There was a silence of a few seconds after the Captain had
finished his story, all the men sitting with eyes fixed on him,
and not a little surprised at the results of their call. Drysdale
was the first to break the silence, which he did with a "By
George!" and a long respiration; but, as he did not seem prepared
with any further remark, Tom took up the running.
"What a strange story," he said; "and that really happened to
you, Captain Hardy?"
"To me sir, in the Mediterranean, more than forty years ago."
"The strangest thing about it is that the old Commodore should
have managed to get all the way to the ship, and then not have
known where his nephew was," said Blake.
"He only knew his nephew's berth, you see, sir," said the
Captain.
"But he might have beat about through the ship till he had found
him."
"You must remember that he was at his last breath, sir," said the
Captain; "you can't expect a man to have his head clear at such a
moment."
"Not a man, perhaps; but I should a ghost," said Blake.
"Time was everything to him," went on the Captain, without
regarding the interruption, "space nothing. But the strangest
part of it is that _I_ should have seen the figure at all. It's
true I had been thinking of the old uncle, because of the boy's
illness; but I can't suppose he was thinking of me, and, as I
say, he never recognized me. I have taken a great deal of
interest in such matters since that time, but I have never met
with just such a case as this."
"No, that is the puzzle. One can fancy his appearing to his
nephew well enough," said Tom.
"We can't account for these things, or for a good many other
things which ought to be quite as startling, only we see them
every day. But now I think it is time for us to be going, eh
Jack?" and the Captain and his son rose to go.
Tom saw that it would be no kindness to them to try to prolong
the sitting, and so he got up too, to accompany them to the
gates. This broke up the party. Before going, Drysdale, after
whispering to Tom, went up to Captain Hardy, and said,--
"I want to ask you to do me a favour, sir. Will you and your son
breakfast with me to-morrow?"
"We shall be very happy, sir," said the Captain.
"I think, father, you had better breakfast with me, quietly. We
are much obliged to Mr. Drysdale, but I can't give up a whole
morning. Besides, I have several things to talk to you about."
"Nonsense, Jack," blurted out the old sailor, "leave your books
alone for one morning. I'm come up here to enjoy myself, and see
your friends."
Hardy gave a slight shrug of his shoulder at the word friends,
and Drysdale, who saw it, looked a little confused. He had never
asked Hardy to his rooms before. The Captain saw that something
was the matter, and hastened in his own way to make all smooth
again.
"Never mind Jack, sir," he said, "he shall come. It's a great
treat to me to be with young men, especially when they are
friends of my boy."
"I hope you'll come as a personal favor to me," said Drysdale,
turning to Hardy. "Brown, you'll bring him, won't you?"
"Oh yes, I'm sure he'll come," said Tom.
"That's all right. Good night, then;" and Drysdale went off.
Hardy and Tom accompanied the Captain to the gate. During his
passage across the two quadrangles, the old gentleman was full of
the praises of the men and of protestations as to the improvement
in social manners and customs since his day, when there could
have been no such meeting, he declared, without blackguardism and
drunkenness, at least among young officers; but then they had
less to think of than Oxford men, no proper education. And so the
Captain was evidently traveling back into the great trireme
question when they reached the gate. As they could go no farther
with him, however, he had to carry away his solution of the
three-banks-of-oars difficulty in his own bosom to the "Mitre".
"Don't let us go in," said Tom, as the gate closed on the
Captain, and they turned back into the quadrangle, "let us take a
turn or two;" so they walked up and down the inner quad in the
starlight.
Just at first they were a good deal embarrassed and confused; but
before long, though not without putting considerable force on
himself, Tom got back into something like his old familiar way of
unbosoming himself to his re-found friend, and Hardy showed more
than his old anxiety to meet him half-way. His ready and
undisguised sympathy soon dispersed the remaining clouds which
were still hanging between them; and Tom found it almost a
pleasure, instead of a dreary task, as he had anticipated, to
make a full confession, and state the case clearly and strongly
against himself to one who claimed neither by word nor look the
least superiority over him, and never seemed to remember that he
himself had been ill-treated in the matter.
"He had such a chance of lecturing me, and didn't do it," thought
Tom afterwards, when he was considering why he felt so very
grateful to Hardy. "It was so cunning of him, too. If he had
begun lecturing, I should have begun to defend myself, and never
have felt half such a scamp as I did when I was telling it all
out to him in my own way."
The result of Hardy's management was that Tom made a clean breast
of it, telling everything down to his night at the ragged school;
and what an effect his chance-opening of the "Apology" had had on
him. Here for the first time Hardy came in with his usual dry,
keen voice. "You needn't have gone so far back as Plato for that
lesson."
"I don't understand," said Tom.
"Well, there's something about an indwelling spirit which guideth
every man, in St. Paul, isn't there?"
"Yes, a great deal," Tom answered, after a pause; "but it isn't
the same thing."
"Why not the same thing?"
"Oh, surely you must feel it. It would be almost blasphemy in us
to talk as St. Paul talked. It is much easier to face the notion,
or the fact, of a daemon or spirit such as Socrates felt to be in
him, than to face what St. Paul seems to be meaning."
"Yes, much easier. The only question is whether we will be
heathens or not."
"How do you mean?" said Tom.
"Why, a spirit was speaking to Socrates, and guiding him. He
obeyed the guidance, but knew not whence it came. A spirit is
striving with us too, and trying to guide us--we feel that just
as much as he did. Do we know what spirit it is? whence it comes?
Will we obey it? If we can't name it--know no more of it then he
knew about his daemon, of course, we are in no better position
than he--in fact, heathens."
Tom made no answer, and after a slight turn or two more, Hardy
said, "Let us go in;" and they went to his rooms. When the
candles were lighted, Tom saw the array of books on the table,
several of them open, and remembered how near the examinations
were.
"I see you want to work," he said. "Well, good-night. I know how
fellows like you hate being thanked--there, you needn't wince;
I'm not going to try it on. The best way to thank you, I know, is
to go straight for the future. I'll do that, please God, this
time at any rate. Now what ought I to do, Hardy?"
"Well, it's very hard to say. I've thought about it a great deal
this last few days--since I felt you coming round--but I can't
make up my mind. How do you feel yourself? What's your own
instinct about it?"
"Of course, I must break it all off at once, completely," said
Tom, mournfully, and half hoping that Hardy might not agree with
him.
"Of course," answered Hardy, "but how?"
"In the way that will pain her least. I would sooner lose my hand
or bite my tongue off than that she should feel lowered, or lose
any self-respect, you know," said Tom, looking helplessly at his
friend.
"Yes, that's all right--you must take all you can on your own
shoulders. It must leave a sting though for both of you, manage
how you will."
"But I can't bear to let her think I don't care for her--I
needn't do that--I can't do that."
"I don't know what to advise. However, I believe I was wrong in
thinking she cared for you so much. She will be hurt, of
course--she can't help being hurt--but it won't be so bad as I
used to think."
Tom made no answer; in spite of all his good resolutions, he was
a little piqued at this last speech. Hardy went on presently. "I
wish she were well out of Oxford. It's a bad town for a girl to
be living in, especially as a barmaid in a place which we haunt.
I don't know that she will take much harm now; but it's a very
trying thing for a girl of that sort to be thrown every day
amongst a dozen young men above her in rank, and not one in ten
of whom has any manliness about him."
"How do you mean--no manliness?"
"I mean that a girl in her position isn't safe with us. If we had
any manliness in us she would be--"
"You can't expect all men to be blocks of ice, or milksops," said
Tom, who was getting nettled.
"Don't think that I meant you," said Hardy; "indeed I didn't. But
surely, think a moment; is it a proof of manliness that the pure
and weak should fear you and shrink from you? Which is the
true--aye, and the brave--man, he who trembles before a woman or
he before whom a woman trembles?"
"Neither," said Tom; "but I see what you mean, and when you put
it that way it's clear enough."
"But you're wrong in saying 'neither' if you do see what I mean."
Tom was silent. "Can there be any true manliness without purity?"
went on Hardy. Tom drew a deep breath but said nothing. "And
where then can you point to a place where there is so little
manliness as here? It makes my blood boil to see what one must
see every day. There are a set of men up here, and have been ever
since I can remember the place, not one of whom can look at a
modest woman without making her shudder."
"There must always be some blackguards," said Tom.
"Yes; but unluckily the blackguards set the fashion, and give the
tone to public opinion. I'm sure both of us have seen enough to
know perfectly well that up here, amongst us undergraduates, men
who are deliberately and avowedly profligates, are rather admired
and courted,--are said to know the world, and all that,--while a
man who tries to lead a pure life, and makes no secret of it, is
openly sneered at by them, looked down on more or less by the
great mass of men, and, to use the word you used just now,
thought a milksop by almost all."
"I don't think it so bad as that," said Tom. "There are many men
who would respect him, though they might not be able to follow
him."
"Of course, I never meant that there are not many such, but they
don't set the fashion. I am sure I'm right. Let us try it by the
best test. Haven't you and I in our secret hearts this cursed
feeling, that the sort of man we are talking about is a milksop?"
After a moment's thought, Tom answered, "I am afraid I have, but
I really am thoroughly ashamed of it now, Hardy. But you haven't
it. If you had it you could never have spoken to me as you have."
"I beg your pardon. No man is more open than I to the bad
influences of any place he lives in. God knows I am even as other
men, and worse; for I have been taught ever since I could speak,
that the crown of all real manliness, of all Christian manliness,
is purity."
Neither of the two spoke for some minutes. Then Hardy looked at
his watch--
"Past eleven," he said; "I must do some work. Well, Brown, this
will be a day to be remembered in my calendar."
Tom wrung his hand, but did not venture to reply.
As he got to the door, however, he turned back, and said,--
"Do you think I ought to write to her?"
"Well, you can try. You'll find it a bitter business, I fear."
"I'll try then. Good night."
Tom went to his own rooms, and set to work to write his letter;
and certainly found it as difficult and unpleasant a task as he
had ever set himself to work upon. Half a dozen times he tore up
sheet after sheet of his attempts; and got up and walked about,
and plunged and kicked mentally against the collar and traces in
which he had harnessed himself by his friend's help,--trying to
convince himself that Hardy was a Puritan, who had lived quite
differently from other men, and knew nothing of what a man ought
to do in a case like this. That after all very little harm had
been done! The world would never go on at all if people were to
be so scrupulous! Probably, not another man in the college,
except Grey, perhaps, would think anything of what he had
done!--Done! why, what had he done? He couldn't be taking it more
seriously if he had ruined her!
At this point he managed to bring himself up sharp again more
than once. "No thanks to _me_ at any rate, that she isn't ruined.
Had I any pity, any scruples? My God, what a mean, selfish rascal
I have been!" and then he sat down again, and wrote, and
scratched out what he had written, till the other fit came on,
and something of the same process had to be gone through again.
We must all recognize the process, and remember many occasions on
which we have had to put bridle and bit on, and ride ourselves as
if we had been horses or mules without understanding; and what a
trying business it was--as bad as getting a young colt past a
gipsy encampment in a narrow lane.
At last, after many trials, Tom got himself well in hand, and
produced something which seemed to satisfy him; for, after
reading it three or four times, he put it in a cover with a small
case, which he produced from his desk, sealed it, directed it,
and then went to bed.
Next morning, after chapel, he joined Hardy, and walked to his
rooms with him, and after a few words on indifferent matters,
said--
"Well, I wrote my letter last night."
"Did you satisfy yourself?"
"Yes, I think so. I don't know, though, on second thoughts; it
was very tough work."
"I was afraid you would find it so."
"But wouldn't you like to see it?"
"No thank you. I suppose my father will be here directly."
"But I wish you would read it through," said Tom, producing a
copy.
"Well, if you wish it, I suppose I must; but I don't see how I
can do any good."
Hardy took the letter, and sat down, and Tom drew a chair close
to him, and watched his face while he read:--
"It is best for us both that I should not see you any more, at
least at present. I feel that I have done you a great wrong. I
dare not say much to you, for fear of making that wrong greater.
I cannot, I need not tell you how I despise myself now--how I
long to make you any amends in my power. If ever I can be of any
service to you, I do hope that nothing which has passed will
hinder you from applying to me. You will not believe how it
pains me to write this; how should you? I don't deserve that you
should believe anything I say. I must seem heartless to you; I
have been, I am heartless. I hardly know what I am writing. I
shall long all my life to hear good news of you. I don't ask you
to pardon me, but if you can prevail on yourself not to send back
the enclosed, and will keep it as a small remembrance of one who
is deeply sorry for the wrong he has done you, but who cannot and
will not say he is sorry he ever met you, you will be adding
another to the many kindnesses which I have to thank you for, and
which I shall never forget."
Hardy read it over several times, as Tom watched impatiently,
unable to make out anything from his face.
"What do you think? You don't think there's anything wrong in it,
I hope?"
"No, indeed, my dear fellow. I really think it does you credit. I
don't know what else you could have said very well, only--"
"Only what?"
"Couldn't you have made it a little shorter?"
"No, I couldn't; but you don't mean that. What did you mean by
that 'only'?"
"Why, I don't think this letter will end the business; at least,
I'm afraid not."
"But what more could I have said?"
"Nothing _more_, certainly; but couldn't you have keep a little
quieter--it's difficult to get the right word--a little cooler,
perhaps. Couldn't you have made the part about not seeing her
again a little more decided?"
"But you said I needn't pretend I didn't care for her."
"Did I?"
"Yes. Besides, it would have been a lie."
"I don't want you to tell a lie, certainly. But how about this
'small remembrance' that you speak of? What's that?"
"Oh, nothing; only a little locket I bought for her."
"With some of your hair in it?"
"Well of course. Come now, there's no harm in that."
"No; no harm. Do you think she will wear it?"
"How can I tell?"
"It may make her think it isn't all at an end, I'm afraid. If she
always wears your hair--"
"By Jove, you're too bad, Hardy. I wish you had had to write it
yourself. It's all very easy to pull my letter to pieces, I dare
say, but--"
"I didn't want to read it, remember."
"No more you did. I forgot. But I wish you would just write down
now what you would have said."
"Yes, I think I see myself at it. By the way, of course you have
sent your letter?"
"Yes, I sent it off before chapel."
"I thought so. In that case I don't think we need trouble
ourselves further with the form of the document."
"Oh, that's only shirking. How do you know I may not want it for
the next occasion?"
"No, no! Don't let us begin laughing about it. A man never ought
to have to write such letters twice in his life. If he has, why,
he may get a good enough precedent for the second out of the
'Complete Letter Writer'.
"So you won't correct my copy?"
"No, not I."
At this point in their dialogue, Captain Hardy appeared on the
scene, and the party went off to Drysdale's to breakfast.
Captain Hardy's visit to St. Ambrose was a great success. He
stayed some four or five days, and saw everything that was to be
seen, and enjoyed it all in a sort of reverent way which was
almost comic. Tom devoted himself to the work of cicerone, and
did his best to do the work thoroughly. Oxford was a sort of
Utopia to the Captain, who was resolutely bent on seeing nothing
but beauty and learning and wisdom within the precincts of the
University. On one or two occasions his faith was tried sorely by
the sight of young gentlemen gracefully apparelled, dawdling
along two together in low easy pony carriages, or lying on their
backs in punts for hours, smoking, with not even a _Bell's Life_
by them to pass the time. Dawdling and doing nothing were the
objects of his special abhorrence; but, with this trifling
exception, the Captain continued steadily to behold towers and
quadrangles, and chapels, and the inhabitants of the colleges,
through rose-coloured spectacles. His respect for a "regular
education" and for the seat of learning at which it was dispensed
was so strong, that he invested not only the tutors, doctors and
proctors (of whom he saw little except at a distance), but even
the most empty-headed undergraduate whose acquaintance he made,
with a sort of fancy halo of scientific knowledge, and often
talked to those youths in a way which was curiously bewildering
and embarrassing to them. Drysdale was particularly hit by it. He
had humour and honesty enough himself to appreciate the Captain,
but it was a constant puzzle to him to know what to make of it
all.
"He's a regular old brick, is the Captain," he said to Tom, on
the last evening of the old gentleman's visit, "but by Jove, I
can't help thinking he must be poking fun at us half his time. It
is rather too rich to hear him talking on as if we were all as
fond of Greek as he seems to be, and as if no man ever got drunk
up here."
"I declare I think he believes it," said Tom. "You see we're all
careful enough before him."
"That son of his, too, must be a good fellow. Don't you see he
can never have peached? His father was telling me last night what
a comfort it was to him to see that Jack's poverty had been no
drawback to him. He had always told him it would be so amongst
English gentlemen, and now he found him living quietly and
independently, and yet on equal terms, and friends, with men far
above him in rank and fortune 'like you, sir,' the old boy said.
By Jove, Brown, I felt devilish foolish. I believe I blushed, and
it isn't often I indulge in that sort of luxury. If I weren't
ashamed of doing it now, I should try to make friends with Hardy.
But I don't know how to face him, and I doubt whether he wouldn't
think me too much of a rip to be intimate with."
Tom, at his own special request, attended the Captain's
departure, and took his seat opposite to him and his son at the
back of the Southampton coach, to accompany him a few miles out
of Oxford. For the first mile the Captain was full of the
pleasures of his visit, and of invitations to Tom to come and see
them in the vacation. If he did not mind homely quarters, he
would find a hearty welcome, and there was no finer bathing or
boating place on the coast. If he liked to bring his gun, there
were plenty of rock-pigeons and sea-otters in the caves at the
Point. Tom protested with the greatest sincerity that there was
nothing he should enjoy so much. Then the young men got down to
walk up Bagley Hill, and when they mounted again, found the
Captain with a large leather case in his hand, out of which he
took two five-pound notes, and began pressing them on his son,
while Tom tried to look as if he did not know what was going on.
For some time Hardy steadily refused, and the contention became
animated, and it was useless to pretend any longer not to hear.
"Why, Jack, you're not too proud, I hope, to take a present from
you own father," the Captain said at last.
"But, my dear father, I don't want the money. You make me a very
good allowance already."
"Now, Jack, just listen to me and be reasonable. You know a great
many of your friends have been very hospitable to me; I could not
return their hospitality myself, but I wish you to do so for me."
"Well, father, I can do that without this money."
"Now, Jack," said the Captain, pushing forward the notes again,
"I insist on your taking them. You will pain me very much if you
don't take them."
So the son took the notes at last, looking as most men of his age
would if they had just lost them, while the father's face was
radiant as he replaced his pocket book in the breast pocket
inside his coat. His eye caught Tom's in the midst of the
operation, and the latter could not help looking a little
confused, as if he had been unintentionally obtruding on their
privacy. But the Captain at once laid his hand on his knee and
said,--
"A young fellow is never the worse for having a ten-pound note to
veer and haul on, eh, Mr. Brown?"
"No, indeed, sir. A great deal better I think," said Tom, and was
quite comfortable again. The Captain had no new coat that summer,
but he always looked like a gentleman.
Soon the coach stopped to take up a parcel at a crossroad, and
the young men got down. They stood watching it until it
disappeared round a corner of the road, and then turned back
towards Oxford, and struck into Bagley Wood, Hardy listening with
evident pleasure to his friend's enthusiastic praise of his
father. But he was not in a talking humour, and they were soon
walking along together in silence.
This was the first time they had been alone together since the
morning after their reconciliation; so presently Tom seized the
occasion to recur to the subject which was uppermost in his
thoughts.
"She has never answered my letter," he began abruptly.
"I am very glad of it," said Hardy.
"But why?"
"Because you know, you want it all broken off completely."
"Yes, but still she might have just acknowledged it. You don't
know how hard it is for me to keep away from the place."
"My dear fellow, I know it must be hard work, but you are doing
the right thing."
"Yes, I hope so," said Tom, with a sigh. "I haven't been within a
hundred yards of 'The Choughs' this five days. The old lady must
think it so odd."
Hardy made no reply. What could he say but that no doubt she did?
"Would you mind doing me a great favor?" said Tom, after a
minute.
"Anything I can do.--What is it?"
"Why, just to step round on our way back,--I will stay as far off
as you like,--and see how things are going on;--how she is."
"Very well. Don't you like this view of Oxford? I always think it
is the best of them all."
"No. You don't see anything of half the colleges," said Tom, who
was very loath to leave the other subject for the picturesque.
"But you get all the spires and towers so well, and the river in
the foreground. Look at that shadow of a cloud skimming over
Christchurch Meadow. It's a splendid old place after all."
"It may be from a distance, to an outsider," said Tom; "but I
don't know--it's an awfully chilly, deadening kind of place to
live in. There's something in the life of the place that sits on
me like a weight, and makes me feel dreary."
"How long have you felt that? You're coming out in a new line."
"I wish I were. I want a new line. I don't care a straw for
cricket; I hardly like pulling; and as for those wine parties day
after day, and suppers night after night, they turn me sick to
think of."
"You have the remedy in your own hands, at any rate," said Hardy,
smiling.
"How do you mean?"
"Why, you needn't go to them."
"Oh, one can't help going to them. What else is there to do!"
Tom waited for an answer, but his companion only nodded to show
that he was listening, as he strolled on down the path, looking
at the view.
"I can say what I feel to you, Hardy. I always have been able,
and it's such a comfort to me now. It was you who put these sort
of thoughts into my head, too, so you ought to sympathize with
me."
"I do, my dear fellow. But you'll be all right again in a few
days."
"Don't you believe it. It isn't only what you seem to think,
Hardy. You don't know me so well as I do you, after all. No, I'm
not just love-sick, and hipped because I can't go and see her.
That has something to do with it, I dare say, but it's the sort
of shut-up selfish life we lead here that I can't stand. A man
isn't meant to live only with fellows like himself, with good
allowances paid quarterly, and no care but how to amuse
themselves. One is old enough for something better than that, I'm
sure."
"No doubt," said Hardy with provoking taciturnity.
"And the moment one tries to break through it, one only gets into
trouble."
"Yes, there's a good deal of danger of that, certainly," said
Hardy.
"Don't you often long to be in contact with some of the realities
of life, with men and women who haven't their bread and butter
already cut for them? How can a place be a university where no
one can come up who hasn't two hundred a year or so to live on?"
"You ought to have been at Oxford four hundred years ago, when
there were more thousands here than we have hundreds."
"I don't see that. It must have been ten times as bad then."
"Not at all. But it must have been a very different state of
things from ours; they must have been almost all poor scholars,
who worked for their living, or lived on next to nothing."
"How do you really suppose they lived, though?"
"Oh, I don't know. But how should you like it now, if we had
fifty poor scholars at St. Ambrose, besides us servitors--say ten
tailors, ten shoemakers, and so on, who came up from love of
learning, and attended all the lectures with us, and worked for
the present undergraduates while they were hunting, and
cricketing, and boating?"
"Well, I think it would be a very good thing--at any rate, we
should save in tailors' bills."
"Even if we didn't get our coats so well built," said Hardy,
laughing. "Well, Brown, you have a most catholic taste, and 'a
capacity for talking in new truths', all the elements of a good
Radical in you."
"I tell you, I hate Radicals," said Tom indignantly.
"Well, here we are in the town. I'll go round by 'The Choughs'
and catch you up before you get to High Street."
Tom, left, to himself, walked slowly on for a little way, and
then quickly back again in an impatient, restless manner, and was
within a few yards of the corner where they had parted, when
Hardy appeared again. He saw at a glance that something had
happened.
"What is it--she is not ill?" he said quickly.
"No; quite well, her aunt says."
"You didn't see her then?"
"No. The fact is she has gone home."