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 Straight-back 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 stiffbacked 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 Tam got
more harm from his equals in his first fortnight at a private school,
where he went when he was nine years old, than he had from his village
friends from the day he left Charity's apron-strings.
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