Tom Brown at Oxford Part 37

"No, but I have taught in the Sunday-school at home sometimes.

Indeed, I will do whatever you tell me."

"Oh! but this is not at all like a Sunday-school. They are a very rough, wild lot."

"The rougher the better," said Tom; "I shall know how to manage them then."

"But you must not really be rough with them."

"No, I won't; I didn't mean that," said Tom, hastily, for he saw his mistake at once. "I shall take it as a great favor, if you will let me go with you to-night. You won't repent it, I'm sure."

Grey did not seem at all sure of this, but saw no means of getting rid of his companion, and so they walked on together and turned down a long, narrow court in the lowest part of the town.

At the doors of the houses laboring men, mostly Irish, lounged or stood about, smoking and talking to one another, or to the women who leant out of the windows, or pa.s.sed to and fro on their various errands of business or pleasure. A group of half-grown lads were playing at pitch-farthing at the farther end, and all over the court were scattered children of all ages, ragged and noisy little creatures most of them, on whom paternal and maternal admonitions and cuffs were constantly being expended, and to all appearances in vain.

At the sight of Grey a shout arose amongst the smaller boys, of "Here's the teacher!" and they crowded around him and Tom as they went up the court. Several of the men gave him a half-surly half-respectful nod, as he pa.s.sed along, wishing them good evening. The rest merely stared at him and his companion. They stopped at a door which Grey opened, and led the way into the pa.s.sage of an old tumble-down cottage, on the ground floor of which were two low rooms which served for the school-rooms.

A hard-featured, middle-aged woman, who kept the house, was waiting, and said to Grey, "Mr. Jones told me to say, sir, he would not be here to night, as he has got a bad fever case--so you was to take only the lower cla.s.ses, sir, he said; and the policeman would be near to keep out the big boys if you wanted him. Shall I go and tell him to step round, sir?"

Grey looked embarra.s.sed for a moment, and then said, "No, never mind; you can go;" and then turning to Tom, added, "Jones is the curate; he won't be here to-night; and some of the bigger boys are very noisy and troublesome, and only come to make a noise.

However, if they come we must do our best."

Meantime, the crowd of small ragged urchins had filled the room, and were swarming on to the benches and squabbling for the copy-books which were laid out on the thin desks. Grey set to work to get them into order, and soon the smallest were draughted off into the inner room with slates and spelling-books, and the bigger ones, some dozen in number, settled to their writing. Tom seconded him so readily, and seemed so much at home, that Grey felt quite relieved.

"You seem to get on capitally," he said; "I will go into the inner room to the little ones, and you stay and take these. There are the cla.s.s-books when they have done their copies," and so went off into the inner room and closed the door.

Tom set himself to work with a will, and as he bent over one after another of the pupils, and guided the small grubby hands which clutched the inky pens with cramped fingers, and went spluttering and blotching along the lines of the copy-books, felt the yellow scales dropping from his eyes, and more warmth coming back into his heart than he had known there for many a day.

All went on well inside, notwithstanding a few small out-breaks between the scholars, but every now and then mud was thrown against the window, and noises outside and in the pa.s.sages threatened some interruption. At last, when the writing was finished, the copy-books cleared away, and the cla.s.s-books distributed, the door opened, and two or three big boys of fifteen or sixteen lounged in, with their hands in their pockets and their caps on. There was an insolent look about them which set Tom's back up at once; however, he kept his temper, made them take their caps off, and, as they said they wanted to read with the rest, let them take their places on the benches.

But now came the tug of war. He could not keep his eyes on the whole lot at once, and, no sooner did he fix his attention on the stammering reader for the time being and try to help him, than anarchy broke out all round him. Small stones and shot were thrown about, and cries arose from the smaller fry, "Please, sir, he's been and poured some ink down my back," "He's stole my book, sir," "He's gone and stuck a pin in my leg." The evil-doers were so cunning that it was impossible to catch them; but as he was hastily turning in his own mind what to do, a cry arose, and one of the benches went suddenly over backwards on to the floor, carrying with it its whole freight of boys, except two of the bigger ones, who were the evident authors of the mishap.

Tom sprang at the one nearest him, seized him by the collar, hauled him into the pa.s.sage, and sent him out of the street-door with a sound kick; and then rushing back, caught hold of the second, who went down on his back and clung round Tom's legs, shouting for help to his remaining companions, and struggling and swearing. It was all the work of a moment, and now the door opened, and Grey appeared from the inner room. Tom left off hauling his prize towards the pa.s.sage, and felt and looked very foolish.

"This fellow, and another whom I have turned out, upset that form with all the little boys on it," he said, apologetically.

"It's a lie, t'wasn't me," roared the captive, to whom Tom administered a sound box on the ear, while the small boys, rubbing different parts of their bodies, chorused, "'twas him, teacher, 'twas him," and heaped further charges of pinching, pin-sticking, and other atrocities on him.

Grey astonished Tom by his firmness. "Don't strike him again," he said. "Now, go out at once, or I will send for your father." The fellow got up, and, after standing a moment and considering his chance of successful resistance to physical force in the person of Tom, and moral in that of Grey, slunk out. "You must go, too, Murphy," went on Grey to another of the intruders.

"Oh, your honor let me bide. I'll be as quiet as a mouse,"

pleaded the Irish boy; and Tom would have given in, but Grey was unyielding.

"You were turned out last week, and Mr. Jones said you were not to come back for a fortnight."

"Well, good night to your honor," said Murphy, and took himself off.

"The rest may stop," said Grey. "You had better take the inner room now; I will stay here."

"I'm very sorry," said Tom.

"You couldn't help it; no one can manage those two. Murphy is quite different, but I should have spoiled him if I had let him stay now."

The remaining half hour pa.s.sed off quietly. Tom retired into the inner room, and took up Grey's lesson, which he had been reading to the boys from a large Bible with pictures. Out of consideration for their natural and acquired restlessness, the little fellows, who were all between eight and eleven years old, were only kept sitting at their pothooks and spelling for the first half hour or so, and then were allowed to crowd round the teacher, who read and talked to them, and showed them the pictures. Tom found the Bible open at the story of the prodigal son, and read it out to them as they cl.u.s.tered round his knees.

Some of the outside ones fidgeted about a little, but those close round him listened with ears, and eyes, and bated breath; and two little blue-eyed boys, without shoes--their ragged clothes concealed by long pinafores which their widowed mother had put on clean to send them to school--leaned against him and looked up in his face, and his heart warmed to the touch and the look.

"Please, teacher, read it again," they said when he finished; so he read it again and sighed when Grey came in and lighted a candle (for the room was getting dark) and said it was time for prayers.

A few collects, and the Lord's Prayer, in which all the young voices joined, drowning for a minute the noises from the court outside, finished the evening's schooling. The children trooped out, and Grey went to speak to the woman who kept the house. Tom, left to himself, felt strangely happy, and, for something to do, took the snuffers and commenced a crusade against a large family of bugs, who, taking advantage of the quiet, came cruising out of a crack in the otherwise neatly papered wall. Some dozen had fallen on his spear when Grey reappeared, and was much horrified at the sight. He called the woman and told her to have the hole carefully fumigated and mended.

"I thought we had killed them all long ago," he said; "but the place is tumbling down."

"It looks well enough," said Tom.

"Yes, we have it kept as tidy as possible. It ought to be at least a little better than what the children see at home." And so they left the school and court and walked up to college.

"Where are you going?" Tom said, as they entered the gate.

"To Hardy's rooms; will you come?"

"No, not to-night," said Tom; "I know that you want to be reading; I should only interrupt."

"Well, good night, then," said Grey, and went on, leaving Tom standing in the porch. On the way up from the school he had almost made up his mind to go to Hardy's rooms that night. He longed and yet feared to do so; and, on the whole, was not sorry for an excuse. Their first meeting must be alone, and it would be a very embarra.s.sing one, for him at any rate. Grey, he hoped, would tell Hardy of his visit to the school, and that would show that he was coming round, and make the meeting easier. His talk with Grey, too, had removed one great cause of uneasiness from his mind. It was now quite clear that he had no suspicion of the quarrel, and, if Hardy had not told him, no one else could know of it.

Altogether, he strolled into the quadrangle a happier and sounder man than he had been since his first visit to "The Choughs", and looked up and answered with his old look and voice when he heard his name called from one of the first-floor windows.

The hailer was Drysdale, who was leaning out in lounging coat and velvet cap, and enjoying a cigar as usual, in the midst of the flowers of his hanging garden.

"You've heard the good news, I suppose?"

"No, what do you mean?"

"Why, Blake has got the Latin verse."

"Hurrah! I'm so glad."

"Come up and have a weed."

Tom ran up the staircase and into Drysdale's rooms, and was leaning out of the window at his side in another minute.

"What does he get by it?" he said, "do you know?"

"No; some books bound in Russia, I dare say, with the Oxford arms, and 'Dominus illuminatio mea,' on the back."

"No money?"

"Not much--perhaps a ten'ner," answered Drysdale, "but no end of [Greek text] kudoz, I suppose."

"It makes it look well for his first, don't you think? But I wish he had got some money for it. I often feel very uncomfortable about that bill, don't you?"

"Not I, what's the good? It's nothing when you are used to it.

Besides, it don't fall due for another six weeks."