"What business is it of yours where we talk?"
"Come on, Fisher," said the other, taking his arm; "let the man read if
he wants; I suppose that's the poor beggar who's come to the `trap.'"
"He's got a cool cheek of his own, whoever he is," retorted the
indignant Fisher.
George was too relieved to be rid of their clatter under his window to
trouble himself as to their sentiments towards himself, and he therefore
once again settled down to work.
But now a new interruption occurred.
There arose a sudden rush of feet outside his door, a laughing and a
cheering, in the midst of which he caught the following confused
utterances:
"George's has bumped Corpus!" cried a voice.
[See Note 1.]
"Hurrah!" yelled half a dozen voices.
"It was the finest bit of rowing ever you saw," continued the first
speaker. "Bailey put it on from the very first stroke, and was on the
top of them before the Point."
And then the three cheers and yells rose again.
"You can fancy how black and blue Corpus looked--it's the biggest sell
they've had for a long time."
Once more the shouts.
"And what do you think?" resumed the first speaker. "Old Bailey vows he
won't come to the supper to-night. Did ever you hear of such an old
bear?"
"He'll have to come," cried the rest; "let's waylay him here and carry
him off."
"All serene," said the leader; "he's sure to come here--let's hang about
on the stairs."
Oh, horrors! here were six noisy men going to establish themselves on
the stairs over poor George's head, and remain there until their victim
arrived, when, unless college traditions were utterly false, there would
certainly be a battle royal. It was impossible, with the cheering and
stamping and shouting and laughing, and scuffling overhead, to do a
stroke of work, and yet George did his best. He pulled his table into
the corner of the room farthest away from the noise, and, burying his
head in his hands, struggled desperately to abstract himself from the
disturbance. But as sure as he succeeded for a minute, a clamour louder
than ever would drive _every_ idea out of his head. It was vain to
attempt expostulation--what would these jubilant revellers care for a
poor new man like him!--and he had nowhere else to go to escape them
there was nothing for it but to be patient. In due time the victorious
and unsuspecting Bailey, accompanied by four of his friends, appeared on
the scene, and their approach was the immediate signal for action. With
a cheer and a howl the ambush sprang upon their victims; and, with equal
vehemence, these, having rapidly taken in the state of affairs, prepared
to defend themselves. Poor George might as well have been sitting under
Niagara. Step by step, the new-comers strove to force a passage up to
Bailey's rooms, and step by step the opposing force strove to repulse
them. The balustrades creaked, the ceiling of George's room quaked, and
the walls thundered with the weight of conflicting bodies. The
occupants of every room on the staircase turned out to see the fun, and
on hearing of Bailey's contumacy, joined with his persecutors in
refusing him the shelter of his own sanctuary. Bailey's party, on the
other hand, was joined by reinforcements from without, who stormed up
the stairs with the noise of an earthquake. The opposing forces soon
became so great that the press of battle raged even to the door of
George's study, which creaked and rattled as if every moment it were
about to yield and admit the whole tide of conflict.
For half an hour the tumult roared and the battle swayed, and neither
party gained nor yielded a foot.
Then suddenly from the confines of the battle rose and spread a cry of
"Cave canem!" on which, as if by magic, the action was suspended, and
retreating footsteps betokened a panic. A rally was sounded by Bailey's
foes, but too late; the hero of the day had taken advantage of the
momentary pause to dash past his persecutors and gain his study, and
once there no force could dislodge him. The vanquished ones stormed and
raged outside his door for another ten minutes, threatening all sorts of
vengeance; then with three mighty cheers they struck camp and retired,
leaving the staircase in peace.
Thus ended the famous battle of Bailey's Staircase, at the end of which
George, with sunken spirits but indomitable resolution, sat down again
to work.
For half an hour he made good progress, without let or hindrance, when--
ah, cruel fate!--a wretch calling himself a man, in a neighbouring
apartment, began to practise on the ophicleide! At the first note
George bounded from his seat as if he had been shot, and literally tore
his hair. This was worse than all that had gone before. To one of his
musical inspiration, the human voice divine in conversation was,
endurable, and the roar of battle might even be tolerable, but to hear a
creature attempt to play one of the "songs without words" on an
instrument he knew as little of as the music he was parodying, was
beyond all bearing! Then, if ever, did my wretched master dig his
fingers into his ears, and writhe and shiver and groan at each discord
produced by that inhuman performer. He retreated into the innermost
recess of his bedroom; he even hid his unhappy head beneath the clothes,
if haply he might escape the agony of this torture. But it was
hopeless. The shrieks and groans of that brutal ophicleide would have
penetrated the walls of the Tower of London.
It lasted, I should not like to say how long; and when it was over, the
recollection of its horrors was almost as bad as their endurance. When
George set himself again to work, it was with nerves unstrung and
unutterable forebodings, yet still unconquered.
"At any rate," said he to himself, with a sigh, "there can't be anything
worse than that--unless, indeed, he invites a friend like himself to
practise duets with him!"
Happily this climax was not reached, and for one evening the worst of
George Reader's persecutions had been suffered--but not the last.
By the time the last wail of the ophicleide had wriggled away into
silence it was getting late, and the college was meditating retirement
to rest. This operation was not got through, as may be imagined,
without a good deal of clamour and a good deal of scuffling on the
staircase, and a good deal of dialogue outside the window; but in due
time silence reigned, and George congratulated himself that he had a
quiet time at last before him.
Unlucky boast! Not an hour had passed, the lights in the windows round
the courtyard had vanished, the distant shouts had ceased, and the
footsteps on the pavement without had died away, when George was
startled by a sound that seemed like the boring of a hole under his
fireplace. The noise grew, and other similar noises rose in different
parts. What was it? Surely the gay students of Saint George's were not
about to effect an amateur burglary on the friendless owner of the
"Mouse-trap?"
Nearer and nearer came the sounds, and George's heart beat loud. He
closed his book and pushed his chair back from the table, ready to
defend himself, on an emergency, to the bitter end. Then, under the
hearth, there was a sound of scraping and grating, then a rushing noise,
and then George saw--two enormous rats!
Loud and long laughed my master to himself at the discovery. What cared
_he_ for rats? He pulled his chair back to the table, and buried
himself in his book for the next three hours, until his lamp began to
burn low, and the letters on the pages grew blurred and dim, and the
rats had scuffled back by the way they came, and my flagging hands
pointed to four o'clock.
Then George Reader, after kneeling in silent prayer, went to bed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. At the college races at Cambridge the boats start one behind
the other at fixed distances, and any boat overtaking and "bumping" the
one in front of it moves up a place nearer to the "Head of the River."