Chapter Nine.How my master and I had quite as much excitement in one afternoon as was good for us.Just as they were turning to go, a sudden shout and rush of people arrested them. The crowd on the course had been immense, and of the roughest and lowest description: sharpers, thieves, and roughs were there by the hundred, attracted from the neighbouring villages by the opportunity of plunder and riot which Gurley races always afforded. As soon as the serious business of the racing was over, this low mob naturally sought excitement of their own making, and increasing in disorder and intemperance as the day wore on, had become beyond control just about the time when Mr Belsham, junior, took it into his muddled head to make a start in the direction of home. The shout which kept him where he was, was occasioned by that spectacle dear to the eyes of all blackguards, a fight. Round the two blood and dust-stained combatants, the mob surged and yelled. Every moment it grew denser and wilder; and every moment it swayed nearer and nearer to the spot where the Randlebury boys stood in their waggonette; and before they could move or get clear, they found themselves in the very centre of the mob. Shouts, shrieks, and wild laughter rose on every side of them; some of the crowd scrambled up onto their wheels to get a glimpse of the pugilists; some abused and swore at them for getting in the way; some tried to invade their waggonette, and struck at them when they resisted.In the midst of all, Belsham’s horse took fright. There was a wild plunge, a shriek from the crowd in front, and next moment the five boys were thrown down among the crowd, while the horse, with the shattered and overturned vehicle behind him, forced for himself a ghastly lane through the mob.Of Gus and his three friends, Charlie, whom the shock roused to sudden consciousness, could see nothing. He tried to rise, but the crowd pressed too wildly to give him the chance. For some moments he lay among a host of crowding, struggling feet, expecting every moment to be stunned, if not killed. But by a wonderful providence he escaped the peril. The crowd gave a sudden swing in a new direction, and he was left unhurt, though stupefied and almost unable to stir.Presently he was conscious of a man standing in front of him.“Oh, help me!” gasped my poor master.The man seized him roughly by the arm and raised him to his feet.“That’s worth a tip,” he growled; “come, hand over.”Charlie put his hand in his pocket and drew out a shilling.The man scowled.“Do you suppose I’ll take a dirty shilling? Come, young swell, empty out them pockets. Look sharp, I’ve no time to waste on the like of you.”Tremblingly Charlie obeyed, and gave the man all the little stock of money he possessed.But he was not yet to escape. From under his jacket the greedy eye of the thief had caught a glimpse of a chain. With a rough hand he tore open the coat. “What, a ticker? Here’s luck; out with it, come.”“Oh,” cried Charlie, “take anything but that! Take my chain and my knife, but not my watch?”Hardly and brutally laughed the man as he snatched me out of the poor boy’s hand, and administering a parting cuff on the head of his victim, turned to walk off with me in the recesses of one of his filthy pockets.Scarcely, however, had he turned, when three men appeared in front of him, coming in the direction of Charlie. The boy saw them, and imagine his joy when in one of the party he recognised his old acquaintance, the cabman Jim! With a sudden bound and cry of delight he rushed towards him, shouting and pointing to the robber. “Oh, Jim, he’s taken my watch; get my watch back, Jim.”Jim took in the state of affairs in an instant, and calling on his two companions to follow him, rushed upon and secured the thief before the latter was even aware of their intention. It was vain for one man to resist three. He was forced to disgorge first me, then the knife, and then the money. Charlie indeed pleaded that they should leave him the money, or some of it, but this proposal Jim scouted, and in his zeal relieved the robber of a good deal more than he had stolen from Charlie. Then with kicks and blows they drove the wretch away as fast as his legs could carry him.This done, Jim the cabman had an opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with my master.“Well,” said he, “who’d have thought of seeingyouhere? And what a nice mess you’re in. You look as if—”“Oh, don’t,” cried Charlie, holding him by the arm; “it’s bad enough as it is, without you thinking ill of me.”And then he told him as well as he could how he had been decoyed to these vile races; how he had been kept there by main force; how he had been made senseless by their rough treatment, and how, but for Jim’s timely help, he would now have been robbed and helpless.Jim listened in astonishment, not unmingled with many an ejaculation of indignation at the poor boy’s persecutors.“And where are they now?” he asked, when Charlie had done.“I don’t know. We were all thrown out, you know, among the crowd. I only hope they’ve not been killed.”“Well, if I was you,” said the downright cabman, “I wouldn’t break my heart over them. I knowI’dlike to have a chance of a quiet talk with the young swells;I’dgive them something to take home with them, I would.”Charlie said nothing, but gratefully put himself under the protection of his deliverer, who, making a considerable round to avoid the crush, led him safely to Gurley.“There’s no trap to be got for love or money, so you’ll just have to walk if you want to get back to Randlebury to-night.”Anything to get away from that odious crowd. If the distance had been twice as far, Charlie would have undertaken it.It was long enough, however, before they got away from the crowd. The road from Gurley to Sharle Bridge was alive for a mile and more with vehicles, drunken men and women, beggars and pickpockets. On either side of the road were jugglers, and thimble-riggers, and card-sharpers, who each attracted their crowd of simpletons. Many were the fights and riots that attended these eager assemblages. As they passed one booth, the headquarters of a blustering card-sharper, a sudden disturbance arose which threatened to block the entire road. The man had offered a sovereign to any one of his audience who could tell which of three cards he held uppermost in his hand. One voice called out a number. The man shuffled his cards, and by some slip on his part the guess of the speculator turned out correct. Instantly that youth demanded his sovereign, which the man refused, vowing and calling others to witness that another number had been guessed.“I’ll bring the police,” cried the voice, and instantly there was a movement in the group as of some one endeavouring to force his way out.“Knock him over!” some one cried; “he’s only one of them donkey schoolboys. What business have they here at all?” And at the signal two or three of the juggler’s accomplices made a dash at the retreating youth and seized him.“Souse him in the river!” cried somebody else.“Sit on him!” shouted a third.In the midst of these contradictory advices the roughs lifted their struggling victim from his feet, and proceeded to carry him in the direction of the bridge.In the momentary glimpse which Charlie got of the wretched object of this persecution, he recognised, to his horror and astonishment, Tom Drift, livid with terror, frantic with rage, and yelling with pain.“Jim,” cried Charlie, “that’s Tom Drift! Oh! can’t we help him? Will you try, Jim! Poor Tom!”“Is he one of them four as brought you here?” asked Jim, not offering to move.“Yes; but never mind that; they will drown him; see how furious they are! Will you help him, Jim?”“Not a bit of me,” replied the stubborn Jim, who was well content to see the tables turned on one who had so brutally ill-treated his young companion.“Then I must try myself;” and so saying, the boy of thirteen rushed in among the crowd, and wildly tried to make his way to where his schoolfellow was being dragged by his persecutors.Of course Jim had nothing for it but to back him up, and in a moment he was beside my young master.“Let the boy be!” he shouted to those who carried Drift, in a voice so loud that for a moment the rabble stood quiet to hear.In the midst of this silence Charlie shouted,—“Hold on, Tom Drift, we’ll help you if we can.”Instantly the crowd took up the name.“Tom Drift! Yah! Souse Tom Drift! Roll Tom Drift in the mud! Yah! Tom Drift!”And sure enough Tom Drift would have suffered the penalty prepared for him, despite Charlie’s attempt at rescue, had not help come at that moment from a most unexpected quarter.It will be remembered that Joe Halliday and his friend Walcot had planned a long walk on this holiday to Whitstone Woods, some ten miles beyond Gurley.This plan they had duly carried out, and were now making the best of their way back to Randlebury along the crowded highway, when the sudden cry of a schoolfellow’s name startled them.“Tom Drift! Yah! Beggarly schoolboy!”“I say, Joe, that’s one of our fellows! What’s happening?”Joe accosted a passer-by.“What’s going on?” he inquired.“They’re only going to souse a young chap in the river.”“What for?”“I don’t know; ’cause he don’t think the same as old Shuffle, the three-card chap.”“We must do something, Joe,” said Walcot.“I wish it were any other chap; but come on, we’re in for it now,” said Joe.And with that these two broad-shouldered, tall fellows dashed into the thick of the fray.Tom’s bearers were now at the bridge, which was a low one, and were turning down towards the water’s edge, when a new cry arrested them.“Now, Randlebury! Put it on, Randlebury! Who backs up Randlebury?”It was the old familiar cry of the football field, and at the sound of the well-known voices, Charlie’s heart leapt for joy.“I do!” he shouted, with all his might. “Here you are, Randlebury!”And Jim’s gruff voice took up the cry too.A panic set in among the blackguards. To them it seemed that the school was come in force to rescue their comrade, for on either side the cry rose, and fighting towards them they could, see at any rate two stalwart figures, who, they concluded, were but the leaders of following force. One of the men was hardy enough to turn at bay at the moment Walcot had cleared his way at last up to the front. Big bully though he was, he was no match for the well-conditioned, active athlete who faced him, and Walcot punished him in a manner that made him glad enough to take to his heels as fast as he could.This exploit turned the day. Dropping Tom—how and where they did not stay to consider—they followed their retreating companion with all the speed they were capable of, and left the enemy without another blow masters of the situation.But if, as a victory, this charge of the Randlebury boys had been successful, as a rescue it had failed; for Tom Drift, being literally dropped from the shoulders of his executioners, had fallen first on to the parapet of the bridge, and then with a heavy shock into the stony stream beneath. When Walcot, Joe, Charlie, and Jim among them, went to pull him out, he was senseless. At first they thought him merely stunned by the fall (the stream was only a few inches deep), but presently when they began to lift him, they found that his right arm, on which he had fallen, was broken.Bandaging the limb as well as they could, and bathing his forehead with water, they succeeded in restoring Tom to consciousness, and then, between them, carried him as gently as possible to the nearest house, when they managed, with some difficulty, to get a vehicle to convey them the rest of their journey. It was a sad, silent journey. To Tom, the pain caused by every jolt was excruciating. They did their best to ease him, holding him lying across their knees, while Jim drove along the level footpath; but by the time the school was reached the sufferer was again insensible, and so he remained till the surgeon had set his arm.Thus ended the eventful holiday.Before Charlie went to bed, the doctor sent for him to his study, and there required to know the true history of that day’s doings. And Charlie told him all. I need hardly say that, according to his version, the case against the four culprits was far lighter than had their impeachment been in other hands. He took to himself whatever blame he could, and dwelt as little as possible on the plot that had been laid to get him to Gurley, and on the means which had been used to keep him when once there. He finished up with a very warm and pathetic appeal for Tom Drift.“Don’t, please, expel Tom Drift,” he said, in all the boldness of generosity; “he was led on by the others, sir, and he’s punished badly enough as it is. Oh! sir, if you’d seen his mother cry, when she only spoke of him, you couldn’t do it.”“You must leave that to me,” said the doctor sternly, “I hope I shall do nothing that is unjust or unkind. And now go to bed, and thank God for the care He has taken of you to-day.”And Charlie went.Tom Drift was not expelled. For weeks he lay ill, and during that time no nurse was more devoted, and no companion more constant, than Charlie Newcome. A friendship sprang up between the two, strangely in contrast with the old footing on which they had stood. No longer was Tom the vain, hectoring patron, but the docile penitent, over whose spirit Charlie’s character began from that time to exercise an influence which, if in the time to come it could always have worked as it did now, would have gone far to save Tom Drift from many a bitter fall and experience.When Tom, a week before the Christmas holidays, left the sick-room and took his place once more in his class, Gus, Margetson, and Shadbolt were no longer inmates of Randlebury School.
Just as they were turning to go, a sudden shout and rush of people arrested them. The crowd on the course had been immense, and of the roughest and lowest description: sharpers, thieves, and roughs were there by the hundred, attracted from the neighbouring villages by the opportunity of plunder and riot which Gurley races always afforded. As soon as the serious business of the racing was over, this low mob naturally sought excitement of their own making, and increasing in disorder and intemperance as the day wore on, had become beyond control just about the time when Mr Belsham, junior, took it into his muddled head to make a start in the direction of home. The shout which kept him where he was, was occasioned by that spectacle dear to the eyes of all blackguards, a fight. Round the two blood and dust-stained combatants, the mob surged and yelled. Every moment it grew denser and wilder; and every moment it swayed nearer and nearer to the spot where the Randlebury boys stood in their waggonette; and before they could move or get clear, they found themselves in the very centre of the mob. Shouts, shrieks, and wild laughter rose on every side of them; some of the crowd scrambled up onto their wheels to get a glimpse of the pugilists; some abused and swore at them for getting in the way; some tried to invade their waggonette, and struck at them when they resisted.
In the midst of all, Belsham’s horse took fright. There was a wild plunge, a shriek from the crowd in front, and next moment the five boys were thrown down among the crowd, while the horse, with the shattered and overturned vehicle behind him, forced for himself a ghastly lane through the mob.
Of Gus and his three friends, Charlie, whom the shock roused to sudden consciousness, could see nothing. He tried to rise, but the crowd pressed too wildly to give him the chance. For some moments he lay among a host of crowding, struggling feet, expecting every moment to be stunned, if not killed. But by a wonderful providence he escaped the peril. The crowd gave a sudden swing in a new direction, and he was left unhurt, though stupefied and almost unable to stir.
Presently he was conscious of a man standing in front of him.
“Oh, help me!” gasped my poor master.
The man seized him roughly by the arm and raised him to his feet.
“That’s worth a tip,” he growled; “come, hand over.”
Charlie put his hand in his pocket and drew out a shilling.
The man scowled.
“Do you suppose I’ll take a dirty shilling? Come, young swell, empty out them pockets. Look sharp, I’ve no time to waste on the like of you.”
Tremblingly Charlie obeyed, and gave the man all the little stock of money he possessed.
But he was not yet to escape. From under his jacket the greedy eye of the thief had caught a glimpse of a chain. With a rough hand he tore open the coat. “What, a ticker? Here’s luck; out with it, come.”
“Oh,” cried Charlie, “take anything but that! Take my chain and my knife, but not my watch?”
Hardly and brutally laughed the man as he snatched me out of the poor boy’s hand, and administering a parting cuff on the head of his victim, turned to walk off with me in the recesses of one of his filthy pockets.
Scarcely, however, had he turned, when three men appeared in front of him, coming in the direction of Charlie. The boy saw them, and imagine his joy when in one of the party he recognised his old acquaintance, the cabman Jim! With a sudden bound and cry of delight he rushed towards him, shouting and pointing to the robber. “Oh, Jim, he’s taken my watch; get my watch back, Jim.”
Jim took in the state of affairs in an instant, and calling on his two companions to follow him, rushed upon and secured the thief before the latter was even aware of their intention. It was vain for one man to resist three. He was forced to disgorge first me, then the knife, and then the money. Charlie indeed pleaded that they should leave him the money, or some of it, but this proposal Jim scouted, and in his zeal relieved the robber of a good deal more than he had stolen from Charlie. Then with kicks and blows they drove the wretch away as fast as his legs could carry him.
This done, Jim the cabman had an opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with my master.
“Well,” said he, “who’d have thought of seeingyouhere? And what a nice mess you’re in. You look as if—”
“Oh, don’t,” cried Charlie, holding him by the arm; “it’s bad enough as it is, without you thinking ill of me.”
And then he told him as well as he could how he had been decoyed to these vile races; how he had been kept there by main force; how he had been made senseless by their rough treatment, and how, but for Jim’s timely help, he would now have been robbed and helpless.
Jim listened in astonishment, not unmingled with many an ejaculation of indignation at the poor boy’s persecutors.
“And where are they now?” he asked, when Charlie had done.
“I don’t know. We were all thrown out, you know, among the crowd. I only hope they’ve not been killed.”
“Well, if I was you,” said the downright cabman, “I wouldn’t break my heart over them. I knowI’dlike to have a chance of a quiet talk with the young swells;I’dgive them something to take home with them, I would.”
Charlie said nothing, but gratefully put himself under the protection of his deliverer, who, making a considerable round to avoid the crush, led him safely to Gurley.
“There’s no trap to be got for love or money, so you’ll just have to walk if you want to get back to Randlebury to-night.”
Anything to get away from that odious crowd. If the distance had been twice as far, Charlie would have undertaken it.
It was long enough, however, before they got away from the crowd. The road from Gurley to Sharle Bridge was alive for a mile and more with vehicles, drunken men and women, beggars and pickpockets. On either side of the road were jugglers, and thimble-riggers, and card-sharpers, who each attracted their crowd of simpletons. Many were the fights and riots that attended these eager assemblages. As they passed one booth, the headquarters of a blustering card-sharper, a sudden disturbance arose which threatened to block the entire road. The man had offered a sovereign to any one of his audience who could tell which of three cards he held uppermost in his hand. One voice called out a number. The man shuffled his cards, and by some slip on his part the guess of the speculator turned out correct. Instantly that youth demanded his sovereign, which the man refused, vowing and calling others to witness that another number had been guessed.
“I’ll bring the police,” cried the voice, and instantly there was a movement in the group as of some one endeavouring to force his way out.
“Knock him over!” some one cried; “he’s only one of them donkey schoolboys. What business have they here at all?” And at the signal two or three of the juggler’s accomplices made a dash at the retreating youth and seized him.
“Souse him in the river!” cried somebody else.
“Sit on him!” shouted a third.
In the midst of these contradictory advices the roughs lifted their struggling victim from his feet, and proceeded to carry him in the direction of the bridge.
In the momentary glimpse which Charlie got of the wretched object of this persecution, he recognised, to his horror and astonishment, Tom Drift, livid with terror, frantic with rage, and yelling with pain.
“Jim,” cried Charlie, “that’s Tom Drift! Oh! can’t we help him? Will you try, Jim! Poor Tom!”
“Is he one of them four as brought you here?” asked Jim, not offering to move.
“Yes; but never mind that; they will drown him; see how furious they are! Will you help him, Jim?”
“Not a bit of me,” replied the stubborn Jim, who was well content to see the tables turned on one who had so brutally ill-treated his young companion.
“Then I must try myself;” and so saying, the boy of thirteen rushed in among the crowd, and wildly tried to make his way to where his schoolfellow was being dragged by his persecutors.
Of course Jim had nothing for it but to back him up, and in a moment he was beside my young master.
“Let the boy be!” he shouted to those who carried Drift, in a voice so loud that for a moment the rabble stood quiet to hear.
In the midst of this silence Charlie shouted,—
“Hold on, Tom Drift, we’ll help you if we can.”
Instantly the crowd took up the name.
“Tom Drift! Yah! Souse Tom Drift! Roll Tom Drift in the mud! Yah! Tom Drift!”
And sure enough Tom Drift would have suffered the penalty prepared for him, despite Charlie’s attempt at rescue, had not help come at that moment from a most unexpected quarter.
It will be remembered that Joe Halliday and his friend Walcot had planned a long walk on this holiday to Whitstone Woods, some ten miles beyond Gurley.
This plan they had duly carried out, and were now making the best of their way back to Randlebury along the crowded highway, when the sudden cry of a schoolfellow’s name startled them.
“Tom Drift! Yah! Beggarly schoolboy!”
“I say, Joe, that’s one of our fellows! What’s happening?”
Joe accosted a passer-by.
“What’s going on?” he inquired.
“They’re only going to souse a young chap in the river.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know; ’cause he don’t think the same as old Shuffle, the three-card chap.”
“We must do something, Joe,” said Walcot.
“I wish it were any other chap; but come on, we’re in for it now,” said Joe.
And with that these two broad-shouldered, tall fellows dashed into the thick of the fray.
Tom’s bearers were now at the bridge, which was a low one, and were turning down towards the water’s edge, when a new cry arrested them.
“Now, Randlebury! Put it on, Randlebury! Who backs up Randlebury?”
It was the old familiar cry of the football field, and at the sound of the well-known voices, Charlie’s heart leapt for joy.
“I do!” he shouted, with all his might. “Here you are, Randlebury!”
And Jim’s gruff voice took up the cry too.
A panic set in among the blackguards. To them it seemed that the school was come in force to rescue their comrade, for on either side the cry rose, and fighting towards them they could, see at any rate two stalwart figures, who, they concluded, were but the leaders of following force. One of the men was hardy enough to turn at bay at the moment Walcot had cleared his way at last up to the front. Big bully though he was, he was no match for the well-conditioned, active athlete who faced him, and Walcot punished him in a manner that made him glad enough to take to his heels as fast as he could.
This exploit turned the day. Dropping Tom—how and where they did not stay to consider—they followed their retreating companion with all the speed they were capable of, and left the enemy without another blow masters of the situation.
But if, as a victory, this charge of the Randlebury boys had been successful, as a rescue it had failed; for Tom Drift, being literally dropped from the shoulders of his executioners, had fallen first on to the parapet of the bridge, and then with a heavy shock into the stony stream beneath. When Walcot, Joe, Charlie, and Jim among them, went to pull him out, he was senseless. At first they thought him merely stunned by the fall (the stream was only a few inches deep), but presently when they began to lift him, they found that his right arm, on which he had fallen, was broken.
Bandaging the limb as well as they could, and bathing his forehead with water, they succeeded in restoring Tom to consciousness, and then, between them, carried him as gently as possible to the nearest house, when they managed, with some difficulty, to get a vehicle to convey them the rest of their journey. It was a sad, silent journey. To Tom, the pain caused by every jolt was excruciating. They did their best to ease him, holding him lying across their knees, while Jim drove along the level footpath; but by the time the school was reached the sufferer was again insensible, and so he remained till the surgeon had set his arm.
Thus ended the eventful holiday.
Before Charlie went to bed, the doctor sent for him to his study, and there required to know the true history of that day’s doings. And Charlie told him all. I need hardly say that, according to his version, the case against the four culprits was far lighter than had their impeachment been in other hands. He took to himself whatever blame he could, and dwelt as little as possible on the plot that had been laid to get him to Gurley, and on the means which had been used to keep him when once there. He finished up with a very warm and pathetic appeal for Tom Drift.
“Don’t, please, expel Tom Drift,” he said, in all the boldness of generosity; “he was led on by the others, sir, and he’s punished badly enough as it is. Oh! sir, if you’d seen his mother cry, when she only spoke of him, you couldn’t do it.”
“You must leave that to me,” said the doctor sternly, “I hope I shall do nothing that is unjust or unkind. And now go to bed, and thank God for the care He has taken of you to-day.”
And Charlie went.
Tom Drift was not expelled. For weeks he lay ill, and during that time no nurse was more devoted, and no companion more constant, than Charlie Newcome. A friendship sprang up between the two, strangely in contrast with the old footing on which they had stood. No longer was Tom the vain, hectoring patron, but the docile penitent, over whose spirit Charlie’s character began from that time to exercise an influence which, if in the time to come it could always have worked as it did now, would have gone far to save Tom Drift from many a bitter fall and experience.
When Tom, a week before the Christmas holidays, left the sick-room and took his place once more in his class, Gus, Margetson, and Shadbolt were no longer inmates of Randlebury School.
Chapter Ten.How I changed hands and quitted Randlebury.And now, dear reader, we must take a leap together of three years. For remember, I am not setting myself to record the life of any one person, or the events which happened at any one place. I am writing my own life—or those parts of it which are most memorable—and therefore it behoves me not to dwell unduly on times and scenes in which I was not personally interested.I had a very close connection with the events that rendered Charlie’s first term at school so exciting, but after that, for three years, I pursued the even tenor of my way, performing some twenty-six thousand two hundred and eighty revolutions, unmarked by any incident, either in my own life or that of my master worthy of notice.By the end of those three years, however, things were greatly changed at Randlebury. Charlie, not far from his sixteenth birthday, was now a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, lording it in the Upper Fifth, and the hero of the cricket field of which he himself had once been a cadet. In face he was not greatly altered. Still the old curly head and bright eyes. Hewasnoticed occasionally to stroke his chin abstractedly; and some envious detractors went so far as to rumour that, in the lowest recesses of his trunk he had a razor, wherewith on divers occasions, in dread secret, he operated with slashing effect. Be this as it might, Charlie was growing up. He had a fag of his own, who alternately quaked and rejoiced beneath his eye; he wore a fearful and wonderful stick-up collar on Sundays, and, above all, he treated me with a careless indifference which contrasted wonderfully with his former enthusiasm, and betokened only too significantly the advance of years on his young head.True, he wound me up regularly; but he often left me half the day under his pillow; and though once in a fit of artistic zeal he set himself to hew out a C.N. in startling characters on my back, with the point of a bodkin, he never polished me now as he was once wont to do.All this was painful to me, especially the operation with the bodkin, but I still rejoiced to call him master, and to know that though years had changed his looks, and sobered his childish exuberance, the same true heart still beat close to mine, and remained still as warm and guileless as when little Charlie Newcome, with me in his pocket, first put his foot forth into the world.There were two besides myself who could bear witness at the end of these three years that time had not changed the boy’s heart. These two, I need hardly say, were Tom Drift and Jim Halliday.To Tom, Charlie had become increasingly a friend of the true kind. Ever since the day at Gurley races, the influence of the younger boy had grown and overshadowed the elder, confirming his unstable resolutions, animating his sluggish mind with worthy ambitions, and giving to his pliant character a tone coloured by his own honesty and uprightness. Just as a pilot will safely steer the ship amid shoals and rocks out into the deeper waters, so Charlie, by his quiet influence, had given Tom’s life a new direction towards honour and usefulness.Once, and once only, during those three years had he shown a disposition to hark back on his old discreditable ways, and that was the result of a casual meeting with Gus one summer during the holidays, with whom, he afterwards confessed to Charlie, he was induced to forget for a time his better resolutions in the snares of a billiard-room. But the backsliding was repented of almost as soon as committed, and, to Charlie’s anxious eyes, appeared to leave behind no bad result.Jim was the same downright outspoken boy as ever. He had yielded, surlily at first, to the admission of Tom Drift into the confidence and friendship of himself and his chum, but by degrees, moved by Charlie’s example, he had become more hearty, and now these three boys were the firmest friends in Randlebury.One day, as Charlie was sitting in his study attempting, with many groans, to make sense out of a very obscure passage in Cicero, his fag entered and said,—“Newcome, there’s a parcel for you down at Trotter’s.”“Why didn’t you bring it up, you young muff?” inquired his lord.“Because it’s got to be signed for, and he wouldn’t let me do that for you.”“Like your cheek to think of such a thing. What’s it like?”“Oh, it’s in a little box. I say, Newcome, shall we go and get it?”“I can’t go at present; it’ll wait, I suppose,” said Charlie, with the air of a man who was daily in the habit of receiving little boxes by the carrier.But for all that he could not wholly conceal his curiosity.“What size box?” he asked presently.“About the size of a good big pill-box.”“All that? I dare say I can fetch that up by myself,” said Charlie.Size of a large pill-box! It could not be anything so very important after all. So he turned again to his Cicero, and sent the fag about his business.Presently, however, that youth returned with a letter for Charlie. It ran thus:“Dear Young Scamp,“People always say bachelor uncles are fools, and I think they are right. I’ve sent you a proof of my folly in a little box, which ought to reach you about the same time as this letter. You’ve done nothing to deserve a present from me, and a box on the ears would be much better bestowed. Never mind. Take care of this little gift for me, in memory of the jolly Christmas you and I last spent together, and when you are not kicking up a row with your cronies at Randlebury or have nothing better to do, think of your affectionate“Uncle Ralph.”Much to the fag’s astonishment, Charlie, having perused this letter, slammed up Cicero, and seizing the cap from off his (the fag’s) head, as being most ready to hand, dashed out of school in the direction of the village.“Trot!” he exclaimed, as he reached the establishment of that familiar merchant, “hand up that little box, you old villain! Do you hear?”The long-suffering Trotter, to whom this address was comparatively polite in its phraseology, was not long in producing the parcel, in acknowledgment of which Charlie gave his sign manual in lordly characters upon the receipt; and then, burning with impatience, yet trying hard to appear unconcerned, walked swiftly back to the school.The fag was hanging about his study, scarcely less curious than himself.“Hook it!” cried his master, putting the parcel down on the table and taking out his penknife to cut the string.Still the inquisitive fag lingered. Whereupon Charlie, taking him kindly yet firmly by the collar of his coat, conveyed him to the open window, whence he gently dropped him a distance of six feet to the earth.Privacy being thus secured, he turned again to his parcel and opened it. Imagine his delight and my agony when there came to light a splendid gold watch and chain! I turned faint with jealousy, and when a second glance showed me that the interloper was no other than the identical gold repeater whom I had known and dreaded in my infancy, I was ready to break my mainspring with vexation. To me the surprise had brought nothing but foreboding and despair, and already I felt myself discarded for my rival; but to Charlie it brought a rapture of delight which expressed itself in a whoop which could be heard half over the school.“What on earth’s the row?” said a head looking in at the door; “caught cold, or what?”“Come here, Jim, this moment; look at this!”And Jim came and looked, and as he looked his eyes sparkled with admiration.“My eye, Charlie, what a beauty!” said he, taking up the treasure in his hand. His thumb happened to touch the spring on the handle, and instantly there came a low melodious note from inside the repeater—One, two, three, and then a double tinkle twice repeated.“That’s striking,” observed Jim, who was occasionally guilty of a pun. “Why, it’s a repeater!”“So it is! Did you ever know such a brick as that uncle of mine?”“It’s a pity your people can’t think of anything else but watches for presents. Why, what a donkey you made of yourself about that silver turnip when you first had it! Don’t you remember? What’s to become of it, by the by?”“How do I know? I say, Jim, this one wasn’t got for nothing.” And then the boys together investigated the wonders of the new watch, peeping at its works and making it strike, till I was quite sick of hearing it. But then I was jealous. There was no more Cicero for Charlie that day. He was almost as ridiculous, though not so rough, with his new treasure as he had been with me. He turned me out of my pocket to make room for it; and then half a dozen times a minute pulled it out and gloated over it. At night he put us both under his pillow, little dreaming of the sorrow and disappointment that filled my breast.Where were all the old days now? Who would admire or valueme, a poor, commonplace silver drudge, now that this grand, showy rival had come and taken my place? In my anger and excitement my heart beat fast and loud, so loud that presently I heard a voice beside me saying,—“Gently, there, if you please; no one can hear himself speak with that noise.”“I’ve more right to be here than you,” I growled.“That is as our mutual master decides; but surely I have heard your voice before! Let me look at you.”And he edged himself up, so as to get a peep at my shabby face.“To be sure—my young friend the three-guinea silver watch? How do you do, my little man?”This patronage was intolerable, and I had no words to reply.“Ah! you find it difficult to converse. You must indeed be almost worn out after the work you have had. I am indeed astonished to see you alive at all. I am sure, in my master’s name, I may be allowed to thank you for your praiseworthy exertions in his service. We are both much obliged to you, and hope we shall show ourselves not unmindful of your—”“Brute!” was all I could shriek, so mad was I, Whether my rival would have pursued his discourse I cannot say, but at that instant a hand came fumbling under the pillow. It passed me by, and sought the repeater, and next moment the tinkling chimes sounded half-past eleven.It was as much as I could endure to be thus slighted and triumphed over.“Contemptible creature!” I exclaimed; “you may think you’ve a fine voice, but, like a simpering schoolgirl, you can’t sing till you’re pressed!” I had him there, surely!“Better that than having no voice at all, like some people, or using it when no one wants to hear it, like others.” I suppose he thought he had me there, the puppy!He went on chiming at intervals during the night, and of course my master had very little rest in consequence.The next day Charlie and Jim had a solemn confabulation as to the disposal of me.“It’s no use wasting it, you know,” said Jim. “Pity you haven’t got a young brother to pass it on to.”“Suppose you take it,” said the generous Charlie.“No, old man, I don’t want it. I’m not so mad about tickers as you. But, I tell you what, Charlie, you might like Tom to have it. He’s leaving, you know, and it would be a nice reminder of Randlebury.”“Just what I thought directly the new one came,” exclaimed Charlie, “only then I remembered we had a row about this very watch three years ago, and I’m afraid he wouldn’t like it.”“Try. Old Tom would be quite set up with a watch.”Charlie proceeded that same day in quest of Tom, whom he found packing up his books and chemicals in a large trunk.To him my master exhibited his new treasure, greatly to Drift’s delight.“Why, Charlie,” he said, “I don’t know much about watches, but I’m certain that’s worth twenty pounds.”“No!” exclaimed Charlie; “you don’t mean that.”“Yes, I do; but, for all that, I’ll back your old turnip to keep as good time as it.”“It’s always gone well, the old one. I’m glad you like it, Tom.”“I always liked it, you know.”“Why?”“Well, I’ve known it as long as I’ve known you, and if it hadn’t been for it things might have been different.”“Yes,” said Charlie, “it was the cause of all the row three years ago.”“And if it hadn’t been for that row I should have gone to the bad long ago. That was a lucky row for me, Charlie, thanks to you.”“Don’t say that, old man, because it’s a cram.”“I say, Tom,” added Charlie nervously, coming to his point, “will you do me a favour?”“Anything in the world. What is it?”“Take my old watch, Tom. It’s not worth much, you know, but it may be useful, and it will help to remind you of old days. Will you, Tom?”Tom’s lips quivered as he took me from Charlie’s outstretched hand.“Old boy,” said he, “I’d sooner have this than anything else in the world. Somehow I feel I can’t go wrong as long as I have it.”Charlie was beyond measure delighted to find his present accepted with so little difficulty.“Oh, Tom,” he said, “I am glad to think you’ll have it, and I know you’ll think of me when you use it.”“Won’t I?” said Tom. “I say, Charlie, I wish you were coming to London with me.”“So do I. Never mind, we’ll often write, and you’ll promise to let me know how you are getting on, won’t you?”“Yes.”“And you’ll call and see my father pretty often, won’t you?”“Yes.”“And you’ll keep yourself free for a week’s jaunt at Easter?”“Yes.”They had much more talk that evening, which lasted till late. What they talked about it is not for me to repeat, and if it were it would probably not interest my reader. He would perhaps be disappointed to find that a considerable part of it related to a new suit of Tom’s, just arrived from the tailor’s, and that another part had reference to Tom’s intention to prevail on his landlady in London to allow him to support a bull-dog puppy on her premises. These subjects, deeply interesting to the two friends, would not improve with repetition; and neither would the rest of their talk, which was chiefly a going over of old times, and a laying of many a wondrous scheme for the future. Suffice it to say, on this last evening the two boys unbosomed themselves to one another, and if Tom Drift went off to bed in a sober and serious frame of mind, it was because he and Charlie both had thought and felt a great deal more than they had spoken during the interview. The packing went on at the same time as the talk, and then the two friends separated, only to meet once more on the morrow for a hurried farewell.“Let’s have a last look at him,” said Charlie, as Tom was getting into the cab to go.Tom took me out and handed me to him. Long and tenderly my dear young master looked at me, then, patting me gently with his hand as if I were a child, he said,—“Good-bye, and be good to Tom Drift; do you hear?”If a tick could express anything, my reply at that moment must have satisfied him his parting wish would not be forgotten. Then returning me to my new master, he said,—“Good-bye, old boy; joy go with you. We’ll hear of you at the head of your profession before Jim and I have left school.”“Not quite so soon,” replied Tom, laughing.Then came a last good-bye, and the cab drove off. As it turned the corner of the drive Tom leaned out of the window and held me out in his hand.Long shall I remember that parting glimpse. He was standing on the steps with Jim waving his hands. The sun shone full on him, lighting up his bright face and curly head. I thought as I looked, “Where could one find his equal?”—Sans peur et sans reproche—“matchless for gentleness, honesty, and courage,” and felt, as the vision faded from me, that I should never see another like him. And I never did.Little, however, did I dream in what strange way I was next to meet Charlie Newcome.
And now, dear reader, we must take a leap together of three years. For remember, I am not setting myself to record the life of any one person, or the events which happened at any one place. I am writing my own life—or those parts of it which are most memorable—and therefore it behoves me not to dwell unduly on times and scenes in which I was not personally interested.
I had a very close connection with the events that rendered Charlie’s first term at school so exciting, but after that, for three years, I pursued the even tenor of my way, performing some twenty-six thousand two hundred and eighty revolutions, unmarked by any incident, either in my own life or that of my master worthy of notice.
By the end of those three years, however, things were greatly changed at Randlebury. Charlie, not far from his sixteenth birthday, was now a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, lording it in the Upper Fifth, and the hero of the cricket field of which he himself had once been a cadet. In face he was not greatly altered. Still the old curly head and bright eyes. Hewasnoticed occasionally to stroke his chin abstractedly; and some envious detractors went so far as to rumour that, in the lowest recesses of his trunk he had a razor, wherewith on divers occasions, in dread secret, he operated with slashing effect. Be this as it might, Charlie was growing up. He had a fag of his own, who alternately quaked and rejoiced beneath his eye; he wore a fearful and wonderful stick-up collar on Sundays, and, above all, he treated me with a careless indifference which contrasted wonderfully with his former enthusiasm, and betokened only too significantly the advance of years on his young head.
True, he wound me up regularly; but he often left me half the day under his pillow; and though once in a fit of artistic zeal he set himself to hew out a C.N. in startling characters on my back, with the point of a bodkin, he never polished me now as he was once wont to do.
All this was painful to me, especially the operation with the bodkin, but I still rejoiced to call him master, and to know that though years had changed his looks, and sobered his childish exuberance, the same true heart still beat close to mine, and remained still as warm and guileless as when little Charlie Newcome, with me in his pocket, first put his foot forth into the world.
There were two besides myself who could bear witness at the end of these three years that time had not changed the boy’s heart. These two, I need hardly say, were Tom Drift and Jim Halliday.
To Tom, Charlie had become increasingly a friend of the true kind. Ever since the day at Gurley races, the influence of the younger boy had grown and overshadowed the elder, confirming his unstable resolutions, animating his sluggish mind with worthy ambitions, and giving to his pliant character a tone coloured by his own honesty and uprightness. Just as a pilot will safely steer the ship amid shoals and rocks out into the deeper waters, so Charlie, by his quiet influence, had given Tom’s life a new direction towards honour and usefulness.
Once, and once only, during those three years had he shown a disposition to hark back on his old discreditable ways, and that was the result of a casual meeting with Gus one summer during the holidays, with whom, he afterwards confessed to Charlie, he was induced to forget for a time his better resolutions in the snares of a billiard-room. But the backsliding was repented of almost as soon as committed, and, to Charlie’s anxious eyes, appeared to leave behind no bad result.
Jim was the same downright outspoken boy as ever. He had yielded, surlily at first, to the admission of Tom Drift into the confidence and friendship of himself and his chum, but by degrees, moved by Charlie’s example, he had become more hearty, and now these three boys were the firmest friends in Randlebury.
One day, as Charlie was sitting in his study attempting, with many groans, to make sense out of a very obscure passage in Cicero, his fag entered and said,—
“Newcome, there’s a parcel for you down at Trotter’s.”
“Why didn’t you bring it up, you young muff?” inquired his lord.
“Because it’s got to be signed for, and he wouldn’t let me do that for you.”
“Like your cheek to think of such a thing. What’s it like?”
“Oh, it’s in a little box. I say, Newcome, shall we go and get it?”
“I can’t go at present; it’ll wait, I suppose,” said Charlie, with the air of a man who was daily in the habit of receiving little boxes by the carrier.
But for all that he could not wholly conceal his curiosity.
“What size box?” he asked presently.
“About the size of a good big pill-box.”
“All that? I dare say I can fetch that up by myself,” said Charlie.
Size of a large pill-box! It could not be anything so very important after all. So he turned again to his Cicero, and sent the fag about his business.
Presently, however, that youth returned with a letter for Charlie. It ran thus:
“Dear Young Scamp,“People always say bachelor uncles are fools, and I think they are right. I’ve sent you a proof of my folly in a little box, which ought to reach you about the same time as this letter. You’ve done nothing to deserve a present from me, and a box on the ears would be much better bestowed. Never mind. Take care of this little gift for me, in memory of the jolly Christmas you and I last spent together, and when you are not kicking up a row with your cronies at Randlebury or have nothing better to do, think of your affectionate“Uncle Ralph.”
“Dear Young Scamp,
“People always say bachelor uncles are fools, and I think they are right. I’ve sent you a proof of my folly in a little box, which ought to reach you about the same time as this letter. You’ve done nothing to deserve a present from me, and a box on the ears would be much better bestowed. Never mind. Take care of this little gift for me, in memory of the jolly Christmas you and I last spent together, and when you are not kicking up a row with your cronies at Randlebury or have nothing better to do, think of your affectionate
“Uncle Ralph.”
Much to the fag’s astonishment, Charlie, having perused this letter, slammed up Cicero, and seizing the cap from off his (the fag’s) head, as being most ready to hand, dashed out of school in the direction of the village.
“Trot!” he exclaimed, as he reached the establishment of that familiar merchant, “hand up that little box, you old villain! Do you hear?”
The long-suffering Trotter, to whom this address was comparatively polite in its phraseology, was not long in producing the parcel, in acknowledgment of which Charlie gave his sign manual in lordly characters upon the receipt; and then, burning with impatience, yet trying hard to appear unconcerned, walked swiftly back to the school.
The fag was hanging about his study, scarcely less curious than himself.
“Hook it!” cried his master, putting the parcel down on the table and taking out his penknife to cut the string.
Still the inquisitive fag lingered. Whereupon Charlie, taking him kindly yet firmly by the collar of his coat, conveyed him to the open window, whence he gently dropped him a distance of six feet to the earth.
Privacy being thus secured, he turned again to his parcel and opened it. Imagine his delight and my agony when there came to light a splendid gold watch and chain! I turned faint with jealousy, and when a second glance showed me that the interloper was no other than the identical gold repeater whom I had known and dreaded in my infancy, I was ready to break my mainspring with vexation. To me the surprise had brought nothing but foreboding and despair, and already I felt myself discarded for my rival; but to Charlie it brought a rapture of delight which expressed itself in a whoop which could be heard half over the school.
“What on earth’s the row?” said a head looking in at the door; “caught cold, or what?”
“Come here, Jim, this moment; look at this!”
And Jim came and looked, and as he looked his eyes sparkled with admiration.
“My eye, Charlie, what a beauty!” said he, taking up the treasure in his hand. His thumb happened to touch the spring on the handle, and instantly there came a low melodious note from inside the repeater—One, two, three, and then a double tinkle twice repeated.
“That’s striking,” observed Jim, who was occasionally guilty of a pun. “Why, it’s a repeater!”
“So it is! Did you ever know such a brick as that uncle of mine?”
“It’s a pity your people can’t think of anything else but watches for presents. Why, what a donkey you made of yourself about that silver turnip when you first had it! Don’t you remember? What’s to become of it, by the by?”
“How do I know? I say, Jim, this one wasn’t got for nothing.” And then the boys together investigated the wonders of the new watch, peeping at its works and making it strike, till I was quite sick of hearing it. But then I was jealous. There was no more Cicero for Charlie that day. He was almost as ridiculous, though not so rough, with his new treasure as he had been with me. He turned me out of my pocket to make room for it; and then half a dozen times a minute pulled it out and gloated over it. At night he put us both under his pillow, little dreaming of the sorrow and disappointment that filled my breast.
Where were all the old days now? Who would admire or valueme, a poor, commonplace silver drudge, now that this grand, showy rival had come and taken my place? In my anger and excitement my heart beat fast and loud, so loud that presently I heard a voice beside me saying,—
“Gently, there, if you please; no one can hear himself speak with that noise.”
“I’ve more right to be here than you,” I growled.
“That is as our mutual master decides; but surely I have heard your voice before! Let me look at you.”
And he edged himself up, so as to get a peep at my shabby face.
“To be sure—my young friend the three-guinea silver watch? How do you do, my little man?”
This patronage was intolerable, and I had no words to reply.
“Ah! you find it difficult to converse. You must indeed be almost worn out after the work you have had. I am indeed astonished to see you alive at all. I am sure, in my master’s name, I may be allowed to thank you for your praiseworthy exertions in his service. We are both much obliged to you, and hope we shall show ourselves not unmindful of your—”
“Brute!” was all I could shriek, so mad was I, Whether my rival would have pursued his discourse I cannot say, but at that instant a hand came fumbling under the pillow. It passed me by, and sought the repeater, and next moment the tinkling chimes sounded half-past eleven.
It was as much as I could endure to be thus slighted and triumphed over.
“Contemptible creature!” I exclaimed; “you may think you’ve a fine voice, but, like a simpering schoolgirl, you can’t sing till you’re pressed!” I had him there, surely!
“Better that than having no voice at all, like some people, or using it when no one wants to hear it, like others.” I suppose he thought he had me there, the puppy!
He went on chiming at intervals during the night, and of course my master had very little rest in consequence.
The next day Charlie and Jim had a solemn confabulation as to the disposal of me.
“It’s no use wasting it, you know,” said Jim. “Pity you haven’t got a young brother to pass it on to.”
“Suppose you take it,” said the generous Charlie.
“No, old man, I don’t want it. I’m not so mad about tickers as you. But, I tell you what, Charlie, you might like Tom to have it. He’s leaving, you know, and it would be a nice reminder of Randlebury.”
“Just what I thought directly the new one came,” exclaimed Charlie, “only then I remembered we had a row about this very watch three years ago, and I’m afraid he wouldn’t like it.”
“Try. Old Tom would be quite set up with a watch.”
Charlie proceeded that same day in quest of Tom, whom he found packing up his books and chemicals in a large trunk.
To him my master exhibited his new treasure, greatly to Drift’s delight.
“Why, Charlie,” he said, “I don’t know much about watches, but I’m certain that’s worth twenty pounds.”
“No!” exclaimed Charlie; “you don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do; but, for all that, I’ll back your old turnip to keep as good time as it.”
“It’s always gone well, the old one. I’m glad you like it, Tom.”
“I always liked it, you know.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’ve known it as long as I’ve known you, and if it hadn’t been for it things might have been different.”
“Yes,” said Charlie, “it was the cause of all the row three years ago.”
“And if it hadn’t been for that row I should have gone to the bad long ago. That was a lucky row for me, Charlie, thanks to you.”
“Don’t say that, old man, because it’s a cram.”
“I say, Tom,” added Charlie nervously, coming to his point, “will you do me a favour?”
“Anything in the world. What is it?”
“Take my old watch, Tom. It’s not worth much, you know, but it may be useful, and it will help to remind you of old days. Will you, Tom?”
Tom’s lips quivered as he took me from Charlie’s outstretched hand.
“Old boy,” said he, “I’d sooner have this than anything else in the world. Somehow I feel I can’t go wrong as long as I have it.”
Charlie was beyond measure delighted to find his present accepted with so little difficulty.
“Oh, Tom,” he said, “I am glad to think you’ll have it, and I know you’ll think of me when you use it.”
“Won’t I?” said Tom. “I say, Charlie, I wish you were coming to London with me.”
“So do I. Never mind, we’ll often write, and you’ll promise to let me know how you are getting on, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll call and see my father pretty often, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll keep yourself free for a week’s jaunt at Easter?”
“Yes.”
They had much more talk that evening, which lasted till late. What they talked about it is not for me to repeat, and if it were it would probably not interest my reader. He would perhaps be disappointed to find that a considerable part of it related to a new suit of Tom’s, just arrived from the tailor’s, and that another part had reference to Tom’s intention to prevail on his landlady in London to allow him to support a bull-dog puppy on her premises. These subjects, deeply interesting to the two friends, would not improve with repetition; and neither would the rest of their talk, which was chiefly a going over of old times, and a laying of many a wondrous scheme for the future. Suffice it to say, on this last evening the two boys unbosomed themselves to one another, and if Tom Drift went off to bed in a sober and serious frame of mind, it was because he and Charlie both had thought and felt a great deal more than they had spoken during the interview. The packing went on at the same time as the talk, and then the two friends separated, only to meet once more on the morrow for a hurried farewell.
“Let’s have a last look at him,” said Charlie, as Tom was getting into the cab to go.
Tom took me out and handed me to him. Long and tenderly my dear young master looked at me, then, patting me gently with his hand as if I were a child, he said,—
“Good-bye, and be good to Tom Drift; do you hear?”
If a tick could express anything, my reply at that moment must have satisfied him his parting wish would not be forgotten. Then returning me to my new master, he said,—
“Good-bye, old boy; joy go with you. We’ll hear of you at the head of your profession before Jim and I have left school.”
“Not quite so soon,” replied Tom, laughing.
Then came a last good-bye, and the cab drove off. As it turned the corner of the drive Tom leaned out of the window and held me out in his hand.
Long shall I remember that parting glimpse. He was standing on the steps with Jim waving his hands. The sun shone full on him, lighting up his bright face and curly head. I thought as I looked, “Where could one find his equal?”—Sans peur et sans reproche—“matchless for gentleness, honesty, and courage,” and felt, as the vision faded from me, that I should never see another like him. And I never did.
Little, however, did I dream in what strange way I was next to meet Charlie Newcome.
Chapter Eleven.How Tom Drift made one start in London, and prepared to make another.The two months that followed my departure from Randlebury were melancholy and tedious.It was hard for me, after the boisterous surroundings of a public school, to settle down to the heavy monotony of a dull lodging in a back street of London; and it was harder still, after being the pride and favourite of a boy like Charlie Newcome, to find myself the property of Tom Drift.Not that Tom used me badly at first. He wound me up regularly, and for the sake of his absent friend honoured me with a considerable share of his affection.Indeed, for the first week or so he was quite gushing, scarcely letting me out of his sight, and sometimes even dropping a tear over me. And I, remembering Charlie’s last words, “Be good to Tom Drift,” felt glad to be able to remind my new master of old times, and keep fresh the hopes and resolutions with which Charlie had done so much to inspire him. But Tom Drift, I could not help feeling, was not a safe man.There was something lacking in him, and that something was ballast. No one, perhaps, ever had a greater theoretical desire to be all that was right and good, but that was not in itself enough.In quiet, easy times, and with a guiding friend to help him, Tom Drift did well enough; but left to himself amid currents and storms he could hardly fail to come to grief, as we shall presently see.For the first two months he stuck hard to his work he was regular at lectures, and attentive when there; he spent his spare time well in study bearing upon the profession for which he was preparing; he wrote and heard once a week from Charlie; he kept clear of the more rackety of his fellow-students; he spent his Sundays at Mr Newcome’s house, and he took plenty of healthy exercise both for body and mind.With many examples about him of industry and success he determined to make the most of his time as a student, and spoke of the life and sphere of a country doctor, for which he was training, with the enthusiasm of one whose heart is in his work.“The more I think of it,” he once wrote to his mother, who was residing abroad for her health, “the more I take to it. A good doctor is the best-liked man in his parish. Everybody comes to him in their trouble. He gets into the best society, and yet makes himself loved by the poorest. In four or five years at least I ought to get through my course here, and then there is nothing to prevent my settling down at once. By that time I hope you’ll be well enough to come and keep house for me, for all country doctors, you know, are bachelors,” and so on.All this was very well, and, as one of Tom’s friends, I rejoiced to see him thus setting himself in earnest to the duties of his calling. But I rejoiced with trembling. Although he kept clear, for the most part, of his fellow-students, choosing his friends charily and shyly, I could yet see that he had no objection to contemplate from a distance the humours and festivities of his more high-spirited companions. He was not one of those impulsive fellows who shut their eyes and take a header into the midst of a new good-fellowship, only to discover too late their error, and repent their rashness at leisure.No, Tom had his eyes open. He saw the evil as well as the good, and, alas for him, having seen it, he looked still!The students of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital were not on the whole a bad set. On Tom’s arrival in London, however, he had the firm impression in his mind that all medical students were bad characters, and this foolish notion did him much harm. If two or three of them were to go off for a spree, his imagination would at once picture them in scenes and places such as no respectable man would like to frequent, whereas, if the truth were known, these misjudged young men had committed no greater crime than that of taking a boat up the river, or a drive in a dog-cart. If a group of them should be seen by him laughing and talking, he instinctively concluded their topic must be ribaldry, whereas they would perhaps be only joking at the expense of some eccentric professor, or else chaffing one of their own number. And so it happened that Tom failed in time to distinguish between the really bad and such as he only imagined to be bad; and from his habit of looking on at them and their doings from a studied distance, their presence began gradually and insensibly to exercise a very considerable influence over his mind.“After all,” he would sometimes say to himself, “these fellows get on. They pass their exams, they pay their bills, they gain the confidence of their professors, and at the same time they manage to enjoy themselves. Perhaps I am a fool to take so much pains about the first three of these things, and to deny myself the fourth. Perhaps, after all, these fellows are not so bad as I have fancied, or perhaps I am prudish.”And then the silly fellow, having once inclined to admit there was something to be said for medical students, and having before considered all bad alike, became tolerant all round, more particularly of the really bad set, who appeared to him to enjoy themselves the most.As his companions became more attractive to him, his work became less interesting.“Why should I grind and plod here,” he said, “while every one else is enjoying himself? If young Charlie were here, I’m pretty surehe’dbe in for some of their sprees, and laugh at me for wearing my eyes out as I’m doing.”And then he leaned back in his chair and took to wondering what the six fellows who started that afternoon for Richmond were doing. Smashing the windows of the “Star and Garter,” perhaps, or fighting the bargees on the river, or capturing a four-in-hand drag, or disporting themselves in some such genial and truly English manner. And as Tom conjured up the picture he half envied them their sport.So he gradually became restless and discontented. The days were weary and the evenings intolerably dull. The visits to Mr Newcome were of course pleasant enough, but it was slow being cooped up an entire Sunday with two old people. On the whole, life in London was becoming stupid.One of the first symptoms of his altered frame of mind was the occasional neglect of his regular letter to Charlie. That ever-faithful young man wrote as punctually as clockwork. Every Thursday morning a letter lay on Tom’s plate at breakfast-time, addressed in the well-known hand, and bearing the Randlebury post-mark. And jolly lively letters they were.I remembered one of them well. It came after two weeks’ omission on Tom’s part, and ran thus:—“Dear Tom,“A pretty fellow you are to correspond with! Here am I, piping to you with all my might, but I can’t get you to dance. I know what you’ll tell me, you old humbug—‘awfully hard grind’—‘exam coming on’—‘lectures day and night,’ and rubbish like that. All very well, but look here, Thomas, don’t fancy that your diligence in cutting off legs and arms can be an excuse for cutting yours truly in this heartless manner. Not having a letter of yours to answer, I don’t know how I shall scrape up material enough for a yarn. There was a big football-match on Saturday, and Jim and I were in it. You should have seen me turning somersaults, and butting my head into the fellows’ stomachs. Jim and I got shoulder to shoulder once in the game. You know old Howe? Well, he was running with the ball to wards our goal, and Jim and I were in front of him.I was nearest, and charged, and over I went like a ninepin; then Jim was on him, and overhewent too. However, I was up again in time to jump on Howe’s back; but he shook me off on to the ground on my nose. Then Jim, having recovered, tookhisfling, and a rare fling it was, for Howe dodged him just as he was at the top of a kangaroo leap, and left him looking very foolish in a sitting posture on the ground. However, in dodging, Howe had allowed me time to extricate my nose from the earth and make my third attempt. This time was more successful, for I got my hands round the ball; but I shouldn’t have kept them there if Jim hadn’t taken the opportunity of executing another astounding buck-jump, which landed him safe on his man’s shoulders, where he stuck like a scared cat on the back of a somnambulist. So between us we brought our quarry to earth and gained no end of applause. Wasn’t it prime?That’s about all the news here, except that Willoughby is going to Trinity at Midsummer, and that Salter is laid up from the effects of an explosion of crackers in his trousers pockets.“I’ve taken a turn at reading hard, which may astonish you. The doctor told me, if I really thought of some day arraying my manly form in a scarlet jacket and wearing a sword, I ought to put it on with my mathematics, which are not myforte, you know. So now I’m drawing circles and triangles at every available moment, and my logarithm tables are thumbed almost to death. Don’t imagineyou’rethe only burner of midnight oil.“I had a letter from home to-day. They were saying they hadn’t seen you lately. I hope you’ll go up when you can; it would be a charity to the dear old folk; besides, they are very fond of you—queer taste! How’s the ticker? Give it a cuff from me for not reminding you to write the last two weeks.The repeater goes on all serene. It has already gained some notoriety, as I was publicly requested, before the whole Fifth, the other day, to abstain from evoking its musical talents in the course of the Latin prose lesson. Now I must shut up. Seriously, old man, don’t overwork yourself, and don’t bother to write unless you’ve time; but you know how welcome your letters are to“Your affectionate chum,“C.N.”Of course Tom sat down and answered this letter at once, much reproaching himself for his past neglect.With the vision of Charlie before his eyes, and with the sound of his voice again in his ears, all his old resolutions and impulses returned that morning. He worked hard, and flung the trashy novel, over which he had been wasting his time the day before, into the fire; he went off to lectures with something like his old eagerness, and discharged his duties in the wards with interest and thoroughness; he refused to allow his mind to be distracted by the proceedings of his fellow-students, and he resolved to spend that very evening at Mr Newcome’s.Tom Drift would probably have laughed at the idea that this sudden change was due entirely to Charlie’s letter. To him it seemed like a spontaneous reassertion of its natural self by his mind, and a matter for such self-congratulation and satisfaction, that it at once covered the multitude of past omissions.Indeed, Tom felt very virtuous as he returned that afternoon to his lodgings; and so felt no need to look away from self to Him who alone can keep us from falling.He read Charlie’s letter over again, and smiled at the idea ofhisgetting up mathematics in his spare time.“He’s not the sort of fellow to stick to work of that sort,” said Tom to himself, secretly comparing his own remarkable powers of application with those of his Randlebury friend.Then he sat down, and more than ever admiring and wondering at his own greediness for hard work, read till it was time to start for Mr Newcome’s.It was a good long way, but being a fine evening, Tom determined to walk. He felt that after his work the fresh air would do him good, and besides, as he was in plenty of time, he could indulge himself in that very cheap and harmless luxury, an inspection of the shop windows as he went along. He therefore selected a longer and more crowded route than perhaps he need have done, and certainly, as far as the shops went, was rewarded for his pains.However, Tom seemed to me to have as much interest in watching the people who passed to and fro as in the shops. He amused himself by wondering where this one was going and what that one was doing. With his usual tendency, he chose to imagine they were all bent on mischief or folly, and because they happened to be in a certain street, and because in that street he had frequently heard some of his fellow-students speak of a low theatre, he jumped to the conclusion that every one he saw was bound for this place. Something impelled him to go himself and take an exterior survey of this mysterious and much-spoken-of building. He found it; and, as he expected, he found people thronging in, though not in the numbers he had anticipated. He stood and watched them for some time, and wondered what they were going to see.He went up and read the playbill. He read the name of the play, the titles of its acts, and the names of its actors. He wondered if the man who just then drove up in a hansom was one of the heroes of the piece, or whether he was one of the performers in the farce announced to follow the play. Still the people streamed in. There was no one he knew, and no one knew him.“Strange,” thought he, “there are so many places in London where one could go and no one ever know it.”He wished he could see what the place was like inside; it must surely be crowded by this time.Thus he dawdled for some time; then with a sigh and an effort he tore himself away and walked quickly on to the Newcomes’ house. Their welcome was most cordial.“We were afraid,” said Mr Newcome, “you had quite deserted us. Come in, it is pleasant to see you. We had a letter from Charlie only to-day, telling us to see you did not overwork yourself, and to make you come up here whether you would or not. Of course we could hardly follow such instructions literally.”Tom spent a pleasant evening with the two good people.He always had found Mr Newcome a clever and very entertaining man—a man whom one feels all the better for talking to, and who naturally sets every guest in his house at ease. They talked much about Charlie and his prospects. They even consulted Tom as to the wisdom of yielding to the boy’s desire for a military career, and Tom strongly supported the idea.Then Tom’s own prospects were canvassed and highly approved of by both Mr, and Mrs Newcome.Tom already pictured himself settled down in his country practice, enjoying himself, doing good to others, and laying by a comfortable competency for future years. On the whole, he felt, as he quitted the hospitable roof of his genial friends, that he had rarely spent a more pleasant or profitable evening.People were thronging out of the theatre as he returned, and he could not resist the desire to stand and watch them; for a little. He wondered what they had seen, and whether those he saw had waited for the “farce,” or was that still going on?—and he wondered if any people ever went into a theatre at so late an hour as eleven.Ah, Tom! he did not go in that night, or the next, but he was getting himself ready for the first step.Reader, do not mistake Tom’s weakness and folly. He was not trying to persuade himself this place was a good one for him to enter; he was not thoughtlessly going in to discover too late that he had better have stayed out. No, Tom—rightly or wrongly—had made up his own mind that this theatre was a bad place, andyethe had a desire to enter in!
The two months that followed my departure from Randlebury were melancholy and tedious.
It was hard for me, after the boisterous surroundings of a public school, to settle down to the heavy monotony of a dull lodging in a back street of London; and it was harder still, after being the pride and favourite of a boy like Charlie Newcome, to find myself the property of Tom Drift.
Not that Tom used me badly at first. He wound me up regularly, and for the sake of his absent friend honoured me with a considerable share of his affection.
Indeed, for the first week or so he was quite gushing, scarcely letting me out of his sight, and sometimes even dropping a tear over me. And I, remembering Charlie’s last words, “Be good to Tom Drift,” felt glad to be able to remind my new master of old times, and keep fresh the hopes and resolutions with which Charlie had done so much to inspire him. But Tom Drift, I could not help feeling, was not a safe man.
There was something lacking in him, and that something was ballast. No one, perhaps, ever had a greater theoretical desire to be all that was right and good, but that was not in itself enough.
In quiet, easy times, and with a guiding friend to help him, Tom Drift did well enough; but left to himself amid currents and storms he could hardly fail to come to grief, as we shall presently see.
For the first two months he stuck hard to his work he was regular at lectures, and attentive when there; he spent his spare time well in study bearing upon the profession for which he was preparing; he wrote and heard once a week from Charlie; he kept clear of the more rackety of his fellow-students; he spent his Sundays at Mr Newcome’s house, and he took plenty of healthy exercise both for body and mind.
With many examples about him of industry and success he determined to make the most of his time as a student, and spoke of the life and sphere of a country doctor, for which he was training, with the enthusiasm of one whose heart is in his work.
“The more I think of it,” he once wrote to his mother, who was residing abroad for her health, “the more I take to it. A good doctor is the best-liked man in his parish. Everybody comes to him in their trouble. He gets into the best society, and yet makes himself loved by the poorest. In four or five years at least I ought to get through my course here, and then there is nothing to prevent my settling down at once. By that time I hope you’ll be well enough to come and keep house for me, for all country doctors, you know, are bachelors,” and so on.
All this was very well, and, as one of Tom’s friends, I rejoiced to see him thus setting himself in earnest to the duties of his calling. But I rejoiced with trembling. Although he kept clear, for the most part, of his fellow-students, choosing his friends charily and shyly, I could yet see that he had no objection to contemplate from a distance the humours and festivities of his more high-spirited companions. He was not one of those impulsive fellows who shut their eyes and take a header into the midst of a new good-fellowship, only to discover too late their error, and repent their rashness at leisure.
No, Tom had his eyes open. He saw the evil as well as the good, and, alas for him, having seen it, he looked still!
The students of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital were not on the whole a bad set. On Tom’s arrival in London, however, he had the firm impression in his mind that all medical students were bad characters, and this foolish notion did him much harm. If two or three of them were to go off for a spree, his imagination would at once picture them in scenes and places such as no respectable man would like to frequent, whereas, if the truth were known, these misjudged young men had committed no greater crime than that of taking a boat up the river, or a drive in a dog-cart. If a group of them should be seen by him laughing and talking, he instinctively concluded their topic must be ribaldry, whereas they would perhaps be only joking at the expense of some eccentric professor, or else chaffing one of their own number. And so it happened that Tom failed in time to distinguish between the really bad and such as he only imagined to be bad; and from his habit of looking on at them and their doings from a studied distance, their presence began gradually and insensibly to exercise a very considerable influence over his mind.
“After all,” he would sometimes say to himself, “these fellows get on. They pass their exams, they pay their bills, they gain the confidence of their professors, and at the same time they manage to enjoy themselves. Perhaps I am a fool to take so much pains about the first three of these things, and to deny myself the fourth. Perhaps, after all, these fellows are not so bad as I have fancied, or perhaps I am prudish.”
And then the silly fellow, having once inclined to admit there was something to be said for medical students, and having before considered all bad alike, became tolerant all round, more particularly of the really bad set, who appeared to him to enjoy themselves the most.
As his companions became more attractive to him, his work became less interesting.
“Why should I grind and plod here,” he said, “while every one else is enjoying himself? If young Charlie were here, I’m pretty surehe’dbe in for some of their sprees, and laugh at me for wearing my eyes out as I’m doing.”
And then he leaned back in his chair and took to wondering what the six fellows who started that afternoon for Richmond were doing. Smashing the windows of the “Star and Garter,” perhaps, or fighting the bargees on the river, or capturing a four-in-hand drag, or disporting themselves in some such genial and truly English manner. And as Tom conjured up the picture he half envied them their sport.
So he gradually became restless and discontented. The days were weary and the evenings intolerably dull. The visits to Mr Newcome were of course pleasant enough, but it was slow being cooped up an entire Sunday with two old people. On the whole, life in London was becoming stupid.
One of the first symptoms of his altered frame of mind was the occasional neglect of his regular letter to Charlie. That ever-faithful young man wrote as punctually as clockwork. Every Thursday morning a letter lay on Tom’s plate at breakfast-time, addressed in the well-known hand, and bearing the Randlebury post-mark. And jolly lively letters they were.
I remembered one of them well. It came after two weeks’ omission on Tom’s part, and ran thus:—
“Dear Tom,“A pretty fellow you are to correspond with! Here am I, piping to you with all my might, but I can’t get you to dance. I know what you’ll tell me, you old humbug—‘awfully hard grind’—‘exam coming on’—‘lectures day and night,’ and rubbish like that. All very well, but look here, Thomas, don’t fancy that your diligence in cutting off legs and arms can be an excuse for cutting yours truly in this heartless manner. Not having a letter of yours to answer, I don’t know how I shall scrape up material enough for a yarn. There was a big football-match on Saturday, and Jim and I were in it. You should have seen me turning somersaults, and butting my head into the fellows’ stomachs. Jim and I got shoulder to shoulder once in the game. You know old Howe? Well, he was running with the ball to wards our goal, and Jim and I were in front of him.I was nearest, and charged, and over I went like a ninepin; then Jim was on him, and overhewent too. However, I was up again in time to jump on Howe’s back; but he shook me off on to the ground on my nose. Then Jim, having recovered, tookhisfling, and a rare fling it was, for Howe dodged him just as he was at the top of a kangaroo leap, and left him looking very foolish in a sitting posture on the ground. However, in dodging, Howe had allowed me time to extricate my nose from the earth and make my third attempt. This time was more successful, for I got my hands round the ball; but I shouldn’t have kept them there if Jim hadn’t taken the opportunity of executing another astounding buck-jump, which landed him safe on his man’s shoulders, where he stuck like a scared cat on the back of a somnambulist. So between us we brought our quarry to earth and gained no end of applause. Wasn’t it prime?That’s about all the news here, except that Willoughby is going to Trinity at Midsummer, and that Salter is laid up from the effects of an explosion of crackers in his trousers pockets.“I’ve taken a turn at reading hard, which may astonish you. The doctor told me, if I really thought of some day arraying my manly form in a scarlet jacket and wearing a sword, I ought to put it on with my mathematics, which are not myforte, you know. So now I’m drawing circles and triangles at every available moment, and my logarithm tables are thumbed almost to death. Don’t imagineyou’rethe only burner of midnight oil.“I had a letter from home to-day. They were saying they hadn’t seen you lately. I hope you’ll go up when you can; it would be a charity to the dear old folk; besides, they are very fond of you—queer taste! How’s the ticker? Give it a cuff from me for not reminding you to write the last two weeks.The repeater goes on all serene. It has already gained some notoriety, as I was publicly requested, before the whole Fifth, the other day, to abstain from evoking its musical talents in the course of the Latin prose lesson. Now I must shut up. Seriously, old man, don’t overwork yourself, and don’t bother to write unless you’ve time; but you know how welcome your letters are to“Your affectionate chum,“C.N.”
“Dear Tom,
“A pretty fellow you are to correspond with! Here am I, piping to you with all my might, but I can’t get you to dance. I know what you’ll tell me, you old humbug—‘awfully hard grind’—‘exam coming on’—‘lectures day and night,’ and rubbish like that. All very well, but look here, Thomas, don’t fancy that your diligence in cutting off legs and arms can be an excuse for cutting yours truly in this heartless manner. Not having a letter of yours to answer, I don’t know how I shall scrape up material enough for a yarn. There was a big football-match on Saturday, and Jim and I were in it. You should have seen me turning somersaults, and butting my head into the fellows’ stomachs. Jim and I got shoulder to shoulder once in the game. You know old Howe? Well, he was running with the ball to wards our goal, and Jim and I were in front of him.
I was nearest, and charged, and over I went like a ninepin; then Jim was on him, and overhewent too. However, I was up again in time to jump on Howe’s back; but he shook me off on to the ground on my nose. Then Jim, having recovered, tookhisfling, and a rare fling it was, for Howe dodged him just as he was at the top of a kangaroo leap, and left him looking very foolish in a sitting posture on the ground. However, in dodging, Howe had allowed me time to extricate my nose from the earth and make my third attempt. This time was more successful, for I got my hands round the ball; but I shouldn’t have kept them there if Jim hadn’t taken the opportunity of executing another astounding buck-jump, which landed him safe on his man’s shoulders, where he stuck like a scared cat on the back of a somnambulist. So between us we brought our quarry to earth and gained no end of applause. Wasn’t it prime?
That’s about all the news here, except that Willoughby is going to Trinity at Midsummer, and that Salter is laid up from the effects of an explosion of crackers in his trousers pockets.
“I’ve taken a turn at reading hard, which may astonish you. The doctor told me, if I really thought of some day arraying my manly form in a scarlet jacket and wearing a sword, I ought to put it on with my mathematics, which are not myforte, you know. So now I’m drawing circles and triangles at every available moment, and my logarithm tables are thumbed almost to death. Don’t imagineyou’rethe only burner of midnight oil.
“I had a letter from home to-day. They were saying they hadn’t seen you lately. I hope you’ll go up when you can; it would be a charity to the dear old folk; besides, they are very fond of you—queer taste! How’s the ticker? Give it a cuff from me for not reminding you to write the last two weeks.
The repeater goes on all serene. It has already gained some notoriety, as I was publicly requested, before the whole Fifth, the other day, to abstain from evoking its musical talents in the course of the Latin prose lesson. Now I must shut up. Seriously, old man, don’t overwork yourself, and don’t bother to write unless you’ve time; but you know how welcome your letters are to
“Your affectionate chum,
“C.N.”
Of course Tom sat down and answered this letter at once, much reproaching himself for his past neglect.
With the vision of Charlie before his eyes, and with the sound of his voice again in his ears, all his old resolutions and impulses returned that morning. He worked hard, and flung the trashy novel, over which he had been wasting his time the day before, into the fire; he went off to lectures with something like his old eagerness, and discharged his duties in the wards with interest and thoroughness; he refused to allow his mind to be distracted by the proceedings of his fellow-students, and he resolved to spend that very evening at Mr Newcome’s.
Tom Drift would probably have laughed at the idea that this sudden change was due entirely to Charlie’s letter. To him it seemed like a spontaneous reassertion of its natural self by his mind, and a matter for such self-congratulation and satisfaction, that it at once covered the multitude of past omissions.
Indeed, Tom felt very virtuous as he returned that afternoon to his lodgings; and so felt no need to look away from self to Him who alone can keep us from falling.
He read Charlie’s letter over again, and smiled at the idea ofhisgetting up mathematics in his spare time.
“He’s not the sort of fellow to stick to work of that sort,” said Tom to himself, secretly comparing his own remarkable powers of application with those of his Randlebury friend.
Then he sat down, and more than ever admiring and wondering at his own greediness for hard work, read till it was time to start for Mr Newcome’s.
It was a good long way, but being a fine evening, Tom determined to walk. He felt that after his work the fresh air would do him good, and besides, as he was in plenty of time, he could indulge himself in that very cheap and harmless luxury, an inspection of the shop windows as he went along. He therefore selected a longer and more crowded route than perhaps he need have done, and certainly, as far as the shops went, was rewarded for his pains.
However, Tom seemed to me to have as much interest in watching the people who passed to and fro as in the shops. He amused himself by wondering where this one was going and what that one was doing. With his usual tendency, he chose to imagine they were all bent on mischief or folly, and because they happened to be in a certain street, and because in that street he had frequently heard some of his fellow-students speak of a low theatre, he jumped to the conclusion that every one he saw was bound for this place. Something impelled him to go himself and take an exterior survey of this mysterious and much-spoken-of building. He found it; and, as he expected, he found people thronging in, though not in the numbers he had anticipated. He stood and watched them for some time, and wondered what they were going to see.
He went up and read the playbill. He read the name of the play, the titles of its acts, and the names of its actors. He wondered if the man who just then drove up in a hansom was one of the heroes of the piece, or whether he was one of the performers in the farce announced to follow the play. Still the people streamed in. There was no one he knew, and no one knew him.
“Strange,” thought he, “there are so many places in London where one could go and no one ever know it.”
He wished he could see what the place was like inside; it must surely be crowded by this time.
Thus he dawdled for some time; then with a sigh and an effort he tore himself away and walked quickly on to the Newcomes’ house. Their welcome was most cordial.
“We were afraid,” said Mr Newcome, “you had quite deserted us. Come in, it is pleasant to see you. We had a letter from Charlie only to-day, telling us to see you did not overwork yourself, and to make you come up here whether you would or not. Of course we could hardly follow such instructions literally.”
Tom spent a pleasant evening with the two good people.
He always had found Mr Newcome a clever and very entertaining man—a man whom one feels all the better for talking to, and who naturally sets every guest in his house at ease. They talked much about Charlie and his prospects. They even consulted Tom as to the wisdom of yielding to the boy’s desire for a military career, and Tom strongly supported the idea.
Then Tom’s own prospects were canvassed and highly approved of by both Mr, and Mrs Newcome.
Tom already pictured himself settled down in his country practice, enjoying himself, doing good to others, and laying by a comfortable competency for future years. On the whole, he felt, as he quitted the hospitable roof of his genial friends, that he had rarely spent a more pleasant or profitable evening.
People were thronging out of the theatre as he returned, and he could not resist the desire to stand and watch them; for a little. He wondered what they had seen, and whether those he saw had waited for the “farce,” or was that still going on?—and he wondered if any people ever went into a theatre at so late an hour as eleven.
Ah, Tom! he did not go in that night, or the next, but he was getting himself ready for the first step.
Reader, do not mistake Tom’s weakness and folly. He was not trying to persuade himself this place was a good one for him to enter; he was not thoughtlessly going in to discover too late that he had better have stayed out. No, Tom—rightly or wrongly—had made up his own mind that this theatre was a bad place, andyethe had a desire to enter in!
Chapter Twelve.How Tom Drift begins to go downhill.Time went on, and Tom Drift advanced inch by inch nearer the brink. He slipped, not without many an effort to recover himself, many a pang of self-reproach, many a vague hope of deliverance.“Be good to Tom Drift!” was ever ringing in my ears. But what could I do? He often neglected me for days. All I could do was to watch and tremble for what was coming.You who are so ready to call Tom a fool, and hug yourselves that you have more strength of character and resolution than he had, try to realise what were his perils and what were his temptations at that time, before you pass judgment.The dulness of those lodgings in Grime Street was often almost unbearable. When his work was done, and Tom looked out of the window and saw nothing but carts and cabs and tradesmen, and the dismal houses opposite, what wonder if he sometimes felt miserable? When he heard nothing but pattering footsteps down the pavement, the rumble of wheels and the street cries under his window, what wonder if he felt lonely and friendless? No footsteps stopped athisdoor, no friendly face lightenedhisdull study, no cheery laughter brought music tohislife. What wonder, I say, if he moped and felt discontented?What wonder if his thoughts wandered to scenes and places that contrasted forcibly with his dead-alive occupation? What wonder if he hankered after a “little excitement,” to break the monotony of lectures, hard reading, and stupid evenings?“Ah,” I hear you say, “there are plenty of things he might have done. It was his own fault if he was dull in London. I would have gone to the museums, the libraries, the concerts, the parks, the river, the picture galleries, and other harmless and delightful places of amusement. Why, I could not be dull in London if I tried. Tom Drift was an idiot.”My dear friend, what a pity Tom Drift had not the advantage of your acquaintance when he was in London! But he had not. He had no friends, as I have said, except the Newcomes, whom he only visited occasionally, and as a matter chiefly of duty, and his anxiety to keep right at first had led him to reject and fight shy of friendships with his fellow-students. Doubtless it was his own fault to a large extent that he allowed himself to get into this dull, dissatisfied condition. If he had had a healthy mind like you, friend, it would not have happened. But instead of utterly scouting him as an idiot, rather thank God you have been spared all his weaknesses and all his temptations.Was Tom never to learn that there was a way—“The Way, the Truth, and the Life”—better than any he had yet tried, which would lead him straight through the tangled mazes of his London life? Was he never to discover that Friend, truer than all earthly friends, at Whose side he might brave each trial and overcome each temptation?Poor Tom! he walked in a way of his own? and trusted in no one better than himself; and that was why he fell.As I have said, he did not fall without an effort. I have known him one day buy a bad, trashy book, and the same evening, in a fit of repentance—for God’s Spirit wonderfully strives with men—take and burn it to ashes in his grate. But I have also known him to buy the same book again the next day. I have known him to walk a mile out of his way to avoid a place of temptation; and yet, before his walk was done, find himself, after all, under the glare of its lamps. The moth hovers in wide circles round the candle before it ventures its wings in the flame. And so it was with Tom; but the catastrophe came at last.One evening about three weeks before the time fixed for the Easter trip with Charlie, Tom felt in tolerably dull. He had been neglecting his work during several days for novels of the lowest and most sensational type. Over these he had dawdled till his brain had become muddled with their unreal incidents and impure suggestions, and now that they were done he felt fit for nothing. He could not settle down to work, he had no friends to turn to, and so he put his hat on his head and sallied out into the streets to seek there the variety he could not find indoors.As usual, his steps led him to the low theatre about which he was so curious, and of which he heard so much from his fellow-students. It was half-past seven, and people were beginning to crowd round the door, waiting for it to open. Tom, standing on the other side of the pavement, watched them with a painful fascination.“Shall I go for once?” he asked himself. Then he strolled up to the playbill and read it.As he was doing so some one slapped him on the shoulder, and, turning quickly round, he found himself face to face with his old acquaintance Gus Burke and another youth.Gus, who was still small of stature, though fully nineteen years of age, was arrayed in the height of the fashion. As Tom regarded him he felt his own coat become more shabby and his hat older, and he wished he had brought his dogskin gloves and cane. Gus was smoking, too, a cigarette, and very distinguished and gentlemanly Tom thought it looked. He felt, as he regarded his brilliant and unexpected acquaintance, that he was rather glad those people who were standing at the theatre door should see him accosted in so familiar a way by such a hero. And Gus’s friend was no less imposing—more so, indeed, for he wore an eyeglass.Tom was so astonished at this unexpected meeting that he had noticed all this long before he found words to return his old schoolfellow’s salutation.Gus, however, relieved him of his embarrassment.“Tom Drift, upon my honour! How are you, old horse, and how’s your mother? Who’d have thought of running up against you like this?”Tom tried to look as much at his ease as he could as he replied,—“Why, Gus, old man, wheredidyou spring from? I didn’t know you were in London.”“Ain’t I, though!” replied Gus, tapping the end of his cigarette on his cane. “But what are you up to, Tom?—you’re not going in here, are you?” pointing over his shoulder to the theatre.“Well, no,” said Tom; “that is,” added he, with as much of a swagger as he could assume on the spur of the moment, “I had been half thinking of just seeing what it was like. Some of our fellows, you know, fancy the place.”How suddenly and easily he was, under the eyes of these two “swells,” casting off the few slender cords that still held him moored to the shore.“Oh, don’t go in there,” said Gus, with a look of disgust; “it’s the slowest place in London—nothing on but that old fool Shakespeare’s plays, or somebody’s equally stupid. You come along with us, Tom, we’ll take you to a place where you’ll get your money’s worth and no mistake. Won’t we, Jack?”The youth appealed to as Jack answered with a most affected drawl, and with an effort which appeared to cause him no little fatigue, “Wathah.”“Come along,” said Gus, lighting a fresh cigarette.Tom was uncomfortable. He would not for worlds seem unwilling to go, and yet he wished he could get out of it somehow.“Very kind of you,” he said, “I’d like it awfully; but I must get back to do some work, you know, I’ve an exam coming on. It’s an awful nuisance!”“Why, I thought you were going in here, in any case!” said Gus.“Ah—well—yes, so I was, just for a little, to see what sort of affair it was; but I meant to be home by nine.”“Well, just have a squint in at our place; and if you must go, you must. Come along, old man; cut work for one evening, can’t you? You’ve become an awfully reformed character all of a sudden; you usen’t to be so hot on your books.”Tom had no ambition before these two to figure in the light of a reformed character, and he therefore abandoned further protest, and proceeded to accompany Gus and his friend down the street.“Have a weed?” asked Gus.“Thanks, I hardly ever smoke,” said Tom.“They’re very mild,” said Gus, with a sneer.Tom took the proffered cigar without another word, and did his best first to light and then to smoke it as if he were an experienced smoker.“Who’s your fwend?” inquired Gus’s languid acquaintance.“By the way,” said that young man, “I’ve never introduced you two. Mortimer, allow me to introduce you to my friend Tom Drift.”Mr Mortimer gave a nod which Tom felt he would like greatly to have at his command, there was something so very knowing and familiar about it.“It was Tom got up that little race party I was telling you of, Jack, you know. He’s a regular sporting card. By the way, what’s become of that little mooney-face prig we took with us that day; eh, Tom?”Tom was out in midstream now, floating fast out to sea.“Who—oh, young Newcome?” said he; “he’s still at Randlebury.”“Young puppy! You never knew such a spree as that was, Jack,” said Gus; and then he launched forth into a highly-spiced account of the eventful expedition to Gurley races, contriving to represent Tom as the hero of the day, greatly to that youth’s discomfort and confusion, and no less to the amusement of Mr Mortimer.“Here we are at last,” said Gus, as the trio arrived at a gorgeously illuminated and decorated restaurant.Tom’s heart sunk within him. More than ever did he wish himself back in his dull lodgings, never again to set foot abroad, if only he could have got out of this fix. But there was no drawing back.“Shall we go in yet, or knock the balls about for a bit?” said Gus. “This fellow Tom’s a regular swell at billiards. Do you remember thrashing me last time we met, Tom—the summer after I’d left Randlebury?”Tom could not deny he had beaten Gus on the occasion referred to, and felt it was useless for him to protest—what was the case—that he was only a very indifferent player. He agreed to the idea of a game, however, as he hoped he might at its close be able to make his escape without accompanying his two companions to the music-hall attached to the restaurant, and which he already knew by reputation as one of the lowest entertainments in London. “You two play,” said Gus, “and I’ll mark. You’ll have to give Jack points, Tom, you know, you’re such a dab.”It was vain for Tom to disclaim the distinction, and the game began.“Hold hard!” said Gus, after the first stroke; “what are you playing for?”“Weally, I don’t know; thillingth, I thuppothe,” lisped Mr Mortimer.“All serene! Go on.”And they went on, and Mr Mortimer made no end of misses, so that, in spite of the points he had received, Tom beat him easily. In the two games which followed the same success attended him, and he won all the stakes.“Didn’t I tell you he was a swell?” said Gus. “Upon my word, Tom, I don’t know how you do it!”“It’s just the sort of table I like to play on,” said Tom, elated with his success, and unwilling to own that half his lucky shots had been “flukes.”“I tell you what,” said Gus; “you owe me my revenge, you know, from last time. I’ll play you to-morrow for half-crowns, if you’ll give me the same points as you did to Jack.”Tom was fast nearing the breakers now. He had nothing for it but to accept the challenge, and the table was consequently engaged for the next evening.“I must be off now, you fellows!” he said.“Nonsense! Why, you haven’t yet seen the fun below. You must stay for that.”“I wish I could,” faltered Tom; “but I really must do some reading to-night.”“So you can; the thing only lasts an hour, and you’re not obliged to go to bed at eleven, are you?”Still Tom hesitated.“You don’t mean to say you are squeamish about it?” said Gus, in astonishment. “I could fancy that young friend of your mother’s turning uphiseyes at it, but a fellow like you wouldn’t be so particular, I reckon; eh, Jack?”And Mr John Mortimer, thus appealed to, laughed an amused laugh at the bare notion.That laugh and the term, “a fellow like you,” destroyed the last of Tom’s wavering objections, and he yielded.
Time went on, and Tom Drift advanced inch by inch nearer the brink. He slipped, not without many an effort to recover himself, many a pang of self-reproach, many a vague hope of deliverance.
“Be good to Tom Drift!” was ever ringing in my ears. But what could I do? He often neglected me for days. All I could do was to watch and tremble for what was coming.
You who are so ready to call Tom a fool, and hug yourselves that you have more strength of character and resolution than he had, try to realise what were his perils and what were his temptations at that time, before you pass judgment.
The dulness of those lodgings in Grime Street was often almost unbearable. When his work was done, and Tom looked out of the window and saw nothing but carts and cabs and tradesmen, and the dismal houses opposite, what wonder if he sometimes felt miserable? When he heard nothing but pattering footsteps down the pavement, the rumble of wheels and the street cries under his window, what wonder if he felt lonely and friendless? No footsteps stopped athisdoor, no friendly face lightenedhisdull study, no cheery laughter brought music tohislife. What wonder, I say, if he moped and felt discontented?
What wonder if his thoughts wandered to scenes and places that contrasted forcibly with his dead-alive occupation? What wonder if he hankered after a “little excitement,” to break the monotony of lectures, hard reading, and stupid evenings?
“Ah,” I hear you say, “there are plenty of things he might have done. It was his own fault if he was dull in London. I would have gone to the museums, the libraries, the concerts, the parks, the river, the picture galleries, and other harmless and delightful places of amusement. Why, I could not be dull in London if I tried. Tom Drift was an idiot.”
My dear friend, what a pity Tom Drift had not the advantage of your acquaintance when he was in London! But he had not. He had no friends, as I have said, except the Newcomes, whom he only visited occasionally, and as a matter chiefly of duty, and his anxiety to keep right at first had led him to reject and fight shy of friendships with his fellow-students. Doubtless it was his own fault to a large extent that he allowed himself to get into this dull, dissatisfied condition. If he had had a healthy mind like you, friend, it would not have happened. But instead of utterly scouting him as an idiot, rather thank God you have been spared all his weaknesses and all his temptations.
Was Tom never to learn that there was a way—“The Way, the Truth, and the Life”—better than any he had yet tried, which would lead him straight through the tangled mazes of his London life? Was he never to discover that Friend, truer than all earthly friends, at Whose side he might brave each trial and overcome each temptation?
Poor Tom! he walked in a way of his own? and trusted in no one better than himself; and that was why he fell.
As I have said, he did not fall without an effort. I have known him one day buy a bad, trashy book, and the same evening, in a fit of repentance—for God’s Spirit wonderfully strives with men—take and burn it to ashes in his grate. But I have also known him to buy the same book again the next day. I have known him to walk a mile out of his way to avoid a place of temptation; and yet, before his walk was done, find himself, after all, under the glare of its lamps. The moth hovers in wide circles round the candle before it ventures its wings in the flame. And so it was with Tom; but the catastrophe came at last.
One evening about three weeks before the time fixed for the Easter trip with Charlie, Tom felt in tolerably dull. He had been neglecting his work during several days for novels of the lowest and most sensational type. Over these he had dawdled till his brain had become muddled with their unreal incidents and impure suggestions, and now that they were done he felt fit for nothing. He could not settle down to work, he had no friends to turn to, and so he put his hat on his head and sallied out into the streets to seek there the variety he could not find indoors.
As usual, his steps led him to the low theatre about which he was so curious, and of which he heard so much from his fellow-students. It was half-past seven, and people were beginning to crowd round the door, waiting for it to open. Tom, standing on the other side of the pavement, watched them with a painful fascination.
“Shall I go for once?” he asked himself. Then he strolled up to the playbill and read it.
As he was doing so some one slapped him on the shoulder, and, turning quickly round, he found himself face to face with his old acquaintance Gus Burke and another youth.
Gus, who was still small of stature, though fully nineteen years of age, was arrayed in the height of the fashion. As Tom regarded him he felt his own coat become more shabby and his hat older, and he wished he had brought his dogskin gloves and cane. Gus was smoking, too, a cigarette, and very distinguished and gentlemanly Tom thought it looked. He felt, as he regarded his brilliant and unexpected acquaintance, that he was rather glad those people who were standing at the theatre door should see him accosted in so familiar a way by such a hero. And Gus’s friend was no less imposing—more so, indeed, for he wore an eyeglass.
Tom was so astonished at this unexpected meeting that he had noticed all this long before he found words to return his old schoolfellow’s salutation.
Gus, however, relieved him of his embarrassment.
“Tom Drift, upon my honour! How are you, old horse, and how’s your mother? Who’d have thought of running up against you like this?”
Tom tried to look as much at his ease as he could as he replied,—
“Why, Gus, old man, wheredidyou spring from? I didn’t know you were in London.”
“Ain’t I, though!” replied Gus, tapping the end of his cigarette on his cane. “But what are you up to, Tom?—you’re not going in here, are you?” pointing over his shoulder to the theatre.
“Well, no,” said Tom; “that is,” added he, with as much of a swagger as he could assume on the spur of the moment, “I had been half thinking of just seeing what it was like. Some of our fellows, you know, fancy the place.”
How suddenly and easily he was, under the eyes of these two “swells,” casting off the few slender cords that still held him moored to the shore.
“Oh, don’t go in there,” said Gus, with a look of disgust; “it’s the slowest place in London—nothing on but that old fool Shakespeare’s plays, or somebody’s equally stupid. You come along with us, Tom, we’ll take you to a place where you’ll get your money’s worth and no mistake. Won’t we, Jack?”
The youth appealed to as Jack answered with a most affected drawl, and with an effort which appeared to cause him no little fatigue, “Wathah.”
“Come along,” said Gus, lighting a fresh cigarette.
Tom was uncomfortable. He would not for worlds seem unwilling to go, and yet he wished he could get out of it somehow.
“Very kind of you,” he said, “I’d like it awfully; but I must get back to do some work, you know, I’ve an exam coming on. It’s an awful nuisance!”
“Why, I thought you were going in here, in any case!” said Gus.
“Ah—well—yes, so I was, just for a little, to see what sort of affair it was; but I meant to be home by nine.”
“Well, just have a squint in at our place; and if you must go, you must. Come along, old man; cut work for one evening, can’t you? You’ve become an awfully reformed character all of a sudden; you usen’t to be so hot on your books.”
Tom had no ambition before these two to figure in the light of a reformed character, and he therefore abandoned further protest, and proceeded to accompany Gus and his friend down the street.
“Have a weed?” asked Gus.
“Thanks, I hardly ever smoke,” said Tom.
“They’re very mild,” said Gus, with a sneer.
Tom took the proffered cigar without another word, and did his best first to light and then to smoke it as if he were an experienced smoker.
“Who’s your fwend?” inquired Gus’s languid acquaintance.
“By the way,” said that young man, “I’ve never introduced you two. Mortimer, allow me to introduce you to my friend Tom Drift.”
Mr Mortimer gave a nod which Tom felt he would like greatly to have at his command, there was something so very knowing and familiar about it.
“It was Tom got up that little race party I was telling you of, Jack, you know. He’s a regular sporting card. By the way, what’s become of that little mooney-face prig we took with us that day; eh, Tom?”
Tom was out in midstream now, floating fast out to sea.
“Who—oh, young Newcome?” said he; “he’s still at Randlebury.”
“Young puppy! You never knew such a spree as that was, Jack,” said Gus; and then he launched forth into a highly-spiced account of the eventful expedition to Gurley races, contriving to represent Tom as the hero of the day, greatly to that youth’s discomfort and confusion, and no less to the amusement of Mr Mortimer.
“Here we are at last,” said Gus, as the trio arrived at a gorgeously illuminated and decorated restaurant.
Tom’s heart sunk within him. More than ever did he wish himself back in his dull lodgings, never again to set foot abroad, if only he could have got out of this fix. But there was no drawing back.
“Shall we go in yet, or knock the balls about for a bit?” said Gus. “This fellow Tom’s a regular swell at billiards. Do you remember thrashing me last time we met, Tom—the summer after I’d left Randlebury?”
Tom could not deny he had beaten Gus on the occasion referred to, and felt it was useless for him to protest—what was the case—that he was only a very indifferent player. He agreed to the idea of a game, however, as he hoped he might at its close be able to make his escape without accompanying his two companions to the music-hall attached to the restaurant, and which he already knew by reputation as one of the lowest entertainments in London. “You two play,” said Gus, “and I’ll mark. You’ll have to give Jack points, Tom, you know, you’re such a dab.”
It was vain for Tom to disclaim the distinction, and the game began.
“Hold hard!” said Gus, after the first stroke; “what are you playing for?”
“Weally, I don’t know; thillingth, I thuppothe,” lisped Mr Mortimer.
“All serene! Go on.”
And they went on, and Mr Mortimer made no end of misses, so that, in spite of the points he had received, Tom beat him easily. In the two games which followed the same success attended him, and he won all the stakes.
“Didn’t I tell you he was a swell?” said Gus. “Upon my word, Tom, I don’t know how you do it!”
“It’s just the sort of table I like to play on,” said Tom, elated with his success, and unwilling to own that half his lucky shots had been “flukes.”
“I tell you what,” said Gus; “you owe me my revenge, you know, from last time. I’ll play you to-morrow for half-crowns, if you’ll give me the same points as you did to Jack.”
Tom was fast nearing the breakers now. He had nothing for it but to accept the challenge, and the table was consequently engaged for the next evening.
“I must be off now, you fellows!” he said.
“Nonsense! Why, you haven’t yet seen the fun below. You must stay for that.”
“I wish I could,” faltered Tom; “but I really must do some reading to-night.”
“So you can; the thing only lasts an hour, and you’re not obliged to go to bed at eleven, are you?”
Still Tom hesitated.
“You don’t mean to say you are squeamish about it?” said Gus, in astonishment. “I could fancy that young friend of your mother’s turning uphiseyes at it, but a fellow like you wouldn’t be so particular, I reckon; eh, Jack?”
And Mr John Mortimer, thus appealed to, laughed an amused laugh at the bare notion.
That laugh and the term, “a fellow like you,” destroyed the last of Tom’s wavering objections, and he yielded.