CHAPTER
V—THE FIGHT
“Surgebat Macnevisius
Et mox jactabat ultro,
Pugnabo tua gratia
Feroci hoc Mactwoltro.”
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
Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give a full,
true, and correct account of Tom's only single combat with a school-fellow in
the manner of our old friend Bell's Life, let those young persons whose
stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to with the weapons which God
has given us all an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just
skip this chapter at once, for it won't be to their taste.
It was not at all usual in those days for two
School-house boys to have a fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some
cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he
was quarrelling with his nearest neighbours, or when there was some
class-dispute, between the fifth form and the fags, for instance, which
required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side tacitly, who
settled the matter by a good hearty mill. But, for the most part, the constant
use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing-gloves, kept the
School-house boys from fighting one another. Two or three nights in every week
the gloves were brought out, either in the hall or fifth-form room; and every
boy who was ever likely to fight at all knew all his neighbours' prowess
perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a
stand-up fight with any other boy in the house. But, of course, no such
experience could be gotten as regarded boys in other houses; and as most of the
other houses were more or less jealous of the School-house, collisions were
frequent.
After all, what would life be without fighting, I
should like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly
understood, is the business, the real highest, honestest business of every son
of man. Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be
they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickednesses in high
places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not
let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.
It is no good for quakers, or any other body of
men, to uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for
them, and they don't follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his
own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better world
without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn't be our world; and
therefore I am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn't
meant to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folk fighting the wrong people and
the wrong things, but I'd a deal sooner see them doing that than that they
should have no fight in them. So having recorded, and being about to record, my
hero's fights of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies, I shall now proceed to
give an account of his passage-at-arms with the only one of his school-fellows
whom he ever had to encounter in this manner.
It was drawing towards the close of Arthur's first
half-year, and the May evenings were lengthening out. Locking-up was not till
eight o'clock, and everybody was beginning to talk about what he would do in
the holidays. The shell, in which form all our dramatis personae now are, were
reading, amongst other things, the last book of Homer's “Iliad,” and had worked
through it as far as the speeches of the women over Hector's body. It is a
whole school-day, and four or five of the School-house boys (amongst whom are
Arthur, Tom, and East) are preparing third lesson together. They have finished
the regulation forty lines, and are for the most part getting very tired,
notwithstanding the exquisite pathos of Helen's lamentation. And now several
long four-syllabled words come together, and the boy with the dictionary
strikes work.
“I am not going to look out any more words,” says
he; “we've done the quantity. Ten to one we shan't get so far. Let's go out
into the close.”
“Come along, boys,” cries East, always ready to
leave “the grind,” as he called it; “our old coach is laid up, you know, and we
shall have one of the new masters, who's sure to go slow and let us down easy.”
So an adjournment to the close was carried nem.
con., little Arthur not daring to uplift his voice; but, being deeply
interested in what they were reading, stayed quietly behind, and learnt on for
his own pleasure.
As East had said, the regular master of the form
was unwell, and they were to be heard by one of the new masters—quite a young
man, who had only just left the university. Certainly it would be hard lines
if, by dawdling as much as possible in coming in and taking their places,
entering into long-winded explanations of what was the usual course of the
regular master of the form, and others of the stock contrivances of boys for
wasting time in school, they could not spin out the lesson so that he should
not work them through more than the forty lines. As to which quantity there was
a perpetual fight going on between the master and his form—the latter
insisting, and enforcing by passive resistance, that it was the prescribed
quantity of Homer for a shell lesson; the former, that there was no fixed
quantity, but that they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty lines
if there were time within the hour. However, notwithstanding all their efforts,
the new master got on horribly quick. He seemed to have the bad taste to be
really interested in the lesson, and to be trying to work them up into
something like appreciation of it, giving them good, spirited English words,
instead of the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered poor old Homer, and
construing over each piece himself to them, after each boy, to show them how it
should be done.
Now the clock strikes the three-quarters; there is
only a quarter of an hour more, but the forty lines are all but done. So the
boys, one after another, who are called up, stick more and more, and make
balder and ever more bald work of it. The poor young master is pretty near beat
by this time, and feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his
fingers against somebody else's head. So he gives up altogether the lower and
middle parts of the form, and looks round in despair at the boys on the top
bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike a spark or two, and who
will be too chivalrous to murder the most beautiful utterances of the most
beautiful woman of the old world. His eye rests on Arthur, and he calls him up
to finish construing Helen's speech. Whereupon all the other boys draw long
breaths, and begin to stare about and take it easy. They are all safe: Arthur
is the head of the form, and sure to be able to construe, and that will tide on
safely till the hour strikes.
Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek
before construing it, as the custom is. Tom, who isn't paying much attention,
is suddenly caught by the falter in his voice as he reads the two lines—
Ἀλλὰ σὺ τόν γ᾽ ἐπέεσσι παραιφάμενος
κατέρυκες,
Σῇ τ᾽ ἀγανοφροσύνῃ καὶ σοῖς ἀγανοῖς ἐπέεσσιν.
He looks up at Arthur. “Why, bless us,” thinks he,
“what can be the matter with the young un? He's never going to get floored.
He's sure to have learnt to the end.” Next moment he is reassured by the
spirited tone in which Arthur begins construing, and betakes himself to drawing
dogs' heads in his notebook, while the master, evidently enjoying the change,
turns his back on the middle bench and stands before Arthur, beating a sort of
time with his hand and foot, and saying; “Yes, yes,” “Very well,” as Arthur
goes on.
But as he nears the fatal two lines, Tom catches
that falter, and again looks up. He sees that there is something the matter;
Arthur can hardly get on at all. What can it be?
Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down
altogether, and fairly bursts out crying, and dashes the cuff of his jacket
across his eyes, blushing up to the roots of his hair, and feeling as if he
should like to go down suddenly through the floor. The whole form are taken
aback; most of them stare stupidly at him, while those who are gifted with
presence of mind find their places and look steadily at their books, in hopes
of not catching the master's eye and getting called up in Arthur's place.
The master looks puzzled for a moment, and then
seeing, as the fact is, that the boy is really affected to tears by the most
touching thing in Homer, perhaps in all profane poetry put together, steps up
to him and lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying, “Never mind, my little
man, you've construed very well. Stop a minute; there's no hurry.”
Now, as luck would have it, there sat next above
Tom on that day, in the middle bench of the form, a big boy, by name Williams,
generally supposed to be the cock of the shell, therefore of all the school
below the fifths. The small boys, who are great speculators on the prowess of their
elders, used to hold forth to one another about Williams's great strength, and
to discuss whether East or Brown would take a licking from him. He was called
Slogger Williams, from the force with which it was supposed he could hit. In
the main, he was a rough, goodnatured fellow enough, but very much alive to his
own dignity. He reckoned himself the king of the form, and kept up his position
with the strong hand, especially in the matter of forcing boys not to construe
more than the legitimate forty lines. He had already grunted and grumbled to
himself when Arthur went on reading beyond the forty lines; but now that he had
broken down just in the middle of all the long words, the Slogger's wrath was
fairly roused.
“Sneaking little brute,” muttered he, regardless
of prudence—“clapping on the water-works just in the hardest place; see if I
don't punch his head after fourth lesson.”
“Whose?” said Tom, to whom the remark seemed to be
addressed.
“Why, that little sneak, Arthur's,” replied
Williams.
“No, you shan't,” said Tom.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom with
great surprise for a moment, and then giving him a sudden dig in the ribs with
his elbow, which sent Tom's books flying on to the floor, and called the
attention of the master, who turned suddenly round, and seeing the state of
things, said,—
“Williams, go down three places, and then go on.”
The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and
proceeded to go below Tom and two other boys with great disgust; and then,
turning round and facing the master, said, “I haven't learnt any more, sir; our
lesson is only forty lines.”
“Is that so?” said the master, appealing generally
to the top bench. No answer.
“Who is the head boy of the form?” said he, waxing
wroth.
“Arthur, sir,” answered three or four boys,
indicating our friend.
“Oh, your name's Arthur. Well, now, what is the
length of your regular lesson?”
Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said, “We call
it only forty lines, sir.”
“How do you mean—you call it?”
“Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain't to stop there
when there's time to construe more.”
“I understand,” said the master.—“Williams, go
down three more places, and write me out the lesson in Greek and English. And
now, Arthur, finish construing.”
“Oh! would I be in Arthur's shoes after fourth
lesson?” said the little boys to one another; but Arthur finished Helen's
speech without any further catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which ended
third lesson.
Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying
fourth lesson, during which Williams was bottling up his wrath; and when five
struck, and the lessons for the day were over, he prepared to take summary
vengeance on the innocent cause of his misfortune.
Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the
rest, and on coming out into the quadrangle, the first thing he saw was a small
ring of boys, applauding Williams, who was holding Arthur by the collar.
“There, you young sneak,” said he, giving Arthur a
cuff on the head with his other hand; “what made you say that—”
“Hullo!” said Tom, shouldering into the crowd;
“you drop that, Williams; you shan't touch him.”
“Who'll stop me?” said the Slogger, raising his
hand again.
“I,” said Tom; and suiting the action to the word
he 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 wildfire about, and many boys
who were on their way to tea at their several houses turned back, and sought
the back of the chapel, where the fights come off.
“Just run and tell East to come and back me,” said
Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a rocket to Harrowell's, just
stopping for a moment to poke his head into the School-house hall, where the
lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, “Fight! Tom Brown and Slogger
Williams.”
Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread,
eggs, butter, sprats, and all the rest to take care of themselves. The greater
part of the remainder follow in a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying
their food in their hands to consume as they go. Three or four only remain, who
steal the butter of the more impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous
feast.
In another minute East and Martin tear through the
quadrangle, carrying a sponge, and arrive at the scene of action just as the
combatants are beginning to strip.
Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as
he stripped off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East tied his handkerchief
round his waist, and rolled up his shirtsleeves for him. “Now, old boy, don't
you open your mouth to say a word, or try to help yourself a bit—we'll do all
that; you keep all your breath and strength for the Slogger.” Martin meanwhile
folded the clothes, and put them under the chapel rails; and now Tom, with East
to handle him, and Martin to give him a knee, steps out on the turf, and is
ready for all that may come; and here is the Slogger too, all stripped, and
thirsting for the fray.
It doesn't look a fair match at first glance:
Williams is nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older than his
opponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms and shoulders—“peels
well,” as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say, who stand
outside the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active
part in the proceedings. But down below he is not so good by any means—no
spring from the loins, and 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 succession, each fighting as if he
thought to finish the whole thing out of hand. “Can't last at this rate,” say
the knowing ones, while the partisans of each make the air ring with their
shouts and counter-shouts of encouragement, approval, and defiance.
“Take it easy, take it easy; keep away; let him
come after you,” implores East, as he wipes Tom's face after the first round
with a wet sponge, while he sits back on Martin's knee, supported by the
Madman's long arms which tremble a little from excitement.
“Time's up,” calls the time-keeper.
“There he goes again, hang it all!” growls East,
as his man is at it again, as hard as ever. A very severe round follows, in
which Tom gets out and out the worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his
legs, and deposited on the grass by a right-hander from the Slogger.
Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger's house,
and the School-house are silent and vicious, ready to pick quarrels anywhere.
“Two to one in half-crowns on the big un,” says
Rattle, one of the amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-and-lightning waistcoat,
and puffy, good-natured face.
“Done!” says Groove, another amateur of quieter
look, taking out his notebook to enter it, for our friend Rattle sometimes
forgets these little things.
Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the
sponges for next round, and has set two other boys to rub his hands.
“Tom, old boy,” whispers he, “this may be fun for
you, but it's death to me. He'll hit all the fight out of you in another five
minutes, and then I shall go and drown myself in the island ditch. Feint him;
use your legs; draw him about. He'll lose his wind then in no time, and you can
go into him. Hit at his body too; we'll take care of his frontispiece
by-and-by.”
Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw
already that he couldn't go in and finish the Slogger off at mere hammer and
tongs, so changed his tactics completely in the third round. He now fights
cautiously, getting away from and parrying the Slogger's lunging hits, instead
of trying to counter, and leading his enemy a dance all round the ring after
him. “He's funking; go in, Williams,” “Catch him up,” “Finish him off,” scream
the small boys of the Slogger party.
“Just what we want,” thinks East, chuckling to
himself, as he sees Williams, excited by these shouts, and thinking the game in
his own hands, blowing himself in his exertions to get to close quarters again,
while Tom is keeping away with perfect ease.
They quarter over the ground again and again, Tom
always on the defensive.
The Slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly
blown.
“Now, then, Tom,” sings out East, dancing with
delight. Tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two heavy body blows, and gets
away again before the Slogger can catch his wind, which when he does he rushes
with blind fury at Tom, and being skilfully parried and avoided, overreaches
himself and falls on his face, amidst terrific cheers from the School-house
boys.
“Double your two to one?” says Groove to Rattle,
notebook 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 his patience, and
come in before his time. And so the fight sways on, now one and now the other
getting a trifling pull.
Tom's face begins to look very one-sided—there are
little queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is bleeding; but East keeps
the wet sponge going so scientifically that he comes up looking as fresh and
bright as ever. Williams is only slightly marked in the face, but by the
nervous movement of his elbows you can see that Tom's body blows are telling.
In fact, half the vice of the Slogger's hitting is neutralized, for he daren't
lunge out freely for fear of exposing his sides. It is too interesting by this
time for much shouting, and the whole ring is very quiet.
“All right, Tommy,” whispers East; “hold on's the
horse that's to win. We've got the last. Keep your head, old boy.”
But where is Arthur all this time? Words cannot
paint the poor little fellow's distress. He couldn't muster courage to come up
to the ring, but wandered up and down from the great fives court to the corner
of the chapel rails, now trying to make up his mind to throw himself between
them, and try to stop them; then thinking of running in and telling his friend
Mary, who, he knew, would instantly report to the Doctor. The stories he had
heard of men being killed in prize-fights rose up horribly before him.
Once only, when the shouts of “Well done, Brown!”
“Huzza for the School-house!” rose higher than ever, he ventured up to the
ring, thinking the victory was won. Catching sight of Tom's face in the state I
have described, all fear of consequences vanishing out of his mind; he rushed
straight off to the matron's room, beseeching her to get the fight stopped, or
he should die.
But it's time for us to get back to the close.
What is this fierce tumult and confusion? The ring is broken, and high and
angry words are being bandied about. “It's all fair”—“It isn't”—“No hugging!”
The fight is stopped. The combatants, however, sit there quietly, tended by
their seconds, while their adherents wrangle in the middle. East can't help
shouting challenges to two or three of the other side, though he never leaves
Tom for a moment, and plies the sponges as fast as ever.
The fact is, that at the end of the last round,
Tom, seeing a good opening, had closed with his opponent, and after a moment's
struggle, had thrown him heavily, by help of the fall he had learnt from his
village rival in the Vale of White Horse. Williams hadn't the ghost of a chance
with Tom at wrestling; and the conviction broke at once on the Slogger faction
that if this were allowed their man must be licked. There was a strong feeling
in the School against catching hold and throwing, though it was generally ruled
all fair within limits; so the ring was broken and the fight stopped.
The School-house are overruled—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.”
“Throw whom?” says Brooke, coming up to the ring.
“Oh! Williams, I see. Nonsense! Of course he may throw him, if he catches him
fairly above the waist.”
Now, young Brooke, you're in the sixth, you know,
and you ought to stop all fights. He looks hard at both boys. “Anything wrong?”
says he to East, nodding at Tom.
“Not a bit.”
“Not beat at all?”
“Bless you, no! Heaps of fight in him.—Ain't
there, Tom?”
Tom looks at Brooke and grins.
“How's he?” nodding at Williams.
“So so; rather done, I think, since his last fall.
He won't stand above two more.”
“Time's up!” The boys rise again and face one
another. Brooke can't find it in his heart to stop them just yet, so the round
goes on, the Slogger waiting for Tom, and reserving all his strength to hit him
out should he come in for the wrestling dodge again, for he feels that that
must be stopped, or his sponge will soon go up in the air.
And now another newcomer appears on the field, to
wit, the under-porter, with his long brush and great wooden receptacle for dust
under his arm. He has been sweeping out the schools.
“You'd better stop, gentlemen,” he says; “the
Doctor knows that Brown's fighting—he'll be out in a minute.”
“You go to Bath, Bill,” is all that that excellent
servitor gets by his advice; and being a man of his hands, and a 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 at close quarters, and they close; in another
moment the Slogger is thrown again heavily for the third time.
“I'll give you three or two on the little one in
half-crowns,” said Groove to Rattle.
“No, thank 'ee,” answers the other, diving his
hands farther into his coat-tails.
Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of
the turret which leads to the Doctor's library suddenly opens, and he steps
into the close, and makes straight for the ring, in which Brown and the Slogger
are both seated on their seconds' knees for the last time.
“The Doctor! the Doctor!” shouts some small boy
who catches sight of him, and the ring melts away in a few seconds, the small
boys tearing off, Tom collaring his jacket and waistcoat, and slipping through
the little gate by the chapel, and round the corner to Harrowell's with his
backers, as lively as need be; Williams and his backers making off not quite so
fast across the close; Groove, Rattle, and the other bigger fellows trying to
combine dignity and prudence in a comical manner, and walking off fast enough,
they hope, not to be 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
expected, but he was rather a favourite with the Doctor for his openness and
plainness of speech, so blurted out, as he walked by the Doctor's side, who had
already turned back,—
“Yes, sir, generally. But I thought you wished us
to exercise a discretion in the matter too—not to interfere too soon.”
“But they have been fighting this half-hour and
more,” said the Doctor.
“Yes, sir; but neither was hurt. And they're the
sort of boys who'll be all the better friends now, which they wouldn't have
been if they had been stopped, any earlier—before it was so equal.”
“Who was fighting with Brown?” said the Doctor.
“Williams, sir, of Thompson's. He is bigger than
Brown, and had the best of it at first, but not when you came up, sir. There's
a good deal of jealousy between our house and Thompson's, and there would have
been more fights if this hadn't been let go on, or if either of them had had
much the worst of it.”
“Well but, Brooke,” said the Doctor, “doesn't this
look a little as if you exercised your discretion by only stopping a fight when
the School-house boy is getting the worst of it?”
Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather
gravelled.
“Now remember,” added the Doctor, as he stopped at
the turret-door, “this fight is not to go on; you'll see to that. And I expect
you to stop all fights in future at once.”
“Very well, sir,” said young Brooke, touching his
hat, and not sorry to see the turret-door close behind the Doctor's back.
Meantime Tom and the stanchest of his adherents
had reached Harrowell's, and Sally was bustling about to get them a late tea,
while Stumps had been sent off to Tew, the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef
for Tom's eye, which was to be healed off-hand, so that he might show well in
the morning. He was not a bit the worse, except a slight difficulty in his
vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a
cold-water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the babel of
voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how Williams would
have given in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe), and
how on earth the Doctor could have got to know of it—such bad luck! He couldn't
help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn't won; he liked it better as
it was, and felt very friendly to the Slogger. And then poor little Arthur
crept in and sat down quietly near him, and kept looking at him and the raw
beef with such plaintive looks that Tom at last burst out laughing.
“Don't make such eyes, young un,” said he;
“there's nothing the matter.”
“Oh, but, Tom, are you much hurt? I can't bear
thinking it was all for me.”
“Not a bit of it; don't flatter yourself. We were
sure to have had it out sooner or later.”
“Well, but you won't go on, will you? You'll promise
me you won't go on?”
“Can't tell about that—all depends on the houses.
We're in the hands of our countrymen, you know. Must fight for the School-house
flag, if so be.”
However, the lovers of the science were doomed to
disappointment this time. Directly after locking-up, one of the night-fags
knocked at Tom's door.
“Brown, young Brooke wants you in the sixth-form
room.”
Up went Tom to the summons, and found the magnates
sitting at their supper.
“Well, Brown,” said young Brooke, nodding to him,
“how do you feel?”
“Oh, very well, thank you, only I've sprained my
thumb, I think.”
“Sure to do that in a fight. Well, you hadn't the
worst of it, I could see. Where did you learn that throw?”
“Down in the country when I was a boy.”
“Hullo! why, what are you now? Well, never mind,
you're a plucky fellow. Sit down and have some supper.”
Tom obeyed, by no means loath. And the fifth-form
boy next filled him a tumbler of bottled beer, and he ate and drank, listening
to the pleasant talk, and wondering how soon he should be in the fifth, and one
of that much-envied society.
As he got up to leave, Brooke said, “You must
shake hands to-morrow morning; I shall come and see that done after first
lesson.”
And so he did. And Tom and the Slogger shook hands
with great satisfaction and mutual respect. And for the next year or two,
whenever fights were being talked of, the small boys who had been present shook
their heads wisely, saying, “Ah! but you should just have seen the fight
between Slogger Williams and Tom Brown!”
And now, boys all, three words before we quit the
subject. I have put in this chapter on fighting of malice prepense, partly
because I want to give you a true picture of what everyday school life was in
my time, and not a kid-glove and go-to-meeting-coat picture, and partly because
of the cant and twaddle that's talked of boxing and fighting with fists
nowadays. Even Thackeray has given in to it; and only a few weeks ago there was
some rampant stuff in the Times on the subject, in an article on field sports.
Boys will quarrel, and when they quarrel will
sometimes fight. Fighting with fists is the natural and English way for English
boys to settle their quarrels. What substitute for it is there, or ever was
there, amongst any nation under the sun? What would you like to see take its
place?
Learn to box, then, as you learn to play cricket
and football. Not one of you will be the worse, but very much the better, for
learning to box well. Should you never have to use it in earnest, there's no
exercise in the world so good for the temper and for the muscles of the back
and legs.
As to fighting, keep out of it if you can, by all
means. When the time comes, if it ever should, that you have to say “Yes” or
“No” to a challenge to fight, say “No” if you can—only take care you make it
clear to yourselves why you say “No.” It's a proof of the highest courage, if
done from true Christian motives. It's quite right and justifiable, if done
from a simple aversion to physical pain and danger. But don't say “No” because
you fear a licking, and say or think it's because you fear God, for that's
neither Christian nor honest. And if you do fight, fight it out; and don't give
in while you can stand and see.
