Tom Brown at Oxford Part 39

CHAPTER XXI

CAPTAIN HARDY ENTERTAINED BY ST. AMBROSE.

There are moments in the life of the most self-contained and sober of us all, when we fairly bubble over, like a full bottle of champagne with the cork out; and this was one of them for our hero who however, be it remarked, was neither self-contained nor sober by nature. When they got back to his rooms, he really hardly knew what to do to give vent to his lightness of heart; and Hardy, though self-contained and sober enough in general, was on this occasion almost as bad as his friend. They rattled on, talked out the thing which came uppermost, whatever the subject might chance to be; but whether grave or gay, it always ended after a minute or two in jokes not always good, and chaff, and laughter. The poor captain was a little puzzled at first, and made one or two endeavours to turn the talk into improving channels. But very soon he saw that Jack was thoroughly happy, and that was always enough for him. So he listened to one and the other, joining cheerily in the laugh whenever he could; and when he couldn't catch the joke, looking like a benevolent old lion, and making as much belief that he had understood it all as the simplicity and truthfulness of his character would allow.

The spirits of the two friends seemed inexhaustible. They lasted out the bottle of sherry which Tom had uncorked, and the remains of a bottle of his famous port. He had tried hard to be allowed to open a fresh bottle, but the Captain had made such a point of his not doing so, that he had given in for hospitality's sake.

They lasted out the coffee and anchovy toast; after which the Captain made a little effort at moving, which was supplicatingly stopped by Tom.

"Oh, pray don't go, Captain Hardy. I haven't been so happy for months. Besides, I must brew you a gla.s.s of grog. I pride myself on my brew. Your son there will tell you that I am a dead hand at it. Here, Wiggins, a lemon!" shouted Tom.

"Well, for once in a way, I suppose, eh, Jack?" said the Captain, looking at his son.

"Oh yes, father. You mayn't know it, Brown, but, if there is one thing harder to do than another, it is to get an old sailor like my father to take a gla.s.s of grog at night."

The Captain laughed a little laugh, and shook his thick stick at his son, who went on.

"And as for asking him to take a pipe with it--"

"Dear me," said Tom, "I quite forgot. I really beg your pardon, Captain Hardy; and he put down the lemon he was squeezing, and produced a box of cigars.

"It's all Jack's nonsense, sir," said the Captain, holding out his hand, nevertheless, for the box.

"Now, father, don't be absurd," interrupted Hardy, s.n.a.t.c.hing the box away from him. "You might as well give him a gla.s.s of absinthe. He is church-warden at home and can't smoke anything but a long clay."

"I'm very sorry I haven't one here, but I can send out in a minute." And Tom was making for the door to shout for Wiggins.

"No, don't call. I'll fetch some from my rooms."

When Hardy left the room, Tom squeezed away at his lemon, and was preparing himself for a speech to Captain Hardy full of confession and grat.i.tude. But the Captain was before him, and led the conversation into a most unexpected channel.

"I suppose, now, Mr. Brown," he began, "you don't find any difficulty in construing your Thucydides?"

"Indeed, I do, sir," said Tom, laughing. "I find him a very tough old customer, except in the simplest narrative."

"For my part," said the Captain, "I can't get on at all, I find, without a translation. But you see, sir, I had none of the advantages which you young men have up here. In fact, Mr. Brown, I didn't begin Greek till Jack was nearly ten years old." The Captain in his secret heart was prouder of his partial victory over the Greek tongue in his old age, than of his undisputed triumphs over the French in his youth, and was not averse to talking of it.

"I wonder that you ever began it at all, sir," said Tom.

"You wouldn't wonder if you knew how an uneducated man like me feels, when he comes to a place like Oxford."

"Uneducated, sir!" said Tom. "Why your education has been worth twice as much, I'm sure, as any we get here."

"No, sir; we never learnt anything in the navy when I was a youngster, except a little rule-of-thumb mathematics. One picked up a sort of smattering of a language or two knocking about the world, but no grammatical knowledge, nothing scientific. If a boy doesn't get a method, he is beating to windward in a crank craft all his life. He hasn't got any regular place to stow away what he gets into his brains, and so it lies tumbling about in the hold, and he loses it, or it gets damaged and is never ready for use. You see what I mean, Mr. Brown?"

"Yes, sir. But I'm afraid we don't all of us get much method up here. Do you really enjoy reading Thucydides now, Captain Hardy?"

"Indeed I do, sir, very much," said the captain. "There's a great deal in his history to interest an old sailor, you know. I dare say, now, that I enjoy those parts about the sea-fights more than you do." The Captain looked at Tom as if he had made an audacious remark.

"I am sure you do, sir," said Tom, smiling.

"Because you see, Mr. Brown," said the Captain, "when one has been in that sort of thing oneself, one likes to read how people in other times managed, and to think what one would have done in their place. I don't believe that the Greeks just at that time were very resolute fighters, though. Nelson or Collingwood would have finished that war in a year or two."

"Not with triremes, do you think, sir?" said Tom.

"Yes, sir, with any vessels which were to be had," said the Captain. "But you are right about triremes. It has always been a great puzzle to me how those triremes could have been worked. How do you understand the three banks of oars, Mr. Brown?"

"Well, sir, I suppose they must have been one above the other somehow."

"But the upper bank must have had oars twenty feet long, and more, in that case," said the Captain. "You must allow for leverage, you see."

"Of course, sir. When one comes to think of it, it isn't easy to see how they were manned and worked," said Tom.

"Now my notion about triremes--" began the Captain, holding the head of his stick with both hands, and looking across at Tom.

"Why, father!" cried Hardy, returning at the moment with the pipes, and catching the Captain's last word, "on one of your hobby horses already! You're not safe!--I can't leave you for two minutes. Here's a long pipe for you. How in the world did he get on triremes?"

"I hardly know," said Tom; "but I want to hear what Captain Hardy thinks about them. You were saying, sir, that the upper oars must have been twenty feet long at least."

"My notion is--" said the Captain, taking the pipe and tobacco-pouch from his son's hand.

"Stop one moment," said Hardy; "I found Blake at my rooms, and asked him to come over here. You don't object?"

"Object, my dear fellow! I'm much obliged to you. Now, Hardy, would you like to have anyone else? I can send in a minute."

"No one, thank you."

"You won't stand on ceremony now, will you, with me?" said Tom.

"You see I haven't."

"And you never will again?"

"No, never. Now, father, you can heave ahead about those oars."

The Captain went on charging his pipe, and proceeded: "You see, Mr. Brown, they must have been at least twenty feet long, because, if you allow the lowest bank of oars to have been three feet above the water-line, which even Jack thinks they must have been--"

"Certainly. That height at least to do any good," said Hardy.

"Not that I think Jack's opinion worth much on the point," went on his father.

"It's very ungrateful of you, then, to say so, father," said Hardy, "after all the time I've wasted trying to make it all clear to you."

"I don't say that Jack's is not a good opinion on most things, Mr. Brown," said the Captain; "but he is all at sea about triremes. He believes that the men of the uppermost bank rowed somehow like lightermen on the Thames, walking up and down."

"I object to your statement of my faith, father," said Hardy.