Tom Brown at Rugby. Hughes Thomas

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rel="nofollow" href="#n105" type="note">105 and travelling carriages are an abomination unto me – I cannot away with them. But for dirty Jack, and every good fellow who, in the words of the capital French song, moves about,

      "Comme le limaçon,

      Portant tout son bagage,

      Ses meubles, sa maison,"106

      on his own back, why, good luck to them, and many a merry road-side adventure, and steaming supper in the chimney-corners of road-side inns, Swiss châlets,107 Hottentot kraals,108 or wherever else they like to go. So having succeeded in contradicting myself in my first chapter (which gives me great hopes that you will all go on, and think me a good fellow, notwithstanding my crotchets), I shall here shut up for the present, and consider my ways; having resolved to "sar' it out,"109 as we say in the Vale, "holus bolus,"110 just as it comes, and then you'll probably get the truth out of me.

      CHAPTER II

      THE "VEAST."

      "And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth neither fairs nor markets be kept in church-yards, for the honor of the church." —Statutes: 13 Edw. I. Stat. II. Chap. VI.

      As that venerable and learned poet111 (whose voluminous works we all think it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't read often) most truly says, "The child is father to the man;" a fortiori,112 therefore he must be father to the boy." So, as we are going at any rate to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any farther (which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there is no knowing but what we may), let us have a look at the life and environments113 of the child, in the quiet country village to which we were introduced in the last chapter.

      TOM BROWN'S NURSE

      Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his nurse. That functionary114 was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brain115 girl, lately taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as she was called, from the village school to be trained as nursery-maid. Madam Brown was a rare trainer of servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for profession it was, and gave her more trouble by half than many people take to earn a good income. Her servants were known and sought after for miles round. Almost all the girls who attained a certain place in the village school were taken by her, one or two at a time, as house-maids, laundry-maids, nursery-maids, or kitchen-maids, and, after a year or two's drilling, were started in life amongst the neighboring families, with good principles and wardrobes. One of the results of this system was the perpetual despair of Mrs. Brown's cook and own maid, who no sooner had a notable116 girl made to their hands, than missus was sure to find a good place for her and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the school. Another was, that the house was always full of young girls with clean, shining faces; who broke plates and scorched linen, but made an atmosphere of cheerful homely life about the place, good for every one who came within its influence. Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. They were more like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more as a mother or aunt than as a mistress.

      Tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly, – she seemed to have two left hands and no head; and so Mrs. Brown kept her on longer than usual that she might expend her awkwardness and forgetfulness upon those who would not judge and punish her too strictly for them.

      Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the immemorial habit of the village to christen children either by Bible names, or by those of the cardinal117 and other virtues; so that one was forever hearing in the village street, or on the green, shrill sounds of "Prudence! Prudence! thee cum' out o' the gutter"; or "Mercy! drat118 the girl, what bist119 thee a doin' wi' little Faith?" and there were Ruths, Rachels, Keziahs, in every corner. The same with the boys; they were Benjamins, Jacobs, Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from puritan120 times – there it is, at any rate, very strong still in the Vale.

      TOM BROWN'S FIRST REBELLION

      Well, from early morn till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted against one another. Physical power was as yet on the side of Charity, but she hadn't a chance with him wherever head-work was wanted. This war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when Charity escorted her charge to a neighboring farm-house which supplied the Browns, and where by his mother's wish, Master Tom went to drink whey,121 before breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey, but he had a decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as unwholesome, and there was seldom a morning that he did not manage to secure a handful of hard curds, in defiance of Charity and the farmer's wife. The latter good soul was a gaunt angular woman, who, with an old black bonnet on the top of her head, the strings dangling about her shoulders, and her gown tucked through her pocket holes, went clattering about the dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in high pattens.122 Charity was some sort of niece of the old lady's, and was consequently free of the farm-house and garden, into which she could not resist going for the purposes of gossip and flirtation with the heir-apparent,123 who was a dawdling fellow, never out at work as he ought to have been. The moment Charity had found her cousin, or any other occupation, Tom would slip away; and in a minute shrill cries would be heard from the dairy: "Charity, Charity, thee lazy huzzy, where bist?" and Tom would break cover,124 hands and mouth full of curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface of the great muck reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing the repose of the great pigs. Here he was in safety, as no grown person could follow without getting over his knees; and the luckless Charity, while her aunt scolded her from the dairy-door, for being "allus hankering about arter our Willum, instead of minding Master Tom," would descend from threats to coaxing, to lure Tom out of the muck, which was rising over his shoes and would soon tell a tale on his stockings for which she would be sure to catch it from missus's maid.

      TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS – NOAH

      Tom had two abettors in the shape of a couple of old boys, Noah and Benjamin by name, who defended him from Charity, and expended much time upon his education. They were both of them retired servants of former generations of the Browns. Noah Crooke was a keen, dry old man of almost ninety, but still able to totter about. He talked to Tom quite as if he were one of his own family, and indeed had long completely identified the Browns with himself. In some remote age he had been the attendant of a Miss Brown, and had conveyed her about the country on a pillion.125 He had a little round picture of the identical gray horse caparisoned with the identical pillion, before which he used to do a sort of fetish126 worship and abuse turnpike roads and carriages. He wore an old full-bottomed wig,127 the gift of some dandy old Brown whom he had valeted128 in the middle of last century, which habiliment Master Tom looked upon with considerable respect, not to say fear; and indeed his whole feeling toward Noah was strongly tainted with awe; and when the old gentleman was gathered to his fathers, Tom's lamentation over him was not unaccompanied by a certain joy at having seen the last of the wig: "Poor old Noah, dead and gone," said he,

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