Tom Brown at Oxford Part 43

"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 doc.u.ment."

"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 pa.s.s 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 embarra.s.sing 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."