"LOUT ROWS" 67 



great numbers. Several times when I and a few others were 

 obliged to go down town, when we returned we found about a 

 hundred between us and the house, and had then to run the 

 gauntlet down them all, which we did by clasping our hands 

 tight over our heads, holding our caps as tight as possible, we who 

 had red caps (of whom there are only 10 left in the school) were 

 the special persons on whom they directed their attacks. To 

 seize a red cap, I suppose, is regarded as a great honour. If 

 once you lose your cap you never get it again. We generally 

 got through all right, after being hit several times with stones, 

 snowballs, etc. 



I think the expression, a " lout row," is peculiar to 

 Rugby. It did not really signify any serious class ani- 

 mosity, but only that at a certain period it is customary 

 to fight, as in a Town-and-Gown row at Oxford on the 

 5th of November. Certainly the " louts," as they were 

 styled, made but little pretence of fighting with the Big 

 School at any time, but Oakfield House was some distance 

 away on Bilton Hill, and the chance of cutting off such 

 smaller fry as we were appealed not unnaturally to the 

 instincts of those who liked a row in which they had a 

 vast advantage. This was particularly in the winter 

 time, when there was plenty of snow, but as for snowballs, 

 I never got hit by one so hard as to remember it except 

 when poor Harry Verelst, who was then at the Big School, 

 came with two or three friends to see some of us and 

 started snowballing before they left. He threw one which 

 came like a shot out of a gun and took me in the short 

 ribs, almost after the manner of the " chunk of old red 

 sandstone " which caused Abner Jones to " curl up on 

 the floor." It must have been a super-snowball indeed, 

 to have left its memory vivid through all these years. 

 Verelst, as is pretty generally known, was a great cricketer, 

 and he died only about a year ago. 



The term " lout," not inaptly, describes a person, of 

 whatever class, who has had no physical training and 

 cannot move or carry himself except in an awkward, 

 shambling fashion. There will be very few "louts" left 

 after this war, except among the conscientious objectors. 



