SCHOOL DAYS
this trust which he had taken on him without thinking about it, head-over-heels, in fact, was the centre and turning-point of his school-life, that which was to make him or mar him; his appointed work and trial for the time being. And Tom was becoming a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the dirt and perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily growing in manfulness and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and well-principled boy must, when he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self and the devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh from the school-gates, from which had just scampered off East and three or four others of his own particular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite according to law, and involving, probably, a row with louts, keepers, or farm-laborers, the skipping dinner or callng-over, some of Phœbe Jennings' beer, and a very possible flogging at the end of all as a relish. He had quite got over the stage in which he would grumble to himself, "Well, hang it, it's very hard of the Doctor to have saddled me with Arthur. Why couldn't he have chummed him with Fogey, or Thomkin, or any of the fellows who never do anything but walk around the close, and finish their copies the first day they're set?" But although all this was past, he often longed, and felt that he was right in longing, for more time for the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing, and fishing within bounds, in which Arthur could not yet be his companion; and he felt that when the young un (as he now generally called him) had found a pursuit and some other friend for himself, he should be able to give more time to the education of his own body with a clear conscience.
And now what he so wished for had come to pass, he almost hailed it as a special providence—(as, indeed, it was, but not for the reasons he gave for it; what Providences are?)—that Arthur should have singled out Martin of all fellows for a friend. "The old Madman is the very fellow," thought he; "he will take him scrambling over half the country after birds' eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and climb like an Indian, and not teach
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