CHAPTER
VII—SETTLING TO THE COLLAR.
“Says Giles, ''Tis mortal hard to go,
But if so be's I must
I means to follow arter he
As goes hisself the fust.'”—Ballad.
Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy, delicious
state in which one lies, half asleep, half awake, while consciousness begins to
return after a sound night's rest in a new place which we are glad to be in,
following upon a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are few
pleasanter pieces of life. The worst of it is that they last such a short time;
for nurse them as you will, by lying perfectly passive in mind and body, you
can't make more than five minutes or so of them. After which time the stupid,
obtrusive, wakeful entity which we call “I”, as impatient as he is
stiff-necked, spite of our teeth will force himself back again, and take
possession of us down to our very toes.
It was in this state that Master Tom lay at
half-past seven on the morning following the day of his arrival, and from his
clean little white bed watched the movements of Bogle (the generic name by
which the successive shoeblacks of the School-house were known), as he marched
round from bed to bed, collecting the dirty shoes and boots, and depositing
clean ones in their places.
There he lay, half doubtful as to where exactly in
the universe he was, but conscious that he had made a step in life which he had
been anxious to make. It was only just light as he looked lazily out of the
wide windows, and saw the tops of the great elms, and the rooks circling about
and cawing remonstrances to the lazy ones of their commonwealth before starting
in a body for the neighbouring ploughed fields. The noise of the room-door
closing behind Bogle, as he made his exit with the shoebasket under his arm,
roused him thoroughly, and he sat up in bed and looked round the room. What in
the world could be the matter with his shoulders and loins? He felt as if he
had been severely beaten all down his back—the natural results of his
performance at his first match. He drew up his knees and rested his chin on
them, and went over all the events of yesterday, rejoicing in his new life,
what he had seen of it, and all that was to come.
Presently one or two of the other boys roused
themselves, and began to sit up and talk to one another in low tones. Then
East, after a roll or two, came to an anchor also, and nodding to Tom, began
examining his ankle.
“What a pull,” said he, “that it's lie-in-bed, for
I shall be as lame as a tree, I think.”
It was Sunday morning, and Sunday lectures had not
yet been established; so that nothing but breakfast intervened between bed and
eleven o'clock chapel—a gap by no means easy to fill up: in fact, though
received with the correct amount of grumbling, the first lecture instituted by
the Doctor shortly afterwards was a great boon to the School. It was
lie-in-bed, and no one was in a hurry to get up, especially in rooms where the
sixth-form boy was a good-tempered fellow, as was the case in Tom's room, and
allowed the small boys to talk and laugh and do pretty much what they pleased,
so long as they didn't disturb him. His bed was a bigger one than the rest,
standing in the corner by the fireplace, with a washing-stand and large basin
by the side, where he lay in state with his white curtains tucked in so as to
form a retiring place—an awful subject of contemplation to Tom, who slept
nearly opposite, and watched the great man rouse himself and take a book from
under his pillow, and begin reading, leaning his head on his hand, and turning
his back to the room. Soon, however, a noise of striving urchins arose, and
muttered encouragements from the neighbouring boys of “Go it, Tadpole!” “Now,
young Green!” “Haul away his blanket!” “Slipper him on the hands!” Young Green
and little Hall, commonly called Tadpole, from his great black head and thin
legs, slept side by side far away by the door, and were for ever playing one
another tricks, which usually ended, as on this morning, in open and violent
collision; and now, unmindful of all order and authority, there they were, each
hauling away at the other's bedclothes with one hand, and with the other, armed
with a slipper, belabouring whatever portion of the body of his adversary came
within reach.
“Hold that noise up in the corner,” called out the
praepostor, sitting up and looking round his curtains; and the Tadpole and
young Green sank down into their disordered beds; and then, looking at his
watch, added, “Hullo! past eight. Whose turn for hot water?”
(Where the praepostor was particular in his
ablutions, the fags in his room had to descend in turn to the kitchen, and beg
or steal hot water for him; and often the custom extended farther, and two boys
went down every morning to get a supply for the whole room.)
“East's and Tadpole's,” answered the senior fag,
who kept the rota.
“I can't go,” said East; “I'm dead lame.”
“Well, be quick some of you, that's all,” said the
great man, as he turned out of bed, and putting on his slippers, went out into
the great passage, which runs the whole length of the bedrooms, to get his
Sunday habiliments out of his portmanteau.
“Let me go for you,” said Tom to East; “I should
like it.”
“Well, thank 'ee, that's a good fellow. Just pull
on your trousers, and take your jug and mine. Tadpole will show you the way.”
And so Tom and the Tadpole, in nightshirts and
trousers, started off downstairs, and through “Thos's hole,” as the little
buttery, where candles and beer and bread and cheese were served out at night,
was called, across the School-house court, down a long passage, and into the
kitchen; where, after some parley with the stalwart, handsome cook, who
declared that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot water,
and returned with all speed and great caution. As it was, they narrowly escaped
capture by some privateers from the fifth-form rooms, who were on the lookout
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,” as Tadpole
remarked, “as we should have had to do if those beggars had caught us.”
By the time that the calling-over bell rang, Tom
and his new comrades were all down, dressed in their best clothes, and he had
the satisfaction of answering “here” to his name for the first time, the
praepostor of the week having put it in at the bottom of his list. And then
came breakfast and a saunter about the close and town with East, whose lameness
only became severe when any fagging had to be done. And so they whiled away the
time until morning chapel.
It was a fine November morning, and the close soon
became alive with boys of all ages, who sauntered about on the grass, or walked
round the gravel walk, in parties of two or three. East, still doing the
cicerone, pointed out all the remarkable characters to Tom as they passed:
Osbert, who could throw a cricket-ball from the little-side ground over the
rook-trees to the Doctor's wall; Gray, who had got the Balliol scholarship,
and, what East evidently thought of much more importance, a half-holiday for
the School by his success; Thorne, who had run ten miles in two minutes over
the hour; Black, who had held his own against the cock of the town in the last
row with the louts; and many more heroes, who then and there walked about and
were worshipped, all trace of whom has long since vanished from the scene of
their fame. And the fourth-form boy who reads their names rudely cut on the old
hall tables, or painted upon the big-side cupboard (if hall tables and big-side
cupboards still exist), wonders what manner of boys they were. It will be the
same with you who wonder, my sons, whatever your prowess may be in cricket, or
scholarship, or football. Two or three years, more or less, and then the
steadily advancing, blessed wave will pass over your names as it has passed
over ours. Nevertheless, play your games and do your work manfully—see only
that that be done—and let the remembrance of it take care of itself.
The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to
eleven, and Tom got in early and took his place in the lowest row, and watched
all the other boys come in and take their places, filling row after row; and
tried to construe the Greek text which was inscribed over the door with the
slightest possible success, and wondered which of the masters, who walked down
the chapel and took their seats in the exalted boxes at the end, would be his
lord. And then came the closing of the doors, and the Doctor in his robes, and
the service, which, however, didn't impress him much, for his feeling of wonder
and curiosity was too strong. And the boy on one side of him was scratching his
name on the oak panelling in front, and he couldn't help watching to see what
the name was, and whether it was well scratched; and the boy on the other side
went to sleep, and kept falling against him; and on the whole, though many boys
even in that part of the school were serious and attentive, the general
atmosphere was by no means devotional; and when he got out into the close
again, he didn't feel at all comfortable, or as if he had been to church.
But at afternoon chapel it was quite another
thing. He had spent the time after dinner in writing home to his mother, and so
was in a better frame of mind; and his first curiosity was over, and he could
attend more to the service. As the hymn after the prayers was being sung, and
the chapel was getting a little dark, he was beginning to feel that he had been
really worshipping. And then came that great event in his, as in every Rugby
boy's life of that day—the first sermon from the Doctor.
More worthy pens than mine have described that
scene—the oak pulpit standing out by itself above the School seats; the tall,
gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice, now soft as the low notes of a
flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light-infantry bugle, of him
who stood there Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the
King of righteousness and love and glory, with whose Spirit he was filled, and
in whose power he spoke; the long lines of young faces, rising tier above tier
down the whole length of the chapel, from the little boy's who had just left
his mother to the young man's who was going out next week into the great world,
rejoicing in his strength. It was a great and solemn sight, and never more so
than at this time of year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the
pulpit and at the seats of the 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, willing or
unwilling, for twenty minutes, on Sunday afternoons? True, there always were
boys scattered up and down the School, who in heart and head were worthy to hear
and able to carry away the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these
were a minority always, generally a very small one, often so small a one as to
be countable on the fingers of your hand. What was it that moved and held us,
the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish boys, who feared the Doctor
with all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth; who thought
more of our sets in the School than of the Church of Christ, and put the
traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily life above the
laws of God? We couldn't enter into half that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge
of our own hearts or the knowledge of one another, and little enough of the
faith, hope, and love needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in their
better moods will listen (ay, and men too for the matter of that), to a man
whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against
whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not
the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to
those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm, living voice of one
who was fighting for us and by our sides, and calling on us to help him and
ourselves and one another. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and
steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time,
the meaning of his life—that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which
he had wandered by chance, but a battlefield ordained from of old, where there
are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life
and death. And he who roused this consciousness in them showed them at the same
time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily life, how
that battle was to be fought, and stood there before them their fellow-soldier
and the captain of their band—the true sort of captain, too, for a boy's
army—one who had no misgivings, and gave no uncertain word of command, and, let
who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to
the last gasp and the last drop of blood. Other sides of his character might
take hold of and influence boys here and there; but it was this thoroughness
and undaunted courage which, more than anything else, won his way to the hearts
of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them believe
first in him and then in his Master.
It was this quality above all others which moved
such boys as our hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him except
excess of boyishness—by which I mean animal life in its fullest measure, good
nature and honest impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and
thoughtlessness enough to sink a three-decker. And so, during the next two
years, in which it was more than doubtful whether he would get good or evil
from the School, and before any steady purpose or principle grew up in him,
whatever his week's sins and shortcomings might have been, he hardly ever left
the chapel on Sunday evenings without a serious resolve to stand by and follow
the Doctor, and a feeling that it was only cowardice (the incarnation of all
other sins in such a boy's mind) which hindered him from doing so with all his
heart.
The next day Tom was duly placed in the third
form, and began his lessons in a corner of the big School. He found the work
very easy, as he had been well grounded, and knew his grammar by heart; and, as
he had no intimate companions 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 own success and
the unspeakable delights of a public school.
In the house, too, all went well. The end of the
half-year was drawing near, which kept everybody in a good humour, and the
house was ruled well and strongly by Warner and Brooke. True, the general
system was rough and hard, and there was bullying in nooks and corners—bad
signs for the future; but it never got farther, or dared show itself openly,
stalking about the passages and hall and bedrooms, and making the life of the
small boys a continual fear.
Tom, as a new boy, was of right excused fagging
for the first month, but in his enthusiasm for his new life this privilege
hardly pleased him; and East and others of his young friends, discovering this,
kindly allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night fagging
and cleaning studies. These were the principal duties of the fags in the house.
From supper until nine o'clock three fags taken in order stood in the passages,
and answered any 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
candlesticks and putting in new candles, toasting cheese, bottling beer, and
carrying messages about the house; and Tom, in the first blush of his
hero-worship, felt it a high privilege to receive orders from and be the bearer
of the supper of old Brooke. And besides this night-work, each praepostor had
three or four fags specially allotted to him, of whom he was supposed to be the
guide, philosopher, and friend, and who in return for these good offices had to
clean out his study every morning by turns, directly after first lesson and
before he returned from breakfast. And the pleasure of seeing the great men's
studies, and looking at their pictures, and peeping into their books, made Tom
a ready substitute for any boy who was too lazy to do his own work. And so he
soon gained the character of a good-natured, willing fellow, who was ready to
do a turn for any one.
In all the games, too, he joined with all his
heart, and soon became well versed in all the mysteries of football, by
continual practice at the School-house little-side, which played daily.
The only incident worth recording here, however,
was his first run at hare-and-hounds. On the last Tuesday but one of the
half-year he was passing through the hall after dinner, when he was hailed with
shouts from Tadpole and several other fags seated at one of the long tables,
the chorus of which was, “Come and help us tear up scent.”
Tom approached the table in obedience to the
mysterious summons, always ready to help, and found the party engaged in
tearing up old newspapers, copy-books, and magazines, into small pieces, with
which they were filling four large canvas bags.
“It's the turn of our house to find scent for
big-side hare-and-hounds,” exclaimed Tadpole. “Tear away; there's no time to
lose before calling-over.”
“I think it's a great shame,” said another small
boy, “to have such a hard run for the last day.”
“Which run is it?” said Tadpole.
“Oh, the Barby run, I hear,” answered the other;
“nine miles at least, and hard ground; no chance of getting in at the finish,
unless you're a first-rate scud.”
“Well, I'm going to have a try,” said Tadpole;
“it's the last run of the half, and if a fellow gets in at the end big-side
stands ale and bread and cheese and a bowl of punch; and the Cock's such a
famous place for ale.”
“I should like to try too,” said Tom.
“Well, then, leave your waistcoat behind, and
listen at the door, after calling-over, and you'll hear where the meet is.”
After calling-over, sure enough there were two
boys at the door, calling out, “Big-side hare-and-hounds meet at White Hall;”
and Tom, having girded himself with leather strap, and left all superfluous
clothing behind, set off for White Hall, an old gable-ended house some quarter
of a mile from the town, with East, whom he had persuaded to join,
notwithstanding his prophecy that they could never get in, as it was the
hardest run of the year.
At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys,
and Tom felt sure, from having seen many of them run at football, that he and
East were more likely to get in than they.
After a few minutes' waiting, two well-known
runners, chosen for the hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent,
compared their watches with those of young Brooke and Thorne, and started off
at a long, slinging trot across the fields in the direction of Barby.
Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who
explained shortly, “They're to have six minutes' law. We run into the Cock, and
every one who comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares'll be counted,
if he has been round Barby church.” Then came a minute's pause or so, and then
the watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through the gateway into the
field which the hares had first crossed. Here they break into a trot,
scattering over the field to find the first traces of the scent which the hares
throw out as they go along. The old hounds make straight for the likely points,
and in a minute a cry of “Forward” comes from one of them, and the whole pack,
quickening their pace, make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent
first, and the two or three nearest to him, are over the first fence, and
making play along the hedgerow in the long grass-field beyond. The rest of the
pack rush at the gap already made, and scramble through, jostling one another.
“Forward” again, before they are half through. The pace quickens into a sharp
run, the tail hounds all straining to get up to the lucky leaders. They are
gallant hares, and the scent lies thick right across another meadow and into a
ploughed field, where the pace begins to tell; then over a good wattle with a
ditch on the other side, and down a large pasture studded with old thorns,
which slopes down to the first brook. The great Leicestershire sheep charge
away across the field as the pack comes racing down the slope. The brook is a
small one, and the scent lies right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick
as ever—not a turn or a check to favour the tail hounds, who strain on, now
trailing in a long line, many a youngster beginning to drag his legs heavily,
and feel his heart beat like a hammer, and the bad-plucked ones thinking that
after all it isn't worth while to keep it up.
Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and
are well up for such young hands, and after rising the slope and crossing the
next field, find themselves up with the leading hounds, who have overrun the
scent, and are trying back. They have come a mile and a half in about eleven
minutes, a pace which shows that it is the last day. About twenty-five of the
original starters only show here, the rest having already given in; the leaders
are busy making casts into the fields on the left and right, and the others get
their second winds.
Then comes the cry of “Forward” again from young
Brooke, from the extreme left, and the pack settles down to work again steadily
and doggedly, the whole keeping pretty well together. The scent, though still
good, is not so thick; there is no need of that, for in this part of the run
every one knows the line which must be taken, and so there are no casts to be made,
but good downright running and fencing to be done. All who are now up mean
coming in, and they come to the foot of Barby Hill without losing more than two
or three more of the pack. This last straight two miles and a half is always a
vantage ground for the hounds, and the hares know it well; they are generally
viewed on the side of Barby Hill, and all eyes are on the lookout for them
to-day. But not a sign of them appears, so now will be the hard work for the
hounds, and there is nothing for it but to cast about for the scent, for it is
now the hares' turn, and they may baffle the pack dreadfully in the next two
miles.
Ill fares it now with our youngsters, that they
are School-house boys, and so follow young Brooke, for he takes the wide casts
round to the left, conscious of his own powers, and loving the hard work. For
if you would consider for a moment, you small boys, you would remember that the
Cock, where the run ends and the good ale will be going, lies far out to the
right on the Dunchurch road, so that every cast you take to the left is so much
extra work. And at this stage of the run, when the evening is closing in
already, no one remarks whether you run a little cunning or not; so you should
stick to those crafty hounds who keep edging away to the right, and not follow
a prodigal like young Brooke, whose legs are twice as long as yours and of
cast-iron, wholly indifferent to one or two miles more or less. However, they
struggle after him, sobbing and plunging along, Tom and East pretty close, and
Tadpole, whose big head begins to pull him down, some thirty yards behind.
Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from
which they can hardly drag their legs, and they hear faint cries for help from
the wretched Tadpole, who has fairly stuck fast. But they have too little run
left in themselves to pull up for their own brothers. Three fields more, and
another check, and then “Forward” called away to the extreme right.
The two boys' souls die within them; they can
never do it. Young Brooke thinks so too, and says kindly, “You'll cross a lane
after next field; keep down it, and you'll hit the Dunchurch road below the
Cock,” and then steams away for the run in, in which he's sure to be first, as
if he were just starting. They struggle on across the next field, the
“forwards” getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt is out
of ear-shot, and all hope of coming in is over.
“Hang it all!” broke out East, as soon as he had
got wind enough, pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered
with dirt and lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the
still, cold air. “I told you how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here
we are, dead beat, and yet I know we're close to the run in, if we knew the
country.”
“Well,” said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down
his disappointment, “it can't be helped. We did our best anyhow. Hadn't we
better find this lane, and go down it, as young Brooke told us?”
“I suppose so—nothing else for it,” grunted East.
“If ever I go out last day again.” Growl, growl, growl.
So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and
found the lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and
beginning to feel how the run had taken it out of them. The evening closed in
fast, and clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary.
“I say, it must be locking-up, I should think,”
remarked East, breaking the silence—“it's so dark.”
“What if we're late?” said Tom.
“No tea, and sent up to the Doctor,” answered
East.
The thought didn't add to their cheerfulness.
Presently a faint halloo was heard from an adjoining field. They answered it
and stopped, hoping for some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate
some twenty yards ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse.
He had lost a shoe in the brook, and had been groping after it up to his elbows
in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of boy
seldom has been seen.
The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them,
for he was some degrees more wretched than they. They also cheered him, as he
was no longer under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields. And so,
in better heart, the three plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. At
last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came out on a turnpike
road, and there paused, bewildered, for they had lost all bearings, and knew
not whether to turn to the right or left.
Luckily for them they had not to decide, for
lumbering along the road, with one lamp lighted and two spavined horses in the
shafts, came a heavy coach, which after a moment's suspense they 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 clambering up behind, in
which exploit East missed his footing and fell flat on his nose along the road.
Then the others hailed the old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and
agreed to take them in for a shilling; so there they sat on the back seat,
drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold, and jogged
into Rugby some forty minutes after locking-up.
Five minutes afterwards three small, limping,
shivering figures steal along through the Doctor's garden, and into the house
by the servants' entrance (all the other gates have been closed long since),
where the first thing they light upon in the passage is old Thomas, ambling along,
candle in one hand and keys in the other.
He stops and examines their condition with a grim
smile. “Ah! East, Hall, and Brown, late for locking-up. Must go up to the
Doctor's study at once.”
“Well but, Thomas, mayn't we go and wash first?
You can put down the time, you know.”
“Doctor's study d'rectly you come in—that's the
orders,” replied old Thomas, motioning towards the stairs at the end of the
passage which led up into the Doctor's house; and the boys turned ruefully down
it, not cheered by the old verger's muttered remark, “What a pickle they boys
be in!” Thomas referred to their faces and habiliments, but they construed it
as indicating the Doctor's state of mind. Upon the short flight of stairs they
paused to hold counsel.
“Who'll go in first?” inquires Tadpole.
“You—you're the senior,” answered East.
“Catch me. Look at the state I'm in,” rejoined
Hall, showing the arms of his jacket. “I must get behind you two.”
“Well, but look at me,” said East, indicating the
mass of clay behind which he was standing; “I'm worse than you, two to one. You
might grow cabbages on my trousers.”
“That's all down below, and you can keep your legs
behind the sofa,” said Hall.
“Here, Brown; you're the show-figure. You must
lead.”
“But my face is all muddy,” argued Tom.
“Oh, we're all in one boat for that matter; but
come on; we're only making it worse, dawdling here.”
“Well, just give us a brush then,” said Tom. And
they began trying to rub off the superfluous dirt from each other's jackets;
but it was not dry enough, and the rubbing made them worse; so in despair they
pushed through the swing-door at the head of the stairs, and found themselves
in the Doctor's hall.
“That's the library door,” said East in a whisper,
pushing Tom forwards. The sound of merry voices and laughter came from within,
and his first hesitating knock was unanswered. But at the second, the Doctor's
voice said, “Come in;” and Tom turned the handle, and he, with the others
behind him, sidled into the room.
The Doctor looked up from his task; he was working
away with a great chisel at the bottom of a boy's sailing boat, the lines of
which he was no doubt fashioning on the model of one of Nicias's galleys. Round
him stood three or four children; the candles burnt brightly on a large table at
the farther end, covered with books and papers, and a great fire threw a ruddy
glow over the rest of the room. All looked so kindly, and homely, and
comfortable that the boys took heart in a moment, and Tom advanced from behind
the shelter of the great sofa. The Doctor nodded to the children, who went out,
casting curious and amused glances at the three young scarecrows.
“Well, my little fellows,” began the Doctor,
drawing himself up with his back to the fire, the chisel in one hand and his
coat-tails in the other, and his eyes twinkling as he looked them over; “what
makes you so late?”
“Please, sir, we've been out big-side
hare-and-hounds, and lost our way.”
“Hah! you couldn't keep up, I suppose?”
“Well, sir,” said East, stepping out, and not
liking that the Doctor should think lightly of his running powers, “we got
round Barby all right; but then—”
“Why, what a state you're in, my boy!” interrupted
the Doctor, as the pitiful condition of East's garments was fully revealed to
him.
“That's the fall I got, sir, in the road,” said
East, looking down at himself; “the Old Pig came by—”
“The what?” said the Doctor.
“The Oxford coach, sir,” explained Hall.
“Hah! yes, the Regulator,” said the Doctor.
“And I tumbled on my face, trying to get up
behind,” went on East.
“You're not hurt, I hope?” said the Doctor.
“Oh no, sir.”
“Well now, run upstairs, all three of you, and get
clean things on, and then tell the housekeeper to give you some tea. You're too
young to try such long runs. Let Warner know I've seen you. Good-night.”
“Good-night, sir.” And away scuttled the three
boys in high glee.
“What a brick, not to give us even twenty lines to
learn!” said the Tadpole, as they reached their bedroom; and in half an hour
afterwards they were sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room at a
sumptuous tea, with cold meat—“Twice as good a grub as we should have got in
the hall,” as the Tadpole remarked with a grin, his mouth full of buttered
toast. All their grievances were forgotten, and they were resolving to go out
the first big-side next half, and thinking hare-and-hounds the most delightful
of games.
A day or two afterwards the great passage outside
the bedrooms was cleared of the boxes and portmanteaus, which went down to be
packed by the matron, and great games of chariot-racing, and cock-fighting, and
bolstering went on in the vacant space, the sure sign of a closing half-year.
Then came the making up of parties for the journey
home, and Tom joined a party who were to hire a coach, and post with four horses
to Oxford.
Then the last Saturday, on which the Doctor came
round to each form to give out the prizes, and hear the master's last reports
of how they and their charges had been conducting themselves; and Tom, to his
huge delight, was praised, and got his remove into the lower fourth, in which
all his School-house friends were.
On the next Tuesday morning at four o'clock hot
coffee was going on in the housekeeper's and matron's rooms; boys wrapped in
great-coats and mufflers were swallowing hasty 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 postboys in their best jackets and breeches, and
a cornopean player, hired for the occasion, blowing away “A southerly wind and
a cloudy sky,” waking all peaceful inhabitants half-way down the High Street.
Every minute the bustle and hubbub increased:
porters staggered about with boxes and bags, the cornopean played louder. Old
Thomas sat in his den with a great yellow bag by his side, out of which he was
paying journey-money to each boy, comparing by the light of a solitary dip the
dirty, crabbed little list in his own handwriting with the Doctor's list and
the amount of his cash; his head was on one side, his mouth screwed up, and his
spectacles dim from early toil. He had prudently locked the door, and carried
on his operations solely through the window, or he would have been driven wild
and lost all his money.
“Thomas, do be quick; we shall never catch the
Highflyer at Dunchurch.”
“That's your money all right, Green.”
“Hullo, Thomas, the Doctor said I was to have two
pound ten; you've only given me two pound.” (I fear that Master Green is not confining
himself strictly to truth.) Thomas turns his head more on one side than ever,
and spells away at the dirty list. Green is forced away from the window.
“Here, Thomas—never mind him; mine's thirty
shillings.” “And mine too,” “And mine,” shouted others.
One way or another, the party to which Tom
belonged all got packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the cornopean
playing frantically “Drops of Brandy,” in allusion, probably, to the slight
potations in which the musician and postboys had been already indulging. All
luggage was carefully stowed away inside the coach and in the front and hind
boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. Five or six small boys, with
pea-shooters, and the cornopean player, got up behind; in front the big boys,
mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because they are now gentlemen at large,
and this is the most correct public method of notifying the fact.
“Robinson's coach will be down the road in a
minute; it has gone up to Bird's to pick up. We'll wait till they're close, and
make a race of it,” says the leader. “Now, boys, half a sovereign apiece if you
beat 'em into Dunchurch by one hundred yards.”
“All right, sir,” shouted the grinning postboys.
Down comes Robinson's coach in a minute or two,
with a rival cornopean, and away go the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys
cheering, horns playing loud. There is a special providence over school-boys as
well as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five
miles—sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the roofs
exchanging volleys of peas; now nearly running over a post-chaise which had
started before them; now half-way up a bank; now with a wheel and a half over a
yawning ditch: and all this in a dark morning, with nothing but their own lamps
to guide them. However, it's all over at last, and they have run over nothing
but an old pig in Southam Street. The last peas are distributed in the Corn
Market at Oxford, where they arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to
a sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which they are made to pay for accordingly.
Here the party breaks up, all going now different ways; and Tom orders out a
chaise and pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shillings left
in his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home.
“Where to, sir?”
“Red Lion, Farringdon,” says Tom, giving hostler a
shilling.
“All right, sir.—Red Lion, Jem,” to the postboy;
and Tom rattles away towards home. At Farringdon, being known to the innkeeper,
he gets that worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, and forward him in another
chaise at once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal
mansion, and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pound ten
shillings for the posting expenses from Oxford. But the boy's intense joy at
getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the good character he
brings, and the brave stories he tells of Rugby, its doings and delights, soon
mollify the Squire, and three happier people didn't sit down to dinner that day
in England (it is the boy's first dinner at six o'clock at home—great promotion
already) than the Squire and his wife and Tom Brown, at the end of his first
half-year at Rugby.
