Tom Brown at Oxford

"Not that I know of."

"Well, we shall hear enough of it before lecture time."

Jervis was right. There was a meeting in the common room directly after breakfast. Drysdale, anticipating his fate, took his name off before they sent for him. Chanter and three or four others were rusticated for a year, and Blake was ordered to go down at once. He was a scholar, and what was to be done in his case would be settled at the meeting at the end of the term.

For twenty-four hours it was supposed that St. Cloud had escaped altogether; but at the end of that time he was summoned before a meeting in the common room. The tutor whose door had been so effectually screwed up that he had been obliged to get out of his window by a ladder to attend morning chapel, proved wholly unable to appreciate the joke, and set himself to work to discover the perpetrators of it. The door was fastened with long gimlets, which had been screwed firmly in, and when driven well home, their heads knocked off. The tutor collected the shafts of the gimlets from the carpenter, who came to effect an entry for him; and, after careful examination discovered the trade mark, So, putting them into his pocket, he walked off into the town, and soon came back with the information he required, which resulted in the rustication of St. Cloud, an event which was borne by the college with the greatest equanimity.

Shortly afterwards, Tom attended in the schools' quadrangle again, to be present at the posting of the class list. This time there were plenty of anxious faces; the quadrangle was full of them. He felt almost as nervous himself as if he were waiting for the third gun. He thrust himself forward, and was amongst the first who caught sight of the document. One look was enough for him, and the next moment he was off at full speed for St. Ambrose, and, rushing headlong into Hardy's rooms, seized him by the hand and shook it vehemently.

"It's all right, old fellow," he cried, as soon as he could catch his breath; "it's all right. Four firsts; you're one of them; well done!"

"And Grey, where's he; is he all right?"

"Bless me, I forgot to look," said Tom; "I only read the firsts, and then came off as hard as I could."

"Then he is not a first."

"No; I'm sure of that."

"I must go and see him; he deserved it far more than I."

"No, by Jove, old boy," said Tom, seizing him again by the hand, "that he didn't; nor any man that ever went into the schools."

"Thank you, Brown," said Hardy, returning his warm grip. "You do one good. Now to see poor Grey, and to write to my dear old father before hall. Fancy him opening the letter at breakfast the day after to-morrow! I hope it won't hurt him."

"Never, fear. I don't believe in people dying of joy, and anything short of sudden death he won't mind at the price."

Hardy hurried off, and Tom went to his own rooms, and smoked a cigar to allay his excitement, and thought about his friend, and all they had felt together, and laughed and mourned over in the short months of their friendship. A pleasant, dreamy half-hour he spent thus, till the hall bell roused him, and he made his toilette and went to his dinner.

It was with very mixed feelings that Hardy walked by the servitors' table and took his seat with the bachelors, an equal at last amongst equals. No man who is worth his salt can leave a place where he has gone through hard and searching discipline, and been tried in the very depths of his heart, without regret, however much he may have winced under the discipline. It is no light thing to fold up and lay by forever a portion of one's life even when it can be laid by with honor and in thankfulness.

But it was with no mixed feelings, but with a sense of entire triumph and joy, that Tom watched his friend taking his new place, and the dons, one after another, coming up and congratulating him, and treating him as the man who had done honor to them and his college.

CHAPTER XXV

COMMEMORATION

The end of the academic year was now at hand, and Oxford was beginning to put on her gayest clothing. The college gardeners were in a state of unusual activity, and the lawns and flower-beds which form such exquisite settings to many of the venerable grey, gabled buildings, were as neat and as bright as hands could make them. Cooks, butlers and their assistants were bestirring themselves in kitchen and buttery, under the direction of bursars jealous of the fame of their houses, in the preparation of the abundant and solid fare with which Oxford is wont to entertain all comers. Everything the best of its kind, no stint but no nonsense, seems to be the wise rule which the University hands down and lives up to in these matters. However we may differ as to her degeneracy in other departments, all who have ever visited her will admit that in this of hospitality she is still a great national teacher, acknowledging and preaching by example the fact, that eating and drinking are important parts of man's life, which are to be allowed their due prominence, and not thrust into a corner, but are to be done soberly and thankfully, in the sight of God and man. The coaches were bringing in heavy loads of visitors; carriages of all kinds were coming in from the neighbouring counties; and lodgings in the High-street were going up to fabulous prices.

In one of these High-street lodgings, on the evening of the Saturday before Commemoration, Miss Winter and her cousin are sitting. They have been in Oxford during the greater part of the day, having posted up from Englebourn; but they have only just come in, for the younger lady is still in her bonnet, and Miss Winter's lies on the table. The windows are wide open, and Miss Winter is sitting at one of them; while her cousin is busied in examining the furniture and decorations of their temporary home, now commenting upon these, now pouring out praises of Oxford.

"Isn't it too charming? I never dreamt that any town could be so beautiful. Don't you feel wild about it, Katie?"

"It is the queen of towns, dear. But I know it well, you see, so that I can't be quite so enthusiastic as you."

"Oh, those dear gardens! what was the name of those ones with the targets up, where they were shooting? Don't you remember?"

"New College Gardens, on the old city wall, you mean?"

"No, no. They were nice and sentimental. I should like to go and sit and read poetry there. But I mean the big ones, the gorgeous, princely ones, with wicked old Bishop Laud's gallery looking into them."

"Oh! St. John's, of course."

"Yes, St. John's. Why do you hate Laud so, Katie?"

"I don't hate him, dear. He was a Berkshire man, you know. But I think he did a great deal of harm to the Church."

"How did you think my new silk looked in the garden? How lucky I brought it, wasn't it? I shouldn't have liked to have been in nothing but muslin. They don't suit here; you want something richer amongst the old buildings, and on the beautiful velvety turf of the gardens. How do you think I looked?"

"You looked like a queen, dear; or a lady-in-waiting, at least."

"Yes, a lady-in-waiting on Henrietta Maria. Didn't you hear one of the gentlemen say that she was lodged in St. John's when Charles marched to relieve Gloucester? Ah! Can't you fancy her sweeping about the gardens, with her ladies following her, and Bishop Laud walking just a little behind her, and talking in a low voice about – let me see – something very important?"

"Oh, Mary, where has your history gone? He was Archbishop, and was safely locked up in the Tower."

"Well, perhaps he was; then he couldn't be with her, of course. How stupid of you to remember, Katie. Why can't you make up your mind to enjoy yourself when you come out for a holiday?"

"I shouldn't enjoy myself any the more for forgetting dates," said Katie, laughing.

"Oh, you would though; only try. But let me see, it can't be Laud. Then it shall be that cruel drinking old man, with the wooden leg made of gold, who was governor of Oxford when the king was away. He must be hobbling along after the queen in a buff coat and breastplate, holding his hat with a long drooping white feather in his hand.

"But you wouldn't like it at all, Mary; it would be too serious for you. The poor queen would be too anxious for gossip, and you ladies-in-waiting would be obliged to walk after her without saying a word."

"Yes, that would be stupid. But then she would have to go away with the old governor to write dispatches; and some of the young officers with long hair and beautiful lace sleeves, and large boots, whom the king had left behind, wounded, might come and walk perhaps, or sit in the sun in the quiet gardens."

Mary looked over her shoulder with the merriest twinkle in her eye, to see how her steady cousin would take this last picture. "The college authorities would never allow that," she said quietly, still looking out the window; "if you wanted beaus, you must have had them in black gowns."

"They would have been jealous of the soldiers, you think? Well, I don't mind; the black gowns are very pleasant, only a little stiff. But how do you think my bonnet looked.

"Charmingly, but when are you going to have done looking in the glass? You don't care for the buildings, I believe, a bit. Come and look at St. Mary's; there is such a lovely light on the steeple!"

"I'll come directly, but I must get these flowers right. I'm sure there are too many in this trimming."

Mary was trying her new bonnet on over and over again before the mantel-glass, and pulling out and changing the places of the blush-rose buds with which it was trimmed. Just then a noise of wheels, accompanied by a merry tune on a cornopean, came in from the street.

"What's that, Katie?" she cried, stopping her work for a moment.

"A coach coming up from Magdalen Bridge. I think it is a cricketing party coming home."

"Oh, let me see," and she tripped across to the window, bonnet in hand, and stood beside her cousin. And, then, sure enough, a coach covered with cricketers returning from a match drove past the window. The young ladies looked out at first with great curiosity; but, suddenly finding themselves the mark for a whole coach load of male eyes, shrank back a little before the cricketers had passed on towards the "Mitre." As the coach passed out of sight, Mary gave a pretty toss of her head, and said —

"Well, they don't want for assurance, at any rate. I think they needn't have stared so."

"It was our fault," said Katie; "we shouldn't have been at the window. Besides, you know you are to be a lady-in-waiting on Henrietta Maria up here, and of course you must get used to being stared at."

"Oh yes, but that was to be by young gentlemen wounded in the wars, in lace ruffles, as one sees them in pictures. That's a very different thing from young gentlemen in flannel trousers and straw hats, driving up the High street on coaches. I declare one of them had the impudence to bow as if he knew you."

"So he does. That was my cousin."