I.

It was Friday night at the Oxford terminus, and all the world scrambling

for cabs. Sir John and the Squire, nearly lifted off their legs, and

too much taken aback to fight for themselves, stood against the wall,

thinking the community had gone suddenly mad. Bill Whitney and Tod,

tall, strong young fellows, able to hold their own anywhere, secured a

cab at length, and we and our luggage got in and on it.

"To the Mitre."

"If this is a specimen of Oxford manners, the sooner the lads are at

home the better," growled the Squire. Sir John Whitney was settling his

spectacles on his nose--nearly lost off it in the scuffle.

"Snepp told me it was a regular shindy at the terminus the first day of

term, with all the students coming back," said Bill Whitney.

There had been no end of discussion as to our college career. Sir

John Whitney said William must go to Oxford, as he had been at Oxford

himself; whereas Brandon stood out against Oxford for me; would not hear

of it. He preferred Cambridge he said: and to Cambridge Johnny Ludlow

should go: and he, as my guardian, had full power over me. The Squire

cared not which university was chosen; but Tod went in for Oxford with

all his strong will: he said the boating was best there. The result was

that Mr. Brandon gave way, and we were entered at Christchurch.

Mr. Brandon had me at his house for two days beforehand, giving me

counsel. He had one of his bad colds just then and kept his room, and

his voice was never more squeaky. The last evening, I sat up there with

him while he sipped his broth. The fire was large enough to roast us,

and he had three flannel night-caps on. It was that night that he

talked to me most. He believed with all his heart, he said, that the

temptations to young men were greater at Oxford than at Cambridge; that,

of the two, the more reckless set of men were there: and that was one of

the reasons why he had objected to Oxford for me. And then he proceeded

to put the temptations pretty strongly before me, and did not mince

things, warning me that it would require all the mental and moral

strength I possessed to resist them, and steer clear of a course of sin

and shame. He then suddenly opened the Bible, which was on the table at

his elbow, and read out a line or two from the thirtieth chapter of

Deuteronomy.

"'See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil:

therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.'"

"That's what I have been striving to set before you, Johnny Ludlow. Read

that chapter, the whole of it, often; treasure its precepts in your

heart; and may God give you grace to keep them!"

He shook hands with me in silence. I took up my candle and waited a

moment, for I thought he was going to speak again.

"Will you try to keep them, lad?"

"I will try, sir."

We were fortunate in getting good rooms at Christchurch. Tod's and mine

were close together; Bill Whitney's on the floor above. Our sitting-room

was pleasant; it had an old cracked piano in it, which turned out to be

passably fair when it had been tinkered and tuned. The windows looked

out on the trees of the Broad Walk and to the meadows beyond; but trees

are bare in winter, and the month was January. I had never stayed at

Oxford before: and I saw that I should like it, with its fine, grand old

colleges. The day after we got there, Saturday, we wrote our names in

the dean's book, and saw our tutor. The rest of the day was spent in

seeing about battels and getting into the new ways. Very new to us. A

civil young fellow, who waited on us as scout, was useful; they called

him "Charley" in the college. Tod pulled a long face at some of the

rules, and did not like the prospect of unlimited work.

"I'll go in for the boating and fishing and driving, Johnny; and you can

go in for the books."

"All right, Tod." I knew what he meant. It was not that he did not

intend to take a fair amount of work: but to exist without a good share

of out-of-door life also, would have been hard lines for Tod.

The Sunday services were beautiful. The first Sunday of term was a high

day, and the cathedral was filled. Orders of admission to the public

were not necessary that day, and a general congregation mixed with the

students. Sir John and the Squire were staying at the Mitre until

Monday. After service we went to promenade in the Broad Walk--and it

seemed that everybody else went.

"Look there!" cried the Squire, "at this tall clergyman coming along.

I am sure he is one of the canons of Worcester."

It was Mr. Fortescue--Honourable and Reverend. He halted for a minute to

exchange greetings with Sir John Whitney, whom he knew, and then passed

on his way.

"There's some pretty girls about, too," resumed the Squire, gazing

around. "Not that I'd advise you boys to look much at them. Wonder if

they often walk here?"

Before a week had gone by, we were quite at home; had shaken down into

our new life as passengers shake down in their places in an omnibus; and

made lots of friends. Some I liked; some I did not like. There was one

fellow always coming in--a tall dark man with crisp hair; his name

Richardson. He had plenty of money and kept dogs and horses, and seemed

to go in for every kind of fast life the place afforded. Of work he did

none; and report ran that he was being watched by the proctor, with whom

he was generally in hot water. Altogether he was not in good odour: and

he had a way of mocking at religion as though he were an atheist.

"I heard a bit about Richardson just now," cried Whitney, one morning

that he had brought his commons in to breakfast with us--and the fields

outside were white with snow. "Mayhew says he's a scamp."

"Don't think he's much else, myself," said Tod. "I say, just taste this

butter! It's shockingly strong. Wonder what it is made of?"

"Mayhew says he's a liar as well as a villain. There's no speaking after

him. Last term a miserable affair occurred in the town; the authorities

could not trace it home to Richardson though they suspected he was the

black sheep. Lots of fellows knew he was: but he denied it out-and-out.

I think we had better not have much to do with him."

"He entertains jolly well," said Tod. "Johnny, you've boiled these

eggs too hard. And his funds seem to spring from some perpetual gold

mine----"

The door opened, and two bull-dogs burst in, leaping and howling.

Richardson--they were his--followed, with little Ford; the latter a

quiet, inoffensive man, who stuck to his work.

"Be quiet, you two devils!" cried Richardson, kicking his dogs. "Lie

down, will you? I say, I've a wine-coach on to-night in my rooms, after

Hall. Shall be glad to see you all at it."

Considering the conversation he had broken in upon, none of us had a

very ready answer at hand.

"I have heaps of letters to answer to-night, and must do it," said

Whitney. "Thank you all the same."

Richardson might have read coolness in the tone; I don't know; but he

turned the back of his chair on Bill to face Tod.

"You have not letters to write, I suppose, Todhetley?"

"Not I. I leave letters to Ludlow."

"You'll come, then?"

"Can't," said Tod candidly. "Don't mean to go in for wine-parties."

"Oh," said Richardson. "You'll tell another tale when you've been here

a bit longer. _Will_ you be still, you brutes?"

"Hope I shan't," said Tod. "Wine plays the very mischief with work.

Should never get any done if I went in for it."

"Do you intend to go up for honours?" went on Richardson.

"'Twould be a signal failure if I did. I leave all that to Ludlow--as

I said by the letters. See to the dogs, Richardson."

The animals had struck up a fight. Richardson secured the one and sent

the other out with a kick. Our scout was coming in, and the dog flew at

him. No damage; but a great row.

"Charley," cried Tod, "this butter's not fit to eat."

"Is it not, sir? What's the matter with it?"

"The matter with it?--everything's the matter with it."

"Is _that_ your scout?" asked Richardson, when the man had gone again,

holding his dog between his knees as he sat.

"Yes," said Tod. "And your dogs all but made mincemeat of him. You

should teach them better manners."

"Serve him right if they had. His name's Tasson."

"Tasson, is it? We call him Charley here."

"I know. He's a queer one."

"How is he queer?"

"He's pious."

"He's what?"

"Pious," repeated Richardson, twisting his mouth. "A saint; a cant; a

sneak."

"Good gracious!" cried Bill Whitney.

"You think I'm jesting! Ask Ford here. Tell it, Ford."

"Oh, it's true," said Ford: "true that he goes in for piety. Last term

there was a freshman here named Carstairs. He was young; rather soft; no

experience, you know, and he began to go the pace. One night this

Charley, his scout, fell on his knees, and besought him with tears not

to go to the bad; to pull up in time and remember what the end must be;

and--and so on."

"What did Carstairs do?"

"Do! why turned him out," put in Richardson. "Carstairs, by the way, has

taken his name off the books, or _had_ to take it off."

"Charley is civil and obliging to us," said Whitney. "Never presumes."

How much of the tale was gospel we knew not; but for my own part, I

liked Charley. There was something about him quite different from scouts

and servants in general--and by the way, I don't think Charley was a

scout, only a scout's help--but in appearance and diction and manner

he was really superior. A slim, slight young fellow of twenty, with

straight fine light hair and blue eyes, and a round spot of scarlet on

his thin cheeks.

"I say, Charley, they say you are pious," began Bill Whitney that same

day after lecture, when the man was bringing in the bread-and-cheese

from the buttery.

He coloured to the roots of his light hair, and did not answer. Bill

never minded what he said to any one.

"You were scout to Mr. Carstairs. Did you take his morals under your

special protection?"

"Be quiet, Whitney," said Tod in an undertone.

"And constitute yourself his guardian-angel-in-ordinary? Didn't you go

down on your knees to him with tears and sobs, and beseech him not to go

to the bad?" went on Bill.

"There's not a word of truth in it, sir. One evening when Mr. Carstairs

was lying on his sofa, tired and ill--for he was beginning to lead a

life that had no rest in it, hardly, day or night, a folded slip of

paper was brought in from Mr. Richardson, and Mr. Carstairs bade me read

it to him. It was to remind him of some appointment for the night. Mr.

Carstairs was silent for a minute, and then burst out with a kind of

sharp cry, painful to hear. 'By Heaven, if this goes on, they'll ruin

me, body and soul! I've a great mind not to go.' I did speak then, sir;

I told him he was ill, and had better stay at home; and I said that it

was easy enough for him to pull up then, but that when one got too far

on the down-hill path it was more difficult."

"Was that all?" cried Whitney.

"Every word, sir. I should not have spoken at all but that I had known

Mr. Carstairs before we came here. Mr. Richardson made a great deal of

it, and gave it quite a different colouring."

"Did Mr. Carstairs turn you away for that?" I asked of Charley; when he

came back for the things, and the other two had gone out.

"Three or four days after it happened, sir, Mr. Carstairs stopped my

waiting on him again. I think it was through Mr. Richardson. Mr.

Carstairs had refused to go out with him the evening it occurred."

"You knew Mr. Carstairs before he came to Oxford. Where was it?"

"It was----" he hesitated, and then went on. "It was at the school he

was at in London, sir. I was a junior master there."

Letting a plate fall--for I was helping to pack them, wanting the

table--I stared at the fellow. "A master there and----" and a servant

here, I all but said, but I stopped the words.

"Only one of the outer masters, attending daily," he went on quietly.

"I taught writing and arithmetic, and English to the juniors."

"But how comes it that you are here in this post, Charley?"

"I had reasons for wishing to come to live at Oxford, sir."

"But why not have sought out something better than this?"

"I did seek, sir. But nothing of the kind was to be had, and this place

offered. There's many a one, sir, falls into the wrong post in life, and

can never afterwards get into the right one."

"But--do you--like this?"

"_Like_ it, sir; no! But I make a living at it. One thing I shall be

always grateful to Mr. Carstairs for: that he did not mention where

he had known me. I should not like it to be talked of in the college,

especially by Mr. Richardson."

He disappeared with his tray as he spoke. It sounded quite mysterious.

But I took the hint, and said nothing.

The matter passed. Charley did not put on any mentorship to us, and the

more we saw of him the more we liked him. But an impression gradually

dawned upon us that he was not strong enough for his place. Carrying a

heavy tray upstairs would set him panting like an old man, and he could

not run far or fast.

One day I was hard at work, Tod and Whitney being off somewhere, driving

tandem, when a queer, ugly-sounding cough kept annoying me from outside:

but whether it came from dog or man I could not tell. Opening the door

at last, there sat Charley on the stairs, his head resting against the

wall, and his cheeks brighter than a red leaf in autumn.

"What, is it you, Charley? Where did you pick up that cough?"

"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, starting up. "I thought your rooms

were empty."

"Come in till the fit's over. You are in a regular draught there. Come

along," for he hesitated--"I want to shut the door."

He came in, coughing finely, and I gave him the chair by the fire. It

was nothing, he said, and would soon be gone. He had caught it a day or

two back in the bleak east wind: the college was draughty, and he had to

be on the run out-of-doors in all sorts of weather.

"Well, you know, Charley, putting east winds and draughts aside, you

don't seem to be quite up to your work here in point of strength."

"I was up to it, sir, when I took it. It's a failing in some of our

family, sir, to have weak lungs. I shall be all right again, soon."

The coughing was over, and he got up to go away, evidently not liking to

intrude. There was a degree of sensitiveness about him that, of itself,

might have shown he was superior to his position.

"Take a good jorum of treacle-posset, Charley, at bed-time."

* * * * *

Spring weather came in with February. The biting cold and snow of

January disappeared, and genial sunshine warmed the earth again. The

first Sunday in this same February month, from my place at morning

service, looking out on the townsfolk who had come in with orders, I saw

a lady, very little and pretty, staring fixedly at me from afar. The

face--where had I seen her face? It seemed familiar, but I could not

tell how or where I had known it. A small slight face of almost an ivory

white, and wide-open light blue eyes that had plenty of confidence in

them.

Sophie Chalk! I should have recognized her at the first moment but for

the different mode in which her hair was dressed. Wonderful hair! A

vast amount of it, and made the most of. She wore it its natural colour

to-day, brown, and the red tinge on it shone like burnished gold. She

knew me; that was certain; and I could not help watching her. Her eyes

went roving away presently, possibly in search of Tod. I stole a glance

at him; but he did not appear to see her. What brought her to Oxford?

We got out of church. I took care to hold my tongue. Tod had cared for

Sophie Chalk--there could be little doubt of it--as one never cares for

anybody again in life: and it might be just as well--in spite of the

exposé of mademoiselle's false ways and misdoings--that they did not

meet. Syrens are syrens all the world over.

The day went on to a bright moonlight night. Tod and I, out for a

stroll, were standing within the shade of the fine old Magdalen Tower,

talking to a fellow of Trinity, when there came up a lady of delicate

presence, the flowers in her bonnet exhaling a faint odour of perfume.

"I _think_ I am not mistaken--I am sure--yes, I _am_ sure it is Mr.

Ludlow. And--surely that cannot be Mr. Todhetley?"

Tod wheeled round at the soft, false voice. The daintily gloved hand was

held out to him; the fair, false face was bent close: and his own face

turned red and white with emotion. I saw it even in the shade of the

moonlight. Had she been strolling about to look for us? Most likely. A

few moments more, and we were all three walking onwards together.

"Only fancy my position!" she gaily said. "Here am I, all forlorn, set

down alone in this great town, and must take care of myself as I best

can. The formidable gowns and caps frighten me."

"The gowns and caps will do you no harm--Miss Chalk," cried Tod--and he

only just saved himself from saying "Sophie."

"Do you think not," she returned, touching the sleeve of her velvet

jacket, as if to brush off a fly. "But I beg you will accord me my due

style and title, Mr. Todhetley, and honour me accordingly. I am no

longer Miss Chalk. I am Mrs. Everty."

So she had married Mr. Everty after all! She minced along between us in

her silk gown, her hands in her ermine muff that looked made for a doll.

At the private door of a shop in High Street she halted, rang the bell,

and threw the door open.

"You will walk up and take a cup of tea with me. Nay, but you must--or

I shall think you want to hold yourselves above poor little me, now

you are grand Oxford men."

She went along the passage and up the stairs: there seemed no resource

but to follow. In the sitting-room, which was very well furnished and

looked out upon the street, a fire burned brightly; and a lamp and

tea-things stood on the table.

"Where have you been?--keeping me waiting for my tea in this way! You

never think of any one but yourself: never."

The querulous complaint, and thin, shrill voice came from a small dark

girl who sat at the window, peering out into the lighted street. I had

not forgotten the sharp-featured sallow face and the deep-set eyes. It

was Mabel Smith, the poor little lame and deformed girl I had seen in

Torriana Square. She really did not look much older or bigger, and she

spoke as abruptly as ever.

"I remember you, Johnny Ludlow."

Mrs. Everty made the tea. Her dress, white one way, green the other,

gleamed like silver in the lamplight. It had a quantity of white lace

upon it: light green ribbons were twisted in her hair. "I should think

it would be better to have those curtains drawn, Mabel. Your tea's

ready: if you will come to it."

"But I choose to have the curtains open and I'll take my tea here,"

answered Mabel. "You may be going out again for hours, and what company

should I have but the street? I don't like to be shut up in a strange

room: I might see ghosts. Johnny Ludlow, that's a little coffee-table by

the wall: if you'll put it here it will hold my cup and saucer."