeed badly scorched,

and part of his trousers burnt through. But soon he is in bed with

cold bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and

getting taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago

sings through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmuring,--

“Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest.”

But after a sound night's rest, the old boy-spirit comes back again.

East comes in, reporting that the whole house is with him; and he

forgets everything, except their old resolve never to be beaten by that

bully Flashman.

Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them, and though

the Doctor knew all that she knew that morning, he never knew any more.

I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school,

and that lotteries and betting-books have gone out; but I am writing of

schools as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the good.

CHAPTER IX--A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.

“Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes.”--SHAKESPEARE.

When Tom came back into school after a couple of days in the sick-room,

he found matters much changed for the better, as East had led him to

expect. Flashman's brutality had disgusted most even of his intimate

friends, and his cowardice had once more been made plain to the house;

for Diggs had encountered him on the morning after the lottery, and

after high words on both sides, had struck him, and the blow was not

returned. However, Flashey was not unused to this sort of thing, and had

lived through as awkward affairs before, and, as Diggs had said, fed and

toadied himself back into favour again. Two or three of the boys who had

helped to roast Tom came up and begged his pardon, and thanked him for

not telling anything. Morgan sent for him, and was inclined to take the

matter up warmly, but Tom begged him not to do it; to which he agreed,

on Tom's promising to come to him at once in future--a promise which, I

regret to say, he didn't keep. Tom kept Harkaway all to himself, and

won the second prize in the lottery, some thirty shillings, which he and

East contrived to spend in about three days in the purchase of pictures

for their study, two new bats and a cricket-ball--all the best that

could be got--and a supper of sausages, kidneys, and beef-steak pies

to all the rebels. Light come, light go; they wouldn't have been

comfortable with money in their pockets in the middle of the half.

The embers of Flashman's wrath, however, were still smouldering, and

burst out every now and then in sly blows and taunts, and they both

felt that they hadn't quite done with him yet. It wasn't long, however,

before the last act of that drama came, and with it the end of bullying

for Tom and East at Rugby. They now often stole out into the hall at

nights, incited thereto partly by the hope of finding Diggs there and

having a talk with him, partly by the excitement of doing something

which was against rules; for, sad to say, both of our youngsters, since

their loss of character for steadiness in their form, had got into

the habit of doing things which were forbidden, as a matter of

adventure,--just in the same way, I should fancy, as men fall into

smuggling, and for the same sort of reasons--thoughtlessness in the

first place. It never occurred to them to consider why such and such

rules were laid down: the reason was nothing to them, and they only

looked upon rules as a sort of challenge from the rule-makers, which it

would be rather bad pluck in them not to accept; and then again, in the

lower parts of the school they hadn't enough to do. The work of the form

they could manage to get through pretty easily, keeping a good enough

place to get their regular yearly remove; and not having much ambition

beyond this, their whole superfluous steam was available for games and

scrapes. Now, one rule of the house which it was a daily pleasure of all

such boys to break was that after supper all fags, except the three

on duty in the passages, should remain in their own studies until nine

o'clock; and if caught about the passages or hall, or in one another's

studies, they were liable to punishments or caning. The rule was

stricter than its observance; for most of the sixth spent their evenings

in the fifth-form room, where the library was, and the lessons were

learnt in common. Every now and then, however, a praepostor would be

seized with a fit of district visiting, and would make a tour of

the passages and hall and the fags' studies. Then, if the owner were

entertaining a friend or two, the first kick at the door and ominous

“Open here” had the effect of the shadow of a hawk over a chicken-yard:

every one cut to cover--one small boy diving under the sofa, another

under the table, while the owner would hastily pull down a book or

two and open them, and cry out in a meek voice, “Hullo, who's there?”

casting an anxious eye round to see that no protruding leg or elbow

could betray the hidden boys. “Open, sir, directly; it's Snooks.”

“Oh, I'm very sorry; I didn't know it was you, Snooks.” And then with

well-feigned zeal the door would be opened, young hopeful praying that

that beast Snooks mightn't have heard the scuffle caused by his coming.

If a study was empty, Snooks proceeded to draw the passages and hall to

find the truants.

Well, one evening, in forbidden hours, Tom and East were in the hall.

They occupied the seats before the fire nearest the door, while Diggs

sprawled as usual before the farther fire. He was busy with a copy of

verses, and East and Tom were chatting together in whispers by the light

of the fire, and splicing a favourite old fives bat which had sprung.

Presently a step came down the bottom passage. They listened a moment,

assured themselves that it wasn't a praepostor, and then went on with

their work, and the door swung open, and in walked Flashman. He didn't

see Diggs, and thought it a good chance to keep his hand in; and as the

boys didn't move for him, struck one of them, to make them get out of

his way.

“What's that for?” growled the assaulted one.

“Because I choose. You've no business here. Go to your study.”

“You can't send us.”

“Can't I? Then I'll thrash you if you stay,” said Flashman savagely.

“I say, you two,” said Diggs, from the end of the hall, rousing up and

resting himself on his elbow--“you'll never get rid of that fellow till

you lick him. Go in at him, both of you. I'll see fair play.”

Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. East looked at

Tom. “Shall we try!” said he. “Yes,” said Tom desperately. So the two

advanced on Flashman, with clenched fists and beating hearts. They were

about up to his shoulder, but tough boys of their age, and in perfect

training; while he, though strong and big, was in poor condition from

his monstrous habit of stuffing and want of exercise. Coward as he was,

however, Flashman couldn't swallow such an insult as this; besides, he

was confident of having easy work, and so faced the boys, saying, “You

impudent young blackguards!” Before he could finish his abuse, they

rushed in on him, and began pummelling at all of him which they could

reach. He hit out wildly and savagely; but the full force of his blows

didn't tell--they were too near to him. It was long odds, though, in

point of strength; and in another minute Tom went spinning backwards

over a form, and Flashman turned to demolish East with a savage grin.

But now Diggs jumped down from the table on which he had seated himself.

“Stop there,” shouted he; “the round's over--half-minute time allowed.”

“What the --- is it to you?” faltered Flashman, who began to lose heart.

“I'm going to see fair, I tell you,” said Diggs, with a grin, and

snapping his great red fingers; “'taint fair for you to be fighting one

of them at a time.--Are you ready, Brown? Time's up.”

The small boys rushed in again. Closing, they saw, was their best

chance, and Flashman was wilder and more flurried than ever: he caught

East by the throat, and tried to force him back on the iron-bound table.

Tom grasped his waist, and remembering the old throw he had learned

in the Vale from Harry Winburn, crooked his leg inside Flashman's, and

threw his whole weight forward. The three tottered for a moment, and

then over they went on to the floor, Flashman striking his head against

a form in the hall.

The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay there still. They

began to be frightened. Tom stooped down, and then cried out, scared

out of his wits, “He's bleeding awfully. Come here, East! Diggs, he's

dying!”

“Not he,” said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table; “it's all sham;

he's only afraid to fight it out.”

East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted Flashman's head, and he

groaned.

“What's the matter?” shouted Diggs.

“My skull's fractured,” sobbed Flashman.

“Oh, let me run for the housekeeper!” cried Tom. “What shall we do?”

“Fiddlesticks! It's nothing but the skin broken,” said the relentless

Diggs, feeling his head. “Cold water and a bit of rag's all he'll want.”

“Let me go,” said Flashman surlily, sitting up; “I don't want your

help.”

“We're really very sorry--” began East.

“Hang your sorrow!” answered Flashman, holding his handkerchief to the

place; “you shall pay for this, I can tell you, both of you.” And he

walked out of the hall.

“He can't be very bad,” said Tom, with a deep sigh, much relieved to see

his enemy march so well.

“Not he,” said Diggs; “and you'll see you won't be troubled with him any

more. But, I say, your head's broken too; your collar is covered with

blood.”

“Is it though?” said Tom, putting up his hand; “I didn't know it.”

“Well, mop it up, or you'll have your jacket spoilt. And you have got a

nasty eye, Scud. You'd better go and bathe it well in cold water.”

“Cheap enough too, if we're done with our old friend Flashey,” said

East, as they made off upstairs to bathe their wounds.

They had done with Flashman in one sense, for he never laid finger on

either of them again; but whatever harm a spiteful heart and venomous

tongue could do them, he took care should be done. Only throw dirt

enough, and some of it is sure to stick; and so it was with the fifth

form and the bigger boys in general, with whom he associated more or

less, and they not at all. Flashman managed to get Tom and East into

disfavour, which did not wear off for some time after the author of it

had disappeared from the School world. This event, much prayed for

by the small fry in general, took place a few months after the above

encounter. One fine summer evening Flashman had been regaling himself on

gin-punch, at Brownsover; and, having exceeded his usual limits, started

home uproarious. He fell in with a friend or two coming back from

bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather

being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink

which Flashman had already on board. The short result was, that Flashey

became beastly drunk. They tried to get him along, but couldn't; so they

chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of the masters came

upon them, and they naturally enough fled. The flight of the rest raised

the master's suspicions, and the good angel of the fags incited him

to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle

himself up to the School-house; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye

on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning.

The evil that men and boys too do lives after them: Flashman was gone,

but our boys, as hinted above, still felt the effects of his hate.

Besides, they had been the movers of the strike against unlawful

fagging. The cause was righteous--the result had been triumphant to a

great extent; but the best of the fifth--even those who had never fagged

the small boys, or had given up the practice cheerfully--couldn't help

feeling a small grudge against the first rebels. After all, their form

had been defied, on just grounds, no doubt--so just, indeed, that they

had at once acknowledged the wrong, and remained passive in the strife.

Had they sided with Flashman and his set, the rebels must have given way

at once. They couldn't help, on the whole, being glad that they had so

acted, and that the resistance had been successful against such of their

own form as had shown fight; they felt that law and order had gained

thereby, but the ringleaders they couldn't quite pardon at once.

“Confoundedly coxy those young rascals will get, if we don't mind,” was

the general feeling.

So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If the angel Gabriel were

to come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most

abominable and unrighteous vested interest which this poor old world

groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for many years,

probably for centuries, not only with the upholders of said vested

interest, but with the respectable mass of the people whom he had

delivered. They wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear

with his in the papers; they would be very careful how they spoke of

him in the Palaver, or at their clubs. What can we expect, then, when we

have only poor gallant blundering men like Kossuth, Garibaldi, Mazzini,

and righteous causes which do not triumph in their hands--men who

have holes enough in their armour, God knows, easy to be hit by

respectabilities sitting in their lounging chairs, and having large

balances at their bankers'? But you are brave, gallant boys, who hate

easy-chairs, and have no balances or bankers. You only want to have

your heads set straight, to take the right side; so bear in mind that

majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in

the wrong; and that if you see a man or boy striving earnestly on the

weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may be, you are not to

go and join the cry against him. If you can't join him and help him, and

make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the

world which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you have

got to do for yourselves; and so think and speak of him tenderly.

So East and Tom, the Tadpole, and one or two more, became a sort of

young Ishmaelites, their hands against every one, and every one's hand

against them. It has been already told how they got to war with the

masters and the fifth form, and with the sixth it was much the same.

They saw the praepostors cowed by or joining with the fifth and shirking

their own duties; so they didn't respect them, and rendered no willing

obedience. It had been one thing to clean out studies for sons of heroes

like old Brooke, but was quite another to do the like for Snooks and

Green, who had never faced a good scrummage at football, and couldn't

keep the passages in order at night. So they only slurred through their

fagging just well enough to escape a licking, and not always that, and

got the character of sulky, unwilling fags. In the fifth-form room,

after supper, when such matters were often discussed and arranged, their

names were for ever coming up.

“I say, Green,” Snooks began one night, “isn't that new boy, Harrison,

your fag?”

“Yes; why?”

“Oh, I know something of him at home, and should like to excuse him.

Will you swop?”

“Who will you give me?”

“Well, let's see. There's Willis, Johnson. No, that won't do. Yes, I

have it. There's young East; I'll give you him.”

“Don't you wish you may get it?” replied Green. “I'll give you two for

Willis, if you like.”

“Who, then?” asked Snooks. “Hall and Brown.”

“Wouldn't have 'em at a gift.”

“Better than East, though; for they ain't quite so sharp,” said Green,

getting up and leaning his back against the mantelpiece. He wasn't a bad

fellow, and couldn't help not being able to put down the unruly fifth

form. His eye twinkled as he went on, “Did I ever tell you how the young

vagabond sold me last half?”

“No; how?”

“Well, he never half cleaned my study out--only just stuck the

candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the crumbs on to the floor. So

at last I was mortal angry, and had him up, and made him go through the

whole performance under my eyes. The dust the young scamp made nearly

choked me, and showed that he hadn't swept the carpet before. Well, when

it was all finished, 'Now, young gentleman,' says I, 'mind, I expect

this to be done every morning--floor swept, table-cloth taken off and

shaken, and everything dusted.' 'Very well,' grunts he. Not a bit of

it though. I was quite sure, in a day or two, that he never took the

table-cloth off even. So I laid a trap for him. I tore up some paper,

and put half a dozen bits on my table one night, and the cloth over them

as usual. Next morning after breakfast up I came, pulled off the cloth,

and, sure enough, there was the paper, which fluttered down on to the

floor. I was in a towering rage. 'I've got you now,' thought I, and sent

for him, while I got out my cane. Up he came as cool as you please, with

his hands in his pockets. 'Didn't I tell you to shake my table-cloth

every morning?' roared I. 'Yes,' says he. 'Did you do it this morning?'

'Yes.' 'You young liar! I put these pieces of paper on the table last

night, and if you'd taken the table-cloth off you'd have seen them, so

I'm going to give you a good licking.' Then my youngster takes one hand

out of his pocket, and just stoops down and picks up two of the bits

of paper, and holds them out to me. There was written on each, in great

round text, 'Harry East, his mark.' The young rogue had found my

trap out, taken away my paper, and put some of his there, every bit

ear-marked. I'd a great mind to lick him for his impudence; but, after

all, one has no right to be laying traps, so I didn't. Of course I was

at his mercy till the end of the half, and in his weeks my study was so

frowzy I couldn't sit in it.”

“They spoil one's things so, too,” chimed in a third boy. “Hall and

Brown were night-fags last week. I called 'fag,' and gave them my

candlesticks to clean. Away they went, and didn't appear again. When

they'd had time enough to clean them three times over, I went out to

look after them. They weren't in the passages so down I went into the

hall, where I heard music; and there I found them sitting on the table,

listening to Johnson, who was playing the flute, and my candlesticks

stuck between the bars well into the fire, red-hot, clean spoiled.

They've never stood straight since, and I must get some more. However, I

gave them a good licking; that's one comfort.”

Such were the sort of scrapes they were always getting into; and so,

partly by their own faults, partly from circumstances, partly from the

faults of others, they found themselves outlaws, ticket-of-leave men, or

what you will in that line--in short, dangerous parties--and lived the

sort of hand-to-mouth, wild, reckless life which such parties generally

have to put up with. Nevertheless they never quite lost favour with

young Brooke, who was now the cock of the house, and just getting into

the sixth; and Diggs stuck to them like a man, and gave them store of

good advice, by which they never in the least profited.

And even after the house mended, and law and order had been restored,

which soon happened after young Brooke and Diggs got into the sixth,

they couldn't easily or at once return into the paths of steadiness, and

many of the old, wild, out-of-bounds habits stuck to them as firmly as

ever. While they had been quite little boys, the scrapes they got into

in the School hadn't much mattered to any one; but now they were in the

upper school, all wrong-doers from which were sent up straight to the

Doctor at once. So they began to come under his notice; and as they were

a sort of leaders in a small way amongst their own contemporaries, his

eye, which was everywhere, was upon them.

It was a toss-up whether they turned out well or ill, and so they were

just the boys who caused most anxiety to such a master. You have been

told of the first occasion on which they were sent up to the Doctor, and

the remembrance of it was so pleasant that they had much less fear of

him than most boys of their standing had. “It's all his look,” Tom used

to say to East, “that frightens fellows. Don't you remember, he never

said anything to us my first half-year for being an hour late for

locking-up?”

The next time that Tom came before him, however, the interview was of

a very different kind. It happened just about the time at which we have

now arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into which our

hero managed now to tumble.

The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very clear stream, in which

chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful

enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack, but no fish worth

sixpence either for sport or food. It is, however, a capital river for

bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good reaches for

swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and at an easy twenty

minutes' walk from the school. This mile of water is rented, or used to

be rented, for bathing purposes by the trustees of the School, for the

boys. The footpath to Brownsover crosses the river by “the Planks,” a

curious old single-plank bridge running for fifty or sixty yards into

the flat meadows on each side of the river--for in the winter there

are frequent floods. Above the Planks were the bathing-places for the

smaller boys--Sleath's, the first bathing-place, where all new boys

had to begin, until they had proved to the bathing men (three steady

individuals, who were paid to attend daily through the summer to prevent

accidents) that they could swim pretty decently, when they were allowed

to go on to Anstey's, about one hundred and fifty yards below. Here

there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which

the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small

beer of themselves for having been out of their depths. Below the Planks

came larger and deeper holes, the first of which was Wratislaw's, and

the last Swift's, a famous hole, ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and

thirty yards across, from which there was a fine swimming reach right

down to the mill. Swift's was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms,

and had a spring board and two sets of steps: the others had one set of

steps each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys, though

each house addicted itself more to one hole than to another. The

School-house at this time affected Wratislaw's hole, and Tom and East,

who had learnt to swim like fishes, were to be found there as regular as

the clock through the summer, always twice, and often three times a day.

Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right also to fish at

their pleasure over the whole of this part of the river, and would not

understand that the right (if any) only extended to the Rugby side. As

ill-luck would have it, the gentleman who owned the opposite bank, after

allowing it for some time without interference, had ordered his keepers

not to let the boys fish on his side--the consequence of which had been

that there had been first wranglings and then fights between the keepers

and boys; and so keen had the quarrel become that the landlord and his

keepers, after a ducking had been inflicted on one of the latter, and

a fierce fight ensued thereon, had been up to the great school at

calling-over to identify the delinquents, and it was all the Doctor

himself and five or six masters could do to keep the peace. Not even his

authority could prevent the hissing; and so strong was the feeling that

the four praepostors of the week walked up the school with their canes,

shouting “S-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e” at the top of their voices. However,

the chief offenders for the time were flogged and kept in bounds; but

the victorious party had brought a nice hornet's nest about their ears.

The landlord was hissed at the School-gates as he rode past, and when he

charged his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to thrash them with

his whip, was driven back by cricket-bats and wickets, and pursued with

pebbles and fives balls; while the wretched keepers' lives were a burden

to them, from having to watch the waters so closely.

The School-house boys of Tom's standing, one and all, as a protest

against this tyranny and cutting short of their lawful amusements, took

to fishing in all ways, and especially by means of night-lines. The

little tacklemaker at the bottom of the town would soon have made his

fortune had the rage lasted, and several of the barbers began to lay in

fishing-tackle. The boys had this great advantage over their enemies,

that they spent a large portion of the day in nature's garb by the

river-side, and so, when tired of swimming, would get out on the other

side and fish, or set night-lines, till the keepers hove in sight, and

then plunge in and swim back and mix with the other bathers, and the

keepers were too wise to follow across the stream.

While things were in this state, one day Tom and three or four others

were bathing at Wratislaw's, and had, as a matter of course, been taking

up and re-setting night-lines. They had all left the water, and were

sitting or standing about at their toilets, in all costumes, from

a shirt upwards, when they were aware of a man in a velveteen

shooting-coat approaching from the other side. He was a new keeper, so

they didn't recognize or notice him, till he pulled up right opposite,

and began:

“I see'd some of you young gentlemen over this side a-fishing just now.”

“Hullo! who are you? What business is that of yours, old Velveteens?”

“I'm the new under-keeper, and master's told me to keep a sharp lookout

on all o' you young chaps. And I tells 'ee I means business, and you'd

better keep on your own side, or we shall fall out.”

“Well, that's right, Velveteens; speak out, and let's know your mind at

once.”

“Look here, old boy,” cried East, holding up a miserable, coarse fish

or two and a small jack; “would you like to smell 'em and see which bank

they lived under?”

“I'll give you a bit of advice, keeper,” shouted Tom, who was sitting

in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river: “you'd better go down

there to Swift's, where the big boys are; they're beggars at setting

lines, and'll put you up to a wrinkle or two for catching the

five-pounders.” Tom was nearest to the keeper, and that officer, who was

getting angry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to take a

note of him for future use. Tom returned his gaze with a steady stare,

and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the middle of a favourite

School-house song,--

“As I and my companions

Were setting of a snare

The gamekeeper was watching us;

For him we did not care:

For we can wrestle and fight, my boys,

And jump out anywhere.

For it's my delight of a likely night,

In the season of the year.”

The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of laughter, and

the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief. The

boys thought no more of the matter.

But now came on the May-fly season; the soft, hazy summer weather lay

sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, and the green and gray

flies flickered with their graceful, lazy up-and-down flight over

the reeds and the water and the meadows, in myriads upon myriads.

The May-flies must surely be the lotus-eaters of the ephemerae--the

happiest, laziest, carelessest fly that dances and dreams out his few

hours of sunshiny life by English rivers.

Every little pitiful, coarse fish in the Avon was on the alert for

the flies, and gorging his wretched carcass with hundreds daily, the

gluttonous rogues! and every lover of the gentle craft was out to avenge

the poor May-flies.

So one fine Thursday afternoon, Tom, having borrowed East's new rod,

started by himself to the river. He fished for some time with small

success--not a fish would rise at him; but as he prowled along the bank,

he was presently aware of mighty ones feeding in a pool on the opposite

side, under the shade of a huge willow-tree. The stream was deep

here, but some fifty yards below was a shallow, for which he made off

hot-foot; and forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the

Doctor, and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and

in three minutes was creeping along on all fours towards the clump of

willows.

It isn't often that great chub, or any other coarse fish, are in earnest

about anything; but just then they were thoroughly bent on feeding, and

in half an hour Master Tom had deposited three thumping fellows at the

foot of the giant willow. As he was baiting for a fourth pounder, and

just going to throw in again, he became aware of a man coming up the

bank not one hundred yards off. Another look told him that it was the

under-keeper. Could he reach the shallow before him? No, not carrying

his rod. Nothing for it but the tree. So Tom laid his bones to it,

shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging up his rod after him. He

had just time to reach and crouch along upon a huge branch some ten feet

up, which stretched out over the river, when the keeper arrived at the

clump. Tom's heart beat fast as he came under the tree; two steps more

and he would have passed, when, as ill-luck would have it, the gleam on

the scales of the dead fish caught his eye, and he made a dead point

at the foot of the tree. He picked up the fish one by one; his eye and

touch told him that they had been alive and feeding within the hour. Tom

crouched lower along the branch, and heard the keeper beating the clump.

“If I could only get the rod hidden,” thought he, and began gently

shifting it to get it alongside of him; “willowtrees don't throw out

straight hickory shoots twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck.”

Alas! the keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and

then of Tom's hand and arm.

“Oh, be up ther', be 'ee?” says he, running under the tree. “Now you

come down this minute.”

“Tree'd at last,” thinks Tom, making no answer, and keeping as close as

possible, but working away at the rod, which he takes to pieces. “I'm

in for it, unless I can starve him out.” And then he begins to meditate

getting along the branch for a plunge, and scramble to the other side;

but the small branches are so thick, and the opposite bank so difficult,

that the keeper will have lots of time to get round by the ford before

he can get out, so he gives that up. And now he hears the keeper

beginning to scramble up the trunk. That will never do; so he scrambles

himself back to where his branch joins the trunk; and stands with lifted

rod.

“Hullo, Velveteens; mind your fingers if you come any higher.”

The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a grin says, “Oh! be you,

be it, young measter? Well, here's luck. Now I tells 'ee to come down at

once, and 't'll be best for 'ee.”

“Thank 'ee, Velveteens; I'm very comfortable,” said Tom, shortening the

rod in his hand, and preparing for battle.

“Werry well; please yourself,” says the keeper, descending, however,

to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank. “I bean't in no

hurry, so you may take your time. I'll l'arn 'ee to gee honest folk

names afore I've done with 'ee.”

“My luck as usual,” thinks Tom; “what a fool I was to give him a black!

If I'd called him 'keeper,' now, I might get off. The return match is

all his way.”

The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill, and light it,

keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately across the branch,

looking at keeper--a pitiful sight for men and fishes. The more he

thought of it the less he liked it. “It must be getting near second

calling-over,” thinks he. Keeper smokes on stolidly. “If he takes me up,

I shall be flogged safe enough. I can't sit here all night. Wonder if

he'll rise at silver.”

“I say, keeper,” said he meekly, “let me go for two bob?”

“Not for twenty neither,” grunts his persecutor.

And so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and the sun came

slanting in through the willow-branches, and telling of locking-up near

at hand.

“I'm coming down, keeper,” said Tom at last, with a sigh, fairly tired

out. “Now what are you going to do?”

“Walk 'ee up to School, and give 'ee over to the Doctor; them's my

orders,” says Velveteens, knocking the ashes out of his fourth pipe, and

standing up and shaking himself.

“Very good,” said Tom; “but hands off, you know. I'll go with you

quietly, so no collaring or that sort of thing.”

Keeper looked at him a minute. “Werry good,” said he at last. And so Tom

descended, and wended his way drearily by the side of the keeper, up to

the Schoolhouse, where they arrived just at locking-up. As they passed

the School-gates, the Tadpole and several others who were standing there

caught the state of things, and rushed out, crying, “Rescue!” But Tom

shook his head; so they only followed to the Doctor's gate, and went

back sorely puzzled.

How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the last time that Tom was

up there, as the keeper told the story, not omitting to state how Tom

had called him blackguard names. “Indeed, sir,” broke in the culprit,

“it was only Velveteens.” The Doctor only asked one question.

“You know the rule about the banks, Brown?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson.”

“I thought so,” muttered Tom.

“And about the rod, sir?” went on the keeper. “Master's told we as we

might have all the rods--”

“Oh, please, sir,” broke in Tom, “the rod isn't mine.”

The Doctor looked puzzled; but the keeper, who was a good-hearted

fellow, and melted at Tom's evident distress, gave up his claim. Tom

was flogged next morning, and a few days afterwards met Velveteens, and

presented him with half a crown for giving up the rod claim, and they

became sworn friends; and I regret to say that Tom had many more fish

from under the willow that May-fly season, and was never caught again by

Velveteens.

It wasn't three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, were

again in the awful presence. This time, however, the Doctor was not so

terrible. A few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch the

balls that went off the court. While standing watching the game, they

saw five or six nearly new balls hit on the top of the School. “I say,

Tom,” said East, when they were dismissed, “couldn't we get those balls

somehow?”

“Let's try, anyhow.”

So they reconnoitred the walls carefully, borrowed a coal-hammer from

old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one or two attempts, scaled

the Schools, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of fives balls.

The place pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time

there, scratching and cutting their names on the top of every tower; and

at last, having exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing

H.EAST, T.BROWN, on the minute-hand of the great clock; in the doing of

which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock's economy. So

next morning, when masters and boys came trooping down to prayers, and

entered the quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was indicating three

minutes to the hour. They all pulled up, and took their time. When the

hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school late. Thomas being

set to make inquiry, discovers their names on the minute-hand, and

reports accordingly; and they are sent for, a knot of their friends

making derisive and pantomimic allusions to what their fate will be as

they walk off.

But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it, and

only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart, and a lecture

on the likelihood of such exploits ending in broken bones.

Alas! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the town; and as

several rows and other disagreeable accidents had of late taken place

on these occasions, the Doctor gives out, after prayers in the morning,

that no boy is to go down into the town. Wherefore East and Tom, for

no earthly pleasure except that of doing what they are told not to do,

start away, after second lesson, and making a short circuit through the

fields, strike a back lane which leads into the town, go down it, and

run plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into the High Street.

The master in question, though a very clever, is not a righteous man.

He has already caught several of his own pupils, and gives them lines

to learn, while he sends East and Tom, who are not his pupils, up to the

Doctor, who, on learning that they had been at prayers in the morning,

flogs them soundly.

The flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice of their

captor was rankling in their minds; but it was just the end of the half,

and on the next evening but one Thomas knocks at their door, and says

the Doctor wants to see them. They look at one another in silent dismay.

What can it be now? Which of their countless wrong-doings can he have

heard of officially? However, it's no use delaying, so up they go to the

study. There they find the Doctor, not angry, but very graver. “He has

sent for them to speak to very seriously before they go home. They have

each been flogged several times in the half-year for direct and

wilful breaches of rules. This cannot go on. They are doing no good to

themselves or others, and now they are getting up in the School, and

have influence. They seem to think that rules are made capriciously, and

for the pleasure of the masters; but this is not so. They are made for

the good of the whole School, and must and shall be obeyed. Those who

thoughtlessly or wilfully break them will not be allowed to stay at the

School. He should be sorry if they had to leave, as the School might

do them both much good, and wishes them to think very seriously in the

holidays over what he has said. Good-night.”

And so the two hurry off horribly scared; the idea of having to leave

has never crossed their minds, and is quite unbearable.

As they go out, they meet at the door old Holmes, a sturdy, cheery

praepostor of another house, who goes in to the Doctor; and they hear

his genial, hearty greeting of the newcomer, so different to their own

reception, as the door closes, and return to their study with heavy

hearts, and tremendous resolves to break no more rules.

Five minutes afterwards the master of their form--a late arrival and a

model young master--knocks at the Doctor's study-door. “Come in!” And

as he enters, the Doctor goes on, to Holmes--“You see, I do not know

anything of the case officially, and if I take any notice of it at all,

I must publicly expel the boy. I don't wish to do that, for I think

there is some good in him. There's nothing for it but a good sound

thrashing.” He paused to shake hands with the master, which Holmes does

also, and then prepares to leave.

“I understand. Good-night, sir.”

“Good-night, Holmes. And remember,” added the Doctor, emphasizing the

words, “a good sound thrashing before the whole house.”

The door closed on Holmes; and the Doctor, in answer to the puzzled

look of his lieutenant, explained shortly. “A gross case of bullying.

Wharton, the head of the house, is a very good fellow, but slight and

weak, and severe physical pain is the only way to deal with such a

case; so I have asked Holmes to take it up. He is very careful and

trustworthy, and has plenty of strength. I wish all the sixth had as

much. We must have it here, if we are to keep order at all.”

Now I don't want any wiseacres to read this book, but if they should, of

course they will prick up their long ears, and howl, or rather bray, at

the above story. Very good--I don't object; but what I have to add for

you boys is this, that Holmes called a levy of his house after breakfast

next morning, made them a speech on the case of bullying in question,

and then gave the bully a “good sound thrashing;” and that years

afterwards, that boy sought out Holmes, and thanked him, saying it

had been the kindest act which had ever been done upon him, and the

turning-point in his character; and a very good fellow he became, and a

credit to his School.

After some other talk between them, the Doctor said, “I want to speak

to you about two boys in your form, East and Brown. I have just been

speaking to them. What do you think of them?”

“Well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless and full of

spirits; but I can't help liking them. I think they are sound, good

fellows at the bottom.”

“I'm glad of it. I think so too: But they make me very uneasy. They are

taking the lead a good deal amongst the fags in my house, for they are

very active, bold fellows. I should be sorry to lose them, but I shan't

let them stay if I don't see them gaining character and manliness. In

another year they may do great harm to all the younger boys.”

“Oh, I hope you won't send them away,” pleaded their master.

“Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after any

half-holiday, that I shan't have to flog one of them next morning, for

some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite dread seeing either of them.”

They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doctor began again:--

“They don't feel that they have any duty or work to do in the school,

and how is one to make them feel it?”

“I think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, it would

steady them. Brown is the most reckless of the two, I should say. East

wouldn't get into so many scrapes without him.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, “I'll think of it.”

And they went on to talk of other subjects.

PART II.

“I [hold] it truth, with him who sings,

To one clear harp in divers tones,

That men may rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves to higher things.”

--TENNYSON.

CHAPTER I--HOW THE TIDE TURNED.

“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

. . . .

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.”

--LOWELL.

The turning-point in our hero's school career had now come, and the

manner of it was as follows. On the evening of the first day of the next

half-year, Tom, East, and another School-house boy, who had just been

dropped at the Spread Eagle by the old Regulator, rushed into the

matron's room in high spirits, such as all real boys are in when they

first get back, however fond they may be of home.

“Well, Mrs. Wixie,” shouted one, seizing on the methodical, active,

little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stowing away the linen of the boys

who had already arrived into their several pigeon-holes, “here we are

again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let us help you put the things away.”

“And, Mary,” cried another (she was called indifferently by either

name), “who's come back? Has the Doctor made old Jones leave? How many

new boys are there?”

“Am I and East to have Gray's study? You know you promised to get it for

us if you could,” shouted Tom.

“And am I to sleep in Number 4?” roared East.

“How's old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally?”

“Bless the boys!” cries Mary, at last getting in a word; “why, you'll

shake me to death. There, now, do go away up to the housekeeper's room

and get your suppers; you know I haven't time to talk. You'll find

plenty more in the house.--Now, Master East, do let those things alone.

You're mixing up three new boys' things.” And she rushed at East, who

escaped round the open trunks holding up a prize.

“Hullo! look here, Tommy,” shouted he; “here's fun!” and he brandished

above his head some pretty little night-caps, beautifully made and

marked, the work of loving fingers in some distant country home. The

kind mother and sisters who sewed that delicate stitching with aching

hearts little thought of the trouble they might be bringing on the

young head for which they were meant. The little matron was wiser, and

snatched the caps from East before he could look at the name on them.

“Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if you don't go,” said she;

“there's some capital cold beef and pickles upstairs, and I won't have

you old boys in my room first night.”

“Hurrah for the pickles! Come along, Tommy--come along, Smith. We shall

find out who the young count is, I'll be bound. I hope he'll sleep in my

room. Mary's always vicious first week.”

As the boys turned to leave the room, the matron touched Tom's arm, and

said, “Master Brown, please stop a minute; I want to speak to you.”

“Very well, Mary. I'll come in a minute, East. Don't finish the

pickles.”

“O Master Brown,” went on the little matron, when the rest had gone,

“you're to have Gray's study, Mrs. Arnold says. And she wants you to

take in this young gentleman. He's a new boy, and thirteen years old

though he don't look it. He's very delicate, and has never been from

home before. And I told Mrs. Arnold I thought you'd be kind to him, and

see that they don't bully him at first. He's put into your form, and

I've given him the bed next to yours in Number 4; so East can't sleep

there this half.”

Tom was rather put about by this speech. He had got the double study

which he coveted, but here were conditions attached which greatly

moderated his joy. He looked across the room, and in the far corner of

the sofa was aware of a slight, pale boy, with large blue eyes and light

fair hair, who seemed ready to shrink through the floor. He saw at a

glance that the little stranger was just the boy whose first half-year

at a public school would be misery to himself if he were left alone, or

constant anxiety to any one who meant to see him through his troubles.

Tom was too honest to take in the youngster, and then let him shift for

himself; and if he took him as his chum instead of East, where were

all his pet plans of having a bottled-beer cellar under his window, and

making night-lines and slings, and plotting expeditions to Brownsover

Mills and Caldecott's Spinney? East and he had made up their minds to

get this study, and then every night from locking-up till ten they would

be together to talk about fishing, drink bottled-beer, read Marryat's

novels, and sort birds' eggs. And this new boy would most likely never

go out of the close, and would be afraid of wet feet, and always getting

laughed at, and called Molly, or Jenny, or some derogatory feminine

nickname.

The matron watched him for a moment, and saw what was passing in his

mind, and so, like a wise negotiator, threw in an appeal to his warm

heart. “Poor little fellow,” said she, in almost a whisper; “his

father's dead, and he's got no brothers. And his mamma--such a kind,

sweet lady--almost broke her heart at leaving him this morning; and she

said one of his sisters was like to die of decline, and so--”

“Well, well,” burst in Tom, with something like a sigh at the effort,

“I suppose I must give up East.--Come along, young un. What's your name?

We'll go and have some supper, and then I'll show you our study.”

“His name's George Arthur,” said the matron, walking up to him with Tom,

who grasped his little delicate hand as the proper preliminary to making

a chum of him, and felt as if he could have blown him away. “I've had

his books and things put into the study, which his mamma has had new

papered, and the sofa covered, and new green-baize curtains over the

door” (the diplomatic matron threw this in, to show that the new boy was

contributing largely to the partnership comforts). “And Mrs. Arnold told

me to say,” she added, “that she should like you both to come up to tea

with her. You know the way, Master Brown, and the things are just gone

up, I know.”

Here was an announcement for Master Tom! He was to go up to tea the

first night, just as if he were a sixth or fifth form boy, and of

importance in the School world, instead of the most reckless young

scapegrace amongst the fags. He felt himself lifted on to a higher

social and moral platform at once. Nevertheless he couldn't give up

without a sigh the idea of the jolly supper in the housekeeper's room

with East and the rest, and a rush round to all the studies of his

friends afterwards, to pour out the deeds and wonders of the holidays,

to plot fifty plans for the coming half-year, and to gather news of who

had left and what new boys had come, who had got who's study, and where

the new praepostors slept. However, Tom consoled himself with thinking

that he couldn't have done all this with the new boy at his heels, and

so marched off along the passages to the Doctor's private house with his

young charge in tow, in monstrous good-humour with himself and all the

world.

It is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell how the two young boys

were received in that drawing-room. The lady who presided there is still

living, and has carried with her to her peaceful home in the north the

respect and love of all those who ever felt and shared that gentle and

high-bred hospitality. Ay, many is the brave heart, now doing its work

and bearing its load in country curacies, London chambers, under the

Indian sun, and in Australian towns and clearings, which looks back with

fond and grateful memory to that School-house drawing-room, and dates

much of its highest and best training to the lessons learnt there.

Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder children, there were one

of the younger masters, young Brooke (who was now in the sixth, and

had succeeded to his brother's position and influence), and another

sixth-form boy, talking together before the fire. The master and young

Brooke, now a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years old,

and powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom, to his intense

glory, and then went on talking. The other did not notice them.

The hostess, after a few kind words, which led the boys at once and

insensibly to feel at their ease and to begin talking to one another,

left them with her own children while she finished a letter. The young

ones got on fast and well, Tom holding forth about a prodigious pony he

had been riding out hunting, and hearing stories of the winter glories

of the lakes, when tea came in, and immediately after the Doctor

himself.

How frank, and kind, and manly was his greeting to the party by the

fire! It did Tom's heart good to see him and young Brooke shake hands,

and look one another in the face; and he didn't fail to remark that

Brooke was nearly as tall and quite as broad as the Doctor. And his cup

was full when in another moment his master turned to him with another

warm shake of the hand, and, seemingly oblivious of all the late scrapes

which he had been getting into, said, “Ah, Brown, you here! I hope you

left your father and all well at home?”

“Yes, sir, quite well.”

“And this is the little fellow who is to share your study. Well, he

doesn't look as we should like to see him. He wants some Rugby air, and

cricket. And you must take him some good long walks, to Bilton Grange,

and Caldecott's Spinney, and show him what a little pretty country we

have about here.”

Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his visits to Bilton Grange

were for the purpose of taking rooks' nests (a proceeding strongly

discountenanced by the owner thereof), and those to Caldecott's Spinney

were prompted chiefly by the conveniences for setting night-lines. What

didn't the Doctor know? And what a noble use he always made of it! He

almost resolved to abjure rook-pies and night-lines for ever. The tea

went merrily off, the Doctor now talking of holiday doings, and then of

the prospects of the half-year--what chance there was for the Balliol

scholarship, whether the eleven would be a good one. Everybody was at

his ease, and everybody felt that he, young as he might be, was of some

use in the little School world, and had a work to do there.

Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, and the young boys a

few minutes afterwards took their leave and went out of the private door

which led from the Doctor's house into the middle passage.

At the fire, at the farther end of the passage, was a crowd of boys in

loud talk and laughter. There was a sudden pause when the door opened,

and then a great shout of greeting, as Tom was recognized marching down

the passage.

“Hullo, Brown! where do you come from?”

“Oh, I've been to tea with the Doctor,” says Tom, with great dignity.

“My eye!” cried East, “Oh! so that's why Mary called you back, and you

didn't come to supper. You lost something. That beef and pickles was no

end good.”

“I say, young fellow,” cried Hall, detecting Arthur and catching him by

the collar, “what's your name? Where do you come from? How old are you?”

Tom saw Arthur shrink back and look scared as all the group turned to

him, but thought it best to let him answer, just standing by his side to

support in case of need.

“Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire.”

“Don't call me 'sir,' you young muff. How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Can you sing?”

The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. Tom struck in--“You be

hanged, Tadpole. He'll have to sing, whether he can or not, Saturday

twelve weeks, and that's long enough off yet.”

“Do you know him at home, Brown?”

“No; but he's my chum in Gray's old study, and it's near prayer-time,

and I haven't had a look at it yet.--Come along, Arthur.”

Away went the two, Tom longing to get his charge safe under cover, where

he might advise him on his deportment.

“What a queer chum for Tom Brown,” was the comment at the fire; and it

must be confessed so thought Tom himself, as he lighted his candle, and

surveyed the new green-baize curtains and the carpet and sofa with much

satisfaction.

“I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us so cozy! But look

here now; you must answer straight up when the fellows speak to you, and

don't be afraid. If you're afraid, you'll get bullied. And don't you

say you can sing; and don't you ever talk about home, or your mother and

sisters.”

Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry.

“But, please,” said he, “mayn't I talk about--about home to you?”

“Oh yes; I like it. But don't talk to boys you don't know, or they'll

call you home-sick, or mamma's darling, or some such stuff. What a jolly

desk! Is that yours? And what stunning binding! Why, your school-books

look like novels.”

And Tom was soon deep in Arthur's goods and chattels, all new, and good

enough for a fifth-form boy, and hardly thought of his friends outside

till the prayer-bell rang.

I have already described the School-house prayers. They were the same on

the first night as on the other nights, save for the gaps caused by the

absence of those boys who came late, and the line of new boys who stood

all together at the farther table--of all sorts and sizes, like young

bears with all their troubles to come, as Tom's father had said to him

when he was in the same position. He thought of it as he looked at the

line, and poor little slight Arthur standing with them, and as he was

leading him upstairs to Number 4, directly after prayers, and showing

him his bed. It was a huge, high, airy room, with two large windows

looking on to the School close. There were twelve beds in the room. The

one in the farthest corner by the fireplace, occupied by the sixth-form

boy, who was responsible for the discipline of the room, and the rest

by boys in the lower-fifth and other junior forms, all fags (for the

fifth-form boys, as has been said, slept in rooms by themselves). Being

fags, the eldest of them was not more than about sixteen years old, and

were all bound to be up and in bed by ten. The sixth-form boys came to

bed from ten to a quarter-past (at which time the old verger came round

to put the candles out), except when they sat up to read.

Within a few minutes therefore of their entry, all the other boys who

slept in Number 4 had come up. The little fellows went quietly to their

own beds, and began undressing, and talking to each other in whispers;

while the elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on one

another's beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little

Arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of his position. The idea of

sleeping in the room with strange boys had clearly never crossed his

mind before, and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could

hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, with an effort,

off it came, and then he paused and looked at Tom, who was sitting at

the bottom of his bed talking and laughing.

“Please, Brown,” he whispered, “may I wash my face and hands?”

“Of course, if you like,” said Tom, staring; “that's your

washhand-stand, under the window, second from your bed. You'll have to

go down for more water in the morning if you use it all.” And on he went

with his talk, while Arthur stole timidly from between the beds out

to his washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby drawing for a

moment on himself the attention of the room.

On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his washing and

undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then looked round more

nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in

bed, sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light burned clear,

the noise went on. It was a trying moment for the poor little lonely

boy; however, this time he didn't ask Tom what he might or might not do,

but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he had done every day from

his childhood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the cry and beareth

the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong man in agony.

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that his

back was towards Arthur, and he didn't see what had happened, and looked

up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three boys laughed and

sneered, and a big, brutal fellow who was standing in the middle of the

room picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him

a snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment

the boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully,

who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow.

“Confound you, Brown! what's that for?” roared he, stamping with pain.

“Never mind what I mean,” said Tom, stepping on to the floor, every drop

of blood in his body tingling; “if any fellow wants the other boot, he

knows how to get it.”

What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the

sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. Tom and

the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the

old verger, as punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in another

minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting their door with his

usual “Good-night, gen'lm'n.”

There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken to

heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the pillow of

poor Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood of memories

which chased one another through his brain, kept him from thinking or

resolving. His head throbbed, his heart leapt, and he could hardly keep

himself from springing out of bed and rushing about the room. Then the

thought of his own mother came across him, and the promise he had made

at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside, and

give himself up to his Father, before he laid his head on the pillow,

from which it might never rise; and he lay down gently, and cried as if

his heart would break. He was only fourteen years old.

It was no light act of courage in those days, my dear boys, for a little

fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later,

when Arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the School, the tables

turned; before he died, in the School-house at least, and I believe in

the other house, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom had come to

school in other times. The first few nights after he came he did not

kneel down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was

out, and then stole out and said his prayers, in fear lest some one

should find him out. So did many another poor little fellow. Then he

began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in bed, and

then that it didn't matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, or lying

down. And so it had come to pass with Tom, as with all who will not

confess their Lord before men; and for the last year he had probably not

said his prayers in earnest a dozen times.

Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his

heart was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice of all others which

he loathed was brought in and burnt in on his own soul. He had lied to

his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it? And

then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost scorned for

his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do.

The first dawn of comfort came to him in swearing to himself that he

would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help

him, and bear his burdens for the good deed done that night. Then he

resolved to write home next day and tell his mother all, and what a

coward her son had been. And then peace came to him as he resolved,

lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The morning would be harder

than the night to begin with, but he felt that he could not afford to

let one chance slip. Several times he faltered, for the devil showed him

first all his old friends calling him “Saint” and “Square-toes,” and

a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his motives would be

misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with the new boy; whereas

it was his duty to keep all means of influence, that he might do good to

the largest number. And then came the more subtle temptation, “Shall I

not be showing myself braver than others by doing this? Have I any right

to begin it now? Ought I not rather to pray in my own study, letting

other boys know that I do so, and trying to lead them to it, while in

public at least I should go on as I have done?” However, his good angel

was too strong that night, and he turned on his side and slept, tired of

trying to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which had been so

strong, and in which he had found peace.

Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and

waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in

the face of the whole room knelt down to pray. Not five words could

he say--the bell mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in

the room--what were they all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on

kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his

inmost heart, a still, small voice seemed to breathe forth the words of

the publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” He repeated them over

and over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose from his knees

comforted and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. It was not

needed: two other boys besides Arthur had already followed his example,

and he went down to the great School with a glimmering of another lesson

in his heart--the lesson that he who has conquered his own coward spirit

has conquered the whole outward world; and that other one which the old

prophet learnt in the cave in Mount Horeb, when he hid his face, and the

still, small voice asked, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” that however

we may fancy ourselves alone on the side of good, the King and Lord

of men is nowhere without His witnesses; for in every society, however

seemingly corrupt and godless, there are those who have not bowed the

knee to Baal.

He found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be produced

by his act. For a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh when he knelt

down, but this passed off soon, and one by one all the other boys but

three or four followed the lead. I fear that this was in some measure

owing to the fact that Tom could probably have thrashed any boy in the

room except the praepostor; at any rate, every boy knew that he would

try upon very slight provocation, and didn't choose to run the risk of a

hard fight because Tom Brown had taken a fancy to say his prayers. Some

of the small boys of Number 4 communicated the new state of things to

their chums, and in several other rooms the poor little fellows tried

it on--in one instance or so, where the praepostor heard of it and

interfered very decidedly, with partial success; but in the rest, after

a short struggle, the confessors were bullied or laughed down, and the

old state of things went on for some time longer. Before either Tom

Brown or Arthur left the School-house, there was no room in which it had

not become the regular custom. I trust it is so still, and that the old

heathen state of things has gone out for ever.