One more look into the old college where we have spent so much
time already, not, I hope, altogether unpleasantly. Our hero is
up in the summer term, keeping his three weeks' residence, the
necessary preliminary to an M. A. degree. We find him sitting in
Hardy's rooms; tea is over, scouts out of college, candles
lighted, and silence reigning, except when distant sounds of
mirth come from some undergraduates' rooms on the opposite side
of quad, through the open windows.
Hardy is deep in the budget of Indian letters, some of which we
have read in the last chapter; and Tom reads them over again as
his friend finishes them, and then carefully folds them up and
puts them back in their places in a large pocket-case. Except for
an occasional explanatory remark, or exclamation of interest, no
word passes until Hardy finishes the last letter. Then he breaks
out into praises of the two Harrys, which gladdens Tom's heart as
he fastens the case, and puts it back in his pocket, saying,
"Yes, you won't find two finer fellows in a long summer's day;
no, nor in twenty."
"And you expect them home, then, in a week or two?"
"Yes, I think so. Just about the time I shall be going down."
"Don't talk about going down. You haven't been here a week."
"Just a week. One out of three. Three weeks wasted in keeping
one's Master's term! Why can't you give a fellow his degree
quietly, without making him come and kick his heels here for
three weeks?"
"You ungrateful dog! Do you mean to say you haven't enjoyed
coming back, and sitting in dignity in the bachelors' seats in
chapel, and at the bachelors' table in hall, and thinking how
much wiser you are than the undergraduates? Besides, your old
friends want to see you, and you ought to want to see them."
"Well, I am very glad to see something of you again, old fellow.
I don't find that a year's absence has made any change in you.
But who else is there that I care to see? My old friends are
gone, and the year has made a great gap between me and the
youngsters. They look on me as a sort of don."
"Of course they do. Why, you are a sort of don. You will be an M.
A. in a fortnight, and a member of Convocation."
"Very likely; but I don't appreciate the dignity. I can tell you
being up here now is anything but enjoyable. You have never
broken with the place. And then, you always did your duty, and
have done the college credit. You can't enter into the feelings
of a fellow whose connexion with Oxford has been quite broken
off, and who wasted three parts of his time here, when he comes
back to keep his Master's."
"Come, come, Tom. You might have read more certainly, with
benefit to yourself and college, and taken a higher degree. But,
after all, didn't the place do you a great deal of good? and you
didn't do it much harm. I don't like to see you in this sort of
gloomy state; it isn't natural to you."
"It is becoming natural. You haven't seen much of me during the
last year, or you would have remarked it. And then, as I tell
you, Oxford, when one has nothing to do in it but to moon about,
thinking over one's past follies and sins, isn't cheerful. It
never was a very cheerful place to me at the best of times."
"Not even at pulling times?"
"Well, the river is the part I like best to think of. But even
the river makes me rather melancholy now. One feels one has done
with it."
"Why, Tom, I believe your melancholy comes from their not having
asked you to pull in the boat."
"Perhaps it does. Don't you call it degrading to be pulling in
the torpid in one's old age?"
"Mortified vanity, man! They have a capital boat. I wonder how we
should have liked to have been turned out for some bachelor just
because he had pulled a good oar in his day?"
"Not at all. I don't blame the young ones, and I hope to do my
duty in the torpid. By the way, they are an uncommonly nice set
of youngsters. Much better behaved in every way than we were,
unless it is that they put on their best manners before me."
"No, I don't think they do. The fact is they are really fine
young fellows."
"So I think. And I'll tell you what, Jack; since we are sitting
and talking our minds to one another at last, like old times,
somebody has made the most wonderful change in this college. I
rather think it is seeing what St. Ambrose's is now, and thinking
what it was in my time, and what an uncommon member of society I
should have turned out if I had had the luck to have been here
now instead of then, that makes me down in the mouth--more even
than having to pull in the torpid instead of the racing boat."
"You do think it is improved, then?"
"Think! Why it is a different place altogether; and, as you are
the only new tutor, it must have been your doing. Now I want to
know your secret."
"I've no secret, except taking a real interest in all that the
men do, and living with them as much as I can. You may fancy it
isn't much of a trial to me to steer the boat down or run on the
bank and coach the crew."
"Ah! I remember you were beginning that before I left, in your
first year. I knew that would answer."
"Yes. The fact is, I find that just what I like best is the very
best thing for the men. With very few exceptions they are all
glad to be stirred up, and meet me nearly halfway in reading, and
three-quarters in everything else. I believe they would make me
captain to-morrow."
"And why don't you let them?"
"No; there's a time for everything. I go in in the scratch fours
for the pewters, and--more by token--my crew won them two years
running. Look at my trophies," and he pointed to two pewter pots,
engraved with the college arms, which stood on his side-board.
"Well, I dare say you're right. But what does the president say?"
"Oh, he is a convert. Didn't you see him on the bank when you
torpids made your bump the other night?"
"No, you don't mean it? Well, do you know, a sort of vision of
black tights, and a broad-brimmed hat, crossed me, but I never
gave it a second thought. And so the president comes out to see
the St. Ambrose boat row?"
"Seldom misses two nights running."
"Then, 'carry me out, and bury me decently'. Have you seen old
Tom walking around Peckwater lately on his clapper, smoking a
cigar with the Dean of Christ Church? Don't be afraid. I am ready
for anything you like to tell me. Draw any amount you like on my
faith; I shall honor the draft after that."
"The president isn't a bad judge of an oar, when he sets his mind
to it."
"Isn't he? But, I say, Jack--no sell--how in the world did it
happen?"
"I believe it happened chiefly through his talks with me. When I
was first made tutor he sent for me and told me he had heard I
encouraged the young men in boating, and he must positively
forbid it. I didn't care much about staying up; so I was pretty
plain with him, and said, 'if I was not allowed to take the line
I thought best in such matters, I must resign at the end of the
term.' He assented, but afterwards thought better of it, and sent
for me again, and we had several encounters. I took my ground
very civilly but firmly, and he had to give up one objection
after another. I think the turning point was when he quoted St.
Paul on me, and said I was teaching boys to worship physical
strength, instead of teaching them to keep under their bodies and
bring them into subjection. Of course I countered him there with
tremendous effect. The old boy took it very well, only saying he
feared it was no use to argue further--in this matter of
boat-racing he had come to a conclusion, not without serious
thought, many years before. However, he came round quietly. And
so he has on other points. In fact, he is a wonderfully
open-minded man for his age, if you only put things to him the
right way."
"Has he come round about gentlemen-commoners? I see you have only
two or three up."
"Yes. We haven't given up taking them altogether. I hope that may
come soon. But I and another tutor took to plucking them
ruthlessly at matriculation, unless they were quite up to the
commoner standard. The consequence was, a row in common room. We
stood out, and won. Luckily, as you know, it has always been
given out here that all under-graduates, gentlemen-commoners and
commoners, have to pass the same college examinations, and to
attend the same course of lectures. You know also what a mere
sham and pretence the rule had become. Well, we simply made a
reality of it, and in answer to all objectors said, 'Is it our
rule or not? If it is, we are bound to act on it. If you want to
alter it, there are the regular ways of doing so.' After a little
grumbling they let us have our way, and the consequence is, that
velvet is getting scarce at St. Ambrose."
"What a blessing! What other miracles have you been performing?"
"The best reform we have carried is throwing the kitchen and
cellar open to the undergraduates."
"W-h-e-w! That's just the sort of reform we should have
appreciated. Fancy Drysdale's lot with the key of the college
cellars, at about ten o'clock on a shiny night."
"You don't quite understand the reform. You remember, when you
were an undergraduate you couldn't give a dinner in college, and
you had to buy your wine anywhere?"
"Yes. And awful firewater we used to get. The governor supplied
me, like a wise man."
"Well, we have placed the college in the relation of benevolent
father. Every undergraduate now can give two dinners a term in
his own rooms, from the kitchen; or more, if he comes and asks,
and has any reason to give. We take care that they have a good
dinner at a reasonable rate, and the men are delighted with the
arrangement. I don't believe there are three men in the college
now who have hotel bills. And we let them have all their wine out
of the college cellars."
"That's what I call good common sense. Of course it must answer
in every way. And you find they all come to you?"
"Almost all. They can't get anything like the wine we give them
at the price, and they know it."
"Do you make them pay ready money?"
"The dinners and wine are charged in their battel bills; so they
have to pay once a term, just as they do for their orders at
commons."
"It must swell their battel bills awfully."
"Yes, but battel bills always come in at the beginning of term
when they are flush of money. Besides, they all know that battel
bills must be paid. In a small way it is the best thing that ever
was done for St. Ambrose's. You see it cuts so many ways. Keeps
men in the college, knocks off the most objectionable bills at
inns and pastry-cooks', keeps them from being poisoned, makes
them pay their bills regularly, shows them that we like them to
be able to live like gentlemen--"
"And lets you dons know what they are all about, and how much
they spend in the way of entertaining."
"Yes; and a very good thing for them too. They know that we shall
not interfere while they behave like gentlemen."
"Oh, I'm not objecting. And was this your doing, too?"
"No, a joint business. We hatched it in the common room, and then
the bursar spoke to the president, who was furious, and said we
were giving the sanction of the college to disgraceful luxury and
extravagance. Luckily he had not the power of stopping us, and
now is convinced."
"The goddess of common sense seems to have alighted again in the
quad of St. Ambrose. You'll never leave the place, Jack, now
you're beginning to get everything your own way."
"On the contrary, I don't mean to stop up more than another year
at the outside. I have been tutor nearly three years now; that's
about long enough."
"Do you think you're right? You seem to have hit on your line in
life wonderfully. You like the work and the work likes you. You
are doing a heap of good up here. You'll be president in a year
or two, depend on it. I should say you had better stick to
Oxford."
"No. I should be of no use in a year or two. We want a constant
current of fresh blood here."
"In a general way. But you don't get a man every day who can
throw himself into the men's pursuits, and can get hold of them
in the right way. And then, after all, when a fellow has got such
work cut out for him as you have, Oxford must be an uncommonly
pleasant place to live in."
"Pleasant enough in many ways. But you seem to have forgotten how
you used to rail against it."
"Yes. Because I never hit off the right ways of the place. But if
I had taken a first and got a fellowship, I should like it well
enough I dare say."
"Being a fellow, on the contrary, makes it worse. While one was
an undergraduate, one could feel virtuous and indignant at the
vices of Oxford, at least at those which one did not indulge in,
particularly at the flunkeyism and money-worship which are our
most prevalent and disgraceful sins. But when one is a fellow it
is quite another affair. They become a sore burthen then, enough
to break one's heart."
"Why, Jack, we're changing characters to-night. Fancy your coming
out in the abusive line! Why I never said harder things of Alma
Mater myself. However, there's plenty of flunkeyism and
money-worship everywhere else."
"Yes, but it is not so heart-breaking in other places. When one
thinks what a great centre of learning and faith Oxford ought to
be like--that its highest educational work should just be the
deliverance of us all from flunkeyism and money-worship--and then
looks at matters here without rose-colored spectacles, it gives
one sometimes a sort of chilly leaden despondency, which is very
hard to struggle against."
"I am sorry to hear you talk like that, Jack, for one can't help
loving the place after all."
"So I do, God knows. If I didn't I shouldn't care for its
shortcomings."
"Well, the flunkeyism and money-worship were bad enough, but I
don't think they were the worst things--at least not in my day.
Our neglects were almost worse than our worships."
"You mean the want of all reverence for parents? Well, perhaps
that lies at the root of the false worships. They spring up on
the vacant soil."
"And the want of reverence for women, Jack. The worst of all, to
my mind!"
"Perhaps you are right. But we are not at the bottom yet."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean that we must worship God before we can reverence parents
or women, or root out flunkeyism and money-worship."
"Yes. But, after all, can we fairly lay that sin on Oxford?
Surely, whatever may be growing up side by side with it, there's
more Christianity here than almost anywhere else."
"Plenty of common-room Christianity--belief in a dead God. There,
I have never said it to anyone but you, but that is the slough we
have to get out of. Don't think that I despair for us. We shall
do it yet; but it will be sore work, stripping off the
comfortable wine-party religion in which we are wrapped up--work
for our strongest and our wisest."
"And yet you think of leaving?"
"There are other reasons. I will tell you some day. But now, to
turn to other matters, how have you been getting on this last
year? You write so seldom that I am all behind-hand."
"Oh, much the same as usual."
"Then you are still like one of those who went out to David?"
"No, I'm not in debt."
"But discontented?"
"Pretty much like you there, Jack. However, content is no virtue,
that I can see, while there's anything to mend. Who is going to
be contented with game-preserving, and corn-laws, and grinding
the faces of the poor? David's camp was a better place than
Saul's, any day."
Hardy got up, opened a drawer, and took out a bundle of papers,
which Tom recognized as the _Wessex Freeman_. He felt rather
uncomfortable, as his friend seated himself again, and began
looking them over.
"You see what I have here," he said.
Tom nodded.
"Well, there are some of the articles I should like to ask you
about, if you don't object."
"No; go on."
"Here is one, then, to begin with. I won't read it all. Let me
see; here is what I was looking for," and he began reading; "One
would think, to hear these landlords, our rulers, talk, that the
glorious green fields, the deep woods the everlasting hills, and
the rivers that run among them, were made for the sole purpose of
ministering to their greedy lusts and mean ambitions; that they
may roll out amongst unrealities their pitiful mock lives, from
their silk and lace cradles to their spangled coffins, studded
with silver knobs, and lying coats of arms, reaping where they
have not sown, and gathering where they have not strewed, making
the omer small and the ephah great, that they may sell the refuse
of the wheat--"
"That'll do, Jack; but what's the date of that paper?"
"July last. Is it yours, then?"
"Yes. And I allow it's too strong and one-sided. I have given up
writing altogether; will that satisfy you? I don't see my own way
clear enough yet. But, for all that, I'm not ashamed of what I
wrote in that paper."
"I have nothing more to say after that, except that I'm heartily
glad you have given up writing for the present."
"But I say, old fellow, how did you get these papers, and know
about my articles?"
"They were sent me. Shall I burn them now or would you like to
have them? We needn't say anything more about them."
"Burn them by all means. I suppose a friend sent them to you?"
"I suppose so." Hardy went on burning the papers in silence; and
as Tom watched him, a sudden light seemed to break upon him.
"I say, Jack," he said presently, "a little bird has been
whispering something to me about that friend." Hardy winched a
little, and redoubled his diligence in burning the papers. Tom
looked on smiling, and thinking how to go on, now that he had so
unexpectedly turned the tables on his monitor, when the clock
struck twelve.
"Hullo!" he said, getting up; "time for me to knock out, or old
Copas will be in bed. To go back to where we started from
to-night--as soon as East and Harry Winburn get back we shall
have some jolly doings at Englebourn. There'll be a wedding, I
hope, and you'll come over and do parson for us, won't you?"
"You mean for Patty? Of course I will."
"The little bird whispered to me that you wouldn't dislike
visiting that part of the old county. Good night, Jack. I wish
you success, old fellow, with all my heart, and I hope after all
that you may leave St. Ambrose's within the year."