"Poor old Jack! I liked him," said Tom. "I wonder what he is doing now—whether they have got to their new home, and how they like it." The mention of his old school-fellow had turned Tom's thoughts into a pleasant channel, and he said, "Wouldn't you like to see Jack again, Elsie?"
"Yes, I shouldn't mind," said Elsie, "for he wasn't so bad when you came to know him, and he was very kind to you."
"Jack was a brick," said Tom, admiringly.
"Yes, but he led you into all the mischief that caused our trouble," said his mother, "and so for his sake, as well as for your own, you ought not to let it go further than you can help, but make the best of this school, hard as it may be."
It was not very palatable advice to give the boy just now, and he could not make up his mind to follow it all at once. But he determined to go to school in the afternoon without further grumbling, though whether he would try to make the best of things when he got there was another matter. If it was only like his old school, he would give all his mind to his lessons, he thought, but the chance of going to a school like that was over for ever, and once more Tom sighed in vain regret over his misused opportunities.
[CHAPTER XI.]
A MEMORABLE FIGHT.
TOM did not go to school in the best of humours that Monday afternoon, but plodded sulkily through his lessons. He did not try to please his teacher by taking any great pains with his task, nor did he try to bear more patiently the rude country curiosity of his school-mates.
When school was over, he dawdled along the road towards home, still thinking rather bitterly of what his mother had said, and how little she understood the difficulties in his way, when he was suddenly confronted with a big stolid-looking boy, who said in an aggressive tone:
"What be you coming here for, and putting the teacher up to getting harder books for the little uns? I've been to that school, I have, though I ain't no scholard now, and I tell you, you aren't going to do just as you like along of us, so take that," and the big bully felled Tom to the ground with one blow of his fist.