Peter was at home for a day before returning to Oxford. Hamingburgh
seemed to have grown very small and quiet. He felt in coming back a loss
of energy. In London he had seemed at the heart of a hundred questions.
He had watched the London crowds with intimacy. They were very real. He
lost this reality in the quiet streets of Hamingburgh. Life ceased to
ask urgently for an explanation.
He noted on his way from the station that people were moving into
Miranda's empty house. But it hardly seemed to matter.
Peter enjoyed one happy evening with his mother, and left for Oxford.
But Oxford had disappeared. Where was the beautiful city--offering
illimitable knowledge, sure wisdom, lovely authority? Peter had come
into touch with life. He had craved to find order and beauty in the
pageant of London. Now, in the stones of Oxford, he saw only the frozen
ideas of a vanished age--serene accomplishment whose finality
exasperated him. He looked from his window across the shaven green of a
perfect lawn to the chapel tower. The hour chiming in quarters from a
dozen bells marked off yet another small distance between Oxford and the
living day. His disillusion of the previous term was now openly
confessed and examined.
Peter was not alone. Gamaliel drew to itself some excellent brain. It
was celebrated for young men prematurely wise--young men who had learned
everything at twenty-two, and never afterwards added to their store.
Peter became a leading character in the intellectual set. They jested in
good Greek, filling their heads with knowledge they affected to despise,
taking in vain the theories of their masters, merrily playing with their
grand-sires' bones of learning. They snorted with delight at the efforts
of their chief clerical instructor to evade the Rabelaisian Obscenities
of Aristophanes or a too curious inquiry into certain social habits of
old Greece. They reduced Hegel to half-sheets of paper, suggested
profanely various readings for Petronius, speculated without reverence
on the darker habits of mankind from Aristotle to the Junior Prior. But
in all this horseplay of minds young and keen was a strain of
contemptuous fatigue. Gamaliel, out of its clever youngsters, bred civil
servants, politicians, or university professors. Intellectual pedantry
waited for those whom Gamaliel intellectually satisfied. Intellectual
cynicism--the cynicism of a firm belief that nothing is important or
new--waited for those who played the game of scholarship with humour
enough to find it barren.
Peter, therefore, was not alone in his reaction against the formal
discipline of the College, but he was alone in the obstinate ardour of
his youth. He had just discovered that life was absorbing. Though he sat
far into many nights in scholarly gymnastics with his friends, he came
away to watch the grey light creeping into a world he keenly wanted to
understand. He jested only with his brain, driven to the game by
physical energy and friendly emulation. He was never really touched by
the cynicism and horse laughter of his set. He often left these meetings
in a sudden access of desolation.
Peter's directors began sadly to shake their heads. They knew the
symptoms--knew he was already marked for failure. The Warden gravely
reasoned with him.
"Mr. Paragon," he said, handing Peter his papers for the term, "these
are second class."
Peter was mortified. His intellectual comrades mocked, but they also
satisfied, their masters. Peter was of another fibre. He could do
nothing without his entire heart. Various readings in Horace no longer
fired him. The kick had gone out of his work. His brain was elsewhere.
He took the papers in silence. He could not understand his failure.
Hitherto satisfying the examiners had been for Peter a matter of course.
"You have neglected your reading?" the Warden suggested, as Peter turned
silently away.
"No, sir."
"Won't you take us a little more seriously?"
"I cannot be interested," Peter shot out impulsively.
"Is this wise?" the Warden gravely inquired. "We expect you to do well."
"I will try, sir."
Peter was sad, but not sullen.
"You owe it to the College," said the Warden, drily incisive. Then he
added: "Why must you go so quickly, Mr. Paragon? You are not yet ready
for things outside."
Peter was suddenly grateful. He was, at any rate, understood.
"I will try with my whole soul," he ardently exclaimed.
"Meanwhile," the Warden concluded with a smile, "notes on gobbets need
not be written in the manner of La Rochefoucauld. There isn't time."
Peter, passing into the quadrangle, met Dundoon. He was in riding
breeches. He lived in riding breeches, till they became for Peter a
symbol of well-born inanity. Moreover, he was freely indulging his
principal pleasure--namely, he was vigorously cracking a riding-whip,
making the walls ring with snap after snap.
"Hullo," he said as Peter passed within careful distance.
"Idiot," muttered Peter between his teeth.
"Freshly roasted by the Wuggins--What?"
"Dundoon, you're a damned nuisance. Put it away."
"It's most important, Peter Pagger. It's most devilish important.
M.F.H.--What?"
Dundoon cracked his whip rather more successfully than usual. The snap
tingled in Peter's brain. In a fit of temper he sprang at Dundoon, and
wrenched the whip from his hand.
Dundoon looked at Peter's gleaming eyes as though he had seen the devil.
"What's this? In the name of Hell what _is_ it?" he said at last.
"I'm sorry," said Peter with withering humility. "Here is your whip."
He handed it back to Dundoon, who took it cautiously. Peter moved away.
But Dundoon arrested him.
"Peter Pagger," he said thoughtfully, "do I understand that you've been
rude to me?"
"As you please."
"Because you'll be ragged, that's all. You'll be jolly well ragged."
The party of Dundoon was strolling up, and was invited to hear the news.
"Here, you fellows. Peter Pagger has been very rude to me. What shall we
do to him? Peter Pagger has been roasted by the Wuggins for his naughty
life in London. Third stocking from the right--What?"
Peter strode off boiling with anger.
Dundoon belonged to a set which derived principally from a famous
English school. It was a set traditionally opposed to the
intellectuals; indeed these two principal sets fed fat an ancient
grudge. College humour mainly consisted at this time in the invention of
scandalous histories by members of one set concerning members of the
other. Needless to say the Paggers far excelled the Dundoons in the pith
of their libels, so that the Dundoons had often to assert their
supremacy in other ways. Upon one cold winter night, for example, the
Paggers, one and all, retiring to rest had missed a necessary vessel.
Thick snow covered the garden quadrangle, of which the Dundoons had
built an immense mound upon the lawn. After three days a thaw set
vigorously in, and the Junior Prior, looking from his window in the
dawn, was shocked by an unutterable stack of College china mocking the
doubtful virginity of the snow. The enterprises of the Dundoons were not
subtle.
The Junior Prior was not at this time happy. Quite recently he had
himself been one of the Dundoons. He was a young professor of
mathematics; and, because he was also an astronomer, they called him
Peepy. He was brilliant on paper, but an admitted failure in dealing
with the men. His discipline was openly flouted.
Peter, who naturally did not know that the Junior Prior was an error of
judgment, confessed by the authorities, regarded him, unfairly to
Gamaliel, as typical of the place. He derided in him a wholly
ineffectual and pedantic person whose dignity at Gamaliel reduced life
to absurdity. Peter was barely civil to the Junior Prior. It was
characteristic of the Junior Prior that he tactlessly favoured the
Dundoons. They used his pet name, and paraded with him linked in
familiar conversation. Naturally, when his discipline fell upon men
outside the set he favoured, it was bitterly resented. It was
remembered, a fact unknown to the Fellows, that in the term before Peter
came to Gamaliel the Junior Prior had been pushed downstairs by a robust
man from the Colonies who, though he happened to be reading theology,
was old enough to be the father of the Junior Prior, and had, it was
believed, actually killed people somewhere in Mexico.
The incident between Peter and Dundoon naturally splashed rather rudely
into these College politics. Clearly it needed very little to raise a
scandal. One of the Dundoons talked with Peter in the boat that
afternoon, telling him that vengeance was intended, but Peter was
wearily contemptuous.
In the evening he sat peacefully at his window. To-day they had paddled
far, passing through the locks to lower reaches of the river. Peter was
tired and contemplative, his brain still rocking with the boat and
filled with desolate echoes of shouting over lonely water.
Big Tom was belling his hundred-and-one. The lawn was deserted and very
quiet. Peter could recover distantly the rhythm of the town band. He
remembered the night of his first introduction to the dons of
Gamaliel--the infinite promise that once had sounded in the Oxford
bells.
A riotous party broke into the far corner. Peter was not long in doubt
as to who they were. Dundoon was cracking his whip.
Peter sat still as they came irregularly towards him.
"Peter Pagger," said Dundoon, not quite certain of his syllables, "we
have come to rag you. Have you any objections?"
He stood below on the grass. He had been drinking and was very serious.
"None at all," said Peter indifferently. He looked down, as it were, on
a group of animals.
"He hasn't any objections," said Dundoon confidentially to his
supporters.
"Listen to me," he continued, addressing the open window. "This is most
important. You've been very rude to me. What are you going to do about
it?"
"I'm sitting here," said Peter.
He heard them blundering up the wooden staircase. He might have sported
a strong oak, locking them out until his friends had come together. But
it hardly seemed worth while.
He leaned upright by the open window, his hands in his pockets, as the
Dundoons playfully rearranged the furniture. The etiquette on an
occasion like this was simple. He must not make himself ridiculous by
taking too seriously the frolic of men not entirely sober. Neither must
he allow himself to be insulted. Peter looked carelessly on, very calm
but alert to decide when the joke had gone as far as the decorum of
Gamaliel allowed.
One of the Dundoons was arranging Peter's coal neatly upon the
mantelpiece. Another was turning his pictures to the wall. His
tablecloth and hearthrug were transposed. His wardrobe was assorted into
heaps upon the floor and labelled for a sale by auction.
Suddenly Peter saw that Dundoon was about to empty a water-jug into the
bed. Peter passed swiftly towards him.
"I don't think we'll do that," he said. "It would be nasty."
"You've been very rude to me," said Dundoon, dangerously tilting the
jug.
Peter grasped him firmly by the arm and took the jug away. He put it
back into the corner.
Dundoon looked at Peter for a moment in drunken meditation. Then he put
his hand on Peter's shoulder.
"Peter Pagger," he said, "this is most important. Sorry to
say--absolutely necessary to cleanse and purify unwholesome bed." And he
walked to the corner.
Peter followed him.
"Dundoon," he said sharply.
Dundoon turned and found Peter at his elbow. Peter shook his fist under
the nose of Dundoon.
"Pick up that water-jug and I'll punch your damned head."
"Here, you fellows," shouted Dundoon. "Come and hear what Peter Pagger
is saying. He's been very rude to me."
The Dundoons crowded into the little bedroom, and someone called: "Take
away his trousers!"
Peter stood back. There was an uproar and a movement towards him.
"Mind yourselves," he shouted. "I'm going to fight."
There was a knock at the bedroom door, and silence fell suddenly.
"Come in," called Peter, not without relief.
The Junior Prior stood in the doorway. He had heard an uproar in Peter's
rooms, and he did not immediately see the company.
"Mr. Paragon," he said with the dignity of a sergeant, "what's all this
noise?"
He had got as far as this when Dundoon suddenly put a fond arm around
his neck.
"It's all right, Peepy," he said. "Peter Pagger's been very rude to me."
The Junior Prior changed colour, and Peter enjoyed his confusion. The
Junior Prior's attempt at discipline collapsed. He had come to assert
his authority over a mere member of the college, but he had fallen among
friends.
"Don't you think this has gone far enough?" He almost pleaded with
Dundoon.
"Peter Pagger's been very rude to me."
"Yes. But I think you ought to come away."
"But, Peepy, this is most important."
One of the Dundoons, more alive to the position than the rest, hastily
pushed his leader from the room. Already the other men had discreetly
vanished.
"What are you doing?" Dundoon protested.
"Come out of it, you fool," whispered the man of tact. "Don't you see
you're making it awkward for Peepy?"
"Awkward for Peepy?" said Dundoon very audibly. "Why is it awkward for
Peepy?"
The Junior Prior went scarlet under Peter's dancing eyes.
"Your room seems to have suffered," he dimly smiled. "I must look to
Dundoon," and he dived hastily into the passage. Peter heard a sharp
scuffle. He saw, in his mind's eye, the embarrassed man of authority
forcing his tactless crony from sight and hearing. He flung up his hands
in glee.
The story did not lose in Peter's telling. Peter improved his
description as the days went by. "Awkward for Peepy," passed into the
language.
The Paggers, one and all, decided that it would be extremely awkward for
Peepy if, after collapsing before Dundoon, he should ever again actively
interfere with themselves.