k from that time the boys
were equal, save only the slight difference of strength in Harry's
favour which some extra ten months of age gave. Tom had often afterwards
reason to be thankful for that early drilling, and above all for having
mastered Harry Winburn's fall.

Besides their home games, on Saturdays the boys would wander all over
the neighbourhood; sometimes to the downs, or up to the camp, where they
cut their initials out in the springy turf, and watched the hawks
soaring, and the "peert" bird, as Harry Winburn called the grey plover,
gorgeous in his wedding feathers; and so home, racing down the Manger
with many a roll among the thistles, or through Uffington-wood to watch
the fox cubs playing in the green rides; sometimes to Rosy Brook, to cut
long whispering reeds which grew there, to make pan-pipes of; sometimes
to Moor Mills, where was a piece of old forest land, with short browsed
turf and tufted brambly thickets stretching under the oaks, amongst
which rumour declared that a raven, last of his race, still lingered; or
to the sand-hills, in vain quest of rabbits; and bird's-nesting, in the
season, anywhere and everywhere.

The few neighbours of the Squire's own rank every now and then would
shrug their shoulders as they drove or rode by a party of boys with Tom
in the middle, carrying along bulrushes or whispering reeds, or great
bundles of cowslip and meadow-sweet, or young starlings or magpies, or
other spoil of wood, brook, or meadow; and Lawyer Red-tape might mutter
to Squire Straightback at the Board, that no good would come of the
young Browns, if they were let run wild with all the dirty village boys,
whom the best farmers' sons even would not play with. And the Squire
might reply with a shake of his head, that _his_ sons only mixed with
their equals, and never went into the village without the governess or a
footman. But, luckily, Squire Brown was full as stiff-backed as his
neighbours, and so went on his own way; and Tom and his younger
brothers, as they grew up, went on playing with the village boys,
without the idea of equality or inequality (except in wrestling,
running, and climbing,) ever entering their heads, as it doesn't till
it's put there by Jack Nastys or fine ladies' maids.

I don't mean to say it would be the case in all villages, but it
certainly was so in this one; the village boys were full as manly and
honest, and certainly purer, than those in a higher rank; and Tom got
more