IN WHICH CHARLES AND LORD WELTER DISTINGUISH THEMSELVES AT THE
UNIVERSITY.
It is a curious sensation, that of meeting, as a young man of two or
three-and-twenty, a man one has last seen as a little lad of ten, or
thereabouts. One is almost in a way disappointed. You may be asked out
to dinner to meet a man called, say, Jones (or, if you like the name
better, Delamere D'Eresby), whom you believe to be your old friend
Jones, and whom you have not seen for a month or so; and on getting to
the house find it is not your Jones at all, but another Jones whom you
don't know. He may be cleverer, handsomer, more agreeable than your old
friend--a man whom you are glad to know; and yet you are disappointed.
You don't meet the man you expected, and you are rather disposed to be
prejudiced against his representative.
So it is when you meet a friend in manhood whom you have not seen since
you were at school. You have been picturing to yourself the sort of man
your friend must have developed into, and you find him different from
what you thought. So, instead of foregathering with an old friend, you
discover that you have to make a new acquaintance.
You will now have to resume the acquaintance of Charles Ravenshoe at two
and twenty. I hope you will not be much disappointed in him. He was a
very nice boy, if you remember, and you will see immediately that he has
developed into a very nice young man indeed. It is possible that I may
not be about to introduce him to you under the most favourable
circumstances; but he created those circumstances for himself, and must
abide by them. As it is not my intention to follow him through any part
of his University life, but only to resume his history when he quits it,
so it becomes imperatively necessary for me to state, without any sort
of disguise, the reason why he did leave it. And, as two or three other
important characters in the story had something to do with it, I shall
do so more at length than would at first seem necessary.
It was nine o'clock on the 6th of November. The sun, which had been
doing duty for her Majesty all night at Calcutta, Sydney, &c., had by
this time reached Oxford, and was shining aslant into two pretty little
Gothic windows in the inner or library quadrangle of St. Paul's College,
and illuminating the features of a young man who was standing in the
middle of the room, and scratching his head.
He was a stout-built fellow, not particularly handsome, but with a very
pleasing face. His hair was very dark brown, short, and curling; his
forehead was broad and open, and below it were two uncommonly
pleasant-looking dark grey eyes. His face was rather marked, his nose
very slightly aquiline, and plenty of it, his mouth large and
good-humoured, which, when opened to laugh, as it very frequently was,
showed a splendid set of white teeth, which were well contrasted with a
fine healthy brown and red complexion. Altogether a very pleasant young
fellow to look on, and looking none the worse just now for an expression
of droll perplexity, not unmixed with a certain amount of terror, which
he had on his face.
It was Charles Ravenshoe.
He stood in his shirt and trousers only, in the midst of a scene of
desolation so awful, that I, who have had to describe some of the most
terrible scenes and circumstances conceivable, pause before attempting
to give any idea of it in black and white. Every moveable article in the
room--furniture, crockery, fender, fire-irons--lay in one vast heap of
broken confusion in the corner of the room. Not a pane of glass remained
in the windows; the bedroom-door was broken down; and the door which
opened into the corridor was minus the two upper panels. Well might
Charles Ravenshoe stand there and scratch his head!
"By George," he said at last, soliloquising, "how deuced lucky it is
that I never get drunk! If I had been screwed last night, those fellows
would have burnt the college down. What a devil that Welter is when he
gets drink into him! and Marlowe is not much better. The fellows were
mad with fighting, too. I wish they hadn't come here and made hay
afterwards. There'll be an awful row about this. It's all up, I am
afraid. It's impossible to say though."
At this moment, a man appeared in the passage, and, looking in through
the broken door, as if from a witness-box, announced, "The dean wishes
to see you at once, sir." And exit.
Charles replied by using an expression then just coming into use among
our youth, "All serene!" dressed himself by putting on a pilot coat, a
pair of boots, and a cap and gown, and with a sigh descended into the
quadrangle.
There were a good many men about, gathered in groups. The same subject
was in everybody's mouth. There had been, the night before, without
warning or apparent cause, the most frightful disturbance which, in the
opinion of the porter, had graced the college for fifty years. It had
begun suddenly at half-past twelve, and had been continued till three.
The dons had been afraid to come and interfere, the noise was so
terrible. Five out-college men had knocked out at a quarter to three,
refusing to give any name but the dean's. A rocket had been let up, and
a five-barrel revolver had been let off, and--Charles Ravenshoe had been
sent for.
A party of young gentlemen, who looked very seedy and guilty, stood in
his way, and as he came up shook their heads sorrowfully; one, a tall
one, with large whiskers, sat down in the gravel walk, and made as
though he would have cast dust upon his head.
"This is a bad job, Charley," said one of them.
"Some heads must fall," said Charles; "I hope mine is not among the
number. Rather a shame if it is, eh?"
The man with the big whiskers shook his head. "The state of your room,"
he said.
"Who has seen it?" eagerly asked Charles.
"Sleeping innocent!" replied the other, "the porter was up there by
eight o'clock, and at half-past the dean himself was gazing on your
unconscious face as you lay peacefully sleeping in the arms of
desolation."
Charles whistled long and loud, and proceeded with a sinking heart
towards the dean's rooms.
A tall, pale man, with a hard, marked countenance, was sitting at his
breakfast, who, as soon as he saw his visitor, regarded him with the
greatest interest, and buttered a piece of toast.
"_Well_, Mr. Ravenshoe," was his remark.
"I believe you sent for me, sir," said Charles, adding to himself,
"Confound you, you cruel old brute, you are amusing yourself with my
tortures."
"This is a pretty business," said the dean.
Charles would be glad to know to what he alluded.
"Well," said the dean, laughing, "I don't exactly know where to begin.
However, I am not sure it much matters. You will be wanted in the common
room at two. The proctor has sent for your character also. Altogether, I
congratulate you. Your career at the University has been brilliant; but,
your orbit being highly elliptical, it is to be feared that you will
remain but a short time above the horizon. Good morning."
Charles rejoined the eager knot of friends outside; and, when he spoke
the awful word, "common room," every countenance wore a look of dismay.
Five more, it appeared, were sent for, and three were wanted by the
proctor at eleven. It was a disastrous morning.
There was a large breakfast in the rooms of the man with the whiskers,
to which all the unfortunates were of course going. One or two were in a
state of badly-concealed terror, and fidgeted and were peevish, until
they got slightly tipsy. Others laughed a good deal, rather nervously,
and took the thing pluckily--the terror was there, but they fought
against it; but the behaviour of Charles extorted applause from
everybody. He was as cool and as merry as if he was just going down for
the long vacation; he gave the most comical account of the whole
proceedings last night from beginning to end, as he was well competent
to do, being the only sober man who had witnessed them; he ate heartily,
and laughed naturally, to the admiration of every one.
One of the poor fellows who had shown greatest signs of terror, and who
was as near crying as he could possibly be without actually doing so,
looked up and complimented him on his courage, with an oath.
"In me, my dear Dick," said Charles, good-naturedly, "you see the
courage of despair. Had I half your chances, I should be as bad as you.
I know there are but a few more ceremonies to be gone through, and
then--"
The other rose and left the room. "Well," said he, as he went, with a
choking voice, "I expect my old governor will cut his throat, or
something; I'm fifteen hundred in debt." And so the door closed on the
poor lad, and the party was silent.
There came in now a young man, to whom I wish especially to call your
attention. He was an ordinary young man enough, in the morning livery of
a groom. He was a moderately well-looking fellow, and there seems at
first nothing in any way remarkable about him. But look at him again,
and you are struck with a resemblance to some one you know, and yet at
first you hardly know to whom. It is not decidedly, either, in any one
feature, and you are puzzled for a time, till you come to the conclusion
that everyone else does. That man is a handsome likeness of Charles
Ravenshoe.
This is Charles's foster-brother William, whom we saw on a former
occasion taking refreshment with that young gentleman, and who had for
some time been elevated to the rank of Mr. Charles's "lad." He had come
for orders.
There were no orders but to exercise the horses, Charles believed; he
would tell him in the afternoon if there were, he added sorrowfully.
"I saw Lord Welter coming away from the proctor's, sir," said William.
"He told me to ask what train you were going down by. His lordship told
me to say, sir, that Lord Welter of Christchurch would leave the
University at twelve to-morrow, and would not come into residence again
till next Michaelmas term."
"By Jove," said Charles, "he has got a dose! I didn't think they'd have
given him a year. Well, here goes."
Charles went to the proctor's, but his troubles there were not so severe
as he had expected. He had been seen fighting several times during the
evening, but half the University had been doing the same. He had been
sent home three times, and had reappeared; that was nothing so very bad.
On his word of honour he had not tripped up the marshal; Brown himself
thought he must have slipped on a piece of orange-peel. Altogether it
came to this; that Ravenshoe of Paul's had better be in by nine for the
rest of term, and mind what he was about for the future.
But the common room at two was the thing by which poor Charles was to
stand or fall. There were terrible odds against him--the master and six
tutors. It was no use, he said, snivelling, or funking the thing; so he
went into battle valiantly.
THE MASTER opened the ball, in a voice suggestive of mild remonstrance.
In all his experience in college life, extending over a period of
forty-five years, he had never even heard of proceedings so
insubordinate, so unparalleled, so--so--monstrous, as had taken place
the night before, in a college only a twelvemonth ago considered to be
the quietest in the University. A work of fiction of a low and vicious
tendency, professing to describe scenes of headlong riot and debauchery
at the sister University, called, he believed, "Peter Priggins," had
been written, and was, he understood, greatly read by the youth of both
seats of learning; but he was given to understand that the worst
described in that book sank into nothing, actually dwindled into
insignificance, before last night's proceedings. It appeared, he
continued (referring to a paper through his gold eye-glasses), that at
half-past twelve a band of intoxicated and frantic young men had rushed
howling into the college, refusing to give their names to the porter
(among whom was recognised Mr. Ravenshoe); that from that moment a scene
of brutal riot had commenced in the usually peaceful quadrangle, and had
continued till half-past three; loaded weapons had been resorted to, and
fireworks had been exhibited; and, finally, that five members of another
college had knocked out at half-past three, stating to the porter
(without the slightest foundation) that they had been having tea with
the dean. Now you know, really and truly, it simply resolved itself into
this. Were they going to keep St. Paul's College open, or were they not?
If the institution which had flourished now for above five hundred years
was to continue to receive undergraduates, the disturbers of last night
must be sternly eliminated. In the last case of this kind, where a man
was only convicted of--eh, Mr. Dean?--pump handle--thank you--was only
convicted of playfully secreting the handle of the college pump,
rustication had been inflicted. In this case the college would do its
duty, however painful.
Charles was understood to say that he was quite sober, and had tried to
keep the fellows out of mischief.
THE MASTER believed Mr. Ravenshoe would hardly deny having let off a
rocket on the grass-plat.
Charles was ill-advised enough to say that he did it to keep the fellows
quiet; but the excuse fell dead, and there was a slight pause. After
which,
THE DEAN rose, with his hands in his pockets, and remarked that this
sort of thing was all mighty fine, you know; but they weren't going to
stand it, and the sooner this was understood the better. He, for one, as
long as he remained dean of that college, was not going to have a parcel
of drunken young idiots making a row under his windows at all hours in
the morning. He should have come out himself last night, but that he was
afraid, positively afraid, of personal violence; and the odds were too
heavy against him. He, for one, did not want any more words about it. He
allowed the fact of Mr. Ravenshoe being perfectly sober, though whether
that could be pleaded in extenuation was very doubtful. (Did you speak,
Mr. Bursar? No. I beg pardon, I thought you did.) He proposed that Mr.
Ravenshoe should be rusticated for a year, and that the Dean of
Christchurch should be informed that Lord Welter was one of the most
active of the rioters. That promising young nobleman had done them the
honour to create a disturbance in the college on a previous occasion,
when he was, as last night, the guest of Mr. Ravenshoe.
Charles said that Lord Welter had been rusticated for a year.
THE DEAN was excessively glad to hear it, and hoped that he would stay
at home and give his family the benefit of his high spirits. As there
were five other gentlemen to come before them, he would suggest that
they should come to a determination.
THE BURSAR thought that Mr. Ravenshoe's plea of sobriety should be taken
in extenuation. Mr. Ravenshoe had never been previously accused of
having resorted to stimulants. He thought it should be taken in
extenuation.
THE DEAN was sorry to be of a diametrically opposite opinion.
No one else taking up the cudgels for poor Charles, the Master said he
was afraid he must rusticate him.
Charles said he hoped they wouldn't.
THE DEAN gave a short laugh, and said that, if that was all he had to
say, he might as well have held his tongue. And then the Master
pronounced sentence of rustication for a year, and Charles, having
bowed, withdrew.