_ CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. HOW MY MASTER FARED AT SAINT GEORGE'S COLLEGE AND MET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF THE READER'S THERE
It is not my intention in these pages to give a full and particular account of George Reader's college life. It would neither be on the whole interesting, nor would it be found to have much bearing on my own career, which is the ostensible theme of the present veracious history.
Stories of college life have furnished amusing material for many a book before now, to which the reader must turn, should his curiosity in that direction require to be satisfied. The life of a hard--a too hard- working student in his cell under the college staircase is neither amusing nor sensational, and it is quite enough to say that, after his first eventful evening, George Reader pursued his studies with unflagging ardour, though with greater precaution than ever.
He soon discovered which hours of the day and night were most favourable for uninterrupted work.
He made a point of taking his constitutional during the hour made hideous by the ill-starred aspirant on the ophicleide. He invested in a trap for the rats, which, with the aid of his mother's cheese, yielded him a nightly harvest of victims, and he arranged with Benson, the "gyp," not to interrupt him, preferring rather to wait on himself--nay, even to dust out his own room--than have to sacrifice precious time while the same offices were being performed by another, especially by such an overpowering and awe-inspiring person as Benson.
So he set himself to work, attending lectures by day, reading every night into the small hours, spending scarcely anything, shrinking from all acquaintanceships, taking only a minimum of recreation, and living almost the life of a hermit, until I could see his cheeks grow pale, and his eyes dark round the rims, and feared for his health.
He treated me uniformly well. Of course, as the gift of his fellow- villagers, he prized me highly, but by no means consigned me to the stately repose of a purely ornamental treasure. I lay nightly beside his elbow on the table, and counted for him the hours as they sped from night to morning. I lay beneath his pillow at night, and helped him to rise betimes. I insured his punctual attendance at lectures, and drove him home from his scanty walks in the fresh air more quickly than I myself would have cared to do if I could have helped it. In short, I found myself in the satisfactory position of one thoroughly useful in his sphere of life, and on the whole, though my first young master returned constantly to my thoughts, I contrived to be very happy in my new capacity.
Two events, however, both of a pleasant nature, served to vary the monotony of George's second term at college. The first of these was a visit from his friend and patron, Dr Wilkins, the rector of Muggerbridge.
George was sitting at his modest breakfast one morning, when his door suddenly opened, and the well-known and beloved face of his old tutor lit up the apartment.
My master sprang to his feet, and with unaffected joy rushed forward to welcome his guest, before it had do much as occurred to him into what uninviting quarters he was receiving him.
"How good of you to come, sir!" he cried. "I never expected such happiness."
"You don't suppose I should go through Cambridge and never beat up your quarters, my boy! But, dear me, how ill you are looking!"
"Am I? I don't feel ill."
"Humph! you're overdoing it. But aren't you going to offer me some breakfast?"
George coloured, and his spirits sank as his eyes fell on the scanty fare of which he himself had been partaking.
"It's only bread-and-butter," he said.
"And what better?" said Dr Wilkins, sitting down; "and I warrant the butter's good if it's your mother's making."
"So it is," said George, beginning to recover his spirits. "And how did you leave them at home, sir?"
"First-rate, my boy;--looking much better than you are. And so this is your den? Well, it's--"
"Nothing very grand," put in George.
"Exactly, nothing very grand; but I dare say you find it as good a place to read in as a drawing-room, eh? Now tell me all about yourself, my boy, while I drink this good tea of yours."
And George, with light heart and beaming face, told his good friend of all his doings, his hardships, his difficulties, his triumphs, and his ambitions.
And Dr Wilkins sat and listened with pride and thankfulness at heart, to find his young _protege_ the same earnest, unaffected boy he had parted with from Muggerbridge six months before. They talked for a long time that morning. The tutor and boy passed in review all the work hitherto accomplished and discussed the programme of future study. Many were the wholesome counsels the elder gave to the younger, and many were the new hopes and resolutions which filled the lad's heart as he opened all his soul to his good friend.
"And now," said Dr Wilkins, "I want you to take me to see your college and chapel."
George looked perplexed. Who was _he_ to conduct a Doctor of Divinity over his college. Such a hermit's life had he led that he hardly knew the ins and outs of the place himself, and there was not a single man in the college to whom he was not a stranger.
"I'm afraid you've chosen a bad guide," faltered he. "I don't know any of the men, and very little of the place."
"Oh, never mind that," said the doctor; "it will be all the more interesting to make a tour of discovery, so come along!"
George put on his cap and gown and obeyed. For a moment he wished the gown had been long enough to conceal the patch on the knee of his trousers, but the next he laughed at himself for his vanity.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of," thought he, "and if it _is_ patched--well, it is."
And thus consoling himself, he accompanied the doctor across the quadrangle.
Men certainly did stare at him as he passed, and some of them deemed him a queer "specimen," and others wondered what Saint George's was coming to. But my master, if he noticed their looks, disregarded them, and as for Dr Wilkins, he smiled to himself to think how prone mankind is to judge by appearances.
"Unless I mistake," mused he to himself, "these young sparks of Saint George's will some day think fit to be proud of their poor fellow- collegian."
The two made the tour of the college, and finished up with the grand old Gothic chapel. It was easy to guess why George's face lit up as he approached the place. The deep notes of an organ were sounding across the quadrangle, and as they entered the door a flood of harmony swept towards them down the long aisles. Dr Wilkins could feel the boy's arm tremble, and heard the sigh of delight which escaped his lips. Without a word they sat in the nearest stalls, and listened while the music went on. How it rose and fell, how it trembled in the oak arches of the roof, and swept through the choir down to where they sat! It was only an ordinary organist's practice; but to George, after his hard work, and with the memories of home revived by the presence of his dear tutor, it came as a breath from heaven. Daily, nearly, had he heard that organ since his coming to Cambridge, but never had it delighted him as it did now.
"Can we see the organ?" he said, when the last chord had died away.
"Let us try," said the doctor.
The gallery door was open, and ascending the stairs to the organ loft, they found the organist preparing to depart.
"We have been a clandestine audience," said the doctor, "and couldn't help coming to thank you for the treat you have given us. My young friend here is music mad."
The organist smiled.
"You took me at a disadvantage," he said, "I was only amusing myself."
"Whatever you were doing for yourself, you delighted us," said the doctor.
"Would you like to try the organ?" presently said the organist to George.
Oh, what a bound of delight I could feel in my master's breast at the invitation.
"May I?" he exclaimed.
"Certainly, if you like--and if you can," added the other, hesitatingly, as if not sure whether the lad's skill would be equal to his enthusiasm.
George sat down on the bench, and laid his fingers lovingly on the keys. But he withdrew them before he had sounded a note. "I would rather you did not watch me too closely," he said, nervously, "for I am only a beginner."
"Let us go and sit down stairs," suggested the doctor.
The organist looked still more doubtful than before, and began to repent his offer. However, he retired with the doctor, and made up his mind to be excruciated. They sat down in two of the stalls and waited.
And then George began to play. What he played I cannot tell. It began first in a faint whisper of music which swelled onward into a pure choral melody. Then suddenly the grand old roof trembled with the clash of a martial movement, strong and steady, which carried the listener onward till he was, with the sound, lost in the far distance. Then, in wailing minor numbers the music returned, slowly working itself up into the tumult and fury of a pent-up agony, and finally sweeping all before it in a wild hurricane of bitterness. Then a pause, and then sweetly and in the far distance once more rose the quiet hymn, and after that all was silence.
After the first few notes the organist had uttered a startled ejaculation, and drawn the doctor to another seat farther down the nave, where, till all was over, he sat motionless as a statue. But the moment the music had ceased he ran up the stairs with a face full of pleasure and admiration, and actually seized George by the hand.
"You're a genius, sir. That was not at all bad, I can tell you."
A happy smile was all the answer George could give.
"Not at all bad," repeated the organist. "I was telling your friend," added he to Dr Wilkins, who had returned more slowly to the organ, "that was not at all bad. He must come here often."
"Nothing, I am sure, would delight him more," said the doctor. "Eh, my boy?"
"Nothing, indeed," said George, "but--"
"But your reading, I suppose."
"Never mind your reading, sir!" exclaimed the organist. "What's that to music? Take my advice, and go in for music."
Poor George! for a moment he felt tempted to abandon all his ambitions and resolutions at the prospect of a career so delightful and congenial.
But he was made of firmer stuff than Tom Drift, and replied,--
"I cannot do that, sir; but if I may come now and then--"
"Come whenever you like," said the organist; and so saying he shook George and his friend by the hand, and hurried from the chapel.
This was the event which of all others brightened George Reader's first year at college.
Instead of aimless walks, he now stole at every spare moment (without cutting into his ordinary work) to the organ, and there revelled in music.
His acquaintance with the college organist increased and developed into a friendship, of which mutual admiration formed a large element, and one happy Sunday, a year after his arrival at Cambridge, he received, for the first time, the much coveted permission to preside at the organ during a college service, a task of which he acquitted himself so well-- nay, so remarkably well--that not only did he frequently find himself again in the same position, but his playing came to be a matter of remark among the musical set of Saint George's.
"Who is the fellow who played to-day?" a man inquired one day of the organist; "is he a pupil of yours?"
"No. I might be a pupil of his in some things. He's a boy, and, mark my words, if he goes on as he's begun he'll be heard of some day."
"What's his name, do you know?" inquired the youth.
"I don't even know that, I never-- Here he comes!"
"Introduce me, will you?"
"With pleasure. Allow me to introduce Mr Halliday," said the organist to George.
Halliday! Wasn't that a familiar name to me? Was it possible? This fine fellow, then, was no other than Jim Halliday, whom I had last seen as a boy on the steps of Randlebury, with his chum Charlie Newcome, waving farewell to Tom Drift.
Ah, how my heart beat at being thus once more brought back into the light of those happy days by this unexpected meeting!
My master by no means shared my delight at the incident. He had always shrunk from acquaintanceships among his fellow-collegians. With none, hitherto, but the organist had he become familiar, and that only by virtue of an irresistible common interest. His poverty and humble station forbade him to intrude his fellowship on the clannish gentry of Saint George's, and certainly his cravings for hard study led him, so far from considering the exclusion as a hardship, to look upon it as a mercy, and few things he desired more devoutly than that this satisfactory state of affairs might continue.
I do not say George was right in this. Sociability is, to a certain extent, a duty, and one that ought not without the soundest reason to be shirked. George may have carried his reserve rather too far, but at any rate you will allow he erred on the right side, if he erred at all, and carried his purpose through with more honesty and success than poor Tom Drift had displayed in a very similar situation.
Now, however, his hermitage was in peril of a siege, and he quailed as he acknowledged the introduction offered him.
"How are you?" said Halliday, with all his own downrightness. "I and a lot of fellows have liked your playing, and I don't see why I shouldn't tell you so. How are you?"
"I'm quite well, thank you," faltered George.
"You're a freshman, I suppose?" asked Jim.
"No, I'm in my second year."
"Are you? I thought I knew all the men in the college; but perhaps you live in the town?"
"No, I live in college."
"Where are your rooms?" asked the astonished Jim.
"In, or rather under, H staircase," replied George. "Perhaps you would know the place best as the 'Mouse-trap.'"
Jim could not resist a whistle of surprise and a rapid scrutiny of his new acquaintance.
"The 'Mouse-trap'! That's an awful hole, isn't it?"
"Yes," said George, his candour coming to his rescue to deliver him from this cross-examination, "but it's cheap--"
Jim looked as afflicted as if he had been seized with a sudden toothache.
"What a blundering jackass I am! Please excuse my rudeness; I never meant to annoy you."
"You have not done so. You are not the sort of man I should mind knowing I was poor--"
"Of course not; so am I poor; but don't let's talk of that. Will you come to my rooms?"
George hesitated, and then answered,--
"I'd rather not, please. I'm reading hard, and, besides--"
"Besides what?"
"I've no right to expect you to associate with me."
"Why _ever_ not?"
"I may as well tell you straight out. My father is a gamekeeper, and I am a gamekeeper's son."
Jim laughed pleasantly.
"Well, really your logic is perfect, but I can't say as much for your sense. Bless you, man, aren't we all of us lineal descendants of a gardener? Come along!"
"Please excuse me," again faltered George; "you are very kind, but your friends may not thank you for--"
"My friends!--oh, yes!" blurted out Jim. "What on earth business have they to put their noses into my affairs. Like their impudence, all of them!"
Jim, you will see, was still a boy, though he had whiskers.
"Don't blame them till they have offended. Anyhow, Mr Halliday, please excuse me. I want to read, and have made a rule never to go out."
"Look here--what's your name?" began Jim.
"Reader," replied my master.
"Reader! Are you the fellow who's in for the Wigram Scholarship?" cried Jim, in astonishment.
"Yes," replied George; "how did you know?"
"Only that some of the fellows are backing you for winner."
George laughed. "They'll be disappointed," he said.
"I hope not," said Jim, "for if you get it you'll be free of the college, and get into rather better quarters than the 'Mouse-trap.' But look here, Reader, do come to my rooms, there's a good fellow; if _you_ don't want any friends, don't prevent my having one."
This was irresistible, and George had nothing for it but to yield, and with many misgivings to accompany his new friend. _