Tom Brown at Rugby Part 49

East buried his face in his hands on the table. Tom could feel the table tremble. At last he looked up. "Thank you again, Tom," said he; "you don't know what you may have done for me to-night. I think I see now how the right sort of sympathy with poor wretches is got at."

"And you'll stop for the Sacrament next time, won't you?" said Tom.

"Can I, before I'm confirmed?"

"Go and ask the Doctor."

"I will."

That very night, after prayers, East followed the Doctor and the old verger bearing the candle, up stairs. Tom watched and saw the Doctor turn round when he heard foot-steps following him closer than usual, and say "Hah, East! Do you want to speak to me, my man?"

"If you please, sir;" and the private door closed, and Tom went to his study in a state of great trouble of mind.

THE EFFECT THEREOF.

It was almost an hour before East came back; then he rushed in breathless.

"Well, it's all right," he shouted, seizing Tom by the hand. "I feel as if a ton weight were off my mind."

"Hurrah!" said Tom. "I knew it would be, but tell us all about it."

"Well I just told him all about it. You can't think how kind and gentle he was,--the great grim man, whom I've feared more than anybody on earth. When I stuck, he lifted me, just as if I had been a little child. And he seemed to know all I'd felt, and to have gone through it all. And I burst out crying,--more than I have done this five years,--and he sat down by me, and stroked my head; and I went blundering on, and told him all; much worse things than I've told you.

And he wasn't shocked a bit, and didn't snub me, or tell me I was a fool, and it was all nothing but pride or wickedness, though I dare say it was. And he didn't tell me not to follow out my thoughts, and he didn't give me any cut-and-dried explanation. But when I'd done he just talked a bit,--I can hardly remember what he said, yet; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, and strength, and light; and to bear me up, and plant me on a rock, where I could hold my footing, and fight for myself. I don't know what to do, I feel so happy. And it's all owing to you, dear old boy!" and he seized Tom's hand again.

"And you're to come to the Communion?" said Tom.

"Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays."

Tom's delight was as great as his friend's. But he hadn't yet had out all his own talk, and was bent on improving the occasion; so he proceeded to propound Arthur's theory about not being sorry for his friends' death, which he had hitherto kept in the background, and by which he was much exercised;[25] for he didn't feel it honest to take what pleased him and throw over the rest, and was trying vigorously to persuade himself that he should like all his best friends to die off-hand.

[25] #Exercised#: made thoughtful or anxious.

But East's powers of remaining serious were exhausted, and in five minutes he was saying the most ridiculous things he could think of, till Tom was almost getting angry again.

Despite of himself, however, he couldn't help laughing and giving it up, when East appealed to him with: "Well, Tom, you aren't going to punch my head, I hope, because I insist on being sorry when you get to earth?"[26]

[26] #When you get to earth#: when you are buried.

And so their talk finished for that time, and they tried to learn first lesson, with very poor success, as appeared next morning, when they were called up and narrowly escaped being floored, which ill-luck, however, did not sit heavily on either of their souls.

CHAPTER VIII.

TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH.

"Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping; The fruit of dreamy hoping Is, waking, blank despair."

_Clough_, "_Ambarvalia._"

The curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama,--for hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must of necessity have an end. Well, well! the pleasantest things must come to an end. I little thought last long vacation, when I began these pages to help while away some spare time at a watering-place, how vividly many an old scene, which had lain hid away for years in some dusty old corner of my brain, would come back again, and stand before me clear and bright as if it had happened yesterday. The book has been a most grateful task to me, and I only hope that all you, my dear young friends, who read it (friends a.s.suredly you must be if you get as far as this), will be half as sorry to come to the last stage as I am.

Not but what there has been a solemn and sad side to it. As the old scenes became living, and the actors in them became living, too, many a grave in the Crimea and distant India, as well as in the quiet church-yards of our dear old country, seemed to open and send forth their dead, and their voices, and looks, and ways were again in one's ears and eyes, as in the old school-days. But this was not sad; how should it be, if we believe as our Lord has taught us? How should it be, when one more turn of the wheel, and we shall be by their sides again, learning from them again, perhaps, as we did when we were new boys?

Then there were others of the old faces so dear to us once, who had somehow or another just gone clean out of sight--are they dead or living? We know not, but the thought of them brings no sadness with it. Wherever they are, we can well believe they are doing G.o.d's work, and getting His wages.

SCHOOL MEMORIES.

But are there not some, whom we still see sometimes in the streets, whose haunts and homes we know, whom we could probably find almost any day in the week if we were set to do it, yet from whom we are really further than we are from the dead, and from those who have gone out of our ken?[1] Yes, there are and must be such; and therein lies the sadness of old school memories. Yet of these our old comrades, from whom more than time and s.p.a.ce separate us, there are some by whose sides we can feel sure that we shall stand again when time shall be no more. We may think of one another now as dangerous fanatics or narrow bigots, with whom no truce is possible, from whom we shall only sever more and more to the end of our lives, whom it would be our respective duties to imprison or hang, if we had the power. We must go our way, and they theirs, as long as flesh and spirit hold together; but let our own Rugby poet speak words of healing for this trial:--

"To veer how vain! on, onward strain, Brave barks! in light, in darkness, too; Through winds and tides one compa.s.s guides,-- To that, and your own selves, be true.

"But, O blithe breeze! and O great seas!

Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last.

"One port, methought, alike they sought, One purpose hold where'er they fare, O bounding breeze! O rushing seas!

At last, at last, unite them there!"--_Clough._[2]

This is not mere longing, it is prophecy. So over these two, our old friends who are friends no more, we sorrow not as men without hope. It is only for those who seem to us to have lost compa.s.s and purpose, and to be driven helplessly on rocks and quicksands; whose lives are spent in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil; for self alone, and not for their fellow-men, their country, or their G.o.d, that we must mourn and pray without sure hope and without light; trusting only that He, in whose hands they are as well as we are, who has died for them as well as for us, who sees all His creatures--

"With larger, other eyes than ours, To make allowance for us all,"[3]--

will, in His own way and at his own time, lead them also home.

[1] #Ken#: knowledge.

[2] #Clough#: poem of "Qua cursum ventus."

[3] #Tennyson#: "In Memoriam."

THE END OF THE HALF-YEAR.

Another two years have pa.s.sed, and it is again the end of the Summer half-year at Rugby; in fact, the school has broken up. The fifth-form examinations were over last week, and upon them have followed the speeches, and the sixth-form examinations for exhibitions;[4] and they, too, are over now. The boys have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the town boys and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked leave to stay in their houses to see the result of the cricket-matches. For this year the Wellesburn return match and the Marylebone match are played at Rugby, to the great delight of the town and neighborhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring young cricketers who have been reckoning for the last three months on showing off at Lord's grounds.[5]

[4] #Exhibitions#: allowances of money, etc., made to certain scholars at Oxford and Cambridge. The boys of the sixth form, who were preparing for the universities, were competing for these.

[5] #Lord's grounds#: see note on Marylebone, p. 304.

The Doctor started off for the Lakes[6] yesterday morning, after an interview with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of Thomas, at which he arranged in what school the cricket dinners were to be, and all other matters necessary for the satisfactory carrying out of the festivities; and warned them as to keeping all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having the gates closed by nine o'clock.

[6] #Lakes#: Dr. Arnold spent his vacations at his country place of Fox Howe in Westmoreland, in the beautiful lake region of the northwest of England.