CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Anonymous y Cornell University Library Tom Brown at Oxford / .. 3 1924 031 170 669 olm.anx The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031170669 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. By THOMAS HUGHES. NEW YORK: A. L. BUET, PUBLISHEE. IV CONTENTS. CHAPTKB PAGE XXV. COMMBMOKATION, 269 XXVI. The Long Walk in Christ Chubch Meadows, . 379 XXVII. Lectumng a Lioness, 295 XXVIIL The End of the Fbeshman's Year, ... 307 XXIX. The Long Vacation Letter-Bag 316 XXX. Amusements at Barton Manor 380 XXXI. Behind the Scenes, 337 XXXII. A Crisis, 344 XXXIII. Brown Patrontjs, 357 XXXIV. M^Sev ayav, 376 XXXV. Second Tear 389 XXXVI. The Riverside, 401 XXXVII. The Night-Watch, 410 XXXVIII. Mary IN Matpair, 431 XXXIX. What Came of the Night- Watch, . . . .430 XL. Hue and Cry 441 XLI. The Lieutenaiit's Sentiments and Problems, . 451 XLII. Third Year 463 XLIII. Afternoon Visitors, 473 XLIV. The Intercepted Letter-Bag, .... 484 XLV. Master's Term, 499 XL VI. From Indl*. to Bnglebourn 507 XLVII. The Wedding-Day, 515 XL VIII. A Meeting in the Street, 534 XLIX. The End, 533 L. The Postscript, 543 INTRODUCTORY. In the Michaelmas term after leaving school, Tom Brown received a summons from the authorities, and went up to ma- triculate at St. Ambrose's College, Oxford. He presented him- self at the college one afternoon, and was examined by one of the tutors, who carried him, and several other youths in like predicament, up to the Senate House the next morning, where they went through the usual forms of subscribing to the articles, and otherwise testifying their loyalty to the established order of things, without much thought perhaps, but in very good faith nevertheless. Having completed the ceremony by paying his fees, our hero hurried back home, witliout making any stay in Oxford. He had often passed through it, so that the city had not the charm of novelty for him, and he was anxious to get home ; where, as he had never spent an autumn away from school till now, for tlie first time in his life he was having his fill of hunting and shooting. He had left school in June, and did not go up to reside at Oxford till l)ie end of the following January. Seven good months ; during a part of which he had indeed read for four hours or so a week with the curate of the parish, but the residue had been exclusively devoted to cricket and field sports. Now, admirable as these institutions are, and beneficial as is their in- fluence on the youth of Britain, it is possible for a youngster to get too much of them. So it had fallen out with our hero. He was a better horseman and shot, but the total relaxation of all the healthy discipline of school, the regular hours and regular work to which he had been used for so many years, had certainly thrown him back in other ways. The whole man had not grown ; so that we must not be surprised to find him quite as boyish, now that we fall in with him again, marching down to St. Ambrose's with a porter wheeling his luggage after him on a truck as when we left him at the end of his school career. Tom was in truth beginning to feel that it was high time for him to be getting to regular work again of some sort. A land- ing place is a famous thing, but it is only enjoyable for a time by any mortal who deserves one at all. So it was with a feel- VI INTKODUCTOET. ing of unmixed pleasure that he turned in at the St. Ambrose gates, and inquired of the porter what rooms had been allotted to him within those venerable walls. While the porter consulted his list, the great college sundial, over tlie lodge, which had lately been renovated, caught Tom's eye. The motto underneath, " Pereunt et imputantur," stood out, proud of its new gilding, in the bright afternoon sun of a frosty January day : which motto was raising sundry thoughts ill Ids brain, when the porter came upon the right place in his list, and directed him to the end of his journey : No. 5 staircase, second quadrangle, three pair back. In which new home we shall leave him to install himself, while we endeavor to give the reader some notion of the college itself. TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. CHAPTER I. ST. ambkosb's college. - St. Ambrose's College was a moderate-sized one. There might have been some seventy or eighty undergraduates in resi- dence, when our hero appeared there as a freshman. Of these, unfortunately for the college, there were a very large propor- tion of the gentleman-commoners ; enough, in fact, with the other men whom they drew round them, and who lived pretty much as they did, to form the largest and leading set in the col- lege. So the college was decidedly fast ; in fact, it was the fast college of the day. The chief characteristic of this set was the most reckless ex- travagance of every kind. London wine merchants furnished them with liquors at a guinea a bottle, and wine at five guineas a dozen : Oxford and London tailors vied with one another in providing them with unheard-of quantities of the most gorgeous clothing. Tliey drove tandems in all directions, scattering their ample allowances, which they treated as pocket money, about roadside inns and Oxford taverns with open hand, and " going tick " for everything which could by possibility be booked. Their cigars cost two guineas a pound ; their furni- ture was the best that could be bought ; pine-apples, forced fruit, and the most rare preserves figured at their wine parties ; they hunted, rode steeple chases by day, played billiards until the gates closed, and then were ready for vingt-et-une, unlimited loo, and hot drink in their own rooms as long, as anyone could be got to sit up and play. The fast set then swamped, and gave the tone to tlie college; at which fact no persons were more astonished and horrified than the authorities of St. Ambrose. That they of all bodies in the world should be fairly run away with by a set of reckless, loose young.spendth rifts, was in- deed a melancholy and unprecedented fact ; for the body of fellows of St. Ambrose was as distinguished for learning, morality, and respectability as any in the imiversity. The TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. foundation was not, indeed, actually an open one. Oriel at that time alone enjoyed this distinction ; but there were a large number of open fellowships, and the income of the college was large, and the livings belonging to it numerous ; so that the best men from other colleges were constantly coming in. Some of these of a former generation had been eminently successful in their management of the college. The St. Ambrose under- graduates at one time had carried off almost all the university jjrizes, and filled the class lists, while maintaining at the same time the highest character for manliness and gentlemanly con- duct. This had lasted long enough to establish the fanie of the college, and great lords and statesmen had sent their sons there; head masters had struggled to get the names of their best pupils on the books; in short, everyone who had a son, ward, or pupil, whom he wanted to push forward in the world — who was meant to cut a figure, and take the lead among men, left no stone unturned to get him into St. Ambrose's; and thought the first, and a very long step gained when he had succeeded. But the governing bodies of colleges are always on the change, and in the course of things men of other ideas came to rule at St. Ambrose — shrewd men of the world ; men of busi- ness, some of them, with good ideas of making the most of their advantages ; who said, " Go to : why should we not make the public payfor the great benefits we confer on them ? Have we not the very best article in the educational market to sup- ply — almost a monopoly of it — and shall we not get the highest price for it ? " So by degrees they altered many things in the college. In the first place, under their auspices, gentle- men-commoners increased and multiplied ; in fact, the eldest sons of baronets, even of squires, were scarcely admitted on any otlier footing. As these young gentlemen paid double fees to the college, and had great expectations of all sorts, it could not be expected that they should be subject to quite the same dis- cipline as the common run of men, who would have to make their own way in the world. So the rules as to attendance at chapel and lectures were relaxed in their favor ; and, that they might find all things suitable to persons in their position, the kitchen and buttery were worked up to a high state of perfection, and St. Ambrose, from having been one of the most reasonable, had come to be about the most expensive col- lege in the university. These changes worked as their pro- moters probably desired that they should work, and the college was full of rich men, and commanded in the university the sort ST. Ambrose's college. 3 of respect which riches bring with them. But the old repu- tation, though still strong out of doors, was beginning sadly to wane within the university precincts. Fewer and fewer of the St. Ambrose men appeared in the class lists, or among the prize-men. They no longer led the debates at the Union; the boat lost place after place on the river ; the eleven got beaten in all their matches. The inaugurators of these changes had passed away in their turn, and at last a reaction had com- menced. The fellows recently elected, and who were in resi- dence at the time we write of, were for the most part men of great attainments, all of them men who had taken very high honors. The electors naturally enough had chosen them as the most likely persons to restore, as tutors, the golden days of the college ; and they had been careful in the selection to con- fine themselves to very quiet and studious men such as were likely to remain at Oxford, passing over men of more popular manners and active spirits, who would be sure to flit soon into the world, and be of little more service to St. Ambrose. But these were not the men to get any hold on the fast set who were now in the ascendant. It was not in the nature of things that they should understand each other ; in fact they were hopelessly at war, and the college was getting more and more out of gear in consequence. What they could do, however, they were doing; and under their fostering care were growing up a small set, including most of the scholars, who were likely, as far so they were con- cerned, to retrieve the college character in the schools. But they were too much like their tutors, men who did little else but read. They neither wished, nor were likely to gain, the slightest influence on the fast set. The best men among them, too, were diligent readers of the Tracts for the 'Hmes, and followers of the able leaders of the High-church party, which was then a growing one ; and this led them also to form such friendships as they made among out-college men of their own way of thinking — with high churchmen, rather than St. Ambrose men. So Xhey lived very much to themselves, and scarcely interfered with the dominant party. Lastly, there was the boating set, which was beginning to revive in the college, partly from the natural disgust of any body of young Englishmen, at finding themselves distanced in an exercise requiring strength and pluck, and partly from the fact that the captain for the time being was one of the best oars in the university boat, and also a deservedly popular character. He was now in his third year of residence, had 4 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. won the pair-oar race, and had pulled seven in the great yearly match with Cambridge, and by constant hard work had man- aged to carry the St. Ambrose boat up to the fifth place on the river. He will be introduced to you, gentle reader, when the proper time comes ; at present, we are only concerned with a bird's-eye view of the college, that you may feel more or less at home in it. The boating set was not so separate or marked as the reading set, melting on one side into, and keep- ing up more or less connection with, the fast set, and also command,ing a sort of half allegiance from most of the men who belonged to neither of the other sets. The minor divi- sions, of which of course there were many, need not be partic- ularized, as the above general classification will be enough for the purposes of this history. Our hero, on leaving school, having bound himself solemnly to write all his doings and thoughts to the friepd whom he had left behind him ; distance and separation were to make no difference whatever in their friendship. This compact had been made on one of their last evenings at Rugby. They were sitting together in the sixth-form room, Tom splicing the handle of a favorite cricket bat, and Arthur reading a volume of Raleigh's works. The doctor had lately been alluding to the " History of the World," and had excited the curiosity of the active-minded among his pupils about the great navi- gator, statesman, soldier, author, and fine gentleman. So Raleigh's works were seized on by various voracious young readers, and carried out of the school library ; and Arthur was now deep in a volume of the " Miscellanies," curled up on a corner of the sofa. Pi'esently, Tom heard something be- tween a groan and a protest, and looking up, demanded ex- planations ; in answer to which, Arthur, in a voice half fur- ious and half fearful, read out: " And be sure of this, thou shalt never find a friend in tliy young years whose condition and qualities will please thee after thou comest to more discretion and judgment ; and then all thou givest is lost, and all wherein thou shalt trust such a one will be discovered." " You don't mean that's Raleigh's ? " " Yes — here it is, in his first letter to his son." " What a cold-blooded old Philistine," said Tom. " But it can't be true, do you think ? " said Arthur. And, in short, after some personal reflections on Sir Walter they then and there resolved that, so far as they were con- cerned, it was not, could not, and should not be true; that ST. AMBROSE'S COLLEGE. 5 they would remain faithful, the same to each other, and the greatest friends in the world, through I know not what sepa- rations, trials, and catastrophes. And for the better insuring this result, a correspondence, regular as the recurring months, was to be maintained. It had already lasted through the long vacation and up to Cliristmas without sensibly dragging, though Tom's letters had been something of the shortest in November, when he had had lots of shooting, and two days a week with the hounds. Now, however, having fairly got to Oxford, he determined to make up for all shortcomings. His first letter from college, taken in connection with the pre- vious sketch of the place, will probably accomplish the work of introduction better than any detailed account by a third party ; and it is therefore given here verbatim: St. Ambeosb, Oxfobd, February, 184— My deab Geobdie: According to promise, I write to tell you how I get on up here, and what sort of a place Oxford is. Of course, I don't know much about it yetj haviug only been up some two weeks ; but you shall have my first impressions. Well, first and foremost, it's an awfully idle place ; at any rate, for us fresh- men. Fancy now. I am in twelve lectures a week of an hour each — Greek Testament, first book of Herodotus, second J<)neid, and first book of Euclid ! There's a treat ! two hours a day ; all over by twelve, or one at latest ; and no extra work at all, in the shape of copies of verses, themes, or other exercises. I think sometimes I'm back iu the lower fifth ; for we don't get through more than we used to do there ; and if you were to hear the men construe, it would make your hair stand on eud. Where on earth can they have come from? unless they blundered on purpose, as I often think. Of course, I never look at a lecture before I go in, 1 know it all nearly by heart, so it would be shear waste of time. I hope I shall take to reading something or otlici' by myself ; but you know I never was much of a hand at sapping, and, for the present, the light work suits me well enough, for there's lots to see and learn about in this place. We keep very gentlemanly hours. Chapel every morning at eight, and even- ing at seven. You must attend once a day, and twice on Sundays — at least, that's the rule of our college — and be in gates by twelve o'clock at night. Be- sides which, if you're a decently steady fellow, you ought to dine in hall per- haps four days a week. Hall is at five o'clock. And now you have the sum total. All the rest of your time you may just do what you like with. So much for our work and hours. Now for the place. Well, it's a grand old place, certainly ; and I dare say, if a fellow goes straight in it, and gets credit- ably through his three years, he may end by loving it as much as we do the old school-house and quadrangle at Eugby. Our college is a fair specimen ; a ven- erable old front of crumbling stone fronting the street, into which two or three other colleges look also. Over the gateway is a large room, where the college examinations go on, when there are any ; and as yon enter, you pass the porter's lodge, where resides our janitor, a bustling little man, vrith a pot belly, whose business is to put down the time at which the men come in at night, and to keep all discommonsed tradesmen, stray dogs, and bad characters generally, out of the college. The large quadrangle into which you come first, is bigger than ours at Eugby. and a much more solemn and sleepy sort of a place, with its little gables and old mulUoned windows. One side is occupied by the hall and chapel : the principal's house takes up half another side ; and the rest is divide4 into stair- cases, on each of which are six or eight sets of rooms, inhabited bjr'Ms undej- 6 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. graduates, with here and there a tutor or fellow dropped down among us (in the first-floor rooms, of course), not exactly to keep order, but to act as a sort of ballast. This quadrangle is the show part of the college, and is generally respectable and quiet, which is a good deal more than can be said for the inner quadrangle, which you get at through a passage leading out of the other. The rooms aint half so large or good in the inner quad ; and here's where all we freshmen live, besides a lot of the older undergraduates who don't care to change their rooms. Only one tutor has rooms here ; and I should think^ if he's a reading man, it won't be long before he clears out ; for all sorts of high jinks go on on the grass-plot, and the row on the staircases is often as bad, and not half so respectable, as it used to be in the middle passage in the last week of the half-year. My rooms are what they call garrets, right up in the roof, with a commanding view of college tiles and chimney pots, and of houses at the back. No end of cats, both college Toms and strangers, haunt the neighborhood, and I am rapidly learning cat-talk from them ; but I'm not going to stand it — I don't want to know cat-talk. The college Toms are protected by the statutes, I be- lieve ; but I'm going to buy an air-gun for the ^benefit of the strangers. My rooms are pleasant enough, at the top of the kitchen staircase, and separated from all mankind by a great, iron-clamped, outer door, my oak which I sport when I go out or want to be quiet ; sitting room eighteen by twelve, bedroom twelve by eight, and a little cupboard for the scout. Ah, Geordie, the scout is an institution ! Fancy me waited upon and valeted by a stout party in black, of qiiiet, gentlemanly manners, like the benevolent father in a comedy. He takes the deepest interest in aU my possessions and proceedings, and is evidently used to good society, to judge by the amount of crockery and glass, wines, liquors, and grocery, which he thinks indispensable for my due establishment. He has also been good enough to recommend me to many tradesmen who are ready to supply these articles in any quantities ; each of whom has been hei'e already a dozen times, cap in hand, and vowing that it is quite immaterial when I pay — ^which is very Mnd of them ; but, with the highest respect for friend Perkins (my scout) and his obliging friends, I shall make some inquiries before " letting in " with any of them. He waits on me in hall where we go in full fig of cap and gown at five, and get very good dinners, and cheap enough. It is rather a fine old room with a good, arched, black oak ceiling and high paneling, hung round with pictures of old swells, bishops and lords, chiefly, who have endowed the college in some way, or at least have fed here in times gone by, and for whom, ' ' cseterisque benefactori- bus nostris," we daily give thanks in a long Latin grace, which one of the un- dergraduates (I think it must be) goes and rattles out at the end of the high table, and then comes down again from the dais to his own place. No one feeds at the high table except the dons and the gentlemen-commoners, who are undergraduates in velvet caps and silk gowns. Why they wear these instead of cloth and serge I haven't yet made out. I believe it is because they pay double fees : but they seem uncommonly wretched up at the high table, and I should think would sooner pay double to come to the other eud of the hall. The chapel is a quaint little place, about the size of the chancel of Lutter- worth Church. It just holds us all comfortably. The attendance is regular enough, but I don't think the men care about it a bit in general. Several I can see bring in Euclids, and other lecture books, and the sei-vice is gone through at a great pace. I couldn't think at first why some of the men seemed so uncomfortable and stiff about the legs at morning sei-vice, but I find that they are the hunting set, and come in with pea-coats over their pinks, and trousers over their leather breeches and top-boots, which accounts for it. There are a few others who seem very devout, and bow a good deal, and turn toward the altar at different parts of the service. These are of the Oxford High-church school, I believe ; but I shall soon find out more about them. On the whole I feel less at home, I am sorry to say, at present, in the chapel than anywhere else. ' I was very near forgetting a great institution of the college, which is the buttery-hatch, just opposite the hall door. Here at)jdes the fat old butler (all A ROW ON THE EIVEE. 1 the servants at St. Ambrose's are portly), and serves out limited bread, butter, and cheese, and unlimited beer brewed by himself, for an hour in the morning, at noon, and again at supper-time. Your scout always fetches you a pint or so on each occasion, in case you should want it, and if you don't, it falls to him ; but I can't say that my fellow gets much, for I am naturally a thirsty soul, and cannot often resist the malt myself, coming up as it does, fresh and cool, ill one of the silver tankards, of which we seem to have an endless supply. I spent a day or two in the iirst week, before I got shaken down into my place here, in going round and seeing the other colleges, and iinding out what great men had been at each (one got a taste for that sort of work from the doctor, and I'd nothing else to do). Well, I never was more interested ; fancy ferreting out Wycliffe, the Black Prince, Sir Walter Kaleigh, Pym, Hampden, Laud, Ireton, Butler, and Addison, in one afternoon. I walked about two inches taller in my trencher cap after it. Perhaps I may be going to make dear friends with some fellow who will change the history of England. Why shouldn't I ? There must have been freshmen once who were chums of Wycliffe of Queen's, or Kaleigh of Oriel. I mooned up and down the High Street, star- ing at all the young faces in caps, and wondering which of them would turn out great generals, or statesmen, or poets. Some of them will, of course, for there must be a dozen at least, I should think, in every generation of under- graduates, who will have a good deal to say to the ruling and guiding of the British nation before they die. But, after'-all, the river is the feature of Oxford, to my mind; a glorious stream, not five minutes' walk from the colleges, broad enough in most places for three boats to row abreast. I expect I will take to boating furiously ; I have been down the river three or four times already with some other fresh- men, and it is glorious exercise ; that I can see, though we bungle and cut crabs desperately at present. Here's a long yarn I'm spinning for you ; and I dare say after all you'll say it tells you nothing, and you'd rather have twenty lines about the men, and what they're thinking about and the meaning, and the inner life of the place, and all that. Patience, patience ! I don't know anything about it myself yet, and have had only time to look at the shell, which is a very handsome and stately affair ; you shall have the kernel, if I ever get at it, in due time. And now write me a long letter directly, and tell me about the doctor, and who are in the Sixth, and how the house goes on, and what sort of an eleven there'll be, and what yon are doing and thinking about. Come up hei'e and try for a scholarship ; I'll take you in and show you the lions. Remember me to old friends. Ever yours affectionately, T. B. CHAPTER II. A ROW ON THE ErVEE. Within a day or two of the penning of this celebrated epistle, which created quite a sensation in the sixth -form room as it went the round after tea, Tom realized one of the objects of his young Oxford ambition, and succeeded in embarking on tlie river in a skiflE by himself, with such results as are now de- scribed. He had already been down several times in pair-oar and four-oar boats, with an old oar to pull stroke, and another to steer and coach the young idea, but he was not satisfied with these essays. He could not believe that he was such a bad oar as the old hands made him out to be, and thought that it must be the fault of the other freshmen who were learning with him that 8 TOM BKOWK AT OXFOBD. the boat made so little way and rolled so much. He had been such a proficient in all the Rugby games, that he couldn't realize the fact of his unsteadiness in, a boati Pulling looked a simple thing enough — much easier than tennis ; and he had made a capital start at the latter game, and been highly complimented by the marker after his first hour in the little court. He forgot that cricket and fives are capital training for tennis, but that rowing is a specialty, of the rudiments of -which he was wholly ignorant. And so, in full confidence that if he could only have a turn or two alone, he should not only satisfy himself, but everybody else, that he was a lieaven-born oar, he refused all offers of companionship, and started on the afternoon of a fine February day down to the boats for his trial trip. He had watched his regular companions well out of college, and gave them enough start to make sure that they would be off before he liimself could arrive at St. Ambrose's dressing-room at Hall's, and chuckled, as he came within sight of the river, to see the freshmen's boat, in which he generally performed, go plunging away past the university barge, keeping three dif- ferent times with four oars, and otherwise demeaning itself so as to become an object of mirthful admiration to all beholders. Tom was punted across to Hall's in a state of great content, which increased when, in answer to his casual inquiry, the man- aging man informed him that not a man of his college was about this place. So he ordered a skiff with as much dignity and coolness as he could command, and hastened upstairs to dress. He appeared again, carrying his boating coat arid cap. They were quite new, so he would not wear them ; nothing about him should betray the freshman on this day if he could help it. " Is my skiff ready ? " "All riglit, sir ; this way, sir," said the manager, conducting him to a good, safe-looking craft. " Any gentleman going to steer, sir ? " " No," said Tom superciliously ; " you may take out the rudder." " Going quite alone, sir ? Better take one of our boys — find you a very light one. Here, Bill ! " — and he turned to sum- mon a juvenile waterman to take charge of our hero. " Take out the rudder, do you hear ? " interrupted Tom. " I won't have a steerer." " "Well, sir, as you please," said the manager, proceeding to remove the degrading appendage. " The river's rather high, please to remember, sir. You must mind the mill-stream at Iffley Lock. I suppose you can swim?" A BOW ON THE EIVEE. 9 " Yes, of course," said Tom, settling himself on his cushion. " Now, shove her off." The next moment he was weU out in the stream, and left to his own resources. He got his sculls out successfully enough, and, though feeling by no means easy on his seat, proceeded to pull very deliberately past the barges, stopping his sculls in the air to feather accurately, in the hopes of deceiving spectators into the belief that he was an old hand just going out for a gentle paddle. The manager watched him for a minute, and turned to his work with an aspiration that he might not come to grief. But no thought of grief was on Tom's mind as he dropped _ gently down, impatient for the time when he should pass the mount of the Cherwell, and so, having no longer ci'itical eyes to fear, might put out his whole strength, and give himself at least, if not the world, assurance of a waterman. The day was a very fine one, a bright sun shining, and a nice fresh breeze blowing across the stream, but not enough to ruffle the water seriously. Some heavy storms up Gloucester- shire way had cleared the air, and swollen the stream at the same time ; in fact, the river was as full as it could be without ovei-flowing its banks — a state in which, of all others, it is the least safe for boating experiments. Fortunately, in those days there were no outriggers. Even the racing skiffs were com- paratively safe craft, and would be now characterized as tubs ; while the real tubs (in one of the safest of which the prudent manager had embarked our hero) were of such build that it required considerable ingenuity actually to upset them. If any ordinary amount of bungling could have done it, Tom's voyage would have terminated within a hundred yards of the Cherwell. While he had been sitting quiet and merely pad- dling, and almost letting the stream carry him down, the boat had trimmed well enough ; but now, taking a long breath, he leaned forward, and dug his sculls into the water, pulling them through with all his Strength. The consequence of this feat was that the handles of the sculls came into violent collision in the middle of the boat, the knuckles of his right hand were barked, his left scull unshipped, and the head of his skiff almost blown round by the wind before he could restore order on board. " Never mind ; try again," thought he, after the sensation of disgust had passed off, and a glance at the shore showed him that there were no witnesses. " Of course, I forgot, one hand must go over the other. It might have happened to anyone. Let me see, which hand shall I keep uppermost ; the left, that's 10 TOM BEOWN At OXFOKD. the weakest." And away he went again, keeping his newly- acquired fact painfully in mind, and so avoiding further col- lision amidships for four or five strokes. But, as in other sciences, the giving of undue prominence to one fact brings others inexorably on the head of the student to avenge his neglect of them, so it happened with Tom in his practical study of the science of rowing, that by thinking of the hands he forgot his seat, and the necessity of trimming properly. Whereupon the old tub began to rock fearfully, and the next moment he missed the water altogether with his right scull, and subsided backward, not without struggles, into the bot- tom of the boat ; while the half stroke which he had pulled with his left hand sent her head well into the bank. Tom picked himself up, and settled himself on his bench again, a sadder and a wiser man, as the truth began to dawn upon him that pulling, especially sculling, does notj like read- ing and writing, come by nature. However, he addressed him- self manfully to his task ; savage indeed, and longing to drive a hole in the bottom of the old tub, but as resolved as ever to get to Sandford and back before hall time, or perish in the attempt. He shoved himself off the bank, and, warned by his last mis- hap, got out into mid-stream, and there, moderating his ardor, and contenting himself with a slow and steady stroke, was progressing satisfactorily, and beginning to recover his temper, when a loud shout startled him ; and, looking over his shoulder at tlie imminent risk of an upset, he beheld the fast sailor the Dart, close hauled on a wind, and almost aboard of him. Utterly ignorant of what was the right thing to do, he held on his course, and passed close under the bows of the minia- ture cutter, the stearsman having jammed his helm hard down, shakingher in the wind, to prevent running over the skiff, and solacing himself with pouring maledictions on Tom and his craft, in which the man who had hold of the sheets, and the third, who was lounging in the bows, heartily joined. Tom was out of ear-shot before he had collected vituperation enough to hurl back at them, and was, moreover, already in tlie difficult navigation of the Gut, where, notwithstanding all his efforts, he again ran aground ; but with this exception, he arrived without other mishap at Iffley, where he lay on his sculls with much satisfaction, and shouted, " Lock — lock ! " The lock-keeper appeared to the summons, but instead of opening the gate seized a long boat-hook, and rushed toward our hero, calling upon him to mind the mill stream, and pull A KOW on THE RIVER. 11 his right hand scull ; notwithstanding which warning, Tom was within an ace of drifting past the entrance to the look, in which case assuredly his hoat, if not he, had never returned whole. However, the lock-keeper managed to catch the stern of his skiff with the boat-hook, and drag him back into the pi'oper channel, and then opened the lock-gates for him. Tom congratulated himself as he entered the lock that there were no other boats going through with him ; but his evil star was in the ascendant, and all things, animate and inanimate, seemed to be leagued together to humiliate him. As the water began to fall rapidly, he lost his hold of the chain, and the tub instantly drifted across the lock, and was in imminent danger of sticking and breaking her back, when the lock- keeper again came to the rescue with his boat-hook ; and, guessing the state of the case, did not quit him until he had safely shoved him and his boat well out into the pool below, with an exhortation to mind and go outside of the barge which was coming up. Tom started on the latter half of his outward voyage with the sort of look which Cato must have worn when he elected the losing side, and all the gods went over to the winning one. But his previous struggles had not been thrown away, and he managed to keep the right side of the barge, turn the corner without going aground, and zigzagged down Kennington reach, slowly indeed, and with much labor, but at any rate safely. Rejoicing in this feat, he stopped at the island, and recreated himself with a glass of beer, looking now hopefully toward Sanford, which lay within easy distance, now upward again along the reach which he had just overcome, and solac- ing himself with the remembrance of a dictum, which he had heard from a great authority, that it was always easier to steer up stream than down, from which he argued, that the worst part of his trial trip was now over. Presently he saw a skiff turn the corner at the top of the . Kennington reach, and, resolving in his mind to get to Sand- ford before the newcomer, paid for his beer, and betook him- self again to his tub. He got pretty well off, and, the island shutting out his unconscious rival from his view, worked away at first under the pleasing delusion that he was holding his own. But he was soon undeceived, for in monstrously short time the pursuing skiff showed around the corner, and bore down on him. He never relaxed his efforts, but could not help watching the enemy as he came up with him, hand over hand, and envying the perfect ease with which he seemed to 12 TOM BROWN AT OXPOED. be pulling his long steady stroke and the precision with which he steered, scarcely ever casting a look over his shoulder. He was hugging the Berkshire side himself, as the other skiff passed him, and thought he heard the sculler say sometliing about keeping out and minding the small lasher ; but the noise of the waters and his own desperate efforts prevented his heeding, or, indeed, hearing the warning plainly. ' In another minute, however, lie heard plainly enough most energetic shouts behind him, and, turning his Jiead over his right shoulder, saw the man who had just passed him backing his skiff rapidly up stream toward him. The next moment he felt the bows of his boat turn suddenly to the left ; the old tub grounded for a moment and then, turning over on her side, shot him out on to the planking of the steep descent into the small lasher. He grasped at the boards, but they were too slippery to hold, and the rush of water was too strong for him, and rolling him over and over like a piece of driftwood, plunged him into the pond below. After the first moment of astonishment and fright was over, Tom left himself to the stream, holding his breath hard, and paddling gently with his hands, feeling sure that, if he could only hold on, he should come to the surface sooner or later ; which accordingly happened after a somewhat lengthy sub- mersion. His first impulse on rising to the surface, after catching his breath, was to strike out for the shore, but, in the act of doing so, he caught sight of the other skiff coming stern foremost down the descent after him, and he trod the water and drew in his breath to watch. Down she came, as straight as an aiTow, into the tumult below ; the sculler sitting upright, and holding his sculls steadily in the water. For a moment she seemed to be going ujider, but righted herself, and glided swiftly into the still water ; and then the sculler cast a hasty and anxious glance around, till his eyes rested on our hero's half-drowned head. " Oh,' there you are ! " he said, looking much relieved ; "all right, I hope. Not hurt, eh ?" " No, thankee ; all right, I believe," answered Tom. " What shall I do?" " Swim ashore ; I'll look after your boat." So Tom took the advice, swam ashore, and there stood dripping and watch- ing the other as he righted the old tub, which was floating quietly bottom upward, little the worse for the mishap, and no doubt, if boats can wish, earnestly desiring in her wooden A EOW ON THE EIVEE. 13 mind to be allowed to go quietly to pieces then and there, sooner than be rescued to be again entrusted to the guidance of fresh- , men. The tub having been brought to the bank, the stranger started again, and collected the sculls and bottom boards, which were floating about here and there in the pool, and also suc- ceeded in making salvage of Tom's coat, tlie pockets of which held his watch, purse, and cigar case. These he brought to the bank, and delivering them over, inquired whether there was anything else to look after. " Thank you, no ; nothing but my cap. Never mindit. It's luck enough not to have lost the coat," said Tom, holding up tlie dripping garment to let the water run out of the arms and pocket-holes, and then wringing it as well as he could. " At any rate," thought he, " I needn't be afraid of its looking too new any more." The stranger put off again, and made one more round, searching for the cap and anything else which he might have overlooked, but without success. While he was doing so, Tom had time to look him well over, and see what sort of a man had come to his rescue. He hardly knew at the time the full extent of his obligation — at least if this sort of obligation is to be reckoned not so much by the service actually rendered, as by the risk encountered to be able to render it. There were probably not three men in the university who would have dared to shoot the laiJ^.er in a skiff in its then state, for it was in those times a really dangerous place ; and Tom liimself had an extraordinary escape, for, as Miller, the St. Ambrose cox- swain, remarked on hearing the story, " No one who wasn't born to be hung could have rolled down it without knocking liis head against something hard, and going down like lead when he got to the bottom." He was very well satisfied with his inspection. The other man was evidently a year or two older than himself, his figure was more set, and he had stronger whiskers than are generally grown at twenty. He was somewhere about five feet ten in height, very deep-chested, and with long, powei-ful arms and hands. There was no denying, however, that at the first glance he was an ugly man ; he was marked with small-pox, had large features, high cheek bones, deeply-set eyes, and a very long chin : and had got the trick which many under-hung men have of compressing his upper lip. Nevertheless, there was that in his face which hit Tom's fancy, and made him anxious to know his rescuer better. He had an instinct that 14 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOED. he should get good out of him. So he was very glad when the search was ended, and the stranger came to the bank, shipped his sculls, and jumped out with the painter of his skiff in his hand, which he proceeded to fasten to an old stump, wliile he remarked : " I'm afraid the cap's lost." " It doesn't matter the least. Thank you for coming to help me ; it was very kind indeed, and more than I expected. Don't they say that one Oxford man will never save another from drowning unless they have been introduced ? " "I don't know," replied the other; "are you sure you're not hurt ? " " Yes, quite," said Tom, foiled in what he considered an artful plan to get the stranger to introduce himself. " Then we're very well out of it," said the other, looking at the steep descent into the lasher, and the rolling, tumbling rush of the water below. " Indeed we are," said Tom ; " but how in the world did you manage not to upset ? " " I hardly know myself — I have shipped a good deal of water, you see. Perhaps I ought to have jumped out on the bank and come across to you, leaving my skiff in the river, for if I had upset I couldn't have helped you much. However, I followed my instinct, which was to come the quickest way. I thought, too, that if I could manage to get down in the boat I should be of more use. I am very glad I did it," he added after a moment's pause ; " I'm really proud of having come down that place." " So aint I," said Tom, with a laugh, in which the other joined. " But now you're getting chilled," and he turned from the lasher and looked at Tom's chattering jaws. " Oil, it's nothing. I'm used to being wet." "But you may just as well be comfortable if you can. Here's this rough jersey which I use instead of a coat ; pull oft" that wet cotton affair, and put it on, and then we'll get to work, for we have plenty to do." After a little persuasion Tom did as he was bid, and got into the great woolen garment, which was very comforting ; and then the two set about getting their 'skiffs back into the main stream. This was comparatively easy as to the lighter skiff, which was soon bailed out and hauled by main force on to the bank, carried across and launched again. The tub gave them much more trouble, for she was quite full of water and A EOW ON THE RIVER. 15 very heavy ; but after twenty minutes or so of hard work, during which the mutual respect of the laborers for the strength and wiliingnessof each other was much increased, slie also lay in the main stream, leaking considerably, but other- wise not much the worse for her adventure. " Now what do you mean to do ? " said the stranger. " I don't think you can pull home in her. One doesn't know how much she may be damaged. She may sink in the lock, or play any prank." " But what am I to do with her ? " " Oh, you can leave her at Sandford and walk up, and send one of Hall's boys for her. Or, if you like, I will to wher up behind my skiff." "Won't your skiff carry two ?" " Yes ; if you like to come I'll take you, but you must sit very quiet." " Can't we go down to Sandford first and have a glass of ale ? What time is it ? — the water has stopped my watch." " A quarter-past three. I have about twenty minutes to spai'e." " Come along, then," said Tom ; " but will you let me pull your skiff down to Sandford ? I resolved to pull to Sandford to-day, and don't like to give it up." " By all means, if you like," said the other, with a smile ; "jump iij, and I'll walk along the bank." " Thank you,'' said Tom, hurrying into the skiff, in which he completed the remaining quarter of a mile, while the owner walked by the side, watching him. They met on the bank at the little inn by Sandford lock, and had a glass of ale, over which Tom confessed that it was the first time he had ever navigated a skiff by himself, and gave a detailed account of his adventures, to the great amuse- ment of his companion. And by the time they rose to go, it was settled, at Tom's earnest request, that he should pull the sound skiff up, while his companion sat in the stern and coached him. The other consented very kindly, merely stipulating that he himself should take the sculls, if it should prove that Tom could not pull them up in time for hall dinner. So they started, and took the tub in tow when they came up to it. Tom got on famously under his new tutor, who taught him to get forward, and open his knees properly, and throw his weight on to the sculls at the beginning of the stroke. He managed even to get into Iffley lock on the way up without fouling, the gates, and was then and there complimented oiuhis progress. 16 TOM BKOWlf AT OXPOED. Whereupon, as they sat, while the lock filled, Tom poured out his thanks to his tutor for his instruction, which had been given so judiciously that, while he was conscious of improving at every stroke, he did not feel tliat the other was asserting any superiority over him ; and so, though he was really more hum- ble than at the most disastrous period of his downward voyage instead of being brimful of wrath and indignation, was getting into a better temper every minute. It is a great pity that some of our instructors in more impor- tant matters than sculling will not take a leaf out of the same book. Of course, it is more satisfactory to one's own self-love, to make everyone who comes to one to learn, feel that he is a fool, and we wise men ; but if our object is to teach well and usefully what we know ourselves there cannot be a worse method. No man, however, is likely to adopt it, so long as he is conscious that he has anything himself to learn from his pupils ; and as soon as he has arrived at the conviction that they can teach him nothing — that it is henceforth to be all give and no take — the sooner he throws up his office of teacher, the better it will be for himself, his pupils, and his country, whose sons he is misguiding. On their way up, so intent wer.e they on their own work that it was not until shouts of " Halloo, Brown ! hovr did you get there ? Why, you said you were not going down to-day," greeted them just above the Gut, that they were aware of the presence of the freshmen's four-oar of St. Ambrose College, which had with some trouble succeeded in overtaking them. " I said I wasn't going down with yoM," shouted Tom, grind- ing away harder than ever, that they might witness and won- der at his prowess. " Oh, I dare say ! Whose skiff are you towing up ? I be- lieve you've been upset." Tom made no reply, and the four-oar floundered on ahead. "Are you at St. Ambrose's?" asked his sitter, after a minute. " Yes ; that's my treadmill, that four-oar. I've been down in it almost every day since I came up, and very poor fun it is. So I thought to-day I would go on my own hook and see if I couldn't make a better hand of it. And I have too, I know, thanks to you." The other made no remark, but a little shade came over his face. He had had no chance of making out Tom's college, as the new cap which would have betrayed him had disappeared in the lasher. He himself woie a glazed straw hat, which was of A EOW ON THE EIVER. 17 no college ; bo that up to this time neither of them had known to what college the other belonged. When they landed at Hall's, Tom was at once involved in a wrangle with the manager as to the amount of damage done to the tub, which the latter refused to assess before he knew what had happened to it ; while our hero vigorously and with rea- son maintained, that if he knew his business it could not matter what had happened to the boat. There she was, and he must say whether she was better or worse, or how much worse than when she started. In the middle of which dialogue his new acquaintance, touching liis arm, said, " You can leave my jersey with your own things ; I shall get it to-morrow," and then disappeared. Tom, when he had come to tenns with his adversary, ran up- stairs, expecting to find the other, and meaning to tell his name, and find out who it was that had played the good Samaritan by him. He was much annoyed when he found the coast clear, and dressed in a grumbling humor. " I wonder why he should have gone off so quick. He might just as well have stayed and walked up with me," thought he. " Let me see, though ; didn't he say I was to leave his jersey in our room, with my own things ? Why, perhaps he is a St. Ambrose man himself. But then lie would have told me so, surely. I don't remember to liave seen his face in chapel or hall ; but then there are such a lot of new faces, and he may not sit near me. However, I mean to find him out before long, whoever he maybe." With which resolve Tom crossed in the punt into Christ Church meadow, and strolled college-ward, feeling that he had had a good hard after- noon's exercise, and was m uch the better for it. He might have satisfied his curiosity at once by simply asking the manager who it was that had arrived with him ; and this occurred to him before he got home, whereat he felt satisfied, but would not go back then, as it was so near hall time. He would be sure to remember it the first thing to-morrow. As it happened, however, he had not- so long to wait for the information which he needed ; for scarcely had he sat down in hall and ordered his dinner, when he caught sight of his boating acquaintance, who walked in habited in a gown which Tom took for a scholar's. He took his seat at a little table in the middle of the hall, near the bachelor's table, but quite away from the rest of the undergraduates, at which sat four or five other men in similar gowns. He either did not or would not notice the looks of recognition which Tom kept firing at him until he had taken his seat. 18 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. " Who is that man that has just come in, do you know ? " said Tom to his next neighbor, a second-term man. " Which ? " said the other, looking up. " That one over at the little table in the middle of the hall, with the dark whiskers. There, he has just turned rather from us, and put his arm on the table." " Oh, his name is Hardy." "Do you know him?" ^' No ; I don't think anybody does. They say he is a clever fellow, but a very queer one." " Why does he sit at that table ? " " He is one of our servitors," said the other ; " they all sit there together." " Oh," said Tom, not much the wiser for the information, but resolved to waylay Hardy as soon as the hall was over, and highly delighted to find that they were after all of the same col- lege ; for he had already begun to find out, that however friendly you may be with out-college men, you must live chiefly with those of your own. But now his scout brought his din- ner, and he fell to with marvelous appetite on his ample com- mons. CHAPTER III. BREAKFAST AT DRYSDALe's. No man in St. Ambrose College gave such breakfasts as Drys- dale. I don't mean the great heavy spreads for thirty or forty, which came once or twice a term, when everything was supplied out of the college kitchen, and you had to ask leave of the Dean before you could have it at all. In these ponderous feasts the most humdrum of the undergraduate kind might rival the most artistic, if he could only pay his battel-bill, or get credit with the cook. But the daily morning meal, when even gentlemen- commoners were limited to two hot dishes out of the kitchen, this was Drysdale's forte. Ordinary men left the matter in the hands of scouts, and were content with the ever-recurring but- tered toast and eggs, with a dish of boiled ham, or something of thesort, and marmalade and bitter ale to finish with ; but Drys- dale was not an ordinary man, as you felt in a moment when you went to breakfast with him for the first time. The staircase on which he lived was inhabited, except in the garrets, by men in the fast set, and lie and three others, who had an equal aversion to solitary feeding, had established a break- fast club, in which, thanks to Drysdale's genius, real scientific BREAKFAST AT DEYSDALe's. 19 gastronomy was cultivated. Every morning the boy from the Wiers arrived with freshly caught gudgeon, and now and then an eel or trout, which the scouts on the staircase had learnt to fry delicately in oil. Fresh watercresses came in the same bas- ket, and the college kitchen furnished a spitchcocked chicken, or grilled turkey's leg. In the season there were plover's eggs ; or, at the worst, there was a dainty omelette ; and a distant baker, famed for his light rolls and high charges, sent in the bread — the common domestic college loaf being of course out of the question for anyone with the slightest pretensions to taste, and becoming the perquisite of the scouts. Then there would be a deep Yorkshire pie, or reservoir of potted game, as Apiece de resistance, and thi-ee or four sorts of preserves; and a large cool tankard of cider or an ale-cup to finish up with, or soda water and maraschino for a change. Tea and coflfee were there indeed, but merely as a complement to those respectable beverages, for they were rarely touched by the breakfast eaters of No. 3 staircase. Pleasantyoung gentlemen they were on No. 3 staircase ; I mean the ground and first-floor men who formed the breakfast club, for the garrets were nobodies. Three out of the four were gentlemen-commoners, with allowances of £500 a year at least each; and, as they treated their allowances as pocket money only, and went tick for everything which the wide range of Oxford tradesmen would book, and as they were all in their first year, ready money was plenty and credit good; and they might have had potted hippopotamus for breakfast if they had chosen to order it, which I verily believe they would have done if they had thought of it. Two out of the three were sons of rich men who had made their own fortunes, and sent their sons to St. Ambrose's because it was very desirable that the young gentlemen should make good connections. In fact, the fathers looked upon the univer- sity as a good investment, and gloried much in hearing their sons talk familiarly in the vacations of their dear friends Lord Harry This and Sir George That. Drysdale, the third of the set, was the heir of an old as well as of a rich family, and consequently, having his connection ready made to his hand, cared little enough whom he associated with, provided they were pleasant fellows, and gave him good food and wines. His whole idea at present was to enjoy him- self as much as possible ; but he had good manly stuff in him at the bottom, and, had he fallen into any but the fast set, would have made a fine fellow, and done credit to himself and his col- lege. 20 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOBD. The fourth man at the breakfast club, the Hon. Piers St. Cloud, was in his third year, and was a very well-dressed, well- mannered, and well-connected young man. His family was poor and his allowance small, but he never wanted for anything. He didn't entertain much, certainly, but when he did, every- tliing was in the best possible style. He was very exclusive, and knew no men in college out of the fast set ; and of these he addicted himself chiefly to the society of the rich freshmen, for somehow the men of his own standing seemed a little shy of liim. But with the freshmen he was always hand and glove, lived in their rooms, and used their wines, horses, and other movable property as his own. And being a good whist and billiard player, and not a bad jockey, he managed in one way or another to make his young friends pay well for the honor of his acquaintance ; as, indeed, why should they not, at least those of them who came to the college to form eligible connec- tions ; for had not his remote lineal ancestor come over in the same ship with William the Conqueror ? Were not all his rela- tions about the court, as lords and ladies in waiting, white sticks or black rods, in the innermost of all possible circles of the great world ; and was there a better coat of arms than he bore in all Burke's Peerage ? Our hero had met Drysdale at a house in the country shortly before the beginning of his first term, and they had rather taken to one another ; so as soon as Tom came up Drysdale had left his pasteboard and, as he came out of chapel one morning shortly after his arrival, Diysdale's scout came up to him with an invitation to breakfast. So he went to his own rooms, ordered his commons to be taken across to No. 3, and followed himself a few minutes afterward. No one was in the rooms when he arrived, for none of the club had finished their toilettes. Morning chapel was not meant for, or cultivated by gentlemen- commoners ; they paid double chapel fees, in consideration of which, I suppose, they were not expected to attend so often as the rest of the undergraduates ; at any rate, they didn't, and no harm came to them m consequence of their absence. As Tom entered, a great splashing in an inner, room stopped for a mo- ment, and Drysdale's voice shouted out that he was in his tub, but wo uld be with him in a minute. So Tom gave himself up to the contemplation of the rooms, in which his fortunate ac- quaintance dwelt ; and very pleasant rooms they were. The large room, in which the breakfast-table was laid for five, was lofty and well-proportioned, and paneled with old oak, and the furniture was handsome and solid, and in keeping with the room. 21 There were four deep windows, high up in the wall, with cushioned seats under tliein, two looking into the large quad- rangle, and two into the inner one. Outside these windows, Drysdale had rigged up hanging gardens, which were kept full of flowers by the first nurseryman in Oxford all the year round ; so that even on this February morning the scent of gardania and violets pervaded the room, and strove for mastery with the smell of stale tobacco, which hung about the curtains and sofas. There was a large glass in an oak frame over the mantelpiece, which was loaded with choice pipes and cigar cases, and quaint receptacles for tobacco ; and by the side of the glass hung small carved oak frames, containing lists of the meets of the Hoythrop, the Old Berkshire,- and Drake's hounds, for the cur- i-ent week. There was a queer assortment of well-framed paintings and engravings on the walls ; some of considerable merit, especially some water-color sea-pieces and engravings from Laiidseer's pictures, mingled with which hung Taglioni and Cerito, in short petticoats and impossible attitudes ; PJios- phorous winning the Derby ; the Death of Grimaldi (the famous steeple-chase horse — not poor old Joe) ; an American Trotting Match, and Jean Belcher and Deaf Burke in attitudes of self-defense. Several tandem and riding whips, mounted in heavy silver, and a double-barreled gun and fishing rods, oc- cupied one corner, and a polished copper cask, holding ahout five gallons of mild ale, stood in another. In short, there was plenty of everything except books — the literature of the world being represented, so far as Tom could make out in his short scrutiny, by a few well-bound but badly used volumes of clas- sics, with the cribs thereto appertaining, shoved away into a cupboard which stood half open, and containing, besides, half- emptied decantei-s and large pewters, and dog-collars and packs of cards, and all sorts of miscellaneous articles to serve as an antidote. Tom had scarcely finished his short survey when the door of the bedroom opened, and Drysdale emerged in a loose jacket lined with silk, his velvet cap on his head, and otherwise gor- geously attired. He was a pleasant looking fellow of "middle size, with dark hair, and a merry brown eye, with a twinkle in it, which spoke well for his sense of humor ; othei-wise, his features were rather plain, but he had the look and manners of a thoroughly well-bred gentleman. His first act, after nodding to Tom, was to seize on a pewter and resort to the cask in the corner, from whence he drew a pint or so of the contents, having, as he said, " 'a whoreson 22 TOM BKOWlJ AT OXPOED. longing for that poor creature, small beer.' We were playing Van-John in Blake's rooms till three last night, and he gave us deviled bones and mulled port. A fellow can't enjoy his breakfast after that without something to cool his coppers." Tom was as yet ignorant of what Van-John might be, so held his peace, and took a pull at the beer which the other handed him ; and then the scout entered, and received orders to bring up Jack and the breakfast and not to wait for anyone. In another minute, a bouncing and scrattling was heard on the stairs, and a white bulldog rushed in, a gem in his way ; for his brow was broad and massive, and wrinkled about the eyes, his skin was as fine as a lady's, and his tail taper and nearly . as thin as a clay pipe ; but he had a way of going " suuzzling " about the calves of strangers which was not pleasant for nerv- ous people. Tom, however, was used to dogs, and soon be- came friends with him, which evidently pleased his host. And then the breakfast arrived, all smoking, and with it the two other ingenuous youtlis, in velvet caps and far more gorgeous apparel, so far as colors went, than Drysdale. They were in- troduced to Tom, who thought them somewhat ordinary and rather loud young gentlemen. One of them remonstrated vigorously against the presence of that confounded dog, and so Jack was sent to lie down in a corner, and then the four fell to work upon the breakfast. It was a good lesson in gastronomy,bnt the results are scarcely worth repeating here. It is wonderful, though, how you feel drawn to a man who feeds you well ; and, as Tom's appetite got less, his liking and respect for his host undoubtedly in- creased. When they had nearly finished, in walked the Honorable Piers, a tall, slight man, two or three years older than the rest of them ; good looking, and very well and quietly dressed, but Avith a drawing up of his nostril, and a drawing down of the cor- ners of his mouth, which set Tom against him at once. The cool, supercilious half -nod, moreover, to which he treated our hero when introduced to him, was enough to spoil his digestion, and hurt his self-love a good deal more than he would have liked to own. " Here, Henry," said the Honorable Piers to the scout in attendance, seating himself, and inspecting the half-cleared dishes ; " what is there for my breakfast ? " Henry bustled about, and handed a dish or two. " I don't want these cold things ; haven't you kept me any gndgeon ? " 23 " Why, sir," said Henry, " there was only two dozen this morning, and Mr. Drysdale told me to cook them all." " To be sure I did," said Drysdale. " Just half a dozen for each of us four : they were first-rate. If you can't get here at half-past nine, you won't get gudgeon, I can tell you." " Just go and get me a broil from the kitchen," said the Honorable Piers, without deigning an answer to Drysdale. " Very sorry, sir ; kitchen's shut by now, sir," answered Henry. " Then go to Hinton's and order some cutlets." " I say, Henry," shouted Drysdale to the retreating scout ; " not to my tick, mind ! Put them down to Mr. St. Cloud." Henry seemed to know very well that in that case he might save himself the trouble of the journey, and consequently re- turned to his waiting ; and the Honorable Piers set to work upon his breakfast, without showing any further ill-temper certainly, except by the stinging things which he threw every now and then into the conversation, for the benefit of each of the others in turn. Tom thought he detected signs of coming hostilities between his host and St. Cloud, for Drysdale seemed to prick up his ears and get combative whenever the other spoke, and lost no chance of roughing him in his. replies. And, indeed, he wasn't far wrong ; the fact being, that during Drysdale's first term the other had lived on him — drinking his wine, smoking his cigars, driving his dog-cart, and winning his money ; all which Drys- dale, who was the easiest-going and best-tempered fellow in Oxford, would have stood without turning a hair. But St. Cloud added to these little favors a half -patronizing, half -con- temptuous manner, which he used with great success toward some of the other gentlemen-commoners, who thought it a mark of high breeding, and the correct thing, but which Drysdale, who didn't care three straws about knowing St. Cloud, wasn't going to put up with. However, nothing happened but a little sparring, and the breakfast things were cleared away, and the tankards left on the table, and the company betook themselves to cigars and easy- chairs. Jack coming out of his corner to be gratified with some of the remnants by his fond master, and then curling himself up on the sofa along which Drysdale lounged. " What are you going to do to-day, Drysdale ? " said one of the others. " I've ordered a leader sent on over thejbridge, and mean to drive my dog-cart over, and dine at Abingdon. Won't you come ? " 24 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " Who's going besides ? " asked Drysdale. " Oh, only St. Cloud and Farley here. There's lots of room for a fourth." " No, thankee ; learning's slow work on the back seat. Be- sides, I've half promised to go down in the boat." " In the boat ! " shouted the other. " Why, you don't mean to say you're going to take to pulling ? " " Well, I don't know ; I rather think I am. I'm dog-tired of driving and doing the High Street, and playing cards and bil- liards all day, and our boat is likely to be head of the river, I think." " By Jove ! I should as soon have thought.gf-yoBlieart out, and blistering orie's ^ands, only to get abused by thaHittle brute Mjller, the coxswain," said Farley. ^^- " Why, you won't be able to sit straight in your chair for a month," said Chanter ; "and the captain will make you dine at one, and fetch you out of anybody's rooms, confound his impud- ence, whether he knows them or not, at eleven o'clock every night." " Two cigars a day, and a pint and a half of liquid," and Farley inserted his cod-fish face into the tankard ; " fancy Drysdale on training allowance ! " Here a newcomer entered in a bachelor's gown, who was warmly greeted by the name of Sanders by Drysdale. St. Cloud and he exchanged the coldest possible nods ; and the other two, taking the office from their mentor, stared at him through their smoke, and, after a minute or two's silence, and a few rude half- whispered remarks among themselves, went off to play a game of pyramid? till luncheon time. Sanders took a cigar which Drysdale offered and began asking him about his friends at home, and what he had been doing in the vacation. BEEAKFAST AT DRYSDALE S. 25 They were evidently intimate, though Tom thought that Drysdale didn't seem quite at his ease at first, which he won- dered at, as Sanders took his fancy at once. However, eleven o'clock struck, and Tom had to go off to lecture, where we cannot follow him just now, hut must remain with Drysdale and Sand- ers, who chatted on very pleasantly for some twenty minutes, till a knock came at the door. It was not till the third summons that Drysdale shouted, " Come in," with a shrug of his shoulders, and an impatient kick at the sofa-cushion at his feet, as though he were not half pleased at the approaching visit. Reader ! had you not ever a friend a few years older than yourself, whose good opinion you were anxious to keep ? A fellow teres atque rotundus / who could do everything better than you, from Plato and tennis down to singing a comic song and playing quoits ? If you have had, wasn't he always in your rooms or company whenever anything happened to show your little weak points ? Sanders, at any rate, occupied this position toward our young friend Drysdale, and the latter, much as he liked Sanders's company, would have preferred ^t at any time than on an idle morning just at the beginning of term, when the gentlemen-tradesmen, who look upon undergraduates in general, and gentlemen-commoners in particular, as their lawful prey, are in the habit of calling in flocks. The new arrival was a tall, florid man, with a half-servile, half- impudent manner, and a foreign accent ; dressed in sumptuous costume, with a velvet-faced coat, and a gorgeous plush waist- coat. Under his arm he carried a large parcel, which he pro- ceeded to open, and place upon a sofa the contents, consisting of a couple of coats, and three or four waistcoats and pairs of trousers. He saluted Sanders with a most obsequious bow, looked nervously at Jack, who opened one eye from between his master's legs and growled, and then, turning to Drysdale, asked if he should have the honor of seeing him try on any of the clothes ? " No ; I can't be bored with trying them on now," said Drya- dale ; " leave them where they are." Mr. Schloss would like very much on his return to town, in a day or two, to be able to assure his principals that Mr. Drys- dale's orders had been executed to his satisfaction. He had also some very beautiful new stuffs with him, which he should like to submit to Mr. Drysdale, and without more ado began unfolding cards of the most fabulous plushes and cloths. Drysdale glanced first at the cards and then at Sanders, who sat puffing his cigar, and watching Scbloss's proceedings with Zb TOM BROWN AT OXPOBD. a look not unlike Jack's when anyone he did not approve of approached his master. " Confound your patterns, Schloss," said Drysdale ; " I tell you I have more things than I want already." " The large stripe, such as these, is now very much worn for trousers in London," went on Schloss, without heeding the rebuff, and spreading his cards on the table. " D trousers," replied Drysdale ; " you seem to think, Schloss, that a fellow has ten pairs of legs." "Monsieur is pleased to joke," smiled Schloss ; " but, to be in the mode, gentlemen must have variety." " Well, I won't order any now, that's flat," said Drysdale. " Monsieur will do as he pleases ; but it is impossible that he should not have some plush waistcoats ; the fabric is only just out, and is making a sensation." " Now look here, Schloss ; will you go if I order a waist- coat ? " " Monsieur is very good ; he sees how tasteful these new patterns are." " I wouldn't be seen at a cock-fight in one of them ; they're as gaudy as a salmon-fly," said Drysdale, feeling the stuff which the obsequious Schloss held out. " But it seems nice stuff, too," he went on, " I shouldn't mind having a couple of waistcoats of it of this pattern ; " and he chucked across to Schloss a dark tartan waistcoat which was lying near him. " Have you got the stuff in that pattern ? " "Ah ! no," said Schloss, gathering up the waistcoat ; "but it shall not hinder. I shall have at once a loom for Monsieur set up in Paris." "Set it up at Jericho if you like," said Drysdale ; "and now go ! " " May I ask, Mr. Schloss," broke in Sanders, " what it will cost to set up the loom ? " " Ah ! indeed, a trifle only ; some twelve, or perhaps fourteen, pounds." Sanders gave a chuckle, and puffed away at his cigar. "By Jove ! " shouted Drysdale, jerking himself into a sitting posture, and upsetting Jack, who went trotting about the room, and snufiing at Schloss's legs ; " do you mean to say, Schloss, you were going to make me waistcoats at fourteen guineas a piece ? " " Not if Monsieur disapproves. Ah ! the large hound is not friendly to strangers ; I will call again when Monsieur is more at leisure." And Schloss gathered up his cards and beat a hasty BKEAKFAST AT DEYSDAXB's. 27 retreat, followed by Jack with his head on one side, and cast- ing an enraged look at Sanders as he slid through the door. " Well done. Jack, old boy ! " said Sanders, patting him ; " what a funk the fellow was in. Well, you've saved your master a pony this fine morning. Cheap dog you've got, Drys- dale." " D the fellow," answered Drysdale, " he leaves a bad taste in one's, mouth ; " and he went to the table, took a pull at the tankard, and then threw himself down on the sofa again, and Jack jumped up and coiled himself round by his master's legs, keeping one half-open eye winking at him, and giving an occasional wag with the end of his taper tail. Sanders got up, and began handling the new things. First he held up a pair of bright blue trousers, with a red stripe across them, Drysdale looking on from the sofa. " I say, Drysdale, you don't mean to say you really ordered these, thunder-and lightning affairs ? " " Heaven only knows," said Drysdale ; " I dare say I did. I'd order a full suit cut out of my grandmother's farthingale to get that cursed Schloss out of my room sometimes." " You'll never be able to wear them ; even in Oxford the boys would mob you. Why don't you kick him downstairs ? " sug- gested Sanders, putting down the trousers, and turning to Drys- dale. " Well, I've been very near it once or twice ; but I don't know — ray name's Easy — besides, I don't want to give up the beast altogether ; he makes the best trousers in England." " And these waistcoats," went on Sanders ; "let me see ; three light silk waistcoats, peach-color, fawn-color, and lavender. Well, of course, you can only wear these at your weddings. You maybe married the first time in the peach or fawn-color ; and then, if you've luck, and bury your first wife soon, it will be a delicate compliment to take to No. 2 in the lavender, that being half -mourning ; but still, you see, we're in difiiculty as to one of the three, either the peach or the fawn-color " Here he was interrupted by another knock, and a boy entered from the fashionable tobacconist's in Oriel Lane, who had gen- eral orders to let Drysdale have his fair share of anything very special in the cigar line. He deposited a two- pound box of cigars at three guineas the pound on the table, and withdrew in silence. Then came a bootmaker with a new pair of top-boots, which Drysdale had ordered in November, and had forgotten next day. This artist, wisely considering that his young patrpn must have 28 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. plenty of tops to last him through the hunting season (he him- self having supplied three previons pairs in October), had re- tained the present pair for show in his window ; and everyone knows that boots wear much better for being kept some tim.e be- fore use. Now, however, as the hunting season was drawing to a close, and the place in the window was wanted for spring stock, he judiciously sent in the tops, merely adding half-a-sovereign or so to the price for interest on his outlay since the order. He also kindly left on the table a pair of large plated spurs to match the boots. It never rains but it pours. Sanders sat smoking his cigar in provoking silence, while knock succeeded knock, and tradesman followed tradesman ; each depositing some article ordered or supposed to have been ordered, or which ought in the judge- ment of the depositors to have been ordered, by the luckless Drysdale ; and new hats and ties and gloves and pins jostled balsam of Neroli, and registered shaving-soap, and fancy let- ter-paper, and eau de Cologne, on every available table. A visit from two livery-stable-keepers in succession followed, each of whom had several new leaders which they were anxious Mr. Drysdale should tiy as soon as possible. Drysdale growled and grunted, and wished them or Sanders at the bottom of the sea ; however, he consoled himself with the thought that the worst was now passed — there was no other possible supplier of undergraduate wants who could arrive. Not so ; in another minute a gentle knock came at the door. Jack pricked up his ears and wagged his tail ; Drysdale reck- lessly'shouted, " Come in ! " the door slowly opened about eighteen inches, and a shock head of hair entered the room, from which one lively little gimlet ej'e went glancing about into every corner. The other eye was closed, but whether as a perpetual wink to indicate the unsleeping wariness of the owner, or because that hero had really lost the power of using it in some of his numerous encounters with men and beasts, no one, so far as I know, has ever ascertained. " Ah ! Mr. Drysdale, sir ! " began the head ; and then rapidly withdrew behind the door to avoid one of tlie spurs, which (being the missile nearest at hand) Drysdale instantly dis- charged at it. As the spur fell to the floor, the head reap- peared in the room, and as quickly disappeared again, in def- erence to the other spur, the top-boots, an ivoiy handled hair-brush, and a translation of Euripides, which in turn saluted each successive appearance of said bead ; and the gv'm was bi'oader on each reappearance. BBEAKFAST AT DEYSDALE'S. 29 Then Drysdale, having no other article within reach which he could throw, burst into a loud fit of laughter, in which San- ders and the head heartily joined, and shouted, " Come in, Joe, - you old fool ! and don't stand bobbing your ugly old mug in and out there, like a jack in the box." So the head came in, and after it the body, and closed the door behind it ; and a queer, cross-grained, tough-looking body it was, of about fifty years' standing, or rather slouching, clothed in an old fustian coat, corduroy breeches and gaiters, and being the earthly tabernacle of Joe Muggles, the dog- fancier of St. Aldate's. " How the deuce did you get by the lodge, Joe ? " inquired Drysdale. Joe, be it known, bad been forbidden the college for importing a sack of rats into the inner quadrangle, upon the turf of which a match at rat-killing had come off between the terriers of two gentlemen-commoners. This little event might have passed unnoticed, but that Drysdale had bought from Joe a dozen of the slaughtered rats, and nailed them on the doors of the four college tutors, three to a door ; where- upon inquiry had been made, and Joe had been outlawed. " Oh, please, Mr. Drysdale, sir, I just watched the 'ed por- ter, sir, across to the buttery to get his mornin', and then I tips a wink to the under-porter (pal o' mine, sir, the under- porter), and makes a run of it right up." " Well, you'll be quodded if you're caught ! Now, what do you want ? " " Why, you see, Mr. Drysdale, sir," said Joe, in his most insinuating tone, " my mate hev got an old dog brock, sir, from the Heythrop kennel, and Honble. Wernham, sir, of New Inn 'AH, sir, he've jist been down our yard with a fighting chap from town, Mr. Drysdale — in the fancy, sir, he is, and hev got a matter of three dogs down wi'un, a-stoppin at Milky Bill's. And he says, says he, Mr. Drysdale, as arra one of he's dogs'Il draw the old un three times, while arra Oxford dog'U draw un twice, and Honble. Wernham chaffs as how he'll back un for a fi'-pun note ; " — and Joe stooped to caress Jack, who was fawning on him as if he understood every word. " Well, Joe, what then ? " said Drysdale. " So, you see, Mr. Drysdale, sir," went on Joe, fondling Jack's muzzle, " my mate says, says he, ' Jack's the dog as can draw a brock,' says he, ' agin any Lunnun dog as ever was whelped ; and Mi-. Drysdale,' says he, ' aint the man as'd see two poor chaps bounced out of their honest name by arra town 30 TOM TiROWN AT OXFORD. chap, and a fi'-pun note's no more to he, for the matter o' that, then to Honble. Wernham his self,' says my mate." " So I'm to lend you Jack for a match, and stand the stakes ? " "Well, Ml'. Drysdale,sir, that was what my mate was a-sayin'." " You're cool hands, you and your mate,'' said Drysdale ; " here, take a drink, and get out, and I'll think about it." Drysdale was now in a defiant humor, and resolved not to let Sanders think that his presence could keep him from any act of folly which he was minded to. Joe took his drink ; and just then several men came in from lecture, and drew off Drysdale's attention from Jack, who quietly followed Joe out of the room when that worthy disap- peared. Drysdale only laughed when he found it out, and went down to the yard that afternoon to see the match be- tween the London dog and his own pet. "How in the world are youngsters with nnlimited credit, plenty of ready money, and fast tastes, to be kept from mak- ing fools and blackguards of themselves up here ? " thought Sanders as he strolled back to his college. And it is a question which has exercised other heads besides his, and probably is a long way yet from being well solved. CHAPTER IV. THE ST. AMBEOSE BOAT-CLUB : ITS MINISTET AND THEIE BUDGET. We left our hero, a short time back, busily engaged on his dinner commons, and resolved forthwith to make great friends with Hardy. It never occurred to him that there could be the slightest diflSculty in carrying out this resolve. After such a passage as they two had had together that afternoon, he felt that the usual outworks of acquaintanceship had been cleared at a bound, and looked upon Hardy already as an old friend to whom he could talk out his mind as freely as he had been used to do to his old tutor at school, or to Arthur. More- over, as there were already several things in his head which he was anxious to ventilate, he was all the more pleased that chance had thrown him across a man of so much older stand- ing than himself, and one to whom he instinctively felt that he could look up. Accordingly, after grace had been said, and he saw that Hardy had not finished his dinner, but sat down again wK^n" the fellows had left the hall, he strolled out, meaning to wait V THE ST. AtoBEOSE BOAT CLUB. 31 for his victim outside, and seize upon him then and there ; so he stopped on the steps outside the hall-door, and, to pass the time, joined himself to one or two other men with whom he had a speaking acquaintance, who were also hanging ahout. While they were talking, Hardy ca"me out of hall, and Tom turned and stepped forward, meaning to speak to him : when, to liis utter discomfiture, the other walked quickly away look- ing straight before him, and without showing, by look or ges- ture, that he was conscious of our hero's existence, or had ever seen him before in his life. Tom was so taken aback that he made no effort to follow. He just glanced at his companions to see whether they had noticed the occurrence, and was glad to see that they had not (being deep in the discussion of the merits of a new hunter of Simmons', which one of them had been riding) ; so he walked away by himself to consider what it could mean. But the more he puzzled about it, the less could he understand it. "Surely," he thought, "Hardy must have seen me ; and yet, if he had, why did he not recognize me ? My cap and gown can't be such a disguise as all that. But common decency must have led him to ask whether I was any the worse for my duck- ing, if he knew me." He scouted the notion, which suggested itself once or twice, that Hardy meant to cut him ; and so, not being able to come to any reasonable conclusion, suddenly betliought lijm that he was asked to a wine party ; and, putting his speculations aside for the moment, with the full intention nevertheless of clear- ing up the mystery as soon as possible, he betook himself to the rooms of his entertainer. They were fair-sized rooms in the second quadrangle, fur- nished plainly but well, so far as Tom could judge ; but as they were now laid out for the wine party, they had lost all individ- ual character for the time. Everyone of us, I suppose, is fond of studying the rooms, chambers, dens in short, of what- ever sort they may be, of our friends and acquaintance-— at least, I know that I myself like to see what sort of a chair a man sits in, where he puts it, what books lie or stand on the slielves nearest his hand, what the objects are which he keeps most familiarly before him, in that particular nook of the earth's surface in which he is most at home, where he pulls off his coat, collar, and boots, and gets into an old easy shooting- jacket, and his broadest slippers. Fine houses and fine rooms have no attraction whatever, I should think, for most men, and those who have the finest drawing-rooms are probably 32 TOM BROWN A* OXFORD. the most bored by them ; but the den of a man you like^^ or are disposed to like, has the strongest and strangest attraction for you. However, as I was saying, an Oxford undergraduate's room, set out for a wine party, can tell you nothing. All the cliaracteristics are shoved away into the background, and there is nothing to be seen but a long maliogany set out with bottles, glasses, and dessert. In the present instance the preparations for festivity were pretty much what they ought to be : good sound port and sherry, biscuits, and a plate or two of nuts and dried fruits. The host, who sat at the head of the board, was one of the mainstays of the college "boat club. He was treas- urer of the club, and also a sort of boating nurse, who looked up and trained the young oars, and in this capacity had been in command of the freshmen's four-oar, in which Tom had been learning his rudiments. He was a heavy, burly man, naturally awkward iu his movements, but gifted with a sort of steady, dogged enthusiasm, and by dint of hard and con- stant training had made himself into a most useful oar, fit for any place in the middle of the boat. In the two years of his residence he had pulled down to Sandford every day except Sundays, and much further whenever he could get anybody to accompany him. He was the most good-natured man in the world, very badly dressed, very short-sighted, and called every- body "old fellow." His name was simple Smith, generally known as Diogenes Smith, from an eccentric habit which he had of making an easy-chair of his hip-bath. Malicious ac- quaintances declared that when Smith first came up, and, hav- ing paid the valuation for the furniture in his rooms, came to inspect the same, the tub in question had been l6ft by chance in the sitting-room, and that Smith, not having the faintest idea of its proper use,, had by the exercise of his natural i-eason come to the conclusion that it could only be meant for a man to sit in, and so had kept it in his sitting-room, and taken to it as an armchair. This I have reason to believe was a libel. Certain it is, however, that in his first term he was discovered sitting solemnly iu his tub, by his fireside, with his spectacles on, playing the flute— the only other recreation besides boat- ing in which he indulged ; and no amount of quizzing could get him out of the habit. When alone, or with only one or two friends in his room, he still occupied the tub ; and declared that it was the most perfect of seats hitherto invented, and above all, adapted for the recreation of a boating man, to whom cushioned seats should be an abomination. He was naturally a very hospitable man, and on this night was particularly ^HE ST. Ambrose boat club. 33 anxious to make his rooms pleasant to all comers, as it was a sort of opening of the boating season. This wine of his was a business matter, in fact, to which Diogenes had invited, offi- cially, as treasurer of the boat club, every man who had ever shown the least tendency to pulling — many with whom he had scarcely a nodding acquaintance. For Miller, the cox- swain, had come up at last. He had taken his B. A. degree in the Michaelmas term, and been very near starting for a tour in the East. Upon turning the matter over in his mind, however. Miller had come to the conclusion that Palestine and Greece could not run away, but tliat, unless he was there to keep mat- ters going, the St. Ambrose boat would lose the best chance it was ever likely to have of getting to the head of the river ; so lie had patriotically resolved to reside till June, read divin- ity, and coach the racing crew ; and had written to Diogenes to call together the whole boating interest of the college, that they might set to work at once in good earnest. Tom,. and the three or four other freshmen present, were duly presented to Miller as they came in, who looked them over as the colonel of a crack regiment might look over horses at Horncastle fair, with a single eye to their bone and muscle, and how much work miglit be got out of them. They then gathered toward the lower end of the long table, and surveyed the celebrities at the upper end with much respect. Miller, the coxswain, sat on the host's right hand — a slight, resolute, fiery little man, witli curly black hair. He was peculiarly qualified by nature for the task which he had set himself ; and it takes no mean qualities to keep a boat's crew well together and in order. Perhaps he erred a little on the side of over strictness and severity ; and he certainly would have been more popular liad his manner been a thought more courteous ; but the men who rebelled most against his tyranny grumblingly confessed that he was a first-rate coxswain. A very different man was the captain of the boat, who sat opposite to Miller ; altogether a noble specimen of a very noble type of our countrymen. Tall and strong of body ; courageous and even-tempered ; tolerant of all men ; sparing of speech, but ready in action ; a thoroughly well-balanced, modest, quiet Englishman ; one of those who do a good stroke of the work of the country without getting much credit for it, or ever becoming aware of the fact ; for the last thing such men understand is how to blow their own trumpets. He was perhaps too easy for the captain of St. Ambrose's boat club ; at any rate. Miller was always telling him so ; but, if he were 34 TOM beOwN at oxfoed. not strict enough with others, he never spared himself, and was as good as three men in the boat, at a pinch. But if I venture on more introductions, my readers wul get bewildered ; so I must close the list, much as I should like to make them known to " fprtis Gyas fortisque Cloanthus," who sat round the chiefs, laughing and consulting, and speculating on the chances of the coming races. No ; stay, there is one other man they must make room for. Here he comes, rather late, in a very glossy hat, the only man in the room not in cap and gown. He walks up and takes his place by the side of the host as a matter of course ; a handsome, pale man, with a dark, quick eye, conscious that he draws attention wherever he goes, and apparently of opinion that it is his right. " Who is that who has just come in in beaver ? " said Tom, touching the man next to him. " Oh ! don't you know ? that's Blake ; he's the most wonder- ful fellow in Oxford," answered his neighbor. " How do you mean ? " said Tom. " Why, he can do everything better than almost anybody, and without any trouble at all. Miller was obliged to have him in the boat last year, though lie never trained a bit. Then he's in the eleven, and is a wonderful rider, and tennis- player, and shot." " Ay, and he's so awfully clever with it all," joined in the man on the other side. " He'll be a safe first, though I don't believe he reads more than you or I. He can write songs, too, as fast as you can talk nearly, and sings them wonderfully." " Is he of our college, then ? " " Yes, of course, or he couldn't have been in our boat last year." " But I don't think I ever saw him in chapel or hall." " No ; I dare say not. He hardly ever goes to either, and yet he manages never to get hauled up much, no one knows how. He never gets up now till the afternoon, and sits up nearly all night playing cards with th'e fastest fellows, or go- ing round singing glees at three or four in the morning." Tom sipped his port and looked with great interest at the Admirable Crichton of St. Ambrose's ; and, after watching him a few minutes, said in a low voice to his neighbor : " How wretched he looks ; I never saw a sadder face." Poor Blake ! one can't help calling him " poor," although he himself would have winced at it more than at any other name you could have called him. You might have admired, feared, or wondered at him, and he would have been pleased ; the ob- THE ST. AMBKOSB BOAT CLUB. 35 ject of his life was to raise sudli feelings in his neighbors ; but pity -was the last which he would have liked to excite. He was indeed a wonderfully gifted fellow, full of all sorts of ene];gy and talent, and power and tenderness ; and yet, as his face told only too truly to anyone who watched him when he was exerting himself in society, one of the most wretched men in the cdllege. He had a passion for success — for beating everybody else in whatever he took in hand, and that too with- out seeming to make any great effort himself. The doing a thing well and thoroughly gave him no satisfaction unless he could feel that he was doing it better and more easily than A, B, or C, and that they felt and acknowledged this. He had had his full swing of success for two years, and now the Nemesis was coming. For, although not an extravagant man, many of the pursuits in which he had eclipsed all rivals were far beyond the means of any but a rich one, and Blak was not rich. He had a fair allowance, but by the end of liis first year was considerably in debt, and, at the time we are speaking of, the whole pack of Oxford tradesmen into whose books he had got (having smelt out the leanness of his expectations), were upon him, besieging him for payment. This miserable and constant annoyance was wearing his soul out. This was the reason why his oak was sported, and he was never seen till the afternoons, and turned night into day. He was too proud to come to any understanding with his persecutors, even had it been possible ; and now, at his sorest need his whole scheme of life was failing him ; his love of success was turning into ashes in his mouth ; he felt much more disgust than pleasure at his triumphs over other men, and yet the habit of striving for such successes, notwithstanding its irksomeness, was too strong to be resisted. Poor Blake ! he was living on from hand to mouth, flashing out with all his old brilliancy and^ power, and forcing himself to take the lead in whatever compaily he might be ; but utterly lonely and depressed when by himself — reading feverishly in secret, in a desperate effort to retrieve all by high honors and a fellowship. As Tom said to his neighbor, there was no sadder face than his to be seen in Oxford. And yet at this very wine party he was the life of everything, as he sat up there between Diogenes — whom he kept in a con- stant sort oi' mild epileptic fit, from laughter and wine going the wrong way (for whenever Diogenes raised his glass Blake shot him some joke) — and the captain, who watched him with the most undisguised admiration, A singular contrast, the 36 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. two men ! Miller, though Blake was the torment of his life, re- laxed after the first quarter of an hour ; and our hero, by the same time gave himself credit for being a much greater ass than he was, for having ever thought Blake's face a sad one. When the room was quite full, and enough wine had been drunk to open the hearts of the guests, Diogenes rose, on a signal from Miller, and opened the budget. The financial statement was a satisfactory one ; the club was almost free of debt ; and, comparing their positions with that of other colleges Diogenes advised .that they might fairly burden themselves a little more, and then, if they would stand a whip of five shillings a man, they might have a new boat, which he believed they all would agree had become necessary. Miller supported the new boat in a pungent little speech ; and the captain, when appealed to, nodded and said he thought they must have one. So the small supplies and the large addition to the club debt were voted unanimously, and the captain. Miller, and Blake, who had many notions as to the flooring, lines, and keel of a racing boat, were appointed to order and superintend the building. Soon afterward, coffee came in and cigars were lighted ; a large section of the party went off to play pool, others to stroll about the streets, others to whist ; a few, let us hope, to their own rooms to read ; but these latter were a sadly small minority even in the quietest of St. Ambrose parties. Tom, who was fascinated by the heroes at the head of the table, sat steadily on, sidling up toward them as the interme- diate places became vacant, and at last attained the next chair but one to the captain, where for the time he sat in perfect bliss. Blake and Miller were telling boating stories of the Henley and Thames regattas, the latter of which had lately been started with great dclat ^ and from these great yearly events, and tlie deeds of prowess done thereat, the talk came gradually round to the next races. " Now, captain," said Miller suddenly, " have you thought yet whom we are to try in the crew this year ! " " No, 'pon my honor, I haven't," said the captain ; " I'm read- ing, and have no time to spare. Besides, after all, there's lots of time to think about it. Here, we're only half through Lent term, and the races don't begin till the end of Easter term." " It won't do," said Miller ; " we must get the crew together this term." " Well, yon and Smith put your heads together and manage it," said the captain. " I will go down any day and as often as you like, at two o'clock," THE ST. AMBROSE BOAT CLUB. 37 " Let's see," said Miller to Smith, " how many of the old crew have we left ? " " Five, counting Blake," answered Diogenes. " Co«nting me ! well, that's cool," laughed Blake. " You old tub-haunting flute-player, why am I not to be counted ? " " You will never train, you see," said Diogenes. " Smith is quite right," said Miller ; " There's no counting on you, Blake. Now be a good fellow, and promise to be regular this year." "I'll promise to do my work in a race, which is more than some of your best trained men will do," said Blake, rather piqued. " Well, you know what I think on the subject," said Miller ; " but whom have we got for the other three places ? " " There's Drysdale would do,"- said Diogenes. "I heard he was a capital oar at Eton ; and so, though I don't know him, I managed to get him once down last terra. He would do fa- mously for No. 2, or No. 3, if he would pull." " Do you think he will, Blake ? You know him, I suppose," said Miller. " Yes, I know him well enough," said Blake ; and, shrugging his shoulders, added, " I don't think you will get him to train much." " Well, we must try," said Miller. " Now, who else is there ? " Smith went through with four or five names, at each of which Miller shook his head. " Any promising freshmen ? " said he at last. " None better than Brown here," said Smith ; " I think he'll do well, if he will only work, and stand being coached." " Have you ever pulled much ? " said Miller. " No," said Tom, " never till this last month — since I've been up here." " All the better," said Miller. " Now, captain, you hear ; we may probably have to go in with three new hands ; they must get into your stroke this term, or we shall be nowhere." " Very well," said the captain ; " I'll give from two till five any days you like." " And now, let's go and have one pool," said Blake, getting up. " Come, captain, just one little pool after all this business." Diogenes insisted on staying to play his fiute ; Miller was engaged ; but the captain, with a little coaxing, was led away by Blake, and good-naturedly asked Tom to accompany tliem, when he saw that he was looking as if he would like it. So the three went off to the billiard-rooms ; Tom in such spirits at the 38 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. chance of his being tried in the crew, that he hardly noticed the exceedingly bad exchange which he had involuntarily made ot his new cap and gown for a third-year cap with the board broken into several pieces, and a fusty old gown which had been about college probably for ten generations. I wonder whether under- graduate' morality has improved in this matter of stealmg caps and gowns as much as I believe it has in other matters smce my time. They found the St. Ambrose pool-room full of the fast set ; and Tom enjoyed his game much, though his three lives were soon disposed of. The captain and Blake were the last lives on the board, and divided the pool at Blake's suggestion. He had scarcely the nerve for playing out a single-handed match with such an iron-nerved, steady piece of humanity as the cap- tain, though he was the more brilliant player of the two. The party then broke up, and Tom returned to his rooms ; and, when he was by himself again, his thoughts recurred to Hardy. How odd, he thought, that they never mentioned him for the boat ! Could he have done anything to be ashamed of ? How was it that noboiy seemed to know him, and he to- know nobody? Most readers, I doubt not, will think our hero very green for being puzzled at so simple a matter ; and, no doubt, the steps in the social scale in England are very clearly marked out, and we all come to the appreciation of the gradations sooner or later. But our hero's previous education must be taken into consider- ation. He had not been instructed at home to worship mere conventional distinctions of rank or wealth, and had gone to a school which was not frequented by persons of rank, and where no one knew whether a boy was heir to a principality or would have to fight his own way in the world. So he was rather taken by surprise at what he found to be the state of things at St. Ambrose's, and didn't easily realize it. • CHAPTER V. HAEDT, THE SEEVITOR. It was not long before Tom had effected his object in part. That is to say, he had caught Hardy several times in the quad- rangle coming out of the lecture, hall, or chapel, and had fastened himself upon him ; often walking with him even up to the door of his rooms. But there matters ended. Hardy was very civil and gentlemanly ; he even seemed pleased with the volunteered crfmpanionship ; but there was undoubtedly a HAEDY, THE SBEVITOE. 39 coolness about him whicli Tom could not make out. But, as he only liked Hardy more, the more he saw of him, he very soon made up his mind to break ground himself, and to make a dash at any rate for something more than a mere speaking acquaintance. One evening he had as usual walked from hall with Hardy up to his door, where they stopped a moment talking ; and then Hardy, half opening the door, said, " Well, good-night ; perhaps we shall meet on the river to-morrow," and was going in, when Tom, looking him in the face, blurted out, " I say. Hardy, I wish you'd let me come in and sit with you a bit." "I never ask^a man of our college into my rooms," answered the other, "but come in by all means if you like ;" and so they entered. The room was the worst, both in situation and furniture, which Tom had yet seen. It was on the ground floor, with only one window, which looked out into a back yard, where were the offices of the college. All day, and up to nine o'clock at night, the yard and offices were filled with scouts ; boys cleaning boots and knives ; bed-makers emptying slops and tattling scandal ; scullions peeling potatoes and listening ; and the butchers' and green-grocers' men who supplied the college, and loitered about to gossip and get a taste of the college — all before going about their business. The room was large, but low and close, and the floor uneven. The furniture did not add to the cheerfulness of the apartment. It consisted of one large table in the middle, covered with an old checkered table- cloth, and an Oxford table near the window, on which lay half a dozen books with writing materials. A couple of plain Windsor chairs occupied the two sides of the flireplace, and half a dozen common wooden chairs stood against the opposite wall, three on each side of a pretty well-filled bookcase ; while an old rickety sofa, covered with soiled chintz, leaned against the wall which fronted the window, as if to rest its lame leg. The carpet and rug were dingy, and decidedly the worse for wear ; and the college had evidently neglected to paper the room or whitewash the ceiling for several generations. On the mantelpiece reposed a few long clay pipes and a brown earthenware receptable for tobacco, together with a japanned tin case, shaped like a figure of eight, the use of which puzzled Tom exceedingly. ■ One modestly framed drawing of a ten-gun brig hung above, and at the side of the fireplace a sword and belt. All this Tom had time to remark by the light of the fire, which was burning brightly, while his host produced a 40 TOM EEOWN AT OXFORD. couple of brass candlesticlis from his cupboard and lighted up, and drew the curtain before his window. Then Tom instinc- tively left off taking notes, for fear of hurting the other's feel- ings (just as he would have gone on doing so, and making re- marks on everything, had the rooms been models of taste and comfort), and throwing his cap and gown on the sofa, sat down on one of the Windsor chairs. " What a jolly chair," said he ; "where do you get them ? I should like to buy one." " Yes, they're comfortable enough," said Hardy, " but the reason I have them is that they're the cheapest arm-chair one can get ; I like an armchair, and can't afford to have any otlier than these." Tom dropped the .subject of the chairs at once, following his instinct again, which, sad to say, was already teaching him that poverty is a disgrace to a Briton, and that, until you know a man thoroughly, you must always seem to assume that he is the owner of unlimited I'eady money. Somehow or another he began to feel embarrassed, and couldn't think of anj'thing to say, as his host took down the pipes and tobacco from the mantelpiece, and placed them on the table. However, any- thing was better than silence ; so he began again. " Very good-sized rooms yours seem," said he, taking up a pipe mechanically " Big enough, for the matter of that," answered the other, " but very dark and noisy in the daytime." " So I should think," said Tom ; " do you know, I'd sooner now have my freshman's rooms up in the garrets. I wonder you don't change. " I get these for nothing," said his host, putting his long clay to the candle, and puffing out volumes of smoke. Tom was stumped again, and felt more and more unequal to the situ- ation — so began filling his pipe in silence. The first whiff made him cough, as he wasn't used to the fragrant weed in this shape. " I'm afraid you don't smoke tobacco," said his host from be- hind his own cloud ; " shall I go out and fetch you a cigar ? I don't smoke them myself ; I can't afford it." " No, thank you," said Tom, blushing for shame, as if he had come there only to insult his host, and wishing himself heartily out of it ■, " I've got my case here ; and the fact is I will smoke a cigar if you'll allow me, for I'm not up to pipes yet. I wish you'd take some," he went on, emptying his cigars on the table. HAEDT, THE SBEVITOE. 41 " Thankee," replied his host, " I prefer a pipe. And now what will you have to drink ? I don't keep wine, hut I can get a hottle of anything you like from the common room. That's one of our privileges," — he gave a grim chuckle as he empha- sized the word " our." " Who on earth are we f " thought Tom ; " servitors, I sup- pose," for he knew already that undergraduates in general could not get wine from 4,he college cellars. " I don't care a straw ahout wine," said he, feeling very hot ahout the ears ; " a glass of heer, or anything you have here — or tea." " Well, I can give you a pretty good glass of whisky," said his host, going to the cupboard, and producing a black bottle, two tumblers of different sizes, some little wooden toddy ladles, and sugar in an old cracked glass. Tom vowed that, if there was one thing in the world he liked more than another, it was whisky ; and began measuring out the liquor carefully into his tumbler, and rolling it round be- tween his eye and the candle, and smelling it, to show what a treat it wasto him ; while his host put the kettle on the fire, to ascertain that it was quite boiling, and then, as it spluttered and fizzed, filled up the two tumblers, and restored it to its place on the hob. Tom swallowed some of the mixture, which nearly made him cough again — for, though it was very good, it was also very potent ; however, by an effort he managed to swallow his cough ; he would about as soon have lost a little finger as let it out. Then, to his great relief, his host took the pipe from his lips and inquired, " How do you like Oxford ? " " I hardly know yet," said Tom ; " the first few days I was delighted with going about and seeing the buildings, and find- ing out who had lived in each of the old colleges, and potter- ing about in the Bodleian, and fancying I should like to be a great scholar. Then I met several old school-fellows going about, who are up at other colleges, and went to their rooms and talked over old times. But none of my very intimate friends are up yet, and unless you care very much about a man already, you don't seem to be likely to get intimate with him up here, unless he is at your own college." He paused as if expecting an answer. " I dare say not," said Hardy ; " but I never was at a public school, unluckily, and so am no judge." " Well then, as to the college life," went on Tom, " its all very well as far as it goes. There's plenty of liberty, and good 42 TOM BEOWN AT OXPORS. food. And the men seem nice fellows — many of them at least, as far as I can judge. But I can't say that I like it as much as I like our school life." " I don't understand," said Hardy. " Why not ? " " Oh ! I hardly know," said Tom, laughing ; " I don't seem as if I liad anything to do here ; that's one reason, I think. And tlien you see, at Rugby I was rather a great man. There one had a share in the ruling of three hundred boys, and a good deal of responsibility. But here one has only just to take care of one's self, and keep out of scrapes ; and that's what I never could do. What do you think a fellow otight to do now up here ?" • ' " Oh ! I don't see much difficulty in tha^" said his host, smiling ; " get up your lectures well to begin'Tmh." " But my lectures are a farce," said Tom. " I've done all the books over and over again. They don't take me an hour a day to get up." " Well, then, set to work reading something regularly — read- ing for your degree, for instant " Oh, hang it ! I can't look 69 far forward as that ; I shan't be going up for three years." " You can't begin too early. You might go and talk to your college-tutor about it." " So I did," said Tom ; " at least I meant to do it. For he asked me and two other freshmen to breakfast the other morn- ing, and I was going to open out to him. But when I got there I was quite shut up. He never looked one of us in the face, and talked in set sentences, and was cold, and formal, and con- descending. The only bit of advice he gave us was to have nothing to do with boating — just the one thing which I feel a real interest in. I couldn't get out a word of what I wanted to say." " It is unlucky, certainly, that our present tutors take so little interest in anything which the men care about. But it is more from shyness than anything else, that manner which you noticed. You may be sure that he was more wretched and embarrassed than any of you." " Well, but now I should really like to know what you did yourself," said Tom ; " you are the only man of much older standing than myself whom I know at all yet — I mean I don't know anybody else well enough to talk about this sort of thing to them. What did' you do now, besides learning to pull, in your first year ? " " I had learnt to pull before I came up here," said Hardy. HAEDf, THE SJERVITOS. 43 " I really hardly remember what I did besides read. You see I came up with a definite purpose of reading. My father was very anxious that I should be a good scholar. Then my posi- tion in the college and my poverty naturally kept me out of many things which other men do." Tom flushed again at the ugly word, but not so much as at first. Hai-dy couldn't mind tlie subject, or he would never be forcing it up at every turn, he thought. " You wouldn't think it," he began again, harping on the same string, " but I can hardly tell you how I miss the sort of responsibility I was talking to you about. I have no doubt I shall get the vacuum filled up before long, but for the life of me I can't see how yet." " You will be a very lucky fellow if you don't find it quite as much as you can do to keep yourself in order up here. It is about the toughest part of a man's life, I do believe, the time he has to spend here. My university life has been so different altogether from what yours will be, that my experi- ence isn't likely to benefit you." "I wish you would try me, though," said Tom ; " you don't know what a teachable sort of a fellow I am, if anybody will take me the right way. You taught me to scull, you know ; or at least put me in the way to learn. But sculling, and rowing, and cricket, and all the rest of it, with such read- ing as I am likely to do, won't be enough. I feel sure of that already." "I don't think it will," said Hardy. "No amount of phys- ical or mental work will fill the vacuum you were talking of just now. It is the empty house swept and garnished, which the boy might have had glimpses of, but the man finds yawn- ing within him, and which must be filled somehow. It's a pretty good three years' work to learn how to keep the devils out of it, more or less, by the time you take your degree. At least I have found it so." Hardy rose and took a turn or two up and down his room. Ho was astonished at finding himself talking so unreservedly to one of whom he knew so little, and half wished the words recalled. He lived much alone, and thought himself morbid and too self-conscious ; why should he be filling a youngster's head with puzzles ? How did he know that they were think- ing of the same thing ? But the spoken word cannot be recalled ; it must go on its way for good or evil ; and this one set the hearer staring into the ashes, and putting many things together in his head. 44 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. It was some minutes before he broke silence, but at last he gathered up his thought, and said, " Well, I hope I shan t shirk when the time comes. You don't think a fellow need shut himself up though ? I'm sure I shouldn't be any the better for that." " No, I don't think you would." said Hardy. " Because, you see," Tom went on, waxing bolder and more confidential, "if I were to take to moping by myself I shouldn't read as you or any sensible fellow should do ; I know that well enough. I should just begin, sitting with my legs upon the mantelpiece, and looking into my own inside. I see you are laughing, but you know what I mean ; don't you now ? " " Yes ; staring into the vacuum you were talking of just now ; it all comes back to that," said Hardy. " Well, perhaps it does," said Tom ; " and I don't believe it does a fellow a bit of good to be thinking about himself and his own doings." " Only he can't help himself," said Hardy. " Let him throw himself, as he will, into all that is going on up here, after all he must be alone for a great part of his time — all night at any rate — and when he gets his oak sported, it's all up with him. He must be looking more or less into his own inside, as you call it.." " Then I hope he won't find it as ugly a business as I do. If he does,.I'm sure he can't be worse employed." " 1 don't know that," said Hardy ; " he can't learn anything worth learning in any other way." " Oh, I like that ! " said Tom ; "it's worth learning how to play tennis, and how to speak the truth. You can't learn either by thinking about yourself ever so much." " You must know the truth befoi-e you can speak it," said Hardy. "So you always do in plenty of time." "How?" said Hardy. " Oh ! I don't know," said Tom ; " by a sort of instinct, I suppose. I never, in my life, felt any doubt about what I ought to say or do ; did you ? " " Well, yours is a good, comfortable, working belief, at any rate," said Hardy, smiling ; " and I should advise you to hold on to it as long as you can." " But you don't think I can for very long, eh ? " " No ; but men are very different. There's no saying. If you were going to get out of the self-dissecting business alto- HAKDT, THE SEftVITOK. 45 gether though, why should you have brought the subject up at all to-night ? It looks awkward for you ; doesn't it? " Tom began to feel rather forlorn at this suggestion, and probably betrayed it in his face, for Hardy changed the sub- ject suddenly. " How do you get on in the boat ? I saw you going down to-day, and thought the time much better." Tom felt greatly relieved, as he was beginning to find him- self in rather deep water ; so he rushed into boating with great zest, and the two chatted on very pleasantly on that and other like matters, of little interest to the general reader. The college "clock struck during a pause in their talk, and Tom looked at his watch. " Eight o'clock, I declare," he said ; " why I must have been here more than two hours. I'm afraid, now, you have been wanting to work, and I have kept you from it with my talk." " No, it's Saturday night. Besides, I don't get much society that I care about, and so I enjoy it all the more. Won't you stop and have some tea ? " Tom gladly consented, and his host produced a somewhat dilapidated set of crockery, and proceeded to brew the drink least appreciated at St. Ambrose's. Tom watched him in si- lence, much exercised in his mind as*to what manner of man he had fallen upon; very much astonished at himself for hav- ing opened out so freely, and feeling a strange desire to know more of Hardy, not unmixed with a sort of nervousness as to how he was to accomplish it. When Hardy sat down again and began pouring out the tea, curiosity overcame, and he opened with : " So you read most nights after hall ? " " Yes, for two or three hours ; longer when I am in a good humor." "What, all by yourself ? " " Generally ; but once or twice a week Gi-ant comes in to compare notes. Do you know him ? " " No ; at least he hasn't called on me. I have just spoken to him." " He is a very quiet fellow, and I dare say doesn't call on any man unless he knew something of him before." " Don't you ? " " Never," said Hardy, shortly; and added after a short pause, "veiy few men would thank mo if I did ; most would think it impertinent, and I'm too proud to risk that." 46 TOM EROWIT AT OXFORD. Tom was on tlie point of asking why ; but the uncomfort- able feeling he had nearly lost came back on him. "I suppose one very soon gets tired of the wine-and-supper- party life, though I own I find it pleasant enough now." " I have never been tried," said Hardy ; " servitors are not troubled with that kind of thing. If they were, I wouldn't go unless I could return them, and that I can't afford." " There he goes again," thought Tom ; " why will he be throwing that old story in my face over and over again ? he can't think I care about his poverty ; I won't change the sub- ject this time, at any i-ate." And so he said : " You don't mean to say that it makes any real difference to a man in society up here, whether he is poor or rich ; I mean, of course, if lie is a gentleman and a good fellow ? " " Yes, it does — the very greatest possible. But don't take my word for it. Keep your eyes open and judge for yourself; I dare say I'm prejudiced on the subject." "Well, I shan't believe it if I can help it," said Tom ; "you know you said just now that you never called on anyone. Perhaps you don't give men a fair chance. They might be glad to know you if you would let them, and may think it's your fault that they don't." " Very possibly," said Hardy ; " I tell you not to take my word for it." • " It upsets all one's ide.as so," went on Tom ; " why, Ox- ford ought to be the place in England where money should count foR nothing. Surely, now, such a man as Jervis, our captain, has more influence than all the rich men in the col- lege put together, and is more looked up to ? " " He's one of a thousand," said Hardy ; " handsome, strong, good-tempered, clever, and up to every thingr Besides, he isn't a poor man ; and mind, I don't say that, if he were, he wouldn't be where he is. I am speaking of the rule, and not of the ex- ceptions." Here Hardy's scout came in to say that the dean wanted to speak to him. So he put on his cap and gown, and Tom rose also. " Well, I'm sorry to turn you out," said Hardy^ " and I'm afraid I've been very surly and made you very uncomfortable. You won't come back again in a hurry." " Indeed I will, though, if you will let me," said Tom ; " I have enjoyed my evening immensely." " Then come whenever you like," said Hardy. " But I am afraid of interfering with your reading," said Tom. HAKDT, THE SBEVITOE. 41 " Oh ! you needn't mind that ; I have plenty of time on my hands ; besides, one can't read all night, and from eight to ten you'll find me generally idle." " Then you will see me often enough. But promise now to turn me out whenever I am in the way." " Very well," said Hardy,, laughing ; and so they parted for the time. Some twenty minutes afterward Hardy returned to his room after his interview with the dean, who merely wanted to speak to him about some matter of college business. He flung his cap and gown on to the sofa, and began to walk up and down his room, at first hurriedly, but soon with his usual regular tramp. However expressive a man's face may be, and however well you may know it, it is simply nonsense to say that you can tell what he is thinking about by looking at it, as many of us are apt to boast. Still more absurd would it be to expect readers to know what Hardy is thinking about, when tliey have never had the advantage of seeing his face even in a photograph. Wherefore, it would seem that the author is bound on such occasions to put his readers on equal vantage ground with himself, and not only to tell them what a man does, but, so far as may be, what he is thinking about also. His first thought then was one of pleasure at having been sought out by one who seemed to be just the sort of friend he would like to have. He contrasted our hero with the few men with whom he generally lived, and for some of whom he had a high esteem — whose only idea of exercise was a two hours' constitutional walk in the afternoons, and whose life was chiefly spent over books and behind sported oaks — and felt that this was more of a man after his own heart. Then came doubts whether his new friend would draw back when he had been up a little longer, and knew more of the place. At any rate, he had said and done nothing to tempt him ; " if he pushes the ac- quaintance, — and I think he will, — it will be because he likes me for myself. And I can do him good, too, I feel sure," he went on, as he ran over rapidly his own life for the last three years. " Perhaps he won't flounder into all the sloughs that I have had to drag through ; he will get too much of the healthy, active life up here for that, which I have never had ; but some of them he must get into. All the companionship of boating and cricketing, and wine parties and supper parties, and all the read- ing in the world won't keep him from many along hour of maw- kishness, and discontent, and emptiness of heart ; he feels that already hims'elf. Am I sure of that though ? I may be only 48 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. reading myself into him. At any rate, why should I have helped to trouble him before the time ? Was that a friend's part ? Well, he must face it, and the sooner the better perhaps. At any rate, it is done. But what a blessed thing if one can only help a youngster like this to fight his way through the cold, clammy atmosphere which is always hanging over him, and ready to settle down on him — can help to keep some living faith in him, that the world, Oxford, and all, isn't a respectable piece of machineiy set going some centuries back ! Ah ! it's an awful business, that temptation to believe, or think you believe, in a dead God. It has nearly broken my back a score of times. What are all the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the Devil to this ? It includes them all. Well, I believe I can help him, and, please God, I will, if he will only let me ; and the very sight of him does me good ; so I won't believe we went down the lasher together for nothing." And so at last Hardy finished his walk, took down a book from his shelves, which to the best of my belief, was .Don Quixote, — at any rate, I know that the great Spaniard was an especial favorite of his, — and sat down for an hour's enjoyment before turning in. The reader very likely by this time is beginning to wonder which is the odder or madder of the two — the author, or his St. Ambrose servitor. I can only say that I never have asserted the sanity or freedom from eccentricity of either. If the reader never had any such thoughts himself, he is a lucky fellow, and need not mind them ; if he should have had any such, he will know how to sympathize with him who is exercised with them, and with him who attempts, however feebly, to bring them out into the light of day. CHAPTER VI. HOW DEYSDALE AND BLAKE WENT PISHING. " Drtsdale, what's a servitor ? " " How the deuce should I know ? " This short and pithy dialogue took place in Drysdale's rooms one evening soon after the conversation recoi'ded in the last chapter. He and Tom were sitting alone there, for a wonder, and so the latter seized the occasion to propound this question, which he had had on his mind for some time. He was scarcely satisfied with the above rejoinder, but while he was thinking how to come at the subject by another road, Drys- HOW DRYSDALE AND BLAKE WENT FISHING. 49 dale opened a morocco fly book, and poured its contents on the table, which was already covered with flies of all sorts and patterns, hanks of gut, delicate made-up casts, reels, minnows, and tackle enough to kill all the fish in the four neighboring counties. Tom began turning them over and scrutinizing the dressings of the flies. " It has been so mild, the fish must be in season, don't you think? Besides, if they're not, it's a jolly drive to Fair- ford, at any rate. You've never been behind my team. Brown. You'd better come, now, to-morrow." "I can't cut my two lectures." " Bother your lectures ! Put on an seger, then." "No ! that doesn't suit my book, you know." " I can't see why you sbould be so cursedly particular. Well, if you won't, you won't ; I know that well enough. But what cast should you fish with to-morrow ? " " How many flies do j'ou use ? " " Sometimes two, sometimes three." " Two's enough, I think ; all depends on the weather ; but, if it's at all like to-day, you can't do better, I should think, than the old March brown and a palmer to begin with. Then, for change, this hare's ear, and an alder fly, perhaps ; or, — let me see," and he began searching the glittering heap, to select a color to go with the dull hare's ear. " Isn't it early for the alder ? " said Drysdale. " Rather, perhaps ; but they can't resist it." " These bang-tailed little sinners any good ? " said Drysdale, throwing some cock-a-bondies across the table. " Yes ; I never like to be without them, and a governor or two. Here, this is a well-tied lot," said Tom, picking out half a dozen. " You never know when you may not kill with either of them. But I don't know the Fairford water ; so my opinion isn't worth much." More talk of a like kind went on, not interesting to the general reader. And you, oh reader ! who are a fisherman, to whom my heart warms as I pen these lines, do you not know it all as well as I ? The delight of sitting handling tackle and talking Ashing talk, though you mayn't get three days' fishing a year ; the difficulty you have in advising any brother of the craft to leave a single well-tied, taking-looking fly out of his book, though you know, from experience, that it would be probably better for him if he had only some four or five flies in the woi'ld. Well, after thirty, or thereabouts, we must all, I suppose, lay our account to enjoy such things mostly in talk. 50 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. It is a real pleasure, tliough, to go on talking, and so enjoying by anticipation splendid days of salmon-fishing and hunting tliough they never really arrive. When the conversation flagged, Tom returned to the old topic. " But now, Drysdale, you must know what a servitor is ? " " Why should I ? Do you mean one of our college ser- vitors ? " "Yes." " Oh ! something in the upper-servant line. I should put him above the porter, and below the cook and butler. He does the dons' dirty work, and gets their broken victuals; and I believe he pays no college fees." Tom rather drew into himself at this insolent and off-hand definition. He was astonished and hurt at the tone of his friend. However, presently, he resolved to go through with it, and he began again. " But servitors are gentlemen, I suppose ? " " A good deal of the cock-tail about them, I should think. But I have not the honor of any acquaintance among them.'' " At any rate, they are undergi'aduates ; are not they ? " " Yes." " And may take degrees, just like you or me ? " " They may have all the degrees to themselves, for anything I care. I wish they would let one pay a servitor for passing little-go for one. It would be deuced comfortable. I wonder it don't strike the dons, now ; they might get clever beggars for servitors, and farm them, and so make loads of tin." " But, Drysdale, seriously, why should you talk like that ? If they can take all the degrees we can, and are, in fact, just what we are, undergraduates, I can't see why they're not as likely to be gentlemen as we. It can surely make no differ- ence, their being poor men ? " " It must make them devilish uncomfortable," said the in- corrigible payer of double fees, getting up to light his cigar. " The name ought to carry respect here, at any rate. The Black Prince was an Oxford man, and he thought the noblest motto he could take was 'Ich dieu,' I serve." "If he were here now, he would change it for ' Je paye." " I often wish you would tell me what you really and truly think, Drysdale." " My dear fellow, I'm telling you what I do really think. Whatever the Black Prince might be pleased to observe if he were here, I stick to my motto. I tell you the thing to be able to do here at Oxford is — to pay." HOW t)R-?SI>ALE xmy BLAKE WEST* FtSHlNO. 51 "I don't believe it." "I knew you wouldn't." " I don't believe you do, either." " I do, though. But what makes you so curious about ser- vitors ? " " Why, I've made friends with Hardy, one of our servitors. He is such a fine fellow ! " I am sorry to relate that it cost Tom an effort to say this to Di-ysdale ; but he despised himself that it was so. " You should have told me so before you began to pump me," said Drysdale. " However, I partly suspected something of the sort. You've a good bit of a Quixote in you. But really. Brown," he added, seeing Tom redden and look angry, " I'm soriy if what I said pained you. I dare say this friend of yours is a gentleman, and all you say." " He is more of a gentleman by a long way than most of the " " ' Gentlemen-commoners,' you were going to say. Don't crane at such a small fence on my account. I will put it in an- other way for you. He can't be a greater snob than many of them." " Well, but why do you live with them so much, then ? " " Why ? Because they happen to do the things I like doing, and live up here as I like to live. I like hunting and driving, and drawing badgers and playing cards, and good wines and cigars. They hunt and drive, and keep dogs and good cellars, and will play unlimited loo or Van-John as long as I please." " But I know you get very sick of all that often, for I've heard you say as much half a dozen times in the little time I've been here." , " Why, you don't want to deny me the Briton's privilege of grumbling, do you ? " said Drysdale, as he flung his legs up on the sofa, crossing one over the other as he lounged on his back — his favorite attitude ; " but suppose I am getting tired of it all — which I'm not — what do you propose as a substitute ? " " Take to boating. I know you could be in the first boat if you liked ; I heard them say so at Smith's wine the other night." " But what's to prevent my getting just as tired of that ? Besides, it's such a grind. And then there's the bore of chang- ing all one's habits." " Yes, but it's such splendid hard work," said Tom, who was bent on making a convert of his friend. " Just so ; and that's just what I don't want ; the ' books, and work, and heathful play' line don't suit my complaint. No ; 52 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. as my old uncle says, ' a young fellow must sow his wild oats, and Oxford seems a place specially set apart by Providence for that operation." In all the wide range of accepted British maxims there is none, take it for all in all, more thoroughly abominable than this one as to the sowing of wild oats. Look at it on what side you will, and I will defy you to make anything but a devil's maxim of it. What a man — be he young, old, or middle-aged — sows,„ y " I'm quite sure," interrupted Tom, " that he won't take any- thing. I will ask him to-morrow whether he will let you come, and he's such a kind, good fellow that I'm almost sure he will." " I should like to know your pal, too, Brown," said Drys- dale; "you must introduce me with Blake." ' " No, I'll be hanged if I do," said Tom. "Then I shall introduce myself," said Drysdale; "see if I don't sit next him now at your wine on Thursday." Here Drysdale's scout entered, with two notes, and wished to know if Mr, Drysdale would require anything more. Noth- STTMilEfe TSSM. 103 'rag but hot water; he could put the kettle on, Diysdale said, and go; and while the scout was fulfilling his orders, he got up carelessly, whistling, and walking to the fire, read the notes by the light of one of the candles which was burning on the man- telpiece. Blake was watching him eagerly, and Tom saw this, ;ind made some awkward efforts to go on talking about tlie ad- vantages of Hardy's plan for learning history; but he was talk- ing to deaf ears, and soon came to a standstill. He saw Drys- dale crumple up the notes in his hand and shove them into his pocket. After standing for a few seconds in the same position, with his back to them, he turned round with a careless air, and sauntered to the table, where they were .sitting. " Let's see, what were we saying ?" he began. " Oh, about your eccentric pal. Brown." "You've answers from both ?" interrupted Blake. Drys- dale nodded, and was beginning to speak again to Tom, when Blake got up and said with white lips, " I must see them." " No, never mind, what does it matter ? " " Matter ! by Heaven, I must and will see them now." Tom sav^r at once that he had better go, and so took up his cap, wished them good-night, and went off to his rooms. He might have been sitting there for about twenty minutes, when Drysdale entered. "I couldn't help coming over. Brown," he said; "I must talk to some one, and Blake has gone off raging. I don't know what he'll do — I never was so bothered or savage in my life." "I'm very sorry," said Tom; "he looked very bad in your rooms. Can I do anything ? " " No, but I must talk to some one. You know — no you don't, by the way — but, however, Blake got me out of a tre- mendous scrape in my first term, and there's nothing that I'm not bound to do for him, and wouldn't do if I could. Yes, by George, whatever fellows say of me, they shall never say I didn't stand by a man who has stood by me. Well, he owes a dirty £300 or £400, or something of the sort — nothing worth talking of, I know — to people in Oxford, and they've been lead- ing him a dog's life this year and more. ■ Now, he's just going up for his degree, and two or three of these creditors — the most rascally, of course — ai-e sueing him in the Vice-Chancel- lor's Court, thinking now's the time to put the screw on. He will be ruined if they are not stopped somehow. Just after I saw you to-day, he came to me about it. You never saw a fel- low in such a state ; I could see it was tearing him to pieces, telling it to me even. However, I soon set him at ease, as far 104 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. as I was concerned; but, as the devil will have it, I can't lend him the money, though £60 would get him over the examina- tion, and then he can make terms. My guardian advanced me £200 beyond my allowance just before Eastei-, and I haven't £20 left, and the bank here has given me notice not to over- draw any more. However, I thought to settle it easily enough; so I told him to meet me at the Mitre in half an hour for din- ner, and when he was gone I sat down and wrote two notes — the first to St. Cloud. That fellow was with us on and off in town, and one night he and I went partners at roulette, I find- ing ready money for the time, gains and losses to be equally shared in the end. I left the table to go and eat some supper, and he lost £80, and paid it out of my money. I didn't' much care, and he cursed the luck, and acknowledged that he owed me £40 at the time. Well, I just reminded him of this £40 and said I should be glad of it (I know he has plenty of money just now), but added, that he might stand if he would join me and Blake in borrowing £60; I was fool enough to add that Blake was in diiEculties, and I was most anxious to help him. As I thought that St. Cloud would probably pay the £40, but do no more, I wrote also to Chanter — Heaven knows why, ex- cept that the beast rolls in money, and has fawned on me till I've been nearly sick J;his year past — and asked him to lend Blake £50 on our joint note of hand. Poor Blake ! when I told him what I had done at the Mitre, I think I might as well have stuck the carving knife into him. We had a wretched two hours; then you came in, and I got my two answers — here they are." Tom took the proffered notes, and read : Deab DbtsdaIiI; : Please explain the allusion in yours to some mysterious £40. I remember perfectly the ooourrenoe to which you lefer in another part of your note. You were tired of sitting at the table and went off to supper, leaving me (not by my own desire) to play for you with your money. I did so and had abominable luck, as you will remember, for I handed you baclt a sadly dwindled heap on your return to the table. I hope you are in no row about that night ? I shall be quite ready to give evidence of what passed if it will help you in any way. I am, always, yours very truly, A. St. Clodd. P. S. I must decline the little joint operation for Blake's benefit, which you propose. The second answer ran : Deab Dbysdale : I am very sorry that I cannot accommodate Mr. Blake, as a friend of yours, but you see his acceptance is mere waste paper, and vou cannot give security nntil you are of age, so if you were to die the money would be lost. Mr. Blake has always carried hia head as high as if he had £5000 !i, year to spend j perhaps now he will turn less haughty to men who could buy him up easy enough. I remain yours sincerely, Jabez Chanteb. SUMMEK TBEMi. lOS Tom looked up, and met Drysdale's eyes, which had more of purpose in them than he had ever seen before. "Fancy poor Blake reading those two notes," he said, " and 'twas I brought them on him. However, he shall have the money somehow to- morrow, if I pawn my watch. I'll be even with those two some day." The two remained in conference for some time longer; it is hardly worth while to do more than relate the re- sult. At three o'clock the next day, Blake, Drysdale, and Tom were in the back-parlor of a second-rate inn, in the corn-mar- ket ; on the table were pens and ink, some cases of eau-de- Cologne and jewelry, and behind it a man of forbidding as- pect, who spent a day or two in each term at Oxford. He held in his thick, red, damp hand, ornamented as to the fore-finger with a huge ring, a piece of paper. " Then I shall draw for a hnndred-and-five ? " "If you do, we won't sign," said Drysdale ; "now, be quick, Ben" (the fat man's name was Benjaniin), "you infernal sliark, we've been wrangling long enough over it. Draw for £100 at three months or we are oflE." " Then, Mr. Drysdale, you gents will take part in goods. I wish to do all I can for gents as comes well introduced, but money is veiy scarce just now." " Not a stuffed bird, bottle of eau-de-Cologne, ring, or cigar, will we have; so now, no more nonsense, put down £75 on the table." The money-lender, afer another equally useless attempt to move Drysdale, who was the only one of the party who spoke, produced a roll of notes, and counted out £75, thinking to him- self that he would make this young spark sing a different tune before very long. He then filled up the piece of paper, mut- tering that the interest was nothing, considering the risk, and he hoped they would help him to something better with some of their friends. Drysdale reminded him, in terras not too carefully chosen, that he was getting cent, per cent. The doc- ument was signed — Drysdale took the notes, and they went out. " Well, that's well over," said Diysdale, as they walked to- ward High Street. " I'm proud of my tactics, I must say ; one does much better for anybody than for one's self. If I had been on my own hook that fellow would have let me in for £20 worth of stufEed birds and bad jewelry. Let's see, what do you want, Blake ? " "Sixty will do," said Blake. l06 *0M BfeOWSr AT OXffOBD. " You had better take £65 ; there'll be some law costs to pay." And Drysdale handed him the notes. "Now, Brown, shall we divide the balance — a fiver apiece ? " " No, thank you," said Tom, " I don't want it ; and, as you two are to hold me harmless, you must do what you like with the money." So Drysdale pocketed the £10, after which they walked in silence to the'gates of St. Ambrose. The most reck- less youngster doesn't begin this sort of thing without reflec- tions which. are apt to keep him silent.. At the gates, Elake wrung both their hands. " I don't say much, but I shan't for- get it." He got out the words with some difficulty, and went off to his rooms. CHAPTER XI. MUSCULAB CHRISTIANITY. WiTHiK the next week or two several important events had happened to one and another of our St. Ambrose friends. Tom had introduced Blake to Hardy, after some demur on the part of the latter. Blake was his senior by a terta ; might have called on him any time these three years; why should he want to make his acquaintance now ? But when Tom ex- plained to him that it would be a kind thing to let Blake come and coach up history with him, for that unless he took a high degree in the coming examination, he would have to leave the college, and probably be ruined for life. Hardy at once con- sented. Tom did not venture to inquire for a day or two how the two hit it off together. When he began cautiously to approach the subject, he was glad to find that Hardy liked Blake. "He is a gentleman, and very able," he said. " It is curious to see how quickly he is overhauling Grey, and yet how Grey takes to him. He has never looked scared at him (as he stUl does at you, by the way) since the first night they met. Blake has the talent of setting people at their ease without saying any- thing. I shouldn't wonder if Grey thinks he has sound Church notions. It's a dangerous talent, and may make a man very false if he doesn't take care." Tom asked if Blake would be up in his history in time. Hardy thought he might, perhaps ; but he had great lee-way to make up. If capacity for taking in cram would do it, he would be all right. He had been well crammed in his science, and had put him (Hardy) up to many dodges which might be useful in the schools, and which you couldn't get without a private tutor. MUSCULAR CHRlSTIANITf. lOl? Then Tom's first wine had gone off most successfully. Jei'vis and Miller had come early and stayed late, and said all that was handsome of the port, so that he was already a social hero with the boating set. Drysdale, of course, had been there, rattling away to everybody in his reckless fashion, and setting a good example to the two or three fast men whom Tom knew well enough to ask, and who consequently behaved pretty well, and gave themselves no airs, though, as they went away to- gether, they grumbled slightly that Brown didn't give claret. The rest of tlje men had shaken together well, and seemed to enjoy themselves. The only drawback to Tom had been that neither Hardy nor Grey had appeared. They excused them- selves afterward on the score of reading, but Tom felt ag- grieved in Hardy's case ; he knew that it was only an excuse. Then the training had begun seriously. Miller had come up specially for the first fortnight, to get them well in hand, as he said. After they were once fairly started, he would have to go down till just before the races ; but he thought he might rely on the captain to keep them up to their work in the interval. So Miller, the coxswain, took to drawing the bow up to the ear at once. At the very beginning of term, five or six weeks before the races, the St. Ambrose boat was to be seen every other day at Abingdon ; and early dinners, limitation of liquids and tobacco, and abstinence from late supper parties, pastry, ice, and all manner of trash likely, in Miller's opinion, to injure nerve or wind, were hanging over the crew, and already, in fact, to some extent, enforced. The captain shrugged his shoulders, submitted to it all himself, and worked away with imperturbable temper, merely hinting to Miller, in private, that he was going too fast, and that it would be impossible to keep it up. Diogenes highly approved ; he would have be- come the willing slave of any tyranny which should insist that every adult male subject should pull twenty miles, and never imbibe more than a pint of liquid in the twenty-four hours. Tom was inclined to like it, as it helped him to realize the proud fstct that he was actually in the boat. The rest of the crew were in all stages of mutiny, and were only kept from breaking out by their fondness for the captain, and the knowl- edge that Miller was going in a few days. As it was, Blake was the only one who openly rebelled ; once or twice he stayed away. Miller swore and grumbled, the captain shook his head, and the crew in general rejoiced. It is to one of these occasions to which we must now turn. If the usual casual voyager of novels had been standing on 108 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. Sandford Lock at about four, on the afternoon of April — -^ 18 — , he might have beheld tlie St. Ambrose eight-oar coming with a steady swing up the last reach. If such voyager were in the least conversant with the glorious mystery of rowing, he would have felt his heart warm at the magnificent sweep and life of the stroke, and would, on the whole, have been pleased with the performance of the crew generally, consid- ered as a college crew in the early stages of training. Tliey came " hard all " up to the pool below the lock, the coxswain standing in the stern, with a tiller-rope in each hand, and then shipped oars ; the lock-gates opened, and the boat entered, and in another minute or two was moored to the bank above the lock, and the crew strolled into the little inn which stands by the look, and, after stopping in the bar to lay hands on sev- eral pewters full of porter, passed through the house into the quoit and skittle grounds behind. These were already well filled with men of other crews, playing in groups, or looking on at the players. One of these groups, as they passed, seized on the captain, and Miller stopped with him ; the rest of the St. Ambrose men, in no humor for skittles, quoits, or any re- laxation except rest and grumbling, took possession of the first table and seats which offered, and came to anchor. Then fol- lowed a moment of intense enjoyment, of a sort only appre- ciable by those who have had a twelve miles' training pull with a coxswain as sharp as a needle and in an awful temper. " Ah," said Drysdale, taking a pewter down from his lips, with a sigh, and handing it to Tom, who sat next him, " by Jove, I feel better." " It's almost worth while pulling ' hard all ' from Abingdon, to get such a thirst," said another, of the crew. " I'll tell you what, though," said Drj'^sdale, " to-day's the last day you'll catch me in this blessed boat." Tom had just finished his draught, but did not reply ; it was by no means the fivst time that Drysdale had announced this resolve. The rest were silent also. " It's bad enough to have to pull your heart out, without getting abused all the way into the bargain. There Miller stands in the stern — and a devilish easy thing it is to stand there and walk into us — I can see him chuckle as he comes to you and me. Brown — 'Now, 2, well forward;' ' 3, don't jerk.' ' Now, 2, throw your weight on the oar ; come, now, you can get anotlier pound on.' I hang on like grim Death. Then it's, ' Time, 2 ; now 3 ' " "Well, it's a great compliment," broke in Tom, with a laugh; " he thinks he can make something of us." MUSCULAR CHEISTIANITT. 109 " He'll make nothing of us first, I think," said Drysdale. " I've lost eight pounds in a fortnight. The captain ought to put me in every place in the boat, in turn, to make it water- tight. I've larded the bottom boards under my seat so that not a drop of water will ever come through again." " A very good thing for you, old fellow," said Diogenes. " You look ten times better than you did at the beginning of term." " I don't know what you call a good thing, you old fluter. I'm obliged to sit on my hip-bones ; I can't go to lecture ; all the tutors think I'm poking fun at them, and put me on directly. I haven't been able to go to lecture this ten days." "So fond of lectures as he is, too, poor fellow," put in Tom. " But they've stopped my commons for staying away," said Drysdale ; " not that I care much for that, though." " Well, Miller goes down to-morrow morning — I heard him say so," said another. " Then we'll memorialize the captain, and get out of these Abingdon pulls. Life isn't worth having at this rate." " No other boat has been below Sandford, yet." And so they sat on and plotted, and soon most of the other crews started. And then they took tlieir turn at skittles, and almost forgot their grievances, which, in order to be clear, I must now explain to those of my readers who don't know the river at Oxford. The river runs along the south of the city, getting into the university quarter after it passes under the bridge connecting Berks and Oxfordshire, over which is the road to Abingdon. Just below this bridge are the boat-builders' establishments, on both sides of the river, and then on the Oxfordshire side is Clirist Ciiurch meadow, opposite which is moored the univer- sity barge. Here is the goal of all university races, or used to be in the times I am speaking of ; and the race-course stretches away down the river for a mile and a half and a little below the starting-place of the "races in Iffley Lock. The next lock below Iffley is the Sandford Lock (where we left our boat's crew playing at skittles), which is about a mile and a half below Iffley. Below Sandford there is no lock till you get to Abingdon, a distance of six miles and more by the river. Now, inasmuch as the longest distance to be rowed in the race is only the upper mile and a half from Iffley to the uni- versity barge, of course, all tlio crows think themselves very liardly treated if they are taken further than to Sandford. Pulling " hard all " from Sandford to Iffley, and then again from 110 TOM BROWlSf AT OXFORD. Iffley over the regular course, ought to be enough in all con- science to chorus the crews ; and most captains and coxswains give in. But here and there some enemy of his kind — some uncomfortable, worriting, energizing mortal, like Miller — gets command of a boat, and then the unfortunate crew are dragged, bemoaning their fate, down below Sandford, where no friendly lock intervenes to break off the long, steady swing of the training-pull every two miles ; and the result for the time is blisters and mutiny ; though I am bound to add that it generally tells, and that the crew which has been undergoing tha,t peine forte et dure is very apt to get the change out of it on the nights of hard races. So the St. Ambrose crew played out their skittles, and set- tled to appeal to the captain in a body the next day, after Miller's departure ; and then, being summoned to the boat, they took to the water again, and paddled steadily up home, arriving just in time for hall for those who liked to hurry. Drysdale never liked hurrying himself ; besides, he could not dine in hall, as he was discommonsed for presistent absence from lectures, and neglect to go to the Dean, when sent for to explain his absence. " I say. Brown, hang hall," he said to Tom, who was throw- ing on his things ; " come and dine with me at the Mitre. I'll give you a bottle of hock ; it's very good there." "Hock's about the worst thing you can drink in training," said Miller ; " isn't it, Jervis ? " "It's no good, certainly," said the captain, as he put on his cap and gown. " Come along, Miller." " There, you hear ? " said Miller. " You can drink a glass of sound sherry, if you want wine." And he followed ' the captain. Drysdale performed a defiant pantomime after the retiring coxswain, and then easily carried his point with Tom, except as to the hock. So they walked up to the Mitre together, where Drysdale ordered dinner and a bottle of hock in the coffee-room. " Don't order hock, Drysdale ; I shan't drink any." " Then I shall have it all to my own cheek. If you begin making a slave of yourself to that Miller, he'll very soon'cut you down to a glass of water a day, with a pinch of rhubarb in it, and make you drink that standing on your head." " Gammon ; but I don't think it's fair on the rest of the crew not to train as well as one can." " You don't suppose drinking a pint of hock to-night will MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY. Ill make me pull any the worse this day six weeks, when the races begin, do you ? " " No ; but " " Hullo ! look here," said Drysdale, who was inspecting a printed bill pinned up on the wall of the coffee room. " Womb- well's menagerie is in the town, somewhere down by Worces- ter. What fun ! We'll go there after dinner." The food arrived with Drysdale's hock, which he seemed to enjoy all the more from the assurance which every glass gave him that he was defying the coxswain, and doing just the thing he would most dislike. So he drank away, and face- tiously speculated how he could be such an idiot as to go on pulling. Every day of liis life he made good resolutions in the reach above the Gut that it should be his last performance, and always broke them next day. He supposed the habit he had of breaking all good resolutions was the way to account for it. After dinner, they set off to find the wild-beast show ; and, as they will be at least a quarter of an hour reaching it, for the pitch is in a part of the suburbs little known to gownsmen, I propose to seize the opportunity of making a few remarks to the patient reader. Our hero, on his first appearance in public, some years since, was, without his own consent, at once patted on the back by the good-natured critics, and enrolled for better for worse in the brotherhood of muscular Christians, who at that time were beginning to be recognized as an actual and lusty portion of general British life. As his biographer, I am not about to take exceptions to his enrollment ; for, after considering the persons up and down her majesty's dominions to whom the new nick- name has been applied, the principles which they are supposed to hold, and the sort of lives they are supposed to lead, I cannot see where he could in these times have fallen upon a nobler brotherhood. I am speaking, of course, under correc- tion, and with only a slight acquaintance with the faith of muscular Christianity, gathered almost entirely from the witty expositions and comments of persons of a somewhat dyspeptic habit, who are not amongst the faithful themselves. Indeed, I am not aware that any authorized articles of belief have been sanctioned or published by the sect, church, or whatever they may be. Moreover, at the age at which our hero has arrived, and having regard to his character, I should say that he has in all likelihood thought very little on the subject of belief, and would scarcely be able to give any formal account of his own, beyond that contained in the Church Catechism, which I, for 112 TOM BROWN AT OXPOED. one, think may very well satisfy him for the present. Neverthe- less, had he been suddenly caug'ht at the gate of St. Ambrose's College, by one of the gentlemen who do the classifying for the British public, and accosted with, " Sir, you belong to a body whose creed is to love God, and walk one thousand miles in one thousand hours," I believe he would have replied, " Do I, sir ? I'm very glad to hear it. They must be a very good set of fellows ! how many week's training do they allow? " But in the course of my inquiries on the subject of muscular Christians, their works and ways, a fact has forced itself on my attention, which for the sake of ingenuous youth, like my hero, ought not to b'e passed over. I find then, that side by side with these muscular Christians, and apparently claiming some sort of connection with them (the same concern, as the pirates of trade-marks say), have risen up another set of per- sons, against whom I desire to caution my readers and my hero, and to warn the latter that I do not mean on any pre- tense whatever to allow him to connect himself with them, however much he may be taken with their off-hand, "hail- brother well-met" manner and dress, which may easily lead careless observers to take the counterfeit for the true article. I must call the persons in question " musclemen," as distin- guished from muscular Christians ; the only point in common between the two being, that both hold it to be a good thing to have strong and well-exercised bodies, ready to be put at the shortest notice to any work of which bodies are capable, and to do it well. Here all likeness ends, for the musoleraan seems to have no belief whatever as to the purposes for which his body has been given him, except some hazy idea that it is to go up and down the world with him, belaboring men and captivating women for his benefit or pleasure, at once the ser- vant and fermenter of those fierce and brutal passions which he seems to think it a necessity, and rather a fine thing than otherwise, to indulge and obey. Whereas, so far as I know, the least of the muscular Christians has hold of the old oliival- rous and Christian belief, that a man's body is given him to be trained and brought into subjection, and then used for the pro- tection of the weak, and advancement of all righteous causes and the subduing of the earth, which God has given to the children of men. He does not hold that mere strength or activity are in themselves worthy of any respect or worship, or that one man is a bit better than another because he can knock him down, or carry a bigger sack of potatoes than he. For mere power, whether of body or intellect, he has (I hope, MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY. 113 and believe) no reverence whatever, though, cmteris paribus, he would probably himself, as a matter of taste, prefer the man who can lift a hundredweight round his head with his little finger, to the man who can construct a string of perfect stories, or expound the doctrine of " contradictory inconceivables." The above remarks occur as our hero is marching innocently down toward his first " town and gown" row, and I should scarcely like to see him in the middle of it, without protesting that it is a mistake. I know that he, and other youngsters of his kidney, will have fits of fighting, or desiring to fight with their poorer brethren, just as children have the measles. But the shorter the fit the better for the patient, for, like the mea- sles, it is a great mistake and a most unsatisfactory complaint. If they can escape it altogether so much the better. But in- stead of treating the fit as a disease, musclemen professors are wont to represent it as a state of health, and to let their dis- ciples run about in middle age with the measles on them as strong as ever. Now, although our hero had the measles on him at this particular time, and the passage of arms whicli I am about shortly to describe led to results of some importance in his history, and cannot therefore be passed over, yet I wish at the same time to disclaim, both in my sponsorial and indi- vidual character, all sympathy with town and gown rows, and with all other class rows and quarrels of every sort and kind, whether waged with sword, pen, tongue, fist, or otherwise. Also to say that in all such rows, so far as I have seen or read, from the time when the Roman plebs marched out to Mons Sacer, down to 1848, when the English chartists met on Kennington Common, the upper class are most to blame. It may be that they are not the aggressors on any given occa- sion ; very possibly they may carry on the actual fighting with more fairness (though this is by no means true as a rule) ; nevertheless, the state of feeling which makes such things possible, especially in England, where men in general are only too ready to be lead and taught by their superiors in rank, may be fairly laid at their door. Even in the case of strikes, which just now will of course be at once thrown in my teeth, I say fearlessly. Let any man take the trouble to study the question honestly, and he will come to the conviction that all combinations of the men for the purpose of influencing the labor market, whether in the much and unjustly abused Trades' Societies, or in other forms, have been defensive organizations, and that the masters might, as a body, over and over again liave taken the sting out of them if they would have acted 114 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. fairly, as many individuals among them have done : whether it may not be to late now, is a tremendous question for Eng- land, but one which time only cg,n decide. When Diysdale and Tom at last found the caravans, it was just getting dark. Something of a crowd had collected out- side, and there was some hissing as they ascended the short flight of steps which led to the platform in front of the show ; but they took no notice of it, paid their money, and entered. Inside they found an exciting scene. The place was prettywell lighted, and the birds and beasts were all alive in their several dens and cages, walking up and down, and each uttering remon- strances after their own manner, the shrill notes of birds ming- ling with the moan of the beasts of prey and chatterings of the monkeys. Feeding time had been put oflE till night to suit the undergraduates, and the undergraduates were proving their appreciation of the attention by playing off all manner of prac- tical jokes on birds and beasts, their keepers, and such of the public as had been rash enough to venture in. At the further end was the keeper, who did the showman, vainly endeavoring to go through his usual jog-trot description. His monotone was drowned every minute by the chorus of voices, each shout- ing out some new fact in natural history touching the biped or quadruped whom the keeper was attempting to describe. At that day a great deal of this sort of chaff was current, so that the most dunderheaded boy had plenty on the tip of his tongue. A small and indignant knot of townspeople, headed by a stout and severe middle-aged woman, with two big boys, her sons, followed the keeper, endeavoring by caustic remarks and withering glances to stop the flood of chaff, and restore legiti- mate authority and the reign of keeper and natural history. At another point was a long Irishman, in cap and gown, who had clearly had as much wine as he could carry, close to the bars of the panther's den, through which he was earnestly en- deavoring, with the help of a crooked stick, to draw the tail of whichever of the beasts stopped for a moment in its uneasy walk. On the other side were a set of men bent on burning the wretched -Aionkeys' fingers with the lighted ends of their cigars, in which they seemed successful enough, to judge by the angry chatterings and shriekings of their victims. The two newcomers paused for a moment on the platform inside the curtain ; and then Drysdale, rubbing his hands, and in high glee at the sight of so much misrule in so small a place, led the way down on the floor deep in sawdust, exclaiming, " Well, this is a lark ! We're just in for all the fun of the fair." MtrSCULAK CHKISTIANITT. 115 Tom followed his friend, who made straight for the show- man, and planted himself at his side, just as that worthy, pointing with his pole, was proceeding : " This is the jackal, from " " The Caribee Hielands, of which I am a native myself," shouted a gownsman. " This is the jackal, or lion's provider " began again the much enduring keeper. " Who always goes before the lion to purwide his purwisions, purwiding there's anything to purwide," put in Drysdale. " — really I do think it's scandalous not to let the keeper tell about the beasteses," said the unfortunate matron, with a half turn toward the persecutors, and grasping her bag. " My dear madam," said Drysdale, in his softest voice, " I assure you he knows nothing about beasteses. We are Doctor Buckland's favorite pupils, are also well known to the great Panjandrum, and have eaten more beasteses than the keeper has ever seen." " I don't know who you are, young man, but you don't know how to behave yourselves," rejoined the outraged female ; and the keeper, giving up the jackal as a bad job, pointing with his pole, proceeded : " The little hanimal in the upper cage is the hopossum, of North America " " The misguided offspring of the raccoon and the gumtree," said one of his tormentors. Here a frightful roai;ing and struggling at a little distance, mingled with shouts of laughter, and " Hold on, Pat ! " " Go it, panther ! " interrupted the lecture, and caused a rush to the other side, where the long Irishman, Donovan by name, with one foot against the bars, was holding on to the tail of one of the panthers, which he had at length managed to catch hold of. The next moment he was flat on his back in the sawdust, and his victim was bounding wildly about the cage. The keeper hurried away to look after the outraged panther ; and Drysdale, at once installing himself as showman, began at the next cage : " This is the wild man of the woods, or whangee tangee, the most untamable — good Heavens, ma'am, take care ! " and he seized hold of the unfortunate woman and pulled her away from the bars. " Oh, goodness ! " she screamed, " it's got my tippet ; O Bill, Peter, catch hold ! " Bill and Peter proved unequal to the occasion, but a gownsman seized the vanishing tippet, and 116 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOED. after a moment's struggle with the great ape, restored a meager half to the proper owner, while Jacko sat grinning over the other half, and picking it to pieces. Tlie poor woman had now had enough of it, and she.hurried off with her two boys, followed by a few townspeople who were still in the show, to lay her case directly before the mayor, as she infomied the delinquents from the platform before dis- appearing. Her wrongs were likely to Be more speedily avengedj, to judge by the angry murmurs which arose outside immediately after her exit. But still the high jinks went on, Donovan leading all mischief, until the master of the menagerie appeared inside and remon- started with the men. He must send for the police, he said, if they would not leave the beasts alone. He had put off the feeding in order to suit them ; would they let his keepers feed the beasts quietly ? The threat of the police was received with shouts of defiance by some of the men, though the greater part seemed of the opinion that matters were getting serious. The proposal of feeding, however, was welcomed by all and comparative quiet ensued for some ten minutes, while the baskets of joints, bread, stale fisli, and potatoes were brought in, and the contents distributed to the famishing occupants of the cages. In the interval of peace the showman-keeper, on a hint from his master, again began his round. But the spirit of mischief was abroad, and it only needed this to make it break out again. In another two minutes the beasts, from the lion to the smallest monkey, were struggling for their suppers with one or more undergraduates ; the elephant had torn the gown off Donovan's back, having only just missed his arm ; and the manager, in a confusion worthy of the tower of Babel, sent off a keeper for the city police, and turned the gas out. ■The audience, after the first moment of surprise and indigna- tion, groped their way toward the steps and mounted the platform, where they held a council of war. Should they stay wliere they were or make a sally at once, break through the crowd and get back to their colleges. It was curious to see how in til at short minute individual character came out, and the coward, the cautious man, the resolute, prompt Englishman, each were there, and more than one species of each. Donovan was one of the last up the steps, and as he stumbled up caught something of the question before the house. He shouted loudly at once for descending and offering battle. " But, boys," he added, " first wait till I address the meeting," and he made for the opening in the canvas through which the MtrSCTTLAE CHRISTIANITY. IH outside platform was reached. Stnmp oratory and a free fight was just the two temptations which Donovan was wholly un- able to resist ; and it was with a face radiant with devil-may- care delight that he burst through the opening, followed by all the rest (who felt that the matter was out of their hands, and must go its own way after the Irishman), and rolling to" the front of the outside platform rested one hand on the rail, and waved the other gracefully towai-d the crowd. This was the signal for a burst of defiant shouts and hissing. Donovan stood blandly waving his hand for silence. Drysdale, running his eye over the mob, turned to the rest and said, "There's nothing to stop us, not twenty grown men in the whole lot." Then one of the men, lighting upon the drum-sticks, which the usual man in corduroys had hidden away, began beating the big drum furiously. One of the unaccountable whims which influence crowds seized on the mob, and there was al- most perfect silence. This seemed to take Donovan by sur- prise ; the open air was having the common effect on him ; and he was getting unsteady On his legs, and his brains were wan- dering. " Now's your time, Donovan, my boy, begin." " Ah, yes, to be sure, what'U I say ? let's see," said Donovan, putting his head on one side. "Friends, Romans, countrymen," suggested some wag. " To be sure," cried Donovan ; " Friends, Romans, country- men, lend me your ears." " Bravo, Pat, well begun ; pull their ears well when you've got 'em." " Bad luck to it ! where was I ? you divels — I mean ladies and gentlemen of Oxford city, as I was saying, the poets " Then the stomi of shouting and hissing arose again, and Donovan, after an ineffectual attempt or two to go on, leaned forward and shook his fist generally at the mob. Luckily for him, there were no stones about ; but one of the crowd, catch- ing tlie first missile at hand, which happened to be a cabbage stalk, sent it with true aim at the enraged orator. lie jerked his head on one side to avoid it ; the motion unsteadied his cap, lie threw up his hand, which instead of catching the falling cap, as it was meant to do, sent it spinning among the crowd below. The owner, without a moment's hesitation, clapped both hands on the bar before him and followed his property, vaulting over on to the heads of those nearest the platform, among whom he fell, scattering them right and left. " Come on, gown, or he'll be murdered," sang out one of Donovan's fiiends. Tom was one of the first down the steps ; 118 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. they rushed to the spot in another moment, and the Irishman rose, plastered with dirt, but otherwise none the worse for his feat ; his cap, covered with mud, was proudly stuck on hind part before. He was, of course, thirsting for battle, but not quite so much master of his strength as usual ; so his two 'friends, who where luckily strong and big men, seized him, one to each arm. " Come along, keep together," was the word ; " there's no time to lose. Push for the corn-market." The cry of " Town ! town ! " now rose on all sides. The gownsmen in a compact body, with Donovan in the middle, pushed rapidly across the open space in which the caravans were set up a;nd gained the street. Here they were compara- tively safe ; they were followed close, but could not be sur- rounded by the mob. And now again a bystander might have amused himself by noting the men's characters. Three or four pushed rapidly on, and were out of sight ahead in no time. The greater part, without showing any actual signs of fear, kept steadily on, at a good pace ; close behind these, Donovan strug- gled violently with his two conductors, and shouted defiance to the town ; while a small and silent rear-gnard, among whom were Tom and Drysdale, walking slowly and, to all ap- pearance, carelessly behind, within a few yards of the crowd of shouting boys who headed the advancing town. Tom him- self felt his heart beating quick, and I don't think had any particular desire for the fighting to begin, with such long odds on the town side ; but he was resolved to be in it as soon as anyone if there was to be any. Thus they marched through one or two streets without anything more serious than an oc- casional stone passing their ears. Another turn would have brouglit them into the open parts of the town, within hearing of the colleges, when suddenly Donovan broke lose from his supporters, and rushing with a shout on the advanced guard of the town, drove them back in confusion for some yards. The only thing to do was to back him up ; so the rear-guard, shouting " Gown ! gown ! " charged after him. The effect of the onset was like that of Blount at Flodden, when he saw Marmion's banner go down — a wide space was cleared for a moment, the town driven back, on to the pavements and up the middle of the street, and the rescued Donovan caught, set on his legs, and dragged away again some paces toward college. But the charging body was too few in number to improve the first success, or even to insure its own retreat. " Darkly closed the war around." The town lapped on them from the pave- MtrSCULAE CHEISTIANITY. 119 ments, and poured on them down the middle of the street, be- fore they had time to rally and stand together again. What happened to the rest — who was down, who up, who fought, who fled — Tom had no time to inquire ; for he found himself suddenly the center of a yelling circle of enemies. So he set his teeth and buckled to his work ; and the thought of splen- did single combat, 5,nd glory such as he had read of in college stories, and traditions handing him down as the hero of that great night, flashed into his head as he cast his eye round for foemen worthy of his steel. None such appeared ; so select- ing the one most of his own size, he squared and advanced on him. But the challenged one declined the combat, and kept retreating ; while from behind, and the sides, one after another of the " town " rushing out dealt Tom a blow and vanished again into the crowd. For a moment or two he kept his head and temper ; the as- sailants, individually, were too insignificant to put out his strength upon ; but head and temper were rapidly going ; he was like a bull in the arena, with the picadores sticking their little javelins in him. A smart blow on the nose, which set a myriad of stars dancing before his eyes, finished the business, and he rushed after the last assailant, dealing blows to right and left, on small and great. The mob closed in on him, still avoid- ing attacks in front, but on flank and rear they hung on him, and battered at him. He had to turn sharply i-ound after every step to shake himself clear, and at each turn the press thickened, the shouts waxed louder and fiercer ; he began to get unsteady ; tottered, swayed, and' stumbled over a prostrate youth, at last went down full length onto the pavement, carrying a couple of his assailants with him. And now it would have fared hard with him, and he would scarcely have reached college^ with sound bones — for I am sorry to say an Oxford town mob is a cruel and brutal one, and a man who is down has no chance with them — but that for one moment he and his prostrate foes were so jumbled together that the town could not get at him, and the next, the cry of " Gown ! gown ! " rose high above the din ; the town were swept back again by the rush of a re-enforce- ment of gownsmen, the leader of whom seized him by the shoulders and put him on his legs again ; while his late an- tagonists crawled away to the side of the road. " Why, Brown ! " said his rescuer, — Jervis, the captain, — " this you ? Not hurt, eh ? " " Not a bit," said Tom. " Good ; come on, then ; stick to me," 120 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. In three steps they joined the rest of the gown, now number- ing some twenty men. The mob was close before them, gather'- ing for another rush. Tom felt a cruel, wild devil beginning to rise in him ; he had never felt the like before. This time he longed for the next crash, which, haijpily for him, was fated never to come oif. " Your names and colleges, gentlemen," Said a voice close behind them, at this critical moment. The " town " set up a derisive shout, and, turning round, the gownsmen found the velvet sleeves of one of the proctors at their elbows, and his satellites, vulgarly called bulldogs, taking notes, of them. They were completely caught, and so quietly gave the required information. " You will go to your colleges at once," said the proctor, " and remain within gates. You will see these gentlemen to the High Street," he added to his marshal, and then strode on after the crowd, which was vanishing down the street. The men turned and strode toward the High Street, the marshal keeping, in a deferential but wide-awake manner, pretty close to them, but without making any show of watching them. When they reached the High Street, he touched his hat, and said, civilly, " I hope you will go home now, gentle- men ; the senior proctor is very strict." " All right, marshal ; good-night," said the good-natured ones. "D — his impudence," growled one or two of tlie rest, and the marshal bustled away after his master. The men looked at one another for a moment or two. They were of different col- leges, and strangers.. The High Street was quiet ; so, without the exchange of a word, after the manner of British youth, they broke up into twos and threes, and parted. Jervis, Tom, and Drysdale, who turned up quite undamaged, sauntered together toward St. Ambrose's. "I say, where are we going?" said Drysdale. " Not to college, I vote," said Tom. " No ; there may be some more fun." " Mighty poor fun, I should say, you'll find it," said Jervis ; " however, if you will stay, I suppose I must. I can't leave you two boys by yourselves." " Come along, then, down here." So they turned down one of the courts leading out of the High Street, and so, by back streets, bore up again for the disturbed districts. " Mind and keep a sharp look-out for the proctors," said Jer- vis ; " as much row as you please, but we mustn't be caught again." MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY. 121 " Well only let us keep together, if we have to bolt." They promenaded in lonely dignity for some five minutes, keeping eyes and ears on full strain. " I tell you what," said Drysdale at last, " it isn't fair these enemies in the camp ; what with ' the town' and their stones and fists, and the proctors with their ' name and college,' we've got the wrong end of the stick." " Both wrong ends, I can tell you," said Jervis. " Holloa, Brown, your nose is bleeding." " Is it ? " said Tom, drawing his hand across his face ; " t' was that confounded little fellow, then, who ran up to my side while I was squaring at the long party. I felt a sharp crack, and the little rascal bolted into the crowd before I could turn at him." "Cut and come again," said Diysdale, laughing. " Ay that's the regular thing in these blackguai'd street squabbles. Here they come, then^" said Jervis. "Steady, They turned round to face the town, which came shouting down the street behiud them, in pursuit of one gownsman, a little, harmless, quiet fellow, who had fallen in with them on his way back to his college from a tea with his tutor, and like a wise man was giving them leg-bail as hard as he could foot it. But the little man was of a courageous, though prudent, soul, and turned, panting and gasping, on his foes the moment he found himself among friends again. " Now then, stick together ; don't let them get round us," said Jervis. They walked steadily down the street, which was luckily a narrow one, so that three of them could keep the whole of it, halting and showing front every few yards, when the crowd pressed too much. " Down with them ! Town, town ! That's two as was in the show." " Mark the velvet-capped chap. Town, town ! " shouted the hinder part of the mob ; but it was a rabble of boys, as before, and the front rank took very good care of itself and forebore close quarters. The small gownsman had now got his wind again, and, smart- ing under the ignominy of his recent flight, was always a pace or two nearer the crowd than the other three, ruffling up like a little bantam, and shouting defiance between the catchings of his breath. " You vagabonds ! you cowards ! Come on now;, I say ! Gown, gown ! " And at last, emboldened by the repeated halts of the mob and thirsting for revenge, he made a dash at one of the nearest of the enemy. The suddenness of the attack took both 122 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. sides by surprise, then came a rush by two or three of the town to the rescue. " No, no ! stand back — one at a time," shouted the captain, throwing himself between the combatants and the mob. " Go it, little 'uu ; serve him out. Keep the rest back, boys ; steady ! " Tom and Drysdale faced toward the crowd, while the little gownsman and his antagonist — who defended himself vigor- ously enough now — came to close quarters, in the rear of the gown line, too close to hurt one another, but what with hug- ging and cuffing, the townsman in another half -minute was sit- ting quietly on the pavement with his back against the wall, his enemy squaring in front of him, and daring him to renew the combat. " Get up, you coward ; get up, I say, you coward ! He won't get up," said, the little man, eagerly turning to the cap- tain. " Shall I give him a kick ? " " No, let the cur alone," replied Jervis. "Now, do any more of you want to fight ? Come on, like men, one at a time. I'll fight any man in the crowd." Whether the challenge would have been answered must rest uncertain ; for now the crowd began to look back, and a cry arose, " Here they are ! proctors ! now they'll run." "So we must, by Jove, Brown," said the captain. " What's your college ? " to the little hero. " Pembroke." " Cut away, then ; you're close at home." " Very well, if I must ; good-night," and away went the small man as fast as he had come ; Imd I have never heard that he came to further grief or performed other feats that night not here set down. " Hang it, don't let's run," said Drysdale. " Is it the proctors ? " said Tom. " I can't see them." " Mark the bloody -faced one ; kick him over," sang out a voice in the crowd. " Thankee," said Tom, savagely. " Let's have one rush at them." " Look ! there's the proctor's cap just through them ; come along, boys — well, stay if you like, and be rusticated, I'm off ; " and away went Jervis, and the next moment Tom and Drys- dale followed the good example, and as they had to run, made the best use of their legs, and in two minutes were well ahead of their pursuers. They turned a corner. "Here, Brown ! a light in this public, cut in and it's all right." Next moment they were in the dark passage of a quiet little inn, and heard with a chuckle part of the crowd scurry by the door in pursuit, THE CAPTAIN S NOTIONS. 123 while they themselves "suddenly appeared in the neat little bar to the no small astonishment of its occupants. These were a stout, elderly woman in spectacles, who was stitching- away at plain work in an armchair on one side of the fire ; the foreman of one of the great boat -builders, who sat opposite her, smok- ing his pipe, with a long glass of clear ale at his elbow ; and a blight-eyed, neat-handed barmaid, who was leaning against the table and talking to the others as they entered. CHAPTER XII. THE captain's NOTIONS. The old lady dropped her work, the barmaid turned round with a start and little ejaculation, and the foreman stared with all his eyes for a moment, and then, jumping up, exclaimed : " Bless us, if it isn't Muster Drysdale and Muster Brown, of Ambrose's. Why, what's the matter, sir ? Muster Brown, you be all covered wi' blood, sir." " Oh, dear me ? poor young gentleman ! " cried the hostess. " Here, Patty, run and tell Dick to go for the doctor, and get the best room ! " " No, please don't ; it's nothing at all," interrupted Tom, laughing. " A basin of cold water and a towel, if you please, Miss Patty, and I shall be quite presentable in a minute. I'm very sorry to have frightened you all." Drysdale joined in assurances that it was nothing but a little of his friend's " claret," which lie would be all the better for losing, and watched with an envious eye the interest depicted in Patty's pretty face, as she hurried in with a basin of fresh pumped water, and held the towel while Tom bathed his face, and very soon was as respectable a member of society as usual, save for a slight swelling on one side of his nose. Drysdale, meantime, seated on the table, had been explaining the circumstances to the landlady and the foreman, whose re- flections on the occasion I shall not trouble my readers with, though they were full of wisdom. " And now, ma'am," said he, as Tom joined them and seated himself on a vacant chair, " I'm sure you must draw famous ale." " Indeed, sir, I think Dick — that's my ostler, sir — is as good a brewer as is in the town. We always brew at home, sir, and I hope always shall." ■ " Quite right, ma'am, quite right," said Drysdale ; " and I dou't think we q^n do better than follow Jem, here. Let us 124 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. have a jug of the same ale as he is drinking. And you'll take a glass with us, Jem ? or will you have spirits ? " Jem was for another glass of ale, and bore witness to its be- ing the best in Oxford, and Patty drew the ale, and supplied two more long glasses. Diysdale, with apologies, produced his cigar-case ; and Jem, under the influence of the ale and a first-rate Havana (for which he deserted his pipe, though he did not enjoy it half as much), volunteered to go and rouse the yard and conduct them safely back to college. This offer was, of course, politely declined, and then, Jem's hour for bed having come, he, being a methodical man, as became his po- sition, departed, and left our two young friends in sole pos- session of the bar. Nothing could have suited the two young gentlemen better, and they set to work to make themselves agreeable. They listened with livelj^ interest to the landlady's statement of the difficulties of a widow-woman in a house like hers, and to her praises of her factotum Dick and her niece Patty. They applauded her resolution of not bringing up her two boys in the publican line, though they could offer no very available advice in answer to her appeals for advice as to what trade they sliould be put to ; all trades were so full, and things were not as they used to be. The one thing, apparently, which was wanting to the happiness of Drysdale at Oxford, was the discovery of such beer as he had at last found at " The Choughs." Dick was to come up to St. Ambrose's the first thing in the morning and carry off his barrel, which would never contain in future any other liquid. At last that worthy appeared in the bar to know when he was to shut up, and was sent out by his mistress to see that the street was clear, for which service he received a shilling, though his offer of escort was declined. And so, after paying in a splendid manner for their entertain- ment, they found themselves in the street, and set off for col- lege, agreeing on the way that "The Choughs" was a great find, the old lady the best old soul in the world, and Patty the prettiest girl in Oxford. They found the streets quiet, and walk- ing quickly along them, knocked at the college gates at half -past eleven. The stout porter received them with a long face. " Senior proctor's sent down here an hour back, gentlemen, to find whether you was in college." " You don't mean that, porter ? How kind of him ? What did you say ? " " Said I didn't know, sir ; but the marshal said, if you come in after that you was to go tg the senjor proQtor's at half -past nine tp morrow," THE captain's notions. 125 " Send my compliments to the senior proctor," said Drys- dale, " and say I've a very particular engagement to-morrow morning, which will prevent my having the pleasure of calling on him." " Very good, sir," said the porter, giving a little dry chuckle, and tapping the keys against his leg ; " only perhaps you wouldn't mind writing him a note, sir, as he's rather a particu- lar gentleman." " Didn't he send after anyone else ? " said Tom. " Yes, sir, Mr. Jervis, sir." " Well, and what about him." " Oh sir, Mr. Jervis ! an old hand, sir. He'd been in gates a long time, sir, when the marshal came." " The sly old beggar ! " said Drysdale. " Good-night, por- ter. Mind you send my message to the proctor. If he is set on seeing me to-morrow, you can say that he'll find a broiled chicken and a hand at picquet in my rooms, if he likes to drop in to lunch." The porter looked after them for a moment, and then retired to his deep old chair in the lodge, pulled his night-cap over his eai'S, put up his feet before the fire on a high stool, and folded his hands on his lap. " The most impidentest thing on the face of the earth is a gen'l'man-commoner in his first year," solilo- quized the little man. " 'Twould ha' done that one a sight of good,now, if he'd got a good hiding in the street, to-night. But he's better than most on 'em, too," he went on ; " uncommon free with his tongue, but just as free with his half-sovereigns. Well, I'm not going to peach, if the proctor don't send again in the morning. That sort's good for the college ; makes things brisk : has his windirom town, and don't keep no keys. I won- der, now, if my Peter's been out fighting. He's pretty nigh as hard to manage, is that boy, as if he was at college hisself ." And so muttering over his domestic and professional griev- ances, the small janitor composed himself to a nap. I may add, parenthetically, that his hopeful Peter, a precocious youth of seventeen, scout's boy on No. 3 Staircase of St. Ambrose's College, was represented in the boot-cleaning and errand line by a substitute for some days ; and when he returned to duty was minus a front tooth. " What fools we were not to stick to the captain. I wonder what we shall get," said Tom, who was troubled in his mind at the proctor's message, and not gifted naturally with the reck- lessness and contempt of authority which in Drysd^le'g case approached the sublime, 126 TOM BEOWN AT OXrOED. " Who cares ? I'll be bound now the old fox came straight home to earth. Let's go and knock him up." Tom assented, for he was anxious to consult Jervis as to his proceedings in the morning ; so they soon found themselves drumming at his oak, which was opened shortly by the stroke in an old boating-jacket. They followed him in." At one end of his table stood his tea-service and the remains of his com- mons, which the scout had not cleai'ed away ; at the other open books, note-books, and maps showed that the captain read, as he rowed, " hard all." " Well, are you two only just in ? " " Only just, my captain," answered Drysdale. " Have you been well thrashed, then ? You don't look much damaged." " We are innocent of fight since your sudden departure — flight, shall I call it ? — my captain." " Where have you been, then ? " " Where ! why in the paragon of all pothouses ; snug little bar with red curtains ; stout old benevolent female in spectacles ; barmaid a houri ; and for malt, the most touching tap in Oxford — home-brewed, too, wasn't it, Brown ? " " Yes, the beer was undeniable," said Tom. " Well, and you dawdled there till now ? " said Jervis. " Even so. What with mobs that wouldn't fight fair, and captains who would run away, and proctors and marshals who would interfere, we were ' perfectly disgusted with the whole proceeding,' as the Scotchman said when he was sentenced to be hanged." "Well, Heaven, they say, protects children, sailors, and drunken men ; and whatever answers to Heaven in the aca- demical system protects freshmen," remarked Jervis. " Not us, at any rate," said Tom, " for we are to go to the proctor to-morrow morning." " What, did he catch you in your famous public ? " " No ; the marshal came round to the porter's lodge, asked if we were in, and left word that, if we wei'e not, we were to go to him in the morning. The porter told us j ust now as we came in." " Pshaw," said the captain, with disgust ; " now you'll both be gated probably, and the whole crew will be thrown out of gear. Why couldn't you have come home when I did ? " " We do 'not propose to attend the levee of that excellent person in office to-morrow morning," said Drysdale. " He will forget all about it. Old Copas won't say a word — catch him. Jle gets too much out of me for that." THE Captain's notions. 121 "Well, you'll see ; I'll back the proctor's memory." "But, captain, what are you going to stand?" "Stand ! nothing, unless you like a cup of cold tea. You'll get no wine or spirits here at this time of night, and the buttery is shut. Besides, you've had quite as much beer as is good for you at your paragon public." " Come, now, captain, just two glasses of sherry, and I'll promise to go to bed." " Not a thimbleful." " You old tyrant ! " said Drysdale, hopping ofE his perch on the elbow of the sofa. " Come along, Bi-own, let's go and draw for some supper and a hand at Van-John. There's sure to be some going up my staircase ; or, at any rate, there's a cool bottle of claret in my rooms." " Stop and have a talk. Brown," said the captain, and pre- vailed against Drysdale, who, after another attempt to draw Tom off, departed on his quest for drink and cards. "He'll never do for the boat, I'm afraid," said the captain ; " with his rascally late hours, and drinking, and eating all sorts of trash one atop of the other. It's a pity, too, for he's a pretty oar for his weight." " He is such uncommon good company, too," said Tom. "Yes ; but I'll tell you what. He's just a leetle too good company for you and me, or any fellows who mean to take a degree. Let's see, this is only his third term ? I'll give him, perhaps, two more to make the place too hot to hold him. Take my word for it, be'll never get to his little go." " It will be a great pity, then," said Tom. " So it will. But after all, you see, what does it matter to him ? He gets rusticated ; takes his name off with a flourish of trumpets — what then ? He falls back on £5000 a year in land, and a good accumulation in consols ; runs abroad, or lives in town for a year. Takes the hounds when he comes of age, or is singled out by some discerning constituency, and sent to make laws for his country, having spent the whole of his life hitherto in breaking all the laws he ever came under. You and T, perhaps, go fooling about with him, and get rusti- cated. We make our friends miserable. We can't take our names off, but have to come cringing back at the end of our year marked men. Keep our tails between our legs for the rest of our time. Lose a year at our professions,, and most likely have the slip casting up against us in one way or another for the next twenty years. It's like the old story of the giant and the dwarf, or like fighting a sweep, or any other one-sided business." 128 T0M BKOWN AT OXFOEO. " But I'd sooner have to fight my own way in the world after all ; wouldn't you ? " said Tom. " H — m — m ! " said the captain, throwing himself back in his chair and smiling; "can't answer off-hand. I'm a third-year man, and begin to see the other side rather clearer than I did when I was a freshman like you. Three years at Oxford, my boy, will teach you something of what rank and money count for, if they teach you nothing else." " Why, here's the captain singing the same song as Hardy," thought Tom. " So you two have to go to the proctor to-morrow ? " " Yes," " Shall you go ? Drysdale won't." " Of course I shall. It seems to me childish not to go, as if I were back in the lower-school again. To tell you the truth, the being sent for isn't pleasant ; but the other I couldn't stand." " Well, I dojj't feel anything of that sort. But I think you're right on the whole. The chances are that he'll remem- ber your name, and send for you again, if you don't go ; and then you'll be worse off." "You don't think he'll rusticate us, or anything of that sort ? " said Tom, who had felt horrible twinges at the captain's picture of the effects of rustication on ordinary mortals. " No ; not unless he's in a very bad humor. I was caught three times in one night in my freshman's term, and only got an imposition." " Then I don't care," said Tom. " But it's a bore to have been caught in so seedy an affair ; if it had been a real good row, one wouldn't have minded so much." " Why, what did you expect ? It was neither better nor worse than the common run of such things." " Well, but three parts of the crowd were boys." " So they are always — or nine times out of ten, at any rate." " But there was no real fighting ; at least, I only know I got none." " There isn't any real fighting, as you call it, nine times out of ten." " What is there, then ? " " Why, something of this sort. Five shopboys or scouts' boys, full of sauciness, loitering at an-out-of-the-way street cornel'. Enter two freshmen, full of dignity and bad wine. Explosion of inflammable material. Freshmen mobbed into High Street or Broad Street, where the tables are turned by the gathering of many more freshmen, and the mob of town tHE CAPTAINS NOTIONS. 129 boys quietly subsides, puts its hands in its pockets, and ceases to shout ' Town, town ! ' The triumphant freshmen march up and down for perhaps half an hour, shouting ' Gown, gown,' and looking furious, but not half sorry that the mob vanishes like mist at their approach. Then come the proctors, who hunt down, and break up the gown in some half -hour or hour. The ' town' again marches about in the ascendant, and mobs the scattered freshmen, wherever they can be caught, in very small numbers." " But with all your chaff about freshmen, captain, you were in it yourself to-night ; come now." " Of course I had to look after you two boys." " But you didn't know we were in it when you came up." " I was sure to find some of you. Besides, I'll admit one don't like to go in while there's any chance of a real row, as you call it, and so gets proctorized in one's old age for one's patriotism." "Were you ever in a real row ?" said Tom. " Yes, once, about a year ago. The fighting numbers were about equal, and the town all grown men, laborers and me- chanics. It was desperate hai'd work, none of your shouting and promenading. That Hardy, one of our Bible clerks, fought like a Paladin ; I know I shifted a fellow in corduroys on to him, whom I had found an uncommon tough customer, and never felt better pleased in my life tlian when I saw the light glance on his hobnails as he went over into the gutter two minutes afterward. It lasted, perhaps, ten minutes, and both sides were very glad to draw off." " But of course you licked them ? " " We said we did." " Well, I believe that a gentleman will always lick in a fair fight." " Of course you do ; it's the orthodox belief." "But don't you?" " Yes, if he is as big and strong, and knows how to fight as well as the other. The odds are that he cares a little more for giving in, and that will pull him through." " That isn't saying much, though." "No, but it's quite as much as is true. I'll tell you what it is, I think just this, that we are generally better in the fighting way than shopkeepers, clerks, flunkies, and all fellows who don't work hard with their bodies all day. But the moment you come to the real hard-fisted fellow, used to nine or ten hours' work a day, he's a cruel hard customer. Take seventy 130 TOM BEOWN At OXFOilB. or eighty of them at haphazard, the first you meet, and turn them into St. Ambrose any morning — by night I take it they would be lords of this venerable establishment, if we had to fight for the possession ; except, perhaps, for that Hardy ; he's one of a thousand, and was born for a fighting man ; perhaps he might pull us through." " Why don't you try him in the boat ? " " Miller manages all that. I spoke to him about it after that row, but he said that Hardy had refused to subscribe to the club, said he couldn't afford it, or something of the sort. I don't see why that need matter, myself, but I suppose, as we have rules, we ought to stick to them." " It's a great pity, though. I know Hardy well, and you can't think what a fine- fellow he is." " I'm sure of that. I tried to know him, and we don't get on badly as speaking acquaintance. But he seems a queer, solitary bird." Twelve o'clock struck ; so Tom wished the captain good- night and departed, meditating much on what he had heard and seen, but not yet quite persuaded to give up his romantic beliefs as to town and gown rows. The reader, too, will be outraged, no doubt, and will demur to the prosaic, not to say vulgar, sketch here submitted to him. He will resent the absence of terrific single combats, in which the descendant of a hundred earls polishes off the huge repre- sentative of the masses in the most finished style, without a scratch on his own aristocratic features. Well, well ! a man can only describe what he has seen with his own eyes and known in his own heart — at least, if he is a true man. At any rate, Tom went to bed that night fairly sickened with his experience of a town and gown row, and with a nasty taste in his mouth. But he felt much pleased at having drawn out the captain so completely ; for the stroke was in general a man of marvelous few words, having many better uses than talking to put his breath to. Next morning Tom attended at the proctor's rooms at the appointed time, not without some feeling of shame at having to do so ; which, however, wore off when he found some dozen men of other colleges waiting about on the same errand as himself. In his turn, he was ushered in, and, as he stood by the door, had time to look the great man over as he sat mak- ing a note of the case he had just disposed of. The inspec- tion was reassuring. The proctor was a gentlemanly, straight- THE captain's notions. 131 forward-looking man of about thirty, not at all donnish, and his address answered to his appearance. " Mr. Brown, of St Ambrose's, I think," he said. "Yes, sir." " I sent you to your college yesterday evening ; did you go straight home ? " "No, sir." " How was that, Mr. Brown ? " Tom made no answer, and the proctor looked at him steadily for a few seconds, and then repeated : " How was that ? " " Well, sir," said Tom, " I don't mean to say I was going straight to college, but I should have been in long before you sent, only I fell in with the mob again, and then there was a ciy that you were coming. And so " He paused. " "Well," said the proctor, with a grim sort of curl about the corners of his mouth. " Why, I ran away, and turned into the first place which was open and stopped till the streets were quiet." " A public house, I suppose." "Yes, sir ; the ' Choughs.' " The proctor considered a minute, and again scrutinized Tom's look and manner, which certainly were straightforward and without any tinge of cringing or insolence. " How long have you been up ? " " This is my second term, sir." "You have never been sent to me before, I think?" " Never, sir." " Well, I can't overlook this, as you yourself confess to a direct act of disobedience. You must write me out two hun- dred lines of Virgil. And now, Mr. Brown, let me advise you to keep out of these disreputable street quarrels in future. Good-morning." Tom hurried away, wondering what it would feel like to be writing out Virgil again as a punishment at his time of life, but glad above measure that the proctor had asked him no questions about his companion. That hero was, of course, mightily tickled at the result, and seized the occasion to lec- ture Tom' on his future conduct, holding himself up as a living example of the benefits which were sure to accrue to a man who, never did anything he was told to do. The soundness of his reasoning, however, was somewhat shaken by the dean, who, on that same afternoon, managed to catch him in quad ; and carrying him off, discoursed with him coucerning his 132 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. various and systematic breaches of discipline, pointed out to him that he had ah-eady made sucli good use of his time that if he were to be discommonsed for three days more he would lose his term; and then took off his cross, gave him a book of Virgil to write out, and gated him for a fortnight after hall. Drysdale sent out his scout to order his punishment as he might have ordered a waistcoat, presented old Copas with a half-sovereign, and then dismissed punishment and gating from his mind at once. He cultivated with great success the science of mental gymnastics, or throwing everything the least unpleasant off his mind at once. And I cannot but allow that it is a science worthy of all cultivation, if one desires to lead a comfortable life. It gets harder, however, as the years roll over us to attain to any satisfactory proficiency in it ; so that it should be mastered as early in life as may be. The town and gown row was the talk of the college for the next week. Tom, of course, talked much about it, like his neighbors, and confided to one-and another the captain's here- sies. They were all incredulous ; for no one had ever heard him talk as much in a term as Tom reported him to have done on this one evening. So it was resolved that he should be taken to task on the subject on the first opportunity, and as nobody was afraid of him, there was no difficulty in finding the man to bell the cat. Accordingly, at the next wine of the boating set, the captain had scarcely entered when he was assailed by the host with : " Jervis, Brown says you don't believe a gentleman can lick a cad, unless he is the biggest and strongest of the two." The captain, who hated coming out with his beliefs, shrugged his shoulders, sipped his wine, and tried to turn the subject. But, seeing that they were all bent on drawing him out, he was not the man to run from his guns ; and so said, quietly : " No more I do." Notwithstanding the reverence in which he was held, this saying could not be allowed to pass, and a dozen voices were instantly raised, and a dozen authentic stories told to confuse him. He listened patiently and then, seeing that he was in for it, said : " Never mind fighting. Try something else ; cricket, for in- stance. The players generally beat the gentlemen; don't they?" " Yes ; but they are professionals." " Well, and we don't often get a university crew which can beat the watermen." " Professionals again," THE captain's notions. 133 "I believe the markers are the best tennis-players, aint they?" persevered the captain ; " and I generally find keepers and huntsmen shooting and riding better than their masters ; don't you?" " But that's not fair. All the cases you put are those of men who have nothing else to do, who live by the things which gentlemen only take up for pleasure." " I only say that the cads, as you call them, manage, some- how or another, to do them best," said the captain. " How about the army and navy ? The officers always lead." " Well, there they're all professionals, at any rate," said the captain. " I admit the officers lead ; but the men follow pretty close. And in a forlorn hope there are fifty men to one officer, after all." " But they must be lead. The men will never go without an officer to lead." " It's the officers' business to lead, I know ; and they do it. But you won't find the best judges talking as if the men wanted much leading. Read Napier : the finest story in his book is of the sergeant who gave his life for his boy officer's — your name- sake, Brown, at the Coa." " Well, I never thought to hear you ciying down gentlemen." "I'm not crying down gentlemen," said the captain. "I only say that a gentlemen's flesh and blood and brains are just the same, and no better, than another man's. He has all the chances on his side in the way of training, and pretty near all the prizes ; so it would be hard if he didn't do most things bet- ter than poor men. But give them the chance of training, and they will tread on his heels soon enough. That's all I say." That was all, certainly, that the captain said, and then relapsed into his usual good-tempered, monosyllabic state ; from which all the eager talk of the dozen men, who took up the cudgels naturally enough for their own class, and talked themselves, before the wine broke up, into a renewed con- sciousness of their natural superiority, failed again to rouse him. This was, in fact, the captain's weak point, if he had one. He had strong beliefs himself ; one of the strongest of which was that nobody could be taught anything except by his own experience ; so he never, or very rarely, exercised his own per- sonal influence, but just quietly went his own way, and let men go theirs. Another of his beliefs was, that there was no man or thing in the world too bad to be tolerated ; faithfully act- ing up to which belief, the captain himself tolerated persons and things intolerable. 134 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. Bearing which facts in mind, the reader will easily guess the result of the application which the crew duly made to him the day after Miller's back was turned. He simply said that the training they proposed would not be enough, and that he himself should take all who chose to go down to Abingdon twice a week. Prom that time there were many defaulters ; and the spirit of Diogenes groaned within him, as day after day the crew had to be filled up from the toi-pid or by water- men. Drysdale would ride dOwn to Sand:^rd, meeting the boat on its way up, and then take his place for the pull up to Ox- ford, while his groom rode his horse up to Folly Bridge to meet him ; there he would mount again, and ride off to BuU- ingdon, or to the Isis, or , Quentin, or other social meeting equally inimical to good training. Blake often absented him- self three days in a week, and other men once or twice. From considering which facts, Tom came to understand the differences between his two heroes ; their strong likeness in many points he had seen from the first. They were alike in truthfulness, bravery, bodily strength, and in most of their opin- ions. But Jervis worried himself about nothing, and let all men and things alone, in the belief that the world was not go- ing so very wrong, or would right itself somehow without him. Hardy, on the other hand, was consuming his heart over every- thing that seemed to him to be going wrong in himself and round about him — in the college, in Oxford, in England, in the ends of the earth, and never letting slip a chance of trying to set right here a thread, and there a thread; a self -questioning, much-enduring man ; a slayer of dragons himself, and one with whom you could not live much without getting uncom- fortably aware of the dragons which you also had to slay. What wonder that, apart altogether from the difference in their social position, the one man was ever becoming more and more popular, while the other was left more and more to him- self. There are few of us, I believe, at Oxford, or elsewhere, who do not like to see a man living a brave and righteous life, so long as he keeps clear of them, and still fewer who do like to be in constant contact with one, who not content with so living himself, is always coming across them, and laying bare to them their own faintheartedness and sloth and meanness. . The latter, I admit, inspires the deeper feeling, and lays hold with a firmer grip of the men he does lay hold of, but they are few. For men can't keep always up to high pressure till they have found firm ground to build upon, altogether outside of themselves ; and it is hard to be thankful and fair to those THE captain's NOTIONS. l36 ■who are showing us time after time that our foothold is noth- ing but shifting sand. The contrast between Jervis and Hardy now began to force itself daily more and more on our heroes attention. From the night of the town and gown row, " The Choughs " became a i-egular haunt of the St. Ambrose crew, who were taken there under the guidance of Tom and Drysdale the next day. Not content with calling there on his way from the boats, there was seldom an evening now that Torn did not manage to drop in and spend an hour there. When one is very much bent on doing a thing, it is gen- erally easy enough to find very good reasons, or excuses, at any rate, for it ; and whenever any doubts crossed Tom's mind, he silenced them by the reflection that the time he spent at " The Choughs " would otherwise have been devoted to wine parties or billiards ; and it was not difficult to persuade himself that his present occupation was the more wholesome of the two. He could not, however, feel satisfied tUl he had mentioned his change in life to Hardy. This he found a much more em- barrassing matter than he had fancied it would be. But after one or two false starts, he managed to get out, that he had found the best glass of ale in Oxford, at a quiet little public on the way to the boats, kept by the most perfect of old widows, with a factotum of an ostler, who was a regular character, and that he went there most evenings for an hour or so. Wouldn't Hardy come some night ? No, Hardy couldn't spare the time. Tom felt rather relieved at this answer, but, nevertheless, went on to urge the excellence of the ale as a further induce- ment. " I don't believe it's half so good as our college beer, and I'll be bound it's half as dear again." " Only a penny a pint deai-er," said Tom ; " that won't ruin you. All the crew go there." " If I were the captain," said Hardy, "I wouldn't let you run about drinking ale at night after wine parties. Does he know about it?" " Yes, and goes there himself often on his way from the boat," said Tom. "And at night, too?" said Hardy. " No," said Tom ; " but I don't go there after drinking wine ; I haven't been to a wine this ten days, at least, nor for more than five minutes." " Well, sound ale is better than Oxford wine," said Hardy, 136 *0M BEOWN AT OSI'OBD. " if you must drink something." And so the subject dropped. And Tom went away, satisfied that Hardy had not disap- proved of his new habit. It certainly occurred to him that he had omitted all mention of the pretty barmaid in his enumera- tion of the attractions of " The Choughs," but this he set down to mere accident ; it was a slip which he would set right in their next talk. But that talk never came, and the subject was not again mentioned between them. In fact, to tell the truth, Tom's visits to his friend's room in the evenings became shorter and less frequent as " The Choughs " absorbed more and more of his time. He made excuses to himself that Hardy must be glad of more time, and would be only bored if he kept drop- ping in every night, now that the examination for degree was so near ; that he was sure he drove Grey away, who would be of much more use to Hardy just now. These, and many other plausible reasons suggested themselves whenever his conscience smote him for his neglect, as it did not seldom ; and he always managed to satisfy himself somehow, without admitting the real fact, tliat these visits were no longer what they had been to him, that a gulf had sprung up and was widening day by day between him and the only friend who would have had the courage and honesty to tell him the truth about his new pur- suit. Meantime Hardy was much pained at the change in his friend, which lie saw quickly enough, and often thought over it with a sigh as he sat at his solitary tea, and set it down to his own dullness, to the number of new friends whom such a sociable fellow as Tom was sure to make, and who, of course, would take up more and more of his time ; and, if he felt a little jealousy every now and then, put it resolutely back, struggling to think no evil, or if there were any, to lay it on his own shoulders. Cribbage is a most virtuous and respectable game, and yet scarcely, one would think, possessing in itself sufficient attrac- tions to keep a young gentleman in his twentieth year tied to the board, and going through the quaint calculation night after night of " fifteen two, fifteen four, two for his nob, and one for his heels." The landlady of " The Choughs " liked noth- ing so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter be- hind his companions for his quiet game ; chatting pleasantly while the old lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the nightly stake of sixpence, which he seldom failed tHE E'IKSf BUMP. 13 Y to lose, and laughingly wrangling with her over the last points in the game, which decided the transfer of the two sixpences [duly posted in the snuffer-tray beside the cribbage-board] into his waistcoat pocket or her bag, until she would take off her spectacles to wipe them, and sink back in her chair ex- hausted with the pleasing excitement. Such an odd taste as it seemed, too, a bystander might rea- sonably have thought, when he might have been employing his time so much more pleasantly in the very room. For, flitting in and out of the bar during the game, and every now and then stooping over the old lady's shoulder to examine her hand and exchange knowing looks with her, was the lithe little figure of Miss Patty, with her oval face, and merry eyes, and bright brown hair, and jaunty little cap, with fresh blue ribbons of the shade of the St. Ambrose colors. However, there is no ac- counting for tastes, and it is fortunate that some like apples and some onions. It may possibly be, too, that Miss Patty did not feel herself neglected, or did not care about attention. Perhaps she may not have been altogether unconscious that every least motion and word of hers was noticed, even when the game \?as at its keenest. At any rate, it was clear enough that she and Tom were on the best terms, though she always took the aunt's part vehemently in any little dispute which arose, and sometimes even came to the rescue at the end, and recaptured the vanished sixpences out of the wrongful grasp which he generally laid on them the moment the old lady held out her hand and pronounced the word "game." One knows that size has little to do with strength, or one might have won- dered that her little hands should have been able to open his fingers so surely one by one, though he seemed to do all he could to keep them shut. But, after all, if he really thought he had a right to the money, he had always time to put it in his pocket at once, instead of keeping his clinched hand on the table, and arguing about till she had time to get up to the suc- cor of her aunt. CHAPTER XIII. THE FIKST BUMP. "What's the time. Smith ? " " Half-past three, old fellow," answered Diogenes, looking at his watch. " I never knew a day go so slowly," said Tom; " isn't it time to go down to the boats ? " 136 *0M teEOWN At 6XP0itB. " Not by two hours and more, old fellow. Can't you take a book, or something, to keep you quiet ? You won't be fit for anything by six o'clock, if you go on worrying like this." And so Diogenes turned himself to liis flute, and blew away, to all appearances as composedly as if it had been tlie first week of term, though, if the truth must be told, it was all he could do not to get. up and wander about in a feverish and distracted state, for Tom's restlessness infected him. Diogenes' whole heart was in the college boat; and so, though he had pulled dozens of races in his time, he was almost as nerv- ous as a freshman on this the first day of the races. Tom, all unconscious of the secret discomposure of the other, threw him- self into a chair, and looked at him with wonder and envy. The flute went " toot, toot, toot," till he could stand it no longer; so he got up and went to the window, and leaning out, looked up and down the street for some minutes in a purposeless sort of fashion, staring hard at everybody and everything, but un- conscious all the time that he was doing so. He would not have been able, in fact, to answer Diogenes a word, had that worthy inquired of him what he had seen, when he presently drew in his head and returned to his fidgety ramblings about the room. " How hot the sun is ! but there's a stiff breeze from the southeast. I hope it will go down before the evening; don't you ? " "Yes; this wind will make it very rough below the Gut. Mind you feather high now at starting." " I hope to goodness I shan't catch a crab," said Tom. " Don't think about it, old fellow; that's your best plan." " But I can't think of anything else " said Tom. " What the deuce is the good of telling a fellow not to think about it?" Diogenes, apparently, had nothing particular to reply, for he put his flute to his mouth again ; and at the sound of the " toot, toot," Tom caught up his gown and fled away into the quad- rangle. Tiie crew had had their early dinner of steaks and chops, stale bread, and a glass and a half of old beer apiece, at two o'clock, in the captain's rooms. The current theory of train- ing at that time was — as much meat as you can eat, the more underdone the better, and the smallest amount of drink upon which you could manage to live. Two pints in the twenty- four hours was all that most boats' crews that pretended to train at all were allowed, and for the last fortnight it had been *BE FIRST BUMP. 139 the nominal allowance of the St. Ambrose crew. The discom- fort of such a diet in the hot summer months, when you were at the same time taking regular and violent exercise, was some- thing very serious. Outraged human nature rebelled against it; and, I take it, though they did not admit it in public, there were very few men who did not rush to their water-bottles for relief, more or less ofteb, according to the development of their bumps of conscientiousness and obstinacy. To keep to the diet at all strictly, involved a very respectable amount of physical endurance. I am thankful to hear that our successors have found out the unwisdom of this, as of other old superstitions, and that in order to get a man into training for a boat-race nowadays, it is not thought of the first importance to keep him in a constant state of consuming thirst, and the re"8tless- ness of body and sharpness of temper which thirst generally induces. Tom appreciated the honor of being in the boat in his first year so keenly, that he had almost managed to keep to his training allowance, and consequently, now that the eventful day had arrived, was in a most uncomfortable state of body and disagreeable frame of mind. He fled away from Diogenes' flute, but found no rest. He tried Di-ysdale. That hero was lying on his back on his sofa playing with Jack, and only increased Tom's thirst and soured his temper by the viciousness of his remarks on boatings and every thing and person connected therewith ; above all, on Miller, who had just come up, had steered theni the day be- fore, and pronounced the crew generally, and Drysdale in par- ticular, " not half trained." Blake's oak was sported, as usual. Tom looked in at the captain's door, but found him hard at work reading, and so carried himself off ; and, after a vain hunt after others of the crew, and even trying to sit down and read, first a novel, then a. play of Shakespeare, with no success whatever, wandered away out of the college, and found himself in five minutes, by a natural and irresistible attraction, on the University barge. There were half a dozen men or so reading the papers, and a group or two discussing the coming races. Among other tilings, the chances of St. Ambrose's making a bump the first night were weighed. Everyone joined in praising the stroke, but there were great doubts whether the crew could live up to it. Tom carried hinself on to the top of the barge to get out of hearing, for listening made his heart beat and his throat dryer than ever. He stood on the top and looked right away 140 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOED. down to the Gut, the strong wind blowing his gown about. Not even a pai.r oar was to be seen ; the great event of the evening made the river a solitude at this time of day. Only one or two skiffs were coming home, impelled by reading men, who took their constitutionals on the water, and were coming in to be in time for afternoon chapel. The fastest and best of these soon came near enough for Tom to recognize Hardy's stroke ; so he left the barge and went down to meet the ser- vitor at his landing, and accompanied him to the St. Ambrose dressing^'oom. " Well, how do you feel for the race to-night ? " said Hardy, as he dried his neck and face, which he had been sluicing with cold water, looking as hard and bright as a racer on Derby day. " Oh; wretched ! I'm afraid I shall break down," said Tom, and poured out some of his doubts and miseries. Hardy soon comforted him greatly ; and by the time they were half across Christ Church meadow he was quite in heart again, for he knew how well Hardy understood rowing, and what a sound judge he was, and it was therefore cheering to hear that he thought they were certainly the second best, if not the best, boat on the river, and that they would be sure to make some bumps un- less they bad accidents. " But that's just what I fear so," said Tom. " I'm afraid I shall make some awful blunder." " Not you ! " said Hardy ; " only remember ; don't you fancy you can pull the boat by yourself, and go trying to do it. That's where young oars fail. If you keep thorough good time you'll be pretty sure' to be doing your share of work. Time is every- thing, almost." " I'll be sure to think of that," said Tom. And they entered St. Ambrose just as the chapel bell was going down, and he went to chapel and then to hall, sitting by and talking for com- panionship while the rest dined. And so at last the time slipped away, and the captain and Miller mustered them at the gates and walked off to the boats. A dozen other crews were making their way in the same direc- tion, and half the undergraduates of Oxford streamed along with them. The banks of the river were crowded ; and the punts plied rapidly backward and forward, carrying loads of men over to the Berkshire side. Tlie University barge, and all the other barges, were decked with flags, and the band was playing lively airs as the St. Ambrose crew reached the scene of action. No time was lost in the dressing-room, and in two minutes THE FIRST BUMP. 141 they were all standing in flannel trousers and silk jerseys at the landing-place. " You had better keep your jackets on," said the captain ; " we shan't be off yet." " There goes Brazen-nose." " They look like work ; don't they ? " " The black and yellow seems to slip along so fast. They've no end of good colors. I wish our new boat was black." "Hang her colors, if she's only stiff in the back, and don't dip." " Well, she didn't dip yesterday. At least, the men on the bank said so." " There go Ballio] and Oriel and University." "By Jove, we shall be late ! Where's Miller ? " " In the shed getting the boat out. Look, here's Exeter." The talk of the crew was silenced for the moment as every man looked eagerly at the Exeter boat. The captain nodded to Jervis with a grim smile as they paddled gently by- Then the talk began again. " How do you think she goes ? " " Not so badly. They're very strong in the middle of the boat." " Not a bit of it ; it's all lumber." "You'll see. They're better trained then we are. They look as fine as stars." " So they ought. They've pulled seven miles to our -five for the last month, I'm sure." " Then we shan't bump them." "Why not?" " Don't you know that the value of products consists in the quantity of labor which goes to produce them ? Product, pace over course fi-om Mey up. Labor expended, Exeter, 7 ; St. Ambrose, 5. You see it is not in the nature of things that we should bump them. — Q. E. D." " What moonshine ! as if ten miles behind their stroke are worth two beliind Jervis ? " " My dear fellow, it isn't my moonshine; you must settle the matter with the philosophers. I only apply a universal law to a particular case." Tom, unconscious of the pearls of economic lore which were being poured out for the benefit of the crew, was watching the Exeter eight as it glided away toward the Cherwell. He tliought they seemed to keep horribly good time. 142 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. " Hollo, Drysdale ! look ; there's Jack going across in one of the punts." " Of course he is. You don't suppose he wouldn't go down to see the race." " Why won't Miller let us start? Almost all the boats are oflF." " There's plenty of time. We may just as well be up here as dawdling about the bank at Iffley." " We shan't go down till the last ; Miller never lets us get out down below." " Well, come ; here's the boat, at last." The new boat now emerged from its shed, guided steadily to where they were standing by Miller and a waterman. Then the coyswain got out and called for bow, who stepped forward. "Mind how you step, now ; there are no bottom boards, re- member," said Miller. " Shall I take my jacket ? " " Yes ; you had better all go down in jackets in this wind. I've sent a man down to bring them back. Now, two." " Aye, aye ! " said Drysdale, stepping forward. . Then came Tom's turn, and soon the boat was manned. "Now," said Miller, taking his place, " are all your stretchers right ? " " I should like a little more grease for my roUocks." "I'm taking some down ; we'll put it on down below. Are you all right ? " « Yes." " Then push her off — gently." The St. Ambrose boat was almost the last, so there were no punts in the way, or other obstructions ; and they swung steadily down past the University Isarge, the top of which was already covered with spectators. Every man in the boat felt as if the eyes of Europe were on him, and pulled in his very best form. Small groups of gownsmen were scattered along tlie bank of Christ Church meadow, chiefly dons.who were really interested in the races, but, at that time of day, seldom liked to display enthusiasm enough to cross the water and go down to the starting-place. These somber groups were lightened up here and there by the dresses of a few ladies, who were walking up and down, and watching the boats. At the mouth of the Cherwell were moored two punts, in wliich reclined at their ease some dozen young gentlemen, smoking ; several of these were friends of Drysdale, and hailed him as the boat passed them. THE FIRST BtTMP. 143 " What a fool I am to be here .! " he grumbled, in an under- tone, casting an envious glance at the points in their comfortable berth, up under the banks, and out of the -wind. " I say. Brown, don't you wish we were well past this on the way up ? " " Silence in the bows ! " shouted Miller. " You devil, how I hate you ! " growled Drysdale, half in jest and half in earnest, as they sped along under the willows. Tom got more comfortable at every stroke, and by the time they reached the Gut began to hope that he should not have a fit, or lose all his strength just at the start, or cut a crab, or come to some other unutterable grief, the fear of which had been haunting him all day. " Here they are at last ! — come along now — keep up with them," said Hardy to Grey, as the boat neared the Gut ; and the two, who had been waiting on the bank, trotted along downward. Hardy watching the crew, and Grey watching him. " Hardy, how eager you look ! " " I'd give twenty pounds to be going to pull in the race." Grey shambled on in silence by the side of his big friend, and wished he could.understand what it was that moved him so. As the boat shot into the Gut from under the cover of the Oxfordshire bank, the wind caught the bctws. " Feather high, now," shouted Miller ; and then added in a low voice to the captain, " it will be ticklish work starting in this wind." "Just as bad for all the other boats," answered the captain. " Well said, old philosopher ! " said Miller. " It's a comfort to steer you ; you never make a fellow nervous. I wonder if you ever felt nervous yourself, now ? " " Can't say," said the captain. " Here's our post ; we may as well turn." " Easy, bow side — now, two and four, pull her round — back water, seven and five I " shouted the coxswain ; and the boat's head swung round, and two or three strokes took in to the bank. Jack instantly made a convulsive attempt to board, but ifas sternly repulsed, and tumbled backward into the water. Hark ! — the first gun. The report sent Tom's heart into his mouth again. Several of the boats pushed off at once into the stream ; and the crowds of men on the bank began to be agi- tated, as it were, by the shadow of the coming excitement. The St. Ambrose fmgered their oars, put a last dash of grease on their roUocks, and settled their feet against the stretchers, ".Shall we push her off ? " asked bow. 144 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOKD. " No ; I can give you another minute," said Miller, who was sitting, watch in hand, in the stern ; " only be smart when I give the word." The captain turned on his seat, and looked up the boat. His face was quiet, but full of confidence, which seemed to pass from him into the crew. Tom felt calmer and stronger, as he met his eye. "Now mind, boys, don't quicken," he said, cheerily ; " four short strokes to get way on her, and then steady. Here, pass up the lemon." And he took a sliced lemon out of his pocket, put a small piece in his own mouth, and then handed it to Blake, who fol- lowed his example, and passed it on. Each man took a piece ; and just as bow had secured the end. Miller called out : " Now, jackets off, and get her head out steadily." The jackets were thrown on shore, and gathered up by the boatman in attendance. The crew poised their oars, No. 2 pushing out her head, and the captain doing the same for the stern. Miller took the starting-rope in his hand. " How the wind catches her stern," he said ; " here, pay out the rope one of you. No not you — some fellow with a strong hand. Yes, you'll do," he went on, as Hardy stepped down the bank and took hold of the rope ; " let me have it foot by foot as I want it. Not too quick ; make the most of it — that'll do. Two and three, just dip your oars in to give her way." The rope paid out steadily, and 'the boat settled to her place. But now the wind rose again, and the stern drifted in, toward the bank. " You must back her a bit. Miller, and keep her a little fur- ther out or our oars on stroke side will catch the bank." " So I see ; curse the wind. Back her, one stroke all. Back her, I say I " shouted Miller. It is no easy matter to get a crew to back her an inch just now, particularly as there are in her two men who have never rowed a race before, except in the torpids, and one who has never rowed a race in bis life. ^However, back she comes ; the starting rope slackens in Miller's left hand, and the stroke, unshipping his oar, pushes the stern gently out again. There goes the second gun ! one short minute more, and we are off. Short minute, indeed ! you wouldn't say so if you were in the boat, with your heart in your mouth and trembling all over like a man with the palsy. Those sixty seconds before starting gun in your first race — why, they are a little lifetime. " By Jove, we are drifting in again," said Miller, in horror, THE FIRST BUMP. 145 The captain looked grim but said nothing ; it was too late now for him to be unshipping again. " Here, catch hold of the long boat-hook, and fend her off." Hardy, to whom this was addressed, seized the boat-hook, and, standing with one foot in the water, pressed the end of the boat-hook against the gunwale, at the full stretch of his arm, and so, by main force, kept the stern out. There was just room for stroke oars to dip, and that was all. The start- ing rope was as taut as a harp-string ; will Miller's left hand hold out ? It is an awful moment. But the coxswain, though almost dragged backward off his seat, is equal to tlie occasion. He h(>Ids his watch in his right hand with the tiller rope. " Eight seconds more only. Look out for the flash. Re- member, all eyes in the boat." There it comes, at last — the flash of the starting gun. Long before the sound of the report can roll up the river, the whole pent-up life and energy which has been held in leash, as it were, for the last six minutes, is loose, and breaks away with a bound and a dash which he who has felt it will remember for his life, but the like of which will he ever feel again ? The starting ropes drop from the coxswains' hands, the oars flash into the water, and gleam on tlie feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats leap forward. The crowds on the banks scatter, and rush along, each keep- ing as near as may be to its own boat. Some of the men on the towing-path, some on the very edge of, often in, the water ; some slightly in advance, as if they could help to drag their boat forward ; some behind, where they can see the pulling better ; but all at full speed, in wild excitement, and shouting at the top of their voices to those on whom the honor of the college is laid. " Well pulled all ! " " Pick her up there, five . ! " " You're gaining every stroke ! " " Time in the bows ! " " Bravo, St. Ambrose ! " On they rush by the side of the boats, jostling one another, stumbling, struggling, and panting along. For a quarter of a mile along the bank the glorious, mad- dening hurly-burly extends, and rolls up the side of the stream. For the first ten strokes, Tom was in too great fear of mak- ing a mistake to feel or hear or see. His whole soul was glued to the back of the man before him, his one thought to keep time and get his strength into the stroke. But as the crew settled down into the weU-known long sweep, what we may 146 TOM BEOWliT AT OXFORD. call consciousness returned ; and, while every muscle in his body was straining, and his chest heaved, and his heart leapt, every nerve seemed to bo gatliering new life, and his senses to wake into unwonted acuteness. He caught the scent of wild thyme in the air, and found room in his brain to wonder how it could have got there, as he had never seen the plant near tlie river, or smelt it before. Though his eye never wandered f I'om tlie back of Diogenes he seemed to see all things at ouce. Tlie boat behind, which seemed to be gaining — it was all he could do to prevent himself from quickening on the stroke as he fancied that ; the eager face of Miller, with his compressed lips and eyes fixed so earnestly ahead that Tom could almost feel . the glance passing over his right shoulder ; the flying ba^)ks and the shouting crowd ; see them with his bodily eyes he could not, but he knew, nevertheless, that Grey had been upset and nearly rolled down the bank into the water in the first hundred yards, that Jack was bounding and scrambling and barking along by the very edge of the stream ; above all, he was just as well aware as if he had been looking at it, of a stal- wart form in cap and gown, bounding along, brandishing the long boat-hook, and always keeping just opposite the boat ; and amid all the Babel of voices, and the dash and pulse of the stroke, and the laboring of his own breathing, he heard Hardy's voice coming to him again and again, and clear as if there had been no other sound in the air, " steady, two ! steady ! well pulled! steady, steady." The voice seemed to give him strength and keep him to his work. And what work it was ! he had had many a hard pull in the last six weeks, but never aught like this. But it can't last forever; men's muscles are not steel, or their lungs bull's hide, and hearts can't go on pumping a hundred miles an hour long, without bursting. The St. Ambrose boat is well away from the boat behind, there is a great gap be- tween tlie accompanying crowds ; and now, as they near the Gut, she hangs for a moment or two in hand, though the roar from the bank grows louder and louder, and Tom is already aware that the St. Ambrose crowd is melting into the one aliead of them. " We must be close to Exeter ! " The thought flashes into him, and, it would seem, into the rest of the crew at the same moment; for, all at once, the strain seems taken off their arms again; there is no more drag ; she springs to the stroke as she did at the start ; and Miller's face, which had darkened for a few seconds, lightens up again. Miller's face and attitude are a study. Coiled up into the THE FIBST BUMP. 14T smallest possible space, his chin almost resting on his knees, his hands close to his sides, firmly but lightly feeling the rud- der, as a good horseman handles the mouth of a free-going hunter ; if a coxswain could make a bump by his own exertions surely he will do it. No sudden jerks of the St. Ambrose rudder will you see, watch as you will from the bank; the boat never hangs through fault of his, but easily and gracefully rounds every point. "You're gaining ! you're gaining ! " he now and then mutters to the captain, who responds with a wink, keeping his breath for other matters. Isn't he grand, the captain, as he comes forward like lighting, stroke after stroke, his back flat, his teeth set, his whole frame working from the hips with the regularity of a machine ? As the space still narrows, the eyes of the fiery little coxswain flash with excitement, but he is far too good a judge to hurry the final effort before the victory is safe in his grasp. The two crowds are mingled now, and no mistake ; and the shouts come all in a heap over the water. "Now, St. Am- brose, six strokes more." " Now, Exeter, you're gaining ; pick her up." " Mind the Gut, Exeter." " Bravo, St. Ambrose ! " The water rushes by, still eddying from the strokes of the boat ahead. Tom fancies now he can hear their oars and the work- ings of their rudder, and the voice of their coxswain. In an- other moment both boats are in the Gut, and a perfect storm of shouts reaches them from the crowd, as it rushes madly off to the left to the foot-bridge, amidst which " Oh, well steered, well steered, St. Ambrose ! " is the prevailing cry. Then Miller, motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the tassel round his head. " Give it her now, boys ; six strokes and we're into them." Old Jervis lays down that great broad back, and lashes his oar through the water with the might of a giant, the crew catch him up in another stroke, the tight new boat answers to the spurt, and Tom feels a little sliock behind him, and then a grating sound, M Miller shouts, " Unship oars, bow and three ! " and the nose of the St. Ambrose boat glides quietly up to the side of the Exeter, till it touches their stroke oar. " Take care where you're coming to." It is the coxswain of the bumped boat who speaks. Tom finds himself within a foot or too of him when he looks round ; and, being utterly unable to contain his joy, and yet unwilling to exhibit it before the eyes of a gallant rival, turns away toward the shore, and begins telegraphing to Hardy. 148 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. " Now, then, what are you at there in the bows ? Cast her off, quick. Come, look alive ! Push across at once out of the way of the other boats." " I congratulate you, Jervis," says the Exeter sti'oke, as the St. Ambrose boat shoots past him. " Do it again next race and I shan't care." " We were within three lengths of Brazen-nose when we bumped," says the all-observant Miller, in a low voice. "All right," answers the captain: "Brazen-nose isn't so strong as usual. We shan't have much trouble there, but a tongh job up above, I take it." " Brazen-nose was better steered than Exeter." "They muffed it in the Gut, eh?" said the captain. "I thouglit so by the shouts." " Yes, we were pressing them a little down below and their coxswain kept looking over his shoulder. He was in the Gut before he knew it, and had to pull his left hand hard, or they would have fouled the Oxfordshire corner. That stopped their way and in we went." " Bravo ! and how well we started, too." "Yes, thanks to that Hardy. It was touch and go though. I couldn't have held the rope two seconds more." " How did our fellows work ? She dragged a good deal be- low the Gut." Miller looked somewhat serious, but even he cannot be find- ing fault just now ; for the first step is gained, the first victory won ; and, as Homer sometimes nods, so Miller relaxes the sternness of his rule. The crew, as soon as they have found their voices again, laugh and talk, and answer the congratula- tions of their friends, as the boat slips along close to the towing- path on the Berks side, " easy all," almost keeping pace, never- theless, with the lower boats, which are racing up under the willows .on the Oxfordshire side. Jack, after one or two feints, malses a frantic bound into the water, and is hauled dripping into the boat by Drysdale; unchid by Miller, but to the in- tense disgust of Diogenes, whose pantaloons and principles are alike outraged by the proceeding. He — the Cato of the oar — scorns to relax the strictness of his code, even after vic- tory won. Neither word nor look does he cast to the exulting St. Ambrosians on the bank ; ay twinkle in his eye, and a sub- dued chuckle or two, alone betray that, though an oarsman, he is mortal. Already he revolves in his mind the project of an early walk under a few pea-coats, not being quite satisfied (conscientious old boy !) that he tried his stretcher enough in THE FIEST BUMP. 149 that final spurt, and thinking that there must be an extra pound of flesh on him somewhere or other which did the mis- chief. " I say, Brown," said Drysdale, "how do you feel ? " « All right," said Tom ; " I never felt jollier in my life." " By Jove, though, it was an awful grind ; didn't you wish yourself well out of it below the Gut ? " " No, nor you either." " Didn't I, though ! I was awfully baked, my throat is like a lime-kiln yet. What did you think about?" " Well, about keeping time, I think," said Tom, laughing, " but I can't remember much." " I only kept on by thinking how I hated those devils in the Exeter boat, and how done up they must be, and hoping their Number 2 felt like having a fit." At this moment they came opposite the Cherwell. The lead- ing boat was just passing the winning-post off the University barge, and the band struck up the " Conquering Hero," with a crash. And while a mighty sound of shouts, murmurs, and music went up into' the evening sky. Miller shook the tiller- ropes again, the captain shouted, " Now then, pick her up," and the St. Ambrose boat shot up between the swarming banks at racing pace to her landing-place, the lion of the evening. Dear readers of the gentler sex ! you, I know, will pardon the enthusiasm which stirs our pulses, now in sober middle age, as we call up again the memories of this, the most exciting sport of our boyhood (for we were but boys, then, after all). You will pardon, though I fear hopelessly unable to understand the above sketcli ; your sons and brothers will tell you it could not have been made less technical. For you, male readers, who have never handled an oar — what shall I say to you ? You, at least, I hope, in some way — in other contests of one kind or another — have felt as we felt, and have striven as we strove. You ought to understand and sympathize with us in all our boating memories. Oh, how fresh and sweet they are ! Above all that one of the gay little Henley town, the carriage-crowded bridge, the noble river reach, the giant poplars, which mark the critical point of the course ; the roaring column of " undergrades," light blue and dark purple, Cantab and Oxonian, alike and yet how different, hurl- ing along together, and hiding the towing-path ; the clang of Henley church-bells, the cheering, the waving of embroidered handkerchiefs, and glancing of bright eyes, the ill-concealed pride of fathers, the open delight and exultation of mothers and 150 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. sisters ; the levee in the town-hall when the race was rowed, the great cup full of champagne (inn-champagne, butwe were not critical) ; the chops, the steaks, the bitter beer ; but we run into anti-climax — remember, we were boys then, and bear with us if you cannot symathize. And you, old companions, ©pavitai benchers (of the gallant eight-oar), now seldom met, but never-forgotten, lairds, squires, soldiers, merchants, lawyers, grave J. P.'s, graver clergymen, gravest bishops (for of two bishops at least does our brother- hood boast), I turn for a moment from my task, to reach to you the right hand of fellowship from these pages, and empty this solemn pewter — trophy of hard-won victory — to your health and happiness. Surely none the worse Christians and citizens are ye for your involuntary failing of musculai'ity ! CHAPTER XIV. A CHANGE IN THE CEBW, AND WHAT CAME OP IT. It was on a Saturday that the St. Ambrose boat made the first bump, described in our last chapter. On the next Satur- day, the day-week after the first success, at nine o'clock in the evening, our hero was at the door of Hardy's rooms. He just stopped for one moment outside, with his hand on the look, looking a little puzzled, but withal pleased, and then opened the door and entered. The little estrangement which there had been between them for some weeks, had passed away since tlie races had begun. Hardy had thrown himself into the spirit of them so thoroughly, that lie had not only regained all his hold on Tom, but had warmed up the whole crew in his favor, and had mollified the martinet Miller himself. It was he who had managed the starting rope in every race, and his voice from the towing path had come to be looked upon as a safe guide for clapping on or rowing steady. Even Miller, autocrat as he was, had come to listen for it, in confirmation of his own judgment, before calling on the crew for the final effort. So Tom had I'ecovered his old footing in the servitor's- rooms ; and, when he entered on the night in question, did so with the bearing of an intimate friend. Hardy's tea commons were on one end of the table as usual, and he was sitting, at the other poring over a book. Tom marched straight up to him, and leant over his shoulder. "What, here you are at the perpetual grind," he said. A CHANGE IN THE CREW, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 151 " Come, shut up, and give me some tea ; I ' want to talk to you." Hardy looked up, with a grim smile. " Are you up to a cup of tea ? " he said ; " look here, I was just reminded of you fellows. Shall I construe for you ? " He pointed with his finger to the open page of the book lie was reading. It was the Knights of Aristophanes, and Tom, leaning over his shoulder, read : " Kara KaBi^mi fwladi iva /i^ rpl^riq rrpi hi J^aXa/uvi," etc. After meditating a moment he burst out. "You hard- hearted old rufiian ! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics ! I've a good mind to clear out, and not do my errand." " What's a man to do ? " said Hardy. " I hold that it's always better to laugh at fortune. What's the use of repin- ing ? Tou have done famously, and second is a capital place on the river." " Second be hanged ! " said Tom. " We mean to be first ? " " Well, I hope we may ! " said Hardy. " I can tell you no- body felt it more than I — not even old Diogenes — when you didn't make your bump to-night." " Now you talk like a man, and a Saint Ambrosian," said Tom. " But what do you think ? Shall we ever catch them ? " and so saying, he retired to a chair opposite the tea-things. " No," said Hardy ; " I don't think we ever shall. I'm veiy sorry to say it, but they are an uncommonly strong lot, and we have a weak place or two in our crew. I don't think we can do more than we did to-night — at least with the present crew." " But if we could get a little more strength we might ? " " Yes, I think so. Jervis' stroke is worth two of theirs, very little more powder would do it." " Then we must have a little more powder." "Ay, but how are we to get it ? Who can you put in ! " " You ! " said Tom, sitting up. " There, now, that's just what I am come about. Drysdale is to go out. Will you pull next race ? They all want you to row." " Do they ? " said Hardy, quietly (but Tom could see that his eyes sparkled at the notion, though he was too proud to show how much he was pleased) ; " then they had better come and ask me themselves." " Well, you cantankerous old party, they're coming, I can tell you ! " said Tom, in great delight. " The captain just sent me on to break ground, and will be here directly himself. I say 152 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. now, Tlardy," he went on, " don't you say no. I've set my heart upon it. I'm sure we shall bump them if you pull." " I don't know that," said Hardy, getting up, and beginning to make tea, to conceal the excitement he was in at the idea of rowing ; " you see I'm not in training." " Gammon," said Tom, " you're always in training, and you know it." " Well," said Hai-dy, " I can't be in worse than Drysdale. He has been of no use above the Gut this last three nights." " That's just what Miller says," said Tom, "and here comes the captain." There was a knock at the door while he spoke, and Jervis and Miller entered. Tom was in a dreadful fidget for the next twenty minutes, and may best be compared to an enthusiastic envoy negotiat- ing a commercial treaty, and suddenly finding his action im- peded by the arrival of his principals. Miller was very civil, but not pressing ; he seemed to have come more with a view of talking over the present state of things, and consulting upon them, than of enlisting a recruit. Hardy met him more than half-way, ^.nd speculated on all sorts of possible issues, with- out a hint of volunteering himself. But presently Jervis, who did not understand finessing, broke in, and asked Hardy, point- blank, to pull in the next race ; and when he pleaded want of training, overruled him at once, by saying that there was no better training than sculling. So in half an hour all was set- tled. Hardy was to pull five in the next race, Diogenes was to take Blake's place at No. 7, and Blake to take Drysdale's oar at No. 2. The whole crew wei-e to go for a long training walk the next day, Sunday, in the afternoon ; to go down to Abing- don on Monday, just to get into swing in their new places, and then on Tuesday to abide the fate of war. They had half an hour's pleasant talk over Hardy's tea, and then separated. " I always told you he was our man," said the captain to Miller, as they walked together to the gates ; " we want strength, and he is as strong as a horse. You must have seen him sculling yourself. There isn't his match on the river to my mind." " Yes, I think he'll do," replied Miller ; " at any rate, he can't be worse than Drysdale." As for Tom and Hai'dy, it may safely be said that no two men in Oxford went to bed in better spirits that Saturday night than they two. And now to explain how it came about that Hardy was wanted. Fortune had smiled upon the St. Ambrosians in the two raceg A CHANGE IN THE CBEW, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. l53 which succeeded the. one in which they had bumped Exeter. They had risen two more places without any very great trouble. Of course, the constituencies on the bank magnified their powers and doings. There nevei- was such a crew, they were quite safe to be head of the river, nothing could live against their pace. So the young oars in the boat swallowed all tliey heard, thought themselves the finest fellows going, took less and less pains to keep up their conditions, and when they got out of earshot of Jervis and Diogenes, were ready to bet two to one that they would bump Oriel the next night, and keep easily head of the river for the rest of the races. Saturday night came, and brought with it a most useful though unpalatable lesson to the St. Ambrosians. The Oriel boat was manned chiefly by old oars, seasoned in many, a race, and not liable to panic when hard pressed. They had a fair though not a first-rate stroke, and a good coxswain ; experts remarked that they were rather too heavy for their boat, and that she dipped a little when they put on anything like a severe spurt ; but on the whole they were by no means the sort of crew you could just run into hand over hand. So Miller and Diogenes preached, and so the Ambrosians found out to their cost. They had the pace of the other boat, and gained as usual a boat's length before the Gut ; but, first those two fatal corners were passed, and then other well-remembered spots where former bumps had been made, and still Miller made no sign ; on the contrary, he looked gloomy and savage. The St. Am- brosian shouts from the shore, too, changed from the usual ex- ultant peals into something like a quiver of consternation, while the air was rent with the name and laudations of " Little Oriel." Long before the Cherwell, Drysdale was competely baked (he had played truant the day before and dined at the Weiis, where he had imbibed much dubious hock, but he from old habit managed to keep time. Tom and the other young oars got flurried, and quickened ; the boat dragged, there was no life left in hei-, and, though they managed just to hold their first advantage, could not put her a foot nearer the stern of the Oriel boat, which glided past the winning-post a clear boat's length ahead of her pursuers, and with a crew much less dis- tressed. Such races must tell on strokes ; and even Jervis, who had pulled magnificently throughout, was very much done at the close, and leaned over his oar with a swimming in his head 154 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. and an approach to f aintnieas, and was scarcely able to see for a minute or so. Miller's indignation knew no bounds, but he bottled it up till he had maneuvered the crew into their dress- ing-room by themselves, Jervis having stopped below. Then he let out, and did not spare them. " They would kill their captain, whose little finger was worth the whole of them ; they were disgracing the college ; three or four of them had neither heart nor head, nor pluck." They all felt that this was unjust, for after all had they not brought the boat up to the secoujj place ? Poor Diogenes sat in a corner and groaned ; he foi'got to prefix " old fellow " to the few observations he made. Blake had great difiiculty in adjusting his necktie before the glass ; he merely remarked in a pause of the objurgation, "In faith, coxswain, these be very bitter words." Tom and most of the others were too much out of heart to resist ; but at last Drysdale fired up : " You've no right to be so savage that I can see," he said, stopping the low whistle suddenly in which he was indulging, as he sat on the corner of the table ; " you seem to think No. 2 the weakest out of several weak places in the boat." " Yes, I do," said Miller. " Then this honorable member," said Drysdale, getting off the table, " seeing that his humble efforts are unappreciated, thinks it best for the public service to place his resignation in the hands of your coxswainship." " Which my coxswainsliip is graciously pleased to accept," replied Miller. " Hurrah for a roomy punt and a soft cushion next racing night — it's almost worth while to have been rowing all this time, to realize the sensations I shall feel when I see you fel- lows passing the Cherwell on. Tuesday." " Suave est, it's what I'm partial to, mari magnp, in the last reach, a terra, from the towing-path, alterius magnum sjjec- tare laborem, to witness the tortures of you wretched beggars in the boat. I'm obliged to translate for Drysdale, who never leai-ned Latin," said Blake, finishing his tie, and turning to the company. There was an awkward silence. Miller was chafing inwardly and running over in his mind what was to be done ; and nobody else seemed quite to know what ought to happen next when the door opened and Jervis came in. " Congratulate me, my captain," said Drysdale ; " I'm well out of it at last." Jervis "pished and pshaw'd " a little -at hearing what had happened, but his presence acted like oil on the waters. The A CHANGE IN THE CREW, AND WHAT CAME OP IT. 155 moment that the resignation was named, Tom's thoughts liad turned to Hardy. Novv was the time — he had such confidence in tlie man, that the idea of getting him in for the next race entirely changed the aspect of affairs to him, and made him feel as " bumptious " again- as he had done in the morning. So with this idea in his head, he hung about till the captain had made his toilet, and joined himself to him and Miller as they walked up. " Well, what are we to do now ? " said the captain. " That's just what you have to settle," said Miller ; " you have been up all the term, and know the men's pulling better than I." " I suppose we must press somebody from the torpid — let me see, there's Burton." " He rolls like a porpoise," interrupted Miller positively ; " impossible." "Stewart might do then." " Never kept time for three strokes in his life," said Miller. " Well, there are no better men," said the captain. " Then we may lay our account to stopping where we are, if we don't even lose a place," said Miller. " Dust unto dust, what must be, must j If you can't get crumb, you'd best eat crust," said the captain. " It's d,ll very well talking coolly now," said Miller, " but you'll kill yourself trying to bump, and there are three more nights." " Hardy would row if you asked him, I'm sure," said Tom. The captain looked at Miller, who shook his head. " I don't think it," he said ; " I take him to be a shy bird that won't come to everybody's whistle. We might have had him two years ago, I believe" — I wish we had." " I always told you so," said Jervis ; " at any rate, let's try him. He can but say no, and I don't think he will, for you. see he has been at the stavting-place every night, and as keen as a freshman all the time." " I'm sure he won't," said Tom ; "I know he would give any- thing to pull." " You had better go to his rooms and sound him," said the captain ; " Miller and I will follow in half an hour." We have already heard how Tom's mission prospered. The next day, at a few minutes before two o'clock, the St. Ambrose crew, including Hardy, with Miller (who was a desper- ate and indefatigable pedestmn) for leader, crossed Magdalea 156 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. Bridge. At five they returned to college, having done a little over fifteen miles, fair heel and toe walking, in the interval. The afternoon had been very hot, and Miller chuckled to the captain, " I don't think there will he much trash left in any of them after that. That fellow Hardy is as fine as a race-horse, and, did you see, he never turned a hair all the way." The crew dispersed to their rooms, delighted with the per- formance now that it was over, and feeling that they were much the better for it, though they all declared it had been harder work than any race they had yet pulled. It would have done a trainer's heart good to have seen them, some twenty minutes afterward, dropping into hall (where they were allowed to dine on Sundays, on the joint), fresh from cold baths, and looking ruddy and clear, and hard enough for any- thing. Again on Monday,- not a chance was lost. The St. Ambrose boat started soon after one o'clock for Abingdon. They swung steadily down the whole way, and back again to Sandford without a single spurt ; Miller generally standing in the stern, and preaching above all things steadiness and time. From Sandford up, they were accompanied by half a dozen men or so, who ran up the bank watching them. The struggle for the first place on the river was creating great excitement in the rowing world, and these were some of the most keen connois- seurs, who, having heard that St. Ambi'ose had changed a man, were on the look-out to satisfy themselves as to how it would work. The general opinion was veering round in favor of Oriel ; changes so late in the races, and at such a critical moment, were looked upon as very damaging. Foremost among tlie runners on the bank was a wiry dark man, with sanguine complexion, who went with a peculiar long, low stiide, keeping his keen eye well on the boat. Just above Kennington Island, Jervis, noticing this particular spectator for the first time, called on the crew, and, quickening his sti^ke, took them up the reach at racing pace. As they lay .in Iffley Lock the dark man appeared abovet hem, and exchanged a few words, and a. good deal of dumb show, with the captain and Miller, and then disappeared. From Iffley up they went steadily again. On the whole. Miller seemed to be in very good spirits in the dressinir-room ; he thought the boat trimmed better, and went better than she had ever done before, and complimented Blake particularly for the ease with which he had changed sides. They all went up in high spirits, calling on their way at " The Choughs" for one A CHANGE IN THE CEBW, AND WHAT CAME OF IT. 15 7 glass of old ale round, wtich Miller was graciously pleased to allow. Tom never remembered till after they were out again, that Hardy had never been there before, and felt embarrassed for a moment, 'but it soon passed off. A moderatefdinner and early to bed finished the day, and Miller was justified in his parting remark to the captain. " Well, if we don't win we can comfort ourselves that we haven't dropped a stitch this last two days, at any rate." Then the eventful day arose which Tom and many another man felt was to make or mar St. Ambrose. It was a glorious early summer day, without a cloud, scarcely a breath of air stirring. " We shall have a fair start, at any rate," was the general feeling. We have already seen what a throat-drying, nervous business, the morning and afternoon of a race-day is, and must not go over the same ground more than we can lielp ; so we will imagine the St. Ambrose boat down at the starting- place, lying close to the towing-path, just before the first gun. There is a much greater crowd than usual opposite the two first boats. By this time most of the other boats have found their places, for there is not much chance of anything very exciting down below ; so besides the men of Oriel and St. Ambrose (who muster to-night of all sorts, the fastest of the fast and slowest of the slow having been by this time shamed into something like enthusiasm), many of other colleges, whose boats have no chance of bumping or being bumped, flock to the point of attraction. "Do you make out what the change is ?" says a backer of Oriel to his friend in the like predicament. " Yes ; tliey've got a new No. 5 ; don't you see ? and, by George, I don't like his looks," answered his friend; "awfully long and strong in the arm, and well ribbed up. A devilish awkward' customer. I shall go and try to get a hedge." " Pooh," says the other, " did you ever know one man win a race?" " Ay, that I have," says his friend, and walks off toward the Oriel crowd to take five to four on Oriel in half-sovereigns, if he can get it. Now their dark friend of yesterday comes up at a trot, and pulls up close to the captain, with whom he is evidently dear friends. He is worth looking at, being coxswain of the O. U. B., the best steerer, runner, and swimmer, in Oxford ; amphib- ious himself, and sprung from an amphibious race. His own boat is in no danger, so he has left her to take care of herself. He is on the lookout for recruits for the University crew, and 158 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOKD. no recruiting sergeant has a sharper eye for the sort of stuif he requires. " What's his name ? " he says in a low tone to Jervis, giving "a jerk with»his head toward Hardy. " Where did you get him ? " "Hardy," answers the captain in the same tone ; "it's his first night in the boat." " I know that," replies the coxswain ; " I never saw him row before yesterday. He's the fellow who sculls in that brown skifiE, isn't he?" " Yes, and I think he'll do ; keep your eye on him." The coxswain nods as if he were pretty much of the same mind, and examines Jlardy with the eye of a connoisseur, pretty much as the judge at an agricultural show looks at the prize bull. Hardy is tightening the strap of his stretclier, atid all -unconscious of the compliments which aTe being paid him. The great autliority seems satisfied with his inspection, grins, rubs his hands, and trots off to the Oriel boat to make com- parisons. Just as the first gun is heard, Grey sidles nervously to the front of the crowd as if he were doing something very audacious, and draws Hai-dy's attention, exchanging sympathizing nods with liim, but saying nothing, for he knows not what tp say, and then disappearing again in the crowd. "Hollo, Drysdale, is that you? "says Blake, as they push off from the shore. " I thought you were going to take it easy in a punt." " So I thought," said Drysdale ; "but I couldn't keep away, and here I am. I shall run up ; and mind, if I see you withm ten feet, and cocksure to win, I'll give a view halloo. I'll be bound you shall hear it." " May it come speedily," said Blake, and then settled him- self in his seat. " Eyes in the boat — mind now, steady all, watch the stroke and don't quicken." These are Miller's last woi'ds ; every faculty of himself and the crew being now devoted to getting a good start. This is no difficult matter, as the water is like glass, and the boat lies lightly on it, obeying the slightest dip of the oars of bow and two, who just feel the water twice or thrice in the last minute. Then, after a few moments of breathless hush on the bank, the last gun is fired and they are off. The same scene of mad excitement ensues, only tenfold more intense, as almost the whole interest of the races is to-night A CHANGE IS THE CftEW, AND WHAT CAME OS' IT. I5d concentrated on the two head hoats and their fate. At ©very- gate there is a jam, and the weaker vessels are shoved into the ditclies, upset, and left unnoticed. The most active men, in- cluding the O. U. B. coxswain, shun the gates altogether, and take the big ditches in their stride, making for the long bridges, that they may get quietly over these and be safe for the best part of the race. They know that the critical point of the struggle will be near the finish. Both boats make a beautiful start, and again as before in the first dash the St. Ambrose pace tells, and they gain their boat's .length before first winds fail ; then they settle down for a long, steady effort. Both crews are rowing comparatively steady, reserving themselves for the tug of war up above. Thus they pass the Gut, and so those two treacherous corners, the scene of countless bumps, into the wider water beyond, up under the willows. Miller's face is decidedly hopeful ; he shows no sign, indeed, but you can see that he is not the same man as he was at this place in the last race. He feels that to-day the boat is full of life, and that he can call on his crew with hopes of an answer. His well-trained eye also detects tliat, while both crews are at full stretch, his own, instead of losing, as it did on the last niglit, is now gaining inch by inch on Oriel. The gain is scarcely perceptible to him even ; from the bank it is quite im- perceptible ; but there it is ; he is surer and surer of it, as one after another the willows are left behind. ' And now comes the pinch. The Oriel captain is beginning, to be conscious of the fact which has been dawning on Miller, but will not acknowledge it to himself, and as his coxswain turns the boat's head gently across the stream, and makes for the Berkshire side and the goal, now full in view, he smiles grimly as he quickens his stroke ; he will shake off these light- hocled gentry yet, as he did before.' Miller sees the mo've in a moment, and signals his captain, and the next stroke St. Ambrose has quickened also ; and now there is no mistake about it, St. Ambrose is creeping up slowly but surely. The boat's length lessens to forty feet, thirty feet ; surely and steadily lessens. But the race is not lost yet ; thirty feet is a short space enough to look at on the water, but a good bit to pick up foot by foot in the last two hundred yards of a desperate struggle. They are over under the Berkshire side now, and there stands up the winning-post, close ahead, all but won. The distance lessens and lessens still, but the Oriel crew stick steadily and gallantly to their work, and will 160 TOM BROWN A* OXJ'OED. fight every inch of distance to the last. The Orielites on the bank, who are rushing along, sometimes in the water, some- time out, hoarse, furious, madly alternating between hope and despair, have no reason to be ashamed of a man in the crew. Off the mouth of the Cherwell there is still twenty feet be- tween them. Another minute, and it will be over one way or another. Every man in both crews is now doing his best, and no mistake : tell me which boat holds the most men who can do better than their best at a pinch, who will risk a broken blood vessel, and I will tell you how it will end. " Hard pound- ing, gentlemen, let's see who will pound longest," the duke is reported to have said at Waterloo, and won. "Now, Tummy, lad, 'tis thou or I," Big Ben said as he came up to the last round of his hardest fight, and won. Is there a man of that temper in either crew to-night? If so, now's his time. For both coxswains have called on their men for the last effort ; Miller is whirling the tassel of his right-liand tiller rope round his head, like a wiry little lunatic ; from the towing-path, from Christ Church meadow, from the rows of punts, from the clustered tops of the barges, comes a roar of encouragement and applause, and the band, unable to resist the impulse, breaks with a crash into the " Jolly Young Waterman," playing two bars to the second. A bump in the Gut is nothing — a few partisans on the towing-path to cheer you, already out of breath ; but up here at the very finish, with all Oxford look- ing on, when the prize is the headship of the river ; once in a generation only do men get such a chance. Who ever saw Jervis not up to his work ? The St. Ambrose stroke is glorious. Tom had an atom of go still left in the very back of his liead, and at this moment he heard Diysdale's view halloo above all the din ; it seemed to give him a lift, and other men besides in the boat, for in another six strokes the gap is lessened and St. Ambrose has crept up to ten feet, and now to five from the stern of Oriel. Weeks afterward Hardy confided to Tom that when he heard that view halloo he seemed to feel the muscles of his arms and legs turn into steel, and did more work in the last twenty strokes than in any other forty in the earlier part of the race. Another fifty yards and Oriel is safe, but the look on the captain's face is so ominous that their coxswain glances over his shoulder. The bow of St. Ambrose is within two feet of their rudder. It is a moment for desperate expedients. He pulls his left tiller rope suddenly, thereby carrying the stern of his own boat out of the line of the St. Ambrose, and calls A StOEM BREWS AND BREAKS. l6l on his crew once more ; they respond gallantly "yet, but the rudder is against them for a moment, and the boat drags. St. Ambrose overlaps. "A pump, a bump," shout the St. Ambrosians on shore. " Row on, row on," screams Miller. lie has not yet felt the electric shock, and knows he will miss his bump if the young ones slacken for a moment. A young coxswain would have gone on making shots at the stern of the Oriel boat, and so have lost. A bump now and no mistake ; the bow of the St. Ambrose boat jams the oar of the Oriel stroke, and the two boats pass the winning-post with the way that was on them when the bump was made. So near a shave was it. . To describe the scene on the bank is beyond me. It was a liurly-burly of delirious joy, in the midst of which took place a terrific combat between Jack and the Oriel dog — a noble black bull terrier belonging to the college in general, and no one in particular — who always attended the I'aces and felt the mis- fortune keenly. Luckily, they were parted without worse things happening ; for though the Oriel men were savage, and not disinclined for a jostle, the milk of human kindness was too strong for the moment in their advei'saries, and they extri- cated themselves from the crowd, carrying off Crib, their dog, and looking straight before them into vacancy. " Well rowed, boys," says Jervis, turning round to his crew, as they lay panting on their oars. " Well rowed, five," says Miller, who, even in the hour of such a triumph, is not inclined to he general in laudation. " Well rowed, five," is echoed from the bank ; it is that cun- ning man, the recruiting-sergeant. " Fatally well rowed," he adds to a comrade, with whom he gets into one of the punts to cross *o Christ Church meadow ; " we must have him in the University crew." " I don't think you'll get him to row, from what I hear," answers the other. " Then he must be handcuffed and carried into the boat by force," says the coxswain O. U. B. ; " why is not the pressgang an institution in this university ? " CHAPTER XV. A STOEM BREWS AND BREAKS. Certainly Dr3'sdale's character came out well that night. He did not seem the least jealous of the success whioh had been achieved through his dismissal. On the contrary, there 162 fOJi BEOWU^ A* OXI*OR». was no man in the college who showed more interest in the race, or joy at the result, than he. Perhaps the pleasure of being out of it himself may have reckoned for something with him. In any case, there he was at the door with Jack, to meet the crew as they landed after the race, with a large pewter, foaming with shandygaff, in each hand, for their re- creation. Draco himself could not have forbidden them to drink at that moment ; so, amid shaking of hands and clap- pings on the back, the pewters traveled round from stroke to bow, and then the crew went off to their dressing-room, accompanied by Diysdale and others. " Bravo ! it was .the finest race that has been seen on the river this six years ; everybody says so. You fellows have deserved well of your country. I've sent up to college to have supper in my rooms, and you must all come. Hang training ! there are only two more nights, and you're safe to keep your place. What do you say, captain ? eh, Miller ? Now be good-natured for once." " Miller, what do you say ? " said the captain. " Well, we don't get head of the river every night," said Miller. " I don't object if you'll all turn out and go to bed at eleven." " That's all right," said Drysdale ; " and now let's go to the old ' Clioughs ' and have a glass of ale while supper is getting ready. Eh, Brown ?" and he hooked his arm into Tom's and led the way into the town. " I'm so sorry you were not in it for the finish," said Tom, who was quite touched by his friend's good-lmmor. ' " Are you ? " said Diysdale ; " it's more than I am, then, I can tell you. If you could have seen yourself under the wil- lows, you wouldn't have thought youi-self much of an object of envy. Jack and I were quite satisfied with our share of work and glory on the bank. Weren't we, old fellow ? " at which salution Jack reared himself on his hind legs and licked his master's hand. " Well, you're a real good fellow for taking it as you do. I don't think I could have come near the river if I had been you." "I take everything as it comes," said Drysdale. "The next race is on Derby day, and I couldn't have gone if I hadn't been turned out of the boat ; that's a compensation, you see. Here we are ; I wonder Lf Miss Patty has heard of the vic- tory?" They turned down the little passage-entrance of the A STORM BEEWS AND BBEAKS. 163 " Choughs" as he spoke, followed by most of the crew, and by a tail of younger St. Ambrosians, their admirers, and the bar was crowded the next moment. Patty was there, of course, and her services were in great requisition ; for though each of the crew only took a email glass of the old ale, they made as much fuss about it with the pretty barmaid as if they were drinking hogsheads. In fact, it had become clearly the cor- rect thing with the St. Ambrosians to make much of Patty ; and, considering the circumstances, it was only a wonder tliat she was not more spoilt than seemed to be the case. Indeed, as Hardy stood up in the corner opposite to the landlady's chair, a silent onlooker at the scene, he couldn't help admit- ting to himself that the girl held her own well, without doing or saying anything unbecoming a modest woman. And it was a hard thing for hira to be fair to her, for what he saw now in a few minutes confirmed the impression which his former visit had left on his mind — that his friend was safe in her toils ; how deeply, of course, he could not judge, but that there was more between them than he could approve was now clear enough to him, and he stood silent, leaning against the wall in that furthest corner, in tlie shadow of a projecting cupboard, much distressed in mind, and pondering over what it behooved him to do under the circumstances. With tlie ex- ception of a civil sentence or two to the old landlady, who sat opposite him knitting, and casting rather uneasy looks from time to time toward the front'of the bar, he spoke to no one. In fact, nobody came near that end of the room, and their existence seemed to have been forgotten by the rest. Tomhad been a little uncomfortable for the first minute ; but after seeing Hardy take his glass of ale, and then missing him, forgot all about him and was too busy with his own affairs to trouble himself further. He had become a sort of drawer or barnian at the " Choughs," and presided, under Patty, over the distribution of the ale, giving an eye to his chief to see that she was not put upon, Drysdale and Jack left after a short stay, to see that the supper was being properly prepared. Soon afterward Patty went off out of the bar in answer to some bell which called her to another part of the house ; and the St. Ambrosians voted that it was time to go off to college to supper, and cleared out into the street. Tom went out with the last batch of them, but lingered a moment in the passage outside. He knew the house and its ways well enough by this time, The next moment Patty 164 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. appeared from a side door, which led to another part of the house. " So j'ou're not going to stay to play a game with aunt," she said ; " what makes you in such a hurry ?" "I must go up to college ; tli^'e's a supper to celebrate our getting head of the river." Patty looked down and pouted a little. Tom took her hand, and said, sentimentally, " Don't be cross now; you know that I would sooner stay here ; don't you ? " She tossed her head, and pulled away her hand, and then changing the subject, said : " Who's that ugly old fellow who was here again to-niglit ? " " There was no one older than Miller, and he is rather an ad- mirer of yours. I shall tell him you called him ugly." " Oh, I don't mean Mr. Miller ; you know that well enough," she answered. " I mean him in the old rough coat, who don't talk to anyone." " Vglj old fellow, Patty ? Why, you mean Hardy, He's a great friend of mine, and you must like him for my sake." " I'm sure I won't. I don't like him a bit j he looks so cross at me." " It's all your fancy. There now, good-night." "You shan't go, however, till you've given me that hand- kerchief. You promised it me if you got head of the river." " Oh you little story-teller. Why, they are my college colors. I wouldn't part with them for woi'lds. I'll give you a look of my hair, and the prettiest handkerchief you can find in Oxford ; but not this." " But I will have it, and you did promise me it," she said, and put up her hands suddenly, and untied the bow of Tom's neck-handkerchief. He caught her wrists in his hands, and looked down into her eyes, in which, if he saw a little pique at his going, he saw other things which stirred in him strange feelings of triumph and tenderness. " Well, then, you shall pay for it, anyhow," he said. Why need I tell what followed? There was a little struggle ; a "Go along, do, Mr. Brown ; " and the next minute Tom, minus his handkerchief, was hurrying after his companions ; and Patty was watching him from the door, and setting her cap to rights. Then she turned and went back into the bar, and started, and turned red, as she saw Hardy there, still standing in the further corner, opposite her aunt. He finished his glass of ale as she came in, and then passed out, wishing them " Good-night." " Why, aunt," she said, " I thouglit they were all gone. Who was that sour-looking man ? " A STORM BEEWS AND BEEAKS. 165 " He seems a nice, quiet gentleman, ray dear," said the old lady looking up. " I'm sure he's much better than those ones as makes so much racket in the bar. But where have you been, Patty?" •" Oh, to the commercial room, aunt. Won't you have a game at cribbage ?" and Patty took up the cards and set the boai-d out, the old lady looking at her doubtfully all the time through her spectacles. She was beginning to wish that the college gentlemen wouldn't come so much to the house, though they were very good customers. Tom, minus his handkerchief, hurried after his comrades, and caught them up before they got to college. They were all there but Hardy, whose absence vexed our hero for a moment ; he had hoped that Hardy, now that he was in the boat, would have shaken off all his reserve toward the other men, and blamed him because he had not done so at once. There could be no reason for it but his own oddness, he thought, for everyone was full of his praises as they strolled on talking of the race. Miller praised his style and time and pluck. "Didn't you feel how the boat sprung when I called on you at the Cher well ? " he said to the captain. " Drysdale was always dead beat at the Gut, and just a log in the boat ; pretty much like some of the rest of you." " He's in such good training, too," said Diogenes ; " I shall find out how he diets himself." " We've pretty well done with that I should hope," said Number 6. " There are only two more nights, and nothing can touch us now." " Don't be too sure of that," said Miller. " Mind now, all of you, don't let us have any nonsense till the races are over and we are all safe." And so they talked on till they reached college, and then dispersed to their rooms to wash and dress, and met again in Drysdale's rooms, where supper was awaiting them. Again-Hardy did not appear. Drysdale sent a scout to his rooms, who brought back word that he could not find him ; so Drysdale set to work to do the honors of his table, and enjoyed the pleasure of tempting the crew with all sorts of forbidden hot liquors, which he and the rest of the non-professionals im- bibed freely. But with Miller's eye on them, and the example of Diogenes and the captain before them, the rest of the crew exercised an abstemiousness which would have been admir- able, had it not been in a great measure compulsory. It was a great success, this supper at Drysdale's, although 166 "TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. knocked up at an hour's notice. The triumph of their boat had, for the time, the effect of warming up and drawing out the feeling of fellowship, which is the soul of college life. Tliough only a few men besides the crew sat down to supper, long before it was cleared away men of every set of the col- lege came in, in the highest spirits, and soon the room was crowded. For Drysdale sent round to every man in the col- lege with whom he had a speaking acquaintance, and they flocked in and sat where they could, and men talked and laughed with neighbors, with whom, perhaps, they had never exchanged a word since the time when they were freshmen together. Of course, there were speeches cheered to the echo, and songs, of which the choruses might have been heard in the High Street. At a little before eleven, nevertheless, despite the protestations of Drysdale, and the passive resistance of several of their number, Miller carried off the crew, and many of the other guests went at the same time, leaving their host and a small circle to make a night of it. Tom went to his rooms in high spirits, humming the air of one of the songs he had just heard ; but he had scarcely thrown his gown on a chair when a thought struck him, and he ran downstairs again and across to Hardy's rooms. Hardy was sitting with some cold tea poured out, but un- tasted, before him, and no books open — a very unusual thing with him at night. But Tom either did not or would not notice that there was anything unusual. He seated himself and began gossiping away as fast as he could, without looking much at the other. He began by re- counting all the complimentary things which had been said by Miller and othei's of Hardy's pulling. Then he went on to the supper party ; what a jolly evening they had had ; he did not remember anything so pleasant since he had been up, and he retailed the speeches and named the best songs. " You really ought to have been there ; why didn't you come ; Drysdale sent over for you. I'm sure everyone wished you had been there. Didn't you get his message ? " " I didn't feel up to going," said Hardy. " There's nothing the matter, eh ? " said Tom, as the thought crossed his mind that perhaps Hardy had hurt himself in the race, as he had not been regularly training. " No, nothing," answered the other. Tom tried to make play again, but soon came to an end of his talk. It was impossible to make head against that cold silence, At last he stopped, looked at Hardy for a minute, A STOEM BEBWS AND BEEAks. 167 who was staring abstractedly at the sword over his mantel- piece, and then said : " There is sometliing the matter, though. Don't sit glower- ing as if you liad swallowed a furze bush. Why, you haven't been smoking, old boy?" he added, getting up and putting his hand on the other's shoulder. " I see, that's it. Here, take one of my weeds, they're, mild. Miller allows two of these a day." " No, thankee," said Hardy, rousing himself ; " Miller hasu'l, interfered with my smoking, and I will have a pipe, for I think I want it." " Well, I don't see that it does you any good," said Tom, after watching him fill, and light, and smoke for some minutes without saying a word. " Here, I've managed the one thing I had at heart. You are in the crew, and we are head of the river, and everybody is praising your rowing up to the skies, and saying that the bump was all your doing.' And here I come to tell you, and not a word can I get out of you. Aint you pleased ? Do you think we shall keep our place ? " He paused a moment. " Hang it all, I say," he added, losing all patience ; " swear a little if you can't do anything else. Let's hear your voice ; it isn't such a tender one that you need keep it all shut up." " Well," said Hardy, making a great effort ; " the real fact is I have something, and something very serious, to say to you." " Then I'm not going to listen to it," broke in Tom ; " I'm not serious, and I won't be serious, and no one shall make me serious to-night. It's no use, so don't look glum. But isn't the ale at ' The Choughs ' good ? and isn't it a dear little place ? " " It's that place I want to talk to you about," said Hardy, turning to him at last with a deep fetching of his breath. " Now, Brown, we haven't known one another long but I think I understand you, and I know I like you, and I hope you like me." "Well, well, well," broke in Tom, "of course I like you, old fellow, or else I shouldn't come poking after you, and wasting so much of your time, and sitting on your cursed hard chairs in the middle of the races. What has liking to do with ' The Choughs,' or ' The Choughs ' with long faces ? You ought to have had another glass of ale there." " I wish you had never had a glass of ale there," said Hardy, bolting out his words as if they were red-hot. " Brown, you have no right to go to that place." 168 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOKt). " Why ? " said Tom, sitting up in his chair, and beginning to be nettled. "You know why," said Hardy, looking him full in the face, and puflSngout huge volumes of smoke. In spite of the blunt- ness of the attack, there was a yearning look which spread over the rugged brow, and shone out of the deep-set eyes of the speaker, which almost conquered Tom. But first pride, and then the consciousness of what was coming next, which began to dawn on him, rose in his heart. It was all he could do to meet that look full, but he managed it, though he flushed to the roots of his hair, as he simply repeated through his set teeth, "Why?" "I say again," said Hardy, "you know why." " I see what you mean," said Tom, slowly ; " as you say, we have not known one another long ; long enough, though, I should have thought, for you to have been more charitable. Why am I not to go to ' The Choughs,' because there happens to be a pretty barmaid there ? All our crew go, and twenty other men besides." " Yes ; but do any of them go in the sort of way you do? Does she look at any one of them as she does at you? " " How do I know." " That's not fair, or true, or like you. Brown," said Hardy, getting up, and beginning to walk up and down the room. " You do know that that girl doesn't care a straw for the other men who go there. Yon do know that she is beginning to care for you." " You seem to know a great deal about it," said Tom ; " I don't believe you were ever there before two days ago." " No, I never was." " Then I think you needn't be quite so quick at finding fault. If there were anything I didn't wish you to see, do you think I should have taken you there ? I tell you she is quite able to take care of herself." " So I believe," said Hardy ; " if she were a mere giddy, light girl, setting her cap at every man who came in, it wouldn't matter so much — for her, at any rate. She can take care of herself well enough so far as the rest are concerned, but you know it isn't so with you. You know it now, Brown ; tell the truth ; anyone with half an eye can see it." " You seem to have made pretty good use of your eyes in those two nights, anyhow," said Tom. " I don't mind your sneers. Brown," said Hardy, as he tramped up and down with his arms locked behind him ; " I A STORM BREWS AISTD BREAKS. 169 have taten on mj'self to speak to you about this ; I should be no true friend if I shirked it. I'm four years older than you, and have seen more of the world and of this place than you. You shan't go on with this folly, this sin, for want of warning." " So it seems," said Tom, doggedly. " Now I think I've had warning enough ; suppose we drop the subject." Hardy stopped in his walk, and turned on Tom with a look of anger. " Not yet," he said, firmly ; " you know best how and why you have done it, but you know that somehow or other you have made that girl like you." " Suppose I have, what then ; whose business is that but mine and hers ? " " It's the business of everyone who won't stand by and see the Devil's game played under his nose if he can hinder it." " What right have you to talk about the Devil's game to me ? " said Tom. " I'll tell you what, if you and I are to keep friends, we had better drop this subject." " If we are to keep friends we must go to the bottom of it. There are only two endings to this sort of business, and you know it as well as I." " A right and a wrong one, eh ? and because you call me your friend you assume that my end will be the wrong one." " I do call you my friend, and I say the end must be the wi'ong one here. There's no right end. Think of your family. You don't mean to say — you dare not tell me, that you will marry her ! " • " I dare not tell you ! " said Tom, starting up in his turn ; " I dare tell you or any man anything I please. But I won't tell you or any man anything on compulsion." "I repeat," went on Hardy, "you dare not say you mean to marry her. You don't mean it — and, as you don't, to kiss her as you did to-night " "So you were sneaking behind to watch me," burst out Tom, chafing with rage, and glad to find any handle for a quarrel. The two men stood fronting one another, the young- er writhing with the sense of shame and outraged pride, and longing for a fierce .answer, a blow, anything to give vent to the furies which were tearing him. But at the end of a few seconds the elder answered, calmly and slowly : " I will not take those words from any man ; you had better leave my rooms." " If I do I shall not come back till you have altered your opinions." i^O TOM BEOWN A.T OXFOEf). " You need not come back till you have altered yours." The next moment Tom was in the passage ; the next, strid- ing up and down the side of the inner quadrangle in the pale nioonlight. Poor fellow ! it was no pleasant walking-ground for him. Is it worth our while to follow him up and down in his tramp ? We have most of us walked the like marches, I suppose, at one time or another of our lives. The memory of them is by no means one which we can dwell on with pleasure. Times they were of blinding and driving storm, and howling winds, out of which voices, as of evil spirits, spoke close in our ears — tauntingly, temptingly, whispering to the -mischievous wild beast which lurks in the bottom of all our hearts, now, "Rouse up ! art thou a man and darest not do this thing ? " now, " Rise, kill and eat — It is thine, wilt thou not take it ? Shall the flimsy scruples of this teacher, or the sanctified cant of that, bar thy way, and baulk thee of thine own ? Thou hast strength to brave them — to brave all things in earth, or heaven, or hell ; put out thy strength and be a man ! " Then did not the wild beast within us shake itself, and feel its power, sweeping away all the "Thou shalt not's " which the law wi'ote up before us in letters of fire, with the "I will" of hardy, godless self-assertion ? And all the while — which alone made the storm really dreadful to us^was there not the still small voice — never to be altogether^ilenced by the roar- ings of the tempest of passion, by the evil voices, by our own violent attempts to stifle it — the still small voice appealing to the man, the true man, within us, which is made in the image of GrodT-calling on him to assert his dominion over the wild beast — to obey, and conquer, and live ? Ay ! and though we may have followed the other voices, have we not, while fol- lowing them, confessed in our hearts, that all true strength and nobleness and manliness, was to be found in the other path ? Do I say that most of us have had to tread the path, and fight this battle ? Surely, I might have said all of us : all at least who have passed the bright days of their boyhood. The clear and keen intellect no less than the dull and heavy ; the weak, the cold, the nervous, no less than the strong and jjassionate of body. Tiie arms and the field have been divers ; can have been the same, I suppose, to no two men, but the battle must have been the same, to all. One here and there may have had a foretaste of it as a boy ; but it is the young man's battle and not the boy's, thank God for it ! That most hateful and fearful of all realities, call it by what name you will A STOEM BKEWS AND BEBAKg. 1^1 ■^self, the natural man, the old Adam — must have risen up before each of us in early manhood, if not sooner, challenging the true man within us, to which the spirit of God is speaking, to a struggle for life or death. Gird yourself, then, for the fight, my young brother, and take up the pledge which was made for you when you were a helpless child. This world, and all others, time and eternitj', for you, hang upon the issue. This enemy must be met and vanquislied — not finally, for no man while on earth, I suppose, can say that he is slain ; but, when once known and recog- nized, met and vanquished he must be, by God's help, in this and that encounter, before you can be truly called a man ; be- fore you can really enjoy any one even of this world's good things. The strife was no light one for our hero on the night in his life at which we have arrived. The quiet sky overhead, the quiet, solemn old buildings, under the shadow of which he stood, brought him no peace. He fled from them into his own rooms ; he lighted his candles and tried to read, and force the whole matter from his thoughts ; but it was useless ; back it came again and again. The more impatient of its presence he became, the less could he shake it off. Some decision he must make ; what should it be ? He could have no peace till it was taken. The veil had been drawn aside thoroughly, and once for all. Twice he wag on the point of returning to Hardy's rooms to thank him, confess, and consult ; but the tide rolled back again. As the truth of the warning sank deeper and deeper into him, his irritation against him who had uttered it grew also. He could not and would not be fair yet. It is no easy thing for any one of us to put the whole burden of any folly or sin on our own backs all at once. "If he had done it in any other way," thought Tom, " I might have thanked him." Another effort to shake off the whole question. Down into the quadrangle again ; lights in Drysdale's rooms. He goes up, and finds the remains of the supper, tankards full of egg- flip and cardinal, and a party playing at vingt-un. He drinks freely, careless of training or boat-racing, anxious only to drown thought. He sits down to play. The boisterous talk of some, the eager, keen looks of others, jar on him equally. One minute he is absent, the next boisterous, then irritable, then moody. A college card-party is no place to-night for him. He loses his money, is disgusted at last, and gets to his own rooms by midnight ; goes to bed feverish, dissatisfied with himself, with all the world. The inexorable question pursues 172 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOED. him even into the strange, helpless land of dreams, demanding a decision, when he has no longer power of will to choose either good or evil. But how fared it all this time with the physician ? Alas ! little better than with his patient. His was the deeper and more sensitive nature. Keenly conscious of his own position, he had always avoided any but the most formal intercourse with the men in his college whom he would have liked most to live with. This was the first friendship he had made among thern, and he valued it accordingly ; and now it seemed to lie at his feet in hopeless fragments, and cast down, too, by bis own hand. Bitterly he blamed himself over anfl over again, as lie recalled every word that had passed — not for having spoken — that he felt had been a sacred duty — but for the harshness and suddenness with which he had done it. " One touch of gentleness or sympathy, and I might have won him. As it was, how could he have met me otlierwise than he did — hard word for hard word, hasty answer for proud reproof ? Can I go to him and recall it all ? No ; I can't trust myself ; I shall only make matters worse. Besides, he may think that th6 servitor — Ah ! am I there again? The old sore, self, self, self ! I nurse my own pride : I value it more than my fiiend ; and yet — no, no, I cannot go, though I think I could die for him. The sin, if sin there must be, be on my head. Would to God I could bear the sting of it ! But there will be none — how can I fear ? he is too true, too manly. Rough and brutal as my words have been, they have shown him the gulf. He will, he must escape it. But will he ever come back to me ? I care not, so he escape." How can my poor words follow the strong, loving man in the wrestlings of his spirit, till far on in the quiet night he laid the whole before the Lord and slept ! Yes, my brother, even so, the old, old story ; but start not at the phrase, though you may never have found its meaning. He laid the whole before the Lord, in prayer, for his friend, for himself, for the whole world. And you, too, if ever you are tried as lie was — as every man must be in one way or another — must learn to do the like"with every burden on your soul, if you would not have it hanging round you heavily, and ever more heavily, and dragging you down lower and lower till your dying day. THE STOKM EASES. 1^3 CHAPTER XV. THE STORM EAGES. Haedt was early in the chapel the next morning. It was his week for pricking in. Every man that entered — from the early men who strolled in quietly while the bell was still ring- ing, to tlie hurrying, half -dressed loiterers who crushed in as the porter was closing the dooi"s, and disturbed tlie congre- gation in the middle of the confession — gave him a turn (as the expressive phrase is), and every turn only ended in disappoint- ment. He put by his list at last, when the doors were fairly shut, with a sigh. He had half expected to see Tom come in to morning chapel with a face from which he might have gath- ered hope that his friend had taken the right path, and then he would have little care as to how he felt toward himself ; that would all come right in time. But Tom did not come at all, and Hardy felt it was a bad sign. They did not meet till the evening, at the river, when the boat went down for a steady pull, and then Hardy saw at once that all was going wrong. Neither spoke to or looked at the other. Hardy expected someone to remark it, but nobody did. After the pull they walked up, and Tom as usual led the way, as if nothing had happened, into "The Choughs." Hardy paused for a moment, and then went in too. For the first time he stayed till the rest of the crew left. Tom deliberately stayed after them all. Hardy turned for a moment as he was leaving the bar, and saw him settling himself down in his chair with an air of defiance, meant evidently for him, which would have made most men angry. Hardy was irritated for a moment, and then was filled with ruth for the poor wrong-headed youngster who was heaping up coals of fire for his own head. In his mo- mentary anger Hardy said to himself, " Well, I have done what I can ; now he must go his own way ; " but such a thought was soon kicked in disgrace from his noble and well-disciplined mind. He resolved, that, let it cost what it might in the shape of loss of time and trial of temper, he would leaveno stone unturned, and spare no pains, to deliver his friend of yesterday from the slough into which he was plunging. How he might best work for this end occupied his thoughts as he walked to- ward college. Tom sat on at "The Choughs," glorifying himself in the thought that now, at any rate, he had shown Hardy that he wasn't to be dragooned into doing or not doing anything. He 1 ^4 TOM BROWN AT OXFOEl). had had a bad time of it all day, and his good angel had fought hard for victory ; but self -will was too strong for the time. When he stayed behind the rest, it was more out -of bravado than from any defined purpose of pursuing what he tried to persuade himself was an innocent flirtation. When he left the liouse some hours afterward he was deeper in the toils than ever, and clouds were gathering over his heart. From that time he was an altered man, and altering as rapidly for the worse in body as in naind. Hardy saw the change in both, and groaned over it in secret. Miller's quick eye detected the bod- ily change. After the next race he drew Tom aside, and said : '^Why, Brown, what's the matter? What have you been about ? You're breaking down. Hold on, man ; there's only one more night." " Never fear," said Tom proudly, " I shall last it out." And in the last race he did his work again, though it cost him more- than all the preceding ones put together, and when he got Out of the boat he could scarcely walk or see. He felt a fierce kind of joy in his own distress, and wished that there were more races to come.' But Miller, as he walked up arm in arm with the captain, took a different view of the subject. " Well, it's all right, you see," said the captain ; " but we're not a boat's length better than Oriel over the course after all. How was it we bumped them ? If anything, they drew a little on us to-night." " Ay, half a boat's length, I should say," answered Miller, " I'm uncommonly glad it's over ; Bi-own is going all to pieces ; he wouldn't stand another race, and we haven't a man to put in his place." "It's odd, too," said the captain. "I put him down as a laster, and he has trained well. Perhaps he has overdone it a little. However, it don't matter now." So the races were over ; and that night a great supper was lic'ld in St. Ambrose Hall, to which were bidden, and came, the •crews of all the boats from Exeter upward. The dean, with many misgivings and cautions, had allowed the hall to be used on pressure from Miller and Jervis. Miller was a bachelor and had taken a good degree, and Jervis bore a high character and was expected to do well in the schools. So the poor dean gave in to them, extracting many promises in exchange for his permission ; and flitted uneasily about all the evening in his cap and gown, instead of working on at his edition of the Fathers, which occupied every minute of his leisure, and was making an old man of him before his time. THE STOEM KAGBS. 175 From eight to eleven tlie fine old pointed windows of St. Ambrose Hall blazed with light, and the choruses of songs, and the cheers, which followed the short intervals of silence which the speeches made, rang out over the quadrangles, and made the poor dean ambl.e about in a state of nervous bewilderment. Inside there was hearty feasting, such as had not been seen there, for aught I know, since the day when the king, came back to " enjoy his own again." The one old cup, relic of the Middle Ages, which had survived the civil wars — St. Am- brose's had been a right loyal college, and the plate had gone without a murmur into Charles the First's war-chest — went round and round ; and rival crews pledged one another out of it, and the massive tankards of a later day, in all good faith and good fellowship. Mailed knights, grave bishops, royal persons of either sex, and " other our benefactors," looked down on the scene from their heavy-gilded frames, and, let us hope, not unkindly. All passed off well and quietly ; the out-college men were gone, the lights were out, and the butler had locked the hall-door by a quarter-past eleven, and the dean returned in peace to his own rooms. Had Tom been told a week before that he would not have enjoyed that night, that it would not have been among the happiest and proudest of his life, he would have set his informer down as a madman. As it was, he never once rose to the spirit of the feast, and wished it all over a dozen times. He deserved not to enjoy it ; but not so Hardy, who was, nevertheless, al- most [as much out of tune as Tom ; though the university coxswain liad singled him out, named him in his speech, sat by him and talked to him for a quarter of an hour, and asked him to go to the Henley and Thames regattas in the Oxford crew. The next evening, as usual, Tom found himself at " The Choughs " with a half a dozen others. Patty was in the bar by herself, looking prettier than ever. Ope by one the rest of the men dropped off, the last saying, "Are you coming. Brown ?" and being answered in the negative. He sat still, watching Patty as she flitted about, washing up the ale glasses and putting them on their shelves, and getting out her work-basket ; and then she came and sat down in her aunt's chair opposite him, and began stitching away demurely at an apron she was making. Then he broke silence : " Where's your aunt to-night, Patty ?" " Oh, she has gone away for a few days for a visit to some friends." " You and I will keep house, then, together ; you shall teach 176 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. me all the tricks of the trade. I shall make a famous barman, don't you think ? " " You must learn to behave better, then. But I promised aunt to shut up at nine ; so you must go when it strikes. Now promise me you will go.'' " Go at nine ! what, in half an hour ? the first evening I have ever had a chance of spending alone with you ; do you think it likely ? " and he looked into her eyes. She turned away with a slight shiver, and a deep blush. His nervous system had been so unusually excited in the last few days that he seemed to know everything that was passing in her mind. He took her hand. " Why, Patty, you're not afraid of me, surely ? " he said gently. " No, not when you're like you are now. But you frightened me just this minute. I never saw you look so before. Has anything happened you ? " " No, nothing. Now, then, we're going to have a jolly even- ing, and play Darby and Joan together," he said, turning away, and going to the bar window ; " shall I shut up, Patty ? " " No, it isn't nine yet ; somebody may come in." " That's just why I mean to put the shutters up ; I don't want anybody." " Yes, but I do, though. Now, I declare, Mr. Brown, if you go on shutting up, I'll run into the kitchen and sit with Dick." " Why will you call me Mr. Brown ? " " Why, what should I call you ? " " Tom, of course." " Oh, I never ! one would think yon was my brother," said Patty, looking up with a pretty pertness which she had a most bewitching way of putting on. Tom's rejoinder, and the little squabble which they had afterward about where her work- table should stand and other such matters may be passed over. At last he was brought to, reason, and to anchor opposite his enchantress, the work-table between them ; and he sat leaning back in his chair, and watching her, as she stitched away with- out ever lifting her eyes. He was in no hurry to break the silence. The position was particularly fascinating to him, for he had scai'cely ever yet had a good look at her before, with- out fear of attracting attention, or being interrupted. At last he roused himself. "Any of our men been here to-day, Patty? " he said, sit- ting up. " There now, I've won," she laughed ; " I said to myself, I wouldn't speak first, and I haven't. What a time you were I I thought you would never begin," THE STOEM KAGES. 177 " You're a little goose ! Now I begin then ; who've been ' here to-day ? " " Of your college ? let me see ; " and she looked away across to the bar window, pricking her needleinto the table. " There was Mr. Drysdale and some others called for a glass of ale as they passed, going out driving. Then there was Mr. Smith and them from the boats about four ; and that ugly one — I can't mind liis name " "What, Hardy?" " Yes, that's it ; he was here about half -past six, and^ " " What, Hardy here after hall ? " interrupted Tom, utterly astonished. " Yes, after your dinner up at college. He's been here two or three times latelv." " The deuce he has ! " " Yes, and he talks so pleasant to aunt, too. I'm sure he is a very nice gentleman, after all. He sat and talked to-night for half an hour, I should think." " What did he talk about ? " said Tom, with a sneer. " Oh, he asked me whether I had a mother, and where I came from, and all about my bringing up, and made ine feel quite pleasant. He is so nice and quiet and respectful, not like most of you. I'm going to like him very much, as you told me." " I don't tell you so now." " But you did say he was your great friend." " Well, he isn't that now." " What, have you quarreled ? " "Yes." " Dear, dear ; how odd you gentlemen are ! " " Why, it isn't a very odd thing for men to quarrel ; is it ? " " No, not in the public room. They're always quarreling there, over their drink and the bagatelle board ; and Dick has to turn them out. But gentlemen ought to know better." " They don't, you see, Patty." " But what did you quarrel about ? " " Guess." " How can I guess ? What was it about ?" « About you." " About me ! " she said, looking up from her work in wonder. "How could you quarrel about me ? " " Well, I'll tell you ; he said I had no right to come here. You won't like him after that, will you, Patty?" "I don't know, I'm sure," said Patty, going on with her work and looking troubled. ITS TOM BROWN AT OXFOKD. They sat still for some minutes. Evil thoughts crowded into Tom's head. He was in the humor for thinking evil thoughts, and putting the worst construction on Hardy's visit, fancied he came there as liis rival. He did not trust himself to speak till he had mastered his precious discovery, and put it away in the back of his heart, and weighted it down there with a good covering of hatred and revenge, to be brought out as occasion should serve. He was plunging down rapidly enough now ; but lie had new motives for making the most of his time, and never played his cards better, or made more progress. When a man sits down to such a game, the Devil will take good care that he shan't want cunning or strength. It was ten o'clock instead of nine before he left, which he did with a feeling of triumph. Poor Patty remained behind, and shut up the bar, while Dick was locking the front door, her heart in a flutter, and her hands shaking. She hardly knew whether to laugh or cry ; she felt the change which had come over him, and was half fascinated and half repelled by it. Tom walked quickly back to college, in a mood which I do not care to describe. The only one of his thoughts which my readers may be troubled with, put itself into some such ^ords as these in his head : "So, it's Abingdon fair next Thursday, and she has half promised to go with me. I know I can make it certain. Who'll be going besides? Drysdale, I'll be bound. I'll go and see him." Oh entering college, he went straight to Drysdale's rooms, and drank deeply, and played high into the short hours of the night, but found no opportunity of speaking. Deeper and deeper yet for the next few days. Downward and ever faster downward he plunged, the light getting fainter and ever fainter above his head. Little good can come of dwelling on those days. He left off pulling, shunned his old friends, and lived with the very worst men he knew in college, who were ready enough to let hira share all their brutal orgies. Drysdale, who was often present, wondered at the change, which he saw plainly enough. He was sorry for it in his way, but it was no business of his. He began to think that Brown was a good enough fellow before, but would make a devilish disagreeable one if he was going to turn fast man. At "The Choughs" all went on as if the downward path knew how to make itself smooth. Now that the races were over, and so many other attractions going on in Oxford, very few men came in to interfere with him.- He wae scarcely ever away from Patty's side in the evenings while her aunt was THE STOEM EAGES. 11^ absent, and gained more and more power over her. He might liave had some compassion, but that he was spurred on by liearing how Hardy haunted the place now, at times when he could not be there. He felt that there was an influence strug- gling with his in the girl's mind ; he laid it to Hardy's door, and imputed it still, more and more, to motives as base as his own. But Abingdon fair was coming on Thursday. When he left " The Choughs " on Tuesday night, he had extracted a promise from Patty to accompany him there, and had arranged their place of meeting. All that remained to be done was to see if Drysdale was going. Somehow he felt a disinclination to go alone with Patty. Drysdale was the only man of those he was now living with to whom he felt the least attraction. In a vague way he clung to him ; and though he never faced the thought of what he was about fairly, yet it passed through his mind that even in Drysdale's company he would be safer than if alone. It was all pitiless, blind, wild work, without rudder or compass ; the wish that nothing very bad might come out of it all, however, came^up in spite of him now and again, and he looked at Drys- dale, and longed to become even as he. Drysdale was going. He was very reserved on the subject, but at last confessed that he was not going alone. Tom per- sisted. Drysdale was to lazy and careless to keep anything from a man who was bent on knowing it. In the end, it was arranged that he should drive Tom out the next afternoon. He did so. They stopped at a small public house some two miles out of Oxford. The cart was put up, and after carefully scanning the neighboi'hood they walked quickly to the door of a pretty retii'ed cottage. As tliey entered, Drysdale said : "By Jove, I thought I caught a glimpse of your friend Hardy at that turn." " Friend ! he's no friend of mine." " But didn't you see him ? " " No." They reached college again between ten and eleven, and parted each to his own rooms. To his surprise, Tom found a candle burning on his table. Round the candle was tied a piece of string, at the end of which hung a note. Whoever had put it there had clearly been anxious that he should in no case miss it when he came in. He took it up and saw that it was in Hardy's hand. He paused, and trembled fls he stood. Then, with an effort, he broke the seal and read : 180 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " I must speak once more. To-morrow it may be too late. If you go to Abingdon fair with her in the company of Drysdale and his mistress, or, I believe, in any company, you will return a scoundrel, and she ; in the name of the honor of your mother and sister, in the name of God, I warn you. May He help you through it. John Hardy." Here we will drop the curtain for the next hour. At the end of that time, Tom staggered out of his room, down the staircase, across the quadrangle, up Drysdale's staircase. He paused at the door to gather some strength, ran his hands through his hair, and arranged his coat ; notwithstanding, when he entered, Drysdale started to his feet, upsetting Jack from his comforta- ble coil on the sofa. " Why, Brown, you're ill ; have some brandy," he said, and went to his cupboard for the bottle. Tom leant his arm on the fireplace ; his head on it. The other hand hung down by his aide, and Jack licked it, and he loved the dog as he felt the caress. Then Diysdale came to his side with a glass of brandy, which he took and tossed off as though i t had been water. " Thank you," he said, and as Drysdale went back with the bottle, reached a large armchair and sat himself down in it. " Drysdale, I shan't go with you to Abingdon fair to- morrow." " Hollo ! what, has the lovely Patty thrown you over ? " said Drysdale, turning from the cupboard, and resuming his lounge on the' sofa. " No ; " he sank back into the chair, on the arm of which his elbows rested, and put his hands up before his face, pressing them against his burning temples. Drysdale looked at him hard, but said nothing ; and there was a dead silence of a min- ute or so, broken only by Tom's heavy breathing, which he was laboring in vain to control. "No," he repeated at last, and the remaining words came out slowly, as if they were trying to steady themselves, " but, by God, Drysdale, I canUt take her with you, and that " a dead pause. " The young lady you met to-night, eh ? " Tom nodded, but said nothing. " "Well, old fellow," said Drysdale, " now you've made up your mind, I tell you, I'm devilish glad of it ! I'm no saint, as you know, but I think it would have been a d d shame if you had taken her with us." " Thank you," said Tom, and pressed his fingers tighter on THE STOEM EAGES. 181 his forehead ; and he did feel thankfurfor the words, though, coming from the man they did, they went into him like coals of fire. . Again there was a long pause, Tom sitting as before. Drys- dale got up and strolled up and down his room, with his hands in the pockets of his silk-lined lounging coat, taking at each turn a steady look at the other. Presently he stopped, and took his cigar out of his mouth. " I say. Brown," he said, after an- other minute's contemplation of the figure before him, which bore such an unmistakable impress of wretchedness that it made liim quite uncomfortable, "why don't you cut that concern ?" " How do you mean ? " said Tom. " Why that ' Choughs ' business — I'll be hanged if it won't kill you, or make a devil of you before long, if you go on with it." " It's not far from that now." " So I see — and I'll tell you what, you're not the sort of fellow to go in for this kind of thing. You'd better leave it to cold- blooded brutes, like some we know — I needn't mention names." "I'm awfully wretched, Drysdale ; I've been a brute myself to you and everybody of late." " Well, I own I don't like the new side of you. Now make up your mind to cut the whole concern, old fellow," he said, coming up good-naturedly, and putting his hand on Tom's shoulder ; " it's hard to do, I dare say, but you had better make the plunge and get it over. There's wickedness enough going about without your helping to shove another one into it.' Tom groaned as he listened, but he felt that the man was try- ing to help him in his own way, and according to his light, as Drysdale went on expounding his own curious code of morality. When it was ended he shook Drysdale's hand, and, wishing him good-night, went back to his own rooms. The first step up- ward toward the light had been made, for he felt thoroughly humbled before the man on whom he had expended in his own mind so much patronizing pity for the last half-year — whom he had been fancying he was influencing for good. Duiing the long hours of the night the scenes of the last few hours, of the last few days, came back to him and burnt into ]iis soul. The gulf yawned before him now plain enough, open at his feet — black, ghastly. He shuddered at it, wondered if he should even yet fall in, felt wildly about for strength to stand fii-m to retrace his steps ; but found it not. He found not yet the strength he was in search of, but in the gray morning he wrote a short note. " I shall not be able to take you to Abingdon fair to-day. 182 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. You will not see me perhaps for some days. I am not well. I am very sorry. Don't think that I am changed. Don't be unhappy, or I don't know what I may do." There was no address and no signature to the note. "When the gates opened he hurried out of the college, and, having left it and a shilling with Dick (whom he found clearing the yard, and much astonished at his appearance, and who promised to deliver it to Patty with his own hands before eight o'clock}, he got back again to his own rooms, went to bed, worn out in mind and body, and slept till midday. CHAPTER XVII. NEW GEOUND. Mt readers have now been steadily at Oxford for six months without moving. Most people find such a spell of the place, without a change, quite as much as they care to take ; moreover it may do our hero good tO let him alone for a number, that he may have time to look steadily into the pit which he has been so near falling into, which is still yawning awkwardly in his path ; moreover, the exigencies of a story-teller must lead him away from home now and then. Like the rest of us, his family must have change of air, or he has to go off to see a friend properly married, or a connection buried ; to wear white or black gloves with or for someone, carrying such sympathy as lie can with him, that so he may come back from every journey, however short, with a wilder horizon. Yes ; to come back liome after every stage of life's journeying with a wider horizon, more in sympathy with men and nature, knowing ever more of tlie righteous and eternal laws which govern them, and of the righteous and loving will which is above all, and around all, and beneath all, this must be the end and aim of all of us, or we shall be wandering about blindfold, and spending time and labor and journey-money on that which profiteth nothing. So now I must ask my readers to forget old buildings and quad- rangles of the fairest of England's cities, the caps and the gowns, the reading, and rowing, for a short space, and take a flight with me to other scenes and pastures new. The nights are pleasant in Maj'^, short and pleasant for travel. We will leave the ancient city asleep, and do our flight in the night to save time. Trust yourselves, then, to the story-teller's aerial machine. It is but a rough affair, I own — rough and humble, unfitted for high or great flights, with no gilded panels, NEW GROUND. 183 or dainty cushions, or C-springs, — not that we shall care about springs, by the way, until we alight on terra fiima again — still, there is much to be learned in a third-class carriage if we will only not look for the cushions and fine panels and forty miles an hour traveling in it, and will not be shocked at our fellow-passengers for being weak in their h's and smelling of fustian. Mount in it, then, you who will after this warn- ing ; the fares are holiday fares, .the tickets return tickets. Takes with you nothing but the poet's luggage — A smile for Hope, artear for Pain, A breath to swell the voice of prayer. and may you have a pleasant journey, for it is time that the stoker should be looking to his going gear ! So now we rise slowly in the moonlight from St. Ambrose's quadrangle, and when we are clear of the clockto>ver, steer away southward, over Oxford city and all its sleeping wisdom and folly, over street and past spire, over Christ Church and the canon's houses, and the fountain in Tom quad ; over St. Aldate's and the river, along which the moonbeans lie in a pathway of twinkling sliver, over the railway sheds — no, there was then no railway, but only the quiet fields and footpaths of Hincksey hamlet. Well, no matter ; at any rate, the hills be- yond and Bagley Wood were there then as no w ; and over hills and wood we rise, catching the purr of the night-jar, the trill of the nightingale, and the first crow of the earliest cock pheasant, as he stretches his jeweled wings conscious of his strength and his beauty, heedless of the fellows of St. John's who slumber within sight of his perch, on whose hospitable board he shall one day lie pi-one on his back, with fair lar.ded bi-east turned upward for the carving knife, having crowed his last crow. He knows it not ; what matters it to him? If he knew it, could a Bagley woodcock pheasant desire a better ending ? We pass over the vale beyond ; hall and hamlet, church and meadow, and copse folded in mist and shadow below us, each hamlet holding in its bosom the materials of three-volumed novels by the dozen, if we could only pull off the roofs of the houses and look steadily into the interiors ; but our destination is further yet. The faint white streak behind the distant Chilterns reminds us that we have no time for gossip by the way ; May nights are short, and the sun will be up by four. No matter ; our journey will now soon be over, for the broad vale is crossed, and the chalk hills and downs beyond. Larks quiver up by us, " higher, ever higher," hastening up to get a 184 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. first glimpse of the coming monarch, careless of food, flooding the fresh air with song. Steady plodding rooks labor along below us, and lively starlings rush by on the lookout for the early worm ; lark and swallow, rook and starling, each on his appointed round. The sun arises, and they get them to it; he is up now, and these breezy uplands' over which we hang are swimming in the light of horizontal rays, though the shadows and mists still lie on the wooded dells which slope away south- ward. Here let us bring to, over the village of Englebourn, and try to get acquainted with the outside of the place before the good folk are about and we have to go down among them, and their sayings and doings. The village lies on the southern slopes of the Berkshire hills, on the opposite side to that under which our hero was born. Another soil altogether is here, we remark in the first place. This is nobu chalk, this high knoll which rises above — one may almost say hangs over — the village, crowned with Scotch firs, its sides tufted with gorse and heather. It is the Hawk's Lynch, the favorite resort of Englebourn f olk,who come up — for the view, for the air, because their fathers and mothers came up before them ; because they came up themselves as children — from an instinct which moves them all in leisure hours and Sunday evenings, when the sun shines and the birds sing, whether they care for view or air, or not. Something guides all their feet hitherward ; the children, to play hide-and- seek and look for nests in the gorse-bushes ; young men and maidens, to saunter and look and talk, as they will till the world's end, — or as long, at any rate, as the Hawk's Lynch and Englebourn last, — and to cut their initials, inclosed in a true lover's knot, on the short rabbits' turf ; steady married couples, to plod along together consulting on hai'd times and growing families ; even old tottering men, who love to sit at the feet of the firs, with chins leaning on their sticks, prattling of days long past to anyone who will listen, or looking silently with dim eyes into the summer air, feeling, perhaps, in their spiiits, after a wider and more peaceful view, which will soon open for them. A common knoll, open to all, up in the silent air, well away from everyday Englebourn life, with the Hampshire range and the distant Beacon Hill lying soft on the horizon, and nothing higher between you and the southern sea, what a blessing the Hawk's Lynch is to the village folk, one and all ! May HeaVen and a thankless soil long preserve it and them from an inclosure under the Act ! NEW GROUND. 185 There is much temptation lying about, tliough, for the inclosers of the world. The rough common land, you see, stretches over the whole of the knoll, and down to its base, and away along the hills behind, of which the Hawk's Lynch is an outlying spur. Hough common land, broken only by pine woods of a few acres each in extent, an occasional wood- man's or squatter's CQttage and little patch of attempted gar- den. But immediately below, and on each flank of the spur, and half-way up the slopes, come small f arm inclosures break- ing here and there the belt of woodlands, which generally lies between the rough, wild upland, and the cultivated countiy below. As you stand on the knoll you can see the common land just below you at its foot narrow into a mere road, with a border of waste on each side, which runs into Englebourn Street. At the end of the straggling village stands the church with its square tower, a lofty gray stone building, with bits of fine decorated architecture about it, but much of churchwarden Gothic supervening. The churchyard is large, and the graves, as you can see plainly, even from this distance, are all crowded on the southern side. The rector's sheep are feeding in the northern part nearest to us, and a small gate at one corner opens into his garden. The rectory looks large and comfort- able, and its grounds well cared for and extensive, with a rookery of elms at the lawn's end. It is the chief house of the place, for there is no resident squire. The principal street contains a few shops, some dozen, perhaps, in all, and several farmhouses lie a little back from it, with gardens in front, and yards and barns and orchards behind ; and -there are two pub- Uc houses. The other dwellings are mere cottages, and very Dad ones for the most part, with floors below the level of the street. Almost every house in the village is thatched, which adds to the beauty, though not to the comfort of the place. The rest of the population who do not live in the street, are dotted about the neighboring lanes, chiefly toward the west, on our right as we look down from the Hawk's Lynch. On this side the country is more open, and here most of the fawners live, as we may see by the number of homesteads. And there is a small brook on that side, too, which with careful damming is made to turn a mill, there where you see the clump of poplars. On our left as we look down, the country to the east of the village is thickly wooded ; but we can see that there is a village green on that side, and a few scattered cottages, the furthest of which stands looking out like a little white eye, from the end of a dense copse. 186 TOM BROWN AT OXFOKD. Beyond it there is no sign of habitation for some two miles; then you can see the tall chimneys of a great house, and a well- timbered park around it. The Grange is not in Englebourn par- ish — happily for that parish, one is sorry to reihark. It must be a very bad squire who does not do more good than harm by living in a country village. But there, are very bad squires, and the owner of the Grange is one of them. He is, however, for the most part, an absentee, so that we are little concerned with him, and, in fact, have only to notice this one of his bad habits, that he keeps that long belt of woodlands, which runs into Englebourn parish, and comes almost up to the village, full of hares and pheasants. He has only succeeded to the property some three or four years, and yet the head of game on the es- tate, and above all in the woods, has trebled or quadrupled, Pheasants by hundreds are reared under hens, from eggs bought in London, and run about the keepers' houses as tame as barn- door fowls all the summer. When the first party comes down for the first battue, early in October, it is often as much as the beaters can do to persuade these pampered fowls that they are wild game, whose duty it is to get up and fly away and be shot at. However, they soon learn more -of the world,-:-such of them, at least, as are not slain, — and are unmistakable wild birds in a few days. Then they take to roosting further from their old haunts, more in the outskirts of the woods, and the time comes for others besides the squire's guests to take their education in hand, and teach pheasants at least that they are no native British birds. These are a wild set, living- scattered about the wild country; turf -cutters, broom-makers, squatters, with indefinite occupations and nameless habits, a race hatei of keepers and constables. These have increased and flourisliecl of late years ; and notwithstanding the imprisonments and ti-ansportations which deprive them periodically of the most en- terprising members of their community, one and all give thanks for the day when the owner of the Grange took to pheasant breeding. If the demoralization stopped with them, little harm might come of it, as they would steal fowls in the homesteads if there were no pheasants in the woods — which latter are less dangerous to get, and worth more when gotten. But, unhap- pily, this method of earning a livelihood has strong attractions, and is catching ; and the oases of farm laborers who get into trouble about game are more frequent, season by season, in the neighboring parishes, and Englebourn is- no better than the rest. And the men are not likely to be much discouraged from these practices, or taught better by the farmers ; for, if there NEW GROUND. 187 is one thing more than another that drives that sturdy set of men, the Englebourn yeomen, into a frenzy, it is talk of the game in the Grange covers. Not that they dislike sport; they like it too well, and, moreover, have been used to their fair share of it. For the late squire left the game entirely in their hands. " You know best how much game your land will carry without serious damage to the crops," he used to say. " I like to show my friends a fair day's sport when they are with me, and to have enough game to supply the house and make a few presents. Beyond that it is no affair of mine. You can course whenever you like ; and let me know when you want a day's shooting, and you shall have it." Under this system the yeo- men became keen sportsmen ;• they and all their laborers took an interest in preserving, and the whole district would liave risen on a. poacher. The keeper's place became a sinecure, and the squire had as much game as he wanted without expense, and was, moreover, the most popular man in the county. Even after the new man came, and all was changed, that mere revoca- tion of their sporting liberties, and the increase of game, un- popular as these things were, would not alone have made the farmers so bitter, and have raised that sense of outraged justice in them. But with these changes came in a custom now in the country — the custom of selling the game. At first the report was not believed ; but soon it became notorious that no liead of game from the Grange estates was ever given away, that not only did the tenants never get a brace of birds or a hare, or the laborers a rabbit, but not one of the gentlemen who helped to kill the game ever found any of the bag in his dog- cart after the day's shooting. Nay, so shameless had tlie sys- tem become, and so highly was the art of turning the game to account cultivated at the Grange, that the keepers sold pow- der and shot to any of the guests who had emptied their own belts or flasks at something over the marlset retail price. The light cart drove to the market-town twice a week in the season, loaded heavily with game, but more heavily witli the hatred and scorn of the farmers ; and if deep and bitter curses could break patent axles or necks, the new squire and his game-cait would not long have vexed the countryside, As it was, not a man but his own tenants would salute him in the market-place; and these repaid themselves for the unwilling courtesy by bit- ter reflections on a squire who was mean enough to pay his butcher's and poulterer's bill out of their pockets. Alas, that the manly instinct of sport which is so strong in all of us Englishmen — which sends Oswells single-handed 188 TOM BKOWM- AT OXFORD. against the mightiest beasts that walk the earth, and takes the poor cockney journeyman out a ten miles' walk almost before daylight on the rare summer holiday mornings, to angle witli rude tackle in reservoir or canal — should be dragged through such mire as this in many an English shire in our day. If English landlords want to go on shooting game much longer, they must give up selling it. For if selling game becomes the rule, and not the exception (asitseems likely to do before long), good-by to sport in England. Everyman who loves his coun- try more than his pleasure or his pocket — and, thank God, that includes the great majority of us yet, however much we may delight in guns and rod, let Mr. Bright and every demagogue in the land say what they please — will cry, " Down with it," and lend a hand to put it down forever. But to return to our perch on the Hawk's Lynch above Englebourn village. As I was saying just now, when the sight of the distant Grange and its woods interrupted me, there is no squire living here. The rector is the fourth of his race who holds the family living — a kind, easy-going, gentlemanly old man, a Doctor of'Divinity, as becomes his position, though he only went into orders because there was the living ready for him. In his day he had been a good magistrate and neighbor, living with, and much in the same way, as the squii-es round about ! But his contemporaries had dropped off one by one ; his own health had long been failing ; his wife was dead ; and the young generation did not seek him. His work and parish had no real liold on him ; so he had nothing to fall back on, and had become a confirmed invalid, seldom leaving the house and garden even to go to church, and thinking more of his dinner and his health than of all other things in earth or heaven. The only child who remained at home with him was a daughter, a girl of nineteen or thereabouts, whose acquaintance we shall make presently, and who was doing all that a good heart and sound head prompted in nursing an oldhypochrondriacand filling his place in the parish. But though the old man was weak and selfish, he was kind in his way, and ready to give freely, or to do anything which his daughter suggested for the good of his people, provided the trouble was taken off his shoul- ders. In the year before our tale opens he had allowed some thirty acres of his glebe to be parceled out in allotments among the poor ; and his daughter spent almost what she pleased in clothing-clubs, and sick-clubs, and the school, without a word from him. Whenever he did remonstrate, she managed to get what she wanted out of the house-money, or her own allowance. NEW GROUND. 189 We must make acquaintance with such otTier of the inhabit- ants as it concerns us to know in the course of tlie story ; for it is broad dayliglit, and the villagers will be astir directly. Folk wlio go to bed before nine, after a hard day's work, get into the habit of turning out soon after the sun calls them. So now, descending from the Hawk's Lynch, we will alight at the east end of Englebourn, opposite the little white cottage wliich looks out at the end of the great wood, near the village green. Soon after five on that bright Sunday morning, Harry Win- burn unbolted the door of his mother's cottage, and stepped out in his shirt-sleeves on to the little walk in front, paved with pebbles. Perhaps some of my readers will recognize the name of an old acquaintance, and wonder how he got here ; so I shall explain at once. Soon after our hero went back to school, Harry's father had died of a fever. He had been a journey- man blacksmith, and in the receipt, consequently, of rather better wages than generally fall to the lot of the peasantry, but not enough to leave much of a margin over current expenditure. Moreover, the Winburns had always been open-handed with whatever money they had ; so that all he left for his widow and child, of worldly goods, was their " few sticks " of furniture, £5 in the Savings-bank, and the money from his burial-club, which was not more than enough to give him a creditable funeral — that object of honorable ambition to all the independ- ent poor. He left, however, another inheritance to them, which is, in price, above rubies, neither shall silver be named in comparison thereof — the inheritance of an honest name, of which his widow was proud, and which was not likely to suffer ill her hands. After the funeral, she removed to Englebourn, her own native village, and kept her old father's house, till his death. He was one of the woodmen to the Grange, and lived in the cot- tage at the corner of the wood in which his work lay. When he, too, died, hard times came on Widow Winburn. The steward allowed her to keep on at the cottage. The rent was a sore burden to her, but she would sooner have starved than leave it. Parish relief was out of the question for her father's child and her husband's widow ; so she turned her hand to every odd job which offered, and went to work in the fields when nothing else could be had. Whenever there was sick- ness in the place, she was an untiring nurse ; and at one time, for some nine months, she took the office of postman, and walked daily some nine miles through a severe winter. The fatigue and exposure had broken down her health, and made 190 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. her an old woman before her time. At last, in a luc'ky hour, the doctor came to hear of her praiseworthy struggles, and gave her the rectory washing, which had made her life a com- paratively easy one again. During all this time her poor neighbors had stood by her as the poor do stand by one another, helping her in numberless small ways, so that she had been able to realize the great ob- ject of her life, and keep Harry at school till he was nearly fourteen. By this time he had learned all that the village peda- gogue could teach, and had, in fact, become an object of mingled pride and jealousy to that worthy man, who had Iiis misgivings lest Harry's fame as a scholar should eclipse his own before many years were over. Mrs. Winburn's character was so good, that no sooner was her son ready for a place than a place was ready for him ; he stepped at once into the dignity of carter's boy, and his earn- ings, when added to his mother's, made them comfortable enough. Of course she was wrapped up in him and believed that there was no such boy in the parish. And indeed she was near- er the truth than most mothers, for he soon grew into a famous specimen of a countryman ; tall and lithe, full of nervous strength, and not yet bowed down or stiffened by the constant toil of a laborer's daily life. Tn these matters, however, he had rivals in the village ; but in intellectual accomplishments he was unrivaled. He was full of learning according to tlie vil- lage standard, could write and cipher well, was fomi of reading such books as came in his way, and spoke his native English witho'ut an accent. He is one-and-twenty at the time when our story takes him up, a thoroughly skilled laboi-er, the best hedger and ditcher in the parish ; and, when his blood is up, he. can shear twenty sheep in a day without razing the skin, or mow for sixteen hours at a stretch, with rests of half an hour for meals twice in a day. Harry shaded his eyes with his hand for a minute, as he stood outside the cottage drinking in the fresh, pure air, laden with the scent of the honeysuckle which he had trained over the porch, and listening to the chorus of linnets and finches from the copse at the back of the house, and then set about the household duties, which he always made it a point of honor to attend to himself on Sundays. First, he unshuttered the little lattice-window of the room on the gl'ound-floor ; a simple operation enough, for the shutter was a mere wooden flap, which was closed over the window at night, and bolted with a wooden bolt on the outside, and thrown back against the wall in the daytime. Anyone who would could have NEW GEOtTND. 191 opened it at any moment of the night ; but the poor sleep sound without bolts. Then he took the one old bucket of the establishment, and strode away to the well on the village-green and filled it with clear cold water, doing the same kind office for the vessels of two or three rosy little damsels and boys, of ages varying from ten to fourteen, who were already astir, and to whom the winding-up of the parish chain and bucket would have been a work of difficulty. Returning to the cottage, he proceeded to fill his mother's kettle, sweep the hearth, strike a light, and make up the fire with a fagot from the little stack in the corner of the garden. Then he hauled the three-legged round table before the fire and dusted it carefully over, and laid out the black japan tea-tray with two delf cups and saucers of gorgeous pattern, and diminutive plates to match, and placed the sugar and slop basins, the big loaf and small piece of salt butter, in their accustomed places, and a little black teapot on the hob to get properly warm. There was little more to be done indoors, for the furniture was scanty enough ; but everything in turn received its fair share of attention, and the little room, with its sunken tiled floor and yellow- washed walls, looked cheerful and homely. Then Harry turned his attention to the shed of his own contriving which stood beside the fagot-stack, and from which expostulatory and plaintive grunts had been issuing ever since his first appear- ance at tlie door, telling of a faithful and useful friend who was sharp-set on Sunday mornings, and desired his poor break- fast, and to be dismissed for the day to pick up the rest of his livelihood with his brethren porkers of the village on the green and in the lanes. Harry served out to the porker the poor mess which the wash of the cottage and the odds and ends of the little garden afforded ; which that virtuous animal forthwith began to discuss with both fore-feet in the trough — by way, I suppose, of adding to the flavor^while his master scratched him gently between the ears and on the back with a short stick till the repast was concluded. Tlien he opened the door of tlie sty, and the grateful animal rushed out into the lane, and away to the green with a joyful squeal and flirt of his hindquarters in the air ; and Harry, after picking a bunch of wall-flowers, and pansies, and hyacinths, a line of which flowers skirted the nari-ow garden walk, and putting them in a long-necked glass which he took from the mantelpiece, pro- ceeded to his morning ablutions, ample materials for which re- mained at the bottom of the family bucket, which he had put down on a little bench by the side of the porch. These fin- ished, he retired indoors to shave and dress himself. 192 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOEO. CHAPTER XVIII. ENGLEBOUEN VILLAGE. Dame Winbuen was not long after her son, and they sat down together to breakfast in their best Sunday clothes' — she in plain large white cap, which covered all but a line of gray hair, a black stuff gown reaching to neck and wrists, and small silk neckerchief put on like a shawl ; a thin, almost gaunt, old woman, whom the years had not used tenderly, and who showed marks of their usage — ^but a resolute, high-conraged soul, who had met hard times in the face, and could meet them again if need were. She spoke in broad Berkshire, and was otherwise a homely body, but self-possessed and without a shade of real vulgarity in her composition. The widow looked with some anxiety at Harry as he took his seat. Although something of a rustic dandy, of late he had not been so careful in this matter as usual ; but, in consequence of her reproaches, on this Sunday there was nothing to com- plain of. His black velveteen shooting-coat and cotton plush waistcoat, his brown corduroy knee-breeches and gaiters sat on him well, and gave the world assurance of a well-to-do man, for few of the Englebourn laborers rose above smock-frocks and fustian trousers. He wore a blue bird's-eye handkerchief round his neck, and his shirt, though coarse in texture, was as white as the sun and the best laundress in Englebourn could manage to bleach it. There was nothing to find fault with in his dress therefore, but still his mother did not feel quite com- fortable as she took stealthy glances at him. Harry was natu- rally rather a reserved fellow and did not make much conver- sation himself, and his mother felt a little embarrassed on this particular morning. It was not, therefore, until Dame Winburn had finished her first slice of bread and butter, and had sipped the greater part of her second dish of tea out of her saucer, that she broke silence. "I minded thy business last night, Harry, when I wur up at the rectory about the washin'. It's my belief as thou'lt get t'other 'lotment next quarter-day! The doctor spoke very kind about it, and said as how he heerd as high a character o' tliee, young as thee bist, as of are' a man in the parish, and as liow he wur set on lettin' the lots to they as'd do best by 'em ; only he said as the farmers went agin givin' more nor an acre to any man as worked for them, and the doctor, you see, he don't like to go altogether agin the vestry folk." fiNGLEBOiTEN viiiAGE. 193 " What business is it o' theirs," said Harry, " so long as they get their own work done ? There's scarce one on 'em as liasii't more land already nor he can keep as should be, and for all that they want to snap up every bit as falls vacant, so as no poor man shall get it." " 'Tis mostly so with them as has," said his mother, with a half-puzzled look ; " Scripture says as to them shall be given, and they shall have more abundant." Dame Winburn spoke hesitatingly, and looked doubtfully at Harry, as a person who has shot with a strange gun, and knows not what effect the bolt may have. Harry was brought up all standing by this unexpected quotation of his mother ; but, after thinking for a few moments while he cut himself a slice of bread, replied : " It don't say as those shall have more that can't use what they've got already. 'Tis a deal more like Naboth's vineyard for aught as I can see. But 'tis little odds to me which way it goes." " How canst talk so, Harry ? " said his mother, reproach- fully ; " thou knows't thou wast set on it last fall, like a wasp on sugar. Why, scarce a day passed but thou wast up to the rectory, to see the doctor about it ; and now thou'rt like to get it, thou'lt not go against un." Harry looked out at the open door, without answering. It was quite true that, in the last autumn, he had been very anx- ious to get as large an allotment as he could into his own hands, and that he had been forever up toward the rectory, but per- haps not always on the allotment business. He was naturally a self-reliant, shrewd fellow, and felt that if he could put his hand on three or four acres of land, he could soon make him- self independent of the farmers. He knew that at harvest- times, and whenever there was a pinch for good laborers, they would be glad enough to have him ; while at other times, with a few acres of his own, he would be his own master, and could do much better for himself. So he had put his name down first on the doctor's lists, taken the largest lot he could get, and worked it so well, that his crops, among others, had been a sort of village-show last harvest-time. Many of the neigh- boring allotments stood out in sad contrast to those of Harry and the more energetic of the peasantry, and lay by the side of these latter, only half-worked and full of weeds, and the rent was never ready. It was worse tlian useless to let matters go on thus, and the question arose, what was to be done with the neglected lots. Harry, and all the men like hira, applied at once for them ; and their eagerness to get them had roused 194 TOM BKOWN AT OXPOED. some natural jealousy among the farmers, who began to fore- see that the new system might shortly leave them with none but the worst laborers. So the vestry had pressed on the doctor, as Dame Winburn said, not to let any man have more than an acre, or an acre and a half ; and the well-meaning, easy-going, invalid old man couldn't make up his mind what to do. So here was May come again, and the neglected lots were still in the nominal occupation of the idlers. The doctor got no vent, and was annoyed at the partial failure of a scheme wliioh he had not indeed originated, but for which he had taken much credit to himself. The negligent occupiers grumbled tliat they were not allowed a drawback for manure, and that no pigstys were put up for them. " 'Twas allers understood so," they maintained, " they'd never ha' took to the lots but for that." The good men grumbled that it would be too late now for them to do more then clean the lots of weeds this year. The farmers grumbled that it was always understood no man should have more than one lot. The poor rector had led his flock into a miry place with a vengeance. People who cannot make up their minds breed trouble in other places be- sides country villages. However quiet and out of the way the place may be, there is always some quani public topic which stands, to the rural Englishman, in the place of treaty, or budget, or reform-bill. So the great allotment question, for the time, was that which exercised the minds of the inhabitants of Englebourn ; and until lately no one had taken a keener ioterest in it than Harry Winburn. But that interest had now much abated, and so Harry looked through the cottage-door, instead of answering his mother. " 'Tis my belief as you med a'most hev it for the axin'," Dame Winburn began again, when she found that he would not re-open the subject himself. " The young missus said as much to me herself last night. Ah ! to be sure things'd go better if she had the guidin' on 'em." "I'm not going after it any more, mother. We can keep the bits o' sticks here together without it while you be alive ; and if anything was to happen to you, I don't think I should stay in these parts. But it don't matter what becomes o' me ; I can e.iin a livelihood anywhere." Dame Winburn paused a moment before answering, to sub- due her vexation, and then said, " How can 'ee let hankerin' arter a lass take the heart out o' thee so ? Hold up thy head, and act a bit measterful. The more thou makest o' thyself the more like thou art to win." BNGLEBOTTKN VILLAGE. 1S5 " Did you hear aught of her, mother, last night ? " replied Harry, taking advantage of this ungracious opening to speak of the subject which was uppermost in his mind. " I heard she wur going on well," said his mother. " No likelihood of her comin' home ? " "Not as I could make out. Why she hevn't been gone not four months. Now, do 'ee pluck up a bit, Harry ; and be more like thyself." "Why, mother, I've not missed a day's work since Christ- mas ; so there aint much to find fault with." " Nay, Harry, 'tisn't thy work. Thou wert always good at thy work, praise God. Thou'rt thy father's own son for that. But thou doesn't keep about like, and take thy place wi' the lave on 'em since Christmas. Tliou look'st haggard at times, and folk'U see it, and talk about thee afore long." " Let 'em talk. I mind their talk no more than last year's wind," said Harry, abruptly. " But thy old mother does," she said, looking at him with eyes full of pride and love ; and so Harrj, wjio y^s a right good son, began to inquire what it was which was specially weighing on his mother's mind, determined to do anything in reason to replace her on the little harmless social pinnacle from which she was wont to look down on all the other mothers and sons of the parish. He soon found out that her present griev- ance arose from his having neglected his place as ringer of the heavy bell in the village peal on the two preceding Sundays ; and, as this post was in some sort corresponding to stroke of the' boat at Oxford, her anxiety was reasonable enough. So Harry promised to go to ringing in good time that morning, and then set about little odds and ends of jobs till it would be time to start. Dame Winburn went to her cooking and other household duties, which were pretty well got under when her son took his hat and started for the belfry. She stood at the door with a half -peeled potato in one hand, shading her eyes with the other, as she watched him striding along the raised footpath under the elms, when the sound of light footsteps and pleasant voices coming up from the other direction made her turn round, and drop a courtesy as the rector's daughter and another young lady stopped at her door. " Good-moraing, Betty," said the former ; " here's a bright Sunday morning at last ; isn't it ? " " 'Tis, indeed, miss ; but where hev 'ee been to ? " " Oh, we've only been for a little walk before school-time. This is my cousin, Betty. She hasn't been at Englebourn since 196 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOKD. she -wag quite a child ; so I've been taking her to the Hawk's Lynch to see our view." " And you can't think how I have enjoyed it," said her cousin ; " it is so still and beautiful." " I've heerd say as there aint no such a place for thretty mile round," said Betty, proudly. " But do 'ee come in tho,' and sit 'ee down a bit," she added, bustling inside her door, and beginning to rub down a chair with her apron ; "'tis a smart step for gentlefolk to walk afore church." Betty's notions of the walking powers of ^gentlefolk were very limited. "No, thank you, we must be getting on," said Miss Winter ; " but how lovely your flowers are. Look, Mary, did you ever see such double pansies ? We've nothing like them at the rectory ? " " Do 'ee take some," said Betty, emerging again, and begin- ning to pluck a handful of her finest flowers ; " 'tis all our Harry's doing ; he's mazin partickler about seeds." " He seems to make everything thrive, Betty. There, that's plenty, thank you. We won't take many, for fear they should fade before church is over," " Oh, don't 'ee be afeared, there's plenty more ; and you be as welcome as the day." Betty never said a truer word ; she was one of the real open- handed sort, who are found mostly among those who have the least to give. They or anyone else were welcome to the best she had. So the young ladies took the flowers, and passed on toward the Sunday school. The rector's daughter might have been a year or so older than her companion ; she looked more. Her position in tlie village had been one of much anxiety, and she was fast getting an old head on young shoulders The other young lady was a slip of a girl just coming out ; in fact, this was tlie first visit which she had ever paid out of leading strings. She had lived in a happy home, where she had always been trusted and loved, and perhaps a thought too much petted. There are some natures which attract petting ; you can't help doing your best to spoil them in this way, arid it is satis- factory, therefore, to know (as the fact is) that they are just the ones which cannot be so spoilt. Miss Mary was one of these. Trustful, for she had neter been tricked; fearless, for she had never been cowed; pure and bright as the Englebourn brook at fifty yards from its BNGLEBOUKN VILLAGE. 197 parent spring in the chalk, for she had a pure and bright na- ture, and had come in contact as yet with nothing which could soil or cast a shadow ! What wonder that her life gave forth liglit and music as it glided on, and that everyone who knew her was eager to have her with them, to warm themselves in the light and rejoice in the music. Besides all her other attractions, or in consequence of them for anything I know, she was one of the merriest young women in the world, always ready to bubble over and break out into clear laughter on the slightest provocation ; and provocation had not been wanting during the last two days which she had spent with her' cousin. As usual, she had brought sunshine with her, and the old doctor had half forgotten his numerous complaints and grievances for the time. So the cloud which generally hung over the house had been partially lifted, and Mary, knowing and suspecting nothing of the dark side of life at Englebourn rectory, rallied her cousin on her gravity, and laughed till she cried at the queer ways and talk of the people about the place. As soon as they were out of hearing of Dame Winburn, Mary began : " Well, Katie, I can't say that yoa have mended your case at all." " Surely, you can't deny that there is a great deal of char- acter in Betty's face ? " said Miss Winter. " Oh, plenty of character ; all your people, as soon as they begin to stiffen a little and get wrinkles, seem to be full of character, and I enjoy it much more than beauty ; but we were talking about beauty, you know." "Betty's son is the handsomest young man, in the parish," said Miss Winter ; " and I must say I don't think you could find a better-looking one anywhere." " Then I can't have seen him." "Indeed you- have; I pointed him out to you at the post- office yesterday. Don't you remember : he was waiting for a letter." " Oh, yes ! now I remember. Well, he was better than most. But the faces of your young people, in general, are not interesting. I don't mean the children, but the young men and women, — and they are awkward and clownish in their manners, without the quaintness of the elder generation, who ar^ the funniest old dears in the world." " They will all be quaint enough as they get older. You must remember the sort of life thejr lead. They get their 198 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. notions very slowly, and tliey must have notions in their heads before they can show them on their faces." " Well, your Betty's son looked as if he had a notion of hanging himself yesterday." " It's no laughing matter, Mary. I hear he is desperately in love." " Poor fellow ! that makes a difference of course. I hope he won't carry out his notion. Who is it? do you know? Do tell me all about it." - " Our gardener's daughter, I believe. Of course, I never meddle with these matters, but one can't help hearing the servants' gossip. I think it likely to be true, for he was about our premises at all sorts of times until lately, and I never see him now that she is away." "Is she pretty?" said Mary, who was getting interested. "Yes, she is our belle. In fact, they are the two beauties of the parish." " Fancy that cross-grained old Simon having a pretty daugh- ter. O Katie, look here, who is this figure of fun ? " The figure of fun was a middle-aged man of small stature, and very bandy-legged, dressed in a blue coat and brass buttons, and carrying a great bass-viol bigger than himself, in a rough baize cover. He came out of a footpath into the road just before them and, and on seeing them, touched his hat to Miss .Winter, and then fidgeted along with his load, and jerked bis head in a deprecatory nianner away irom them as he walked on, with the sort of look and action which a favorite terrier uses when his master holds out a lighted cigar to his nose. He was the village tailor and constable, also the principal per- former in the church-music which obtained in Englebourn. In the latter capacity he had of late come into collision with Miss Winter. For this was another of the questions which divided the parish — the great church-music question. From time im- memorial, at least ever since the gallery at the west end bad been built, the village psalmody had been in the hands of tbe occupiers of that Protestant structure. In the middle of the front row sat the musicians, three in number, who played respectively a bass-viol, a fiddle, and a clarionet. On one side 9f them were two or three young women, who sang treble — shrill, ear piercing treble — with a strong, nasal, Berkshire drawl in it. On the other side of the musicians sat the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and other tradesmen of the place. Trades- man means in that part of the country what we mean by artisan, and these were naturally allied uiore with the laborers. ENGLEBOUESr VILLAGE. 199 ' and consorted with them. So far as church-going was con. cerned, they formed a sort of independent opposition, sitting in the gallery, instead of in the nave, where the farmers and the two or three principal shopkeepers — the great landed and commercial interest — regularly sat and slept, and where the two publicans occupied pews, but seldom made even .the pretense of worsliiping. The rest of the gallery was filled by the able-bodied male peasantry. The old worn-out men generally sat below in the free seats ; the women also, and some few boys. But the hearts of those latter were in the gallery — a seat on the back benches of which was a sign that they had indued the toffa vi- rilis, and were thenceforth free from maternal and pastoral tutelage in the matter of church-going. The gallery thus con- stituted had gradually usurped the psalmody as their particular and special portion of the service ; they left the clerk and the school-children, aided by such of the aristoci'acy below as cared to join, to do the responses ; but, when singing time came, they reigned supreme. The slate on which the Psalms were an- nounced was hung out from before the center of the gallery, and the clerk, leaving his place under the reading desk, marched up there to give them out. He took this method of preserving his constitutional connection with the singing, knowing that otherwise he could not have maintained the rightful position of his office in this matter. So matters had stood until shortly before the time of our story. The present curate, however, backed by Miss Winter, had tried a reform. He was a quiet man, with a wife and several children, and small means. He had served in the diocese ever since he had been ordained, in a humdrum sort of way, going where he was sent for, and performing his routine duties rea- sonably well, but without showing any great aptitude for his work. He had little interest^ and had almost given up expect- ing promotion, which he certainly had done nothing particular to merit. But there was one point on which he was always ready to go out of his way, and take a little trouble. He was a good musician, and had formed choirs at all his former curacies. Soon after his arrival, therefore, he, in concert with Mfes Winter, had begun to train the children in church music. A small organ, which had stood in a passage in the rectory for many years, had been repaired, and appeared first at the school- room, and at length under the gallery of the church ; and it was announced one week to the party in possession that, on 200 TOM BKOWN AT OXPOED. the next Sunday, the constituted authorities would tate the churcli music into their own hands. Then arose a strife, the end of which had nearly been to send the gallery off in a body, headed by the offended bass-viol, to the small red-brick little Bethel at the other end of the village. Fortunately, the curate had too much good sense to drive matters to extremities, and s) alienate tlie parish constable and a large part of his flock, though he had not tact or energy enough to bring them round ti) his own views. So a compromise was come to ; and the curate's choir were allowed to chant the Psalms and Canticles, wliich had always been read before, while the gallery remained triumphant masters of the regular Psalms. My readers will now understood why Miss Winter's saluta- tion to the musical constable was not so cordial as it was to the other villagers whom they had come across previously. Indeed, Miss Winter, though she acknowledged the consta- ble's salutation, did not seem inclined to encourage him to ac- company them, and talk his mind out, although he was going the same way with them ; and instead of drawing him out as was her wont in such cases, went on talking herself to her cousin. The little man walked out in the road, evidently in trouble of mind. He did not like to drop behind or go ahead without some further remark from Miss Winter, and yet could not screw up his courage to the point of opening the conversation himself. So he ambled on alongside the footpath on which they were walking, showing his discomfort by a twist of his neck every few seconds (as though he were nodding at them with the side of his head) and perpetual shifting of his bass- viol, and hunching up of one shoulder. The conversation of the young ladies under these circum- stances was of course forced ; and Miss Marj"-, though infinitely delighted at the meeting, soon began to pity their involuntary companion. She was full of the sensitive instinct which the best sort of women have to such a marvelous extent, and which tL'lls them at once and infallibly if anyone in their company iias even a creased rose-leaf next their moral skin. Before they had walked a hundred yards she was interceding for tlie rebellious constable. " Katie," she said softly, in French, " do speak to him. The poor man is frightfully uncomfortable." " It serves him riglit," answered Miss Winter, in the same language ; " you don't know how impertinent he was the other day to Mr. Walker. And he won't give way on the least point, ENGLEBOUEN TILLAGE. 201 and leads the rest of the old singers, and makes them as stub- born as himself." " But do look how he is winking and jerking his head at you. You really mustn't be so cruel to him, Katie. I shall have to begin talking to him if you don't." Thus urged, Miss Winter opened the conversation by asking after his wife, and, when she had ascertained " that his missus wur pretty middlin'," made some other commonplace remark, and relapsed into silence. By the help of Mary, however, a sort of disjointed dialogue was kept up till they came to the gate which led up tp the school, into which the children were trooping by twos and threes. Here the ladies turned in, and were going up the walk, toward the school door, when the constable summoned up courage to speak on the matter which was troubling him, and resting the bass-viol carefully on his right foot, called after them : " Oh, please, marm ! Miss Winter ! " " Well," she said quietly, turning round, "what do you wish to say?" " W'y, please, marm, I hopes you don't think I be any ways unked, 'bout this here quire-singin', as they calls it — I'm sartin vou knows as there aint a'most nothing I wouldn't do to please 'ee." " Well, you know how to do it very easily," she said when he paused. " I don't ask you even to give up your music and try to work with us, though I think you might have done that. I only ask you to use some psalms and tunes which are fit to be used in a church." "To be sure us ool. 'Taint we as want no new-fangled tunes ; them as we sings be aal owld ones as ha' been used in our church ever since I can mind. But you only choose thaay as you likes out o' the book, and we be ready to kep to they." " I think Mr. Walker made a selection for you some weeks ago," said Miss Winter ; " did not he ? " " 'Ees, but 'tis narra mossel o' use for we to try his 'goriums and sich like. I hopes you wun't be offended wi' me, miss, for I be telling naught but truth." He spoke louder as they got nearer to the school door, and, as they were opening it, shouted his last shot after them, " 'Tis na good to try thaay tunes o' his'n, miss. When us praises God, us likes to praise un joyful." " There, you hear that, Mary," said Miss Winter. " You'll soon begin to see why I look grave. There never was such a hai'd parish to manage. Nobody will do what they ought. I 202 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. never can get them to do anything. Perhaps we may maa- age to teach the children better; that's my only comfort." " But Katie, dear, what do the poor things sing ? Psalms, I hope." " Gh, yes ; but they choose all the odd ones on purpose, I believe. Which class will you take ? " And so tlie young ladies settled to their teaching, and the children in her class all fell in love with Mary before church- time. The bass-viol proceeded to the church and did the usual re- hearsals, and gossiped with' the sexton, to whom he confided the fact that the young missus was terrible vexed. The bells soon began to ring, and Widow Winburn's heart was glad as she listened to the full peal, and thought to herself that it was her Harry who was making so much noise in the world, and speaking to all the neighborhood. Then the peal ceased, as church time drew near, and the single bell began, and the con- gregation came flocking in from all sides. The farmei-s, let- ting their wives and children enter, gathered around the chief porch and compared' notes in a ponderous manner on crops and markets. The laborers collected near the door by which the gallery was reached. All the men of the parish seemed to like standing, about before church, though poor Walker, the curate, did not appear. He came up with the school children and the young ladies, and in due course the bell stopped and the service began. There was a very good congregation stiU at Engleboui'n ; the adult generation had been bred up in times when every decent person in the parish went to church, and the custom was still strong, notwithstanding the rector's bad example. He scarcely ever came to church himself in the mornings, though his wheel-chair might be seen going up and down on the gravel before his house or on the lawn on warm days ; and this was one of his daughter's greatest troubles. The little choir of children sang admirably, led by the school-mistress, and Miss Winter and the curate exchanged approving glances. They performed the liveliest chant in their collection, that the opposition might have no cause to complain of their want of joyfulness. And in turn Miss Wheeler was in hopes that, out of deference to her, the usual rule of selection in the gallery might have been modified. It was with no small annoyance, therefoi-e, that, after the litany was over and the tuning finished, she heard the clerk give out that they would praise God by singing part of the ninety-first Psalm. ENGLEBOUKN VILLAGE. 203 Mary, who was on the tiptoe of expectation as to what was coming, saw the curate give a slight shrug with his shoulders and lift of his eyebrows as he left the reading-desk, and in another minute it became a painful effort for her to keep from laughing as she slyly watched her cousin's face ; while the gallery sang with vigoi- worthy of any cause or occa- sion: On the old lion He shall go, . The adder fell andlong ; On the young lion tread also, With dragons stout and strong. The trebles took up the last line, and repeated : With dragons stout and strong ; and then the whole strength of the gallery chorused again: With dra-jTons stout and strong. and the bass-viol seemed to her to prolong the notes and to gloat over them as he droned them out, looking triumphantly at the distant curate. Mary was thankful to kneel down to compose her face. The first trial was the severe one, and she got through the second psalm much better ; and by the time Mr. Walker had plunged fairly into his sermon she was a model of propriety and sedateness again. But it was to be a Sunday of adventures. The sermon had scarcely begun when there was a stir down by the door at the west end, and people began to look round and whisper. Presently a man came softly up and said something to the clerk ; the clerk jumped up and whispered to the curate, who paused for a moment with a puzzled look, and, instead of finishing his sentence, said in a loud voice, " Farmer Grove's house is on fire ! " The curate probably anticipated the effect of his words ; in a minute he was the only person left in the church except the clerk and one or two very infirm old folk. He shut up and pocketed his sermon, and followed his flock. It proved luckily to be only Farmer Grove's chimney and not his house which was on fire. The farm house was only two fields from the village, and the congregation rushed across there, Harry Winburn and two or three of" the most active young men and boys leading. As they entered the yard the flames were rushing out of the chimney, and any moment the thatch might take fire. Here was the real dan- ger. A ladder had just been reared against the chimney, and, while a frightened farm-girl and a carter-boy held it at the 204 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. bottom, a man was going up it, carrying a -bucket of water. It shook with his weight, and the top was slipping gradually along the face of the chimney, and in another moment would rest against nothing. Harry and his companions saw the danger at a glance, and shouted to the man to stand still till they could get to the ladder. They rushed toward him with the rush which men can only make under strong excitement ; but the foremost of them caught a spoke with one hand, and, before he coul3. steady it, the top slipped clear of the chimney, and ladder, man, and bucket, came heavily to the ground. Then came a scene of bewildering confusion, as women and children trooped into the yard — " Who was it ? " " Was he dead ? " " The fire was catching the thatch." " The stables were on fire." " Who done it ? " — all sorts of cries, and all sorts of acts except the right ones. Fortunately, two or three of the men, with heads on their shoulders, soon organized a line for handing buckets ; the flue was stopped below, and Harry Winburn, standing nearly at the top of the ladder, which was now safely planted, was deluging the thatch round the chimney from the buckets handed up to him. In a few minutes he was able to pour water down the chimney itself, and soon afterward the whole affair was at an end. The farmer's dinner was spoilt, but otherwise no damage had been done, except to the clothes of the foremost men; and the only accident was that first fall from the ladder. The man had been carried out of tlie yard while the fire was still burning; so that it was hardly known who it was. Now, in answer to their inquiries, it pi'oved to be old Simon, the rector's gardener and head man, who had seen the fire, and sent the news to the church, while he himself went to the spot, with such result as we have seen. The surgeon had not yet seen him. Some declared he was dead ; others, that he was sitting up at home and quite well. Little by little the ci-owd dispersed to Sunday's dinners ; and, when they met again before the afternoon's service it was ascertained that Simon was certainly not dead, but all else was still nothing more than rumor. Public opinion was much di- vided, some holding that it would go hard with a man of his age and heft; but the common belief seemed to be that he was of that sort " as'd take a deal o' killin'," and that he would be none the worse for such a fall as that. The two young ladies had been much shocked at the acci- dent, and had accompanied the hurdle on which old Simon was carried to his cottage door; after afternoon service they went ENGLEBOtTEN VltLAGE. 205 round by the cottage to inquire. The two girls knocked at the door, which was opened by his wife, who dropped a cour- tesy and smoothed down her Sunday apron when she found who were her visitors. She seemed at first a little unwilling to let them in ; but Miss Winter pressed so kindly to see her husband, and Mary made such sympathizing eyes at her, that the old woman gave in, and conducted her through the front room into that beyond where the patient lay. " I hope as you'll excuse it, miss, for I knows the place do smell terrible bad of baccer ; only my old man he said as how " " Oh, never mind; we don't care at all about the smell. Poor Simon ! I'm sure if it does him any good, or soothes the pain, I shall be glad to buy him some tobacco myself." The old man was lying on the bed with his coat and boots off, and a worsted nightcap of his wife's knitting pulled on to his head. She had tried hard to get him to go to bed at once, and take some physic, and his present costume and position was the compromise. His back was turned to them as' they entered, and he was evidently in pain, for he drew his breath lieavily and with difiiculty, and gave a sort of groan at every respiration. He did not seem to notice their entrance; so his wife touched him on the shoulder, and said : " Simon, here's the young ladies come to see how you be." ■ Simon turned himself round, and winced and groaned as he pulled his nightcap off in token of respect. " We didn't like to go home without coming to see how you were, Simon. Has the doctor been ? " " Oh, yes, thank 'ee, miss. He've a been and feel'd un all over and listened at the chest on un," said his wife. " And what did he say ? " " A zem'd to zay as there wur no bwones bruk — ugh, ugh," put in Simon, who spoke his native tongue with a buzz im- ported from further west, " but a couldn't zay wether or no there warn't some infarnal injury " " Etarnal, Simon, etarnal ! " interrupted his wife ; " how canst use such words afore the young ladies ? " " I tell 'ee, wife, as 'twur infarnal — ugh, ugh," retorted the gardener. " Internal injury ? " suggested Miss Winter. " I'm very sorry to hear it." "Zumm at inside o' me like, as wur got out o' place," ex- plained Simon; "and I thenks a must be near about the mark, 206 TOM BSOWN AT OXFORD. for I feels mortal bad here when I tries to move; " and he put his hand on his side. " Hows'm'ever, as there's no bwones bruk I hopes to be about to-morrow mornin', please the Lord — ngh, ugh ! " " You mustn't think of it, Simon," said Miss Winter. " You must be quite quiet for a week, at least, till you get rid of this pain." " So I tells un, Miss Winter," put in the wife. " You hear what the young missus says, Simon ?" " And wut's to happen Tiny ? " said the contumacious Simon, scornfully. " Her'll east her calf, and me not by. Her's calv- ing may be this minut. Tiny's time wur up, miss, two days back, and her's never no gurt while arter her time." " She will do very well, I dare say," said Miss Winter. " One of the men can look after her." The notion of anyone else attending Tiny in her interesting situation seemed to excite Simon beyond bearing, for he raised himself on one elbow, and was about to make a demonstration with his other hand, when the pain seized him again, and he sank back groaning. " There, you see, Simon, you can't move without pain. You must be quiet till you have seen the doctor again." " There's the red spider out along the south wall — ugh, ugh," persisted Simon, without seeming to hear her ; " and your new g'raniums a'most covered wi' blight. I wur a tacklin' one on 'em just afore you come in." ' Following the direction indicated by this nod, the girls became aware of a plant by his bedside, which he had been fumigating, for his pipe was leaning against the flower-pot in which it stood. " He wouldn't lie still nohow, miss," explained his wife, " till I went and fetched un in a pipe and one o' thaay plants from tlie greenhouse." " It was very thoughtful of you, Simon," said Miss Winter ; " you know how much I prize these new plants ; but we will manage them ; you mustn't think of these things now. You have had a wonderful escape to-day for a man of your age. I hope we shall find that there is nothing much the matter with you after a few days, but you might have been killed, you know. You ought to be very thankful to God that you were not killed in that fall." "So I be, miss, werry thankful to un — ugh, ugh ; and if it plaase the Lord to spare my life till to-morrow mornin', — ugh, ugh, — we'll smoke them cussed insects." PKOMISB OF FAIBEK WEATHER. 207 This last retort of the incorrigible Simon on her cousin's at- tempt, as the rector's daughter, to improve the occasion, was too much for Miss Mary, and she slipped out of the room lest she should bring disgrace on herself by an explosion of laughter. She was joined by her cousin in another minute, and the two walked together toward tlie rectory. " I hope you were not faint, dear, with that close room, smelling of smoke ?" " Oh, dear, no ; to tell you the truth, I was only afraid of laughing at your quaint old patient. What a rugged old dear it is. I hope he isn't much hurt." " I hope not, indeed ; for he is the most honest, faithful old servant in the world, but so obstinate. He never will go to church on Sunday mornings ; and, when I speak to him about .it, he says papa doesn't go, which is very wrong and imperti- nent of him." CHAPTER XIX. "^ PEOMISB OF FAIEEE WEATHEE. Ail dwellers in and about London are, alas, too well ac- quainted with that never-to-be-enougli-hated change which we have to undergo once at least in every spring. As each suc- ceeding winter wears away, the same thing happens to us. For some time we .do not trust the fair, lengthening days, and cannot believe that the dirty pair of sparrows who live op- posite our window are really making love and going to build, notwithstanding all their twittering. But morning after morn- ing rise's fresh and gentle ; there is no longer any vice in the air ; we drop our overcoats ; we rejoice in the green shoots which the privet hedge is making in the square garden, and hail the returning tender-pointed leaves of the plane trees as friends ; we go out of our way to walk through Covent Garden market to see the ever-brightening show of flowers from the happy country. This state of things goes on sometimes for a few days only, sometimes for weeks, till we make sure that we are safe for this spring, at any rate. Don't we wish we may get it ! Sooner or later, but sure — sure as Christmas bills, or the income-tax, or anything, if there be anything, surer, than these — comes the morning when we are suddenly conscious, as soon as we rise, that there is something the matter. "We do not feel com- fortable in our clothes ; nothing tastes quite as it should at breakfast ; though the day looks bright enough, there is a 208 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. fierce, dusty taint aboat it, as we look out through windows, which no instinct now prompts us to throw open, as it has done every day for the last month. But it is only when we open our doors and issue into the street, that the hatefftl reality comes right home to us. All moisture, and softness, and pleasantness has gone clean out of the air since last night ; we seem to inhale yards of horsehair instead of satin ; our skins dry up ; our eyes and hair and whiskers and clothes are soon filled with loathsome dust, and our nostrils with the reek of the great city. We glance at the weathercock on the nearest steeple and see that it points N.E. And so long as the change lasts we- carry about with us a feel- ing of anger and impatience as though we personally were be- ing ill-treated. We could have borne with it well enough in November ; it would have been natural, and all in the day's work, in March ; but now, when Rotten Row is beginning to be crowded, when long lines of pleasure-vans are leaving town on Monday mornings for Hampton Court, or the poor remains of dear Epping Forest, when the exhibitions are open or about to open, when the religious public is up, or on its way up, for May meetings, when the Thames is already sending up faint warnings of what we may expect, as soon as his dirty old life's blood shall have been thoroughly warmed up, and the Ship, and Trafalgar, and Star and Garter are in full swing at the antag- onist poles of the cockney system, we do feel that this blight which has come over us and everything is an ins'ult, and that while it lasts, as there is nobody who can be made particularly responsible for it, we are justified in going about in general dis- gust, and ready to quarrel with anybody we may meet on the . smallest pretext. This sort of east-windy state is perhaps the best physical analogy for that mental one in which our hero now found him- self. The real crisis was over ; he had managed to pass through the eye of the storm, and drift for the present at least into the skirts of it, where he lay rolling under bare poles, compara- tively safe, but without any power, as yet, to get the sliip well in hand, and make her obey her helm. The storm might break over him again at any minute, and would find him almost as helpless as ever. For he could not follow Drysdale's advice at once, and break oflF his visits to " The Choughs " altogether. He went back again after a day or two, but only for short visits ; he never stayed behind now after the other men left the bar, and avoided interviews with Patty alone as diligently as he had sought PEOMISE OF FAIEBK WEATHEE. 209 them before. She was puzzled at his change of manner, and not being able to account for it, was piqued, and ready to re- venge herself and pay him out in the hundred little ways which the least practiced of her sex know how to employ for the dis- cipline of any of the inferior or trousered half of the creation. If she had been really in love with him, it would have been a different matter ; but she was not. In the last six weeks she had certainly often had visions of the pleasures of being a lady and keeping servants, and riding in a carriage like the squires' and rectors' wives and daughters about her home. She had a liking, even a sentiment for him, which might very well have grown into something dangerous before long ; but as yet it was not more than skin deep. Of late, indeed, she had been much more frightened than attracted by the conduct of her admirer, and really felt it a relief, notwithstanding her pique, when he retired into the elder-brother sort of state. But she would have been more than woman if she had not resented the change; and so, very soon, the pangs of jealousy were added to his other troubles. Other men were beginning to frequent " The Choughs " regularly. Drysdale, besides dividing with Tom the prestige of being an original discoverer, was by far the largest customer. St. Cloud came, and brought Chanter with him, to whom Patty was actually civil, not because she liked him at all, but because she saw that .it made Tom furious. Though he could not fix on any one man in particulai', he felt that mankind in general were gaining on him. In his better moments indeed he often wished that she would take the matter into her own hands and throw him over for good and all ; but keep away from the place altogether he could not, and often, when he fancied himself on the point of doing it, a pretty toss of her head, or kind look of her eyes, would scatter all his good resolutions to the four winds. And so the days dragged on, and he dragged on through them ; hot fits of conceit alternating in him with cold fits of despond- ency and mawkishness and discontent with everything and everybody, which were all the more intolerable from their en- tire strangeness. Instead of seeing the bright side of all things, he seemed to be looking at creation through j'ellow spectacles, and saw faults and blemishes in all his acquaintance which had been till now invisible. But, the more he was inclined to depreciate all other men, the more he felt that there was one to whom he had been grossly unjust. And, as he recalled all that had passed, he be- gan to do justice to the man who had not flinched from warn- 210 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. ing him. and braving him, who, he felt, had been watching over him, and tiying to guide him straight when he had lost all power or will to keep straight himself. From this time the dread increased on him lest any of the other men should find out his quarrel with Hardy. Their utter ignorance of it encouraged him in the hope that it miglit all pass off like abad dream. While it remained a matter between them alone he felt that all might come straight, though he could not think how. He began to loiter by the entrance of the passage which led to Hardy's rooms ; sometimes he would find something to say to his scout or bedmaker which took him into the back regions outside Hardy's window, glancing at it sideways as he stood giving his orders. There it was, wide open, generally — he hardly knew whether he hoped to catch a glimpse of the owner, but he did hope that Hardy might hear his voice. He watched him in chapel and hall furtively, but constantly, and was always fancying what he was doing and thinking about. Was it as painful an effort to Hardy, he won- dered, as to him to gc^;on peaking as if nothing had happened, wheii they met at the boats, as they did now again almost daily (for Diogenes was bent on training some of the torpids foi' next year), and yet never to look one another in the face ; to live together as usual during part of every day, and yet to feel all the time that a great wall had arisen between them, more hopelessly dividing them for the time than thousands of miles of ocean or continent ? Among other distractions which Tom tried at this crisis of his life was reading. For three or four days running he really worked hard, — very hard, if we were to reckon by the number of hours he spent in his own rooms over his books with his oak sported, — hard, even though we should only reckon by results. For, though scarcely an hour passed that he was not balanc- ing on the hind legs of his chair with a vacant look in his eyes, and thinking of anything but Greek roots or Latin construc- tions, yet on the whole he managed to get through a good deal, and one evening, for the first time since his quarrel with Hardy, felt a sensation of real comfort — it hardly amounted to pleas- ure — as he closed his Sophocles some hour or so after hall, hav- ing just finished the last of the Greek plays which he meant to take in for his first examination. He leaned back in his chair and sat for a few minutes, letting his thoughts follow their own bent. They soon took to going wrong, and he jumped up in fear lest he should be d.rifting back into the black, stormy sea in the trough of which he had been laboring so lately, and PROMISE OP FAIEBE WEATHEE. 211 which he felt he was by no means clear of yet. At first he caught up his cap and gown as though he were going out. There was a wine party at one of his acquaintances' rooms ; or he could go and smoke a cigar in the pool-room, or at any one of a dozen other places. On second tlioughts, however, he threw his academicals back on to the sofa, and went to his bookcase. The reading had paid so well that evening that he resolved to go on with it. He had no particular object in selecting one book more than another, and so took down care- lessly the first that came to hand. It happened to be a volume of Plato, and opened of its own accord in the Apology. He glanced at a few lines. What a flood of memories they called up ! This was almost the last book he had read at school ; and teacher, and friends, and lofty oak-shelved library stood out before him at once. Then the blunders that he himself and others had made rushed through his mind, and he almost burst into a laugh as he wheeled his chair round to the window, and began reading where be had opened, encouraging every thought of the old times when he first read that marvelous defense, and throwing himself back into them with all his might. And still, as he read, foi-gotten words of wise comment, and strange thoughts of wonder and longing, came back to him. The great truth which he had been led to the brink of in those early days rose in all its awe and all its attractiveness before him. He leant back in his chair, and gave himself up to his thought ; and how strangely that thought bore on the struggle which had been raging in him of late ; how an answer seemed to be trembling to come out of it to all the cries, now defiant, now plaintive, which had gone up out of his heart in this time of trouble ! For his thought was of that spirit, distinct from himself, and yet communing with his inmost soul, always dwelling in him, knowing him better than he knew himself, never misleading him, always leading him to light and truth, of which the old philosopher spoke. " The old heathen Socrates did actually believe that — there can be no question about it," he thought. " Has not the testimony of the best men through these two thousand years borne witness that he was right — that he did not believe a lie ? That was what we were told. Surely, I don't mistake ! Were we not told, too, or did I dream it, tjiat what was true for him is true for every man — for me ? That there is a spirit dwell- ing in me, striving with me, ready to lead me into all truth if I will submit to his guidance ? " Ay ! submit, submit, there's the rub ! Give yourself up to 212 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. his guidance ! Throw up the reins, and say you've made A mess of it. "Well, why not ? Haven't I made a mess of it ? Am I fit to hold the reins ? " Not I," he got up and began walking about his rooms, "I give it up." " Give it Up ! " he went on presently ; " yes, but to whom ? Not to the demon, spirit, whatever it was, who took up his abode in the old Athenian — at least so he said, and so I believe. No, no ! - Two thousand years and all that they have seen liave not passed over the world to leave us just where he was left. We want no demons or spirits. And yet the old heathen was guided right, and what can a man want more ? and who ever wanted guidance more than I now — here — in this room — at this minute? I give up the reins ; who will take them?" And so there came on him one of those seasons when a man's thoughts cannot be followed in words. A sense of awe came on him, and over him, and wrapped him round ; awe at a pres- ence of which he was becoming suddenly conscious, into which he seemed to have wandered, and yet which he felt must have been there, around him, in his own heart and soul, though he knew it not. There was hope and longing in his heart min- gling with the fear of that presence, but withal the old reckless and daring feeling which he knew so well, still bubbling up untamed, untamable it seemed to him. The room stifled him now ; so he threw on his cap and gown, and hurried down into the quadrangle. It was very quiet ; probably there were not a dozen men in college. He walked across to the low, dark entrance of the passage which led to Hardy's rooms, and there paused. Was he there by chance, or was he guided there ? Yes, this was the right way for him, he. had no doubt now as to that ; down the dark passage, and into the room he knew so well — and what then ? He took a short turn or two before the entrance. How could he be sure that Hardy was alone ? And, if not, to go in would be worse than useless. If he were alone, what should he say ? After all, must he go in there ? Was there no way but that ? The college clock struck a quarter to seven. It was his usual time for " The Coughs" ; tlie house would be quiet now ; was there not one looking out for him there who would be grieved if he did not come ? After all, might not that be his way, for this night at least? He might bring pleasure to one human being by going there at once. That he knew ; what else could he be sure of? At this moment he heard Hardy's door open, and a voice PBOMISE OF FAIEEE WKATHEE. 213 saying, "Good-niglit,' and the next Grey came out of the pas- sage, and was passing close to liim. "Join yourself to him." The impulse came so strongly into Tom's mind this time tliat it was like a voice speaking to him. He yielded to it, and, stepping to Grey's side wished him good-eveniug. The other returned his salute in his shy way, and was hurrying on, but Tom kept by him. " Have you been reading with Hardy ? " "Yes." " How is he ? I have not seen anything of him for some time." " Oh, very well, I think," said Grey, glancing sideways at his questioner, and adding, after a moment," I have wondered rather not to see you there of late." " Are you going to your school ? " said Tom, breaking away from the subject. " Yes, and I am rather late ; I must make a haste on ; good- night." " Will you let me go with you to-night ? It would be a real kindness. Indeed," he added, as he saw how embarrassing his proposal was to Grey, " I will do whatever you tell me — you don't know how grateful I shall be to you. Do let me go — just for to-night. Try me once." Grey hesitated, turned his head sharply once or twice as they walked on together, and then said, with something like a sigh : " I don't know, I'm sure. Did you ever teach in a night- school ? " " No, but I have taught in the Sunday-school at home some- times. Indeed, I will do whatever you tell me." " Oh ! but this is not at all like a Sunday-school. They are a very rough, wild lot." "Tiie rougher the better," said Tom. "I shall know how to manage them then." " But you must not really be rough with them." " No, I won't ; I didn't mean that," said Tom hastily, for he saw his mistake at once. " I sliall take it as a great favor, if you will let me go to-night. You won't repent it, I'm sure." Grey did not seem at all sure of this, but saw no means of getting rid of his companion, and so they walked on together and turned down a long narrow court in the lowest part of the town. At the doors of the houses laboring men, mostly Irish, lounged or stood about, smoking and talking to one another, or to the women who leant out of the windows, or passed to 214 TOM BROWN AT OXFOED. and fro on their various errands of business or pleasure. A group of half -grown lads were playing at pitch-farthing at the further end, and all over the court were scattered children of all ages, ragged and noisy little creatures most of them, on whom paternal and maternal admonitions and cuffs were con- stantly being expended, and, to all appearances, in vain. At the sight of Grey a shout arose among the smaller boys of " Here's the teacher ! " and they crowded round him and Tom as they went up the court. Several of the men gave him a half-surly, half -respectful nod, as he passed along, wishing them good-evening. The rest merely stared at him and his companion. They stopped at a door which Grey opened, and led the way into the passage of an old tumble-down cottage, on the ground-floor of which were two low rooms which served for the schoolrooms. A hard-featured, middle-aiged woman, who kept the house, was waiting, and said to Grey, " Mr. Jones told me to say, sir, he would not be here to-night, as lie has got a bad fever case — so you was to take only the lower classes, sir, he said ; and the policeman would be near to keep out the big boys, if you wanted him ; shall I go and tell him to step round, sir ? " Grey looked embarrassed for a moment, and then said, " No, never mind, you can go ; " and then turning to Tom, added, "Jones is the curate ; he won't be here to-night ; and some of the bigger boys are very noisy and troublesome, and only come to make a noise. However, if they come, we must do our best." Meantime, the crowd of small ragged urchins had filled the room, and were swarming on to the benches and squabbling for the copy-books which were laid out on the thin desks. Grey set to work to get them into order, and soon the smallest were draughted ofE into the inner room with slates and spell- ing-books, and the bigger ones, some dozen in number, settled to their writing. Tom seconded him so readily, and seemed so much at home, that Grey felt quite relieved. " You seem to get on capitally," he said. " I will go Into the inner room to the little ones, and you stay and take these. There are the class-books when they have done their copies," and so went off into the inner room and closed the dooi'. My readers must account for the fact as they please ; I only state that Tom, as he bent over one after another of the pupUs, and guided the small, grubby hands, which clutclied tlie inky pens with cramped fingei-s, and went spluttering and blotching along the lines of the copy-books, felt the yellow scales dropping PROMISE OF FAIKBE WBATHEB. 215 from his eyes, and more warmth coming back into his heart than he liad known there for many a day. All went on well inside, notwithstanding a few small out- breaks between the scholars, but every now and then mud was thrown against the window, and noises outside and in the pas- sage threatened some interruption. At last, when the writing was finished, the copy-books cleared away, and the class-books distributed, the door opened, and two or three big boys of fifteen or sixteen lounged in with tlieir hands in their pockets and their caps on. There was an insolent look about them whicli set Tom's back up at once ; however, he kept his temper, made them take their caps off, and, as they said they wanted to read with the rest, let them take their places on the benches. But now came the tug of war. He could not keep his eyes on the whole lot at once, and, no sooner did he fix his atten- tion on the stammering reader for the time being and try to help him, than anarchy broke out all around him. Small stones and shot were thrown about, and cries arose from the smaller fry, " Please, sir, he's been and poured some ink down my back," " He's stole my book, sir," " He's gone and stuck a pin in my leg." The evil-doers were so cunning that it was im- possible to catch them ; but, as he was hastily turning in his own mind what to do, a cry .arose, and one of the benches went suddenly over backward on to the floor, carrying with it its whole freight of boys, except two of the bigger ones, who were the evident authors of the mishap. Tom sprang at the one nearest him, seized him by the collar, hauled him into the passage, and sent him out of the street- door with a sound kick ; and then, rushing back, caught hold of the second, who went down on his back and clung round Tom's legs, shouting for help to his remaining companions, and struggling and swearing. It was all the work of a moment, aud now the door opened, and Grey appeared from the inner room. Tom left off hauling his prize toward the passage, and felt and looked very foolish. " This fellow, and another, whom I have turned out, upset that form with all the little boys on it," he said apologetically. " It's a lie ; 'twasn't me," roared the captive, to whom Tom administered a sound box on the ear, while the small boys, rubbing different parts of their bodies, chorused, " 'Twas him, teacher, 'twas him," and heaped further charges of pinching, pin-sticking, and other atrocities on him. Grey astonished Tom by his firmness. " Don't strike him again,"' he said. " Now go out at once, or I will send for your 216 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. father." The fellow got up, and, after standing a moment and considering his chance of successful resistance to physical force in the person of Tom, and moral in that of Grey, slunk out. " You must go too. Murphy," went on Grey to another of the intruders. " Oh, your honor, let me bide. I'll be as quiet as a mouse," pleaded the Irish boy ; and Tom would have given in, but Grey was unyielding. " You were turned out last week, and Mr. Jones said you were not to come back for a fortnight." " Well, good-night to your honor," said Murphy, and took himself off. " The rest may stop," said Grey. "You had better take the inner room now ; I will stay here." " I'm very sorry," said Tom. "You couldn't help it ; no one can manage those two. Murphy is quite different, but I should have spoiled him if I had let him stay now." The remaining half -hour passed off quietly. Tom retired into the inner-room, and took up Grey's lesson, which he had been reading to thie boys from a large Bible with pictures. Out of consideration for their natural and acquired restlessness, the little fellows, who were all between eight and eleven years old, were only kept sitting at their pot-hooks and spelling for the first hour, and then were allowed to crowd round the teacher, who read and talked to them, and showed them the pictures. Tom found the Bible open at the story of the prod- igal son, and read it out to them as they clustered round his knees. Some of the outside ones fidgeted about a little, but those close round him listened with ears, and eyes, and bated breath ; and two little blue-eyed boys without shoes — their ragged clothes concealed by longpinafores which their widowed mother had put on clean to send them to school in — leaned against him and looked up in his face, and his heart warmed to the touch and the look. " Please, teacher, read it again," they said, when he finished ; so he read it again, and sighed when Grey came in and lighted a candle (for the room was getting dark), and said it was time for prayers-. A few collects, and the Lord's Prayer, in which all the young voices joined, drowning for a minute the noises from the court outside, finished the evening's schooling. The children trooped out, and Grey went to speak to the woman who kept the house. Tom, left to himself, felt strangely happy, and, for something to do, took the snuflfers a,nd cpift- PROMISE OF FAIKEE WBATHEK. 217 menced a crusade against a large family of bugs, who, taking advantage of the quiet, came cruising out of a crack in the otherwise neatly papered wall. Some dozen had fallen on his spear when Grey re-appeared, and was much horrified at tlic sight. He called the woman, and told her to have the hole carefully fumigated and mended. "I thought we had killed them all long ago," he said ; " but the place is tumbling down." " It looks well enough," said Tom. "Yes, we have kept it as tidy as possible. It ought to be, at least, a little better than what the children see at home." And so they left the school and court, and walked up to college. " Where are you going ! " Tom said, as they entered the gate. " To Hardy's rooms ; w;ill you come ? " "No, not to-night," said Tom. "I know that you want to be reading ; I should only interrupt." " Well, good-night, then," said Grey, and went on, leaving Tom standing in the porch. On the way up from the school he had almost made up his mind to go to Hardy's room that night. He longed, and yet feared to do so ; and, on the whole, was not sorry for an excuse. Their first meeting must be alone, and it would be a very embarrassing one for him, at any rate. Grey, he hoped, would tell Hardy of his visit to the school, and that would show that he was coming round, and make the meeting easier. His talk with Grey, too, had removed one great cause of uneasiness from his mind. It was now quite clear that he had no suspicion of the quarrel, and, if Hardy had not told him, no one else could know of it. Altogether he strolled into the quadrangle a happier and sounder man than he had been since his first visit to the "Choughs," and looked up and answered with his old look and voice when he heard his name called from one of the first-floor windows. The hailer was Drysdale, who was leaning out in lounging coat and velvet cap, and enjoying a cigar as usual, in the midst of the flowers of his hanging garden. "You've heard the good news, I suppose?" "No ; what do you mean ? " " Why, Blake has got the Latin verse." " Hurrah ! I'm so glad." " Come up and have a weed." Tom ran up the staircase and into Drysdale's rooms, and was leaning out of the window at his side in another minute. 218 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOED. " What does he get by it?" he said ; "do you know?" " No ; some books bound in Hussia, I dare say, with the Oxford arms, and ' Dominus illuminatio mea' on the back." " No money ? " " Not much — perhaps a tenner," answered Drysdale, " but no end of KvSoi, I suppose." " It makes it look well for his first, don't you think ? Bat I wish lie had got some money for it. I often feel very un- comfortable about that bill ; don't you ? " " Not I ; what's the good? It's nothing when you are used to it. Besides, it don't fall due for another month." " But if Blake can't meet it then ? " said Tom. " Well, it will be vacation, and I'U trouble greasy Benjamin to catch me then." " But you don't mean to say you won't pay it ? " said Tom, in horror. " Pay it ! You may trust Benjamin for that. He'll pull round his little usuries somehow." " Only we have promised to pay on a certain day, you know." " Oh, of course, that's the form. That only means that he can't pinch us sooner." " I do hope, though, Drysdale, that it will be paid on the day," said Tom, who could not quite swallow the notion of for- feiting his word, even though it were only a promise to pay to a scoundrel. " All right. You've nothing to do with it, remember. He won't bother you. Besides, you can plead infancy, if the worst comes to the worst. There's such a queer old bird gone to your friend Hardy's rooms." The mention of Hardy broke the disagreeable train of thought into which Tom was falling, and he listened eagerly as Drysdale went on. " It was about half an hour ago. I was looking out here, and saw an old fellow come bobbing into quad on two sticks, in a shady blue uniform coat and white trousers. The kind of old boy you read about in books, you know ; Commodore Trunnion, or Uncle Toby, or one of that sort. Well, I watolied him backing and filing about the quad, and trying one staircase and another; but there was nobody about. So down I trotted, and went up to him for fun, and to see what he was after. It was good as a play, if you could have seen it. I was ass enough to take off my cap and make a low bow as I came up to him, and he pulled off his uniform cap in return, and we stood there bowing to one another. He was a THE EBCONCILIATION. 219 thorough old gentleman, and I felt rather foolish for fear he should see that I expected a lark when I came out. But I don't think he had an idea of it, and only set my capping him down to the wonderful good manners of the college. So we got quite thick, and I piloted him across to Hardy's staircase in the back quad. I wanted him to come up and quench, hut he declined, with many apologies. I'm sure he is a char- acter." " He must be Hardy's father," said Tom. " I shouldn't wonder. But is his father in the navy ? " " He is a retired captain." " Then no doubt you're right. What shall we do ? Have a hand at picquet ? Some men will be here directly. Only for love." Tom declined the proffered game, and went off soon after to his own rooms, a happier man than he had been since his first night at the " Choughs." CPIAPTER XX. THE EECONCILIATION. Tom rose in the morning with a presentiment that all would be over now before long, and, to make his presentiment come true, resolved, before night, to go himself to Hardy and give in. All he reserved to himself was the liberty to do it in tlio manner which would be least painful to himself. He was greatly annoyed, therefore, when Hardy did not appear at morning chapel ; for he had fixed on the leaving chapel as the least unpleasant time in which to begin his confession, and was going to catch Hardy then, and follow him to his rooms. All the morning, too, in answer to his inquiries by his scout Wig- gins, Hardy's scout replied that his master was out, or busy. He did not come to the boats, he did not appear in hall ; so that, after hall, when Tom went back to his own rooms, as ho did at once, instead of sauntering out of college, or going to a wine party, he was quite out of heart at his bad luck, and be- gan to be afraid that he would have to sleep on his unhealed wound another night. He sat down in ah armchair, and fell to musing, and thought how wonderfully his life had been changed in these few short weeks. He could hardly get back across the gulf which sepa- rated him from the self who came back into those rooms after E^eterj full Qf £|.nticipatiou of the pleasures an4 delights of 220 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. the coining summer term and vacation. To bis own surprise he didn't seem much to regret the loss of his chdteaux en Aspagne, and he felt a sort of grim satisfaction in their utter overflow. While occupied with these thoughts, he heard talking on his stairs, accompanied by a strange lumbering tread. These came nearer ; and at last stopped just outside his door, which opened in another moment, and "Wiggins announced : " Capting Hardy, sir." Tom jumped to his legs, and felt himself color painfully. "Here, Wiggins," said he, "wheel round that armchair for Captain Hardy. I am so very glad to see you, sir," and he hastened round himself to meet the old gentleman, holding out his hand, which the visitor took very cordially, as soon as he had passed his heavy stick to his left hand and balanced him- self safely upon it. " Thank you, sir ; thank you," said the old man after a few moments' pause, "I find your companion ladders rather steep ; " and then he sat down with some difficulty. Tom took the captain's stick and undress cap, and put them reverentially on his sideboard ; and then, to get rid of some little nervousness which he couldn't help feeling, bustled to his cup- board, and helped Wiggins to place glasses and biscuits on the table. "Now, sir, what will you take ? I have port, sherry, and whisky here, and can get you anything else. Wiggins, run to Hinton's and get some dessert." " No dessert, thank you, for me," said the captain ; " I'll take a cup of coffee, or a glass of grog, or anything you have ready. Don't open wine for me, pray, sir." " Oh, it is all the better for being opened," said Tom, working away at a bottle of sherry with his corkscrew — " and, Wiggins, get some coffee and anchovy toast in a quarter of an hour ; and just put out some tumblers and toddy ladles, and bring up boiling water with the coffee." While making his hospitable preparations, Tom managed to get many side-glances at the old man, who sat looking steadily and abstractedly before him into the fireplace, and was much struck and touched by the picture. The sailor wore a well-pre- served old undress uniform coat and waistcoat, and white drill trousers ; he was a man of middle height, but gaunt and mas- sive, and Tom recognized the framework of the long arms and grand shoulders and chest which he had so often admired in the son. His fight leg was quite stiff from an old wound on the kneecap ; the left eye was sightless, and the scar of a cut- lass traveled down the drooping lip and on to the weather- THE KECONCILIATION. 221 beaten cheek below. His head was high and broad, his hair and whiskers silver wliite,Avh lie the shaggy eyebrows were scarcely grizzled. His face was deeply lined, and the long, clean-cut lower jaw, and drawn look about the mouth, gave a grim ex- pression to the face at the first glance, wliich wore off as you looked, leaving, however^ on most men who thought about it, t'le impression which fastened on our hero, " An awkward man to have met at the head of boarders toward the end of the great war." In a minute or two Tom, having completed his duties, faced the old Bailor, much reassured by his covert inspection ; and, pouring himself out a glass of sherry, pushed the decanter across, and drank to his guest. " Tour health, sir," he said, "and thank yon very much for coming up to see me." " Thank you, sir," said the captain, rousing himself and fill- ing, " I diink to you, sir. The fact is, I took a great liberty in coming up to your rooms in this off-hand way, without calling or sending up, but you'll excuse it in an old sailor." Here the captain took to his glass and seemed a little embarrassed. Tom felt embarrassed also, feeling that something was coming, and could only think of asking how the captain liked "the sherry. The captain liked the sherry very much. Then suddenly clearing his tliroat, he went on. " I felt, sir, that you would excuse me, for I have a favor to ask of you." He paused again, while Tom muttered something about great pleasure, and then went on. " Tou know my son, Mr. Brown ? " " Yes, sir ; he has been my best friend up here ; I owe more to him than to any man in Oxford." The captain's eye gleamed with pleasure as he replied, " Jack is a noble fellow, Mr. Brown, though I say it, who am his father. I've often promised myself a cruise to Oxford since he has been here. I came here, at last, yesterday, and have been having a long yarn with him. I found there was something on his mind. He can't keep anything from his old father ; and so drew out of him that he loves you as David loved Jonathan. He made my old eye very dim while he was talking of you. Mi-. Brown. And then I found that you two are not as you used to be. Some coldness sprung up between yon ; but what about, I couldn't get at ! Young men are often hasty — I know I was, forty years ago — Jack says he has been hasty with you. Now, that boy is all that I have in the world, Mr. Brown. I know my boy's friend will like to send an old man home with a light heart. So I made up my 222 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOED. mind to come over to you, and ask you to make it up with Jack. I gave him the slip after dinner, and here I am." " Oh, sir, did he really ask you to come to me ? " "No, sir," said the captain, "he did not — I'm sorry for it — I think Jack must be in the wrong, for he said he had been too hasty, and yet he wouldn't ask me to come to you and make it up. But he is young, sir ; young and proud. He said he couldn't move in it, his mind was made up ; he was wretched enough' over it but the move must come from you. And so that's the favor I have to ask, that you will make it up with Jack. It isn't often a young man can do such a favor to an old one — ■ to an old father with one son. You'll not feel the worse for having done it, if it's ever so hard to do, when you come to be my age." And the old man looked wistfully across the table, the muscles about his mouth quivering as he ended. Tom sprang from his chair, and grasped the old sailor's hand as he felt the load pass out of his heart. " Favor, sir ! " he said, " I have been a mad fool enough already in this business — I should have been a double-dyed scoundrel, like enough, by this time, but for your son, and I've quarreled with him for stopping me at the pit's mouth. Favor! If God will, I'll prove somehow where the favor lies, and what I owe to him ; and to you, sir, for coming to me to-night. Stop here two minutes, sir, and I'll run down and bring him over." Tom tore away to Hardy's door and knocked. There was no pausing in the passage now. " Come in." He opened the door, but did not enter, and for a moment or two could not speak. The rush of associations, which the sight of the well- known old rickety furniture, and the figure which was seated, book in hand, with its back to the door and its feet up against one side of the mantelpiece, called up, choked him. " May I come in ?" he said, at last. He saw the figure give a start, and the book trembled a little, but then came the answer, slow but firm": " I have not changed my opinion." " No, dear old- boy, but I have," and Tom rushed across to his friend, dearer than ever to him now, and threw his arm round his neck ; and, if the un-English truth must out, had three parts of a mind to kiss the rough face which was now working with strong emotion. " Thank God ! " said Hardy, as he grasped the hand which hung over his shoulder. " And, now, come over to my rooms ; your father is there \vaiting for us." CAPTAIN HAEDY ENTERTAINED BY st. AMBROSE. 223 "What, the dear old governor? That's what he has been after, is it ? I couldn't think where he could have hove to, as he would say." Hardy put on his cap, and the two hurried back to Tom's rooms, the lightest hearts in the university of Oxford. CHAPTER XXI. CAPTAIN HAKDY ENTERTAINED BY ST. AMBROSE. There are moments in the life of the most self-contained and sober of us all, when we fairly bubble over, like a full bottle of champagne with the cork out ; and this was one of them for our hero, wlio, however, be it remarked, was neither self-contained nor sober by nature. When they got back to his rooms, he really hardly knew what to do to give vent to his lightness of heart ; and Hardy, though self-contained and sober enough in general, was on this occasion almost as bad as liis friend. They rattled on, talking out the things which came uppermost, whatever the subject might chance to be ; but, whether grave or gay, it always ended after a minute or two in jokes not always good, and chaff, and laughter. The poor captain was a little puzzled at first, and made one or two en- deavors to turn the talk into improving channels. But very soon he saw that Jack was thoroughly happy, and tliat was always enough for him. So he listened to .one and the other, joining cheerily in the laugh whenever he could ; and, when he couldn't catch the joke, looking like a benevolent old lion, and making as much belief that he had understood it all, as the simplicity and truthfulness of Iiis character would allow. The spirits of the two friends seemed inexhaustible. They lasted out the bottle of sherry which Tom had uncorked, and the remains of a bottle of his famous port. He had tried hard to be allowed to open a fresh bottle, but the captain had made such a point of his not doing so, that he had given in for hospitality's sake. They lasted out the coffee and anchovy toast ; after which the captain made a little effort at moving, which was suppJicatingly stopped by Tom. "Oh, pray, don't go, Captain Hardy. I haven't been so happy for months. Besides, I must brew you a glass of grog. I pride myself on my brew. Your son, there, will tell you that I am a dead hand at it. Here, Wiggins, a lemon ! " shouted Tom. " Well, for once in a way, I suppose. Eh, Jack ? " said the captain, looking at his son. 224 ¥0M BfiOWN AT OXFOED. " Oh, yes, father. You mayn't know it. Brown, but, if there is one tiling harder to do than another, it is to get an old sailor like my father to take a glass of grog at night." The captain laughed a little laugh, and shook his thick stick at his son, who went on: " And as for asking him to take a pipe with it " " Dear me," said Tom, " I quite forgot. I really beg your pardon, Captain Hardy ; " and he put down the lemon he was squeezing, and produced a box of cigars. "It's all Jack's nonsense, sir," said the captain, holding out his hand, nevertheless, for the box. " Now, father, don't be absurd," interrupted Hardy, snatch- ing the box away from him. " You might as well give him a glass of absinthe. He is churchwarden at home, and can't smoke anything but a long clay." "I'm very sorry I haven't one here, but I can send out in a minute." And Tom was making for the door to shout for Wiggins. " No, don't call. I'll fetch some from ray rooms." When Hardy left the room, Tom squeezed away at his lemon, and was preparing himself for a speech to Captain Hardy full of confession and gratitude. But the captain was before him, and led the conversation into a most unexpected channel. " I suppose, now, Mr. Brown," he began, " you don't find any difficulty in construing your Thucydides ? " " Indeed, I do, sir," said Tom, laughing. " I find him a very tough old customer, except in the simplest narrative." "For my part," said the captain, "I can't get on at all, I find, without a translation. But you see, sir, I had none of the advantages which young men have up here. In fact, Mr. Brown, I didn't begin Greek till Jack was nearly ten years old." The captain in his secret heart was prouder of his partial victory over the Greek tongue in his old age than of liis undisputed Victories over the French in his youth, and was not averse to talking of it. " I wonder that you ever began it at all, sir," said Tom. " You wouldn't wonder if you knew how an uneducated man like me feels, when he comes to a place like Oxford." " Uneducated, sir ! " said Tom. " Why, your education has been worth twice as much, I'm sure, as any we get here." " No, sir ; we never learned anything in the navy when I was a youngster, except a little rule-of -thumb mathematics. One picked .up a sort of smattering of a language or two CAPTAIN HAEDY ENTliETAINED BY ST. AMBBOSB. 225 knocking about the world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft all his life. He hasn't got any regular place to stow away what he gets into his brains, and so it lies tumbling about in the hold, and he loses it, or it gets damaged and is never ready for use. You see what I mean, Mr. Brown ? " "Yes, sir. But I'm afraid we don't all of us get much method up here. Do yon really enjoy reading Thucydides now, Captain Hardy ? " " Indeed I do, sir, very much," said the captain. " There's a great deal in his history to interest an old sailor, you know. I dare say, now, that I enjoy those parts about the sea-fights more than you do." The captain looked at Tom as if he had made an audacious remark. " I'm sure you do, sir," said Tom, smiling." " Because you see, Mr. Brown," said the captain, " when one has been in that sort of thing one's self, one likes to read how people in other times managed, and to think what one would have done in their place. I don't believe that the Greeks just at that time were very resolute fighters, though. Nelson or CoUingwood would have finished that war in a year or two." " Not with triremes, do you think, sir ? " said Tom. " Yes, sir, with any vessels which were to be had," said the captain. " But you are right about triremes. It has always been a great puzzle to me how those triremes could have been worked. How do you understand the three banks of oars, Mr. Brown?" " Well, sir, I suppose they must have been one above the other somehow." " But the upper bank must have had oars twenty feet long and more in that case," said the captain. " You must allow for leverage, you see." " Of course, sir. When one comes to think of it, it isn't easy to see how .they were manned and worked," said Tom. " Now my notion about triremes " began the captain, holding the head of his stick with both hands, and looking across at Tom. " Why, father ! " cried Hardy, returning at that moment with the pipes, and catching the captain's last word, " on one of j'our hobby horses already ! You'i-e not safe ! I can't leave you for two minutes. Here's a long pipe for you. How in the world did he get on triremes ? " 226 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. " I hardly know," said Tom, " but I want to hear what Cap- tain Hardy thinks about them. You were saying, sir, that tlie upper oar's must have been twenty feet long at least." " My notion is " said the captain, taking the pipe and to- bacco-pouch from his son's hand. " Stop one moment," said Hardy ; "I found Blake at my rooms, and asked him to come over here. You don't object ? " " Object, my dear fellow ! I'm much obliged to you. Now, Hardy, would you like to have anyone else ? I can send in a minute." " No one, thank you." "You won't stand on ceremony now, will you, with me?" said Tom. " You see I haven't." " And you never will again ? " " No, never. Now, father, you can heave ahead about those oars." The captain went on charging his pipe, and proceeded ; "You see, Mr. Brown, they must have been at least twenty feet long, because, if you allow the lowest bank of oars to have been three feet above the water-line, which even Jack thinks they must have been " " Certainly. That height at least to do any good," said Hardy. " Not that I think Jack's opinion worth much on the point." went on his father. " It's very ungrateful of you, then, to say so, father," said Hardy, " after all the time I've wasted trying to make it all clear to you." " I don't say that Jack's is not a good opinion on most things, Mr. Brown," said the captain ; " but he is all at sea about triremes. He believes that the men of the uppermost bank rowed somehow like lightermen on the Thames, walking up and down." "I object to your statement of my faith, father," said Hardy. "Now, you know. Jack, you have said so, often." " I have said they must have stood up to row, and so " " You would have had awful confusion. Jack. You must have order between decks when you're going into action. Be- sides, the rowers had cushions." • " That old heresy of ^ours again." " Well, but Jack, they had cushions. Didn't the rowers who were marched across the Isthmus to man the ships which were to surprise the Pirsaus, cari'y their oars, thongs, and cushions ?" CAPTAIN HAKDY ENTERTAINED BY ST. AMBROSE. 227 " If they did, your conclusion doesn't follow, father, that they sat ou them to row." " You hear, Mr. Brown," said the captain ; " he admits my point about the cushions." " Oh, father, I hope you used to fight the French more fairly," said Hardy. " But, didn't he ? Didn't Jack admit my point ? " "Implicitly, sir, I think," said Tom, catching Hardy's eye, which was dancing with fun. " Of course he did. You hear that. Jack. Now my notion about triremes " A knock at the door interrupted the captain again, and Blake came in and was introduced. " Mr. Blake is almost our best scholar, father ; you should appeal to him about the cushions." " I am very proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said the captain ; "I have heard my son speak of you often." " We were talking about triremes," said Tom. " Captain Hardy thinks the oars must have been twenty feet long." " Not easy to come forward well with that sort of oar," said Blake ; " they must have pulled a slow stroke." " Our torpid would have bumped the best of them," said Hardy. "I don't think they could have made more than six knots," said' the captain ; " but yet they usedjto sink one another, and a light boat going only six knots couldn't break another in two amidships. It's a puzzling subject, Mr. Blake." " It is, sir," said Blake ; " if we only had some of the fo'- eastle songs we should know more about it. I'm afraid they had no Dibdin." " I wish you would turn one of my father's favorite songs into anapests for him," said Hai-dy. " What are they ? " said Blake. " ' Tom Bowling,' or ' The wind that blows, and the ship that goes,' and ' The lass that loves a sailor.' " " By the way, why shouldn't we have a song ? " said Tom. " What do you say, Captain Hardy ? " The captain winced a little as he saw his chance of expound- ing his notion as to triremes slipping away, but answered : " By all means, sir ; Jack must sing for me, though. Did you ever hear him sing ' Tom Bowling' ? " " No, never, sir. Why, Hardy, you never told me you could sing." 228 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " You never asked me," said Hardy, laughing ; " but, if I sing for my father, he must spin us a yarn." " Oh, yes ; will you, sir ? " " I'll do my best, Mr. Brown ; but I don't know that you'll care to listen to my old yarns. Jack thinks everybody must like them as well as he, who used to hear them when he was a child." " Thank you, sir ; that's famous — now. Hardy, strike up." " After you. You must set the example in your own rooms." So Tom sang his song. And. the noise brought Drysdale and another man up, who were loitering in quad on the lookout for something to do. Drysdale and the captain recognized one another, and were friends at once. And then Hardy sang " Tom Bowling," in a style which astonished the rest not a little and as usual nearly made his father ciy ; and Blake sang, and Drysdale, and the other man. And then the captain was called on for his yarn ; and, the general voice being for " something that had happened to him, the strangest thing that had ever happened to him at sea," the old gentleman laid down his pipe, and sat up in his chair with his hands on his stick, and began : THE captain's STOET. It will be forty years ago, next month, since the ship I was then in came home from the West Indies station, and was paid oS. I had nowhere in particular to go just then, and so was very glad to get a letter, the morning after I went ashore at Portsmouth, asking me to go down to Plymouth for a week or so. It came from an old sailor, a friend of my family, who had been commodore of the fleet. He lived at Plymouth ; he was a thorough old sailor, — what you j'oung men would call " an old salt," — and couldn't live out of sight of the blue sea and the shipping. It is a disease that a good many of us take who have spent our best years on the sea. I have it myself, a sort of feeling that we must be under another kind of Provi- dence when we look out and see a hill on this side and a hill on that. It's wonderful to see the trees come out and the corn grow, but then it doesn't come so home to an old sailor. I know that we're all just as much under the Lord's hand on shore as at sea ; but you can't read in a book you haven't been used to, and they that go down to the sea in ships, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. It isn't their fault if they don't see his wonders on the land so easily as other people. But, for all that, there's no man enjoys a cruise in the country CAPTAIN HARDY ENTERTAINED BY ST. AMBROSE. 229 more than a sailor. It's forty years ago since I started for Plymouth, but I haven't forgotten the road a hit, or how beautiful it was, all througli the New Forest, and over Salis- bury Plain, and then on by the mail to Exeter, and through Devonshire. It took me three days to get to Plymouth, for we didn't get about so quick in those days. The commodore was very kind to me when I got there, and I went about with him to the ships in the bay, and through the dockyard, and picked up a good deal that was of use to me afterward. I was a lieutenant in those days, and had seen a good deal of service, and I found the old commodore had a great-nephew whom he had adopted, and had set his whole heart upon. He was an old bachelor himself, but the boy had come to live with him, and was to go to sea ; so he wanted to put him under someone who would give an eye to him for the first year or two. He was a light slip of a boy then, fourteen years old, with deep-set Ijlue eyes and long eyelashes, and cheeks like a girl's, but as brave as a lion and as merry as a lark. The old gentleman was very pleased to see that we took to one another. We used to bathe and boat together ; and he was never tired of hearing my stories about the great admirals, and the fleet, and the stations I had been on. Well, it was agreed that I should apply for a ship again directly, and go up to London with a letter to the admiralty from the commodore, to help things on. After a month or two, I was appointed to a brig lying at Spithead ; and so I wrote off to the commodore, and he got his boy a midship- man's berth on board, and brought him to Portsmouth himself, a day. or two before we sailed for the Mediterranean. The old gentleman came on board to see his boy's hammock slung, and went below into the cockpit to make sure that all was right. He only left us by the pilot-boat, when we were well out in the channel. He was very low at parting from his boy, but bore up as well as he could ; and we promised to write to him from Gibraltar, and as often afterward as we had a chance. I was soon as proud and fond of little Tom Holdsworth as if he had been my own younger brother ; and, for that matter, so were all the crew, from our captain to the cook's boy. He was such a gallant youngster, and yet so gentle. In one cutting-out business we had he climbed over the boatswain's shoulders, and was almost first on deck ; how he came out of it without a scratch I can't think to this day. But he hadn't a bit of bluster in him, and was as kind as a woman to anyone who was wounded or down with sickness. 230 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. After we had been out about a yfear, we were sent to cruise off Malta, on the lookout for the French fleet. It was a long business, and the post wasn't so good then as it is now. We were sometimes for months without getting a letter, and knew nothing of what was happening at home, or anywhere else. We had a sick time too on board, and at last he got a fever. He bore up against it like a man, and wouldn't knock off duty for a long time. He was midshipman of my watch ; so I used to make him turn in early, and tried to ease things to him as much as I could ; but he didn't pick up, and I began to get very anxious about him. I talked to the doctor, and turned matters over in my own mind, and at last I came to think lie wouldn't get any better unless he could sleep out of the cock- pit. So, one night, the 20th of October it was — I remember It well enough, better than I remember any day since ; it was a dirty night, blowing half a gale of wind from the southward, and we were under close-reefed topsails, — I had the first watch, and at nine o'clock I sent him down to my cabin to sleep there, where he would be fi-esher and quieter, and I was to turn into his hammock when my watch was over. I was on deck three hours or so after he went down, and the weather got dirtier and dirtier, and the scud drove by, and the wind sang and hummed through the rigging — it made me melancholy to listen to it. I could think of nothing but the youngster down below, and what I should say to his poor old uncle if anything happened. Well, soon after midnight, I went down and turned into his hammock. I didn't go to sleep at once, for I remember very well listening to the creaking of the ship's timbers as she rose to the swell, and watching the lamp, which was slung from the ceiling, and gave light enough to make out the other hammocks swinging slowly all together. At last, however, I dropped off, and I reckon I must have been asleep about an hour, when I woke with a start. For the first moment, I didn't see anything but the swinging hammocks and the lamp ; but, then, suddenly I became aware that someone was standing by my hammock, and I saw the figure as plainly as I see any one of you now, for the foot of the hammock was close to tlie lamp, and the light struck full across on the head and shoulders, which was all that I could see of him. There he was, the old commodore ; his grizzled hair coming out from under a red woolen nightcap, and his shoulders wrapped in an old threadbare blue dressing-gown, which I had often seen him in. His face looked pale and drawn, and there was a wistful, disappointed look about the eyes. I was so taken aback I CAPTAIN HABDT ENTEETAINEI) BY ST. AMBEOSE. 231 couldn't speak, but lay watcbing bim. He looked full at my face once or twice, but didn't seem to recognize me ; and just as I was getting back my tongue and going to speak, he said, slowly : " Where's Tom ? this is his hammock. I can't see Tom ; " and then he looked vaguely about and passed away somehow, but how, I couldn't see. In a moment or two I jumped out and hurried to my cabin, but young Holdsworth was fast asleep. I sat down, and wrote down just what I had si'en, making a note of the exact time, twenty minutes to two. I didn't turn in again, but sat watching the youngster. When he woke I asked liim if he had heard anything of his great-uncle by the last mail. Yes, he had beard ; the old gentleman was r.ither feeble, but nothing particular the matter. I kept my own counsel and never told a soul in the ship : and, when the mail came to hand a few days afterward with a letter, from the commodore to his nephew, dated late in September, saying that he was well, I thought the figure by my hammock must have been all my own fancy. However, by the next mail came the news of the old commo- dore's death. It had been a very sudden break-up, his execu- tor said. He had left all his property, which was not much, to his great-nephew, who was to get leave to come home as soon as he could. The first time we touched at Malta, Tom Holdsworth left us and went home. We followed about two years afterward, and the first thing I did after landing was to find out the com- modore's executor. He was a quiet, dry little Plymouth law- yer, and very civilly answered all my questions about tlie last days of my old friend. At last I asked him to tell me as near as he could the time of his death ; and he put on his spec- tacles, and got his diary, and turned over the leaves. I was quite nervous till he looked up and said, " Twenty-five minutes to two, sir, A. M., on the morning of October 21st ; or it might be a few minutes later." " How do you mean, sir ? " I asked. "Well," he said, "it is an odd story. The doctor was sit- ting with me, watching the old man, and, as I tell you, at twenty -five minutes to two, he got up and said it was all over. We stood together, talking in whispers, for, it might be, four or five minutes, when the body seemed to move. He was an odd old man, yon know, the commodore, and we never could get him properly to bed, but he lay in his red nightcap and old dfessing-gown, with a blanket over him. It was not a pleasant sight, I can tell you, sir. I don't think one of you 232 TOM beoWn a* oXtoiifi. gentlemen, who are bred to face all manners of dangers, would liave liked it. As I was saying, the body first moved, and then sat up, propping itself behind with its hands. The eyes were wide open, and he looked at us for a moment, and said slowly, ' I've been to the Mediterranean, but I didn't see Tom.' Then the body sank back again, and this time the old commodore was really dead. But it was not a. pleasant thing to happen to one, sir. I do not remember anything like it in my forty years' practice." CHAPTER XXII. DEPAETtTEE EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED. Theee was silence of a few seconds after the captain had finished his story, all the men sitting with eyes fixed on him, and not a little surprised at the results of their call. Drysdale was the first to break the silence, which he did with a " By George ! " and a long respiration ; but, as he did not seem pre- pared with any further remark, Tom took up the running. " Wh at a strange story," he said ; " and that really happened to you, Captain Hardy ? " ""To me, sir, in the Mediterranean, more than forty years ago." " The strangest thing about it is that the old commodore should have managed to get all the way to the ship, and then not have known where his nephew was," said Blake. " He only knew his nephew's berth, you see, sir," said the captain. " But he might have beat about through the ship till he liad found him." " You must remember that he was at his last breath, sir," said the captain; " you can't expect a man to have his head clear at such a moment." "Not a man, perhaps, but I should a ghost," said Blake. "Time was everything to him," went on the captain, with- out regarding the interruption, "space nothing. But the stran- gest part of it is that Z should have seen the figure at all. It's true I had been thinking of the old uncle because of the boy's illness ; but I can't, suppose he was thinking of me, and, as I say, he never recognized me. I have taken a great deal of in- terest in such matters since that time, but I have never met with just such a case as this." " No, that is the puzzle. One can fancy his appearing to his nephew well enough," said Tom. DEPAETUEE EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED. 233 "We can't aoconnt for these things, or for a good many other things which ought to be quite as startling, only we see them every day. But now I think it is time for us to be going; eh, Jack ? " and the captain and his son rose to go. Tom saw that it would be no kindness to them to try to pro- long the' sitting, and so he got up too, to accompany them to the gates. This broke up the party. Before going, Drysdale, after whispering to Tom, went up to Captain Hardy, and said : " I want to ask you to do me a favor, sir. Will you and your son breakfast with me to-morrow ? " " We shall be very happy, sir," said the captain. " I tliink, father, you had better breakfast with me, quietly. We are much obliged to Mr. Drysdale, but I can't give up a whole morning. Besides, I have several things to talk to you about." " Nonsense, Jack," blurted out the old sailor, " leave your books alone for one morning. I'm come up here to enjoy my- self, and see your friends." Hardy gave a slight shrug of his shoulders at the word friends, and Drysdale, who saw it, looked a little confused. He had never asked Hardy to his rooms before. The captain saw that something was the matter and hastened in his own way to make all smooth again. " Never mind Jack, sir," he said, " he shall come. It's a great treat to me to be with young men, especially when they are friends of my boy." " I hope you'll come as a personal favor to me," said Drys- dale, turning to Hardy. " Brown, you'll bring him, won't you?" " Oh, yes, I'm sure he'll come," said Tom. " That's all right. Good-night, then ; " and Drysdale went off. Hardy and Tom a'ccompanied the captain to the gate. Dur- ing his passage across the two quadrangles, the old gentleman was full of the praises of the men, and of protestations as to the improvement in social manners and customs since his day, when there could have been no such meeting, he declared, without blackguardism and drunkenness, at least among young officers, but then they had less to think of than Oxford men, no proper education. And so the captain was evidently travel- ing back into the gi'eat trireme question when they reached the gate. As they could go no further with him, however, he had to caiTy away his solution of the three-banks-of-oars difficulty in his own bosom to the Mitre. 234 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOED. " Don't let us go in," said Tom, as the gate closed on the captain, and they turned back into the quadrangle, " let us take a turn or two ; " so they walked up and down the inner quad in the starlight. Just at first they were a good deal embarrassed and confused; but before long, though not without putting considerable force on liimself, Tom got back into something like his old familiar way of unbosoming himself to his refound friend, and Hardy showed more than his old anxiety to meet him half-way. His ready and undisguised sympathy soon dispersed the few re- maining clouds which were still hanging between them ; and Tom found it almost a pleasure, instead of a dreary task, as he had anticipated, to make a full confession, and state the case clearly and strongly against himself to one who claimed neither by word nor look the least superiority over him, and never seemed to remember that he himself had been ill-treated in the matter. " He had such a chance of lecturing me and didn't do it," thought Tom afterward, when he was considering why he felt so very grateful to Hardy. " It was so cunning of him, too. If he had begun lectm-ing, I should have begun to de- fend myself, and never have felt half such a scamp as I did when I was telling it all out to him in my own way." The result of Hardy's management was that Tom made a clean breast of it, telling everything, down to his night at the ragged school, and what an effect his chance opening of the Apology had had on him. Here for the first time Hardy came in with his usual dry, keen voice, " You needn't have gone so far back as Plato for that lesson." " I don't understand," said Tom. " Well, there's something about an indwelling spirit which guide th every man, in St. Paul, isn't there ? " " Yes, a great deal," Tom answered, after a pause ; " but it isn't the same thing." " Why not the same thing ? " " Oh, surely, you must feel it. It would be almost blasphemy in us now to talk as St. Paul talked. It is much easier to face the notion, -or the fact, of a demon or spirit such as Socrates felt to be in him, than to face what St. Paul seems to be meaning." " Yes, much easier. The only question is whether we will be heathen or not." " How; do you mean ? " said Tom. " Why, a spirit was speaking to Socrates, and guiding him. DEPAETUKE EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED. 235 He obeyed the guidance, but knew not whence it came. A spirit is striving with us too, and trying to guide us — we feel that just as much as he did. Do we know what spirit it is ? whence it comes ? Will we obey it ? If we can't name it — know no more of it than he knew about his demon, of course, we are in no better position than he — in fact, heathens." Tom made no answer, and, after a silent turn or two more, Hardy said, " Let us go in ; " and they went to his rooms. When the candles wfere lighted, Tom saw the array of books on the table, several of them open, and remembered how near the examinations were. "I see you want to work," he said. " Well, good-night. I know how fellows like you bate being tlianked — there, you needn't wince ; I'm not going to try it on. The best way to thank you, I know, is to go straight for the future. I'll do that, please God, this time at any rate. Now, what ought I to do. Hardy ? " " Well, it's very hard to say. I've thought about it a great deal this last few days,^since I felt you were coming round, — but can't make up my mind. How do you feel yourself ? What's your own instinct about it ? " "Of coui-se, I must break it all off at once, completely," said Tom mournfully, and half hoping that Hardy might not agree with him. " Of course," answered Hardy ; " but how ? " " In the way that will pain her least. I would sooner lose my hand or bite my tongue off than that she should feel low- ered, or lose any self-respect, you know," said Tom, looking helplessly at his friend. " Yes, that's all right — you must take all you can on your own shoulders. It must leave a sting though for both of you, manage how you will." " But I can't bear to let her think I don't care for her — I needn't do that — I can't do that." "I don't know what to advise. However, I believe I was wrong in thinking she cared for you so much. She will be hurt, of course — she can't help being hurt — but it won't be so bad as I used to think." Tom made no answer ; in spite of all his good resolutions, he was a little piqued at this last speech. Hardy went on presently, " I wish she were well out of Oxford. It's a bad town for a girl to be living in, especially as a barmaid in a place which we haunt. I don't know that she will take mucli harm now ; but it's a very trying thing for a girl of that sort 236 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. to be thrown every day among a dozen young men above her in rank, and not one in ten of whom has any manliness about him." " How do you mean — no manliness ? " "I mean that a girl in her position isn't safe with us. If we had any manliness in us she would be " " You can't expect all men to be blocks of ice, or milk-sops," said Tom, who was getting nettled. " Don't think that I meant you," said Hardy ; " indeed, I didn't. But surely, think a moment ; is it a proof of manli- ness that the pure and the weak should fear you and shrink from you ? Which is the true — ay, and the brave — man, he who trembles before a woman, or he before whom a woman trembles ? " " Neither," said Tom ; " but I see what you mean, and when you put it that way, it's clear enough." " But you're wrong in saying ' neither,' if you do see what I mean." Tom was silent. " Can there be any true manliness without purity ? " went on Hardy. Tom drew a deep breath, but said nothing. "And where, then, can you point to a place where is so little manliness as here ? It makes my blood boil to see what one must see every day. There are a set of men up here, and have been ever since I can remember the place, not one of whom can look at a modest woman without making her shudder." " There must always be some blackguards," said Tom. " Yes ; but unluckily the blackguards set the fashion and give the tone to public opinion. I'm sure both of us have seen enough to know perfectly well that up here, among us undergraduates, men who are deliberately andavowedly profli- gates are rather admired and courted, — are said to know the world, and all that, — while a man wlio tries to lead a pure life, and makes no secret of it, is openly sneered at by them, looked down on more or less by the great mass of men ; to use the word you used just now, thought a milksop by almost all." " I don't think it is so bad as that," said Tom. " There are many men who would respect him, though they might not be able to follow him." " Of course, I never meant that there are not many such, but they don't set the fashion. I am sure I'm right. Let us try it bj' the best test. Haven't you and I, in our secret hearts, this cursed feeling, that the sort of man we are talking of is a milksop ? " After a moment's thought Tom answered, " I am afraid I DEPAETtUEK EXPECTED AND UNEXPECfED. 23^ have, but I really am thoroughly ashamed of it now, Hardy. But you haven't it. If you had it you could never have spoken to me as you have." "I beg your pardon. No man is more open than I to the bad influences of any place he lives in. God knows I am even as other men, and worse ; for I liave been taught, ever since I could speak, that the crown of all real manliness, of all Christian manliness, is purity." Neither of the two spoke for some minutes. Then Hardy looked at his watch : "Past eleven," he said. "I must do some woi-k. Well, Brown, this will be a day to be remembered in my calendar." Tom wrung his hand, but did not venture to reply. As he got to the door, however, he turned back, and said : " Do you think I ought to write to her ? " " Well, you can try. You'll find it a bitter business, I fear." " I'll try, then. Good-night." Tom went to his own rooms, and set to work to write his letter ; and certainly found it as difficult and unpleasant a task as he had ever set himself to work upon. Half a dozen times he tore up sheet after sheet of his attempts ; and got up and walked about, and plunged and kicked mentally against the collar and traces in which he had harnessed himself by his friend's help — trying to convince himself that Hardy was a Puritan, who had lived quite differently from other men, and knew nothing of what a man ought to do in a ease like this. That after all, very little harm had been done ! The world would never go on at all if people were to be so scrupulous ! Probably, not another man in the college, except Grey, per- haps, would think anything of what he had done ! Done ! why, what had he done? He couldn't be taking it more seri- ously if he had ruined her ! At this point he managed to briiig himself up sharp again more than once. " No thanks to me, at any rate, that she isn't ruined. Had I any pity, any scruples? My God, what a mean, selfish rascal I have been ! " and then he sat down again, and wrote, and scratched out what he had written, till tjie other fit came on, and something of the same process had to be gone through again. I am sure all readers must recognize the process, and will remember many occasions on which they have had to put bridle and bit on, and ride themselves as if they had been horses or mules without understanding ; and what a trying business it 238 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. ■was — as bad as getting a young colt past a gypsy encampment in a narrow lane. At last, after many trials, Tom got himself well in hand, and produced something which seemed to satisfy him ; for, after reading it three or four times, he put it in a cover, with a small case, which he produced from his desk, sealed it,' di- rected it, and then went to bed. Next morning, after chapel, he joined Hardy, and walked to his rooms with him, and after a few words on indifferent matters, said : " Well, I wrote my letter last night." " Did you satisfy yourself ? " " Yes, I think so. I don't know, though, on second thoughts ; it was very tough work." " I was afraid you would find it so." " But wouldn't you like to see it ? " "No, thank you. I suppose my father will be here directly." " But I wish you would read it through," said Tom, produc- ing a copy. " Well, if you wish it, I suppose I must ; but I don't see how I can do any good." Hardy took the letter, and sat down, and Tom drew a chair close to him, and watched his face while he read: It is best for us both that I should not see you any more, at least at present. I feel that I have done you a great wrong. I dare not say much to you, for fear of making that wrong greater. I cannot, I need not tell you how I despise myself now — how I long to make you any amends in my Eower. If ever I can be of any service to you, I do hope that nothing which as passed will hinder you from applying to me. You will not believe how it pains me to write this ; how should you ? I don't deserve that you should believe anything I should say. I must seem heartless to you ; I have been, I am heartless, I hardly know what I am writing. I shall long all my life to hear good news of you. I don't ask yon to pardon me, but if you can prevail on yourself not to send back the enclosed, and will keep it as a small remem- brance of one who is deeply sorry for the wrong he has done you, bnt who can- not and will not say he is sorry that he ever met you, you will be adding another to the many kindnesses which I have to thank you for, and which I shall never forget. Hardy read it over several times, as Tom watched impa- tiently, unable to make out anything from his face. "What do you think? You don't think there's anything wrong in it, I hope ? " " No, indeed, ray dear fellow. I really think it does you credit. I don't know what else you could have said very well, only " "Only what?" DEPAKTtTKB EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED. 239 " Couldn't you have made it a little shorter ? " " No, I couldn't ; but you don't mean that. What did you mean by that ' only ' ? " " Wiiy, I don't think this letter will end the business ; at least I'm afraid not." " But what more could I have said ? " " Nothing moi-e, certainly ; but couldn't you have been a little quieter, — it's difficult to get the right word, — a little cooler, perhaps ? Couldn't you have made the part about not seeing her again a little more decided ?" " But you said I needn't pretend I didn't care for her." "Did I?" " Yes. Besides, it would have been a lie." " I don't want you to tell a lie, certainly. But how about this ' small remembrance ' that you speak of ? What's that ? " " Oh, nothing ! only a little locket I bought for her." " With some of your hair in it V " " Well, of course ! Come, now, there's no harm in that ? " "No ; no harm. Do you think she will wear it ? " "How can I tell?" " It may make her think it isn't all at an end, I'm afraid. If she always wears your hair " " By Jove, you're too bad. Hardy. I wish you had had to write it yourself. It's all very easy to pull my letter to pieces, I dare say, but " " I didn't want to read it, remember." " No more you did. I forgot. But I wish you would just write down now what you would have said." " Yes, I think I see myself at it. By the way, of course you have sent your letter ? " " Yes, I sent it ofE before chapel." "I thought so. In that case I don't think we need trouble ourselves further with the form of the document." " Oh, that's only shirking. How do you know I may not want it for the next occasion ? " "No, no ! Don't let us begin laughing about it. A man never ought to have to write such letters twice in his life. If he has, why he may get a good enough precedent for the second out of the ' Complete Letter Writer.' " " So you won't correct my copy ? " "No, not I." At this point in their dialogue, Captain Hardy appeared on the scene, and the party went off to Drysdale's to breakfast. Captain Hardy's visit to St. Ambrose was a great success. 240 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. He stayed some four or five days, and saw eveiything that was to be seen, and enjoyed it all in a sort of reverent way which was almost comic. Tom devoted himself to the work of cicerone, and did his best to do the work thoroughly. Oxford was a sort of Utopia to the captain, who was resolutely bent on seeing nothing but beauty and learning and wisdom within the precincts of the university. On one or two occa- sions his faith was tried sorely by the sight of young gentle- men. Gainfully appareled, dawdling along two together in low, easy pony carriages, or lying on their backs in punts for hours smoking, with not even a JBeWs Life by them to pass the time. Dawdling and doing nothing were the objects of his special abhorrence, but with this trifling exception the captain continued steadily to behold towers and quadrangles and chapels and the inhabitants of the colleges, through rose- colored spectacles. His respect for a "regular education," and for the seat of learning at which it was dispensed, was so strong, that he invested not only the tutors, doctors, and proc- tors (of whom he saw little, except at a distance), but even the most empty-headed undergraduate whose acquaintance he made, with a sort of fancy halo of scientific knowledge, and often talked to those youths in a way which was curiously bewildering and embaiTassing to them'. Drysdale was par- ticularly hit by it. He had humor and honesty enough him- self to appreciate the captain, but it was a constant puzzle to him to know what to make of it all. " He's a regular old brick, is the captain," he said to Tom, on the last evening of the old gentleman's visit ; " but, by Jove, I can't help thinking he must be poking fun at us half his time. It is rather too rich to hear him talking on as if we were all as fond of Greek as he seems to be, and as if no man ever got drunk up here." " I declare I think he believes it," said Tom. " You see we're all careful enough before him." " That son of his, too, must be a good fellow. Don't you see he can never have peached ? His father was telling me last night what a comfort it was to him to see that Jack's pov- erty had been no drawback to him. He had always told him it would be so among English gentlemen, and now he found him living quietly and independently, and yet on equal terms, and friends with men far above him in rank and fortune, Mike you, sir,' the old boy said. By Jove, Brown, I felt devilish foolish. I believe I blushed, and it isn't often I indulge in that sort of luxury. If I weren't ashamed of doing it now, I should try to make friends with Hardy. But I don't know DBPAETUKE EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED. 241 how to face him, and I doubt whether he wouldn't think me too much of a rip to be intimate with." Tom, at his own special request, attended the captain's de- parture, and took his seat opposite to him and his son at the back of the Southampton coach, to accompany him a few miles out of Oxford. For the first mile the captain was full of the pleasures of his visit, and of invitations to Tom to come and see them in the vacation. If he did not mind homely quarters he would find a hearty welcome, and there was no finer bath- ing and boating place on the coast. If he liked to bring his gun, there were plenty of blue rook-pigeons and sea-otters in the caves at the point. Tom protested, with the greatest sin- cerity, that there was nothing lie should enjoy so much. Then the young men got down to walk up Bagley Hill, and when they mounted again found the captain with a large leather- case iu his hand, out of which he took two five-pound notes, and began -pressing them on his son, while Tom tried to look as if he did not know what was going on. For some time Hardy steadily refused, and the contention became animated, and it was useless to pretend any longer not to hear. " Why, Jack, you're not too proud, I hope, to take a present from your own father," the captain said, at last. " But, my dear father, I don't want the money. You make me a very good allowance already." "Now, Jack, just listen to me, and be reasonable. You know a great many of your friends have been very hospitable to me ; I could not return their hospitality myself, but I wish you to do so for me," "Well, father, I can do that without this money." " Now, Jack," said the captain, pushing forward the notes again, " I insist on your taking them. You will pain me very much if you don't take them." So the son took the notes at last, looking as most men of his age would if they had just lost them, while the father's face was radiant as he replaced his pocket-book in the breast-pocket inside his coat. His eye caught Tom's in the midst of the oper- ation, and the latter could not help looking a little confused, as if he had been unintentionally obtruding on their privacy. But the captain at once laid his hand on his knee and said : " A young fellow is never the worse for having a ten-pound note to veer and haul on ; eh, Mr. Brown ! " " No indeed, sir. A great deal better, I think," said Tom, and was quite comfortable again. The captain had no new • coat that summer, but he always looked like a gentleman. goon the coach stopped to take up a parcel at a cross-road, 242 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. and the young men got down. They stood watching it until it disappeared round a corner of the road, and then turned back^ toward Oxford and struck into Bagley Wood, Hardy listen- ing with evident pleasure to his friend's enthusiastic praise of his father. But he was not in a talking humor, and they were soon walking along together in silence. This was the first time they had been alone together since the morning after their reconciliation ; so, presently, Tom seized the occasion to recur to the subject which was upper- most in his thought. " She has never ansyered my letter," he began abruptly. " I'm very glad of it," said Hardy. "But whj?" " Because you know you want it all broken off completely." " Yes ; but still she might have just acknowledged it. You don't know how hard it is to me to keep away from the place." " My dear fellow, I know it must be hard work, but you are doing the right thing." " Yes, I hope so," said Tom with a sigh. " I haven't been within a hundred yards of ' The Choughs ' this five days. The old lady must think it so odd." Hardy made no reply. AVhat could he say, but that no doubt she did ? '.' Would you mind doing me a great favor? " said Tom, after a minute. " Anything I can do. What is it ? " " Why, just to step round on your way back, — I will stay as far off as you like, — and see how things are going on ; — how she is." " Very well. Don't you like this view of Oxford ? I always think it is the best of them all." " No. You don't see anything of half the colleges," said Tom, who was very loath to leave the other subject for the picturesque . "But you get all the spires and towers go well, and the liver in the foreground. Look at that shadow of a cloud skim- ming over Christ Church meadow. It's a splendid old place, after all." " It may be from a distance, to an outsider," said Tom ; "but I don't know — it's an awfully chilly, deadening kind of place to live in. There's something in the life of the place that sits on me like a weight, and makes me feel dreary." " How long have you felt that ? You're coming out in a new line," DEPARTURE EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED. 243 " I wish I were. I want a new line. I don't care a straw for cricket ; I hardly like pulling ; and as for those wine parties, day after day, and suppers, night after night, they turn me sick to think of." " You have the remedy in your own hands, at any rate," said Hardy, smiling. " How do you mean ? " " Why, you needn't go to them." " Oh ! one can't help going to them. What else is there to do?" Tom waited for an answer, but his companion only nodded to show that he was listening, as he strolled on down the path, looking at the view. " I can say what I feel to you, Hardy. I always have been able, and it's such a comfort to me now. It was you who put these sort of thoughts into my head, too, so you ought to sym- pathize with me." " I do, my dear fellow. But you'll be all right again in a few days." " Don't you believe it. It isn't only what you seem to think, Hai'dy. You don't know me so well as I do you, after all. No ; I'm not just love-sick and hipped, because I can't go and see her. That has something to do with it, I dare say ; but it's the sort of shut-up, selfish life we lead here that I can't stand. A man isn't meant to live only with fellows like him- self, with good allowances paid quarterly, and no care but how to amuse themselves. One is old enough for something better than that, I'm sure." " No doubt," said Hardy, with provoking taciturnity. " And the moment one tries to break through it, one only gets into trouble." " Yes, there's a good deal of danger of that, certainly," said Hardy. " Don't you often long to be in contact with some of the realities of life, with men and women who haven't their bread and butter already cut for them? How can a place be a uni- versity where no one can come up who hasn't two hundred a year or so to live on ? " " You ought to have been at Oxford four hundred years ago, when there were more thousands here than we have hundreds." " I don't see that. It must have been ten times as bad then." " Not at all. But it must have been a very different state of things from ours ; tliey must have been almost all poor scholars, who worked for their living, or lived on next to nothing." 244 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOED. " How do you suppose they lived though ? " " Oh, I don't know. But how should you like itnow, if we had fifty poor scholars at St. Amhrose, hesides us servitors — say ten tailors, ten shoemakers, and so on, who came up from love of learning, and attended all the lectures with us, and worked for the present undergraduates while they were hunting and cricketing and boating ? " " Well, I think it would be a veiy good thing. At any rate, we should save in tailors' bills." " Even if we didn't get our coats so well built," said Hardy, laughing. " Well, Brown, you have a most catholic taste, and ' a capacity for taking in new truths,' all the elements of a good Radical in you." " I tell you I hate Radicals ! " said Tom, indignantly. " Well, here we are in the town ; I'll go round by ' The Choughs ' and catch you up before you get to High Street." Tom, left to himself, walked slowly on for a little way, and then quickly back again in an impatient, restless manner, and was within a few yards of the corner where they had parted when Hardy appeared again. He saw at glance that some- thing had happened. " What is it ? — she is not ill ?" he said quickly. " No ; quite well, her aunt says." "You didn't see her then?" " No. The fact is she has gone home." CHAPTER XXin. THE JENGLEBOUEN CONSTABLE. On the afternoon of a splendid day in the early part of June, some four or five days after the Sunday on which the morning service at Englebourn was interrupted by the fire at Farmer Grove's, David Johnson, tailor and constable of the parish, was sitting at his work, in a small erection, half shed, half summer- liouse, which leaned against the back of his cottage. Not that David had not a regular workshop with a window looking into the village street, and a regular counter close under it on which passers-by might see him stiching, and from whence he could gossip with them easily, as was his wont. But although the constable kept the king's peace and made garments of all kinds for his livelihood, — from the curate's frock down to the plowboy's fustians, — he was addicted for his pleasure and solace to the keeping of bees. The constable's bees inhabited tUE ENGLEBOUKN CONSTABLE, 245 a row of hives in the narrow strip of garden which van away at the back of the cottage. This strip of garden was bordered along the whole of one side by the rector's premises. Now honest David loved gossip well, and considered it a part of his duty as constable to be well up in all events and rumors which happened or arose within his liberties. But he loved his bees better than gossip, and, as he was now in hourly expectation that they would be swarming, was working, as has been said, in his summer-house, that he might be at hand at the critical moment. The rough table on which he was seated commanded a view of the hives ; his big scissors and some shreds of velvet- een lay near him on the table, also the street-door key and an old shovel, of which the uses will appear presently. On his knees lay the black velveteen coat, the Sunday gar- ment of Harry Winburn, to which he was fitting new sleeves. In his exertions at the top of the chimney in putting out the fire, Harry had grievously damaged the garment in question. The farmer had presented him with five shillings on the oc- casion, which sura was quite inadequate to the purchase of a new coat, and Harry, being too proud to call the farmer's at- tention to the special damage which he had suffered in his service, had contented himself with bringing his old coat to be new-sleeved. Harry was a favoi-ite with the constable on account of his intelligence and independence, and because of his relations with the farmers of Englebourn on the allotment question. Although by his oflice the representative of law and order in the parish, David was a man of the people, and sympathized with the peasantry more than with the farmers. He had passed some years of his apprenticeship at Reading, where he had picked up notions on political and social questions much ahead of the Englebourn worthies. When he returned to his native village, being a wise man, he had kept his new lights in the background, and consequently had succeeded in the object of his ambition, and had been appointed constable. His reason for seeking the post was a desire to prove that the old joke as to themanliness of tailors had no application to his case, and this he had established to the satisfaction of all the neighbor- hood by the resolute manner in which, whenever called on, he performed his duties. And, now that his character was made and his position secure, he was not so careful of betraying his learnings, and had lost some custom among the farmers in con- sequence of them. The job on which he was employed naturally turned his 246 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. thoughts to Harry. He stitched away, now weighing in his mind whether he should not go himself to Farmer Grove, and represent to him that he ought to give Harry a new coat ; now rejoicing over the fact that the rector had decided to let Harry have another acre of the allotment land ; now speculating on the attachment of his favorite to the gardener's daughter, and whether he could do anything to forward his suit. In the pur- suit of which thoughts he had forgotten all ahout his bees, when suddenlgr a great humming arose, followed by a rush through the air like the passing of an express train, which recalled him to himself. He jumped from the table, casting aside the coat, and, seizing the key and shovel, hurried out into the garden, beating the two together with all his might. The process in question, known in country phrase as "tang- ing," is founded upon the belief that the bees will not settle unless under the influence of this peculiar music ; and the con- stable, holding faithfully to the popular belief, rushed down his garden "tanging," as though his life depended upon it, in the hopes that the soothing sound would induce the swarm to settle at once on his own appple-trees. Is " tanging " a superstition or not ? People learned in bees ought to know, but 1 never happened to meet one who had con- sidered the question. It is curious how such beliefs or super- stitions fix themselves in the popular mind of a countryside, and are held by wise and simple alike. David, the constable, was a most sensible and open-minded man of his time and class, but Kemble or Akerman, or other learned Anglo-Sax£)n scholars, would have vainly explained to him that " tang," is b^it the old word for " to hold," and that the object of " tanging " is, not to lure the bees with sweet music of key and shovel, but to give notice to the neighbors that they have swarmed, and tliat the owner of the maternal hive means to hold on to his right to the emigrants. David would have listened to the lecture with pity, and have retained unshaken belief in his music. In the present case, however, the tanging was of little avail, for the swarm, after wheeling once or twice in the air, disap- peared from the eyes of the constable over the rector's wall. He went on " tanging" violently for a minute or two, and then paused to consider what was to be done. Should he get over the wall into the rector's garden at once, or should he go round to ask leave to carry his seaj'ch into the parsonage grounds ? As a man and bee-fancier he was on the point of following straight at once, over wall and fence ; but the constable was THE ENGLEBOtTEN CONSTABLE. 247 also strong within him. He was not on the best of terms with old Simon, the rector's gardener, and his late opposition to Miss Winter in the matter of the singing also came into his mind. So he resolved that the parish constable would lose caste by disregarding his neighbor's boundaries, and was con- sidei-ing what to do next when he heard a footstep and short cough on the other side the wall which he recognized. " Be you there, Maester Simon ? " he called out. Where- upon the walker on the other side pulled up, and after a second appeal answered, shortly : " Ees." " Hev 'ee seed aught o' my bees ? Thaay've a bin' and riz and gone off somweres athert the wall." " Ees, I seen 'em." "Wer'be'em, then?" " Aal-amang wi.ourn in the limes." " Aal-amang wi' yourn ! " exclaimed the constable. " Drat- tle-em. Thaay be mwore trouble than they be wuth." " I know as thaay wur yourn zoon as ever I sot eyes on 'em," old Simon went on. " How did 'ee know 'em then ? " asked the constable. " Cause thine be aal zettin' crass-leggfed," said Simon, with a chuckle. " Thee medst cum and pick 'em all out if thee'st a mind to 't." Simon was mollified by his own joke, and broke into a short, dry cachination, half laugh, half cough ; while the constable, who was pleased and astonished to find his neighbor in such a good-humor, hastened to get an empty hive and a pair of hedger's gloves, — fortified with which he left his cottage and made the best of his way up street toward the rectory gate, hard by which stood Simon's cottage. The old gardener was of an impatient nature, and the effect of the joke had almost time to evaporate, and Simon was fast relapsing into his usual state of mind toward his neighbor before the latter made his appearance. " Wher' hast been so long ? " he exclaimed, when the con- stable joined him. " I seed the young missus and t'other young lady a standin' talkin' afore the door," said David ; " so I stopped back, so as not to disturve 'em." " Be 'em gone in ? Who was 'em talkin' to ? " " To thy missus, and thy daarter too, I b'lieve 'twas. Thaay be both at whoam, bean't 'em ? " •' Like enough. But vbat was 'em zayin' ? " 248 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " I couldn't heer nothin' partic'lar, but I judged as 'twas summat about Sunday and the fire." " 'Tis na use for tbaay to go on fillin' our pleaoe wi' bottles. I dwon't mean to take any mwore doctor's stuflf." Simon, it may be said, by the way, had obstinately refused to take any medicine since his fall, and had maintained a con- stant war on the subject, both with his own women and with Miss Winter, whom he had impressed more than ever with a be- lief in his wrong-headedness. " Ah ! and how be 'ee, tho', Maester Simon ? " said David ; " I didn't mind to ax afore. You dwon't feel no wus for your fall, I hopes ? " " I feels a bit stiffish like, and as if summat wus cuttin' m' at times, when I lifts up my arms." " 'Tis a mercy 'tis no wus," said David ; " we bean't so young nor so lissom as we was, Maester Simon." To which remark Simon replied by a grunt. He disliked allusions to his age — a rare dislike among his class in that part of the country. Most of the people are fond of making them- selves out older than they ai"e, and love to dwell on their ex- perience, and believe, as firmly as the rest of us, that every- thing has altered for the worse in the parish and district since their youth. But Simon, though short of words and temper, and an un- comfortable acquaintance in consequence, was inclined to be helpful enough in other ways. The constable, with his assist- ance, had very soon hived his swarm of cross-legged bees. I^hen the constable insisted on Simon's coming with him and taking a glass of ale, which, after a little coquetting, Simon consented to do. So, after carrying his recapture safely home, and erecting the hive on a three-legged stand of his own work- manship, he hastened to rejoin Simon, and the two soon found themselves together in the bar of the " Red Lion." The constable wished to make the most of this opportunitj% and so began at once to pump Simon as to his intentions with regard to his daughter. But Simon was not easy to lead in any way whatever, and seemed in a more than usually no-busi- nesB-of -yours- line about his daughter. Whether he had any one in his eye for her or not, David could not make out ; but one thing he did make out, and it grieved him much. Old Simon was in a touchy and unfriendly state of mind against HaiTy, who, he said, was falling into bad ways, and beginning to think much too much of hisself. Why was he to be want- ing more allotment ground than anyone else ? Simon had him- THE ENGLEBOURN CONSTABLE. 249 self given Harry some advice on the point, but not to much purpose, it would seem, as he summed up his notions on tlie sub- . ject by the remark tliat, " 'Twas waste of soap to lather an ass." The constable now and then made a stand for his young friend, but very judiciously ; and, after feeling his way for some time, he came to the conclusion — as, indeed, the truth was — that Simon was jealous of Harry's talent for growing flowei's, and had been driven into his present frame of mind at hearing Miss Winder and her cousin talking about the flowers at Dame Winburn's under his very nose for tlje last four or five days. They had spoken thus to interest the old man, meaning to praise Harry to him. The fact was, that the old gardener was one of those men who never can stand hearing other people praised, and think that all such praise must be meant in de- preciation of themselves. When they had finished their ale, the afternoon was getting on, and the constable rose to go back to his work ; while old Simon declared his intention of going down to the hayfield, to see how the mowing was getting on. He was sure that the hay would never be made properly, now that he couldn't be about as much as usual. In another hour the coat was finished, and the constable, being uneasy in his mind, resolved to carry the garment home himself at once, and to have a talk with Dame Winburn. So he wrapped the coat in a handkerchief, put it under his arm, and set off down the village. He found the dame busy with her washing ; and after de- positing his parcel sat down on the settle to have a talk with her. She soon got on the subject wliich was always upper- most in her mind, her son's prospects, and she poured out to the constable her troubles. First there was this sweethearting after old Simon's daughter — not that Dame Winburn was going to say anything against her, though she might have her thoughts as well as other folk, and for her part she liked to see girls that were fit for something besides dressing them- selves up like their betters — but what worrited her was to see how Harry took it to heart. He wasn't like himself, and she couldn't see how it was all to end. It made him fractious, too, and he was getting into trouble about his work. He had left his regular place, and was gone mowing with a gang, most of them men out of the parish that she knew nothing about, and likely not to be the best of company. And it was all very well in harvest time, when they could go and earn good wages at mowing and reaping anywhere about, and no man could 250 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. earn better than her Harry, hut when it came to winter again she didn't see but what he might find the want of a regular place, and then the farmers mightn't take him on ; and liis own land that he had got, and seemed to think so much of, mightn't turn out all he thought it would. And so, in fact, the old lady was troubled in her mind, and only made the consta- ble more uneasy. He had a vague sort of impression that he was in some way answerable for Han-y, who was a good deal with him, and was fond of coming about his place. And al- though his cottage happened to be next to old Simon's, which might account for the fact to some extent, yet the constable was conscious of having talked to his young friend on many matters in a way which might have unsettled him, and en- couraged his natural tendency to stand up for his own rights and independence, and he knew well enough that this temper was not the one which was likely to keep a laboring man out of trouble in the parish. He did not allow his own misgivings, however, to add to the widow's troubles, but, on the contrary, cheered her by praising up Harry as much as ever she could desire, and prophesying that all would come right, and that those that lived would see her son as respected as any man in the parish, and he shouldn't be surprised if he were churchwarden before he died. And then, astonished at his own boldness, and feeling that he was not capable of any higher flight of imagination, the constable rose to take his leave. He asked where Harry was working, and, finding that he was at mowing in the Danes' Close, set off to look after him. The kind-hearted constable could not shake off the feeling that something was going to happen to Harry which would get him into trouble, and he wanted to assure himself that as yet nothing had gone wrong. Whenever one has this sort of vague feeling about a friend, there is a natural and irresistible impulse to go and look after him, and to be with him. The Danes' Close was a part of the glebe, a large field of some ten acres or so in extent, close to the village. - Two foot- paths ran across it, so that it was almost common property, and the village children considered it as much their play- ground as the green itself. They trampled the grass a good deal more than seemed endurable in the eyes of Simon, who managed the rector's farming operations as well as the garden ; but the children had their own way, notwitlistanding the threats he sometimes launched at them. Miss Winter would have sooner lost all the hay than have narrowed th^ir awuge- THE ENGLBBOUEN CONSTABLE. 251 ments. It was the most cliflBcult piece of mowing in the parish, in consequence of the tramplings and of the large crops it bore. The Danes, or some other unknown persons, had made the laud fat, perhaps with their carcasses, and the benefit had lasted to the time of our story. At any rate, the field bore splendid crops, and the mowers always got an extra shilling an acre for cutting it, by Miss Winter's special order, which was paid by Simon in the most ungracious manner, and with many grumblings that it was enough to ruin all the mowers in the country-side. As the constable got over the stile into the hayfield, a great part of his misgivings passed out of his head. He was a simple, kindly man, whose heart lay open to all influences of scene and weather, and the Danes' Close, full of life and joy and merry sounds, as seen under the slanting rays of the even- ing sun, was just the place to rub all the wrinkles out of him. The constable, however, is not singular in this matter. Wliat man among us all, if he will think the matter over calmly and fairly, can honestly say that there is any one spot on the earth's surface in which he has enjoyed so much real, wholesome, happy life as in a hayfield? He may have won renown on horseback or on foot at the sports and pastimes in which Englishmen glory ; he may have shaken off all rivals, time after time, across the vales of Aylesbury, or of Berks, or any other of our famous hunting counties ; he may have stalked the oldest and shyest buck in Scotch forests, and killed the biggest salmon of the year in the Tweed, and trout in the Thames ; he may have made topping averages in first- rate matches of cricket ; or have made long and perilous marches, dear to memory, over boggy moor, or mountain, or glacier ; he may have successfully attended many breakfast- parties within drive of May Fair, on velvet lawns, surrounded by all the fairyland of pomp and beauty and luxury which London can pour out ; he may have shone at private theatri- cals and at-homes ; his voice may have sounded over hushed audiences at St. Stephen's, or in the law courts ; or he may have had good times in any other scenes of pleasure or triumph open to Englishmen ; but I much doubt whether, on putting his recollections fairly and quietly together, he would not say at last that the fresh-mown hayfield is the place where he has spent the most hours which he would like to live over again, the fewest which he. would wish to forget. As children, we stumble about the new -mown hay, reveling in the many colors of the prostrate grass and wild flowers, and 252 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. in tlie power of tumbling where we please without hurting our- selves ; as small boys, we pelt one another, and the village schoolgirls, and our nursemaids, and young-lady cousins with the hay, till, hot and weary, we retire to tea or syllabub be- neath the shade of some great oak or elm standing up like a monarch out of the fair pasture ; or, following the mowers, we rush with eagerness on the treasures disclosed by the scythe- stroke — the nest of the unhappy late-laying titlark, or careless fii'ld-mouse ; as big boys, we toil ambitiously with the spare forks and rakes, or climb into the wagons and receive with open arms the delicious load as it is pitched up from below, and rises higher and higher as we pass along the long lines of liaycocks ; a year or two later, we are strolling there with our first sweethearts, our souls and tongues loaded with sweet thoughts and soft speeches ; we take a turn with the scythe as tlie bronzed mowers lie in the shade for their short rest, and willingly pay our footing for the feat. Again, we come back with book in pocket, and our own children tumbling about as we did before them ; now romping with them, and smothering them with the sweet-smelling load — now musing and reading and dozing away the deliciou? summer evenings. And so shall we not come back to the end, enjoying as grandfathers the lovemaking and the rompings of younger generations yet ? Were any of us ever really disappointed or melancholy in a hayfield ? Did we ever lie fairly back on a haycock and look up into the blue sky, and listen to the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes and the laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil thoughts of the world or our brethren ? Not we ! or if we have so done, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and deserve never to be out of town again during hay harvest. There is something in the sights and sounds of a hayfield which seems to touch the same chord in one as Lowell's lines in the " Lay of Sir Launfal," which ends : For a cap and bells our lives we pay ; We wear out our lives with tolling and tasking, It is only Heaven that is given away ; It is only God may be had for the asking. There is no price set on the lavish summer, And June may be had by the poorest comer. But the philosophy of the hayfield remains to be written. Let us hope that whoever takes the subject in hand will not dis- sipate all its sweetness in the procegs of the incjuiry wheveia tlie charm lieg. THE ENGLEBOUEN CONSTABLE. 253 The constable had not the slightest notion of speculating on his own sensations, but was very glad, nevertheless, to find his spirits rising as he stepped into tlie Danes' Close. All the hay- was down, except a small piece in the further corner, which the mowers were upon. Tliere were groups of children in many parts of the field, and women to look after them, mostly sitting on the fresh swarth, working and gossiping, while the little ones played about. He had not gone twenty yards before he was stopped by the violent crying of a child ; and, turning toward the voice, he saw a little girl of six or seven, who had strayed from her mother, scrambling out of the ditch. and wringing her hands in an agony of pain and terror. The poor little thing had fallen into a bed of nettles, and was very much frightened, and not a little hurt. The constable caught her up in his arms, soothing her as well as he could, and hurry- ing along till he found some dock-leaves, sat down with her on his knee, and rubbed her hands with the leaves, repeating the old saw : "Out nettle, In dock : Dock shall ha' A new Bmock ; Nettle shan't Ha' narrum'." What with rubbing, and the constable's kind manner, and listening to the doggerel rhyme, and feeling that nettle would get her deserts, the little thing soon ceased crying. But sev- eral groups had been drawn toward the place, and among the rest came Miss Winter and her cousin, who had been within hearing of the disaster. The constable began to feel very nervous and uncomfortable, when he looked up from his charitable occupation, and suddenly found the rector's daughter close to him. But his nervousness was uncalled for. Tlie sight of what he was about, and of the tender way in which he was handling the child, drove all remembrance of his heresies and contumaciousness, in the matter of psalmody, out of her head. She greeted him with frankness and cordiality, and presently — when he had given up his charge to the mother, who was in- clined at first to be hard with the poor little sobbing truant — came up, and said she wished to speak a few words to him. David was highly delighted at Miss Winter's manner ; but he walked along by her side not quite comfortable in his mind for fear lest she should start the old subject of dispute, and then his duty, as a public man, would have to be done at all risk of offending her, He was much comforted when she began by 254 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. asking Hm whether he had "seen much of Widow Winburn's son lately. David admitted that he generally saw him every day. Did he know that he had left his place, and had quarreled with Mr. Tester ? Yes, David -knew that Harry had had words with Farmer Tester ; but Farmer Tester was a sort that it was very hard not to have words with. " Still, it is very bad, you know, for so young a man to be quarreling with the farmers," said Miss Winter. '' 'Twas the varmer as quarreled wi' he, you see, miss," David answered, " which makes all the odds. He cum to Harry all in a fluster, and said as how he must drow up the land as he'd a'got, or he's place — one or t'other on 'em. And, so you see, miss, as Harry wur kind o' druv to it. 'Twarn't likely as he wur to drow up the land now as he wur just reppin' the benefit ov it, and all for Varmer Tester's place, which be no sich gurt things, miss, arter all." " Very likely not ; but I fear it may hinder his getting em- ployment. The other farmers will not take him on now, if they can help it." " No ; thaay falls out wi' one another bad enough, and calls all manners o' names. But they can't abide a poor man to speak his mind, nor take his own part, not one on 'em," said David, looking at Miss Winter, as if doubtful how she might take his strictures ; but she went on, without any show of dis- sent : " I shall try to get him to work for my father ; but I am sorry to find that Simon does not seem to like the idea of taking him on. It is not easy always to make out Simon's meaning. When I spoke to him, be said something about a bleating sheep losing a bite ; but I should think this young man is not much of a talker in general ? " She paused. " That's true, miss," said David energetically ; " there aint a quieter-spoken or steadier man at his work in the parish." " I'm very glad to hear you say so," said Miss Winter, " and I hope we may soon do something for him. But what I want you to do just now, is to speak a word to him about the com- pany he seems to be getting into." The constable looked somewhat aghast at this speech of Miss Winter, but did not answer, not knowing to what she was alluding. She saw that he did not understand, and went on : " He is mowing to-day with a gang from the heath and the next parish ; I am sure they are very bad men for him to be THE ENGLBBO0RN CONSTABLE. 265 with. I was SO vexed when I found Simon had given them the job ; but he said they' would get it all down in a day, and be done with it, and that was all he caved for." " And 'tis a fine day's work, miss, for five men," said David, looking over the field ; "and 'tis good work, too, you mind the swarth else," and he picked up a handful of the fallen grass to sliow her how near the ground it was cut. " Oh, yes ; I have no doubt they are very good mowers, but thuy are not good men, I'm sure. There, do you see now who it is that is bringing them beer ? I hope you will see Widow Winburn's son, and speak to him, and try to keep him out of bad company. We should be all so sorry if he were to get into trouble." David promised to do his best, and Miss Winter wished him good-evening, and rejoined her cousin. " Well, Katie, will he do your behest ? " " Yes, indeed ; and I think he is the best person to do it. Widow Winburn thinks her son minds him more than any one." "Do you know I don't think it will ever go right. I'm sure she doesn't care the least for him." " Oh ! you have only just seen her once to-day for two or three minutes." " And then, that wretched old Simon is so perverse about it," said the cousin. " You'll never manage him." " He is very provoking, certainly ; but I get my own way generally, in spite of him. And it is such a perfect plan ; isn't it ? " " Oh ! charming, if you can only bring it about.'' " Now we must be really going home, papa will be getting restless." So the young ladies left the hayfield deep in castle- building for Harry Winburn and the gardener's daugliter. Miss Winter being no more able to resist a tale of true love than lier cousin, or the rest of her sex. They would have been more or less than women if they had riot taken an interest in so ab- sorbing a passion as poor Harry's. By the time they reached the rectory gate they had installed him in the gardener's cot- tage with his bride and mother (for there would be plenty of room for the widow, and it would be so convenient to have the laundry close at hand), and had pensioned old Simon, and sent him and his old wife to wrangle away the rest of their time in the widow's cottage. Castlebuilding is a delightful and harmless exercise. Meantime David the constable had gone toward the mowers, 266 TOM ESOWlJ- AT OXtOfiD. who were taking a short rest before finishing off the last half acre which remained standing. The person whose appearance had so horrified Miss Winter was drawing beer for them from a small barrel. This was an elderly, ravvboned woman with a skin burnt as brown as that of any of the mowers. She wore a man's hat and spencer, and had a strong, harsh v6ice, and altogether was not a prepossessing person. She went by the name of Daddy Cowell in the parish, and had been for years a proscribed person. She lived up on the heath, often worked in the fields, took in lodgers, and smoked a short clay pipe. These eccentricities, when added to her half -male cloth- ing, were quite enough to account for the sort of outlawry in which she lived. Miss Winter, and other good people of En- glebourn, believed her capable of any crime, and the children were taught to stop talking and playing, and run away when she came near them ; but the constable, who had had one or two search-warrants to execute in her house, and had otherwise had frequent occasions of getting acquainted with her in the course of his duties, had by no means so evil an opinion of her. He had never seen much harm in her, he had been heard to say, and she never made pretense to much good. Nevertheless, David was by no means pleased to see her acting as purveyor to the gang which Harry had joined. He knew how such con- tact would damage him in the eyes of all the parochial respect- abilities, and was anxious to do his best to get him clear of it. With these views he went up to the men, who were resting under a large elm tree, and complimented them on their day's work. They were themselves well satisfied with it, and with one another. When men have had sixteen hours', or so, hard mowing in company, and none of them can say that the others have not done their fair share, they are apt to respect one another more at the end of it. It was Harry's first day with this gang, who were famous for going about the neighborhood, and doing great feats in hay and wheat harvest. They were satisfied with him and he with them, none the less so probably in his present frame of mind, because they also were loose on tlie world, servants of no regular master. It was a bad time to make his approaches, the constable saw ; so, after sitting by Harry until tlie gang rose to finish off their work in the cool of the evening, and asking him to come round by his cottage on his way home, which Harry promised to do, he walked back to the village. THE SCHOOLS. 257 CHAPTER XXIV. THE SCHOOLS. These is no more characteristic spot in Oxford than the quadrangle of the schools. Doubtless in the times when the university held and exercised the privileges of infaug-thief and outfang-thief, and other such old-world rights, there must have been a place somewhere within the liberties devoted to ex- aminations even more exciting than the great-go. But since alma mater has ceased to take cognizance of " treasons, insur- rections, felonies, and mayhem," it is here in that fateful and inexorable quadrangle, and the buildings which surround it, that she exercises her most potent spells over the spirits of her children. I suppose that a man being tried for his life must be more uncomfortable than an undergraduate being examined for his degree, and that to be hung — perhaps even to be pil- loried — must be worse than to be plucked. But after all, the feelings in both cases must be essentially the same, only more intense in the former ; and an institution which can examine a man (in Uteris humanioribus, in hum,anities so called) once a year for two or three days at a time, has nothing to complain of, tliough it has no longer the power of hanging him at once out of hand. The schools' quadrangle is for the most part a lonely place. Men pass through the melancholy iron gates by which that quadrangle is entered on three sides — from Broad Street, from the Ratcliffe, and from New College Lane — when neces- sity leads them that way, with alert step and silently. No nursemaids or children play about it. Nobody lives in it. Only when the examinations are going on you may see a few hooded figures who walk as though conscious of the powers of academic life and death which they wield, and a good deal of shuddering undergraduate life flitting about the place — luck- less youths, in white ties and bands, who are undergoing the peine forte et dure with different degrees of composure ; and their friends who are there to look after them. You may go in and watch the torture youi'self if you are so minded, for the viva voce schools are open to the public. But one such experi- ment will be enough for you, unless you are very hard-hearted. The sight of the long table, behind which sit Minos, Rhada- maiithus, and Co., full-robed, stern of face, soft of speech, seiz- ing their victim in turn, now letting him run a little way as a cat does a mouse, then drawing him back, with claw of wily 258 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOEB. question, probing him on this side and that, turning him inside out — the row of victims opposite, pale or flushed, of anxious or careless mien, according to temperament, but one and all on the rack as they bend over the allotted paper, or read from the well-thumbed book — the scarcely-less-to-be-pitied row behind, of future victims, " sitting for the schools," as it is called, ruthlessly brought hither by statutes, to watch the sufferings they must hereafter undergo — should fill the friend of suffer- ing Iiumanity with thoughts too deep for tears. Through the long day till four o'clock, or later, the torture lasts. Then the last victim is dismissed ; the men who are ["sitting for the schools" fly all ways to their colleges, silently, in search of relief to their overwrought feelings, proTjably also of beer, the undergraduate's universal specific. The beadles close those ruthless doors for a mysterious half-hour on the examiners. Outside in the quadrangle collect by twos and threes the friends of the victims, waiting for the re-opening of the door and the distribution of the " testamurs." The testamurs, lady readers will be pleased to understand, are certificates under the hands of the examiners, that your sons, brothers, husbands, perhaps, have successfully undergone the torture. But, if husbands, oh, go not yourselves, and send not your sons to wait for the testamur of the head of your house ; for Oxford has seldom seen a sight over which she would more willingly draw the veil with averted face than that of the youth rushing wildly, dissolved in tears, from the schools' quadrangle, and shouting, " Mamma ! papa's plucked ; papa's plucked ! " On the occasion at which we have now arrived, the pass- schools are over already ; the paper- work of the candidates for honors has been going on for the last week. Every morning our three St. Ambrose acquaintances have mustered with the rest for the anxious day's work, after such breakfasts as they have been able to eat under the cii'cumstances. They take their work in very different ways. Grey rushes nervously back to his rooms whenever he is out of the schools for ten minutes, to look up dates and dodges. He worries himself sadly over every blunder which he discovers himself to have made, and sits up nearly all night cramming, always hoping for a better to-morrow. Blake keeps up his affected carelessness to the last, quizzing the examiners, laughing over the shots he has been making in the last paper. His shots, it must be said, turn out well for the most part ; in the taste paper particularly, as they compare notes, he seems to have almost struck the bull's eye in his answers to one or two questions which Hardy THE SCHOOLS. 259 and Grey liave passed over altogether. When he is wide of the mark he passes it oflE with some jesting remark " that a fool can ask in five minutes more questions than a wise man can answer in a week," or " wish that the examiners would play fair, and change sides of tlie table for an hour with the candidates, for a finish." But he, too, though he does it on the sly, is cramming with his coach at every available spare moment. Hardy had finished his reading a full thirty-six hours before the first day of paper-work, and had braced him- self for the actual struggle by two good nights' rest and a long day on the river with Tom. He had worked hard from the first, and so had really mastered his books. And now feel- ing that he has fairly and honestly done his best, and that if he fails it will be either from bad luck or natural incapacity, and not from his own fault, he manages to keep a cooler head than any of his companions in trouble. The week's paper-work passes off uneventfully ; then comes the viva voce work for the candidates for honors. Tliey go in in alphabetical order, four a day, for one more day's work, the hardest of all, and then there is nothing more to do but wait patiently for the class list. On these days there is a good attendance in the inclosed space to which the public are admitted. The front seats are often occupied by the private tutors of the candidates, who are there, like Newmarket train- ers, to see the performance of their staljles, marking how each colt bears pressing and comports himself when the pinch comes. They watch the examiners, too, carefully, to see what line they take, whether science, or history, or scholarship is likely to tell most, that they may handle the rest of tlieir starters accordingly. Behind them for the most part, on the hindermost benches of the flight of raised steps, anxious yonnger brothers and friends sit, for a few minutes at a time, flitting in and out in much unrest, and making the objects of their solicitude more nervous than ever by their sympathy. It is now the afternoon of the second day of the viva voce examination in honors. Blake is one of the men in. His tutor, Hardy, Grey, Tom, and other St. Ambrose men, have all been in the schools more or less during his examination, and now Hardy and Tom are waiting outside the doors for the issuing of the testamurs. The group is small enough. It is so much of course that a class man should get his testamur that there is no excitement about it; generally the man himself stops to. receive it. The only anxious faces in the group are Tom's and Hardy's. 260 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. They have not exchanged a word for the last few minutes in their short walk before the door. Now the examiners come out and walk away toward their colleges, and the next minute the door again opens and the clerk of the schools appears with the slips of paper in his hand. " Now you'll see if I'm not right," said Hardy, as they gath- ered to the door with the rest. " I tell yon there isn't the least chance for him." The clerk read out the names inscribed on the testamurs which he held, and handed them to the owners. "Haven't you one for Mr. Blake of St. Ambrose ?" said Tom desperately, as the clerk was closing the door. " No, sir ; none but those I have just given out," answered the clerk, shaking his head. The door closed, and they turned away in silence for the first minute. " I told you how it would be," said Hardy, as they passed out of the south gate into the Ratcliffe quadrangle. " But he seemed to be doing so well when I was in." " You were not there at the tiihe. I thought at first they would have sent him out of the schools at once." " In his divinity, wasn't it ? " " Yes ; he was asked to repeat one of the Articles, and didn't know three words of it. From that moment I saw it was all over. The examiner and he both lost their tempers, and it went from bad to worse, till the examiner remarked that he could have answered one of the questions he was ask- ing when he was ten years old, and Blake replied, so could he. They gave him a paper in divinity afterward, but you could see there was no chance for him." " Poor fellow ! what will he do, do you thiiik ? " How will he take it?" " I can't tell. But I'm afraid it will be a very serious mat- ter for him. He was the ablest man in our year, too. What a pity ! " They got into St. Ambrose just as the bell for afternoon chapel was going down, and went in. Blake was there, and one look showed him what had happened. In fact he had ex- pected nothing else all day since his breakdown in the Ar- ticles. Tom couldn't help watching him during chapel, and afterward, on that evening, acknowledged to a friend that whatever else you might think of Blake, there was no doubt about his gam^eness. After chapel he loitered outside the door in the quadrangle, talking just as usual, and before hall be loitered on the steps THE SCHOOLS. 261 in well-feigned carelessness. Everybody else was thinking of his breakdown; some with real sorrow and sympathy; others as' of any other nine days' wonder — pretty much as if the favorite for the Derby had broken down ; others with ill-con- cealed triumph, for Blake had many enemies among the men. He himself was conscious enough of what they were thinking of, but maintained his easy, gay manner through it all, though the effort it cost him was tremendous. The only allusion he made to what- had happened which Tom heard was when he asked him to wine. " Are you engaged to-night. Brown ? " he said. Tom an- swered in the negative. "Come to me, then," he went on. "You won't get another chance in St. Ambrose. I have a few bottles of old wine left; we may as well floor them ; they won't bear moving to a hall with their master." And then he turned to some other men and asked them, everyone in fact whom he came across, especially the domi- nant fast set with whom he had chiefly lived. Tliese young gentlemen (of whom we had a glimpse at the outset, but whose company we have carefully avoided ever since, seeing that their sayings and doings were of a kind of which the less said the better) had been steadily going on in their way, getting more and more idle, reckless, and insolent. Their doings had been already so scandalous on several occasions as to call for solemn meetings of the college authorities ; but, no vigorous measures having followed, such deliberations had only made matters worse, and given the men a notion that they could do what they pleased with impunity. This night the climax had come; it was as though the flood of misrule had at last broken banks and overflowed the whole college. For two hours the wine party in Blake's large ground-floor rooms was kept up with a wild, reckless mirth, in keeping with the host's temper. Blake was on his mettle. He had asked every man with whom he had a speaking acquaintance, as if he wished to face out his disaster at once to the whole world. Many of the men came feeling uncomfortable, and would sooner have stayed away and treated the pluck as a real mis- fortune. But after all Blake was the best judge of how he liked it to be treated, and, if he had a fancy for giving a great wine on the occasion, the civilest thing to do was to go to it. And so they went, and wondered as much as he could desire at the brilliant coolness of their host, speculating and doubt- ing nevertheless, in their own secret hearts, whether it wasn't acting after all. Acting it was, no doubt, and not worth the 262 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. doing ; no acting is. But one must make allowances. No two men take a thing just alike, and very few can sit down quietly when they have lost a fall in life's wrestle, and say, " Well, here I am, beaten no doubt this time. By my own fault, too. 'Now, take a good look at me, my good friends, as I know you all want to do, and say your say out, for I mean getting up again directly and having another turn at it." Blake drank freely himself and urged his guests to drink, . which was a superfluous courtesy for the most part. Most of the men left his rooms considerably excited. They had dis- persed for an hour or so to billiards, or a stroll in the town, and at ten o'clock reassembled at supper parties, of which there were several in college this evening, especially a monster one at Chanter's rooms — a " champagne supper," as he had care- fully and ostentatiously announced on the cardsof invitations, This flaunting the champagne in their faces had been resented by Drysdale and others, who drank his champagne in tumblers and then abused it and clamored for beer in the middle of the supper. Chanter, whose prodigality in some ways was only exceeded by his general meanness, had lost his temper at this demand, and insisted that, if they wanted beer, they might send for it themselves, for he wouldn't pay for it. This pro- test was treated with uproaiious contempt, and gallons of ale soon made their appearance in college jugs and tankards. The tables were cleared, and songs (most of them of more than doubtful character), cigars, and all sorts of compounded drinks, from claret cup to egg flip, succeeded. The companj', re- cruited constantly as men came into college, was getting more and more excited every minute. The scouts cleared away and carried off all relics of the supper, and then left; still the revel went on, till, by midnight, the men were ripe for any mischief or folly which those among them who retained any brains at all could suggest. The signal for breaking up was given by the host's falling from his seat. Some of the men rose with a shout to put him to bed, which they accomplished with difiiculty, after dropping him several times, and left him to snore off the effects of his debauch with one of his boots on. Others took to doing what mischief occurred to them in his rooms. One man, mounted on a chair, with a cigar in his mouth which bad gone out, was employed in pouring the con- tents of a champagne bottle with unsteady hand into the clock on the mantelpiece. Chanter was a particular man in this sort of furniture, and his clock was rather a specialty. It was a large bronze figure of Atlas supporting the globe, in the THE SCHOOLS. 263 shape of a timepiece. Unluckily the maker, not anticipating the sort of test to which his work would be subjected, had in- geniously left the hole for winding up in the top of the clock, so that unusual facilities existed for drowning the world carrier, and he was already almost at his last tick. One or two men were morally aiding and abetting, and physically sup- porting the experimenter on clocks, who found it difficult to stand to his work by himself. Another knot of young geiitle- nien stuck to the tables, and so continued to shout out scraps of song, sometimes standing on their chairs, and sometimes tumbling off them. Another set were employed on the ami- able work of pouring beer and sugar into three new pairs of polished leather dress boots, with colored tops to them, whicli they discovered in the dressing-room. Certainly, as they re- marked, Chanter could have no possible use for so many dress boots at once, and it was a pity the beer should be wasted; but on the whole, perhaps, the materials were never meant for combination, and had better have been kept apart. Others had gone away to break into the kitchen, headed by one who had just come into college and vowed he would have some supper; and others, to screw up an unpopular tutor, or to break into the rooms of some inoffensive freshman. The remainder mus- tered on the grass in the quadrangle, and began playing leap- frog and larking one another. Among these last was our hero, who had been at Blake's wine and one of the quieter supper parties; and, though not so far gone as most of his companions, was by no means in a state in which he would have cared to meet the Dean. He lent his hearty aid accordingly to swell the noise and tumult, which was becoming something out of the way, even for St. Ambrose's. As the leap-frog was flag- ging, Drysdale suddenly appearad, carrying some silver plates which were used on solemn occasions in the common room, and allowed to be issued on special application for gentlemen- commoners' parties. A rush was made toward him. " Hollo, here's Drysdale with lots of swag," shouted one. " What are you going to do with it ? " cried another. Drys- dale paused a moment with the peculiarly sapient look of a tipsy man who has suddenly lost the thread of his ideas, and then suddenly broke out with : "Hang it, I forget. But let's play at quoits with tliera." The proposal was received with applause, and the game began, but Drysdale soon left it. He had evidently some no- tion in his head which would not suffer him to turn to anj"^- thing else till he had carried it out. He went off accordingly 264 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. to Chanter's rooms, while the quoits went on in the front quad- rangle. About this time, however, the Dean and bursar, and the tutors who lived in college, began to be conscious that some- thing unusual was going on. They were quite used to distant choruses, and great noises in the men's rooms, and to a fair amount of shouting and skylarking in the quadrangle, and were long-suffering men not given to interfering ; but there must be an end to all endurance, and the state of, thing which had ar- rived could no longer be met by a turn in bed and a gi'owl at the uproars and follies of undergraduates. Presently some of the rioters on the grass caught sight of a figure, gliding along the side of the quadrangle toward the Dean's staircase. A shout arose that the enemy was up, but little heed was paid to it by the greater number. Then another figure passed from the Dean's staircase to the porter's lodge. Those of the men who had any sense left saw that it was time to quit, and, after warning the rest, went off towal'd their rooms. Tom, on his way to his staircase, caught sight of a figure seated in a remote corner of the inner quadrangle, and made for it, impelled by natural curiosity. He found Drys- dale seated on the ground with several silver tankards by his side, employed to the best of his powers in digging a hole with one of the college carving-knives. " Hollo, Drysdale, what are you up to ? " he shouted, laying his hand on his shoulder. " Providing for poshterity," replied Drysdale gravely, with- out looking up. " What the deuce do you mean ? Don't be such an ass. The Dean will be out in a minute. Get up and come along." " I tell yon, old fellow," said Diysdale, somewhat inar- ticulately, and driving his knife into the ground again, "the dons are going to spout the college plate. So I am burying these articles for poshterity " " Hang posterity," said Tom ; " come along directly, or you'll be caught and rusticated." " Go to bed. Brown — you're drunk. Brown," replied Drys- dale, continuing his work, and striking the carving-knife into the ground so close to his own thigh that it made Tom shudder. " Here they are then," he cried the next moment, seizing Drysdale by the arm, as a rush of men came through the pas- sage into the back quadrangle, shouting and tumbling along, and making in small groups for the different staircases. The Dean and two of the tutors followed, and the porter bearing a She schools. S6S lantern. There was no time to be lost ; so Tom, after one more struggle to pull Drysdale up and burry bim off, gave it up, and leaving him to his fate, ran across to bis own stair- case. For the next half -hour the Dean and bis party patrolled the college, and succeeded at last in restoring order, though not without some undignified and disagreeable passages. The lights oti the staircases, which generally burnt all night, were of course put out as they approached. On the first staircase which they stormed, the porter's lantern was knocked out of his hand by an unseen adversary, and the light put out on the bottom stairs. On the first landing the bursar trod on a small terrier belonging to a fast freshman, and tlie dog naturally thereupon bit the bursar's leg ; while his master and other enfants perdus, taking advantage of the diversion, rushed down the dark stairs, past the party of order, and into the quadrangle, where they scattered amid a shout of laughter. While the porter was gone for a light, the Dean and his party rashly ventured on a second ascent. Here an unexpected catastrophe awaited them. On the top landing lived one of the steadiest men in college, whose door had been tried shortly before. He had been roused out of his first sleep, and, vowing vengeance on the next comers, stood behind his oak, holding his brown George, or huge earthenware receptacle, half full of dirty water, in which his bed-maker had been washing up his tea-things. Hearing stealthy steps and whispering on the stairs below, he suddenly threw open his oak, discharging the whole contents of his brown George on the approaching authorities, with a shout of, " Take that for your skulking." The exasperated Dean and tutors rushing on, seized on their astonished and innocent assailant, and after receiving explana- tions, and the offer of clean towels, hurried off again after the real enemy. And now the porter appeared again with the light, and, continuing their rounds, they apprehended and disarmed Drysdale, collected the college plate, marked down others of the rioters, visited Chanter's rooms, held a parley with the one of their number who was screwed up in his rooms, and discovered that the bars had been wrenched out of the kitchen window. After which they retired to sleep on their indignation, and quietness settled down again on the ancient and venerable college. The next morning at chapel many of the revelers met ; in fact, there was a fuller attendance than usual, for everyone felt that something serious must be pending. After such a 266 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. night the dons must make a stand, or give up altogether. The most reckless only of the fast set were absent. St. Cloud was there, dressed even more precisisly than usual, and looking as if he were in the habit of going to bed at ten, and had never heard of milk punch. Tom turned out not much the worse himself, but in his heart feeling not a little ashamed of the whole business ; of the party, the men ; but above all,^ of him- self. He thrust the shame back, however, as 'well as he could, and put a cool face on it. Probably most of the men were in mnoh the same state of mind. Even in St. Ambrose's, reck- less and vicious as the college had become, by far the greater part of the undergraduates would gladly have seen a change in the direction of order and decency, and were sick of the wretched license of doing right in their own eyes, and wrong in everyone's else. As the men trooped out of chapel they formed in corners of the quadrangle, except the reading set, who went off quietly to their rooms. There was a pause of a minute or two. Neither principal, dean, tutor, nor fellow, followed as on ordi- nary occasions. " They're hatching something in the outer chapel,". said one. " It'll be a coarse time for Chanter, I take it," said another. " Was your name sent to the buttery for his supper ? " " No, I took d — d good care of that," said St. Cloud,- who was addressed. " Drysdale was caught ; wasn't he ? " " So I hear, and nearly frightened the Dean and the porter out of their wits by staggering after them with a carving-knife." " He'll be sacked, of course." " Much he'll care for that." " Here they come, then ; by Jove, how black they look ! " The authorities now came out of the anteohapel door, and walked slowly across toward the principal's house in a body. At this moment, as ill-luck would have it, Jack trotted into the front quadrangle, dragging after him the light steel chain with which he was usually fastened up in Drysdale's scout's room at night. He came innocently toward one and another of the gi-oups, and retired from each much astonished at the low growl with which his acquaintance was repudiated on all sides. " Porter, whose dog is that ? " said the Dean, catching sight of him. " Mr. Drysdale's dog,' sir, I think, sir," answered the porter. "Probably the animal who bit me last night," said the bursar. His knowledge of dogs was small ; if Jack had fast- THE SCHOOLS. 26Y ened on him he would probably have been in bed from the eifects. " Turn the dog out of college," said the Dean. " Please, sir, he's a very savage dog, sir," said the porter, whose respect for Jack was unbounded. " Turn him out immediately," replied the Dean. The wretched porter, arming himself with a broom, ap- proached Jack, and after some coaxing managed to catch hold of the end of his chain, and began to lead him toward the gates, carefully holding out the broom toward Jack's nose with his other hand, to protect himself. Jack at first hauled away at his chain, and then began circling round the porter at the full extent of it, evidently meditating an attack. Notwitlistand- ing the seriousness of the situation, the ludicrous alarm of the porter set the men laughing. " Come along, or Jack will be pinning the wretched Copas," said Jervis, and he and Tom stepped up to the terrified little man, and, releasing him, led Jack, who knew them both well, out of college. " Were you at that supper party," said Jervis, as they de- posited Jack with an ostler, who was lounging outside the gates, to be taken to Drysdale's stables. "No," said Tom. " I'm glad to hear it, there will be a pretty clean sweep after last night's doings." " But I was in the quadrangle when they came out." "Not caught, eh ?" said Jervis. " No, luckily I got to my own rooms at once." " Were any of the crew caught ? " "Not that I know of." " Well, we shall hear enough of it before lecture time." Jervis was right. There was a meeting in the common room directly after breakfast. Drysdale, anticipating his fate, took his name off before they sent for him. Chanter and three or four others were rusticated for a year, and Blake was ordered to go down at once. He was a scholar, and what was to he done in his case would be settled at the meeting at the end of term. For twenty-four hours it was supposed that St. Cloud had escaped altogether, but at the end of that time he was sum- moned before a meeting in the common room. The tutor, whose door had been so effectually screwed up that he had been obliged to get out of his window by .a ladder to attend morning chapel, proved wholly unable to appreciate the joke, 268 TOM BEOwsr at oxpokd. and set himself to work to discover the perpetrators of it. The door was fastened with long gimlets, which were screwed firmly in, and when driven well home their heads had been knocked off. The tutor collected the shafts of the gimlets from the carpenter who came to effect an entry for him ; and, after careful examination, discovered the trade mark. So, putting them in his pocket, he walked off into the town, and soon came back with the information he required, which re- sulted in^the rustication of St. Cloud, an event which was borne by the college with the greatest equanimity. Shortly afterward Tom attended in the schools' quadrangle again, to be present at the posting of the class list. This time there were plenty of anxious faces ; the quadrangle was full • of them. He felt almost as nervous himself as if he were wait- ing for the third gun. He thrust himself forward, and was among the first who caught sight of the document. One look was enough for him, and the next moment he was off at full speed to St. Ambrose, and, rushing headlong into Hardy's rooms, seized him by the hand, and shook it vehemently. " It's all right, old fellow," he cried, as soon as he could catch his breath ; " it's all right. Four firsts ; you're one of them : well done ! " " And Grey, where's he ? Is he all right ? " "Bless me, I forgot to look," said Tom ; " I only read the firsts, and then came off as hard as I could." " Then he is not a first." " No ; I'm sure of that." " I must go and see him ; he deserved it far more than I." " No, by Jove, old boy ! " said Tom, seizing him again by the hand, " that he didn't ; nor any man that ever went into the schools." " Thank you. Brown," said Hardy, returning his warm grip. "You do one good. Now to see poor Grey, and to write to my dear old father before hall. Fancy him opening the let- ter at breakfast the day after to-morrow ! I only hope it won't hurt him." " Never fear. I don't believe in .people dying of joy, and anything short of sudden death he won't mind at the price." Hardy hurried off, and Tom went to his own rooms, and smoked a cigar to allay his excitement, and thought about his friend and all they had felt together and laughed and mourned over in the short months of their friendship. A pleasant dreamy half-hour lie spent thus, till the hall bell roused him, and be made his toilet and went to his dinner. COMMEMOEATION. 269 It was with very mixed feelings that Hardy walked by the servitors' table and took his seat with the bachelors, an equal at last among equals. No man who is worth his salt can leave a place where he has gone through hard and searching discipline, and been tried in the very depths of his heart, with- out regret, however much he may have winced under the dis- cipline. It is no light thing to fold up and lay by forever a portion of one's life, even when it can be laid by with honor and in thankfulness. But it was witli no mixed feelings, but with a sense of entire triumph and joy, that Tom watched his friend taking his new place, and the doiis one after another coming up and congrat- ulating him, and treating him as the man who had done honor to them and his college. CHAPTER XXV. COMMEMOBATION. The end of the academic year was now at hand, and Oxford was beginning to put on her gayest clothing. The college gardeners were in a state of unusual activity, and the lawns and flower-beds, which form such exquisite settings to many of the venerable gray-gabled buildings, were as neat and as bright as hands could make them. Cooks, butlers, and their assistants were bestirring themselves in kitchen and buttery, under the direction of bursars jealous of the fame of their houses, in the preparation of the abundant and solid fare with which Oxford is wont to entertain all comers. Everything the best of its kind, no stint but no nonsense, seems to be the wise rule which the university hands down and lives up to in these matters. However we may differ as to her degeneracy in other depart- ments, all who have ever visited her will admit that in this of hospitality she is still a great national teacher, acknowledging and preaching by example the fact that eating and drinking are important parts of man's life, which are allowed their due prominence, and not thrust into a corner, but are to be done sobei-ly and thankfully, in the sight of God and man. The coaches were bringing in heavy loads of visitors ; carriages of all kinds were coming in from the neighboring counties ; and lodgings in the High Street were going up to fabulous prices. In one of the High Street lodgings, on the evening of the Saturday before Commemoration, Miss Winter and her cousin are sitting. They have been at Oxford during the greater 270 TOM BfiOWlf AT OXPOfeC. part of the day, having posted up from Englebourn, but they liave only just come in, for the younger lady is still in her bonnet, and Miss Winter's lies on the table. The windows are wide open, and Miss Winter is sitting at one of them, while her cousin is busied in examining the furniture and decorations of their temporary home, now commenting upon these, now pouring out praises of Oxford. " Isn't it too charming ? I never dreamt that any towli could be so beautiful. Don't you feel wild about it, Katie ? " " It is the queen of towns, dear. But I know it well, you see, so that I can't be quite so enthusiastic as you." " Oh, those dear gardens ! what was the name of those ones with the targets up, where they were shoooting ? Don't you remember ? " " New College Gardens, on the old city walls, you mean ? " " No, no. They were very nice and sentimental. I should like to go and sit and read poetry there. But I mean the big ones, the gorgeous, princely ones ; with wicked old Bishop Laud's galleiy looking into them." " Oh ! St. John's, of course." " Yes, St. John's. Why do you hate Laud so, Katie ? " " I don't hate him, dear. He was a Berkshire man, you know. But I think he did a great deal of harm to the Church." " How do you think my new silk looked in the gardens ? How lucky I brought it, wasn't it ? I shouldn't have liked to have been in nothing but muslins. Tliey don't suit here ; you want something richer among the old buildings, and on the beautiful velvety turf of the gardens. How do yon* think I looked ? " " You looked like a queen, dear ; or a lady in waiting, at least." " Yes, a lady in waiting on Henrietta Maria. Didn't you hear one of the gentlemen say that she was lodged in St. John's when Charles marched to relieve Gloucester? Ah! fan't you fancy her sweeping about the gardens, with her ladies fallowing her, and Bishop Laud walking just a little behind her, and talking in a low voice about — let me see — something ^ ery important ! " " O Mary ! where has your history gone ? He was Arch- bishop, and was safely locked up in the Tower." " Well, perhaps he was ; then he couldn't be with her, of course. How stupid of you to remember, Katie. Why can't you make up your mind to enjoy yourself when you come out for a holiday ?" COMMEMOEATION. 271 " I shouldn't enjoy myself any the more for forgetting dates," said Katie, laughing. " Oh, you would though ! only try. But, let me see, it can't be Laud. Then it shall be that cruel drinking old man, witli the wooden leg made of gold, who was governor of Oxford when the king was away. He must be hobbling along after the queen in a buflE coat and breastplate, holding his hat, with a long drooping white feather, in his hand." " But you wouldn't like it at all, Mary ; it would be too serious for you. The poor queen would be too anxious to ■ gossip, and you ladies in waiting would be obliged to walk after her without saying a word." " Yes, that would be stupid. But then she would have to go away with the old governor to write dispatches ; and some of the young officers with long hair and beautiful lace sleeves, and large boots, whom the king had left behind, wounded, might come and walk perhaps, or sit in the sun in the quiet gardens." Mary looked over her shoulder with the merriest twinkle in her eye, to see how her steady cousin would take this last pic- ture. " The college authorities would never allow that," slie said quietly, still looking out of the window ; "if you wanted beaux, you must have them in black gowns." " They would have been jealous of the soldiers, you think ! Well, I don't mind ; the black gowns are very pleasant, only a little stiff. But how do you think my bonnet looked ? " " Charmingly. But when are you going to have done looking in the glass ? You don't care for the buildings, I believe, a bit. Come and look at St. Mary's ; there is such a lovely light on the steeple ! " "I'll come directly, but I must get these flowers right. I'm sure there are too many in this trimming." Mary was trying her new bonnet on over and over again before the mantel-glass, and pulling out and changing the places of the blush-rose-buds with' which it was trimmed. Just then a noise of wheels, accompanied by a merry tune on a cornopean, came in from the street. "What's that, Katie?" she cried, stopping her work for a moment. " A coach coming up from Magdalen bridge. I think it is a cricketing party coming home." " Oh, let me see ! " and she tripped across to the window, bonnet in hand, and stood beside her cousin. And then, sure enough, a coach, covered with cricketers returning from a match, drove past the window. The young ladies looked out 272 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. at first with great curiosity : but suddenly finding themselves the mark for a whole coach-load of male eyes, shrank back a little before the cricketers had passed on toward the " Mitre." As the coach passed out of sight, Mary gave a pretty toss of her head, and said : " Well, they don't want for assurance, at any rate. I think they needn't have stared so." " It was our fault," said Katie ; " we shouldn't have been at the window. Besides, you know you are to be a lady in wait- ing on Henrietta Maria up here, and of course you must get used to being stared at." " Oh, yes ! but that was to be by young gentlemen wounded in the wars, in lace ruffles, as one sees them in pictures. That's a very different thing from young gentlemen in flannel trousers and straw hats, driving up the High Street on coaches. I de- clare one of them had the impudence to bow, as if he knew you." " So he does. That was my cousin." " Your cousin ! Ah, I remember ! ' Then he must be my cousin too." "No, not at all. He is no relation of yours." " Well, I shan't break my heart. But is he a good partner ? " "I should say, yes. But I hardly know. We used to be a great deal together as children, but papa has been such an in- valid lately." " Ah ! I wonder how uncle is getting on at the vice chancellor'^. Look, it is past eight by St. Mary's. When were we to go ? " " We were asked for nine." " Then we must go and dress. Will it be very slow and stiff, Katie ? I wish we were going to something not quite so grand." " You'll find it very pleasant, I dare say." "There won't be any dancing, though, I know ; will there?" " No ; I should think certainly not." " Dear me ! I hope there will be some young men there. I shall be so shy, I know, if there ai'e nothing but wise people. How do you talk to a Regius Professor, Katie ? It must be awful." " He will probably be at least as uncomfortable as you, dear," said Miss Winter, laughing, and rising from the window ; " let us go and dress." "Shall I wear my best gown? What shall I put in my hair ? " At this moment the door opened, and the maid-servant in- troduced Mr. Brown. COMMEMORATION. 273 It was the St. Ambrose drag whicb had passed along shortly before, bearing the eleven home from^ a triumphant match. As they came over Magdalen bridge, Drysdale, who had re- turned to Oxford as a private gentleman after his late cat- astrophe, which he had managed to keep a secret from his guardian, and was occupying his usual place on the box, called out: " Now, boys, keep your eyes open, there must be plenty of lionesses about ; " and thus warned, the whole load, including the cornopean player, were on the lookout for lady visitors, profanely called lionesses, all the way up the street. They had been gratified by the sight of several walking in the High Street, or looking out of the windows, before they caught sight of Miss Winter and her cousin. The appearance of these young ladies created a sensation. "I say, look ! up there in the first floor." " By George, they're something like." " The sitter for choice." "No, no, the standing-up one ; she looks so saucy." " Hollo, Brown ! do you know them ? " " One of them is my cousin," said Tom, who had just been guilty of the salutation which, as we saw, excited the indigna- tion of the younger lady. " What luck ! Tou'll ask me to meet them — when shall it be ? To-morrow at breakfast, I vote." " I say, you'll introduce me before the ball on Monday ? Pro- mise now," said another. " I don't know that I shall see anything of them," said Tom; "I shall just leave a pasteboard, but I'm not in the humor to be dancing about lionizing." A stoim of indignation arose at this speech ; the notion that any of the fraternity who had any hold on lionesses, particu- larly if they were pretty, should not use it to the utmost for the benefit of the rest, and the glory and honor of the college, was revolting to the undergraduate mind. So the whole body escorted Tom to the door of the lodgings, impressing upon him the necessity of engaging both his lionesses for every hour of every day in St. Ambrose's, and left him not till they had heard him ask for the young ladies, and seen him fairly on his way upstairs. They need not have taken so much trouble, for in his secret soul he was no little pleased at the appearance of creditable ladies, more or less belonging to him, and would have found his way to see tliem quickly and surely enough without any urging. Moreover he had been really fond of 274 TOM BROWN AT OXFOBD. his cousin, years befoi-e, when they had been boy and girl together. So they greeted one another very cordially, and looked one another over as they shook hands, to see what changes time liad made. He makes his changes rapidly enough at that age, and mostly for the better, as the two cousins thought. It was nearly three years since they had met, and then he was a fifth- form boy and she a girl in the schoolroom. They were both conscious of a strange pleasure in meeting again, mixed with a feeling of shyness, and wonder. whether they should be able to step back into their old relations. Mary looked on demurely, really watching them, but osten- sibly engaged on the rosebud trimming. Presently Miss Winter turned to her and said, "I don't think you two ever met before ; I must introduce you, I suppose — my Cousin Tom, my Cousin Mary." " Then we must be cousins too," said Tom, holding out his hand. "No, Katie says not," she answered. "I don't mean to believe her, then," said Tom; " but what are you going to do now, tonight ? Why didn't you write and tell me you were coming ? " " We have been so shut up lately, owing to papa's bad health, that I really had almost forgotten you were at Oxford." "By the bye," said Tom, "where is uncle ? " " Oh ! he is dining at the vice chancellor's, who is an old college friend of his. We have only been up here three or four hours, and it has done him so much good. I am so glad we spirited him up to coming." "You haven't made any engagements yet, I hope?" " Indeed we have ; I can't tell how many. We came in time for luncheon in Balliol. Mary and I made it our dinner, and we have been seeing sights ever since, and have been asked to go to I don't know how many luncheons and break- " What, with a lot of dons, I suppose ? " said Tom, spite- fully ? " you won't enjoy Oxford then ; they'll bore you to death." " There now, Katie ; that is just what I was afraid of," joined in Mary ; " you remember we didn't hear a word about balls all the afternoon." " You haven't got your tickets for the balls, then ? " said Tom, brightening up. " No ; how shall we get them ? " COMMEMOEATION. 215 " Oh ! I can manage that, I've no doubt." " Stop ; how are we to go ? Papa will never take us." " You needn't think about that ; anybody will chaperon you. Nobody cares about that sort of thing at Commemoration." " Indeed, I think you had better wait till I have talked to papa." " Then all the tickets will be gone," said Tom. " You must go. Why shouldn't I chaperon you ? I know several men whose sisters are going with them." " No, that will scarcely do, I'm afraid. But really, Mary, we must go and dress." " Where are you going, then ? " said Tom. " To an evening party at the vice chancellor's ; we are asked for nine o'clock, and the half -hour has struck." " Hang the dons ; how unlucky that I didn't know befor-e ! Have you any flowers, by the way." " Not one." " Then I will try to get you some by the time you are ready. May I ? " Oh ! yes, pray do," said Mary. " That's capital, Katie, isn't it ? Now I shall have something to put in my hair ; t couldn't think what I was to wear." Tom took a look at the hair in question, and then left them and hastened out to scour the town for flowers, as if his life depended on success. In the morning, he would probably have resented as insulting, or laughed at as wildly improbable,* the suggestion that he would be so employed before night. A double chair was thrown up opposite the door when he came back, and the ladies were coming down into the sitting- room. " Oh, look, Katie ! What lovely flowers ! How very kind of you." Tom surrendered as much of his burden as that young lady's little round white hands could clasp, to her, and deposited the rest on the table. " Now, Katie, which shall I wear — ^this beautiful white rose all by itself, or a wreath of these pansies ? Here, I have a wire : I can make them up in a minute." She turned to the glass, and held the rich cream- white against her hair, and then turning on Tom, added, "What do you think ?" " I thought fern would suit your hair better than anything else," said Tom ; " and so I got these leaves," and he picked out two slender fern leaves. " How very kind of you ! Let me see, how do you mean ? 276 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. Ah ! I see ; it will be charming ; " and so saying, she held the leaves each in one hand to the sides of her head, and then floated about the room for needle and thread, and with a few nimble stitches fastened together the simple green crown, which her cousin put on for her, making the points meet above her fore- head. Mary was wild with delight at the effect, and full of thanks to Tom as he helped them hastily to tie up bouquets, and then, amid much laughing, they squeezed into the wheel chair together (as the fashions of that day allowed two young ladies to do), and went off to their party, leaving a last injunc- tion on him to go up and put the rest of the. flowers in water, and to call directly after breakfast the next day. He obeyed his orders, and pensively arranged the rest of the flowers in the china ornaments on the mantelpiece, and in a soup plate, which he got and placed in the middle of the table, and then spent some minutes examining a pair of gloves and other small articles of women's gear which lay scattered about the room. Tlie gloves particularly attracted him, and he flattened them out and laid them on his own large brown hand, and smiled at the contrast, and took other unjustifiable liberties with them ; after which he returned to college and endured much banter as to the time his call had lasted, and promised to engage his cousins, as he called them, to grace some festivities in St. Am- brose's at their first spare moment. The next day, being Show Sunday, was spent by the young .ladies in a fei'ment of spiritual and other dissipation. They attended morning service at eight at the cathedral ; break- fasted at a Merton fellow's, from whence they adjourned to university sermon. Here Mary, after- two or three utterly in- effectual attempts to understand what the preacher was mean- ing, soon relapsed into an examination of the bonnets present, and the doctors and proctors on the floor, and the under- graduates in the gallery. On the whole, she was, perhaps, better employed than her cousin, who knew enough of religious party strife to follow the preacher, and was made very uncom- fortable by his discourse, which consisted of an attack upon the recent publications of the most eminent and best men in the university. Poor Miss Winter came away with a vague im- pression of the wickedness of all persons who dare to travel out of beaten tracks, and that the most unsafe state of mind in the world is that which inquires and aspires, and cannot be satisfied with the regulation drauglit of spiritual doctors in high places. Being naturally of a reverent turn of mind, she tried to think that the discourse had done her good. At the same COMMEMOEATION. 277 time, she was somewhat troubled by the thought that somehow the best men in all times of which she had read seemed to her to be just those whom the preacher was in fact denouncing, al- though in words he had praised -them as the great lights of the Church. The words which she had heard in one of the lessons kept running in her head, " Truly ye bear witness that ye do allow the deeds of your fathers, for they indeed killed them, but ye build their sepulchers." But she had little leisure to think on the subject, and, as her father praised the sermon as a noble protest against the fearful tendencies of the day to Popery and Pantheism, smothered the questionings of her own heart as well as she could, and went off to luncheon in a com- mon room ; after which her father retired to their lodgings, and she and her cousin were escorted to afternoon service at Magdalen, in achieving which last feat they had to encounter a crush only to be equaled by that at the pit entrance during the opera on a Jennie Lind night. But what will not a deli- cately nurtured British lady go through when her mind is bent either on pleasure or duty ? Poor Tom's feelings throughout the day may be more easify conceived than described. He had called according to order, and waited at their lodgings after breakfast. Of course they did not arrive. He had caught a distant glimpse of them in St. Mary's, but had not been able to approach. He had called again in the afternoon unsuccessfully, so far as seeing them was concerned ; but he had found his uncle at home, lying upon the sofa. At first he was much dismayed by this ren- conter, but recovering his presence of mind he proceeded, I regret to say, to take the length of the old gentleman's foot, by entering into a minute and sympathizing inquiry into the state of his health. Tom had no faith whatever in his uncle's ill-heallh, and believed — as many persons of robust constitu- tion are too apt to do when brought face to face with nervous patients — that he might shake off the whole of his maladies at any time by a resolute effort, so that his sympathy was all sham, though, perhaps, one may pardon it, considering the end in view, which was that of persuading the old gentleman to intrust the young ladies to his nephew's care for that evening in the Long Walk, and generally, to look upon his nephew, Thomas Brown, as his natural prop and supporter in the uni- versity, whose one object in life just now would be to take trouble off his hands, and who was of that rare and precocious steadiness of character that he might be as safely trusted as a Spanish duenna. To a very considerable extent the victim 278 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. fell into the toils. He had maHy old friends at the colleges, and was very fond of good dinners, and long sittings after- ward. This very evening he was going to dine at St. John's, and had been much trouhled at the idea of having to leave the unrivaled old port of that learned house to escort his daughter and niece to the Long Walk. Still he was too easy and good- natured not to wish that they might get there, and did not like the notion of their going with perfect strangers. Here was a compromise. His nephew was young, but still he was a near relation, and in fact it gave the poor old man a plausible excuse for not exerting himself as lie felt he ought to do, which was all he ever required for shifting his responsibilities and duties upon other shoulders. So Torn waited quietly till the young ladies came home, which they did just before hall-time. Mr. Winter was getting impatient. As soon as they arrived he started for St. John's, after advising them to remain at home for the rest of the evening, as they looked quite tired and knocked up ; but if they were resolved to go to the Long Walk, his nephew would escort them. " How can Uncle Robert say we look so tired ? " said Mary, consulting the glass on the subject ; " I feel quite fresh. Of course, Katie, you mean to go to the Long Walk ? " " I hope you will go," said Tom ; " I think you owe me some amends. I came here according to oi'der this morning, and you were not in, and I have been trying to catch you ever since." " We couldn't help it," said Miss Winter. " Indeed, we have not had a minute to ourselves all day. I was very sorry to think that we should have bi'ought you here for nothing this morning." " But about the Long Walk, Katie ? " " Well, don't you think we have done enough for to-day ? I should like to have tea and sit quietly at home, as papa sug- gested." " Do yon feel very tired, dear ? " said Mary, seating herself by her cousin on the sofa, and taking her hand. " No, dear ; I only want a little quiet and a cup of tea." " Then let us stay here quietly till it is time to start. When ought we to get to the Long Walk ? " "About half-past seven," said Tom; "you shouldn't be much later than that." " There, you see, Katie, we shall have two hours' perfect rest. You shall lie upon the sofa and I will read to you, and then we shall go on all fresh again." THE LONG WALK IN CHRIST CHURCH MEADOWS. 27 9 Miss Winter smiled and said, " Very well." She saw, that her cousin was bent on going, and she could deny her nothing. " May I send you anything from college ? " said Tom ; " you ought to have something more tlian tea, I'm sure." " Oh ! no, thank you. Wp dined in the middle of the day." " Tlien I may call for you about seven o'clock," said Tom, who had come unwillingly to the conclusion that he had better leave them for the present. " Yes, and mind you come in good time ; we mean to see the whole sight, remember. We are country cousins." "You must let me call you cousin, then, just for the look of the thing." " Certainlj'-, just for the look of the thing, we will be cousins till further notice." " Well, you and Tom seem to get on together, Mary," said Miss Winter, as they heard the front door close. " I'm learning a lesson from you, though I doubt whether I shall ever be able to put it in practice. What a blessing it must be not to be shy ! " " Are you shy, then ? " said Mary, looking at her cousin with a playful loving smile. " Yes, dreadfully. It is positive pain to me to walk into a room where there are people I do not know." " But I feel that too. I'm sure now you were much less em- barrassed than I last night at the vice chancellor's. I quite envied you, you seemed so much at your ease." " Did I ? I would have given anything to be back hete quiet- ly. But it is not the same thing with you. You have no real shyness, or you would never have got on so fast with my cousin." " Oh ! I don't feel at all shy with him," said Mary, laughing. " How lucky it is that he found us out so soon ! I like him so much. There is a sort of way about him as if he couldn't help himself. I am sure one could turn him round one's finger. Don't you think so?" " I'm not so sure of that. But he always was soft-hearted, poor boy! But he isn't a boy any longer. You must take care, Mary. Shall we ring for tea ? " CHAPTER XXVI. THE LONG WALK IN CHRIST CHURCH MEADOWS. Do well unto thyself and men will speak good of thee, is a maxim as old as King David's time, and just as true now as it was then. Hardy had found it so since the publication of the class list. Within a few days of that event, it was known that 280 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. his was a very good first. His college tutor had made his own inquiries, and repeated on several occasions in a confidential way the statement that, " with the exception of a want of pol- ish in his Latin and Greek verses, which we seldom get, except in the most finished public school men — Etonians in particular — there has been no better examination in the schools for sev- eral years." The worthy tutor went on to take glory to the coUegeji^and in a lower degree to himself. He called attention, in more than one common room, to the fact that Hardy had never had any private tuition, but had attained his intellectual development solely in the curriculum provided by St. Am- brose's College for the training of the youth intrusted to her. " He himself, indeed," he would add, " had always taken much interest in Hardy, and had, perhaps, done more for him than would be possible in every case, but only with direct reference to, and in supplement of, the college course." The principal had taken marked and somewhat pompous notice of him, and had graciously intimated his wish, or, per- haps I should say his will (for he would have been much astonished to be told that a wish of his could count for less than a royal mandate to any man who had been one of his servitors), that Hardy should stand for a fellowship, which had lately fallen vacant. A few weeks before, this excessive affability and condescension of the great man would have wounded Hardy ; but, somehow, the sudden rush of sunshine and prosperity, though it had not thrown him off his balance, or changed his estimate of men and things, had pulled a sort of comfortable sheath over his sensitiveness, and given him a second skin, as it were, from which the principal's shafts bounded off innocuous, instead of piercing and rankling. At first the idea of standing for a fellowship at St. Ambrose's was not pleasant to him. He felt inclined to open up entirely new ground for himself, and stand at some other college, where he had neither acquaintance nor association. But on second thoughts, he resolved to stick to his old college, moved there- to partly by the lamentations of Tom, when he heard of his friend's meditated emigration, but chiefly by the unwillingness to quit a hard post for an easier one, which besets natures like his to their own discomfort, but, one may hope, to the signal benefit of the world at large. Such men may see clearly enough all the advantages of a move of this kind — may quite appreciate the ease which it would bring them — may be im- patient with themselves for not making it at once — but when it comes to the actual leaving the old post, even though it may TUB LONG WALK IN CHRIST CHURCH MEAflOWS. 281 be a march out with all the honors of war, drums beating and colors flying, as it would have been in Hardy's case, somehow or another, nine times out of ten, they throw up tlie chance at the last moment, if not earlier ; pick up their old arms — growl- ing perhaps at the price they are paying to keep their own self-i"espeot — and shoulder back into the press to face their old work, muttering, " We are asses ; we don't know what's good for us ; but we must see this job through some- how, come what may." So Hardy stayed on at St. Ambrose, waiting for the fellow- ship examination, and certainly, I am free to confess, not a little enjoying the changes in his position and affairs. He had given up his low, dark back rooms to the new servi- tor, his successor, to whom he had pi'esented all the rickety furniture, except his two Windsor chairs and Oxford reading table. The intrinsic value of the gift was not great, certainly, but was of importance to the poor raw boy who was taking his place ; and it was made with the delicacy of one who knew the situation. Hardy's good offices did not stop here. Having tried the bed himself for upward of three long years, he knew all the hard places, and was resolved while he stayed up that they should never chafe another occupant as they had him. So he set himself to provide stuiBng, and took the lad about with him, and cast a skirt of his newly acquired mantle of re- spectability over him, and put him in the way of making him- self as comfortable as circumstances would allow ; never dis- guising from him all the while that the bed was not to be a bed of roses. In which pursuit, though not yet a fellow, perhaps he was qualifying himself better for a fellowship than he could have done by any amount of cramming for polish in his versifi- cation. Not that the electors of St. Ambrose would be likely to hear of or appreciate this kind of training. Polished versi- fication would no doubt have told more in tliat quarter. But we who are behind the scenes may disagree with them, and hold that he who is thus acting out, and learning to understand the meaning of the word "fellowship," is the man for our votes. So Hardy had left his rooms and gone out of college, into lodgings near at hand. The sword, epaulettes, and picture of his father's old ship— his tutelary divinities, as Tom called them — occupied their accustomed place in his new rooms, ex- cept that there was a looking-glass over the mantelpiece here, by the side of which the sword hung, instead of in the center, as it had done while he had no such luxury. His Windsor chairs occupied each side of the pleasant window of his sitting- 282 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. room, and already the taste for luxuries, with which he had so often accused himself to Tom, began to peep out in the shape of one or two fine engravings. Altogether Fortune was smiling on Hardy, and he was making the most of her, like a wise man, having brought her round by proving that lie could get on without her, and was not going out of his way to gain her smiles. Several men came at once, even before lie had taken his B. A. degree, to read with him, and others applied to know whether he would take a reading party in the long vacation. In short, all things went well with Hardy, and the Oxford world recognized the fact, and tradesmen and college servants became obsequious, and began to bow before him, and recognize him as one of their lords and masters. It was to Hardy's lodgings that Tom repaired straightway, when he left his cousin by blood, and cousin by courtesy, at the end of the last chapter. For, running over in his mind all his acquaintance, he at once fixed upon Hardy as the man to accompany him in escorting the ladies to the Long Walk. Besides being his own most intimate friend, Hardy was the man -vs^hom he would prefer to all others to introduce to ladies now. "A month ago it might have been different," Tom thought ; " he was such an old guy in his dress. But he has smartened up, and wears as good a coat as I do, and looks well enough for anybody, thougli he never will be much of a dresser. Then he will be in a bachelor's gown too, which will look re- spectable." " Here you are ; that's all right ; I'm so glad you're in," he said as he entered the room. " Now I want you to come to the Long Walk with me to-night." " Very well ; will yoii call for me ? " " Yes, and mind you come in your best get-up, old fellow ; we shall have two of the prettiest girls who are up, with us." " You won't want me, then ; they will have plenty of escort." " Not a bit of it. They are deserted by their natural guard- ian, my old uncle, who has gone out to dinner. Oh, it's all right ; they are my cousins, more like sisters, and my uncle knows we are going. In fact, it was he who settled that I should take them." " Yes, but you see I don't know them." " That doesn't matter. I can't take them both myself — I must have somebody with me, and I'm so glad to get the chance of introducing you to some of my people. You'll know them all, I hope, before long." THE LONG WALK IN CHRIST CHUKCH MEADOWS. 283 " Of course I should like it very much, if you are sure it's all right." Tom was as'perfectly sure as usual, and so the matter was arranged. Hardy was very much pleased and gratified at this proof of his friend's confidence ; and I am not going to say that he did not shave again, and pay most unwonted attention to his toilet before the hour fixed for Tom's return. The fame of Brown's lionesses had spread through St. Ambrose's already, and Hardy had heard of them as well as other men. There was something so unusual to him in being selected on such an oc- casion, when the smartest men in the college were wishing and plotting for that which came to him unasked, that he may bo pardoned for feeling something a little like vanity, while he adjusted the coat which Tom had recently thought of with such complacency, and looked in the glass to see that his gown hung gracefully. The effect on the whole was so good that Tom was above measure astonished when he came back, and could not help indulging in some gentle chaff as they walked toward the High Street arm in arm. The young ladies were quite rested, and sitting dressed and ready for their walk when Tom and Hardy were announced, and entered the room. Miss Winter rose up, surprised and a little embarrassed at the introduction of a total stranger in her father's absence. But she put a good face on the matter, as became a well-bred young woman, though she secretly resolved to lecture Tom in private, as he introduced, " My great friend, Mr. Hardy, of our college. My cousins." Mary dropped a pretty little demure courtesy, lifting her eyes for one moment for a glance at Tom, which said as plain as look could speaTc, " Well, I must say you are making the most of your new- found relationship." He was a little put out for a moment, but then recovered himself, and said, apolegetically : "Mr. Hardy is a bachelor, Katie — I mean a Bachelor of Arts, and he knows all the people by sight up here. We couldn't have gone to the walk without someone to show us the lions." "Indeed, I'm afraid you give me too much credit," said Hardy. " I know most of our dons by sight certainly, but scarcely any of the visitors." The awkwardness of Tom's attempted explanation set every- thing wrong again. Then came one of those awkward pauses which will occur so very provokingly at the most inopportune times. Miss Winter was seized with one of the uncontrollable fits of shy- ness, her bondage to which ebe had so lately been grieving 284 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. over to Mary ; and in self-defense, and without meaning in the least to do so, drew herself up, and looked as proud as you please. Hardy, whose sensitiveness, as we have seen, was as keen as a woman's, felt in a moment tlie awkwardness of the situation, and became as shy as Miss Winter herself. If tlie- floor would have suddenly opened, and let him through into the dark shop, he would have been thankful ; but, as it would not, tliere he stood, meditating a sudden retreat from the room, and a tremendous onslaught on Tom, as soon as he could catch him alone, for getting him into such a scrape. Tom was provoked with tliem all, for not at once feeling at ease witli one another, and stood twirling his cap by the tassel, and look- ing fiercely at it, resolved not to break the silence. He had been at all the trouble of bringing about this charming situa- tion, and now nobody seemed to like it, or to know what to say or do. They might get themselves out of it as they could, for anything he cared ; he was not going to bother himself any moi-e. Mary looked in the glass, to see that her bonnet was quite riglit, and then from one to another of her companions, in a little wonder at their unaccountable behavior, and a little pique that two young men should be standing there like unpleasant images, and not availing themselves of the privilege of trying at least to make themselves agreeable to her. Luckily, how- ever, for the party, the humorous side of the tableau struck her with great force, so that when Tom lifted liis misanthropic eyes for a moment, and caught hers, they were so full of fun that he had nothing to do but to allow himself, not without a struggle, to break first into a smile and then, into a laugh. This brought all eyes to bear on him, and the ice being once broken, dissolved as quickly as it had gathered. "I really can't see what tliere is to laugh at, Tom," said Miss Winter, smiling herself, nevertheless, and blushing a little, as she worked or pretended to work at buttoning one of her gloves. " Can't you, Katie ? Well, then, isn't it very ridiculous, and enough to make one laugh, that we four should be stand- ing here in a sort of Quakers' meeting, when we ought to be half-way to the Long Walk by this time ?" " Oh, do let us start," said Mary ; " I know we shall be missing all the best of the sight." " Come along, then," said Tom, leading the way downstairs, and Hardy and the ladies followed, and they descended itito the High Street, walking all abreast, the two ladies together, THE LONG WALK IN CHRIST CHUECH MEADOWS. 285 ■with a gentleman on either flank. This formation answered well enough in High Street, the broad pavement of that cele- brated thoroughfare being favorable to an advance in line. But when they had wheeled into Oriel Lane the narrow pave- ment at once threw the line into confusion, and after one or two fruitless attempts to take up the dressing they settled down into the more natural formation of close column of couples, the leading couple consisting of Mary and Tom, and the remaining couple of Miss Winter and Hardy. It was a lovely midsummer evening, and Oxford was looking her best under the genial, cloudless sky, so that, what with the usual congratulations on the weather, and explanatory remarks on the buildings as they passed along, Hardy managed to keep up a conversation with his companion witiiout much difficulty. Miss Winter was pleased with his quiet, deferential manner, and soon lost her feeling of shyness, and, before Hardy had come to the end of such remarks as it occurred to him to make, she was taking her fair share in the talk. In describing their day's doings she spoke with enthusiasm of the beauty of Mag- dalen Chapel, and betrayed a little knowledge of traceries and moldings, which gave an opening to her companion to travel out of the weather and the names of colleges. Church archi- tecture was just one of the subjects which was sure at that time to take more or less hold on every man at Oxford whose mind was open to the influences of the place. Hardy had read the usual text-books, and kept his eyes open as he walked about the town and neighborhood. To Miss Winter he seemed so learned on the subject that she began to doubt his tendencies, and was glad to be reassured by some remarks which fell from him as to the university sermon which she had heard. She was glad to find that her cousin's most intimate friend was not likely to lead him into the errors of Tractarianism. Meantime, the leading couple were getting on satisfactorily in their way. " Isn't it good of Uncle Robert ? he says he shall feel quite comfortable as long as you and Katie are with me. In fact I feel quite responsible already, like an old dragon in a story- book watching a treasure." " Tes, but what does Katie say to being made a treasure of ? She has to think a good deal for herself ; and I am afraid you are not quite certain of being our sole knight and guardian be- cause Uncle Robert wants to get rid of us. Poor old uncle ! " " But you wouldn't object, then ? " *' Oh, dear, no — at least, not unless you take to looking as 286 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. cross as you did just now in our lodgings. Of course, I'm all for dragons who are mad about dancing, and never think of leaving a ballroom till the band packs up and the old man shuffles in to put out the lights." " Then I shall be a model dragon," said Tom. Twenty-four liours earlier he had declared that nothing should induce him to go to the balls ; but his views on the subject had been greatly modified, and he had been worrying all his acquaintance, not unsuccessfully, for the necessary tickets, ever since his talk with his cousins on the preceding evening. Tlie scene became more and more gay and lively as they passed out of Christ Church toward the Long Walk. The town turned out to take its share in the show ; the citizens of all ranks, the poorer ones accompanied by children of all ages, trooped along cheek by jowl with members of the university of all degrees and their visitors, somewhat indeed to the dis- gust of certain of these latter, many of whom declared that the whole thing was spoilt by the miscellaneousness of the ci-owd, and that " those sort of people " ought not to be allowed to come to the Long Walk on Show Sunday. However, " those soi't of people " abounded, nevertheless, and seemed to enjoy very much, in sober fashion, the solemn march up and down beneath the grand avenue of elms, in the midst of their betters. The university was there in strength, from the vice chancellor downward. Somehow or anotliei-, though it might seem an unreasonable thing at first sight for grave and reverend persons to do, yet most of the gravest of them found some reason for taking a turn in the Long Walk. As for the undei-graduates, tliey turned out almost to a man, and none of them more cer- tainly than the young gentleman, elaborately dressed, who had sneered at the whole ceremony as snobbish an hour or two be- fore. As for our hero, he sailed into the meadows thoroughly satis- fied for the moment with himself and his convoy. He had every reason to be so, for though there were many gaj'^er and more fashionably dressed ladies present than his cousin and cousin by courtesy, there were none there whose faces, figures, and dresses carried more unmistakably the marks of that thorough, quiet high-breeding, that refinement which is no mere surface polish, and that fearless unconsciousness which looks out from pure hearts, which are still, thank God, to be found in so many homes of the English gentry. The Long Walk was filling rapidly, and at every half-dozen paces Tom was greeted by some of his friends or acquaintance, THE LOITG WALK IN CSEIST CHUECTl MEADOWS. 287 and exchanged a word or two with them. But he allowed them one after another to pass by without effecting any inti'oduction. " Yon seem to have a great many acquaintances," said his companion, upon whom none of these salutations were lost. " Yes, of course ; one gets to know agreat many men up here." " It must be very pleasant. But does it not interfere a great deal with your reading ? " " No ; because one meets them at lectures, and in hall and chapel. Besides," he added in a sudden fit of honesty, "it is my first year. One doesn't read much in one's first year. It is a much harder thing than people think to take to reading, except just before an examination." " But your great friend who is walking with Katie — what did j'ou say his name is ? " "Hardy." " Well, he is a great scholar, didn't you say ? " " Yes, he haa just taken a first class. He is the best man of his year." " How proud you must be of him ! ' I suppose now he is a great reader ? " " Yes, he is great at everything. He is nearly the best oar in our boat. By the way, you will come to the procession of boats to morrow night? We are the head boat on the river." " Oh, I hope so. Is it a pretty sight ? Let us ask Katie about it." "It is the finest sight in the world," said Tom, who had never seen it ; " twenty-four eight oars, with their flags flying, and all the crews in uniform. You see' the barges over there, moored along the side of the river. You will sit on one of them as we pass." "Yes, I think I do," said Mary, looking across the meadow in the direction in which he pointed ; " you mean those great gilded things. But I don't see the river." "Shall we walk around there? It won't take us ten minutes." " But we must not leave the Walk and all the people. It is so amusing here." " Then you will wear our colors at the procession to-mor- row ? " " Yes, if Katie doesn't mind. At least if they are pretty. What are your colors ? " " Blue and white. I will get you some ribbons to-morrow morning." " Very well, and I will make them up into rosettes." 288 TOM BEOWN A* OXFOftlJ. " Why, do yon know them ? " asked Tom, as she bowed to two gentlemen in masters' caps and gowns, whom they met in the crowd. " Yes ; at least we met them last night." " But do you know who they are ? " " Oh, yes ; they were introduced to us, and I talked a great deal to them. And Katie scolded me for it when we got home. No ; I won't say scolded me, but looked vei-y grave over it." " They are two of the leaders of the Tractarians." " Yes. That was the fun of it. Katie was so pleased and interested with them at first ; much more than I was. But when she found out who they were, she fairly ran away, and I stayed and talked on. I don't think they said anything very dangerous, Perhaps one of them wrote No. 90. Do you know ? " " I dare say. But I don't know much about it. However, they must have a bad time of it, I should think, up here with the old dons." " But don't you think one likes people who are persecuted ? I declare I would listen to them for an hour, though I didn't understand a word, just to show them that I wasn't afraid of them, and sympathized with them. How can people be so ill- natui-ed ? I'm sure they only write what they believe, and think will do good." " That's just what most of us feel," said Tom ; " we hate to see tliem put down because they don't agree with the swells up here. You'll see how.they will be cheered in the theater." " Then they are not unpopular and persecuted after all ? " " Oil, yes, by the dons. And that's why we all like them. From fellow-feeling you see, because the dons bully them and us equally." " But I thought they were dons too ? " " Well, so they are, but not regular dons, you know, like the proctors, and deans, and that sort." His companions did not understand this delicate distinction, but was too much interested in watching the crowd to inquire furtlier. Presently they met two of the heads of houses walking with several strangers. Everyone was noticing them as they passed, and of course Tom was questioned as to who they were. Not being prepared with an answer he appealed to Hardy, who was just behind them talking to Miss Winter. They were ' some of the celebrities on whom honorary degrees were to be conferred. Hardy said ; a famous American author, a foreign THE LONG Walk in CHRIST CHUBCII MEADOWS. 289 ambassador, a well-known Indian soldier, and others. Then came some more M. A,'s, one of whom this time bowed to Miss Winter. " Who was that, Katie ? " " One of the gentlemen we met last night. I did not catch his name, but he was very agreeable." "Oh, I remember. You were talking to him for a long time after you ran away from me. I was very curious to know what you were saying, you seemed so interested." " Well, you seem to have made the most of your time last night," said Tom ; "I should have thought, Katie, you would hardly have approved of him either." " But who is he ? " " Why, the most dangerous man in Oxford. What do they call him — a Germaiiizer and a rationalist ; isn't it, Hardy ? " " Yes, I believe so," said Hardy. " Oh, think of that ! There, Katie ; you had much better have stayed by me after all. A Germanizer, didn't you say? What a hard word. It must be much worse than Tractarian. Isn't it now ? " "Mary, dear, pray take care ; everybody will hear you," said Miss Winter. " I wish I thought that everybody would listen to me," replied Miss Mary. "But I really will be very quiet, Katie, — only I must know which is the worst, my Tractarians or your Ger- manizer ? " " Oh, the Germanizer, of course," said Tom. " But why ? " said Hardy, who could do no less than break a lance for his companion. Moreover he happened to have strong convictions on these subjects. "Why? Because one knows the worst of where the Trac- tarians are going. They may go to Rome and there's an end of it. But the Germanizers are going into the abysses, or no one knows where." " There, Katie, you hear, I hope," interrupted Miss Mary, coming to her coinpanion's rescue before Hardy could bring his artillery to bear, " but what a terrible place Oxford must be. I declare it seems quite full of people whom it is unsafe to talk with." " I wish it were, if they were all like Miss Winter's friend," said Hardy. And then the crowd thickened, and they dropped behind again. Tom was getting to think more of his com- panion and less of himself every minute, when ho was suddenly confronted in the walk by Benjamin, the Jew money-lender. 290 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. smoking a cigar and dressed in a gaudy -figured satin waistcoat and waterfall of the same material, and resplendent with jewelry. He had business to attend to in Oxford at this time of the year. Nothing escaped the. eyes of Tom's companion. " Who was that ? " she said ; " what a dreadful-looking man ! Surely, lie bowed as if he knew you? " "Id are say. He is impudent enough for anything," said Tom. "But who is he?" " Oh, a rascally fellow who sells bad cigars and worse wine." Tom's equanimity was much shaken by the apparition of the Jew. The remembrance of the bill scene at the public house in the Corn-Market, and the unsatisfactory prospect in that matter, with Blake plucked and Drysdale no longer a member of the university and utterly careless as to his liabilities, came across him, and made him silent and absent. He answered at hazard to his companion's remarks for the next minute or two, until, after some particularly inappropriate reply, she turned her head and looked at him for a moment with steady, wide-open eyes, which brought him to himself, or rather drove him into himself, in no time. " I really beg your pardon," he said ; "I was very rude, I fear. It is so strange to me to be walking here with ladies. What were you saying ? " " Nothing of any consequence — I really forget. But is it a very strange thing for you to walk with ladies here ? " " Strange"! I should think it was ! I have never seen a lady that I knew up here, till you came." " Indeed ! but there must be plenty of ladies living in Oxford ? " " I don't believe there are. At least, we never see them." " Then you ought to be on your best behavior when we do come. I shall expect you now to listen to everything I say, and to answer my silliest questions." " Oh, yon ought not to be so hard on. us." " You mean that you are not used to answering silly ques- - Lions ? How wise you must all grow, living up here together." " Perhaps. But the wisdom doesn't come down to the first- year men ; and so " " Well, why do you stop?" " Because I was going to say something you might not like." " Then I insist on hearing it. Now, I shall not let you off. You were saying that wisdom does not come so low as first- year men ; and so — what ? " "And so — and so, they are not wise." THE LONG WALK IN CHRIST CHUKCH MEADOWS. 291 " Yes, of course ; but that was not what you were going to say ; and so " " And so they were generally agreeable, for wise people are always dull ; and so — ladies ought to avoid the dons." " And not avoid first-year men ? " "Exactly so." " Because they are foolish, and therefore fit company for ladies. Now, really " " No, no ; because they ai-e foolish, and therefore, they ought to be made wise ; and ladies are wiser than dons." " And, therefore, duller ; for all wise people, you said, were dull." " Not all wise people ; only people who are wise by cram- ming — as dons ; but ladies are wise by inspiration." " And first-year men, are they foolish by inspiration and agreeable by cramming, or agreeable by inspiration and foolish by cramming ? " '" They are agreeable by inspiration in the society of ladies." " Then they can never be agreeable, for you say they never see ladies." "Not with the bodily eye, but with the eye of fancy." "Then their agreeableness must be all fancy." " But it is better to be agreeable in fancy than dull in reality." " That depends upon whose fancy it is. To be agreeable in your own fancy is compatible with being as dull in reality as — " " How you play with words ; I see you won't leave me a shred either of fancy of agreeableness to stand on." " Then I sliall do you good service. I shall destroy your illusions ; you cannot stand on illusions." " But remember what my illusions were — fancy and agree- ableness." " But your agreeableness stood on fancy, and your fancy on nothing. You had better settle down at onc^ on the solid baseness of dullness, like the dons."* " Then I am to found myself on fact, and try to be dull ? What a conclusion ! But perhaps dullness is no more a fact than fancy. What is dullness ? " " Oh, I do not undertake to define ; you are the best judge." " How severe you are ! Now, see- how generous I am. Dullness in society is the absence of ladies." " Alas, poor Oxford ! Who is that in the velvet sleeves ? Why do you touch your cap ? " 292 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. " That is the proctor. He is our Cerberus'; he has to keep all undergraduates in good order. " What a task ! He ought to have three heads." " He has only one head, but it is a very long one. And he has a tail like any Basha, composed of pro-proctors, marshals, and bull-dogs, and I don't know what all. But to go back to what we were saying " " No, don't let us go back. I'm tired of it ; besides, you were just beginning about dullness. How can you expect me to listen now ? " " Gh, but do listen, just for two minutes. Will you be serious ? I do want to know what you really think when you hear the case." " Well, I will try, for two minutes, mind." Upon gaining which permission Tom went oflE into an interesting discourse on the unnaturalness of men's lives at Oxford, which it is by no means necessary to inflict on my readers. As he was waxing eloquent and sentimental, he chanced to look from his companion's face for a moment in search of a simile, when liis eyes alighted on that virtuous member of society, Dick, the factotum of the " Choughs," who was taking his turn in the Long Walk with his betters. Dick's face was twisted into an uncomfortable grin ; his eyes were fixed on Tom and his companion ; and lie made a sort of half motion toward touching his hat, but couldn't quite carry it through and so passed by. " Ah ! aint he a-going of it again," he muttered to himself ; " jist like 'em all." Tom didn't hear the words, but the look had been quite enough for him, and he broke off short in his speech, and turned his head away, and after two or three flounderings, which Mary seemed not to notice, stopped short, and let Miss Winter and Hardy join them. " It's getting dark," he said, as they came up ; " the Walk is thinning ; ought we not to be going ? Remember, I am in charge." " Yes, I think it is time." At this moment the great Christ Church bell — Tom, by name — began to toll. " Surely, that can't be Tom ? " Miss Winter said, who had heard the one hundred and one strokes on former oc- casions. " Indeed it is, though." " But how very light it is." THE LONG WALK IN CUEIST CHUECH MEADOWS. 293 " It is almost the longest day in the year, and there hasn't been a cloud all day." They started to walk home altogether, and Tom gradually recovered himself, but left the laboring oar to Hardy, who did his work very well, and persuaded the ladies to go on and see the Ratcliffe by moonlight, — the only time to see it, as he said, because of the shadows, — and just to look in at the old quadrangle of St. Ambrose. It was almost ten o'clock when they stopped at the lodgings in High Street. While they were waiting for the door to be opened, Hardy said : " I really must apologize, Miss Winter, to you, for my intru- sion to-night. I hope your father will allow me to call on him." " Oh, yes ! pray do ; he will be so glad to see any friend of my cousin." " And if I can be of any use to him ; or to you, or your sister " " My sister ! Oh, you mean Mary ! She is not my sister." " I beg your pardon. But I hope you will let me know if there is anything I can do for you." " Indeed we will. Now, Mary, papa will be worrying about us." And so the young ladies said their adieus, and disap- peared. " Surely, you told me they were sisters," said Hardy, as the two walked away toward college. " No, did I ? I don't remember." " But they are your cousins ? " " Yes ; at least Katie is. Don't you like her ? " " Of course ; one can't help liking her. But she says you have not met for two years or more." " No more we have." " Then I suppose you have seen more of her companion lately?" " Well, if you must know, I never saw her before yester- day." "Tou don't mean to say that you took me in there to-night when you had never seen one of the young ladies before, and the other not for two years ! Well, upon my word. Brown—" " Now don't blow me up, old fellow, to-night — ^please don't. There, I give in. Don't hit a fellow when he's down. I'm so low." Tom spoke in such a deprecating tone, that Hardy's wrath passed away. " Why, what's the matter?" he said "Yon seemed to be full of tg,lk, I was envying your fluency, I know, often." 294 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " Talk ; yes, so I was. But didn't you see Dick in the Walk ? You have never heard anything more ? " " IsTo ; but no news is good news." " Heigho ! I'm awfully down. I want to talk to you. Let me come up." " Come along then." And so they disappeared into Hardy's lodgings. The two young ladies, meanwhile, soothed old Mr. Winter, who had eaten and drunk more than was good for him, and was naturally put out thereby. They soon managed to per- suade him to retire, and then followed themselves — first to Mary's room, where that young lady burst out at once, " What a charming place it is ! Oh ! didn't you enjoy your evening, Katie?" "Yes ; but I felt a little awkward without any chaperone. You seemed to get on very well with my cousin. You scarcely spoke to us in the Long Walk till just before we came away. What were you talking about ? " Mary burst into a gay laugh. " All sorts of nonsense," she said. " I don't think I ever talked so much nonsense in my life. I hope he isn't shocked. I don't think he is. But I said anything that came into my head. I couldn't help it. You don't think it wrong ? " "Wrong, dear? No, I'm sure you could say nothing wrong." " I'm not so sure of that. But, Katie dear, I know there is something on his mind." "Why do you think so?" " Oh ! because he stopped short twice, and became quite ab- sent, and seemed not to hear anything I said." " How odd ! I never knew him to do so. Did you see any reason for it ? " " No ; unless it was two men we passed in the crowd. One was a vulgar-looking wretch, who was smoking — a fast black thing, with such a thick nose, covered with jewelry ' " Not his nose, dear ? " " No, but his dress ; and the other was a homely, dried-up little man, like one of your Englebourn troubles. I'm sure there is some mystery about them, and I shall find it out. But how did you like his friend, Katie ? '' " Very much indeed. I was rather uncomfortable at walk- ing so long with a stranger. But he was very pleasant, and is so fond of Tom, I am sure be is a very good friend for him," LECTUEING A LIONESS. 295 " He looks a good man ; but how ugly ! " "Do you think so ? We shall have a hard day to-morrow. Good-night, dear." " Good-night, Katie. But I don't feel a bit sleepy." And GO the cousins kissed one another, and Miss Winter went to her own room. CHAPTER XXVH. LECTUEING A LIONESS. The evening of Show Sunday may serve as a fair sample of what this eventful Commemoration was to onr hero. The constant intercourse with ladies — with such ladies as Miss Winter and Mary — young, good-looking, well-spoken, and creditable in all ways, was very delightful, and the more fas- cinating, from the sudden change which their presence wrought in the ordinary mode of life of the place. They would have been charming in any room, but were quite irresistible in his den, which no female presence, except that of his blowsy old bedmaker, had lightened since he had been in possession. All the associations of the freshman's rooms were raised at once. When he came in at niglit now, he could look sentimentally at his armchair (christened " The Captain," after Captain Hardy) on which Katie had sat to make breakfast ; or at the brass peg on the door, on which Mary had hung her bonnet and shawl, after displacing his gown. His very teacups and saucers, which were already a miscellaneous set of several different patterns, had made a move almost into his affection ; at least, the two — one brown, one blue — which the young ladies had used. A human interest belonged to them now, and they were no longer mere crockery. He thought of buying two very pretty China ones, the most expensive he could find in Oxford, and getting them to use these for the first time, but rejected the idea. The fine new ones, he felt, would never be the same to him. They had come in and used his own rubbish ; that was the great charm. If he had been going to give thetn cups, no material would have been beautiful enough ; but for his own use after them, the commoner the better. The material was nothing, the association everything. It is marvelous the amount of healthy sentiment of which a naturally soft-hearted undergraduate is capable by the end of the summer term. But sentiment is not all one-sided. The delights which spring from sudden intimacy with the fairest and best part of the creation, are as far above those of the ordinary unmitigated, under- 296 TOM BltOWN AT OXFOBD. graduate life, as tlie Britisli citizen of 1860 is above the rudi- mentary personage in prehistoric times from whom he had been gradually improved up to his present state of enlightenmen-t and perfection. But each state has also its own troubles, as well as its pleasure ; and, though the former are a price which no decent fellow would boggle at for a moment, it is useless to pretend that paying them is pleasant. Now, at Commemoration, as elsewhere, where men do con- gregate, if your lady, visitors are not pretty or agreeable enough to make your friends and acquaintances eager to know them, and to cater for their enjoyment, and try in all ways to win their favor and cut you out, you have the satisfaction, at any rate, of keeping them to yourself, though you lose the pleasures which arise from being sought after, and made much of for their sakes, and feeling raised above the ruck of your neighbors. On the other hand, if tliey are all this, you might as well try to keep the sunshine and air to yourself. Universal human nature rises against you ; and, besides, they will not stand it themselves. And, indeed, why should they ? Women, to be very attractive to all sorts of different people, must have great readiness of sympathy. Many have it naturally, and many work hard in acquiring a good imitation of it. In the first case it is against the nature of such persons to be monopo- lized for more than a very short time; in the second, all their trouble would be thrown away if they allowed themselves tQ be monopolized. Once in their lives, indeed, they will be, and ought to be, and that monopoly lasts, or should last, forever ; but instead of destroying in them that which was their great charm, it only deepens and widens it, and the sympathy, which was before fitful, and perhaps wayward, flows on in a calm and healthy stream, blessing and cheering all who come vsdthin reach of its exhilarating and life-giving waters. But man of all ages is a selfish animal, and unreasonable in his selfishness. It takes everyone of us in turn many a shrewd fall in our wrestlings with the world to convince us that we are not to have everything our own way. We are conscious in our inmost souls that man is the rightful lord of creation; and, starting from this eternal principle, and ignoring, each man-child of us in turn, the qualifying truth that it is to man in general, including woman, and not to Tliomas Brown in particular, that the earth has been given, we set about asserting our kingships eacli in his own way, and proclaiming ourselves kings from our own little ant-hills of thrones. And then come the stragglings and the downfallings, and some of us learn our LECTUEms A LIONESS. SS'T lesson and some learn it not. But what lesson ? That we have been dreaming in the golden hours when the vision of a kingdom rose before us ? That there is, in short, no kingdom at all, or that, if there be we are no heirs of it ? No — I take it that, while we make nothing better than that out of our lesson, we sliall have to go on spelling at it and stumbling over it, through all the days of our life, till we make our last stumble, and take our final header out of this' riddle of a world, which we once dreamed we were to rule over, exclaiming " vanitas vanitatum ! " to the end. But man's spirit will never be satisfied without a kingdom, and was never intended to be satisfied so ; and a wiser than Solomon tells us day by day that our kingdom is about us here, and that 'we may rise up and pass in when we will at the shining gates which he holds open, for that it is his, and we are joint heirs of it with him. On the whole, however, making allowances for all draw- backs, those Commemoration days were the pleasantest days Tom had ever known at Oxford. He was with his uncle and cousins early and late, devising all sorts of pleasant entertain- ments and excursions for them, introducing all the pleasantest men of his acquaintance, and taxing all the resources of the college, which at such times were available for undergraduates as well as their betters, to minister to their conifort and enjoy- ment. And he was well repaid. There was something per- fectly new to the ladies, and very piquant, in the life and habits of the place. They found it very diverting to be receiving in Tom's rooms, presiding over his breakfasts and luncheons, altering the position of his furniture, and making the place look as pretty as circumstances would allow. Then there was pleasant occupation for every spare hour, and the fetes and amusements were all unlike eveiything but themselves. Of course the ladies at once became enthusiastic St. Ambrosians, and managed in spite of all distractions to find time for making up rosettes and bows of blue and white, in which to appear at the procession of the boats, which was the great event of the Monday. Fortunately, Mr. Winter had been a good oar in his day, and had pulled in one of the first four-oars in which the University races had commenced some thirty-five years before ; and Tom, who had set his mind on managing his uncle, worked him up almost into enthusiasm and forgetf ulness of his maladies, so that he raised no objection to a five o'clock dinner, and an adjournment to the river almost immediately afterward. Jervis, who was all-powerful on the river, at Tom's 298 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. instigationg ot an armchair for him in the best part of the University barge, while the ladies, after walking along the bank with Tom and others of the crew, and being instructed in the colors of the different boats, and the meaning of the ceremony, took their places in the front row on the top of the barge, beneath the awning and the flags, and looked down with hundreds of other fair strangers on the scene, which certainly merited all that Tom had said of it on faith. The barges above and below the University barge, which occupied the post of honor, were also covered with ladies, and Christ Church meadow swarmed witli gay dresses and caps and gown^. On the opposite side the bank was lined with a crowd in "holiday clothes, and the punts plied across without inter- mission, loaded with people, till the groups stretched away down the towing-path in an almost continuous line to the starting-place. Then, one after another, the I'acing-boats, all painted and polished up for the occasion, with the college flags drooping at their sterns, put out and passed down to their stations, and the bands played, and the sun shone his best. And then, after a short pause of expectation, the distant bank became all alive, and the groups all turned one way, and came up the towing-path again, and the foremost boat, with the blue and white flag, shot through the Gut and came up the reach, followed by another, and another, and another, till they were tired of counting, and the leading boat was already close to them before the last had come within sight. And the bands played up altogether, and the ci'owd on both sides cheered as the St. Ambrose boat spurted from the Cherwell, and took the place of honor at the winning-post, opposite the University bai-ge, and close under where they were sitting. " Oh, look, Katie dear ; here they are. There's Tom, and Mr. Hardy, and Mr. Jervis ; " and Mary waved her handker- cliief and clapped her hands, and was in an ecstacy of enthusi- asm, in which her cousin was no whit behind her. The gallant ci-ew of St. Ambrose were by no means unconscious of, and fully appreciated, the compliment. Tlien the boats passed up, one by one ; and, as each came opposite to the St. Ambrose boat, the crews tossed their oars and cheered, and the St. Ambrose crew tossed their oars and (cheered in return ; and the whole ceremony went off in tri- umph, notwithstanding the casualty which occurred to one of the torpids. The torpids being filled with the refuse of the rowing-men, — generally awkward or very young oarsmen, — find some difficulty in the act of tossing ; no very safe opera- LECTURING A LIONESS. 299 tion for an unsteady crew. Accordingly, the torpid in ques- tion, having sustained her crew gallantly till the saluting point, and allowed them to get their oars fairly into the air, proceeded gravely to turn over on her side, and shoot them out into the stream. A thrill ran along the top of the barges, and a little scream or two might have been heard even through the notes of "Annie Laurie," which were filling the air at the moment ; but the band played on, and the crew swam ashoi'e, and two of the puntmen laid hold of the boat and collected the oars, and no- body seemed to think anything of it. Katie drew a long breath. " Are they all out, dear ? " she said ; " can you see ? I can only count eight.". " Oh, I was too frightened to look. Let me see ; yes, there are nine ; there's one by himself, the little man pulling the weeds off his trousers." And so they regained their equanimity, and soon after left the barge, and were escorted to the hall of St. Ambrose by the crew, who gave an entertainment there to celebrate the occa- sion ; which Mr. Winter was induced to attend and pleased to approve, and which lasted till it was time to dress forthe ball, for which a proper chaperone had been providentially found. And so they passed the days and nights of Commemoration. But it is not within the scope of this work to chronicle all their doings, how, notwithstanding balls at night, they were up to chapel in the morning, and attended flower-shows at Worcester and musical promenades in New College, and man- aged to get down the river for a picnic at Nuneham, besides seeing everything that was worth seeing in all the colleges. How it was done, no man can tell ; but done it was, and they seemed only the better for it all. They were waiting at the gates of the theater among the first, tickets in hand, and wit- nessed the whole scene, wondering no little at the strange mix- ture of solemnity and license, the rush and crowding of the un- dergraduates into their gallery, and their free and easy way of taking the whole proceedings under their patronage, watching eveiy movement in the amphitheater and on the floor, and shouting approval or disapproval of the heads of their republic of learning, or of the most illustrious visitors, or cheering with equal vigor the ladies. Her Majestj^'s ministers, or the prize poems. It is a strange scene certainly, and has probably puzzled many persons besides young ladies. One can well fancy the astonishment of the learned foreigner, for instance, 300 TOM BROWN AT OXFOEO. when he sees the head of the University, which he has rever- enced at a distance from his youth up, rise in liis robes in sol- emn convocation to exercise one of the highest of university functions, and hears his sonorous Latin periods interrupted by " Three cheers for the ladies in pink bonnets ! " or, when some man is introduced for an honorary degree, whose name may be known throughout the civilized world, and the vice chancellor, turning to his compeers, inquires, " Placetne vobis, domini doc- tores, placetne vobis, raagistri," and he heai's the voices of doc- tors and masters drowned in contradictory shouts from th'e young Demos in the gallery, " Who is he ? " " Non placet ! " " Placet ! " " Why does he carry an umbrella ? " It is thor- oughly English, and that is just all that need, or indeed can, be said for it all ; but not one in a hundred of us would alter it if we could, beyond suppressing some of the personalities, which of late years have gone somewhat too far. After the theater there was a sumptuous lunch in 'AH Souls', and then a fete in St. John's Gardens. Now, at the aforesaid luncheon, Tom's feelings had been sevei'ely tried ; in fact, the little troubles which, as has been before hinted, are incident to persons, especially young men in his fortunate predicament, came to a head. He was separated from his cousins a little way. Being a guest, and not an important one in the eyes of the All Souls' fellows, he had to find his level ; which was very much below that allotted to his uncle and cousins. In short, he felt that they were taking him. about, instead of he them — which change of position was in itself trying ; and Mary's con- duct fanned his slunibering discontent into a flame. There she was, sitting between a fellow of All Souls', who was a collector of pictures and an authority in fine-art matters, and the Indian officer who had been so recently promoted to the degi'ee of D. C. L. in the theater. There she sat, so absorbed in their conversation that she did not even hear a remark which he was pleased to address to her. Whereupon he began to brood on his wrongs, and to take umbrage at the catholicity of her enjoyment and enthusiasm. So long as he had been the medium through which she was brought in Contact with others, he had been well enough con- tent that they should amuse and interest her ; but it was a very different thing now. So he watched her jealously, and raked up former conversa- tions, and came to the conclusion that it was his duty to remonstrate with her. He had remarked, too, that she never could talk with him now without breaking away after a short LBCTtTRING A LIONESS. 301 time into badinage. Her badinage certainly was very charm- ing and pleasant, and kept him on the stretch ; but why should she not let him be serious and sentimental when he pleased ? She did not break out in this manner with other people. So he really felt it to be his duty to speak to her on the subject — not in the least for his own sake, but for hers. Accordingly, when the party broke up, and they started for the fete at St. John's, he resolved to carry out his intentions. At firet he could not get an opportunity while they were walk- ing about on the beautiful lawn of the great garden, seeing and being seen, and listening to music, and looking at choice flowers. But soon a chance offered. She stayed behind the rest, without noticing it, to examine some specially beautiful plant, and he was by her side in a moment, and proposed to show her the smaller garden, which lies beyond, to which she innocently consented ; and they were soon out of the crowd, and in comparative solitude. She remarked that he was somewhat silent and grave, but thought nothing of it, and chatted on as usual, remarking upon the pleasant company she had been in at luncheon. This opened the way for Tom's lecture. "How easily you seem to get interested with new people ! " he began. "Do I?" she said. "Well, don't you think it very natural?" " Wouldn't it be a blessing if people would always say just what they think and mean, though?" " Yes, and a great many do," she replied, looking at him in some wonder, and not quite pleased with the turn things were taking. " Any ladies, do you think ? You know we haven't many opportunities of observing." " Yes, I think quite as many ladies as men. More, indeed, as far as my small experience goes." " You really maintain deliberately that you have met peo- ple — men and women — who can talk to you or anyone else for a quarter of an hour quite honestly, and say nothing at all which they don't mean — nothing for the sake of flattery, or effect, for instance ? " " Oil, dear me ! yes, often." "Who, for example?" " Our Cousin Katie. Why are you so suspicious "and mis- anthropical? There is your friend Mr. Hardy, again; what do you say to him ? " 302 TOM BSOWN AT OXFORD. " Well, I think you may have hit on an exception. But I maintain the rule." " You look as if I ought to object. But I shan't. It is no business of mine if you choose to believe any such disagreeable thing about your fellow-creatures." " I don't believe anything worse about them than I do about myself. I know that I can't do it." " Well, I ara very sorry for you." "But I don't think I am any worse than my neighbors." " I don't suppose you do. Who are your neighbors ?" " Shall I include you in the number ? " " Oh, by all means, if you like." " But I may not mean that you are like the rest. The man who fell among tliieves, you know, had one good neighbor." "Now, Cousin Tom," she said, looking up with sparkling eyes, "I can't return the compliment. You meant to make me feel that I was like the rest — at least, like what you say they are. You know you did. And now you are just turning round, and trying to slip out of it by saying what you don't mean." " Well, Cousin Mary, perhaps I was. At any rate, I was a great fool for my pains. I might have known by this time that you would catch me out fast enough." " Perhaps you might. I didn't challenge you to set up your palace of truth. But, if we are to live in it, you are not to say all the disagreeable things and hear none of them." " I hope not, if they must be disagreeable. But why should they be ? I can't see why you and I, for instance, should not say exactly what we are thinking to one another, without being disagreeable." " Well, I don't think you made a happy beginning just now." " But I am sure we should all like one another the better for speaking the truth." " Yes ; but I don't admit that I haven't been speaking the truth." " You won't understand me. Have I said that you don't speak the truth ? " "Yes, you said just now that I don't say what I think and mean. Well, perhaps you didn't exactly say that, but that is what you meant." " You are very angry. Cousin Mary. Let us wait till " " No, no. It was you who began and I will not let you off now." LECTURING A LIONESS. 303 " Very -well, then. I did mean something of the sort. It is better to tell you than to keep it to myself." " Yes, and now tell me your reasons," said Mary, looking down and biting her lip. Tom was ready to bite his tongue off, but there was nothing now but to go through with it. " You make everybody that comes near you think that you are deeply interested in them and their doings. Poor Grey believes that you are as mad as he is about rituals and rubrics. And the boating-men declare that you would sooner see a race than go to the best ball in the world. And you listened to the dean's stale old stories about the schools, and went into raptures in the Bodleian about pictures and art with that fellow of All Souls'. Even our old butler and the cook " Here Mary, despite her vexation, after a severe struggle to control it, burst into a laugh, which made Tom pause. " Now you can't say that I am not really fond of jellies," she said. "And you can't say that I have said anything so very dis- agreeable." "Oh, but you have, though." "At any rate, I have made you laugh." " But you didn't mean to do it. Now, go on." " I have nothing more to say. You see my meaning, or you never will." " If you have nothing more to say you should not have said so much," said Mary. " You wouldn't have me rude to all the people I meet, and I can't help it if the cook thinks I am a glutton." " But you could help letting Grey think that you should like to go and see his night schools." " But I should like to see them of all things." " And I suppose you would like to go through the manu- scripts in the Bodleian with the dean. I heard you talking to him as if it was the dearest wish of your heart, and making a half engagement to go with him this afternoon, when you know that you are tired to death of him, and so full of other engage- ments that you don't know where to turn." Mary began to bite her lips again. She felt half inclined to cry, and half inclined to get up and box his ears. However, she did neither, but looked up after a moment or two, and said : " Well, have you any more unkind things to say ? " "Unkind, Mary?" " Yes, they are unkind. How can I enjoy anything now 304 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOKD. when I shall know you are watching me, and thinking all sorts of harm of everything I say and do However,- it doesn't much matter, for we go to-morrow morning." " But you will give me credit at least for meaning you well ? " " I think you are very jealous and suspicious." " You don't know how you pain me when you say that." " But I must say what I think." Mary set her little mouth, and looked down, and began tapping her boot with her parasol. There was an awkward silence, while Tom considered within himself whether she was not right, and whether, after all, his own jealousy had not been the cause of tlie lecture he had been delivering much more than any unselfish wish for Mary's improvement. " It is your turn now," he said presently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and looking hard at the gi'avel ; " I may have been foolishly jealous, and I thank you for telling me so. But you can tell me a great deal more if you will, quite as good for me to hear." " No, I have nothing to say. I dare say you are open and true, and have nothing to hide or disguise, not even about either of the men we met in the Long Walk on Sunday." He winced at this random shaft as if he bad been stung, and she saw that it had gone home, and repented the next moment. The silence became more and more embarrassing. By good luck, however, their party suddenly appeared strolling toward them from the large garden. " There's Uncle Robert and Katie, and all of them. Let us join them." She rose up and he with her, and as they walked toward the rest he said quickly, in a low voice, " Will you forgive me if I have pained you ? I was very selfish, and am very sorry." " Oh, yes ; we were both very foolish. But we won't do it again." " Here you are at last. We have been looking for you every- where," said Miss Winter, as they came up. " I'm sure I don't know how we missed you. We came straight from the music tent to this seat, and have not moved. We knew you must come by sooner or later." " But it is quite out of the way. It was quite by chance that we came round here." " Isn't Uncle Robert tired, Katie ? " said Tom ; " he doesn't look well this afternoon." Katie instantly turned to her father, and Mr. Winter declared himself to be much fatigued. So they wished their hospit- LECTUBING A LIONESS. 305 able entertainers good-by, and Tom hurried off and got a wheel chair for his uncle, and walked by his side to their lodgings. The young ladies walked near tlie chair also, accompanied by one or two of their acquaintances ; in fact, they could not move without an escort. But Tom never once turned his head for a glance at what was going on, and talked steadily on to his uncle, that he might not catch a stray word of what the rest were saying. Despite of all whicli self-denial, however, he was quite aware somehow, when he made his bow at the door, that Mary Iiad been very silent all the way home. Mr. Winter retired to his room to lie down, and his daughter and niece remained in the sitting-room. Mary sat down and untied her bonnet, but did not burst into her usual flood of comments on the events of the day. Miss Winter looked at her and said — "You look tired, dear, and over-excited." " Oh, yes, so I am. I've had such a quarrel with Tom." " A quarrel — you're not serious ? " " Indeed I am, though. I quite hated him for five minutes at least." " But what did he do ? " " Why he taunted me with being too civil to everybody and it made me so angry. He said I pretended to take an interest in ever so many things, just to please people, when I didn't really care about them. And it isn't true now, Katie ; is it ? " " No, dear. He never could have said that. You must have misunderstood him." " There, I knew you would say so. And if it were true, I'm sure it isn't wrong. When people talk to you, it is so easy to seem pleased and interested in what they are saying — and then they like you, and it is so pleasant to be liked. Now, Katie, do you ever snap people's noses off, or tell them you think them very foolish, and that you don't care, and that what they are saying is all of no consequence ? " " I, dear ? I couldn't do it to save my life ! " " Oh, I was sure you couldn't. And he may say what he will, but I'm quite sure he would not have been pleased if we had not made ourselves pleasant to his friends." " That's quite true. He has told me himself half a dozen times how delighted he was to see you so popular." " And you, too, Katie ? " " Oh, yes. He is very well pleased with me. But it is you who have turned all the heads in the college, Mary. You are queen of St. Ambrose beyond a doubt just now." 306 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " No, no, Katie ; not more than you at any rate." . " I say yes, yes, Mary. You will always be ten times as popular as I ; some people have the gift of it ; I wish I had. But why do you look so grave again ? " " Why, Katie, don't you see you are just saying over again, only in a different way, what your provoking cousin — I shall call him Mr. Brown, I think, in the future — was telling me for my good in St. John's Gardens. You saw how long we were away from you ; well, he was lecturing me all the time, only think ; and now you are going to tell it me all over again. But go on, dear ; I shan't mind anything from you." She put her arm round her cousin's waist, and looked up playfully into her face. Miss Winter saw at once that no great harm, perhaps some good, had been done in the passage of arms between her relatives. " You made it all up," she said smiling, " before we found you." " Only just, though. He begged my pardon just at last, almost in a whisper, when you were quite close to us." " And you granted it ? " " Yes, of course ; but I don't know that I shall not recall it." " I was sure, you would be falling out before long, you got on so fast. But he isn't quite so easy to turn round your finger as you thought, Mary." " Oh, I don't know that," said Mary, laughingly ; "you saw how humble he looked at last, and what good order he was in." " Well, dear, it's time to think whether we shall go out again." " Let me see ; there's the last ball. What do you say ? " " Why, I'm afraid poor papa is too tired to take us, and I don't know with whom we could go. We ought to begin pack- ing, too, I think." " Very well. Let us have tea quietly at home." " I will write a note to Tom to tell him. He has done his best for us, poor fellow, and we ouglit to consider him a little." " Oh, yes ; and ask him and his friend Mr. Hardy to tea, as it is the last night." " If you wish it, I should be very glad ; they will amuse papa." " Certainly, and then he will see that I bear him no malice. And now I will go and just do my hair." " Very well ; and we will pack after they leave. How strange home will seem after all this gayety." " Yes ; we seem to have been here a month." "I do hope we shall find all quiet at Englebourn. I am always afraid of some trouble there," , THE EKD OP THE FBESHMAn's TEAR. 307 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE END OP THE FEESHMAN's YEAB. On the morning after Commemoration, Oxford was in a bustle of departure. The play had been played, the long va- cation had begun, and visitors and members seemed equally anxious to be off. At the gates of the colleges 'groups of men in traveling-dresses waited for the coaches, omnibuses, dog- carts, and all manner of vehicles, which were to carry them to the Gi'eat Western railway station, at Steventon, or elsewhere to all points of the compass. Porters passed in and out with portmanteaus, gun-cases, and baggage of all kinds, which they piled outside the gates, or carried off to the Mitre or the An- gel, under the vigorous and not too courteous orders of the owners. College servants flitted round the groups to take last instructions, and, if so might be, to extract the balances of ex- tortionate bills out of their departing masters. Dog-fanciers were there also, holding terriers ; and scouts from the cricket- ing-grounds, with bats and pads under their arms ; and hostlers, and men from the boats, all on the same errand of getting the last shilling out of their patrons — a fawning, obsequious crowd for the most part, with here and there a sturdy Briton who felt that he was only come after hisdue. Through such a group, at the gate of St. Ambrose, Tom and Hardy passed soon after breakfast time, in cap and gown, which costume excited no small astonishment. " Hullo, Brown, old fellow ! aint you off this morn- ing ? " " No, I shall be up for a day or two yet." " Wish you joy. I wouldn't be staying up over to-day for something." " But you'll be at Henley to-moiTOw ? " said Diogenes, con- fidently, who stood at the gate in boating coat and flannels, a big stick and knapsack, waiting for a companion, with whom he was going to walk to Henley. " And at Lord's on Friday," said another. " It will be a famous match ; come and dine somewhere afterw'ard, and go to the Haymarket with us." " You know the Leander are to be at Henley," put in Dio- genes " and Cambridge is veiy strong. There will be a splen- did race for the cup, but Jervis thinks we are all riglit." "Bother your eternal races; haven't you had enough of them ?" said the Londoner. "You had much better come up 308 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. to the little village at once, Brown, and stay there while the coin lasts." " If I get away at all, it will be to Henley," said Tom. " Of course, I knew that," said Diogenes, triumphantly ; " our boat ought to be on for the ladies' plate. If only Jervis were not in the University crew ! I thought you were to pull at Henley, Hardy?" " I was asked to pull, but I couldn't manage the time with the schools coming on, and when the examinations were over, it was too late. The crew were picked and half trained, and none of them have broken down." " What ! everyone of them stood putting through the sieve? Tliey must be a rare crew, then," said another. " You're right," said Diogenes. " Oh ! here you are at last," he fidded, as anotlier man in flannels and knapsack came out of college. " Well, good-by, all, and a pleasant vacation ; we are to be in time to see our crew pull over the course to-iiight," and the two marched off toward Magdalen bridge. " By Jove ! " remarked a fast youth, in most elaborate toilet, looking after them, "fancy two fellows grinding off to Henley, five miles an hour, in this sun, when they might drop up to the metropolis by train in half the time? Isn't it marvelous?" " I should like to be going with them," said Tom. " Well, there's no accounting for tastes. Here's our coach." " Good-by, then ; " and Tom shook hands, and leaving the coach to get packed with portmanteaus, terriers, and under- graduates, he and Hardy walked off toward the High Street. " So you're not going to-day ? " Hardy said. " No, two or three of my old schoolfellows are coming up to stand for scholarships, and I must be here to receive them. But it's very unlucky ; I should have liked so to have been at Henley." " Look, their carriage is already at the door," said Hardy, pointing up High Street, into which they now turned. There were a dozen post-chaises and carriages loading in front of dif- ferent houses in the street, and among them Mr. Winter's old- fashioned traveling-barouche. " So it is," said Tom ; " that's some of uncle's fidgetiness ; but he will be sure to dawdle at the last. Come along in." " Don't you think I had better stay downstairs ? It may seem intrusive." " No, come along. Why, they asked you to come and see the last of them last night, didn't they?" THE teND OF THE FRESHMAn's TEAB. 309 Hardy did not require any further urging to induce him to follow his inclination ; so the two went up together. The breakfast things were still on the table, at which sat Miss Winter, in her bonnet, employed in examining the bill, with the assistance of Mary, who leant over her shoulder. She looked up as they entered. "Oh! I'm so glad you are come. Poor Katie is so bothered, and I can't help her. Do look at the bill ; is it all right ? " « Shall I, Katie ? " " Yes, please do. I don't see anything to object to, except, perliaps, the things I have marked. Do you think we ought to be charged half a crown a day for the kitchen fire ? " " Fire in June ! and you have never dined at home once ? " " No, but we have had tea several times." " It is a regular swindle," said Tom, taking the bill and glancing at it. " Here, Hardy, come and help me cut down this precious total." They sat down to the bill, the ladies willingly giving place. Mary tripped off to the glass to tie her bonnet. " Now that is all right ! " she said, merrily ; " why can't one go on without bills or horrid money?" "Ah ! why can't one?" said Tom," that would suit most of our complaints. But where's uncle ! has he seen the bill ? " " No ; papa is in his room ; he must not be worried, or the journey will be too much for him." Here the ladies'-maid arrived, with a message that her father wished to see Miss Winter. " Leave your money, Katie," said her cousin ; " this is gentle- men's business, and Tom and Mr. Hardy will settle it all for us, I am sure." Tom professed his entire willingness to accept the charge, delighted at finding himself reinstated in liis ofiice of protector at Mary's suggestion. Had the landlord been one of his own tradesmen, or the bill his own bill, he might not have been so well pleased, but, as neither of these was the case, and he had Hardy to back him, he went into the matter with much vigor and discretion, and had the landlord up, made the proper deductions, and got the bill settled and receipted in a few minutes. Then he and Hardy addressed themselves to getting the carriage comfortably packed, and vied with one another in settling and stowing away in the most convenient places the many little odds and ends which naturally accompany young ladies and invalids on tlieir travels ; in the course of which employment he managed to snatch a few words here and there 310 TOM BROWN AT OXFOED. with Mary, and satisfied himself that she bore him no ill-will for the events of the previous day. At last, all was ready for the start, and Tom reported the fact in the sitting-room. " Then I will go and fetch papa," said Miss Winter. Tom's eyes met Mary's at the moment. He gave a slight shrug with his shoulders, and said, as the door closed after his cousin, " Really, I have no patience with Uncle Robert ; he leaves poor Katie to do everything." " Yes ; and how beautifully she does it all, without a word or, I believe, a thought of complaint ! I could never be so patient." " I think it is a pity.- If Uncle Robert were obliged to exert himself it would be much better for him. Katie is only spoil- ing him and wearing herself out." " Yes, it is very easy for you and me to think and say so. But he is her father ; and then he is really an invalid. So she goes on devoting herself to him more and more, and feels she can never do too much for him." " But if she believed it would be better for him to exert himself ? I'm sure it is the truth. Couldn't you try to per- suade her ? " " No, indeed ; it would only worry her, and be so cruel. But then I am not used to give advice," she added, after a mo- ment's pause, looking demurely at her gloves ; " it might do good, perhaps, now, if you were to speak to her." " You think me so well qualified, I suppose, after the speci- men you had yesterday. Thank you ; I have had enough of lecturing for the present." " I am very much obliged to you, really, for what you said to me," said Mary, still looking at her gloves. The subject was a very distasteful one to Tom. He looked at her for a moment, to see whether she was laughing at him, and then broke it off abruptly : " I hope you have enjoyed your visit ? " " Oh, yc3, so very much. I shall think of it all the summer." " Where chall you be all the summer ? " asked Tom. " Not so very far from you. Papa has taken a house only eight miles from Englebourn, and Katie says you live within a day's drive of them." " And shall you be there all the vacation ? " " Yes, and we hope to get Katie over often. Could not you come and meet her ? it would be so pleasant." " But do you think I might ? I don't know your father or mother." THE END OF THE FRBSHMAN's YBAE. 311 " Oh, yes ; papa and mamma are very kind, and will ask anybody I like. Besides, you are a cousin, j^ou know." " Only up at Oxford, I am afraid." " Well, now, you will see. We are going to have a great archery party next month, and you shall have an invitation." " Will you write it for me yourself ? " " Very likely ; but why ? " " Don't you think I shall value a note in your hand more than " " Nonsense ; now, remember your lecture Oh, here are Uncle Robert and Katie." Mr. Winter was very gracious, and thanked Tom for all his attentions. He had been very pleased, he said, to make his nephevr's acquaintance again so pleasantly, and hoped he would come and pass a day or two at Englebourn in the vacation. In liis sad state of health he could not do much to entertain a young man, but he could procure him some good fishing and shooting in the neighborhood. Tom assured his uncle that nothing would please him so much as a visit to Englebourn. Perhaps the remembrance of the distance between that parish and the place wliere Mary was to spend the summer may have added a little to his enthusiasm. " I should have liked also to have thanked your friend for his hospitality," Mr. Winter went on. " I understood my daughter to say he was here." " Yes, he was here just now," said Tom ; "he must be below, I think." " What, that good Mr. Hardy ? " said Mary, who was looking out of the window ; " there he is in the street. He has just helped Hopkins into the ramble, and handed her things to her as if she were a duchess. She has been so cross all the morn- ing, and now she looks quite gracious." "Then, I think, papa, we had better start." " Let me give you an arm downstairs, uncle," said Tom ; and so he helped his uncle down to the carriage, the two young ladies following behind, and the landlord standing with ob- sequious bows at his shop door as if he had never made an overcharge in his life. While Mr. Winter was making his acknowledgments to Hardy and being helped by him into the most comfortable seat in the carriage, Tom was making tender adieus to the two young ladies behind, and even succeeded in keeping a rose- bud which Mary was carrying when they took their seats. She parted from it half -laughingly, and the post-boy cracked 312 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. his whip and the barouche went lumbering along High Street. Hardy and Tom watched it until it turned down St. Aldates toward Folly bridge, the latter waving his hand as it disap- peared, and then they turned and strolled slowly away side by side in silence. The sight of all the other departures in- creased the uncomfortable, unsatisfied feeling which that of his own relatives had already produced in Tom's mind. " Well, it isn't lively stopping up here when everybody is going, is it ? What is one to do ? " " Oughtn't you to be looking after your friends who are coming up to try for the scholarships ? " " No, they won't be up till the afternoon by coach." " Shall we go down the river then ?" " No, it would be miserable. Hollo, look here, what's up ? " The cause of Tom's astonishment was the appearance of the usual procession of university beadles carrying silver-headed maces, and escorting the vice chancellor toward St. Mary's. " Why, the bells are going for service ; there must be a university sermon." " Where's the congregation to come from ? Why, half Ox- ford is off by this time, and those that are left won't want to be hearing sermons." " Well, I don't know. A good many men seem to be going. I wonder who is to preach." " I vote we go. It will help to pass the time." Hardy agreed, and they followed the procession and went up into the gallery of St. Mary's. There was a very fair con- gregation in the body of the church, as the college staffs had not yet broken up, and even in the gallery the undergraduates mustered in some force. The restless feeling which had brought our hero there seemed to have had a like effect on most of the men who were for one reason or another unable to start on that day. Tom looked steadily into his cap during the bidding prayer, and sat down composedly afterward ; expecting not to be much interested or benefited, but comforted with the assur- ance that at any rate it would be almost luncheon time before he would be again thrown on his own resources. But he was mistaken in his expectations, and before the preacher had been speaking for three minutes, was all attention. The sermon was upon the freedom of the Gospel, the power by which it bursts all bonds and lets the oppressed go free. Its burden was, " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The preacher dwelt on many sides of these words ; the f reei THE END or THE FRESHMAn's YEAR. 3l3 dom of nations, of societies, of universities, of the couscience of each individual man, were each glanced at in turn ; and then reminding his hearers of the end of the academical year, he went on : " We have heard it said in the troubles and toils and temp- tations of the world,* ' Oh, that I could begin life over again ! oh, that I could fall asleep, and wake up, twelve, six, three months hence, and find my difficulties solved ! ' TJiat which we may vainly wish elsewliere by a happy Providence is fur- nished to us by the natural divisions of meetings and parting in this place. To every one of us, old and young, the long vacation on which we are now entering gives us a breathing space, and time to break the bonds which place and circum- stance have woven around us during the year that is past. From all our petty cares, and confusions, and intrigues ; from the dust and clatter of this huge machinery amid which we labor and toil ; from whatever cynical contempt of what is generous and devout ; from whatever fanciful disregard of what is just and wise ; from whatever gall and bitterness is secreted in our best motives ; from whatever bonds of unequal dealing in which we have entangled ourselves or others, we are now for a time set free. We stand on the edge of a river which shall for a time at least sweep them away ; that ancient river, the river Kishon, the river of fresh thoughts, and fresh scenes, and fresh feelings, and fresh hopes ; one surely among the blessed means whereby God's fiee and loving grace works out our deliverance, our redemption from evil, and renews the strength of each succeeding year so that 'we may mount up again as eagles, may run and not be weary, may walk and not faint.' " And, if turning to the jj^ounger part of my hearers, I may still more directly apply this general lesson to them. Is there no one who, in some shape or other, does not feel the bondage of which I have been speaking ? He has something on his con- science ; he has something on his mind : extravagance, sin, debt, falsehood. Every morning in the first few minutes after waking, it is the first thought that occurs to him ; he drives it away in the day ; he drives it off by recklessness, which only binds it more and more closely round him. Is there anyone who has ever felt, who is at this moment feeling, this grievous * This quotation is from the serinon preached by Dr. Stanley before the University on Act Sunday, 1859 (published by J. H. Parker, of Oxford). I hope that the distinguinhed professor whose words they are will pardon the liberty I have taken in quoting them. No words of my own could have given 8o vividly what I wanted to say. 314 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. burden ? What is the deliverance ? How shall he set himself free ! In what special way does the redemption of Christ, the free grace of God, present itself to him ? There is at least one way clear and simple. He knows it better than anyone can tell him. It is those same words which I used with another purpose. ' The truth shall make him free.' It is to tell the truth to his friend, to his parent, to anyone, whosoever it be, from whom he is concealing that which he ought to make known. One^ word of open, frank disclosure — one resolution to act sin- cerely and honestly by himself and others — one ray of truth ,let into that dark corner will indeed set the whole man free. "Ziiberavi animam meam. ' I have delivered my soul.' What a faithful expression is this of the relief, the deliverance effected by one strong effort of will in one moment of time. ' I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.' So we heard the prodigal's con-' fession this morning. So may the thought well spring up in the minds of any who in the course of this last year have wandered into sin, have found themselves beset with evil habits of wicked idleness, of wretched self-indulgence. Now that you are indeed in the literal sense of the word about to rise and go to your father, now that you will be able to shake off the bondage of bad companionship, now that the whole length of tljis long absence will roll between you and the past — take a long breath, break off the yoke of your sin, of your fault, of your wrong-doing, of your folly, of your perverseness, of your pride, of your vanity, of your weakness ; break it off by truth, break it off by one stout effort, in one steadfast prayer ; break it off by innocent and free enjoyment ; break it off by honest work. Put your ' hand to the nail and your right hand to the workman's hammer,' strike through the enemy which has en- snared you, pierce and strike him through and through. How ever powerful he seems, ' at your feet he will bow, he will fall, he will lie down ; at your feet he will bow and fall, and where he bows, there will he rise up no more. So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord ; but let them that love thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." The two friends separated themselves from the crowd in the porch and walked away, side by side, toward their college. " Well, that wasn't a bad move of ours. It is worth some- thing to hear a man preach that sort of doctrine," said Hardy. " How does he get to know it all ? " said Tom, meditatively. " All what ? I don't see your puzzle." THE END OF THE FRBSHMAN'S YEAR. 315 " Why, all sorts of things that are in a fellow's mind : what he thinks about the fii-st thing in the morning, for instance." " Pretty much like the rest of us, I take it ; by looking at home. You don't suppose that university preachers are un- like you and me." " Well, I don't know. Now do you think he ever had any- thing on his mind that was always coming up and plaguing him, and which he never told to anybody ? " " Yes, I should think so ; most of us must have had." " Have you ? " " Ay, often and often." " And you think his remedy the right one ? " " The only one. Make a clean breast of it, and the sting is gone. There's plenty more to be done afterward, of course ; but there's no question about step No. 1." " Did you ever owe a hundred pounds that you couldn't pay ? " said Tom, with a sudden effort ; and his secret had hardly passed his Hps before he felt a relief which surprised himself. " My dear fellow," said Hardy, stopping in the street, "you don't mean to say you are speaking of yourself ? " " I do though," said Tom, " and it has been on my mind ever since the beginning of Easter term, and has spoilt my temper and everything — that and something else that you know of. You must have seen me getting more and more ill- tempered, I'm sure. And I have thought of it the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, and tried to drive the thought away just as he said one did in his sermon. By Jove, I thought he knew all about it, for he looked right at me just when he came to that place." " But, Brown, how do you mean you owe a hundred pounds ? You haven't read much, certainly ; but you haven't hunted, or gambled, or tailored much, or gone into any other extravagant folly. You must be dreaming." " Am I though ? Come up to my rooms and I'll tell you all about it : I feel better already, now I've let it out. I'll send over for your commons, and we'll have some lunch." Hardy followed his friend in much trouble of mind, consider- ing in himself whether with the remainder of his savings he could not make up the sum which Tom had named. Fortu- nately for both of them a short calculation showed him that he could not, and he gave up the idea of delivering his friend in this summary manner with a sigh. He remained closeted with Tom for an hour, and then came out, looking serious still. 316 ■ TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. but not uncomfortable, and went down to the river. He sculled down to Sandford, bathed in the lasher, and returned in time for chapel. He stayed outside afterward, and Tom came up to him and seized his arm. " I've done it, old fellow," he said ; " look here ; " and pro- duced a letter. Hardy glanced at the direction, and saw that it was to his father. " Come along and post it," said Tom, " and then I shall feel all right." Tftey walked off quickly to the post-office and dropped the letter into the box. " There," he said, as it disappeared, " Uberavi animam meam. I owe the preacher a good turn for that ; I've a good mind to write and thank him. Fancy the poor old governor's face to- morrow at breakfast ! " " Well, you seem to take it easy enough now," said Hardy. " I can't help it. I tell you I haven't felt so jolly this two months. What a fool I was not to have done it before. After all, now that I come to think of it, I can pay it myself, at least as soon as I am of age, for I know I've some money, a legacy or something, coming to me then. But that isn't what I care about now," " I'm very glad, though, that you have the money of your own." "Yes ; but the having told it all is the comfort. Come along, and let's see whether those boys are come. The Old Pig ought to be in by this' time, and I want them to dine in hall. It's only ten months since I came up on it to matricu- late, and it seems twenty years. But I'm going to be a boy again for to-night ; you'll see if I'm not." CHAPTER XXIX. THE XONG VACATION LETTEE-BAG. "June 24, 184- "Mt deae Tom : Your letter came to hand this morning, and it has of course given your mother and me much pain. It is not the money that we care about, but that our son should have deliberately undertaken, or pretended to undertake, what he must have known at the time he could not perform himself. " I have written to my bankers to pay £100 at once to your account at the Oxford Bank. I have also requested my so- licitor to go over to Oxford, and he will probably call on you THE LONG VACATION LETTEE-BAG. 317 the day after you receive this. You say that this person who holds your note of hand is now in Oxford. You will see him in the presence of my solicitor, to whom you will hand the note when you have recovered it. I shall consider afterward what further steps will have to he taken in the matter. " You will not be of age for a year. It will be time enough then to determine whether you will repay the balance of this money out of the legacy to which you will be entitled under your grandfather's will. In the mean time, I shall deduct at the rate of £50 a year from your allowance, and I shall hold you bound in honor to reduce your expenditure by this amount. You are no longer a hoy, and one of the first duties which a man owes to his friends and to society is to live within his in- come. " I make this advance to you on two conditions. First, that you will never again put your hand to a note or bill in a trans- action of this kind. If you have money, lend it or spend it. You may lend or spend foolishly, but that is not the point here ; at any rate, you are dealing with what is your own. But in transactions of this kind you are dealing with what is not your own. A gentlemen should shrink from the possibility of having to come on others, even on his own father, for the fulfillment of his obligations as he would from a lie. I would sooner see a son of mine in his grave than crawling on through life a slave to wants and habits which he must gratify at other people's expense. " My second condition is, that j'ou put an end to your ac- quaintance with these two gentlemen who have led you into this scrape, and have divided the proceeds of your joint note between them. They are both your seniors in standing, you say, and they appear to be familiar with this plan of raising money at the expense of other people. The plain English word for such doings is swindling. What pains me most is that you should have become intimate with young men of this kind. I am not sure that it will not be my duty to lay the whole mat- ter before the authorities of the college. You do not mention their names, and I respect the feeling which has led you not to mention them. I shall know them quite soon enough through my solicitor, who will forward me a copy of the note of hand and signatures in due course. "Your letter makes general allusion to other matters ; and I gather from it that you are dissatisfied with the manner in which you have spent your first year at Oxford. I do not ask for specific confessions, which you seem inclined to offer me ; 318 TOM BROWN AT OXFOKD. in fact, I would sooner not have them, unless there is any other matter in which you want assistance or advice from me. I know from experience that Oxford is a place full of temptation of all kinds, offered to young men at the most critical time of their lives. Knowing this, I have deliberately accepted the re- sponsibility of sending you there, and I do not repent it. I am glad that you are dissatisfied with your first year. If you had not been, I shouldfliave felt much more anxious about your sec- ond. Let bygones be bygones between you and me. You know where to go for strength, and to make confessions which no human ear should hear, for no human judgment caji weigh the cause. The secret places of a man's heart ai*e for himself and God. Your mother sends lier love. "I am, ever your affectionate father, " John Bbown." "June 26, 184-. " My dear Boy : I am not sorry that you have taken my last letter as you have done. It is quite right to be sensitive on these points, and it will have done you no harm to have fancied for forty-eight hours that you had in my judgment lost caste as a gentleman. But now I am very glad to be able to ease your mind on this point. You have done a very foolish thing ; but it is only the habit, and the getting others to bind themselves, and not the doing it one's self for otliers, which is disgraceful. You are going to paj' honorably for your folly, and will owe me neither thanks nor money in the transaction. I have chosen my own terms for repayment, which you have accepted, and so the financial question is disposed of. " I have considered what you say as to your companions — friends I will not call them — and will promise you not to take any further steps, or to mention the subject to anyone. But I must insist on my second condition, that you avoid all further intimacy with them. I do not mean that you are to cut them, or to do anything that will attract attention. But, no more intimacy. " And now, my dear boy, as to the rest of your letter. Mine must indeed have failed to express my meaning. God forbid that there should not be the most perfect confidence between us. There is nothing which I desire or value more. I only question whether special confessions will conduce to it. My experience is against them. I almost doubt whether they can be perfectly honest between man and man ; and, taking into account' the difference of our ages, it seems to me much more THE LONG VACATION LETTER-BAG. 519 likely that we should misunderstand one another. But having said this, I leave it to you to follow your own conscience in the matter. If there is any burden which I can help you to bear, it will be my greatest pleasure, as it is my duty to do it. So now say what you please, or say no more. If you speak, it will be to one who has felt and remembers a young man's trials. " )Ve hope you will be able to come home^o-morrow, or the next day, at latest. Your mother is longing to see you, and I should be glad to have you here for a day or two before the assizes, which are held next week. I should rather like you to accompany me to them, as it will give me the opportunity of introducing you to m.y brother magistrates from other parts of the county, whom you are not likely to meet elsewhere, and it is a good thing for a young man to know his own county well. " The cricket club is very flourishing, you will be glad to hear, and they have put ofE their best matclies, especially those with the South Hants and Landsdown, till your return ; so you are in great request, you see. I am told that the fishing is very good this year, and am promised several days for you in the club water. " September is a long way off, but there is nothing like being beforehand. I have put your name down for a license ; and it is time you should have a good gun of your own ; so I have ordered one for you from a man who has lately settled in the county. He wasPurdy's foreman, with whom I used to build, and, I can see, understands his business thoroughly. His locks are as good as any I have ever seen. I have told him to make the stock rather longer, and not quite so straight as tliat of my old double with which you shot last year. I think I remember you criticised my weapon on these points ; but there will be time for you to alter the details after you get home, if you dis- approve of my orders. It will be more satisfactory if it is built under your own eye. If you continue in the mind for a month's reading with your friend Mr. Hardy, we will arrange it toward the end of vacation ; but would he not come here ? From what you say we should very much like to know him.' Pray ask him from me whether he will pass the last month of the vacation here coaching you. I should like you to be his first regular pupil. Of course, this will be my affair. And now God bless you, and come home as soon as you can. Your mother sends her best love. " Ever your most affectionate " John Beown." 320 tom beown at oxford. "Englebouen Rbctoet, June 28, 184-. " Deaebst Maet : How good of you to write to me so poon ! Your letter has come like a gleam of sunshine. I am in the midst of worries already. Indeed, as you know, I could never quite throw off the fear of what might be happening here, while we were enjoying ourselves at Oxford, and it has all turned out even worse than I expected. I shall never be able to go away agaiB in comfort, I think. And yet, if I had been here, I don't know that I could have done any good. It is so very sad that poor papa is unable to attend to his magistrate's business, and he has been worse than usual, quite laid up in fact, since our return. There is no other magistrate — not even a gentleman in the place, as you know, except the curate, and they will not listen to him, even if he would interfere in their quarrels. But he says he will not meddle with secular matters ; aiid, poor man, I cannot blame him, for it is very sad and wearing to be mixed up in it all. " But now I must tell you all my troubles. You remember the men whom we saw mowing together just before we ■^vent to Oxford. Betty Winburn's son was one of them, and I am afraid the rest are not at all good company for him. When they had finished papa's hay, they went to mow for Farmer Tester. You must remember him, dear, I am sure ; the tall, gaunt man, with heavy, thick lips, and a broken nose, and the top of his head quite flat, as if it had been cut off a little above his eyebrows. He is a very miserly man, and a hard master ; at least, all the poor people tell me so, and he looks cruel. I have always been afraid of him, and disliked him, for I remember as a child hearing papa complain how troublesome he was in the vestry ; and except old Simon, who, I believe, only does it from perverseness, I have never heard anybody speak well of him. " The first day that the men went to mow for Farmer Tester, ho gave them sour beer to drink. You see, dear, they bargain to mow for so much money and their beer. They were very discontented at this, and they lost a good deal of time goingto complain to him about it, and they had high words. " The men said that the beer wasn't fit for pigs, and the farmer said it was quite good enough ' for such as they,' and if they didn't like his beer they might buy their own. In the evening, too, he came down and complained that their mowing was bad, and then there were more high words, for the men are very jealous about their work. However, they went to work as usual the next morning, and all might have gone off, THE LONG VACATION LETTEE-BAG. 321 but in the day Farmer Tester found two pigs in his turnip-field, which adjoins the common, and had tliem put in the pound. One of these pigs belonged to Betty Winburn's son, and tlie other to one of the men who was mowing with him ; so, when they came home at night, they found what had happened. " The constable is our pound-keeper, the little man who amused you so much : he plays the bass-viol in church. When he puts any beasts into the pound he cuts a stick in two, and gives one piece to the person who brings the beasts, and keeps the other himself ; and the owner of the beasts has to bring the other end of the stick to him before he can let them out. Therefore, the owner, you see, must go to the person who has pounded bis beasts, and make a bargain with him for payment of the damage which has been done, and so get back the other end of the stick, which they call the tally, to produce to the pound-keeper. "Well, the men went off to the constable's when they heard their pigs were pounded, to find who had the tally, and, when they found it was Farmer Tester, they went in a body to his house, to remonstrate with him, and learn what he set the damages at. The farmer used dreadful language to them, I hear, and said they weren't fit to have pigs, and must pay half a crown for each pig, before they should have the tally ; and the men irritated him by telling him that his fences were a shame to the parish, because he was too stingy to have them mended, and that the pigs couldn't have found half a crown's worth of turnips in the whole field, for he never put any manure on it, except what he could get off the road, which ought to belong to the poor. At last the farmer drove them away, saying that he should stop the money out of the price he was to pay for their mowing. " Then there was very near being a riot in the parish ; for some of the men are very reckless people, and they went in the evening, and blew horns, and beat kettles before his house, till the constable, who has behaved very well, persuaded them to go away. "In the morning one of the pigs had been taken out of the pound ; not Betty's son's, I am glad to say, for no doubt it was very wrong of the men to take it out. "The farmer was furi- ous, and went with the constable in the morning to find the pig, but they could hear nothing of it anywhere. James Pope, the man to whom it belonged, only laughed at them, and said that he never could keep his pig in himself, because it was ofrandson to on-e of the acting pigs that went about to the 322 TOM BKOWK AT OXFORD. fairs, and all the pigs of that family took to climbing naturally ; so liis pig must have climbed out of the pound. This, of course, was all a story ; the men had lifted the pig out of the pound, and then killed it, so that the farmer might not find it, and sold the meat cheap all over the parish. Betty went to the farmer that morning, and paid the half-crown, and got her sor's pig out before he came home ; but Farmer Tester stopped the other half-crown out of the men's wages, which made mat- ters worse than ever. " The day that we were in the theater at Oxford, Fanner Tester was away at one of the markets. He turns his big cat- tle out to graze on the common, which the poor people say he has no right to do, and in the afternoon a pony of his got into the allotments, and Betty's son caught it, and took it to the constable, and had it put in the pound. The constable tried to persuade him not to do it, but it was of no use ; and so, when Farmer Tester came home, he found that his turn had come. I am afraid that he was not sober, for I hear that he behaved dreadfully both to the constable and to Betty's son, and when he found that he could not frighten tliera, he de- clared he would have the law of them, if it costs liim twenty pounds. So in the morning he went to fetch his lawyer, and when we got home you can fancy what a scene it was. "You remember how poorly papa was when you left us at Lambourn. By the time we got home he was quite knocked up, and so nervous that he was fit for nothing except to have a quiet cup of tea in his own room. I was sure, as we drove up the street, there was something the matter. The hostler was watching outside the Red Lion, and ran in as soon as we came in sight ; and, as we passed the door, out came Farmer Tester, looking very flushed in the face, and carrying his great iron-bandied whip, and a person with him, who I found was his lawyer, and they marched after the carriage. Then the constable was standing at his door, too, and he came after us, and there was a group of men outside the rectory gate. We had not been in the house five minutes before the servant came in to say that Farmer Tester and a gentleman wanted to see papa on particular business. Papa sent out word he was very unwell, and that it was not the proper time to come on busi- ness ; he would see them the next day at twelve o'clock. But they would not go away, and then papa asked me to go out and see them. You can fancy how disagreeable it was ; and I was so angry with them for coming, when they knew how nervous papa is after a journey, as well as that I could not THE LONG VACATION LETTEE-BAG. 323 have patience to persuade them to leave ; and so at last they made poor papa see them after all. He was lying on a sofa, and quite unfit to cope with a hard, bad man like Fai-mer Tester, and a fluent, plausible lawyer. They told their story all their own way, and the farmer declared that the man had tempted the pony into the allotments with corn. And the lawyer said that the constable had no right to keep the pony in the pound, and that he was liable to all sorts of punishmentis. They wanted papa to make an order at once for the pound to be opened, and I think he would have done so, but I asked him in a whisper to send for the constable, and hear what he had to say. The constable was waiting in the kitchen, so he came in in a minute. You can't think how well he behaved. I have quite forgiven him all his obstinacy about the singing. He told the whole story about the pigs, and how' Farmer Tester had stopped money out of the men's wages. And when the lawyer tried to frighten him, he answered him quite boldly, that he mightn't know so much about the law, but he knew what was always the custom long before his time at Englebourn about the pound, and if Farmer Tester wanted his beast out, he must bring the tally like another man. Then tlie lawyer appealed to papa about the law, and said how absurd it was, and that if such a custom were to be upheld, the man who had the tally might charge £100 for the damage. And poor papa looked through his law books, and could find nothing about it all ; and while he was doing it Farmer Tester began to abuse the constable, and said he sided with all the good-for-nothing fellows in the parish, and that bad blood would come of it. But the constable quite fii-ed up at that and told him that it was such as he who made bad blood in the parish, and that poor folks had their rights as well as their betters, and should have l^iem. while he was constable. If he got papa's order to open the pound he supposed he must do it, and 'twas not for him to say what was law, but Harry Winburn had had to get the tally for his pig from Farmer Tester, and what was fair for one was fair for all. "I was afraid papa would have made the order, but the lawyer said something at last which made him take the other side. So he settled that the farmer should pay five shillings for the tally, which was what he had taken from Betty, and had stopped out of the wages, and that was the only order he would make, and the lawyer might do what he pleased about it. The constable seemed satisfied with this, and undertook, to take the money down to Harry Winburn, for Farmer Tester 324 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. declared he would sooner let the pony starve than go himself. And so papa got rid of tliem after an hour and more of this talk. The lawyer and Farmer Tester went away grumbling and very angry to the Red Lion. I was very anxious to liear how the matter ended ; so I sent after the constable to ask him to come back and see me when he had settled it all, and about nine o'clock he came. He had had a very hard job to get Harry Winburn to take the money, and give up the tally. The men said that if Farmer Tester could make them pay half a crown for a pig in liis turnips, which were no bigger than radishes, he ought to pay ten shillings at least for his pony trampling down their corn, which was half grown ; and- 1 couldn't help thinking this seemed very reasonable. In the end, however, the constable had persuaded them to take the money, and so the pony was let out. " I told him how pleased I was at the way he had behaved, but the little man didn't seem quite satisfied himself. He should have liked to have given the lawyer a piece more of his mind, he said, only he was no scholar ; ' but I've a-got all the feeliu's- of a man, miss, though I medn't have the ways o' bringin' on 'em out.' You see I am quite coming round to your opinion about him. But when I said that I lioped all the trouble was over, he shook his head, and he seems to think that the men will not forget it, and that some of the wild ones will be trying to pay Farmer Tester out in the winter nights, and I could see he was very anxious about Harry Winburn ; so I ■promised him to go and see Betty. " I went down to her cottage yesterday, and found her very low, poor old soul, about her son. She has had a bad attack again, and I am afraid her heart is not right. She will not live long if she has much to make her anxious, and how is that to be avoided ? For her son's courting is all going wropg, she can see, though he will not tell her anything about it ; but he gets more moody and restless, she says, and don't take a pride in anything, not even in his flowers or his allotment ; and he takes to going about, more and more every day, with these men, who will be sure to lead him into trouble. " After I left her, I walked up to the Hawk's Lynch, to see whether the view and the air would not do me good ; and it did do me a great deal of good, dear, and I thought of you, and when I should see your bright face and hear your happy laugh again. The village looked so pretty and peaceful, I could hardly believe, while I was up there, that there were all ■ these miserable quarrels and heart-burnings going on in it. I THE LONG VACATION LETTEK-BAG. 325 suppose they go on everywhere, hut one can't help feeling as if there was something specially hard in those which come under one's own eyes, and touch one's self. And then tliey are so frivolous, and everything might go on so comfortably if people would only be reasonable. I ought to have been a man, I am sure, and then I might, j^erhaps, be able to do more, and should have more influence. If poor papa were only well and sti'ong ! " But, dear, I shall tire you with all these long histories and complainings. I have run on till I have no room left for any- thing else ; but you can't think what a comfort it is to me to write it all to you, for I have no one to tell it to. I feel so much better and more cheerful since I sat down to write this. You must give my dear love to uncle and aunt, and let me hear from you again whenever you have time. If you could come over again and stay for a few days it would be very kind ; but I mugt not press it, as there is nothing to attract you here, only we might talk over all that we did and saw at Oxford. " Ever, dearest Mary, your very affectionate cousin, " Katie. "P. S. — I should like to have the pattern of the jacket you wore the last day at Oxford. Could you cut it out in thin paper, and send it in your next ? " "July—, 184-. " Mt Dear Brown : I was very glad to see your hand, and to hear such flourishing accounts of your vacation doings. You won't get any like announcement out of me, for cricket has not yet come so far west as this, at least not to settle. We have a fev pioneers and squatters in the villages ; but, I am sorry to say, nothing yet like matches between the elevens of districts. Neighbors we have none, except the rector ; so I have plentj' of spare time, some of which I feel greatly disposed to devote to you ; and I hope you won't find me too tedious to read. " It is very kind of your father to wish that you shoyld be my first pupil, and to propose that I should spend the last month of this vacation with you in Berkshire. But I do not like to give up a whole month. My father is getting old and infirm, and I can see that it would be a great trial to him, although he urges it, and is always telling me not to let him keep me at home. What do you say to meeting me half-way ? I mean, that you should come here for half of the time, and then that I should return with you for the last fortnight of the vacation. This I could manage perfectly. 326 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. " But you cannot in any case be my first pupil ; for, not to mention that I have been, as you know, teaching for some years, I have a pupil here at this minute. You are not likdy to guess who it is, though you know him well enough — per- haps I should say too well — so, in a word, it is Blake; I had not been at home three days before I got a letter from him, asking me to take him, and putting it in such a way that I couldn't refuse. I would sooner not have had him, as I had already got out of taking a reading party with some trouble, and felt inclined to enjoy myself here in dignified idleness till next term. But what can you do when a man puts it to you as a great personal favor, etc., etc.? So I wrote to accept. You may imagine my disgust a day or two afterward, at get- ting a letter from an uncle of his, some ofiicial person in Lon- don apparently, treating the whole matter in a business point of view, and me as if I were a training groom. He is good enough to suggest a stimulant to me in the shape of extra pay and his future patronage in the event of his nephew's taking a first in Michaelmas term. If I had received this letter before, I think it would have turned the scale, and I should have re- fused. But the thing was done, and Blake isn't fairly respon- sible for his relative's views. So liere he has been for a fort- night. He took a lodging in the village at first ; but of course my dear old father's ideas of hospitality were shocked at this, and here he is, our inmate. " He reads fiercely by fits and starts. A feeling of personal hatred against the examiners seems to urge him on more than any other motive ; but this will not be strong enough to keep him to regular work, and without regular work, he won't do, notwithstanding all his cleverness, and he is a marvelously clever fellow. So the first thing I have to do is to get him steadily to the collar, and how to do it is a pretty particular puzzle. For he hasn't a grain of enthusiasm in his composi- tion, nor any power, as far as I can see, of throwing himself into the times and scenes of which he is reading. The phil- osophy of Greece and the history of Rome are matters of per- fect indifference to him — to be got up by catch-words and dates for examination, and nothing more. I don't think he would care a straw if Socrates had never lived, or Hannibal had destroyed Rome. The greatest names and deeds of the Old World are just so many dead counters to him — the Jewish just as much as the rest. 1 tried him with the story of the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to conquer the Jews, and the gloiious rising of all that was living in the Holy Land under THE LONG VACATION LBTTEE-BAG. 32lr the Maccabees. Not a bit of it ; I couldn't get a spark out of him. He wouldn't even read the story, because it is in the Apocrypha, and so, as he said, the d — d examiners couldn't ask him anything about it in the schools. "Then his sense of duty is quite undeveloped. He has no notion of going or doing anything disagreeable because he ought. So here I am at fault again. Ambition he has in abundance ; in fact, so strongly, that very likely it may in the end pull him through, and make him work hard enough for his Oxford purposes at any rate. But it wants repressing rather than encouragement and I certainly shan't appeal to it. " You will begin to think I dislike him and want to get rid of him, but it isn't the case. You know what a good temper he has, and how remarkably well he talks ; so he makes him- self very pleasant, and my father evidently enjoys his com- pany ; and then to be in constant intercourse with a subtle intellect like his, is pleasantly exciting, and keeps one alive and at high pressure, though one can't help always wishing that it had a little heat in it. You would be immensely amused if you could drop in on us. " I think I have told you, or you must have seen it for your- self, that my father's principles are true blue, as becomes- a jailor of the time of the great war, while his instincts and practice are liberal in the extreme. Our rector, on the con- trary, is liberal in principles, but an aristocrat of the aristo- crats in instinct and practice. They are always ready enough, therefore, to do battle, and Blake delights in the war, and fans it and takes part in it as a sort of free-lance, laying little logi- cal pit-falls for the combatants alternately, with that deferen- tial manner of his. He gets some sort of intellectual pleasure, I suppose, out of seeing where they ought to tumble in ; for tumble in they don't, but clear his pit-falls in their stride — at least my father does — quite innocent of having neglected to distribute his middle term ; and the rector, if he has some ink- ling of these traps, brushes them aside, and disdains to spend powder on anyone but his old adversary and friend. I em- ploy myself in trying to come down ruthlessly on Blake him- self; and so we spend our evenings after dinner, which comes off at the primitive hour of five. We used to dine at three, but my father has conformed now to college hours. If' the rector does not come, instead of argumentative talk, we get stories out of my father. In the mornings we bathe and boat and read. So, you see, he and I have plenty of one another's company, and it is certainly odd that we get on so well with so S28 ton .teEOWN AT OXFOfiD. very few points of sympathy. But, luckily, Lesides his good temper and cleverness, he has plenty of humor. On the whole, I think we shall rub through the two months which he is to spend here without getting to hate one another, though there is little chance of our becoming friends. Besides putting some history and science into him (scholarship he does not need) I shall be satisfied if I can make him give up his use of the pronoun 'you' before he goes. In talking of the corn laws, or foreign policy, or India, or any other political subject, however interesting, he never will identify himself as an English- man ; and 'you do this,' or ' yoic expect that,' is forever in his mouth, speaking of his own countrymen. I believe if the French were to land to-morrow on Portland he would comment on our attempts to dislodge them as if he had no concern with the business, expect as a looker-on. " You will think all this a rather slow return for your jolly, gossiping letter, full of cricket, archeiy, fishing, and I know not what pleasant goings-on. But what is one to do ? One can only write about what is one's subject of interest for the time being, and Blake stands in that relation to me just now. I should prefer it otherwise, but si on n'a pas ce qu'on aime il faut aimer ce qu'on a. I have no incident to relate ; these parts get on without incidents somehow, and without society. I wish there were some, particularly ladies' society. I break the tenth commandment constantly, thinking of Commemor- ation, and that you are within a ride of Miss Winter and her cousin. When you see them next, praj' present my respectful compliments. It is a sort of consolation to think that one may cross their fancy for a moment and be remembered as part of a picture which gives them pleasure. With which piece of sentiment I may as well shut up. Don't you forget my mes- sage now, and " Believe me, ever yours most truly, " John Haedy. "P. S. — I mean to speak to Blake, when I get a chance, of that wretched debt which j'ou have paid, unless you object. I should think better of him if he seemed more uncomfortable about his affairs. After all he may be more so than I think, for he is very reserved on such subjects." " Englebotjen Rectoet, "July, 184-. " Deaebst Maet: I send the coachman with this note, in order that yau may not be anxious about me. I have just re- THE LONG VACATION LBTTEE-BAS. 329 turned from poor Betty Winburn's cottage to write it. She is very, very ill, and I do not think can last out move than a day or two ; and she seems to cling to me so that I cannot have the heart to leave her. Indeed, if I could make up my mind to do it, I should never get her poor, white, eager face out of my head all day, so that I should be very bad company and quite out of place at your party, making everybody melan- choly and uncomfortable who came near me. So, dear, I am not coming. Of course it is a great disappointment. I had set my heart on being with you, and enjoying it all thor- oughly ; and even at breakfast this morning knew of nothing to hinder me. My dress is actually lying on the bed at this minute, and it looks very pretty, especially the jacket like yours, which I and Hopkins have managed to make up from the pattern you sent, though you forgot the sleeves, which made it rather hard to do. Ah, well ! it is of no use to think of how pleasant things would have been which one cannot have. You must write me an account of how it all went off, dear ; or perhaps you can manage to get over here before long to tell me. " I must now go back to poor Betty. She is such a faithful, patient old thing, and has been such a good woman all her life that there is nothing painful in being by her now, and one feels sure that it will be much happier and better for her to be at rest. If she could only feel comfortable about her son I am sure she would think so herself. Oh, I forgot to say that her attack was brought on by the shock of hearingthat he had been summoned for an assault. Farmer Tester's son, a young man of about his own age, has, it seems, beeij of late waylaying Simon's daughter and making love to her. It is so very hard to make out the truth in matters of this kind. Hopkins says she is a dressed-up little minx who runs after all the young men in the parish ; but really, from .what I see and hear from other persons, I think she is a good girl enough. Even Betty, who looks on her as the cause of most of her own trouble, has .never said a word to make me think that she is at all a light person, or more fond of admiration than any other good-look- ing girl in the parish. "But those Testers are a very wicked set. You cannot think what a misfortune it is in a place like this to have these rich families with estates of their own, in which the young men begin to think themselves beyond the common farmers. They ape the gentlemen, and give themselves great airs, but of course no gentleman will associate with them, as they are 330 TOM BKOWIT AT OXFORD. quite uneducated ; and the consequence is that they live a great deal at home, and give themselves up to all kinds of wickedness. This younger Tester is one of these. His father is a very bad old man, and does a great deal of harm here ; and the son is following in bis steps, and is quite as bad, or worse. So you see I shall not easily believe that Harry Win- burn has been much in the wrong. However, all I know of it at present is that young Tester was beaten by Harry yester- day evening in the village street, and that they came to papa at once for a summons. " Oh, here is the coachman ready to start ; so I must con- clude, dear, and go back to my patient. I shall often think of you during the day. I am sure you will have a charming party. With best love to all, believe me, ever, dearest, " Your most affectionate " Katie. " P. S. — I am very glad that uncle and aunt take to Tom, and that he is staying with you for some days. You will find him very useful in making the party go off well, I am sure." CHAPTER XXX. amusements at barton manor. " A LETTER, miss, from Englebourn," said a footman, coming up to Mary with the note given at the end of the last chapter on a waiter. She took it and tore it open ; and, while she is reading it, the reader may be introduced to the place and com- pany in which we find her. The scene is a large, old-fashioned, square brick house, backed by fine trees, in the tops of which the rooks live, and the jackdaws and starlings in the many holes which time has worn in the old trunks ; but they are all away on this fine summer morning, seeking their ineal and en- joying themselves in the neighboring fields. In front of the liouse is a pretty flower-garden, separated by a ha-ha from a large pasture, sloping southward gently down to a brook, which glides along through watercress and willow beds to join the Kennet. The beasts have all been driven off, and on the upper part of the field, nearest the house, two men are fixing up a third pair of targets on the rich, short grass. A large tent is pitched near the archery-ground, to hold quivers and bow-cases, and luncheon, and to shelter lookers-on from the midday sun. Beyond the brook a pleasant, well-timbered country lies, with high chalk-downs for an horizon, ending in Marlborough Hill, AMtrSEMENTS AT BARTON MANOR. 331 faint and blue in the west. This is the place which Mary's father has taken for the summer and autumn, and where she is fast becoming the pet of the neighborhood. It yill not perhaps surprise readers to find that our hero has managed to find his way to Barton Manor in the second week of the vacation, and, having made the most of his opportuni- ties, is acknowledged as a cousin by Mr. and Mrs. Porter. Their boys are at home for the holidays, and Mr. Porter's great wish is that they should get used to the country in their summer holidays. And as they have spent most of their child- hood and boyhood in London, to which he has been tied pretty closely hitherto, this is a great opportunity. The boys only wanted a preceptor, and Tom presented himself at the light mo- ment, and soon became the hero of Charley and Neddy Porter. He taught them to throw flies and bait crawfish nets, to bat fowl, and ferret for rabbits, and to saddle and ride their ponies, besides getting up games of cricket in the spare evenings, which kept him away from Mr. Porter's dinner-table. Tliis last piece of self-denial, as he considered it, quite won over that gentle- man, who agreed with his wife that Tom was just the sort of companion they would like for the boys, and so the house was thrown open to him. The boys were always clamoring for him when he was away, and making their mother write off to press him to come again ; which he, being a very good-natured young man, and particu- larly fond of boys, was ready enough to do. So this was the third visit he had paid in a month. Mr. and Mrs. Brown wondered a little that he should be so very fond of the young Porters, who were good boys enough, but very much like other boys of thirteen and fifteen, of whom there were several in the neighborhood. He had indeed just mentioned an elder sister, but so casually that their attention had not been drawn to the fact, which had almost slipped out of their memories. On the other hand, Tom seemed so completely to identify himself with the boys and their pursuits that it never occurred to their father and mother, who were doatingly fond of them, that, after all, they might not be the only attraction. Mary seemed to take very little notice of him, and went on with her own pursuits much as usual. It was true that she liked keeping the score at cricket, and coming to look at them fishing or rabbiting in her walks ; but all that was very natural. It is a curious and merciful dispensation of Providence that most ■ fathers and mothers seem never to be capable of remembering their own experience, and will probably go on till the end of 332 TOM WROWN AT OXPOBD. time thinking of their sons of twenty and daughters of sixteen or seventeen as mere children, who may be allowed to run ahout together as much as they please. And, where it is other- wise, the results are not very different, for there are certain mysterious ways of holding intercourse implanted in the youth of both sexes, against which no vigilance can avail. So on this, her great fete day, Tom had been helping Mary all the morning in dressing the rooms with flowers, and ai-- ranging all the details — where people were to sit at the cold dinner ; how to find the proper number of seats ; how the dining-room was to be cleared in time for dancing when the dew began to fall. In all which matters there were many obvious occasions for those petits soins which are much valued by persons in like situations ; and Tom was not sorry that the boys had voted the whole -preparation a' bore, and had gone off to the brook to grapple in the bank for crawfish till the shooting began. The arrival of the note had been the first contre-temps of the morning, and they were now expecting guests to arrive every minute. " What is the matter ? No bad news, I hope," he said, see- ing her vexed expression. " Why, Katie can't come. I declare I could sit down and cry. I shan't enjoy the party a bit now, and I wish it were all over." " I am sure Katie would be very unhappy if she thought you were going to spoil your day's pleasure on her account." " Yes, I know she would ; but it is so provoking when I had looked forward so to having her." " You have never told me why she cannot come ; she was quite full of it all when I saw her a few days back." " Oh, there is a poor old woman in the village dying who is a great friend of Katie's. Here is her letter ; let me see,'^ she ; aid, glancing over it to see that there was nothing in it which she did not wish him to read, " you may read it if you like." Tom began reading. " Betty Winburn," he said, when he came to the name, " what, poor dear old Betty ! why, I've known her ever since I was born. She used to live in our par- ish, and I haven't seen her this eight years nearly. And her boy Harry ; I wonder what has become of him ? " " You will see if you read on," said Mary ; and so he read to the end, and then folded it up and returned it. " So poor old Betty is dying. Well, she was always a good soul, and very kind to me when I was a boy. I should like to see her once again, and perhaps I might be able to do some- t'.iin" for her son." AMUSEMENTS AT BAETON MANOR. 333 " Wliy should we not ride over to Englebourn to-morrow ? They will be glad to get us out of the way while the house is being straightened." "I should like it of all things, if it can be managed." " Oh, I will manage it somehow, for I must go and see that dear Katie. I do feel so ashamed of myself when I think of all the good she is doing, and I do nothing but put flowers about, and play the piano. Isn't she an angel now ?" " Of course she is." • "Yes ; but I won't have that sort of matter-of-course ac- quiescence. Now, do you really mean that Katie is as good as an angel ? " " As seriously as if I saw the wings growing out of her shoulders, and dewdi-ops hanging on them." " You deserve to have some things not at all like wings growing out of your head. How is it that you never see when I don't want you to talk your nonsense ? " " How am I to talk sense about angels ? I don't know any- thing about them." "You know what I mean, perfectly. I say tliat dear Katie is an angel, and I mean that I don't know anything in her — no, not one single thing — which I should like to have changed. If the angels are all as good as she " " If I why I shall begin to doubt your orthodoxy." " You don't know what I was going to say." " It doesn't matter what you were going to say. You couldn't have brought that sentence round to an orthodox conclusion. Oh, please don't look angry, now. Yes, I quite see what you mean. You can think of Katie just as she" is now in heaven, without being shocked." Mary paused for a moment before she answered, as if she were rather taken by surprise at this way of putting her mean- ing, and then said seriously : " Indeed, I can. I think we should all be perfectly happy if we were all as good as she is." "But she is not veiy happy herself, I am afraid." " Of course not ; how can she be, when all the people about her are so troublesome and selfish?" " I can't fancy an angel the least like Uncle Robert ; can you? " "I won't talk about angels any more. You have made me feel quite as if I had been saying something wicked." "Now really, it is too hard that you should lay the blame on me, when you began the subject yourself. You ought at least to let me say what I have to say about angels." 334 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOED. " Why, you said you knew nothing about them half a minute ago." "But I may have my notions like other people. You" have your notions. Katie is your angel." "Well, then, what are your notions?" "Katie is rather too dark for my idea of an angel. I can't fancy a dark angel." " Why, how can you call Katie dark ? " " I only say she is too dark for my idea of an angel." " Well, go on." " Then, she is rather too grave." " Too grave for an angel ! " " For my idea of an angel — one doesn't want one's angel to be like one's self, and I am so grave you know." " Yes, very. Then your angel is to be a laughing angel. A laughing angel, and yet very sensible ; never talking non- sense ? " "Oh, I didn't say that." " But you said he wasn't to be like you." " He ! who in the world do you mean by he ? " "Why, your angel, of course." " My angel ! You don't really suppose that my angel is to be a man ? " " I have no time to think about it. Look, they are putting those targets quite crooked. You are responsible for the tar- gets ; we must go and get them sti'aight." They walked across the ground toward the targets, and Tom settled them according to his notions of opposites. "After all, archery is slow work," he said, when the targets were settled satisfactorily. " I don't believe anybody really enjoys it." " Now that is because you men haven't it all to yourselves. You are jealous of any sort of game in which we can join. I believe you are afraid of being beaten." " On the contrary, that is its only recommendation, that you can join in it." " Well, I think that ought to be recommendation enough. But I believe it is much harder than most of your games. You can't shoot half as well as you play cricket ; can you ? " " No, because I never practice. It isn't exciting to be walk- ing up and down between two targets, and doing the same thing over and over again. Why, you don't find it so yourself. You hardly ever shoot." "Indeed I do, though, constantly." AMTJSBMBNTS AT BAKTON MANOB. 335 " Why, I have scarcely ever seen you shooting." " That is because you are away with the boys all day." " Oh, I am never too far to know wliat is going on. I'm sure you have never practiced for more than a quarter of an hour any day that I have been here." " Well, perhaps I may not have. But I tell you I am very fond of it." Here the two boys came up from the brook, Neddy with his Scotch cap full of crawfish. " Why, you wretched boys, where have you been ? You are not fit to be seen," said Mary, shaking the arrows at them which she was carrying in her hand. " G-o and dress directly, or you will be late. I think I heard a carriage drive up just now." ; " Oh, there's plenty of time. Look what whackers. Cousin Tom," said Charley, holding out one of his prizes by its back toward Tom, while the indignant crawfish flapped its tail and worked about with its claws in the hopes of getting hold of something to pinch. " I don't believe those boys have been dry for two hours to- gether in daylight since you first came here," said Mary to Tom. "Well, and they're all the better for it, I'm sure," said Tom. " Yes, that we are," said Charley. " I say, Charley," said Tom, " your sister says she is very fond of shooting." " Ay, and so she is. And isn't she a good shot too ? I be- lieve she would beat you at fifty yards." " There naw, you see, you need not have been so unbeliev- ing," said Mary. " Will you give her a shot at your new hat, Cousin Tom ? " said Neddy. " Yes, Neddy, that I will ; " and he added to Mary, " I will bet you a pair of gloves you do not hit it in three shots." " Very well," said Mary, " at thirty yards ? " " No, no ! fifty yards was the named distance." " No, fifty yards is too far. Why, your hat is not bigger than the gold." " Well, I don't mind splitting the difference ; we will say forty." " Very well — three shots at forty yards." , " Yes ; here, Charley, run and hang my hat on that target." The boys rushed off with' the hat — a new white one — and hung it with a bit of string over the center of one of the targets, and then, stepping a little aside, stood, clapping their bands, shouting to Mary to take good aim. 336 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " You must string my bow," she said, handing it to him as she buckled on her guard. " Now, do you repent ? I am go- ing to do my best, mind, if I do shoot." " I scorn repentance ; do your worst," said Tom, stringing the bow and handing it back to her. "And now I will hold your arrows ; here is the forty yards." Mary came to the place where he had stepped, her eyes full of fun and mischief ; and he saw at once that she knew what she was about as she took her position and drew the first arrow. It missed the hat by some three inches only, and the boys clapped and shouted. " Too near to be pleasant," said Tom, handing the second arrow. "I see you can shoot." "Well, I will let you off still." " Gloves and all ? " " No, of course you must pay the gloves." " Shoot away then. Ah, that will do," he cried, as the second arrow struck considerably above the hat ; " I shall get my gloves yet," and he handed the third arrow. They were too intent on the business in hand to observe that Mr. and Mrs. Porter and several guests were already on the hand bridge which crossed the ha-ha. Mary drew her third arrow, paused a moment, loosed it, and this time with fatal aim. The boys rushed to the target, towai-d which Maiy and Tom also hurried, Mr. and Mrs. Porter and the newcomers follow- ing more quietly. " Oh, look here — what fun," said Charley, as Tom came up, holding up the hat spiked on the arrow which he had drawn out of the target. "What a wicked shot," he said, taking the hat and turning to Mary. " Look here, you have actually gone through three places — through crown, and side, and brim." Mary began to fell quite sorry at her own success, and looked at the wounded hat sorrowfully. " Hollo, look here — here's papa and mamma and some people, and we aint dressed ! Come along, Neddy," apd the boys made away toward the back premises, while Mary and Toin, turning round, found themselves in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Mr. Brown, and two or three other guests. AMUSEMENTS AT BARTON MANOE. 337 CHAPTER XXXI. BEHIND THE SCENES. Mr. and Mrs. Brown had a long way to drive home that evening, including some eight miles of very indifferent chalky road over the downs which separate the Yale of Kennet from the Vale of White Horse. Mr. Brown was an early man, and careful of his horses, who responded to his care by being always well up to much more work than they were ever put to. The drive to Barton Manor and back in a day was a rare event in their lives. Their master, taking this fact into consideration, was bent on giving them plenty of time for the return jour- ney, and had ordered his groom to be ready to start by eight o'clock ; but, that they might not distui-b the rest by their early departure, he had sent the carriage to the village inn instead of to the Porters' stables. At the appointed time, therefore, and when the evening's amusements were just beginning at the manor house, Mr. Brown sought out his wife ; and, after a few words of leave- taking to their host and hostess, the two slipped quietly away, and walked down the village. The carriage was standing be- fore the inn all ready for them, with the hostler and Mi-. Brown's groom at the horses' heads. The carriage was a high phaeton having a roomy front seat with a hood to it, specially devised by Mr. Brown with a view to his wife's comfort, and that he might with a good conscience enjoy at the same time the pleasure of her society and of driving his own horses. When once in her place Mrs. Brown was as comfortable as she would have been in the most luxurious barouche with C springs, but the ascent was certainly rather a drawback. The pleasure of sitting by her husband and of receiving his assiduous help in the preliminary climb, however, more than compensated to Mrs. Brown for this little inconvenience. Mr. Brown helped her up as usual, and arranged a plaid carefully over her knees, the weather being too hot for the apron. He then proceeded to walk round the horses, patting them, ex-amining the bits, and making inquiries as to how they had fed : and, having satisfied himself on these points, and feed the ostler, took the reins, seated himself by his wife, and started at a steady pace toward the hills at the back of Bar- ton village. For a minute or two neither spoke, Mr. Brown being en- grossed with his horses and she with her thoughts. Presentlv, 338 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOBD. however, he turned to her, and, having ascertained that she was quite comfortable, went on : " Well, my dear, what do you think of them ? " " Oh, I tliink they are agreeable people," answered Mrs. Brown ; " but one can scarcely judge from seeing them to-day. It is too far for a drive ; we shall not be home till midnight." "But I am very glad we came. After all they are connec- tions through poor Robert, and he seems anxious that they should start well in the county. Why, he has actually written twice, you know, about our coming to-day. We must try to show them some civility." " It is impossible to come so far often," Mrs. Brown persisted. " It is too far for ordinary visiting. What do you say to asking them to come and spend a day or two with us ? " " Certainly, my dear, if you wish it," answered Mrs. Brown, but without much cordiality in her voice. " Yes, I should like it : and it will please Robert so much. We might have him and Katie over to meet them, don't you think?" "Let me see," said Mrs. Brown, with much more alacrity, " Mr. and Mrs. Porter will have the best bedroom and dressing- room; Robert must have the south room, and Katie the chintz. Yes, that will do ; I can manage it very well." " And their daughter ; you have forgotten her." " Well, you see, dear, there is no more room." " Why, there is the dressing-room, next to the south room, with a bed in it. I'm sure nobody can want a better room." "You know, John, that Robert cannot sleep if there is the least noise. I could never put anyone into his dressing-room; there is only a single door between the rooms, and, even if they made no noise, the fancy tliat someone was sleeping there would keep him awake all night." "Plague take his fancies! Robert has given way to them till he is fit for nothing. But you can put him in the chintz room, and give the two girls the south bedroom and dressing- room." " What, put Robert in a room which looks north ? My dear John, what can you be thinking about ? " Mr. Brown uttered an impatient grunt, and as a vent to his feelings more decorous on the whole than abusing his brother- in-law, drew his whip more smartly than usual across the backs of his horses. The exertion of muscle necessary to reduce those astonished animals to their accustoined steady trot re- stored his temper and he returned to the charge. BEHIND THE SCENES. 339 " I suppose we must manage it on the second floor, then, un- less you could get a bed run up in the school-i'oom." " No, dear ; I really should not like to do that — it would be BO very inconvenient. We are always wanting the room for workwomen or servants; besides, I keep my account books and other things there." " Then I'm afraid it must be on the second floor. Some of the children must be moved. The girl seems a nice girl, with no nonsense about her, and won't mind sleeping up there. Or, why not put Katie upstairs ? " " Indeed, I should not think of it. Katie is a dear, good girl, and I will not put anyone over her head." " Nor I, dear. On the contrary, I was asking you to put her over another person's head," said Mr. Brown, laughing at his own joke. This unusual reluctance on the part of his wife to assist in carrying out any hospitable plans of his began to strike him ; so, not being an adept at concealing his thoughts, or gaining his point by any attack except a direct one, after driving on for a minute in silence he turned suddenly on his wife, and said : " Why, Lizzie, you seem not to want to ask the girl." " Well, John, I do not see the need oFit at all." " No, and you don't want to ask her." " If you must know, then, I do not." " Don't you like her ? " "I do not know her well enough either to like or dis- like." " Then, why not ask her, and see what she is like ? But the truth is, Lizzie, you have taken a prejudice against her." " Well, John, I think she is a thoughtless girl, and extrava- gant ; not the sort of girl, in fact, that I should wish to be much here." " Thoughtless and extravagant ! " said Mr. Brown, looking grave ; " how you women can be so sharp on one another ! Her dress seemed to me simple and pretty, and her manners very lady-like and pleasing." " You seem to have quite forgotten about Tom's hat,"8aid Mrs. Brown. "Tom's white hat — so I had," said Mr. Brown, and he re'- lapsed into a low laugh at the remembrance of the scene. " I call that his extravagance, and not hers." "It was a new hat, and a very expensive one, which he had bought for the vacation, and it is quite spoilt." " Well, my dear ; really, if Tom will let girls shoot at his 340 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. hats, lie must take the consequences. He must wear it with the holes, or buy another." " How can he afford another, John ? You know how poor he is." Mr. Brown drove on for several minutes without speaking. He knew perfectly well what his wife was coming to now, and after weighing in his mind the alternatives of accepting battle or making sail and changing the subject altogether, said : , " You know, my dear, he has brought it on himself. A headlong, generous sort of youngster, like Tom, must be taught early that he can't have his cake and eat his cake. If he likes to lend his money, he must find out that he hasn't it to spend." " Yes, dear, I quite agree with you. But £60 a year is a great deal to make him pay." " Not a bit too much, Lizzie. His allowance is quite enough without it to keep him like a gentleman. Besides, after all, he gets it in meal or in malt ; I have just paid £25 for his gun." " I know how kind and liberal you are to him ; only I am so , afraid of his getting into debt." " I wonder what men would do, if they hadn't some soft- hearted woman always ready to take their parts and pull them out of scrapes," said Mr. Brown. " Well, dear, how much do you want to give the boy ? " " Twenty-five pounds, just for this year. But out of my own allowance, John." " Nonsense ! " replied Mr. Brown ; " you want your allow- ance for yourself and the children. " Indeed, dear John, I would sooner not do it at all then, if I may not do it out of my own money." " Well, have it your own way. I believe you would always look well dressed, if you never bought another gown. Then, to go back to what we were talking about just now — you will find a room for the girl, somehow ?" " Yes, dear, certainly, as I see you are bent on it." " I think it would be scarcely civil not to ask her, especially if Katie comes. And I own I think her very pretty, and have taken a great fancy to her." " Isn't it odd that Tom should never have said anything about her to us ? He has talked of all the rest, till I knew them quite well before I went there." " No ; it seems to me the most natural thing in the world." "Yes, dear, very natural. But I can't help wishing he had talked about her more ; I should think it less dangerous." BEHIND THE SCESTBS. 341 " Oh, you think Master Tom is in love with her, eh ? " said Mr. Brown, laughing. "More unlikely things have happened. You take it very easily, John." "Well, we have all been boys and girls, Lizzie. The world hasn't altered much, I suppose, since I used to get up at five on winter mornings, to ride some twenty miles to cover, on ihu chance of meeting a young lady on a gray pony. I re- member how my poor dear old father used to wonder at it, wlien our hounds met close by, in a better country. I'm afraid I foi-got to tell him what a pretty creature ' Gipsey' was, and how well she was ridden." "But Tom is only twenty, and he must go into a profes- sion." " Yes, yes ; much too young, I know — too young for any- thing serious. We had better see them together, and tlien, if there is anything in it, we can keep them apart. There cannot be much the matter yet." "Well, dear, if you are satisfied, I am sure I am." And so the conversation turned on other subjects, and Mr. and Mrs. Brown enjoyed their moonlight drive home through the delicious summer night, and were quite sorry when the groom got down from the hind seat-to open their own gates at half -past twelve. About the same time, the festivities at Barton Manor were coming to a close. There had been cold dinner in the tent at six, after the great match of the day ; and, after dinner, the announcement of the scores, and the distribution of prizes to the winners. A certain amount of toasts and speechifying followed, which the ladies sat through with the most exemplary appearance of being amused. When their healths had been proposed and acknowledged, they retired, and were soon fol- lowed by the younger portion of the male sex ; and, while the J. P.'s and clergymen sat quietly at their wine, which Mr. Por- ter took care should be remarkably good, and their wives went • in to look over the house and have tea, their sons and daughters split up into groups, and some shot handicaps, and some walked about and flirted, and some played at bowls or lawn billiards. And soon the band appeared again from the servants' hall, mightily refreshed, and dancing began on the grass, and in due time was transferred to the tent, when the grass got damp with the night dew, and then to the hall of the house, when the lighting of the tent began to fail. And then there came a supper, extemporized out of the remains of the dinner ; 342 . TOM BEOWN AT OXPOBD. after which papas and mammas began to look at their watches, and remonstrate with daughters, coming up with sparkling eyes and hair a little shaken out of place, and pleading for " just one more dance." " You have been going on ever since one o'clock," remonstrated the parents. " And are ready to go on till one the next day," replied the children. By degrees, how- ever, the frequent sound of wheels were heard, and the dancers got thinner and thinner, till, for the last half -hour, some half- dozen couples of young people danced an interminable reel, while Mr. and Mrs. Porter and a few of the most good-natured matrons of the neighborhood looked on. Soon after midnight the band struck ; no amount of negus could get anything more out of them but " God Save the Queen," which they accord- ingly played and departed ; and then came the final cloaking and driving off of the last guests. Tom and Maiy saw the last of them into their carriage at the hall-door, and lingered a moment in the porch. " What a lovely night ! " said Maiy. " How I hate going to bed ! " " It is a dreadful bore," answered Tom ; " but here is the- butler waiting to shut up ; we must go in." "I wonder where papa and mamma are." " Oh, they are only seeing things put a little to rights. Let us sit here till they come ; they must pass by to get to their rooms." So the two sat down on some hall chairs. "Oh, dear! I wish it were all coming over again to- morrow," said Tom, leaning back, and looking up at the ceil- ing. " By the way, remember I owe you a pair of gloves : what color shall they be ? " " Any color you like. I can't bear to think of it. I felt so dreadfully ashamed when they all came up, and your mother looked so grave ; I am sure she was very angry." " Poor mother, she was thinking of my hat with three ar- row holes in it." " Well, I am very sorry, because I wanted them to like me." "And so they will ; I should like to know who can help it." " Now, I won't have any of your nonsensical compliments. Do you think they enjoyed the day ? " " Yes, I am sure they did. My father said he had never liked an archery meeting so much." " But they went away so early." ^ " They had a very long drive, you know. Let me see," he said, feeling in his breast-pocket, " mother left me a note, and BEHIND THE SCENES. 343 I have never looked at it till now." He took a slip of paper out and read it, and his face fell. " What is it ? " said Mary, leaning forward. " Oh, nothing ; only I must go to-morrow morning." " There, I was sure she was angry." " No, no ; it was written this morning before she came here. I can tell by the paper." " But she will not lei; you stay here a day, you see." " I have been here a good deal, considering all things. I should like never to go away." " Perhaps papa might find a place for you, if you asked him. Which should you like — to be tutor to the boys, or game- keeper ? " " On the whole, I should prefer the tutorship at present ; you take so much interest in the boys." " Yes, because they have no one to look after them now in the holidays. But, when you come as tutor, I shall wash my hands of them." " Then I shall decline the situation." "How are you going home to-morrow ? " " I shall ride round by Englebourn. They wish me to go round and see Katie and Uncle Robert. You talked about riding over there yourself this morning." " I should like it so much. But how can we manage it ? I can't ride back by myself." " Couldn't you stay and sleep there ? " " I will ask mamma. No, I am afraid it can hardly be man- aged ; " and so saying, Mary leant back in her chair, and be- gan to pull to pieces some flowers she held in her hand. " Don't pull them to pieces ; give them to me," said Tom. " I have kept the rosebud you gave me at Oxford, folded up in " " Which you took, you mean to say. No, I won't give you any of them — or, let me see — yes, here is a sprig of lavender ; you may have that." " Thank you. But whj lavender ? " " Lavender stands for sincerity. It will remind you of the lecture you gave me." " I wish you would forget that. But you know what flowers mean, then ? Do give me a lecture : you owe me one. What do those flowers mean which you will not give me, — the piece of heather, for instance ? " " Heather signifies constancy." " And the carnations ? '' 344 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " Jealousy." "And the heliotrope ? " " Oh, never mind the heliotrope." " But it is such a favorite of mine. Do tell me what it means ? " "Je vous aime," said Mary, with alaugli, and a slight blush ; "it is all nonsense. Oh, here's mamma at last," and slie jumped up and went to meet her mother, who came out of the drawing-room, candle in hand. "My dear Mary, I thought you were gone to bed," said Mrs. Porter, looking from one to the other, seriously. " Oh, I'm not the least tired, and I couldn't go without wish- ing you and papa good -night, and thanking you for all the trouble you have taken." " Indeed, we ought all to thank you," said Tom ; " every- body said it was the pleasantest party they had ever been at." " I am very glad it went off well," said Mrs. Porter, gravely ; " and now, Mary, you must go to bed." " I am afraid I must leave you to-morrow morning," said Tom. "Yes ; Mrs. Brown said they expect you at home to-morrow." " I am to ride round by Uncle Robert's ; would you like one of the boys to go with me ? " " O dear mamma, could not Charley and I ride over to Engle- bourn ? I do so long to see Katie." " No, dear ; it is much too far for you. We will drive over in a few days' time." And, so saying, Mrs. Porter wished Tom good-night, and led off her daughter. Tom went slowly upstairs to his room, and, after packing his portmanteau for the carrier to take in the morning, threw up his window and leant out into the night, and watched the light clouds swimming over the moon, and the silver mist fold- ing the water meadows and willows in its soft, cool mantle. His thoughts were such as will occur to any reader who lias passed the witching age of twenty ; and the scent of the helio- trope-bed, in the flower-garden below, seemed to rise very strongly on the night air. CHAPTER XXXII. A CEISI8. In the forenoon of the following day Tom rode slowly along the street of Englebourn toward the rectory gate. He had left Barton soon after breakfast, without having been able to A CEISIS. 345 excbange a word with Mary except in the presence of her mother, and yet he had felt more anxious than ever before at least to say good-by to her without witnesses. With this view hQ had been up early, and had whistled a tune in the hall, and held aloud conversation with the boys, who had appeared half- di-essed in the gallery above, while he brushed the dilapidated white hat, to let all whom it might concern know- that he was on the move. Then he had walked up and down the garden in full view of the \vindows till the bell rang for prayers. He was in the breakfast-room before the bell had done ringing, and Mrs. Porter, followed by her daughter, entered at the same moment. He could not help fancying that the conversation at breakfast was a little constrained, and particularly remarked that nothing was said by the heads of the family when the boys vociferously bewailed. his approaching departure, and tried to get him to name some day for his return before their holidays ended. Instead of encouraging the idea, Mrs. Porter reminded Neddy and Charley tliat they had only ten days more, and had not yet looked at the work they had to do for their tutor in the holidays. Immediately after breakfast Mrs. Porter wished him good-by herself very kindly, but (he could not help thinking) without that air of near relationship which he had flattered himself was well established between himself and all the mem- bers of the Porter family ; and then she had added, " Now, Mary, you must say good-by ; I want you to come and help me with some work this morning," He had scarcely looked at her all the morning, and now one shake of the hand and she was spirited away in a moment, and he was left standing, dis- satisfied and uncomfortable, with a sense of incompleteness in his mind, and as if he had had a thread in his life suddenly broken off which he could not tell how to get joined again. However, there was nothing for it but to get off. He had no excuse for delay, and had a long ride before him ; so he and the boys went round to the stable. On their passage through the garden the idea of picking a nosegay and sending it to her by one of the boys came into his head. He gathered the flowers, but then thought better of it and threw them away. What right, after all, had he to be sending flowers to her — above all, flowers to which they had attached a meaning, jokingly it was true, but still a meaning ? No, he had no right to do it ; it would not be fair to her, or her father and mother, after the kind way in which they had all received him. So he threw away the flowers, and mounted and rode off, watched by the boys, who waved their straw hats as he looked back just 346 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. before coming to a turn in the road which would take him out of sight of the manor house. He rode along at a foot's pace for some time, thinking over the events of the past week ; and then, beginning to feel purposeless, and somewhat melancholy, urged his horse into a smart trot along the waste land which skirted the road. But, go what pace he would, it mattered not : he could not leave his thoughts behind. So he pulled up again after a mile or so, slackened his reins, and, leaving his horse to pick his own way along the road, betook himself to the serious consideration of his position. The more he thought of it the more discontented he became, and the day clouded over as if to suit his temper. He felt as if within the last twenty-four hours he had been somehow un- warrantably interfered with. His mother and Mrs. Porter had both been planning something about him, he felt sure. If they had anything to say, why couldn't they say it out to him ? But what could there be to say ? Couldn't he and Mary be trusted together without making fools of themselves ? He did not stop to analyze his feelings toward her, or to consider whether it was very prudent or desirable for her that they should be thrown so constantly and unreservedly together. He was too much taken up with what he chose to consider his own wrongs for any such consideration. " Why can't they let me alone ? " was the question which he" asked himself perpetu- ally, and it seemed to him the most reasonable one in the world, and that no satisfactory answer was possible to it, except that he ought to be, and should be, let alone. And so at last he rode along Englebourn Street, convinced that what he had to ■do before all other things just now was to assert himself properly, and show everyone, even his own mother, that he was no longer a boy to be managed according to anyone's fancies except his own. He rode straight to the stables and loosed the girths of his horse, and gave particular directions about grooming and feed- ing him, and stayed in the stall for some minutes rubbing his ears and fondling him. The antagonism which possessed him for the moment against mankind perhaps made him appreciate the value of his relations with a well-trained beast. Then he went round to the house and inquired for his uncle. He had not been in Englebourn for some years, and the servant did not know him, and answered that Mr. Winter was not out of his room and never saw strangers till the afternoon. Where was Miss Winter then ? She was down the village at Widow Winbum's, and he couldn't tell when she would be back, the A CRISIS. 347 man said. The contents of Katie's note of the day before had gone out of his head, but the mention of Betty's name recalled them, and with them something of the kindly feeling which he had had on hearing of her illness. So saying he would call later to see his uncle, he started again to find the widow's cot- tage, and his cousin. The servant had directed him to the last house in the village, but, when he got outside the gate, there were houses in two directions. He looked about for someone from whom to in- quire further, and his eyes fell upon our old acquaintance, the constable, coming out of bis door with a parcel under his arm. The little man was in a brown study, and did not notice Tom's first address. He was, in fact, anxiously thinking over his old friend's illness and her son's trouble ; and was on his way to Farmer Grove's, having luckily the excuse of taking a coat to be tried on, in the hopes of getting him to interfere and patch up the quarrel between young Tester and Harry. Tom's first salute had been f i-iendly enough ; no one knew better how to speak to the poor, among whom he had lived all his life, than he. But, not getting any answer, and being in a touchy state of mind, he was put out, and shouted : " Hollo, my man, can't you hear me ? " " Ees, I bean't dunch," replied the constable, turning and looking at his questioner. "I thought you were, for I spoke loud enough before. Which is Mrs. Winburn's cottage ? " " The furdest house down ther," he said, pointing, " 'tis in my way if you've a mind to come." Tom accepted the offer and walked along by the constable. " Mrs. Winburn is ill, isn't she ? " he asked, after looking his guide over. "Ees, her be — terrible bad," said the constable. " What is the matter with her, do you know ? " " Zummat o' fits, I hears. Her've had 'em this six years on and off." " I suppose it's dangerous. I mean, she isn't likely to get well ? " " 'Tis in the Lord's hands," replied the constable, " but her's that bad wi' pain, at times, 'twould be a mussy if 'twould plaase he to take her out on't." " Perhaps she mightn't think so," said Tom, supei-ciliously ; he was not in the mind to agree with anyone. The constable looked at him solemnly for a moment and then said : •' Her'g been a Qod-f eaiia' woman irgm ber youth up, and 348 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. her's had a deal o' trouble. Thaay as the Lord loveth he chas- teneth, and 'tisn't such as thaay as is afeared to go afore him." " Well, I never found that having troubles made people a bit more anxious to get ' out on't,' as you call it," said Tom. "It don't seem to me as you can 'a had much o' trouble to judge by," said the constable, who was beginning to be nettled by Tom's manner. " How can you tell that ? " " Leastways 'twould be whoam-made, then," persisted the constable, " and ther's a sight o' odds atween whoam-made troubles and thaay as the Lord sends." " So there may be ; but I may have seen both sorts for any- thing you can tell." " Nay, nay ; the Lord's troubles leaves his marks." " And you don't see any of tliem in my face, eh ? " The constable jerked his head after his own peculiar fashion, but declined to reply directly to this interrogatory. He par- ried it by one of his own. " In the doctorin' line, make so bould ? " " No," said Tom. " You don't seem to have such very good eyes, after all." " Oh, I seed you wasn't old enough to be doin' for yourself, like ; but I thought you med ha' been a 'sistant, or summat." " Well, then, you're just mistaken," said Tom, considerably disgusted at being taken for a country doctor's assistant. " I ax your pardon," said the constable. " But if you bean't in the doctorin' line, what be gwine to Widow Winburn's for, make so bould?" " That's my lookout, I suppose," said Tom, almost angrily. " That's the house, isn't it? "and he pointed to the cottage already described at the corner of Englebourn Copse. "Ees." " Good-day, then.'' " Good-day," muttered the constable, not at all satisfied with this abrupt close of the conversation, but too unready to pro- long it. He went on his way very slowly, looking back often, till he saw the door open ; after which he seemed better satis- fied, and ambled out of sight. " The old snuffler ! " thought Tom, as he strode up to the cottage door — " a ranter, I'll be bound, with his ' Lord's troubles,' and 'Lord's hand,' and 'Lord's marks.' I hope TJncIe Robert hasn't many such in the parish." He knocked at the cottage door, and in a few seconds it opened gently, and Katie slipped out with her finger on her A CRISIS. 349 lips. She made a slight gesture of surprise at seeing him, and held out her hand. " Hush ! " she said, " she is asleep. You are not in a hurry ? " " No, not particularly," he answered, abruptly; for there was something in her voice and manner which jarred with hishumor. " Hush ! " she said again, " you must not speak so loud. We can sit down here, and talk quietly. I shall hear if she moves." So he sat down opposite to her in the little porch of the cottage. She left the door ajar, so that she might catch the least movement of her patient, and then turned to him with a bright smile, and said : " Well, I am so glad to see you ! What good wind blows yon here ? " " No particularly good wind, that I know of. Mary showed me your letter yesterday, and mother wished me to come round here on my way home ; and so here I am." " And how did the party go off ? I long to hear about it." " Very well ; half the county were there, and it was all very well done." " And how did dear Mary look ? " " Oh, just an usual. But now, Katie, why didn't you come ? Mary and all of us were so disappointed." " I thought you read my letter." " Yes, so I did." "Then you know the reason." "I don't call it a reason. Really, you have no right to shut yourself up from everything. You will be getting moped to death." " But do I look moped ! " she said ; and he looked at her, and couldn't help admitting to himself, reluctantly, that she did not. So he re-opened fire from another point. " You will wear yourself out, nursing every old woman in the parish." "But I don't nurse every old woman." " Why, there is no one here but you to-day now," he said, with a motion of his head toward the cottage. " No, because I have let the regular nurse go home for a few hours. Besides, this is a special ease. You don't know what a dear old soul Betty is.'.' " Yes, I do ; I remember her ever since I was a child." " Ah, I forgot ; I have often heard her talk of you. Then you ought not to be surprised at anything I may do for her." " She is a good, kind pld woman, I know. But still I must 350 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD., say, Katie, you ought to think of your friends and relations a little, and what you owe to society." " Indeed, I do think of my friends and relations vei-y much, and I should have liked, of all things, to have been with you yes- terday. You ought to be pitying me, instead of scolding me." " My dear Katie, you know I didn't mean to scold you ; and nobody admires the way you give yourself up to visiting, and all that sort of thing, more than I ; only you ought to have a little pleasure som.etimes. People have a right to think of themselves and their own happiness a little." " Perhaps I don't find visiting, and all that sort of thing, as you call it, so very miserable. But now, Tom, you saw in my letter that poor Betty's son has got into trouble ? " " Yes ; and that is what brought on her attack, you said." " I believe so. She was in a sad state about him all yester- day — so painfully eager and anxious. She is better to-day ; but still I think it would do her good if you would see her, and say you will be a friend to her son. Would you mind ? " " It was just what I wished to do yesterday. I will do all I can for him, I'm sure. I always liked him as a boy ; you can tell her that. But I don't feel, somehow, to-day, at least, as if I could do any good by seeing her." "Oh, why not?" " I don't think I'm in the right humor. Is she very ill ? " Yes, very ill indeed ; I don't think she will recover." " Well, you see, Katie, I'm not used to death-beds. I shouldn't say the right sort of thing." " How do you mean — the right sort of thing ? " " Oh, you know. I couldn't talk to her about her soul. I'm not fit for it ; and it isn't my place." " No, indeed, it isn't. But you can remind her of old times, and say a kind word about her son." " Very well, if you don't think I shall do any harm." "I'm sure it will comfort her. And now tell me about yesterday." They sat talking for some time in the same low tone, and Tom began to forget his causes of quarrel with the world, and gave an account of the archery party from his own point of view. Katie saw, with a woman's quickness, that he avoided mentioning Maiy, and smiled to herself, and drew her own conclusions. At last, there was a slight movement in the cottage, and laying her hand on his arm, she got up quickly and went in. In a few minutes she came to the dooragain. A CKISIS. 351 " How is she ? " asked Tom. " Oh, much the same ; but she has waked without pain, which is a great blessing. Now, are you ready ? " " Yes ; but you must go with me." " Come in, then." She turned, and he followed into the cottage. Betty's bed had been moved into the kitchen, for the sake of light and air. He glanced at the corner where it stood with almost a feeling of awe, as he followed his cousin on tiptoe. It was all he could do to recognize the pale, drawn face which lay on the coarse pillow. The rush of old memories which the sight called up, and the thought of the suffering of his poor old friend, touched him deeply. Katie went to the bedside, and stooping down, smoothed the pillow, and placed her hand for a moment on the forehead of her patient. Then she looked up, and beckoned to him, and said, in a low, clear voice : " Betty, here is an old friend come to see you ; my cousin, Squire Brown's son. You remember him quite a little boy." The old woman moved her head toward the voice and smiled, but gave no further sign of recognition. Tom stole across the floor, and sat down by the bedside. " Oh, yes, Betty," he said, leaning toward her and speaking softly, " you must remember me. Master Tom — who used to come to your cottage on baking days for hot bread, you know." " To be sure, I minds un, bless his little heart," said the old woman faintly. " Hev he come to see poor Betty ? Do 'ee let un com, and lift un up so as I med see un. My sight be get- ting dimlike." " Here he is, Betty," said Tom, taking h«r hand — a hard- working hand, lying there with the skin all puckered from long and daily acquaintance with the washing-tub — " I'm Master Tom." " Ah, dearee me," she said slowly, looking at him with luster- less eyes. " Well, you be growed into a fine young gentleman, surely. And how s the squire, and Madam Brown, and all the fam'ly?" " Oh, very well, Betty ; they will be so sorry to hear of your illness." " But there aint no hot bread for un. 'Tis ill to bake wi' no fuz bushes, and bakers' stuff is poor for hungry folk." "I'm within three months as old as your Harry, you know," said Tom, trying to lead her back to the object of his visit. " Harry," she repeated, and then collecting herself went on. 3S2 TOM BEOtVN AT OXJ'OM). " our Harry ? where is he ? They haven't sent un to prison, and his mother a-dyin' ? " " Oh, no, Betty ; he -will be here directly. I came to ask whether there is anything I can do for you." " You'll stand by un, poor buoy — our Harry, as you used to play wi' when you was little — 'twas they as aggravated un so as he couldn't a-bear it, afore ever he'd 'a struck a fly." " Yes, Betty ; I will see that he has fair play. Don't trouble about that ; it will be all right. You must be quite quiet, and not trouble yourself about anything, that you may get well and about again." " Nay, nay, Master Tom. I be gwine whoam ; ees, I be gwine whoam to my maester, Harry's father— I knows I be — and you'll stand by un when I be gone ; and Squire Brown'll say a good word for un to the magistrates ? " " Yes, Betty, that he will. But you must cheer up, and you'll get better yet ; don't be afraid." " I bean't af eard. Master Tom ; no, bless you, I bean't af eard but what the Lord'llbe mussiful to a poor lone woman like me, as has had a sore time of it since my maester died, wi' a hungry boy like our Harry tokep back and belly ; and the rheumatics terrible bad all winter time." " I'm sure, Betty, you have done your duty by him, and every- one else." " Dwon't 'ee speak o' doin's. Master Tom. 'Tis no doin's o' owrn as'll make any odds where I be gwine." Tom did not know what to answer ; so he pressed her hand and said : " Well, Betty, I am very glad I have seen you once more ; I shan't forget it. Harry shan't want a friend while I live." " The Lord bless you. Master Tom, for that word," said the dying woman, returning the pressure, as her eyes filled with tears. Katie, who had been watching her carefully from the other side of the bed, made him a sign to go. " Good-by, Betty," he said ; " I won't forget, you may be sure ; God bless you ; " and then disengaging his hand gently, went out again into the porch, where he sat down to wait for his cousin. In a few minutes the nurse returned, and Katie came out of the cottage soon afterward. "Now I will walk up home with you," she said. "You must come in and see papa. Well, I'm sure you must be glad you went in. Was not I right ? " A CRISIS. , 353 " Yes, indeed ; I wish I could have said something more to comfort her." "You couldn't have said more. It was just what she wanted." " But where is her son ? I ought to see him before I go." " He has gone to the doctor's for some medicine. He will be back soon." " Well, I must see him ; and I should like to do something for him at once. I'm not very flush of money, but I must give you something for him. You'll take it ; I shouldn't like to offer it to him." " I hardly think he wants money ; they are well off now. He earns good wages, and Betty has done her washing up to this week." " Yes, but he will be fined, I suppose, for this assault ; and then, if she should die, there will be the funeral expenses." " Very well ; as you please," she said ; and Tom proceeded to hand over to her all his ready money, except a shilling or two. After satisfying his mind thus he looked at her and said : " Do you know, Katie, I don't think I ever saw you so happy and in such spirits ?" " There now ! And yet you began talking to me as if I were looking sad enough to turn all the beer in the parish sour." " Well, so you ought to be, according to Cocker, spending all your time in sick rooms." " According to who ? " "According to Cocker." "Who is Cocker?" " Oh, I don't know ; some old fellow who wrote the rules of arithmetic, I believe ; its only a bit of slang. But, I repeat, you have a right to be sad, and it's taking an unfair advantage of your relations to look as pleasant as you do." Katie laughed. " You ought not to say so, at any rate," she said, " for you look all the pleasanter for your visit to a sick room.'* " Did I look very unpleasant before ? " " Well, I don't think you were in a very good humor." " No, I was in a very bad humor, and talking to you and poor old Betty has set me right, I think. But you said hers was a special case. It must be very sad work in general." " Only when one sees people in great pain, or wlien they are wicked, and quarreling, or complaining about nothing ; 354 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOED. then I do get very low sometimes. But even then it is much better than keeping to one's self. Anything is better than thinking of one's self, and one's own trouble." " I dare say you are right," said Tom, recalling his morn- ing's meditation, " especially when one's troubles are home- made. Look, here's an old fellow who gave me a lecture on that subject before I saw you this morning, and took me for the apothecary's boy." They were almost opposite David's door, at which he stood with a piece of work in his hand. He had seen Miss Winter from his lookout window, and had descended from his board in hopes of hearing news. Katie returned his respectful and anxious salute, and said, " She is no worse, David. We left her quite out of pain and very quiet." " Ah, 'tis to be hoped as she'll hev a peaceful time on't now, poor soul," said David ; " I've a been to Farmer Grove's, and I hope as he'll do summat about Harry." " I'm glad to hear it," said Miss Winter, " and my cousin here, who knew Hariy very well when they were little boys together, has promised to help him. This is Harry's best friend," she said to Tom, " who has done more than anyone to keep him right." David seemed a little embarrassed, and began jerking his head about when his acquaintance of the morning, whom he had scarcely noticed befoi-e, was introduced by Miss Winter as " my cousin." "I wish to do all I can for him," said Tom, "and I'm very glad to have made your acquaintance. You must let me know whenever I can help ; " and betook out a card and handed it to David, who looked at it, and then said : " And I be to write to you, sir, then, if Harry gets into trouble ? " " Yes, but we must keep him out of trouble, even home- made ones, which don't leave good marks, you know," said Tom. " And thaay be nine out o' ten o' aal as comes to a man, sir," said David, " as I've a-told Harry scores o' times." " That seems to be your text, David," said Tom, laughing. " Ah, and ^'tis a good un too, sir. Ax Miss Winter else. 'Tis a sight better to hev the Lord's troubles while you be about it, for thaay as hasn't makes wus for theirs^lves out o' nothin'. Dwon't 'em, miss ? " " Yes ; you know that I agree with you, David." A CRISIS. 355 " Good-by, then," said Tom, holding out his hand, " and mind you let me hear from you." " What a queer old bird, with his whole wisdom of man packed up small for ready use, like a quack doctor," he said, as soon as they were oiit of hearing. " Indeed, he isn't the least like a quack doctor. I don't know a better man in the parish, though he is rather obstinate, like all the rest of them." " I didn't mean to say anything against him, I assure you," said Tom ; " on the contrary I think him a fine old fellow. But I didn't think so this morning, when he showed me the way to Betty's cottage." The fact was that Tom saw all things and persons with quite a different pair of eyes fi'om those which he had been provided with when he arrived in Englebourn that morning. He even made allowances for old Mr. Winter, who was in his usual querulous state at luncheon, though perhaps it would have been difficult in the whole neigh- borhood to find a more pertinent comment on and illustration of the constable's text than the poor old man furnished, with his complaints about his own health and all he had to do and think of, &,nd everybody about hira. It did strike Tom, how- ever, as very wonderful how sucli a character as Katie's could have grown up under the shade of, and in constant contact with, such a one as her father's. He wished his uncle good- by soon after luncheon, and he and Katie started again down the village — she to return to her nui'sing and he on his way home. He led his horse by the bridle, and walked by her side down the street. She pointed to the Hawk's Lynch as they walked along, and said, " You should ride up there ; it is scarcely out of your way. Mary and I used to walk there every day when she was here, and she was so fond of it." At the cottage they found Harry Winburn. He came out, and the two young men shook hands, and looked one another over, and exchanged a few shy sentences. Tom managed with difficulty to say the little he had to say, but tried to make up for it by a hearty manner. It was not the time or place for any unnecessary talk ; so in a few minutes he was mounted and riding up the slope toward the heath. " I should say he must be half a stone lighter than I," he thought, " and not quite so tall ; but he looked as hard as iron, and tough as whipcord. What a No. 7 he'd make in a heavy crew ! Poor fellow, he seems dreadfully cut up. I hope I shall be able to be of use to him. Now for this place which Katie showed me from the village street," 356 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. He pressed his horse up the steep side of the Hawk's Lynch. The exhilaration of the scramble, and the sense of power, and of some slight risk, which he felt as he helped on the gallant beast with hand and knee and heel, and the loose turf and stones flew from his hoofs and rolled down the hill behind him, made his eyes kindle and his pulse beat quicker as he reached the top and pulled up under the Scotch firs. " Tliis was her favorite walk, then. No wonder. What an air, and what a view !" He jumped oflE his horse, slipped the bridle over his 'arm, and let him pick away at the short grass and tufts of heath as he himself first stood, and then sat, and looked out over the scene which she had so often looked over. Slie might have sat on the very spot he was sitting on ; she must have taken in the same expanse of wood and meadowy village and park, and dreamy distant hill. Her presence seemed to fill the air round him. A rush of new thoughts and feelings swam through his brain and carried him, a willing piece of drift-man, along with them. He gave himself up to the stream, and rev- eled in them. His eyes traced back the road along which he had ridden in the morning, and rested on the Barton woods, just visible in the distance, on this side of the point where all outline, except that of the horizon, began to be lost. The flick- ering July air seemed to beat in a pulse of purple glory over the spot. The soft wind which blew straight from Barton seemed laden with her name, and whispered it in the firs over his head. Every nerve in his body was bounding with new life, and he could sit still no longer. He rose, sprang on his horse, and, with a shout of joy, turned from the vale and rushed away on to the heath, northward, toward his home behind the chalk hills. He had ridden into Englebourn in the morning, an almost unconscious dabbler by the margin of the great stream ; he rode from the Hawk's Lynch in the after- noon over head and ears, and twenty, a hundred, ay, unnum- bered fathoms below that, deep, consciously, and triumphantly in love. But at what a pace, and in what a form ! Love, at least in his first access, must be as blind a horseman as he is an archer. The heath was rough with peat-cutting and turf -cut- ting, and many a deep-rutted farm road and tracks of heather and furze. Over them and through them went horse and man — horse rising seven and man twenty off, a well-matched pair in age for a wild ride — headlong toward the north, till a blind rut somewhat deeper than usual put an end to their 'career, and sent the good horse staggering forward some thirty feet on BKOWJM PATRONUS. 357 to his nose aud knees, and Tom over his shoulder, on to his back in the heather. " Well, it's lucky it's no worse," thought our hero, as he picked himself up and anxiously examined the horse, who stood trembling and looking wildly puzzled at the whole proceeding. " I hope he hasn't overreached. What will the governor say ? His knees are all right. Poor old boy," he said, patting him, " no wonder you look astonished. You're not in love. Come along; we won't make fools of ourselves any more. What is it ? " A true love forsaken a new love may get, But a neck that's once broken can never be set. What stuff ; one may get a neck set for anything 1 know ; but a hew love — blasphemy ! " The rest of the ride passed off soberly enough, except in Tom's brain, wherein were built up in gorgeous succession castles such as we have all built, I suppose, before now. And with the castles were built up side by side good honest resolves to be worthy of her, and win her and worship her with body, and mind, and soul. And, as a first instalment away to the winds went all the selfish morning thoughts ; and he rode down the northern slope of the chalk hills a dutiful and affectionate son, at peace with Mrs. Porter, and honoring her for her care of the treasure which he was seeking, and in good time for dinnei-. " Well, dear," said Mrs. Brown to her husband when they were alone that night, " did you ever see Tom in such spirits, and so gentle and affectionate ? Dear boy ; there can be noth- ing the matter." " Didn't I tell you so ? " replied Mr. Brown ; " you women have always got some, nonsense in your heads as soon as your boys have a hair on their chin or your gii-ls begin to put up their back hair." " Well, John, say what you will, I'm sure Mary Porter is a very sweet, taking girl, and " " I am quite of the same opinion," said Mr. Brown, "and am very glad you have written to ask them here." And so the worthy couple went happily to bed, CHAPTER XXXHI. BKOWN PATEONUS. On a Saturday afternoon in August, a few weeks after his eventful ride, Tom returned to Englebourn Rectory, to stay over Sunday and attend Betty Winburn's funeral. He was 358 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOKD. strangely attracted to Harry by the remembrance of their old boyish rivalry ; by the story, which he had heard from his cousin, of the unwavering perseverance with which the young peasant clung to and pursued his suit for Simon's daughter ; but, more than all, by the feeling of gratitude with which he remembered the effect his visit to Betty's sick room had had on him, on the day of his ride from Barton Manor. On that day he knew that he had ridden into Englebourn in a miserable mental i^g, and had ridden out of it in sunshine, which had lasted through the intervening weeks. Somehow or another he had got set straight then and there, turned into the right road and out of the wrong one, at what he very naturally be- lieved to be the most critical moment of his life. Without stopping to weigh accurately the respective merits of the several persons whom he had come in contact with on that day, he credited them all with a large amount of gratitude and good will, and Harry with his mother's share as well as his own. So he had been longing to do something for him ever since ; the more he rejoiced in and gave himself up to his own new sensations, the more did his gratitude become as it were a burden to him, and yet no opportunity offered of letting off some of it in action. The magistrates, taking into considera- tion the dangerous state of his mother, had let Harry off with a reprimand for his assault, so there was nothing to be done there. He wrote to Katie, offering more money for the Win- burns, but she declined, adding, however, to her note by way of postscript, that he might give it to her clothing club, or coal club. Then came the news of Betty's death, and an intima- tion from Katie that she thought Harry would be much grati- fied if he would attend the funeral. He jumped at the sug- gestion. All Englebourn, from the Hawk's Lynch to the Rec- tory, was hallowed ground to him. The idea of getting back there, so much nearer to Barton Manor, filled him with joy which he tried in vain to repress when he thought of the main object of his visit. He arrived in time to go and shake hands with Harry before , dinner, and though scarcely a word passed between them, he . saw with delight that he had evidently given pleasure to the mourner. Then he had a charming long evening with Katie, walking in the garden with her between dinner and tea, and after tea discoursing in low tones over her work-table, while Mr. Winter benevolently slept in his armchair. Tlieir dis- course branched into many paths, but managed always some- how to end in the sayings, beliefs, and perfections of the young BROWN PATEONUS. 359 lady of Barton Manor. Tom wondered how it had happened so when he got to his own room, as he fancied he had not be- trayed himself in the least. . He had determined to keep reso- lutely on his guard, and to make a confidant of no living soul till he was twenty-one ; and though sorely tempted to break his resolution in favor of Katie, had restrained himself. He might have spared himself all the trouble, but that he did not know, being unversed in the ways of women, and all unaware of the subtlety and quickness of their intuitions in all matters connected with the heart. Poor, dear, stolid, dim-sighted man- kind, how they do see through us and walk round us ! The funeral on the Sunday afternoon between churches had touched him much, being the first he had ever attended. He walked next behind the chief mourner, the few friends, among whom David was conspicuous, yielding place to him. He stood beside him at churcl), and at the open grave, and made the responses as firmly as he could, and pressed his shoul- der against his, when he felt the strong frame of the son trem- .bling with the weight and burden of his resolutely suppressed agony. When they parted at the cottage door, to which Tom accompanied the mourner and his old and tried friend David, though nothing but a look and a grasp of the hand passed be- tween them, he felt that they were bound by a new and invisi- ble bond ; and as he walked back up the village and past the churchyard, where the children were playing about on the graves, stopping every now and then to watch the sexton as he stamped down and filled in the mold on the last made one, beside which he had himself stood as a mourner, and heard the bells beginning to chime for the afternoon service, resolved within himself that he would be a true and helpful friend to the widow's son. On this subject he could talk f i-eely to Katie, and did so that evening, expounding how much one in his posi- tion could do for a young laboring man if he' really was bent upon it, and building up grand castles for Harry, the founda- tions of which rested on his own determination to benefit and patronize him. Katie listened half doubtingly at first, but was soon led away by his confidence, and poured out the tea in the full belief that, with Tom's powerful aid, all would go well. After which they took to reading the " Christian Year " to- gether, and branched into discussions on profane poetry, which Katie considered scarcely proper for the evening, but which, nevertheless, being of such rare occurrence with her, she had not the heart to stop. The next morning Tom was to return home, and after break- 360 ■roM BiRowir at oxposd. fast began the subject of his plans for Harry again, when Katie produced a small paper packet, and handed it to him, saying : " Here is your money again ! " " What money ? " "The money you left with me for Hany Winburn. I thought at the time that most probably he would not take it." " But are you sure he doesn't want it ? Did you tiy hard to get him to take it ? " said Tom, holding out his hand reluc- tantly for the money. " Not myself. I couldn't offer him money myself, of course ; but I sent it by David, and begged him to do all he could to persuade him to take it." " Well, and why wouldn't he ? " " Oh,- he said the club money which was coming in was more than enough to pay for the funeral, and for himself be didn't want it." " How provoking ! I wonder if old David really did his best to get him to take it ? " " Yes, I'm sure he did. But you ought to be very glad to find some independence in a poor man." " Bother his independence. I don't like to feel that it costs me nothing but talk — I want to pay." " Ah, Tom, if you knew the poor as well as I do, you wouldn't say so. I am afraid there are not two other men in the parish who would have refused your money. The fear of undermining their independence takes away all my pleasure in giving." " Undermining ! Why, Katie, I am sure I have heard you mourn over their stubbornness and unre?asonableness." " Oil, yes; they are often provokingly stubborn and unrea- sonable, and yet not independent about money, or anything tliey can get out of you. Besides, I acknowledge that I have become wiser of late ; I used to like to see them dependent, and cringing to me, but now I dread it." " But you would like David to give in about the singing wouldn't you ? " " Yes; if he would give in,T should be very proud. I have learnt a great deal from him ; I used positively to dislike him, but now that I know him, I think him the best man in the parish. If he ever does give in, and I think he will, it will be worth anything, just because he is so independent." "That's all very well, but what am I to do to show Harry Winburn that I mean to be his friend, if he won't take money ? " BiSOWN PATEONUS. 361 " You have come over to his mother's funeral — he will think more of that than of all the money you could give him ; and you can show sympathy for him in a great many ways." " Well, I must try. By the way, about his love affair ; is the young lady at hom6 ? I have never seen her, you knoV." " No, she is away with an aunt, looking out for a place. I have persuaded her to get one, and leave home again for tlie present. Her father is quite well now, and she is not wanted." " Well, it seems I can't do any good with her, then, but could not I go and talk to her father about Harry ? I might help liim in that way." " You must be very careful, Simon is such an odd-tempered old man." "Oh, I'm not afraid ; he andl are great chums, and a little soft soap will go a long way with him. Fancy if I could get him tliis very morning to ' sanction Harry's suit,' as the phrase is ; what should you think of me ? " "I should think very highly of your powers of persuasion." Not the least daunted by his cousin's misgivings, Tom stai'ted in quest of Simon, and found him at work in front of the green- house, surrounded by many small pots and heaps of finely sifted mold, and absorbed in his occupation. Simon was a rough, stolid Berkshire rustic, somewhat of a tyrant in the bosom of his family, an unmanageable servant, a cross-grained acquaintance ; as a citizen, stiff-necked and a grumbler, who thought that nothing ever went right in the parish ; but, withal, a thoroughly honest worker, and when allowed to go his own way, — and no other way would he go, as his mistress had long since discovered, — there was no man who earned his daily brgad more honestly. He took a pride in his work, and the rectory garden was always trim and well kept, and the beds bright with flowers from early spring till late autumn. He was absorbed in what he was about, and Tom came up close to him without attracting the least sign of recognition, so he stopped, and opened the conversation. " Good-day, Simon ; it's a pleasure to see a garden looking so gay as yours." Simon looked up from his work, and when he saw who it was, touched his battered old hat, and answered : " Morain', sir. Ees, you finds me alius in blume." "Indeed I do, Simon; but how do you manage it? I should like to tell my father's gardener." " 'Tis no use to fell un if a hevn't found out for hisself ; 'tis nothin' but lookin' a bit f orrard and farmyard stuff as does it." 362 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. " Well, there's plenty of farmyard stuff at home, and yet, somehow, we never look half so bright as you do." " May be as your gardener just takes and hits it auver the top o' the ground, and lets it lie. That's no kinder good, that bean't — 'tis the roots as wants the stuff ; and you med jist as well take and put a round o' beef again my backbwone as hit the stuff auver the ground, and never see as it gets to the roots o' tlie plants." " No, I don't think it can be that," said Tom, laughing ; " our gardener seems always to be digging his manure in, but someliow he can't make it come out in flowers as you do." " Tiier be mwore waays o' killin' a cat besides choking on un wi' cream," said Simon, chuckling in his turn. " That's true, Simon," said Tom ; "the fact is, a gardener must know his business as well as you to be always in bloom, eh ? " " That's about it, sir," said Simon, on whom the flattery was beginning to tell. Tom saw this, and thought he might now feel his way a little further with the old man. "I'm over on a sad errand," he said ; "I've been to poor Widow Winburn's funeral — she was an old friend of yours, I think?" " Ees ; I minds her long afore she wur married," said Simon, turning to his pots again. " She wasn't an old woman, after all," said Tom. " Sixty-two year old cum Michaelmas," said Simon. " Well, she ouglit to have been a strong woman for another ten years at least ; why, you must be older than she by some years, Simon, and you can do a good day's work yet with any man." Simon went on with his potting without replying, except by a carefully measured grunt, sufficient to show that he had heard the remark, and was not much impressed by it. Tom saw that he must change his attack, so, after watching Simon for a minute, he began again. " I wonder why it is that the men of your time of life are so much stronger than the young ones in constitution. Now, I don't believe there are three young men in Englebourn who would have got over that fall you had at Farmer Groves's so quick as you have ; most young men would have been crippled for life by it." " Zo 'em would, the young wosbirds. I dwon't make no ac- count on 'em,'' said Simon. " And you don't feel any the worse for it, Simon ? " BEOWK PATRONtrS. 363 " Narra mossel," replied Simon ; but presently he seemed to recollect something, and added, " I wun't saay but what I feels it at times when I've got to stoop about much." " Ah, I'm sorry to hear that, Simon. Then you oughtn't to have so much stooping to do ; potting, and that sort of thing, is the work for you, I should think, and just giving an eye to everything about the place. Anybody could do the digging and setting out cabbages, and your time is only wasted at it." Tom had now found the old man's weak point. " Ees, sir, and so I tells miss," he said ; " but wi' nothin' but a bit o' glass no bigger'n a cowcumber-frame, 'tis all as a man can do to keep a few plants alive dr.oo the winter." " Of course," said Tom, looking round at the very respectable greenhouse which Simon had contemptuously likened to a cu- cumber-frame, " you ought to have at least another house as big as this for forcing." " Master aint pleased, he aint," said Simon," if he dwoti't get his things, his spring wegetables, and his strawben-ies, as early as though we'd a-got forcin' pits, and glass like other folk. 'Tis a year and mwore since he promised as I sh'd hev glass along that ther wall, but 'tis no nigher comin' as I can see. I be to spake to miss about it now, he says, and when I spakes to her, 'tis, ' O Simon, we must wait till the 'spensary's 'stab- lished,' or, ' O Simon, last winter wur a werry tryin' wun, and the sick club's terrible bad off for funds' — and so we gwoes on, and med gwo on, for ought as I can see, so long as ther's a body sick or bad off in aal the parish. And that'll be alius. For what wi' miss wisitin' on 'em, and sendin' on 'em din- ners, and aal the doctor's stuff as is served out o' the 'spensary — w'y, 'tis enough to keep 'em bad aal ther lives. Ther aint no credit in gettin' well. Ther wur no sich a caddie about sick folk when I wur a buoy." Simon had never been known to make such a long speech before, and Tom augured well for his negotiation. " Well, Simon," he said, " I've been talking to my cousin, and I think she will do what you want now. The dispensary is set up, and the people are very healthy. How much glass should you want now along that wall ? " " A matter o' twenty fit or so," said Simon. " I think that can be managed," said Tom, " I'll speak to my cousin about it, and then you would have plenty to do in the houses, and you'd want a regular man under you." " Ees ; 'twould take two on us reg'lar to kep things as should be." 364 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. "And you ought to have somebody -who knows what he is about. Can you think of anyone who would do, Simon ? " " There's a young chap as works for Squire Wurley. I've heard as he wants to better hisself." " But he isn't an Englebourn man. Isn't there anyone in the parish?" " Ne'er a one as I knows on." " What do you think of Harry Winburn — he seems a good hand with flowers ? " The words had scarcely passed his lips when Tom saw that he had made a mistake. Old Simon re- tired into himself a,t once, and a cunning, distrustful look came over his face. There was no doing anything with him, Even the new forcing-house had lost its attractions for him, and Tom, after some further ineffectual attempts to bring him round, returned to tlie house somewhat crestfallen. "Wei], how have you succeeded?" said Katie, looking up from her work, as he came in and sat down near her table. Tom shook his head. "I'm afraid I've made a regular hash of it," he said. "I thought at first I had quite come round the old savage by prais- ing the garden, and promising that you would let him have a new house." "You don't mean to say you did that ! " said Katie, stop- pmg her work. "Indeed, but I did, though. I was drawn on, you know. I saw it was the right card to play, so I couldn't help it." " O Tom ! how could you do so ? We don't want another house the least in the world ; it is only Simon's vanity. He wants to beat the gardener at the Grange at the flower-shows. Every penny will have to come out of what papa allows me for the parish." " Don't be afraid, Katie, you won't have to spend a penny. Of course I reserved a condition. The new house was to be put up if he would take Harry as under-gardener." " What did he say to that ? " " Well, he said nothing. I never came across such an old Turk. How you have spoiled him. If he isn't pleased, he won't take the trouble to answer you a word. I was very near telling him a piece qf my mind. But he looked all the more. I believe he would poison Harry if he came here. What can have made him hate him so ?" " He is jealous of him. Mary and I were so foolish as to praise poor Betty's flowers before Simon, and he has never forgiven it. I think, too, that he suspects, somehow, that we BEOWN PAJEONtTS. 365 talked about getting Harry here. I ought to have told you, but I quite forgot it." " Well, it can't be helped. I don't think I can do any good in that quarter, so now I shall be off to the Grange, to see what I can do there." " How do you mean ? " " Why, Harry is afraid of being turned out of his cottage. I saw how it worried him, thinking about it ; so I shall go to the Grange and say a good word for him. Wurley can't re- fuse, if I offer to pay the rent myself — it's only six pounds a year. Of course I shan't tell Harry ; and he will pay it all the same ; but it may make all the difference to Wurley, who is a regular screw." " Do you know Mr. Wurley ? " " Yes, just to speak to. He knows all about me, and he will be very glad to be civil." "No doubt he will;. but I don't like your going to his house. You don't know what a bad man he is. Nobody but men on the turf, and that sort of people, go there now ; and! believe he thinks of nothing but gambling and game pre- serving." "Oh, yes, I know all about him. The county people are beginning to look shy at him, so he'll be all the more likely to do what I ask him." " But you won't get intimate with him ? " " You needn't be afraid of that." " It is a sad house to go to ; I hope it won't do you any harm." "Ah, Katie ! " said Tom, with a smile, not altogether cheer- ful, " I don't think you need be anxious about that. When one has been a year at Oxford, there isn't much snow left to soil ; so now I am off. I must give myself plenty of time to cook Wurley." " Well, I suppose I must not hinder you," said Katie. " I do hope you will succeed in some of your kind plans for Harry." " I shall do my best ; and it is a great thing to have some- body besides one's self to think about, and try to help — some poor person — don't you think so, even for a man ? " " Of course I do. I am sure you can't be happy without it, any more than I. We shouldn't be our mother's children if we could be." " Well, good-by, dear ; you can't think how I enjoy these glimpses of you and your work. You must give my love to Uncle Robert." 366 TOM BROWK AT OXPOED. " And so they ,bade one another adieu, lovingly, after the manner of cousins, and Tom rode away with a very soft place in his heart for his Cousin Katie. It was not the least the same sort of passionate feeling of worship with which lie re- garded Mary. The two feelings could lie side by side in his heart with plenty of room to spare. In fact, his heart had been getting so big in the last few weeks that it seemed capa- ble of taking in the whole of mankind, not to mention woman. Still, on t(he whole, it may be safely asserted tliat, had matters been in at all a more forward state, and could she have seen exactly what was passing in his mind, Mary would probably have objected to the kind of affection which he felt for his cousin at this particular time. The joke about cousinly love is probably as old, and certainly as true, as Solomon's proverbs. However, as matters stood, it could be no concern of Mary what his feelings were toward Katie, or any other person. Tom rode in at the lodge gate of the Grange soon after eleven o'clock, and walked his horse slowly through the park, admiring the splendid timber, and thinking how he should break his request to the owner of the place. But his thoughts were interrupted by the proceedings of the rabbits, which were out by hundreds all along the sides of the plantations, and round the great trees. A few of the nearest just deigned to notice him by scampering to their holes under the roots of the antlered oaks, into which some of them popped with a disdain- ful kick of their hind legs, while others turned round, sat up, and looked at him. As he neared the house, he passed a keep- er's cottage, and was saluted by the barking of dogs from the neighboring kennel; and the young pheasants ran about round some twenty hen-coops, which were arranged along opposite the door where the keeper's children were pla,ying. The pleas- ure of watching the beasts and birds kept him from arranging his thoughts, and he reached the hall-door without having formed the plan of his campaign. A footman answered the bell, who doubted whether his master was down, but thought he would see the gentleman if he would send in his name. Whereupon Tom handed in his card ; and in a few minutes, a rakish-looking stable-boy came round for his horse, and the butler appeared, with his master's compliments, and a request that he would step into the break- fast-room. Tom followed this portly personage tlirough the large, handsome hall, on the walls of which hung a buff coat or two and some old-fashioned arms, and large paintings of dead game and fruit — through a drawing-room, the furniture BROWN PATEONUS. 367 of which wa9 all covered up in melancholy cases — into the breakfast-parlor, where the owner of the mansion was seated at table in a lounging jacket. He was a man of forty, or thereabouts, who would have been handsome, but for the animal look about his face. His cheeks were beginning to fall into chops, his full lips had a liquorish look about them, and bags were beginning to form under his light blue eyes. His hands were very white and delicate, and shook a little as he poured out his tea ; and he was full and stout in body, with small shoulders, and thin arms and legs ; in short, the last man whom Tom would have chosen as bow in a pair oar. The only part of him which showed strength were his dark whiskers, which were abundant, and elaborately oUed and curled. The room was Jight and pleasant, with two windows looking over the park, and furnished luxuriously, in the most modern style, with all manner of easy- chairs and sofas. A glazed case or two of well-bound books showed that some former owner had cared for sucli things; but the doors had, probably, never been opened in the present reign. The master, and his usual visitors, found suflScient food for the mind in the " Racing Calendar," "Boxiana," the "Adventures of Corinthian Tom," and Bell's Life, which lay on a side table; or in the pictures and prints of racers, opera dancers, and steeple chases, which hung in pro- rfusion on the walls. The breakfast-table was beautifully appointed, in the matter of China and plate ; and delicate little rolls, neat pats of butter in ice, and two silver hot dishes con- taining curry and broiled salmon, and a plate of fruit, piled in tempting profusion, appealed, apparently in vain, to the appe- tite of the lord of the feast. " Mr. Bi'own, sir," said the butler, ushering in our hero to his master's presence. "Ah, Brown, I'm very glad to see you here," said Mr. Wurley, standing up and holding out his hand. " Have any breakfast?" " Thank you, no ; I have breakfasted," said Tom, somewhat astonished at the intimacy of the greeting ; but it was his cue to do the friendly thing, so he shook the proffered hand, which felt very limp, and sat down by the table, looking pleasant. "Ridden from home this morning?" said Mr. Wurley, picking over daintily some of the curry to which he had helped himself. " No ; I was at my uncle's, at Englebourn, last night. It is veiy little out of the way, so I thought I would just call on my road home." 368 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. " Quite right. I'm very glad you came without ceremony. People about here are so d — d full of ceremony. It don't Buit me, all that humbug. But I wish you'd just pick a bit." " Thank you. Then I will eat some fruit," said Tom, help- ing himself to some of the freshly picked grapes ; " how very fine these are ! " " Yes, I'm open to back my houses against the field for twenty miles round. This curry isn't fit for a pig. Take it out, and tell the cook so." The butler solemnly obeyed, while his mas- ter went on with one of the frequent oaths with which he garnished his conversation. " You're right, they can't spoil the fruit. They're a set of skulking devils, are servants. They think of nothing but stuffing themselves, and how they can cheat you most, and do the least work." Saying which, he helped himself to some fruit ; and the two eat their grapes for a short time in silence. But even fruit seemed to pall quickly on him, and he pushed away his plate. The butler came back with a silver tray, with soda water, and a small decanter of brandy, and long glasses on it. " Won't you have something after your ride ? " said the host to Tom ; " some soda water, with a dash of bingo, clears one's head in the morning." " No, thank you," said Tom, smiling ; " it's bad for training." " Ah, you Oxford men are all for training," said his host, drinking greedily of the foaming mixture which the butler handed to him. " A glass of bitter ale is what you take, eh ? I know. Get some ale for Mr. Brown." Tom felt that it would be uncivil to refuse this orthodox offer, and took his beer accordingly, after which his host pro- duced a box of Hudson's Regalias, and proposed to look at the stables. So they lighted their cigars, and went out. Mr. "Wui'ley had taken of late to the turf, and they inspected several young horses which were entered for county stakes. Tom thought them weedy-looking animals, but patiently listened to their praises and pedigrees, upon which his host was eloquent enough ; and rubbing up his latest readings in JBelVs Life, and the racing talk which he had been in the habit of hearing in Drysdale's rooms, managed to hold hijs own, and asked, with a grave face, about the price of the Coronation colt for the next Derby, and whether Scott's lot was not the right thing to stand on for the St. Leger, thereby raising himself considerably in his host's eyes. There were no hunters in the stable, at which Tom expressed his surprise. In reply, Mr. Wurley abused the county, and declared that it was not worth riding across, the BKOWN PATEONUS. 369 fact being that he had lost his nerve, and that the reception which he was beginning to meet with in the field, if he came out by chance, was of the coldest. From the stables they strolled to the keeper's cottage, where Mr. Wurley called for some buckwheat and Indian corn, and began feeding the young pheasants, which were running about almost like barn-door fowls close to them. " We've had a good season for tlie young birds," he said ; " my fellow knows that part of his business, d — n him, and don't Ipse many. You had better bring your gun over in Oc- tober ; we shall have a week in the covers early in the month." " Thank you, I shall be very glad," said Tom ; " but you don't shoot these birds ? " " Shoot 'em ! what the devil should I do witli them ? " " Why, they're so tame I thought you just kept them about the house for breeding. I don't care so much for pheasant shooting ; I like a good walk after a snipe, or ci'eeping along to get a wild duck, much better. There's some sport in it, or even in partridge shooting with a couple of good dogs, now — " " You're quite wrong. There's nothing like a good dry ride in a cover with lots of game, and a fellow behind to load for you." " Well, I must say, I prefer the open." " You've no covers over your way, have you ? " " Not many." " I thought so. You wait till you've had a good day in my covers, and you won't care a d — n for quartering all day over wet turnips. Besides, this sort of thing pays. Tliey talk about pheasants costing a guinea a head on one's table. It's d — d stuff ; at any rate, mine don't cost me much. In fact, I say it pays, and I can prove it." " But you feed your pheasants ? " " Yes, just round the house for a few weeks, and I sow a little buckwheat in the covers. But they have to keep them- selves pretty much, I can tell you." " Don't the farmers object ? " " Yes, d — n them ; they're never satisfied. But they don't grumble to me ; they know better. There are a dozen fellows ready to take any farm that's given up, and they know it. Just get a beggar to put a hundred or two into the ground, and he Von't quit hold in a hurry. Will you play a game at billiards ? " The turn which their conversation had taken hitherto had offered no opening to Tom fpr introducing the object of bis 370 TOM BROWN AT OXFOBD. -» visit, and he felt less and less inclined to come to the point. He looked his host over and over again, and the more he looked the less he fancied asking anything like a favor of him.. However, as it had to be done, he thought he couldn't do better tlian fall into his ways for a few hours, and watch for a chance. The man seemed good-natured in his way ; and all his belong- ings — the fine park and house, and gardens and stables — were not without their effect on his young guest. It is not given to many men of twice his age to separate a man from his pos- sessions, and look at him apart from them. So he yielded easily enough, and they went to billiards in a fine room open- ing out of the hall ; and Tom, who was very fond of the game, soon forgot everything in the pleasure of playing on such a table. It was not a bad match. Mr. Wurley understood the game far better than his guest, and could give him advice as to what side to put on and how to play for cannons. This.he did in a patronizing way, but his hand was unsteady and his nerve bad. Tom's good eye and steady hand, and the pi-actice he had had at the St. Ambrose pool-table, gave him considerable advantage in the hazards. And so they played on, Mr. Wurley conde- scending to bet only half a crown a game, at first giving ten points, and then five, at which latter odds Tom managed to be two games ahead when the butler announced lunch at two o'clock. " I think I must order my horse," said Tom, putting on his coat. " No, d — n it, you must give me my revenge. I'm always five points better after lunch, and after dinner I could give you fifteen points. Why shouldn't you stop and dine and sleep ? I expect some men to dinner." " Thank you, I must get home to-day." "I should like you to taste my mutton ; I never kill it under five years old. You don't get that every day." Tom, however, was proof against the mutton ; but consented to stay till toward the hour when the other guests were ex- pected, finding that his host had a decided objection to being left alone. So after lunch, at which Mr. Wurley drank the better part of a bottle of old sherry to steady his ierves, they returned again to billiards and Hudson's Regalias. They played on for another hour ; and though Mr. Wurley's hand was certainly steadier, the luck remained with Tom. He was now getting rather tired of playing, and wanted to be leaving, and he began to remember the object of his visit again, BEOWN PATROirUS. 371 But Mr. Wurley was nettled at being beaten by a boy, as he counted his opponent, and -wouldn't hear of leaving off. So Tom played on carelessly game after game, and was soon again only two games ahead. Mr. "Wurley's temper was recovering, and now Tom protested that he must go. Just one game more his host urged, and Tom consented. Wouldn't he play for a sovereign ? No. So they played double or quits ; and after a sliarp struggle Mr. Wurley won the game, at which he was liighly elated, and talked again grandly of the odds he could give after dinner. Tom felt that it was now or never, and so as he put on his coat, he said : " Well, I'm much obliged to you for a very pleasant day, Mr. Wurley." " I hope you'll come over again, and stay and sleep. I shall always be glad to see you. It is so cursed hard to keep some- body always going in the country." " Thank you ; I should like to come again. ■ But now I want to ask a favor of you before I go." " Eh, well, what is it ? " said Mr. Wurley, whose face and manner became suddenly anything but encouraging. " There's that cottage of yours, the one at the corner of En- glebourn Copse, next the village." " The woodman's house, I know," said Mr. Wurley. " The tenant is dea(J, and I want you to let it to a friend of mine ; I'll take care the rent is paid." Mr. Wurley pricked up his ears at this announcement. He gave a sharp look at Tom ; and then bent over the table, made a stroke, and said, " Ah, I heard the old woman was dead. Who's your friend, then? " " Well, I mean her son," said Tom, a little embarrassed ; " he's an active young fellow, and will make a good tenant, I'm sure." " I daresay," said Mr. Wurley, with, a leer ; " and I suppose there's a sister to keep house for him, eh ? " " No, but he wants to get married." " Wants to get married, eh ? " said Mr. Wurley, with another leer and oath. " You're right ; that's a deal safer kind of thing for you." " Yes," said Tom, resolutely disregarding the insinuation which he could not help feeling was intended ; " it will keep him steady, and if he can get the cottage it might make all the difference. There wouldn't be much trouble about the marriage, then, I dare say." " You'll find it a devilish long way. You're quite right. S'72 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. mind you, not to get them settled close at home ; but Engle- bourn is too far oflE, I should say." " What does it matter to me ? " " Oh, you'i-e tired of her ! I see. Perhaps it won't be too far, then." " Tired of her ! who do you mean ? " " Ha, ha ! " said Mr. Wurley, looking up from the table over which he was leaning, for he went on knocking the balls about ; " devilish well acted. But you needn't try to come the old soldier over me. D — n it, I'm not such a fool as that." " I don't know what you mean by coming the old soldier. I only asked you to let the cottage, and I will be responsible for the rent. I'll pay in advance if you like." " Yes, you want me to let the cottage for you to put in this girl." • "I beg your pardon," said Tom, interrupting him, and scarcely able to keep his temper, " I told you it was for this young Winburn." " Of course you told me so. Ha, ha ! " " And you don't believe me ? " " Come now, all's fair in love and war. But d — n it, you needn't be mealy-mouthed with me. Yqu don't mind his living there ; he's away at work all day, eh ? and his wife stays at home." " Mr. Wurley, I give you my honor I never saw the girl in my life that I know of, and I don't know that she will marry him." " What did you talk about your friend for, then ? " said Mr. Wurley, stopping and staring at Tom, curiosity beginning to mingle with his look of cunning unbelief. " Because I meant just what I said." " And the friend, then ? " " I have told you several times that this young Winbum is the man." " What, your friend? " " Yes, my friend," said Tom ; and he felt himself getting red at having to call Harry his friend in such company. Mr. Wurley looked at him for a few moments, and then took his leg off the billiard table, and came round to Tom with the sort of patron- izing air with which he had lectured him on billiards. " I say. Brown, I'll give you a piece of advice," he said. " You're a young fellow, and haven't seen anything of the world. Oxford's all very well, but it isn't the world. Now I tell you, a young fellow can't do himself greater harm than getting into "low company and talking as you have been talking. D — n it, ,BEOWN PATRONUS. 873 man, it might ruin you in the county ! That sort of radical stuff won't do, you know, calling a farm laborer your friend." Tom cliafed at this advice from a man who, he well knew, was notoriously in the habit of entertaining at his house, and living familiarly with betting men, and trainers, and all the riff-raff of the turf. But he I'estrained himself by a consider- able effort, and instead of retorting, as he felt inclined to do, said, with an attempt to laugh it off, " Thank you, I don't think there's much fear of my turning radical. But will, you let me the cottage ? " " My agent manages all that. We talked about pulling it down. The cottage is in my preserves, and I don't mean to have some poaching fellow there to be sneaking out at night after my pheasants." " But liis grandfather and great-grandfather lived there." " I dare say, but it's my cottage." " But surely, that gives him a claim to it." " D — n it ; it's my cottage. You're not going to tell me I mayn't do what I like with it, I suppose ? " " I only said that his family, having lived there so long, gives him a claim." " A claim to what ? These are some more of your cursed radical notions. I think they might teach you something better at Oxford." Tom was now perfectly cool, but withal in such a tremen- dous fury of excitement that he forgot the interests of his client altogether. " I came here, sir," he said, very quietly and slowly, " not to request your advice on my own account, or your opinion on tlie studies of Oxford, valuable as no doubt they are ; I came to ask you to let this cottage to me, and I wish to have your answer." " I'll be d — d if I do ; there's my answer." " Very well," said Tom, " then I have only to wish you good- morning. I am sorry to have wasted a day in the company of a man who sets up for a country gentleman with the tongue of a Thames bargee, and the heart of a Jew pawnbroker." Mr. Wurley rushed to the bell and rang it furiously. "By ! " he almost screamed, shaking his fist at Tom, " I'll have you horsewhipped out of my house ; " and then poured forth a flood of uncomplimentary slang, ending in another pull at the bell, and "By ! I'll have you horse- whipped out of my house." " You had better try it on — you and your flunkies together," 374 TOM BROWN AT OXFOED. said Tom, taking a cigar case out of his pocket and lighting up, the most defiant and exasperating action he could think of on the spur of the moment. "Here's one of them, so I'll leave you to give him his orders, and wait five minutes in the hall, where there's more room." ' And so, leaving the footman gap- ing at his lord, he turned on his heel, with the air of Bernardo del Carpio after he had bearded King Alphonso, and walked into the hall. He heard men running to and fro, and doors banging as he stood there looking at the old buflf-coats, and rather thirsting for a fight; Presently a door opened, and the portly butler shuffled in, looking considerably embarrassed, and said : " Please, sir, to go out quiet, else he'll be having one of his fits." " Tour master, you mean ? " " Tes, sir," said the butler, nodding ; " D. T., sir. After one of his rages the black dog comes, and it's hawfuLwork ; so I hope you'll go, sir." " Very well ; of course I'll go. I don't want to give him a fit." Saying which, Tom walked out of the hall-door, and leisurely round to the stables, where he found already signs of commotion. Without regarding them, he got his horse saddled and bridled, and after looking him over carefully, and patting him, and feeling his girths, in the yard, in the presence of a cluster of retainers of one sort or another, who were gathering from the house and offices, and looking sorely puzzled whether to commence hostilities or not, mounted and walked quietly out. After his anger had been a little cooled by the fresh air of the wild country at the back of the Hawk's Lynch, which he struck into on his way home soon after leaving the park, it suddenly occurred to him that, however satisfactory to him- self the results of his encounter with this unjust landlord might seem, they would probably prove anything but agreeable to the would-be tenant, Harry Winburn. In fact, as he medi- tated on the mattei', it beoanie clear to him that in the course of one morning he had probably exasperated old Simon against his aspirant son-in-law, and put a serious spoke in Harry's love- wheel on the one hand ; while oji the other, he had insured his speedy expulsion from his cottage, if not the demolition of that building. Whereupon he became somewhat low under the conviction that his friendsliip, wliich was to work such wonders for the said Harry, and deliver him out of all his troubles, had as yet only made his whole lookout in the world BROWN PATEONUS. 375 very much darker and more dusty. In short, as yet he had managed to do considerably less than nothing, for his friend, and he felt very small before he got home that evening. He was far, however, from, being prepared for the serious way in which his father looked upon his day's proceedings. Mr. Brown was sitting by himself after dinner when his son turned up, and had to drink several extra glasses of port to keep him- self decently composed, while Tom narrated the events of the day in the intervals of his attacks on the dinne.r, which was brought back for him. When the servant had cleared away, Mr. Brown proceeded to comment on the history in a most decided manner. Tom was wrong to go to the Gra'nge in the first instance ; and this part of the homily was amplified by a discourse on the corruption of the turf in general, and the special curse of small country races in particular, which such men as Wurley sup- ported, and which, but for them, would cease. Racing, which used to be the pastime of great people, who could well afford to spend a few thousands a year on their pleasure, had now mostly fallen into the hands of the very worst and lowest men of all classes, most of whom would not scruple, as Mr. Brown strongly put it, to steal a copper out of a blind beggar's hat. If he must go, at any rate he might have done his errand and come away, instead of staying there all day accepting the man's hospitality. Mr. Brown himself really should be much embarrassed to know what to do if the man should happen to attend the next session or assizes. But, above all, having ac- cepted his hospitality, to turn around at the end and insult the man in his own house ! This seemed to Brown p&re a mon- strous and astounding performance. This new way of putting matters took Tom entirely by sur- prise. He attempted a defense, but in vain. His father admitted that it would be a hard case if Harry were turned out of his cottage, but wholly refused to listen to Tom's en- deavors to prove that a tenant in such a case had any claim or right as against his landlord. A weekly tenant was a weekly tenant, and no succession of weeks' holding could make him anything more. Tom found himself rushing into a line of ar- gument which astonished himself and sounded wild, but in which he felt sure there was some truth, and which, therefore, he would not abandon, though his father was evidently an- noyed and called it mere mischievous sentiment. Each was more moved than he would like to have owned ; each in his own heart felt aggrieved, and blamed the other for not understand- 376 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. ing him. But though obstinate on the general question, upon the point of his conduct in leaving the Grange, Tom was fairly brought to shame, and gave in at last, and expressed his sor- row, though he could not help maintaining that if his father could have heard what took place, and seen the man's man- ner, he would scarcely blame him for what he had said and done. Having once owned himself in the wrong, however, , there was nothing for it but to write an apology, the com- position of which was as disagreeable a task as had ever fallen to his lot. CHAPTER XXXIV. Mr/dh) ayav. Has any person, of any nation or language, found out and given to the world any occupation, work, diversion, or pursuit, more subtly dangerous to the susceptible youth of both sexes than that of nutting in pairs ? If so, who ? where ? what ? A few years later in life, perhaps district visiting, and attending schools together, may in certain instances be more fatal; but in the first bright days of youth, a day's nutting against the world — a day in autumn, warm enough to make sitting in sheltered nooks, in the woods, where the sunshine can get very pleasant, and yet not too warm to make exercise uncom- fortable — two young people who have been thrown much to- gether, one of whom is conscious of the state of his feelings toward the other, and is, moreover, aware that his hours are numbered, that in a few days at furthest they will be sepa- rated for many months, and persons in authority on both sides are beginning to suspect something (as is apparent from the difficulty they have had in getting away together at all on this same afternoon) — here is a conjunction of persons and circum- stances, if ever there was one in the world, which is surely likely to end in a catastrophe. Indeed, so obvious to the meanest capacity is the danger of the situation that, as Tom had, in his own mind, staked his character for resolution with his private self on the keeping of his secret till after he was of age, it is hard to conceive how he can have been foolish enough to get himself into a hazel copse alone with Miss Mary on the earliest day he could manage it after the arrival of the Porters on their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Brown. That is to say, it would be hard to conceive if it didn't just happen to be the most natural thing in the world. For the first twenty-four hours after their meeting in the TOM BROWN AT OXFOED. 377 home of his fatliei', the two young people, and Tom in partic- ular, felt very uncomfortable. Mary, being a young lady of very high spirits, and, as readers may probably have discov- ered, much given to that kind of conversation which borders as nearly upon what men commonly call chaff as a well-bred girl can venture on, was annoyed to find herself quite at fault in all lier attempts to get her old antagonist of Commemora- tion to show fight. She felt in a moment how changed his man- ner was, and thought it by no means changed for the better. As for Tom, he felt foolish and shy at first to an extent which drove him half wild ; his words stuck in his throat, and he took to blushing again like a boy of fouiJ,een. In fact, he got so angry with himself that he I'ather avoided her actual presence, though she was scarcely a moment out of his sight. Mr. Brown made the most of his son's retreat, devoted himself most gallantly to Mary, and was completely captivated by the first night of their arrival, and triumphed over his wife when they were alone at the groundlessness of her suspicions. But she was by no means so satisfied on the subject as her husband. In a day or two, however, he began to take heart of grace, and to find himself oftener at Mary's side, with something to say, and more to look. But now she, in her turn, began to be embarrassed, for all attempts to re-establish their old footing failed ; and the difficulty of finding a satisf actoiy new one re- mained to be solved — so for the present, though neither of them found it quite satisfactory, they took refuge in the pres- ence of a third party, and attached themselves to Katie, talk- ing at one another through her. Nothing could exceed Katie's judiciousness as a medium of communication, and through her a better understanding began to establish itself, and the visit which both of them had been looking forward to so eagerly, seemed likely, after all, to be as pleasant in fact as it had been in anticipation. As they became more at ease, the vigilance of Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Porter seemed likely to revive. But in a country house there must be plenty of chances for young folk, who mean it, to be together, and so they found and made use of their opportunities, giving at the same time as little cause to their natural guardians as possible for any serious in- terference. The families got on, on the whole, so well together that the visit was prolonged from the original four or five days to a fortnight ; and this time of grace was drawing to a close when the event happened which made the visit memorable to our hero. 378 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. On the morning in question, Mr. Brown arranged at break- fast that he and his wife should drive Mr. and Mrs. Porter to make calls on several of the neighbors. Tom declared his in- tention of taking a long day after the partridges, and the young ladies were to go and make a sketch of the house from a point which Katie had chosen. Accordingly, directly after lunch- eon the carriage came round, and the elders departed, and tlie young ladies started together, carrying their sketching appara- tus with them. It was probably a bad day for scent, for they had not been gone a quarter of an hour when Tom came home, deposited his gun, and followed on .their steps. He found them sitting under the lee of a high bank, sufficiently intent on their draw- ings, but neither surprised nor sorry to find that he had altered his mind and come back to interrupt them. So he lay down near them, and talked of Oxford and Englebourn, and so from one thing to another, till he got upon the subject of nutting, and the sylvan beauties of a neighboring wood. Mary was getting on badly with her drawing, and jumped at the idea of a ramble in the wood ; but Katie was obdurate, and resisted all their solicitations to move. She suggested, however, that they might go, and as Tom declared that they should not be out of call, and would be back in half an hour at furthest, Mary consented, and they left the sketcher, and strolled together out of the fields, and into the road, and so through a gate into the wood. It was a pleasant oak wood. The wild flowers were over, but the great masses of ferns, four or five feet high, made a grand carpet round the stems of the forest monarchs, and a fitting couch, for here and there one of them, which had been lately felled, lay in fallen majesty with bare shrouded trunk awaiting the sawyers. Further on the hazel under-wood stood thickly on each side of the green rides, down which they sauntered side by side. Tom talked of the beauty of the wood in springtime, and the glorious succession of coloring, pale yellow, and deep blue and white, and purple, which the primroses, and hyacinths, and starwort, and foxgloves gave each in their turn in the early year, and mourned over their absence. But Mary preferred autumn, and would not agree with him. She was enthusiastic for ferns and heather. He gathered some sprigs of the latter for her, from a little sandy patch which they passed, and some more for his own button- liole ; and then they engaged in the absorbing pursuit of nut- ting, and the talk almost ceased. He caught the higher branches, and bent tbero down to her, and watched her as she TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. 379 gathered them, and wondered at the ease and grace of all her movements, and the unconscious beauty of her attitudes. Soon she became more enterprising herself, and made little excursions into the copse, surmounting briers, and passing through tan- gled places like a Naiad, before he could be there to help her. . And so they went on, along the rides and through the copse, forgetting Katie and time, till they were brought up by the fence on the further side of the wood. The ditch was on the outside, and on the inside a bank with a hedge on the top, full of tempting hazel bushes. She clapped her hands at the sight, and declining his help, stepped lightly up the bank, and began gathering. He turned away for a moment, jumped up the bank himself, and followed her example. He was standing up in the hedge, and reaching after a tempt- ing cluster of nuts, when he heard a sharp cry of pain behind him, which -made him spring backward, and nearly miss his footing as he came to the ground. Recovering himself, and turning round, he saw Mary lying at the foot of the bank, writhing in pain. He was at her side in an instant, and dreadfully alarmed. " Good Heavens ! what has happened ? " he said. " My ankle ! " she cried ; and the effort of speaking brought the sudden flush of pain to her brow. "Oh! what can I do?" " The boot ! the boot ! " she said, leaning forward to unlace it, and then sinking back against the bank. " It is so painful ! I hope I shan't faint." Poor Tom could only clasp his hands as he knelt by her, and repeat, " Oh, what can I do — what can I do ? " His utter bewilderment presently roused Mary, and her nat- ural high courage was beginning to master the pain. " Have you a knife ? " " Tes — here," he said, pulling one out of his pocket, and opened it ; " here it is." " Please cut the lace." Tom with beating heart and trembling hand cut the lace, and then looked up at her. " Oh, be quick — cut it again ; don't be afraid." He cut it again ; and without taking hold of the foot, gently pulled out the end of the lace. She again leaned forward, and tried to take off the boot, the pain was too great, and she sank back, and put her hand np to her flushed face. " May I try ?— perhaps I could do it." 080 TOM BEOWN AT OXFQBD. , " Yes, pray do. Oh, I can't bear the pain ! " she added, next moment ; and Tom felt ready to hang himself for having been the cause of it. " You must cut the boot off, please." " But perhaps I may cut you. Do you really mean it ? " " Yes, really. There, tate care. How your hand shakes. You will never do for a doctor." His hand did shake certainly. He had cut a little hole in the stocking ; but, under the circumstances, we need not won- der — the situation was new and trying ! Urged on by her, he cut and cut away, and, at last, off came the boot, and her beau- tiful little foot lay on the green turf. She was much relieved at once, but still in great pain ; and now he began to recover his head. " The ankle should be bound up ; may I tty ? " " Oh, yes ; but what with ? " Tom dived into his shooting-coat pocket, and produced one of the large, many-colored neck- wrappers which were fashion- able at Oxford in those days. " How lucky," he said, as he tore it into strips. " I think this will do. Now, you'll stop me, won't you, if I hurt, Or doH^ do it right ? " "Don't be afraid ; I'm much better. Bind it tight — tighter than that." He wound the strips as tenderly as he could round her foot and ankle, with hands all alive with nerves, and wondering more and more at her courage, as she kept urging him to draw the bandage tighter yet. Then, still under her direction, he fastened and pinned down the ends ; and as he was rather neat with his fingers, from the practice of tying flies and splicing rods and bats, produced, on the whole, a creditable sort of bandage. Then he looked up at her, the perspiration standing on his forehead, as if he had been pulling a race, and said : " Will that do ? I'm afraid it's very awkward." " Oh, no ; thank you so much ! But I'm so sorry you have torn your handkerchief." Tom made no answer to this remark, except by a look. What could he say, but that he would gladly have torn his skin off for the same purpose, if it would have been of any use ; but this speech did not seem quite the thing for the moment. " But how do you feel ? Is it very painful ? " he asked. " Rather. But don't look so anxious. Indeed, it is very bearable. But what are we to do now ? " He thought for a nioment, and said, with something like a sigh : TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. 381 " Shall I run home, and bring the servants, and a sofa, or something to carry you on ?" " No, I shouldn't like to be left here alone." His face brightened again. " How near is the nearest cottage ? " she asked. " There's none nearer than the one which we passed on the road, on the other side of the wood, you know." " Then I must try to get there. You must help me up." He sprang to his feet and stooped over her, doubting how to begin helping her. He had never felt so shy in his life. Ho held out his hands. " I think you must put your arm round me," she said, after looking at him for a moment. Her woman's instinct was satis- fied with the look. He lifted her on to her feet. " Now, let me lean on your arm. There, I dare say 1 shall manage to hobble along well enough ; " and she made a brave attempt to walk. But the moment the injured foot touched the ground, she stopped with a catch of her breath, and a shiver, which went through Tom like a knife ; and the flush came back into her face, and she would have fallen had he not again put his arm round her waist, and held her up. " I am better again now," she said, after a second or two. " But Mary, dear Mary, don't try to walk again, for my sake. I can't bear it." "But what am I to do?" she said. "I must get back somehow." " Will you let me carry you ? " She looked in his face again, and then dropped her eyes, and hesitated. " I wouldn't offer, dear, if there were any other way. But you mustn't walk ; indeed, you must not ; you may lame your- self for life." He spoke very quietly, with his eyes fixed on the ground, though his heart was beating so that he feared she would hear it. " Very well," she said ; "but I'm very heavy." So he lifted her gently, and stepped off down the ride, carry- ing his whole world in his arms, in an indescribable flutter of joy and triumph and fear. He had gone some forty yards or so, when he staggered, and stopped for a moment. " Oh, pray put me down — ^pray do ! You'll hurt yourself. I'm too heavy." For the credit of muscular Christianity, one must say that it was not her weight, but the tumult in his own inner man which made her bearer totter. Nevertheless, if one is wholly 382 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOBD. ui'used to the exercise, the carrying a healthy young English girl, weighing hard on eight stone, is as much as most men can conveniently manage. " I'll just put you down for a moment," he said. " Now take care of the foot ; " and he stooped, and placed her ten- derly against one of the oaks which bordered the ride, stand- ing by her side without looking at her. Neither of them spoke for a minute. Then he asked, still looking away down the ride, "How is the foot?" " Oh, pretty well," she answered cheerfully. " Now, leave rae here, and go for help. It is absurd of me to mind being left ; and you mustn't carry me any more." He turned, and their eyes met for a moment, bilt that was enough. " Are you ready ? " he said. " Yes ; but take care. Don't go fai*. Stop directly you feel tired." Then he lifted her again, and this time carried her, without faltering, till they came to a hillock covered with soft grass. Here they rested again ; and so by easy stages he carried her through the wood, and out into the road, to the neaiest cot- tage, neither of them speaking. An old woman came to the door in answer to his kick, and went off into ejaculations of pity and wonder in the broadest Berkshire, at seeing Master Tom and his burden. But he . pushed into the house, and cut her short ■with : ■■' Now, Mrs. Pike, don't talk, that's a dear good woman, but bustle about, and bring that armchair here, and the other low one, with a pillow on it, for the young lady's foot to rest on." The old woman obeyed his injunctions, except as to talking ; and while she placed the chairs and shook np the pillow, des- canted on the sovereign virtues of some green oil and opodel- doc, which was as good as a charm for sprains and bruises. Mary gave him one grateful look as he lowered her tenderly and reluctantly into the chair, and then spoke cheerfully to Mrs. Pike, who was foraging in a cupboard, to find if there was any of her famous specific in the bottom of the bottle. As he stood up, and thought what to do next, he heard the sound of distant wheels, and looking through the window saw the carriage coming homeward. It was a sorrowful sight to him. "Now, Mrs. Pike," he said, "never mind the oil. Here's the carriage coming ; just step out and stop it." The old dame scuttled out into the road. The carriage was within one hundred yards. He leaned over the rough arm- TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. 383 chair in which she was leaning back, looked once more into fier eyes ; and then, stooping forward, kissed her lips, and tlie next moment was by the side of Mrs. Pike, signaling the coachman to slop. In the bustle which followed he stood aside, and watched Mary with his lieart in liis mouth. She never looked at him, but there was no anger, but only a dreamy look in her sweet face, which seemed to him a thousand times more beautiful tlian ever before. Tlien, to avoid inquiries and to realize all that had passed in the-last wonderful three hours, he slipped away while they were getting her into the carriage, and wan- dered back into the wood, pausing at each of their halting- places. At last, he reached the scene of the accident, and here his cup of happiness was likely to brim over, for he found the mangled little boot and the cut lace, and securing the precious prize, hurried back home, to be in time for dinner. Mary did not come down, but Katie, the only person of whom he dared to inquire, assured him that she was doing famously. The dinner was very embarrassing, and he had the greatest difficulty in answering the searching inquiries of his mother and Mrs. Porter, as to how, when, where, and in whose presence the accident had happened. As soon as the ladies rose he left his father and Mr. Porter over their old port and politics, and went,out in th« twilight into the garden, burdened with the weight of sweet thought. He felt that he had some- thing to do — to set himself quite right with M'ary ; he must speak somehow, that night, if possible, or he should not be comfortable or at peace with his conscience. There were lights in her room. He guessed by the shadows that she was lying on a couch by the open window, round which the other ladies were flitting. Presently lights appeared in the drawing-room, and as the shutters were being closed he saw his mother and Mrs. Porter come in, and sit down near the fire. Listening in- teii-tly, he heard Katie talking in a low voice in the room above, and saw her head against the light as she sat down close to the window, probably at the head of the couch where Mary was lying. Should he call to her ? If he did how could he say what he wanted to say through her ? A happy thought struck him. He turned to the flower-beds, hunted about, and gathered a bunch of heliotrope, hurried up to his room, took the sprig of heather out of his shooting-coat, tied them together, caught up a reel and line from his table, and went into the room over Mary's. He threw the window open, and leaning out said gently, " Katie." No answer. He 384 TOM BROWK AT OXFORD. repeated the name louder. No answer still, and leaning out yet further he saw that the window had been shut. He lo «ered the bunch of flowers, and swinging it backward and forward made it strike the window below — once, twice ; at the third stroke he heard the window open. " Katie," he whispered again, " is that you ? " " Yes, where are you ? What is this ?" " For her," lie said in the same whisper. Katie untied the flowers, and he waited a few moments, and then again called her name, and she answered. " Has she the flowers? " "Yes, and she sends you her love, and says you are to go down to the drawing-room ; " and with that the window closed, and he went down with a lightened conscience into the draw- ing-i'oom, and after joining in the talk by the fire for a few minutes, took a book, and sat down at the further side of the table. Whether he ever knew what the book was may be fairly questioned, but to all appearances he was deep in the perusal of it till the tea and Katie arrived, and the gentlemen from tlie dining-room. Then he tried to join in the conversation again but, on the whole, life was a burden to him that night till he could get fairly away to his own room, and commune with him- self, gazing at the yellow harvest moon with his elbows on the window sill. The ankle got well very quickly, and Mary was soon going about with a gold-headed stick, which had belonged to Mr. Brown's father, and a limp which Tom thought the most beau- tiful movement he had ever seen. But though she was about again, by no amount of patient vigilance could he now get the chance of speaking to her alone. But he consoled himself with the thought that she must understand him ; if he had spoken, he couldn't have made himself clearer. And now the Porters' visit was all but over, and Katie and her father left for Englebourn. The Porters were to follow the next day, and promised to drive round and stop at the Rectory for lunch. Tom petitioned for a seat in their carriage to Englebourn. He had been devoting himself to Mrs. Porter ever since the accident, and had told her a good deal about his own early life. His account of his early friendship for Betty and her son, and the renewal of it on the day he left Barton Manor, had interested her, and she was moreover not insensible to his assiduous and respectful attentions to herself, which had of late been quite marked : she was touched, too, at his anxiety to hear all about her boys, and how they were going on at TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. 385 school. So on the whole Tom was in high favor with her, and she most graciously assented to his occupying the fourth seat in their harouche. She was not without her suspicions of the real state of the case with him, but his behavior had been so discreet that she had no immediate fears, and after all, if any- thing should comeof it some years hence, her daughter might do worse. In the meantime she would see plenty of society in London, where Mr. Porter's vocations kept him during the greater part of the year. They reached Englebourn after a pleasant long' morning's drive ; and Tom stole a glance at Mary, and felt that she un- derstood him, as he pointed out the Hawk's Lynch and the clump of Scotch firs to her mother ; and told how you might see Barton from the top of it, and how he loved the place, and the old trees, and the view. Katie was at the door ready to receive them, and carried off Mary and Mrs. Porter to her own room. Tom walked round the garden with Mr. Porter, and then sat in the drawing-room, and felt melancholy. He roused himself, however, when the ladies came down and luncbeon was announced. Mary was full of her reminiscences of the Englebourn people, and espe- cially of poor Mrs. Winburn and her son, in whom she had be- gun to take a deep interest, perhaps from overhearing some of Tom's talk to his mother. So Harry's stoiy was canvassed again, and Katie told them how he had been turned out of his cottage, and how anxious she was as to what would come of it. " And is he going to marry your gardener's daughter after all ? " asked Mrs. Porter. "I am afraid there is not miich chance of it," said Katie; " I cannot make Martha out." "Is she at home, Katie?" asked Mary; "I should like to see her again. I took a great fancy to her when I was here." " Yes, she is at the lodge. We will walk there after luncheon." So it was settled that the carriage should pick them up at the lodge: and soon after luncheon, while the horses were be- ing put to, the whole party started for the lodge after saying good-by to Mr. Winter, who retired to his room much fatigued by his unwonted hospitality. Old Simon's wife answered their knock at the lodge door, and they all entered, and Mrs. Porter paid her compliments on the cleanliness of the room. Then Mary said, " Is your daughter at home, Mrs. Gib- bon* ? " 386 TOM BEOWK AT OXFORD. "Ees, miss, someweres handy," replied Mrs. Gibbons; " her hav'n't been gone out not dree minutes." " I. should like so much to say good-by to her," said Mary. " We shall be leaving Barton soon, and I shall not see her again until next summer." " Lor bless 'ee, miss, 'tis werry good ov 'ee," said the old dame, very proud; "do 'ee set down then while I gives her a call." And with that she hurried- out of the door which led thiough the back kitchen into the little yard behind the lodge, and the next moment they heard her calling out : " Patty, Patty, whar bist got to ? Come in and see the gentlefolk." The name which the old woman was calling out made Tom start. ' "I thought you said her name was Martha," said Mrs. Porter. " Patty is short for Martha in Berksh-re," said Katie, laugh- ing. " And Patty is such a pretty name, I wonder you don't call her Patty," said Mary. " We had a housemaid of the same name a year or two ago, and it made such a confusion — and when one once gets used to a name it is so hard to change — so she has always been called Martha." "Well, Vm all for Patty; don't you think so ?" said Maiy, turning to Tom. The sudden introduction of a name which he had such Tea- sons for remembering, the memories and fears which it called up, above all, the bewilderment which he felt at hearing it tossed about and canvassed by Mary in his presence, as if there were nothing more in it than in any other name, con- fused him so that he floundered and blundered in his attempt to answer, and at last gave it up altogether. She was sur» prised and looked at him inquiringly. His eyes fell before hers, and he turned away to the window, and looked at the carriage, which had just drawn up at the lodge door. He had scarcely time to think how foolish he was to be so moved, when he heard the baok-kitchen door opened again, and the old woman and her daughter come in. He turned round sharply, and there on the floor of the room, courtesying to the ladies, stood the ex-barmaid of "The Choughs." His first im- pulse was to hurry away, she was looking down, and he might not be recognized; his next to stand his ground, and take what- ever might come. Mary went up to her and took her hand, TOM BKOWNAT OXFOKD. 387 saying that she could not go away without coming to see her. Patty looked up to answer, and glancing round the room caught sight of him. He stepped forward, and then stopped and tried to speak, but no words would come. Patty looked at him, dropped Mary's hand, blushed up to the roots of her hair as she looked timidly round at the wondering spectators, and, putting liur hands to her face, ran out of the back door again. " Lawk a massy! what ever can ha' cum to our Patty ? " said Mrs. Gibbons, following her out. " I think we had better go," said Mr. Porter, giving his arm to his daughter, and leading her to the door. "Good-by, Katie; shall see you again at Barton?" " I don't know, uncle," Katie answered, following with Mrs. Porter, in a state of sad bewilderment. Tom, with his brain swimming, got out a few stammering farewell words, which Mr. and Mrs. Porter received ■with marked coldness as they stepped into their carriage. Mary's face was flushed and uneasy, but at her he scarcely dared to steal a look, and to her was quite unable to speak a word. Then the carriage drove off, and he turned, and found Katie standing by his side, her eyes full of serious wonder. His fell before them. "My dear Tom," she said, "what is all this? I thought you had never seen Martha ? " " So I thought — I didn't know — I can't talk now — I'll ex- plain all to you — don't think very badly of me, Katie — God bless you ! " with which words he strode away, while she looked after him with increasing wonder, and then turned and ■went to the lodge. He hastened away from the Rectory and down the village street, taking the road home mechanically, but otherwise ■wholly unconscious of roads and men. David, who was veiy anxious to speak to him about Harry, stood at his door making signs to him to stop in vain, and then gave chase, calling out after him, till he saw that all attempts to attract his notice were useless, and so ambled back to his shop-board much troubled in mind. The first object which recalled Tom at all to himself was the little white cottage looking out of Englebourn Copse toward the village, in which he had sat lay poor Betty's death-bed. The garden was already getting wild and tangled, and the house seemed to be uninhabited. He stopped for a moment and looked a,i it with bitter searohings of heart, Here ■was 388 TOM BEOWN.AT OXFOED. the place where he had taken such a good turn, as he had fond- ly hopec^, in connection with the then inmates of which he had made tue strongest good resolutions he had ever made in his life perhaps. What was the good of his trying to befriend anybody ; his friendship turned to a blight ; whatever lie had as yet tried to do for Harry had only injured him, and now how did they stand ? Could they ever be friends again after that day's discovery ? To do him justice, the probable ruin of all his own prospects, the sudden coldness of Mr. and Mrs. Porter's looks, and Mary's averted face, were not the things he thought on first, and did not trouble him most. He thought of Harry, and shuddered at the wrong he had done him as he looked at his deserted home. The door opened and a figure appeared. It was Mr. Wurley's agent, the lawyer who had been employed by Farmer Tester in his contest with Harry and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not con- sider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on him and his master, and hur- ried away along the lane which led to the heath. The Hawk's Lynch lay above him, and he climbed the side mechanically and sat himself again on the old spot. He sat for some time looking over the landscape, graven on his mind as it was by his former visit, and bitterly, oh, how bitterly ! did the remembrance of that visit, and of the exulta- tion and triumph which then filled him, and carried him away over the heath with a shout toward his home, come back on him. He could look out from his watch-tower no longer, and lay down, with his face between his hands, on the turf, and groaned as he lay. But his good angel seemed to haunt the place, and soon the cold fit began to pass away, and better and more hopeful thoughts to return. After all, what had he done since liis last visit to that place to be ashamed of ? Nothing. His attempts to do Harry service, unlucky as they had proved, had been honest. Had he become less worthy of the love which had first consciously mastered him there some four weeks ago ? No ; he felt, on the countrary, that it had already raised him, and purified him, and made a man of liim. But this last discovery, how could he ever get over tliat ? Well, after all, the facts were just the same before, only now they had come out. It was right that they should have come out ; better for him and for everyone that they should be known and faced, He ivap SECOND YEAK. 389 ready to face them, to abide any consequences that they might now bring in their train. His lieart was right toward Mary, toward Patty, toward Harry — that he felt sure of. And if so, why should he despair of either his love or his friendship coming to a bad end ? And so he sat up again, and looked out bravely toward Barton, and began to consider what was to be done. His eyes rested on the Rectory. That was the first place to begin with. He must set himself right with Katie ; let her know the whole stoiy. Through her he could reach all the rest, and do what- ever must be done to clear the ground and start fresh again. At first he thought of returning to her at once, and rose to go down to Englebourn. But anything like retracing his steps was utterly distasteful to him just then. Before him he saw light, dim enough as yet, but still a dawning ; toward that he would press, leaving everything behind him to take care of Uself. So he turned northward, and struck across the lioath at his best pace. The violent exercise almost finished his cure, 'Mid liis thoughts became clearer and more hopeful as ho Tieared home. He arrived there as the household were going to bed, anil found a letter waiting for him. It was from Hardy, saying that Blake had left liim, and he was now think- ing of returning to Oxford, and would come for his long-talked- of visit to Berkshire, if Tom was still at home and in tlie mind to receive him. Never was a letter more opportune. Here was the tried friend on whom he could rely for help and advice and sympa- thy. Who knew all the facts, too, from beginning to end. His father and mother were delighted to hear that they should now see the friend of whom he had spoken so much ; so he went up- stairs, and wrote an answer, \vhich set Hardy to work packing his portmanteau in the far west, and brought him speedily to the side of his friend under the lee of the Berkshire hills. CHAPTER XXXV. SECOND TEAK. Foe some days after his return home — in fact, until his friend's arrival, he was thoroughly beaten down and wretched, notwithstanding his efforts to look hopefully forward, and keep up his spirits. His usual occupations were utterly distasteful to him ; and, instead of occupying himself, he sat brooding over his late misfortune, and hopelessly puzzling his head as lo 390 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. -what he could do to set matters right. The conviction in which he always lauded was that there was nothing to be done, and that he was a desolate and blighted being, deserted of gods and men. Hardy's presence and company soon shook him out of this maudlin nightmare state, and he began to recover as soon as he had his old sheet-anchor friend to hold on to and consult with. Their consultations were held chiefly in the in- tervals of woodcraft, in which they spent most of the hours between breakfast and dinner. Hardy did not take out a cer- tificate, and wouldn't shoot without one ; so, as the best au- tumn exercise, they selected a tough old pollard elm, infinitely ugly, with knotted and twisted roots, curiously difiicult to get at and cut through, which had been long marked as a blot by Mr. Brown, and condemned to be felled as soon as there was nothing more pressing for his men to do. But there was al- ways something of more importance ; so that the cross-grained old tree might have remained to this day, had not Hardy and Tom pitched on him as a foeman worthy of their axes. They shoveled and picked and hewed away with great energy. The woodman, who visited them occasionally, and who, on exam- ining their first efforts, had remarked that the severed roots looked a little " as tho' the dogs had been a-gnawin' at 'em," began to hold them in respect, and to tender his advice with some deference. By the time the tree was felled and shrouded, Tom was in a convalescent state. Their occupation had naturally led to discussions on the ad- vantages of emigration, the delights of clearing one's own es- tate, building one's own house, and getting away from conven- tional life with a few tried friends. Of course, the pictures which were painted included foregrounds with beautiful chil- dren playing about the clearing, and graceful women, wives of the happy squatters, flitting in and out of the log houses and sheds, clothed and occupied after the manner of our ideal grandmothers ; with the health and strength of Amazons, the refinement of high-bred ladies, and wondrous skill in all do- mestic works, confections, and contrivances. The log houses would also contain fascinating select libraries, continually re- enforced from home, sufiicientto keep all dwellers in the happy clearing in communion with all the highest minds of their own and former generations. "Wondrous games in the neighboring forest, dear old home customs established and taking root in the wilderness, with ultimate dainty flower-gardens, conserva- tories, and pianofortes — a millennium on a small scale, with universal education, competence, prosperity, and equal rights ! SECOND irteAE. 3§1 Sncli castle-building, as an accompaniment to the hard exercise of woodcraft, worked wonders for Tom in the next week, and may be safely recommended to parties in like evil case with him. But more practical discussions were not neglected, and it was agreed that they should make a day at Englebourn to- getlier before their return to Oxford, Hardy undertaking to invade the Rectory with the view of re-establishing his friend's character there. Tom wrote a letter to Katie to prepare her for a visit. The day after the ancient elm was fairlj' disposed of they started early for Englebourn, and separated at the entrance to the village — Hardy proceeding to the Rectory to fulfill his mission, which he felt to be rather an embarrassing one, and Tom to look after the constable, or whoever else could give him in- formation about Harry. He arrived at the Red Lion, their appointed trysting-place, before Hardy, and spent a restless half-hour in the porch and bar waiting for his return. At last Hardy came, and Tom hurried him into the inn's best room, where bread and cheese and ale awaited them, and, as soon as the hostess could be got out of the room, began impatiently : " Well, you have seen her ? " " Yes ; I have come straight here from the Rectory." " And it is all right, eh ? Had she got my letter ? " " Yes, she had had your letter." " And you think she is satisfied ? " "Satisfied? No, you can't expect her to be satisfied." " I mean, is she satisfied that it isn't so bad after all as it looked the other day? What does Katie think of me ? " " I think she is still very fond of you, but that she has been puzzled and outraged by this discovery, and cannot get over it all at once." " Why didn't you tell her the whole story from beginning to end?" " I tried to do so as well as I could." " Oh, but I can see you haven't done it. She doesn't really understand how it is." "Perhaps not ; but you must remember it is an awkward subject to be talking about to a young woman. I would sooner stand another fellowship examination than go through it again." " Thank you, old fellow," said Tom, laying his hand on Hardy's shoulder ; "I feel that I'm unreasonable and impa- tient ; but you can excuse it ; you know that I don't mean it." 392 TOM BitOWN AT OXFORD. " Don't say another word ; I only wish I could have done more for you." " But what do you suppose Katie thinks of me." " Why, you see, it sums itself up in tliis : she sees that you have been making serious love to Patty, and have turned the poor givl's head, more or less, and that now you are in love with somebody else. Why, put it how we will, we can't get oixt of that. There are the facts, pure and simple, and she wouldn't be half a woman if she didn't resent it-" " But it's hard lines too, isn't it, old fellow ? No, I won't say that ; I deserve it all, and much worse. But you think I may come round all right ? " " Yes, all in good time. I hope there's no danger in any other quarter? " " Goodness knows ! There's the rub, you see. She will go back to town disgusted with me ; I shan't see her again, and she won't hear of me for I don't know how long ; and she will be meeting heaps of men. Has Katie been over to Barton?" " Yes, she was there last week, just before they left." " Well, what happened ?" " She wouldn't say much ; but I gathered that they are very well." " Oil, yes, bother it, of course thej^ are very well. But didn't she talk to Katie about what happened last week ?" " Of course she did. ' What else should they talk about ?" " But you don't know what they said ? " " No ; but you may depend on it that Miss Winter will be your friend. My dear fellow, there is nothing for it but time." " Well I suppose not," said Tom, with a groan. " Do you think I should call and see Katie ? " "No ; I think better not." "Well, then, we maj^ as well get back," said Tom, who was not sorry for his friend's decision. So they paid tlieir bill, and started for home, taking Hawk's Lynch on the way, that Hardy might see the view. " And what did you find out about young Winburn ! " he said as they passed down the street. " Oh, no good," said Tom ; " he was turned out, as I thought, and has gone to live with an old woman up on the heath here, who is no better than she should be ; and none of the farmers will employ him." " You didn't see him, I suppose ? " "No ; he is away with some of the heath people hawkino- besoms and chairs about the country. They make them M'hen SECOND TBAfi. 393 there is no harvest work, and loaf about into Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and other counties, selling them." " No good will come of that sort of life, I'm afraid." "No ; but what is he to do? " " I called at the lodge as I came away, and saw Patty and her mother. It's all right in that quarter. Tlie old woman doesn't seem to think anything of it ; and Patty is a good girl, and will make Harry Winburn, or anybody else, a capital wife. Here's your locket and the letters ; so now that's all over." " Did she seem to mind giving them up ? " " Not very much. No, you are lucky there. She will get over it.' " But you told her that I am her friend for life, and that she is to let me know if I can ever do anything for her ?" " Yes ; and now I hope this is the last job of the kind I shall ever have to do for you." " But what bad luck it has been ! If I had only seen her before, or known who she was, nothing of all this would have happened." To which Hardy made no reply ; and the subject was not alluded to again in their walk home. A day or two afterward they returned to Oxford — Hardy to begin his work as fellow and assistant-tutor of the college, and Tom to see whether ,he could not make a better hand of his second year than he had of his fii'st. He began with a much better chance of doing so, for he was thoroughly humbled. The discovery that he was not altogether such a hero as he had fancied himself, had dawned upon him veiy distinctly by the end of his first year, and the events of the long vacation had confirmed the impression, and pretty well taken all the conceit out of him for the time. The impotency of his own will, even when he was bent on doing the right thing, his want of in- sight and foresight in whatever matter he took in hand, the unruliness of his tempers and passions just at the moments when it behooved him to have them most thoroughly in hand and under control, were a set of disagreeable facts which had been driven well home to him. The results, being even such as we have seen, he did not much repine at, for he felt he had deserved them ; and there was a sort of grim satisfaction, dreary as the prospect was, in facing them, and taking his punishment like a man. This was what he had felt at the first blush on the Hawk's Lynch ; and, as he thought over matters again by his fire, with his oak sported, on the first evening of 394 TOM BROWN AT OXPOED. term, he was still in the same mind. This was clearly what he had to do now. How to do it was the only question. At first he was inclined to try to set himself right with the Porters and the Englebourn circle, by writing further explana- tions and confessions to Katie. But, on trying his hand at a letter, he found that he could not trust himself. The tempta- tion of putting everything in the best point of view for himself was too great ; so he gave up the attempt, and merely wrote a few lines to David, to remind him that he was always ready and anxious to do all he could for his friend Harry Winburn, and to beg that he might have news of anything which hap- pened to him, and how he was getting on. He did not allude to what had lately happened, for he did not know whether the facts had become known, and was in no hurry to open the subject himself. Having finished his letter, he turned again to his meditations over the fire, and, considering that he had some little right to reward resolution, took off the safety valve, and allowed the thoughts to bubble up freely which were always underlying all others that passed through his brain, and making constant low, delicious, but just now somewhat melancholy, music in his head and heart. He gave himself up to thinking of Mary, and their walk in the wood, and the sprained ankle, and all the sayings and doings of that eventful autumn day. Andthen he opened his desk and examined certain treasures therein con- cealed, including a withered rosebud, a sprig of heather, a cut boot-lace, and a scrap or two of writing. Having gone through some extravagant forms of worship, not necessary to be speci- fied, he put them away. Would it ever all come right ? He made his solitary tea, and sat down again to consider the point. But the point would not be considered alone. He be- gan to feel more strongly what he had had several hints of already, that there was a curiously close connection between liis own love story and that of Hari-y Winburn and Patty — that he couldn't separate them, even in his thoughts. Old Simon's tumble, which had recalled his daughter from Oxford at so critical a moment for him ; Mary's visit to Englebourn at this very time ; the curious yet natural series of little acci- dents which had kept him in ignorance of Patty's identity un- til the final catastrophe — then again, the way in whicli Harry Winburn and his mother had come across him on the very day of his leaving Barton ; the fellowship of a common mourn- ing which had seemed to bind them together so closelj', and this last discovery which he could not help fearing must turn SECOND YBAE. .^95 Harry into a bitter enemy, when he heard the truth, as he must, sooner or later, — as all these things passed before him, he gave in to a sort of superstitious feeling that his own fate hung in some way or another upon that of Harry Winbuvn. If be helped on his suit, he was helping on his own ; but whether he helped on his own or not, was, after all, not that which was uppermost in his thoughts. He was much changed in this respect since he last sat in those rooms, just after his first days with her. Since then an angel had met him, and had " touched the chord of self, which, trembling," was passing " in music out of sight." The tliought of Harry and his'trials enabled him to indulge in some good honest indignation, for which there was no room in his own case. That the prospects in life of such a man should be in the power, to a great extent, of such people as Squire Wurley and Farmer Tester ; that, because he happened to be poor, he should be turned out of the cottage where his family had lived for a hundred years, at a week's notice, through the caprice of a drunken gambler ; that, because he had stood up for his rights, and had thereby ofEended the worst farmer in the parish, he should be a marked man, and unable to get work — these things appeared so monstrous to him, and made him so angry, that he was obliged to get up and stamp about the room. And from the particular case he very soon got to generalizations. Questions which had before now puzzled him gained a new significance every minute, and became real to him. Why a few men should be rich, and all the rest poor ; above all, why he should be one of the few ? Why the mere possession of property should give a man power over all his neighbors ? Why poor men, who were ready and willing to work, should only be allowed to work, as a sort of favor, and should after all get the nierest tithe of what their labor produced, and be tossed aside as soon as their work was done, or no longer re- quired ? These, and other such problems, rose up before him, crude and sharp, asking to be solved. Feeling himself quite unable to give any but one answer to them, that he was getting out of his depth, and that the whole business was in a muddle, he had recourse to his old method when in difficulties, and, put- ting on his cap, started off to Hardy's rooms to talk the mat- ter over, and see whether he could not get some light on it from that quarter. Hq returned in an hour or so, somewhat less troubled in his mind, inasmuch as he had found his friend in pretty much the 396 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. same state as himself. But one step he had gained. Under his arm he carried certain books from Hardy's scanty library, the perusal of which he hoped, at least, might enable him, sooner or latter, to feel that he had got on to some sort of firm ground. At any rate, Hardy had advised him to read them ; so, without more ado, he drew his chair to the table and began to look into them. This glimpse of the manner in which Tom spent the first evening, of his second year at Oxford will enable intelligent readers to understand why, though he took to reading far more kindly and earnestly than he had ever done before, he made no great advance in the proper studies of the place. Not that he wholly neglected these, for Hardy kept him pretty well up to the collar, and he passed his little-go creditably, and was fairly placed at the college examinations. In some of the books which he had to get up for lectures he was really interested. The politics of Athens, .the struggle between the Roman plebs and patricians, Mons Sacer, and the Agrarian Laws — these began to have a new meaning to him, but chiefly because they bore more or less on the great Harry Winburn problem ; which problem, indeed, for him had now fairly swelled into the con- dition-of -England problem, and was becoming every day more and more urgent and importunate, shaking many old beliefs, and leading him whither he knew not. This very matter of leading was a sore trial to him. The furtlier he got on his new road the more he felt the want of guidance — the guidance of some man ; for that of books he soon found *to be bewildering. His college tutor, whom he consulted, only deprecated the waste of time ; but, on finding it impossible to dissuade him, at last recommended the eco- nomic works of that day as the proper well-springs of truth on such matters. To them Tom accordingly went, and read with the docility and faith of youth, bent on learning, and feeling itself in the presence of men who had, or assumed, the right of speaking with authority. And tlioy spoke to him with authority, and he read on, be- lieving mucli and hoping more ; but somehow tliey did not really satisfy liim, though they silenced him for the time. It was not the fault of the books, most of which laid down clearly enough that what they professed to teach was the science of man's material interests, and the laws of the making and em- ployment of capital. But this escaped him in his eagerness, and he wandered up and down their pages in search of quite another science, and of laws with which they did not meddle. SECOND YEAE. 39'/ Nevertheless, here and there they seemed to touch upon what he was in search of. He was much fascinated, for instance, by the doctrine of " the greatest happiness of the greatest num- ber," and for its sake swallowed for a time, though not with- out wry faces, the dogmas that self -interest is the true pivot of all social action, that population has a perpetual tendency to outstrip the means of living, and that to establish a preventive check on population is the duty of all good citizens. And so he lived on for some time in a dreary, uncomfortable state, fearing for the future of his country, and with little hope about his own. But, when he came to take stock of his newly acquired knowledge, to weigh it and measure it, and found it to consist of at sort of hazy conviction that society would be all right and ready for the millennium, when every man could do what he liked, and nobody could interfere with him, and there should be a law against marriage, the result was more than he could stand. He roused himself, and shook himself, and began to think, " Well, these my present teachers are very clever men, and well-meaning men, too. I see all that ; but, if their teaching is only to land me here, why it was scarcely worth while going through so much to get so little." Casting about still for guidance. Grey occurred to him. Grey was in residence as a bachelor, attending divinity lec- tures, and preparing for ordination. He was still working hard at the night school, and Tom had been there once or twice to help him when the curate was away. In short, he was in very good books with Grey, who had got the better of his shy- ness with him. He saw that Tom was "changed and sobered, and in his heart hoped some day to wean him from the pur- suits of the body, to which he was still fearfully addicted, and to bring him into the fold. This hope was not altogether un- founded : for, notwithstanding the strong bias against them which Tom had brought with him from school, he was now at times much attracted by many of the high-church doctrines, and the men who professed them. Such men as Grey, he saw, did»really believe something, and were in earnest abont carry- ing their beliefs into action. The party might and did com- prise many others of the weakest sort, who believed and were in earnest about nothing, but who liked to be peculiar. Never- theless, while he saw it laying hold of many of the best men of his time, it is not to be wondered at that he was drawn toward it. Some help might lie in these men if he could only get at it ! 398 • TOM B60WN AT OXfOED. So he propounded his doubts and studies, and theii- results, to Grey. But it was a failure. Grey felt no difficulty, or very little, in the whole matter ; but Tom found tliat it was because he believed the world to belong to the devil. " Laissezfaire," " buying clieap and selling dear," Grey held might be good enough laws for the world — very probably were. The laws of the Church were " self-sacrifice," and " bearing one another's burdens " ; her children should come out from the regions where the other's laws were acknowledged. Tom listened, was dazzled at first, and thought he was get- ting on the right track ; but very soon he found that Grey's specific was not of tlie least use to him ! It was no good to tell him of the rules of a society to which he felt that he neither belonged, nor wished to belong, for clearly it could not be the Church of England. He was an outsider ! Grey would probably admit it to be so, if he asked him. He had no long- ing to be anything else, if the Church meant an exclusive body, which took no care of any but its own people, and had nothing to say to the great world in which he and most people had to live, and buying and selling, and hiring and working, had to go on. The close corporation might have very good ■laws, but they were nothing to him. What he wanted to know about was the law which this great world — the devil's world, as Grey called it — was ruled by, or rather ought to be ruled by. Perhaps, after all, Bentham and the others, whose books he had been reading, might be right ! At any rate, it was clear that they had in their thoughts the same world that lie had — the world which included himself and Harry Winburn, and all laborers and squires and farmers. So he turned to them again, not hopefully, but more inclined to listen to them than he had been before he had spoken to Grey. Hardy was so fully occupied with college lectures and private pupils, that Tom had scruples about taking up much of his spare time in the evenings. Nevertheless, as Grey had broken down, and there was nobody else, on whose judgment he could rely, who would listen to him, whenever he had a chance he would pi'opound some of his puzzles to his old friend. In some respects he got little help, for Hardy was almost as much at sea as he himself on such subjects as "value," and "wages." and the " laws of supply and demand." But there was an in- domitable belief in him that all men's intercourse with one another, and not merely that of Churchmen, must be founded on the principle of " doing as they would be done by," and not on " buying cheap and selling dear," and that these never SECOND YKAE. 399 could or would be reconciled with one another, or mean the same thing, twist them how you would. This faith of his friend's comforted Tom greatly, and he was never tired of bringing it out ; but at times he had his doubts wliether Grey might not be right — whether, after all, that and the like maxims and principles were meant to be the laws of the king- doms of this world. He wanted some corroborative evidence on the subject from an impartial and competent witness, and at last hit upon what he wanted. For, one evening, on enter- ing Hardy's rooms, he found him on the last pages of a book, which he shut with an air of triumph on recognizing his visitor. Taking it up, he thrust it into Tom's hands, and slap- ping him on the shoulder, said, " There, my boy, that's what we want, or pretty near it at any rate. Now, don't say a word, but go back- to your rooms, and swallow it whole and digest it, and then comeback and tell me what you think of it." " But I want to talk to j'ou." "I can't talk ; I have spent the better part of two days over that book, and have no end of papers to look over. There ; get back to your rooms, and do what I tell you, or sit down here and hold your tongue." ' So Tom sat down and held his tongue, and was soon deep in Carlyle's " Past and Present." How he did revel in it — in the humor, the power, the pathos, but above all in the-root-and branch denunciations of many of the doctrines in which he had been so lately voluntarily and wearily chaining himself 1 The chains went snapping off one after another, and in his exulta- tion he keeps spouting out passage after passage in a song of triumph, " Enlightened egoism never so luminous is not the rule by which man's life can be led — laissee fdire, supply and demand, cash payment for the sole nexus, and so forth, were not, are not, and never will be, a practical law of union for a society of men," etc., etc., until Hardy fairly got up and turned him out, and he retired with his new-found treasure to his own rooms. He had scarcely ever in his life been so moved by a book before. He laughed over it and cried over it, and began half a dozen letters to the author to thank him, which he for- tunately tore up. He almost forgot Mary for several hours during his first enthusiasm. He had no notion how he had been mastered and oppressed before. He felt as the crew of a small fishing-smack, who are being towed away by an enemy's cruiser, might feel on seeing a frigate with the Union Jack flying, bearing down and opening fire on their captor ; or as a 400 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. small boy at school, who is being fagged against rules by the right of the strongest, feels when he sees his big brother com- ing round the corner. The help which he had found was just what he wanted. There was no narrowing of the ground here, no appeal to men as members of any exclusive body whatever to separate themselves and come out of the devil's world ; but to men as men, to every man as a man, to the weakest and meanest, as well as to the strongest and most noble, telling them that the world is God's world, that every one of them has a work in it, and bidding them find their work and set about it. The strong tinge of sadness which ran through the whole book, and its unsparing denunciations of the established oi-der of things, suited his own unsettled and restless frame of mind. So he gave himself up to his new bondage, and rejoiced in it as though he had found at last what he was seeking for ; and, by the time that long vacation came round again, to which we are compelled to hurry him, he was filled full of a set of con- tradictory notions and beliefs, which were destined to astonish and perplex the mind of that worthy J. P. for the county of Berks, Brown the elder, whatever other effect they might have on society at large. Readers must not suppose, however, that our hero has given up his old pursuits ; on the contrary he continued to boat and cricket and spar with as much vigor as ever. His perplexities also made him a little more silent at his pastimes than he used to be. But, as we have already seen him thus employed, and know the ways of the animal in such matters, it is needless to repeat. What we want to do is to follow him into new fields of thought and action, and mark, if it may be, how he devel- ops, and gets himself educated in one way and another : and this plunge into the great sea of social, political, and econom- ical questions is the noticeable fact (so far as any is noticeable) of his second year's residence. Daring the year he had only very meager accounts of mat- ters at Englebotirn. Katie, indeed, had come round sufficiently to write to him, but she scarcely alluded to her cousin. He only knew that Mary had come out in London, and was much admired, and that the Porters had not taken Barton again, but were going abroad for the autumn and winter. The ac- counts of Harry were bad ; he was still living at Daddy Cowell's, nobody knew how, and working gang-work occa- sionally with the outlaws of the heath. The only fact of importance in the neighborbood had been THE KIVBKSIDB. 401 the death of Squire Wurley, which happened suddenly in tlie spring. A distant cousin had succeeded him, a young man of Tom's own age. He was also in residence at Oxford, and Tom knew him. Tliey were not very congenial ; so he was much astonished wlien young Wurley, on his return to college after his rela- tive's funeral, rather sought him out, and seemed to wish to know more of him. The end of it was an invitation to Tom to come to the Grange, and spend a week or so at the beginning of the long vacation. There was to be a party of Oxford men, and nobody else there ; and they meant to enjoy themselves thoroughly, Wurley said. Tom felt much embarrassed how to act, and, after some hesi- tation, told his inviter of his la,st visit to the mansion in ques- tion, thinking that a knowledge of the circumstances might change his mind. But he found that young Wurley knew the facts already ; and in fact, he couldn't help suspecting that his quarrel with the late owner had something to say to his present invitation. However, it did not lie in his mouth to be curious on the subject ; and so he accepted the invitation glad- ly, nmch delighted at the notion of beginning his vacation so near Englebourn, and having the run of the Grange fishing, which was justly celebrated. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE RIVERSIDE. So, from Henley, Tom went home just to see his father and mother, and pick up his fishing gear, and then started for the Grange. On his road thither, he more than once almost made up liis mind to go round by Englebourn, get liis first interview with Katie over, and find out how the world was really going with Harry and his sweetheart, of whom he had had such meager intelligence of late. But, for some reason or another, when it came to taking thef turn to Englebourn, he passed it by, and, contenting himself for the time with a distant view of the village arid the Hawk's Lynch, drove straight to the Grange. He had not expected to feel very comfortable at first in the house which he had left the previous autumn in so strange a manner, and he was not disappointed. The rooms reminded him unpleasantly of his passage of arms with the late master, and the grave and portly butler was sornewhat embarrassed in 402 . TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. his reception of him ; while the footman who carried off his portmanteau, did it witli a grin which put him out. The set of men whom he found there were not of his sort. They were young Londoners, and he a thorough countryman. But the sight of the stream, by which he took a hasty stroll before dinner, made up for everything, and filled him with pleasurable antici- pations. He thought he had never seen a sweeter bit of water. The dinner to which the party of young gentlemen sat down was most undeniable. The host talked a little too much, per- haps, under all the circumstances, of my wine, my plate, my mutton, etc., provoking the thought of how long they had been his. But he was bent on hospitality after his fashion, and his guests were not disposed to criticise much. The old butler did not condescend to wait, but brought in a magnum of claret after dinner, carefully nursing it as if it were a baby, and placing it patronizingly before his young master. Before they adjourned to the billiard-room, which they did di- rectly, they had disposed of several of the same ; but the follow- ers were brought in by a footman, the butler being employed in discussing a bottle of an older vintage with the steward, in the still-room. Then came pool, pool, pool, soda-water and brandy, and cigars, into the short hours ; but Tom stole away early, having an eye to his morning's fishing, and not feeling much at home with his companions. He was out soon after sunrise the next morning. He never wanted to be called when there was a trout-stream within reach ; and his fishing instinct told him that, in these sultry dog-days, there would be little chance of sport when the sun was well up. So he let himself gently out of the hall door — paused a moment on the steps to fill his chest with the fresh morning air, as he glanced at the weather-cock over the stables — and then set to work to put his tackle together on the lawn, humming a tune to himself as he selected an insinuating red hackle and alder fly from his well-worn book, and tied them on to his cast. Tiien he slung his creel over his shoulder, picked up his rod, and started for the water. As he passed the gates of the stable-yard, the keeper came out — a sturdy, bullet- headed fellow in a velveteen coat and cord breeches and gaiters — and touched his hat. Tom returned the salute, and wished him good-morning. " Mornin', sir ; you be about early." " Yes ; I reckon it's the best time for sport at the end of June." " 'Tis so, sir. Shall! fetch a net and come along ? " THE EIVBESIDE. 403 "No, thank you, I'll manage the ladle myself. But which do you call the best water?" "They be both middling good. There aint much odds atwixt 'em. But I sees most fish movin' o' mornin's in the deep water down below." " I don't know ; the night was too hot," said Tom, who had examined the water the day before, and made up his mind where he was going. " I'm for deep water on cold days ; I shall begin with the stickles up above. There's good head of water on, I suppose ?" " Plenty down the last week, sir." ",Come along, then ; we'll walk together, if you're going that way." So Tom stepped off, brushing through the steaming long grass, gemmed with wild flowers, followed by the keeper ; and as the grasshoppers bounded chirrupping out of his way, and the insect life hummed and murmured, and the lark rose and sang above his head, he felt happier than he had done for many a long month. So his heart opened toward his compan- ion, who kept a little behind him. ".What size do you take 'em out, keeper ?" " Anything over nine inches, sir. ^aiBut theskS a smartish few fish of three pounds, for them as can catch 'em." " Well, that's good ; but they aint easy caught, eh ? " " I don't rightly know, sir ; but there's gents comes as stands close by the water, and flogs down stream with the sun in their backs, and uses all manner o' vlies, wi' long names ; and then they gwoes away, and says, 'taint no use flying here, 'cos there's so much cadis bait and that like." " Ah, veiy likely," said Tom, with a chuckle. " The chaps as catches the big fishes, sir," went on the keeper, getting confidential, "is thay cussed night-line poachers. There's one o' thay as has come here this last spring-tide — the artfulest chap as ever I come across, and down to every move on the board. He don't use no shove nets nor such like tackle, not he ; I s'pose he don't call that sport. Besides, I got master to stake the whole water, and set old knives and razors about in the holes, so that don't answer ; and this joker alius goes alone — which, in course, he couldn't do with nets. Now, I knows within five or six yards where that chap sets his lines, and I finds 'em, now and again, set the artfulest you ever see. But 'twould take a man's life to look arter him, and I knows he gets maybe a dozen big fish a week, do all as I knows." " How is it you can't catch him, keeper ? " said Tom, much amused. 404 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. " Why, you see, sir, he don't come at any hours. Drat ' un ! said the keeper, getting hot ; " blessed if I don't think he sometimes com.es down among the haymakers and folk at noon, and up lines and off, while thay chaps does nothing but snigger at un — all I knows is, as I've watched till midnight, and then on again at dawn for'n, and no good come on it but once." " How was that ? " " Well, one mornin', sir, about last Lady-day, I comes quite quiet up stream about dawn. When I gets to Farmer Giles' piece (tliat little rough bit, sir, as you sees t'other side the stream, two fields from our outside bounds), I sees un a stoop- ing down and hauling in's line. ' Now's your time, Billy,' says I, and up the hedge I cuts hot-foot, to get betwixt he and our bounds. Wether he seen me or not, I can't mind ; leastways, when I up's head t'other side the hedge, vorrights where I seen him last, there was he a-trotting up stream quite cool, a-pocketing a two-pounder. Then he seen me, and away we goes side by side for the bounds — he this side the hedge and I t'other ; he takin' the fences like our old greyhound-bitch, Clara. We takes the last fence on to that fuzzy field as j'ou sees there, sir (parson's glebe, and out of our liberty), neck and neck, and I turns short to the left, 'cos there warn't no fence now betwixt he and I. Well, I thought he'd a dodged on about the fuz. Not he ; he slouches his hat over's eyes, and stands quite cool by fust fuz bush — I minded then as we was out o' our beat. Howsever, my blood was up ; so I at's him then and there, no words lost, and fetches a crack at's head wi' my stick. He fends wi' his'n ; and then, as.1 rushes in to coUar'n, dashed if 'e didn't meet I full, and catch I by the thigh and collar, and send I slap over's head into a fuz bush. Then he chuckles fit to bust hisself, and cuts his stick, while I creeps out full o' prickles, and wi' my breeches tore shameful. Dang un ! " cried the keeper, while Tom roared, " he's a lissum wosbird, that I 'ool say, but I'll be upsides wi' he next time I sees un. Whorson fool I was not to stop and look at 'n and speak to un ! Then I should ha' know'd 'n again ; and now he med be our parish clerk for all as I knows." " And you've never met him since ? " " Never sot eye on un, sir, arly or late — wishes I had." " Well, keeper, here's half a crown to go toward mending the hole in your breeches, and better luck at the return match. I shall begin fishing here." " Thank 'ee, sir ; you keep your cast pretty nigh that there off bank, and you med have a rave good un ther. I seen a THE RIVERSIDE. 405 fish suck there just now as warn't spawned this year nor last nether." And away went the keeper. " Stanch fellow, the keeper," said Tom to himself, as he reeled out yard after yard of his tapered line, and with a gentle sweep dropped his collar of flies lightly on the water, each cast covering another five feet of the dimpling surface. " Good fellow, the keeper — don't mind telling a story against himself — can stand being laughed at — more than his master can. Ah, there's the fish he saw sucking, I'll be bound. Now, you beauties, over his nose, and fall light — don't disgrace your bringing up ! " and away went the flies quivering through the air and lighting close to the opposite bank, under a bunch of rushes. A slight round eddy followed below the rushes, as the cast came gently back across the current. " Ah, you see them, do you, old boy ? " thought Tom. " Say your prayers, then, and get shrived," and away went the flies again, this time a little below. No movement. The third throw, a great lunge and splash, and the next moment the lithe rod bent double, and the gut collar spun along, cutting through the water like mad. Up goes the great fish twice into.. the air, Tom giving him the point, then up stream again, Tom giving him the butt and beginning to i-eel up gently. Down goes the great fish into the swaying weeds, working with his tail like a twelve-horse sci-ew. " If I can only get my nose to ground," thinks he. So thinks Tom, and trusts to his tackle, keeping a steady strain on trouty, and creeping gently down stream. " No go," says the fish, as he feels his nose steadily hauled round, and turns with a swirl down stream. Away goes Tom, reeling in, and away goes the fish in hopes of a slack — away, for twenty or thirty yards — the fish coming to the top lazily now and again, and holding on to get his second wind. Now a cart track crossed the stream, no weeds, and shallow water at the side. " Here we must^iave it out," thinks Tom, and turns fish's nose up stream again. The big fish gets sulky, twice drifts toward the shallow, and twice plunges away at the sight of his enemy into the deep water. The third time he comes swaying in, his yellow side gleaming and his mouth open ; and the next moment Tom scoops him out on the grass, with a " whoop " that might have been heard at the house. " Two-pounder, if he's an ounce," says Tom, as he gives him the coup de grace, and lays him out lovingly on the fresh green^ sward. Who among you, dear readers, can appreciate the intense 406 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. delight of grassing your first big fish after a nine months' fast. All first sensations have their special pleasure, but none can be named, in a small way, to beat this of the first fish of the season. The first clean leg-hit for four in your first match at Lords — the grating of the bows of your racing boat against the stern of the boat ahead in your first race — the first half-mile of a burst from the cover side in November when the hounds in the fields ahead may be covered with a tablecloth, and no one but the huntsman and a top sawyer or two lies be- tween you and then — the first brief after your call to the bar, if it comes within the year — the sensations produced by these are the same in kind ; but cricket, boating, getting briefs, even hunting, lose their edge as time goes on. As to lady readers, it is impossible, probably, to give them an idea of the sensation in question. Perhaps some may have experienced something of the kind at their first balls, when they heard whispers, and saw all eyes turning their way, and knew that their dresses and gloves fitted perfectly. But this joy can be felt but once in a life, and the first fish comes back as fresh as ever, or ought to come, if all men had their rights, once in a season. So, good luck to the gentle craft, and its professors, and may the Fates send us much into their company ! The trout-fisher, like the landscape painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude, nature, and his own thoughts — he must be on the best terms with all of these ; and he who can take kindly the largest allowance of these, is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his fellow-men. Tom had splendid sport that summer morning. As the great sun rose higher, the liglit morning breeze, which had curled the water, died away ; the light mist drew up into light cloud, and the light cloud vanished into cloudland, for anything I know ; and still the fish rose, strange to say, though Tom felt it was an affair of minutes, and acted accordingly. At eight o'clock he was about a quarter of a mile from the house, at a point in the stream of rare charms, both for the angler and the lover of gentle river beauty. The main stream was crossed by a lock, formed of a solid brick bridge with no parapets, under which the water rushed through four small arches, each of which could be closed in an instant by letting down a Iieavy wooden lock gate, fitted in grooves on the upper side of the bridge. Such locks are frequent in the west-'country streams, even at long distances from mills and millers, for whose behoof they were made in old days, that the supply of water to the mill might be easily regulated. All pious anglers should bless the memo- THE EIVBKSIDE. 407 ries of the old builders of them, for they are the very paradises of the great trout, who frequent the old brickwork and timber foundations. The water, in its rush through the arches, had of course worked for itself a deep hole, and then, some twenty yards below, spread itself out in wanton, joyous ripples and ed- dies over a broad surface some fifty yards across, and dashed away toward a little island some two hundred yards below, or rolled itself slowly back toward the bridge again, up the back water by the side of the bank, as if longing for another merry rush through one of those narrow arches. The island below was crowned with splendid alders, willows forty feet high, which swept into the water, and two or three poplars ; a rich mile of water meadow, with an occasional willow or alder, lay gleaming beyond ; and the view was bounded by a glorious wood, which crowned the gentle slope, at the foot of which the river ran. Another considerable body of water, which had been carried off above from the main stream to flush the water meadows, rejoined its parent at this point ; it came slowly down a broad artificial ditch, running parallel with the main stream ; and the narrow strip of land which divided the two streams ended abruptly just below the lock, forming a splendid point for bather or angler. Tom had fixed on this pool as his bonne bouche, as a child keeps its plums till the last, and stole over the bridge, stooping low, to gain the point above indicated. Having gained it, he glanced round to beware of the dwarf ash-trees and willows which were scattered along the strip and might catch heedless collars and spoil sport, when, lying lazily almost on the surface where the back water met the stream from the meadows, he beheld the great-grandfather of all trout, afellow two feet long and a foot in girth at the shoulders, just moving fin enough to keep him from turning over on to his back. He threw himself flat on the ground and crept away to the other side of the strip ; the king-fish had not seen him ; and the next moment my uncle saw him. suck in a bee laden with his morning's load of honey, who touched the water un- warily close to his nose. With a trembling hand Tom took off his tail fly, and, on his knees, substituted a governor ; then, shortening his line after wetting his mimic bee in the pool behind him, tossed him gently into the monster's very jaws. For a moment the fish seemed scared, but the next, conscious in his strength, lifted his nose slowly to the surface and sucked in the bait. My uncle struck gently, and then sprang to his feet. But the heavens had other work for the king-fish, who dived swiftly under the bank ; a slight jar followed, and Tom's 408 TOM BROWN AT OXFOED. rod was straight over liis head, the line and scarce a yard of his trusty gut collar dangling about his face. He seized this remnant with horror and unsatisfied longing, and examined it with care. Could he have overlooked any fraying which the gut might have got in the morning's work? No ; he had gone over every inch of it not five minutes before, as he neared the pool. Besides, it was cut clean through, not a trace of bruise or fray about it. How could it have happened? He went to the spot and looked into the water ; it was slightly discolored, and he could not see the bottom. He threw his fishing-coat off, rolled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt, and, lying on his side, felt about the bank and tried to reach the bottom, but couldn't. So, hearing the half-hour bell ring, he deferred further inquiry, and stripped in silent disgust for a plunge in the pool. Three times he hurled himself into the delicious rush of the cold chalk stream, with that utter abandon in which man, whose bones are brittle, can only indulge when there are six or seven feet of water between him and mother earth ; and, letting the stream bear him away at its own sweet will to the shallows below, struck up again through the rush and the roar to his plunging place. Then slowly and luxuriously dressing, he lit his short pipe, — companion of meditation, — and began to ruminate on the escape of his king-fish. What could have cut his collar ? The more he thought, the less he could make it out. When suddenly he was aware of the keeper on his way back to the house for orders and breakfast. " What sport, sir ? " "Pretty fair," said Tom, carelessly; lugging five plump speckled fellows, weighing some seven and a half pounds, out of his creel, and laying them out for the keeper's inspection. " Well, they be in prime order, sir, surely," said the keeper, handling them ; " they alius gets mortal thick, across the shoulders while the May fiy be on. Lose any, sir ? " " I put in some little ones up above, and lost one screamer just up the back ditch there. He must have been a four pounder, and went off, and be hanged to him, with two yards of my collar and a couple of first-rate flies. How on earth he got off I can't tell ! " and he went on to unfold the particulars of the short struggle. The keeper could hardly keep down a grin. " Ah, sir," said he, " I thinks I knows what spwiled your sport. You owes it all to that chap as I was a-telling you of, or my name's not Willum Goddard ; " and then, fishing the lock-pole with a hook at the end of it out of the rushes, he began groping under THE KIVEESIDB. 409 the batik, and presently hauled up a sort of infernal machine, consisting of a heavy lump of wood, a yard or so long, in which were carefully inserted the blades of four or five old knives and razors, while a crop of rusty, jagged nails filled up the spare space. Tom looked at it in wonder. " What devil's work have you got hold of there ? " he said at last. " Bless you, sir," s;iid the keeper, " 'tis only our shove-net traps as I wur a-telling you of. I keeps hard upon a dozen on 'em, and shifs 'em about in the likeliest holes ; and I takes care to let the men as is about the water meadows see me a sharpening on 'em up a bit, wi' a file, now and again. And, since master gev me orders to put 'em in, I don't think they tries that game on not once a month." " Well, but where do you and your master expect to go to if you set such things as those about ? " said Tom, looking seiious. "Why, you'll be cutting some fellow's hand or foot half off one of these days. Suppose I had waded up the bank to see what had become of my cast? " "Lor, sir, I never thought o' tliat," said the keeper, looking sheepish, and lifting the back of his short hat off his head to make room for a scratch ; "but," added he, turning the sub- ject, " if you wants to keep thay artful wosbirds off the water, you must frighten 'em wi' summat out o' the way. Drattle 'em, I knows they puts me to my wits' end ; but you'd never 'a' had five such fish as them afore breakfast, sir, if we didn't stake the waters unmussiful." " Well, and I don't want 'em, if I can't get 'em without. I'll tell you what it is, keeper, this razor business is going a bit to far ; men aint to be maimed for liking a bit of sport. You set spring-guns in the woods, and you know what that came to. Why don't you, or one of your watches, stop out here at night, and catch the fellows, like men ? " " Why, you see, sir, master don't allow me but one watcher, and he's mortal feared o' the water he be, specially o' nights. He'd sooner by ];alf stop up in the woods. Daddy Cowell (that's an old woman as lives on the heath, sir, and a bad sort she be, too), well, she told he once, when he wouldn't gee her some bacchy as he'd got, and she'd a mind to, as he'd fall twice into the water for once as he'd a get out ; and th' poor chap ever since can't think but what he'll be drownded. And there's queer sights and sounds by the river o' nights, too, I ool say, sir, let alone the white mist, as makes everything look unket, and gives a chap the rheumatics." 410 TOM BEOWW AT OXFORD. "Well, but y. to Chatham, where the regiment is. You think it's the best thing for him, don't you ? " said Tom, turning to East. " Yes ; I think you'll do very well if you only keep steady. Here's a note to the sergeant, and I shall be back at Chatham in a day or two myself." Harry took the note mechanically ; he was quite unable yet to make any resistance. " And now get something to eat as quickly as yon can, for we ought to be off. The horses are all right, I suppose ? " " Yes, Master Tom," said Harry, with an appealing look. " Where are your coat and waistcoat, Harry ? "_ " They be in the stable, sir." " In tlie stable ! Why, they're all wet then still ? " " Oh, 'tis no odds about tliat, Master Tom." " No odds ! Get them in directly, and put them to dry here." So Harry Winburn went off to the stable to fetch his clothes. "He's a fine fellow," said East, getting up and coming to the fire ; " I've taken a fancy to him, but he doesn't fancy en- listing." "Poor fellow ! he has to leave his sweetheart. It's a sad business, but it's the best thing for him, and you'll see he'll Tom was right. Poor Harry came in and dried his clothes, and got his supper, and while he was eating it, and all along the road afterward, till they reached tlie station at about eleven o'clock, pleaded in his plain way with Tom against leaving his own country side. And East listened silently, and liked him better and better. Tom argued with him gently, and turned the matter round on all sides, putting the most hopeful face upon it ; arid, in the end, talked first himself and then Harry into the belief that it was the very best thing that could have happened to him, and more likely than any other course of action to bring everything right between him and all the folk at Englebourn. So Harry got into the train at Steventon in a pretty good heart, with his fare paid, and half a sovereign in his pocket, more and more impressed in his mind with what a wonderful thing it was to be a " schollard." The two friends rode back to Oxford at a good pace. They had both of them quite enough to think about, and were not in the humor for talk, had place and time served, so that scarce a word passed between them, till they_ had left their horses at the livery stables, and were walking through the THE lieutenant's SENTIMENTS AND PROBLEMS. 461 silent streets a few minutes before midnight. Then East broke . silence. " I can't make out how you do it. I'd give'half a year's pay to get the way of it." " Tlie way of what ? What are you talking about ? " "Why, your way of shutting j'oureyes, and going in blind." " Well, that's a queer wish for a fighting man," said Tom, laughing. " We alwaj's thought a rusher no good at school, and that the thing to learn was to go in with your own eyes open, and shut up other people's." " Ah, but we liadn't cut our eye-teeth then. I look at these things from a professional point of view. My business is to get fellows to shut their eyes tight, and I begin to think you can't do it as it should be done, without shutting your own first." " I don't take." " Why, look at the way you talked your convict — I beg your pardon — your unfortunate friend — into enlisting to-night. You talked as if you believed every word you were saying to him." " So I did!" " Well, I should like to have you for a recruiting sergeant, if you could only drop that radical bosh. If I had had to do it, instead of enlisting, he would have gone straight off and hung himself in the stable." "I'm glad you didn't try your hand at it, then." " Look again at me. Do you think anyone but such a — well, I don't want to say anything uncivil — a headlong dog like you could have got me into such a business as to-day's? Now I want to be able to get other fellows to make just such fools of themselves as I've made of myself to-day. How do you do it ? " " I don't know, unless it is that I can't help always looking at the best side of tilings myself, and so -" "Most things haven't got a best side." " Well, a better, then." " Nor a better." " If they haven't got a better, of course, it don't matter." " No, I don't believe it does — much. Still, I should like to be able to make a fool of myself, too, when I want — with the view of getting others to do ditto, of course." " I wish I could help you, old fellow ; but I don't see my way to it." " I shall talk to our regimental doctor about it, and get put through a course of fool's diet before we start for India." " Flap-doodle, they callit, what fools are fed on. But it's 462 TOM BBOWN AT OXFORD. odd that you should have broken out in this place, when all the way home I've been doing nothing but envying your special talent." "What's that?" " Just the opposite one — the art of falling on your feet. I should like to exchange with you." " You'd make a precious bad bargain of it, then." " There's twelve striking. I must knock in. Good-night. You'll be round to breakfast at nine ? " "All right. I believe in your breakfasts, rather," said East, as they shook hands at the gate of St. Ambrose, into which Tom disappeared, while the lieutenant strolled back to the Mitre. CHAPTER XLII. THIRD TEAR. East returned to his regiment in a few days, and at the end of the month the gallant 101st embarked for India. Tom wrote several letters to the lieutenant, inclosing notes to Harry with gleanings of news from Eiiglebourn, where his escape on the night of the riot had been a nine-days' wonder and, now that he was fairly " 'listed " and out of the way, public opinion was beginning to turn in his favor. In due course a letter arrived from the lieutenant, dated Cape Town, giving a pros- perous account of the voyage so far. East did not say much about " your convict," as he still insisted on calling Harry ; but the little he did say was very satisfactory, and Tom sent off this part of the letter to Katie, to whom he had confided the whole story, entreating . her to make the best use of it in the interests of the young soldier. And, after this out-of-the-way beginning, he settled down into the usual routine of his Oxford life. I'he change in his opinions and objects of interest brought him now into more intimate relations with a set of whom he had as yet seen little. For want of a better name, we may call tliem " the party of progress." At their parties, instead of practical jokes and boisterous mirth and talk of boats and bats and guns and horses, the highest and deepest questions of morals and politics and metaphysics were discussed, and dis- cussed with a freshness and enthusiasm which is apt to wear off when doing has to take theplace of talking, but has a strange charm of its own while it lasts, and is looked back to with lov- ing regret by those for whom it is no longer a possibility. THIKD TEAK. 463 "With this set Tom soon fraternized, and drank in many new ideas, and took to himself also many new crotchets hesides those with which he was already weighted. Almost all his new acquaintance were Liberal in politics, but a few only were ready to go all lengths with him. They were all Union men, and Tom, of course, followed the fashion, and soon propounded theories in that institution which gained him the name of Chartist Brown. There was a strong mixture of self-conceit in it all. He had a kind of idea that he had discovered something which it was creditable to have discovered, and that it was a very fine thing to have all these feelings for, and sympathies with, the masses, and to believe in democracy and glorious hu- manity and a good time coming, and I know not what other big matters. And, although it startled and pained him at first to hear himself called ugly names, which he had hated and despised from his youth up, and to know tliat many of his old acquaintances looked upon him, not simply as a madman, but as a madman with snobbish proclivities ; yet, when the first plunge was over, there was a good deal on the other hand which tickled his vanity, and was far from being unpleasant. To do him justice, however, the disagi-eeables were such that, had there not been some genuine belief at the bottom, he would certainly have been headed back very speedily into the fold of political and social orthodoxy. As it was, amid the cloud of sophisms and platitudes and big one-sided ideas half mastered, which filled bis thoughts and overflowed in his talk, there was growing in him and taking firmer hold on him daily a true and broad sympathy for men as men, and especially for poor men as poor men, and a righteous and burning hatred against all laws, customs, or notions, which according to his light either were or seemed to be setting aside, or putting anything else in the place of, or above the man. It was with him the natural outgrowth of the child's and boy's training (though his father would have been much astonished to be told so), and the instincts of those early days were now getting rapidly set into habits and faiths, and becoming a part of himself. In this stage of his life, as in so many former ones, Tom got great help from his intercourse with Hardy, now the rising tutor of the college. Hardy was traveling much the same road him- self as our hero, but was somewhat further on, and had come into it from a different country, and through quite other ob- stacles. Their early lives had been so different ; and, both by 464 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOED. nature and from long and severe self-restraint and discipline, Hardy was much the less impetuous and demonstrative of the two. He did not rush out, therefore (as Tom was too much in- clined to do), the moment he had seized hold of the end of a new idea which he felt to be goo'd for him and what he wanted, and brandish it in the face of all comers, and think himself a traitor to the truth if he wasn't trying to make everybody he met with eat it. Hardy, on the contrary, would test his new idea, and turn it over, and prove it as far as he could, and try to get hold of the whole of it, and ruthlessly strip off any tin- sel or rose-pink sentiment with which it might happen to be connected. Often and often did Tom suffer under this severe method, and rebel against it, and accuse his friend, both to his face and in his own secret thoughts, of coldness and want of faith, and all manner of other sins of omission and commission. In the end, however, he generally came round, with more or less of re- bellion, according to the severity of the treatment, and ac- knowledged that, when Hardy brought him down from riding the high horse, it was not without good reason, and that the dust in which he was rolled was always most wholesome dust. For instance, there was no phrase more frequently in the mouths of the party of progress than " the good cause." It was a fine, big-sounding phrase, which could be used with great effect in perorations of speeches at the Union, and was sufii- ciently indefinite to be easily defended from ordinary attacks, while it saved him who used it the trouble of ascertaining ac- curately'for himself or settling for his hearers what it really did mean. But, however satisfactory it might be before promis- cuous audiences, and so long as vehement assertion or decla- ration was all that was required to uphold it, this same " good cause" was liable to come to much grief when it had to get it- self defined. Hardy was particularly given to persecution on this subject, when he could get Tom, and, perhaps, one or two others, in a quiet room by themselves. While professing the . utmost sympathy for " the good cause," and a hope as strong as theirs that all its enemies might find themselves suspended to lamp-posts as soon as possible, he would pursue it into cor- ners from which escape was most difficult, asking it and its sup- porters what it exactly was, and driving them from one cloud- land to another, and from " the good cause" to " the people's cause," " the cause of labor," and other like troublesome defini- tions, until the great idea seemed to have no shape or existence any longer even in their own brains, THIED YEAE. 465 But Hardy's persecution, provoking as it was for the time, never went to the undermining of any real conviction in the minds of his juniors, or the shaking of anything which did not need shaking, hut only helped them to clear their ideas and brains as to what they were talking and thinking about, and gave them glimpses— soon clouded over again, but most useful nevertheless — of the truth, that there were a good many knotty questions to be solved before a man could be quite sure that he had found out the way to set the' world thoroughly to rights and heal all the ills that flesh is heir to. >^ Hardy treated another of his friend's most favorite notions even with less respect than this one of "the good cause." Democracy, that " universal democracy," which their favorite author had recently declared to be " an inevitable fact of the days in which we live," was, perhaps, on the whole, the pet idea of the small section of liberal young Oxford, with whom Tom was now hand and glove. They lost no opportunity of wor- shiping it, and doing battle for it ; and, indeed, did most of them very truly believe that the state of the world which this universal democracy was to bring about, and which was com- ing no man could say'how soon, was to be in fact that age of peace and good will which men had dreamed of in all times, when the lion should lie down with the kid, and nation should not vex nation any more. After hearing something to this effect from Tom on several occasions, Hardy cunningly lured him to his rooms on the pre- tense of talking over the prospects of the boat club, and then, having seated him by the fire, which he himself proceeded to assault gently with the poker, propounded suddenly to him the question : "Brown, I should like to know what you mean by 'democ- racy ' ? " Tom at once saw the trap into which he had fallen, and made several efforts to break away, but unsuccessfully ; and, being seated to a cup of tea, and allowed to smoke, was then and there grievously oppressed and mangled and sat upon, by his oldest and best friend. He took his ground carefully, and propounded only what he felt sure that Hardy himself would at once ac- cept — what no man of any worth could possibly take exception to. He meant much more, he said, than this, but for the present purpose it would be enough for him to say that, whatever else it might mean, democracy in his mouth always meant that every man should have a share in the government of his country. Jlardy, seeming to acquiesce, and making a sudden change 466 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. in the subject of their talk, decoyed his innocent guest away f i-om the thought of democracy for a few minutes, by holding up to him the flag of hero-worship, in which worship Tom was, of course, a sedulous believer. Then, having involved him in most difficult country, his persecutor opened fire upon him from masked batteries of the most deadly kind, the guns being all f I'om the armory of his own prophets. " You long for the rule of the ablest man, everywhere, at all times? To find your ablest man, and then give him power, and obey him — that you hold to be about fhe highest act of wisdom which a nation could be capable of ? " " Yes ; and you know you believe that too. Hardy, just as firmly as I do." " I hope so. But then, how about our universal democracy, and every man having a share in the government of his coun- try?" Tom felt that his flank was turned ; in fact, the contrast of his two beliefs had never struck him vividly before, and he was consequently much confused. But Hardy went on tapping a big coal gently with the poker, and gave him time to recover himself and collect his thoughts. " I don't mean, of course, that every man is to have an actual share in the government," he said, at last. " But every man is somehow to have a share ; and, if not an actual one, I can't see what the proposition comes to." "I call it having a share in the government when a man has a share in saying who shall govern him." " Well, you'll own that's a very different thing. But, let'^ see ; will that find our wisest governor for us — letting all the foolishest men in the nation have a say as to who he is to be ? " " Come now, Hardy ; I've heard you say that you are for manhood suffrage." " That's another question ; you let in another idea there ; at present we are considering whether the voxpopuliia the best test for finding your best man. I'm afraid all history is against you." " That's a good joke. Now, there I defy you, Hardy." " Begin at the beginning, then, and let us see." " I suppose you'll say, then, that the Egyptian and Babylon- ian empires wei-e better than the little Jewish republic." " Republic ! well, let that pass. But I never heard that the Jews elected Moses, or any of the judges." " Well, never mind the Jews : they're an exceptional case : you can't argue from them. " I don't admit that, I believe just the contrary. But go on," THIRD TEAK. 467 " Well, then, what do you say to the glorious Greek repub- lics, with Athens at the head of them ? " " I say that no nation ever treated their best men so badly. I see I mnst put on a lecture in Aristophanes for your special benefit. Vain, irritable, shallow, suspicious old Demus, with his two oboli in his cheek, and doubting only, between Cleon and the sausage-seller, which he shall choose for his wisest man — not to govern, but to serve his whims and caprices. You must call another witness, I think." " But that's a caricature." " Take the picture, then, out of Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon, how you will, and where you will — you won't mend the matter much. You shouldn't go so fast, Brown ; you won't mind my . saying so, I know. You don't get clear in your own mind before you pitch into everyone who comes across you, and so do your own side (which I admit is often the right one) more harm than good." Tom couldn't stand being put down so summarily, and fought over the ground from one country to another, from Borne to the United States, with all the arguments he could master, but with little success. That unfortunate first admission of his, he felt it throughout like a millstone round his neck, and could not help admitting to himself, when he left, that there was a good deal in Hardy's concluding remark, " You'll find it rather a tough business to get your ' universal democracy,' and ' gov- ernment by the wisest,' to pull together in one coach." Notwithstanding all such occasional reverses.and cold baths, however, Tom went on strengthening himself in his new opin- ions, and maintaining them with all the zeal of a convert. The shelves of his bookcase, and the walls of his rooms, soon began to show signs of the change which was taking place in his ways of looking at men and things. Hitherto a framed engraving of George III. had hung over his mantelpiece ; but, early in this his third year, the frame had disappeared for a few days, and when it re-appeared, the solemn face of John Milton looked out from it, while the honest monarch had retired into a portfolio. A fac-simile of Magna Charta soon displaced a large colored print 'of " A Day with the Pycheley " ; and soon afterward the death-warrant of Charles I., with its ^rim and resolute rows of signatures and seals, appeared on the wall in a place of honor, in the neighborhood of Milton. Squire Brown was passing through Oxford, and paid his son a visit soon after this last arrangement had been completed. He dined in hall, at the high table, being still a member of the 468 TOM BROWN AT OXFOKD. college, and afterward came with Hardy to Tom's rooms to have a quiet glass of wine, and spend the evening with his son and a few of his friends, who had been asked to meet " the gov- ernor." Tom had a struggle with himself whether he should not re- move the death-warrant into his bedroom for the evening, and had actually taken it down with this view ; but in the end he could not stomach such a backsliding, and so restored it to its place. " I have never concealed my opinions from my father," lie thought, "though I don't think he quite knows what they are. But if he doesn't, he ought, and the sooner the better. I should be a sneak to try to hide them. I know he won't like it, but he is alveays just and fair, and will make allowances. At any rate, up it goes again." And so he relmng the death-warrant, but with the devout secret hope that his father might not see it. The wine-party went off admirably. The men were nice, gentlemanly, intelligent fellows ; and the squire, who had been carefully planted by Tom with his back to the death-warrant, enjoyed himself very much. At last they all went, except Hardy ; and now the nervous time approached. For a short time longer the three sat at the wine-table, while the squire en- larged upon the great improvement in young men, and the habits of the university, especially in the matter of drinking. Tom had only opened tliree bottles of port. In his time the men would have drunk certainly not less than a bottle a man ; and other like remarks he made, as he sipped his coffee, and then, pushing back his chair, said, " Well, Tom, hadn't your servant better clear away ? and then we can draw round the fire, and have a talk." " Wouldn't you like to take a turn while he is clearing ? There's the Martyr's Memorial you haven't seen." "No, thank you. I know the place well enough. I don't come to walk about in the dark. We shan't be in your man's way." And so Tom's scout came in to clear away, took out the ex- tra leaves of his table, put on the cloth, and laid tea. During these operations Mr. Brown was standing with his back to the fire, looking about him as he talked : when there was more space to move in, he began to walk up and down, and very soon took to remarking the furniture and arrangement of the room. One after another the pictures came under his notice, — most of them escaped without comment, the squire simply pausing a moment, and then taking up his walk again. Magna THIRD TEAR. 469 Chavta drew forth liis hearty approval. It was a capital no- tion to hang such things on yonr walls, instead of bad prints of steeple chases, or trash of that sort. " Ah, here's something elsu of the same kind. Why, Tom, what's this? "said the squire, as he paused before the death-warrant. There was a moment or two of dead silence, while the squire's eye ran down the names, from Jo. Bradshaw to Miles Corbet ; and then he turned, and came and sat down opposite to his son. Tom ex- pected his father to be vexed, but was not in the least prepared for the tone of pain and sorrow and. anger, in which he first in- quired, and then remonstrated. For some time past the squire and his son had not felt so comfortable together as of old. Mr. Brown had been annoyed by much tliat Tom had done in the case of Harry Winburn,' though he did not know all. There had sprung up a barrier somehow or other between them, neither of them knew how. They had often felt embarrassed at being left alone together during the last year, and found that there were certain topics which they could not talk upon, which they avoided by mutual consent. Every now and then the constraint and embarrass- ment fell off for a short time, for at bottom they loved and ap- preciated one another heartily ; but the divergences in their thoughts and habits had become very serious, and seemed likely to increase rather than not. They felt keenly the chasm be- tween the two generations ; as they looked at one another from the opposite banks, each in his secret heart blamed the other in great measure for that which was the fault of neither. Mixed with the longings which each felt for a better understanding was enough of reserve and indignation to prevent them from coming to it. The discovery of their differences was too recent, and they were too much alike in character and temper for either to make large enough allowances for,' or to be really tolerant of, the other. This was the first occasion on which they had come to out- spoken and serious difference, and, though the collision had been exceedingly painful to both, yet, when they parted for the night, it was with a feeling of relief that the ice had been thoroughly broken. Before his father left the room, Tom had torn the fac-simile of the death-warrant out of its frame, and put it in the fire, protesting, however, at the same time, tliat, though " he did this out of deference to his father, and was deeply grieved at having given him pain, he could not and would not give up his honest convictions, or pretend that they were changed, or even shaken." 470 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOED. The squire walked back to his hotel deeply moved. Who can wonder ? He was a man full of living and vehement con- victions. One of his early recollections had been the arrival in England of the news of the beheading of Louis XVI., and the doings of the reign of terror. He had been bred in the times when it was held impossible for a gentleman or a Chris- tian to hold such views as his son had been maintaining, and, like many of the noblest Englishmen of his time, had gone with and accepted the creed of the day. Tom remained behind, dejected and melancholy ; now ac- cusing his father of injustice and bigotry, now longing to go after him, and give up everything. What were all his opinions and convictions compared with his father's confidence and love ? At breakfast the next morning, however, after each of them had had time for thinking over what had passed, they met with a cordiality which was as pleasant to each as it was unlooked for ; and from this visit of his father to him at Oxford, Tom dated a new and more satisfactory epoch in their intercourse. The fact had begun to dawn on the squire that the world had changed a good deal since his time. He saw that young men were much improved in some ways, and acknowledged the fact heartily ; on the other hand, they had taken up with a lot of new notions which he could not understand, and thought mischievous and bad. Perhaps Tom might get over them as he got to be older and wiser, and in the meantime he must take the evil with the good. At any rate, he was too fair a man to try to dragoon his son out of anytliing which he really believed. Tom on his part gratefully accepted the change in his father's mannei', and took all means of showing his grati- tude by consulting and talking freely to him on such subjects as they could agree upon, which were numerous, keeping in the background the questions which had provoked painful discus- sions between them. By degrees these even could be tenderly approached ; and, now, that they were approached in a dif- ferent spirit, the honest beliefs of the father and son no longer looked so monstrous to one another, the hard and sharp outlines began to wear off, and the views of each of them to be modi- fied. Thus, bit by bit, by a slow but sure process, a better understanding than ever was re-established between them. This beginning of a better state of things in his relations with his father consoled Tom for many other matters that seemed to go wrong with him, and was a constant bit of bright sky to turn to when the rest of his horizon looked dark and dreary, as it did often enough. THIRD YEAR. 471 For it proved a very trying year to him, this his third and last year at the university : a year full of large dreams and small performances, of unfulfilled hopes, and struggles to set himself right, ending ever more surely in failure aud disappoint- ment. The common pursuits of the place had lost their fresh- ness, and with it much of their charm. He was beginning to feel himself in a cage, and to beat against the bars of it. Often, in spite of all his natural hopefulness, his heart seemed to sicken and turn cold, without any apparent reason ; his old pursuits palled on him, and he scarcely cared to turn to new ones. What was it that made life so blank to him at these times ? How was it that he could not keep the spirit within him alive and warm ? It was easier to ask such questions than to get an answer. Was it not this place he was living in, atid the ways of it ? No for the place and its ways were the same as ever, and his own way of life in it better than ever before. Was it the want of sight or tidings of Mary? Sometimes he thought so, and then cast the thought away as treason. His love for her was ever sink- ing deeper into him, and raising and purifying him. Light and strength and life came from that source; craven weariness and coldness of heart, come from whence they might, were not from that quarter. But, precious as his love was to him, and deeply as it affected his whole life, he felt that there must be some- thing beyond it — that its full satisfaction would not be enough for him. The bed was too narrow for a man to stretch himself on. What he was in search of must underlie and embrace his human love, and support it. Beyond and above all private and personal desiresand hopesandlongingshe was conscious of a rest- less craving and feeling about after something which he could not grasp, and yet which was not avoiding him, which seemed to be mysteriously laying hold of him and surrounding him. The routine of chapels and lectures and reading for degree, boating, cricketing, Union debating — all well enough in their way — left this vacuum unfilled. There was a great outer visible world, the problems and puzzles of which were rising before him and haunting him. more and more ; and a great inner and invisible world opening round him in an awful depth. He seemed to be standing on the brink of each — now, shivering and helpless, feeling like an atom, about to be whirled into the great flood and carried he knew not where — now, ready to plunge in and take his part, full of hope and belief that he was meant to buffet in the strength of a man with the seen and the UBseen, and to be subdued by neither. 472 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. In such a year at this a bit of steady, bright, blue sky was a boon beyond all price, and so he felt it to be. And it was not only with his father that Tom regained lost ground in this year. He was in a state of mind in which he could not bear to neglect or lose any particle of human sympathy, and so he turned to old friendships, and revived the correspondence with several of his old school-fellows, and particularly with Arthur, to the great delight of the latter, who had niourned^bitterly over the few half-yearly lines, all he liad got from Tom of late, in answer to his own letters, which had themselves, under the the weight of neglect, gradually dwindled down to mere formal matters. A specimen of the latter correspondence may fitly close the chapter : St. Ambrose. Dear Geohdie ; I can hardly pardon you for having gone to Cambridge, though you have got a Trinity scholarship — which I suppose is, on the whole, quite as good a thing as anything of the sort you could have got up here. I had 60 looked forward to having you here though, and now I feel that we shall probably scarcely ever meet. You will go your way and I mine ; and one alters so quickly, and gets into such strange new grooves, that, unless one sees a man about once a week at least, you may be just like strangers when you are thrown together again. If you had come up here it would have been all right, and we should have gone on all through life as we were when I left school, and as I know we should be again in no time if you had come here. But now who can tell ? What makes me think so much of this is a visit of a few days that East paid me just before his regiment went to India. I feel that if he hadn't done it, and we had not met till he came back,— years hence perhaps, — we should never have been to one another what we shall be now. The break would have been too great. Now it's all right. You would have so liked to see the old fellow grown into a man, but not abit altered — just the quiet, old way, poob-pooliing you, and pretending to care for nothing, but ready to cut the nose off his face, or go through fire and water for you at a pinch if you'll only let him go his own way about it, and have his grumble, and say that he does it all from the worst possible motives. But we must try not to lose hold of one another, Geordie. It would be a bitter day to me if I thought anything of the kind could ever happen again. We must write more to one another. I've been awfully lazy, I know, about it for this last year or more ; but then I always thought you would be coming up here, and so that it didn't matter much. But now I will turn over a new leaf, and write to you about " my secret thoughts, my works, and ways "; and you must do it too. If we can only tide over the next year or two we shall get into plain sailing, and I suppose it will all go right then. At least, I can't believe that one is likely to have many such up-and-down years in one's life as the last two. If oneis, goodness knows where I shall end. Youknowtheoutlineofwhat has happened to me from my letters, and the talks we h ave had in my flying visits to the old school; hut yon haven't a notion of the troubles of mind I've been in, and the changes I've gone through. I can hardly believe it myself when I lookback. However, I'm quite sure I have jo^ on; that's my great comfort. It is a strange blind sort of world, that's a fact, with lots of blind alleys, down which you go blundering in the fog after some seedy gaslight, which you take for the sun till yon run against the wall at the end, and find out that the light is a gaslight, and that there's no thoronghfare. But for all that one does get on. Yon get to know the sun's light better and better, and to keep out of the blind alleys ; and I am surer and surer every day, that there's always sunlight AFTEKNOON VISITORS. 473 enough for erery honest fellow,— though I didn't think so a few months back,— and a good round road under his feet, if he will only step out on it. Talkiug of blind alleys puts me in mind of your last. Aren't you going down a blind alley, or something worse ? There's no wall to bring you up, that I can see, down the turn you've taken ; and then, what's the practical use of it all ? What good would -you do to yourself, or anyone else, if you could get to the end of it ? I can't for the life of me fancy, I confess, what you think will come of speculating about necessity and free will. I only know that I can hold out my hand before me, and can move it to the right or left, despite all powers in heaven or earth. As I sit here writing to you I can let into my heart, and give the reins to all sorts of devils' passions, or to the spirit of God. Well, that's enough for me. I Jcnow it of myself, and I believe you know it of yourself, and everybody knows it of themselves or himself ; and why you can't be satis- fled with that, passes my comprehension. As if one hasn't got puzzles enough, and bothers enough, under one's nose, without going a-fleld after a lot of meta- physical quibbles. No, I'm wrong, — not going a-field, — anything one has to go a-fleld for is all right. What a fellow meets outside himself he isn't responsi- ble for, and must do the best he can with. But to go on forever looking inside of one's self, and groping about among one's own sensations and ideas and whimsies of one kind and another, I can't conceive a poorer line of business than that. Don't you get into it now, that's a dear boy. Very likely you'll tell me yon can't help it ; that everyone has his own diffi- culties, and must fight them out, and that mine are one sort, and yours another. Well, perhaps you may be right. I hope I'm getting to know that my plum- met isn't to measure all the world. But it does seem a pity that men shouldn't be thinking about how to cure some of the wrongs which poor, dear old Eng- land is pretty near dying of, instead of taking the edge off their brains, and spending all their steam in speculating about all kinds of things, which wouldn't make any poor man in the world — or rich one either, for that matter — a bit better off, if they were all found out and settled to-morrow. But here I am at the end of my paper. Don't be angry at my jobation ; but write m§ a long answer of your own free will, and believe me, ever affectionately yours, T. B. CHAPTER XLIII. AFTEKNOON VISITORS. Miss Maey Poetbe was sitting alone in the front drawing- room of her father's house, inBelgravia, on the afternoon of a summer's day in this same year. Two years and more have passed over her head since we first met her, and she may he a thought more sedate and better dressed, but there is no other change to be noticed in her. Tlie room was for the most part much like other rooms in that quarter of the world. There were few luxuries in the way of furniture which fallen man can desire which were not to be found there ; but, over and above this, there was an elegance in the arrangement of all the knick-knacks and ornaments, and an appropriateness and good taste in the placing of every piece of furniture and vase of flowers, which showed that a higher order of mind than the upholsterer's or housemaid's was constantly overlooking and working there. Everything seemed to be in its exact place, in the best place which could have been thought of for it, and to 474 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. be the best thing which could have been thought of for the place ; and yet this perfection did not strike you particularly at first, or surprise you in any way, but sank into you gradually, so that, until! you forced yourself to consider the matter, you could not in the least say why the room had such a very pleas- ant effect on 3''ou. The young lady to whom this charm was chiefly owing was sitting by a buhl work-table, on which lay her embroidery and a book. She was reading a letter, which seemed deeply to in- terest her ; for she did not hear the voice of the butler, who liad just opened the door and disturbed her solitude, until he had repeated for the second time, "Mr. Smitli." Then Mary jumped up, and, hastily folding her letter, put it into her pocket. She was rather provoked at having allowed herself to be caught there alone by afternoon visitors, and with the ser- vants for having let anyone in ; nevertheless, she welcomed Mr. Smith with a cordiality of manner which perhaps rather more than represented Iier real feelings, and, with a "let mamma know," to the butler, set to work to entertain her visitoi'. She would have had no difficulty in doing this under ordinary circumstances, as all that Mr. Smith wanted was a good listener. He was a somewhat heavy and garrulous old gentleman, with many imaginary, and a few real troubles, the constant contemplation of which served to occupy the whole of his own time, and as much of his friends' as he could get them to give him. But scarcely had he settled himself com- fortably in an easy-chair opposite to his victim, when the but- ler entered again, and announced " Mr. St. Cloud." Mary was now no longer at her ease. Her manner of re- ceiving her new visitor was constrained ; and yet it was clear that he was on easy terms in the house. She asked the butler where his mistress was, and heard with vexation that she had gone out, but was expected home almost immediately. Charg- ing him to let her mother know the moment she returned, Mary turned to her unwelcome task, and sat herself down again with such resignation as she was capable of at tlie mo- ment. The conduct of her visitors was by no means calcu- lated to restore her composure, or make her comfortable be- tween them. She was sure that they knew one another ; but neither of them would speak to the other. There the two sat on, each resolutely bent on tiring the other out ; the elder crooning on to her in an undertone, and ignoring the youngei-, who in his turn put on an air of serene unconsciousness of the presence of his senior, and gazed about the room, and watched AFTBENOON VISITORS. 475 Mary, making occasional remarks to her as if no one else were present. On and on they sat, lier only comfort being the hope that neither of them would have the conscience to stay on after the departure of the other. Between them Mary was driven to her wits' end, and looked for her mother or for some new visitor to come to her help, as "Wellington looked for the Prussians on the afternoon of June 18th. At last youth and insolence prevailed, and Mr. Smith rose to go. Mary got up too, and after his departure remained standing, in hopes- that her other visitor would take the hint and follow the good example. But St. Cloud had not the least intention of moving. " Really, your good-nature is quite astonishing. Miss Porter," he said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and following the pattern of one of the flowers on the cai-pet with his cane, which gave him the opportunity of showing his deli- cately gloved hand to advantage. " Indeed, why do you think so ? " she asked, taking up her embroidery, and pretending to begin working. " Have I not got good reason, after sitting this half -hour and seeing you enduring old Smith — the greatest bore in London ? I don't believe there are three houses where the servants" dare let him in. It would be as much as their places were worth. No porter could hope for a character who let him in twice in the season." " Poor Mr. Smith," said Mary, smiling. " But you know we have no porter, and," she suddenly checked herself, and added, gravely, "he is an old friend, and papa and mamma like him." " But the wearisomeness of his grievances ! those three sons in the Plungers, and their eternal scrapes ! How you could manage to keep a civil face ! It was a masterpiece of polite patience." " Indeed, I am very sorry for his troubles. I wonder where mamma can be ? We are going to drive. Shall you be in the Pai-k? I think it must be time for me to dress." " I hope not. It is so seldom that I see you, except in crowded rooms. Can you wonder that I should value such a chance as this ? " " Were you at the new opera last night?" asked Mary, cave- fully avoiding his eye, and sticking to her work, but scarely able to conceal her nervousness and discomfort. "Yes, I was there ; but " " Oh, do tell me about it, then ; I bear it was a great suc- cess." 476 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. " Another time. We can talk of the opera anywhere. Let me speak now of something else. You must have seen, Miss Porter " " How can you think I will talk of anything till you have told me about the opera? " interrupted Mary, rapidly and nerv- ously. " Was Grisi very fine ? The chief part was composed for her, was it not ? and dear old Lahlache " " I will tell you all about it presently, if you will let me, in five minutes' time — I only ask for five minutes " " Five minutes. Oh, no, not five seconds. I must hear about the new opera before I will listen to a word of anything else." , " Indeed, Miss Porter, you must pardon me for disobeying. But I may not have such a chance as this again for months." With which prelude he drew his chair toward hers, and Mary was just trying to make up her mind to jump up and run right out of the room, when the door opened, and the butler walked in with a card on a waiter. Mary had never felt so relieved in her life, and could have hugged the solemn old domestic when he said, presenting the card to her : " The gentleman asked if Mrs. or you were in, miss, and told me to bring it up, and find whether you would see him on business. A clergyman, I think, miss. He's waiting in the hall." " 01), yes, I know. Of course. Yes, say I will see him directly. I mean, ask him to come up now." "Shall I show him into the library, miss ? " " No, no ; in here, do you understand ? " " Yes, miss," replied the butler, with a deprecatory look at St. Cloud, as much as to say, " You see I can't help it," in answer to his impatient telegraphic signals. St. Cloud had been very liberal to the Porters' servants. Mary's confidence had all come back. Relief was at hand. She could trust herself to hold St. Cloud at bay now, as it could not be for more than a few minutes. When she turned to him the nervousness had quite gone out of her manner, and she spoke in her old tone again, as she laid her embroidery aside. " How lucky that you should be here. Look ; I think you must be acquainted," she said, holding out the card, which the butler had given her, to St. Cloud. He took it mechanically, and looked at it, and then crushed it in his hand, and was going to speak. She prevented biw," " I was right, I'm sure. You do kuQW bim ? " AFTERNOON VISITORS. 411 " I didn't see the name," he said, almost fiercely. " The name on the card which I gave you just now ? Mr. Grey. He is curate in one of the poor Westminster districts. You must remember him, for he was of your college. He was at Oxford with you. I made his acquaintance at the Com- memoration. He will be so glad to meet an old friend." St. Cloud was too much provoked to answer ; and the next moment the door opened, and the butler announced Mr. Grey. Grey came into the room timidly, carrying his head a little down as usual, and glancing uncomfortably about in the man- ner which used to make Drysdale say that he always looked as though he had just been robbing a hen-roost. Mary went for- ward to meet him, holding out her hand cordially. " I am so glad to see you," she said. " How kind of you to call when you are so busy ! Mamma will be here directly. I think you must remember Mr. St. Cloud, Mr. Grey ? " St. Cloud's patience was now quite gone. He drew himself up, making the slightest possible inclination toward Grey, and then, without taking any further notice of him, turned to Mary, with a look which he meant to be full of pitying admiration for her, and contempt of her visitor ; but, as she would not look at him, it was thrown away. So he made his bow and stalked out of the room, angrily debating with himself, as he went downstairs, whether she could have understood him. He was so fully convinced of the sacrifice which a man in his position was making, in paying serious attentions to a girl with little fortune and no connections, that he soon consoled himself in the belief that her embarrassment only arose from shyness, and that the moment he could explain himself she would be his obedient and grateful servant. Meantime Mary sat down op- posite to the curate, and listened to him as he unfolded his errand awkwardly enough. An execution was threatened in the house of a poor struggling widow, whom Mrs. Porter had employed to do needlework occasionally, and who was behind with her rent through sickness. He was afraid tliat her things would be taken ands old in the morning, unless she could bor- row two sovereigns; He had so many claims on him that he could not lend her the money himself, and so had come out to see what he could do among those who knew her. By the time Grey had arrived at the end of his story, Mary- had made up her mind — not without a little struggle — to sacri- fice the greater part of what was left of her quarter's allow- ance. After all, it would only be wearing cleaned gloves in- stead of new Qoes, and giving up her new riding-hat till next 4'78 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. quarter. So she jumped up, and said gayl^^, " Is that all, Mr. Grey ? I have the money, and I will lend it her with pleasure. I will fetch it directly." She tripped o£F to her room, and soon came back with the money ; and just then the butler came in with tea, and Mary asked Mr. Grey to take some. He looked tired, she said, and if he would wait a little time, he would see her mother, who would be sure to do something more for the poor woman. Grey had got up to leave, and was standing, hat in hand, ready to go. He was in the habit of reckoning with himself strictly for every minute of his day, and was never quite satis- fied with himself unless he was doing the most disagreeable thing which circumstances for the time being allowed him to do. But greater and stronger men than Grey, from Adam downward, have yielded to the temptation before which he now succumbed. He looked out of the corners of his eyes ; and there was something so fresh and bright in the picture of the dainty little tea service and the young lady behind it, the tea which she was beginning to pour out smelt so refreshing, and her hand and figure looked so pretty in the operation, that, with a sigh to departing resolution, he gave in, put his hat on the floor, and sat down opposite to the tempter. Grey took a cup of tea, and then another. He thought he had never tasted anything so good. "The delicious rich cream, and the tempting plate of bread and butter, were too much for him. He fairly gave way, and resigned himself to physical enjoyment, and sipped his tea, and looked over his cup at Mary, sitting there bright and kind, and ready to go on pour- ing out for him to any extent. It seemed to him as if an at- mosphere of life and joy surrounded her, "within the circle of which he was sitting and absorbing. Tea was the only stimu- lant that Grey ever took, and he had more need of it than usual, for he had given away the chop, which was his ordinary dinner, to a starving woman. He was faint with fasting and the bad air of the hovels in which he had been spending his morning. The elegance of the room, the smell of the flowers, the charm of companionship with a young woman of his own rank, and the tsontrast of the whole to his common way of life, carried him away, and hopes and thoughts began to creep into his head to which he had long been a stranger. Mary did her very best to make his visit pleasant to him. She had a great respect for the self-denying life which she knew he was lead- ing ; and the nervousness and shyness of his manners were of a kind which, instead of infecting her, gave her confidence AFTEENOON VISITOES. Aid and made her feel quite at her ease with him. She was so grateful to him for having delivered her out of her recent em- barrassment, that she was more than usually kind in her man- ner. She saw how he was enjoying himself, and thought what good it must do him to forget his usual occupations for a short time. So she talked positive gossip to him, asked his opinion on riding-habits, and very soon was telling him the plot of a new novel which she had just been reading, with an animation and playfulness which would have warmed the heart of an anchorite. For a short quarter of an hour Grey resigned him- self ; but at the end of that time he became suddenly and painfully conscious of what he was doing, and stopped himself short in the middle of an altogether worldly compliment, which he detected himself in the act of paying to his too fascinating young hostess. He felt that retreat was his only chance, and so grasped his hat again, and rose with a deep sigh, and a sud- den change of manner which alarmed Mary. " My dear Mi'. Grey," she said anxiously, " I hope you are not ill?" "No, not in the least, thank you. But — but — in short, I must go to my work. I ought to apologize, indeed, for having stayed so long." " Oh, you have not been here more than twenty minutes. Pray stay, and see mamma ; she must be in directly." " Thank you ; you are very kind. I should like it very much, but, indeed, I cannot." Mary felt that it would be no kindness to press it further, and so rose herself, and held out her hand. Grey took it, and it is not quite certain to this day whether he did not press it in that farewell shake more than was absolutely necessary. If he did, we may be quite sure that he administered exemplary punishment to himself afterward for so doing. He would gladly have left now, but his over-sensitive conscience forbade it. He had forgotten his office, he thought, hitherto, but there was time yet not to be altogether false to it. So he looked grave and shy again, and said : " You will not be offended with me, Miss Porter, if I speak to you as a clergyman ? " Mary was a little disconcerted, but answered almost imme- diately : " Oh, no. Pray say anything which you think you ought to say." "I am afraid there must be a great temptation in living 480 TOM BfeOWN AT OXPOED. always in beautiful rooms like this, with no one but prosperous people. Do you not think so ? '' "But one cannot help it. Surely, Mr. Grey, you do not think it can be wrong ? " " No, not wrong. But it must be very trying. It must be very necessary to do something to lessen the temptation of such a life." " I do not understand you. What could one do ? " " Might you not take up some work which would not be pleasant, such as visiting the poor ? " " I should be very glad ; but we do not know any poor peo- ple in London." . " There are very miserable districts near here." "Yes, and papa and mamma are very kind, I know, in help- ing whenever they can hear of a proper case. But it is so dif- ferent from the country. There it is so easy and pleasant to go into the cottages where everyone knows you, and most of the people work for papa, and one is sure of being welcomed,, and that nobody will be rude. But here I should be afraid. It would seem so impertinent to go to people's houses of whom one knows nothing. I should never know what to "say." " It is not easy or pleasant duly which is the best for us. Great cities could never be evangelized. Miss Porter, if all ladies thought as you do." " I think, Mr. Grey," said Mary, rather nettled, " that every- one has not the gift of lecturing the poor, and setting them riglit ; and if they have not, they had better not try to do it. And as for all the rest, there is plenty of the same kind of work to be done, I believe, among the people of one's own class." " You are joking. Miss Porter." " No, I am not joking at all. I believe that rich people are quite as unhappy as poor. Their troubles are not the same, of course, and are generally of their own making. But troubles of the mind are worse, surely, than troubles of the body ?" "Certainly; and it is the highest work of the ministry to deal with spiritual trials. But, you will pardon me for saying that I cannot think this is the proper work for — for " " For me, you would say. We must be speaking of quite different things, I am sure. I only mean that I can listen to the troubles and grievances of anyone who likes to talk of them to me, and try to comfort them a little, and to make things look brighter, and to keep cheerful. It is not easy always even to do this." Afternoon visitoes. 481 " It is not, indeed. But would it not be easier if you could do as I suggest ? Going out of one's own class, and trying to care for and help the poor, braces the mind more than any- thing else." " You ought to know my Cousin Katie," said Mary, glad to make a diversion ; "that is just what she would say." Indeed, I think you must have seen her at Oxford ; did you not ? " " I believe I had the honor of meeting her at the rooms of a friend. I_think he said she was also a cousin of his." "Mr. Brown, you mean ? Yes ; did you know him? " " Oh, yes. You will think it strange, as we are so very un- like ; but I knew him better than I knew almost anyone." "Poor Katie is very anxious about him. I hope you thought well of him. You do not think he is likely to go veiy wrong ? " "No, indeed. I could wish he were sounder on Church questions, but that may come. Do you know that he is in London ? " " I had heard so." " He has been several times to my schools. He used to help me at Oxford, and has a capital way with the boj's." At this moment the clock on the mantelpiece struck a quarter. The sound touched some chord in Grey which made him grasp his hat again, and prepare for another attempt to get away. " I hope you will pardon " He pulled himself up short, in the fear lest he were going again to be false. (as he deemed it) to his calling, and stood the picture of nervous discomfort. Mary came to his relief. " I am sorry you must go, Mr. Grey," she said ; " I should so like to have talked to you more about Oxford. You will call again, soon, I hope ? " At which last speech Grey, casting an imploring glance at her, muttered something which she could not catch, and fled from the room. Mary stood looking dreamily out of the window for a few minutes, till the entrance of her mother roused her, and she turned to pour out a cup of tea for her. " It is cold, mamma dear ; do let me make some fresh." " No, thank you, dear ; this will do very well," said Mrs. Porter ; and she took off her bonnet and sipped the cold tea. Mary watched her silently for a minute, and then, taking the letter she had been reading out of her pocket, said : " I have a letter from Katie, mamma." Mrs. Porter took the letter and read it ; and, as Mary still watched, she saw a puzzled look coming over her mother's face. 482 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOBD. Mrs. Porter finished the letter, and then looked stealthily at Mary, who on her side was now busily engaged in putting up the tea-things. " It is very embarrassing," said Mrs. Porter. " What, mamma ? " " Oh, of course, my dear, I mean Katie's telling us of her cousin's being in London, and sending us his address " and then she paused. " Why, mamma ? " " Your papa will have to make up his mind whether he will ask him to the house. Katie would surely never have told him that slie has written." " Mr. and Mrs. Brown were so very kind. It would seem so strange, so ungrateful, not even to ask him." " I am afraid he is not the sort of young man — in short, I must speak to your papa." Mrs. Porter looked hard at her daughter, who was still busied with the tea-things. She had risen, bonnet in baud, to leave the room ; but now changed her mind, and, crossing to her daughter, put her arms round her neck. Mary looked up stead- ily into her eyes, then blushed slightly, and said quietly : " No, mamma ; indeed it is not as you think." Her mother stooped and kissed her, and left the room, tell- ing her to get dressed, as the carriage would be round in a few minutes. Her trials for the day were not over. She could see by their manner at dinner that her father and mother had been talking about her. Her father took her to a ball in the evening, where they met St. Clond, who fastened himself to them. She was dancing a quadrille, and her father stood near her, talking con- fidentially to St. Cloud. In the intervals of the dance scraps of their conversation reached her. " You knew him, then, at Oxford ? " " Yes, very slightly." " I should like to ask you now, as a friend " Here Mary's partner reminded her that she ought to be dancing. When she had returned to her place again she heard : " You think, then, that it was a bad business ? " " It was notorious in the college. We never had any doubt on the subject." " My niece has told Mrs. Porter that there really was noth- ing wrong in it." "Indeed? I am happy to hear it." "I should like to think well of him, as he is a connection of AFTBENOON VISITORS. 483 my wife. In other respects, now " Here again she was carried away by the dance, and, when she returned, caught the end of a sentence of St. Cloud's, " You will consider what I have said in confidence." " Certainly," answered Mr. Porter ; " and I am exceedingly obliged to you ;" and then the dance was over, and Mary le- turned to her father's side. She had never enjoyed a ball less than tills, and persuaded her father to leave early, which hu was delighted to do. When she reached her own room Mary took off her wreath and ornaments, and then sat down and fell into a brown study, which lasted for some time. At last she roused herself with a sigh, and thought she had never had so tiring a day, though she could hardly tell why, and felt half inclined to have a good cry, if she could only have made up her mind what about. However, being a sensible young woman, she resisted the temp- tation, and, hardly taking the trouble to roll up her hair, went to bed and slept soundly. Mr. Porter found his wife sitting up for him ; they were evidently both full of the same subject. " Well, dear ? " she said, as he entered the room. Mr. Porter put down his candle, and shook his head. " You don't think Katie can be right, then ? She must have capital opportunities of judging, you know, dear." " But she is no judge. What can a girl like Katie know about such things ? " " Well, deal', do you know I really cannot think there was anything very wrong, though I did think so at first, I own." " But I find that his character was bad — decidedly bad — al- ways. Young St. Cloud didn't like to say much to me; which was natural, of course. Young men never like to betray one another : but I could see what he thought. He is a right- minded young man, and very agreeable." " I do not take to him very much." " His connections and prospects, too,are capital. Isometimes think he has a fancy for Mary. Haven't you remarked.it ? " " Yes, dear. But as to the other matter ? Shall you ask him here ? " " Well, dear, I do not think there is any need. He is only in town, I suppose, for a short time, and it is not at all likely that we should know where he is, you see." "But if he should call?" ■ " Of course then we must be civil. We can consider then what is to be done." 484 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOED. CHAPTER XLVI. THE INTBBCEPTED LETTEE-BAG. " Deae Katie : At home, you see, without having answered your last kind letter of counsel and sympathy. But I couldn't write in town, I was in such a queer state all the time. I en- joyed nothing, not even the match at Lord's, or the race ; only walking at night in the square, and watching her window, and seeing her at a distance in Rotten Row. " I followed your advice at last, though it went against the grain uncommonly. It did seem so unlike what I had a right to expect from them — after all the kindness my father and mother had shown them when they came into our neighbor- hood, and after I had been so intimate there, running in and out just like a son of their own — that they shouldn't take the slightest notice of me all the time I was in London. I shouldn't have wondered if you hadn't explained ; but after that, and after you had told them my direction, and when they knew that I was within five minutes' walk of their house constantly (for they knew all about Grey's schools, and that I was there three or four times a week), I do think it was too bad. How- ever, as I was going to tell you, I went at last, for I couldn't leave town without trying to see her; and I believe I have fin- ished it all ofE. I don't know. I'm very low about it, at any rate, and want to tell you all that passed, and to hear what you think. I have no one to consult but you, Katie. What should I do without you ? But you were born to help and comfort all the world. I shan't rest till I know what you think about this last crisis in my history. " I put off going till my last day in town, and then called twice. The first time, ' not at home.' But I was determined now to see somebody, and make out something ; so I left my cai'd, and a message that, as I was leaving town next day, I would call again. When I called again at about six o'clock, I was shown into the library, and presently your uncle came in. I felt veiy uncomfortable, and I think he did too ; but he shook hands cordially enough, asked why I had not called be- fore, and said he was sorry to hear I was going out of town so soon. Do you believe he meant it ? I didn't. But it put me out, because it made it look as if it had been my fault that I hadn't been there before. I said I didn't know that he would have liked me to call, but I felt that he had got the best of the start. THB INTERCEPTED LETTEK-BAG. 485 "Then he asked after all at hoiue, and talked of his boys, and how they were getting ou at school. By this time I had got my head again ; so I went back to my calling, and said that I had felt I could nevei' come to their house as a common acquaintance, and, as I did not know whether they would ever let me come in any other capacity, I had kept away till now. "Your uncle didn't like it, I know; for he got up and walked about, and then said he didn't understand me. Well, I had got quite reckless by this time. It was my last chance, I felt ; so I looked hard into my hat, and said that I had been over head and ears in love with Mary for two years. Of course there was no getting out of the business after that. I kept on staring into my hat ; so I don't know how he took it ; but the first thing he said was that he had some suspicions of this, and now my confession gave him a right to ask me several questions. In the first place, Had I ever spoken to her ? No ; never directly. What did I mean by directly ? I meant that I had never either spoken or written to her on the subject, — in fact, I hadn't seen her, except at distance, for the last two years — but I could not say that she might not have found it out from my manner. Had I ever told anyone else ? No ; and this was quite true, Katie, for both you and Hardy found it out. "He took a good many more turns before speaking again. Then he said I had acted as a gentleman hitherto, and he should be very plain with nie. Of course, I must see that, looking at my prospects and Ids daughter's, it could not be an engagement which he could look on with much favor from a worldly point of view. Nevertheless, lie had the highest respect and regard for my family, so that, if in some years' time I was in a posi- tion to marry, he should not object on this score ; but there were other matters which were in his eyes of more importance. He had heard (who could have told him ?) that I had taken up veiy violent opinions — opinions which, to say nothing more of them, would very much damage my prospects of success in life ; and that I was in the habit of assdciating with the advocates of such opinions — persons who, he must say, were not fit com- panions for a gentleman — and of writing violent articles in low revolutionary newspapers, such as the Wessex Freeman. Yes, I confessed 1 had written. Would I give up these things ? I had a gi-eat mind to say flat, No, and I believe I ought to have ; but as his tone was kind I couldn't help trying to meet him. So I said I would give up writing or speaking publicly abotlt such matters, but I couldn't pretend not to believe wh^t 486 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOED. I did believe. Perhaps, as my opinions had altered so much already, very likely they might again. " He seemed to be rather amused at that, and said he sincerely hoped they might. But now came the most serious point ; he bad heard very bad stories of me at Oxford, but he would not press me with them. There were too few young men whose lives would bear looking into for him to insist much on such matters, and he was ready to let bygones be bygones. But I must remember that he had himself seen me in one very awk- ward position. I broke in, and said I had hoped that had been explained to him. I could not defend my Oxford life ; I could not defend myself as to this particular case at one time ; but there had been nothing in it that I was ashamed of since before the time I knew his daughtei'. " On my honor had I absolutely and entirely broken o£E all relations with her ? He had been told that I still kept up a correspondence with her. " Yes, I still wrote to her, and saw her occasionally ; but it was only to give her news of a young man from her village, who was now serving in India. He bad no other way of com- municating with her. " It was a most curious arrangement ; did I mean that this young man was going to be married to her ? " I hoped so. " Why should he not write to her at once if they were en- gaged to be married ? " They were not exactly engaged ; it was rather hard to ex- plain. Here your uncle seemed to lose patience, for he inter- rupted me and said. Really, it must be clear to me, as a reason- able man, that, if this connection were not absolutely broken off, there must be an end of everything, so far as his daughter was concerned. Would I give my word of honor to break it off at once, and completely ? I tried to explain again ; but he would have nothing but yes or no. Dear Katie, what could I do ? I have written to Patty that, till I die, she may always reckon on me as on a brother, and I have promised Harry never to lose sight of her, and to let her know everything that happens to him. Your uncle would not hear me ; so I said. No. And he. said, Then our interview had better end, and rang the bell. Somebody, I'm sure, has been slandering me to him ; who can it be? " I didn't say another word, or ofPer to shake hands, but got up and walked out of the room, as it was no good waiting for the servant to come. When I got into the hall the front door THE INTERCEPTED LETTER-BAG. 48V was open, and I lieard her voice. I stopped dead short. Slie was saying something to some people who had been riding with her. The next moment the door shut, and she tripped in in her riding-habit, and gray gloves, and hat, with the dearest little gray plume in it. She went humming along, and up six or eight steps, without seeing me. Then I moved a step, and she stopped and looked and gave a start. I don't know whether my face was -awfully miserable, but, when our eyes met, hers seemed to fill with pity and uneasiness and inquiry, and the bright look to melt away altogether, and then she blushed, and ran downstairs again, and held out her hand, saying, ' I am so glad to see you, after all this long time.' I pressed it, but I don't think I said anything. I forget ; the butler came into the hall, and stood by the door. She paused another moment, looked confused, and then, as the library door opened, went away upstairs, with a kind ' good-by.' She dropped a little bunch of violets, which she had worn in the breast of her habit, as she went away. I went and picked them up, although your uncle had now come out of the library, and then made the best of my way into the street. " There, Katie, I have told you everything, exactly as it happened. Do write to me, dear, and tell me, now, what you think. Is it all over ? What can I do ? Can you do any- thing for me ? I feel it is better in one respect. Her father can never say now that I didn't tell him all about it. But what is to happen ? I am so restless. I can settle to nothing, and do nothing but fish. I moon away all my time by the waterside, dreaming. But I don't mean to let it beat me much longer. Here's the fourth day since I saw her. I came away the next morning. I shall give myself a week; and, dear, do write me a long letter at once, and interpret it all to me. A woman knows so wonderfully what things mean. But don't make it out better than you really think. Nobody can stop my going on loving her, that's a comfort ; and while I can do thal^and don't know that she loves anybody else, I ought to be happier than any other man in the world. Yes, I ought to" be, but I aint. I will be, though, see if I won't. Heigho ! Do write directly, my dear counselor, to your af- f-ectionate cousin, T. B; " P. S. — I had almost forgotten my usual budget. I inclose my last from India. You will see by it that Harry is getting on famously. I am more glad than I can tell you that my friend East has taken him as his servant. He couldn't be under a better master. Poor Harry ! I sometimes think his 488 tOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. case is more hopeless than my own. How is it to come right ? or mine ? " " ENGLEBOTTElf. "Dbae Cousin: You will believe howl devoured your let- ter; though, when I had read the first few lines, and saw what was coming, it made me stop and tremble. At first I could have cried over it for vexation; but now I have thought about it a little, I really do not see any reason to be discouraged. At any rate. Uncle Robert now knows all about it, and will get used to the idea, and Mary seems to have received you just as you ought to have wished that she should. I am thankful that you have left off pressing me to write to her about you, for I am sure that would not be lionorable, and to reward you, I inclose a letter of hers, which came yesterday. You will see that she speaks with such pleasure of having just caught a glimpse of you that you need not regret the shortness of the interview. You could .not expect her to say more, because, after all, she can only guess : and I cannot do more than an- swer as if I were quite innocent, too. I am sure you will be very thankful to me some day for not having been your mouth- piece, as I was so very near being. You need not i-eturn the letter. I suppose I am getting more hopeful as I grow older — indeed, I am sure I am; for three or four years ago I should have been in despair about you, and now I am nearly sure that all will come right. " But, indeed. Cousin Tom, you cannot, or ought not, to wonder at Uncle Robert's objecting to your opinions. And then I am so surprised to find you saying that you think you may very likely change them. Because, if that is the case, it would be so much better if you would not write and talk about them. Unless you are quite convinced of such things as you write in that dreadful paper, you really ought not to go on writing them so very much as if you believed them. " And now I am speaking to you about this, which I have often had on my mind to speak to you about, I must ask you not to send me that Wessex Freeman any more. I am always delighted to hear what you think; and there is a great deal in the articles you mark for me which seems very fine; and I dare say you quite believe it all when you write it. Only I am- quite afraid lest papa or any of the servants should open the papers, or get hold of them after I have opened them; fori am sure there are a great many wicked things in the other parts of the paper. So, please do not send it to me, but write and tell me yourself anything that you wish me to know of what you THE INTERCEPTED lETTEE-BAG. 489 are thinking about and doing. As I did not like to burn the papers and was afraid to keep them here, I have generally sent them on to your friend Mr. Hardy. He does not know who sends them; and now you might send them yourself straight to him as I do not know his address in the country. As you are going up again to keep a term, I wish you would talk them over with him, and see what he thinks about them. You will think tliis very odd of me, but you know you have always said how much you rely on his judgment, and that you have learned so much from him. So I am sure you would wish to consult him; and if he thinks you ought to go on writing, it will be a great help to you to know it. " I am so very glad to be able to tell you how well Martha is going on. I have always read to her the extracts from your letters from India which you have sent me, and she is very much obliged to you for sending them. I think there is no doubt that she is, and always has been, attached to poor Widow Winburn's son, and, now that he is behaving so well, I can see that it gives her great pleasure to hear about him. Only, I hope, he will be able to come back before very long, because she is very much admired, and is likely to have so many chances of settling in life, that it is a great chance whether her attachment to him will be strong enough to keep her single if he should be absent for many years. " Do you know I have a sort of superstition that your fate hangs upon theirs in some curious manner — the two stories have been so interwoven — and that they will both be settled happily much sooner than we dare to hope even just now ? " Don't think,' my dear cousin, that this letter is cold, or that I do not take the very deepest interest in all that concerns you. You and Mary are always in my thoughts, and there is nothing in the world I would not do for you both which I . thought would help you. I am sure it would do you harm to be only a go-between. Papa is much as usual. He gets out a good deal in his chair in the sun this fine weather. He desires me to say how glad he should be if you will come over soon and pay us a visit. I hope you will come very soon. "Ever believe me, dear Tom, your affectionate cousin, "Katie." " novembbe. "Deae Tom: I hear that what you in England call a mail is to leave camp this evening ; so that you may have no excuse for not writing to me constantly, I am sitting to spin you such 490 TOM B5B0-W1T A* OXFOElJ. a yarn as I can under the disadvantageous circumstances in which this ■will leave me. " This time last year, or somewhere thereabouts, I was en- joying academic life with you at Oxford ; and now here I am, encamped at some unpronounceable place beyond Umbala. " You won't be much the wiser for that. What do you know about Umbala ? I didn't myself know that there was such a place till a month ago, when we were ordered to march up here, Bat one lives and learns. Marching over India has its dis- agreeables, of which dysentery and dust are about the woi-st. A lot of our fellows are down with the former ; among others my captain ; so I'm in command of the company. If it were not for the glorious privilege of grumbling, I think we should all own that we like the life. Moving about, though one does get frozen and broiled regularly once in the twenty-four hours, suits me ; besides they talk of matters coming to a crisis, and no end of fighting t(^ be done directly. You'll know more about what's going on from the papers than we do, but here they say the ball may begin any day ; so we are making forced marches to be up in time. I wonder how I shall like it. Per- haps, in my next, I may tell you how a bullet sounds when it conies at you. If there is any fighting, I expect our regiment will make their mark. "We are in tip-top order ; the colonel is a grand fellow, and the regiment feels his hand, down to the youngest drummer boy. What a deal of good I will do when I'm a colonel ! "I duly delivered the inclosufe in your last to your convict, who is rapidly ascending the ladder of promotion. I am dis- gusted at this myself, for I have had to give him up, and there never was such a jewel of a servant ; but, of course, it's a great thing for him. He is covering sergeant of my company, and the smartest coverer we have too. I have got a regular broth of a boy, an Irishman, in his place, who leads me a dog of a life. I took him chiefly because he very nearly beat me in a foot-race. Our senior major is a Pat himself, and, it seems, knew some- thing of Larry's powei's. So one day at mess, he offered to back him against anyone in the regiment for two hundred yards. My captain took him and named me, and it came off next day ; and a precious narrow thing it was, but I managed to win by a neck for the honor of the old school. He is a lazy scatter- brained creature, utterly indifferent to fact, amd I am obliged to keep the brandy flask under lock and key ; but the humor and absolute good temper of the animal impose upon me, and I really think he is attached to me. So I keep him on, grum- TtSE INTEECEPO'BD LETtER-BAG. 491 bling horribly at the change from that orderly, punctual, clean, accurate convict. Depend upon it, that fellow -v^-ill do. He makes his way everywhere, with officers and men. He is a gentleman at heart, and, by the way, you would be surprised at the improvement in his manners and speech. There is hardly a taste of Berkshire left in his deealect. He has read all the books I could lend him, or borrow for him, and is fast picking up Hindustanee. So you see, after all, I am come round to your opinion that we did a good afternoon's work on that pre- cious stormy common, when we carried off the convict from the authorities of his native land, and I was first under five. As you are a performer in that line, couldn't you carry off his sweetheart, and send her out here ? After the sea voyage there isn't much above one thousand miles to come by dauk ; and tell her, witli my compliments, he is well worth coming twice the distance for. Poor fellow, it is a bad lookout for him, I'm afraid, as he may not get home this ten j*ears ; and, though he isn't a kind to be easily killed, there are serious odds against him, even if he keeps all right. I almost wish you had never told me his story. " We are going into cantonments as soon as this expedition is over, in a splendid pig district, and I look forward to some real sport. All the men who have had any tell me it beats the best fox-hunt all to fits for excitement. I have got my eye on a famous Arab, who is to be had cheap. The brute is in the habit of kneeling on his masters, and tearing them with his teeth when he gets them off, but nothing can touch him while you keep on his back. Howsumde ver, as your countrymen say, I shall have a shy at him, if I can get him at my price. I've nothing more to say. There's nobody you know here, except the convict sergeant, and it's awfully hard to fill a letter home unless you've somebody to talk about. Yes, by the way, there is one little fellow, an ensign, just joined, who says he remem- bers us at school. He can't be more than eighteen or nineteen, and was an urchin in the lower school, I suppose, when we were leaving. I don't remember his face, but it's a very good one, and he is a bright, gentlemanly youngster as you would wish to see. His name is Jones. Do you remember him ? He will be a godsend to me. I have him to chum with me on this march. " Keep up your letters as you love me. You at home little know what it is to enjoy a letter. Never mind what you put in it ; anything will do from home, and I've nobody else much to write to me. 492 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOEO. " There goes the ' assembly.' Why, I can't think, seeing we have doner our day's march. However, I must turn out and see what's up. " December. " I have just fallen on this letter, which I had quite forgot- ten, or, rather, had fancied I had sent off to you three weeks and more ago. My baggage has just come to hand, and the scrawl turned up in my paper-case. Well, I have plenty to tell you now, at any rate, if I had time to tell it. That ' as- sembly ' which stopped me short sounded in consequence of the arrival of one of the commander-in-chief's aids in our camp, with the news that the enemy was over the Sutlej. We were to march at once, with two six-pounders and a squadron of cavalry, on a fort occupied by an outlying lot of them, which commanded a ford, and was to be taken and destroyed, and the rascals who held it dispersed ; after which we were to join the main army. Our colonel had the command ; so we were on the route within an hour, leaving a company and the baggage to follow as it could ; and from that time to this, forced march- ing and hard fighting have been the order of the day. " We drew first blood next morning. The enemy were in some force outside the fort, and showed fight in yery rough ground covered with bushes ; out of which we had to drive them — which we did after a sharp struggle, and the main body drew off altogether. Then the fort had to be taken. Our two guns worked away at it till dark. In the night two of the gun- ners, who volunteered for the service, crept close up to the place, and reported that there was nothing to hinder our run- ning right into it. Accordingly, the colonel resolved to rush it at daybreak, and my company was told off to lead. The captain being absent, I had to command. I was with the dear old chief the last thing at night, getting his instructions ; ten minutes with him before going into action would make a hare fight. " There was cover to within one hundred and fifty yards of the place ; and there I, and poor little Jones, and the men, spent the night in a dry ditch. An hour before daybreak we were on the alert, and served out rations, and then they began playing tricks on one another as if we were out for a junket- ing. I sat with my watch in ray hand, feeling queer, and wondering whether I was a greater coward than the rest. Then came a streak of light. I put up my watch, formed the men ; up went a rocket, my signal, and out into the open we THE INTERCEPTED LETTER-BAG. 493 went at the doable. We hadn't got over a third of the ground when bang went the fort guns, and the grapeshot went whist- ling about our ears ; so I shouted ' Forward ! ' and away we went as hard as we could go. I was obliged to go ahead, you see, because every man of them knew I had beaten Larry, their best runner, when he had no gun to carry ; but I didn't half like it, and should have blessed any hole or bramble which would have sent me over and given them time to catch me. 13ut the ground was provokingly level ; and so I was at the first mound and over it several lengths in front of the men, and among a lot of black fellows serving the guns. They came at nie like wildcats, and how I got off is a mystery. I parried a cut from one fellow, and dodged a second ; a third rushed at my left side. I just caught the flash of his tulwar, and thought it was all up, when he jumped into the air, shot through the heart by Sergeant Winburn ; and the next moment Master Larry rushed by me and plunged his bayonet into my friend in front. It turned me as sick as a dog. I can't fancy any- thing more disagreeable than seeing the operation for the first time, except being stuck one's self. The supporting compa- nies were in in another minute, with the dear old chief himself, who came up and shook hands with me, and said I had done credit to the regiment. Then I began to look about, and missed poor little Jones. We found him about twenty yards from the place, with two grapeshot through him, stone dead, and smiling like a child asleep. We buried him in the fort. I cut off some of his hair, and sent it home to his mother. Her last letter was in his breast pocket, and a lock of bright brown hair of some one's. I sent them back, too, and his sword. " Since then we have been with the army, and had three or four general actions ; about which I can tell you nothing, ex- cept that we have lost about a third of the regiment, and have always been told we have won. Steps go fast enough ; my captain died of wounds and dysentery a week ago ; so I have tiie company in earnest. How long I shall hold it is another question ; for, though there's a slack, we haven't done with sharp work yet, I can see. " How often we've talked, years ago, of what it must feel like going into battle ! Well, the chief thing I felt when the grape came down pretty thick for the first time, as we were advancing, was a sort of gripes in the stomach which made me want to go forward stooping. But I didn't give in to it ; the chief was riding close behind us, joking the youngsters who were ducking their heads, and so cheery and cool that he made 494 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOKD. old soldiers of us at once. What with smoke and dust and excitement, you know scarcely anything of what is going on. The finest sight I have seen is the artillery going into action. Nothing stops those fellows. Places you would crane at out hunting they go right over, guns, carriages, men, and all, leaving any cavalry we've got out here well behind. Do you know what a nullah is ? Well, it's a great gap, like a huge dry canal, fifteen or twenty feet deep. We were halted behind one in the last great fight, waiting the order to advance, when a bat- tery came up at full gallop. We all made sure they must be pulled up by the nullah. They never pulled bridle. ' Leading gun, right turn ! ' sang out the subaltern, and down they went sideways into the nullah. Then, 'Left turn ! ' up the other bank, one gun after another, the horses scrambling like eats up and down places that my men had to use their hands to scramble up, and away the other side to within two hundred yards of the enemy ; and then, round like lightning, and look out in front. " Altogether it's sickening work, though there's a grand sort of feeling of carrying your life in your hand. They say the Sepoy regiments have behaved shamefully. There is no sign of anything like funk among our fellows that I have seen. Sergeant Winburn has distinguished himself everywhere. He is like my shadow, and I can see tries to watch over my precious carcass, and get between me and danger. He would be a deal more missed in the world than I. Except yon, old friend, I don't know who would care much if I were knocked over to- morrow. Aunts and cousins are my nearest relations. You know I never was a snuffler ; but this sort of life makes one seri- ous, if one has any reverence at all in one. You'll be glad to have this line, if you don't hear from me again. I've often thought in the last month that we shall never see one another again in this world. But, whether in this world or any other, you know I am and always shall be your affectionate friend, «H. East." "Camp on the Sutlej, " January. " Deae Mastee Tom : The captain's last words was if any- thing happened I was to be sure to. write and tell you. And so I take up my pen, though j'ou willknow as I am not used to writing, to tell you the misfortune as has happened to our regi- ment. Because, if you was to ask any man in our regiment, let it be who it would, he would say as the captain was the best officer as ever led men. Not but what there's a many of them THE INTEECEPTED LBTTEE-BAG. 495 as will go to the front as brave as lions, and don't value shot ,no more than if it was rotten apples ; and men as is men will go after such. But 'tis the captain's manners and ways, with a kind word for any poor fellow as is hurt, or sick and tired, and making no account of hisself, and, as you may say, no bounce with him ; that's what makes the difference. " As it might be last Saturday, we came upon the enemy where he was posted very strong, with guns all along his front, and served till we got right up to them, the gunners being cut down and bayoneted when we got right up among them, and no quarter given ; and there was great banks of earth, too, to clam- ber over, and more guns behind ; so, with the marching up in front and losing so many officers and men, our regiment was that wild when we got among them 'twas awful to see, and, if there was any prisoners taken, it was more by mistake than not. " Me and three or four more settled, when the word came to prepare for action, to keep with the captain, because 'twas known to eveiyone as no odds would stop him, and he would never mind hisself. The dust and smoke and noise was that thick you couldn't see nor hear anything after our regiment was in action ; but, so far as I seen, when we were wheeled into line, and got the word to advance, there was as it might be as far as from our old cottage to the Hawk's Lynch to go over before we got to the guns, which was playing into us all the waj''. Our line went up very steady, only where men was knocked down ; and, when we come to within a matter of sixty yards, the officers jumped out and waved their swords, for 'twas no use to give words, and the ranks was broken by reason of the running up to take the guns from the enemy. Me and the rest went after the captain ; but he, being so light of foot, was first, by maybe ten yards or so, at the mound, and so up before we was by him. But, though they was all round him like bees when we got to him, 'twas not then as he was hit. There was more guns further on, and we and they drove on altogether ; and though they was beaten, being fine tall men and desperate, there was many of them fighting hai'd, and, as you might say, a man scarcely knowed how he got hit. I kept to the captain as close as ever I could, but there was times when I had to mind myself. Just as we come to the last guns, Larry, that's the captain's servant, was trying by hisself to turn one of them round, so as to fire on the enemy as they took the river to the back of their lines all in a huddle. So I turned to lend him a hand ; and, when I looked round next moment, there was the captain a-staggering like a drunken 496 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. man and he so strong and lissom up to then, and never had a scratch since the war begun, and this the last minute of it, pretty nigh, for thp enemy was all cut to pieces and drowned that day. I got to him before he fell, and we laid him down gently, and did the best we could for him. But he was bleed- ing dreadful with a great gash in his side, and his arm broke, and two gunshot wounds. Our surgeon was killed, and 'twas hours before his wounds was dressed, and 'twill be God's mercy if ever he gets round ; though they do say, if the fever and 'dysentery keeps off, and he can get out of this countiy and home, there's no knowing but he may get the better of it all, but not to serve with the regiment again for years to come. " I hope. Master Tom, as I've told you all the captain would like as you should know ; only, not being much used to writing, I hope you will excuse mistakes. And, if so be that it won't be too much troubling of you, and the captain should go home, and you could write to say how things was going on at home as before, which the captain always gave me to read when the mail come in, it would be a great help toward keeping up of a good heart in a foreign land, which is hard at times to do. There is some tilings which I make bold to send by a comrade going home sick. I don't know as they will seem much, buti hope as you will accept of the sword, which belonged to one of their officers, and the rest to her. Also, on account of what was in the last piece as you forwarded, I send a letter to go along with the things, if Miss Winter, who have been so kind, or you, would deliver the same. To whom I make bold to send my respects as well as to yourself, and hoping this will find you well and all friends, and " From your respectful, " HbNET WllfBUEN, " Color-Sergeant, 101st Regiment." " Maech. " Mt Deae Tom, — I begin to think I may see you again yet, but it has been a near shave. I hope Sergeant Winburn's letter and the returns, in which I see I was put down ' dan- gerously wounded,' will not have frightened you very much. The war is over ; and, if I live to get down to Calcutta, you will see me in the summer, please God. The end was like the beginning — going i-ight up to guns. Our regiment is fright- fully cut up ; there are only three hundred men left under arms — the rest dead or in hospital. I am sick at heart at it, THE INTEECBPTBD LETTER-BAG. 497 and weak in body, and can only write a few lines at a time, but will go on with this as I can, in time for next mail. " Since beginning this letter I have had another relapse. So, in case I sliould never finish it, I will say at once what I most want to say. Winburn has savedmy life more than once, and is besides one of tlie noblest and bravest fellows in the world ; so I mean to provide for him in case anything should happen to me. I have made a will, and appointed you my executor, and left him a legacy. You must buy his discharge, and get him home and married to the Englebourn beauty as soon as possible. But what I want you to understand is that, if the legacy isn't enough to do this, and make all straight with her old curmudgeon of a father, it is my first wish that whatever will do it should be made up to him. He has been in hospital with a bad flesh wound, and haslet out to me the whole of his story, of which you had only given me the heads. If that young women does not wait for him, and book him, I shall give up all faith in petticoats. Now that's done I feel more at ease. " Let me see. I haven't written for six weeks and more, just before our last great fight. You'll know all about it from the papers long before you get this — a bloody business — I am loath to think of it. I was knocked over in the last of their intrench- ments, and should then and there have bled to death had it not been for Winburn. He never left me, though the killing and plundering and roysteriiig afterward was going on all round, and strong temptation to a fellow when his blood is up, and he sees his comrades at it, after such work as we had had. What's more, he caught my Irish fellow and made him stay by me, too, and between them they managed to prop me up and stop the bleeding, though it was touch and go. I never thought they would manage it. You can't think what a curious feeling it is, the life going out of you. I was perfectly conscious, and knew all they were doing and saying, and thought quite clearly, though in a sort of dreamy way, about you, and a whole jumble of people and things at home. It was the most curious pain- less mixture of dream and life, getting more dreamy every min- ute. I don't suppose I could have opened my eyes or spoken ; at any rate I had no wish to do so, and didn't try. Several times the thought of death came close to me ; and, whether it was the odd state I was in, or what else I don't know, but the only feeling I had was one of intense curiosity, should think I must have lain there, with Winbura supporting my head, and 498 TOM BROWN AT OXPOED. moistening my lips with rum and water, for four or five hours, before a doctor could be got. He had managed to drive Larry about till he had found, or borrowed, or stolen the drink, and then kept him making short cruises in search of help in the shape of hospital-stuff, ambulances, or doctors,from which Mas- ter Larry always came back without the slightest success. My belief is, he employed those precious minutes, when he was from under the sergeant's eye, in looting. At last Winburn got impatient, and I heard him telling Larry what he was to do while he was gone himself to find a doctor ; and then I was moved as gently as if I had been a sick girl. I heard him go off with a limp, but did not know till long after of his wound. " Larry had made such a wailing and to-do when they first found me that natural re3,ction now set in, and he began gently and tenderly to run over in his mind what could be made out of ' the captain,' and what would become of his things. I found out this, partly through his habit of talking to himself, and partly from the precaution which lie took of ascertaining wliere my purse and watch were, and what else I had upon me. It tickled me immensely to hear him. Presently I found he was examining my boots, which he pronounced ' iligant entirelj',' and wondered whether he could get them on. The 'serjint' would never want them. And he then proceeded to assert, wliile he actually began unlacing them, that the captain would never have ' bet him ' but for the boots, which ' was worth ten feet in a furlong to any man.' ' Shure 'tis too late now ; hut wouldn't I like to run him agin with the bare feet ? ' I couldn't stand that, and just opened my eyes a little, and moved my hand, and said, 'Done.' I wanted to add, 'you rascal,' but that was too much for me. Larry's face of horror, which I just caught through my half -opened eyes, would have made me roar, if I had had strength for it. I believe the resolution I made that he should never go about in my boots helped me to pull through ; but, as soon as Winburn came back with the doctor, Master Larry departed, and I much doubt whether I shall ever set eyes on him again in the flesh ; not if he can help it, certainly. The regiment, what's left of it, is away in the Pun- jaub, and he with it. Winburn, as I told you, is hard hit, but no danger. I have great hopes that he will be invalided. You may depend upon it he will escort me home, if any interest of mine can manage it ; and the dear old chief is so kind to me that I think he will arrange it somehow. " I must be wonderfully better to have spun such a yarn. Writing those first ten lines nearly finished me, a week ago, 499 and now I am scarcely tired after all this scrawl. If that ras- cal Larry escapes hanging another year, and comes back home, I will run him yet, and thrash his head off. " There is something marvelously* life-giving in the idea of sailing for old England again ; and I mean to make a strong fight for seeing you again, old boy. God bless you. Write again on the chance, directing to my agents at Calcutta, as be- fore. Everyourhalf-alive, but whole-hearted and affectionate friend, H. East." CHAPTER XLV. mastee's teem. One more look into the old college where we have spent so much time already, not, I hope, altogether unpleasantly. Our hero is up in the summer term, keeping his three weeks' resi- dence, the necessary preliminary to an M. A. degree. We find him sitting in Hardy's rooms ; tea is over, scouts out of col- lege, candles lighted, and silence reigning, except when distant sounds of mirth come from some undergraduates' rooms on the opposite side of quad, through the open windows. Hardy is deep in the budget of Indian letters, some of which we have read in the last chapter ; and Tom reads them over again as his friend finishes them, and then carefully folds them up and puts them back in their places in a large pocket-case. Except an occasional explanatory remark, or exclamation of interest, no word passes until Hardy finishes the last letter. Then he breaks out into praises of the two Harrys, which glad- den Tom's heart as he fastens the case, and puts it back in his pocket, saying, " Yes, you won't find two finer fellows in a long summer's day ; no, nor in twenty." " And you expect him home, then, in a week or two ?" " Yes, I think so. Just about the time I shall be going down." "Don't talk about going down. You haven't been here a week." " Just a week. One out of three. Three weeks wasted in keeping one's Master's term ! Why can't you give a fellow his degree quietly, without making him come and kick his heels here for three weeks ? " " You ungrateful dog ! Do you mean to say you haven't enjoyed coming back, and sitting in dignity in the bachelors' seats in chapel, and at the bachelors' table in hall, and thinking how much wiser you are than the undergraduates ? Besides, 500 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. your old friends want to see you, and you ought to want to see them." " Well, I'm very glad to see something of you again, old fellow. I don't find that k year's absence bas made any change in you. But who else is there that I care to see ? My old friends are gone, and the year has made a great gap between me and the youngsters. They look on me as a sort of don." " Of course they do. Why you are a sort of don. You will be an M. A. in a fortnight, and a member of Convocation." "Very likely ; but I don't appreciate the 'dignity ; I can tell you being up here now is anything but enjoyable. You have never broken with the place. And then, you always did your duty, and have done the college credit. You can't enter into the feelings of a fellow whose connection with Oxford has been quite broken off, and who wasted three parts of his time here, when he comes back to keep his Master's." " Come, come, Tom. You might have read more certainly, with benefit to yourself and the college, and taken a higher degree. But, after all, didn't the place do you a great deal of good ? and you didn't do it much harm. I don't like to see you in this sort of gloomy state ; it isn't natural to you." " It is becoming natural. You haven't seen much of me during the last year, or you would have remarked it. And tiien, as I tell you, Oxford, when one has nothing to do in it but to moon about, thinking over one's past follies and sins, isn't cheerful. It never was a very cheerful place to me at the best of times." " Not even at pulling times ? " "Well, the river is the part I like best to think of. But even the river makes me rather melancholy now. One feels one has done with it." " Why, Tom, I believe your melancholy comes from their not having asked you to pull in the boat." " Perhaps it does. Don't you call it degrading to be pull- ing in the torpid in one's old age ? " " Mortified vanity, man ! They have a capital boat. I wonder how we should have liked to have been turned out for some bachelor just because he had pulled a good oar in his day?" " Not at all. I don't blame the young ones, and I hope I do my duty in the torpid. By the way, they're an uncommonly nice set of youngsters. Much better behaved in every way than we were, unless it is that they put on their best manners before me." mastek's teem, Sol "No, 1 don't tliink they do. The fact is, they are really iine young fellows." " So I think. And I'll tell you what, Jack ; since we are sitting and talking our minds to one another at last, like old times, somebody has made the most wonderful change in this college. I rather think it is seeing what St. Ambrose's is now, and thinking what it was in my time, and what an uncommon member of society I should have turned out if I had had the luck to have been here now instead of then, that makes me down in the mouth — more even than liaving to pull in the torpid instead of the racing boat.'' " You do think it is improved, then ? " " Think ! Why it is a different place altogether ; and, as you are the only new tutor, it must have been your doing. Now, I want to know your secret." " I've no secret, except taking a real interest in all that the men do, and living with them as much as I can. You may fancy it isn't much of a trial to me to steer the boat down, or run on the bank and coach the crew." " Ah ! I remember ; you were beginning that before I left, in your first year. I knew that would answer." " Yes. The fact is, I find that just what I like best is the very best thing for the men. With very few exceptions they are all glad to be stirred up, and meet me nearly half-way in reading, and three-quarters in everything else. I believe they would make me captain to-morrow." " And why don't you let them, then ? " " No ; there's a time for everything. I go in the scratch fours for the pewters, and — more by token — my crew won them two years running. Look at my trophies," and he pointed to two pewter pots, engraved with the college arms, which stood on his sideboard. " Well, I dare say you're right. But what does the presi- dent say ? " " Oh, he is a convert. Didn't you see him on the bank when you torpids made your bump the other night ? " " No, you don't mean it ? Well, do you know a sort of vision of black tights, and a broad-brimmed hat crossed me, but I never gave it a second thought. And so the president comes out to see the St. Ambi-ose boat row ? " " Seldom misses two nights running." " Then, cany me out and bury me decently. Have you seen old Tom walking round Peckwater lately on his clapper, smok- ing a cigar with the Dean of Christ Church ? Don't be afraid. 502 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. I am ready for anything you like to tell me. Draw any amount you like on my faith ; I shall honor the draft after that." " The president isn't a bad judge of an oar, when he sets his mind to it." " Isn't he ? But I say, Jack — ^no sell — how in the world did it happen ? " " I believe it happened chiefly through his talks with me. When I was first made tutor he sent for me and told me he liad heard I encouraged the young men in boating, and he must positively forbid it. I didn't much care about staying up ; so I was pretty plain with him, and said if I was not allowed to take the line I thought best in such matters I must resign at the end of term. He assented, but afterward thought better of it, and sent for me again, and we had several encounters. I took my ground very civilly, but firmly, and he had to give up one objection after another. I think the turning-point was when he quoted St. Paul on me, and said I was teaching boys to worship physical strength, instead of teaching them to keep under their bodies and bring them into subjection. Of course I countered him there with tremendous effect. The old boy took it very well, only saying he feared it was no use to argue further — in this matter of boat-racing he had come to a con- clusion, not without serious thought, many years before. How- ever, lie came round quietly. And so he has on other points. In fact, he is a wonderfully open-minded man for his age, if you only put things to him the right way." " Has he come round about gentlemen-commoners ? I see you've only two or three up." " Yes. We haven't given up taking them altogether. I hope " that may come soon. But I and another tutor took to pluck- ing them ruthlessly at matriculation, unless they were quite up to the commoner standard. The consequence was — a row in common room. We stood out, and won. Luckily, as you know, it has always been given out here that all undergraduates, gentlemen-commoners and commoners, have to pass the same college examinations, and to attend the same courses of lec- tures. You know also what a mere sham and pretense the rule had become. Well, we simply made a reality of it, and in answer to all objections, said : Is it our rule or not ? If it is, we are bound to act on it. If you want to alter it, there are the regular ways of doing so. After a little grumbling they let us have our way, and the consequence is that velvet is getting scarce at St. Ambrose." MASTER S TEEM. 503 " What a blessing ! What other miracles have you been per- forming ? " ■ " The best reform we have carried is throwing the kitchen and cellar open to the undergraduates." " W-h-e-w ! That's just the sort of reform we should have appreciated. Fancy Drysdale's lot with the key of the college cellars, at about ten o'clock on a shiny night." " You don't quite understand the reform. You remember, when you were an undergraduate, you couldn't give a dinner in college, and you had to buy your wine anywhere ? " " Yes, and awful firewater we used to get. The governor supplied me, like a wise man." " Well, we have placed the college in the relation of benevo- lent father. Every undergraduate now can give two dinners a term in his own room, from the kitchen ; or more, if he comes and asks, and has any reason to give. We take care that they have a good dinner at a reasonable rate, and the men are delighted with the arrangement. I don't believe there are three men in the college now who have hotel bills. And we let them have all their wine out of the ooUege cellars." " That's what I call good common-sense. Of course it must answer in every way. And you find they all come to you ? " "Almost all. They can't get anything like the wine we give them at the price, and they know it." " Do you make them pay ready money ? " " The dinners and wine are charged in their battel bills ; so they have to pay once a term, just as they do for their ordi- naiy commons." " It must swell their battel bills awfully." " Yes, but battel bills always come in at the beginning of term, when they are flush of money. Besides, they all know that battel bills must be paid. In a small way, it is the best thing that ever was done for St. Ambrose's. You see it outs so many ways. Keeps men in college, knocks off the most objectionable bills at inns and pastry-cooks, keeps them from being poisoned, makes them pay their bills regularly, shows them that we like them to be able to live like gentlemen " "And lets you dons know what they are all about, and how much they spend in thie way of entertaining." "Yes ; and a very good thing for them, too. They know that we shall not interfere while they behave like gentlemen." " Oh, I'm not objecting. And was this your doing too ? " "No; a joint business. We hatched it in the common room, and then the bursar spoke to the president, who was . 504 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. furious, and said we were giving the sanction of the college to disgraceful luxury and extravagance. Luckily, he had not the power of stopping us, and now is convinced." "ffhe goddess of common-sense seems to have alighted again in the quad of St. Ambrose. You'll never leave the place, Jack, now you're beginning to get everything your own way." " On the contrary, I don't mean to stop up more than an- other year at the outside. I have been tutor nearly three years now; that's about long enough." " Do you think you're right ? You seem to have hit on your line in life wonderfully. You like the work, and the work likes you. You are doing a heap of good up here. You'll be president in a year or two, depend on it. I should say you had better stick to Oxfoi'd." " No. I should be of no use in a year or two. We want a constant current of fresh blood here." " In a general way. But you don't get a man every day who can throw himself into the men's pursuits, and can get hold of them in the right way. And then, after all, when a fellow has got such work cut out for him as you have, Oxford must be an uncommonly pleasant place to live in." " Pleasant enough in many ways. But you seem to have forgotten how you used to rail against it." " Yes. Because I never hit off the right ways of the place. But, if I had taken a first and got a fellowship, I should like it well enough, I dare say." " Being a fellow, on the contrary, makes it worse. While one was an undergraduate one could feel virtuous and indig- nant at the vices of Oxford, at least at those which one did not indulge in, particularly at the flunkyism and money- worship which are our most prevalent and disgraceful sins. But when one is a fellow, it is quite another affair. They be- come a sore burden then, enough to break one's heart." " Why, Jack, we're changing characters to-night. Fancy your coming out in the abusive line ! Why, I never said harder things of Alma Mater myself. However, there's plenty of flunkyism and money-worship everywhere else." " Yes ; but it is not so heart-bi"eaking in other places. When one thinks what a great center of learning and faith like Oxford ought to be — that its highest educational work should just be the deliverance of us all from flunkyism and money-worship — and then looks at matters here without rose- colored spectacles, it gives one sometimes a sort of chilly, leaden despondency, which is very hard to struggle against,'' master's teem. 505 " I am sorry to hear you talk like that, Jack, for one can't help loving the place, after all." "So I do, God knows. If I didn't I shouldn't care for its shortcomings." " Well, the flunkyism and money-worship were bad enough, but I don't think they were the worst things — at least not in my day. Our neglects were almost worse than our wor- ships." " You mean the want of all reverence for parents ? Well, perhaps that lies at the root of the false worships. They spring up on the vacant soil." " And the want of reverence for women, Jack. The worst of all, to my mind ! " " Perhaps you are right. But we are not at the bottom yet." " How do you mean ? " " I mean that we must worship God before we can rever- ence parents or women, or rout flunkyism and money-wor- ship." " Yes. But, after all, can we fairly lay that sin on Oxford ? Surely, whatever may be growing up side by side with it, there's more Christianity here than almost anywhere else." "Plenty of common-room Christianity — ^belief in a dead God. There, I have never said it to anyone but you, but that is the slough we have to get out of. Don't think that I de- spair for us. We shall do it yet; but it will be sore work, strip- ping off the comfortable wine party religion in which we are wrapped up — work for our strongest and our wisest." " And yet you think of leaving ? " " There are other reasons. I will tell you some day. But now, to turn to other matters, how have you been getting on this last year? You write so seldom that I am all behind- hand." " Oh, much the same as usual." "Then you are still like one of those who went out to David?" " No, I'm not in debt." " But discontented." " Pretty much like you there, Jack. However, content is no virtue, that I can see, while there's anything to mend. Who is going to be contented with game-preserving, and corn-laws, and grinding the faces of the poor? David's camp was a better place tlian Saul's, any day." Hardy got up, opened a drawer, and took out a bundle of 506 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. papers, which Tom recognized as the Wessex Freeman. He felt rather uncomfortable, as his friend seated himself again, and began looking them over. " You see what I have here ? " he said. Tom nodded. " Well there are some of the articles I should like to ask you about, if you don't object." "No; go on." " Here is one, then, to begin with. I won't read it all. Let me see; here is what I was looking for," and he began read- ing: " ' One would think, to liear these landlords, our rulers, talk, that the glorious green fields, the deep woods, the ever- lasting hills, and the rivers that run among them, were made for the sole purpose of ministering to their greedy lusts and mean ambitions; that they may roll out among unrealities their pitiful mock lives, from their silk and lace cradles to their spangled coffins, studded with silver knobs, and lying coats of arms, reaping where they had not sown, and gathering where they had not strewed; making the omer small and the ephah great, that tliey may sell the refuse of the wheat '" " That'll do, Jack. But what's the date of that paper ? " " July last. Is it yours, then ? " "Yes. And I'll allow it's too strong and one-sided. I have given up writing altogether; will that satisfy you ? I don't see my own way clear enough yet, but for all that, I'm not ashamed of what I wrote in that paper." "I have nothing more to say after that, except that I'm heartily glad that you have given up writing for the pres- ent." " But, I say, old fellow, how did you get these papers, and know about my articles?" " They were sent me. Shall I burn them, now, or would you like to have them? We needn't say anything more about them." " Burn them, by all means. I suppose a friend sent them to you." "I suppose so." Hardy went on burning the papers in silence; and, as Tom watched him, a sudden light seemed to break upon him. "I say. Jack," he said, presently, "a little bird has been whispering something to me about that friend." Hardy winced a little, and redoubled his diligence in burning the papers. Tom looked on smiling, and thinkmg how to go on now that he had so unexpectedly turned the tables on his monitor, when the clock struck twelve. FROM INDIA TO BNGLEBOUEN. SOlT " Hollo ! " he said, getting up; " time for me to knock out, or old Copas will be in bed. To go back to where we started from to-night — as soon as East and Harry Winburn get back we shall have some jolly doings at Englebourn. There'll be a wedding, I hope, and you'll come over and do parson for us, won't you ? " " You mean for Patty ? Of course I will." " The little bird whispered to me that you wouldn't dislike visiting that part of the old county. Good-night, Jack. I wish you success, old fellow, with all my heart, and I hope after all that you may leave St. Ambrose's within the year." CHAPTER XLVI. FEOM INDIA TO ENGLEBOUEN. If a knowledge of contemporary history must be reck- oned as an important element in the civilization of any people, then I am afraid that the good folks of Englebourn must have been content, in the days of our story, with a very low place on the ladder. How, indeed, was knowledge to percolate, so as to reach down to the foundations of Englebourn society — the stratum upon which all others rest — the common agricul- tural laborer, producer of corn, and othej grain, the careful and stolid nurse and guardian of youthful oxen, sheep, and pigs, — many of them far better housed and fed than his own children ? All penetrating as she is, one cannot help wonder- ing that she did not give up Englebourn altogether as a hope- less job. So far as written periodical instruction is concerned (with the exception of the Quarterly, which Dr. Winter had taken in from its commencement, but rarely opened), the supply was limited to at most half a dozen weekly papers. A London journal, sound in church and state principles, most respectable but not otherwise than heavy, come every Saturday to the Rectory. The conservative county paper was taken in at the Red Lion; and David the constable, and the blacksmith, clubbed together to purchase the Liberal paper, by help of which they managed to wage unequal war with the knot of village quid- nuncs, who assembled almost nightly at the bar of the Tory beast above referred to, — that king of beasts, red indeed in color, but of the truest blue in political principle. Besides these perhaps three or four more papers were taken by the farmers. But, scanty as the food was, it was quite enough for 508 TOM BKOWN AT OXFORD. the mouths; indeed, when the papers once passed out of the parlors, they had for the most part performed their mission. Few of the farm-servants, male or female, had curiosity or scholarship enoiagh to spell through the dreary columns. And oral teaching was not much more plentiful, as how was - it likely to be ? Englehourn was situated on no trunk road, and the amount of intercourse between it and the rest of the world was of the most limited kind. The rector never left home ; the curate at rare intervals. Most of the farmers went to market once a week, and dined at their ordinary, discussing county politics after their manner, but bringing home little, except as much food and drink as they could cleverly carry. The carrier went to and from Newbury once a week ; but he was a silent man, chiefly bent on collecting and selling butter. The postman, who was deaf, only went as far as the next vil- lage. The wagoners drove their masters' produce to market from time to time, and boozed away an hour or two in the kitchen, or tap, or skittle-alley, of some small public-house in the nearest town, while their horses rested. With the above exceptions, probably not one of the villagers strayed ten miles from home, from year's end to year's end. As to visitors, an occasional peddler or small commercial traveler turned up about once a quarter. A few boys and girls, more enterprising than their fellows, went out altogether into the world, of their own accord, in the course of the year; and an occasional burly plow- boy, or carter's boy, was entrapped into taking the queen's sljil- ling by some subtle recruiting sergeant. But few of these were seen again, except at long intervals. The yearly village feasts harvest homes, or a meet of the hounds on Englehourn Com- mon, were the most exciting events which in an ordinary way stirred tlie surface of Englehourn life; only the faintest and most distant murmurs of the din and strife of the great outer world, of wars and rumors of wars, the fall of governments and the throes of nations, reached that primitive, out-of-the-way little village. A change was already showing itself since Miss Winter had been old enough to look after the schools. The waters were beginning to stir; and by this time, no doubt, the parish boasts a regular book-hawker and reading-room ; but at that day Englehourn was like one of those small ponds you maj' find in some nook of a hill-side, the banks grown over witli under- wood, to which neither man nor beast, scarcely the winds of heaven, have any access. When you have found such a pond you may create a great excitement among the easy-going FROM INDIA TO ENGLBBOUKN. 500 newts and frogs who inhabit it, by throwing in a pebble. The splash in itself is a small splash enough and the waves which circle away from it are very tiny waves, but they move over the whole face of the pond, and are of more interest to the frogs than a nor'-wester in the Atlantic. So the approaching return of Harry Winburn, and the story of his doings at the wars, and of the wonderful things he liad sent home, stirred Englebourn to its depths. In tliat small corner of the earth the sergeant was of far more importance than governor-general and commander-in-chief. In fact, it was probably the common belief that he was somehow the head of tlie whole business ; and India, the war, and all that hung thereon, were looked at and cared for only as they had served to bring him out. So careless were the good folk about every- thing in the matter except their own hero, and so wonderful were the romances which soon got abroad about him, that Miss Winter, tired of explaining again and again to the old women without the slightest effect on the parochial faith, bethought her of having a lecture on the subject of India and the war in the parish school-room. Full of this idea, she wrote off to Tom, who was the medium of communication on Indian matters, and propounded it to him. The difficulty was, that Mr. Walker the curate, the only person competent to give it, was going away directly for a three weeks' holiday, having arranged with two neighboring curates to take his Sunday duty for him. What was to be done ? Harry might be back any day, it seemed; so there was no time to be lost. Could Tom come himself, and help her ? Tom could not ; but he wrote back to say that his friend Hardy was just getting away from Oxford for the long vaca- tion, and would gladly take Mr. Walker's duty for the three weeks, if Dr. Winter approved, on his way home ; by which aiTangement Englebourn would not be without an efficient parson on week days, and she would have the man of all others to help her in utilizing the sergeant's history for the instruction of the bucolic tnind. The arrangement, more- over, would be particularly happy, because Hardjr had already promised to perform the marriage ceremony, which Tom and she had settled would take place at the earliest possible mo- ment after the return of the Indian heroes. Dr. Winter was very glad to accept the offer ; and so, when they parted at Oxford, Hardy went to Englebourn, where we must leave him for the present. Tom went home — whence, in a few days, he had to hurry down to Southampton to meet the 510 TOM BROWN AT OXFOED. two Harrys. He was much shocked at first to see the state of his old schoolfellow. East looked haggard and pale in the face, notwithstanding the sea-voyage. His clothes hung on him as if they had been made for a man of twice his size, and he walked with difficulty by the help of a large stick. But he had lost none of his indomitableness, laughed at Tom's long face, and declared that he felt himself getting better and stronger every day. " If you had only seen me at Calcutta, you would sing a different song, eh, Winbum ? " Harry Winburn was much changed, and had acquired all the composed and self -reliant look which is so remarkable in agood non-commissioned officer. Readiness to obey and command was stamped on every line of his face ; but it required all his powers of self-restraint to keep within bounds his delight at getting home again. His wound was quite healed, and his health re-established by the voyage; and, when Tom saw how wonderfully his manners and carriage were improved, and how easily his uniform sat on him, he felt quite sure that all would be soon right at Englebourn, and that Katie and he would be justified in their prophecies and preparations. The invalids had to report themselves in London, and thither the three pro- ceeded together. When this was done, Harry Winburn was sent off at once. He resisted at first, and begged to be allowed to stay with his captain until the captain could go into Berk- shire himself. But he was by this time too much accustomed to discipline not to obey a positive order, and was comforted by Tom's assurance that he would not leave East, and would do everything for him which the sergeant had been accustomed to do. Three days later, as East and Tom were sitting at breakfast, a short note came from Miss Winter, telling of Harry's arrival — how the bells were set ringing to welcome him ; how Mr. Hardy had preached the most wonderful sermon on his story the next day; above all, how Patty had surrendered at discre- tion, and the bans had been called for the first time. So the sooner they would come down the better — as it was very im- portant that no time should be lost, lest some of the old jeal- ousies and quarrels should break out again. Upon reading and considering which letter. East resolved to start for Englebourn at once, and Tom to accompany him. There was one person to whom Harry's return and approach- ing wedding was a subject of unmixed joy and triumph, and that was David the constable. He had always been a sincere FROM INDIA TO ENGLEBOURK 51 1 friend to Harry, and had stood up for him when all the parish respectabilities had turned against him, and had prophesied that he would live to be a credit to the place. So now David felt himself an inch higher as he saw Harry walking about in his uniform with his sweetheart, tlie admiration of all Engle- bourn. But, besides all the unselfish pleasure which David enjoyed on his young friend's account, a little piece of private and personal gratification came to him on his own. Ever since Harry's courtship had begun David had felt himself in a false position toward, and suffered under, old Simon, tlie rector's gardener. The necessity for keeping the old man in good humor for Harry's sake had always been present to the con- stable's mind; and, for the privilege of putting in a good word for his favorite every now and then, he had allowed old Simon to assume an air of superiority over him, and to trample upon him and dogmatize to him, even in the matters of flowers and bees. This had been the more galling to David on account of old Simon's intolerant Toryism, which the constable's soul re- belled against, except in the matter of church music. On this one point they agreed, but even here Simon managed to be un- pleasant. He would lay the whole blame of the changes which had been effected upon David, accusing him of having given in when there was no need. As there was nothing but a wall between the Rectory garden and David's little strip of ground, in which he spent all his leisure time, until the shades of even- ing summoned him to the bar of the Red Lion for his daily pint and pipe, the two were constantly within hearing of one another, and Simon, in times past, had seldom neglected an opportunity of making himself disagreeable to his long-suffer- ing neighbor. But now David was a free man again ; and he took the ear- liest occasion of making the change in his manner apparent to Simon, and of getting, as he called it, " upsides " with him. One would have thought, to look at him, that the old gardener was as pachydermatous as a rhinoceros; but somehow lie seemed to feel that things had changed between them, and did not ap- preciate an interview with David now nearly so much as of old. So he had very little to do in that part of the garden which abutted on the constable's premises. When he could not help working there, he chose the times at which David was most likely to be engaged, or even took the trouble to ascertain that he was not at home. Early on Midsummer-day, old Simon reared his ladder against the boundai-y.wall with the view of " doctorin' " some of the 512 TOM BteOWN At OXFORD. fruit trees, relying on a parish meeting, at which the constable s presence was required. But he had not more than half finished his operations before David returned from vestiy, and, catching sight of the top of the ladder and Simon's head above the wall, laid aside all other business, and descended into the garden. Simon kept on at his work, only replying by a jerk of the head and one of his grunts to his neighbor's salutation. David took his coat off, and his pruning-knife out, and, establishing himself within easy shot of his old oppressor, opened fired at once : "Thou'st gi'en thy consent then?" " 'Tis no odds, consent or none — her's old enough to hev her own waay." " But thou'st gi'en thy consent ? " " Ees, then, if thou wilt hev't," said Simon, surlily ; " wut then ? " " So I heerd," said David, indulging in an audible chuckle. " What bist a laughin' at ? " " I be laughin' to think how folks changes. Do'st mind the hard things as thou hast judged and said o' -Harry? Not as ever I known thy judgment to be o' much account, 'cept about roots. But thou saidst, times and times, as a would come to the gallows." " So a med yet — so a med yet," answered Simon. " Not but wut I wishes well to un, and bears no grudges ; but others as hev got the law ov un medn't." " 'Tis he as hev got grudges to bear. He don't need none o' thy forgiveness." " Pr'aps a medn't. But hev 'em got the law ov un, or hevn't 'em?" " Wut do'st mean : got the law ov un ? " " Thaay warrants as wur out agen un, along wi' the rest as was transpworted auver Farmer Tester's job." " Oh, he've got no call to be afeared o' thaay now. Thou know'st I hears how 'tis laid down at Sessions and 'Sizes, wher' I've a-been this twenty year." "Like enuff. Only, wut's to hinder thaay tryin' ov un, if thaay be minded to't? That's wut I wants to know." " 'Tis wut the counselors calls the Statut' o' Lamentations," said the constable, proudly. " Wutever's Lamentations got to do wi't ? " " A gurt deal, I tell 'ee. What do'st thou know o' Lamenta- tions ? " "Lamentations cums afore Ezekiel in the Bible." S*KOM INDIA To ENGLEBOUEN. 613 " That aint no kin to the Statut' o' Lamentations. But there's Bummut like to't in the Bible," said the constable, stopping his work to consider a moment. " Do'st mind the year when the land wur all to be guv back to they as owned it fust, and debts wur to be wiped out ? " " Ees, I minds summut o' that." " Well, this here statut' says, if so be as a man hev bin to the wars, and sarved his country like, as nothin' shan't be reckoned agen he, let alone murder : nothin' can't do away wi' murder." " No, nor oughtn't. Hows'mdever, you seems clear about the law on't. There's miss a callin'." And old Simon's head disappeared as he descended the lad- der to answer the summons of his young mistress, not displeased at having his fears as to the safety of his future son-in-law set at rest by so eminent a legal authority as the constable. For- tunately for Harry, the constable's law was not destined to be tried. Young Wurley was away in London. Old Tester was bedridden with an accumulation of diseases brought on by his bad life. His illness made him more violent and tyrannical than ever ; but he could do little harm out of his own room, for no one ever went to see him, and the wretched farm-servant who attended him was much too frightened to tell him any- thing of what was going on in the parish. There was no one else to revive proceedings against Harry. David pottered on at his bees and his flowers till old Simon returned, and ascended his ladder again. " You be tlier' still, be 'ee ? " he said, as soon as he saw David. "Ees. Any news?" " Ah, news enuff. He as wur Harry's captain and young Mr. Brown be comin' down to-morrow, and hev tuk all the Red Lion to theirselves. And thaay bean't content to wait for bans — not thaay — and so ther's to be a license got for Satur- day. 'Taint scarce decent, that 'taint." " 'Tis best to get drough wi't," said the constable. " Then nothin'U sarve 'em but the church must be hung wi' flowers, and wher' be thaay to cum from without stripping and starving ov my beds ? 'Tis shameful to see how folks acts wi' flowers nowadays, a-cuttin' on 'em and puttin' on 'em aboiit, as prodigal as though thaay growed o' theirselves." "So 'tis shameful," said David, whose sympathies for flowers were all with Simon. " I heers tell as young Squire Wurley hevs 'em on table at dinner-time instead o' the wittles." " Do 'ee though ! I calls it reg'lar papistry, and so I tells miss ; but her only laughs." 514 TOM BEOWN AT OXPOBD. The constable shook his head solemnly as he replied, " Her've been led away wi' such doin's ever since Mr. Walker cum, and took to organ-playin' and chantin'." " And he aint no sich gurt things in the pulpit neether, aint Mr. Walker," chimed in Simon (the two had not been so in harmony for years). " I reckon as he aint nothin' to speak ov alongside o' this here new un as hev tuk his place. He's got a deal o' move in nn, he hev." " Ah, so a hev. A wunnerful sight o' things a telled us t'other night about the Indians and the wars." " Ah ! talking cums as nat'ral to he as buttermilk to a lit- terin' sow." " Thou shouldst 'a' heerd un, though, about the battles I can't mind the names on 'em — let me zee " " I dwun't vally the neames," interrupted Simon. " They makes a deal 6' fuss ouver't aall, but I dwunt tek no account on't. 'Taint like the owld wars and fightin' o' the French, this here fightin' wi' blackamoors, let 'em talk as thaay wool." " No more 'taint. But 'twur a 'mazin' fine talk as he gi'n us. Hev 'ee seed ought 'twixt he and young missus ? " " Nothing out o' th' common. I got plenty to do without lookin' arter the women, and 'taint no business o' mine ; oor o' thine neether." David was preparing a stout rejoinder to this rebuke of the old retainer of the Winter family on his curiosity, but was summoned by his wife to the house to attend a customer ; and by the time he could get out again Simon had disappeared. The next day East and Tom arrived, and took possession of the Red Lion ; and Englebourn was soon in a ferment of preparation for the wedding. East was not the man to do things by halves; and, seconded as he was by Miss Winter and Hardy and Tom, had soon made arrangements for all sorts of merrymaking. Tlie school children were to have a whole hoi- May, and, after scattering flowers at cliurch and marching in tlie bridal procession, were to be entertained in a tent pitched in the home paddock of the Rectory, and to have an afternoon of games and prizes, and tea and cake. The bell-ringers, Harry's old comrades, were to have five shillings apiece, and a cricket match, and a dinner afterward at the second public house, to which any other of his old friends whom Harry chose to ask were also to be invited. The old men and women were to be fed in the village schoolroom ; and East and Tom were to entertain a select party of the farmers and tradesmen at the Red Lion, the tap of which hostelry was to be thrown open to THE WEDDINU-DAT. 515 all comers at the captain's expense. It was not without con- siderable demur on the part of Miss Winter that some of these indiscriminate festivities were allowed to pass. But after con- sulting with Hardy she relented, on condition that the issue of beer at the two public houses should be put under the control of David the constable, who, on his part, promised that law and order should be well represented and maintained on the occn- sion. " Arter all, miss, you sees 'tis only for once in awaay," he said, " and 'twill make 'em remember aal as hev bin said to 'em about the Indians, and the rest on't." So the captain and his abetters, having gained the constable as an ally, prevailed; and Englebourn, much wondering at itself, made ready for a general holiday. CHAPTER XLVII. THE WEDDING-DAT. One — more — poor — man — un-done — One — more — poor — man — un-done. The belfry-tower rocked and reeled, as that peal rang out, now merry, now scornful, now plaintive, from those narrow belfry windows, into the bosom of the soft, southwest wind, which was playing round the old gray tower of Englebourn chui'ch. And the wind caught the peal and played with it, and bore it away over Rectory and village street, and many a homestead and gently waving field of ripening com, and rich pasture and water-meadow, and tall whispering woods of the Grange, and rolled it against the hillside, and up the slope past the clump of firs on the Hawk's Lynch, till it died away on the wild stretches of common beyond. The ringers bent lustilj"^ to their work. There had been no such ringing in Englebourn since the end of the great war. Not content with the usual peal out of church, they came back again and again in the afternoon, full of the good cheer which had been provided for them ; and again and again the wedding peal rang out from the belfry in honor of their old comrade : One — more — ^poor — man — im-done — One — more — poor — man — ^un-done. Such was the ungallant speech which for many generations had been attributed to the Englebourn wedding-bells ; and when you had once caught the words — as you would be sure to do from some wide-mouthed, grinning boy, lounging over the churchyard rails to see the wedding pass — it would be impos- sible to persuade yourself that they did, in fact, say anything 516 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. else. Somehow, Harry Winburn bore his undoing in the most heroic manner, and did his duty thi-oughout the trying day, as a non-commissioned officer and bridegroom should. The only part of the performance arranged by his captain which he fairly resisted, was the proposed departure of himself and Patty to the station in the solitary post-chaise of Englebourn^a real old yellow — with a pair of horses. East, after hearing the sergeant's pleading on the subject of vehicles, at last allowed them to drive ofE in a tax-cart, taking a small boy with them behind, to bring it back. . As for the festivities, they went off without a hitch, as such affairs will, where the leaders of the revels have their hearts in them. The children had all played, and I'omped, and eaten, and drunk themselves into a state of torpor by an early hour of the evening. The farmers' dinner was a decided success. East proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom, and was followed by Farmer Grove and the constable. David turned out in a new blue swallow-tailed coat, with metal buttons, of his own fabulous cut, in honor of the occasion. He and the farmer spoke like the leader of the Government and the Oppo- sition in the House of Commons on an address to the Crown, There was not a pin to choose between their speeches, and a stranger hearing them would naturally have concluded that Harry had never been anything but the model boy and young man of the parish. Fortunately, the oratorical powers of Englebourn ended here ; and East, and the majority of his guests, adjourned to the green where the cricket was in prog- ress. Each game lasted a very short time only, as the youth of Englebourn were not experts in the noble science, and lost their wickets one after another so fast that Tom and Hardy had time to play out two matches with them, and then to re- tire on their laurels, while the afternoon was yet young. The old folk in the village schoolroom enjoyed their beef and pudding under the special superintendence of Miss Winter, and then toddled to their homes, and sat about in the warmest nooks they could find, mumbling of old times and the doings at Dr. Winter's wedding. David devoted himself to superintending the issue of beer, swelling with importance, but so full of the milk of human kindness from the great event of the day that nobody minded his little airs. He did his duty so satisfactorily that, with the exception of one or two regular confirmed soakers, who stuck steadily to the tap of the Red Lion, and there managed sue-, cessf ully to fuddle themselves, there was nothing lil^e drunken- THE WEDDING-DAY. 517 ness. In short, it was one of those rare days when every- thing goes right, and everybody seems to be inclined to give and take, and to make allowances for their neighbors. By degrees the_ cricket flagged, and most of tlie meii went off to sit over their pipes, and finish the evening in tlu'ir own way. The boys and girls took to playing at kissing in the ring ; and the children who had not already gone home sat in groups watching them. Miss Winter had already disappeared, and Tom, Hardy, and the captain began to feel that they might consider their part finished. They strolled together off the green toward Hardy's lodgings, the Red Lion being still in the possession of East's guests. " Well, how do you think it all went off ? " asked he. "Nothing could have been better," said Hardy ; "and they all seem so inclined to be reasonable that I don't think we shall even have a roaring song along the street to-night when the Red Lion shuts up." " And are you satisfied, Tom ? " " I should think so. I have been hoping for this day any time this four years, and now it has come and gone off well, too, thanks to you, Harry." " Thanks to me ? Very good ; I am open to any amount of gratitude." " I think you have every reas.on to be satisfied with your second day's work at Englebourn, at any rate." " So I am. I only hope it may turn out as well as the first." " Oh, thei-e's no doubt about that." " I don't know. I rather believe in the rule of contraries." " How do you mean ? " " Why, when you inveigled me over from Oxford, and we carried off the sergeant from the authorities, and defeated the yeomanry in that tremendous thunder-storm, I thought we were a couple of idiots, and deserved a week each in the lock- up for our pains. That business turned out well. This time we have started with flying colors, and bells ringing, and 80 " " This business will turn out better. Why not ? " "Then let us manage a third day's work in these parts as soon as possible. I should like to get to the third degree of comparison, and perhaps the superlative will turn up trumps for me somehow. Are there many more young women in the place as pretty as Mrs. Winburn ? This marrying complaint is very catching, I find," 518 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. "There's my cousin Katie," said Tom, looking stealthily at Hardy ; " I won't allow that there's any face in the country- side to match hers. What do you say. Jack ? " Hardy was confused by this sudden appeal. " I haven't been long enough here to judge," he said. " I have always thought Miss Winter very beautiful. I see it is nearly seven o'clock, and I have a call or two to make in the village. I should think you ought to get some rest after this tiring day. Captain East." " What are you going to do, Tom ? " " Well, I was thinking of just throwing a fly over the mill tail. There's such a fine head of water on." " Isn't it too bright ? " " Well, perhaps it is, a little ; marrying weather and fishing weather don't agree. Only what else is there to do? But if you are tired," he added, looking at East, " I don't care a straw about it. I shall stay with you." " Not a bit of it. I shall hobble down with you, and lie on the bank and smoke a cheroot." " No, you shan't walk, at any rate. I can borrow the con- stable's pony, old Nibble, the quietest beast in the world. He'll stand for a week if we like, while I fish and you lie and look on. I'll be off, and bring him round in two minutes." " Then we shall meet for a clumsy tea at nine at my lodg- ings," said Hardy, as he went off to his pastoral duties. Tom and East, in due time, found themselves by the side of the stream. There was only a small piece of fishable water in Englebourn. The fine stream, which, a mile or so below, in the Grange grounds, might be called a river, came into respectable existence only about two hundred yards above Englebourn mill. Here two little chalk brooks met, and former millers had judiciously deepened the channel, and dammed the united waters back so as to get a respectable reservoir. Above the junction the little weedy, bright, creeping brooks, afforded good sport for small truants groppling about with their hands, or bobbing with lobworms under the hollow banks, but were not available for the scientific angler. The parish ended at the fence next below the mill garden, on the other side of whicli the land was part of the Grange estate. So there was just the piece of still water above the mill, and the one field below it, over which Tom had leave. On ordinary occasions this would have been enough, with careful fishing, to last him till dark ; but his nerves were probably somewhat excited by the events of the day, and East sat near and kept talking ; so THE WEDDING-DAY. S19 he got over his water faster than usual. At any rate, he had arrived for the second time at the envious fence before the sun was down. The fish were wondrous wary in the miller's bit of water — as might be expected, for they led a dog of a life there, between the miller and his men, and their nets, and baits of all kinds always set. So Tom thought himself lucky to get a couple of decent fish, the only ones that were moving within his liberty ; but he could not help looking with covetous eyes on the fine stretch of water below, all dimpling with rises. "Why don't you get over and fish below ?" said East, from his seat on the bank ;' " don't mind me. I can watch you from here ; besides, lying on the turf on such an evening is luxury enough by itself." " I can't go. Both sides below belong to that fellow Wurley." " The sergeant's amiable landlord and prosecutor ? " ■" Yes ; and the yeoman with whom you exchanged shots on the common." " Hang it, Tom, just jump over and catch a brace of his trout. Look how they are rising." " No. I don't know. I never was very particular about poaching, but somehow I shouldn't like to do it on his land. I don't like him well enough." " You're right, I believe. But, just look there. There's a whopper rising not more than ten yards below the rail. You might reach him, I think, without trespassing, from where you stand." " Shall I have a shy at him ? " " Yes ; it can't be poaching if you don't go on his ground." Tom could not resist the temptation, and threw over the rails, which crossed the stream from hedge to hedge to mark the boundaries of the parish, until he got well over the place where the fish was rising. " There, that was at your fly," said East, hobbling up in great excitement. " All right, I shall have him directly. There he is. Hollo ! Harry, I say ! Splash with your stick. Drive the brute back. Bad luck to him. Look at that ? " The fish when hooked had come straight up-stream toward his captor, and, notwithstanding East's attempts to frighten him back, had rushed in under the before-mentioned rails, which were adorned with jagged nails, to make crossing on them unpleasant for the Englebonm boys. Against one of these Tom's line severed, and the waters closed over two beau- tiful flies, and some six feet of lovely taper gut. 520 lOM BROWN AT OXFORD. East laughed loud and merrily ; and Tom, crestfallen as he was, was delighted to hear the old ring coming hack into his friend's voice. " Harry, old fellow, you're picking up already in this glo- rious air." " Of course lam. Two or three more weddings and fishings will set me up altogether. How could you he so green as to throw over the rails ? It's a proper lesson to you, Tom, for poaching." " Well, that's cool. Didn't I throw down-stream to please you ? " " You ought to have resisted temptation. But, I say, what are you at ? " " Putting on another cast, of course." " Why, you're not going on to Wurley's land ? " "No ; I suppose not. I must try the mill tail again." " It's no good. You've tried it over twice, and I'm getting bored." " Well, what shall we do, then ? " " I've a mind to get up to the hill there to see the sun set — what's its name? — where I waited with the cavalry that night, you know." " Oh ! the Hawk's Lynch. Come along, then ;' I'm your man." So Tom put up his rod, and caught the old pony, and the two friends were soon on their way toward the common, through lanes at the hack of the village. The wind had sunk to sleep as the shadows lengthened. There was no sound abroad except that of Nibble's hoofs on the turf — not even the hum of insects ; for the few persever- ing gnats, who were still dancing about in the slanting glints of sunshine that struck here and their across the lanes, had left off humming. Nothing living met them, except an occa- sional stag-beetle, steering clumsily down the lane, and seem- ing, like a heavy coaster, to have as much as he could fairly manage in keeping clear of them. They walked on in silence for some time, which was broken at last by East. " I haven't had time to tell you about my future prospects." " How do you mean ? Has anything happened ? " " Yes. I got a letter two days ago from New Zealand, where I find I am a considerable landowner. A cousin of mine has died out there and left me his property." " Well, you're not going to leave England, surely?" " Yes, I am. The doctors say the voyage will do me good, THE WEDDING-DAT. 521 and the climate is just the one to suit me. What's the good of my staying here? I shan't be fit for service again for years. I shall go on half-pay, and become an enterprising agriculturist at the Antipodes. I've spoken to the sergeant, and arranged that he and his wife shall go with me ; so, as soon as I can get his discharge, and he has done honeymoon- ing, we shall start. I wish you would come with us." Tom could scarcely believe his ears, but soon found that East was in earnest and had an answer to all his remon- strances. Indeed, he had very little to say against the plan, for it jumped with his own humor ; and he could not help admitting that, under the circumstances, it was a wise one, and that, with Harry Winburn for his head man. East couldn't do better than carry it out. "I knew you would soon come round to it," said the cap- tain ; "what could I' do dawdling about at home, with just enough money to keep me and get me into mischief ? Thei'e I shall have a position and an object ; and one may be of some use, and make one's mark in a new country. And we'll get a snug berth ready for you by the time you're starved out of the old country. England isn't the place for poor men with any go in them." " I believe you're right, Harry," said Tom mournfully. " I know I am. And in a few years, when we've made our fortunes, we'll come back and have a look at the old country, and perhaps buy up half Englebourn, and lay our bones in the old churchyard." " And if we don't make our fortunes ? " " Then we'll stay out there." " Well, if I were my own master I think I should make one with you. But I could never leave my father and mother, or —or " " Oh, I understand. Of course, if matters go all right in that quarter, I have nothing more to say. But, from what you have told me, I thought you might be glad of a regular break in your life, a new start in a new world." " Very likely I may. I should have said so myself this morning. But somehow I feel to-night more hopeful than I have for years." " Those wedding-chimes are running in your head." "Yes ; and they have lifted a load off my heart, too. Four years ago I was very near doing the greatest wrong a man can do to that girl who was married to-day, and to that fine fellow her husband, who was the first friend I ever had. Ever since 522 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOED. then I have been doing my best to set matters straight, and have often made them crookeder. But to-day they are all straight, thank God, and I feel as if a chain were broken from off my neck. All has come right for them; and perhaps my own turn will come before long." " To be sure it will. I must be introduced to a certain young lady before we start. I shall tell her that I don't mean to give up hopes of seeing her on the other side of the world." " Well, here we are on the common. What a glorious sun- set ! Come, stir up. Nibble. We shall be on the Lynch just in time to see him dip if we push on." Nibble, that ancient pony, finding that there was no help for it, scrambled up the greater part of the ascent successfully. But his wheezings and roarings during the operation excited East's pity. So he dismounted when they came to the foot of the Hawk's Lynch, and, tying Nibble's bridle to a furze bush — a most unnecessary precaution — set to work to scale the last and steepest bit of the ascent with the help of his stick and Tom's strong arm. They paused every ten paces or so to rest and look at the sun- set. The broad vale below lay in purple shadow ; the soft flocks of little clouds high up over their heads, and stretching away to the eastern horizon, floating in a sea of rosy light ; and the stems of the'Scotch firs stood out like columns of ruddy flame. " " Why, this beats India," said East, putting up his hand to shade his eyes, which were fairly dazzled by the blaze. " What a contrast to the last time I was up here ! Do you remember that awful black-blue sky ? " " Don't I ? Like a nightmare. Hollo ! who's here ? " " Why, if it isn't the parson and Miss Winter ! " said East, smiling. True enough, there they were, standing together on the very verge of the mound, beyond the firs, some ten yards in front of the last comers, looking out into the sunset. " I say, Tom, another good omen," whispered East ; " hadn't we better beat a retreat ? " Before Tom could answer, or make up his mind what to do, Hardy turned his head and caught sight of them, and then Katie turned too, blushing like the little clouds overhead. It was an embarrassing moment. Tom stammered out that they had come up quite by chance, and then set to work, well sec- onded by East, to look desperately unconscious, and to expatiate on the beauties of the view. The light began to fade, and the little clouds to change again from soft pink to gray, and the THE WEDDING-DAY. 623 evening star shone out clear as they turned to descend the hill, when the Englebourn clock chimed nine. Katie attached herself to Tom, while Hardy helped the cap- tain down the steep pitch, and on to the back of Nibble. They went a little ahead. Tom was longing to speak to his cousin, but could not tell how to begin. At last Katie broke silence : " I am so vexed that this should have happened ! " " Are you, dear ? So am not I," he said, pressing her arm to his side. " But I mean, it seems so forward — as if I had met Mr. Hardy here on purpose. What will your friend think of me ? " " He will think no evil." " But indeed, Tom, do tell him, pray. It was quite an ac- cident. You know how I and Mary used to go up the Hawk's Lynch whenever we could, on fine evenings." " Yes, dear, I know it well." " And I thought of you both so much to-day, that I couldn't help coming up here." " And you found Hardy ?, I don't wonder. I should come up to see the sun set every night, if I lived at Englebourn." " No. He came up some time after me. Straight up the hill. I did not see him till he was quite close. I could not run away then. Indeed, it was not five minutes before you came." " Five minutes are as good as a year sometimes." "And you will tell your friend, Tom, how it happened?" "Indeed I will, Katie. May I not tell him something more ? " He looked round for an answer, and there was just light enough to read it in her eyes. " My debt is deepening to the Hawk's Lynch," he said, as they walked on through the twilight. " Blessed five minutes ! Whatever else they may take with them, they will carry my thanks forever. Look how clear and steady the light of that star is, just over the church tower. I wonder whether Mary is at a great hot dinner. Shall you write to her soon ? " " Oh, yes. To-night." " You may tell her that there is no better Englishman walk- ing the earth than my friend John Hardy. Here we are at his lodgings. East and ai s I going to tea with him. Wish them good-night, and I will see you home." 524 TOM BE0W2Sr AT OXPOBC. CHAPTER XLVIII. A MEETING IS THE STEEET. From the Englebourn festivities Tom and East returned to London. The captain was bent on starting for his possessions in the South Pacific ; and, as he regained strength, energized over all his preparations, and went about in cabs purchasing agricultural implements, sometimes by the light of nature, and sometimes under the guidance of Harry Winburn. He invested also in something of a library, and in large quantities of sad- dlery. In short, packages of all kinds began to increase and multiply upon him. Then there was the selecting a vessel, and all the negotiations with the ship's husband as to terms, and the business of getting introduced to, and conferring with, people from the colony, or who were supposed to know some- thing about it. Altogether, East had plenty of work on his hands ; and, the more he had to do, the better and more cheery he became. Tom, on the contrary, was rather lower than usual. His half -formed hopes, that some good luck was going to happen to him after Patty's marriage, were beginning to grow faint, and the contrast of his friend's definite present purpose in life with his own uncertainty, made him more or less melancholy in spite of all his efforts. His father had offered him a tour abroad, now that he had finished with Oxford, urging that he seemed to want a change to freshen him up before buckling to a pro- fession, and that he .would never, in all likelihood, have such another chance. But he could not make up his mind to accept the offer. The attraction to London was too strong for him ; and though he saw little hope of anything happening to improve his prospects, he could not keep away from it. He spent most of his time when not with East in -haunting the neighborhood of Mr. Porter's house in Belgravia, and the places where he was likely to catch distant glimpses of Mary, avoiding all chance of actual meeting or recognition, from which he shrank in his present state of mind. The nearest approach to the flame which he allowed himself was a renewal of his old friendship with Grey, who was still working on in his Westminster rookery. He had become a great favorite with Mrs. Porter, who was always trying to get him to her house to feedhim properly, and was much astonished and sometimes almost provoked, at the small success of her hospitable endeavors. Grey was so taken up with his own pursuit A MEETING m THE STREET. 525 that it did not occur to him to be surprised that he never met Tom at tlie house of his relations. He was innocent of all knowledge or suspicion of the real state of things, so that Tom could talk to him with perfect freedom about his uncle's house- hold, picking up all such scraps of information as Grey possessed without compromising himself or,feeling shy. Thus the two old schoolfellows lived on together after their return from Englebourn, in a set of chambers in the Temple, which one of Tom's college friends, who had been beguiled from - the perusal of Stephens' Commentaries, and aspirations after the woolsack, by the offer of a place on board a yacht and a cruise to Norway, had fortunately lent him. We join company with our hero again on a fine July morn- ing. Readers will begin to think that, at any rate, he is always blessed with fine weather whatever troubles he may have to endure ; but, if we are not to have fine weather in novels when and where are we to have it? It was a fine July morning, then, and the streets were already beginning to feel sultry as he worked his way westward. Grey, who had never given up hopes of bringing Tom round to his own views, had not neglected the opportunities which this residence in town offered, and had enlisted Tom's services on more than one occasion. He had found him specially useful in instructing the big boys, whom he was trying to bring together and civilize in a " Young Men's Club," in the rudiments of cricket on Saturday evenings. But on the morning in question an altogether different work was on- hand. A lady, living some eight or nine miles to the northwest of London, who took great interest in Grey's doings, had asked him to bring the children of his night-school down to spend a day in her grounds, and this was the happy occasion. It was before the days of cheap excursions by rail, so that vans had to be found for the party ; and Grey had discovered a benevolent remover of furniture in Paddington, who was ready to take them at a reasonable figure. The two vans, with awnings and curtains in the height of the fashion, and horses with tasseled ear-caps, and everything handsome about them, were already drawn up in the midst of a group of excited children, and scarcely less excited mothers, when Tom arrived. Grey was arranging his forces, and laboring to reduce the Irish children, who formed almost half of his ragged little flock, into something like order before starting. By degrees this was managed, and Tom was placed in command of the rear van, while Grey reserved the leading one to himself. The chi Idi-en were divided, and warned 526 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. not to lean over the sides and tumble out — a somewhat super- fluous caution, as most of them, though unused to riding in any legitimate manner, were pretty well used to balancing themselves behind any vehicle which offered as much as a spike to sit on, out of sight of the driver. Then came the rush into the vans. Grey and Tom took up their places next the doors as conductors' and the possession lumbered off with great success, and much shouting from treble voices. Tom soon found that he had plenty of work on his hands to keep the peace among his flock. The Irish element was in a state of wild effervescence, and he had to draft them down to his own end, leaving the foremost part of the van to the soberer English children. He was much struck by the con- trast of the whole set to the Englebourn school children, whom he had lately seen under somewhat similar circumstances. The difficulty with them had been to draw them out, and put anything like life into them; here, all he liad to do was to repress the superabundant life. However, the vans held on their way, and got safely into the suburbs, and so at last to an occasional hedge, and a suspicion of trees, and green fields beyond. It became more and more difficult now to keep the boys in; and, when they came to a hill, where the horses had to walk, he yielded to their entreaties, and, opening the door, let them out, insisting only that the girls should remain seated. They scattered over the sides of the roads, and up the banks; now chasing pigs and fowls up to the very doors of their owners; now gathering the commonest roadside weeds, and running up to show them to him and ask their names, as if they were rare treasures. The ignorance of most of the children as to the commonest country matters astonished him. One small boy particularly came back time after time to ask him, with solemn face, " Please, sir, is this the country ? " and when at last he allowed that it was, rejoined : " Then, please, where are the nuts ? " The clothing of most of the Irish boys began to tumble to pieces in an alarming manner. Grey had insisted on their being made tidy for the occasion, but the tidiness was of a su- perficial kind. The hasty stitching soon began to give way, and they were rushing about with wild looks — the strips of what once might have been nether garments hanging about their legs; their feet and heads bare, the shoes which their mothers had borrowed for the state occasion having been de- posited under the seat of the van. So, when the procession A MEETING IN THE STREET. 527 arrived at the trim lodge gates of their hostess, and his charge descended and fell in on tlie beautifully clipped turf at the side of the drive, Tom felt some of the sensations of Falstaff when he had to lead his ragged regiment through Coventry streets. He was soon at his ease again, and enjoyed the day thor- oughly, and the drive home; but, as they drew near town again, a sense of discomfort and shyness came over him, and he wished the journey to Westminster well over, and hoped that the carmen would have the sense to go through the quiet parts of the town. He was much disconcerted, consequently, when the vans came to a sudden stop, opposite one of the park entrances, in the Bayswater road. " What in the world is Grey about ? " he thought, as he saw him get out, and all the children after him. So he got out himself, and went forward to get an ex- planation. " Oh, I have told the man that he need not drive us round to Westminster. He is close at home here; and his horses have had a hard day; so we can just get out and walk home." " What, across the park ? " asked Tom. " Yes, it will amuse the children, you know." "But they're tired," persisted Tom; "come now, it's all nonsense letting the fellow off; he's bound to take us back." " I'm afraid I have promised him," said Grey; " besides, the children all think it a treat. Don't you all want to walk across the park ? " he went on, turning to them, and a general affirmative chorus was the answer. So Tom had nothing for it but to shrug his shoulders, empty his own van, and follow into the park with his convoy, not in the best humor with Grey for having arranged this ending to their excursion. They miglit have got over a third of the distance between the Bayswater road and the Serpentine, when he was aware of a small, thin voice addressing him. " Oh, please, won't you carry me a bit ? I'm so tired," said the voice. He turned in some trepidation to look for the speaker, and found her to be a sickly undergrown little girl of ten or thereabouts, with large, pleading gray eyes, very shab- bily dressed, and a little lame. He had remarked her several times in the course of the day, not for any beauty or grace about her, for the poor child had none, but for her transpa- rent confidence and trustfulness. After dinner, as they had been all sitting on the grass under the shade of a big elm to hear Grey read a story, and Tom had been sitting a little 528 TOM BEOWN AT OXFOBD. apart from the rest with his back against the trunk, she had come up and sat quietly down by him, leaning on his knee. Then he had seen her go up and take the hand of the lady who had entertained them, and walked along by her, talking without the least shyness. Soon afterward she had squeezed into the swing by the side of the beautifully dressed little daughter of the same lady, who, after looking for a minute at her shabby little sister with large round eyes, had jumped out and ran oflf to her mother, evidently in a state of childish be- wilderment as to whether it was not wicked for a child to wear such dirty old clothes. Tom had chuckled to himself as he saw Cinderella settling herself comfortably in the swing in the place of the ousted princess, and had taken a fancy to the child, speculating to himself as to how she could have been brought up to be so utterly unconscious of difEerences of rank and dress. " Slie seems really to treat her fellow-creatures as if she had been studying the Sartor Resartus," he thought. "She has cut down through all clothes philosophy without knowing it. I wonder, if she had a chance, whether she would go and sit down in the queen's lap ? " He did not at the time anticipate that she would put his own clothes philosophy to so severe a test before the day was over. The child had been as merry and active as any of the rest during the earlier part of the day ; but now, as he looked down in answer to her reiterated plea, " Won't you carry me a bit ? I'm so tired ! " he saw that she could scarcely drag one foot after the other. What was to be done ? He was already keenly alive to the discomfort of walking across Hyde Park in a procession of ragged children, with such a figure of fun as Grey at their head, looking, in his long, rusty, straight-cut black coat, as if he had come fresh out of Noah's ark. He didn't care about it so much while they were on the tui-f in the out-of-the-way parts, and would meet nobody but guards, and nursemaids, and tradespeople, and mechanics out for an evening stroll. But the Drive and Rotten Row lay before them, and must be crossed. It was just the most crowded time of the day. He had almost made up his mind once or twice to stop Grey and the procession, and propose to sit down for half an hour or so, and let the children play, by which time the world would be going home to dinner. But there was no play left in the chil- dren ; and he had resisted the temptation, meaning, when they came to the most crowded part, to look unconscious, as if it A MEETING IN THE STREET. 529 were by chance that he had got into such company, and had in facfnothing to do with them. But now, if he listened to the child's plea, and carried her, all hope of concealment was over. If he did not, he felt that there would be no greater flunkey in tlie park that evening than Thomas Brown, the enlightened radical and philosopher, among the young gentlemen riders in Rotten Row, or the powdered footmen lounging behind the great blaring carriages in the Drive. So he looked down at the child once or twice in a state of puzzle. A third time she looked up with her great eyes, and said, " Oh, please cai-ry me a bit ! " and her piteous, tired face turned the scale. " If she were Lady Mary oi' Lady Blanche," thought he, "I should pick her up at once, and be proud of the burden. Here goes ! " And he took her up in his arms, and walked on desperate and reckless. Notwithstanding all bis philosophy, he felt his ears tingling and his face getting red as they approached the Drive. It was crowded. They were kept standing a minute or two at the crossing. He made a desperate effort to abstract himself wholly from the visible world and retire into a state of serene contemplation. But it would not do ; and he was painfully conscious of the stare of lackluster eyes of well-dressed men leaning over the rails, and the amused look of delicate ladies, lounging in open carriages, and surveying him and Grey and their ragged rout through glasses. At last they scrambled across, and he breathed freely for a minute, as they struggled along the comparatively quiet path leading to Albert Gate and stopped to drink at the fountain. Then came Rotten Row, and another pause among the loungers, and a plunge into the ride, where he was nearly run down by two men whom he had known at Oxford. They shouted to him to get out of the way ; and he felt the hot, defiant blood rushing through his veins, as he strode across without heeding. They passed on, one of them having to pull his horse out of his stride to avoid him. Did they recognize him ? He felt a strange mixture of utter indifference and longing to strangle them. The worst was now over ; besides, he was getting used to the situation, and his good sense was beginning to rally. So he marched through Albert Gate, carrying his ragged little charge, who prattled away to him without a pause, and sur- rounded by the rest of the children, scarcely caring who might see him, and who might not. They won safely through the pmnibuses and carriages on the Kensington Road, and so into 530 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. Belgravia. At last he was quite at his ease again, and began listening to what the child was saying to him, and was stroll- ing carelessly along, when once more, at one of the crossings, he was startled by a shout from some riders. There was straw laid down in the street, so that he had not heard them as they cantered round the corner, hurrying home to dress for dinner ; and they were all but upon him, and had to rein up their horses sharply. The party consisted of a lady and two gentlemen — one old, the other young ; the latter dressed in the height of fashion, and with the supercilious air which Tom hated from his soul. The shout came fi-om the young man, and drew Tom's atten- tion to him first. All the devil rushed up as he recognized St. Cloud. The lady's horse sweryed against his, and began to rear. He put his hand on its bridle, as if he had a right to protect her. Another glance told Tom that the lady was Mary, and the old gentleman, fussing up on his stout cob on the other side of her, Mr. Porter. They all knew him in another moment. He stared from one to the other, was conscious that she turned her horse's head sharply, so as to disengage the bridle from St. Cloud's hand, and of his insolent stare, and of the embarrassment of Mr. Porter ; and then, setting his face straight before him, he passed on in a bewildered dream, never looking back till they were out of sight. The dream gave way to bitter and wild thoughts, upon which it will do none of us any good to dwell. He put down the little girl outside the schools, turning abruptly from the mother, a poor widow in scant well-preserved black clothes, who was waiting for the ohDd, and began thanking him for his care of her ; refused Grey's pressing invitation to tea, and set his face eastward. Bitterer and more wild and more scornful grew his thoughts as he strode along past the Abbey, and up Whitehall, and away down the Strand, holding on over the crossings without paying the slightest heed to vehicle, or horse, or man. Incensed coachmen had to pull up with a jerk to avoid running over him, and more than one sturdy walker turned round in indignation at a collision which they felt had been intended, or at least there had been no effort to avoid. As he passed under the window of the Banqueting Hall, and by the place in Charing Cross where the pillory used to stand, he growled to himself what a pity it was that the times for cutting off heads and cropping ears had gone by. The whole of the dense population from either side of the Strand seemed to have orowded out into that thoroughfare to A MEETING IN THE STREET. 531 impede his march and aggravate him. The further eastward he got the thicker got the crowd ; and the vans, the omnibuses, the cabs, seemed to multiply and get noisier. Not an alto- gether pleasant sight to a man in the most Christian frame of mind is the crowd that a fine summer evening fetches out into the roaring Strand, as the sun fetches out flies on the window of a village grocery. To him just then it was at once depress- ing and provoking, and he went shouldering his way toward Temple Bar as thoroughly out of tune as he had been for many a long day. As he passed from the narrowest part of the Strand into the space round St. Clement Dane's church, he was startled, in a momentary lull of the uproar, by the sound of chiming bells. He slackened his pace to listen ; but a huge van lumbered by, shaking the houses on both sides, and drowning all sounds but its own rattle ; and then he found himself suddenly immersed in a crowd, vociferating and gesticulating round a policeman, who was conveying a woman toward the station house. He sbouldered through it — another lull came, and with it the same slow, gentle, calm cadence of chiming bells. Again and again he caught it as he passed on to Temple Bar ; whenever the roar subsided the notes of the old hymn tune came droop- ing down on him like balm from the air. If the ancient bene- factor who caused the bells of St. Clement Dane's church to be arranged to play that chime so many times a day is allowed to hover round the steeple at such times, to watch the effect of his benefaction on posterity, he must have been well satisfied on that evening. Tom passed under the Bar, and turned into the Temple another man, softened again, and in his right mind. " There's always a voice saying the right thing to you some- where, if you'll only listen for it," he thought. He took a few turns in the court to clear his head, and then went up, and found Harry East reclining on a sofa, in full view of the gar- dens and river, solacing himself with his accustomed cheroot. " Oh, here you are," he said, making room on the sofa ; "hov7diditgooff?" " Well enough. Where have you be^n ? " " In the city and at the docks. I've been all over our vessel. She's a real clipper." "When do you sail?" " Not quite certain. I should say in a fortnight, though." East puffed away for a minute, and then, as Tom said nothing, went on. " I'm not so sweet on it as the time draws near. There are more of my chums turning up every day from India 532 TOM BEOWN AT OXFORD. at the Rag. And this is uncommonly pleasant, too, living with you here in chambers. You may think it odd, but I don't half like getting rid of you." " Thanks ; but I don't think you will get rid of me." " How do you mean ?" " I mean that I shall go with you, if my people will let me, and you will take me." " W-h-e-w ! Anything happened ? " « Yes." " You've seen her ? " " Yes." " Well, go on. Don't keep a fellow in suspense. I shall be introduced, and eat one of the old boy's good dinners, after all, before I sail." Tom looked out of the window, and found some diiBculty in getting out the words, "No, it's all up." " You don't mean it ? " said East, coming to a sitting posi- tion by Tom's side. " But how do you know ? Are you sure ? What did she say ? " " Nothing. I haven't spoken to her ; but it's all up. She was riding with her father and the fellow to whom she's en- gaged. I have heard it a dozen times, but never would believe it." " But is that all ? Riding with her father and another man ! Why, there's nothing in that." " Yes, but there is though. You should have seen his look. And they all knew me well enough, but not one of them nod- ded even." " Well, there's not much in that, after all. It may have been chance, or you may have fancied it." " No, one isn't quite such a fool. However, I have no right to complain, and I won't. I could bear it all well enough if he were not such a cold-hearted blackguard." " What, this fellow she was riding with ? " "Yes. He hasn't a heart the size of a pin's head. He'll break hers. He's a mean brute, too. She can't know him, though he has been after her this year and more. They must have forced her into it. Ah ! it's a bitter business," and he put his head between his hands, and East heard the deep catches of his laboring breath, as he sat by him, feeling deeply for him, but puzzled what to say. " She can't be worth so much after all, Tom," he said at last, " if she would have such a fellow as that. Depend upon it she's not what you thought her." THE ENB, 533 Tom made no answer ; so the captain went on' presently, thinking he had hit the right note. " Cheer up, old boy. There's as good fish in the sea yet as ever came out of it. Don't you remember the song — whose is it ? Lovelace's ? " If Bhe be not' fair for me, What care I for whom she be ? " Tom Started up almost fiercely, but recovered himself in a moment and then leant his head down again. "Don't talk about her, Harry ; you don't know her," he said. " And don't want to know her, Tom, if she is going to throw you over. Well, I shall leave you for an hour or so. Come up to me presently at the Rag, when you feel better." East started for his club, debating within himself what he could do for his friend — whether calling out the party mightn't do good. Tom, left to himself, broke down at first sadly ; but as the evening wore on he began to rally, and sat down and wrote a long letter to his father, making a clean breast, and asking his permission to go with East. CHAPTER XLIX THE END. Mt Deab Katie : I know you will be very much pained when you read this letter. Tfou two have been my only confidantes, and you have always kept me up, and encouraged me to hope that all would come right. And after all that happened last week, Patty's marriage and your engagement, — the two things upon earth, with one exception, that I most wished for, — I quite felt that my own turn was coming. I can't tell why I had such a strong feeling about it, but somehow all the most important changes in my life for the last four years have been so interwoven with Patty and Harvy Winburn's history that, now they were married, I was sure something would happen to me as soon as I came to London. And, indeed, it has. Dear Eatie, I can hardly bring myself to write it. It is all over. Imet her in the street to-day ; she was riding with her father and the man I told you about. They had to pull up not to ride over me ; so I had a good look at her, and there can be no mistake about it. I have often tried to reason myself into the belief that the evil day must come sooner ot later, and to prepare myself for it, but I might liave spared myself, for it could not have been worse than it is if I had never anticipated it. My future is all a blank now. I can't stay in England, so I have written home to ask them to let me go to New Zealand with East, and I am sure they will consent, when they know all. I shall wait in town till I get the answer. Perhaps I may be able to get off with East in a few weeks. The sooner the better ; but, of course, I shall not go without seeing you and dear old Jack. You mustn't mind me calling him Jack. The only thing that gives me any pleasure to think about is your en- gagement. It is so right, and one wants to see something going right, some- one getting their due, to keep alive one's belief in justice being done somehow 634 TOM BROWN AT OXFOKD. or another in the world ; and I do see it, and acknowledge it when I thinic oyer his history and mine since we first met. We have hoth got onr due ; and you have got yours, Eatie, for you have got the best fellow in England. Ah, if I only could think that she has got hers ! If I could only believe that the man she has chosen is worthy of her ! I will try hard to think better of him. There must be more good in him than I have ever seen, or she would never have engaged herself to him. But I can't bear to stop here, and see it all going on. The sooner I am out of England the better. I send you a parcel with this ; it coutains her notes, and some old flowers,'and other matters which I haven't the heart to burn. You will be the best judge what should he done with them. If you see your way to managing it, I should like her to know that I had sent them all to you, and that whatever may happen to me hereafter, my love for her has been the mainstay and the guiding-star of my life ever since that happy time when you all came to stay with us in my first long vacation. It found me eaten up with selfishness and conceit, the puppet of my own lusts and vanities, and has left me Well, never mind what it has left me. At any rate, if I have not gone from worse to worse, it is all owing to her ; and she ought to know it. It cannot he wrong to let her know what good she has scattered unknowingly about her path. May God bless and reward her for it, and you, too, dear cousin, for all your long love and kindness to one who is very unworthy of, but very thankful for them. Ever yours affectionately, T. B. The above letter, and that to his father asking for leave to emigrate, having been written and sent off, Tom was left on the afternoon of the day following his upset, making manful, if not very successful, effdrts to shake off the load of depression which weighed on him, and to turn his thoughts resolutely for- ward to a new life in a new country. East was away at the docks. There was no one moving in the Temple. The men who had business were all at Westminster, or out of sight and hearing in the recesses of their chambers. Those who had none were for the most part away enjoying themselves, in one way or another, among the mighty whirl of the mighty human sea of London. There was nothing left for him to do, he had written the only two letters he had to write, and had only to sit still and wait for the answers, killing the mean time as well as he could. Reading came hard to him, but it was the best thing to do, perhaps ; at any rate, he wa;s frying it on, though his studies ware constantly interrupted by long fits of absence of mind, during which, though his body remained in the Tem- ple, he was again in the well-kept garden of Barton, or in the hazel wood under the lea of the Berkshire hills. He was roused out of one of these reveries and brought back to external life and Fig-tree Court, by a single knock at the outer door, and a shout of the newsman's boy for the paper. So he got up, found the paper, which he had forgotten to read, and as he went to the door cast his eye on it, and saw that a great match was going on at Lord's. This gave a new turn to his thoughts. He stood looking downstairs after the boy, and considering whether he should not start at once for the match. THE END. 535 He would be sure to see a lot of acquaintance there at any rate. _ But the idea of seeing and having to talk to mere acquaintance was more distasteful than his present solitude. He was turning to bury himself again in Lis hole, when he saw a white dog walk quietly up seven or eight stairs at the bot- tom of the flight, and then turn round, and look for someone to follow. " How odd ! " thought Tom, as he watched him ; " as like as two peas. It can't be. No. Why, yes it is." And then he whistled, and called "Jack," and the dog looked up, and wagged his tail, as much as to say, " All right, I'm coming directly ; but I must wait for my master." The next moment Drysdale appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and looking up, said : " Oh ! that's you, is it? I'm all right then. So you- knew the old dog ? " "I should rather think so," said Tom. "I hope I never forget a dog or a horse I have once known." In the short minute which Drysdale and Jack took to arrive at his landing, Tom had time for a rush of old college memo- ries, in which grave and gay, pleasant and bitter, were strangely mingled. The night when he had been first brought to his senses about Patty came up very vividly before him, and the Commemoration days, when he had last seen Drysdale. " How strange ! " he thought ; " is my old life coming back again just now ? Here, on the very day after it is all over, comes back the man with whom I was so intimate up to the day it began, and have never seen since. What does it mean ? " There was a little touch of embarrassment in the manner of both of them as they shook hands at the top of the stairs, and turned into the chambers. Tom motioned to Jack to take his old place at one end of the sofa, and began caressing him there, the dog showing unmistakably, by gesture and whine, tha,t delight at renewing an old friendship, for which his race are so nobly distinguished. Drysdale threw himself down in an armchair, and watched them. " So you knew the old dog, Brown ? " he repeated. " Knew him ? — of course I did. Dear old Jack ! How well he weai-s ; he is scarcely altered at all." " Veiy little ; only steadier. More than I can say for his master. I'm very glad you knew Jack." " Come, Drysdale, take the other end of the sofa, or it won't look like old times. There," now I can fancy myself back at St. Ambrose's." 536 TOM BKOWN AT OXFOKD. " By Jove, Brown, you're the right sort. I always said so, even after that last letter. You pitched it rather too strong in that though. I was very near coming back from Norway to quaiTel with you." " Well, I was very angry at being left in the lurch by you and Blake." " You got the coin all right, I suppose ? You never ac- knowledged it." " Didn't I ? Then I ought to have. Yes, I got it all right about six months afterward. I ought to have acknowledged it, and I thought I had. I'm sorry I didn't. Now we're all quits, and won't talk any more about that rascally bill." " I suppose I may light up," said Drysdale, dropping into his old lounging attitude on the sofa, ^nd pulling out his. cigar-case. " Yes, of course. Will you have anything ? " " A cool drink wouldn't be amiss." " They make a nice tankard with cider and a lump of ice at the Rainbow. What do you say to that ? " " It sounds touching," said Drysdale. So Tom posted off to Fleet Street to order the liquor, and came back followed by a waiter with the tankard. Drysdale took a long pull, and smacked his lips. " That's a wrinkle," he said, handing the tankard to Tom. " I suppose the lawyers teach all the publicans about here a trick or two. Why, one can fancy one's self back in the old quad looking out on this court. If it weren't such an outland- ish out-of-the-way place I think I should take some chambers here myself. How did you get here ? " " Oh, they belong to a friend of mine who is away. But how did you get here ? " " Why, along the Strand in a hansom." " I mean, how did you know I was here ? " " Grey told me." " Wliat ! Grey who was at St. Ambrose with us?" " Yes. You looked puzzled." " I didn't think you knew Grey." " N(S more I do. But a stout old party I met last night — ^^ your godfather, I should think he is — told me where he was, and said I should get your address from him. So I looked him up this morning, m that dog-hole in Westminster where he lives. He didn't know Jack from Adam." " But what in the world do you mean by my godfather ! " " I had better tell my story from the beginning, I see. Last THE END. 537 night I did what I don't often do, went out to a great drum. There was an awful crush of course, and you may guess what the heat was in these dog-days, with gas-lights and wax-lights going, and a jam of people in eveiy corner. I was fool enough to get into the rooms, so that my retreat was cut off, and I had to work right through, and got at last into a back room, which was not so full. The window was in a recess, and there was a balcony outside, looking over a little bit of garden. I got into the balcony, talking with a girl who was sensible enough to like the cool. Presently I heard a voice I thought I knew in- side. Then I heard St. Ambrose, and then your name. Of course I listened, I couldn't help myself. They were just in- side the window, in the recess, not five feet from us, so I heard pretty nearly every word. Give us the tankard, I'm as dry as an ash-heap with talking." Tom, scarcely able to control his impatience, handed the tankard. "But who was it? — j'ou haven't told me," he said, as Drysdale put it down at last empty. " Why, that d d St. Cloud. He was giving you a nice character, in a sort of sneaking deprecatory way, as if he was sorry for it. Among other little tales, he said you used to borrow money from Jews — he knew it for a certainty because he had been asked himself to join you and another man, mean- ing me, of course, in such a transaction. You remember how he wouldn't acknowledge the money I lent him at play, and the note he wrote me which upset Blake so. I had never for- gotten it. I knew I should get my chance some day, and here it was. I don't know what the girl thought of me, or how she got out of the balcony, but I stepped into the recess just as he had finished his precious story, and landed between him and a comfortable old boy, who was looking shocked. He must be your godfather, or something of the kind. I'll bet you a pony you are down for something handsome in his will." " What was his name ? Did you find out ? " " Yes ; Pottei", or Porter, or something like it. I've got his card somewhere. I just stared St. Cloud in the face, and you may depend upon it he winced. Then I told the old boy that I had heard their talk ; and as I was at St. Ambrose with you, I should like to have five minutes with him when St. Cloud had done. He seemed rather in a corner between us. How- ever, I kept in sight till St. Cloud was obliged to draw off, and, to cut my story short as the tankard is emptj', I think I put you pretty straight there. You said we were quits just now : after last night, perhaps we are, for I told him the truth of 538 TOM BBOWN AT OXFOKD. the Benjamin story, and I think he is squared. He seems a good sort of old boy. He's a relation of yours, eh ? " " Only a distant connection. Did anything more happen ? " " Yes ; I saw that he was flurried, and didn't know quite what to think ; so I asked him to let me call, and I would bring him someone else to speak to your character. He gave me his card, and I'm going to take Blake there to-day. Then I asked him where you were, and he didn't know, but said he thought Grey could tell me." " It IS very kind of yon, Drysdale, to take so much trouble." " Trouble ! I'd go from here to Jericho to be even with our fine friend. I never forget a bad turn. I met him afterward in the cloak-room, and went out of the door close after him, to give him a chance if he wanted to say anything. I only wish he would. But why do you suppose he is lying about you ? " " I can't tell. I've never spoken to him since he left Oxford. Never saw him till yesterday, riding with Mr. Porter. I sup- pose that reminded them of me." " Well, St. Cloud is bent on getting round him for some reason or another, you may take your oath of that. Now my time's up : I shall go and pick up Blake. I should think I had better not take Jack to call in Eton Square, though he'd give you a good character if he could speak; wouldn't you, Jack?" Jack wagged his tail and descended from the sofa. " Does Blake live up here ? What is he doing ? " " Burning the candle at both ends, and in the middle, as usual. Yes, he's living near his club. He writes political articles, devilish well I hear, too, and is reading for the bar ; besides which he is getting into society, and going out when- ever he can, and fretting his soul out that he isn't prime minister, or something of the kind. He won't last long at the pace he's going." " I'm very sorry to hear it. But you'll come here again, Drysdale ; or let me come and see you. I shall be veiy anxious to hear what has happened." " Here's my pasteboard; I shall be in town for another fort- night. Drop in when you like." And so Drysdale and Jack went off, leaving Tom in a chaotic state of mind. All his old hopes were roused again as he thought over Drysdale's narrative. He could no longer sit still so he rushed out, and walked up and down the river sidewalk' in the Temple gardens, where a fine breeze was blowing, at a pace which astonished the gate-keepers and the nursery-maids and children, who wei-e taking the air in that favorite spot. THE END, 539 Once or twice lie returned to chambers, and at last found East reposing after his excursion to the docks. East's quick eye saw at once that something had happened, and had very soon heard the whole story, upon which he de- liberated for some minutes, and rejoiced Tom's heart by say- ing : " Ah ! all up with New Zealand, I see. I shall be intro- duced after all, before we start. Come along, I must stand you a dinner on the strength of the good news, and we'll drink her health." Tom called twice that evening at Drysdale's lodgings, but he Was out. The next morning he called again. Drysdale had gone to Hampton Court races, and had left no message. He left a note for him, but got no answer. It was trying work. Another day passed without any word from Drysdale, who seemed never to be at home, and no answer to either of his lette'rs. On the third morning he heard from his father. It was just the answer which he had expected — as kind a letter as could be written. Mr. Brown had suspected bow matters stood at one time, but had given up the idea in consequence of Tom's silence, which he regretted, as possibly things might have happened otherwise had he known the state of the case. It was too late now, however ; and the less said the better about what might have been. As to New Zealand, he should not oppose Tom's going, if, after some time, he continued in his present mind. It was very natural for him just now to wish to go. They would talk it over as soon as Tom came home, which Mr. Brown begged him to do at once, or, at any rate, as soon as he had seen his friend off. Home was the best place for him. Tom sighed as he folded it up; the iopesof the last three days seemed to be fading away. He~ spent another restless day, and by night had persuaded himself that Drysdale's mis- sion had been a complete failure, and that he did not write out of kindness to him. " Why, Tom, old fellow, you look as down in the mouth as ever to-night," East said, when Tom opened the door for him about midnight, on his return from his club ; " cheer up, you may depend it's all to go right." " But I haven't seen Drysdale -again, and he hasn't written." " There's nothing in that. He was glad enough to do you a good turn, I dare say, when it came in his way, but that sort of fellow never can keep anything up. He has been too much used to having his own way, and following his own fancies. Don't you lose heart because he won't put himself out for you," 540 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. " Well, Harry, you are the best fellow^ in the world. You would put backbone into anyone." " lHoyf, we'll just have a quiet cberoot, and then turn in and see if you don't have good news to-raortow. How hot it is ; the Strand to-night is as hot as the Pflujaub, and the reek of it— Phah ! my throat is fall of it still." East took off his coat, and was just throwing it on a chair, when he stopped, and feeling in the pttcket, said : " Let's see, here's a note for you. The porter gave it me as I knocked in." Tom took it carelessly, but the next moment was tearing it open with trembling fingers. " Froin my cousin," he said. East watched him read, and saw the blood rush to his face, and the light come into bis eyes. " Good news, Tom, I see. Bravo, old boy. You've had a long fight for it, and deserve to win." Tom got up, tossed the note across tie table, alid began walking up and down the room ; his heart was too fall for speech. " May I read ? " said East, looking up. Tom nodded, and he read : Dbak Tom : I am come to town to spend a week with them in Eton Square. Call on me.to-morrow at twelve, or, if you are engaged then, from three to five. I have no time to add more now, bnt IbUg to see you. Your loving cousin, Katie. P. S. — ^I will give you your parcel back to-morrow, and then you can burn the contents yourself , or do what you like with them. Fucle bids me say he shall be ^lad if you will come and dine to-morrow, and any other day you can spare while T am here. When he had read the note East got up and shook hands heartily with Tom, and then sat down again quietly to finish his cheroot, watching with a humorous look his friend's march. " And you think it is really all right now ? " Tom asked, in one form or another, after every few turns ; and East replied in various forms of chafSng assurance that there could not be much further question on the point. At last, when he had fin- ished his cheroot, he got up, and taking his candle, said, "Good- night, Tom ; when that revolution comes, which you're always predicting, remember, if you're not shot or hung, you'll always find a roost for you and your •wife in New Zealand." " I don't feel so sure about the revolution now, Harry." " Of course you don't. Mind, I bargaitt for tie dinner in Eton Square. I always told you I should dine there before I started." THE END. S4l The next day Tom, found that he was hot engaged at, twelve o'clock, and was able to appear in Eton Square. , He, was shown up into the drawirig-robiri, aiid foiihd Katie alone there. The quiet and coolness of the darkened robin was most grate- ful to hini after the glare of the streets, as lie sat down by her side. " But, Katie," he said, as soon as the first salutations and congratulations had passed, " how. did it all hapipe^ ? I can't believe my sfeiises yet. I aih afraid I may wake up any minute." " Well, it was chiefly owing to two lucky coincidenpes ; though ho doubt it woiiU have all conie right iii tinie without them." " Our meeting the other day in the street, I suppose, for one?" " Yes. Coming across you so suddenly, carrying the little girl, reminded Slary of the day when she si3rained her ankle, and you carried her through Hazel Copse. Ah, you never told me all of that adventure, either of you." " All that was necessary, Katie." " Oh ! I have pardoned you. Uncle saw then that she wa? very much moved at something, and guessed, well enough wh^t it was. He is so very kind, and so fond of Mary, he would do anything in the world that she wished. She was quite unwell that evening ; so he and aunt had to go out alone) and they met that Mr. St. Claud at a party, who was said to be engaged to her." " It wasn't true, then ?'' " No, never. He is a very desigpihg man, though I Relieve he was really in love with poor Mary. Ai any rate, he hap persecuted her for more than a, year. And, it is very wicked, but I am afraid he spread all those reports nim'self." " Of their engagement ? Just like' him ! " "Uncle is so good-natured, you know, and he took advan- tage of it, and was always coming here, ah'd riding with them. And he had made uncle believe dreadful stories about you, which made him seem so unkind. He was quite afraid to have you at the house." ^ , j i " Yes, I saw that last yeair ;, aihd the second coincidence ? " "It happened that very night, Poor uncle was very much troubled what to do ; so when he niet Mr. St. Cloud as I told you, he took him aside to ask him again about ypu. Somehow, a gentlemen who was a friend of yours at Oxford' overheard, w'hiiit was said, and came forwatd and explained everything,'' S42 TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. "Yes, he' came and told me." " Then you know more than I about it." " And you think Mr. Porter is convinced that I am not quite such a scamp after all ? " " Yes, indeed ; and the boys are so delighted that they will see you again. They are at home for the holidays, and so grown." "And Mary?" " She is very well. You will see her before long, I daresay." " Is she at home ? " "She is out riding with uncle. Now I will go up and get your parcel, which I had opened at home before I got aunt's note asking me here. No wonder we could never find her boot." Katie disappeared, and at the same time Tom thought he heard the sound of horses' feet. Yes, and they have stopped, too ; it must be Mary and her father. He could not see, be- cause of the blinds and other devices for keeping the room cool. But the next moment there were voices in tlie hall be- low, and then a light step on the carpeted stair which no ear but his could have beard. His heart beat with heavy, painful pulsations, and his head swam as the door opened, and Mary in her riding-habit stood in the room. CHA.PTER L. THE POSTSCEIPT. OuB curtain must rise once again, and it shall be on a famil- iar spot. Once more we must place ourselves on the Hawk's Lynch, and look out over the well-known view, and the happy autumn fields, ripe with the golden harvest. Two people are approaching on horseback from the Barton side, who have been made one since we left them at the fall of the curtain in the last chapter. They ride lovingly together, close to one another, and forgetful of the whole world, as they should do, for they have scarcely come to the end of their honeymoon. They are in country costume, she is in a light plain habit, but well cut, and setting on her as well as she sits on her dainty gray ; he in shooting-coat and wide-awake, with his fishing- basket slung over his shoulder. They come steadily up the hill-side, rousing a yellow-hammer here and there from the furze bushes, and only draw bit when they have reached the very top of the knoll. Then they dismount, and Tom produces THE POSTSCRIPT. S43 two halters from his fishing-basket, and, taking off the bridles, fastens the horses up in the shade of the fir-trees, and loosens their girths, while Mary, after searching in the basket, pulls out a bag, and pours out a prodigal feed of com before each of them, on the short grass. " What are you doing, you wasteful little woman ? Tou should have put the bag underneath. They won't be able to pick up half 'the corn." " Never mind, dear, then the birds will get it." " And you have given them enough for three feeds." " Why did you put so much in the bag ? Besides, you know it is the last feed I shall give her. Poor dear little Gipsy," she added, patting the neck of her dapple gray ; " you have found a kind mistress for her, dear, haven't you ? " " Yes ; she will be lightly worked, and well cared for," he said, shortly, turning away, and busying himself with the basket again. " But no one will ever love you, Gipsy, like your own mis- tress. Now give me a kiss, and you shall have your treat," and she pulled a piece of sugar out of the pocket of her riding habit, at the sight of which the gray held out her beautiful nose to be fondled, and then lappe.d up the sugar with eager lips from Maiy's hand, and turned to her corn. The young wife tripped across and sat down near her hus- band, who was laying out their luncheon on the turf. " It was very dear of you to think of coming here for our last ride," she said. " I remember how charmed I was with the place the first Sunday I ever spent at Englebourn, when Katie brought me up here directly after breakfast, before we went to school. Such a time ago it seems — before I ever saw you. And I have never been here since.. But I love it most for your sake, dear. Now tell me again all the times you have been here." Tom proceeded to recount some of his visits to the Hawk's Lynch in which we have accompanied him. And then they talked on about Katie, and East, and the Englebourn people, past and present, old Betty, and Harry and his wife in New Zealand, and David patching coats and tending bees, and ex- ecuting the queen's justice to the best of his ability in the vil- lage at their feet. " Poor David, I must get over somehow to see him before we leave home. He feels your uncle's death, and the other changes in the parish, more than anyone." " I am so sorry the living was sold," said Mary ; " Katie S44 foM Bfeowir AT dxtottt. and her husband would have made Englebourn into a little paradise." " It could not be helped, dear. I can't say I'm son-y. There would not have been work enough for him. He is better where he is, in a great town parish." " But Katie did love the place so, and was so iised to it, she had become quite a little iqueen there before her marriage. See what we women have to give up for you," she said, playfully, turning to him. But a shadow passed dyer his face, and he looked away without answering. " What makes yoti look sorrowful, dear ? What are you thinking of?" " Oh ! nothing ! " " That isn't true. Now tell me what it is. You have no right, you know, to keep anything from me.". " I can't bear to think of you having tad to sell Gipsy. You have never been without a riding-horse till now. You will miss your riding dreadfully, I am sure, dea,r." " I sha,ll do very well without' riding. I am so proud of learning my lesson from you. You will see what a poor man's wife I shall ma^e. I have been getting maminato let me do the housekeeping, and know how; a joint should look, and all sorts of useful things, and I have niade my own house-linen. I sha,ll soon get to hate all luxuries as niuch as yp'u do." " Now, Mary, you mustn't run into extremes. I never said you ought to hate a,Il luxuries, but that almost everybody one knows is a slave to them." " Well, and I hate anything that wants to make a slave of me." " You are a dear little free woman. But now we are on this subject again, Mary, I really want to speak to you about keep- ing ^ lady's maid. 'We can quite a.£Eord it, and you ought to have one." " I shall do nothing of the sort." " Not to oblige me, Mary ? " ' " No, not even to oblip"e yoii. There is something to be said for dear Gipsy. But, take a maid again ! to do nothing but torment me and preljend to take care of my clothes, and my hair ! I never knew what freedom was till I got rid, of poor, foolish, grumbling Higgins." " But you may get a nice girl ^ho will be a comfort to you." "No, I never will have a woman again to do nothing l;)ut look after me. It isn't fair to them. Besides, dear, you can't *HB POSTSCKIP*. 546 say that I don't look better since I have done my own hair. Pld you ever gee it look brighter than it does now ? " " Never, and now here is luncheon all ready." So they sat down on the verge qf the slope, and ate their cold chicken and tongue with the relish imparted by youth, a long ride, and the bracing air. Mary was merrier and brighter than ever, but it was an effort for him to respond ^.and soon she began to notice this, and then there was a pause, which she broke at last with some- thing of ajj effort. " What makes you look so serious, now ? I must know." " Was I looking serious ? I beg your pardon, dearest, and I won't do so again any more ;" and he smiled as he answered, but the smile faded away before her steady, loving gaze, and he turned slightly from her, and looked out over the vale below. She watched him for a short time in silence, her own fair young face changing like a summer sea, as the light clouds pass over it. Presently she seemed to have come to some decision; for, taking off her riding-hat, she threw it and her whip and gauntlets on the turf beside her, and drawing nearer to his side, laid her hand on his. He looked at her fondly, and strok- ing her hair, 3aid : " Take care of your complexion, Mary." " Oh, it will take care of itself in this air, dear. Besides, you are between m.e and the sun j and now you must tell me why you look so serious. It is not the first time I have noticed that look. I am your wife, you know, and I have a right to know your thoughts, and to share all your joy, and all your sorrow. X do not mean to give up any of my rights which I got by marrying you." " Your rights, dearest !^-your poon little ifights, which you have gaiued by changing name, and plighting troth. It is thinking of that, — thinking of what you have bought, and the price you. have paid for it, which makes me sad at times; even when you are sitting by me^ and laying your hand oft my hand, and the sweet burden of your pure life and being on my soiled and baffled manhood-." " Biit it was my own bargain,, you know, dear, and I am satisfieii with my purchase. I paid the price with my eyes open." "Ah, if I could only feel that ! " " ]?ut you know that it is true." " No,, dearest, that is the pinch. I do not know that it is 546 tOM BEOWsr at OXfOED. true. I often feel that it is just not a bit true. It was a one- sided bargain, in which one of the parties had their eyes open and got all the advantage, and that party was I." " I will not have you so conceited," she said, patting his hand once or twice, and looking more bravely than ever up into his eyes. " Why should you think you were so much the cleverer of the two, as to get all the good out of our bargain ? I am not going to allow that you were so much the most quick- witted and clear-sighted. Women are said to be as quick- witted as men. Perhaps it is not I who have been outwitted after all." " Look at the cost, Mary. Think of what you will have to give up. You cannot reckon it up yet." " What ! you are going back to the riding-horses and lady's maid again. I thought I had convinced you on those points." " They are only a vejy little part of the price. You have left a home where everybody loved you. Yon knew it ; you were sure of it. You had felt their love ever since you could remember anything." " Yes, dear, and I feel it still. They will be all just as fond of me at home, though I am your wife." " At home ! It is no longer your home." " No, I have a home of my own now. A new home, with new love there to live on ; and an old home, with the old love to think of." " A new home instead of an old one ; a poor home instead of a rich one — a home where the cry of the sorrow and suffer- ing of the world will reach you, for one in which you had " " In which I had not you, dear. There now, that was my purchase. I set my mind on having you — ^buying you, as that is your word. I have paid my price, and got my bargain, and — you know, I was always an oddity, and rather willful — am content with it." " Yes, Mary, you have bought me, and you little know, dearest, what you have bought. I can scarcely bear my own selfishness at times when I think of what your life might have been had I left you alone, and what it must be with me." "And what might it have been, dear ? " " Why, you might have married some man with plenty of money, who could have given you everything to which you have been used." " I shall begin to think that you believe in luxuries, after all, if you go on making so much of them. You must not go on preaching one thing and practicing another. I am a con- THE POSTSCRIPT. 54f vert to your preaching, and believe in the misery of multiply- ing artificial wants. Your wife must have none." " Yes, but wealth and position are not to be despised. I feel that, now that it is all done past recall, and I have to think of you. But the loss of them is a mere nothing to what you will have to go through." " What do you mean, dear ? Of course we must expect some troubles, like other people." " Why, I mean, Mary, that you might, at least, have married a contented man ; someone who found the world a very good world, and was satisfied with things as they are, and had light enough to steer himself by ; and not a fellow like me, full of all manner of doubts and perplexities, who sees little but wrong in the world about him, and more in himself." " You think I should have been more comfortable ? " " Yes, more comfortable and happier. What right had I to bring my worries on you ? For I know you can't live with me, dearest, and not be bothered and annoyed when I am anxious and dissatisfied." " But what if I did not marry you to be comfortable ? " " My darling, you never thought about it, and I was too selfish to think for you." " There now, you see, it is just as I said," " How do you mean ? " " I mean that you are quite wrong in thinking that I have been deceived. I did not marry you, dear, to be comfortable — and I did think it all over ; ay," over and over again. So you are not to run away with the belief that you have taken me in." " I shall be glad enough to give it up, dearest, If you can convince me." " Then you will listen while I explain ? " " Yes, with all my ears and all my heart." " You remember the year that we met, when we danced and went nutting together, a thoughtless boy and girl " " Remember it ! Have I ever " " You are not to interrupt. Of course you remember it all, and are ready to tell me that yon loved me the first moment you saw me at the window in High Street. Well, perhaps I shall not object to be told it at the proper time, but now 1 am making ray confessions. I liked you then, because you were Katie's cousin, and almost my first partner, and were never tired of dancing, and were generally meiTy and pleasant, though you sometimes took to lecturing, even in those days." « But Mary " 548 TOM BROWN 4T QXFOBD. " Y^Vi ^V^ tQ bp silent flow, q,pd Ijstep. I liked you t]iex\. But you are noX to Iqok Qqjiqeite4 ap4 flatter youi'splf, It was pnlj £^ giyl's fancy. J co^Id^'t baye iparried you then — given inyseif up ito yeu- If fij I ijon^t think I coqld, eyen on tbp flight when y^u ns|^ed for in,e out of the -^vindpw ■^ith the heather and neliotrope, though I kept thefli and Iiave th@^m ^till. An4 th^fl came that scene down h^low, at old S^nion's cottage, and I thought I shoal^ flever wish to see yon agaifl. Afl4 then I eapip 0\\% ip Jip,^4ftfl, ap^ wept ahrpa4' I ^arcely heard of you aga,in ffti' a ye?liE, fcff Kat^e hardly, eyer mentioned you ifl her letters ;, 9,nd tliough I ^Qniet.^fl[ies. ^y^shed th^t she iyoul4, a.nd thought thsit I ?hftflid jflst likp to kfloiv what yem were doii;^, I was too, pro,fld tp ask. Me^flti'^^i I 'V^^'St o^it and enjoyed myself, ^fl4 had a great many pretty things Sjaid to me — much prettier things than yon ever said — and made the acquaintance of plea.saflt young paen,, fyien.d^ pf papa and Dfiamm^ ^ many of th^,ip with gpod e^tab^^^hpieBts too., g^t I shall, not tell yp^u anything more about th^m, or you v^ill lie gp- ing off about the luxuries I have been used to. Then I b^an tp hear of ypu ag^i\x. Ka,tie, capie tP ^tay with flg, ^^nd I met some pf your pxfoi;4 f ifieflds. iPpoj; 4?ar Katie ! she was full of you and your wild sayings and doing^, ha,lf frightened and half pleased, but aU |h^ t^me» the b$st and truest fviend yon ever had. Some of the rest were not friend,9 at aU ; £*nd I hay? ^ear^ ifl.9i9y ^ ?9e^' ^^V^ unkind word, and stories, of your nionstrous sj).ee?hes, au.^ liab|t?., Some said yoa ^erp mad ; others, that yow liked tp be e^seefltric ; that you couldn't h^ar to. live with your eq^a^s, ; that you spugljit the society of yo,u,r i^i,- ferio.rs to be ^^t^iea. I Uatene^, a|fl,4 thptt.ght it aU over, and being willful and eccentric myself, you know, liked more an4 more to hear aboat you^, aftd h,?PP^ ^ shoulid see you again some day. I was cu;i;i,p]ji& to jjudge, fpr iflyself, wli^ther you were much p^haijg^ for th,e. be.tter. or the worse. And at last came the day ^hjBij I s%w yoii. again., carryipg the poor Ijame child ; and after that, you know wha,t happened. So here we are, dear, and ypu are fliy husb^iDjd. And ypu -vyiH pjease never tp look serious agaj,fl, from any foolish thp;Ught that I have been taken in ; that I d^ not know wha,t I wa,s abput when I tpok ypu, ' for better for worse, for riicher for poorer, in sickness apd, in health, till death us do part.' Npw, what ha,ye you to ^ay for yourself?" " Nothing ; bftt a. greajt deal for ypu. I see moj;^ and, more, my dasrling, ^yhat Si bra,v?, generous, pityi,W;§; angel J, h^ve tied- to myself. But seeing that makes me despise myself more." THE fOSTSCfilP*. 649 " What ! you are going to dare to disobey me already ? " " I can't help it, dearest. All yqu say shows me more and more that you haVe made all the sacrifice, and I am to get all the benefit. A man like me has no rlg^i^ to briqg guoh a woman as you under his burden." ' " But you couldn't help yourself. It was because you were out of sorts with the world, smarting wiljh tl^e wrongs you saw on every side, struggling after something better and higher, and siding and sympathizing wit^ the poor and weak, that J loved you. We should never hav^ beep here, dear, if yp^ had been a young gentleman satisfied with himself apa the world, and likely to get on well in society." " Ah, Mary, it is all very >vell for a man. It iaj a mJ^n's business. But why is a woman's life to be made wretc^ied ? Why should you be dragged into all my perplexities, and doubts, and dreams, and struggles ? " " And why should I riot ? " " Life should be all bright aud beautiful, to a woman. I^ is eveiy man's duly to shield her from all that can vex, or painii or soil." " But have women different souls from men ?" "God forbid!" "Then are we not fit to share yoijv hig^e^t hopes ?" " To share our highest hopes ! Yes, when we have any. Buttle. mii:e and clay where one sticks fast ovev a,od over again, with no high hopes or high anything else in si^ht — a, man ihust be a selfish brute to b^ing one he pretends to love into all that." "Now, Tom," she said, almost solemnly, "you are not true to yourself. Would you part with your own deepest convic- tions ? Would you, if yo.ii, could, go back to, the time when you cared for and thought about none of these thipgs ?" He thought a minute, and then, pressing her hand, said : " No, dearest, I would not. The consciousness of the dark- ness in one and around one brings the longing for ligh,t. A,i)d then the light dawns ; thrpugh niist and. fog, perhaps, l?ut enough to pick one's way by." He stopped a momeijit,'an^ then added, "and shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. Yes, I begin to know it.^' " Then why not put me on your own level ? Why jfpt let me pick my way by your side? Cannot a woma.n feel the, wrongs that are going on in the world ? Ca^nnpt she long, to see them set right, and pray that they may be set right ? We are not meant to sit in fine silks, and look pretty, and spend 550 TOM BEOWK AT OXFORD. money, any more than you are meant to make it, and cry peace where there is no peace. If a woman cannot do much herself, she can honor and love a man who can." He turned to her, and bent over her, and kissed her forehead, and kissed her lips. She looked up with sparkling eyes, and said : " Am I not right, dear ? " " Yes, you are right, and I have been false to my creed. You have takpn a load oflE my heart, dearest. Henceforth there shall be but one mind and one soul between us. You have made me feel what it is that a man wants, what is the help that is meet for him." He looked into her eyes and kissed her again ; and then rose up, for there was something within him like a moving of new life, which lifted him, and set him on his feet. And he stood with kindling brow, gazing into the Uutumn aii", as his heart went sorrowing, but hopefully " sorrowing, back through all the faithful past." And she sat on at first, and watched his face, and neither spoke nor moved for some minutes. Then she rose, too, and stood by his side : And on her lover's arm she leant, . And round her waist she felt it fold, And so across the hills they went, And that new world which is the old. Yes, that new world, through the golden gates of which they had passed together, which is the old, old woi-ld after all, and nothing else. The same old and new world it was to our fathers and mothers as it is to us, and shall be to our children, — a world clear and bright, and ever becoming clearer and brighter to the humble, and true, and pure of heart, to every man and woman who will live in it as the children of the Maker and Lord of it, their Father. To them, and to them alone, is that world, old and new, given, and all that is in it, fully and freely to enjoy. All others but these are occupying where they have no title ; " they are sowing much, but bringing in little ; they eat, cut have not enough ; they drink, but are not filled with drink ; they clothe themselves, but there is none warm ; and he of them who earneth wages, earneth wages to put them into a bag with holes." But these have the world and all things for a right- ful and rich inheritance, for they hold them as dear children of him in whose hand it and they are lying, and no power in earth or hell shall pluck them out of their Father's hand. %eful mA ^vmial §oolii8. Etiquette, Health and Beauty. Comprising " The Usages of THE Best Society," a manual of social etiquette, and " Talks with HouBiiT Girls on Health and Beauty," containing chapters upon the general care of the health, and the preservation and cultivation of beauty in the complexion, hands, etc. By Frances Stevens and Frances M. Smith. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00. " It is a handy volume to be lying on the table for reference."— Zion'< Herali, Boston. The National Standard Dictionarjo A pronouncing lexicon of the English Language, containing 40,000 words, and illustrated, witli 700 wood-cuts, to which is added an appendix of useful and valuable information. 600 pages. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00. " A convenient and useful boolc. Clear in typography, convenient in size. It contains copious definitions, syllabic divisions, tlie accentuation and pro- nunciation of each word, and an appendix of reference matter of nearly 100 pages is added, making it the best cheap dictionary we have ever seen."— - Courier-Journal^ Louisvute, The Usages of the Best Society. A manual of social etiquette. By Frances Stevens. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents. " Will be found useful by all who wish to obtain instraction on matters relat- ing to social usage and society."— 2)«mor«»<'« Magazine, A Handy Dictionary of Synonyms, with which are combined the words opposite in meaning. For the use of those who would speak or write the English language fluently and correctly. By H. C. Faulkner. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents. " Will be found of great value to those who are not experienced in speech or with pen."— Brooklyn Eagle. Talks With Homely Girls on Health and Beauty. Their Pres ervation and Cultivation. By Frances M. Smith. Cloth, lOmo^ price 50 cents. " she recommends no practices which are not in accord with hygienic i»w8, go that her boolt is really a valuable little guide."— i%fer«o»'« Magazine. A Handy Classical and Mythological Dictionary. For popu lar use, with 70 illustrations. By H. C. Faulkner. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents. " It is often convenient to have a small book at hand in order to find out tht meaning of the classical allusions of the day, when it is troublesome and cum- bersome to consult a larger work. This tasteful volume fills the desired pur- pose. It explains the allusions, pronounces the hard names, and picture! many of the mythological hecoea."—Promdeiu!e Journal. Famous People of All Ages. Who they were, when they lived, and why they are famous. By W. H. Van Orden. Cloth, 16mo, price 50 cents. "An excellent hand-book, giving in a compact form biographies of the pet- Bons in whom the student ana writer would naturally take most interest. "- New York Tribune. Far tale Sy all Booksellers, or will be sent post-paid on receipt qf price, by (he put)- ilehtfi A, £i SVKT, 66 £««((« Street, JTew Xorh, m$tm m& irartial ioolis. Why, When and Where. A dictionary of rare and curious information. A treasury of facts, legends, sayings and tlieir explan- ation, gathered from a inultitude of sources, presenting in a conven- ient form a mass of valuable knowledge on topics of frequeiit inquiry and general interest that has been hitherto inaccessible. Cafefuliy compared with the highest authorities. Edited by Robert Thokne, M.A. 500 pages. Cloth, lamo, t*Jice |1.00. *' In this book the casual readerwill be rejoiced to meet many a sublect he has searched the encyclopedia for in vain. The information is clearly, fully and yet concisely givea."—Sp}itigifleld JUspubliean. A Cyclopedia of Natural History. Comprising descriptions of Animal Life : Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Batrachians and Fishes. Their Structure, Habits and Distribution. For popular use. By Chables C. Abbott, M. D. 620 pages. 500 illustrations. Clbth, 12mo, price fl.OO. " The author has shown great skill in condensing fais abundant material, while the illustrations are useful in illustrating the mf ormation furnished in the text."— Times, Trotj. The National Standard Encyclopedia. A Dictionary of Lit- erature, the Arts and the Sciences, for popular use ; containing over 20,000 articles pertaining to questions of Agriculture, Anatomy, Archi- tecture, Biography, Botany, Chemistry, Engineering, Geography, Geology, History, Horticulture, Literature, Mechanics, Medicine, Physiology, Natural History, Mythology and the various Arts and Sciences. Prepared under the supervision of a number of Editors, and verified by comparison with the best 4nthorities. Complete in one voliime of 700 pages, with over 1,000 illustrations. Cloth, 12m6, price fl.OO. Law Without Lawyers. A compendium of Business and Domed- tic Law, for popular use. By Henry B. CoRby, LL.B., member of New York Bar. Cloth, 12mo, price fl.OO. " The volume before us is a very convenient manual for every-day use, con- taining a freneral summary of the law as applied to ordinary business transac- tions, social and domestic relations, with forms for all manner of legal docu- ments."— Kvjy Times. Dr. Danelson's Counselor, with Recipes. A trusty guide for the family. An illustrated book of 720 pages, treating Physiology, Hygiene, Marriage, Medical Practice, etc. By J. E. Danelson, M. D. Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo, price $1.00. " The Counselor is pure and elevating in its morals, and wise ,8nd practical in the apWioatiort of its counsels. It can but be a helper in homes following its directions."— iJ«». J. V. Mrguson, Pastor 3f. E. Church, Mohawk, N. T, The National Standard History of the United States. A com- plete and. concise account of the growth and development of the Nation, from its discovery to the present time. By Everit BroWn. 600 pages. Illustrated. Cloth, ISmo, price $1.00. In this most Interesting book our country's history is told from the discovery, of America down to the election of Benjamin Harrison as President of the United States F(yr siHe Sy aU Sod&ellers; or will be sent posi-paid on receipt qf price, bi/ tlU piii' lisher. A., X. JSUMT, 66 Stade Street, Neui iorU,