Tom Brown at Rugby Part 9

[24] #Progenitors#: forefathers.

[25] #Close#: any inclosed place; here, probably a field.

TOM'S WATCH-TOWER BY THE SCHOOL.

Our village was blessed, amongst other things, with a well-endowed school. The building stood by itself, apart from the master's house, on an angle of ground where three roads met; an old gray stone building, with a steep roof and mullioned[26] windows. On one of the opposite angles stood Squire Brown's stables and kennel, with their backs to the road, over which towered a great elm-tree; on the third, stood the village carpenter and wheelwright's large open shop, and his house and the schoolmaster's, with long, low eaves under which the swallows built by scores.

[26] #Mullioned#: subdivided by slender, upright bars or columns.

The moment Tom's lessons were over, he would now get him down to this corner by the stables, and watch till the boys came out of school. He prevailed on the groom to cut notches for him in the bark of the elm, so that he could climb into the lower branches, and there he would sit watching the school-door, and speculating on the possibility of turning the elm into a dwelling-place for himself and friends after the manner of the Swiss Family Robinson.[27] But the school hours were long and Tom's patience short; so that he soon began to descend into the street, and go and peep in at the school-door and the wheelwright's shop, and look out for something to while away the time.

Now the wheelwright was a choleric[28] man, and one fine afternoon, returning from a short absence, found Tom occupied with one of his pet adzes, the edge of which was fast vanis.h.i.+ng under our hero's care.

A speedy flight saved Tom from all but one sound cuff on the ears, but he resented this unjustifiable interruption of his first essays at carpentering, and still more the further proceedings of the wheelwright, who cut a switch and hung it over the door of his workshop, threatening to use it upon Tom if he came within twenty yards of his gate. So Tom, to retaliate, commenced a war upon the swallows who dwelt under the wheelwright's eaves, whom he hara.s.sed with sticks and stones, and being fleeter of foot than his enemy, escaped all punishment, and kept him in perpetual anger. Moreover, his presence about the school-door began to incense the master, as the boys in that neighborhood neglected their lessons in consequence: and more than once he issued into the porch, rod in hand, just as Tom beat a hasty retreat. And he and the wheelwright, laying their heads together, resolved to acquaint the squire with Tom's afternoon occupations; but, in order to do it with effect, determined to take him captive and lead him away to judgment fresh from his evil doings.

This they would have found some difficulty in doing, had Tom continued the war single-handed, or rather single-footed, for he would have taken to the deepest part of Pebbly Brook to escape them; but, like other active powers, he was ruined by his alliances. Poor Jacob Doodle-calf could not go to the school with the other boys, and one fine afternoon, about three o'clock (the school broke up at four) Tom found him ambling about the street, and pressed him into a visit to the school-porch. Jacob, always ready to do what was asked, consented, and the two stole down to the school together. Tom first reconnoitered[29] the wheelwright's shop, and seeing no signs of activity, thought all safe in that quarter, and ordered at once an advance of all his troops upon the school-porch. The door of the school was ajar, and the boys seated on the nearest bench at once recognized and opened a correspondence with the invaders. Tom, waxing bold, kept putting his head into the school and making faces at the master when his back was turned. Poor Jacob, not in the least comprehending the situation, and in high glee at finding himself so near the school, which he had never been allowed to enter, suddenly, in a fit of enthusiasm, pushed by Tom, and ambling three steps into the school, stood there, looking round him and nodding with a self-approving smile. The master who was stooping over a boy's slate, with his back to the door, became aware of something unusual, and turned quickly round. Tom rushed at Jacob, and began dragging him back by his smock-frock, and the master made at them, scattering forms[30]

and boys in his career. Even now they might have escaped, but that in the porch, barring retreat, appeared the crafty wheelwright, who had been watching all their proceedings. So they were seized, the school dismissed, and Tom and Jacob led away to Squire Brown as lawful prizes, the boys following to the gate in groups, and speculating on the result.

[27] #Swiss Family Robinson#: a story of the adventures of a s.h.i.+pwrecked family on a desert island.

[28] #Choleric#: inclined to anger.

[29] #Reconnoitered#: here, examined in a general way or at a little distance.

DEFEAT, CAPTURE, PEACE.

The Squire was very angry at first, but the interview, with Tom's pleading, ended in a compromise. Tom was not to go near the school till three o'clock, and only then if he had done his own lessons well, in which case he was to be the bearer of a note to the master from Squire Brown; and the master agreed in such case to release ten or twelve of the best boys an hour before the time of breaking up, to go off and play in the close. The wheelwright's adzes and swallows were to be forever respected; and that hero and the master withdrew to the servants' hall,[31] to drink the Squire's health, well satisfied with their day's work.

[30] #Forms#: benches.

[31] #Servants' hall#: the servants' dining-room.

The second act of Tom's life may now be said to have begun. The war of independence had been over for some time; none of the women now, not even his mother's maid, dared offer to help him in dressing or was.h.i.+ng. Between ourselves, he had often at first to run to Benjy in an unfinished state of toilet. Charity and the rest of them seemed to take a delight in putting impossible b.u.t.tons and ties in the middle of his back; but he would have gone without nether[32] integuments[33]

altogether, sooner than have had recourse to female valeting. He had a room to himself, and his father gave him sixpence a week pocket-money.

All this he had achieved by Benjy's advice and a.s.sistance. But now he had conquered another step in life, the step which all real boys so long to make; he had got amongst his equals in age and strength, and could measure himself with other boys; he lived with those whose pursuits and wishes and ways were the same in kind as his own.

[32] #Nether#: lower.

[33] #Integuments#: garments.

PLAY AND WORK.

The little governess, who had lately been installed in the house, found her work grow wondrously easy, for Tom slaved at his lessons in order to make sure of his note to the schoolmaster. So there were very few days in the week in which Tom and the village boys were not playing in their close by three o'clock. Prisoner's base,[34]

rounders, high-c.o.c.k-a-lorum, cricket, foot-ball, he was soon initiated into the delights of them all; and though most of the boys were older than himself, he managed to hold his own very well. He was naturally active and strong, and quick of eye and hand, and had the advantage of light shoes and well-fitting dress, so that in a short time he could run and jump and climb with any of them.

[34] #Prisoner's base#, etc.: boys' games.

RIDING AND WRESTLING.

They generally finished their regular games half an hour or so before tea-time, and then began trials of skill and strength in many ways.

Some of them would catch the Shetland pony who was turned out in the field, and get two or three together on his back, and the little rogue, enjoying the fun, would gallop off for fifty yards and then turn round, or stop short and shoot them on to the turf, and then gaze quietly on till he felt another load; others played at peg-top or marbles, while a few of the bigger ones stood up for a bout at wrestling. Tom at first only looked on at this pastime, but it had peculiar attractions for him, and he could not long keep out of it.

Elbow and collar wrestling, as practised in the western counties, was, next to back-swording, the way to fame for the youth of the Vale; and all the boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less expert. But Job Rudkin and Harry Winburn were the stars, the former stiff and st.u.r.dy, with legs like small towers, the latter pliant as india-rubber and quick as lightning. Day after day they stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand and then the other, and grappled, and closed, and swayed, and strained, till a well-aimed crook of the heel or thrust of the loin took effect, and a fair backfall ended the matter.

And Tom watched with all his eyes, and first challenged one of the less scientific, and threw him; and so one by one wrestled his way up to the leaders.

Then indeed for months he had a poor time of it; it was not long indeed before he could manage to keep his legs against Job, for that hero was slow of offence, and gained his victories chiefly by allowing others to throw themselves against his immovable legs and loins, but Harry Winburn was undeniably his master; from the first clutch of hands when they stood up, down to the last trip which sent him on his back on the turf, he felt that Harry knew more and could do more than he. Luckily Harry's bright unconsciousness, and Tom's natural good temper, kept them from ever quarrelling; and so Tom worked on and on, and trod more and more nearly on Harry's heels, and at last mastered all the dodges and falls except one. This one was Harry's own particular invention and pet; he scarcely ever used it except when hard pressed, but then out it came, and, as sure as it did, over went poor Tom. He thought about that fall at his meals, in his walks, when he lay awake in bed, in his dreams,--but all to no purpose; until Harry one day in his open way suggested to him how he thought it should be met, and in a week from that time the boys were equal, save only the slight difference of strength in Harry's favor, which some extra ten months of age gave. Tom had often afterward reason to be thankful for that early drilling, and above all for having mastered Harry Winburn's fall.

Besides their home games, on Sat.u.r.days the boys would wander all over the neighborhood; sometimes to the downs or up to the camp, where they cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks soaring, and the "peert" bird, as Harry Winburn called the gray plover, gorgeous in his wedding feathers; and so home, racing down the Manger with many a roll among the thistles, or through Uffington-wood to watch the fox-cubs playing in the green rides;[35] sometimes to Rosy Brook, to cut long whispering reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of; sometimes to Moor Mills, where was a piece of old forest land, with short browsed turf and tufted brambly thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst which rumor declared that a raven,[36] last of his race, still lingered; or to the sand hills, in vain quest of rabbits; and birds'-nesting, in the season, anywhere and everywhere.

[35] #Green rides#: roads cut through woods or pleasure grounds.

[36] #Raven#: a large black bird of the crow family.

EARLIEST PLAYMATES.

The few neighbors of the Squire's own rank every now and then would shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a party of boys with Tom in the middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or great bundles of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or other spoil of wood, brook, or meadow, and Lawyer Redtape might mutter to Squire Straightback at the Board, that no good would come of the young Browns, if they were let run wild with all the dirty village boys, whom the best farmers' sons even would not play with.

And the Squire might reply with a shake of his head, that _his_ sons only mixed with their equals, and never went into the village without a governess or a footman.[37] But, luckily, Squire Brown was full as stiff-backed as his neighbors, and so went on his own way; and Tom and his younger brothers, as they grew up, went on playing with the village boys, without the idea of equality or inequality (except in wrestling, running, and climbing) ever entering their heads, as it doesn't till it's put there by over-nice people or fine ladies' maids.

[37] #Footman#: a man-servant in livery.

I don't mean to say it would be the case in all villages, but it certainly was so in this one; the village boys were full as manly and honest, and certainly purer than those in a higher rank; and Tom got more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a private school, where he went when he was nine years old, than he had from his village friends from the day he left Charity's ap.r.o.n-strings.

FIRST SCHOOL.

Great was the grief amongst the village school-boys when Tom drove off with the Squire, one August morning, to meet the coach on his way to school. Each of them had given him some little present of the best that he had, and his small private box was full of peg-tops, white marbles (called "alley taws" in the Vale), screws, birds'-eggs, whipcord, Jews-harps, and other miscellaneous boys' wealth. Poor Jacob Doodle-calf, in floods of tears, had pressed upon him, in spluttering earnestness, his lame pet hedgehog (he had always some poor broken-down beast or bird by him); but this Tom had been obliged to refuse by the Squire's order. He had given them all a great tea under the big elm in their playground, for which Madam Brown had supplied the biggest cake ever seen in our village; and Tom was really as sorry to leave them as they to lose him, but his sorrow was not unmixed with the pride and excitement of making a new step in life.

And this feeling carried him through his first parting with his mother better than could have been expected. Their love was as fair and whole as human love can be, perfect self-sacrifice on the one side, meeting a young and true heart on the other. It is not within the scope of my book, however, to speak of family relations, or I should have much to say on the subject of English mothers,--ay, and of English fathers, and sisters, and brothers, too.

OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Neither have I room to speak of our private schools; what I have to say is about public schools,[38] those much-abused and much-belauded[39] inst.i.tutions peculiar to England. So we must hurry through Master Tom's year at a private school as fast as we can.

[38] #Public schools#: a name given to certain large and richly endowed schools in England which are chiefly patronized by wealthy men. They are wholly unlike the public schools of the United States. Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, and Westminster are among the best known of this cla.s.s of schools.

[39] #Belauded#: praised.

It was a fair average specimen, kept by a gentleman, with another gentleman as second master; but it was little enough of the real work they did,--merely coming into school when lessons were prepared and already to be heard. The whole discipline of the school out of lesson hours was in the hands of the two ushers,[40] one of whom was always with the boys in their playground, in the school, at meals,--in fact, at all times and everywhere, till they were fairly in bed at night.

[40] #Usher#: an under-teacher.

Now, the theory of private schools is (or was) constant supervision out of school; therein differing fundamentally from that of public schools.

It may be right or wrong; but, if right, this supervision surely ought to be the especial work of the head-master, the responsible person.

The object of all schools is not to cram Latin and Greek into boys, but to make them good English boys, good future citizens; and by far the most important part of that work must be done, or not done, out of school hours. To leave it, therefore, in the hands of inferior men, is just giving up the highest and hardest part of the work of education.

Were I a private schoolmaster, I should say, let who will hear the boys their lessons, but let me live with them when they are at play and rest.