style="font-size:15px;"> These half-holiday walks were the great events of the week. The whole fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers for Hazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the school. Hazeldown measured some three miles round, and in the neighborhood were several woods full of all manner of birds and butterflies. The usher walked slowly round the down with such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in all directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher had completed his round, and accompany him home. They were forbidden, however, to go anywhere except on the down and into the woods; the village had been especially prohibited, where huge bulls'-eyes243 and unctuous toffee244 might be procured in exchange for coin of the realm.
THE AMUSEMENTS
Various were the amusements to which the boys then betook themselves. At the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of Tom's own downs. This mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the queer name of "mud-patties." The boys who played divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the mound. Then all parties, having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing upon all sides under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged. It was a good, rough, dirty game, and of great use in counteracting the sneaking tendencies of the school. Then others of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the holes of humble bees245 and mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (I regret to say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret to say) getting well stung by the humble bees. Others went after butterflies and birds'-eggs in their seasons; and Tom found on Hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little blue butterfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his own downs, and dug out his first sand-martin's nest. This latter achievement resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins build in a high bank close to the village, consequently out of bounds;246 but one of the bolder spirits of the school, who never could be happy unless he was doing something to which risk attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martin's bank. From whence, it being only a step to the toffee shop, what could be more simple than to go on there and fill their pockets? or what more certain than that on their return, a distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly detect the forbidden smell of bulls'-eyes, and, a search ensuing, discover the state of the breeches' pockets of Tom and his ally?
THE REPROBATE
This ally of Tom's was indeed a desperate hero in the sight of the boys, and feared as one who dealt in magic, or something approaching thereto. Which reputation came to him in this wise. The boys went to bed at eight, and, of course, consequently lay awake in the dark for an hour or two, telling ghost stories by turns. One night when it came to his turn, and he had dried up their souls by his story, he suddenly declared that he would make a fiery hand appear on the door; and, to the astonishment and terror of the boys in his room, a hand, or something like it, in pale light, did then and there appear. The fame of this exploit having spread to the other rooms, and being discredited there, the young necromancer247 declared that the same wonder would appear in all the rooms in turn, which it accordingly did; and the whole circumstances having been privately reported to one of the ushers as usual, that functionary, after listening about the doors of the rooms, by a sudden descent caught the performer in his nightshirt, with a box of phosphorus248 in his guilty hand. Lucifer-matches and all the present facilities for getting acquainted with fire were then unknown: the very name of phosphorus had something diabolic in it to the boy mind; so Tom's ally, at the cost of a sound flogging, earned what many older folks covet much, – the very decided fear of most of his companions.
He was a remarkable boy and by no means a bad one. Tom stuck to him till he left, and got into many scrapes by so doing. But he was the great opponent of the tale-bearing habits of the school; and the open enemy of the ushers; and so worthy of all support.
Tom imbibed a fair amount of Latin and Greek at the school, but somehow on the whole it didn't suit him, or he it, and in the holidays he was constantly working the Squire to send him at once to a public school. Great was his joy, then, when in the middle of his third half-year, in October, 183-, a fever broke out in the village; and the master having himself slightly sickened of it, the whole of the boys were sent off at a week's notice to their respective homes.
The Squire was not quite so pleased as Master Tom to see that young gentleman's brown, merry face appear at home, some two months before the proper time, for the Christmas Holidays; and so, after putting on his thinking-cap, he retired to his study and wrote several letters, the result of which was, that one morning at the breakfast-table, about a fortnight after Tom's return, he addressed his wife with: "My dear, I have arranged that Tom shall go to Rugby249 at once, for the last six weeks of this half-year, instead of wasting them, riding and loitering about home. It is very kind of the Doctor250 to allow it. Will you see that his things are all ready by Friday, when I shall take him up to town, and send him down the next day by himself!"
Mrs. Brown was prepared for the announcement, and merely suggested a doubt whether Tom were yet old enough to travel by himself. However, finding both father and son against her on this point, she gave in, like a wise woman, and proceeded to prepare Tom's kit251 for his launch into a public school.
CHAPTER IV
THE STAGE COACH
"Let the steam-pot hiss till it's hot,
Give me the speed of the Tantivy trot."
"Now, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tally-ho252 coach for Leicester'll be round in half an hour, and don't wait for nobody." So spake the Boots253 of the Peacock Inn, Islington,254 at half-past two o'clock on the morning of a day in the early part of November, 183-, giving Tom at the same time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting down a candle and carrying off his shoes to clean.
TOM ARRIVES IN TOWN
Tom and his father arrived in town from Berkshire the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that the Birmingham coaches which ran from the city did not pass through Rugby, but deposited their passengers at Dunchurch, a village three miles distant on the main road, where said passengers had to wait for the Oxford and Leicester coach in the evening, or to take a post-chaise,255 had resolved that Tom should travel down by the Tally-ho, which diverged from the main road and passed through Rugby itself. And as the Tally-ho was an early coach, they had driven out to the Peacock to be on the road.
Tom had never been in London, and would have liked to have stopped at the Belle Sauvage,256 where they had been put down by the Star,257 just at dusk, that he might have gone roving about those endless, mysterious, gas-lit streets, which, with their glare and hum and moving crowds, excited him so that he couldn't talk even. But as soon as he found that the Peacock arrangement would get him to Rugby by twelve o'clock in the day, whereas otherwise he wouldn't be there till the evening, all other plans melted away; his one absorbing aim being to become a public-school
Bulls'-eyes and toffee: the former are hard balls of sugar, the latter a kind of candy made of brown sugar and butter.
Bulls'-eyes and toffee: the former are hard balls of sugar, the latter a kind of candy made of brown sugar and butter.
Humble bees: "bumble-bees."
Bounds: the school limits, beyond which boys are not to go without permission.
Necromancer: (one who communes with the dead) a conjurer.
Phosphorus: the yellowish, inflammable substance used in making common matches – in a pure state it burns on exposure to air. Matches – called "Lucifers" or "light-bringers" – were invented in England about 1829. Previous to that time the only way of striking a light was by flint and steel, the spark being caught on a bit of tinder (half-burnt rag) which was then blown into a blaze.
Rugby: a small village in Warwickshire on the river Avon, nearly in the centre of England. It is the seat of Rugby School, – one of the great public schools, – and was founded by Lawrence Sheriff, a native of the neighboring village of Brownsover, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The school owes its fame chiefly to Dr. Arnold, who became head master in 1827, and held the position until his death in 1842.
Doctor: Dr. Arnold.
Kit: here, clothes.
Tally-ho: the cry with which huntsmen urge on their hounds; here, a name given to a fast coach.
Boots: a servant in an inn who blacks boots, etc.
Islington: a northern suburb of London.
Post-chaise: a hired carriage.
Belle Sauvage: a famous old inn, formerly in the centre of London.
Star: the name of the coach which brought the Squire and Tom to London.
