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MR. AND MRS.
FRANK BERRY
CHAPTER I
THE FIGHT AT SLAUGHTER
HOUSE
I a m very fond of reading about ba ttles, and have most of
Marlborough’s and Wellington’s at my fi ngers’ ends; but
the most tremendous combat I ever saw, and one that interests me to think of more than Malplaquet or Waterloo
(which, by the way, has grown to be a downright nuisance,
so much do men talk of it after dinner, prating most disgustingly about “the Prussians coming up,” and what not) – I say
the most tremendous combat ever known was that between
Berry and Biggs the gown-boy, which commenced in a certain
place called Middle Briars, situated in the midst of the cloisters that run along the side of the playground of Slaughter
House School, near Smithfi eld, London. It was there, madam,
that your humble servant had the honour of acquiring, after
six years’ labour, that immense fund of classical knowledge
which in after life has been so exceedingly useful to him.
The circumstances of the quarrel were these: – Biggs,
the gown-boy (a man who, in those days, I thought was at least
seven feet high, and was quite thunderstruck to fi nd in after
life that he measured no more than fi ve feet four), was what
we called “second cock” of the school; the fi rst cock was a great
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WILLIAM THACKERAY
big, good-humoured, lazy, fair-haired fellow, Old Hawkins by
name, who, because he was large and good-humoured, hurt
nobody. Biggs, on the contrary, was a sad bully; he had half-adozen fags, and beat them all unmercifully. Moreover, he had
a little brother, a boarder in Potky’s house, whom, as a matter of course, he hated and maltreated worse than anyone else.
Well, one day, because young Biggs had not brought his
brother his hoops, or had not caught a ball at cricket, or for
some other equally good reason, Biggs the elder so belaboured
the poor little fellow, that Berry, who was sauntering by, and
saw the dreadful blows which the elder brother was dealing to the younger with his hockey-stick, felt a compassion for
the little fellow (perhaps he had a jealousy against Biggs, and
wanted to try a few rounds with him, but that I can’t vouch
for); however, Berry passing by, stopped and said, “Don’t you
think you have thrashed the boy enough, Biggs?” He spoke
this in a very civil tone, for he never would have thought of interfering rudely with the sacred privilege that an upper boy at
a public school always has of beating a junior, especially when
they happen to be brothers.
The reply of Biggs, as might be expected, was to hit young
Biggs with the hockey-stick twice as hard as before, until
the little wretch howled with pain. “I suppose it’s no business of yours, Berry,” said Biggs, thumping away all the while,
and laid on worse and worse.
Until Berry (and, indeed, little Biggs) could bear it no longer, and the former, bouncing forward, wrenched the stick
out of old Biggs’s hands, and sent it whirling out of the cloister
window, to the great wonder of a crowd of us small boys, who
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MEN’S WIVES
were looking on. Little boys always like to see a little companion of their own soundly beaten.
“There!” said Berry, looking into Biggs’s face, as much as to
say, “I’ve gone and done it;” and he added to the brother, “Scud
away, you little thief; I’ve saved you this time.”
“Stop, young Biggs!” roared out his brother after a pause;
“or I’ll break every bone in your infernal scoundrelly skin!”
Young Biggs looked at Berry, then at his brother, then
came at his brother’s order, as if back to be beaten again; but
lost heart, and ran away as fast as his little legs could carry him.
“I’ll do for him another time,” said Biggs. “Here, underboy, take my coat;” and we all began to gather round and
formed a ring.
“We had better wait till after school, Biggs,” cried Berry,
quite cool, but looking a little pale. “There are only fi ve minutes now, and it will take you more than that to thrash me.”
Biggs upon this committed a great error; for he struck
Berry slightly across the face with the back of his hand, saying, “You are in a funk.” But this was a feeling which Frank
Berry did not in the least entertain; for, in reply to Biggs’s
back-hander, and as quick as thought, and with all his might
and main – pong! he delivered a blow upon old Biggs’s nose
that made the claret spirt, and sent the second cock down to
the ground as if he had been shot.
He was up again, however, in a minute, his face white and
gashed with blood, his eyes glaring, a ghastly spectacle; and
Berry, meanwhile, had taken his coat off, and by this time
there were gathered in the cloisters, on all the windows, and
upon each other’s shoulders, one hundred and twenty young
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WILLIAM THACKERAY
gentlemen at the very least, for the news had gone out through
the playground of “a fi ght between Berry and Biggs.”
But Berry was quite right in his remark about the propriety of deferring the business, for at this minute Mr. Chip,
the second master, came down the cloisters going into school,
and grinned in his queer way as he saw the state of Biggs’s face.
“Holloa, Mr. Biggs,” said he, “I suppose you have run against
a fi nger-post.” That was the regular joke with us at school, and
you may be sure we all laughed heartily: as we always did when
Mr. Chip made a joke, or anything like a joke. “You had better go to the pump, sir, and get yourself washed, and not let
Doctor Buckle see you in that condition.” So saying, Mr. Chip
disappeared to his duties in the under-school, whither all we
little boys followed him.
It was Wednesday, a half-holiday, as everybody knows, and
boiled-beef day at Slaughter House. I was in the same boarding-house with Berry, and we all looked to see whether he ate
a good dinner, just as one would examine a man who was going to be hanged. I recollected, in after-life, in Germany, seeing a friend who was going to fi ght a duel eat fi ve larks for his
breakfast, and thought I had seldom witnessed greater courage. Berry ate moderately of the boiled beef – BOILED CHILD
we used to call it at school, in our elegant jocular way; he knew
a great deal better than to load his stomach upon the eve of
such a contest as was going to take place.
Dinner was very soon over, and Mr. Chip, who had been all
the while joking Berry, and pressing him to eat, called him up
into his study, to the great disappointment of us all, for we
thought he was going to prevent the fi ght; but no such thing.
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MEN’S WIVES
The Reverend Edward Chip took Berry into his study, and
poured him out two glasses of port-wine, which he made him
take with a biscuit, and patted him on the back, and went off.
I have no doubt he was longing, like all of us, to see the battle;
but etiquette, you know, forbade.
When we went out into the green, Old Hawkins was
there – the great Hawkins, the cock of the school. I have never seen the man since, but still think of him as of something
awful, gigantic, mysterious: he who could thrash everybody,
who could beat all the masters; how we longed for him to
put in his hand and lick Buckle! He was a dull boy, not very
high in the school, and had all his exercises written for him.
Buckle knew this, but respected him; never called him up to
read Greek plays; passed over all his blunders, which were
many; let him go out of half-holidays into the town as he
pleased: how should any man dare to stop him – the great
calm magnanimous silent Strength! They say he licked a LifeGuardsman: I wonder whether it was Shaw, who killed all
those Frenchmen? No, it could not be Shaw, for he was dead
au champ d’honneur; but he WOULD have licked Shaw
if he had been alive. A bargeman I know he licked, at Jack
Randall’s in Slaughter House Lane. Old Hawkins was too
lazy to play at cricket; he sauntered all day in the sunshine
about the green, accompanied by little Tippins, who was in
the sixth form, laughed and joked at Hawkins eternally, and
was the person who wrote all his exercises.
Instead of going into town this afternoon, Hawkins remained at Slaughter House, to see the great fi ght between
the second and third cocks.
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WILLIAM THACKERAY
The different masters of the school kept boarding-houses
(such as Potky’s, Chip’s, Wickens’s, Pinney’s, and so on), and
the playground, or “green” as it was called, although the only
thing green about the place was the broken glass on the walls
that separate Slaughter House from Wilderness Row and Goswell Street – (many a time have I seen Mr. Pickwick look
out of his window in that street, though we did not know him
then) – the playground, or green, was common to all. But if
any stray boy from Potky’s was found, for instance, in, or entering into, Chip’s house, the most dreadful tortures were practised upon him: as I can answer in my own case.
Fancy, then, our astonishment at seeing a little three-foot
wretch, of the name of Wills, one of Hawkins’s fags (they were
both in Potky’s), walk undismayed amongst us lions at Chip’s
house, as the “rich and rare” young lady did in Ireland. We
were going to set upon him and devour or otherwise maltreat
him, when he cried out in a little shrill impertinent voice,
“TELL BERRY I WANT HIM!”
We all roared with laughter. Berry was in the sixth form,
and Wills or any under-boy would as soon have thought of
“wanting” him, as I should of wanting the Duke of Wellington.
Little Wills looked round in an imperious kind of way.
“Well,” says he, stamping his foot, “do you hear? TELL BERRY
THAT HAWKINS WANTS HIM!”
As for resisting the law of Hawkins, you might as soon
think of resisting immortal Jove. Berry and Tolmash, who
was to be his bottle-holder, made their appearance immediately, and walked out into the green where Hawkins was waiting,
and, with an irresistible audacity that only belonged to him-
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MEN’S WIVES
self, in the face of nature and all the regulations of the place,
was smoking a cigar. When Berry and Tolmash found him,
the three began slowly pacing up and down in the sunshine,
and we little boys watched them.
Hawkins moved his arms and hands every now and then,
and was evidently laying down the law about boxing. We saw
his fi sts darting out every now and then with mysterious swiftness, hitting one, two, quick as thought, as if in the face of
an adversary; now his left hand went up, as if guarding his own
head, now his immense right fi st dreadfully fl apped the air, as
if punishing his imaginary opponent’s miserable ribs. The conversation lasted for some ten minutes, about which time gownboys’ dinner was over, and we saw these youths, in their black
horned-button jackets and knee-breeches, issuing from their
door in the cloisters. There were no hoops, no cricket-bats, as
usual on a half-holiday. Who would have thought of play in
expectation of such tremendous sport as was in store for us?
Towering among the gown-boys, of whom he was the head
and the tyrant, leaning upon Bushby’s arm, and followed at
a little distance by many curious pale awe-stricken boys,
dressed in his black silk stockings, which he always sported, and with a crimson bandanna tied round his waist, came
BIGGS. His nose was swollen with the blow given before
school, but his eyes fl ashed fi re. He was laughing and sneering with Bushby, and evidently intended to make minced
meat of Berry.
The betting began pretty freely: the bets were against
poor Berry. Five to three were offered – in ginger-beer.
I took six to four in raspberry open tarts. The upper boys
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WILLIAM THACKERAY
carried the thing farther still: and I know for a fact, that
Swang’s book amounted to four pound three (but he hedged
a good deal), and Tittery lost seventeen shillings in a single
bet to Pitts, who took the odds.
As Biggs and his party arrived, I heard Hawkins say to Berry, “For heaven’s sake, my boy, fi b with your right, and MIND
HIS LEFT HAND!”
Middle Briars was voted to be too confi ned a space for
the combat, and it was agreed that it should take place behind
the under-school in the shade, whither we all went. Hawkins,
with his immense silver hunting-watch, kept the time; and
water was brought from the pump close to Notley’s the pastrycook’s, who did not admire fi sticuffs at all on half-holidays,
for the fi ghts kept the boys away from his shop. Gutley was
the only fellow in the school who remained faithful to him, and
he sat on the counter – the great gormandising brute! – eating tarts the whole day.
This famous fi ght, as every Slaughter House man knows,
lasted for two hours and twenty-nine minutes, by Hawkins’s
immense watch. All this time the air resounded with cries of
“Go it, Berry!” “Go it, Biggs!” “Pitch into him!” “Give it him!”
and so on. Shall I describe the hundred and two rounds of
the combat? – No! – It would occupy too much space, and
the taste for such descriptions has passed away.
3
3
As it is very probable that many fair readers may not approve of the extremely forcible language in which the combat is depicted, I beg them to skip it and pass on to the next chapter, and to
remember that it has been modelled on the style of the very best
writers of the sporting papers.
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