These half-holiday walks were the great events of the week.  The whole fifty boys started after dinner with one of the ushers for Hazeldown, which was distant some mile or so from the school.  Hazeldown measured some three miles round, and in the neighbourhood were several woods full of all manner of birds and butterflies.  The usher walked slowly round the down with such boys as liked to accompany him; the rest scattered in all directions, being only bound to appear again when the usher had completed his round, and accompany him home.  They were forbidden, however, to go anywhere except on the down and into the woods; the village had been especially prohibited, where huge bull’s-eyes and unctuous toffy might be procured in exchange for coin of the realm.

Various were the amusements to which the boys then betook themselves.  At the entrance of the down there was a steep hillock, like the barrows of Tom’s own downs.  This mound was the weekly scene of terrific combats, at a game called by the queer name of “mud-patties.”  The boys who played divided into sides under different leaders, and one side occupied the mound.  Then, all parties having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing up on all sides under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged.  It was a good, rough, dirty game, and of great use in counteracting the sneaking tendencies of the school.  Then others of the boys spread over the downs, looking for the holes of humble-bees and mice, which they dug up without mercy, often (I regret to say) killing and skinning the unlucky mice, and (I do not regret to say) getting well stung by the bumble-bees.  Others went after butterflies and birds’ eggs in their seasons; and Tom found on Hazeldown, for the first time, the beautiful little blue butterfly with golden spots on his wings, which he had never seen on his own downs, and dug out his first sand-martin’s nest.  This latter achievement resulted in a flogging, for the sand-martins built in a high bank close to the village, consequently out of bounds; but one of the bolder spirits of the school, who never could be happy unless he was doing something to which risk was attached, easily persuaded Tom to break bounds and visit the martins’ bank.  From whence it being only a step to the toffy shop, what could be more simple than to go on there and fill their pockets; or what more certain than that on their return, a distribution of treasure having been made, the usher should shortly detect the forbidden smell of bull’s-eyes, and, a search ensuing, discover the state of the breeches-pockets of Tom and his ally?