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(Page 92)

Tom Browns School^Days

By an Old Boy

(Thomas Hughes )

Edited by H.C.Bradby, B.A.

<.Asststant,^asteir atSiugby School

Illustrated by Hu^h Thomson

Ginn and Company

Boston - New York — Chicago - London Atlanta -Dallas - Columbus -" San Francisco

72424

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COPYRIGHT, 1918, BV GIXN AM) COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

323-12

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GINX AND COMPANY- PRO- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U S.A.

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PREFACE

NVER since 1857, when it first appeared, 'Tom Brown's H School-Days ' has maintained its position by uni- • ^ versal consent as the best of school stories, and it

still enjoys a wide popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Gratifying as this must be to a Rugbeian proud of the ')' fame of his school, it may seem at first sight a little sur- ^ prising. The book contains so much local colour, and the n\vo conditions of school fife under which its readers are brought up are so different from those described in it, that it might be expected to appeal less strongly to this generation than to the one for which it was written, y^ The truth is that the book continues to live, in spite of ^ the fact that its setting must seem strange to many of its readers, because of the sympathy and insight with which the author paints the unchanging characteristics of boys. Conditions change, and the ways in which characteristics show themselves alter ; but the types remain. Bullying of the kind described has passed away, but there are still Flashmans to be found, both in schools and in the outer world. A detailed organization and a stricter supervision, compulsory games, military training corps, and regulated societies for the pursuit of natural history and other sub- jects have robbed school life of much of the opportunity for enterprise and initiative, both good and bad, wnich'*'was afforded in less methodical times ; but the enthusiast like

[V]

TOa! BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS • •■A Martin, the enterprising rebel like East, the sturdy jolly boy

like Tom Brown himself, are still familiar types. It is this sympathy with and insight into the point of view of boys which gives the book, like all books which show a real ap- preciation of human nature, a permanent interest and value.

And if the conditions of school life have altered, and many of the scenes in the book, such as the roasting of the hero and the great fight, no longer recall similar experiences to the mind of the reader, yet the book has an enormous advantage over its successors in the very fact that the school life of the time was much more picturesque and full of variety than the highly organized life with which the modern author must Seal. The struggle against the bully Flashman, the great fight, the quarrel with ' Velveteens, ' are perhaps among the most interesting episodes of all. And besides that, in the scenes which have become an inevitable part of any school story, — the football and the cricket match, the run, the scene in 'form,' — Hughes has the great advantage of being first in the field. The modern writer cannot dis- pense with these incidents, for they provide the dramatic moments of school life; but all the time he must feel that it has been done before and that he is inviting comparison.

For the description of the school life of his day Tom Hughes was singularly fitted. Eager, loyal, sympathetic, in- tensely interested in life, devoted to the great headmaster who had done so much for him, for Rugby, and for public schools in general, he threw his whole heart into the work, and all unconsciously raised for himself an abiding monu- ment. The modern boy may think that in places he points the moral at unnecessary' length. It was the fashion of his time, when the earnest author perhaps gave the reader too

[Vi]

PREFACE

little credit for being able to draw the moral for himself. But the most captious critic will feel nothing but admiration for the life and vigour and true dramatic instinct with which in his simple colloquial style he brings on his stage the suc- cessive scenes of school life at Rugby in 'the thirties.' It is a significant fact that to him alone amongst the many distinguished sons of the school has a statue been erected. It stands in front of the school museum and is the record of a feeling which was most happily expressed by an old Rugbeian at the unveiling of the statue, when he spoke of Hughes as 'the incarnation of the highest form of the British schoolboy, the best type of the character of the school which moulded him.'

I have endeavoured to explain in the notes any allusions and words that are likely to puzzle a young reader. He will not, I hope, interrupt the thread of the story by referring to the notes page by page. Let him enjoy the chapter first and then turn to the notes, which are placed discreetly at the end of the volume to help him to understand anything that he may have found obscure.

The publishers have followed the spelling and style of quotation marks used in the original text, in order to preserve its character in this new edition.

H. C. BRADBY

L V" ]

TO

MRS. ARNOLD

OF FOX HOWE

THIS BOOK IS (WITHOUT HER PERMISSION)

DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR

WHO OWES MORE THAN HE CAN EVER ACKNOWLEDGE

OR FORGET TO HER AND HERS

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Brown Family 3

II. The 'Veast' 23

III. Sundry Wars and Alliances 48

IV. The Stage Coach 74

V. Rugby and Football 94

VI. After the Match 126

VII. Settling to the Collar 154

VIII. The War of Independence 184

IX. A Chapter of Accidents 211

PART II

I. How the Tide Turned 241

II. The New Boy 259

III. Arthur makes a Friend 276

IV. The Bird-Fanciers 294

V. The Fight 311

VI. Fever in the School 335

VII. Harry East's Dilemmas and Deliverances . . . 356

VIII. Tom Brown's Last Match 375

IX. Finis 4^3

NOTES 413

[xi]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

mwny Shhool. o , iw

'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 centu- ries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, they have been

[3]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 yeo- men'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. Vin- cent, 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 suchlike 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 foun- dation 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

[4]

THE BROWN FAMILY

having the honour of being nearly connected with an emi- nently 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 '11 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 me cry quits before either of us can grumble at the other.

In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may question their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are going, there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his carcass. And these car- casses for the most part answer very well to the character- istic 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

[5]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

their minds on whatever subject turns up ; and their minds are wonderfully antagonistic, and all their opinions are down- right beliefs. Till you 've been among them some time and understand them, you can't think but that they are quarrel- ling. 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

[6]

THE VALE OF WHITE HORSE

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 atten- tion 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 your 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 attrac- tion, 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.

[7]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

Oh 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 birth-places ? You 're all in the ends of the earth, it seems to me, as soon as you get your necks out of the educational collar, for Midsummer holidays, long vacations, or what not. Going round Ireland with a return ticket, in a fortnight ; dropping your copies of Tennyson on the tops of Swiss mountains ; or pulling down the Danube in Oxford racing-boats. And when you get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the steam off, and lie on your backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by the last batch of books from Mudie's library, and half bored to death. Well, well ! I know it has its good side. You all patter French more or less, and perhaps German ; you have seen men and cities, no doubt, and have your opinions, such as they are, about schools of painting, high art, and all that ; have seen the pictures at Dresden and the Louvre, and know the taste of sour krout. All I say is, you don't know your own lanes and woods and fields. Though you may be chock full of science, not one in twenty of you knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or bee-orchis, which grow in the next wood, or on the down three miles off, or what the bog-bean and wood-sage are good for. And as for the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farm- houses, the place where the last skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the 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.

[8]

YOUNG ENGLAND

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 hohdays, 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 with- in a walk or a ride of home. And so we got to know all the country folk, and their ways and songs and stories, by heart ; and went over the fields, and woods, and hills, again and again, till we made friends of them all. We were Berkshire, or Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys, and you 're young cosmopolites, belonging to all counties and no coun- tries. 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 had n't gone out in the Vale of White Horse, and that that confounded Great Western had n't carried away Alfred's Hill to make an embankment.

But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the country in which the first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid. As I said, the Great Western now runs right through it, and it is a land of large rich pastures, bounded by ox-fences, and covered with fine hedgerow timber, with here and there a nice little gorse or spinney, where abideth poor Charley, having no other cover to which to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed out some fine November morning by the Old Berkshire. Those who have been there, and well mounted, only know how he and the staunch little pack who dash after 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,

[9]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

except for hunting. The villages are straggling, queer, old-fashioned places, the houses being dropped down with- out 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 begin- ning 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 mnning 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

[lo]

THE WHITE HORSE HILL

it stands right up above all the rest, nine hundred feet above the sea, and the boldest bravest shape for a chalk hill that you ever saw. Let us go up to the top of him, and see what is to be found there. Aye, 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 could n't bear anybody to overlook them, and made their eyrie. The ground falls away rapidly on all sides. Was there ever such turf in the whole world .? You sink up to your ankles at every step, and yet the spring of it is delicious. There is always a breeze in the 'camp,' as it is called, and here it lies, just as the Romans left it, except that cairn on the east side, left by Her Majesty's corps of Sappers and Miners the other day, when they and the Engineer officer had finished their sojourn there, and their surveys for the Ordnance Map of Berkshire. It is alto- gether 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

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 whiten- ing. For this is the actual place where our Alfred won his great battle, the battle of Ashdown (' Aescendum ' in the chroniclers) which broke the Danish power, and made England a Christian land. The Danes held the camp and the slope where we are standing — the whole crown of the hill in fact. ' The heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground,' as old Asser says, having wasted ever)'thing behind them from London, and being just ready to burst down on the fair vale, Alfred's own birth-place and herit- age. 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, ' marv^ellous 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

[12]

THE WHITE HORSE

in this place, one of the two Kings of the heathen, and five of his earls fell down and died, and many thousands of the heathen side in the same place.' ^ After which crowning mercy, the pious King, that there might never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the country-side, carved out on the northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, where it is almost precipitous, the great Saxon white horse, which he who will may see from the railway, and which gives its name to the vale, over which it has looked these thousand years and more.

Right down below the White Horse, is a curious deep and broad gully called 'the Manger,' into one side of which the hills fall with a series of the most lovely sweep- ing curv'es, 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 folk used to tell me, killed a dragon. Whether

^ ' Pagani editiorem locum praeoccupaverant. Christiani ab inferior! 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 con- veniunt. Quo in loco alter de duobus Paganorum regibus at quinque comites occisi occubuerunt, et multa millia Paganae partis in eodem loco. Cecidit illic ergo Boegsceg Rex, et Sidroc ille senex comes, et Sidroc Junior comes, et Obsbern comes,' etc. — Annales Rerum Gestarum yEl/redi Magni, Anctore Asserio. Receiisiiit Franciscits Wise, p. 23. Oxford, 1722.

[13]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

it were St. George, I cannot say ; but surely a dragon was killed there, for you may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and more by token the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the hill-side.

Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we come to a little clump of young beech and firs, with a growth of thorn and privet underwood. Here you may find nests of the strong down partridge and peewit, but take care that the keeper is n'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 Keiiil-worth for the legend.

The thick deep wood which you see in the hollow about a mile off, surrounds Ashdown Park, built by Inigo Jones. Four broad alleys are cut through the wood from circum- ference to centre, and each leads to one face of the house. The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green slopes, studded with great stones just about this part, stretching away on all sides. It was a wise Lord Craven, I think, who pitched his tent there.

Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land. The downs, strictly so-called, are no more ; Lincolnshire farmers have been imported, and the long fresh slopes are sheep-walks no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. One of these improvers lives over there at the ' Seven Barrows ' Farm, another mystery of the great downs. There are the barrows still, solemn

[14]

THE BLOWING STONE

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, aiid it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. At the bottom, how- ever, there is a pleasant public, whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air is provocative of thirst. So we pull up under an old oak which stands before the door.

' What is the name of your hill, landlord } '

' Blawing Stw^un Hill, sir, to be sure.'

[Reader. ' Sturm f '

Author. ' Stone, stupid : the Blowing Stone''\

'And of your house.-' I can't make out the sign.'

'Blawing Stwun, sir,' says the landlord, pouring out his old ale from a Toby Philpot jug, with a melodious crash, into the long-necked glass.

' What queer names ! ' say we, sighing at the end of our draught, and holding out the glass to be replenished.

' Bean't queer at all, as I can see, sir,' says mine host, handing back our glass, ' seeing as this here is the Blawing Stwun his self,' putting his hand on a square lump of stone, some three feet and a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian rat-holes, which lies there close under the oak, under our very nose. We are more than ever puzzled, and drink our second glass of ale, wondering what will come next. ' Like to hear un, sir ? ' says mine host, setting down Toby Philpot on the tray, and

[15]

TOM BROWNS SCHOOL-DAYS

resting both hands on the ' Stwun.' We are ready for any- thing ; and he, without waiting for a reply, apphes his mouth to one of the rat-holes. Something must come of it, if he does n't burst. Good heavens ! I hope he has no apo- plectic tendencies. Yes, here it comes, sure enough, a grue- some sound between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, and up the hill-side, and into the woods at the back of the house, a ghost-like awful voice. ' Um do say, sir,' says mine host, rising purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out of the Stwun, ' as they used in old times to warn the country-side by blawing the Stwun when the enemy was a-comin' — and as how folks could make un heered then for seven mile round ; leastways, so I 've heered lawyer Smith say, and he knows a smart sight about them old times,' We can hardly swallow lawyer Smith's seven miles, but could the blowing of the stone have been a sum- mons, a sort of sending the fiery cross round the neighbour- hood in the old times ? What old times ,'* Who knows ? We pay for our beer, and are thankful.

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

' Kingstone Lisle, sir,'

' Fine plantations you 've got here .'' '

' Yes, sir, the Squire 's '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 hill-side yet, what you could ride round easily on

[16]

'A MODEST QUENCHER"

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 '11 have to hear all about Wantage, the birth-place of Alfred, and Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles the First (the Vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant ; full of Throgmortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and such like, and their brawny retainers). Did you ever read Thomas Ingoldsby's Legend of Hamiltoji Tighc ? If you have n't, you ought to have. Well, Farring- don is where he lived, before he went to sea ; his real name was Hamden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at Farringdon. Then there 's Pusev. 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 con- science), used to bring out on high days, holidays, and bon- fire nights. And the splendid old Cross Church at Uffington, the Uffingas town — how the whole country-side teems with Saxon names and memories ! And the old moated grange at Compton, nestled close under the hill-side, where twenty Marianas may have lived, with its bright water-lilies in the moat, and its yew walk, 'the Cloister Walk,' and its . peerless terraced gardens. There they all are, and twenty things besides, for those who care about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort 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

. [i8]

TOM BROWN'S HOME

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 adscriptiis glebae. There 's nothing like the old country-side for me, and no music like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue as one gets it fresh from the veritable chaw in the White Horse Vale : and I say with ' Gaarge Ridler,' the old West-country yeoman,

' Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast Commend me to merry owld England mwoast : While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh, We stwops at whum, my dog and I.'

Here, at any rate, lived and stopped at home Squire Brown, J. P, for the county of Berks, in a village near the foot of the White Horse range. And here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and begat sons and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the bad- ness of the roads and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico shirts, and smock frocks, and com- forting 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.

[19]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 was n't so twenty years ago — not a bit of it. The Browns did n'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

[20]

INFREQUENT VISITORS

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 Moun- tains, 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 w^as the canal, by the way, which supplied the country-side with coal, and up and down which continually went the long barges, with the big black men lounging by the side of the horses along the towing-path, and the women in bright-coloured handkerchiefs standing in the sterns steering. Standing, I say, but you could never see whether they were standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being out of sight in the cosy little cabins which occupied some eight feet of the stern, and which Tom Brown pictured to himself as the most desirable of residences. His nurse told him that those good-natured-looking women were in the constant habit of enticing children into the barges and taking them up to London and selling them, which Tom would n'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 propensi- ties of my countrymen .'' We are a vagabond nation now,

[21]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 limac^on, 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 chalets, Hottentot kraals, or wherever else they like to go. So, having suc- ceeded in contradicting myself in my first chapter (which gives me great hopes that you will all go on, and think me a good fellow notwithstanding my crotchets), I shall here shut up for the present, and consider my ways ; having resolved to ' sar' it out,' as we say in the Vale. ' holus-bolus ' just as it comes, and then you '11 probably get the truth out of me.

[22]

'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 : ij Edward 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' ; a fortiori, therefore, he must be father to the boy. So, as we are going at any rate to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any further (which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there is no knowing but what we may), let us have a look at the life and

[23]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 comba- tive 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 nursery-maid. 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 in- come. 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 house-maids, laundry-maids, nursery-maids, or kitchen- maids, and after a year or two's drilling, were started in life amongst the neighbouring families, with good principles and wardrobes. One of the results of this system was the perpetual despair of Mrs. Brown's cook and own maid, who no sooner had a notable girl made to their hands, than Missus was sure to find a good place for her and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the school. Another was, that the house was always full of young girls, with clean shining faces ; who broke plates and scorched linen, but made an atmosphere of cheerful homely life about the place, good for every one who came within its influence. Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. They were more like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a mother or aunt than as a mistress.

Tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very

TOM'S NURSE

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 immemo- rial habit of the village to christen children either by Bible names, or by those of the cardinal and other virtues ; so that one was for ever hearing in the village street, or on the green, shrill sounds of ' Prudence ! Prudence ! thee cum' out o' the gutter ' ; or, ' Mercy ! drat the girl, what bist thee a-doin' wi' little Faith ? ' and there were Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs, in every corner. The same with the boys ; they were Benjamins, Jacobs, Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from Puritan times — there it is, at any rate, very strong still in the Vale.

Well, from early 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 had n'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 de- cided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwhole- some, 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,

[25]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

and her gown tucked through her pocket-holes, went clatter- ing 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 his knees ; and the luckless Charity, while her aunt scolded her from the dairy-door for being ' alius hankering about arter our Willum, instead of minding Master Tom,' would descend from threats to 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

* [26]

y-AyiFi!isiu*Tirt.

'TOM HAD TWO ABETTORS.. .WHO DEFENDED HIM FROM CHARITY'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

a little round picture of the identical grey horse, capari- soned 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 on 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 splen- did 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,

[28]

iC^|^<5^''-l'«^^vt

BENJY HAD CARRIED OFF OUR HERO TO THE CANAL'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 encoun- tered 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, dis- guised 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 mantel-piece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks

[30]

THE VALE 'VEASTS'

with which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire and Somersetshire, in many a good bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side. For he had been a famous back-sword man in his young days, and a good wrestler at elbow and collar.

Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holi- day 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 countiy for the old folk. Per- haps 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

[31]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

finishing up with a call on Madam Brown, whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to the best advan- tage, or how best to expend the same for the benefit of the old folk. Every household, however poor, managed to raise a ' feast-cake ' and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast-time, — for feast- cake is very solid, and full of huge raisins. Moreover, feast-time was the day of reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Freeman had n'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 them- selves, and call them disreputable, whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them also, and they become what they are called. Class amusements, be they for dukes or 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

[32]

MORNING OF THE VEAST

side of the road ; and above the brook was another large gentle sloping pasture-land, with a footpath running down it from the churchyard ; and the old church, the originator of all the mirth, towered up with its grey walls and lancet windows, overlooking and sanctioning the whole, though its own share therein had been forgotten. At the point where the footpath crossed the brook and road, and entered on the field where the feast was held, was a long low roadside inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large white thatched farm-house, where dwelt an old sporting farmer, a great promoter of the revels.

Past the old church, and down the footpath, pottered the old man and the child hand in hand early on the afternoon of the day before the feast, and wandered all round the ground, which was already being occupied by the ' cheap Jacks,' with their green-covered carts and marvellous assort- ment of wares, and the booths of more legitimate small traders with their tempting arrays of fairings and eatables ! and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink- eyed ladies, and * dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wild Indians. But the object of most interest to Benjy, and of course to his pupil also, was the stage of rough planks some four feet high, which was being put up by the village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling ; and after surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to the roadside inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the Browns, and speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for the morrow's prizes, and told

[33]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 ap- peared in the servants' hall, resplendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of old yellow buckskins and top-boots, which he had cleaned for and inherited from Tom's grandfather ; a stout thorn-stick in his hand, and a nosegay 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 enjoy- ing the day's revel.

They quicken their pace when they get into the church- yard, for already they see the field thronged with country folk, the men in clean white smocks or velveteen or fustian coats, with rough plush waistcoats of many colours, and the women in the beautiful long scarlet cloak, the usual outdoor dress of West-country women in those days, and which often descended in families from mother to daughter, or in new-fashioned stuff shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don't become them half so well. The air resounds with the pipe and tabor, and the drums and trumpets of the showmen shouting at the doors of their caravans, over which tremendous pictures of the wonders to be seen within hang temptingly ; while through all rises the shrill ' root-too-too- too ' of Mr. Punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe of his satellite.

• Lawk a' massey, Mr. Benjamin,' cries a stout motherly woman in a red cloak, as they enter the field, ' be that you ? Well I never ! you do look purely. And how 's the Squire, and Madam, and the family ? '

Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has

[34]

AT THE VEAST

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, Susan- nah, 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 '11 be sixteen come Martinmas. I do aim to take her to see Madam to get her a place.'

And Sukey comes bouncing a^ /ay from a knot of old schoolfellows, and drops a curtsey to Mr. Benjamin. And elders come up from all parts to salute Benjy, and girls who have been Madam's pupils to kiss Master Tom. And they carry him off to load him with fairings ; and he returns to Benjy, his hat and coat covered with ribbons, 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

[35]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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,

[36]

■I: / '- '

'THEY CARRY HIM O K K TO LOAD HIM WITH FAIRINGS'

72424

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 canst plaay wi' he arra daay,' says his companion to the blacksmith's apprentice, a stout young fellow of nineteen or twenty. Willum's sweetheart is in the ' veast ' somewhere, and has strictly enjoined him not to get his head broke at back-swording, on pain of her highest displeasure ; but as she is not to be seen (the women pretend not to like to see the back-sword play, and keep away from the stage), and as his hat is decidedly getting old, he chucks it on to the stage, and follows himself, hoping that he will only have to break other people's heads, or that after all Rachel won't really mind.

Then follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a half- gipsy, poaching, loafing fellow, who travels the Vale not for much good, I fancy :

' Full twenty times was Peter feared For once that Peter was respected,'

[38]

THE PLAYERS

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 com- mon single-stick. The players are called 'old gamesters,' — why, I can't tell you, — and their object is simply to break one another's heads : for the moment that blood runs an inch anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs is beaten, and has to stop. A very slight blow with the sticks will fetch blood, so that it is by no means a punishing pastime, if the men don't play on purpose, and savagely, at the body and arms of their adversaries. The old gamester going into action only takes off his hat and coat, and arms himself with a stick : he then loops the fingers of his left hand in a handkerchief or strap which he fastens round his left leg, measuring the length, so that when he draws it tight with his left elbow in the air, that elbov/ 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

[39]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL- DAYS

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

[40]

THE SHEPHERD AND WILLUM SMITH

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 '11 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'nighst 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

[41]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 'ec, Rachel ! I would n'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 game- ster, though he has n'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 victor)' quite acknowledged down below, walks to each face of the stage, and looks down, shaking the money, and chaffing, as how he '11 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

[42]

JOE OUT OF LUCK

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 '11 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 picked a neat little bit of skin off the middle of his forehead, and though

[43]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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, sum- moned by the wife of one of the combatants to stop it ; which he would n'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 wath our gossips, as the steady ones of our village do, and so to bed.

[44]

THE REVELS ARE OVER

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 have n'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 be- fore, 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 be- yond 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 has n't

[45]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

some bona fide equivalent for the games of the old country ' veast ' in it ; something to put in the place of the back- swording and wrestling and racing ; something to try the muscles of men's bodies, and the endurance of their hearts, and to make them rejoice in their strength. In all the new-fangled comprehensive plans which I see, this is all left out : and the consequence is, that your great Mechanics' Institutes end in intellectual priggism, and your Christian Young Men's Societies in religious Pharisaism.

Well, well, we must bide our time. Life is n't all beer and skittles, — but beer and skittles, or something better of che 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 fre- quent palaver houses and West-End clubs, waiting always ready to strap yourselves on to the back of poor dear old John, as soon as the present used-up lot (your fathers and uncles), who sit there on the great Parliamentary- majorities' pack-saddle, and make believe they 're guiding him with their red-tape bridle, tumble, or have to be lifted oft !

I don't think much of you yet — I wish I could ; though you do go talking and lecturing up and down the country to crowded audiences, and are busy with all sorts of philan- thropic intellectualism, and circulating libraries and museums, and Heaven only knows what besides ; and try to make us think, through newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, of the working classes. But, bless your hearts, we ' ain't so green,' though lots of us of all sorts toady you enough certainly, and try to make you think so.

[46]

ADVICE TO YOUNG SWELLS

I '11 tell you what to do now : instead of all this trumpet- ing 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 '11 only give up t' other line), and quietly make three or four friends, real friends, among us. You '11 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, en- gineers, carpenters, engravers, — there 's plenty of choice. Let them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask them to your homes ; introduce them to your wives, and sisters, and get introduced to theirs : give them good dinners, and talk to them about what is really at the bottom of your hearts, and box, and run, and row with them, when you have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to man, and by the time you come to ride old John, you '11 be able to do some- thing 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.

[47]

Gfiaptev SundrjWars and Ail'mme^

^jOOR old Benjy ! the ' rheumatiz ' has much to answer for all through English countr}- 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 carr)-ing on a sort of border warfare, and trying his strength against Benjy 's on the battlefield of his hands and legs, now, mus- tering all his forces, began laying siege to the citadel, and over-running the whole countr}-. 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,

[48]

BENJY'S DECLINE

It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master Tom, and bait his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint old country stories ; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby the turnspit terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he might have tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over before Benjy could have got near him.

Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age, and was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. He feared much, too, lest Master Tom should fall back again into the hands of Charity and the women. So he tried everything he could think of to get set up. He even went an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer mortals, who — say what we will, and. reason how we will — do cure simple people of diseases of one kind or another without the aid of physic ; and so get to themselves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for themselves and their dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a simple folk such as the dwellers in the Vale of White Horse. Where this power, or whatever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the neighbourhood ; a receiver of stolen goods, giver of love-potions, and deceiver of silly women ; the avowed enemy of law and order, of justices of the peace, head- boroughs, and gamekeepers. . . . Sometimes, however, they are of quite a different stamp, men who pretend to nothing,

[49]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

and are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult arts in the simplest cases.

Of this latter sort was old Farmer Ives, as he was called, the ' wise man ' to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as usual), in the early spring of the year next after the feast described in the last chapter. Why he was called ' farmer ' I cannot say, unless it be that he was the owner of a cow, a pig or two, and some poultry, which he main- tained on about an acre of land enclosed from the middle of a wild common, on which probably his father had squatted before lords of manors looked as keenly after their rights as they do now. Here he had lived no one knew how long, a solitary man. It was often rumoured that he was to be turned out and his cottage pulled down, but somehow it never came to pass ; and his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the passing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord's steward, who often rode by with a covetous eye on the enclosure, still unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from our village ; so Benjy, who was half ashamed of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise much ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom thither without exciting 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

[50]

FARMER IVES THE 'WISE MAN'

gate which opened on to the large common, and old Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed out a little deep

1 1//'-..

,5>#m;>*ri

*Jimcs. -n^,,,,,^

'OLD DOBBIN TOILED SLOWLY UP THE HILL'

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

[51]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

boughs ; and then the Httle 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 track over the common marked lightly with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of Farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron- 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 un- harnessing 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, stretch- ing first one hind leg and then the other, and taking Tom's caresses and the presence of Toby, who kept, however, at a respectful distance, with equal indifference,

' Us be cum to pay 'ee a visit. I 've a been long minded to do 't for old sake's sake, only I vinds I dwon't get about

[52J

THE FARMER'S COTTAGE

now as I'd used to 't, I be so plaguy bad wi' th' rumatiz in my back,' Benjy paused in hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailments without further direct 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 Avhich 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

[53]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 doc- tor 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 cau- tioning 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 socia- bly 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 else- where ; and Tom begged to be taught how to make all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the farmer only gave one of his grim chuckles.

It wasn't till they were just ready to go, and old Dobbin was harnessed, that Benjy broached the subject of his rheu- matism again, detailing his symptoms one by one. Poor old boy ! He hoped the farmer could charm it away as easily as he could Tom's wart, and was ready with equal faith to

[54]

EARLY COMPANIONS

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 '11 do 'ee much good — leastways, I be af eared 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 '11 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 acquaint- ance with many of the village boys of his own age. There was Job Rudkin, son of widow Rudkin, the most bustling woman in the parish. How she could ever have had such a stolid boy as Job for a child must always remain a mystery. The first time Tom went to their cottage with his mother. Job was not indoors, but he entered soon after, and stood with both hands in his pockets staring at Tom. Widow Rudkin, who would have had to cross Madam to get at young Hopeful — a breach of good manners of which she was wholly incapable — began a series of pantomime signs, which only puzzled him, and at last, unable to contain her- self longer, burst out with, 'Job! Job! where 's thy cap?'

[55]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

* What ! beant 'ee on ma' head, mother ? ' rephed 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 abput cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds and ends for every one, which, however, poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to embrangle. Every- thing 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 school- master 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 himself if he likes to look. Tight boots and gloves, and doing nothing with them, I allow, make a difference by the time they are twenty.

Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his young brothers were still under petticoat government, Tom, in search of companions, began to cultivate the village boys generally more and more. Squire Brown, be it said, was a true blue Tory to the backbone, and believed honestly that

[56]

TOM AND THE VILLAGE BOYS

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 neces- sary corollary to this belief. Squire Brown held further that it did n'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 for^varded 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

[57]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL- DAYS

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 possi- bility 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 after- noon, returning from a short absence, found Tom occupied with one of his pet adzes, the edge of which was fast van- ishing 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 carpen- tering, and still more the further proceedings of the wheel- wright, 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. More- over, his presence about the school door began to incense

[58]

TOM'S FOES

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 occu- pations ; but in order to do it with effect, determined to take him captive and lead him away to judgement 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 recognized and opened a cor- respondence 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 find- ing 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.

[59]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 w^omen 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

[60]

G5«Ct^U5>^-*'^nr^

'POOR JACOB . . . STOOD THERE, LOOKING ROUND H I xM AND NODDING WITH A SEL F- A PPROVING SMILE'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 w-ould catch the Shetland pony who was turned but in the field, and get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue, en- joying 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

[62]

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'THE LITTLE ROGUE . . . WOULD . . . STOP SHORT AND SHOOT THEM ON TO THE TURF'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

on at this pastime, but it had pecuHar 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 \''ale ; 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 immovable legs and loins. But Harry Winburn was undeniably his master ; from the first clutch of hands when they stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on to his back on the turf, he felt that Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily, Harry's bright unconsciousness, and Tom's natural good temper, kept them from 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

[64]

NEIGHBOURHOOD RAMBLES

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 birds'-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 w^hispering 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

[65]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 does n't till it 's put there by Jack Nastys or fine ladies' maids.

I don't mean to say it would be the case in all villages, but it certainly was so in this one ; the village boys were full as manly and honest, and certainly purer than those in a higher rank ; and Tom got more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a private school where he went when he was nine years old, than he had from his village friends from the day he left Charity's apron-strings.

Great was the grief amongst the village schoolboys when Tom drove off with the Squire, one August morning, to meet the coach on liis 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 X'ale), 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

[66]

FIRST SCHOOL

order. He had given them all a great tea under the big elm in their playground, for which Madam Brown had sup- plied 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, — aye, 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 ever}^vhere, 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.

[67]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL- DAYS

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 gentle- men, 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 frightfullv common vice in the school in consequence, and had sapped all the foundations of school morality. Another was, by favouring grossly the biggest boys, u ho 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 eve- ning 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

[68]

FIRST LETTER HOME

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 accord- ingly 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 is n'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 batter^^ Hitting in the face was a felony pun- ishable with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanour —

[69]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 Mazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the school. Hazcldown 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 toffee might be procured in exchange for coin of the realm.

Various were the amusements to which the boys then betook themselves. At the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of Tom's own downs. This mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the queer name of 'mud-patties.' The boys who played divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the mound. Then, all parties having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing up on all sides under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then

[70]

THE AMUSEMENTS

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 beau- tiful 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 per- suaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martin's bank. From whence it being only a step to the toffee shop, what could be more simple than to go on there and fill their pockets ; or what more certain than that on their return, a distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly detect the forbidden smell of 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

[71]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 won- der would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accord- ingly 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 sud- den 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 did n'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

[72]

TOM LEAVES HIS FIRST SCHOOL

the master having himself slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at a day's notice to their respec- tive 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 Christ- mas 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.

[73]

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Chaptfer IV

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R. E. E. Warburton, 'Coaching Song''

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Tally

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 carr)'ing off his shoes to clean.

[74]

THE PEACOCK, ISLINGTON

Tom and his father had arrived in town from Berkshire the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that the Birming- ham 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 postchaise — had resolved that Tom should travel down by the Tally-ho, which diverged from the main road and passed through Rugby itself. And as the Tally-ho was an early coach, they had driven out to the Peacock to be on the road.

Tom had never been in London, and would have liked to have stopped at the Belle Savage, where they had been put down by the Star, just at dusk, that he might have gone roving about those endless, mysterious, gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds, excited him so that he could n'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 would n't be there till the evening, all other plans melted away ; his one absorbing aim being to become a public- school boy as fast as possible, and six hours sooner or later seeming to him of the most alarming importance.

Tom and his father had alighted at the Peacock, at about seven in the evening ; and having heard with unfeigned joy the paternal order at the bar, of steaks and oyster-sauce for supper in half an hour, and seen his father seated cosily by the bright fire in the coffee-room with the paper in his hand — Tom had run out to see about him, had wondered at all the vehicles passing and repassing, and had frater- nized with the boots and ostler, from whom he ascertained

[75]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

that the Tally-ho was a tiptop 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 '11 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 would n't have your mother and sister hear, and you '11 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 had n't been for the recent stipulation.

[76]

THE SQUIRE'S MEDITATION

As it was, he only squeezed his father's hand, and looked bravely up and said, ' I '11 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 '11 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 assist- ing 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

[77]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 '11 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 '11 only turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling English- man, 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, carr^-ing 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

[78]

'THE TALLY-HO'

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 I ' 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 '11 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

[79]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

you 're much more comfortable travellers, for I see every one of you with his rug or plaid, and other dodges for pre- serving 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 conscious- ness 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

[80]

A NOVEMBER RIDE

has gone over his Httle past Hfe, and thought of all his do- ings 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, notwith- standing the cold, and kicks his heels against the back board, and would like to sing, only he does n'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 '11 give you a drop of something to keep the cold out.'

Tom finds a difhculty 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

[8i]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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, w^hose face is about the colour of the tails of his old pink, as he exchanges greetings wdth coach- man 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 coach- men gather up their horses, and pass one another with the accustomed lift of the elbow, each team doing eleven mile 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,

[82]

RARE TACKLE, THAT, SIR, OF A COLD MORNING," SAYS THE COACHMAN'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 w'ell-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,

[84]

'AND HERE COMES IN THE STOUT HEAD-WAITER'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 warmlv, 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

[86]

GUARD DISCOURSES ON RUGBY

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 streets, nor no light- ing. '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 could n'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 werr)- 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.

[87]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

*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 'cm 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. ]Sob, seeing as 't was 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 nmaway, 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 were n't all of our side, sir, by a long way. We was going

[88]

BATTLE WITH THE PATS

so fast, and they was so took aback, that they did n't take what was up till we was half-way up the line. Then 't was, "look out all," surely. They howls all down the line fit to frighten you, some on 'em runs arter us and tries to clamber up behind, only we hits 'em over the fingers and pulls their hands off ; one as had had it very sharp act'ly runs right at the leaders, as though he 'd ketch 'em by the heads, only luck'ly for him he misses his tip, and comes over a heap o' stones first. The rest picks up stones, and gives it us right away till we gets out of shot, the young gents holding out werry manful with the pea-shooters and such stones as lodged on us, and a pretty many there was too. Then Bob picks hisself up again, and looks at young gent on box werry solemn. Bob 'd had a rum un in the ribs, which 'd like to ha' knocked him off the box, or made him drop the reins. Young gent on box picks hisself up, and so does we all, and looks round to count damage. Box's head cut open and his hat gone ; 'nother young gent's hat gone : mine knocked in at the side, and not one on us as wasn't black and blue somewheres or another, most on 'em all over. Two pound ten to pay for damage to paint, which they subscribed for there and then, and give Bob and me a extra half-sovereign each ; but I would n't go down that line again not for twenty half-sovereigns.' And the guard shook his head slowly, and got up and blew a clear brisk toot, toot.

* What fun ! ' said Tom, who could scarcely contain his pride at this exploit of his future schoolfellows. He longed already for the end of the half that he might join them.

' '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,

[89J

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL- DAYS

and was all but letting drive, and we 'd got two reverend gents aboard too. We pulled up at the beginning of the line, and pacified them, and we 're never going to carry no more pea-shooters, unless they promises not to fire where there 's a line of Irish chaps a stone-breaking.' The guard stopped and pulled away at his cheroot, regarding Tom 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 yeo- man chap, a-jogging along quite quiet. He looks up at the coach, and just then a pea hits him on the nose, and some catches his cob behind and makes him dance up on his hind-legs. I see'd the old boy's face flush and look plaguy awkward, and I thought we was in for somethin' nasty.

' He turns his cob's head, and rides quietly after us just out of shot. How that ere cob did step! we never shook him off not a dozen yards in the six miles. At first the young gents was werry lively on him ; but afore we got in, seeing how steady the old chap come on, they was quite quiet, and laid their heads together what they should do. Some was for fighting, some for axing his pardon. He rides into the town close after us, comes up when we stops, and says the two as shot at him must come before a magistrate ; and a great crowd comes round, and we could n't get the osses to. But the young uns they all stand by one another, and says all or none must go, and as how they 'd fight it out, and have to be carried. Just as 'twas gettin' serious, and the old boy and the mob was going to pull 'em off the

[90]

BLOW-HARD AND HIS YARNS

coach, one little fellow jumps up and says, " Here — I '11 stay — I'm only going three miles further. My father's name 's Davis, he 's known about here, and I '11 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 did n't like to ax his pardon till then, 'cause they felt they had n't ought to shirk the consequences of their joke. And then they all got down, and shook hands with the old boy, and asked him to all parts of the country, to their homes, and we drives off twenty minutes behind time, with cheering and hollering as if we was county members. But, Lor' bless you, sir,' says the guard, smacking his hand down on his knee and looking full into Tom's face, 'ten minutes arter they was all as bad as ever.'

Tom showed such undisguised and open-mouthed interest in his narrations, that the old guard rubbed up his memory, and launched out into a graphic history of all the perform- ances of the boys on the roads for the last twenty years. Off the road he could n'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,

[91]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 '11 stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits or bowls.

The guard had just finished an account of a desperate fight which had happened at one of the fairs between the drovers and the farmers with their whips, and the boys with cricket bats and wickets, which arose out of a playful but objectionable practice of the boys going round to the public- houses and taking the linch-pins out of the wheels of the gigs, and was moralizing upon the way in which the Doctor, 'a terrible stern man he'd heard tell,' had come down upon several of the performers, ' sending three on 'em off next morning, each in a po-chay with a parish constable,' when they turned a corner and neared the milestone, the third from Rugby. By the stone two boys stood, their jackets buttoned tight, waiting for the coach.

'Look here, sir,' says the guard, after giving a sharp toot-toot, ' there 's two on 'em, out and out runners they be. They comes out about twice or three times a week, and spirts a mile alongside of us.'

And as they came up, sure enough, away went two boys along the footpath, keeping up with the horses ; the first a light clean-made fellow going on springs, the other stout

[92]

BLOW-HARD AND HIS YARNS

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 great- est day he should ever spend, and did n't alter his opinion for many a long year — if he has yet.

[93]

Ctepter V

^ughy and ^QoiSaff

Foot and eye opposed

In dubious strife.^

Scott

ND so here 's Rugby, sir, at last, and you '11 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 t2agle ; the wheelers in a spanking trot, and leaders cantering, in a style which would not have disgraced 'Cherry Bob,' 'ramping, stamp- ing, tearing, swearing Billy Harwood,' or any other of the old coaching heroes.

[94]

RUGBY

Tom's heart beat quick as he passed the great school field or close, with its noble elms, in which several games

y i,-=Kt

Z_-vg- -^^-r' Yj/^ F"

i. -»

■ — -J — ■.■»

y;

THE SCHOOL FROM THE CLOSE

Vi/Ai*-

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

[95]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 could n'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.

[96]

^^^--^^^5;

^^Jx^

'23Y?U)V^'»^hr^^v7

'AND AWAY SWAGGERS THE YOUNG POTENTATE'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

' And hcark 'ee, Cooey, it must be up in ten minutes, or no more jobs from me. Come along, Brown.' And away swaggers the young potentate, with his hands in his pockets, and Tom at his side,

'All right, sir,' says Cooey, touching his hat, with a leer and a wink at his companions.

'Hullo tho',' says East, pulling up, and taking another look at Tom, ' this '11 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 did n'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 ; Xixon 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.

[98]

^55^^W>tAsvT.

■SHE GAVE ME HALF A SOV THIS HALF, AND PERHAPS'LL

DOUBLE IT NEXT'

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

'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 '11 do very well as to rig, all but that cap. You see I'm doing the hand- some thing by you, because my father knows yours ; besides, I want to please the old lady. She gave me half a sov this half, and perhaps '11 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 P.ugby 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

[loo]

I

SCHOOL-HOUSE HALL

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

the matron might unpack his Hnen, 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 accusa- tion of newness, marched Tom off into the quadrangle, and began showing him the schools, and examining him as to his literary attainments ; the result of which was a prophecy that they would be in the same form, and could do their lessons together.

' And now come in and see my study ; we shall have just time before dinner ; and afterwards, before calling- over, we '11 do the close.'

Tom followed his guide through the School-house hall, which opens into the quadrangle. It is a great room thirty feet long and eighteen high, or thereabouts, with two great tables running the whole length, and two large fire-places at the side, with blazing fires in them, at one of which some dozen boys were standing and lounging, some of whom shouted to East to stop ; but he shot through with his convoy, and landed him in the long, dark passages, with a large fire at the end of each, upon which the studies opened. Into one of these, in the bottom passage. East bolted with our hero, slamming and bolting the door behind them, in case of pursuit from the hall, and Tom w^as for the first time in a Rugby boy's citadel.

He had n't been prepared for separate studies, and w-as 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 could n't be called light, as there were bars and a grating to the window ; which little precautions

[102]

EAST'S STUDY

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 tablecloth ; a hard- seated sofa covered with red stuff occupied one side, running up to the end, and making a seat for one, or by sitting close, for two, at the table; and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat to another boy, so that three could sit and work together. The walls were wain- scoted 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 Ayles- bury 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

[i°3]

ONE OF THE STUDIES AT THE PRESENT DAY

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 '11 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.'

[104]

TOM'S FIRST RUGBY DINNER

'But there 's a big fire out in the passage,' said Tom.

* Precious Httle good we get out of that tho',' said East ; 'Jones the praepostor has the study at the fire end, and he has rigged up an iron rod and green baize 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 praepostor (who sat at the end to keep order there), and East a few paces higher. And now Tom for the first time saw his future schoolfellows in a body. In they came, some 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

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

one another, or stealing one another's bread, or shooting pellets, or digging their forks through the tablecloth. How- ever, notwithstanding his curiosity, he managed to make

'THE LONG, DARK PASSAGES, . . . UPON WHICH THE STUDIES OPENED'

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 ques- tioned 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,

[io6]

EAST ACTS AS MENTOR

athirst for knowledge, gladly assented to, and they went out through the quadrangle, and past the big fives court, into the great playground.

.•Ts- ^

■■*'■■' '«*,

THE I S L A N D I\I O A T

'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.

[107]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 '11 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 fore- most, and Tom, who was mighty proud of his running, and not a little anxious to show his friend that although a new boy he was no milksop, laid himself down to work in his very best style. Right across the close they went, each doing all he knew, and there wasn't a yard between them when they pulled up at the island moat.

' I say,' said East, as soon as he got his wind, looking with much increased respect at Tom, ' you ain't a bad scud, not by no means. Well, I'm as warm as a toast now.'

' But why do you wear white trousers in November ? ' said Tom. He had been struck by this peculiarity in the costume of almost all the School-house boys.

'Why, bless us, don't you know.!" — No, I forgot. Why, to-day's the School-house match. Our house plays the whole of the School at football. And we all wear white trousers, to show 'em we don't care for hacks. You 're in luck to come to-day. You just will see a match ; and Brooke 's going to let me play in quarters. That 's more than he '11 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.'

[io8]

THE LAWS OF FOOTBALL

' 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 eight- een 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 '11 do, so long as it 's between the posts. You '11 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 fel- lows 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,'

[109]

TOM i;r()\\x*s school days

'places,' and the other intricacies of the <;reat science of football.

' Hut how do you keep the ball between the fjoals ? ' said he ; •I can't see whv it nii«;ht n't ^o rii,dit down to the chapel.'

V

•^•, ...I.*.

TH E THREE TREES

'Why, that's out of play,' answered P2ast. ' Vou 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

[no]

THE PUNT-ABOUT

touches it, has to knock it straight out amongst the players- up, who make two hnes with a space between them, every fellow going on his own side. Ain't there just fine scrum- mages 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 w-ell.

He had n't long to \vonder, 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 crowed 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.

[Ill]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

' I may come in, may n't I ? ' said Tom, catching East by the arm and longing to feel one of them.

' Yes, come along, nobody '11 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.

THE BIG SCHOOL

and up to the further end, where that illustrious form, the lower fourth, which had the honour of East's patronage for the time being, stood.

The master mounted into the high desk by the door, and one of the praepostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the other three marching up and down the mid- dle of the school with their canes, calling out ' Silence,

[112]

CALLING-OVER

silence ! ' The sixth form stood close by the" door on the left, some thirty in number, mostly great big grown men, as Tom thought, surveying them from a distance with awe. The fifth form behind them, twice their number and not quite so big. These on the left ; and on the right the lower fifth, shell, and all the junior forms in order ; while up the middle marched the three praepostors.

Then the praepostor who stands by the master calls out the names, beginning with the sixth form, and as he calls, each boy answers ' here ' to his name, and walks out. Some of the sixth stop at the door to turn the whole string of boys into the close ; it is a great match day, and every boy in the school, will he, nill he, must be there. The rest of the sixth go forwards into the close, to see that no one escapes by any of the side gates.

To-day, however, being the School-house match, none of the School-house praepostors stay by the door to watch for truants of their side ; there is carte blanche to the School- house fags to go Xvhere they like : ' They trust to our honour,' as East proudly informs Tom; 'they know very well that no School-house boy would cut the match. If he did, we 'd very soon cut him, I can tell you.'

The master of the week being short-sighted, and the praepostors of the week small and not well up to their work, the lower-school boys employ the ten minutes which elapse before their names are called in pelting one another vigorously with acorns, which fly about in all directions. The small praepostors dash in every now and then, and generally chastise some quiet, timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes, while the principal performers get dexterously out of the way ; and so calling-over rolls

TU.M BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

on somehow, much Hke the big world, punishments lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer,

a

SCHOOL-HOUSE ENTRANCE AT THE PRESENT DAY

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 prae- postors of the week come out, sweeping the last remnant

["4]

MARSHALLING FOR FOOTBALL

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 mov- ing to the island goal are the School boys in a like predica- ment. 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 tasti- ness 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, bareheaded 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

["5]

TOM ]{R()\VN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 has n't old lirooke won the toss with his lucky halfpenny, and got choice of goals and kick-off ? The new ball you may see lie there cjuite 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. Vou 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 heaxy brigade). These again play in several bodies ; there is young Brooke and the bulldogs — 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.

[ii6]

THE KICK-OFF

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 quar- ters, 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 re- turned, 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

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

the rush, and sends it back with a good drop-kick well into the enemy's countr)'. 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 out- set, 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 docs a bull. My dear sir, a battle would look much the same to you, except that the boys would be men, and the balls iron ; but a battle would be worth your looking at for all that, and so is a football match. You can't be expected to appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which a game is lost and won, — it takes an old player to do that — but the broad philosophy of football you can understand if you will. Come along with me a little nearer, and let us consider it together.

The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest, and they close rapidly around it in a scrummage ; it must be driven through now by force or skill, till it flies out on one side or the other. Look how differently the boys face it ! Here come two of the bulldogs, bursting through the outsiders ; in they go, straight to the heart of the scrum- mage, bent on driving that ball out on the opposite side. That is what they mean to do. My sons, my sons ! you are too hot ; you have gone past the ball, and must struggle now right through the scrummage, and get round and back again to your own side, before you can be of any further use. Here comes young Brooke ; he goes in as straight as you, but keeps his head, and backs and bends, holding

[1x8]

A SCRUMMAGE

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, was n'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 out- side, 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 m.ore coolness than the chargers : as endless as are boys' charac- ters, so are their ways of facing or not facing a scrummage at football.

Three-quarters of an hour are gone ; first winds are fail- ing, and weight and numbers beginning to tell. Yard by yard the School-house have been driven back, contesting every inch of ground. The bulldogs 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

[119]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

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 bulldogs after it, and in another minute there is shout of ' In touch,' 'Our ball.' Now's your time, old Brooke, while your men are still fresh. He stands with the ball in his hand, while the two sides form in deep lines opposite one another : he must strike it straight out between them. The lines are thickest close to him, but young Brooke and two or three of his men are shifting up 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 l^rooke and the bulldogs 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 bulldogs go down, but young Brooke holds on. ' He is down.' No! a long stag- ger, but the danger is past ; that was the shock of Crew, the most dangerous of dodgers. And now he is close to the School goal, the ball not three yards before him. There is a hurried rush of the School fags to the spot, but no one throws himself on the ball, the only chance, and young Brooke has touched it right under the School goal-posts.

The School leaders come up furious, and administer toco to the wretched fags nearest at hand ; they may well be angry, for it is all Lombard Street to a china orange that

[120]

YOUNG BROOKE'S RUSH

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 with- out 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 for- wards, 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

[I2l]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL- DAYS

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 cr)' : 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 trium- phant 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 when- ever 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 Mill 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 God- dess 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

[122]

THE LAST HALF-HOUR

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 bulldogs, 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 schoolboy 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,

[ 123]

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

where our quarters are weakest. Is there no one to meet him ? Yes ! look at Httle East ! the ball is just at equal dis- tances between the two, and they rush together, the young man of seventeen and the boy of twelve, and kick it at the same moment. Crew passes on without a stagger ; East is hurled forward by the shock, and plunges on his shoulder, as if he would bur)- 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 bulldogs 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.

TOM'S FIRST EXPLOIT

The ball rolls slowly in behind the School-house goal not three yards in front of a dozen of the biggest School players-up.

There stand the School-house praepostor, safest of goal- keepers, and Tom Brown by his side, who has learned his trade by this time. Now is your time, Tom. The blood of all the Browns is up, and the two rush in together, and throw themselves on the ball, under the very feet of the advancing column ; the praepostor on his hands and knees arching his back, and Tom all along on his face. Over them topple the leaders of the rush, shooting over the back of the praepostor, but falling flat on Tom, and knocking all the wind out of his small carcass. 'Our ball,' says the praepostor, rising with his prize, ' but get up there, there 's a little fellow under you.' They are hauled and roll off him, and Tom is discovered a motionless body.

Old Brooke picks him up. ' Stand back, give him air,' he says ; and then feeling his limbs, adds, ' No bones broken. How do 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.

[125]

/ ^/> 'some Foocfwe f)ad. ' (Shakespeare

^3 JTOTOS aSv6. uf}eocrituS,ScL.

Ctopter VI

After tf-?e A\atch

(?^^^^^ns tup: boys scattered away from the CfiJ^Khl ground, and East, leaning on Tom's arm, and limping along, was beginning to con- sider 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

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HARROWELL'S

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 '11 have a penn'orth each for tea ; come along, or they '11 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 sug- gested 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 allow- ances were all stopped this morning for broken windows, so I have n'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 '11 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.'

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TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

'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 ponder- ous 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.' ''T was n't of your paying for, then.' — * Stumps's calves are running down into his ankles, they want to get to grass.' ' Better be doing that, than gone altogether like yours,' etc., etc. Very poor stuff it was, but it served to make time pass ; and every now and then Sally arrived in the middle with a smoking tin of potatoes, which was cleared off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running off to the house with ' Put me down two-penn'orth, Sally ' ; ' Put

[128]

Aif^'^

LAWRENCE SHERIFFE STREET, RUGBY

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS

down three-penn'orth between me and Davis,' etc. How she ever kept the accounts so straight as she did, in her head, and on her slate, was a perfect wonder.

East and Tom got served at last, and started back for the School-house just as the locking-up bell began to ring ; East on the way recounting the life and adventures of Stumps, who was a character. Amongst his other small avocations, he was the hind carrier of a sedan-chair, the last of its race, in which the Rugby ladies still went out to tea, and in which, when he was fairly harnessed and carry- ing 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 tor- mentors 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