Tom Brown at Rugby. Hughes Thomas
their work, pipe in mouth, a whiff of which is no bad smell this bright morning. The sun gets up, and the mist shines like silver gauze. They pass the hounds jogging along to a distant meet,278 at the heels of the huntsman's hack,279 whose face is about the color of the tails of his old pink,280 as he exchanges greetings with the coachman and guard. Now they pull up at a lodge,281 and take on board a well-muffled-up sportsman, with his gun-case and carpet-bag. An early up-coach meets them and the coachmen gather up their horses, and pass one another with the accustomed lift of the elbow, each team doing eleven miles an hour, with a mile to spare behind, if necessary. And here comes breakfast.
"Twenty minutes here, gentlemen," says the coachman, as they pull up at half-past seven at the inn-door.
BREAKFAST
Have we not endured nobly this morning, and is not this a worthy reward for much endurance? There is the low dark wainscoted282 room hung with sporting prints; the hat-stand (with a whip or two standing up in it belonging to bagmen,283 who are still snug in bed) by the door; the blazing fire, with the quaint old glass over the mantel-piece, in which is stuck a large card with the lists of the meets for the week of the county hounds. The table covered with the whitest of cloths and of china, and bearing a pigeon pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mammoth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wooden trencher.284 And here comes in the stout head waiter, puffing under a tray of hot viands; kidneys and a steak, transparent rashers285 and poached eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee and tea all smoking hot. The table can never hold it all; the cold meats are removed to the sideboard; they were only put on for show and to give us an appetite. And now fall on, gentlemen all. It is a well-known sporting house, and the breakfasts are famous. Two or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop in, and are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we all are.
"Tea or coffee, sir?" says head waiter, coming round to Tom.
"Coffee, please," says Tom with his mouth full of muffin and kidneys; coffee is a treat to him, tea is not.
Our coachman, I perceive, who breakfasts with us, is a cold-beef man. He also eschews hot potations, and addicts himself to a tankard of ale, which is brought him by the barmaid. Sportsman looks on approvingly, and orders a ditto for himself.
Tom has eaten kidney and pigeon pie, and imbibed coffee, till his little skin is as tight as a drum; and then has the further pleasure of paying head waiter out of his own purse, in a dignified manner, and walks out before the inn-door to see the horses put to. This is done leisurely and in a highly finished manner by the ostlers, as if they enjoyed the not being hurried. Coachman comes out with his way-bill,286 and puffing a fat cigar which the sportsman has given him. Guard emerges from the tap,287 where he prefers breakfasting, licking round a tough-looking doubtful cheroot, which you might tie round your finger, and three whiffs of which would knock any one else out of time.
The pinks288 stand about the inn-door lighting cigars and waiting to see us start, while their hacks are led up and down the market-place on which the inn looks. They all know our sportsman, and we feel a reflected credit when we see him chatting and laughing with them.
"Now, sir, please," says the coachman; all the rest of the passengers are up; the guard is locking up the hind-boot.
"A good run to you," says the sportsman to the pinks, and is by the coachman's side in no time.
"Let 'em go, Dick!" The ostlers fly back, drawing off the cloths from their glossy loins, and away we go through the market-place and down the High Street,289 looking in at the first-floor290 windows, and seeing several worthy burgesses291 shaving thereat; while all the shop-boys who are cleaning the windows, and the house-maids who are doing the steps, stop and looked pleased as we rattle past, as if we were a part of their legitimate morning's amusement. We clear the town, and are well out between the hedgerows again as the town clock strikes eight.
GUARD DISCOURSES ON RUGBY
The sun shines almost warmly, and breakfast has oiled all springs and loosened all tongues. Tom is encouraged by a remark or two of the guard's between the puffs of his oily cheroot, and besides is getting tired of not talking. He is too full of his destination to talk about anything else; and so asks the guard if he knows Rugby.
"Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty minutes before twelve down – ten o'clock up."
"What sort of a place is it, please?" says Tom.
Guard looks at him with a comical expression. "Werry out-o'-the-way place, sir, no paving to streets, nor no lighting. 'Mazin' big horse and cattle fair in autumn – lasts a week – just over now. Takes town a week to get clean after it. Fairish hunting country. But slow place, sir, slow place; off the main road, you see – only three coaches a day, 'an one on 'em a two-oss van,292 more like a hearse nor293 a coach – Regulator294– comes from Oxford. Young genl'm'n at school calls her Pig and Whistle, and goes up to college by her (six miles an hour) when they goes to enter. Belong to school, sir?"
"Yes," says Tom, not unwilling for a moment that the guard should think him an old boy; but then having some qualms as to the truth of the assertion, and seeing that if he were to assume the character of an old boy he couldn't go on asking the questions he wanted, added – "that is to say, I'm on my way there. I'm a new boy."
The guard looked as if he knew this quite as well as Tom.
"You're werry late, sir," says the guard; "only six weeks to-day to the end of the half."295 Tom assented. "We takes up fine loads this day six weeks, and Monday and Tuesday arter.296 Hopes we shall have the pleasure of carrying you back."
Tom said he hoped they would; but he thought within himself that his fate would probably be the Pig and Whistle.297
PEA-SHOOTERS
"It pays uncommon cert'nly," continues the guard.
"Werry free with their cash is the young genl'm'n. But, Lor' bless you, we gets into such rows all 'long the road, what wi' their pea-shooters,298 and long whips and hollering, and upsetting every one as comes by; I'd a sight sooner carry one or two on 'em, sir, as I may be a carryin' of you now, than a coach-load."
"What do they do with the pea-shooters?" inquires Tom.
"Do wi' 'em! why, peppers every one's faces as we comes near, 'cept the young gals, and breaks windows wi' them, too, some on 'em shoots so hard. Now 'twas just here last June, as we was a driving up the first-day boys,299 they was mendin' a quarter-mile of road, and there was a lot of Irish chaps, reg'lar roughs, a breaking stones. As we comes up, 'Now boys,' says young gent on the box (smart young fellow, and desper't reckless), 'here's fun! let the Pats have it about the ears.' 'God's sake, sir,' says Bob (that's my mate the coachman), 'don't go for to shoot at 'em, they'll knock us off the coach.' 'Coachee,' says young my lord, 'you ain't afraid; hoora, boys! let 'em have it.' 'Hoora!' sings out the others, and fill their mouths chuck full of peas to last the whole line. Bob, seeing as 'twas to come, knocks his hat over his eyes, hollers to his 'osses, and shakes 'em up, and away we goes up to the line on 'em, twenty miles an hour. The Pats begin to hoora, too, thinking it was a runaway, and
Meet: a gathering of huntsmen for a hunt.
Hack: here, nag or horse kept for rough riding.
Old pink: a red hunting-coat.
Lodge: a gentleman's house.
Wainscoted: lined with boards or panels.
Bagmen: commercial travellers.
Trencher: a large wooden plate.
Rashers: thin slices of bacon.
Way-bill: a list of passengers in a public vehicle.
Tap: bar-room.
Pinks: huntsmen.
High Street: the main street.
First-floor: the floor above the ground-floor, – the second story.
Burgess: a citizen or voter in a town.
Van: a large light-covered wagon.
Nor: than.
Regulator: the name of the rival coach.
Half: the half year.
Arter: after.
Pig and Whistle: as Oxford lies on the direct road between Rugby and White Horse Vale, Tom would naturally return by this coach.
Pea-shooters: tin tubes used by boys for blowing peas at a mark.
First-day boys: probably those that went up at the beginning of the term.