Tom Brown at Oxford Part 36

"And wut's to happen to Tiny?" said the contumacious Simon, scornfully. "Her'll cast her calf, and me not by. Her's calving maybe this minut. Tiny's time were up, miss, two days back, and her's never no gurt while arter her time."

"She will do very well, I dare say," said Miss Winter, "One of the men can look after her."

The notion of anyone else attending Tiny in her interesting situation seemed to excite Simon beyond bearing, for he raised himself on one elbow, and was about to make a demonstration with his other hand, when the pain seized him again, and he sank back groaning.

"There, you see, Simon, you can't move without pain. You must be quiet till you have seen the doctor again."

"There's the red spider out along the south wall--ugh, ugh,"

persisted Simon, without seeming to hear her; "and your new g'raniums a'most covered wi' blight. I wur a tacklin' one of 'em just afore you c.u.m in."

Following the direction indicated by his nod, the girls became aware of a plant by his bedside, which he had been fumigating, for his pipe was leaning against the flower-pot in which it stood.

"He wouldn't lie still nohow, miss," explained his wife, "till I went and fetched un in a pipe and one o' thaay plants from the greenhouse."

"It was very thoughtful of you, Simon," said Miss Winter; "you know how much I prize these new plants; but we will manage them; and you mustn't think of these things now. You have had a wonderful escape to-day for a man of your age. I hope we shall find that there is nothing much the matter with you after a few days, but you might have been killed you know. You ought to be very thankful to G.o.d that you were not killed in that fall."

"So I be, miss, werry thankful to un--ugh, ugh;--and if it please the Lord to spare my life till to-morrow mornin',--ugh, ugh,--we'll smoke them cussed insects."

This last retort of the incorrigible Simon on her cousin's attempt, as the rector's daughter, to improve the occasion, was too much for Miss Mary, and she slipped out of the room, lest she should bring disgrace on herself by an explosion of laughter. She was joined by her cousin in another minute, and the two walked together toward the Rectory.

"I hope you were not faint, dear, with that close room, smelling of smoke?"

"Oh, dear, no; to tell you the truth, I was only afraid of laughing at your quaint old patient. What a rugged old dear he is. I hope he isn't much hurt."

"I hope not, indeed; for he is the most honest, faithful old servant in the world, but so obstinate. He never will go to church on Sunday mornings; and, when I speak to him about it, he says papa doesn't go, which is very wrong and impertinent of him."

CHAPTER XIX

A PROMISE OF FAIRER WEATHER

All dwellers in and about London are, alas! too well acquainted with the never-to-be-enough-hated change which we have to undergo once, at least, in every spring. As each succeeding winter wears away, the same thing happens to us.

For some time we do not trust the fair lengthening days, and cannot believe that the dirty pair of sparrows who live opposite our window are really making love and going to build, notwithstanding all their twittering. But morning after morning rises fresh and gentle; there is no longer any voice in the air; we drop our over-coats; we rejoice in the green shoots which the privet hedge is making in the square garden, and hail the returning tender-pointed leaves of the plane-trees as friends; we go out of our way to walk through Covent Garden Market to see the ever-brightening show of flowers from the happy country.

This state of things goes on sometimes for a few days only, sometimes for weeks, till we make sure that we are safe for this spring at any rate. Don't we wish we may get it! Sooner or later, but sure--sure as Christmas bills or the income-tax, or anything, if there be anything, surer than these--comes the morning when we are suddenly conscious as soon as we rise that there is something the matter. We do not feel comfortable in our clothes; nothing tastes quite as it should at breakfast; though the day looks bright enough, there is a fierce dusty taste about it as we look out through windows, which no instinct now prompts us to throw open, as it has done every day for the last month.

But it is only when we open our doors and issue into the street, that the hateful reality comes right home to us. All moisture, and softness, and pleasantness has gone clean out of the air since last night; we seem to inhale yards of horse hair instead of satin; our skins dry up; our eyes, and hair, and whiskers, and clothes are soon filled with loathsome dust, and our nostrils with the reek of the great city. We glance at the weather-c.o.c.k on the nearest steeple, and see that it points N.E. And so long as the change lasts, we carry about with us a feeling of anger and impatience, as though we personally were being ill-treated. We could have borne with it well enough in November; it would have been natural, and all in the days work in March; but now, when Rotten Row is beginning to be crowded, when long lines of pleasure vans are leaving town on Monday mornings for Hampton Court or the poor remains of dear Epping Forest, when the exhibitions are open, or about to open, when the religious public is up, or on its way up, for May meetings, when the Thames is already sending up faint warnings of what we may expect as soon as his dirty old life's blood shall have been thoroughly warmed up, and the "Ship", and "Trafalgar", and the "Star and Garter"

are in full swing at the antagonistic poles of the c.o.c.kney system, we do feel that this blight which has come over us and everything is an insult, and that while it lasts, as there is n.o.body who can be made particularly responsible for it, we are justified in going about in general disgust, and ready to quarrel with anybody we may meet on the smallest pretext.

This sort of east-windy state is perhaps the best physical a.n.a.logy for that mental one in which our hero now found himself.

The real crises was over; he had managed to pa.s.s through the eye of the storm, and drift for the present at least into the skirts of it, where he lay rolling under bare poles, comparatively safe, but without any power as yet to get the ship well in hand, and make her obey her helm. The storm might break over him again at any minute, and would find him almost as helpless as ever.

For he could not follow Drysdale's advice at once, and break off his visits to "The Choughs" altogether. He went back again after a day or two, but only for short visits; he never stayed behind now after the other men left the bar, and avoided interviews with Patty alone as diligently as he had sought them before. She was puzzled at his change of manner, and not being able to account for it, was piqued, and ready to revenge herself, and pay him out in the hundred little ways which the least practiced of her s.e.x know how to employ for the discipline of any of the inferior or trousered half of the creation. If she had been really in love with him, it would have been a different matter; but she was not.

In the last six weeks she had certainly often had visions of the pleasures of being a lady and keeping servants, and riding in a carriage like the squires' and rectors' wives and daughters about her home. She had a liking, even a sentiment for him, which might very well have grown into something dangerous before long; but as yet it was not more than skin deep. Of late, indeed, she had been much more frightened than attracted by the conduct of her admirer, and really felt it a relief, notwithstanding her pique, when he retired into the elder brother sort of state. But she would have been more than woman if she had not resented the change; and so very soon the pangs of jealousy were added to his other troubles. Other men were beginning to frequent "The Choughs" regularly. Drysdale, besides dividing with Tom the prestige of being an original discoverer, was by far the largest customer. St. Cloud came, and brought Chanter with him, to whom Patty was actually civil, not because she liked him at all, but because she saw that it made Tom furious. Though he could not fix on any one man in particular, he felt that mankind in general were gaining on him. In his better moments, indeed, he often wished that she would take the matter into her own hands and throw him over for good and all; but keep away from the place altogether he could not, and often when he fancied himself on the point of doing it, a pretty toss of her head, or a kind look of her eyes would scatter all his good resolutions to the four winds.

And so the days dragged on, and he dragged on through them; hot fits of conceit alternating in him with cold fits of despondency and mawkishness and discontent with everything and everybody, which were all the more intolerable from their entire strangeness. Instead of seeing the bright side of all things, he seemed to be looking at creation through yellow spectacles, and saw faults and blemishes in all his acquaintance, which had been till now invisible.

But the more he was inclined to depreciate all other men, the more he felt there was one to whom he had been grossly unjust.

And, as he recalled all that had pa.s.sed, he began to do justice to the man who had not flinched from warning him and braving him, who he felt had been watching over him, and trying to guide him straight, when he had lost all power or will to keep straight himself.

From this time the dread increased on him lest any of the other men should find out his quarrel with Hardy. Their utter ignorance of it encouraged him in the hope that it might all pa.s.s off like a bad dream. While it remained a matter between them alone, he felt that all might come straight, though he could not think how.

He began to loiter by the entrance of the pa.s.sage which led to Hardy's rooms; sometimes he would find something to say to his scout or bed-maker which took him into the back outside Hardy's window, glancing at it sideways as he stood giving his orders.

There it was, wide open, generally--he hardly knew whether he hoped to catch a glimpse of the owner, but he did hope that Hardy might hear his voice. He watched him in chapel and hall furtively, but constantly, and was always fancying what he was doing and thinking about. Was it as painful an effort to Hardy, he wondered, as to him to go on speaking, as if nothing had happened, when they met at the boats, as they did now again almost daily (for Diogenes was bent on training some of the torpids for next year), and yet never to look one another in the face; to live together as usual during part of every day, and yet to feel all the time that a great wall had risen between them, more hopelessly dividing them for the time than thousands of miles of ocean or continent?

Amongst other distractions which Tom tried at this crisis of his life, was reading. For three or four days running, he really worked hard--very hard, if we were to reckon by the number of hours he spent in his own rooms over his books with his oak sported--hard, even though we should only reckon by results. For, though scarcely an hour pa.s.sed that he was not balancing on the hind legs of his chair with a vacant look in his eyes, and thinking of anything but Greek roots or Latin constructions, yet on the whole he managed to get through a good deal, and one evening, for the first time since his quarrel with Hardy, felt a sensation of real comfort--it hardly amounted to pleasure--as he closed his Sophocles some hour or so after hall, having just finished the last of the Greek plays which he meant to take in for his first examination. He leaned back in his chair and sat for a few minutes, letting his thoughts follow their own bent.

They soon took to going wrong, and he jumped up in fear lest he should be drifting back into the black stormy sea, in the trough of which he had been laboring so lately, and which he felt he was by no means clear of yet. At first he caught up his cap and gown as though he were going out. There was a wine party at one of his acquaintance's rooms; or he could go and smoke a cigar in the pool room, or at any one of a dozen other places. On second thoughts, however, he threw his academicals back on to the sofa and went to his book-case. The reading had paid so well that evening that he resolved to go on with it. He had no particular object in selecting one book more than another, and so took down carelessly the first that came to hand.

It happened to be a volume of Plato, and opened of its own accord at the "Apology." He glanced at a few lines. What a flood of memories they called up! This was almost the last book he had read at school; and teacher, and friends, and lofty oak-shelved library stood out before him at once. Then the blunders that he himself and others had made rushed through his mind, and he almost burst into a laugh as he wheeled his chair round to the window, and began reading where he had opened, encouraging every thought of the old times when he first read that marvellous defense, and throwing himself back into them with all his might.

And still, as he read, forgotten words of wise comment, and strange thoughts of wonder and longing, came back to him. The great truth which he had been led to the brink of in those early days rose in all its awe and all its attractiveness before him.

He leaned back in his chair, and gave himself up to his thought; and how strangely that thought bore on the struggle which had been raging in him of late; how an answer seemed to be trembling to come out of it to all the cries, now defiant, now plaintive, which had gone up out of his heart in this time of trouble! For his thought was of that spirit, distinct from himself, and yet communing with his inmost soul, always dwelling in him, knowing him better than he knew himself, never misleading him, always leading him to light and truth, of which the old philosopher spoke. "The old heathen, Socrates, did actually believe that--there can be no question about it;" he thought, "Has not the testimony of the best men through these two thousand years borne witness that he was right--that he did not believe a lie?

That was what we were told. Surely I don't mistake! Were we not told, too, or did I dream it, that what was true for him was true for every man--for me? That there is a spirit dwelling in me, striving with me, ready to lead me into all truth if I will submit to his guidance?"

"Ay! submit, submit, there's the rub! Give yourself up to his guidance! Throw up the reins, and say you've made a mess of it.

Well, why not? Haven't I made a mess of it? Am I fit to hold the reins?"

"Not I"--he got up and began walking about his rooms--"I give it up."

"Give it up!" he went on presently; "yes, but to whom? Not to the daemon spirit, whatever it was, who took up abode in the old Athenian--at least, so he said, and so I believe. No, no! Two thousand years and all that they have seen have not pa.s.sed over the world to leave us just where he was left. We want no daemons or spirits. And yet the old heathen was guided right, and what can a man want more? and who ever wanted guidance more than I now--here--in this room--at this minute? I give up the reins; who will take them?" And so there came on him one of those seasons when a man's thoughts cannot be followed in words. A sense of awe came on him, and over him, and wrapped him round; awe at a presence of which he was becoming suddenly conscious, into which he seemed to have wandered, and yet which he felt must have been there around him, in his own heart and soul, though he knew it not. There was hope and longing in his heart, mingling with the fear of that presence, but withal the old reckless and daring feeling which he knew so well, still bubbling up untamed, untamable it seemed to him.

The room stifled him now; so he threw on his cap and gown, and hurried down into the quadrangle. It was very quiet; probably there was not a dozen men in college. He walked across to the low, dark entrance of the pa.s.sage which led to Hardy's rooms, and there paused. Was he there by chance, or was he guided there?

Yes, this was the right way for him, he had no doubt now as to that; down the dark pa.s.sage and into the room he knew so well--and what then? He took a short turn or two before the entrance. How could he be sure that Hardy was alone? And, if not, to go in would be worse than useless. If he were alone, what should he say? After all, _must_ he go in there? was there no way but that?

The college clock struck a quarter to seven. It was his usual time for "The Choughs;" the house would be quiet now; was there not one looking out for him there who would be grieved if he did not come? After all, might not that be his way, for this night at least? He might bring pleasure to one human being by going there at once. That he knew; what else could he be sure of?

At this moment he heard Hardy's door open and a voice saying "Good-night," and the next Grey came out of the pa.s.sage, and was pa.s.sing close to him.

"Join yourself to him." The impulse came so strongly into Tom's mind this time, that it was like a voice speaking him. He yielded to it, and, stepping to Grey's side, wished him good-evening. The other returned his salute in his shy way, and was hurrying on, but Tom kept by him.

"Have you been reading with Hardy?"

"Yes."

"How is he? I have not seen anything of him for some time."

"Oh, very well, I think," said Grey, glancing sideways at his questioner, and adding, after a moment, "I have wondered rather not to see you there of late."

"Are you going to your school?" said Tom, breaking away from the subject.

"Yes, and I am rather late; I must make haste on; good night."

"Will you let me go with you to-night? It would be a real kindness. Indeed," he added, as he saw how embarra.s.sing his proposal was to Grey, "I will do whatever you tell me--you don't know how grateful I should be to you. Do let me go--just for to-night. Try me once."

Grey hesitated, turned his head sharply once or twice as they walked on together, and then said with something like a sigh--

"I don't know, I'm sure. Did you ever teach in a night school?"