Tom Brown at Rugby

And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have you had enough? Will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me begin my story or will you have some more of it? Remember, I've only been over a little bit of the hill-side yet, what you could ride round easily on your ponies in an hour. I'm only just come down into the vale, by Blowing Stone Hill, and if I once begin about the vale, what's to stop me? You'll have to hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles I. (the vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant;[75 - Malignant: The Parliamentary or Puritan party during the civil wars of Charles I. called those who adhered to the king "malignants."] full of Throgmortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and such like, and their brawny retainers). Did you ever read Thomas Ingoldsby's "Legend of Hamilton Tighe"?[76 - Tighe: this legend relates a conspiracy by which young Tighe was led into the thick of a fight and killed.] If you haven't, you ought to have. Well, Farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea; his real name was Hampden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at Farringdon. Then there's Pusey. You've heard of the Pusey horn,[77 - Pusey horn: the Pusey family hold their estate not by a title deed, but by a horn, given, it is said, to William Pecote (perhaps an ancestor of the Puseys) by Canute, a Danish king of England in the eleventh century. The horn bears the following inscription: "I, King Canute, give William Pecote this horn to hold by thy land."] which King Canute gave to the Puseys of that day, and which the gallant old squire, lately gone to his rest (whom Berkshire freeholders[78 - Freeholders: landowners.] turned out of last Parliament, to their eternal disgrace, for voting according to his conscience), used to bring out on high days, holidays, and bonfire nights. And the splendid old Cross church at Uffington, the Uffingas town; how the whole country-side teems with Saxon names and memories! And the old moated grange[79 - Moated grange: a farm or estate surrounded by a broad deep ditch for defence in old times.] at Compton, nestled close under the hill-side, where twenty Marianas[80 - Marianas: Mariana, a beautiful woman, one of the most lovable of Shakespeare's characters. See "Measure for Measure."] may have lived, with its bright water-lilies in the moat, and its yew walk "the cloister walk," and its peerless terraced gardens. There they all are, and twenty things besides, for those who care about them, and have eyes. And these are the sort of things you may find, I believe, every one of you, in any common English country neighborhood.

Will you look for them under your own noses, or will you not? Well, well, I've done what I can to make you, and if you will go gadding over half Europe now every holiday, I can't help it. I was born and bred a west-countryman,[81 - West-countryman: a west of England man.] thank God! a Wessex man, a citizen of the noblest Saxon kingdom of Wessex, a regular "Angular Saxon,"[82 - Angular Saxon: a play on the words Anglo-Saxon.] the very soul of me "adscriptus glebæ."[83 - Adscriptus glebæ: attached to the soil.] There's nothing like the old country-side for me, and no music like the twang of the real old Saxon tongue, as one gets it fresh from the veritable chaw[84 - Chaw: "chaw bacon," a nickname for an English peasant.] in the White Horse Vale; and I say with "Gaarge Ridler," the old west-country yeoman,

"Throo aall the waarld owld Gaarge would bwoast,
Commend me to merry owld England mwoast;
While vools[85 - Vools: fools.] gwoes prating vur and nigh,
We stwops at whum,[86 - Whum: home.] my dog and I."[87 - For this old song see Hughes's "Scouring of the White Horse."]

SQUIRE BROWN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD

Here at any rate lived and stopped at home Squire Brown, J. P.[88 - J. P.: justice of the peace.] for the county of Berks, in a village near the foot of the White Horse range. And here he dealt out justice and mercy in a rough way, and brought up sons and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings, and calico[89 - Calico: white cotton cloth called calico in England, to distinguish it from print.] shirts, and smock frocks,[90 - Smock frocks: coarse white frocks worn by farm laborers.] and comforting drinks to the old folks with the "rheumatiz," and good counsel to all; and kept the coal and clothes clubs going, for Yule-tide,[91 - Yule-tide: Christmas. Clubs are formed by the poor several months in advance, to furnish coal, clothes, and poultry for Christmas time, – each member contributing a few pence weekly.] when the bands of mummers[92 - Mummers: maskers, merrymakers in fantastic costumes.] came round dressed out in ribbons and colored paper caps, and stamped round the Squire's kitchen, repeating in true sing-song vernacular[93 - Vernacular: one's native tongue.] the legend of St. George and his fight, and the ten-pound doctor,[94 - Ten-pound doctor: a quack doctor.] who plays his part at healing the Saint – a relic, I believe, of the old middle-age mysteries.[95 - Mysteries: rude dramatic plays of a religious character, once very popular.] It was the first dramatic representation which greeted the eyes of little Tom, who was brought down into the kitchen by his nurse to witness it, at the mature age of three years. Tom was the eldest child of his parents, and from his earliest babyhood exhibited the family characteristics in great strength. He was a hearty, strong boy from the first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all round the neighborhood. And here in the quiet, old-fashioned country village, under the shadow of the everlasting hills, Tom Brown was reared, and never left it till he went first to school when nearly eight years of age, for in those days change of air twice a year was not thought absolutely necessary for the health of all her majesty's lieges.[96 - Lieges: loyal subjects.]

THE OLD BOY ABUSETH MOVING ON

I have been credibly informed, and am inclined to believe, that the various Boards of Directors of Railway Companies, those gigantic jobbers[97 - Jobbers: speculators or members of corrupt political rings.] and bribers, while quarrelling about everything else, agreed together some ten years back to buy up the learned profession of medicine, body and soul. To this end they set apart several millions of money, which they continually distribute judiciously among the doctors, stipulating only this one thing, that they shall prescribe change of air to every patient who can pay, or borrow money to pay, a railway fare, and see their prescription carried out. If it be not for this, why is it that none of us can be well at home for a year together? It wasn't so twenty years ago, – not a bit of it. The Browns didn't go out of the county once in five years. A visit to Reading or Abingdon twice a year, at Assizes or Quarter Sessions[98 - Assizes or Quarter Sessions: sessions of courts of justice.] which the Squire made on his horse, with a pair of saddle-bags containing his wardrobe – a stay of a day or two at some country neighbor's – or an expedition to a county ball or the yeomanry review —[99 - Yeomanry review: a review of the county militia.] made up the sum of the Brown locomotion in most years. A stray Brown from some distant county dropped in every now and then; or from Oxford, on grave nag, an old don[100 - Don: a nickname for a university professor.] contemporary of the Squire; and were looked upon by the Brown household and the villagers with the same sort of feeling with which we now regard a man who has crossed the Rocky Mountains, or launched a boat on the great lake in Central Africa. The White Horse Vale, remember, was traversed by no great road; nothing but country parish roads, and these very bad. Only one coach ran there, and this one only from Wantage to London, so that the western part of the vale was without regular means of moving on, and certainly didn't seem to want them. There was the canal, by the way, which supplied the country-side with coal, and up and down which continually went the long barges with the big black men lounging by the side of the horses along the towing-path, and the women in bright-colored handkerchiefs standing in the sterns steering. Standing, I say, but you could never see whether they were standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being out of sight in the cozy little cabins which occupied some eight feet of the stern and which Tom Brown pictured to himself as the most desirable of residences. His nurse told him that those good-natured-looking women were in the constant habit of enticing children into the barges and taking them up to London and selling them, which Tom wouldn't believe, and which made him resolve as soon as possible to accept the oft-proffered invitation of these sirens[101 - Sirens: sea-nymphs who enticed sailors into their power by their singing, and then devoured them.] to "young master," to come in and have a ride. But as yet the nurse was too much for Tom.

THE OLD BOY APPROVETH MOVING ON

Yet why should I, after all, abuse the gadabout propensities of my countrymen? We are a vagabond nation now, that's certain, for better, for worse. I am a vagabond; I have been away from home no less than five distinct times in the last year. The Queen sets us the example – we are moving on from top to bottom. Little dirty Jack, who abides in Clement's Inn[102 - Clement's Inn: formerly a college and residence for law students in London. It is now given up to law offices.] gateway, and blacks my boots for a penny, takes his month's hop-picking[103 - Hop-picking: all the vagabonds of London go to Kent and Surrey in the autumn to pick hops for the farmers, regarding the work as a kind of vacation frolic.] every year as a matter of course. Why shouldn't he? I am delighted at it. I love vagabonds, only I prefer poor to rich ones; – couriers[104 - Courier: a person hired by wealthy travellers to go in advance and engage rooms at hotels, etc.] and ladies' maids, imperials[105 - Imperial: the best seat on a French diligence or stage-coach.] 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 - Comme le limaçon, etc.: like the snail, carrying all his baggage, his furniture, and his house.]

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 - Chalet (shal-ay'): a Swiss herdsman's hut.] Hottentot kraals,[108 - Kraal: a Hottentot hut or village.] 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 - "Sar' it out": deal it out.] as we say in the Vale, "holus bolus,"[110 - "Holus bolus": all at once.] 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 poet[111 - Learned poet: Wordsworth; the quotation, which follows, is from "My heart leaps up."] (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 - A fortiori: for a stronger reason.] 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 environments[113 - Environments: surroundings.] 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 functionary[114 - Functionary: one charged with the performance of a duty.] was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brain[115 - Scatter-brain: thoughtless.] 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 notable[116 - Nŏtable: industrious, smart.] 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 cardinal[117 - Cardinal: chief.] 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! drat[118 - Drat: plague take.] the girl, what bist[119 - Bist: art.] 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 puritan[120 - Puritan: the Puritans were those who were dissatisfied with the English Church and wished to purify it, as they said, from certain ceremonies. They quite generally gave their children Bible names.] 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 - Whey: in making cheese the milk separates, the thick part forming curd, and the watery portion whey.] 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 - Pattens: wooden-soled shoes.] 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 - Heir-apparent: the legal heir.] 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 - Break cover: come out from his hiding-place.] 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 - Pillion: a seat, for a woman, attached to the hinder part of a saddle.] 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 fetish[126 - Fetish: an idol.] worship and abuse turnpike roads and carriages. He wore an old full-bottomed wig,[127 - Full-bottomed wig: this was a large wig worn by all men of fashion in the last century.] the gift of some dandy old Brown whom he had valeted[128 - Valeted: served; (from valet, a gentleman's private servant).] 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, "Tom Brown so sorry! Put him in the coffin, wig and all!"

TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS – BENJY

But old Benjy was young master's real delight and refuge. He was a youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old. A cheery, humorous, kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of Vale gossip, and of all sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above all for children. It was he who bent the first pin with which Tom extricated his first stickleback[129 - Stickleback: a small fish.] out of "Pebbly Brook," the little stream which ran through the village. The first stickleback was a splendid fellow, with fabulous red and blue gills. Tom kept him in a small basin till the day of his death, and became a fisherman from that day. Within a month from the taking of the first stickleback, Benjy had carried off our hero to the canal, in defiance of Charity; and between them, after a whole afternoon's pop-joying,[130 - Pop-joying: nibbling by fish.] they had caught three or four coarse fish and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a half ounces each, which Tom bore home in rapture to his mother as a precious gift, and which she received like a true mother with equal rapture, instructing the cook nevertheless, in a private interview, not to prepare the same for the squire's dinner. Charity had appealed against old Benjy in the meantime, representing the dangers of the canal banks; but Mrs. Brown, seeing the boy's inaptitude for female guidance, had decided in Benjy's favor, and from thenceforth the old man was Tom's dry nurse. And as they sat by the canal watching their little green and white float,[131 - Float: a cork or bit of wood attached to a fish-line.] Benjy would instruct him in the doings of deceased Browns. How his grandfather, in the early days of the great war, when there was much distress and crime in the Vale, and the magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a big stick in his hand, and held the Petty Sessions[132 - Petty sessions: a criminal court held by a justice of the peace.] by himself. How his great uncle, the rector, had encountered and laid the last ghost, who had frightened the old women, male and female, of the parish, out of their senses, and who turned out to be the blacksmith's apprentice, disguised in drink and a white sheet. It was Benjy too who saddled Tom's first pony, and instructed him in the mysteries of horsemanship, teaching him to throw his weight back and keep his hand low; and who stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school when Tom rode his little Shetland into the cottage and round the table, where the old dame and her pupils were seated at their work.

Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the Vale for their prowess in all athletic games. Some half-dozen of his brothers and kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of his body; he had shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his old dragoon's[133 - Dragoons: soldiers who serve on foot or on horseback, as occasion requires.] sword and pistol, which hung over the mantle-piece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks, with which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester,[134 - Old gamester: a person skilled in the game of single-stick or back sword.] against the picked men of Wiltshire, and Somersetshire,[135 - Wiltshire and Somersetshire: counties west of Berkshire.] in many a good bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side. For he had been a famous back-sword man in his young days, and a good wrestler at elbow and collar.

OUR VEAST

Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holiday pursuits of the Vale, – those by which men attained fame, – and each village had its champion. I suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked then, than they are now; at any rate, they seemed to have more time and energy for the old pastimes. The great times for back-swording came round once a year, in each village at the feast. The Vale "veasts" were not the common statute feasts[136 - Statute feasts: festivals established by law.], but much more ancient business. They are literally, so far as one can ascertain, feasts of the dedication, i. e., they were first established in the church-yard on the day on which the village church was opened for public worship, which was on the wake or festival of the patron saint, and have been held on the same day in every year since that time.

There was no longer any remembrance of why the "veast" had been instituted, but nevertheless it had a pleasant and almost sacred character of its own. For it was then that all the children of the village, wherever they were scattered, tried to get home for a holiday to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, bringing with them their wages or some little gift from up the country for the old folk. Perhaps for a day or two before, but at any rate on "veast-day" and the day after, in our village, you might see strapping, healthy young men and women from all parts of the country going round from house to house in their best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam Brown, whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to the best advantage, or how best to expend the same for the benefit of the old folk. Every household, however poor, managed to raise a "feast-cake" and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast-time, – for feast-cake is very solid and full of huge raisins. Moreover feast-time was the day of reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Freeman hadn't spoken for the last six months, their "old women" would be sure to get it patched up by that day. And though there was a good deal of drinking and low vice in the booths[137 - Booths: temporary sheds, etc., for the sale of refreshments, pedlers' goods, and the like.] of an evening, it was pretty well confined to those who would have been doing the like "veast or no veast"; and, on the whole, the effect was humanizing and Christian. In fact, the only reason why this is not the case still, is that gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as usual, forgotten the poor. They don't attend the feasts themselves, and call them disreputable, whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them also, and they become what they are called. Class amusements, be they for dukes or plow-boys, always become nuisances and curses to a country. The true charm of cricket[138 - Cricket: the English national game of ball.] and hunting is, that they are still, more or less sociable and universal; there's a place for every man who will come and take his part.

APPROACH OF VEAST-DAY

No one in the village enjoyed the approach of "veast-day" more than Tom, in the year in which he was taken under old Benjy's tutelage.[139 - Tutelage: guardianship.] The feast was held in a large green field at the lower end of the village. The road to Farringdon ran along one side of it, and the brook by the side of the road; and above the brook was another large gentle-sloping pasture-land, with a foot-path running down it from the church-yard; and the old church, the originator of all the mirth, towered up with its gray walls and lancet windows[140 - Lancet windows: high, narrow windows of the earliest Gothic architecture.] overlooking and sanctioning the whole, though its own share therein had been forgotten. At the point where the foot-path crossed the brook and road, and entered on the field where the feast was held, was a long, low, roadside inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large, white, thatched farm-house, where dwelt an old sporting farmer, a great promoter of the revels.

Past the old church, and down the foot-path, pottered[141 - Pottered: walked slowly, sauntered.] the old man and the child, hand in hand, early on the afternoon of the day before the feast, and wandered all around the ground which was already being occupied by the "cheap Jacks,"[142 - "Cheap Jacks": pedlers.] with their green-covered carts and marvellous assortment of wares, and the booths of more legitimate[143 - Legitimate: lawful.] small traders with their tempting arrays of fairings[144 - Fairings: ribbons, toys, and other small articles sold for presents.] and eatables; and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wily Indians. But the object of most interest to Benjy, and of course to his pupil, also, was the stage of rough planks, some four feet high, which was being put up by the village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling; and after surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to the roadside inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the Browns, and speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for the morrow's prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts forty years back, to which Tom listened with all his ears and eyes.

MORNING OF THE VEAST

But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church bells were ringing a merry peal and old Benjy appeared in the servants' hall, resplendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of old yellow buckskins[145 - Buckskins: buckskin breeches.] and top-boots,[146 - Top-boots: high boots.] which he had cleaned for and inherited from Tom's grandfather; a stout thorn-stick in his hand, and a nosegay of pinks and lavender in his button-hole, and led away Tom in his best clothes, and two new shillings in his breeches pockets? Those two, at any rate, look like enjoying the day's revel.

They quicken their pace when they get into the church-yard, for already they see the field thronged with country folk, the men in clean white smocks or velveteen or fustian[147 - Fustian: coarse cloth.] coats, with rough plush waistcoats of many colors, and the women in the beautiful scarlet cloak, the usual outdoor dress of West-country women in those days, and which often descended in families from mother to daughter, or in new-fashioned stuff[148 - Stuff: woollen.] shawls, which, if they would but believe it, don't become them half so well. The air resounds with the pipe and tabor,[149 - Pipe and tabor: fife and drum.] and the drums and trumpets of the showmen shouting at the doors of their caravans,[150 - Caravans: show wagons.] over which tremendous pictures of the wonders to be seen within hang temptingly; while through all rises the shrill "root-too-too-too" of Mr. Punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe[151 - Pan-pipe: several pipes or fifes fastened together in a row, and blown by an attendant or "satellite," in the Punch and Judy show.] of his satellite.

"Lawk a' massey, Mr. Benjamin," cries a stout motherly woman in a red cloak as they enter the field, "be that you? Well, I never! you do look purely.[152 - Purely: nicely.] And how's the squire, and madam, and the family?"

Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has left our village for some years, but has come over for "veast-day" on a visit to an old gossip – and gently indicates the heir apparent of the Browns.

"Bless his little heart! I must gi' un a kiss. Here, Susannah, Susannah!" cries she, raising herself from the embrace, "come and see Mr. Benjamin and young Master Tom. You minds[153 - Minds: remember.] our Sukey, Mr. Benjamin? she be growed a rare slip of a wench[154 - Wench: a young peasant girl.] since you seen her, tho' her'll be sixteen come Martinmas[155 - Martinmas: the feast of St. Martin, Nov. 11.]. I do aim[156 - Aim: intend.] to take her to see madam to get her a place."

And Sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of old school-fellows, and drops a courtesy to Mr. Benjamin. And elders come up from all parts to salute Benjy, and girls who have been madam's pupils to kiss Master Tom. And they carry him off to load him with fairings; and he returns to Benjy, his hat and coat covered with ribbons, and his pockets crammed with wonderful boxes, which open upon ever new boxes and boxes, and popguns and trumpets, and apples, and gilt gingerbread from the stall of Angel Heavens, sole vender thereof, whose booth groans with kings and queens, and elephants, and prancing steeds, all gleaming with gold. There was more gold on Angel's cakes than there is ginger in those of this degenerate age. Skilled diggers might yet make a fortune in the church-yards of the Vale by carefully washing the dust of the consumers of Angel's gingerbread. Alas! he is with his namesakes, and his receipts have, I fear, died with him.

THE JINGLING MATCH

And then they inspect the penny peep-show, at least Tom does, while old Benjy stands outside and gossips, and walks up the steps, and enters the mysterious doors of the pink-eyed lady and the Irish Giant, who do not by any means come up to their pictures; and the boa will not swallow his rabbit, but there the rabbit is waiting to be swallowed, – and what can you expect for tuppence?[157 - Tuppence: two pence or four cents; the English penny, being equal to two cents.] We are easily pleased in the Vale. Now there is a rush of the crowd, and a tinkling bell is heard, and shouts of laughter; and Master Tom mounts on Benjy's shoulders, and beholds a jingling match in all its glory. The games are begun, and this is the opening of them. It is a quaint[158 - Quaint: odd, old-fashioned.] game, immensely amusing to look at; and as I don't know whether it is used in your counties, I had better describe it. A large roped ring is made, into which are introduced a dozen or so of big boys and young men who mean to play; these are carefully blinded and turned loose into the ring, and then a man is introduced not blind-folded, with a bell hung round his neck, and his two hands tied behind him. Of course, every time he moves, the bell must ring, as he has no hand to hold it, and so the dozen blind-folded men have to catch him. This they cannot always manage if he is a lively fellow, but half of them always rush into the arms of the other half, or drive their heads together, or tumble over; and then the crowd laughs vehemently, and invents nicknames for them on the spur of the moment, and they, if they be choleric, tear off the handkerchiefs which blind them, and not unfrequently pitch into one another, each thinking that the other must have run against him on purpose. It is great fun to look at a jingling match certainly, and Tom shouts and jumps on old Benjy's shoulders at the sight, until the old man feels weary, and shifts him to the strong young shoulders of the groom, who has just got down to the fun.

And now, while they are climbing the pole in another part of the field, and muzzling in a flour-tub[159 - Muzzling in a flour-tub: running their heads into a tub of flour to fish out prizes.] in another, the old farmer whose house, as has been said, overlooks the field, and who is master of the revels, gets up the steps on to the stage, and announces to all whom it may concern that a half-sovereign[160 - Half-sovereign: ten shillings ($2.50).] in money will be forthcoming for the old gamester who breaks most heads; to which the squire and he have added a new hat.

The amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate the men of the immediate neighborhood, but not enough to bring any very high talent from a distance; so, after a glance or two round, a tall fellow, who is a down shepherd,[161 - Down shepherd: a shepherd on the downs or chalk hills.] chucks his hat on to the stage and climbs up the steps, looking rather sheepish. The crowd, of course, first cheer, then chaff[162 - Chaff: make fun, ridicule.] as usual, as he picks up his hat and begins handling the sticks to see which will suit him.

THE BACK-SWORDING

"Wooy,[163 - Wooy: why.] Willum Smith, thee canst plaay wi' he[164 - He: here, him.] arra[165 - Arra: any.] daay," says his companion to the blacksmith's apprentice, a stout young fellow of nineteen or twenty. Willum's sweetheart is in the "veast" somewhere, and has strictly enjoined him not to get his head broke at back-swording, on pain of her highest displeasure; but as she is not to be seen (the women pretend not to like to see the back-sword play, and keep away from the stage), and as his hat is decidedly getting old, he chucks it on to the stage, and follows himself, hoping that he will only have to break other people's heads, or that after all Rachel won't really mind.

Then follows the greasy cap, lined with fur, of a half-gipsy, poaching,[166 - Poaching: game-stealing.] loafing fellow who travels the Vale not for much good, I fancy:

"Full twenty times was Peter feared
For once that Peter was respected,"[167 - Wordsworth's "Peter Bell."]