There is a special providence over school-boys as well
as sailors, or they must have upset twenty times in the first five
miles--sometimes actually abreast of one another, and the boys on the
roofs exchanging volleys of peas; now nearly running over a post-chaise
which had started before them; now half-way up a bank; now with a wheel
and a half over a yawning ditch: and all this in a dark morning, with
nothing but their own lamps to guide them. However, it's all over at
last, and they have run over nothing but an old pig in Southam Street.
The last peas are distributed in the Corn Market at Oxford, where they
arrive between eleven and twelve, and sit down to a sumptuous breakfast
at the Angel, which they are made to pay for accordingly. Here the party
breaks up, all going now different ways; and Tom orders out a chaise and
pair as grand as a lord, though he has scarcely five shillings left in
his pocket, and more than twenty miles to get home.
"Where to, sir?"
"Red Lion, Farringdon," says Tom, giving hostler a shilling.
"All right, sir.--Red Lion, Jem," to the postboy; and Tom rattles away
towards home. At Farringdon, being known to the innkeeper, he gets that
worthy to pay for the Oxford horses, and forward him in another chaise
at once; and so the gorgeous young gentleman arrives at the paternal
mansion, and Squire Brown looks rather blue at having to pay two pound
ten shillings for the posting expenses from Oxford.
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