Tom Brown at Rugby Part 39

"Hullo there, not so fast," says Holmes, who is bound to stand up for them till they are proved in the wrong. "Now, what's all this about?"

"I've got the young varmint at last, have I?" pants the farmer; "why, they've been a-skulking about my yard and stealing my fowls, that's where 'tis; and if I doan't have they flogged for it, every one on 'em, my name ain't Thompson."

A DEBATE.

Holmes looks grave, and Diggs's face falls. They are quite ready to fight, no boys in the school more so; but they are praepostors, and understand their office; and can't uphold unrighteous causes.

"I haven't been near his old barn this half," cries East.

"Nor I," "Nor I," chime in Tom and Martin.

"Now, Willum, didn't you see 'em there last week?"

"Ees,"[20] seen 'em, sure enough," says Willum, grasping a p.r.o.ng he carried, and preparing for action.

[20] #Ees#: yes.

The boys deny stoutly, and Willum is driven to admit that, "if it worn't they, 'twas chaps as like 'em as two peas'n";[21] and "leastway,[22] he'll swear he see'd them two in the yard last Martinmas," indicating East and Tom.

[21] #Peas'n#: peas.

[22] #Leastway#: at any rate.

Holmes has had time to meditate. "Now, sir," says he to Willum, "you see you can't remember what you have seen, and I believe the boys."

"I doan't care," bl.u.s.ters the farmer, "they was arter my fowls to-day; that's enough for I. Willum, you catch hold o' t'other chap. They've been a-sneaking about this two hours, I tells ee!" shouted he, as Holmes stands between Martin and Willum, "and have druv a matter of a dozen young pullets pretty nigh to death."

"Oh, there's a whacker!" cried East; "we haven't been within a hundred yards of his barn; we haven't been up here above ten minutes, and we've seen nothing but a tough old guinea-hen, who ran like a greyhound."

"Indeed, that's all true, Holmes, upon my honor," added Tom; "we weren't after his fowls; guinea-hen ran out of the hedge under our feet, and we've seen nothing else."

"Drat their talk! Thee catch hold o' t'other, Willum, and come along wi' un."

"Farmer Thompson," said Holmes, warning off Willum and the p.r.o.ng with his stick, while Diggs faced the other shepherd, cracking his fingers like pistol-shots, "now listen to reason. The boys haven't been after your fowls, that's plain."

"Tells ee I seed 'em. Who be you, I should like to know?"

"Never you mind, farmer," answered Holmes. "And now I'll just tell you what it is--you ought to be ashamed of yourself for leaving all that poultry about, with no one to watch it, so near the School. You deserve to have it all stolen. So if you choose to come up to the Doctor with them, I shall go with you, and tell him what I think of it."

The farmer began to take Holmes for a master; besides, he wanted to get back to his flock. Corporal punishment was out of the question, the odds were too great; so he began to hint at paying for the damage.

Arthur jumped at this, offering to pay anything, and the farmer immediately valued the guinea-hen at half a sovereign.

"Half a sovereign!" cried East, now released from the farmer's grip; "well, that is a good one! the old hen isn't hurt a bit, and she's seven years old, I know, and as tough as whipcord; she couldn't lay another egg to save her life."

It was at last settled that they should pay the farmer two shillings and his man one shilling, and so the matter ended, to the unspeakable relief of Tom, who hadn't been able to say a word, being sick at heart at the idea of what the Doctor would think of him; and now the whole party of boys marched off down the woodpath toward Rugby. Holmes, who was one of the best boys in the school, began to improve the occasion.

"Now, you youngsters," said he, as he marched along in the middle of them, "mind this: you're very well out of this sc.r.a.pe. Don't you go near Thompson's barn again, do you hear?"

Profuse promises from all, especially East.

LECTURE ON SCHOOL LARCENY.

"Mind, I don't ask questions," went on Mentor, "but I rather think some of you have been there before this after his chickens. Now, knocking over other people's chickens, and running off with them is stealing. It's an ugly word, but that's the plain English of it. If the chickens were dead and lying in a shop, you wouldn't take them, I know that, any more than you would apples out of Griffith's basket: but there's no real difference between chickens running about and apples on a tree, and the same articles in a shop. I wish our morals were sounder in such matters. There's nothing so mischievous as these school distinctions, which jumble up right and wrong, and justify things in us for which poor boys would be sent to prison." And good old Holmes delivered his soul on the walk home of many wise sayings, and, as the song says:--

"Gee'd 'em[23] a sight of good advice";

which same sermon sank into them all more or less, and very penitent they were for several hours. But truth compels me to admit that East at any rate forgot it all in a week, but remembered the insult which had been put upon him by Farmer Thompson, and with the Tadpole and other hare-brained youngsters, committed a raid on the barn soon afterward, in which they were caught by the shepherds and severely handled, besides having to pay eight shillings--all the money they had in the world--to escape being brought up to the Doctor.

[23] #Gee'd 'em#: gave them.

ARTHUR SEALS HIS FRIENDSHIP.

Martin became a constant inmate in the joint study from this time, and Arthur took to him so kindly that Tom couldn't resist slight fits of jealousy, which, however, he managed to keep to himself. The kestrel's eggs had not been broken, strange to say, and formed the nucleus of Arthur's collection, at which Martin worked heart and soul; and introduced Arthur to Hewlett the bird-fancier, and instructed him in the rudiments of the art of stuffing. In token of his grat.i.tude, Arthur allowed Martin to tattoo a small anchor on one of his wrists, which decoration, however, he carefully concealed from Tom. Before the end of the half-year he had become a bold climber and good runner, and, as Martin had foretold, knew twice as much about trees, birds, flowers, and many other things, as our good-hearted and facetious young friend Harry East.

CHAPTER V.

THE FIGHT.

"Surgebat Macnevisius Et mox jactabat ultro, Pugnabo tua gratia Feroci hoc Mactwoltro."--_Etonian._

FIGHTING IN GENERAL.

There is a certain sort of fellow--we who are used to studying boys all know him well enough--of whom you can predicate[1] with almost positive certainty, after he has been a month at school, that he is sure to have a fight, and with almost equal certainty that he will have but one. Tom Brown was one of these; and as it is our well-weighed intention to give a full, true, and correct account of Tom's only single combat with a schoolfellow in the manner of our old friend _Bell's Life_,[2] let those young persons whose stomachs are not strong, or who think a good set-to with the weapons which G.o.d has given us all, an uncivilized, unchristian, or ungentlemanly affair, just skip this chapter at once, for it won't be to their taste.

[1] #Predicate#: say or a.s.sert.

[2] #Bell's Life#: a London sporting journal.

It was not at all usual in those days for two School-house boys to have a fight. Of course there were exceptions, when some cross-grained, hard-headed fellow came up who would never be happy unless he was quarrelling with his nearest neighbors, or when there was some cla.s.s dispute between the fifth form and the f.a.gs, for instance, which required blood-letting; and a champion was picked out on each side tacitly,[3] who settled the matter by a good hearty mill.[4] But, for the most part, the constant use of those surest keepers of the peace, the boxing gloves, kept the School-house boys from fighting one another. Two or three nights in every week the gloves were brought out, either in the hall or fifth form room; and every boy who was ever likely to fight at all knew all his neighbors'

prowess perfectly well, and could tell to a nicety what chance he would have in a stand-up fight with any other boy in the house. But, of course, no such experience could be gotten as regarded boys in other houses; and as most of the other houses were more or less jealous of the School-house, collisions were frequent.

[3] #Tacitly#: without words, silently.

[4] #Mill#: a set-to or fight.

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know?

From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real, highest, honestest business of every son of man.

Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself or spiritual wickedness in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them.

It is no good for Quakers, or any other body of men, to uplift their voices against fighting. Human nature is too strong for them, and they don't follow their own precepts. Every soul of them is doing his own piece of fighting, somehow and somewhere. The world might be a better world without fighting, for anything I know, but it wouldn't be our world; and therefore I am dead against crying peace when there is no peace, and isn't meant to be. I am as sorry as any man to see folks fighting the wrong people and the wrong things, but I'd a deal sooner see them doing that, than that they should have no fight in them. So having recorded, and being about to record, my hero's fights of all sorts, with all sorts of enemies, I shall now proceed to give an account of his pa.s.sage-at-arms with the only one of his school-fellows whom he ever had to encounter in this manner.

HOW THE FIGHT AROSE.