TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS
By Thomas Hughes
Illustrated by Louis Rhead
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER III—SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.
CHAPTER VII—SETTLING TO THE COLLAR.
CHAPTER VIII—THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
CHAPTER IX—A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
CHAPTER I—HOW THE TIDE TURNED.
CHAPTER III—ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND.
CHAPTER VI—FEVER IN THE SCHOOL.
CHAPTER VII—HARRY EAST’S DILEMMAS AND
DELIVERANCES.
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T is not often that in later years one finds any book as good as one
remembers it from one’s youth; but it has been my interesting experience
to find the story of Tom Brown’s School Days even better than I once
thought it, say, fifty years ago; not only better, but more charming,
more kindly, manlier, truer, realler. So far as I have been able to note
there is not a moment of snobbishness in it, or meanness of whatever
sort. Of course it is of its period, the period which people call Middle
Victorian because the great Queen was then nearly at the end of
the first half of her long reign, and not because she personally
characterized the mood of arts, of letters, of morals then prevalent.
The author openly preaches and praises himself for preaching; he does
not hesitate to slip into the drama and deliver a sermon; he talks the
story out with many self-interruptions and excursions; he knows nothing
of the modern method of letting it walk along on its own legs, but
is always putting his hands under its arms and helping it, or his arm
across its shoulder and caressing it. In all this, which I think wrong,
he is probably doing quite right for the boys who formed and will always
form the greatest number of his readers; boys like to have things fully
explained and commentated, whether they are grown up or not. In much
else, in what I will not say are not the great matters, he is altogether
right. By precept and by example he teaches boys to be good, that is, to
be true, honest, clean-minded and clean-mouthed, kind and thoughtful. He
forgives them the follies of their youth, but makes them see that they
are follies.
I suppose that American boys’ schools are fashioned largely on what
the English call their public schools; and so far as they emulate the
democratic spirit of the English schools, with their sense of equality
and their honor of personal worth, the American schools cannot be
too like them. I have heard that some of our schools are cultures of
unrepublican feeling, and that the meaner little souls in them make
their account of what families it will be well to know after they leave
school and restrict their school friendships accordingly, but I am not
certain this is true. What I am certain of is that our school-boys can
learn nothing of such baseness from the warm-hearted and large-minded
man who wrote Tom Brown’s School Days. He was one of our best friends
in the Civil War, when we sorely needed friends in England, and it was
his magnanimous admiration which made our great patriotic poet known to
a public which had scarcely heard of James Russell Lowell before.
But the manners and customs painted in this book are the manners and
customs of the middle eighteen-fifties. It appears from its witness that
English school-boys then freely drank beer and ale, and fought out their
quarrels like prize-fighters with their naked fists, though the beer was
allowed and the fighting disallowed by the school. Now, however, even
the ruffians of the ring put on gloves, and probably the quarrels of our
own schoolboys are not fought out even with gloves. Beer and ale must
always have been as clandestine vices in our schools as pitched battles
with fists in English schools; water was the rule, but probably if an
American boy now went to an English school he would not have to teach by
his singular example that water was a better drink for boys than beer.
Our author had apparently no misgiving as to the beer; he does not blink
it or defend it; beer was too merely a matter of course; but he makes
a set argument for fighting, based upon the good old safe ground
that there always had been fighting. Even in the heyday of muscular
Christianity it seems that there must have been some question of
fighting and it was necessary to defend it on the large and little
scale, and his argument as to fisticuffs defeats itself. Concerning war,
which we are now hoping that we see the beginning of the end of, he need
only have looked into The Biglow Papers to find his idolized Lowell
saying:
I feel it laid upon me in commending this book to a new generation of
readers, to guard them, so far as I may, against such errors of it.
Possibly it might have been cleansed of them by editing, but that would
have taken much of the life out of it, and would have been a grievous
wrong to the author. They must remain a part of literature as many other
regrettable things remain. They are a part of history, a color of
the contemporary manners, and an excellently honest piece of
self-portraiture. They are as the wart on Cromwell’s face, and are
essentially an element of a most Cromwellian genius. It was Puritanism,
Macaulay says, that stamped with its ideal the modern English gentleman
in dress and manner, and Puritanism has stamped the modern Englishman,
the liberal, the radical, in morals. The author of Toni Brown was
strongly of the English Church and the English State, but of the
broad church and of the broad state. He was not only the best sort of
Englishman, but he was the making of the best sort of American; and the
American father can trust the American boy with his book, and fear no
hurt to his republicanism, still less his democracy.
It is full of the delight in nature and human nature, unpatronized and
unsentimentalized. From his earliest boyhood up Tom Brown is the free
and equal comrade of other decent boys of whatever station, and he
ranges the woods, the fields, the streams with the joy in the sylvan
life which is the birthright of all the boys born within reach of them.
The American school-boy of this generation will as freshly taste the
pleasure of the school life at Rugby as the American school-boys of the
two generations past, and he can hardly fail to rise from it with the
noble intentions, the magnanimous ambitions which only good books can
inspire.
W. D. Howells.
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PART I.
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CHAPTER I—THE BROWN FAMILY
he 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.
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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,—
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,
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.
Original
CHAPTER II—THE “VEAST.”
s 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.
Original
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-gypsy, poaching,
loafing fellow, who travels the Vale not for much good, I fancy:
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 gypsy 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 gypsy’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 gypsy 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 gypsy’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 gypsy 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.
Original
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.
Original
CHAPTER III—SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.
oor 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.
Original
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.
Original
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.
Original
CHAPTER IV—THE STAGE COACH.
ow, 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.”
Original
“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 foot-path,
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.
Original
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.
Original
CHAPTER V—RUGBY AND FOOTBALL.
nd 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.
Original
“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.
Original
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.
Original
CHAPTER VI—AFTER THE MATCH.
s 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.
Original
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,
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,
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,—
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,—
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.
Original
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.
Original
CHAPTER VII—SETTLING TO THE COLLAR.
verybody, 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.
Original
“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.
Original
“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.
Original
CHAPTER VIII—THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
he 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.
Original
“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.
Original
CHAPTER IX—A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
hen 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.”
Original
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,—
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.”
Original
“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.
Original
CHAPTER I—HOW THE TIDE TURNED.
he 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.
Original
“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.
Original
CHAPTER II—THE NEW BOY.
do not mean to recount all the little troubles and annoyances which
thronged upon Tom at the beginning of this half-year, in his new character
of bear-leader to a gentle little boy straight from home. He seemed to
himself to have become a new boy again, without any of the long-suffering
and meekness indispensable for supporting that character with moderate
success. From morning till night he had the feeling of responsibility on
his mind, and even if he left Arthur in their study or in the close for an
hour, was never at ease till he had him in sight again. He waited for him
at the doors of the school after every lesson and every calling-over;
watched that no tricks were played him, and none but the regulation
questions asked; kept his eye on his plate at dinner and breakfast, to see
that no unfair depredations were made upon his viands; in short, as East
remarked, cackled after him like a hen with one chick.
Arthur took a long time thawing, too, which made it all the harder work;
was sadly timid; scarcely ever spoke unless Tom spoke to him first; and,
worst of all, would agree with him in everything—the hardest thing
in the world for a Brown to bear. He got quite angry sometimes, as they
sat together of a night in their study, at this provoking habit of
agreement, and was on the point of breaking out a dozen times with a
lecture upon the propriety of a fellow having a will of his own and
speaking out, but managed to restrain himself by the thought that he might
only frighten Arthur, and the remembrance of the lesson he had learnt from
him on his first night at Number 4. Then he would resolve to sit still and
not say a word till Arthur began; but he was always beat at that game, and
had presently to begin talking in despair, fearing lest Arthur might think
he was vexed at something if he didn’t, and dog-tired of sitting
tongue-tied.
It was hard work. But Tom had taken it up, and meant to stick to it, and
go through with it so as to satisfy himself; in which resolution he was
much assisted by the chafing of East and his other old friends, who began
to call him “dry-nurse,” and otherwise to break their small wit on him.
But when they took other ground, as they did every now and then, Tom was
sorely puzzled.
“Tell you what, Tommy,” East would say; “you’ll spoil young Hopeful with
too much coddling. Why can’t you let him go about by himself and find his
own level? He’ll never be worth a button if you go on keeping him under
your skirts.”
“Well, but he ain’t fit to fight his own way yet; I’m trying to get him to
it every day, but he’s very odd. Poor little beggar! I can’t make him out
a bit. He ain’t a bit like anything I’ve ever seen or heard of—he
seems all over nerves; anything you say seems to hurt him like a cut or a
blow.”
“That sort of boy’s no use here,” said East; “he’ll only spoil. Now I’ll
tell you what to do, Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box made, and put
him in with plenty of cotton-wool and a pap-bottle, labelled ‘With care—this
side up,’ and send him back to mamma.”
“I think I shall make a hand of him though,” said Tom, smiling, “say what
you will. There’s something about him, every now and then, which shows me
he’s got pluck somewhere in him. That’s the only thing after all that’ll
wash, ain’t it, old Scud? But how to get at it and bring it out?”
Tom took one hand out of his breeches-pocket and stuck it in his back hair
for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one method of
invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously puzzled look,
and presently looked up and met East’s eyes. That young gentleman slapped
him on the back, and then put his arm round his shoulder, as they strolled
through the quadrangle together. “Tom,” said he, “blest if you ain’t the
best old fellow ever was. I do like to see you go into a thing. Hang it, I
wish I could take things as you do; but I never can get higher than a
joke. Everything’s a joke. If I was going to be flogged next minute, I
should be in a blue funk, but I couldn’t help laughing at it for the life
of me.”
Original
“Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great fives court.”
“Hullo, though, that’s past a joke,” broke out East, springing at the
young gentleman who addressed them, and catching him by the collar.—“Here,
Tommy, catch hold of him t’other side before he can holla.”
The youth was seized, and dragged, struggling, out of the quadrangle into
the School-house hall. He was one of the miserable little pretty
white-handed, curly-headed boys, petted and pampered by some of the big
fellows, who wrote their verses for them, taught them to drink and use bad
language, and did all they could to spoil them for everything * in this
world and the next. One of the avocations in which these young gentlemen
took particular delight was in going about and getting fags for their
protectors, when those heroes were playing any game. They carried about
pencil and paper with them, putting down the names of all the boys they
sent, always sending five times as many as were wanted, and getting all
those thrashed who didn’t go. The present youth belonged to a house which
was very jealous of the School-house, and always picked out School-house
fags when he could find them. However, this time he’d got the wrong sow by
the ear. His captors slammed the great door of the hall, and East put his
back against it, while Tom gave the prisoner a shake up, took away his
list, and stood him up on the floor, while he proceeded leisurely to
examine that document.
“Let me out, let me go!” screamed the boy, in a furious passion. “I’ll go
and tell Jones this minute, and he’ll give you both the —- thrashing
you ever had.”
“Pretty little dear,” said East, patting the top of his hat.—“Hark
how he swears, Tom. Nicely brought up young man, ain’t he, I don’t think.”
“Let me alone, —- you,” roared the boy, foaming with rage, and
kicking at East, who quietly tripped him up, and deposited him on the
floor in a place of safety.
“Gently, young fellow,” said he; “’tain’t improving for little
whippersnappers like you to be indulging in blasphemy; so you stop that,
or you’ll get something you won’t like.”
“I’ll have you both licked when I get out, that I will,” rejoined the boy,
beginning to snivel.
“Two can play at that game, mind you,” said Tom, who had finished his
examination of the list. “Now you just listen here. We’ve just come across
the fives court, and Jones has four fags there already—two more than
he wants. If he’d wanted us to change, he’d have stopped us himself. And
here, you little blackguard, you’ve got seven names down on your list
besides ours, and five of them School-house.” Tom walked up to him, and
jerked him on to his legs; he was by this time whining like a whipped
puppy. “Now just listen to me. We ain’t going to fag for Jones. If you
tell him you’ve sent us, we’ll each of us give you such a thrashing as
you’ll remember.” And Tom tore up the list and threw the pieces into the
fire.
“And mind you, too,” said East, “don’t let me catch you again sneaking
about the School-house, and picking up our fags. You haven’t got the sort
of hide to take a sound licking kindly.” And he opened the door and sent
the young gentleman flying into the quadrangle with a parting kick.
“Nice boy, Tommy,” said East, shoving his hands in his pockets, and
strolling to the fire.
“Worst sort we breed,” responded Tom, following his example. “Thank
goodness, no big fellow ever took to petting me.”
“You’d never have been like that,” said East. “I should like to have put
him in a museum: Christian young gentleman, nineteenth century, highly
educated. Stir him up with a long pole, Jack, and hear him swear like a
drunken sailor. He’d make a respectable public open its eyes, I think.”
“Think he’ll tell Jones?” said Tom.
“No,” said East. “Don’t care if he does.”
“Nor I,” said Tom. And they went back to talk about Arthur.
The young gentleman had brains enough not to tell Jones, reasoning that
East and Brown, who were noted as some of the toughest fags in the School,
wouldn’t care three straws for any licking Jones might give them, and
would be likely to keep their words as to passing it on with interest.
After the above conversation, East came a good deal to their study, and
took notice of Arthur, and soon allowed to Tom that he was a thorough
little gentleman, and would get over his shyness all in good time; which
much comforted our hero. He felt every day, too, the value of having an
object in his life—something that drew him out of himself; and it
being the dull time of the year, and no games going about for which he
much cared, was happier than he had ever yet been at school, which was
saying a great deal.
The time which Tom allowed himself away from his charge was from
locking-up till supper-time. During this hour or hour and a half he used
to take his fling, going round to the studies of all his acquaintance,
sparring or gossiping in the hall, now jumping the old iron-bound tables,
or carving a bit of his name on them, then joining in some chorus of merry
voices—in fact, blowing off his steam, as we should now call it.
This process was so congenial to his temper, and Arthur showed himself so
pleased at the arrangement, that it was several weeks before Tom was ever
in their study before supper. One evening, however, he rushed in to look
for an old chisel, or some corks, or other article essential to his
pursuit for the time being, and while rummaging about in the cupboards,
looked up for a moment, and was caught at once by the figure of poor
little Arthur. The boy was sitting with his elbows on the table, and his
head leaning on his hands, and before him an open book, on which his tears
were falling fast. Tom shut the door at once, and sat down on the sofa by
Arthur, putting his arm round his neck.
“Why, young un, what’s the matter?” said he kindly; “you ain’t unhappy,
are you?”
“Oh no, Brown,” said the little boy, looking up with the great tears in
his eyes; “you are so kind to me, I’m very happy.”
“Why don’t you call me Tom? Lots of boys do that I don’t like half so much
as you. What are you reading, then? Hang it! you must come about with me,
and not mope yourself.” And Tom cast down his eyes on the book, and saw it
was the Bible. He was silent for a minute, and thought to himself, “Lesson
Number 2, Tom Brown;” and then said gently, “I’m very glad to see this,
Arthur, and ashamed that I don’t read the Bible more myself. Do you read
it every night before supper while I’m out?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I wish you’d wait till afterwards, and then we’d read together.
But, Arthur, why does it make you cry?”
“Oh, it isn’t that I’m unhappy. But at home, while my father was alive, we
always read the lessons after tea; and I love to read them over now, and
try to remember what he said about them. I can’t remember all and I think
I scarcely understand a great deal of what I do remember. But it all comes
back to me so fresh that I can’t help crying sometimes to think I shall
never read them again with him.”
Arthur had never spoken of his home before, and Tom hadn’t encouraged him
to do so, as his blundering schoolboy reasoning made him think that Arthur
would be softened and less manly for thinking of home. But now he was
fairly interested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled beer; while
with very little encouragement Arthur launched into his home history, and
the prayer-bell put them both out sadly when it rang to call them to the
hall.
From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, and above all, of his
father, who had been dead about a year, and whose memory Tom soon got to
love and reverence almost as much as his own son did.
Arthur’s father had been the clergyman of a parish in the Midland
counties, which had risen into a large town during the war, and upon which
the hard years which followed had fallen with fearful weight. The trade
had been half ruined; and then came the old, sad story, of masters
reducing their establishments, men turned off and wandering about, hungry
and wan in body, and fierce in soul, from the thought of wives and
children starving at home, and the last sticks of furniture going to the
pawnshop; children taken from school, and lounging about the dirty streets
and courts, too listless almost to play, and squalid in rags and misery;
and then the fearful struggle between the employers and men—lowerings
of wages, strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every
now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry. There is no
need here to dwell upon such tales: the Englishman into whose soul they
have not sunk deep is not worthy the name. You English boys, for whom this
book is meant (God bless your bright faces and kind hearts!), will learn
it all soon enough.
Into such a parish and state of society Arthur’s father had been thrown at
the age of twenty-five—a young married parson, full of faith, hope,
and love. He had battled with it like a man, and had lots of fine Utopian
ideas about the perfectibility of mankind, glorious humanity, and
such-like, knocked out of his head, and a real, wholesome Christian love
for the poor, struggling, sinning men, of whom he felt himself one, and
with and for whom he spent fortune, and strength, and life, driven into
his heart. He had battled like a man, and gotten a man’s reward—no
silver tea-pots or salvers, with flowery inscriptions setting forth his
virtues and the appreciation of a genteel parish; no fat living or stall,
for which he never looked, and didn’t care; no sighs and praises of
comfortable dowagers and well-got-up young women, who worked him slippers,
sugared his tea, and adored him as “a devoted man;” but a manly respect,
wrung from the unwilling souls of men who fancied his order their natural
enemies; the fear and hatred of every one who was false or unjust in the
district, were he master or man; and the blessed sight of women and
children daily becoming more human and more homely, a comfort to
themselves and to their husbands and fathers.
These things, of course, took time, and had to be fought for with toil and
sweat of brain and heart, and with the life-blood poured out. All that,
Arthur had laid his account to give, and took as a matter of course,
neither pitying himself, nor looking on himself as a martyr, when he felt
the wear and tear making him feel old before his time, and the stifling
air of fever-dens telling on his health. His wife seconded him in
everything. She had been rather fond of society, and much admired and run
after before her marriage; and the London world to which she had belonged
pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she married the young clergyman, and went to
settle in that smoky hole Turley; a very nest of Chartism and Atheism, in
a part of the country which all the decent families had had to leave for
years. However, somehow or other she didn’t seem to care. If her husband’s
living had been amongst green fields and near pleasant neighbours she
would have liked it better—that she never pretended to deny. But
there they were. The air wasn’t bad, after all; the people were very good
sort of people—civil to you if you were civil to them, after the
first brush; and they didn’t expect to work miracles, and convert them all
off-hand into model Christians. So he and she went quietly among the folk,
talking to and treating them just as they would have done people of their
own rank. They didn’t feel that they were doing anything out of the common
way, and so were perfectly natural, and had none of that condescension or
consciousness of manner which so outrages the independent poor. And thus
they gradually won respect and confidence; and after sixteen years he was
looked up to by the whole neighbourhood as the just man, the man to whom
masters and men could go in their strikes, and in all their quarrels and
difficulties, and by whom the right and true word would be said without
fear or favour. And the women had come round to take her advice, and go to
her as a friend in all their troubles; while the children all worshipped
the very ground she trod on.
They had three children, two daughters and a son, little Arthur, who came
between his sisters. He had been a very delicate boy from his childhood;
they thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so he had been kept at
home and taught by his father, who had made a companion of him, and from
whom he had gained good scholarship, and a knowledge of and interest in
many subjects which boys in general never come across till they are many
years older.
Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had settled that he
was strong enough to go to school, and, after much debating with himself,
had resolved to send him there, a desperate typhus fever broke out in the
town. Most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors, ran away; the
work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to their work. Arthur and
his wife both caught the fever, of which he died in a few days; and she
recovered, having been able to nurse him to the end, and store up his last
words. He was sensible to the last, and calm and happy, leaving his wife
and children with fearless trust for a few years in the hands of the Lord
and Friend who had lived and died for him, and for whom he, to the best of
his power, had lived and died. His widow’s mourning was deep and gentle.
She was more affected by the request of the committee of a freethinking
club, established in the town by some of the factory hands (which he had
striven against with might and main, and nearly suppressed), that some of
their number might be allowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything
else. Two of them were chosen, who, with six other labouring men, his own
fellow-workmen and friends, bore him to his grave—a man who had
fought the Lord’s fight even unto the death. The shops were closed and the
factories shut that day in the parish, yet no master stopped the day’s
wages; but for many a year afterwards the townsfolk felt the want of that
brave, hopeful, loving parson and his wife, who had lived to teach them
mutual forbearance and helpfulness, and had almost at last given them a
glimpse of what this old world would be if people would live for God and
each other instead of for themselves.
What has all this to do with our story? Well, my dear boys, let a fellow
go on his own way, or you won’t get anything out of him worth having. I
must show you what sort of a man it was who had begotten and trained
little Arthur, or else you won’t believe in him, which I am resolved you
shall do; and you won’t see how he, the timid, weak boy, had points in him
from which the bravest and strongest recoiled, and made his presence and
example felt from the first on all sides, unconsciously to himself, and
without the least attempt at proselytizing. The spirit of his father was
in him, and the Friend to whom his father had left him did not neglect the
trust.
After supper that night, and almost nightly for years afterwards, Tom and
Arthur, and by degrees East occasionally, and sometimes one, sometimes
another, of their friends, read a chapter of the Bible together, and
talked it over afterwards. Tom was at first utterly astonished, and almost
shocked, at the sort of way in which Arthur read the book and talked about
the men and women whose lives were there told. The first night they
happened to fall on the chapters about the famine in Egypt, and Arthur
began talking about Joseph as if he were a living statesman—just as
he might have talked about Lord Grey and the Reform Bill, only that they
were much more living realities to him. The book was to him, Tom saw, the
most vivid and delightful history of real people, who might do right or
wrong, just like any one who was walking about in Rugby—the Doctor,
or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. But the astonishment soon passed
off, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became at once
and for ever to him the great human and divine book, and the men and
women, whom he had looked upon as something quite different from himself,
became his friends and counsellors.
For our purposes, however, the history of one night’s reading will be
sufficient, which must be told here, now we are on the subject, though it
didn’t happen till a year afterwards, and long after the events recorded
in the next chapter of our story.
Arthur, Tom, and East were together one night, and read the story of
Naaman coming to Elisha to be cured of his leprosy. When the chapter was
finished, Tom shut his Bible with a slap.
Original
“I can’t stand that fellow Naaman,” said he, “after what he’d seen and
felt, going back and bowing himself down in the house of Rimmon, because
his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. I wonder Elisha took the
trouble to heal him. How he must have despised him!”
“Yes; there you go off as usual, with a shell on your head,” struck in
East, who always took the opposite side to Tom, half from love of
argument, half from conviction. “How do you know he didn’t think better of
it? How do you know his master was a scoundrel? His letter don’t look like
it, and the book don’t say so.”
“I don’t care,” rejoined Tom; “why did Naaman talk about bowing down,
then, if he didn’t mean to do it? He wasn’t likely to get more in earnest
when he got back to court, and away from the prophet.”
“Well, but, Tom,” said Arthur, “look what Elisha says to him—’Go in
peace.’ He wouldn’t have said that if Naaman had been in the wrong.”
“I don’t see that that means more than saying, ‘You’re not the man I took
you for.’”
“No, no; that won’t do at all,” said East. “Read the words fairly, and
take men as you find them. I like Naaman, and think he was a very fine
fellow.”
“I don’t,” said Tom positively.
“Well, I think East is right,” said Arthur; “I can’t see but what it’s
right to do the best you can, though it mayn’t be the best absolutely.
Every man isn’t born to be a martyr.”
“Of course, of course,” said East; “but he’s on one of his pet hobbies.—How
often have I told you, Tom, that you must drive a nail where it’ll go.”
“And how often have I told you,” rejoined Tom, “that it’ll always go where
you want, if you only stick to it and hit hard enough. I hate
half-measures and compromises.”
“Yes, he’s a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must have the whole animal-hair and
teeth, claws and tail,” laughed East. “Sooner have no bread any day than
half the loaf.”
“I don’t know;” said Arthur—“it’s rather puzzling; but ain’t most
right things got by proper compromises—I mean where the principle
isn’t given up?”
“That’s just the point,” said Tom; “I don’t object to a compromise, where
you don’t give up your principle.”
“Not you,” said East laughingly.—“I know him of old, Arthur, and
you’ll find him out some day. There isn’t such a reasonable fellow in the
world, to hear him talk. He never wants anything but what’s right and
fair; only when you come to settle what’s right and fair, it’s everything
that he wants, and nothing that you want. And that’s his idea of a
compromise. Give me the Brown compromise when I’m on his side.”
“Now, Harry,” said Tom, “no more chaff. I’m serious. Look here. This is
what makes my blood tingle.” And he turned over the pages of his Bible and
read, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, O
Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be
so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be
it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship
the golden image which thou hast set up.” He read the last verse twice,
emphasizing the nots, and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual
pleasure, and were hard to part with.
They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, “Yes, that’s a glorious
story, but it don’t prove your point, Tom, I think. There are times when
there is only one way, and that the highest, and then the men are found to
stand in the breach.”
“There’s always a highest way, and it’s always the right one,” said Tom.
“How many times has the Doctor told us that in his sermons in the last
year, I should like to know?”
“Well, you ain’t going to convince us—is he, Arthur? No Brown
compromise to-night,” said East, looking at his watch. “But it’s past
eight, and we must go to first lesson. What a bore!”
So they took down their books and fell to work; but Arthur didn’t forget,
and thought long and often over the conversation.
Original
CHAPTER III—ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND.
bout six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom and Arthur were
sitting one night before supper beginning their verses, Arthur suddenly
stopped, and looked up, and said, “Tom, do you know anything of Martin?”
“Yes,” said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, and delighted to
throw his Gradus ad Parnassum on to the sofa; “I know him pretty well.
He’s a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. He’s called Madman, you
know. And never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of rum things
about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used to carry them about in
his pocket; and I’ll be bound he’s got some hedgehogs and rats in his
cupboard now, and no one knows what besides.”
“I should like very much to know him,” said Arthur; “he was next to me in
the form to-day, and he’d lost his book and looked over mine, and he
seemed so kind and gentle that I liked him very much.”
“Ah, poor old Madman, he’s always losing his books,” said Tom, “and
getting called up and floored because he hasn’t got them.”
“I like him all the better,” said Arthur.
“Well, he’s great fun, I can tell you,” said Tom, throwing himself back on
the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. “We had such a game with him
one day last half. He had been kicking up horrid stinks for some time in
his study, till I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor.
Anyhow, one day a little before dinner, when he came down from the
library, the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the hall.
East and I and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously
we stared, for he don’t come in like that once a year, unless it is a wet
day and there’s a fight in the hall. ‘East,’ says he, ‘just come and show
me Martin’s study.’ ‘Oh, here’s a game,’ whispered the rest of us; and we
all cut upstairs after the Doctor, East leading. As we got into the New
Row, which was hardly wide enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, click,
click, click, we heard in the old Madman’s den. Then that stopped all of a
sudden, and the bolts went to like fun. The Madman knew East’s step, and
thought there was going to be a siege.
“’It’s the Doctor, Martin. He’s here and wants to see you,’ sings out
East.
“Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, and there was the
old Madman standing, looking precious scared—his jacket off, his
shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms all covered with
anchors and arrows and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a
sailor-boy’s, and a stink fit to knock you down coming out. ‘Twas all the
Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in
under his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the
window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and
half-poisoned.
“’What can you be about, Martin?’ says the Doctor. ‘You really mustn’t go
on in this way; you’re a nuisance to the whole passage.’
Original
“’Please, sir, I was only mixing up this powder; there isn’t any harm in
it. And the Madman seized nervously on his pestle and mortar, to show the
Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, and went on pounding—click,
click, click. He hadn’t given six clicks before, puff! up went the whole
into a great blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across the study, and
back we tumbled into the passage. The magpie fluttered down into the
court, swearing, and the Madman danced out, howling, with his fingers in
his mouth. The Doctor caught hold of him, and called to us to fetch some
water. ‘There, you silly fellow,’ said he, quite pleased, though, to find
he wasn’t much hurt, ‘you see you don’t know the least what you’re doing
with all these things; and now, mind, you must give up practising
chemistry by yourself.’ Then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, and
I saw he had to bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled; but he said, quite
grave, ‘Here, you see, you’ve been making all these foolish marks on
yourself, which you can never get out, and you’ll be very sorry for it in
a year or two. Now come down to the housekeeper’s room, and let us see if
you are hurt.’ And away went the two, and we all stayed and had a regular
turn-out of the den, till Martin came back with his hand bandaged and
turned us out. However, I’ll go and see what he’s after, and tell him to
come in after prayers to supper.” And away went Tom to find the boy in
question, who dwelt in a little study by himself, in New Row.
The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken such a fancy for, was one of
those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are, I fear, still)
quite out of their places at a public school. If we knew how to use our
boys, Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a natural
philosopher. He had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew
more of them and their habits than any one in Rugby—except perhaps
the Doctor, who knew everything. He was also an experimental chemist on a
small scale, and had made unto himself an electric machine, from which it
was his greatest pleasure and glory to administer small shocks to any
small boys who were rash enough to venture into his study. And this was by
no means an adventure free from excitement; for besides the probability of
a snake dropping on to your head or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat
getting into your breeches-pocket in search of food, there was the animal
and chemical odour to be faced, which always hung about the den, and the
chance of being blown up in some of the many experiments which Martin was
always trying, with the most wondrous results in the shape of explosions
and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. Of course, poor Martin, in
consequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in the house. In the
first place, he half-poisoned all his neighbours, and they in turn were
always on the lookout to pounce upon any of his numerous live-stock, and
drive him frantic by enticing his pet old magpie out of his window into a
neighbouring study, and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast
soaked in beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited a study
looking into a small court some ten feet across, the window of which was
completely commanded by those of the studies opposite in the Sick-room
Row, these latter being at a slightly higher elevation. East, and another
boy of an equally tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived exactly
opposite, and had expended huge pains and time in the preparation of
instruments of annoyance for the behoof of Martin and his live colony. One
morning an old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord
outside Martin’s window, in which were deposited an amateur nest
containing four young hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Martin’s
life, for the time being, and which he was currently asserted to have
hatched upon his own person. Early in the morning and late at night he was
to be seen half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his
callow brood. After deep cogitation, East and his chum had spliced a knife
on to the end of a fishing-rod; and having watched Martin out, had, after
half an hour’s severe sawing, cut the string by which the basket was
suspended, and tumbled it on to the pavement below, with hideous
remonstrance from the occupants. Poor Martin, returning from his short
absence, collected the fragments and replaced his brood (except one whose
neck had been broken in the descent) in their old location, suspending
them this time by string and wire twisted together, defiant of any sharp
instrument which his persecutors could command. But, like the Russian
engineers at Sebastopol, East and his chum had an answer for every move of
the adversary, and the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a
pea-shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear exactly
upon the spot which Martin had to occupy while tending his nurslings. The
moment he began to feed they began to shoot. In vain did the enemy himself
invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavour to answer the fire while he fed the
young birds with his other hand; his attention was divided, and his shots
flew wild, while every one of theirs told on his face and hands, and drove
him into howlings and imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce the
nest in a corner of his already too-well-filled den.
His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of his own invention,
for the sieges were frequent by the neighbours when any unusually
ambrosial odour spread itself from the den to the neighbouring studies.
The door panels were in a normal state of smash, but the frame of the door
resisted all besiegers, and behind it the owner carried on his varied
pursuits—much in the same state of mind, I should fancy, as a
border-farmer lived in, in the days of the moss-troopers, when his hold
might be summoned or his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day.
“Open, Martin, old boy; it’s only I, Tom Brown.”
“Oh, very well; stop a moment.” One bolt went back. “You’re sure East
isn’t there?”
“No, no; hang it, open.” Tom gave a kick, the other bolt creaked, and he
entered the den.
Den indeed it was—about five feet six inches long by five wide, and
seven feet high. About six tattered school-books, and a few chemical
books, Taxidermy, Stanley on Birds, and an odd volume of Bewick, the
latter in much better preservation, occupied the top shelves. The other
shelves, where they had not been cut away and used by the owner for other
purposes, were fitted up for the abiding-places of birds, beasts, and
reptiles. There was no attempt at carpet or curtain. The table was
entirely occupied by the great work of Martin, the electric machine, which
was covered carefully with the remains of his table-cloth. The jackdaw
cage occupied one wall; and the other was adorned by a small hatchet, a
pair of climbing irons, and his tin candle-box, in which he was for the
time being endeavouring to raise a hopeful young family of field-mice. As
nothing should be let to lie useless, it was well that the candle-box was
thus occupied, for candles Martin never had. A pound was issued to him
weekly, as to the other boys; but as candles were available capital, and
easily exchangeable for birds’ eggs or young birds, Martin’s pound
invariably found its way in a few hours to Howlett’s the bird-fancier’s,
in the Bilton road, who would give a hawk’s or nightingale’s egg or young
linnet in exchange. Martin’s ingenuity was therefore for ever on the rack
to supply himself with a light. Just now he had hit upon a grand
invention, and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton wick issuing from a
ginger-beer bottle full of some doleful composition. When light altogether
failed him, Martin would loaf about by the fires in the passages or hall,
after the manner of Diggs, and try to do his verses or learn his lines by
the firelight.
“Well, old boy, you haven’t got any sweeter in the den this half. How that
stuff in the bottle stinks! Never mind; I ain’t going to stop; but you
come up after prayers to our study. You know young Arthur. We’ve got
Gray’s study. We’ll have a good supper and talk about bird-nesting.”
Martin was evidently highly pleased at the invitation, and promised to be
up without fail.
As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and fifth form boys had
withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of their own room, and the rest,
or democracy, had sat down to their supper in the hall, Tom and Arthur,
having secured their allowances of bread and cheese, started on their feet
to catch the eye of the praepostor of the week, who remained in charge
during supper, walking up and down the hall. He happened to be an
easy-going fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to their “Please may I go
out?” and away they scrambled to prepare for Martin a sumptuous banquet.
This Tom had insisted on, for he was in great delight on the occasion, the
reason of which delight must be expounded. The fact was that this was the
first attempt at a friendship of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom
hailed it as a grand step. The ease with which he himself became
hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, and blundered into and out of twenty
friendships a half-year, made him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at
Arthur’s reserve and loneliness. True, Arthur was always pleasant, and
even jolly, with any boys who came with Tom to their study; but Tom felt
that it was only through him, as it were, that his chum associated with
others, and that but for him Arthur would have been dwelling in a
wilderness. This increased his consciousness of responsibility; and though
he hadn’t reasoned it out and made it clear to himself yet somehow he knew
that this responsibility, this trust which he had taken on him without
thinking about it, head over heels in fact, was the centre and
turning-point of his school-life, that which was to make him or mar him,
his appointed work and trial for the time being. And Tom was becoming a
new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the dirt and perpetual hard
battle with himself, and was daily growing in manfulness and
thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and well-principled boy must, when
he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self and the
devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh from the School-gates,
from which had just scampered off East and three or four others of his own
particular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite according to law, and
involving probably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-labourers, the
skipping dinner or calling-over, some of Phoebe Jennings’s beer, and a
very possible flogging at the end of all as a relish. He had quite got
over the stage in which he would grumble to himself—“Well, hang it,
it’s very hard of the Doctor to have saddled me with Arthur. Why couldn’t
he have chummed him with Fogey, or Thomkin, or any of the fellows who
never do anything but walk round the close, and finish their copies the
first day they’re set?” But although all this was past, he longed, and
felt that he was right in longing, for more time for the legitimate
pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing, and fishing, within bounds, in which
Arthur could not yet be his companion; and he felt that when the “young
un” (as he now generally called him) had found a pursuit and some other
friend for himself, he should be able to give more time to the education
of his own body with a clear conscience.
And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he almost hailed it as a
special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the reasons he gave for
it—what providences are?) that Arthur should have singled out Martin
of all fellows for a friend. “The old Madman is the very fellow,” thought
he; “he will take him scrambling over half the country after birds’ eggs
and flowers, make him run and swim and climb like an Indian, and not teach
him a word of anything bad, or keep him from his lessons. What luck!” And
so, with more than his usual heartiness, he dived into his cupboard, and
hauled out an old knuckle-bone of ham, and two or three bottles of beer,
together with the solemn pewter only used on state occasions; while
Arthur, equally elated at the easy accomplishment of his first act of
volition in the joint establishment, produced from his side a bottle of
pickles and a pot of jam, and cleared the table. In a minute or two the
noise of the boys coming up from supper was heard, and Martin knocked and
was admitted, bearing his bread and cheese; and the three fell to with
hearty good-will upon the viands, talking faster than they ate, for all
shyness disappeared in a moment before Tom’s bottled-beer and hospitable
ways. “Here’s Arthur, a regular young town-mouse, with a natural taste for
the woods, Martin, longing to break his neck climbing trees, and with a
passion for young snakes.”
“Well, I say,” sputtered out Martin eagerly, “will you come to-morrow,
both of you, to Caldecott’s Spinney then? for I know of a kestrel’s nest,
up a fir-tree. I can’t get at it without help; and, Brown, you can climb
against any one.”
“Oh yes, do let us go,” said Arthur; “I never saw a hawk’s nest nor a
hawk’s egg.”
“You just come down to my study, then, and I’ll show you five sorts,” said
Martin.
“Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection in the house, out and
out,” said Tom; and then Martin, warming with unaccustomed good cheer and
the chance of a convert, launched out into a proposed bird-nesting
campaign, betraying all manner of important secrets—a golden-crested
wren’s nest near Butlin’s Mound, a moor-hen who was sitting on nine eggs
in a pond down the Barby road, and a kingfisher’s nest in a corner of the
old canal above Brownsover Mill. He had heard, he said, that no one had
ever got a kingfisher’s nest out perfect, and that the British Museum, or
the Government, or somebody, had offered 100 pounds to any one who could
bring them a nest and eggs not damaged. In the middle of which astounding
announcement, to which the others were listening with open ears, and
already considering the application of the 100 pounds, a knock came to the
door, and East’s voice was heard craving admittance.
“There’s Harry,” said Tom; “we’ll let him in. I’ll keep him steady,
Martin. I thought the old boy would smell out the supper.”
The fact was, that Tom’s heart had already smitten him for not asking his
fidus Achates to the feast, although only an extempore affair; and though
prudence and the desire to get Martin and Arthur together alone at first
had overcome his scruples, he was now heartily glad to open the door,
broach another bottle of beer, and hand over the old ham-knuckle to the
searching of his old friend’s pocket-knife.
“Ah, you greedy vagabonds,” said East, with his mouth full, “I knew there
was something going on when I saw you cut off out of hall so quick with
your suppers. What a stunning tap, Tom! You are a wunner for bottling the
swipes.”
“I’ve had practice enough for the sixth in my time, and it’s hard if I
haven’t picked up a wrinkle or two for my own benefit.”
“Well, old Madman, and how goes the bird-nesting campaign? How’s Howlett?
I expect the young rooks’ll be out in another fortnight, and then my turn
comes.”
“There’ll be no young rooks fit for pies for a month yet; shows how much
you know about it,” rejoined Martin, who, though very good friends with
East, regarded him with considerable suspicion for his propensity to
practical jokes.
“Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub and mischief,” said
Tom; “but young rook pie, specially when you’ve had to climb for them, is
very pretty eating.—However, I say, Scud, we’re all going after a
hawk’s nest to-morrow, in Caldecott’s Spinney; and if you’ll come and
behave yourself, we’ll have a stunning climb.”
“And a bathe in Aganippe. Hooray! I’m your man.”
“No, no; no bathing in Aganippe; that’s where our betters go.”
“Well, well, never mind. I’m for the hawk’s nest, and anything that turns
up.”
And the bottled-beer being finished, and his hunger appeased, East
departed to his study, “that sneak Jones,” as he informed them, who had
just got into the sixth, and occupied the next study, having instituted a
nightly visitation upon East and his chum, to their no small discomfort.
When he was gone Martin rose to follow, but Tom stopped him. “No one goes
near New Row,” said he, “so you may just as well stop here and do your
verses, and then we’ll have some more talk. We’ll be no end quiet.
Besides, no praepostor comes here now. We haven’t been visited once this
half.”
So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the three fell to work
with Gradus and dictionary upon the morning’s vulgus.
They were three very fair examples of the way in which such tasks were
done at Rugby, in the consulship of Plancus. And doubtless the method is
little changed, for there is nothing new under the sun, especially at
schools.
Now be it known unto all you boys who are at schools which do not rejoice
in the time-honoured institution of the vulgus (commonly supposed to have
been established by William of Wykeham at Winchester, and imported to
Rugby by Arnold more for the sake of the lines which were learnt by heart
with it than for its own intrinsic value, as I’ve always understood), that
it is a short exercise in Greek or Latin verse, on a given subject, the
minimum number of lines being fixed for each form.
The master of the form gave out at fourth lesson on the previous day the
subject for next morning’s vulgus, and at first lesson each boy had to
bring his vulgus ready to be looked over; and with the vulgus, a certain
number of lines from one of the Latin or Greek poets then being construed
in the form had to be got by heart. The master at first lesson called up
each boy in the form in order, and put him on in the lines. If he couldn’t
say them, or seem to say them, by reading them off the master’s or some
other boy’s book who stood near, he was sent back, and went below all the
boys who did so say or seem to say them; but in either case his vulgus was
looked over by the master, who gave and entered in his book, to the credit
or discredit of the boy, so many marks as the composition merited. At
Rugby vulgus and lines were the first lesson every other day in the week,
on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; and as there were thirty-eight
weeks in the school year, it is obvious to the meanest capacity that the
master of each form had to set one hundred and fourteen subjects every
year, two hundred and twenty-eight every two years, and so on. Now, to
persons of moderate invention this was a considerable task, and human
nature being prone to repeat itself, it will not be wondered that the
masters gave the same subjects sometimes over again after a certain lapse
of time. To meet and rebuke this bad habit of the masters, the schoolboy
mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented an elaborate system of
tradition. Almost every boy kept his own vulgus written out in a book, and
these books were duly handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition
has gone on till now) I suppose the popular boys, in whose hands
bequeathed vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with three or four
vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in “more worlds than one,”
which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. At any rate, such lucky
fellows had generally one for themselves and one for a friend in my time.
The only objection to the traditionary method of doing your vulguses was
the risk that the successions might have become confused, and so that you
and another follower of traditions should show up the same identical
vulgus some fine morning; in which case, when it happened, considerable
grief was the result. But when did such risk hinder boys or men from short
cuts and pleasant paths?
Now in the study that night Tom was the upholder of the traditionary
method of vulgus doing. He carefully produced two large vulgus-books, and
began diving into them, and picking out a line here, and an ending there
(tags, as they were vulgarly called), till he had gotten all that he
thought he could make fit. He then proceeded to patch his tags together
with the help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous and feeble result of
eight elegiac lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up
with two highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed
entire from one of his books, beginning “O genus humanum,” and which he
himself must have used a dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or
wicked hero, of whatever nation or language under the sun, was the
subject. Indeed he began to have great doubts whether the master wouldn’t
remember them, and so only throw them in as extra lines, because in any
case they would call off attention from the other tags, and if detected,
being extra lines, he wouldn’t be sent back to do more in their place,
while if they passed muster again he would get marks for them.
The second method, pursued by Martin, may be called the dogged or prosaic
method. He, no more than Tom, took any pleasure in the task, but having no
old vulgus-books of his own, or any one’s else, could not follow the
traditionary method, for which too, as Tom remarked, he hadn’t the genius.
Martin then proceeded to write down eight lines in English, of the most
matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into his head; and to convert
these, line by line, by main force of Gradus and dictionary into Latin
that would scan. This was all he cared for—to produce eight lines
with no false quantities or concords: whether the words were apt, or what
the sense was, mattered nothing; and as the article was all new, not a
line beyond the minimum did the followers of the dogged method ever
produce.
The third, or artistic method, was Arthur’s. He considered first what
point in the character or event which was the subject could most neatly be
brought out within the limits of a vulgus, trying always to get his idea
into the eight lines, but not binding himself to ten or even twelve lines
if he couldn’t do this. He then set to work as much as possible without
Gradus or other help, to clothe his idea in appropriate Latin or Greek,
and would not be satisfied till he had polished it well up with the aptest
and most poetic words and phrases he could get at.
A fourth method, indeed, was used in the school, but of too simple a kind
to require a comment. It may be called the vicarious method, obtained
amongst big boys of lazy or bullying habits, and consisted simply in
making clever boys whom they could thrash do their whole vulgus for them,
and construe it to them afterwards; which latter is a method not to be
encouraged, and which I strongly advise you all not to practise. Of the
others, you will find the traditionary most troublesome, unless you can
steal your vulguses whole (experto crede), and that the artistic method
pays the best both in marks and other ways.
The vulguses being finished by nine o’clock, and Martin having rejoiced
above measure in the abundance of light, and of Gradus and dictionary, and
other conveniences almost unknown to him for getting through the work, and
having been pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses there whenever he
liked, the three boys went down to Martin’s den, and Arthur was initiated
into the lore of birds’ eggs, to his great delight. The exquisite
colouring and forms astonished and charmed him, who had scarcely ever seen
any but a hen’s egg or an ostrich’s, and by the time he was lugged away to
bed he had learned the names of at least twenty sorts, and dreamed of the
glorious perils of tree-climbing, and that he had found a roc’s egg in the
island as big as Sinbad’s, and clouded like a tit-lark’s, in blowing which
Martin and he had nearly been drowned in the yolk.
Original
CHAPTER IV—THE BIRD-FANCIERS.
he next morning, at first lesson, Tom was turned back in his lines, and
so had to wait till the second round; while Martin and Arthur said theirs
all right, and got out of school at once. When Tom got out and ran down to
breakfast at Harrowell’s they were missing, and Stumps informed him that
they had swallowed down their breakfasts and gone off together—where,
he couldn’t say. Tom hurried over his own breakfast, and went first to
Martin’s study and then to his own; but no signs of the missing boys were
to be found. He felt half angry and jealous of Martin. Where could they be
gone?
He learnt second lesson with East and the rest in no very good temper, and
then went out into the quadrangle. About ten minutes before school Martin
and Arthur arrived in the quadrangle breathless; and catching sight of
him, Arthur rushed up, all excitement, and with a bright glow on his face.
“O Tom, look here!” cried he, holding out three moor-hen’s eggs; “we’ve
been down the Barby road, to the pool Martin told us of last night, and
just see what we’ve got.”
Tom wouldn’t be pleased, and only looked out for something to find fault
with.
“Why, young un,” said he, “what have you been after? You don’t mean to say
you’ve been wading?”
The tone of reproach made poor little Arthur shrink up in a moment and
look piteous; and Tom with a shrug of his shoulders turned his anger on
Martin.
“Well, I didn’t think, Madman, that you’d have been such a muff as to let
him be getting wet through at this time of day. You might have done the
wading yourself.”
“So I did, of course; only he would come in too, to see the nest. We left
six eggs in. They’ll be hatched in a day or two.”
“Hang the eggs!” said Tom; “a fellow can’t turn his back for a moment but
all his work’s undone. He’ll be laid up for a week for this precious lark,
I’ll be bound.”
“Indeed, Tom, now,” pleaded Arthur, “my feet ain’t wet, for Martin made me
take off my shoes and stockings and trousers.”
“But they are wet, and dirty too; can’t I see?” answered Tom; “and you’ll
be called up and floored when the master sees what a state you’re in. You
haven’t looked at second lesson, you know.”
O Tom, you old humbug! you to be upbraiding any one with not learning
their lessons! If you hadn’t been floored yourself now at first lesson, do
you mean to say you wouldn’t have been with them? And you’ve taken away
all poor little Arthur’s joy and pride in his first birds’ eggs, and he
goes and puts them down in the study, and takes down his books with a
sigh, thinking he has done something horribly wrong, whereas he has learnt
on in advance much more than will be done at second lesson.
But the old Madman hasn’t, and gets called up, and makes some frightful
shots, losing about ten places, and all but getting floored. This somewhat
appeases Tom’s wrath, and by the end of the lesson he has regained his
temper. And afterwards in their study he begins to get right again, as he
watches Arthur’s intense joy at seeing Martin blowing the eggs and gluing
them carefully on to bits of cardboard, and notes the anxious, loving
looks which the little fellow casts sidelong at him. And then he thinks,
“What an ill-tempered beast I am! Here’s just what I was wishing for last
night come about, and I’m spoiling it all,” and in another five minutes
has swallowed the last mouthful of his bile, and is repaid by seeing his
little sensitive plant expand again and sun itself in his smiles.
After dinner the Madman is busy with the preparations for their
expedition, fitting new straps on to his climbing-irons, filling large
pill-boxes with cotton-wool, and sharpening East’s small axe. They carry
all their munitions into calling-overs and directly afterwards, having
dodged such praepostors as are on the lookout for fags at cricket, the four
set off at a smart trot down the Lawford footpath, straight for
Caldecott’s Spinney and the hawk’s nest.
Martin leads the way in high feather; it is quite a new sensation to him,
getting companions, and he finds it very pleasant, and means to show them
all manner of proofs of his science and skill. Brown and East may be
better at cricket and football and games, thinks he, but out in the fields
and woods see if I can’t teach them something. He has taken the leadership
already, and strides away in front with his climbing-irons strapped under
one arm, his pecking-bag under the other, and his pockets and hat full of
pill-boxes, cotton-wool, and other etceteras. Each of the others carries a
pecking-bag, and East his hatchet.
When they had crossed three or four fields without a check, Arthur began
to lag; and Tom seeing this shouted to Martin to pull up a bit. “We ain’t
out hare-and-hounds. What’s the good of grinding on at this rate?”
“There’s the Spinney,” said Martin, pulling up on the brow of a slope at
the bottom of which lay Lawford brook, and pointing to the top of the
opposite slope; “the nest is in one of those high fir-trees at this end.
And down by the brook there I know of a sedge-bird’s nest. We’ll go and
look at it coming back.”
“Oh, come on, don’t let us stop,” said Arthur, who was getting excited at
the sight of the wood. So they broke into a trot again, and were soon
across the brook, up the slope, and into the Spinney. Here they advanced
as noiselessly as possible, lest keepers or other enemies should be about,
and stopped at the foot of a tall fir, at the top of which Martin pointed
out with pride the kestrel’s nest, the object of their quest.
“Oh, where? which is it?” asks Arthur, gaping up in the air, and having
the most vague idea of what it would be like.
“There, don’t you see?” said East, pointing to a lump of mistletoe in the
next tree, which was a beech. He saw that Martin and Tom were busy with
the climbing-irons, and couldn’t resist the temptation of hoaxing. Arthur
stared and wondered more than ever.
“Well, how curious! It doesn’t look a bit like what I expected,” said he.
“Very odd birds, kestrels,” said East, looking waggishly at his victim,
who was still star-gazing.
“But I thought it was in a fir-tree?” objected Arthur.
“Ah, don’t you know? That’s a new sort of fir which old Caldecott brought
from the Himalayas.”
“Really!” said Arthur; “I’m glad I know that. How unlike our firs they
are! They do very well too here, don’t they? The Spinney’s full of them.”
“What’s that humbug he’s telling you?” cried Tom, looking up, having
caught the word Himalayas, and suspecting what East was after.
“Only about this fir,” said Arthur, putting his hand on the stem of the
beech.
“Fir!” shouted Tom; “why, you don’t mean to say, young un, you don’t know
a beech when you see one?”
Poor little Arthur looked terribly ashamed, and East exploded in laughter
which made the wood ring.
“I’ve hardly ever seen any trees,” faltered Arthur.
“What a shame to hoax him, Scud!” cried Martin.—“Never mind, Arthur;
you shall know more about trees than he does in a week or two.”
“And isn’t that the kestrel’s nest, then?” asked Arthur. “That! Why,
that’s a piece of mistletoe. There’s the nest, that lump of sticks up this
fir.”
“Don’t believe him, Arthur,” struck in the incorrigible East; “I just saw
an old magpie go out of it.”
Martin did not deign to reply to this sally, except by a grunt, as he
buckled the last buckle of his climbing-irons, and Arthur looked
reproachfully at East without speaking.
But now came the tug of war. It was a very difficult tree to climb until
the branches were reached, the first of which was some fourteen feet up,
for the trunk was too large at the bottom to be swarmed; in fact, neither
of the boys could reach more than half round it with their arms. Martin
and Tom, both of whom had irons on, tried it without success at first; the
fir bark broke away where they stuck the irons in as soon as they leant
any weight on their feet, and the grip of their arms wasn’t enough to keep
them up; so, after getting up three or four feet, down they came
slithering to the ground, barking their arms and faces. They were furious,
and East sat by laughing and shouting at each failure, “Two to one on the
old magpie!”
“We must try a pyramid,” said Tom at last. “Now, Scud, you lazy rascal,
stick yourself against the tree!”
Original
“I dare say! and have you standing on my shoulders with the irons on. What
do you think my skin’s made of?” However, up he got, and leant against the
tree, putting his head down and clasping it with his arms as far as he
could.
“Now then, Madman,” said Tom, “you next.”
“No, I’m lighter than you; you go next.” So Tom got on East’s shoulders,
and grasped the tree above, and then Martin scrambled up on to Tom’s
shoulders, amidst the totterings and groanings of the pyramid, and, with a
spring which sent his supporters howling to the ground, clasped the stem
some ten feet up, and remained clinging. For a moment or two they thought
he couldn’t get up; but then, holding on with arms and teeth, he worked
first one iron then the other firmly into the bark, got another grip with
his arms, and in another minute had hold of the lowest branch.
“All up with the old magpie now,” said East; and after a minute’s rest, up
went Martin, hand over hand, watched by Arthur with fearful eagerness.
“Isn’t it very dangerous?” said he.
“Not a bit,” answered Tom; “you can’t hurt if you only get good hand-hold.
Try every branch with a good pull before you trust it, and then up you
go.”
Martin was now amongst the small branches close to the nest, and away
dashed the old bird, and soared up above the trees, watching the intruder.
“All right—four eggs!” shouted he.
“Take ’em all!” shouted East; “that’ll be one a-piece.”
“No, no; leave one, and then she won’t care,” said Tom.
We boys had an idea that birds couldn’t count, and were quite content as
long as you left one egg. I hope it is so.
Martin carefully put one egg into each of his boxes and the third into his
mouth, the only other place of safety, and came down like a lamplighter.
All went well till he was within ten feet of the ground, when, as the
trunk enlarged, his hold got less and less firm, and at last down he came
with a run, tumbling on to his back on the turf, spluttering and spitting
out the remains of the great egg, which had broken by the jar of his fall.
“Ugh, ugh! something to drink—ugh! it was addled,” spluttered he,
while the wood rang again with the merry laughter of East and Tom.
Then they examined the prizes, gathered up their things, and went off to
the brook, where Martin swallowed huge draughts of water to get rid of the
taste; and they visited the sedge-bird’s nest, and from thence struck
across the country in high glee, beating the hedges and brakes as they
went along; and Arthur at last, to his intense delight, was allowed to
climb a small hedgerow oak for a magpie’s nest with Tom, who kept all
round him like a mother, and showed him where to hold and how to throw his
weight; and though he was in a great fright, didn’t show it, and was
applauded by all for his lissomness.
They crossed a road soon afterwards, and there, close to them, lay a great
heap of charming pebbles.
“Look here,” shouted East; “here’s luck! I’ve been longing for some good,
honest pecking this half-hour. Let’s fill the bags, and have no more of
this foozling bird-nesting.”
No one objected, so each boy filled the fustian bag he carried full of
stones. They crossed into the next field, Tom and East taking one side of
the hedges, and the other two the other side. Noise enough they made
certainly, but it was too early in the season for the young birds, and the
old birds were too strong on the wing for our young marksmen, and flew out
of shot after the first discharge. But it was great fun, rushing along the
hedgerows, and discharging stone after stone at blackbirds and
chaffinches, though no result in the shape of slaughtered birds was
obtained; and Arthur soon entered into it, and rushed to head back the
birds, and shouted, and threw, and tumbled into ditches, and over and
through hedges, as wild as the Madman himself.
Presently the party, in full cry after an old blackbird (who was evidently
used to the thing and enjoyed the fun, for he would wait till they came
close to him, and then fly on for forty yards or so, and, with an impudent
flicker of his tail, dart into the depths of the quickset), came beating
down a high double hedge, two on each side.
“There he is again,” “Head him,” “Let drive,” “I had him there,” “Take
care where you’re throwing, Madman.” The shouts might have been heard a
quarter of a mile off. They were heard some two hundred yards off by a
farmer and two of his shepherds, who were doctoring sheep in a fold in the
next field.
Now, the farmer in question rented a house and yard situate at the end of
the field in which the young bird-fanciers had arrived, which house and
yard he didn’t occupy or keep any one else in. Nevertheless, like a
brainless and unreasoning Briton, he persisted in maintaining on the
premises a large stock of cocks, hens, and other poultry. Of course, all
sorts of depredators visited the place from time to time: foxes and
gipsies wrought havoc in the night; while in the daytime, I regret to have
to confess that visits from the Rugby boys, and consequent disappearances
of ancient and respectable fowls were not unfrequent. Tom and East had
during the period of their outlawry visited the farm in question for
felonious purposes, and on one occasion had conquered and slain a duck
there, and borne away the carcass triumphantly, hidden in their
handkerchiefs. However, they were sickened of the practice by the trouble
and anxiety which the wretched duck’s body caused them. They carried it to
Sally Harrowell’s, in hopes of a good supper; but she, after examining it,
made a long face, and refused to dress or have anything to do with it.
Then they took it into their study, and began plucking it themselves; but
what to do with the feathers, where to hide them?
“Good gracious, Tom, what a lot of feathers a duck has!” groaned East,
holding a bagful in his hand, and looking disconsolately at the carcass,
not yet half plucked.
“And I do think he’s getting high, too, already,” said Tom, smelling at
him cautiously, “so we must finish him up soon.”
“Yes, all very well; but how are we to cook him? I’m sure I ain’t going to
try it on in the hall or passages; we can’t afford to be roasting ducks
about—our character’s too bad.”
“I wish we were rid of the brute,” said Tom, throwing him on the table in
disgust. And after a day or two more it became clear that got rid of he
must be; so they packed him and sealed him up in brown paper, and put him
in the cupboard of an unoccupied study, where he was found in the holidays
by the matron, a gruesome body.
They had never been duck-hunting there since, but others had, and the bold
yeoman was very sore on the subject, and bent on making an example of the
first boys he could catch. So he and his shepherds crouched behind the
hurdles, and watched the party, who were approaching all unconscious. Why
should that old guinea-fowl be lying out in the hedge just at this
particular moment of all the year? Who can say? Guinea-fowls always are;
so are all other things, animals, and persons, requisite for getting one
into scrapes—always ready when any mischief can come of them. At any
rate, just under East’s nose popped out the old guinea-hen, scuttling
along and shrieking, “Come back, come back,” at the top of her voice.
Either of the other three might perhaps have withstood the temptation, but
East first lets drive the stone he has in his hand at her, and then rushes
to turn her into the hedge again. He succeeds, and then they are all at it
for dear life, up and down the hedge in full cry, the “Come back, come
back,” getting shriller and fainter every minute.
Meantime, the farmer and his men steal over the hurdles and creep down the
hedge towards the scene of action. They are almost within a stone’s throw
of Martin, who is pressing the unlucky chase hard, when Tom catches sight
of them, and sings out, “Louts, ‘ware louts, your side! Madman, look
ahead!” and then catching hold of Arthur, hurries him away across the
field towards Rugby as hard as they can tear. Had he been by himself, he
would have stayed to see it out with the others, but now his heart sinks
and all his pluck goes. The idea of being led up to the Doctor with Arthur
for bagging fowls quite unmans and takes half the run out of him.
However, no boys are more able to take care of themselves than East and
Martin; they dodge the pursuers, slip through a gap, and come pelting
after Tom and Arthur, whom they catch up in no time. The farmer and his
men are making good running about a field behind. Tom wishes to himself
that they had made off in any other direction, but now they are all in for
it together, and must see it out.
“You won’t leave the young un, will you?” says he, as they haul poor
little Arthur, already losing wind from the fright, through the next
hedge. “Not we,” is the answer from both. The next hedge is a stiff one;
the pursuers gain horribly on them, and they only just pull Arthur
through, with two great rents in his trousers, as the foremost shepherd
comes up on the other side. As they start into the next field, they are
aware of two figures walking down the footpath in the middle of it, and
recognize Holmes and Diggs taking a constitutional. Those good-natured
fellows immediately shout, “On.” “Let’s go to them and surrender,” pants
Tom. Agreed. And in another minute the four boys, to the great
astonishment of those worthies, rush breathless up to Holmes and Diggs,
who pull up to see what is the matter; and then the whole is explained by
the appearance of the farmer and his men, who unite their forces and bear
down on the knot of boys.
There is no time to explain, and Tom’s heart beats frightfully quick, as
he ponders, “Will they stand by us?”
The farmer makes a rush at East and collars him; and that young gentleman,
with unusual discretion, instead of kicking his shins, looks appealingly
at Holmes, and stands still.
“Hullo there; not so fast,” says Holmes, who is bound to stand up for them
till they are proved in the wrong. “Now what’s all this about?”
“I’ve got the young varmint at last, have I,” pants the farmer; “why,
they’ve been a-skulking about my yard and stealing my fowls—that’s
where ’tis; and if I doan’t have they flogged for it, every one on ’em, my
name ain’t Thompson.”
Holmes looks grave and Diggs’s face falls. They are quite ready to fight—no
boys in the school more so; but they are praepostors, and understand their
office, and can’t uphold unrighteous causes.
“I haven’t been near his old barn this half,” cries East. “Nor I,” “Nor
I,” chime in Tom and Martin.
“Now, Willum, didn’t you see ’em there last week?”
“Ees, I seen ’em sure enough,” says Willum, grasping a prong he carried,
and preparing for action.
The boys deny stoutly, and Willum is driven to admit that “if it worn’t
they ’twas chaps as like ’em as two peas’n;” and “leastways he’ll swear he
see’d them two in the yard last Martinmas,” indicating East and Tom.
Holmes has had time to meditate. “Now, sir,” says he to Willum, “you see
you can’t remember what you have seen, and I believe the boys.”
“I doan’t care,” blusters the farmer; “they was arter my fowls to-day—that’s
enough for I.—Willum, you catch hold o’ t’other chap. They’ve been
a-sneaking about this two hours, I tells ‘ee,” shouted he, as Holmes
stands between Martin and Willum, “and have druv a matter of a dozen young
pullets pretty nigh to death.”
“Oh, there’s a whacker!” cried East; “we haven’t been within a hundred
yards of his barn; we haven’t been up here above ten minutes, and we’ve
seen nothing but a tough old guinea-hen, who ran like a greyhound.”
Original
“Indeed, that’s all true, Holmes, upon my honour,” added Tom; “we weren’t
after his fowls; guinea-hen ran out of the hedge under our feet, and we’ve
seen nothing else.”
“Drat their talk. Thee catch hold o’ t’other, Willum, and come along wi’
un.”
“Farmer Thompson,” said Holmes, warning off Willum and the prong with his
stick, while Diggs faced the other shepherd, cracking his fingers like
pistol-shots, “now listen to reason. The boys haven’t been after your
fowls, that’s plain.”
“Tells ‘ee I see’d’em. Who be you, I should like to know?”
“Never you mind, farmer,” answered Holmes. “And now I’ll just tell you
what it is: you ought to be ashamed of yourself for leaving all that
poultry about, with no one to watch it, so near the School. You deserve to
have it all stolen. So if you choose to come up to the Doctor with them, I
shall go with you, and tell him what I think of it.”
The farmer began to take Holmes for a master; besides, he wanted to get
back to his flock. Corporal punishment was out of the question, the odds
were too great; so he began to hint at paying for the damage. Arthur
jumped at this, offering to pay anything, and the farmer immediately
valued the guinea-hen at half a sovereign.
“Half a sovereign!” cried East, now released from the farmer’s grip;
“well, that is a good one! The old hen ain’t hurt a bit, and she’s seven
years old, I know, and as tough as whipcord; she couldn’t lay another egg
to save her life.”
It was at last settled that they should pay the farmer two shillings, and
his man one shilling; and so the matter ended, to the unspeakable relief
of Tom, who hadn’t been able to say a word, being sick at heart at the
idea of what the Doctor would think of him; and now the whole party of
boys marched off down the footpath towards Rugby. Holmes, who was one of
the best boys in the School, began to improve the occasion. “Now, you
youngsters,” said he, as he marched along in the middle of them, “mind
this; you’re very well out of this scrape. Don’t you go near Thompson’s
barn again; do you hear?”
Profuse promises from all, especially East.
“Mind, I don’t ask questions,” went on Mentor, “but I rather think some of
you have been there before this after his chickens. Now, knocking over
other people’s chickens, and running off with them, is stealing. It’s a
nasty word, but that’s the plain English of it. If the chickens were dead
and lying in a shop, you wouldn’t take them, I know that, any more than
you would apples out of Griffith’s basket; but there’s no real difference
between chickens running about and apples on a tree, and the same articles
in a shop. I wish our morals were sounder in such matters. There’s nothing
so mischievous as these school distinctions, which jumble up right and
wrong, and justify things in us for which poor boys would be sent to
prison.” And good old Holmes delivered his soul on the walk home of many
wise sayings, and, as the song says,
which same sermon sank into them all, more or less, and very penitent they
were for several hours. But truth compels me to admit that East, at any
rate, forgot it all in a week, but remembered the insult which had been
put upon him by Farmer Thompson, and with the Tadpole and other
hair-brained youngsters committed a raid on the barn soon afterwards, in
which they were caught by the shepherds and severely handled, besides
having to pay eight shillings—all the money they had in the world—to
escape being taken up to the Doctor.
Martin became a constant inmate in the joint study from this time, and
Arthur took to him so kindly that Tom couldn’t resist slight fits of
jealousy, which, however, he managed to keep to himself. The kestrel’s
eggs had not been broken, strange to say, and formed the nucleus of
Arthur’s collection, at which Martin worked heart and soul, and introduced
Arthur to Howlett the bird-fancier, and instructed him in the rudiments of
the art of stuffing. In token of his gratitude, Arthur allowed Martin to
tattoo a small anchor on one of his wrists; which decoration, however, he
carefully concealed from Tom. Before the end of the half-year he had
trained into a bold climber and good runner, and, as Martin had foretold,
knew twice as much about trees, birds, flowers, and many other things, as
our good-hearted and facetious young friend Harry East.
Original
CHAPTER V—THE FIGHT:
here is a certain sort of fellow—we who are used to studying boys
all know him well enough—of whom you can predicate with almost
positive certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure
to have a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but
one. Tom Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention
to give a full, true, and correct account of Tom’s only single combat with
a school-fellow in the manner of our old friend Bell’s Life, let those
young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to
with the weapons which God has given us all an uncivilized, unchristian,
or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at once, for it won’t be
to their taste.
It was not at all usual in those days for two School-house boys to have a
fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained,
hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was
quarrelling with his nearest neighbours, or when there was some
class-dispute, between the fifth form and the fags, for instance, which
required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side
tacitly, who settled the matter by a good hearty mill. But, for the most
part, the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the
boxing-gloves, kept the School-house boys from fighting one another. Two
or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the
hall or fifth-form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at all
knew all his neighbours’ prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a
nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy in
the house. But, of course, no such experience could be gotten as regarded
boys in other houses; and as most of the other houses were more or less
jealous of the School-house, collisions were frequent.
After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know?
From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the
business, the real highest, honestest business of every son of man. Every
one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they
evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickednesses in high
places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will
not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.
It is no good for quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their
voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they
don’t follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own piece
of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better world
without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn’t be our world; and
therefore I am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn’t
meant to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong
people and the wrong things, but I’d a deal sooner see them doing that
than that they should have no fight in them. So having recorded, and being
about to record, my hero’s fights of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies,
I shall now proceed to give an account of his passage-at-arms with the
only one of his school-fellows whom he ever had to encounter in this
manner.
It was drawing towards the close of Arthur’s first half-year, and the May
evenings were lengthening out. Locking-up was not till eight o’clock, and
everybody was beginning to talk about what he would do in the holidays.
The shell, in which form all our dramatis personae now are, were reading,
amongst other things, the last book of Homer’s “Iliad,” and had worked
through it as far as the speeches of the women over Hector’s body. It is a
whole school-day, and four or five of the School-house boys (amongst whom
are Arthur, Tom, and East) are preparing third lesson together. They have
finished the regulation forty lines, and are for the most part getting
very tired, notwithstanding the exquisite pathos of Helen’s lamentation.
And now several long four-syllabled words come together, and the boy with
the dictionary strikes work.
“I am not going to look out any more words,” says he; “we’ve done the
quantity. Ten to one we shan’t get so far. Let’s go out into the close.”
“Come along, boys,” cries East, always ready to leave “the grind,” as he
called it; “our old coach is laid up, you know, and we shall have one of
the new masters, who’s sure to go slow and let us down easy.”
So an adjournment to the close was carried nem. con., little Arthur not
daring to uplift his voice; but, being deeply interested in what they were
reading, stayed quietly behind, and learnt on for his own pleasure.
As East had said, the regular master of the form was unwell, and they were
to be heard by one of the new masters—quite a young man, who had
only just left the university. Certainly it would be hard lines if, by
dawdling as much as possible in coming in and taking their places,
entering into long-winded explanations of what was the usual course of the
regular master of the form, and others of the stock contrivances of boys
for wasting time in school, they could not spin out the lesson so that he
should not work them through more than the forty lines. As to which
quantity there was a perpetual fight going on between the master and his
form—the latter insisting, and enforcing by passive resistance, that
it was the prescribed quantity of Homer for a shell lesson; the former,
that there was no fixed quantity, but that they must always be ready to go
on to fifty or sixty lines if there were time within the hour. However,
notwithstanding all their efforts, the new master got on horribly quick.
He seemed to have the bad taste to be really interested in the lesson, and
to be trying to work them up into something like appreciation of it,
giving them good, spirited English words, instead of the wretched bald
stuff into which they rendered poor old Homer, and construing over each
piece himself to them, after each boy, to show them how it should be done.
Now the clock strikes the three-quarters; there is only a quarter of an
hour more, but the forty lines are all but done. So the boys, one after
another, who are called up, stick more and more, and make balder and ever
more bald work of it. The poor young master is pretty near beat by this
time, and feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his fingers
against somebody else’s head. So he gives up altogether the lower and
middle parts of the form, and looks round in despair at the boys on the
top bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a spark or
two, and who will be too chivalrous to murder the most beautiful
utterances of the most beautiful woman of the old world. His eye rests on
Arthur, and he calls him up to finish construing Helen’s speech. Whereupon
all the other boys draw long breaths, and begin to stare about and take it
easy. They are all safe: Arthur is the head of the form, and sure to be
able to construe, and that will tide on safely till the hour strikes.
Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek before construing it, as
the custom is. Tom, who isn’t paying much attention, is suddenly caught by
the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines—
[greek text deleted]
He looks up at Arthur. “Why, bless us,” thinks he, “what can be the matter
with the young un? He’s never going to get floored. He’s sure to have
learnt to the end.” Next moment he is reassured by the spirited tone in
which Arthur begins construing, and betakes himself to drawing dogs’ heads
in his notebook, while the master, evidently enjoying the change, turns
his back on the middle bench and stands before Arthur, beating a sort of
time with his hand and foot, and saying; “Yes, yes,” “Very well,” as
Arthur goes on.
But as he nears the fatal two lines, Tom catches that falter, and again
looks up. He sees that there is something the matter; Arthur can hardly
get on at all. What can it be?
Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down altogether, and fairly bursts
out crying, and dashes the cuff of his jacket across his eyes, blushing up
to the roots of his hair, and feeling as if he should like to go down
suddenly through the floor. The whole form are taken aback; most of them
stare stupidly at him, while those who are gifted with presence of mind
find their places and look steadily at their books, in hopes of not
catching the master’s eye and getting called up in Arthur’s place.
The master looks puzzled for a moment, and then seeing, as the fact is,
that the boy is really affected to tears by the most touching thing in
Homer, perhaps in all profane poetry put together, steps up to him and
lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying, “Never mind, my little man,
you’ve construed very well. Stop a minute; there’s no hurry.”
Now, as luck would have it, there sat next above Tom on that day, in the
middle bench of the form, a big boy, by name Williams, generally supposed
to be the cock of the shell, therefore of all the school below the fifths.
The small boys, who are great speculators on the prowess of their elders,
used to hold forth to one another about Williams’s great strength, and to
discuss whether East or Brown would take a licking from him. He was called
Slogger Williams, from the force with which it was supposed he could hit.
In the main, he was a rough, goodnatured fellow enough, but very much
alive to his own dignity. He reckoned himself the king of the form, and
kept up his position with the strong hand, especially in the matter of
forcing boys not to construe more than the legitimate forty lines. He had
already grunted and grumbled to himself when Arthur went on reading beyond
the forty lines; but now that he had broken down just in the middle of all
the long words, the Slogger’s wrath was fairly roused.
“Sneaking little brute,” muttered he, regardless of prudence—“clapping
on the water-works just in the hardest place; see if I don’t punch his
head after fourth lesson.”
“Whose?” said Tom, to whom the remark seemed to be addressed.
“Why, that little sneak, Arthur’s,” replied Williams.
“No, you shan’t,” said Tom.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom with great surprise for a
moment, and then giving him a sudden dig in the ribs with his elbow, which
sent Tom’s books flying on to the floor, and called the attention of the
master, who turned suddenly round, and seeing the state of things, said,—
“Williams, go down three places, and then go on.”
The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and proceeded to go below Tom and
two other boys with great disgust; and then, turning round and facing the
master, said, “I haven’t learnt any more, sir; our lesson is only forty
lines.”
“Is that so?” said the master, appealing generally to the top bench. No
answer.
“Who is the head boy of the form?” said he, waxing wroth.
“Arthur, sir,” answered three or four boys, indicating our friend.
“Oh, your name’s Arthur. Well, now, what is the length of your regular
lesson?”
Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said, “We call it only forty lines,
sir.”
“How do you mean—you call it?”
“Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain’t to stop there when there’s time to
construe more.”
“I understand,” said the master.—“Williams, go down three more
places, and write me out the lesson in Greek and English. And now, Arthur,
finish construing.”
“Oh! would I be in Arthur’s shoes after fourth lesson?” said the little
boys to one another; but Arthur finished Helen’s speech without any
further catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which ended third lesson.
Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying fourth lesson, during
which Williams was bottling up his wrath; and when five struck, and the
lessons for the day were over, he prepared to take summary vengeance on
the innocent cause of his misfortune.
Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the rest, and on coming out
into the quadrangle, the first thing he saw was a small ring of boys,
applauding Williams, who was holding Arthur by the collar.
“There, you young sneak,” said he, giving Arthur a cuff on the head with
his other hand; “what made you say that—”
“Hullo!” said Tom, shouldering into the crowd; “you drop that, Williams;
you shan’t touch him.”
“Who’ll stop me?” said the Slogger, raising his hand again.
“I,” said Tom; and suiting the action to the word he struck the arm which
held Arthur’s arm so sharply that the Slogger dropped it with a start, and
turned the full current of his wrath on Tom.
“Will you fight?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Huzza! There’s going to be a fight between Slogger Williams and Tom
Brown!”
The news ran like wildfire about, and many boys who were on their way to
tea at their several houses turned back, and sought the back of the
chapel, where the fights come off.
“Just run and tell East to come and back me,” said Tom to a small
School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell’s, just stopping
for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower
boys were already at tea, and sing out, “Fight! Tom Brown and Slogger
Williams.”
Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs, butter, sprats, and
all the rest to take care of themselves. The greater part of the remainder
follow in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying their food in
their hands to consume as they go. Three or four only remain, who steal
the butter of the more impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous
feast.
In another minute East and Martin tear through the quadrangle, carrying a
sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just as the combatants are
beginning to strip.
Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he stripped off his
jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his handkerchief round his waist,
and rolled up his shirtsleeves for him. “Now, old boy, don’t you open your
mouth to say a word, or try to help yourself a bit—we’ll do all
that; you keep all your breath and strength for the Slogger.” Martin
meanwhile folded the clothes, and put them under the chapel rails; and now
Tom, with East to handle him, and Martin to give him a knee, steps out on
the turf, and is ready for all that may come; and here is the Slogger too,
all stripped, and thirsting for the fray.
It doesn’t look a fair match at first glance: Williams is nearly two
inches taller, and probably a long year older than his opponent, and he is
very strongly made about the arms and shoulders—“peels well,” as the
little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say, who stand outside
the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active
part in the proceedings. But down below he is not so good by any means—no
spring from the loins, and feeblish, not to say shipwrecky, about the
knees. Tom, on the contrary, though not half so strong in the arms, is
good all over, straight, hard, and springy, from neck to ankle, better
perhaps in his legs than anywhere. Besides, you can see by the clear white
of his eye, and fresh, bright look of his skin, that he is in tip-top
training, able to do all he knows; while the Slogger looks rather sodden,
as if he didn’t take much exercise and ate too much tuck. The time-keeper
is chosen, a large ring made, and the two stand up opposite one another
for a moment, giving us time just to make our little observations.
“If Tom’ll only condescend to fight with his head and heels,” as East
mutters to Martin, “we shall do.”
But seemingly he won’t, for there he goes in, making play with both hands.
Hard all is the word; the two stand to one another like men; rally follows
rally in quick succession, each fighting as if he thought to finish the
whole thing out of hand. “Can’t last at this rate,” say the knowing ones,
while the partisans of each make the air ring with their shouts and
counter-shouts of encouragement, approval, and defiance.
“Take it easy, take it easy; keep away; let him come after you,” implores
East, as he wipes Tom’s face after the first round with a wet sponge,
while he sits back on Martin’s knee, supported by the Madman’s long arms
which tremble a little from excitement.
“Time’s up,” calls the time-keeper.
“There he goes again, hang it all!” growls East, as his man is at it
again, as hard as ever. A very severe round follows, in which Tom gets out
and out the worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his legs, and
deposited on the grass by a right-hander from the Slogger.
Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger’s house, and the School-house
are silent and vicious, ready to pick quarrels anywhere.
“Two to one in half-crowns on the big un,” says Rattle, one of the
amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning waistcoat, and puffy,
good-natured face.
“Done!” says Groove, another amateur of quieter look, taking out his
notebook to enter it, for our friend Rattle sometimes forgets these little
things.
Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the sponges for next round, and
has set two other boys to rub his hands.
“Tom, old boy,” whispers he, “this may be fun for you, but it’s death to
me. He’ll hit all the fight out of you in another five minutes, and then I
shall go and drown myself in the island ditch. Feint him; use your legs;
draw him about. He’ll lose his wind then in no time, and you can go into
him. Hit at his body too; we’ll take care of his frontispiece by-and-by.”
Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already that he couldn’t go in
and finish the Slogger off at mere hammer and tongs, so changed his
tactics completely in the third round. He now fights cautiously, getting
away from and parrying the Slogger’s lunging hits, instead of trying to
counter, and leading his enemy a dance all round the ring after him. “He’s
funking; go in, Williams,” “Catch him up,” “Finish him off,” scream the
small boys of the Slogger party.
“Just what we want,” thinks East, chuckling to himself, as he sees
Williams, excited by these shouts, and thinking the game in his own hands,
blowing himself in his exertions to get to close quarters again, while Tom
is keeping away with perfect ease.
They quarter over the ground again and again, Tom always on the defensive.
The Slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly blown.
“Now, then, Tom,” sings out East, dancing with delight. Tom goes in in a
twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, and gets away again before the
Slogger can catch his wind, which when he does he rushes with blind fury
at Tom, and being skilfully parried and avoided, overreaches himself and
falls on his face, amidst terrific cheers from the School-house boys.
“Double your two to one?” says Groove to Rattle, notebook in hand.
“Stop a bit,” says that hero, looking uncomfortably at Williams, who is
puffing away on his second’s knee, winded enough, but little the worse in
any other way.
After another round the Slogger too seems to see that he can’t go in and
win right off, and has met his match or thereabouts. So he too begins to
use his head, and tries to make Tom lose his patience, and come in before
his time. And so the fight sways on, now one and now the other getting a
trifling pull.
Tom’s face begins to look very one-sided—there are little queer
bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but East keeps the wet
sponge going so scientifically that he comes up looking as fresh and
bright as ever. Williams is only slightly marked in the face, but by the
nervous movement of his elbows you can see that Tom’s body blows are
telling. In fact, half the vice of the Slogger’s hitting is neutralized,
for he daren’t lunge out freely for fear of exposing his sides. It is too
interesting by this time for much shouting, and the whole ring is very
quiet.
“All right, Tommy,” whispers East; “hold on’s the horse that’s to win.
We’ve got the last. Keep your head, old boy.”
But where is Arthur all this time? Words cannot paint the poor little
fellow’s distress. He couldn’t muster courage to come up to the ring, but
wandered up and down from the great fives court to the corner of the
chapel rails, now trying to make up his mind to throw himself between
them, and try to stop them; then thinking of running in and telling his
friend Mary, who, he knew, would instantly report to the Doctor. The
stories he had heard of men being killed in prize-fights rose up horribly
before him.
Once only, when the shouts of “Well done, Brown!” “Huzza for the
School-house!” rose higher than ever, he ventured up to the ring, thinking
the victory was won. Catching sight of Tom’s face in the state I have
described, all fear of consequences vanishing out of his mind; he rushed
straight off to the matron’s room, beseeching her to get the fight
stopped, or he should die.
But it’s time for us to get back to the close. What is this fierce tumult
and confusion? The ring is broken, and high and angry words are being
bandied about. “It’s all fair”—“It isn’t”—“No hugging!” The
fight is stopped. The combatants, however, sit there quietly, tended by
their seconds, while their adherents wrangle in the middle. East can’t
help shouting challenges to two or three of the other side, though he
never leaves Tom for a moment, and plies the sponges as fast as ever.
The fact is, that at the end of the last round, Tom, seeing a good
opening, had closed with his opponent, and after a moment’s struggle, had
thrown him heavily, by help of the fall he had learnt from his village
rival in the Vale of White Horse. Williams hadn’t the ghost of a chance
with Tom at wrestling; and the conviction broke at once on the Slogger
faction that if this were allowed their man must be licked. There was a
strong feeling in the School against catching hold and throwing, though it
was generally ruled all fair within limits; so the ring was broken and the
fight stopped.
The School-house are overruled—the fight is on again, but there is
to be no throwing; and East, in high wrath, threatens to take his man away
after next round (which he don’t mean to do, by the way), when suddenly
young Brooke comes through the small gate at the end of the chapel. The
School-house faction rush to him. “Oh, hurrah! now we shall get fair
play.”
“Please, Brooke, come up. They won’t let Tom Brown throw him.”
“Throw whom?” says Brooke, coming up to the ring. “Oh! Williams, I see.
Nonsense! Of course he may throw him, if he catches him fairly above the
waist.”
Now, young Brooke, you’re in the sixth, you know, and you ought to stop
all fights. He looks hard at both boys. “Anything wrong?” says he to East,
nodding at Tom.
“Not a bit.”
“Not beat at all?”
“Bless you, no! Heaps of fight in him.—Ain’t there, Tom?”
Tom looks at Brooke and grins.
“How’s he?” nodding at Williams.
“So so; rather done, I think, since his last fall. He won’t stand above
two more.”
“Time’s up!” The boys rise again and face one another. Brooke can’t find
it in his heart to stop them just yet, so the round goes on, the Slogger
waiting for Tom, and reserving all his strength to hit him out should he
come in for the wrestling dodge again, for he feels that that must be
stopped, or his sponge will soon go up in the air.
And now another newcomer appears on the field, to wit, the under-porter,
with his long brush and great wooden receptacle for dust under his arm. He
has been sweeping out the schools.
“You’d better stop, gentlemen,” he says; “the Doctor knows that Brown’s
fighting—he’ll be out in a minute.”
“You go to Bath, Bill,” is all that that excellent servitor gets by his
advice; and being a man of his hands, and a stanch upholder of the
School-house, can’t help stopping to look on for a bit, and see Tom Brown,
their pet craftsman, fight a round.
It is grim earnest now, and no mistake. Both boys feel this, and summon
every power of head, hand, and eye to their aid. A piece of luck on either
side, a foot slipping, a blow getting well home, or another fall, may
decide it. Tom works slowly round for an opening; he has all the legs, and
can choose his own time. The Slogger waits for the attack, and hopes to
finish it by some heavy right-handed blow. As they quarter slowly over the
ground, the evening sun comes out from behind a cloud and falls full on
Williams’s face. Tom darts in; the heavy right hand is delivered, but only
grazes his head. A short rally at close quarters, and they close; in
another moment the Slogger is thrown again heavily for the third time.
Original
“I’ll give you three or two on the little one in half-crowns,” said Groove
to Rattle.
“No, thank ‘ee,” answers the other, diving his hands farther into his
coat-tails.
Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of the turret which leads
to the Doctor’s library suddenly opens, and he steps into the close, and
makes straight for the ring, in which Brown and the Slogger are both
seated on their seconds’ knees for the last time.
“The Doctor! the Doctor!” shouts some small boy who catches sight of him,
and the ring melts away in a few seconds, the small boys tearing off, Tom
collaring his jacket and waistcoat, and slipping through the little gate
by the chapel, and round the corner to Harrowell’s with his backers, as
lively as need be; Williams and his backers making off not quite so fast
across the close; Groove, Rattle, and the other bigger fellows trying to
combine dignity and prudence in a comical manner, and walking off fast
enough, they hope, not to be recognized, and not fast enough to look like
running away.
Young Brooke alone remains on the ground by the time the Doctor gets
there, and touches his hat, not without a slight inward qualm.
“Hah! Brooke. I am surprised to see you here. Don’t you know that I expect
the sixth to stop fighting?”
Brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had expected, but he was
rather a favourite with the Doctor for his openness and plainness of
speech, so blurted out, as he walked by the Doctor’s side, who had already
turned back,—
“Yes, sir, generally. But I thought you wished us to exercise a discretion
in the matter too—not to interfere too soon.”
“But they have been fighting this half-hour and more,” said the Doctor.
“Yes, sir; but neither was hurt. And they’re the sort of boys who’ll be
all the better friends now, which they wouldn’t have been if they had been
stopped, any earlier—before it was so equal.”
“Who was fighting with Brown?” said the Doctor.
“Williams, sir, of Thompson’s. He is bigger than Brown, and had the best
of it at first, but not when you came up, sir. There’s a good deal of
jealousy between our house and Thompson’s, and there would have been more
fights if this hadn’t been let go on, or if either of them had had much
the worst of it.”
“Well but, Brooke,” said the Doctor, “doesn’t this look a little as if you
exercised your discretion by only stopping a fight when the School-house
boy is getting the worst of it?”
Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather gravelled.
“Now remember,” added the Doctor, as he stopped at the turret-door, “this
fight is not to go on; you’ll see to that. And I expect you to stop all
fights in future at once.”
Original
“Very well, sir,” said young Brooke, touching his hat, and not sorry to
see the turret-door close behind the Doctor’s back.
Meantime Tom and the stanchest of his adherents had reached Harrowell’s,
and Sally was bustling about to get them a late tea, while Stumps had been
sent off to Tew, the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef for Tom’s eye,
which was to be healed off-hand, so that he might show well in the
morning. He was not a bit the worse, except a slight difficulty in his
vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a
cold-water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the babel
of voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how
Williams would have given in after another fall (which he didn’t in the
least believe), and how on earth the Doctor could have got to know of it—such
bad luck! He couldn’t help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn’t
won; he liked it better as it was, and felt very friendly to the Slogger.
And then poor little Arthur crept in and sat down quietly near him, and
kept looking at him and the raw beef with such plaintive looks that Tom at
last burst out laughing.
“Don’t make such eyes, young un,” said he; “there’s nothing the matter.”
“Oh, but, Tom, are you much hurt? I can’t bear thinking it was all for
me.”
“Not a bit of it; don’t flatter yourself. We were sure to have had it out
sooner or later.”
“Well, but you won’t go on, will you? You’ll promise me you won’t go on?”
“Can’t tell about that—all depends on the houses. We’re in the hands
of our countrymen, you know. Must fight for the School-house flag, if so
be.”
However, the lovers of the science were doomed to disappointment this
time. Directly after locking-up, one of the night-fags knocked at Tom’s
door.
“Brown, young Brooke wants you in the sixth-form room.”
Up went Tom to the summons, and found the magnates sitting at their
supper.
“Well, Brown,” said young Brooke, nodding to him, “how do you feel?”
“Oh, very well, thank you, only I’ve sprained my thumb, I think.”
“Sure to do that in a fight. Well, you hadn’t the worst of it, I could
see. Where did you learn that throw?”
“Down in the country when I was a boy.”
“Hullo! why, what are you now? Well, never mind, you’re a plucky fellow.
Sit down and have some supper.”
Tom obeyed, by no means loath. And the fifth-form boy next filled him a
tumbler of bottled beer, and he ate and drank, listening to the pleasant
talk, and wondering how soon he should be in the fifth, and one of that
much-envied society.
As he got up to leave, Brooke said, “You must shake hands to-morrow
morning; I shall come and see that done after first lesson.”
And so he did. And Tom and the Slogger shook hands with great satisfaction
and mutual respect. And for the next year or two, whenever fights were
being talked of, the small boys who had been present shook their heads
wisely, saying, “Ah! but you should just have seen the fight between
Slogger Williams and Tom Brown!”
And now, boys all, three words before we quit the subject. I have put in
this chapter on fighting of malice prepense, partly because I want to give
you a true picture of what everyday school life was in my time, and not a
kid-glove and go-to-meeting-coat picture, and partly because of the cant
and twaddle that’s talked of boxing and fighting with fists nowadays. Even
Thackeray has given in to it; and only a few weeks ago there was some
rampant stuff in the Times on the subject, in an article on field sports.
Boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will sometimes fight. Fighting
with fists is the natural and English way for English boys to settle their
quarrels. What substitute for it is there, or ever was there, amongst any
nation under the sun? What would you like to see take its place?
Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and football. Not one of
you will be the worse, but very much the better, for learning to box well.
Should you never have to use it in earnest, there’s no exercise in the
world so good for the temper and for the muscles of the back and legs.
As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. When the time
comes, if it ever should, that you have to say “Yes” or “No” to a
challenge to fight, say “No” if you can—only take care you make it
clear to yourselves why you say “No.” It’s a proof of the highest courage,
if done from true Christian motives. It’s quite right and justifiable, if
done from a simple aversion to physical pain and danger. But don’t say
“No” because you fear a licking, and say or think it’s because you fear
God, for that’s neither Christian nor honest. And if you do fight, fight
it out; and don’t give in while you can stand and see.
Original
CHAPTER VI—FEVER IN THE SCHOOL.
wo years have passed since the events recorded in the last chapter, and
the end of the summer half-year is again drawing on. Martin has left and
gone on a cruise in the South Pacific, in one of his uncle’s ships; the
old magpie, as disreputable as ever, his last bequest to Arthur, lives in
the joint study. Arthur is nearly sixteen, and at the head of the twenty,
having gone up the school at the rate of a form a half-year. East and Tom
have been much more deliberate in their progress, and are only a little
way up the fifth form. Great strapping boys they are, but still thorough
boys, filling about the same place in the house that young Brooke filled
when they were new boys, and much the same sort of fellows. Constant
intercourse with Arthur has done much for both of them, especially for
Tom; but much remains yet to be done, if they are to get all the good out
of Rugby which is to be got there in these times. Arthur is still frail
and delicate, with more spirit than body; but, thanks to his intimacy with
them and Martin, has learned to swim, and run, and play cricket, and has
never hurt himself by too much reading.
One evening, as they were all sitting down to supper in the fifth-form
room, some one started a report that a fever had broken out at one of the
boarding-houses. “They say,” he added, “that Thompson is very ill, and
that Dr. Robertson has been sent for from Northampton.”
“Then we shall all be sent home,” cried another. “Hurrah! five weeks’
extra holidays, and no fifth-form examination!”
“I hope not,” said Tom; “there’ll be no Marylebone match then at the end
of the half.”
Some thought one thing, some another, many didn’t believe the report; but
the next day, Tuesday, Dr. Robertson arrived, and stayed all day, and had
long conferences with the Doctor.
On Wednesday morning, after prayers, the Doctor addressed the whole
school. There were several cases of fever in different houses, he said;
but Dr. Robertson, after the most careful examination, had assured him
that it was not infectious, and that if proper care were taken, there
could be no reason for stopping the school-work at present. The
examinations were just coming on, and it would be very unadvisable to
break up now. However, any boys who chose to do so were at liberty to
write home, and, if their parents wished it, to leave at once. He should
send the whole school home if the fever spread.
The next day Arthur sickened, but there was no other case. Before the end
of the week thirty or forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed on. There
was a general wish to please the Doctor, and a feeling that it was
cowardly to run away.
On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright afternoon, while the
cricket-match was going on as usual on the big-side ground. The Doctor,
coming from his deathbed, passed along the gravel-walk at the side of the
close, but no one knew what had happened till the next day. At morning
lecture it began to be rumoured, and by afternoon chapel was known
generally; and a feeling of seriousness and awe at the actual presence of
death among them came over the whole school. In all the long years of his
ministry the Doctor perhaps never spoke words which sank deeper than some
of those in that day’s sermon.
“When I came yesterday from visiting all but the very death-bed of him who
has been taken from us, and looked around upon all the familiar objects
and scenes within our own ground, where your common amusements were going
on with your common cheerfulness and activity, I felt there was nothing
painful in witnessing that; it did not seem in any way shocking or out of
tune with those feelings which the sight of a dying Christian must be
supposed to awaken. The unsuitableness in point of natural feeling between
scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness did not at all present itself.
But I did feel that if at that moment any of those faults had been brought
before me which sometimes occur amongst us; had I heard that any of you
had been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other such sin;
had I heard from any quarter the language of profaneness, or of
unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard or seen any signs of that
wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools by affecting not to dread
evil and not to care for good, then the unsuitableness of any of these
things with the scene I had just quitted would indeed have been most
intensely painful. And why? Not because such things would really have been
worse than at any other time, but because at such a moment the eyes are
opened really to know good and evil, because we then feel what it is so to
live as that death becomes an infinite blessing, and what it is so to live
also that it were good for us if we had never been born.”
Tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety about Arthur, but he came
out cheered and strengthened by those grand words, and walked up alone to
their study. And when he sat down and looked round, and saw Arthur’s straw
hat and cricket-jacket hanging on their pegs, and marked all his little
neat arrangements, not one of which had been disturbed, the tears indeed
rolled down his cheeks; but they were calm and blessed tears, and he
repeated to himself, “Yes, Geordie’s eyes are opened; he knows what it is
so to live as that death becomes an infinite blessing. But do I? O God,
can I bear to lose him?”
The week passed mournfully away. No more boys sickened, but Arthur was
reported worse each day, and his mother arrived early in the week. Tom
made many appeals to be allowed to see him, and several times tried to get
up to the sick-room; but the housekeeper was always in the way, and at
last spoke to the Doctor, who kindly but peremptorily forbade him.
Thompson was buried on the Tuesday, and the burial service, so soothing
and grand always, but beyond all words solemn when read over a boy’s grave
to his companions, brought him much comfort, and many strange new thoughts
and longings. He went back to his regular life, and played cricket and
bathed as usual. It seemed to him that this was the right thing to do, and
the new thoughts and longings became more brave and healthy for the
effort. The crisis came on Saturday; the day week that Thompson had died;
and during that long afternoon Tom sat in his study reading his Bible, and
going every half-hour to the housekeeper’s room, expecting each time to
hear that the gentle and brave little spirit had gone home. But God had
work for Arthur to do. The crisis passed: on Sunday evening he was
declared out of danger; on Monday he sent a message to Tom that he was
almost well, had changed his room, and was to be allowed to see him the
next day.
It was evening when the housekeeper summoned him to the sick-room. Arthur
was lying on the sofa by the open window, through which the rays of the
western sun stole gently, lighting up his white face and golden hair. Tom
remembered a German picture of an angel which he knew; often had he
thought how transparent and golden and spirit-like it was; and he
shuddered, to think how like it Arthur looked, and felt a shock as if his
blood had all stopped short, as he realized how near the other world his
friend must have been to look like that. Never till that moment had he
felt how his little chum had twined himself round his heart-strings, and
as he stole gently across the room and knelt down, and put his arm round
Arthur’s head on the pillow, felt ashamed and half-angry at his own red
and brown face, and the bounding sense of health and power which filled
every fibre of his body, and made every movement of mere living a joy to
him. He needn’t have troubled himself: it was this very strength and power
so different from his own which drew Arthur so to him.
Original
Arthur laid his thin, white hand, on which the blue veins stood out so
plainly, on Tom’s great brown fist, and smiled at him; and then looked out
of the window again, as if he couldn’t bear to lose a moment of the
sunset, into the tops of the great feathery elms, round which the rooks
were circling and clanging, returning in flocks from their evening’s
foraging parties. The elms rustled, the sparrows in the ivy just outside
the window chirped and fluttered about, quarrelling, and making it up
again; the rooks, young and old, talked in chorus, and the merry shouts of
the boys and the sweet click of the cricket-bats came up cheerily from
below.
“Dear George,” said Tom, “I am so glad to be let up to see you at last.
I’ve tried hard to come so often, but they wouldn’t let me before.”
“Oh, I know, Tom; Mary has told me every day about you, and how she was
obliged to make the Doctor speak to you to keep you away. I’m very glad
you didn’t get up, for you might have caught it; and you couldn’t stand
being ill, with all the matches going on. And you’re in the eleven, too, I
hear. I’m so glad.”
“Yes; ain’t it jolly?” said Tom proudly. “I’m ninth too. I made forty at
the last pie-match, and caught three fellows out. So I was put in above
Jones and Tucker. Tucker’s so savage, for he was head of the twenty-two.”
“Well, I think you ought to be higher yet,” said Arthur, who was as
jealous for the renown of Tom in games as Tom was for his as a scholar.
“Never mind. I don’t care about cricket or anything now you’re getting
well, Geordie; and I shouldn’t have hurt, I know, if they’d have let me
come up. Nothing hurts me. But you’ll get about now directly, won’t you?
You won’t believe how clean I’ve kept the study. All your things are just
as you left them; and I feed the old magpie just when you used, though I
have to come in from big-side for him, the old rip. He won’t look pleased
all I can do, and sticks his head first on one side and then on the other,
and blinks at me before he’ll begin to eat, till I’m half inclined to box
his ears. And whenever East comes in, you should see him hop off to the
window, dot and go one, though Harry wouldn’t touch a feather of him now.”
Arthur laughed. “Old Gravey has a good memory; he can’t forget the sieges
of poor Martin’s den in old times.” He paused a moment, and then went on:
“You can’t think how often I’ve been thinking of old Martin since I’ve
been ill. I suppose one’s mind gets restless, and likes to wander off to
strange, unknown places. I wonder what queer new pets the old boy has got.
How he must be revelling in the thousand new birds, beasts, and fishes!”
Tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a moment. “Fancy him on
a South Sea island, with the Cherokees, or Patagonians, or some such wild
niggers!” (Tom’s ethnology and geography were faulty, but sufficient for
his needs.) “They’ll make the old Madman cock medicine-man, and tattoo him
all over. Perhaps he’s cutting about now all blue, and has a squaw and a
wigwam. He’ll improve their boomerangs, and be able to throw them too,
without having old Thomas sent after him by the Doctor to take them away.”
Arthur laughed at the remembrance of the boomerang story, but then looked
grave again, and said, “He’ll convert all the island, I know.”
“Yes, if he don’t blow it up first.”
“Do you remember, Tom, how you and East used to laugh at him and chaff
him, because he said he was sure the rooks all had calling-over or
prayers, or something of the sort, when the locking-up bell rang? Well, I
declare,” said Arthur, looking up seriously into Tom’s laughing eyes, “I
do think he was right. Since I’ve been lying here, I’ve watched them every
night; and, do you know, they really do come and perch, all of them, just
about locking-up time; and then first there’s a regular chorus of caws;
and then they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two or three in
different trees, caw solos; and then off they all go again, fluttering
about and cawing anyhow till they roost.”
“I wonder if the old blackies do talk,” said Tom, looking up at them. “How
they must abuse me and East, and pray for the Doctor for stopping the
slinging!”
“There! look, look!” cried Arthur; “don’t you see the old fellow without a
tail coming up? Martin used to call him the ‘clerk.’ He can’t steer
himself. You never saw such fun as he is in a high wind, when he can’t
steer himself home, and gets carried right past the trees, and has to bear
up again and again before he can perch.”
The locking-up bell began to toll, and the two boys were silent, and
listened to it. The sound soon carried Tom off to the river and the woods,
and he began to go over in his mind the many occasions on which he had
heard that toll coming faintly down the breeze, and had to pack his rod in
a hurry and make a run for it, to get in before the gates were shut. He
was roused with a start from his memories by Arthur’s voice, gentle and
weak from his late illness.
“Tom, will you be angry if I talk to you very seriously?”
“No, dear old boy, not I. But ain’t you faint, Arthur, or ill? What can I
get you? Don’t say anything to hurt yourself now—you are very weak;
let me come up again.”
“No, no; I shan’t hurt myself. I’d sooner speak to you now, if you don’t
mind. I’ve asked Mary to tell the Doctor that you are with me, so you
needn’t go down to calling-over; and I mayn’t have another chance, for I
shall most likely have to go home for change of air to get well, and
mayn’t come back this half.”
“Oh, do you think you must go away before the end of the half? I’m so
sorry. It’s more than five weeks yet to the holidays, and all the
fifth-form examination and half the cricket-matches to come yet. And what
shall I do all that time alone in our study? Why, Arthur, it will be more
than twelve weeks before I see you again. Oh, hang it, I can’t stand that!
Besides who’s to keep me up to working at the examination books? I shall
come out bottom of the form, as sure as eggs is eggs.”
Tom was rattling on, half in joke, half in earnest, for he wanted to get
Arthur out of his serious vein, thinking it would do him harm; but Arthur
broke in,—
“Oh, please, Tom, stop, or you’ll drive all I had to say out of my head.
And I’m already horribly afraid I’m going to make you angry.”
“Don’t gammon, young un,” rejoined Tom (the use of the old name, dear to
him from old recollections, made Arthur start and smile and feel quite
happy); “you know you ain’t afraid, and you’ve never made me angry since
the first month we chummed together. Now I’m going to be quite sober for a
quarter of an hour, which is more than I am once in a year; so make the
most of it; heave ahead, and pitch into me right and left.”
“Dear Tom, I ain’t going to pitch into you,” said Arthur piteously; “and
it seems so cocky in me to be advising you, who’ve been my backbone ever
since I’ve been at Rugby, and have made the school a paradise to me. Ah, I
see I shall never do it, unless I go head over heels at once, as you said
when you taught me to swim. Tom, I want you to give up using vulgus-books
and cribs.”
Arthur sank back on to his pillow with a sigh, as if the effort had been
great; but the worst was now over, and he looked straight at Tom, who was
evidently taken aback. He leant his elbows on his knees, and stuck his
hands into his hair, whistled a verse of “Billy Taylor,” and then was
quite silent for another minute. Not a shade crossed his face, but he was
clearly puzzled. At last he looked up, and caught Arthur’s anxious look,
took his hand, and said simply,—
“Why, young un?”
“Because you’re the honestest boy in Rugby, and that ain’t honest.”
“I don’t see that.”
“What were you sent to Rugby for?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly—nobody ever told me. I suppose because
all boys are sent to a public school in England.”
“But what do you think yourself? What do you want to do here, and to carry
away?”
Tom thought a minute. “I want to be A1 at cricket and football, and all
the other games, and to make my hands keep my head against any fellow,
lout or gentleman. I want to get into the sixth before I leave, and to
please the Doctor; and I want to carry away just as much Latin and Greek
as will take me through Oxford respectably. There, now, young un; I never
thought of it before, but that’s pretty much about my figure. Ain’t it all
on the square? What have you got to say to that?”
“Why, that you are pretty sure to do all that you want, then.”
“Well, I hope so. But you’ve forgot one thing—what I want to leave
behind me. I want to leave behind me,” said Tom, speaking slow, and
looking much moved, “the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy,
or turned his back on a big one.”
Arthur pressed his hand, and after a moment’s silence went on, “You say,
Tom, you want to please the Doctor. Now, do you want to please him by what
he thinks you do, or by what you really do?”
“By what I really do, of course.”
“Does he think you use cribs and vulgus-books?”
Tom felt at once that his flank was turned, but he couldn’t give in. “He
was at Winchester himself,” said he; “he knows all about it.”
“Yes; but does he think you use them? Do you think he approves of it?”
“You young villain!” said Tom, shaking his fist at Arthur, half vexed and
half pleased, “I never think about it. Hang it! there, perhaps he don’t.
Well, I suppose he don’t.”
Arthur saw that he had got his point; he knew his friend well, and was
wise in silence as in speech. He only said, “I would sooner have the
doctor’s good opinion of me as I really am than any man’s in the world.”
After another minute, Tom began again, “Look here, young un. How on earth
am I to get time to play the matches this half if I give up cribs? We’re
in the middle of that long crabbed chorus in the Agamemnon. I can only
just make head or tail of it with the crib. Then there’s Pericles’s speech
coming on in Thucydides, and ‘The Birds’ to get up for the examination,
besides the Tacitus.” Tom groaned at the thought of his accumulated
labours. “I say, young un, there’s only five weeks or so left to holidays.
Mayn’t I go on as usual for this half? I’ll tell the Doctor about it some
day, or you may.”
Arthur looked out of the window. The twilight had come on, and all was
silent. He repeated in a low voice: “In this thing the Lord pardon thy
servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship
there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow down myself in the house of
Rimmon, when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy
servant in this thing.”
Not a word more was said on the subject, and the boys were again silent—one
of those blessed, short silences in which the resolves which colour a life
are so often taken.
Tom was the first to break it. “You’ve been very ill indeed, haven’t you,
Geordie?” said he, with a mixture of awe and curiosity, feeling as if his
friend had been in some strange place or scene, of which he could form no
idea, and full of the memory of his own thoughts during the last week.
“Yes, very. I’m sure the Doctor thought I was going to die. He gave me the
Sacrament last Sunday, and you can’t think what he is when one is ill. He
said such brave, and tender, and gentle things to me, I felt quite light
and strong after it, and never had any more fear. My mother brought our
old medical man, who attended me when I was a poor sickly child. He said
my constitution was quite changed, and that I’m fit for anything now. If
it hadn’t, I couldn’t have stood three days of this illness. That’s all
thanks to you, and the games you’ve made me fond of.”
“More thanks to old Martin,” said Tom; “he’s been your real friend.”
“Nonsense, Tom; he never could have done for me what you have.”
“Well, I don’t know; I did little enough. Did they tell you—you
won’t mind hearing it now, I know—that poor Thompson died last week?
The other three boys are getting quite round, like you.”
“Oh yes, I heard of it.”
Then Tom, who was quite full of it, told Arthur of the burial-service in
the chapel, and how it had impressed him, and, he believed, all the other
boys. “And though the Doctor never said a word about it,” said he, “and it
was a half-holiday and match-day, there wasn’t a game played in the close
all the afternoon, and the boys all went about as if it were Sunday.”
“I’m very glad of it,” said Arthur. “But, Tom, I’ve had such strange
thoughts about death lately. I’ve never told a soul of them, not even my
mother. Sometimes I think they’re wrong, but, do you know, I don’t think
in my heart I could be sorry at the death of any of my friends.”
Tom was taken quite aback. “What in the world is the young un after now?”
thought he; “I’ve swallowed a good many of his crotchets, but this
altogether beats me. He can’t be quite right in his head.” He didn’t want
to say a word, and shifted about uneasily in the dark; however, Arthur
seemed to be waiting for an answer, so at last he said, “I don’t think I
quite see what you mean, Geordie. One’s told so often to think about death
that I’ve tried it on sometimes, especially this last week. But we won’t
talk of it now. I’d better go. You’re getting tired, and I shall do you
harm.”
“No, no; indeed I ain’t, Tom. You must stop till nine; there’s only twenty
minutes. I’ve settled you shall stop till nine. And oh! do let me talk to
you—I must talk to you. I see it’s just as I feared. You think I’m
half mad. Don’t you, now?”
“Well, I did think it odd what you said, Geordie, as you ask me.”
Arthur paused a moment, and then said quickly, “I’ll tell you how it all
happened. At first, when I was sent to the sick-room, and found I had
really got the fever, I was terribly frightened. I thought I should die,
and I could not face it for a moment. I don’t think it was sheer cowardice
at first, but I thought how hard it was to be taken away from my mother
and sisters and you all, just as I was beginning to see my way to many
things, and to feel that I might be a man and do a man’s work. To die
without having fought, and worked, and given one’s life away, was too hard
to bear. I got terribly impatient, and accused God of injustice, and
strove to justify myself. And the harder I strove the deeper I sank. Then
the image of my dear father often came across me, but I turned from it.
Whenever it came, a heavy, numbing throb seemed to take hold of my heart,
and say, ‘Dead-dead-dead.’ And I cried out, ‘The living, the living shall
praise Thee, O God; the dead cannot praise thee. There is no work in the
grave; in the night no man can work. But I can work. I can do great
things. I will do great things. Why wilt thou slay me?’ And so I struggled
and plunged, deeper and deeper, and went down into a living black tomb. I
was alone there, with no power to stir or think; alone with myself; beyond
the reach of all human fellowship; beyond Christ’s reach, I thought, in my
nightmare. You, who are brave and bright and strong, can have no idea of
that agony. Pray to God you never may. Pray as for your life.”
Arthur stopped—from exhaustion, Tom thought; but what between his
fear lest Arthur should hurt himself, his awe, and his longing for him to
go on, he couldn’t ask, or stir to help him.
Presently he went on, but quite calm and slow. “I don’t know how long I
was in that state—for more than a day, I know; for I was quite
conscious, and lived my outer life all the time, and took my medicines,
and spoke to my mother, and heard what they said. But I didn’t take much
note of time. I thought time was over for me, and that that tomb was what
was beyond. Well, on last Sunday morning, as I seemed to lie in that tomb,
alone, as I thought, for ever and ever, the black, dead wall was cleft in
two, and I was caught up and borne through into the light by some great
power, some living, mighty spirit. Tom, do you remember the living
creatures and the wheels in Ezekiel? It was just like that. ‘When they
went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as
the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host;
when they stood, they let down their wings.’ ‘And they went every one
straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned
not when they went.’ And we rushed through the bright air, which was full
of myriads of living creatures, and paused on the brink of a great river.
And the power held me up, and I knew that that great river was the grave,
and death dwelt there, but not the death I had met in the black tomb.
That, I felt, was gone for ever. For on the other bank of the great river
I saw men and women and children rising up pure and bright, and the tears
were wiped from their eyes, and they put on glory and strength, and all
weariness and pain fell away. And beyond were a multitude which no man
could number, and they worked at some great work; and they who rose from
the river went on and joined in the work. They all worked, and each worked
in a different way, but all at the same work. And I saw there my father,
and the men in the old town whom I knew when I was a child—many a
hard, stern man, who never came to church, and whom they called atheist
and infidel. There they were, side by side with my father, whom I had seen
toil and die for them, and women and little children, and the seal was on
the foreheads of all. And I longed to see what the work was, and could
not; so I tried to plunge in the river, for I thought I would join them,
but I could not. Then I looked about to see how they got into the river.
And this I could not see, but I saw myriads on this side, and they too
worked, and I knew that it was the same work, and the same seal was on
their foreheads. And though I saw that there was toil and anguish in the
work of these, and that most that were working were blind and feeble, yet
I longed no more to plunge into the river, but more and more to know what
the work was. And as I looked I saw my mother and my sisters, and I saw
the Doctor, and you, Tom, and hundreds more whom I knew; and at last I saw
myself too, and I was toiling and doing ever so little a piece of the
great work. Then it all melted away, and the power left me, and as it left
me I thought I heard a voice say, ‘The vision is for an appointed time;
though it tarry, wait for it, for in the end it shall speak and not lie,
it shall surely come, it shall not tarry.’ It was early morning I know,
then—it was so quiet and cool, and my mother was fast asleep in the
chair by my bedside; but it wasn’t only a dream of mine. I know it wasn’t
a dream. Then I fell into a deep sleep, and only woke after afternoon
chapel; and the Doctor came and gave me the Sacrament, as I told you. I
told him and my mother I should get well—I knew I should; but I
couldn’t tell them why. Tom,” said Arthur gently, after another minute,
“do you see why I could not grieve now to see my dearest friend die? It
can’t be—it isn’t—all fever or illness. God would never have
let me see it so clear if it wasn’t true. I don’t understand it all yet;
it will take me my life and longer to do that—to find out what the
work is.”
When Arthur stopped there was a long pause. Tom could not speak; he was
almost afraid to breathe, lest he should break the train of Arthur’s
thoughts. He longed to hear more, and to ask questions. In another minute
nine o’clock struck, and a gentle tap at the door called them both back
into the world again. They did not answer, however, for a moment; and so
the door opened, and a lady came in carrying a candle.
She went straight to the sofa, and took hold of Arthur’s hand, and then
stooped down and kissed him.
“My dearest boy, you feel a little feverish again. Why didn’t you have
lights? You’ve talked too much, and excited yourself in the dark.”
“Oh no, mother; you can’t think how well I feel. I shall start with you
to-morrow for Devonshire. But, mother, here’s my friend—here’s Tom
Brown. You know him?”
Original
“Yes, indeed; I’ve known him for years,” she said, and held out her hand
to Tom, who was now standing up behind the sofa. This was Arthur’s mother:
tall and slight and fair, with masses of golden hair drawn back from the
broad, white forehead, and the calm blue eye meeting his so deep and open—the
eye that he knew so well, for it was his friend’s over again, and the
lovely, tender mouth that trembled while he looked—she stood there,
a woman of thirty-eight, old enough to be his mother, and one whose face
showed the lines which must be written on the faces of good men’s wives
and widows, but he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. He
couldn’t help wondering if Arthur’s sisters were like her.
Tom held her hand, and looked on straight in her face; he could neither
let it go nor speak.
“Now, Tom,” said Arthur, laughing, “where are your manners? You’ll stare
my mother out of countenance.” Tom dropped the little hand with a sigh.
“There, sit down, both of you.—Here, dearest mother; there’s room
here.” And he made a place on the sofa for her.—“Tom, you needn’t
go; I’m sure you won’t be called up at first lesson.” Tom felt that he
would risk being floored at every lesson for the rest of his natural
school-life sooner than go, so sat down. “And now,” said Arthur, “I have
realized one of the dearest wishes of my life—to see you two
together.”
And then he led away the talk to their home in Devonshire, and the red,
bright earth, and the deep green combes, and the peat streams like
cairngorm pebbles, and the wild moor with its high, cloudy tors for a
giant background to the picture, till Tom got jealous, and stood up for
the clear chalk streams, and the emerald water meadows and great elms and
willows of the dear old royal county, as he gloried to call it. And the
mother sat on quiet and loving, rejoicing in their life. The quarter to
ten struck, and the bell rang for bed, before they had well begun their
talk, as it seemed.
Then Tom rose with a sigh to go.
“Shall I see you in the morning, Geordie?” said he, as he shook his
friend’s hand. “Never mind, though; you’ll be back next half. And I shan’t
forget the house of Rimmon.”
Arthur’s mother got up and walked with him to the door, and there gave him
her hand again; and again his eyes met that deep, loving look, which was
like a spell upon him. Her voice trembled slightly as she said,
“Good-night. You are one who knows what our Father has promised to the
friend of the widow and the fatherless. May He deal with you as you have
dealt with me and mine!”
Tom was quite upset; he mumbled something about owing everything good in
him to Geordie, looked in her face again, pressed her hand to his lips,
and rushed downstairs to his study, where he sat till old Thomas came
kicking at the door, to tell him his allowance would be stopped if he
didn’t go off to bed. (It would have been stopped anyhow, but that he was
a great favourite with the old gentleman, who loved to come out in the
afternoons into the close to Tom’s wicket, and bowl slow twisters to him,
and talk of the glories of bygone Surrey heroes, with whom he had played
former generations.) So Tom roused himself, and took up his candle to go
to bed; and then for the first time was aware of a beautiful new
fishing-rod, with old Eton’s mark on it, and a splendidly-bound Bible,
which lay on his table, on the title-page of which was written—“TOM
BROWN, from his affectionate and grateful friends, Frances Jane Arthur;
George Arthur.”
I leave you all to guess how he slept, and what he dreamt of.
Original
CHAPTER VII—HARRY EAST’S DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES.
he next morning, after breakfast, Tom, East, and Gower met as usual to
learn their second lesson together. Tom had been considering how to break
his proposal of giving up the crib to the others, and having found no
better way (as indeed none better can ever be found by man or boy), told
them simply what had happened; how he had been to see Arthur, who had
talked to him upon the subject, and what he had said, and for his part he
had made up his mind, and wasn’t going to use cribs any more; and not
being quite sure of his ground, took the high and pathetic tone, and was
proceeding to say “how that, having learnt his lessons with them for so
many years, it would grieve him much to put an end to the arrangement, and
he hoped, at any rate, that if they wouldn’t go on with him, they should
still be just as good friends, and respect one another’s motives; but—”
Here the other boys, who had been listening with open eyes and ears, burst
in,—
“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Gower. “Here, East, get down the crib and find
the place.”
“O Tommy, Tommy!” said East, proceeding to do as he was bidden, “that it
should ever have come to this! I knew Arthur’d be the ruin of you some
day, and you of me. And now the time’s come.” And he made a doleful face.
“I don’t know about ruin,” answered Tom; “I know that you and I would have
had the sack long ago if it hadn’t been for him. And you know it as well
as I.”
“Well, we were in a baddish way before he came, I own; but this new
crotchet of his is past a joke.”
“Let’s give it a trial, Harry; come. You know how often he has been right
and we wrong.”
“Now, don’t you two be jawing away about young Square-toes,” struck in
Gower. “He’s no end of a sucking wiseacre, I dare say; but we’ve no time
to lose, and I’ve got the fives court at half-past nine.”
“I say, Gower,” said Tom appealingly, “be a good fellow, and let’s try if
we can’t get on without the crib.”
“What! in this chorus? Why, we shan’t get through ten lines.”
“I say, Tom,” cried East, having hit on a new idea, “don’t you remember,
when we were in the upper fourth, and old Momus caught me construing off
the leaf of a crib which I’d torn out and put in my book, and which would
float out on to the floor, he sent me up to be flogged for it?”
“Yes, I remember it very well.”
“Well, the Doctor, after he’d flogged me, told me himself that he didn’t
flog me for using a translation, but for taking it in to lesson, and using
it there when I hadn’t learnt a word before I came in. He said there was
no harm in using a translation to get a clue to hard passages, if you
tried all you could first to make them out without.”
“Did he, though?” said Tom; “then Arthur must be wrong.”
“Of course he is,” said Gower—“the little prig. We’ll only use the
crib when we can’t construe without it.—Go ahead, East.”
And on this agreement they started—Tom, satisfied with having made
his confession, and not sorry to have a locus penitentiae, and not to be
deprived altogether of the use of his old and faithful friend.
The boys went on as usual, each taking a sentence in turn, and the crib
being handed to the one whose turn it was to construe. Of course Tom
couldn’t object to this, as, was it not simply lying there to be appealed
to in case the sentence should prove too hard altogether for the
construer? But it must be owned that Gower and East did not make very
tremendous exertions to conquer their sentences before having recourse to
its help. Tom, however, with the most heroic virtue and gallantry, rushed
into his sentence, searching in a high-minded manner for nominative and
verb, and turning over his dictionary frantically for the first hard word
that stopped him. But in the meantime Gower, who was bent on getting to
fives, would peep quietly into the crib, and then suggest, “Don’t you
think this is the meaning?” “I think you must take it this way, Brown.”
And as Tom didn’t see his way to not profiting by these suggestions, the
lesson went on about as quickly as usual, and Gower was able to start for
the fives court within five minutes of the half-hour.
When Tom and East were left face to face, they looked at one another for a
minute, Tom puzzled, and East chokefull of fun, and then burst into a roar
of laughter.
“Well, Tom,” said East, recovering himself, “I don t see any objection to
the new way. It’s about as good as the old one, I think, besides the
advantage it gives one of feeling virtuous, and looking down on one’s
neighbours.”
Tom shoved his hand into his back hair. “I ain’t so sure,” said he; “you
two fellows carried me off my legs. I don’t think we really tried one
sentence fairly. Are you sure you remember what the Doctor said to you?”
“Yes. And I’ll swear I couldn’t make out one of my sentences to-day—no,
nor ever could. I really don’t remember,” said East, speaking slowly and
impressively, “to have come across one Latin or Greek sentence this half
that I could go and construe by the light of nature. Whereby I am sure
Providence intended cribs to be used.”
“The thing to find out,” said Tom meditatively, “is how long one ought to
grind at a sentence without looking at the crib. Now I think if one fairly
looks out all the words one don’t know, and then can’t hit it, that’s
enough.”
“To be sure, Tommy,” said East demurely, but with a merry twinkle in his
eye. “Your new doctrine too, old fellow,” added he, “when one comes to
think of it, is a cutting at the root of all school morality. You’ll take
away mutual help, brotherly love, or, in the vulgar tongue, giving
construes, which I hold to be one of our highest virtues. For how can you
distinguish between getting a construe from another boy and using a crib?
Hang it, Tom, if you’re going to deprive all our school-fellows of the
chance of exercising Christian benevolence and being good Samaritans, I
shall cut the concern.”
“I wish you wouldn’t joke about it, Harry; it’s hard enough to see one’s
way—a precious sight harder than I thought last night. But I suppose
there’s a use and an abuse of both, and one’ll get straight enough
somehow. But you can’t make out, anyhow, that one has a right to use old
vulgus-books and copy-books.”
“Hullo, more heresy! How fast a fellow goes downhill when he once gets his
head before his legs. Listen to me, Tom. Not use old vulgus-books! Why,
you Goth, ain’t we to take the benefit of the wisdom and admire and use
the work of past generations? Not use old copy-books! Why, you might as
well say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a
go-to-meeting shop with churchwarden windows; or never read Shakespeare,
but only Sheridan Knowles. Think of all the work and labour that our
predecessors have bestowed on these very books; and are we to make their
work of no value?”
“I say, Harry, please don’t chaff; I’m really serious.”
“And then, is it not our duty to consult the pleasure of others rather
than our own, and above all, that of our masters? Fancy, then, the
difference to them in looking over a vulgus which has been carefully
touched and retouched by themselves and others, and which must bring them
a sort of dreamy pleasure, as if they’d met the thought or expression of
it somewhere or another—before they were born perhaps—and that
of cutting up, and making picture-frames round all your and my false
quantities, and other monstrosities. Why, Tom, you wouldn’t be so cruel as
never to let old Momus hum over the ‘O genus humanum’ again, and then look
up doubtingly through his spectacles, and end by smiling and giving three
extra marks for it—just for old sake’s sake, I suppose.”
“Well,” said Tom, getting up in something as like a huff as he was capable
of, “it’s deuced hard that when a fellow’s really trying to do what he
ought, his best friends’ll do nothing but chaff him and try to put him
down.” And he stuck his books under his arm and his hat on his head,
preparatory to rushing out into the quadrangle, to testify with his own
soul of the faithlessness of friendships.
“Now don’t be an ass, Tom,” said East, catching hold of him; “you know me
well enough by this time; my bark’s worse than my bite. You can’t expect
to ride your new crotchet without anybody’s trying to stick a nettle under
his tail and make him kick you off—especially as we shall all have
to go on foot still. But now sit down, and let’s go over it again. I’ll be
as serious as a judge.”
Then Tom sat himself down on the table, and waxed eloquent about all the
righteousnesses and advantages of the new plan, as was his wont whenever
he took up anything, going into it as if his life depended upon it, and
sparing no abuse which he could think of, of the opposite method, which he
denounced as ungentlemanly, cowardly, mean, lying, and no one knows what
besides. “Very cool of Tom,” as East thought, but didn’t say, “seeing as
how he only came out of Egypt himself last night at bedtime.”
“Well, Tom,” said he at last, “you see, when you and I came to school
there were none of these sort of notions. You may be right—I dare
say you are. Only what one has always felt about the masters is, that it’s
a fair trial of skill and last between us and them—like a match at
football or a battle. We’re natural enemies in school—that’s the
fact. We’ve got to learn so much Latin and Greek, and do so many verses,
and they’ve got to see that we do it. If we can slip the collar and do so
much less without getting caught, that’s one to us. If they can get more
out of us, or catch us shirking, that’s one to them. All’s fair in war but
lying. If I run my luck against theirs, and go into school without looking
at my lessons, and don’t get called up, why am I a snob or a sneak? I
don’t tell the master I’ve learnt it. He’s got to find out whether I have
or not. What’s he paid for? If he calls me up and I get floored, he makes
me write it out in Greek and English. Very good. He’s caught me, and I
don’t grumble. I grant you, if I go and snivel to him, and tell him I’ve
really tried to learn it, but found it so hard without a translation, or
say I’ve had a toothache, or any humbug of that kind, I’m a snob. That’s
my school morality; it’s served me, and you too, Tom, for the matter of
that, these five years. And it’s all clear and fair, no mistake about it.
We understand it, and they understand it, and I don’t know what we’re to
come to with any other.”
Tom looked at him pleased and a little puzzled. He had never heard East
speak his mind seriously before, and couldn’t help feeling how completely
he had hit his own theory and practice up to that time.
“Thank you, old fellow,” said he. “You’re a good old brick to be serious,
and not put out with me. I said more than I meant, I dare say, only you
see I know I’m right. Whatever you and Gower and the rest do, I shall hold
on. I must. And as it’s all new and an uphill game, you see, one must hit
hard and hold on tight at first.”
“Very good,” said East; “hold on and hit away, only don’t hit under the
line.”
“But I must bring you over, Harry, or I shan’t be comfortable. Now, I’ll
allow all you’ve said. We’ve always been honourable enemies with the
masters. We found a state of war when we came, and went into it of course.
Only don’t you think things are altered a good deal? I don’t feel as I
used to the masters. They seem to me to treat one quite differently.”
“Yes, perhaps they do,” said East; “there’s a new set you see, mostly, who
don’t feel sure of themselves yet. They don’t want to fight till they know
the ground.”
“I don’t think it’s only that,” said Tom. “And then the Doctor, he does
treat one so openly, and like a gentleman, and as if one was working with
him.”
“Well, so he does,” said East; “he’s a splendid fellow, and when I get
into the sixth I shall act accordingly. Only you know he has nothing to do
with our lessons now, except examining us. I say, though,” looking at his
watch, “it’s just the quarter. Come along.”
As they walked out they got a message, to say that Arthur was just
starting, and would like to say goodbye. So they went down to the private
entrance of the School-house, and found an open carriage, with Arthur
propped up with pillows in it, looking already better, Tom thought.
They jumped up on to the steps to shake hands with him, and Tom mumbled
thanks for the presents he had found in his study, and looked round
anxiously for Arthur’s mother.
Original
East, who had fallen back into his usual humour, looked quaintly at
Arthur, and said,—
“So you’ve been at it again, through that hot-headed convert of yours
there. He’s been making our lives a burden to us all the morning about
using cribs. I shall get floored to a certainty at second lesson, if I’m
called up.”
Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom struck in,—
“Oh, it’s all right. He’s converted already; he always comes through the
mud after us, grumbling and sputtering.”
The clock struck, and they had to go off to school, wishing Arthur a
pleasant holiday, Tom, lingering behind a moment to send his thanks and
love to Arthur’s mother.
Tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, and succeeded so far as to
get East to promise to give the new plan a fair trial.
Encouraged by his success, in the evening, when they were sitting alone in
the large study, where East lived now almost, “vice Arthur on leave,”
after examining the new fishing-rod, which both pronounced to be the
genuine article (“play enough to throw a midge tied on a single hair
against the wind, and strength enough to hold a grampus”), they naturally
began talking about Arthur. Tom, who was still bubbling over with last
night’s scene and all the thoughts of the last week, and wanting to clinch
and fix the whole in his own mind, which he could never do without first
going through the process of belabouring somebody else with it all,
suddenly rushed into the subject of Arthur’s illness, and what he had said
about death.
East had given him the desired opening. After a serio-comic grumble, “that
life wasn’t worth having, now they were tied to a young beggar who was
always ‘raising his standard;’ and that he, East, was like a prophet’s
donkey, who was obliged to struggle on after the donkey-man who went after
the prophet; that he had none of the pleasure of starting the new
crotchets, and didn’t half understand them, but had to take the kicks and
carry the luggage as if he had all the fun,” he threw his legs up on to
the sofa, and put his hands behind his head, and said,—
“Well, after all, he’s the most wonderful little fellow I ever came
across. There ain’t such a meek, humble boy in the school. Hanged if I
don’t think now, really, Tom, that he believes himself a much worse fellow
than you or I, and that he don’t think he has more influence in the house
than Dot Bowles, who came last quarter, and isn’t ten yet. But he turns
you and me round his little finger, old boy—there’s no mistake about
that.” And East nodded at Tom sagaciously.
“Now or never!” thought Tom; so, shutting his eyes and hardening his
heart, he went straight at it, repeating all that Arthur had said, as near
as he could remember it, in the very words, and all he had himself
thought. The life seemed to ooze out of it as he went on, and several
times he felt inclined to stop, give it all up, and change the subject.
But somehow he was borne on; he had a necessity upon him to speak it all
out, and did so. At the end he looked at East with some anxiety, and was
delighted to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful and attentive.
The fact is, that in the stage of his inner life at which Tom had lately
arrived, his intimacy with and friendship for East could not have lasted
if he had not made him aware of, and a sharer in, the thoughts that were
beginning to exercise him. Nor indeed could the friendship have lasted if
East had shown no sympathy with these thoughts; so that it was a great
relief to have unbosomed himself, and to have found that his friend could
listen.
Tom had always had a sort of instinct that East’s levity was only
skin-deep, and this instinct was a true one. East had no want of reverence
for anything he felt to be real; but his was one of those natures that
burst into what is generally called recklessness and impiety the moment
they feel that anything is being poured upon them for their good which
does not come home to their inborn sense of right, or which appeals to
anything like self-interest in them. Daring and honest by nature, and
outspoken to an extent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a constant
fund of animal health and spirits which he did not feel bound to curb in
any way, he had gained for himself with the steady part of the school
(including as well those who wished to appear steady as those who really
were so) the character of a boy with whom it would be dangerous to be
intimate; while his own hatred of everything cruel, or underhand, or
false, and his hearty respect for what he would see to be good and true,
kept off the rest.
Tom, besides being very like East in many points of character, had largely
developed in his composition the capacity for taking the weakest side.
This is not putting it strongly enough: it was a necessity with him; he
couldn’t help it any more than he could eating or drinking. He could never
play on the strongest side with any heart at football or cricket, and was
sure to make friends with any boy who was unpopular, or down on his luck.
Now, though East was not what is generally called unpopular, Tom felt more
and more every day, as their characters developed, that he stood alone,
and did not make friends among their contemporaries, and therefore sought
him out. Tom was himself much more popular, for his power of detecting
humbug was much less acute, and his instincts were much more sociable. He
was at this period of his life, too, largely given to taking people for
what they gave themselves out to be; but his singleness of heart,
fearlessness, and honesty were just what East appreciated, and thus the
two had been drawn into great intimacy.
This intimacy had not been interrupted by Tom’s guardianship of Arthur.
East had often, as has been said, joined them in reading the Bible; but
their discussions had almost always turned upon the characters of the men
and women of whom they read, and not become personal to themselves. In
fact, the two had shrunk from personal religious discussion, not knowing
how it might end, and fearful of risking a friendship very dear to both,
and which they felt somehow, without quite knowing why, would never be the
same, but either tenfold stronger or sapped at its foundation, after such
a communing together.
What a bother all this explaining is! I wish we could get on without it.
But we can’t. However, you’ll all find, if you haven’t found it out
already, that a time comes in every human friendship when you must go down
into the depths of yourself, and lay bare what is there to your friend,
and wait in fear for his answer. A few moments may do it; and it may be
(most likely will be, as you are English boys) that you will never do it
but once. But done it must be, if the friendship is to be worth the name.
You must find what is there, at the very root and bottom of one another’s
hearts; and if you are at one there, nothing on earth can or at least
ought to sunder you.
East had remained lying down until Tom finished speaking, as if fearing to
interrupt him; he now sat up at the table, and leant his head on one hand,
taking up a pencil with the other, and working little holes with it in the
table-cover. After a bit he looked up, stopped the pencil, and said,
“Thank you very much, old fellow. There’s no other boy in the house would
have done it for me but you or Arthur. I can see well enough,” he went on,
after a pause, “all the best big fellows look on me with suspicion; they
think I’m a devil-may-care, reckless young scamp. So I am—eleven
hours out of twelve, but not the twelfth. Then all of our contemporaries
worth knowing follow suit, of course: we’re very good friends at games and
all that, but not a soul of them but you and Arthur ever tried to break
through the crust, and see whether there was anything at the bottom of me;
and then the bad ones I won’t stand and they know that.”
“Don’t you think that’s half fancy, Harry?”
“Not a bit of it,” said East bitterly, pegging away with his pencil. “I
see it all plain enough. Bless you, you think everybody’s as
straightforward and kindhearted as you are.”
“Well, but what’s the reason of it? There must be a reason. You can play
all the games as well as any one and sing the best song, and are the best
company in the house. You fancy you’re not liked, Harry. It’s all fancy.”
“I only wish it was, Tom. I know I could be popular enough with all the
bad ones, but that I won’t have, and the good ones won’t have me.”
“Why not?” persisted Tom; “you don’t drink or swear, or get out at night;
you never bully, or cheat at lessons. If you only showed you liked it,
you’d have all the best fellows in the house running after you.”
“Not I,” said East. Then with an effort he went on, “I’ll tell you what it
is. I never stop the Sacrament. I can see, from the Doctor downwards, how
that tells against me.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that,” said Tom, “and I’ve been very sorry for it, and
Arthur and I have talked about it. I’ve often thought of speaking to you,
but it’s so hard to begin on such subjects. I’m very glad you’ve opened
it. Now, why don’t you?”
“I’ve never been confirmed,” said East.
“Not been confirmed!” said Tom, in astonishment. “I never thought of that.
Why weren’t you confirmed with the rest of us nearly three years ago? I
always thought you’d been confirmed at home.”
“No,” answered East sorrowfully; “you see this was how it happened. Last
Confirmation was soon after Arthur came, and you were so taken up with him
I hardly saw either of you. Well, when the Doctor sent round for us about
it, I was living mostly with Green’s set. You know the sort. They all went
in. I dare say it was all right, and they got good by it; I don’t want to
judge them. Only all I could see of their reasons drove me just the other
way. ‘Twas ‘because the Doctor liked it;’ ‘no boy got on who didn’t stay
the Sacrament;’ it was the ‘correct thing,’ in fact, like having a good
hat to wear on Sundays. I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t feel that I wanted
to lead a different life. I was very well content as I was, and I wasn’t
going to sham religious to curry favour with the Doctor, or any one else.”
East stopped speaking, and pegged away more diligently than ever with his
pencil. Tom was ready to cry. He felt half sorry at first that he had been
confirmed himself. He seemed to have deserted his earliest friend—to
have left him by himself at his worst need for those long years. He got up
and went and sat by East, and put his arm over his shoulder.
“Dear old boy,” he said, “how careless and selfish I’ve been. But why
didn’t you come and talk to Arthur and me?”
“I wish to Heaven I had,” said East, “but I was a fool. It’s too late
talking of it now.”
“Why too late? You want to be confirmed now, don’t you?”
“I think so,” said East. “I’ve thought about it a good deal; only, often I
fancy I must be changing, because I see it’s to do me good here—just
what stopped me last time. And then I go back again.”
“I’ll tell you now how ’twas with me,” said Tom warmly. “If it hadn’t been
for Arthur, I should have done just as you did. I hope I should. I honour
you for it. But then he made it out just as if it was taking the weak side
before all the world—going in once for all against everything that’s
strong and rich, and proud and respectable, a little band of brothers
against the whole world. And the Doctor seemed to say so too, only he said
a great deal more.”
“Ah!” groaned East, “but there again, that’s just another of my
difficulties whenever I think about the matter. I don’t want to be one of
your saints, one of your elect, whatever the right phrase is. My
sympathies are all the other way—with the many, the poor devils who
run about the streets and don’t go to church. Don’t stare, Tom; mind, I’m
telling you all that’s in my heart—as far as I know it—but
it’s all a muddle. You must be gentle with me if you want to land me. Now
I’ve seen a deal of this sort of religion; I was bred up in it, and I
can’t stand it. If nineteen-twentieths of the world are to be left to
uncovenanted mercies, and that sort of thing, which means in plain English
to go to hell, and the other twentieth are to rejoice at it all, why—”
“Oh! but, Harry, they ain’t, they don’t,” broke in Tom, really shocked.
“Oh, how I wish Arthur hadn’t gone! I’m such a fool about these things.
But it’s all you want too, East; it is indeed. It cuts both ways somehow,
being confirmed and taking the Sacrament. It makes you feel on the side of
all the good and all the bad too, of everybody in the world. Only there’s
some great dark strong power, which is crushing you and everybody else.
That’s what Christ conquered, and we’ve got to fight. What a fool I am! I
can’t explain. If Arthur were only here!”
“I begin to get a glimmering of what you mean,” said East.
“I say, now,” said Tom eagerly, “do you remember how we both hated
Flashman?”
“Of course I do,” said East; “I hate him still. What then?”
“Well, when I came to take the Sacrament, I had a great struggle about
that. I tried to put him out of my head; and when I couldn’t do that, I
tried to think of him as evil—as something that the Lord who was
loving me hated, and which I might hate too. But it wouldn’t do. I broke
down; I believe Christ Himself broke me down. And when the Doctor gave me
the bread and wine, and leant over me praying, I prayed for poor Flashman,
as if it had been you or Arthur.”
East buried his face in his hands on the table. Tom could feel the table
tremble. At last he looked up. “Thank you again, Tom,” said he; “you don’t
know what you may have done for me to-night. I think I see now how the
right sort of sympathy with poor devils is got at.”
“And you’ll stop the Sacrament next time, won’t you?” said Tom.
“Can I, before I’m confirmed?”
“Go and ask the Doctor.”
“I will.”
That very night, after prayers, East followed the Doctor, and the old
verger bearing the candle, upstairs. Tom watched, and saw the Doctor turn
round when he heard footsteps following him closer than usual, and say,
“Hah, East! Do you want to speak to me, my man?”
Original
“If you please, sir.” And the private door closed, and Tom went to his
study in a state of great trouble of mind.
It was almost an hour before East came back. Then he rushed in breathless.
“Well, it’s all right,” he shouted, seizing Tom by the hand. “I feel as if
a ton weight were off my mind.”
“Hurrah,” said Tom. “I knew it would be; but tell us all about it.”
“Well, I just told him all about it. You can’t think how kind and gentle
he was, the great grim man, whom I’ve feared more than anybody on earth.
When I stuck, he lifted me just as if I’d been a little child. And he
seemed to know all I’d felt, and to have gone through it all. And I burst
out crying—more than I’ve done this five years; and he sat down by
me, and stroked my head; and I went blundering on, and told him all—much
worse things than I’ve told you. And he wasn’t shocked a bit, and didn’t
snub me, or tell me I was a fool, and it was all nothing but pride or
wickedness, though I dare say it was. And he didn’t tell me not to follow
out my thoughts, and he didn’t give me any cut-and-dried explanation. But
when I’d done he just talked a bit. I can hardly remember what he said
yet; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, and strength, and
light, and to bear me up, and plant me on a rock, where I could hold my
footing and fight for myself. I don’t know what to do, I feel so happy.
And it’s all owing to you, dear old boy!” And he seized Tom’s hand again.
“And you’re to come to the Communion?” said Tom.
“Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays.”
Tom’s delight was as great as his friend’s. But he hadn’t yet had out all
his own talk, and was bent on improving the occasion: so he proceeded to
propound Arthur’s theory about not being sorry for his friends’ deaths,
which he had hitherto kept in the background, and by which he was much
exercised; for he didn’t feel it honest to take what pleased him, and
throw over the rest, and was trying vigorously to persuade himself that he
should like all his best friends to die off-hand.
But East’s powers of remaining serious were exhausted, and in five minutes
he was saying the most ridiculous things he could think of, till Tom was
almost getting angry again.
Despite of himself, however, he couldn’t help laughing and giving it up,
when East appealed to him with, “Well, Tom, you ain’t going to punch my
head, I hope, because I insist upon being sorry when you got to earth?”
And so their talk finished for that time, and they tried to learn first
lesson, with very poor success, as appeared next morning, when they were
called up and narrowly escaped being floored, which ill-luck, however, did
not sit heavily on either of their souls.
Original
CHAPTER VIII—TOM BROWN’S LAST MATCH.
he curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama, for
hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must of necessity
have an end. Well, well! the pleasantest things must come to an end. I
little thought last long vacation, when I began these pages to help while
away some spare time at a watering-place, how vividly many an old scene
which had lain hid away for years in some dusty old corner of my brain,
would come back again, and stand before me as clear and bright as if it
had happened yesterday. The book has been a most grateful task to me, and
I only hope that all you, my dear young friends, who read it (friends
assuredly you must be, if you get as far as this), will be half as sorry
to come to the last stage as I am.
Not but what there has been a solemn and a sad side to it. As the old
scenes became living, and the actors in them became living too, many a
grave in the Crimea and distant India, as well as in the quiet churchyards
of our dear old country, seemed to open and send forth their dead, and
their voices and looks and ways were again in one’s ears and eyes, as in
the old School-days. But this was not sad. How should it be, if we believe
as our Lord has taught us? How should it be, when one more turn of the
wheel, and we shall be by their sides again, learning from them again,
perhaps, as we did when we were new boys.
Then there were others of the old faces so dear to us once who had somehow
or another just gone clean out of sight. Are they dead or living? We know
not, but the thought of them brings no sadness with it. Wherever they are,
we can well believe they are doing God’s work and getting His wages.
But are there not some, whom we still see sometimes in the streets, whose
haunts and homes we know, whom we could probably find almost any day in
the week if we were set to do it, yet from whom we are really farther than
we are from the dead, and from those who have gone out of our ken? Yes,
there are and must be such; and therein lies the sadness of old School
memories. Yet of these our old comrades, from whom more than time and
space separate us, there are some by whose sides we can feel sure that we
shall stand again when time shall be no more. We may think of one another
now as dangerous fanatics or narrow bigots, with whom no truce is
possible, from whom we shall only sever more and more to the end of our
lives, whom it would be our respective duties to imprison or hang, if we
had the power. We must go our way, and they theirs, as long as flesh and
spirit hold together; but let our own Rugby poet speak words of healing
for this trial:—
This is not mere longing; it is prophecy. So over these too, our old
friends, who are friends no more, we sorrow not as men without hope. It is
only for those who seem to us to have lost compass and purpose, and to be
driven helplessly on rocks and quicksands, whose lives are spent in the
service of the world, the flesh, and the devil, for self alone, and not
for their fellow-men, their country, or their God, that we must mourn and
pray without sure hope and without light, trusting only that He, in whose
hands they as well as we are, who has died for them as well as for us, who
sees all His creatures
will, in His own way and at His own time, lead them also home.
Another two years have passed, and it is again the end of the summer
half-year at Rugby; in fact, the School has broken up. The fifth-form
examinations were over last week, and upon them have followed the
speeches, and the sixth-form examinations for exhibitions; and they too
are over now. The boys have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the
town boys and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked
leave to stay in their houses to see the result of the cricket matches.
For this year the Wellesburn return match and the Marylebone match are
played at Rugby, to the great delight of the town and neighbourhood, and
the sorrow of those aspiring young cricketers who have been reckoning for
the last three months on showing off at Lord’s ground.
The Doctor started for the Lakes yesterday morning, after an interview
with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of Thomas, at which he
arranged in what school the cricket dinners were to be, and all other
matters necessary for the satisfactory carrying out of the festivities,
and warned them as to keeping all spirituous liquors out of the close, and
having the gates closed by nine o’clock.
The Wellesburn match was played out with great success yesterday, the
School winning by three wickets; and to-day the great event of the
cricketing year, the Marylebone match, is being played. What a match it
has been! The London eleven came down by an afternoon train yesterday, in
time to see the end of the Wellesburn match; and as soon as it was over,
their leading men and umpire inspected the ground, criticising it rather
unmercifully. The captain of the School eleven, and one or two others, who
had played the Lord’s match before, and knew old Mr. Aislabie and several
of the Lord’s men, accompanied them; while the rest of the eleven looked
on from under the Three Trees with admiring eyes, and asked one another
the names of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how many runs each
of them had made in the late matches in Bell’s Life. They looked such
hard-bitten, wiry, whiskered fellows that their young adversaries felt
rather desponding as to the result of the morrow’s match. The ground was
at last chosen, and two men set to work upon it to water and roll; and
then, there being yet some half-hour of daylight, some one had suggested a
dance on the turf. The close was half full of citizens and their families,
and the idea was hailed with enthusiasm. The cornopean player was still on
the ground. In five minutes the eleven and half a dozen of the Wellesburn
and Marylebone men got partners somehow or another, and a merry
country-dance was going on, to which every one flocked, and new couples
joined in every minute, till there were a hundred of them going down the
middle and up again; and the long line of school buildings looked gravely
down on them, every window glowing with the last rays of the western sun;
and the rooks clanged about in the tops of the old elms, greatly excited,
and resolved on having their country-dance too; and the great flag flapped
lazily in the gentle western breeze. Altogether it was a sight which would
have made glad the heart of our brave old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, if he
were half as good a fellow as I take him to have been. It was a cheerful
sight to see. But what made it so valuable in the sight of the captain of
the School eleven was that he there saw his young hands shaking off their
shyness and awe of the Lord’s men, as they crossed hands and capered about
on the grass together; for the strangers entered into it all, and threw
away their cigars, and danced and shouted like boys; while old Mr.
Aislabie stood by looking on in his white hat, leaning on a bat, in
benevolent enjoyment. “This hop will be worth thirty runs to us to-morrow,
and will be the making of Raggles and Johnson,” thinks the young leader,
as he revolves many things in his mind, standing by the side of Mr.
Aislabie, whom he will not leave for a minute, for he feels that the
character of the School for courtesy is resting on his shoulders.
But when a quarter to nine struck, and he saw old Thomas beginning to
fidget about with the keys in his hand, he thought of the Doctor’s parting
monition, and stopped the cornopean at once, notwithstanding the
loud-voiced remonstrances from all sides; and the crowd scattered away
from the close, the eleven all going into the School-house, where supper
and beds were provided for them by the Doctor’s orders.
Deep had been the consultations at supper as to the order of going in, who
should bowl the first over, whether it would be best to play steady or
freely; and the youngest hands declared that they shouldn’t be a bit
nervous, and praised their opponents as the jolliest fellows in the world,
except perhaps their old friends the Wellesburn men. How far a little
good-nature from their elders will go with the right sort of boys!
The morning had dawned bright and warm, to the intense relief of many an
anxious youngster, up betimes to mark the signs of the weather. The eleven
went down in a body before breakfast, for a plunge in the cold bath in a
corner of the close. The ground was in splendid order, and soon after ten
o’clock, before spectators had arrived, all was ready, and two of the
Lord’s men took their places at the wickets—the School, with the
usual liberality of young hands, having put their adversaries in first.
Old Bailey stepped up to the wicket, and called play, and the match has
begun.
“Oh, well bowled! well bowled, Johnson!” cries the captain, catching up
the ball and sending it high above the rook trees, while the third
Marylebone man walks away from the wicket, and old Bailey gravely sets up
the middle stump again and puts the bails on.
“How many runs?” Away scamper three boys to the scoring table, and are
back again in a minute amongst the rest of the eleven, who are collected
together in a knot between wicket. “Only eighteen runs, and three wickets
down!” “Huzza for old Rugby!” sings out Jack Raggles, the long-stop,
toughest and burliest of boys, commonly called “Swiper Jack,” and
forthwith stands on his head, and brandishes his legs in the air in
triumph, till the next boy catches hold of his heels, and throws him over
on to his back.
“Steady there; don’t be such an ass, Jack,” says the captain; “we haven’t
got the best wicket yet. Ah, look out now at cover-point,” adds he, as he
sees a long-armed bare-headed, slashing-looking player coming to the
wicket. “And, Jack, mind your hits. He steals more runs than any man in
England.”
And they all find that they have got their work to do now. The newcomer’s
off-hitting is tremendous, and his running like a flash of lightning. He
is never in his ground except when his wicket is down. Nothing in the
whole game so trying to boys. He has stolen three byes in the first ten
minutes, and Jack Raggles is furious, and begins throwing over savagely to
the farther wicket, until he is sternly stopped by the captain. It is all
that young gentlemen can do to keep his team steady, but he knows that
everything depends on it, and faces his work bravely. The score creeps up
to fifty; the boys begin to look blank; and the spectators, who are now
mustering strong, are very silent. The ball flies off his bat to all parts
of the field, and he gives no rest and no catches to any one. But cricket
is full of glorious chances, and the goddess who presides over it loves to
bring down the most skilful players. Johnson, the young bowler, is getting
wild, and bowls a ball almost wide to the off; the batter steps out and
cuts it beautifully to where cover-point is standing very deep—in
fact almost off the ground. The ball comes skimming and twisting along
about three feet from the ground; he rushes at it, and it sticks somehow
or other in the fingers of his left hand, to the utter astonishment of
himself and the whole field. Such a catch hasn’t been made in the close
for years, and the cheering is maddening. “Pretty cricket,” says the
captain, throwing himself on the ground by the deserted wicket with a long
breath. He feels that a crisis has passed.
I wish I had space to describe the match—how the captain stumped the
next man off a leg-shooter, and bowled small cobs to old Mr. Aislabie, who
came in for the last wicket; how the Lord’s men were out by half-past
twelve o’clock for ninety-eight runs; how the captain of the School eleven
went in first to give his men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful
style; how Rugby was only four behind in the first innings; what a
glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form school; and how the
cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, and old Mr. Aislabie
made the best speeches that ever were heard, afterwards. But I haven’t
space—that’s the fact; and so you must fancy it all, and carry
yourselves on to half-past seven o’clock, when the School are again in,
with five wickets down, and only thirty-two runs to make to win. The
Marylebone men played carelessly in their second innings, but they are
working like horses now to save the match.
There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up and down the close;
but the group to which I beg to call your especial attention is there, on
the slope of the island, which looks towards the cricket-ground. It
consists of three figures; two are seated on a bench, and one on the
ground at their feet. The first, a tall, slight and rather gaunt man, with
a bushy eyebrow and a dry, humorous smile, is evidently a clergyman. He is
carelessly dressed, and looks rather used up, which isn’t much to be
wondered at, seeing that he has just finished six weeks of examination
work; but there he basks, and spreads himself out in the evening sun, bent
on enjoying life, though he doesn’t quite know what to do with his arms
and legs. Surely it is our friend the young master, whom we have had
glimpses of before, but his face has gained a great deal since we last
came across him.
And by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, straw hat, the
captain’s belt, and the untanned yellow cricket shoes which all the eleven
wear, sits a strapping figure, near six feet high, with ruddy, tanned face
and whiskers, curly brown hair, and a laughing, dancing eye. He is leaning
forward with his elbows resting on his knees, and dandling his favourite
bat, with which he has made thirty or forty runs to-day, in his strong
brown hands. It is Tom Brown, grown into a young man nineteen years old, a
praepostor and captain of the eleven, spending his last day as a Rugby boy,
and, let us hope, as much wiser as he is bigger, since we last had the
pleasure of coming across him.
Original
And at their feet on the warm, dry ground, similarly dressed, sits Arthur,
Turkish fashion, with his bat across his knees. He too is no longer a boy—less
of a boy, in fact, than Tom, if one may judge from the thoughtfulness of
his face, which is somewhat paler, too, than one could wish; but his
figure, though slight, is well knit and active, and all his old timidity
has disappeared, and is replaced by silent, quaint fun, with which his
face twinkles all over, as he listens to the broken talk between the other
two, in which he joins every now and then.
All three are watching the game eagerly, and joining in the cheering which
follows every good hit. It is pleasing to see the easy, friendly footing
which the pupils are on with their master, perfectly respectful, yet with
no reserve and nothing forced in their intercourse. Tom has clearly
abandoned the old theory of “natural enemies” in this case at any rate.
But it is time to listen to what they are saying, and see what we can
gather out of it.
“I don’t object to your theory,” says the master, “and I allow you have
made a fair case for yourself. But now, in such books as Aristophanes, for
instance, you’ve been reading a play this half with the Doctor, haven’t
you?”
“Yes, the Knights,” answered Tom.
“Well, I’m sure you would have enjoyed the wonderful humour of it twice as
much if you had taken more pains with your scholarship.”
“Well, sir, I don’t believe any boy in the form enjoyed the sets-to
between Cleon and the Sausage-seller more than I did—eh, Arthur?”
said Tom, giving him a stir with his foot.
“Yes, I must say he did,” said Arthur. “I think, sir, you’ve hit upon the
wrong book there.”
“Not a bit of it,” said the master. “Why, in those very passages of arms,
how can you thoroughly appreciate them unless you are master of the
weapons? and the weapons are the language, which you, Brown, have never
half worked at; and so, as I say, you must have lost all the delicate
shades of meaning which make the best part of the fun.”
“Oh, well played! bravo, Johnson!” shouted Arthur, dropping his bat and
clapping furiously, and Tom joined in with a “Bravo, Johnson!” which might
have been heard at the chapel.
“Eh! what was it? I didn’t see,” inquired the master. “They only got one
run, I thought?”
“No, but such a ball, three-quarters length, and coming straight for his
leg bail. Nothing but that turn of the wrist could have saved him, and he
drew it away to leg for a safe one.—Bravo, Johnson!”
“How well they are bowling, though,” said Arthur; “they don’t mean to be
beat, I can see.”
“There now,” struck in the master; “you see that’s just what I have been
preaching this half-hour. The delicate play is the true thing. I don’t
understand cricket, so I don’t enjoy those fine draws which you tell me
are the best play, though when you or Raggles hit a ball hard away for six
I am as delighted as any one. Don’t you see the analogy?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Tom, looking up roguishly, “I see; only the question
remains whether I should have got most good by understanding Greek
particles or cricket thoroughly. I’m such a thick, I never should have had
time for both.”
“I see you are an incorrigible,” said the master, with a chuckle; “but I
refute you by an example. Arthur there has taken in Greek and cricket
too.”
“Yes, but no thanks to him; Greek came natural to him. Why, when he first
came I remember he used to read Herodotus for pleasure as I did Don
Quixote, and couldn’t have made a false concord if he’d tried ever so
hard; and then I looked after his cricket.”
“Out! Bailey has given him out. Do you see, Tom?” cries Arthur. “How
foolish of them to run so hard.”
“Well, it can’t be helped; he has played very well. Whose turn is it to go
in?”
“I don’t know; they’ve got your list in the tent.”
“Let’s go and see,” said Tom, rising; but at this moment Jack Raggles and
two or three more came running to the island moat.
“O Brown, mayn’t I go in next?” shouts the Swiper.
“Whose name is next on the list?” says the captain.
“Winter’s, and then Arthur’s,” answers the boy who carries it; “but there
are only twenty-six runs to get, and no time to lose. I heard Mr. Aislabie
say that the stumps must be drawn at a quarter past eight exactly.”
“Oh, do let the Swiper go in,” chorus the boys; so Tom yields against his
better judgment.
“I dare say now I’ve lost the match by this nonsense,” he says, as he sits
down again; “they’ll be sure to get Jack’s wicket in three or four
minutes; however, you’ll have the chance, sir, of seeing a hard hit or
two,” adds he, smiling, and turning to the master.
“Come, none of your irony, Brown,” answers the master. “I’m beginning to
understand the game scientifically. What a noble game it is, too!”
“Isn’t it? But it’s more than a game. It’s an institution,” said Tom.
“Yes,” said Arthur—“the birthright of British boys old and young, as
habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British men.”
“The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches is so
valuable, I think,” went on the master, “it ought to be such an unselfish
game. It merges the individual in the eleven; he doesn’t play that he may
win, but that his side may.”
“That’s very true,” said Tom, “and that’s why football and cricket, now
one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives or
hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to
win for oneself, and not that one’s side may win.”
“And then the captain of the eleven!” said the master; “what a post is his
in our School-world! almost as hard as the Doctor’s—requiring skill
and gentleness and firmness, and I know not what other rare qualities.”
“Which don’t he may wish he may get!” said Tom, laughing; “at any rate he
hasn’t got them yet, or he wouldn’t have been such a flat to-night as to
let Jack Raggles go in out of his turn.”
“Ah, the Doctor never would have done that,” said Arthur demurely. “Tom,
you’ve a great deal to learn yet in the art of ruling.”
“Well, I wish you’d tell the Doctor so then, and get him to let me stop
till I’m twenty. I don’t want to leave, I’m sure.”
“What a sight it is,” broke in the master, “the Doctor as a ruler! Perhaps
ours is the only little corner of the British Empire which is thoroughly,
wisely, and strongly ruled just now. I’m more and more thankful every day
of my life that I came here to be under him.”
“So am I, I’m sure,” said Tom, “and more and more sorry that I’ve got to
leave.”
“Every place and thing one sees here reminds one of some wise act of his,”
went on the master. “This island now—you remember the time, Brown,
when it was laid out in small gardens, and cultivated by frost-bitten fags
in February and March?”
“Of course I do,” said Tom; “didn’t I hate spending two hours in the
afternoon grubbing in the tough dirt with the stump of a fives bat? But
turf-cart was good fun enough.”
“I dare say it was, but it was always leading to fights with the
townspeople; and then the stealing flowers out of all the gardens in Rugby
for the Easter show was abominable.”
“Well, so it was,” said Tom, looking down, “but we fags couldn’t help
ourselves. But what has that to do with the Doctor’s ruling?”
“A great deal, I think,” said the master; “what brought island-fagging to
an end?”
“Why, the Easter speeches were put off till midsummer,” said Tom, “and the
sixth had the gymnastic poles put up here.”
“Well, and who changed the time of the speeches, and put the idea of
gymnastic poles into the heads of their worships the sixth form?” said the
master.
“The Doctor, I suppose,” said Tom. “I never thought of that.”
“Of course you didn’t,” said the master, “or else, fag as you were, you
would have shouted with the whole school against putting down old customs.
And that’s the way that all the Doctor’s reforms have been carried out
when he has been left to himself—quietly and naturally, putting a
good thing in the place of a bad, and letting the bad die out; no
wavering, and no hurry—the best thing that could be done for the
time being, and patience for the rest.”
“Just Tom’s own way,” chimed in Arthur, nudging Tom with his elbow—“driving
a nail where it will go;” to which allusion Tom answered by a sly kick.
“Exactly so,” said the master, innocent of the allusion and by-play.
Meantime Jack Raggles, with his sleeves tucked up above his great brown
elbows, scorning pads and gloves, has presented himself at the wicket; and
having run one for a forward drive of Johnson’s, is about to receive his
first ball. There are only twenty-four runs to make, and four wickets to
go down—a winning match if they play decently steady. The ball is a
very swift one, and rises fast, catching Jack on the outside of the thigh,
and bounding away as if from india-rubber, while they run two for a
leg-bye amidst great applause and shouts from Jack’s many admirers. The
next ball is a beautifully-pitched ball for the outer stump, which the
reckless and unfeeling Jack catches hold of, and hits right round to leg
for five, while the applause becomes deafening. Only seventeen runs to get
with four wickets! The game is all but ours!
It is over now, and Jack walks swaggering about his wicket, with his bat
over his shoulder, while Mr. Aislabie holds a short parley with his men.
Then the cover-point hitter, that cunning man, goes on to bowl slow
twisters. Jack waves his hand triumphantly towards the tent, as much as to
say, “See if I don’t finish it all off now in three hits.”
Alas, my son Jack, the enemy is too old for thee. The first ball of the
over Jack steps out and meets, swiping with all his force. If he had only
allowed for the twist! But he hasn’t, and so the ball goes spinning up
straight in the air, as if it would never come down again. Away runs Jack,
shouting and trusting to the chapter of accidents; but the bowler runs
steadily under it, judging every spin, and calling out, “I have it,”
catches it, and playfully pitches it on to the back of the stalwart Jack,
who is departing with a rueful countenance.
“I knew how it would be,” says Tom, rising. “Come along; the game’s
getting very serious.”
So they leave the island and go to the tent; and after deep consultation,
Arthur is sent in, and goes off to the wicket with a last exhortation from
Tom to play steady and keep his bat straight. To the suggestions that
Winter is the best bat left, Tom only replies, “Arthur is the steadiest,
and Johnson will make the runs if the wicket is only kept up.”
“I am surprised to see Arthur in the eleven,” said the master, as they
stood together in front of the dense crowd, which was now closing in round
the ground.
“Well, I’m not quite sure that he ought to be in for his play,” said Tom,
“but I couldn’t help putting him in. It will do him so much good, and you
can’t think what I owe him.”
The master smiled. The clock strikes eight, and the whole field becomes
fevered with excitement. Arthur, after two narrow escapes, scores one, and
Johnson gets the ball. The bowling and fielding are superb, and Johnson’s
batting worthy the occasion. He makes here a two, and there a one,
managing to keep the ball to himself, and Arthur backs up and runs
perfectly. Only eleven runs to make now, and the crowd scarcely breathe.
At last Arthur gets the ball again, and actually drives it forward for
two, and feels prouder than when he got the three best prizes, at hearing
Tom’s shout of joy, “Well played, well played, young un!”
But the next ball is too much for the young hand, and his bails fly
different ways. Nine runs to make, and two wickets to go down: it is too
much for human nerves.
Before Winter can get in, the omnibus which is to take the Lord’s men to
the train pulls up at the side of the close, and Mr. Aislabie and Tom
consult, and give out that the stumps will be drawn after the next over.
And so ends the great match. Winter and Johnson carry out their bats, and,
it being a one day’s match, the Lord’s men are declared the winners, they
having scored the most in the first innings.
But such a defeat is a victory: so think Tom and all the School eleven, as
they accompany their conquerors to the omnibus, and send them off with
three ringing cheers, after Mr. Aislabie has shaken hands all round,
saying to Tom, “I must compliment you, sir, on your eleven, and I hope we
shall have you for a member if you come up to town.”
As Tom and the rest of the eleven were turning back into the close, and
everybody was beginning to cry out for another country-dance, encouraged
by the success of the night before, the young master, who was just leaving
the close, stopped him, and asked him to come up to tea at half-past
eight, adding, “I won’t keep you more than half an hour, and ask Arthur to
come up too.”
“I’ll come up with you directly, if you’ll let me,” said Tom, “for I feel
rather melancholy, and not quite up to the country-dance and supper with
the rest.”
“Do, by all means,” said the master; “I’ll wait here for you.”
So Tom went off to get his boots and things from the tent, to tell Arthur
of the invitation, and to speak to his second in command about stopping
the dancing and shutting up the close as soon as it grew dusk. Arthur
promised to follow as soon as he had had a dance. So Tom handed his things
over to the man in charge of the tent, and walked quietly away to the gate
where the master was waiting, and the two took their way together up the
Hillmorton road.
Of course they found the master’s house locked up, and all the servants
away in the close—about this time, no doubt, footing it away on the
grass, with extreme delight to themselves, and in utter oblivion of the
unfortunate bachelor their master, whose one enjoyment in the shape of
meals was his “dish of tea” (as our grandmothers called it) in the
evening; and the phrase was apt in his case, for he always poured his out
into the saucer before drinking. Great was the good man’s horror at
finding himself shut out of his own house. Had he been alone he would have
treated it as a matter of course, and would have strolled contentedly up
and down his gravel walk until some one came home; but he was hurt at the
stain on his character of host, especially as the guest was a pupil.
However, the guest seemed to think it a great joke, and presently, as they
poked about round the house, mounted a wall, from which he could reach a
passage window. The window, as it turned out, was not bolted, so in
another minute Tom was in the house and down at the front door, which he
opened from inside. The master chuckled grimly at this burglarious entry,
and insisted on leaving the hall-door and two of the front windows open,
to frighten the truants on their return; and then the two set about
foraging for tea, in which operation the master was much at fault, having
the faintest possible idea of where to find anything, and being, moreover,
wondrously short-sighted; but Tom, by a sort of instinct, knew the right
cupboards in the kitchen and pantry, and soon managed to place on the
snuggery table better materials for a meal than had appeared there
probably during the reign of his tutor, who was then and there initiated,
amongst other things, into the excellence of that mysterious condiment, a
dripping-cake. The cake was newly baked, and all rich and flaky; Tom had
found it reposing in the cook’s private cupboard, awaiting her return; and
as a warning to her they finished it to the last crumb. The kettle sang
away merrily on the hob of the snuggery, for, notwithstanding the time of
year, they lighted a fire, throwing both the windows wide open at the same
time; the heaps of books and papers were pushed away to the other end of
the table, and the great solitary engraving of King’s College Chapel over
the mantelpiece looked less stiff than usual, as they settled themselves
down in the twilight to the serious drinking of tea.
After some talk on the match, and other indifferent subjects, the
conversation came naturally back to Tom’s approaching departure, over
which he began again to make his moan.
“Well, we shall all miss you quite as much as you will miss us,” said the
master. “You are the Nestor of the School now, are you not?”
“Yes, ever since East left,” answered Tom. “By-the-bye, have you heard
from him?”
“Yes, I had a letter in February, just before he started for India to join
his regiment.”
“He will make a capital officer.”
“Ay, won’t he!” said Tom, brightening. “No fellow could handle boys
better, and I suppose soldiers are very like boys. And he’ll never tell
them to go where he won’t go himself. No mistake about that. A braver
fellow never walked.”
“His year in the sixth will have taught him a good deal that will be
useful to him now.”
“So it will,”’ said Tom, staring into the fire. “Poor dear Harry,” he went
on—“how well I remember the day we were put out of the twenty! How
he rose to the situation, and burnt his cigar-cases, and gave away his
pistols, and pondered on the constitutional authority of the sixth, and
his new duties to the Doctor, and the fifth form, and the fags! Ay, and no
fellow ever acted up to them better, though he was always a people’s man—for
the fags, and against constituted authorities. He couldn’t help that, you
know. I’m sure the Doctor must have liked him?” said Tom, looking up
inquiringly.
“The Doctor sees the good in every one, and appreciates it,” said the
master dogmatically; “but I hope East will get a good colonel. He won’t do
if he can’t respect those above him. How long it took him, even here, to
learn the lesson of obeying!”
“Well, I wish I were alongside of him,” said Tom. “If I can’t be at Rugby,
I want to be at work in the world, and not dawdling away three years at
Oxford.”
“What do you mean by ‘at work in the world’?” said the master, pausing
with his lips close to his saucerful of tea, and peering at Tom over it.
“Well, I mean real work—one’s profession—whatever one will
have really to do and make one’s living by. I want to be doing some real
good, feeling that I am not only at play in the world,” answered Tom,
rather puzzled to find out himself what he really did mean.
“You are mixing up two very different things in your head, I think,
Brown,” said the master, putting down the empty saucer, “and you ought to
get clear about them. You talk of ‘working to get your living,’ and ‘doing
some real good in the world,’ in the same breath. Now, you may be getting
a very good living in a profession, and yet doing no good at all in the
world, but quite the contrary, at the same time. Keep the latter before
you as your one object, and you will be right, whether you make a living
or not; but if you dwell on the other, you’ll very likely drop into mere
money-making, and let the world take care of itself for good or evil.
Don’t be in a hurry about finding your work in the world for yourself—you
are not old enough to judge for yourself yet; but just look about you in
the place you find yourself in, and try to make things a little better and
honester there. You’ll find plenty to keep your hand in at Oxford, or
wherever else you go. And don’t be led away to think this part of the
world important and that unimportant. Every corner of the world is
important. No man knows whether this part or that is most so, but every
man may do some honest work in his own corner.” And then the good man went
on to talk wisely to Tom of the sort of work which he might take up as an
undergraduate, and warned him of the prevalent university sins, and
explained to him the many and great differences between university and
school life, till the twilight changed into darkness, and they heard the
truant servants stealing in by the back entrance.
“I wonder where Arthur can be,” said Tom at last, looking at his watch;
“why, it’s nearly half-past nine already.”
“Oh, he is comfortably at supper with the eleven, forgetful of his oldest
friends,” said the master. “Nothing has given me greater pleasure,” he
went on, “than your friendship for him; it has been the making of you
both.”
“Of me, at any rate,” answered Tom; “I should never have been here now but
for him. It was the luckiest chance in the world that sent him to Rugby
and made him my chum.”
“Why do you talk of lucky chances?” said the master. “I don’t know that
there are any such things in the world; at any rate, there was neither
luck nor chance in that matter.”
Tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went on. “Do you remember when the
Doctor lectured you and East at the end of one half-year, when you were in
the shell, and had been getting into all sorts of scrapes?”
“Yes, well enough,” said Tom; “it was the half-year before Arthur came.”
“Exactly so,” answered the master. “Now, I was with him a few minutes
afterwards, and he was in great distress about you two. And after some
talk, we both agreed that you in particular wanted some object in the
School beyond games and mischief; for it was quite clear that you never
would make the regular school work your first object. And so the Doctor,
at the beginning of the next half-year, looked out the best of the new
boys, and separated you and East, and put the young boy into your study,
in the hope that when you had somebody to lean on you, you would begin to
stand a little steadier yourself, and get manliness and thoughtfulness.
And I can assure you he has watched the experiment ever since with great
satisfaction. Ah! not one of you boys will ever know the anxiety you have
given him, or the care with which he has watched over every step in your
school lives.”
Up to this time Tom had never given wholly in to or understood the Doctor.
At first he had thoroughly feared him. For some years, as I have tried to
show, he had learnt to regard him with love and respect, and to think him
a very great and wise and good man. But as regarded his own position in
the School, of which he was no little proud, Tom had no idea of giving any
one credit for it but himself, and, truth to tell, was a very
self-conceited young gentleman on the subject. He was wont to boast that
he had fought his own way fairly up the School, and had never made up to
or been taken up by any big fellow or master, and that it was now quite a
different place from what it was when he first came. And, indeed, though
he didn’t actually boast of it, yet in his secret soul he did to a great
extent believe that the great reform in the School had been owing quite as
much to himself as to any one else. Arthur, he acknowledged, had done him
good, and taught him a good deal; so had other boys in different ways, but
they had not had the same means of influence on the School in general. And
as for the Doctor, why, he was a splendid master; but every one knew that
masters could do very little out of school hours. In short, he felt on
terms of equality with his chief, so far as the social state of the School
was concerned, and thought that the Doctor would find it no easy matter to
get on without him. Moreover, his School Toryism was still strong, and he
looked still with some jealousy on the Doctor, as somewhat of a fanatic in
the matter of change, and thought it very desirable for the School that he
should have some wise person (such as himself) to look sharply after
vested School-rights, and see that nothing was done to the injury of the
republic without due protest.
It was a new light to him to find that, besides teaching the sixth, and
governing and guiding the whole School, editing classics, and writing
histories, the great headmaster had found time in those busy years to
watch over the career even of him, Tom Brown, and his particular friends,
and, no doubt, of fifty other boys at the same time, and all this without
taking the least credit to himself, or seeming to know, or let any one
else know, that he ever thought particularly of any boy at all.
However, the Doctor’s victory was complete from that moment over Tom Brown
at any rate. He gave way at all points, and the enemy marched right over
him—cavalry, infantry, and artillery, and the land transport corps,
and the camp followers. It had taken eight long years to do it; but now it
was done thoroughly, and there wasn’t a corner of him left which didn’t
believe in the Doctor. Had he returned to School again, and the Doctor
begun the half-year by abolishing fagging, and football, and the Saturday
half-holiday, or all or any of the most cherished School institutions, Tom
would have supported him with the blindest faith. And so, after a half
confession of his previous shortcomings, and sorrowful adieus to his
tutor, from whom he received two beautifully-bound volumes of the Doctor’s
sermons, as a parting present, he marched down to the Schoolhouse, a
hero-worshipper, who would have satisfied the soul of Thomas Carlyle
himself.
There he found the eleven at high jinks after supper, Jack Raggles
shouting comic songs and performing feats of strength, and was greeted by
a chorus of mingled remonstrance at his desertion and joy at his
reappearance. And falling in with the humour of the evening, he was soon
as great a boy as all the rest; and at ten o’clock was chaired round the
quadrangle, on one of the hall benches, borne aloft by the eleven,
shouting in chorus, “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” while old Thomas, in a
melting mood, and the other School-house servants, stood looking on.
Original
And the next morning after breakfast he squared up all the cricketing
accounts, went round to his tradesmen and other acquaintance, and said his
hearty good-byes; and by twelve o’clock was in the train, and away for
London, no longer a school-boy, and divided in his thoughts between
hero-worship, honest regrets over the long stage of his life which was now
slipping out of sight behind him, and hopes and resolves for the next
stage upon which he was entering with all the confidence of a young
traveller.
Original
CHAPTER IX—FINIS.
n the summer of 1842, our hero stopped once again at the well-known
station; and leaving his bag and fishing-rod with a porter, walked slowly
and sadly up towards the town. It was now July. He had rushed away from
Oxford the moment that term was over, for a fishing ramble in Scotland
with two college friends, and had been for three weeks living on oatcake,
mutton-hams, and whisky, in the wildest parts of Skye. They had descended
one sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Rhea ferry; and while Tom and
another of the party put their tackle together and began exploring the
stream for a sea-trout for supper, the third strolled into the house to
arrange for their entertainment. Presently he came out in a loose blouse
and slippers, a short pipe in his mouth, and an old newspaper in his hand,
and threw himself on the heathery scrub which met the shingle, within easy
hail of the fishermen. There he lay, the picture of free-and-easy,
loafing, hand-to-mouth young England, “improving his mind,” as he shouted
to them, by the perusal of the fortnight-old weekly paper, soiled with the
marks of toddy-glasses and tobacco-ashes, the legacy of the last
traveller, which he had hunted out from the kitchen of the little
hostelry, and, being a youth of a communicative turn of mind, began
imparting the contents to the fishermen as he went on.
“What a bother they are making about these wretched corn-laws! Here’s
three or four columns full of nothing but sliding scales and fixed duties.
Hang this tobacco, it’s always going out! Ah, here’s something better—a
splendid match between Kent and England, Brown, Kent winning by three
wickets. Felix fifty-six runs without a chance, and not out!”
Tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him twice, answered only with a
grunt.
“Anything about the Goodwood?” called out the third man.
“Rory O’More drawn. Butterfly colt amiss,” shouted the student.
“Just my luck,” grumbled the inquirer, jerking his flies off the water,
and throwing again with a heavy, sullen splash, and frightening Tom’s
fish.
“I say, can’t you throw lighter over there? We ain’t fishing for
grampuses,” shouted Tom across the stream.
“Hullo, Brown! here’s something for you,” called out the reading man next
moment. “Why, your old master, Arnold of Rugby, is dead.”
Original
Tom’s hand stopped half-way in his cast, and his line and flies went all
tangling round and round his rod; you might have knocked him over with a
feather. Neither of his companions took any notice of him, luckily; and
with a violent effort he set to work mechanically to disentangle his line.
He felt completely carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if he
had lost his standing-point in the invisible world. Besides which, the
deep, loving loyalty which he felt for his old leader made the shock
intensely painful. It was the first great wrench of his life, the first
gap which the angel Death had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and
beaten down, and spiritless. Well, well! I believe it was good for him and
for many others in like case, who had to learn by that loss that the soul
of man cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise,
and good; but that He upon whom alone it can stand and lean will knock
away all such props in His own wise and merciful way, until there is no
ground or stay left but Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a sure
foundation for every soul of man is laid.
As he wearily laboured at his line, the thought struck him, “It may be all
false—a mere newspaper lie.” And he strode up to the recumbent
smoker.
“Let me look at the paper,” said he.
“Nothing else in it,” answered the other, handing it up to him listlessly.
“Hullo, Brown! what’s the matter, old fellow? Ain’t you well?”
“Where is it?” said Tom, turning over the leaves, his hands trembling, and
his eyes swimming, so that he could not read.
“What? What are you looking for?” said his friend, jumping up and looking
over his shoulder.
“That—about Arnold,” said Tom.
“Oh, here,” said the other, putting his finger on the paragraph. Tom read
it over and over again. There could be no mistake of identity, though the
account was short enough.
“Thank you,” said he at last, dropping the paper. “I shall go for a walk.
Don’t you and Herbert wait supper for me.” And away he strode, up over the
moor at the back of the house, to be alone, and master his grief if
possible.
His friend looked after him, sympathizing and wondering, and, knocking the
ashes out of his pipe, walked over to Herbert. After a short parley they
walked together up to the house.
“I’m afraid that confounded newspaper has spoiled Brown’s fun for this
trip.”
“How odd that he should be so fond of his old master,” said Herbert. Yet
they also were both public-school men.
The two, however, notwithstanding Tom’s prohibition, waited supper for
him, and had everything ready when he came back some half an hour
afterwards. But he could not join in their cheerful talk, and the party
was soon silent, notwithstanding the efforts of all three. One thing only
had Tom resolved, and that was, that he couldn’t stay in Scotland any
longer: he felt an irresistible longing to get to Rugby, and then home,
and soon broke it to the others, who had too much tact to oppose.
So by daylight the next morning he was marching through Ross-shire, and in
the evening hit the Caledonian Canal, took the next steamer, and travelled
as fast as boat and railway could carry him to the Rugby station.
As he walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid of being seen, and
took the back streets—why, he didn’t know, but he followed his
instinct. At the School-gates he made a dead pause; there was not a soul
in the quadrangle—all was lonely, and silent, and sad. So with
another effort he strode through the quadrangle, and into the School-house
offices.
He found the little matron in her room in deep mourning; shook her hand,
tried to talk, and moved nervously about. She was evidently thinking of
the same subject as he, but he couldn’t begin talking.
“Where shall I find Thomas?” said he at last, getting desperate.
“In the servants’ hall, I think, sir. But won’t you take anything?” said
the matron, looking rather disappointed.
“No, thank you,” said he, and strode off again to find the old verger, who
was sitting in his little den, as of old, puzzling over hieroglyphics.
He looked up through his spectacles as Tom seized his hand and wrung it.
“Ah! you’ve heard all about it, sir, I see,” said he. Tom nodded, and then
sat down on the shoe-board, while the old man told his tale, and wiped his
spectacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint, homely, honest sorrow.
Original
By the time he had done Tom felt much better.
“Where is he buried, Thomas?” said he at last.
“Under the altar in the chapel, sir,” answered Thomas. “You’d like to have
the key, I dare say?”
“Thank you, Thomas—yes, I should, very much.”
And the old man fumbled among his bunch, and then got up, as though he
would go with him; but after a few steps stopped short, and said, “Perhaps
you’d like to go by yourself, sir?”
Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were handed to him, with an injunction
to be sure and lock the door after him, and bring them back before eight
o’clock.
He walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into the close. The
longing which had been upon him and driven him thus far, like the gad-fly
in the Greek legends, giving him no rest in mind or body, seemed all of a
sudden not to be satisfied, but to shrivel up and pall. “Why should I go
on? It’s no use,” he thought, and threw himself at full length on the
turf, and looked vaguely and listlessly at all the well-known objects.
There were a few of the town boys playing cricket, their wicket pitched on
the best piece in the middle of the big-side ground—a sin about
equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a captain of the eleven. He was very
nearly getting up to go and send them off. “Pshaw! they won’t remember me.
They’ve more right there than I,” he muttered. And the thought that his
sceptre had departed, and his mark was wearing out, came home to him for
the first time, and bitterly enough. He was lying on the very spot where
the fights came off—where he himself had fought six years ago his
first and last battle. He conjured up the scene till he could almost hear
the shouts of the ring, and East’s whisper in his ear; and looking across
the close to the Doctor’s private door, half expected to see it open, and
the tall figure in cap and gown come striding under the elm-trees towards
him.
No, no; that sight could never be seen again. There was no flag flying on
the round tower; the School-house windows were all shuttered up; and when
the flag went up again, and the shutters came down, it would be to welcome
a stranger. All that was left on earth of him whom he had honoured was
lying cold and still under the chapel floor. He would go in and see the
place once more, and then leave it once for all. New men and new methods
might do for other people; let those who would, worship the rising star;
he, at least, would be faithful to the sun which had set. And so he got
up, and walked to the chapel door, and unlocked it, fancying himself the
only mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on his own selfish sorrow.
He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a moment to glance
over the empty benches. His heart was still proud and high, and he walked
up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat
himself down there to collect his thoughts.
And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order not a
little. The memories of eight years were all dancing through his brain,
and carrying him about whither they would; while, beneath them all, his
heart was throbbing with the dull sense of a loss that could never be made
up to him. The rays of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted
windows above his head, and fell in gorgeous colours on the opposite wall,
and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit by little and little. And he
turned to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then, leaning forward with his
head on his hands, groaned aloud. If he could only have seen the Doctor
again for one five minutes—have told him all that was in his heart,
what he owed to him, how he loved and reverenced him, and would, by God’s
help, follow his steps in life and death—he could have borne it all
without a murmur. But that he should have gone away for ever without
knowing it all, was too much to bear. “But am I sure that he does not know
it all?” The thought made him start. “May he not even now be near me, in
this very chapel? If he be, am I sorrowing as he would have me sorrow, as
I should wish to have sorrowed when I shall meet him again?”
He raised himself up and looked round, and after a minute rose and walked
humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat down on the very seat which he
had occupied on his first Sunday at Rugby. And then the old memories
rushed back again, but softened and subdued, and soothing him as he let
himself be carried away by them. And he looked up at the great painted
window above the altar, and remembered how, when a little boy, he used to
try not to look through it at the elm-trees and the rooks, before the
painted glass came; and the subscription for the painted glass, and the
letter he wrote home for money to give to it. And there, down below, was
the very name of the boy who sat on his right hand on that first day,
scratched rudely in the oak panelling.
And then came the thought of all his old schoolfellows; and form after
form of boys nobler, and braver, and purer than he rose up and seemed to
rebuke him. Could he not think of them, and what they had felt and were
feeling—they who had honoured and loved from the first the man whom
he had taken years to know and love? Could he not think of those yet
dearer to him who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, and
were now without a husband or a father? Then the grief which he began to
share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose up once more, and
walked up the steps to the altar, and while the tears flowed freely down
his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully, to lay down there his share
of a burden which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own
strength.
Here let us leave him. Where better could we leave him than at the altar
before which he had first caught a glimpse of the glory of his birthright,
and felt the drawing of the bond which links all living souls together in
one brotherhood—at the grave beneath the altar of him who had opened
his eyes to see that glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that
bond?
And let us not be hard on him, if at that moment his soul is fuller of the
tomb and him who lies there than of the altar and Him of whom it speaks.
Such stages have to be gone through, I believe, by all young and brave
souls, who must win their way through hero-worship to the worship of Him
who is the King and Lord of heroes. For it is only through our mysterious
human relationships—through the love and tenderness and purity of
mothers and sisters and wives, through the strength and courage and wisdom
of fathers and brothers and teachers—that we can come to the
knowledge of Him in whom alone the love, and the tenderness, and the
purity, and the strength, and the courage, and the wisdom of all these
dwell for ever and ever in perfect fullness.