THE ESSAY, I need not say, on which John laboured, inking himself body and soul, was not by any means finished at one sitting. He toiled at it during the whole of the first week which was the term of grace. It was not a good essay. The books, read in a hurry and very imperfectly, did not convey to him by any means all the sense that was in them; his remarks were very conventional, and, if truth must be told, commonplace. That was not John’s line, neither is it by any means the only one in which a man even at the University can distinguish himself. He may row or he may run, which all the world knows are still more ready ways to distinction, or he may play racquets or something else for the ‘Varsity, or he may at least make a good score in the college eleven — all of which things count, at least, as much as essays. John, however, did none of these. He knew more of some things, and these not inconsiderable things, than some of the Dons, and he was no more to be compared with the silly young undergraduates who carried him (sometimes) away in their whirls, than Hyperion to a Satyr. Alas! that happens often enough: it is a mystery, one of the greatest within mortal ken, but none of us can tell why. With John it was different: it was in the carelessness of strength, not the fatal lapse of weakness, that he went astray.
But he did not know how to write an essay: he did it against the grain, and knowing all the time how bad it was, even in the midst of the current which soon began again to rush around him. He was still sitting at it labouring to finish it, seeing land he thought, and panting and struggling to get to that blessed shore, when his rooms filled one afternoon with a crowd that was very much at leisure though it had a hundred things to do. There was a capital match on at the Parks, and he must come to see it, they cried. And there were two fellows going out for a spin on the river, on whose heads a great many bets were laid; and there was — but it will not be expected of me that I should know what was going on in an afternoon in October to occupy a band of boys calling themselves men, and agog after any and every amusement. A few sat on the table dangling their legs, and shutting out the light from John’s laboured page, while the others stood about — one pair calling out of the window over their shoulders remarks upon the passers-by, and another pair inside lunging at each other with John’s foils, and a few more turning over the yellow novels of which he had always a great stock. “I say, Rushton,” they cried, “come along; you’re losing all the afternoon on that rot. We shan’t see half of the match if you don’t look sharp.”
“Who would have thought of Jack turning out a sap,” cried another, who was from Eton, and used the language of that valuable seminary.
“A fellow with his pockets full of money,” cried another, “and nobody to call him over the coals.”
“Oh, look here,” cried the men at the window; “here’s old Chortles going out for a walk, and Peters after him. Oh, you fellows, shouldn’t you like to be Peters, going out for an hour and a half’s viva voce, ambulando! that’s what it is to be a pet of old Chortles, oh ho! oh ho!”
Chortles, it may be here said, was an affectionate nickname, or otherwise, applied to the Warden, on account of a peculiarity in his voice.
“Jove,” cried the others, “if there isn’t Scarfield sailing along with the Jolly Bruiser right across old Chortles’ nose. By George, what’s going to happen? Chortles’ got an eye like a hawk, though he pretends to wear glasses, and Scarry, poor wretch, is as blind as a bat. Oh, good Lord!” cried the spectators, in tones of awe.
Three other young men precipitated themselves on the shoulders of the foregoing to see the fun, as they said: that a dilettante young nobleman, the pink of propriety, should know the Jolly Bruiser at all, was an unthought-of delight, and all the company crowded to see, if not with their own yet with others’ eyes.
“Oh, Lord!” reported the first speaker, “to see Scarry sailing on, with a deal of side, too — not a thought of what he’s coming to. Bravo, Peters! he’s putting up a signal, but the blind ass doesn’t see. Bruiser’s in a dead funk now, trying to run away — Scarry’s got hold of his arm. Oh, by Jove!”
“What’s up now?” they all cried.
“Peters’ behaving like a brick,” said another, over his shoulder. “Pointing over to the other side — to Shrimpton’s, by all that’s dreadful! — where the last thing out is Chortles himself as large as life. Out of the frying-pan into the fire for Peters, eh?”
“Did he think he’d do it, then?” said another. “I say, you fellows, don’t squeeze a man flat! Chortles ain’t so innocent as he looks, not by a long way. Gives a nod, as much as to say I’ll come to you by-and-by; and goes for Scarry straight — —”
Here there was a chorus of laughter, suddenly subdued.
“Silence, you fellows! he’s looking this way. Just one glance, Rushy, but he sees it’s your windows, and you’re in for it. Oh, Jove! to see the Warden touching his hat to Jim Tucker! Jim squashed, the unjolliest Bruiser you ever saw, half a foot shorter at the least, makes tracks — and, Lord! to see Chortles holding Scarry with his eye! I’d give all my lands and castles to hear what he says!”
“Ah! it’s all very well for Scarry,” said another— “cool as a cucumber, don’t you know, with nothing against him, and a title at his back; whereas if it were you or me — —”
“Explaining he is, by Jove! Don’t you see old Chortles shutting him up? Come to me this evening after hall — that’s what he’s saying, bet you anything! Oh, I wish I could be there to see; and, Lord! there he goes across to Shrimpton’s: Peters has remembered, poor old man! He’s being led to execution, and he knows it. It was all to save that prig Scarry, who will never lift a finger for him.”
“I say, you fellows, are we going to stay here all the afternoon?” said — this incident being over — another of the band. John had been sitting, his pen suspended in his hand, during the little episode above described. The cloud of young men at the window had shut out the light, while the cries and stamps of the fencers who had carried on through all the tumult came in now suddenly like a solo after a chorus. John’s ideas were not very quick to come at any time, and that last bit of struggling towards the end of a very unwilling literary exercise is perhaps the worst of all. You are breathless with sight of the shore so near at hand, and longing to get to it. He had not been able to refuse his interest to these incidents as seen from the window, and of course he wanted to be out in the fresh air, and the contagion of restlessness in the others — who could not keep either legs or arms quiet for a moment, and now began to sprawl all about his room, some taking sides in the mock contest between the fencers, some pulling about his books, his photographs on the mantelpiece, and even his portfolios of sketches in the corner — gained on him in spite of himself: and the obstinacy of pride was not perhaps a very sustaining motive, though indeed it was this alone, and not any pleasure in work or desire to do it well, which chained him to that hopeful manuscript. “I wish you’d go,” he said, with the straightforwardness which was not out of place in that society. “Brunton, there’s drinks in the cupboard; you know where to find them. Help yourselves, for goodness’ sake, and go! I must get this confounded thing before I stir, and how can I get on with all of you ballyragging about?”
“Rubbish!” said Brunton. “Leave it till after. You can get it done another time.”
“What other time?” said John, setting his elbows square on the table.
“I never knew Jack to be a sap before,” said the Eton man. “Come on, and leave him to his fate.”
Then one detachment went rushing down the staircase, filling the air with the tumult of their steps and voices. But the fencers and their audience still kept the ground.
“What a deuced waste of time!” said Brunton, turning over the sheets. “By George, Jack, you’ll spoil the college! Look here, Gaison, and blush if you can for your confounded swagger of a place. See what we can do here — and the first week of term, too!”
“Rushy, my boy, you’re too good to live!” said the other man.
“I’ll tell you what!” said John, in his impatience — but he checked himself, for the fencers had put up their foils and were preparing to move.
“Come along,” they said; “let’s look up the Bruiser and see how he likes to meet old Chortles full face in the High. Let’s go and have a game of billiards. Let’s have a stroll somewhere. Let’s do something. That fellow with his pen is enough to bore a man out of his life.”
Brunton alone stayed, the most intimate, but not the most desirable, of John’s friends. He was intimate solely because he had made up his mind to be so, independent of John’s sentiments, perhaps because he had an admiration for John — which was the most flattering way of explaining it, and even over a sensible fellow like John Rushton exercised a certain agreeable influence — perhaps for other reasons. He had sought him by night and day. He had always been at hand when the young man wanted diversion, or even merely a reason for amusing himself — and the consequence was that Brunton had grown into a necessity, a sort of accompaniment to John’s life. He had helped himself to some of the drinks in the cupboard, and now sat astride on a chair with his glass in his hand staring across the back of it at John’s composition which had been resumed with doubtful success. John was unspeakably burdened and angered by the presence of this spectator, but it is not so easy to dismiss a single visitor as it is to adjure a crowd to go away. At length “I say, old fellow,” Brunton said.
John made a movement of impatience with his hand, and laboured on.
“I say, when are you coming down by Iffley, the Old Hatchet way? What jolly days we had there last term. By the way, there’s some one there —— Beg pardon, old man, if I’m interrupting — —”
“Of course you’re interrupting,” cried John. “Look here. I’m going to finish this before I budge, if the devil himself were to interfere.” He threw down his pen and looked his friend in the face. “If you’ve got anything to say that wants saying, say it and be done with it in the name of — —”
“Ah! I knew I’d fetch you so!” cried the other. “Well, I’ll tell you what it is. There’s a little person there that wants to see you very badly — and a very pretty little person too. She says, ‘Ain’t Mr Rushton up this year? — ain’t Mr Rushton a-coming out to see us? Me and mother thinks a deal of Mr Rushton. He ain’t a bit like the rest of you gentlemen.’”
“Well?” said John, red, but fierce.
“Well! I told her I’d tell you. It’s a poor compliment for the rest of us, Jack: but you’ve only to go in and win.”
“Stuff,” said John, “and fudge and bosh, and whatever else there is that’s silly. I understand what she means. I have some respect for a woman, whoever she is.”
“Oh, respect!” said Brunton; “I expect she would like something a little warmer than that. And she says you promised to bring her something the very first day you were up — and you’ve been up a week — hence those tears.”
“I promised to bring her something?” said John, with confusion: and then he became fiery red once more.
“Don’t you think you’d like a stroll?” he added; “don’t you think you’d like a game at billiards? there’s always some one about that has nothing to do. It’s a pity to lose the whole afternoon here.”
“That’s a broad hint, anyhow,” cried the other, laughing. “Well, I’ll go — but don’t forget the Hatchet, old fellow, and the arbour in the garden, and the maid of the inn. Oh, I’m off. You need not spoil your books throwing them at me.”
When he was alone John put down his pen again and took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. His countenance was crimson and the blood all a-boil in his veins. “What a fool I am, what a double-dashed fool I have been,” he said to himself. And it was some time before he could resume the work at which he had so laboured and struggled. This was a greater interruption than anything made by the comrades who had thronged and troubled him. Yet after a while he surmounted this also, and betook himself to his work with such energy that he did at last struggle through. Well! it was not very much when it was done: probably no less valuable piece of work ever took so much time before. It had cost him a great deal of trouble, and now that it was completed it was of less than no use to anybody. The unfortunate tutor to whom he would have to read it would groan his head off before it was finished, and then it would be flung with relief into the fire. And yet he had spent all these days at it, cudgelled his brains, and almost cudgelled some of the idle fellows who had tried to stop him — for this wretched thing that was nothing, which was less than worthless! Few can perhaps see this so distinctly and with so powerful an apprehension as John did. He put it away in his desk with a grim smile, and then just as twilight was coming on he went out — to stretch his limbs and fill his lungs with that damp Oxford air which is perhaps just better than no air at all.
He was swinging along over Maudlin Bridge on his walk, “thinking hard,” as he would have said, when there came suddenly up out of the twilight a little figure, which stopped and clasped its hands at sight of him, with a little cry. “Oh, is it really you, Mr Rushton?” which chimed in, in a very troublous and distressing manner, with John’s thoughts.
“And is this you, Miss — Miss Millar,” he said, perturbed, “so far from home?”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s a bit late. I’ve been in town doin’ two or three little things for mother, and I see it was getting dark, and started runnin’ — and then I thought that would just make folks stare — and then I saw as it was you —— Oh, Mr Rushton, you’ve never been to see us — though you promised — —”
“I have only been up a very little time. I — I have had a great deal to do.”
“Ah,” said the girl, “I know what you gentlemen has to do — just to find out every day something new to amuse yourselves — not like us as has to work.”
“I assure you, Mary, it was work with me — real work, though you may not believe it,” he said.
She came a little nearer to him at the sound of her own name, and, looking up, said in a subdued tone, “I’d believe anything you said.”
Fiercely red once more became John, hot as with a furnace-blast: but nobody saw this, not even the pair of eyes that were for a moment lifted to his.
“I’m afraid I don’t deserve as much as that,” he said, humbly. “I say things I don’t mean, just like the rest.”
“I wouldn’t believe anybody but yourself as said so. Perhaps you didn’t mean it then, Mr Rushton, when you promised me that.”
“What did I promise you, Mary?”
“Oh, Mr Rushton, you can’t — you can’t have forgotten! You promised me a nice gold locket with your picture in it.”
They were walking on now side by side in the growing dimness, and John had not even daylight to protect him, or the expression of his face.
“My picture?” he said, in dismay. “Was I such a fool as all that? You shall have the gold locket and welcome, Mary; but you don’t mean to say you would like my ugly mug inside?”
“Oh, ugly, indeed!” she said; “that’s just what I should like best.”
Poor John, not knowing what to say, overwhelmed with humiliation and shame, yet a little ruefully elated, too, that she should like his ugly mug, made a clumsy diversion by a total change of subject, and asked hurriedly whether anything had happened since he had been away.
“Oh, happened!” she cried, annoyed not to pursue the more interesting subject. “Nothing ever happens down Iffley way: at least no more than the old thing as mother is always at me to — marry: and I shouldn’t wonder if I did some day, just for a change — —”
“And who,” said John, with that instant impulse to kick him, which is natural to his kind, “is the happy man?”
“Oh, you know, Mr Rushton. It’s Jim Kington, as you’ve heard before. It’s a bit hard,” said the girl, with something like a suppressed sob, “after seeing so much of you gentlemen and your ways, to settle down for life with such a common man.”
“Would you like, then, to marry — a gentleman?” John said. He did not know why he said it — unthinking, and yet not without a thought — wantonly, because it was dangerous, because he wanted to see what she would say.
“Oh, Mr Rushton!” she said, hanging her head: and suddenly, to his consternation, he felt a timid touch, her hand stealing within his arm.
“It wouldn’t be for your good, Mary,” he said, with energy. “You don’t know what you would have to go through. How would you like to have people looking down upon you, laughing at you behind your back, perhaps mocking you before your face, and all your little faults made a fuss about, and nobody to be at ease with. I don’t think you would find it a happy fate.”
“If you think I have such bad manners, Mr Rushton! but not when I take pains. I know how to hold my head as high as the best, and give them back as good —— And, besides, I am very quick at picking things up, and I’d soon learn — —”
“Some things are not so easily learned,” said John. “I don’t think you’d find it a happy fate.”
“Oh, Mr Rushton,” she said, again hanging with a little weight upon his arm, holding it close, “why should I mind if he loved me? — I’d be ‘appy anywhere, if I never saw a single soul, only to pass my life along of — — ‘im!”
She said “‘im,” but meant “you,” plainer than words could say. And John for a moment stood still, planting his feet on the soil, feeling the whirl catch them, the quickening current, the sweep of a senseless flood: yet conscious to the very core that he did not love the girl — not the very least in the world.