Tom Brown at Oxford Part 99

"To be sure it will. I must be introduced to a certain young lady before we start. I shall tell her that I don't mean to give up hopes of seeing her on the other side of the world."

"Well, here we are on the common. What a glorious sunset! Come, stir up, Nibble. We shall be on the Lynch just in time to see him dip if we push on."

Nibble, the ancient pony, finding that there was no help for it, scrambled up the greater part of the ascent successfully. But his wheezings and roarings during the operation excited East's pity; so he dismounted when they came to the foot of the Hawk's Lynch, and, tying Nibble's bridle to a furze-bush--a most unnecessary precaution--set to work to scale the last and deepest bit of the ascent with the help of his stick--and Tom's strong-arm.

They paused every ten paces or so to rest and look at the sunset.

The broad vale below lay in purple shadow; the soft flocks of little clouds high up over their heads, and stretching away to the eastern horizon, floated in a sea of rosy light; and the stems of the Scotch firs stood out like columns of ruddy flame.

"Why, this beats India," said East, putting up his hand to shade his eyes, which were fairly dazzled by the blaze. "What a contrast to the last time I was up here! Do you remember that awful black-blue sky?"

"Don't I? Like a night-mare. Hullo! who's here?"

"Why, if it isn't the parson and Miss Winter," said East, smiling.

True enough, there they were, standing together on the very verge of the mound, beyond the firs, some ten yards in front of the last comers, looking out into the sunset.

"I say, Tom, another good omen," whispered East; "hadn't we better beat a retreat?"

Before Tom could answer, or make up his mind what to do, Hardy turned his head and caught sight of them, and then Katie turned too, blushing like the little clouds overhead. It was an embarra.s.sing moment. Tom stammered out that they had come up quite by chance, and then set to work, well seconded by East, to look desperately unconscious, and to expatiate on the beauties of the view. The light began to fade, and the little clouds to change again from soft pink to grey, and the evening star shone out clear as they turned to descend the hill, when the Englebourn clock chimed nine.

Katie attached herself to Tom, while Hardy helped the Captain down the steep pitch, and on to the back of Nibble. They went a little ahead. Tom was longing to speak to his cousin, but could not tell how to begin. At last Katie broke the silence;

"I am so vexed that this should have happened!"

"Are you, dear? So am not I," he said, pressing her arm to his side.

"But I mean, it seems so forward--as if I had met Mr. Hardy here on purpose. What will your friend think of me?"

"He will think no evil."

"But indeed, Tom, do tell him, pray. It was quite an accident.

You know how I and Mary used to go up the Hawk's Lynch whenever we could, on fine evenings."

"Yes, dear, I know it well."

"And I thought of you both so much to-day, that I couldn't help coming up here."

"And you found Hardy? I don't wonder. I should come up to see the sun set every night, if I lived at Englebourn."

"No. He came up sometime after me. Straight up the hill. I did not see him till he was quite close. I could not run away then.

Indeed, it was not five minutes before you came."

"Five minutes are as good as a year sometimes."

"And you will tell your friend, Tom, how it happened?"

"Indeed I will, Katie. May I not tell him something more?"

He looked round for an answer, and there was just light enough to read it in her eye.

"My debt is deepening to the Hawk's Lynch," he said, as they walked on through the twilight. "Blessed five minutes! Whatever else they may take with them, they will carry my thanks for ever.

Look how clear and steady the light of that star is, just over the church tower. I wonder whether Mary is at a great hot dinner.

Shall you write to her soon?"

"Oh, yes. To-night."

"You may tell her that there is no better Englishman walking the earth than my friend, John Hardy. Here we are at his lodgings.

East and I are going to tea with him. Wish them good night, and I will see you home."

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

From the Englebourn festivities, Tom and East returned to London.

The Captain was bent on starting for his possessions in the South Pacific; and, as he regained strength, energized over all his preparations, and went about in cabs purchasing agricultural implements, sometimes by the light of nature, and sometimes under the guidance of Harry Winburn. He invested also in something of a library, and in large quant.i.ties of saddlery. In short, packages of all kinds began to increase and multiply upon him. Then there was the selecting of a vessel, and all the negotiations with the ship's captain as to terms, and the business of getting introduced to, and conferring with, people from the colony, or who were supposed to know something about it. Altogether, East had plenty of work on his hands; and the more he had to do, the better and more cheery he became.

Tom, on the contrary, was rather lower than usual. His half-formed hopes that some good luck was going to happen to him after Patty's marriage, were beginning to grow faint, and the contrast of his friend's definite present purpose in life, with his own uncertainty, made him more or less melancholy in spite of all his efforts. His father had offered him a tour abroad, now that he had finished with Oxford, urging that he seemed to want a change to freshen him up before buckling to a profession, and that he would never, in all likelihood, have such another chance.

But he could not make up his mind to accept the offer. The attraction to London was too strong for him; and, though he saw little hope of anything happening to improve his prospects, he could not keep away from it. He spent most of his time, when not with East, in haunting the neighborhood of Mr. Porter's house in Belgravia, and the places where he was likely to catch distant glimpses of Mary, avoiding all chance of actual meeting or recognition, from which he shrank in his present frame of mind.

The nearest approach to the flame which he allowed himself was a renewal of his old friendship with Grey, who was still working on in his Westminister rookery. He had become a great favorite with Mrs. Porter, who was always trying to get him to her house to feed him properly, and was much astonished, and sometimes almost provoked, at the small success of her hospitable endeavors. Grey was so taken up with his own pursuits that it did not occur to him to be surprised that he never met Tom at the house of his relations. He was innocent of all knowledge or suspicion of the real state of things, so that Tom could talk to him with perfect freedom about his uncle's household, picking up all such sc.r.a.ps of information as Grey possessed without compromising himself or feeling shy.

Thus the two old schoolfellows lived on together after their return from Englebourn, in a set of chambers in the Temple, which one of Tom's college friends (who had been beguiled from the perusal of Stephen's Commentaries and aspirations after the woolsack, by the offer of a place on board a yacht and a cruise to Norway) had fortunately lent him.

We join company with our hero again on a fine July morning.

Readers will begin to think that, at any rate, he is always blessed with fine weather, whatever troubles he may have to endure; but, if we are not to have fine weather in novels, when and where are we to have it? It was a fine July morning, then, and the streets were already beginning to feel sultry as he worked his way westward. Grey, who had never given up hopes of bringing Tom round to his own views, had not neglected the opportunities which this residence in town offered, and had enlisted Tom's services on more than one occasion. He had found him specially useful in instructing the big boys, whom he was trying to bring together and civilize in a "Young Men's Club," in the rudiments of cricket on Sat.u.r.day evenings. But on the morning in question, an altogether different work was on hand.

A lady living some eight or nine miles to the north-west of London, who took great interest in Grey's doings, had asked him to bring the children of his night-school down to spend a day in her grounds, and this was the happy occasion. It was before the days of cheap excursions by rail, so that vans had to be found for the party; and Grey had discovered a benevolent remover of furniture in Paddington, who was ready to take them at a reasonable figure. The two vans, with awnings and curtains in the height of fashion, and horses with ta.s.selled ear-caps, and everything handsome about them, were already drawn up in the midst of a group of excited children, and scarcely less excited mothers, when Tom arrived. Grey was arranging his forces, and labouring to reduce the Irish children, who formed almost half his ragged little flock, into something like order, before starting. By degrees this was managed, and Tom was placed in command of the rear van, while Grey reserved the leading one to himself. The children were divided and warned not to lean over the sides and fall out--a somewhat superfluous caution--as most of them, though unused to riding in any legitimate manner, were pretty well used to balancing themselves behind any vehicle which offered as much as a spike to sit on, out of sight of the driver.

Then came the rush into the vans. Grey and Tom took up their places next the doors as conductors, and the procession lumbered off with great success, and much shouting from treble voices.

Tom soon found that he had plenty of work on his hands to keep the peace among his flock. The Irish element was in a state of wild effervescence, and he had to draft them down to his own end, leaving the foremost cart of the van to the soberer English children. He was much struck by the contrast of the whole set to the Englebourn school children, whom he had lately seen under somewhat similar circ.u.mstances. The difficulty with them had been to draw them out, and put anything like life into them; here, all he had to do was to suppress the superabundant life. However, the vans held on their way, and got safely into the suburbs, and so at last to an occasional hedge, and a suspicion of trees, and green fields beyond.

It became more and more difficult now to keep the boys in; and when they came to a hill, where the horses had to walk, he yielded to their entreaties, and, opening the door, let them out, insisting only that the girls should remain seated. They scattered over the sides of the roads, and up the banks; now chasing pigs and fowls up to the very doors of their owners; now gathering the commonest roadside weeds, and running up to show them to him, and ask their names, as if they were rare treasures.

The ignorance of most of the children as to the commonest country matters astonished him. One small boy particularly came back time after time to ask him, with solemn face "Please, sir, is this the country?" and when at last he allowed that it was, rejoined, "Then, please, where are the nuts?"

The clothing of most of the Irish boys began to tumble to pieces in an alarming manner. Grey had insisted on their being made tidy for the occasion, but the tidiness was of a superficial kind. The hasty st.i.tching soon began to give way, and they were rushing about with wild locks; the strips of what once might have been nether garments hanging about their legs; their feet and heads bare, the shoes which their mothers had borrowed for the state occasion having been deposited under the seat of the van. So, when the procession arrived at the trim lodge-gates of their hostess, and his charge descended and fell in on the beautifully clipped turf at the side of the drive, Tom felt some of the sensations of Falstaff when he had to lead his ragged regiment through Coventry streets.

He was soon at his ease again, and enjoyed the clay thoroughly, and the drive home; but, as they drew near town again, a sense of discomfort and shyness came over him, and he wished the journey to Westminster well over, and hoped that the carman would have the sense to go through the quiet parts of the town.

He was much disconcerted consequently, when the vans came to a sudden stop opposite one of the Park entrances, in the Bayswater Road. "What in the world is Grey about?" he thought, as he saw him get out, and all the children after him. So he got out himself, and went forward to get an explanation.

"Oh I have told the man that he need not drive us round to Westminster. He is close at home here, and his horses have had a hard day; so we can just get out and walk home."

"What, across the Park?" asked Tom.

"Yes, it will amuse the children, you know."