to himself, yet
somehow he knew that this responsibility, this trust which he had taken
on him without thinking about it, head-over-heels in fact, was the
centre and turning-point of his school-life, that which was to make him
or mar him; his appointed work and trial for the time being. And Tom was
becoming a new boy, though with frequent tumbles in the dirt and
perpetual hard battle with himself, and was daily growing in manfulness
and thoughtfulness, as every high-couraged and well-principled boy must,
when he finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self
and the devil. Already he could turn almost without a sigh, from the
school-gates, from which had just scampered off East and three or four
others of his own particular set, bound for some jolly lark not quite
according to law, and involving probably a row with louts, keepers, or
farm-labourers, the skipping dinner or calling-over, some of Phoebe
Jennings' beer, and a very possible flogging at the end of all as a
relish. He had quite got over the stage in which he would grumble to
himself, "Well, hang it, it's very hard of the Doctor to have saddled me
with Arthur. Why couldn't he have chummed him with Fogey, or Thomkin,
or any of the fellows who never do anything but walk round the close,
and finish their copies the first day they're set?" But although all
this was past, he often longed, and felt that he was right in longing,
for more time for the legitimate pastimes of cricket, fives, bathing,
and fishing within bounds, in which Arthur could not yet be his
companion; and he felt that when the young 'un (as he now generally
called him) had found a pursuit and some other friend for himself, he
should be able to give more time to the education of his own body with a
clear conscience.

And now what he so wished for had come to pass; he almost hailed it as a
special providence (as indeed it was, but not for the reasons he gave
for it--what providences are?) that Arthur should have singled out
Martin of all fellows for a friend. "The old Madman is the very fellow,"
thought he; "he will take him scrambling over half the country after
birds' eggs and flowers, make him run and swim and climb like an Indian,
and not teach him a word of anything bad, or keep him from his lessons.
What luck!" And so, with more than his usual heartiness, he dived into
his cupboard, and hauled out an old knuckle-bone of ham, and two or
three bottles of beer, together with the