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 University 
 
 of California 
 Gift of 
 
 * Berkeley 
 
 THE HEARST CORPORATION 
 
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THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 Engraved by C. H. Jeens/ww O. F. W atis: picturr. 
 
TOM BROWN'S 
 
 SCHOOL DAYS 
 
 Bv AN OLD BOY 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BV ARTHUR HUGHES AND SVDNEV PRIOR HALL 
 
 ITonbffit 
 MACMILLAN & CO 
 
"As on the one hand it should ever he remembered that we are boys, and boys 
 at school, so OH the other hand ivc mu^t bear in mind that we form a complete social 
 body . . . . a society, in which, by the nature of the case, we must not only learn, 
 but act and live: and act and live not only as boys, but as boys who 7vill be men." — 
 Runnv Magazinr. 
 
TO 
 
 MRS. ARNOLD, 
 
 OF FOX HOWE, 
 THIS BOOK IS (without HER PERMISSION) 
 
 BYTHEAUTHOR, 
 
 WHO OWES MORE THAN HE CAN EVER ACKNOWI.KDGE 
 OR FORGET TO HER AND HERS. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 I RECEIVED the following letter from an old friend soon after 
 the last edition of this book was published, and resolved, if 
 ever another edition were called for, to print it. For it is 
 clear from this and other like comments, that something more 
 should have been said expressly on the subject of bullying, 
 and how it is to be met. 
 
 " My dear 
 
 " I blame myself for not having earlier suggested whether you 
 could not, in another edition of Tom Brown, or another story, denounce 
 more decidedly the evils of bullying at schools. You have indeed done 
 so, and in the best way, by making Flashman the bully the most con- 
 temptible character ; but in that scene of the tossing^ and similar passages, 
 you hardly suggest that such things should be stopped — and do not suggest 
 any means of putting an end to them. 
 
 "This subject has been on my mind for years. It fills me with grief 
 and misery to think what weak and nervous children go through at school 
 — how their health and character for life are destroyed by rough and 
 brutal treatment. 
 
 " It was some comfort to be under the old delusion that fear and 
 nervousness can be cured by violence, and that knocking about will turn 
 a timid boy into a bold one. But now we know well enough that is not 
 true. Gradually training a timid child to do bold acts would be most 
 desirable ; but frightening him and ill-treating him will not make him 
 courageous. Every medical man knows the fatal effects of terror, oi 
 
 b2 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 agitation, or excitement, to nerves that are over-sensitive. There are dif- 
 ferent kinds of courage, as you have shown in your character of Arthur. 
 
 "A boy may have moral courage, and a finely-organized brain and 
 nervous system. Such a boy is calculated, if judiciously educated, to be 
 a great, wise, and useful man ; but he may not possess animal courage ; 
 and one night's tossing, or bullying, may produce such an injury to his 
 brain and nerves that his usefulness is spoiled for life. 1 verily believe 
 that hundreds of noble organizations are thus destroyed every year. Horse- 
 jockeys have learnt to be wiser ; they know that a highly nervous horse 
 is utterly destroyed by harshness. A groom who tried to cure a shying 
 horse by roughness and violence, would be discharged as a brute and a 
 fool. A man who would regulate his watch with a crowbar would be 
 considered an ass. But the person who thinks a child of delicate and 
 nervous organization can be rnade bold by bullying is no better. 
 
 "He can be made bold by healthy exercise and games and shorts; 
 but that is quite a different thing. And even these games and sports 
 should bear some proportion to his strength and capacities. 
 
 " I very much doubt whether small children should play with big ones 
 — the rush of a set of great fellows at football, or the speed of a cricket- 
 ball sent by a strong hitter, must be very alarming to a mere child, to a 
 child who might stand up boldly enough among children of his own 
 size and height. 
 
 " Look at half-a-dozen small children playing cricket by themselves ; 
 how feeble are their blows, how slowly they bowl. You can measure in 
 that way their capacity. 
 
 "Tom Brown and his eleven were bold enough playing against an 
 eleven of their own calibre ; but I suspect they would have been in a 
 precious funk if they had played against eleven giants, whose bowling 
 bore the same proportion to theirs that theirs does to the small children's 
 above. 
 
 " To return to the tossing. I must say I think some means might be 
 devised to enable schoolboys to go to bed in quietness and peace — and 
 that some means ought to be devised and enforced. No good, moral or 
 physical, to those who bully or those who are bullied, can ensue from 
 such scenes as take place in the dormitories of schools. I suspect that 
 ijritish wisdom and ingenuity are sufficient to discover a remedy for this 
 evil, if directed in the right direction. 
 
 " The fact is, that the condition of a small boy at a large school is 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 one of peculiar hardship and suffering. He is entirely at the mercy of 
 proverbially the roughest things in the universe — great schoolboys ; and 
 he is deprived of the protection which the weak have in civilized society : 
 for he may not complain ; if he does, he is an outlaw — he has no protector 
 but public opinion, and that a public opinion of the very lowest grade, 
 the opinion of rude and ignorant boys. 
 
 " What do schoolboys know of those deep questions of moral and 
 physical philosophy, of the anatomy of mind and body, by which the 
 treatment of a child should be regulated? 
 
 " Why should the laws of civilization be suspended for schools ? Why 
 should boys be left to herd together with no law but that of force or 
 cunning? What would become of society if it were constituted on the 
 same principles ? It would be plunged into anarchy in a week. 
 
 "One of our judges, not long ago, refused to extend the protection 
 of the law to a child who had been ill-treated at school. If a party of 
 navvies had given hitn a licking, and he had brought the case before a 
 magistrate, what would he have thought if the magistrate had refused to 
 protect him, on the ground that if such cases were brought before him 
 he might have fifty a day from one town only ? 
 
 " Now I agree with you that a constant supervision of the* master is 
 not desirable or possible — and that telling tales, or constantly referring to 
 the master for protection, would only produce ill-will and worse treatment. 
 
 " If I rightly understand your book, it is an effort to improve the 
 condition of schools by improving the tone of morality and public opinion 
 in them. But your book contains the most indubitable proofs that the 
 condition of the younger boys at public schools, except under the rare 
 dictatorship of an Old Brooke, is one of great hardship and suffering. 
 
 "A timid and nervous boy is from morning till night in a state of 
 bodily fear. He is constantly tormented when trying to learn his lessons. 
 His play-hours are occupied in fagging, in a horrid funk of cricket-balls 
 and footballs, and the violent sport of creatures who, to him, are giants. 
 He goes to his bed in fear and trembling,— worse than the reality of the 
 rough treatment to which he is perhaps subjected. 
 
 " I believe there is only one complete remedy. It is not in magisterial 
 supervision ; nor in telling tales ; nor in raising the tone of public opinion 
 among schoolboys— but in the separation of boys of diffe7-ent ages iiito 
 different schools. 
 
 " There should be at least three different classes of schools, — the first 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 for boys from nine to twelve ; the second for boys from twelve to fifteen ; 
 the third for those above fifteen. And these schools should be in different 
 localities. 
 
 " There ought to be a certain amount of supervision by the master at 
 those times when there are special occasions for bullying, e.g. in the long 
 winter evenings, and when the boys are congregated together in the bed- 
 rooms. Surely it cannot be an impossibility to keep order and protect the 
 weak at such times. Whatever evils might arise from supervision, they 
 could hardly be greater than those produced by a system which divides 
 boys into despots and slaves. " Ever yours, very truly, 
 
 " F. D." 
 
 The question of how to adapt English public school educa- 
 tion to nervous and sensitive boys (often the highest and noblest 
 subjects which that education has to deal with) ought to be 
 looked at from every point of view.* I therefore add a few 
 extracts from the letter of an old friend and schoolfellow, 
 than whom no man in England is better able to speak on 
 the subject. 
 
 " What's the use of sorting the boys by ages, unless you do so by 
 strength : and who are often the real bullies .'' The strong young dog of 
 fourteen, while the victim may be one year or two years older. ... I deny 
 the fact about the bedrooms : there is trouble at times, and always will 
 be ; but so there is in nurseries — my little girl, who looks like an angel, 
 was bullying the smallest twice to-day. 
 
 " Bullying must be fought with in other ways, — by getting not only the 
 Sixth to put it down, but the lower fellows to scorn it, and by eradicating 
 
 * For those who believe with me in public school education, the fact stated in the 
 following extract from a note of Mr. G. De Bunsen will be hailed with pleasure, 
 especially now that our alliance with Prussia (the most natural and healthy European 
 alliance for Protestant England) is likely to be so much stronger and deeper than 
 heretofore. Speaking of this book, he says, — " The author is mistaken in saying 
 that public schools, in the English sense, are peculiar to England. Schul Pforte (in 
 the Prussian province of Saxony) is similar in antiquity and institutions. I like his 
 book all the more for having been there for five years." 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 mercilessly the incorrigible ; and a master who really cares for his fellows 
 is pretty sure to know instinctively who in his house are likely to be bullied, 
 and, knowing a fellow to be really victimized and harassed, I am sure 
 that he can stop it if he is resolved. There are many kinds of annoyance — 
 sometimes of real cutting persecution for righteousness' sake— that he 
 can't stop, no more could all the ushers in the world ; but he can do very 
 much in many ways to make the shafts of the wicked pointless. 
 
 "But though, for quite other reasons, I don't like to see very young 
 boys launched at a public school, and though I don't deny (I wish I could) 
 the existence from time to time of bullying, I deny its being a constant 
 condition of school life, and still more, the possibility of meeting it by the 
 means proposed. ..." 
 
 " I don't wish to understate the amount of bullying that goes on ; but 
 my conviction is that it must be fought, like all school evils, but it 
 more than any, by dynamics rather than mechanics, by getting the fellows 
 to respect themselves and one another, rather than by sitting by them 
 with a thick stick." 
 
 And now, having broken my resolution never to write a 
 Preface, there are just two or three things which I should like 
 to say a word about. 
 
 Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest 
 respect, while saying very kind things about this book, have 
 added, that the great fault of it is " too much preaching ; " 
 but they hope I shall amend in this matter should I ever write 
 again. Now this I most distinctly decline to do. Why, my 
 whole object in writing at all, was to get the chance of 
 preaching ! When a man comes to my time of life, and has 
 his bread to make, and very little time to spare, is it likely 
 that he will spend almost the whole of his yearly vacation in 
 writing a story just to amuse people "i I think not. At any 
 rate, I wouldn't do so myself. 
 
 The fact is, that I can scarcely ever call on one of my 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 contemporaries nowadays without running across a boy already 
 at school, or just ready to go there, whose bright looks and 
 supple limbs remind me of his father, and our first meeting 
 in old times. I can scarcely keep the Latin Grammar out of 
 my own house any longer; and the sight of sons, nephews, 
 and god-sons, playing trap-bat-and-ball, and reading " Robinson 
 Crusoe," makes one ask oneself, whether there isn't something 
 one would like to say to them before they take their first 
 plunge into the stream of life, away from their own homes, or 
 while they are yet shivering after the first plunge. My sole 
 object in writing was to preach to boys : if ever I write again, 
 it will be to preach to some other age. I can't see that a man 
 has any business to write at all unless he has something which 
 he thoroughly believes and wants to preach about. If he has 
 this, and the chance of delivering himself of it, let him by 
 all means put it in the shape in which it will be most likely 
 to get a hearing ; but let him never be so carried away as 
 to forget that preaching is his object. 
 
 A black soldier in a West Indian regiment, tied up to 
 receive a couple of dozen, for drunkenness, cried out to his 
 captain, who was exhorting him to sobriety in future, "■ Cap'n, 
 if you preachee, preachee ; and if floggee, floggee ; but no 
 preachee and floggee too ! " to which his captain might have 
 replied, " No, Pompey, I must preach whenever I see a chance 
 of being listened to, which I never did before ; so now you 
 must have it altogether ; and I hope you may remember 
 some of it." 
 
 There is one point which has been made by several of the 
 Reviewers who have noticed this book, and it is one which, as 
 I am writing a Preface, I cannot pass over. They have stated 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 that the Rugby undergraduates they remember at the Univer- 
 sities were '^ a solemn array," " boys turned into men before 
 their time," a " semi-political, semi-sacerdotal fraternity," &c., 
 giving the idea that Arnold turned out a set of young square- 
 toes, who wore long-fingered black gloves, and talked with a 
 snuffle. I can only say that their acquaintance must have 
 been limited and exceptional. For I am sure that every one 
 who has had anything like large or continuous knowledge of 
 boys brought up at Rugby, from the times of which this book 
 treats down to this day, will bear me out in saying, that the 
 mark by which you may know them is their genial and 
 hearty freshness and youthfulness of character. They lose 
 nothing of the boy that is worth keeping, but build up the 
 man upon it. This is their differentia as Rugby boys ; and if 
 they never had it, or have lost it, it must be not because they 
 were at Rugby, but in spite of their having been there ; the 
 stronger it is in them the more deeply you may be sure have 
 they drunk of the spirit of their school. 
 
 But this boyishness in the highest sense is not incompatible 
 with seriousness, — or earnestness, if you like the word better.* 
 Quite the contrary. And I can well believe that casual 
 observers, who have never been intimate with Rugby boys 
 of the true stamp, but have m.et them only in the every-day 
 society of the Universities, at wines, breakfast parties, and 
 the like, may have seen a good deal more of the serious or 
 earnest side of their characters than of any other. For the 
 more the boy was alive in them, the less will they have been 
 
 * "To him (Arnold) and his admirers we owe the substitution of the word 
 earnest' for its predecessor 'serious.'" — Edinburgh Review, No. 217, p. 183. 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 able to conceal their thoughts, or their opinion on what was 
 taking place under their noses ; and if the greater part of 
 that didn't square with their notions of what was right, very 
 likely they showed pretty clearly that it did not, at whatever 
 risk of being taken for young prigs. They may be open to 
 the charge of having old heads on young shoulders : I think 
 they are, and always were, as long as I can remember ; but 
 so long as they have young hearts to keep head and shoulders 
 in order, I, for one, must think this only a gain. 
 
 And what gave Rugby boys this character, and has enabled 
 the School, I believe, to keep it to this day } I say fearlessly, 
 — Arnold's teaching and example ; above all, that part of it 
 which has been, I will not say sneered at, but certainly not 
 approved — his unwearied zeal in creating " moral thoughtful- 
 ness " in every boy with whom he came into personal contact. 
 
 He certainly did teach us — thank God for it ! — that we 
 could not cut our life into slices and say, '' In this slice your 
 actions are indifferent, and you needn't trouble your heads 
 about them one way or another ; but in this slice mind what 
 you are about, for they are important" — a pretty muddle we 
 should have been in had he done so. He taught us that, in 
 this wonderful world, no boy or man can tell which of his 
 actions is indifferent, and which not ; that by a thoughtless 
 word or look we may lead astray a brother for whom Christ 
 died. He taught us that life is a whole, made up of actions 
 and thoughts and longings, great and small, noble and ignoble ; 
 therefore the only true wisdom for boy or man is to bring the 
 whole life into obedience to Him whose world we live in, and 
 who has purchased us with His blood ; and that whether we 
 eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we are to do all in His 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 name and to His glory ; in such teaching, faithfully, as it seems 
 to me, following that of Paul of Tarsus, who was in the habit 
 of meaning what he said, and who laid down this standard 
 for every man and boy in his time. I think it lies with those 
 who say that such teaching will not do for us now, to show 
 why a teacher in the nineteenth century is to preach a lower 
 standard than one in the first. 
 
 However, I won't say that the Reviewers have not a certain 
 plausible ground for their dicta. For a short time after a boy 
 has taken up such a life as Arnold would have urged upon 
 him, he has a hard time of it. He finds his judgment often 
 at fault, his body and intellect running away with him into 
 all sorts of pitfalls, and himself coming down with a crash. 
 The more seriously he buckles to his work the oftener these 
 mischances seem to happen ; and in the dust of his tumbles 
 and struggles, unless he is a very extraordinary boy, he may 
 often be too severe on his comrades, may think he sees evil 
 in things innocent, may give offence when he never meant it. 
 At this stage of his career, I take it, our Reviewer comes 
 across him, and, not looking below the surface (as a Reviewer 
 ought to do), at once sets the poor boy down for a prig and a 
 Pharisee, when in all likelihood he is one of the humblest and 
 truest and most childlike of the Reviewer's acquaintance. 
 
 But let our Reviewer come across him again in a year or 
 two, when the " thoughtful life " has become habitual to him, 
 and fits him as easily as his skin ; and, if he be honest, I 
 think he will see cause to reconsider his judgment. For he 
 will find the boy, grown into a man, enjoying every-day life, 
 as no man can who has not found out whence comes the 
 capacity for enjoyment, and Who is the Giver of the least of 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 the good things of this world — humble, as no man can be who 
 has not proved his own powerlessness to do right in the 
 smallest act which he ever had to do — tolerant, as no man 
 can be who does not live daily and hourly in the knowledge 
 of how Perfect Love is for ever about his path, and bearing 
 with and upholding him. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I'AGE 
 THE BROWN FAMILY I 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 THE "VEAST" 21 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 SUNDRY WARS AND Al.TJAXCES 44 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE STAGE COACH 69 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RUGBY AND FOOTBALL 88 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AFTER THE MATCH 1 14 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SETTLING TO THE COLLAR 135 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 161 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 187 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 HOW THE TIDE TURNED 215 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NEW BOY 23O 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND 246 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BIRD-FANCIERS 264 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FIGHT 281 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FEVER IN THE SCHOOL 303 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HARRY east's DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES 323 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TOM brown's last MATCH 342 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FINIS .... 368 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PART I. 
 CHAPTER T. 
 
 DRAWN BY PA(;E 
 
 Initial. Sf. George Arthur Hughes . i 
 
 White Horse Hill „ . 5 
 
 The Vagabond „ .20 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Initial. Church Door ,, .21 
 
 Tom after the Pig ,, ■ ^5 
 
 Benjy, Tom, and the Girls at the Fair ,, -SI 
 
 Willum^s Defeat at Backsivording ,, -37 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 Tom and Old Benjy going a fishing ,, '44 
 
 Tom in the Elm-tree Sidney Hall . 51 
 
 Capture of Tom and Jacob Doodle-calf at the 
 
 School-porch Arthur Hughes . 56 
 
 Tom and Playmates coming Home „ .60 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Initial. The Boots waking Tom ,, .69 
 
 Squire BrowrCs Parting Words „ '7' 
 
 The Battle with the ''Pats'' Sidney Hall . 82 
 
XX . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DRAWN BY PAGK 
 
 Initial. The Rugby Gatcioay Sidney Hall . 88 
 
 Passage and Studies ,, '93 
 
 The Close ,, . 102 
 
 Preparing for Football . Arthur Hughes . 113 
 
 Tom'' s first Exploit at Football „ -113 
 
 CHAPTER VT. 
 
 Initial.- The Fives'' Cojirt . SIDNEY Hall . 114 
 
 Waiting for Roast Potatoes in Sally Harro-iKTis 
 
 Kitchen Arthur Hughes . 116 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 Initial. 77;,? Chapel Sidney Hall . 135 
 
 The Night Fag „ .145 
 
 Tadpole's Mishap Arthur Hughes . 150 
 
 Reception by the Doctor of Tom, East, and the 
 
 Tadpole ,, '154 
 
 Old Thojtias in his Den Sidney Hall . 157 
 
 Tom going Home Arthur Hughes . 160 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 Initial. The Master'' s Desk Sidney Hall . 161 
 
 Roasting a Fag Arthur Hughes . 184 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Initial. Tom and East on the Tctver ..... ,, .187 
 
 Flashtnan's Defeat by Tom and East ,, .192 
 
 Tom discovered by VelvetecJis ......... ,, . 205 
 
LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS. xxi 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DRAWN KV PAGE 
 
 Initial. East and Mrs. Wixie Arthur Hughes . 215 
 
 Tom's first sight of Arthur ,, .217 
 
 Tom's first Defence of Arthur „ . 225 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Initial. Tom and Arthur in Cloister ,, . 230 
 
 Tom comforting Arthur ,, . 236 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Initial. Fall of the Magpies Sidney Hall . 245 
 
 Martin' f BloW'Up ,, . 249 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Initial. The Spinney „ . 264 
 
 Climbing the Fir-tree after the Kestrel's Nest . . . Arthur Hughes . 269 
 
 Tom afid East plucking the Duck ,, . 273 
 
 Running for a Convoy ,, . 275 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Initial. Doctor's Turret Door Sidney Hall . 281 
 
 The Fight Arthur Hughes . 293 
 
 The Doctor's Counsel to Young Brooke ,, . 299 
 
xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DRAWN BY PAGE 
 
 Initial. Arthur in the Study Arthur Hughes . 303 
 
 Tom's Visit to Arthur after the Fever ,, . 307 
 
 Tom and Arthur's Mother . ,, . 320 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Initial. The Conquering Knight ,, • Z'^h 
 
 East unburthening himself to Tom ,, . 336 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Initial. The Tenantless Study 
 
 Country Dance in the School-close 
 
 The Conversation during the Match . . . . . 
 Tom and the Master^ s Survey of the Cook's Cupboard 
 Chairing Tom in the Quadrangle . . . . . . 
 
 342 
 347 
 351 
 361 
 367 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Initial. Tom fishing jor Sea Trout Sidney Hall . 368 
 
 Visit to the Tomb of Dr. Arnold Arthur Hughes . 375 
 
 Engraved by J. D. Cooper. 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 
 PART I. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 " I'm the Poet of White Horse Vale, Sir, 
 With liberal notions under my cap. " 
 
 Ballad. 
 
 HE Browns have become illus- 
 trious by the pen of Thackeray 
 and the pencil of Doyle, within 
 the memory of the young gen- 
 tlemen who are now matricu- 
 lating at the Universities. Not- 
 withstanding 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, home-spun way, they have been subduing 
 
 B 
 
2 THE BROWN FAMILY. 
 
 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 some- 
 what 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 BROWN CHARACTER. 3 
 
 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, \vhy, 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 carcase. And these carcases for the 
 most part answer very well to the characteristic propensity ; 
 they are a square-headed 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 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE BROWN FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 luxuriate in telling one another their minds on whatever 
 subject turns up ; and their minds are wonderfully antagonist, 
 and ail 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 whicli 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, 
 tliey will be on the look-out for Bill to take his place. 
 
rOM BRO WN 'S BIR TH-PLA CE. 5 
 
 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 .byg6ne 
 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 
 
6 THE OLD BOY MOURN ETH 
 
 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 Ex- 
 hibition, 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 birth-places ? 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 at 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 chock-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 farm-houses, the place where 
 the last skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the 
 
OVER YOUNG ENGLAND. 7 
 
 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 w^ith 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 Gloucester- 
 shire, or Yorkshire boys ; and you're young cosmopolites, 
 belonging to all counties 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 backsword 
 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 staunch little pack who dash after 
 
8 VALES IN GENERAL, 
 
 him — heads high and sterns low, with a breast-high scent — 
 can consume the ground at such times. There being Httle 
 plough-land, and few woods, the Vale is only an average 
 sporting country, except for hunting. The villages are strag- 
 gling, 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 
 grey-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 
 
WHITE HORSE HILL. 9 
 
 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 
 
lo BATTLE OF ASH-DOWN. 
 
 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 Ash-down. 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 (" ^scendum " 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 birth-place 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 
 
BA TTLE OF A SH-DO WN. 1 1 
 
 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. 
 
 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 blue-bells, 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 
 
 * " Pagani editiorem lociim prceoccupaverant. Christiani ab inferiori loco acieni 
 dirigebant. Erat quoque in eodem loco unica spinosa arbor, brevis admodum 
 (quam nos ipsi nostris propriis oculis vidimus). Circa quam ergo hostiles inter se 
 acies cum ingenti clamore hostiliter conveniunt. Quo in loco alter de duobus 
 Paganorum regibus et quinque comites occisi occubuerunt, et multa millia Pagana; 
 partis in eodem I0C9. Cecidit illic ergo Boegsceg Rex, et Sidroc ille senex comes, 
 et Sidroc Junior comes, et Obsbern comes," &c. — Annales Renim Gestarum Alfred i 
 Magni^ Audore Asserio. Recensuit Franciscus Wise. Oxford, 1722, p. 23. 
 
12 WA YLAND SMITH'S CA VE. 
 
 forward from the range, and 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 hill-side. 
 
 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 circum- 
 ference 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, stretch- 
 ing 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 
 
THE BLOWING STONE. 13 
 
 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. " Sturm ? " 
 
 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 
 
14 KINGSTONE LISLE. 
 
 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 rat-holes. 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 grewsome sound between 
 a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, 
 and up the hill-side, 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 youVe got here ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir, the Squire's 'mazin 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 'e." 
 
FARRINGDON AND PUSEY, 15 
 
 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 hill-side 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 birth-place 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" 1 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 country-side 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 besides, for those who 
 care about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort 
 
i6 TOM BROWN'S HOME. 
 
 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-countryman, 
 thank God 1 a Wessex man, a citizen of the noblest Saxon 
 kingdom of Wessex, a regular *' Angular Saxon," the very 
 soul of me "adscriptus glebae." There's nothing like the old 
 country-side for me, and no music like the twang of the 
 real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from the veritable 
 chaw in the White Horse Vale : and I say with " Gaarge 
 Ridler," the old west-country yeoman : 
 
 " Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast 
 Commend me to merry owld England mwoast : 
 While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh, 
 We stwops at whum, my dog and I." 
 
 Here at any rate lived and stopped at home. Squire Brown, 
 J. P. for the county of Berks, in a village near the foot of 
 the White Horse range. And here he dealt out justice and 
 mercy in a rough way, and begat sons and daughters, and 
 hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads 
 and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico 
 shirts, and smock frocks, and comforting drinks to the old 
 folks with the " rheumatiz," and good counsel to all ; and 
 kept the coal and clothes clubs going, for Yule-tide, when 
 the bands of mummers came round dressed out in ribbons 
 and coloured paper caps, and stamped round the Squire's 
 kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernacular the legend 
 of St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound Doctor, 
 
SQUIRE BROWN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. 17 
 
 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 county once in 
 five years. A visit to Reading or Abingdon twice a year, at 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THE OLD BOY ABUSETH MOVING ON. 
 
 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, contem- 
 porary 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 cosy 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 
 
TOM BROWN WISHETH TO MOVE ON. 19 
 
 which made him resolve as soon as possible to accept the 
 oft-profFered invitation of these syrens 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 1 I'm delighted at it. I love 
 vagabonds, only I prefer poor to rich ones : — couriers and 
 ladies' maids, imperials and travelling carriages, are an 
 abomination unto me — I cannot away with them. But for 
 dirty Jack, and every good fellow who, in the words of the 
 capital French song, moves about, 
 
 Comme le limacon, 
 Portant tout son bagage, 
 Ses meubles, sa maison,'' 
 
 on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a 
 merry road-side adventure, and steaming supper in the 
 chimney-corners of roacj-side 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 
 
20 
 
 THE OLD BOY APPROVETH MOVING ON. 
 
 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. 
 
TOM BROWN'S EARLY DA YS. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE "VEAST." 
 
 "And the King commandeth and for- 
 biddeth, that from henceforth neitlier fairs 
 nor markets be kept in churchyards, for 
 the honour of the Church."— Statutes : 
 13 Edw. I. Stat. II. cap. vi. 
 
 that venerable and learned 
 poet (whose voluminous 
 works we all think it 
 the correct thing to ad- 
 mire 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 further, (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 w^ere intro- 
 duced in the last chapter. 
 
22 rOM BROWN'S NURSE. 
 
 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 Ihe 
 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. Al- 
 most all the girls who attained a certain place in the village 
 school were taken by her, one or two at a time, as house- 
 maids, laundrymaids, nurserymaids, or kitchen-maids, and, 
 after a year or two's drilling, 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 
 
TOM BROWN'S FIRST REBELLION. 23 
 
 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 head-work was wanted. This war 
 of independence began every morning before breakfast, when 
 Charity escorted her charge to a neighbouring farm-house 
 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 
 farmers 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 
 
24 TOM BROWN'S CASTLE OF REFUGE. 
 
 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 farm-house 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 hussy, 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 "alius hankering about arter our Willum, instead of 
 minding Master Tom," would descend from threats to coax- 
 ing, 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 
 
TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS— NOAH. 25 
 
 had conveyed her about the country on a pilHon. He had a 
 httle round picture of the identical grey 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 unaccom- 
 
26 TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS— BENJY. 
 
 panied 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 re- 
 fuge. 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 stickle- 
 back 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 after- 
 noon'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 
 
TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS—BENJY. 27 
 
 and crime in the Vale, and the magistrates had been threat- 
 ened 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 in- 
 structed him in the mysteries of horsemanship, teaching him 
 to throw his weight back and keep his hand low; and who 
 stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school when 
 Tom rode his little Shetland into the cottage and round the 
 table, where the old dame and her pupils were seated at their 
 work. 
 
 Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the 
 Vale for their prowess in all athletic games. Some half-dozen 
 of his brothers and kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom 
 only one had survived to come home, with a small pension, 
 and three bullets in different parts of his body ; he had 
 shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his 
 old dragoon's sword and pistol, which hung over the mantel- 
 piece, 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 baut at the revels and pastimes of the country- 
 side. For he had been a famous back-sword man 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 
 
28 OUR " VEAsrr 
 
 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, i.e. 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 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 
 
APPROACH OF " VE AST-DA V," 29 
 
 reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Free- 
 man 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 humanizing and Christiap. In fact, the 
 only reason why this is not the case still, is that gentle-folk 
 and farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as 
 usual, forgotten the poor. They don't attend the feast them- 
 selves, 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 grey 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 
 
30 EVE OF " VE AST-DA YT 
 
 inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large white 
 thatched farm-house, 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 assort- 
 ment 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 dwarves, 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 mor- 
 row's prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts 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 ap- 
 peared 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 
 
MORNING OF THE " VEAST." 31 
 
 of pinks and lavender in his button-hole, 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 church- 
 yard, 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 outdoor 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 
 
32 GOSSIPING PRELIMINARY. 
 
 a rare slip of a wench since you seen her, tho' 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 bid 
 schoolfellows, 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 ribands, and his pockets 
 crammed with wonderful boxes which open upon ever new 
 boxes and boxes, and popguns and trumpets, and apples, and 
 gilt gingerbread from the stall of Angel Heavens, sole vendor 
 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 JINGLING MATCH, 33 
 
 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 for the old gamester 
 who breaks most heads ; to which the Squire and he have 
 added a new hat 
 
 D 
 
34 THE PLA VERS AT BA CK-SWORDING. 
 
 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 back-sword play, and -keep 
 away from the stage,) and as his hat is decidedly getting old, 
 he chucks it on to the stage, and follows himself, hoping that 
 he will only have to break other people's heads, or that 
 after all Rachel won't really mind. 
 
 Then follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a half- 
 gipsy, poaching, loafing fellow, who travels the Vale not for 
 much good, I fancy : 
 
 *' Full twenty times was Peter feared 
 For once that Peter was respected," 
 
 in fact. And then three or four other hats, including the 
 glossy castor of Joe Willis, the self-elected and would-be 
 champion of the neighbourhood, a well-to-do young butcher 
 of twenty-eight or thereabouts, and a great strapping fellow, 
 with his full allowance of bluster. This is a capital show of 
 gamesters^ considering the amount of the prize ; so, while 
 
ARMS AND ACCOUTREMENTS. 35 
 
 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 may be 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 sinsfle- 
 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. 
 
 D2 
 
36 JOE AND THE GIPSY. 
 
 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 
 imakes a spell at back-swording a very noble sight. 
 
 They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and 
 the gipsy man have drawn the first lot So the rest lean 
 against the rails of the stage, and Joe and the dark man 
 meet in the middle, the boards having been strewed with 
 sawdust ; Joe's white shirt and spotless drab breeches and 
 boots contrasting with the gipsy's coarse blue shirt and dirty 
 green velveteen breeches and leather gaiters. Joe is evidently 
 turning up his nose at the other, and half insulted at having 
 to break his head. 
 
 The gipsy is a tough, acttve fellow, but not very skilful 
 with his weapon, so that Joe's weight and strength tell in a 
 minute ; he is too heavy metal for him : whack, whack, whack, 
 come his blows, breaking down the gipsy's guard, and 
 threatening to reach his head every moment There it is at 
 last—" Blood, blood!" shout the spectators, as a thin stream 
 oozes out slowly from the roots of his hair, and the umpire 
 calls to them to stop. The gipsy scowls at Joe under his 
 brows in no pleasant manner, while Master Joe swaggers 
 about, and makes attitudes, and thinks himself, and shows 
 that he thinks himself, the greatest man in the field. 
 
 Then follow several stout sets-to between the other candi- 
 dates 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 
 

 WILLUM's defeat at BACK-SW()RDlN(i 
 
 P- 3: 
 
THE SHEPHERD AND WILLUM SMITH 37 
 
 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, any- 
 where 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 fore-^ 
 head, 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' veathers." 
 
 ^' Thee mind what I tells ee," rejoins Rachel saucily, " and 
 
38 JOE HAS ALL THE LUCK, 
 
 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 wos- 
 bird!" says he, "I'll break the bald head on un to the truth." 
 
JOE OUT OF LUCK. 39 
 
 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 w^aistcoat, 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 w^alks Joe about the stage, and 
 is clearly a staunch 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, 
 
40 THE REVELS ARE OVER. 
 
 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 Life-guardsman at *' Vizes " 
 twenty years before, has broken Joe Willis's crown for him. 
 
 How my country fair is spinning out I 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 parle 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 
 
THE OLD BOY MORALISETH ON " VEASTST 41 
 
 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 over-work; 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 hasn't 
 some bond 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' 
 
42 THE OLD BOY'S ADVICE TO YOUNG SWELLS. 
 
 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 philan- 
 thropic 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. 
 
THE OLD BOY HATH SMALL HOPE OF SWELLS. 43 
 
 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, en- 
 gravers, — there's plenty of choice. Let them be men of 
 your own ages, mind, and ask them to your homes ; intro- 
 duce them to your wives and sisters, and get introduced to 
 theirs : give them good dinners, and talk to them about what 
 is really at the bottom of your hearts, and box, and run, 
 and row with them, when you have a chance. Do all this 
 honestly as man to man, and by the time you come to ride 
 old John, you'll be able to do something more than sit on his 
 back, and may feel his mouth with some stronger bridle than 
 a red-tape one. 
 
 Ah, if you only would ! But you have got too far out 
 of the right rut, I fear. Too much over-civilization, and 
 the deceitfulness of riches. It is easier for a camel to go 
 through the eye of a needle. More's the pity. I never 
 came across but two of you, who could value a man wholly 
 and solely for what was in him ; who thought themselves 
 verily and indeed of the same flesh and blood as John 
 Jones the attorney's clerk, and Bill Smith the costermonger, 
 and could act as if they thought so. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 
 
 Poor old Benjy! the "rheumatiz" has much to answer for 
 all through English country sides, but it never played a 
 scurvier trick than in laying thee by the heels, when thou 
 wast yet in a green old age. The enemy, which had long been 
 carrying on a sort of border warfare, and trying his strength 
 against Benjy's on the battle-field of his hands and legs, now, 
 mustering all his forces, began laying siege to the citadel, and 
 
BENJ V 'S DECLINE. 45 
 
 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 countr>^ stories ; and when 
 Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards 
 or so off along the bank Avould rush off with Toby the turn- 
 spit 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 everytliing 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 them- 
 selves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for them- 
 selves 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 
 
46 BENJY RESORTS TO A " WISE MANr 
 
 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 main- 
 tained on about an acre of land enclosed 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 enclosure, 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 sus- 
 picion. However, one fine May morning he managed to 
 
BENJY RESORTS TO A " WISE MAN:' 47 
 
 borrow the old blind pony of our friend the publican, and 
 Tom persuaded Madam Brown to give him a holiday to 
 spend with t)ld 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 en- 
 closed 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 doAvn 
 into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of Farmer Ives. 
 Here they found the farmer, an iron-grey 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 
 
48 FARMER IVES THE " WISE MANP 
 
 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 com- 
 mon. 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, stretch- 
 ing 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 dwont get about now 
 as I'd used to't. I be so plaguy bad wi' th' rumatiz in my back." 
 Benjy paused in hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the 
 subject of his ailments without further direct appHcation. 
 
 " 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 
 
THE " WISE MAN'S'' SURROUNDINGS. 49 
 
 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 com- 
 motion 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 
 
 E 
 
50 THE ONLY ''CURE'' EOR BENNY'S RHEUMATISM. 
 
 clusters on the farmers 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 rheu- 
 matism 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'U do ee much good — leastways 
 I be afeared 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'U cure old folks like you and I o' th' rhumatis." 
 
 " Wot be that then, farmer 1 " inquired Benjy. 
 
 " Churchyard mould," said the old iron-grey mail 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 else- 
 where for his regular companions. 
 
TOM'S ALLIES. Si 
 
 Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother 
 in her visits to the cottages, and had thereby made acquaint- 
 ance 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! beant 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 bo}-, 
 who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little 
 helpful odds and ends for every one, which, however, poor 
 Jacob managed always hopelessly to* embrangle. 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 
 
 E 2 
 
52 TORYISM OF SQUIRE BROWN. 
 
 teach him faster than that worthy at all liked. He was a 
 boy to be proud of with his curly brown hair, keen grey 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 folks' when they are children, 
 as any one may convince themselves if they like 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 
 
TOM'S WATCH-TOWER BY THE SCHOOL. 53 
 
 with lords' sons or ploughmen's sons, provided they were 
 brave and honest. He himself had played football and 
 gone birds-nesting with the farmers Avhom 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 for- 
 warded 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 foot-ball 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 grey stone building, with a steep roof and 
 muUioned 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 
 
54 
 
 TOM'S FOES: THE WHEELWRIGHT 
 
 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 inter- 
 ruption 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 
 
AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. 55 
 
 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 occupa- 
 tions ; 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 wheel- 
 wright'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 school-porch. The door of the school 
 was ajar, and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once 
 recognised and opened a correspondence with the invaders. 
 Tom, waxing bold, kept putting his head into the school and 
 
56 DEFEAT, CAPTURE, PEACE. 
 
 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 arnbling 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, 
 a:nd 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. Torp 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 
 
CAPTURE OF TOM AND JACOB DOODLE-CALF AT THE SCHOOL- PORCH. 
 
 1". 56. 
 
PLAY AND WORK, 57 
 
 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 un- 
 finished 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 Hfe, 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 school- 
 master. 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 
 
58 RIDING AND WRESTLING. 
 
 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 india-rubber and quick as lightning. Day 
 after day they stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand 
 and then the other, and grappled and closed and swayed 
 and strained, till a well-aimed crook of the heel or thrust of 
 the loin took effect, and a fair back-fall ended the matter. 
 And Tom watched with all his eyes, and first challenged 
 one of the less scientific, and threw him ; and so one by one 
 wrestled his way up to the leaders. 
 
 Then indeed for months he had a poor time of it ; it was 
 not long indeed before he could manage to keep his legs 
 against Job, for that hero was slow of offence, and gained 
 his victories chiefly by allowing others to throw themselves 
 against his immoveable 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 
 
TOM AND HARRY WINBURN. 59 
 
 and could do more than he. Luckily, Harry's bright uncon- 
 sciousness, and Tom's natural good temper, kept them from 
 ever quarrelling; and so Tom Avorked 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 grey 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 rurpour declared that a 
 
6o 
 
 rOM'S EARLIEST PLA YMATES. 
 
 raven, last of his race, still lingered ; or to the sand-hills, in 
 vain quest of rabbits ; and birds'-nesting, in the season, any- 
 where 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 
 
TOM'S DEPARTURE TO SCHOOL. 6i 
 
 mutter to Squire Straightback 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 stiff-backed 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 schoolboys 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-tops, white marbles (called " alley-taws " in 
 the Vale), screws, birds'-eggs, whipcord, 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 
 
62 TOM'S FIRST SCHOOL. 
 
 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 everywhere, 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. 
 
THE USHERS. ^^ 
 
 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 schoolmaster, 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 were 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 w^hich 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 assu- 
 rances of his love for dear mamma, his happiness at school, 
 and his resolves to do all she would wish. This missive, with 
 
64 ''MAMMY-SICK'' AND ITS RESULTS. 
 
 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 lor him, and produced the precious letter and 
 some wax, saying, "Oh, 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. 
 
THE AMUSEMENTS. 65 
 
 Tom, however, escaped the penalty by pleading "primum 
 tempus ; " and having written a second letter to his mother, 
 enclosing 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 accom- 
 pany him home. They were forbidden, however, to go any- 
 where except on the down and into the woods ; the village 
 had been especially prohibited, where huge buUs'-eyes and 
 unctuous toffee 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 them- 
 selves 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 
 
 F 
 
65 THE REP ROB A TE. 
 
 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 
 humble-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 re- 
 sulted 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 attached, easily 
 persuaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martin's bank. 
 From whence it being only a step to the toffee 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 buUs'-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 
 
TOM'S ALLY. 67 
 
 two, telling ghost stones by turns. One night when it came 
 to his turn, and he had dried up their souls by his story, 
 he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery hand appear 
 on the door ; and, to the astonishment and terror of the boys 
 in his room, a hand, or something like it, in pale light, did 
 then and there appear. The fame of this exploit having 
 spread to the other rooms, and being discredited there, the 
 young necromancer declared that the same wonder would 
 appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did ; 
 and the whole circumstances having been privately reported 
 to one of the ushers as usual, that functionary, after listening 
 about at the doors of the rooms, by a sudden descent caught 
 the performer in his night-shirt, with a box of phosphorus in 
 his guilty hand. Lucifer-matches and all the present facilities 
 for getting acquainted with fire were then unknown ; the 
 very name of phosphorus had something diabolic in it to the 
 boy-mind ; so Tom's ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, 
 earned what many older folk covet much — the very decided 
 fear of most of his companions. 
 
 He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad one. 
 Tom stuck to him till he left, arid 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 
 
 F 2 
 
68 TOM LEA VES HIS FIRST SCHOOL. 
 
 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, 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. 
 
TOM'S DEPARTURE FOR RUGBY. 
 
 69 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "Let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot, 
 Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot. " 
 Coaching Song by 
 K. E. E. Warburion, Esq. 
 
 OW, sir, time to get up, if 
 you please. Tally-ho coach 
 for Leicester '11 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 
 
70 THE PEACOCK, ISLINGTON. 
 
 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 cosily 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 ostler, 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. 
 
SQUIRE BROWN'S PARTING WORDS. 
 
 71 
 
 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 begun 
 
72 SQUIRE BROWN'S PARTING WORDS. 
 
 nodding, from the united effects of the stout, the fire, and the 
 lecture. Till the Squire observing Tom's state, and remem- 
 bering 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 chokey, 
 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, 'T'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 
 
THE SQUIRE'S MEDITATIONS. 73 
 
 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 as- 
 sisting 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 county 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 t 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 
 
 B| to one. Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say he's 
 
 ^^ sent to school to make himself a good scholar t 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 
 
74 THE '' TALLY-HO r 
 
 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 great coat, 
 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 com- 
 forter 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 genl'm'n, Rugby ; three parcels, Leicester ; ham- 
 per o' game, Rugby," answers Ostler. 
 
A NOVEMBER RIDE IN THE OLD DA YS. 75 
 
 " Tell young gent to look alive," says Guard, opening 
 the hind-boot and shooting in the parcels after examining 
 them by the lamps. " Here, shove the portmanteau up a-top 
 — I'll fasten him presently. Now then, sir, jump up behind." 
 
 ^^ Good-bye, father — my love at home." A last shake of 
 the hand. Up goes Tom, the guard catching his hat-box 
 and holding on with one hand, while with the other he claps 
 the horn to his mouth. Toot, toot, toot ! the ostlers 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 ; Ostler, 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 fallows 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 preserv- 
 ing 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 
 
76 TOM 'S M EDIT A TIONS. 
 
 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 ostler 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 1 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 accom- 
 paniment of work and getting over the ground. 
 
 The Tally-ho is past St. Alban's, 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 a 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. 
 
''PULLING UPr 77 
 
 He is chock 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 ho\v 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 road-side 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 ostler ; 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 coach- 
 man, smiling ; " Time's up." They are out again and up ; 
 coachee the last, gathering the reins into his hands and talk- 
 ing to Jem the ostler 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 
 
78 BREAKFAST. 
 
 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 jog- 
 ging along to a distant meet, at the heels of the huntsman's 
 hack, 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 
 
''PUTTING TO'' AGAIN. 79 
 
 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 ostlers, as if they enjoyed the not 
 being hurried. Coachman comes out with his way-bill 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. 
 
8o G UA RD DISCO URSES ON R UGB V. 
 
 The pinks stand about the inn-door hghting 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 ostlers 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 shop-boys 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. 
 
PEA-SHOOTERS. 8i 
 
 '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." 
 
 G 
 
82 BATTLE WITH THE PATS. 
 
 ** 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 coach- 
 man), * 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 chock 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 b}^ the heads, only luck'ly for him 
 
THE RESULT. «3 
 
 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 schoolfellows. He longed 
 already for the end of the half that he might join them. 
 
 " 'Tain't 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 stone-breaking." The guard stopped and pulled away 
 at his cheroot, regarding Tom benigmantly the while. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE OLD YEOMAN. 
 
 "■ 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 grey-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 further. 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 
 
BLOW-HARD AND HIS YARNS. 85 
 
 thee in such company, but for thy father's sake and thine 
 (for thee bi'st 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 perform- 
 ances 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 
 
86 THE RUNNERS. 
 
 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 Avheels of the 
 gigs, and was moralising 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 ofT next 
 morning, each in a po-chay with a parish constable," when 
 they turned a corner and neared the milestone, the third from 
 Rugby. By the stone two boys stood, their jackets buttoned 
 tight, waiting for the coach. 
 
 " Look here, sir," says the guard, after giving a sharp 
 toot-toot, "there's two on 'em, out and out runners they be. 
 They comes out about twice or three times a week, and 
 spirts a mile alongside of us." 
 
 And as they came up, sure enough, away went two boys 
 along the footpath, keeping up with the horses; the first a 
 light clean-made fellow going on springs, the other stout and 
 round-shouldered, labouring in his pace, but going as dogged 
 as a bull-terrier. 
 
 Old Blow-hard looked on admiringly. "See how beautiful 
 that there un holds hisself together, and goes from his hips. 
 
THE RUNNERS. 87 
 
 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 
 
88 
 
 TOM'S ARRIVAL AT RUGBY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 "—Foot and eye opposed 
 In dubious strife." 
 
 Scott. 
 
 ND so here's Rugby, sir, at 
 last, and you'll be in plenty of 
 time for dinner at the School- 
 house, as I tell'd you," said 
 the old guard, pulling his horn 
 out of its case, and tootle- 
 
 Im iHiiiM wmrf^ r imikiiiii ^o^'^^S away ; while the coach- 
 
 ^"-^^^^"''^m^^^'^ i- ill "^^"^ 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 FINDS A PA TRON. 89 
 
 Tom's heart beat quick as he passed the great school 
 field 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 grey 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 school-gates, 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 
 odded to the guard, with " How do, Jem } " he turned short 
 und to Tom, and, after looking him over for a minute, 
 egan — 
 
 " I say, you fellow, is your name Brown } " 
 " Yes," said Tom, in considerable astonishment ; glad, 
 owever, to have lighted on some one already who seemed 
 o know him. 
 
 " Ah, I thought so : you know my old aunt. Miss East, 
 he lives somewhere down your way in Berkshire. She wrote 
 o me that you were coming to-day, and asked me to give 
 ou a lift." 
 
 Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronising air 
 f his new friend, a boy of just about his own height and 
 ge, but gifted with the most transcendent coolness and 
 ssurance, which Tom felt to be aggravating and hard to 
 
90 ESTHETICS OF '' ROOFINGP 
 
 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 heark'ee, Cooey, it must be up in ten minutes, or 
 no more jobs from me. Come along, Brown." And away 
 swaggers the young potentate, with his hands in his pockets, 
 and Tom at his side. 
 
 " All right, sir," says Cooey, touching his hat, with a leer 
 and a wink at his companions. 
 
 " Hullo tho'," says East, pulling up, and taking another 
 look at Tom, " this'U never do — haven't you got a hat i* — 
 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 
 
TOM'S CICERONE. 91 
 
 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'!! 
 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 chock 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 
 
92 EAST'S STUDY, 
 
 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 fire-places 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. 
 
AND THE FURNISHING THEREOF. 
 
 93 
 
 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 
 
 i 
 
 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 uncom- 
 
94 ''OUR OWN^' AND THE USE THEREOF. 
 
 monly comfortable to look at, Tom thought. The space under 
 the window at the further 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 mousetrap, 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 
 
TOM'S ADMIRATION OF EAST'S STUDY. 95 
 
 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 possession 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 patronisingly, "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 tho'," said East ; 
 "Jones the praepostor has the study at the fire end, and he 
 has rigged up an iron rod and green baize curtains 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 look-out 
 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 schoolfellows in a body. In they came, some 
 
96 TOM 'S FIRST RUGB V DINNER. 
 
 hot and ruddy from football or long v/alks, 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 sauce-bottles 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 the first lesson or callings-over. That's 
 
WHITE TROUSERS IN NOVEMBER. 97 
 
 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 furthest 
 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 toast now." 
 
 " But why do you wear white trousers in November V said 
 Tom. He had been struck by this peculiarity in the cos- 
 tume 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 
 
 H 
 
98 EAST DISCOURSETH ON FOOTBALL. 
 
 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 plav. 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." 
 
THE LA WS OF FOOTBALL. 99 
 
 Tom's respect increased as he struggled to make out his 
 friend's technicahties, 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 afifairs 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, " Hurra ! 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 
 
 H 2 
 
loo CALLING OVER. 
 
 other odd times. They joined the boys who 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 ap- 
 proached ; 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'U 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 further 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 
 
" THEY TRUST TO OUR HONOURS loi 
 
 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 vigo- 
 rously 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 dex- 
 terously out of the way ; and so calling-over rolls on some- 
 how, 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 
 
I02 MARSHALLING FOR FOOTBALL. 
 
 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- 
 
FOOTBALL, NOW AND THEN. 103 
 
 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 1 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 School-house 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 
 
I04 OLD BROOKE'S GENERALSHIP. 
 
 goal-keepers) 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, any-how and no-how ; 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 affirma- 
 tive reply. Old Brooke takes half-a-dozen quick steps, and 
 
A SCRUMMAGE. 105 
 
 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 o{ " 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 
 
io6 HOW TO GO IN, 
 
 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 bull-dogs, bursting through 
 the outsiders ; in they go, straight to the heart of the scrum- 
 mage, 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 come 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 
 
THE FIRST CHECK. 107 
 
 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 
 
io8 YOUNG BROOKE'S RUSH. 
 
 them. The Hnes are thickest close to him, but young Brooke 
 and two or three of his men are shifting up further, where 
 the opposite line is weak. Old Brooke strikes it out straight 
 and strong, and it falls opposite his brother. Hurra ! 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 
 
A GOAL! 109 
 
 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 
 Wk, 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 
 
1 1 o GRIFFITH'S BA SKE T. 
 
 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 vendor 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 offi 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. 
 
EASTS CHARGE. in 
 
 "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 School-house 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 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 
 
112 777^ LAST RUSH. 
 
 would bury himself In the ground ; but the ball rises straight 
 into the air, and falls behind Crew's back, while the " bravos " 
 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 stand 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 
 
I 
 
lOM S FIRST EXPLOIT AT FOOTUALL 
 
TOM'S FIRST EXPLOIT. 
 
 113 
 
 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 carcase. 
 " Our ball," says the praepostor, rising with his prize, '' but get 
 up there, there's a little fellow under you." They are hauled 
 and roll off him, and Tom is discovered a motionless body. 
 
 Old Brooke picks him up. " Stand back, give him air," 
 he says ; and then feeling his limbs, adds, " No bones broken. 
 How do you feel, young un } " " Hah-hah," gasps Tom as 
 his wind comes back, " pretty well, thank you — all right." 
 
 "Who is he.-* "says Brooke. ** Oh, it's Brown, he's a new 
 boy ; I know him," says East, coming up. " Well, he is a 
 plucky youngster, and will make a player," says Brooke. 
 
 And five o'clock strikes. " No side " is called, and the 
 first day of the School-house match is over. 
 
114 
 
 OLD BROOKES PRAISE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AFTER THE MATCH. 
 
 —I- Some food we had." — Shakspere. 
 >)9 TTOTOf ahw. — Theocr. Id. 
 
 S the boys scattered away 
 from the ground, and East 
 leaning on Tom's arm and 
 limping along, was begin- 
 ning 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 
 ^c^;^^^ played famously ; not much 
 the matter, I hope t " 
 '' 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. 
 
CELEBRATING THE VICTORY. 115 
 
 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 penny- 
 worth of potatoes. At last he blurted out, — 
 
 " I say, East, can't we get something else besides pota- 
 toes .'' 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 allow- 
 ances were all stopped this morning for broken windows, so 
 I havn'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 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 HARROWELVS. 
 
 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 Harro well'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 shoe- 
 maker, 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 repar- 
 tee with every boy in turn. " Stumps, you lout, you've had 
 too much beer again to-day." "'Twasn't of your paying for, 
 then." — " Stumps's calves are running down into his ankles ; 
 they want to get to grass." " Better be doing that, than 
 gone altogether like yours," &c. &c. Very poor stuff it was, 
 but it served to make time pass ; and every now and then 
 
TEA AND ITS LUXURIES. 117 
 
 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," &c. How she ever kept the accounts so 
 straight as she did, in her head and on her slate, was a 
 perfect wonder. 
 
 East and Tom got served at last, and started back for 
 the School-house just as the locking-up bell began to ring ; 
 East on the way recounting the life and adventures of 
 Stumps, who was a character. Amongst his other small 
 avocations, he was the hind carrier of a sedan-chair, the last 
 of its race, in which the Rugby ladies still went out to tea, 
 and in which, when he was fairly harnessed and carrying a 
 load, it was the delight of small and mischievous boys to 
 follow him and whip his calves. This was too much for the 
 temper even of Stumps, and he would pursue his tormentors 
 in a vindictive and apoplectic manner when released, but 
 was easily pacified by twopence to buy beer with. 
 
 The lower schoolboys of the School-house, some fifteen 
 in number, had tea in the lower-fifth school, and were pre- 
 sided 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 
 
ii8 SINGING. 
 
 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 em- 
 ployed, toasted his face and the sausages at the same time 
 before the huge fire, till the latter cracked ; when East from 
 his watch-tower shouted that they were done, and then the 
 feast proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and 
 emptied, and Tom imparted of the sausages in small bits 
 to many neighbours, and thought he had never tasted such 
 good potatoes or seen such jolly boys. They on their parts 
 waived all ceremony, and pegged away at the sausages and 
 potatoes, and, remembering Tom's performance in goal, voted 
 East's new crony a brick. After tea, and while the things 
 were being cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the 
 talk on the match still went on ; and those who had them 
 to show, pulled up their trousers and showed the hacks they 
 had received in the good cause. 
 
 They were soon however all turned out of the school, and 
 East conducted Tom up to his bedroom, that he might get 
 on clean things and wash himself before singing. 
 
 " What's singing .? " said Tom, taking his head . out of his 
 basin, where he had been plunging it in cold water. 
 
 "Well, you are jolly green," answered his friend from a 
 neighbouring basin. "Why, the last six Saturdays of every 
 half, we sing of course : and this is the first of them. No first 
 lesson to do, you know, and lie in bed to-morrow morning." 
 
 " But who sings "^ " 
 
 " Why, everybody, of course ; you'll see soon enough. We 
 begin directly after supper, and sing till bed-time. It ain't 
 
TOM'S PERFORMANCES. 119 
 
 such good fun now tho' as in the summer half, 'cause then 
 we sing in the Httle 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 table- 
 cloth : for he lived in the bottom passage, and his table was 
 in requisition for the singing. 
 
 Supper came in due course at seven o'clock, consisting of 
 bread and cheese and beer, which was all saved for the 
 singing ; and directly afterwards the fags went to work to 
 prepare the hall. The School-house hall, as has been said, is 
 a great long high room, with .two large fires on one side, and 
 two large iron-bound tables, one running down the middle, 
 and the other along the wall opposite the fire-places. 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 
 
I20 BROOKE'S HONOURS. 
 
 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 fugle-man 
 strikes up the old sea-song — 
 
 ** A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 
 And a wind that follows fast," &c. 
 
 which is the invariable first song in the School-house, and all 
 the seventy voices join in, not mindful of harmony, but bent 
 on noise, which they attain decidedly, but the general effect 
 isn't bad. And then follow the " British Grenadiers," " Billy 
 Taylor," " The Siege of Seringapatam," " Three Jolly Post- 
 boys," and other vociferous songs in rapid succession, inclu- 
 ding the " Chesapeake and Shannon," a song lately introduced 
 in honour of old Brooke : and when they come to the 
 words — 
 
 " Brave Broke he waved his sword, crying, Now, my lads, aboard, 
 And we'll stop their playing Yandee-doodle-dandy oh ! "• 
 
 you expect the roof to come down. The sixth and fifth 
 know that " brave Broke " of the Shannon was no sort of 
 relation to our old Brooke. The fourth form are uncertain in 
 their belief, but for the most part hold that old Brooke was 
 
. AND HOW HE BORE THEM. 121 
 
 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 T 
 
122 BROOKE DISCOURSETH 
 
 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, get- 
 ting 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'). Non- 
 sense ! '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 
 
ON UNION, AND AGAINST BULLYING. 123 
 
 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 
 t: 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'» 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 
 
124 BROOKE STANDETH UP FOR ''THE DOCTOR." 
 
 Doctor hasn't been here so long as some of us, and he's 
 changing all the old customs. Rugby, and the School-house 
 especially, are going to the dogs. Stand up for the good old 
 ways, and down with the Doctor ! ' Now I'm as fond of old 
 Rugby customs and ways as any of you, and I've been here 
 longer than any of you, and I'll give you a word of advice 
 in time, for I shouldn't like to see any of you getting sacked. 
 ' Down with the Doctor'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 fixfth-form boy, clad in a green 
 cutaway with brass buttons and cord trousers, the leader of 
 the sporting interest, and reputed a great rider and keen hand 
 generally. 
 
 " Well, we had six or seven mangey harriers and beagles 
 belonging to the house, I'll allow, and had had them for years, 
 and that the Doctor put them down. But what good ever 
 came of them .? Only rows with all the keepers for ten miles 
 round ; and big-side Hare and Hounds is better fun ten times 
 over. What else .-* " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Well, I won't go on. Think it over for yourselves : 
 you'll find, I believe, that he don't meddle with any one 
 that's worth keeping. And mind now, I say again, look out 
 
OLD BROOKE'S TOAST. 125 
 
 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 spar- 
 ring, 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. 
 I 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 
 
126 SCHOOL IDOLATRIES. 
 
 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 schoolboys, at least as the schoolboy of our gene- 
 ration. 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. 
 
" THE DOCTOR'' AND HIS WORK. 127 
 
 We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit 
 which had obtained in the school as though it had been a 
 law of the Medes and Persians, and regarded the infringement 
 or variation of it as a sort of sacrilege. And the Doctor, 
 than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking for old 
 school customs, which were good and sensible, had, as has 
 already been hinted, come into most decided collision with 
 several which were neither the one nor the other. And as 
 old Brooke had said, when he came into collision with boys 
 or customs, there was nothing for them but to give in or take 
 themselves off ; because what he said had to be done, and no 
 mistake about it. And this was beginning to be pretty 
 clearly understood ; the boys felt that there was a strong 
 man over them, who would have things his own way; and 
 hadn't yet learned that he was a wise and loving man also. 
 His personal character and influence had not had time to 
 make itself felt, except by a very few of the bigger boys 
 with whom he came more directly in contact ; and he was 
 looked upon with great fear and dislike by the great majority 
 even of his own house. For he had found School, and 
 School-house, in a state of monstrous licence 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 
 
128 BREAK-UP OF SINGING. 
 
 which there was an immense amount of standing with one 
 foot on the table, knocking mugs together and shaking hands, 
 without which accompaniments it seems impossible for the 
 youth of Britain to take part in that famous old song. The 
 under-porter of the School-house entered during the per- 
 formance, 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 
 
LAST LOYAL STRAINS. 129 
 
 on the great hall-table, a knot of untiring sons of harmony 
 made night doleful by a prolonged performance of " God 
 save the King." His Majesty King William IV. then reigned 
 over us, a monarch deservedly popular amongst the boys 
 addicted to melody, to whom he was chiefly known from the 
 beginning of that excellent, if slightly vulgar song in which 
 they much delighted — 
 
 " Come, neighbours all, both great and small, 
 Perform your duties here, 
 And loudly sing 'live Billy our king,' 
 For bating the tax upon beer." 
 
 Others of the more learned in songs also celebrated his 
 praises in a sort of ballad, which I take to have been written 
 by some Irish loyalist. I have forgotten all but the chorus, 
 which ran — 
 
 " God save our good King William, be his name for ever blest. 
 He's the father of all his people, and the guardian of all the rest." 
 
 In troth we were loyal subjects in those days, in a rough 
 way. I trust that our successors make as much of her present 
 Majesty, and, having regard to the greater refinement of the 
 times, have adopted or written other songs equally hearty, 
 but more civilized, in her honour. 
 
 Then the quarter to ten struck, and the prayer-bell rang. 
 The sixth and fifth form boys ranged themselves in their 
 school order along the wall, on either side of the great fires, 
 the middle fifth and upper school boys round the long table 
 in the middle of the hall, and the lower-school boys round 
 the upper part of the second long table, which ran down the 
 side of the hall furthest from the fires. Here Tom found 
 himself at the bottom of all, in a state of mind and body 
 
 K 
 
I30 PRA VERS. 
 
 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. 
 
I 
 
 TOSSING. 131 
 
 "Oh yes, bless you, a dozen times," said East, as he 
 hobbled along by Tom's side up-stairs. " It don't hurt unless 
 you fall on the floor. But most fellows don't like it." 
 
 They stopped at the fireplace in the top passage, where 
 were a crowd of small boys whispering together, and evidently 
 unwilling to go up into the bed-rooms. In a minute, how- 
 ever, a study door opened, and a sixth-form boy came out, 
 and off they all scuttled up the stairs, and then noiselessly 
 dispersed to their different rooms. Tom's heart beat rather 
 quick as he and East reached their room, but he had made 
 up his mind. " I shan't hide, East," said he. 
 
 "Very well, old fellow," replied East, evidently pleased; 
 "no more shall I — they'll be here for us directly." 
 
 The room was a great big one with a dozen beds in it, 
 but not a boy that Tom could see, except East and himself. 
 East pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and then sat on the 
 bottom of his bed, whistling, and pulling off his boots ; Tom 
 followed his example. 
 
 A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door 
 opens, and in rush four or five great fifth-form boys, headed 
 by Flashman in his glory. 
 
 Tom and East slept in the further corner of the room, 
 and were not seen at first. 
 
 "Gone to ground, eh.?" roared Flashman; "push 'em out 
 then, boys ! look under the beds :" and he pulled up the little 
 white curtain of the one nearest him. " Who-o-op," he roared, 
 pulling away at the leg of a small boy, who held on tight 
 to the leg of the bed, and sung out lustily for mercy. 
 
 " Here, lend a hand, one of you, and help me pull out this 
 young howling brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I'll kill you." 
 
 K 2 
 
132 FLASHMAN MUZZLED. 
 
 "■ 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," sung 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 1 " Scud was East's nickname, or Black, as 
 we called it, gained by his fleetness of foot. 
 
 " Yes," said East, " if you like, only mind my foot." 
 
 " And here's another who didn't hide. Hullo ! new boy ; 
 what's your name, sir.?" 
 
 " Brown." 
 
 " Well, Whitey Brown, you don't mind being tossed ? " 
 . "No," said Tom, setting his teeth. 
 
 "Come along then, boys," sung out Walker, and away 
 they all went, carrying along Tom and East, to the intense 
 relief of four or five other small boys, who crept out from 
 under the beds and behind them. 
 
 " What a trump Scud is ! " said one. " They won't come 
 back here now." 
 
EAST AND TOM DEVOTE THEMSELVES. 133 
 
 " 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 No. 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 
 
 i. 
 
134 A BULLY'S REFINEMENTS. 
 
 without a kick or a cry, and was called a young trump for 
 his pains. 
 
 He and East, having earned it, stood now looking on. 
 No catastrophe happened, as all the captives were cool hands, 
 and didn't struggle. This didn't suit Flashman. What your 
 real bully likes in tossing, is when the boys kick and struggle, 
 or hold on to one side of the blanket, and so get pitched 
 bodily on to the floor ; it's no fun to him when no one is 
 hurt or frightened. 
 
 " Let's toss two of them together. Walker," suggested 
 he. " What a cursed bully you are, Flashey ! " rejoined the 
 other. " Up with another one." 
 
 And so no two boys were tossed together, the peculiar 
 hardship of which is, that it's too much for human nature 
 to lie still then and share troubles ; and so the wretched 
 pair of small boys struggle in the air which shall fall a-top 
 in the descent, to the no small risk of both falling out of 
 the blanket, and the huge delight of brutes like Flashman. 
 
 But now there's a cry that the praepostor of the room is 
 coming ; so the tossing stops, and all scatter to their dif- 
 ferent rooms : and Tom is left to turn in, with the first day's 
 experience of a public school to meditate upon. 
 
WAKING. 
 
 '35 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SETTLINCx TO THE COLLAR. 
 
 " Says Giles, "Tis mortal hard to go. 
 
 Bat if so he's I must: 
 I means to follow arter he 
 
 As goes hisself the fust.'" — Ballad. 
 
 \ ERYBODY, I suppose, 
 knows the dreamy delicious 
 state in which one lies, half 
 asleep, half awake, while 
 consciousness begins to re- 
 turn, after a sound night's 
 rest in a new place which 
 we are glad to be in, fol- 
 lowing upon a day of un- 
 wonted excitement and ex- 
 ertion. 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 bod^, you can't make more than five minutes or so of 
 
136 WAKING. 
 
 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 posses- 
 sion 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 l^e dirty shoes and boots, and depo- 
 siting 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 common- 
 wealth, 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 shoe-basket 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. 
 
LIE-IN-BED MORNING. 137 
 
 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 tlic 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 : 
 
138 GETTING UP. 
 
 and now, unmindful of all order and authority, there they 
 were each hauling away at the other's bed-clothes 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 
 further, 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 bed-rooms, 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 down-stairs, and through ^' Thos's hole," as the 
 little buttery, where candles and beer and bread and cheese 
 
I 
 
 THE " CLOSE'' BEFORE CHAPEL. 139 
 
 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 look-out for the 
 hot-water convoys, and pursued them up to the very door of 
 their room, making them spill half their load in the passage. 
 " Better than going down again tho','' 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 
 
HO MORNING CHAPEL. 
 
 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 out 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. Never- 
 theless, 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 
 
AFTERNOON CHAPEL. 141 
 
 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. 
 
142 THE SERMON. 
 
 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 wath 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 v/hatever 
 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 th.e young boy, for the first time, the 
 meaning of his life : that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise 
 
THE DOCTOR'S FIRST HOLD. 143 
 
 into which he had wandered "by chance, but a battle-field 
 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 thoughtless- 
 ness 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 
 
144 - HOUSE FAGGING. 
 
 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 companion 
 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 wTote 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 further, or dared show itself openly, 
 stalking about the passages and hall and bed-rooms, 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. 
 
HOUSE FAGGING. 
 
 145 
 
 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, toast- 
 ing 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 
 
 L 
 
146 HARE AND HOUNDS. 
 
 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, w^hich 
 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 
 
THE MEET. 147 
 
 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, notwith- 
 standing 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 '11 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 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE FIRST BURST. 
 
 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 oppo- 
 site 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 over-run 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 
 
THE FIRST CHECK, 149 
 
 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 look-out 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. 
 
I50 
 
 NO GO. 
 
 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, 
 
THE RE A CTION. 1 5 1 
 
 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 stream 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 any- 
 how. 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. 
 
1 52 TADPOLE 'S APPEARANCE. 
 
 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 t " 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 recognised as the Oxford coach, the 
 redoubtable Pie and Whistle. 
 
HOME A T LAST. 
 
 153 
 
 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 
 lose along the road. Then the others hailed the old scare- 
 crow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed to take them 
 in for a shilling ; so there they sat on the back seat, drubbing 
 rith their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold, and 
 )gged into Rugby some forty minutes after locking-up. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards, three small limping shivering 
 ^ures steal along through the Doctor's garden, and into 
 le house by the servants' entrance (all the pther gates have 
 >een closed long since), where the first thing they light upon 
 
 the passage is old Thomas, ambling along, candle in one 
 land and keys in the other. 
 
 He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. 
 Ah! P2ast, Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go 
 ip to the Doctor's study at once." 
 
 " Well but, Thomas, mayn't we go and wash first 1 You 
 :an 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 
 md of the passage which led up into the Doctor's house ; 
 ind the boys turned ruefully down it, not cheered by the 
 >ld verger's muttered remark, '* What a pickle they boys 
 )e in ! " Thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, 
 ►ut they construed it as indicating the Doctor's state of 
 Imind. Upon the short flight of stairs they paused to hold 
 counsel. 
 
 " Who'll go in first t " inquires Tadpole. 
 
 " You — you're the senior," answered East. 
 
15+ WHO SHALL BELL THE CAT? 
 
 *' Catch me — look at the state I'm in," rejoined Hall, 
 sliowing 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 supet-fluous 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 unan- 
 swered. 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' galleys. Round him stood three or 
 four children ; the candles burnt brightly on a large table at 
 the further end, covered with books and papers, and a great 
 
in 
 
 p4 
 
THEIR RECEPTION BY THE DOCTOR. 155 
 
 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 
 
156 LAST DAYS. 
 
 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 
 bed-rooms 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 masters' 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 
 
PREPARING TO START HOME. 157 
 
 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 post-boys 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 
 
158 A FINANCIER'S TROUBLES. 
 
 louder. Old Thomas sat in his den with a great yellow bag 
 by his side, out of which he was paying journey money to 
 each boy, comparing by the light of a solitary dip the dirty 
 crabbed little list in his own handwriting, with the Doctor's 
 list, and the amount of his cash ; his head was on one side, 
 his mouth screwed up, and his spectacles dim from early 
 toil. He had prudently locked the door, and carried on 
 his operations solely through the window, or he would have 
 been driven wild, and lost all his money. 
 
 "Thomas, do be quick, we shall never catch the Highflyer 
 at Dunchurch." 
 
 ''That's your money, all right, Green." 
 
 " Hullo, Thomas, the Doctor said I was to have two- 
 pound-ten ; you've only given me two pound." — I fear that 
 Master Green is not confining himself strictly to truth. — Thomas 
 turns his head more on one side than ever, and spells away 
 at the dirty list. Green is forced away from the window: 
 
 *' Here, Thomas, never mind him, mine's thirty shillings." 
 " And mine too," " And mine," shouted others. 
 
 One way or another, the party to which Tom belonged 
 all got packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the 
 cornopean playing frantically "Drops of Brandy," in allusion, 
 probably, to the slight potations in which the musician and 
 post-boys 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. 
 
OFF. 159 
 
 " 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." 
 
 **A11 right, sir," shouted the grinning post-boys. 
 
 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 schoolboys as well as sailors, or they 
 must have upset twenty times in the first five miles, some- 
 times actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the 
 rooft 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 ostler a shilling. 
 
 "All right, sir. Red Lion, Jem," to the post-boy, and 
 Tom rattles away towards home. At Farringdon, being known 
 to the innkeeper, he gets that worthy to pay for the Oxford 
 
i6o 
 
 DULCE DO MUM. 
 
 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 
 
 trave stories he tells of Rugby, its doings and delights, soon 
 mollify the Squire, and three happier people didn't sit down 
 to dinner that day in England (it is the boy's first dinner at 
 six o'clock at home, great promotion already), than the Squire 
 and his wife and Tom Brown, at the end of his first half-year 
 at Rugby. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 daily portions. 
 
 " They are slaves who will not choose 
 Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
 Rather than in silence shrink 
 From the truth they needs must think : 
 They are slaves who dare not be 
 In the right with two or three." 
 
 Lowell, Stanzas on Freedom. 
 
 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 gentle- 
 men 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 
 The driving of this unlucky lower-fourth must 
 M 
 
i62 THE LOWER FOURTH. 
 
 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 Irish women, 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 young- 
 sters 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, aad were not trusted to prepare their 
 
TOM'S FALL. 163 
 
 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 steadi- 
 ness, 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 alto- 
 gether. This of course was a challenge to the more adven- 
 turous 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 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 MONTHL V EX AM IN A TIONS. 
 
 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 suc- 
 cessfully 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 look-out holes, march slowly down the school 
 straight upon their retreat, while all the boys in the neigh- 
 bourhood 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 into prayers 
 on the morning of the examination day. 
 
I 
 
 ''TRISTE LUPUS r ' 165 
 
 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 merr}- 
 School-house boy, one of their s6t : he was some connexion 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 iDoctor, "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 
 
i66 MISRULE AND ITS CAUSES. 
 
 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 
 
THE OLD BOY MORALIZETH THEREON. 167 
 
 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 
 
i68 THE SHOE BEGINS TO PINCH. 
 
 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 tradi- 
 tionary standard of right and wrong, which cannot be trans- 
 gressed 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 thousandfold 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 
 
BURSTING POINT, 169 
 
 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 snyfif 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 
 bubbhng over with fun. 
 
I70 WHAT HELP? 
 
 " 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 t " 
 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." 
 
THE EXPLOSION. 171 
 
 *'Down with the tyrants!" cried East; "I'm all for law 
 and order, and hurra 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 ,pne 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 
 
172 THE SIEGE. 
 
 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 & Co. 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 look-out, 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 
 
A COUNSEL OF THE REBELS. 173 
 
 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 
 than 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 
 
174 " THE MUCKERr 
 
 loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown too 
 far through his jacket and trowsers. '* Don't you go to any- 
 body 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 fore-runners." 
 
 " 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 up-stairs, 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 
 
777^ MUCKER'S WA V OF LIFE. 175 
 
 destroying clothos, 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 reck- 
 less, borrowed from any one, and when his debts accumu- 
 lated 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 unin- 
 habitable, 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 com- 
 passion, 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 indif- 
 ferent 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 particu- 
 larly, 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 
 
176 THE WAR RAGES. 
 
 excused them from study-fagging, thereby earning unto him- 
 self 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 tho'," 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, 
 
THE LAST COMBATANTS. 177 
 
 who lived at his own door, and w^ould force himself into 
 their study whenever he found a chance, and sit there, some- 
 times 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 look- 
 ing on, and took no trouble to hide their scorn from him, 
 though they neither interfered with his bullying or 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 
 
 N 
 
178 THE WEAK TO THE WALL. 
 
 fought out in the httle 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 con- 
 stant 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 
 
DIGGS' BANKRUPTCY. 179 
 
 came to their study when Flashman was there, who imme- 
 diately 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' 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* things : — Lot i, 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 villanous 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 feel- 
 ings. 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, crack- 
 ing 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 tui-ning his back to them, said, " You're uncommon 
 good-hearted little beggars, you two — I value that paper-case ; 
 my sister gave it me last holidays— I won't forget;" and so 
 tumbled out into the passage, leaving them somewhat em- 
 barrassed, but not sorry that he knew what they had done. 
 
 N 2 
 
1 80 THE DERB Y LO TTER Y. 
 
 The next morning was Saturday, the day on which the 
 allowances of one shilHng 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 Flash- 
 man, there were three or four other fast sporting young 
 gentlemen in the School-house, 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 sports- 
 men 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. 
 
GENTLEMEN SPORTSMEN, 1 8 1 
 
 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." 
 
1 82 TOM DRA WS THE FA VO URITE. 
 
 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 under value 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 ofTer, 
 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 
 
 I 
 
CONSEQUENCES. 183 
 
 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 '11 do it," answers Flashman. But 
 
1 84 
 
 ROASTING A FAG. 
 
 poor Tom is done already, turns deadly pale, and his head 
 falls forward on his breast, just as Diggs, in frantic excite- 
 ment, 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 
 
THE RESULT. 185 
 
 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 V 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 staunch 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. 
 
1 86 rOM IN THE SICK-ROOM. 
 
 " Only the back of my legs," answers Torn. They are 
 indeed badly scorched, and part of his trousers burnt through, m 
 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. 
 
TOM'S RECOVERY. 
 
 187 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 "Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances. 
 Of moving accidents by flood and field. 
 Of hair-breadth 'scapes." — Shakspeare. 
 
 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 
 I 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 
 
1 88 RULE BREAKING. 
 
 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 pur- 
 chase 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 com.e, 
 light go ; they wouldn't have beeii comfortable with money 
 in their pockets in the middle of the half. 
 
 The embers of Flashman's wrath, however, were still smoul- 
 dering, 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 steadi- 
 ness 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 
 
RULE BREAKING. 189 
 
 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 
 
I90 THE BRUISED WORM WILL TURN. 
 
 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 further 
 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 Flash- 
 man, 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 
 
ACCOUNTS SQUARED WITH FLASHMAN. 191 
 
 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 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 ; " 'tain't 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 
 
192 ACCOUNTS SQUARED WITH FLASHMAN. 
 
 moment, and then over they went on to the floor, Flashman 
 striking his head against a form in the Hall. 
 
 The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay there 
 still. They began to be frightened. Tom stooped down, and 
 then cried out, scared out of his wits, " He's bleeding awfully ; 
 come here, East, Diggs, — he's dying ! " 
 
 " Not he," said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table ; " it's 
 all sham. — he's only afraid to fight it out." 
 
 East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted Flash man'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 hanrl ; " I didn't 
 know it." 
 
Ox 
 
 Ph' 
 
■ , PENALTIES OF WAR. 193 
 
 " 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've done Avith 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, w^hich 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 
 I 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 
 
 O 
 
194 FATE OF LIBERATORS. 
 
 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 suc- 
 cessful 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, pro- 
 bably 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 
 
FA TE OF LIBERA 7 ORS. i95 
 
 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, espe- 
 cially 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 sufifer 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 
 
 O 2 
 
196 THE ISHMAELITES. 
 
 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 dis- 
 cussed and arranged, their names were for ever coming up. 
 
 "I say, Green," Snooks began one night, "isn't that new 
 boy, Harrison, your fag t " 
 "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 WilHs, 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 t " replied Green. " I'll 
 give you two for Willis, if you like." 
 " Who, then t " asks 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 mantel- 
 piece — 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, 
 
THE ISHMAELITES. 197 
 
 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 
 ure 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 frowsy, 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. 
 
198 MISFORTUNE THICKENS. 
 
 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 both 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 circum- 
 stances, 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 
 
THE A VON. 199 
 
 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 re- 
 member, he never said anything to us my iirst 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. 
 
200 DISPUTED RIGHTS OF FISHING. 
 
 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, thaugh 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 
 tlirough 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 
 
DISPUTED RIGHTS OF FISHING. 201 
 
 had been, that there had been first wranghngs and then 
 fights between the keepers and boys ; and so keen had the 
 quarrel become, that the landlord and his keepers, after a duck- 
 ing 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,Tand 
 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 burthen 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 tackle-maker 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 keeper 
 hove in sight, and then plunge in and swim back and mix 
 
202 CHAFFING A KEEPER. 
 
 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 resetting 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 ap- 
 proaching from the other side. He was a new keeper, so 
 they didn't recognise 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 t what business is that of yours, 
 old Velveteens 1 " 
 
 " I'm the new under-keeper, and master's told me to keep 
 a sharp look-out 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 '11 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 
 
CHAFFING A KEEPER, 203 
 
 at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if to take a note 
 of him for future use. Tom returned his gaze with a steady 
 stare, and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the middle 
 of a favourite School-house song — 
 
 As I and my companions 
 
 Were setting of a snare, 
 The gamekeeper was watching us, 
 
 For him we did not care : 
 For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, 
 
 And jump out anywhere. 
 
 For it's my delight of a likely night, 
 
 In the season of the year. 
 
 The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts 
 of laughter, and the keeper turned away with a grunt, but 
 evidently bent on mischief. The boys thought no more of 
 the matter. 
 
 But now came on the May-fly season : the soft hazy summer 
 weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, 
 and the green and grey 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 carcase 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 
 
204 THE RETURN MATCH WITH VELVETEENS. 
 
 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 1 
 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 ; " willow-trees don't throw out straight hickory shoots 
 
'lA^,/ #^^|'\ 
 
 TOM I.)I8L.()V1:KKI) HV VKLVKIKKN^ 
 
THE RETURN MATCH WITH VELVETEENS. 205 
 
 twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck." Alas ! the 
 keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and then 
 of Tom's hand and arm. 
 
 '^ Oh, be up ther' be ee .'' " says he, running under the tree. 
 " Now you come down this minute." 
 
 " Tree'd at last," thinks Tom, making no answer, and 
 keeping as close as possible, but working away at the rod, 
 which he takes to pieces : '' I'm in for it, unless I can starve 
 him out." And then he begins to meditate getting along 
 the branch for a plunge, and scramble to the other side ; but 
 the small branches are so thick, and the opposite bank so 
 difficult, that the keeper will have lots of time to get round 
 by the ford before he can get out, so he gives that up. And 
 now he hears the keeper beginning to scramble up the trunk. 
 That will never do ; so he scrambles himself back to where 
 his branch joins the trunk, and stands with lifted rod. 
 
 " Hullo, Velveteens, mind your fingers if you come any 
 higher ! " 
 
 The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a grin says, 
 " Oh ! be you, be it, young measter } Well, here's luck. Now 
 I tells ee to come down at once, and 't'll be best for ee " 
 
 " Thank ee. Velveteens, I'm very comfortable," said Tom, 
 shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for battle. 
 
 *'Werry well, please yourself," says the keeper, descending 
 however to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank ; 
 " I bean't in no hurry, so you may take your time. I'll larn 
 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." 
 
2o6 VELVETEENS WELL IN. 
 
 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 t " 
 
 " 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 School-house, 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. 
 
VELVETEENS' REVENGE. 207 
 
 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 ofl* 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 
 
2o8 MORE SCRAPES. 
 
 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 ex- 
 ploits 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 acci- 
 dents 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 
 
MORE SCRAPES. 209 
 
 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 grave. " 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 thought- 
 lessly 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 
 
 p 
 
2IO THE DOCTOR REIGNING. 
 
 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 into the Doctor ; 
 and they hear his genial hearty greeting of the new-comer, 
 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." 
 
THE DOCTOR REIGNING. 211 
 
 Now, I don't want any w^iseacres 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 nex t 
 morning, for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite dread 
 seeing either of them." 
 
 P 2 
 
212 THE DOCTOR REIGNING. 
 
 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. 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 
 PART II. 
 
"I [hold] it truth, with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 
 
 Once to everj' man and nation, comes the moment to decide, 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side: 
 
 Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside. 
 Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 HE turning-point in our 
 hero's school career had 
 now come, and the man- 
 ner 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. 
 
2 1 6 BLA CK MONDA V. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Wixle," 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 
 
I 
 
TOiM S FIRST SIGHT UF ARTHUR. 
 
 r. 21' 
 
THE SADDLE IS PUT ON TOM. 217 
 
 up-stairs, 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, 
 ril 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 " 
 
 " Oh, 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 throucrh his troubles. Tom was too honest to take 
 
2i8 THE SADDLE IS PUT ON TOM. 
 
 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 dero- 
 gatory 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 
 
TOM ACCEPTS HIS CHARGE. 219 
 
 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 
 I 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 
 
220 TEA WITH THE DOCTOR. 
 
 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 w^hile 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 imme- 
 diately after the Doctor himself. 
 
 How frank, and kind, and manly was his greeting to the 
 party by the fire 1 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." 
 
TEA WITH THE DOCTOR. 221 
 
 " 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 Bil- 
 ton 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 t 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 
 every body felt that he, young as he might be, was of some 
 use in the litttle 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 further 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 recognised marching down the passage. 
 
 " Hullo, Brown, where do you come from t " 
 
 "Oh, I've been to tea with the Doctor," says Tom, with 
 great dignity. 
 
222 ARTHUR'S DEBUT. 
 
 " My eye ! " cried East " Oh ! so that's why Mary called 
 you back, and you didn't come to supper. You lost some- 
 thing — 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 cosy ! But look here now : you must answer straight up 
 
ARTHUR'S DEBUT. 223 
 
 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 
 further table — of all sorts and sizes, like young bears with all 
 their trouble 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 up-stairs 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 
 furthest corner by the fire-place 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 
 
224 ARTHUR'S DEBUT. 
 
 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; how- 
 ever, 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 wash- 
 ing and undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then 
 
LESSON NO. I. 225 
 
 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; how- 
 ever, 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, stamp- 
 ing with pain. 
 
 " Never mind what I mean," said Tom, stepping on to the 
 floor, every drop of blood in his body tingling ; " if any fellow 
 wants the other boot, he knows how to get it." 
 
 What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this 
 moment the sixth-fcrm 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." 
 
 Q 
 
226 LESSON NO. i. 
 
 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 excite- 
 ment, 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 him- 
 self 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 hll 
 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 w^ay. 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 
 
LESSON NO. I. 227 
 
 to break his heart, was the sense of his own cowardice. The 
 vice of all others which he loathed was brought in and burned 
 in on his own soul. He had lied to his mother, to his con- 
 science, 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, h5.d done that which he, braggart as he was, 
 dared not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in swear- 
 ing 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 
 c6ward 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 pubhc 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. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 TOM LEARNS HIS LESSON. 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowed 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 
 
 I 
 
TOM LEARNS HIS LESSON. 229 
 
 any boy in the room except the praepostor ; at any rate, 
 every boy knew that he would try upon very slight provoca- 
 tion, 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. 
 
230 
 
 TOM'S TRIALS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NEW BOY. 
 
 'And Heaven's rich Instincts in him grew, 
 As effortless as woodland nooks 
 Send violets up and paint them blue." — Lowell. 
 
 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 indispen- 
 sable for supporting that character with moderate success. 
 From morning till night he had the feeling of responsibility 
 
TOM'S TRIALS. 331 
 
 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 chaffing of 
 East and his other old friends, who began to call him " dry- 
 nurse," and otherwise to break their small wit on him. But 
 
232 EAST'S ADVICE. 
 
 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 some- 
 where 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 "i " 
 
 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 m^t 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 
 
AN EPISODE. 233 
 
 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." 
 
 " Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great 
 fives'-court." 
 
 " Hullo, tho', 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- 
 
 * A kind and wise critic, an old Rugboean, notes here in the margin : " The 
 small friend system was not so utterly bad from 1841-1847." Before that, 
 too, there were many noble friendships between big and little boys, but I can't 
 strike out the passage ; many boys will know why it is left in. 
 
234 AN EPISODE. 
 
 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 put, 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. 
 
AN EPISODE. 235 
 
 " 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 gentle- 
 man, 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 
 
236 LESSON NO. 2. 
 
 that he was a thorough Httle 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 w^ith the 
 great tears in his eyes ; "you are so kind to me, I'm very happy." 
 
LESSON NO. 2. 237 
 
 " 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 your- 
 self," 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 inte- 
 rested, 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 
 
 L 
 
238 ' ARTHUR'S HOME. 
 
 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 
 pawn-shop; 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 be- 
 tween 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 wholesom.e 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 teapots or salvers, with flowery in- 
 
A R THUR 'S HOME. 239 
 
 scriptions, setting forth his virtues and the appreciation of a 
 genteel parish ; no fat hving 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, or 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 everj^thing. 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 county 
 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 
 
240 ARTHUR'S HOME. 
 
 first brush ; and they didn't expect to work miracles, and 
 convert them all ofif-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 out- 
 rages 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 all 
 in 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 wor- 
 shipped 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'S HOME. 241 
 
 Arthur and his wife both caught the fever, of which he died 
 in a few days, and she recovered, having been able to nur^e 
 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, esta- 
 blished in the town by some of the factory hands (which he 
 had striven against with might and main, and nearly sup- 
 pressed), 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 after- 
 wards 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 
 
 R 
 
242 RESULTS OF LESSON NO. 2. 
 
 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 v/as 
 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 after- 
 
TOM IS STIFF-NECKED, 243 
 
 wards, 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 EHsha to be cured of his 
 leprosy. When the chapter was finished, Tom shut his Bible 
 with a slap. 
 
 " 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 piaster 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.'" 
 
 I" 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. 
 I • R 2 
 
244 THE BROWN COMPROMISE. 
 
 " 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 Abednego answered and said to the king, O 
 
TOM PLEDGES HIMSELF. 245 
 
 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 not's, 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 t " 
 
 ** 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. 
 
246 
 
 MARTIN, THE MADMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 
 
 He's 
 
 " Let Nature be your teacher : 
 Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ; 
 Our meddling intellect 
 
 Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things. 
 We murder to dissect — 
 Enough of Science and of Art ; 
 Close up those barren leaves ; 
 Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
 That watches and receives." — Wordsworth. 
 
 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 fel- 
 low, but as mad as a hatter, 
 called Madman, you know. And never was such a 
 
TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 247 
 
 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 ver}^ 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 up-stairs 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. 
 
248 TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 '''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 1 ' says the Doctor ; 
 * you really mustn't go on in this way — you're a nuisance 
 to the whole passage.' 
 
 " ' 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 
 
TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 249 
 
 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 house- 
 
 k 
 
 keeper'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 
 
250 TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 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 Ish- 
 maelite in the house. In the first place, he half-poisoned all 
 his neighbours, and they in turn were always on the look-out 
 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 
 
TROUBLES OF A BOY-PHILOSOPHER. 251 
 
 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 
 
252 THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEN. 
 
 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 howHngs 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 old 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 awa.y and used by the owner 
 
THE PHILOSOPHER'S DEN. 253 
 
 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 Hewlett's the bird-fancier's, in the Bilton road, 
 who would give a hawk's or nightingale's ^^'g 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 fire-light. 
 
 " 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's- 
 
254 THE INVITATION. 
 
 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 sumptuou^ 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 friend- 
 ships 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 Torn 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 
 
¥ 
 
 TOM'S WORK. 255 
 
 appointed work and trial for the time being. And Torri 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 himselt 
 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' 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 
 
256 THE SUPPER. 
 
 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 hos- 
 pitable 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 ^gg^ 
 
 "You just come down to my study then, and I'll show 
 you five sorts," said Martin. | 
 
THE SUPPER. 257 
 
 " 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 birds'-nesting campaign, betray- 
 ing 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 king- 
 fisher's nest out perfect, and that the British Museum, or 
 the Government, or somebody, had offered ;^ioo 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 ;^ioo, 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 
 
 S 
 
258 THE SUPPER. 
 
 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 birds'-nesting 
 campaign ? How's Howlett ? ' I expect the young rooks '11 
 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. How- 
 ever, 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 ap- 
 peased. 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 
 
VULGUSES. 259 
 
 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 
 
 S 2 
 
26o VULGUSES. 
 
 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, 
 or 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 
 
VULGUSES. 261 
 
 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 pro- 
 duced 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 threw 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 two 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 w^hich 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 
 
262 THE SCIENCE OF VERSE-MAKING. 
 
 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 consi- 
 dered 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 satisfi.ed till he had polished it 
 well up with the aptest and mos.t 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 Uzy 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 vulgus^s, 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 
 
MARTIN'S DEN. 263 
 
 unknown to him for getting through the work, and having 
 been pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses there 
 whenever he Hked, the three boys went down to Martin's 
 den, and Arthur was initiated into the lore of birds'-eggs, 
 to his great dehght. The exquisite colouring and forms 
 astonished and charmed him who had scarcely ever seen 
 any but a hen's Q'g^ 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 dreamt of the glorious perils of tree- 
 climbing, and that he had found a roc's ^g^ in the island 
 as big as Sinbad's, and clouded like a titlark's, in blowing 
 which Martin and he had nearly been drowned in the yolk. 
 
>64 
 
 MARTIN AND ARTHUR'S FIRST EXCURSION. 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BIRD-FANCIERS. 
 
 ' 1 have found out a gift for my fair, 
 
 I have found where the wood-pigeons breed : 
 But let me the phmder forbear, 
 
 She would say 'twas a barbarous deed." — Roive. 
 
 ■ And now, my lad, take them five shilling. 
 And on my advice in future think ; 
 So Billy pouched them all so willing, 
 
 And got that night disguised in drink."— il/^S". Ballad. 
 
 HE next morning at first les- 
 I son 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 miss- 
 ing, 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 
 
TOM PUT OUT 265 
 
 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. 
 
 " Oh, Tom, look here," cried he, holding out three moor- 
 hen's eggs ; " we've been down to 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 some- 
 thing to find fault with. 
 
 " Why, young un," said he, " what have you been after } 
 You don't mean to say you Ve been wading } " 
 B The tone of reproach made poor little Arthur shrink up 
 Ik a moment and look piteous, and Tom with a shrug of 
 ^nis 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." 
 mm " 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." 
 
266 BIRD 'S NESTING. 'A 
 
 " 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 some- 
 thing horribly wrong, whereas he has learnt on in advance 
 much more than will be done at second lesson. M 
 
 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 glueing 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- 
 
BIRD 'S NESTING. 267 
 
 over, and directly afterwards, having dodged such praepostors 
 as are on the look-out for fags at cricket, the four set off 
 at a smart trot down the Lawford footpath straight for 
 Caldecott's Spinr^ey aad 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, cottgn-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 thosje high fir-trees at this end. And down by the 
 brook therex I know of a sedge-bird's nest ; we'll go and 
 look at it caming 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 noise- 
 lessly as possible, lest keepers or other enemies should be 
 
268 BIRD'S NESTING. 
 
 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. 
 
CLIMBING THE FIR TREE AFTER THE KI'SlRll/s NEST. ]'. 261). 
 
BIRD 'S NESTING. 269 
 
 " 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 ^t last. " Now, 
 Scud, you lazy rascal, stick yourself against the tree ! " 
 
 " 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 
 
270 BIRD'S NESTING. 
 
 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 apiece." 
 
 " 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 Qgg into each of his boxes and 
 the third into his mouth, the only other place of safety. 
 
PECKING. 271 
 
 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 ^gg, 
 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 iisspmness. 
 
 They crossed a road soon afterwards, and there close to 
 them lay a 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's-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 
 
272 WHA T IS LARCENY? 
 
 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 ofl". 
 They were heard some two hundred yards ofl* 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 
 day-time, I regret to have to confess that visits from the 
 
THE TROUBLESOME DUCK. 
 
 73 
 
 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 barn in question 
 for felonious purposes, and on one occasion had conquered 
 and slain a duck there, and borne away the carcase trium- 
 
 phantly, 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, 
 
 T 
 
274 THE TROUBLESOME DUCK. 
 
 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 bag full in his hand, and looking 
 disconsolately at the carcase, 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 } Tm 
 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 
 
 ''^^■' . . i 
 
 " 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 grewsome 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 with- 
 
A SUDDEN FLIGHT. 275 
 
 stood 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 them- 
 selves 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 ofi" 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 
 
 T 2 
 
276 RUNNING FOR A CONVOY. 
 
 side. As they start into the next field, they are aware of 
 two figures walking down the footpath in the middle of it, 
 and recognise 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 w^hole 
 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 fright- 
 fully 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 kick- 
 ing 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 } " 
 
A DEBATE. 277 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " 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 seed 'em. Who be you, I should like to 
 know .? " 
 
278 A COMPROMISE. 
 
 " 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 Qgg 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 foot-path towards Rugby. Holmes, 
 who was one of the best boys in the School, began to im- 
 prove 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 1 " 
 
 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 
 
to 
 
 HOLMES LECTURES ON SCHOOL LARCENY. 2jCf 
 
 his chickens. Now, knocking over other people's chickens, 
 and running off with them, .is steahng. 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 — 
 
 "Gee'd 'em a sight of good advice" — 
 
 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 after- 
 wards, 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 
 is 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, 
 
28o ARTHUR SEALS HIS FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 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. 
 
FIGHTING IN GENERAL. 
 
 2SI 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FIGHT. 
 
 ' Surgebat Macnevisius 
 Et mox jactabat ultro, 
 Pngnabo tua gratia 
 Fenxri hoc Mactwoltro."— ^/^«/Vi«. 
 
 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 schoolfellow in the manner of our old friend 
 Bells Life let those young persons whose stomachs are not 
 strong, or who think a good set-to with the weapons which God 
 
282 FIGHTING IN GENERAL. * 
 
 has given us all, an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentle- 
 manly 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 expe- 
 rience 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-rufiians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will 
 not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them. 
 
HOW THE FIGHT AROSE. 
 
 283 
 
 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, some- 
 how 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 schoolfellows 
 whom he ever had to encounter in this manner. 
 
 It was drawing towards the close of Arthur's first half- 
 I 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 persona; now are, were reading 
 I 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 
 >f Helen's lamentation. And now several long four-syllabled 
 ^ords come together, and the boy with the dictionary strikes 
 'Ork. 
 
284 HOIV THE FIGHT AROSE, 
 
 " 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 in- 
 terested 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 con- 
 trivances 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 
 
HO IV THE FIGHT AROSE. 285 
 
 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 de- 
 spair 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 — 
 
 oXkb. (TV t6v 7' i-Jr(€a<ri trapaKpifjifvos KarepvKes, 
 2p T ayavocppoavvri Ka\ ao7s dyavo7s iirieaaiv. 
 
 He looks up at Arthur. "Why, bless us," thinks he, "what 
 can be the matter with the young un } He's never going 
 
286 HOW THE FIGHT AROSE. 
 
 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 note-book, 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 
 
HOW THE FIGHT AROSE. 287 
 
 boys, who are great speculators on the prowess of their elders, 
 used to hold forth to one another about Williams' great 
 strength, and to discuss whether East or Brown would take 
 a licking from him. He was called Slogger Williams, from 
 the force with which it was supposed he could hit. In the 
 main, he was a rough good-natured fellow enough, but very 
 much alive to his own dignity. He reckoned himself the 
 king of the form, and kept up his position with 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 aroused. 
 
 " Sneaking little brute," muttered he, regardless of prudence, 
 " clapping on the waterworks just in the hardest place ; see 
 if I don't punch his head after fourth lesson." 
 
 '' Whose "i " 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 
 
288 now THE FIGHT AROSE. 
 
 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. 
 
THE CHALLENGE. 289 
 
 "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. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE PEELING. 
 
 In another minute East and Martin tear through the 
 quadrangle, carrying a sponge, and arrive at the scene of 
 action just as the combatants are beginning to strip. 
 
 Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he 
 stripped off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his 
 handkerchief round his waist, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves for 
 him : " Now, old boy, don't you open your mouth to say a 
 word, or try to help yourself a bit, — we'll do all that ; you 
 keep all your breath and strength for the Slogger." Martin 
 meanwhile folded the clothes, and put them under the chapel 
 rails ; and now Tom, with East to handle him, and Martin 
 to give him a knee, steps out on the turf, and is ready for 
 all that may come : and here is the Slogger too, all stripped, 
 and thirsting for the fray. 
 
 It doesn't look a fair match at first glance: Williams is 
 nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older than 
 his opponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms 
 and shoulders, — " peels well," as the little knot of big fifth- 
 form boys, the amateurs, say ; who stand outside the ring of 
 little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active 
 part in the proceedings. But down below he is not so good 
 by any means ; no spring from the loins, and feebleish, not 
 to say shipwrecky about the knees. Tom, on the contrary, 
 though not half so strong in the arms, is good all over, straight, 
 hard, and springy, from neck to ankle, better perhaps in his 
 legs than anywhere. Besides, you can see by the clear white 
 of his eye, and fresh bright look of his skin, that he is in 
 tip-top training, able to do all he knows; while the Slogger 
 looks rather sodden, as if he didn't take much exercise and 
 ate too much tuck. The time-keeper is chosen, a large ring 
 
EARL V RO UNDS. 291 
 
 made, and the two stand up opposite one another for a 
 moment, giving us time just to make our little observations. 
 
 "If Tom'U 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 ea.sy, 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 timekeeper. 
 
 " 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 S logger. 
 
 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, 
 
 U 2 
 
292 EAST 'S AD VICE. 
 
 taking out his note-book to enter it, for our friend Rattle 
 sometimes forgets these httle 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 
 in to him. Hit at his body too ; we'll take care of his frontis- 
 piece 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, 
 
HEAD FIGHTING. 
 
 293 
 
 and gets away again before the Slogger can catch his wind ; 
 which when he does he rushes with bUnd fury at Tom, and 
 being skilfully parried and avoided, over-reaches himself and 
 
 falls on his face, amidst terrific cheers from the School-house 
 boys. 
 
 " Double your two to one ? " says Groove to Rattle, note- 
 book in hand. 
 
 " Stop a bit," says that hero, looking uncomfortably at 
 
294 STEADY ALL. 
 
 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 move- 
 ment of his elbows you can see that Tom's body blows are 
 telling. In fact half the vice of the Slogger's hitting is neu- 
 tralized, for he daren't lunge out freely for fear of exposing 
 his sides. It is too interesting by this time for much shout- 
 ing, 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 ! " 
 
THE RING BROKEN. 295 
 
 " 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 com- 
 batants, 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. 
 IThere was a strong feeling in the school against catching 
 lold and throwing, though it was generally- ruled all fair 
 within certain limits; so the ring was broken, and the fight 
 stopped. 
 
 The School-house are over-ruled — the fight is on again, 
 mt 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 
 
296 THE CRISIS. 
 
 comes through the small gate at the end of the chapel. The 
 School-house faction rush to him. '' Oh, hurra ! now we shall 
 get fair play." 
 
 " Please, Brooke, come up, they won't let Tom Brown 
 throw him." 
 
 '^ Throw whom } " says Brooke, coming up to the ring. 
 " Oh ! Williams, I see. Nonsense ! of course he may throw 
 him if he catches him fairly above the waist." 
 
 Now, Young Brooke, you're in the sixth, you know, and 
 you ought to stop all fights. He looks hard at both boys. 
 ''Anything wrong.?" says he to East, nodding at Tom. 
 
 " Not a bit." 
 
 " Not beat at all .? " 
 
 " Bless you, no ! heaps of fight in him. Ain't there, Tom } " 
 
 Tom looks at Brooke, and grins. 
 
 " How's he .'^ " nodding at Williams. 
 
 " So so ; rather done, I think, since his last fall. He 
 won't stand above two more." 
 
 " Time's up ! " the boys rise again, and face one another. 
 Brooke can't find it in his heart to stop them just yet, so the 
 round goes on, the Slogger waiting for Tom, and reserving 
 all his strength to hit him out should he come in for the 
 wrestling dodge again, for he feels that that must be stopped, 
 or his sponge will soon go up in the air. 
 
 And now another new comer 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," 
 
LAST ROUND. 297 
 
 "You go to Bath, Bill," is all that that excellent servitor 
 gets by his advice. And being a man of his hands, and a 
 staunch 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' 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. 
 
 " I'll give you three to two on the little one in half-crowns," 
 said Groove to Rattle. 
 
 " No, thank'ee," answers the other, diving his hands further 
 into his coat-tails. 
 
 Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of the 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 
 
298 THE DOCTOR ARRIVES. 
 
 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 recognised, 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 1 " 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 
 
THE doctor's counsel TO YOUNG BROOKE. P. 299. 
 
THE DOCTOR'S VIEWS, 299 
 
 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." 
 
 " 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 staunchest 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 ofif-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. 
 
300 EVENING AFTER THE FIGHT. 
 
 " 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 fag, if so be." 
 
 However, the lovers of the science were doomed to dis- 
 appointment 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 1 " 
 
 "Oh, very w^ell, 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 1 " 
 
 "Down in the country, w4ien 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 loth. And the fifth-form boy 
 next him filled him a tumbler of bottled-beer, and he ate 
 and drank, listening to the pleasant talk, and wondering how 
 
THE SHAKE HANDS. 301 
 
 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 
 every-day school Hfe 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 now-a-days. Even Thackeray has given in to it ; and 
 only a few weeks ago there was some rampant stuff in the 
 Times on the subject, 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 t What would you like to see take its place t 
 
 Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and foot- 
 ball. 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. 
 
 k. 
 
302 THE OLD BOY'S RULES. 
 
 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. 
 
REVIEW OF EVENTS. 
 
 303 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 
 
 " This our hope for all that's mortal. 
 And we too shall burst the bond ; 
 Death keeps watch beside the portal, 
 But 'tis life that dwells beyond." 
 
 John Sterling. 
 
 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 disre- 
 putable 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 
 
 k 
 
304 THE DOCTOR. 
 
 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 be- 
 lieve the report ; but the next day, Tuesday, Dr. Robertson 
 arrived, and stayed all day, and had long conferences with 
 the Doctor. 
 
 On Wednesday m.orning, after prayers, the Doctor ad- 
 dressed 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 in- 
 fectious, and that if proper care were taken, there cou-ld be 
 no reason for stopping the school-work at present. The 
 
DEATH IN THE SCHOOL. 305 
 
 examinations were just coming on, and it would be very un- 
 advisable 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 death-bed, 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 be- 
 tween scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness did not at 
 
 X 
 
3o6 THE DOCTOR'S SERMON, 
 
 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 dis- 
 turbed, 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 ? 
 Oh, God, can I bear to lose him t " 
 
 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 
 
 I 
 
TOM's visit to ARTHUR AFTER THE FEVER. P. 307. 
 
ARTHUR ILL WITH THE FEVER. 307 
 
 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 re- 
 membered 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 
 
3o8 CONVALESCENCE. 
 
 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. 
 
 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, quarrel- 
 ling, 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." 
 
CONVALESCENCE. 309 
 
 "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 
 
 b 
 
3IO MEMORIES. 
 
 Patagonlans, 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, flut- 
 tering about and cawing anyhow till they roost." 
 
 " I wonder if the old blackies do talk," said Tom, look- 
 ing 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 1 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. 
 
MEMORIES. 311 
 
 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 t 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 t I shall come out bottom of the 
 form, as sure as eggs is eggs." 
 
312 MORE LESSONS. 
 
 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?" 
 
TOM'S CONFESSION. 313 
 
 " 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 sup- 
 pose because all boys are sent to a pubHc school in England." 
 *' But what do you think yourself.^ What do you want 
 to do here, and to carry away t " 
 
 Tom thought a minute. " I want to be A i 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 V 
 
 "By what I really do, of course." 
 
 " Does he think you use cribs and vulgus-books ?" 
 
314 TOM PROPOSES A COMPROMISE. 
 
 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 yoiL 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 t 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' 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." 
 
TOM OUT-GENERALLED. 315 
 
 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 in- 
 deed, 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 ot the 
 burial service in the chapel, and how it had impressed him 
 and, he believed, all the other boys. " And though the Doctor 
 
3i6 MORE CONVERSATION, 
 
 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." 
 
 *a'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 altpgether 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 
 
TOM AND ARTHURS MOTHER. 
 
 • 320. 
 
ARTHUR'S ACCOUNT OF HIS ILLNESS. 317 
 
 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 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 
 
3i8 ARTHUR'S ACCOUNT OF HIS ILLNESS. 
 
 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 Ezeklel } 
 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 
 
ARTHUR'S ACCOUNT OF HIS ILLNESS. 319 
 
 the old town whom I knew when I w^as a child ; many a 
 hard stern man, who never came to church, and whom they 
 called atheist and infidel. There they w^ere, 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 w^ere 
 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. 
 
320 ARTHUR'S MOTHER. 
 
 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 Hfe 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 } " 
 
 " 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, 
 
k 
 
 ARTHUR'S MOTHER. 321 
 
 old enough to be his mother, and one whose face showed 
 the hnes which must be written on the faces of good men's 
 wives and widows — but he thought he had never seen any- 
 thing 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 1 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 Devon- 
 shire, 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 
 
 Y 
 
322 TOM'S REWARDS. 
 
 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. 
 
TOM SPRINGS HIS MINE, 
 
 323 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HARRY EAST'S DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 
 
 "The Holy Supper is kept indeed, 
 In whatso we share with another's need- 
 Not that which we give, but what we share. 
 For the gift without the giver is bare: 
 Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, 
 Himself, his himgering neighbour, and Me." 
 
 Lowell, The Vision of Sir Lautifal, p. n 
 
 HE next morning, after break- 
 fast, 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 b}- 
 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 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 . TOM SPRINGS HIS MINE. 
 
 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." 
 
 " Oh, 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." 
 
RESULTS OF THE EXPLOSION. • 325 
 
 " 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 into 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 t " 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 
 poenitctitice, 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 
 
326 RESULTS OF THE EXPLOSION. 
 
 m 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 chock- 
 full 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 re- 
 member," 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." 
 
THE ENEMY'S DEFENCE. 327 
 
 " 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 t Hang it, Tom, if you're going to deprive 
 all our schoolfellows 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 down hill 
 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 t 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 Shakspere, 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 
 
328 THE ENEMY'S DEFENCE. 
 
 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 doubt- 
 ingly 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 '11 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 
 
THE ENEMY'S DEFENCE. 329 
 
 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 bed-time." 
 
 "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 t 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 mc 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 under- 
 stand it, and they understand it, and I don't know what 
 we're to come to with any other." 
 
330 THE TRUCE. 
 
 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 com- 
 fortable. 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." 
 
ARTHUR GOES HOME. 331 
 
 As they walked out they got a message, to say " that 
 Arthur was just starting and would like to say good-bye ; " 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. 
 
 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 spluttering." 
 
 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 suc- 
 ceeded 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 
 
332 THE SIEGE RE-OPENS. 
 
 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 Arthurs 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 
 yery words, and all he had himself thought. The life seemed 
 
FRIENDSHIP TESTED. 333 
 
 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 
 
334 FRIENDSHIP TESTED. 
 
 his hearty respect for what he could see to be good and 
 true, kept off the rest. 
 
 Tom, besides being very like East in many points of cha- 
 racter, 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 un- 
 popular, Tom felt more and more every day, as their cha- 
 racters 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 guardian- 
 ship 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 know- 
 ing how it might end ; and fearful of risking a friendship 
 very dear to both, and which they felt somehow, without 
 
I FRIENDSHIP TESTED. 335 
 
 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 contem- 
 poraries 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 o.^ 
 
336 EAST'S CONFESSIONS. 
 
 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 kind-hearted 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." 
 
EAST UNBURTHENING HIMSELF TO TOM. 
 
 P. Z2,^- 
 
EAST'S CONFESSIONS. 337 
 
 " 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 
 
 z 
 
338 EAST'S CONFESSIONS. 
 
 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. 
 
TOM'S PRESCRIPTION. 339 
 
 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, up-stairs. Tom 
 
 z 2 
 
340 EAST'S INTERVIEW WITH THE DOCTOR, 
 
 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 ? " 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " Hurra," 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 THE RESULT. 341 
 
 ** And you're to come to the Communion ? " said Tom. 
 
 "Yes, and to be confirmed in the hoHdays." 
 
 Tom's dehght 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 alm.ost 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. 
 
342 
 
 SCHOOL MEMORIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TOM BROWN S LAST MATCH. 
 
 " Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere 
 Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping; 
 The fruit of dreamy hoping 
 Is, waking, blank despair." 
 
 Clough, Avibarvalia. 
 
 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 pleasant- 
 est 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 
 
SCHOOL MEMORIES. 343 
 
 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 t 
 
 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 wc 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 1 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 
 
344 SCHOOL MEMORIES. 
 
 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 : — 
 
 *' To veer how vain ! on, onward strain. 
 
 Brave barks ! in light, in darkness too ; 
 Through winds and tides one compass guides, — 
 To that, and your own selves, be true. 
 
 ' ' But, O blithe breeze ! and O great seas, 
 Though ne'er that earliest parting past, 
 On your wide plain they join again, 
 Together lead them home at last. 
 
 " One port, methought, alike they sought, 
 One purpose hold where'er they fare. 
 O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! 
 At last, at last, unite them there ! " * 
 
 This is not mere longing, it is prophecy. So over these 
 two, 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 
 
 * Clough, Ambm-valia. 
 
THE END OF THE HALF-YEAR. 345 
 
 " With larger other eyes than ours, 
 To make allowance for us all," 
 
 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 Lords' 
 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 
 
346 CRICKET MA TCH IN THE SCHOOL-CLOSE. 
 
 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 Lords' 
 match before, and knew old Mr. Aislabie and several of the 
 Lords' 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 BelVs 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 
 
COUNTRY DANCE IN THE SCHOOL CLOSE. 
 
 347 
 
 old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, if lie 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 Lords' 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 
 
348 PREPARATION FOR THE MATCH. 
 
 he thought of the Doctor's parting monition, and stopped the 
 cornopean at once, notwithstanding the loud-voiced remon- 
 strances from all sides ; and the crowd scattered away from the 
 close, the eleven all going into the School-house, w^here 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 the 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 Lords' men took their places at the wicket ; 
 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. 
 
 ^ "SK" ^ ^ ^ "ST 
 
 "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.''" Aw^ay scamper three boys to the 
 
THE MARYLEBONE MATCH. 349 
 
 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 bran- 
 dishes 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 new-comer's off-hitting is tremendous, and his run- 
 ning 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 further wicket, until he is sternly stopped 
 by the Captain. It is all that young gentleman 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, 
 
3 50 2 HE MA R YLEBONE MA TCH. 
 
 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 Lords' 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 w^orking 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 
 
THE CONVERSATION DURING THE MATCH. 
 
 I'- 351- 
 
SOME OLD FRIENDS. 351 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
352 CONVERSA TION BETWEEN 
 
 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 aban- 
 doned 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 arc 
 
THE MASTER, TOM, AND ARTHUR. 353 
 
 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 hat 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 liis 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. 
 
 A A 
 
354 CONVERSA TION BETWEEN 
 
 Why, when he first came I remember he used to read Hero- 
 dotus 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. 
 
 " Oh, 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. 
 
355 
 
 " Yes," said Arthur, " the birthright of British boys old and 
 young, as habeas coTpiLs 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 
 
 kl came here to be under him." 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE DOCTOR'S REFORMS. 
 
 " 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 afternoons 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 1 " 
 
 '' 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 t " 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 
 
JACK RAGGLES' INNINGS. 357 
 
 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. 
 
 Meantine Jack Raggles, with his sleeves tucked up above 
 his great brown elbows, scorning pads and gloves, has pre- 
 sented himself at the wicket; and, having run one for a for- 
 ward 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 ! " 
 
58 ARTHUR'S INNINGS. 
 
 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 
 
THE FINISH. 359 
 
 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 a 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 Lords' 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, 
 
36o THE MASTER AND TOM SHUT OUT. 
 
 " 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 them- 
 selves, 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 
 
OM AND THE MASTER'S SURVEY OF THE COOK's CUPBOARD. P. 36 1. 
 
HOW THEY GOT IN. 361 
 
 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 ma- 
 terials 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 them- 
 selves 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.?" 
 
362 HARRY EAST. 
 
 " 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 him- 
 self. 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 t " 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." 
 
WORK IN THE WORLD. 363 
 
 " 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 
 
364 IVORK IN THE WORLD. 
 
 sort of work which he might take up as an undergraduate ; 
 and warned him of the prevalent University sins, and ex- 
 plained 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 
 
THE DOCTOR'S WORK. 365 
 
 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 1 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 wholly given 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 
 
366 A NEW LIGHT. 
 
 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 Head-master 
 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 
 
TOM'S DEPARTURE FROM RUGBY. 367 
 
 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 School-house, 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 remon- 
 strance at his desertion, and joy at his reappearance. And 
 falling in with the humour of the evening, 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. 
 
 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. 
 
368 
 
 TOM RETURNS ONCE MORE. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 " Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
 Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 
 Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
 And mingle all the world with thee." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 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 
 
LIFE AT SKYE. 369 
 
 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 
 ofl" 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. 
 
 B B 
 
370 NEWS OF ARNOLD'S DEATH. 
 
 " Hullo, Brown ! here's something for you," called out 
 the reading man next moment. '* Why, your old master, 
 Arnold of Rugby, is dead." 
 
 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 intel- 
 lectual 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 } " 
 
ITS EFFECT UPON TOM. 371 
 
 ** Where is it ? " said Tom, turning over the leaves, his hands 
 trembHng, 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 para- 
 graph. 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, sympathising 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, notwith- 
 standing 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 
 
372 ARRIVAL AT RUGBY. 
 
 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 t " 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. 
 
 By the time he had done, Tom felt much better. 
 
 " Where is he buried, Thomas t " 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 
 
REMINISCENCES, 373 
 
 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, arid 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 
 
374 VISIT TO ARNOLD'S TOMB, 
 
 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 
 
TOMS VISIT TO THP: TOMB OF DK. ARNOLD. 
 
 P. 2,r> 
 
AND HIS THOUGHTS THERE, 375 
 
 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 t Could he not thinkj>. 
 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 
 
3/6 FINIS. 
 
 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 hope- 
 fully, 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 fulness. 
 
 LONDON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 
 
^ i 
 
 j^jwiUONlj I 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 (MT- BY AN /SO 
 
 OLD BOY 
 

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