The Youth of Parnassus and Other Stories Part 4

"Thinking! Lord, I'd turn looney if I thought so much. What's the good of it? You'd much better have taken a hand."

Cornish laughed. "Well, I believe you're right," he said.

_The Will to Live_

Part Two

William Waters had dreamed that the Persians, in a fleet of Canadian canoes, had come up the Thames to attack the College barge, and that he himself had been sent on foot to demand reinforcements from the Oxford examiners at Sparta. And after the weary, breathless running, the hopeless search, in his dream, for the right Greek words, it was most delightful to open his eyes and find himself comfortably lying in his familiar bedroom, with the sunlight glowing on the blinds.

"Why am I so happy?" he asked himself, and then he remembered that it was all over now; for the future he would never have to trouble about Greek or examinations, or getting up in the morning, or any of their stupid rules and worries. For the future! As he lay there, lazily opening and shutting his eyes, vague, bright pictures of the life before him floated through his mind, and set his heart beating a little quicker.

William Waters was the son of a business man in a northern town, who, with some sacrifice, had sent him, the eldest son, to the University, in order that his education, and the connections he would form, might help him on in the world. Now that the young man, after a lucky scramble through the examinations, had just finished four pleasant years of Oxford life, it was his vague purpose to find some occupation in London, something pleasant and gentlemanly, which would enable him to live as he liked.

"Of course, sir, I know one can't expect anything very much at first,"

he said, half aloud, as he imagined himself talking modestly and sensibly to his tutor. For he was going to talk about it to Ames; old Ames wasn't such a fool about things of that kind. "There is no nonsense about that young Waters," Ames would say afterwards; "a modest, sensible chap, the kind of man who'll always do well." Waters was determined to do well of course; he would get on, he told himself, when people came to realize how hard he worked. And as the young man lay there in bed, he decided that in the future no one should ever accuse him of laziness and neglecting work. By simply making up his mind to it, he thought he would entirely change his character, and begin life anew, winning position and wealth by his own unremitting industry.

Buller and Antrobus would be in London, he told himself, and Philpotts, most likely, and they would belong to the same club, where they would go on Sunday mornings to smoke and read the sporting papers. He would work tremendously hard, of course, spending laborious nights over his books, but he would also go out a great deal into society. He would not be dissipated--he didn't care much for that--but still he would not be Puritanical either. He meant to be moral and steady, and at the same time he would enjoy the pleasures of a man of the world. But he would be always kind and popular; people in fashionable society would say that William Waters was such a good fellow, and in the Park ladies would smile at him from their carriages, and smart young men would walk with him arm in arm. And he would live well; but still he would save money, and would soon pay off his Oxford bills, and send money to his father.

For he would always be very kind to his people, having his sisters to visit him, helping them to marry well (he himself meant to marry someone for love who was very rich), and sometimes he would give up parties at country houses in order to pay them visits at home. How his fur coat and knowledge of the great world would impress all the neighbours!

"But I must get up," Waters said to himself, remembering how he was to go and see his tutor and talk over plans. And after luncheon Buller was going to drive them out, three of them, with his tandem to Woodstock.

And thinking vaguely of this drive, and of some new clothes that he meant to wear, Waters was just falling off to sleep again, when his bull-dog came rushing up the stairs, and began to whine and scratch at the door. Rousing himself, Waters jumped up, and went with a call of affection to the door to let Lo-Ben in.

After he had bathed and dressed himself in his new fresh-smelling clothes, the young man sauntered into the sitting-room of his lodgings, and rang the bell for breakfast. The day was bright; Waters felt wonderfully fresh and well; there were pleasant aches in his arms and legs as he moved, for the whole of the day before he had been rowing on the river.

After breakfast he was just sitting down to smoke his pipe comfortably, when, looking at his watch, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his cap and rusty gown, and started out towards College. By Jove! what a day it was! He walked along through the sunshine, smiling to himself, while Lo-Ben barked and bounced from side to side. It was a good world, Waters thought a good world, and now he was really going to enjoy it.

As Waters was tying up Lo-Ben in the College porch, he was seized on suddenly from behind.

"Come along, fat William," they cried, pulling and pushing him along, "we're going to have a little game--you must take a hand."

Twisting himself around, as he struggled, Waters recognized two of his friends, and appealed to reason breathlessly; he had to go and see old Ames, on his honour he had; he would look in afterwards, in about half-an-hour, and stay to luncheon if they liked. So he started across the quadrangle, looking back and smiling and shaking his head, as he dodged the bits of gravel with which they pelted him. It was a good place after all, the old College, Waters thought, when he was out of danger and could look about. He remembered the two years he had lived in rooms looking out on this quadrangle; the pleasant hours he had spent, sitting in the window with his pipe, or lying on the gra.s.s whole Sunday afternoons, lazily reading, or talking with his friends; he thought of the beautiful chapel, and the old hall that was so much admired, and how he had sat up a tree one evening and poured water on the Dean, and how at night the stealthy bonfires had blazed up red and sudden in the dark.

He was really sorry to leave the old place, he thought sentimentally, remembering the emotions he had read of as felt by young men in books when about to leave their school or college. But then, with healthy common-sense, he told himself that all they wrote in books about your college days, and life never being so happy afterwards, was d.a.m.ned nonsense. Waters knew how men lived in London!

"Sorry I'm late, sir," he said as he entered his tutor's room, addressing the spare shining head that was bent over a heap of papers.

Mr. Ames raised his worn, cynical, kind face, and looked at Waters with short-sighted eyes. "Oh, no matter, sit down won't you, Waters," and he gave a last hurried shuffle to his papers. Waters thought that Ames must spend his life looking for lost papers; and although occasionally surprised by flashes of almost supernatural knowledge in his tutor, for the most part he entertained--as a heathen might towards his helpless, yet vaguely awful, idol--a certain good-natured pity for the absent-minded, easily outwitted man.

"I thought I'd like to talk things over with you a little," Waters said, sitting down in a chair that groaned with his athletic weight. "I must decide what I shall choose, what to go in for."

"To go in for?" Ames repeated, looking at him vaguely.

"I mean, I must choose"; Waters found a pleasure in talking, not as an undergraduate, but as a serious young man. "One must do something of course."

"Of course it _is_ better," Ames a.s.sented, though he still looked rather puzzled.

"I thought I'd talk to you about the Bar, or something of the kind."

Ames looked at him blankly. "Talk to me about the Bar?"

"Yes, I thought I'd better ask your advice."

"Do you mean for yourself?" Ames asked after a moment, "but I supposed--I always supposed you were going into your father's business; he has some business, hasn't he, or am I wrong?"

"Into my father's business!" Waters laughed comfortably. "No, I shouldn't ever think of that. No, I want to live in London."

"Oh, I see!"

"Yes, of course if anything very good was offered me somewhere else,--but no, I think I prefer London. What would you advise?"

"What I should advise!" Ames said, looking at him hopelessly. "I suppose you've thought of something for yourself; you have some preference?"

"Preference? Oh no, nothing special. I thought I'd ask you."

Again Ames looked at him with an odd expression. Then in his polite, weary, equable voice, he said, "Well, I must try and think. I suppose your father--what does he want you to do?"

"My father--!" Waters' voice showed what he thought of fathers. "Oh, he said that if I had a university education, there would be something."

"Ah, did he! Well, I suppose he ought to know," Ames said doubtfully.

"Oh, he doesn't know of anything definite," Waters explained; and then, speaking loudly, as if to a deaf man, he added, "It was only what he thought."

"Ah, that's quite different, isn't it?" Ames exclaimed, his face brightening.

"But surely there is a great deal to do in London," Waters continued.

Yes, there must be a good deal, Ames admitted doubtfully; at least everyone seemed very much occupied there.

"All I want is some work, that isn't too much grind, and decent pay."

"Ah, that is all that most people want," Ames observed, with half a sigh.

"Of course at first I shouldn't expect anything very much," Waters went on, hardly heeding his tutor's vague remarks; and he explained again that he only wanted some decent occupation, with pay enough to live on.

Then he waited, gazing at his tutor's blank face as one might gaze at a revolving lighthouse, waiting for its flash of light. As nothing came, however, he said, "Surely there are lots of places where they want Oxford men?"

"Possibly there were"; Ames looked as if he, however, had never heard of them.

"But Grant and Vaughan had got good places, and St.u.r.dy, they said, was doing well at the Bar."

"Ah, I see you mean those clever men, who do so well in the Schools and all. You're quite right; a man like Cornish for instance; I thought you meant more the average man."

No, it wasn't Cornish, Waters meant; it wasn't the average man either.

"I mean more the man--what you call an all-round-man."