"And now, suppose we see what's going on below."
It was the same stupid, disgusting spectacle, but to Tom it seemed less
repulsive than he had found it the night before. True, he at times felt
a return of the old feeling of shame; the blush would occasionally
suffuse his face; but such fits were rare, and he was able to carry them
off more easily with joke and laughter.
"Jack," said Gus in a whisper to Mortimer, as Tom, after accepting a
very broad hint to treat the party to spirits, was turning to go, "that
fellow will be a credit to you and me. Did you see how he smacked his
lips over the play, and yet all the while wanted to make us think he saw
that sort of thing every day of his life, eh? He's a promising chap,
eh, Jack?"
"Wathah," replied Jack, laughing.
Meanwhile Tom, glad enough to get out into the pure air, though in not
so desperate a case as the night before, shouldered his way among the
loitering company towards the door. He was just emerging into the
street, when the sound of voices arrested him.
"That's one of our men, isn't it?" said one.
"Why, so it is; I fancied he was anything but a festive blade. Yes; and
upon my word he's half seas over!"
Tom had no difficulty in discovering that these hurried words had
reference to him, and turning instinctively towards the voices, he found
himself face to face with two, reputedly, of the wildest of his fellow-
students.
Gladly would he have avoided them; gladly would he have shrunk back and
lost himself in the crowd, but it was too late now; he stood discovered.
"How are you?" cried one of the two, as he passed; "isn't your name
Drift?"
Tom stared as if he would have denied his name; but the next moment he
put on his lately acquired swagger, and said, "Yes."
"Ah! I thought so; one of the Saint Elizabeth men. Hullo! he's in a
hurry, though," added he, as Tom made a dive forward and strode rapidly
down the street.
It was but a step deeper. Well he knew that by to-morrow every one of
his fellow-students would know of him as a frequenter of that wretched
place. Well he knew that, as far as they were concerned, the mask of
shyness and reticence under which he had sheltered in their midst was
for ever pulled away. "One of us," indeed! So truly the very worst of
them might now speak and think of him. Oh, if he had but considered in
time; if he had but stemmed this flood at its source! But it was too
late now.
And he strode home reckless and hardened.
The next day, as he expected, every one seemed to know of his visits to
the music-hall. The two who had seen him accosted him with every show
of friendship and intelligence. He was appealed to in the presence of
nearly a dozen of his fellow-students as to the name of one of the low
songs there given; he was asked if he was going to be there to-night,
and he was invited to join this party and that in similar expeditions to
similar places. And to all these questions and greetings he was
constrained to reply in keeping with his assumed character of a gay
spark. How sick, how vile he felt; yet in that one day how hardened and
desperate he became!
It was not in Tom Drift to cry "I have sinned! I will return!" No,
once loose from his moorings, he let himself float down the stream,
watching the receding banks in mute despair, raising no shout for
succour, venturing no plunge for safety.
You, who by this time have given him up, disgusted at his weakness, his
vanity, his low instincts, his cowardliness--who say let him wallow in
the mire he has prepared for himself, who know so glibly what you would
have done, what you would have said, what you would have felt, remember
once more that Tom Drift was not such as you; and unfortunately did not
know you. He was not gifted with your heroic resolution or your all-
penetrating wisdom. He was an ordinary sinful being of flesh and blood,
relying only on his own poor strength; and therefore, reader, try to
realise all he went through before you fling your stone.
The toils were closing round him fast. His will had been the first to
suffer, his conscience next. Then with a rush had gone honour,
temperance, and purity; and now finally the flimsy rag, his good name,
had been torn from him, and he stood revealed a prodigal--and a
hypocrite.
Even yet, however, help might have been forthcoming.
"I say, you fellow," said one of his fellow-students this same day,
"I've never spoken to you before, and perhaps shall never do so again;
but _don't be a fool_!"
"What do you mean?" said Tom sharply.
"Only this, and I can't help it if you are angry, keep clear of these
new friends of yours, and still more, keep clear of the places they
visit. If you've been led in once, rather cut off your right hand than
be led in again, that's all!"
What spirit of infatuation possessed Tom Drift, that he did not spring
for very life at the proffered help, that he did not besiege this
friend, however blunt and outspoken, and compel his timely aid? Alas,
for his blindness and folly!
Scowling round at the speaker, he muttered an oath, and said, "What on
earth concern is it of yours who my friends are and where I go? Mind
your own business."
And so, thrusting rudely away the hand that might, by God's grace, have
saved him, he swept farther and farther out towards the dark waters.
One final and great hope was still reserved for him, and that was
Charlie's visit. But to Tom that prospect was becoming day by day mere
distasteful. As the days wore on, and Tom sunk deeper and deeper into
the snare prepared for him, the thought of a week in the society of one
so upright and pure as Charlie became positively odious. The effort to
conceal his new condition would be almost impossible, and yet to admit
it to him would be, he felt, to shatter for ever the only friendship he
really prized. He racked his brain for expedients and excuses to avert
the visit, but without avail. If he pleaded illness Charlie would be
the first to rush to his bedside; if he pleaded hard work Charlie would
insist on sharing it, or improving its few intervals of rest; if he
pleaded disinclination Charlie would devise a hundred other plans to
please him. In short, Charlie's visit was inevitable, and as he looked
forward to it he writhed in misgiving and anxiety.
His visits to the music-hall were meanwhile continuing, and his circle
of acquaintance at that evil haunt enlarging. He was duly installed as
one of the "fast set" at Saint Elizabeth's, and under its auspices had
already made his _debut_ at other scenes and places than that of his
first transgression. He was known by sight to a score of billiard-
markers, potmen, blacklegs, and lower characters still, and was on
nodding terms with fully half of them. He had lost considerably more
than he had gained at billiards, and was still further emptying his
purse at cards. Quick work for a few weeks! So quickly and fatally,
alas! Will the infection, once admitted, spread, especially in a
patient whose moral constitution has undergone so long a course of slow
preparation as Tom's had.
The day came at last. Tom had carefully hidden away his worst books and
his spirits; he had bathed his face half a dozen times, to remove the
traces of last night's intemperance he had gathered together from the
corners where they had for so long lain neglected the books and relics
of his Randlebury days, and restored them to their old places; he had
brightened me up, and he had taken pains to purify his room from the
smell of rank tobacco; and then he sauntered down to the station.
How my heart beat as the train came into the platform! _His_ head was
out of the window, and _his_ hand was waving to us a hundred yards off;
and the next minute he had burst from the carriage, and seized Tom by
the hands.
"How are you, old Tom? I thought we'd never get here; how glad I am to
set eyes on you! Isn't this a spree?" And not waiting for Tom's answer
he hauled his traps out of the carriage in a transport of delight.
Still the same jovial, honest, fine-hearted boy.
"Hi! here! some of you," he shouted to a porter, "look after these
things, will you, and get us a cab. I tell you what, Tom, you've got to
come up home with me first, and we can have dinner there; then I'll come
on to your den, and we can pack our knapsacks and sleep, and then start
by the five train to-morrow morning."
Thus he bustled, and thus he brought back the old times on poor Tom
Drift. Without the heart to speak, he helped his friend to collect his
luggage, and when they were fairly started in the cab he even smiled
feebly in reply to the boy's sallies.
"Tom, you rascal, didn't I tell you you weren't to knock yourself up,
eh? Why can't you do what you're told? Why, I declare you're as thin
as a hurdle, and as black under the eyes as if you had been fighting
with a collier. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Look at me; do
all I can I can't get up an interesting pallor like you, and I've
fretted enough over those conic sections (comic sections Jim always
calls them). Never mind! Wait till I get you down to the sea."
And so he rattled on, while Tom leaned back in his seat and winced at
every word.
When they reached Mr Newcome's of course there was a scene of eager
welcome on one side and boisterous glee on the other. Tom, as he looked
on, sighed, as well he might, and wished he could have been spared the
torture of this day.
Charlie tore himself away from his mother, to drag his friend into the
house.
"Look at this object!" he cried; "did you ever see such a caution to
students? If we do nothing else in Kent we shall scare the crows, eh,
Tom?"
"Charlie!" exclaimed his mother; "you have come home quite rude! I hope
you'll excuse him, Mr Drift."
Mr Drift said nothing, and looked and felt extremely miserable.
"He looks really ill, poor fellow!" said Mrs Newcome to her husband.
"I wonder they allow the students to overwork themselves in that way."
And then they sat down to dinner--a meal as distasteful to Tom as it was
joyful to Charlie and his parents.