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Title: Tom Brown's School Days

Author: Thomas Hughes

Release date: May 2, 2010 [eBook #32224]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM BROWN'S
SCHOOL DAYS ***

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS.

CHAIRING TOM IN THE QUADRANGLE. P.
358.

TOM BROWN'S

SCHOOL DAYS

BY AN OLD BOY

With Illustrations by Arthur Hughes and Sydney Prior Hall

New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1880

TO

MRS. ARNOLD,

OF FOX HOWE,

THIS BOOK IS (WITHOUT HER PERMISSION)

Dedicated

B Y T H E A U T H O R,

WHO OWES MORE THAN HE CAN EVER ACKNOWLEDGE 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 contemptible
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, or agitation, or
excitement, to nerves that are over-sensitive. There are different 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. I 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 made bold by bullying is no better.
"He can be made bold by healthy exercise and games and sports; 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 about 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 school-boys 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 British 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 one of
peculiar hardship and suffering. He is entirely at the mercy of proverbially
the roughest things in the universe—great school-boys; 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 school-boys 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 him 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 school-boys—but in the separation of boys of different ages into
different schools.
"There should be at least three different classes of schools—the first 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
bedrooms. 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 education 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.
[A] I therefore add a few extracts from the letter of an old friend and school-
fellow, 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
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 victimised 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 think not. At any rate, I wouldn't
do so myself.
The fact is, that I can scarcely ever call on one of my contemporaries
now-a-days 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
out 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 godsons,
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 all together;
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 that the Rugby undergraduates they
remember at the Universities 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.[B] 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 met 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 able to conceal their thoughts, or their opinion of 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
thoughtfulness" 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
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 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.

FOOTNOTES:
[A] 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 hook, he says,—"The
author is mistaken in saying the 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."
[B] "To him (Arnold) and his admirers we owe the substitution of the word
'earnest' for its predecessor 'serious'"—Edinburgh Review, No. 217, p. 183.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.
THE BROWN FAMILY 1

CHAPTER II.
THE VEAST 21

CHAPTER III.
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES 44

CHAPTER IV.
THE STAGE COACH 68

CHAPTER V.
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL 87

CHAPTER VI.
AFTER THE MATCH 112

CHAPTER VII.
SETTLING TO THE COLLAR 134

CHAPTER VIII.
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 158

CHAPTER IX.
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 184

PART II.

CHAPTER I.
HOW THE TIDE TURNED 213

CHAPTER II.
THE NEW BOY 228

CHAPTER III.
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND 245

CHAPTER IV.
THE BIRD-FANCIERS 262

CHAPTER V.
THE FIGHT 279

CHAPTER VI.
THE FEVER 300

CHAPTER VII.
HARRY EAST'S DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES 321

CHAPTER VIII.
TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH 341

CHAPTER IX.
FINIS 367

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE NIGHT FAG 144
OLD THOMAS IN HIS DEN 155
TOM DISCOVERED BY VELVETEENS 202
CLIMBING THE FIR-TREE AFTER THE KESTREL'S NEST 268
THE DOCTOR'S COUNSEL TO YOUNG BROOKE 296
THE CONVERSATION DURING THE MATCH 351
CHAIRING TOM IN THE QUADRANGLE 366

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS.
BY AN OLD BOY.

CHAPTER I.

"I'm the Poet of White Horse
Vale, sir,
With liberal notions under my
cap."
—Ballad.

HE Browns have become illustrious by
the pen of Thackeray and the pencil of
Doyle within the memory of the young
gentlemen who are now matriculating
at the Universities. Notwithstanding
the well-merited but late fame which
has now fallen upon them, any one at
all acquainted with the family must
feel that much has yet to be written
and said before the British nation will be properly sensible of how much of
its greatness it owes to the Browns. For centuries, in their quiet, dogged,
homespun way, they have been subduing the earth in most English counties,
and leaving their mark in American forests and Australian uplands.
Wherever the fleets and armies of England have won renown, there stalwart
sons of the Browns have done yeoman's work. With the yew bow and cloth-
yard shaft at Cressy and Agincourt—with the brown bill and pike under the
brave Lord Willoughby—with culverin and demi-culverin against Spaniards
and Dutchmen—with hand-grenade and sabre, and musket and bayonet,

under Rodney and St. Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Wellington,
they have carried their lives in their hands; getting hard knocks and hard
work in plenty, which was on the whole what they looked for, and the best
thing for them; and little praise or pudding, which indeed they and most of
us are better without. Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs, and such-like folk,
have led armies, and made laws time out of mind; but those noble families
would be somewhat astounded—if the accounts ever came to be fairly taken
—to find how small their work for England has been by the side of that of
the Browns.
These latter, indeed, have until the present generation rarely been sung
by poet, or chronicled by sage. They have wanted their "sacer vates,"
having been too solid to rise to the top by themselves, and not having been
largely gifted with the talent of catching hold of, and holding on tight to,
whatever good things happened to be going,—the foundation of the
fortunes of so many noble families. But the world goes on its way, and the
wheel turns, and the wrongs of the Browns, like other wrongs, seem in a
fair way to get righted. And this present writer having for many years of his
life been a devout Brown-worshipper, and moreover having the honour of
being nearly connected with an eminently respectable branch of the great
Brown family, is anxious, so far as in him lies, to help the wheel over, and
throw his stone on to the pile.
However, gentle reader, or simple reader, whichever you may be, lest
you should be led to waste your precious time upon these pages, I make so
bold as at once to tell you the sort of folk you'll have to meet and put up
with, if you and I are to jog on comfortably together. You shall hear at once
what sort of folk the Browns are, at least my branch of them; and then if
you don't like the sort, why, cut the concern at once, and let you and I cry
quits before either of us can grumble at the other.
In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may question
their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no
question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are going,
there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his 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 luxuriate in telling
one another their minds on whatever subject turns up; and their minds are
wonderfully antagonist, and all their opinions are downright beliefs. Till
you've been among them some time and understand them, you can't think
but that they are quarrelling. Not a bit of it; they love and respect one
another ten times the more after a good set family arguing bout, and go
back, one to his curacy, another to his chambers, and another to his
regiment, freshened for work, and more than ever convinced that the
Browns are the height of company.
This family training too, combined with their turn for combativeness,
makes them eminently quixotic. They can't let anything alone which they
think going wrong. They must speak their mind about it, annoying all easy-
going folk; and spend their time and money in having a tinker at it, however
hopeless the job. It is an impossibility to a Brown to leave the most
disreputable lame dog on the other side of a stile. Most other folk get tired
of such work. The old Browns, with red faces, white whiskers, and bald
heads, go on believing and fighting to a green old age. They have always a
crotchet going, till the old man with the scythe reaps and garners them away
for troublesome old boys as they are.
And the most provoking thing is, that no failures knock them up or make
them hold their hands, or think you, or me, or other sane people in the right.
Failures slide off them like July rain off a duck's back feathers. Jem and his
whole family turn out bad, and cheat them one week, and the next they are
doing the same thing for Jack; and when he goes to the treadmill, and his
wife and children to the workhouse, they will be on the look-out for Bill to
take his place.
However, it is time for us to get from the general to the particular; so,
leaving the great army of Browns, who are scattered over the whole empire
on which the sun never sets, and whose general diffusion I take to be the

chief cause of that empire's stability, let us at once fix our attention upon the
small nest of Browns in which our hero was hatched, and which dwelt in
that portion of the royal county of Berks which is called the Vale of White
Horse.
Most of you have probably travelled down the Great Western Railway as
far as Swindon. Those of you who did so with their eyes open, have been
aware, soon after leaving the Didcot station, of a fine range of chalk hills
running parallel with the railway on the left-hand side as you go down, and
distant some two or three miles, more or less, from the line. The highest
point in the range is the White Horse Hill, which you come in front of just
before you stop at the Shrivenham station. If you love English scenery, and
have a few hours to spare, you can't do better, the next time you pass, than
stop at the Farringdon road or Shrivenham station, and make your way to
that highest point. And those who care for the vague old stories that haunt
country sides all about England, will not, if they are wise, be content with
only a few hours' stay; for, glorious as the view is the neighbourhood is yet
more interesting for its relics of bygone times. I only know two English
neighbourhoods thoroughly, and in each, within a circle of five miles, there
is enough of interest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. I
believe this to be the case almost throughout the country; but each has a
special attraction, and none can be richer than the one I am speaking of and
going to introduce you to very particularly; for on this subject I must be
prosy; so those that don't care for England in detail may skip the chapter.
O young England! young England! You who are born into these racing
railroad times, when there's a Great Exhibition, or some monster sight,
every year; and you can get over a couple of thousand miles of ground for
three pound ten, in a five weeks' holiday; why don't you know more of your
own birthplaces? You're all in the ends of the earth, it seems to me, as soon
as you get your necks out of the educational collar, for midsummer
holidays, long vacations, or what not. Going round Ireland, with a return
ticket, in a fortnight; dropping your copies of Tennyson on the tops of Swiss
mountains; or pulling down the Danube in Oxford racing-boats. And when
you get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the steam off, and lie on your
backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by the last batch of books from
Mudie's library, and half bored to death. Well, well! I know it has its good
side. You all patter French more or less, and perhaps German; you have

seen men and cities, no doubt, and have your opinions, such as they are,
about schools of painting, high art, and all that; have seen the pictures 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 grows in the next wood or on the down
three miles off, or what the bog-bean and wood-sage are good for. And as
for the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, the
place where the last skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the parish
butts stood, where the last highwayman turned to bay, where the last ghost
was laid by the parson, they're gone out of date altogether.
Now, in my time, when we got home by the old coach which put us
down at the cross-roads with our boxes, the first day of the holidays, and
had been driven off by the family coachman, singing "Dulce Domum" at
the top of our voices, there we were, fixtures, till black Monday came
round. We had to cut out our own amusements within a walk or ride of
home. And so we got to know all the country folk, and their ways and songs
and stories by heart; and went over the fields, and woods, and hills, again
and again, till we made friends of them all. We were Berkshire, or
Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys, and you're young cosmopolites,
belonging to all 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 back-sword play hadn't gone out in the Vale of White Horse, and
that that confounded Great Western hadn't carried away Alfred's Hill to
make an embankment.
But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the country in which the
first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid. As I said, the Great
Western now runs right through it, and it is a land of large rich pastures,
bounded by fox-fences, and covered with fine hedgerow timber, with here
and there a nice little gorse or spinney, where abideth poor Charley, having
no other cover to which to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed
out some fine November morning by the Old Berkshire. Those who have
been there, and well mounted, only know how he and the stanch little pack
who dash after him—heads high and sterns low with a breast-high scent—
can consume the ground at such times. There being little plough-land and
few woods, the vale is only an average sporting country, except for hunting.

The villages are straggling, queer, old-fashioned places, the houses being
dropped down without the least regularity, in nooks and out-of-the-way
corners by the sides of shadowy lanes and footpaths, each with its patch of
garden. They are built chiefly of good 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 brick 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 my youth,—was it the great
Richard Swiveller, or Mr. Stiggins?—says, "We are born in a vale, and must
take the consequences of being found in such a situation." These
consequences, I, for one, am ready to encounter. I pity people who weren't
born in a vale. I don't mean a flat country, but a vale—that is, a flat country
bounded by hills. The having your hill always in view, if you choose to turn
towards him, that's the essence of a vale. There he is for ever in the
distance, your friend and companion; you never lose him as you do in hilly
districts.
And then what a hill is the White Horse Hill! There 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 eyry. The

ground falls away rapidly on all sides. Was there ever such turf in the whole
world? You sink up to your ankles at every step, and yet the spring of it is
delicious. There is always a breeze in the "camp," as it is called; and here it
lies just as the Romans left it, except that cairn on the east side left by her
Majesty's corps of Sappers and Miners the other day, when they and the
Engineer officer had finished their sojourn there, and their surveys for the
Ordnance map of Berkshire. It is altogether a place that you won't forget—a
place to open a man's soul and make him prophesy, as he looks down on
that great Vale spread out as the garden of the Lord before him, and wave
on wave of the mysterious downs behind; and to the right and left the chalk
hills running away into the distance along which he can trace for miles the
old Roman road, "the Ridgeway" ("the Rudge," as the country folk call it),
keeping straight along the highest back of the hills;—such a place as Balak
brought Balaam to, and told him to prophesy against the people in the
valley beneath. And he could not, neither shall you, for they are a people of
the Lord who abide there.
And now we leave the camp, and descend towards the west, and are on
the Ashdown. We are treading on heroes. It is sacred ground for
Englishmen, more sacred than all but one or two fields where their bones lie
whitening. For this is the actual place where our Alfred won his great battle,
the battle of Ashdown ("Æscendum" in the chroniclers), which broke the
Danish power, and made England a Christian land. The Danes held the
camp and the slope where we are standing—the whole crown of the hill, in
fact. "The heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground," as old Asser
says, having wasted everything behind them from London, and being just
ready to burst down on the fair vale, Alfred's own birthplace and heritage.
And up the heights came the Saxons, as they did at the Alma. "The
Christians led up their line from the lower ground. There stood also on that
same spot a single thorn-tree, marvellous stumpy (which we ourselves with
our very own eyes have seen)." Bless the old chronicler! does he think
nobody ever saw the "single thorn-tree" but himself? Why, there it stands to
this very day, just on the edge of the slope, and I saw it not three weeks
since; an old single thorn-tree, "marvellous stumpy." At least if it isn't the
same tree, it ought to have been, for it's just in the place where the battle
must have been won or lost—"around which, as I was saying, the two lines
of foemen came together in battle with a huge shout. And in this place, one

of the two kings of the heathen, and five of his earls fell down and died, and
many thousands of the heathen side in the same place."[C] 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 gulley
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 forward from the range, and
utterly unlike everything round him. On this hill some deliverer of mankind,
St. George, the country folks used to tell me, killed a dragon. Whether it
were St. George, I cannot say; but surely a dragon was killed there, for you
may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and more by token the
place where it ran down is the easiest way up the hillside.
Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we come to a
little clump of young beech and firs, with a growth of thorn and privet
underwood. Here you may find nests of the strong down partridge and
peewit, but take care that the keeper isn't down upon you; and in the middle
of it is an old cromlech, a huge flat stone raised on seven or eight others,
and led up to by a path, with large single stones set up on each side. This is
Wayland Smith's cave, a place of classic fame now; but as Sir Walter has
touched it, I may as well let it alone, and refer you to "Kenilworth" for the
legend.
The thick deep wood which you see in the hollow about a mile off,
surrounds Ashdown Park, built by Inigo Jones. Four broad alleys are cut
through the wood from circumference to centre, and each leads to one face

of the house. The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as
they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes studded
with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. It was a
wise Lord Craven, I think, who pitched his tent there.
Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land.
The downs, strictly so called, are no more; Lincolnshire farmers have been
imported, and the long fresh slopes are sheep-walks no more, but grow
famous turnips and barley. One of those 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 here is a 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.
"Be'an't queer at all, as I can see, sir," says mine host, handing back our
glass, "seeing as this here is the Blawing Stwun his self," putting his hand
on a square lump of stone some three feet and a half high, perforated with
two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian rat-holes, which lies

there close under the oak, under our very nose. We are more than ever
puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale wondering what will come next.
"Like to hear un, sir?" says mine host, setting down Toby Philpot on the
tray, and resting both hands on the "Stwun." We are ready for anything; and
he, without waiting for a reply, applies his mouth to one of the 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 hillside, and into the woods at the back of the house—a ghost-
like, awful voice. "Um do say, sir," says mine host rising purple-faced,
while the moan is still coming out of the "Stwun," "as they used in old
times to warn the country-side, by blawing the stwun when the enemy was
acomin'—and as how folks could make un heered them for seven mile
round; leastways, so I've heered Lawyer Smith say, and he knows a smart
sight about them old times." We can hardly swallow Lawyer Smith's seven
miles; but could the blowing of the stone have been a summons, a sort of
sending the fiery cross round the neighbourhood in the old times? What old
times? Who knows? We pay for our beer, and are thankful.
"And what's the name of the village just below, landlord?"
"Kingstone Lisle, sir."
"Fine plantations you've got 'ere?"
"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."
And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have you had
enough? Will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me
begin my story, or will you have more of it? Remember, I've only been over
a little bit of the hillside yet—what you could ride round easily on your
ponies in an hour. I'm only just come down into the vale, by Blowing Stone
Hill, and if I once begin about the vale, what's to stop me? You'll have to
hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and Farringdon, which
held out so long for Charles the First (the vale was near Oxford, and

dreadfully malignant; full of Throgmortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and such
like, and their brawny retainers). Did you ever read Thomas Ingoldsby's
"Legend of Hamilton Tighe?" If you haven't you ought to have. Well,
Farringdon is where he lived before he went to sea; his real name was
Hampden 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;—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
waterlilies 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 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! a Wessex man, a citizen of the noblest Saxon
kingdom of Wessex, a regular, "Angular Saxon," the very soul of me
"adscriptus glebe." There's nothing like the old country-side for me, and no
music like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from
the veritable chaw in the White Horse Vale: and I say with "Gaarge Ridler,"
the old west-country yeoman,
"Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would
bwoast,
Commend me to merry owld England
mwoast:
While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh,
We stwops at whum, my dog and I."
Here at any rate lived and stopped at home, Squire Brown, J.P. for the
county of Berks, in a village near the foot of the White Horse range. And

here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and begat sons and
daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and
the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico shirts, and smock
frocks, and comforting drinks to the old folks with the "rheumatiz." and
good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes clubs going, for yule tide;
when the bands of mummers came round, dressed out in ribbons and
coloured paper caps, and stamped round the Squire's kitchen, repeating in
true sing-song vernacular the legend of St. George and his fight, and the
ten-pound Doctor, who plays his part at healing the Saint—a relic, I believe,
of the old middle-age mysteries. It was the first dramatic representation
which greeted the eyes of little Tom, who was brought down into the
kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the mature age of three years. Tom was
the eldest child of his parents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the
family characteristics in great strength. He was a hearty strong boy from the
first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing
with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all round the
neighbourhood. And here in the quiet old-fashioned country village, under
the shadow of the everlasting hills, Tom Brown was reared, and never left it
till he went first to school when nearly eight years of age,—for in those
days change of air twice a year was not thought absolutely necessary for the
health of all Her Majesty's lieges.
I have been credibly informed, and am inclined to believe, that the
various Boards of Directors of Railway Companies, those gigantic jobbers
and bribers, while quarrelling about everything else, agreed together some
ten years back to buy up the learned profession of Medicine, body and soul.
To this end they set apart several millions of money, which they continually
distribute judiciously amongst 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 Assizes or Quarter Sessions, which the Squire made on his
horse with a pair of saddle-bags containing his wardrobe—a stay of a day or
two at some country neighbour's—or an expedition to a county ball, or the
yeomanry review—made up the sum of the Brown locomotion in most

years. A stray Brown from some distant county dropped in every now and
then; or from Oxford, on grave nag, an old don, contemporary of the
Squire; and were looked upon by the Brown household and the villagers
with the same sort of feeling with which we now regard a man who has
crossed the Rocky Mountains, or launched a boat on the Great Lake in
Central Africa. The White Horse Vale, remember, was traversed by no great
road; nothing but country parish roads, and these very bad. Only one coach
ran there, and this one only from Wantage to London, so that the western
part of the Vale was without regular means of moving on, and certainly
didn't seem to want them. There was the canal, by the way, which supplied
the country side with coal, and up and down which continually went the
long barges, with the big black men lounging by the side of the horses along
the towing path, and the women in bright coloured handkerchiefs standing
in the sterns steering. Standing I say, but you could never see whether they
were standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being out of sight
in the cozy little cabins which occupied some eight feet of the stern, and
which Tom Brown pictured to himself as the most desirable of residences.
His nurse told him that those good-natured-looking women were in the
constant habit of enticing children into the barges and taking them up to
London and selling them, which Tom wouldn't believe, and which made
him resolve as soon as possible to accept the oft-proffered invitation of
these sirens to "young Master," to come in and have a ride. But as yet the
nurse was too much for Tom.
Yet why should I after all abuse the gadabout propensities of my
countrymen? We are a vagabond nation now; that's certain, for better for
worse. I am a vagabond; I have been away from home no less than five
distinct times in the last year. The Queen sets us the example—we are
moving on from top to bottom. Little dirty Jack, who abides in Clement's
Inn gateway, and blacks my boots for a penny, takes his month's hop-
picking every year as a matter of course. Why shouldn't he? I'm delighted at
it. I love vagabonds, only I prefer poor to rich ones;—couriers and ladies'
maids, imperials and travelling carriages, are an abomination unto me—I
cannot away with them. But for dirty Jack, and every good fellow who, in
the words of the capital French song, moves about,
"Comme le limaçon,
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 road-side inns,
Swiss châlets, 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 crotchet,) I shall here shut up for the present, and
consider my ways; having resolved to "sar' it out," as we say in the Vale,
"holus-bolus" just as it comes, and then you'll probably get the truth out of
me.

FOOTNOTES:
[C] "Pagani editiorem locum præoccupaverant. Christiani ab inferiori loco
aciem dirigebant. Erat quoque in eodem loco unica spinosa arbor, brevis
admodum (quam nos ipsi nostris propriis oculis vidimus). Circa quam ergo
hostiles inter se acies cum ingenti clamore hostiliter conveniunt. Quo in loco
alter de duobus Paganorum regibus et quinque comites occisi occubuerunt, et
multa millia Paganæ partis in eodem loco. Cecidit illic ergo Bœgsceg Rex, et
Sidroc ille senex comes, et Sidroc Junior comes, et Obsbern comes," &c.—
Annales Rerum Gestarum Ælfredi Magni, Auctore Asserio. Recensuit Franciscus
Wise. Oxford, 1722, p. 23.

CHAPTER II.
THE VEAST.

"And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth neither
fairs nor markets be kept in Church-yards, for the honour of the Church."—
Statutes: 13 Edw. I. Stat. ii. cap. vi.

S that venerable and learned poet
(whose voluminous works we all
think it the correct thing to admire
and talk about, but don't read often),
most truly says, "the child is father to
the man;" à 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 were
introduced in the last chapter.
Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at
the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his nurse.
That functionary was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brained girl, lately
taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as she was called, from the village
school to be trained as nurserymaid. Madam Brown was a rare trainer of
servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for profession it was,
and gave her more trouble by half than many people take to earn a good

income. Her servants were known and sought after for miles round. Almost
all the girls who attained a certain place in the village school were taken by
her, one or two at a time, as housemaids, laundrymaids, nurserymaids, or
kitchenmaids, and after a year or two's 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 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! d'rat 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 morn 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 farmer's wife. The latter good soul was a
gaunt angular woman, who with an old black bonnet on the top of her head;
the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her gown tucked through her
pocket-holes, went clattering about the dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in
high pattens. Charity was some sort of niece of the old lady's, and was
consequently free of the 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 huzzy, where bist?" and Tom would break
cover, hands and mouth full of curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface
of the great muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing the repose
of the great pigs. Here he was in safety, as no grown person could follow
without getting over their knees; and the luckless Charity, while her aunt
scolded her from the dairy-door, for being "allus hankering about arter our
Willum, instead of minding Master Tom," would descend from threats to
coaxing, to lure Tom out of the muck, which was rising over his shoes and
would soon tell a tale on his stockings, for which she would be sure to catch
it from missus's maid.
Tom had two abettors in the shape of a couple of old boys, Noah and
Benjamin by name, who defended him from Charity, and expended much
time upon his education. They were both of them retired servants of former
generations of the Browns. Noah Crooke was a keen dry old man of almost
ninety, but still able to totter about. He talked to Tom quite as if he were one
of his own family, and indeed had long completely identified the Browns
with himself. In some remote age he had been the attendant of a Miss
Brown, and had conveyed her about the country on a pillion. He had a little
round picture of the identical 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 unaccompanied by a certain joy at having
seen the last of the wig: "Poor old Noah, dead and gone," said he, "Tom
Brown so sorry! Put him in the coffin, wig and all."
But old Benjy was young Master's real delight and refuge. He was a
youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old. A cheery, humorous,
kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of Vale gossip, and of all sorts of
helpful ways for young and old, but above all for children. It was he who
bent the first pin, with which Tom extracted his first stickleback out of
"Pebbly Brook," the little stream which ran through the village. The first
stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous red and blue gills. Tom
kept him in a small basin till the day of his death, and became a fisherman
from that day. Within a month from the taking of the first stickleback, Benjy
had carried off our hero to the canal, in defiance of Charity, and between
them, after a whole afternoon's popjoying, they had caught three or four
small coarse fish and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a half ounces
each, which Tom bore home in rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and
she received like a true mother with equal rapture, instructing the cook
nevertheless, in a private interview, not to prepare the same for the Squire's
dinner. Charity had appealed against old Benjy in the meantime,
representing the dangers of the canal banks; but Mrs. Brown seeing the
boy's inaptitude for female guidance, had decided in Benjy's favour, and
from thenceforth the old man was Tom's dry nurse. And as they sat by the
canal watching their little green and white float, Benjy would instruct him
in the doings of deceased Browns. How his grandfather, in the early days of
the great war, when there was much distress and crime in the Vale, and the
magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a big stick
in his hand, and held the Petty Sessions by himself. How his great uncle, the
Rector, had encountered and laid the last ghost, who had frightened the old
women, male and female, of the parish out of their senses, and who turned
out to be the blacksmith's apprentice, disguised in drink and a white sheet. It
was Benjy too who saddled Tom's first pony, and instructed him in the
mysteries of horsemanship, teaching him to throw his weight back and keep
his hand low; and who stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school,

when Tom rode his little Shetland into the cottage and round the table,
where the old dame and her pupils were seated at their work.
Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the Vale for their
prowess in all athletic games. Some half-dozen of his brothers and kinsmen
had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come home, with a
small pension, and three bullets in different parts of his body; he had shared
Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his old dragoon's sword and
pistol, which hung over the mantelpiece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-
sticks with which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old
gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire and Somersetshire, in many a
good bout at the revels and pastime 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 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 to expend the same best 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
reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Freeman hadn't
spoken for the last six months, their "old women" would be sure to get it
patched up by that day. And though there was a good deal of drinking and
low vice in the booths of an evening, it was pretty well confined to those
who would have been doing the like, "veast or no veast," and on the whole,
the effect was humanizing and Christian. In fact, the only reason why this is
not the case still, is that gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other
amusements, and have, as usual, forgotten the poor. They don't attend the
feasts themselves, and call them disreputable, whereupon the steadiest of
the poor leave them also, and they become what they are called. Class
amusements, be they for dukes or plough-boys, 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 road-side 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 assortment of
wares, and the booths of more legitimate small traders with their tempting

arrays of fairings and eatables! and penny peep-shows and other shows,
containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wild
Indians. But the object of most interest to Benjy, and of course to his pupil
also, was the stage of rough planks some four feet high, which was being
put up by the village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling; and
after surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to the
road-side inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for himself,
and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft
autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the Browns, and
speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to
contend for the morrow's prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts of forty
years back, to which Tom listened with all his ears and eyes.
But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church bells
were ringing a merry peal, and old Benjy appeared in the servants' hall,
resplendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of old yellow
buckskins and top-boots, which he had cleaned for and inherited from
Tom's grandfather; a stout thorn-stick in his hand, and a nosegay of pinks
and lavender in his 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 churchyard, for already
they see the field thronged with country folk, the men in clean white
smocks or velveteen or fustian coats, with rough plush waistcoats of many
colours, and the women in the beautiful long scarlet cloak, the usual out-
door dress of west-country women in those days, and which often
descended in families from mother to daughter, or in new-fashioned stuff
shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don't become them half so well.
The air resounds with the pipe and tabor, and the drums and trumpets of the
showmen shouting at the doors of their caravans, over which tremendous
pictures of the wonders to be seen within hang temptingly; while through
all rises the shrill "root-too-too-too" of Mr. Punch, and the unceasing pan-
pipe of his satellite.
"Lawk a' massey, Mr. Benjamin," cries a stout motherly woman in a red
cloak, as they enter the field "be that you? Well I never! you do look purely.
And how's the Squire, and Madam, and the family?"

Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has left our village
for some years, but has come over for Veast-day on a visit to an old gossip
—and gently indicates the heir apparent of the Browns.
"Bless his little heart! I must gi' un a kiss. Here Susannah, Susannah!"
cries she, raising herself from the embrace, "come and see Mr. Benjamin
and young Master Tom. You minds our Sukey, Mr. Benjamin, she be
growed a rare slip of a wench since you seen her, 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 old school-fellows, and
drops a curtsey to Mr. Benjamin. And elders come up from all parts to
salute Benjy, and girls who have been Madam's pupils to kiss Master Tom.
And they carry him off to load him with fairings; and he returns to Benjy,
his hat and coat covered with 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 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.
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 cans't 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 they are picking
their sticks and drawing their lots, I think I must tell you, as shortly as I can,
how the noble old game of back-sword is played; for it is sadly gone out of
late, even in the Vale, and maybe you have never seen it.
The weapon is a good stout ash-stick with a large basket handle, heavier
and somewhat shorter than a common single-stick. The players are called
"old gamesters"—why, I can't tell you,—and their object is simply to break
one another's heads: for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere
above the eyebrow the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten, and has
to stop. A very slight blow with the sticks will fetch blood, so that it is by no
means a punishing pastime, if the men don't play on purpose, and savagely,
at the body and arms of their adversaries. The old gamester going into
action only takes off his hat and coat, and arms himself with a stick: he then
loops the fingers of his left hand in a handkerchief or strap which he fastens
round his left leg, measuring the length, so that when he draws it light with
his left elbow in the air, that elbow shall just reach as high as his crown.
Thus you see, so long as he chooses to keep his left elbow up, regardless of
cuts, he has a perfect guard for the left side of his head. Then he advances
his right hand above and in front of his head, holding his stick across so that
its point projects an inch or two over his left elbow, and thus his whole head
is completely guarded, and he faces his man armed in like manner, and they
stand some three feet apart, often nearer, and feint, and strike, and return at
one another's heads, until one cries "hold," or blood flows; in the first case
they are allowed a minute's time, and go on again; in the latter, another pair
of gamesters are called on. If good men are playing, the quickness of the
returns is marvellous; you hear the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his
stick along palings, only heavier, and the closeness of the men in action to

one another gives it a strange interest and makes a spell at back-swording a
very noble sight.
They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and the gipsy man
have drawn the first lot. So the rest lean against the rails of the stage, and
Joe and the dark man meet in the middle, the boards having been strewed
with sawdust; Joe's white shirt and spotless drab breeches and boots
contrasting with the gipsy's coarse blue shirt and dirty green velveteen
breeches and leather gaiters. Joe is evidently turning up his nose at the
other, and half insulted at having to break his head.
The gipsy is a tough active fellow, but not very skilful with his weapon,
so that Joe's weight and strength tell in a minute; he is too heavy metal for
him: whack, whack, whack, come his blows, breaking down the gipsy's
guard, and threatening to reach his head every moment. There it is at last
—"Blood, blood!" shout the spectators, as a thin stream oozes out slowly
from the roots of his hair, and the umpire calls to them to stop. The gipsy
scowls at Joe under his brows in no pleasant manner, while Master Joe
swaggers about, and makes attitudes, and thinks himself, and shows that he
thinks himself, the greatest man in the field.
Then follow several stout sets-to between the other candidates for the
new hat, and at last come the shepherd and Willum Smith. This is the crack
set-to of the day. They are both in famous wind, and there is no crying
"hold;" the shepherd is an old hand and up to all the dodges; he tries them
one after another, and very nearly gets at Willum's head by coming in near,
and playing over his guard at the half-stick, but somehow Willum blunders
through, catching the stick on his shoulders, neck, sides, every now and
then, anywhere but on his head, and his returns are heavy and straight, and
he is the youngest gamester and a favourite in the parish, and his gallant
stand brings down shouts and cheers, and the knowing ones think he'll win
if he keeps steady, and Tom on the groom's shoulder holds his hands
together, and can hardly breathe for excitement.
Alas for Willum! his sweetheart getting tired of female companionship
has been hunting the booths to see where he can have got to, and now
catches sight of him on the stage in full combat. She flushes and turns pale;
her old aunt catches hold of her, saying, "Bless'ee, child, doan't'ee go a'nigst

it;" but she breaks away and runs towards the stage calling his name.
Willum keeps up his guard stoutly, but glances for a moment towards the
voice. No guard will do it, Willum, without the eye. The shepherd steps
round and strikes, and the point of his stick just grazes Willum's forehead,
fetching off the skin, and the blood flows, and the umpire cries "Hold," and
poor Willum's chance is up for the day. But he takes it very well, and puts
on his old hat and coat, and goes down to be scolded by his sweetheart, and
led away out of mischief. Tom hears him say coaxingly, as he walks off—
"Now doan't'ee, Rachel! I wouldn't ha' done it, only I wanted summut to
buy'ee a fairing wi', and I be as vlush o' money as a twod o' veathers."
"Thee mind what I tells'ee," rejoins Rachel saucily, "and doan't'ee kep
blethering about fairings." Tom resolves in his heart to give Willum the
remainder of his two shillings after the back-swording.
Joe Willis has all the luck to-day. His next bout ends in an easy victory,
while the shepherd has a tough job to break his second head; and when Joe
and the shepherd meet, and the whole circle expect and hope to see him get
a broken crown, the shepherd slips in the first round and falls against the
rails, hurting himself so that the old farmer will not let him go on, much as
he wishes to try; and that impostor Joe (for he is certainly not the best man)
struts and swaggers about the stage the conquering gamester, though he
hasn't had five minutes really trying play.
Joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the money into it, and then as
if a thought strikes him and he doesn't think his victory quite acknowledged
down below, walks to each face of the stage, and looks down, shaking the
money, and chaffing, as how he'll stake hat and money and another half-
sovereign "agin any gamester as hasn't played already." Cunning Joe! he
thus gets rid of Willum and the shepherd, who is quite fresh again.
No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming down,
when a queer old hat, something like A Doctor of Divinity's shovel, is
chucked on to the stage, and an elderly quiet man steps out, who has been
watching the play, saying he should like to cross a stick wi' the prodigalish
young chap.

The crowd cheer and begin to chaff Joe, who turns up his nose and
swaggers across to the sticks. "Imp'dent old wosbird!" says he, "I'll break
the bald head on un to the truth."
The old boy is very bald certainly, and the blood will show fast enough
if you can touch him, Joe.
He takes off his long flapped coat, and stands up in a long flapped
waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Coverley might have worn when it was new,
picks out a stick, and is ready for Master Joe, who loses no time, but begins
his old game, whack, whack, whack, trying to break down the old man's
guard by sheer strength. But it won't do,—he catches every blow close by
the basket, and though he is rather stiff in his returns, after a minute walks
Joe about the stage, and is clearly a 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 nicked a neat little bit of skin off the middle of his forehead, and though
he won't believe it, and hammers on for three more blows despite of the
shouts, is then convinced by the blood trickling into his eye. Poor Joe is
sadly crestfallen, and fumbles in his pocket for the other half-sovereign, but
the old gamester won't have it. "Keep thy money, man, and gi's thy hand,"
says he, and they shake hands; but the old gamester gives the new hat to the
shepherd, and, soon after, the half-sovereign to Willum, who thereout
decorates his sweetheart with ribbons to his heart's content.
"Who can a be?" "Wur do a cum from?" ask the crowd. And it soon flies
about that the old west-country champion, who played a tie with Shaw the
Life-guardsman at "Vizes" twenty years before, has broken Joe Willis's
crown for him.

How my country fair is spinning out! I see I must skip the wrestling, and
the boys jumping in sacks, and rolling wheelbarrows blindfolded: and the
donkey-race, and the fight which arose thereout, marring the otherwise
peaceful "veast;" and the frightened scurrying away of the female feast-
goers, and descent of Squire Brown, summoned by the wife of one of the
combatants to stop it; which he wouldn't start to do till he had got on his
top-boots. Tom is carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired and surfeited with
pleasure, as the evening comes on and the dancing begins in the booths; and
though Willum and Rachel in her new ribbons and many another good lad
and lass don't come away just yet, but have a good step out, and enjoy it,
and get no harm thereby, yet we, being sober folk, will just stroll away up
through the churchyard, and by the old yew-tree; and get a quiet dish of tea
and a 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 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 bonâ fide equivalent for the games of the old country "veast" in
it; something to put in the place of the back-swording and wrestling and
racing; something to try the muscles of men's bodies, and the endurance of
their hearts, and to make them rejoice in their strength. In all the new-
fangled comprehensive plans which I see, this is all left out: and the
consequence is, that your great Mechanics' Institutes end in intellectual
priggism, and your Christian Young Men's Societies in religious Pharisaism.
Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and skittles,—but
beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good
part of every Englishman's education. If I could only drive this into the
heads of you rising Parliamentary Lords, and young swells who "have your
ways made for you," as the saying is,—you, who frequent palaver houses
and West-end clubs, waiting always ready to strap yourselves on to the back
of poor dear old John, as soon as the present used-up lot (your fathers and
uncles), who sit there on the great Parliamentary-majorities' pack-saddle,
and make belief they're guiding him with their red-tape bridle, tumble, or
have to be lifted off!
I don't think much of you yet—I wish I could; though you do go talking
and lecturing up and down the country to crowded audiences, and are busy
with all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism, and circulating libraries and
museums, and Heaven only knows what besides; and try to make us think,
through newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, of the working classes.
But, bless your hearts, we "ain't so green," though lots of us of all sorts
toady you enough certainly, and try to make you think so.
I'll tell you what to do now: instead of all this trumpeting and fuss,
which is only the old Parliamentary-majority dodge over again—just you
go each of you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give up t'other
line,) and quietly make three or four friends, real friends, among us. You'll
find a little trouble in getting at the right sort, because such birds don't come
lightly to your lure—but found they may be. Take, say, two out of the
professions, lawyer, parson, doctor—which you will; one out of trade, and
three or four out of the working classes—tailors, engineers, carpenters,

engravers,—there's plenty of choice. Let them be men of your own ages,
mind, and ask them to your homes; introduce them to your wives and
sisters, and get introduced to theirs: give them good dinners, and talk to
them about what is really at the bottom of your heart, 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.

OOR old Benjy! the "rheumatiz" has
much to answer for all through
English country sides, but it never
played a scurvier trick than in laying
thee by the heels, when thou wast yet
in a green old age. The enemy, which
had long been carrying on a sort of
border warfare, and trying his
strength against Benjy's on the battle-
field, of his hands and legs, now,
mustering all his forces began laying
siege to the citadel, and overrunning
the whole country. Benjy was seized
in the back and loins; and though he
made strong and brave fight, it was
soon clear enough that all which
could be beaten of poor old Benjy
would have to give in before long.
It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and
frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master Tom, and bait his
hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint old country
stories; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards
or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby the turnspit terrier, his
other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he might have tumbled in and
been drowned twenty times over before Benjy could have got near him.

Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive
power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age, and
was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. He feared
much too lest Master Tom should fall back again into the hands of Charity
and the women. So he tried everything he could think of to get set up. He
even went an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer mortals, who
—say what we will, and reason how we will—do cure simple people of
diseases of one kind or another without the aid of physic; and so get to
themselves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for themselves and
their dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a simple folk such as
the dwellers in the Vale of White Horse. Where this power, or whatever else
it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man whose ways are not
straight, he becomes a nuisance to the neighbourhood; a receiver of stolen
goods, giver of love-potions, and deceiver of silly women; the avowed
enemy of law and order, of justices of the peace, headboroughs, and
gamekeepers. Such a man in fact as was recently caught tripping, and
deservedly dealt with by the Leeds justices, for seducing a girl who had
come to him to get back a faithless lover, and has been convicted of bigamy
since then. Sometimes, however, they are of quite a different stamp, men
who pretend to nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their
occult arts in the simplest cases.
Of this latter sort was old farmer Ives, as he was called, the "wise man"
to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as usual), in the early spring
of the year next after the feast described in the last chapter. Why he was
called "farmer" I cannot say, unless it be that he was the owner of a cow, a
pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained on about an acre of land
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 suspicion.
However, one fine May morning he managed to borrow the old blind pony
of our friend the publican, and Tom persuaded Madam Brown to give him a
holiday to spend with old Benjy, and to lend them the Squire's light cart,
stored with bread and cold meat and a bottle of ale. And so the two in high
glee started behind old Dobbin, and jogged along the deep-rutted plashy
roads, which had not been mended after their winter's wear, towards the
dwelling of the wizard. About noon they passed the gate which opened on
to the large common, and old Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy
pointed out a little deep dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny
stream. As they crept up the hill the tops of a few birch-trees came in sight,
and blue smoke curling up through their delicate light boughs; and then the
little white thatched home and patch of enclosed 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 tract over the common marked lightly with wheel
and horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at the rough
gate of farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron-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 managed to do without mishap; and then he
devoted himself to unharnessing Dobbin, and turning him out for a graze
("a run" one could not say of that virtuous steed) on the common. This
done, he extricated the cold provisions from the cart, and they entered the
farmer's wicket; and he, shutting up the knife with which he was taking
maggots out of the cow's back and sides, accompanied them towards the
cottage. A big old lurcher got up slowly from the door-stone, stretching first
one hind leg and then the other, and taking Tom's caresses and the presence
of Toby, who kept however at a respectful distance, with equal indifference.
"Us be cum to pay'e 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 use 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 ailment without further direct application.
"Ah, I see as you bean't quite so lissom as you was," replied the farmer
with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door; "we bean't so young as
we was, nother on us, wuss luck."
The farmer's cottage was very like those of the better class of peasantry
in general. A snug chimney corner with two seats, and a small carpet on the
hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the fireplace, a dresser with
shelves on which some bright pewter plates and crockeryware were
arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs and settles, some framed
samplers, and an old print or two, and a bookcase with some dozen volumes
on the walls, a rack with flitches of bacon, and other stores fastened to the
ceiling, and you have the best part of the furniture. No sign of occult art is
to be seen, unless the bundles of dried herbs hanging to the rack and in the
ingle, and the row of labelled phials on one of the shelves, betoken it.
Tom played about with some kittens who occupied the hearth, and with a
goat who walked demurely in at the open door, while their host and Benjy
spread the table for dinner—and was soon engaged in conflict with the cold
meat, to which he did much honour. The two old men's talk was of old
comrades and their deeds, mute inglorious Miltons of the Vale, and of the
doings thirty years back—which didn't interest him much, except when they
spoke of the making of the canal, and then indeed he began to listen with all
his ears, and learned to his no small wonder that his dear and wonderful
canal had not been there always—was not in fact so old as Benjy or farmer
Ives, which caused a strange commotion in his small brain.
After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart which Tom had on the
knuckles of his hand, and which the family doctor had been trying his skill
on without success, and begged the farmer to charm it away. Farmer Ives
looked at it, muttered something or another over it, and cut some notches in
a short stick, which he handed to Benjy, giving him instructions for cutting
it down on certain days, and cautioning Tom not to meddle with the wart for
a fortnight. And then they strolled out and sat on a bench in the sun with
their pipes, and the pigs came up and grunted sociably and let Tom scratch
them; and the farmer, seeing how he liked animals, stood up and held his

arms in the air and gave a call, which brought a flock of pigeons wheeling
and dashing through the birch-trees. They settled down in clusters on the
farmer's arms and shoulders, making love to him and scrambling over one
another's backs to get to his face; and then he threw them all off, and they
fluttered about close by, and lighted on him again and again when he held
up his arms. All the creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite
unlike their relations elsewhere; and Tom begged to be taught how to make
all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the farmer
only gave one of his grim chuckles.
It wasn't till they were just ready to go, and old Dobbin was harnessed,
that Benjy broached the subject of his rheumatism again, detailing his
symptoms one by one. Poor old boy! He hoped the farmer could charm it
away as easily as he could Tom's wart, and was ready with equal faith to put
another notched stick into his other pocket, for the cure of his own ailments.
The physician shook his head, but nevertheless produced a bottle and
handed it to Benjy with instructions for use. "Not as 't'll do'e 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'll cure old folks
like you and I o' th' rhumatis."
"Wot be that then, farmer?" inquired Benjy.
"Churchyard mould," said the old iron-grey man, with another chuckle.
And so they said their good-byes and went their ways home. Tom's wart
was gone in a fortnight, but not so Benjy's rheumatism, which laid him by
the heels more and more. And though Tom still spent many an hour with
him, as he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney corner when it
was cold, he soon had to seek elsewhere for his regular companions.
Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother in her visits to
the cottages, and had thereby made acquaintance with many of the village
boys of his own age. There was Job Rudkin, son of widow Rudkin, the most
bustling woman in the parish. How she could ever have had such a stolid
boy as Job for a child must always remain a mystery. The first time Tom
went to their cottage with his mother Job was not in-doors, 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'e on ma' head, mother?" replied Job, slowly extricating one
hand from a pocket and feeling for the article in question; which he found
on his head sure enough, and left there, to his mother's horror and Tom's
great delight.
Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted boy, who ambled
about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds and ends for
every one, which, however, poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to
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 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 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 whom he met at vestry and the
labourers who tilled their fields, and so had his father and grandfather with
their progenitors. So he encouraged Tom in his intimacy with the boys of
the village, and forwarded it by all means in his power, and gave them the
run of a close for a playground, and provided bats and balls and a football
for their sports.
Our village was blessed amongst other things with a well-endowed
school. The building stood by itself, apart from the master's house, on an
angle of ground where three roads met; an old grey stone building with a
steep roof and mullioned windows. On one of the opposite angles stood
Squire Brown's stables and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which
towered a great elm-tree; on the third stood the village carpenter and
wheelwright's large open shop, and his house and the schoolmaster's, with
long low eaves under which the swallows built by scores.
The moment Tom's lessons were over, he would now get him down to
this corner by the stables, and watch till the boys came out of school. He
prevailed on the groom to cut notches for him in the bark of the elm, so that
he could climb into the lower branches, and there he would sit watching the
school door, and speculating on the possibility of turning the elm into a
dwelling-place for himself and friends after the manner of the Swiss Family
Robinson. But the school hours were long and Tom's patience short, so that
soon he began to descend into the street, and go and peep in at the school
door and the wheelwright's shop, and look out for something to while away
the time. Now the wheelwright was a choleric man, and, one fine afternoon,
returning from a short absence, found Tom occupied with one of his pet
adzes, the edge of which was fast vanishing under our hero's care. A speedy
flight saved Tom from all but one sound cuff on the ears, but he resented
this unjustifiable interruption of his first essays at carpentering, and still
more the further proceedings of the wheelwright, who cut a switch and

hung it over the door of his workshop, threatening to use it upon Tom if he
came within twenty yards of his gate. So Tom, to retaliate, commenced a
war upon the swallows who dwelt under the wheelwright's eaves, whom he
harassed with sticks and stones, and being fleeter of foot than his enemy,
escaped all punishment and kept him in perpetual anger. Moreover his
presence about the school door began to incense the master, as the boys in
that neighbourhood neglected their lessons in consequence: and more than
once he issued into the porch, rod in hand, just as Tom beat a hasty retreat.
And he and the wheelwright, laying their heads together, resolved to
acquaint the Squire with Tom's afternoon occupations; but in order to do it
with effect, determined to take him captive and lead him away to judgment
fresh from his evil doings. This they would have found some difficulty in
doing, had Tom continued the war single-handed, or rather single-footed,
for he would have taken to the deepest part of Pebbly Brook to escape
them; but, like other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances. Poor
Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to school with the other boys, and one fine
afternoon, about three o'clock (the school broke up at four), Tom found him
ambling about the street, and pressed him into a visit to the school porch.
Jacob, always ready to do what he was asked, consented, and the two stole
down to the school together. Tom first reconnoitred the wheelwright's shop,
and seeing no signs of activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered
at once an advance of all his troops upon the 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 making faces at the master
when his back was turned. Poor Jacob, not in the least comprehending the
situation, and in high glee at finding himself so near the school, which he
had never been allowed to enter, suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm, pushed by
Tom, and ambling three steps into the school, stood there, looking round
him and nodding with a self-approving smile. The master, who was
stooping over a boy's slate, with his back to the door, became aware of
something unusual, and turned quickly round. Tom rushed at Jacob, and
began dragging him back by his smock-frock, and the master made at them,
scattering forms and boys in his career. Even now they might have escaped,
but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the crafty wheelwright, who
had been watching all their proceedings. So they were seized, the school

dismissed, and Tom and Jacob led away to Squire Brown as lawful prize,
the boys following to the gate in groups, and speculating on the result.
The Squire was very angry at first, but the interview, by Tom's pleading,
ended in a compromise. Tom was not to go near the school till three o'clock,
and only then if he had done his own lessons well, in which case he was to
be the bearer of a note to the master from Squire Brown, and the master
agreed in such case to release ten or twelve of the best boys an hour before
the time of breaking up, to go off and play in the close. The wheelwright's
adzes and swallows were to be for ever respected; and that hero and the
master withdrew to the servants' hall, to drink the Squire's health, well
satisfied with their day's work.
The second act of Tom's life may now be said to have begun. The war of
independence had been over for some time: none of the women now, not
even his mother's maid, dared offer to help him in dressing or washing.
Between ourselves, he had often at first to run to Benjy in an unfinished
state of toilet; Charity and the rest of them seemed to take a delight in
putting impossible buttons and ties in the middle of his back; but he would
have gone without nether integuments altogether sooner than have had
recourse to female valeting. He had a room to himself, and his father gave
him sixpence a week pocket-money. All this he had achieved by Benjy's
advice and assistance. But now he had conquered another step in life, the
step which all real boys so long to make; he had got amongst his equals in
age and strength, and could measure himself with other boys; he lived with
those whose pursuits and wishes and ways were the same in kind as his
own.
The little governess who had lately been installed in the house found her
work grow wondrously easy, for Tom slaved at his lessons in order to make
sure of his note to the schoolmaster. So there were very few days in the
week in which Tom and the village boys were not playing in their close by
three o'clock. Prisoner's base, rounders, high-cock-a-lorum, cricket,
football, he was soon initiated into the delights of them all; and though most
of the boys were older than himself, he managed to hold his own very well.
He was naturally active and strong, and quick of eye and hand, and had the
advantage of light shoes and well-fitting dress, so that in a short time he
could run and jump and climb with any of them.

They generally finished their regular games half an hour or so before
tea-time, and then began trials of skill and strength in many ways. Some of
them would catch the Shetland pony who was turned out in the field, and
get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue, enjoying the fun,
would gallop off for fifty yards, and then turn round, or stop short and shoot
them on to the turf, and then graze quietly on till he felt another load; others
played 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 his back on the turf, he felt that
Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily, Harry's bright
unconsciousness, and Tom's natural good temper, kept them from ever
quarrelling; and so Tom worked on and on, and trod more and more nearly
on Harry's heels, and at last mastered all the dodges and falls except one.
This one was Harry's own particular invention and pet; he scarcely ever
used it except when hard pressed, but then out it came, and as sure as it did,
over went poor Tom. He thought about that fall at his meals, in his walks,
when he lay awake in bed, in his dreams,—but all to no purpose; until
Harry one day in his open way suggested to him how he thought it should
be met, and in a week from that time the boys were equal, save only the

slight difference of strength in Harry's favour which some extra ten months
of age gave. Tom had often afterwards reason to be thankful for that early
drilling, and above all for having mastered Harry Winburn's fall.
Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys would wander all over
the neighbourhood; sometimes to the downs, or up to the camp, where they
cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks soaring, and
the "peert" bird, as Harry Winburn called the 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 rumour declared
that a raven, last of his race, still lingered; or to the sand-hills, in vain quest
of rabbits; and bird's-nesting, in the season, anywhere and everywhere.
The few neighbours of the Squire's own rank every now and then would
shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a party of boys with Tom in
the middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or great bundles
of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or other spoil
of wood, brook, or meadow; and Lawyer Red-tape might mutter to Squire
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 school-boys when Tom drove off
with the Squire, one August morning, to meet the coach on his way to
school. Each of them had given him some little present of the best that he
had, and his small private box was full of peg-tops, white marbles (called
"alley-taws" in the Vale), screws, birds'-eggs, whip-cord, jews-harps, and
other miscellaneous boys' wealth. Poor Jacob Doodle-calf, in floods of
tears, had pressed upon him with spluttering earnestness his lame pet
hedgehog (he had always some poor broken-down beast or bird by him);
but this Tom had been obliged to refuse by the Squire's order. He had given
them all a great tea under the big elm in their playground, for which Madam
Brown had supplied the biggest cake ever seen in our village; and Tom was
really as sorry to leave them as they to lose him, but his sorrow was not
unmixed with the pride and excitement of making a new step in life.
And this feeling carried him through his first parting with his mother
better than could have been expected. Their love was as fair and whole as
human love can be, perfect self-sacrifice on the one side, meeting a young
and true heart on the other. It is not within the scope of my book, however,
to speak of family relations, or I should have much to say on the subject of
English mothers,—ay, and of English fathers, and sisters, and brothers too.
Neither have I room to speak of our private schools: what I have to say
is about public schools, those much-abused and much-belauded institutions
peculiar to England. So we must hurry through Master Tom's year at a
private school as fast as we can.
It was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentleman, with another
gentleman as second master; but it was little enough of the real work they
did—merely coming into school when lessons were prepared and all ready
to be heard. The whole discipline of the school out of lesson hours was in
the hands of the two ushers, one of whom was always with the boys in their
playground in the school, at meals—in fact, at all times and 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.

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 gentleman, and very
poorly educated, and were only driving their poor trade of usher to get such
living as they could out of it. They were not bad men, but had little heart for
their work, and of course were bent on making it as easy as possible. One of
the methods by which they endeavoured to accomplish this, was by
encouraging tale-bearing, which had become a frightfully common vice in
the school in consequence, and had sapped all the foundations of school
morality. Another was, by favouring grossly the biggest boys, who alone
could have given them much trouble; whereby those young gentlemen
became most abominable tyrants, oppressing the little boys in all the small
mean ways which prevail in private schools.
Poor little Tom was made dreadfully unhappy in his first week, by a
catastrophe which happened to his first letter home. With huge labour he
had, on the very evening of his arrival, managed to fill two sides of a sheet
of letter-paper with assurances of his love for dear mamma, his happiness at
school, and his resolves to do all she would wish. This missive, with the
help of the boy who sat at the desk next him, also a new arrival, he
managed to fold successfully; but this done, they were sadly, put to it for
means of sealing. Envelopes were then unknown, they had no wax, and
dared not disturb the stillness of the evening school-room by getting up and
going to ask the usher for some. At length Tom's friend, being of an
ingenious turn of mind, suggested sealing with ink, and the letter was
accordingly stuck down with a blob of ink, and duly handed by Tom, on his
way to bed, to the housekeeper to be posted. It was not till four days
afterwards, that that good dame sent for 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. 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 accompany him home. They were forbidden, however, to go
anywhere except on the down and into the woods, the village being
especially prohibited, where huge bulls'-eyes and unctuous toffy might be
procured in exchange for coin of the realm.
Various were the amusements to which the boys then betook themselves.
At the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of
Tom's own downs. This mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at
a game called by the queer name of "mud-patties." The boys who played
divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the mound.
Then, all parties having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut
with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom

proceeded to assault the mound, advancing upon all sides under cover of a
heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants,
which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the
summit, when they in turn became the besieged. It was a good rough dirty
game, and of great use in counteracting the sneaking tendencies of the
school. Then others of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the
holes of humble-bees and mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (I
regret to say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret to
say) getting well stung by the 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 resulted in a flogging, for the sand-
martins built in a high bank close to the village, consequently out of
bounds; but one of the bolder spirits of the school, who never could be
happy unless he was doing something to which risk attached, easily
persuaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martin's bank. From whence it
being only a step to the toffy-shop, what could be more simple than to go on
there and fill their pockets; or what more certain than that on their return, a
distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly detect
the forbidden smell of bulls'-eyes, and, a search ensuing, discover the state
of the breeches-pockets of Tom and his ally?
This ally of Tom's was indeed a desperate hero in the sight of the boys,
and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something approaching thereto.
Which reputation came to him in this wise. The boys went to bed at eight,
and of course consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour or two, telling
ghost-stories by turns. One night when it came to his turn, and he had dried
up their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery
hand appear on the door; and to the astonishment and terror of the boys in
his room, a hand, or something like it, in pale light, did then and there
appear. The fame of this exploit having spread to the other rooms, and being
discredited there, the young necromancer declared that the same wonder
would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did; and the
whole circumstances having been privately reported to one of the ushers as
usual, that functionary, after listening about at the doors of the rooms, by a
sudden descent caught the performer in his night-shirt, with a box of

phosphorus in his guilty hand. Lucifer-matches and all the present facilities
for getting acquainted with fire were then unknown; the very name of
phosphorus had something diabolic in it to the boy-mind; so Tom's ally, at
the cost of a sound flogging, earned what many older folk covet much—the
very decided fear of most of his companions.
He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad one. Tom stuck to him
till he left, and got into many scrapes by so doing. But he was the great
opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school, and the open enemy of the
ushers; and so worthy of all support.
Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at the school, but
somehow on the whole it didn't suit him, or he it, and in the holidays he was
constantly working the Squire to send him at once to a public school. Great
was his joy then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in October, 183-,
a fever broke out in the village, and the master having himself slightly
sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at a day's notice to their
respective homes.
The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom to see that young
gentleman's brown merry face appear at home, some two months before the
proper time, for 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.

CHAPTER IV.

"Let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot,
Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot."
Coaching Song by R. E. E. Warburton,
Esq.
OW, sir, time to get up, if you please.
Tally-ho coach for Leicester 'll be
round in half-an-hour, and don't wait
for nobody." So spake the Boots of
the Peacock Inn, Islington, at half-
past two o'clock on the morning of a
day in the early part of November,
183-, giving Tom at the same time a
shake by the shoulder, and then
putting down a candle and carrying
off his shoes to clean.
Tom and his father had arrived in
town from Berkshire, the day before,
and finding, on inquiry, that the
Birmingham coaches which ran from
the city did not pass through Rugby,
but deposited their passengers at
Dunchurch, a village three miles
distant on the main road—where said passengers had to wait for the Oxford
and Leicester coach in the evening, or to take a post-chaise—had resolved
that Tom should travel down by the Tally-ho, which diverged from the main
road and passed through Rugby itself. And as the Tally-ho was an early
coach, they had driven out to the Peacock to be on the road.
Tom had never been in London, and would have liked to have stopped at
the Belle Sauvage, where they had been put down by the Star, just at dusk,
that he might have gone roving about those endless, mysterious, gas-lit
streets, which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds; excited him so
that he couldn't talk even. But as soon as he found that the Peacock
arrangement would get him to Rugby by twelve o'clock in the day, whereas
otherwise he wouldn't be there till the evening, all other plans melted away;
his one absorbing aim being to become a public school-boy as fast as

possible, and six hours sooner or later seeming to him of the most alarming
importance.
Tom and his father had alighted at the Peacock at about seven in the
evening, and having heard with unfeigned joy the paternal order at the bar,
of steaks and oyster sauce for supper in half an hour, and seen his father
seated cozily by the bright fire in the coffee-room with the paper in his hand
—Tom had run out to see about him, had wondered at all the vehicles
passing and repassing, and had fraternised 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.
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 nodding from the
united effects of the stout, the fire, and the lecture. Till the Squire observing
Tom's state, and remembering that it was nearly nine o'clock, and that the
Tally-ho left at three, sent the little fellow off to the chambermaid, with a
shake of the hand (Tom having stipulated in the morning before starting,
that kissing should now cease between them,) and a few parting words.
"And now, Tom, my boy," said the Squire, "remember you are going, at
your own earnest request, to be chucked into this great school, like a young
bear with all your troubles before you—earlier than we should have sent
you perhaps. If schools are what they were in my time, you'll see a great
many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul bad talk. But
never fear. You tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen
to or say anything you wouldn't have your mother and sister hear, and you'll
never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you."
The allusion to his mother made Tom feel rather 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, "I'll try, father."

"I know you will, my boy. Is your money all safe?"
"Yes," said Tom, diving into one pocket to make sure.
"And your keys?" said the Squire.
"All right," said Tom, diving into the other pocket.
"Well then, good night. God bless you! I'll tell Boots to call you, and be
up to see you off."
Tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a brown study, from which
he was roused in a clean little attic by that buxom person calling him a little
darling, and kissing him as she left the room, which indignity he was too
much surprised to resent. And still thinking of his father's last words, and
the look with which they were spoken, he knelt down and prayed, that,
come what might, he might never bring shame or sorrow on the dear folk at
home.
Indeed, the Squire's last words deserved to have their effect, for they had
been the result of much anxious thought. All the way up to London he had
pondered what he should say to Tom by way of parting advice, something
that the boy could keep in his head ready for use. By way of assisting
meditation, he had even gone the length of taking out his flint and steel and
tinder, and hammering away for a quarter of an hour till he had
manufactured a light for a long Trichinopoli cheroot, which he silently
puffed; to the no small wonder of Coachee, who was an old friend, and an
institution on the Bath road; and who always expected a talk on the
prospects and doings, agricultural and social, of the whole 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? No, I can't do that. Never do for an old
fellow to go into such things with a boy. He won't understand me. Do him
more harm than good, ten to one. Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say
he's sent to school to make himself a good scholar? Well, but he isn't sent to
school for that—at any rate, not for that mainly. I don't care a straw for
Greek particles, or the digamma, no more does his mother. What is he sent

to school for? Well, partly because he wanted so to go. If he'll only turn out
a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a Christian,
that's all I want," thought the Squire; and upon this view of the case 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 comforter
round his throat, and tucking the ends into the breast of his coat, the horn
sounds, Boots looks in and says, "Tally-ho, sir;" and they hear the ring and
the rattle of the four fast trotters and the town-made drag, as it dashes up to
the Peacock.
"Anything for us, Bob?" says the burly guard, dropping down from
behind, and slapping himself across the chest.
"Young genl'm'n, Rugby; three parcels, Leicester; hamper o' game,
Rugby," answers ostler.
"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
fellows than we used to be. At any rate, you're much more comfortable
travellers, for I see every one of you with his rug or plaid, and other dodges
for preserving the caloric, and most of you going in those fuzzy, dusty,
padded first-class carriages. It was another affair altogether, a dark ride on
the top of the Tally-ho, I can tell you, in a tight Petersham coat, and your
feet dangling six inches from the floor. Then you knew what cold was, and
what it was to be without legs, for not a bit of feeling had you in them after
the first half-hour. But it had its pleasures, the old dark ride. First there was
the consciousness of silent endurance, so dear to every Englishman,—of
standing out against something, and not giving in. Then there was the music
of the rattling harness, and the ring of the horses' feet on the hard road, and
the glare of the two bright lamps through the steaming hoar frost, over the
leaders' ears, into the darkness; and the cheery toot of the guard's horn, to
warn some drowsy pikeman or the 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? You want motion and change and music
to see them in their glory; not the music of singing-men and singing-
women, but good silent music, which sets itself in your own head the
accompaniment of work and getting over the ground.
The Tally-ho is past St. 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. 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 how his friend the silent guard might take it.
And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage, and the coach
pulls up at a little 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 coachman, smiling.
"Time's up." They are out again and up; coachee the last, gathering the reins
into his hands and talking to Jem the 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 goes the horn, and away
they are again, five-and-thirty miles on their road (nearly half way to
Rugby, thinks Tom), and the prospect of breakfast at the end of the stage.

And now they begin to see, and the early life of the country-side comes
out; a market cart or two, men in smock-frocks going to their work pipe in
mouth, a whiff of which is no bad smell this bright morning. The sun gets
up, and the mist shines like silver gauze. They pass the hounds jogging
along to a distant meet, at the heels of the huntsman's 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 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.
The pinks stand about the inn door lighting cigars and waiting to see us
start, while their hacks are led up and down the market-place on which the
inn looks. They all know our sportsman, and we feel a reflected credit when
we see him chatting and laughing with them.
"Now, sir, please," says the coachman; all the rest of the passengers are
up; the guard is locking 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 a place is it, please?" says Tom.
Guard looks at him with a comical expression. "Werry out-o'-the-way
place, sir; no paving to the streets nor no lighting. 'Mazin' big horse and
cattle fair in autumn—lasts a week—just over now. Takes town a week to
get clean after it. Fairish hunting country. But slow place, sir, slow place:
off the main road, you see—only three coaches a day, and one on 'em a two-
oss wan, more like a hearse nor a coach—Regulator—comes from Oxford.
Young genl'm'n at school calls her Pig and Whistle, and goes up to college
by her (six miles an hour) when they goes to enter. Belong to school, sir?"
"Yes," says Tom, not unwilling for a moment that the guard should think
him an old boy. But then having some qualms as to the truth of the
assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume the character of an old boy
he couldn't go on asking the questions he wanted, added—"that is to say,
I'm on my way there. I'm a new boy."
The guard looked as if he knew this quite as well as Tom.
"You're werry late, sir," says the guard; "only six weeks to-day to the end
of the half." Tom assented. "We takes up fine loads this day six weeks, and
Monday and Tuesday arter. Hopes we shall have the pleasure of carrying
you back."
Tom said he hoped they would; but he thought within himself that his
fate would probably be the Pig and Whistle.
"It pays uncommon, cert'nly," continues the guard. "Werry free with their
cash is the young genl'm'n. But, Lor' bless you, we gets into such rows all
'long the road, what wi' their pea-shooters, and long whips, and hollering,
and upsetting every one as comes by; I'd a sight sooner carry one or two on
'em, sir, as I may be a carryin' of you now, than a coach-load."
"What do they do with the pea-shooters?" inquires Tom.
"Do wi' 'em! why, peppers every one's faces as we comes near, 'cept the
young gals, and breaks windows wi' them too, some on 'em shoots so hard.

Now 'twas just here last June, as we was a driving up the first-day boys,
they was mendin' a quarter-mile of road, and there was a lot of Irish chaps,
reg'lar roughs, a breaking stones. As we comes up, 'Now, boys' says young
gent on the box (smart young fellow and desper't reckless), 'here's fun! Let
the Pats have it about the ears.' 'God's sake, sir!' says Bob (that's my mate
the coachman), 'don't go for to shoot at 'em, they'll knock us off the coach.'
'Damme, coachee,' says young my lord, 'you ain't afraid; hoora, boys! let
'em have it.' 'Hoora!' sings out the others, and fill their mouths 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 by the heads, only luck'ly for
him he misses his tip, and comes over a heap o' stones, first. The rest picks
up stones, and gives it us right away till we gets out o' shot, the young gents
holding out werry manful with the pea-shooters and such stones as lodged
on us, and a pretty many there was too. Then Bob picks hisself up again,
and looks at young gent on box werry solemn. Bob'd had a rum un in the
ribs, which'd like to ha' knocked him off the box, or made him drop the
reins. Young gent on box picks hisself up, and so does we all, and looks
round to count damage. Box's head cut open and his hat gone; 'nother young
gent's hat gone: mine knocked in at the side, and not one on us as wasn't
black and blue somewheres or another; most on 'em all over. Two-pound-
ten to pay for damage to paint, which they subscribed for there and then,
and give Bob and me a extra half-sovereign each; but I wouldn't go down
that line again not for twenty half-sovereigns." And the guard shook his
head slowly, and got up and blew a clear brisk toot-toot.

"What fun!" said Tom, who could scarcely contain his pride at this
exploit of his future school-fellows. He longed already for the end of the
half, that he might join them.
"'Taint such good fun though, sir, for the folk as meets the coach, nor for
we who has to go back with it next day. Them Irishers last summer had all
got stones ready for us, and was all but letting drive, and we'd got two
reverend gents aboard too. We pulled up at the beginning of the line, and
pacified them, and were 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 benignantly the while.
"Oh, don't stop! tell us something more about the pea-shooting."
"Well, there'd like to have been a pretty piece of work over it at Bicester,
a while back. We was six mile from the town, when we meets an old
square-headed 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
ketches 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
mile. 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 goin' 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 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 performances of the boys on the road for the last
twenty years. Off the road he couldn't go; the exploit must have been
connected with horses or vehicles to hang in the old fellow's head. Tom
tried him off his own ground once or twice, but found he knew nothing
beyond, and so let him have his head, and the rest of the road bowled easily
away; for old Blow-hard (as the boys called him) was a dry old file, with
much kindness and humour, and a capital spinner of a yarn when he had
broken the neck of his day's work and got plenty of ale under his belt.
What struck Tom's youthful imagination most was the desperate and
lawless character of most of the stories. Was the guard hoaxing him? He
couldn't help hoping that they were true. It's very odd how almost all
English boys love danger; you can get ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or
swim a stream when there's a chance of breaking their limbs or getting
drowned, for one who'll stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits
or bowls.
The guard had just finished an account of a desperate fight which had
happened at one of the fairs between the drovers and the farmers with their
whips, and the boys with cricket-bats and wickets, which arose out of a
playful but objectionable practice of the boys going round to the public-
houses and taking the linch-pins out of the wheels of the gigs, and was
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 off 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 come out about twice or
three times a week, and spirts a mile alongside of us."
And as they came up, sure enough, away went two boys along the
footpath, keeping up with the horses; the first a light clean-made fellow
going on springs, the other stout and round-shouldered, labouring in his
pace, but going as dogged as a bull-terrier.
Old Blow-hard looked on admiringly. "See how beautiful that there un
holds hisself together, and goes from his hips, sir," said he; "he's a 'mazin'
fine runner. Now, many coachmen as drives a first-rate team'd put it on and
try and pass 'em. But Bob, sir, bless you, he's tender-hearted; he'd sooner
pull in a bit if he see'd 'em a gettin' beat. I do b'lieve too as that there un'd
sooner break his heart than let us go by him afore next milestone."
At the second milestone the boys pulled up short and waved their hats to
the guard, who had his watch out and shouted "4.56," thereby indicating
that the mile had been done in four seconds under the five minutes. They
passed several more parties of boys, all of them objects of the deepest
interest to Tom, and came in sight of the town at ten minutes before twelve.
Tom fetched a long breath, and thought he had never spent a pleasanter day.
Before he went to bed he had quite settled that it must be the greatest day he
should ever spend, and didn't alter his opinion for many a long year—if he
has yet.

CHAPTER V.
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL.

"——Foot and eye opposed
In dubious strife."
Scott.
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-tooing away; while the
coachman shook up his horses, and
carried them along the side of the
school close, round Dead-man's
Corner, past the school gates, and down
the High Street to the Spread Eagle; the
wheelers in a spanking trot, and leaders
cantering, in a style which would not
have disgraced "Cherry Bob,"
"ramping, stamping, tearing swearing
Billy Harwood," or any other of the old
coaching heroes.
Tom's heart beat quick as he passed
the great 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 nodded to the guard with
"How do, Jem?" he turned short round to Tom, and, after looking him over
for a minute, began—
"I say, you fellow, is your name Brown?"
"Yes," said Tom, in considerable astonishment; glad however to have
lighted on some one already who seemed to know him.
"Ah, I thought so; you know my old aunt, Miss East; she lives
somewhere down your way in Berkshire. She wrote to me that you were
coming to-day, and asked me to give you a lift."
Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronizing air of his new
friend—a boy of just about his own height and age, but gifted with the most
transcendent coolness and assurance, which Tom felt to be aggravating and
hard to bear, but couldn't for the life of him help admiring and envying—
especially when young my lord begins hectoring two or three long loafing
fellows, half-porter, half stableman, with a strong touch of the blackguard,
and in the end arranges with one of them, nicknamed Cooey, to carry Tom's
luggage up to the School-house for sixpence.
"And 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 though," says East, pulling up, and taking another look at Tom,
"this'll never do—haven't you got a hat?—we never wear caps here. Only
the louts wear caps. Bless you, if you were to go into the quadrangle with
that thing on, I——don't know what'd happen." The very idea was quite
beyond young Master East, and he looked unutterable things.

Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that he had a
hat in his hat-box; which was accordingly at once extracted from the hind
boot, and Tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend called
it. But this didn't quite suit his fastidious taste in another minute, being too
shiny; so, as they walk up the town, they dive into Nixon's the hatter's, and
Tom is arrayed, to his utter astonishment, and without paying for it, in a
regulation cat-skin at seven-and-sixpence; Nixon undertaking to send the
best hat up to the matron's room, School-house, in half an hour.
"You can send in a note for a tile on Monday, and make it all right, you
know," said Mentor; "we're allowed two seven-and-sixers a half, besides
what we bring from home."
Tom by this time began to be conscious of his new social position and
dignities, and to luxuriate in the realized ambition of being a public-school
boy at last, with a vested right of spoiling two seven-and-sixers in half a
year.
"You see," said his friend, as they strolled up towards the school gates, in
explanation of his conduct—"a great deal depends on how a fellow cuts up
at first. If he's got nothing odd about him, and answers straightforward and
holds his head up, he gets on. Now you'll do very well as to rig, all but that
cap. You see I'm doing the handsome thing by you, because my father
knows yours; besides, I want to please the old lady. She gave me a half-a-
sov. this half, and perhaps'll double it next, if I keep in her good books."
There's nothing for candour like a lower-school boy; and East was a
genuine specimen—frank, hearty, and good-natured, well satisfied with
himself and his position, and 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
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 then lessons together.
"And now come in and see my study; we shall have just time before
dinner; and afterwards, before calling over, we'll do the close."
Tom followed his guide through the School-house hall, which opens into
the quadrangle. It is a great room thirty feet long and eighteen high, or
thereabouts, with two great tables running the whole length, and two large
fireplaces at the side, with blazing fires in them, at one of which some
dozen boys were standing and lounging, some of whom shouted to East to
stop; but he shot through with his convoy, and landed him in the long dark
passages, with a large fire at the end of each upon which the studies opened.
Into one of these, in the bottom passage, East bolted with our hero,
slamming and bolting the door behind them, in case of pursuit from the hall,
and Tom was for the first time in a Rugby boy's citadel.
He hadn't been prepared for separate studies, and was not a little
astonished and delighted with the palace in question.
It wasn't very large certainly, being about six feet long by four broad. It
couldn't be called light, as there were bars and a grating to the window;
which little precautions were necessary in the studies on the ground floor
looking out into the close, to prevent the exit of small boys after locking-up,
and the entrance of contraband articles. But it was uncommonly
comfortable to look at, Tom thought. The space under the window at the
further end was occupied by a square table covered with a reasonably clean
and whole red and blue check table-cloth; 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 steeplechase,
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 brass
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 which he could call his own? One's own! What
a charm there is in the words! How long it takes boy and man to find out
their worth! how fast most of us hold on to them! faster and more jealously
the nearer we are to that general home into which we can take nothing, but
must go naked as we came into the world. When shall we learn that he who
multiplieth possessions multiplieth troubles, and that the one single use of
things which we call our own is that they may be his who hath need of
them?
"And shall I have a study like this too?" said Tom.
"Yes, of course, you'll be chummed with some fellow on Monday, and
you can sit here till then."
"What nice places!"
"They're well enough," answered East patronizingly, "only uncommon
cold at nights sometimes. Gower—that's my chum—and I make a fire with
paper on the floor after supper generally, only that makes it so smoky."

"But there's a big fire out in the passage," said Tom.
"Precious little good we get out of that though," said East; "Jones the
præpostor has the study at the fire end, and he has rigged up an iron rod and
green baize curtain across the passage, which he draws at night, and sits
there with his door open, so he gets all the fire, and hears if we come out of
our studies after eight, or make a noise. However, he's taken to sitting in the
fifth-form room lately, so we do get a bit of fire now sometimes; only to
keep a sharp 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 præpostor (who sat at the end to keep order there),
and East a few paces higher. And now Tom for the first time saw his future
school-fellows in a body. In they came, some hot and ruddy from football or
long walks, some pale and chilly from hard reading in their studies, some
from loitering over the fire at the pastrycook's, dainty mortals, bringing with
them pickles and 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 a 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 table-cloth. However, notwithstanding his
curiosity, he managed to make a capital dinner by the time the big man
called "Stand up!" and said grace.
As soon as dinner was over, and Tom had been questioned by such of his
neighbours as were curious as to his birth, parentage, education, and other
like matters, East, who evidently enjoyed his new dignity of patron and
Mentor, proposed having a look at the close, which Tom, athirst for
knowledge, gladly assented to, and they went out through the quadrangle
and past the big fives'-court, into the great playground.

"That's the chapel, you see," said East, "and there just behind it is the
place for fights; you see it's most out of the way of the masters, who all live
on the other side and don't come by here after first lesson or callings-over.
That's when the fights come off. And all this part where we are is the little
side-ground, right up to the trees, and on the other side of the trees is the big
side-ground, where the great matches are played. And there's the island in
the 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 the work in his very best style. Right across the close they
went, each doing all he knew, and there wasn't a yard between them when
they pulled up at the island moat.
"I say," said East, as soon as he got his wind, looking with much
increased respect at Tom, "you ain't a bad scud, not by no means. Well, I'm
as warm as a toast now."
"But why do you wear white trousers in November?" said Tom. He had
been struck by this peculiarity in the costume of almost all the School-
house boys.
"Why, bless us, don't you know?—No, I forgot. Why, to-day's the
School-house match. Our house plays the whole of the School at football.
And we all wear white trousers, to show 'em we don't care for hacks. You're
in luck to come to-day. You just will see a match; and Brooke's going to let
me play in quarters. That's more than he'll do for any other lower-school
boy, except James, and he's fourteen."
"Who's Brooke?"
"Why that big fellow who called over at dinner, to be sure. He's cock of
the school, and head of the School-house side, and the best kick and charger
in Rugby."
"Oh, but do show me where they play? And tell me about it. I love
football so, and have played all my life. Won't Brooke let me play?"

"Not he," said East, with some indignation; "why, you don't know the
rules—you'll be a month learning them. And then it's no joke playing-up in
a match, I can tell you. Quite another thing from your private school games.
Why, there's been two collar-bones broken this half, and a dozen fellows
lamed. And last year a fellow had his leg broken."
Tom listened with the profoundest respect to this chapter of accidents,
and followed East across the level ground till they came to a sort of gigantic
gallows of two poles eighteen feet high, fixed upright in the ground some
fourteen feet apart, with a cross bar running from one to the other at the
height of ten feet or thereabouts.
"This is one of the goals," said East, "and you see the other across there,
right opposite, under the Doctor's wall. Well, the match is for the best of
three goals; whichever side kicks two goals wins: and it won't do, you see,
just to kick the ball through these posts, it must go over the cross bar; any
height'll do, so long as it's between the posts. You'll have to stay in goal to
touch the ball when it rolls behind the posts, because if the other side touch
it they have a try at goal. Then we fellows in quarters, we play just about in
front of goal here, and have to turn the ball and kick it back before the big
fellows on the other side can follow it up. And in front of us all the big
fellows play, and that's where the scrummages are mostly."
Tom's respect increased as he struggled to make out his friend's
technicalities, and the other set to work to explain the mysteries of "off your
side," "drop-kicks," "punts," "places," and the other intricacies of the great
science of football.
"But how do you keep the ball between the goals?" said he. "I can't see
why it mightn't go right down to the chapel."
"Why, that's out of play," answered East. "You see this gravel walk
running down all along this side of the playing-ground, and the line of elms
opposite on the other? Well, they're the bounds. As soon as the ball gets past
them, it's in touch, and out of play. And then whoever first touches it, has to
knock it straight out amongst the players-up, who make two lines with a
space between them, every fellow going on his own side. Ain't there just
fine scrummages then! and the three trees you see there which come out

into the play, that's a tremendous place when the ball hangs there, for you
get thrown against the trees, and that's worse than any hack."
Tom wondered within himself as they strolled back again towards the
fives' court, whether the matches were really such break-neck affairs as East
represented, and whether, if they were, he should ever get to like them and
play-up well.
He hadn't long to wonder, however, for next minute East cried out,
"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 other odd times. They joined the boys who had brought it out, all small
School-house fellows, friends of East; and Tom had the pleasure of trying
his skill, and performed very creditably, after first driving his foot three
inches into the ground, and then nearly kicking his leg into the air, in
vigorous efforts to accomplish a drop-kick after the manner of East.
Presently more boys and bigger came out, and boys from other houses
on their way to calling-over, and more balls were sent for. The crowd
thickened as three o'clock approached; and when the hour struck, one
hundred and fifty boys were hard at work. Then the balls were held, the
master of the week came down in cap and gown to calling-over, and the
whole school of three hundred boys swept into the big school to answer to
their names.
"I may come in, mayn't I?" said Tom, catching East by the arm and
longing to feel one of them.
"Yes, come along, nobody'll say anything. You won't be so eager to get
into calling-over after a month," replied his friend; and they marched into
the big school together, and up to the 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
præpostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the other three marching
up and down the middle of the school with their canes, calling out "Silence,
silence!" The sixth form stood close by the door on the left, some thirty in

number, mostly great big grown men, as Tom thought, surveying them from
a distance with awe. The fifth form behind them, twice their number and
not quite so big. These on the left; and on the right the lower fifth, shell, and
all the junior forms in order; while up the middle marched the three
præpostors.
Then the præpostor 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 præpostors 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 præpostors of the
week small and not well up to their work, the lower school boys employ the
ten minutes which elapse before their names are called, in pelting one
another vigorously with acorns, which fly about in all directions. The small
præpostors dash in every now and then, and generally chastise some quiet,
timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes, while the principal
performers get dexterously out of the way; and so calling-over rolls on
somehow, much like the big world, punishments lighting on wrong
shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer, cross-grained way, but
the end coming somehow, which is after all the great point. And now the
master of the week has finished, and locked up the big school; and the
præpostors of the week come out, sweeping the last remnant of the school
fags—who had been loafing about the corners by the fives' court, in hopes
of a chance of bolting—before them into the close.
"Hold the punt-about!" "To the goals!" are the cries, and all stray balls
are impounded by the authorities; and the whole mass of boys moves up
towards the two goals, dividing as they go into three bodies. That little band

on the left, consisting of from fifteen to twenty boys, Tom amongst them,
who are making for the goal under the School-house wall, are the School-
house boys who are not to play-up, and have to stay in goal. The larger
body moving to the island goal, are the school-boys in a like predicament.
The great mass in the middle are the players-up, both sides mingled
together; they are hanging their jackets, and, all who mean real work, their
hats, waistcoats, neck-handkerchiefs, and braces, on the railings round the
small trees; and there they go by twos and threes up to their respective
grounds. There is none of the colour and tastiness of get-up, you will
perceive, which lends such a life to the present game at Rugby, making the
dullest and worst-fought match a pretty sight. Now each house has its own
uniform of cap and jersey, of some lively colour: but at the time we are
speaking of, plush caps have not yet come in or uniforms of any sort, except
the School-house white trousers, which are abominably cold to-day: let us
get to work, bare-headed and girded with our plain leather straps—but we
mean business, gentlemen.
And now that the two sides have fairly sundered, and each occupies its
own ground, and we get a good look at them what absurdity is this? You
don't mean to say that those fifty or sixty boys in white trousers, many of
them quite small, are going to play that huge mass opposite? Indeed I do,
gentlemen; they're going to try at any rate, and won't make such a bad fight
of it either, mark my word; for hasn't old Brooke won the toss, with his
lucky halfpenny, and got choice of goals and kick-off? The new ball you
may see lie there quite by itself, in the middle, pointing towards the school
or island goal; in another minute it will be well on its way there. Use that
minute in remarking how the 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 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, anyhow and nohow; you can't distinguish between the players-
up and the boys in quarters, and there is divided leadership; but with such
odds in strength and weight it must take more than that to hinder them from
winning; and so their leaders seem to think, for they let the players-up
manage themselves.
But now look, there is a slight move forward of the School-house wings;
a shout of "Are you ready?" and loud affirmative reply. Old Brooke takes
half-a-dozen quick steps, and away goes the ball spinning towards the
School goal; seventy yards before it touches ground, and at no point above
twelve or fifteen feet high, a model kick-off; and the School-house cheer
and rush on; the ball is returned, and they meet it and drive it back amongst
the masses of the School already in motion. Then the two sides close, and
you can see nothing for minutes but a swaying crowd of boys, at one point
violently agitated. That is where the ball is, and there are the keen players to
be met, and the glory and the hard knocks to be got: you hear the dull thud
thud of the ball, and the shouts of "Off your side," "Down with him," "Put
him over," "Bravo!" This is what we call a scrummage, gentlemen, and the
first scrummage in a School-house match was no joke in the consulship of
Plancus.
But see! it has broken; the ball is driven out on the School-house side,
and a rush of the School carries it past the School-house players-up. "Look
out in quarters," Brooke's and twenty other voices ring out; no need to call
though, the School-house captain of quarters has caught it on the bound,
dodges the foremost school-boys, who are heading the rush, and sends it
back with a good drop-kick well into the enemy's country. And then follows
rush upon rush, and scrummage upon scrummage, the ball now driven

through into the School-house quarters, and now into the School goal; for
the School-house have not lost the advantage which the kick-off and a slight
wind gave them at the outset, and are slightly "penning" their adversaries.
You say you don't see much in it all; nothing but a struggling mass of boys,
and a leather ball, which seems to excite them all to great fury, as a red rag
does a bull. My dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except
that the boys would be men, and the balls iron; but a battle would be worth
your looking at for all that, and so is a football match. You can't be expected
to appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which a game is lost
and won,—it takes an old player to do that, but the broad philosophy of
football you can understand if you will. Come along with me a little nearer,
and let us consider it together.
The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest, and they
close rapidly around it in a scrummage; it must be driven through now by
force or skill, till it flies out on one side or the other. Look how differently
the boys face it! Here come two of the bull-dogs, bursting through the
outsiders; in they go, straight to the heart of the scrummage, bent on driving
that ball out on the opposite side. That is what they mean to do. My sons,
my sons! you are too hot; you have gone past the ball, and must struggle
now right through the scrummage, and get round and back again to your
own side, before you can be of any further use. Here comes young Brooke;
he goes in as straight as you, but keeps his head, and backs and bends,
holding himself still behind the ball, and driving it furiously when he gets
the chance. Take a leaf out of his book, you young chargers. Here 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 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 a shout of "In touch," "Our ball."
Now's your time, old Brooke, while your men are still fresh. He stands with
the ball in his hand, while the two sides form in deep lines opposite one
another: he must strike it straight out between them. The lines are thickest
close to him, but young Brooke and two or three of his men are shifting up
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, and the danger is past; that was the shock of Crew, the
most dangerous of dodgers. And now he is close to the School goal, the ball
not three yards before him. There is a hurried rush of the School fags to the
spot, but no one throws himself on the ball, the only chance, and young
Brooke has touched it right under the School goal-posts.
The School leaders come up furious, and administer toco to the wretched
fags nearest at hand: they may well be angry, for it is all Lombard-street to
a china orange that the School-house kick a goal with the ball touched in
such a good place. Old Brooke of course will kick it out, but who shall

catch and place it? Call Crab Jones. Here he comes, sauntering along with a
straw in his mouth, the queerest, coolest fish in Rugby: if he were tumbled
into the moon this minute, he would just pick himself up without taking his
hands out of his pockets or turning a hair. But it is a moment when the
boldest charger's heart beats quick. Old Brooke stands with the ball under
his arm motioning the School back; he will not kick-out till they are all in
goal, behind the posts; they are all edging forwards, inch by inch, to get
nearer for the rush at Crab Jones, who stands there in front of old Brooke to
catch the ball. If they can reach and destroy him before he catches, the
danger is over; and with one and the same rush they will carry it right away
to the School-house goal. Fond hope! it is kicked out and caught
beautifully. Crab strikes his heel into the ground, to mark the spot where the
ball was caught, beyond which the School line may not advance; but there
they stand, five deep, ready to rush the moment the ball touches the ground.
Take plenty of room! don't give the rush a chance of reaching you! place it
true and steady! Trust Crab Jones—he has made a small hole with his heel
for the ball to lie on, by which he is resting on one knee, with his eye on old
Brooke. "Now!" Crab places the ball at the word, old Brooke kicks, and it
rises slowly and truly as the School rush forward.
Then a moment's pause, while both sides look up at the spinning ball.
There it flies, straight between the two posts, some five feet above the
cross-bar, an unquestioned goal; and a shout of real genuine joy rings out
from the School-house players-up, and a faint echo of it comes over the
close from the goal-keepers under the Doctor's wall. A goal in the first hour
—such a thing hasn't been done in the School-house match this five years.
"Over!" is the cry: the two sides change goals, and the School-house
goal-keepers come threading their way across through the masses of the
School; the most openly triumphant of them, amongst whom is Tom, a
School-house boy of two hours' standing, getting their ears boxed in the
transit. Tom indeed is excited beyond measure, and it is all the sixth-form
boy, kindest and safest of goal-keepers, has been able to do, to keep him
from rushing out whenever the ball has been near their goal. So he holds
him by his side, and instructs him in the science of touching.
At this moment Griffith, the itinerant 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 off. Their leaders have sent their lumber
into goal, and rated the rest soundly, and one hundred and twenty picked
players-up are there, bent on retrieving the game. They are to keep the ball
in front of the School-house goal, and then to drive it in by sheer strength
and weight. They mean heavy play and no mistake, and so old Brooke sees;
and places Crab Jones in quarters just before the goal, with four or five
picked players, who are to keep the ball away to the sides, where a try at
goal, if obtained, will be less dangerous than in front. He himself, and
Warner and Hedge, who have saved themselves till now, will lead the
charges.
"Are you ready?" "Yes." And away comes the ball kicked high in the air,
to give the School time to rush on and catch it as it falls. And here they are
amongst us. Meet them like Englishmen, you 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 shoulders, as if he
would bury himself in the ground; but the ball rises straight into the air, and
falls behind Crew's back, while the "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 præpostor, safest of goal-keepers, and Tom
Brown by his side, who has learned his trade by this time. Now is your
time, Tom. The blood of all the Browns is up, and the two rush in together,
and throw themselves on the ball, under the very feet of the advancing
column; the præpostor 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 præpostor, but falling flat on Tom, and knocking all the wind
out of his small carcase. "Our ball," says the præpostor, rising with his
prize; "but get up there, there's a little fellow under you." They are hauled
and roll off him, and Tom is discovered a motionless body.
Old Brooke picks him up. "Stand back, give him air," he says; and then
feeling his limbs, adds, "No bones broken. How do you feel, young un?"
"Hah-hah," gasps Tom as his wind comes back, "pretty well, thank you
—all right."
"Who is he?" says Brooke. "Oh, it's Brown; he's a new boy; I know
him," says East, coming up.
"Well, he is a plucky youngster, and will make a player," says Brooke.
And five o'clock strikes. "No side" is called, and the first day of the
School-house match is over.

CHAPTER VI.
AFTER THE MATCH.

"————Some food we had."—Shakspere.
ἦς πότος ἁδύς.—Theocr. Id.
S the boys scattered away from the
ground, and East leaning on Tom's
arm, and limping along, was
beginning to consider what luxury
they should go and buy for tea to
celebrate that glorious victory, the two
Brookes came striding by. Old Brooke
caught sight of East, and stopped; put
his hand kindly on his shoulder and
said, "Bravo, youngster, you played
famously; not much the matter, I
hope?"
"No, nothing at all," said East,
"only a little twist from that charge."
"Well, mind and get all right for
next Saturday;" and the leader passed
on, leaving East better for those few
words than all the opodeldoc in
England would have made him, and Tom ready to give one of his ears for as
much notice. Ah! light words of those whom we love and honour, what a
power ye are, and how carelessly wielded by those who can use you! Surely
for these things also God will ask an account.
"Tea's directly after locking-up, you see," said East, hobbling along as
fast as he could, "so you come along down to Sally Harrowell's; that's our
school-house tuck-shop—she bakes such stunning murphies, we'll have a
penn'orth each for tea; come along, or they'll all be gone."

Tom's new purse and money burnt in his pocket; he wondered, as they
toddled through the quadrangle and along the street, whether East would be
insulted if he suggested further extravagance, as he had not sufficient faith
in a pennyworth of potatoes. At last he blurted out,—
"I say, East, can't we get something else besides potatoes? I've got lots of
money, you know."
"Bless us, yes, I forgot," said East, "you've only just come. You see all
my tin's been gone this twelve weeks, it hardly ever lasts beyond the first
fortnight; and our allowances were all stopped this morning for broken
windows, so I haven't got a penny. I've got a tick at Sally's, of course; but
then I hate running it high, you see, towards the end of the half, 'cause one
has to shell out for it all directly one comes back, and that's a bore."
Tom didn't understand much of this talk, but seized on the fact that East
had no money, and was denying himself some little pet luxury in
consequence. "Well, what shall I buy?" said he; "I'm uncommon hungry."
"I say," said East, stopping to look at him and rest his leg, "you're a
trump, Brown. I'll do the same by you next half. Let's have a pound of
sausages, then; that's the best grub for tea I know of."
"Very well," said Tom, as pleased as possible; "where do they sell
them?"
"Oh, over here, just opposite;" and they crossed the street and walked
into the cleanest little front room of a small house, half parlour, half shop,
and bought a pound of most particular sausages; East talking pleasantly to
Mrs. Porter while she put them in paper, and Tom doing the paying part.
From Porter's they adjourned to Sally Harrowell's, where they found a
lot of School-house boys waiting for the roast potatoes, and relating their
own exploits in the day's match at the top of their voices. The street opened
at once into Sally's kitchen, a low, brick-floored room, with large recess for
fire, and chimney-corner seats. Poor little Sally, the most good-natured and
much enduring of womankind, was bustling about with a napkin in her
hand, from her own oven to those of the neighbours' cottages, up the yard at
the back of the house. Stumps, her husband, a short, easy-going shoemaker,
with a beery humorous eye and ponderous calves, who lived mostly on his

wife's earnings, stood in a corner of the room, exchanging shots of the
roughest description of repartee with every boy in turn. "Stumps, you lout,
you've had too much beer again to-day." "'Twasn't of your paying for,
then."—"Stumps's calves are running down into his ankles, they want to get
to grass." "Better be doing that, than gone altogether like yours," &c. &c.
Very poor stuff it was, but it served to make time pass; and every now and
then Sally arrived in the middle with a smoking tin of potatoes, which were
cleared off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running oft 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 school-boys of the School-house, some fifteen in number, had
tea in the lower-fifth school, and were presided over by the old verger or
head-porter. Each boy had a quarter of a loaf of bread and pat of butter, and
as much tea as he pleased; and there was scarcely one who didn't add to this
some further luxury, such as baked potatoes, a herring, sprats, or something
of the sort; but few, at this period of the half-year, could live up to a pound
of Porter's sausages, and East was in great magnificence upon the strength
of theirs. He had produced a toasting-fork from his study, and set Tom to
toast the sausages, while he mounted guard over their butter and potatoes;
"'cause," as he explained, "you're a new boy, and they'll play you some trick
and get our butter, but you can toast just as well as I." So Tom, in the midst
of three or four more urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and the
sausages at the same time before the huge fire, till the latter cracked; when
East from his watch-tower shouted that they were done; and then the feast
proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and emptied, and Tom

imparted of the sausages in small bits to many neighbours, and thought he
had never tasted such good potatoes or seen such jolly boys. They on their
parts waived all ceremony, and pegged away at the sausages and potatoes,
and, remembering Tom's performance in goal, voted East's new crony a
brick. After tea, and while the things were being cleared away, they
gathered round the fire, and the talk on the match still went on; and those
who had them to show, pulled up their trousers and showed the hacks they
had received in the good cause.
They were soon however all turned out of the school, and East
conducted Tom up to his bedroom, that he might get on clean things and
wash himself before singing.
"What's singing?" said Tom, taking his head out of his basin, where he
had been plunging it in cold water.
"Well, you are jolly green," answered his friend from a neighbouring
basin. "Why, the last six Saturdays of every half, we sing of course; and this
is the first of them. No first lesson to do, you know, and lie in bed to-
morrow morning."
"But who sings?"
"Why everybody, of course; you'll see soon enough. We begin directly
after supper, and sing till bed-time. It ain't such good fun now though as in
the summer half, 'cause then we sing in the little fives' court, under the
library, you know. We take our 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 fireplaces. Around the upper fire the fags
placed the tables in the form of a horse-shoe, and upon them the jugs with
the Saturday night's allowance of beer. Then the big boys used to drop in
and take their seats, bringing with them bottled beer and song-books; for
although they all knew the songs by heart, it was the thing to have an old
manuscript book descended from some departed hero, in which they were
all carefully written out.
The sixth-form boys had not yet appeared; so, to fill up the gap, an
interesting and time-honoured ceremony was gone through. Each new boy
was placed on the table in turn, and made to sing a solo, under the penalty
of drinking a large mug of salt and water if he resisted or broke down.
However, the new boys all sing like nightingales to-night, and the salt water
is not in requisition; Tom, as his part, performing the old west-country song
of "The Leather Bottèl" with considerable applause. And at the half-hour
down come the sixth and fifth form boys, and take their places at the tables,
which are filled up by the next biggest boys, the rest, for whom there is no
room at the table, standing round outside.
The glasses and mugs are filled, and then the fugleman strikes up the old
sea song—
"A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
And a wind that follows fast," &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
Postboys," and other vociferous songs in rapid succession, including the
"Chesapeake and Shannon," a song lately introduced in honour of old
Brooke; and when they come to the words—
"Brave Broke he waved his sword, crying, Now my lads,
aboard,
And we'll stop their playing Yankee-doodle-dandy oh!"

you expect the roof to come down. The sixth and fifth know that "brave
Broke" of the Shannon was no sort of relation to our old Brooke. The
fourth-form are uncertain in their belief, but for the most part hold that old
Brooke was a midshipman then on board his uncle's ship. And the lower
school never doubt for a moment that it was our old Brooke who led the
boarders, in what capacity they care not a straw. During the pauses the
bottled-beer corks fly rapidly, and the talk is fast and merry, and the big
boys, at least all of them who have a fellow-feeling for dry throats, hand
their mugs over their shoulders to be emptied by the small ones who stand
round behind.
Then Warner, the head of the house, gets up and wants to speak, but he
can't, for every boy knows what's coming; and the big boys who sit at the
tables pound them and cheer; and the small boys who stand behind pound
one another, and cheer, and rush about the hall cheering. Then silence being
made, Warner reminds them of the old School-house custom of drinking the
healths, on the first night of singing, of those who are going to leave at the
end of the half. "He sees that they know what he is going to say already—
(loud cheers)—and so won't keep them, but only ask them to treat the toast
as it deserves. It is the head of the eleven, the head of big-side football, their
leader on this glorious day—Pater Brooke!"
And away goes the pounding and cheering again, becoming deafening
when old Brooke gets on his legs: till, a table having broken down, and a
gallon or so of beer been upset, and all throats getting dry, silence ensues,
and the hero speaks, leaning his hands on the table, and bending a little
forwards. No action, no tricks of oratory; plain, strong, and straight, like his
play.
"Gentlemen of the School-house! I am very proud of the way in which
you have received my name, and I wish I could say all I should like in
return. But I know I shan't. However, I'll do the best I can to say what seems
to me ought to be said by a fellow who's just going to leave, and who has
spent a good slice of his life here. Eight years it is, and eight such years as I
can never hope to have again. So now I hope you'll all listen to me—(loud
cheers of 'that we will')—for I'm going to talk seriously. You're bound to
listen to me; for what's the use of calling me 'pater,' and all that, if you don't
mind what I say? And I'm going to talk seriously, because I feel so. It's a

jolly time, too, getting to the end of the half, and a goal kicked by us first
day—(tremendous applause)—after one of the hardest and fiercest day's
play I can remember in eight years—(frantic shoutings). The school played
splendidly, too, I will say, and kept it up to the last. That last charge of
theirs would have carried away a house. I never thought to see anything
again of old Crab there, except little pieces, when I saw him tumbled over
by it—(laughter and shouting, and great slapping on the back of Jones by
the boys nearest him). Well, but we beat 'em—(cheers). Aye, but why did
we beat 'em? answer me that—(shouts of 'your play.') Nonsense! 'Twasn't
the wind and kick-off either—that wouldn't do it. 'Twasn't because we've
half-a-dozen of the best players in the school, as we have. I wouldn't change
Warner, and Hedge, and Crab, and the young un, for any six on their side—
(violent cheers.) But half-a-dozen fellows can't keep it up for two hours
against two hundred. Why is it, then? I'll tell you what I think. It's because
we've more reliance on one another, more of a house feeling, more
fellowship than the school can have. Each of us knows and can depend on
his next hand man better—that's why we beat 'em to-day. We've union,
they've division—there's the secret—(cheers). But how's this to be kept up?
How's it to be improved? That's the question. For I take it, we're all in
earnest about beating the school, whatever else we care about. I know I'd
sooner win two School-house matches running than get the Balliol
scholarship any day—(frantic cheers).
"Now, I'm as proud of the house as any one. I believe it's the best house
in the school, out-and-out—(cheers). But it's a long way from what I want
to see it. First there's a deal of bullying going on. I know it well. I don't pry
about and interfere; that only makes it more underhand, and encourages the
small boys to come to us with their fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so
we should be worse off than ever. It's very little kindness for the sixth to
meddle generally—you youngsters, mind that. You'll be all the better
football players for learning to stand it, and to take your own parts, and
fight it through. But depend on it, there's nothing breaks up a house like
bullying. Bullies are cowards, and one coward makes many; so good-bye to
the School-house match if bullying gets ahead here. (Loud applause from
the small boys, who look meaningly at Flashman and other boys at the
tables.) Then there's fuddling about in the public-houses, and drinking bad
spirits, and punch, and such rot-gut stuff. That won't make good drop-kicks

or chargers of you, take my word for it. You get plenty of good beer here,
and that's enough for you; and drinking isn't fine or manly, whatever some
of you may think of it.
"One other thing I must have a word about. A lot of you think and say,
for I've heard you, 'There's this new Doctor hasn't been here so long as
some of us, and he's changing all the old customs. Rugby, and the 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!' is 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 linch-pins out of the farmers' and bagmen's gigs at the
fairs, and a cowardly blackguard custom it was. We all know what came of
it; and no wonder the Doctor objected to it. But, come now, any of you,
name a custom that he has put down."
"The hounds," calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a green cutaway with
brass buttons and cord trousers, the leader of the sporting interest, and
reputed a great rider and keen hand generally.
"Well, we had six or seven 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 for squalls, if you will go your own way, and that way
ain't the Doctor's, for it'll lead to grief. You all know that I'm not the fellow
to back a master through thick and thin. If I saw him stopping football, or
cricket, or bathing, or sparring, I'd be as ready as any fellow to stand up
about it. But he don't—he encourages them; didn't you see him out to-day
for half-an-hour watching us? (loud cheers for the Doctor;) and he's a

strong, true man, and a wise one too, and a public-school man too. (Cheers.)
And so let's stick to him, and talk no more rot, and drink his health as the
head of the house. (Loud cheers.) And now I've done blowing up, and very
glad I am to have done. But it's a solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a
place which one has lived in and loved for eight years; and if one can say a
word for the good of the old house at such a time, why, it should be said,
whether bitter or sweet. If I hadn't been proud of the house and you—aye,
no one knows how proud—I shouldn't be blowing you up. And now let's get
to singing. But before I sit down I must give you a toast to be drunk with
three-times-three and all the honours. It's a toast which I hope every one of
us, wherever he may go hereafter, will never fail to drink when he thinks of
the brave bright days of his boyhood. It's a toast which should bind us all
together, and to those who've gone before, and who'll come after us here. It
is the dear old school-house—the best house of the best school in England!"
My dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or do belong, to
other schools and other houses, don't begin throwing my poor little book
about the room, and abusing me and it, and vowing you'll read no more
when you get to this point. I allow you've provocation for it. But, come now
—would you, any of you, give a fig for a fellow who didn't believe in, and
stand up for his own house and his own school? You know you wouldn't.
Then don't object to my 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 your benefits? If you ain't satisfied, go and write the history of your
own houses in your own times, and say all you know for your own schools
and houses, provided it's true, and I'll read it without abusing you.
The last few words hit the audience in their weakest place; they had been
not altogether enthusiastic at several parts of old Brooke's speech; but "the
best house of the best school in England" was too much for them all, and
carried even the sporting and drinking interests off their legs into rapturous
applause, and (it is to be hoped) resolutions to lead a new life and remember
old Brooke's words; which, however, they didn't altogether do, as will
appear hereafter.
But it required all old Brooke's popularity to carry down parts of his
speech; especially that relating to the Doctor. For there are no such bigoted
holders by established forms and customs, be they never so foolish or

meaningless, as English school-boys—at least, as the school-boy of our
generation. We magnified into heroes every boy who had left, and looked
upon him with awe and reverence, when he revisited the place a year or so
afterwards, on his way to or from Oxford or Cambridge; and happy was the
boy who remembered him, and sure of an audience as he expounded what
he used to do and say, though it were sad enough stuff to make angels, not
to say head-masters, weep.
We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit which had
obtained in the school as though it had been a law of the Medes and
Persians, and regarded the infringement or variation of it as a sort of
sacrilege. And the Doctor, than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking
for old school customs which were good and sensible, had, as has already
been hinted, come into most decided collision with several which were
neither the one nor the other. And as old Brooke had said, when he came
into collision with boys or customs, there was nothing for them but to give
in or take themselves off; because what he said had to be done, and no
mistake about it. And this was beginning to be pretty clearly understood; the
boys felt that there was a strong man over them, who would have things his
own way; and hadn't yet 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 license and misrule, and was still employed in the
necessary but unpopular work of setting up order with a strong hand.
However, as has been said, old Brooke triumphed, and the boys cheered
him and then the Doctor. And then more songs came, and the healths of the
other boys about to leave, who each made a speech, one flowery, another
maudlin, a third prosy, and so on, which are not necessary to be here
recorded.
Half-past nine struck in the middle of the performance of "Auld Lang
Syne," a most obstreperous proceeding; during which there was an
immense amount of standing with one foot on the table, knocking mugs
together and shaking hands, without which accompaniments it seems
impossible for the youth of Britain to take part in that famous old song. The

under-porter of the School-house entered during the performance, bearing
five or six long wooden candlesticks, with lighted dips in them, which he
proceeded to stick into their holes in such part of the great tables as he
could get at; and then stood outside the ring till the end of the song, when
he was hailed with shouts.
"Bill, you old muff, the half-hour hasn't struck." "Here, Bill, drink some
cocktail," "Sing us a song old boy," "Don't you wish you may get the
table?" Bill drank the proffered cocktail not unwillingly, and putting down
the empty glass, remonstrated, "Now, gentlemen, there's only ten minutes to
prayers, and we must get the hall straight."
Shouts of "No, no!" and a violent effort to strike up "Billy Taylor" for
the third time. Bill looked appealingly to old Brooke, who got up and
stopped the noise. "Now then, lend a hand, you youngsters, and get the
tables back; clear away the jugs and glasses. Bill's right. Open the windows,
Warner." The boy addressed, who sat by the long ropes, proceeded to pull
up the great windows, and let in a clear fresh rush of night air, which made
the candles flicker and gutter, and the fires roar. The circle broke up, each
collaring his own jug, glass, and song-book; Bill pounced on the big table,
and began to rattle it away to its place outside the buttery-door. The lower-
passage boys carried off their small tables, aided by their friends, while
above all, standing on the great hall-table, a knot of untiring sons of
harmony made night doleful by a prolonged performance of "God save the
King." His Majesty King William 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
blessed:
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 fives, 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 not at all fit for prayers, as he thought; and so tried
hard to make himself serious, but couldn't, for the life of him, do anything
but repeat in his head the choruses of some of the songs, and stare at all the
boys opposite, wondering at the brilliancy of their waistcoats, and
speculating what sort of fellows they were. The steps of the head-porter are
heard on the stairs, and a light gleams at the door. "Hush!" from the fifth-
form boys who stand there, and then in strides the Doctor, cap on head,
book in one hand, and gathering up his gown in the other. He walks up the
middle, and takes his post by Warner, who begins calling over the names.
The Doctor takes no notice of anything, but quietly turns over his book and
finds the place, and then stands, cap in hand and finger in book, looking
straight before his nose. He knows better than any one when to look, and
when to see nothing; to-night is singing night, and there's been lots of noise
and no harm done; nothing but beer drunk, and nobody the worse for it;
though some of them do look hot and excited. So the Doctor sees nothing,
but fascinates Tom in a horrible manner as he stands there, and reads out the
Psalm in that deep, ringing, searching voice of his. Prayers are over, and
Tom still stares open-mouthed after the Doctor's retiring figure, when he
feels a pull at his sleeve, and turning round, sees East.
"I say, were you ever tossed in a blanket?"

"No," said Tom; "why?"
"'Cause there'll be tossing to-night, most likely, before the sixth come up
to bed. So if you funk, you just come along and hide, or else they'll catch
you and toss you."
"Were you ever tossed? Does it hurt?" inquired Tom.
"Oh yes, bless you, a dozen times," said East, as he hobbled along by
Tom's side 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
bedrooms. In a minute, however, a study door opened, and a sixth-form boy
came out, and off they all scuttled up the stairs, and then noiselessly
dispersed to their different rooms. Tom's heart beat rather quick as he and
East reached their room, but he had made up his mind. "I shan't hide, East,"
said he.
"Very well, old fellow," replied East, evidently pleased; "no more shall I
—they'll be here for us directly."
The room was a great big one, with a dozen beds in it, but not a boy that
Tom could see, except East and himself. East pulled off his coat and
waistcoat, and then sat on the bottom of his bed, whistling, and pulling off
his boots; Tom followed his example.
A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door opens, and in rush
four or five great fifth-form boys, headed by Flashman in his glory.
Tom and East slept in the 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."

"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,
"'twont hurt you,——you! Come along, boys, here he is."
"I say, Flashy," sung out another of the big boys, "drop that; you heard
what old Pater Brooke said to-night I'll he hanged if we'll toss any one
against their will—no more bullying. Let him go, I say."
Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey, who rushed
headlong under his bed again, for fear they should change their minds, and
crept along underneath the other beds, till he got under that of the sixth-
form boy, which he knew they daren't disturb.
"There's plenty of youngsters don't care about it," said Walker. "Here,
here's Scud East—you'll be tossed, won't you, young un?" Scud was East's
nickname, or Black, as we called it, gained by his fleetness of foot.
"Yes," said East, "if you like, only mind my foot."
"And here's another who didn't hide. Hullo! new boy; what's your name,
sir?"
"Brown."
"Well, Whitey Brown, you don't mind being tossed?"
"No," said Tom, setting his teeth.
"Come along then, boys," 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."
"And that new boy, too; he must be a good plucked one."
"Ah! wait till he has been tossed on to the floor; see how he'll like it
then!"

Meantime the procession went down the passage to Number 7, the
largest room, and the scene of tossing, in the middle of which was a great
open space. Here they joined other parties of the bigger boys, each with a
captive or two, some willing to be tossed, some sullen, and some frightened
to death. At Walker's suggestion, all who were afraid were let off, in honour
of Pater Brooke's speech.
Then a dozen big boys seized hold of a blanket dragged from one of the
beds. "In with Scud, quick! there's no time to lose." East was chucked into
the blanket. "Once, twice, thrice, and away;" up he went like a shuttlecock,
but not quite up to the ceiling.
"Now, boys, with a will," cried Walker, "once, twice, thrice, and away!"
This time he went clean up, and kept himself from touching the ceiling with
his hand; and so again a third time, when he was turned out, and up went
another boy. And then came Tom's turn. He lay quite still, by East's advice,
and didn't dislike the "once, twice, thrice;" but the "away" wasn't so
pleasant. They were in good wind now, and sent him slap up to the ceiling
first time, against which his knees came rather sharply. But the moment's
pause before descending was the rub, the feeling of utter helplessness, and
of leaving his whole inside behind him sticking to the ceiling. Tom was
very near shouting to be set down, when he found himself back in the
blanket, but thought of East, and didn't; and so took his three tosses without
a kick or a cry, and was called a young trump for his pains.
He and East, having earned it, stood now looking on. No catastrophe
happened, as all the captives were cool hands, and didn't struggle. This
didn't suit Flashman. What your real bully likes in tossing, is when the boys
kick and struggle, or hold on to one side of the blanket, and so get pitched
bodily on to the floor; it's no fun to him when no one is hurt or frightened.
"Let's toss two of them together, Walker," suggested he.
"What a cursed bully you are, Flashy!" 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 præpostor of the room is coming; so the
tossing stops, and all scatter to their different rooms: and Tom is left to turn
in, with the first day's experience of a public school to meditate upon.

CHAPTER VII
SETTLING TO THE COLLAR

Says Giles, "Tis mortal hard to go;
But if so be's I must,
I means to follow arter he
As goes hisself the fust."—Ballad.
VERYBODY, I suppose, knows the
dreamy delicious state in which one
lies, half asleep, half awake, while
consciousness begins to return, after a
sound night's rest in a new place which
we are glad to be in, following upon a
day of unwonted excitement and
exertion. There are few pleasanter
pieces of life. The worst of it is that
they last such a short time; for, nurse
them as you will, by lying perfectly
passive in mind and body, you can't
make more than five minutes or so of
them. After which time, the stupid,
obtrusive, wakeful entity which we
call 'I,' as impatient as he is stiff-
necked, spite of our teeth will force
himself back again, and take
possession of us down to our very
toes.
It was in this state that Master Tom lay at half-past seven on the morning
following the day of his arrival, and from his clean little white bed watched
the movements of Bogle (the generic name by which the successive
shoeblacks of the School-house were known), as he marched round from

bed to bed, collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and depositing clean ones
in their places.
There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in the universe he was,
but conscious that he had made a step in life which he had been anxious to
make. It was only just light as he looked lazily out of the wide windows,
and saw the tops of the great elms, and the rooks circling about, and cawing
remonstrances to the lazy ones of their commonwealth, before starting in a
body for the neighbouring ploughed fields. The noise of the room-door
closing behind Bogle, as he made his exit with the shoe-basket under his
arm, roused Tom 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
result of his performance at his first match. He drew up his knees and rested
his chin on them, and went over all the events of yesterday, rejoicing in his
new life, what he had seen of it, and all that was to come.
Presently one or two of the other boys roused themselves, and began to
sit up and talk to one another in low tones. Then East, after a roll or two,
came to an anchor also, and, nodding to Tom, began examining his ankle.
"What a pull," said he, "that it's lie-in-bed, for I shall be as lame as a
tree, I think."
It was Sunday morning, and Sunday lectures had not yet been
established; so that nothing but breakfast intervened between bed and
eleven o'clock chapel—a gap by no means easy to fill up: in fact, though
received with the correct amount of grumbling, the first lecture instituted by
the Doctor shortly afterwards was a great boon to the School. It was lie in
bed, and no one was in a hurry to get up, especially in rooms where the
sixth-form boy was a good-tempered fellow, as was the case in Tom's room,
and allowed the small boys to talk and laugh, and do pretty much what they
pleased, so long as they didn't disturb him. His bed was a bigger one than
the rest, standing in the corner by the fireplace, with a washing-stand and
large basin by the side, where he lay in state, with his white curtains tucked
in so as to form a retiring place: an awful subject of contemplation to Tom,
who slept nearly opposite, and watched the great man rouse himself and
take a book from under his pillow, and begin reading, leaning his head on

his hand, and turning his back to the room. Soon, however, a noise of
striving urchins arose, and muttered encouragements from the neighbouring
boys, of—"Go it, Tadpole!" "Now, young Green!" "Haul away his blanket!"
"Slipper him on the hands!" Young Green and little Hall, commonly called
Tadpole, from his great black head and thin legs, slept side by side far away
by the door, and were for ever playing one another tricks, which usually
ended, as on this morning, in open and violent collision: and now,
unmindful of all order and authority, there they were, each hauling away at
the other's 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 præpostor, 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 præpostor 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 bedrooms, to get his Sunday habiliments
out of his portmanteau.
"Let me go for you," said Tom to East, "I should like it."
"Well, thank'ee, that's a good fellow. Just pull on your trousers, and take
your jug and mine. Tadpole will show you the way."
And so Tom and the Tadpole, in night-shirts and trousers, started off
down-stairs, and through "Thos's hole," as the little buttery, where candles
and beer and bread and cheese were served out at night, was called; across
the School-house court, down a long passage, and into the kitchen; where,

after some parley with the stalwart, handsome cook, who declared that she
had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot water, and returned with
all speed and great caution. As it was, they narrowly escaped capture by
some privateers from the fifth-form rooms, who were on the 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 though," 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 præpostor of the week
having put it in at the bottom of his list. And then came breakfast, and a
saunter about the close and town with East, whose lameness only became
severe when any fagging had to be done. And so they whiled away the time
until morning chapel.
It was a fine November morning, and the close soon became alive with
boys of all ages, who sauntered about on the grass, or walked round the
gravel walk, in parties of two or three. East, still doing the cicerone, pointed
out all the remarkable characters to Tom as they passed: Osbert, who could
throw a cricket-ball from the little-side ground over the rook trees to the
Doctor's wall; Gray, who had got the Balliol scholarship, and, what East
evidently thought of much more importance, a half-holiday for the School
by his success; Thorne, who had run ten miles in two minutes over the hour;
Black, who had held his own against the cock of the town in the last row
with the louts; and many more heroes, who then and there walked about and
were worshipped, all trace of whom has long since vanished from the scene
of their fame; and the fourth-form boy who reads their names rudely cut 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. Nevertheless, play your games and do
your work manfully—see only that that be done, and let the remembrance
of it take care of itself.

The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and Tom got in early
and took his place in the lowest row, and watched all the other boys come in
and take their places, filling row after row; and tried to construe the Greek
text which was inscribed over the door with the slightest possible success,
and wondered which of the masters, who walked down the chapel and took
their seats in the exalted boxes at the end, would be his lord. And then came
the closing of the doors, and the Doctor in his robes and the service, which,
however, didn't impress him much, for his feeling of wonder and curiosity
was too strong. And the boy on one side of him was scratching his name on
the oak panelling in front, and he couldn't help watching to see what the
name was, and whether it was well scratched; and the boy on the other side
went to sleep and kept falling against him; and on the whole, though many
boys even in that part of the School were serious and attentive, the general
atmosphere was by no means devotional; and when he got out into the close
again, he didn't feel at all comfortable, or as if he had been to church.
But at afternoon chapel it was quite another thing. He had spent the time
after dinner in writing home to his mother, and so was in a better frame of
mind; and his first curiosity was over, and he could attend more to the
service. As the hymn after the prayers was being sung, and the chapel was
getting a little dark, he was beginning to feel that he had been really
worshipping. And then came that great event in his, as in every Rugby boy's
life of that day—the first sermon from the Doctor.
More worthy pens than mine have described that scene. The oak pulpit
standing out by itself above the School seats. The tall gallant form, the
kindling eye, the voice, now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear and
stirring as the call of the light infantry bugle, of him who stood there
Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the King of
righteousness and love and glory, with whose spirit he was filled, and in
whose power he spoke. The long lines of young faces, rising tier above tier
down the whole length of the chapel, from the little boy's who had just left
his mother to the young man's who was going out next week into the great
world rejoicing in his strength. It was a great and solemn sight, and never
more so than at this time of year, when the only lights in the chapel were in
the pulpit and at the seats of the præpostors of the week, and the soft
twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, deepening into darkness in the
high gallery behind the organ.

But what was it after all which seized and held these three hundred boys,
dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes,
on Sunday afternoon? True, there always were boys scattered up and down
the School, who in heart and head were worthy to hear and able to carry
away the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these were a minority
always, generally a very small one, often so small a one as to be countable
on the fingers of your hand. What was it that moved and held us, the rest of
the three hundred reckless, childish boys, who feared the Doctor with all
our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth: who thought more of
our sets in the School than of the Church of Christ, and put the traditions of
Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily life above the laws of
God? We couldn't enter into half that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge of
our own hearts or the knowledge of one another; and little enough of the
faith, hope, and love needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in their
better moods will listen (aye, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man
who we felt to be, with all Ins heart and soul and strength, striving against
whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was
not the cold clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene
heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm
living voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and calling on
us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily and little by
little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young
boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life: that it was no fool's or
sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a 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 his
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 a truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last
gasp and the last drop of blood. Other sides of his character might take hold
of and influence boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and
undaunted courage which more than anything else won his way to the
hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them
believe first in him, and then in his Master.

It was this quality above all others which moved such boys as our hero,
who had nothing whatever remarkable about him except excess of
boyishness; by which I mean animal life in its fullest measure, good nature
and honest impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and thoughtlessness
enough to sink a three-decker. And so, during the next two years, in which it
was more than doubtful whether he would get good or evil from the School,
and before any steady purpose or principle grew up in him, whatever his
week's sins and shortcomings might have been, he hardly ever left the
chapel on Sunday evenings without a serious resolve to stand by and follow
the Doctor, and a feeling that it was only cowardice (the incarnation of all
other sins in such a boy's mind) which hindered him from doing so with all
his heart.
The next day Tom was duly placed in the third form, and began his
lessons in a corner of the big School. He found the work very easy, as he
had been well grounded, and knew his grammar by heart; and, as he had no
intimate 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 wrote the most flourishing letters home to his mother, full of his 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 bedrooms, and making the life of the small boys a
continual fear.
Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the first month, but
in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege hardly pleased him; and
East and others of his young friends discovering this, kindly allowed him to
indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night fagging and cleaning studies.
These were the principal duties of the fags in the house. From supper until
nine o'clock, three fags taken in order stood in the passages, and answered
any præpostor who called Fag, racing to the door, the last comer having to

do the work. This consisted generally
of going to the buttery for beer and
bread and cheese (for the great men did
not sup with the rest, but had each his
own allowance in his study or the fifth-
form room), cleaning candlesticks and
putting in new candles, toasting cheese,
bottling beer, and carrying messages
about the house; and Tom, in the first
blush of his hero-worship, felt it a high
privilege to receive orders from, and be
the bearer of, the supper of old Brooke.
And besides this night-work, each
præpostor had three or four fags
specially allotted to him, of whom he
was supposed to be the guide,
philosopher, and friend, and who in
return for these good offices had to
clean out his study every morning by
turns, directly after first lesson and
before he returned from breakfast. And
the pleasure of seeing the great men's
studies, and looking at their pictures,
and peeping into their books, made
Tom a ready substitute for any boy who
was too lazy to do his own work. And
so he soon gained the character of a
THE NIGHT FAG. P. 141. 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 continued practice at the School-
house little-side, which played daily.
The only incident worth recording here, however, was his first run at
Hare-and-hounds. On the last Tuesday but one of the half-year he was
passing through the Hall after dinner, when he was hailed with shouts from

Tadpole and several other fags seated at one of the long tables, the chorus of
which was "Come and help us tear up scent."
Tom approached the table in obedience to the mysterious summons,
always ready to help, and found the party engaged in tearing up old
newspapers, copy-books, and magazines, into small pieces, with which they
were filling four large canvas bags.
"It's the turn of our house to find scent for big-side Hare-and-hounds,"
exclaimed Tadpole; "tear away, there's no time to lose before calling-over."
"I think it's a great shame," said another small boy, "to have such a hard
run for the last day."
"Which run is it?" said Tadpole.
"Oh, the Barby run, I hear," answered the other; "nine miles at least, and
hard ground; no chance of getting in at the finish, unless you're a first-rate
scud."
"Well, I'm going to have a try," said Tadpole; "it's the last run of the half,
and if a fellow gets in at the end, big-side stands ale and bread and cheese,
and a bowl of punch; and the Cock's such a famous place for ale."
"I should like to try too," said Tom.
"Well then, leave your waistcoat behind, and listen at the door, after
calling-over, and you'll hear where the meet is."
After calling-over, sure enough, there were two boys at the door, calling
out, "Big-side Hare-and-hounds meet at White Hall;" and Tom, having
girded himself with leather strap, and left all superfluous clothing behind,
set off for White Hall, an old gable-ended house some quarter of a mile
from town, with East, whom he had persuaded to join, notwithstanding his
prophecy that they could never get in, as it was the hardest run of the year.
At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, and Tom felt sure, from
having seen many of them run at football, that he and East were more likely
to get in than they.

After a few minutes' waiting, two well-known runners, chosen for the
hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, compared their watches
with those of young Brooke and Thorne, and started off at a long slinging
trot across the fields in the direction of Barby.
Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who explained shortly,
"They're to have six minutes' law. We run into the Cock, and every one who
comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares'll be counted, if he has
been round Barby church." Then came a minute's pause or so, and then the
watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through the gateway into the field
which the hares had first crossed. Here they break into a trot, scattering over
the field to find the first traces of the scent which the hares throw out as
they go along. The old hounds make straight for the likely points, and in a
minute a cry of "forward" comes from one of them, and the whole pack
quickening their pace make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent
first and the two or three nearest to him are over the first fence, and making
play along the hedgerow in the long grass-field beyond. The rest of the pack
rush at the gap already made, and scramble through, jostling one another.
"Forward" again, before they are half through; the pace quickens into a
sharp run, the tail hounds all straining to get up with 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; and then over a good
wattle with a ditch on the other side, and down a large pasture studded with
old thorns, which slopes down to the first brook; the great Leicestershire
sheep charge away across the field as the pack comes racing down the
slope. The brook is a small one, and the scent lies right ahead up the
opposite slope, and as thick as ever; not a turn or a check to favour the tail
hounds, who strain on, now trailing in a long line, many a youngster
beginning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart beat like a hammer,
and the bad plucked ones thinking that after all it isn't worth while to keep it
up.
Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and are well up for such
young hands, and after rising the slope and crossing the next field, find
themselves up with the leading hounds, who have 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 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, 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 two or three miles more or less.
However, they struggle after him, sobbing and plunging along, Tom and
East pretty close, and Tadpole, whose big head begins to pull him down,
some thirty yards behind.
Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which they can hardly
drag their legs, and they hear faint cries for help from the wretched Tadpole,
who has fairly stuck fast. But they have too little run left in themselves to
pull up for their own brothers. Three fields more, and another check, and
then "forward" called away to the extreme right.

The two boys' souls die within them; they can never do it. Young Brooke
thinks so too, and says kindly, "You'll cross a lane after next field, keep
down it, and you'll hit the Dunchurch road below the Cock," and then
steams away for the run in, in which he's sure to be first, as if he were just
starting. They struggle on across the next field, the "forwards" getting
fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt is out of ear-shot, and
all hope of coming in is over.
"Hang it all!" broke out East, as soon as he had got wind enough, pulling
off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered with dirt and lined with
sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still cold air. "I told you
how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here we are dead beat, and
yet I know we're close to the run in, if we knew the country."
"Well," said Tom mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment,
"it can't be helped. We did our best anyhow. Hadn't we better find this lane,
and go down it, as young Brooke told us?"
"I suppose so—nothing else for it," grunted East. "If ever I go out last
day again," growl—growl—growl.
So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went
limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and beginning to feel how
the run had taken it out of them. The evening closed in fast, and clouded
over, dark, cold, and dreary.
"I say, it must be locking-up, I should think," remarked East, breaking
the silence; "it's so dark."
"What if we're late?" said Tom.
"No tea, and sent up to the Doctor," answered East.
The thought didn't add to their cheerfulness. Presently a faint halloo was
heard from an adjoining field. They answered it and stopped, hoping for
some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate some twenty yards
ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse; he had lost a
shoe in the brook, and 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 now 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 come out on to 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 Pig and Whistle.
It lumbered slowly up, and the boys mustering their last run, caught it as
it passed, and began scrambling up behind, in which exploit East missed his
footing and fell flat on his nose along the road. Then the others hailed the
old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed to take them in for
a shilling; so there they sat on the back seat, drubbing with their heels, and
their teeth chattering with cold, and jogged into Rugby some forty minutes
after locking-up.
Five minutes afterwards, three small limping shivering figures steal
along through the Doctor's garden, and into the house by the servants'
entrance (all the other gates have been closed long since), where the first
thing they light upon in the passage is old Thomas, ambling along, candle in
one hand and keys in the other.
He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. "Ah! East,
Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go up to the Doctor's study at
once."
"Well but, Thomas, mayn't we go and wash first? You can put down the
time, you know."
"Doctor's study d'recly you come in—that's the orders," replied old
Thomas, motioning towards the stairs at the end of the passage which led
up into the Doctor's house; and the boys turned ruefully down it, not
cheered by the old verger's muttered remark, "What a pickle they boys be
in!" Thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, but they construed it as

indicating the Doctor's state of mind. Upon the short flight of stairs they
paused to hold counsel.
"Who'll go in first?" inquires Tadpole.
"You—you're the senior," answered East.
"Catch me—look at the state I'm in," rejoined Hall, showing the arms of
his jacket. "I must get behind you two."
"Well, but look at me," said East, indicating the mass of clay behind
which he was standing; "I'm worse than you, two to one; you might grow
cabbages on my trousers."
"That's all down below, and you can keep your legs behind the sofa,"
said Hall.
"Here, Brown, you're the show-figure—you must lead."
"But my face is all muddy," argued Tom.
"Oh, we're all in one boat for that matter; but come on, we're only
making it worse, dawdling here."
"Well, just give us a brush then," said Tom; and they began trying to rub
off the superfluous dirt from each other's jackets, but it was not dry enough,
and the rubbing made it 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 laughing came from within, and his first
hesitating knock was unanswered. But at the second, the Doctor's voice said
"Come in," and Tom turned the handle, and he, with the others behind him,
sidled into the room.
The Doctor looked up from his task; he was working away with a great
chisel at the bottom of a boy's sailing boat, the lines of which he was no
doubt fashioning on the model of one of Nicias' 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 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 up-stairs, all three of you, and get clean things on, and
then tell the housekeeper to give you some tea. You're too young to try such
long runs. Let Warner know I've seen you. Good night."
"Good night, sir." And away scuttled the three boys in high glee.

"What a brick, not to give us even twenty lines to learn!" said the
Tadpole, as they reached their bedroom; and in half-an-hour afterwards they
were sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room at a sumptuous tea, with
cold meat, "twice as good a grub as we should have got in the hall," as the
Tadpole remarked with a grin, his mouth full of buttered toast. All their
grievances were forgotten, and they were resolving to go out the first big-
side next half, and thinking Hare-and-hounds the most delightful of games.
A day or two afterwards the great passage outside the bedrooms was
cleared of the boxes and portmanteaus, which went down to be packed by
the matron, and great games of chariot-racing, and cock-fighting, and
bolstering, went on in the vacant space, the sure sign of a closing half-year.
Then came the making-up of parties for the journey home, and Tom
joined a party who were to hire a coach, and post with four horses to
Oxford.
Then the last Saturday, on which the Doctor came round to each form to
give out the prizes, and hear the 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.

OLD THOMAS IN HIS DEN. P. 153.

On the next Tuesday morning, at four o'clock, hot coffee was going on in
the housekeeper's and matron's rooms; boys wrapped in great coats and
mufflers were swallowing hasty mouthfuls, rushing about, tumbling over
luggage, and asking questions all at once of the matron; outside the School-
gates were drawn up several chaises and the four-horse coach which Tom's
party had chartered, the 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 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.
"Robinson's coach will be down the road in a minute, it has gone up to
Bird's to pick up,—we'll wait till they're close, and make a race of it," says
the leader. "Now, boys, half-a-sovereign apiece if you beat 'em into
Dunchurch by one hundred yards."
"All right, sir," shouted the grinning 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 school-boys as well
as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five miles;

sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the roofs
exchanging volleys of peas, now nearly running over a post-chaise which
had started before them, now half-way up a bank, now with a wheel-and-a-
half over a yawning ditch; and all this in a dark morning, with nothing but
their own lamps to guide them. However, it's all over at last, and they have
run over nothing but an old pig in Southam Street; the last peas are
distributed in the Corn Market at Oxford, where they arrive between eleven
and twelve, and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which they
are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party breaks up, all going now
different ways; and Tom orders out a chaise and pair as grand as a lord,
though he has scarcely five shillings left in his pocket and more than twenty
miles to get home.
"Where to, sir?"
"Red Lion, Farringdon," says Tom, giving 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 horses, and forward him in another chaise at
once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal mansion,
and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two-pound ten-
shillings for the posting expenses from Oxford. But the boy's intense joy at
getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the good character he
brings, and the brave stories he tells of Rugby, its doings and delights, soon
mollify the Squire, and three happier people didn't sit down to dinner that
day in England (it is the boy's first dinner at six o'clock at home, great
promotion already), than the Squire and his wife and Tom Brown at the end
of his first half-year at Rugby.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

"They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think:
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three."
Lowell, Stanzas on Freedom.
HE lower-fourth form, in which Tom
found himself at the beginning of the
next half-year, was the largest form in
the lower school, and numbered
upwards of forty boys. Young
gentlemen of all ages from nine to
fifteen, were to be found there, who
expended such part of their energies as
was devoted to Latin and Greek upon
a book of Livy, the Bucolics of Virgil,
and the Hecuba of Euripides, which
were ground out in small daily
portions. The driving of this unlucky
lower-fourth must have been grievous
work to the unfortunate master, for it
was the most unhappily constituted of
any in the school. Here stuck the great
stupid boys, who for the life of them
could never master the accidence; the
objects alternately of mirth and terror
to the youngsters, who were daily taking them up and laughing at them in
lesson, and getting kicked by them for so doing in play-hours. There were
no less than three unhappy fellows in tail coats, with incipient down on

their chins, whom the Doctor and the master of the form were always
endeavouring to hoist into the upper school, but whose parsing and
construing resisted the most well-meant shoves. Then came the mass of the
form, boys of eleven and twelve, the most mischievous and reckless age of
British youth, of whom East and Tom Brown were fair specimens. As full
of tricks as monkeys, and of excuses as 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 youngsters had fair play; and as the master had a good deal
besides to do, they hadn't, and were for ever being shoved down three or
four places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their jackets whitened,
and their lives otherwise made a burden to them.
The lower-fourth, and all the forms below it, were heard in the great
school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons before coming in, but
were whipped into school three-quarters of an hour before the lesson began
by their respective masters, and there scattered about on the benches, with
dictionary and grammar, hammered out their twenty lines of Virgil and
Euripides in the midst of Babel. The masters of the lower school walked up
and down the great school together during this three-quarters of an hour, or
sat in their desks reading or looking over copies, and keeping such order as
was possible. But the lower-fourth was just now an overgrown form, too
large for any one man to attend to properly, and consequently the elysium or
ideal form of the young scapegraces who formed the staple of it.
Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a good character,
but the temptations of the lower-fourth soon proved too strong for him, and
he rapidly fell away; and became as unmanageable as the rest. For some
weeks, indeed, he succeeded in maintaining the appearance of steadiness,
and was looked upon favourably by his new master, whose eyes were first
opened by the following little incident.
Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, there was another
large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great school, which was

untenanted. To rush and seize upon this desk, which was ascended by three
steps, and held four boys, was the great object of ambition of the lower
fourthers; and the contentions for the occupation of it bred such disorder,
that at last the master forbade its use altogether. This of course was a
challenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it, and as it was
capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely, it was seldom
that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto. Small holes were cut in
the front, through which the occupants watched the masters as they walked
up and down, and as lesson time approached, one boy at a time stole out
and down the steps, as the masters' backs were turned, and mingled with the
general crowd on the forms below. Tom and East had successfully occupied
the desk some half-dozen times, and were grown so reckless that they were
in the habit of playing small games with fives'-balls inside when the masters
were at the other end of the big school. One day, as ill-luck would have it,
the game became more exciting than usual, and the ball slipped through
East's fingers, and rolled slowly down the steps, and out into the middle of
the school, just as the masters turned in their walk and faced round upon the
desk. The young delinquents watched their master through the look-out
holes, march slowly down the school straight upon their retreat, while all
the boys in the neighbourhood of course stopped their work to look on: and
not only were they ignominiously drawn out, and caned over the hand then
and there, but their characters for steadiness were gone from that time.
However, as they only shared the fate of some three-fourths of the rest of
the form, this did not weigh heavily upon them.
In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the matter were the
monthly examinations, when the Doctor came round to examine their form,
for one long awful hour, in the work which they had done in the preceding
month. The second monthly examination came round soon after Tom's fall,
and it was with anything but lively anticipations that he and the other lower-
fourth boys came in to prayers on the morning of the examination day.
Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, and before they
could get construes of a tithe of the hard passages marked in the margin of
their books, they were all seated round, and the Doctor was standing in the
middle, talking in whispers to the master. Tom couldn't hear a word which
passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book; but he knew by a sort of
magnetic instinct that the Doctor's under lip was coming out, and his eye

beginning to burn, and his gown getting gathered up more and more tightly
in his left hand. The suspense was agonizing, and Tom knew that he was
sure on such occasions to make an example of the School-house boys. "If
he would only begin," thought Tom, "I shouldn't mind."
At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called out was
not Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the Doctor's face was too
awful; Tom wouldn't have met his eye for all he was worth, and buried
himself in his book again.
The boy who was called up first was a clever merry School-house boy,
one of their set: he was some connection of the Doctor's, and a great
favourite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so was selected
for the first victim.
"Triste lupus, stabulis," began the luckless youngster, and stammered
through some eight or ten lines.
"There, that will do," said the Doctor; "now construe."
On common occasions, the boy could have construed the passage well
enough probably, but now his head was gone.
"Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf," he began.
A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor's wrath fairly
boiled over; he made three steps up to the construer, and gave him a good
box on the ear. The blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so taken by
surprise that he started back; the form caught the back of his knees, and
over he went on to the floor behind. There was a dead silence over the
whole school; never before, and never again while Tom was at school did
the Doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must have been great.
However, the victim had saved his form for that occasion, for the Doctor
turned to the top bench, and put on the best boys for the rest of the hour;
and though, at the end of the lesson, he gave them all such a rating as they
did not forget, this terrible field-day passed over without any severe
visitations in the shape of punishments or floggings. Forty young
scapegraces expressed their thanks to the "sorrowful wolf" in their different
ways before second lesson.

But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered, as Tom
found, and for years afterwards he went up to 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
præpostors were either small young boys, whose cleverness had carried
them up to the top of the school, while in strength of body and character
they were not yet fit for a share in the government; or else big fellows of the
wrong sort, boys whose friendships and tastes had a downward tendency,
who had not caught the meaning of their position and work, and felt none of
its responsibilities. So under this no-government the School-house began to
see bad times. The big fifth-form boys, who were a sporting and drinking
set, soon began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if they were
præpostors, and to bully and oppress any who showed signs of resistance.
The bigger sort of sixth-form boys just described soon made common cause
with the fifth, while the smaller sort, hampered by their colleagues'
desertion to the enemy, could not make head against them. So the fags were
without their lawful masters and protectors, and ridden over rough-shod by
a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, and whose only right over
them stood in their bodily powers; and, as old Brooke had prophesied, the
house by degrees broke up into small sets and parties, and lost the strong
feeling of fellowship which he set so much store by, and with it much of the
prowess in games and the lead in all school matters which he had done so
much to keep up.
In no place in the world has individual character more weight than at a
public school. Remember this, I beseech you, all you boys who are getting
into the upper forms. Now is the time in all your lives probably when you
may have more wide influence for good or evil on the society you live in
than you ever can have again. Quit yourselves like men, then; speak up, and
strike out if necessary for whatsoever is true, and manly, and lovely, and of
good report; never try to be popular, but only to do your duty and help

others to do theirs, and you may leave the tone of feeling in the school
higher than you found it, and so be doing good, which no living soul can
measure, to generations of your countrymen yet unborn. For boys follow
one another in herds like sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and
have rarely any settled principles. Every school, indeed, has its own
traditionary standard of right and wrong, which cannot be transgressed with
impunity, marking certain things as low and blackguard, and certain others
as lawful and right. This standard is ever varying, though it changes only
slowly, and little by little; and, subject only to such standard, it is the
leading boys for the time being who give the tone to all the rest, and make
the School either a noble institution for the training of Christian
Englishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil than he would
if he were turned out to make his way in London streets, or anything
between these two extremes.
The change for the worse in the School-house, however, didn't press
very heavily on our youngsters for some time; they were in a good
bedroom, where slept the only præpostor 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
recorded above, that the præpostor of their room and passage left. None of
the other sixth-form boys would move into their passage, and, to the disgust
and indignation of Tom and East, one morning after breakfast they were
seized upon by Flashman, and made to carry down his books and furniture
into the unoccupied study which he had taken. From this time they began to
feel the weight of the tyranny of Flashman and his friends, and, now that
trouble had come home to their own doors, began to look out for
sympathizers and partners amongst the rest of the fags; and meetings of the
oppressed began to be held, and murmurs to arise, and plots to be laid as to
how they should free themselves and be avenged on their enemies.
While matters were in this state, East and Tom were one evening sitting
in their study. They had done their work for first lesson, and Tom was in a

brown study, brooding, like a young William Tell, upon the wrongs of fags
in general, and his own in particular.
"I say, Scud," said he at last, rousing himself to snuff the candle, "what
right have the fifth-form boys to fag us as they do?"
"No more right than you have to fag them," answered East, without
looking up from an early number of "Pickwick," which was just coming
out, and which he was luxuriously devouring, stretched on his back on the
sofa.
Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went on reading and
chuckling. The contrast of the boys' faces would have given infinite
amusement to a looker-on, the one so solemn and big with mighty purpose,
the other radiant and bubbling over with fun.
"Do you know, old fellow, I've been thinking it over a good deal," began
Tom again.
"Oh yes, I know, fagging you are thinking of. Hang it all;—but listen
here, Tom—here's fun. Mr. Winkle's horse——"
"And I've made up my mind," broke in Tom, "that I won't fag except for
the sixth."
"Quite right too, my boy," cried East, putting his finger on the place and
looking up; "but a pretty peck of troubles you'll get into, if you're going to
play that game. However, I'm all for a strike myself, if we can get others to
join—it's getting too bad."
"Can't we get some sixth-form fellow to take it up?" asked Tom.
"Well, perhaps we might; Morgan would interfere, I think. Only," added
East, after a moment's pause, "you see we should have to tell him about it,
and that's against School principles. Don't you remember what Old Brooke
said about learning to take our own parts?"
"Ah, I wish Old Brooke were back again—it was all right in his time."
"Why yes, you see then the strongest and best fellows were in the sixth,
and the fifth-form fellows were afraid of them, and they kept good order;

but now our sixth-form fellows are too small, and the fifth don't care for
them, and do what they like in the house."
"And so we get a double set of masters," cried Tom, indignantly; "the
lawful ones, who are responsible to the Doctor at any rate, and the unlawful
—the tyrants, who are responsible to nobody."
"Down with the tyrants!" cried East; "I'm all for law and order, and 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
one without a kick or an oath—"
"The cowardly brute," broke in East, "how I hate him! And he knows it
too; he knows that you and I think him a coward. What a bore that he's got a
study in this passage! don't you hear them now at supper in his den? Brandy
punch going, I'll bet. I wish the Doctor would come out and catch him. We
must change our study as soon as we can."
"Change or no change, I'll never fag for him again," said Tom, thumping
the table.
"Fa-a-a-ag!" sounded along the passage from Flashman's study. The two
boys looked at one another in silence. It had struck nine, so the regular
night-fags had left duty, and they were the nearest to the supper party. East
sat up and began to look comical, as he always did under difficulties.
"Fa-a-a-ag!" again. No answer.
"Here, Brown! East! you cursed young skulks," roared out Flashman,
coming to his open door, "I know you're in—no shirking."
Tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as noiselessly as he could;
East blew out the candle. "Barricade the first," whispered he. "Now, Tom,
mind, no surrender."
"Trust me for that," said Tom between his teeth.

In another minute they heard the supper-party turn out and come down
the passage to their door. They held their breaths, and heard whispering, of
which they only made out Flashman's words, "I know the young brutes are
in."
Then came summonses to open, which being unanswered, the assault
commenced: luckily the door was a good strong oak one, and resisted the
united weight of Flashman's party. A pause followed, and they heard a
besieger remark, "They're in, safe enough—don't you see how the door
holds at top and bottom? so the bolts must be drawn. We should have forced
the lock long ago." East gave Tom a nudge, to call attention to this scientific
remark.
Then came attacks on particular panels, one of which at last gave way to
the repeated kicks; but it broke inwards, and the broken piece got jammed
across, the door being lined with green-baize, and couldn't easily be
removed from outside; and the besieged, scorning further concealment,
strengthened their defences by pressing the end of their sofa against the
door. So after one or two more ineffectual efforts, Flashman and 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 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, that 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; had given out that any boy, in whatever form, who
should thenceforth appeal to a master, without having first gone to some
præpostor and laid the case before him, should be thrashed publicly, and
sent to Coventry.
"Well, then, let's try the sixth. Try Morgan," suggested another. "No
use"—"Blabbing won't do," was the general feeling.
"I'll give you fellows a piece of advice," said a voice from the end of the
Hall. They all turned round with a start, and the speaker got up from a
bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a shake;
he was a big loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown too far
through his jacket and trousers. "Don't you go to anybody at all—you just
stand out; say you won't fag—they'll soon get tired of licking you. I've tried
it on years ago with their forerunners."
"No! did you? tell us how it was," cried a chorus of voices, as they
clustered round him.
"Well, just as it is with you. The fifth-form would fag us, and I and some
more struck, and we beat 'em. The good fellows left off directly, and the
bullies who kept on soon got afraid."
"Was Flashman here then?"
"Yes! and a dirty little snivelling, sneaking fellow he was too. He never
dared join us, and used to toady the bullies by offering to fag for them, and
peaching against the rest of us."
"Why wasn't he cut then?" said East.

"Oh, toadies never get cut, they're too useful. Besides, he has no end of
great hampers from home, with wine and game in them; so he toadied and
fed himself into favour."
The quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off 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 destroying
clothes, and making himself look shabby. He wasn't on terms with
Flashman's set, who sneered at his dress and ways behind his back, which
he knew, and revenged himself by asking Flashman the most disagreeable
questions, and treating him familiarly whenever a crowd of boys were
round them. Neither was he intimate with any of the other bigger boys, who
were warned off by his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow; besides,
amongst other failings, he had that of impecuniosity in a remarkable degree.
He brought as much money as other boys to school, but got rid of it in no
time, no one knew how. And then, being also reckless, borrowed from
anyone, and when his debts accumulated and creditors pressed, would have
an auction in the Hall of everything he possessed in the world, selling even
his school-books, candlestick, and study table. For weeks after one of these
auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, he would live about in
the fifth-form room and Hall, doing his verses on old letter-backs and odd
scraps of paper, and learning his lessons no one knew how. He never
meddled with any little boy, and was popular with them, though they all
looked on him with a sort of compassion, and called him "poor Diggs," not
being able to resist appearances, or to disregard wholly even the sneers of
their enemy Flashman. However, he seemed equally indifferent to the
sneers of big boys and the pity of small ones, and lived his own queer life
with much apparent enjoyment to himself. It is necessary to introduce
Diggs thus particularly, as he not only did Tom and East good service in
their present warfare, as is about to be told, but soon afterwards, when he
got into the sixth, chose them for his fags, and excused them from study-

fagging, thereby earning unto himself eternal gratitude from them, and all
who are interested in their history.
And seldom had small boys more need of a friend, for the morning after
the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in all its violence. Flashman laid
wait, and caught Tom before second lesson, and receiving a point blank
"No," when told to fetch his hat, seized him and twisted his arm, and went
through the other methods of torture in use:—"He couldn't make me cry
though," as Tom said triumphantly to the rest of the rebels, "and I kicked his
shins well, I know." And soon it crept out that a lot of the fags were in
league, and Flashman excited his associates to join him in bringing the
young vagabonds to their senses; and the house was filled with constant
chasings, and sieges, and lickings of all sorts; and in return, the bullies' beds
were pulled to pieces, and drenched with water, and their names written up
on the walls with every insulting epithet which the fag invention could
furnish. The war in short raged fiercely; but soon, as Diggs had told them,
all the better fellows in the fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public
feeling began to set against Flashman and his two or three intimates, and
they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, but being thorough bad
fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private. Flashman was an
adept in all ways, but above all in the power of saying cutting and cruel
things, and could often bring tears to the eyes of boys in this way, which all
the thrashings in the world wouldn't have wrung from them.
And as his operations were being cut short in other directions, he now
devoted himself chiefly to Tom and East, who lived at his own door, and
would force himself into their study whenever he found a chance, and sit
there, sometimes alone, 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 disgrace shouted out by
small boys, to feel that they despised him, to be unable to silence them by
any amount of torture, and to see the open laugh and sneer of his own
associates (who were looking on and took no trouble to hide their scorn
from him, though they neither interfered with his bullying 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 fought out in the little cockpit at the end of the bottom passage.
Flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old, and big and strong
of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted,
and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was; and having a
bluff off-hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable
powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the School in
general for a good fellow enough. Even in the School-house, by dint of his
command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept up,
and his adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only
tolerated, but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries; although
young Brooke scarcely spoke to him, and one or two others of the right sort
showed their opinions of him whenever a chance offered. But the wrong
sort happened to be in the ascendant just now, so Flashman was a
formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough.
Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, which could in
any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the house. One by
one most of the other rebels fell away from them, while Flashman's cause
prospered, and several other fifth-form boys began to look black at them
and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. By keeping out of bounds,
or at all events out of the house and quadrangle, all day, and carefully
barring themselves in at night, East and Tom managed to hold on without
feeling very miserable; but it was as much as they could do. Greatly were
they drawn then towards old Diggs, who, in an uncouth way, began to take

a good deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to their study when
Flashman was there, who immediately decamped in consequence. The boys
thought that Diggs must have been watching.
When therefore, about this time, an auction was one night announced to
take place in the Hall, at which, amongst the superfluities of other boys, all
Diggs' 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 1, price one-and-threepence, consisting (as the
auctioneer remarked) of a "valuable assortment of old metals," in the shape
of a mouse-trap, a cheese-toaster without a handle, and a saucepan: lot 2, of
a villanous dirty table-cloth and a green-baize curtain; while East for one-
and-sixpence purchased a leather paper-case, with a lock but no key, once
handsome, but now much the worse for wear. But they had still the point to
settle of how to get Diggs to take the things without hurting his feelings.
This they solved by leaving them in his study, which was never locked
when he was out. Diggs, who had attended the auction, remembered who
had bought the lots, and came to their study soon after, and sat silent for
some time, cracking his great red finger-joints. Then he laid hold of their
verses, and began looking over and altering them, and at last got up, and
turning his back to them, said, "You're uncommon good-hearted little
beggars, you two—I value that paper-case; my sister gave it me last
holidays—I won't forget;" and so tumbled out into the passage, leaving
them somewhat embarrassed, but not sorry that he knew what they had
done.
The next morning was Saturday, the day on which the allowances of one
shilling a-week were paid, an important event to spendthrift youngsters; and
great was the disgust amongst the small fry to hear that all the allowances
had been impounded for the Derby lottery. That great event in the English
year, the Derby, was celebrated at Rugby in those days by many lotteries. It
was not an improving custom, I own, gentle reader, and led to making
books and betting and other objectionable results; but when our great
Houses of Palaver think it right to stop the nation's business on that day, and
many of the members bet heavily themselves, can you blame us boys for
following the example of our betters?—at any rate we did follow it. First

there was the great School lottery, where the first prize was six or seven
pounds; then each House had one or more separate lotteries. These were all
nominally voluntary, no boy being compelled to put in his shilling who
didn't choose to do so: but besides Flashman, there were three or four other
fast sporting young gentlemen in the 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 sportsmen of the
School-house, the lottery's going to be drawn in the Hall." It was pleasant to
be called a gentleman sports man—also to have a chance of drawing a
favourite horse.
The Hall was full of boys, and at the head of one of the long tables stood
the sporting interest, with a hat before them, in which were the tickets
folded up. One of them then began calling out the list of the House; each
boy as his name was called drew a ticket from the hat and opened it; and
most of the bigger boys, after drawing, left the Hall directly to go back to
their studies or the fifth-form room. The sporting interest had all drawn
blanks, and they were sulky accordingly; neither of the favourites had yet
been drawn, and it had come down to the upper-fourth. So now, as each
small boy came up and drew his ticket, it was seized and opened by
Flashman, or some other of the standers-by. But no great favourite is drawn
until it comes to the Tadpole's turn, and he shuffles up and draws, and tries
to make off, but is caught, and his ticket is opened like the rest.
"Here you are! Wanderer! the third favourite," shouts the opener.
"I say, just give me my ticket, please," remonstrates Tadpole.
"Hullo, don't be in a hurry," breaks in Flashman; "what'll you sell
Wanderer for, now?"
"I don't want to sell," rejoins Tadpole.

"Oh, don't you! Now listen, you young fool—you don't know anything
about it; the horse is no use to you. He won't win, but I want him as a
hedge. Now I'll give you half-a-crown for him." Tadpole holds out, but
between threats and cajoleries at length sells half for one-shilling-and-
sixpence, about a fifth of its fair market value; however, he is glad to realize
anything, and as he wisely remarks, "Wanderer mayn't win, and the tizzy is
safe anyhow."
East presently comes up and draws a blank. Soon after comes Tom's
turn; his ticket, like the others, is seized and opened. "Here you are then,"
shouts the opener, holding it up, "Harkaway! By Jove, Flashey, your young
friend's in luck."
"Give me the ticket," says Flashman with an oath, leaning across the
table with open hand, and his face black with rage.
"Wouldn't you like it?" replies the opener, not a bad fellow at the bottom,
and no admirer of Flashman's. "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 offer, when
another cries out, "I'll give you seven shillings." Tom hesitated, and looked
from one to the other.
"No, no!" said Flashman, pushing in, "leave me to deal with him; we'll
draw lots for it afterwards. Now, sir, you know me—you'll sell Harkaway to

us for five shillings, or you'll repent it."
"I won't sell a bit of him," answered Tom, shortly.
"You hear that now!" said Flashman, turning to the others. "He's the
coxiest young blackguard in the house—I always told you so. We're to have
all the trouble and risk of getting up the lotteries for the benefit of such
fellows as he."
Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, but he speaks to willing
ears. Gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as men.
"That's true,—we always draw blanks," cried one. "Now, sir, you shall
sell half, at any rate."
"I won't," said Tom, flushing up to his hair, and lumping them all in his
mind with his sworn enemy.
"Very well then, let's roast him," cried Flashman, and catches hold of
Tom by the collar: one or two boys hesitate, but the rest join in. East seizes
Tom's arm and tries to pull him away, but is knocked back by one of the
boys, and Tom is dragged along, struggling. His shoulders are pushed
against the mantelpiece, and he is held by main force before the fire,
Flashman drawing his trousers tight by way of extra torture. Poor East, in
more pain even than Tom, suddenly thinks of Diggs, and darts off to find
him. "Will you sell him for ten shillings?" says one boy who is relenting.
Tom only answers by groans and struggles.
"I say, Flashey, he has had enough," says the same boy, dropping the arm
he holds.
"No, no; another turn'll do it," answers Flashman. But poor Tom is done
already, turns deadly pale, and his head falls forward on his breast, just as
Diggs, in frantic excitement, rushes into the Hall with East at his heels.
"You cowardly brutes!" is all he can say, as he catches Tom from them
and supports him to the Hall table. "Good God! he's dying. Here, get some
cold water—run for the housekeeper."

Flashman and one or two others slink away; the rest, ashamed and sorry,
bend over Tom or run for water, while East darts off for the housekeeper.
Water comes, and they throw it on his hands and face, and he begins to
come to. "Mother!"—the words came feebly and slowly—"it's very cold to-
night." Poor old Diggs is blubbering like a child. "Where am I?" goes on
Tom, opening his eyes. "Ah! I remember now," and he shut his eyes again
and groaned.
"I say," is whispered, "we can't do any good, and the housekeeper will be
here in a minute," and all but one steal away; he stays with Diggs, silent and
sorrowful, and fans Tom's face.
The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and Tom soon recovers
enough to sit up. There is a smell of burning; she examines his clothes, and
looks up inquiringly. The boys are silent.
"How did he come so?" No answer.
"There's been some bad work here," she adds, looking very serious, "and
I shall speak to the Doctor about it." Still no answer.
"Hadn't we better carry him to the sick-room?" suggests Diggs.
"Oh, I can walk now," says Tom; and, supported by East and the
housekeeper, goes to the sick-room. The boy who held his ground is soon
amongst the rest, who are all in fear of their lives. "Did he peach?" "Does
she know about it?"
"Not a word—he's a stanch little fellow." And pausing a moment he
adds, "I'm sick of this work: what brutes we've been!"
Meantime Tom is stretched on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, with
East by his side, while she gets wine and water and other restoratives.
"Are you much hurt, dear old boy?" whispers East.
"Only the back of my legs," answers Tom. They are indeed badly
scorched, and part of his trousers burnt through. But soon he is in bed with
cold bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and
getting taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings
through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmuring—

"Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest."
But after a sound night's rest the old boy-spirit comes back again. East
comes in reporting that the whole House is with him, and he forgets
everything except their old resolve, never to be beaten by that bully
Flashman.
Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them, and
though the Doctor knew all that she knew that morning, he never knew any
more.
I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school, and
that lotteries and betting-books have gone out; but I am writing of schools
as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the good.

CHAPTER IX.
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.

"Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous
chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hairbreadth '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
brutality had disgusted most even
of his intimate friends, and his
cowardice had once more been
made plain to the House; for Diggs
had encountered him on the
morning after the lottery, and after
high words on both sides had
struck him, and the blow was not
returned. However, Flashey was
not unused to this sort of thing, and
had lived through as awkward
affairs before, and, as Diggs had
said, fed and toadied himself back
into favour again. Two or three of
the boys who had helped to roast
Tom came up and begged his pardon, and thanked him for not telling
anything. Morgan sent for him, and was inclined to take the matter up
warmly, but Tom begged him not to do it; to which he agreed, on Tom's
promising to come to him at once in future—a promise which I regret to say
he didn't keep. Tom kept Harkaway all to himself, and won the second prize
in the lottery, some thirty shillings, which he and East contrived to spend in

about three days, in the purchase of pictures for their study, two new bats
and a cricket-ball, all the best that could be got, and a supper of sausages,
kidneys, and beef-steak pies to all the rebels. Light come, light go; they
wouldn't have been comfortable with money in their pockets in the middle
of the half.
The embers of Flashman's wrath, however, were still smouldering, and
burst out every now and then in sly blows and taunts, and they both felt that
they hadn't quite done with him yet. It wasn't long, however, before the last
act of that drama came, and with it, the end of bullying for Tom and East at
Rugby. They now often stole out into the Hall at nights, incited thereto,
partly by the hope of finding Diggs there and having a talk with him, partly
by the excitement of doing something which was against rules; for, sad to
say, both of our youngsters, since their loss of character for steadiness in
their form, had got into the habit of doing things which were forbidden, as a
matter of adventure; just in the same way, I should fancy, as men fall into
smuggling, and for the same sort of reasons. Thoughtlessness in the first
place. It never occurred to them to consider why such and such rules were
laid down; the reason was nothing to them; and they only looked upon rules
as a sort of challenge from the rule-makers, which it would be rather bad
pluck in them not to accept; and then again, in the lower parts of the school
they hadn't enough to do. The work of the form they could manage to get
through pretty easily, keeping a good enough place to get their regular
yearly remove; and not having much ambition beyond this, their whole
superfluous steam was available for games and scrapes. Now, one rule of
the House which it was a daily pleasure of all such boys to break, was that
after supper all fags, except the three on duty in the passages, should remain
in their own studies until nine o'clock; and if caught about the passages or
Hall, or in one another's studies, they were liable to punishments or caning.
The rule was stricter than its observance; for most of the sixth spent their
evenings in the fifth-form room, where the library was, and the lessons
were learnt in common. Every now and then, however, a præpostor would
be seized with a fit of district visiting, and would make a tour of the
passages and Hall and the fags' studies. Then, if the owner were
entertaining a friend or two, the first kick at the door and ominous "Open
here," had the effect of the shadow of a hawk over a chicken-yard; every
one cut to cover—one small boy diving under the sofa, another under the

table, while the owner would hastily pull down a book or two and open
them, and cry out in a meek voice, "Hullo, who's there?" casting an anxious
eye round to see that no protruding leg or elbow could betray the hidden
boys. "Open, sir, directly; it's Snooks." "Oh, I'm very sorry; I didn't know it
was you, Snooks;" and then, with well-feigned zeal, the door would be
opened, young hopeful praying that that beast Snooks mightn't have heard
the scuffle caused by his coming. If a study was empty, Snooks proceeded
to draw the passages and Hall to find the truants.
Well, one evening, in forbidden hours, Tom and East were in the Hall.
They occupied the seats before the fire nearest the door, while Diggs
sprawled as usual before the 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 præpostor, and then went on with their work, and
the door swung open, and in walked Flashman. He didn't see Diggs, and
thought it a good chance to keep his hand in; and as the boys didn't move
for him, struck one of them, to make them get out of his way.
"What's that for?" growled the assaulted one.
"Because I choose. You've no business here; go to your study."
"You can't send us."
"Can't I? Then I'll thrash you if you stay," said Flashman, savagely.
"I say, you two," said Diggs, from the end of the Hall, rousing up and
resting himself on his elbow, "you'll never get rid of that fellow till you lick
him. Go in at him, both of you—I'll see fair play."
Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. East looked at Tom.
"Shall we try?" said he. "Yes," said Tom, desperately. So the two advanced
on Flashman, with clenched fists and beating hearts. They were about up to
his shoulder, but tough boys of their age, and in perfect training: while he,
though strong and big, was in poor condition, from his monstrous habits 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 moment, and then over they went
on to the floor, Flashman striking his head against a form in the Hall.
The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay there still. They
began to be frightened. Tom stooped down, and then cried out, scared out of
his wits. "He's bleeding awfully; come here, East, Diggs,—he's dying!"
"Not he," said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table; "it's all sham—he's
only afraid to fight it out."
East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted Flashman's head, and he
groaned.
"What's the matter?" shouted Diggs.
"My skull's fractured," sobbed Flashman.
"Oh, let me run for the housekeeper," cried Tom. "What shall we do?"

"Fiddlesticks! it's nothing but the skin broken," said the relentless Diggs,
feeling his head. "Cold water and a bit of rag's all he'll want."
"Let me go," said Flashman, surlily, sitting up; "I don't want your help."
"We're really very sorry," began East.
"Hang your sorrow," answered Flashman, holding his handkerchief to
the place; "you shall pay for this, I can tell you, both of you." And he
walked out of the Hall.
"He can't be very bad," said Tom with a deep sigh, much relieved to see
his enemy march so well.
"Not he," said Diggs, "and you'll see you won't be troubled with him any
more. But, I say, your head's broken too—your collar is covered with
blood."
"Is it, though?" said Tom, putting up his hand; "I didn't know it."
"Well, mop it up, or you'll have your jacket spoilt. And you have got a
nasty eye, Scud; you'd better go and bathe it well in cold water."
"Cheap enough too, if we've done with our old friend Flashey," said
East, as they made off up stairs to bathe their wounds.
They had done with Flashman in one sense, for he never laid finger on
either of them again; but whatever harm a spiteful heart and venomous
tongue could do them he took care should be done. Only throw dirt enough,
and some of it is sure to stick; and so it was with the fifth form and the
bigger boys in general, with whom he associated more or less, and they not
at all. Flashman managed to get Tom and East into disfavour, which did not
wear off for some time after the author of it had disappeared from the
School world. This event, much prayed for by the small fry in general, took
place a few months after the above encounter. One fine summer evening
Flashman had been regaling himself on gin-punch, at Brownsover; and
having exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in with a
friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which
they assented, the weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of
the quantity of drink which Flashman had already on board. The short result

was, that Flashey became beastly drunk; they tried to get him along, but
couldn't; so they chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of the
masters came upon them, and they naturally enough fled. The flight of the
rest raised the master's suspicions, and the good angel of the fags incited
him to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle
himself up to the School-house; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye
on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning.
The evil that men, and boys too, do, lives after them: Flashman was
gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still felt the effects of his hate. Besides,
they had been the movers of the strike against unlawful fagging. The cause
was righteous—the result had been triumphant to a great extent; but the best
of the fifth, even those who had never fagged the small boys, or had given
up the practice cheerfully, couldn't help feeling a small grudge against the
first rebels. After all, their form had been defied—on just grounds, no
doubt; so just, indeed, that they had at once acknowledged the wrong and
remained passive in the strife: had they sided with Flashman and his set, the
rebels must have given way at once. They couldn't help, on the whole,
being glad that they had so acted, and that the resistance had been
successful against such of their own form as had shown fight; they felt that
law and order had gained thereby, but the ringleaders they couldn't quite
pardon at once. "Confoundedly coxy those young rascals will get, if we
don't mind," was the general feeling.
So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If the Angel Gabriel were to
come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most
abominable and unrighteous vested interest, which this poor old world
groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for many years,
probably for centuries, not only with upholders of said vested interest, but
with the respectable mass of the people whom he had delivered. They
wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear with his in the papers;
they would be very careful how they spoke of him in the Palaver, or at their
clubs. What can we expect, then, when we have only poor gallant
blundering men like Kossuth, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and righteous causes
which do not triumph in their hands; men who have holes enough in their
armour, God knows, easy to be hit by respectabilities sitting in their
lounging chairs, and having large balances at their bankers? But you are
brave, gallant boys, who hate easy-chairs, and have no balances or bankers.

You only want to have your heads set straight to take the right side: so bear
in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out of
ten in the wrong; and that if you see a man or boy striving earnestly on the
weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may be, you are not to
go and join the cry against him. If you can't join him and help him, and
make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the
world which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you have got to
do for yourselves; and so think and speak of him tenderly.
So East and Tom, the Tadpole, and one or two more, became a sort of
young Ishmaelites, their hands against every one, and every one's hand
against them. It has been already told how they got to war with the masters
and the fifth form, and with the sixth it was much the same. They saw the
præpostors 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 quite another to do the like for Snooks and Green, who had never faced
a good scrummage at football, and couldn't keep the passages in order at
night. So they only slurred through their fagging just well enough to escape
a licking, and not always that, and got the character of sulky, unwilling fags.
In the fifth-form room, after supper, when such matters were often
discussed and arranged, their names were for ever coming up.
"I say, Green," Snooks began one night, "isn't that new boy, Harrison,
your fag?"
"Yes; why?"
"Oh, I know something of him at home, and should like to excuse him—
will you swop?"
"Who will you give me?"
"Well, let's see; there's Willis, Johnson—No, that won't do. Yes, I have it
—there's young East, I'll give you him."
"Don't you wish you may get it?" replied Green. "I'll tell you what I'll do
—I'll give you two for Willis if you like."
"Who then?" 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 mantelpiece—he wasn't a bad
fellow, and couldn't help not being able to put down the unruly fifth form.
His eye twinkled as he went on, "Did I ever tell you how the young
vagabond sold me last half?"
"No; how?"
"Well, he never half cleaned my study out, only just stuck the
candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the crumbs on to the floor. So at
last I was mortal angry, and had him up, made him go through the whole
performance under my eyes: the dust the young scamp made nearly choked
me, and showed that he hadn't swept the carpet before. Well, when it was all
finished, 'Now, young gentleman,' says I, 'mind, I expect this to be done
every morning, floor swept, table-cloth taken off and shaken, and
everything dusted.' 'Very well,' grunts he. Not a bit of it though—I was quite
sure in a day or two that he never took the table-cloth off even. So I laid a
trap for him: I tore up some paper and put half-a-dozen bits on my table one
night, and the cloth over them as usual. Next morning, after breakfast, up I
came, pulled off the cloth, and sure enough there was the paper, which
fluttered down on to the floor. I was in a towering rage. 'I've got you now,'
thought I, and sent for him, while I got out my cane. Up he came as cool as
you please, with his hands in his pockets 'Didn't I tell you to shake my
table-cloth every morning?' roared I. 'Yes,' says he. 'Did you do it this
morning?' 'Yes.' 'You young liar! I put these pieces of paper on the table last
night, and if you'd taken the table-cloth off' you'd have seen them, so I'm
going to give you a good licking.' Then my youngster takes one hand out of
his pocket, and just stoops down and picks up two of the bits of paper, and
holds them out to me. There was written on each, in great round text, 'Harry
East, his mark.' The young rogue had found my trap out, taken away my
paper, and put some of his there, every bit ear-marked. I'd a great mind to
lick him for his impudence, but after all one has no right to be laying traps,
so I didn't. Of course I was at his mercy till the end of the half, and in his
weeks my study was so 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, 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 circumstances, partly from the faults
of others, they found themselves outlaws, ticket-of-leave men, or what you
will in that line: in short, dangerous parties, and lived the sort of hand-to-
mouth, wild, reckless life which such parties generally have to put up with.
Nevertheless, they never quite lost favour with young Brooke, who was
now the cock of the house, and just getting into the sixth, and Diggs stuck
to them like a man, and gave them store of good advice, by which they
never in the least profited.
And even after the house mended, and law and order had been restored,
which soon happened after young Brooke and Diggs got into the sixth, they
couldn't easily or at once return into the paths of steadiness, and many of
the old wild out-of-bounds habits stuck to them as firmly as ever. While
they had been quite little boys, the scrapes they got into in the School hadn't
much mattered to anyone; but now they were in the upper school, all
wrong-doers from which were sent up straight to the Doctor at once: so they
began to come under his notice; and as they were a sort of leaders in a small
way amongst their own contemporaries, his eye, which was everywhere,
was upon them.
It was a toss-up whether they turned out well or ill, and so they were just
the boys who caused most anxiety to such a master. You have been told of
the first occasion on which they were sent up to the Doctor, and the
remembrance of it was so pleasant that they had much less fear of him than
most boys of their standing had. "It's all his look," Tom used to say to East,

"that frightens fellows: don't you remember, he never said anything to us
my first half-year, for being an hour late for locking up?"
The next time that Tom came before him, however, the interview was of
a very different kind. It happened just about the time at which we have now
arrived, and was the first of a series of scrapes into which our hero managed
now to tumble.
The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very clear stream, in which
chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful enough,
together with a fair sprinkling of small jack, but no fish worth sixpence
either for sport or food. It is, however, a capital river for bathing, as it has
many nice small pools and several good reaches for swimming, all within
about a mile of one another, and at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the
school. This mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for bathing
purposes, by the Trustees of the School, for the boys. The footpath to
Brownsover crosses the river by "the Planks," a curious old single-plank
bridge, running for fifty or sixty yards into the flat meadows on each side of
the river,—for in the winter there are frequent floods. Above the Planks
were the bathing places for the smaller boys; Sleath's, the first bathing place
where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved to the bathing men
(three steady individuals who were paid to attend daily through the summer
to prevent accidents) that they could swim pretty decently, when they were
allowed to go on to Anstey's, about one hundred and fifty yards below. Here
there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the
puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of
themselves for having been out of their depths. Below the Planks came
larger and deeper holes, the first of which was Wratislaw's, and the last
Swift's, a famous hole, ten or twelve feet deep in parts, and thirty yards
across, from which there was a fine swimming reach right down to the Mill.
Swift's was reserved for the sixth and fifth forms, and had a spring board
and two sets of steps: the others had one set of steps each, and were used
indifferently by all the lower boys, though each house addicted itself more
to one hole than to another. The School-house at this time affected
Wratislaw's hole, and Tom and East, who had learnt to swim like fishes,
were to be found there as regular as the clock through the summer, always
twice, and often three times a day.

Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right also to fish at their
pleasure over the whole of this part of the river, and would not understand
that the right (if any) only extended to the Rugby side. As ill luck would
have it, the gentleman who owned the opposite bank, after allowing it for
some time without interference, had ordered his keepers not to let the boys
fish on his side; the consequence of which had been, that there had been
first wranglings and then fights between the keepers and boys; and so keen
had the quarrel become, that the landlord and his keepers, after a ducking
had been inflicted on one of the latter, and a fierce fight ensued thereon, had
been up to the great School at calling-over to identify the delinquents, and it
was all the Doctor himself and five or six masters could do to keep the
peace. Not even his authority could prevent the hissing; and so strong was
the feeling, that the four præpostors 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 hornets' nest about their ears.
The landlord was hissed at the School gates as he rode past, and when he
charged his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to thrash them with his
whip, was driven back by cricket-bats and wickets, and pursued with
pebbles and fives'-balls; while the wretched keepers' lives were a 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 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 approaching 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? what business is that of yours, old Velveteens?"
"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'll put
you up to a wrinkle or two for catching the five-pounders." Tom was nearest
to the keeper, and that officer, who was getting angry at the chaff, fixed his
eyes on our hero, as if to take a note of him for future use. Tom returned his
gaze with a steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, and struck into the
middle of a favourite School-house song—
As I and my companions
Were setting of a snare,
The gamekeeper was watching us,
For him we did not care:
For we can wrestle and fight, my boys,
And jump out anywhere.
For it's my delight of a likely night,
In the season of the year.
The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts of laughter, and
the keeper turned away with a grunt, but evidently bent on mischief. The
boys thought no more of the matter.

But now came on the may-fly season; the soft hazy summer weather lay
sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, and the green and 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 ephemeræ; 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 mighty ones feeding in a pool on the opposite side,
under the shade of a huge willow-tree. The stream was deep here, but some
fifty yards below was a shallow, for which he made off hot-foot; and
forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, and
everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and in three minutes
was creeping along on all fours towards the clump of willows.
It isn't often that great chub, or any other coarse fish are in earnest about
anything, but just then they were thoroughly bent on feeding, and in half-
an-hour Master Tom had deposited three thumping fellows at the foot of the
giant willow. As he was baiting for a fourth pounder, and just going to
throw in again, he became aware of a man coming up the bank not one
hundred yards off. Another look told him that it was the under-keeper.
Could he reach the shallow before him? No, not carrying his rod. Nothing
for it but the tree: so Tom laid his bones to it, shinning up as fast as he
could, and dragging up his rod after him. He had just time to reach and
crouch along upon a huge branch some ten feet up, which stretched out over
the river, when the keeper arrived at the clump. Tom's heart beat fast as he
came under the tree; two steps more and he would have passed, when, as
ill-luck would have it, the gleam on the scales of the dead fish caught his
eye, and he made a dead point at the foot of the tree. He picked up the fish
one by one; his eye and touch told him that they had been alive and feeding

within the hour. Tom crouched
lower along the branch, and heard
the keeper beating the clump. "If I
could only get the rod hidden,"
thought he, and began gently
shifting it to get it alongside him;
"willow-trees don't throw out
straight hickory shoots twelve feet
along, 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
TOM DISCOVERED BY VELVETEENS.
the branch for a plunge and
P. 199.
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 med 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."
The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill, and light it,
keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately across the branch,
looking at keeper—a pitiful sight for men and fishes. The more he thought
of it the less he liked it. "It must be getting near second calling-over," thinks
he. Keeper smokes on stolidly. "If he takes me up, I shall be flogged safe
enough. I can't sit here all night. Wonder if he'll rise at silver.
"I say, keeper," said he meekly, "let me go for two bob?"
"Not for twenty neither," grunts his persecutor.
And so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and the sun came
slanting in through the willow-branches, and telling of locking-up near at
hand.
"I'm coming down, keeper," said Tom at last with a sigh, fairly tired out.
"Now what are you going to do?"
"Walk 'ee up to School, and give 'ee over to the Doctor; them's my
orders," says Velveteens, knocking the ashes out of his fourth pipe, and
standing up and shaking himself.
"Very good," said Tom; "but hands off, you know. I'll go with you
quietly, so no collaring or that sort of thing."
Keeper looked at him a minute—"Werry good," said he at last; and so
Tom descended, and wended his way drearily by the side of the keeper up
to the 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.
How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the last time that Tom
was up there, as the keeper told the story, not omitting to state how Tom had
called him blackguard names. "Indeed, sir," broke in the culprit, "it was
only Velveteens." The Doctor only asked one question.
"You know the rule about the banks, Brown?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson."
"I thought so," muttered Tom.
"And about the rod, sir?" went on the keeper; "Master's told we as we
might have all the rods—"
"Oh, please, sir," broke in Tom, "the rod isn't mine." The Doctor looked
puzzled, but the keeper, who was a good-hearted fellow, and melted at
Tom's evident distress, gave up his claim. Tom was flogged next morning,
and a few days afterwards met Velveteens, and presented him with half-a-
crown for giving up the rod claim, and they became sworn friends; and I
regret to say that Tom had many more fish from under the willow that may-
fly season, and was never caught again by Velveteens.
It wasn't three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, were again
in the awful presence. This time, however, the Doctor was not so terrible. A
few days before, they had been fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went
off the court. While standing watching the game, they saw five or six nearly
new balls hit on the top of the School. "I say, Tom," said East, when they
were dismissed, "couldn't we get those balls somehow?"
"Let's try, anyhow."
So they reconnoitred the walls carefully, borrowed a coal-hammer from
old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one or two attempts, scaled the
Schools, and possessed themselves of huge quantities of fives'-balls. The
place pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time there,

scratching and cutting their names on the top of every tower; and at last,
having exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing H. East, T.
Brown, on the minute-hand of the great clock. In the doing of which they
held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock's economy. So next morning,
when masters and boys came trooping down to prayers, and entered the
quadrangle, the injured minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the
hour. They all pulled up, and took their time. When the hour struck, doors
were closed, and half the school late. Thomas being sent to make inquiry,
discovers their names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly; and
they are sent for, a knot of their friends making derisive and pantomimic
allusions to what their fate will be, as they walk off.
But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much of it, and
only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by heart, and a lecture on the
likelihood of such exploits ending in broken bones.
Alas! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the town; and as
several rows and other disagreeable accidents had of late taken place on
these occasions, the Doctor gives out, after prayers in the morning, that no
boy is to go down into the town. Wherefore East and Tom, for no earthly
pleasure except that of doing what they are told not to do, start away, after
second lesson, and making a short circuit through the fields, strike a back
lane which leads into the town, go down it, and run plump upon one of the
masters as they emerge into the High Street. The master in question, though
a very clever, is not a righteous man: he has already caught several of his
own pupils, and gives them lines to learn, while he sends East and Tom,
who are not his pupils, up to the Doctor; who, on learning that they had
been at prayers in the morning, flogs them soundly.
The flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice of their
captor was rankling in their minds; but it was just at 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 is 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 very seriously before they go home. They have each been flogged
several times in the half-year for direct and wilful breaches of rules. This

cannot go on. They are doing no good to themselves or others, and now
they are getting up in the School, and have influence. They seem to think
that rules are made capriciously, and for the pleasure of the masters; but this
is not so, they are made for the good of the whole School, and must and
shall be obeyed. Those who thoughtlessly or wilfully break them will not be
allowed to stay at the School. He should be sorry if they had to leave, as the
School might do them both much good, and wishes them to think very
seriously in the holidays over what he has said. Good night."
And so the two hurry off horribly scared: the idea of having to leave has
never crossed their minds, and is quite unbearable.
As they go out, they meet at the door old Holmes, a sturdy cheery
præpostor of another house, who goes in to 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."

Now I don't want any wiseacres to read this book; but if they should, of
course they will prick up their long ears, and howl, or rather bray, at the
above story. Very good, I don't object; but what I have to add for you boys
is this: that Holmes called a levy of his house after breakfast next morning,
made them a speech on the case of bullying in question, and then gave the
bully a "good sound thrashing;" and that years afterwards, that boy sought
out Holmes, and thanked him, saying it had been the kindest act which had
ever been done upon him, and the turning-point in his character; and a very
good fellow he became, and a credit to his School.
After some other talk between them, the Doctor said, "I want to speak to
you about two boys in your form, East and Brown: I have just been
speaking to them. What do you think of them?"
"Well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless and full of spirits
—but I can't help liking them. I think they are sound good fellows at the
bottom."
"I'm glad of it. I think so too. But they make me very uneasy. They are
taking the lead a good deal amongst the fags in my house, for they are very
active, bold fellows. I should be sorry to lose them, but I shan't let them stay
if I don't see them gaining character and manliness. In another year they
may do great harm to all the younger boys."
"Oh, I hope you won't send them away," pleaded their master.
"Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after any half-holiday,
that I shan't have to flog one of them next morning, for some foolish,
thoughtless scrape. I quite dread seeing either of them."
They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doctor began again:—
"They don't feel that they have any duty or work to do in the School, and
how is one to make them feel it?"
"I think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, it would
steady them. Brown is the most reckless of the two, I should say; East
wouldn't get into so many scrapes without him."

"Well," said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, "I'll think of it." And
they went on to talk of other subjects.

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS.
PART II.

CHAPTER I.
HOW THE TIDE TURNED.

"Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to
decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or
evil side:
* * * * *
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward
stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified."
Lowell.
HE turning-point in our hero's
school career had now come, and
the manner of it was as follows.
On the evening of the first day of
the next half-year, Tom, East, and
another School-house boy, who
had just been dropped at the
Spread Eagle by the old
Regulator, rushed into the
matron's room in high spirits, such
as all real boys are in when they
first get back, however fond they
may be of home.
"Well, Mrs. Wixie," shouted
one, seizing on the methodical,
active little dark-eyed woman,
who was busy stowing away the
linen of the boys who had already
arrived into their several pigeon-

holes, "here we are again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let us help you put the
things away."
"And, Mary," cried another (she was called indifferently by either name),
"who's come back? Has the Doctor made old Jones leave? How many new
boys are there?"
"Am I and East to have Gray's study? You know you promised to get it
for us if you could," shouted Tom.
"And am I to sleep in Number 4?" roared East.
"How's old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally?"
"Bless the boys!" cries Mary, at last getting in a word, "why, you'll shake
me to death. There now, do go away up to the housekeeper's room and get
your suppers; you know I haven't time to talk—you'll find plenty more in
the house. Now, Master East, do let those things alone—you're mixing up
three new boys' things." And she rushed at East, who escaped round the
open trunks holding up a prize.
"Hullo, look here, Tommy," shouted he, "here's fun!" and he brandished
above his head some pretty little night-caps, beautifully made and marked,
the work of loving fingers in some distant country home. The kind mother
and sisters, who sewed that delicate stitching with aching hearts, little
thought of the trouble they might be bringing on the young head for which
they were meant. The little matron was wiser, and snatched the caps from
East before he could look at the name on them.
"Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if you don't go," said she;
"there's some capital cold beef and pickles 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, I'll be bound: I hope he'll sleep in my
room. Mary's always vicious first week."
As the boys turned to leave the room, the matron touched Tom's arm,
and said, "Master Brown, please stop a minute, I want to speak to you."
"Very well, Mary. I'll come in a minute: East, don't finish the pickles—"

"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 through his troubles. Tom was too honest to take
in the youngster and then let him shift for himself; and if he took him as his
chum instead of East, where were all his pet plans of having a bottled-beer
cellar under his window, and making night-lines and slings, and plotting
expeditions to Brownsover Mills and Caldecott's Spinney? East and he had
made up their minds to get this study, and then every night from locking-up
till ten they would be together to talk about fishing, drink bottled-beer, read
Marryat's novels, and sort birds' eggs. And this new boy would most likely
never go out of the close, and would be afraid of wet feet, and always
getting laughed at and called Molly, or Jenny, or some derogatory feminine
nickname.
The matron watched him for a moment, and saw what was passing in his
mind, and so, like a wise negotiator, threw in an appeal to his warm heart.
"Poor little fellow," said she in almost a whisper, "his father's dead, and he's
got no brothers. And his mamma, such a kind sweet lady, almost broke her
heart at leaving him this morning; and she said one of his sisters was like to
die of decline, and so——"
"Well, well," burst in Tom, with something like a sigh at the effort, "I
suppose I must give up East. Come along, young un. What's your name?
We'll go and have some supper, and then I'll show you our study."

"His name's George Arthur," said the matron, walking up to him with
Tom, who grasped his little delicate hand as the proper preliminary to
making a chum of him, and felt as if he could have blown him away. "I've
had his books and things put into the study, which his mamma has had new
papered, and the sofa covered, and new green-baize curtains over the door"
(the diplomatic matron threw this in, to show that the new boy was
contributing largely to the partnership comforts). "And Mrs. Arnold told me
to say," she added, "that she should like you both to come up to tea with her.
You know the way, Master Brown, and the things are just gone up, I know."
Here was an announcement for Master Tom! He was to go up to tea the
first night, just as if he were a sixth or fifth-form boy, and of importance in
the school world, instead of the most reckless young scapegrace amongst
the fags. He felt himself lifted on to a higher social and moral platform at
once. Nevertheless, he couldn't give up without a sigh the idea of the jolly
supper in the housekeeper's room with East and the rest, and a rush round to
all the studies of his friends afterwards, to pour out the deeds and wonders
of the holidays, to plot fifty plans for the coming half-year, and to gather
news of who had left, and what new boys had come, who had got who's
study, and where the new præpostors slept. However, Tom consoled himself
with thinking that he couldn't have done all this with the new boy at his
heels, and so marched off along the passages to the Doctor's private house
with his young charge in tow, in monstrous good humour with himself and
all the world.
It is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell how the two young boys
were received in that drawing-room. The lady who presided there is still
living, and has carried with her to her peaceful home in the North the
respect and love of all those who ever felt and shared that gentle and high-
bred hospitality. Ay, many is the brave heart now doing its work and bearing
its load in country curacies, London chambers, under the Indian sun, and in
Australian towns and clearings, which looks back with fond and grateful
memory to that School-house drawing-room, and dates much of its highest
and best training to the lessons learnt there.
Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder children, there were one
of the younger masters, young Brooke—who was now in the sixth, and had
succeeded to his brother's position and influence—and another sixth-form

boy there, talking together before the fire. The master and young Brooke,
now a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years old, and powerful
as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom, to his intense glory, and then went
on talking; the other did not notice them. The hostess, after a few kind
words, which led the boys at once and insensibly to feel at their ease, and to
begin talking to one another, left them with her own children while she
finished a letter. The young ones got on fast and well, Tom holding forth
about a prodigious pony he had been riding out hunting, and hearing stories
of the winter glories of the lakes, when tea came in, and immediately after
the Doctor himself.
How frank, and kind, and manly, was his greeting to the party by the
fire! It did Tom's heart good to see him and young Brooke shake hands, and
look one another in the face; and he didn't fail to remark, that Brooke was
nearly as tall, and quite as broad as the Doctor. And his cup was full, when
in another moment his master turned to him with another warm shake of the
hand, and, seemingly oblivious of all the late scrapes which he had been
getting into, said, "Ah, Brown, you here! I hope you left your father and all
well at home?"
"Yes, sir, quite well."
"And this is the little fellow who is to share your study. Well, he doesn't
look as we should like to see him. He wants some Rugby air, and cricket.
And you must take him some good long walks, to Bilton Grange and
Caldecott's Spinney, and show him what a little pretty country we have
about here."
Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his visits to Bilton Grange were
for the purpose of taking rooks' nests (a proceeding strongly
discountenanced by the owner thereof), and those to Caldecott's Spinney
were prompted chiefly by the conveniences for setting night-lines. What
didn't the Doctor know? And what a noble use he always made of it! He
almost resolved to abjure rook-pies and night-lines for ever. The tea went
merrily off, the Doctor now talking of holiday doings, and then of the
prospects of the half-year, what chance there was for the Balliol
scholarship, whether the eleven would be a good one. Every body was at his

ease, and every body felt that he, young as he might be, was of some use in
the little school world, and had a work to do there.
Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, and the young boys a few
minutes afterwards took their leave, and went out of the private door which
led from the Doctor's house into the middle passage.
At the fire, at the 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?"
"Oh, I've been to tea with the Doctor," says Tom, with great dignity.
"My eye!" cried East. "Oh! so that's why Mary called you back, and you
didn't come to supper. You lost something—that beef and pickles was no
end good."
"I say, young fellow," cried Hall, detecting Arthur, and catching him by
the collar, "what's your name? Where do you come from? How old are
you?"
Tom saw Arthur shrink back, and look scared as all the group turned to
him, but thought it best to let him answer, just standing by his side to
support in case of need.
"Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire."
"Don't call me 'sir,' you young muff. How old are you?"
"Thirteen."
"Can you sing?"
The poor boy, was trembling and hesitating. Tom struck in—"You be
hanged, Tadpole. He'll have to sing, whether he can or not, Saturday twelve
weeks, and that's long enough off yet."
"Do you know him at home, Brown?"

"No; but he's my chum in Gray's old study, and it's near prayer time, and
I haven't had a look at it yet. Come along, Arthur."
Away went the two, Tom longing to get his charge safe under cover,
where he might advise him on his deportment.
"What a queer chum for Tom Brown," was the comment at the fire; and
it must be confessed so thought Tom himself, as he lighted his candle, and
surveyed the new green-baize curtains and the carpet and sofa with much
satisfaction.
"I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us so cosy. But look
here now, you must answer straight up when the fellows speak to you, and
don't be afraid. If you're afraid, you'll get bullied. And don't you say you can
sing; and don't you ever talk about home, or your mother and sisters."
Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry.
"But please," said he, "mayn't I talk about—about home to you?"
"Oh yes, I like it. But don't talk to boys you don't know, or they'll call
you home-sick, or mamma's darling, or some such stuff. What a jolly desk!
Is that yours? And what stunning binding! why, your school-books look like
novels!"
And Tom was soon deep in Arthur's goods and chattels, all new and
good enough for a fifth-form boy, and hardly thought of his friends outside,
till the prayer-bell rung.
I have already described the School-house prayers; they were the same
on the first night as on the other nights, save for the gaps caused by the
absence of those boys who came late, and the line of new boys who stood
all together at the farther table—of all sorts and sizes, like young bears with
all their troubles to come, as Tom's father had said to him when he was in
the same position. He thought of it as he looked at the line, and poor little
slight Arthur standing with them, and as he was leading him 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
fireplace, occupied by the sixth-form boy who was responsible for the

discipline of the room, and the rest by boys in the lower-fifth and other
junior forms, all fags (for the fifth-form boys, as has been said, slept in
rooms by themselves). Being fags, the eldest of them was not more than
about sixteen years old, and were all bound to be up and in bed by ten; the
sixth-form boys came to bed from ten to a quarter-past (at which time the
old verger came round to put the candles out), except when they sat up to
read.
Within a few minutes therefore of their entry, all the other boys who
slept in Number 4 had come up. The little fellows went quietly to their own
beds, and began undressing and talking to each other in whispers; while the
elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting about on one another's beds,
with their jackets and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed
with the novelty of his position. The idea of sleeping in the room with
strange boys had clearly never crossed his mind before, and was as painful
as it was strange to him. He could hardly bear to take his jacket off;
however, presently, with an effort, off it came, and then he paused and
looked at Tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed talking and
laughing.
"Please, Brown," he whispered, "may I wash my face and hands?"
"Of course, if you like," said Tom, staring; "that's your washhand-stand,
under the window, second from your bed. You'll have to go down for more
water in the morning if you use it all." And on he went with his talk, while
Arthur stole timidly from between the beds out to his washhand-stand, and
began his ablutions, thereby drawing for a moment on himself the attention
of the room.
On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his washing and
undressing, and put on his night-gown. He then looked round more
nervously than ever. Two or three of the little boys were already in bed,
sitting up with their chins on their knees. The light burned clear, the noise
went on. It was a trying moment for the poor little lonely boy; however, this
time he didn't ask Tom what he might or might not do, but dropped on his
knees by his bedside, as he had done every day from his childhood, to open
his heart to Him who heareth the cry and beareth the sorrows of the tender
child, and the strong man in agony.

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so that his
back was towards Arthur, and he didn't see what had happened, and looked
up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two or three boys laughed and
sneered, and a big brutal fellow, who was standing in the middle of the
room, picked up a slipper, and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him a
snivelling young shaver. Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment the
boot he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who had
just time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow.
"Confound you, Brown, what's that for?" roared he, stamping with pain.
"Never mind what I mean," said Tom, stepping on to the floor, every
drop of blood in his body tingling; "if any fellow wants the other boot, he
knows how to get it."
What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment the
sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said. Tom and the
rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing there, and the old verger, as
punctual as the clock, had put out the candle in another minute, and toddled
on to the next room, shutting their door with his usual "Good night,
genl'm'n."
There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was taken
to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the pillow of
poor Tom. For some time his excitement, and the flood of memories which
chased one another through his brain, kept him from thinking or resolving.
His head throbbed, his heart leapt, and he could hardly keep himself from
springing out of bed and rushing about the room. Then the thought of his
own mother came across him, and the promise he had made at her knee,
years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside, and give himself up to his
Father, before he laid his head on the pillow, from which it might never rise;
and he lay down gently and cried as if his heart would break. He was only
fourteen years old.
It was no light act of courage in those days, my dear boys, for a little
fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later, when
Arnold's manly piety had begun to leaven the School the tables turned;
before he died, in the School-house at least, and I believe in the other
houses, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom had come to school in

other times. The first few nights after he came he did not kneel down
because of the noise, but sat up in bed till the candle was out, and then stole
out and said his prayers in fear, lest some one should find him out. So did
many another poor little fellow. Then he began to think that he might just as
well say his prayers in bed, and then that it didn't matter whether he was
kneeling, or sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to pass with Tom as
with all who will not confess their Lord before men: and for the last year he
had probably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen times.
Poor Tom! the first and bitterest feeling which was like to break his heart
was the sense of his own cowardice. The vice of all others which he loathed
was brought in and burned in on his own soul. He had lied to his mother, to
his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it? And then the poor little
weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had
done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do. The first dawn of
comfort came to him in swearing to himself that he would stand by that boy
through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens,
for the good deed done that night. Then he resolved to write home next day
and tell his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And then peace
came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his testimony next morning. The
morning would be harder than the night to begin with, but he felt that he
could not afford to let one chance slip. Several times he faltered, for the
devil showed him, first, all his old friends calling him "Saint" and "Square-
toes," and a dozen hard names, and whispered to him that his motives
would be misunderstood, and he would only be left alone with the new boy;
whereas it was his duty to keep all means of influence, that he might do
good to the largest number. And then came the more subtle temptation,
"Shall I not be showing myself braver than others by doing this? Have I any
right to begin it now? Ought I not rather to pray in my own study, letting
other boys know that I do so, and trying to lead them to it, while in public at
least I should go on as I have done?" However, his good angel was too
strong that night, and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying to
reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which had been so strong, and in
which he had found peace.
Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and
waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in the face of
the whole room knelt down to pray. Not five words could he say—the bell

mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in the room—what were
they all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on kneeling, ashamed to
rise from his knees. At last, as it were from his inmost heart, a still small
voice seemed to breathe forth the words of the publican, "God be merciful
to me a sinner!" He repeated them over and over, clinging to them as for his
life, and rose from his knees comforted and humbled, and ready to face the
whole world. It was not needed: two other boys besides Arthur had already
followed his example, and he went down to the great School with a
glimmering of another lesson in his heart—the lesson that he who has
conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world;
and that other one which the old prophet learnt in the cave in Mount Horeb,
when he hid his face, and the still small voice asked, "What doest thou here,
Elijah?" that however we may fancy ourselves alone on the side of good,
the King and Lord of men is nowhere without His witnesses; for in every
society, however seemingly corrupt and godless, there are those who have
not bowed the knee to Baal.
He found too how greatly he had exaggerated the effect to be produced
by his act. For a few nights there was a sneer or a laugh when he knelt
down, but this passed off soon, and one by one all the other boys but three
or four followed the lead. I fear that this was in some measure owing to the
fact, that Tom could probably have thrashed any boy in the room except the
præpostor; at any rate, every boy knew that he would try upon very slight
provocation, and didn't choose to run the risk of a hard fight because Tom
Brown had taken a fancy to say his prayers. Some of the small boys of
Number 4 communicated the new state of things to their chums, and in
several other rooms the poor little fellows tried it on; in one instance or so
where the præpostor 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.

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 indispensable for
supporting that character with
moderate success. From morning
till night he had the feeling of
responsibility on his mind; and
even if he left Arthur in their
study or in the close for an hour,
was never at ease till he had him
in sight again. He waited for him
at the doors of the school after every lesson and every calling-over; watched
that no tricks were played him, and none but the regulation questions asked;
kept his eye on his plate at dinner and breakfast, to see that no unfair
depredations were made upon his viands; in short, as East remarked,
cackled after him like a hen with one chick.
Arthur took a long time thawing too, which made it all the harder work;
was sadly timid; scarcely ever spoke unless Tom spoke to him first; and,

worst of all, would agree with him in everything, the hardest thing in the
world for a Brown to bear. He got quite angry sometimes, as they sat
together of a night in their study, at this provoking habit of agreement, and
was on the point of breaking out a dozen times with a lecture upon the
propriety of a fellow having a will of his own and speaking out; but
managed to restrain himself by the thought that it 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 when
they took other ground, as they did every now and then, Tom was sorely
puzzled.
"Tell you what, Tommy," East would say, "you'll spoil young Hopeful
with too much coddling. Why can't you let him go about by himself and
find his own level? He'll never be worth a button, if you go on keeping him
under your skirts."
"Well, but he ain't fit to fight his own way yet; I'm trying to get him to it
every day—but he's very odd. Poor little beggar! I can't make him out a bit.
He ain't a bit like anything I've ever seen or heard of—he seems all over
nerves; anything you say seems to hurt him like a cut or a blow."
"That sort of boy's no use here," said East, "he'll only spoil. Now, I'll tell
you what to do, Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box made, and put
him in with plenty of cotton wool, and a pap-bottle, labelled 'With care—
this side up,' and send him back to mamma."
"I think I shall make a hand of him though," said Tom, smiling, "say
what you will. There's something about him, every now and then, which
shows me he's got pluck somewhere in him. That's the only thing after all
that'll wash, ain't it, old Scud? But how to get at it and bring it out?"

Tom took one hand out of his breeches-pocket and stuck it in his back
hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over his nose, his one method of
invoking wisdom. He stared at the ground with a ludicrously puzzled look,
and presently looked up and met East's eyes. That young gentleman slapped
him on the back, and then put his arm round his shoulder, as they strolled
through the quadrangle together. "Tom," said he, "blest if you ain't the best
old fellow ever was—I do like to see you go into a thing. Hang it, I wish I
could take things as you do—but I never can get higher than a joke.
Everything's a joke. If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in
a blue funk, but I couldn't help laughing at it for the life of me."
"Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great fives'-court."
"Hullo, though, that's past a joke," broke out East, springing at the young
gentleman who addressed them, and catching him by the collar. "Here,
Tommy, catch hold of him t'other side before he can holla."
The youth was seized, and dragged struggling out of the quadrangle into
the School-house hall. He was one of the miserable little pretty white-
handed curly-headed boys, petted and pampered by some of the big fellows,
who wrote their verses for them, taught them to drink and use bad language,
and did all they could to spoil them for everything[D] in this world and the
next. One of the avocations in which these young gentlemen took particular
delight, was in going about and getting fags for their protectors, when those
heroes were playing any game. They carried about pencil and paper with
them, putting down the names of all the boys they sent, always sending five
times as many as were wanted, and getting all those thrashed who didn't go.
The present youth belonged to a house which was very jealous of the
School-house, and always picked out School-house fags when he could find
them. However, this time he'd got the wrong sow by the ear. His captors
slammed the great door of the hall, and East put his back against it, while
Tom gave the prisoner a shake-up, took away his list, and stood him up on
the floor, while he proceeded leisurely to examine that document.
"Let me out, let me go!" screamed the boy in a furious passion. "I'll go
and tell Jones this minute, and he'll give you both the —— thrashing you
ever had."

"Pretty little dear," said East, patting the top of his hat; "hark how he
swears, Tom. Nicely brought-up young man, ain't he, I don't think."
"Let me alone, —— you," roared the boy, foaming with rage, and
kicking at East, who quietly tripped him up, and deposited him on the floor
in a place of safety.
"Gently, young fellow," said he; "'taint improving for little
whippersnappers like you to be indulging in blasphemy; so you stop that, or
you'll get something you won't like."
"I'll have you both licked when I get out, that I will," rejoined the boy,
beginning to snivel.
"Two can play at that game, mind you," said Tom, who had finished his
examination of the list. "Now you just listen here. We've just come across
the fives'-court, and Jones has four fags there already, two more than he
wants. If he'd wanted us to change, he'd have stopped us himself. And here,
you little blackguard, you've got seven names down on your list besides
ours, and five of them School-house." Tom walked up to him and jerked
him on to his legs; he was by this time whining like a whipped puppy.
"Now just listen to me. We ain't going to fag for Jones. If you tell him
you've sent us, we'll each of us give you such a thrashing as you'll
remember." And Tom tore up the list and threw the pieces into the fire.
"And mind you too," said East, "don't let me catch you again sneaking
about the School-house, and picking up our fags. You haven't got the sort of
hide to take a sound licking kindly;" and he opened the door and sent the
young gentleman flying into the quadrangle, with a parting kick.
"Nice boy, Tommy," said East, shoving his hands in his pockets and
strolling to the fire.
"Worst sort we breed," responded Tom, following his example. "Thank
goodness, no big fellow ever took to petting me."
"You'd never have been like that," said East. "I should like to have put
him in a museum:—Christian young gentleman, nineteenth century, highly

educated. Stir him up with a long pole, Jack, and hear him swear like a
drunken sailor!—He'd make a respectable public open its eyes, I think."
"Think he'll tell Jones?" said Tom.
"No," said East. "Don't care if he does."
"Nor I," said Tom. And they went back to talk about Arthur.
The young gentleman had brains enough not to tell Jones, reasoning that
East and Brown, who were noted as some of the toughest fags in the school,
wouldn't care three straws for any licking Jones might give them, and would
be likely to keep their words as to passing it on with interest.
After the above conversation, East came a good deal to their study, and
took notice of Arthur; and soon allowed to Tom that he was a thorough little
gentleman, and would get over his shyness all in good time; which much
comforted our hero. He felt every day, too, the value of having an object in
his life, something that drew him out of himself; and, it being the dull time
of the year, and no games going about 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-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 articles essential to his
pursuit for the time being, and while rummaging about in the cupboards,
looked up for a moment, and was caught at once by the figure of poor little
Arthur. The boy was sitting with his elbows on the table, and his head
leaning on his hands, and before him an open book, on which his tears were
falling fast. Tom shut the door at once, and sat down on the sofa by Arthur,
putting his arm round his neck.

"Why, young un! what's the matter?" said he, kindly; "you ain't unhappy,
are you?"
"Oh no, Brown," said the little boy, looking up with the great tears in his
eyes, "you are so kind to me, I'm very happy."
"Why don't you call me Tom? lots of boys do that I don't like half so
much as you. What are you reading, then? Hang it, you must come about
with me, and not mope yourself," and Tom cast down his eyes on the book,
and saw it was the Bible. He was silent for a minute, and thought to
himself, "Lesson Number 2, Tom Brown;"—and then said gently—
"I'm very glad to see this, Arthur, and ashamed that I don't read the Bible
more myself. Do you read it every night before supper while I'm out?"
"Yes."
"Well, I wish you'd wait till afterwards, and then we'd read together. But,
Arthur, why does it make you cry?"
"Oh, it isn't that I'm unhappy. But at home, while my father was alive,
we always read the lessons after tea; and I love to read them over now, and
try to remember what he said about them. I can't remember all, and I think I
scarcely understand a great deal of what I do remember. But it all comes
back to me so fresh, that I can't help crying sometimes to think I shall never
read them again with him."
Arthur had never spoken of his home before, and Tom hadn't encouraged
him to do so, as his blundering school-boy reasoning made him think that
Arthur would be softened and less manly for thinking of home. But now he
was fairly interested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled beer; while
with very little encouragement Arthur launched into his home history, and
the prayer-bell put them both out sadly when it rang to call them to the hall.
From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, and above all, of his
father, who had been dead about a year, and whose memory Tom soon got
to love and reverence almost as much as his own son did.
Arthur's father had been the clergyman of a parish in the Midland
Counties, which had risen into a large town during the war, and upon which

the hard years which followed had fallen with a 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 between the employers and men; lowerings of wages, strikes, and
the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now and then with a
riot, a fire, and the county yeomanry. There is no need here to dwell upon
such tales; the Englishman into whose soul they have not sunk deep is not
worthy the name; you English boys for whom this book is meant (God bless
your bright faces and kind hearts!) will learn it all soon enough.
Into such a parish and state of society, Arthur's father had been thrown at
the age of twenty-five, a young married parson, full of faith, hope, and love.
He had battled with it like a man, and had lots of fine Utopian ideas about
the perfectibility of mankind, glorious humanity and such-like, knocked out
of his head; and a real wholesome Christian love for the poor struggling,
sinning men, of whom he felt himself one, and with and for whom he spent
fortune, and strength, and life, driven into his heart. He had battled like a
man, and gotten a man's reward. No silver teapots or salvers, with flowery
inscriptions, setting forth his virtues and the appreciation of a genteel
parish; no fat living or stall, for which he never looked, and didn't care; no
sighs and praises of comfortable dowagers and well got-up young women,
who worked him slippers, sugared his tea, and adored him as 'a devoted
man;' but a manly respect, wrung from the unwilling souls of men who
fancied his order their natural enemies; the fear and hatred of every one
who was false or unjust in the district, were he master or man; and the
blessed sight of women and children daily becoming more human and more
homely, a comfort to themselves and to their husbands and fathers.
These things of course took time, and had to be fought for with toil and
sweat of brain and heart, and with the life-blood poured out. All that, Arthur
had laid his account to give, and took as a matter of course; neither pitying
himself, 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 everything. She had been rather

fond of society, and much admired and run after before her marriage; and
the London world, to which she had belonged, pitied poor Fanny Evelyn
when she married the young clergyman and went to settle in that smoky
hole Turley, a very nest of Chartism and Atheism, in a part of the 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 first brush; and they didn't expect to work miracles,
and convert them all off-hand into model Christians. So he and she went
quietly among the folk, talking to and treating them just as they would have
done people of their own rank. They didn't feel that they were doing
anything out of the common way, and so were perfectly natural, and had
none of that condescension or consciousness of manner which so outrages
the independent poor. And thus they gradually won respect and confidence;
and after sixteen years he was looked up to by the whole neighborhood 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 worshipped the very ground she trod on.
They had three children, two daughters and a son, little Arthur, who
came between his sisters. He had been a very delicate boy from his
childhood; they thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so he had
been kept at home and taught by his father, who had made a companion of
him, and from whom he had gained good scholarship, and a knowledge of
and interest in many subjects which boys in general never come across till
they are many years older.
Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had settled that he
was strong enough to go to school, and, after much debating with himself,
had resolved to send him there, a desperate typhus-fever broke out in the
town; most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors, ran away; the
work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to their work. Arthur and
his wife both caught the fever, of which he died in a few days, and she
recovered, having been able to nurse him to the end, and store up his last

words. He was sensible to the last, and calm and happy, leaving his wife
and children with fearless trust for a few years in the hands of the Lord and
Friend who had lived and died for him, and for whom he, to the best of his
power, had lived and died. His widow's mourning was deep and gentle; she
was more affected by the request of the Committee of a Freethinking Club,
established in the town by some of the factory hands, (which he had striven
against with might and main, and nearly suppressed,) that some of their
number might be allowed to help bear the coffin, than by anything else.
Two of them were chosen, who with six other labouring men, his own
fellow-workmen and friends, bore him to his grave—a man who had fought
the Lord's fight even unto the death. The shops were closed and the
factories shut that day in the parish, yet no master stopped the day's wages;
but for many a year afterwards the townsfolk felt the want of that brave,
hopeful, loving parson, and his wife, who had lived to teach them mutual
forbearance and helpfulness, and had almost at last given them a glimpse of
what this old world would be if people would live for God and each other,
instead of for themselves.
What has all this to do with our story? Well, my dear boys, let a fellow
go on his own way, or you won't get anything out of him worth having. I
must show you what sort of a man it was who had begotten and trained little
Arthur, or else you won't believe in him, which I am resolved you shall do;
and you won't see how he, the timid weak boy, had points in him from
which the bravest and strongest recoiled, and made his presence and
example felt from the first on all sides, unconsciously to himself, and
without the least attempt at proselytizing. The spirit of his father was in
him, and the Friend to whom his father had left him did not neglect the
trust.
After supper that night, and almost nightly for years afterwards, Tom and
Arthur, and by degrees East occasionally, and sometimes one, sometimes
another, of their friends, read a chapter of the Bible together, and talked it
over afterwards. Tom was at first utterly astonished, and almost shocked, at
the sort of way in which Arthur read the book, and talked about the men and
women whose lives were there told. The first night they happened to fall on
the chapters about the famine in Egypt, and Arthur began talking about
Joseph as if he were a living statesman; just as he might have talked about
Lord Grey and the Reform Bill; only that they were much more living

realities to him. The book was to him, Tom saw, the most vivid and
delightful history of real people, who might do right or wrong, just like any
one who was walking about in Rugby—the Doctor, or the masters, or the
sixth-form boys. But the astonishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to
drop from his eyes, and the book became at once and for ever to him the
great human and divine book, and the men and women, whom he had
looked upon as something quite different from himself, became his friends
and counsellors.
For our purposes, however, the history of one night's reading will be
sufficient, which must be told here, now we are on the subject, though it
didn't happen till a year afterwards, and long after the events recorded in the
next chapter of our story.
Arthur, Tom, and East were together one night, and read the story of
Naaman coming to Elisha to be cured of his leprosy. When the chapter was
finished, Tom shut his Bible with a slap.
"I can't stand that fellow Naaman," said he, "after what he'd seen and
felt, going back and bowing himself down in the house of Rimmon, because
his effeminate scoundrel of a master did it. I wonder Elisha took the trouble
to heal him. How he must have despised him."
"Yes, there you go off as usual, with a shell on your head," struck in
East, who always took the opposite side to Tom; half from love of
argument, half from conviction. "How do you know he didn't think better of
it? how do you know his master was a scoundrel? His letter don't look like
it, and the book don't say so."
"I don't care," rejoined Tom; "why did Naaman talk about bowing down,
then, if he didn't mean to do it? He wasn't likely to get more in earnest when
he got back to court, and away from the prophet."
"Well but, Tom," said Arthur, "look what Elisha says to him, 'Go in
peace.' He wouldn't have said that if Naaman had been in the wrong."
"I don't see that that means more than saying, 'You're not the man I took
you for.'"

"No, no, that won't do at all," said East; "read the words fairly, and take
men as you find them. I like Naaman, and think he was a very fine fellow."
"I don't," said Tom, positively.
"Well, I think East is right," said Arthur; "I can't see but what it's right to
do the best you can, though it mayn't be the best absolutely. Every man isn't
born to be a martyr."
"Of course, of course," said East; "but he's on one of his pet hobbies.
How often have I told you, Tom, that you must drive a nail where it'll go."
"And how often have I told you," rejoined Tom, "that it'll always go
where you want, if you only stick to it and hit hard enough. I hate half
measures and compromises."
"Yes, he's a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must have the whole animal, hair
and teeth, claws and tail," laughed East. "Sooner have no bread any day
than half the loaf."
"I don't know," said Arthur, "it's rather puzzling; but ain't most right
things got by proper compromises, I mean where the principle isn't given
up?"
"That's just the point," said Tom; "I don't object to a compromise where
you don't give up your principle."
"Not you," said East, laughingly. "I know him of old, Arthur, and you'll
find him out some day. There isn't such a reasonable fellow in the world, to
hear him talk. He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when
you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants, and
nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise. Give me the
Brown compromise when I'm on his side."
"Now, Harry," said Tom, "no more chaff—I'm serious. Look here—this
is what makes my blood tingle;" and he turned over the pages of his Bible
and read, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the
king, 'O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If
it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it

known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the
golden image which thou hast set up.'" He read the last verse twice,
emphasizing the nots, and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual
pleasure, and were hard to part with.
They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, "Yes, that's a glorious
story, but it don't prove your point, Tom, I think. There are times when there
is only one way, and that the highest, and then the men are found to stand in
the breach."
"There's always a highest way, and it's always the right one," said Tom.
"How many times has the Doctor told us that in his sermons in the last year,
I should like to know?"
"Well, you ain't going to convince us, is he, Arthur? No Brown
compromise to-night," said East, looking at his watch. "But it's past eight,
and we must go to first lesson. What a bore!"
So they took down their books and fell to work; but Arthur didn't forget,
and thought long and often over the conversation.

FOOTNOTES:
[D] A kind and wise critic, an old Rugbœan, 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.

CHAPTER III.
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND.

"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 fellow, but as mad as a
hatter. He's called Madman, you know.
And never was such a fellow for
getting all sorts of rum things about
him. He tamed two snakes last half,
and used to carry them about in his
pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some
hedgehogs and rats in his cupboard
now, and no one knows what besides."

"I should like very much to know him," said Arthur; "he was next to me
in the form to-day, and he'd lost his book and looked over mine, and he
seemed so kind and gentle, that I liked him very much."
"Ah, poor old Madman, he's always losing his books," said Tom, "and
getting called up and floored because he hasn't got them."
"I like him all the better," said Arthur.
"Well, he's great fun, I can tell you," said Tom, throwing himself back on
the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. "We had such a game with him
one day last half. He had been kicking up horrid stinks for some time in his
study, till I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor.
Anyhow, one day a little before dinner, when he came down from the
library, the Doctor, instead of going home, came striding into the Hall. East
and I and five or six other fellows were at the fire, and preciously we stared,
for he don't come in like that once a-year, unless it is a wet day and there's a
fight in the Hall. 'East,' says he, 'just come and show me Martin's study.'
'Oh, here's a game,' whispered the rest of us, and we all cut 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.
"'It's the Doctor, Martin. He's here and wants to see you,' sings out East.
"Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, and there was
the old Madman standing, looking precious scared; his jacket off, his shirt-
sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny arms all covered with anchors
and arrows and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor-boy's, and a
stink fit to knock you down coming out. 'Twas all the Doctor could do to
stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in under his arms, held
our noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his
feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and half-poisoned.
"'What can you be about, Martin?' says the Doctor; 'you really mustn't go
on in this way—you're a nuisance to the whole passage.'

"'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 off pounding; click, click,
click; he hadn't given six clicks before, puff! up went the whole into a great
blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across the study, and back we
tumbled into the passage. The magpie fluttered down into the court,
swearing, and the Madman danced out, howling, with his fingers in his
mouth. The Doctor caught hold of him, and called to us to fetch some water.
'There, you silly fellow,' said he, quite pleased though to find he wasn't
much hurt, 'you see you don't know the least what you're doing with all
these things; and now, mind, you must give up practising chemistry by
yourself.' Then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, and I saw he had to
bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled; but he said, quite grave, 'Here, you see,
you've been making all these foolish marks on yourself, which you can
never get out, and you'll be very sorry for it in a year or two: now come
down to the housekeeper's room, and let us see if you are hurt.' And away
went the two, and we all stayed and had a regular turn-out of the den, till
Martin came back with his hand bandaged and turned us out. However, I'll
go and see what he's after, and tell him to come in after prayers to supper."
And away went Tom to find the boy in question, who dwelt in a little study
by himself, in New Row.
The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken such a fancy for, was one
of those unfortunates who were at that time of day (and are, I fear, still)
quite out of their places at a public school. If we knew how to use our boys,
Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a natural philosopher.
He had a passion for birds, beasts, and insects, and knew more of them and
their habits than any one in Rugby; except perhaps the Doctor, who knew
everything. He was also an experimental chemist on a small scale, and had
made unto himself an electric machine, from which it was his greatest
pleasure and glory to administer small shocks to any small boys who were
rash enough to venture into his study. And this was by no means an
adventure free from excitement; for, besides the probability of a snake
dropping on to your head or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting
into your breeches-pocket in search of food, there was the animal and
chemical odour to be faced, which always hung about the den, and the
chance of being blown up in some of the many experiments which Martin

was always trying, with the most wondrous results in the shape of
explosions and smells that mortal boy ever heard of. Of course, poor
Martin, in consequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in the
house. In the first place, he half-poisoned all his neighbours, and they in
turn were always on the 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 bird
drunk on toast soaked in beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhabited
a study looking into a small court some ten feet across, the window of
which was completely commanded by those of the studies opposite in the
Sick-room Row, these latter being at a slightly higher elevation. East, and
another boy of an equally tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now lived
exactly opposite, and had expended huge pains and time in the preparation
of instruments of annoyance for the behoof of Martin and his live colony.
One morning an old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord
outside Martin's window, in which were deposited an amateur nest
containing four young hungry jackdaws, the pride and glory of Martin's life
for the time being, and which he was currently asserted to have hatched
upon his own person. Early in the morning, and late at night he was to be
seen half out of window, administering to the varied wants of his callow
brood. After deep cogitation, East and his chum had spliced a knife on to
the end of a fishing-rod; and having watched Martin out, had, after half-an-
hour's severe sawing, cut the string by which the basket was suspended, and
tumbled it on to the pavement below, with hideous remonstrance from the
occupants. Poor Martin, returning from his short absence, collected the
fragments and replaced his brood (except one whose neck had been broken
in the descent) in their old location, suspending them this time by string and
wire twisted together, defiant of any sharp instrument which his persecutors
could command. But, like the Russian engineers at Sebastopol, East and his
chum had an answer for every move of the adversary; and the next day had
mounted a gun in the shape of a pea-shooter upon the ledge of their
window, trained so as to bear exactly upon the spot which Martin had to
occupy while tending his nurselings. The moment he began to feed, they
began to shoot; in vain did the enemy himself invest in a pea-shooter, and
endeavour to answer the fire while he fed the young birds with his other
hand; his attention was divided, and his shots flew wild, while every one of
theirs told on his face and hands, and drove him into howlings and

imprecations. He had been driven to ensconce the nest in a corner of his
already too well-filled den.
His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of his own invention,
for the sieges were frequent by the neighbours when any unusually
ambrosial odour spread itself from the den to the neighbouring studies. The
door panels were in a normal state of smash, but the frame of the door
resisted all besiegers, and behind it the owner carried on his varied pursuits;
much in the same state of mind, I should fancy, as a Border-farmer lived in,
in the days of the old mosstroopers, when his hold might be summoned or
his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day.
"Open, Martin, old boy—it's only I, Tom Brown."
"Oh, very well, stop a moment." One bolt went back. "You're sure East
isn't there?"
"No, no, hang it, open." Tom gave a kick, the other bolt creaked, and he
entered the den.
Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long by five wide, and
seven feet high. About six tattered school-books, and a few chemical books,
Taxidermy, Stanley on Birds, and an odd volume of Bewick, the latter in
much better preservation, occupied the top shelves. The other shelves,
where they had not been cut away and used by the owner for other
purposes, were fitted up for the abiding places of birds, beasts and reptiles.
There was no attempt at carpet or curtain. The table was entirely occupied
by the great work of Martin, the electric machine, which was covered
carefully with the remains of his table-cloth. The jackdaw cage occupied
one wall, and the other was adorned by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing
irons, and his tin candle-box, in which he was for the time being
endeavouring to raise a hopeful young family of field-mice. As nothing
should be let to lie useless, it was well that the candle-box was thus
occupied, for candles Martin never had. A pound was issued to him weekly
as, to the other boys, but as candles were available capital, and easily
exchangeable for birds'-eggs or young birds, Martin's pound invariably
found its way in a few hours to Howlett's the bird-fancier's, in the Bilton
Road, who would give a hawk's or nightingale's egg or young linnet in
exchange. Martin's ingenuity was therefore for ever on the rack to supply

himself with a light; just now he had hit upon a grand invention, and the
den was lighted by a flaring cotton-wick issuing from a ginger-beer bottle
full of some doleful composition. When light altogether failed him, Martin
would loaf about by the fires in the passages or Hall, after the manner of
Diggs, and try to do his verses or learn his lines by the 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 birds'-nesting."
Martin was evidently highly pleased at the invitation, and promised to be
up without fail.
As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and fifth-form boys had
withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of their own room, and the rest, or
democracy, had sat down to their supper in the Hall, Tom and Arthur,
having secured their allowances of bread and cheese, started on their feet to
catch the eye of the præpostor of the week, who remained in charge during
supper, walking up and down the Hall. He happened to be an easy-going
fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to their "Please may I go out?" and away
they scrambled to prepare for Martin a sumptuous banquet. This Tom had
insisted on, for he was in great delight on the occasion; the reason of which
delight must be expounded. The fact was, this was the first attempt at a
friendship of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom hailed it as a grand
step. The ease with which he himself became hail-fellow-well-met with
anybody, and blundered into and out of twenty friendships a half-year, made
him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at Arthur's reserve and
loneliness. True, Arthur was always pleasant, and even jolly, with any boys
who came with Tom to their study; but Tom felt that it was only through
him, as it were, that his chum associated with others, and that but for him
Arthur would have been dwelling in a wilderness. This increased his
consciousness of responsibility; and though he hadn't reasoned it out and
made it clear to himself, yet somehow he knew that this responsibility, this
trust which he had taken on him without thinking about it, head-over-heels
in fact, was the centre and turning-point of his school-life, that which was to
make him or mar him; his appointed work and trial for the time being. And
Tom was becoming a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the dirt and

perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily growing in manfulness
and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and well-principled boy must,
when he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self and
the devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh, from the school-
gates, from which had just scampered off East and three or four others of
his own particular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite according to law,
and involving probably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-labourers, the
skipping dinner or calling-over, some of Phœbe 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 often longed, and felt that he was right in
longing, for more time for the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing,
and fishing within bounds, in which Arthur could not yet be his companion;
and he felt that when the young 'un (as he now generally called him) had
found a pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should be able to give
more time to the education of his own body with a clear conscience.
And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he almost hailed it as
a special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the reasons he gave for it
—what providences are?) that Arthur should have singled out Martin of all
fellows for a friend. "The old Madman is the very fellow," thought he; "he
will take him scrambling over half the country after birds' eggs and flowers,
make him run and swim and climb like an Indian, and not teach him a word
of anything bad, or keep him from his lessons. What luck!" And so, with
more than his usual heartiness, he dived into his cupboard, and hauled out
an old knuckle-bone of ham, and two or three bottles of beer, together with
the solemn pewter only used on state occasions; while Arthur, equally
elated at the easy accomplishment of his first act of volition in the joint
establishment, produced from his side a bottle of pickles and a pot of jam,
and cleared the table. In a minute or two the noise of the boys coming up
from supper was heard, and Martin knocked and was admitted, bearing his
bread and cheese, and the three fell to with hearty good-will upon the
viands, talking faster than they ate, for all shyness disappeared in a moment
before Tom's bottled beer and hospitable ways. "Here's Arthur, a regular

young town mouse, with a natural taste for the woods, Martin, longing to
break his neck climbing trees, and with a passion for young snakes."
"Well, I say," sputtered out Martin, eagerly, "will you come to-morrow,
both of you, to Caldecott's Spinney, then, for I know of a kestrel's nest, up a
fir-tree—I can't get at it without help; and, Brown, you can climb against
any one."
"Oh yes, do let us go," said Arthur; "I never saw a hawk's nest, nor a
hawk's egg."
"You just come down to my study then, and I'll show you five sorts,"
said Martin.
"Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection in the house, out-and-
out," said Tom; and then Martin, warming with unaccustomed good cheer
and the chance of a convert, launched out into a proposed birds'-nesting
campaign, betraying all manner of important secrets; a golden-crested
wren's nest near Butlin's Mound, a moor-hen that was sitting on nine eggs
in a pond down the Barby Road, and a kingfisher's nest in a corner of the
old canal above Brownsover Mill. He had heard, he said, that no one had
ever got a kingfisher's nest out perfect, and that the British Museum, or the
Government, or somebody, had offered £100 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, already
considering the application of the £100, a knock came at the door, and
East's voice was heard craving admittance.
"There's Harry," said Tom; "we'll let him in—I'll keep him steady,
Martin. I thought the old boy would smell out the supper."
The fact was that Tom's heart had already smitten him for not asking his
"fidus Achates" to the feast, although only an extempore affair; and though
prudence and the desire to get Martin and Arthur together alone at first had
overcome his scruples, he was now heartily glad to open the door, broach
another bottle of beer, and hand over the old ham-knuckle to the searching
of his old friend's pocket-knife.
"Ah, you greedy vagabonds," said East, with his mouth full; "I knew
there was something going on when I saw you cut off out of Hall so quick

with your suppers. What a stunning tap, Tom! you are a wunner for bottling
the swipes."
"I've had practice enough for the sixth in my time, and it's hard if I
haven't picked up a wrinkle or two for my own benefit."
"Well, old Madman, how goes the birds'-nesting campaign? How's
Howlett? I expect the young rooks'll be out in another fortnight, and then
my turn comes."
"There'll be no young rooks fit for pies for a month yet; shows how
much you know about it," rejoined Martin, who, though very good friends
with East, regarded him with considerable suspicion for his propensity to
practical jokes.
"Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub and mischief," said
Tom; "but young rook pie, specially when you've had to climb for them, is
very pretty eating. However, I say, Scud, we're all going after a hawk's nest
to-morrow, in Caldecott's Spinney; and if you'll come and behave yourself,
we'll have a stunning climb."
"And a bathe in Aganippe. Hooray! I'm your man!"
"No, no; no bathing in Aganippe; that's where our betters go."
"Well, well, never mind. I'm for the hawk's nest and anything that turns
up."
And the bottled-beer being finished, and his hunger appeased, East
departed to his study, "that sneak Jones," as he informed them, who had just
got into the sixth and occupied the next study, having instituted a nightly
visitation upon East and his chum, to their no small discomfort.
When he was gone, Martin rose to follow, but Tom stopped him. "No
one goes near New Row," said he, "so you may just as well stop here and do
your verses, and then we'll have some more talk. We'll be no end quiet;
besides, no præpostor comes here now—we haven't been visited once this
half."
So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the three fell to work
with Gradus and dictionary upon the morning's vulgus.

They were three very fair examples of the way in which such tasks were
done at Rugby, in the consulship of Plancus. And doubtless the method is
little changed, for there is nothing new under the sun, especially at schools.
Now be it known unto all you boys who are at schools which do not
rejoice in the time-honoured institution of the Vulgus, (commonly supposed
to have been established by William of Wykeham at Winchester, and
imported to Rugby by Arnold, more for the sake of the lines which were
learnt by heart with it, than for its own intrinsic value, as I've always
understood) that it is a short exercise, in Greek or Latin verse, on a given
subject, the minimum number of lines being fixed for each form. The
master of the form gave out at fourth lesson on the previous day the subject
for next morning's vulgus, and at first lesson each boy had to bring his
vulgus ready to be looked over; and with the vulgus, a certain number of
lines from one of the Latin or Greek poets then being construed in the form
had to be got by heart. The master at first lesson called up each boy in the
form in order, and put him on in the lines. If he couldn't say them, or seem
to say them, by reading them off the master's or some other boy's book who
stood near, he was sent back, and went below all the boys who did so say or
seem to say them; but in either case his vulgus was looked over by the
master, who gave and entered in his book, to the credit or discredit of the
boy, so many marks as the composition merited. At Rugby vulgus and lines
were the first lesson every other day in the week, 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 school-boy-mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented
an elaborate system of tradition. Almost every boy kept his own vulgus
written out in a book, and these books were duly handed down from boy to
boy, till (if the tradition has gone on till now) I suppose the popular boys, in
whose hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumulated, are prepared with
three or four vulguses on any subject in heaven or earth, or in "more worlds
than one," which an unfortunate master can pitch upon. At any rate, such

lucky fellows had generally one for themselves and one for a friend in my
time. The only objection to the traditionary method of doing your vulguses
was, the risk that the successions might have become confused, and so that
you and another follower of traditions should show up the same identical
vulgus some fine morning; in which case, when it happened, considerable
grief was the result—but when did such risk hinder boys or men from short
cuts and pleasant paths?
Now in the study that night, Tom was the upholder of the traditionary
method of vulgus doing. He carefully produced two large vulgus-books, and
began diving into them, and picking out a line here, and an ending there
(tags, as they were vulgarly called), till he had gotten all that he thought he
could make fit. He then proceeded to patch his tags together with the help
of his Gradus, producing an incongruous and feeble result of eight elegiac
lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up with two highly
moral lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed entire from one of his
books, beginning "O genus humanum," and which he himself must have
used a dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, of
whatever nation or language under the sun, was the subject. Indeed, he
began to have great doubts whether the master wouldn't remember them,
and so only 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 which too, as Tom remarked, he hadn't the
genius. Martin then proceeded to write down eight lines in English, of the
most matter-of fact kind, the first that came into his head; and to convert
these, line by line, by main force of Gradus and dictionary, into Latin that
would scan. This was all he cared for, to produce eight lines with no false
quantities or concords: whether the words were apt, or what the sense was,
mattered nothing; and, as the article was all new, not a line beyond the
minimum did the followers of the dogged method ever produce.

The third, or artistic method, was Arthur's. He considered first what
point in the character or event which was the subject could most neatly be
brought out within the limits of a vulgus, trying always to get his idea into
the eight lines, but not binding himself to ten or even twelve lines if he
couldn't do this. He then set to work, as much as possible without Gradus or
other help, to clothe his idea in appropriate Latin or Greek, and would not
be satisfied till he had polished it well up with the aptest and most poetic
words and phrases he could get at.
A fourth method indeed was used in the school, but of too simple a kind
to require a comment. It may be called the vicarious method, obtained
amongst big boys of lazy or bullying habits, and consisted simply in making
clever boys whom they could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, and
construe it to them afterwards; which latter is a method not to be
encouraged, and which I strongly advise you all not to practise. Of the
others, you will find the traditionary most troublesome, unless you can steal
your vulguses whole (experto crede), and that the artistic method pays the
best both in marks and other ways.
The vulguses being finished by nine o'clock, and Martin having rejoiced
above measure in the abundance of light, and of Gradus and dictionary, and
other conveniences almost unknown to him for getting through the work,
and having been pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses there
whenever he liked, the three boys went down to Martin's den, and Arthur
was initiated into the lore of bird's-eggs, to his great delight. The exquisite
colouring and forms astonished and charmed him who had scarcely ever
seen any but a hen's egg or an ostrich's, and by the time he was lugged away
to bed he had learned the names of at least twenty sorts, and dreamt of the
glorious perils of tree-climbing and that he had found a roc's egg in the
island as big as Sinbad's and clouded like a tit-lark's, in blowing which
Martin and he had nearly been drowned in the yolk.

CHAPTER IV.
THE BIRD-FANCIERS.

"I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood-pigeons
breed:
But let me the plunder forbear,
She would say 'twas a barbarous deed."
Rowe.

"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."
MS. Ballad.
HE next morning at first lesson Tom was turned back in his lines, and so
had to wait till the second round, while Martin and Arthur said theirs all
right and got out of school at once. When Tom got out and ran down to
breakfast at Harrowell's they were missing, and Stumps informed him that
they had swallowed down their breakfasts and gone off together, where, he
couldn't say. Tom hurried over his own breakfast, and went first to Martin's
study and then to his own, but no signs of the missing boys were to be
found. He felt half angry and jealous of Martin—where could they be gone?
He learnt second lesson with East and the rest in no very good temper,
and then went out into the quadrangle. About ten minutes before school
Martin and Arthur arrived in the quadrangle breathless; and, catching sight
of him, Arthur rushed up all excitement and with a bright glow on his face.
"Oh, Tom, look here," cried he, holding out three moor-hen's eggs;
"we've been down the Barby Road to the pool Martin told us of last night,
and just see what we've got."

Tom wouldn't be pleased, and only
looked out for something to find fault
with.
"Why, young un," said he, "what
have you been after? You don't mean to
say you've been wading?"
The tone of reproach made poor
little Arthur shrink up in a moment and
look piteous, and Tom with a shrug of
his shoulders turned his anger on
Martin.
"Well, I didn't think, Madman, that
you'd have been such a muff as to let
him be getting wet through at this time
of day. You might have done the
wading yourself."
"So I did, of course, only he would
come in too to see the nest. We left six
eggs in; they'll be hatched in a day or two."
"Hang the eggs!" said Tom; "a fellow can't turn his back for a moment
but all his work's undone. He'll be laid up for a week for this precious lark,
I'll be bound."
"Indeed, Tom, now," pleaded Arthur, "my feet ain't wet, for Martin made
me take off my shoes and stockings and trousers."
"But they are wet and dirty, too—can't I see?" answered Tom; "and you'll
be called up and floored when the master sees what a state you're in. You
haven't looked at second lesson, you know." Oh Tom, you old humbug! you
to be upbraiding any one with not learning their lessons! If you hadn't been
floored yourself now at first lesson, do you mean to say you wouldn't have
been with them? and you've taken away all poor little Arthur's joy and pride
in his first birds' eggs; and he goes and puts them down in the study, and
takes down his books with a sigh, thinking he has done something horribly

wrong, whereas he has learnt on in advance much more than will be done at
second lesson.
But the old Madman hasn't, and gets called up and makes some frightful
shots, losing about ten places, and all but getting floored. This somewhat
appeases Tom's wrath, and by the end of the lesson he has regained his
temper. And afterwards in their study he begins to get right again, as he
watches Arthur's intense joy at seeing Martin blowing the eggs and 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-over, and directly afterwards, having dodged
such præpostors 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 Spinney and
the hawk's nest.
Martin leads the way in high feather; it is quite a new sensation to him
getting companions, and he finds it very pleasant, and means to show them
all manner of proofs of his science and skill. Brown and East may be better
at cricket and football and games, thinks he, but out in the fields and woods
see if I can't teach them something. He has taken the leadership already, and
strides away in front with his climbing-irons strapped under one arm, his
pecking-bag under the other, and his pockets and hat full of pill-boxes,
cotton wool, and other etceteras. Each of the others carries a pecking-bag,
and East his hatchet.
When they had crossed three or four fields without a check, Arthur
began to lag, and Tom seeing this shouted to Martin to pull up a bit: "We
ain't out Hare-and-hounds—what's the good of grinding on at this rate?"
"There's the Spinney," said Martin, pulling up on the brow of a slope at
the bottom of which lay Lawford brook, and pointing to the top of the

opposite slope; "the nest is in one of those high fir-trees at this end. And
down by the brook there, I know of a sedge-bird's nest; we'll go and look at
it coming back."
"Oh, come on, don't let us stop," said Arthur, who was getting excited at
the sight of the wood; so they broke into a trot again, and were soon across
the brook, up the slope, and into the Spinney. Here they advanced as
noiselessly as possible, lest keepers or other enemies should be about, and
stopped at the foot of a tall fir, at the top of which Martin pointed out with
pride the kestrel's nest, the object of their quest.
"Oh where! which is it?" asks Arthur, gaping up in the air, and having
the most vague idea of what it would be like.
"There, don't you see?" said East, pointing to a lump of mistletoe in the
next tree, which was a beech: he saw that Martin and Tom were busy with
the climbing-irons, and couldn't resist the temptation of hoaxing. Arthur
stared and wondered more than ever.
"Well, how curious! it doesn't look a bit like what I expected," said he.
"Very odd birds, kestrels," said East, looking waggishly at his victim,
who was still star-gazing.
"But I thought it was in a fir-tree?" objected Arthur.
"Ah, don't you know? that's a new sort of fir, which old Caldecott
brought from the Himalayas."
"Really!" said Arthur; "I'm glad I know that—how unlike our firs they
are! They do very well too here, don't they? the Spinney's full of them."
"What's that humbug he's telling you?" cried Tom, looking up, having
caught the word Himalayas, and suspecting what East was after.
"Only about this fir," said Arthur, putting his hand on the stem of the
beech.
"Fir!" shouted Tom, "why, you don't mean to say, young 'un, you don't
know a beech when you see one?"

Poor little Arthur looked terribly ashamed, and East exploded in laughter
which made the wood ring.
"I've hardly ever seen any trees," faltered Arthur.
"What a shame to hoax him, Scud!" cried Martin. "Never mind, Arthur,
you shall know more about trees than he does in a week or two."
"And isn't that the kestrel's nest, then?" asked Arthur.
"That! why, that's a piece of mistletoe. There's the nest, that lump of
sticks up this fir."
"Don't believe him, Arthur," struck in the incorrigible East; "I just saw
an old magpie go out of it."
Martin did not deign to reply to this sally, except by a grunt, as he
buckled the last buckle of his climbing-irons; and Arthur looked
reproachfully at East without speaking.
But now came the tug of war. It was a very difficult tree to climb until
the branches were reached, the first of which was some fourteen feet up, for
the trunk was too large at the bottom to be swarmed; in fact, neither of the
boys could reach more than half round it with their arms. Martin and Tom,
both of whom had irons on, tried it without success at first; the fir bark
broke away where they stuck the irons in as soon as they leant any weight
on their feet, and the grip of their arms wasn't enough to keep them up; so,
after getting up three or four feet, down they came slithering to the ground,
barking their arms and faces. They were furious, and East sat by laughing
and shouting at each failure, "Two to one on the old magpie!"
"We must try a pyramid," said Tom at last. "Now, Scud, you lazy rascal,
stick yourself against the tree!"
"I dare say! and have you standing on my shoulders with the irons on:
what do you think my skin's made of?" However, up he got, and leant
against the tree, putting his head down and clasping it with his arms as far
as he could. "Now then, Madman," said Tom, "you next."
"No, I'm lighter than you; you go next." So Tom got on East's shoulders,
and grasped the tree above, and then Martin scrambled up on 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
CLIMBING THE FIR-TREE AFTER THE can't hurt if you only get good
KESTREL'S NEST. P. 263. 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 egg into each of his boxes and the third into his
mouth, the only other place of safety, and came down like a lamplighter. All
went well till he was within ten feet of the ground, when, as the trunk
enlarged, his hold got less and less firm, and at last down he came with a
run, tumbling on to his back on the turf, spluttering and spitting out the
remains of the great egg, which had broken by the jar of his fall.
"Ugh, ugh—something to drink—ugh! it was addled," spluttered he,
while the wood rang again with the merry laughter of East and Tom.
Then they examined the prizes, gathered up their things, and went off to
the brook, where Martin swallowed huge draughts of water to get rid of the
taste; and they visited the sedge-bird's nest, and from thence struck across
the country in high glee, beating the hedges and brakes as they went along;
and Arthur at last, to his intense delight, was allowed to climb a small
hedgerow oak for a magpie's nest with Tom, who kept all round him like a
mother, and showed him where to hold and how to throw his weight; and
though he was in a great fright, didn't show it; and was applauded by all for
his lissomness.
They crossed a road soon afterwards, and there close to them lay a 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 old birds were
too strong on the wing for our young marksmen, and flew out of shot after
the first discharge. But it was great fun, rushing along the hedgerows, and
discharging stone after stone at blackbirds and chaffinches, though no result
in the shape of slaughtered birds was obtained: and Arthur soon entered into
it, and rushed to head back the birds, and shouted, and threw, and tumbled
into ditches and over and through hedges, as wild as the Madman himself.

Presently the party, in full cry after an old blackbird (who was evidently
used to the thing and enjoyed the fun, for he would wait till they came close
to him and then fly on for forty yards or so, and, with an impudent flicker of
his tail, dart into the depths of the quickset) came beating down a high
double hedge, two on each side.
"There he is again," "Head him," "Let drive," "I had him there," "Take
care where you're throwing, Madman," the shouts might have been heard a
quarter of a mile off. They were heard some two hundred yards off by a
farmer and two of his shepherds, who were doctoring sheep in a fold in the
next field.
Now, the farmer in question rented a house and yard situate at the end of
the field in which the young bird-fanciers had arrived, which house and
yard he didn't occupy or keep any one else in. Nevertheless, like a brainless
and unreasoning Briton, he persisted in maintaining on the premises a large
stock of cocks, hens, and other poultry. Of course, all sorts of depredators
visited the place from time to time: foxes and gipsies wrought havoc in the
night; while in the day time, I regret to have to confess that visits from the
Rugby boys, and consequent disappearances of ancient and respectable
fowls, were not unfrequent. Tom and East had during the period of their
outlawry visited the barn in question for felonious purposes, and on one
occasion had conquered and slain a duck there, and borne away the carcase
triumphantly, hidden in their handkerchiefs. However, they were sickened
of the practice by the trouble and anxiety which the wretched duck's body
caused them. They carried it to Sally Harrowell's in hopes of a good supper;
but she, after examining it, made a long face, and refused to dress or have
anything to do with it. Then they took it into their study, and began plucking
it themselves; but what to do with the feathers,—where to hide them?
"Good gracious, Tom, what a lot of feathers a duck has!" groaned East,
holding a bagful in his hand, and looking disconsolately at the 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? I'm sure I ain't going to
try it on in the hall or passages; we can't afford to be roasting ducks about,

our character's too bad."
"I wish we were rid of the brute," said Tom, throwing him on the table in
disgust. And after a day or two more it became clear that got rid of he must
be; so they packed him and sealed him up in brown paper, and put him in
the cupboard of an unoccupied study, where he was found in the holidays
by the matron, a 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 withstood the temptation, but East first lets
drive the stone he has in his hand at her, and then rushes to turn her into the
hedge again. He succeeds, and then they are all at it for dear life, up and
down the hedge in full cry, the "Come back, come back," getting shriller
and fainter every minute.
Meantime, the farmer and his men steal over the hurdles and creep down
the hedge towards the scene of action. They are almost within a stone's
throw of Martin, who is pressing the unlucky chase hard, when Tom catches
sight of them, and sings out, "Louts, 'ware louts, your side! Madman, look
ahead!" and then catching hold of Arthur, hurries him away across the field
towards Rugby as hard as they can tear. Had he been by himself, he would
have stayed to see it out with the others, but now his heart sinks and all his
pluck goes. The idea of being led up to the Doctor with Arthur for bagging
fowls, quite unmans and takes half the run out of him.
However, no boys are more able to take care of themselves than East and
Martin; they dodge the pursuers, slip through a gap, and come pelting after
Tom and Arthur, whom they catch up in no time; the farmer and his men are
making good running about a field behind. Tom wishes to himself that they

had made off in any other direction, but now they are all in for it together,
and must see it out. "You won't leave the young 'un, will you?" says he, as
they haul poor little Arthur, already losing wind from the fright, through the
next hedge. "Not we," is the answer from both. The next hedge is a stiff
one; the pursuers gain horribly on them, and they only just pull Arthur
through, with two great rents in his trousers, as the foremost shepherd
comes up on the other side. As they start into the next field, they are aware
of two figures walking down the footpath in the middle of it, and 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 whole is explained by the appearance of the
farmer and his men, who unite their forces and bear down on the knot of
boys.
There is no time to explain, and Tom's heart beats frightfully quick, as he
ponders, "Will they stand by us?"
The farmer makes a rush at East and collars him; and that young
gentleman, with unusual discretion, instead of kicking his shins, looks
appealingly at Holmes, and stands still.
"Hullo there, not so fast," says Holmes, who is bound to stand up for
them till they are proved in the wrong. "Now what's all this about?"
"I've got the young varmint at last, have I," pants the farmer; "why
they've been a skulking about my yard and stealing my fowls, that's where
'tis; and if I doan't have they flogged for it, every one on 'em, my name ain't
Thompson."
Holmes looks grave, and Diggs's face falls. They are quite ready to fight,
no boys in the school more so; but they are præpostors, 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 'm there last week?"

"Ees, I seen 'em sure enough," says Willum, grasping a prong he carried,
and preparing for action.
The boys deny stoutly, and Willum is driven to admit that, "if it worn't
they, 'twas chaps as like 'em as two peas'n;" and "leastways he'll swear he
see'd them two in the yard last Martinmas," indicating East and Tom.
Holmes 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; the guinea-hen ran out of the hedge under our feet,
and we've seen nothing else."
"Drat their talk. Thee catch hold o' t'other, Willum, and come along wi
'un."
"Farmer Thompson," said Holmes, warning off Willum and the prong
with his stick, while Diggs faced the other shepherd, cracking his fingers
like pistol shots, "now listen to reason—the boys haven't been after your
fowls, that's plain."
"Tells 'ee I see'd 'em. Who be you, I should like to know?"
"Never you mind, Farmer," answered Holmes. "And now I'll just tell you
what it is—you ought to be ashamed of yourself for leaving all that poultry
about, with no one to watch it, so near the School. You deserve to have it all
stolen. So if you choose to come up to the Doctor with them, I shall go with
you, and tell him what I think of it."

The farmer began to take Holmes for a master; besides, he wanted to get
back to his flock. Corporal punishment was out of the question, the odds
were too great; so he began to hint at paying for the damage. Arthur jumped
at this, offering to pay anything, and the farmer immediately valued the
guinea-hen at half-a-sovereign.
"Half-a-sovereign!" cried East, now released from the farmer's grip;
"well, that is a good one! the hen ain't hurt a bit, and she's seven years old, I
know, and as tough as whipcord; she couldn't lay another egg to save her
life."
It was at last settled that they should pay the farmer two shillings, and
his man one shilling, and so the matter ended, to the unspeakable relief of
Tom, who hadn't been able to say a word, being sick at heart at the idea of
what the Doctor would think of him: and now the whole party of boys
marched off down the footpath towards Rugby. Holmes, who was one of the
best boys in the School, began to improve the occasion. "Now, you
youngsters," said he, as he marched along in the middle of them, "mind this;
you're very well out of this scrape. Don't you go near Thompson's barn
again; do you hear?"
Profuse promises from all, especially East.
"Mind, I don't ask questions," went on Mentor, "but I rather think some
of you have been there before this after his chickens. Now, knocking over
other people's chickens, and running off with them, is stealing. It's a nasty
word, but that's the plain English of it. If the chickens were dead and lying
in a shop, you wouldn't take them, I know that, any more than you would
apples out of Griffith's basket; but there's no real difference between
chickens running about and apples on a tree, and the same articles in a shop.
I wish our morals were sounder in such matters. There's nothing so
mischievous as these school distinctions, which jumble up right and wrong,
and justify things in us for which poor boys would be sent to prison." And,
good old Holmes delivered his soul on the walk home of many wise
sayings, and, as the song says—
"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 harebrained
youngsters, committed a raid on the barn soon afterwards, in which they
were caught by the shepherds and severely handled, besides having to pay
eight shillings, all the money they had in the world, to escape being taken
up to the Doctor.
Martin became a constant inmate in the joint study from this time, and
Arthur took to him so kindly, that Tom couldn't resist slight fits of jealousy,
which, however, he managed to keep to himself. The kestrel's eggs had not
been broken, strange to say, and formed the nucleus of Arthur's collection,
at which Martin worked heart and soul; and introduced Arthur to Howlett
the bird-fancier, and instructed him in the rudiments of the art of stuffing. In
token of his gratitude, Arthur allowed Martin to tattoo a small anchor on
one of his wrists, which decoration, however, he carefully concealed from
Tom. Before the end of the half year he had trained into a bold climber and
good runner, and, as Martin had foretold, knew twice as much about trees,
birds, flowers, and many other things, as our good-hearted and facetious
young friend Harry East.

CHAPTER V.
THE FIGHT.

"Surgebat Macnevisius
Et mox jactabat ultro,
Pugnabo tuâ gratiâ
Feroci hoc Mactwoltro."—Etonian.
HERE is a certain sort of fellow—we
who are used to studying boys all
know him well enough—of whom you
can predicate with almost positive
certainty, after he has been a month at
school, that he is sure to have a fight,
and with almost equal certainty that he
will have but one. Tom Brown was one
of these; and as it is our well-weighed
intention to give a full, true, and
correct account of Tom's only single
combat with a school-fellow in the
manner of our old friend Bell's Life, let
those young persons whose stomachs
are not strong, or who think a good set-
to with the weapons which God has
given us all, an uncivilized,
unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair,
just skip this chapter at once, for it
won't be to their taste.
It was not at all usual in those days for two School-house boys to have a
fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained hard-
headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was
quarrelling with his nearest neighbours, or when there was some class-
dispute, between the fifth-form and the fags for instance, which required

blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side tacitly, who
settled the matter by a good hearty mill. But for the most part the constant
use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing-gloves, kept the School-
house boys from fighting one another. Two or three nights in every week
the gloves were brought out, either in the hall or fifth-form room; and every
boy who was ever likely to fight at all knew all his neighbours' prowess
perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a
stand-up fight with any other boy in the house. But of course no such
experience could be gotten as regarded boys in other houses; and as most of
the other houses were more or less jealous of the School-house, collisions
were frequent.
After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know?
From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business,
the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man. Every one who is
worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts
and habits in himself, or spiritual wickedness in high places, or Russians, or
Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in
quiet till he has thrashed them.
It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their voices
against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they don't follow
their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting,
somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better world without
fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn't be our world; and therefore I
am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn't meant to be.
I am as sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong people and the
wrong things, but I'd a deal sooner see them doing that, than that they
should have no fight in them. So having recorded, and being about to
record, my hero's fights of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies, I shall now
proceed to give an account of his passage-at-arms with the only one of his
school-fellows whom he ever had to encounter in this manner.
It was drawing towards the close of Arthur's first half-year, and the May
evenings were lengthening out. Locking-up was not till eight o'clock, and
everybody was beginning to talk about what he would do in the holidays.
The shell, in which form all our dramatis personæ now are, were reading
amongst other things the last book of Homer's "Iliad," and had worked

through it as far as the speeches of the women over Hector's body. It is a
whole school-day, and four or five of the School-house boys (amongst
whom are Arthur, Tom, and East) are preparing third lesson together. They
have finished the regulation forty lines, and are for the most part getting
very tired, notwithstanding the exquisite pathos of Helen's lamentation. And
now several long four-syllabled words come together, and the boy with the
dictionary strikes work.
"I am not going to look out any more words," says he; "we've done the
quantity. Ten to one we shan't get so far. Let's go out into the close."
"Come along, boys," cries East, always ready to leave the grind, as he
called it; "our old coach is laid up, you know, and we shall have one of the
new masters, who's sure to go slow and let us down easy."
So an adjournment to the close was carried nem. con., little Arthur not
daring to uplift his voice; but, being deeply interested in what they were
reading, stayed quietly behind, and learnt on for his own pleasure.
As East had said, the regular master of the form was unwell, and they
were to be heard by one of the new masters, quite a young man, who had
only just left the university. Certainly it would be hard lines, if, by dawdling
as much as possible in coming in and taking their places, entering into long-
winded explanations of what was the usual course of the regular master of
the form, and others of the stock contrivances of boys for wasting time in
school, they could not spin out the lesson so that he should not work them
through more than the forty lines; as to which quantity there was a perpetual
fight going on between the master and his form, the latter insisting, and
enforcing by passive resistance, that it was the prescribed quantity of
Homer for a shell lesson, the former that there was no fixed quantity, but
that they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty lines if there were
time within the hour. However, notwithstanding all their efforts, the new
master got on horribly quick; he seemed to have the bad taste to be really
interested in the lesson, and to be trying to work them up into something
like appreciation of it, giving them good spirited English words, instead of
the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered poor old Homer; and
construing over each piece himself to them, after each boy, to show them
how it should be done.

Now the clock strikes the three-quarters; there is only a quarter of an
hour more; but the forty lines are all but done. So the boys, one after
another, who are called up, stick more and more, and make balder and ever
more bald work of it. The poor young master is pretty near beat by this
time, and feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his fingers
against somebody else's head. So he gives up altogether the lower and
middle parts of the form, and looks round in despair at the boys on the top
bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a spark or two, and
who will be too chivalrous to murder the most beautiful utterances of the
most beautiful woman of the old world. His eye rests on Arthur, and he calls
him up to finish construing Helen's speech. Whereupon all the other boys
draw long breaths, and begin to stare about and take it easy. They are all
safe; Arthur is the head of the form, and sure to be able to construe, and that
will tide on safely till the hour strikes.
Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek before construing it, as
the custom is. Tom, who isn't paying much attention, is suddenly caught by
the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines—
ἀλλὰ σὺ τὸν γ ἐπέεσσι παραιφάμενος
κατέρυκες,
σῇ τ᾽ ἀγανοφροσύνῃ καὶ σοῖς ἀγανοῖς
ἐπέεσσι.
He looks up at Arthur. "Why, bless us," thinks he, "what can be the matter
with the young 'un? He's never going to get floored. He's sure to have learnt
to the end." Next moment he is reassured by the spirited tone in which
Arthur begins construing, and betakes himself to drawing dogs' heads in his
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 that day, in the
middle bench of the form, a big boy, by name Williams, generally supposed
to be the cock of the shell, therefore of all the school below the fifths. The
small boys, who are great speculators on the prowess of their elders, used to
hold forth to one another about Williams's great strength, and to discuss
whether East or Brown would take a licking from him. He was called
Slogger Williams, from the force with which it was supposed he could hit.
In the main, he was a rough good-natured fellow enough, but very much
alive to his own dignity. He reckoned himself the king of the form, and kept
up his position with a strong hand, especially in the matter of forcing boys
not to construe more than the legitimate forty lines, he had already grunted
and grumbled to himself, when Arthur went on reading beyond the forty
lines. But now that he had broken down just in the middle of all the long
words, the Slogger's wrath was fairly roused.
"Sneaking little brute," muttered he, regardless of prudence, "clapping
on the waterworks just in the hardest place; see if I don't punch his head
after fourth lesson."
"Whose?" said Tom, to whom the remark seemed to be addressed.
"Why, that little sneak Arthur's," replied Williams.
"No, you shan't," said Tom.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom with great surprise for a
moment, and then giving him a sudden dig in the ribs with his elbow, which
sent Tom's books flying on the floor, and called the attention of the master,
who turned suddenly round, and seeing the state of things, said—

"Williams, go down three places, and then go on."
The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and proceeded to go below Tom
and two other boys with great disgust, and then, turning round and facing
the master, said, "I haven't learnt any more, sir; our lesson is only forty
lines."
"Is that so?" said the master, appealing generally to the top bench. No
answer.
"Who is the head boy of the form?" said he, waxing wroth.
"Arthur, sir," answered three or four boys, indicating our friend.
"Oh, your name's Arthur. Well now, what is the length of your regular
lesson?"
Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said, "We call it only forty lines,
sir."
"How do you mean, you call it?"
"Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain't to stop there, when there's time to
construe more."
"I understand," said the master. "Williams, go down three more places,
and write me out the lesson in Greek and English. And now, Arthur, finish
construing."
"Oh! would I be in Arthur's shoes after fourth lesson?" said the little
boys to one another; but Arthur finished Helen's speech without any further
catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which ended third lesson.
Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying fourth lesson, during
which Williams was bottling up his wrath; and when five struck, and the
lessons for the day were over, he prepared to take summary vengeance on
the innocent cause of his misfortune.
Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the rest, and on coming
out into the quadrangle, the first thing he saw was a small ring of boys,
applauding Williams, who was holding Arthur by the collar.

"There, you young sneak," said he, giving Arthur a cuff on the head with
his other hand, "what made you say that"—
"Hullo!" said Tom, shouldering into the crowd, "you drop that, Williams;
you shan't touch him."
"Who'll stop me?" said the Slogger, raising his hand again.
"I," said Tom; and suiting the action to the word, struck the arm which
held Arthur's arm so sharply, that the Slogger dropped it with a start, and
turned the full current of his wrath on Tom.
"Will you fight?"
"Yes, of course."
"Huzza, there's going to be a fight between Slogger Williams and Tom
Brown!"
The news ran like wild-fire about, and many boys who were on their
way to tea at their several houses turned back, and sought the back of the
chapel, where the fights come off.
"Just run and tell East to come and back me," said Tom to a small
School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just stopping
for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the lower
boys were already at tea, and sing out, "Fight! Tom Brown and Slogger
Williams."
Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs, butter, sprats, and all
the rest to take care of themselves. The greater part of the remainder follow
in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying their food in their hands to
consume as they go. Three or four only remain, who steal the butter of the
more impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous feast.
In another minute East and Martin tear through the quadrangle carrying
a sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just as the combatants are
beginning to strip.
Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he stripped off his
jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his handkerchief round his waist,

and rolled up his 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 made, and the two stand
up opposite one another for a moment, giving us time just to make our little
observations.
"If Tom'll only condescend to fight with his head and heels," as East
mutters to Martin, "we shall do."
But seemingly he won't, for there he goes in, making play with both
hands. Hard all, is the word; the two stand to one another like men; rally
follows rally in quick succession, each fighting as if he thought to finish the
whole thing out of hand. "Can't last at this rate," say the knowing ones,
while the partisans of each make the air ring with their shouts and counter-
shouts, of encouragement, approval, and defiance.
"Take it easy, take it easy—keep away, let him come after you," implores
East, as he wipes Tom's face after the first round with wet sponge, while he
sits back on Martin's knee, supported by the Madman's long arms, which
tremble a little from excitement.

"Time's up," calls the time-keeper.
"There he goes again, hang it all!" growls East as his man is at it again as
hard as ever. A very severe round follows, in which Tom gets out and out
the worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his legs, and deposited on the grass
by a right-hander from the Slogger.
Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger's house, and the School-house
are silent and vicious, ready to pick quarrels anywhere.
"Two to one in half-crowns on the big 'un," says Rattle, one of the
amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning waistcoat, and puffy, good-
natured face.
"Done!" says Groove, another amateur of quieter look, taking out his
note-book to enter it—for our friend Rattle sometimes forgets these little
things.
Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the sponges for next round,
and has set two other boys to rub his hands.
"Tom, old boy," whispers he, "this may be fun for you, but it's death to
me. He'll hit all the fight out of you in another five minutes, and then I shall
go and drown myself in the island ditch. Feint him—use your legs!—draw
him about! he'll lose his wind then in no time, and you can go into him. Hit
at his body too, we'll take care of his frontispiece by and by."
Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already that he couldn't go
in and finish the Slogger off at mere hammer and tongs, so changed his
tactics completely in the third round. He now fights cautious, getting away
from and parrying the Slogger's lunging hits, instead of trying to counter,
and leading his enemy a dance all round the ring after him. "He's funking;
go in, Williams," "Catch him up," "Finish him off," scream the small boys
of the Slogger party.
"Just what we want," thinks East, chuckling to himself, as he sees
Williams, excited by these shouts, and thinking the game in his own hands,
blowing himself in his exertions to get to close quarters again, while Tom is
keeping away with perfect ease.

They quarter over the ground again and again, Tom always on the
defensive.
The Slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly blown.
"Now then, Tom," sings out East, dancing with delight. Tom goes in in a
twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, and gets away again before the
Slogger can catch his wind; which when he does he rushes with blind fury
at Tom, and being 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 Williams, who is
puffing away on his second's knee, winded enough, but little the worse in
any other way.
After another round the Slogger too seems to see that he can't go in and
win right off, and has met his match or thereabouts. So he too begins to use
his head, and tries to make Tom lose patience and come in before his time.
And so the fight sways on, now one, and now the other, getting a trifling
pull.
Tom's face begins to look very one-sided—there are little queer bumps
on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but East keeps the wet sponge
going so scientifically, that he comes up looking as fresh and bright as ever.
Williams is only slightly marked in the face, but by the nervous movement
of his elbows you can see that Tom's body blows are telling. In fact, half the
vice of the Slogger's hitting is neutralized, for he daren't lunge out freely for
fear of exposing his sides. It is too interesting by this time for much
shouting, and the whole ring is very quiet.
"All right, Tommy," whispers East; "hold on's the horse that's to win.
We've got the last. Keep your head, old boy."
But where is Arthur all this time? Words cannot paint the poor little
fellow's distress. He couldn't muster courage to come up to the ring, but
wandered up and down from the great fives'-court to the corner of the
chapel rails. Now trying to make up his mind to throw himself between
them, and try to stop them; then thinking of running in and telling his friend

Mary, who he knew would instantly report to the Doctor. The stories he had
heard of men being killed in prize-fights rose up horribly before him.
Once only, when the shouts of "Well done, Brown!" "Huzza for the
School-house!" rose higher than ever, he ventured up to the ring, thinking
the victory was won. Catching sight of Tom's face in the state I have
described, all fear of consequences vanishing out of his mind, he rushed
straight off to the matron's room, beseeching her to get the fight stopped, or
he should die.
But it's time for us to get back to the close. What is this fierce tumult and
confusion? The ring is broken, and high and angry words are being bandied
about; "It's all fair,"—"It isn't,"—"No hugging;" the fight is stopped. The
combatants, however, sit there quietly, tended by their seconds, while their
adherents wrangle in the middle. East can't help shouting challenges to two
or three of the other side, though he never leaves Tom for a moment, and
plies the sponges as fast as ever.
The fact is, that at the end of the last round, Tom seeing a good opening,
had closed with his opponent, and after a moment's struggle had thrown him
heavily, by the help of the fall he had learnt from his village rival in the vale
of White Horse. Williams hadn't the ghost of a chance with Tom at
wrestling; and the conviction broke at once on the Slogger faction, that if
this were allowed their man must be licked. There was a strong feeling in
the school against catching hold and throwing, though it was generally
ruled all fair within certain limits; so the ring was broken and the fight
stopped.
The School-house are over-ruled—the fight is on again, but there is to be
no throwing; and East in high wrath threatens to take his man away after
next round (which he don't mean to do, by the way), when suddenly young
Brooke comes through the small gate at the end of the chapel. The School-
house faction rush to him. "Oh, 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."
"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's
face. Tom darts in; the heavy right-hand is delivered, but only grazes his
head. A short rally at close quarters, and they close; in another moment the
Slogger is thrown again heavily for the third time.
"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 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?" said the Doctor.
"Williams, sir, of
Thompson's. He is bigger
than Brown, and had the
best of it at first, but not
when you came up, sir.
There's a good deal of
jealousy between our house
and Thompson's, and there
would have been more
fights if this hadn't been let THE DOCTOR'S COUNSEL TO YOUNG
go on, or if either of them BROOKE. P. 290.
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.
"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 off-hand, so that he might show well in
the morning. He was not a bit the worse except a slight difficulty in his
vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a cold-
water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the Babel of
voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how Williams
would have given in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe),
and how on earth the Doctor could have got to know of it,—such bad luck!
He couldn't help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn't won; he
liked it better as it was, and felt very friendly to the Slogger. And then poor
little Arthur crept in and sat down quietly near him, and kept looking at him
and the raw beef with such plaintive looks, that Tom at last burst out
laughing.
"Don't make such eyes, young 'un," said he, "there's nothing the matter."
"Oh but, Tom, are you much hurt? I can't bear thinking it was all for
me."
"Not a bit of it, don't flatter yourself. We were sure to have had it out
sooner or later."
"Well, but you won't go on, will you? You'll promise me you won't go
on?"
"Can't tell about that—all depends on the houses. We're in the hands of
our countrymen, you know. Must fight for the School-house flag, if so be."
However, the lovers of the science were doomed to disappointment this
time. Directly after locking-up, one of the night fags knocked at Tom's door.
"Brown, young Brooke wants you in the sixth-form room."
Up went Tom to the summons, and found the magnates sitting at their
supper.

"Well, Brown," said young Brooke, nodding to him, "how do you feel?"
"Oh, very well, thank you, only I've sprained my thumb, I think."
"Sure to do that in a fight. Well, you hadn't the worst of it, I could see.
Where did you learn that throw?"
"Down in the country, when I was a boy."
"Hullo! why what are you now? Well, never mind, you're a plucky
fellow. Sit down and have some supper."
Tom obeyed, by no means 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 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 life was in my time, and not a
kid-glove and go-to-meeting-coat picture; and partly because of the cant
and twaddle that's talked of boxing and fighting with fists 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? What would you like to see take its place?
Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and football. Not one of
you will be the worse, but very much the better for learning to box well.

Should you never have to use it in earnest, there's no exercise in the world
so good for the temper, and for the muscles of the back and legs.
As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. When the time
comes, if it ever should, that you have to say "Yes" or "No" to a challenge
to fight, say "No" if you can,—only take care you make it clear to
yourselves why you say "No." It's a proof of the highest courage, if done
from true Christian motives. It's quite right and justifiable, if done from a
simple aversion to physical pain and danger. But don't say "No" because
you fear a licking, and say or think it's because you fear God, for that's
neither Christian nor honest. And if you do fight, fight it out; and don't give
in while you can stand and see.

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 disreputable as
ever, his last bequest to Arthur, lives
in the joint study. Arthur is nearly
sixteen, and is at the head of the
twenty, having gone up the school at
the rate of a form a half-year. East
and Tom have been much more
deliberate in their progress, and are
only a little way up the fifth form.
Great strapping boys they are, but
still thorough boys, filling about the
same place in the House that young
Brooke filled when they were new
boys, and much the same sort of fellows. Constant intercourse with Arthur
has done much for both of them, especially for Tom; but much remains yet
to be done, if they are to get all the good out of Rugby which is to be got
there in these times. Arthur is still frail and delicate, with more spirit than
body; but, thanks to his intimacy with them and Martin, has learned to

swim, and run, and play cricket, and has never hurt himself by too much
reading.
One evening, as they were all sitting down to supper in the fifth-form
room, some one started a report that a fever had broken out at one of the
boarding-houses; "they say," he added, "that Thompson is very ill, and that
Dr. Robertson has been sent for from Northampton."
"Then we shall all be sent home," cried another. "Hurrah! five weeks'
extra holidays, and no fifth-form examination!"
"I hope not," said Tom; "there'll be no Marylebone match then at the end
of the half."
Some thought one thing, some another, many didn't believe the report;
but the next day, Tuesday, Dr. Robertson arrived, and stayed all day, and
had long conferences with the Doctor.
On Wednesday morning, after prayers, the Doctor addressed the whole
School. There were several cases of fever in different houses, he said; but
Dr. Robertson, after the most careful examination, had assured him that it
was not infectious, and that if proper care were taken, there could be no
reason for stopping the school work at present. The examinations were just
coming on, and it would be very unadvisable to break-up now. However,
any boys who chose to do so were at liberty to write home, and, if their
parents wished it, to leave at once. He should send the whole School home
if the fever spread.
The next day Arthur sickened, but there was no other case. Before the
end of the week thirty or forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed on. There
was a general wish to please the Doctor, and a feeling that it was cowardly
to run away.
On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright afternoon, while the
cricket-match was going on as usual on the big-side ground: the Doctor
coming from his 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 between scenes of mourning and
scenes of liveliness did not at all present itself. But I did feel that if at that
moment any of those faults had been brought before me which sometimes
occur amongst us; had I heard that any of you had been guilty of falsehood,
or of drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had I heard from any quarter
the language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard
or seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh of fools by
affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then the unsuitableness
of any of these things with the scene I had just quitted would indeed have
been most intensely painful. And why? Not because such things would
really have been worse than at any other time, but because at such a
moment the eyes are opened really to know good and evil, because we then
feel what it is so to live as that death becomes an infinite blessing, and what
it is so to live also, that it were good for us if we had never been born."
Tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety about Arthur, but he
came out cheered and strengthened by those grand words, and walked up
alone to their study. And when he sat down and looked round, and saw
Arthur's straw-hat and cricket-jacket hanging on their pegs, and marked all
his little neat arrangements, not one of which had been disturbed, the tears
indeed rolled down his cheeks; but they were calm and blessed tears, and he
repeated to himself, "Yes, Geordie's eyes are opened—he knows what it is
so to live as that death becomes an infinite blessing. But do I? Oh, God, can
I bear to lose him?"
The week passed mournfully away. No more boys sickened, but Arthur
was reported worse each day, and his mother arrived early in the week. Tom
made many appeals to be allowed to see him, and several times tried to get
up to the sick-room; but the housekeeper was always in the way, and at last
spoke to the Doctor, who kindly, but peremptorily, forbade him.

Thompson was buried on the Tuesday; and the burial service, so
soothing and grand always, but beyond all words solemn when read over a
boy's grave to his companions, brought him much comfort, and many
strange new thoughts and longings. He went back to his regular life, and
played cricket and bathed as usual: it seemed to him that this was the right
thing to do, and the new thoughts and longings became more brave and
healthy for the effort. The crisis came on Saturday, the day week that
Thompson had died, and during that long afternoon Tom sat in his study
reading his Bible and going every half-hour to the housekeeper's room,
expecting each time to hear that the gentle and brave little spirit had gone
home. But God had work for Arthur to do: the crisis passed—on Sunday
evening he was declared out of danger; on Monday he sent a message to
Tom that he was almost well, had changed his room, and was to be allowed
to see him the next day.
It was evening when the housekeeper summoned him to the sick-room.
Arthur was lying on the sofa by the open window, through which the rays of
the western sun stole gently, lighting up his white face and golden hair. Tom
remembered a German picture of an angel which he knew; often had he
thought how transparent and golden and spirit-like it was; and he shuddered
to think how like it Arthur looked, and felt a shock as if his blood had all
stopped short, as he realized how near the other world his friend must have
been to look like that. Never till that moment had he felt how his little chum
had twined himself round his heartstrings; and as he stole gently across the
room and knelt down, and put his arm round Arthur's head on the pillow, he
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, quarrelling and making it up again; the rooks young and old

talked in chorus; and the merry shouts of the boys, and the sweet click of
the cricket-bats, came up cheerily from below.
"Dear George," said Tom, "I am so glad to be let up to see you at last.
I've tried hard to come so often, but they wouldn't let me before."
"Oh, I know, Tom; Mary has told me every day about you, and how she
was obliged to make the Doctor speak to you to keep you away. I'm very
glad you didn't get up, for you might have caught it, and you couldn't stand
being ill with all the matches going on. And you're in the eleven too, I hear
—I'm so glad."
"Yes, ain't it jolly?" said Tom proudly; "I'm ninth too. I made forty at the
last pie-match and caught three fellows out. So I was put in above Jones and
Tucker. Tucker's so savage, for he was head of the twenty-two."
"Well, I think you ought to be higher yet," said Arthur, who was as
jealous for the renown of Tom in games, as Tom was for his as a scholar.
"Never mind, I don't care about cricket or anything now you're getting
well, Geordie; and I shouldn't have hurt, I know, if they'd have let me come
up,—nothing hurts me. But you'll get about now directly, won't you? You
won't believe how clean I've kept the study. All your things are just as you
left them; and I feed the old magpie just when you used, though I have to
come in from big-side for him, the old rip. He won't look pleased all I can
do, and sticks his head first on one side and then on the other, and blinks at
me before he'll begin to eat, till I'm half inclined to box his ears. And
whenever East comes in, you should see him hop off to the window, dot and
go one, though Harry wouldn't touch a feather of him now."
Arthur laughed. "Old Gravey has a good memory; he can't forget the
sieges of poor Martin's den in old times." He paused a moment, and then
went on. "You can't think how often I've been thinking of old Martin since
I've been ill; I suppose one's mind gets restless, and likes to wander off to
strange unknown places. I wonder what queer new pets the old boy has got;
how he must be revelling in the thousand new birds, beasts, and fishes."
Tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a moment. "Fancy him
on a South-Sea island, with the Cherokees or Patagonians, or some such
wild niggers;" (Tom's ethnology and geography were faulty, but sufficient