Tom Brown's Schooldays [60]
on one side than ever, and spells away at the dirty list. Green is forced away from the window.
"Here, Thomas--never mind him; mine's thirty shillings." "And mine too," "And mine," shouted others.
One way or another, the party to which Tom belonged all got packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the cornopean playing frantically "Drops of Brandy," in allusion, probably, to the slight potations in which the musician and postboys had been already indulging. All luggage was carefully stowed away inside the coach and in the front and hind boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. Five or six small boys, with pea-shooters, and the cornopean player, got up behind; in front the big boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because they are now gentlemen at large, and this is the most correct public method of notifying the fact.
"Robinson's coach will be down the road in a minute; it has gone up to Bird's to pick up. We'll wait till they're close, and make a race of it," says the leader. "Now, boys, half a sovereign apiece if you beat 'em into Dunchurch by one hundred yards."
"All right, sir," shouted the grinning postboys.
Down comes Robinson's coach in a minute or two, with a rival cornopean, and away go the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys cheering, horns playing loud. There is a special providence over school-boys as well as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five miles--sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the roofs exchanging volleys of peas; now nearly running over a post-chaise which had started before them; now half-way up a bank; now with a wheel and a half over a yawning ditch: and all this in a dark morning, with nothing but their own lamps to guide them. However, it's all over at last, and they have run over nothing but an old pig in Southam Street. The last peas are distributed in the Corn Market at Oxford, where they arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which they are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party breaks up, all going now different ways; and Tom orders out a chaise and pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shillings left in his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home.
"Where to, sir?"
"Red Lion, Farringdon," says Tom, giving hostler a shilling.
"All right, sir.--Red Lion, Jem," to the postboy; and Tom rattles away towards home. At Farringdon, being known to the innkeeper, he gets that worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, and forward him in another chaise at once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal mansion, and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pound ten shillings for the posting expenses from Oxford. But the boy's intense joy at getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the good character he brings, and the brave stories he tells of Rugby, its doings and delights, soon mollify the Squire, and three happier people didn't sit down to dinner that day in England (it is the boy's first dinner at six o'clock at home--great promotion already) than the Squire and his wife and Tom Brown, at the end of his first half-year at Rugby.
CHAPTER VIII - THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
"They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three." LOWELL, Stanzas on Freedom.
The lower-fourth form, in which Tom found himself at the beginning of the next half-year, was the largest form in the lower school, and numbered upwards of forty boys. Young gentlemen of all ages from nine to fifteen were to be found there, who expended such part of their energies as was devoted to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, the "Bucolics" of Virgil, and the "Hecuba" of Euripides, which were ground out in small daily portions. The driving of this unlucky lower-fourth must have been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it was the most unhappily constituted
"Here, Thomas--never mind him; mine's thirty shillings." "And mine too," "And mine," shouted others.
One way or another, the party to which Tom belonged all got packed and paid, and sallied out to the gates, the cornopean playing frantically "Drops of Brandy," in allusion, probably, to the slight potations in which the musician and postboys had been already indulging. All luggage was carefully stowed away inside the coach and in the front and hind boots, so that not a hat-box was visible outside. Five or six small boys, with pea-shooters, and the cornopean player, got up behind; in front the big boys, mostly smoking, not for pleasure, but because they are now gentlemen at large, and this is the most correct public method of notifying the fact.
"Robinson's coach will be down the road in a minute; it has gone up to Bird's to pick up. We'll wait till they're close, and make a race of it," says the leader. "Now, boys, half a sovereign apiece if you beat 'em into Dunchurch by one hundred yards."
"All right, sir," shouted the grinning postboys.
Down comes Robinson's coach in a minute or two, with a rival cornopean, and away go the two vehicles, horses galloping, boys cheering, horns playing loud. There is a special providence over school-boys as well as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five miles--sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the roofs exchanging volleys of peas; now nearly running over a post-chaise which had started before them; now half-way up a bank; now with a wheel and a half over a yawning ditch: and all this in a dark morning, with nothing but their own lamps to guide them. However, it's all over at last, and they have run over nothing but an old pig in Southam Street. The last peas are distributed in the Corn Market at Oxford, where they arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast at the Angel, which they are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party breaks up, all going now different ways; and Tom orders out a chaise and pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shillings left in his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home.
"Where to, sir?"
"Red Lion, Farringdon," says Tom, giving hostler a shilling.
"All right, sir.--Red Lion, Jem," to the postboy; and Tom rattles away towards home. At Farringdon, being known to the innkeeper, he gets that worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, and forward him in another chaise at once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal mansion, and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pound ten shillings for the posting expenses from Oxford. But the boy's intense joy at getting home, and the wonderful health he is in, and the good character he brings, and the brave stories he tells of Rugby, its doings and delights, soon mollify the Squire, and three happier people didn't sit down to dinner that day in England (it is the boy's first dinner at six o'clock at home--great promotion already) than the Squire and his wife and Tom Brown, at the end of his first half-year at Rugby.
CHAPTER VIII - THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
"They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three." LOWELL, Stanzas on Freedom.
The lower-fourth form, in which Tom found himself at the beginning of the next half-year, was the largest form in the lower school, and numbered upwards of forty boys. Young gentlemen of all ages from nine to fifteen were to be found there, who expended such part of their energies as was devoted to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, the "Bucolics" of Virgil, and the "Hecuba" of Euripides, which were ground out in small daily portions. The driving of this unlucky lower-fourth must have been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it was the most unhappily constituted