Tom Brown at Rugby Part 10

The two ushers in Tom's first school were not gentlemen, were very poorly educated, and were only driving their poor trade of usher to get such living as they could out of it. They were not bad men, but had little heart for their work, and, of course, were bent on making it as easy as possible. One of the methods by which they endeavored to accomplish this was by encouraging tale-bearing, which had become a frightfully common vice in the school in consequence, and had sapped all the foundations of school morality. Another was, by grossly favoring the biggest boys, who alone could have given them much trouble; whereby those young gentlemen became most abominable tyrants, oppressing the little boys in all the small mean ways which prevail in private schools.

TOM'S FIRST LETTER HOME.

Poor little Tom was made dreadfully unhappy in his first week, by a catastrophe which happened to his first letter home. With huge labor he had, on the very evening of his arrival, managed to fill two sides of a sheet of letter-paper with the a.s.surances of his love for dear mamma, his happiness at school, and his resolves to do all she would wish. This missive,[41] with the help of the boy who sat at the desk next him, also a new arrival, he managed to fold successfully; but this done they were sadly put to it for means of sealing. Envelopes were then unknown, they had no wax, and dared not disturb the stillness of the evening school-room by getting up and going to ask the usher for some. At length, Tom's friend, being of an ingenious turn of mind, suggested sealing with ink, and the letter was accordingly stuck down with a blob of ink, and duly handed by Tom on his way to bed, to the housekeeper to be posted. It was not till four days afterward that the good dame sent for him, and produced the precious letter and some wax saying, "Oh, Master Brown, I forgot to tell you before, but your letter isn't sealed." Poor Tom took the wax in silence and sealed his letter, with a huge lump rising in his throat during the process, and then ran away to a quiet corner of the playground, and burst into an agony of tears. The idea of his mother waiting day after day for the letter he had promised her at once, and perhaps thinking him forgetful of her, when he had done all in his power to make good his promise, was as bitter a grief as any which he had to undergo for many a long year. His wrath then was proportionately violent when he was aware of two boys, who stopped close by him, and one of whom, a fat gaby[42] of a fellow, pointed at him and called him "Young mammy-sick!" Whereupon Tom arose, and giving vent thus to his grief and shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose, and made it bleed,--which sent that young worthy howling to the usher, who reported Tom for violent and unprovoked a.s.sault and battery. Hitting in the face was a felony[43] punishable with flogging, other hitting only a misdemeanor,--a distinction not altogether clear in principle. Tom, however, escaped the penalty by pleading "primum tempus,"[44] and having written a second letter to his mother, inclosing some forget-me-nots, which he picked on their first half-holiday walk, felt quite happy again, and began to enjoy vastly a good deal of his new life.

[41] #Missive#: anything to be sent; hence, a letter.

[42] #Gaby#: a dunce.

[43] #Felony#: a serious offence or crime.

[44] #Primum tempus#: first time.

These half-holiday walks were the great events of the week. The whole fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers for Hazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the school. Hazeldown measured some three miles round, and in the neighborhood were several woods full of all manner of birds and b.u.t.terflies. The usher walked slowly round the down with such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in all directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher had completed his round, and accompany him home. They were forbidden, however, to go anywhere except on the down and into the woods; the village had been especially prohibited, where huge bulls'-eyes[45] and unctuous toffee[46] might be procured in exchange for coin of the realm.

[45] #Bulls'-eyes and toffee#: the former are hard b.a.l.l.s of sugar, the latter a kind of candy made of brown sugar and b.u.t.ter.

[46] #Bulls'-eyes and toffee#: the former are hard b.a.l.l.s of sugar, the latter a kind of candy made of brown sugar and b.u.t.ter.

THE AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.

Various were the amus.e.m.e.nts to which the boys then betook themselves.

At the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of Tom's own downs. This mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the queer name of "mud-patties."

The boys who played divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the mound. Then all parties, having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom proceeded to a.s.sault the mound, advancing upon all sides under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged. It was a good, rough, dirty game, and of great use in counteracting the sneaking tendencies of the school. Then others of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the holes of humble bees[47] and mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (I regret to say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret to say) getting well stung by the humble bees. Others went after b.u.t.terflies and birds'-eggs in their seasons; and Tom found on Hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little blue b.u.t.terfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his own downs, and dug out his first sand-martin's nest. This latter achievement resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins build in a high bank close to the village, consequently out of bounds;[48] but one of the bolder spirits of the school, who never could be happy unless he was doing something to which risk attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martin's bank. From whence, it being only a step to the toffee shop, what could be more simple than to go on there and fill their pockets? or what more certain than that on their return, a distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly detect the forbidden smell of bulls'-eyes, and, a search ensuing, discover the state of the breeches' pockets of Tom and his ally?

[47] #Humble bees#: "b.u.mble-bees."

[48] #Bounds#: the school limits, beyond which boys are not to go without permission.

THE REPROBATE.

This ally of Tom's was indeed a desperate hero in the sight of the boys, and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something approaching thereto. Which reputation came to him in this wise. The boys went to bed at eight, and, of course, consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour or two, telling ghost stories by turns. One night when it came to his turn, and he had dried up their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery hand appear on the door; and, to the astonishment and terror of the boys in his room, a hand, or something like it, in pale light, did then and there appear. The fame of this exploit having spread to the other rooms, and being discredited there, the young necromancer[49] declared that the same wonder would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did; and the whole circ.u.mstances having been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual, that functionary, after listening about the doors of the rooms, by a sudden descent caught the performer in his nightshirt, with a box of phosphorus[50] in his guilty hand.

Lucifer-matches and all the present facilities for getting acquainted with fire were then unknown: the very name of phosphorus had something diabolic in it to the boy mind; so Tom's ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, earned what many older folks covet much,--the very decided fear of most of his companions.

[49] #Necromancer#: (one who communes with the dead) a conjurer.

[50] #Phosphorus#: the yellowish, inflammable substance used in making common matches--in a pure state it burns on exposure to air. Matches--called "Lucifers" or "light-bringers"--were invented in England about 1829. Previous to that time the only way of striking a light was by flint and steel, the spark being caught on a bit of tinder (half-burnt rag) which was then blown into a blaze.

He was a remarkable boy and by no means a bad one. Tom stuck to him till he left, and got into many sc.r.a.pes by so doing. But he was the great opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school; and the open enemy of the ushers; and so worthy of all support.

Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at the school, but somehow on the whole it didn't suit him, or he it, and in the holidays he was constantly working the Squire to send him at once to a public school. Great was his joy, then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in October, 183-, a fever broke out in the village; and the master having himself slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at a week's notice to their respective homes.

The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom to see that young gentleman's brown, merry face appear at home, some two months before the proper time, for the Christmas Holidays; and so, after putting on his thinking-cap, he retired to his study and wrote several letters, the result of which was, that one morning at the breakfast-table, about a fortnight after Tom's return, he addressed his wife with: "My dear, I have arranged that Tom shall go to Rugby[51] at once, for the last six weeks of this half-year, instead of wasting them, riding and loitering about home. It is very kind of the Doctor[52] to allow it.

Will you see that his things are all ready by Friday, when I shall take him up to town, and send him down the next day by himself!"

[51] #Rugby#: a small village in Warwickshire on the river Avon, nearly in the centre of England. It is the seat of Rugby School,--one of the great public schools,--and was founded by Lawrence Sheriff, a native of the neighboring village of Brownsover, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The school owes its fame chiefly to Dr. Arnold, who became head master in 1827, and held the position until his death in 1842.

[52] #Doctor#: Dr. Arnold.

Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, and merely suggested a doubt whether Tom were yet old enough to travel by himself. However, finding both father and son against her on this point, she gave in, like a wise woman, and proceeded to prepare Tom's kit[53] for his launch into a public school.

[53] #Kit#: here, clothes.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STAGE COACH.

"Let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot, Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot."

_Coaching song by R. E. E. Warburton, Esq._

"Now, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tally-ho[1] coach for Leicester'll be round in half an hour, and don't wait for n.o.body." So spake the Boots[2] of the Peac.o.c.k Inn, Islington,[3] at half-past two o'clock on the morning of a day in the early part of November, 183-, giving Tom at the same time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting down a candle and carrying off his shoes to clean.

[1] #Tally-ho#: the cry with which huntsmen urge on their hounds; here, a name given to a fast coach.

[2] #Boots#: a servant in an inn who blacks boots, etc.

[3] #Islington#: a northern suburb of London.

TOM ARRIVES IN TOWN.

Tom and his father arrived in town from Berkshire the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that the Birmingham coaches which ran from the city did not pa.s.s through Rugby, but deposited their pa.s.sengers at Dunchurch, a village three miles distant on the main road, where said pa.s.sengers had to wait for the Oxford and Leicester coach in the evening, or to take a post-chaise,[4] had resolved that Tom should travel down by the Tally-ho, which diverged from the main road and pa.s.sed through Rugby itself. And as the Tally-ho was an early coach, they had driven out to the Peac.o.c.k to be on the road.

[4] #Post-chaise#: a hired carriage.

Tom had never been in London, and would have liked to have stopped at the Belle Sauvage,[5] where they had been put down by the Star,[6]

just at dusk, that he might have gone roving about those endless, mysterious, gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds, excited him so that he couldn't talk even. But as soon as he found that the Peac.o.c.k arrangement would get him to Rugby by twelve o'clock in the day, whereas otherwise he wouldn't be there till the evening, all other plans melted away; his one absorbing aim being to become a public-school boy as fast as possible, and six hours sooner or later seeming to him of the most alarming importance.

[5] #Belle Sauvage#: a famous old inn, formerly in the centre of London.

[6] #Star#: the name of the coach which brought the Squire and Tom to London.

Tom and his father had alighted at the Peac.o.c.k at about seven in the evening; and having heard with unfeigned joy the paternal order at the bar, of steaks and oyster-sauce for supper in half an hour, and seen his father seated cosily by the bright fire in the coffee-room with the paper in his hand, Tom had run out to see about him, had wondered at all the vehicles pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, and had fraternized with the boots and hostler, from whom he ascertained that the Tally-ho was a tip-top goer, ten miles an hour including stoppages, and so punctual that all the road set their clocks by her.

SQUIRE BROWN'S PARTING WORDS.

Then being summoned to supper, he had regaled himself in one of the bright little boxes[7] of the Peac.o.c.k coffee-room, on the beefsteak and unlimited oyster-sauce; had at first attended to the excellent advice which his father was bestowing on him and then begun nodding, from the united effects of the fire and the lecture. Till the Squire, observing Tom's state, and remembering that it was nearly nine o'clock, and that the Tally-ho left at three, sent the little fellow off to the chambermaid, with a shake of the hand (Tom having stipulated in the morning before starting, that kissing should now cease between them) and a few parting words.

[7] #Boxes#: inclosed places for eating.