Tom Brown at Rugby Part 8

CHAPTER III.

SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.

"Poor old Benjy! the "rheumatiz" has much to answer for all through English country-sides,[1] but it never played a scurvier trick than in laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a green old age. The enemy, which had long been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and trying his strength against Benjy's on the battlefield of his hands and legs, now, mustering all his forces, began laying siege to the citadel, and overrunning the whole country. Benjy was seized in the back and loins; and though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon clear enough that all which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would have to give in before long.

[1] #Country-sides#: country districts.

It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and frequent stops, to hobble down to the ca.n.a.l with Master Tom, and bait his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint old country stories; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby, the turnspit[2] terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he might have tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over before Benjy could have got near him.

[2] #Turnspit#: a kind of dog, formerly trained to turn a spit for roasting meat.

Cheery and unmindful of himself as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age, and was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. He feared much, too, lest Master Tom should fall back again into the hands of Charity and the women. So he tried everything he could think of to get set up. He even went on an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer mortals, who--say what we will and reason how we will--do cure simple people of diseases of one kind or another without the aid of physic; and so get to themselves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for themselves and their dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a simple folk such as the dwellers in the Vale of White Horse. Where this power, or whatever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a man whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the neighborhood; a receiver of stolen goods, the avowed enemy of law and order. Sometimes, however, they are of quite a different stamp, men who pretend to know nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult[3] arts in the simplest cases.

BENJY RESORTS TO A "WISE MAN."

Of this latter sort was old Farmer Ives, as he was called, the "wise man" to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as usual), in the early spring of the year next after the feast described in the last chapter. Why he was called "farmer" I cannot say, unless it be that he was the owner of a cow, a pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained on about an acre of land inclosed from the middle of a wild common, on which probably his father had squatted before lords of manors[4] looked as keenly after their rights as they do now. Here he had lived no one knew how long, a solitary man. It was often rumored that he was to be turned out and his cottage pulled down, but somehow it never came to pa.s.s; and his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the pa.s.sing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord's steward, who often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure, still unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from our village; so Benjy, who was half ashamed of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise much ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom thither without exciting suspicion. However, one fine May morning he managed to borrow the old blind pony of our friend the publican,[5] and Tom persuaded Madam Brown to give him a holiday to spend with old Benjy, and to lend them the squire's light cart, stored with bread and cold meat and a bottle of ale. And so the two in high glee started behind old Dobbin, and jogged along the deep-rutted plashy roads, which had not been mended after their winter's wear, toward the dwelling of the wizard. About noon they pa.s.sed the gate which opened on to the large common, and old Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed out a little deep dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny stream. As they crept up the hill the tops of a few birch-trees came in sight, and blue smoke curling up through their delicate light boughs; and then the little white thatched home and inclosed ground of Farmer Ives, lying cradled in the dingle,[6] with the gay gorse common rising behind and on both sides; while in front, after traversing a gentle slope, the eye might travel for miles and miles over the rich Vale.

They now left the main road and struck into a green track over the common, marked lightly with wheel and horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate of Farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron-gray old man, with a bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose busied in one of his vocations. He was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick beast which had been sent up to be cured. Benjy hailed him as an old friend, and he returned the greeting cordially enough, looking, however, hard for a moment both at Benjy and Tom, to see whether there was more in their visit than appeared at first sight. It was a work of some difficulty and danger for Benjy to reach the ground, which, however, he managed to do without mishap; and then he devoted himself to unharnessing Dobbin, and turning him out for a graze ("a run" one could not say of that virtuous steed) on the common. This done, he extricated the cold provisions from the cart, and they entered the farmer's wicket;[7] and he, shutting up the knife with which he was at work, accompanied them toward the cottage. A big old lurcher[8] got up slowly from the doorstone, stretching first one hind leg, and then the other, and taking Tom's caresses and the presence of Toby, who kept, however, at a respectful distance, with equal indifference.

[3] #Occult#: secret or magical.

[4] #Manor#: the estate of a lord.

[5] #Publican#: an innkeeper.

[6] #Dingle#: a narrow valley.

[7] #Wicket#: gate.

[8] #Lurcher#: a dog that lies in wait for game, more used by poachers or men that steal game than by sportsmen.

"Us be come to pay ee a visit. I've a been long minded to do't for old sake's sake, only I vinds I dwont get about now as I'd used to't. I be so plaguy bad wi' th' rhumatiz in my back." Benjy paused, in hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailment without further direct application.

"Ah, I see as you bean't quite so lissom[9] as you was," replied the farmer, with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door. "We bean't so young as we was, nother[10] on us, wuss luck."

[9] #Lissom#: limber.

[10] #Nother#: neither.

THE "WISE MAN'S" SURROUNDINGS.

The farmer's cottage was very like those of the better cla.s.s of peasantry in general. A snug chimney-corner with two seats and a small carpet on the hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the fire-place, a dresser[11] with shelves, on which some bright pewter plates and crockery-ware were arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs and settles,[12] some framed samplers[13] and an old print or two, and a book-case with some dozen volumes on the walls, a rack with flitches[14] of bacon and other stores fastened to the ceiling, and you have the best part of the furniture. No sign of occult art is to be seen, unless the bundles of dried herbs hanging to the rack and in the ingle,[15] and the row of labelled vials on one of the shelves betoken it.

[11] #Dresser#: a sideboard or cupboard.

[12] #Settle#: a bench.

[13] #Sampler#: a pattern for needlework.

[14] #Flitch#: a side of bacon.

[15] #Ingle#: chimney-corner.

Tom played about with some kittens who occupied the hearth, and with a goat who walked demurely in at the open door, while their host and Benjy spread the table for dinner--and was soon engaged in conflict with the cold meat, to which he did much honor. The two old men's talk was of old comrades and their deeds, mute inglorious Miltons[16] of the Vale, and of the doings thirty years back--which didn't interest him much, except when they spoke of the making of the ca.n.a.l; and then, indeed, he began to listen with all his ears, and learned, to his no small wonder, that his dear and wonderful ca.n.a.l had not been there always--was not, in fact, as old as Benjy or Farmer Ives, which caused a strange commotion in his small brain.

[16] #"Mute, inglorious Miltons"#: see Gray's "Elegy."

After dinner Benjy called attention to a wart which Tom had on the knuckles of his hand, and which the family doctor had been trying his skill on without success, and begged the farmer to charm it away.

Farmer Ives looked at it, muttered something or another over it, and cut some notches in a short stick, which he handed to Benjy, giving him instructions for cutting it down on certain days, and cautioning Tom not to meddle with the wart for a fortnight. And then they strolled out and sat on a bench in the sun with their pipes, and the pigs came up and grunted sociably and let Tom scratch them; and the farmer, seeing how he liked animals, stood up and held his arms in the air and gave a call, which brought a flock of pigeons wheeling and dashing through the birch-trees. They settled down in cl.u.s.ters on the farmer's arms and shoulders, making love to him and scrambling over one another's back to get to his face; and then he threw them all off, and they fluttered about close by, and lighted on him again and again when he held up his arms. All the creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite unlike their relations elsewhere; and Tom begged to be taught how to make all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the farmer only gave one of his grim chuckles.

BENJY'S RHEUMATISM.

It wasn't till they were just ready to go, and old Dobbin was harnessed, that Benjy broached the subject of his rheumatism again, detailing his symptoms one by one. Poor old boy! He hoped the farmer could charm it away as easily as he could Tom's wart, and was ready with equal faith to put another notched stick into his other pocket for the cure of his ailments. The physician shook his head, but nevertheless produced a bottle and handed it to Benjy with instructions for use. "Not as t'll do ee much good--leastways I be afeared not," shading his eyes with his hand and looking up at them in the cart; "there's only one thing as I knows on, as'll cure old folks like you and I o' th' rhumatiz."

"Wot be that, then, farmer?" inquired Benjy.

"Church-yard mold," said the old iron-gray man with another chuckle.

And so they said their good-byes and went their ways home. Tom's wart was gone in a fortnight, but not so Benjy's rheumatism, which laid him by the heels more and more. And though Tom still spent many an hour with him, as he sat on a bench in the sunshine, or by the chimney-corner when it was cold, he soon had to seek elsewhere for his regular companions.

Tom had been accustomed often to accompany his mother in her visits to the cottages, and had thereby made acquaintances with many of the village boys of his own age. There was Job Rudkin, son of widow Rudkin, the most bustling woman in the parish. How she could ever have had such a stolid[17] boy as Job for a child, must always remain a mystery. The first time Tom went to their cottage with his mother, Job was not indoors, but he entered soon after, and stood with both hands in his pockets staring at Tom. Widow Rudkin, who would have had to cross Madam to get at young Hopeful--a breach of good manners of which she was wholly incapable--began a series of pantomime signs, which only puzzled him, and at last, unable to contain herself longer, burst out with, "Job! Job! where's thy cap?"

[17] #Stolid#: dull.

"What! beant ee on ma head, mother?" replied Job, slowly extricating one hand from a pocket and feeling for the article in question; which he found on his head sure enough, and left there, to his mother's horror and Tom's great delight.

Then there was poor Jacob Dodson, the half-witted boy, who ambled about cheerfully, undertaking messages and little helpful odds and ends, for every one, which, however, poor Jacob managed always hopelessly to embrangle.[18] Everything came to pieces in his hands, and nothing would stop in his head. They nicknamed him Jacob Doodle-calf.

[18] #Embrangle#: mix up.

But above all there was Harry Winburn, the quickest and best boy in the parish. He might be a year older than Tom, but was very little bigger, and he was the Crichton[19] of our village boys. He could wrestle and climb and run better than all the rest, and learned all that the schoolmaster could teach him faster than that worthy at all liked. He was a boy to be proud of, with his curly brown hair, keen gray eye, straight active figure, and little ears and hands and feet--"as fine as a lord's," as Charity remarked to Tom one day, talking as usual great nonsense. Lords' hands and ears and feet are just as ugly as other folks' when they are children, as any one may convince himself if he likes to look. Tight boots and gloves, and doing nothing with them, I allow make a difference by the time they are twenty.

[19] #Crichton#: a Scottish gentleman of the sixteenth century, called for his learning and skill "The Admirable Crichton."

TORYISM OF SQUIRE BROWN.

Now that Benjy was laid on the shelf, and his young brothers were still under petticoat government, Tom, in search of companions, began to cultivate the village boys generally more and more. Squire Brown, be it said, was a true blue[20] Tory[21] to the backbone, and believed honestly that the powers which be were ordained of G.o.d, and that loyalty and steadfast obedience were man's first duties. Whether it were in consequence or in spite of his political creed, I do not mean to give an opinion, though I have one; but certain it is, that he held therewith divers social principles not generally supposed to be true blue in color. Foremost of these, and the one which the Squire loved to propound above all others, was the belief that a man is to be valued wholly and solely for that which he is in himself, for that which stands up in the four fleshy walls of him, apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and all externals whatsoever. Which belief I take to be a wholesome corrective of all political opinions, and, if held sincerely, to make all opinions equally harmless, whether they be blue, red or green. As a necessary corollary[22] to this belief, Squire Brown held further that it didn't matter a straw whether his son a.s.sociated with lords' sons or plowmen's sons, provided they were brave and honest. He himself had played foot-ball and gone birds'-nesting with the farmers whom he met at vestry[23] and the laborers who tilled their fields, and so had his father and grandfather, with their progenitors.[24] So he encouraged Tom in his intimacy with the boys of the village, and forwarded it by all means in his power, and gave them the run of a close[25] for a playground, and provided bats and b.a.l.l.s and a foot-ball for their sports.

[20] #True blue#: genuine.

[21] #Tory#: a member of the conservative party in politics.

[22] #Corollary#: an inference from something before stated.

[23] #Vestry#: parish meeting.