“And now, Tom, my boy,” said the Squire, “remember you are going, at your own earnest request, to be chucked into this great school, like a young bear, with all your troubles before you—­earlier than we should have sent you perhaps.  If schools are what they were in my time, you’ll see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul, bad talk.  But never fear.  You tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn’t have your mother and sister hear, and you’ll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you.”

The allusion to his mother made Tom feel rather choky, and he would have liked to have hugged his father well, if it hadn’t been for the recent stipulation.

As it was, he only squeezed his father’s hand, and looked bravely up and said, “I’ll try, father.”

“I know you will, my boy.  Is your money all safe?

“Yes,” said Tom, diving into one pocket to make sure.

“And your keys?” said the Squire.

“All right,” said Tom, diving into the other pocket.

“Well, then, good-night.  God bless you!  I’ll tell boots to call you, and be up to see you off.”

Tom was carried off by the chambermaid in a brown study, from which he was roused in a clean little attic, by that buxom person calling him a little darling and kissing him as she left the room; which indignity he was too much surprised to resent.  And still thinking of his father’s last words, and the look with which they were spoken, he knelt down and prayed that, come what might, he might never bring shame or sorrow on the dear folk at home.

Indeed, the Squire’s last words deserved to have their effect, for they had been the result of much anxious thought.  All the way up to London he had pondered what he should say to Tom by way of parting advice—­something that the boy could keep in his head ready for use.  By way of assisting meditation, he had even gone the length of taking out his flint and steel and tinder, and hammering away for a quarter of an hour till he had manufactured a light for a long Trichinopoli cheroot, which he silently puffed, to the no small wonder of coachee, who was an old friend, and an institution on the Bath road, and who always expected a talk on the prospects and doings, agricultural and social, of the whole country, when he carried the Squire.

To condense the Squire’s meditation, it was somewhat as follows:  “I won’t tell him to read his Bible, and love and serve God; if he don’t do that for his mother’s sake and teaching, he won’t for mine.  Shall I go into the sort of temptations he’ll meet with?  No, I can’t do that.  Never do for an old fellow to go into such things with a boy.  He won’t understand me.  Do him more harm than good, ten to one.  Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say he’s sent to school to make himself a good scholar?  Well, but he isn’t sent to school for that—­at any rate, not for that mainly.