Tom Brown at Rugby Part 17

The quarter to five has struck, and the play slackens for a minute before goal; but there is Crew, the artful dodger, driving the ball in behind our goal, on the island side, where our quarters are weakest.

Is there no one to meet him? Yes, look at little East! the ball is just at equal distances between the two, and they rush together, the young man of seventeen, and the boy of twelve, and kick it at the same moment. Crew pa.s.ses on without a stagger; East is hurled forward by the shock, and plunges on his shoulder, as if he would bury himself in the ground; but the ball rises straight into the air, and falls behind Crew's back, while the "bravos" of the School-house attest the pluckiest charge of all that hard-fought day. Warner picks East up lame and half-stunned, and he hobbles back into goal, conscious of having played the man.

And now the last minutes are come, and the School gather for their last rush, every boy of the hundred and twenty who has a run left in him. Reckless of the defence of their own goal, on they come across the level big-side ground, the ball well down amongst them, straight for our goal, like the column of the Old Guard up the slope at Waterloo.[52] All former charges have been child's play to this.

Warner and Hedge have met them, but still on they come. The bull-dogs rush in for the last time; they are hurled over or carried back, striving hand, foot, and eyelids. Old Brooke comes sweeping round the skirts of the play, and, turning short round, picks out the very heart of the scrummage, and plunges in. It wavers for a moment--he has the ball! No, it has pa.s.sed him, and his voice rings out clear over the advancing tide: "Look out in the goal." Crab Jones catches it for a moment; but before he can kick, the rush is upon him and pa.s.ses over him; and he picks himself up behind them with his straw in his mouth, a little dirtier, but as cool as ever.

The ball rolls slowly in behind the School-house goal, not three yards in front of a dozen of the biggest School players-up.

[52] #Waterloo#: (in Belgium) the scene of the crushing defeat of the French in 1815, by the allied forces under the Duke of Wellington, by which the power of Napoleon was finally broken.

The Old Guard was the emperor's favorite body of troops, and was considered irresistible.

TOM'S FIRST EXPLOIT.

There stands the School-house praepostor, safest of goal-keepers, and Tom Brown by his side, who has learned his trade by this time. Now is your time, Tom. The blood of all the Browns is up, and the two rush in together, and throw themselves on the ball, under the very feet of the advancing column; the praepostor on his hands and knees arching his back, and Tom all along on his face. Over them topple the leaders of the rush, shooting over the back of the praepostor, but falling flat on Tom, and knocking all the wind out of his small carca.s.s. "Our ball,"

says the praepostor, rising with his prize, "but get up there, there's a little fellow under you." They are hauled and roll off him, and Tom is discovered a motionless body.

Old Brooke picks him up. "Stand back, give him air," he says; and then, feeling his limbs, adds, "No bones broken. How do you feel, young un?"

"Hah-hah!" gasps Tom, as his wind comes back, "pretty well, thank you--all right."

"Who is he?" says Brooke.

"Oh, it's Brown, he's a new boy; I know him," says East, coming up.

"Well, he is a plucky youngster, and will make a player," says Brooke.

And five o'clock strikes. "No side"[53] is called, and the first day of the School-house match is over.

[53] #No side#: a drawn game.

CHAPTER VI.

AFTER THE MATCH.

"----Some food we had."--_Shakespeare._

[Greek: "es potos hadus."]--_Theocr., Id._

CELEBRATING THE VICTORY.

As the boys scattered away from the ground, and East, leaning on Tom's arm and limping along, was beginning to consider what luxury they should go and buy for tea to celebrate that glorious victory, the two Brookes came striding by. Old Brooke caught sight of East and stopped, put his hand kindly on his shoulder, and said, "Bravo, youngster! you played famously. Not much the matter, I hope?"

"No, nothing at all," said East; "only a little twist from that charge."

"Well, mind and get all right for next Sat.u.r.day;" and the leader pa.s.sed on, leaving East better for those few words than all the opodeldoc[1] in England would have made him, and Tom ready to give one of his ears for as much notice. Ah! light words of those whom we love and honor, what a power ye are, and how carelessly wielded by those who can use them! Surely for these things, also, G.o.d will ask an account.

[1] #Opodeldoc#: a liniment.

"Tea's directly after locking-up, you see," said East, hobbling along as fast as he could, "so you come along down to Sally Harrowell's; that's our School-house tuck-shop,[2]--she bakes such stunning murphies, we'll have a penn'orth each for tea; come along, or they'll all be gone."

[2] #Tuck-shop#: cook or pastry shop.

Tom's new purse and money burnt in his pocket; he wondered, as they toddled through the quadrangle and along the street, whether East would be insulted if he suggested further extravagance, as he had not sufficient faith in a pennyworth of potatoes. At last he blurted out,--

"I say, East, can't we get something else besides potatoes? I've got lots of money, you know."

"Bless us, yes, I forgot," said East, "you've only just come. You see all my tin's been gone this twelve weeks; it hardly ever lasts beyond the first fortnight; and our allowances were all stopped this morning for broken windows, so I haven't got a penny. I've got a tick[3] at Sally's of course; but then I hate running it high, you see, towards the end of the half, 'cause one has to sh.e.l.l out for it all directly one comes back, and that's a bore."[4]

[3] #Tick#: credit.

[4] #Bore#: an annoyance.

Tom didn't understand much of this talk, but seized on the fact that East had no money, and was denying himself some little pet luxury in consequence. "Well, what shall I buy?" said he; "I'm uncommon hungry."

"I say," said East, stopping to look at him and rest his leg, "you're a trump, Brown. I'll do the same by you next half. Let's have a pound of sausages, then; that's the best grub for tea I know of."

"Very well," said Tom, as pleased as possible; "where do they sell them?"

"Oh, over here, just opposite;" and they crossed the street and walked into the cleanest little front room of a small house, half parlor, half shop, and bought a pound of most particular sausages; East talking pleasantly to Mrs. Porter while she put them in paper, and Tom doing the paying part.

HARROWELL'S.

From Porter's they adjourned to Sally Harrowell's, where they found a lot of School-house boys waiting for the roast potatoes, and relating their own exploits in the day's match at the top of their voices. The street opened at once into Sally's kitchen, a low bricked-floored room, with large recess for fire, and chimney-corner seats. Poor little Sally, the most good-natured and much enduring of woman-kind, was bustling about with the napkin in her hand, from her own oven to those of the neighbors' cottages, up the yard at the back of the house. Stumps, her husband, a short easy-going shoemaker, with a beery, humorous eye and ponderous calves, who lived mostly on his wife's earnings, stood in a corner of the room, exchanging shots of the roughest description of repartee with every boy in turn. "Stumps, you lout, you've had too much beer again to-day." "'Twasn't of your paying for, then." "Stumps's calves are running down into his ankles; they want to get to gra.s.s." "Better be doing that, than gone altogether like yours," etc., etc. Very poor stuff it was, but it served to make time pa.s.s; and every now and then Sally arrived in the middle with a smoking tin of potatoes, which was cleared off in a few seconds, each boy as he seized his lot running off to the house with "Put me down two-penn'orth, Sally;" "Put down three penn'orth between me and Davis," etc. How she ever kept the accounts so straight as she did, in her head and on her slate, was a perfect wonder.

East and Tom got served at last, and started back for the School-house just as the locking-up bell began to ring; East on the way recounting the life and adventures of Stumps, who was a character. Amongst his other small avocations, he was the hind carrier of a sedan-chair,[5]

the last of its race, in which the Rugby ladies still went out to tea, and in which, when he was fairly harnessed and carrying a load, it was the delight of small and mischievous boys to follow him and whip his calves. This was too much for the temper even of Stumps, and he would pursue his tormentors in a vindictive and apoplectic manner when released, but was easily pacified by twopence to buy beer with.

[5] #Sedan-chair#: a kind of covered chair for carrying a single person, borne on poles by two men.

TEA AND ITS LUXURIES.

The lower-school boys of the School-house, some fifteen in number, had tea in the lower-fifth school, and were presided over by the old verger or head-porter. Each boy had a quarter of a loaf of bread and pat of b.u.t.ter, and as much tea as he pleased; and there was scarcely one who didn't add to this some further luxury, such as baked potatoes, a herring, sprats, or something of the sort; but few, at this period of the half-year, could live up to a pound of Porter's sausages, and East was in great magnificence upon the strength of theirs. He had produced a toasting-fork from his study, and set Tom to toast the sausages, while he mounted guard over their b.u.t.ter and potatoes; "'cause," as he explained, "you're a new boy, and they'll play you some trick and get our b.u.t.ter, but you can toast just as well as I." So Tom, in the midst of three or four more urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and the sausages at the same time before the huge fire, till the latter cracked, when East from his watch-tower shouted that they were done, and then the feast proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and emptied, and Tom imparted of the sausages in small bits to many neighbors, and thought he had never tasted such good potatoes or seen such jolly boys. They on their part waived all ceremony, and pegged away at the sausages and potatoes, and, remembering Tom's performance in goal, voted East's new crony a brick. After tea, and while the things were being cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the talk on the match still went on; and those who had them to show, pulled up their trousers and showed the hacks they had received in the good cause.

They were soon however all turned out of the School, and East conducted Tom up to his bedroom, that he might get on clean things and wash himself before singing.

"What singing?" said Tom, taking his head out of his basin, where he had been plunging it in cold water.

"Well, you are jolly green," answered his friend from a neighboring basin. "Why, the last six Sat.u.r.days of every half, we sing, of course, and this is the first of them. No first lesson to do, you know, and lie in bed to-morrow morning."

"But who sings?"

"Why, everybody, of course; you'll see soon enough. We begin directly after supper, and sing till bed-time. It isn't such good fun now though as in the summer half, 'cause then we sing in the little fives'

court, under the library you know, and we cut about the quadrangle between the songs, and it looks like a lot of robbers in a cave. And the louts[6] come and pound at the great gate, and we pound back again, and shout at them. But this half we only sing in the hall. Come along down to my study."