Tom Brown at Rugby (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 24 Tom Brown's Nurse. CHAPTER II. THE "VEAST." K And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth neither fairs nor markets be kept in church-yards, for the honor of the church." ? Statutes: 13 Edw. I. Stat. II. Chap. VI. A S that venerable and learned poetl (whose voluminous --- works we all think it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't read often) most truly says, " The child is father to the man;" a fortiori? therefore he must be father to the boy." So, as we are going at any rate to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any farther (which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there is no knowing but what we may), let us have a look at the life and environments3 of the child, in the quiet country village to which we were introduced in the last chapter. Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority of his nurse. That functionary 4 was a good-hearted, tearful, scatter-brain5 girl, lately taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as she wasTom Brown's Nurse. 25 1 Learned poet: Wordsworth; the quotation, which follows, is from " My heart leaps up." 2 A fortiori: for a stronger reason. 8 Environments: surroundings. 4 Functionary: one charged with the performance of a duty. 5 Scatter-brain: thoughtless. called, from the. village school to be trained as nurserymaid. Madain Brown was a rare trainer of servants, and spent herself freely in the profession; for profession it was, and gave her more trouble by half than many people take to earn a good income. Her servants were known and sought after for miles round. Almost all the girls who attained a certain place in the village school were taken by her, on...