Tom Browns School Days | Page 4

flank, carrying
no lumber. Then for clanship, they are as bad as Highlanders; it is
amazing the belief they have in one another. With them there is nothing
like the Browns, to the third and fourth generation. "Blood is thicker
than water," is one of their pet sayings. They can't be happy unless they
are always meeting one another. Never were such people for family
gatherings; which, were you a stranger, or sensitive, you might think
had better not have been gathered together. For during the whole time
of their being together they luxuriate in telling one another their minds
on whatever subject turns up; and their minds are wonderfully
antagonistic, and all their opinions are downright beliefs. Till you've
been among them some time and understand them, you can't think but
that they are quarrelling. Not a bit of it. They love and respect one
another ten times the more after a good set family arguing bout, and go
back, one to his curacy, another to his chambers, and another to his
regiment, freshened for work, and more than ever convinced that the
Browns are the height of company.
This family training, too, combined with their turn for combativeness,
makes them eminently quixotic. They can't let anything alone which
they think going wrong. They must speak their mind about it, annoying
all easy-going folk, and spend their time and money in having a tinker
at it, however hopeless the job. It is an impossibility to a Brown to
leave the most disreputable lame dog on the other side of a stile. Most
other folk get tired of such work. The old Browns, with red faces, white
whiskers, and bald heads, go on believing and fighting to a green old
age. They have always a crotchet going, till the old man with the scythe
reaps and garners them away for troublesome old boys as they are.
And the most provoking thing is, that no failures knock them up, or
make them hold their hands, or think you, or me, or other sane people

in the right. Failures slide off them like July rain off a duck's back
feathers. Jem and his whole family turn out bad, and cheat them one
week, and the next they are doing the same thing for Jack; and when he
goes to the treadmill, and his wife and children to the workhouse, they
will be on the lookout for Bill to take his place.
However, it is time for us to get from the general to the particular; so,
leaving the great army of Browns, who are scattered over the whole
empire on which the sun never sets, and whose general diffusion I take
to be the chief cause of that empire's stability; let us at once fix our
attention upon the small nest of Browns in which our hero was hatched,
and which dwelt in that portion of the royal county of Berks which is
called the Vale of White Horse.
Most of you have probably travelled down the Great Western Railway
as far as Swindon. Those of you who did so with their eyes open have
been aware, soon after leaving the Didcot station, of a fine range of
chalk hills running parallel with the railway on the left-hand side as you
go down, and distant some two or three miles, more or less, from the
line. The highest point in the range is the White Horse Hill, which you
come in front of just before you stop at the Shrivenham station. If you
love English scenery, and have a few hours to spare, you can't do better,
the next time you pass, than stop at the Farringdon Road or Shrivenham
station, and make your way to that highest point. And those who care
for the vague old stories that haunt country-sides all about England,
will not, if they are wise, be content with only a few hours' stay; for,
glorious as the view is, the neighbourhood is yet more interesting for its
relics of bygone times. I only know two English neighbourhoods
thoroughly, and in each, within a circle of five miles, there is enough of
interest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. I believe this to
be the case almost throughout the country, but each has a special
attraction, and none can be richer than the one I am speaking of and
going to introduce you to very particularly, for on this subject I must be
prosy; so those that don't care for England in detail may skip the
chapter.
O young England! young England! you who are born into these racing
railroad times, when there's a Great Exhibition, or some monster sight,
every year, and you can get over a couple of thousand miles of ground
for three