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“But I must bring you over, Harry, or I shan't be comfortable. Now, I'll allow all you've said. We've always been honourable enemies with the masters. We found a state of war when we came, and went into it of course. Only don't you think things are altered a good deal? I don't feel as I used to the masters. They seem to me to treat one quite differently.”

“Yes, perhaps they do,” said East; “there's a new set you see, mostly, who don't feel sure of themselves yet. They don't want to fight till they know the ground.”

“I don't think it's only that,” said Tom. “And then the Doctor, he does treat one so openly, and like a gentleman, and as if one was working with him.”

“Well, so he does,” said East; “he's a splendid fellow, and when I get into the sixth I shall act accordingly. Only you know he has nothing to do with our lessons now, except examining us. I say, though,” looking at his watch, “it's just the quarter. Come along.”

As they walked out they got a message, to say that Arthur was just starting, and would like to say goodbye. So they went down to the private entrance of the School-house, and found an open carriage, with Arthur propped up with pillows in it, looking already better, Tom thought.

They jumped up on to the steps to shake hands with him, and Tom mumbled thanks for the presents he had found in his study, and looked round anxiously for Arthur's mother.

East, who had fallen back into his usual humour, looked quaintly at Arthur, and said,--

“So you've been at it again, through that hot-headed convert of yours there. He's been making our lives a burden to us all the morning about using cribs. I shall get floored to a certainty at second lesson, if I'm called up.”

Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom struck in,--

“Oh, it's all right. He's converted already; he always comes through the mud after us, grumbling and sputtering.”

The clock struck, and they had to go off to school, wishing Arthur a pleasant holiday, Tom, lingering behind a moment to send his thanks and love to Arthur's mother.

Tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, and succeeded so far as to get East to promise to give the new plan a fair trial.

Encouraged by his success, in the evening, when they were sitting alone in the large study, where East lived now almost, “vice Arthur on leave,” after examining the new fishing-rod, which both pronounced to be the genuine article (“play enough to throw a midge tied on a single hair against the wind, and strength enough to hold a grampus”), they naturally began talking about Arthur. Tom, who was still bubbling over with last night's scene and all the thoughts of the last week, and wanting to clinch and fix the whole in his own mind, which he could never do without first going through the process of belabouring somebody else with it all, suddenly rushed into the subject of Arthur's illness, and what he had said about death.

East had given him the desired opening. After a serio-comic grumble, “that life wasn't worth having, now they were tied to a young beggar who was always 'raising his standard;' and that he, East, was like a prophet's donkey, who was obliged to struggle on after the donkey-man who went after the prophet; that he had none of the pleasure of starting the new crotchets, and didn't half understand them, but had to take the kicks and carry the luggage as if he had all the fun,” he threw his legs up on to the sofa, and put his hands behind his head, and said,--

“Well, after all, he's the most wonderful little fellow I ever came across. There ain't such a meek, humble boy in the school. Hanged if I don't think now, really, Tom, that he believes himself a much worse fellow than you or I, and that he don't think he has more influence in the house than Dot Bowles, who came last quarter, and isn't ten yet. But he turns you and me round his little finger, old boy--there's no mistake about that.” And East nodded at Tom sagaciously.

“Now or never!” thought Tom; so, shutting his eyes and hardening his heart, he went straight at it, repeating all that Arthur had said, as near as he could remember it, in the very words, and all he had himself thought. The life seemed to ooze out of it as he went on, and several times he felt inclined to stop, give it all up, and change the subject. But somehow he was borne on; he had a necessity upon him to speak it all out, and did so. At the end he looked at East with some anxiety, and was delighted to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful and attentive. The fact is, that in the stage of his inner life at which Tom had lately arrived, his intimacy with and friendship for East could not have lasted if he had not made him aware of, and a sharer in, the thoughts that were beginning to exercise him. Nor indeed could the friendship have lasted if East had shown no sympathy with these thoughts; so that it was a great relief to have unbosomed himself, and to have found that his friend could listen.

Tom had always had a sort of instinct that East's levity was only skin-deep, and this instinct was a true one. East had no want of reverence for anything he felt to be real; but his was one of those natures that burst into what is generally called recklessness and impiety the moment they feel that anything is being poured upon them for their good which does not come home to their inborn sense of right, or which appeals to anything like self-interest in them. Daring and honest by nature, and outspoken to an extent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a constant fund of animal health and spirits which he did not feel bound to curb in any way, he had gained for himself with the steady part of the school (including as well those who wished to appear steady as those who really were so) the character of a boy with whom it would be dangerous to be intimate; while his own hatred of everything cruel, or underhand, or false, and his hearty respect for what he would see to be good and true, kept off the rest.

Tom, besides being very like East in many points of character, had largely developed in his composition the capacity for taking the weakest side. This is not putting it strongly enough: it was a necessity with him; he couldn't help it any more than he could eating or drinking. He could never play on the strongest side with any heart at football or cricket, and was sure to make friends with any boy who was unpopular, or down on his luck.

Now, though East was not what is generally called unpopular, Tom felt more and more every day, as their characters developed, that he stood alone, and did not make friends among their contemporaries, and therefore sought him out. Tom was himself much more popular, for his power of detecting humbug was much less acute, and his instincts were much more sociable. He was at this period of his life, too, largely given to taking people for what they gave themselves out to be; but his singleness of heart, fearlessness, and honesty were just what East appreciated, and thus the two had been drawn into great intimacy.

This intimacy had not been interrupted by Tom's guardianship of Arthur.

East had often, as has been said, joined them in reading the Bible; but their discussions had almost always turned upon the characters of the men and women of whom they read, and not become personal to themselves. In fact, the two had shrunk from personal religious discussion, not knowing how it might end, and fearful of risking a friendship very dear to both, and which they felt somehow, without quite knowing why, would never be the same, but either tenfold stronger or sapped at its foundation, after such a communing together.

What a bother all this explaining is! I wish we could get on without it. But we can't. However, you'll all find, if you haven't found it out already, that a time comes in every human friendship when you must go down into the depths of yourself, and lay bare what is there to your friend, and wait in fear for his answer. A few moments may do it; and it may be (most likely will be, as you are English boys) that you will never do it but once. But done it must be, if the friendship is to be worth the name. You must find what is there, at the very root and bottom of one another's hearts; and if you are at one there, nothing on earth can or at least ought to sunder you.

East had remained lying down until Tom finished speaking, as if fearing to interrupt him; he now sat up at the table, and leant his head on one hand, taking up a pencil with the other, and working little holes with it in the table-cover. After a bit he looked up, stopped the pencil, and said, “Thank you very much, old fellow. There's no other boy in the house would have done it for me but you or Arthur. I can see well enough,” he went on, after a pause, “all the best big fellows look on me with suspicion; they think I'm a devil-may-care, reckless young scamp. So I am--eleven hours out of twelve, but not the twelfth. Then all of our contemporaries worth knowing follow suit, of course: we're very good friends at games and all that, but not a soul of them but you and Arthur ever tried to break through the crust, and see whether there was anything at the bottom of me; and then the bad ones I won't stand and they know that.”

“Don't you think that's half fancy, Harry?”

“Not a bit of it,” said East bitterly, pegging away with his pencil. “I see it all plain enough. Bless you, you think everybody's as straightforward and kindhearted as you are.”

“Well, but what's the reason of it? There must be a reason. You can play all the games as well as any one and sing the best song, and are the best company in the house. You fancy you're not liked, Harry. It's all fancy.”

“I only wish it was, Tom. I know I could be popular enough with all the bad ones, but that I won't have, and the good ones won't have me.”

“Why not?” persisted Tom; “you don't drink or swear, or get out at night; you never bully, or cheat at lessons. If you only showed you liked it, you'd have all the best fellows in the house running after you.”

“Not I,” said East. Then with an effort he went on, “I'll tell you what it is. I never stop the Sacrament. I can see, from the Doctor downwards, how that tells against me.”

“Yes, I've seen that,” said Tom, “and I've been very sorry for it, and Arthur and I have talked about it. I've often thought of speaking to you, but it's so hard to begin on such subjects. I'm very glad you've opened it. Now, why don't you?”

“I've never been confirmed,” said East.

“Not been confirmed!” said Tom, in astonishment. “I never thought of that. Why weren't you confirmed with the rest of us nearly three years ago? I always thought you'd been confirmed at home.”

“No,” answered East sorrowfully; “you see this was how it happened. Last Confirmation was soon after Arthur came, and you were so taken up with him I hardly saw either of you. Well, when the Doctor sent round for us about it, I was living mostly with Green's set. You know the sort. They all went in. I dare say it was all right, and they got good by it; I don't want to judge them. Only all I could see of their reasons drove me just the other way. 'Twas 'because the Doctor liked it;' 'no boy got on who didn't stay the Sacrament;' it was the 'correct thing,' in fact, like having a good hat to wear on Sundays. I couldn't stand it. I didn't feel that I wanted to lead a different life. I was very well content as I was, and I wasn't going to sham religious to curry favour with the Doctor, or any one else.”

East stopped speaking, and pegged away more diligently than ever with his pencil. Tom was ready to cry. He felt half sorry at first that he had been confirmed himself. He seemed to have deserted his earliest friend--to have left him by himself at his worst need for those long years. He got up and went and sat by East, and put his arm over his shoulder.

“Dear old boy,” he said, “how careless and selfish I've been. But why didn't you come and talk to Arthur and me?”

“I wish to Heaven I had,” said East, “but I was a fool. It's too late talking of it now.”

“Why too late? You want to be confirmed now, don't you?”

“I think so,” said East. “I've thought about it a good deal; only, often I fancy I must be changing, because I see it's to do me good here--just what stopped me last time. And then I go back again.”

“I'll tell you now how 'twas with me,” said Tom warmly. “If it hadn't been for Arthur, I should have done just as you did. I hope I should. I honour you for it. But then he made it out just as if it was taking the weak side before all the world--going in once for all against everything that's strong and rich, and proud and respectable, a little band of brothers against the whole world. And the Doctor seemed to say so too, only he said a great deal more.”

“Ah!” groaned East, “but there again, that's just another of my difficulties whenever I think about the matter. I don't want to be one of your saints, one of your elect, whatever the right phrase is. My sympathies are all the other way--with the many, the poor devils who run about the streets and don't go to church. Don't stare, Tom; mind, I'm telling you all that's in my heart--as far as I know it--but it's all a muddle. You must be gentle with me if you want to land me. Now I've seen a deal of this sort of religion; I was bred up in it, and I can't stand it. If nineteen-twentieths of the world are to be left to uncovenanted mercies, and that sort of thing, which means in plain English to go to hell, and the other twentieth are to rejoice at it all, why--”

“Oh! but, Harry, they ain't, they don't,” broke in Tom, really shocked. “Oh, how I wish Arthur hadn't gone! I'm such a fool about these things. But it's all you want too, East; it is indeed. It cuts both ways somehow, being confirmed and taking the Sacrament. It makes you feel on the side of all the good and all the bad too, of everybody in the world. Only there's some great dark strong power, which is crushing you and everybody else. That's what Christ conquered, and we've got to fight. What a fool I am! I can't explain. If Arthur were only here!”

“I begin to get a glimmering of what you mean,” said East.

“I say, now,” said Tom eagerly, “do you remember how we both hated Flashman?”

“Of course I do,” said East; “I hate him still. What then?”

“Well, when I came to take the Sacrament, I had a great struggle about that. I tried to put him out of my head; and when I couldn't do that, I tried to think of him as evil--as something that the Lord who was loving me hated, and which I might hate too. But it wouldn't do. I broke down; I believe Christ Himself broke me down. And when the Doctor gave me the bread and wine, and leant over me praying, I prayed for poor Flashman, as if it had been you or Arthur.”

East buried his face in his hands on the table. Tom could feel the table tremble. At last he looked up. “Thank you again, Tom,” said he; “you don't know what you may have done for me to-night. I think I see now how the right sort of sympathy with poor devils is got at.”

“And you'll stop the Sacrament next time, won't you?” said Tom.

“Can I, before I'm confirmed?”

“Go and ask the Doctor.”

“I will.”

That very night, after prayers, East followed the Doctor, and the old verger bearing the candle, upstairs. Tom watched, and saw the Doctor turn round when he heard footsteps following him closer than usual, and say, “Hah, East! Do you want to speak to me, my man?”

“If you please, sir.” And the private door closed, and Tom went to his study in a state of great trouble of mind.

It was almost an hour before East came back. Then he rushed in breathless.

“Well, it's all right,” he shouted, seizing Tom by the hand. “I feel as if a ton weight were off my mind.”

“Hurrah,” said Tom. “I knew it would be; but tell us all about it.”

“Well, I just told him all about it. You can't think how kind and gentle he was, the great grim man, whom I've feared more than anybody on earth. When I stuck, he lifted me just as if I'd been a little child. And he seemed to know all I'd felt, and to have gone through it all. And I burst out crying--more than I've done this five years; and he sat down by me, and stroked my head; and I went blundering on, and told him all--much worse things than I've told you. And he wasn't shocked a bit, and didn't snub me, or tell me I was a fool, and it was all nothing but pride or wickedness, though I dare say it was. And he didn't tell me not to follow out my thoughts, and he didn't give me any cut-and-dried explanation. But when I'd done he just talked a bit. I can hardly remember what he said yet; but it seemed to spread round me like healing, and strength, and light, and to bear me up, and plant me on a rock, where I could hold my footing and fight for myself. I don't know what to do, I feel so happy. And it's all owing to you, dear old boy!” And he seized Tom's hand again.

“And you're to come to the Communion?” said Tom.

“Yes, and to be confirmed in the holidays.”

Tom's delight was as great as his friend's. But he hadn't yet had out all his own talk, and was bent on improving the occasion: so he proceeded to propound Arthur's theory about not being sorry for his friends' deaths, which he had hitherto kept in the background, and by which he was much exercised; for he didn't feel it honest to take what pleased him, and throw over the rest, and was trying vigorously to persuade himself that he should like all his best friends to die off-hand.

But East's powers of remaining serious were exhausted, and in five minutes he was saying the most ridiculous things he could think of, till Tom was almost getting angry again.

Despite of himself, however, he couldn't help laughing and giving it up, when East appealed to him with, “Well, Tom, you ain't going to punch my head, I hope, because I insist upon being sorry when you got to earth?”

And so their talk finished for that time, and they tried to learn first lesson, with very poor success, as appeared next morning, when they were called up and narrowly escaped being floored, which ill-luck, however, did not sit heavily on either of their souls.

CHAPTER VIII--TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH.

“Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely ere Youth fly, with life's real tempest would be coping; The fruit of dreamy hoping Is, waking, blank despair.”--CLOUGH, Ambarvalia.

The curtain now rises upon the last act of our little drama, for hard-hearted publishers warn me that a single volume must of necessity have an end. Well, well! the pleasantest things must come to an end. I little thought last long vacation, when I began these pages to help while away some spare time at a watering-place, how vividly many an old scene which had lain hid away for years in some dusty old corner of my brain, would come back again, and stand before me as clear and bright as if it had happened yesterday. The book has been a most grateful task to me, and I only hope that all you, my dear young friends, who read it (friends assuredly you must be, if you get as far as this), will be half as sorry to come to the last stage as I am.

Not but what there has been a solemn and a sad side to it. As the old scenes became living, and the actors in them became living too, many a grave in the Crimea and distant India, as well as in the quiet churchyards of our dear old country, seemed to open and send forth their dead, and their voices and looks and ways were again in one's ears and eyes, as in the old School-days. But this was not sad. How should it be, if we believe as our Lord has taught us? How should it be, when one more turn of the wheel, and we shall be by their sides again, learning from them again, perhaps, as we did when we were new boys.

Then there were others of the old faces so dear to us once who had somehow or another just gone clean out of sight. Are they dead or living? We know not, but the thought of them brings no sadness with it. Wherever they are, we can well believe they are doing God's work and getting His wages.

But are there not some, whom we still see sometimes in the streets, whose haunts and homes we know, whom we could probably find almost any day in the week if we were set to do it, yet from whom we are really farther than we are from the dead, and from those who have gone out of our ken? Yes, there are and must be such; and therein lies the sadness of old School memories. Yet of these our old comrades, from whom more than time and space separate us, there are some by whose sides we can feel sure that we shall stand again when time shall be no more. We may think of one another now as dangerous fanatics or narrow bigots, with whom no truce is possible, from whom we shall only sever more and more to the end of our lives, whom it would be our respective duties to imprison or hang, if we had the power. We must go our way, and they theirs, as long as flesh and spirit hold together; but let our own Rugby poet speak words of healing for this trial:--

“To veer how vain! on, onward strain, Brave barks, in light, in darkness too; Through winds and tides one compass guides,-- To that, and your own selves, be true.

“But, O blithe breeze, and O great seas, Though ne'er that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again; Together lead them home at last.

“One port, methought, alike they sought, One purpose hold where'er they fare. O bounding breeze, O rushing seas, At last, at last, unite them there!” *

* Clough, Ambarvalia.

This is not mere longing; it is prophecy. So over these too, our old friends, who are friends no more, we sorrow not as men without hope. It is only for those who seem to us to have lost compass and purpose, and to be driven helplessly on rocks and quicksands, whose lives are spent in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil, for self alone, and not for their fellow-men, their country, or their God, that we must mourn and pray without sure hope and without light, trusting only that He, in whose hands they as well as we are, who has died for them as well as for us, who sees all His creatures

“With larger other eyes than ours, To make allowance for us all,”

will, in His own way and at His own time, lead them also home.

Another two years have passed, and it is again the end of the summer half-year at Rugby; in fact, the School has broken up. The fifth-form examinations were over last week, and upon them have followed the speeches, and the sixth-form examinations for exhibitions; and they too are over now. The boys have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the town boys and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked leave to stay in their houses to see the result of the cricket matches. For this year the Wellesburn return match and the Marylebone match are played at Rugby, to the great delight of the town and neighbourhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring young cricketers who have been reckoning for the last three months on showing off at Lord's ground.

The Doctor started for the Lakes yesterday morning, after an interview with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of Thomas, at which he arranged in what school the cricket dinners were to be, and all other matters necessary for the satisfactory carrying out of the festivities, and warned them as to keeping all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having the gates closed by nine o'clock.

The Wellesburn match was played out with great success yesterday, the School winning by three wickets; and to-day the great event of the cricketing year, the Marylebone match, is being played. What a match it has been! The London eleven came down by an afternoon train yesterday, in time to see the end of the Wellesburn match; and as soon as it was over, their leading men and umpire inspected the ground, criticising it rather unmercifully. The captain of the School eleven, and one or two others, who had played the Lord's match before, and knew old Mr. Aislabie and several of the Lord's men, accompanied them; while the rest of the eleven looked on from under the Three Trees with admiring eyes, and asked one another the names of the illustrious strangers, and recounted how many runs each of them had made in the late matches in Bell's Life. They looked such hard-bitten, wiry, whiskered fellows that their young adversaries felt rather desponding as to the result of the morrow's match. The ground was at last chosen, and two men set to work upon it to water and roll; and then, there being yet some half-hour of daylight, some one had suggested a dance on the turf. The close was half full of citizens and their families, and the idea was hailed with enthusiasm. The cornopean player was still on the ground. In five minutes the eleven and half a dozen of the Wellesburn and Marylebone men got partners somehow or another, and a merry country-dance was going on, to which every one flocked, and new couples joined in every minute, till there were a hundred of them going down the middle and up again; and the long line of school buildings looked gravely down on them, every window glowing with the last rays of the western sun; and the rooks clanged about in the tops of the old elms, greatly excited, and resolved on having their country-dance too; and the great flag flapped lazily in the gentle western breeze. Altogether it was a sight which would have made glad the heart of our brave old founder, Lawrence Sheriff, if he were half as good a fellow as I take him to have been. It was a cheerful sight to see. But what made it so valuable in the sight of the captain of the School eleven was that he there saw his young hands shaking off their shyness and awe of the Lord's men, as they crossed hands and capered about on the grass together; for the strangers entered into it all, and threw away their cigars, and danced and shouted like boys; while old Mr. Aislabie stood by looking on in his white hat, leaning on a bat, in benevolent enjoyment. “This hop will be worth thirty runs to us to-morrow, and will be the making of Raggles and Johnson,” thinks the young leader, as he revolves many things in his mind, standing by the side of Mr. Aislabie, whom he will not leave for a minute, for he feels that the character of the School for courtesy is resting on his shoulders.

But when a quarter to nine struck, and he saw old Thomas beginning to fidget about with the keys in his hand, he thought of the Doctor's parting monition, and stopped the cornopean at once, notwithstanding the loud-voiced remonstrances from all sides; and the crowd scattered away from the close, the eleven all going into the School-house, where supper and beds were provided for them by the Doctor's orders.

Deep had been the consultations at supper as to the order of going in, who should bowl the first over, whether it would be best to play steady or freely; and the youngest hands declared that they shouldn't be a bit nervous, and praised their opponents as the jolliest fellows in the world, except perhaps their old friends the Wellesburn men. How far a little good-nature from their elders will go with the right sort of boys!

The morning had dawned bright and warm, to the intense relief of many an anxious youngster, up betimes to mark the signs of the weather. The eleven went down in a body before breakfast, for a plunge in the cold bath in a corner of the close. The ground was in splendid order, and soon after ten o'clock, before spectators had arrived, all was ready, and two of the Lord's men took their places at the wickets--the School, with the usual liberality of young hands, having put their adversaries in first. Old Bailey stepped up to the wicket, and called play, and the match has begun.

“Oh, well bowled! well bowled, Johnson!” cries the captain, catching up the ball and sending it high above the rook trees, while the third Marylebone man walks away from the wicket, and old Bailey gravely sets up the middle stump again and puts the bails on.

“How many runs?” Away scamper three boys to the scoring table, and are back again in a minute amongst the rest of the eleven, who are collected together in a knot between wicket. “Only eighteen runs, and three wickets down!” “Huzza for old Rugby!” sings out Jack Raggles, the long-stop, toughest and burliest of boys, commonly called “Swiper Jack,” and forthwith stands on his head, and brandishes his legs in the air in triumph, till the next boy catches hold of his heels, and throws him over on to his back.

“Steady there; don't be such an ass, Jack,” says the captain; “we haven't got the best wicket yet. Ah, look out now at cover-point,” adds he, as he sees a long-armed bare-headed, slashing-looking player coming to the wicket. “And, Jack, mind your hits. He steals more runs than any man in England.”

And they all find that they have got their work to do now. The newcomer's off-hitting is tremendous, and his running like a flash of lightning. He is never in his ground except when his wicket is down. Nothing in the whole game so trying to boys. He has stolen three byes in the first ten minutes, and Jack Raggles is furious, and begins throwing over savagely to the farther wicket, until he is sternly stopped by the captain. It is all that young gentlemen can do to keep his team steady, but he knows that everything depends on it, and faces his work bravely. The score creeps up to fifty; the boys begin to look blank; and the spectators, who are now mustering strong, are very silent. The ball flies off his bat to all parts of the field, and he gives no rest and no catches to any one. But cricket is full of glorious chances, and the goddess who presides over it loves to bring down the most skilful players. Johnson, the young bowler, is getting wild, and bowls a ball almost wide to the off; the batter steps out and cuts it beautifully to where cover-point is standing very deep--in fact almost off the ground. The ball comes skimming and twisting along about three feet from the ground; he rushes at it, and it sticks somehow or other in the fingers of his left hand, to the utter astonishment of himself and the whole field. Such a catch hasn't been made in the close for years, and the cheering is maddening. “Pretty cricket,” says the captain, throwing himself on the ground by the deserted wicket with a long breath. He feels that a crisis has passed.

I wish I had space to describe the match--how the captain stumped the next man off a leg-shooter, and bowled small cobs to old Mr. Aislabie, who came in for the last wicket; how the Lord's men were out by half-past twelve o'clock for ninety-eight runs; how the captain of the School eleven went in first to give his men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful style; how Rugby was only four behind in the first innings; what a glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form school; and how the cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, and old Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that ever were heard, afterwards. But I haven't space--that's the fact; and so you must fancy it all, and carry yourselves on to half-past seven o'clock, when the School are again in, with five wickets down, and only thirty-two runs to make to win. The Marylebone men played carelessly in their second innings, but they are working like horses now to save the match.

There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up and down the close; but the group to which I beg to call your especial attention is there, on the slope of the island, which looks towards the cricket-ground. It consists of three figures; two are seated on a bench, and one on the ground at their feet. The first, a tall, slight and rather gaunt man, with a bushy eyebrow and a dry, humorous smile, is evidently a clergyman. He is carelessly dressed, and looks rather used up, which isn't much to be wondered at, seeing that he has just finished six weeks of examination work; but there he basks, and spreads himself out in the evening sun, bent on enjoying life, though he doesn't quite know what to do with his arms and legs. Surely it is our friend the young master, whom we have had glimpses of before, but his face has gained a great deal since we last came across him.

And by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, straw hat, the captain's belt, and the untanned yellow cricket shoes which all the eleven wear, sits a strapping figure, near six feet high, with ruddy, tanned face and whiskers, curly brown hair, and a laughing, dancing eye. He is leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, and dandling his favourite bat, with which he has made thirty or forty runs to-day, in his strong brown hands. It is Tom Brown, grown into a young man nineteen years old, a praepostor and captain of the eleven, spending his last day as a Rugby boy, and, let us hope, as much wiser as he is bigger, since we last had the pleasure of coming across him.

And at their feet on the warm, dry ground, similarly dressed, sits Arthur, Turkish fashion, with his bat across his knees. He too is no longer a boy--less of a boy, in fact, than Tom, if one may judge from the thoughtfulness of his face, which is somewhat paler, too, than one could wish; but his figure, though slight, is well knit and active, and all his old timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by silent, quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as he listens to the broken talk between the other two, in which he joins every now and then.

All three are watching the game eagerly, and joining in the cheering which follows every good hit. It is pleasing to see the easy, friendly footing which the pupils are on with their master, perfectly respectful, yet with no reserve and nothing forced in their intercourse. Tom has clearly abandoned the old theory of “natural enemies” in this case at any rate.

But it is time to listen to what they are saying, and see what we can gather out of it.

“I don't object to your theory,” says the master, “and I allow you have made a fair case for yourself. But now, in such books as Aristophanes, for instance, you've been reading a play this half with the Doctor, haven't you?”

“Yes, the Knights,” answered Tom.

“Well, I'm sure you would have enjoyed the wonderful humour of it twice as much if you had taken more pains with your scholarship.”

“Well, sir, I don't believe any boy in the form enjoyed the sets-to between Cleon and the Sausage-seller more than I did--eh, Arthur?” said Tom, giving him a stir with his foot.

“Yes, I must say he did,” said Arthur. “I think, sir, you've hit upon the wrong book there.”

“Not a bit of it,” said the master. “Why, in those very passages of arms, how can you thoroughly appreciate them unless you are master of the weapons? and the weapons are the language, which you, Brown, have never half worked at; and so, as I say, you must have lost all the delicate shades of meaning which make the best part of the fun.”

“Oh, well played! bravo, Johnson!” shouted Arthur, dropping his bat and clapping furiously, and Tom joined in with a “Bravo, Johnson!” which might have been heard at the chapel.

“Eh! what was it? I didn't see,” inquired the master. “They only got one run, I thought?”

“No, but such a ball, three-quarters length, and coming straight for his leg bail. Nothing but that turn of the wrist could have saved him, and he drew it away to leg for a safe one.--Bravo, Johnson!”

“How well they are bowling, though,” said Arthur; “they don't mean to be beat, I can see.”

“There now,” struck in the master; “you see that's just what I have been preaching this half-hour. The delicate play is the true thing. I don't understand cricket, so I don't enjoy those fine draws which you tell me are the best play, though when you or Raggles hit a ball hard away for six I am as delighted as any one. Don't you see the analogy?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Tom, looking up roguishly, “I see; only the question remains whether I should have got most good by understanding Greek particles or cricket thoroughly. I'm such a thick, I never should have had time for both.”

“I see you are an incorrigible,” said the master, with a chuckle; “but I refute you by an example. Arthur there has taken in Greek and cricket too.”

“Yes, but no thanks to him; Greek came natural to him. Why, when he first came I remember he used to read Herodotus for pleasure as I did Don Quixote, and couldn't have made a false concord if he'd tried ever so hard; and then I looked after his cricket.”

“Out! Bailey has given him out. Do you see, Tom?” cries Arthur. “How foolish of them to run so hard.”

“Well, it can't be helped; he has played very well. Whose turn is it to go in?”

“I don't know; they've got your list in the tent.”

“Let's go and see,” said Tom, rising; but at this moment Jack Raggles and two or three more came running to the island moat.

“O Brown, mayn't I go in next?” shouts the Swiper.

“Whose name is next on the list?” says the captain.

“Winter's, and then Arthur's,” answers the boy who carries it; “but there are only twenty-six runs to get, and no time to lose. I heard Mr. Aislabie say that the stumps must be drawn at a quarter past eight exactly.”

“Oh, do let the Swiper go in,” chorus the boys; so Tom yields against his better judgment.

“I dare say now I've lost the match by this nonsense,” he says, as he sits down again; “they'll be sure to get Jack's wicket in three or four minutes; however, you'll have the chance, sir, of seeing a hard hit or two,” adds he, smiling, and turning to the master.

“Come, none of your irony, Brown,” answers the master. “I'm beginning to understand the game scientifically. What a noble game it is, too!”

“Isn't it? But it's more than a game. It's an institution,” said Tom.

“Yes,” said Arthur--“the birthright of British boys old and young, as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British men.”

“The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches is so valuable, I think,” went on the master, “it ought to be such an unselfish game. It merges the individual in the eleven; he doesn't play that he may win, but that his side may.”

“That's very true,” said Tom, “and that's why football and cricket, now one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives or hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to win for oneself, and not that one's side may win.”

“And then the captain of the eleven!” said the master; “what a post is his in our School-world! almost as hard as the Doctor's--requiring skill and gentleness and firmness, and I know not what other rare qualities.”