the
housekeeper, goes to the sick-room. The boy who held his ground is
soon amongst the rest, who are all in fear of their lives. "Did he
peach?" "Does she know about it?"

"Not a word--he's a staunch little fellow." And pausing a moment, he
adds: "I'm sick of this work: what brutes we've been!"

Meantime Tom is stretched on the sofa in the housekeeper's room, with
East by his side, while she gets wine and water and other
restoratives.

"Are you much hurt, dear old boy?" whispered East.

"Only the back of my legs," answered Tom. They are indeed badly
scorched, and part of his trousers burnt through. But soon he is
in bed with cold bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks of
writing home and getting taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had
learned years ago sings through his head, and he goes to sleep,
murmuring:--

"Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at
rest."[45]

LAST DAYS OF THE WAR.

But after a sound night's rest, the old boy-spirit comes back again.
East comes in reporting that the whole house is with him, and he
forgets everything except their old resolve, never to be beaten by
that bully Flashman.

[45] Job iii. 17.

Not a word could the housekeeper extract from either of them; and
though the Doctor knew all that she knew that morning, he never knew
any more.

I trust and believe that such scenes are not possible now at school,
and that lotteries and betting-books have gone out; but I am writing
of schools as they were in our time, and must give the evil with the
good.

CHAPTER IX.

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.

"Wherein I [speak] of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hairbreadth 'scapes."--_Shakespeare._

TOM DISCLOSES NOTHING.

When Tom came back into school after a couple of days in the
sick-room, he found matters much changed for the better, as East had
led him to expect. Flashman's brutality had disgusted most of his
intimate friends, even, and his cowardice had once more been made
plain to the house; for Diggs had encountered him on the morning after
the lottery, and after high words on both sides had struck him, and
the blow was not returned. However, Flashey was not unused to this
sort of thing, and had lived through as awkward affairs before, and,
as Diggs had said, fed and toadied himself back into favor again. Two
or three of the boys who had helped to roast Tom came up and be