Foxholme Hall Part 5

The Squire did not forget a good thing when he said it himself, and this saying was many a time afterwards repeated to his own infinite satisfaction at Blessingham. He was able most conscientiously to introduce Reginald with a very good character to Mr Lindsay, who being a good physiognomist, was satisfied that he had got a tractable pupil.

The three boys accompanied the Squire to the station. Reginald did not feel a particle of sadness till just as the Squire was getting into the carriage, and then a suffocating sensation rose up in his throat which made him feel that he must have a good hearty cry--not for himself, but it was a reminder of how much he loved his father. Away rattled, and puffed, and smoked, and steamed the train, and Reginald Warrender was left to his own resources.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER TWO.

Reginald, with Power and Anson, as soon as they had seen the Squire off, hurried back to the Brocas--some fields on the banks of the river. The rapidly-flowing stream pa.s.ses by them, and on its smooth but somewhat sedgy current all sorts of boating were taking place, and Reginald was quickly initiated into a knowledge of the variety of craft used by the boys. As he was very well up to boating, he found no difficulty in the matter.

"Here, you see," said Power, "we have one ten-oared and six eight-oared boats. Any boy in the Fifth form may join them. There is another upper and four lower Fifth-Form boats. We speak of the three upper and four lower boats. There is a captain for each of them, and he selects his crew from among the fellows who wish to join. You observe that the crew of each boat has a different uniform, and on grand occasions, when all appear in full dress, we flatter ourselves that we appear to great advantage. Besides these, there are what we call outriggers, and tunnies, and tubs; and, of course, you will at once have one of them."

"Which do you intend to be, Warrender, a `dry bob,' or a `wet bob'?"

said Anson, coming up to them. "I hope the latter."

Reginald did not exactly know what this meant; but as Anson had given him a hint, he answered, "Oh, of course a wet bob."

"Oh, ah, that's the swell thing. I am glad of it. I thought you were the sort of fellow for wet-bobbing."

Reginald found that wet-bobbing consisted in paddling about in a boat of one's own, even though it might be only a "tub," or dinghy.

"But, I say, can you swim?" asked Anson; "because you know that you will not be able to boat till you have `pa.s.sed.'"

"What's pa.s.sing?" asked Reginald.

"Oh, I'll tell you," said Anson. "A good number of fellows from time to time got drowned from boats being capsized, and at last a law was pa.s.sed that no fellow should be allowed to boat till he had pa.s.sed a swimming examination before certain of the masters. We have an old waterman, Harry Cannon, who teaches the lower boys to swim at Cuckoo Weir. As soon as he thinks a fellow can swim well enough he advises him to have a try the next pa.s.sing day. It's great fun to see the weather-beaten old fellow Harry in his Eton blue coat and Eton arms worked in silver on his sleeve, as he sits in his punt from one end to the other of a summer's day, dangling lower boys at the end of a short blue pole. Often fellows, if they have any pluck, can swim in two or three weeks. They make nothing of bathing three times a day in summer when they are learning to swim. Just go any warm summer day to Cuckoo Weir, after twelve, or after four, or after six, and you'll find it crowded with fellows bathing, and many of them waiting till Harry can give them a turn in his belt. On a pa.s.sing day two or three of the masters come down and take their stand just above `Middle Steps.' A punt then carries out a number of s.h.i.+vering and rather funking fellows into the middle of the stream, and as the master gives the word, one after another jumps overboard, and according to his pluck takes a `rat's header' or `forter.' Then away they swim to the lower steps, and if they get there in safety and in pretty good style, they have to swim out again from where the master is standing, turn, and come back when he calls. If they sing out like Caesar, `Help me, Ca.s.sius, or I sink,'

they are handed over again to Harry Cannon for further instruction; but if the master says `You'll do,' then the chances are that some of the friends of the fellow who has pa.s.sed have come up in a boat, and they say that they will take him down to the Brocas if he will steer them.

The probabilities are, that he knows nothing about steering, and as little about the sides of the river he ought to keep; so, of course, he will run them into the bank once or twice, if not oftener, before they get into the real river at `Bargeman's Bridge,' and he is certain to get in the way of an eight just below Brocas Clump, from not crossing over soon enough. But you'll know all about this before long, so I needn't have told you, except that it is useful to know what you have to go through. I forgot to tell you that the bathing-place to which the fifth form go is called Athens, and of course it is a good deal better than Cuckoo Weir."

Reginald thanked Anson very much for his graphic account of their bathing and boating, and he said that he should, thanks to Toby Tubb's instruction, get pa.s.sed on the first pa.s.sing day, that he might at once begin boating.

This resolution was very much applauded, for both Power and Anson were warm advocates of boating. It was now nearly lock-up time, so they had to go back to their tutors. On their way Reginald was accosted by a number of boys, who, in pretty sharp tones, inquired his name.

"Are you at a dame's house?"

"No; I am in Mr Lindsay's house," he answered.

"I say, are you come to school here? What's your name, then?" asked another. "What house are you in?"

Reginald told him. So on it went till nearly a hundred boys had made the same inquiries, and received the same answer. Reginald was not sorry to get back to Mr Lindsay's, for he was really beginning to get tired, and be a little hungry, too, in spite of his dinner at the Christopher. Power and Anson came to his room to help him put it in order; but he had a considerable number of other visitors, mostly Fourth-Form boys, who came in to ask him his name, and to make him tell all about himself.

"I knew a Warrender," said one. "Are you his cousin? He was a fellow with a hooked nose and hawk's eyes."

"Warrender you mean," put in another; "Warrender who was here was a very good-looking fellow, only he squinted with one eye, and never could pa.r.s.e a line of Horace correctly."

Reginald said that he had no cousin that he knew of, though he might possibly be related to the talented individual spoken of. The answers he made to the very miscellaneous and unexpected questions put to him satisfied them that the new boy was no "m.u.f.f." The lower boys especially felt a great respect for him, because he acted in so very different a way from what they had done, and took all things so completely us matters of course. He went into Power's room to take tea, where Anson and two or three other fellows of Power's standing joined them. He was in the lower Fifth Form. Shortly before bed-time they went down to the hall to supper. Here he, of course, had again to reply to the various questions put to him by boys he had not before met. Then Mr Lindsay invited him to come and have some conversation, and seemed tolerably satisfied by the answers he made to all the questions put to him. A bell then rang, and the names of all the boys belonging to the house being called over by one of the praepositors, to ascertain that none were missing, prayers were read by Mr Lindsay, after which all the boys retired to their rooms to go to bed. Reginald, as may be supposed, very quickly tumbled into his, and went to sleep. Thus ended the first day at Eton.

At his age we are apt to count time by days, and to note especially the events of each day. As we grow older, we reckon oftener by weeks-- advancing, we think it enough to note what has happened during each month, till at last the years themselves slip by with almost the rapidity, we fancy, of our earlier days. Two important things with reference to this remark should be remembered when we are young. One is, that we must prepare for the future, or the future which we have fancied so far off will come suddenly and find us unprepared; another is, that we should learn to wait patiently for events till they occur, being a.s.sured that they will occur, and that we should, in the meantime, endeavour to employ ourselves to the best possible advantage. Many a young man fancies that it is not worth while preparing for what cannot happen for so long a time; or again, that the time has already pa.s.sed for doing a thing, and that it is useless to attempt it. This is especially the case with regard to commencing some useful employment, or preparing for a profession. It is never too late to be employed usefully. Many a man has risen high in a profession into which he has not entered till late in life.

Sunday is truly a day of rest at Eton. Reginald found that he was not expected to get up till nearly nine o'clock. As he was always an early riser, he was dressed before eight, and set to work systematically to unpack his clothes and to put them away. Then he sat down to read, and the book he read every boy will do well to read, not only on Sundays, but on other days in the week. After he had read a couple of chapters, he found that he had still some time to spare, so he arranged the books he had brought on some book-shelves hanging against the wall, and then Power came in and told him that he must come and breakfast with him.

Prayer bell next rang, and all the boys in the house a.s.sembled in the hall, when, as usual, Mr Lindsay read prayers.

Reginald was much surprised to find so many big fellows either in the sixth form, or in the upper Middle-Fifth--from fifteen years old up to nineteen and even twenty--in every respect full-grown men. As he looked at them he thought to himself, "I suppose that I shall have to be f.a.g to some of those big fellows--clean their boots, and brush their clothes.

Well, patience; many a better fellow than I am has done the same thing, and not been the worse for it. Whoever f.a.gs me shall not have to complain that I am in a sulky pet--that I'm determined." Prayers over, they all hurried to breakfast.

Reginald accompanied Power to his room, where three or four other fellows were a.s.sembled. He was scarcely prepared for the capital repast he found spread. There were a couple of cold chickens and a tongue, some potted meat or other, and his well-known acquaintance, a pot of orange marmalade, one of strawberry jam, and some honey. There were both tea and coffee, a good allowance of b.u.t.ter (there is a regular quant.i.ty served out), and a large pile of hot rolls,--three, he found, being served every day to each boy.

Breakfast occupied nearly an hour, and very pleasant Reginald found it.

He then had to get ready for morning chapel at eleven.

"I am glad to see that you have brought a couple of good hats," observed Power. "I was afraid that you might have thought that you could go about Osberton fas.h.i.+on in a cap or tarpaulin. We here, you see, never wear anything but black hats, except with cricketing and boating dresses. Remind me to have a look at your other things to see that they are all right. It's as well to be particular. If you are, you'll take a good standing at once in the school among the fellows: better by half be a dandy than a sloven or a m.u.f.f."

On their way to chapel Reginald was accosted continually as on the day before by fellows asking his name and all sorts of questions, but he had a ready and a good-natured answer for all.

He did not think that there was much devotion at chapel, especially as a great number of the boys came provided with a store of sacking things, with which they were continually filling their mouths, such as lollipops, sugar-candy, barley-sugar, and other sweet compositions.

It is extraordinary what an amount of these inside-deranging mixtures, supplied by the renowned Spankie and other men at the Wall, lower boys at Eton will consume. The Wall, _par excellence_, Reginald soon found out is a low wall in front of the upper school, outside the school-yard.

"The men at the Wall" are sellers of "sock;" that is, eatables--sweet mixtures generally. They are so called from usually taking their stand there. Old Spankie has been described as a soft-tongued fat old man, who professed to know about everything and about everybody. He carries a tin, and deals mostly in buns and jam. Another man wheels in a hand-cart after every school-time, from which he produces ices, strawberry messes, and sucking-things of all sorts.

"You remember the Squire's advice," observed Power; "I adhere to his principles, but all the fellows don't. It is extraordinary how they will run into debt with those men, and more than antic.i.p.ate their next half-year's pocket-money--little geese that they are. It enrages me to see some of them sucking and eating away all the day long, as if that was their chief object in life. I call them sucking babies, but it would be difficult to break them of the practice. I have known fellows at the beginning of the half obliged to dodge those cake-men as if they were b.u.m-bailiffs and they gentlemen in difficulties, either going into the school-yard by the lower school pa.s.sage, or else sneaking in close behind a master, knowing that they would not attempt to attack them in his presence. It is extraordinary what some of them will eat. I was once f.a.gged by two Fifth-Form boys who were `staying out,' that is, supposed to be too unwell to go into school, and what do you think it was for? You would scarcely believe me when I tell you that these sick fellows, and I suppose that there was something the matter with them, had laid a wager one against the other, that they would eat six dozen oranges a-piece. The one who could not manage it was, of course, to be the loser. The two dozen I got them was, I know, the fifth instalment.

One ate rather more than six dozen, the other was very sick when he had finished the fifth; but you may depend on it, both of them had to `stay out' for two or three days after it, and to take no end of medicine."

"I should think so, nasty pigs!" exclaimed Reginald, who, although he could make very good play with his knife and fork at dinner or breakfast, had a great contempt for sweatmeat and sugar-plum eaters.

"You are right," said Power. "Those sort of fellows are mere gratifiers of a low animal propensity, like the unlicked cubs of a bear, who will steal sugar wherever they can find it. I never put much confidence in such fellows, and I wish Etonians could be cured of the habit."

Reginald was very anxious to have an insight into the plan of the school arrangements, and Power undertook to enlighten him.

"In the first place," he observed, "you must understand that there is the Lower School, and whatever the boys belonging to it may think of themselves, it is but a very insignificant appendage to the establishment of Eton. It is generally composed of small boys, who have been to no other school. It is, indeed, more of a private school with none of the advantages of one, and all the disadvantages of a public school. So I will say no more about it, and you, at all events, will not belong to it. The Upper School, which is really Eton, is divided, in the first place, into Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Forms. The Fourth Form is again separated into two parts--the lowest retains its name, and the other is called the Remove. The Fourth Form is subdivided into Lower, Middle, and Upper, and the Remove into Lower and Upper. The Fifth Form is also divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper, and these divisions are again subdivided according to convenience, usually into three divisions each. The Sixth Form consists of twenty fellows, namely, ten Oppidans and ten Collegers. The boys on the foundation are called Collegers: the management of the College and the Collegers is a very complicated matter. They are the fellows you see going about in heavy black cloth gowns. They go by the name of `Tugs,' which is short for tug muttons, because they used, it is said, to be fed on tough mutton. The lower boys treat Tugs with great contempt, because they look down upon them as belonging to an inferior cla.s.s. This they should not do, and it is arrant folly into the bargain; for many a Tug has risen to be a Lord Chancellor, or to fill one of the highest offices of the State, while the self-satisfied Oppidan, who has snubbed him as a boy, has ended his days as a sub in a marching regiment, having run through all his property before he was of age. High up in the school there is a good deal of party-feeling indulged in by fellows who ought to know better. It comes out when `Collegers and Oppidans' are being played, either at football or cricket."

"I do not think that I shall ever be able to remember all about the Fourth and Fifth Forms and Removes," said Reginald.

"Here you have it in black and white, then," said Power. They were sitting in his room after chapel, enjoying that _otium c.u.m dignitate_ which an Etonian learns so well to value.

1. Lower School, composed of small boys neither learned nor wise.

Fourth Form: 2. Lower. 3. Middle. 4. Upper.

Remove. 5. Lower. 6. Upper.

Fifth Form.

7. Lower, with about three divisions.

8. Middle, with about three divisions.

9. Upper, with about three divisions.

10. Sixth Form, composed of ten Oppidans and ten Collegers.