Book 2 - Chapter 1

Tom's "First Half"

Tom Tulliver'S sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's
Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were
rather severe. At Mr. Jacob's academy life had not presented itself to
him as a difficult problem; there were plenty of fellows to play with,
and Tom being good at all active games,--fighting especially,--had
that precedence among them which appeared to him inseparable from the
personality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly known as
Old Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles, imposed no painful
awe; and if it was the property of snuffy old hypocrites like him to
write like copperplate and surround their signatures with arabesques,
to spell without forethought, and to spout "my name is Norval" without
bungling, Tom, for his part, was glad he was not in danger of those
mean accomplishments. He was not going to be a snuffy schoolmaster,
he, but a substantial man, like his father, who used to go hunting
when he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,--as pretty a bit
of horse-flesh as ever you saw; Tom had heard what her points were a
hundred times. _He_ meant to go hunting too, and to be generally
respected. When people were grown up, he considered, nobody inquired
about their writing and spelling; when he was a man, he should be
master of everything, and do just as he liked. It had been very
difficult for him to reconcile himself to the idea that his
school-time was to be prolonged and that he was not to be brought up
to his father's business, which he had always thought extremely
pleasant; for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, and
going to market; and he thought that a clergyman would give him a
great many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospel
and Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the Collect. But in the absence of
specific information, it was impossible for him to imagine that school
and a schoolmaster would be something entirely different from the
academy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not to be at a deficiency, in case of his
finding genial companions, he had taken care to carry with him a small
box of percussion-caps; not that there was anything particular to be
done with them, but they would serve to impress strange boys with a
sense of his familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though he saw very
clearly through Maggie's illusions, was not without illusions of his
own, which were to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged experience at
King's Lorton.

He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to him that
life, complicated not only with the Latin grammar but with a new
standard of English pronunciation, was a very difficult business, made
all the more obscure by a thick mist of bash