Читать книгу Tom Brown at Rugby - Hughes Thomas - Страница 50

I sometimes think that you boys of this generation are a deal tenderer fellows than we used to be. At any rate you are much more comfortable travellers, for I see every one of you with his rug or plaid,269 and other dodges for preserving the caloric,270 and most of you going in those fuzzy, dusty, padded, first-class carriages.271 It was another affair altogether, a dark ride on the top of the Tally-ho, I can tell you, in a tight Petersham coat, and your feet dangling six inches from the floor. Then you knew what cold was, and what it was to be without legs, for not a bit of feeling had you in them after the first half hour. But it had its pleasures, – the cold, dark ride. First there was the consciousness of silent endurance, so dear to every Englishman, – of standing out against something, and not giving in. Then there was the music of the rattling harness, and the ring of the horses' feet on the hard road, and the glare of the two bright lamps through the steaming hoar-frost,272 over the leader's ears, into the darkness; and the cheery toot of the guard's horn, to warn some drowsy pikeman273 or the ostler at the next change; and the looking forward to daylight – and last, but not least, the delight of returning sensation in your toes.

Then the break of dawn and the sunrise, where can they be ever seen in perfection but from a coach roof? You want motion and change and music to see them in their glory; not the music of singing men and singing women, but good silent music, which sets itself in your own head, the accompaniment of work and getting over the ground.

The Tally-ho is past St. Albans,274 and Tom is enjoying the ride, though half frozen. The guard, who is alone with him on the back of the coach, is silent, but has muffled Tom's feet up in straw, and put the end of an oat-sack over his knees. The darkness has driven him inward, and he has gone over his little past life, and thought of all his doings and promises, and of his mother and sister, and his father's last words; and has made fifty good resolutions, and means to bear himself like a brave Brown as he is, though a young one. Then he has been forward into the mysterious boy-future, speculating as to what sort of a place Rugby is, and what they do there, and calling up all the stories of public schools which he has heard from big boys in the holidays. He is chock full of hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, and kicks his heels against the backboard, and would like to sing, only he doesn't know how his friend the silent guard might take it.