 Part 1, Chapter 7 of Tom Brown's school days. Says Giles, it is mortal hard to go, but if so be's I must, I means to follow art a he, as goes his self the fussed. 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, 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 shoe-blacks of the schoolhouse 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 co-ing remonstrances to the lazy ones of their commonwealth before starting in a body for the neighbouring plowed fields. The noise of the room door closing behind Bogle, as he made his exit with the shoe-basket 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! Slip for him on the hands! Young green and little haul, commonly called tadpole, from his great black head and thin legs, slept side by side, far away by the door, and were forever playing one another tricks, which usually ended, as on this morning, in open and violent collision. And now, unmindful of all order and authority, there they were, each hauling away at the other's bed-clothes with one hand, and with the other, armed with a slipper, belaboring whatever portion of the body of his adversary came within reach. Hold that noise up in the corner, called out the proposter, 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, Hello, past eight, whose turn for hot water? Where the proposter 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 father and two boys went down every morning to get a supply for the whole room. "'Easts and tadpoles,' answered the senior fag, who kept the rotor. "'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 habillaments out of his portmanteau. "'Let me go for you,' said Tom to East, "'I should like it. "'Well, thank ye, that's a good fellow. Just pull on your trousers, and take your jug and mine. Tadpole will show you the way.' And so Tom and the tadpole, in night-shirts and trousers, started off downstairs, and threw tossies-hole, as the little buttery, where candles and beer and bread and cheese were served out at night, was called, across the schoolhouse court, down a long passage and into the kitchen, where, after some parley with the stalwart handsome cook, who declared that she had filled a dozen jugs already, they got their hot water, and returned with all speed and great caution. As it was, they narrowly escaped capture by some privateers from the fifth-form rooms, who were on the 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 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 preposter 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 wild 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 ciceroony, 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 balial scholarship, and, what East evidently thought of much more importance, a half-holiday for the school by his success. John, 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. 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 wandered 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 tear above tear down the whole length of the chapel, from the little boys 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 the year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit and at the seats of the preposterous 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 smaller 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, I 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 fools or sluggards 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 weak 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 schoolhouse friends being in the lower fourth, the form above him, soon gained golden opinions from his master, whose head 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 proposter 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 proposter 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 schoolhouse little side, which played daily. The only incident worth recording here, however, was his first run at hair 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 the 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 sacks. It's the turn of our house to find scent for big-side hair 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 Barbie 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 cocks 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 meat is. After calling over, sure enough, there were two boys at the door, calling out, big-side hair 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 Youngbrook and Thorn, and started off at a long slinging trot across the fields in the direction of Barbie. Then the hounds clustered round Thorn, who explained shortly, there to have six minutes' law, we run into the cock, and everyone who comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares will be counted if he has been round the Barbie 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 lightly 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 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 tailhounds 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 plowed 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 tailhounds 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 a 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 wins. Then comes the cry of forward, again from young brook, 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 everyone knows the line which must be taken, and so there are no castes 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 Barbie 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 Barbie Hill, and all eyes are on the look out for them today. 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. Hill fares it now with our youngsters that they are schoolhouse boys, and so follow young Brooke, for he takes the wide castes 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 off 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 Brooke 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, four word, 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 the 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 earshot, 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, deadbeat, in 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, puddley 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 hallou 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 a boy seldom has been seen. The sight of him notwithstanding cheered them, for he was some degrees more wretched than they. They also cheered him, as he was no longer under the dread of 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 uttered 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, rubbing 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 servant's 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, whole and brown, late for lucking 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 directly 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 Verge'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 massive clay behind which he was standing. I'm worse than you, two to one. You might broke 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 Nisias's galleys. He 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 through 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 Scarecrow's. 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 hair and hounds and lost our way. Ha! 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 Barbie 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 whole. Ha! yes, the regulator, said the doctor. And I tumbled on to 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 hair and hounds the most delightful of games. A day or two afterwards the great passage outside the bedrooms was cleared of the boxes and warp mantos, 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 schoolhouse friends were. On the next Tuesday morning at four o'clock hot coffee was going on in the housekeepers and matrons' 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 shazes and the four-horse coach which Tom's party had chartered. The post-boys in their best jackets and britches, and a cornopian player, hired for the occasion, blowing away, a southerly wind and a cloudy sky, waking all peaceful inhabitants halfway down the high street. Every minute the bustle and hubbub increased. Porters staggered about with boxes and bags. The cornopian 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 dimmed 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 high flyer at Dunn Church. That's your money all right, Green? Hello, Thomas. The doctor said I was to have two pounds ten. You've only given me two pounds. 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 cornopian playing frantically, drops of brandy, in illusion, probably, to the slight patations in which the musician and post-boys had already been 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 cornopian player, got up behind. In front, the big boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because they are now gentleman 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 birds 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 them into Dunnchurch by one hundred yards. All right, sir, shouted the grinning post-boys. Down comes Robinson's coach in a minute or two, with a rival cornopian, and a wego the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys cheering, horns playing loud. There is a special providence over schoolboys 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-chase 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 the hostler a shilling. All right, sir, Red Lion, gem, to the post-boy, 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, then the Squire and his wife and Tom Brown at the end of his first half year at rugby. LIBREVOX.org Recording by IC JUMBO Tom Brown School Days by Thomas Hughes Part 1 Chapter 8 The War of Independence They are slaves who will not choose hatred, scoffing, and abuse, rather than in silence shrink from the truth they must needs think. They are slaves who dare not be in the right with two or three. Lowell Stanzas on Freedom The lower fourth form, in which Tom found himself at the beginning of the next half year, was the largest form in the lower school, and numbered upwards of forty boys. Young gentlemen of all ages from nine to fifteen were to be found there, who expended such part of their energies as was devoted to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, the Bucholix of Virgil, and the Hecuba of Euripides, which were ground out in small daily portions. The driving of this unlucky lower fourth must have been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it was the most unhappily constituted of any in the school. Here stuck the great stupid boys, who for the life of them could never master the accidents, the objects alternately of mirth and terror to the youngsters, who were daily taking them up and laughing at them in lesson, and getting kicked by them for so doing in play hours. There were no less than three unhappy fellows in tailcoats, withincipient down on their chins, whom the doctor and the master of the form were always endeavouring to hoist into the upper school, but whose parsing and construing resisted the most well-meant shoves. Then came the mass of the form, boys of eleven and twelve, the most mischievous and reckless age of British youth, of whom East and Tom Brown were fair specimens, as full of tricks as monkeys and of excuses as Irish women, making fun of their master, one another and their lessons. Argus himself would have been puzzled to keep an eye on them, and as for making them steady or serious for half an hour together, it was simply hopeless. The remainder of the form consisted of young prodigies of nine and ten, who were going up the school at the rate of a former half-year, all boys' hands and wits being against them in their progress. It would have been one man's work to see that the precocious youngsters had fair play, and as the master had a good deal besides to do, they hadn't, and were for ever being shoved down three or four places, their verses stolen, their books inked, their jackets whitened, and their lives otherwise made a burden to them. The lower fourth, and all the forms below it, were heard in the great school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons before coming in, but were whipped into the school three quarters of an hour before the lesson began by their respective masters, and there scattered about on the benches with dictionary and grammar hammered out their twenty lines of Virgil and Euripides in the midst of Babel. The masters of the lower school walked up and down the great school together during this three quarters of an hour, or sat in their desks reading or looking over copies, and keeping such order as was possible. But the lower fourth was just now an overgrown form, too large for any one man to attend to properly, and consequently the illisium or ideal form of the young scapegraces who formed the staple of it. Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a good character, but the temptations of the lower fourth soon proved too strong for him, and he rapidly fell away, and became as unmanageable as the rest. For some weeks, indeed, he succeeded in maintaining the appearance of steadiness, and was looked upon favorably by his new master, whose eyes were first opened by the following little incident. Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, there was another large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great school which was untenanted. To rush and seize upon this desk, which was ascended by three steps, and held four boys, was the great object of ambition of the lower fourthers, and the contentions for the occupation of it bred such disorder that at last the master forbade its use altogether. This, of course, was a challenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it, and as it was capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely, it was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the veto. Small holes were cut in the front, through which the occupants watched the masters as they walked up and down, and as less and time approached, one boy at a time stole out and down the steps as the master's backs were turned, and mingled with the general crowd on the forms below. Tom and East had successfully occupied the desk some half-dozen times, and were grown so reckless that they were in the habit of playing small games with five balls inside when the masters were at the other end of the big school. One day, as ill luck would have it, the game became more exciting than usual, and the ball slipped through East's fingers and rolled slowly down the steps and out into the middle of the school, just as the masters turned in their walk and faced round upon the desk. The two young delinquents watched their master, through the lookout holes, march slowly down the school, straight upon their retreat, while all the boys in the neighbourhood, of course, stopped their work to look on, and not only were they ignominiously drawn out and caned over the hand there and then, but their characters for steadiness were gone from that time. However, as they only shared the fate of some three-fourths of the rest of the form, this did not weigh heavily upon them. In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the matter were the monthly examinations, when the doctor came round to examine their form for one long awful hour in the work in which they had done in the preceding month. The second monthly examination came round soon after Tom's fall, and it was with anything but lively anticipations that he and the other lower fourth boys came into prayers on the morning of the examination day. Prayers and calling over seemed twice as short as usual, and before they could get construes out of a tithe of the hard passages marked in the margin of their books, they were all seated round, and the doctor was standing in the middle, talking in whispers to the master. Tom couldn't hear a word which passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book, but he knew by a sort of magnetic instinct that the doctor's underlip was coming out, and his eye beginning to burn, and his gown getting gathered up more and more tightly in his left hand. The suspense was agonising, and Tom knew that he was sure on such occasions to make an example of the schoolhouse boys. If he would only begin, thought Tom, I shouldn't mind. At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called out was not Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the doctor's face was too awful. Tom wouldn't have met his eye for all he was worth, and buried himself in his book again. The boy who was called up first was a clever Mary schoolhouse boy, one of their set. He was some connection of the doctors, and a great favourite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so was selected for the first victim. Triste Lupus Stabilis began the luckless youngster, and stammered through some eight or ten lines. There, that will do, said the doctor, now construe. On common occasions the boy could have construed the passage well enough probably, but now his head was gone. Triste Lupus, the sorrowful wolf, he began. A shudder ran through the whole form, and the doctor's wrath fairly boiled over. He made three steps up to the construe, and gave him a good box on the ear. The blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so taken by surprise that he started back. The form caught the back of his knees, and over he went onto the floor behind. There was a dead silence over the whole school. Never before, and never again while Tom was at school, did the doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must have been great. However, the victim had saved his form for that occasion, for the doctor turned to the top bench, and put on the best boys for the rest of the hour, and though at the end of the lesson he gave them all such a rating as they did not forget, this terrible field day passed over without any severe visitations in the shape of punishments or floggings. Forty young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the sorrowful wolf in their different ways before second lesson. But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered, as Tom found, and for years afterwards he went up the school without it, and the master's hands were against him, and his against them, and he regarded them as a matter of course as his natural enemies. Matters were not so comfortable either in the house as they had been, for Old Brook left at Christmas, and one or two others of the sixth form boys at the following Easter. Their rule had been rough, but strong and just in the main, and a higher standard was just beginning to be set up. In fact, there had been a short foretaste of the good time which followed some years later. Just now, however, all threatened to return into darkness and chaos again. For the new preposters were either small young boys, whose cleverness had carried them up to the top of the school, while in strength of body and character they were not yet fit for a share in the government, or else big fellows of the wrong sort, boys whose friendships and tastes had a downward tendency, who had not caught the meaning of their position and work, and felt none of its responsibilities. So under this no government the schoolhouse began to see bad times. The big fifth form boys, who were a sporting and drinking set, soon began to use up power and to fag the little boys as if they were preposters, and to bully and oppress any who showed signs of resistance. The bigger sort of sixth form boys, just described, soon made common cause with the fifth, while the smaller sort, hampered by their colleagues' desertion to the enemy, could not make head against them. So the fags were without their lawful masters and protectors, and ridden over roughshod by a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, and whose only right over them stood in their bodily powers, and as old Brooke had prophesied, the house by degrees broke up into small sets and parties, and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he had set so much store by, and with it much of the prowess in games and the lead in all school matters which he had done so much to keep up. In no place in the world has individual character more weight than at a public school. Remember this, I beseech you, all you boys who are getting into the upper forms. Now is the time in all your lives, probably, when you may have more wide influence for good or evil on the society you live in than you ever can have again. Quit yourselves like men, then, speak up and strike out if necessary, for whatsoever is true and manly and lovely and of good report. Never try to be popular, but only to do your duty and help others to do theirs, and you may leave the tone of feeling in the school higher than you found it. And so be doing good which no living soul can measure to generations of your countrymen yet unborn. For boys follow one another in herds like sheep, for good or evil, they hate thinking, and have rarely any settled principles. Every school, indeed, has its own traditionary standard of right and wrong, which cannot be transgressed with impunity, marking certain things as low and blaggard, and certain others as lawful and right. This standard is ever varying, though it changes only slowly and little by little, and, subject only to such standard, it is the leading boys for the time being who give the tone to all the rest, and make the school either a noble institution for the training of Christian Englishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil than he would if he were turned out to make his way in London streets, or anything between these two extremes. The change for the worse in the schoolhouse, however, didn't press very heavily on our youngsters for some time. They were in a good bedroom, where slept the only proposter left who was able to keep thorough order, and their study was in his passage. So, though they were fagged more or less, and occasionally kicked or cuffed by the bullies, they were on the whole well off, and the fresh, brave school life, so full of games, adventures, and good fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold their troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill usage of the big boys in the house. It wasn't till some year or so after the events recorded above that the proposter of their room and passage left. None of the other sixth-born boys would move into their passage, and, to the disgust and indignation of Tom and East, one morning after breakfast, they were seized upon by Flashman, and made to carry down his books and furniture into the unoccupied study which he had taken. From this time they began to feel the weight of the tyranny of Flashman and his friends, and now that trouble had come home to their own doors, began to look out for sympathisers and partners amongst the rest of the fags, and meetings of the oppressed began to be held, and murmurs to arise, and plots to be laid as to how they should free themselves and be avenged on their enemies. While matters were in this state, East and Tom were one evening sitting in their study. They had done their work for first lesson, and Tom was in a brown study, brooding like a young William Tell upon the wrongs of fags in general, and his own in particular. I say, scud, he said at last, rousing himself to snuff the candle. What right of the fifth-born boys to fag us as they do? No more right than you have to fag them, answered East, without looking up from an early number of pickwick which was just coming out and which he was luxuriously devouring stretched on his back on the sofa. Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went on reading and chuckling. The contrast of the boys' faces would have given infinite amusement to a looker on, the one so solemn and big with mighty purpose, the other radiant and bubbling over with fun. Do you know, old fellow, I've been thinking it over a good deal, began Tom again. Oh yes, I know, fagging you are thinking of, hang it all, but listen here, Tom, here's fun, Mr. Winkle's horse, and I've made up my mind, broke in Tom, that I won't fag except for the sixth. Quite right too, my boy, cried East, putting his finger on the place and looking up, but a pretty peck of troubles you'll get into if you're going to play that game. However, I'm all for a strike myself, if we can get others to join. It's getting too bad. Can't we get some sixth-form fellows to take it up? asked Tom. Well, perhaps we might. Morgan would interfere, I think. Only, added East after a moment's pause, you see, we should have to tell him about it, and that's against school principles. Don't you remember what old Brooke said about learning to take our own parts? Ah, I wish old Brooke were back again. It was all right in his time. Why, yes, you see, then the strongest and best fellows were in the sixth, and the fifth-form fellows were afraid of them, and they kept good order, but now our sixth-form fellows are too small, and the fifth don't care for them, and do what they like in the house. And so we get a double set of masters, cried Tom indignantly, the lawful ones who are responsible to the doctor at any rate, and the unlawful, the tyrants who are responsible to nobody. Down with the tyrants, cried East, I'm all for law and order, and hurrah for revolution. I shouldn't mind if it were only for young Brooke now, said Tom. He's such a good-hearted, gentlemanly fellow, and ought to be in the sixth. I'd do anything for him. But that blaggard flashman, who never speaks to one without a kick or an oath. The cowardly brute broke in East, how I hate him, and he knows it too. He knows that you and I think him a coward. What a bore that he's got a study in this passage. Don't you hear them now at supper in his den? Brandy punch going, I'll bet. I wish the doctor would come out and catch him. We must change our study as soon as we can. Change or no change, I'll never fag for him again, said Tom, thumping the table. Fag! sounded along the passage from Flashman's study. The two boys looked at one another in silence. It had struck nine, so the regular nightfags had left duty, and they were the nearest to the supper-party. East sat up and began to look comical, as he always did under difficulties. Fag! again. No answer. Here, Brown, East, you cursed young skulks, roared out Flashman, coming to his open door. I know you're in, no shirking. Tom stole to their door, and drew the bolts as noiselessly as he could. East blew out the candle. Barricade the first, whispered he. Now, Tom, mind, no surrender. Trust me for that, said Tom between his teeth. In another minute they heard the supper-party turn out and come down the passage to their door. They held their breaths and heard whispering, of which they only made out Flashman's words. I know the young brutes are in. Then came summonses to open, which, being unanswered, the assault commenced. Luckily, the door was a good strong oak one, and resisted the united way to Flashman's party. A pause followed, and they heard a besieger remark. Therein, safe enough, don't you see how the door holds at top and bottom? So the bolts must be drawn. We should have forced the lock long ago. East gave Tom a nudge to call attention to this scientific remark. Then came attacks on particular panels, one of which at last gave way to the repeated kicks, but it broke inwards, and the broken pieces got jammed across, the door being lined with green bays, and couldn't easily be removed from outside. And the besieged, scorning further concealment strengthened their defences by pressing the end of their sofa against the door. So after one or two more ineffectual efforts, Flashman and company retired, vowing vengeance in no mild terms. The first danger over, it only remained for the besieged to effect a safe retreat, as it was now near bedtime. They listened intently, and heard the supper-party resettle themselves, and then gently drew back first one bolt and then the other. Presently the convivial noises began again steadily. Now then, stand by for a run, said East, throwing the door wide open and rushing into the passage, closely followed by Tom. They were too quick to be caught, but Flashman was on the lookout, and sent an empty pickle-jar whizzing after them, which narrowly missed Tom's head, and broke into twenty pieces at the end of the passage. He wouldn't mind killing one if he wasn't caught, said East as they turned the corner. There was no pursuit, so the two turned into the hall, where they found a knot of small boys round the fire. Their story was told, the War of Independence had broken out. Who would join the revolutionary forces? Several others present bound themselves not to fag for the fifth warm at once. One or two only edged off, and left the rebels. What else could they do? I've a good mind to go to the doctor straight, said Tom. That'll never do. Don't you remember the levy of the school last half, put in another? In fact, the solemn assembly, a levy of the school, had been held, at which the captain of the school had got up, and after premising that several instances had occurred of matters having been reported to the masters, that this was against public morality and school tradition, that a levy of the sixth had been held on the subject, and they had resolved that the practice must be stopped at once, and given out that any boy, in whatever form, who should thenceforth appeal to a master, without having first gone to some preposter and laid the case before him, should be thrashed publicly and sent to Coventry. Well then, let's try the sixth, try Morgan, suggested another. No use, blabbing won't do, was the general feeling. I'll give you fellows a piece of advice, said a voice from the end of the hall. They all turned round with a start, and the speaker got up from a bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a shake. He was a big, loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown too far through his jacket and trousers. Don't you go off to anybody at all? You just stand out, say you won't fag, they'll soon get tired of licking you. I've tried it on years ago with their forerunners. No, did you? Tell us how it was, cried a chorus of voices as they clustered round him. Well, just as it is with you, the fifth form would fag us, and I and some more struck, and we beat them. The good fellows left off directly, and the bullies who kept on soon got afraid. Was Flashman here then? Yes, and a dirty little snivelling sneaking-fellow he was, too. He never dared join us, and used to toadie the bullies by offering to fag for them, and peaching against the rest of us. Why wasn't he cut, then? said East. Oh, toadies never get cut, they're too useful. Besides, he has no end of great hampers from home, with wine and game in them, so he toadied and fed himself into favour. The quarter to ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off upstairs, still consulting together, and praising their new counsellor, who stretched himself out on the bench before the whole fire again. There he lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by name Diggs, and familiarly called the Mucka. He was young for his size, and a very clever fellow, nearly at the top of the fifth. His friends at home, having regard, I suppose, to his age, and not to his size and place in the school, hadn't put him into tales, and even his jackets were always too small, and he had a talent for destroying clothes and making himself look shabby. He wasn't on terms with Flashman's set, who sneered at his dress and ways behind his back, which he knew, and revenged himself by asking Flashman the most disagreeable questions, and treating him familiarly whenever a crowd of boys were round him. Neither was he intimate with any of the other bigger boys, who were warned off by his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow. Besides, amongst other failings, he had that of imprecuniosity in a remarkable degree. He brought as much money as other boys to school, but got rid of it in no time. No one knew how, and then, being also reckless, borrowed from anyone, and when his debts accumulated and creditors pressed, would have an auction in the hall of everything he possessed in the world, selling even his schoolbooks, candlestick, and study table. For weeks after one of these auctions, having rendered his study uninhabitable, he would live about in the fifth-form room and hall, doing his verses on old letter-backs and old scraps of paper, and learning his lessons no one knew how. He never meddled with any little boy, and was popular with them, though they all looked on him with a sort of compassion, and called him poor digs, not being able to resist appearances, or to disregard wholly even the sneers of their enemy Flashman. However, he seemed equally indifferent to the sneers of big boys and the pity of small ones, and lived his own queer life with much apparent enjoyment to himself. It is necessary to introduce digs thus particularly, as he not only did Tom and East good service in their present warfare, as is about to be told, but soon afterwards, when he got into the sixth, chose them for his fags, and excused them from study-fagging, thereby earning unto himself eternal gratitude from them and all who are interested in their history. And seldom had small boys more need of a friend, for the morning after the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in all its violence. Flashman laid wait, and caught Tom before second lesson, and receiving a point-blank no, when told to fetch his hat, seized him and twisted his arm, and went through the other methods of torture in use. He couldn't make me cry, though, as Tom said triumphantly to the rest of the rebels, and I kicked his shins well, I know. And soon it crept out that a lot of the fags were in league, and Flashman excited his associates to join him in bringing the young vagabonds to their senses, and the house was filled with constant chasings and sieges and lickings of all sorts, and in return the bullies' beds were pulled to pieces and drenched with water, and their names written up on the walls with every insulting epithet which the fag invention could furnish. The war in short raged fiercely, but soon, as Diggs had told them, all the better fellows in the fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public feeling began to set against Flashman and his two or three intimates, and they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, but being thorough bad fellows missed no opportunity of torturing in private. Flashman was an adept in all ways, but above all in the power of saying cutting and cruel things, and could often bring tears to the eyes of boys in this way, which all the thrashings in the world couldn't have rung from them. And as his operations were being cut short in other directions, he now devoted himself chiefly to Tom and East who lived at his own door, and would force himself into their study whenever he found a chance, and sit there, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a companion, interrupting all their work, and exulting in the evident pain which every now and then he could see he was inflicting on one or the other. The storm had cleared the air for the rest of the house, and a better state of things now began than there had been since old Brook had left, but an angry dark spot of thundercloud still hung over the end of the passage where Flashman study and that of East and Tom lay. He felt that they had been the first rebels, and that the rebellion had been to a great extent successful, but what above all stirred the hatred and bitterness of his heart against them was that in the frequent collisions which there had been of late they had openly called him coward and sneak. The taunts were too true to be forgiven. While he was in the act of thrashing them, they would roar out instances of his funking at football or shirking some encounter with a lot of half his own size. These things were all well enough known in the house, but to have his own disgrace shouted out by small boys, to feel that they despised him, to be unable to silence them by any amount of torture, and to see the open laugh and sneer of his own associates who were looking on and took no trouble to hide their scorn from him though they neither interfered with his bullying nor lived a bit the less intimately with him, made him beside himself. Come what might he would make those boys' lives miserable, so the strife settled down into a personal affair between Flashman and our youngsters, a water-the-knife, to be fought out in the little cockpit at the end of the bottom passage. Flashman, be it said, was about seventeen years old and big and strong of his age. He played well at all games where pluck wasn't much wanted, and managed generally to keep up appearances where it was, and having a bluff off-hand manner which passed for heartiness and considerable powers of being pleasant when he liked, went down with the school in general for a good fellow enough. Even in the school-house, by dint of his command of money, the constant supply of good things which he kept up, and his adroit todyism, he had managed to make himself not only tolerated, but rather popular amongst his own contemporaries, although Youngbrook scarcely spoke to him, and one or two others of the right sort showed their opinions of him whenever a chance offered. But the wrong sort happened to be in the ascendant just now, and so Flashman was a formidable enemy for small boys. This soon became plain enough. Flashman left no slander unspoken, and no deed undone, which could in any way hurt his victims, or isolate them from the rest of the house. One by one most of the other boys fell away from them, while Flashman's cause prospered, and several other fifth-worn boys began to look black at them, and ill-treat them as they passed about the house. By keeping out of bounds, or at all events out of the house and quadrangle all day and carefully barring themselves in at night, East and Tom managed to hold on without feeling very miserable, but it was as much as they could do. Greatly were they drawn then towards old Diggs, who in an uncouth way began to take a good deal of notice of them, and once or twice came to their study when Flashman was there, who immediately decamped in consequence. The boys thought that Diggs must have been watching. When, therefore, about this time, an auction was one night announced to take place in the hall, at which, amongst the superfluities of other boys, all Diggs' panates for the time being were going to the hammer, East and Tom laid their heads together, and resolved to devote their ready cash, some for Shilling's sterling, to redeem such articles as that some would cover. Accordingly they duly attended to bid, and Tom became the owner of two lots of Diggs's things. Lot One, Price One and Throppence, consisting, as the auctioneer remarked, of a valuable assortment of old metals, in the shape of a mousetrap, a cheese toaster without a handle, and a saucepan. Lot Two of a villainous dirty tablecloth and green-bays curtain. While East, for one and sixpence, purchased a leather paper case, with a lock but no key, once handsome, but now much the worse for wear. But they still had the point to settle of how to get Diggs to take the things without hurting his feelings. This they solved by leaving them in his study, which was never locked when he was out. Diggs, who had attended the auction, remembered who had bought the lots, and came to their study soon after, and sat silent for some time, cracking his great red finger joints. Then he laid hold of their verses, and began looking over and altering them, and at last got up, and turning his back to them said, You're uncommon good-hearted little beggars, you two. I value that paper case. My sister gave it to me last holidays. I won't forget. And so he tumbled out into the passage, leaving them somewhat embarrassed, but not sorry that he knew what they had done. The next morning was a Saturday, the day on which the allowances of one shilling a week were paid. An important event to spendthrift youngsters, and great was the disgust amongst the small fry, to hear that all the allowances had been impounded for the Derby Lottery. That great event in the English year, the Derby, was celebrated at rugby in those days by many lotteries. It was not an improving custom, I own, gentle reader, and led to making books, and betting, and other objectionable results. But when our great houses of palaver think it right to stop the nation's business on that day, and many of the members bet heavily themselves, can you blame us boys for following the example of our betters? At any rate, we did follow it. First there was the great school lottery, where the first prize was six or seven pounds. Then each house had one or more separate lotteries. These were all nominally voluntary, no boy being compelled to put in his shilling who didn't choose to do so. But besides Flashman, there were three or four other fast-sporting young gentlemen in the schoolhouse who considered subscription a matter of duty and necessity, and so to make their duty come easy to the small boys quietly secured the allowances in a lump when given out for distribution, and kept them. It was no use grumbling, so many fewer tartlets and apples were eaten, and five balls bought on that Saturday. And after locking up when the money would otherwise have been spent, consolation was carried to many a small boy by the sound of the nightfags shouting along the passengers. Gentlemen sportsmen of the schoolhouse, the lotteries going to be drawn in the hall. It was pleasant to be called a gentleman sportsman, also to have a chance of drawing a favourite horse. The hall was full of boys, and at the head of one of the long tables stood the sporting interest with a hat before them, in which were the tickets folded up. One of them began calling out the list of the house. Each boy, as his name was called, drew a ticket from the hat and opened it, and most of the bigger boys, after drawing, left the hall directly to go back to their studies or to the fifth-form room. The sporting interest had all drawn blanks, and they were sulky accordingly. Neither of the favourites had yet been drawn, and it had come down to the upper fourth. So now, as each small boy came up and drew his ticket, it was seized and opened by Flashman, or some of the other standards by. But no great favourite is drawn until it comes to the tadpole's turn, and he shuffles up and draws, and tries to make off, but his court and his ticket is opened like the rest. Here you are, Wanderer, the third favourite, shouts the opener. I say, just give me my ticket, please, remonstrates tadpole. Hello, don't be in a hurry, breaks in Flashman. What'll you sell Wanderer for now? I don't want to sell, rejoins tadpole. Oh, don't you! Now listen, you young fool, you don't know anything about it. The horse is no use to you. He won't win, but I want him as a hedge. Now I'll give you half a crown for him. Tadpole holds out, but between threats and conjolaries at length sells half for one shilling and sixpence, about a fifth of its fair market value. However, he is glad to realise anything, and, as he wisely remarks, Wanderer may't win, and the tizzy is safe anyhow. East presently comes up and draws a blank. Soon after comes Tom's turn. His ticket, like the others, is seized and opened. Here you are, then, shouts the opener, holding it up. Hark away! Buy, Joe, flashy, your young friends in luck! Give me the ticket, says Flashman, with an oath, leaning across the table with an open hand, and his face black with rage. Wouldn't you like it? replies the opener, not a bad fellow at the bottom, and no admirer of Flashman. Here, Brown, catch hold, and he hands the ticket to Tom, who pockets it. Whereupon, Flashman makes for the door at once, that Tom and the ticket may not escape, and there keeps watch until the drawing is over, and all the boys are gone, except the sporting set of five or six who stay to compare books, make bets, and so on, Tom, who doesn't choose to move while Flashman is at the door, and East, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble. The sporting set now gathered round Tom. Public opinion wouldn't allow them actually to rob him of his ticket, but any humbug or intimidation by which he could be driven to sell the whole or part at an undervalue was lawful. Now, young Brown, come, what will you sell me Hark away for? I hear he isn't going to start. I'll give you five shillings for him, begins the boy who had opened the ticket. Tom, remembering his good deed, and more over, in his forlorn state wishing to make a friend, is about to accept the offer when another cries out, I'll give you seven shillings. Tom hesitated and looked from one to the other. No, no, said Flashman, pushing in, leave me to deal with him. We'll draw lots for it afterwards. Now, sir, you know me. You'll sell Hark away to us for five shillings, or you'll repent it. I won't sell a bit of him, answered Tom shortly. You hear that now, said Flashman, turning to the others. He's the coxiest young blackguard in the house. I always told you so. We're to have all the trouble and risk of getting up the lotteries for the benefit of such fellows as he. Flashman forgets to explain what risk they ran, but he speaks to willing ears. Gambling makes boys selfish and cruel as well as men. That's true. We always draw blanks, cried one. Now, sir, you shall sell half at any rate. I won't, said Tom, flushing up to his hair and lumping them all in his mind with his sworn enemy. Very well, then, let's roast him, cried Flashman, and catch his hold of Tom by the collar. One or two boys hesitate, but the rest join in. East sees his Tom's arm and tries to pull him away, but he's knocked back by one of the boys, and Tom is dragged along struggling. His shoulders are pushed against the mantelpiece, and he is held by main force before the fire, Flashman drawing his trousers tight by way of extra torture. Poor East, in more pain even than Tom, suddenly thinks of digs and darts off to find him. Will you sell now for tensionings? says one boy who is relenting. Tom only answers by groans and struggles. I say, Flashy, he has had enough, says the same boy, dropping the arm he holds. No, no, another turn will do it, answers Flashman. But poor Tom is done already, turns deadly pale, and his head falls forward on his breast. Just as digs, in frantic excitement, rushes into the hall with East at his heels. You cowardly brutes, is all he can say as he catches Tom from them, and supports him to the hall table. Good God, he's dying! Here, get some cold water, run for the housekeeper! Flashman and one or two others slink away. The rest, ashamed and sorry, bend over Tom or run for water, while East darts off for the housekeeper. Water comes, and they throw it on his hands and face, and he begins to come too. Mother! the words come feebly and slowly. It's very cold tonight. Poor old digs is blubbering like a child. Where am I? goes on Tom, opening his eyes. Ah! I remember now. And he shut his eyes again and groaned. I say, is whispered, we can't do any good, and the housekeeper will be here in a minute. And all but one steal away. He stays with digs, silent and sorrowful, and fans Tom's face. The housekeeper comes in with strong salts, and Tom soon recovers enough to sit up. There is a smell of burning. She examines his clothes and looks up inquiringly. The boys are silent. How did he come so? No answer. There's been some bad work here, she adds, looking very serious, and I shall speak to the doctor about it. Still no answer. Hadn't we better carry him to the sick room? suggests digs. Oh! I can walk now, says Tom, and supported by East and the housekeeper goes to the sick room. The boy who held his ground is soon amongst the rest who are all in fear of their lives. Did he peach? Does she know about it? Not a word. He's a staunch little fellow. And pausing a moment, he adds, I'm sick of this work. What brutes we've been. Meanwhile, Tom is stretched out on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, with East by his side, while she gets wine and water and other restoratives. Are you much hurt, dear old boy? whispers East. Only the back of my legs, answers Tom. They are indeed badly scorched, and part of his trousers burnt through, but soon he is in bed with cold bandages. At first he feels broken and thinks of writing home and getting taken away, and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings through his head, and he goes to sleep murmuring, Where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. But after a sound night's rest the old boy spirit comes back again. East comes in reporting that the whole house is with him, and he forgets everything, except their old resolve never to be beaten by that bully flashman. Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them, and though the doctor knew all that she knew that morning he never knew any more. I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school, and that lotteries and betting-books have gone out, but I am writing of schools as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the good.