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THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 823 
 
 H87t 
 
 OAK ST. HDSF 
 
Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. A 
 charge is made on all overdue 
 books. 
 
 
 U. of I. Library 
 
 
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 11148-S 
 
LESSON NO. I, 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES, 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 WILLIAM L. ALLISON, PUBLISHER., 
 93 Chambers Street. 
 
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* 
 
 938498 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE. 
 
 The Brown Family - 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Yeast 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Sundry Wars and Alliances ....... 45 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 The Stage Coach 62 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Rugby and Football. 75 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 After the Match 92 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Settling to the Collar 107 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The War of Independence 124 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 A Chapter of Accidents 142 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 How the Tide Turned 161 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The New Boy 172 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Arthur Makes a Friend 1S3 
 
CONTENTS . 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGE, 
 
 The Bird Fanciers . . 195 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Fight. 206 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Fever 221 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Harry East’s Dilemmas and Deliverances. . . 236 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Tom Brown’s Last Match . 251 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Finis 268 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 I received the following letter from an old friend soon 
 after the last edition of this book was published, and re- 
 solved if ever another edition were called for, to print it. 
 For it is clear from this and other like comments, that 
 something more should have been said expressly on the 
 subject of bullying, and how it is to be met. 
 
 “ My dear , 
 
 “ I blame myself for not having earlier suggested whether 
 you could not, in another edition of Tom Brown, or another 
 story, denounce more decidedly the evils of bullying at schools. 
 You have indeed done so, and in the best way, by making 
 Flashman the bully the most contemptible character ; but in 
 that scene of the tossing , and similar passages, you hardly suggest 
 that such things should be stopped — and do not suggest any 
 means of putting an end to them. 
 
 “This subject has been on my mind for years. It fills me 
 with grief and misery to think what weak and nervous children 
 go through at school — how their health and character for life are 
 destroyed by rough and brutal treatment. 
 
 “ It was some comfort to be under the old delusion that fear 
 and nervousness can be cured by violence, and that knocking 
 about will turn a timid boy into a bold one. But now we know 
 well enough that is not true. Gradually training a timid child 
 to do bold acts would be most desirable ; but frightening him 
 and ill-treating him will not make him courageous. Every med- 
 dical man knows the fatal effects of terror, or agitation, or ex- 
 citement, to nerves that are over-sensitive. There are different 
 kinds of courage, as you have shown in your character of 
 Arthur. 
 
 “ A boy may have moral courage, and a finely-organized brain 
 and nervous system. Such a boy is calculated, if judiciously 
 educated, to be a great, wise, and useful man ; but he may not 
 possess animal courage ; and one night’s tossing or bullying 
 may produce such an injury to his bmin and nerves that his 
 
8 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 usefulness is spoiled for life. I verily believe that hundreds of 
 noble organizations are thus destroyed every year. Horse- 
 jockeys have learned to be wiser ; they know that a highly ner- 
 vous horse is utterly destroyed by harshness. A groom who 
 tried to cure a shying horse by roughness and violence would 
 be discharged as a brute and fool. A man who would regulate 
 his watch with a crowbar would be considered an ass. But a 
 person who thinks a child of delicate and nervous organization 
 can be made bold by bullying is no better. 
 
 “He can be made bold by healthy exercise and games and 
 sports ; but that is quite a different thing. And even these 
 games and sports should bear some proportion to his strength 
 and capacities. 
 
 “I very much doubt whether small children should play with 
 big ones — the rush of a set of great fellows at football, or the 
 speed of a cricket-ball sent by a strong hitter, must be very 
 alarming to a mere child, to a child who might stand up boldly 
 enough among children of his own size and height. 
 
 “Look at half a dozen small children playing cricket by them- 
 selves ; how feeble are their blows, how slowly they bowl. You 
 can measure in that way their capacity. 
 
 “ Tom Brown and his eleven were bold enough playing 
 against an eleven of about their own caliber ; but I suspect they 
 would have been in a precious funk if they had played against 
 eleven giants, whose bowling bore the same proportion to theirs 
 that theirs does to the small children’s above. 
 
 “ To return to the tossing . I must say I think some means 
 might be devised to enable schoolboys to go to bed in quietness 
 and peace— and that some means ought to be devised and en- 
 forced. No good, moral or physical, to those who bully or those 
 who are bullied, can ensue from such scenes as take place in the 
 dormitories of schools. I suspect that British wisdom and in- 
 genuity are sufficient to discover a remedy for this evil, if di- 
 rected in the right direction. 
 
 “ The fact is, that the condition of a small boy at a large 
 school is one of peculiar hardship and suffering. He is entirely 
 at the mercy of proverbially the roughest things in the universe 
 — great schoolboys ; and he is deprived of the protection which 
 the weak have in civilized society ; for he may not complain ; if 
 he does he is an outlaw— he has no protector but public opinion, 
 and that a public opinion of the very lowest grade, the opinion 
 of rude and ignorant boys. 
 
 “ What do schoolboys know of those deep questions of moral 
 and physical philosophy, of the anatomy of mind and body, by 
 which the treatment of a child should be regulated? 
 
 “Why should the laws of civilization be suspended for 
 
P BE FACE. 
 
 9 
 
 schools? Why should boys be left to herd together with no law 
 but that of force or cunning? What would become of society if 
 it were constituted on the same principles? It would be 
 plunged into anarchy in a week. 
 
 “One of our judges not long ago refused to extend the pro- 
 tection of the law to a child who had been ill-treated at school. 
 If a party of navvies had given him a licking, and he had 
 brought the case before a magistrate, what would he have 
 thought if the magistrate had refused to protect him, on the 
 ground that if such cases were brought before him he might 
 have fifty a-day from one town only ? 
 
 “Now I agree with you that a constant supervision of the 
 master is not desirable or possible — and that telling tales, or 
 constantly referring to the master for protection, would only 
 produce ill-will and worse treatment. 
 
 “If I rightly understand your book, it is an effort to improve 
 the condition of schools by improving the tone of morality and 
 public opinion in them. But your book contains the most in- 
 dubitable proofs that the condition of the younger boys at pub- 
 lic schools, except under the rare dictatorship of an Old Brooke, 
 is one of great hardship and suffering. 
 
 “ A timid and nervous boy is from morning till night in a 
 state of bodily fear. He is constantly tormented when trying 
 to learn his lessons. His play-houi s are occupied m fagging, in 
 a horrid funk of cricket-balls and foot-balls, and the violent 
 sport of creatures who, to him, are giants. He goes to his bed 
 in fear and trembling — worse than the reality of the rough 
 treatment to which he is perhaps subjected. 
 
 “ I believe there is only one complete remedy. It is not in 
 magisterial supervision ; nor in telling tales ; nor in raising the 
 tone of public opinion among schoolboys — but in the separation 
 of boys of different ages into different schools . 
 
 “ There should be at least three different classes of schools — 
 the first for boys from nine to twelve ; the second for boys from 
 twelve to fifteen ; the third for those above fifteen. And these 
 schools should be in different localities. 
 
 “ There ought to be a certain amount of supervision by the 
 master at those times when there are special occasions for 
 bullying, e.g . in the long winter evenings, and when the boys 
 are congregated together in the bedrooms. Surely it cannot be 
 an impossibility to keep order, and protect the weak at such 
 times. Whatever evils might arise from supervision, they could 
 hardly be greater than those produced by a system which di- 
 vides boys into despots and slaves. 
 
 “ Ever yours, very truly, 
 
 “F. D” 
 
10 
 
 P BE FACE. 
 
 The question of how to adapt English public school edu- 
 cation to nervous and sensitive boys (often the highest and 
 noblest subjects which that education has to deal with) 
 ought to be looked at from every point of view.* I there- 
 fore add a few extracts from the letter of an old friend and 
 schoolfellow, than whom no man in England is better able 
 to speak on the subject : — 
 
 “ What’s the use of sorting the boys by ages, unless you do so 
 by strength ; and who are often the real bullies ? The strong 
 young dog of fourteen, while the victim may be one year or two 
 
 years older I deny the fact about the bedrooms : there 
 
 is trouble at times, and always will be; but so there is nurseries; 
 — my little girl, who looks like an angel, was bullying the 
 smallest twice to-day. 
 
 “ Bullying must be fought with in other ways, — by getting 
 not only the Sixth to put it down, but the lower fellows to scorn 
 it, and by eradicating mercilessly the incorrigible ; and a master 
 who really cares for his fellows is pretty sure to know instinct- 
 ively who in his house are likely to be bullied, and, knowing a 
 fellow to be really victimized and harassed, I am sure that he 
 can stop it if he is resolved. There are many kinds of annoy- 
 ance — sometimes of real cutting persecution for righteousness’ 
 sake — that he can’t stop : no more could all the ushers in the 
 world ; but he can do very much in many ways to make the 
 shafts of the wicked pointless. 
 
 “But though, for quite other reasons, I don’t like to see very 
 young boys launched at a public school, and though I don’t 
 deny (I wish I could) the existence from time to time of 
 bullying, I deny its being a constant condition of school life, 
 and still more the possibility of meeting it by the means pro- 
 posed 
 
 “ I don’t wish to understate the amount of bullying that goes 
 on, but my conviction is that it must be fought, like all school 
 evils, but it, more than any, by dynamics rather than mechanics , 
 by getting the fellows to respect themselves and one another, 
 rather than by sitting by them with a thick stick.” 
 
 * For those who believe with me in public school education, the fact 
 stated in the following extract from a note of Mr. G. De Bunsen, will be 
 hailed with pleasure especially now that our alliance with Prussia (the 
 most natural and healthy European alliance for Protestant England) is 
 likely to be so much stronger and deeper than heretofore. Speaking of 
 this book, he says, “ The author is mistaken in saying that public 
 schools, in the English sense, are peculiar to England. Schul Pforte (in 
 the Prussian province of Saxony) is similar in antiquity and institutions. 
 I like his book all the more for having been there for five years.” 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 11 
 
 And now, having broken my resolution never to write a 
 Preface, there are just two or three things which I should 
 like to say a word about. 
 
 Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest 
 respect, while saying very kind things about this book, 
 have added, that the great fault of it is, “ too much preach- 
 ing ” ; but they hope I shall amend in this matter should 
 I ever write again. Now this I most distinctly decline to 
 do. Why, my whole object in writing at all was to get the 
 chance of preaching ! When a man comes to my time of 
 life and has his bread to make, and very little time to spare, 
 is it likely that he will spend almost the whole of his yearly 
 vacation in writing a story just to amuse people ? I think 
 not. At any rate, I wouldn’t do so myself. 
 
 The fact is, that I can scarcely ever call on one of my 
 contemporaries now-a-days without running across a boy 
 already at school, or just ready to go there, whose bright 
 looks and supple limbs remind me of his father, and our 
 first meeting in old times. lean scarcely keep the Latin 
 Grammar out of my own house any longer ; and the sight 
 of sons, nephews, and godsons, playing trap-bat-and-ball, 
 and reading “ Robinson Crusoe,” makes one ask oneself 
 whether there isn’t something one would like to say to 
 them before they take their first plunge into the stream of 
 life, away from their own homes, or while they are yet 
 shivering after the first plunge. My sole object in writing 
 was to preach to boys; if ever I write again, it will be to 
 preach to some other age. I can’t see that a man has any 
 business to write at all unless he has something which he 
 thoroughly believes and wants to preach about. If he has 
 this, and the chance of delivering himself of it, let him by 
 all means put it in the shape in which it will be most likely 
 to get a hearing ; but let him never be so carried away as 
 to forget that preaching is his object. 
 
 A black soldier, in a West Indian regiment, tied up to 
 receive a couple of dozen for drunkenness, cried out to his 
 captain, who was exhorting him to sobriety in future. 
 “ Cap’n, if you preachee, preachee ; and if floggee, floggee ; 
 but no preachee and floggee too! ” to which his captain might 
 have replied, “No, Pompey, I must preach whenever I see 
 a chance of being listened to, which I never did before ; so 
 now you must have it all together ; and I hope you may 
 remember some of it.” 
 
12 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 There is one point which has been made by several of the 
 reviewers who have noticed this book, and it is one which, 
 as I am writing a preface, I can n- t pass over. They have 
 stated that the Rugby undergraduates they remember at 
 the universities were “a solemn array,” u boys turned into 
 men before their time,” “ a semi-political, semi-sacerdotal 
 fraternity,” etc., giving the idea that Arnold turned out a 
 set of young squares-toes, who wore long-fingered black 
 gloves and talked with a snuffle. I can only say that their 
 acquaintance must have been limited and exceptional. For 
 I am sure that every one who has had anything like large 
 or continuous knowledge of boys brought up at Rugby from 
 the times of which this book treats down to this day, will 
 bear me out in saying, that the mark by which you may 
 know them, is, their genial and heaiiy freshness and youth- 
 fulness of character. They lose nothing of the boy that is 
 worth keeping, but build up the man upon it. This is 
 their differentia as Rugby hoys ; and if they never had it, 
 or have lost it, it must be, not because they were at Rugby, 
 but in spite of their having been there ; the stronger it is in 
 them the more deeply you may be sure have they drunk of 
 the spirit of their school. 
 
 But this boyishness in the highest sense is not incompat- 
 tible with seriousness — or earnestness, if you like the word 
 better.* Quite the contrary. And I can well believe that 
 casual observers, who have never been intimate with Rugby 
 bo} r s of the true stamp, but have met them only in the 
 every-day society of the universities, at wines, breakfast- 
 parties, and the like, may have seen a good deal more of 
 the serious or earnest side of their characters than of any 
 other. For the more the boy was alive in them the less 
 will they have been able to conceal their thoughts or their 
 opinion of what was taking place under their noses ; and if 
 the greater part of that didn’t square with their notions of 
 what was right, very likely they showed pretty clearly that 
 it did not, at whatever risk of being taken for young prigs. 
 They may be open to the charge of having old heads on 
 young shoulders ; I think, they are, and always were, as 
 long as T can remember; but so long as they have young 
 
 * “To him (Arnold) and his admirers we owe the substitution of the 
 word ‘ earnest’ for its predecessor ‘serious.’” — Edinburgh Review , No. 
 217, p. 183. 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 13 
 
 hearts to keep head and shoulders in order, I, for one, must 
 think this only a gain. 
 
 And what gave Rugby boys this character, and has 
 enabled the school, I believe, to keep it to this day? I say 
 fearlessly — Arnold’s teaching and example — above all, that 
 part of it which has been, I will not say sneered at, but 
 certainly not approved — his unwearied zeal in creating 
 -moral thoughtfulness” in every boy with whom he came 
 into personal contact. 
 
 He certainly did teach us — thank God for it ! — that we 
 could not cut our life into slices and say, “ In this slice 
 your actions are indifferent, and you needn’t trouble your 
 heads about them one way or another ; but in this slice 
 mind what you are about, for they are important ” — a pretty 
 muddle we should have been in had he done so. He taught 
 us that in this wonderful world, no boy or man can tell 
 which of his actions is indifferent and which not; that by a 
 thoughtless word or look we may lead astray a brother for 
 whom Christ died. He taught us that life is a whole, made 
 up of actions and thoughts and longings, great and small, 
 noble and ignoble ; therefore the only true wisdom for boy 
 or man is to bring the whole life into obedience to Him 
 whose world we live in, and who has purchased us with His 
 blood; and that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we 
 do, we are to do all in His name and to His glory ; in such 
 teaching, faithfully, as it seems to me, following that of 
 Paul of Tarsus, who was in the habit of meaning what he 
 s«,id, and who laid down this standard for every man and 
 boy in his time., I think it lies with those who say that 
 such teaching will not do for us now, to show why a teacher 
 in the nineteenth century is to preach a lower standard 
 than one in the first. 
 
 However, I won’t say that the reviewers have not a cer- 
 tain plausible ground for their dicta. For a short time after 
 a boy has taken up such a life as Arnold would have urged 
 upon him, he has a hard time of it. He finds his judgment 
 often at fault, his body and intellect running away with 
 him into all sorts of pitfalls, and himself coming down with 
 a crash. The more seriously he buckles to his work the 
 oftener these mischances seem to happen ; and in the dust 
 of his tumbles and struggles, unless he is a very extraordi- 
 nary boy, he may often be too severe on his comrades, may 
 
14 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 think he sees evil in things innocent, may give offense when 
 he never meant it. At this stage of his career, I take it, 
 our reviewer comes across him, and, not looking below the 
 surface (as a reviewer ought to do), at once sets the poor 
 boy down for a prig and a Pharisee, when in all likelihood he 
 is one of the humblest and truest and most childlike of the 
 reviewer’s acquaintance. 
 
 But let our reviewer come across him again in a year 
 or two, when the 44 thoughtful life ” has become habitual to 
 him, and fits him as easily as his skin ; and, if he be honest, 
 I think he will see cause to reconsider his judgment. For he 
 will find the boy, grown into a man, enjoying every day 
 life as no man can who has not found out whence comes the 
 capacity for enjoyment, and who is the Giver of the least 
 of the good things of this world — humble, as no man can be 
 who has not proved his own powerlessness to do right in 
 the smallest act which he ever had to do — tolerant, as no 
 man can be who does not live daily and hourly in the 
 knowledge of how Perfect Love is forever about his path, 
 and bearing with and upholding him. 
 
TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS, 
 
 BY AN OLD BOY. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 “Pm the Poet of White Horse Yale, sir, 
 
 With liberal notions under my cap.” Ballad . 
 
 The Browns have become illustrious by the pen of Thack- 
 eray and the pencil of Doyle within the memory of the 
 young gentlemen who are now matriculating at the Uni- 
 versities. Notwithstanding the well-merited but late fame 
 which has now fallen upon them, any one at all acquainted 
 with the family must feel that much has yet to be written 
 and said before the British nation will be properly sensible 
 of how much of its greatness it owes to the Browns. For 
 centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, they have 
 been subduing the earth in most English counties, and 
 leaving their mark in American forests and Australian 
 uplands. Wherever the fleets and armies of England have 
 won renown, there the stalwart sons of the Browns have 
 done yeomen’s work. With the yew bow and cloth-yard 
 shaft at Cressy and Agincourt — with the brown bill and 
 pike under the brave Lord Willoughby — with culverin and 
 demi-culverin against Spaniards and Dutchmen — with hand- 
 grenade and saber, and musket and bayonet, under Rodney 
 and St. Vincent, Wolfe and Moore, Nelson and Welling- 
 ton, they have carried their lives in their hands ; getting hard 
 knocks and hard work in plenty, which was on the whole 
 what they looked for, and the best thing for them ; and 
 little praise or pudding, which indeed they and most of us are 
 better without. Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs, and such/ 
 
16 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 like folk, have led armies, and made laws time out of mind ; 
 but those noble families would be somewhat astounded — if 
 the accounts ever came to be fairly taken — to find how 
 small their work for England has been hy the side of that 
 of the Browns. 
 
 These latter, indeed, have, until the present generation, 
 rarely been sung by poet or chronicled by sage. They 
 have wanted their “ sacer vates,” having been too solid to 
 rise to the top by themselves, and not having been largely 
 gifted with the talent of catching hold of, and holding on 
 tight to, whatever good things happened to be going — the 
 foundation of the fortunes of so many noble families. But 
 the world goes on its way, and the wheel turns, and the 
 wrongs of the Browns, like other wrongs, seem in a fair 
 way to get righted. And this present writer, having for 
 many years of his life been a devout Brown-worshiper, 
 and moreover having the honor of being nearly connected 
 with an eminently respectable branch of the great Brown 
 family, is anxious, so far as in him lies, to help the wheel 
 over, and throw his stone on to the pile. 
 
 However, gentle reader, or simple reader, whichever you 
 may be, lest you should be led to waste your precious time 
 upon these pages, I make so bold as at once to tell you the 
 sort of folk you’ll have to meet and put up with, if you and 
 I are to jog on comfortably together. You shall hear at 
 once what sort of folk the Browns are, at least my branch 
 of them ; andt hen if you don’t like the sort, why, cut the 
 concern at once, and let you and I cry quits before either 
 one 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, then the Brown 
 who is nearest must shove in his carcase. And these carcases 
 for the most part answer very well to the characteristic pro- 
 pensity ; they are a square-headed and snake-necked genera- 
 tion, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest, and thin in flank, 
 carrying no lumber. Then for clanship, they are as bad as 
 Highlanders : it is amazing the belief they have in one an- 
 other. 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 
 
TOM BROWN y S SCHOOL-DA YS. 1 7 
 
 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 daring the whole time of their be- 
 ing together, they luxuriate in telling one another their 
 minds on whatever subject turns up ; and their minds are 
 wonderfully antagonistic, and all their opinions are down- 
 right beliefs. Till you’ve been among them some time and 
 understand them, you can’t think but that they are quarrel- 
 ing. 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, make 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 gamers them away for trouble- 
 some 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 chil- 
 dren to the workhouse, they will be on the look-out for Bill 
 to take his place. 
 
 However, it is time for us to get from the general to the 
 particular ; so, leaving the great army of Browns, who are 
 scattered over the whole empire on which the sun never 
 sets, and whose general diffusion I take to be the chief 
 cause of that empire’s stability, let us at once fix our atten- 
 tion upon the small nest of Browns in which our hero was 
 
18 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 hatched, and which dwelt in that portion of the royal 
 county of Berks which is called the Yale of White 
 Horse. 
 
 Most of you have probably traveled 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 neighborhood is yet more interesting for 
 its relics of bygone times. I only know two English neigh- 
 borhoods 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 al- 
 most throughout the country, but each has a special at- 
 traction, and none can be richer than the one I am speaking 
 of and going to introduce you to very particularly ; for on 
 this subject must I be prosy ; so those that don’t care for 
 England in detail may skip the chapter. 
 
 Oh young England ! young England ! You who are born 
 into these racing railroad times, when there’s a Great Ex- 
 hibition, or some monster sight, everj^ year; and you can 
 get over a couple of thousand miles of ground for three 
 pound ten, in a five weeks’ holiday ; why don’t you know 
 more of your own birthplaces? You’re all in the ends of 
 the earth, it seems to me, as soon as you get your necks 
 out of the educational collar, for midsummer holidays, long 
 vacations, or what not. Going round Ireland with a re- 
 turn ticket, in a fortnight ; dropping your copies of Tenny- 
 son 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 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 19 
 
 of books from Mudie’s library, and half bored to death. 
 Well, well ! I know it has its good side. You all patter French 
 more or less, and perhaps German : you have seen men and 
 cities, no doubt, and have your opinions, such as they are, 
 about schools of painting, high art, and all that ; have seen 
 the pictures at Dresden and the Louvre, and know the taste 
 of sour-krout. All I say is, you don’t know your own lanes 
 and woods and fields. Though you may be chock-full of 
 science, not one in twenty of you knows where to find the 
 wood-sorrel or bee-orchis, which grows in the next wood or 
 on the down three miles off, or what the bog-bean and wood- 
 sage are good for. And as for the country legends, the 
 stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, the place where 
 the last skirmish was fought in the civil wars, where the 
 parish butts stood, where the last highwayman turned to 
 bay, where the last ghost was laid by the parson, they’re 
 gone out of date altogether. 
 
 Now, in my time, when we got home by the old coach 
 which put us down at the crossroads with our boxes, the 
 first day of the holidays, and had been driven off by the 
 family coachman, singing “ Dulce Domum” at the top of 
 our voices, there we were, fixtures, till black Monday came 
 round. We had to cut out our own amusements within a walk 
 or ride of home. And so we got to know all the country 
 folk and their ways and songs and stories by heart ; we 
 went over the fields, and woods, and hills, again and again, 
 till we made friends with them all. We were Berkshire, 
 or Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys, and you’re young 
 cosmopolites, belonging to all counties and no countries. 
 No doubt it’s all right — I dare say it is. This is the day 
 of large views and glorious humanity, and all that; but I 
 wish back-swordplay hadn’t gone out in the Yale of White 
 Horse, and that that confounded Great Western hadn’t car- 
 ried 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 interest- 
 ing story are laid. As I said, the Great Western now runs 
 right through it, and it is a land of large, rich pastures, 
 bounded by fox-fences, and covered with fine hedgerow 
 timber, with here and there a nice little gorse or spinney, 
 where abideth poor Charley, having no other cover to which 
 to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed out 
 
20 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 some fine November morning by the Old Berkshire. Those 
 who have been there, and well mounted, only know 
 how he and the stanch little pack who dashed after him — 
 heads high and sterns low, with a breast-high scent — can 
 consume the ground at such times. There being little 
 plough-land and few woods, the Vale is only an average 
 sporting country, except for hunting. The villages are 
 straggling, queer, old-fashioned places, the houses being 
 cropped down without the least regularity, in nooks and 
 out-of-the-way corners, by the sides of shadowy lanes and 
 footpaths, each with its patch of garden. They are built 
 chiefly of good gray stone and thatched ; though I see that 
 within the last year or two the red-brick cottages are mul- 
 tiplying, for the Vale is beginning to manufacture largely 
 both brick and tiles. There are lots of waste ground by 
 the side of the roads in every village, amounting often to 
 village greens, where feed the pigs and ganders of the 
 people ; and these roads are old-fashioned, homely roads, 
 very .dirty and badly made and hardly endurable in winter, 
 but still pleasant, jog-trot roads running through the great 
 pasture lands, dotted here and there with little clumps of 
 thorns, where the sleek kine are feeding, with no fence on 
 either side of them, and a gate at the end of each field, 
 which makes you get out of your gig (if you keep one), 
 and gives you a chance of looking about you every quar- 
 ter of a mile. 
 
 One of the moralists whom we sat under in my 
 youth — was it the great Richard Swiveller, or Mr. Stig- 
 gins? — says, “ We are born in a vale, and must take the 
 consequences of being found in such a situation.” These 
 consequences I for one am ready to encounter. I pity 
 people who weren’t born in a vale. I don't mean a flat 
 country, but a vale ; that is, a flat country bounded by hills. 
 The having your hill always in view, if you choose to turn 
 towards him, that’s the essence of a vale. There he is for- 
 ever in the distance, your friend and companion ; you never 
 lose him as you do in hilly districts. 
 
 And then what a hill is the White Horse hill ! There 
 it stands right up above all the rest, nine hundred feet 
 above the sea, and the boldest, and bravest shape for a chalk 
 hill that you ever saw. Let us go up to the top of him, 
 and see what is to be found there. Ay, you may well 
 
TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 21 
 
 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 upon 
 the highest point, from which they say you can see eleven 
 counties, they trenched round all the table-land, some 
 twelve or fourteen acres, as was their custom, for they 
 couldn’t bear anybody to overlook them, and made their 
 ejuie. 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 prophes}^, as he looks down on 
 that great vale spread out as the garden of the Lord before 
 him, and wave on wave of the mysterious downs behind; 
 and to the right and left the chalk hills running away into 
 the distance, along which he can trace for miles the old 
 Roman road, “ the Ridgeway ” (“ the Rudge,” as the 
 country folk call it), keeping straight along the highest 
 back of the hills ; — such a place as Balak brought Balaam 
 to, and told him to prophesy against the people in the 
 valley beneath. And he could not, neither shall you, for 
 they are a people of the Lord who abide there. 
 
 And now we leave the camp, and descend toward 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 (“ JEscendum ” 
 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 
 
22 
 
 TOM BBOWH'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 higher ground,” as old Asser says, having wasted every- 
 thing behind them from London, and being just ready to 
 burst down on the fair vale, Alfred’s own birthplace and 
 heritage. And up the heights came the Saxons, as they 
 did at the Alma. “ The Christians led up their line from 
 the lower groundo There stood also on that same spot a 
 single thorn-tree, marvelous stumpy (which we ourselves 
 with our very own eyes have seen).” Bless the old chronicler! 
 does he think nobody ever saw a “ 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 “ marvelous 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 T was saying, the two lines of foe- 
 men came together in battle with a huge shout. And in 
 this place, one of the two kings < f 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 curves, known as “ The Giant’s Stairs ; ” they are not 
 a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them any- 
 where else, with their short green turf and tender bluebells, 
 and gossamer and thistle-down gleaming in the sun, and 
 the sheep-paths running along their sides like ruled lines. 
 
 *“Pagani editiorem locum praeoccupaverant. Christiani ab inferiori 
 loco aciem dirigebant. Erat quoque in eodeni loco unica spinosa arbor, 
 brevis admodum (quam nos ipsi nostris propriis oculis vidimus). Circa 
 quam ergo hostiles inter se acies cum ingenti clamore liostiliter conven- 
 iunt. Quo in loco alter de duobus Paganorum regibus et quinque com- 
 ites occisi occubuerunt, et multa millia Paganae partis in eodem loco. 
 Cecidit illic ergo Boegsceg Rex, et Sidroe, ille senex comes, et Sidroc 
 Junior comes, et Obsbern comes,” &c. — Annales Berum Gestarum 
 HZlfredi Magni , Auctore Asserio. Becensuit .FranciscusfWise. _ Oxford . 
 1722, p. 23. 
 
TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 23 
 
 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 
 around him. On this hill some deliverer of mankind. — St. 
 George, the country folk used to tell me — killed a dragon. 
 Whether it were St. George, I cannot say ; but surely a 
 dragon was killed there, for you may see the marks 
 where his blood ran down, and more by token the place 
 where it ran down is the easiest way up the hillside. 
 
 Passing along the Ridgeway to the west for about a 
 mile we come to a little clump of young beech and firs, 
 with a growth of thorn and privet underwood. Here you 
 may find nests of the strong down partridge and peewit, 
 but take care that the keeper isn’t down upon you ; and 
 in the middle of it is an old cromlech, a huge flat stone 
 raised on seven or eight others, and led up to by a path, 
 with large single stones set up on each side. This is 
 Wayland Smith’s cave, a place of classic fame now; but 
 as Sir Walter has touched it, I may as well let it alone 
 and refer you to Kenilworth for the legend 
 
 The thick deep wood which you see in the hollow, about 
 a mile off, surrounds Ashdown Park, built by Inigo Jones. 
 Four broad alleys are cut through the wood from circum- 
 ference to center, and each leads to one face of the house. 
 The mystery of the downs hangs about house and wood, as 
 they stand there alone, so unlike all around, with the green 
 slopes, studded with great stones just about this part, 
 stretching away on all sides. It was a wise Lord Craven, 
 I think, who pitched his tent there. 
 
 Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come 
 to cultivated land. The downs, strictly so called, are no 
 more; Lincolnshire farmers have been imported, and the 
 long fresh slopes are sheep-walks no more, but grow famous 
 turnips and barley. One of those improvers lives over 
 there at the u Seven Barrows” farm, another mystery of 
 the great downs. There are the barrows still, solemn and 
 silent, like ships in the calm sea, the sepulchres of some 
 sons of men. But of whom ? It is three miles from the 
 White Horse, too far for the slain of Ashdown to be 
 buried there — who shall say what heroes are waiting there? 
 But we must get down into the vale again, and so away 
 by the Great Western Railway to town, for time and the 
 
24 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 printer’s devil press, and 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 be- 
 fore the door. 
 
 44 What is the name of your hill, landlord ? ” 
 
 44 Blawing Stwun Hill, sir, to be sure.” 
 
 [Reader. “ Sturm ? ” 
 
 Author. Stone, stupid : the Blowing Stone”"] 
 
 44 And of your house ? I can’t make out the sign.” 
 
 44 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. 
 
 44 What queer names ! ” say we, sighing at the end of our 
 draught, and holding out the glass to be replenished. 
 
 44 Be’an’t queer at all, as I can see, sir,” says mine host, 
 handing back our glass, 44 seeing as this here is the Blaw- 
 ing Stwun hisself ” 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. 4< Like to 
 near un, sir?” says mine host, setting down Toby Philpot 
 on the tray, and resting both hands on the 44 Stwun.” We 
 are ready tor anything ; and he, without waiting for a re- 
 ply, applies his mouth to one of the rat-holes. Something 
 must come of it, if he doesn’t burst. Good heavens ! 1 
 
 hope he has no apoplectic tendencies. Yes, here it comes, 
 sure enough, a grewsome sound between a moan and a 
 roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, and up the 
 hillside, and into the woods at the back of the house, a 
 ghost-like, awful voice, 44 Um do say, sir,” says mine host, 
 rising, purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out of 
 the 44 Stwun,” 44 as they used in old times to warn the 
 countryside, 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 
 
TOM BROWN 9 S SCHOOL-BAYS . 
 
 25 
 
 summons, a sort of sending the fiery cross round the neigh- 
 borhood 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, land- 
 lord ? 
 
 “ Kingstone Lisle, sir.” 
 
 “ Fine plantations you’ve got here I” 
 
 “ 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 read- 
 ers, have you had enough? Will you give in at once, and 
 say you’re convinced, and let me begin my story, or will 
 you have more of it? Remember, I’ve only been over a 
 little bit of the hillside yet — what you could ride round 
 easily on your ponies in an hour. I’m only just come 
 down into the vale, by Blowing Stone hill, and if I once 
 begin about the vale, what’s to stop me? You’ll have to 
 hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and Far- 
 ringdon, whicli held out so long for Charles the First (the 
 vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant; full of 
 Throgmortons, and Puseys, and Pyes, and such like, and 
 their brawny retainers). Did you ever read Thomas 
 Ingoldsby’s “ Legend of Hamilton Tighe ? ” If you haven’t, 
 you ought to have. Well, Farringdon is where he lived 
 oefore he went to sea ; his real name was Hampden Pye, 
 and the Pyes were the great folk at Farringdon. Then 
 there’s Pusey. You’ve heard of the Pusey horn, which 
 King Canute gave to the Puseys of that day, and which 
 the gallant old squire, lately gone to his rest (whom 
 Berkshire freeholders turned out of last Parliament, to 
 their eternal disgrace, for voting according to his con- 
 science), used to bring out on high days and holidays, and 
 bonfire nights. And the splendid old cross church at 
 Uffington, the Uffingas town; — how the whole country 
 side teems with Saxon names and memories ! And the 
 old moated grange at Compton, nestled close under the 
 hillside, where twenty Marianas may have lived, with its 
 bright water-lilies in the moat, and its yew walk, “ the 
 cloister walk,” and its peerless terraced gardens. There 
 
26 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 they all are, and twenty tilings 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 neighborhood. 
 
 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 holi- 
 day, I can’t help it. I was born and bred a west-country- 
 man, thank God ! — a Wessex man, a citizen of the noble 
 Saxon Kingdom of Wessex, a regular “ Angular Saxon, ” 
 the very soul of me “ adscriptus glebe.” There’s noth- 
 ing 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 aal the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast 
 
 Commend me to merry owld England mwoast ; 
 
 While vools gwoes prating vur and nigh, 
 
 We st wops at whum, my dog and I.” 
 
 Here, at any rate, lived and stopped at home Squire 
 Brown, J. P. for the county of Berks, in a village near 
 the foot of the White Horse range. And here he dealt 
 out justice and mercy in a rough way, and begat sons 
 and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the 
 badness of the roads and the times. And his wife dealt 
 out stockings, and calico shirts, and smock frocks, and 
 comforting drinks to the old folks with the “ rheumatiz,” 
 and good counsel to all ; and kept the coal and clothes 
 clubs going, for Yuletide, when the bands of mummers came 
 round, dressed out in ribbons and colored paper caps and 
 stamped round the Squire’s kitchen, repeating, in true 
 sing-song vernacular, the legend of St. George and his 
 fight, and the ten-pound doctor, who plays his part at 
 healing the saint, — a relic, I believe, of the old middle- 
 age mysteries. It was the first dramatic representation 
 which greeted the eyes of little Tom, who was brought 
 down into the kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the 
 mature age of three years. Tom was the eldest child 
 of his parents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited 
 the family characteristics of great strength. He was a 
 hearty, strong boy from the first, given to fighting with 
 
TOM EDO WN ’ 6 ’ SCHOOL-DA YS . 27 
 
 and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing with 
 a 1 the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all 
 round the neighborhood. And here in the quiet old- 
 fashioned country village, under the shadow of the 
 everlasting lulls, lorn Brown was reared, and never left it till 
 he went hrst to school when nearly eight years of age, 
 foi 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, 
 tube gigantic jobbers and bribers, whip quarreling 
 about everything else, agreed together, some ten years 
 back, to buy up the learned profession of medicine, body 
 
 oflonpv r v t wn end thej Set a P art several millions 
 of money, which they continually distribute judiciously 
 amongst the doctors, stipulating only this one thing, 
 a ey snail prescribe change of air to every patient 
 who can pay, or borrow money to pay, a railway fare, and 
 see their prescription carried out. If it be not for this, 
 why is it that none of us can be well at home for a year 
 together . It wasn t so twenty years ago,— not a bit of 
 it. The Browns didn’t go out of the county once in 
 five yeais. 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 
 
 nir?° be - a Stay ° f v • day or two at som e country 
 nei 0 hbors— or an expedition to a county ball, or the 
 
 yeomanry review-made up the sum of the Brown 
 
 dWw r f 0St y f ars - A stra ^ 1!ra ™ from son, ' 
 distant county dropped in every now and then ; or from 
 
 ou, on grave nag, an old don, contemporary of the 
 
 aH/ill Were l0 ?M Up0n by the Brown household 
 and the villagers with the same sort of feeling with 
 
 We now . re fiM a man who has crossed the Rocky 
 Mountains, or launched a boat on the Great Lake in 
 
 traveill f 1Ca> lhe , Whit f Horse Vale, remember, was 
 tiaveised by no great road— nothing but country parish 
 
 oad s au( l these very bad. Only one coach ran there, 
 
 western 7 u T, Wanta g e 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. 
 
28 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 There was the canal, by the way, which supplied the country 
 side with coal, and up and down which continually went 
 the long barges, with the big black men lounging by 
 the side of the horses along the towing-path, and the 
 Women in bright-colored handkerchiefs standing in the 
 sterns steering. Standing, I say, but you could never see 
 whether they were standing or sitting, all but their heads 
 and shoulders being out of sight in the cozy little cabins 
 which occupied some eight feet of the stern, and winch 
 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 entic- 
 ing children into the barges, and taking them up to 
 London and selling them, which Tom wouldn’t believe, 
 and which made him resolve as soon as possible to accept 
 the oft-proffered invitation of these sirens to “ young 
 master,” to come in and have a ride. But as yet the 
 nurse was too much for Tom. 
 
 Yet why should I after all abuse the gadabout propensi- 
 ties of my countrymen? We are a vagabond nation now, 
 that’s certain, for better for worse. I am a vagabond ; 
 I have been away from home no less than five distinct 
 times in the last year. The Queen sets us the example — we 
 are moving on from top to bottom. Little dirty Jack, who 
 abides in Clement’s Inn gateway, and blacks my boots for 
 a penny, takes his month’s hop-picking every year as a mat- 
 ter 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 traveling carriages are an 
 abomination unto me — I cannot away with them. But 
 for dirty Jack, and every good fellow who, in the words of 
 the capital French song, moves about, 
 
 Comme le limacon, 
 
 Portant tout son bagage, 
 
 Ses meubles, sa maison,” 
 
 on his own back, why good luck to them, and many a mer- 
 ry road-side adventure, and steainingsupper in the chimney 
 corners of road-side inns, Swiss chalets, Hottentot kraals, or 
 wherever else they like to go. So having succeeded in con- 
 tradicting 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 
 
THE VEAST. 
 
 29 
 
 present, and consider my ways ; having resolved to “ sar’ it 
 out,” as we say in the Vale, “ holusbolus,” just as it comes, 
 and then you’ll probably get the truth out of me. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE YEAST. 
 
 “ And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth 
 neither fairs nor markets be kept in Churchyards, for the honor of the 
 Church.” — Statutes : 13 Edw . , Stat. u. cap. vi. 
 
 As that venerable and learned poet (whose voluminous 
 works we all think it the correct thing to admire and talk 
 about, but don’t read often) most truly says, “ the child is 
 father to the man a fortiori, therefore he must hi father 
 
 to the boy. So, as we are going at any rate to see Tom 
 Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any 
 further (which, if you show a proper sense of the value of 
 this history, there is no knowing but what we may), let us 
 have a look at the life and environments of the child, in the 
 quiet country -village to which we were introduced in the 
 last chapter. 
 
 Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combat- 
 ive 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 her- 
 self freely in the profession; for profession it was, and gave 
 her more trouble by half than a good many people take to 
 earn a good income. Her servants were known and sought 
 after for miles round. Almost all the girls who attained a 
 certain place in the village school were taken by her, one or 
 two at a time, as housemaids, laundry-maids, nursery-maids 
 or kitchen-maids, and after ayear or two’s drilling were 
 started in life among the neighboring 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 
 
30 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 than Missus was sure to find a good place for her and send 
 her off, taking in fresh importations from the school. An- 
 other 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 creat- 
 ures in general, above plates and linen. They were more 
 like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her 
 more as a mother or aunt than as a mistress. 
 
 Tom’s nurse was one who took in her instruction 
 very slowly — she seemed to have two left hands and no 
 head ; and so Mrs. Brown kept her on longer than usual, 
 that she might expend her awkwardness and forgetfulness 
 upon those who would not judge and punish her too strict- 
 ly 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 forever hearing in the village street, or on the 
 green, shrill sounds of “ Prudence ! Prudence ! thee cum’ 
 out o’ the gutter ; ” or “ Mercy ! d’rat the girl, what bist 
 thee a doin’ wi’ little Faith?” and there were Ruths, Ra- 
 chels, 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 hi min the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity 
 and Tom were pitted against one another. Physical power 
 was as yet on the side of Charity, but she hadn’t a chance 
 with him wherever headwork was wanted. This war of inde- 
 pendence began every morning before breakfast, when Char- 
 ity escorted her charge to a neighboring farmhouse which 
 supplied the Browns, and where, by his mother’s wish, 
 Master Tom went to drink whey before breakfast. Tom 
 had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a decided lik- 
 ing for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome, and 
 there was seldom a morning that he did not manage to se- 
 cure 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 
 
THE VEAST 
 
 31 
 
 of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and 
 her gown tucked through her pocket-holes, went clattering 
 about the dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens. 
 Charity was some sort of niece of the old lady’s, and was 
 consequently free of the farmhouse and garden, into which 
 she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip and 
 flirtation with the heir-apparent, who was a dawdling fel- 
 low, never out at work as he ought to have been. The 
 moment Charity had found her cousin, or any other occu- 
 pation, Tom would slip away; and in a minute shrill cries 
 would be heard from the dairy, “ Charity ! Charity ! thee 
 lazy hussy, where bist ? ” and Tom would break cover, hand 
 and mouth full of curds and take refuge on the shaky sur- 
 face of the great muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, 
 disturbing the repose of the great pigs. Here lie was in safety, 
 as no grown person could follow without getting over their 
 knees ; and the luckless Charity, while her aunt scolded 
 her from the dairy door, forlbeing “ 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 genera- 
 tions 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 attend- 
 ant of a Miss Brown, and had conveyed her about the 
 country on a pillion. He had a little round picture of the 
 identical gray horse, caparisoned with the identical pil- 
 lion, 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 habili- 
 ment Master Tom looked upon with considerable respect, 
 not to say fear; and indeed his whole feeling toward Noah 
 was strongly tainted with awe ; and when the old gen- 
 
82 
 
 TOM BBOWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 tleman was gathered to his fathers, Tom’s lamentation 
 over him was not unaccompanied by a certain joy at hay- 
 ing seen the last of the wig : “ Poor old Noah, dead and 
 gone,” said he, u 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 Yale gossip, and of all sorts of help- 
 ful 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 stickle- 
 back was a splendid fellow, with fabulous red and blue 
 gills. Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his 
 death, and became a fisherman from that day. Within a 
 month from the taking of the first stickleback Benjy had 
 carried off our hero to the canal, in defiance of Charity, 
 and between them, after a whole afternoon’s popjoying, 
 they had caught three or four small coarse fish and a perch, 
 averaging perhaps two and a half ounces each, which Tom 
 bore home in rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and 
 she received like a true mother with equal rapture, instruct- 
 ing the cook nevertheless, in a private interview, not to 
 prepare the same for the Squire’s dinner. Charity had ap- 
 pealed 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 
 favor, 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 do- 
 ings of deceased Browns. How his grandfather, in the 
 early days of the great war when there was much distress 
 and crime in the Yale, and the magistrates had been threat- 
 ened by the mob, had ridden in with a big stick in his 
 hand, and held the Petty Sessions by himself. How his 
 great uncle, the Rector, had encountered and laid the last 
 ghost, who had frightened the old women, male and female, 
 of the parish out of their senses, and who turned out to be 
 the blacksmith’s apprentice, disguised in drink and a white 
 sheet. It was Benjy too who saddled Tom’s first pony and 
 instructed him in the mysteries of horsemanship, teaching 
 
THE VEASTo 
 
 33 
 
 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 ; hd 
 had shared Benjy’s cottage till his death, and had left him 
 his old dragoon’s sword and pistol, which hung over the 
 mantelpiece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks with 
 which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old 
 gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire and Somer- 
 setshire, 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 
 44 veast ” had been instituted, but nevertheless it had a 
 pleasant and almost sacred character of its own. For it 
 was then that all the children of the village, wherever they 
 were scattered, tried to get home for a holiday to visit their 
 fathers and mothers and friends, bringing with them their 
 wages or some little gift from up the country for the old 
 folk. Perhaps for a day or two before, but at any rate on, 
 44 veast day” and the day after, in our village, you might. 
 
84 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 see strapping healthy young men and women from all parts 
 of the country going round from house to house in their 
 best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam Brown, 
 whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings 
 to the best advantage, or how to expend the same best for 
 the benefit of the old folk. Every household, however 
 poor, managed to raise a “ feast-cake ” and bottle of ginger 
 or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table ready for 
 all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast 
 time — for feast-cake is very solid, and full of huge raisins. 
 Moreover, feast-time* was the day of reconciliation for the 
 parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Freeman hadn’t spoken 
 for the last six months, their “ old women ” would be sure 
 to get it patched up by that day. And though there was 
 a good deal of drinking and low vice in the booths of an 
 evening, it was pretty well confined to those who would 
 have been doing the like, “ veast or no veast,” and on the 
 whole the effect was humanizing and Christian. In fact, 
 the only reason why this is not the case still is that gentle- 
 folk and farmers have taken to other amusements, and 
 have, as usual, forgotten the poor. They don’t attend the 
 feasts themselves, and call them disreputable, whereupon 
 the steadiest of the poor leave them also, and they become 
 what they are called. Class amusements, be they for 
 dukes or plow-boj^s, 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 
 oart. 
 
 No one in the village enjoyed the approach of “veast 
 day” more than Tom, in the year in which he was taken 
 under old Benjy’s tutelage. The feast was held in a large 
 green field at the lower end of the village. The road to 
 Farringdon ran along one side of it, and the brook by the 
 side of the road $ and above the brook was another large 
 gentle sloping pasture land, with a foot-path running down 
 it from the churchyard; and the old church, the originator 
 of all tho mirth, towered up with its gray walls and lancet 
 widows, 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 
 
THE VEAST. 
 
 35 
 
 inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large white 
 thatched farmhouse, where dwelt an old sporting farmer, 
 a great promoter of the revels. 
 
 Past the old church, and down the footpath, pottered 
 the old man and the child hand in hand early on the after- 
 noon of the day before the feast, and wandered all round 
 the ground, which was already being occupied by the u cheap 
 Jacks,” with their green covered carts and marvelous as- 
 sortment 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 In- 
 dians. 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 car- 
 penter for the back-swording and wrestling ; and after sur- 
 veying 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 lux- 
 uries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with 
 mine host, another old servant of the Browns, and speculat- 
 ed with him on the likelihood of a good show of old game- 
 sters to contend for the morrow’s prizes, and told tales of 
 the gallant bouts of forty years back, to which Tom list- 
 ened with all his ear and eyes. 
 
 Bnt 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 
 Toni’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 colors, and the 
 women in the beautiful long scarlet cloak, the usual out- 
 door dress of west-country women in those days, and which 
 often descended in families from mother to daughter, or in 
 
86 
 
 TOM BBOWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 new fashioned stuff shawls, which, if they would but be- 
 lieve it, don’t become them half so well. The air resounds 
 with the pipe and tabor, and the drums and trumpets ol 
 the showmen shouting at the doors of their caravans, ovei 
 which tremendous pictures of the wonders to be seen with- 
 in hang temptingly ; while through all rises the shrill “ root 
 too-too-too,” of Mr. Punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe ol 
 his satellite. 
 
 44 Lawk a’ massey, Mr. Benjamin,” cries a stout motherly 
 woman in a red cloak, as they enter the field, “ be that you ? 
 Well I never ! you do look purely. And how’s the Squire, 
 and Madam, and the family ? ” 
 
 Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has 
 left our village for some years, but has come over for Veast- 
 day on a visit to an old gossip — and gently indicates the 
 heir apparent of the Browns. 
 
 44 Bless his little heart ! I must gi’ un a kiss. Here, 
 Susannah, Susannah ! ” cries she, raising herself from the 
 embrace, 44 come and see Mr. Benjamin and young Master 
 Tom. You minds our Sukey, Mr. Benjamin ; she be growed 
 a rare slip of a wench since you seen her, tho’ her’ll be six- 
 teen come Martinmas. I do aim to take her to see Madam 
 to get her a place.” 
 
 And Sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of old 
 school-fellows, and drops a courtesy 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 re- 
 turns to Benjy, his hat and coat covered with ribbons, and 
 his pockets crammed with wonderful boxes which open up- 
 on ever new boxes and boxes, and popguns and trumpets, 
 and apples, and gilt gingerbread from the stall of Angel 
 Heavens, sole vender thereof whose booth groans with kings 
 and queens, and elephants, and prancing steeds, all gleam- 
 ing 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 Yale, 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 
 
THE VEAST. 
 
 37 
 
 walks up the steps, and enters the mysterious doors of the 
 pink-eyed lady and the Irish Giant, who do not by any 
 means come up to their pictures ; and the boa will not 
 swallow his rabbit, but there the rabbit is waiting to be 
 swallowed — and what can you expect for tuppence ? We 
 are easily pleased in the Vale. Now there is a rusli 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, im- 
 mensely 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 pur- 
 pose. It is great fun to look at a jingling-match certainly, 
 and Tom shouts and jumps on old Benjy’s shoulders at the 
 sight, until the old man feels weary, and shifts him to the 
 strong young shoulders of the groom, who has just got 
 down to the fun. 
 
 And now, while they are climbing the pole in another 
 part of the field, and muzzling in a flour-tub in another, 
 the old farmer whose house, as has been said, overlooks the 
 field, and who is master of the revels, gets up the steps on 
 to the stage, and announces to all whom it may concern 
 that a half-sovereign in money will be forthcoming for the 
 old gamester who breaks most heads : to which the Squire 
 and he have added a new hat. 
 
 The amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate the men 
 of the immediate neighborhood, but not enough to bring 
 
38 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 any very high talent from a distance ; so after a glance or 
 two i;ound, a tall fellow, who is a down shepherd, chucks 
 his hat on to the stage and climbs up the steps looking 
 rather sheepish. The crowd of course first cheer, and then 
 chaff as usual, as he picks up his hat and begins handling 
 the sticks to see which will suit him. 
 
 “Wooy, Willum Smith, thee cans’t plaay wi’ he arra 
 daay,” says his companion to the blacksmith’s apprentice, 
 a stout young fellow of nineteen or twenty. Willum’s 
 sweetheart is in the “ veast ” somewhere and has strictly 
 enjoined him not to get his head broke at back-s wording, 
 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 fol- 
 lows himself, hoping that he will only have to break other 
 people’s heads, or that after all Rachel won’t really mind. 
 
 Then follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a half-gipsy, 
 poaching, loafing fellow, who travels the Vale, not for 
 much good, I fancy : 
 
 Full twenty times was Peter feared 
 
 For once that Peter was respected 
 
 in fact. And then three or four other hats, including the 
 glossy castor of Joe Willis, the self-elected and would-be 
 champion of the neighborhood, a well-to-do young butcher 
 of twenty-eight or thereabouts, and a great strapping fel- 
 low, 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 Yale, and maybe you have 
 never seen it. 
 
 The weapon is a good stout ash-stick with a large bas- 
 ket handle, heavier and somewhat shorter than a common 
 single stick. The players are called “ old gamesters ” — • 
 why, I can’t tell you — and their object is simply to break 
 one another’s heads : for the moment that blood runs an 
 inch anywhere above the eyebrow the old gamester to whom 
 it belongs is beaten, and has to stop. A very slight blow 
 
THE VEAST. 
 
 89 
 
 with the sticks will fetch blood, so that it is by no means 
 a punishing pastime, if the men don’t play on purpose, and 
 savagely, at the body and arms of their adversaries. The 
 old gamester going into action only takes off his hat and 
 coat, and arms himself with a stick : he then loops the 
 fingers of his left hand in a handkerchief or strap which 
 he fastens round his left leg, measuring the length, so that 
 when he draws it tight with his left elbow in the air, that 
 elbow shall just reach as high as his crown. Thus you see, 
 so long as he chooses to keep his left elbow up, regardless 
 of cuts, he has a perfect guard for the left side of his head. 
 Then he advances his right hand above and in front of his 
 head, holding his stick across so that its point projects an 
 inch or two over his left elbow, and thus his whole head is 
 completely guarded, and he faces his man armed in like 
 manner, and they stand some three feet apart, often nearer 
 and feint and strike, and return at one another’s heads 
 until one cries “hold,” or blood flows ; in the first case 
 they are allowed a minute’s time, and go on again ; in the 
 latter, another pair of gamesters are called on. If good 
 men are playing, the quickness of the returns is marvelous ; 
 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 f 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 in- 
 sulted 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 gypsy’s guard, and 
 threatening to reach his head every moment. There it is 
 at last — “ Blood, blood ! ” shout the spectators, as a thin 
 stream oozes out slowly from the roots of his hair, and the 
 umpire calls to them to stop. The gipsy scowls at Joe 
 
40 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 under his brows in no pleasant manner, while Master Joe 
 swaggers about, and makes attitudes, and thinks himself, and 
 shows that he thinks himself the greatest man in the field. 
 
 Then follow several stout sets-to between the other can- 
 didates 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 favorite in the parish, and his gallant stand 
 brings down shouts and cheers, and the knowing ones 
 think he'll win if he keeps steady, and Tom on the groom’s 
 shoulder holds his hands together, and can hardly breathe 
 for excitement. 
 
 Alas for Willum ! his sweetheart, getting tired of female 
 companionship, has been hunting the booths to see where 
 he can have got to, and now catches sight cf him on the stage 
 in full combat. She flushes and turns pale ; her old aunt 
 catches hold of her, saying, “ Bless’ee, child, doan’t ’ee go 
 a’nigst it ; ” but she breaks away and runs toward the stage, 
 calling his name. Willum keeps up his guard stoutly, but 
 glances for a moment toward the voice. No guard will do 
 it, Willum, without the eye. The shepherd steps round 
 and strikes, and the point of his stick just grazes Willum’s 
 forehead, fetching off the skin, and the blood flows, and 
 the umpire cries “Hold,” and poor Willum’s chance is up 
 for the day. But he takes it very well, and puts on his 
 old hat and. coat, and goes down to be scolded by his 
 sweetheart, and led away out of mischief. Tom hears him 
 say coaxingly, as he walks off — 
 
 “ Now doon’t ’ee, Rachel ! I wouldn’t ha’ done it, only 
 I wanted summut to buy’ee a fairing wi\ and I be as vlush 
 o’ money as a twod o’ veathers.” 
 
 “ Thee mind what Itells’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. 
 
THE VEAST. 
 
 41 
 
 Joe Willis has all the luck to-day. His next bout ends 
 in an easy victory, while the shepherd has a tough job to 
 break his second head: and when Joe and the shepherd 
 meet, and the whole circle expect and hope to see him get 
 a broken crown, the shepherd slips in the first round and 
 falls against the rails, hurting himself so that the old 
 farmer will not let him go on, much as he wishes to try ; 
 and that impostor Joe (for he is certainly not the best man) 
 struts and swaggers about the stage the conquering 
 gamester, though he hasn’t had five minutes really trying 
 play. 
 
 Joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the money 
 into it, and then, as if a thought strikes him and he doesn’t 
 think his victory quite acknowledged down below, walks 
 to each face of the stage, and looks down, shaking the 
 money, and chaffing, as how he’ll stake hat and money and 
 another half-sovereign “agin any gamester as hasn’t 
 played already.” Cunning Joe ! he thus gets rid of 
 Willum and the shepherd, who is quite fresh again. 
 
 No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just 
 coming down, when a queer old hat, something like a 
 doctor of divinity’s shovel, is chucked on to the stage, and 
 an elderly quiet man steps out, who has been watching the 
 play, saying he should like to cross a stick wi’ the prodi- 
 galish young chap. 
 
 The crowd cheer and begin to chaff Joe, who turns up 
 his nose and swaggers across to the sticks. “ Imp’dent old 
 wosbird ! ” says he. “ I’ll break the bald head on un to the 
 truth.” 
 
 The old boy is very bald certainly, and the blood will show 
 fast enough if you can touch him, Joe. 
 
 lie 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 Lis 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 
 
12 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 smart blow in the ribs and another on the elbow and noth- 
 ing more. And now he loses wind and begins to puff, and 
 the crowd laugh: “ Cry ‘hold,’ Joe — thee’st met thy 
 match ! ” Instead of taking good advice and getting his 
 wind, Joe loses his temper, and strikes at the old man's 
 body. 
 
 “ Blood, blood ! ” shout the crowd, “ Joe’s head’s broke ! ” 
 
 Who’d have thought it? How did it come? That 
 body-blow left Joe’s head unguarded for a moment, and 
 with one turn of the wrist the old gentleman has picked a 
 neat little bit of skin off the middle of his forehead, and 
 though he won’t believe it, and hammers on for three more 
 blows despite of the shouts, is then convinced by the blood 
 trickling into his eye. Poor Joe is sadly crestfallen, and 
 fumbles in his pocket for the other half-sovereign, but the 
 old gamester won’t have it. “ Keep thy money, man, and 
 gi’s thy hand,” says he, and they shake hands ; but the old 
 gamester gives the new hat to the shepherd, and, soon after, 
 the half-sovereign to Willum, who thereout decorates his 
 sweetheart with ribbons to his heart’s content. 
 
 “Who can a be?” “Wur do a cum from?” ask the 
 crowd. And it soon flies about that the old west-country 
 champion, who played a tie with Shaw the 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 roll- 
 ing wheelbarrows blindfolded : and the donkey-race, and 
 the fight which arose thereout, marring the otherwise peace- 
 ful “ veast ; ” and the frightened scurrying away of the 
 female feast-goers, and descent of Squire Brown summoned 
 by the wife of one of the combatants to stop it ; which he 
 wouldn’t start to do till he had got on his top-boots. Tom is 
 carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired and surfeited with 
 pleasure, as the evening comes on and the dancing begins in 
 the booths ; and though Willum and Bachel in her new 
 ribbons and many another good lad and lass don’t come 
 away just yet, but have a good step out, and enjoy it, and 
 get no harm thereby, yet we, being sober folk, will just 
 stroll away up through the churchyard, and by the old 
 yew-tree ; and get a quiet dish of tea and a parle with our 
 gossips, as the steady ones of our village do, and so to bed. 
 
THE VEAST. 
 
 . 43 
 
 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 worst, I am 
 told. I haven’t been at one these twenty years, but I have 
 been at the statute fairs in some west-country towns, where 
 servants are hired, and greater abominations cannot be 
 found. What village feasts have come to, T fear, in many 
 cases, may be read in the pages of Yeast (though I never 
 saw one so bad — thank God). 
 
 Do you want to know why ? It is because, as I said 
 before, gentlefolk and farmers have left off joining or 
 taking an interest in them. They don’t either subscribe 
 to the prizes, or go down and enjoy the fun. 
 
 Is this a good or a bad sign ? I hardly know. Bad, 
 sure enough, if it only arises from the further separation 
 of classes consequent on twenty years of buying cheap and 
 selling dear, and its accompanying over-work; or because 
 our sons and daughters have their hearts in London club- 
 life, or so-called society, instead of in the old English home 
 duties; because farmers’ sons are aping 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 ” lias 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 hasn’t 
 some bond fide equivalent for the games of the old country 
 u 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 Me- 
 chanics’ Institutes end in intellectual priggism, and your 
 Christian Young Men’s Societies in religious Pharisaism. 
 
 Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn’t all beer and 
 skittles, — but beer and skittles, or something better of the 
 
44 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 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, — }mu, 
 who frequent palaver houses and West-end clubs, waiting 
 always ready to strap j^ourselves 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 Parlia- 
 mentary-majorities’ pack-saddle, and make believe they’re 
 guiding him with their red-tape bridle, tumble, or have to 
 be lifted off! 
 
 I don’t think much of you yet — I wish I could; though 
 you do go talking and lecturing up and down the country 
 to crowded audiences, and are busy with all sorts of phil- 
 anthropic intelleetualism, and circulating libraries and 
 museums, and Heaven only knows what besides ; and try 
 to make us think, through newspaper reports, that you are 
 even as we, of the working classes. But, bless your hearts, 
 we “ ain’t so green,” though lots of us of all sorts toady 
 you enough certainly, and try to make you think so. 
 
 I’ll tell you what to do now ; instead of all this trum- 
 peting and fuss, which is only the old Parliamentary-ma- 
 jority dodge over again — just you go each of you (you’ve 
 plenty of time for it, if you’ll only give up t’other line) 
 and quietly make three or four friends, real friends, among 
 us. You’ll find a little trouble in getting at the right sort, 
 because such birds don’t come lightly to your lure — but 
 found they may be. Take, say, two out of the professions, 
 lawyer, parson, doctor — which you will ; one out of trade, 
 and three or four out of the working classes — tailors, engi- 
 neers, carpenters, engravers — there’s plenty of choice. Let 
 them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask them to 
 your homes ; introduce them to your wives and sisters, 
 and get introduced to theirs ; give them good dinners, and 
 talk to them about what is really at the bottom of your 
 heart, and box, and run, and row with them, when you 
 have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to man, and 
 by the time you come to ride old John, you’ll be able to 
 do something more than sit on his back, and may feel his 
 mouth with some stronger bridle than a red-tape one. 
 
 Ah, if you only would ! But you have got too far out 
 of the right rut, I fear. Too much over-civilization and 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 
 
 45 
 
 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 costermon- 
 ger, and could act as if they thought so. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 
 
 Poor old Benjy ! the “ rheumatiz ” has much to answer 
 for all through English country-sides, but it never played 
 a scurvier trick than in laying thee by the heels, when tliou 
 wast yet in a green old age. The enemy, which had long 
 been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and trying his 
 strength against Benjy’s on the battle-field, of his hands 
 and legs, now mustering all his forces, began laying siege 
 to the citadel, and overrunning the whole country. Ben;y 
 was seized in the back and loins ; and though he made 
 strong and brave fight, it was soon clear enough that all 
 which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would have to 
 give in before long. 
 
 It was as much at 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 
 
46 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 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, among a simple folk such as the dwellers 
 in the Vale of White Horse. Where this power, or what- 
 ever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man 
 whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the 
 neigh borhood ; a receiver of stolen goods, giver of love- 
 potions, and deceiver of silly women ; the avowed enemy 
 of law and order, of justices of the peace, headboroughs, 
 and gamekeepers. Such a man in fact as was recently 
 caught tripping, and deservedly dealt with by the Leeds 
 justices, for seducing a girl who had come to him to get 
 back a faithless lover, and has been convicted of bigamy 
 since then. Sometimes, however, they are of quite a dif- 
 ferent stamp, men who pretend to nothing, and are with 
 difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult arts in the 
 simplest cases. 
 
 Of this latter sort was old farmer Ives, as he was called, 
 the 44 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 
 44 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 inclosed from the middle 
 of a wild common, on which probably his father had 
 squatted before lords of manors looked as keenly after their 
 rights as they do now. Here he had lived no one knew 
 how long, a solitary man. It was often rumored that he 
 was to be turned out and his cottage pulled down, but 
 somehow it never came to pass ; and his pigs and cow went 
 grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the passing 
 children and at the heels of the horse of my lord’s steward, 
 who often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure, 
 still unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from our 
 village ; so Benjy, who was half ashamed of his errand, and 
 wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise much ingen- 
 uity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom 
 thither without exciting suspicion. However, one fine May 
 
SUNDBY WABS AND ALLIANCES. 
 
 47 
 
 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, toward the dwelling of the wizard. About 
 noon they passed the gate which opened on to the large 
 common, and old Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while 
 Benjy pointed out a little deep dingle on the left, out of 
 which welled a tiny streem. As they crept up the hill the 
 tops of a few birch trees came in sight, and blue smoke 
 curling up through their delicate light boughs ; and then 
 the little white thatchei home and patch of inclosed ground 
 of farmer Ives, lying cradled in the dingle, with the gay 
 gorse common rising behind and on both sides ; while in 
 front, after traversing a gentle slope, the eye might travel 
 for miles and miles over the rich vale. They now left the 
 main road and struck into a green track over the common 
 marked lightly with the wheel and horse-shoe, which led 
 down into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of 
 farmer Ives Here they found the farmer, an iron-gray 
 old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose, 
 busied in one of his vocations. He was a horse and cow 
 doctor, and was tending a sick beast which has 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 unhar- 
 nessing 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 toward 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, how- 
 
48 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 ever, at a respectful distance, with equal indifference. 
 
 “ Us be cum to pay’e a visit. I’ve a been long minded to 
 do’t for old sake’s sake, only I vinds dwont get about now 
 as I’d use to’t. I be so plaguy bad wi’ th’ rumatiz in my 
 back.” Benjy paused, in hopes of drawing the farmer at 
 once on the subject of his ailment without further direct 
 application. 
 
 “ Ah, I see as you bean’t quite so lissom as you was,” re- 
 plied 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 croekeryware were 
 arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs and settles, 
 some framed samplers, and an old print or two, and a book- 
 case 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 labeled 
 phials on one of the shelves, betoken it. 
 
 Tom played about with some kittens who occupied the 
 hearth, and with a goat who walked demurely in at the 
 open door, while their host and Benjy spread the table for 
 dinner — and was soon engaged in conflict with the cold 
 meat, to which he did much honor. The two old men’s 
 talk was of old comrades and their deeds, mute, inglorious 
 Miltons of the Yale, and of the doings thirty years back — - 
 which didn’t interest him much, except when they spoke 
 of the making of the canal, and then indeed he began to 
 listen with all his ears, and learned to his no small wonder 
 that his dear and wonderful canal had not been there 
 always — was not in fact so old as Benjy or farmer Ives, 
 which caused a strange commotion in his small brain. 
 
 After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart which Tom 
 had on the knuckles of his hand, and which the family 
 doctor had been trying his skill on without success, and 
 begged the farmer to charm it way. Farmer Ives looked 
 at it, muttered something or another over it, and cut some 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES . 
 
 49 
 
 notches in a short stick, which he handed to Benjy, giving 
 him instructions for cutting it down on certain days, and 
 cautioning Tom not to meddle with the wart for a fort- 
 night. And then they strolled out and sat on a bench in 
 the sun with their pipes, and the pigs came up and grunted 
 sociably and let Tom scratch them ; and the farmer, seeing 
 how he like 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 back 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 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 ’til do’e much 
 good — leastways I be afeard not,” shading his eyes with 
 his hand and looking, up at them in the cart : “ there’s only 
 one thing as I knows on as’ll cure old folks like }^ou and I 
 o’ th’ rumatiz.” 
 
 “ Wot be that then, farmer ? ” inquired Benjy. 
 
 “ Churchyard mold,” said the old iron-gray man, with 
 another chuckle. And so they said their good-byes and 
 went their ways home. Tom’s wart was gone in a fortnight, 
 but not so Benjy’s rheumatism, which laid him by the heels 
 more and more. And though Tom still spent many an 
 hour with him, as he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by 
 the chimney corner when it was cold, he soon had to seek 
 elsewhere for his regular companions. 
 
 Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother 
 in her visits to the cottages, and had thereby made acquaint- 
 
50 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DA YS. 
 
 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 mys- 
 tery. The first time Tom went to their cottage with his 
 mother Job was not in-doors, but he entered soon after, 
 and stood with both hands in his pockets staring at Tom. 
 Widow Rudkin, who would have had to cross madam to 
 get at young Hopeful — a breach of good manners of which 
 she was wholly incapable — began a series of pantomime 
 signs, which only puzzled him, and at last, unable to con- 
 tain herself longer, burst out with, “ Job ! Job! where’s 
 thy cap ? ” 
 
 “What! beant’e on ma’ head, mother?” replied Job, 
 slowly extricating one hand from a pocket and feeling for 
 the article in question : which he found on his head sure 
 enough, and left there, to his mother’s horror and Tom’s 
 great delight. 
 
 Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted boy, 
 who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and 
 little helpful odds and ends for every one, which, however, 
 poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to embrangle. 
 Everything came to pieces in his hands, and nothing would 
 stop in his head. They nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf. 
 
 But above all there was Harry Winburn, the quickestand 
 best boy in the parish. He might be a yea. older than 
 Tom, but was very little bigger, and lie was the Crichton 
 of our village boys. He could wrestle and climb and run 
 better than all the rest, and learned all that the schoolmas- 
 ter could teach him faster than that worthy at all liked. 
 He was a boy to be proud of, with his curly brown hair, 
 keen gray eye, straight active figure, and little ears and 
 hands and feet, “ as fine as a lord’s,” as Charity remarked 
 to Tom one day, talking as usual great nonsense. Lord’s 
 hands and ears and feet are just as ugly as other folks’ 
 when they are children, as any one may convince themselves 
 if they like to look. Tight boots and gloves, and doing 
 nothing with them, I allow make a difference by the time 
 they are twenty. 
 
 Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his young 
 brothers were still under petticoat government, Tom, in 
 search of companions, began to cultivate the village boys 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES . 
 
 51 
 
 generally more and more. Squire Brown, be it said, was 
 a true blue Tory to the backbone, and believed honestly 
 that the powers which be were ordained of God, and that 
 loyalty and steadfast obedience were men’s first duties. 
 Whether it were in consequence or in spite of his political 
 creed I do not mean to give an opinion, though I have one ; 
 but certain it is, that he held therewith divers social prin- 
 ciples not generally supposed to be true blue in color. 
 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 whatso- 
 ever. Which belief I take to be a wholesome corrective of 
 all political opinions, and, if held sincerely, to make all 
 opinions equally harmless, whether they be blue, red, or 
 green. As a necessary corollary to this belief, Squire 
 Brown held further that it didn’t matter a straw whether 
 his son associated with lords sons or plowmen’s, sons provided 
 they were brave and honest. He himself had played foot- 
 ball and gone birds’ nesting with the farmers whom he met 
 at vestry and the laborers 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 vil- 
 lage, and forwarded it by all means in his power, and gave 
 them the run of a close for a playground, and provided 
 bats and balls and a football for their sports. 
 
 Our village was blessed among other things with a well- 
 endowed school. The building stood by itself, apart from 
 the master’s house, on an angle of ground where three 
 roads met ; an old gray stone building with a steep roof 
 and mullioned windows. On one of the opposite angles 
 stood Squire Brown’s stables and kennels, with their backs 
 to the road, over which towered a great elm-tree ; on the 
 third stood the village carpenter’s 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 
 
52 
 
 TOM BRO WN ’ S SCIIOOL-DA VS. 
 
 watching the school door, and speculating on the possibility 
 of turning the elm into a dwelling-place for himself and 
 friends after the manner of the Swiss Family Robinson. 
 But the school hours were long and Tom’s patience short, 
 so that soon lie began to descend into the street, and go 
 and peep in at the school door and the wheelright’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- 
 wiight, who cut a switch and hung it over the door of his 
 workshop, threatening to use it upon Tom if he came with- 
 in twenty yards of his gate. So Tom, to retaliate, com- 
 menced a war upon the swallows who dwelt under the 
 wheelright’s eaves, whom he harassed with sticks and 
 stones, and being lleeter 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 
 the master, as the boys in that neighborhood 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 after- 
 noon occupations; but, in order to do it with effect, deter- 
 mined to take him captive and lead him away to judgment 
 fresh from his evil doings. This they would have found 
 some difficulty in doing, had Tom continued the war single- 
 handed, or rather single-footed, for he would have taken 
 to the deepest part of Pebbly Brook to escape them; but, 
 like other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances. 
 Poor Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to school with the 
 other boys, and one fine afternoon about three o’clock (the 
 school broke up at four), Tom found him ambling about 
 the street, and presse 1 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 
 reconnoitered the wheelwright’s shop, and seeing no signs of 
 activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered at 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES . 
 
 53 
 
 once an advance of all his troops upon the school porch. 
 The door of the school was ajar, and the boys seared on 
 the nearest bench at once recognized and opened a corre- 
 spondence 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-approv- 
 ing smile. The master, who was stooping over a boy’s 
 slate, with his back to the door, became aware of some- 
 thing 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 wheel- 
 wright, 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 follow- 
 ing 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 lie 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 forever respected ; and that hero 
 and the master withdrew to the servants’ hall, to drink the 
 Squire’s health, well satisfied with their day’s work. 
 
 The second act of Tom’s life may now be said to have 
 begun. The war of independence had been over for some 
 time : none of the women now, not even his mother's maid, 
 dared offer to help him in dressing or washing. Between 
 ourselves, he had often at first to run to Benjy in an un- 
 finished state of toilet ; Charity and the rest of them 
 seemed to take a delight in putting impossible buttons and 
 ties in the middle of his back : but de would have gone 
 without nether integuments altogether sooner than have 
 
54 
 
 TOM BROWN ’ 5 SCHOOL-DA YS. 
 
 had recourse to female valeting. He had a room to him- 
 self, 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 among his equals in age and strength, and could meas- 
 ure himself with other boys ; he lived with those whose 
 pursuits and wishes and ways were the same in kind as his 
 own. 
 
 The little governess who had lately been installed in the 
 house found her work grow wondrously easy, for Tom 
 slaved at his lessons in order to make sure of his note to 
 the schoolmaster. So there were very few days in the 
 week in which Tom and the village boys were not playing 
 in their close by three o’clock. Prisoner’s base, rounders, 
 high-cock-a-lorum, cricket, football, he was soon initiated 
 into the delights of them all; and though most of the boys 
 were older than himself, he managed to hold his own very 
 well. He was naturally active and strong, and quick of 
 eye and hand, and had the advantage of light shoes and 
 well-fitting dress, so that in a short time he could run and 
 jump and climb with any of them. 
 
 They generally finished their regular games half an 
 hour or so before tea-time, and then began trials of skill 
 and strength in many ways. Some of them would catch 
 the Shetland pony who was turned out in the field, and 
 get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue, 
 enjoying the fun, would gallop off for fifty yards, and then 
 turn round, or stop short and shoot them on to the turf, 
 and then graze quietly on till he felt another load ; others 
 played peg-top or marbles, while a few of the bigger ones 
 stood up for a bout at wrestling. Tom at first only looked 
 on at this pastime, but it had peculiar attractions for him, 
 and he could not long keep out of it. Elbow and collar 
 wrestling as practiced in the western counties was, next 
 to back-swording, the way to fame for the youth of the 
 Yale; and all the boys knew the rules of it, and were 
 more or less expert. But Job Rudkin and Harry Win- 
 burn 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 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 
 
 55 
 
 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 offense, and gained 
 his victories chiefly by allowing others to throw themselves 
 against his immovable legs and loins. But Harry Win- 
 burn was undeniably his master ; from the first clutch of 
 hands when they stood up, down to the last trip which 
 sent him on his back on the turf, lie 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 quarreling ; 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 Torn. 
 He thought about that fall at his meals, in his walks, when 
 he lay awake in bed, in his dreams — but all to no pur- 
 pose ; 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 differ- 
 ence of strength in Harry’s favor which some extra ten 
 months of age gave. Tom had often afterward reason to 
 be thankful for that early drilling, and above all for hav- 
 ing mastered Harry Winburn’s fall. 
 
 Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys would 
 wander all over the neighborhood ; sometimes to the 
 downs, or up to the camp, where they cut their initials out 
 in the springy turf, and watched the hawks soaring, and 
 the “peert” bird, as Harry Winburn called the gray 
 plover, gorgeous in his wedding feathers ; and so home, 
 racing down the Manger with many a roll among the 
 thistles, or through Uffington-wood to watch the fox cubs 
 playing in the green rides ; sometimes to Rosy Brook, 
 to cut long whispering reeds which grew there to make 
 pan-pipes of; sometimes to Moor Mills, where was a piece 
 
56 
 
 TOM BROWJS’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 of old forest land, with short browsed turf and tufted 
 brambly thickets stretching under the oaks, among which 
 rumor declared that a raven, last of his race, still lingered ; 
 or to the sand-hills in vain quest of rabbits; and birds-nest- 
 ing, in the season, anywhere and everywhere. 
 
 The few neighbors of the Squire’s own rank every now 
 and then would shrug their shoulders as they drove or 
 rode by a party of boys with Tom in the middle, carrying 
 along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or great bundles of 
 Cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, 
 or other spoil of wood, brook, or meadow ; and Lawyer 
 Red-tape might mutter to Squire Straight back at the Board 
 that no good would come of the 3-011 ng 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 neighbors, 
 and so went on his own way ; and Tom and his younger 
 brothers, as they grew up, went on playing with the village 
 boys, without the idea of equality or inequality (except in 
 wrestling, running, and climbing) ever entering their heads, 
 as it doesn’t till it’s put there by Jack Nastys or fine ladies’ 
 maids. 
 
 I don’t mean to say it would be the case in all villages, 
 but it certainly was so in this one; the village boys were 
 lull as manly and honest, and certainly purer than those 
 i 1 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 3-ears old, than he had from his village 
 friends from the day he left Charity’s apron-strings. 
 
 Great was the grief among the village school-boys when 
 Tom drove off with the Squire, one August morning, to 
 meet the coach on his way to school. Each of them had 
 given him some little present of the best that he had, and 
 his small private box was full of peg-tops, white marbles 
 (called “ alley-taws” in the Vale), screws, birds’-eggs, 
 whip-cord, jews-harps, and other miscellaneous boys’ wealth. 
 Poor Jacob Doodle-calf, in floods of tears, had pressed upon 
 him with spluttering earnestness his lame pet hedgehog 
 (he had always some poor broken-down beast or bird by 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES . 
 
 57 
 
 him) ; but this Tom had been obliged to refuse by the 
 Squire’s order. He had given them all a great tea under 
 the big elm in their playground, for which Madam Brown 
 had supplied the biggest cake ever seen in our village ; and 
 Tom was really as sorry to leave them as they to lose him, 
 but his sorrow was not unmixed with the pride and ex- 
 citement of making a new step in life. 
 
 And this feeling carried him through his first parting 
 with his mother better than could have been expected. 
 Their love was as fair and whole as human love can be,' 
 perfect self-sacrifice on the one side, meeting a young and 
 true heart on the other. It is not within the scope of my 
 book, however, to speak of family relations, or I should 
 have much to say on the subject of English mothers, — ay, 
 and of English fathers, and sisters, and brothers too. 
 
 Neither have I room to speak of our private schools ; 
 what I have to say is about public schools, those much- 
 abused and much-belauded institutions peculiar to Eng- 
 land. So we must hurry through Master Tom’s year at a 
 private school as fast as we can. 
 
 It was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentleman, 
 with another gentleman as second master ; but it was 
 little enough of the real work they did — merely coming 
 into school when lessons were prepared and all ready to be 
 heard. The whole discipline of the school out of lesson 
 hours was in the hands of the two ushers, one of whom 
 was always with the boys in their playground, in the 
 school, at meals — in fact, at all times and everywhere, till 
 they were fairly in bed at night. 
 
 Now the theory of private schools is (or was) constant 
 supervision out of school ; therein differing fundamentally 
 from that of public schools. 
 
 It may be right or wrong ; but if right, this supervision 
 surely ought to be the especial work of the headmaster, 
 the responsible person. The object of all schools is not 
 to ram Latin and Greek into boys but to make them good 
 English boys, good future citizens ; and by far the most 
 important part of that work must be done, or not done, 
 out of school hours. To leave it, therefore, in the hands 
 of inferior men, is just giving up the highest and hardest 
 part of the work of education. Were I a private school- 
 master, I should say, let who will hear the boys their les- 
 
58 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 sons, 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 en- 
 deavored to accomplish this was by encouraging tale-bear- 
 ing, which had become a frightfully common vice in the 
 school in consequence, and had sapped all the foundations 
 of school morality. Another was, by favoring grossly the 
 biggest boys, who alone could have given them much trou- 
 ble ; whereby those young gentlemen became most abomi- 
 nable 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 labor he had, on the very even- 
 ing of his arrival, managed to fill two sides of a sheet of 
 letter-paper with assurances of his love for dear mamma, 
 his happiness at school, and his resolves to do all she 
 would wish. This missive, with the help of the boy who 
 sat at the desk next him, also a new arrival, he managed 
 to fold successfully ; but this done, they were sadly put to 
 it h>r means of sealing. Envelopes were then unknown, 
 they had no wax, and dared not disturb the stillness of 
 the evening school-room by getting up and going to ask 
 the usher for some. At length Tom’s friend, being of an 
 ingenious turn of mind, suggested sealing with ink, and 
 the letter was accordingly stuck down with the blot of 
 ink, and duly handed by Tom, on his way to bed, to the 
 housekeeper to be posted. It was not till four days after- 
 ward, that that good dame sent for him, and produced the 
 precious letter, and some wax, saying, u Oh, Master Brown, 
 I forgot to tell you before, but your letter isn’t sealed.” 
 Poor Tom took the wax in silence and sealed his letter, 
 with a huge lump rising in his throat during the process, 
 and then ran away to a quiet corner of the playground 
 and burst into an agony of tears. The idea of his mother 
 waiting day after day for the letter he had promised her 
 at once, and perhaps thinking him forgetful of her, when 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES . 59 
 
 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!” 
 W hereupon Tom arose, and giving vent thus to his grief 
 and shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose, and 
 made it bleed which sent that young worthy howling to 
 the usher, who reported Tom for violent and unprovoked 
 assault and battery. Hitting in the face was a felony pun- 
 ishable with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanor — a 
 distinction not altogether clear in principle. Tom, how- 
 ever, escarped the penalty by pleading “ primum tempus 
 and having written a second letter to his mother, inclosing 
 some forget-me-nots, which he picked on their first halt 
 holiday walk, felt quite happy again, and began to enjoy 
 vastly a good deal of his new life. ^ 
 
 These^lialf-holi day walks were the great events of the 
 Aveek. The whole fifty boys started after dinner with one 
 ot the ushers for Hazeldown, which was distant some mile 
 or so from the school. Hazeldown measured some three 
 miles around, and in the neighborhood were several woods 
 tull 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 forbid- 
 den, however, to go anywhere, except on the down and 
 
 W °K d 1i > the ViU T beiu " especially prohibited, 
 where huge bulls -eyes and unctuous toffv might be pro- 
 cured m exchange for coin of the realm. ^ 
 
 Various were the amusements to which the boys then be- 
 took 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 pro- 
 
 hrS th iT lveS , wi . th man y sods of turf, cut with their 
 bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the 
 tom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing upon 
 
60 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 all sides u::der cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then 
 struggling for victory with the occupants, which was theirs 
 as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, 
 when they in turn became the besieged. It was a good, 
 rough, dirty game, and of great use in counteracting 
 the sneaking tendencies of the school. Then others of the 
 boys spread over the downs, looking for the holes of hum- 
 ble-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 tiie 
 humble-bees. Others went after butterflies and birds’-eggs 
 in their seasons ; and Tom found on Hazeldown, for the 
 first time, the beautiful little blue butterfly with golden 
 spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his own 
 downs, and dug out his first sand-martin’s-nest. This latter 
 achievement resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins 
 built in a high bank close to the village, consequently out 
 of bounds ; but one of the bolder spirits of the school, who 
 never could be happy unless he was doing something to 
 wdiich risk attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds 
 and visit the martin’s bank. From whence, it being only 
 a step to the toffy-shop, what could be more simple than to 
 go on there and fill their pockets ? or what more certain 
 than that on their return, a distribution of treasure having 
 been made, the usher should shortly detect the forbidden 
 smell of bulls’-eyes, and, a search ensuing, discover the 
 state of the breeches pockets of Tom and his ally? 
 
 This ally of Toni’s was indeed a desperate hero in the 
 sight of the boys, and feared as one who dealt in magic, or 
 something approaching thereto. Which reputation came 
 to him in this wise. The boys went to bed at eight, and of 
 course consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour or 
 two, telling ghost-stories by turns. One night when it 
 came to his turn, and he had dried up their souls by his 
 story, he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery 
 hand appear on the door ; and to the astonishment and ter- 
 ror 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 dis- 
 credited there, the young necromancer declared that the 
 same wonder would appear in all the rooms in turn, which 
 it accordingly did ; and the whole circumstances having 
 
SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES. 
 
 61 
 
 been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual, that 
 functionary, after listening about at the doors of the rooms, 
 by a sudden descent caught the performer in his night-shirt 
 with a box of phosphorus in his guilty hand. Lucifer- 
 matclies and all the present facilities for getting acquaint- 
 ed with fire were then unknown ; the very name of phos- 
 phorus had something diabolical in it to the boy-mind; so 
 Tom’s ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, earned what 
 many older folk covet much — the very decided fear of most 
 of his companions. 
 
 He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad one. 
 Tom stuck to him till he left, and got into many scrapes 
 by so doing. But he was the great opponent of the tale- 
 bearing habits of the school, and the open enemy of the 
 ushers ; and so worthy of all support. 
 
 Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at the 
 school, but somehow on the whole it didn’t suit him, or he 
 it, and in the holidays he was constantly working the 
 Squire to send him at once to a public school. Great was 
 his joy then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in 
 October 188-, a fever broke out in the village, and the 
 master having himself slightly sickened of it, the whole of 
 the boys were sent off at a day’s notice to their respective 
 homes. 
 
 The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom to 
 see that young gentleman’s brown merry face appear at 
 home, some two months before the proper time, for 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 in riding and loitering about home. It is 
 very kind of the Doctor to allow it. Will you see that his 
 things are all ready by Friday, when I shall take him up 
 to town, and send him down the next day by himself.” 
 
 Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, and 
 merely suggested a doubt whether Tom were yet old 
 enough to travel by himself. However, finding both father 
 and son against her on this point, she gave in like a wise 
 woman, and proceeded to prepare Tom’s kit for his launch 
 into a public school. 
 
*2 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-LA YS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE STAGE-COACH. 
 
 “ Let the steam-pot hiss till it’s hot, 
 
 Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot. 
 
 Coaching Song by li . E. E* Warburton , Esq. 
 
 “ Now, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tally-ho coach 
 for Leicester ’ll be round in half aa hour, and don’t wait 
 for nobody.” So spake the Boots of the Peacock Inn, Is- 
 lington, at half-past two o’clock on the morning of a day in 
 the early part of November, 183-, giving Tom at the same 
 time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting down a 
 candle and carrying off his shoes to clean. 
 
 Tom and his lecher 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 Oxforl and Leicester coach 
 in the evening, or to take a post-chaise — had resolved that 
 Tom should travel down by the Tally-ho, which diverged 
 from the main road and passed through Rugby itself. And 
 as the Tally-ho was an early coach, they had driven out to 
 the Peacock to be on the road. 
 
 Tom had never been in London, and would have liked 
 to have stopped at the Belle Sauvage, where they had been 
 put down b}^ the Star, just at dusk, that he might have 
 gone roving about those endless, nv^sterious, gas-lit streets, 
 which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds, ex- 
 cited him so that he couldn’t talk even. But as soon as he 
 found that the Peacock arrangement would get him to 
 Rugby by twelve o’clock in the day, whereas otherwise he 
 wouldn’t be there till the evening, all other plans melted 
 away; his one absorbing aim being to become a public 
 schoolboy 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 witli unfeigned joy 
 the paternal order at the bar, of steaks and oyster sauce 
 
THE STAGE-COACH. 
 
 63 
 
 for supper in half an hour, and seen his father seated cozily 
 by the bright fire in the coffee-room with the paper in his 
 hand — Tom had run out to see about him, had wondered 
 at all the vehicles passing and repassing, and had frater- 
 nized with the boots and hostler, from whom he ascertained 
 that the Tally-ho was a tip-top goer, ten miles an hour in- 
 cluding 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 forever 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 start- 
 ing that kissing should now cease between them) and a 
 few parting words. 
 
 “And now, Tom, my boy,” said the Squire, “remember 
 you are going, at your own earnest request, to be chucked 
 into this great school, like a young bear with all your 
 troubles before you — earlier than we should have sent you 
 perhaps. If schools are what they were in my time, 
 you’ll see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and 
 hear a deal of foul bad talk. But never fear. You tell 
 the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen 
 to or say anything you wouldn’t have your mother and 
 sister hear, and you’ll never feel ashamed to come home, 
 or we to see you.” 
 
 The allusion to his mother made Tom feel rather chokey, 
 and he would have liked to have hugged his father well, 
 if it hadn’t been for the recent stipulation. 
 
 As it was, he only squeezed his father’s hand, and looked 
 bravely up and said, “ I’ll try, father.” 
 
 “ I know you will, my boy. Is your money all safe ? ” 
 
 “Yes,” said Tom, diving into one pocket to make sure. 
 
 “ And your keys ? ” said the Squire. 
 
64 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 “ All right,” said Tom, diving into the other pocket. 
 
 “ Well then, good-night. God bless you ! I’ll tell Boots 
 to call you, and be up to see you off.” 
 
 Tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a brown 
 study, from which he was roused in a clean little attic by 
 that buxom person calling him a little darling, and kissing 
 him as she left the room, which indignity he was too much 
 surprised to resent. And still thinking of his father’s last 
 words, and the look with which they were spoken, he 
 knelt down and prayed, that, come what might, he might 
 never bring shame or sorrow on the dear folk at home. 
 
 Indeed, the Squire’s last words deserved to have their 
 effect, for they had been the result of much anxious 
 thought. All the way up to London he had pondered 
 what he should say to Tom by way of parting advice, 
 something that the boy could keep in his head ready for 
 use. By way of assisting meditation, he had even gone 
 the length of taking out his flint and steel and tinder, and 
 hammering away for a quarter of an hour till he had 
 manufactured a light for a long Trichinopoli cheroot, 
 which he silently puffed ; to the no small wonder of 
 Coachee, who was an old friend, and an institution on the 
 Bath road ; and who always expected a talk on the 
 prospects and doings, agricultural and social, of the whole 
 county when he carried the Squire. 
 
 To condense the Squire’s meditation, it was somewhat 
 as follows : “ I won’t tell him to read his Bible and love 
 and serve God ; if he don’t do that for his mother’s sake 
 and teaching, he won’t for mine. Shall I go into the sort 
 of temptations he’ll meet with? No, I can’t do that. 
 Never do for an old fellow to go into such things with a 
 boy. He won’t understand me. Do him more harm than 
 good, ten to one. Shall I tell him to mind his work, and 
 say he’s sent to school to make himself a good scholar ? 
 Well, but he isn’t sent to school for that — at any rate not 
 for that mainly. I don’t care a straw for Greek particles, 
 or the digamma, no moie does his mother. What is he 
 sent to school for? Well, partly because he wanted so to 
 go. If he’ll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling 
 Englishman, and a gentleman, and a Christian, that’s all I 
 want,” thought the Squire; and upon this view of the 
 case framed his last words of advice to Tom, which were 
 well enough suited to his purpose. 
 
THE STAGE-COACTL 
 
 65 
 
 For they were Tom’s first thoughts as he tumbled out of 
 bed at the summons of Boots, and proceeded rapidly to 
 wash and dress himself. At ten minutes to three he was 
 down in the coffee-room in his stockings, carrying his hat- 
 box, coat, and comforter in his hand ; and there he found 
 his father nursing a bright fire and a cup of hot coffee and 
 a hard biscuit on the table. 
 
 u Now then, Tom, give us your things here, and drink 
 this ; there’s nothing like starting warm, old fellow.” 
 
 Tom addressed himself to the coffee, and prattled away 
 while he worked himself into his shoes and his great-coat, 
 well warmed through ; a Petersham coat with velvet collar, 
 made tight, after the abominable fashion of those days. 
 And just as he is swallowing his last mouthful, winding 
 his comforter round his throat, and tucking the ends into 
 the breast of his coat, the horn sounds, Boots looks in and 
 says, 44 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. 
 
 44 Anything for us, Bob ? ” says the burly guard, drop- 
 ping down from behind, and slapping himself across the 
 chest. 
 
 44 Young gentPm’n, Rugby ; three parcels, Leicester ; 
 hamper o’ game, Rugby,” answers hostler. 
 
 44 Tell young gent to look alive,” says guard, opening 
 the hindboot and shooting in the parcels after examining 
 them by the lamps. 44 Here, shove the portmanteau up 
 a-top — I’ll fasten him presently. Now then, sir, jump up 
 behind.” 
 
 44 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 hostlers 
 let go their heads, the four bays plunge at the collar, and 
 away goes the Tally-ho in the darkness, forty-five seconds 
 from the time they pulled up ; Hostler, Boots, and the 
 Squire stand looking after them under the Peacock lamp. 
 
 fc4 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 
 
66 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 his huttonings 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 fellow’s than we used to be. At any rate, 
 you’re much more comfortable travelers, 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 horse’s feet on the hard road, and the glare of the 
 two bright lamps through the steaming hoar frost, over the 
 leaders’ ears, into the darkness; and the cheery toot of 
 the guard’s horn, to warn some drowsy pikeman, or the 
 hostler at the next change ; and the looking forward to 
 daylight — and last, but not least, the delight of returning 
 sensation in your toes. 
 
 Then the break of dawn and the sunrise; where can 
 they ever be 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 wo- 
 men, 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 inward, and 
 he has gone over his little past life, and thought of all his 
 doings and promises, and of his mother and sister, and his 
 father’s last words ; he has made fifty good resolutions, and 
 means to bear himself like a brave Brown as he is, though 
 a young one* 
 
THE STAGE-COACH . 
 
 67 
 
 Then he has been forward into the mysterious boy-future, 
 speculating as to what sort of a place Rugby is, and what 
 they do there, and calling up all the stories of public 
 schools which he has heard from big boys in the holidays. 
 He is chock full of hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, 
 and kicks his heels against the backboard, and would like 
 to sing, only he doesn’t know how his friend the silent 
 guard might take it. 
 
 And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage, 
 and the coach pulls up at a little roadside inn with huge 
 stables behind. There is a bright fire gleaming through 
 the red curtains of the bar window, .and the door is 
 open. The coachman catches his whip into a double thong, 
 and throws it to the hostler; the steam of the horses rises 
 straight up into the air. He has put them along over the 
 last two miles, and is two minutes before his time ; he rolls 
 down from the box and into the inn. The guard rolls off 
 behind. “Now, sir,” says he to Tom, “you just jump 
 down and I’ll give you a drop of something to keep the 
 cold out.” 
 
 Tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or indeed in finding 
 the top of the wheel with his feet, which may be in the 
 next world for all he feels ; so the guard picks him off the 
 coach-top, and sets him on his legs, and they stump off into 
 the bar, and ioin the coachman and the other outside pas- 
 sengers. 
 
 Here a fresh-looking bar-maid serves them each, with a 
 glass of early purl as they stand before the fire, coachman 
 and guard exchanging business remarks. The purl warms 
 the cockles of Tom’s heart, and makes him cough. 
 
 “ Rare tackle, that, sir, of a cold morning,” says the 
 coachman, smiling. “ Time’s up.” They are out again 
 and up ; coachee the last, gathering the reins into his hands 
 and talking to Jem the hostler about the mare’s shoulder, 
 and then swinging himself up on to the box — the horses 
 dashing off in a canter before he falls into his seat. Toot- 
 toot-tootle-too goes the horn, and away they are again, five- 
 and-thirty miles on their road (nearly half way to Rugby, 
 thinks Tom) and the prospect of breakfast at the end of 
 the stage. 
 
 And now they begin to see, and the early life of the 
 country-side comes out; a market cart or two, men in 
 
68 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 smock-frocks going to their work, pipe in mouth, a whiff 
 of which is no bad smell this bright morning. The sun 
 gets up, and the mist shines like silver gauze. They pass 
 the hounds jogging along to a distant meet, at the heels of 
 the huntsman’s hack, whose face is about the color of the 
 tails of his old pink, as he exchanges greetings with 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 miles 
 an hour, with a mile to spare behind if necessary. And 
 here comes breakfast. 
 
 “ Twenty minutes here, gentlemen,* says the coachman 
 as they pull up at half-past seven at the inn door. 
 
 Have we not endured nobly this morning, and is not 
 this a worthy reward for much endurance ? There is the 
 low dark wainscoted room hung with sporting prints ; the 
 hat-stand (with a whip or two standing up in it belonging 
 to bagmen who are still snug in bed) by the door ; the 
 blazing fire, with the quaint old glass over the mantelpiece 
 in which is stuck a large card with the list of the meets 
 for the week of the county hounds. The table covered 
 with the whitest of cloths and of china, and bearing a pig- 
 eon-pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mam- 
 moth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wood- 
 en 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 side- 
 board, they were only put on for a show and to give us an 
 appetite. And now fall on, gentlemen all. It is a well- 
 known sporting-house, and the breakfasts are famous. 
 Two or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop 
 in, and are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we all are. 
 
 “Tea or coffee, sir?” says head-waiter, coming round to 
 Tom. 
 
 “Coffee, please,” says Tom, with his mouth full of muf- 
 fin 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 
 
TEE STAGE-COAGA. 
 
 69 
 
 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 cof- 
 fee, till his little skin is as tight as a drum ; and then has 
 the further pleasure of paying head-waiter out of his own 
 purse, in a dignified manner, and walks out before the inn 
 door to see the horses put to. This is done leisurely and 
 in a highly-finished manner by the hostlers, as if they en- 
 joyed 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 che- 
 root, 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. 
 
 u Now, sir, please,” says the coachman ; all the rest of 
 the jjassengers are up ; the guard is locking the hind boot. 
 
 u A good run to you ! ” says the sportsman to the pinks, 
 and is by the coachman’s side in no time. 
 
 “ Let ’em go, Dick ! ” The hostlers fly back, drawing 
 off the cloths from their glossy loins, and away we go 
 through the market-place and down the High Street, look- 
 ing in at the first-floor windows, and seeing several worthy 
 burgesses shaving thereat ; while all the shop-boys who are 
 cleaning the windows, and housemaids who are doing the 
 steps, stop and look pleased as we rattle past, as if we were 
 a part of their legitimate morning’s amusement. We clear 
 the town, and are well out between the hedgerows again as 
 the town clock strikes eight. 
 
 The sun shines almost warmly, and breakfast has oiled 
 all springs and loosened all tongues. Tom is encouraged 
 by a remark or two of the guard’s between the puffs of his 
 oily cheroot, and besides is getting tired of not talking ; 
 he is too full of his destination to talk about anything else ; 
 and so asks the guard if he knows Rugby. 
 
 “ Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty minutes 
 afore twelve down — ten o’clock up.” 
 
70 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 44 What sort of a place is it, please ? ” says Tom. 
 
 Guard looks at him with a comical expression. 44 Werry 
 out-o’-the way place, sir ; no paving to the streets nor no 
 lighting. ’Mazin’ big horse and cattle fair in autumn — 
 lasts a week — just over now. Takes town a week to get 
 clean after it. Fairish hunting country. But slow place, 
 sir, slow place : off the main road, you see — only three 
 coaches a day, and one on ’em a two-oss wan, more like a 
 hearse nor a coach— Regulator— comes from Oxford. Young 
 genl’m’n at school calls her Rig and Whistle, and goes up 
 to college by her (six miles an hour) when they goes to 
 enter. Belong to school, sir?” 
 
 44 Yes,” says Tom, not unwilling for a moment that the 
 guard should think him an old boy. But then having some 
 qualms as to the truth of the assertion, and seeing that if 
 he were to assume the character of an old boy he couldn’t 
 go on asking the questions he wanted, added — 44 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. 
 
 44 You’re werry late, sir,” says the guard ; 44 only six weeks 
 to-day to the end of the half.” Tom assented. 44 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. 
 
 44 It pays uncommon, cert’nly,” continues the guard. 
 44 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.” 
 
 44 What do they do with the pea-shooters ? ” inquires 
 Tom. 
 
 44 Do wi’ ’em ! why, peppers every one’s faces as we 
 comes near, ’cept the young gals, and breaks windows wi’ 
 them too, some on ’em shoots so hard. Now ’twas just 
 here last June, as we was a driving up the first-day boys, 
 they was mendin’ a quarter-mile of road, and there was a 
 
THE STAGE-COACH. 
 
 71 
 
 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), 4 here’s fun ! 
 Let the Pats have it about the ears.’ 4 God’s sake sir ! ’ 
 says Bob (that’s my mate the coachman), 4 don’t go for to 
 shoot at ’em, they’ll knock us off the coach.’ ‘Damme, 
 coachee,’ says young my lord, 4 you ain’t afraid ; hoora, 
 boys ! let ’em have it.’ 4 Hoora ! ’ sings out the others, and 
 fill their mouths chock full of peas to last the whole line. 
 Bob seeing as ’twas to come, knocks his hat over his eyes, 
 hollers to his ’osses, and shakes ’em up, and away we goes 
 up to the line on ’em, twenty miles an hour. The Pats 
 begin to hoora too, thinking it was a runaway, and first lot 
 on ’em stands grinnin’ and wavin’ their old hats as we 
 comes abreast on ’em ; and then you’d ha’ laughed to see 
 how took aback and choking savage they looked when 
 they gets the peas a stinging all over ’em. But bless you, 
 the laugh weren’t all of our side, sir, by a long way. We 
 was going so fast, and they was so took aback, that they 
 didn’t take what was up till we was half way up the line. 
 Then ’twas 4 look out all,’ surely. They howls all down 
 the line fit to frighten you, some on ’em runs arter us and 
 tries to clamber up behind, only we hits ’em over the 
 fingers and pulls their hands off ; one as had had it very 
 sharp act’ly runs right at the leaders, as though he’d ketch 
 ’em by the heads, only luck’ly for him he misses his tip, 
 and comes over a heap o’ stones, first. The rest picks up 
 stones, and gives it us right away till we gets out o’ shot, 
 the young gents holding out werry manful with the pea- 
 shooters, and such stones as lodged on us, and a pretty 
 many there was too. Then Bob picks hisself up again, and 
 looks at young gent on box werry solemn. Bob’d had a 
 rum un in the ribs, which’d like to ha’ knocked him off the 
 box, or made him drop the reins. Young gent on box 
 picks hisself up, and so does we all, and looks round to 
 count damage. Box’s head cut open and his hat gone ; 
 ’nother young gent’s hat gone ; mine knocked in at the side, 
 and not one on us as wasn’t black and blue somewheres or 
 another ; most on ’em all over. Two-pound-ten to pay for 
 damage to paint, which they subscribed for there and then, 
 and give Bob and me a extra half-sovereign each; but I 
 wouldn’t go down that line again not for twenty half-sover- 
 
72 
 
 TOM BLOWN' S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 eigns.” 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, 
 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 be- 
 nignantly the while. 
 
 “ Oh, don’t stop ! tell us something more about the pea- 
 shooting.” 
 
 “Well, there’d like to have been a pretty piece of work 
 over it at Bicester, a while back. We was six mile from 
 the town, when we meets an old square-headed gray-haired 
 yeoman chap, a jogging along quite quiet. He looks up at the 
 coach, and just then a pea hits him on the nose, and some 
 ketches his cob behind and makes him dance up on his hind 
 legs. I see’d the old boy’s face flush and look plaguy awk- 
 ward, and I thought we was in for somethin’ nasty. 
 
 “ He turns his cob’s head, and rides quickly after us just 
 out of shot. How that ere cob did step ! we never shook 
 him off not a dozen yards in the six mile. At first the 
 young gents was werry lively on him ; but afore we got 
 in, seeing how steady the old chap come on, they was 
 quite quiet, and laid their heads together what they should 
 do. Some was for fighting, some for axing his pardon, 
 lie rides into the town close after us, comes up when we 
 stops, and says the two as shot at him must come before a 
 magistrate; and a great crowd comes round, and we 
 couldn’t get the ’osses to. But the young uns, they all 
 stand by one another, and says all or none must go, and as 
 how they’d fight it out, and have to be carried. Just as 
 ’twas gettin’ serious, and the old boy and the mob was 
 goin’ to pull ’em off the coach, one little fellow jumps up 
 and says, 4 Here — I’ll stay — I’m only going three miles 
 
THE STAGE-COACH. 
 
 73 
 
 further. My father’s name’s Davis; lie’s known about, 
 here, and I’ll go before the magistrate with this gentleman.’ 
 What, be thee Parson Davis’s son?’ says the old boy. 
 
 ‘ Yes,’ says the young un. ‘Well, I be mortal sorry to 
 meet thee in such company, but for thy father’s sake and 
 thine (for thee bist a brave young chap) I’ll say no more 
 about it.’ Didn’t the boys cheer him, and the mob cheered 
 the young chap — and then one of the biggest gets down, 
 and begs his pardon werry gentlemanly for all the rest, 
 saying as they all had been plaguy vexed from the first, 
 but didn’t like to ax his pardon till then, ’cause they Ldt 
 they hadn’t ought to shirk the consequences of their joke. 
 And then they all got down and shook hands with the ( Id 
 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 in- 
 terest in his narrations, that the old guard rubbed up his 
 memory, and launched out into a graphic history of all the 
 performances of the boys on the road for the last twenty 
 years. Off the road he couldn’t go ; the exploit must have 
 been connected with horses or vehicles to hang in the old 
 fellow’s head. Tom tried him off his own ground once or 
 twice, but found he knew nothing beyond, and so let him 
 have his head, and the rest of the road bowled easily away ; 
 for old Blowhard (as the boys called him) was a dry old 
 file, with much kindness and humor, 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 break- 
 ing their limbs or getting drowned, fir one who’ll stay on 
 level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits or bowls. 
 
 The guard had just finished an account of a desperate 
 fight which had happened at one of the fairs between the 
 
74 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 drovers and the farmers with tlieir whips, and the boys 
 with cricket-bats and wickets, which arose out of a play- 
 ful but objectionable practice of the boys going around 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 
 hoys oU) 0 d, their jackets buttoned tight, waiting for the 
 coach. 
 
 “ Look here, sir,” says the guard, after giving a sharp toot- 
 toot, “ there’s two on ’em; out and out runners they be. 
 They come out about twice or three times a week, and 
 spirts a mile alongside of us.” 
 
 And as they came up, sure enough, away went two boys 
 along the footpath, keeping up with the horses ; the first a 
 light, clean-made fellow going on springs, the other stout 
 and round shouldered, laboring in his pace, but going as 
 dogged as a bull-terrier. 
 
 O ; d Blow-hard looked on admiringly. “ See how beau- 
 tifully that ere 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 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 6f the town at 
 ten minutes before twelve. Tom fetched a long breath, 
 and thought he had never spent a pleasanter day. Before 
 he went to bed he had quite settled that it must be the 
 greatest day he should ever spend, and didn’t alter his 
 opinion for many a long year — if he has yet. 
 
RUGBY AN1) FOOTBALL. 
 
 75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 “ — Foot and eye opposed 
 In dubious strife.” 
 
 “And so here’s Rugby, sir, at last, and you’ll be in 
 plenty of time for dinner at the school-house, as I tell’d 
 you,” said the old guard, pulling his horn out of its case, 
 and tootle-tooing away; while the coachman shook up his 
 horses, and carried them along the side of the school close, 
 round Dead-man’s corner, past the school gates, and down 
 the High street to the Spread Eagle ; the wheelers in a 
 spanking trot, and leaders cantering, in a style which 
 would not have disgraced “ Cherry Bob,” “ ramping, stamp- 
 ing, tearing, swearing Billy Harwood,” or any other of the 
 old coaching heroes. 
 
 Tom’s heart beat quick as he passed the great school 
 field or close, with its noble elms, in which several games 
 at football were going on, and tried to take in at once the 
 long line of gray buildings, beginning with the chapel, and 
 ending with the school-house, the residence of the head- 
 master, where the great flag was lazily waving from the 
 highest round tower. And he began already to be proud 
 of being a Rugby boy, as he passed the school-gates, with 
 the oriel-window above, and saw the boys standing there, 
 looking as if the towm 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 around 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 
 
76 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 wrote to me that you were coming to-day, and asked me 
 to give you a lift.” * 
 
 Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronizing 
 air of his new friend — a boy of just about his own height 
 and age, but gifted with the most transcendent coolness 
 and assurance, which Tom felt to be aggravating and hard 
 to bear, but couldn’t for the life of him help admiring and 
 envying especially when young my lord begins hectoring 
 two or three long loafing fellows, half porter, half stable- 
 man, with a strong touch of the blackguard, and in the 
 end arranges with one of them, nicknamed Cooey, to carry 
 Tom’s luggage up to the school-house for sixpence. 
 
 “ And heark’ee, Cooey, it must be up in ten minutes, or 
 no more jobs from me. Come along, Brown.” And avay 
 swaggers the young potentate, with his hands in his 
 pockets, and Tom at his side. 
 
 “ All right, sir,” says Cooey, touching his hat, with a 
 leer and a wink at his companions. 
 
 “ Hullo though,” says East, pulling up, and taking an- 
 other look at Tom, “ this’ll never do — haven’t you got a 
 hat? — we never wear caps here. Only the louts wear caps. 
 Bless you, if you were to go into the quadrangle with that 
 
 thing on, I don’t know what’d happen.” The very idea 
 
 was quite beyond young Master East, and he looked un- 
 utterable things. 
 
 Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but con- 
 fessed that he had a hat in his hat box ; which was accord- 
 ingly at once extracted from the hind boot, and Tom 
 equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend called 
 it. But this didn’t quite suit his fastidious taste in an- 
 other minute, being too shiny ; so, as they walk up the 
 town, they dive into Nixon’s the hatter’s, and Tom is ar- 
 rayed, to his utter astonishment, and without paying for 
 it, in a regulation cat-skin at seven-and-sixpence ; Nixon 
 undertaking to send the best hat up to the matron’s room, 
 school-house, in half an hour. 
 
 “ You can send in a note for a tile on Monday, and make 
 it all right, you know,” said Mentor; “we’re allowed 
 two seven-and-sixers a half, besides what we bring from 
 home.” 
 
 Tom by this time began to be conscious of his new social 
 position and dignities, and to luxuriate in the realized 
 
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL . 77 
 
 ambition of being a public-school boy at last, with a vested 
 right of spoiling two seven-and-sixers in half a year. 
 
 u You see,” said his friend, as they strolled up towards 
 the school-gates, in explanation of his conduct — u 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 youll do very well as 
 to rig, all but that cap. You see I’m doing the handsome 
 thing by you, because my father knows yours ; besides, I 
 want to please the old lady. She gave me half-a-sov. this 
 half, and perhaps’ 11 double it next, if I keep in her good 
 books.” 
 
 There’s nothing for candor like a lower-school boy ; and 
 East was a genuine specimen— frank, hearty, and good- 
 natured, well satisfied with himself and his position, and 
 chock full of life and spirits, and all the Rugby prejudices 
 and traditions which he had been able to get together, in 
 the long course of one half year, during which he had been 
 at the school-house. 
 
 And Tom, notwithstanding his bumptiousness, felt friends 
 with him at once, and began sucking in all his ways and 
 prejudices, as fast as he could understand them. 
 
 East was great in the character of cicerone : he carried 
 Tom through the great gates, where were only two or three 
 boys. These satisfied themselves with the stock questions, 
 — “ You fellow, what’s your name ? Where do you come 
 from ? How old are you ? Where do you board ? and, 
 What form are you in ? ” — and so they passed on through 
 the quadrangle and a small courtyard, upon which looked 
 down a lot of little windows (belonging as his guide in- 
 formed him, to some of the school-house studies), into the 
 matron’s room, where East introduced Tom to that dig- 
 nitary ; made him give up the key of his trunk that the 
 matron might unpack his linen, and told che story of the 
 hat and of his own presence of mind : upon the relation 
 whereof the matron laughingly scolded him, for the coolest 
 new boy in the house ; and East, indignant at the accusation 
 of newness, marched Tom off into the quadrangle and be- 
 gan 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, 
 
78 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 “ And now come in and see my study ; we shall have just 
 time before dinner ; and afterwards, before calling over, 
 we’ll do the close.” 
 
 Tom followed his guide through the school-house hall, 
 which opens into the quadrangle. It is a great room thirty 
 feet long and eighteen high, or thereabouts, with two great 
 tables running the whole length, and two large fireplaces at 
 the side, with blazing fires in them, at one of which some 
 dozen boys were standing and lounging, some of whom 
 shouted to East to stop ; but he shot through with his con- 
 voy, and landed him in the long dark passages, with a large 
 fire at the end of each, upon which the studies opened. In- 
 to one of these, in the bottom passage, East bolted with our 
 hero, slamming and bolting the door behind them, in case 
 of pursuit from the hall, and Tom was for the first time in a 
 Rugby boy’s citadel. 
 
 He hadn’t been prepared for separate studies, and was not 
 a little astonished and delighted with the palace in question. 
 
 It wasn’t very large certainly, being about six feet long 
 by four broad. It couldn’t be called light, as there were 
 bars and a grating to the window ; which little precautions 
 were necessary in the studies on the ground floor looking 
 out into the close, to prevent the exit of small boys after 
 locking up, and the entrance of contraband articles. But 
 it was uncommonly comfortable to look at, Tom thought. 
 The space under the window at the further end was oc- 
 cupied by a square table covered with a reasonably clean and 
 whole red-and-blue check tablecloth; a hard seated sofa 
 covered with red stuff occupied one side, running up to the 
 end, and making a seat for one, or, by sitting close, for two, 
 at the table ; and a good stout wooden chair afforded a seat 
 to another boy, so that three could sit and work together. 
 The walls were wainscoted half way up, the wainscot being 
 covered with green baize, the remainder with a bright pat- 
 terned paper, on which hung three or four prints, of dogs’ 
 heads, Grimaldi winning the Alyesbury steeplechase, Amy 
 Robsart, the reigning Waverley beauty of the day, and Tom 
 Crib in a posture of defense, which did no credit to the 
 science of that hero, if truly represented. Over the door 
 were a row of hat pegs, and on each side bookcases with cup- 
 boards at the bottom ; shelves and cupboards being filled 
 indiscriminately with school books, a cup or two, a mouse- 
 
BUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 79 
 
 trap, 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 fish- 
 ing 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 ? 
 
 44 And shall I have a study like this too ? ” said Tom. 
 
 44 Yes, of course, you’ll be chummed with some fellow on 
 Monday, and you can sit here till then.” 
 
 44 What nice places ! ” 
 
 44 They’re well enough,” answered East patronizingly, 
 44 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.” 
 
 44 But there’s a big fire out in the passage,” said Tom. 
 
 44 Precious little good we get out of that though,” said 
 East; 44 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, wliich 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 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 
 
80 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 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 lire at the pastrycook’s, dainty mortals, bringing with 
 them pickles and sauce bottles to help them with their din- 
 ners. And a great big bearded man, whom Tom took for 
 a master, began calling over the names, while the great 
 joints were being rapidly carved on a third table in the 
 corner by the old verger and the housekeeper. Tom’s turn 
 came last, and meanwhile he was all eyes, looking first with 
 awe at the great man who sat close to him, and was helped 
 first, and who read a hard-looking book all the time he was 
 eating ; and when he got up and walked off to the fire, at 
 the small boys round him, some of whom were reading, 
 and the rest talking in whispers to one Another, or stealing 
 one another’s bread, or shooting pellets, or digging their 
 forks through the tablecloth. However, notwithstanding 
 his curiosity, he managed to make a capital dinner by the 
 time the big man called 44 Stand up ! ” and said grace. 
 
 As soon as dinner was over, and Tom had been ques- 
 tioned by such of his neighbors as were curious as to his 
 birth, parentage, education, and other like matters, East, 
 who evidently enjoyed his new dignity of patron and 
 mentor, proposed having a look at the close, which Tom, 
 athirst for knowledge, gladly assented to, and they went 
 out through the quadrangle and past the big fives’-court, 
 into the great playground. 
 
 44 That’s the chapel, you see,” said East, 44 and there just 
 behind it is the place for fights ; you see it’s most out of 
 the way of the masters, who all live on the other side and 
 don’t come by here after first lesson or callings-over. That’s 
 when -the fights come off. And all this part where we are 
 is the little side-ground, right up to the trees, and on the 
 other side of the trees is the big side-ground where the 
 great matches are played. And there’s the island in the 
 furthest corner ; you’ll know that well enough next half, 
 when there’s island fagging. I say, it’s horrid cold, let’s 
 have a run across,” and away went East, Tom close behind 
 him. East was evidently putting his best foot foremost, 
 and Tom, who was mighty proud of his running, and not 
 a little anxious to show his friend that although a new boy 
 he was no milksop, laid himself down to the work in his 
 
BUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 81 
 
 very best style. Right across the close they went, each 
 doing all he knew, and there wasn’t a yard between them 
 when they pulled up at the island moat. 
 
 “ I say,” said East, as soon as he got his wind, looking 
 with much increased respect at Tom, “ you ain’t a bad 
 scud, not by no means. Well, I’m as warm as a toast 
 now.” 
 
 “But why do you wear white trousers in November? ” 
 said Tom. He had been struck by this peculiarity in the 
 costume of almost all the school-house boys. 
 
 “ Why, bless us, don’t you know ? — No, I forgot. Why, 
 to-day’s the school-house match. Our house plays the 
 whole of the school at football. And we all wear white 
 trousers, to show ’em we don’t care for hacks. You’re in 
 luck to come to-day. You just will see a match; and 
 Brooke’s going to let me play in quarters. That's more 
 than he’ll do for any other lower-school boy except James, 
 and he’s fourteen.” 
 
 “ Who’s Brooke ? ” 
 
 “ Why, that big fellow who called over at dinner, to be 
 sure. He’s cock of the school, and head of the school- 
 house side, and the best kick and charger in Rugby.” 
 
 “Oh, but do show me where they play? And tell me 
 about it. I love football so, and have played all my life. 
 Won’t Brooke let me play? ” 
 
 “ Not he,” said East, with some indignation ; “ why, you 
 don’t know the rules — you’ll be a month learning them. 
 And then it’s no joke playing-up in a match. I can tell 
 you. Quite another thing from your private school games. 
 Why, there’s been two collar-bones broken this half, and a 
 dozen fellows lamed. And last year a fellow had his leg 
 broken.” 
 
 Tom listened with the profoundest respect to this chapter 
 of accidents, and followed East across the level ground till 
 they came to a sort of gigantic gallows of two poles 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 the three goals ; which- 
 ever sidekicks two goals wins, and it won’t do, you see, 
 
 6 f 
 
.82 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 just to kick the ball through three posts, it must go over 
 the cross bar ; any height’ll do, so long as its between the 
 posts. You’ll have to stay in goal to touch the ball, when 
 it rolls behind the posts, because if the other side touch it 
 they have a try at goal. Then we fellows in quarters, we 
 play just about in front of goal here, and have to turn the 
 ball and kick it back before the big fellows on the other 
 side can follow it up, And in front of us all the big 
 fellows play, and that’s where the scrummages are mostly.” 
 
 Tom’s respect increased as he struggled to make out his 
 friend’s technicalities, and the other set to work to explain 
 the mysteries of “ off your side,” “drop-kicks,” “punts,” 
 “places,” and the other intricacies of the great science of 
 football. 
 
 “ But how do you keep the ball between the goals ? ” 
 said he. “ I can’t see why it mightn’t go right down to 
 the chapel.” 
 
 “ Why, that’s out of play,” answered East. “ You see 
 this gravel walk running down all along this side of the 
 playing-ground, and the line of elms opposite on the other? 
 Well, they’re the bounds. As soon as the ball gets past 
 them, it’s in touch and out of play. And the who first 
 touches it, has to knock it straight out amongst the players- 
 up, who make two lines with a space between them, every 
 fellow going on his own side. Ain’t there just fine 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 
 toward the fives’-court whether the matches were really 
 such break-neck affairs as East represented, and whether, 
 if they were, he should ever get to like them and play-up 
 well. 
 
 He hadn’t long to wonder, however, for next minute 
 East cried out, “ Hurra! here’s the punt-about, come along 
 and try your hand at a kick.” The punt-about is the prac- 
 tice ball, which is just brought out and kicked about any- 
 how from one boy to another before calling-over and din- 
 ner, 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 
 
miQBT AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 88 
 
 performed very creditably, after first driving his foot three 
 inches into the ground, and then nearly kicking his leg in- 
 to the air, in vigorous efforts to accomplish a drop-kick 
 after the manner of East. 
 
 Presently more boys and bigger came out, and boys from 
 other houses on their way to calling-over, and more balls 
 were sent for. The crowd thickened as three o’clock ap- 
 proached ; and when the hour struck, one hui dred and 
 fifty boys were hard at work. Then the balls were held, 
 the master of the week came down in cap and gown to call- 
 ing-over, and the whole school of three hundred boys s wept 
 into the big school to answer to their names. 
 
 “ I may come in, mayn’t I ? ” said Tom, catching East 
 by the arm and longing to feel one of them. 
 
 “ Yes, come along, nobody’ll say anything. You won’t 
 be so eager to get into calling-over after a month,” replied 
 his friend ; and they marched into the big school together, 
 and up to the further end, where that illustrious form, the 
 lower-fourth, which had the honor of East’s patronage for 
 the time being, stood. 
 
 The master mounted into the high desk by the door, and 
 one of the praepostors of the week stood by him on the 
 steps, the other three marching up and down the middle of 
 the school with their canes, calling out “ Silence, silence ! ” 
 The sixth form stood close by the door on the left, some 
 thirty in number, mostly great big grown men, as Tom 
 thought, surveying them from a distance with awe. The 
 fifth form behind them, twice their number and not quite 
 so big. These on the left ; and on the right the lower-fifth, 
 shell, and all the junior forms in order; while up the mid- 
 dle 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 forward 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- 
 
84 
 
 TOM BRO \VN ’ 8 SCHOOL-DA YS. 
 
 house fags to go where they like : “ They trust to our 
 honor,” 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 prae- 
 postors 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 vigor- 
 ously with acorns, which fly about in all directions. The 
 small praepostors dash in every now and then, and gener- 
 ally chastise some quiet, timid boy, who is equally afraid 
 of acorns and canes, while the principal performers get 
 dexterously out of the way ; and so calling-over rolls on 
 somehow, much like the big world, punishments lighting 
 on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer, 
 cross-grained way, but the end coming somehow, which is 
 after all the great point. And now the master of the week 
 has finished, and locked up the big school ; and the prae- 
 postors of the week come out, sweeping the last remnant 
 of the school fags — who have been loafing about the cor- 
 ners 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 toward the two goals, 
 dividing as they go into three bodies. That little band on 
 the left, consisting of from fifteen to twenty boys, Tom 
 among them, who are making for the goal under the school- 
 house wall, are the school-house boys who are not to play-up, 
 and have to stay in goal. The larger body moving to the 
 island goal, are the school-boys in a like predicament. The 
 great mass in the middle are the players-up, both sides 
 mingled together; they are hanging their jackets, and all 
 who mean real work, their hats, waistcoats, neck-handker- 
 chief, and braces, on the raillings round the small trees ; and 
 there they go by twos and threes up to their respective 
 grounds. There is none of the color or tastiness of get-up, 
 you will perceive, which lends such a life to the present 
 game at Rugby, making the dullest and worst fought match 
 a pretty sight. Now each house has its own uniform of cap 
 and jersey, of some lively color ; but at the time we are speak- 
 ing of, plush caps had not yet come in, or uniforms of any 
 
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 85 
 
 sort, except the school-house white trousers, which are abom- 
 inably cold to day : let us get to work, bare-headed and 
 girded with our plain leather straps — but we mean busi- 
 ness, gentlemen. 
 
 And now that the two sides have fairly sundered and 
 each occupies its own ground, and we get a good lei k at 
 them, what absurdity is this? You don’t mean to say that 
 those fifty or sixty boys in white trousers, many of them 
 quite small, are going to play that huge mass opposite ? 
 Indeed I do, gentlemen ; they’re going to try at any rate, 
 and won’t make such a bad fight of it either, mark my word ; 
 for hasn’t old Brooke won the toss, with his lucky half- 
 penny, and got choice of goals and kick-off ? The new ball 
 you may see lie there quite by itself, in the middle, point- 
 ing toward the school or island goal ; in another minute it 
 will be well on its way there. Use that minute in remark- 
 ing how the school-house side is drilled. You will see in 
 the first place, that the sixth-form boy, who has the charge 
 of goal, has spread his force (the goal-keepers) so as to 
 occupy the whole space behind the goal-posts, at distance 
 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 
 youngter spreads his men (the light brigade) carefully 
 over the ground, half-way between their own goal and the 
 body of their own players-up (the heavy brigade). These 
 again play in several bodies : there is young Brooke and 
 the bull-dogs — mark them well — they are the “ fighting 
 brigade,” the “die-hards,” larking about at leap-frcg 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 ac- 
 knowledged 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 worshiping 
 subjects, a true football king. His face is earnest and care- 
 ful as he glances a last time over his array, but full of 
 pluck and hope, the sort of look I hope to see in my general 
 when I go out to fight. 
 
 The school side is not organized in the same way. The 
 goal-keepers are all in lumps, anyhow and nohow ; you 
 
80 
 
 TOM BBOWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS . 
 
 can't distingish between the players-up and the boys in 
 quarters, and there is divided leadership; but with such 
 odds in strength and weight it must take more than that 
 to hinder them from winning ; and so their leaders seem to 
 think, for they let the players-up manage themselves. 
 
 But now look, there is a slight move forward of the 
 school-house wings ; a shout of “ Are you ready?” and 
 loud affirmative reply. Old Brooke takes half-a-dozen 
 quick steps, and away goes the ball spinning toward the 
 school goal ; seventy yards before it touches ground, and 
 at no point above twelve or fifteen feet high, a model kick- 
 off ; and the school-house cheer and rush on ; the ball is 
 returned, and they meet it and drive it back among the 
 masses of the school already in motion. Then the two 
 sides close, and you can see nc thing 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 con- 
 sulship 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. u Look out in quarters,” 
 Brooke’s and twenty other voices ring out ; no need to 
 call though ; the school-house captain of quarters has 
 caught it on the bound, dodges the foremost school boys, 
 who are heading the rush, and sends it back with a good 
 drop-kick well into the enemy’s country. And then follow 
 rush upon rush, and scrummage upon scrummage, the ball 
 now driven through into the school-house quarters, and 
 now into the school goal ; for the school-house have not 
 lost the advantage which the kick-off and a slight wind 
 gave them at the outset, and are slightly u penning ” their 
 adversaries. You say you don’t see much in it all ; nothing 
 but a struggling mass of boys, and a leather ball, which 
 seems to excite them all to great fury, as a red rag does a 
 bull. My dear sir, a battle would look much the same to 
 you, except that the boys would be men, and the balls 
 iron ; but a battle would be worth your looking at for all 
 
RUGBY ANI) FOOTBALL . 
 
 87 
 
 that, and so is a football match. You can’t be expected to 
 appreciate the delicate strokes of play, the turns by which 
 a game is lost and won, — it takes an old player to do that, 
 but the broad philosophy of football you can understand if 
 you will. Come along with me a little nearer, and let us 
 consider it together. 
 
 The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are 
 thickest, and they close rapidly around it in a scrummage ; 
 it must be driven through now by force or skill, till it flies 
 out on one side or the other. Look how differently the 
 boys face it! Here come two of the bulldogs, bursting 
 through the outsiders ; in they go, straight to the heart of 
 the scrummage, bent on driving that ball out on the op- 
 posite 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 j^ou, but keeps his head, and backs and bends, 
 holding himself still behind the ball, and driving it furious- 
 ly when he gets the chance. Take a leaf out of his book, 
 you young chargers. Here comes Speedicut, and Flash- 
 man, the school-house bully, with shouts and great action. 
 Won’t you two come up to young Brooke, after locking up, 
 by the school-house fire, with “Old fellow, wasn’t that just 
 a splendid scrummage by the three trees ! ” But he knows 
 you, and so do we. You don’t really want to drive that 
 ball through that scrummage, chancing all hurt for the 
 glory of the school-house — but to make us think that’s 
 what you want — a vastly different thing ; and fellows of 
 your kidney will never go through more than the skirts 
 of a scrummage, where it’s all push and no kicking. 
 We respect boys who keep out of it, and don’t sham going 
 in ; but you — we had rather not say what we think of you. 
 
 Then the boys who are bending and watching on the 
 outside, mark them — they are most useful players, the 
 dodgers ; who seize on the ball the moment it rolls out 
 from among the chargers, and away with it across to the 
 opposite goal ; they seldom go into the scrummage, but 
 must have more coolness than the chargers ; as endless as 
 are boys’ characters, so are their ways of facing or not fac- 
 ing a scrummage at football* 
 
88 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 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 bull-dogs are the color of 
 mother earth from shoulder to ankle, except young Brooke 
 who has a marvelous knack of keeping his legs. The 
 school-house are being penned in their turn, and now the 
 ball is behind their goal, under the Doctor’s wall. The 
 Doctor and some of his family are there looking on, and 
 seem as anxious as any boy for the success of the school- 
 house. We get a minute’s breathing time before old 
 Brooke kicks out, and he gives the word to play strongly 
 for touch, by the three trees. Away goes the ball, and 
 the bull-dogs after it, and in another minute there is a 
 shout of “In touch,” “ Our ball.” Now’s your time, old 
 Brooke, while your men are still fresh. He stands with 
 the ball in his hand, while the two sides form in deep 
 lines opposite one another : he must strike it straight out 
 between them. The lines are thickest close to him, but 
 young Brooke and two or three of his men are shifting up 
 further, where the opposite line is weak. Old Brooke 
 strikes it out straight and strong, and it falls opposite his 
 brother. Hurra! that rush has taken it right through 
 the school line, and away past the three trees, far in to 
 their quarters, and young Brooke and the bull-dogs are 
 close upon it. The school leaders rush back shouting 
 “ Look out in goal,” and strain every nerve to catch him, 
 but they are after the fleetest foot in Rugby. There they 
 go straight for the school goal-posts, quarters scattering 
 before them. One after another ther bull-dogs go down, 
 but young Brooke holds on. “ He is down ! ” No ! a 
 long stagger, and the danger is past ; that was the shock 
 of Crew, the most dangerous of dodgers. And now he is 
 close to the school goal, the ball not three yards before 
 him. There is a hurried rush of the school fags to the 
 spot, but no one throws himself on the ball, the only 
 chance, and young Brooke has touched it right under the 
 school goal-posts. 
 
 The school leaders come up furious, and administer 
 toco to the wretched fags nearest at hand : they may well 
 be angry, for it is all Lombard street to a china orange 
 that the school-house kick a goal with the ball touched in 
 
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL . 
 
 89 
 
 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 until they 
 are all in goal, behind the posts ; they are all edging for- 
 ward, 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 for- 
 ward. 
 
 Then a moment’s pause, while both sides look up at the 
 spinning ball. There it flies, straight between the two 
 p >sts, some five feet above the cross-bar, an unquestioned 
 goal ; and a shout of real genuine joy rings out from the 
 school-house players-up, and a faint echo of it comes over 
 the close from the goal-keepers under the Doctor’s wall. 
 A goal in the first hour — such a thing hasn’t been done in 
 the school-house match this five years. 
 
 “ Over ! ” is the cry ; the two sides change goals, and 
 the school-house goal-keepers come threading their way 
 across through the masses of the school; the most openly 
 triumphant of them, among 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, 
 
90 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 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 vender of oranges 
 from Hill Morton, enters the close with his heavy baskets ; 
 there is a rush of small boys upon the little pale-faced man, 
 the two sides mingling together, subdued by the great 
 goddess Thirst, like the English and French by the streams 
 in the Pyrenees. The leaders are past oranges and apples, 
 but some of them visit their coats, and apply innocent look- 
 ing 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 hon- 
 est play ; that’s what comes of those bottles. 
 
 But now Griffith’s baskets are empty, the ball is placed 
 again midway, and the school are going to kick off. Their 
 leaders have sent their lumber into goal, and rated the rest 
 soundly, and one hundred and twenty picked players-up 
 are there, bent on retrieving the game. They are to keep 
 the ball in front of the school-house goal, and then to drive 
 it in by sheer strength and weight. They mean heavy 
 play and no mistake, and so old Brooke sees ; and places 
 Crab J ones 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 dan- 
 gerous 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 among us. 
 Meet them like Englishmen, you school-house boys, and 
 charge them home. Now is the time to show what metal 
 is in you — and there shall be a warm seat by the hall fire, 
 and honor, and lots of bottled beer to-night, for him who 
 does his duty in the next half-hour. And they are well 
 met. Again and again the cloud of their players-up 
 gathers before our goal, and comes threatening on and 
 Warner or Hedge, with young Brooke and the relics 
 of the bull-dogs, break through and carry the ball back ; 
 and old Brooke ranges the field like Job’s war-horse, the 
 thickest scrummage parts asunder before his rush, like the 
 waves before a clipper’s bows ; his cheery voice rings over 
 
RUGBY AND FOOTBALL. 
 
 91 
 
 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 
 toward the sides with the unerring drop-kick. This is 
 worth living for ; the whole sum of school-boy existence 
 gathered up into one straining, struggling half-hour, a half- 
 hour worth a year of common life. 
 
 The quarter to five has struck, and the play slackens for a 
 minute before goal ; But there is Crew, the artful dodger, 
 driving the ball in behind our goal, on the island side, 
 where our quarters are weakest. Is there no one to meet 
 him? Yes ! look at little East ! the ball is just at equal 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 shoul- 
 ders, as if he would bury himself in the ground ; but the 
 ball rises straight into the air, and falls behind Crew’s back, 
 while the u bravos ” of the school-house attest the pluckiest 
 charge of all that hard-fought day. Warner picks East 
 up lame and half stunned, and lie 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 lias a run left in him. Reckless of the defense 
 of their own goal, on they come across the level big-side 
 ground, the ball well down among them, straight for our 
 goal, like the column of the Old Guard up the slope at 
 Waterloo. All former charges have been child’s play to 
 this. Warner and Hedge have met them, but still on they 
 come. The bull-dogs rush in for the last time ; they are 
 hurled over or carried back, striving hand, foot, and eye- 
 lids. Old Brooke comes sweeping round the skirts of the 
 play, and, turning short round, picks out the very heart of 
 the scrummage, and plunges in. It wavers for a moment 
 — he has the ball! No, it has passed him, and his voice 
 rings out clear over the advancing tide, “ Look out in 
 goal.” Crab Jones catches it for a moment ; but before 
 he can kick, the rush is upon him and passes over him ; 
 and he picks himself up behind them with his straw in his 
 mouth, a little dirtier, but as cool as ever. 
 
 The ball rolls slowly in behind the school-house goal. 
 
92 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 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 Hat 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 
 rolled off him, and Tom is discovered a motionless body. 
 
 Old Brooke picks him up. “Stand back, give him air,” 
 he says; and then feeling his limbs, adds, “No bones 
 broken. How do you feel, young un ? ” 
 
 “ Hah-hah,” gaps Tom, as his wind comes back, “ pretty 
 well, thank you — all right.” 
 
 “ Who is lie ? ” 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 play- 
 er,” says Brooke. 
 
 And five o’clock strikes. “No side ” is called, and the 
 first day of the school-house match is over. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AFTER THE MATCH. 
 
 Some food we had. — Shakespeare . 
 
 1]S 7 roros advs — TllEOCR. Id. 
 
 As the boys scattered away from the ground, and East 
 leaning on Tom’s arm, and iimping along, was beginning 
 to consider what luxury they should go and buy for tea to 
 celebrate that glorious Victory, the two Brookes came strid- 
 ing 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 ? ” 
 
AFTER THE MATCH . 
 
 93 
 
 “ No, nothing at all,” said East, 44 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 
 honor, what a power ye are, and how carelessly wielded by 
 those who can use you ! Surely for these things also God 
 will ask an account. 
 
 “ Tea’s directly after locking-up, you see,” said East, 
 hobbling along as fast as he could, “ so you come along 
 down to Sally Harrowell’s ; that’s our school-house tuck 
 shop — she bakes such stunning murphies, we’ll have a 
 penn’orth each for tea ; come along, or they’ll all be gone.” 
 Tom’s new purse and money burnt in his pocket; he 
 wondered, as they toddled through the quadrangle and 
 along the street, whether East would be insulted if he 
 suggested further extravagance, as he had not sufficient 
 faith in a pennyworth of potatoes. At last he blurted 
 out, — 
 
 “ I say, East, can’t we get something else besides 
 potatoes ? I’ve got lots of money, you know.” 
 
 “ Bless us, yes, I forgot,” said East, “you’ve only just 
 come. You see all my tin’s been gone these twelve weeks, 
 it hardly ever lasts beyond the first fortnight ; and our 
 allowances were all stopped this morning for broken 
 windows, so I haven’t got a penny. I’ve got a tick at 
 Sally’s, of course ; but then I hate running it high, you 
 see, toward the end of the half, ’cause one has to shell out 
 for it all directly one comes back, and that’s a bore.” 
 
 Tom didn’t understand much of this talk, but seized on 
 the fact that East had no money, and was denying himself 
 some little pet luxury in consequence. “Well, what shall 
 I buy ? ” said he ; “ I’m uncommon hungry.” 
 
 “ I say,” said East, stopping to look at him and rest his 
 leg, “ you’re a trump, Brown. I’ll do the same by you 
 next half. Let’s have a pound of sausages, then ; that’s 
 the best grub for tea I know of.” 
 
 “Very well,” said Tom, as pleased as possible ; “where 
 do they sell them ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, over here, just opposite ; ” and they crossed the 
 
TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 street and walked into the cleanest little front room of a 
 small house, half parlor, half shop, and bought a pound of 
 most particular sausages ; East talking pleasantly to Mrs. 
 Porter while she put them in paper, and Tom doing the 
 paying part. 
 
 From Porter’s they adjourned to Sally Harro well’s, 
 where they found a lot of school-house boys waiting for 
 the roast potatoes, and relating their own exploits in the 
 day’s match at the top of their voices. The street opened 
 at once into Sally’s kitchen, a low, brick-floored room, with 
 large recess for fire, and chimney-corner seats. Poor 
 little Sally, the most good-natured and much enduring of 
 womankind, was bustling about with a napkin in her hand, 
 from her own oven to those of the neighbors’ cottages, up 
 the yard at the back of the house. Stumps, her husband, 
 a short, easy-going shoemaker, with a beery humorous eye 
 and ponderous calves, who lived mostly on his wife’s earn- 
 ings, stood in a corner of the room, exchanging shots of 
 the roughest description of repartee with every boy in turn. 
 “ Stumps, you lout, you’ve had too much beer again to-day.’ 
 “’Twasn’t of your paying for, then.” — “Stumps’s calves 
 are running down into his ankles, they wont to get 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 were cleared 
 off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running 
 off to the house with “ Put me down two-penn’orth, Sally ; ” 
 “ Put down three-peniforth 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. Among his other small avocations, 
 he was the hind carrier of a sedan-chair, the last of its race, 
 in which the Rugby ladies still went out to tea, and in 
 which, when he was fairly harnessed and carrying a load, 
 it was the delight of small and mischievous boys to follow 
 him and whip his calves. This was too much for the 
 temper even of Stumps, and he would pursue his tormentors 
 in a vindictive and apoplectic manner when released, but 
 was easily pacified by twopence to buy beer with. 
 
AFTER THE MATCH . 
 
 95 
 
 The lower school-boys of the school-house, some fifteen 
 in number, had tea in the lower-fifth school, and were pre- 
 sided over by the old verger or head-porter. Each boy had 
 a quarter of a loaf of bread and a pat of butter, and as 
 much tea as he pleased ; and there was scarcely one who 
 didn’t add to this some further luxury, such as baked pota- 
 toes, a herring, sprats, or something of the sort ; but few, 
 at this period of the half-year, could live up to a pound of 
 Porter’s sausages, and East was in great magnificence upon 
 the strength of theirs. He had produced a toasting-fork 
 from his study, and set Tom to toast the sausages, while he 
 mounted guard over their butter and potatoes ; “’cause,” 
 as he explained, “ you’re a new boy and they’ll play you 
 some trick and get our butter, but you can toast just as 
 well as I.” So Tom, in the midst of three or four more 
 urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and the saus- 
 ages at the same time before the huge fire, till the latter 
 cracked ; when East from his watch-tower shouted that they 
 were done ; and then the feast proceeded, and the festive cups 
 of tea were filled and emptied, and Tom imparted of the 
 sausages in small bits to many neighbors, and thought he 
 had never tasted such good potatoes or seen such jolly 
 boys. They on their parts waived all ceremony, and pegged 
 away at the sausages and potatoes, and, remembering Tom’s 
 performance in goal, voted East’s new crony a brick. 
 After tea, and while the things were being cleared away, 
 they gathered round the fire, and the talk on the match 
 still went on ; and those who had them to show, pulled up 
 their trousers and showed the hacks they had received in 
 the good cause. 
 
 They were soon, however, all turned out of the school, 
 and East conducted Tom up to his bedroom, that he might 
 get on clean things and wash himself before singing. 
 
 “What’s singing?” said Tom, taking his head out of 
 his basin, where he had been plunging it in cold water. 
 
 “ Well, you are jolly green,” answered his friend from a 
 neighboring basin. “ Why, the last six Saturdays of every 
 half we sing of course ; and this is the first of them. No 
 first lesson to do, you know, and lie in bed to-morrow 
 morning.” 
 
 “ But who sings ? ” 
 
 “Why everybody, of course; you’ll see soon enough. 
 
BBOWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 9(1 
 
 Wc begin directly after supper, and sing till bed-time. It 
 ain’t such good fun now, though, as in the summer half, 
 ’cause then we sing in the little fives’-court, under the 
 library, you know. We take our tables, and the big boys 
 sit round, and drink beer ; double allowance on Saturday 
 nights ; and we cut about the quadrangle between the 
 songs, and it looks like a lot of robbers in a cave. And the 
 louts come and pound at the great gates, and we pound 
 back again, and shout at them. But this half we only sing 
 in the hall. Come along down to my study.” 
 
 Their principal employment in the study was to clear 
 out East’s table, removing the drawers and ornaments and 
 tablecloth ; for he lived in the bottom passage, and his 
 table was in requisition for the singing. 
 
 Supper came in due course at seven o’clock, consisting 
 of bread and cheese and beer, which was all saved for the 
 singing; and directly afterward the fags went to work to 
 prepare the hall. The school-house hall, as has been said, 
 is a great long high room, with two large fires on one side, 
 and two large iron-bound tables, one running down the 
 middle, and the other along the Avail opposite the fire- 
 places. Around the upper fire the fags placed the tables 
 in the form of a horse-shoe, and upon them the jugs with 
 the Saturday night’s allowance of beer. Then the big boys 
 used to drop in and take their seats, bringing with them 
 bottled-beer and song-books ; for although they all knew 
 the songs by heart it was the thing to have an old manu- 
 script book descended from some departed hero, in which 
 they Avere all carefully Avritten out. 
 
 The sixth-form boys had not yet appeared ; so, to fill up 
 the gap, an interesting and time-honored ceremony Avas 
 gone through. Each new boy is placed on the table in 
 turn, and made to sing a solo, under the penalty of drink- 
 ing a large mug of salt and Avater if he resisted or broke 
 doAvn. HoAvever, the neAV boys all sing like nightingales 
 to-night, and the salt Avater is not in requisition; Tom, as 
 his part, performing the old Avest-country song of “ The 
 Leather Bottel ” Avith considerable applause. And at the 
 half hour doAvn come the sixth and fifth-form boys, and 
 take their places at the tables, Avliich are filled up by the 
 next biggest boys, the rest, for Avhorn there is no room at the 
 table, standing round outside. . . - * 
 
AFTER THE MATCH. 
 
 97 
 
 The glasses and mugs are filled, and then the fugleman 
 strikes up the old sea song — 
 
 A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 
 
 And a wind that follows fast, etc. 
 
 which is the invariable first song in the school-house, and 
 all the seventy voices join in, not mindful of harmony, but 
 bent on noise, which they attain decidedly ; but the general 
 effect isn’t bad. And then follow the “ British Grena- 
 diers.” “ Billy Taylor.” “The Siege of Seringapatam,” 
 
 “ Three Jolly Postboys,” and other vociferous songs in 
 rapid succession, including the “ Chesapeake and Shannon,” 
 a song lately introduced in honor of old Brooke ; and when 
 they come to the words — 
 
 Brave Brooke he waved his sword, crying, Now my lads, aboard, 
 
 At ' we’ll stop their playing Yankee-doodle-dandy oh ! 
 
 you expect the roof to come down. The sixth and fifty 
 know that “brave Brooke ” of the Shannon was no sort of 
 relation to our old Brooke. The fourth-form are uncertain 
 in their belief, but for the most part hold that old Brooke 
 was a midshipman then on board his uncle’s ship. And 
 the lower school never doubt for a moment that it was our 
 old Brooke who led the boarders, in what capacity they 
 care not a straw. During the pauses the bottled-beer corks 
 fly rapidly, and the talk is fast and merry, and the big boys, 
 at least all of them who have a fellow-feeling for dry throats, 
 hand their mugs over their shoulders to be emptied by the 
 small ones who stand round behind. 
 
 Then Warner, the head of the house, gets up and wants 
 to speak, but he can’t, for every boy knows what’s coming : 
 and the big boys who sit at the tables pound them and 
 cheer ; and the small boys who stand behind pound one 
 another, and cheer, and rush about the hall cheering. 
 Then silence . being made, Warner reminds them of the 
 old school-house custom of drinking the healths, on the 
 first night of singing, of those who are going to leave at 
 the end of the half. “ He sees that they know what he 
 is going to say already — (loud cheers)— and so won’t keep 
 them, but only asks them, to treat the toast as it deserves. 
 It is the head of the eleven, the head of big-side foot- 
 
TOM BROWNS SCEOOL-BATS. 
 
 ball, their leader on this glorious day — Pater Brooke ! ” 
 
 And away goes the pounding and cheering again, 
 becoming deafening when old Brooke gets on his legs : 
 till d table having broken down, and a gallon or so of 
 beer been upset, and all throats getting dry, silence 
 ensues, and the hero speaks, leaning his hands on the 
 table, and bending a little forward. No action, no tricks 
 of oratory ; plain, strong and straight, like his play. 
 
 “ Gentlemen of the school-house ! I am very proud 
 of the way in which you have received my name, and I 
 wish I could say all I should like to in return. But I 
 know I sha’n’t. However, I’ll do the best I can to say 
 what seems to me ought to be said by a fellow who’s just 
 going to leave, and who has spent a good slice of his life 
 here. Eight years it is, and eight such years as I can 
 never hope to have again. So now I hope you’ll all listen 
 to me — (loud cheers of 4 that we will ’) — for I’m going to 
 talk seriously. You’re bound to listen tome; for what’s 
 the use of calling me ‘paterf and all that, if you don’t 
 mind what I say? And I’m going to talk seriously 
 because I feel so. It’s a jolly time, too, getting to the end 
 of the half, and a goal kicked by us first day — (tremendous 
 applause) — after one of the hardest and fiercest day’s play 
 I can remember in eight years — (frantic shoutings). 
 The school played splendidly, too, I will say, and kept it 
 up to the last. That last charge of theirs would have 
 carried away a house. 1 never thought to see anything 
 again of old Crab there, except little pieces, when I saw 
 him tumbled over by it — (laughter and shouting, and great 
 slapping on the back of Jones by the boys nearest him). 
 Well, but we beat ’em — (cheers). Aye, but why did we 
 beat ’em? Answer me that — (shouts of ‘your play’). 
 Nonsense ! ’Twasn’t the wind and kick-off either — that 
 wouldn’t do it. Twasn’t because we’ve half-a-dozen of the 
 best players in the school, as we have. I wouldn’t change 
 Warner, and Hedge, and Crab, and the young un, for any 
 six on their side — (violent cheers). But half-a-dozen 
 fellows can’t keep it up for two hours against two hundred. 
 Why is it, then ? I’ll tell you what I think. It’s because 
 we’ve more reliance on one another, more of a house 
 feeling, more fellowship than the school can have. Each 
 of us knows and can depend on his next hand man bet- 
 
99 
 
 ter — that’s why we beat ’em to-day. We ve union, they’ve 
 divisions — there’s the secret — (^cheers). But how is this 
 to be kept up? How’s it to be improved? That’s the 
 queston. Fori take it, we’re all in earnest about beating 
 the school, whatever else we care about. I know I’d 
 sooner win two school-house matches running than get 
 the Balliol scholarship any day — (frantic cheers), 
 
 “ Now I’m as proud of the house as any one. 1 believe 
 it’s the best house in the school, out-and-out — (cheers). 
 But it is a long way from what I want to see it. First 
 there’s a deal of bullying going on. I know it well. I don’t 
 pray about and interfere ; that only makes it more under- 
 hand, and encourages the small boys to come to us with 
 their fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so we should 
 be worse off than ever. It’s very little kindness for the 
 sixth to meddle generally — j t ou youngsters, mind that. 
 You’ll be all the better foot-ball players for learning to stand 
 it and to take your own parts, and fight it through. But 
 depend on it, there’s nothing breaks up a house like bully- 
 ing. Bullies are cowards, and one coward makes many ; so 
 good-bye to the school-house match if bullying gets ahead 
 here. (Loud anplause from the small boys, who look 
 meaningly at Flash man and other boys at the tables.) 
 Then there’s fuddling about in the public houses, and 
 drinking bad spirits, and punch, and such rotgut stuff. 
 That won’t make good drop-kicks or chargers of you, take 
 my word for it. You get plenty of good beer here, and 
 that is enough for j^ou ; and drinking isn’t fine or manly, 
 whatever some of you may think of it. 
 
 One other thing I must have a word about. A lot of 
 you think and say, for I’ve heard you. 4 There’s this new 
 Doctor hasn’t been here so long as some of us, and he’s chang- 
 all the old customs. Rugby, and the school-house espe- 
 cially, are going to the dogs. Stand up for the good old 
 ways, and down with the Doctor ! ’ Now I’m as fond of 
 old Rugby customs and ways as any of you, and I’ve been 
 here longer than any of you, and I’ll give you a word, 
 of advice in time, for I shouldn’t like to see any of you getting 
 sacked. 4 Down with the Doctor ! ’ is easier said than done. 
 You’ll find him pretty tight on his perch, I take it, and 
 an awkwardish customer to handle in that line. Besides, 
 now, what customs has he put down? There was the 
 
100 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 good old custom of taking the linch-pins out of the farmers’ 
 and bagmen’s gigs at the fairs, and a cowardly black- 
 guard custom it was. We all know what came of it ; and 
 no wonder the Doctor objected to it. But, come now, any 
 of you, name a custom that he has put down/’ 
 
 “ The hounds,” calls out a fifth-form boy, clad in a green 
 cutaway with brass buttons and cord trousers, the leader of 
 the sporting interest, and reputed a great rider and keen 
 hand generally. 
 
 “ Well, we had six or seven mangy harriers and beagles 
 belonging to the house, I’ll allow, and had had them for 
 years, and that the Doctor put them down. But what 
 good ever came of them? Only rows with all the keepers 
 for ten miles round: and big-side hare and hounds is better 
 fun ten times over. What else?” 
 
 No answer. 
 
 “Well I won’t go on. Think it over for yourselves : 
 you’ll find, I believe, that he don’t meddle with any one 
 that’s worth keeping. And mind now, I say again, look 
 out for squalls, if you will go your own way, and that 
 way ain’t the Doctor’s, for it’ll lead to grief. You all know 
 that I’m not the fellow to back a master through thick and 
 thin. If I saw him stopping football, or cricket, or bath- 
 ing or sparring, I’d be as ready as any fellow to stand up 
 about it. But he don’t — he encourages them : didn’t you 
 see him out to-day for half an hour watching us ? (loud cheers 
 for the Doctor ;) and lie’s a strong true man, and a wise one, 
 too, and a public-school man too. (Cheers.) And so let’s 
 stick to him, and talk no more rot, and drink his health as 
 the head of the house. (Loud cheers.) And now I’ve 
 done blowing up, and very glad I am to have done. But 
 it’s a solemn thing to be thinking of leaving a place which 
 one has lived in and loved for eight years ; and if one can 
 say a word for the good of the old house at such a time, 
 why, it should be said, whether bitter or sweet. If I hadn’t 
 been proud of the house and you— aye, no one knows how 
 proud— 'T shouldn’t be blowing you up. And now let’s get 
 to singing. But before I sit down I must give you a toast 
 to be drunk with three-times-three and all the honors. It’s 
 a toast which I hope every one of us, wherever lie may go 
 hereafter, /will never fail to drink when he thinks of the 
 brave bright days of his boyhood. It’s a toast which should 
 
AFTER THE MAI C II. 
 
 101 
 
 bind us all together, and to those who’ve gone before 
 and who’ll come after us here. It is the dear old school- 
 house — the best house of the best school in England ! ” 
 
 My dear boys, old and young, you who have belonged, or 
 d > belong to others schools and other houses, don’t begin 
 throwing my poor little book about the room, and abusing 
 me and it, and vowing you’ll read no more when you get to 
 this point. I allow you’ve provocation for it. But, come 
 now — would you, any of you, give a fig for a fellow who 
 did’nt believe in, and stand up for his own house and his 
 own school ? You know you wouldn’t. Then don't object 
 to my cracking up the old school-house, Rugby. Haven’t 
 I a right to do it, when I’m taking all the trouble of writ- 
 ing this true history for all your benefits ? If you ain’t 
 satisfied, go and write the history of your own houses in 
 your own times and say all you know for your own schools 
 and houses, provided it’s true, and I’ll read it without 
 abusing you. 
 
 The last few words hit the audience in their weakest 
 place ; they had been not altogether enthusiastic at several 
 parts of old Brooke’s speech ; but “ the best house of the 
 best school in England ” was too much for them all, and 
 carried even the sporting and drinking interest off their 
 legs into rapturous applause, and (it is to be hoped) reso- 
 lutions to lead a new life and remember oldBrooke’s words; 
 which, however, they didn’t altogether do, as will appear 
 hereafter. 
 
 But it required all oldBrooke’s popularity to carry down 
 parts of his speech ; especially that relating to the Doctor. 
 For there are no such bigoted holders by established forms 
 and customs, be they never so foolish or meaningless, as 
 English school-boys — at least, as the school-boy of our gen- 
 eration. We magnified into heroes every boy who had 
 left, and looked upon him with awe and reverence, when 
 he revisited the place a year or so afterward, on his way 
 to or from Oxford or Cambridge ; and happy was the boy 
 who remembered him, and sure of an audience as he ex- 
 pounded what he used to do and say, though it were sad 
 enough stuff to make angels not to say head-masters weep. 
 
 We looked upon every trumpery little custom and habit 
 which had obtained in the school as though it had been a 
 law of the Medes and Persians and regarded the infringe- 
 
102 
 
 TOM BROWN ’ 8 SCHOOL-DA YS. 
 
 ment or variation of it as a sort of sacrilege. And the 
 Doctor, than whom no man or boy had a stronger liking 
 for old school customs which were good and sensible, had, 
 as has already been hinted, come into most decided colli- 
 sion with several which were neither the one nor the other. 
 And as old Brooke had said, when he came into collision 
 with boys or customs, there was nothing for them but to 
 give in or take themselves off ; because what he said had 
 to be done, and no mistake about it. And this was begin- 
 ning to be pretty clearly understood ; the boys felt that 
 there was a strong man over them, who would have things 
 his own way ; and hadn’t yet learned that he was a wise 
 and loving man also. His personal character and influence 
 had not had time to make itself felt, except by a very few of 
 the bigger boys, with whom he came more directly in con- 
 tact ; and he was looked upon with great fear and dislike 
 by the great majority even of his own house. For he had 
 found school and school-house in a state' of monstrous 
 license and misrule, and was still employed in the necessary 
 but unpopular work of setting up order with a strong 
 hand. 
 
 However, as has been said, old Brooke triumphed and 
 the boys cheered him and then the Doctor. And then 
 more songs came, and the healths of the other boys about to 
 leave, who each made a speech, one flowery, another maud- 
 lin, a third prosy, and so on, which are not necessary to be 
 here recorded. 
 
 Half-past nine struck in the middle of the performance 
 of “ Auld Lang Syne,” a most obstreperous proceeding ; 
 during which there was an immense amount of standing 
 with one foot on the table, knocking mugs together and 
 shaking hands, without which accompaniments it seems 
 impossible for the youth of Britain to take part in that 
 famous old song. The under-porter of the school-house 
 entered during the performance, bearing five or six long 
 wooden candlesticks, with lighted dips in them, which he 
 proceeded to stick into their holes in such part of the great 
 tables as he could get at; and then stood outside the 
 ring till the end of the song, when he was hailed with 
 shouts. 
 
 “ Bill, you old muff, the half-hour hasn’t struck.” 44 Here, 
 Bill, drink some cocktail,” 44 Sing us a song, old boy,” 
 
AFTER THE MATCH. 
 
 103 
 
 4 i Don’t you wish you may get the table?” Bill drank 
 the proffered cocktail not unwillingly, and putting down 
 the empty glass, remonstrated, 44 Now, gentlemen, there’s 
 only ten minutes to prayers, and we must get the hall 
 straight.” 
 
 44 Shouts of 44 No, no ! ” and a violent effort to strike up 
 44 Billy Taylor ” for the third time. Bill looked appeal- 
 ingly to old Brooke, who got up and stopped the noise. 
 44 Now then, lend a hand, you youngsters, and get the 
 tables back; clear away the jugs and glasses. Bill’s right. 
 Open the windows, Warner.” The boy addressed, who 
 sat by the long ropes, proceeded to pull up the great win- 
 dows, and let in a clear fresh rush of night air, which made 
 the candles flicker and gutter, and the fires roar. The 
 circle broke up, each collaring his own jug, glass, and song- 
 book ; Bill pounced on the big table, and began to rattle 
 it away to its place outside the buttery-door. The lower- 
 passage boys carried off their small tables, aided by their 
 friends, while above all, standing on the great hall-table, a 
 knot of untiring sons of harmony made night doleful by a 
 prolonged performance of 44 God save the King.” His 
 Majesty King William IV. then reigned over us a mon- 
 arch deservedly popular among the boys addicted to 
 melody, to whom he was chiefly known from the beginning 
 of that excellent, if slightly vulgar, song in which they 
 much delighted — 
 
 Come , neighbors all, both great and small, 
 
 Perform your duiies here, 
 
 Amd loudly sing “ live Billy our king, 
 
 For bating the tax upon beer.” 
 
 Others of the more learned in songs aiso celebrated his 
 praises in a sort of ballad, which I take to have been 
 written by some Irish loyalist. I have forgotten all but 
 the chorus, which ran — 
 
 God save our good King William, be his name forever blessed; 
 
 He’s the father of all his people, and the guardian of all the rest, 
 
 In troth, we were loyal subjects in those days, in a rough 
 way. I trust that our successors make as much of her 
 present Majesty, and having regard to the greater refine- 
 ment of the times, have adopted or written other songs 
 equally hearty, but more civilized, in her honor. 
 
104 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS . 
 
 Then the quarter to ten struck, and the prayer-bell 
 rang. The sixth and fifth-form boys ranged themselves in 
 their school order along the wall, on either side of the 
 great fires, the middle fifth and upper-school boys round 
 the long table in the middle of the hall, and the lower- 
 school boys round the upper part of the second long table, 
 which ran down the side of the hall furthest from the 
 fires. Here Tom found himself at the bottom of all, in a 
 state of mind and body not at all fit for prayers, as he 
 thought; and so tried hard to make himself serious, but 
 couldn’t, for the life of him, do anything but repeat in his 
 head the choruses of some of the songs, and stare at all 
 the boys opposite, wondering at the brilliancy of their 
 waistcoats, and speculating what sort of fellows they were. 
 The steps of the head-porter are heard on the stairs, and a 
 light gleams at the door. “Hush!” from the fifth-form 
 boys who stand there, and then in strides the Doctor, cap 
 on head, book in one hand, and gathering up his gown in 
 the other. He walks up the middle, and takes his post by 
 Warner, who begins calling over the names. The Doctor 
 takes no notice of anything, but quietly turns over his 
 book and finds the place, and then stands, cap in hand and 
 finger in book, looking straight before his nose. He knows 
 better than any one when to look, and when to see noth- 
 ing ; to-night is singing night ; and there’s been lots of 
 noise and no harm done ; nothing but beer drunk, and no- 
 body the worse for it ; though some of them do look hot 
 and excited. So the Doctor sees nothing, but fascinates 
 Tom in a horrible manner as he stands there, and reads 
 out the psalm in that deep, ringing, searching voice of his. 
 Prayers are over, and Tom still stares open-mouthed after 
 the Doctor’s retiring figure, when he feels a pull at his 
 sleeve, and turning around sees East. 
 
 “I say, were you ever tossed in a blanket? ” 
 
 “No,” said Tom; “Why?” 
 
 “ ’Cause there’ll be tossing to-night, most likely, before 
 the sixth come up to bed. So if you funk, you just come 
 along and hide, or else they’ll catch you and toss you.” 
 Were you ever tossed? Does it hurt?” inquired 
 Tom. 
 
 “ Oh, yes, bless you, a dozen times,” said East, as he 
 hobbled along by Tom’s side up-stairs. “It don’t hurt 
 
AFTER THE MATCH. 
 
 105 
 
 unless you fall on the floor. But most fellows don’t like 
 it.” 
 
 They stopped at the fireplace in the top passage, where 
 were a crowd of small boys whispering together, and evi- 
 dently ujn willing to go up into the bed-rooms. In a minute, 
 however, a study door opened, and a sixth-form boy came 
 out, and off they all scuttled up the stairs, and then noise- 
 lessly dispersed to their different rooms. Tom’s heart 
 beat rather quick as he and East reached their room, but 
 he had made up his mind. “I shan’t hide, East,” said he. 
 
 “Very well, old fellow,” replied East, evidently pleased, 
 “ no more shall I — they’ll be here for us directly.” 
 
 The room was a great big one, with a dozen beds in it, 
 but not a boy that Tom could see, except East and himself. 
 East pulled off liis coat and waistcoat, and then sat on the 
 bottom of his bed, whistling, and pulling off his boots ; 
 Tom followed his example. 
 
 A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door 
 opens, and in rush four or five great fifth-form boys, headed 
 by Flashman in his glory. 
 
 Tom and East slept in the further corner of the room, 
 and were not seen at first. 
 
 “ Gone to ground, eh?” roared Flashman; “push ’em 
 out then, boys ! look under the beds:” and he pulled up 
 the little white curtain of the one nearest him. “ Who-o- 
 op,” he roared, pulling away at the leg of a small boy, who 
 held on tight to the leg of the bed, and sung out lustily for 
 mercy. 
 
 “ Here, lend a hand, one of you, and help me pull out 
 this young howling brute. Hold your tongue, sir, or I’ll 
 kill you,” 
 
 “Oh, please, Flashman, please, Walker, don’t toss me? 
 I’ll fag for you, I’ll do anything, only don’t toss me.” 
 
 “ You be hanged,” said Flashman, lugging the wretched 
 
 boy along, “ ’twon’t hurt you, you! Come along, boys, 
 
 here he is.’ 
 
 “ I say, Flashy,” sung out another of the big boys, 
 “ drop that; you heard what old Pater Brooke said to- 
 night. I’ll be hanged if we’ll toss any one against their 
 will — no more bullying. Let him go, I say.” 
 
 Flashman, with an oath and a kick, released his prey, 
 who rushed headlong under his bed again, for fear they 
 
106 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 should change their minds, and crept along underneath 
 the other beds, till he got under that of the sixth-form 
 boy, which he knew they daren’t disturb. 
 
 “ There’s plenty of youngsters don’t care about it,*’ 
 said Walker. “Here, here’s Scud East — you’ll be tossed, 
 won’t you, young un ? ” Scud was East’s nickname, or 
 Black, as we called it, gained by his fleetness of foot. 
 
 “ Yes,” said East, “ if you like, only mind my foot.” 
 
 “And here’s another who didn’t hide. Hullo! new 
 boy ; what’s your name, sir ?” 
 
 “ Brown.” 
 
 “Well, Whitey Brown, you don’t mind being tossed?” 
 
 “ No,” said Tom, setting his teeth. 
 
 “ Come along then, boys,” sung out Walker ; and away 
 they all went, carrying along Tom and East, to the intense 
 relief of four or five other small boys, who crept out from 
 under the beds and behind them. 
 
 “ What a trump Scud is ! ” said one. “ They won’t come 
 back here now.” 
 
 “ And that new boy, too ; he must be a good plucked 
 one.” 
 
 “ Ah ! wait till he has been tossed on to the floor ; see 
 how he’ll like it then ! ” 
 
 Meantime the procession went down the passage to 
 Number 7, the largest room, and the scene of tossing, in 
 the middle of which was a great open space. Here they 
 joined other parties of the bigger boys, each with a captive 
 or two, some willing to be tossed, some sullen, and some 
 frightened to death. At Walker’s suggestion, all who 
 were afraid were let off, in honor of Pater Brooke’s speech. 
 
 Then a dozen big boys seized hold of a blanket dragged 
 from one of the beds. “In with Scud, quick! there’s no 
 time to lose.” East was chucked into the blanket. “ Once, 
 twice, thrice, and away ; ” up he went like a shuttlecock, 
 but not quite up to the ceiling. 
 
 “Now, boys, with a will,” cried Walker, “ once, twice, 
 thrice, and away ! ” This time he went clean up, and 
 kept himself from touching the ceiling with his hand ; and 
 so again a third time, when he was turned out, and up 
 went another boy. And then came Tom’s turn. He lay 
 quite still, by East’s advice, and didn’t dislike the “ once, 
 twice, thrice ; ” but the “ away ” wasn’t so pleasant. They 
 
SETTLING TO THE COLLAR. 
 
 10 ' 
 
 were in good wind now, and sent him slap up to the ceil- 
 ing first time, against which his knees came rather sharply. 
 But the moment’s pause before descending was the rub, 
 the feeling of utter helplessness and of leaving his whole 
 inside behind him sticking to the ceiling. Tom was very 
 near shouting to be set down, when he found himself back 
 in the blanket, but thought of East, and didn’t ; and so 
 took his three tosses without a kick or a cry, and w.as 
 called a young trump for his pains. 
 
 He and East, having earned it, stood now looking on. 
 No catastrophe happened, as all the captives were cool 
 hands, and didn’t struggle. This didn’t suit Flashman. 
 What your real bully likes in tossing, is when the boys 
 kick and struggle, or hold on to one side of the blanket, 
 and so get pitched bodily on to the floor; it’s no fun to 
 him when no one is hurt or frightened. 
 
 “ Let’s toss two of them together, Walker,” suggested he. 
 
 “ What a cursed bully you are, Flashy ! ” rejoined the 
 other. u Up with another one.” 
 
 And so no two boys were tossed together, the peculiar 
 hardship of which is, that it’s too much for human nature 
 to lie still then and share troubles ; and so the wretched 
 pair of small boys struggle in the air which shall fall a-top 
 in the descent, to the no small risk of both falling out of 
 the blanket, and the huge delight of brutes like Flashman. 
 
 But now there’s a cry that the praepostor of the room is 
 coming ; so the tossing stops, and all scatter to their 
 different rooms: and Tom is left to turn in, with the first 
 day’s experience of a public school to meditate upon. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SETTLING TO THE COLLAR. 
 
 Says Giles, “ ’Tis mortal hard to go * 
 
 But if so he’s I must, 
 
 I means to follow arter he 
 As goes hisself the fust.” — Ballad. 
 
 Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy delicious state 
 in which one lies, half asleep, half awake, while conscious- 
 ness begins to return, after a sound night’s rest in a new 
 place which we are glad to be in, following upon a day of 
 
108 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL- DA YS. 
 
 unwonted excitement and exertion. There are few pleas- 
 anter pieces of life. The worst of it is that they last such 
 a short time ; for, nurse them as you will, by lying per- 
 fectly passive in mind and body, you can’t make more than 
 five minutes or so of them. After which time, the stupid, 
 obtrusive, wakeful entity which we call “ I,” as impatient 
 as he is stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force himself 
 back again, and take possession of us down to our very 
 toes. 
 
 It was in this state that Master Tom lay at half-past seven 
 on the morning following the day of his arrival, and from 
 his clean little white bed watched the movements of Bogle 
 (the generic name by which the successive shoeblacks of 
 the school-house were known), as he marched round from 
 bed to bed, collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and de- 
 positing clean ones in their places. 
 
 There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in the 
 universe he was, but conscious that he had made a step in 
 life which he had been anxious to make. It was only iust 
 light as he looked lazily out of the wide windows, and saw 
 the tops of the great elms, and the rooks circling about, 
 and cawing remonstrances to the lazy ones of their com- 
 monwealth, before starting in a body for the neighboring 
 plowed fields. The noise of the room door closing behind 
 Bogle, as he made his exit with the shoe-basket under his 
 arm, roused Tom thoroughly, and he sat up in bed and 
 looked round the room, What in the world could be the 
 matter with his shoulders and loins? He felt as if he had 
 been severely beaten all down his back, the natural result 
 of his performance at his first match. He drew up his 
 knees and rested his chin on them, and went over all the 
 events of yesterday, rejoicing in his new life, what he had 
 seen of it, and all that was to come. 
 
 Presently one or two of the other boys roused them- 
 selves, and began to sit up and talk to one another in low 
 tones. Then East after a roll or two came to an anchor 
 also, and, nodding to Tom, began examining his ankle. 
 
 “ What a pull,” said he, “ that it’s lie-in-bed, for I shall 
 be as lame as a tree, I think.” 
 
 It was Sunday morning, and Saturday lectures had not 
 yet been established ; so that nothing but breakfast inter- 
 vened between bed and eleven o’clock chapel — -a gap by 
 
SETTLING TO THE COLLAR . 
 
 109 
 
 no means easy to fill up ; in fact, though received with the 
 correct amount of grumbling, the first lecture instituted by 
 the Doctor shortly afterward was a great boon to the school. 
 It was lie in bed, and no one was in a hurry to get up, 
 especially in rooms where the sixth form boy was a good- 
 tenpered fellow, as was the case in Tom’s room, and al- 
 lowed the small boys to talk and laugh, and do pretty much 
 what they pleased, so long as they didn’t disturb him. His 
 bed was a bigger one than the rest, standing in the corner 
 by the fireplace, with a washing stand and large basin by 
 the side, where he lay in state, with his white cu; tains 
 tucked in so as to form a retiring place; an awful subject 
 of contemplation to Tom, who slept nearly opposite, and 
 watched the great man rouse himself and take a book from 
 under his pillow, and begin reading, leaning his head on 
 his hand, and turning his back to the room. Soon, how- 
 ever, a noise of striving urchins arose, and muttered en- 
 couragements from the neighboring boys of — u Go it, Tad- 
 pole ! ” “ Now, young Green ! ” “ Haul away his blanket? ” 
 
 Slipper him on the hands ! ” Young Green and little 
 Hall, commonly called Tadpole from his great black head 
 and thin legs, slept side by side far away by the door, and 
 were forever playing one another tricks, which usually 
 ended, as on this morning, in open and violent collision ; 
 and now, unmindful of all order and authority, there they 
 were, each hauling away at the other’s bed-clothes with one 
 hand, and with the other armed with a slipper, belaboring 
 whatever portion of the body of his adversary qame within 
 reach. 
 
 “ Hold that noise up in the corner,” called out the prae- 
 postor, sitting up and looking round his curtains; and the 
 Tadpole and young Green sank down into their disordered 
 beds, and then, looking at his watch added, “ Hullo, past 
 eight ! — whose turn for hot water?” 
 
 (Where the praepostor was particular in his ablutions, 
 the fags in his room had to descend in turn to the kitchen, 
 and beg or steal hot water for him; and often the custom 
 extended further, and two boys went down every morning 
 to get a supply for the whole room.) 
 
 u East’s and Tadpole’s,” answered the senior fag, who 
 kept the rota. 
 
 4b I can’t go,” said East; u Tm dead lame.’ 
 
110 
 
 TOM BROWN S SCH00L-BAY8. 
 
 u Well, be quick, some of you that’s all,” said the great 
 man. as he turned out of bed, and putting on his slippers, 
 went out into the great passage which runs the whole 
 length of the bedrooms, to get his Sunday habiliments out 
 of his portmanteau. 
 
 “ Let me go for you,” said Tom to East. “ I should like 
 it.” 
 
 “Well, tliank’ee, that’s a good fellow. Just pull on 
 your trousers and take your jug and mine. Tadpole will 
 show you the way.” 
 
 And so Tom and the Tadpole, in night-shirts and trous- 
 ers, started off down-stairs, and through “ Thos’s hole,” as 
 the little buttery, where candles and beer, and bread and 
 cheese were served out at night, was called ; across the 
 schoolhouse court, down a long passage, and into the kitchen ; 
 where, after some parley with the stalwart, handsome cook, 
 who declared that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they 
 got their hot water, and returned with all speed and great 
 caution. As it was, they narrowly escaped capture by 
 some privateers from the fifth-form rooms, who were on the 
 look-out for the hot- water convoys, and pursued them up to 
 the very door of their room, making them spill half their 
 load in the passage. “ Better than going down again though,” 
 Tadpole remarked, “ as we should have had to do, if those 
 beggars had caught us.” 
 
 By the time that the calling-over bell rang, Tom and his 
 new comrades were all down, dressed in their best clothes, 
 and he had the satisfaction of answering “ here” to his 
 name for the first time, the praepostor of the week having 
 put it in at the bottom of his list. And then came break- 
 fast, and a saunter about the close and town with East, 
 whose lameness only became severe when any fagging had 
 to be done. And so they whiled away the time until morn- 
 ing chapel. 
 
 It was a fine November morning, and the close soon be- 
 came alive with boys of all ages, who sauntered about on 
 the grass, or walked round the gravel walk, in parties of 
 two or three. East, still doing the cicerone, pointed out 
 all the remarkable characters to Tom as they passed; Os- 
 bert, who could throw a cricket-ball from the little side- 
 ground over the rook trees to the doctor’s wall; Gray, who 
 had got the Balliol scholarship, and, what East evidently 
 
SETTLING TO TEE COLLAR. 
 
 Ill 
 
 thought of much more importance, a half-holiday for the 
 school by his success ; Thorne, who had run ten miles in two 
 minutes over the hour ; Black, who had held his own 
 against the cock of the town in the last row with the louts ; 
 and many more heroes, who then and there walked about 
 and were worshiped, all trace of whom has long since van- 
 ished from the scene of their fame ; and the fourth-form boy 
 who reads their names rudely cut out on the old hall tables, 
 or painted upon the big side cupboard (if hall tables, and 
 big side-cupboards still exist), wonders what manner of 
 boys they were. It will be the same with you who wonder, 
 my sons, whatever your prowess may be, in cricket, or 
 scholarship, or football. Two or three years, more or less, 
 and then the steadily advancing, blessed wave will pass 
 over your names as it has passed over ours. Nevertheless, 
 play your games and do your work manfully — see only that 
 that be done, and let the remembrance of it take care of it- 
 self. 
 
 The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and 
 Tom got in early and took his place in the lowest row, and 
 watched all the other boys come in and take their places, 
 filling row after row ; and tried to construe the Greek text 
 which was inscribed over the door with the slightest possible 
 success, and wondered which of the masters, who walked 
 down the chapel and took their seats in the exalted boxes 
 at the end, would be his lord. And then came the closing 
 of the doors, and the Doctor in his robes and the service, 
 which, however, didn’t impress him much, for his feeling of 
 wonder and curiosity was too strong. And the boy on one 
 side of him was scratching his name on the oak paneling in 
 front, and he couldn’t help watching to see what the name 
 was, and whether it was well scratched ; and the boy on 
 the other side went to sleep and kept falling against him ; 
 and on the whole, though many boys even in that part of 
 the school were serious and attentive, the general atmos- 
 phere was by no means devotional ; and when he got out 
 into the close again, he didn’t feel at all comfortable, or as 
 if he had been to church. 
 
 But at afternoon chapel it was quite another thing. He 
 had spent the time after dinner in writing home to his 
 mother, and so was in a better frame of mind; and his first 
 curiosity was over, and he could attend more to the service. 
 
112 
 
 TOM BROWN ’ S SCHOOL-BA YS. 
 
 As the hymn after the prayers was being sung, and the chapel 
 was getting a little dark, he was beginning to feel that he had 
 been really worshiping. And then came that great event 
 in his, as in every Rugby boy’s life of that day — the first 
 sermon from the Doctor. 
 
 More worthy pens than mine have described that scene. 
 The oak pulpit standing out by itself above the school seats. 
 The tall gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice, now soft as 
 the low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of 
 the light infantry bugle, of him who stood there Sunday after 
 Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the King of 
 righteousness and love and glory, with whose spirit he was 
 filled, and in whose power he spoke. The long lines of 
 young faces, rising tier above tier down the whole length 
 of the chapel, from the little boy’s who had just left his 
 mother to the young man’s who was going out next week into 
 the great world rejoicing in his strength. It was a great 
 and solemn sight, and never more so than at this time of 
 year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit 
 and at the seats of the praepostors of the week, and the soft 
 twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, deepening into 
 darkness in the high gallery behind the organ. 
 
 But what was it after all which seized and held these 
 three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, will- 
 ing or unwilling, for twenty minutes, on Sunday afternoon ? 
 True, there always were boys scattered up and down the 
 school, who in heart and head were worthy to hear and 
 able to carry away the deepest and wisest words there 
 spoken. But these were a minority always, general^ a 
 very small one, often so small a one as to be countable on 
 the fingers of your hand. What was it that moved and 
 held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish 
 boys, who feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and very 
 little besides in heaven or earth ; who thought more of our 
 sets in the school than of the Church of Christ, and put the 
 traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our 
 daily life above the laws of God? We couldn’t enter into 
 half that we heard ; we hadn’t the knowledge of our own 
 hearts or the knowledge of one another; and little enough 
 of the faith, hope, and love needed to that end. But we 
 listened, as all boj^s in their better moods will listen (aye, 
 and men too, for the matter of that), to a man who we felt 
 
SETTLING TO THE COLLAB. 
 
 113 
 
 to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving 
 against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous 
 in our little world. It was not the cold clear voice of one 
 giving advice and warning from serene heights to those 
 who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm liv- 
 ing voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, 
 and calling on us to help him and ourselves and one an- 
 other. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and 
 steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, 
 for the first time, the meaning of his life; that it was no 
 fool’s or sluggard’s paradise into which he had wandered by 
 chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there 
 are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and 
 the stakes are life and death. And he who roused his 
 consciousness in them showed them at the same time, by 
 every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily 
 life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood there be- 
 fore them their fellow-soldier and the captain of the band. 
 The true sort of captain, too, for a boy’s army, one who had 
 no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, 
 and, let who would yield or make a truce, would fight the 
 fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last 
 drop of blood. Other sides of his character might take 
 hold of and influence boys here and there, but it was this 
 thoroughness and undaunted courage which more than any- 
 thing else won his way to the hearts of the great mass of 
 those on whom he left his mark and made them believe 
 first in him, and then in his Master. 
 
 It was this quality above all others which moved such 
 boys as our hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable 
 about him except excess of boyishness ; by which I mean 
 animal life in its fullest measure, good nature and honest 
 impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and thought- 
 lessness enough to sink a three decker. And so, during 
 the next two years, in which it was more than doubtful 
 whether he would get good or evil from the school, and 
 before any steady purpose or principle grew up in him, 
 whatever his week’s sins and short-comings might have 
 been, he hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday evenings 
 without a serious resolve to stand by and follow the Doc- 
 tor, and a feeling that it was only cowardice (the incarna- 
 nation of all other sins in such a boy’s mind) which 
 hindered him from doing so with all his heart. 
 
114 
 
 TOM BLOWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 The next day Tom was duly placed in the third form, 
 and began his lessons in a corner of the big school. He 
 found the work very easy, as he had been well grounded, 
 and knew his grammar by heart ; and, as he had no inti- 
 mate companion to make him idle (East and his other 
 school-house friends being in the lower-fourth, the form 
 above him), soon gained golden opinions from his master, 
 who said he was placed too low, and should be put out at 
 the end of the half-year. So all went well with him in 
 school, and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to 
 his mother, full of his success and the unspeakable delights 
 of a public school. 
 
 In the house, too, all went well. The end of the half- 
 j^ear was drawing near, which kept everybody in a good 
 humor, and the house was ruled well and strongly by 
 Warner and Brooke. True, the general system was rough 
 and hard, and there was bullying in nooks and corners, bad 
 signs for the future; but it never got further, or dared 
 show itself openly, stalking about the passages and halls 
 and bedrooms, and making the life of the small boys a 
 continual fear. 
 
 Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging for the 
 first month, but in his enthusiasm for his new life this 
 privilege hardly pleased him; and East and others of his 
 young friends discovering this, kindly allowed him to in- 
 dulge his fancy, and take their turns at night fagging and 
 cleaning studies. These were the principal duties of the 
 fags in the house. From supper until nine o’clock, three 
 fags taken in order stood in the passages, and answered 
 any praepostor who called Fag, racing to the door, the last 
 comer having to do the work. This consisted generally of 
 going to the buttery for beer and bread and cheese (for the 
 great men did not sup with the rest, but had each his own 
 allowance in his study or the fifth-form room), cleaning can- 
 dle-sticks and putting in new candles, toasting cheese, bot- 
 tling beer, and carrying messages about the house ; and Tom, 
 in the first blush of his hero-worship, felt it a high privilege 
 to receive orders from, and be the bearer of the supper of, 
 old Brooke. And besides this night-work, each praepostor 
 had three or four fags specially allotted to him, of whom 
 he was supposed to be the guide, philosopher and friend, 
 and who in return for these good offices had to clean out 
 
SETTLING TO THE COLLAR . 
 
 115 
 
 his study every morning by turns, directly after first lesson 
 and before he returned from breakfast. And the pleasure 
 of seeing the great men’s studies, and looking at their pict- 
 ures, and peeping into their books, made Tom a ready 
 substitute for any boy who was too lazy to do his own work. 
 And so he soon gained the character of a good-natured 
 willing fellow, who was ready to do a turn for any one. 
 
 In all the games too he joined with all his heart and soon 
 became well versed in all the mysteries of football, by con- 
 tinued practice at the school-house little-side which played 
 daily. 
 
 The only "incident worth recording here, however, was 
 his first run at hare-and-hounds. On the last Tuesday but 
 one of the half-year he was passing through the hall after 
 dinner, when he was hailed with shouts from Tadpole and 
 several other fags seated at one of the long tables, the 
 chorus of which was, “ Come and help us tear up scent.” 
 Tom approached the table in obedience to the mysterious 
 summons, always ready to help, and found the party en- 
 gaged in tearing up old newspapers, copy-books and mag- 
 azines, into small pieces, with which they were filling 
 four large canvas bags. 
 
 u It’s the turn of our house to find scent for big-side 
 hare-and-hounds,” exclaimed Tadpole ; u tear away, there’s 
 no time to lose before calling-over.” 
 
 “ I think it’s a great shame,” said another small boy, “ to 
 have such a hard run for the last day.” 
 
 “ Which run is it? ” said Tadpole. 
 
 “Oh, the Barby run, I hear,” answered the other; “nine 
 miles at least, and hard ground ; no chance of getting in 
 at the finish, unless you’re a first-rate scud.” 
 
 “Well, I’m going to have a try,” said Tadpole ; “it’s 
 the last run of the half, and if a fellow gets in at the end, 
 big-side stands ale and bread and cheese, and a bowl of 
 punch; and the Cock’s such a famous place for ale.” 
 
 “ I should like to try too,” said Tom. 
 
 “Well, then, leave your waistcoat behind, and listen at 
 the door, after calling-over, and you’ll hear where the 
 meet is.” 
 
 After calling-over, sure enough, there were two boys 
 at the door, calling out. “ Big-side hare-and-hounds meet 
 at White Hall;” and Tom, having girded himself with 
 
116 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 leather strap, and left all superfluous clothing behind, set 
 off for White Hall, an old gable-ended house some 
 quarter of a mile from town, with East, whom he had per- 
 suaded to join, notwithstanding his prophecy that they 
 could never get in, as it was the hardest run of the year. 
 
 At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, and 
 Tom felt sure, from having seen many of them run at 
 football, that he and East were more likely to get in than 
 they. 
 
 After a few minutes’ waiting, two well-known runners, 
 chosen for the hares, buckled on the four bags filled with 
 scent, compared their watches with those of young Brooke 
 and Thorne, and started off at a long slinging trot across 
 the fields in the direction of Barby. 
 
 Then the hounds clustered around Thorn, who ex- 
 plained shortly. 
 
 “ They’re to have six minutes’ law. We run into the 
 Cock, and every one who comes in within a quarter of an 
 hour of the hares’ll be counted, if he has been round 
 Barby church.” Then came a minute’s pause or so, and 
 then the watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through 
 the gateway into the field which the hares had first crossed. 
 Here they break into a trot, scattering over the field to find 
 the first traces of the scent which the hares throw out as 
 they go along. The old hounds made straight for the 
 likely points, and in a minute a cry of “ forward ” comes 
 from one of them, and the whole pack quickening their 
 pace make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent 
 first and the two or three nearest to him are over the first 
 fence, and making play along the hedgerow in the long 
 grass-field beyond. The rest of the pack rush at the gap 
 already made, and scramble through, jostling one another. 
 “ Forward ” again, before they are half through ; the 
 pace quickens into a sharp run, the tail hounds all strain- 
 ing to get up with the lucky leaders. They are gallant 
 hares, and the scent lies thick right across another meadow 
 and into a plowed field, where the pace begins to tell ; and 
 then over a good wattle with a ditch on the other side, and 
 down a large pasture studded with old thorns, which slopes 
 down to the first brook ; the great Leicestershire sheep 
 charge away across the field as the pack comes racing down 
 the slope. The brook is a small one, and the scent lies 
 
SETTLING TO TEE COLLAR . 
 
 117 
 
 right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever; 
 not a turn or a check to favor the tail hounds who strain 
 on, now trailing in a long line, many a youngster begin- 
 ning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart beat like a 
 hammer, and the bad plucked ones thinking that after all 
 it isn’t worth while to keep it up. 
 
 Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and are 
 well up for such young hands, and after rising the slope 
 and crossing the next field, find themselves up with the 
 leading hounds, who have overrun the scent and are try- 
 ing back ; they have come a mile and a half in about eleven 
 minutes, a pace which shows that it is the last day. About 
 twenty-five of the original starters only show here, the rest 
 having already given in ; the leaders are busy making 
 casts into the fields on the left and right, and the others 
 get their second winds. 
 
 Then comes the cry of “ forward ” again, from young 
 Brooke, from the extreme left, and the pack settles down 
 to work again steadily and doggedly, the whole keeping 
 pretty well together. The scent, though still good, is not 
 so thick ; there is no need of that, for in this part of the 
 run every one knows the line which must be taken, and so 
 there are no casts to be made, but good downright running 
 and fencing to be done. All who are now up mean coming 
 in, and they come to the foot of Bar by hill without losing 
 more than two or three more of the pack. This last 
 straight two miles and a half is always a vantage ground 
 for the hounds, and the hares know it well ; they are gen- 
 erally viewed on the side of Barby hill, and all eyes are on 
 the look-out for them to-day. But not a sign of them ap- 
 pears, so now will be the hard work for the hounds, and 
 there is nothing for it but to cast about for the scent, for 
 it is now the hares’ turn, and they may baffle the pack 
 dreadfully in the next two miles. 
 
 Ill fares it now with our youngsters that they are school- 
 house boys, and so follow young Brooke, for he takes the 
 wide casts round to the left, conscious of his own powers, 
 and loving the hard work. For if you would consider for 
 a moment, you small boys, you would remember that the 
 Cock, where the run ends, and the good ale will be going, 
 lies far out to the right on the Dunchurch road, so that 
 every cast you take to the left is so much extra work. And 
 
118 
 
 TOM BLOWN' S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 at this stage of the run, when the evening is closing in al- 
 ready, no one remarks whether you run a little cunning or 
 not, so you should stick to those crafty hounds who keep 
 edging away to the right, and not follow a prodigal like 
 young Brooke, whose legs are twice as long as yours and 
 of cast iron, wholly indifferent to two or three miles more 
 or less. However, they struggle after him, sobbing and 
 plunging along. Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole, 
 whose big head begins to pull him down, some thirty 
 yards behind. 
 
 Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which 
 they can hardly drag their legs, and they hear faint cries 
 for help from the wretched Tadpole, who has fairly stuck 
 fast. But they have too little run left in themselves to pull 
 up for their own brothers. Three fields more, and another 
 check, and then “ forward ” called away to the extreme 
 right. 
 
 The two boys’ souls die within them ; they can never do it. 
 Young Brooke thinks so too, and says kindly, “ You’ll cross 
 a lane after next field, keep down it, and you’ll hit the Dun- 
 church road below the Cock,” and then steams away for 
 the run in, in which he’s sure to be first, as if he were just 
 starting. They struggle on across the next field, the “ for- 
 wards ” getting fainter and fainter and then ceasing. The 
 whole hunt is out of ear-shot, and all hope of coming in is 
 over. 
 
 “ Hang it all ! ” broke out East, as soon as he had got 
 wind enough, pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, 
 all spattered with dirt and lined with sweat, from which 
 went up a thick steam into the still cold air. “I told you 
 how it would be. What a thick I was to come ! Here we 
 are dead beat, and yet I know we’re close to the run in, if 
 we knew the country.” 
 
 “Well,” said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down 
 his disappointment, “it can’t be helped. We did our best 
 anyhow. Hadn’t we better find this lane, and go down it, 
 as young Brooke told us ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose so — nothing else for it,” grunted East. “If 
 ever I go out last day again,” growl — growl — growl. 
 
 So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the 
 lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold pud- 
 dly ruts, and beginning to feel how the run had taken it 
 
SETTLING TO TIIE COLLAR . 
 
 119 
 
 out of them. The evening closed in fast, and clouded over, 
 dark, cold, and dreary. 
 
 “ I say, it must be locking-up, I should think,” remarked 
 East, breaking the silence; ^ it’s so dark.” 
 
 “What if we’re late,” said Tom. 
 
 “ No tea, and sent up to the Doctor,” answered East. 
 
 The thought didn’t add to their cheerfulness. Presently 
 a faint haloo was heard from an adjoining field. They an- 
 swered it and stopped, hoping for some competent rustic to 
 guide them, when over a gate some twenty yards ahead 
 crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse ; he 
 had lost a shoe in the brook, and been groping after it up 
 to his elbows in the stiff' wet clay, and a more miserable 
 creature in the shape of a boy seldom has been seen. 
 
 The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he 
 was some degrees more wretched than they. They also 
 cheered him, as he was no longer under the dread of pass- 
 ing his night alone in the fields. And so in better heart, 
 the three plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. 
 At last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they 
 come out on to a turnpike-road, and there paused, bewil- 
 dered, for they had lost all bearings, and knew not whether 
 to turn to the right or left. 
 
 Luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering 
 along the road, with one lamp lighted, and two spavined 
 horses in the shafts, came a heavy coach, which after a mo- 
 ment’s suspense they recognized as the Oxford coach, the 
 redoubtable Pig and Whistle. 
 
 It lumbered slowly up, and the boys, mustering their 
 last run, caught it as it passed, and began scrambling up 
 behind, in which exploit East missed his footing and fell 
 flat on his nose along the road. Then the others hailed the 
 old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed to 
 take them in for a shilling ; so there they sat on the back 
 seat, drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering 
 with cold, and jogged into Rugby some forty minutes after 
 locking-up. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards, three small limping shivering 
 figures steal along through the Doctor’s garden, and into 
 the house by the servants’ entrance (all the other gates 
 have been closed long since), where the first thing they 
 light upon in the passage is old Thomas, ambling along, 
 candle in one hand, and keys in the other. 
 
120 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 He stops and examines their condition with a grim smile. 
 u Ah ! East, Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must 
 go to the Doctor’s study at once.” 
 
 “ Well, but, Thomas, mayn’t we go and wash first ? You 
 can put down the time, you know.” 
 
 “ Doctor’s study d’rectty you come in — that’s the orders,” 
 replied old Thomas, motioning toward the stairs at the end 
 of the passage which led up into the Doctor’s house ; and 
 the boys turned ruefully down it, not cheered by the old 
 verger’s muttered remark, u What a pickle they boys be 
 in ! ” Thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, but 
 they construed it as indicating the Doctor’s state of mind. 
 Upon the short flight of stairs they paused to hold counsel. 
 “ Who’ll go in first?” inquires Tadpole. 
 
 “ You — you’re the senior,” answered East. 
 
 “ Catch me — look at the state I’m in,” rejoined Hall, 
 showing the arms of his jacket. “ I must get behind you 
 two.” 
 
 “ Well, but look at me,” said East, indicating the mass of 
 clay behind which he was standing; “I’m worse than ) r ou, 
 two to one ; you might grow cabbages on my trousers.” 
 
 “ That’s all down below, and you can keep your legs be- 
 hind the sofa,” said Hall. 
 
 “ Here Brown you’re the show-figure — you must lead.” 
 “ But my face is all muddy,” argued Tom. 
 
 “ Oh, we’re all in one boat for that matter ; but come on, 
 we’re only making it worse, dawdling here.” 
 
 “ Well, just give us a brush then,” said Tom; and they 
 began trying to rub off the superfluous dirt from each other’s 
 jackets, but it was not dry enough, and the rubbing made 
 it worse ; so in despair they pushed through the swing door 
 at the head of the stairs, and found themselves in the Doc- 
 tor’s hall. 
 
 “ That’s the library door,” said East in a whisper, pushing 
 Tom forward. The sound of merry voices and laughing 
 came from within, and his first hesitating knock was un- 
 answered. But at the second the Doctor’s voice said, 
 “ Come in,” and Tom turned the handle, and he, with 
 the others behind him, sidled into the room. 
 
 The Doctor looked up from his task ; he was working 
 away with a great chisel at the bottom of a boy’s sailing 
 boat, the lines of which he was no doubt fashioning on the 
 
SETTLING TO TEE COLLAR. 
 
 121 
 
 model of one of Nicias's galleys. Round him stood three or 
 four children ; the candles burned brightly on a large table 
 at the further end covered with books and papers, and a 
 great fire threw a ruddy glow over the rest of the room. 
 All looked so kindly, and homely, and comfortable, that the 
 boys took heart in a moment, and Tom advanced from be- 
 hind the shelter of the great sofa. The Doctor nodded to 
 the children, who went out casting curious and amused 
 glances at the three young scarecrows. 
 
 “ Well, my little fellows,” began the Doctor, drawing him- 
 self up with his back to the fire, the chisel in one hand and 
 his coat-tails in the other, and his eyes twinkling as he 
 looked them over ; “ what makes you so late ? ” 
 
 “ Please, sir, we’ve been out big-side hare-and-hounds, 
 and lost our way.” 
 
 “ Hah! you couldn’t keep up, I suppose? ” 
 
 “ Well, sir,” said East, stepping out, and not liking that 
 the Doctor should think lightly of his running powers, “ we 
 got round Barby all right, but then — ” 
 
 “ Why, what a state you’re in, my boy ! ” interrupted 
 the Doctor, as the pitiful condition of East’s garments was 
 fully revealed to him. 
 
 “ That’s the fall I got, sir, in the road,” said East, look- 
 ing down at himself ; “ the Old Pig came by — ” 
 
 “ The what?” said the Doctor. 
 
 “ The Oxford coach, sir,” explained Hall. 
 
 “ Hah ! yes, the Regulator,” said the Doctor. 
 
 “ And I tumbled on my face trying to get up behind,” 
 went on East. 
 
 “ You’re not hurt, I hope ? ” said the Doctor. 
 
 “ Oh no, sir.” 
 
 44 Well now, run up-stairs, all three of you, and get clean 
 things on, and then tell the housekeeper to give you some 
 tea. You’re too young to try such long runs. Let War- 
 ner know Pve seen you. Good-night.” 
 
 44 Good night, sir.” And away scuttled the three boys in 
 high glee. 
 
 44 What a brick, not to give us even twenty lines to learn !” 
 ^ said the Tadpole, as they reached their bed-room ; and in 
 half an hour afterward they were sitting by the fire in the 
 housekeeper’s room at a sumptuous tea, with cold meat. 
 “ twice as good a grub as we should have got in the hall,” 
 
122 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 as the Tadpole remarked with a grin, his mouth full of 
 buttered toast. All their grievances were forgotten, and 
 they were resolving to go out the first big-side next 
 half, and thinking hare-and-hounds the most delightful of 
 games. 
 
 A day or two afterward the great passage outside the 
 bed-rooms was cleared of the boxes and portmanteaus, 
 which went down to be packed by the matron, and great 
 games of chariot racing, and cock fighting, and bolstering, 
 went on in the vacant space, the sure sign of a closing- 
 half-year. 
 
 Then came the making-up of parties for the journey 
 home, and Tom joined a party who were to hire a coach, 
 and post with four horses to Oxford. 
 
 Then the last Saturday, on which the Doctor came round 
 to each form to give out the prizes, and hear the masters’ 
 last reports of how they and their charges had been con- 
 ducting themselves ; and Tom, to his huge delight, was 
 praised, and got his remove into the lower-fourth, in which 
 all his school-house friends were. 
 
 On the next Tuesday morning, at four o’clock, hot cof- 
 fee was going on in the housekeeper’s and matron’s rooms ; 
 boys wrapped in great coats and mufflers were swallowing 
 hasty mouthfuls, rushing about, tumbling over luggage, 
 and asking questions all at once of the matron ; outside the 
 school-gates were drawn up several chaises and the four- 
 horse coach which Tom’s party had chartered, the post-boys 
 in their best jackets and breeches, and a cornopean player, 
 hired for the occasion, blowing away “ A southerly wind 
 and a cloudy sky,” waking all peaceful inhabitants half-way 
 down the High street. 
 
 Every minute the bustle and hubbub increased, porters 
 staggered about with boxes and bags, the cornopean played 
 louder. Old Thomas sat in his den with a great yellow 
 bag by his side, out of which he was paying journey money 
 to each boy, comparing by the light of a solitary dip the 
 dirty crabbed little list in his own handwriting with the Doc- 
 tor’s list, and the amount of his cash ; his head was on one 
 side, his mouth screwed up, and his spectacles dim from 
 early toil. He had prudently locked the door, and carried 
 on his operations solely through the window, or he would 
 have been driven wild, and lost all his money. 
 
SETTLING TO THE COLLAR . 
 
 123 
 
 “ Thomas, do be quick, we shall never catch the High- 
 flyer at Dunchurch.” 
 
 44 That’s your money, all right, Green.” 
 
 “Hullo, Thomas, the Doctor said I was to have two- 
 pound-ten; you’ve only given me two pound.” — I fear that 
 Master Green is not confining himself strictly to truth. — 
 Thomas turns his head more on one side than ever, and 
 spells away at the dirty list. Green is forced away from 
 the window. 
 
 44 Here, Thomas, never mind him, mine’s thirty shillings.” 
 44 And mine too,” 44 and mine,” shouted others. 
 
 One way or another, the party to which Tom belonged all 
 got packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the corno- 
 pean playing frantically 44 Drops of Brandy,” in allusion, 
 probably, to the slight potations in which the musician and 
 post-boj^s had been already indulging. All luggage was 
 carefully stowed away inside the coach and in the front and 
 hind boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. Five 
 or six small boys, with pea-shooters, and the cornopean 
 player, got up behind; in front the big boys, mostly smok- 
 ing, not for pleasure, but because they are now gentlemen 
 at large — and this is the most correct public method of 
 notifying the fact. 
 
 44 Robinson’s coach will be down the road in a minute, it 
 has gone up to Bird’s to pick up, — we’ll wait till they’re 
 close, and make a race of it,” says the leader. 44 Now, boys, 
 half-a-sovereign apiece if you beat ’em into Dunchurch by 
 one hundred yards.” 
 
 44 All right, sir,” shouted the grinning post-boys. 
 
 Down comes Robinson’s coach in a minute or two with 
 a rival cornopean, and away go the two vehicles, horses 
 galloping, boys cheering, horns playing loud. There is a 
 specia Providence over schoolboys as well as sailors, or they 
 must have upset twenty times in the first five miles ; some- 
 times actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the 
 roofs exchanging volleys of peas, now nearly running over 
 a post-chaise which had started before them, now half-way 
 up a bank, now with a wheel-and-a-half over a yawning ditch ; 
 and all this in a dark morning, with nothing but their own 
 lamps to guide them. However, it’s all over at last, and 
 they have run over nothing but an old pig in Southam 
 street; the last peas are distributed in the corn market at 
 
124 
 
 TOM BBOWW’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 Oxford, where they arrive between eleven and twelve, and 
 sit down to a sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which 
 they are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party 
 breaks up, all going now different ways ; and Tom orders out 
 a chaise and pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely 
 five shillings left in his pocket and more than twenty miles 
 to get home. 
 
 “ Where to, sir ? ” 
 
 “ Red Lion, Farringdon, ” say Tom, giving hostler a shil- 
 ling. 
 
 “ All right, sir. Red Lion, Jem, ” to the post-boy, and 
 Tom rattles away toward home. At Farringdon, being 
 known to the innkeeper, he gets that worthy to pay for the 
 Oxford horses, and forward him in another chaise at once; 
 and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the pater- 
 nal mansion, and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having 
 to pay two-pound ten-shillings for the posting expenses 
 from Oxford. But the boy’s intense joy at getting home, 
 and the wonderful health he is in, and the good character he 
 brings, and the brave stories he tells of Rugby, its doings 
 and delights, soon mollify the Squire, and three happier 
 people didn’t sit down to dinner that day in England (it is 
 the boy’s first dinner at six o’clock at home, great promo- 
 tion already), than the Squire and his wife and Tom Brown 
 at the end of his first half-year at Rugby, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ¥AE OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 They are slaves who will not choose 
 Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
 
 Rather than in silence shrink 
 From the truth they needs must think: 
 
 They are slaves who dare not be 
 In the right with two or three. 
 
 Lowell, Stanzas on Freedom . 
 
 The lower-fourth form, in which Tom found himself at 
 the beginning of the next half-year, was the largest form 
 in the lower school, and numbered upward of forty boys. 
 Young gentlemen of all ages from nine to fifteen were to 
 
THE WAR OF IN DEPEN DANCE. 
 
 125 
 
 be found there, who expended such part of their energies 
 as was devoted to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, 
 the Bucolics of Virgil, and the Hecuba of Euripides, which 
 were ground out in small daily portions. The driving of 
 this unlucky lower-fourth must have been grievous work 
 to the unfortunate master, for it was the most unhappily 
 constituted of any in the school. Here stuck the great 
 stupid boys, who for the life of them could never master 
 the accidence ; the objects alternately of mirth and terror 
 to the youngsters, who were daily taking them up and 
 laughing at them in lesson, and getting kicked by them 
 for so doing in play-hours. There were no less than three 
 unhappy fellows in tail coats, with incipient down on their 
 chins, whom the Doctor and the master of the form Avere 
 always endeavoring to hoist into the upper school, but 
 whose parsing and construing resisted the most well-meant 
 shoves. Then came the mass of the form, boys of eleven 
 and twelve, the most mischievous and reckless age of 
 British youth, of whom East and Tom Brown were fair 
 specimens. As full of tricks as monkeys, and of excuses 
 as Irish women, making fun of their master, one another, 
 and their lessons, Argus himself would have been puzzled 
 to keep an eye on them ; and as for making them steady 
 or serious for lialf-an-h-our together, it was simply hopeless. 
 The remainder of the form consisted of young prodigies of 
 nine and ten, who were going up the school at the rate of a 
 form a half-year, all boys’ hands and wits being against 
 them in their progress. It would have been one man’s 
 work to see that the precocious youngsters had fair play ; 
 and as the master had a good deal besides to do, they 
 hadn’t, and were forever being shoved down three or four 
 places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their jackets 
 whitened, and their lives otherwise made a burden to them. 
 
 The lower-fourth and all the forms below it, were heard 
 in the great school, and were not trusted to prepare their 
 lessons before coming in, but were whipped into school 
 three-quarters of an hour before the lesson began by their 
 respective masters, and there scattered about on the benches, 
 with dictionary and grammar, hammered out their twenty 
 lines of Virgil and Euripides in the midst of Babel. The 
 masters of the lower school walked up and down the great 
 school together during this three-quarters of an hour, or 
 
126 
 
 TOM BBOWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. 
 
 sat in their desks reading or looking over copies, and keep- 
 ing such order as was possible. But the lower-fourth was 
 just now an overgrown form, too large for any one man to 
 attend to properly, and consequently the elysium or ideal 
 form of the young scapegraces who formed the staple of it. 
 
 Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with 
 a good character, but the temptations of the lower-fourth 
 soon proved too strong for him, and he rapidly fell away, 
 and became as unmanageable as the rest. For some weeks, 
 indeed, he succeeded in maintaining the appearance of 
 steadiness, and was looked upon favorably by his new 
 master, whose eyes were first opened by the following lit- 
 tle incident. 
 
 Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, 
 there was another large unoccupied desk in the corner of 
 the great school, which was untenanted. To rush and 
 seize upon this desk, which was ascended by three steps, 
 and held four boys, was the great object of ambition of the 
 lower fourthers; and the contentions for the occupation 
 of it bred such disorder, that at last the master forbade its 
 use altogether. This of course was a challenge to the more 
 adventurous spirits to occupy it, and as it was capacious 
 enough for two boys to lie hid there completely, it was 
 seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto. 
 Small holes were cut in the front, through which the 
 occupants watched the masters as they walked up and 
 down, and as lesson time approached, one boy at a time 
 stole out and down the steps, as the masters’ backs were 
 turned, and mingled with the general crowd on the forms 
 below. Tom and East had successfully occupied the desk 
 some half-dozen times, and were grown so reckless that 
 they were in the habit of playing small games with fives’- 
 balls inside when the masters were at the other end of the 
 big school. One day, as ill-luck would have it, the game 
 became more exciting than usual, and the ball slipped 
 through East’s fingers, and rolled slowly down the steps, 
 and out into the middle of the school, just as the masters 
 turned in their walk and faced round upon the desk. The 
 young delinquents watched their master through the look- 
 out holes march slowly down the school straight upon 
 their retreat, while all the bo)^ in the neighborhood of 
 course stopped their work to look on ; and not only were 
 
THE WAR OF IS DEPEF'DES CE. 
 
 127 
 
 they ignomimously drawn out, and caned over the hand 
 then and there, but their characters for steadiness were 
 gone from that time. However, as they only shared the 
 fate of some three-fourths of the rest of the form, this did 
 not weigh heaveily upon them. 
 
 In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about 
 the matter were the monthly examinations, when the 
 Doctor came round to examine their form, for one long 
 awful hour, in the work which they had done in the pre- 
 ceding month. The second monthly examination came 
 round soon after Tom’s fall, and it was with anything but 
 lively anticipations that he and the other lower-fourth boys 
 came into prayers on the morning of the examination day. 
 
 Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, 
 and before they could get construes of a tithe of the hard 
 passages marked in the margin of their books, they were 
 all seated round, and the Doctor was standing in the middle, 
 talking in whispers to the master. Tom couldn’t hear a 
 word which passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book ; 
 but he knew by a sort of magnetic instinct that the Doc- 
 tor’s under lip was coming out, and his eye beginning to 
 burn, and his gown getting gathered up more and more 
 tightly in his left hand. The suspense was agonizing, and 
 Tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to make 
 an example of the school-house boys. “ If he would only 
 begin,’' thought Tom, “ I shouldn’t mind.” 
 
 At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was 
 called out was not Brown. He looked up for a moment, 
 but the Doctor’s face was too awful : Tom wouldn’t have 
 met his eye for all he was worth, and buried himself in his 
 book again. 
 
 The boy who was called up first was a cle v er, merry 
 school-house boy, one of their set: he was some connection 
 of the Doctor’s, and a great favorite, and ran in and out of 
 his house as he liked, and so was selected for the first 
 victim. 
 
 “ Triste lupus , stabulis ,” began the luckless youngster 
 and stammered through some eight or ten lines. 
 
 “ There, that will do,” said the Doctor ; “ now construe.” 
 
 On common occasions, the boy could have construed the 
 passage well enough probably, but now his head has gone. 
 
 “ Triste lupus , the sorrowful wolf,” he began. 
 
128 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor's 
 wrath fairly boiled over ; he made three steps up to the 
 construer, and gave him a good box on the ear. The blow 
 was not a hard one, but the* boy was so taken by surprise 
 that he started back; the form caught the back of his 
 knees, and oyer he went on to the floor behind. There was 
 a dead silence over the whole school; never before, and 
 never again while Tom was at school, did the Doctor strike 
 a boy in lesson. The provocation must have been great. 
 However, the victim had saved his form for that occasion, 
 for the Doctor turned to the top bench, and put on the best 
 boys for the rest of the hour ; and though, at the end of 
 the lesson, he gave them all such a rating as they did not 
 forget, this terrible field-day passed over without any severe 
 visitations in the shape of punishments or floggings. Forty 
 young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the “ sorrow- 
 ful wolf ” in their different ways before second lesson. 
 
 But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily re- 
 covered, as Tom found, and for years afterward he went up 
 to the school without it, and the masters’ hands were 
 against him, and his against them. And he regarded them, 
 as a matter of course, as his natural enemies. Matters were 
 not so comfortable either in the house as they had been, 
 for old Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others of 
 the sixth-form boj^s at the following Easter. Their rule 
 had been rough, but strong and just in the main, and a 
 higher standard was beginning to be set up ; in fact there 
 had been a short foretaste of the good time which followed 
 some years later. Just now, however, all threatened to re- 
 turn into darkness and chaos again. For the new praepos- 
 tors were either small young boys, whose cleverness had 
 carried them up to the top of the school, while in strength 
 of body and character they were not yet fit for a share in 
 the government ; or else big fellows of the wrong sort, 
 boys whose friendships and taste had a downward tendency, 
 who had not caught the meaning^of their position and work, 
 and felt none of its responsibilities. So under this no- 
 government the school-house began to see bad times. The 
 big fifth-form boys, who were a sporting and drinking set, 
 soon began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if 
 they were praepostors, and to bully and oppress any who 
 showed signs of resistance. The bigger sort of sixth-form 
 
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 129 
 
 boys just described soon made common cause with the fifth, 
 while the smaller sort, hampered by their colleagues’ deser- 
 tion to the enemy, could not make head against them. So 
 the fags were without their lawful masters and protectors, 
 and ridden over rough-shod by a set of boys whom they 
 were not bound to obey, and whose only right over them 
 stood in their bodily powers ; and, as old Brooke had proph- 
 esied, the house by degrees broke up into small sets and 
 parties, and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he 
 set so much store by, and with it much of the prowess in 
 games and the lead in all school matters which he had done 
 so much to keep up. 
 
 In no place in the world has individual character more 
 weight than at a public school. Remember this, I beseech 
 you, all you boys who are getting into the upper forms. 
 Now is the time in all your lives probably when you may 
 have more wide influence for good or evil on the society you 
 live in than you ever can have again. Quit yourselves like 
 men, then ; speak up, and strike out if necessary for what- 
 soever is true, and manly, and lovely, and of good report ; 
 never try to be popular, but only to do your duty and help 
 others to do theirs, and you may leave the tone of feeling 
 in the school higher than you found it, and so be doing 
 good, which no living soul can measure, to generations of 
 your countrymen yet unborn. For boys follow one another 
 in herds like sheep, for good or evil ; they hate thinking, 
 and have rarely any settled principles. Every school, in- 
 deed, has its own traditionary standard of right and wrong, 
 which cannot be transgressed with impunity, marking cer- 
 tain things as low and blackguard, and certain others as 
 lawful and right. This standard is ever varying, though it 
 changes only slowly, and little by little ; and, subject only 
 to such standard, it is the leading boys for the time being 
 who give the tone to all the rest, and make the school 
 either a noble institution for the training of Christian En- 
 glishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil 
 than he would if he were turned out to make his way in 
 London streets, or anything between these two extremes. 
 
 The change for the worse in the school-house, however, 
 didn’t press very heavily on our youngsters for some time ; 
 they were in a good bedroom, where slept the only prae- 
 postor left who was able to keep thorough order, and their 
 
130 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 study was in his passage ; so, though they were fagged 
 more or less, and occasionally kicked or cuffed by the 
 bullies, they were on the whole well off ; and the fresh, 
 brave school-life, so full of games, adventures and good 
 fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoy- 
 ing, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold 
 their troubles with the master of their form, and the occa- 
 sional ill-usage of the big boys in the house. It wasn’t 
 till some year or so after the events recorded above, that 
 the praepostor of their room and passage left. None of 
 the other sixth-form boys would move into their passage, 
 and, to the disgust and indignation of Tom and East, one 
 morning after breakfast they were seized upon by Flash- 
 man, and made to carry down his books and furniture 
 into the unoccupied study which he had taken. From 
 this time they began to feel the weight of the tyranny of 
 Flashman and his friends, and now that trouble had come 
 home to their own doors, began to look out for sympa- 
 thizers and partners among the rest of the fags ; and 
 meetings of the oppressed began to be held, and murmurs 
 to arise, and plots to be laid as to how they should free 
 themselves and be avenged on their enemies. 
 
 While matters were in this state, East and Tom were 
 one evening sitting in their study. They had done their 
 work for first lesson, and Tom was in a brown study, 
 brooding, like a young William Tell, upon the wrongs of 
 fags in general, and his own in particular. 
 
 “ I say, Scud,” said he at last, rousing himself to snuff 
 the candle, “what right have the fifth-form boys to fag us 
 as they do ? ” 
 
 “No more right than you have to fag them,” answered 
 East, without looking up from an early number of “ Pick- 
 wick,” which was just coming out, and which he was lux- 
 uriously devouring, stretched on his back on the sofa. 
 
 Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went on 
 reading and chuckling. The contrast of the boys’ faces 
 would have given infinite amusement to a looker-on, the 
 one so solemn and big with mighty purpose, the other 
 radiant and bubbling over with fun. 
 
 “ Do you know, old fellow, I’ve been a thinking it over 
 a good deal,” began Tom again. 
 
 “ ^h yes, I know, fagging you are thinking of. Hang 
 
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . 
 
 131 
 
 it all, — but listen here, Tom — here’s fun. Mr. Winkle’s 
 horse ” 
 
 “And I’ve made up my mind,” broke in Tom, a that I 
 won’t fag except for the sixth.” 
 
 “ Quite right too, my boy,” cried East, putting his fin- 
 ger on the place and looking up ; “ but a pretty peck of 
 troubles you’ll get into, if you’re going to play that game. 
 However, I’m all for a strike myself, if we can get others 
 to join — it’s getting too bad.” 
 
 “ Can’t we get some sixth-form fellow to take it up ? ” 
 asked Tom. 
 
 “ Well, perhaps we might; Morgan would interfere, I 
 think. Only,” added East, after a moment’s pause, “ you 
 see we should have to tell him about it, and that’s against 
 school principles. Don’t you remember what old Brooke 
 said about learning to take our own parts ? ” 
 
 “ Ah, I wish old Brooke was back again — it was all 
 right in his time.” 
 
 “ Why, yes, you see then the strongest and best fellows 
 were in the sixth, and the fifth-form fellows were afraid of 
 them, and they kept good order ; but now our sixth-form 
 fellows are too small, and the fifth don’t care for them, 
 and do what they like in the house.” 
 
 “ And so we get a double set of masters,” cried Tom, 
 indignantly ; “ the lawful ones, who are responsible to the 
 Doctor at any rate, and the unlawful — the tyrants, who 
 are responsible to nobody.” 
 
 “ Down with the tyrants ! ” cried East ; “ I’m all for 
 law and order, and hurrah for a revolution.” 
 
 “ I shouldn’t mind if it were only for young Brooke 
 now,” said Tom, “ he’s such a good-hearted, gentlemanly 
 fellow, and ought to be in the sixth — I’d do anything for 
 him. But that blackguard Flashman, who never speaks 
 
 to one without a kick or an oath ” 
 
 “ The cowardly brute,” broke in East, “ how I hate him ! 
 And he knows it too ; he knows that you and I think him 
 a coward. What a bore that lie’s got a study in this pas- 
 sage ! don’t you hear them now at supper in his den ? 
 Brandy punch going, I’ll bet. I wish the Doctor would 
 come out and catch him. We must change our study as 
 soon as we can.” 
 
 “Change or no change, I’ll never fag for him again,*’ 
 said Tom, thumping the table. 
 
182 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS 
 
 “ Fa-a-a-ag ! ” sounded along the passage from Flash- 
 man’s study. The two boys looked at one another in 
 silence. It had struck nine, so the regular nighr-fags had 
 left duty, and they were the nearest to the supper party. 
 East sat up and began to look comical, as he always did 
 under difficulties. 
 
 u Fa-a-a-ag ! ” again. No answer. 
 
 “ Here, Brown ! East ! you cursed young skulks,” roared 
 out Flash man, coming to his open door, “ I know you’re 
 in — no shirking.” 
 
 Tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as noiselessly 
 as he could ; East blew out the candle. “Barricade the 
 first,” whispered he. “Now, Tom, mind, no surrender.” 
 
 “ Trust me for that,” said Tom between his teeth. 
 
 In another minute they heard the supper-party turn out 
 and come down the passage to their door. They held their 
 breaths, and heard whispering, of which they only made 
 out Flash man’s words, “ I know the young brutes are in.” 
 
 Then came summonses to open which, being unanswered 
 the assault commenced: luckily the door was a good strong 
 oak one, and resisted the united weight of Flashman’s 
 party. A pause followed, and they heard a besieger remark, 
 “ They’re in, safe enough — don’t you see how the door 
 holds at top and bottom? so the bolts must be drawn. We 
 should have forced the lock long ago.” East gave Tom a 
 nudge, to call attention to this scientific remark. 
 
 Then came attacks on particular panels, one of which 
 at last gave way to the repeated kicks ; but if broke in- 
 ward, and the broken piece got jammed across, the door 
 being lined with green baize, and couldn’t easily be re- 
 moved from the outside ; and the besieged, scorning further 
 concealment, strengthened their defenses by pressing the 
 end of their sofa against the door. So after one or two 
 more ineffectual efforts, Flashman & Co. retired, vowing 
 vengeance in no mild terms. 
 
 The first danger over, it only remained for the besieged 
 to effect a safe retreat, as it was now near bed-time. They 
 listened intently, and heard the supper party resettle them- 
 selves, and then gently drew back first one bolt and then 
 the other! Presently the convivial noises began again 
 steadily. “Now then, stand by for a run,” said East, throw- 
 ing the door wide open and rushing into the passage, 
 
THE WAB OF 1NDEPEJDEHCE. 
 
 133 
 
 closely followed by Tom. They were too quick to be 
 caught ; but Flashman was on the look-out, and sent an 
 empty pickle jar whizzing after them, which narrowly 
 missed Tom’s head, and broke into twenty pieces at the 
 end of the passage. 44 He wouldn’t mind killing one if he 
 wasn’t caught,” said East, as they turned the corner. 
 
 There was no pursuit, so the two turned into the hall, 
 where they found a knot of small boys round the fire. 
 Their story was told — the war of independence had broken 
 out, — who would join the revolutionary forces ? Several 
 others present bound themselves not to fag for the fifth- 
 form at once. One or two only edged off, and left the 
 rebels. What else could they do ? 44 I’ve a good mind to 
 go to the Doctor straight,” said Tom. 
 
 “ That’ll never do — don’t you remember the levy of the 
 school last half? ” put in another. 
 
 In fact, that solemn assembly, a levy of the school, had 
 been held, at which the captain of the school had got up, 
 and, after premising that several instances had occurred of 
 matters having been reported to the masters, that this was 
 against public morality and school tradition ; that a levy of 
 the sixth had been held on the subject, and they had re- 
 solved that the practice must be stopped at once ; had 
 given out that any boy, in whatever form, who should 
 thenceforth appeal to the master without having first gone 
 to some praepostor and laid the case before him, should be 
 thrashed publicly and send to Coventry. 
 
 46 Well, then, let’s try the sixth. Try Morgan,” suggest- 
 ed another. 44 No use ” — 44 Blabbing won’t do,” was the 
 general feeling. 
 
 44 I’ll give you fellows a piece of advice,” said a voice 
 from the end of the hail. They all turned round with a 
 start, and the speaker got up from a bench on which he 
 had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a shake; he 
 was a big loose-made fellow with huge limbs which had 
 grown too far through his jacket and trousers. 44 Don’t 
 you go to anybody at all — you just stand out ; say you 
 won’t fag — they’ll soon get tired of licking you. I’ve tried 
 it on years ago with their forerunners.” 
 
 44 No! did you? tell us how it was,” cried a chorus of 
 voices, as they clustered round him. 
 
 44 Well, just as it is with you. The fifth form would 
 
134 
 
 TOM BROWN’ 8 SCHOOL-BATS. 
 
 fag us, and I and some more struck, and we beat ’em. 
 The good fellows left off directly, and the bullies who kept 
 on soon got afraid.” 
 
 “ Was Flashman here then ? ” 
 
 “ Yes ! and a dirty little sniveling, sneaking fellow he 
 was too. He never dared join us, and used to toady the 
 bullies by offering to fag for them and peaching against 
 the rest of us.” 
 
 " Why wasn’t he cut then ? ” said East. 
 
 “ Oh, toadies never get cut, they’re too useful. Besides, 
 he has no end of great hampers from home, with wine and 
 game in them; so he toadied and fed himself into favor.” 
 
 The quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small boys 
 went off upstairs still consulting together, and praising 
 their new counselor, who stretched himself out on the 
 bench before the hall fire again. There he lay, a very 
 queer specimen of boyhood, by name Diggs, and familiarly 
 called “ the mucker.” He was young for his size, and a 
 very clever fellow, nearly at the top of the fifth. His 
 friends at home, having regard, I suppose, to his age, and 
 not to his size and place in the school, hadn’t put him into 
 tails ; and even his jackets were always too small ; and he 
 had a talent for destroying clothes, and making himself 
 look shabby. He wasn’t on terms with Flashman ’s set, who 
 sneered at his dress and ways behind his back, which he 
 knew, and revenged himself by asking Flashman the most 
 disagreeable questions, and treating him familiarly when- 
 ever a crowd of boys were round them. Neither was he 
 intimate with any of the other bigger boys, who were 
 warned off by his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow ; 
 besides, among other failings, he had that of impecuniosity 
 in a remarkable degree. He brought as much money as 
 other boys to school, but got rid of it in no time, no one 
 knew how. And then, being also reckless, borrowed from 
 any one, and when his debts accumulated and creditors 
 pressed, would have an auction in the hall of everything 
 he possessed in the world, selling even his school-books, 
 candlestick, and study table. For weeks after one of these 
 auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, he 
 would live about in the fifth-form room and hall, doing his 
 verses on old letter-backs and odd scraps of paper, and 
 learning his lessons no one knew how. He never meddled 
 
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . 
 
 135 
 
 with any little boy, and was popular with them, though 
 they all looked on him with a sort of compassion and called 
 him “ poor Diggs,” not being able to resist appearances, 
 or to disregard wholly even the sneers of their enemy 
 Flashman,, However, he seemed equally indifferent to the 
 sneers of big boys and the pity of small ones, and lived his 
 own queer life with much apparent enjoyment to himself. 
 It is necessary to introduce Diggs thus particularly, as 1 ■ 
 not only did Tom and East good service in their present 
 warfare, as is about to be told, but soon afterward, when 
 he got into the sixth, chose them for his fags and excused 
 them from study-fagging, thereby earning unto himself 
 eternal gratitude from them, and all who are interested in 
 their history. 
 
 And seldom had small boys more need of a freind, for the 
 morning after the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in 
 all its violence. Flashman laid wait, and caught Tom be- 
 fore second lesson, and receiving a point blank “ No,” when 
 told to fetch his hat, seized him and twisted his arm, and went 
 through the other methods of torture in use : — “ He couldn’t 
 make me cry though,” as Tom said triumphantly to the rest 
 of the rebels, “ and I kicked his shins well, I know.” And 
 soon it crept out that a lot of the fags were in league, and 
 Flashman excited his associates to join him in bringing the 
 young vagabonds to their senses ; and the house was filled 
 with constant chasings, and sieges, and lickings of all sorts ; 
 and in return the bullies’ beds were pulled to pieces, and 
 drenched with water, and their names written up on the 
 walls with every insulting epithet which the fag invention 
 could furnish. The war in short raged fiercely ; but soon, 
 as Diggs had told them, all the better fellows in the fifth gave 
 up trying to fag them, and public feeling began to set against 
 Flashman and his two or three intimates, and they were 
 obliged to keep their doings more secret, but being thorough 
 bad fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private. 
 Flashman was an adept in all ways, but above all in the 
 power of saying cutting and cruel things, and could often 
 bring tears to the eyes of boj r s in this way, which all the 
 thrashings in the world wouldn’t have wrung from them. 
 
 And as his operations were being cut short in other di- 
 rections, he now devoted himself chiefly to Tom and East, 
 who lived at his own door, and would force himself into 
 
136 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-LAYS. 
 
 their study whenever he found a chance, and sit there, some- 
 times alone, and sometimes with a companion, interrupting 
 all their work, and exulting in the evident pain which every 
 now and then he could see he was inflicting on one or the 
 other. 
 
 The storm had cleared the air for the rest of the house, 
 and a better state of things now began than there had been 
 since Old-Brooke had left; but an angry dark spot of 
 thunder-cloud still hung over the end of the passage, where 
 Flashman’s study and that of East and Tom lay. 
 
 He felt that they had been the first rebels, and that the 
 rebellion had been to a great extent successful ; but what 
 above all stirred the hatred and bitterness of his heart against 
 them, was that in the frequent collisions which there had been 
 of late, they had openly called him coward and sneak, — the 
 taunts were too true to be forgiven. While he was in the 
 act of thrashing them, they would roar out instances of his 
 funking football, or shirking some encounter with a lout of 
 half his own size. These things were all well enough known 
 in the house, but to have his disgrace shouted out by small 
 boys, to feel that they despised him, to be unable to silence 
 them by any amount of torture, and to see the open laugh 
 and sneer of his own associates (who were looking on and 
 took no trouble to hide their scorn from him, though they 
 neither interfered with his bullying nor lived a bit the less 
 intimately with him), made him beside himself. Come what 
 might he would make those boys’ lives miserable. So the 
 strife settled down into a personal affair between Flashman 
 and our youngsters ; a war to the knife, to be fought out in 
 the little cockpit at the end of the bottom passage. 
 
 Flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old, and 
 big and strong of his age. He played well at all games 
 where pluck wasn’t much wanted, and managed generally 
 to keep up appearances where it was ; and having a bluff off- 
 hand manner, which passed for heartiness, and considerable 
 powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with 
 the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in 
 the school-house, by dint of his command of money, the 
 constant supply of good things which he kept up, and his 
 adroit toadyism, he had managed to make himself not only 
 tolerated, but rather popular among his own contemporaries; 
 although young Brooke scarcely spoke to him, and one or 
 
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 137 
 
 two others of the right sort showed their opinions of liinn 
 whenever a chance offered. But the wrong sort happened 
 to be in the ascendant just now, so Flashman was a formid- 
 able enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough. 
 Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, 
 which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate them 
 from the rest of the house. One by one most of the other 
 rebels fell away from them, while Flashman’s cause pros- 
 pered and several other fifth-form boys began to look black 
 at them and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. 
 By keeping out of bounds, or at all events out of the house 
 and quadrangle, all day, and carefully barring themselves 
 in at night, East and Tom managed to hold on without 
 feeling very miserable; but it was as much as they could 
 do. Greatly were they drawn then toward old Diggs, who, 
 in an uncouth way, began to take a good deal of notice of 
 them, and once or twice came to their study when Flash- 
 man was there, who immediately decamped in consequence. 
 The boys thought that Diggs must have been watching. 
 
 When, therefore, about this time, an auction was one 
 night announced to take place in the hall, at which, among 
 the superfluities of other boys, all Diggs’s penates for the 
 time being were going to the hammer, East and Tom laid 
 their heads together, and resolved to devote their ready 
 cash (some four shillings sterling) to redeem such articles 
 as that sum would cover. Accordingly, they duly attended 
 to bid, and Tom became the owner of two lots of Diggs’s 
 things ; — lot 1, price on e-and- threepence, consisting (as the 
 auctioneer remarked) of a “ valuable assortment of old 
 metals,” in the shape of a mouse-trap, a cheese-toaster 
 without a handle, and a saucepan : lot 2, of a villainous 
 dirty table-cloth and a green-baize curtain ; while East for 
 one-and-sixpence purchased a leather paper-case, with a 
 lock but no key, once handsome, but now much the worse 
 for wear. But they had still the point to settle of how to 
 get Diggs to take the things without hurting his feelings. 
 This they solved by leaving them in his study, which was 
 never locked when he was out. Diggs, who had attended 
 the auction, remembered who had bought the lots, and 
 came to their study soon after, and sat silent for some time, 
 cracking his great red finger-joints. Then he laid hold of 
 their verses, and began looking over and altering them, 
 
138 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCIIOOL-DA YS. 
 
 and at last got up, and turning his back to them, said, 
 “ You’re uncommon good-hearted little beggars, you two 
 — I value that paper-case ; my sister gave it me last holi- 
 days — I won’t forget; ” and so tumbled out into the pas- 
 sage, leaving them somewhat embarrassed, but not sorry 
 that he knew what they had done. 
 
 The next morning was Saturday, the day on which the 
 allowances of one shilling a-week were paid, an important 
 event to spendthrift youngsters ; and great was the disgust 
 among the small fry to hear that all the allowances had 
 been impounded for the Derby lottery. That great event 
 in the English year, the Derby, was celebrated at Rugby 
 in those days by many lotteries. It was not an improving 
 custom, I own, gentle reader, and led to making books and 
 betting and other objectionable results; but when our 
 great Houses of Palaver think it right to stop the nation’s 
 business on that day, and many of the members bet heavily 
 themselves, can you blame us boys for following the 
 example of our betters? — at any rate we did follow it. 
 First there was the great school lottery, where the first 
 prize was six or seven pounds ; then each house had one 
 or more separate lotteries. These were all nominally 
 voluntary, no boy being compelled to put in his shilling 
 who didn’t choose to do so : but besides Flashman, there 
 were three or four other fast sporting young gentlemen in 
 the school-house, who considered subscription a matter of 
 duty and necessity, and so, to make their duty come easy 
 to the small boys, quietly secured the allowances in a lump 
 when given out for distribution, and kept them. It was 
 no use grumbling, — so many fewer tartlets and apples were 
 eaten and fives’-balls bought on that Saturday; and after 
 locking-up, when the money would otherwise have been 
 spent, consolation was carried to many a small boy, by the 
 sound of the night fags shouting along the passages, 
 u Gentlemen sportsmen of the school-house, the lottery’s 
 going to be drawn in the hall.” It was pleasant to be 
 called a gentleman sportsman — also to have a chance of 
 drawing a favorite horse. 
 
 The hall was full of boys, and at the head of one of the 
 long tables stood the sporting interest, with a hat before 
 them, in which were the tickets folded up. One of them 
 then began calling out the list of the house ; each boy as 
 
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . 
 
 139 
 
 his name was called drew a ticket from the hat and open- 
 ed it ; and most of the bigger boys, after drawing, left the 
 hall directly, to go back to their studies or the fifth-form 
 room. The sporting interest had all drawn blanks, and 
 they were sulky accordingly ; neither of the favorites had 
 yet been drawn, and it had come down to the upper-fourth. 
 So now, as each small boy came up and drew his ticket, it 
 was seized and opened by Flashman, or some other of the 
 standers-by. But no great favorite is drawn until it comes 
 to the Tadpole’s turn, and he shuffles up and draws, and 
 tries to make off, but is caught, and his ticket is opened 
 like the rest. 
 
 “Here you are ! Wanderer! the third favorite,” shouts 
 the opener. 
 
 “ I say, just give me my ticket, please,” remonstrates 
 Tadpole. 
 
 “Hullo, don’t be in a hurry,” breaks in Flashman; 
 “ what’ll you sell Wanderer for, now? ” 
 
 “I don’t want to sell,” rejoins Tadpole. 
 
 “ Oh, don’t you ! Now listen, you young fool — you don’t 
 know anything about it ; the horse is no use to you. He 
 won’t win, but I want him as a hedge. Now I’ll give you 
 half a-crown for him.” Tadpole holds out, but between 
 threats and cajoleries at length sells half for one-shilling- 
 and-sixpence, about a fifth of its fair market value ; however, 
 he is glad to realize anything, and as he wisely remarks, 
 “ Wanderer mayn’t win, and the tizzy is safe anyhow.” 
 
 East presently comes up and draws a blank. Soon after 
 comes Tom’s turn ; his ticket, like the others, is seized 
 and opened. “ Here you are then,” shouts the opener, 
 holding it up, “ Harkaway ? By Jove, Flashey, your 
 young friend’s in luck.” 
 
 “ Give me the ticket,” says Flashman with an oath, 
 leaning across the table with open hand, and his face black 
 with rage. 
 
 “Wouldn’t you like it?” replies the opener, not a bad 
 fellow at the bottom, and no admirer of Flashman’s. “ Here, 
 Brown, catch hold, ” and he bands the ticket to Tom, who 
 pockets it ; whereupon Flashman makes for the door at once, 
 that Tom and the ticket may not escape, and there keeps 
 watch until the drawing is over and all the boys are gone, 
 except the sporting set of five or six, who stay to compare 
 
140 
 
 TOM BROWWS SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 books, make bets and so on, Tom, who doesn’t choose to 
 move while Flash man is at the door, and East, who stays 
 by his friend, anticipating trouble. 
 
 The sporting set now gathered round Tom. Public opin- 
 ion wouldn’t allow them actually to rob him of his ticket, 
 but any humbug or intimidation by which he could be 
 driven to sell the whole or part at an under value was law- 
 ful. 
 
 “ Now, young Brown, come, what’ll you sell me Hark- 
 away for ? I hear he isn’t going to start. I’ll give you five 
 shillings for him,” begins the boy who had opened the tick- 
 et. Tom, remembering his good deed, and moreover in his 
 forlorn state wishing to make a friend, is about to accept 
 the offer, when another cries out, 44 I’ll give you seven 
 shillings.” Tom hesitated, and looked from one to the 
 other. 
 
 “No, no ! ” said Flashman, pushing in, “leave me to deal 
 with him ; we’ll draw lots for it afterward. Now, sir, you 
 know me — you’ll sell Harkaway to us for five shillings, or 
 you’ll repent it.” 
 
 “ I won’t sell a bit of him,” answered Tom shortly. 
 
 “You hear that now!” said Flashman, turning to the 
 others. 
 
 “ He’s the coxiest young blackguard in the house — I al- 
 ways told you so. We’re to have all the trouble and risk 
 of getting up the lotteries for the benefit of such fellows as 
 he.” 
 
 Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, but he 
 speaks to willing ears. Gambling makes boys selfish and 
 cruel as well as men. 
 
 “ That’s true, — we always draw blanks,” cried one. 
 “ Now, sir, you shall sell half, at any rate.” 
 
 “ I won’t,” said Tom, flushing upto his hair, and lumping 
 them all in his mind with his sworn enemy. 
 
 “Very well then, let’s roast him,” cried Flashman, and 
 catches hold of Tom by the collar ; one or two boys hesi- 
 tate, but the rest join in. East seizes Tom’s arm and tries 
 to pull him away, but is knocked back by one of the boys, 
 and Tom is dragged along, struggling. His shoulders are 
 pushed against the mantelpiece, and he is held by main 
 force before the fire, Flashman drawing his trousers tight 
 by way of extra torture. Poor East, in more pain even 
 
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE . 
 
 141 
 
 than Tom, suddenly thinks of Diggs, and darts off to find 
 him. 44 Will you sell now for ten shillings? ” says one boy 
 who is relenting. 
 
 Tom only answered by groans and struggles. 
 
 44 1 say, Flashey he has had enough,” says the same boy, 
 dropping the arm he holds. 
 
 “No, no; another turn’ll do it,” answered Flashman. 
 But poor Tom is done already, turns deadly pale, and his 
 head falls forward on his breast, just as Diggs, in frantic ex- 
 citement, rushes into the hall with East at his heels. 
 
 “ You cowardly brutes ! ” is all he can say, as he catches 
 Tom from them and supports him to the hall table. 
 “ Good God ! he’s dying. Here, get some cold water — run 
 for the housekeeper.” 
 
 Flashman and one or two others slink away ; the rest, 
 ashamed and sorry, bend over Tom or run for water, while 
 East darts off for the housekeeper. Water comes, and they 
 throw it on his hands and face, and he begins to come to. 
 “ Mother ! ” — the words came feebly and slowly — “ It’s very 
 cold to-night.” Poor old Diggs is blubbering like a child. 
 “ Where am I ? ” goes on Tom, opening his eyes. “ Ah ! I 
 remember now,” and he shut his eyes again and groaned. 
 
 “ I say,” is whispered, “ we can’t do any good, and the 
 housekeeper will be here in a minute,” and all but one 
 steal away ; he stays with Diggs, silent and sorrowful, and 
 fans Tom’s face. 
 
 The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and Tom 
 soon recovers enough to sit up. There is a smell of burn- 
 ing: she examines his clothes, and looks up inquiringly. 
 The boys are silent. “ How did he come so ! ” No answer. 
 
 “ There’s been some bad work here,” she adds, looking 
 very serious, 44 and I shall speak to the Doctor about it.” 
 Still no answer. 
 
 “ Hadn’t we better carry him to the sick room ? ” sug- 
 gests Diggs. 
 
 “ Oh, I can walk now,” says Tom ; and, supported by 
 East and the housekeeper, goes to the sick room. The boy 
 who held his ground is soon among the rest, who are all in 
 the fear of their lives. “ Did he peach ? Does she know 
 about it ? ” 
 
 “ Not a word — he’s a stanch little fellow.” And pausing 
 a moment he adds, “ I’m sick of this work : what brutes we 
 have been ! ” 
 
142 
 
 TOM BBOWN’S S CHOOL-DA T 8. 
 
 Meantime Tom is stretched on the sofa in the house* 
 keeper’s room, with East by his side, while she gets wine 
 and water and other restoratives. 
 
 “ Are you much hurt, dear old boy ? ” whispers East. 
 
 “ Only the back of my legs,” answered Tom. They are 
 indeed badly scorched, and part of his trousers burnt 
 through. But soon he is in bed wnth cold bandages. 
 At first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and 
 getting taken away: and the verse of the hymn he had 
 learned years ago sings through his head, and he goes to 
 sleep, murmuring 
 
 here the wicked cease from troubling, 
 
 And the weary are at rest. 
 
 But after a sound night’s rest the old boy-spirit comes 
 back again. East comes in reporting that that whole 
 house is with him, and' he forgets everything except their 
 old resolve never to be beaten by that bully Flashman. 
 
 Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either 
 of them, and though the Doctor knew all that she knew 
 that morning, he never knew any more. 
 
 I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now 
 at school, and that lotteries and betting-books have gone 
 out ; but I am writing of schools as they were in our time, 
 and must give the evil with the good. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances 
 Of moving accidents by flood and field, 
 
 Of hairbreadth ’scapes. — Shakespeare . 
 
 When Tom came back into school after a couple of days 
 in the sick-room, he found matters much changed for the 
 better, as East had led him to expect. Flashman’s brutali- 
 ty had disgusted most even of his intimate friends, and his 
 cowardice had once more been made plain to the house ; 
 for Diggs had encountered him on the morning after the 
 lottery, and after high words on both sides had struck him, 
 $,nd the blow was not returned. However, Flashey was not 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 143 
 
 unused to this sort of thing, and had lived through as awk- 
 ward affairs before, and, as Diggs had said, fed and toadied 
 himself back into favor again. Two or three of the boys 
 who had helped to roast Torn came up and begged his par- 
 don, and thanked him for not telling anything. Morgan 
 sent for him, and was inclined to take the matter up warm- 
 ly, but Tom begged him not to do it ; to which he agreed 
 on Tom’s promising to come to him at once in future — a 
 promise which I regret to say he didn’t keep. Tom kept 
 Harkaway all to himself, and won the second prize in the 
 lottery, some thirty shillings, which he and East contrived 
 to spend in about three days, in the purchase of pictures 
 for their study, two new bats and a cricket-ball, all the best 
 that could be got, and a supper of sausages, -kidneys, and 
 beef-steak pies to all the rebels. Light come, light go ; 
 they wouldn’t have been comfortable with money in their 
 pockets in the middle of the half. 
 
 The embers of Flashman’s wrath, however, were still 
 smoldering, and burst out every now and then in sly blows 
 and taunts, and they both felt that they hadn’t quite done 
 with him yet. It wasn’t long, however, before the last act 
 of that drama came, and with it, the end of bullying for 
 Tom and East at Rugby. They now often stole out into 
 the hall at nights, incited thereto, partly by the hope of 
 finding Diggs there and having a talk with him, partly by 
 the excitement of doing something which was against 
 rules ; for, sad to say, both of our youngsters, since their 
 loss of character for steadiness in their form, had got into 
 the habit of doing things which were forbidden, as a mat- 
 ter of adventure ; just in the same way, I should fancy, as 
 men fall into smuggling, and for the same sort of reasons. 
 Thoughtlessness in the first place. It never occurred to 
 them to consider why such and such rules were laid down ; 
 the reason was nothing to them ; and they only looked 
 upon rules as a sort of challenge from the rule-makers, 
 which it would be rather bad pluck in them not to accept ; 
 and then again, in the lower parts of the school they hadn’t 
 enough to do. The work of the form they could manage 
 to get through pretty easily, keeping a good enough place 
 to get their regular yearly remove ; and not having much 
 ambition beyond this, their whole superfluous steam was 
 available for games and scrapes. Now, one rule of the house 
 
144 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 which it was a daily pleasure of all such boys to break, 
 was that after supper all fags, except the three on duty in 
 the passages, should remain in their own studies until nine 
 o’clock ; and if caught about the passages or hall, or in one 
 another’s studies, they were liable to punishments or can- 
 ing. The rule was stricter than its observance : for most 
 of the sixth spent their evenings in the fifth-form room,, 
 where the library was, and the lessons were learned in com- 
 mon. Every now and then, however, a praepostor would be 
 seized with a fit of district visiting, and would make a tour 
 of the passages and hall and the fags’ studies. Then, if the 
 owner were entertaining a friend or two, the first kick at 
 the door and ominous 44 Open here,” had the effect of the 
 shadow of a hawk over a chicken-yard , every one cut to 
 cover — one small boy diving under the sofa, another under 
 the table, while the owner would hastily pull down a book 
 or two and open them, and cry out in a meek voice. 44 Hul- 
 lo, who’s there?” casting an anxious eye round to see 
 that no protruding leg or elbow could betray the hidden 
 boys. 44 Open, sir, directly ; it’s Snooks ; ” 44 Oh, I’m very 
 sorry ; I didn’t know it was you, Snooks ; ” and then, with 
 well-feigned zeal, the door would be opened, young hope- 
 ful praying that that beast Snooks mightn’t have heard the 
 scuffle caused by his coming. If a study was empty, Snooks 
 proceeded to draw the passages and hall to find the truants. 
 
 Well, one evening, in forbidden hours, Tom and East 
 were in the hall. They occupied the seats before the fire 
 nearest the door, while Diggs sprawled as usual before the 
 further fire. He was busy with a copy of verses, and East 
 and Tom were chatting together in whispers by the light 
 of the fire, and splicing a favorite old fives-bat which had 
 sprung. Presently a step came down the bottom passage ; 
 they listened a moment, assured themselves that it wasn’t a 
 praepostor, and then went on with their work, and the door 
 swung open, and in walked Flashman. He didn’t see Diggs 
 and thought it a good chance to keep his hand in ; and as 
 the boys didn’t move for him, struck one of them, to make 
 them get out of his way. 
 
 44 What’s that for ? ” growled the assaulted one. 
 
 44 Because I choose. You’ve no business here ; goto your 
 study.” 
 
 44 You can’t send us.” 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 145 
 
 44 Can’t I ? Then I’ll thrash you if you stay,” said Flash- 
 man savagely. 
 
 46 1 say, you two,” said Diggs, from the end of the hall, 
 rousing up and resting himself on his elbow, 44 you’ll never 
 get rid of that fellow till you lick him. Go in at him, both 
 of you — I’ll see fair play.” 
 
 Flashman was taken aback, and retreated two steps. 
 East looked at Tom. 44 Shall we try ? ” said he. 44 Yes,” 
 said Tom, desperately. So the two advanced on Flashman, 
 with clenched fists and beating hearts. They were about 
 up to his shoulder, but tough boys of their age, and in per- 
 fect training : while he, though strong and big, was in poor 
 condition, from his monstrous habit of stuffing and want 
 of exercise. Coward as he was, however, Flashman couldn’t 
 swallow such an insult as this ; besides, he was confident 
 of having easy work, and so faced the boys, saying, 44 You 
 impudent young blackguards ! ” — Before he could finish 
 his abuse they rushed in on him, and began pummeling at 
 all of him which they could reach. He hit out wildly and 
 savagely, but the full force of his blows didn’t tell, they 
 were too near him. It was long odds, though in point of 
 strength, and in another minute Tom went spinning back- 
 ward over a form, and Flashman turned to demolish East, 
 with a savage grin. But now Diggs jumped down from 
 the table on which he had seated himself. 
 
 44 Stop there,” shouted he : 44 the round’s over — half-min- 
 ute time allowed.” — 
 
 44 What the is it to you ? ” faltered Flashman, who 
 
 began to lose heart. 
 
 44 I’m going to see fair, I tell you,” said Diggs with a grin 
 and snapping his great red fingers; 44 ’taint fair for yon to 
 be fighting one of them at a time. Are you ready, Brown? 
 Time’s up.” 
 
 The small boys rushed in again. Closing they saw was 
 their best chance, and Flashman was wilder and more 
 flurried than ever : he caught East by the throat, and tried 
 to force him back on the iron-bound table ; Tom grasped 
 his waist, and, remembering the old throw he had learned 
 in the Vale from Harry Winburn, crooked his leg inside 
 Flashman’s, and threw his whole weight forward. The 
 three tottered for a moment, and then over they went on 
 to the floor, Flashman striking his head against a form in 
 the hall. — 
 
146 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 The two youngsters sprang to their legs, but he lay 
 there still. They began to be frightened. Tom stooped 
 down, and then cried out, scared out of his wits. “lie's 
 bleeding awfully; come here, East, Diggs,— he’s dying!” 
 
 44 Nut he,” said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table ; 
 44 It’s all sham — he’s only afraid to fight it out.” 
 
 East was as frightened as Tom Diggs lifted Flashman’s 
 head, and he groaned. 
 
 “ What’s the matter ? ” shouted Diggs. 
 
 44 My skull’s fractured,” sobbed Flashman. 
 
 44 Oh, let me run for the housekeeper,” cried Tom. 
 44 What shall we do ? ” 
 
 Fiddlesticks ! it’s nothing but the skin broken,” said the 
 relentless Diggs, feeling his head. 44 Cold water and a bit 
 of rag’s all he’ll want.” 
 
 44 Let me go,” said Flashman, surlily, sitting up; 44 1 
 don’t want your help.” 
 
 44 We’re really very sorry,” began East. 
 
 44 Hang your sorrow,” answered Flashman, holding his 
 handkerchief to the place , 44 you shall pay for this, I can 
 tell you, both of you.” And he walked out of the hall. 
 
 44 He can’t be very bad,” said Tom with a deep sigh, 
 much relieved to see his enemy march so well. 
 
 44 Not he,” said Diggs, 44 And you’ll see you won’t be 
 troubled with him any more. But, I say. your head’s 
 broken too — your collar is covered with blood ” 
 
 44 Is it, though ? ” said Tom, putting up his hand : 44 1 
 didn’t know it.” 
 
 44 Well, mop it up, or jmu’ll have }^our jacket spoilt. And 
 you have got a nasty eye, Scud ; you’d better go and 
 bathe it well in cold water.” 
 
 44 Cheap enough too, if we’ve done with our old friend 
 Flashey,” said East, as they made off up stairs to bathe 
 their wounds. 
 
 They had done with Flashman in one sense for he never 
 laid finger on either of them again ; but whatever harm a 
 spiteful heart and venomous tongue could do them he took 
 care should be done. Only throw dirt enough, and some 
 of it is sure to stick ; and so it w 7 as with the fifth-form and 
 the bigger boys in general, with whom he associated more 
 or less, and they not at all. Flashman managed to get 
 Tom and East into disfavor, which did not wear off for 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 147 
 
 some time after the author of it had disappeared from the 
 school world. This event, much prayed for by the small 
 fry in general, took place a few months after the above 
 encounter. One fine summer evening Flashman had been 
 regaling himself on gin-punch, at Brownsover ; and having 
 exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He 
 fell in with a friend or two coming back from bathing, 
 proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the 
 weather being hot, and they, thirsty souls, and unaware of 
 the quantity of drink which Flashman had already on 
 board. The short result was, that Flashey became beastly 
 drunk ; they tried to get him along, but couldn’t ; so they 
 chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of 
 the masters came upon them, and they naturally enough 
 fled. The flight of the rest raised the master’s suspicions, 
 and the good angel of the fags incited him to examine the 
 freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle him- 
 self up to the school-house ; and the Doctor, who had long 
 had his eye on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal 
 next morning. 
 
 The evil that men, and boys too, do, lives after them ; 
 Flashman was gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still 
 felt the effects of his hate. Besides they had been the 
 movers of the strike against unlawful fagging. The 
 cause was righteous — the result had been triumphant to a 
 great extent ; but the best of the fifth, even those who had 
 never fagged the small boys, or had given up the practice 
 cheerfully, couldn’t help feeling a small grudge against 
 the first rebels. After all their form had been defied — on 
 just grounds, no doubt; so just, indeed, that they had at 
 once acknowledged the wrong and remained passive in the 
 strife : had they sided with Flashman and his set, the rebels 
 must have given away at once. They couldn’t help, on 
 the whole, being glad that they had so acted, and that the 
 resistance had been successful against such of their own 
 form as had shown fight ; they felt that law and order had 
 gained thereby, but the ringleaders they couldn’t quite 
 pardon at once. “ Confoundedly coxy those young rascals 
 will get, if we don’t mind,” was the general feeling. 
 
 So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If the 
 angel Gabriel were to come down from heaven, and head a 
 successful rise against the most abominable and unright- 
 
148 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BATS. 
 
 eous vested interest, which this poor old world groans under, 
 he would most certainly lose his character for many years, 
 probably for centuries, not only with upholders of said 
 vested interest, but with the respectable mass of the peo- 
 ple whom he had delivered. They wouldn’t ask him to 
 dinner, or let their names appear with his in the papers; 
 they would be very careful how they spoke of him in the 
 Palaver, or at their clubs. What can we expect, then, 
 when we have only poor gallant blundering men like Kos- 
 suth, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and righteous causes which do 
 not triumph in their hands ; men who have holes enough 
 in their armor, God knows, easy to be hit by respectabili- 
 ties sitting in their lounging chairs, and having large bal- 
 ances at their bankers ? But you are brave, gallant boys, 
 who hate easy-chairs, and have no balances or bankers. 
 You only want to have your head set straight to take the 
 right side : so bear in mind that majorities, especially 
 respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in the wrong ; 
 and that if you see a man or boy striving earnestly on the 
 weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may 
 be, you are not to go and join the cry against him. If you 
 can’t join him and help him, and make him wiser, at any 
 rate remember that he has found something in the world 
 which he will fight and suffer for, which is just what you 
 have got to do for yourselves; and so think and speak of 
 him tenderly. 
 
 So East and Tom, the Tadpole, and one or two more, 
 became a sort of young Ishmaelites, their hands against 
 everyone, and every one's hand against them. It has been 
 already told how they got to war with the masters and the 
 fifth-form, and with the sixth it was much the same. They 
 saw the praepostors cowed by or joining with the fifth, and 
 shirking their own duties; so they didn’t respect them, 
 and rendered no willing obedience. It had been one thing 
 to clean out studies for sons of heroes like old Brooke, but 
 quite another to do the like for Snooks and Green, who 
 had never faced a good scrummage at football, and couldn’t 
 keep the passages in order at night. So they only slurred 
 through their fagging just well enough to escape a licking, 
 and not always that, and got the character of sulky, un- 
 willing fags. In the fifth form room, after supper, when 
 such matters were often discussed and arranged, their 
 names were forever coming up. 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 149 
 
 “I say, Green,” Snooks began one night, “isn’t that new 
 boy, Harrison, your fag ? ” 
 
 “ Yes ; why ? ” 
 
 44 Oh, I know something of him at home, and should like 
 to excuse him — will you swap ? ” 
 
 44 Who will you give me ? ” 
 
 44 Well, let’s see; there’s Willis, Johnson — no, that won’t 
 do. Yes, I have it — there’s young East, I’ll give you 
 him.” 
 
 44 Don’t you wish you may get it ? ” replied Green. 44 I’ll 
 tell you what I’ll do — I’ll give you two for Willis, if you 
 like.” 
 
 44 Who, then ? ” asks Snooks. 
 
 44 Hall and Brown.” 
 
 44 Wouldn’t have ’em at a gift.” 
 
 44 Better than East, though ; for they ain’t quite so sharp,” 
 said Green, getting up and leaning his back against the 
 mantelpiece — he wasn’t a bad fellow, and couldn’t help 
 not being able to put down the unruly fifth-form. His eye 
 twinkled as he went on, 44 Did I ever tell you how the 
 young vagabond sold me last half? ” 
 
 44 No; how?” 
 
 44 Well, he never half cleaned my study out, only just 
 stuck the candlesticks in the cupboard, and swept the 
 crumbs on to the floor. So at last I was mortal angry, and 
 had him up, made him go through the whole performance 
 under my eyes : the dust the young scamp made nearly 
 choked me, and showed that lie hadn’t swept the carpet 
 before. Well, when it was all finished, 4 Now, young 
 gentleman,’ says I, 4 mind I expect this to be done every 
 morning, floor swept, table-cloth taken off and shaken, 
 and everything dusted.’ 4 Very well,’ grunts he. Not a 
 bit of it though — I was quite sure in a day or two that he 
 never took the table-cloth off even. So I laid a trap for 
 him : I tore up some paper and put a half a dozen bits on 
 my table one night, and the cloth over them as usual. Next 
 morning, after breakfast, up I came, pulled off the cloth 
 and sure enough there was the paper, which fluttered down 
 on to the floor. I was in a towering rage. 4 I’ve got you 
 now,’ thought I, and sent for him, while I got out my cane. 
 Up he came as cool as you please, with his hands in his 
 pockets. 4 Didn’t I tell you to shake my table-cloth every 
 
150 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 morning ? ’ roared I. 4 Yes/ says he. 4 Did you do it this 
 morning?’ 4 Yes.’ 4 You young liar! I put these pieces 
 of paper on the table last night, and if you’d taken the 
 table-cloth off you’d have seen them, so I’m going to give 
 you a good licking.’ Then my youngster takes one hand 
 out of his pocket, and just stoops down and picks up two 
 of the bits of paper, and holds them out to me. There was 
 written on each, in great round text. 4 Harry East, his 
 mark.’ The young rogue had found my trap out, taken 
 away my paper, and put some of his there, every bit ear- 
 marked. I’d a great mind to lick him for his impudence, 
 but after all one has no right to be laying traps, so I didn’t. 
 Of course I was at his mercy till the end of the half, and 
 in his weeks my study was so frowsy, I couldn’t sit in it.” 
 44 They spoil one’s things so, too,” chimed in a third boy. 
 44 Hall and Brown were night-fags last week: I called fag, 
 and gave them my candlesticks to clean ; away they went, 
 and didn’t appear again. When they’d had time enough 
 to clean them three times over, I went out to look after 
 them. They weren’t in the passages, so down I went into 
 the hall, where I heard music, and there I found them sit- 
 ting on the table, listening to Johnson, who was playing 
 the flute, and my candlesticks stuck between the bars well 
 into the fire, red-liot, clean spoiled ; they’ve never stood 
 straight since, and I must get some more. However, I 
 gave them both a good licking, that’s one comfort.” 
 
 Such were the sort of scrapes they were always getting 
 into; and so, partly by their own faults, partly from cir- 
 cumstances, partly from the faults of others, they found 
 themselves outlaws, ticket-of-leave men, or what you will 
 in that line : in short, dangerous parties, and lived the sort 
 of hand-to-mouth, wild, reckless life which such parties 
 generally have to put up with. Nevertheless, they never 
 quite lost favor with young Brooke, who was now the cock 
 of the house, and just getting into the sixth, and Diggs 
 stuck to them like a man, and gave them store of good 
 advice, by which they never in the least profited. 
 
 And even after the house mended, and law and order 
 had, been restored, which soon happened after young 
 Brooke and Diggs got into the sixth, they couldn’t easily 
 or at once return into the paths of steadiness, and many of 
 the old wild r out-of-bounds habits stuck to them as firmly 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 
 
 ioi 
 
 as ever. While they had been quite little boys, the scrapes 
 they got into in the school hadn’t much mattered to any 
 one ; but now they were in the upper school, all wrong- 
 doers from which were sent up straight to the Doctor at 
 once : so they began to come under his notice ; and as they 
 were a sort of leaders in a small way among their own con- 
 temporaries, his eye, which was everywhere, was upon 
 them. 
 
 It was a toss-up whether they turned out well or ill, and 
 so they were just the boys who caused most anxiety to such 
 a master. You have been told of the first occasion on 
 which they were sent up to the Doctor, and the remem- 
 brance of it was so pleasant that they had much less fear 
 of him than most boys of their standing had. “ It’s all his 
 look,” Tom used to say to East, “ that frightens fellows ; 
 don’t you remember, he never said anything to us my first 
 half-year, for being an hour late for locking up?” 
 
 The next time that Tom came before him, however, the 
 interview was of a very different kind. It happened just 
 about the time at which we have now arrived, and was the 
 first of a series of scrapes into which our hero managed 
 now to tumble. 
 
 The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very clear 
 stream, in which chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish 
 are (or were) plentiful enough, together with a fair sprink- 
 ling of small jack, but no fish worth sixpence either for 
 sport or food. It is, however, a capital river for bathing, 
 as it has many nice small pools and several good reaches 
 for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and 
 at an easy twenty minutes’ walk from the school. This 
 mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for bathing 
 purposes, by the trustees of the school, for the boys. The 
 footpath to Browns over crosses the river by “ the Planks,” 
 a curious old single-plank bridge, running for fifty or sixty 
 yards into the flat meadows on each side of the river, — for 
 in the winter there are frequent floods. Above the 
 Planks were the bathing places for the smaller boys ; 
 Sleath’s, the first bathing place where all new boys had to 
 begin, until they had proved to the bathing men (three 
 steady individuals who were paid to attend daily through 
 the summer to prevent accidents) that they could swim 
 pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on to 
 
152 TOM BBO WN S SCHOOL-DA TS . 
 
 Anstey’s, about one hundred and fifty yards below. Here 
 there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, 
 over which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite 
 side, and thought no small beer of themselves for having 
 been out of their depths. Below the Planks came larger 
 and deeper holes, the first of which was YVratislaw’s, and 
 the last Swift’s, a famous hole, ten or twelve feet deep in 
 parts, and thirty yards across, from which there was a fine 
 swimming reach right down to the mill. Swift’s was 
 reserved for the sixth and fifth forms, and had a spring 
 board and two sets of steps : the others had one set of steps 
 each, and were used indifferently by all the lower boys, 
 though each house addicted itself more to one hole than to 
 another. The school-house at this time affected Wratislaw’s 
 hole, and Tom and East, who had learned to swim like 
 fishes, were to be found there as regular as the clock 
 through the summer, always twice, and often three times a 
 day. 
 
 Now the boys either had, or fancied they had, a right 
 also to fish at their pleasure over the whole of this part of 
 the river, and would not understand that the right (if any) 
 only extended to the Rugby side. As ill luck would have 
 it, the gentleman who owned the opposite bank, after 
 allowing it for some time without interference, had ordered 
 ids keepers not to let the boys fish on his side, the conse- 
 quence of which had been, that there had been first wrang 
 lings and then fights between the keepers and boj s; and 
 so keen had the quarrel become, that the landlord and his 
 keepers, after a ducking had been inflicted on one of the 
 latter, and a fierce fight ensued thereon, had been up to the 
 great school at calling-over to identify the delinquents, 
 and it was all the Doctor himself and five or six masters 
 could do to keep the peace. Not even his authority could 
 prevent the hissing; and so strong was the feeling, that 
 the four praepostors of the week walked up the school with 
 their canes, shouting S-s-s-s-i-lenc-c-c-c-e at the top of their 
 voices. However, the chief offenders for the time were 
 flogged and kept in bounds, but the victorious party had 
 brought a nice hornets’ nest about their ears. The land- 
 lord was hissed at the school gates as he rode past, and 
 when he charged his horse at the mob of boys, and tried to 
 thrash them with his whip, was driven back with cricket- 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENT. 
 
 163 
 
 bats and wickets, and pursued with pebbles and fives’ 
 balls ; while the wretched keepers’ lives were a burden to 
 them, from having to watch the waters so closely. 
 
 The school-house boys of Tom’s standing, one and all, 
 as a protest against this tyranny and cutting short of their 
 lawful amusements, took to fishing in all ways and espe- 
 cially by means of night-lines. The little tackle-maker at 
 the bottom of the town would soon have made his fortune 
 had the rage lasted, and several of the barbers began to lay 
 in fishing-tackle. The boys had this great advantage over 
 their enemies, that they spent a large portion of the day 
 in nature’s garb by the river side, and so, when tired of 
 swimming, would get out on the other side and fish, or set 
 night-lines till the keeper hove in sight, and then plunge 
 in and swim back and mix with the other bathers, and the 
 keepers were too wise to follow across the stream. 
 
 While things were in this state, one day Tom and three 
 or four others were bathing at Wratislaw’s, and had, as a 
 matter of course, been taking up and resetting night-lines. 
 They had all left the water, and were sitting or standing 
 about at their toilets, in all costumes from a shirt upward, 
 when they were aware of a man in a velveteen shooting- 
 coat approaching from the other side. He was a new 
 keeper, so they didn’t recognize or notice him, till he pulled 
 up right opposite, and began : — 
 
 44 I see’d some of you young gentlemen over this side a 
 fishing just now.” 
 
 44 Hallo, who are you? what business is that of yours, 
 old Velveteens ? ” 
 
 “ I'm the new under-keeper, and master’s told me to 
 keep a sharp look-out on all o’ you young chaps. And I 
 tells ’ee I means business, and you’d better keep on your 
 own side, or we shall fall out.” 
 
 “Well, that’s right. Velveteens — speak out, and let’s 
 know your mind at once.” 
 
 “ Look here, old boy,” cried East, holding up a miserable 
 coarse fish or two and a small jack, 44 would you like to 
 smell ’em and see which bank they lived under ? ” 
 
 44 I’ll give you a bit of advice, keeper,” shouted Tom, who 
 was sitting in his shirt paddling with his feet in the river ; 
 44 you’d better go down there to Swift’s, where the big 
 boys are, they’re beggars at setting lines, and ’ll put you 
 
154 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS . 
 
 up to a wrinkle or two for catching the five-pounders.” 
 Tom was nearest to the keeper, and that officer, who was 
 getting angry at the chaff, fixed his eyes on our hero, as if 
 to take a note of him for future use. Tom returned his 
 gaze with a- steady stare, and then broke into a laugh, and 
 struck into the middle of a favorite school-house song — 
 
 As I and my companions 
 Were setting of a snare, 
 
 The gamekeeper was watching us, 
 
 For him we did not care: 
 
 For we can wrestle and fight, my boys, 
 
 And jump out anywhere, 
 
 For it’s my delight of a likely night, 
 
 In the season of the year. 
 
 The chorus was taken up by the other boys with shouts 
 of laughter, and the keeper turned away with a grunt, but 
 evidently bent on mischief. The boys thought no more of 
 the matter. 
 
 But now came on the may-fly season ; the soft hazy sum- 
 mer weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon 
 side, and the green and gray flies flickered with their 
 graceful lazy up and down flight over the reeds and the 
 water and the meadows, in myriads upon myriads. The 
 maj^-flies must surely be the lotus-eaters of the ephemerae ; 
 the happiest, laziest, carelessest fly that dances and dreams 
 out his few hours of sunshiny life by English rivers. 
 
 Every little pitiful coarse fish in the Avon was on the 
 alert for the flies, and gorging his wretched carcass with 
 hundreds daily, the gluttonous rogues ! and every lover of 
 the gentle craft was out to avenge the poor may-flies. 
 
 So one fine Thursday afternoon, Tom having borrowed 
 East’s new rod, started by himself to the river. He fished 
 for some time with small success, not a fish would rise at 
 him ; but as he prowled along the bank, he was presently 
 aware of mighty ones feeding in a pool on the opposite 
 side, under the shade of a huge willow-tree. The stream 
 was deep here, but some fifty yards below was a shallow, 
 for which he made off hot foot ; and forgetting landlords, 
 keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, and everything 
 else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and in three 
 minutes was creeping along on all fours toward the clump 
 of willows. 
 
 It isn’t often that great chub, or any other coarse fish 
 
A CHAPTER, OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 155 
 
 are in earnest about anything, but just then they were 
 thoroughly bent on feeding, and in half an hour Master 
 Tom had deposited three thumping fellows at the foot of 
 the giant willow. As he was baiting for a fourth pounder, 
 and just going to throw in again, he became aware of a 
 man coming up the bank not one hundred yards off. 
 Another look told him that it was the under-keeper. 
 Could he reach the shallow before him? No, not carrying 
 his rod. Nothing for it but the tree : so Tom laid his 
 bones to it, shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging 
 up his rod after him. He had just time to reach and crouch 
 along upon a huge branch some ten feet up, which stretch- 
 ed out over the river, when the keeper arrived at the clump. 
 Tom’s heart beat fast as lie came under the tree ; two steps 
 more and he would have passed, when, as ill-luck would 
 have it, the gleam on the scales of the dead fish caught his 
 eye, and he made a dead point at the foot of the tree. He 
 picked up the fish one by one ; his eye and touch told him 
 that they had been alive and feeding within the hour. 
 Tom crouched lower along the branch, and heard the keeper 
 beating the clump. “ If I could only get the rod hidden,” 
 thought he, and began gently shifting it to get it alongside 
 him ; “ willow-trees don’t throw out straight hickory shoots 
 twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse luck.” Alas! the 
 keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of the rod, and 
 then of Tom’s hand and arm. 
 
 “ Oh, be up ther’ be ’ee?” says he, running under the 
 tree. “Now you come down this minute.” 
 
 44 Tree’d at last,” thinks Tom, making no answer, and 
 keeping as close as possible, but working away at the rod, 
 which he takes to pieces ; 44 I’m in for it, unless I can 
 starve him out.” And then he begins to meditate getting 
 along the branch for a plunge and scramble to the other 
 side ; but the small branches are so thick, and the oppo- 
 site bank so difficult, that the keeper will have lots of time 
 to get round by the ford before he can get out, so he gives 
 that up. And now he hears the keeper beginning to 
 scramble up the trunk. That will never do ; so he scram- 
 bles himself back to where his branch joins the trunk, and 
 stands with lifted rod. 
 
 44 Hullo, Velveteens, mind your fingers if you come any 
 higher.” 
 
156 
 
 TOM BBO WN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a grin 
 says, “Oh! be you, be it, young master? Well, here’s 
 luck. Now I tells ’ee to come down at once, and ’t’ll be 
 best for ’ee.” 
 
 “Thank’ee, Velveteens, I’m very comfortable,” said 
 Tom, shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for 
 battle. 
 
 44 Werry well, please yourself,” says the keeper, descend- 
 ing, however, to the ground again, and taking his seat on 
 the bank ; “ I bean’t in no hurry, so you med take your 
 time. I’ll larn ’ee to gee honest folk names afore I’ve done 
 with ’ee.” 
 
 “ My luck as usual,” thinks Tom ; “ what a fool I was 
 to give him a black. If I’d called him 4 keeper ’ now I 
 might get off. The return match is all his way.” 
 
 The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill, 
 and light it, keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat discon- 
 solately across the branch, looking at keeper — a pitiful 
 sight for men and fishes. The more he thought of it the 
 less he liked it. 44 It must be getting near second calling- 
 over,” thinks he. Keeper smokes on stolidly. 44 If he 
 takes me up, I shall be flogged safe enough. I can’t sit 
 here all night. Wonder if he’ll rise at silver.” 
 
 “ I say, keeper,” said he meekly, 44 let me go for two 
 bob?” * 
 
 u Not for twenty, neither,” grunts his persecutor. 
 
 And so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and 
 the sun came slanting in through the willow-branches, and 
 telling of locking-up near at hand. 
 
 44 Im coming down, keeper,” said Tom at last with a sigh, 
 fairly tired out. 44 Now, what are you going to do? ” 
 
 44 Walk’ee up to school, and give ’ee over to the Doctor ; 
 them’s my orders,” says Velveteens, knocking the ashes 
 out of his fourth pipe, and standing up and shaking him- 
 self. 
 
 “Very good,” said Tom; “but hands off, you know. 
 I’ll go with you quietly, so no collaring or that sort of 
 thing.” 
 
 Keeper looked at him a minute — “Werry good,” said he 
 at last ; and so Tom descended, and wended his way drear- 
 ily by the side of the keeper up to the school-house, where 
 they arrived just at locking-up. As they passed the 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS . 
 
 157 
 
 school gates, the Tadpole and several others who were 
 standing there, caught the state of things, and rushed out 
 crying 44 Rescue ! ” but Tom shook his head, so they only 
 followed to the Doctor’s gate, and went back sorely puz- 
 zled. 
 
 How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the 
 last time that Tom was up there, as the keeper told the 
 story, not omitting to state how Tom had called him black- 
 guard names. 44 Indeed, sir,” broke in the culprit, 44 it was 
 only Velveteens.” The Doctor only asked one question. 
 
 44 You know the rule about the banks, Brown ? ” 
 
 44 Yes, sir.” 
 
 44 Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson.” 
 
 “I thought so,” muttered Tom. 
 
 44 And about the rod, sir ? ” went on the keeper ; “Master’s 
 told we as we might have all the rods — ” 
 
 44 Oh, please, sir,” broke in Tom, 44 the rod isn’t mine.” 
 The Doctor looked puzzled, but the keeper, who was a 
 good-hearted fellow, and melted at Tom’s evident distress, 
 gave up his claim. Tom was flogged next morning, and a 
 few days afterward met Velveteens, and presented him 
 with half a crown for giving up the rod claim, and they 
 became sworn friends ; and I regret to say that Tom had 
 many more fish from under the willow that may-fly season, 
 and was never caught again by Velveteens. 
 
 It wasn’t three weeks before Tom, and now East by his 
 side, were again in the awful presence. This time, how- 
 ever, the Doctor was not so terrible. A few days before 
 they had been fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went 
 off the court. While standing watching the game, they 
 saw five or six nearly new balls Hit on the top of the school. 
 “ 1 say, Tom,” said East, when they were dismissed, 
 “ couldn’t we get those balls somehow? ’ 
 
 44 Let’s try, anyhow.” 
 
 So they reconnoitered the walls carefully, borrowed a 
 coal hammer from old Stumps, bought some big nails, and 
 after one or two attempts scaled the schools, and possessed 
 themselves of huge quantities of fives’-balls. The place 
 pleased them so much that they spent all their spare time 
 there, scratching and cutting their names on the top of 
 every tower ; and at last, having exhausted all other 
 places, finished up with inscribing H. East, T. Brown, 
 
158 
 
 TOM B n0WN 9 S SCHOOL-DA TS. 
 
 on the minute-nan d of the great clock, in the doing of 
 which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the clock’s 
 economy. So next morning, when masters and boys came 
 trooping down to praj^ers, and entered the quadrangle, the 
 injured minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the 
 hour. They all pulled up, and took their time. When 
 the hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school 
 late. Thomas, being sent to make inquiry, discovers their 
 names on the minute-hand, and reports accordingly ; and 
 they are sent for, a knot of their friends making derisive 
 and pantomimic allusions to what their fate will be, as 
 they walk off. 
 
 But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn’t make 
 much of it, and only gives them thirty lines of Homer to 
 learn by heart, and a lecture on the likelihood of such ex- 
 ploits ending in broken bones. 
 
 Alas ! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in 
 the town ; and as several rows and other disagreeable acci- 
 dents had of late taken place on these occasions, the Doctor 
 gives out, after prayers in the morning, that no boy is to 
 go down into the town. Wherefore East and Tom, for no 
 earthly pleasure except that of doing what they are told 
 not to do, start away, after second lesson, and making a 
 short circuit through the fields, strike a back lane which 
 leads into the town, go down it, and run plump upon one 
 of the masters as they emerge into the High street. The 
 master in question, though a very clever, is not a righteous 
 man : he has already caught several of his own pupils, and 
 gives them lines to learn, while he sends East and Tom, 
 who are not his pupils, up to the Doctor, who, on learning 
 that they had been at prayers in the morning, flogs them 
 soundly. 
 
 The flogging did them no good at the time, for the in- 
 justice of their captor was rankling in their minds ; but it 
 was just at the end of the half, and on the next evening 
 but one Thomas knocks at their door, and says the Doctor 
 wants to see them. They look at one another in silent 
 dismay. What can it be now? Which of their countless 
 wrong-doings can he have heard of officially ? However, 
 it is no use delaying, so up they go to the study. There 
 they find the Doctor, not angry, but very grave. “He has? 
 sent for them to speak very seriously before they go home 
 
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 
 
 159 
 
 They have each been flogged several times in the half-year 
 for direct and wilful breaches of rules. This cannot 
 go on. They are doing no good to themselves or others, 
 and now they are getting up in the school, and have in- 
 fluence. They seem to think that rules are made capri- 
 ciously, and for the pleasure of the masters ; but this is not 
 so, they are made for the good of the whole school, and 
 must and shall be obeyed. Those who thoughtlessly or 
 wilfully break them will not be allowed to stay at the school. 
 He should be sorry if they had to leave, as the school might 
 do them both much good, and wishes them to think very 
 seriously in the holidays over what he has said. Good 
 night.’' 
 
 And so the two hurry off horribly scared ; the idea of 
 having to leave has never crossed their mind, and is quite 
 unbearable. 
 
 As they go out, they meet at the door old Holmes, a 
 sturdy cheery praepostor of another house, who goes in to 
 the Doctor; and they hear his genial hearty greeting of 
 the new-comer, so different to their own reception, as the 
 door closes, and return to their study with heavy hearts, and 
 tremendous resolves to break no more rules. 
 
 Five minutes afterward the master of their form, a late 
 arrival and a model young master, knocks at the Doctor’s 
 study-door. “ Come in ! ” and as he enters the Doctor goes 
 on, to Holmes — “ You see I do not know anything of the 
 case officially, and if I take any notice of it at all I must 
 publicly expel the boy. I don’t wish to do that, fori think 
 there is some good in him. There’s nothing for it but a 
 good sound thrashing.” He paused to shake hands with 
 the master, which Holmes does also, and then prepares to 
 leave. 
 
 44 1 understand. Good night, sir. ” 
 
 44 Good night, Holmes. And remember, ” added the Doc- 
 tor, emphasizing the words, 44 a good sound thrashing before 
 the Avhole house.” 
 
 The door closed upon Holmes ; and the Doctor, in an- 
 swer to the puzzled look of his lieutenant, explained shortly. 
 44 A gross case of bullying. Wharton, the head of the house 
 is a very goodfellow, but slight and weak, and severe phys- 
 ical pain is the only way to deal with such a case ; so I have 
 asked Holmes to take it up. He is very careful and trust- 
 
160 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BA T75. 
 
 worthy, and has plenty of strength. I wish all the sixth 
 had as much. We must have it here, if we are to keep or- 
 der at all.” 
 
 Now I don’t want any wiseacres to read this book, but 
 if they should, of course they will prick up their long ears, 
 and howl, or rather bray, at the above story. Very good, 
 I don’t object ; but what I have to add for you boys is this : 
 that Holmes called a levy of his house after breakfast next 
 morning, made them a speech on the case of bullying in 
 question, and then gave the bully a “ good sound thrashing ; ” 
 and that years afterward, that boy sought out Holmes, and 
 thanked him, saying it had been the kindest act which had 
 ever been done upon him, and the turning-point in his char- 
 acter ; and a very good fellow he became, and a credit to 
 his school. 
 
 After some other talk between them, the Doctor said, 
 “ I want to speak to you about two boys in your form, East 
 and Brown : I have just been speaking to them. What do 
 you think of them ? ” 
 
 “ Well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless 
 and full of spirits — but I can’t help liking them. I think 
 they are sound, good fellows as the bottom.” 
 
 “ I’m glad of it. I think so too. But they make me 
 very uneasy. They are taking the lead a good deal among 
 the fags in my house, for they are very active, bold fellows. 
 I should be sorry to lose them, but I shan’t let them stay 
 if I don’t see them gaining character and manliness. In 
 another year they may do great harm to all the younger 
 boys.” 
 
 “ Oh, I hope you won’t send them away,” pleaded their 
 master. 
 
 “Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after 
 any half-holiday, that I shan’t have to flog one of them next 
 morning, for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite 
 dread seeing either of them. ” 
 
 They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doc- 
 tor began again : — 
 
 “ They don’t feel that they have any duty or work to do 
 in the school, and how is one to make them feel it? ” 
 
 “ I think if either of them had some little boy to take 
 care of, it would steady them. Brown is the most reckless 
 of the two, I should say ; East wouldn’t get into so many 
 scrapes without him. ” 
 
HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 
 
 161 
 
 “ Well, ” said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, 
 “ I’ll think of it. ” And they went on to talk of other sub- 
 jects. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 I (hold) it truth, with him who sings. 
 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 
 
 Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide 
 In the strife of Truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side : 
 
 * * * ******* * # 
 
 Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, 
 Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 The turning point in our hero’s school career had now 
 come, and the manner of it was as follows. On the even- 
 ing of the first day of the next half-year, Tom, East and 
 another school-house boy, who had just been dropped at 
 the Spread Eagle by the old Regulator, rushed into the 
 matron’s room in high spirits, such as all real boys are in when 
 they first get back, however fond they may be of home. 
 
 “ Well, Mrs. Wixie,” shouted one, seizing on the meth- 
 odical, active, little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stow- 
 ing away the linen of the boys who had already arrived in- 
 to their several pigeon-holes, “ here we are again, you see, 
 as jolly as ever. Let us help you put the things away.” 
 u And, Mary,” cried another (she was called indifferent- 
 ly by either name), 46 who’s come back? Has the Doctor 
 made old Jones leave ? How many new boys are there ? ” 
 u Am I and East to have Gray’s study ? You know you 
 promised to get it for us if you could,” shouted Tom. 
 
 “ And am I to sleep in number 4 ? ” roared East. 
 
 44 How’s old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally? ” 
 
 44 Bless the boys ! ” cries Mary, at last getting in a word, 
 44 why, you’ll shake me to death. There now, do go away 
 up to the housekeeper’s room and get your suppers ; you 
 know I haven’t time to talk — you’ll find plenty more in 
 
162 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 the house. Now, Master East, do let those things alone — 
 you’re mixing up three new boys’ things.” And she rush- 
 ed at East, who escaped round the open trunks holding up 
 a prize. 
 
 “ Hullo, look here, Tommy,” shouted he, “here’s fun !” 
 and he brandished above his head some pretty little night- 
 caps, beautifully made and marked, the work of loving 
 fingers in some distant country home. The kind mother 
 and sisters, who sewed that delicate stitching with aching 
 hearts, little thought of the trouble they might be bringing 
 on the young head, for which they were meant. The little 
 matron was wiser, and snatched the caps from East before 
 he could look at the name on them. 
 
 “ Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if you don’t 
 go,” said she ; “ there’s some capital cold beef and pickles 
 up stairs, and I won’t have you old boys in my room first 
 night.” 
 
 “ Hurrah for the pickles ! Come along, Tommy ; come 
 along, Smith. We shall find out who the young Count is, 
 I’ll be bound : I hope he’ll sleep in my room. Mary’s all- 
 ways vicious first week.” 
 
 As the boys turned to leave the room, the matron touched 
 Tom’s arm, and said, “ Master Brown, please stop a minute, 
 I want to speak to you.” 
 
 “Very well, Mary. I’ll come in a minute : East, don’t 
 finish the pickles — ” 
 
 “ Oh, Master Brown,” went on the little matron, when 
 the rest had gone, “you’re to have Gray’s study, Mrs. 
 Arnold says. And she wants you to take in this young 
 gentleman. He’s a new boy, and thirteen years old, though 
 he don’t look it. He’s very delicate, and has never been 
 from home before. And I told Mrs. Arnold I thought 
 you’d be kind to him, and see that they don’t bully him at 
 first. He's put into your form, and I’ve given him the bed 
 next to vours in number 4 ; so East can’t sleep there this 
 half.” 
 
 Tom was rather put about by this speech. He had got 
 the double study which he coveted, but here were condi- 
 tions attached which greatly moderated his joy. He look- 
 ed across the room, and in the far corner of the sofa was 
 aware of a slight pale boy, with large blue eyes and light 
 fair hair, who seemed ready to shrink through the floor. 
 
HOW THE TIDE TURNED . 
 
 163 
 
 He saw at a glance that the little stranger was just the boy 
 whose first half-year at a public school would be misery to 
 himself if he were left alone, or constant anxiety to any 
 one who meant to see him through his troubles. Tom was 
 too honest to take in the youngster and then let him shift 
 for himself ; and if he took him as his chum instead of 
 East, where were all his pet plans of having a bottled-beer 
 cellar under his window, and making night-lines and slings 
 and plotting expeditions to Brownsover Mills and Calde- 
 cott’s Spinney ? East and he had made up their minds to 
 get this study, and then every night from locking-up till 
 ten they would be together to talk about fishing, drink 
 bottled-beer, read Marryat’s novels, and sort birds’ eggs. 
 And this new boy would most likely never go out of the 
 close, and would be afraid of wet feet, and always getting 
 laughed at and called Molly, or Jenny, or some derogatory 
 feminine nickname. 
 
 The matron watched him for a moment, and saw what 
 was passing in his mind, and so, like a wise negotiator, 
 threw in an appeal to his warm heart. “Poor little fellow,” 
 said she in almost a whisper, “ his father’s dead, and he’s 
 got no brothers. And his mamma, such a kind sweet lady, 
 almost broke her heart at leaving liim this morning; and 
 she said one of his sisters was like to die of decline, and 
 
 u Well, well,” burst in Tom, with something like a sigh, 
 at the effort, “ I suppose I must give up East. Come along, 
 young un. What’s your name ? We’ll go and have some 
 supper, and then I’ll show you our study.” 
 
 “ His name’s George Arthur,” said the matron, walking 
 up to him with Tom, who grasped his little delicate hand 
 as the proper preliminary to making a chum of him, and 
 felt as if he could have blown him away. “ I’ve had his 
 books and things put into the study, which his mamma 
 has had new papered, and the sofa covered, and new 
 green-baize curtains over the door” (the diplomatic matron 
 threw this in, to show that the new boy was contrib- 
 uting largely to the partnership comforts). “And Mrs. 
 Arnold told me to say,” she added, “that she should like 
 you both to come up to tea with her. You know the 
 way, Master Brown, and the things are just gone up, I 
 know/’ 
 
164 
 
 TOM BBOWM’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 Here was an announcement for Master Tom ! He was 
 to go up to tea the first night, just as if he were a sixth or 
 fifth-form boy, and of importance in the school world, in- 
 stead of the most reckless young scapegrace among the 
 fags. He felt himself lifted on to a higher social and 
 moral platform at once. Nevertheless, he couldn’t give 
 up without a sigh the idea of the jolly supper in the house- 
 keeper’s room with East and the rest, and a rush round to 
 all the studies of his friends afterwards, to pour out the 
 deeds and wonders of the holidays, to plot fifty plans for 
 the coming half-year, and to gather news of who had left, 
 and what new boj^s had come, who had got who’s study, 
 and where the new praepostors slept. However, Tom con- 
 soled himself with thinking that he couldn’t have done all 
 this with the new boy at his heels, and so marched off 
 along the passages to the Doctor’s private house with his 
 young charge in tow, in monstrous good humor with him- 
 self and all the world. 
 
 It is needless, and would be impertinent, to tell how the 
 two young boys were received in that drawing-room. The 
 lady who presided there is still living, and has carried 
 with her to her peaceful home in the North the respect 
 and love of all those who ever felt and shared that gentle 
 and high-bred hospitality. Ay, many is the brave heart 
 now doing its work and bearing its load in country curacies, 
 London chambers, under the Indian sun, and in Australian 
 towns and clearings, which looks back with fond and grate- 
 ful memory to that school-house drawing-room, and dates 
 much of its highest and best training to the lessons learned 
 there. 
 
 Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the elder chil- 
 dren, there was one of the younger masters, young Brooke 
 — who was now in the sixth, and had succeeded to his 
 brother’s position and influence— and another sixth-form 
 boy there, talking together before the fire. The master 
 and young Brooke, now a great strapping fellow six feet 
 high, eighteen years old, and powerful as a coal-heaver, 
 nodded kindly to Tom, to his intense glory, and then went 
 on talking ; the other did not notice them. The hostess, 
 after a few kind words, which led t lie boys at once and in- 
 sensibly to feel at their ease, and to begin talking to one 
 another, left them with her own children while she fin- 
 
HOW HIE TILE TULL EL. 
 
 165 
 
 ished a letter. The young ones got on fast and well, Tom 
 holding forth about a prodigious pony he had been riding 
 out hunting, and hearing stories of the winter glories of 
 the lakes, when tea came in, and immediately after the 
 Doctor himself. 
 
 How frank, and kind, and manly, was his greeting to 
 the party by the fire ! It did Tom’s heart good to see him 
 and young Brooke shake hands, and look one another in 
 the face ; and he didn’t fail to remark, that Brooke was 
 nearly as tali, and quite as broad as the Doctor. And his 
 cup was full, when in another moment his master turned 
 to him with another warm shake of the hand, and, seem- 
 ingly oblivious of all the late scrapes which he had been 
 getting into, said, “ Ah, Brown, you here ! I hope you 
 left your father and all well at home ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, sir, quite well.” 
 
 “ And this is the little fellow who is to share your study. 
 Well, he doesn’t look as we should like to see him. He 
 wants some Rugby air, and cricket. And you must take 
 him some good long walks, to Bilton Grange and Calde- 
 cott’s Spinney, and show him what a little pretty country 
 we have about here.” 
 
 Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his visits to 
 Bilton Grange were for the purpose of taking rooks’ nests 
 (a proceeding strongly discountenanced by the owner 
 thereof), and those to Caldecott’s Spinney were prompted 
 chiefly by the conveniences for setting night-lines. What 
 didn’t the Doctor know? And what a noble use he always 
 made of it ! He almost resolved to abjure rook-pies and 
 night-lines forever. The tea went merrily off, the Doctor 
 now talking of holiday doings, and then of the prospects 
 of the half-year, what chance there was for the Balliol 
 scholarship, whether the eleven would be a good one. 
 Everybody was at his ease, and everybody felt that he, 
 young as he might be, was of some use in the little school 
 world, and had a work to do there. 
 
 Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, and the 
 young boys a few minutes afterward took their leave, and 
 went out of the private door which led from the Doctor’s 
 house into the middle passage. 
 
 At the fire, at the further end of the passage, was a 
 crowd of boys in loud talk and laughter. There was a 
 
166 
 
 TOM BROWN 9 8 SCHOOLDAYS. 
 
 sudden pause when the door opened, and then a great 
 shout of greeting, as Tom was recognized marching down 
 
 the passage. 
 
 “ Hullo, Brown, where do you come from ? ” 
 u Oh, I’ve been to tea with the Doctor,” says Tom, with 
 great dignity. 
 
 44 My eye ! ” cried East. 44 Oh, so that’s why Mary called 
 you back, and you didn’t come to supper. You lost some- 
 thing — that beef and pickles was no end good.” 
 
 44 1 say, young fellow,” cried Hall, detecting Arthur, 
 and catching him by the collar, 44 what’s your name ? 
 Where do you come from ? How old are you ? ” 
 
 Tom saw Arthur shrink back, and look scared as all the 
 group turned to him, but thought it best to let him an- 
 swer, just standing by his side to support in case of need. 
 
 44 Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire,” 
 
 44 Don’t call me 4 sir,’ you young muff. How old are 
 you ? ” 
 
 44 Thirteen.” 
 
 44 Can you sing?” 
 
 The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. Tom 
 struck in — 44 You be hanged, Tadpole. He’ll have to 
 sing, whether he can or not. Saturday twelve weeks, and 
 that’s long enough off yet.” 
 
 44 Do 3^ou know him at home, Brown? 
 
 44 No ] but he’s ni3 r chum in Gray’s old study, and it’s 
 near praj^er time, and I haven’t had a look at it yet. 
 Come along, Arthur.” 
 
 Away went the two, Tom longing to get his charge safe 
 under cover, where he might advise him on his deport- 
 ment. 
 
 44 What a queer chum for Tom Brown,” was the com- 
 ment at the fire : and it must be confessed so thought Tom 
 himself, as he lighted his candle, and surveyed the new 
 green-baize curtains and the carpet and sofa with much 
 satisfaction. 
 
 44 1 saj r , Arthur, what a brick your mother is to make us 
 so cozy. But look here, now, you must answer straight 
 up when the fellows speak to you, and don’t be afraid. 
 If you’re afraid, you’ll get bullied. And don’t you say 
 you can sing; and doirt you ever talk about home, or 
 3 *ur mother and sisters.” 
 
HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 
 
 167 
 
 Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry. 
 
 “But please,” said he, “mayn’t I talk about — about 
 home to you ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, I like it. But don’t talk to boys you don’t 
 know, or they’ll call you home-sick, or mammy’s darling, 
 or some such stuff. What a jolly desk ! Is that yours! And 
 what stunning binding ! why, your school-books look like 
 novels? ” 
 
 And Tom was soon deep in Arthur’s goods and chattels, 
 all new and good enough for a fifth-form boy, and 
 hardly thought of his friends outside, till the prayer-bell 
 rung. 
 
 I have already described the school-house prayers ; they 
 were the same on the first night as on the other nights, 
 save for the gaps caused by the absence of those boys 
 who came late, and the line of new boys who stood all 
 together at the further table — of all sorts and sizes, like 
 young bears with all their troubles to come, as Tom’s 
 father had said to him when he was in the same position. 
 He thought of it as he looked at the line, and poor little 
 slight Arthur standing with them, and as he was leading 
 him up-stairs to number 4, directly after prayers, and 
 showing him his bed. It was a huge, high, airy room, 
 with two large windows looking on to the school close. 
 There were twelve beds in the room. The one in the 
 furthest corner by the fire-place occupied by the sixth- 
 form boy, wdio was responsible for the discipline of the 
 room, and the rest by boys in the lower-fifth and other 
 junior forms, all fags (for the fifth-form boys, as has been 
 said, slept in rooms by themselves). Being fags, the 
 eldest of them was not more than about sixteen years old, 
 and were all bound to be up and in bed by ten ; the sixth- 
 form boys came to bed from ten to a quarter past (at 
 which time the old verger came round to put the candles 
 out), except when they sat up to read. 
 
 Within a few minutes therefore of their entry, all the 
 other boys who slept in number 4 had come up. The 
 little fellows went quietly to their own beds, and began 
 undressing and talking to each other in whispers ; while 
 the elder, among whom was Tom, sat chatting about on 
 one another’s beds, with their jackets and waistcoats off. 
 Poor little Arthur was overwhelmed with the novelty of 
 
168 
 
 TOM BLOWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS 
 
 his position. The idea of sleeping in the room with 
 strange boj^s had clearly never crossed his mind before, 
 and was as painful as it was strange to him. He could 
 hardly bear to take his jacket off; however, presently, 
 with an effort, off it came, and then he paused and looked 
 at Tom, who was sitting at the bottom of his bed talking 
 a; id laughing. 
 
 “ Please, Brown,” he whispered, “ may I wash my face 
 and hands.” 
 
 “ Of course, if you like,” said Tom, staring ; “ that’s 
 your wash-hand stand, under the window, second from 
 your bed. You’ll have to go down for more water in the 
 morning if you use it all.” And on lie went with his 
 talk, while Arthur stole timidly from between the beds 
 out to his wash-hand stand, and began his ablutions, there- 
 by drawing for a moment on himself the attention of the 
 room. 
 
 On went the talk and laughter. Arthur finished his 
 washing and undressing, and put on his night-gown. He 
 then looked around more nervously than ever. Two or 
 three of the little boys were already in bed, sitting up 
 with their chins on their knees. The light burned clear, 
 the noise went on. It was a trying moment for the poor 
 little lonely boy; however, this time lie didn’t ask Tom 
 what he might or might not do, but dropped on his knees 
 by the bedside, as he had done every day from his child- 
 hood, to open his heart to Him who heareth the cry and 
 beareth the sorrows, of the tender child, and the strong 
 man in agony. 
 
 Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his 
 boots, so that his back was toward Arthur, and lie didn’t 
 see what had happened, and looked up in wonder at the 
 sudden silence. Then two or three boys laughed and 
 sneered, and a big brutal fellow, who was standing in the 
 middle of the room, picked up a slipper, and shied it at 
 the kneeling boy, calling him a sniveling young shaver. 
 Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment the boot 
 he had just pulled off flew straight at the head of the 
 bully, who had just time to throw up his arm and catch it 
 on his elbow. 
 
 “ Confound you, Brown, what’s that for?” roared he, 
 stamping with pain. 
 
BOW THE TIDE TURNED 
 
 169 
 
 “ Never mind what I mean,” said Tom, stepping on to the 
 floor, every drop of blood in his body tingling ; “ if any 
 fellow wants the other boot, he knows how to get it.” 
 
 What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this 
 moment. the sixth-form boy came in, and not another word 
 could be said. Tom and the rest rushed into bed and finish- 
 ed their unrobing there, and the old verger, as punctual as 
 the clock, had put out the candle in another minute, and 
 toddled on to the next room, shutting their door with his 
 usual “ Good night, genTm’n.” 
 
 There were many boys in the room by whom that little 
 scene was taken to heart before they slept. But sleep 
 seemed to have deserted the pillow of poor Tom. For 
 some time his excitement, and the flood of memories which 
 chased one another through his brain, kept him from think- 
 ing or resolving. His head throbbed, his heart leaped, and 
 he could hardly keep himself from springing out of bed 
 and rushing’ about the room. Then the thought of his own 
 mother came across him, and the promise he had made at 
 her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel by his bedside 
 and give himself up to his Father, before he laid his head 
 on the pillow, from which it might never rise ; and he lay 
 down gently and cried as if his heart would break. He 
 was only fourteen years old. 
 
 It was no light act of courage in those days, my dear 
 boys, for a little fellow to say his prayers publicly, even at 
 Rugby. A few years later, when Arnold’s manly piety had 
 begun to leaven the school, the tables turned ; before he 
 died, in the school-house at least, and I believe in the other 
 houses, the rule was the other way. But poor Tom had 
 come to school in other times. The first few nights after 
 he came he did not kneel down because of the noise, but 
 sat up in bed till the candle was out, and then stole out 
 and said his prayers in fear, lest some one should find him 
 out. So did many another poor little fellow. Then he 
 began to think that he might just as well say his prayers in 
 bed, and then that it didn’t matter whether he was kneel- 
 ing, or sitting, or lying down. And so it had come to pass 
 with Tom as with all who will not confess their Lord 
 before men : and for the last year he had probably not said 
 his prayers in earnest a dozen times. • 
 
 Poor Tom ! the first and bitterest feeling which was like 
 
170 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCliOOL-DAYS . 
 
 to break his heart was the sense of his own cowardice. 
 The vice of all others which he loathed was brought in and 
 burned in on his own soul. He had lied to his mother, to 
 his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it? And 
 then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and al- 
 most scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, 
 braggart as he was, dared not do. The first dawn of com- 
 fort came to him in swearing to himself that he would stand 
 by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and 
 help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that 
 night. Then he resolved to write home next day and tell 
 his mother all, and what a coward her son had been. And 
 then peace came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his 
 testimony next morning. The morning would be harder 
 than the night to begin with, but he felt that he could not 
 afford to let one chance slip. Several times lie faltered, for 
 the devil showed him, first, all his old friends calling him 
 
 Saint” and “ Square-toes,” and a dozen hard names, and 
 whispered to him that his motives would be misunderstood, 
 and he would only be left alone with the new boy ; where- 
 as it was his duty to keep all means of influence, that he 
 might do good to the largest number. And then came the 
 more subtle temptation, u Shall I not be showing myself 
 braver than others by doing this ? Have I any right to be- 
 gin it now? Ought I not rather to pray in my own study, 
 letting other boys know that I do so, and trying to lead 
 them to it, while in public at least I should go on as I have 
 done?” However, his good angel was too strong that 
 night, and he turned on his side and slept, tired of trying 
 to reason, but resolved to follow the impulse which had 
 been so strong, and in which he had found peace. 
 
 Next morning he was up and washed and dressed, all but 
 his jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten minutes’ bell began 
 to ring, and then in the face of the whole room knelt down 
 to pray. Not five words could he say — the bell mocked 
 him ; he was listening for every whisper in the room — what 
 were they all thinking of him? He was ashamed to go on 
 kneeling, ashamed to rise from his knees. At last, as it 
 were from his inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to 
 breathe forth the words of the publican, “ God be merciful 
 to me a sinner ! ”• He repeated them over and over, cling- 
 ing to them as for his life, and rose from his knees comfort-- 
 
HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 
 
 171 
 
 ed and humbled, and ready to face the whole world. It 
 was not needed : two other boys besides Arthur had already 
 followed his example, and he went down to the great school 
 with a glimmering of another lesson in his heart — the les- 
 son that he who has conquered his own coward spirit has 
 conquered the whole outward world; and that other one 
 which the old prophet learned in the cave in Mount Horeb 
 when he bid his face, and the still small voice asked, “ What 
 doest thou here, Elijah?” that, however, we may fancy 
 ourselves alone on the side of good, the King and Lord of 
 men is nowhere without his witnesses ; for in every society, 
 however seemingly corrupt and godless, there are those 
 who have not bowed the knee to Baal. 
 
 He found too how greatly he had exaggerated the effect 
 to be produced by his act. For a few nights there was a 
 sneer or a laugh when he knelt down, but this passed off 
 soon, and one by one all the other boys but three or four 
 followed the lead. I fear that this was in some measure 
 owing to the fact, that Tom could probably have thrashed 
 any boy in the room except the praepostor ; at any rate, 
 every boy knew that he would try upon very slight provo- 
 cation, and didn’t choose to run the risk of a hard fight be- 
 cause Tom Brown had taken a fancy to say his prayers. 
 Some of the small boys of number 4 communicated the new 
 state of things to their chums, and in several other rooms 
 the poor little fellows tried it on ; in one instance or so 
 where the praepostor heard of it and interfered very decided- 
 ly, with partial success ; but in the rest, after a short strug- 
 gle, the confessors were bullied or laughed down, and the oi l 
 state of things went on for some time longer. Before eithe 
 Tom Brown or Arthur left the school-house, there was n 
 room in which it had not become the regular custom. 1 
 trust it is so still, and that the old heathen state of things 
 has gone out forever. 
 
172 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NEW BOY. 
 
 And Heaven's rich instincts in him grew, 
 
 As effortless as woodland nooks 
 
 Send violets up and paint them blue. — L owell. 
 
 I DO not mean to recount all the little troubles and an- 
 noyances which thronged upon Tom at the beginning of 
 this half-year, in his new character of bear-leader to a 
 gentle little boy straight from home. He seemed to him- 
 self to have become a new boy again, without any of the 
 long-suffering and meekness indispensable for supporting 
 that character with moderate success. From morning till 
 night he had the feeling of responsibility on his mind; and 
 even if he left Arthur in their study or in the close for an 
 hour, was never at ease till he had him in sight again. He 
 waited for him at the doors of the school after every lesson 
 and every calling-over; watched that no tricks were played 
 him, and none but the regulation questions asked ; kept 
 Lis eye on his plate at dinner and breakfast, to see that no 
 unfair depredations were made upon his viands ; in short, 
 as East remarked, cackled after him like a hen with one 
 chick. 
 
 Arthur took a long-time thawing too, which made it all 
 the harder work ; was sadly timid ; scarcely ever spoke 
 unless Tom spoke to him first ; and, worst of all, would 
 agree with him in everything, the hardest thing in the 
 world for a Brown to bear. He got quite angry sometimes, 
 as they sat together of a night in their study, at this pro- 
 voking habit of agreement, and was on the point of break- 
 ing out a dozen times with a lecture upon the propriety of 
 a fellow having a will of his own and speaking out ; but 
 managed to restrain himself by the thought that it might 
 only frighten Arthur, and the remembrance of the lesson 
 he had learned from him on his first night at number 4. 
 Then he would resolve to sit still, and not say a word till 
 Arthur began; but he was always beat at that game, and 
 had presently to begin talking in despair, fearing lest 
 Arthur might think he was vexed at something if he didn’t, 
 and dog-tired of sitting tongue-tied. 
 
 It was hard work ! But Tom had taken it up, and 
 
THE NEW BOY. 
 
 178 
 
 meant to stick to it, and go through with it, so as to satis- 
 fy himself ; in which resolution he was much assisted by 
 the chaffing of East and his other old friends, who began 
 to call him “ dry nurse,” and otherwise to break their small 
 wit on him. But when they took other ground, as they 
 did every now arid then, Tom was surely puzzled. 
 
 “Tell you what, Tommy,” East would say, “ you’ll spoil 
 young Hopeful with too much coddling. Why can’t you 
 let him go about by himself and find his own level? He’ll 
 never be worth a button, if you go on keeping him under 
 your skirts.” 
 
 “ Well, but he ain’t fit to fight his own way yet ; I’m try- 
 ing to get him to it every day — but he is very odd. Poor 
 little beggar ! I can’t make him out a bit. He ain’t a bit 
 like anything I’ve ever seen or heard of — he seems all over 
 nerves ; anything you say seems to hurt him like a cut or 
 a blow.” 
 
 “ That sort of boy’s no use here,” said East, “ he’ll 
 only spoil. Now I’ll tell you w hat to do. Tommy. Go 
 and get a nice large band-box made, and put him in with 
 plenty of cotton wool, and a pap-bottle, labeled 6 With care 
 — this side up,’ and send him back to mamma.” 
 
 “ I think I shall make a hand of him though,” said Tom, 
 smiling, “ say what you will. There’s something about 
 him, every now and then, which shows me he’s got pluck 
 somewhere in him. That’s the only thing after all that’ll 
 wash, ain’t it, old Scud? But how to get at it and bring 
 it out ? ” 
 
 Tom took one handout of his breeches-pocket and stuck 
 it in his back hair for a scratch, giving his hat a tilt over 
 his nose, his one method of invoking wisdom. . He stared 
 at the ground with a ludicrously puzzled look, and pres- 
 ently looked up and met East’s eyes. That young gentle- 
 man slapped him on the back, and then put his arm round 
 his shoulder, as they strolled through the quadrangle to- 
 gether. “ Tom,” said he, “ blest if you ain’t the best old 
 fellow ever was — I do like to see you go into a thing. 
 Hang it, I wish I could take things as you do — but I never 
 can get hig 1 ‘ ‘oke. Everything’s a joke. If I 
 
 blue funk, but I couldn’t help laughing at it for the life 
 of me,” 
 
 was going 
 
 next minute, I should be in a 
 
174 
 
 TOM BLOWN 9 S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 “ Brown and East, you go and fag for Jones on the great 
 
 fives’-court.” 
 
 “ Hullo, though that’s past a joke,” broke out East, 
 springing at the young gentleman who addressed them, and 
 catching him by the collar. u Here, Tommy, catch hold of 
 him t'other side before he can holla.” 
 
 The youth was seized, and dragged struggling out of the 
 quadrangle into the school-house hall. He was one of the 
 miserable little pretty white-handed, curly-headed boys, 
 pettied and pampered by some of the big fellows, who 
 wrote their verses for them, taught them to drink and use 
 bad language, and did all they could to spoil them for 
 everything* in this world and the next. One of the avo- 
 cations in which these young gentlemen took particular 
 delight Avas in going about and getting fags for their 
 protectors, when those heroes were playing any game. 
 They carried about pencil and paper with them, putting 
 down the names of all the boys they sent, always sending 
 five times as many as were wanted, and getting all those 
 thrashed wdio didn’t go. The present youth belonged to 
 a house which was very jealous of the school-house, and 
 always picked out school-house fags when he could find 
 them. However, this time he’d got the wrong sow by the 
 ear. His captors slammed the great door of the Hall, and 
 East put his back against it, while Tom gave the prisoner a 
 shake up, took away his list, and stood him up on the floor, 
 while he proceeded leisurely to examine that document. 
 
 “ Let me out, let me go ! ” screamed the boy in a furious 
 passion. “I’ll go and tell Jones this minute, and he’ll give 
 
 you both the thrashing you ever had.” 
 
 “ Pretty little dear,” said East, patting the top of his 
 hat; “ hark how he swears, Tom. Nicely brought up young 
 man, ain’t he, I don’t think.” 
 
 “ Let me alone, you,” roared the boy, foaming with 
 
 rage, and kicking at East, who quietly tripped him up, and 
 deposited him on the floor in a place of safety. 
 
 “ Gently, young fellow,” said he ; “ ’taint improving for 
 
 * A kind and wise critic, an old Bugboean, notes here in the margin : 
 The “ small friend system was not so utterly bad from 1841-1847.” Be- 
 fore that, too, there were many noble friendships between big and little 
 boys, but I can’t strike out the passage : many boys will know why it is 
 left in, 
 
THE NEW BOY. 
 
 175 
 
 little whippersnappers like you to be indulging in blas- 
 phemy; so you stop that, or you’ll get something you 
 won’t like.” 
 
 “ I’ll have you both licked when I get out, that I will,” 
 rejoined the boy, beginning to snivel. 
 
 “Two can play at that game, mind you,” said Tom, who 
 had finished his examination of the list. “Now you just 
 listen here. We’ve just come across the fives’-court, and 
 Jones has four fags there already, two more than he wants. 
 If he’d wanted us to change, he’d have stopped us himself. 
 And here, you little blackguard, you’ve got seven names 
 down on your list besides ours, and five of them school- 
 house.” Tom walked up to him and jerked him on to his 
 legs ; he was by this time whining like a whipped puppy. 
 
 “Now just listen to me. We ain’t going to fag for 
 Jones. If you tell him you’ve sent us, we’ll each of us 
 give you such a thrashing as you’ll remember,” and Tom 
 tore up the list and threw the pieces into the fire. 
 
 “ And mind you, too,” said East, “ don’t let me catch 
 you again sneaking about the school-house, and picking up 
 our fags. You haven’t got the sort of hide to take a sound 
 licking kindly ; ” and he opened the door and sent the young 
 gentleman flying into the quadrangle, with a parting kick. 
 
 “ Nice boy, Tommy,” said East, shoving his hands in his 
 pockets and strolling to the fire. 
 
 “Worst sort we breed,” responded Tom, following his 
 example. “ Thank goodness, no big fellow ever took to 
 petting me.” 
 
 “ You’d never have been like that,” said East. “ I should 
 like to have put him in a museum : — Christian young gen- 
 tleman, nineteenth century, highly educated. Stir him up 
 with a long pole, Jack, and hear him swear like a drunken 
 sailor! — He’d make a respectable public open its eyes, I 
 
 “ Think he’ll tell Jones? ” said Tom. 
 
 “No,” said East. “ Don’t care if he does.” 
 
 “ Nor I,” said Tom. And they went back to talk about 
 Arthur. 
 
 The young gentleman had brains enough not to tell 
 Jones, reasoning that East and Brown, who were noted as 
 some of the toughest fags in the school, wouldn’t care 
 three straws for any licking Jones might give them, and 
 
176 
 
 TOM BROWN' & SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 would be likely to keep tbeir words as to passing it on with 
 interest. 
 
 After the above conversation, East came a good deal to 
 their study, and took notice of Arthur ; and soon allowed 
 to Tom that he was a thorough little gentleman, and would 
 get over his shyness all in good time ; which much com- 
 forted our hero. He felt every day, too, the value of hav- 
 ing an object in his life, something that drew him out of 
 himself; and, it being the dull time of the year, and no 
 games going about which he much cared, was happier than 
 he had ever yet been at school, which was saying a great 
 deal. 
 
 The time which Tom allowed himself away from his 
 charge, was from locking-up till supper-time. During this 
 hour or hour-and-half he used to take his fling, going round 
 to the studies of all his acquaintances, sparring or gossiping 
 in the hall, now jumping the old iron-bound tables, or carv- 
 ing a bit of his name on them, then joining in some chorus 
 of merry voices ; in fact, blowing off his steam, as we 
 should now call it. 
 
 This process was so congenial to his temper, and Arthur 
 showed himself so pleased at the arrangement, that it was 
 several weeks before Tom was ever in their study before 
 supper. One evening, however, he rushed in to look for 
 an old chisel, or some corks, or other articles essential to 
 his pursuit for the time being, and while rummaging about 
 in the cupboards, looked up for a moment, and was caught 
 at once by the figure of poor little Arthur. The boy was 
 sitting with his elbows on the table, and his head leaning 
 on his hands, and before him an open book, on which his 
 tears were falling fast. Tom shut the door at once, and 
 sat down on the sofa by Arthur, putting his arm around 
 his neck. 
 
 44 Why, young un ! what’s the matter ? ” said he, kindly ; 
 44 you ain’t unhappy, are you ? ” 
 
 44 Oh no, Brown,” said the little boy, looking up with 
 the great tears in his eyes, 44 you are so kind to me, I’m 
 very happy.” 
 
 46 Why don’t you call me Tom ? Lots of boys do that I 
 don’t like half so much as you. What are you reading, 
 then? Hang it, you must come about with me, and not 
 mope yourself,” and Tom cast down his eyes on the book, 
 
THE NEW BOY. 
 
 17? 
 
 and saw it was the Bible. He was silent for a minute, 
 and thought to himself, 44 Lesson Number 2, Tom Brown,” 
 — and then said gently — 
 
 44 I’m very glad to see this, Arthur, and ashamed that I 
 don’t read the Bible more myself. Do you read it every 
 night before supper while Tm out?” 
 
 44 Yes.” 
 
 44 Well, I wish you’d wait till afterward, and then we’d 
 read together. But, Arthur, why does it make you cry ? ” 
 
 44 Oh, it isn’t that I’m unhappy. But at home, while 
 my father was alive, we always read the lessons after tea ; 
 and I love to read them over now, and try to remember 
 what he said about them. I can’t remember all, and I 
 think I scarcely understand a great deal of what I do 
 remember. But it all comes back to me so fresh, that I 
 can’t help crying sometimes to think I shall never read them 
 again with him.” 
 
 Arthur had never spoken of his home before, and Tom 
 hadn’t encouraged him to do so, as his blundering school- 
 boy reasoning made him think that Arthur would be soft- 
 ened and less manly for thinking of home. But now he 
 was fully interested, and forgot all about chisels and bottled 
 beer; while with very little encouragement Arthur launch- 
 ed into his home history, and the prayer-bell put them 
 both out sadly when it rang to call them to the hall. 
 
 From this time Arthur constantly spoke of his home, 
 and above all of his father, who had been dead about a 
 year, and whose memory Tom soon got to love and rever- 
 ence almost as much as his own son did. 
 
 Arthur’s father had been the clergyman of a parish in 
 the Midland Counties, which had risen into a large town 
 during the war, and upon which the hard years which 
 followed had fallen with a fearful weight. The trade had 
 been half ruined: and then came the old sad story, of 
 masters reducing their establishments, men turned off and 
 wandering about hungry and wan in body and fierce in 
 soul, from the thought of wives and children starving at 
 home, and the last sticks of furniture going to the pawn- 
 shop. Children taken from school, and lounging about the 
 dirty streets and courts, too listless almost to play, and 
 squalid in rags and misery. And then the fearful struggle 
 between the employers and men ; lowerings of wages, 
 
1?8 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 strikes, and the long course of oft-repeated crime, ending 
 every now and then with a riot, a fire, and the county 
 yeomanry. There is no need here to dwell upon such 
 tales ; the Englishman into whose soul they have not sunk 
 deep is not worthy the name; you English boys for whom 
 this book is meant (God bless your bright faces and kind 
 hearts !) will learn it all soon enough. 
 
 Into such a parish and state of society, Arthur’s father 
 had been thrown at the age of twenty-five, a young married 
 parson, full of faith, hope and love. He had battled with 
 it like a man, and had lots of fine Utopian ideas about the 
 perfectibility of mankind, glorious humanity and such-like 
 knocked out of his head ; and a real wholesome Christian 
 love for the poor struggling, sinning men, of whom he felt 
 himself one, and with and for whom he spent fortune, and 
 strength, and life, driven into his heart. He had battled 
 like a man, and had got a man’s reward. No silver teapots 
 or salvers, with flowery inscriptions, setting forth his 
 virtues and the appreciation of a genteel parish ; no fat 
 living nor stall, for which he never looked, and didn’t care ; 
 no sighs and praises of comfortable dt) wagers and well got- 
 up young women, who worked him slippers, sugared his 
 tea, and adored him as 6 a devoted man ’ ; but a manly re- 
 spect, wrung from the unwilling souls of men who fancied 
 his order their natural enemies ; the fear and hatred of 
 every one who was false or unjust in the district, were he 
 master or man ; and the blessed sight of women and Chil- 
 ds en daily becoming more human and more homely, a com- 
 fort to themselves and to their husbands and fathers. 
 
 These things of course took time, and had to be fought 
 for with toil and sweat of brain and heart, and with the 
 life-blood poured out. All that, Arthur had laid his ac- 
 count to give, and took as a matter of course ; neither pity- 
 ing himself, nor looking on himself as a martyr, when he 
 felt the wear and tear making him feel old before his time, 
 and the stifling air of fever dens telling on his health. 
 His wife seconded him in everything. She had been 
 rather fond of society, and much admired and run after 
 before her marriage ; and the London world, to which she 
 had belonged, pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she married 
 the young clergyman and went to settle in that smoky hole 
 Turley, a very nest of Chartism and Atheism, in a part of 
 
THE NEW BOY. 
 
 179 
 
 the county which all the decent families had had to leave 
 for years. However, somehow or other she didn’t seem to 
 care. If her husband’s living had been among green fields 
 and near pleasant neighbors, she would have liked it better, 
 that she never pretended to deny. But there they were : 
 the air wasn’t bad after all ; the people were very good 
 sort of people, civil to you if you were civil to them, after 
 the first brush ; and they didn’t expect to work miracles, 
 and convert them all off-hand into model Christians. So 
 he and she went quietly among the folk, talking to and 
 treating them just as they would have done people of their 
 own rank. They didn’t feel that they were doing anything 
 out of the common way, and so were perfectly natural, and 
 had none of that condescension or consciousness of manner 
 which so outrages the independent poor. And thus they 
 gradually won respect and confidence ; and after sixteen 
 years he was looked up to by the whole neighborhood 
 as the just man, the man to whom masters and men 
 could go to in their strikes, and in all their quarrels 
 and difficulties, and by whom the right and true word 
 would be said without fear or favor. And the women had 
 come round to take her advice, and go to her as a friend in 
 all their troubles ; while the children all worshiped the 
 very ground she trod on. 
 
 They had three children, two daughters and a son, little 
 Arthur, who came between his sisters. He had been a 
 very delicate boy from his childhood ; they thought he had 
 a tendency to consumption, and so he had been kept at 
 home and taught by his father, who had made a companion 
 of him, and from whom he had gained good scholarship, 
 and a knowledge of and interest in many subjects which 
 boys in general never come across, till they are many years 
 older. 
 
 Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had 
 settled that he was strong enough to go to school, and, 
 after much debating with himself, had resolved to send him 
 there, a desperate typhus-fever broke out in the town ; 
 most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors, ran 
 away ; the work fell with tenfold weight on those who 
 stood to their work. Arthur and his wife both caught the 
 fever, of which he died in a few days, and she recovered, 
 having been able to nurse him to the end, and store up his 
 
180 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS 
 
 last words. He was sensible to the last, and calm and 
 happy, leaving his wife and children with fearless trust for 
 a few years in the hands of the Lord and Friend who had 
 lived and died for him, and for whom he, to the best of his 
 power, had lived and died. His widow’s mourning was 
 deep and gentle ; she was more affected by the request of 
 the Committee of a Free-thinking Club, established in the 
 town by some of the factory hands, (which he had striven 
 against with might and main, and nearly suppressed), that 
 some o l their number might be allowed to help bear the 
 coffin, than by anything else. Two of them were chosen, 
 who with six other laboring men, his own fellow-workmen 
 and friends, bore him to his grave — a man who had fought 
 the Lord’s fight even unto the death. The shops were 
 closed and the factories shut that day in the parish, yet no 
 master stopped the day’s wages ; but for many a year 
 afterward the townsfolk felt the want of that brave, hope- 
 ful, loving parson, and his wife, who had lived to teach 
 them mutual forbearance and helpfulness, and had almost 
 at last given them a glimpse of what this old world would 
 be if people would live for God and each other, instead of 
 for themselves. 
 
 What has all this to do with our story ? Well, my dear 
 boys, let a fellow go on his own way, or you won’t get anj^- 
 thing out of him worth having. I must show you what 
 sort of a man it was who had begotten and trained little 
 Arthur, or else you won’t believe in him, which I am re- 
 solved you shall do ; and you won’t see how he, the timid 
 weak boy, had points in him from which the bravest and 
 strongest recoiled, and made his presence and example felt 
 from the first on all sides, unconsciously to himself, and 
 without the least attempt at proselytizing. The spirit of 
 his father was in him, and the Friend to whom his father 
 had left him did not neglect the trust. 
 
 After supper that night, and almost nightly for years 
 afterward, Tom and Arthur, and by degrees East occasion- 
 ally, and sometimes one, sometimes another, of their friends, 
 read a chapter of the Bible together, and talked it over 
 afterward. Tom was at first utterly astonished, and almost 
 shocked, at the sort of way in which Arthur read the book, 
 and talked about the men and women whose lives were 
 there told. The first night they happened to fall on the 
 
THE NEW BOY. 
 
 181 
 
 chapters about the famine in Egypt, and Arthur began 
 talking about Joseph as if he were a living statesman ; 
 just, as he might have talked about Lord Grey and the 
 Reform Bill ; only that they were much more living realities 
 to him. The book was to him, Tom saw, the most vivid 
 and delightful history of real people, who might do right 
 or wrong, just like any one who was walking about in 
 Rugby — the Doctor, or the masters, or the sixth-form boys. 
 But the astonishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to 
 drop from his eyes, and the book became at once and for- 
 ever to him the great human and divine book, and the 
 men and women, whom he had looked upon as something 
 quite different from himself, became his friends and coun- 
 selors. 
 
 For our purposes, however, the history of one night’s 
 reading will be sufficient, which must be told here, now we 
 are on the subject, though it didn’t happen till a year after- 
 ward, and long after the events recorded in the next chap- 
 ter of our story. 
 
 Arthur, Tom and East were together one night, and read 
 the story of Naaman coming to Elisha to be cured of his 
 leprosy. When the chapter was finished, Tom shut his 
 Bible with a slap. 
 
 “I can’t stand that fellow Naaman,” said he, “ after 
 what he’d seen and felt, going back and bowing himself 
 down in the house of Rimmon, because his effeminate 
 scoundrel of a master did it. I wonder Elisha took the 
 trouble to heal him. How he must have despised him.” 
 
 “ Yes, there you go off as usual, with a shell on your 
 head,” struck in East, who always took the opposite side 
 to Tom ; half from love of argument, half from conviction. 
 “ How do you know he didn’t think better of it? How 
 do you know his master was a scoundrel ? His letter don’t 
 look like it, and the book don’t say so.” 
 
 “I don’t care,” rejoined Tom; “ why did Naaman talk 
 about bowing down, then, if he didn’t mean to do it? He 
 wasn’t likely to get more in earnest when he got back to 
 court, and away from the prophet.” 
 
 “ Well but, Tom,” said Arthur, “look what Elisha said 
 to him, ‘Go in peace.’ He wouldn’t have said that if Naa- 
 man had been in the wrong.” 
 
 “ I don’t see that that means more than saying, ‘You’re 
 not the man I took you for.” 
 
182 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 “ No, no, that won’t do at all,” said East; “read the words 
 fairly, and take men as you find them. I like Naaman, and 
 think he was a very fine fellow.” 
 
 “ I don’t,” said Tom positively. 
 
 “ Well, I think East is right, said Arthur; “I can’t see 
 but what it’s right to do the best you can, though it mayn’t 
 be the best absolutely. Every man isn’t born to be a 
 martyr.” 
 
 “ Of course, of course,” said East; “but he’s on one of 
 his pet hobbies. How often have I told you, Tom, that you 
 must drive a nail where it ’ll go,” 
 
 “ And how often have T told you,” rejoined Tom, “ that 
 it ’ll always go where you want, if you only stick to it and 
 hit hard enough. I hate half measures and compromises.” 
 “ Yes, he’s a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must have the 
 whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and tail,” laughed East. 
 “ Sooner have no bread any day than half the loaf.” 
 
 “I don’t know,” said Arthur, “ it’s rather puzzling ; but 
 ain’t most right things got by proper compromises, I mean 
 where the principle isn’t given up ? ” 
 
 “That’s just the poiot,” said Tom ; “ I don’t object to a 
 compromise where you don’t give up your principle.” 
 
 “Not you,” said East laughingly. “I know him of old. 
 Arthur, and you’ll find him out some day. There isn’t 
 such a reasonable fellow in the world, to hear him talk. 
 He never wants anything but what’s right and fair ; only 
 when you come to settle what’s right and fair, it’s every- 
 thing that he wants, and nothing that you want. And 
 that’s his idea of a compromise. Give me the Brown com- 
 promise when I’m on his side.” 
 
 “Now, Harry,” said Tom, “no more chaff — I’m serious. 
 Look here — this is what makes my blood tingle and he 
 turned over the pages of his Bible and read, “ Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, 
 
 6 O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in 
 this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to 
 deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will de- 
 liver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known 
 unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor wor- 
 ship the golden image which thou hast set up.’ ” He read 
 the last verse twice, emphasizing the nots, and dwelling on 
 them as if they gave him actual pleasure, and were hard to 
 part with. 
 
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND . 
 
 183 
 
 They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said, “ Yes, 
 that’s a glorious story, but it don’t prove your point, Tom, 
 I think. There are times when there is only one way, and 
 that the highest, and then the men are found to stand in 
 the breach.” 
 
 “ There’s always a highest way, and it’s always the right 
 one,” said Tom. “ How many times has the Doctor told 
 us that in his sermons in the last year, I should like to 
 know ? ” 
 
 64 Well, you ain’t going to convince us, is he, Arthur? 
 No Brown compromise to night,” said East, looking at his 
 watch. “ But it’s past eight, and we must go to first les- 
 son. What a bore ! ” 
 
 So they took down their books and fell to work ; but 
 Arthur didn’t forget, and thought long and often over the 
 conversation. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 
 
 Let nature be your teacher : 
 
 Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 
 
 Our meddling intellect 
 
 Misshapes the beauteous forms of things. 
 
 We murder to dissect — 
 
 Enough of Science and of Art ; 
 
 Close up those barren leaves ; 
 
 Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
 That watches and receives. — Wordswobth. 
 
 About six weeks after the beginning of the half, as Tom 
 and Arthur were sitting one night before supper beginning 
 their verses, Arthur suddenly stopped, and looked up, and 
 said, “ Tom, do you know anything of Martin ? ” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Tom, taking his hand out of his back hair, 
 and delighted to throw his Grradus ad Parnassum on to the 
 sofa ; “I know him pretty well. He’s a very good fellow, 
 but as mad as a hatter. He’s called Madman, you know. 
 And never was such a fellow forgetting all sorts of rum 
 things about him. He tamed two snakes last half, and used 
 to carry them about in his pocket, and I’ll be bound he’s got 
 some hedgehogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one 
 knows what besides.” 
 
 “ I should like very much to know him,” said Arthur ; “ he 
 
184 
 
 TOM BROWN 9 S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 was next to me in the form to-day, and he’d lost his book and 
 looked over mine, and he seemed so kind and gentle that I 
 liked him very much.” 
 
 44 Ah, poor old Madman, he’s always losing his books,” 
 said Tom, 44 and getting called up and floored because he 
 hasn’t got them.” 
 
 44 I like him all the better,” said Arthur. 
 
 44 Well, he’s great fun, I can tell you,” said Tom throwing 
 himself back on the sofa, and chuckling at the remembrance. 
 44 We had such a game with him one day last half. He had 
 been kicking up horrid stinks for some time in his study, till 
 I suppose some fellow told Mary, and she told the Doctor. 
 Anyhow, one day a little before dinner, when he came down 
 from the library, the Doctor instead of going home, came 
 striding into the hall. East and I and five or six other fel- 
 lows were at the fire, and preciously we stared, for he don’t 
 come in like that once a-year, unless it is a wet day and 
 there is a fight in the hall. 6 East,’ says he, 4 just come and 
 show me Martin’s study.’ 4 Oh, here’s a game,’ whispered 
 the rest of us, and we all cut up stairs after the Doctor, East 
 leading. As we got into the New Row, which was hardly 
 wide enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, click, click, 
 click, we heard in the old Madman’s den. Then that stop- 
 ped all of a sudden, and the bolts went to like fun ; the 
 Madman knew East’s step, and thought there was going to 
 be a siege. 
 
 44 4 It’s the Doctor, Martin. He’s here and wants to see 
 you,’ sings out East. 
 
 44 Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door opened, 
 and there was the old Madman standing, looking precious 
 scared; his jacket off, his shirt-sleeves up to his elbows, and 
 his long skinny arms all covered with anchors and arrows 
 and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor-boy’s, 
 and a stink fit to knock you down coming out. ’Twas all 
 the Doctor could do to hold his ground, and East and I, 
 who were looking in under his arms, held our noses tight. 
 The old magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his 
 feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and half-poisoned. 
 
 44 4 What can you be about, Martin ? ’ says the Doctor ; 
 4 you really mustn’t go on in this way — you’re a nuisance 
 
Alt THU It MAKES A FRIEND. 
 
 185 
 
 isn’t any harm in it ; ’ and the Madman seized nervously on 
 his pestle and mortar, to show the Doctor the harmlessness 
 of his pursuits, and went off pounding; click, click, click; 
 he hadn’t given six clicks before, puff ! up went the whole 
 into a great blaze, away went the pestle and mortar across 
 the study, and back we tumbled into the passage. The 
 magpie fluttered down into the court, swearing and the 
 Madman danced out, howling, with his fingers in his mouth. 
 The Doctor caught hold of him, and called to us to fetch 
 some water. ‘There, you silly fellow,’ said he, quite pleased 
 though to find he wasn’t much hurt, 4 you see you don't 
 know the least what you’re doing with all these things ; and 
 now, mind, you must give up practicing chemistry by 
 yourself.’ Then he took hold of his arm and looked at it, 
 and I saw he had to bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled ; but 
 he said, quite grave, 4 Here, you see, you’ve been making 
 all these foolish marks on yourself, which you can never 
 get out, and you’ll be very sorry for it in a year or two : now 
 come down to the housekeeper’s room, and let us see if you 
 are hurt.’ And away went the two, and we all stayed and 
 had a regular turn-out of the den, till Martin came back 
 with his hand bandaged and turned us out. However, I’ll 
 go and see what he’s after, and tell him to come in after 
 prayers to supper.” And away went Tom to find the boy 
 in question, who dwelt in a little study by himself, in New 
 Row. 
 
 The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken such a 
 fancy for, was one of those unfortunates who were at that 
 time of day (and are, I fear, still) quite out of their places 
 at a public school. If we knew how to use our boys, 
 Martin would have been seized upon and educated as a nat- 
 ural philosopher. He had a passion for birds, beasts, and 
 insects, and knew more of them and their habits than any 
 one in Rugby ; except perhaps the Doctor, who knew every- 
 thing. He was also an experimental chemist on a small 
 scale, and had made unto himself an electric machine, from 
 which it was his greatest pleasure and glory to administer 
 small shocks to any small boys who were rash enough to 
 venture into his study. And this was by no means an 
 adventure free from excitement ; for, besides the probabil- 
 ity of a snake dropping on to your head or twining lovingly 
 up your leg, or a rat getting into your breeches-pocket in 
 
186 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 search of food, there was the animal and chemical odor to 
 be faced, which always hung about the den, and the chance 
 of being blown up in some of the many experiments which 
 Martin was always trying, with the most wondrous results 
 in the shape of explosions and smells that mortal boy ever 
 heard of. Of course, poor Martin, in consequence of his 
 pursuits, had become an Ishmaelite in the house. In the 
 first place, he half-poisoned all his neighbors, and they is 
 turn were always on the look-out to pounce upon any of 
 his numerous live-stock, and drive him frantic by enticing 
 his pet old magpie out of his window into a neighboring- 
 study, and making the disreputable old bird drunk on toast 
 soaked in beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, inhab- 
 ited a study looking into a small court some ten feet across, 
 the window of which was completely commanded by those 
 of the studies opposite in the sick-room row, these latter 
 being at a slightly higher elevation. East, and another boy 
 of an equally tormenting and ingenious turn of mind, now 
 lived exactly opposite, and had expended huge pains and 
 time in the preparation of instruments of annoyance for the 
 behoof of Martin and his live company. One morning an 
 old basket made its appearance, suspended by a short cord 
 outside Martin’s window, in which were deposited an ama- 
 teur nest containing four young hungry jackdaws, the pride 
 and glory of Martin’s life for the time being, and which he 
 was currently asserted to have hatched upon his own person. 
 Early in the morning, and late at night he was to be seen 
 half out of the window, administering to the varied wants 
 of his callow brood. After deep cogitation, East and Iris 
 chum had spliced a knife on to the end of a fishing-rod ; an ! 
 having watched Martin out, had, after half an hour’s sever e 
 sawing, cut the string by which the basket was suspended, 
 and tumbled it on to the payment below, with hideous re- 
 monstrance from the occupants. Poor Martin, returning 
 from his short absence, collected the fragments and re- 
 placed his brood (except one whose neck had been broken 
 in the descent) in their old location, suspending them this 
 time by string and wire twisted together, defiant of any 
 sharp instrument which his persecutors could command. 
 But, like the Russian engineers at Sebastopol, East and his 
 chum had an answer for every move of the adversary; and 
 the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a pea- 
 
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 
 
 187 
 
 shooter, upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to 
 bear exactly upon the spot which Martin had to occupy 
 while tending his nurselings. The moment he began to 
 feed, they began to shoot ; in vain did the enemy himself 
 invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavor to answer the fire 
 while he fed the young birds with his other hand; his atten- 
 tion was divided, and his shots flew wild, while every one 
 of theirs told on his face and hands, and drove him into 
 howlings and imprecations. He had been driven to en- 
 sconce the nest in a corner of his already too ^veil-filled den. 
 
 His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious bolts of 
 his own invention, for the sieges were frequent by the 
 neighbors when any unusually ambrosial odor spread itself 
 from the den to the neighboring studies. The door panels 
 were in a normal state of smash, but the frame of the door 
 resisted all besiegers, and behind it the owner carried on 
 his varied pursuits ; much in the same state of mind, I 
 should fancy, as a Border-farmer lived in, in the days of 
 the old moss-troopers, when his gold might be summoned 
 or his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day. 
 
 “ Open, Martin, old boy — it’s only I, Tom Brown.” 
 
 “ Oh, very well, stop a moment.” One bolt went back. 
 “ You’re sure East isn’t there.” 
 
 “ No, no, hang it, open.” Tom gave a kick, the other 
 bolt creaked, and he entered the den. 
 
 Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches long by 
 five wide, and seven feet high. About six tattered school- 
 books, and a few chemical books, Taxidermy, Stanley on 
 Birds, and an odd volume of Bewick, the latter in much 
 better preservation, occupied the top shelves. The other 
 shelves, where they had not been cut away and used by the 
 owner for other purposes, were fitted up for the abiding 
 places of birds, beasts and reptiles. There was no attempt 
 at carpet or curtain. The table was entirely occupied by 
 the great work of Martin, the electric machine, which was 
 covered carefully with the remains of his table-cloth. The 
 jackdaw cage occupied one wall, and the other was adorned 
 by a small hatchet, a pair of climbing irons, and his tin 
 candle-box, in which he was for the time being endeavoring 
 to raise a hopeful young family of field mice. As nothing 
 should be let to lie useless, it was well that the candle-box 
 was thus occupied, for candles Martin never had. A pound 
 
188 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 was issued to him weekly, as to the other boys, but as 
 candles were available capital, and easily exchangeable for 
 birds’-eggs or young birds, Martin’s pound invariably 
 found its way in a few hours to Howlett’s the bird-fancier’s 
 in the Bilton road, who would give a hawk’s or nightin- 
 gale’s egg or young linnet in exchange. Martin’s ingen- 
 uity was therefore forever on the rack to supply himself 
 with a light ; just now he had hit upon a grand invention, 
 and the den was lighted by a flaring cotton-wick issued 
 from a ginger beer-bottle full of some doleful composition. 
 When light altogether failed him, Martin would loaf about 
 by the fires in the passages or hall after the manner of 
 Diggs, and try to do his verses or learn his lines by the 
 fire-light. 
 
 “ Well, old boy, you haven’t got any sweeter in the den 
 this half. How that stuff in the bottle stinks. Never mind, 
 I ain’t going to stop, but you come up after prayers to our 
 study ; you know young Arthur; we've got Gray’s study. 
 We’ll have a good supper- and talk about birds’-nesting.” 
 
 Martin was evidently highly pleased at the invitation, 
 and promised to be up without fail. 
 
 As soon as prayers were over, and the sixth and fifth- 
 form boys had withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of 
 their own room, and the rest, or democracy, had sat down 
 to their supper in the hall, Tom and Arthur, having se- 
 cured their allowances of bread and cheese, started on 
 their feet to catch the eye of the praepostor of the week, 
 who remained in charge during supper, walking up and 
 down the hall. He happened to be an easj'-going fellow, 
 so they got a pleasant nod to their “ Please may I go out? ” 
 and away they scrambled to prepare for Martin a sumpt- 
 uous banquet. This Tom had insisted on, for he was in 
 great delight on the occasion ; the reason of which delight 
 must be expounded. The fact was, this was the first 
 attempt at a friendship of his own which Arthur had made, 
 and Tom hailed it as a grand step. The ease with which 
 he himself became hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, and 
 blundered into and out of twenty friendships a half-year, 
 made him sometimes sorry and sometimes angry at Arthur’s 
 reserve and loneliness. True, Arthur was always pleasant 
 and even jolly, with any boys who came with Tom to their 
 study ; but Tom felt that it was only through him, as it 
 
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 
 
 189 
 
 were, that his chum associated with others, and that but for 
 him Arthur would have been dwelling in a wilderness. 
 This increased his consciousness of responsibility ; and 
 though he hadn’t reasoned it out and made it clear to him- 
 self, yet somehow he knew that this responsibility, this 
 trust which he had taken on him without thinking about 
 it, head over heels in fact, was the center and turning point 
 of his school-life, that which was to make him or mar him ; 
 his appointed work and trial for the time being. And Tom 
 was becoming a new boj^, though with frequent tumbles 
 in the dirt and perpetual hard battles with himself, and 
 was daily growing in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as 
 every high-couraged and well-principled boy must, when 
 he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with 
 self and the devil. Already he could turn almost without 
 a sigh from the school-gates, from which had just scam- 
 pered off East and three or four others of his own partic- 
 ular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite according to 
 law, and involving probably a row with louts, keepers, or 
 farm-laborers, the skipping dinner or calling-over, some of 
 Phoebe Jenning’s beer, and a very possible flogging at the 
 end of all as a relish. He had quite got over the stage in 
 which he would grumble to himself, “Well, hang it, it’s 
 very hard of the Doctor to have saddled me with Arthur. 
 Why couldn’t he have chummed him with Fogey, or Thom- 
 kin, or any of the fellows who never do anything but walk 
 round the close, and finish their copies the first day they’re 
 set ? ” But although all this was past, he often longed, 
 and felt that he was right in longing for more time for the 
 legitimate pastimes of cricket fives, bathing, and fishing 
 within bounds, in which Arthur could not yet be his com- 
 panion ; and he felt that when the young ’un (as he now 
 generally called him) had found a pursuit and some other 
 friend for himself, he should be able to give more time to 
 the education of his own body with a clear conscience. 
 
 And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he 
 almost hailed it as a special providence (as indeed it was, 
 but not for the reasons he gave it — what providences are ?) 
 that Arthur should have singled out Martin of all fellows 
 for a friend. “ The old Madman is the very fellow,” 
 thought he ; “ he will take him scrambling over half the coun- 
 try after bird’s eggs and flowers, make him run and swim 
 
190 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 and climb like an Indian, and not teach him a word of any- 
 thing bad, or keep him from his lessons. What luck ! ” 
 And so, with more than his usual heartiness, he dived into 
 his cupboard, and hauled out an old knucklebone of ham, 
 and two or three bottles of beer, together with the solemn 
 pewter only used on state occasions ; while Arthur, equally 
 elated at the easy accomplishment of his first act of volition 
 in the joint establishment, produced from his side a bot- 
 tle of pickless and a pot of jam, and cleared the table. In 
 a minute or two the noise of the boys coming up from sup- 
 per was heard, and Martin knocked and was admitted, bear- 
 ing his bread and cheese, and the three fell to with hearty 
 good-will upon the viands, talking faster than they ate, for 
 all shyness disappeared in a moment before Tom’s bottled 
 beer and hospitable ways. “ Here’s Arthur, a regular young 
 town mouse, with a natural taste for the woods, Martin, 
 longing to break his neck climbing trees and with a pas- 
 sion for young snakes.” 
 
 “Well, I say,” sputtered out Martin eagerly, “will you 
 come to-morrow, both of you, to Caldecott’s Spinney, then, 
 for I know of a kestrel’s nest, up a fir-tree — I can’t get at 
 it without help ; and, Brown you can climb against any 
 one.” 
 
 “Oh yes, do let us go,” said Arthur ; “I never saw a 
 hawk’s nest, nor a hawk’s egg.” 
 
 “ You just come down to my study then, and I’ll show 
 you five sorts,” said Martin. 
 
 “Ay, the old Madman has got the best collection in the 
 house, out-and-out,” said Tom ; and then Martin, warming 
 with unaccustomed good cheer and the chance of a con- 
 vert, launched out into a proposed birds’-nesting campaign 
 betraying all manner of important secrets ; a golden crest- 
 ed wren’s nest near Butlin’s Mound, a moor-hen that was 
 sitting on nine eggs in a pond down the Barby Road, and 
 a king fisher’s nest in a corner of the old canal above 
 Brownsover Mill. He had heard, he said, that no one had 
 ever got a kingfisher’s nest out perfect, and that the Brit- 
 ish Museum, or the Government, or somebody, had offer- 
 ed £100 to any one who could bring them a nest and eggs 
 not damaged. In the middle of which astounding announce- 
 ment, to which the others were listening with open ears, 
 already considering the application of the £100, a knock 
 
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND . 
 
 191 
 
 came at the door, and East’s voice was heard craving 
 admittance. 
 
 44 There’s Harry,” said Tom ; 44 we’ll let him in — I’ll keep 
 him steady, Martin. I thought the old boy would smell 
 out the supper.” 
 
 The fact was that Tom’s heart had already smitten him 
 Tor not asking his “jidus Achates ” to the feast, although 
 only an extempore affair ; and though prudence and the 
 desire to get Martin and Arthur together alone at first had 
 overcome his scruples, he was now heartily glad to open the 
 door, broach another bottle of beer, and hand over the old 
 harmknuckle to the searching of his old friend’s pocket- 
 knife. 
 
 44 Ah, you greedy vagabonds,” said East, with his mouth 
 full; 44 1 knew there was something going on when I saw 
 you cut off out of hall so quick with your suppers. What 
 a stunning tap, Tom ! you are a wunner for bottling the 
 swipes.” 
 
 44 I’ve had practice enough for the sixth in my time, and 
 it’s hard if I haven’t picked up a wrinkle or two for my 
 own benefit.” 
 
 44 Well, old Madman, how goes the birds’-nesting cam- 
 paign ? How’s Howlett ? I expect the young rooks’ll be 
 out in another fortnight, and then my turn comes.” 
 
 44 There’ll be no young rooks fit for pies for a month yet ; 
 shows how much you know about it,” rejoined Martin, who 
 though very good friends with East, regarded him with 
 considerable suspicion for his propensity to practical jokes. 
 
 44 Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing but grub 
 and mischief,” said Tom; 44 But young rook pie, specially 
 when you’ve had to climb for them, is very pretty eating. 
 However, I say, Scud, we’re all going after a hawk’s nest 
 to-morrow, in Caldecott’s Spinney ; and if you’ll come and 
 behave yourself, we’ll have a stunning climb.” 
 
 44 And a bathe in Aganippe. Hooray ! I’m your man ! ” 
 
 44 No, no; no bathing in Aganippe; that’s where our 
 betters go.” 
 
 44 Well, well, never mind. I’m for the hawk’s nest and 
 anything that turns up.” 
 
 And the bottled-beer being finished, and his hunger 
 appeared, East departed to his study, 44 that sneak Jones,” 
 as he informed them, who had just got into the sixth and 
 
192 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 occupied the next study, having instituted a nightly visi- 
 tation upon East and his chum, to their no small discom- 
 fort. 
 
 When he was gone, Martin rose to follow, but Tom 
 stopped him. 
 
 “No one goes near New Row,” said he, “so you may 
 just as well stop here and do your verses, and then we’ll 
 have some more talk. We’ll be no end quiet ; besides, no 
 praepostor comes here now — we haven’t been visited once 
 this half.’ 
 
 So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, and the 
 three fell to work with Gradus and dictionary upon the 
 morning’s vulgus. 
 
 They were three very fair examples of the way in which 
 such tasks were done at Rugby, in the consulship of Plan- 
 cus. And doubtless the method is little changed, for there 
 is nothing new under the sun, especially at school. 
 
 Now be it known unto all you boys who are at schools 
 which do not rejoice in the time-honored institution of the 
 Vulgus (commonly supposed to have been established by 
 William of Wykeham at Winchester, and imported to 
 Rugby by Arnold, more for the sake of the lines which 
 were learned by heart with it, than fo#its own intrinsic 
 value, as I’ve always understood) that it is a short exercise, 
 in Greek or Latin verse, on a given subject, the minimum 
 number of lines being fixed for each form. The master of 
 the form gave out at fourth lesson on the previous day the 
 subject for next morning’s vulgus, and at first lesson each 
 boy had to bring his vulgus ready to be looked over ; and 
 with the vulgus, a certain number of lines from one of the 
 Latin or Greek poets then being construed in the form had 
 to be got by heart. The master at first lesson called up 
 each boy in the form in order, and put him on in the lines. 
 If he couldn’t say them, or seem to say them, by reading 
 them off the master’s or some other boy’s book who stood 
 near, he was sent back, and went below all the boys who 
 did so say or seem to say them ; but in either case his vul- 
 gus was looked over by the master, who gave and entered 
 in his book, to the credit or discredit of the boy, so many 
 marks as the composition merited. At Rugby vulgus and 
 lines were the first lesson every other day in the week, or 
 Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays ; and as there were 
 
ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 
 
 193 
 
 thirty-eight weeks in the school year, it is obvious to the 
 meanest capacity that the master of each form had to set 
 one hundred and fourteen subjects every year, two hun- 
 dred and twenty-eight every two years, and so on. Now 
 to persons of moderate invention this was a considerable 
 task, and human nature being prone to repeat itself, it will 
 not be wondered that the masters gave the same subjects 
 sometimes over again after a certain lapse of time. To 
 meet and rebuke this bad habit of the masters, the school- 
 boy mind, with its accustomed ingenuity, had invented an 
 elaborate system of tradition. Almost every boy kept his 
 own vulgus written out in a book, and these books were 
 duly handed down from boy to boy, till (if the tradition 
 had gone on until now) I suppose the popular boys, in 
 whose hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumulated, 
 are prepared with three or four vulguses on any subject in 
 heaven or earth, or in “more worlds than one,” which an 
 unfortunate master can pitch upon. At any rate, such 
 lucky fellows had generally one for themselves and one 
 for a friend in my time. The only objection to the tradi- 
 tionary method of doing your vulguses was, the risk that 
 the successions might have become confused, and so that 
 you and another follower of traditions should show up the 
 same identical vulgus some fine morning ; in which case, 
 when it happened, considerable grief was the result — but 
 when did such risk hinder boys or men from short cuts 
 and pleasant paths ? 
 
 Now in the study that night, Tom was the upholder of 
 the traditionary method of vulgus doing. He carefully 
 produced two large vulgus-books, and began diving into 
 them, and picking out a line here, and an ending there 
 (tags, as they were vulgarly called), till he had gotten all 
 that he thought he could make fit. He then proceeded 
 to patch his tags together with the help of his Gradus, pro- 
 ducing an incongruous and feeble result of eight elegiac 
 lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up 
 with two highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, which 
 he cribbed entire from one of his books, beginning “ 0 
 genus humanum ,” and which he himself must have used a 
 dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked 
 hero, of whatever nation or language under the sun, was 
 the subject. Indeed, he began to have great doubt 
 
 13 
 
194 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BATS. 
 
 whether the master wouldn’t remember them, and so only 
 threw them in as extra lines, because in any case they 
 would call off attention from the other tags, and if de- 
 tected, being extra lines, he wouldn’t be sent back to do 
 two more in their place, while if they passed muster again 
 he would get marks for them. 
 
 The second method pursued by Martin maybe called the 
 dogged, or prosaic method. He, no more than Tom, took 
 any pleasure in the task, but having no old vulgus books 
 of his own or any one’s else, could not follow the tradi- 
 tionary method, for which too, as Tom remarked, he 
 hadn’t the genius. Martin then proceeded to write down 
 eight lines in English, of the most matter of fact kind, the 
 first that came into his head ; and to convert these, line by 
 line, by main force of Gradus and dictionary, into Latin 
 that would scan. This was all he cared for, to produce 
 eight lines with no false quantities or concords : whether 
 the words were apt, or what the sense was, mattered 
 nothing ; and, as the article was all new, not a line beyond 
 the minimum did the followers of the dogged method ever 
 produce. 
 
 The third, or artistic method, was Arthur’s. He con- 
 sidered first what point in the character or event which 
 was the subject could most neatly be brought out within 
 the limits of a vulgus, trying always to get his idea into 
 the eight lines, but not binding himself to ten or even 
 twelve lines if he couldn’t do this. He then set to work, 
 as much as possible without Gradus or other help, to clothe 
 his idea in appropriate Latin or Greek, and would not be 
 satisfied till he had polished it well up with the aptest and 
 most poetic words and phrases he could get at. 
 
 A fourth method indeed was used in the school, but of 
 too simple a kind to require a comment. It may be called 
 the vicarious method, obtained among big boys of lazy or 
 bullying habits, and consisted simply in making clever boys 
 whom they could thrash do their whole vulgus for them, 
 and construe it to them afterward ; which latter is a method 
 not to be encouraged, and which I strongly advise you all 
 not to practice. Of the others, you will find the tradition- 
 ary most troublesome, unless you can steal your vulguses 
 whole ( experto crede ), and that the artistic method pays 
 the best both in marks and other ways. 
 
THE BIRD-CATCHER. 
 
 195 
 
 The vulguses being finished by nine o’clock, and Martin 
 having rejoiced above measure in the abundance of light, 
 and of Gradus and dictionary, and other conveniences al- 
 most unknown to him for getting through the work, and 
 having been pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses 
 there whenever he liked, the three boys went down to 
 Martin’s den, and Arthur was initiated into the lore of 
 bird’s-eggs, to his great delight. The exquisite coloring 
 and forms astonished and charmed him who had scarcely 
 ever seen any but a hen’s egg or an ostrich’s, and by the 
 time he was lugged away to bed he had learned the names 
 of at least twenty sorts, and dreamed of the glorious perils 
 of tree-climbing, and that he had found a roc’s egg in the 
 island as big as Sinbad's and clouded like a tit-lark’s, in 
 blowing which Martin and he had nearly been drowned in 
 the yolk. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BIRD-FANCIERS. 
 
 I have found out a gift for my fair, 
 
 I have found where the wood-pigeons breed 
 
 But let me the plunder forbear, 
 
 She would say ’twas a barbarous deed. 
 
 Rowe. 
 
 And now, my lad, take them five shilling, 
 
 And on my advice in future think ; 
 
 So Billy pouched them all so willing, 
 
 4ud got that night disguised in drink. 
 
 MS. Ballad. 
 
 The next morning at first lesson Tom was turned back 
 in his lines, and so had to wait till the second round, while 
 Martin and Arthur said theirs all right and got out of 
 schqol at once. When Tom got out and ran down to break- 
 fast at Harro well’s they were missing, and Stumps informed 
 him that they had swallowed down their breakfasts and gone 
 off together, where he couldn’t say. Tom hurried over his 
 own breakfast, and went first to Martin’s study and then 
 to his own, but no signs of the missing boys were to be 
 found. He felt half angry and jealous of Martin— where 
 could they be gone ? 
 
 He learned second lesson with East and the rest in no very 
 good temper, and then went out into the quadrangle. About 
 
196 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 ten minutes before school Martin and Arthur arrived in 
 the quadrangle breathless ; and, catching sight of him, 
 Arthur rushed up all excitement and with a bright glow 
 on his face. 
 
 44 Oh, Tom, look here,” cried he, holding out three moor- 
 hen’s eggs ; 44 we’ve been down the Barby road to the pool 
 Martin told us of last night, and just see what we’ve got.” 
 
 Tom wouldn’t be pleased, and only looked out for some- 
 thing to find fault with. 
 
 44 Why, young un,” said he, 44 what have you been after ? 
 You don’t mean to say you’ve been wading ? ” 
 
 The tone of reproach made poor little Arthur shrink up 
 in a moment and look piteous, and Tom with a shrug of 
 his shoulders turned his anger on Martin. 
 
 “ Well, I didn’t think, Madman, that you’d have been 
 such a muff as to let him be getting wet through at this 
 time of day. You might have done the wading yourself.” 
 
 44 So I did, of course, only he would come in too to see 
 the nest. We left six eggs in: they’ll be hatched in a 
 day or two.” 
 
 “ Hang the eggs ! ” said Tom ; 44 a fellow can’t turn his 
 back for a moment but all his work’s undone. He’ll be 
 laid up for a week for this precious lark, I’ll be bound.” 
 
 44 Indeed, Tom, now,” pleaded Arthur, 44 my feet ain’t 
 wet, for Martin made me take off my shoes and stockings 
 and trousers.” 
 
 44 But they are wet and dirty, too — can’t I see ? ” an- 
 swered Tom ; 44 and you’ll be called up and floored when the 
 master sees what a state you’re in. You haven’t looked at 
 second lesson, you know.” Oh Tom, you old humbug ! 
 you to be upbraiding any one with not learning their 
 lessons ! If you hadn’t been floored yourself now at first 
 lesson, do you mean to say you wouldn’t have been with 
 them? and you’ve taken away all poor little Arthur’s joy 
 and pride in his first birds’ eggs ; and he goes and puts 
 them down in the study, and takes down his books with a 
 sigh, thinking he has done something horribly wrong, 
 whereas he has learned on in advance much more than 
 will be done at second lesson. 
 
 But the old Madman hasn’t, and gets called up and makes 
 some frightful shots, losing about ten places, and all but 
 getting floored. This somewhat appeases Tom’s wrath, 
 
THE BIRD-CATCHER. 
 
 197 
 
 and by the end of the lesson he has regained his temper. 
 And afterward in their study he begins to get right again, 
 as he watches Arthur’s intense joy at seeing Martin blow- 
 ing the eggs and gluing them carefully on to bits of card- 
 board, and notes the anxious, loving looks which the little 
 fellow casts sidelong at him. And then he thinks, 44 What 
 an ill-tempered beast I am ? Here’s just what I was wish- 
 ing for last night come about, and I’m spoiling it all,” and 
 in another five minutes has swallowed the last mouthful of 
 his bile, and is repaid by seeing his little sensitive-plant 
 expand again, and sun itself in his smiles. 
 
 After dinner the Madman is busy with the preparations 
 for their expedition, fitting new straps on to his climbing- 
 irons, filling large pill-boxes with cotton wool, and sharp- 
 ening East’s small axe. They carry all their munitions 
 into calling-over, and directly afterward, having dodged 
 such praepostors as are on the look-out for fags at cricket, 
 the four set off at a smart trot down the Lawford footpath 
 straight for Caldecott’s Spinney and the hawk’s nest. 
 
 Martin leads the way in high feather ; it is quite a new 
 sensation to him getting companions, and he finds it very 
 pleasant, and means to show them all manner of proofs of 
 his science and skill. Brown and East may be better at 
 cricket and football and games, thinks he, but out in the 
 fields and woods see if I can’t teach them something. He 
 has taken the leadership already, and strides away in front 
 with his climbing-irons strapped under one arm, his pecking- 
 bag under the other, and his pockets and hat full of pill- 
 boxes, cotton wool, and other etceteras. Each of the others 
 carries a pecking-bag, and East his hatchet. 
 
 When they had crossed three or four fields without a 
 check, Arthur began to lag, and Tom seeing this shouted 
 to Martin to pull up a bit : 44 We ain’t out hare-and-hounds 
 — what’s the good of grinding on at this rate ? ” 
 
 “ There’s the Spinney,” said Martin, pulling up on the 
 brow of a slope at the bottom of which lay Lawford brook, 
 and pointing to the top of the opposite slope ; 44 the nestis 
 in one of those high fir-trees at this end. And down by 
 the brook there, I know of a sedge-bird’s nest ; we’ll go 
 and look at it coming back.” 
 
 44 Oh, come on, don’t let us stop,’’ said Arthur, who was 
 getting excited at the sight of the wood ; so they broke 
 
198 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 into a trot again, and were soon across the brook, up the 
 slope, and into the Spinney. Here they advanced as noise- 
 lessly as possible, lest keepers or other enemies should be 
 about, and stopped at the foot of a tall fir, at the top of 
 which Martin pointed out with pride the kestrel’s nest, the 
 object of their quest. 
 
 “ Oh where ! which is it ? ” asks Arthur, gaping up in the 
 air, and having the most vague idea of what it Would be 
 like. 
 
 “ There, don’t you see? ” said East, pointing to a lump 
 of mistletoe in the next tree, which was a beech ; he saw 
 that Martin and Tom were busy with the climbing-irons, 
 and couldn’t resist the temptation of hoaxing. Arthur 
 stared and wondered more than ever. 
 
 “ Well, how curious ! it doesn’t look a bit like what I 
 expected,’’ said he. 
 
 “Very odd birds, kestrels,” said East, looking waggishly 
 at his victim, who was still star-gazing. 
 
 “ But I thought it was in a fir-tree ? ” objected Arthur. 
 
 “Ah, don’t you know? that’s a new sort of fir, which 
 old Caldecott brought from the Himalayas.” 
 
 “ Really ! ” said Arthur ; “ I’m glad I know that— how 
 unlike our firs they are ! They do very well too here, 
 don’t they? The Spinney’s full of them.” 
 
 “What’s that humbug he’s telling you?” cried Tom, 
 looking up, having caught the world Himalayas, and sus- 
 pecting what East was after. 
 
 “ Only about this fir,” said Arthur, putting his hand on 
 the stem of the beech. 
 
 “ Fir ! ” shouted Tom, “ why, you don’t mean to say, 
 young un, you don’t know a beech when you see one ? ” 
 
 Poor little Arthur looked terribly ashamed, and East 
 exploded in laughter which made the wood ring. 
 
 “ I’ve hardly ever seen any trees,” faltered Arthur. 
 
 “ What a shame to hoax him, Scud ! ” cried Martin. 
 “ Never mind, Arthur, you shall know more about trees 
 than he does in a week or two.” 
 
 “ And isn’t that the kestrel’s nest, then ? ” asked Arthur. 
 
 “ That ! why that’s a piece of mistletoe. There’s the 
 nest, that lump of sticks up this fir.” 
 
 “ Don’t believe him, Arthur,” struck in the incorrigible 
 East; “I just saw an old magpie go out of it/’ 
 
THE BIRD-CATCHER. 
 
 199 
 
 Martin did not deign to reply to this sally, except by a 
 grunt, as he buckled the last buckle of his climbing-irons ; 
 and Arthur looked reproachfully at East without speak- 
 ing. 
 
 But now came the tug of war. It was a very difficult 
 tree to climb until the branches were reached, the first of 
 which was some fourteen feet up, for the trunk was too 
 large at the bottom to be swarmed ; in fact, neither of the 
 boys could reach more than half round it with their arms. 
 Martin and Tom, both of whom had irons on, tried it with- 
 out success at first; the fir bark broke away where they 
 stuck the irons in as soon as they leaned any weight on 
 their feet, and the grip of their arms wasn’t enough to keep 
 them up ; so, after getting up three or four feet, down 
 they came slithering to the ground, barking their arms and 
 faces. They were furious, and East sat by laughing and 
 shouting at each failure, “Two to one on the old mag- 
 pie ! ” 
 
 “We must try a pyramid,” said Tom at last. “Now, 
 Scud, you lazy rascal, stick yourself against the tree ! ” 
 
 “ I dare say ! and have you standing on my shoulders 
 with the irons on : what do you think my skin’s made of ? ” 
 However, up he got, and leaned against the tree, putting 
 his head down and clasping it with his arms as far as he 
 could. “ Now then, Madman,” said Tom, “ you next.” 
 
 “ No, I’m lighter than you ; you go next.” So Tom got 
 on East’s shoulders, and grasped the tree above, and then 
 Martin scrambled up on Tom’s shoulders, amid the totter- 
 ings and groanings of the pyramid, and, with a spring 
 which sent his supporters howling to the ground, clasped 
 the stem some ten feet up, and remained clinging. For a 
 moment or two they thought he couldn’t get up, but then, 
 holding on with arms and teeth, he worked first one iron, 
 then the other, firmly into the bark, got another grip with 
 his arms, and in another minute had hold of the lowest 
 branch. 
 
 “ All’s up with the old magpie now,” said East ; and, 
 after a minute’s rest, up went Martin, hand over hand, 
 watched by Arthur with fearful eagerness. 
 
 “ Isn’t it very dangerous ? ” said he. 
 
 “ Not a bit,” answered Tom ; “ you can’t hurt if you 
 only get good hand-hold. Try every branch with a good 
 pull before you trust it, and then up you go.” 
 
200 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DA YS. 
 
 Martin was now among the small branches close to the 
 nest, and away dashed the old bird, and soared up above 
 the trees, watching the intruder. 
 
 “ All right — four eggs ! ” shouted he. 
 
 “ Take ’em all ! ” shouted East ; “ that’ll be one apiece.” 
 
 “ No, no ! leave one, and then she won’t care,” said 
 Tom. 
 
 We boys had an idea that birds couldn’t count, and were 
 quite content as long as you left one egg. I hope it is so. 
 
 Martin carefully put one egg into each of his boxes and 
 the third into his mouth, the only other place of safety, 
 and came down like a lamp-lighter. All went well till he 
 was within ten feet of the ground, when, as the trunk en- 
 larged, his hold got less and less firm, and at last down he 
 came with a run, tumbling on to his back on the turf, splut- 
 tering and spitting out the remains of the great egg, which 
 had broken by the jar of his fall. 
 
 u Ugh, ugh — something to drink — ugh ! it was addled,” 
 spluttered he, while the wood rang again with the merry 
 laughter of East and Tom. 
 
 Then they examined the prizes, gathered up their things, 
 and went off to the brook, where Martin swallowed huge 
 draughts of water to get rid of the taste •, and they visited 
 the sedge-bird’s nest, and from thence struck across the 
 country in high glee, beating the hedges and brakes as 
 they went along ; and Arthur at last, to his intense delight, 
 was allowed to climb a small hedgerow oak for a magpie's 
 nest with Tom, who kept all round him like a mother, and 
 showed him where to hold and how to throw his weight ; 
 and though he was in a great fright, didn’t show it; and 
 was applauded by all for his lissomeness. 
 
 They crossed a road soon afterward, and there close to 
 them lay a heap or charming pebbles. 
 
 u Look here,” shouted East, “ here’s luck ! I’ve been 
 longing for some good honest pecking this half hour. Let’s 
 fill the bags, and have no more of this foozling bird’s- 
 nesting.” 
 
 No one objected, so each boy filled the fustian bag he 
 carried full of stones, they crossed into the next field, Tom 
 and East taking one side of the hedges, and the other two 
 the other side. Noise enough they made certainly, but it 
 was too early in the season for the young birds, and the 
 
THE BIRD-CATCHER. 
 
 201 
 
 old birds were too strong on the wing for our young 
 marksmen, and flew out of shot after the first discharge. 
 But it was great fun, rushing along the hedgerows, and 
 discharging stone after stone at blackbirds and chaffinches, 
 though no result in the shape of slaughtered birds was ob- 
 tained : and Arthur soon entered into it, and rushed to 
 head back the birds, and shouted, and threw, and tumbled 
 into ditches and over and through hedges, as wild as the 
 Madman himself. 
 
 Presently the party, in full cry after an old blackbird 
 (who was evidently used to the thing and enjoyed the fun, 
 for he would wait till they came close to him and then fly on 
 forty yards or so, and, with an impudent flicker of his tail, 
 dart into the depths of the quickset), came beating down a 
 high double hedge, two on each side. 
 
 44 There he is again,” 44 Head him,” 44 Let drive,” 44 I 
 had him there,” 44 Take care where you’re throwing. Mad- 
 man,” the shouts might have been heard a quarter of a 
 mile off. They were heard some two hundred yards off by 
 a farmer and two of his shepherds, who were doctoring 
 sheep in a fold in the next field. 
 
 Now, the farmer in question rented a house and yard 
 situate at the end of the field in which the young bird- 
 fanciers had arrived, which house and yard he didn’t oc- 
 cupy or keep any one else in. Nevertheless, like a brain- 
 less and unreasoning Briton, he persisted in maintaining 
 on the premises a large stock of cocks, hens, and other 
 poultry. Of course, all sorts of depredators visited the 
 place from time to time: foxes and gipsies wrought havoc 
 in the night ; while in the daytime, I regret to have to 
 confess that visits from the Rugby boj^s, and consequent 
 disappearances of ancient and respectable fowls, were not 
 unfrequent. Tom and East had during the period of their 
 outlawry visited the barn in question for felonious purposes, 
 and on one occasion had conquered and slain a duck there, 
 and borne away the carcass triumphantly, hidden in their 
 handkerchiefs. However, they were sickened of the 
 practice by the trouble and anxiety which the wretched 
 duck’s body caused them. They carried it to Sally Har- 
 ro well’s in hopes of a good supper ; but she, after examin- 
 ing it, made a long face, and refused to dress or have any- 
 thing to do with it. Then they took it into their study, 
 
202 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 and began plucking it themselves ; but what to do with 
 the feathers — whereto hide them? 
 
 “■Good gracious, Tom, what a lot of feathers a duck 
 has ! ” groaned East, holding a bagful in his hand, and look- 
 ing disconsolately at the carcass, not yet half plucked. 
 
 “And I do think he’s getting high too, already,” said 
 Tom, smelling at him cautiously, “ so we must finish him 
 up soon.” 
 
 “ Yes, all very well ; but how are we to cook him? 
 I’m sure I ain’t going to try it on in the hall or passages ; 
 we can’t afford to be roasting ducks about, our character’s 
 too bad.” 
 
 “ I wish we were rid of the brute,” said Tom, throwing 
 him on the table in disgust. And after a day or two more 
 it became clear that got rid of he must be ; so they packed 
 him and sealed him up in brown paper, and put him in the 
 cupboard of an unoccupied study, where he was found in 
 the holidays by the matron, a grewsome body 
 
 They had never been duck-hunting there since, but others 
 had, and the bold yeoman was very sore on the subject, 
 and bent on making an example of the first boys he could 
 catch. So he and his shepherds crouched behind the hur- 
 dles, and watched the party, who were approaching all un- 
 conscious. 
 
 Why should that old guinea-fowl be lying out in the 
 hedge just at this particular moment of all the year? Who 
 can say? Guinea-fowls always are — so are all other things, 
 animals, and persons, requisite for getting one into scrapes, 
 always ready when any mischief can come of them. At any 
 rate, just under East s nose popped out the old guinea- 
 hen, scuttling along and shrieking, “Come back, come 
 back,” at the top of her voice. Either of the other three 
 might perhaps have withstood the temptation, but East 
 first lets drive the stone he has in his hand at her, and 
 then rushes to turn her into the hedge again. He succeeds, 
 and then they are all at it for dear life, up and down the 
 hedge in full cry, the “ Come back, come back,” getting 
 shriller and fainter every minute. 
 
 Meantime, the farmer and his men steal over the hurdles 
 and creep down the hedge toward the scene of action. They 
 are almost within a stone’s throw of Martin, who is press- 
 ing the unlucky chase hard, when Tom catches sight of 
 
THE BIRD-CATCHER. 
 
 203 
 
 them, and sings out, “ Louts, ’ware louts, your side ! Mad- 
 man, look ahead ! ” and then catching hold of Arthur, hur- 
 ries him away across the field toward Rugby as hard as 
 they can tear. Had he been by himself, he would have 
 stayed to see it out with the others, but now his heart 
 sinks and all his pluck goes. The idea of being led up to 
 the Doctor with Arthur for bagging fowls, quite unmans 
 and takes half the run out of him. 
 
 However, no boys are more able to take care of them- 
 selves than East and Martin ; they dodge the pursuers, 
 slip through a gap, and come pelting after Tom and Arthur, 
 whom they catch up in no time ; the farmer and his men 
 are making good running about a field behind. Tom 
 wishes to himself that they had made off in any other direc- 
 tion, but now they are all in for it together, and must see it 
 out. “You won’t leave the young ’un will you?” says 
 he as they haul poor little Arthur, already losing wind 
 from the fright, through the next hedge. “Not we,” is 
 the answer from both. The next hedge is a stiff one ; the 
 pursuers gain horribly on them, and they only just pull 
 Arthur through, with two great rents in his trousers, as 
 the foremost shepherd comes up on the other side. As 
 they start into the next field, they are aware of two figures 
 walking down the footpath in the middle of it, and recog- 
 nize Holmes and Diggs taking a constitutional. Those 
 good-natured fellows immediately shout “ On.” “ Let’s go 
 to them and surrender,” pants Tom. — Agreed. — And in 
 another minute the four boj-s, to the great astonishment of 
 those worthies, rush breathless up to Holmes and Diggs, 
 who pull up to see what is the matter ; and then the whole 
 is explained by the appearance of the farmer and his men, 
 who unite their forces and bear down on the knot of boys. 
 
 There is no time to explain, and Tom’s heart beats fright- 
 fully quick, as he ponders, “ Will they stand by us?” 
 
 The farmer makes a rush at East and collars him ; and 
 that young gentleman, with unusual discretion, instead of 
 kicking his shins, looks appealingly at Holmes and stands 
 still. 
 
 “ Hullo there, not so fast,” says Holmes, who is bound to 
 stand up for them till they are proved in the wrong. “ Now 
 what’s all this about ? ” 
 
 “ I’ve got the young varmint at last, have I,” pants the 
 
204 
 
 TOM BBO WN* 8 'SCHOOL BAYS. 
 
 farmer ; 44 why they’ve been a skulking about my yard and 
 stealing my fowls, that’s where ’tis ; and if I doan’t have 
 them flogged for it, every one on ’em my name ain’t 
 
 Thompson.” 
 
 Holmes looks grave, and Diggs’s face falls. They are 
 quite ready to fight, no boys in the school more so ; but 
 they are praepostors, and understand their office, and can’t 
 uphold unrighteous causes. 
 
 44 I haven’t been near his old barn this half,” cries East. 
 “Nor I,” 44 Nor I,” chime in Tom and Martin. 
 
 44 Now, Willum, didn’t you see ’m there last week?” 
 
 44 Ees, I seen ’em sure enough,” says Willum, grasping a 
 prong he carried, and preparing for action. 
 
 The boys deny stoutly, and Willum is driven to admit 
 that, 44 if it worn’t they, ’twas chaps as like ’em as two 
 peas’n and 44 leastways lie’ll swear he see’d them two in 
 the yard last Martinmas,” indicating East and Tom. 
 
 Holmes had time to meditate. 44 Now, sir,” says he to 
 Willum, 44 you see you can’t remember what you have seen, 
 and I believe the boys.” 
 
 44 1 doan’t care,” blusters the farmer ; 44 they was arter 
 my fowls to-day, that’s enough for I. Willum, you catch 
 hold o’t’ other chap. They’ve been a sneaking about this 
 ty two hours, I tells ’ee,” shouted he, as Holmes stands be- 
 tween Martin and Willum, 44 and have druv a matter of a 
 dozen young pullets pretty nigh to death.” 
 
 44 Oh, there’s a whacker!” cried East; 44 we haven’t 
 been within a hundred yards of his barn; we haven’t been 
 up here above a ten minutes, and we’ve seen nothing but a 
 tough old guinea-hen, who ran like a greyhound.” 
 
 44 Indeed, that’s all true, Holmes, upon my honor,” added 
 Tom ; 44 we weren’t after his fowls ; the guinea-hen ran 
 out of the hedge under our feet, and we’ve seen nothing 
 <Tse.” 
 
 44 Drat their talk. Thee catch hold o’ t’other, Willum, 
 and come along wi ’un.” 
 
 44 Farmer Thompson,” said Holmes, warning off Willum 
 and the prong with his stick, while Diggs faced the other 
 shepherd, cracking his fingers like pistol shots, 44 now 
 listen to reason — the boys haven’t been after your fowls, 
 that’s plain.” 
 
 44 Tells ’ee I see’d ’em. Who be you, I should like te 
 know ? ” 
 
THE BIRD-CATCHER. 
 
 205 
 
 “Never you mind, farmer,” answered Holmes. “ And 
 now I’ll just tell you what it is — you ought to be ashamed 
 of yourself for leaving all that poultry about, with no one 
 to watch it, so near the school. You deserve to have it all 
 stolen. St) if you choose to come up to the Doctor with 
 them, I shall go with you, and tell him what I think of it.” 
 
 The farmer began to take Holmes for a master ; besides 
 he wanted to get back to his flock. Corporal punishment 
 was out of the question, the odds were two great ; so he 
 began to hint at paying for the damage. Arthur jumped 
 at this, offering to pay anything, and the farmer imme- 
 diately valued the guine-ahen at half a sovereign. 
 
 “ Half a sovereign ! ” cried East, now released from the 
 farmer’s grip ; “well, that is a good one! the hen ain’t 
 hurt a bit, and she’s seven years old, I know, and as 
 tough as whipcord ; she couldn’t lay another egg to save 
 her life.” 
 
 It was at last settled that they should pay the farmer 
 two shillings, and his man one shilling, and so the matter 
 ended, to the unspeakable relief of Tom, who hadn’t been 
 able to say a word, being sick at heart at the idea of what 
 the Doctor would think of him ; and now the whole party 
 of boys marched off down the foot-path toward Rugby. 
 Holmes, who w^as one of the best boys in the school, began 
 to improve the occasion. “Now, you youngsters,” said he, 
 as lie marched along in the middle of them, “mind this; 
 you’re very well out of this scrape. Don’t you go near 
 Thompson’s barn again ; do you hear ? ” 
 
 Profuse promises from all, especially East. 
 
 “ Mind, I don’t ask questions,” went on Mentor, “ but I 
 rather think some of you have been there before this after 
 his chickens. Now, knocking over other people’s chickens, 
 and running off with them is stealing. It’s a nasty word, 
 but that’s the plain English of it. If the chickens were 
 dead and lying in a shop, you wouldn’t take them, I know 
 that, any more than you would apples out of Griffith’s 
 basket ; but there’s no real difference between chickens 
 running about and apples on a tree, and the same articles 
 m a shop. I wish our morals were sounder in such mat- 
 ters. There’s nothing so mischievous as these school 
 distinctions, which jumble up right and wrong, and justify 
 things i:i us for which poor boys would be sent to prison.” 
 
206 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 And good old Holmes delivered his soul on the walk home 
 of many wise sayings, and as the song says — 
 
 Gee’d ’em a sight of good advice — 
 
 which same sermon sank into them all, more or less, and 
 very penitent they were for several hours. But truth 
 compels me to admit that East at any rate forgot it all in a 
 week, but remembered the insult which had been put upon 
 him by Farmer Thompson, and with the Tadpole and 
 other harebrained youngsters, committed a raid on the barn 
 soon afterward, in which they were caught by the shep- 
 herds and severely handled, besides having to pay eight 
 shillings, all the money they had in the world, to escape 
 being taken up to the Doctor. 
 
 Martin became a constant inmate in the joint study 
 from this time, and Arthur took to him so kindly, that 
 Tom couldn’t resist slight fits of jealousy, which, however, 
 he managed to keep to himself. The kestrel’s eggs had 
 not been broken, strange to say, and formed the nucleus 
 of Arthur’s collection, at which Martin worked heart and 
 soul ; and introduced Arthur to Howlett the bird-fancier, 
 and instructed him in the rudiments of the art of stuffing. 
 In token of his gratitude, Arthur allowed Martin to tattoo 
 a small anchor on one of his wrists, which decoration, 
 however, he carefully concealed from Tom. Before the 
 end of the half year he had trained into a bold climber and 
 good runner, and as Martin had foretold, knew twice as 
 much about trees, birds, flowers, and many other things as 
 our good-hearted and facetious young friend Harry East. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FIGHT. 
 
 Surgebat Macnevisius 
 Et mox jactabat ultro , 
 
 Pugnabo tud gratid 
 
 Feroci hoc Mactwolro . — Etonian . 
 
 There is a certain sort of fellow — we who are used to 
 studying boys all know him well enough — of whom you 
 can predicate with almost positive certainty, after he has 
 been a month at school, that he is sure to have a fight, and 
 with almost equal certainty that he will have but one. Tom 
 
THE FIGHT. 
 
 207 
 
 Brown was one of these ; and as it is our well-weighed inten- 
 tion to give a full, true, and correct account of Tom’s only 
 single combat with a school-fellow in the maimer of our 
 old friend Bell’s Life, let those young persons whose 
 stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to with 
 the weapons which God has given us all, an uncivilized, un- 
 christian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at 
 oi] ce, for it won’t be to their taste. 
 
 It was not at all usual in those days for two school-house 
 boys to have a fight. Of course there were exceptions, 
 when some cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up who 
 would never be happy unless he was quarreling with his 
 nearest neighbors, or when there was some class-dispute, 
 between the fifth form and the fags, for instance, which re- 
 quired blood-letting ; and a champion was picked out on 
 each side tacitly, who settled the matter by a good hearty 
 mill. But for the most part the constant use of those surest 
 keepers of the peace, the boxing gloves, kept the school- 
 house boys from fighting one another. Two or three nights 
 in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the 
 hall or fifth-form room ; and every boy who was ever like- 
 ly to fight at all knew all his neighbors’ prowess perfectly 
 well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have 
 in a stand-up fight with any other boy in the house. But 
 of course no such experience could be gotten as regarded 
 boys in other houses ; and as most of the other houses were 
 more or less jealous of the school-house, collisions were 
 frequent. 
 
 After all, what would life be without fighting, I should 
 like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, 
 rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honest- 
 est business of every son of man. Every one who is worth 
 his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil 
 thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickedness in 
 high places, or Russians, or border ruffians, or Bill, Tom, 
 or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he 
 has thrashed them. 
 
 It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to 
 uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature is too 
 strong for them, and they don’t follow their own precepts. 
 Every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting, 
 somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better 
 
08 ±OM BBO WJSf S SCHOOL-DA TS. 
 
 world without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn’t 
 be our world ; and therefore I’m dead against crying peace 
 when there is no peace, and isn’t meant to be. I am as 
 sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong people and 
 the wrong things, but I’d a deal sooner see them doing 
 that, than that they should have no fight in them. So 
 having recorded, and being about to record, my hero’s 
 fights of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies, I shall now 
 proceed to give an account of his passage-at-arms with the 
 only one of his school-fellows whom he ever had to en- 
 counter in this manner. 
 
 It was drawing toward the close of Arthur’s first half- 
 year, and the May evenings were lengthening out. Lock- 
 ing-up was not till eight o’clock, and everybody was 
 beginning to talk about what he would do in the holidays. 
 The shell, in which form all our dramatis personce now are, 
 were reading among other things the last book of Homer’s 
 44 Iliad,” and had worked through it as far as the speeches 
 of the women over Hector’s body. It is a whole school- 
 day, and four or five of the school-house boys (among 
 whom are Arthur, Tom, and East) are preparing third 
 lesson together. They have finished the regulation forty 
 lines, and are for the most part getting very tired, notwith- 
 standing the exquisite pathos of Helen’s lamentation. 
 And now several long four-syllabled words come together, 
 and the boy with the dictionary strikes work. 
 
 44 I’m not going to look out any more words,” says he ; 
 44 we’ve done the quantity. Ten to one we shan’t get so 
 far. Let’s go out into the close.” 
 
 44 Come along, boys,” cried East, always ready to leave 
 the grind, as he called it ; 44 our old coach is laid up, you 
 know, and we shall have one of the new masters, who’s 
 sure to go slow and let us down easy.” 
 
 So an adjournment to the close was carried, nem. con., 
 little Arthur not daring to uplift his voice ; but, being 
 deeply interested in what they were reading, stayed quietly 
 behind, and learned on for his own pleasure. 
 
 As East had said, the regular master of the form was 
 unwell, and they were to be heard by one of the new 
 masters, quite a young man, who had only just left the 
 university. Certainly it would be hard lines, if, by dawd 
 ling as much as possible in coming in and taking their 
 
THE FIGHT. 
 
 209 
 
 places, entering into long-winded explanations of what 
 was the usual course of the regular master of the form, and 
 others of the stock contrivances of boys for wasting time 
 in school, they could not spin out the lesson so that he 
 should not work them through more than the forty lines ; 
 as to which quantity there was a perpetual fight going on 
 between the master and his form, the latter insisting, and 
 enforcing by passive resistance, that it was the prescribed 
 quantity of Homer for a shell lesson, the former that there 
 was no fixed quantity, but that they must always be ready 
 to go on to fifty or sixty lines if there were time within 
 the hour 0 However, notwithstanding all their efforts, the 
 new master got on horribly quick ; he seemed to have the 
 bad taste to be really interested in the lesson, and to be 
 trying to work them up into something like appreciation 
 of it, giving them good spirited English words, instead of 
 the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered poor old 
 Homer ; and construing over each piece himself to them, 
 after each boy, to show them how it should be done. 
 
 Now the clock strikes the three-quarters ; there is only 
 a quarter of an hour more ; but the forty lines are all but 
 done* So the boys, one after another, who are called up, 
 stick more and more, and make balder and ever more bald 
 work of it. The poor young master is pretty near beat by 
 this time, and feels ready to knock his head against the 
 wall, or his fingers against somebody else’s head. So he 
 gives up altogether the lower and middle parts of the form, 
 and looks round in despair at the boys on the top bench, 
 to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a spark or 
 two, and who will be too chivalrous to murder the most 
 beautiful utterances of the most beautiful woman of the 
 old world* His eye rests on Arthur, and he calls him up 
 to finish construing Helen’s speech. Whereupon all the 
 other boys draw long breaths, and begin to stare about and 
 take it easy. They are all safe ; Arthur is the head of 
 the form, and sure to be able to construe, and that will 
 tide on safely till the hour strikes. 
 
 Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek before 
 construing it, as the custom is. Tom, who isn’t paying 
 much attention, is suddenly caught by the falter in his 
 voice as he reads the two lines — 
 
 cXXd av t&v 7' £tt&<t(tl 7rapai(pdjLt£voc KdrtpvKtc, 
 
 Ey T ayavoQpoativn Kai <Toit aya-voic iirescaiv. 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 210 
 
 He looks up at Arthur. “ Why, bless us,” thinks he. 
 “ what can be the matter with the young ’un ? He’s nevei 
 going to get floored. He’s sure to have learned to the 
 end.” Next moment he is reassured by the spirited tone 
 in which Arthur begins construing, and betakes himself to 
 drawing dogs’-heads in his note-book, while the master, 
 evidently enjoying the change, turns his back on the middle 
 bench and stands before Arthur, beating a sort of time with 
 his hand and foot, and say, “Yes, yes,” “very well,” as 
 Arthur goes on. 
 
 But as he nears the fatal two lines, Tom catches that 
 falter and again looks up. He sees that there is something 
 the matter — Arthur can hardly get on at all. What can 
 it be ? 
 
 Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down altogether, 
 and fairly bursts out crying, and dashes the cuff of his 
 jacket across his eyes, blushing up to the roots of his hair, 
 and feeling as if he should like to go down suddenly 
 through the floor. The whole form are taken aback ; most 
 of them stare stupidly at him, while those who are gifted 
 with presence of mind find their places and look steadily 
 at their books, in hopes of not catching the master’s eye 
 and getting called up in Arthur’s place. 
 
 The master looks puzzled fora moment, and then seeing, 
 as the fact is, that the boy is really affected to tears by the 
 most touching thing in Homer, perhaps in all profane 
 poetry put together, steps up to him and lays his hand 
 kindly on his shoulder, saying, “ Never mind, my little 
 man, you’ve construed very well. Stop a minute, there’s 
 no hurry.” 
 
 Now, as luck would have it, there sat next above Tom 
 that day, in the middle bench of the form, a big boy, by 
 name Williams, generally supposed to be the cock of the 
 shell, therefore of all the school below the fifths. The 
 small boys, .who are great speculators on the prowess of 
 their elders, used to hold forth to one another about Wil- 
 liam’s great strength, and to discuss whether East or 
 Brown would take a licking from him. He was called 
 Slogger Williams, from the force with which it was suppos- 
 ed he could hit. In the main, he was a rough good- 
 natured fellow enough, but very much alive to his own 
 dignity. He reckoned himself the king of the form, and 
 
THE FIGHT. 
 
 211 
 
 ( 
 
 kept up his position with a strong hand, especially in the 
 matter of forcing boys not to construe more than the legit- 
 imate forty lines. He had already grunted and grumbled 
 to himself, when Arthur went on reading beyond the forty 
 lines. But now that he had broken down just in the 
 middle of all the long words, the Slogger’s wrath was fairly 
 roused. 
 
 44 Sneaking little brute,” muttered he, regardless of 
 prudence, “ clapping on the waterworks just in the hardest 
 place ; see if I don’t punch his head after fourth lesson.” 
 
 “ Whose ? ” said Tom, to whom the remark seemed to 
 be addressed. 
 
 64 Why, that little sneak Arthur’s,” replied Williams. 
 
 44 No, you shan’t,” said Tom. 
 
 44 Hullo ! ” exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom with 
 great surprise for a moment, and then giving him a sudden 
 dig. in the ribs with his elbow, which sent Tom’s books 
 flying on the door, and called the attention of the master, 
 who turned suddenly round, and seeing the state of things, 
 said — 
 
 44 Williams go down three places, and then go on.” 
 
 The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and proceeded 
 to go below Tom and two other boys with great disgust, 
 and then, turning round and facing the master, said, 44 I 
 haven’t learned any more, sir; our lesson is only forty 
 lines.” 
 
 44 Is that so ? ” said the master, appealing generally to 
 the top bench. No answer. 
 
 44 Who is the head boy of the form ? ” said he, waxing 
 wroth. 
 
 44 Arthur, sir,” answered three or four boys, indicating 
 our friend. 
 
 44 Oh, your name’s Arthur. Well now, what is the 
 length of your regular lesson ? ” 
 
 Arthur hesitated a moment and then said, 44 We call it 
 only forty lines, sir.” 
 
 44 How do you mean, you call it ?” 
 
 44 Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain’t to stop there, 
 when there’s time to construe more.” 
 
 44 I understand,” said the master. 44 Williams, go down 
 three more places, and write me out the lesson in Greek 
 and English. And now, Arthur, finish construing.” 
 
212 
 
 TOM BBOWNS SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 “ Oh ! would I be in Arthur’s shoes after fourth lesson? ” 
 said the little boys to one another ; but Arthur finishe d 
 Helen’s speech without any further catastrophe, and thtf 
 clock struck four, which ended third lesson. 
 
 Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying 
 fourth lesson, during which Williams was bottling up his 
 wrath ; and when five struck, and the lessons for the day 
 were over, he prepared to take summary vengeance on the 
 innocent cause of his misfortune. 
 
 Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the rest, 
 and on coming out into the quadrangle, the first thing he 
 saw was a small ring of boys, applauding Williams, who 
 was holding Arthur by the collar. 
 
 “ There, you young sneak,” said he, giving Arthur a 
 cuff on the head with his other hand, u what made you say 
 that ” — 
 
 “ Hullo ! ” said Tom, shouldering into the crowd. “you 
 drop that, Williams ; you shan’t touch him.” 
 
 “Who’ll stop me?” said the Slogger, raising his hand 
 again. 
 
 “ I,” said Tom ; and suiting the action to the word, 
 struck the arm which held Arthur’s arm so sharply, that 
 the Slogger dropped it with a start, and turned the full 
 current of his wrath on Tom. 
 
 “Will you fight?” 
 
 “ Yes, of course.” 
 
 “ Huzza, there’s going to be a fight between Slogger 
 Williams and Tom Brown.” 
 
 The news ran like wild-fire about, and many boys who 
 were on their way to tea at their several houses turned 
 back, and sought the back of the chapel, where the fights 
 come off. 
 
 “ Just run and tell East to come and back me,” said 
 Tom to a small school-house boy, who was off like a rocket 
 to Harrowell’s, just stopping for a moment to poke his 
 head into the school-house hall, where the lower boys were 
 already at tea, and sing out, “ Fight ! Tom Brown and 
 Slogger Williams.” 
 
 Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs, butter, 
 sprats, and all the rest to take care of themselves. The 
 greater part of the remainder follow in a minute, after 
 swallowing their tea, carrying their food in their hands to 
 
THE FIGHT . 
 
 213 
 
 consume as they go. Three or four only remain, who steal 
 the butter of the more impetuous, and make to themselves 
 an unctuous feast. 
 
 In another minute East and Martin tear through the 
 quadrangle carrying a sponge, .and arrive at the scene of 
 action just as the combatants are beginning to strip. 
 
 Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he 
 stripped off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his 
 handkerchief round his waist, and rolled up his shirt- 
 sleeves for him. u Now, old boy, don’t you open your mouth 
 to say a word, or try to help yourself a bit, we’ll do all 
 that ; you keep all your breath and strength for the Slogger.” 
 Martin meanwhile folded the clothes, and put them under 
 the chapel rails ; and now Tom, with East to handle him 
 and Martin to give him a knee, steps out on the turf, and 
 is ready for all that may come : and here is the Slogger too, 
 all stripped, and thirsting for the fray. 
 
 It doesn’t look a fair match at first glance : Williams is 
 nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older 
 than his opponent, and he is very strongly made about the 
 arms and shoulders ; “ peels well,” as the little knot of big 
 fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say ; who stand outside the 
 ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no 
 active part in the proceedings. But down below he is not 
 so good by any means ; no spring from the loins, and 
 feeblish, not to say shipwrecky, about the knees. Tom, on 
 the contrary, though not half so strong in the arms, is good 
 all over, straight, hard, and springy from neck to ankle, 
 better perhaps in his legs than anywhere. Besides, you can 
 see by the clear white of his eye and fresh bright look of 
 his skin, that he is in tip-top training, able to do all he 
 knows, while the Slogger looks rather sodden, as if he didn’t 
 take much exercise and ate too much tuck. The time-keeper 
 is chosen, a large ring made, and the two stand up opposite 
 one another for a moment, giving us time just to make our 
 little observations. 
 
 “If Tom’ll only condescend to fight with his head and 
 heels,” as East mutters to Martin, “ we shall do.” 
 
 But seemingly he won’t, for there he goes in, making 
 play with both hands. Hard all, is the word; the two stand 
 to one another like men ; rally follows rally in quick suc- 
 cession, each fighting as if he thought to finish the whole 
 
214 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 thing out of hand. “Can’t last at this rate,” say the 
 knowing ones, while the partisans of each make the air ring 
 with their shouts and counter-shouts of encouragement, 
 approval, and defiance. 
 
 “ Take it easy, take it easy — keep away, let him come 
 after you,” implores East, as he wipes Tom’s face after the 
 first round with wet sponge, while he sits back on Martin’s 
 knee, supported by the Madman’s long arms, which tremble 
 a little from excitement. 
 
 “ Time’s up,” calls the time-keeper. 
 
 “ There he goes again, hang it all ! ” growls East, as his 
 man is at it again as hard as ever. A very severe round 
 follows, in which Tom gets out and out the worst of it, and 
 is at last hit clean off his legs, and deposited on the grass 
 by a right-hander from the Slogger. 
 
 Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger’s house, and 
 the school-house are silent and vicious, ready to pick 
 quarrels anywhere. 
 
 “ Two to one in half-crowns on the big ’un,” says Rattle, 
 one of the amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning 
 waistcoat, and puffy, good-natured face. 
 
 “ Done ! ” saj r s Groove, another amateur of quieter look, 
 taking out his note-book to enter it — for our friend Rattle 
 sometimes forgets these little things. 
 
 Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the sponges 
 for next round, and has set two other boys to rub his hands. 
 
 “ Tom, old boy,” whispers he, “this may be fun for you, 
 but it’s death to me. He’ll hit all the fight out of you in 
 another five minutes, and then I shall go and drown myself 
 in the island ditch. Feint him — use your legs ! — draw him 
 about ! he’ll lose his wind then in no time, and you can go 
 into him. Hit at his body too ; we’ll take care of his front- 
 ispiece by and by.” 
 
 Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already that 
 he couldn’t go in and finish the Slogger off at mere ham- 
 mer and tongs, so changed his tactics completely in the 
 third round. He now fights cautious, getting away from 
 and parrying the Slogger’s lunging hits, instead of trying 
 to counter, and leading his enemy a dance all round the 
 ring after him. “ He’s funking ; go in, Williams,” “ Catch 
 him up,” “ Finish him off,” scream the small boys of the 
 Slogger party. 
 
THE FIGHT . 
 
 215 
 
 “ Just what we want,” thinks East, chuckling to himself, 
 as he sees Williams, excited by these shouts, and thinking 
 the game in his own hands, blowing himself in his exertions 
 to get to close quarters again, while Tom is keeping away 
 with perfect ease. 
 
 They quarter over the ground again and again, Tom 
 always on the defensive. 
 
 The Slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly blown. 
 
 “Now then, Tom,” sings out East, dancing with delight. 
 Tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, 
 and gets away again before the Slogger can catch his wind ; 
 which when he does he rushes with blind fury at Tom, and 
 being skillfully parried and avoided, over-reaches himself 
 and falls on his face, amid terrific cheers from the school- 
 house boys. 
 
 “ Double your two to one ? ” says Groove to Rattle, note- 
 book in hand. 
 
 “ Stop a bit,” says that hero, looking uncomfortably at 
 Williams, who is puffing away on his second’s knee, winded 
 enough, but little the worse in any other way. 
 
 After another round the Slogger too seems to see that 
 he can’t go in and win right off, and has met his match or 
 thereabouts. So he too begins to use his head, and tries to 
 make Tom lose patience and come in before his time. And 
 so the fight sways on, now one, and now the other, getting 
 a trifling pull. 
 
 Tom’s face begins to look very one-sided — there are 
 little queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is 
 bleeding ; but East keeps the wet sponge going so scientifi- 
 cally, that he comes up looking as fresh and bright as 
 ever. Williams is only slightly marked in the face, but 
 by the nervous movement of his elbows you can see that 
 Tom’s body-blows are telling. In fact, half the vice of the 
 Slogger’s hitting is neutralized, for he daren’t lunge out 
 freely for fear of exposing his sides. It is too interesting 
 by this time for much shouting, and the whole ring is very 
 quiet. 
 
 “All right, Tommy,” whispers East; “hold on’s the 
 horse that’s to win. We’ve got the last. Keep your head, 
 old boy.” 
 
 But where is Arthur all this time ? Words cannot paint 
 the poor little fellow’s distress. He couldn’t muster cour- 
 
216 
 
 TOM BROWN S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 age to come up to the ring, but wandered up and down 
 from the great fives’-court to the corner of the chapel rails. 
 Now trying to make up his mind to throw himself between 
 them and try to stop them ; then thinking of running in 
 and telling his friend Mary, who he knew would instantly 
 report to the Doctor. The stories he had heard of men 
 being killed in prize-fights rose up horribly before him. 
 
 Once only, when the shouts of “Well done, Brown ! ” 
 “Huzza for the school-house ! ” rose higher than ever, he 
 ventured up to the ring, thinking the victory was won. 
 Catching sight of Tom’s face in the state I have described, 
 all fear of consequences vanishing out of his mind, he 
 rushed straight off to the matron’s room, beseeching her 
 to get the fight stopped, or he should die. 
 
 But it’s time for us to get back to the close. What is 
 this fierce tumult and confusion? The ring is broken, and 
 high and angry words are being bandied about ; “ It’s all 
 fair,” — “ It isn’t,” — “No hugging;” the fight is stopped. 
 The combatants, however, sit there quietly, tended by 
 their seconds, while their adherents wrangle in the middle. 
 East can’t help shouting challenges to two or three of the 
 other side, though he never leaves Tom for a moment, and 
 plies the sponges as fast as ever. 
 
 The fact is, that at the end of the last round, Tom seeing 
 a good opening, had closed with his opponent, and after a 
 moment’s struggle had thrown him heavily, by the help of 
 the fall he had learned from his village rival in the vale of 
 White Horse. Williams hadn’t the ghost of a chance with 
 Tom at wrestling ; and the conviction broke at once on 
 the Slogger faction, that if this were allowed their man 
 must be licked. There was a strong feeling in the school 
 against catching hold and throwing, though it was gener- 
 ally ruled all fair within certain limits ; so the ring was 
 broken and the fight stopped. 
 
 The school-house are over-ruled — the fight is on again, 
 but there is to be no throwing ; and East in high wrath 
 threatens to take his man away after next round (which 
 he don’t mean to do, by the way), when suddenly young 
 Brooke comes through the small gate at the end of the 
 chapel. The school-house faction rush to him “Oh, 
 hurrah ! now we shall get fair play.” 
 
 “Please, Brooke, come up, they won’t let Tom Brown 
 throw him/’ 
 
THE FIGHT. 
 
 217 
 
 “ Throw whom? ” says Brooke, coming up to the ring. 
 “ Oh ! Williams, I see. Nonsense ! Of course he may 
 throw him if he catches him fairly above the waist.” 
 
 Now, young Brooke, you’re in the sixth, you know, and 
 you ought to stop all fights. He looks hard at both boys. 
 44 Anything wrong,” says he to East, nodding at Tom. 
 
 44 Not a bit.” 
 
 44 Not beat at all? ” 
 
 44 Bless you, no ! heaps of fight in him. Ain’t there, 
 Tom ? ” 
 
 Tom looks at Brooke and grins. 
 
 44 How’s he ? ” nodding at Williams. 
 
 44 So, so ; rather done, I think, since his last fall. He 
 won’t stand above two more.” 
 
 44 Time’s up ! ” the boys rise again and face one another. 
 Brooke can’t find it in his heart to stop them just yet, so 
 the round goes on, the Slogger waiting for Tom, and re- 
 serving all his strength to hit him out should he come in 
 for the wrestling dodge again, for he feels that that must 
 be stopped, or his sponge will soon go up in the air. 
 
 And now another new-comer appears on the field, to 
 wit, the under-porter, with his long brush and great wooden 
 receptacle for dust under his arm. He has been sweeping 
 out the schools. 
 
 44 You’d better stop, gentlemen,” he says; 44 the Doctor 
 knows that Brown’s fightings — he’ll be out in a minute.” 
 
 44 You go to Bath, Bill,” is all that that excellent servi- 
 tor gets by his advice. And being a man of his hands, 
 and a stanch upholder of the school-house, can’t help 
 stopping to look on for a bit, and see Tom Brown, their 
 pet craftsman, fight a round. 
 
 It is grim earnest now, and no mistake. Both boys feel 
 this, and summon every power of head, hand, and eye to 
 their aid. A piece of luck on either side, a foot slipping, 
 a blow getting well home, or another fall, may decide it. 
 Tom works slowly round for an opening ; he has all the 
 legs, and can choose his own time : the Slogger waits for 
 the attack, and hopes to finish it by some heavy right- 
 handed blow. As they quarter slowly over the ground, 
 the evening sun comes out from behind, a cloud and falls 
 full on Williams’s face. Tom darts in; the heavy right- 
 hand is delivered, but only grazes his head. A short rally 
 
218 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DA YS 
 
 at close quarters, and they clQse ; in another moment tin 
 Slogger is thrown again heavily for the third time. 
 
 “I’ll give you three to two on the little one in half- 
 crowns,” said Groove to Rattle. 
 
 “ No thank ee,” answers the other, diving his hands 
 further into his coat-tails. 
 
 Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of the 
 turret which leads to the Doctor’s library suddenly opens, 
 and he steps into the close, and makes straight for the 
 ring, in which Brown and the Slogger are both seated 
 on their seconds’ knees for the last time. 
 
 “ The Doctor ! the Doctor ! ” shouts some small boy 
 who catches sight of him, and the ring melts away in a 
 few seconds, the small boys tearing off, Tom collaring 
 his jacket and waistcoat and slipping through the little 
 gate by the chapel, and round the corner to Harrowell’s 
 with Ins backers, as lively as need be ; Williams and his 
 backers making off not quite so fast across the close ; 
 Groove, Rattle, and the other bigger fellows trying to com- 
 bine dignity and prudence in a comical manner, and 
 walking off fast enough, they hope, not to be recognized, 
 and not fast enough to look like running away. 
 
 Young Brooke alone remains on the ground by the time 
 the Doctor gets there, and touches his hat, not without 
 a slight inward qualm. 
 
 “ Hah ! Brooke. I am surprised to see you here. Don’t 
 you know that I expect the sixth to stop fighting ? ” 
 
 Brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had expect- 
 ed, but he was rather a favorite with the Doctor for his 
 openness and plainness of speech; so blurted out, as lie 
 walked by the Doctor’s side, who had already turned 
 back — 
 
 “ Yes, sir; generally. But I thought you wished us to 
 exercise a discretion in the matter too — not to interfere 
 too soon.” 
 
 “ But they have been fighting this half-hour and more,” 
 said the Doctor. 
 
 “Yes, sir ; but neither was hurt. And they’re the sore 
 of boys who’ll be all the better friends now, which they 
 wouldn’t have been if they had been stopped any earlier- 
 before it was so equal,” 
 
 “ Who was fighting with Brown ? ” said the Doctor, 
 
THE FIGHT . 
 
 21J 
 
 “ Williams, sir, of Thompson’s. He is bigger than 
 Brown, and had the best of it at first, but not when you 
 came up, sir. There’s a good deal of jealousy between 
 our house and Thompson’s, and there would have been 
 more fights if this hadn’t been let go on, or if either or 
 them had had much the worst of it.” 
 
 “ Well, but, Brooke,” said the Doctor, “ doesn’t that look 
 a little as if you exercised your discretion by only stopping 
 a fight when the school-house boy is getting the worst of 
 it?” 
 
 Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather graveled. 
 
 “ Remember,” added the Doctor, as he stopped at the 
 turret-door, “ This fight is not to go on — you’ll see to 
 that. And I expect you to stop all fights in future at 
 cnce.” 
 
 “Very well, sir,” said young Brooke, touching his hat, 
 and not sorry to see the turret-door close behind the 
 Doctor’s back. 
 
 Meantime Tom and the stanchest of his adherents had 
 reached Harro well’s, and Sally was bustling about to get 
 them a late tea, while Stumps had been sent off to Tew 
 the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef for Tom’s eye, 
 which was to be healed off-hand, so that he might show 
 well in the morning. He was not a bit the worse except 
 a slight difficulty in his vision, a singing in his ears, and a 
 sprained thumb, which he kept in a cold-water bandage, 
 while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the Babel of 
 voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, 
 and how Williams would have given in after another fall 
 (which he didn’t in the least believe), and how on earth 
 the Doctor could have got to know of it — such bad luck ! 
 He couldn’t help thinking to himself that he was glad he 
 hadn’t won ; he liked it better as it was, and felt very 
 friendly to the Slogger. And then poor little Arthur 
 crept in and sat down quietly near him, and kept looking 
 at him and the raw beef with such plaintive looks, that 
 Tom at last burst out laughing. 
 
 u Don’t make such eyes, young ‘un,” said he, “ there’s 
 nothing the matter.” 
 
 “ Oh, but Tom, are you much hurt? I can’t bear think- 
 ing it was all for me.” 
 
 “ Not a bit of it, don’t flatter yourself. We were 
 to have had it out sooner or later.” 
 
 sure 
 
220 
 
 FEVER IN THE SCHOOL . 
 
 Well, but you won’t go on will j^ou? You’ll promise 
 me you won’t go on? ” 
 
 “ Can’t tell about that — all depends on the houses. 
 We’re in the hands of our countrymen, you know. Must 
 fight for the school-house flag, if so be.” 
 
 However, the lovers of the science were doomed to dis- 
 appointment this time, Directly after locking-up one of 
 the night fags knocked at Tom’s door. 
 
 “ Brown, young Brooke wants you in the sixth-form 
 room.” 
 
 Up went Tom to the summons, and found the magnates 
 sitting at their supper. 
 
 “Well, Brown,” said young Brooke, nodding to him, 
 “ how do you feel ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, very well, thank you, only I’ve sprained my thumb, 
 I think.” 
 
 “ Sure to do that in a fight. Well, you hadn’t the worst 
 of it, I could see. Where did you learn that throw?” 
 
 “ Down in the country, when I was a boy.” 
 
 “Hullo! why, what are you now? Well, never mind, 
 j r ou’re a plucky fellow. Sit down and have some supper.” 
 
 Tom obeyed, by no means loath. And the fifth-form 
 boy next him filled him a tumbler of bottled beer, and he 
 ate and drank, listening to the pleasant talk, and wondering 
 how soon he should be in the fifth and one of that much- 
 envied society. 
 
 As he got up to leave, Brooke said, “ You must shake 
 hands to-morrow morning ; I shall come and see that done 
 after first lesson.” 
 
 And so he did. And Tom and the Slogger shook hands 
 with great satisfaction and mutual respect. And for the 
 next year or two, whenever fights were being talked of, the 
 small boys who had been present shook their heads wisely, 
 saying, u Ah ! but you should just have seen the fight be- 
 tween Slogger Williams and Tom Brown ! ” 
 
 And now, boys all, three words before we quit the sub- 
 ject. I have put in this chapter on fighting of malice pre- 
 pense, partly because I want to give j r ou a true picture of 
 what every-day school life was in my time, and not a kid- 
 glove and go-to-meeting-coat picture ; and partly because 
 of the cant and twaddle that’s talked of boxing and fight- 
 ing with fists now-a-days. Even Thackeray has given in 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 
 
 221 
 
 to it ; and only a few weeks ago there was some rampant 
 stuff in the Times on the subject, in an article on field 
 sports. 
 
 Boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will some- 
 times, fight. Fighting with fists is the natural and English 
 way for English boys to settle their quarrels. What sub- 
 stitute for it is there, or ever was there, among any nation 
 under the sun ? What would you like to see take its 
 place ? 
 
 Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket and foot- 
 ball. Not one of you will be the worse, but very much the 
 better for learning to box well. Should you never have to 
 use it in earnest, there’s no exercise in the world so good 
 for the temper, and for the muscles of the back and legs. 
 
 As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all means. 
 When the time comes, if it ever should, that you have to 
 say u Yes ” or “ No ” to a challenge to fight, say “ No ” if 
 you can — only take care you make it clear to yourself why 
 you say “ No.” It’s a proof of the highest courage, if done 
 from true Christian motives. It’s quite right and justifi- 
 able, if done from a simple aversion to physical pain and 
 danger. But don’t say “ No ” because you fear a licking, 
 and say or think it’s because you fear God, for that’s 
 neither Christian nor honest. And if you do fight, fight it 
 out; and don’t give in while you can stand and see. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 FEVER IK THE SCHOOL, 
 
 This our hope for all that’s mortal, 
 
 And we too shall burst the bond ; 
 
 Death keeps watch beside the portal, 
 
 But ’tis life that dwells beyond. 
 
 J ohn Sterling* 
 
 Two years have passed since the events recorded in the 
 last chapter, and the end of the summer half-year is again 
 drawing on. Martin has left and gone on a cruise in the 
 South Pacific, in one of his uncle’s ships ; the old magpie, 
 as disreputable as ever, his last bequest to Arthur, lives in 
 the joint study. Arthur is nearly sixteen, and is at the 
 
222 TOM BLOWN 9 S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 head of the twenty, having gone up the school at the rate 
 of a form a half-year. East and Tom have been much more 
 deliberate in their progress, and are only a little way up 
 the fifth form. Great strapping boys they are, but still 
 thorough boys, filling about the same place in the house 
 that young Brooke filled when they were new boys, and 
 much the same sort of fellows. Constant intercourse with 
 Arthur has done much for both of them, especially for Tom ; 
 but much remains yet to be done, if they are to get all the 
 good out of Rugby which is to be got there in these times. 
 Arthur is still frail and delicate, with more spirit than body ; 
 but, thanks to his intimacy with them and Martin, has 
 learned to swim, and run, and play cricket, and has never 
 hurt himself by too much reading. 
 
 One evening as they were all sitting down to supper in 
 the fifth-form room, some one started a report that a fever 
 had broken out at one of the boarding-houses ; 44 they say.” 
 he added, 44 that Thompson is very ill, and that Dr. Robert- 
 son has been sent for from Northampton.” 
 
 44 Then we shall all be sent home,” cried another. 
 44 Hurrah ! five weeks’ extra holidays, and no fifth-form 
 examination ! ” 
 
 44 I hope not,” said Tom ; 44 there’ll be no Marylebone 
 match then at the end of the half.” 
 
 Some thought one thing, some another, many didn’t be- 
 lieve the report ; but the next day, Tuesday, Dr. Robertson 
 arrived, and stayed all day, and had long conferences with 
 the Doctor. 
 
 On Wednesday morning, after prayers, the Doctor ad- 
 dressed the whole school. There were several cases of 
 fever in different houses, he said; But Dr. Robertson, after 
 the most careful examination, had assured him that it was 
 not infectious, and that if proper care were taken, there 
 could be no reason for stopping the school work at present. 
 The examinations were just coming on, and it would be 
 very unadvisable to break up now. However, any boys 
 who chose to do so were at liberty to write home, and, if 
 their parents wished it, to leave at once. He should send 
 the whole school home if the fever spread. 
 
 The next day Arthur sickened, but there was no other 
 case. Before the end of the week thirty or forty boys had 
 gone, but the rest stayed on. There was a general wish 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 
 
 223 
 
 to please the Doctor, and a feeling that it was cowardly to 
 run away. 
 
 On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright after- 
 noon, while the cricket-match was going on as usual on the 
 big-side ground; the Doctor coming from his death-bed, 
 passed along the gravel-walk at the side of the close, but 
 no one knew what had happened till the next day. At 
 morning lecture it began to be rumored, and by afternoon 
 chapel was known generally ; and a feeling of seriousness 
 and awe at the actual presence of death among them came 
 over the whole school. In all the long years of his minis- 
 try the Doctor perhaps never spoke words which sank 
 deeper than some of those in that day’s sermon. “ When 
 I came yesterday from visiting all but the very death-bed 
 of him who has been taken from us, and looked around 
 upon all the familiar objects and scenes within our own 
 ground, where your common amusements were going on, 
 with your common cheerfulness and activity, I felt there 
 was nothing painful in witnessing that; it did not seem in 
 any way shocking or out of tune with those feelings which 
 the sight of a dying Christian must be supposed to awaken. 
 The unsuitableness in point of natural feeling between 
 scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness did not at all 
 present itself. But I did feel that if at that moment any 
 of those faults had been brought before me which sometimes 
 occur among us ; had I heard that any of you had been 
 guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or of any other such 
 sin ; had I heard from any quarter the language of profane- 
 ness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard or 
 seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the 
 laugh of fools by affecting not to dread evil and not to 
 care for good, then the unsuitableness of any of these things 
 with the scene I had just quitted would indeed have been 
 most intensely painful. And why? Not because such 
 things would really have been worse than at any other time, 
 but because at such a moment the eyes are opened really 
 to know good and evil, because we then feel what it is so 
 to live as that death becomes an infinite blessing, and what 
 it is so to live also, that it were good for us if we had never 
 been born.” 
 
 Tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety about 
 Arthur, but he came out cheered and strengthened by those 
 
224 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 grand words, and walked up alone to their study. And 
 when lie sat down and looked round, and saw Arthur’s 
 straw-hat and cricket-jacket hanging on their pegs, and 
 marked all his little neat arrangements, not one of which 
 had been disturbed, the tears indeed rolled down his 
 cheeks; but they were calm and blessed tears, and he re- 
 peated to himself, “Yes, Geordie’s e)^es are opened — he 
 knows what it is so to live as that death becomes an infi- 
 nite blessing. But do I ? Oh, God, can I bear to lose 
 him ? ” 
 
 The week passed mournfully away. No more boys 
 sickened, but Arthur was reported worse each day, and 
 his mother arrived early in the week. Tom made many 
 appeals to be allowed to see him, and several times tried to 
 get up to the sick-room ; but the housekeeper was always 
 in the way, and at last spoke to the Doctor, who kindly, 
 but peremptorily, forbade him. 
 
 Thompson was buried on the Tuesday ; and the burial 
 service, so soothing and grand always, but beyond all 
 words solemn when read over a boy’s grave to his compan- 
 ions, brought him much comfort, and many strange , new 
 thoughts and longings. He went back to his regular life, 
 and played cricket and bathed as usual ; it seemed to him 
 that this was the right thing to do, and the new thoughts 
 and longings became more brave and healthy for the effort. 
 The crisis came on Saturday, the day week that Thompson 
 had died, and during that long afternoon Tom sat in his 
 study reading his Bible and going every half-hour to the 
 housekeeper’s room, expecting each time to hear that the 
 gentle and brave little spirit had gone home. But God 
 had work for Arthur to do : the crisis passed — on Sunday 
 evening he was declared out of danger; on Monday he 
 sent a message to Tom that he was almost well, had changed 
 his room, and was to be allowed to see him the next day. 
 
 It was evening when the housekeeper summoned him to 
 the sick-room. Arthur was lying on the sofa by the open 
 window, through which the rays of the western sun stole 
 gently, lighting up his white face and golden hair. Tom 
 remembered a German picture of an angel which he knew; 
 often had he thought how transparent and golden and 
 spirit-like it was; and he shuddered to think how like it 
 Arthur looked, and felt a shock as if his blood had all stop* 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 
 
 225 
 
 ped short, as he realized how near the other world his 
 friend must have been to look like that. Never till that 
 moment had he felt how his little chum had twined himself 
 around his heart-strings ; and as he stole gently across the 
 , room and knelt down, and put his arm around Arthur’s 
 l head on the pillow, he felt ashamed and half angry at his 
 | own red and brown face, and the bounding sense of health 
 ! and power which filled every fiber of his body, and made 
 ! every movement of mere living a joy to him. lie needn’t 
 have troubled himself; it was this very strength and power 
 so different from his own which drew Arthur so to him. 
 
 Arthur laid his thin white hand, on which the blue veins 
 stood out so plainly, on Tom’s great brown fist, and smiled 
 at him; and then looked out of the window again, as if he 
 couldn’t bear to lose a moment of the sunset, into the tops 
 of the great feathery elms, round which the rooks were 
 circling and clanging, returning in flocks from their even- 
 ing’s foraging parties. The elms rustled, the sparrows in 
 the ivy just outside the window chirped and fluttered about, 
 quarreling and making it up again ; the rooks young and 
 old talked in chorus ; and the merry shouts of the boys, 
 and the sweet click of the cricket bats, came up cheerily 
 from below. 
 
 “ Dear George,” said Tom, “ I am so glad to be let up to 
 see you at last. I’ve tried hard to come so often, but they 
 wouldn’t let me before.” 
 
 “ Oh, I know, Tom ; Mary has told me every day about 
 you, and how she was obliged to make the Doctor speak 
 to you to keep you away. I’m very glad you didn’t get 
 up, for you might have caught it, and you couldn’t stand 
 being ill with all the matches going on. And you’re in 
 the eleven too, I hear — -I’m so glad.” 
 
 “Yes, ain’t it jolly?” said Tom proudly; “ I’m ninth 
 too. I made forty at the last pie-match and caught three 
 fellows out. So I was put in above Jones and Tucker. 
 Tucker’s so savage, for he was head of the twenty-two.” 
 
 “ Well, I think you ought to be higher yet,” said Arthur, 
 who was as jealous for the renown of Tom in games as 
 Tom was for his as a scholar. 
 
 “ Never mind, I don’t care about cricket or anything now 
 you’re getting well, Geordie ; and I shouldn’t have been hurt, 
 I know, if they’d have let me come up — nothing hurts me. 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 TOM BLOWN S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 But you’ll get about now directly, won’t you? You won’t 
 believe how clean I’ve kept the study. All your things 
 are just as you left them ; and I feed the old magpie just 
 when you used, though I have to come in from big-side for 
 him, the old rip. He won’t look pleased ail I can do, and 
 sticks his head first on one side and then on the other, and 
 blinks at me before he’ll begin to eat, till I’m half inclined 
 to box his ears. And whenever East comes in, you should 
 see him hop off to the window, dot and go one, though 
 Harry wouldn’t touch a feather of him now.” 
 
 Arthur laughed. “ Old Gravey has a good memory ; 
 he can’t forget the sieges of poor Martin’s den in old times.” 
 He paused a moment, and then went on. 46 You can’t think 
 how often I’ve been thinking of old Martin since I’ve been 
 ill : I suppose one’s mind gets restless, and likes to wander 
 off to strange unknown places. I wonder what queer new 
 pets the old boy has got ; how he must be reveling in the 
 thousand new birds, beasts, and fishes.” 
 
 Tom felt a pang of jealousy, but kicked it out in a mo- 
 ment. 44 Fancy him on a South-Sea island, with the Cher- 
 okees or Patagonians, or some such wild niggers ” (Tom’s 
 ethnology and geography were faulty, but sufficient for 
 his needs) ; 44 they’ll make the old Madman cock medicine- 
 man, and tattoo him all over. Perhaps he’s cutting about 
 now all blue, and has a squaw and a wigwam. He’ll im- 
 prove their boomerangs, and be able to throw them too, 
 without having old Thomas sent after him by the Doctor 
 to take them away.” 
 
 Arthur laughed at the remembrance of the boomerang 
 story, but then looked grave again, and said, 44 He’ll con- 
 vert all the island, I know.” 
 
 44 Yes, if he don’t blow it up first.” 
 
 44 Do you remember, Tom, how you and East used to 
 laugh at him and chaff him, because he said he was sure 
 the rooks all had calling-over or prayers, or something of 
 the sort when the locking-up bell rang? Well I declare,” 
 said Arthur, looking up seriously into Tom’s laughing 
 eyes, 44 1 do think he was right. Since I’ve been lying here, 
 I’ve watched them every night ; and do you know, they really 
 do come, and perch all of them just about locking-up time ; 
 and then first there’s a regular chorus of caws, and then 
 they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two or three 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 227 
 
 in different trees, caw solos, and then off they all go again, 
 fluttering about and cawing anyhow till they roost.” 
 
 “ I wonder if the old blackies do talk,” said Tom, look- 
 ing up at them. “ How they must abuse me and East, and 
 pray for the Doctor for stopping the slinging.” 
 
 “There! look, look!” cried Arthur; “don’t you see 
 the old fellow without a tail coming up ? Martin used to 
 call him the 6 clerk.’ He can’t steer himself. You never 
 saw such fun as he is in a high wind, when he can’t steer 
 himself home, and gets carried right past the trees, and 
 has to bear up again and again before he can perch.” 
 
 The locking-up bell began to toll, and the two boys were 
 silent, and listened to it. The sound soon carried Tom off 
 to the river and the woods, and he began to go over in his 
 mind the many occasions on which he had heard that toll 
 coming faintly down the breeze, and had to pack up his rod 
 in a hurry, and make a run for it, to get in before the gates 
 were shut. He was roused with a start from his memories 
 by Arthur’s voice gentle and weak from his late illness. 
 
 “ Tom, will you be angry if I talk to you very seriously ? ” 
 “ No, dear old boy, not I. But ain’t you faint, Arthur, 
 or ill ? What can I get you ? Don’t say anything to hurt 
 yourself now — you are very weak; let me come up again.” 
 “ No, no, I shan’t hurt myself: I’d sooner speak to you 
 now, if you don’t mind. I’ve asked Mary to tell the Doc- 
 tor that you are with me, so you needn’t go down to call- 
 ing-over; and I mayn’t have another chance, for I shall 
 most likely have to go home for change of air to get well, 
 and mayn’t come back this half.” 
 
 “ Oh, do you think you must go away before the end of 
 the half ? I’m so sorry. It’s more than five weeks yet 
 'to the holidays, and all the fifth-form examination and 
 half the cricket matches to come yet. And what shall 
 I do all that time alone in our study? Why, Arthur, 
 it will be more than twelve weeks before I see you again. 
 Oh, hang it, I can’t stand that! Besides, who’s to keep me 
 up to working at the examination books ! I shall come 
 out bottom of the form as sure as eggs is eggs.” 
 
 Tom was rattling on, half in joke, half in earnest, for he 
 wanted to get Arthur out of his serious vein, thinking it 
 would do him harm ; but Arthur broke in — 
 
 “ Oh, please, Tom, stop, or you’ll drive all I had to say out 
 
228 
 
 TOM BMOW2F8 SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 of my head. And I’m already horribly afraid I’m going to 
 make yon angry.” 
 
 44 Don’t gammon, young’un,” rejoined Tom (the use of the 
 old name, dear to him from old recollections, made Arthur 
 start and smile, and feel quite happy) ; 44 you know you 
 ain’t afraid, and you’ve never made me angry since the first 
 month we chummed uogether Now I’m going to be quite 
 sober for a quarter of on hour, which is more than 1’ am 
 once in a year, so make the most of it ; heave ahead, and 
 pitch into me right and left. ” 
 
 44 Dear Tom, I ain’t going to pitch into you, ” said Ar- 
 thur piteously ; 44 and it seems so cocky in me to be advis- 
 ing you who’ve been my backbone ever since I’ve been at 
 Rugby, and have made the school a paradise to me. Ah, I 
 see I shall never do it unless I go head-over-heels at once, 
 as you said when you taught me to swim. Tom, I want 
 you to give up using vulgus-books and cribs. ” 
 
 Arthur sank back on to his pillow with a sigh, as if the 
 effort had been great ; but the worst was now over, and 
 he looked straight at Tom, who was evidently taken aback. 
 He leaned his elbows on his knees, and stuck his hands in- 
 to his hair, whistled a verse of 44 Billy Taylor, ” and then 
 was quite silent for another minute. Not a shade crossed 
 his face, but he was clearly puzzled. At last he looked 
 up and caught Arthur’s anxious look, took his hand, and 
 said simply — - 
 
 44 A\ hy, young’un ? ” 
 
 44 Because you’re the honestest boy in Rugby, and that 
 ain’t honest. ” 
 
 44 1 don’t see that. ” 
 
 “ What were you sent to Rugby, for ? ” 
 
 “ Well, I don’t know exactly — nobody ever told me. I 
 suppose because all boys are sent to a public school in En- 
 gland. ” 
 
 “But what do you think yourself ? What do you want 
 to do here, and to carry away ? ” 
 
 Tom thought a minute. 44 1 want to be A 1 at cricket 
 and football, and all the other games, and to make my 
 hands keep my head against any fellow, lout or gentleman. 
 I want to get into the sixth before I leave, and to please 
 the Doctor ; and I want to carry away just as much Latin 
 and Greek as will take me through Oxford respectably. 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 
 
 229 
 
 There now, young’un, I never though of it before, but that’s 
 petty much about my figure. Ain’t it all on the square ? 
 What have you got to say to that ? ” 
 
 “ Whv, that you are pretty sure to do all that you want, 
 then.” " 
 
 44 Well, I hope so. But you’ve forgot one thing, that I 
 want to leave behind me. I want to leave behind me,” 
 said Tom speaking slow, and looking much moved, 44 the 
 name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy, or turned 
 his back on a big one.” 
 
 Arthur pressed his hand, and after a moment’s silence 
 went on: 44 You say, Tom, you want to please the Doctor. 
 Now, do you want to please him by what he thinks you do, 
 or by what you really do ? ” 
 
 44 By what I really do, of course.” 
 
 44 Does he think you use cribs and vulgus-books ? ” 
 
 Tom felt at once that his flank was turned, but he 
 couldn’t give in. 44 He was at Winchester himself,” said 
 he ; 44 he knows all about it.” 
 
 44 Yes but does he think you use them ? Do you think 
 he approves of it ? ” 
 
 44 You young villain!” said Tom, shaking his fist at 
 Arthur, half vexed and half pleased, 44 1 never think about 
 it. Hang it — there, perhaps he don’t. Well, I suppose he 
 don’t.” 
 
 Arthur saw that he had got his point ; he knew his 
 friend well, and was wise in silence as in speech. He 
 only said, 44 1 would sooner have the Doctor’s good opin- 
 ion of me as I really am than any man’s in the world.” 
 After another minute, Tom began again : 44 Look here, 
 young ’un, how on earth am I to get time to play the 
 matches this half if I give up cribs? We’re in the middle 
 of that long crabbed chorus in the Agamemnon; I can 
 only just make head or tail of it with the crib. Then 
 there’s Pericles’ speech coming on in Thucydides, and 
 4 The Birds’ to get up for the examination, besides the Tac- 
 itus.” Tom groaned at the thought of his accumulated 
 labors. 44 1 say, young ’un, there’s only five weeks or so 
 left to the holidays ; mayn’t I go on as usual for this half? 
 I’ll tell the Doctor about it some day, or you may.” 
 
 Arthur looked out of window ; the twilight had come 
 on, and all was silent. He repeated in a low voice, 
 
230 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 “ In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when 
 my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship 
 there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow down myself 
 in the house of Rimmon, when I bow down myself in the 
 house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this 
 thing.” 
 
 Not a word more was said on the subject, and the boys 
 were again silent — one of those blessed, short silences in 
 which the resolves which color a life are so often taken. 
 
 Tom was the first to break it. “ You’ve been very ill 
 indeed, haven’t you, Geordie ? ” said he, with a mixture of 
 awe and curiosity, feeling as if his friend had been in 
 some strange place or scene, of which he could form no 
 idea, and full of the memory of his own thoughts during 
 the past week. 
 
 “ Yes, very. I’m sure the Doctor thought I was going 
 to die. He gave me the sacrament last Sunday, and you 
 can’t think what he is when one is ill. He said such 
 brave, and tender, and gentle things to me, I felt quite 
 light and strong after it, and never had any more fear. 
 My mother brought our old medical man, who attended 
 me when I was a poor sickly child ; he said my constitu- 
 tion was quite changed, and that I’m fit for anything now. 
 If I hadn’t, I couldn’t have stood three days of this illness. 
 That’s all thanks to you, and the games you made me 
 fond of.” 
 
 “More thanks to old Martin,” said Tom; “he’s been 
 your real friend ” 
 
 “Nonsense, Tom; he never could have done for me 
 what you have.” 
 
 “ Well, I don’t know ; I did little enough. Did they tell 
 you — you won’t mind hearing it now, I know — that poor 
 Thompson died last week ? The other three boys are get- 
 ting quite round, like } r ou.” 
 
 “ Oh, yes, I heard of it.” 
 
 Then Tom, who was quite full of it, told Arthur of the 
 burial-services in the chapel, and how it had impressed him, 
 and he believed all the other boys. “ And though the Doc- 
 tor never said a word about it,” said he, “ and it was a half- 
 holiday and match-day, there wasn’t a game played in the 
 close all the afternoon, and the boys all went about as if it 
 were Sunday,” 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 
 
 231 
 
 “ I’m very glad of it,” said Arthur. “But, Tom, I’ve 
 had such strange thoughts about death lately. I’ve never 
 told a soul of them, not even my mother. Sometimes I 
 think they are wrong ; but, do you know, I don’t think in 
 my heart I could be sorry at the death of any of my 
 friends.” 
 
 Tom was taken quite aback. “ What in the world is the 
 young ’un after now?” thought he; “I’ve swallowed a 
 good many of his crotchets, but this altogether beats me. 
 He can’t be quite right in his head.” He didn’t want to 
 say a word, and shifted about uneasily in the dark : how- 
 ever, Arthur seemed to be waiting for an answer, so at 
 last he said, “I don’t think I quite see what you mean, 
 Geordie. One’s told so often to think about death, 
 that I’ve tried it on sometimes, especially this last week. 
 But we won’t talk of it now. I’d better go — you’re get- 
 ting tired, and I shall do you harm.” 
 
 “ No, no, indeed I ain’t Tom ; you must stop till nine, 
 there’s only twenty minutes. I’ve settled you shall stop 
 till nine. And oh! do let me talk to you — I must talk to 
 you. I see it’s just as I feared. You think I’m half mad 
 — don’t you now?” 
 
 “Well, I did think it odd what you said, Geordie, as 
 you ask me.” 
 
 Arthur paused a moment, and then said quickly, “ I’ll 
 tell you how it all happened. At first, when I was sent to 
 the sick room, and found I had really got the fever, I was 
 terribly frightened. I thought I should die, and I could 
 not face it for a moment. I don’t think it was sheer cow- 
 ardice at first, but I thought how hard it was to be taken 
 away from my mother and sisters, and you all, just as I 
 was beginning to see my way to many things, and to feel 
 that I might be a man and do a man’s work. To die with- 
 out having fought, and worked, and given one’s life away, 
 was two hard to bear. I got terribly impatient, and accused 
 God of injustice, and strove to justify myself; and the 
 harder I strove the deeper I sank. Then the image of 
 my dear father often came across me, but I turned from it. 
 Whenever it came, a heavy numbing throb seemed to take 
 hold of my heart and say, 4 Dead — dead — dead.’ And I 
 cried out, ‘The living, the living shall praise Thee, O 
 God ; the dead cannot praise Thee. There is no work in 
 
£82 
 
 TOM BROWN* S SCHOOL-DAYS . 
 
 the grave ; in the night no man can work. But I can work. 
 I can do great things. I will do great things. Why wilt 
 thou slay me ? ’ And so I struggled and plunged, deeper 
 and deeper, and went down into a living black tomb. 
 I was alone there, with no power to stir or think ; 
 alone with myself ; beyond the reach of all human 
 f cllowship ; beyond Christ’s reach, I thought, in my night- 
 mare. You, who are brave and bright and strong, can 
 have no idea of that agony. Pray to God you never may. 
 Pray as for your life.” 
 
 Arthur stopped — |»om exhaustion, Tom thought ; but 
 what between his fear lest Arthur should hurt himself, his 
 awe, and longing for him to go on, he couldn’t ask or stir 
 to help him. 
 
 Presently he went on, but quite calm and slow. “ I 
 don’t know how long I was in that state. For more than 
 a day, I know; for I was quite conscious, and lived my 
 outer life all the time, and took my medicine, and spoke 
 to my mother, and heard what they said. But I didn’t 
 take much note of time ; I thought time was over for me, 
 and that that tomb was what was beyond. Well, on last Sun- 
 day morning, as I seemed to lie in that tomb, alone, as I 
 thought, forever and ever, the black dead wall was cleft in 
 two, and I was caught up and borne through into the light 
 by some great power, some living mighty spirit. Tom, do 
 you remember the living creatures and the wheels in 
 Ezekiel ? It was just like that : 6 when they went I heard 
 the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as 
 t he voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise 
 of an host ; when they stood they let down their wings’ 
 — 4 and they went every one straight forward ; whither the 
 spirit was to go they went, and they turned not when 
 they went/ And we rushed through the bright air, which 
 was full of myriads of living creatures, and paused on the 
 brink of a great river. And the power held me up, and I 
 knew that that great river was the grave, and death dwelt 
 there ; but not the death I had met in the black tomb — that I 
 felt was gone forever. For on the other bank of the great 
 river I saw men and women and children rising up pure 
 and bright, and the tears were wiped from their eyes, and 
 they put on glory and strength, and all weariness and pain 
 fell away. And beyond were a multitude which no man 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL, 
 
 238 
 
 could number, and they worked at some great work ; and 
 they who rose from the river went on and joined in the 
 work. They all worked, and each worked in a different 
 way, but all at the same work. And I saw there my father, 
 and the men in the old town whom I knew when I was a 
 child ; many a hard, stern man, who never came to church, 
 and whom they called atheist and infidel. There they 
 were, side by side with my father, whom I had seen toil 
 and die for them, and women and little children, and the 
 seal was on the foreheads of all. And I longed to see 
 what the work was, and could not ; so I tried to plunge in 
 the river, for I thought I would join them, but I could 
 not. Then I looked about to see how they got into the 
 river. And this I could not see, but I saw myriads on 
 this side, and they too worked, and I knew that it was the 
 same work ; and the same seal was on their foreheads. And 
 though I saw that there was toil and anguish in the work 
 of these, and that most that were working were blind and 
 feeble, yet I longed no more to plunge into the river, but 
 more and more to know what the work was. And as I 
 looked I saw my mother and my sisters, and I saw the 
 Doctor and you, Tom, and hundreds more whom I knew ; 
 and at last I saw myself too, and I was toiling and doing 
 ever so little a piece of the great work. Then it all melted 
 away, and the power left me, and as it left me I thought I 
 heard a voice say, 4 The vision is for an appointed time ; 
 though it tarry, wait for it, for in the end it shall speak 
 and not lie, it shall surely come, it shall not tarry.’ It 
 was early morning I know then, it was so quiet and cool, 
 and my mother was fast asleep in the chair by my bedside ; 
 but it wasn’t only a dream of mine. I know it wasn’t a 
 dream. Then I fell into a deep sleep, and only woke after 
 afternoon chapel; and the Doctor came and gave me the 
 sacrament, as I told you. I told him and my mother I should 
 get well — I knew I should ; but I couldn’t tell them why. 
 Tom,” said Arthur, gently, after another minute, 44 do you 
 see why I could not grieve now to see my dearest friend 
 die ? It can’t be — it isn’t, all fever or illness. God would 
 never have let me see it so clear if it wasn’t true. I don’t 
 understand it all yet — it will take me my life and longer 
 to do that — to find out what the work is.” 
 
 When Arthur stopped there was a long pause. Tom 
 
234 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS . 
 
 could not speak, he was almost afraid to breathe, lest he 
 should break the train of Arthur’s thoughts. He longed 
 to hear more, and to ask questions. In another minute 
 nine o’clock struck, and a gentle tap at the door called 
 them both back into the world again. They did not 
 answer, however, for a moment, and so the door opened 
 and a lady came in carrying a candle. 
 
 She went straight to the sofa, and took hold of Arthur’s 
 hand, and then stooped down and kissed him. 
 
 44 My dearest boy, you feel a little feverish again. Why 
 didn’t you have lights? You’ve talked too much and ex- 
 cited yourself in the dark.” 
 
 44 Oh, no, mother ; you can’t think how well I feel. I 
 shall start with you to-morrow for Devonshire. But, 
 mother, here’s my friend, here’s Tom Brown — you know 
 him.” 
 
 44 Yes, indeed, I’ve known him for years,” she said, and 
 held out her hand to Tom, who was now standing up be- 
 hind the sofa. This was Arthur’s mother. Tall and slight 
 and fair, with masses of golden hair drawn back from the 
 broad white forehead, and the calm blue eye meeting his so 
 deep and open — the eye that he knew so well, for it was his 
 friend’s over again, and the lovely, tender mouth that 
 trembled while he looked, She stood there a woman of 
 thirty-eight, old enough to be his mother, and one whose 
 face showed the lines which must be written on the faces 
 of good men’s wives and widows — but he thought he had 
 never seen anything so beautiful. He couldn’t help 
 wondering if Arthur’s sisters were like her. 
 
 Tom held her hand, and looked on straight in her face ; 
 he could neither let it go nor speak. 
 
 44 Now, Tom,” said Arthur, laughing, 44 where are your 
 manners? you’ll stare my mother out of countenance.” 
 Tom dropped the little hand with a sigh. 44 There, sit 
 down, both of you. Here dearest mother, there’s room 
 here ; ” and he made a place on the sofa for her. 44 Tom, 
 you needn’t go; I’m sure you won’t be called up at first 
 lesson.” Tom felt that he would risk being floored at every 
 lesson for the rest of his natural school-life sooner than go, 
 so sat down. 44 And now,” said Arthur, 44 1 have realized 
 one of the dearest wishes of my life — to see you two 
 together.” 
 
FEVER IN THE SCHOOL . 
 
 235 
 
 And then he led away the talk to their home in Devon- 
 shire, and the red bright earth, and the deep green combes, 
 and the peat streams like cairngorm pebbles, and the wild 
 moor with its high cloudy Tors for a giant background to 
 the picture — till Tom got jealous, and stood up for the 
 clear chalk streams, and the emerald water meadows and 
 great elms and willows of the dear old Royal county, as he 
 gloried to call it. And the mother sat on quiet and loving, 
 rejoicing in their life. The quarter-to-ten struck, and the 
 bell rang for bed before they had well began their talk, as 
 it seemed. 
 
 Then Tom rose with a sigh to go. 
 
 44 Shall I see you in the morning, Geordie ?” said he, as 
 he shook his friend’s hand. 44 Never mind though ; you’ll 
 be back next half, and I sha’n’t forget the house of Rim- 
 mon.” 
 
 Arthur’s mother got up and walked with him to the 
 door, and there gave him her hand again, and again his 
 eyes met that deep loving look, which was like a spell up- 
 on him. Her voice trembled slightly as she said, 44 Good 
 night — you are one who knows what our Father has prom- 
 ised to the friend of the widow and the fatherless. May 
 He deal with you as you have dealt with me and mine ! ” 
 
 Tom was quite upset ; he mumbled something about 
 owing everything good in him to Geordie — looked in her 
 face again, pressed her hand to his lips, and rushed down 
 stairs to his study, where he sat till old Thomas came 
 kicking at the door to tell him his allowance would be 
 stopped if he didn’t go off to bed. (Tt would have been 
 stopped anyhow, but that he was a great favorite with the 
 old gentleman, who loved to come out in the afternoon 
 into the close to Tom’s wicket, and bowl slow twisters to 
 him, and talk of the glories of by-gone Surrey heroes, with 
 whom he had played in former generations.) So Tom 
 roused himself, and took up his candle to go to bed ; and 
 then for the first time was aware of a beautiful new fishing- 
 rod, with old Eaton’s mark on it, and a splendidly bound 
 Bible, which lay on his table, on the title-page of which 
 was written — 44 Tom Brown, from his affectionate and 
 grateful friends, Frances Jane Arthur; George Arthur.” 
 
 I leave you all to guess how he slept, and what he 
 dreamed of* 
 
236 
 
 TOM BROWN 8 SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HARRY EAST’S DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 
 
 The Holy Supper is kept indeed, 
 
 In whatso we share with another’s need — 
 
 Not that which we gave, but what we share, 
 
 For the gift without the giver is bare: 
 
 Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, 
 
 Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me. 
 
 The Vision of Sir Launfal — Lowell, p. 11. 
 
 The next morning, after breakfast, Tom, East, and 
 Gower met as usual to learn their second lesson together. 
 Tom had been considering how to break his proposal of 
 giving up the crib to the others, and having found no 
 better way (as indeed none better can ever found by man 
 or boy), told them simply what had happened ; how he 
 had been to see Arthur, who had talked to him upon the 
 subject, and what he had said, and for his part he had 
 made up his mind, and wasn’t going to use cribs anymore; 
 and not being quite sure of his ground, took the high and 
 pathetic tone, and was proceeding to say, “ how that 
 having learned his lessons with them for so many } r ears, it 
 would grieve him much to put an end to the arrangement, 
 and he hoped at any rate that if they wouldn’t go on with 
 him, they should still be just as good friends, and respect 
 one another’s motives — but — ” 
 
 Here the other boys, who had been listening with open 
 eyes and ears, burst in — 
 
 “ Stuff and nonsense ! ” cried Gower. “ Here, East, get 
 down the crib and find the place.” 
 
 “ Oh, Tommy, Tommy ! ” said East, proceeding to do as 
 he was bidden, “ that it should ever have come to this. I 
 knew Arthur ’d be the ruin of you some day, and you 
 of me. And now the time’s come,” and he made a dole- 
 ful face. 
 
 “ I don’t know about ruin,” answered Tom ; “ I know that 
 you and I would have had the sack long ago, if it hadn’t 
 been for him. And you know it as well as I.” 
 
 “Well, we were in a bad dish way before he came. I 
 own ; but this new crotchet of his is past a joke.” 
 
HARRY EASTS DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES . 237 
 
 “ Let’s give it a trial, Harry ; come — you know how 
 often he has been right and we wrong.” 
 
 “Now, don’t you two be jawing away about young 
 Square-toes,” struck in Gower. “ He’s no end of a suck- 
 ing wiseacre, I dare say, but we’ve no time to lose, and I’ve 
 got the fives’-court at half-past nine.” 
 
 “ I say, Gower,” said Tom, appealingly, “ be a good fel- 
 low, and let’s try if we can’t get on without the crib.” 
 
 “ What ! in this chorus ? Why, we shan’t get through 
 ten lines.” 
 
 “ I say, Tom,” cried East, having hit on a new idea, 
 “ don’t you remember, when we were in the upper fourth, 
 and old Momus caught me construing off the leaf of a crib 
 which I’d torn out and put in my book, and which would 
 float out on to the floor, he sent me up to be flogged for 
 it?” 
 
 “ Yes, I remember it very well.” 
 
 “ Well, the Doctor, after he’d flogged me, told me him- 
 self that he didn’t flog me for using a translation, but for 
 taking it into lesson, and using it there when I hadn’t 
 learned a word before I came in. He said there was no 
 harm in using a translation to get a clue to hard passages, 
 if you tried all you could first to make them out without.” 
 
 “ Did he, though ? ” said Tom : “ then Arthur must be 
 wrong.” 
 
 “ Of course he is,” said Gower, “ the little prig. We’ll 
 only use the crib when we can’t construe without it. Go 
 ahead, East.” 
 
 And on this agreement they started : Tom satisfied with 
 having made his confession, and not sorry to have a locus 
 \ poenitentice , and not to be deprived altogether of the use of 
 his old and faithful friend. 
 
 The boys went on as usual, each taking a sentence in 
 turn, and the crib being handed to the one whose turn it 
 was to construe. Of course Tom could n’t object to this, 
 as, was it not simply lying there to be appealed to in case 
 the sentence should prove too hard altogether for the con- 
 struer ? But it must be owned that Gower and East did 
 not make very tremendous exertions to conquer their sen- 
 tences before having recourse to its help. Tom, however, 
 with the most heroic virtue and gallantry rushed into his 
 sentence, searching in a high-minded manner for nomina- 
 
238 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DA TS. 
 
 tive and verb, and turning over his dictionary frantically 
 for the first hard word that stopped him But in the mean- 
 time Gower, who was bent on getting to fives, would peep 
 quietly into the crib, and then suggest, “ Don’t you think 
 this is the meaning ? ” “ I think you must take it this way, 
 Brown ; ” and as Tom didn’t see his way to not profiting 
 by these suggestions, the lesson went on about as quickly 
 as usual, and Gower was able to start for the fives’-court 
 within five minutes of the half-hour. 
 
 When Tom and East were left face to face, they looked 
 at one another for a minute, Tom puzzled, and East chock 
 full of fun, and then burst into a roar of laughter. 
 
 “ Well, Tom,” said East, recovering himself, “I don’t 
 see any objection to the new way. It’s about as good as 
 the old one, I think ; besides the advantage it gives one of 
 feeling virtuous, and looking down on one’s neighbors.” 
 
 Tom shoved his hand into his back hair. 44 I ain’t so 
 sure, “ said he “ you two fellows carried me off my legs : 
 I don’t think we really tried one sentence fairly. Are you 
 sure you remember what the Doctor said to you?” 
 
 “Yes. And I’ll swear I couldn’t make out one of my 
 sentences to-day. No, nor ever could. I really don’t 
 remember,” said East, speaking slowly and impressively, 
 “ to have come across one Latin or Greek sentence this 
 half, that I could go and construe by the light of nature. 
 Whereby I am sure Providence intended cribs to be 
 used.” 
 
 “ The thing to find out,” said Tom meditatively, “ is 
 how long one ought to grind at a sentence without look- 
 ing at the crib. Now I think if one fairly looks out all the 
 words one don’t know, and then can’t hit it, that’s enough.” 
 
 44 To be sure, Tommy,” said East demurely, but with a 
 merry twinkle in his eye. 44 Your new doctrine too, old 
 fellow,” added he, 44 when one comes to think of it, is a 
 cutting at the root of all school morality. You’ll take 
 away mutual help, brotherly love, or in the vulgar tongue, 
 giving construes, which I hold to be one of our highest 
 virtues. For how can you distinguish between getting a 
 construe from another boy, and using a crib? Hang it, 
 Tom, if you’re going to deprive all our school-fellows of 
 the chance of exercising Christian benevolence and being 
 good Samaritans, I shall cut the concern.” 
 
MARRY EAST'S DELEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 239 
 
 “ I wish you wouldn’t joke about it, Harry ; it’s hard 
 enough to see one’s way, a precious sight harder than I 
 thought last night. But I suppose there’s a use and an 
 abuse of both, and one’ll get straight enough somehow. 
 But you can’t make out anyhow that one has a right to 
 use old vulgus-books and copy-books.” 
 
 “ Hullo, more heresy ! how fast a fellow goes down 
 hill when he once gets his head before his legs. Lis- 
 ten to me, Tom. Not use old vulgus-books? — why, you 
 Goth ! ain’t we to take the benefit of the wisdom, and ad- 
 mire and use the work of past generations? Not use old 
 copy-books ! Why you might as well say we ought to pull 
 down Westminster Abbey, and put up a go-to-meeting-shop 
 with church warden windows ; or never read Shakespeare, 
 but only Sheridan Knowles. Think of all the work and 
 labor that our predecessors have bestowed on these very 
 books ; and are we to make their work of no value ? ” 
 
 “ I say, Harry, please don’t chaff ; I’m really serious.” 
 
 “ And then, is it not our duty to consult the pleasure of 
 others rather than our own, and above all that of our mas- 
 ters ? Fancy then the difference to them in looking over 
 a vulgus which has been carefully touched and retouched 
 by themselves and others, and which must bring them a 
 sort of dreamy pleasure, as if they’d met the thought or ex- 
 pression of it somewhere or another — before they were born 
 perhaps; and that of cutting up, and making picture- 
 frames round all your and my false quantities, and other 
 monstrosities. Why, Tom, you wouldn’t be so cruel as 
 never to let old Momus hum over the 6 0 genus humanum ,’ 
 again, and then look up doubtingly through his spectacles, 
 and end by smiling and giving three extra marks for it : 
 just for old sake’s sake, I suppose.” 
 
 “ Well, ’ said Tom, getting up in something as like a huff 
 as he was capable of, “ it’s deuced hard that when a fellow’s 
 really trying to do what he ought, his best friends ’ll do 
 nothing but chaff him and try to put him down.” And he 
 stuck his books under his arm and his hat on his head, pre- 
 paratory to rushing out into the quadrangle, to testify with 
 his own soul of the faithlessness of friendships. 
 
 “ Now don’t be an ass, Tom,” said East, catching hold of 
 him, “ you know me well enough by this time ; my bark’s 
 worse than my bite. You can’t expect to ride your new 
 
240 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 crotchet without anybody’s trying to stick a nettle under 
 his tail and make him kick you off especially as we shall 
 all have to go on foot still. B ut now sit down and let’s go 
 over it again. I’ll be as serious as a judge.” 
 
 Then Tom sat himself down on the table, and waxed 
 eloquent about all the righteousness and advantages of the 
 new plan, as was his wont whenever he took up anything ; 
 going into it as if his life depended upon it, and sparing iu 
 abuse which he could think of of the opposite method, which 
 he denounced as ungentlemanly, cowardly, mean, lying, and 
 no one knows what besides. “ Very cool of Tom ” as East 
 thought, but didn’t say, “seeing as how he only came out of 
 Egypt himself last night at bed time.” 
 
 “ Well, Tom,” said he at last, “ you see, when you and I 
 came to school there were none of these sort of notions. 
 You may be right — I dare say you are. Only what one lias 
 always felt about the masters is, that it’s a fair trial of skill 
 and last between us and them — like a match at football, or 
 a battle. We’re natural enemies in school, that’s the fact. 
 We’ve got to learn so much Latin and Greek and do so 
 many verses, and they’ve got to see that we do it. If we 
 can slip the collar and do so much less without getting 
 caught, that’s one to us. If they can get more out of us, or 
 catch us shirking, that’s one to them. All’s fair in war but 
 lying. If I run my luck against theirs, and go into school 
 without looking at my lessons, and don’t get called up, why 
 am I a snob or a sneak ? I don’t tell the master I’ve learned 
 it. He’s got to find out whether I have or not ; what’s 
 he paid for ? If he calls me up, and I get floored, he makes 
 me write it out in Greek and English. Very good, he’s 
 caught me, and I don’t grumble. I grant you, if I go and 
 snivel to him, and tell him I’ve really tried to learn it but 
 found it so hard without a translation, or say I’ve had a 
 toothache, or any humbug of that kind, I’m a snob. That’s 
 my school morality ; it’s served me — and you too, Tom, for 
 the matter of that — -these five years. And it’s all clear and 
 fair, no mistake about it. We understand it, and they under- 
 stand it, and I don’t know what we are to come to with 
 any other.” 
 
 Tom looked at him pleased and a little puzzled. He had 
 never heard East speak his mind seriously before, and 
 couldn’t help feeling how completely he had hit his own 
 theory and practice up to that time. 
 
HARRY EASTS DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 241 
 
 “ Thank you, old fellow,” said he. 44 You’re a good old 
 brick to be serious, and not put out with me. I said more 
 than I meant, I dare say, only you see I know I’m right : 
 whatever you and Gower and the rest do I shall hold on — I 
 must. And as it’s all new and an up-hill game, you see, 
 one must hit hard and hold on tight at first.” 
 
 “ Very good,” said East; 44 hold on and hit away, only 
 don’t hit under the line.” 
 
 “ But I must bring you over, Harry, or I shan’t be comfort- 
 able. Now, I allow all you’ve said. We’ve always been 
 honorable enemies with the masters. We found a state of 
 war when we came, and went into it of course. Only don’t 
 you think things are altered a good deal ? I don’t feel as I 
 used to the masters. They seem to me to treat one quite 
 differently.” 
 
 44 Yes, perhaps they do,” said East ; “ there’s a new set, 
 you see, mostly, who don’t feel sure of themselves yet. 
 They don’t want to fight till they know the ground.” 
 44 1 don’t think it’s only that,” said Tom. 44 And then 
 the Doctor, he does treat one so openly and like a gentle- 
 man, and as if one was working with him.” 
 
 44 Well, so he does,” said East; 44 he’s a splendid fellow, 
 and when I get into the sixth I shall act accordingly. Only 
 you know he has nothing to do with our lessons now except 
 examining us. I say, though,” looking at his watch, 44 it’s 
 just the quarter. Come along.” 
 
 As they walked out they got a message, to say, 44 that 
 Arthur was just starting and would like to say good-bye” ; 
 so they went down to the private entrance of the school- 
 house, and found an open carriage, with Arthur propped 
 up with pillows in it, looking already better, Tom thought. 
 
 They jumped up on to the steps to shake hands with 
 him, and Tom mumbled thanks for the presents he had 
 found in his study, and looked round anxiously for Arthur’s 
 mother. 
 
 East, who had fallen back into his usual humor, looked 
 quaintly at Arthur, and said — 
 
 44 So you’ve been at it again, through that hot-headed con- 
 vert of yours there. He’s been making our lives a burden 
 to us all the morning about using cribs. I shall get floored 
 to a certainty at second lesson, if I’m called up.” 
 
 Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom struck in — 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 TOM BROWN’ S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 “ Oh, it’s all right. He’s converted already ; he always 
 comes through the mud after us, grumbling and sputtering.” 
 
 The clock struck, and they had to go off to school, wish- 
 ing Arthur a pleasant holiday; Tom lingering behind a mo- 
 ment to send his thanks and love to Arthur’s mother. 
 
 Tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, and 
 succeeded so far as to get East to promise to give the new 
 plan a fair trial. 
 
 Encouraged by his success, in the evening, when they 
 were sitting alone in the large study, where East lived now 
 almost, “ vice Arthur on leave ” after examining the new 
 fishing-rod, which both pronounced to be the genuine 
 article (“ play enough to throw a midge tied on a single 
 hair against the wind, and strength enough to hold a 
 grampus”), they naturally began talking about Arthur. 
 Tom, who was still bubbling over with last night's scene, 
 and all the thoughts of the last week, and wanting to clinch 
 and fix the whole in his own mind, which he could never 
 do without first going through the process of belaboring 
 somebody else with it all, suddenly rushed into the subject 
 of Arthur’s illness, and what he had said about death. 
 
 East had given him the desired opening; after a serio- 
 comic grumble, u that life wasn’t wort! having now they 
 were tied to a young beggar who was always raising his 
 standard ; ’ and that he, East, was like a prophet’s donkey, 
 who was obliged to struggle on after the donkey-man who 
 went after the prophet ; that he had none of the pleasure 
 of starting the new crotchets, and didn’t half understand 
 them, but had to take the kicks and carry the luggage as 
 if he had all the fun ” — he threw his legs up on to the sofa, 
 and put his hands behind his head, and said — 
 
 “Well, after all, he’s the most wonderful little fellow I 
 ever came across. There ain’t such a meek, humble boy 
 in the school. Hanged if I don’t think now really, Tom, 
 that he believes himself a much worse fellow than you or 
 I, and that he don’t think he has more influence in the 
 house than Dot Bowles, who came last quarter, and ain’t 
 ten yet. But he turns you and me round his little finger, 
 old boy — there’s no mistake about that.” And East nodded 
 at Tom sagaciously. 
 
 “Now or never !” thought Tom; so shutting his eyes 
 and hardening his heart, he went straight at it, repeating 
 
HARRY EAST 8 I)IL EMMA S AND DELIVERANCES. 243 
 
 all that Arthur had said, as near as he could remember it, 
 in the very words, and all he had himself thought. The 
 life seemed to ooze out of it as he went on, and several 
 times he felt inclined to stop, give it all up, and change 
 the subject. But somehow he was borne on ; he had a 
 necessity upon him to speak it all out and did so. At the 
 end he looked at East with some anxiety, and was delight- 
 ed to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful and 
 attentive. The fact is that in the stage of his inner life at 
 which Tom had lately arrived, his intimacy with and 
 friendship for East could not have lasted if he had not 
 made him aware of, and a sharer in, the thoughts that 
 were beginning to exercise him. Nor indeed could the 
 friendship have lasted if East had shown no sympathy 
 with these thoughts ; so that it was a great relief to have 
 unbosomed himself, and to have found that his friend could 
 listen. 
 
 Tom had always had a sort of instinct that East’s levity 
 was only skin-deep ; and this instinct was a true one. 
 East had no want of reverence for anything he felt to be 
 real: but his was one of those natures that burst into what 
 is generally called recklessness and impiety the moment 
 they feel that anything is being poured upon them for their 
 good, which does not come home to their inborn sense of 
 right, or which appeals to anything like self-interest in 
 them. Daring and honest by nature, and outspoken to an 
 extent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a constant 
 fund of animal health and spirits which he did not feel 
 bound to curb in any way, he had gained for himself with 
 the steady part of the school (including as well those who 
 wished to appear steady as those who really were so) the 
 character of a boy whom it would be dangerous to be 
 intimate with ; while his own hatred of everything cruel, 
 or underhand, or false, and his hearty respect for what he 
 could see to be good and true, kept off the rest. 
 
 Tom, besides being very like East in many points of 
 character, had largely developed in his composition the 
 capacity for taking the weakest side. This is not putting 
 it strongly enough ; it was a necessity with him ; he couldn’t 
 help it any more than he could eating or drinking. He 
 could never play on the strongest side with any heart at 
 foot-ball or cricket, and was sure to make friends with any 
 boy who was unpopular or down on his luck. 
 
£4 4 
 
 T03f J5jR0TFiV r, /S &CiI00£-2),ir& 
 
 Now though East was not what is generally called unpon- 
 ular. Tom felt more and more every day, as their char- 
 acters developed, that he stood alone, and did not make 
 friends among their contemporaries, and therefore sought 
 him out. Tom was himself much more popular, for his 
 power of detecting humbug was much less acute, and his 
 instincts were much more sociable. He was at this period 
 of his life, too, largely given to taking people for what they 
 gave themselves out to be ; but his singleness of heart, 
 fearlessness and honesty were just what East appreciated, 
 and thus the two had been drawn into greater intimacy. 
 
 This intimacy had not been interrupted by Tom’s guardi- 
 anship of Arthur. 
 
 East had often, as has been said, joined them in reading 
 the Bible ; but their discussions had almost always turned 
 upon the characters of the men and women of whom they 
 read, and not become personal to themselves. In fact, the 
 two had shrunk from personal religious discussion, not 
 knowing how it might end; and fearful of risking a friend- 
 ship very dear to both, and which they felt somehow, 
 without quite knowing why, would never be the same, but 
 either tenfold stronger or sapped at its foundation, after 
 such a communing together. 
 
 What a bother all this explaining is ! I wish we could 
 get on without it. But we can’t. However, you’ll all 
 find, if you haven’t found it out already, that a time comes 
 in every human friendship, when you must go down into 
 the depths of yourself and lay bare what is there to your 
 friend, and wait in fear for his answer. A few moments 
 may do it; and it may be (most likely will be, as you are 
 English boys) that you never do it but once. But done it 
 must be, if the friendship is to be worth the name. You 
 must find what is there, at the very root and bottom of one 
 another’s hearts ; and if you are at once there, nothing on 
 earth can, or at least ought to sunder you. 
 
 East had remained lying down until Tom finished speak- 
 ing, as if fearing to interrupt him ; he now sat up at the 
 table, and leaned his head on one hand, taking up a pencil 
 with the other, and working little holes with it in the table- 
 cover. After a bit he looked up, stopped the pencil, and 
 said, “ Thank you very much, old fellow ; there’s no other 
 boy in the house would have done it for me but you or 
 
HARRY EASTS DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 245 
 
 Arthur. I can see well enough,” he went on after a pause, 
 “ all the best big fellows look on me with suspicion ; they 
 think I’m a devil-may-care, reckless young scamp. So I 
 am — eleven hours out of twelve — but not the twelfth. 
 Then all of our contemporaries worth knowing follow suit, 
 of course ; we’re very good friends at games and all that, 
 but not a soul of them but you and Arthur ever tried to 
 break through the crust, and see whether there was any- 
 thing at the bottom of me ; and then the bad ones I won’t 
 stand, and they know that.” 
 
 “ Don’t you think that’s half fancy, Harry?” 
 
 “Not a bit of it,” said East bitterly, pegging away with 
 his pencil. “I see it all plain enough. Bless you, you 
 think everybody’s as straightforward and kind-hearted as 
 you are.” 
 
 “ Well, but what’s the reason of it? There must be a 
 reason. You can play all the games as well as any one, 
 and sing the best songs, and are the best company in the 
 house. You fancy you’re not liked, Harry. It’s all 
 fancy.” 
 
 “ I only wish it was, Tom. I know I could be popular 
 enough with all the bad ones, but that I won’t have, and 
 the good ones won’t have me.” 
 
 “ Why not ? ” persisted Tom ; “ you don’t drink or swear, 
 “or get out at night; you never bully, or cheat at lessons. 
 If you only showed you liked it, you’d have all the best fel- 
 lows in the house running after you.” 
 
 “ Not I,” said East. Then with an effort he went on, 
 “ I’ll tell you what it is. I never stop the sacrament. I can 
 see, from the Doctor downward, how that tells against 
 me.” 
 
 “Yes, I’ve seen that,” said Tom, “and I’ve been very 
 sorry for it, and Arthur and I have talked about it. I’ve 
 often thought of speaking to you, but it’s so hard to begin 
 on such subjects. I’m very glad you’ve opened it. Now, 
 why don’t you? ” 
 
 “I’ve never been confirmed,” said East. 
 
 “Not been confirmed!” said Tom in astonishment. “I 
 never thought of that. Why weren’t you confirmed with 
 the rest of us nearly three years ago ? I always thought 
 you’d been confirmed at home.” 
 
 “ No,” answered East sorrowfully; “you see this was 
 
246 
 
 TOM BBOWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS . 
 
 how it happened. Last confirmation was soon after Arthur 
 came, and you were so taken up with him, I hardly saw 
 either of you. Well, when the Doctor sent round for us 
 about it, I was living mostly with Green’s set — you know 
 the sort. They all went in — I dare say it was all right, 
 and they got good by it ; I don’t want to judge them. 
 Only all I could see of their reasons drove me just the other 
 way. ’Twas 4 because the Doctor liked it’; 4 no boy got 
 on who didn’t stay the sacrament ’; 4 it was the correct 
 thing,’ in fact, like having a good hat to wear on Sundays. 
 I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t feel that I wanted to lead a 
 different life, I was very well content as I was, and I wasn’t 
 going to sham religious to curry favor with the Doctor or 
 any one else.” 
 
 East stopped speaking, and pegged away more diligently 
 than ever with his pencil. Tom was ready to cry. He felt 
 Half sorry at first that he had been confirmed himself. He 
 seemed to have deserted his earliest friend, to have left him 
 by himself at his worst need for those long years. He got 
 up and went and sat by East and put his arm over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 44 Dear old boy,” he said, “how careless and selfish I’ve 
 been, But why didn’t you come and talk to Arthur and 
 me ? ” 
 
 44 I wish to heaven I had,” said East, 44 but I was a fool. 
 It’s too late talking of it now.” 
 
 44 Why too late ? You want to be confirmed now, don’t 
 you?” 
 
 “ I think so,” said East. 44 I’ve thought about it a good 
 deal ; only often I fancy I must be changing, because I see 
 it’s to do me good here, just what stopped me last time. 
 And then I go back again.” 
 
 44 I’ll tell you now how ’twas with me,” said Tom warm- 
 ly. 44 If it hadn’t been for Arthur, I should have done just 
 as you did. I hope I should. I honor you for it. But 
 then he made it out just as if it was taking the weak side 
 before all the world — going in once for all against every- 
 thing that’s strong and rich and proud and respectable, a 
 little band of brothers against the whole world. And the 
 Doctor seemed to say so too, only he said a great deal 
 more.” 
 
 44 Ah ! ” groaned East, “ but there again, that’s just an- 
 
HARRY EASTS DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES. 247 
 
 other of my difficulties whenever I think about the matter. 
 I don’t want to be one of your saints, one of your elect, 
 whatever the right phrase is. My sympathies are all the 
 other way : with the many, the poor devils who run about 
 the streets and don’t go to church. Don’t stare, Tom; 
 mind, I’m telling you all that’s in my heart — as far as I 
 know it — but it’s all a muddle. You must be gentle with 
 me if you want to land me. Now I’ve seen a deal of this 
 sort of religion ; I was bred up in it, and I can’t stand it. 
 If nineteen-twentieths of the world are to be left to uncov- 
 enanted mercies, and that sort of thing, which means in 
 plain English to go to hell, and the other twentieths are to 
 rejoice at it all, why- ” 
 
 44 Oh ! but, Harry, they ain’t, they don’t,” broke in Tom, 
 really shocked. 44 Oh, I wish Arthur hadn’t gone ! I’m 
 such a fool about these things. But it’s all you want 
 too, East ; it is indeed. It cuts both ways somehow, being 
 confirmed and taking the sacrament. It makes you feel on 
 the side of all the good and all the bad too, of everybody in 
 the world. Only there’s some great dark strong power, 
 which is crushing you and everybody else. That’s what 
 Christ conquered, and we’ve got to fight. What a fool I 
 am ! I can’t explain. If Arthur were only here ! ” 
 
 44 1 begin to get a glimmering of what you mean,” said 
 East. 
 
 44 1 say now,” said Tom eagerly, 44 do you remember how 
 we both hated Flashman?” 
 
 44 Of course I do,” said East ; 44 1 hate him still. What 
 then ? ” 
 
 44 Well, when I came to take the sacrament, I had a great 
 struggle about that. I tried to put him out of my head ; 
 and when I couldn’t do that, I tried to think of him as evil, 
 as something that the Lord who was loving me hated, and 
 which I might hate too. But it wouldn’t do. I broke down : 
 I believe Christ himself broke me down ; and when the 
 Doctor gave me the bread and wine, and leaned over me 
 praying, I prayed for poor Flashman, as if it had been you 
 or Arthur.” 
 
 East buried his face in his hands on the table. Tom could 
 feel the table tremble. At last he looked up, 44 Thank you 
 again, Tom,” said he; 44 you don’t know what you may have 
 done for me to-night. I think I see now how the right sort 
 of sympathy with poor devils is got at*” 
 
248 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL BAYS. 
 
 “ And you’ll stop to the sacrament next time, wont’ .you ?* 
 said Tom. 
 
 “ Can I, before I’m confirmed ? ” 
 
 “ Go and ask the Doctor.” 
 
 “I will.” 
 
 That very night after prayers, East followed the Doctor 
 and the old Verger bearing the candle, up-stairs. Tom 
 watched, and saw the Doctor turn round when he heard 
 footsteps following him closer than usual, and say, “ Hah, 
 East ! Do you want to speak with me, my man? ” 
 
 “ If you please, sir ; ” and the private door closed and 
 Tom went to his study in a state of great trouble of mind. 
 
 It was almost an hour before East came back ; then he 
 rushed in breathless. 
 
 “ W ell, it’s all right,” he shouted, seizing Tom by the 
 hand. “ I feel as if a ton-weight were off my mind.” 
 
 “Hurra,” said Tom. “I knew it would be ; but tell us 
 all about it ? ” 
 
 “Well, I just told him all about it. You can’t think how 
 kind and gentle he was, the great grim man, whom I’ve 
 feared more than anybody on earth. When I stuck, he 
 lifted me, just as if I had been a little child. And he 
 seemed to know all I’d felt, and to have gone through it 
 all. And I burst out crying — more than I’ve done this five 
 years ; and he sat down by me, and stroked my head ; and 
 I went blundering on, and told him all ; much worse things 
 than I’ve told you. And he wasn’t shocked a bit, and didn’t 
 snub me, or tell me I was a fool, and it was all nothing but 
 pride or wickedness, though I dare say it was. And he 
 didn’t tell me not to follow out my thoughts, and he didn’t 
 give me any cut-and-dried explanation. But when I’d done 
 he just talked a bit — I can hardly remember what he said 
 yet ; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, and 
 strength, and light ; and to bear me up, and plant me on a 
 rock, where I could hold my footing, and fight for myself. 
 I don’t know what to do, I feel so happy. And it’s all 
 owing to you, dear old boy ! ” and he seized Tom’s hand 
 again. 
 
 “ And you’re to come to the communion ? ” said Tom. 
 
 “Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays.” 
 
 Tom’s delight was as great as his friend’s. But he hadn’t 
 yet had out all his own talk and was bent on improving the 
 
TOM BROWN' 8 LAST MATCH. 
 
 249 
 
 occasion : so he proceeded to propound Arthur’s theory 
 about not being sorry for his friends’ deaths, which he had 
 hitherto kept in the background, and by which he was 
 much exercised ; for he didn’t feel it honest to take what 
 pleased him and throw over the rest, and was trying vigor- 
 ously to persuade himself that he should like all his best 
 friends to die off-hand. 
 
 But East’s powers of remaining serious were exhausted, 
 and in five minutes he was saying the most ridiculous things 
 he could think of, till Tom was almost getting angry again. 
 
 Despite of himself, however, he couldn’t help laughing 
 and giving it up, when East appealed to him with “Well, 
 Tom, you ain’t going to punch my head, I hope, because I 
 insist upon being sorry when you got to earth ? ” 
 
 And so their talk finished for that time, and they tried 
 to learn first lesson ; with very poor success, as appeared 
 next morning, when they were called up and narrowly es- 
 caped being floored, which ill-luck, however, did not sit 
 heavily on either of their souls. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TOM BROWN’S LAST MATCH. 
 
 “ Heaven grant the manlier hearts, that timely, ere 
 Youth fly, with life’s real tempest would be coping; 
 
 The fruit of dreamy hoping 
 Is, waking, blank despair. 
 
 Clough. Ambarvalia. 
 
 The curtain now rises upon the last act of our little 
 drama — for hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single 
 volume must of necessity have an end. Well, well ! the 
 pleasantest things must come to an end. I little thought 
 last long vacation, when I began these pages to help while 
 away some spare time at a watering-place, how vividly 
 many an old scene, which had lain hid away for years in 
 some dusty old corner of my brain, would come back again 
 and stand before me as clear and bright as if it had hap- 
 pened yesterday. The book has been a most grateful task 
 to me, and I only hope that all you, my dear young 
 friends, who read it (friends assuredly you must be, if you 
 get as far as this), will be half as sorry to come to the last 
 stage as I am. 
 
TOM BROWN* 8 SCHOOL- J) A YS. 
 
 250 
 
 Not but what there has been a solemn and a sad side to 
 it. As the old scenes became living, and the actors in them 
 became living too, many a grave in the Crimea and distant 
 India, as well as in the quiet churchyards of our dear old 
 country, seemed to open and send forth their dead, and 
 their voices and looks and ways were again in one’s ears 
 and eyes, as i:i the old school-days. But this was not sad ; 
 how should it be, if we believe as our Lord has taught i.s? 
 How should it be, when, one more turn of the wheel, and 
 we shall be by their sides again, learning from them again, 
 perhaps, as we did when we were new boys ? 
 
 Then there were others of the old faces so dear to us 
 once, who had somehow or another just gone clean out of 
 sight — are they dead or living ? We know not, but the 
 thought of them brings no sadness with it. Wherever 
 they are, we can well believe they are doing God’s work 
 and getting His wages. 
 
 But are there not some, whom we still see sometimes in 
 the streets, whose haunts and homes we know, whom we 
 could probably find almost any day in the week if we were 
 set to do it, yet from whom we are really farther than we 
 are from the dead, and from those who have gone out of 
 our ken ? Yes, there are and must be such ; and therein lies 
 the sadness of old school memories. Yet of these, our old 
 comrades, from whom more than time and space can separate 
 us, there are some by whose side we can feel sure that we 
 shall stand again when time shall be no more. We may 
 think of one another now as dangerous fanatics or narrow 
 bigots, with whom no truce is possible, from whom we 
 shall only sever more and more to the end of our lives, 
 whom it would be our respective duties to imprison or 
 hang, if we had the power. We must go our way, and they 
 theirs, as long as flesh and spirit hold together ; but let our 
 own Rugby poet speak words of healing for this trial ; — 
 
 “ To veer how vain ! on, onward strain, 
 
 Brave barks ! in light, in darkness too; 
 
 Through winds and tides one compass guides. 
 
 To that, and your own selves, be true. 
 
 “ But, O blithe breeze! and O great seas! 
 
 Though ne’er that earliest parting past, 
 
 On your wide plain they join again, 
 
 Together lead them home at last. 
 
TOM BROWN’S LAST MATCH . 
 
 251 
 
 “ One port, raethought, alike they sought, 
 
 One purpose hold where’er they fare. 
 
 O bounding breeze ! O rushing seas ! 
 
 At last, at last, unite them there. ” * 
 
 This is not mere longing, it is prophecy. So over these 
 too, our old friends who are friends no more, we sorrow not 
 as men without hope. It is only for those who seem to us 
 to have lost compass and purpose, and to be driven help- 
 lessly on rocks and quicksands ; whose lives are spent in 
 the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil ; for self 
 alone, and not for their fellow-men, their country, or their 
 God, that we must mourn and pray without sure hope 
 and without light ; trusting only that He, in whose hands 
 they as well as we are, who has died for them as well as 
 for us, who sees all His creatures 
 
 “ With larger, other eyes than ours, 
 
 To make allowance for us all,” 
 
 will, in His own way and at His own time, lead them also 
 home 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Another two years have passed, and it is again the end 
 of the summer half-year at Rugby ; in fact, the school has 
 broken up. The fifth-form examinations were over last 
 week and upon them have followed the speeches and the 
 sixth-form examinations for exhibitions ; and they too are 
 over now. The boys have gone to a:l the winds of heaven, 
 except the town boys and the eleven, and the few en- 
 thusiasts besides who have asked leave to stay in their 
 houses to see the result of the cricket matches. For this 
 year the Wellesburn return match and the Marylebone 
 match are played at Rugby, to the great delight of the 
 town and neighborhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring 
 young cricketers who have been reckoning for the last 
 three months on showing off at Lord’s ground. 
 
 The Doctor started for the Lakes yesterday morning, 
 after an interview with the captain of the eleven, in the 
 presence cf Thomas, at which he arranged in what school 
 the cricket dinners were to be, and all other matters 
 necessary for the satisfactory carrying out of the festivities ; 
 
 * Clough. Ambarvalia 
 
252 
 
 TOM BROWN 9 8 SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 and warned them as to keeping all spirituous liquors out 
 of the close, and having the gates closed by nine o’clock. 
 
 The Wellesburn match was played out with great success 
 yesterday, the school winning by three wickets : and to- 
 day the great event of the cricketing year, the Marylebone 
 match, is being played. What a match it has been ! The 
 London eleven came down by an afternoon train yesterday, 
 in time to see the end of the Wellesburn match ; and as 
 soon as it was over, their leading men and umpire inspected 
 the ground, criticising it rather unmercifully. The captain 
 of the school eleven, and one or two others, who had 
 played the Lord’s match before, and knew old Mr. Aislabie 
 and several of the Lord’s men, accompanied them; while 
 the rest of the eleven looked on from under the Three 
 Trees with admiring eyes, and asked one another the 
 names of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how 
 many runs each of them had made in the late matches in 
 Bell’s Life. They looked such hard-bitten, wiry, whiskered 
 fellows, that their young adversaries felt rather desponding 
 as to the result of the morrow’s match. The ground was 
 at last chosen, and two men set to work upon it to water 
 and roll; and then, there being yet some half hour of day- 
 light, some one had suggested a dance on the turf. The 
 close was half full of citizens and their families, and the 
 idea was hailed with enthusiasm. The cornopean-player 
 was still on the ground ; and in five minutes the eleven and 
 half a dozen of the Wellesburn and Marylebone men got 
 partners somehow or another, and a merry country dance 
 was going on, to which every one flocked, and new couples 
 joined in every minute, till there were a hundred of them 
 going down the middle and up again — and the long line 
 of school buildings looked gravely down on them, every 
 window glowing with the last rays of the western sun, and 
 the rooks clanged about in the tops of the old elms, greatly 
 excited, and resolved on having their country-dance too, 
 and the great flag flapped lazily in the gentle western 
 breeze. Altogether it was a sight which would have made 
 glad the heart of our brave old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, 
 if he were half as good a fellow as I take him to have been. 
 It was a cheerful sight to see ; but what made it so valuable 
 in the sight of the Captain of the school eleven was, that 
 he there saw his young hands shaking off the ir shyness and 
 
TOM BBOW^'z luisT MjlTCH' 
 
 253 
 
 awe of the Lord’s men, as they crossed hands and capered 
 about on the grass together ; for the strangers entered into 
 it all, and threw away their cigars, and danced and shouted 
 like boys : while old Mr. Aislabie stood by looking on in 
 his white hat, leaning on a bat, in benevolent enjoyment. 
 “This hop will be worth thirty runs to us to-morrow, and 
 will be the making of Haggles and Johnson,” thinks the 
 young leader, as he revolves many things in his mind, 
 standing by the side of Mr. Aislabie, whom he will not 
 leave for a minute, for he feels that the character of the 
 school for courtesy is resting on his shoulders. 
 
 But when a quarter to nine struck, and he saw old 
 Thomas beginning to fidget about with the keys in his 
 hand, he thought of the Doctor’s parting monition, and 
 stopped the cornopean at once, notwithstanding the loud- 
 voiced remonstrances from all sides, and the crowd scat- 
 tered away from the close, the eleven all going into the 
 school-house, where supper and beds were provided for 
 them by the Doctor’s order. 
 
 Deep had been the consultations at supper as to the 
 order of going in, who should bowl the first over, whether 
 it would be best to play steady or freely; and the youngest 
 hands declared that they shouldn't be a bit nervous, and 
 praised their opponents as the jolliest fellows in the world, 
 except perhaps their old friends the Wellesburn men. 
 How far a little good-nature from their elders will go with 
 the right sort of boys ! 
 
 The morning had dawned bright and warm, to the in- 
 tense relief of many an anxious youngster, up betimes to 
 mark the signs of the weather. The eleven went down in 
 a body before breakfast for a plunge in the cold bath in 
 the corner of the close. The ground was in splendid order, 
 and soon after ten o’clock, before spectators had arrived, 
 all was ready, and two of the Lord’s men took their places 
 at the wicket, the school, with the usual liberality of young 
 hands, having put their adversaries in first. Old Bailey 
 stepped up to the wicket and called play, and the match 
 has begun. 
 
 * * * & * # 
 
 “ Oh, well bowled ! well bowled, Johnson !” cries the 
 captain, catching up the ball and sending it high above the 
 rook trees, while the third Marylebone man walks away 
 
254 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 from the wicket, and old Bailey gravely sets up the middle 
 stump again and puts the bails on. 
 
 44 How many runs ? ” Away scamper three boys to the 
 scoring-table, and are back again in a minute among the 
 rest of the eleven, who are collected together in a knot be- 
 tween wicket. “ Only eighteen runs, and three wickets 
 down ! ” 44 Huzza, for old Rugby ! ” sings out Jack 
 
 Raggles the long-stop, toughest and burliest of boys com- 
 monly called 44 S wiper Jack ! ” and forthwith stands on his 
 head, and brandishes his legs in the air in triumph, till the 
 next boy catches hold of his heels, and throws him over 
 on to his back. 
 
 44 Steady there, don’t be such an ass, Jack,” says the 
 captain ; 44 we haven’t got the best wicket yet. Ah, look 
 out now at cover-point,” adds he, as he sees a long- 
 armed, bare-headed, slashing-looking player coming to the 
 wicket. 44 And, Jack, mind your hits; he steals more 
 runs than any man in England.” 
 
 And they all find that they have got their work to do 
 now ; the new-comer’s off-hitting is tremendous, and his 
 running like a flash of lightning. He is never in his 
 ground, except when his wicket is down. Nothing in the 
 whole game so trying to boys : he has stolen three byes in 
 the first ten minutes, and Jack Raggles is furious, and 
 begins throwing over savagely to the further wicket, until 
 he is sternly stopped by the captain. It is all that young 
 gentleman can do to keep his team steady, but he knows 
 that everything depends on it, and faces his work bravely. 
 The score creeps up to fifty, the boys begin to look blank, 
 and the spectators, who are now mustering strong, are very 
 silent. The ball flies off his bat to all parts of the field, 
 and he gives no rest and no catches to any one. But 
 cricket is full of glorious chances, and the goddess who pre- 
 sides over it loves to bring down the most skillful players. 
 Johnson, the young bowler, is getting wild, and bowls a 
 ball almost wide to the off ; the batter steps out and cuts 
 it beautifully to where cover-point is standing very deep, 
 in fact almost off the ground. The ball comes skimming 
 and twisting along about three feet from the ground ; he 
 rushes at it, and it sticks somehow or other in the fingers 
 of his left hand, to the utter astonishment of himself and 
 the whole field. Such a catch hasn’t been made in the 
 
TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH. 
 
 255 
 
 close for years, and the cheering is maddening. “ Pretty 
 cricket/’ says the captain, throwing himself on the ground 
 by the deserted wicket with a long breath ; he feels that a 
 crisis has passed. 
 
 I wish I had space to describe the whole match ; how 
 the captain stumped the next man off a leg-shooter, and 
 bowled slow lobs to old Mr. Aislabie, who came in for the 
 last wicket. How the Lord’s men were out by half-past 
 twelve o’clock for ninety-eight runs. How the captain of 
 the school eleven went in first to give his men pluck, and 
 scored twenty-five in beautiful style ; how Rugby was only 
 four behind in the first innings. What a glorious dinner 
 they had in the fourth-form school, and how the cover- 
 point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, and old 
 Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that ever were heard, 
 afterward. But I haven’t space, that’s the fact, and so 
 you must fancy it all, and carry yourselves on to half-past 
 seven o’clock, when the school are again in, with five 
 wickets down and only thirty-two runs to make to win. 
 The Marylebone men played carelessly in their second 
 innings, but they are working like horses now to save the 
 match. 
 
 There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up 
 and down the close ; but the group to which I beg to call 
 your especial attention is there, on the slope of the island, 
 which looks toward the cricket-ground. It consists of 
 three figures ; two are seated on a bench, and one on the 
 ground at their feet. The first, a tall, slight, and rather 
 gaunt man with a bushy eyebrow and a dry humorous 
 smile, is evidently a clergyman. He is carelessly dressed, 
 and looks rather used up, which isn’t much to be wondered 
 at, seeing that he has just finished six weeks of examination 
 work; but there he basks, and spreads himself out in the 
 evening sun, bent on enjoying life, though he doesn’t 
 quite know what to do with his arms and legs. Surely it 
 is our friend the young master, whom we have had 
 glimpses of before, but his face has gained a great deal 
 since we last came across him. 
 
 And by Jus side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, 
 straw hat, the captain’s belt, and the untanned yellow 
 cricket shoes which all the eleven wear, sits a strapping 
 figure, near six feet high, with ruddy tanned face and 
 
256 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 whiskers, curly brown hair and a laughing, dancing eye. 
 He is leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, 
 and dandling his favorite bat, with which he has made 
 thirty or forty runs to-day, in his strong brown hands. It 
 is Tom Brown, grown into a young man nineteen years 
 old, a praepostor and captain of the eleven, spending his 
 last day as a Rugby-boy, and let us hope as much wiser as 
 he is bigger, since we last had the pleasure of coming 
 across him. 
 
 And at their feet on the warm dry ground, similarly 
 dressed, sits Arthur, Turkish fashion, with his bat across 
 his knees. He too is no longer a boy, less of a boy in fact 
 than Tom, if one may judge from the thoughtfulness of 
 his face, which is somewhat paler, too, than one could 
 wish ; but his figure, though slight, is well knit and active, 
 and all his old timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by 
 silent quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, 
 as he listens to the broken talk between the other two, in 
 which he joins every now and then. 
 
 All three are watching the game eagerly, and joining in 
 the cheering which follows every good hit. It is pleasing 
 to see the easy friendly footing which the pupils are on 
 with their master, perfectly respectful, yet with no reserve 
 and nothing forced in their intercourse. Tom has clearly 
 abandoned the old theory of 44 natural enemies ” in this 
 case at any rate. 
 
 But it is time to listen to what they are saying, and see 
 what we can gather out of it. 
 
 “ I don’t object to your theory,” says the master, 44 and 
 I allow you have made a fair case for yourself. But now, 
 in such books as Aristophanes, for instance, you’ve been 
 reading a play this half with the Doctor, haven’t you.” 
 
 44 Yes, the Knights,” answered Tom. 
 
 64 Well, I’m sure you would have enjoyed the wonder- 
 ful humor of it twice as much if you had taken more pains 
 with your scholarship.” 
 
 44 Well, sir, I don’t believe any boy in the form enjoyed 
 the sets-to between Cleon and the Sausage-seller more than 
 I did — eh, Arthur ? ” said Tom, giving him a stir with his 
 foot. 
 
 44 Yes, I must say he did,” said Arthur. 44 1 think, sir, 
 you’ve hit upon the wrong book there.” 
 
TOM BROWN’S LAST MATCH . 
 
 257 
 
 “ Not a bit of it,” said the master. 46 Why, in those very 
 passages of arms, how can yon thoroughly appreciate them 
 unless you are master of the weapons ? and the weapons 
 are the language which you, Brown, have never half 
 worked at ; and so, as I say, you must have lost all the 
 delicate shades of meaning which make the best part of the 
 fun.” 
 
 44 Oh! well played — bravo, Johnson!” shouted Arthur, 
 dropping his bat and clapping furiously, and Tom joined in 
 with a k4 Bravo, Johnson! ” which might have been heard 
 at the chapel. 
 
 44 Eh ! what was it ? I didn’t see,” inquired the master ; 
 44 they only got one run, I thought ? ” 
 
 44 No, but such a ball, three-quarters length and coming 
 straight for his leg bail. Nothing but that turn of the 
 wrist could have saved him, and he drew it away to leg for 
 a safe one. Bravo, Johnson! ” 
 
 44 How well they are bowling, though,” said Arthur ; 
 they don’t mean to be beat, I can see.” 
 
 44 There now,” struck in the master, 44 you see that’s just 
 what I have been preaching this half-hour. The delicate 
 play is the true thing. I don’t understand cricket, so I 
 don’t enjoy those fine draws which you tell me are the best 
 play, though when you or Raggles hit a ball hard away for 
 six I am as delighted as any one. Don’t you see the 
 analogy ? ” 
 
 44 Yes, sir,” answered Tom, looking up roguishly, 44 1 see ; 
 only the question remains whether I should have got most 
 good by understanding Greek particles or cricket thorough- 
 ly. I’m such a thick, I never should have had time for 
 both.” 
 
 44 1 see you are an incorrigible,” said the master with a 
 chuckle ; 44 but I refute you by an example. Arthur there 
 has taken in Greek and cricket too.” 
 
 44 Yes, but no thanks to him ; Greek came natural to 
 him. Why, when he first came I remember he used to 
 read Herodotus for pleasure as I did Don Quixote, and 
 couldn’t have made a false concord if he’d tried ever so 
 hard — and then I looked after his cricket.” 
 
 44 Out! Bailey has given him out — do you see, Tom?” 
 cries Arthur. 44 How foolish of them to run so hard.” 
 
 44 Well, it can’t be helped, he has played very well. 
 Whose turn is it to go in ? ” 
 
258 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 “I don’t know; they’ve got your list in the tent.’* 
 
 “ Let’s go and see,” said Tom, rising ; but at this mo- 
 ment Jack Haggles and two or three more came running to 
 the island moat. 
 
 “ Oh, Brown, mayn’t I go in next?” shouts the Swiper. 
 
 “ Whose name is next on the list? ” says the captain. 
 
 “ Winter’s, and then Arthur’s,” answers the boy who 
 carries it; “but there are only twenty-six runs to get, and 
 no time to lose. I heard Mr. Aislabie say that the stumps 
 must be drawn at a quarter past-eight exactly.” 
 
 “ Oh, do let the Swiper go in,” chorus the boys ; so Tom 
 yields against his better judgment. 
 
 “ I dare say now I’ve lost the match by this nonsense,” 
 he says as he sits down again ; “ they’ll be sure to get 
 Jack’s wicket in three or four minutes; however, you’ll 
 have the chance, sir, of seeing a hard hit or two,” adds he, 
 smiling, and turning to the master. 
 
 “ Come, none of your irony, Brown,” answers the mas- 
 ter. “ I’m beginning to understand the game scientifically. 
 What a noble game it is too ! ” 
 
 “Isn’t it? But it’s more than a game — it’s an institu- 
 tion,” said Tom. 
 
 “Yes,” said Arthur, “the birthright of British boys, 
 old and young, as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of 
 British men.” 
 
 “ The discipline and reliance on one another which it 
 teaches is so valuable, I think,” went on the master, “it 
 ought to be such an unselfish game. It merges the indi- 
 vidual in the eleven ; he doesn’t play that he may win, but 
 that his side may.” 
 
 “ That’s very true,” said Tom, “ and that’s why football 
 and cricket, now one conies to think of it, are so much bet- 
 ter games than fives’ or hare-and-hounds or any others 
 where the object is to come in first or to win for one's self, 
 atid not that one’s side may win.” 
 
 “ And then the captain of the eleven ! ” said the master, 
 “ what a post is his in our school world ! almost as hard as 
 the Doctor’s ; requiring skill and gentleness and firmness, 
 and I know not what other rare qualities.” 
 
 “ Which don’t he wish he may get ? ” said Tom, laugh- 
 ing ; “ at any rate he hasn’t got them yet, or he wouldn’t 
 have been such a flat to-night as to let Jack Haggles go in 
 out of his turn.” 
 
TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH. 
 
 259 
 
 %4 Ah ! the Doctor never would have done that,” said 
 Arthur, demurely. 44 Tom, you’ve a great deal to learn 
 yet in the art of ruling.” 
 
 44 Well, I wish you’d tell the Doctor so, then, and get 
 him to let me stop till I’m twenty. I don’t want to leave, 
 I’m sure.” 
 
 44 What a sight it is,” broke in the master, 44 the Doctor 
 as a ruler. Perhaps ours is the only little corner of the 
 British empire which is thoroughly, wisely, and strongly 
 ruled just now. I’m more and more thankful every day of 
 my life that I came here to be under him.” 
 
 44 So am I, I’m sure,” said Tom ; 44 and more and more 
 sorry that I’ve got to leave.” 
 
 44 Every place and thing one sees here reminds one of 
 some wise act of his,” went on the master. 44 This island 
 now — you remember the time, Brown, when it was laid 
 out in small gardens, and cultivated by frost-bitten fags in 
 February and March?” 
 
 44 Of course I do,” said Tom ; 44 didn’t I hate spending 
 two hours in the afternoons grubbing in the tough dirt 
 with the stump of a fives’-bat ? But turf-cart was good 
 fun enough.” 
 
 44 1 dare say it was, but it was always leading to fights 
 with the townspeople ; and then the stealing flowers out of 
 all the gardens in Rugby for the Easter show was abom- 
 inable.” 
 
 44 Well, so it was,” said Tom, looking down, 44 but we 
 fags couldn’t help ourselves. But what has that to do 
 with the Doctor’s ruling? ” 
 
 44 A great deal, I think,” said the master ; 44 what brought 
 island fagging to an end ? ” 
 
 44 Why, the Easter speeches were put off till midsummer,” 
 said Tom, 44 and the sixth had the gymnastic poles put up 
 here.” 
 
 44 Well, and who changed the time of the speeches, and 
 put the idea of gymnastic poles into the heads of their 
 worships, the sixth-form ?” said the master. 
 
 44 The Doctor, I suppose,” said Tom. 44 1 never thought 
 of that.” 
 
 44 Gf course you didn’t,” said the master, 44 or else, fag as 
 you were, you would have shouted with the whole school 
 against putting down old customs. And that’s the wagr 
 
260 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL’D A YS. 
 
 that all the Doctor’s reforms have been carried out when 
 he has been left to himself — quietly and naturally, putting 
 a good thing in the place of a bad, and letting the bad die 
 out ; no wavering and no hurry — the best thing that could 
 be done for the time being, and patience for the rest.” 
 
 “ Just Tom’s own way,” chimed in Arthur, nudging Tom 
 with his elbow, “ driving a nail where it will go;” to 
 which allusion Tom answered by a sly kick. 
 
 u Exactly so,” said the master, innocent of the allusion 
 and by-play. 
 
 Meantime Jack Raggles, with his sleeves tucked up 
 above his great brown elbows, scorning pads and gloves, 
 has presented himself at the wicket; and having run one 
 for a forward drive of Johnson’s, is about to receive his 
 first ball. There are only twenty-four runs to make, and 
 four wickets to go down ; a winning match if they play 
 decently steady. The ball is a very swift one, and rises 
 fast, catching Jack on the outside of the thigh, and bound- 
 ing away as if from india-rubber, while they run two for a 
 leg-bye amid great applause, and shouts from Jack’s many 
 admirers. The next ball is a beautifully pitched ball for 
 the outer stump, which the reckless and unfeeling Jack 
 catches hold of, and hits right round to leg for five, while 
 the applause becomes deafening: only seventeen runs to 
 get with four wickets — the game is all but ours ! 
 
 It is “ over” now, and Jack walks swaggering about his 
 wicket, with the bat over his shoulder, while Mr. Aislabie 
 holds a short parley with his men. Then the cover-point 
 hitter, that cunning man, goes on to bowl slow twisters. 
 Jack waves his hand triumphantly toward the tent, as 
 much as to say, “ See if I don’t finish it all off now in three 
 hits.” 
 
 Alas ! my son Jack ! the enemy is too old for thee. The 
 first ball of the over Jack steps out and meets, swiping 
 with all his force. If he had only allowed for the twist ! 
 but he hasn’t, and so the ball goes spinning up straight 
 into the air, as if it would never c«oie down again. Away 
 runs Jack, shouting and trusting to the chapter of acci- 
 dents; but the bowler runs steadily under it, judging every 
 spin, and calling out, “ I have it,” catches it, and playfully 
 pitches it on to the back of the stalwart Jack, who is de- 
 parting with a rueful countenance. 
 
'10M SHOWN* 8 LAST MATCH. 
 
 261 
 
 “ 1 knew how it would be,” says Tom, rising “ Come 
 along, the game’s getting very serious.” 
 
 So they leave the island and go to the tent, and, after 
 deep consultation, Arthur is sent in, and goes off to the 
 wicket with a last exhortation from Tom to play steady 
 and keep his bat straight. To the suggestion that Winter 
 in the best bat left. Tom only replies, “ Arthur is the 
 steadiest, and Johnson will make the runs if the wicket is 
 only kept up.” 
 
 “ I am surprised to see Arthur in the eleven,” said the 
 master, as they stood together in front of the dense crowd, 
 which was now closing in round the ground. 
 
 “ Well, I’m not quite sure that he ought to be in for his 
 play,” said Tom, “but I couldn’t help putting him in. It 
 will do him so much good, and you can’t think what I owe 
 him.” 
 
 The master smiled. The clock strikes eight, and the 
 whole field becomes fevered with excitement. Arthur, 
 after two narrow escapes, scores one ; and Johnson gets the 
 ball. The bowling and fielding are superb, and Johnson’s 
 batting worthy the occasion. He makes here a two, and 
 there a one managing to keep the ball to himself, and Ar- 
 thur backs up and runs perfectly; only eleven runs to 
 make now, and the crowd scarcety breathe. At last Arthur 
 gets the ball again, and actually drives it forward for two, 
 and feels prouder than when he got the three best prizes, 
 at hearing Tom’s shout of joy, “ Well played, well played, 
 young ’un ! ” 
 
 But the next ball is too much for a young hand, and his 
 bails fly different ways. Nine runs to make, and two 
 wickets to go down — it is too much for human nerves. 
 
 Before Winter can get in, the omnibus which is to take 
 the Lord’s men to the train pulls up at the side of the 
 close and Mr. Aislabie and Tom consult, and give out that 
 the stumps will be drawn after the next over. And so ends 
 the great match. Winter and Johnson carry out their 
 bats, and, it being a one day’s match, the Lord’s men are 
 declared the winners, they having scored the most in the 
 first innings. 
 
 But such a defeat is a victory ; so think Tom and all the 
 school eleven, as they accompany their conquerers to the 
 Omnibus, and send them off with three ringing cheers* after 
 
262 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 Mr. Aislabie has shaken hands all round, saying to Tom, 
 44 I must compliment you, sir, on your eleven, and I hope 
 we shall have you for a member if you come up to town.” 
 
 As Tom and the rest of the eleven were turning back 
 into the close, and everybody was beginning to cry out for 
 another country-dance, encouraged by the success of the 
 night before, the young master, who was just leaving the 
 close, stopped him, and asked him to come up to tea at 
 half-past eight, adding, “I won’t keep you more than half 
 an hour, and ask Arthur to come up too. 
 
 44 I’ll come up with you directly, if you’ll let me,” said 
 Tom, 44 for I feel rather melancholy, and not quite up to 
 the country-dance and supper with the rest.” 
 
 “ Do by all means,” said the master ; 44 I’ll wait here for 
 
 you.” 
 
 So Tom went off to get his boots and things from the 
 tent, to tell Arthur of the invitation, and to speak to his 
 second in command about stopping the dancing and shut- 
 ting up the close as soon as it grew dusk. Arthur prom- 
 ised to follow as soon as he had had a dance. So Tom 
 handed his things over to the man in charge of the tent, and 
 walked quietly away to the gate where the master was 
 waiting, and the two took their way together up the Hill- 
 m orton road. 
 
 Of course they found the master’s house locked up, and 
 all the servants away in the close, about this time no doubt 
 footing it away on the grass with extreme delight to them- 
 selves, and in utter oblivion of the unfortunate bachelor, 
 their master, whose one enjoyment in the shape of meals 
 was his u dish of tea ” (as our grandmothers called it) in 
 the evening ; and the phrase was apt in his case, for he al- 
 ways poured his out into the saucer before drinking. Great 
 was the good man’s horror at finding himself shut out of 
 his own house. Had he been alone, he would have treated 
 it as a matter of course, and would have strolled content- 
 edly up and down his gravel-walk until some one came 
 home ; but he was hurt at the stain on his character of 
 host, especially as the guest was a pupil. However, the 
 guest seemed to think it a great joke, and presently as they 
 poked about round the house, mounted a wall, from which 
 he could reach a passage window ; the window, as it turned 
 out, was not bolted, so in another minute Tom was in the 
 
TOM BROWN 9 S LAST MATCH. 
 
 263 
 
 house and down at the front door, which he opened from 
 inside. The master chuckled grimly at this burglarious 
 entry, and insisted on leaving the hall-door and two of the 
 front windows open, to frighten the truants on their return ; 
 and then the two set about foraging for tea, in which oper- 
 ation the master was much at fault, having the faintest 
 possible idea where to find anything, and being moreover 
 wondrously short-sighted, but Tom by a sort of instinct 
 knew the right cupboards in the kitchen and pantry, and 
 soon managed to place on the snuggery table better ma- 
 terials for a meal than had appeared there probably during 
 the reign of his tutor, who was then and there initiated, 
 among other things, into the excellence of that mysterions 
 condiment, a dripping-cake. The cake was newly baked, 
 and all rich and flaky ; Tom had found it reposing in the 
 cook’s private cupboard, awaiting her return ; and as a 
 warning to her, they finished it to the last crumb. The 
 kettle sang away merrily on the hob of the snuggery, for 
 notwithstanding the time of year, they lighted a fire, throw- 
 ing both the windows wide open at the same time. The 
 heap of books and papers was pushed away to the other 
 end of the table, and the great solitary engraving of King’s 
 College Chapel over the mantelpiece looked less stiff than 
 usual, as they settled themselves down in the twilight to 
 the serious drinking of tea. 
 
 After some talk on the match, and other indifferent sub- 
 jects, the conversation came naturally back to Tom’s ap- 
 proaching departure, over which he began again to make 
 his moan. 
 
 44 Well, we shall all miss you quite as much as you will 
 miss us,” said the master. “You are the Nestor of the 
 school now, are you not ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, ever since East left,” answered Tom. 
 
 44 By the bye, have you heard from him ? ” 
 
 “Yes, I had a letter in February, just before he started 
 for India to join his regiment.” 
 
 44 He will make a capital officer.” 
 
 “Ay, won’t he!” said Tom, brightening; “no fellow 
 could handle boys better, and I suppose soldiers are very 
 like boys. And he’ll never tell them to go where he won’t 
 go himself. No mistake about that — a braver fellow never 
 walked.” 
 
264 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 “ His year in the sixth will have taught him a good deal 
 that will be useful to him now.” 
 
 “ So it will,” said Tom, staring into the fire. “Poor, 
 dear Harry,” he went on, “ how well I remember the day 
 we were put out of the twenty. How he rose to the 
 situation, and burned his cigar-cases, and gave away his 
 pistols, and pondered on the constitutional authority of the 
 sixth, and his new duties to the Doctor, and the fifth form, 
 and the fags. Ay, and no fellow ever acted up to them 
 better, though he was always a people’s man — for the fogs, 
 and against constituted authorities. He couldn’t help that, 
 you know. I’m sure the Doctor must have liked him?” 
 said Tom, looking up inquiringly. 
 
 “ The Doctor sees the good in every one, and appreciates 
 it,” said the master, dogmatically ; “ but I hope East will 
 get a good colonel. He won’t do if he can’t respect those 
 above him. How long it took him even here to learn the 
 lesson of obeying.” 
 
 “Well, I wish I were alongside of him,” said Tom. “ If 
 I can’t be at Rugby, I want to be at work in the world, and 
 not dawdling away three years at Oxford.” 
 
 “What do you mean by 6 at work in the world’?” said 
 the master, pausing, with his lips close to his saucerful of 
 tea, and peering at Tom over it. 
 
 “Well, I mean real work; one’s profession; whatever 
 one will have really to do, and make one’s living by. I 
 want to be doing some real good, feeling that I am not 
 only at play in the world,” answered Tom, rather puzzled 
 to find out himself what he really did mean. 
 
 “ You are mixing up two very different things in your 
 head, I think, Brown,” said the master, putting down the 
 empty saucer, “ and you ought to get clear about them. 
 You talk of 4 working to get your living/ and 4 doing some 
 real good in the world/ in the same breath. Now, you 
 may be getting a very good living in a profession, and 
 yet doing no good at all in the world, but quite the con- 
 trary, at the same time. Keep the latter before you as 
 your only object, and you will be right, whether you make 
 a living or not ; but if you dwell on the other, you’ll very 
 likely drop into mere money-making, and let the world 
 take care of itself for good or evil. Don’t be in a hurry 
 about finding your work in the world for yourself; you 
 
TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH. 
 
 265 
 
 are not old enough to judge for yourself yet, but just look 
 about you in the place you find yourself in, and try to 
 make things a little better and hon ester there. You’ll find 
 plenty to keep your hand in at Oxford, or wherever else 
 you go. And don’t be led away to think this part of the 
 world important and that unimportant. Every corner of 
 the world is important. No man knows whether this part 
 or that is most so, but every man may do some honest work 
 in his own corner.” And then the good man went on to 
 talk wisely to Tom of the sort of work which he might 
 take up as an undergraduate ; and warned him of the pre- 
 valent university sins, and explained to him the many and 
 great differences between university and school life ; till 
 the twilight changed into darkness, and they heard the 
 truant servants stealing in by the back entrance. 
 
 “I wonder where Arthur can be,” said Tom at last, look- 
 ing at his watch : “ why, it’s nearly half-past nine already.” 
 
 44 Oh, he is comfortably at supper with the eleven, for- 
 getful of his oldest friends,” s&id the master. “ Nothing 
 has given me greater pleasure,” he went on, “ than your 
 friendship for him; it has been the making of you both.” 
 
 “ Of me, at any rate,” answered Tom ; “ I should never 
 have been here now but for him. It was the luckiest 
 chance in the world that sent him to Rugby, and made 
 him my chum.” 
 
 44 Why do you talk of lucky chances ? ” said the master ; 
 “ I don’t know that there are any such things in the world ; 
 at any rate there was neither luck nor chance in that 
 matter.” 
 
 Tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went on. “ Do 
 you remember when the Doctor lectured you and East at 
 the end of one half-year, when you were in the shell, and 
 had been getting into all sorts of scrapes ? ” 
 
 44 Yes, well enough,” said Tom : 44 it was the half-year 
 before Arthur came.” 
 
 44 Exactly so,” answered the master. “Now, I was with 
 him a few minutes afterwards, and he was in great distress 
 about you two. And, after some talk, we both agreed 
 that you in particular wanted some object in the school 
 beyond games and mischief; for it was quite clear that 
 you never would make the regular school work your first 
 object. And so the Doctor, at the beginning of the next 
 
266 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 half-year, looked out the best of the new boys, and sepa- 
 rated you and East, and put the young boy into your 
 study, in the hope that when you had somebody to lean 
 on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier your- 
 self, and get manliness and thoughtfulness. And I can 
 assure you he has watched the experiment ever since 
 with great satisfaction. Ah ! not one of you boys will 
 ever know the anxiety you have given him, or the care 
 with which he has watched over every step in your school 
 lives.” 
 
 Up to this time, Tom had never wholly given in to or 
 understood the Doctor. At first he had thoroughly feared 
 him. For some years, as I have tried to show, he had 
 learned to regard him with love and respect, and to think 
 him a very great and wise and good man. But, as re- 
 garded his own position in the school, of which he was no 
 little proud, Tom had no idea of giving any one credit for 
 it but himself, and, truth to tell, was a very self-conceited 
 young gentleman on the subject. He was wont to boast 
 that he had fought his own way fairly up the school, and 
 had never made up to or been taken up by any big fellow 
 or master, and that it was now quite a different place from 
 what it was when he first came. And, indeed, though he 
 didn’t actually boast of it, yet in his secret soul he did to a 
 great extent believe that the great reform of the school 
 had been owing quite as much to himself as to any one 
 else. Arthur, he acknowledged, had done him good, and 
 taught him a good deal, so had other boys in different 
 Avays, but they had not had the same means of influence 
 on the school in general ; and as for the Doctor, why, he 
 was a splendid master, but every one knew that masters 
 could do very little out of school hours. In short, he felt 
 on terms of equality with his chief, so far as the social state 
 of the school was concerned, and thought that the Doctor 
 would find it no easy matter to get on without him. More- 
 over, his school toryism was still strong, and he looked 
 still with some jealousy on the Doctor, as somewhat of a 
 fanatic in the matter of change, and thought it very de- 
 sirable for the school that he should have some wise person 
 (such as himself) to look sharply after vested school-rights, 
 and see that nothing was done to the injury of the republic 
 without due protest. 
 
TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH . 
 
 267 
 
 It was a new light to him to find that, besides teaching 
 the sixth, and governing and guiding the whole school, ed- 
 iting classics, and writing histories, the great head-master 
 had found time in those busy years to watch over the 
 career even of him, Tom Brown, and his particular friends, 
 — and, no doubt, of fifty other boys at the same time ; and 
 all this without taking the least credit to himself, or of 
 seeming to know, or let any one else know, that he ever 
 thought particularly of any boys at all. 
 
 However, the Doctor’s victory was complete from that 
 moment over Tom Brown at any rate. He gave way at 
 all points, and the enemy marched right over him, cavalry, 
 infantry, and artillery, the land transport corps, and the 
 camp followers. It had taken^eight long years to do it, 
 but now it was done thoroughly, and there wasn’t a corner 
 of him left which didn’t believe in the Doctor. Had he 
 returned to school again, and the doctor begun the half- 
 year by abolishing fagging, and football, and the Saturday 
 half-holiday, or all or any of the most cherished school in- 
 stitutions, Tom would have supported him with the blind- 
 est faith. And so, after a half confession of his previous 
 shortcomings, and sorrowful adieus to his tutor, from whom 
 he received two beautifully bound volumes of the Doctor’s 
 sermons, as a parting present, he marched down to the 
 school-house, a hero-worshiper, who would have satisfied 
 the soul of Thomas Carlyle himself. 
 
 There he found the eleven at high jinks after supper, 
 Jack Raggles shouting comic songs, and performing feats of 
 strength ; and was greeted by a chorus of mingled remon- 
 strance at his desertion, and joy at his reappearance. And 
 falling in with the humor of the evening, was soon as great 
 a boy as all the rest ; and at ten o’clock was chaired round 
 the quadrangle, on one of the hall benches, borne aloft by 
 the eleven, shouting in chorus, “ For he’s a jolly good 
 fellow,” while old Thomas, in a melting mood, and the 
 other school-house servants, stood looking on. 
 
 And the next morning after breakfast he squared up all 
 the cricketing accounts, went round to his tradesmen and 
 other acquaintance, and said his hearty good-byes, and by 
 twelve o’clock was in the train, and away for London, no 
 longer a school boy, and divided in his thoughts between 
 hero-worship, honest regrets over the long stage of his life 
 
268 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 which was now slipping out of sight behind him, and hopes 
 and resolves for the next stage, upon which he wa3 entering 
 with all the confidence of a young traveler. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 ‘'Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
 
 Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 
 
 Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
 
 And mingle all the world with thee.” 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 In the summer of 1842, our hero stopped once again at 
 the well-known station, and leaving his bag and fishing-rod 
 with a porter, walked slowly and sadly up toward the 
 town. It was now July. Tie had rushed away from Ox- 
 ford the moment that term was over, for a fishing ramble 
 in Scotland with two college friends and had been for 
 three weeks living on oat-cake, mutton-hams and whiskey, 
 in the wildest parts of Skye. They had descended one 
 sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Rhea ferry, and 
 while Tom and another of the party put their tackle to- 
 gether and began exploring the stream for a sea-trout for 
 supper, the third strolled into the house to arrange for their 
 entertainment. Presently he came out in a loose blouse 
 and slippers, a short pipe in his mouth, and an old news- 
 paper in his hand, and threw himself on the heathery scrub 
 which met the shingle, within easy hail of the fishermen. 
 There he lay, the picture of free-and-easy, loafing, hand-to- 
 mouth young England, “ improving his mind,” as he 
 shouted to them, by the perusal of the fortnight-old weekly 
 paper, soiled with the marks of toddy-glasses and tobacco- 
 ashes, the legacy of the last traveler, which he had hunted 
 out from the kitchen of the little hostelry, and being a 
 youth of a communicative turn of mind, began imparting 
 the contents to the fishermen as he went on. 
 
 “ What a bother they are making about these wretched 
 Corn-laws ; here’s three or four columns full of nothing 
 but sliding-scales and fixed duties. Hang this tobacco, it’s 
 always going out ! Ah, here’s something better — a splendid 
 
FINIS. 
 
 269 
 
 match between Kent and England, Brown ! Kent win- 
 ning by three wickets. Felix fifty-six runs without a 
 chance, and not out ! ” 
 
 Tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him twice, an- 
 swered only with a grunt. 
 
 “ Anything about the Goodwood?” called out the third 
 man. 
 
 44 Rory O’More drawn. Butterfly colt amiss,” shouted 
 the student. 
 
 44 Just my luck,” grumbled the inquirer, jerking his flies 
 off the water, and throwing again with a heavy, sullen 
 splash, and frightening Tom’s fish. 
 
 44 1 say, can’t you throw lighter over there ? we ain’t fish- 
 ing for grampuses,” shouted Tom across the stream. 
 
 44 Hullo, Brown ! here’s something for you,” called out 
 the reading man next moment. 44 Why, your old master, 
 Arnold of Rugby, is dead.” 
 
 Tom’s hand stopped half-way in his cast, and his line 
 and flies went all tangling round and round his rod; you 
 might have knocked him over with a feather. Neither of 
 his companions took any notice of him luckily; and with 
 a violent effort he set to work mechanically to disentangle 
 his line. He felt completely carried off his moral and intel- 
 lectual legs, as if he had lost his standing-point in the invis- 
 ible world. Besides which the deep loving loyalty which 
 he felt for his old leader made the shock intensely painful. 
 It was the first great wrench of his life, the first gap which 
 the angel Death had made in his circle, and he felt numb- 
 ed, and beaten down, and spiritless. Well, well ! I believe 
 it was good for him and for many others in like case ; 
 who had to learn by that loss, that the soul of man cannot 
 stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong and 
 wise, and good ; but that He upon whom alone it can stand 
 and lean will knock away all such props in his own wise 
 and merciful way, until there is no ground or stay left but 
 Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a sure found- 
 ation for every soul of man is laid. 
 
 As he wearily labored at his line, the thought struck 
 him, 44 It may all be false, a mere newspaper lie,” and he 
 strode up to the recumbent smoker. 
 
 44 Let me look at the paper,” said he. 
 
 44 Nothing else in it,” answered the other, handing it up 
 
270 
 
 TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 to him listlessly. “ Hullo, Brown ! what’s the matter, old 
 fellow — ain’t you well ? ” 
 
 “ Where is it ? ” said Tom, turning over the leaves, his 
 hands trembling and his eyes swimming, so that he could 
 not read. 
 
 “ What ? What are you looking for ? ” said his friend, 
 jumping up and looking over his shoulder. 
 
 “ That — about Arnold,” said Tom. 
 
 “ Oh, here,” said the other, putting his finger on the 
 paragraph. Tom read it over and over again ; there could 
 be no mistake of identity, though the account was short 
 enough. 
 
 “ Thank you,” said he at last, dropping the paper. “ I 
 shall go for a walk ; don’t you and Herbert wait supper for 
 me.” And away he strode, up over the moor at the back of 
 the house to be alone and master his grief if possible. 
 
 His friend looked after him, sympathizing and wonder- 
 ing, and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, walked over 
 to Herbert. After a short parley, they walked together 
 up to the house. 
 
 “I’m afraid that confounded newspaper has spoiled 
 Brown’s fun for this trip.” 
 
 “ How odd that he should be so fond of his old master,” 
 said Herbert. Yet they also were both public-school men. 
 
 The two, however, notwithstanding Tom’s prohibition, 
 waited supper for him, and had everything ready when he 
 came back some half an hour afterward. But he could not 
 join in their cheerful talk, and the party was soon silent 
 notwithstanding the efforts of all three. One thing only 
 had Tom resolved, and that was, that he couldn’t stay in 
 Scotland any longer; he felt an irresistible longing to get 
 to Rugby, and then home, and soon broke it to the others 
 who had too much tact to oppose. 
 
 So by daylight the next morning he was marching 
 through Ross-shire, and in the evening hit the Caledonian 
 canal, took the next steamer, and traveled as fast as boat 
 and railway could carry him to the Rugby station. 
 
 As he walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid of 
 being seen, and took the back streets ; why he didn’t know, 
 but he followed his instinct. At the school-gates he made 
 a dead pause ; there was not a soul in the quadrangle — all 
 was lonely, and silent, and sad. So with another effort he 
 
finis. 271 
 
 strode through the quadrangle and into the school-house 
 offices. 
 
 He found the little matron in her room in deep mourn- 
 ing ; shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved nervously 
 about : she was evidently thinking of the same subject as 
 he, but he couldn’t begin talking. 
 
 “Where shall I find Thomas? ” said he at last, getting 
 desperate. 
 
 “ In the servants’ hall, I think, sir. But won’t you take 
 anything?” said the matron, looking rather disappointed. 
 
 “ No, thank you,” said he, and strode off again to find 
 the old Verger, who was sitting in his little den as of old, 
 puzzling over hieroglyphics. 
 
 He looked up through his spectacles, as Tom seized his 
 hand and wrung it. 
 
 “Ah ! you’ve heard all about it, sir, I see,” said he. 
 
 Tom nodded and then sat down on the shoe-board, while 
 the old man told his tale, and wiped his spectacles, and 
 fairly flowed over with quaint, homely, honest sorrow. 
 
 By the time he had done, Tom felt much better. 
 
 “ Where is he buried, Thomas ? ” said he at last. 
 
 “Under the altar in the chapel, sir,” answered Thomas. 
 “ You’d like to have the key, I dare say.” 
 
 “ Thank you, Thomas, — Yes, I should very much.” And 
 the old man fumbled among his bunch, and then got up, 
 as though he would go with him ; but after a few steps 
 stopped short, and said, “Perhaps you’d like to go by 
 yourself, sir ? ” 
 
 Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys was handed to him, 
 with an injunction to be sure and lock the door after him, 
 and bring them back before eight o’clock. 
 
 He walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into 
 the close. The longing which had been upon him and 
 driven him thus far, like the gad-fly in the Greek legends, 
 giving him no rest in mind or body, seemed all of a 
 sudden not to be satisfied, but to shrivel up and pall. 
 
 “Why should I go on? It’s no use,” he thought, and 
 threw himself at full length on the turf, and looked vague- 
 ly and listlessly at all the well-known objects. There were 
 a few of the town boys playing cricket, their wicket pitched 
 on the best piece in the middle of the big^side ground, a 
 sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a captain of the 
 
272 TOM BBOWN'S SCH00L : Dj1?& 
 
 eleven. He was very nearly getting up to go and send 
 them off. “Pshaw ! they won’t remember me. They’ve 
 more right there than I,” he muttered. And the thought 
 that his scepter iiad departed, and his mark was wearing 
 out, came home to him for the first time, and bitterly 
 enough. He was lying on the very spot where the fights 
 came off ; where he himself had fought six years ago his 
 first and last battle. He conjured up the scene till he 
 could almost hear the shouts of the ring, and East’s whis- 
 per in his ear ; and looking across the close to the Doctor’s 
 private door, half expected to see it open, and the tall 
 figure in cap and gown come striding under the elm-trees 
 toward him. 
 
 No, no ! that sight could never be seen again. There was 
 no flag flying on the round tower ! the school-house windows 
 were all shuttered up s and when the flag went up again, and 
 the shutters came down, it would be to welcome a stranger. 
 All that was left on earth of him whom he had honored, 
 was lying cold and still under the chapel floor. He would 
 go in and see the place once more, and then leave it once 
 for all. New men and new methods might do for other 
 people ; let those who would worship the rising star ; he at 
 least v~ould be faithful to the sun which had set. And so 
 he got up and walked to the chapel door and unlocked it, 
 fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, 
 and feeding on his own selfish sorrow. 
 
 He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a 
 moment to glance over the empty benches. His heart 
 was still proud and high, and he walked up to the seat 
 which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat 
 himself down there to collect his thoughts. 
 
 And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in 
 order not a little. The memories of eight years were all 
 dancing through his brain, and carrying him about whither 
 they would ; while beneath them all, his heart was throbbing 
 with the dull sense of a loss that could never be made up to 
 him. The rays of the evening sun came solemnly through 
 the painted windows above his head, and fell in georgeous 
 colors on the opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed 
 his spirit by little and little. And he turned to the pulpit, 
 and looked at it, and then leaning forward with his head 
 on his hands, groaned aloud. “ If he could only have seen 
 
FINIS. 
 
 273 
 
 the Doctor again for one five minutes ; have told him all 
 that was in his heart, what he owed to him, how he lov- 
 ed and reverenced him, and would by God’s help follow 
 his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all with- 
 out a murmur. But that he should have gone away forever 
 without knowing it all, was too much to bear.” — “ But am 
 I sure that he does not know it all ? ” — the thought made 
 him start — “ May he not even now be near me, in this very 
 chapel ? If he be, am I sorrowing as he would have me 
 sorrow — as I should wish to have sorrowed when I shall 
 meet him again ? ” 
 
 He raised himself up and looked around ; and after a 
 minute rose and walked humbly down to the lowest bench, 
 and sat down on the very seat which he had occupied on 
 his first Sunday at Rugby. And then the old memories 
 rushed back again, but softened and subdued, and soothing 
 him as he let himself be carried away by them. And he 
 looked up at the great painted window above the altar, and 
 remembered how when a little boy he used to try not to 
 look through it at the elm-trees and rooks, before the paint- 
 ed glass came — and the subscription for the painted glass, 
 and the letter he wrote home for money to give to it. And 
 there, down below, was the very name of the boy who sat 
 on his right hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the 
 oak paneling. 
 
 And then came the thought of all his old school- fellows ; 
 and form after form of boys, nobler, and braver, and purer 
 than he, rose up and seemed to rebuke him. Could he not 
 think of them, and what they had felt and were feeling, 
 they who had honored and loved from the first the man 
 whom he had taken years to know and love ? Could he 
 not think of those yet dearer to him who were gone, who 
 bore his name and shared his blood, and were now without 
 a husband or a father ? Then the grief which he began to 
 share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose up 
 once more and walked up the steps to the altar ; and while 
 the tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down hum- 
 bly and hopefully, to lay down there his share of a burden 
 which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his 
 own strength. 
 
 Here let us leave him — where better could we leave him 
 than at the altar before which he had first caught a glimpse 
 
274 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-BAYS. 
 
 of the glory of his birthright, and felt the drawing of the 
 bond which links all living souls together in one brother- 
 hood — at the grave beneath the altar of him who had 
 opened his eyes to see that glory, and softened his heart till 
 it could feel that bond. 
 
 And let us not be hard on him, if at that moment his 
 soul is fuller of the tomb and him who lies there than of 
 the altar and Him of whom it speaks. Such stages have 
 to be gone through, I believe by all young and brave souls, 
 who must win their way through hero-worship to the wor- 
 ship of Him who is the King and Lord of heroes. For it 
 is only through our mysterious human relationships, through 
 the love and tenderness and purity of mothers, and sisters, 
 and wives, through the strength and courage and wisdom 
 of fathers, and brothers, and teachers, that we can come to 
 the knowledge of Him in whom alone the love, and the 
 tenderness, and the purity, and the strength, and the cour- 
 age, and the wisdom of all these dwell for ever and ever in 
 perfect fullness. 
 
 THE END.