Chapter VII: Hardships (1)

Now behold the third attempt that I have made to condense this part of my narrative.

In desperation, for I wish to push on, I have adopted the measure of giving but an outline of my personal history covering two years.

So I jump to a day in June, after I had been living in the little house on Mountain Brook some seven months.

During this time I had been to Miller's Falls but once with my uncle, but so insolently was I stared at that I did not care to withstand again the ordeal of pointed fingers and the whispered conversations of the curious. But now on this June day, here I was standing at the edge of the pasture waiting for some one most impatiently.

From the door-step of Belair but one other dwelling was in sight; except this, nothing but ranges of hill-tops. But a mile below lived a farmer named Tanner, who managed by hard labor to gain his living from the ground. But I was not waiting for him, nor for my uncle, nor for Gaston, who, by-the-way, had been constituted, or had appointed himself, my guardian to such an extent that I might at times, with no stretching of the imagination, consider myself a prisoner. No, I was not waiting for any of them, but for some one who soon hove in sight across the slope of the opposite hill. It was a little girl of my own age, and the only living being at that time who knew anything of my thoughts or life; and they were both strange enough for a boy of fifteen to possess or to endure.

Perhaps if I should tell of our conversation on this day it might recount something that would show how things were with me. In our meeting there was nothing but the friendship of two lads, to put the case as it really appeared to be, and when she had climbed up on the top rail of the fence beside me, and hooked the hollows of her feet behind the bar to keep her balance, the way I was doing, we began, as children do, to speak without preliminaries of any kind in the way of greetings.

"Why weren't you here this morning?" she said, as if accusing me.

"He had one of his fits on and kept me at work," I replied. "First I had to practise with the small sword for two hours. If I don't look out he will run me through some day. I almost wish he would."

"I heard you shooting," said the girl.

"Yes, he wouldn't let me off until I had placed three pistol balls inside a horseshoe nailed to the side of the barn; but I'd rather do that than go through the fencing."

"Down in the village and at our house every one says you're all crack-brained up here," the girl said, making a grasp in the air at a yellow butterfly that flittered over her head. "What else did you do?"

I was ashamed to say that I had been at my dancing-lesson, so I said: "I had to translate four odes of Horace and learn all about a lot of stupid people named De Brissac. I'm glad they had their heads cut off."

"Why did that happen to them?" asked the girl. "What did they cut their heads off for?"

"Because they were nobles and offended the French Republicans by being polite and well dressed and clean, my uncle says."

"Tell me all about it."

I had had the history of the great French revolution, at least one side of it, drilled into me ever since my advent at Mountain Brook. I had learned that my uncle had escaped to America from France, where he had fought for the King, and that my mother and her twin sister had also managed to get away from the frightful prison of La Conciergerie with their lives, but that my grandfather, two uncles, and an aunt by marriage had all lost their heads by the guillotine for the sole reason that they were rich, very well dressed, and very polite indeed, so far as I could make out.

I had learned by heart the family histories of any number of the great noble families of France, and all of this I considered most dull work indeed, and wasted time. However, the story that I related to Mary Tanner, as we sat on the top rail of the fence, seemed to interest her greatly.

"You see," I was saying, after I had finished spinning the long yarn, "my name is not John Hurdiss at all; it is something else."

"What is it?" asked the girl.

"I have no idea," I replied; "but my uncle always calls me Jean, which means John, and, to be honest, I don't think he knows himself."

"I don't see why _he_ shouldn't be able to tell," replied Mary, "if he knows so much about other people."

"No more do I," I answered. "But I don't care. John Hurdiss is good enough for me."

Now, the fact of the matter was this, and I may as well state it here as afterwards: I had guessed about the truth. My uncle did not really know my name, and for this reason:

You see, as I have told, my grandfather was the Marquis de Brienne (I have forgotten to set down that Gaston always called my uncle "Monsieur le Marquis," or something that might be resolved into that). Well, the old gentleman (my ancestor) had three children--the present proprietor of the Château de Belair on Mountain Brook, and twin daughters, Hortense and Hélène, who afterwards married two of the well-dressed and well-hated ones at a time when they had more titles than gold.

Now it happened these two latter gentlemen--my father and uncle, of course--had each the same initials (it is no consequence what the names were, but each ended in "de B"). Early in the great troubles they had sought refuge in England, having better luck than their future wives, who were taken by the revolutionists. But the two ladies escaped through the aid of an adventurous sea-captain, and they joined the colony of refugees in England, where they each found a husband. But affairs did not prosper with them. In the year 1798 the Duke de B---- became entangled in a plot of some kind for the restoration, was caught in France, and lost his head like the rest of his family; and in the same year the Comte de B---- had an unfortunate duel with an English Major of infantry, and was killed. This left the two noble ladies widows, each with an infant boy of a few months old to take care of. For some reason they packed up their belongings and set out for America on a sailing-vessel, commanded, it appears, by no less a person than the sea-captain who had assisted in their first escape from France.

Sad to relate, the ship in which they sailed was wrecked, and one of the ladies was lost with her infant in the disaster. Whether it was the Duchesse de B---- or the Comtesse de B---- was not placed on record, but the commander of the ship, Captain John Hurdiss, married the survivor at some place in the West Indies, I believe.

Now there was no way of finding out which one of the ladies the gallant Captain Hurdiss had married, and I had never heard my mother's first name mentioned that I could recall. My uncle did not know it, of a certainty. This was the situation in a nutshell, and I trust that I have made it plain, for I have endeavored to do so in the very shortest manner, to the best of my ability.

Thus the loss of the letter and the burning of the strong-box were two misfortunes that had prevented me from knowing really who I was.

All this may seem complicated, but I have done my best to make it lucid; and with a heartfelt apology for this long digression, let me return to the day in June, and to the boy and girl talking together, balanced on the top rail of the pasture bars.

"Did you bring the book with you that you were speaking about?" I asked of my companion.

"No," she replied; "but I will leave it under the flat rock this evening."

"I'll get it, then," I answered. "Halloa! Look at that."

"It's a woodchuck," said the girl, jumping from her perch, and we both charged at a small brown animal that scurried into a hole beneath some loose stones. We were busily engaged in routing him out and he was whistling back defiance (we had almost got at him), when I heard my name called. I looked up and saw my uncle and old Twineface approaching along the path.

"Jean, Jean! Come here at once!" called Monsieur de Brienne, in French.

"I'm going to run," said the girl, who had often expressed her terror at Gaston's appearance.

Without another word she turned and fled, jumping over the tall ferns like a deer.

My uncle had now approached within a few feet's distance.

"Who is that with you?" he inquired, angrily.

"Mary Tanner, the daughter of the farmer below," I replied. "I have known her for some months. She is very nice--and--and pretty," I faltered.

"Bah! You shall have nothing to do with her. Never speak to her, d'ye mind me? And here's where you have been spending your time instead of being at your studies. Come back with me; I will fence with you."

It was one of my uncle's _young_ days; and here, to put down something that neither I nor any person of real learning to whom I have related the facts, could account for: at varying periods my uncle, who was past sixty, seemed to be gifted with an agility, a nervous force and strength, that I have never seen equalled in a man of his slightness. This rejuvenation, during which he often sang rondeaux and tinkled an accompaniment on an old lyre, would last for some ten hours, perhaps, and would be followed by two or three days, or sometimes a week, of collapse, during which he appeared on the verge of dissolution, and either Gaston or myself had to be with him every minute, administering from time to time a few drops from an acrid-smelling vial.

But, as I have said, this was one of his youthful days.

I had been awakened in the morning early by a strange sound, and had found him jumping the colt backwards and forwards over a hurdle on the grass-plot before the house, Gaston standing by, a grim spectator, with no interest in his dull, lack-lustre eyes. For an hour the old man had put me through a practice with a small sword (he was the best fencer I have ever seen), until I almost cried out from weariness, and we changed the exercise for pistol practice. Now we returned to Belair, and despite my complaining, I was forced to take up the foils again, and actually to defend myself, for my uncle kept me up to my work by now and then giving me a clip over the thigh or forearm. At last I grew angry, and pressed him so close that a smile of pleasure drew his lips, and he muttered "bravo" two or three time beneath his breath. Suddenly I noticed a gray shadow cross his face, and his eyelids drooped. He raised his hand, and without a word fell forward at my feet. It was one of the worst attacks that he had experienced, and for five days Gaston and I nursed him, and I found no chance to get away to the pasture bars, or to the flat rock where Mary had placed the book we had spoken of.

On the sixth day my uncle was up and as spry as ever, but now I found that I was practically under surveillance; wherever I went the frightful Gaston would go also. He was a most unpleasant person to have around, for although his senses were most acute and he possessed the cunning of a wolf, it was impossible to carry on a conversation with him. He had an impediment in his speech, a combination of a stutter and the result of having no roof to his mouth, that made his utterances sound like those of a savage or wild beast. To say "yes" or "no" was an effort for him, and he usually expressed his meaning by making signs.

One day, I remember, I had determined to test my authority over him (for in most things he obeyed me implicitly, so far as the fetching and carrying went, but upon this occasion, as I say, I determined to give him a test). I had walked as far as the edge of our clearing, and paused on the bank of the brook.

"Gaston," I said, "go back to the house. I'm going on alone." The only reply was a shake of the head. "Do you hear me? I'm going on alone." (It was my intention to make my way to the Tanner farm-house, where, by-the-way, I had never been, and ask for Mary.)

Now, seeing that Gaston did not intend to obey me, I jumped down the bank and dashed across the stream, but I had not taken a dozen strides before the old servant had me by the arm; his long fingers closed on my flesh like a steel clamp. The result was that I went back to the house. But that evening I managed to get away, and went to the flat rock, under which I found the book. I had to wait until daylight before I could examine it, although Mary, a week or so before, had told me of its contents.

It was an old volume relating the adventures of an Englishman named Robinson Crusoe (I can recall the musty smell of its pages at this very instant). Oh, the delight that I had for the next few hours, reading the greatest story, to my mind, that was ever penned! Oh, the desire for freedom and the longing to see the world which was builded up within me as I turned each page! Ah! Robinson, Robinson! despite the moral you intend to teach, you have turned many lads' minds to the sea, and given them a burning, dry thirst for adventure not to be quenched at home! I had read few stories in English up to this time, but I fairly shook, as I read this one, with the intensity of my sensations.

I am afraid that living this life gave me a tendency for dissimulation, although in my gaoler, Gaston, I had a hard one to deceive. Nevertheless I succeeded in getting away one afternoon, and made my way through the woods to Farmer Tanner's. Suffice it to say that I was chased out of the door-yard by the goodwife, with a broom in her hand, who informed me that Mary had gone away--where, she did not state. I was threatened, incidentally, with the ox-goad, if I should return; and so my errand was not altogether successful.

Now to give a big jump over time. Another year went by. Oh, the misery of it all! The long, snowed-in days of the winter when, although my uncle had money, I think, I had scarcely sufficient clothing to keep me warm, and barely enough to eat. M. de Brienne's conduct and manner by now had become so strange and his mind was so volatile that I could never say that I felt affection toward him. I had begun to hate Gaston generously.

When spring came, to amuse myself, I delved in the garden, and was rewarded by seeing all my green things prosper wondrously. An illness that had lasted over a month almost brought me to my grave in April, but I cannot complain for lack of nursing. Now, however, there had entered my mind but one idea--to escape, and that right soon. Why I had not thought of it seriously before must excite wonder. The determination to begin to prepare for an actual separation came to me in this fashion.

Owing to the strangeness of the costumes I was forced to wear, I had much hesitancy about going abroad. People would have taken me, I fear, for a mountebank. My coat, much too small, was of velvet; my breeches, of stained and heavy brocaded silk, much patched; and my hose tattered and threadbare. I was well shod, as my uncle possessed a box of shoes and boots of curious fashion and superior workmanship, that fitted me, even if those I wore were not always mates. But I determined I must have other clothing.

I knew nothing of the goings on of the outside world. Now to come to the day on which I was enlightened.

June again. I had escaped from Gaston's eye (the old man had begun to show some signs of age), and had gone down to the highway that led to Miller's Falls. Half hid in the bushes, I was seated, hoping to catch a glimpse of some human being, when I saw walking down the hill a man whose appearance made my heart give a leap--a tall, broad-shouldered figure, dressed in a sailor jacket and wide trousers. A great bundle, that he carried as if it was a bag of feathers, was on his back, and he was whistling merrily as he swung along the road. I knew him in an instant, and his name came to me. It was Silas Plummer, who had been one of the crew of the _Minetta_. I sung out to him by name. He came to a halt, but showed half fright upon my appearing through the bushes.

"What in the name of Moll Roe have we here?" he cried.

"It is I, Master Plummer," I answered, and I told him who I was. In my eagerness I must have appeared half crazed, I judge, for he looked at me askance as I grasped him by the arm.

"What are you doing, lad?" he inquired. "And how you've grown!"

In a few words, and in an incoherent fashion, I fear, I told him of my life and my virtual imprisonment. Evidently the explanation that I made set his mind at rest in regard to my sanity.

"Why don't you clear out?" he said. "There's a chance for a fine lad like yourself to the southward. The sea is not far away (how my heart leapt at the word 'sea'!), and there are great goings on there. We've taken their frigates, and given the lion's tail a twist until it is kinked like a fouled hawser."

"What do you mean?" I inquired.

"Hear the lad!" Plummer responded, setting down his bundle and going into the pocket of his jacket and drawing out a newspaper. "There's a war between America and England. I'm just in off the _Comet_ privateer. Listen to this," he said. He slapped his trousers pocket, and it chinked to the sound of gold. "And listen here," he repeated, and he tapped the other side. It jingled musically. "Ho, but we are getting even with them for all their mail-stealing!"

"A war with England!" I cried, taking the paper that had "Victory!" spread across it in large type. "Do you remember Dash, and his hand there on the deck?"

"Ay, like a glove thrown in the face of the King," said the sailor; "and the news of it is about the world."

"Plummer," I said, "sell me some clothes. I'll pay you for them--if you'll wait." I had hidden three or four of the gold pieces under the flat rock. "I will run and fetch you the money," I continued, eagerly.

"Not a penny, not a farthing," answered the man, giving my shoulder a push. "Come into the woods. I have some duds that might fit you here in my bundle."

My hands and, indeed, my knees also, were trembling so that I had to have his assistance (a strange tiring-maid) in getting into my clothes. But in ten minutes I was rigged out all-a-taun-to in the outfit of a swaggering privateers-man, even to the shirt opened at the throat and the half-fathom of neckerchief. I recollect that I was crazy to see how I looked in it.

"And here's a cap, too," he said. "It has a Portugee rake to it, but never mind; now you're ship-shape."

He stood off and looked at me, with his head sidewise, as if I was wholly some workmanship of his own hands.

"Anchor's atrip," he cried, imitating the shrilling of a boatswain's whistle; "set sail and away."

"How--_how_ can I thank you?" I said, half faltering, and blushing, for I felt hot all over.

"By meeting me ten days from now in Stonington. There's a crack brig, the _Young Eagle_, about to sail from there; and though they'll take few greenhorns, togged out that way you can pass muster. Ship with me, mess-mate. I'll help you out!" He grasped my hand. "Ah, you've got a good grip for a rope! And look at the chest and the arm of you! Big as my own, I'll warrant."

I had never realized what a size I had become; but I had been finding out that it was only my uncle's skill that kept me from disarming him in our fencing-bouts of late, and that Gaston had not laid hands on me since some time before my illness. Now I was fully recovered and in fine fettle.

"I'll go with you," I replied, grasping Plummer's hand again, "and God bless you!"

"The _Young Eagle_, then, at Stonington, eh?" He slapped his pockets and started off. "I'm bound up-country to see my sweetheart," he shouted back from over his shoulder, and I heard him chanting the "Sailor's Return" as he disappeared about a bend in the road.

I gathered my rags and made for the brook, where I looked at myself until I became fairly ashamed, and threw a stone at my reflection in the water. Then taking off my clothes, I donned the old ones, and hiding my bundle beneath the old flat rock where I kept the _Robinson Crusoe_, an old horse-pistol, and many treasures (including a half-score of the De Brienne buttons), I went up to the house. I could see that my uncle was in a strange excitement (that he was going mad I have no doubt of now). Gaston cast a suspicious look at me, in return for which I, elated by the doings of the day, made a threatening gesture. Of a truth, I think the man had grown afraid of me, for he cringed.

At twelve o'clock that night I was awakened by some one stirring in my room. I looked up. It was my uncle. He was in his night-dress, and his gray hair straggled over his ears. Held close to his side, as if it rested in a scabbard, was a narrow court sword, whose naked blade flashed in the ray of the moonlight that came in at the curtainless window.

"No, by St. Michel, they shall not enter!" he cried, and he stopped suddenly, rigid, as if he were listening for some one coming up the stairs. Then he turned to the bed on which I lay.

"Arise, your Majesty!" he said. "They're upon us. Come, gentlemen, stand fast!"

Again he listened. "No, they're gone," he whispered, softly. "Is the Princess calling for me?" He made as if to sheathe the sword, and I saw, in doing so, the sharp blade cut into the palm of his left hand; but he paid no attention to it, and went down stairs.

To say that I had shuddered would not express it. And suddenly, as if a burst of light had come upon me, the idea that I need no longer stay flooded my brain.

"Why, he might murder me!" I thought, the conviction coming then for the first time that he had turned mad-man. I arose, and only putting on half my clothing and my shoes, I lowered myself out of the window.

It was cloudless, and the moon was at the full. My shadow chased before me as I ran down the path. Freedom! freedom! seemed to beckon me. I breathed the same sensation that I had on that clear moonlight night when the salt breeze was in my hair, and when the wide sea rose and fell and the little brig dashed through it--as if she had caught my exultation of I hers.

I leaped the brook and scattered the sleeping birds out of the bushes up the banks. "Ho for the sea! Hurrah!" I cried; and I never turned to give even a farewell look at the Château de Belair.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

TYPICAL ENGLISH SCHOOLS.

BY JOHN CORBIN.

RUGBY.

Rugby was founded in 1567, almost two hundred years later than Winchester. Its founder was not a great bishop and statesman, like Wykeham, and much less a King, like the founder of Eton, but plain Lawrence Sheriff, one of the gentlemen of the Princess Elizabeth (afterward Queen Bess), and a warden of the Grocers' Company. At first Rugby was a mere grammar-school; and it never ranked high as a public school until Dr. Thomas Arnold, "The Doctor" of _Tom Brown's School-Days_, became head master. To-day Rugby holds firmly to its middle-class traditions. There is not a title in the whole place. The boys are mainly the sons of midland manufacturers, and of the doctors and lawyers of the neighboring cities.

When Dr. Arnold came to Rugby in 1837 he found about as unruly and turbulent a school as there was in the kingdom. The "houses" were mere boarding-houses, and the masters, who usually eked out their incomes by means of church "livings," often resided at some vicarage or rectory in the neighborhood. Arnold, who was an old Wykehamist, required the masters to live in the houses and govern them, as the Winchester masters have always done. Next to the masters in authority he placed the sixth-form boys, giving them much the same powers as the Winchester prefects and Eton captains. When there are not enough sixth-form boys to keep order in a house, as sometimes happens, the master selects a few of the best scholars and athletes in the fifth form, and gives them the power and responsibility of sixth-form boys. Instead of gathering all the "scholars" together in one "college," as is done at Winchester and Eton, each house has a fair proportion of scholars. This plan is followed at Harrow also; and, as I mentioned in the first of these articles, the college at Winchester is likely soon to be broken up and scattered among the houses. As a result of this plan the Rugby "school-house"--of which Tom Brown was a member--is made up not of a picked set of scholars, but of the same proportion of scholars and other boys as the houses.

Arnold's admirable manner of dealing with the boys is familiar to all readers of _Tom Brown_, but besides the fighting, betting, and bullying which lingered in Tom's day, Arnold encountered a great deal of open and systematic rule-breaking. The boys used to keep guns and beagles in the backs of shops, and employed much of their spare time in poaching in the neighborhood. This sort of thing Arnold easily quelled by telling the shopkeepers that he would "put their shops out of bounds"--that is, forbid the boys from entering them, even to buy things,--if they kept on helping the boys to go poaching. The horsy cliques among the boys caused Arnold more trouble. Rugby is in a first-rate hunting country, so that the temptation was very great to mount a nag and go scurrying off over fences and hedges. On one occasion, a boy who fancied himself as a steeple-chaser bragged that he could give any fellow in the school the pick of all the horses in Rugby town and beat him. A boy named Corbett accepted the challenge, selecting as a mount the best fencer he could find. The challenger picked the fastest horse in town. In the race the fast horse refused several of the fences, so that Corbett won. After the race the challenger blustered so much about the superiority of Corbett's horse as a fencer that Corbett challenged him to swap horses and try another race. This time Corbett was so careful in taking the fences that he fell behind; yet he did not miss a single obstacle. On the homestretch he gave his speedy animal the spurs, and, as he had planned, sported in ahead amid wild enthusiasm from his friends. Of all this Arnold took no notice. This so elated the boys that they got up a grand steeple-chase, for which seven horses entered. At this juncture Arnold sent for Corbett, and told him that he had winked at the first two races only because if he had taken any notice of it he should have had to expel both boys. He added that if the steeple-chase came off he would expel every boy who rode or was present at it. There was no steeple-chase. Soon after, however, a great national steeple-chase took place at Dunchurch, a neighboring town, and Arnold "put the course in bounds" for the day. The whole school went to see it, and every sensible and manly boy must have been won over to his master's side.

Fights among the boys Arnold handled with similar moderation and firmness. It had been the custom to settle quarrels by knock-out contests somewhere out of bounds, where there was little or no chance of interruption. Arnold ruled that all fights should take place within the close--that is, in the great playing-field just behind the school--every part of which his study windows overlooked. The penalty for the breach of this rule was the expulsion of all parties concerned. The fight between Tom Brown and Slogger Williams, which took place in the close behind the chapel, was no child's play; but the appearance of the Doctor at least cut it off short of manslaughter. Once fighting was put under rules, it was in the plain road toward being suppressed altogether.

To ascribe all these reforms, and the general elevation of public opinion with regard to the discipline of schoolboys, to Arnold's sole influence would perhaps not be just. His plan of governing the school, as I have said, was only a modification of that which Wykeham had framed centuries earlier for his school at Winchester. In only one particular did Arnold attempt to improve on Wykeham's plan. He tried to make the sixth form report offenders to him for punishment. In the few cases in which this was done the informers lost caste forever. The sixth form would lick offenders, as upper boys have done, I suppose, ever since Wykeham's day, but they wouldn't blab. It shows what a good plan Wykeham established, that even Arnold couldn't better it. Arnold's ideas about influencing his upper boys he seems also to have learned at Winchester. When he was himself an upper boy his master once set him to construe a hard passage in Thucydides, of whom he was so fond that later he edited his works. When his master objected to the rendering, Arnold stood up for it stoutly, even obstinately. "Very well," said the master, quietly, "we will have some one who will construe it my way." Some hours after school Arnold came to the master looking very crestfallen. "I have come to tell you, sir, that I have found out I was wrong." "Ay, Arnold," said the master, holding out his hand in forgiveness, "I knew you would come." The question of kneeling to pray in the dormitory, over which Tom Brown struggled so manfully in defence of Arthur, cropped out at other public schools at the same time and even earlier. In a word, Arnold's mastership at Rugby fell in a time when all matters of life not only in public schools, but in general society, were being elevated and purified. The prominent place which Rugby took in the general movement was due partly to the fact that it was the most turbulent of the schools, and partly to the fact that of all head masters Arnold was the most manly, devout, and beloved.

Since Arnold's time, the work he began has been carried steadily on. To-day the boys break bounds chiefly to go bicycling or to take a swim in the Avon. Bullying is almost entirely a thing of the past. Of the old fighting spirit little remains. The very site of Tom's famous encounter is now occupied by the chancel of the new chapel, and choir-boys sing whereof old Rattle, in his thunder-and-lightning waist-coat, wagered "two to one in half-crowns on the big 'un." All this, of course, is as it should be; but one of the masters admitted to me that spite and backbiting are probably commoner than they were in the days of black eyes and bloody noses. I could not help suspecting that if Tom Brown were to come back to his old haunts he would find life pretty dull, and perhaps even hanker for another encounter with the bully Flashman. It would be a capital joke, I often think, to make a born reformer live in a place that was just as he liked it.

All the dearest associations at Rugby, at any rate, have to do with the fight that was fought in Arnold's time, and the most sacred landmarks and customs are those which are mentioned in _Tom Brown_. As you are shown through the school-house your guide points out the "double study"--fully five feet by six--which is said to have been occupied by Tom and Arthur. The boys who use it now, I am certain, never doubt that an actual Tom Brown once lived in it. In the corridor, to be sure, the top of the old hall table, with T. HUGHES carved boldly upon it in capitals, is hung reverently upon the wall; but the explanation of this is precisely that which a schoolboy once gave to the question of the authorship of Homer. If _Tom Brown's School-Days_ was not about Tom Brown, it was about another boy of the same name.

In one of the dormitories you will find the oak table on top of which new boys were--and still are--made to sing. The rule is that they must stand with their legs as wide astraddle as possible, and hold a lighted candle in each hand. Your guide will show you the tin candle-guards or "parishes" in which the candles were held. On the table beside the boy is always placed a jug of drink, composed of beer, salt, mustard, soap, and other savory ingredients, a swallow of which the new boy is made to gulp down if he fails to sing a song. About the walls of the room are ranged eleven little oak cots, beside one of which Arthur most certainly knelt to pray on his first night in school. Or if you insist that Arthur never lived, why, then, you remember that every fellow has knelt down, or wished he dared to, on his first night of homesickness in a strange, rough place.

The school-house dining-room stands almost exactly as it stood in Tom Brown's days. There are tables all around the sides, and a table in the middle. The small boys sit about the side tables, and, as the years go by, move gradually around the room, until at last they are admitted to the middle table. To sit here means much more than merely being in the sixth form. At the side of the hall is the fireplace where Flashman roasted Tom for refusing to sell the lottery ticket on Harkaway; and the very benches stand beside it upon which the bully's head struck, a few days later, when Tom and East finally got the better of him. From the dining-room there are two doors leading into the quad, one through a long and difficult passage, and the other opening directly upon it. The little boys who sit at the side tables have to go out through the long passage; only the big boys at the middle table can go out directly. For a little boy to go out through the big boys' door would be unheard-of arrogance. This, Rugbeians think, is an excellent custom, both because it existed in Tom Brown's time, and because it teaches boys their places. When I told my guide that it reminded me of the farmer who had a big hole in his barn door for his cat, and a little hole for his kitten, I think he thought me irreverent.

Across the court, outside the hall, are the turret stairs leading up to the school-rooms where Arnold met his sixth form. Many a man who is now old and gray remembers these rooms as the place where he learned more about obedience and more about ruling vigorously and justly than he might ever have known except for his head master at Rugby. The walls of the rooms are covered with old table-tops, upon which are carved the names of these ancient Rugbeians. The tables now in use are untouched. If a boy carves so much as his initials, he has to have the wood planed and polished, or pay the price of a new table. Fame, you see, comes harder nowadays.

We walk out at last into the ample close. The three trees which used to stand within the football-field are all gone; and many another well-known tree was blown over in a recent wind-storm. Still, there are plenty left for shade, and though one always grudges an old and beautiful landmark, perhaps the football and cricket fields are better. To an American, the Rugby close will always be of interest as the birthplace and original home of that form of football which gave rise to our own familiar game; but if he has read _Tom Brown_ in his boyhood, he will think of it rather as the place where Tom made his entry to Rugby life in the big-side football game, and where, with Arthur on his eleven, he played his final game of cricket. About the close the pleasantest memories of the school hover; and of all public schools Rugby is the one which appeals most strongly to the democratic instincts of an American. Here boys are equal not only by custom, as at Eton, but by birth; and here many generations have learned to value themselves, in Arnold's phrase, as Christians, gentlemen, and scholars.

To speak of the other public schools--Harrow, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Wellington, Clifton, Repton, and the rest--would of course be interesting, but I could scarcely hope to illustrate more clearly what a public school really is. At all of them the boys live in "houses," much as men at the universities live in colleges. At all the discipline is more strict than is usual at our preparatory schools, and at all the older boys have power to flog the younger, and are responsible for their good behavior. To an American the discipline seems too strict to be compatible with real independence, and the idea of a big boy flogging a little one is brutal. Certainly it is not well for an American boy to be sent to school in England. Yet granted the strictness with which English parents bring up their children, and the careful watch which is kept on young men at the universities, the public-school system seems to me the best that could possibly be devised. Independence of character and the power of using opportunities are perhaps not to be looked for among English schoolboys; but from their stricter rules they learn obedience and self-restraint, while from the exercise of power the older boys learn to govern justly and with decision.

* * * * *

A GIRL'S BRAVE ACT.

"She will bear the marks of her fight the rest of her life." The doctor who made this observation referred to Miss Anna McDowell, a young girl of nineteen, who by her heroic act on the afternoon of November 22 has gained an enviable reputation for bravery and presence of mind. The heroine is a resident of Quakake Valley, Pennsylvania. A small trout stream runs through the valley, skirting the main road. This stream was a source of delight to little three-year-old Nettie Hinckle, who constantly played on its banks and fished in its waters. Nettie was fishing on the afternoon of the 22d when a whir of wings startled her, and looking up she saw a giant bald-head eagle flying savagely towards her. With screams of fright she started to run, but the bird fought her back with his beak and talons.

Miss McDowell, who was passing, heard the screams and hastened to the bank of the stream. Without hesitating, she seized the child and tore her away from the eagle. This apparently served to enrage the bird further, and, defeated in its attempt to carry off the child, it turned its attention to the rescuer. It circled around, tearing at her with his beak and talons in the most ferocious manner.

Nettie had fallen down on the ground, and the young girl stooped over, guarding her, at the same time vainly trying to ward off the bird's attacks. The bird grew more and more furious, and repeatedly dashed at the girl, cutting ugly gashes in her shoulders and head. Without any other means of defence, she used her arms to fight his onslaughts, but strength was fast leaving her what with loss of blood and her high nervous state of excitement.

In the struggle her hat became loose, and instantly she thought of her hat-pin. It was one of the usual long, thin, steel pins, and drawing it out she defended herself with it against the savage bird, who, regardless of the stabs she gave, flew at her with renewed fury. Her heart failed her and her strength was nearly gone. Why did not somebody come? The bird had circled off, and was coming at her with a wild swoop, his beak half open ready to tear, and his talons extended.

She grasped him around the neck as he struck at her, and holding him with all the strength she had left, she thrust the hat-pin into his head, fortunately killing him. At the same moment her senses left her, and she stumbled forward on the ground, falling on the dead bird. Little Nettie ran screaming to her house, a short distance away, and people hurried to the scene. They tenderly lifted the brave girl up and took care of her, as the bird had inflicted some bad wounds. Miss McDowell proposes to have the bird stuffed to keep in her room as a memento of the occasion, but the memory of her brave act will never be forgotten by the people of her neighborhood.

FAMOUS CAVALRY CHARGES.

AT BEVERLY FORD.

BY RICHARD BARRY.

It is a fact that has been noted by many historians, in writing of the actions in the civil war, that the sabre wounds that were reported at the hospital were few and far between. This is easily accounted for in the first two years of the war, for the reason that the Confederates, from whom the Union forces learned the severest kind of lessons, used their cavalry forces as dragoons, or mounted infantry. The celerity with which they moved bodies on horseback from one point to another caused consternation throughout the North. General McClellan, who had been, it must be confessed, not very much impressed with the need of a cavalry force, at last declared himself as almost helpless without this assistance; and from this time on this branch of the service received the attention so long denied it.

Although the Confederates could rightly point with pride to their well-organized cavalry divisions, there can be no record prouder than that of the First Cavalry Division, known as Buford's Cavalry. To quote from the writings of Brigadier-General Wesley Merritt, "Its history shows that from the time of its organization until the end of the war it captured more men, horses, guns, and munitions than would equip it twice over, and yet that during this time it never suffered a surprise, never lost a wheel captured by the enemy, and never met the enemy but to defeat it."

From the very day of the new organization that took place under General Hooker the cavalry force of the Army of the Potomac began to live and move, and the contempt that the victorious Southern horsemen held for the riders of the North slowly diminished, until in its place was the respect born of fear.

The Richmond _Examiner_, one of the strongest journals of the Confederacy, thus speaks of the new order of things that began to exist. This extract is taken from that issue which speaks of the great cavalry fight at Beverly Ford:

"If the war was a tournament, invented and supported for the pleasure and profit of a few vain and weak-headed officers, these disasters might be dismissed with compassion; but the country pays dearly for the blunders which encourage the enemy to overrun and devastate the land with a cavalry which is daily learning to despise the mounted troops of the Confederacy. It is high time that this branch of the service should be reformed.

"The surprise of this occasion was the most complete that has occurred. The Confederate cavalry was carelessly strewn over the country, with the Rappahannock only between it and an enemy who has always proven his enterprise to our cost. It is said that its camp was supposed to be secure, because the Rappahannock was not supposed to be fordable at the point where it was actually forded. What? Do Yankees, then, know more about this river than our own soldiers, who have done nothing but ride up and down its banks for the last six months?

"They knew at least the weather was dry, the water low, and that fifteen or twenty horse, confident from impunity and success, were on the other side. They could not have failed to know this much, and they were surprised, caught at breakfast, made prisoners on foot, with guns empty and horses grazing. Although the loss was insignificant, the events of that morning were among the least creditable that have occurred. Later, some of our best officers sacrificed their lives to redeem the day. A very fierce fight ensued, in which it is said, for the first time in this war, a considerable number of sabre wounds were given and received. In the end, the enemy retired or was driven--it is not yet clearly known which--across the river. Nor is it certainly known whether the fortunate result was achieved by the cavalry alone or with the assistance of Confederate infantry in the neighborhood."

From this account it may be seen that the Confederates regarded this action as a surprise. Maybe it was, but the Union forces had been preparing for it for some time. Some of the divisions had been in the saddle, moving from one point to another, for hours, in full sight of the Confederates on the further side of the Rappahannock.

At early dawn on the 9th of June, 1863, the Second Cavalry, with the Fifth leading the regular brigade, moved out. But one small brigade had passed over the river before them, led by Colonel B. F. Davis, of the Eighth New York. With the muddied water of the river up to their saddle-girths, several thousand men forded the stream without opposition, and climbed the bank to the level land beyond, where the Southern army was making ready with great haste to meet the advance of the wide blue lines.

No sooner had the first division formed than a volley broke out from the fringe of timber at the edge of the rising land, and in a charge upon the enemy that had now marched into sight, Davis had fallen, mortally wounded. This was the news that greeted the First, Second, and Fifth as they ranged up from the river and climbed this slippery bank, furrowed deep by the hoof-marks of the hundreds of horsemen that had preceded them. It was about five o'clock in the morning, and with this advance commenced the most memorable cavalry combat ever placed on record in any war. For twelve hours' time the struggle continued, and it was not until seven o'clock that the Second Cavalry left the field. Brave Captain Canfield fell dead, shot through the body. Captain Rodenbough, who had been despatched to the front, found his squadron hotly engaged. Dismounting his men and taking possession of a stone wall, he defended it against attacks of more than ten times his number, until his command was relieved by the squadron under command of Captain Loeser.

But the well-directed artillery fire and the singing bullets of the Confederate sharp-shooters from the hill were playing havoc with the waiting ranks of the men in blue, who, awaiting the general orders to advance, moved from one position to another as the Confederate artillerists got range of them. At last the long-hoped-for order came from General Buford, and the cavalry was ordered to advance and charge the batteries and riflemen in the woods. The men on foot were captured in their improvised defences, and forward rolled the Union line, a battery of artillery keeping company with them. Now for some time commenced an artillery battle, and then again the order was given to charge. The column of platoons under rapid motion were broken into fours to avoid a fence, and man after man scrambled over a sunken road, and then stopping only for half a moment, rapidly to reform, hot of foot and shouting, they rode with drawn sabres upon the hitherto invincible Southerners, who, seated on their horses, had been waiting the order to advance themselves.

It is a rule of cavalry fighting that no force of horsemen ever meet another force while standing still, for with the impetus of quick movement those in motion have force that would make up greatly for lack of numbers. Unfortunately for the Confederates their regiment that had charged the Union skirmishers, halted and broke before the main body of troopers as they came flying up the hill, and now ensued one of the strangest happenings of the war--the Southern line, stampeded and broken, was mingled with the horsemen of the North. Sabre blows and pistol-shots rang on every hand. No one halted to make prisoners, but riding on in one great fighting charge, it became an individual conflict, the victor never pausing to see how well he had done his work, but surging in the wild rush for a fresh foeman worthy of his steel.

The Captains, Lieutenants, non-commissioned officers, privates, fought boot to boot. Through the fierce heat and dust and smoke could be heard the chough of the sabre or the cracking of the revolver. Up the hill and across the plateau to the crest of the ridge they fought it out. So weakened had the men's sword-arms become from continual blows and parrying, that oftentimes two troopers of opposing sides rode on together, neither having the strength to unhorse the other.

Rodenbough, a good swordsman, who had lost his best horse early in the action, found himself opposite a tall Virginian, who also knew his sword-play, and succeeded in wounding the gallant Captain. But an instant later he was brought to the ground by a stroke of Rodenbough's sabre. Captain Loeser was severely wounded, and his two Lieutenants also.

Although the charge had swept everything before it, or at least along with it, it was seen, when the top of the hill was gained, that fresh bodies of troops were hurrying up from beyond in order to take advantage of the confusion of the Union line. Obeying the hurried orders of their officers and the call of the bugle, the Second whirled about and returned to the rolling ground in order to reform and be in better condition to meet the enemy. This regiment had defeated in its charge, in a hand-to-hand fight, more than double its own number; its losses had been terrible, but soon it was in condition to fight once more. But now the battle had been renewed by the enemy's firing rifle and carbine from the woods on the south. To quote from what General Wesley Merritt says of his personal adventures during the charge: