ise
some quiet, timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes,
while the principal performers get dexterously out of the way. And so
calling-over rolls on somehow, much like the big world, punishments
lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer,
cross-grained way, but the end coming somehow, which is, after all, the
great point. And now the master of the week has finished, and locked up
the big school; and the prepostors of the week come out, sweeping the
last remnant of the school fags, who had been loafing about the corners
by the fives court, in hopes of a chance of bolting, before them into
the close.

"Hold the punt-about!" "To the goals!" are the cries; and all stray
balls are impounded by the authorities, and the whole mass of boys moves
up towards the two goals, dividing as they go into three bodies. That
little band on the left, consisting of from fifteen to twenty boys, Tom
amongst them, who are making for the goal under the School-house wall,
are the School-house boys who are not to play up, and have to stay in
goal. The larger body moving to the island goal are the School boys in a
like predicament. The great mass in the middle are the players-up, both
sides mingled together; they are hanging their jackets (and all who mean
real work), their hats, waistcoats, neck-handkerchiefs, and braces, on
the railings round the small trees; and there they go by twos and
threes up to their respective grounds. There is none of the colour and
tastiness of get-up, you will perceive, which lends such a life to
the present game at Rugby, making the dullest and worst-fought match a
pretty sight. Now each house has its own uniform of cap and jersey, of
some lively colour; but at the time we are speaking of plush caps have
not yet come in, or uniforms of any sort, except the School-house
white trousers, which are abominably cold to-day. Let us get to work,
bare-headed, and girded with our plain leather straps. But we mean
business, gentlemen.

And now that the two sides have fairly sundered, and each occupies its
own ground, and we get a good look at them, what absurdity is this? You
don't mean to say that those fifty or sixty boys in white trousers, many
of them quite small, are going to play that huge mass opposite? Indeed I
do, gentlemen. They're going to try, at any rate, and won't make such
a bad fight of it either, mark my word; for hasn't old Brooke won the
toss, with his lucky halfpenny, a