And so, during the next
two years, in which it was more than doubtful whether he would get good
or evil from the School, and before any steady purpose or principle grew
up in him, whatever his week's sins and shortcomings might have been, he
hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday evenings without a serious resolve
to stand by and follow the Doctor, and a feeling that it was only
cowardice (the incarnation of all other sins in such a boy's mind) which
hindered him from doing so with all his heart.
The next day Tom was duly placed in the third form, and began his
lessons in a corner of the big School. He found the work very easy, as
he had been well grounded, and knew his grammar by heart; and, as he had
no intimate companions to make him idle (East and his other School-house
friends being in the lower fourth, the form above him), soon gained
golden opinions from his master, who said he was placed too low, and
should be put out at the end of the half-year. So all went well with him
in School, and he wrote the most flourishing letters home to his mother,
full of his own success and the unspeakable delights of a public school.
In the house, too, all went well. The end of the half-year was drawing
near, which kept everybody in a good humour, and the house was ruled
well and strongly by Warner and Brooke. True, the general system was
rough and hard, and there was bullying in nooks and corners--bad signs
for the future; but it never got farther, or dared show itself openly,
stalking about the passages and hall and bedrooms, and making the life
of the small boys a continual fear.
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