The old lady dropped her work, the barmaid turned round with a
start and little ejaculation, and the foreman stared with all his
eyes for a moment, and then, jumping up, exclaimed--
"Bless us, if it isn't Muster Drysdale and Muster Brown, of
Ambrose's. Why what's the matter, sir? Muster Brown, you be all
covered wi' blood, sir."
"Oh dear me! poor young gentlemen!" cried the hostess;--"Here,
Patty, run and tell Dick to go for the doctor, and get the best
room--"
"No, please don't; it's nothing at all," interrupted Tom,
laughing;--"a basin of cold water and a towel, if you please,
Miss Patty, and I shall be quite presentable in a minute. I'm
very sorry to have frightened you all."
Drysdale joined in the assurances that it was nothing but a
little of his friend's "claret," which he would be all the better
for losing, and watched with an envious eye the interest depicted
in Patty's pretty face, as she hurried in with a basin of fresh
pumped water, and held the towel. Tom bathed his face, and very
soon was as respectable a member of society as usual, save for a
slight swelling on one side of his nose.
Drysdale meantime--seated on the table--had been explaining the
circumstances to the landlady and the foreman. "And now, ma'am,"
said he as Tom joined them, and seated himself on a vacant chair,
"I'm sure you must draw famous ale."
"Indeed, sir, I think Dick--that's my ostler, sir--is as good a
brewer as is in the town. We always brew at home, sir, and I hope
always shall."
"Quite right, ma'am, quite right," said Drysdale; "and I don't
think we can do better than follow Jem here. Let us have a jug of
the same ale as he is drinking. And you'll take a glass with us,
Jem? or will you have spirits?"
Jem was for another glass of ale, and bore witness to its being
the best in Oxford, and Patty drew the ale, and supplied two more
long glasses. Drysdale, with apologies, produced his cigar case;
and Jem, under the influence of the ale and a first-rate Havannah
(for which he deserted his pipe, though he did not enjoy it half
as much), volunteered to go and rouse the yard and conduct them
safely back to college. This offer was of course, politely
declined and then, Jem's hour for bed having come, he being a
methodical man, as became his position, departed, and left our
two young friends in sole possession of the bar. Nothing could
have suited the two young gentlemen better, and they set to work
to make themselves agreeable. They listened with lively interest
to the landlady's statement of the difficulties of a widow woman
in a house like hers, and to her praises of her factotum Dick and
her niece Patty. They applauded her resolution of not bringing up
her two boys in the publican line, though they could offer no
very available answer her appeals for advice as to what trade
they should be put to; all trades were so full, and things were
not as they ought to be. The one thing, apparently, which was wanting
to the happiness of Drysdale at Oxford, was the discovery of such
beer as he had at last found at "The Choughs."
Dick was to come up to St. Ambrose's the first thing in the
morning and carry off his barrel, which would never contain in
future any other liquid. At last that worthy appeared in the bar
to know when he was to shut up, and was sent out by his mistress
to see that the street was clear, for which service he received a
shilling, though his offer of escort was declined. And so, after
paying in a splendid manner for their entertainment, they found
themselves in the street, and set off for college, agreeing on
the way that "The Choughs" was a great find, the old lady was the
best old soul in the world, and Patty the prettiest girl in
Oxford. They found the streets quiet, and walking quickly along
them, knocked at the college gates at half-past eleven. The stout
porter received them with a long face.
"Senior proctor's sent down here an hour back, gentlemen, to find
whether you was in college."
"You don't mean that, porter? How kind of him! What did you say?"
"Said I didn't know, sir; but the marshal said, if you come in
after, that you was to go to the senior proctor's at half-past
nine to-morrow."
"Send my compliments to the senior proctor," said Drysdale, "and
say I have a very particular engagement to morrow morning, which
will prevent my having the pleasure of calling on him."
"Very good, sir," said the porter, giving a little dry chuckle,
and tapping the keys against his leg; "only perhaps you wouldn't
mind writing him a note, sir, as he is rather a particular
gentleman."
"Didn't he send after anyone else?" said Tom.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Jervis, sir."
"Well, and what about him?"
"Oh, sir, Mr. Jervis! an old hand, sir. He'd been in gates long
time, sir, when the marshal came."
"The sly old beggar!" said Drysdale, "good night, porter; mind
you send my message to the proctor. If he is set on seeing me
to-morrow, you can say that he will find a broiled chicken and a
hand at picquet in my rooms, if he likes to drop in to lunch."
The porter looked after them for a moment, and then retired to
his deep old chair in the lodge, pulled his night cap over his
ears, put up his feet before the fire on a high stool, and folded
his hands on his lap. "The most impidentest thing on the face of
the earth is it gen'l'man-commoner in his first year,"
soliloquized the little man. "'Twould ha' done that one a sight
of good, now, if he'd got a good hiding in the street to-night.
But he's better than most on 'em, too," he went on; "uncommon
free with his tongue, but just as free with his arf-sovereigns.
Well, I'm not going to peach if the proctor don't send again in
the morning. That sort's good for the college; makes things
brisk; has his _wine_ from town, and don't keep no keys. I
wonder, now, if my Peter's been out a fighting? He's pretty nigh
as hard to manage, is that boy, as if he was at college hisself."
And so, muttering over his domestic and professional grievances,
the small janitor composed himself to a nap. I may add,
parenthetically, that his hopeful Peter, a precocious youth of
seventeen, scout's boy on No. 3 staircase of St. Ambrose's
College, was represented in the boot cleaning and errand line by
a substitute for some days; and when he returned to duty was
minus a front tooth.
"What fools we were not to stick to the Captain. I wonder what we
shall get," said Tom, who was troubled in his mind at the
proctor's message, and not gifted naturally with the recklessness
and contempt of authority which in Drysdale's case approached the
sublime.
"Who cares? I'll be bound, now, the old fox came straight home to
earth. Let's go and knock him up."
Tom assented, for he was anxious to consult Jervis as to his
proceedings in the morning; so they soon found themselves
drumming at his oak, which was opened shortly by "the stroke" in
an old boating-jacket. They followed him in. At one end of his
table stood his tea-service and the remains of his commons, which
the scout had not cleared away; at the other, open books,
note-books, and maps showed that the Captain read, as he rowed,
"hard all."
"Well, are you two only just in?"
"Only just, my Captain," answered Drysdale.
"Have you been well thrashed, then? You don't look much damaged?"
"We are innocent of fight since your sudden departure--flight,
shall I call it?--my Captain."
"Where have you been?"
"Where! why in the paragon of all pot houses; snug little bar
with red curtains; stout old benevolent female in spectacles;
barmaid an houri; and for malt the most touching tap in Oxford,
wasn't it, Brown?"
"Yes, the beer was undeniable," said Tom.
"Well, and you dawdled there till now?" said Jervis.
"Even so. What with mobs that wouldn't fight fair, the captains
who would run away, and the proctors marshals who would
interfere, we were 'perfectly disgusted with the whole
proceedings,' as the Scotchman said when he was sentenced to be
hanged."
"Well! Heaven, they say, protects children, sailors, and drunken
men; and whatever answer to Heaven in the academical system
protects freshmen," remarked Jervis.
"Not us, at any rate," said Tom, "for we are to go to the proctor
to-morrow morning."
"What, did he catch you in your famous public?"
"No; the marshal came round to the porter's lodge, asked if we
were in, and left word that, if we were not, we were to go to him
in the morning. The porter told us just now as we came in."
"Pshaw," said the Captain, with disgust; "now you'll be gated
probably, and the whole crew will be thrown out of gear. Why
couldn't you have come home when I did?"
"We do not propose to attend the levee of that excellent person
in office to-morrow morning," said Drysdale. "He will forget all
about it. Old Copas won't say a word--catch him. He gets too much
out of me for that."
"Well, you'll see; I'll back the proctor's memory."
"But, Captain, what are you going to stand?"
"Stand! nothing, unless you like a cup of cold tea. You'll get no
wine or spirits here at this time of night, and the buttery is
shut. Besides you've had quite as much beer as good for you at
your paragon public."
"Come, now, Captain, just two glasses of sherry, and I'll promise
to go to bed."
"Not a thimbleful."
"You old tyrant!" said Drysdale, hopping off his perch on the
elbow of the sofa. "Come along, Brown, let's go and draw for some
supper, and a hand at Van John. There's sure to be something
going up my staircase; or, at any rate, there's a cool bottle of
claret in my rooms."
"Stop and have a talk, Brown," said the Captain, and prevailed
against Drysdale, who, after another attempt to draw Tom off,
departed on his quest for drink and cards.
"He'll never do for the boat, I'm afraid," said the Captain;
"with his rascally late hours, and drinking and eating all sorts
of trash. It's a pity, too for he's a pretty oar for his weight."
"He is such uncommon good company, too," said Tom.
"Yes; but I'll tell you what. He's just a leetle too good company
for you and me, or any fellows who mean to take a degree. Let's
see, this is only his third term? I'll give him, perhaps, two
more to make the place too hot to hold him. Take my word for it,
he'll never get to his little-go."
"It will be a great pity, then," said Tom.
"So it will. But after all, you see, what does it matter to him?
He gets rusticated; takes his name off with a flourish of
trumpets--what then? He falls back on 5,000L a year in land, and
a good accumulation in consols, runs abroad or lives in town for
a year. Takes the hounds when he comes of age, or is singled out
by some discerning constituency, and sent to make laws for his
country, having spent the whole of his life hitherto in breaking
all the laws he ever came under. You and I, perhaps, go fooling
about with him, and get rusticated. We make our friends
miserable. We can't take our names off, but have to come cringing
back at the end of our year, marked men. Keep our tails between
our legs for the rest of the time. Lose a year at our
professions, and most likely have the slip casting up against us
in one way or another for the next twenty years. It's like the
old story of the giant and the dwarf, or like fighting a sweep,
or any other one-sided business."
"But I'd sooner have to fight my own way in the world after all;
wouldn't you?" said Tom.
"H-m-m!" said the Captain, throwing himself back in the chair,
and smiling; "can't answer off hand. I'm a third year man, and
begin to see the other side rather clearer than I did when I was
a freshman like you. Three years at Oxford, my boy, will teach
you something of what rank and money count for, if they teach you
nothing else."
"Why, here's the Captain singing the same song as Hardy," thought
Tom.
"So you two have to go to the proctor to-morrow?"
"Yes."
"Shall you go? Drysdale won't."
"Of course I shall. It seems to me childish not to go; as if I
were back in the lower school again. To tell you the truth, the
being sent for isn't pleasant; but the other I couldn't stand."
"Well, I don't feel anything of that sort. But I think you're
right on the whole. The chances are that he'll remember your
name, and send for you again if you don't go; and then you'll be
worse off."
"You don't think he'll rusticate us, or anything of that sort?"
said Tom, who had felt horrible twinges at the Captain's picture
of the effects of rustication on ordinary mortals.
"No; not unless he's in a very bad humour. I was caught three
times in one night in my freshman's term, and only got an
imposition."
"Then I don't care," said Tom. "But it's a bore to have been
caught in so seedy an affair; if it had been a real good row, one
wouldn't have minded so much."
"Why, what did you expect? It was neither better nor worse than
the common run of such things."
"Well, but three parts of the crowd were boys."
"So they are always--or nine times out of ten at any rate."
"But there was no real fighting; at least, I only know I got
none."
"There isn't any real fighting, as you call it, nine times out of
ten."
"What is there, then?"
"Why, something of this sort. Five shopboys, or scouts' boys,
full of sauciness, loitering at an out-of-the-way street corner.
Enter two freshmen, full of dignity and bad wine. Explosion of
inflammable material. Freshmen mobbed into High-street or
Broad-street, where the tables are turned by a gathering of many
more freshmen, and the mob of town boys quietly subsides, puts
its hands in its pockets, and ceases to shout 'Town, town!' The
triumphant freshmen march up and down for perhaps half an hour,
shouting 'Gown, gown!' and looking furious, but not half sorry
that the mob vanishes like mist at their approach. Then come the
proctors, who hunt down, and break up the gown in some half-hour
or hour. The 'town' again marches about in the ascendant, and
mobs the scattered freshmen, wherever they can be caught in very
small numbers."
"But with all your chaff about freshmen, Captain, you were in it
yourself to-night; come now."
"Of course, I had to look after you two boys."
"But you didn't know we were in when you came up?"
"I was sure to find some of you. Besides, I'll admit one don't
like to go in while there's any chance of a real row as you call
it, and so gets proctorized in one's old age for one's
patriotism."
"Were you ever in a real row?" said Tom.
"Yes, once, about a year ago. The fighting numbers were about
equal, and the town all grown men, labourers and mechanics. It
was desperate hard work, none of your shouting and promenading.
That Hardy, one of our Bible clerks, fought like a Paladin; I
know I shifted a fellow in corduroys on to him, whom I had found
an uncommon tough customer, and never felt better pleased in my
life than when I saw the light glance on his hobnails as he went
over into the gutter two minutes afterwards. It lasted, perhaps,
ten minutes, and both sides were very glad to draw off."
"But, of course, you licked them?"
"We said we did."
"Well, I believe that a gentleman will always lick in a fair
fight."
"Of course you do, it's the orthodox belief."
"But don't you?"
"Yes; if he is as big and strong, and knows how to fight as well
as the other. The odds are that he cares a little more for giving
in, and that will pull him through."
"That isn't saying much, though."
"No, but it's quite as much as is true. I'll tell you what it is,
I think just this, that we are generally better in the fighting
way than shopkeepers, clerks, flunkies, and all fellows who don't
work hard with their bodies all day. But the moment you come to
the real hard-fisted fellow; used to nine or ten hours' work a
day, he's a cruel hard customer. Take seventy or eighty of them
at haphazard, the first you meet, and turn them into St. Ambrose
any morning--by night I take it they would be lords of this
venerable establishment if we had to fight for the possession;
except, perhaps, for that Hardy--he's one of a thousand, and was
born for a fighting man; perhaps he might pull us through."
"Why don't you try him in the boat?"
"Miller manages all that. I spoke to him about it after that row,
but he said that Hardy had refused to subscribe to the club, said
he couldn't afford it, or something of the sort. I don't see why
that need matter, myself, but I suppose, as we have rules, we
ought to stick to them."
"It's a great pity though. I know Hardy well, and you can't think
what a fine fellow he is."
"I'm sure of that. I tried to know him, and we don't get on badly
as speaking acquaintance. But he seems a queer, solitary bird."
Twelve o'clock struck; so Tom wished the Captain good night and
departed, meditating much on what he had heard and seen. The
vision of terrible single combats, in which the descendant of a
hundred earls polishes off the huge representative of the masses
in the most finished style, without a scratch on his own
aristocratic features, had faded from his mind.
He went to bed that night, fairly sickened with his experience of
a town and gown row, and with a nasty taste in his mouth. But he
felt much pleased at having drawn out the Captain so completely.
For "the stroke" was in general a man of marvellous few words,
having many better uses than talking to put his breath to.
Next morning he attended at the proctor's rooms at the appointed
time, not without some feeling of shame at having to do so;
which, however, wore off when he found some dozen men of other
colleges waiting about on the same errand as himself. In his turn
he was ushered in, and as he stood by the door, had time to look
the great man over as he sat making a note of the case he had
just disposed of. The inspection was reassuring. The proctor was
a gentlemanly, straight-forward looking man of about thirty, not
at all donnish, and his address answered to his appearance.
"Mr. Brown, of St. Ambrose's, I think," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"I sent you to your college yesterday evening; did you go
straight home?"
"No, sir."
"How was that, Mr. Brown?"
Tom made no answer, and the proctor looked at him steadily for a
few seconds, and then repeated.
"How was that?"
"Well, sir," said Tom, "I don't mean to say I was going straight
to college, but I should have been in long before you sent, only
I fell in with the mob again, and then there was a cry that you
were coming. And so-" He paused.
"Well," said the proctor, with a grim sort of curl about the
corners of his mouth.
"Why, I ran away, and turned into the first place which was open,
and stopped till the streets were quiet."
"A public house, I suppose."
"Yes, sir; 'The Choughs.'"
The proctor considered a minute, and again scrutinized Tom's look
and manner, which certainly were straightforward, and without any
tinge of cringing or insolence.
"How long have you been up?"
"This is my second term, sir."
"You have never been sent to me before, I think?"
"Never, sir."
"Well, I can't overlook this, as you yourself confess to a direct
act of disobedience. You must write me out 200 lines of Virgil.
And now, Mr. Brown, let me advise you to keep out of disreputable
street quarrels in future. Good morning."
Tom hurried away, wondering what it would feel like to be writing
out Virgil again as a punishment at his time of life, but glad
above measure that the proctor had asked him no questions about
his companion. The hero was of course, mightily tickled at the
result, and seized the occasion to lecture Tom on his future
conduct, holding himself up as a living example of the benefits
which were sure to accrue to a man who never did anything he was
told to do. The soundness of his reasoning, however, was somewhat
shaken by the dean, who, on the same afternoon, managed to catch
him in quad; and, carrying him off, discoursed with him
concerning his various and systematic breaches of discipline,
pointed out to him that he had already made such good use of his
time that if he were to be discommonsed for three more days he
would lose his term; and then took off his cross, gave him a book
of Virgil to write out and gated him for a fortnight after hall.
Drysdale sent out his scout to order his punishment as he might
have ordered a waistcoat, presented old Copas with a
half-sovereign, and then dismissed punishment and gating from his
mind. He cultivated with great success the science of mental
gymnastics, or throwing everything the least unpleasant off his
mind at once. And no doubt it is a science worthy of all
cultivation, if one desires to lead a comfortable life. It gets
harder, however, as the years roll over us, to attain to any
satisfactory proficiency in it; so it should be mastered as early
in life as may be.
The town and gown row was the talk of the college for the next
week. Tom, of course, talked much about it, like his neighbors,
and confided to one and another the Captain's heresies. They were
all incredulous; for no one had ever heard him talk as much in a
term as Tom reported him to have done on this one evening.
So it was resolved that he should be taken to task on the subject
on the first opportunity; and, as nobody was afraid of him, there
was no difficulty in finding a man to bell the cat. Accordingly,
at the next wine of the boating set, the Captain had scarcely
entered when he was assailed by the host with--
"Jervis, Brown says you don't believe a gentleman can lick a cad,
unless he is the biggest and strongest of the two."
The Captain, who hated coming out with his beliefs, shrugged his
shoulders, sipped his wine, and tried to turn the subject. But,
seeing that they were all bent on drawing him out, he was not the
man to run from his guns; and so he said quietly:
"No more I do."
Notwithstanding the reverence in which he was held, this saying
could not be allowed to pass, and a dozen voices were instantly
raised, and a dozen authentic stories told to confute him. He
listened patiently, and then, seeing he was in for it, said:
"Never mind fighting. Try something else; cricket, for instance.
The players generally beat the gentlemen, don't they?"
"Yes; but they are professionals."
"Well, and we don't often get a university crew which can beat
the watermen?"
"Professionals again."
"I believe the markers are the best tennis-players, ain't they?"
persevered the Captain; "and I generally find keepers and
huntsmen shooting and riding better than their master's, don't
you?"
"But that's not fair. All the cases you put are those of men who
have nothing else to do, who live by the things gentlemen only
take up for pleasure."
"I only say that the cads, as you call them, manage, somehow or
another, to do them best," said the Captain.
"How about the army and navy? The officers always lead."
"Well, there they're all professionals, at any rate," said the
Captain. "I admit that the officers lead; but the men follow
pretty close. And in a forlorn hope there are fifty men to one
officer, after all."
"But they must be led. The men will never go without an officer
to lead."
"It's the officers' business to lead, I know; and they do it. But
you won't find the best judges talking as if the men wanted much
leading. Read Napier: the finest story in his book is of the
sergeant who gave his life for his boy officer's--your namesake,
Brown--at the Coa."
"Well, I never thought to hear you crying down gentlemen."
"I'm not crying down gentlemen," said the Captain. "I only say
that a gentleman's flesh and blood, and brains, are just the
same, and no better than another man's. He has all the chances on
his side in the way of training, and pretty near all the prizes;
so it would be hard if he didn't do most things better than poor
men. But give them the chance of training, and they will tread on
his heels soon enough. That's all I say."
That was all, certainly, that the Captain said, and then relapsed
into his usual good-tempered monosyllabic state; from which all
the eager talk of the men, who took up the cudgels naturally
enough for their own class, and talked themselves before the wine
broke up into a renewed consciousness of their natural
superiority, failed again to rouse him.
This was, in fact, the Captain's weak point, if he had one. He
had strong beliefs himself; one of the strongest of which was,
that nobody could be taught anything except by his own
experience; so he never, or very rarely, exercised his own
personal influence, but just quietly went on his own way, and let
other men go theirs. Another of his beliefs was, that there was
no man or thing in the world too bad to be tolerated; faithfully
acting up to which belief, the Captain himself tolerated persons
and things intolerable.
Bearing which facts in mind, the reader will easily guess the
result of the application which the crew duly made to him the day
after Miller's back was turned. He simply said that the training
they proposed would not be enough, and that he himself should
take all who chose to go down, to Abingdon twice a week. From
that time there were many defaulters; and the spirit of Diogenes
groaned within him, as day after day the crew had to be filled up
from the torpid or by watermen. Drysdale would ride down to
Sandford, meeting the boat on its way up, and then take his place
for the pull up to Oxford, while his groom rode his horse up to
Folly bridge to meet him. There he would mount again and ride off
to Bullingdon, or to the Isis, or Quentin, or other social
meeting equally inimical to good training. Blake often absented
himself three days in a week, and other men once or twice.
From considering which facts, Tom came to understand the
difference between his two heroes; their strong likeness in many
points he had seen from the first. They were alike in
truthfulness, bravery, bodily strength, and in most of their
opinions. But Jervis worried himself about nothing, and let all
men and things alone, in the belief that the world was not going
so very wrong, or would right itself somehow without him. Hardy,
on the other hand, was consuming his heart over everything that
seemed to him to be going wrong in himself and round about
him--in the college, in Oxford, in England, in the ends of the
earth, and never letting slip a chance of trying to set right,
here a thread, and there a thread. A self-questioning, much
enduring man; a slayer of dragons himself, and one with whom you
could not live much without getting uncomfortably aware of the
dragons which you also had to slay.
What wonder that, apart altogether from the difference in their
social position, the one man was ever becoming more and more
popular, while the other was left more and more to himself. There
are few of us at Oxford, or elsewhere, who do not like to see a
man living a brave and righteous life, so long as he keeps clear
of us; and still fewer who _do_ like to be in constant contact
with one who, not content with so living himself, is always
coming across them, and laying bare to them their own
faint-heartedness, and sloth, and meanness. The latter, no doubt,
inspires the deeper feeling, and lays hold with a firmer grip of
the men he does lay hold of, but they are few. For men can't
always keep up to high pressure till they have found firm ground
to build upon, altogether outside of themselves; and it is hard
to be thankful and fair to those who are showing us time after
time that our foothold is nothing but shifting sand.
The contrast between Jervis and Hardy now began to force itself
daily more and more on our hero's attention.
From the night of the town and gown row, "The Choughs" became a
regular haunt of the crew, who were taken there under the
guidance of Tom and Drysdale the next day. Not content with
calling there on his way from the boats, there was seldom an
evening now that Tom did not manage to drop in and spend an hour
there.
When one is very much bent on doing a thing, it is generally easy
enough to find very good reasons, or excuses at any rate, for it;
and whenever any doubts crossed Tom's mind, he silenced them by
the reflection that the time he spent at "The Choughs" would
otherwise have been devoted to wine parties or billiards; and it
was not difficult to persuade himself that his present occupation
was the more wholesome of the two. He could not, however, feel
satisfied till he had mentioned his change in life to Hardy. This
he found a much more embarrassing matter than he fancied it would
be. But, after one or two false starts, he managed to get out
that he had found the best glass of ale in Oxford, at a quiet
little public on the way to the boats, kept by the most perfect
of widows, with a factotum of an ostler, who was a regular
character, and that he went there most evenings for an hour or
so. Wouldn't Hardy come some night?
No, Hardy couldn't spare the time.
Tom felt rather relieved at this answer; but, nevertheless went
on to urge the excellence of the ale as a further inducement.
"I don't believe it's half so good as our college beer, and I'll
be bound it's half as dear again."
"Only a penny a pint dearer," said Tom, "that won't ruin
you,--all the crew go there."
"If I were the Captain," said Hardy, "I wouldn't let you run
about drinking ale at night after wine parties. Does he know
about it?"
"Yes, and goes there himself often on the way from the boats,"
said Tom.
"And at night, too?" said Hardy.
"No," said Tom, "but I don't go there after drinking wine; I
haven't been to a wine these ten days, at least not for more than
five minutes."
"Well, sound ale is better than Oxford wine," said Hardy, "if you
must drink something;" and so the subject dropped.
And Tom went away satisfied that Hardy had not disapproved of his
new habit. It certainly occurred to him that he had omitted all
mention of the pretty barmaid in his enumeration of the
attractions of "The Choughs," but he set down to mere accident;
it was a slip which he would set right in their next talk. But
that talk never came, and the subject was not again mentioned
between them. In fact, to tell the truth, Tom's visits to his
friend's rooms in the evenings became shorter and less frequent
as "The Choughs" absorbed more and more of his time. He made
excuses to himself, that Hardy must be glad of more time, and
would be only bored if he kept dropping in every night, now that
the examination for degree was so near; that he was sure he drove
Grey away, who would be of much more use to Hardy just now.
These, and many other equally plausible reasons, suggested
themselves whenever his conscience smote him for his neglect, as
it did not seldom. But he always managed to satisfy himself
somehow, without admitting the real fact, that these visits were
no longer what they had been to him; that a gulf had sprung up,
and was widening day by day between him and the only friend who
would have had the courage and honesty to tell him the truth
about his new pursuit. Meantime Hardy was much pained at the
change in his friend, which _he_ saw quickly enough, and often
thought over it with a sigh as he sat at his solitary tea. He set
it down to his own dullness, to the number of new friends such a
sociable fellow as Tom was sure to make, and who, of course,
would take up more and more of his time; and, if he felt a little
jealousy every now and then, put it resolutely back, struggling
to think no evil, or if there were any, to lay it on his own
shoulders.
Cribbage is a most virtuous and respectable game, and yet
scarcely, one would think, possessing in itself sufficient
attractions to keep a young gentleman in his twentieth year tied
to the board, and going through the quaint calculation night
after night of "fifteen two, fifteen four, two for his nob, and
one for his heels." The old lady of "The Choughs" liked nothing
so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board
lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a
sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an
enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter behind his
companions for his quiet game; chatting pleasantly while the old
lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the
nightly stake of sixpence, which he seldom failed to lose, and
laughingly wrangling with her over the last points in the game
which decided the transfer of the two sixpences (duly posted in
the snuffer-tray beside the cribbage-board) into his waistcoat
pocket or her bag, until she would take off her spectacles to
wipe them, and sink back in her chair exhausted with the pleasing
excitement.
Such an odd taste as it seemed, too, a bystander might reasonably
have thought, when he might have been employing his time so much
more pleasantly in the very room. For, flitting in and out of the
bar during the game, and every now and then stooping over the old
lady's shoulder to examine her hand, and exchange knowing looks
with her, was the lithe little figure of Miss Patty, with her
oval race, and merry eyes, and bright brown hair, and jaunty
little cap, with fresh blue ribbons of the shade of the St.
Ambrose colors. However, there is no accounting for tastes, and
it is fortunate that some like apples and some onions. It may
possibly be, too, that Miss Patty did not feel herself neglected,
or did not care about attention. Perhaps she may not have been
altogether unconscious that every least motion and word of hers
was noticed, even when the game was at its keenest. At any rate,
it was clear enough that she and Tom were on the best terms,
though she always took her aunt's part vehemently in any little
dispute which arose, and sometimes even came to the rescue at the
end, and recaptured the vanished sixpences out of the wrongful
grasp which he generally laid on them the moment the old lady
held out her hand and pronounced the word "game." One knows that
size has little to do with strength, or one might have wondered
that her little hands should have been able to open his fingers
so surely one by one, though he seemed to do all he could to keep
them shut. But, after all, if he really thought he had a right to
the money, he had always time to put it in his pocket at once,
instead of keeping his clenched hand on the table, and arguing
about it till she had time to get up to the succour of her aunt.