Tom Brown at Rugby Part 3

[READER. "_Sturm?_"

AUTHOR. "_Stone_, stupid; The Blowing _Stone_."]

"And of your house? I can't make out the sign."

"Blawing STWUN, sir," says the landlord, pouring out his old ale from a Toby Philpot jug,[66] with a melodious crash, into the long-necked gla.s.s.

"What queer names!" say we, sighing at the end of our draught, and holding out the gla.s.s to be replenished.

"Bean't queer at all, as I can see, sir," says mine host, handing back our gla.s.s, "seeing that this here is the Blawing Stwun itself"; putting his hand on a square lump of stone, some three feet and a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified antediluvian[67] rat-holes, which lies there close under the oak, under our very nose. We are more than ever puzzled, and drink our second gla.s.s of ale, wondering what will come next. "Like to hear un,[68] sir?" says mine host, setting down Toby Philpot on the tray, and resting both hands on the "Stwun." We are ready for anything; and he, without waiting for a reply, applies his mouth to one of the rat-holes. Something must come of it, if he doesn't burst. Good heavens! I hope he has no apoplectic tendencies. Yes, here it comes, sure enough, a grewsome[69] sound between a moan and a roar, and spreads itself away over the valley, and up the hill-side, and into the woods at the back of the house, a ghost-like awful voice. "Um[70]

do say, sir," says mine host, rising, purple-faced, while the moan is still coming out of the Stwun, "as they used in old times to warn the country-side, by blawing the Stwun when the enemy was a comin'--and as how folks could make un heered then for seven mile round; leastways, so I've heerd lawyer Smith say, and he knows a smart sight about them old times." We can hardly swallow lawyer Smith's seven miles, but could the blowing of the stone have been a summons, a sort of sending the fiery cross[71] round the neighborhood in the old times? What old times? Who knows? We pay for our beer, and are thankful.

"And what's the name of the village just below, landlord?"

"Kingstone Lisle, sir."

"Fine plantations[72] you've got here."

"Yes, sir, the Squire's[73] 'mazin' fond of trees and such like."

"No wonder. He's got some real beauties to be fond of. Good-day, landlord."

"Good-day, sir, and a pleasant ride to 'e."[74]

[66] #Toby Philpot jug#: a large brown pitcher, shaped like a jolly old gentleman of the olden time.

[67] #Antediluvian#: before the deluge.

[68] #Un#: it; also him or her.

[69] #Grewsome#: frightful.

[70] #Um#: they.

[71] #Fiery cross#: a cross, the ends of which had been fired and then extinguished in blood. It was sent round by the chiefs of clans in time of war, to summon their followers.

[72] #Plantations#: groves of trees set out in regular order.

[73] #Squire#: a country gentleman.

[74] #'E#: thee or you.

FARRINGDON AND PUSEY.

And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have you had enough? Will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me begin my story or will you have some more of it? Remember, I've only been over a little bit of the hill-side yet, what you could ride round easily on your ponies in an hour. I'm only just come down into the vale, by Blowing Stone Hill, and if I once begin about the vale, what's to stop me? You'll have to hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles I. (the vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant;[75]

full of Throgmortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and such like, and their brawny retainers). Did you ever read Thomas Ingoldsby's "Legend of Hamilton Tighe"?[76] If you haven't, you ought to have. Well, Farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea; his real name was Hampden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at Farringdon. Then there's Pusey. You've heard of the Pusey horn,[77] which King Canute gave to the Puseys of that day, and which the gallant old squire, lately gone to his rest (whom Berkshire freeholders[78] turned out of last Parliament, to their eternal disgrace, for voting according to his conscience), used to bring out on high days, holidays, and bonfire nights. And the splendid old Cross church at Uffington, the Uffingas town; how the whole country-side teems with Saxon names and memories!

And the old moated grange[79] at Compton, nestled close under the hill-side, where twenty Marianas[80] may have lived, with its bright water-lilies in the moat, and its yew walk "the cloister walk," and its peerless terraced gardens. There they all are, and twenty things besides, for those who care about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort of things you may find, I believe, every one of you, in any common English country neighborhood.

[75] #Malignant#: The Parliamentary or Puritan party during the civil wars of Charles I. called those who adhered to the king "malignants."

[76] #Tighe#: this legend relates a conspiracy by which young Tighe was led into the thick of a fight and killed.

[77] #Pusey horn#: the Pusey family hold their estate not by a t.i.tle deed, but by a horn, given, it is said, to William Pecote (perhaps an ancestor of the Puseys) by Canute, a Danish king of England in the eleventh century. The horn bears the following inscription: "I, King Canute, give William Pecote this horn to hold by thy land."

[78] #Freeholders#: landowners.

[79] #Moated grange#: a farm or estate surrounded by a broad deep ditch for defence in old times.

[80] #Marianas#: Mariana, a beautiful woman, one of the most lovable of Shakespeare's characters. See "Measure for Measure."

Will you look for them under your own noses, or will you not? Well, well, I've done what I can to make you, and if you will go gadding over half Europe now every holiday, I can't help it. I was born and bred a west-countryman,[81] thank G.o.d! a Wess.e.x man, a citizen of the n.o.blest Saxon kingdom of Wess.e.x, a regular "Angular Saxon,"[82] the very soul of me "adscriptus glebae."[83] There's nothing like the old country-side for me, and no music like the tw.a.n.g of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from the veritable chaw[84] in the White Horse Vale; and I say with "Gaarge Ridler," the old west-country yeoman,

"Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast, Commend me to merry owld England mwoast; While vools[85] gwoes prating vur and nigh, We stwops at whum,[86] my dog and I."[A]

[A] For this old song see Hughes's "Scouring of the White Horse."

[81] #West-countryman#: a west of England man.

[82] #Angular Saxon#: a play on the words _Anglo-Saxon_.

[83] #Adscriptus glebae#: attached to the soil.

[84] #Chaw#: "chaw bacon," a nickname for an English peasant.

[85] #Vools#: fools.

[86] #Whum#: home.

SQUIRE BROWN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD.

Here at any rate lived and stopped at home Squire Brown, J. P.[87] for the county of Berks, in a village near the foot of the White Horse range. And here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and brought up sons and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico[88] shirts, and smock frocks,[89] and comforting drinks to the old folks with the "rheumatiz," and good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes clubs going, for Yule-tide,[90] when the bands of mummers[91] came round dressed out in ribbons and colored paper caps, and stamped round the Squire's kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernacular[92] the legend of St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound doctor,[93] who plays his part at healing the Saint--a relic, I believe, of the old middle-age mysteries.[94] It was the first dramatic representation which greeted the eyes of little Tom, who was brought down into the kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the mature age of three years. Tom was the eldest child of his parents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the family characteristics in great strength. He was a hearty, strong boy from the first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all round the neighborhood. And here in the quiet, old-fashioned country village, under the shadow of the everlasting hills, Tom Brown was reared, and never left it till he went first to school when nearly eight years of age, for in those days change of air twice a year was not thought absolutely necessary for the health of all her majesty's lieges.[95]

[87] #J. P.#: justice of the peace.

[88] #Calico#: white cotton cloth called calico in England, to distinguish it from print.

[89] #Smock frocks#: coa.r.s.e white frocks worn by farm laborers.

[90] #Yule-tide#: Christmas. Clubs are formed by the poor several months in advance, to furnish coal, clothes, and poultry for Christmas time,--each member contributing a few pence weekly.

[91] #Mummers#: maskers, merrymakers in fantastic costumes.

[92] #Vernacular#: one's native tongue.

[93] #Ten-pound doctor#: a quack doctor.