Tom Brown at Oxford Part 44

"I do, my dear fellow. But you'll be all right again in a few days."

"Don't you believe it. It isn't only what you seem to think, Hardy. You don't know me so well as I do you, after all. No, I'm not just love-sick, and hipped because I can't go and see her.

That has something to do with it, I dare say, but it's the sort of shut-up selfish life we lead here that I can't stand. A man isn't meant to live only with fellows like himself, with good allowances paid quarterly, and no care but how to amuse themselves. One is old enough for something better than that, I'm sure."

"No doubt," said Hardy with provoking taciturnity.

"And the moment one tries to break through it, one only gets into trouble."

"Yes, there's a good deal of danger of that, certainly," said Hardy.

"Don't you often long to be in contact with some of the realities of life, with men and women who haven't their bread and b.u.t.ter already cut for them? How can a place be a university where no one can come up who hasn't two hundred a year or so to live on?"

"You ought to have been at Oxford four hundred years ago, when there were more thousands here than we have hundreds."

"I don't see that. It must have been ten times as bad then."

"Not at all. But it must have been a very different state of things from ours; they must have been almost all poor scholars, who worked for their living, or lived on next to nothing."

"How do you really suppose they lived, though?"

"Oh, I don't know. But how should you like it now, if we had fifty poor scholars at St. Ambrose, besides us servitors--say ten tailors, ten shoemakers, and so on, who came up from love of learning, and attended all the lectures with us, and worked for the present undergraduates while they were hunting, and cricketing, and boating?"

"Well, I think it would be a very good thing--at any rate, we should save in tailors' bills."

"Even if we didn't get our coats so well built," said Hardy, laughing. "Well, Brown, you have a most catholic taste, and 'a capacity for talking in new truths', all the elements of a good Radical in you."

"I tell you, I hate Radicals," said Tom indignantly.

"Well, here we are in the town. I'll go round by 'The Choughs'

and catch you up before you get to High Street."

Tom, left, to himself, walked slowly on for a little way, and then quickly back again in an impatient, restless manner, and was within a few yards of the corner where they had parted, when Hardy appeared again. He saw at a glance that something had happened.

"What is it--she is not ill?" he said quickly.

"No; quite well, her aunt says."

"You didn't see her then?"

"No. The fact is she has gone home."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ENGLEBOURN CONSTABLE

On the afternoon of a splendid day in the early part of June, some four or five days after the Sunday on which the morning service at Englebourn was interrupted by the fire at Farmer Groves', David Johnson, tailor and constable of the parish, was sitting at his work in a small erection, half shed, half summer-house, which leaned against the back of his cottage. Not that David had not a regular workshop, with a window looking into the village street, and a regular counter close under it, on which pa.s.sersby might see him st.i.tching, and from which he could gossip with them easily, as was his wont. But although the constable kept the king's peace and made garments of all kinds for his livelihood--from the curate's frock down to the ploughboy's fustians--he was addicted for his pleasure and solace to the keeping of bees. The constable's bees inhabited a row of hives in the narrow strip of garden which ran away at the back of the cottage. This strip of garden was bordered along the whole of one side by the rector's premises. Now honest David loved gossip well, and considered it a part of his duty as constable to be well up in all events and rumours which happened or arose within his liberties. But he loved his bees better than gossip, and, as he was now in hourly expectation that they would be swarming, was working, as has been said, in his summer-house, that he might be at hand at the critical moment. The rough table on which he was seated commanded a view of the hives; his big scissors and some shreds of velveteen lay near him on the table, also the street-door key and an old shovel, of which the uses will appear presently.

On his knees lay the black velveteen coat, the Sunday garment of Harry Winburn, to which he was fitting new sleeves. In his exertions at the top of the chimney in putting out the fire, Harry had grievously damaged the garment in question. The farmer had presented him with five shillings on the occasion, which sum was quite inadequate to the purchase of a new coat, and Harry, being too proud to call the farmer's attention to the special damage which he had suffered in his service, had contented himself with bringing his old coat to be new sleeved.

Harry was a favorite with the constable on account of his intelligence and independence, and because of his relations with the farmers of Englebourn on the allotment question. Although by his office the representative of law and order in the parish, David was a man of the people, and sympathized with the peasantry more than with the farmers. He had pa.s.sed some years of his apprenticeship at Reading, where he had picked up notions on political and social questions much ahead of the Englebourn worthies. When he returned to his native village, being a wise man, he had kept his new lights in the background, and consequently had succeeded in the object of his ambition, and had been appointed constable. His reason for seeking the post was a desire to prove that the old joke as to the manliness of tailors had no application to his case, and this he had established to the satisfaction of all the neighborhood by the resolute manner in which, whenever called on, he performed his duties. And, now that his character was made and his position secure, he was not so careful of betraying his leanings, and had lost some custom amongst the farmers in consequence of them.

The job on which he was employed naturally turned his thoughts to Harry. He st.i.tched away, now weighing in his mind whether he should not go himself to Farmer Groves, and represent to him that he ought to give Harry a new coat; now rejoicing over the fact that the rector had decided to let Harry have another acre of the allotment land, now speculating on the attachment of his favorite to the gardener's daughter, and whether he could do any thing to forward his suit. In the pursuit of which thoughts he had forgotten all about his bees, when suddenly a great humming arose, followed by a rush through the air like the pa.s.sing of an express train, which recalled him to himself. He jumped from the table, casting aside the coat, and seizing the key and shovel, hurried out into the garden, beating the two together with all his might.

The process in question, known in country phrase as "tanging", is founded upon the belief that the bees will not settle unless under the influence of this peculiar music; and the constable, holding faithfully to the popular belief, rushed down his garden, "tanging" as though his life depended upon it, in the hopes that the soothing sound would induce the swarm to settle at once on his own apple trees.

Is "tanging" a superst.i.tion or not? People learned in bees ought to know, but I never happened to meet one who had settled the question. It is curious how such beliefs or superst.i.tions fix themselves in the popular mind of a countryside, and are held by wise and simple alike. David the constable was a most sensible and open-minded man of his time and cla.s.s, but Kemble or Akerman, or other learned Anglo-Saxon scholars would have vainly explained to him that "tang", is but the old word for "to hold", and that the object of "tanging" is, not to lure the bees with sweet music of key and shovel, but to give notice to the neighbours that they have swarmed, and that the owner of the maternal hive means to hold on to his right to the emigrants. David would have listened to the lecture with pity, and have retained unshaken belief in his music.

In the present case, however, the tanging was of little avail, for the swarm, after wheeling once or twice in the air, disappeared from the eyes of the constable over the rector's wall. He went on "tanging" violently for a minute or two, and then paused to consider what was to be done. Should he get over the wall into the rector's garden at once, or should he go round and ask leave to carry his search into the parsonage grounds? As a man and bee-fancier he was on the point of following straight at once, over wall and fence; but the constable was also strong within him. He was not on the best of terms with old Simon, the rector's gardener, and his late opposition to Miss Winter in the matter of the singing also came into his mind. So he resolved that the parish constable would lose caste by disregarding his neighbour's boundaries, and was considering what to do next, when he heard a footstep and short cough on the other side of the wall which he recognized.

"Be you there, Maester Simon?" he called out. Where upon the walker on the other side pulled up, and after a second appeal answered shortly--

"E'es."

"Hev'ee seed ought o' my bees? Thaay've a bin' and riz, and gone off somweres athert the wall."

"E'es, I seen 'em."

"Wer' be 'em then?"

"Aal-amang wi' ourn in the limes."

"Aal-amang wi'yourn," exclaimed the constable. "Drattle 'em.

Thaay be more trouble than they be wuth."

"I knowd as thaay wur yourn zoon as ever I sot eyes on 'em," old Simon went on.

"How did'ee know 'em then?" asked the constable.

"'Cause thine be aal zettin' cra.s.s-legged," said Simon, with a chuckle. "Thee medst c.u.m and pick 'em all out if thee'st a mind to 't."

Simon was mollified by his own joke, and broke into a short, dry cachinnation, half laugh, half cough; while the constable, who was pleased and astonished to find his neighbour in such a good humour, hastened to get an empty hive and a pair of hedger's gloves--fortified with which he left his cottage and made the best of his way up street towards the Rectory gate, hard by which stood Simon's cottage.

The old gardener was of an impatient nature, and the effect of the joke had almost time to evaporate, and Simon was fast relapsing into his usual state of mind towards his neighbour before the latter made his appearance.

"Wher' hast been so long?" he exclaimed, when the constable joined him.

"I seed the young missus and t'other young lady a standin'

talkin' afore the door," said David; "so I stopped back, so as not to dlsturve 'em."

"Be 'em gone in? Who was 'em talkin' to?"

"To thy missus, and thy daarter too, I b'lieve 'twas. Thaay be both at whoam, bean't 'em?"

"Like enough. But what was 'em zayin'?"

"I couldn't heer nothin' partic'lar, but I judged as 'twas summat about Sunday and the fire."