CHARLES'S "LIDDELL AND SCOTT."
A growing anxiety began to take possession of Charles shortly before
Christmas, arising from the state of his father's health. Densil was
failing. His memory was getting defective, and his sense dulled. His eye
always was searching for Charles, and he was uneasy at his absence. So
it was with a vague sense of impending misfortune that he got a letter
from the Dean of his college, summoning him back after the Christmas
vacation.
Mr. Dean said, "That Mr. Ravenshoe's case had been reconsidered, and
that at the warm, and, he thought, misguided, intercession of the
Bursar, a determination had been come to, to allow Mr. Ravenshoe to come
into residence again for the Lent term. He trusted that this would be a
warning, and that, while there was time, he would arrest himself in that
miserable career of vice and folly which could only have one
termination--utter ruin in this world and in the next."
A college "Don," by long practice, acquires a power of hurting a young
man's feelings, utterly beyond competition, save by a police magistrate.
Charles winced under this letter; but the same day Mary, coming singing
downstairs as was her wont, was alarmed by the descent of a large opaque
body of considerable weight down the well of the staircase, which lodged
in the wood basket at the bottom, and which, on examination, she found
to be a Liddell and Scott's Lexicon. At which she rejoiced; for she
concluded that Charles had taken to reading again, though why he should
begin by throwing his books downstairs she could not well understand,
until he joined her, and explained that he had been dusting it on the
landing, and that it had slipped out of his hand.
"What a crack it came down," added he; "I wish Father Mackworth's head
had been underneath it."
"I have no doubt of it, young gentleman," said the priest quietly from
behind; and there he was with his hand on the library door, and in he
went and shut it behind him.
Mary and Charles were both awfully disconcerted. Mary felt horribly
guilty; in fact, if the priest had remained quiet one moment more, he
would undoubtedly have heard one or two candid and far from
complimentary remarks about himself from that young lady, which would
have made his ears tingle.
"Confound him," said Charles; "how he glides about! He learned that
trick, and a few others, at that precious Jesuit College of his. They
teach them that sort of thing as the old Jews teach the young
pickpockets. The old father inquisitor puts the door ajar with a bell
against it, and they all have to come in one after another. The one who
rings it gets dropped on to like blazes."
Mary was going to ask what exact amount of personal suffering being
dropped on to like blazes involved; but Charles stopped her, and took
her hand.
"Mary dear," he said, "do you ever think of the future?"
"Night and day, Charles,--night and day."
"If he dies, Mary? When he dies?"
"Night and day, brother," she answered, taking one of his great brown
hands between her two white little palms. "I dream in my sleep of the
new regime which is to come, and I see only trouble, and again trouble."
"And then?"
"There is a God in heaven, Charles."
"Ay, but Mary, what will you do?"
"I?" and she laughed the merriest little laugh ever you heard. "Little
me? Why, go for a governess, to be sure. Charles, they shall love me so
that this life shall be a paradise. I will go into a family where there
are two beautiful girls; and, when I am old and withered, there shall be
two nurseries in which I shall be often welcome, where the children
shall come babbling to my knee, the darlings, and they shall tell me how
they love me, almost as well as their mother. There is my future. Would
you change it?"
Charles was leaning against the oak banister; and, when he saw her there
before him, when he saw that valiant, true-hearted face, in the light
which streamed from the old window above, he was rebuked, and bent down
his head on the rail. The Dean's letter of that morning had done
something; but the sight of that brave little woman, so fearless with
all the world before her, did more. She weak, friendless, moneyless, and
so courageous! He with the strong arm, so cowardly! It taught him a
lesson indeed, a lesson he never forgot. But oh! for that terrible
word--too late!
Ah! too late! What word is so terrible as that? You will see what I mean
soon. That is the cry which one writer puts in the mouths of the lost
spirits in hell. God's mercy is infinite, and it is yet a question
whether it were better for Charles to have fallen into the groove of
ordinary life, or to have gone through those humiliating scenes through
which we must follow him.
"Charley dear," said Mary, laying her hand on his shoulder, "it is not
about myself I am thinking; it is about you. What are you going to do
when he has gone? are you going into the Church?"
"Oh, no!" said Charles, "I couldn't bear the idea of that."
"Then why are you at Oxford?"
"To get an education, I suppose."
"But what use will a university education be to you, Charles! Have you
no plans?"
"I give you my word, my dear Mary, that I am as much in the dark about
the future as a five days old puppy."
"Has he made any provision for you?"
"Oh, yes! I am to have six thousand."
"Do you know that the estate is involved, Charles?"
"No."
"I believe it is. There has been a great deal of state kept up here, and
I believe it is the case."
"Cuthbert would soon bring that round."
"I tremble to think of the future, Charles. Are your debts at Oxford
heavy?"
"Pretty well. Five hundred would clear me."
"Don't get any more in debt, that's a dear."
"No, Mary dear, I won't. I don't care for the future. I shall have £180
a year. That will be enough for William and me. Then I shall go to the
bar, and make a deuce of a lot of money, and marry Adelaide. Then you
will come to live with us, and we shall have such jolly times of
it.--Take that, you villain!"
This last elegant apostrophe was addressed to William (who at that
moment had come in by the side door), and was accompanied by the
dexterous delivery of the Liddell and Scott, in the manner of a cricket
ball. Our friend William stood to catch it in a style worthy of Box,
with his knees a yard apart, and one palm over the other; but as luck
would have it, he missed it, and it alighted full on the shins of Father
Mackworth, who had selected that time for coming out of the library; and
so it lay sillily open at [Greek: lam, gem.] at his feet.
Mackworth really thought that it was intentional, and was furious. He
went back into the library; and Charles, seeing what must come, followed
him, while Mary fled upstairs. There was no one in the room but Cuthbert
and Father Tiernay.
"I will be protected from insult in this house," began Mackworth; "twice
to-day I have been insulted by Mr. Charles Ravenshoe, and I demand
protection."
"What have you been doing, Charley?" said Cuthbert. "I thought you two
had given up quarrelling. You will wear my life out. Sometimes, what
with one thing and another, I wish I were dead. Oh! if the great problem
were solved! Surely my brother may avoid brawling with a priest, a man
sacred by his office, though of another faith. Surely my brother has
taste enough to see the propriety of that."
"Your brother has no taste or sense, sir," said Father Mackworth. "He
has no decency. He has no gentlemanly feeling. Within ten minutes he has
dropped a book downstairs, and lamented, to my face, that it hadn't
fallen on my head; and just now he has thrown the same book at me, and
hit me with it."
"I thank God, Charles," said poor weary Cuthbert, "that our father is
spared this. It would kill him. Brother, brother, why do you vex me like
this? I have always stood on your side, Charley. Don't let me be killed
with these ceaseless brawls."
"They will soon cease, sir," said Father Mackworth; "I leave this house
to-morrow."
"Cuthbert, hear me now. I never intended to insult him."
"Why did you throw your book at him, Charley? It is not decorous. You
must know when you wound him you wound me. And I have fought such
battles for you, Charley."
"Cuthbert! brother! do hear me. And let him hear me. And let Father
Tiernay hear me. Cuthbert, you know I love you. Father Tiernay, you are
a good and honest man; hear what I have to say. You, Mackworth, you are
a scoundrel. You are a double-dyed villain. What were you doing with
that girl in the wood, the day you hunted the black hare a month ago?
Cuthbert, tell me, like an honest gentleman, did you ever walk in the
wood with Ellen?"
"I?" said Cuthbert, scared; "I never walked with Ellen there. I have
walked with Mary there, brother. Why should I not?"
"There, look at the lie that this man has put into her mouth. She told
me that he had found you and her walking together there."
"I am not answerable for any young woman's lies," said Father
Mackworth. "I decline to continue this discussion. It is humiliating. As
for you, you poor little moth," he said, turning to Charles, "when the
time comes, I will crush you with my thumb against the wall. My liking
for your father prevents my doing my duty as yet. In that I err. Wait."
Charles had been in a passion before this; but, seeing danger, and real
danger, abroad, he got cool, and said--
"Wait."
And they both waited, and we shall see who waited the longest.
"I have done it now, Mary dear," said Charles, returning upstairs with
the unlucky lexicon. "It is all over now."
"Has there been a scene?"
"A terrible scene. I swore at him, and called him a villain."
"Why did you do that, Charles? Why are you so violent? You are not
yourself, Charles, when you give way to your temper like that."
"Well, I'll tell you, my robin. He is a villain."
"I don't think so, Charles. I believe he is a high-minded man."
"I know he is not, birdie. At least, I believe he is not."
"I believe him to be so, Charles."
"I know him to be otherwise; at least, I think so."
"Are you doing him justice, Charley dear? Are you sure you are doing him
justice?"
"I think so."
"Why?"
"I cannot tell you, Mary. When the end of all things comes, and you and
I are thrown abroad like two corks on the great sea, you will know. But
I cannot tell you."
"I believe, dear, that you are so honest that you would not do injustice
even to him. But, oh! be sure that you are right. Hush! Change the
subject. What were you going to read when that unlucky book fell
downstairs?"
"Demosthenes."
"Let me come in and sit with you, Charley dear, and look out the words;
you don't know how clever I am. Is it the 'De Coronâ'?"
Charles took her hand and kissed it; and so they two poor fools went on
with their Demosthenes.