The school-house are overruled—­the fight is on again, but there is to be no throwing; and East in high wrath threatens to take his man away after the next round (which he don’t mean to do, by the way), when suddenly young Brooke comes through the small gate at the end of the chapel.  The school-house faction rush to him.  “Oh, hurra! now we shall get fair play.”

“Please, Brooke, come up, they won’t let Tom Brown throw him.”

“Throw whom?” says Brooke, coming up to the ring.  “Oh!  Williams, I see.  Nonsense! of course he may throw him if he catches him fairly above the waist.”

Now, young Brooke, you’re in the sixth, you know, and you ought to stop all fights.  He looks hard at both boys.  “Anything wrong?” says he to East, nodding at Tom.

“Not a bit.”

“Not beat at all?”

“Bless you, no! heaps of fight in him.  Ain’t there, Tom?”

Tom looks at Brooke and grins.

“How’s he?” nodding at Williams.

“So, so; rather done, I think, since his last fall.  He won’t stand above two more.”

“Time’s up!” the boys rise again and face one another.  Brooke can’t find it in his heart to stop them just yet, so the round goes on, the slogger waiting for Tom, and reserving all his strength to hit him out should he come in for the wrestling dodge again, for he feels that that must be stopped, or his sponge will soon go up in the air.

And now another newcomer appears on the field, to-wit, the under-porter, with his long brush and great wooden receptacle for dust under his arm.  He has been sweeping out the schools.

“You’d better stop, gentlemen,” he says; “the doctor knows that Brown’s fighting—­he’ll be out in a minute.”

“You go to Bath, Bill,” is all that that excellent servitor gets by his advice.  And being a man of his hands, and a stanch upholder of the school-house, he can’t help stopping to look on for a bit, and see Tom Brown, their pet craftsman, fight a round.

It is grim earnest now, and no mistake.  Both boys feel this, and summon every power of head, hand, and eye to their aid.  A piece of luck on either side, a foot slipping, a blow getting well home, or another fall, may decide it.  Tom works slowly round for an opening; he has all the legs, and can choose his own time:  the slogger waits for the attack, and hopes to finish it by some heavy right-handed blow.  As they quarter slowly over the ground, the evening sun comes out from behind a cloud and falls full on Williams’ face.  Tom starts in; the heavy right hand is delivered, but only grazes his head.  A short rally at close quarters, and they close:  in another moment the slogger is thrown again heavily for the third time.

“I’ll give you three to two on the little one in half-crowns,” said Groove to Rattle.

“No, thank ’ee,” answers the other, diving his hands further into his coat-tails.

Just at this stage of the proceedings, the door of the doctor’s library suddenly opens, and he steps into the close, and makes straight for the ring, in which Brown and the slogger are both seated on their seconds’ knees for the last time.