Chapter Five.
Crofton Play.
Hugh found, in the morning, that there was no danger of his not hearing the bell. Its clang clang startled him out of a sound sleep; and he was on his feet on the floor almost before his eyes were open. The boys who were more used to the bell did not make quite so much haste. They yawned a few times, and turned out more slowly; so that Hugh had the great tin wash basin to himself longer than the rest. There was a basin to every three boys; and, early as Hugh began, his companions were impatient long before he had done. At first, they waited, in curiosity to see what he was going to do after washing his face; when he went further, they began to quiz; but when they found that he actually thought of washing his feet, they hooted and groaned at him for a dirty brat.
“Dirty!” cried Hugh, facing them, amazed, “Dirty for washing my feet! Mother says it is a dirty trick not to wash all over every day.”
Phil told him that was stuff and nonsense here. There was no room and no time for such home-doings. The boys all washed their heads and feet on Saturdays. He would soon find that he might be glad to get his face and hands done in the mornings.
The other boys in the room were, or pretended to be, so disgusted with the very idea of washing feet in a basin, that they made Hugh rinse and rub out the tin basin several times before they would use it, and then there was a great bustle to get down-stairs at the second bell. Hugh pulled his brother’s arm, as Phil was brushing out of the room, and asked, in a whisper, whether there would be time to say his prayers.
“There will be prayers in the school-room. You must be in time for them,” said Phil. “You had better come with me.”
“Do wait one moment, while I just comb my hair.”
Phil fidgeted, and others giggled, while Hugh tried to part his hair, as Susan had taught him. He gave it up, and left it rough, thinking he would come up and do it when there was nobody there to laugh at him.
The school-room looked chilly and dull, as there was no sunshine in it till the afternoon; and still Mr Tooke was not there, as Hugh had hoped he would be. Mrs Watson and the servants came in for prayers, which were well read by the usher; and then everybody went to business:—everybody but Hugh and Holt, who had nothing to do. Class after class came up for repetition; and this repetition seemed to the new boys an accomplishment they should never acquire. They did not think that any practice would enable them to gabble, as everybody seemed able to gabble here. Hugh had witnessed something of it before,—Phil having been wont to run off at home, “Sal, Sol, Ren et Splen,” to the end of the passage, for the admiration of his sisters, and so much to little Harry’s amusement, that Susan, however busy she might be, came to listen, and then asked him to say it again, that cook might hear what he learned at school. Hugh now thought that none of them gabbled quite so fast as Phil: but he soon found out, by a glance or two of Phil’s to one side, that he was trying to astonish the new boys. It is surprising how it lightened Hugh’s heart to find that his brother did not quite despise, or feel ashamed of him, as he had begun to think: but that he even took pains to show off. He was sorry too when the usher spoke sharply to Phil, and even rapped his head with the cane, asking him what he spluttered out his nonsense at that rate for. Thus ended Phil’s display; and Hugh felt as hot, and as ready to cry, as if it had happened to himself.