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BROWN AND ARTHUR 



Once to every man and nation, cornea the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side ; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, 
Doubting iu his abject spirit ; till his Lord is crucified. โ– " 



ARRANGED FOR THE PRESS 
BY A MOTHER. 



RICHMOND: 
18G1. 



V* 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 

WEST & JOHNSTON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and 

for the District of Virginia. 






PREFACE 



The best and most useful years of my life have 
been employed in teaching the young โ€” in an effort 
totrain my young country women to proper intellec- 
tual self-culture, and to lead them in the paths of 
truth and right ; in short, to follow out the teachings 
and follow up the wishes of anxious, tender, pious 
parents, who, for the sake of literary advantages, had 
consented to the temporary removal of their children 
from the sacred sanctuary of home. My pupils are 
scattered all over our broad and beautiful State, and 
that of our sister and neighbor. North Carolina. 
Some dwell in the far South, some in the far West, 
and a few are doing their work in northern homes, 
and fewer still abroad in our mother-land ; and it 
gladdens my heart to know, that as the shadows 
lengthen in my own descent to the grave, their rising 
and meridian sun shines upon good christian daugh- 
ters, sisters, wives, and mothers, who are doing the 
work of life well and truly, and training others for 
an inheritance beyond the skies. I never cease to 
pray for them and tenderly to look after them, and 
among the rewards of my laborious work is the 

3 



IV PREFACE. 

recollection of tlieirloviug loyalty, and the reversion 
of aflfectionate regard which these young people most 
kindly and cordially exhibit. Though separated by 
sundering paths we sometimes meet ; and when that 
is not allowed, I comfort myself with the aspiration : 

*' Daughters and pupils may we meet 
Where knowledge has its joy complete, 
And love no parting knows." 

Though no longer actively engaged in the work of 
education I cannot lose my interest in the mental and 
spiritual welfare of the young of our country ; and, 
with the hope of benefitting them and of keeping 
the links of association bright, I have sought to 
arrange this little volume. It is compiled from a 
work referring immediately to the school life of 
hoys, but containing so much of general application, 
that I am sure no parent or child, no teacher or 
pupil, can read it without having every good motive 
quickened and every high principle strengthened. I 
have introduced some of the prayers of Dr. Arnold, 
prepared for special occasions and under the peculiar 
circumstances that arise in life at school ; and to this 
preface I have subjoined a short prayer from my own 
little collection, with the hope that it may assist some 
youthful teacher in her office of devotion, and perhaps 
remind some of those who once dwelt with me " as 
children" of those morning hours, when, for years, 
we knelt together and made the " offering to the 
Lord" the first business of every day. 



PREFACE. V 

With the hope that the continued blessing of our 
Heavenly Father may rest upon my pupils, this little 
Tolume is dedicated to their children by their Mo- 
thers' Teacher. 

ANNA MEAD CHALMERS. 



Festival of All Saints, 1860. 



:^52'i74 



MOKNING PRAYER FOR A FEMALE 
SCHOOL. 



O thou gi-eat and glorious God, who makest the out- 
goings of the morning and evening to praise thee, we, thy 
helpless children, would acknowledge thy goodness in per- 
mitting us to behold the light of another day. We have 
โ€ข laid ourselves down in peace and slept, and have awaked, 
for thou hast sustained us ; and now, O Lord, with grate- 
ful hearts, we kneel before thee to ask for thy continued 
protection and to implore from thee that grace which can 
alone enable us to spend this day in safety and peace, 
The darkness and the light are both ahke to thee. Thou 
art about our beds by night and our paths by day, and 
spiest out all our ways, and there is not a word of our 
mouths, but thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether. May 
this solemn thought so affect om* motives and actions, 
that they may be always acceptable in thy sight. 

We are collected together for the purpose of receiving 
instruction, and are now about to commence another term 
of duty. We feel om' own weakness, and pray for the 
aid of thy Holy Spirit, that we may be guided and blessed 
in all we undertake. Make us diligent in our studies, 
respectful and attentive to our teachers, and gentle and 
affectionate to each other. May we live together as a band 
of sisters, and be kindly affectioned one toward another 
Let all anger, evil speaking and impatience be far from 
the hearts of each one of us, and the same mind dwell in 
us that was also in our Lord Jesus Christ. 

T 



Vlll MORNING PRAYER FOR A FEMALE SCHOOL. 

Suffer US not to forget, O Lord, that it is a part of our 
duty to thee, faithfully to improve our time and present 
privileges, and while we are pursuing our daily studies, 
may we be led to seek that knowledge which causeth not 
to err and will make us wise to salvation. May we set 
the Lord Jesus Christ always before us as our great Master 
and Teacher, and so learn of him that we may at length 
be found among his redeemed children on high. 

Most gracious God grant that thy blessing may rest 
upon this school โ€” make it a nursery of virtue, of know- 
ledge and holiness โ€” may a sense of thy continual presence 
check every unholy feeling and calm every unruly temper. 
Oh may each of these beloved children " seek thee early," 
and according to thy gracious promise find thee a good and 
gracious God โ€” a God of love and truth. Sanctify the instruc- 
tions they receive, and guide their 3'oung hearts to thee, 
the great fountain of light and knowledge. May their 
bodies and souls be precious in thy sight. If it seemeth 
good unto thee, preserve them from sickness ; but may 
they always remember that they are not too young to die, 
and that one day in thy sight is as a thousand j^ears, and 
a thousand years as one day. 

Let thy heavenly blessing rest upon the teachers of this 
school and upon those who preside in this household, 
May a sense of their responsible trust keep them close to 
thee, their only safe counsellor. Give them a right judg- 
ment in all things โ€” wisdom from on high to guide, and 
grace from on high to strengthen. While training the 
minds of these young persons in the way of knowledge 
and usefulness, may they never forget the priceless value 
of their immortal souls โ€” for each of which the Lord Jesus 
Christ died โ€” and may the sanctifying intluences of thy 
Iloly Spirit accompany all their teachings. 



MORNING PRATER FOR A FEMALE SCHOOL. ix 

We now commit ourselves, O Lord, to thee. Make us 
a happy and loving family ; bless our absent parents and 
friends, and take us all this day and forever under the 
shadow of thy Fatherly wings. 

We ask for these and all other blessings in the name of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Chi-ist, ^men. 



INTEODUCTION. 



It was recently said by Lord Brougham, that no 
book published in England for the last fifty years 
had done more good than "Tom Brown's School 
Days," and a good and gifted clergyman of our own 
American Church, has pronounced it a most able 
auxiliary in the religious education of the young. 
Its interest and influence cannot be attributed to the 
narrative โ€” for that is so slight as hardly to form a 
story โ€” being nothing more than a series of pictures 
of the various parts of a school boy's life. There 
must be something under this to give value to the 
volume; and it is found in the impress it bears of the 
spirit and teaching of the noble Dr. Arnold. 

We find here illustrated in the every day incidents 
of school life, the principle which this great teacher 
so thoroughly possessed himself, and with which he 
so successfully inspired his pupils, that there was a 
work โ€” an individual work for each to do in this 
world ; and that the only real happiness was to be 
found in doing that work truly and faithfully. To 
how many did he thus unfold a new life, causing a 
strange joy to come over the weakest as well as 
strongest at discovering that he had the means of 



XU INTRODUCTION. 

being useful. His pupils felt a sympathetic thrill, 
caught from a master who was himself earnestly at 
work in the world, and whose work was heartily and 
cheerfully sustained and constantly carried forward 
in the fear of God. 

With this effort to encourage individual obligation 
and responsibility was another, which in Dr. Arnold's 
system was only subordinate to the first, as an evil 
to be corrected rather than a duty enforced. It was 
the subjugation of that slavish submission to the 
opinion and habits ef eacj^othcr, which he considered 
the crowning evil of public school education. No 
half year passed without his preaching upon it ; he 
turned it over and over in every possible point of 
view ; he dwelt upon it as the one master fault of 
all, and solemnly and earnestly did he reiterate and 
enjoin the words of the prophet, 

"Fear not, nor heed one another's voices, 
But fear and heed the voice of God only." 

These two features in the system of Dr. Arnold are 
most strikingly illustrated in " Tom Brown's School 
Days," that story of Rugby experience, which an 
'^ old boy" has told with so much truth and humor 
and fond minuteness of detail. The book has passed 
through numerous editions, and it may seem a need- 
less and bold step to touch or mutilate it. But it 
is our high value of its teachings that leads us to 
make this compilation. We believe that a more 



INTRODUCTION". Xlll 

touching and inspiring sketch of truth and manly- 
piety in a boy was never written, than that of George 
Arthur, found near the close of this volume, and 
we want to bring that sketch into the hands of every 
boy and girl in our land ; to give it a niche in every 
Sunday-school library, and thus to show how, even 
in the secular school room, the grace and beauty of 
early piety can transform and elevate the rude and 
selfish. 

Excellent and amusing as it all is, there is much 
in " Tom Brown" that is inapplicable to our American 
school life and system, (I wish, indeed, that it were 
not so, and that our boys had their cricket matches 
and boxing clubs), and we have, therefore, with the 
permission of the publishers, selected an episode, 
" the turning point of the hero's life," in which the 
true spirit of the discipline of Dr. Arnold is most 
fully and happily illustrated. This is the nucleus of 
our little book, but we have gone hack to Stanley's 
Life of Arnold, and forward to " Tom Brown at 
Oxford," gleaning from each such incidents and recol- 
lections as fully illustrated the same ruling principle 
of disinterested effort for the welfare of the young, 
based upon a constant sense of their responsibility 
to God in the performance of every duty, the enjoy- 
ment of every pleasure. In short, striving to show 
that it was possible to ยฉbey literally the apostolic 
injunction, " Whether ye eat or drink^ or whatever 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

ye do, do all in tlio name of Jesns Clirist," so that, 
not only the church, but the school-room, the study, 
and the playground, would be made scenes of healthy 
christian feeling and activity. 

We will now give a slight sketch of Tom Brown's 
earhj days at Rugby, that the portion of the volume 
extracted may be more fully understood. His expe- 
riences are like those of others at an English public 
school. Though in the main a true, brave boy, he 
is easily led off by unwise companions ; makes war 
upon school regulations; gets flogged for trespassing; 
reported for scrambling on the roof of the tower and 
there scratching his name on the minute hand of the 
clock ; punished for going to Kugby Fair, and other- 
wise subjected to the penalties " made and provided" 
for various treasons, felonies, and misdemeanors. 
Dr. Arnold was a silent observer of his course. He 
saw that there was talent and truth and right feeling 
at the bottom, though as the old verger said, '' Brown 
was mighty bad on top,''^ and the Dr.'s peculiar dis- 
cipline is now brought upon the stage. Henry 
East, the fidus achates of the hero, is a boy of simi- 
lar temper and feeling, and. being an older Rugbean 
has taken him by the hand, and together, they were 
getting into " all sorts of scrapes." Active, earnest, 
mercurial boys, who would never make the regular 
school work their first business. So the Doctor 
resolved to give Brown, in particular, some object 



INTEODUCTION. Xr 

besides games and mischief to expend his surplus 
energy upon. At the end of the second half-year, 
when the new boys came, the Dr. without assigning 
any reason, arranged that Brown and East should 
be separated, and that George Arthur, a quiet, re- 
fined, timid boy, with a delicate body and strong 
principles,'^should be assigned to Tom as a chum. 
His hope was, that having some one to lean upon 
him, Tom would stand straight himself, and gradu- 
ally attain moral thoughtfulness and strength. The 
story, as we now take it up, will show the success of 
the experiment. The mutual influence of boys of 
such difi'erent characters is strikingly shown, by the 
wisdom and sagacity of Dr. Arnold. The advantage 
is reciprocal. Arthur reclaims Tom, who, in his turn 
wins Arthur by degrees from physical timidity, and 
initiates him into the athletics of the place. 

We insert, in continuation, the closing pages of 
the book, with some notices from Stanley of the death 
of Dr. Arnold. Nothing can be more touching, and 
at the same cime more manly, than the grief with 
which Brown receives the sad news ; the rush and 
conflict of feeling ; sorrow for the loss of one so 
deeply loved and reverenced ; regret at the retrospect 
of his own careless boyhood, which, in the solemn 
light of that hour, 

"Stamps with remorse each waited hour of time, 
And darkens each young folly into crime." 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

the burst of grateful love that the memory of his old 
master excites, are all told with a simplicity, truth, 
and manly piety, which must-fiad its way to every 
feeling heart. 

That this "โ–  Episode," in which the religious cha- 
racter of the youthful Arthur is so happily delineated, 
may lead other school boys to "go and do likewise," 
is the sincere wish of the " Mother" who arranged 
these pages. 

Virginia, Festival of All Saints, 18 GO. 



BSOWIT IND ISTHUR: 



CHAPTER I. ^ 

HOW THE TIDE TURNED. 

" Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or eril side; 

* * * ยป * * 

Then it is the bi*ave man chooses, while the coward stands aside. 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified." 



Lowell. 



The turning point in Tom Brown's school 
career had now come, and tlie manner of it was 
as follows. On the evening of the first day of the 
next half-year, Tom, East, and another school- 
house boy, who had just been dropped at the 
Spread Eagle by the old Regulator, rushed into 
the matron's room in high spirits, such as all 
real boys are in when they first get back, how- 
ever fond they may be of home. 

''Well, Mrs. Wixie," shouted one, seizing 
on the methodical, active little dark-eyed woman, 
who was busy stowing away the linen of the 
a2 n 



18 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

boys who had already arrived in their several 
pigeon-holes, '' here we are again you see, jolly 
as ever. Let us help you put the things away." 

"And, Mary," cried another, (she was called 
indifferently by either name,) '%ho's come back ? 
Has the Doctor made old Jones leave ? How 
many new boys are there ? " 

" Am I and East to have Gray's study ? You 
know you promised to get it for us if you 
could," shouted Tom. 

"And am I to sleep m No. 4?" roared East. 

"How's old Sam, and Bogle, and Sally?" 

"Bless the boys," cries Mary, at last getting 
in a word, "why you'll shake me to death. 
There, now, do go away up to the housekeeper's 
room and get your suppers ; you know I haven't 
time to talk โ€” you'll find plenty more in the 
house. Now, Master East, do let those things 
alone โ€” you're mixing up three ne\\i boys' 
things." And she rushed at East, who escaped 
round the open trunks holding up a prize. 

*' Hullo, look here, Tommy," shouted he, 
"here's fun!" and he brandished above his 
head some pretty little night-caps, beautifully 
made and marked, the work of loving fingers 
in some distant country home. The kind mo- 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 19 

ther and sisters, wlio sewed that delicate stitcliing 
with aching hearts, little thought of the trouble 
they might be bringing on the young head for 
which they were meant. The little matron was 
wiser, and snatched the caps from East before 
he could look at the name on them. 

''Now, Master East, I shall be very angry if 
you don't go," said she; "there's some capital 
cold beef and pickles up stairs, and I won't have 
you old boys in my room first night." 
โ€ข " Hurrah for the pickles ! Come along. Tom- 
my, come along, Smith. We shall find out who 
the young count is, I'll be bound ; I hope he'll 
sleep in my room. Mary's always vicious first 
week" 

As the boys turned to leave the room, the 
matron touched Tom's arm, and said, " Master 
Brown, please stop a minute. I want to speak 
to you." 

''Very Avell, Mary. I'll come in a minute. 
East ; don't finish the pickles โ€” " 

"Oh, Master Brown," went on the little matron 
when the rest had gone, " you're to have Gray's 
study, Mrs. Arnold says. And she wants you 
to take in this young gentleman. He's a new 
boy and thirteen years old, though he don't look 



20 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

it. He's very delicate, and lias never been from 
home before. And I told Mrs. Arnold I tbougbt 
you'd be kind to him, and sec that they don't 
bully him at first. He's put into your form, 
and I've given him the bed next to yours in 
K umber 4 ; so East can't sleep there this half." 
Tom was rather put about by this speech. 
He had got the double study which he coveted, 
but here were conditions attached which greatly 
moderated his joy. He looked across the room, 
and in the far corner of the sofa, was aware of a 
slight, pale boy, with large blue eyes and light 
fair hair, who seemed ready to shrink through 
the floor. He saw at a glance that the little 
stranger was just the boy whose first half-year 
at a public school would be misery to himself if 
he were let alone, or constant anxiety to any 
one who meant to see him through his troubles, 
Tom was too honest to take in the youngster 
and then let him shift for himself; and if he 
took him as his chum instead of East, where 
were all his pet plans of having a bottled-beer 
cellar under his window, and making night-lines 
and slings, and plotting expeditions to Brown- 
sover Mills and Caldecott's Spinney ? East and 
he had made up their minds to get this study, 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 21 

and then every night from locking-iip till ten 
they would be together, to talk about fishing, 
drink bottled-beer, read Marryatt's novels, and 
sort birds' eggs. And this new boy would most 
likely never go out of the close, and would be 
afraid of wet feet, and always getting laughed 
at, and called Molly, or Jenny, or some deroga- 
tory feminine nickname. 

The matron watched him for a moment, and 
saw what was passing in his mind, and so, like 
a wise negotiator, threw in an appeal to his 
warm heart. 'โ€ข Poor little fellow," said she in 
almost a whisper, ''his father's dead, and he's 
got no brothers. And his mamma, such a kind 
sweet lady, almost broke her heart at leaving 
him this morning ; and she said one of his sisters 
was like to die of decline, and so โ€” " 

"Well, well," burst in Tom, with something 
like a sigh at the effort, " I suppose I must give 
up East. Come along, young 'un. What's your 
name? We'll go and have some supper, and 
then I'll show you our study," 

" His name's Greorge Arthur," said the matron, 
walking up to him with Tom, who grasped his 
little delicate hand as the proper preliminary to 
making a chum of him, and felt as if he could 



22 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

have blown liim away. " I've had liis books 
and tilings put into the study, which his mamma 
has had new papered, and the sofa covered, and 
new green-baize curtains over the door," (the 
diplomatic matron threw this in, to show that 
the new boy was contributing largely to the part- 
nership comforts.) " And Mrs. Arnold told me 
to say," she added, '' that she should like you 
both to come up to tea with her. You know 
the way, Master Brown, and the things are just 
gone up, I know."* 

^ Here was an announcement for Master Tom ! 
t 

โ– 'He w^as to go up to tea the first night, just as if 
he were a sixth or fifth-form boy, and of import- 
ance in the school world, instead of the most 
reckless scapegrace among the fags. He felt 
himself lifted on to a higher moral and social 
platform at once. Nevertheless he couldn't give 
up, without a sigh, the idea of the jolly supper 
in the housekeeper's room with East and the 
rest, and a rush round to all the studies of his 
friends afterwards, to pour out the deeds and 
wonders of the holidays, to plot fifty plans for 
the coming half-year, and to gather news of who 
had left, and what new boys had come, wdio had 
got who's study, and where the new priepostors 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 23 

slept. However, Tom consoled himself with 
thinking that he couldn't have done all this 
with the new boy at his heels, and so marched 
off along the passages to the Doctor's private 
house, with his young charge in tow, in mon- 
strous good humour with himself and all the 
world. 

It is needless, and would be impertinent to 
tell, how the two young boys were received in 
that drawing-room. The lady who presided 
there is still living, and has carried with her to 
her peaceful home in the North the respect and 
love of all those who ever felt and shared that 
gentle and high-bred hospitality. Aye, many is 
the brave heart now doing its work and bearing 
its load in country curacies, London chambers, 
under the Indian sun, and in Australian towns 
and clearings, which looks back with fond and 
grateful memory to that school-house drawing- 
room, and dates much of its highest and best 
training to the lessons learnt there. 

Besides Mrs. Arnold and one or two of the 
elder children, there were one of the younger 
masters, young Brooke, who was now in the 
sixth and had succeeded to his brother's position 
and influence, and another sixth-form boy there, 



24 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

talking together before tlie fire. The master 
and young Brooke, now a great strapping fellow 
six leet high, eighteen years old, and powerful 
as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom to his 
intense glory, and then went on talking; the 
other did not notice them. The hostess, after a 
few kind words, w^hich led the boys at once and 
insensibly to feel at their ease, to begin talking 
to one another, left them with her own children 
while she finished a letter. The young ones got 
on fast and well, Tom holding forth about a 
prodigious pony he had been riding out hunting, 
and hearing stories of the winter glories of the 
lakes, when tea came in, and immediately after 
the Doctor himself. 

, How frank, and kind, and manly, was his 
greeting to the party by the fire ; it did Tom's 
heart good to see him and young Brooke shake 
hands, and look one another in the face; and 
he didn't fail to remark that Brooke w^as nearly 
as tall and quite as broad as the Doctor. And 
his cup was full, when in another moment his 
master turned to him with another warm shake 
of the hand; and seemingly oblivious of all the 
late scrapes which he had been getting into, 
said, "Ah, Brown, you here! I hope you left 
your father and all quite well at home." 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 25 

, Yes, sir, quite well." 

" And this is the little fellow who is to share 
your study. Well, he doesn't look as we should 
like to see him. He wants some Eugby air, 
and cricket. And you must take him some 
good long w^alks, to Bilton Grange, and Calde- 
cott's Spinney, and show him what a pretty little 
country we have about here." 

Tom wondered if the Doctor knew that his 
visits to Bilton Grange were for the purpose of 
taking rook's nests (a proceeding strongly dis- 
countenanced by the owner thereof), and those 
to Caldecott's Spinney, were prompted chiefly by 
the conveniences for setting night-lines. What 
didn't the Doctor know? And what a noble 
use he always made of it. He almost resolved to 
abjure rook-pies and night-lines forever. The 
tea went merrily off, the Doctor now talking of 
holiday doings, and then of the prospects of the 
half-year, what chance there was for the Balliol 
scholarship, whether the eleven would be a good 
one. Everybody was at their ease, and every- 
body felt that he, young as he might be, was of 
some use in the little school world, and had a 
work to do there. 

Soon after tea the Doctor went off to his study, 
2b 



26 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

and the young boys a few minutes afterwards 
took tlieir leave, and went out of tlie private 
door which led from the Doctor's house into the 
middle passage. 

At the fire, at the further end of the passage, 
was a crowd of boys in loud talk and laughter. 
There was a sudden pause when the door opened, 
and then a great shout of greeting, as Tom was 
recognized marching down the passage. 

'' Hullo, Brown, where do you come from ?" 

" Oh, I've been to tea with the Doctor," says 
Tom, with great dignity. 

'' My eye," cried East. '' Oh ! so that's why 
Mary called you back, and you didn't come to 
supper. You lost something โ€” that beef and 
pickles was no end good." 

^' I say, young fellow," cried Hall, detecting 
Arthur and catching him by the collar, '' what's 
your name ? Where do you come from ? How 
old are you ?" 

Tom saw Arthur shrink back and look scared, 
as all the group turned to him, but thought it 
best to let him answer, just standing by his side 
to support in case of need. 

'' Arthur, sir. I come from Devonshire." 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 27 

*' Don't call me 'sir,' you young muff. How 
old are you ?" 

''Thirteen." 

" Can you sing ?" 

The poor boy was trembling and hesitating. 
Tom struck in โ€” "You be hanged, Tadpole. 
He'll have to sing, whether he can or not, Satur- 
day twelve weeks, and that's long enough off 
yet." 

" Do you know him at home, Brown ?" 

"No, but he's my chum in Gray's old study, 
and it's near prayer time, and I haven't had a 
look at it yet. Come along, Arthur." 

Away went the two, Tom longing to get his 
charge safe under cover, where he might advise 
him on his deportment. 

"What a queer chum for Tom Brown," was 
the comment at the fire ; and it must be con- 
fessed so thought Tom himself, as he lighted 
his candle, and surveyed the new green-baize 
curtains, and the carpet and sofa with much 
satisfaction. 

" I say, Arthur, what a brick your mother is 
to make us so cosy. But look here now, you 
must answer straight up when the fellows speak 
to you, and don't be afraid. If you're afraid, 



28 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

you'll get bullied. And don't you say you 
can sing ; and don't you ever talk about home, 
and your mother and sisters." 

Poor little Arthur looked ready to cry. 

''But please," said he, '' mayn't I talk about 
โ€” about home to you ?" 

'^ Oh, yes, I like it. But don't talk to boys 
you don't know, or they'll call you home-sick, 
or mamma's darling, or some such stuff. What 
a jolly desk! is that your's? And what stun- 
ning binding ! why, your school-books look like 
novels." 

And Tom was soon deep in Arthur's goods 
and chattels, all new and good enough for a 
fifth -form boy, and hardly thought of his friends 
outside, till the prayer-bell rung. 

I have already described the school-house 
prayers ; they were the same on the first night 
as on the other nights, save for the gaps caused 
by the absence of those boys who came late, 
and the line of new boys who stood all together 
at the further table โ€” of all sorts and sizes, like 
young bears, with all their troubles to come, as 
Tom's father had said to 1dm when he was in 
the same position. He thought of it as he looked 
at the line, and poor little slight Arthur standing 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 29 

with therQ; and as lie was leading him np stairs 
to Number 4, directly after prayers, and showing 
him his bed. It was a huge, high, airy room, 
with two large windows looking on to the school 
close. There were twelve beds in the room. 
The one in the furthest corner by the fireplace, 
occupied by the sixth-form boy who was respon- 
sible for the discipline of the room, and the rest 
by boys in the lower-fifth and other junior forms, 
all fags, (for the fifth-form boys, as has been said, 
slept in rooms by themselves.) Being fags, the 
eldest of them was not more than about sixteen 
years old, and were all bound to be up and in 
bed by ten ; the sixth-form boys came to bed 
from ten to a quarter past, (at which time the 
old verger came round to put the candles out,) 
except when they sat up to read. 

Within a few minutes, therefore, of their 
entry, all the other boys who slept in Number 
4 had come up. The little fellows went quietly 
to their own beds, and began undressing and 
talking to one another in whispers ; while the 
elder, amongst whom was Tom, sat chatting 
about on one another's beds, with their jacket 
and waistcoats off. Poor little Arthur was over- 
whelmed with the novelty of his position. The 



30 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

idea of sleeping in tlie room with strange boys, 
had clearly never crossed liis mind before, and 
was as painful as it was strange to liim. He 
could liardly bear to take liis jacket off; how- 
ever, presently with an effort off it came, and 
then he paused and looked at Tom, who was 
sitting at the bottom of his bed, talking and 
laughing. 

^'Please, Brown," he whispered, " may I wash 
my face and hands ?" 

"Of course, if you like," said Tom staring; 
" that's your washhand-stand under the window, 
second from your bed. You'll have to go down 
for more water in the morning if you use it all." 
And on he went with his talk, while Arthur 
stole timidly from between the beds out to his 
washhand-stand, and began his ablutions, thereby 
drawing for a moment on himself the attention 
of the room. 

On went the talk and laughter. Arthur 
finished his washing and undressing, and put on 
his night-gown. He then looked round more 
nervously than ever. Two or three of the little 
boys were already in bed, sitting up with their 
chins on ther knees. The light burned clear, 
the noise went on, It was a trying moment for 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 31 

tlie poor little lonely boy ; however this time lie 
didn't ask Tom what he might or might not do, 
but dropped on his knees by his bedside, as he 
had done every day from his childhood, to open 
his heart to Him, who heareth the cry and beareth 
the sorrows of the tender child, and the strong 
man in agony. 

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlac- 
ing his boots, so that his back was towards Arthur, 
and he didn't see what had happened, and looked 
up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two 
or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big 
brutal fellow, who was standing in the middle 
of the room, picked up a slipper, and shied it at 
the kneeling boy, calling him a snivelling young 
shaver. Then Tom saw the whole, and the next 
n^oment the boot he had just pulled of flew 
straight at the head of the bully, who had just 
time to throw up his arm and catch it on his 
elbow. 

"Confound you. Brown, what's that for?" 
roared he, stamping with pain. 

" Kever mind what I mean," said Tom, step- 
ping on to the floor, every drop of blood in his 
body tingling; "if any fellow wants the other 
boot, he knows how to get it." 



32 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

Wliat would have been the result is doubtful, 
for at this moment the sixth-form boy came in, 
and not another word could be said. Tom and 
the rest rushed into bed and finished their un- 
robing there, and the old verger, as punctual as 
the clock, had put out the candle in another 
minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting 
their door with his usual " Good night, genl'm'n." 

There were many boys in the room by whom 
that little scene was taken to heart before they 
slept. But sleep seemed to have deserted the 
pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excite- 
ment, and the flood of memories which chased 
one another through his brain, kept him from 
thinking or resolving. His head throbbed, his 
heart leapt, and he could hardly keep himself 
from springing out of bed and rushing about the 
room. Then the thought of his own mother 
came across him, and the promise he had made 
at her knee, years ago, never to forget to kneel 
by his bedside, and give himself up to his Father, 
before he laid his head on his pillow, from which 
it might never rise ; and he lay down gently and 
cried as if his heart would break. He was only 
fourteen years old. 

It was no light act of courage in those days, 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 33 

my dear boys, for a little fellow to say his prayers 
publicly, even at Rugby. A few years later, 
wben Arnold's manly piety bad begun to leaven 
the scbool, the tables turned ; before be died, in 
the scbool-bouse at least, and I believe in the 
other bouses, tbe rule was the other way. But 
poor Tom had come to school in other times. The 
first few nights after he came he did not kneel 
down because of the noise, but sat up in bed till 
the candle was out, and then stole out and said 
his prayers, in fear lest some one should find him 
out. So did many another poor little fellow. 
Then he began to think that he might just as 
Avell say his prayers in bed, and then that it 
didn't matter whether he was kneeling, or sitting, 
or lying down. And so it had come to pass with 
Tom, as with all who will not confess their Lord 
before men ; and for the last year he had pro- 
bably not said his prayers in earnest a dozen 
times. 

Poor Tom ! the first and bitterest feeling which 
was like to break his heart, was the sense of his 
o^vn cowardice. The vice of all others which he 
loathed was brought in and burned in on his own 
soul. He had lied to his mother, to his con- 
science, to his God. How could he bear it? 



34 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

And then the poor little weak boy, whom he had 
pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had 
done that, which he, braggart as he was, dared not 
do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in 
swearing to himself that he would stand by that 
boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and 
help him, and bear his burthens, for the good 
deed done that night. Then he resolved to write 
home next day and tell his mother all, and what 
a coward her son had been. And then peace 
came to him as he resolved, lastly, to bear his 
testimony next morning. The morning would 
be harder than the night to begin with, but he 
felt that he could not afford to let one chance 
slip. Several times he faltered, for the devil 
showed him first, all his old friends calling him 
"Saint," and "Square-toes," and a dozen hard 
names, and whispered to him that his motives 
would be misunderstood, and he would only be 
left alone with the new boy ; whereas it was his 
duty to keep all means of influence, that he 
might do good to the largest number. And then 
came the more subtle temptation, "Shall I not 
be showing myself braver than others by doing 
this ? Have I any right to begin it now ? Ought 
I not rather to pray in my own study, letting 



I 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 35 

otlier boys know that I do so, and trying to lead 
tliem to it, while in public at least I slionld go 
on as I have done?" However, his good angel 
was too strong that night, and he turned on his 
side and slept, tired of trying to reason, but 
resolved to follow the impulse which had been 
so strong, and in which he had found peace. 

Next morning he was up and washed and 
dressed, all but his jacket and waistcoat, just as 
the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in 
the face of the whole room knelt down to pray. 
Not five words could he say โ€” the bell mocked 
him ; he was listening for every whisper in the 
room โ€” what were they all thinking of him? 
He was ashamed to go on kneeling, ashamed to 
rise from his knees. At last, as it Avere from his 
inmost heart, a still small voice seemed to breathe 
forth the words of the publican, " God be merci- 
ful to me a sinner !" He repeated them over and 
over, clinging to them as for his life, and rose 
from his knees comforted and humbled, and ready 
to face the whole world. It was not needed ; two 
other boys besides Arthur had already followed 
his example, and he went down to the great school 
with a glimmering of another lesson in his heart โ€” 
the lesson that he who has conquered his own cow- 



36 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

ard spirit has conquered the whole outward world; 
and that other one, which the old prophet learnt 
in the cave at Mount Iloreb, when he hid his 
face, and the still small voice asked, " What doest 
thou here, Elijah ?" that however we may fancy 
ourselves alone on the side of good, the King 
and Lord of men is nowhere without His wit- 
nesses ; for in every society, however seemingly 
corrupt and godless, there are those who have 
not bowed the knee to Baal. 

He found, too, how greatly he had exaggerated 
the effect to be produced by his act. For a few 
nights there was a sneer or a laugh when he 
knelt down, but this passed off soon, and one by 
one all the other boys but three or four followed 
the lead. I fear that this was in some measure 
owing to the fact, that Tom could probably have 
thrashed any boy in the room except the prae- 
postor; at any rate, everybody knew that he 
would try upon very slight provocation, and 
didn't choose to run the risk of a hard fight 
because Tom Brown had taken a fancy to say 
his prayers. Some of the small boys of Number 
4 communicated the new state of things to their 
chums, and in several other rooms the poor little 
fellows tried it on ; in one instance or so, where 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 3t 

the pra3poster heard of it and interfered very 
decidedly, with partial success ; hut in the rest, 
after a short struggle, the confessors were bullied 
or laughed down, and the old state of things went 
on for some time longer. Before either Tom 
Brown or Arthur left the school-house, there 
was no room in which' it had not become the 
regular custom. I trust it is so still, and that 
the old heathen state of things has gone out for 
ever. 



CHAPTER 11. . 

THE NEW BOY. 

*' And Heaven's rich instincts in him grew 
As effortless as woodhmd nooks 
Send violets up and paint them blue." โ€” Lowell. 

I DO not mean to recount all the little troubles 
and annoyances whicli thronged upon Tom at 
the beginning of this half-year, in his new- 
character of bear-leader to a gentle little boy 
straight from home. He seemed to himself to 
have become a new boy again, without any of 
the long-suffering and meekness indispensable 
for supporting that character with moderate 
success. From morning till night he had the 
feeling of responsibility on his mind, and even 
if he left Arthur in their study or in the close 
for an hour, was never at ease till he had him in 
sight again. He waited for him at the doors of 
the school after every lesson and every calling- 
over ; watched that no tricks were played him, 
and none but the regulation questions asked; 
kept his eye on his plate at dinner and breakfast, 
to see that no unfair depredations were made 
38 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 89 

upon his viands; in short, as East remarked, 
cackled after Mm like a hen with one chick. /- 

Arthur took a long time thawing too, which 
made it all the harder ^vork ; was sadly timid ; 
scarcely ever spoke unless Tom spoke to him 
first ; and, worst of all, would agree with him in 
everything, the hardest thing in the world for 
Brown to bear. He got quite angry sometimes, 
as they sat together of a night in their study, at 
this provoking habit of agreement, and was on 
the point of breaking out a dozen times with a 
lecture upon the propriety of a fellow having a 
will of his own and speaking out ; but managed 
to restrain himself by the thought that it might 
only frighten Arthur, and the remembrance of 
the lesson he had learnt from him on his first 
night at Number 4. Then he would resolve to 
sit still, and not say a word till Arthur began ; 
but he was always beat at that game, and had 
presently to begin talking in despair, fearing lest 
Arthur might think he was vexed at something 
if he didn't, and dog-tired of sitting tongue-tied. 

It was hard work 1 But Tom had taken it up ; 
and meant to stick to it, and go through with it, 
so as to satisfy himself; in which resolution he 
was much assisted by the chaffing of East and 



40 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

Ills otlier old friends, who began to call liim "dry- 
nurse," and otherwise to break their small wit 
on him. But when they took other ground, as 
they did every now and then, Tom was sorely 
puzzled. 

''Tell you what, Tommy," East would say, 
you'll spoil young hopeful with too much cod- 
dling. Why can't you let him^ go about by 
himself, and find his own level ? He'll never be 
worth a button, if you go on keeping him under 
your skirts." 

" Well, but he ain't fit to fight his own way 
yet ; I'm trying to get him to it every day โ€” but 
he's very odd. Poor little beggar ! I can't make 
him out a bit. He ain't a bit like anything I've 
ever seen or heard of โ€” he seems all over nerves ; 
anything you say, seems to hurt him like a cut 
or a blow." 

" That sort of boy's no use here," said East, 
" he'll ony spoil. Now I'll tell you what you do, 
Tommy. Go and get a nice large band-box 
made, and put him in with plenty of cotton-wool, 
and a pap-bottle, labelled ' With care โ€” this side 
up,' and send him back to mamma." 

"I think I shall make a hand of him though," 
said Tom, smiling, "say what you will. There's 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 41 

sometliing about him, every now and then, whicli 
shows me he's got pluck somewhere in him. 
That's the only thing after all, that'll wash, ain't 
it, old Scud ? But how to get at it and bring 
it out?" 

Tom took one hand out of his breeches-pocket 
and stuck it in his back hair for a scratch, giving 
his hat a tilt over his nose, his one method of in- 
voking wisdom. He stared at the ground with 
a ludicrously puzzled look, and presently looked 
up and met East's eyes. That young gentlemen 
slapped him on the back, and then put his arm 
round his shoulder, as they strolled through the 
quadrangle together. " Tom," said he, " blest if 
you ain't the best old fellow ever was โ€” I do like 
to see you go into a thing. Hang it, I wish I 
could take things as you do โ€” but I never can 
get higher than a joke. Everything's a joke. If 
I was going to be flogged next minute, I should 
be in a blue funk, but I couldn't help laughing 
at it for the life of me." 

After this East came a good deal to their study, 

and took notice of Arthur ; and soon allowed to 

Tom, that he was a thorough little gentleman, 

and would get over his shyness all in good time i 

which much comforted our hero. He felt every 
2b2 



42 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

day, too, the value of having an object in his 
life, something that drew him out of himself; 
and, it being the dull time of the year, and no 
games going about for which he much cared, was 
happier than he had ever yet been at school, 
which was saying a great deal. 
. The time which Tom allowed himself away 
from his charge, was from locking-up till supper- 
time. During this hour, or hour-and-a-half, he 
used to take his fling, going round to the studies 
of all his acquaintance, sparring or gossiping in 
the hall, now jumping the old iron-bound tables, 
or carving a bit of his name on them, then join- 
ing in some chorus of merry voices ; in fact, 
blowing off his steam, as we should now call it. 
This process was so congenial to his temper, 
and Arthur showed himself so pleased at the 
arrangement, that it was several weeks before 
Tom was ever in their study before supper. One 
evening, however, he rushed in to look for an old 
chisel, or some corks, or other article essential to 
his pursuit for the time being, and while rum- 
maging about in the cupboards, looked up for a 
moment, and was caught at once by the figure 
of poor little Arthur. The boy was sitting with 
his elbows on the table, and his head leaning on 



i 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 43 

his handS; and before him an open book, on 
which his tears were falling fast. Tom shut the 
door at once, and sat down on the sofa by Ar- 
thur, putting his arm round his neck. 

"Why, young'un! what's the matter?" said he 
kindly; "you ain't unhappy, are you?" 

" Oh no. Brown," s^d the little boy, looking 
up with the great tears in his eyes, "you are so 
kind to me, I'm very happy." 

"Why don't you call me Tom? lots of boys 
do, that I don't like half so much as you. What 
are you reading then ? Hang it, you must come 
about with me, and not mope yourself," and Tom 
cast down his eyes on the book and saw it was 
the Bible. He was silent for a minute, and 
thought to himself, "Lesson Number 2, Tom 
Brown," โ€” and then said gently โ€” 

"I'm very glad to see this, Arthur, and 
ashamed that I don't read the Bible more, myself. 
Do you read it every night before supper while 
I'm out?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, I wish you'd wait till afterwards, and 
then we'd read together. But, Arthur, why 
does it make you cry ?" 

" Oh, it isn't that I'm unhappy. But at home, 



44 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

wliile my fatlier was alive, we always read the 
lessons after tea ; and I love to read them over 
now, and try to remember what he said about 
them. I can't remember all, and I think I 
scarcely imderstand a great deal of what I do 
remember. But it all comes back to me, so fresh, 
that I can't help crying ^ometimes to think I 
shall never read them again with him." 

Arthur had never spoken of his home before, 
and Tom hadn't encouraged him to do so, as his 
blundering school-boy reasoning made him think 
that Arthur would be softened and less manly 
for thinking of home. But now he was fairly 
interested, and forgot all about chisels and 
bottled beer ; while with very little encourage- 
ment Arthur launched into his home history, 
and the prayer-bell put them both out sadly 
when it rang to call them to the hall. 

From this time Arthur constantly spoke of 
his home, and above all, of his father, who had 
been dead about a year, and whose memory Tom 
soon got to love and reverence almost as much 
as his own son did. 

Arthur's father had been the clergyman of a 
parish in the Midland counties, which had risen 
into a large town during the war, and upon 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 45 

whicli the Iiard years wHich followed had fallen 
with a fearful weight. The trade had been half 
ruined; and then came the old sad story, of mas- 
ters reducing their establishments, men turned 
off and wandering about, hungry and wan in 
body, and fierce in soul, from the thought of 
wives and children starving at home, and the 
last sticks of furniture going to the pawn-shop. 
Children taken from school, and lounging about 
the dirty streets and courts, too listless almost to 
play, and squalid in rags and misery. And then 
the fearful struggle between the employers and 
men; lowerings of wages, strikes, and the long 
course of oft-repeated crime, ending every now 
and then with a riot, a fire, and the county yeo- 
manry. There is no need here to dwell upon 
such tales ; the Englishman into whose soul they 
have not sunk deep, is not worthy the name: 
you English boys for whom this book is meant 
( God bless your bright faces and kind hearts !) 
will learn it all soon enough. 

Into such a parish and state of society, Arthur's 
father had been thrown at the age of twenty-five, 
a young married parson, full of faith, hope, and 
love. He had battled with it like a man, and 
had lots of fine Utopian ideas about the perfect- 



46 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

ability of mankind, glorious liumariity, and such 
like knocked out of his head ; and a real, whole- 
some Christian love for the poor, struggling, 
sinning men, of whom he felt himself one, and 
with and for whom he spent fortune, and strength 
and life, driven into his heart. He had battled 
like a man, and gotten a man's reward. No sil- 
ver teapots or salvers, with flowery inscriptions, 
setting forth his virtues and the appreciation of 
a genteel parish; no fat living or stall, for which 
he never looked, and didn't care ; no sighs and 
praises of comfortable dowagers and well got-up 
young women, who worked him slippers, sugared 
his tea,and adored him as " a devoted man ; " but 
a manly respect, wrung from the unwilling souls 
of men who fancied his order their natural ene- 
mies ; the fear and hatred of every one who was 
false or unjust in the district, were he master or 
man; and the blessed sight of women and chil- 
dren daily becoming more human and more 
homely, a comfort to themselves and to their 
husbands and fathers. 

These things of course took time, and had to 
be fought for Avith toil and sweat of brain and 
heart, and with the life blood poured out. A โ–  '' 
that, Arthur had laid his account to give, a. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 41 

took as a matter of course ; neither pitying him- 
self, or looking on himself as a martyr, when he 
felt the wear and tear making him feel old before 
his time, and the stifling air of fever dens telling 
on his health. His wife seconded him in every- 
thing. She had been rather fond of society, and 
much admired and run after before her marriage ; 
and the London world to which she had belonged, 
pitied poor Fanny Evelyn when she married the 
young clergyman, and went to settle in that 
smoky hole Turley, a very nest of chartism and 
atheism, in a part of the county which all the 
decent families had had to leave for years. ' How- 
ever, somehow or other she didn't seem to care. 
If her husband's living had been amongst green 
fields and near pleasant neighbours, she would 
have liked it better, that she never pretended to 
deny. But there they were: the air wasn't bad 
after all ; the people were very good sort of peo- 
ple, civil to you if you were civil to them, after 
the first brush ; and they didn't expect to work 
miracles, and convert them all ofi-hand into 
model Christians.' So he and she went quietly 
among the folk, talking to and treating them 
just as they would have done people of their own 
rank. They didn't feel that they were doing 



48 BROWN AND ARTUUR. 

anytliing out of the common way, and so were 
perfectly natural, and had none of that condescen- 
sion or consciousness of manner, which so 
outrages the independent poor. And thus they 
gradually won respect and confidence ; and after 
sixteen years he was looked up to by the whole 
neighbourhood as the just man, the man to whom 
masters and men could go in their strikes, and 
all in their quarrels and difficulties, and by whom 
the right and true word would be said without 
fear or favour. And the women had come 
round to take her advice, and go to her as a 
friend in all their troubles ; while the children 
all worshipped the very ground she trod on. 

They had three children, two daughters and a 
son, little George, who came between his sisters. 
He had been a very delicate boy from his child- 
hood; they thought he had a tendency to 
consumption, and so he had been kept at home 
and taught by his father, who had made a 
companion of him, and from whom he had gained 
good scholarship, and a knowledge of and interest 
in many subjects which boys in general never 
come across till they are many years older. 

Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and 
his father had settled that he was strong enough 



BiiO'vVX AND ARTHUR. 49 

to go to school, and, after much debating with 
himself, had resolved to send him there, a des- 
perate typhus-fever broke out in the town ; most 
of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors, 
ran away ; the work fell with tenfold weight on 
those who stood to their work. Arthur and his 
wife both caught the fever, of which he died in 
a few days, and she recovered, having been able 
to nurse him to the end, and store up his last 
words. He was sensible to the last, and calm 
and happy, leaving his wife and children with 
fearless trust for a few years in the hands of the 
Lord and Friend who had lived and died for 
him, and for whom he, to the best of his power, 
had lived and died. His widow^s mourning 
was deep and gentle ; she was more affected by 
the request of the Committee of a Freethinking 
club, established in the town by some of the 
factory hands (which he had striven against with 
might and main, and nearly suppressed), that 
some of their number might be allowed to help 
bear the coffin, than any thing else. Two of 
them were chosen, who, with six other labouring 
men, his own fellow- workmen and friends, bore 
him to the grave โ€” a man who had fought the 

Lord's fight, even unto the death. The shops 
3c 



50 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

were closed, and the factories shut that day in 
the parish, yet no master stopped the day's 
wages; but for many a year afterwards the 
townsfolk felt the want of that brave, hopeful, 
loving parson, and his wife, who had lived to 
teach them mutual forbearance and helpfulness, 
and had almost at last given them a glimpse of 
what this old world would be, if people would 
live for God and each other, instead of for 
themselves. 

What has all this to do with our story ? Well, 
my dear boys, let a fellow go on his own way, 
or you won't get any thing out of him worth 
having. I must show you what sort of a man it 
was who had begotten and trained little Arthur, 
or else you won't believe in him, which I am 
resolved you shall do, and you won't see how he, 
the timid, weak boy, had points in him from 
which the bravest and strongest recoiled, and 
made his presence and example felt from the 
first, on all sides, unconsciously to himself, and 
without the least attempt at proselytizing. The 
spirit of his father was in him, and the Friend to 
whom his father had left him did not neglect the 
trust. 

After supper that night, and almost nightly 



BEOWN AND ARTHUR. 51 

for years afterwards, Tom and Arthur,, and by 
degrees East occasionally, and sometimes one, 
sometimes another, of their friends, read a chapter 
of the Bible together, and talked it over after- 
wards. Tom was at first utterly astonished, and 
almost shocked, at the sort of way in which 
Arthur read the book, and talked about the men 
and women whose lives were there told. The 
first night they happened to fall on the chapters 
about the famine in Egypt, and Arthur began 
talking about Joseph as if he were a living 
statesman ; just as he might have talked about 
Lord Grey and the Eeform Bill ; only that they 
were much more living realities to him. The 
book was to him, Tom saw, the most vivid and 
delightful history of real people, who might do 
right or wrong, just like any one who was 
walking about in Rugby โ€” the Doctor, or the 
master, or the sixth-form boys. But the aston- 
ishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to 
drop from his eyes, and the book became at once 
and forever, to him the great human and divine 
book, and the men and women, whom he had 
looked upon as something quite different from 
himself, became his friends and counsellors. 
For our purposes, however, the history of one 



52 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

night's reading Avill be snfficient, whicli must be 
told here, now we are on the subject, though it 
didn't happen till a year afterwards, and long 
after the events recorded in the next chapter of 
our story. 

Arthur, Tom and East were together one 
night, and read the story of Naaman coming to 
Elisha to be cured of his leprosy. When the 
chapter was finished, Tom shut the Bible with 
a slap. 

" I can't stand that fellow ISTaaman," said he, 
" after what he'd seen and felt, going back and 
bowing himself down in the house of Kimmon, 
because his efieminate scoundrel of a master did 
it. I wonder Elisha took the trouble to heal 
him. How he must have despised him." 

" Yes there you go off" as usual, with a shell 
on your head," stuck in East, who always took 
the opposite side to Tom; half from love of 
argument, half from conviction. " How do you 
know he didn't think better of it ? how do you 
know his master was a scoundrel ? His letter 
don't look like it, and the book don't say so." 

"I don't care," rejoined Tom; "why did 
Naaman talk about bowing down, then, if he 
didn't mean to do it ? He wasn't likely to ge 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 53 

more in earnest wlien he got back to court, and 
away from the prophet." 

"Well but, Tom," said Arthur, "see what Elisha 
says to him, ' Go in peace.' He wouldn't have 
said that if Naaman had been in the wrong." 

"I don't see that that means more than saying, 
' You're not the man I took you for.' " 

"No, no, that won't do at all," said East; "read 
the words fairly, and take men as you find them. 
I like Naaman, and think he was a very fine 
fellow." 

" I don't," said Tom positively. 

" Well, I think East is right," said Arthur ; 
" I can't see but what it's right to do the best 
you can, though it mayn't be the best absolutely. 
Every man isn't born to be a martyr." 

" Of course, of course," said East ; " but he's 
on one of his pet hobbies. How often have I 
told you, Tom, that you must drive a nail where 
it'll go." 

'' And how often have I told you," rejoined 
Tom, '^ that it'll always go where you want, if 
you only stick to it and hit hard enough. I 
hate half-measures and compromises." 

'' Yes, he's a whole-hog man, is Tom. Must 
have the whole animal, hair and teeth, claws and 



54 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

tail," laughed East. '' Sooner have no bread any 
day, than half the loaf." 

"I don't know," said Arthur, ''it's rather 
puzzling; but ain't most right things got by 
proper compromises, I mean where the princi- 
ple isn't given up ?" 

"That's just the point," said Tom; "I don't 
object to a compromise, where you don't give up 
your principle." 

" Not you," said East laughingly. '' I know 
him of old, Arthur, and you'll find him out some 
day. There isn't such a reasonable fellow in the 
world, to hear him talk. He never wants any- 
thing but what's right and fair ; only when you 
come to settle what's right and fair, it's every 
thing that he wants, and nothing that you want. 
And that's his idea of a compromise. Give me 
the Brown compromise when I'm on Ms side." 

"Now, Harry," said Tom, "no more chaff โ€” 
I'm serious. Look here โ€” this is what makes 
my blood tingle ;" and he turned over the pages 
of his Bible and read, " Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abednego answered and said to the king, " O 
Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer 
thee in this matter. If it he so, our God whom 
we berve is able to deliver us from the burning 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 55 

fiery furnace, and He will deliver ns out of thine 
hand, O king. But ^ not, be it known unto 
thee, king, that we will not serve thy gods, 
nor worship the golden image which thou hast 
set up. He read the last verse twice, emphasiz- 
ing the nots, and dwelling on them as if they 
gave him actual pleasure, and were hard to part 
with. 

They were silent a minute, and then Arthur 
said, " Yes that's a glorious story, but it don't 
prove your point, Tom, I think. There are 
times when there is only one way, and that the 
highest, and then the men are found to stand in 
the breach." 

" There's always a highest way, and it's always 
the right one," said Tom. " How many times 
has the Doctor told us that in his sermons in the 
last year, I should like to know ?" 

" Well, you ain't going to convince us, is he 
Arthur? No Brown compromise to-night," said 
East, looking at his watch. " But it's past eight 
and we must go to first lesson. What a bore." 

So they took down their books and fell to 
work; but Arthur didn't forget, and thought 
lono^ and often over the conversation. 



CHAPTER III, 

ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND. 

" Let nature be your teacher, 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 

Our meddling intellect 

Mis-shapcB the beauteous forms of things, 

โ– \Ve miirder to dissect โ€” 

Enough of Science and of Art ; 

Close up those barren leaves, 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 

That watches and receives."โ€” Wordsworth. 

About six weeks after the beginning of tlie 
half, as Tom and Arthur were sitting one night 
before supper beginning their verses, Arthur 
suddenly stopped, and looked up, and said, 
" Tom, do you know anything of Martin ?" 

" Yes," said Tom, taking his hand out of his 
back hair, and delighted to throw his Gradus ad 
Parnassum on to the sofa : " I know him pretty 
well. He's a very good fellow, but as mad as a 
hatter. He's called Madman, you know. And 
never was such a fellow for getting all sorts of 
rum things about him. He tamed two snakes 
last half, and used to carry them about in his 
pocket, and I'll be bound he's got some hedge- 
56 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 61 

hogs and rats in his cupboard now, and no one 
knows what besides." 

" I should like very much to know him," said 
Arthur ; " he was next to me in the form to-day, 
and he'd lost his book and looked over mine, 
and he seemed so kind and gentle, that I liked 
him very much." 

"Ah, poor old madman, he's always losing his 
books," said Tom, "and getting called up and 
floored because he hasn't got them." 

" I like him all the better," said Arthur. 

** Well, he's great fun, I can tell you," said 
Tom, throwing himself back on the sofa and 
chuckling at the remembrance. " We had such 
a game with him one day last half. He had 
been kicking up horrid scents for some time in 
his study, till I suppose some fellow told Mary, 
and she told the Doctor. Any how, one day a 
little before dinner, when he came down from 
the library, the Doctor, instead of going home, 
came striding into the hall. East and I and five 
or six other fellows were at the fire, and pre- 
ciously we stared, for he don't come in like that 
once a year, unless it's a wet day and there's a 
fight in the hall. "East," says he, "just come 
and show me Martin's study." ^' Oh, here's a 
3* 



58 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

game," whispered the rest of us, and we all cut 
up stairs after the Doctor, East leading. As we 
got into the New Row, which was hardly wide 
enough to hold the Doctor and his gown, click, 
click, click, we heard in the old madman's den. 
Then that stopped all of a sudden, and the bolts 
went to like fun : the madman knew East's step, 
and thought there was going to be a siege. 

" It's the Doctor, Martin. He's here and wants 
to see you," sings out East. 

' Then the bolts went back slowly, and the door 
opened, and there was the old madman standing, 
looking precious scared ; his jacket off, his shirt- 
sleeves up to his elbows, and his long skinny 
arms all covered with anchors and arrows and 
letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor- 
boy's, and a smell fit to knock you down coming 
out. 'Twas all the Doctor could do to stand his 
ground, and East and I, who were looking in 
under his arms, held our noses tight. The old 
magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his 
feathers drooping, and looking disgusted and 
half-poisoned. 

"'What can you be about, Martin?' says the 
Doctor ; ' you really mustn't go on in this way โ€” 
you're a nuisance to the whole passage.' 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. o9 

^" ' Please, sir, I was only mixing up this pow- 
der, there isn't any harm in it; and the madman 
seized nervously on his pestle and mortar, to 
show the Doctor the harmlessness of his pursuits, 
and went off pounding : click, click, click ; he 
hadn't given six clicks before, puff! up went the 
whole into a great blaze, away w^ent the pestle 
and mortar across the study, and back we tumbled 
into the passage. The magpie fluttered down 
into the court, screaming, and the madman danced 
out, howling, with his fingers in his mouth. 
The Doctor caught hold of him, and called to 
us to fetch some water. 'There, you silly fel- 
low,' said he, quite pleased though to find he 
wasn't much hurt, 'you see you don't know the 
least what you are doing with all these things ; 
and now, mind, you must give up practising 
chemistry by yourself.' Then he took hold of 
his arm and looked at it, and I saw he had to 
bite his lip, and his eyes twinkled ; but he said, 
quite grave, ' Here, you see, you've been making 
all these foolish marks on yourself, which you 
can never get out, and you'll be very sorry for 
it in a year or two; now come down to the 
housekeeper's room, and let us see if you are 
hurt.' And away went the two, and we all staid 



60 BROWN AND ARTHUR 

and had a regular turn-out of the den, till Martin 
came back with his hand bandaged and turned 
us out. However, I'll go and see what he's 
after, and tell him to come in after prayers to 
supper." And away went Tom to find the boy 
in question, who dwelt in a little study by him- 
self, in New Row. 

The aforesaid Martin, whom Arthur had taken 
such a fancy for, was one of those unfortunates, 
who were at that time of day (and are, I fear, 
still) quite out of their places at a public- school. 
If we knew how to use our boys, Martin would 
have been seized upon and educated as a natu- 
ral philosopher. He had a passion for birds, 
beasts, and insects, and knew more of them and 
their habits than any one in Rugby; except, 
perhaps, the Doctor, who knew everything. He 
was also an experimental chemist on a small 
scale, and had made unto himself an electric 
machine, from which it was his greatest pleasure 
and glory to administer small shocks to any 
small boys who were rash enough to venture 
into his study. And this was by no means an 
adventure free from excitement ; for, besides the 
probability of a snake dropping on to your head 
or twining lovingly up your leg, or a rat getting 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 61 

into your breeches-pocket in searcli of food, 
there was the animal and chemical odour to be 
faced, which always hung about the den, and 
the chance of being blo^Ti up in some of the 
many experiments which Martin was always 
trying, with the most wondrous results in the 
shape of explosions and smells that mortal boy 
ever heard of Of course, poor Martin, in con- 
sequence of his pursuits, had become an Ishma- 
elite in the house. In the first-place he half- 
poisoned all his neighbours, and they in turn 
were always on the look-out to pounce upon any 
of his numerous live stock, and drive him frantic, 
by enticing his pet old magpie out of his win- 
dow into a neighbouring study, and making the 
disreputable old bird drunk on toast soaked in 
beer and sugar. Then Martin, for his sins, in- 
habited a study looking into a small court some 
ten feet across, the window of which was com- 
pletely commanded by those of the studies 
opposite in the sick-room row, these latter be- 
ing at a slightly higher elevation. East, and 
another boy of an equally tormenting and inge- 
nious turn of mind, now lived exactly opposite, 
and had expended huge pains and time in the 
preparation of instruments of annoyance for the 



62 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

belioof of Martin and liis live colony. One 
morning an old basket made its appearance, sus- 
pended by a short cord outside Martin's window, 
in which were deposited an amateur nest contain- 
ing four young hungry jackdaws, the pride and 
glory of Martin's life for the time being, and 
which he was currently asserted to have hatched 
upon his own person. Early in the morning 
and late at night he was to be seen half out of 
the window, administering to the varied wants 
of his callow brood. After deep cogitation. 
East and his chum had spliced a knife on to the 
end of a fishing-rod ; and having watched Mar- 
tin out, had, after half an hour's severe sawing, 
cut the string by which the basket was suspended, 
and tumbled it on to the pavement below, with 
hideous remonstrance from the occupants. Poor 
Martin, returning from his short absence, col- 
lected the fragments and replaced his brood 
(except one whose neck had been broken in the 
descent) in their old location, suspending them 
this time by string and wire twisted together, 
defiant of any sharp instrument which his per- 
secutors could command. But, like the Kussian 
engineers at Sebastopol, East and his chum had 
an answer fv:>r every move of the adversary; 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 63 

and tlie next day had mounted a gun in the 
shape of a pea-shooter upon the ledge of their 
window, trained so as to bear exactly upon the 
spot which Martin had to occupy while tending 
his nurselings. The moment he began to feed 
they began to shoot; in vain did the enemy 
himself invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavour 
to answer the fire while he fed the young birds 
with his other hand ; his attention was divided, 
and his shots flew wild, while every one of theirs 
told on his face and hands, and drove him into 
howlings and imprecations. He had been driven 
to ensconce the nest in a corner of his already 
too well-filled den. 

His door was barricaded by a set of ingenious 
bolts of his own invention, for the sieges were 
frequent by the neighbours when any unusually 
ambrosial odour spread itself from the den to 
the neighbouring studies. The door panels were 
in a normal state of smash, but the frame of the 
door resisted all besiegers, and behind it, the 
owner carried on his varied pursuits; much in 
the same state of mind, I should fancy, as a 
border-farmer lived in, in the days of old moss- 
troopers, when his hold might be summoned or 
his cattle carried off at any minute of night or day. 



64 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

"Open, Martin, old boy โ€” it's only I, Tom 
Brown." 

"Oh, very well, stop a moment." One bolt 
went back. "You're sure East isn't tbere?" 

"JSTo, no, bang it, open." Tom gave a kick, 
the other bolt creaked, and he entered the den. 

Den indeed it was, about five feet six inches 
long by five wide, and seven feet high. About 
six tattered school-books, and a few chemical 
books. Taxidermy, Stanley on Birds, and an odd 
volume of Bewick, the latter in much better 
preservation, occupied the top shelves. The 
other shelves, where they had not been cut away 
and used by the owner for other purposes, were 
fitted up for the abiding places of birds, beasts, 
and reptiles. There was no attempt at carpet or 
curtain. The table was entirely occupied by the 
great work of Martin, the electric machine, which 
was covered carefully with the remains of his 
table-cloth. The jackdaw cage occupied one wall, 
and the other was adorned by a small hatchet, a 
pair of climbing irons, and his tin candle-box, in 
which, he was for the time being, endeavoring to 
raise a hopeful young family of field-mice. As 
nothing should be let to lie useless, it was well 
that the candle-box was thus occupied, for can- 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 65 

dies Martin never had. A pound was issued to 
him weekly, as to the other boys, but as candles 
were available capital, and easily exchangeable 
for birds'-eggs or young birds, Martin's pound 
invariably found its way in a few hours to How- 
lett's, the bird-fancier's in the Bilton road, who 
would give a hawk's or nightingale's egg, or 
young linnet, in exchange. Martin's ingenuity 
was therefore forever on the rack to supply him- 
self with a light ; just now he had hit upon a 
grand invention, and the den was lighted by a 
flaring cotton- wick issuing from a ginger-beer 
bottle full of some doleful composition. When 
light altogether failed him, Martin would loaf 
about by the fires in the passages or hall, after 
the manner of Biggs, and try to do his verses or 
learn his lines by the fire-light. 

" Well, old boy, you haven't got any sweeter 
in the den this half. How that stuff in the bot- 
tle smells. Never mind, I ain't going to stop, 
but you come up after prayers to our study ; you 
know young Arthur ; we've got Gray's study. 
We'll have a good supper and talk ^-bout bird's- 
nesting," 

Martin was evidently highly pleased at the 
invitation, and promised to be up without fail. 
3b2 



66 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

As soon as prayers were over, and tlie sixth 
and fiftli-form boys had withdrawn to the aristo- 
cratic seclusion of their own room, and the rest, 
or democracy, had sat down to their supper in 
the hall ; Tom and Arthur, having secured their 
allowances of bread and cheese, started on their 
feet to catch the eye of the pra^poster of the week, 
who remained in charge during supper, walking 
up and down the hall. He happened to be an 
easy-going fellow, so they got a pleasant nod to 
their "Please may I go out?" and away they 
scrambled to prepare for Martin a sumptuous 
banquet. This, Tom had insisted on, for he was 
in great delight on the occasion ; the reason of 
which delight must be expounded. The fact 
was, that this was the first attempt at a friendship 
of his own which Arthur had made, and Tom 
hailed it as grand step. The ease with which 
he himself became hail-fellow-well-met with any 
body, and blundered into and out of twenty 
friendships a half-year, made him sometimes sor- 
ry and sometimes angry at Arthur's reserve 
and loneliness. True, Arthur was always plea- 
sant, and even jolly, with any boys who came 
with Tom to their study ; but Tom felt that it 
was only through him, as it were, that his chum 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 6T 

associated with otliers, and that but for him Ar- 
thur would have been dwelling in a wilderness. 
This increased his consciousness of responsibil- 
ity ; and though he hadn't reasoned it out and 
made it clear to himself; yet somehow he knew 
that this responsibility, this trust which he had 
taken on him without thinking about it, head- 
over-heels in fact, was the centre and turning- 
point of his school-life, that which was to make 
him or mar him ; his appointed work and trial 
for the time being. And Tom was becoming a 
new boy, though Avith frequent tumbles in the 
dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and 
was daily growing in manfulness, and thought- 
fulness, as every high-couraged and well-princi- 
pled boy must, when he finds himself for the 
first time consciously at grips with self and the 
devil. Already he could turn almost without a 
sigh from the school gates, from which had just 
scampered off East and three or four others of 
his own particular set, bound for some jolly lark 
not quite according to law, and involving prob- 
ably a row with louts, keepers, or farm-labourers, 
the skipping dinner or calling-over, some of 
Phoebe Jennings's beer, and a very possible flog- 
ging at the end of all as a relish. He had quite got 



68 



BROWN AND ARTHUR, 



over the stage in wliicli lie would grumble to 
himself, " Well, hang it, it's very hard of the 
Doctor to have saddled me with Arthur. Why 
couldn't he have chummed him with Fogey, or 
Thomkin, or any of the fellows who never do 
anything but walk round the close, and finish 
their copies the first day they're set ? But al- 
though all this was past, he often longed, and 
felt that he was right in longing, for more time 
for the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, 
bathing, and fishing within bounds, in which 
Arthur could not yet be his companion; and 
he felt that when the young'un (as he now gen- 
erally called him) had found a pursuit and some 
other friend for himself, he should be able to 
give more time to the education of his own body 
with a clear conscience. h 

And now what he so wished for had come 
to pass ; he almost hailed it as a special provi- 
dence, (as indeed it was, but not for the reasons 
he gave for it โ€” what providences are ?) that 
Arthur should have singled out Martin of all 
fellows, for a friend. ''The old madman is the 
very fellow," thought he; "he will take him 
scrambling over half the country after birds* 
eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 69 

climb like an Indian, and not teach him a word 
of any thing bad, or keep him from his lessons. 
What luck I" And so, with more than his 
usual heartiness, he dived into his cupboard, 
and hauled out an old knuckle-bone of ham, 
and two or three bottles of beer, together with 
the solemn pewter, only used on state occasions ; 
while Arthur, equally elated at the easy accom- 
plishments of his first act of violation in the 
joint establishment, produced from his side a 
bottle of pickles, and a pot of jam, and cleared 
the table. In a minute or two the noise of the 
boys coming up from supper was heard, and 
Martin knocked and was admitted, bearing his 
bread and cheese, and the three fell to with 
hearty go'od will upon the viands, talking faster 
than they eat, for all shyness disappeared in a 
moment before Tom's bottled-beer and hospitable 
ways. " Here's Arthur, a regular young town- 
mouse, with a natural taste for the woods, Mar- 
tin, longing to break his neck climbing trees, and 
with a passion for young snakes." 

" Well I say," sputtered out Martin eagerly, 
''will you come to-morrow, both of you, to 
Caldecott's Spinney then, for I know of a kes- 
trel's nest, up a fir tree โ€” I can't get at it without 



10 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

help ; and, Brown, you can climb against any 
one." 

" yes, do let ns go," said Arthur ; I never 
saw a hawk's nest or a hawk's egg^ 

"You just come down to my study then, and 
I'll show you five sorts," said Martin. 

" Aye, the Old madman has got the best collec- 
tion in the house, out-and-out," said Tom ; and 
then Martin, warming with unaccustomed good 
cheer and the chance of a convert, launched 
out into a proposed birds'-nesting campaign, be- 
traying all manner of important secrets ; a gol- 
den-crested wren's nest near Butlin's Mound, a 
moor-hen who was sitting on fourteen eggs in a 
pond down the Barbyroad, and a kingfisher's 
nest in a corner of the old canal abova Browns- 
over Mill. He had heard, he said, that no one 
had ever got a kingfisher's nest out perfect, and 
that the Brtish Museum, or the Government, or 
somebody, had offered ยฃ100 to any one who 
could bring them a nest and eggs not damaged. 
In the middle of which astounding announce- 
ment, to which the others were listening with 
open ears, and already considering the applica- 
tion of the ยฃ100, a knock came to the door, and 
East's voice was heard craving admittance. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 71 

''There's Harry," said Tom, " we'll let him in โ€” 
I'll keep him steady, Martin. I thought the old 
boy would smell out the supper. 

The fact was, that Tom's heart tad already 
smitten him, for not asking his ' fidus Achates ' 
to the feast, although only an extempore affair; 
and though prudence and the desire to get Mar- 
tin and Arthur together alone at first, had over- 
come his scruples, he was now heartily glad to 
open the door, broach another bottle of beer, 
and hand over the old ham-knuckle to the search- 
ing of his old friend's pocketknife. 

'' Ah, you greedy vagabonds," said East, with 
his mouth full, " I knew there was something 
going on, when I saw you cut off out of the 
hall so quick with your suppers. What a stun- 
ning tap, Tom ! you are a wunner for bottling 
the swipes." 

" I've had practice enough for the sixth in my 
time, and it's hard if I haven^t picked up a 
wrinkle or two for my own benefit." 
. " Well old madman, and how goes the birds'- 
nesting campaign? How's Howlet. I expect 
the young rooks'll be out in another fortnight, 
and then my turn comes." 

''There'll be no young rooks fit for pies for a 



12 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

month yet ; shows how much you know about 
it," rejoined Martin, who, though very good 
friends with East, regarded him with considera- 
ble suspicicfh for his propensity in practical 
jokes. 

" Scud knows nothing and cares for nothing 
but grub and mischief," said Tom ; *' but young 
rook pie, 'specially when you've had to climb 
for them, is very pretty eating. However, I say. 
Scud, we're all going after a hawk's nest to- 
morrow, in Caldecott's Spinney, and if you'll 
come and behave yourself, we'll have a stunning 
climb." 

" And a bathe in Aganippe, Hooray ! I'm 
your man." 

No, no ; no bathing in Aganippe ; that's where 
our betters go." 

"Well, well, never mind. I'm for the kawk's 
nest and anything that turns up." 

And the bottled-beer being finished, and his 
hunger appeased, East departed to his study, 
'Hhat sneak Jones," as he informed them, who 
had just got into the sixth and occupied the 
next study, having instituted a nightly visitation 
upon East and his chum, to their no small dis- 
comfort. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 73 

When he was gone, Martin rose to follow, but 
Tom stopped him. "No one goes near New 
Eow," said he, "so you may just as well stop here 
and do your verses, and then we'll have some 
more talk. We'll be no end quiet; besides no 
priTeposter comes here now โ€” we haven't been 
visited once this half." 

So the table was cleared, the cloth restored, 
and the three fell to work with Gradus and dic- 
tionary upon the morning's vulgus. 

They were three very fair examples of the 
way in which such tasks were done at Rugby, 
in the consulship of Plancus. And doubtless 
the method is little changed, for there is nothing 
new under the sun, especially at schools. 

Now be it known unto all you boys who are at 
schools which do not rejoice in the time-honoured 
institution of the vulgus, (commonly supposed 
to have been established by William of Wyke- 
ham at Winchester, and imported to Rugby by 
Arnold, more for the sake of the lines which were 
learnt by heart with it, than for its intrinsic value, 
as I've always understood,) that it is a short ex- 
ercise, in Greek or Latin verse, on a given sub- 
ject, the minimum number of lines being fixed 
for each form. The master of the form gave out 



*li BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

at fourth lesson on the previous day the subject 
for next morning's vulgus, and at first lesson 
each boy had to bring his vulgus ready to be 
looked over ; and with the vulgus, a certain 
number of lines from one of the Latin or Greek 
poets, then being construed in the form, had to 
be got by heart. The master at first lesson, 
called up each boy in the form in order, and put 
him on in the lines. If he couldn't say them, 
or seem to say them, by reading them off the 
master's or some other boy's book who stood 
near, he was sent back, and went below all the 
boys who did so say or seem to say them ; but 
m either case his vulgus was looked over by the 
master, who gave and entered in his book, to the 
credit or discredit o^ the boy, so many marks 
as the composition merited. At Eugby, vulgus 
and lines were the first lesson every other day 
in the week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sat- 
urdays; and as there were thirty-eight weeks 
in the school year, it is obvious to the meanest 
capacity that the master of each form had to set 
one hundred and fourteen subjects every year, 
two hundred and twenty-eight every two years, 
and so on. Now to persons of moderate inven- 
tion this was a considerable task, and human 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. t5 

nature being prone to repeat itself, it will not 
be wondered that the masters gave the same , 
subjects sometimes over again after a certain 
lapse of time. To meet and rebuke this bad 
habit of the masters, the school-boy mind, with 
its accustomed ingenuity, had invented an elab- 
orate system of tradition. Almost every boy 
kept his own vnlgus written out in a book, and 
these books were duly handed down from boy 
to boy, till (if the tradition has gone on till 
now) I suppose the popular boys, in whose 
hands bequeathed vulgus-books have accumula- 
ted, are prepared with three or four vulguses 
on any subject in heaven or earth, or in "more 
worlds than one, " which an unfortunate master 
can pitch upon. At any rate, such lucky fellows 
generally had one for themselves and one for a 
friend in my time. The only objection to the 
traditionary method of doing your vulgus was, 
the risk that the successions might have become 
confused, and so that you and another follower 
of tradition should show up the same identical 
vulsrus some fine morninsr, in which case, when 
it happened, considerable grief was the result โ€” 
but when did such risks hinder boys or men 
from short cuts and pleasant paths? 



76 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 



Now in the study that night, Tom was the up- 
holder of the traditionary method of vulgus 
doing. He carefully produced two large vulgus- 
books, and began diving into them, and picking 
out a line here, and an ending there (tags as 
they were vulgarly called,) till he had gotten 
all that he thought he could make fit. He then 
proceeded to patch his tags together with the 
help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous 
and feeble result of eight elegiac lines, the 
minimum quantity for his form, and finishing 
up with two highly moral lines extra, making 
ten in all, which he cribbed entire from one of his 
books, beginning "O genus humanum," and 
which he himself must have used a dozen times 
before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, 
of whatever nation or language under the sun, 
w^as the subject. Indeed he began to have great 
doubts whether the master wouldn't remember 
them, and so only threw them in as extra lines, 
because in any case they would call off' attention 
from the other tags, and if detected, being extra 
lines, he wouldn't be sent back to do two more 
in their place, while if they passed muster again 
he would get marks for them. 

The second method, pursued by Martin, may 



BllOWN AND ARTHUR. Yt 

be called the dogged, or prosaic method. He, 
no more than Tom, took any pleasure in the 
task, but having no old vulgus-books of his own 
or any one's else, could not follow the tradition- 
ary method, for which, too, as Tom remarked, 
he hadn't the genius. Martin then proceeded 
to write down eight lines in English, of the most 
matter-of-fact kind, the first that came into his 
head ; and to convert these, line by line, by main 
force of Gradus and dictionary, into Latin that 
would scan. This was all he cared for, to pro- 
duce eight lines with no false quantities or con- 
cords: whether the words were apt, or what the 
sense was, mattered nothing; and, as the article 
was all new, not a line beyond the minimum did 
the followers of the dogged method ever produce. 
The third, or artistic method, was Arthur's. 
He considered first what point in the character 
or event which was the subject could most neatly 
be brought out within the limits of a vulgus, 
trying always to get his idea into the eight lines, 
but not binding himself to ten or even twelve 
lines if he couldn't do this. He then set to 
work, as much as possible without Gradus or 
other help, to clothe his idea in appropriate 
Latin or Greek, and would not be satisfied till 



Y8 BROWN AM) ARTHUR. 

he had polished it well up Avith the aptest and 
most poetic words and phrases he could get at. 

A fourth method indeed was in use in the 
school, but of too simple a kind to require de- 
scription. It may be called the vicarious method, 
obtained amongst big boys of lazy or bully- 
ing habits, and consisted simply in making 
clever boys whom they could thrash, do their 
whole vulgus for them, and construe it to them 
afterwards; which latter is a method not to be 
encouraged, and which I strongly advise you 
all not to practice. Of the others you will find 
the traditionary most troublesome, unless you 
can steal your vulguses whole (experto crede) 
and that the artistic method pays the best, both 
in marks and other ways. 

The vulguses being finished by nine o'clock, 
and Martin having rejoiced above measure in 
the abundance of light, and of Gradus and dic- 
tionary, and other conveniences almost unknown 
to him for getting through the work, and having 
been pressed by Arthur to come and do his verses 
there whenever he liked, the three boys went 
down to Martin's den, and Arthur was initiated 
into the lore of birds' eggs to his great delight. 
The exquisite colouring and forms astonished 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 19 

and cliarmed him who had scarcely ever seen 
any but a hen's egg or an ostrich's, and by the 
time he was lugged away to bed he had learned 
the names of at least twenty sorts, and dreamt 
of the glorious perils of tree-climbing, and that 
he had found a roc's egg in the island as big as 
Sinbad's, and clouded like a tit-lark's in blowing 
which, Martin and he had nearly been drowned 
in the yolk. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FEVER IN THE SCHOOL. 

'This our hope for all that's mortal, 

And we too shall burst the bond ; 
Death keeps watch beside the portal, 

But 'tis life that dwells beyond." 

John Stkrmno. 

Two years have passed since the events re- 
corded in the last chapter, and the end of the 
summer half-year is again drawing on. Martin 
has left and gone on a cruise in the South Paci- 
fic; in one of his uncle's ships ; the old magpie, 
as disreputable as ever, his last bequest to Ar- 
thur, lives in the joint study. Arthur is nearly 
sixteen, and at the head of the twenty, having 
gone up the school at the rate of a form a half- 
year. East and Tom have been much more de- 
liberate in their progress, and are only a little 
way up the fifth form. Great strapping boys 
they are, but still thorough boys, filling about 
the same place in the house that young Brooke 
filled when they were new boys, and much the 

same sort of fellows. Constant intercourse with 
80 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 81 

Arthur has done much for both of them, espe- 
cially for Tom ; but much remains yet to be done, 
if they are to get all the good out of Rugby 
which is to be got there in these times. Arthur 
is still frail and delicate, with more spirit than 
body; but thanks to his intimacy with Tom and 
Martin, has learned to swim, and run, and play 
cricket, and has never hurt himself by too much 
reading. 

One evening as they were all sitting down to 
supper in the fifth-form room, some one started 
a report that a fever had broken out at one of 
the boarding-houses; "they say," he added, "that 
Thompson is very ill, and that Dr. Robertson 
has been sent for from Northampton." 

"Then we shall all be sent home," cried an- 
other. "Hurrah! five weeks' extra holidays, 
and no fifth-form examination !" 

"I hope not," said Tom; "there'll be no 
Marylebone match then at the end of the half." 

Some thought one thing, some another, many 
didn't believe the report; but the next day, 
Tuesday, Dr. Robertson arrived, and stayed all 
day, and had long conferences with the Doctor. 

On "Wednesday morning, after prayers, the 
Doctor addressed the whole school. There were 



82 BROWN AND ARTHUE. 

several cases of fever in different houses, lie said, 
but Dr. Eobertson after the most careful exami- 
nation had assured him that it was not infectious, 
and that if proper care were taken there could 
be no reason for stopping the school work at 
present. The examinations were just coming 
on, and it would be very unadvisable to break 
up now. However, any boys who chose to do 
so were at liberty to write home, and, if their 
parents wished it, to leave at once. He should 
send the whole school home if the fever spread. 

The next day Arthur sickened, but there was 
no other case. Before the end of the week 
thirty or forty boys had gone, but the rest stayed 
on. There was a general wish to please the 
Doctor, and a feeling that it was cowardly to 
run away. 

On the Saturday Thompson died, in the bright 
afternoon, while the cricket-match was going on 
as usual on the big-side ground; the Doctor, 
coming from his death-bed, passed along the 
gravel-walk at the side of the close, but no one 
knew what had happened till the next day. 
At morning lecture it began to be rumored, and 
by afternoon chapel was known generally ; and 
a feeling of seriousness and awe at the actual 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 83 

presence of death among them, came over the 
whole school. In all the long years of his min- 
istry the Doctor perhaps never spoke words 
which sank deeper than some of those in that 
day's sermon. " When I came yesterday from 
visiting all but the very death-bed of him who 
has been taken from us, and looked around upon 
all the familiar objects and scenes within our 
own ground, where your common amusements 
were going on, with your common cheerfulness 
and activity, I felt there was nothing painful in 
witnessing that ; it did not seem in any way shock- 
ing or out of tune with those feelings which the 
sight of a dying Christian must be supposed to 
awaken. The unsuitableness in point of natural 
feeling between scenes of mourning and scenes of 
liveliness did not at all present itself. But I did 
feel that if at that moment any of those faults had 
been brought before me which sometimes occur 
amongst us ; had I heard that any of you had 
been guilty of falsehood, or of drunkenness, or 
of any other such sin ; had I heard from any 
quarter the language^of profaneness, or of un- 
kindness, or of indecency ; had I heard or seen 
any signs of that wretched folly, which courts 
the laugh of fools by affecting not to dread evil 



S4 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

and not to care for good, then the unsuitableness 
of any of these things with the scene I had just 
quitted would indeed have been most intensely- 
painful. And why ? Not because such things 
would really have been worse than at any other 
time, but because at such a moment the eyes are 
opened really to know good and evil, because 
we then feel what it is so to live as that death 
becomes an infinite blessing, and what it is so to 
live also, that it were good for us if we had 
never been born. 

Tom had gone into the chapel in sickening 
anxiety about Arthur, but he came out cheered 
and strengthened by those grand words, and 
walked up alone to their study. And when he sat 
down and looked round, and saw Arthur's straw- 
hat and cricket-jacket hanging on their pegs, and 
marked all his little neat arrangements, not one 
of which had been disturbed, the tears indeed 
rolled down his cheeks, but they were calm and 
blessed tears, and he repeated to himself, ''Yes, 
Geordie's eyes are opened โ€” he knows what it is 
so to live as that death becomes an infinite bless- 
ing. But do I ? Oh God, can I bear to lose 
him? 

The week passed mournfully away. No more 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 85 

boys sickened, but Arthur was reported worse 
each day, and his mother arrived early in the 
week. Tom made many appeals to be allowed to 
see him, and several times tried to get up to the 
sick-room ; but the housekeeper was always in 
the way, and at last spoke to the Doctor, who 
kindly, but peremptorily forbade him. 

FROM STANLEY'S LIFE OF ARNOLD. 

It was after a season of sickness of this kind, that Dr. 
Arnold returning one morning from the death-bed of one 
of the boys, was much troubled to find that the change 
in his feelings from attendance on this bed of sickness 
and death had been very great ; he thought there ought 
not to be such a contrast, and, that it was probably owing 
to the school work not being sufficiently sanctified to 
God's glory โ€” that if, it were in truth a religion work, the 
transition to it from a death-bed would be slight ; he there- 
fore intended for the future to offer an especial prayer be- 
fore the first lesson, that the day's work might be under- 
taken and carried on, solely to the glory of God and their 
improvements. 

The subjoined is the prayer, used ever after, 
until the mournful day of Dr. Arnold's death : โ€” 

O Lord, who by Thy Holy Apostle has taught us to do 
all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, and to Thy 
glory, give Thy blessing, we pray Thee to this our daily 
work, that we may do it in faith and heartily, as to the 
Lord, and not unto men. All our powers of body and 
mind are thine, and we would fain devote them to Thy 
service. Sanctify them and the work in which they are 



86 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

engaged ; let us not be slothful, but fervent in spirit ; and 
do thou, O Lord, so bless our efforts, that they may 
bring forth in us the fruits of true wisdom. 

Strengthen the faculties of our minds, and dispose us to 
exert them ; but, let us always remember to exert them 
for Thy glory, and save us from all pride or vanity, or 
reliance upon our own powers or wisdom. Teach us to 
seek after truth, and enable us to gain it ; but grant that 
we may ever speak the truth in love ; that, while we know 
earthly things, we may know Thee, and be known by 
Thee, in and through Thy Son Jesus Christ. Give us this 
day Thy Holy Spirit, that we may be thine in body and 
in spirit, in all our work and in all our refreshments, 
through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord. Amen. 

Thompson was buried on the Tuesday, and 
the burial service; so soothing and grand always, 
but beyond all words solemn when read over a 
boy's grave to his companions, brought Tom 
much comfort, and many strange new thoughts 
and longings. He went back to his regular 
life, and played cricket and bathed as usual: 
it seemed to him that this was the right thing 
to do, and the new thoughts and longings be- 
came more brave and healthy for the effort. 
The crisis came on Saturday, the day week that 
Thompson had died ; and during that long af- 
ternoon Tom sat in his study reading his Bible, 
and going every half-hour to the housekeeper's 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 87 

room; expecting each time to hear that the gen- 
tle and brave little spirit had gone home. But 
God had work for Arthur to do; the crisis 
passed โ€” on Sunday evening he was declared 
out of danger; on Monday he sent a message to 
Tom that he was almost well, had changed his 
room, and was to be allowed to see him the 
next day. 

It was evening when the housekeeper sum- 
moned him to the sick-room. Arthur was lying 
on the sofa by the open window, through which 
the rays of the western sun stole gently, light- 
ing up his white face and golden hair. Tom 
remembered a German picture of an angel which 
he knew ; often had he thought how transparent 
and golden and spirit-like it was ; and he shud- 
dered to think how like it Arthur looked, and 
felt a shock as if his blood had all stopped short, 
as he realized how near the other world his 
friend must have been to look like that. Never 
till that moment had he felt how his little chum 
had twined himself round his heart-strings ; and 
as he stole gently across the room, and knelt 
down, and put his arm round Arthur's head on 
the pillow, felt ashamed and half angry at his 
own red and brown face, and the bounding 



88 BROWN AND AQTHUR. 

sense of health and power which filled every 
fibre of his body, and made every moment of 
mere living, a joy to him. He needn't have 
troubled himself, it was this very strength and 
power so different from his own which drew 
Arthur so to him. 

Arthur laid his thin white hand, on which 
the blue veins stood out so plainly, on Tom's 
great brown fist, and smiled at him ; and then 
looked out of the window again, as if he couldn't 
bear to lose a moment of the sunset, into the' 
tops of the great feathery elms, round which the 
rooks were circling and clanging, returned in 
flocks from their evening's foraging parties. 
The elms rustled, the sparrows in the ivy just 
outside the window chirped and fluttered about, 
quarrelling and making it up again ; the rooks, 
young and old, talked in chorus, and the merry 
shouts of the boys, and the sweet click of the 
cricket-bats, came up cheerily from below. 

"Dear George," said Tom, " I am so glad to 
be let up to see you at last. I've tried hard to 
come so often, but they wouldn't let me before." 

" Oh, I know, Tom ; Mary has told me every 
day about you, and how she was obliged to 
make the Doctor speak to you to keep you away. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 89 

I'm very glad you didn't get up, for you might 
have caught it, and you couldn't stand being ill 
with all the matches going on. And you're in 
the eleven, too, I hear โ€” I'm so glad." 

"Yes, ain't it jolly?" said Tom, proudly; 
I'm ninth too. I made forty at the last pie- 
match, and caught three fellows out. So I was 
put in above Jones and Tucker. Tucker's so 
savage, for he was head of the twenty -two. 

" Well, I think you ought to be higher yet," 
said Arthur, who was as jealous for the renown 
of Tom in games, as Tom was for his as a 
scholar. 

"Never mind, I don't care about cricket or 
any thing now you are getting well, Geordie ; 
and I shouldn't have been hurt, I know, if they'd 
have let me come up, โ€” nothing hurts me. But 
you'll get about now directly, won't you? You 
won't believe how clean I've kept the study. 
All your things are just as you left them; and I 
feed the old magpie just when you used, though 
I have to come in from big-side for him, the old 
rip. He won't look pleased, all I can do, and 
sticks his head first on one side and then on the 
other, and blinks at me before he'll begin to eat, 
till I'm half inclined to box his ears. And 



90 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

whenever East comes in, you should see him 
hop off to the window, dot and go one, though 
Harry wouldn't touch a feather of him now." 

Arthur laughed. " Old Gravey has a good 
memory, he can't forget the sieges of poor Mar- 
tin's den in old times. He paused a moment 
and then went on. " You can't think how often 
I've been thinking of old Martin since I've been 
ill ; I suppose one's mind gets restless, and likes 
to wander off to strange unknown places. I 
wonder what queer new pets the old boy has 
got ; how he must be revelling in the thousand 
new birds, beasts, and fishes." Tom felt a pang 
of jealousy, but kicked it out in a moment. 
"Fancy him on a South-sea island, with the 
Cherokees or Patagonians, or some such wild 
niggers ;" (Tom's ethnology and geography were 
faulty, but sufficient for his needs;) ''they'll 
make the old madman cock medicine-man, and 
tattoo him all over. Perhaps he's cutting about 
now all blue, and has a squaw and a wigwam. 

He'll improve their boomarangs, and be able 
to throw them too, without having old Thomas 
sent after him by the Doctor to take them away." 

Arthur laughed at the remembrance of the 
boomarang story, but then looked grave again, 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 91 

and said, " He'll convert all the Island, I know." 

" Yes if he don't blow it up first." 

" Do you remember, Tom, how you and East 
used to laugh at him and chaff him, because he 
said he was sure the rooks all had calling-over, 
or prayers, or something of the sort, when the 
locking-up bell rang. Well, I declare," said 
Arthur, looking up seriously into Tom's laugh- 
ing eyes, '' I do think he was right. Since I've 
been lying here I've watched them every night ; 
and do you know they really do come and perch 
all of them just about locking-up time; and then 
first there's a regular chorus of caws, and then 
they stop a bit, and one old fellow, or perhaps two 
or three in different trees, caw solos, and then off 
they all go again, fluttering about and cawing 
any how till they roost." 

"I wonder if the old blackies do talk?" said 
Tom, looking up at them. "How they must 
abuse me and East, and pray for the Doctor for 
stopping the slinging." 

''There! Iqok! look!" cried Arthur, ''don't 
you see the old fellow without a tail coming up ? 
Martin used to call him 'the clerk.' He can't 
steer himself. You never saw such" fun as he is 
in a high wind, when he can't steer himself 



92 BROWN AND ARTHUR, 

home, and gets carried right past the trees, and 
has to bear up again and again before he can 
perch." 

The locking-np bell began to toll, and the 
two boys were silent and listened to it. The 
sound soon carried Tom off to the river and the 
woods, and he began to go over in his mind the 
many occasions on which he had heard that 
toll coming faintly down the breeze, and had to 
pack up his rod in a hurry and make a run for 
it, to get in before the gates were shut. He was 
roused with a start from his memories by 
Arthur's voice, gentle and weak from his late 
illness. 

" Tom, will you be angry if I talk to you 
very seriously ?" 

'^No, dear old boy, not I. But ain't you 
faint, Arthur, or ill? What can I get for you? 
Don't say anything to hurt yourself now, you 
are very weak ; let me come up again ?" 

"NO; no, I shan't hurt myself; I'd sooner 
speak to you now, if you don't mind. I've 
asked Mary to tell the Doctor that you are with 
me, so you needn't go down to calling-over ; and 
I mayn't have another chance, for I shall most 
likely have to go home for change of air to get 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 93 

well, and mayn't come back tliis half." ^ 

" Oh, do you think you must go away before 
the end of the half? I'm so sorry. It's more 
than five weeks yet to the holidays, and all the 
fifth-form examination and half the cricket 
matches to come yet. And what shall I do all 
that time alone in our study ? Why, Arthur, 
it will be more than twelve weeks before I see 
you again. Oh, hang it, I can't stand that. 

Besides who's to keep me up to working at 
the examination books ? I shall come out bot- 
tom of the form, as sure as eggs is eggs.' 

Tom was rattling on, half in joke, half in 
earnest, for he wanted to get Arthur out of his 
serious vein, thinking it would do him harm 
but Arthur broke in โ€” ' 

" Oh, please Tom, stop, or you'll drive all I 
had to say out of my head. And I'm already 
horribly afraid I'm going to make you angry.'' 

"Don't gammon, young'un," rejoined Tom, 
(the use of the old name, dear to him from old 
recollections, made Arthur start and smile, and 
feel quite happy;) "you know you ain't afraid 
and you've never made me angry since the 
first month we chummed together. Now I'm 
going to be quite sober for a quarter of an hour. 



94 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

whicli is more tlian I am once in a year, so 
make the most of it; heave ahead, and pitch 
into me right and left." 

Dear Tom, I ain t going to pitch into you," 
said Arthur piteously ; " and it seems so cocky 
in me to be advising you, who've been my back- 
bone ever since I've been at Kugby, and have 
made the school a paradise to me. Ah, I see I 
shall never do it, unless I go head-over-heels at 
once, as you said when you taught me to swim. 
Tom, I want you to give up using vulgus-books 
and cribs." 

Arthur sank back on to his pillow with a 
sigh, as if the efifort had been great ; but the 
worst was now over, and he looked straight at 
Tom, who was evidently taken aback. He 
leant his elbows on his knees and stuck his 
hands into his hair, whistled a verse of Billy 
Taylor, and then was quite silent for another 
minute. Not a shade crossed his face, but he 
was clearly puzzled. At last he looked up and 
caught Arthur's anxious look, took his hand, 
and said simply โ€” 

" Why, young'un ?" 

"Because you're the honcstest boy in Rugby, 
and that ain't honest." 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 95 

"I don't see that." 

What were you sent to Eugby for?" 

"Well; I don't know exactly โ€” nobody ever 
told me. I suppose because all boys are sent to 
a public school in England." 

" But what do you think yourself? What do 
you want to do here and to carry away?" 

Tom thought a minute. "I want to be A 1 
at cricket and football, and all the other games, 
and to make my hands keep my head against 
any fellow, lout or gentleman. I want to get 
into the sixth before I leave, and please the 
Doctor ; and I want to carry away just as much 
Latin and Greek as will take me through Ox- 
ford respectably. There now, young'un, I never 
thought of it before, but that's pretty much my 
figure. Ain't it all on the square? What have 
you got to say to that ?" 

"Why, that you're pretty sure to do all that 
you want then." 

"Well, I hope so. But you've forgot one 
thing, that I want to leave behind me. I want 
to leave behind me," said Tom, speaking slow 
and looking much moved, "the name of a fellow 
who never bullied a little boy, or turned his 
back on a big one." 



96 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

Arthur pressed his haud, and after a moment's 
silence went on: ''You say, Tom, you want to 
please the Doctor. Now do you want to please 
him by what he thinks you do, or by what you 
really do?" 

"By what I really do, of course." 

"Does he think you use cribs and vulgus- 
books?" 

Tom felt at once that his flank was turned, 
but he couldn't give in. "He was at Winchester 
himself, said he, " he knows all about it'.' 

" Yes, but does he think you use them ? Do 
you think he approves of it?" 

''You young villain," said Tom, shaking his 
fist at Arthur half vexed and halt pleased, "I 
never think about it. Hang it โ€” there, perhaps 
he don't. Well, I suppose he don't." 

Arthur saw that he had got his point; he 
knew his friend well, and was wise in silence as 
in speech. He only said, "I would sooner have 
the Doctor's good opinion of me as I really am, 
than any man's in the world." 

After another minute Tom besran ae^ain: 
"Look here, young'un, how on earth am I to 
get time to play the matches this half, if I give 
up cribs? We're in the middle of that long 



I 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 91 

crabbed choras in the Agamemnon, I can only 
just make bead or tail of it with the crib. Then 
there's Pericles' speech coming on in Thucydides, 
and the 'Birds' to get up for the examination, be- 
sides the Tacitus. Tom groaned at the thought 
of his accumulated labours. '' I say, young'un, 
there's only five weeks or so left to holidays, 
mayn't I go on as usual for this half? I'll tell the 
Doctor about it some day, or you may." 

Arthur looked out of the window ; the twi- 
light had come on and all was silent. He re- 
peated in a low voice, ''In this thing the Lord, 
pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth 
into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and 
he leaneth on my hand, and I bow down myself 
in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy 
servant in this thing." 

Not a word more was said on the subject, and 
the boys were again silent. One of those blessed 
short silences, in which the resolves which colour 
a life are so often taken. 

Tom was the first to break it. " You've been 

very ill indeed, haven't you, Geordie ?" said he 

with a mixture of awe and curiosity, feeling as 

if his friend had been in some strange place or 

scene, of which he could form no idea, and full 
5e 



98 BROWN AND ARTIIL'R. 

of tlie memory of his own thoughts during the 
last week. 

" Yes, ver}^ I'm sure the Dcxjtor thought I 
was going to die. He gave me the Sacrament 
last Sunday, and you can't think what he is when 
one is ill. He said such brave, and tender, and 
gentle things to me, I felt quite light and strong 
after it, and never had any more fear. My 
mother brought our old medical man, who at- 
tended me when I was a poor sickly child ; he 
said my constitution was quite changed, and 
that ' I'm fit for anything now. If it hadn't, I 
couldn't have stood three days of this illness. 
That's all thanks to you, and the games you've 
made me fond of" 

" More thanks to old Martin," said Tom ; " he's 
been your real friend." 

"ISTonsense, Tom, he never could have done 
for me what you have." 

"Well, I don't know, I did little enough. Did 
they tell you โ€” you won't mind hea,ring it now, 
I know โ€” that poor Thompson died last week ? 
The other three boys are getting quite round, 
like you." 

" Oh, yes, I heard of it." 

Then Tom, who was quite full of it, told 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 99 

Arthur of tiie burial service in the chapel, and 
how it had impressed him, and, he believed, all 
the other boys. " And though the Doctor never 
said a word about it," said he, " and it was a 
half-holiday and match day, there wasn't a game 
played in the close all the afternoon, and the 
boys all went about as if it were Sunday." 

"I'm very glad of it," said Arthur. "But, 
Tom, I've had such strange thoughts about death 
lately. I've never told a soul of them, not even 
my mother. Sometimes I think they're wrong, but, 
do you know, I don't think in my heart I could 
be very sorry at the death of any of my friends." 

Tom was taken quite aback. "What in the 
world is the young'un after now," thought he ; 
" I've swallowed a good many of his crotchets, but 
this altogether beats me. He can't be quite right 
in his head." He didn't want to say a word, and 
shifted about uneasily in the dark; however, 
Arthur seemed to be waiting for an answer, so 
at last he said, "I don't think I quite see what 
you mean, Greordie. One's told so often to think 
about death, that I've tried it on sometimes, es- 
pecially this last week. But we won't talk of it 
now. I'd better go โ€” you're getting tired, and I 
shall do you harm." 



100 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

" No, no, indeed I ain't, Tom ; you must stop 
till nine, there's only twenty minutes. I've set- 
tled you shall stop till nine. And oh ! do let 
me talk to you โ€” I must talk to you. I see it's 
just as I feared. You think I'm half mad โ€” don't 
you now ?" 

"Well, I did think it odd what you said, 
Geordie, as you ask me." 

Arthur paused a moment, and then said 
quickly, "I'll tell you how it all happened. At 
first, when I was sent to the sick-room and found 
I had really got the fever, I was terribly fright- 
ened. I thought I should die, and I could not 
face it for a moment. I don't think it was sheer 
cowardice at first, but I thought how hard it was 
to be taken away from my mother and sisters and 
you all, just as I was beginning to see my way 
to many things, and to feel that I might be a 
man and do a man's work. To die without hav- 
ing fought, and worked, and given one's life 
away, was too hard to bear. I got terribly im- 
patient, and accused God of injustice, and strove 
to justify myself; and the harder I strove the 
deeper I sank. Then the image of my dear 
father often came across me, but I turned from 
it. Whenever it came, a heavy numbing throb 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 101 

seemed to take hold of my heart, and say, dead 
โ€” dead โ€” dead. And I cried out, 'The living, 
the living shall praise Thee God ; the dead can- 
not praise Thee. There is no work in the grave; 
in the night no man can work. But I can work. 
I can do great things. I will do great things. 
Why wilt thou slay me?" And so I struggled 
and plunged, deeper and deeper, and went down 
into a living black tomb. I Avas alone there, 
with no power to stir or think; alone with 
myself; beyond the reach of all human fel- 
lowship ; beyond Christ's reach^ I thought, in 
my nightmare. You, who are brave, and bright, 
and strong, can have no idea of that agony. 
Pray to God you never may. Pray as for your 
life." 

Arthur stopped โ€” from exhaustion, Tom 
thought ; but what between his fear lest Arthur 
should hurt himself, his awe, and longing for 
him to go on, he couldn't ask or stir to help 
him. 

Presently he went on, but quite calm and 
slow. '' I don't know how long I was in that 
state. For more than a day I know, for I was 
quite conscious, and lived my outer life all the 
time, and took my medicines, and spoke to my 



102 BROWN AND ARTHtFR. 

mother, and heard what they said. But I didn't 
take much note of time, I thought time was 
over for me, and that that tomb was what was 
beyond. Well, on last Sunday morning, as I 
seemed to lie in that tomb, alone, as I thought, 
for ever and ever, the black dead wall was cleft 
in two, and I was caught up and borne through 
into the light by some great power, some living 
mighty spirit. Tom, do you remember the liv- 
ing creatures and the wheels in Ezekiel ? It 
was just like that : ' when they went I heard 
the noise of their wings, like the noise of great 
waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice 
of speech, as the noise of an host ; when they 
stood they let down their wings' โ€” 'and they 
went every one straight forward ; whither the 
spirit was to go they went, and they turned not 
when they went.' And we rushed through the 
bright air, which was full of myriads of living 
creatures, and paused on the brink of a great 
river. And the power held me up, and I knew 
that that great river was the grave, and death 
dwelt there ; but not the death I had met in the 
black tomb, that I felt was gone forever. For on 
the other bank of the great river I saw men 
and women and children rising up pure and 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 103 

bright; and the tears were wiped from their eyes, 
and they put on glory and strength, and all 
weariness and pain fell away. And beyond 
were a multitude which no man conld number, 
and they worked at some great work ; and they 
who rose from the river went on and joined in 
the work. They all worked, and each worked 
in a different way, but all at the same work. 
And I saw there my father, and the men in the 
old town whom I knew when I was a child ; 
many a hard stern man, who never came to 
church, and whom they called atheist and infi. 
del. There they were, side by s-ide with my 
father, whom I had seen toil and die for them, 
and women and little children, and the seal was 
on the foreheads of alL And I longed to see 
what the work was, and could not ; so I tried to 
plunge in the river, for I thought I would join 
them, but I could not. Then I looked about to 
see how they got into the river. And this I 
could not see, but I saw myriads on this side, 
and they too worked, and I knew that it was 
the same work ; and the same seal was on their 
foreheads. And though I saw that there was 
toil and anguish in the work of these, and that 
most that were working were blind and feeble, 



104 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

yet I longed no more to plunge into tlie river, 
but more and more to know what the work was. 
And as I looked I saw my mother and mj- sis- 
ters, and I saw the Doctor, and you, Tom, and 
hundreds more whom I knew ; and at last I saw 
myself too, and I was toiling and doing ever so 
little a piece of the great work. Then it all 
melted away, and the power left me, and as it 
left me I thought I heard a voice say, ' The 
vision is for an appointed time ; though it tarry, 
wait for it, for in the end it shall speak and not 
lie, it shall surely come, it shall not tarry.' It 
was early morning I know then, it was so quiet 
and cool, and my mother was fast asleep in the 
chair by my bedside; but it wasn't only a dream 
of mine. I know it wasn't a dream. Then I 
fell into a deep sleep, and only woke after after- 
noon chapel ; and the Doctor came and gave me 
the Sacrament, as I told you. I told him and 
my mother I should get well โ€” I knew I should ; 
but I couldn't tell them why." "Tom, said 
Arthur, gently, after another minute, "do you 
see why I could not grieve now to see my dearest 
friend die? It can't be โ€” it isn't all fever or 
illness. God would never have let me see it so 
clear if it wasn't true. I don't understand it all 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 105 

yet โ€” it will take me my life and longer to do 
tliat โ€” to find out what the work is." 

When Arthur stopped, there was a long pause. 
Tom could not speak, he was almost afraid to 
breathe, lest he should break the train of Arthur's 
thoughts. He longed, to hear more, and to ask 
questions. In another minute nine o'clock 
struck, and a gentle tap at the door called them 
both back into the world again. They did not 
answer, however, for a moment, and so the door 
opened, and a lady came in carrying a candle. 

She went straight to the sofa, and took hold 
of Arthur's hand, and then stooped down and 
kissed him. 

"My dearest boy, you feel a little feverish 
again. Why didn't you have lights ? You've 
talked too much and excited yourself in the dark." 

'' Oh no, mother, you can't think how well -I 
feel. I shall start with you to-morrow for Devon- 
shire. But, mother, here's my friend, here's Tom 
Brown โ€” you know him ?" 

" Yes, indeed, I've known him for years," she 
said, and held out her hand to Tom, who was 
now standing up behind the sofa. This was 
Arthur's mother. Tall and slight and fair, with 
masses of golden hair drawn back from the 

5*E 



106 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

broad white forehead, and the cahii blue eye 
meeting his so deep and open โ€” the eye that he 
knew so well, for it was his friend's over again, 
and the lovely tender mouth that trembled while 
he looked. She stood there a woman of thirty- 
eight, old enough to be his mother, and one 
whose face showed the lines which must be 
written on the faces of good men's wives and 
widows โ€” but he thought he had never seen any- 
thing so beautiful. He couldn't help wondering 
if Arthur's sisters were like her. 

Tom held her hand, and looked straight in 
her face ; he could neither let it go nor speak. 

''Now, Tom," said Arthur, laughing, ''where 
are your manners ? you'll stare my mother out 
of countenance." Tom dropped the little hand 
with a sigh. " There, sit down; both of you. 
Here, dearest mother, there's room here," and 
he made a place on the sofa for her. " Tom, 
you needn't go ; I'm sure you won't be called 
up at first lesson." Tom felt that he would risk 
being floored at every lesson for the rest of his 
natural school-life, sooner than go ; so he sat 
down. "And now," said Arthur, "I have real- 
ized one of the dearest wishes of my life โ€” to see 
you two together." 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 107 

And then he led away the talk to their home 
in Devonshire, and the red bright earth, and the 
deep green combes, and the peat streams like 
cairn-gorm pebbles, and the wild moor with its 
high cloudy Tors for a giant background to the 
picture โ€” till Tom got jealous, and stood up for 
the clear chalk streams, and the emerald water 
meadows and great elms and ^villows of the dear 
old Royal county, as he gloried to call it. And 
the mother sat, quiet and loving, rejoicing in 
their life. The quarter-to-ten struck, and the 
bell rang for bed, before they had well begun 
their talk as it seemed. 

Then Tom rose with a sigh to go. 
"Shall I see you in the morning, Geordie?" 
said he, as he shook his friend's hand. " Never 
mind though, you'll be back next half, and I 
shan't forget the house of Rimmon." 

Arthur's mother got up and walked with him 
to the door, and there gave him her hand again, 
and again his eyes met that deep loving look, 
which was like a spell upon him. Her voice 
trembled slightly as she said "Good night โ€” 
you are one who knows lyhat our Father has 
promised to the friend of the widow and the 



108 ErtOWN AND ARTHUR. 

fatherless. May He deal with you as you have 
dealt with me and mine !" 

Tom was quite upset ; he mumbled, something 
about owing every thing good in him to Geordie 
โ€” looked in her face again, pressed her hand to 
his lips, and rushed down stairs to his study, 
where he sat till old Thomas came kicking at 
the door, to tell him his allowance would be 
stopped if he didn't go off to bed. (It would 
have been stopped anyhow, but that he was a 
great favourite with the old gentleman, who loved 
to come out in the afternoons into the close to 
Tom's wicket, and bowl slow twisters to him, 
and talk of the glories of by-gone Surrey heroes, 
with whom he had played in former generations.) 
So Tom roused himself and took up his candle 
to go to bed; and then, for the first time, was 
aware of a beautiful new fishing-rod, with old 
Eton's mark on it, and a splendidly bound Bible, 
which lay on his table, on the title-page of which 
was written โ€” "Tom Brown, from his affection- 
ate and grateful friends, Frances Jane Arthur ; 
George Arthur." 

I leave you all to guess how he slept, and what 
he dreamt of 



/^^ 



CHAPTER YI. 

HAEEY east's DILEMMAS AND DELIVEKANCES. 

"The Holy Supper is kept indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need โ€” โ€ข 
Not that which we give, but that we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare : 
Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three. 
Himself, his hungering neighbour, and me." 

LOWELLโ€” r/ie Vision of Sir Laun/al, p. 11. 

The next morning after breakfast, Tom, East, 
and Gower met as nsiial to learn their second 
lesson together. Tom had been considering how 
to break his proposal of giving up the crib to 
the others, and having found no better way (as 
indeed none better can ever be found by man or 
boy), told them simply what had happened ; how 
he had been to see Arthur, who had talked to 
him upon the subject, and what he had said, and 
for his part he had made up his mind and wasn't 
going to use cribs any more. And not being 
quite sure of his ground, took the high and 
pathetic tone, and was proceeding to say, "how 
that having learnt his lessons with them for so 
many years, it would grieve him much to put an 
end to the arrangement, and he hoped at any 
109 



110 BROWN AND ARTIirR. 

rate tliat if they wouldn't go on with liim, they 
should still be just as good friends, and respect 
one another's motives โ€” but โ€” " 

Here the other boys, who had been listening 
with open eyes and ears, burst in โ€” 

"Stuff and nonsense !" cried Gower. ^^Here, 
East, get down the crib and find the place." 

"Oh, Tommy, Tommy!" said East, proceed- 
ing to do as he was bidden, " that it should ever 
have come to this. I knew Authur 'd be the 
ruin of you some day, and you of me. And now 
the time's come" โ€” and he made a doleful face. 

'^I don't know about the ruin," answered 
Tom; ''I know that you and I would have had 
the sack long ago, if it hadn't been for him. 
And you know it as well as I." 

" Well, we were in a baddish way before he 
came, I own, but this new crotchet of his is past 
a joke." 

" Let's give it a trial, Harry ; come โ€” you know 
how often he has been right and we wrong." 

"Now don't you two be jawing away about 
yoimg Square-toes," struck in Gower. "He's 
no end of a sucking wiseacre, I dare say, but 
we've no time to lose, and I've got the fives'- 
court at half-past nine." 



'^ 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. Ill 

"I say, Gower," said Tom, appealingly, "be a 
good fellow, and let's try if we can't get on 
without tlie crib." 

" What ! in this chorus ? Why we shan't get 
through ten lines." 

" I say, Tom," cried East, having hit on a new 
idea, "don't you remember when we were in 
' the upper-fourth, and old Momus caught me 
construing off the leaf of a crib which I'd torn 
out and put in my book, and which would float 
out on to the floor ; he sent me up to be flogged 
for it?" 

'' Yes, I remember it very well." 

"Well, the Doctor, after he'd flogged me, 
told me himself that he didn't flog me for using 
a translation, but for taking it into lesson, and 
using it there, when I hadn't learnt a word be- 
fore I came in. He said there was no harm in 
using a translation to get a clue to hard passa- 
ges, if you'd tried all you could first to make 
them out without." 

"Did he though?" said Tom: "then Arthur 
must be wrong." 

" Of course he is," said Grower, " the little prig. 
We'll only use the crib when we can't construe 
without it. Go ahead, East." 



112 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 



And on tliis agreement tliey started. Tom 
satisfied with having made his confession, and 
not sorry to have a locus poenitentice., and not to 
be deprived altogether of the nse of his old and 
faithful friend. 

The boys went on as usual, each taking a 
sentence in turn, and the crib being handed to 
the one whose turn it was to construe. Of course 
Tom couldn't object to this, as, was it not simply 
lying there to be appealed to in case the sentence 
should prove too hard altogether for the con- 
struer ? But it must be owned that Gower and 
East did not make very tremendous exertions fo 
conquer their sentences before having recourse 
to its help. Tom, however, with the most 
heroic virtue and gallantry, rushed into his sen- 
tence, searching in a high-minded manner for 
nominative and verb, and turning over his dic- 
tionary frantically for the first hard word which 
stopped him. But in the meantime, Gower, who 
was bent on getting to fives, would peep quietly 
into the crib, and then suggest, " Don't you think 
this is the meaning?" *^I think you must take 
it this way, Brown ;" and as Tom didn't see his 
way to not profiting by these suggestions, the 
lesson went on about as quickly as usual, and 



BROWN AND ARTHUR 113 

Gower was able to start for tlie fives'-court 
within five minutes of the half hour. 

When Tom and East were left face to face, 
they looked at one another for a minute, Tom 
puzzled; and East chock full of fun, and then 
burst into a roar of laughter. 

" Well, Tom," said East, recovering himself, 
" I don't see any objection to the new way. It's 
about as good as the old one, I think; besides, 
the advantage it gives one of feeling virtuous, 
and looking down on one's neighbours." 

Tom shoved his hand into his back hair. I 
ain't so sure," said he; "you two fellows carried 
me off' my legs ; I don't think we really tried one 
sentence fairly. Are you sure you remember 
what the Doctor said to you ?" 

" Yes. And I'll swear I couldn't make out 
one of my sentences to-day. No, nor never 
could. I really don't remember," said East, 
speaking slowly and impressively, "to have 
come across one Latin or Greek sentence this 
half that I could go and construe by the light 
of nature. Whereby I am sure Providence in- 
tended cribs to be used." 

" The thing to find out/' said Tom, medita- 
tively, "is, how long one ought to grind at a 
e2 



114 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

sentence witliout looking at the crib. Now I 
think if one fairly looks out all the words one 
don't knoW; and then can't hit it, that's enough." 

"To be sure, Tommy," said East, demurely, 
but with a merry twinkle in his eye. "Your 
new doctrine too, old fellow," added he, " when 
one comes to think of it, is a cutting at the root 
of all school morality. You'll take away mu- 
tual help, brotherly love, or in the vulgar tongue 
giving construes, which I hold to be one of our 
highest virtues. For how can you distinguish 
between getting a construe from another boy, 
and using a crib? Hang it, Tom, if you're 
going to deprive all our school-fellows of the 
chance of exercising Christian benevolence and 
being good Samaritans, I shall cut the con- 
cern." 

" I wish you wouldn't joke about it, Harry ; 
it's hard enough to see one's way, a precious 
sight harder than I thought last night. But I 
suppose there's a use and an abuse of both, and 
one'll get straight enough somehow. But you 
can't make out anyhow that one has a right to 
use old vulgus-books and copybooks." 

''Hullo, more heresy! how fast a fellow goes 
down hill when he once gets his head before his 



BRO\YN AND ARTHUR. 115 

legs. Listen to me, Tom. Not use old vulgus- 
books โ€” why, you Goth! ain't we to take the 
benefit of the wisdom, and admire and use the 
work of past generations ? Not use old copy- 
books ! "Why you might as well say we ought 
to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a 
go-to-meeting shop with churchwarden windows ; 
or never read Shakespeare, but only Sheridan 
Knowles. Think of all the work and labour 
that our predecessors have bestowed on these 
very books, and are we to make their work of 
no value? 

"I say, Harry, please don't chaff; I'm really 
serious." 

'' And then, is it not our duty to consult the 
pleasure of others rather than our own, and 
above all that of our masters ? Fancy then the 
difference to them in looking over a vulgus 
which has been carefully touched and retouched 
by themselves and others, and which must bring 
them a sort of dreamy pleasure, as if they'd met 
the thought or expression of it somewhere or 
another โ€” before they were born perhaps; and 
that of cutting up, and making picture-frames 
round all your and my false quantities, and 
other monstrosities. Why, Tom, you wouldn't 



116 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

be so cruel as never to let old Momiis hum over 
the '0 genus humanum' again, and then look 
up doubtingly through his spectacles, and end 
by smiling and giving three extra marks for it; 
just for old sake's sake, I suppose." 

" Well," said Tom getting up in something as 
like a huff as he was capable of, " it's deuced 
hard that when a fellow's really trying to do 
what he ought, his best friends'll do nothing but 
chaff him and try to put him down." And he 
stuck his books under his arm and his hat on 
his head, preparatory to rushing out into the 
quadrangle, to testify with his own soul of the 
faithlessness of friendships. 

"Now don't be an ass, Tom," said East, catch- 
ing hold of him, "you know me well enough by 
this time ; my bark's worse than my bite. You, 
can't expect to ride your new crotchet without 
anybody's trying to stick a nettle under his tail 
and make him kick you off: especially as we 
shall all have to go on foot still. But now sit 
down and let's go over it again. I'll be as seri- 
ous as a judge." 

Then Tom sat himself down on the table, andj 
waxed eloquent about all the righteousness andj 
advantages of the new plan, as vvas his wont 



BROWxN AND ARTHUR. 117 

whenever he took up any thing; going into it 
as if his life depended upon it, and sparing no 
abuse which he could think of, of the opposite 
method, which he denounced as ungentlemanly, 
cowardly, mean, lying, and no one knows what 
besides. "Very cool of Tom," as East thought, 
but didn't say, " seeing as how he only came out 
of Egypt himself last night at bed-time." 

Well, Tom," said he at last, "you see when 
you and I came to school there were none of 
these sort of notions. You may be right โ€” I 
dare say you are. Only what one has always 
felt about the masters is, that it's a fair trial of 
skill, and last between us and them โ€” like a 
match at football, or a battle. We're natural 
enemies in school, that's the fact. We've got to 
learn so much Latin and Greek and do so many 
verses, and they've got to see that we do it. If 
we can slip the collar and do so much less with- 
out getting caught, that's one to us. If they can 
get more out of us, or catch us shirking, that's 
one to them. All's fair in war, but lying. If I 
run my luck against their's and go into school 
without looking at my lesson, and don't get 
called up, why am I a snob or a sneak ? I don't 
tell the master I have learnt it. He's got to 



118 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

find out whether I have or not : what's he paid 
for ? If he calls me up and I get floored, he 
makes me write it out in Greek and English. 
Yery good, he's caught me, and I don't grumble, 
I grant you, if I go and snivel to him, and tell 
him I've really tried to learn it but found it so 
hard without a translation, or say I've had a 
toothache or any humbug of that kind, I'm a 
snob. That's my school morality; it's served 
me, and you too, Tom, for the matter of that, 
these five years. And its all clear and fair no 
mistake about it. We understaand it, and they 
understand it, and I don't know what we're to 
come to with any other. 

Tom looked at him, pleased, and a little puz- 
zled. He had never heard East speak his mind 
seriously before, and couldn't help feeling how 
completely he had hit his own theory and 
practice up to that time. 

"Thank you, old fellow," said he. "You're a 
good old brick to be serious, and not put out 
with me. I said more than I meant, I dare 
say, only you see I know I'm right : whatever 
you and Gower and the rest do, I shall hold on 
โ€” I must. And as it's all new and an up-hill 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 119 

game, you see, one must hit hard and hold on 
tight at first." 

'Very good," said East; hold on and hit away 
only don't hit under the line." 

''But I must bring you over, Harry, or I 
shan't be comfortable. Now I allow all you've 
said. We've always been honorable enemies 
with the masters. We found a state of war 
when we came, and went into it of course. 
Only don't you think things are altered a good 
deal? I don't feel as I used to the masters. 
They seem to me to treat one quite differently." 

''Yes, perhaps they do," said East; there's a 
new set you see, mostly, who don't feel quite sure 
of themselves yet. They don't want to fight till 
they know the ground." 

"I don't think it's only that," said Tom. 
"And then the Doctor, he does treat one so 
openly, and like a gentleman, and as if one was 
working with him." 

" Well, so he does," said East ; " he's a splen- 
did fellow, and when I get into the sixth I shall 
act accordingly. Only you know he has noth- 
ing to do with our lessons now, except exam- 
ining us. I say though," looking at his watch, 
"it's just the quarter. Come along." 



120 BROWN AND MITUUR. 

As they walked out they got a message, to say 
' that Arthur was just starting and would like 
to say good-bye ; so they went down to the pri- 
vate entrance of the school-house, and found an 
open carriage, with Arthur propped up wdth pil- 
lows in it, looking already better, Tom thought. 

They jumped up on to the steps to shake 
hands with him, and Tom mumbled thanks for 
the presents he had found in his study, and 
looked round anxiously for Arthur's mother. 

East, who had fallen back into his usual 
humour, looked quaintly at Arthur and said โ€” 

" So you've been at it again, through that hot- 
headed convert of yours there. He's been 
making our lives a burthen to us all the morning 
about using cribs. I shall get floored to a cer- 
tainty at second lesson, if I'm called up." 

Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom 
struck in โ€” 

" Oh, it's all right. He's converted already ; 
he always comes through the mud after us, 
grumbling and sputtering." 

The clock struck and they had to go off to 
school, wishing Arthur a pleasant holiday ; Tom 
lingering behind a moment to send his thanks 
and love to Arthur's mother. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 121 

Tom renewed the discussion after second les- 
son, and succeeded so far as to get East to pro- 
mise to give the new plan a fair trial. 

Encouraged by his success, in the evening, 
when they were sitting alone in the large stud}'', 
where East lived now almost, 'vice Arthur on 
leave,' after examining the new fishing-rod, which 
both pronounced to be the genuine article, ('play 
enough to throw a midge tied on a single hair 
ao^ainst the wind, and strens:th enous^h to hold 
a grampus,') they naturally began talking about 
Arthur. Tom, who was still bubbling over 
with last night's scene and all the thoughts of 
the last week, and wanting to clinch and fix the 
whole in his own mind, which he coald never 
do without first going through the process of 
belabouring somebody else with it all, suddenly 
rushed into the subject of Arthur^s illness, and 
what he had said about death. 

East had given him the desired opening, after 

a serio-comic grumble, "that life wasn't worth 

having now they were tied to a young beggar 

who was always 'raising his standard;' and 

that he. East, was like a prophet's donkey, who 

was obliged to struggle on after the donkey-man 

who went after the prophet; that he had none 
6f 



122 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

of tlie pleasure of starting the new crotchets, 
and didn't half understand them, but had to 
take the kicks, and carry the luggage as if he 
had all the fun," he threw his legs up on to the 
sofa, and put his hands behind his head, and 
said โ€” 

''Well, after all, he's the most wonderful little 
fellow I ever came across. There ain't such a 
meek, humble boy in the school. Hanged if I 
don't think now really, Tom, that he believes 
himself a much worse fellow than you or I, and 
that he don't think he has more influence in the 
house than Dot Bowles, who came last quarter, 
and ain't ten yet. But he turns you and me 
round his little finger, old boy โ€” there's no mis- 
take about that." And East nodded at Tom 
sagaciously, 

''Now or never," thought Tom; so shutting 
his eyes and hardening his heart, he went straight 
at it, repeating all that Arthur had said, as near 
as he could remember it, in the very words, and 
all he himself had thought. The life seemed to 
ooze out of it as he went on, and several times 
he felt inclined to stop, give it all up, and change 
the subject. But somehow he was borne on; he 
had a necessity upon him to speak it all out, 



BROWN AND AUTHUR. 123 

and did so. At the end lie looked at East with 
some anxiety, and was delighted to see that that 
young gentleman was thoughtful and attentive. 
The fact is, that in the stage of his inner life at 
which Tom had lately arrived, his intimacy with, 
and friendship for East, could not have lasted if 
he had not made him aware of, and a sharer in, 
the thoughts that were beginning to exercise 
him. Nor indeed could the friendship have 
lasted if East had shown no sympathy with 
these thoughts ; so that it was a great relief to 
have unbosomed himself, and to have found that 
his friend could listen. 

Tom had always had a sort of instinct that 
East's levity was only skin-deep, and this instinct 
was a true one. East had no want of reverence 
for anything he felt to be real ; but his was one 
of those natures that burst into what is gene- 
rally called recklessness and impiety the moment 
they feel that anything is being poured upon 
them for their good, which does not come home 
to their inborn sense of right, or which appeals 
to anything like self-interest in them. Daring 
and honest by nature, and out -spoken to an ex- 
tent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a 
constant fund of animal health and spirits which 



124 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

lie did not feel bound to curb in any way, lie 
had gained for himself, with the steady part of 
the school, (including as well those who wished 
to appear steady as those who really were so,) 
the character of a boy whom it would be dan- 
gerous to be intimate with ; while his own hatred 
of every thing cruel, or underhand, or false, 
and his hearty respect for what he could see to 
be good and true, kept off the rest. / 

Tom, besides being very like East in many 
points of character, had largely developed in his 
composition the capacity for taking the weakest 
side. This is not putting it strongly enough, it 
was a necessity with him, he couldn't help it, any 
more than he could eating or drinking. He 
could never play on the strongest side with any 
heart at football or cricket, and was sure to 
make friends with any boy who was unpopular, 
or down on his luck. 

Now, though East was not what is generally 
called unpopular, Tom felt more and more every 
day, as their characters developed, that he stood 
alone, and did not make friends among their 
contemporaries; and therefore sought him out. 
Tom was himself much more popular, for his 
power of detecting humbug was much less acute, 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 125 

and Ms instincts were much more sociable. He 
was at this period of his life, too, largely given 
to taking people for what they gave them- 
selves out to be; but his singleness of heart, 
fearlessness, and honesty, were just what East 
appreciated, and thus the two had been drawn 
into great intimacy. 

This intimacy had not been interrupted by 
Tom's guardianship of Arthur. 

East had often, as has been said, joined them 
in reading the Bible ; but their discussions had 
almost always turned upon the characters of the 
men and w^omen of whom they read, and not 
become personal to themselves. In fact, the 
two had shrunk from personal, religious discus- 
sions, not knowing how it might end ; and fear- 
ful of risking a friendship very dear to both, 
and which they felt somehow, without quite 
knowing why, would never be the same, but 
either tenfold stronger or sapped at its founda- 
tion, after such a communing together. 

What a bother all this explaining is ! I wish 
we could get on without it. But we can't. How- 
ever, you'll all find, if you haven't found it 
already, that a time comes in every human friend- 
ship, when you must go down into the depths 



126 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

of yourself, and lay bare what is there to your 
friend, and wait in fear for his answer. A few 
moments may do it ; and, it may be (most likely 
will be, as you are English boys), that you never 
do it but once. But done it must be, if the 
friendship is to be worth the name, you must 
find what is there, at the very root and bottom 
of one another's hearts ; and if you are at one 
there, nothing on earth can, or at least ought, to 
sunder you. 

East had remained lying down until Tom 
finished speaking, as if fearing to interrupt him ; 
he now sat up at the table and leant his head on 
one hand, taking up a pencil with the other and 
working little holes with it in the table-cover. 
After a bit he looked up, stopped the pencil, 
and said, "Thank you very much, old fellow; 
there's no other boy in the house would have 
done it for me but you or Arthur. I can see 
well enough," he went on after a pause, "all the 
best big fellows look on me with suspicion ; they 
think I'm a devil-may-care reckless young scamp 
โ€” so I am โ€” eleven hours out of twelve โ€” but 
not the twelfth. Then all of our contemporaries 
worth knowing, follow suit of course; we're 
very good friends at games and all that, but not 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 12Y 

a soul of tliem but you and Arthur ever tried to 
break tlirongli the crust, and see whether there 
was any thing at the bottom of mej and then 
the bad ones, I won't stand, and they know that." 

"Don't you think that's half fancy, Harry?" 

" Not a bit of it," said East, bitterly, pegging 
away with his pencil. "I see it all plain enough. 
Bless you, you think everybody's as straight- 
forward and kind-hearted as you are." 

''Well, but what's the reason of it? There 
must be a reason. You can play all the games 
as well as any one, and sing the best song, and 
are the best company in the house. You fancy 
you're not liked, Harry. It's all fancy." 

"I only wish it was, Tom. I know I could be 
popular enough with all the bad ones, but that 
I won't have, and the good ones won't have me." 

"Why not ?," persisted Tom; " you don't drink 
or swear, or get out at night ; you never bully, 
or cheat at lessons. If you only showed you 
liked it, you'd have all the best fellows in the 
house running after you." 

" Not I," said East. Then with an effort he 
went on, " I'll tell you what it is. I never stop 
the Sacrament. I can see from the Doctor down 
wardS; how that tells against me." 



128 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

" Yes I've seen that," said Tom, " and I've 
been very sorry for it, and Arthur and I have 
talked about it. I've often thought of speaking 
to you, but it's so hard to begin on such subjects. 
I'm very glad you've opened it. Now, why don't 
you?" 

*' I've never been confirmed," said East. 

" Not been confirmed !" said, Tom in as- 
tonishment. I never thought of that. Why 
weren't you confirmed with the rest of us nearly 
three years ago ? I always thought you'd been 
confirmed at home." 

"No," answered East, sorrowfully; you see 
this was how it happened. Last Confirmation 
was soon after Arthur came, and you were so 
taken up with him, I hardly saw either of you. 
Well, when the Doctor sent round for us about 
it, I was living mostly with Green's set โ€” you 
know the sort. They all went in โ€” I dare say 
it was all right, and they got good by it ; I don't 
want to judge them. Only all I could see of 
their reasons drove me j ust the other way. 'T was, 
' because the Doctor liked it ;' ' no boy got on 
who did'nt stay the Sacrament;' it was 'the 
correct thing,' in fact, like having a good hat to 
wear on Sundays. I couldn't stand it. I didn't 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 129 

feel that I wanted to lead a different life, I was 
very well content as I was, and I wasn't going 
to sham religious to curry favour with the Doc- 
tor, or any one else." 

East stopped speaking, and pegged away more 
diligently than ever with his pencil. Tom 
was ready to cry. He felt half sorry at first 
that he had been confirmed himself He seemed 
to have deserted his earliest friend, to have left 
him by himself at his worst need for those long 
years. He got up and went and sat by East, 
and put his arm over his shoulder. 

''Dear old boy," he said, "how careless and 
selfish I've been. But why didn't you come 
and talk to Arthur and me ?" 

" I wish to heaven I had," said East, "but I 
was a fool. It's too late talking of it now." 

" Why too late ? You want to be confirmed 
now, don't you ?" 

"I think so," said East. ''I've thought about 
it a good deal; only often I fancy I must be 
changing, because I see it's to do me good here, 
just what stopped me last time. And then I go 
back again." 

"I'll tell you now how 'twas with me," said 

Tom, warmly. "If it hadn't been for Arthur, I 
6* 



/ 



130 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

should have done just as you did. I liope I 
should. I honour you for it. But then he 
made it out just as if it was taking the weak 
side before all the world โ€” gc>ijig ino^ce for all 
against every thing that's strong and rich and 
proud and respectable, a little band of brothers 
against the whole world. And the Doctor 
seemed to say so too, only he said a great deal 



"Ah," groaned East, "but there again, that's 
just another of my difficulties whenever I think 
about the matter. I don't want to be one of 
your saints, one of your elect, whatever the 
right phrase is. My sympathies are all the 
other way ; with the many, the poor devils who 
run about the streets, and don't go to church. 
Don't stare, Tom ; mind I'm telling you all that's 
in my heart โ€” as far as I know it โ€” but its all a 
muddle. You must be gentle with me if you 
want to land me. Now I've seen a great deal 
of this sort of religion, I was bred up in it, and 
I can't stand it. If nineteen-twentieths of the 
world are to be left to uncovenanted mercies, 
and that sort of thing, which means in plain 
English to go to hell, and the other twentieth 
are to rejoice at it all, why โ€” " 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 131 

'' Oil ! but, Harry, they ain't, they dont," broke 
in Tom, really shocked. "Oh, how I wish 
Arthur hadn't gone! I'm such a fool about 
these things. But it's all you want too. East, 
it is indeed. It cuts both ways somehow, being 
confirmed and taking the Sacrament. It makes 
you feel on the side of all the good and all 
the bad too, of everybody in the world. Only 
there's some great, dark, strong power, which is 
crushing you and everybody else. That's what 
Christ conquered, and we've got to fight. What 
a fool I am ! I can't explain. If Arthur were 
only here !" 

'' I begin to get a glimmering of what you 
mean," said East. 

" I say now," said Tom eagerly, " do you re- 
member how we both hated Flashman ?" i^ 

" Of course I do," said East; " I hate him still. 
What then ? 

" Well, when I came to take the Sacrament, I 
had a great struggle about that. I tried to put 
him out of my head; and when I couldn't do 
that, I tried to think of him as evil, as some- 
thing that the Lord who was loving me hated, 
and which I might hate too. But it wouldn't 
do. I broke down; I believe Christ himself 



132 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

'broke me down; and when tiie Doctor gave me 
tlie bread and wine, and leant over me praying, 
I prayed for poor Flashman as if it had been 
you or Arthur." 

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 devils is got at." 

" And you'll stop 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 Yerger, bearing the can- 
dle, up stairs. Tom watched, and saw the 
Doctor turn round when he heard footsteps fol- 
lowing 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. 

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



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 133 

"Well, it's all right," lie 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'd 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 โ€” more than I've 
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 



134 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

for myself. I don't know wliat to do, I feel so 
happy. And it's all owing to you, dear old 
boy !" and he siezed 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' deaths, which he had 
hitherto kept in the background, and by which 
he was much exercised; for he didn't feel it 
honest to take what pleased him and tlirow over 
the rest, and was trying vigorously to persuade 
himself that he should like all his best friends 
to die off-hand. 

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 " Well, Tom, you ain't going to punch 
my head because I insist upon being sorry when 
you go to earth ?" 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 135 

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. 



k 



k 



CEAPTER YIL 

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." 

Clocqh. Amharvalia. 

The curtain now rises upon the last act of 
our little drama โ€” for hard-liearted 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 thouo^ht last Ions: 
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 as clear and bright, as if it had hap- 
pened 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 
assuredly 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 a 
136 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 13Y 

sad side to it." As tlie old scenes became living, 
and the actors in tliem became living too, many 
a grave in the Crimea and distant India, as well 
as in the quiet churchyards 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 โ€” 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 God's work and 
getting His wages. 

But are there not some, whom we still see 
sometimes in the streets, whose homes and 
haunts 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 farther than 
we are from the dead, and from those who have 
2p 



138 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

gone out of our ken? Yes, there are and must 
be sucli; and therein lies the sadness of old 
school memories. Yet of these our old comrades, 
from whom more than time and space 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 o^ 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 im- 
prison 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 Kugby 
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 compass guides, 
To that, and your own selves, be true. 

But, blithe breeze ! and 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. 
bounding breeze, rushing seas ! 
At last, at last, unite them there !"* 

* CLOUGn. Ambarvalia. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 139 

This is not mere longing, it is a prophecy. So 
over these too, 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 
compass and purpose, and to be drifting help- 
lessly 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 God, that we must 
mourn and pray without sure hope and without 
light; trusting only that He, in whose hands 
they 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," 

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

Another two years have passed, 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; and 
they too, are over now. The boys have gone 
to all the -winds of heaven, except the town 



140 BROWN AND ARTHUR, 

boys and tlie 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 neighbour- 
hood, and the sorrow of those aspiring young 
cricketers who have been reckoning for the last 
three months on showing off at Lords' ground. 

The Doctor started for the lakes 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. 

The Wellesburn match was played out with 
great success yesterday, the school winning by 
three wickets ; and to-day the great event of the 
cricketing year, the Marylebone match, is being 
played. What a match it has been! The Lon- 
don eleven came down by an afternoon train 
yesterday, in time to see the end of the "Welles- 
burn match ; and as soon as it was over, their 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 141 

leading men and umpire inspected tlie ground, 
criticizing it rather unmercifully. The captain 
of the school eleven, and one or two others, who 
had played the Lords' match before and knew 
old Mr. Aislebie and several of the Lords' men, 
accompanied them; while the rest of the eleven 
looked on from under the Three Trees with 
admiring eyes, and asked one another the names 
of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how 
many runs each of them had made in the late 
matches in Bell's Life. They looked such hard- 
bitten, wiry, whiskered fellows, that their young 
adversaries felt rather desponding as to the 
result of the morrow's match. The ground was 
at last chosen, and two men set to work upon it 
to water and roll; and then, there being yet 
some half-hour of daylight, some one had sug- 
gested a dance on the turf. The close was half 
full of citizens and their families, and the idea 
was hailed with enthusiasm. The cornopean 
player was still on the ground. In five minutes 
the eleven and half-a-dozen of the Wellesburn 
and Marylebone men got partners somehow or an- 
other, and a merry country dance was going on, to 
which every one flocked, and new couples joined 
in every minute, till there were a hundred of 



142 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

them going down the middle and up again โ€” 
and the long line of school-buildings looked 
gravely do^vn on them, every window glowing 
with the last rays of the western sun, and the 
rooks clanged about in the tops of the old elms, 
greatly excited and resolved on having their 
country dance too, and the great flag flapped 
lazily in the gentle western breeze. Altogether, 
it was a sight which would have made glad the 
heart of our brave old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, 
if he were half as good a fellow as I take him 
to have been. It was a cheerful sight to see ; 
but what made it so valuable in the sight of the 
captain of the school eleven was, that he there 
saw his young hands shaking off their shyness 
and awe of the Lords' men, as they crossed 
hands and capered about on the grass together ; 
for the strangers entered into it all, and threw 
away their cigars, and danced and shouted like 
boys ; while old Mr. Aislebie stood by looking 
on, in his white hat, leaning on a bat, in benevo- 
lent enjoyment. " This hop will be worth thirty 
runs to us to-morrow, and will be the making 
of Haggles and Johnson," thinks the young 
leader, as he revolves many things in his mind, 
standing by the side of Mr. Aislebie, whom he 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 143 

will not leave for a miimte; for he feels that the 
character of the school for courtesy is resting on 
his shoulders. 

But when a quarter to nine struck, and he 
saw old Thomas beginning to fidget about with 
the keys in his hand, he thought of the Doctor's 
parting monition, and stopped the cornopean at 
once, notwithstanding the loud-voiced remon- 
strances from all sides ; and the crowd scattered 
away from the close, the eleven all going into 
the school-house, where supper and beds were 
provided for them by the Doctor's orders. 

Deep had been the consultations at supper as 
to the order of going in, who should bowl the 
first over, whether it would be best to play 
steady or freely ; and the youngest hands de- 
clared that they shouldn't be a bit nervous, and 
praised their opponents as the j oiliest fellows in 
the world, except, perhaps, their old friends the 
Wellesburn men. How far a little good-nature 
from their elders will go with the right sort of 
boys ! 

The morning had dawned bright and warm, 
to the intense relief of many an anxious young- 
ster, up betimes to mark the signs of the weather. 
The eleven went down in a body before break- 



I 



144 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

fast, for a plunge in the cold bath in the corner 
of the close. The ground was in splendid order, 
and soon after ten o'clock, before spectators had 
arrived, all was ready, and two of the Lords* 
men took their places at the wicket ; the school, 
with the usual liberality of young hands, having 
put their adversaries in first. Old Bailey stepped 
up to the mcket, and called play, and the match 
has begun. 

"Oh, well bowled! well bowled, Johnson!" 
cries the captain, catching up the ball and send- 
ing it high above the rook trees, while the third 
Marylebone man walks away from the wicket, 
and old Bailey gravely sets up the middle stump 
again and puts the bails on. 

^'How many runs?" Away scamper three 
boys to the scoring-table, and are back again in 
a minute amongst the rest of the eleven, who 
are collected together in a knot between wicket. 
"Only eighteen runs, and three wickets down!" 

"Huzza for old Kugbyl" sing^ out Jack Hag- 
gles, the long-stop, toughest and burliest of boys, 
commonly called "Swiper Jack;" and forthwith 
stands on his head, and brandishes his legs in 
the air in triumph, till the next boy catches 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 145 

hold of his heels and throws him over on to his 
back. 

"Steady there, don't be such an ass, Jack," 
says the captain; "we haven't got the best 
wicket yet. Ah, look out now at cover-point," 
adds he, as he sees a long-armed, bare-headed, 
slashing-looking player coming to the wicket. 
"And, Jack, mind your hits; he steals more 
runs than any man in England." 

And they all find that they have got their 
work to do now. The new comer's off-hitting 
is tremendous, and his running like a flash of 
lightning. He is never in his ground, except 
when his wicket is down. Nothing in the whole 
game so trying to boys; he has stolen three 
byes in the first ten minutes, and Jack Eaggles 
is furious, and begins throwing over savagely to 
the further wicket, until he is sternly stopped by 
the captain. It is all that the young gentleman 
can do to keep his team steady, but he knows 
that every thing depends on it, and faces his 
work bravely. The score creeps up to fifty, the 
boys begin to look blank, and the spectators, 
who are now mustering strong, are very silent. 
The ball flies off his bat to all parts of the field, 
and he gives no rest and no catches to any one. 
la 



146 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

But crickei is full of glorious chances, and the 
goddess who presides over it loves to bring down 
the most skilful players. Johnson, the young 
bowler, is getting wild, and bowls a ball almost 
wide to the oif ; the batter steps out and cuts it 
beautifully to where cover-point is standing very 
deep, in fact, almost off the ground. The ball 
comes skimming and twisting along about three 
feet from the ground. He rushes at it, and it 
sticks somehow or other in the fingers of his 
left hand, to the utter astonishment of himself 
and the whole field. Such a catch hasn't been 
made in the close for years, and the cheering is 
maddening. *' Pretty cricket," says the captain, 
throwing himself on the ground by the deserted 
wicket with a long breath ; he feels that a crisis 
has passed. 

I wish I had space to describe the whole 
match; how the captain stumped the next man 
off a leg-shooter, and bowled slow cobs to old 
Mr. Aislebie, who came in for the last wicket. 
How the Lords' men were out by half-past twelve 
o'clock for ninety-eight runs. How the captain 
of the school eleven went in first to give his 
men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful 
style ; how Rugby was only four behind in the 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 14t 

first innings. What a glorious dinner they had 
in the fourth-form school, and how the cover- 
point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, 
and old Mr. Aislebie made the best speeches that 
ever were heard, afterwards. But I haven't 
space, that's the fact, and so you must fancy it 
all, and carry yourselves on to half-past seven 
o'clock, when the school are again in, with five 
wickets down and only thirty -two runs to make 
to win. The Marylebone men played carelessly 
in their second innings, but they are working 
like horses now to save the match. 

There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scat- 
tered up and down the close ; but the group to 
which I beg to call your special attention is 
there, on the slope of the island, which looks 
towards the cricket-ground. It consists of three 
figures; two are seated on a bench, and one on 
the ground at their feet. The first, a tall, slight, 
and rather gaunt man, with a bushy eyebrow 
and a dry, humourous smile, is evidently a cler- 
gyman. He is carelessly dressed, and looks 
rather used-up, which isn't much to be wondered 
at, seeing that he has just finished six weeks of 
examination work; but there he basks, and 
spreads himself out in the evening sun, bent on 



148 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

enjoying life, though he doesn't quite know 
what to do with his arms and legs. Surely it is 
our young friend the young Master, whom we 
have had glimpses of before, but his face has 
gained a great deal since we last came across 
him. 

And by his side, in white flannel shirt and 
trousers, straw hat, the captain's belt, and the 
untanned yellow cricket-shoes which all the 
eleven wear, sits a strapping figure near six feet 
high, with ruddy tanned face and whiskers, 
curly brown hair, and a laughing, dancing eye. 
He is leaning forward, with his elbows resting 
on his knees, and dandling his favourite bat, 
with which he has made thirty or forty runs to- 
day, in his strong brown hands. It is Tom 
Brown, grown into a young man nineteen years 
old, a praepostor and captain of the eleven, 
spending his last day as a Kugby boy, and, let 
us hope, as much wiser as he is bigger since we 
last had the pleasure of coming across him. 

And at their feet, on the warm, dry ground, 
similarly dressed, sits Arthur, Turkish-fashion, 
with his bat across his knees. He, too, is no 
longer a boy; less of a boy, in fact, than Tom, 
if one may judge from the thoughtfulness of his 



I 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 149 

face, which is somewhat paler, too, than one 
could wish; but his figure, though slight, is 
well-knit and active, and all his old timidity has 
disappeared, and is replaced by silent, quaint 
fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as he 
listens to the broken talk between the other two, 
in which he joins every now and then. 

All three are watching the game eagerly, and 
joining in the cheering which follows every good 
hit. It is pleasing to see the easy, friendly foot- 
ing which the pupils are on with their master, 
perfectly respectful, yet with no reserve and 
nothing forced in their intercourse. Tom has 
clearly abandoned the old theory of '^natural 
enemies" in this case, at any rate. 

But it is time to listen to what they are say- 
ing, and see what we can gather out of it. 

*' I don't object to your theory," says the mas- 
ter, " and I allow you have made a fair case for 
yourself. But now, in such books as Aristo- 
phanes, for instance, you've been reading a play 
this half with the Doctor, haven't you ?" 

"Yes, the Knights," answered Tom. 

"Well, I'm sure you would have enjoyed the 
wonderful humour of it twice as much if you 
had taken more pains with your scholarship.'* 



150 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

^'"Well, sir, I don't believe any boy in the 
form enjoyed the sets-to between Cleon and 
the Sausage-seller more than I did โ€” eh, Ar- 
thur?" said Tom, giving him a stir mth his foot. 

''Yes, I must say he did," said Arthur. "I 
think, sir, you've hit upon the wrong book 
there." 

"Not a bit of it," said the master. ''Why, 
in those very passages of arms, how can you 
thoroughly appreciate them unless you are 
master of the weapons ? and the weapons are 
the language which you. Brown, have never 
half worked at; and so, as I say, you must 
have lost all the delicate shades of meaning which 
makes the best part of the fun." 

"Oh! well played โ€” bravo, Johnson!" shouted 
Arthur, dropping his bat and clapping furiously, 
and Tom joined in with a "bravo, Johnson I" 
which might have been heard at the chapel. 

"Eh! what was it? I didn't see," inquired 
the master; "they only got one run, I thought?" 

"No, but such a ball, three-quarters length 
and coming straight for his leg-bail. Nothing 
but that turn of the wrist could have saved him, 
and he drew it away to leg for a safe one. 
Bravo, Johnson !" 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 151 

"How well they are bowling, though," said 
Arthur ; " they don't mean to be beat, I can see." 

"There noAV," struck in the master, "you see 
that's just what I have been preaching this half- 
hour. The delicate play is the true thing. I 
don't understand cricket, so I don't enjoy those 
fine draws which you tell me are the best play, 
though when you or Raggles hit a ball hard 
away for six, I am as delighted as any one. 
Don't you see the analogy?" 

"Yes, sir," answered Tom, looking up 
roguishly, "I see; only the question remains, 
whether I should have got most good by under- 
standing Greek particles or cricket thoroughly. 
I'm such a thick, I never should have had time 
for both." 

" I see you are an incorrigible," said the mas- 
ter, with a chuckle; "but I refute you by an 
example. Arthur there, has taken in Greek and 
cricket too." 

"Yes, but no thanks to him; Greek came 
natural to him. Why, when he first came I 
remember he used to read Herodotus for plea- 
sure as I did Don Quixote, and couldn't have 
made a false concord if he'd tried ever so hard 
โ€” and then I looked after his cricket." 



152 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

" Out ! Bailey lias given liim out โ€” do you see, 
Tom?" cries Arthur. " How foolish of them to 
run so hard." 

^' Well, it can't be helped ; he has played very 
well. Whose turn is it to go in ?" 

" I don't know, they've got your list in the 
tent." 

" Let's go and see," said Tom, rising ; but at 
this moment Jack Eaggles and two or three 
more come running to the island moat. 

"Oh, Brown, mayn't I go in next?" shouts 
the Swiper. 

"Whose name is next on the list?" says the 
captain. 

"Winter's, and then Arthur's," answers the 
boy who carries it ; " but there are only twenty- 
six runs to get, and no time to lose. I heard 
Mr. Aislebie say that the stumps must be drawn 
at a quarter-past eight exactly." 

" Oh, do let the Swiper go in," chorus the 
boys; so Tom yields against his better judg- 
ment. 

" I dare say now I've lost the match by this 
nonsense," he says, as he sits down again ; " they'll 
be sure to get Jack's wicket in three or four 
minutes ; however, you'll have the chance, sir. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 153 

of seeing a hard hit or two," adds he, smiling and 
turning to the master. 

" Come, none of your irony, Brown," answers 
the master. " I'm beginning to understand the 
game scientifically. What a noble game it is, 
too." 

'' Isn't it ? But it's more than a game. It's 
an institution," said Tom. 

" Yes," said Arthur, " the birthright of British 
boys, old and young, as habeas corpus and trial 
by jury are of British men." 

" The discipline and reliance on one another 
which it teaches is so valuable, I think," went 
on the master, " it ought to be such an unselfish 
game. It merges the individual in the eleven ; 
he doesn't play that he may win, but that his 
side may." 

"That's very true," said Tom, "and that's 
why football and cricket, now one comes to think 
of it, are such much better games than fives' or 
hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object 
is to come in first or to win for oneself, and 
not that one's side may win." 

"And then the captain of the eleven!" said 
the master, ''what a post is his in our school- 
world ! almost as hard as the Doctor's ; requiring 



l54 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

skill, and gentleness, and firmness, and I know 
not what other rare qualities." 

''Which don't he wish he may get?" said 
Tom, laughing ; " at any rate, he hasn't got them 
yet, or he wouldn't have been such a flat to-night 
as to let Jack Kaggles go in out of his turn." 

"Ah! the Doctor never would have done 
that," said Arthur, demurely. "Tom, you've a 
great deal to learn yet in the art of ruling." 

" Well, I wish you'd tell the Doctor so, then, 
and get him to let me stop till I'm twenty. I 
don't want to leave, I'm sure." 

" What a sight it is," broke in the master, 
''the Doctor as a ruler. Perhaps ours is the 
only little corner of the British Empire which is 
thoroughly, wisely, and strongly ruled just now. 
I'm more and more thankful every day of my 
life that I came here to be under him." 

"So am I, I'm sure," said Tom; "and more 
and more sorry that I've got to leave." 

" Every place and thing one sees here reminds 
one of some wise act of his," went on the master. 
"This island now โ€” you remember the time, 
Brown, when it was laid out in small gardens, 
and cultivated by frost-bitten fags in February 
and March?" 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 155 

'' Of course I do," said Tom ; '' didn't I liate 
spending two hours in the afternoons grubbing 
in the tough dirt with the stump of a fives' bat? 
But turf- cart was good fun enough." 

^' I dare say it was, but it was always leading 
to fights with the townspeople; and then the 
stealing flowers out of all the gardens in Kugby 
for the Easter show was abominable." 

" Well, so it was," said Tom, looking down ; 
"but we fags couldn't help ourselves. But what 
has that to do with the Doctor's ruling?" 

"A great deal, I think," said the master; 
" what brought island-fagging to an end ?" 

" Why, the Easter speeches were put off till 
midsummer," said Tom, " and the sixth had the 
gymnastic poles put up here." 

"Well, and who changed the time of the 
speeches, and put the idea of gymnastic poles 
into the heads of their worships the sixth form ?" 
said the master. 

" The Doctor, I suppose," said Tom. " I never 
thought of that." 

"Of course you didn't," said the master, "or 
else, fag as you were, you would have shouted 
with the whole school against putting down old 
customs. And that's the way that all the Doc- 



156 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

tor's reforms have been carried out when he has 
been left to himself โ€” quietly and naturally, 
putting a good thing in the place of a bad, and 
letting the bad die out ; no wavering and no 
hurry โ€” the best thing that could be done for the 
time being, and patience for the rest." 

" Just Tom's own way," chimed in Arthur, 
nudging Tom with his elbow, " driving a nail 
where it will go ;" to which allusion Tom an- 
swered by a sly kick. 

" Exactly so," said the master, innocent of the 
allusion and by-play. 

Meantime Jack Raggles, with his sleeves 
tucked up above his great brown elbows, scorn- 
ing pads and gloves, has presented himself at 
the wicket ; and having run one for a forward 
drive of Johnson's, is about to receive his first 
ball. There are only twenty -four runs to make, 
and four wickets to go down, a winning match 
if they play decently steady. The ball is a very 
swift one, and rises fast, catching Jack on the 
outside of the thigh, and bounding away as if 
from India-rubber, while they run two for a leg- 
bye amidst great applause, and shouts from 
Jack's many admirers. The next ball is a beau- 
tifully pitched ball for the outer stump, which 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 15t 

the reckless and unfeeling Jack catches hold of, 
and hits right round to leg for five, while the 
applause becomes deafening; only seventeen 
runs to get with four wickets โ€” the game is all 
but ours ! 

It is over now, and Jack walks swaggering 
about his wicket, with the bat over his shoulder, 
while Mr. Aislebie holds a short parley with his 
men. Then the cover-point hitter, that cunning 
man, goes on to bowl slow twisters. Jack waves 
his hand triumphantly towards the tent, as much 
as to say, " See if I don't finish it all off now in 
three hits." 

Alas, my son Jack ! the enemy is too old for 
thee. The first ball of the over Jack steps out 
and meets, swiping with all his force. If he had 
only allowed for the twist! but he hasn't, and 
so the ball goes spinning up straight into the 
air, as if it would never come down again. 
Away runs Jack, shouting and trusting to the 
chapter of accidents ; but the bowler runs stead- 
ily under it, judging every spin, and, calling 
out, " I have it," catches it, and playfully pitches 
it on to the back of the stalwart Jack, who is 
departing with a rueful countenance. 

" I knew how it would be," says Tom, rising. 



158 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

" Come along, the game's getting very serious." 

So they leave the island and go to the tent, 
and after deep consultation Arthur is sent in, 
and goes off to the wicket with a last exhortation 
from Tom, to play steady and keep his bat 
straight. To the suggestions that Winter is the 
best bat left, Tom only replies, "Arthur is the 
steadiest, and Johnson will make the runs if the 
wicket is only kept up." 

" I am surprised to see Arthur in the eleven," 
said the master, as they stood together in front 
of the dense crowd, which was now closing 
in round the ground. 

" Well, I'm not quite sure that he ought to be 
in for his play," said Tom, ^'but I couldn't help 
putting him in. It will do him so much good, 
and you can't think what I owe him." 

The master smiled. The clock strikes eight, 
and the whole field becomes fevered with excite- 
ment. Arthur, after two narrow escapes, scores 
one; and Johnson gets the ball. The bowling 
and fielding are superb, and Johnson's batting 
worthy the occasion. He makes here a two, and 
there a one, managing to keep the ball to himself, 
and Arthur backs up and runs perfectly ; only 
eleven runs to make now, and the crowd scarcely 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 159 

breathe. At last Arthur gets the ball again, and 
actually drives it forward for two, and feels 
prouder than when he got the three best prizes, 
at hearing Tom's shouts of joy, '' Well played, 
well played, young'unl" 

But the next ball is too much for a young 
hand, and his bails fly different ways. Nine runs 
to make, and two wickets to go down โ€” it is too 
much for human nerves. 

Before Winter can get in, the omnibus which 
is to take the Lords' men to the train pulls up at 
the side of the close, and Mr. Aislebie and Tom 
consult, and give out that the stumps will be 
drawn after the next over. And so ends the 
great match. Winter and Johnson carry out 
their bats, and, it being a one day's match, the 
Lords' men are declared winners, they having 
scored the most in the first innings. 

But such a defeat is a victory : so think Tom 
and all the school eleven, as they accompany 
their conquerors to the omnibus, and send them 
off with three ringing cheers, after Mr. Aislebie 
has shaken hands all round, saying to Tom, '* I 
must compliment you, sir, on your eleven, and 
I hope we shall have you for a member if you 
come up to town." 



160 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

As Tom and the rest of tlie eleven were turn- 
ing back into tlie close, and everybody was be- 
ginning to cry out for another country dance, 
encouraged by the success of the night before, 
the young master who was just leaving the close, 
stopped him, and asked him to come up to tea 
at half-past eight, adding, ''I won't keep you 
more than half-an-hour, and ask Arthur to come 
up too." 

" I'll come up with you directly if you'll let 
me," said Tom, "for I feel rather melancholy, 
and not quite up to the country dance and sup- 
per with the rest." 

''Do, by all means," said the master, I'll wait 
here for you." 

So Tom went off to get his boots and things 
from the tent, to tell Arthur of the invitation, 
and to speak to his second in command about 
stopping the dancing and shutting up the close 
as soon as it grew dusk. Arthur promised to 
follow as soon as he had had a dance. So Tom 
handed his things over to the man in charge of 
the tent, and walked quietly away to the gate 
where the master was waiting, and the two took 
their way together up the HilmDrton road. 

Of course they found the master's house locked 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 161 

up; and all tlie servants away in the close, about 
this time no doubt footing it away on the grass 
with extreme delight to themselves, and in utter 
oblivion of the unfortunate bachelor their mas- 
ter, whose one enjoyment in the shape of meals 
was his "dish of tea" (as our grandmothers 
called it), in the evening; and the phrase was 
apt in his case, for he always poured his out into 
the saucer before drinking. Great was the good 
man's horror at finding himself shut out of his 
own house. Had he been alone he would have 
treated it as a matter of course, and would have 
strolled contentedly up and down his gravel- 
walk until some one came home; but he was 
hurt at the stain on his character of host, es- 
pecially as the guest was a pupil. However, the 
guest seemed to think it a great joke, and 
presently as they poked about round the house, 
mounted a wall from which he could reach a 
passage window : the window, as it turned out, 
was not bolted, so in another minute Tom was 
in the house and down at the front door, which 
he opened from inside. The master chuckled 
grimly at this burglarious entry, and insisted on 
leaving the hall door and two of the front win- 
dows open, to frighten the truants on their 
g2 



162 BROWN AND ARTHUR, 

return ; and tlien the two set about foraging for 
tea, in wliicli operation the master was much at 
fault, having the faintest possible idea of where 
to find anjrthing, and being moreover wonderous- 
ly short-sighted ; but Tom by a sort of instinct 
knew the right cupboards in the kitchen and 
pantry, and soon managed to place on the 
snuggery table better materials for a meal than 
had appeared there probably during the reign 
of his tutor, who was then and there initiated, 
amongst other things, into the excellence of that 
mysterious condiment, a dripping cake. The 
cake was newly baked, and all rich and flaky ; 
Tom had found it reposing in the cook's private 
cupboard, awaiting her return; and as a warn 
ing to her they finished it to the last crumb. 
The kettle sang away merrily on the hob of the 
snuggery, for, notwithstanding the time of year, 
they lighted a fire, throwing both the windows 
wide open at the same time ; the heap of books 
and papers were pushed away to the other end 
of the table, and the great solitary engraving of 
King's College Chapel over the mantel-piece look- 
ed less stiff than usual, as they settled themselves 
down in the twilight to the serious drinking of tea. 
After some talk on the match, and other in- 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 163 

dijfferent subjects, the conversation came natu- 
rally back to Tom's approacbing departure, over 
which he began again to make his moan. 

" Well, we shall all miss you quite as much 
as you will miss us," said the master. "You are 
the Nestor of the school now, are you not ? 

" Yes, ever since East left," answered Tom. 

"By-the-bye have you heard from him?" 

^'Yes I had a letter in February, just before 
he started for India to join his regiment ." 

" He will make a capital officer." 

"Aye, won't he?" said Tom, brightening;" 
" no fellow could handle boys better, and I sup- 
pose soldiers are very like boys. And he'll 
never tell them to go where he won't go himself. 
No mistake about that โ€” a braver fellow never 
walked." 

" His year in the sixth will have taught him 
a good deal that will be useful to him now." 

"So it will," said Tom staring into the fire. 
"Poor dear Harry," he went on, ''how well I 
remember the day we were put out of the twenty. 
How he rose to the situation, and burnt his 
cigar-cases, and gave away his pistols, and pon- 
dered on the constitutional authority of the 
sixth, and his new duties to the Doctor, and the 



164 BROWN AND ARTHUR 

fiftli-form, and the fags. Aye, and no fellow 
ever acted up to them better, though he was 
always a people's man โ€” for the fags, and against 
constituted authorities. He couldn't help that, 
you know. I'm sure the Doctor must have liked 
him ?" said Tom, looking up inquiringly. 

" The. Doctor sees the good in every one, and 
appreciates it," said the master dogmatically, 
" but I hope East will get a good colonel. He 
won't do if he can't respect those above him. 
How long it took him, even here, to learn the 
lesson of obeying." 

" Well, I wish I was alongside of him," said 
Tom. " If I can't be at Rugby, I want to be at 
work in the world, and not dawdling away 
three years at Oxford." 

" What do you mean by " at work in the 
world ?" said the master, pausing, with his lips 
close to his saucer-full of tea, and peering at 
Tom over it. 

" Well, I mean real work ; one's profession ; 
whatever one will have really to do, and make 
one's living by it. I want to be doing some real 
good, feeling that I am not only at play in the 
world, "^answered Tom, rather puzzled to find 
out himself what he really did mean. 



BROWN AND A'RTHUR. 165 

" You are mixing up two very different things 
in your head, I think, Brown," said the master, 
putting down his empty saucer, " and you ought 
to get clear about them. You talk of ' working 
to get your living,' and ' doing some real good 
in the world,' in the same breath. Now you 
may be getting a very good living in a profes- 
sion, and yet doing no good at all in the world, 
but quite the contrary, at the same time. Keep 
the latter before you as your one object, and you 
will be right, whether you make a living or not ; 
but if you dwell on the other, you'll very likely 
drop into mere money -making, and let the world 
take care of itself for good or evil. Don't be in 
a hurry about finding your work in the world 
for yourself ; you are not old enough to judge 
for yourself yet, but just look about you in the 
place you find yourself in, and try to make 
things a little better and honester there. You'll 
find plenty to keep your hand in at Oxford, or 
wherever else you go. And don't be led away 
to think this part of the world important, and 
that unimportant. Every corner of the world 
is important. No man knows whether this part 
or that is most so, but every man may do some 
honest work in his own corner." And then the 



166 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

good man went on to talk wisely to Tom of the 
sort of w^ork which, he might take up as an un- 
dergraduate ; and warned him of the prevalent 
University sins, and explained to him the many 
and great differences between University and 
school life ; till the twilight changed into dark- 
ness, and they heard the truant servants stealing 
in by the back entrance. 

" I wonder where Arthur can be," said Tom 
at last, looking at his watch ; " why, its nearly 
half-past nine already." 

"Oh, he is comfortably at supper wdth the 
eleven, forgetful of his oldest friends," said the 
master. " Nothing has given me greater plea- 
sure," he went on, ^^than your friendship for 
him, it has been the making of you both." 

"Of me, at any rate," answered Tom; "I 
should never have been here now but for him. 
It was the luckiest chance in the world that 
sent him to Eugby, and made him my chum." 

" Why do you talk of the lucky chances ? said 
the master : " I don't know that there are any 
such things in the world ; at any rate there was 
neither luck nor chance in that matter." 

Tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went 
on, " Do you remember when the Doctor lectured 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 16t 

you and East at tlie end of one half-year, wlien 
you were in the shell, and had been getting into 
all sorts of scrapes?" 

"Yes, well enough," said Tom, "it was the 
half-year before Arthur came." 

"Exactly so" answered the master. "Now I 
was with him a few minutes afterwards, and he 
was in great distress about you two. And, after 
some talk, we both agreed that you in particular 
wanted some object in the school beyond games 
and mischief, for it was quite clear that you 
never would make the regular school work your 
first object. And so the Doctor at the beginning 
of the next half-year, looked out the best of the 
new boys and separated you and East, and put 
the youug boy into your study, in the hope that 
when you had somebody to lean on you, you 
would begin to see to stand a little steadier your- 
self, and get manliness and thoughtfulness. And 
I can assure you he has watched the experiment 
ever since with great satisfaction. Ah! not one 
of you boys will ever know the anxiety you 
have given him, or the care with which he has 
watched over every step in your school lives." 

Up to this time Tom had never wholly given 
in to, or understood the Doctor. At first he had 



168 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

thorouglily feared liim. For some years, as I 
have tried to show, he had learnt to regard him 
with love and respect, and to think him a very 
great and wise and good man. But, as regarded 
his own position in the school, of which he was 
no little proud, Tom had no idea of giving any 
one credit for it but himself; and truth to tell, 
was a very self- conceited young gentleman on 
the subject. He was wont to boast that he had 
fought his own way fairly up the school, and 
had never made up to, or been taken up by any 
big fellow or master, and that it was now quite 
a different place from what it was when he first 
came. And indeed, though he didn't actually 
boast of it, yet in his secret soul he did to a 
great extent believe, that the great reform in the 
school had been owing quite as much to himself 
as to any one else. Arthur, he acknowledged, 
had done him good, and taught him a good deal, 
so had other boys in different ways ; but they 
had not had the same means of influence on the 
school in general ; and as for the Doctor, why 
he was a splendid master, bnt every one knew 
that masters could do very little out of school 
hours. In short, he felt on terms of equality 
with his chief; so far as the social state of the 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 1G9 

school was concerned, and tliought that the 
Doctor would find it no easy matter to get on 
without him. Moreover, his school toryism was 
still strong, and he looked still with some jeal- 
ousy on the Doctor, as somewhat of a fanatic in 
the matter of change ; and thought it very desi- 
rable for the school that he should have some 
wise person (such as himself) to look sharply 
after vested school-rights, and see that nothing 
was done to the injury of the republic without 
due protest. 

It was a new light to him to find, that besides 
teaching the sixth, and governing and guiding 
the whole school, editing classics, and writing 
histories, the great head-master had found time 
in those busy years to watch over the career, 
even of him, Tom Brown, and his particular 
friends, โ€” and, no doubt, of fifty other boys at 
the same time ; and all this without taking the 
least credit to himself, or seeming to know, or 
let any one else know, that he ever thought par- 
ticularly of any boy at all. 

However, the Doctor's victory was complete 

from that moment over Tom Brown at any rate. 

He gave way at all points, and the enemy 

marched right over him, calvary, infantry, and 
8h 



J 70 r>E(.WN AND ARTIRR. 

artillery, tlie land transport corps, and the camp 
followers. It had taken eight long years to do 
it, but now it was done thoroughly, and there 
wasn't a corner of him left Avhich didn't believe 
in the Doctor. Had ]ic returned to school again, 
and the Doctor began the half-year by abolish- 
ing fagging, and football, and the Saturday half- 
holida}^, or all or any of the most cherished 
school institutions, Tom would have supported 
him with the blindest faith. And so, after a 
half confession of his previous short-comings, 
and sorrowful adieus to his tutor, from whom he 
received two beautifully -bound volumes of the 
Doctor's Sermons, as a parting present, he 
marched down to the school-house, a hero- wor- 
shipper, who would have satisfied the soul of 
Thomas Carlyle himself. 

There he found the eleven at high jinks after 
supper. Jack Raggies shouting comic songs, and 
performing feats of strength; and was greeted 
by a chorus of mingled remonstrance at his 
desertion, and joy at his reappearance. And 
falling in with the humour of the evening, was 
soon as great a boy as all the rest; and at ten 
o'clock was chaired round the quadrangle, on 
one of the hall benches, borne aloft by the eleven. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. HI 

shouting in chorus, " For he's a jolly good fel- 
low," while old Thomas in a melting mood, and 
the other school-house servants, stood looking 
on. 

And the next morning after breakfast he 
squared up all the cricketing accounts, went 
round to his tradesmen and other acquaintance, 
and said his hearty good-byes ; and by twelve 
o'clock was in the train, and away for London, 
no longer a school-boy, and divided in his 
thoughts between hero-worship, honest regrets 
over the long stage of his life which was now 
slipping out of sight behind him, and hopes 
and resolves for the next stage, upon which he 
was entering with all the confidence of a young 
traveller. 



CHAPTER YIIL 

FINIS. 

"Strauge friend, past, present, and to be; 
Loved deeplier, darklier understood; 
Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
And mingle all the world with thee." 

Tennyson. 

In tlie summer of 1842, our hero stopped 
once again at the well-known station ; and, 
leaving his bag and fishing-rod with a porter, 
walked slowly and sadly np towards the town. 
It was now July. He had rushed away from 
Oxford the moment that term was over, for a 
fishing ramble in Scotland, with two college 
friends, and had been for three weeks living on 
oatcake, mutton-hams, and whiskey, in the 
wildest parts of Skye. They had descended one 
sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Ehea 
ferry, and while Tom and another of the party 
put their tackle together and began exploring 
the stream for a sea-trout for supper, the third 
strolled into the house to arrange for their en- 
tertainment. Presently he came out in a loose 
blouse and slippers, a short pipe in his mouth, 
and an old newspaper in his hand, and threw 
1Y2 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 173 

himself on tlie heathery scrub, which met the 
shingle within easy hail of the fishermen. There 
he lay, the picture of free-and-easy loafing, hand- 
to-mouth young England, " improving his mind," 
as he shouted to them, by the perusal of the 
fortnight -old weekly paper, soiled with the 
marks of toddy-glasses and tobacco-ashes, the 
legacy of the last traveller, which he had hunted 
out from the kitchen of the little hostelrj^, and, 
being a youth of a communicative turn of mind, 
began imparting the contents to the fisherman 
as he went on. 

" What a bother they are making about these 
wretched corn laws; here's three or four col- 
umns full of nothing but sliding scales and 
fixed duties. Hang this tobacco, it's always 
going out! Ah, here's something better โ€” a 
splendid match between Kent and England, 
Brown Kent winning by three wickets. Fe]ix 
fifty-six runs without a chance, and not out!" 

Tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him 
twice, answered only with a grunt, 

"Any thing about the Goodwood?" called out 
the third man. 

"Kory-o-more drawn. Butterfly colt amiss," 
shouted the student. 



174 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

"Just my luck," grumbled the inquirer, jerk- 
ing liis flies olT the water, and throwing again 
with a heavy, sullen splash, and frightening 
Tom's fish. 

*' I say, can't you throw lighter over there ? 
We ain't fishing for grampuses," shouted Tom 
across the stream. 

"Hullo, Brown! here's something for you," 
called out the reading man next moment. "Why, 
your old master, Arnold of Rugby, is dead." 

Tom's hand stopped half-way in his cast, and 
his line and flies went all tangling round and 
round his rod; you might have knocked him 
over with a feather. Neither of his companions 
took any notice of him luckily; and, with a 
violent effort, he set to work mechanically to 
disentangle his line. He felt completely carried 
off his moral and intellectual legs, as if he had 
lost his standing-point in the invisible world. 
Besides which, the deep-loving loyalty which 
he felt for his old leader made the shock in- 
tensely painful. It was the first great wrench 
of his life, the first gap which the angel Death 
had made in his circle, and he felt numbed, and 
beaten-down, and spiritless. Well, well ! I be- 
lieve it was good for him and for many others 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 1Tยซ^ 

in like case ; who had to learn by that loss, that 
.the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon any 
human prop, however strong, and wise, and 
good; but that He upon whom alone it can 
stand and lean will knock away all such props 
in His own wise and merciful way, until there is 
no ground or stay left but Himself, the Kock of 
Ages, upon whom alone a sure foundation for 
every soul of man is laid. 

As he wearily laboured at his line, the thought 
struck him, "It may all be false, a mere newspaper 
lie," and he strode up to the recumbent smoker. 

" Let me look at the paper," said he. 

'' Nothing else in it," answered the other, hand- 
ing it up to him listlessly. โ€” Hullo Brown 1 what's 
the matter, old fellow โ€” ain't you well ?" 

" Where is it ? " said Tom, turning over the 
leaves, his hands trembling, and his eyes swim- 
ming, so that he could not read. 

" What ? What are you looking for ? " said his 
friend, jumping up and looking over his shoulder. 

" That โ€” about Arnold," said Tom. 

''Oh here," said the other, putting his finger 
on the paragraph. Tom read, it over and over 
again; there could be no mistake of identity, 
though the account was short enough. 



ITG BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

" Thank you," said lie at last, dropping tlio 
paper, ''I shall go for a walkf-aon't you and 
Herbert wait supper for me." And away he 
strode, up over the moor at the back of tlie 
house, to be alone, and master his grief if possi- 
ble. 

His friend looked after him, sympathizing and 
wondering, and knocking the ashes out of his 
pipe, walked over to Herbert. After a short 
parley they walked together up to the house. 

*' I'm afraid that confounded newspaper has 
spoiled Brown's fun for this trip." 

" How odd that he should be so fond of his 
old master," said Herbert. Yet they also were 
both public-school men. 

The two, however, notwithstanding Tom's pro- 
hibition, waited supper for him, and had every- 
thing ready when he came back some half-an- 
hoLir afterwards. But he could not join in their 
cheerful talk, and the party was soon silent, not- 
withstanding the efforts of all three. One thing 
only had Tom resolved, and that was that he 
couldn't stay in Scotland any longer ; he felt an 
irresistible longing to get to Kugby, and then 
home, and soon broke it to the others, who had 
too much tact to oppose. 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. lit 

So by daylight the next morning he was 
marching thro ^ii Rosshire, and in the evening 
hit the Caledonian canal, took the next steamer, 
and travelled as fast as boat and railway conld 
carry him to the Rugby station. 

As he walked up to the town he felt shy and 
afraid of being seen, and took the back streets ; 
why, he didn't know, but he followed his instinct. 
At the school-gates he made a dead pause ; there 
was not a soul in the quadrangle โ€” all was lonely, 
and silent, and sad. So with another effort he 
strode through the quadrangle, and into the 
school-house offices. 

He found the little matron in her room, in deep 
mourning ; shook her hand, tried to talk, and 
moved nervously about : she was evidently think- 
ing of the same subject as he, but he couldn't be- 
gin talking. 

"Where shall I find Thomas?" said he at 
last, getting desperate. 

*^ In the servants' hall, I think, sir. But won't 
you take any thing ? " said the matron, looking 
rather disappointed. 

*' No, thank you," said he, and strode off again 

to find the old verger, who was sitting in his 

little den as of old, puzzling over hieroglyphics. 
8* 



i 
I 

I 



Its BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

He looked np tlirougli his spectacles,, as Tom 
seized his hand and wruns: it. 

''Ah! you've heard all about it, sir, I see," 
said he. 

Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe- 
board, while the old man told his tale, and wiped 
his spectacles, and fairly flowed over with quaint, 
homely, honest sorrow. 

By the time he had done, Tom felt much 
better. 

" Where is he buried, Thomas ? " said he at 
last. 

" Under the altar in the chapel, sir," answered 
Thomas. " You'd like to have the key, I dare 
say." 

"Thank you, Thomas, โ€” yes, I should, very 
much." And the old man fumbled among his 
bunch, and then got up, as though he would go 
wdth him ; but after a few steps stopped short 
and said, " Perhaps you'd like to go by yourself, 
sir?" 

Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys were 
handed to him with an injunction to be sure and 
lock the door after him, and bring them back 
before eight o'clock. 

He walked quickly through the quadrangle 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 1*79 

and out into the close. The longing which had 
been upon him and driven him thns far^ like the 
gad-fly in the Greek legends, giving him no rest 
in mind or body, seemed all of a sudden not to 
be satisfied, but to shrivel up, and pall. '*' Why 
should I go on? It's no use," he thought, and 
threw himself at full length on the turf, and 
looked vaguely and listlessly at all the well- 
known objects. There were a few of the town 
boys playing cricket, their wicket pitched on the 
best piece in the middle of the big-side ground, 
a sin about equal to sacrilege in the eyes of a 
captain of the eleven. He was very nearly get- 
ting up to go and send them off. " Pshaw ! they 
won't remember me. They've more right there 
than I," he muttered. And the thought that his 
sceptre had departed, and his mark was wearing 
out, came home to him for the first time, and bit- 
terly enough. He was lying on the very spot 
where the fights came off; where he himself had 
fought six years ago his first and last battle. โ€” 
He conjured up the scene till he could almost 
hear the shouts of the ring, and East's whisper 
in his ear ; and looking across the close to the 
Doctor's private door, half expected to see it 
open, and the tall figure in cap and gown 



I 



180 BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

come striding under the elm-trees towards him. 

No, no ! that sight could never be seen again. 
There was no flag flying on the round tower ; 
the school -house windows were all shuttered up ; 
and when the flag went up again, and the shut- 
ters came down, it would be to welcome a stran- 
ger. All that was left on earth of him whom he 
had honoured, was lying cold and still under the 
chapel floor. He would go in and see the place 
once more, and then leave it once for all. New 
men and new methods might do for other people; 
let those who would worship the rising star, he 
at least would be faithful to the sun which had 
set. And so he got up, and walked to the chapel 
door and imlocked it, fancying himself the only 
mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on his 
own selfish sorrow. 

He passed through the vestibule, and then 
paused for a moment to glance over the empty 
benches. His heart was still proud and high; 
and he walked up to the seat which he had last 
occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat himself 
down there to collect his thoughts. 

And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and 
settling in order not a little. The memories of 
eight years were all dancing through his brain, 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 181 

m 

and carrying him about whither they would ; 
while beneath them all, his heart was throbbing 
with the dull sense of a loss that could never be 
made up to him. The rays of the evening sun 
came solemnly through the painted windows 
above his head and fell in gorgeous colours on the 
opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed 
his spirit by little and little. And he turned to 
the pulpit, and looked at it, and then leaning 
forward, with his head on his hands, groaned 
aloud. โ€” ' If he could only have seen the Doctor 
again for one five minutes, to have told him all 
that was in his heart, what he owed to him, how 
he loved and reverenced him, and would, by 
God's help, follow his steps in life and death, he 
could hwve borne it all without a murmur. But 
that he should have gone away for ever without 

knowing it all, was too much to bear.' " But 

am I sure that he does not know it all ? " โ€” the 
thought made him start โ€” " May he not even 
now be near me, in this very chapel ? If he be, 
am I sorrowing as he would have me sorrow โ€” 
as I shall wish to have sorrowed when I shall 
meet him again ? " 

He raised himself up and looked round ; and 
after a minute rose and walked humbly down 



182 BROAVN AND ARTHUR. 

to the loAvcst bench, and sat down on the very 
seat which he had occupied on his first Sunday 
at Eugby. And then the old memories rushed 
back again, but softened and subdued, and sooth- 
ing him as he let himself be carried away by 
them. And he looked up at the great painted 
window above the altar, and remembered how, 
when a little boy, he used to try not to look 
through it at the elm-trees and the rooks, before 
the painted glass came โ€” and the subscription 
for the painted glass, and the letter he wrote 
home for money to give to it. And there, down 
below, was the very name of the boy who sat 
on his right hand on that first day, scratched 
rudely in the oak pannelling. 

And then came the thought of all his old 
school-fellows; and form after form of boys, 
nobler, and braver, and purer than he, rose up 
and seemed to rebuke him. Could he not think 
of them, and what they had felt and were feeling ; 
they who had honoured and loved from the first, 
the man whom he had taken years to know and 
love ? Could he not think of those yet dearer to 
him who was gone, who bore his name and shar- 
ed his blood, and were now without a husband 
or a father ? Then the grief which he began to 



BROWN AND ARTHUR. 183 

share with others became gentle and holy, and 
he rose up once more, and walked up the steps 
to the altar ; and while the tears flowed freely 
down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hope- 
fully, to lay down there his share of a burden 
which had proved itself too heavy for him to 
bear in his own strength. 

Here let us leave him โ€” where better could wo 
leave him, than at the altar, before which he had 
first caught a glimpse of the glory of his birth- 
right, and felt the drawing of the bond which 
links all living souls together in one brotherhood 
โ€” at the grave beneath the altar of him who had 
opened his eyes to see that glory, and softened 
his heart till it could feel that bond. 

And let us not be hard on him, if at that 
moment his soul is fuller of the tomb and him 
who lies there, than of the altar and Him of 
whom it speaks. Such stages have to be gone 
through, I believe, by all young and brave souls, 
who must win their way through hero-worship, 
to the worship of Him who is the King and Lord 
of heroes. For it is only through our mysterious 
human relationships, through the love and ten- 
derness and purity of mothers, and sisters, and 
wives, โ€” through the strength and courage and 



184 "^^ BROWN AND ARTHUR. 

wisdom of fathers, and brotliers, and tcacliers, 
that we can come to the knowledge of Him, in 
whom alone the love, and the tenderness, and 
the pm'ity, and the strength, and the courage, 
and the wisdom of all these dwell forever and 
ever in perfect fulness. 



THE END.