as called out was
not Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the Doctor's face was too
awful; Tom wouldn't have met his eye for all he was worth, and buried
himself in his book again.

TRISTE LUPUS.

The boy who was called up first was a clever,[10] merry School-house
boy, one of their set; he was some connection of the Doctor's and a
great favorite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and so
was selected for the first victim.

[10] #Clever#: bright, smart.

"Triste lupus stabulis,"[11] began the luckless youngster, and
stammered through some eight or ten lines.

[11] #"Triste lupus stabulis"#: "the wolf is fatal to the
flocks."

"There, that will do," said the Doctor, "now construe."

On common occasions, the boy could have construed the passage well
enough, probably, but now his head was gone.

"Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf," he began. A shudder ran through
the whole form, and the Doctor's wrath fairly boiled over; he made
three steps up to the construer, and gave him a good box on the ear.
The blow was not a hard one, but the boy was so taken by surprise that
he started back; the form[12] caught the back of his knees, and over
he went on to the floor behind. There was a dead silence over the
whole school; never before and never again while Tom was at school did
the Doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must have been
great. However, the victim had saved his form[13] for that occasion,
for the Doctor turned to the top bench, and put on the best boys for
the rest of the hour; and though, at the end of the lesson, he gave
them all such a rating[14] as they did not forget, this terrible
field-day passed over without any severe visitations in the shape of
punishments or floggings. Forty young scapegraces expressed their
thanks to the "sorrowful wolf," in their different ways before second
lesson.

[12] #Form#: here, bench.

[13] #Form#: here, class.

[14] #Rating#: scolding.

But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered, as
Tom found, and for years afterward he went up the school without it,
and the masters' hands were against him and his against them. And he
regarded them, as a matter of course, as his natural enemies.

MISRULE AND ITS CAUSES.

Matters were not so comfortable either in the house as they had been,
for Old Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others of the
sixth-form boys at the following Easter. Their rule had bee