CHAPTER
III—SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.
Poor old Benjy! The “rheumatiz” has much to answer
for all through English country-sides, but it never played a scurvier trick
than in laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a green old age. The enemy,
which had long been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and trying his
strength against Benjy's on the battlefield of his hands and legs, now,
mustering all his forces, began laying siege to the citadel, and overrunning
the whole country. Benjy was seized in the back and loins; and though he made
strong and brave fight, it was soon clear enough that all which could be beaten
of poor old Benjy would have to give in before long.
It was as much as he could do now, with the help
of his big stick and frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master
Tom, and bait his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him
quaint old country stories; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some
hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby the turnspit
terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he might have
tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over before Benjy could have got near
him.
Cheery and unmindful of himself, as Benjy was,
this loss of locomotive power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in
his old age, and was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world.
He feared much, too, lest Master Tom should fall back again into the hands of
Charity and the women. So he tried everything he could think of to get set up.
He even went an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer mortals,
who—say what we will, and reason how we will—do cure simple people of diseases
of one kind or another without the aid of physic, and so get to themselves the
reputation of using charms, and inspire for themselves and their dwellings
great respect, not to say fear, amongst a simple folk such as the dwellers in
the Vale of White Horse. Where this power, or whatever else it may be, descends
upon the shoulders of a man whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance
to the neighbourhood—a receiver of stolen goods, giver of love-potions, and
deceiver of silly women—the avowed enemy of law and order, of justices of the
peace, head-boroughs, and gamekeepers,—such a man, in fact, as was recently
caught tripping, and deservedly dealt with by the Leeds justices, for seducing
a girl who had come to him to get back a faithless lover, and has been
convicted of bigamy since then. Sometimes, however, they are of quite a
different stamp—men who pretend to nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded
to exercise their occult arts in the simplest cases.
Of this latter sort was old Farmer Ives, as he was
called, the “wise man” to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as usual),
in the early spring of the year next after the feast described in the last
chapter. Why he was called “farmer” I cannot say, unless it be that he was the
owner of a cow, a pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained on about an
acre of land inclosed from the middle of a wild common, on which probably his
father had squatted before lords of manors looked as keenly after their rights
as they do now. Here he had lived no one knew how long, a solitary man. It was
often rumoured that he was to be turned out and his cottage pulled down, but
somehow it never came to pass; and his pigs and cow went grazing on the common,
and his geese hissed at the passing children and at the heels of the horse of
my lord's steward, who often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure still
unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from our village; so Benjy, who was
half ashamed of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise
much ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom thither without
exciting suspicion. However, one fine May morning he managed to borrow the old
blind pony of our friend the publican, and Tom persuaded Madam Brown to give
him a holiday to spend with old Benjy, and to lend them the Squire's light
cart, stored with bread and cold meat and a bottle of ale. And so the two in
high glee started behind old Dobbin, and jogged along the deep-rutted plashy
roads, which had not been mended after their winter's wear, towards the
dwelling of the wizard. About noon they passed the gate which opened on to the
large common, and old Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed out
a little deep dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny stream. As they
crept up the hill the tops of a few birch-trees came in sight, and blue smoke
curling up through their delicate light boughs; and then the little white
thatched home and inclosed ground of Farmer Ives, lying cradled in the dingle,
with the gay gorse common rising behind and on both sides; while in front,
after traversing a gentle slope, the eye might travel for miles and miles over
the rich vale. They now left the main road and struck into a green track over
the common marked lightly with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down into the
dingle and stopped at the rough gate of Farmer Ives. Here they found the
farmer, an iron-gray old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose,
busied in one of his vocations. He was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending
a sick beast which had been sent up to be cured. Benjy hailed him as an old
friend, and he returned the greeting cordially enough, looking however hard for
a moment both at Benjy and Tom, to see whether there was more in their visit
than appeared at first sight. It was a work of some difficulty and danger for
Benjy to reach the ground, which, however, he managed to do without mishap; and
then he devoted himself to unharnessing Dobbin and turning him out for a graze
(“a run” one could not say of that virtuous steed) on the common. This done, he
extricated the cold provisions from the cart, and they entered the farmer's
wicket; and he, shutting up the knife with which he was taking maggots out of
the cow's back and sides, accompanied them towards the cottage. A big old
lurcher got up slowly from the door-stone, stretching first one hind leg and
then the other, and taking Tom's caresses and the presence of Toby, who kept,
however, at a respectful distance, with equal indifference.
“Us be cum to pay 'ee a visit. I've a been long
minded to do't for old sake's sake, only I vinds I dwon't get about now as I'd
used to't. I be so plaguy bad wi' th' rheumatiz in my back.” Benjy paused, in
hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailments without
further direct application.
“Ah, I see as you bean't quite so lissom as you
was,” replied the farmer, with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his
door; “we bean't so young as we was, nother on us, wuss luck.”
The farmer's cottage was very like those of the
better class of peasantry in general. A snug chimney corner with two seats, and
a small carpet on the hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the
fireplace, a dresser with shelves on which some bright pewter plates and
crockeryware were arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs and settles, some
framed samplers, and an old print or two, and a bookcase with some dozen
volumes on the walls, a rack with flitches of bacon, and other stores fastened
to the ceiling, and you have the best part of the furniture. No sign of occult
art is to be seen, unless the bundles of dried herbs hanging to the rack and in
the ingle and the row of labelled phials on one of the shelves betoken it.
Tom played about with some kittens who occupied
the hearth, and with a goat who walked demurely in at the open door—while their
host and Benjy spread the table for dinner—and was soon engaged in conflict
with the cold meat, to which he did much honour. The two old men's talk was of
old comrades and their deeds, mute inglorious Miltons of the Vale, and of the
doings thirty years back, which didn't interest him much, except when they
spoke of the making of the canal; and then indeed he began to listen with all
his ears, and learned, to his no small wonder, that his dear and wonderful
canal had not been there always—was not, in fact, so old as Benjy or Farmer
Ives, which caused a strange commotion in his small brain.
After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart
which Tom had on the knuckles of his hand, and which the family doctor had been
trying his skill on without success, and begged the farmer to charm it away.
Farmer Ives looked at it, muttered something or another over it, and cut some
notches in a short stick, which he handed to Benjy, giving him instructions for
cutting it down on certain days, and cautioning Tom not to meddle with the wart
for a fortnight. And then they strolled out and sat on a bench in the sun with
their pipes, and the pigs came up and grunted sociably and let Tom scratch
them; and the farmer, seeing how he liked animals, stood up and held his arms
in the air, and gave a call, which brought a flock of pigeons wheeling and
dashing through the birch-trees. They settled down in clusters on the farmer's
arms and shoulders, making love to him and scrambling over one another's backs
to get to his face; and then he threw them all off, and they fluttered about
close by, and lighted on him again and again when he held up his arms. All the
creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite unlike their relations
elsewhere; and Tom begged to be taught how to make all the pigs and cows and
poultry in our village tame, at which the farmer only gave one of his grim
chuckles.
It wasn't till they were just ready to go, and old
Dobbin was harnessed, that Benjy broached the subject of his rheumatism again,
detailing his symptoms one by one. Poor old boy! He hoped the farmer could
charm it away as easily as he could Tom's wart, and was ready with equal faith
to put another notched stick into his other pocket, for the cure of his own
ailments. The physician shook his head, but nevertheless produced a bottle, and
handed it to Benjy, with instructions for use. “Not as 't'll do 'ee much
good—leastways I be afeard not,” shading his eyes with his hand, and looking up
at them in the cart. “There's only one thing as I knows on as'll cure old folks
like you and I o' th' rheumatiz.”
“Wot be that then, farmer?” inquired Benjy.
“Churchyard mould,” said the old iron-gray man,
with another chuckle. And so they said their good-byes and went their ways
home. Tom's wart was gone in a fortnight, but not so Benjy's rheumatism, which
laid him by the heels more and more. And though Tom still spent many an hour
with him, as he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney corner when
it was cold, he soon had to seek elsewhere for his regular companions.
Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his
mother in her visits to the cottages, and had thereby made acquaintance with
many of the village boys of his own age. There was Job Rudkin, son of widow
Rudkin, the most bustling woman in the parish. How she could ever have had such
a stolid boy as Job for a child must always remain a mystery. The first time
Tom went to their cottage with his mother, Job was not indoors; but he entered
soon after, and stood with both hands in his pockets, staring at Tom. Widow
Rudkin, who would have had to cross madam to get at young Hopeful—a breach of
good manners of which she was wholly incapable—began a series of pantomime
signs, which only puzzled him; and at last, unable to contain herself longer,
burst out with, “Job! Job! where's thy cap?”
“What! bean't 'ee on ma head, mother?” replied
Job, slowly extricating one hand from a pocket, and feeling for the article in
question; which he found on his head sure enough, and left there, to his
mother's horror and Tom's great delight.
Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted
boy, who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds
and ends for every one, which, however, poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to
imbrangle. Everything came to pieces in his hands, and nothing would stop in
his head. They nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf.
But above all there was Harry Winburn, the
quickest and best boy in the parish. He might be a year older than Tom, but was
very little bigger, and he was the Crichton of our village boys. He could
wrestle and climb and run better than all the rest, and learned all that the
schoolmaster could teach him faster than that worthy at all liked. He was a boy
to be proud of, with his curly brown hair, keen gray eye, straight active
figure, and little ears and hands and feet, “as fine as a lord's,” as Charity
remarked to Tom one day, talking, as usual, great nonsense. Lords' hands and
ears and feet are just as ugly as other folk's when they are children, as any
one may convince himself if he likes to look. Tight boots and gloves, and doing
nothing with them, I allow make a difference by the time they are twenty.
Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his
young brothers were still under petticoat government, Tom, in search of
companions, began to cultivate the village boys generally more and more. Squire
Brown, be it said, was a true-blue Tory to the backbone, and believed honestly
that the powers which be were ordained of God, and that loyalty and steadfast
obedience were men's first duties. Whether it were in consequence or in spite
of his political creed, I do not mean to give an opinion, though I have one;
but certain it is that he held therewith divers social principles not generally
supposed to be true blue in colour. Foremost of these, and the one which the
Squire loved to propound above all others, was the belief that a man is to be
valued wholly and solely for that which he is in himself, for that which stands
up in the four fleshly walls of him, apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and all
externals whatsoever. Which belief I take to be a wholesome corrective of all
political opinions, and, if held sincerely, to make all opinions equally
harmless, whether they be blue, red, or green. As a necessary corollary to this
belief, Squire Brown held further that it didn't matter a straw whether his son
associated with lords' sons or ploughmen's sons, provided they were brave and
honest. He himself had played football and gone bird-nesting with the farmers
whom he met at vestry and the labourers who tilled their fields, and so had his
father and grandfather, with their progenitors. So he encouraged Tom in his
intimacy with the boys of the village, and forwarded it by all means in his
power, and gave them the run of a close for a playground, and provided bats and
balls and a football for their sports.
Our village was blessed amongst other things with
a well-endowed school. The building stood by itself, apart from the master's
house, on an angle of ground where three roads met—an old gray stone building
with a steep roof and mullioned windows. On one of the opposite angles stood
Squire Brown's stables and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which
towered a great elm-tree; on the third stood the village carpenter and wheelwright's
large open shop, and his house and the schoolmaster's, with long low eaves,
under which the swallows built by scores.
The moment Tom's lessons were over, he would now
get him down to this corner by the stables, and watch till the boys came out of
school. He prevailed on the groom to cut notches for him in the bark of the elm
so that he could climb into the lower branches; and there he would sit watching
the school door, and speculating on the possibility of turning the elm into a
dwelling-place for himself and friends, after the manner of the Swiss Family
Robinson. But the school hours were long and Tom's patience short, so that he
soon began to descend into the street, and go and peep in at the school door
and the wheelwright's shop, and look out for something to while away the time.
Now the wheelwright was a choleric man, and one fine afternoon, returning from
a short absence, found Tom occupied with one of his pet adzes, the edge of
which was fast vanishing under our hero's care. A speedy flight saved Tom from
all but one sound cuff on the ears; but he resented this unjustifiable
interruption of his first essays at carpentering, and still more the further
proceedings of the wheelwright, who cut a switch, and hung it over the door of
his workshop, threatening to use it upon Tom if he came within twenty yards of
his gate. So Tom, to retaliate, commenced a war upon the swallows who dwelt
under the wheelwright's eaves, whom he harassed with sticks and stones; and
being fleeter of foot than his enemy, escaped all punishment, and kept him in
perpetual anger. Moreover, his presence about the school door began to incense
the master, as the boys in that neighbourhood neglected their lessons in
consequence; and more than once he issued into the porch, rod in hand, just as
Tom beat a hasty retreat. And he and the wheelwright, laying their heads
together, resolved to acquaint the Squire with Tom's afternoon occupations; but
in order to do it with effect, determined to take him captive and lead him away
to judgment fresh from his evil doings. This they would have found some
difficulty in doing, had Tom continued the war single-handed, or rather
single-footed, for he would have taken to the deepest part of Pebbly Brook to
escape them; but, like other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances.
Poor Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to the school with the other boys, and one
fine afternoon, about three o'clock (the school broke up at four), Tom found
him ambling about the street, and pressed him into a visit to the school-porch.
Jacob, always ready to do what he was asked, consented, and the two stole down
to the school together. Tom first reconnoitred the wheelwright's shop; and
seeing no signs of activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered at
once an advance of all his troops upon the schoolporch. The door of the school
was ajar, and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognized and
opened a correspondence with the invaders. Tom, waxing bold, kept putting his
head into the school and making faces at the master when his back was turned.
Poor Jacob, not in the least comprehending the situation, and in high glee at
finding himself so near the school, which he had never been allowed to enter,
suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm, pushed by Tom, and ambling three steps into
the school, stood there, looking round him and nodding with a self-approving
smile. The master, who was stooping over a boy's slate, with his back to the
door, became aware of something unusual, and turned quickly round. Tom rushed
at Jacob, and began dragging him back by his smock-frock, and the master made
at them, scattering forms and boys in his career. Even now they might have
escaped, but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the crafty
wheelwright, who had been watching all their proceedings. So they were seized,
the school dismissed, and Tom and Jacob led away to Squire Brown as lawful
prize, the boys following to the gate in groups, and speculating on the result.
The Squire was very angry at first, but the
interview, by Tom's pleading, ended in a compromise. Tom was not to go near the
school till three o'clock, and only then if he had done his own lessons well,
in which case he was to be the bearer of a note to the master from Squire
Brown; and the master agreed in such case to release ten or twelve of the best
boys an hour before the time of breaking up, to go off and play in the close.
The wheelwright's adzes and swallows were to be for ever respected; and that
hero and the master withdrew to the servants' hall to drink the Squire's
health, well satisfied with their day's work.
The second act of Tom's life may now be said to
have begun. The war of independence had been over for some time: none of the
women now—not even his mother's maid—dared offer to help him in dressing or washing.
Between ourselves, he had often at first to run to Benjy in an unfinished state
of toilet. Charity and the rest of them seemed to take a delight in putting
impossible buttons and ties in the middle of his back; but he would have gone
without nether integuments altogether, sooner than have had recourse to female
valeting. He had a room to himself, and his father gave him sixpence a week
pocket-money. All this he had achieved by Benjy's advice and assistance. But
now he had conquered another step in life—the step which all real boys so long
to make: he had got amongst his equals in age and strength, and could measure
himself with other boys; he lived with those whose pursuits and wishes and ways
were the same in kind as his own.
The little governess who had lately been installed
in the house found her work grow wondrously easy, for Tom slaved at his
lessons, in order to make sure of his note to the schoolmaster. So there were
very few days in the week in which Tom and the village boys were not playing in
their close by three o'clock. Prisoner's base, rounders, high-cock-a-lorum,
cricket, football—he was soon initiated into the delights of them all; and
though most of the boys were older than himself, he managed to hold his own
very well. He was naturally active and strong, and quick of eye and hand, and
had the advantage of light shoes and well-fitting dress, so that in a short
time he could run and jump and climb with any of them.
They generally finished their regular games half
an hour or so before tea-time, and then began trials of skill and strength in
many ways. Some of them would catch the Shetland pony who was turned out in the
field, and get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue,
enjoying the fun, would gallop off for fifty yards, and then turn round, or
stop short and shoot them on to the turf, and then graze quietly on till he
felt another load; others played at peg-top or marbles, while a few of the
bigger ones stood up for a bout at wrestling. Tom at first only looked on at this
pastime, but it had peculiar attractions for him, and he could not long keep
out of it. Elbow and collar wrestling, as practised in the western counties,
was, next to back-swording, the way to fame for the youth of the Vale; and all
the boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less expert. But Job Rudkin and
Harry Winburn were the stars—the former stiff and sturdy, with legs like small
towers; the latter pliant as indiarubber and quick as lightning. Day after day
they stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand and then the other, and
grappled and closed, and swayed and strained, till a well-aimed crook of the
heel or thrust of the loin took effect, and a fair back-fall ended the matter.
And Tom watched with all his eyes, and first challenged one of the less
scientific, and threw him; and so one by one wrestled his way up to the
leaders.
Then indeed for months he had a poor time of it;
it was not long indeed before he could manage to keep his legs against Job, for
that hero was slow of offence, and gained his victories chiefly by allowing
others to throw themselves against his immovable legs and loins. But Harry
Winburn was undeniably his master; from the first clutch of hands when they
stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on to his back on the turf, he
felt that Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily Harry's bright
unconsciousness and Tom's natural good temper kept them from quarrelling; and
so Tom worked on and on, and trod more and more nearly on Harry's heels, and at
last mastered all the dodges and falls except one. This one was Harry's own
particular invention and pet; he scarcely ever used it except when hard
pressed, but then out it came, and as sure as it did, over went poor Tom. He
thought about that fall at his meals, in his walks, when he lay awake in bed,
in his dreams, but all to no purpose, until Harry one day in his open way
suggested to him how he thought it should be met; and in a week from that time
the boys were equal, save only the slight difference of strength in Harry's
favour, which some extra ten months of age gave. Tom had often afterwards
reason to be thankful for that early drilling, and above all, for having
mastered Harry Winburn's fall.
Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys
would wander all over the neighbourhood; sometimes to the downs, or up to the
camp, where they cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the
hawks soaring, and the “peert” bird, as Harry Winburn called the gray plover,
gorgeous in his wedding feathers; and so home, racing down the Manger with many
a roll among the thistles, or through Uffington Wood to watch the fox cubs
playing in the green rides; sometimes to Rosy Brook, to cut long whispering
reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of; sometimes to Moor Mills, where
was a piece of old forest land, with short browsed turf and tufted brambly
thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst which rumour declared that a raven,
last of his race, still lingered; or to the sand-hills, in vain quest of
rabbits; and bird-nesting in the season, anywhere and everywhere.
The few neighbours of the Squire's own rank every
now and then would shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a party of
boys with Tom in the middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or
great bundles of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or
other spoil of wood, brook, or meadow; and Lawyer Red-tape might mutter to
Squire Straight-back at the Board that no good would come of the young Browns,
if they were let run wild with all the dirty village boys, whom the best
farmers' sons even would not play with. And the squire might reply with a shake
of his head that his sons only mixed with their equals, and never went into the
village without the governess or a footman. But, luckily, Squire Brown was full
as stiffbacked as his neighbours, and so went on his own way; and Tom and his
younger brothers, as they grew up, went on playing with the village boys,
without the idea of equality or inequality (except in wrestling, running, and
climbing) ever entering their heads; as it doesn't till it's put there by Jack
Nastys or fine ladies' maids.
I don't mean to say it would be the case in all
villages, but it certainly was so in this one: the village boys were full as
manly and honest, and certainly purer, than those in a higher rank; and Tom got
more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a private school, where he
went when he was nine years old, than he had from his village friends from the
day he left Charity's apron-strings.
Great was the grief amongst the village
school-boys when Tom drove off with the Squire, one August morning, to meet the
coach on his way to school. Each of them had given him some little present of
the best that he had, and his small private box was full of peg-taps, white
marbles (called “alley-taws” in the Vale), screws, birds' eggs, whip-cord,
jews-harps, and other miscellaneous boys' wealth. Poor Jacob Doodle-calf, in
floods of tears, had pressed upon him with spluttering earnestness his lame pet
hedgehog (he had always some poor broken-down beast or bird by him); but this
Tom had been obliged to refuse, by the Squire's order. He had given them all a
great tea under the big elm in their playground, for which Madam Brown had
supplied the biggest cake ever seen in our village; and Tom was really as sorry
to leave them as they to lose him, but his sorrow was not unmixed with the
pride and excitement of making a new step in life.
And this feeling carried him through his first
parting with his mother better than could have been expected. Their love was as
fair and whole as human love can be—perfect self-sacrifice on the one side
meeting a young and true heart on the other. It is not within the scope of my
book, however, to speak of family relations, or I should have much to say on
the subject of English mothers—ay, and of English fathers, and sisters, and
brothers too. Neither have I room to speak of our private schools. What I have
to say is about public schools—those much-abused and much-belauded institutions
peculiar to England. So we must hurry through Master Tom's year at a private
school as fast as we can.
It was a fair average specimen, kept by a
gentleman, with another gentleman as second master; but it was little enough of
the real work they did—merely coming into school when lessons were prepared and
all ready to be heard. The whole discipline of the school out of lesson hours
was in the hands of the two ushers, one of whom was always with the boys in
their playground, in the school, at meals—in fact, at all times and every
where, till they were fairly in bed at night.
Now the theory of private schools is (or was)
constant supervision out of school—therein differing fundamentally from that of
public schools.
It may be right or wrong; but if right, this
supervision surely ought to be the especial work of the head-master, the
responsible person. The object of all schools is not to ram Latin and Greek
into boys, but to make them good English boys, good future citizens; and by far
the most important part of that work must be done, or not done, out of school
hours. To leave it, therefore, in the hands of inferior men, is just giving up
the highest and hardest part of the work of education. Were I a private
school-master, I should say, Let who will hear the boys their lessons, but let
me live with them when they are at play and rest.
The two ushers at Tom's first school were not
gentlemen, and very poorly educated, and were only driving their poor trade of
usher to get such living as they could out of it. They were not bad men, but
had little heart for their work, and of course were bent on making it as easy
as possible. One of the methods by which they endeavoured to accomplish this
was by encouraging tale-bearing, which had become a frightfully common vice in
the school in consequence, and had sapped all the foundations of school
morality. Another was, by favouring grossly the biggest boys, who alone could
have given them much trouble; whereby those young gentlemen became most
abominable tyrants, oppressing the little boys in all the small mean ways which
prevail in private schools.
Poor little Tom was made dreadfully unhappy in his
first week by a catastrophe which happened to his first letter home. With huge
labour he had, on the very evening of his arrival, managed to fill two sides of
a sheet of letter-paper with assurances of his love for dear mamma, his
happiness at school, and his resolves to do all she would wish. This missive,
with the help of the boy who sat at the desk next him, also a new arrival, he
managed to fold successfully; but this done, they were sadly put to it for
means of sealing. Envelopes were then unknown; they had no wax, and dared not
disturb the stillness of the evening school-room by getting up and going to ask
the usher for some. At length Tom's friend, being of an ingenious turn of mind,
suggested sealing with ink; and the letter was accordingly stuck down with a
blob of ink, and duly handed by Tom, on his way to bed, to the housekeeper to
be posted. It was not till four days afterwards that the good dame sent for
him, and produced the precious letter and some wax, saying, “O Master Brown, I
forgot to tell you before, but your letter isn't sealed.” Poor Tom took the wax
in silence and sealed his letter, with a huge lump rising in his throat during
the process, and then ran away to a quiet corner of the playground, and burst
into an agony of tears. The idea of his mother waiting day after day for the
letter he had promised her at once, and perhaps thinking him forgetful of her,
when he had done all in his power to make good his promise, was as bitter a
grief as any which he had to undergo for many a long year. His wrath, then, was
proportionately violent when he was aware of two boys, who stopped close by
him, and one of whom, a fat gaby of a fellow, pointed at him and called him
“Young mammy-sick!” Whereupon Tom arose, and giving vent thus to his grief and
shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose; and made it bleed; which sent
that young worthy howling to the usher, who reported Tom for violent and
unprovoked assault and battery. Hitting in the face was a felony punishable
with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanour—a distinction not altogether
clear in principle. Tom, however, escaped the penalty by pleading primum tempus;
and having written a second letter to his mother, inclosing some
forget-me-nots, which he picked on their first half-holiday walk, felt quite
happy again, and began to enjoy vastly a good deal of his new life.
These half-holiday walks were the great events of
the week. The whole fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers for
Hazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the school. Hazeldown
measured some three miles round, and in the neighbourhood were several woods
full of all manner of birds and butterflies. The usher walked slowly round the
down with such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in all
directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher had completed his
round, and accompany him home. They were forbidden, however, to go anywhere
except on the down and into the woods; the village had been especially
prohibited, where huge bull's-eyes and unctuous toffy might be procured in
exchange for coin of the realm.
Various were the amusements to which the boys then
betook themselves. At the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like
the barrows of Tom's own downs. This mound was the weekly scene of terrific
combats, at a game called by the queer name of “mud-patties.” The boys who
played divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the
mound. Then, all parties having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut
with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom
proceeded to assault the mound, advancing up on all sides under cover of a
heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, which
was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when
they in turn became the besieged. It was a good, rough, dirty game, and of
great use in counteracting the sneaking tendencies of the school. Then others
of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the holes of humble-bees and
mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (I regret to say) killing and
skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret to say) getting well stung by
the bumble-bees. Others went after butterflies and birds' eggs in their
seasons; and Tom found on Hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little
blue butterfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his
own downs, and dug out his first sand-martin's nest. This latter achievement
resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins built in a high bank close to the
village, consequently out of bounds; but one of the bolder spirits of the
school, who never could be happy unless he was doing something to which risk
was attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martins' bank.
From whence it being only a step to the toffy shop, what could be more simple
than to go on there and fill their pockets; or what more certain than that on
their return, a distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should
shortly detect the forbidden smell of bull's-eyes, and, a search ensuing,
discover the state of the breeches-pockets of Tom and his ally?
This ally of Tom's was indeed a desperate hero in
the sight of the boys, and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something
approaching thereto. Which reputation came to him in this wise. The boys went
to bed at eight, and, of course, consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour
or two, telling ghost-stories by turns. One night when it came to his turn, and
he had dried up their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that he would
make a fiery hand appear on the door; and to the astonishment and terror of the
boys in his room, a hand, or something like it, in pale light, did then and
there appear. The fame of this exploit having spread to the other rooms, and
being discredited there, the young necromancer declared that the same wonder would
appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did; and the whole
circumstances having been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual,
that functionary, after listening about at the doors of the rooms, by a sudden
descent caught the performer in his night-shirt, with a box of phosphorus in
his guilty hand. Lucifer-matches and all the present facilities for getting
acquainted with fire were then unknown—the very name of phosphorus had
something diabolic in it to the boy-mind; so Tom's ally, at the cost of a sound
flogging, earned what many older folk covet much—the very decided fear of most
of his companions.
He was a remarkable boy, and by no means a bad
one. Tom stuck to him till he left, and got into many scrapes by so doing. But
he was the great opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school, and the
open enemy of the ushers; and so worthy of all support.
Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at
the school, but somehow, on the whole, it didn't suit him, or he it, and in the
holidays he was constantly working the Squire to send him at once to a public
school. Great was his joy then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in
October 183-, a fever broke out in the village, and the master having himself
slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at a day's notice
to their respective homes.
The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom
to see that young gentleman's brown, merry face appear at home, some two months
before the proper time, for the Christmas holidays; and so, after putting on
his thinking cap, he retired to his study and wrote several letters, the result
of which was that, one morning at the breakfast-table, about a fortnight after
Tom's return, he addressed his wife with—“My dear, I have arranged that Tom
shall go to Rugby at once, for the last six weeks of this half-year, instead of
wasting them in riding and loitering about home. It is very kind of the doctor
to allow it. Will you see that his things are all ready by Friday, when I shall
take him up to town, and send him down the next day by himself.”
Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, and
merely suggested a doubt whether Tom were yet old enough to travel by himself.
However, finding both father and son against her on this point, she gave in,
like a wise woman, and proceeded to prepare Tom's kit for his launch into a
public school.
