Has any person of any nation or language, found out and given to the world any occupation, work, diversion, or pursuit, more subtlely dangerous to the susceptible youth of both sexes than that of nutting in pairs. If so, who, where, what? A few years later in life perhaps district visiting, and attending schools together, may in certain instances be more fatal; but, in the first bright days of youth, a day's nutting against the world! A day in autumn, warm enough to make sitting in the sheltered nooks in the woods, where ever the sunshine lies, very pleasant, and yet not too warm to make exercise uncomfortable—two young people who have been thrown much together, one of whom is conscious of the state of his feelings towards the other, and is, moreover, aware that his hours are numbered, and that in a few days at furthest they will be separated for many months, that persons in authority on both sides are beginning to suspect something (as is apparent from the difficulty they have had in getting away together at all on this same afternoon) here is a conjunction of persons and circumstances, if ever there was one in the world, which is surely likely to end in a catastrophe. Indeed, so obvious to the meanest capacity is the danger of the situation, that, as Tom had, in his own mind, staked his character for resolution with his private self on the keeping of his secret till after he was of age, it is hard to conceive how he can have been foolish enough to get himself into a hazel copse alone with Miss Mary on the earliest day he could manage it after the arrival of the Porters, on their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Brown. That is to say, it would be hard to conceive, if it didn't just happen to be the most natural thing in the world.
For the first twenty-four hours after their meeting in the home of his fathers, the two young people, and Tom in particular, felt very uncomfortable. Mary, being a young lady of very high spirits, and, as our readers may probably have discovered, much given to that kind of conversation which borders as nearly upon what men commonly call chaff as a well-bred girl can venture on, was annoyed to find herself quite at fault in all her attempts to get her old antagonist of Commemoration to show fight. She felt in a moment how changed his manner was, and thought it by no means changed for the better. As for Tom, he felt foolish and shy at first, to an extent which drove him half wild; his words stuck in his throat, and he took to blushing again like a boy of fourteen. In fact, he got so angry with himself that he rather avoided her actual presence, though she was scarcely a moment out of his sight. Mr. Brown made the best of his son's retreat, devoted himself most gallantly to Mary, and was completely captivated by her before bedtime on the first night of their visit. He triumphed over his wife when they were alone, and laughed at the groundlessness of her suspicions. But she was by no means so satisfied on the subject as her husband.
In a day or two, however, Tom began to take heart of grace, and to find himself oftener at Mary's side, with something to say, and more to look. But now she, in her turn, began to be embarrassed; for all attempts to re-establish their old footing failed, and the difficulty of finding a satisfactory new one remained to be solved. So for the present, though neither of them found it quite satisfactory, they took refuge in the presence of a third party, and attached themselves to Katie, talking at one another through her. Nothing could exceed Katie's judiciousness as a medium of communication; and through her a better understanding began to establish itself, and the visit which both of them had been looking forward to so eagerly seemed likely, after all, to be as pleasant in fact as it had been in anticipation. As they became more at ease, the vigilance of Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Porter seemed likely to revive. But in a country house there must be plenty of chances for young folks who mean it, to be together; and so they found and made use of their opportunities, giving at the same time as little cause to their natural guardians as possible for any serious interference. The families got on, on the whole, so well together, that the visit was prolonged from the original four or five days to a fortnight; and this time of grace was drawing to a close when the event happened which made the visit memorable to our hero.
On the morning in question, Mr. Brown arranged at breakfast that he and his wife should drive Mr. and Mrs. Porter to make calls on several of the neighbors. Tom declared his intention of taking a long day after the partridges, and the young ladies were to go and make a sketch of the house from a point which Katie had chosen. Accordingly, directly after luncheon, the carriage came round, and the elders departed; and the young ladies started together, carrying their sketching apparatus with them.
It was probably a bad day for scent; for they had not been gone a quarter of an hour when Tom came home, deposited his gun, and followed on their steps. He found them sitting under the lee of a high bank, sufficiently intent on their drawings, but neither surprised nor sorry to find that he had altered his mind, and come back to interrupt them. So he lay down near them, and talked of Oxford and Englebourn, and so from one thing to another, till he got upon the subject of nutting, and the sylvan beauties of a neighbouring wood. Mary was getting on badly with her drawing, and jumped at the idea of a ramble in the wood; but Katie was obdurate, and resisted all their solicitations to move. She suggested, however, that they might go; and, as Tom declared that they should not be out of call, and would be back in half an hour at furthest, Mary consented; and they left the sketcher and strolled together out of the fields, and into the road, and so through a gate into the wood. It was a pleasant oak wood. The wild flowers were over, but the great masses of ferns, four or five feet high, made a grand carpet round the stems of the forest monarchs, and a fitting couch for here and there one of them which had been lately felled, and lay in fallen majesty, with bare shrouded trunk awaiting the sawyers. Further on, the hazel underwood stood thickly on each side of the green rides, down which they sauntered side by side. Tom talked of the beauty of the wood in spring-time, and the glorious succession of colouring—pale yellow, and deep blue and white, and purple—which the primroses, and hyacinths and starwort, and foxgloves gave, each in their turn, in the early year, and mourned over their absence. But Mary preferred Autumn, and would not agree with him. She was enthusiastic for ferns and heather. He gathered some sprigs of the latter for her, from a little sandy patch which they passed, and some more for his own button-hole, and then they engaged in the absorbing pursuit of nutting, and the talk almost ceased. He caught the higher branches, and bent them down to her, and watched her as she gathered them, and wondered at the ease and grace of all her movements, and the unconscious beauty of her attitudes. Soon she became more enterprising herself, and made little excursions into the copse, surmounting briers, and passing through tangled places like a Naiad, before he could be there to help her. And so they went on, along the rides and through the copse, forgetting Katie and time, till they were brought up by the fence on the further side of the wood. The ditch was on the outside, and on the inside a bank with a hedge on the top, full of tempting hazel-bushes. She clapped her hands at the sight, and, declining his help, stepped lightly up the bank and began gathering. He turned away for a moment, jumped up the bank himself, and followed her example.
He was standing up in the hedge, and reaching after a tempting cluster of nuts, when he heard a short sharp cry of pain behind him, which made him spring backwards, and nearly miss his footing as he came to the ground. Recovering himself, and turning round, he saw Mary lying at the foot of the bank, writhing in pain.
He was at her side in a minute and dreadfully alarmed.
“Good heavens! what has happened?” he said.
“My ankle!” she cried; and the effort of speaking brought the sudden flush of pain to her brow.
“Oh! what can I do?”
“The boot! the boot!” she said, leaning forward to unlace it, and then sinking back against the bank. “It is so painful. I hope I sha'n't faint!”
Poor Tom could only clasp his hands as he knelt by her, and repeat, “Oh, what can I do—what can I do?” His utter bewilderment presently aroused Mary, and her natural high courage was beginning to master the pain.
“Have you a knife?”
“Yes here,” he said, pulling one out of his pocket, and opening it; “here it is.”
“Please cut the lace.”
Tom, with beating heart and trembling hand, cut the lace and then looked up at her.
“Oh, be quick—cut it again! Don't be afraid.”
He cut it again; and, without taking hold of the foot, gently pulled out the ends of the lace.
She again leaned forward, and tried to take off the boot; but the pain was too great, and she sank back, and put her hand up to her flushed face.
“May I try?—perhaps I could do it.”
“Yes, pray do. Oh, I can't bear the pain!” she added, next moment; and Tom felt ready to hang himself for having been the cause of it.
“You must cut the boot off, please.”
“But perhaps I may cut you. Do you really mean it?”
“Yes, really. There, take care. How your hand shakes. You will never do for a doctor.”
His hand did shake, certainly. He had cut a little hole the stocking; but, under the circumstances, we need not wonder—the situation was new and trying. Urged on by her, he cut and cut away, and, at last, off came the boot, and her beautiful little foot lay on the green turf. She was much relieved at once, but still in great pain; and now he began to recover his head.
“The ankle should be bound up; may I try?”
“Oh, yes; but what with?”
Tom dived into his shooting-coat pocket, and produced one of the large, many-colored neck-wrappers which were fashionable at Oxford in those days.
“How lucky!” he said, as he tore it into strips. “I think this will do. Now, you'll stop me, won't you, if I hurt you, or don't do it right?”
“Don't be afraid, I'm much better. Bind it tight, tighter than that.”
He wound the strips as tenderly as he could round her foot and ankle, with hands all alive with nerves, and wondering more and more at her courage as she kept urging him to draw the bandage tighter yet. Then, still under her direction, he fastened and pinned down the ends; and as he was rather neat with his fingers, from the practice of tying flies and splicing rods and bats, produced, on the whole, a creditable sort of bandage. Then he looked up at her, the perspiration standing on his forehead, as if he had been pulling a race, and said,
“Will that do? I'm afraid it's very awkward.”
“Oh, no; thank you so much! But I'm so sorry you have torn your handkerchief.”
Tom made no answer to this remark, except by a look. What could he say, but that he would gladly have torn his skin off for the same purpose, if it would have been of any use. But this speech did not seem quite the thing for the moment.
“But how do you feel? Is it very painful?” he asked.
“Rather. But don't look so anxious. Indeed, it is very bearable. But what are we to do now?”
He thought for a moment, and said, with something like a sigh—
“Shall I run home, and bring the servants and a sofa, or something to carry you on?”
“No, I shouldn't like to be left here alone.”
His face brightened again.
“How near is the nearest cottage?” she asked.
“There's none nearer than the one which we passed on the road—on the other side of the wood, you know.”
“Then I must try to get there. You must help me up.”
He sprang to his feet and stooped over her, doubting how to begin helping her. He had never felt so shy in his life. He held out his hands.
“I think you must put your arm round me,” she said, after looking at him for a moment. He lifted her on to her feet.
“Now let me lean on your arm. There, I dare say I shall manage to hobble along well enough;” and she made a brave attempt to walk. But the moment the injured foot touched the ground, she stopped with a catch at her breath, and a shiver, which went through Tom like a knife; and the flush came back into her face, and she would have fallen had he not again put his arm round her waist, and held her up. “I am better again now,” she said, after a second or two.
“But Mary, dear Mary, don't try to walk again. For my sake. I can't bear it.”
“But what am I to do?” she said. “I must get back somehow.”
“Will you let me carry you?”
She looked in his face again, and then dropped her eyes, and hesitated.
“I wouldn't offer, dear, if there were any other way. But you mustn't walk. Indeed, you must not; you may lame yourself for life.”
He spoke very quietly, with his eyes fixed on the ground, though his heart was beating so that he feared she would hear it.
“Very well,” she said; “but I'm very heavy.”
So he lifted her gently, and stepped off down the ride, carrying his whole world in his arms, in an indescribable flutter of joy, and triumph, and fear. He had gone some forty yards or so, when he staggered, and stopped for a moment.
“Oh, pray put me down—pray do! You'll hurt yourself. I'm too heavy.”
For the credit of muscular Christianity, one must say that it was not her weight, but the tumult in his own inner man, which made her bearer totter. Nevertheless, if one is wholly unused to the exercise, the carrying of a healthy young English girl weighing a good eight stone, is as much as most men can conveniently manage.
“I'll just put you down for a moment,” he said. “Now, take care of the foot;” and he stooped and placed her tenderly against one of the oaks which bordered the ride, standing by her side without looking at her. Neither of them spoke for a minute. Then he asked, still looking away down the ride, “How is the foot?”
“Oh, pretty well,” she answered, cheerfully. “Now, leave me here, and go for help. It is absurd of me to mind being left, and you mustn't carry me any more.”
He turned, and their eyes met for a moment, but that was enough.
“Are you ready?” he said.
“Yes, but take care. Don't go far. Stop directly you feel tired.”
Then he lifted her again, and this time carried her without faltering, till they came to a hillock covered with soft grass. Here they rested again, and so by easy stages he carried her through the wood, and out into the road, to the nearest cottage, neither of them speaking.
An old woman came to the door in answer to his kick, and went off into ejaculations of pity and wonder in the broadest Berkshire, at seeing Master Tom and his burthen. But he pushed into the house and cut her short with—
“Now, Mrs. Pike, don't talk, that's a dear good woman, but bustle about, and bring that arm-chair here, and the other low one, with a pillow on it, for the young lady's foot to rest on.”
The old woman obeyed his injunctions, except as to talking; and, while she placed the chairs and shook up the pillow, descanted on the sovereign virtues of some green oil and opodeldoc, which was as good as a charm for sprains and bruises.
Mary gave him one grateful look as he lowered her tenderly and reluctantly into the chair, and then spoke cheerfully to Mrs. Pike, who was foraging in a cupboard, to find if there was any of her famous specific in the bottom of the bottle. As he stood up, and thought what to do next, he heard the sound of distant wheels, and looking through the window saw the carriage coming homewards. It was a sorrowful sight to him.
“Now, Mrs. Pike,” he said, “never mind the oil. Here's the carriage coming; just step out and stop it.”
The old dame scuttled out into the road. The carriage was within one hundred yards. He leant over the rough arm-chair in which Mary was leaning back, looked once more into her eyes; and then, stooping forwards, kissed her lips, and the next moment was by the side of Mrs. Pike, signalling the coachman to stop.
In the bustle which followed he stood aside, and watched Mary with his heart in his mouth. She never looked at him, but there was no anger, but only a dreamy look in her sweet face, which seemed to him a thousand times more beautiful than ever before. Then, to avoid inquiries, and to realize all that had passed in the last wonderful three hours, he slipped away while they were getting her into the carriage, and wandered back into the wood, pausing at each of their halting places. At last he reached the scene of the accident, and here his cup of happiness was likely to brim over, for he found the mangled little boot and the cut lace, and securing the precious prize, hurried back home, to be in time for dinner.
Mary did not come down; but Katie, the only person of whom he dared to inquire, assured him that she was doing famously. The dinner was very embarrassing, and he had the greatest difficulty in answering the searching inquiries of his mother and Mrs. Porter, as to how, when, where, and in whose presence the accident had happened. As soon as the ladies rose, he left his father and Mr. Porter over their old port and politics, and went out in the twilight into the garden, burthened with the weight of sweet thought. He felt that he had something to do—to set himself quite right with Mary; he must speak somehow, that night, if possible, or he should not be comfortable or at peace with his conscience. There were lights in her room. He guessed by the shadows that she was lying on a couch by the open window, round which the other ladies were flitting.
Presently lights appeared in the drawing-room; and, as the shutters were being closed, he saw his mother and Mrs. Porter come in, and sit down near the fire. Listening intently, he heard Katie talking in a low voice in the room above, and saw her head against the light as she sat down close to the window, probably at the head of the couch where Mary was lying. Should he call to her? If he did, how could he say what he wanted to say through her?
A happy thought struck him. He turned to the flowerbeds, hunted about, and gathered a bunch of heliotrope, hurried up to his room, took the sprig of heather out of his shooting coat, tied them together, caught up a reel and line from his table, and went into the room over Mary's. He threw the window open, and, leaning out, said gently,
“Katie.” No answer. He repeated the name louder. No answer still, and, leaning out yet further, he saw that the window had been shut. He lowered the bunch of flowers, and, swinging it backwards and forward, made it strike the window below—once, twice; at the third stroke he heard the window open.
“Katie,” he whispered again, “is that you?”
“Yes, where are you? What is this?”
“For her,” he said, in the same whisper. Katie untied the flowers, and he waited a few moments, and then again called her name, and she answered.
“Has she the flowers?” he asked.
“Yes, and she sends you her love, and says you are to go down to the drawing-room;” and with that the window closed, and he went down with a lightened conscience into the drawing-room, and, after joining in the talk by the fire for a few minutes, took a book, and sat down at the further side of the table. Whether he ever knew what the book was may be fairly questioned, but to all appearances he was deep in the perusal of it till the tea and Katie arrived, and the gentlemen from the dining-room. Then he tried to join in the conversation again; but, on the whole, life was a burthen to him that night, till he could get fairly away to his own room, and commune with himself, gazing at the yellow harvest moon, with his elbows on the window sill.
The ankle got well very quickly, and Mary was soon going about with a gold-headed stick which had belonged to Mr. Brown's father, and a limp which Tom thought the most beautiful movement he had ever seen. But, though she was about again, by no amount of patient vigilance could he now get the chance of speaking to her alone. But he consoled himself with the thought that she must understand him; if he had spoken he couldn't have made himself clearer.
And now the Porters' visit was all but over, and Katie and her father left for Englebourn. The Porters were to follow the next day, and promised to drive round and stop at the Rectory for lunch. Tom petitioned for a seat in their carriage to Englebourn. He had been devoting himself to Mrs. Porter ever since the accident, and had told her a good deal about his own early life. His account of his early friendship for Betty and her son, and the renewal of it on the day he left Barton Manor, had interested her, and she was moreover not insensible to his assiduous and respectful attentions to herself, which had of late been quite marked; she was touched, too, at his anxiety to hear all about her boys, and how they were getting on at school. So on the whole Tom was in high favour with her, and she most graciously assented to his occupying the fourth seat in their barouche. She was not without her suspicions of the real state of the case with him; but his behavior had been so discreet that she had no immediate fears; and, after all, if anything should come of it some years hence, her daughter might do worse. In the meantime she would see plenty of society in London; where Mr. Porter's vocations kept him during the greater part of the year.
They reached Englebourn after a pleasant long morning's drive; and Tom stole a glance at Mary and felt that she understood him, as he pointed out the Hawk's Lynch and the clump of scotch firs to her mother; and told how you might see Barton from the top of it, and how he loved the place, and the old trees, and the view.
Katie was at the door ready to receive them, and carried off Mary and Mrs. Porter to her own room. Tom walked round the garden with Mr. Porter, and then sat in the drawing-room, and felt melancholy. He roused himself, however, when the ladies came down and luncheon was announced. Mary was full of her reminiscences of the Englebourn people, and especially of poor Mrs. Winburn and her son, in whom she had begun to take a deep interest, perhaps from overhearing some of Tom's talk to her mother. So Harry's story was canvassed again, and Katie told them how he had been turned out of his cottage, and how anxious she was as to what would come of it.
“And is he going to marry your gardener's daughter after all?” asked Mrs. Porter.
“I am afraid there is not much chance of it,” said Katie; “I cannot make Martha out.”
“Is she at home, Katie?” asked Mary; “I should like to see her again. I took a great fancy to her when I was here.”
“Yes, she is at the lodge. We will walk there after luncheon.”
So it was settled that the carriage should pick them up at the lodge; and soon after luncheon, while the horses were being put to, the whole party started for the lodge, after saying good-bye to Mr. Winter, who retired to his room much fatigued by his unwonted hospitality.
Old Simon's wife answered their knock at the lodge door, and they all entered, and Mrs. Porter paid her compliments on the cleanliness of the room.
Then Mary said, “Is your daughter at home, Mrs. Gibbons?”
“Ees, miss, someweres handy,” replied Mrs. Gibbons; “her hav'n't been gone out, not dree minnit.”
“I should like so much to say good-bye to her,” said Mary. “We shall be leaving Barton soon, and I shall not see her again till next summer.”
“Lor bless'ee, miss, 'tis werry good ov'ee,” said the old dame, very proud; “do'ee set down then while I gees her a call.” And with that she hurried out of the door which led through the back kitchen into the little yard behind the lodge, and the next moment they heard her calling out—
“Patty, Patty, wher bist got to? Come in and see the gentlefolk.”
The name which the old woman was calling out made Tom start.
“I thought you said her name was Martha,” said Mrs. Porter.
“Patty is short for Martha in Berkshire,” said Katie, laughing.
“And Patty is such a pretty name. I wonder you don't call her Patty,” said Mary.
“We had a housemaid of the same name a year or two ago, and it made such a confusion—and when one once gets used to a name it is so hard to change—so she has always been called Martha.”
“Well, I'm all for Patty; don't you think so?” said Mary, turning to Tom.
The sudden introduction of a name which he had such reasons for remembering, the memories and fears which it called up—above all, the bewilderment which he felt at hearing it tossed about and canvassed by Mary in his presence, as if there were nothing more in it than in any other name—confused him so that he floundered and blundered in his attempt to answer, and at last gave it up altogether. She was surprised, and looked at him inquiringly. His eyes fell before hers, and he turned away to the window, and looked at the carriage, which had just drawn up at the lodge door. He had scarcely time to think how foolish he was to be so moved, when he heard the back-kitchen door open again, and the old woman and her daughter come in.
He turned round sharply, and there on the floor of the room, courtseying to the ladies, stood the ex-barmaid of the “Choughs”. His first impulse was to hurry away—she was looking down, and he might not be recognized; his next, to stand his ground, and take whatever might come. Mary went up to her and took her hand, saying that she could not go away without coming to see her. Patty looked up to answer, and, glancing round the room, caught sight of him.
He stepped forward, and then stopped and tried to speak, but no words would come. Patty looked at him, dropped Mary's hand, blushed up to the roots of her hair as she looked timidly round at the wondering spectators, and, putting her hands to her face, ran out of the back door again.
“Lawk a massy! what ever can ha' cum to our Patty?” said Mrs. Gibbons, following her out.
“I think we had better go,” said Mr. Porter, giving his arm to his daughter, and leading her to the door, “Goodbye, Katie; shall we see you again at Barton?”
“I don't know, uncle,” Katie answered, following with Mrs. Porter, in a state of sad bewilderment.
Tom, with his brain swimming, got out a few stammering farewell words, which Mr. and Mrs. Porter received with marked coldness, as they stepped into their carriage. Mary's face was flushed and uneasy; but at her he scarcely dared to steal a look, and to her was quite unable to speak a word.
Then the carriage drove off, and he turned, and found Katie standing at his side, her eyes full of serious wonder. His fell before them.
“My dear Tom,” she said, “what is all this? I thought you had never seen Martha?”
“So I thought—I don't know—I can't talk now—I'll explain all to you—don't think very badly of me, Katie—God bless you!” with which words he strode away, while she looked after him with increasing wonder, and then turned and went into the lodge.
He hastened away from the Rectory and down the village street, taking the road home mechanically, but otherwise wholly unconscious of roads and men. David, who was very anxious to speak to him about Harry, stood at his door making signs to him to stop, in vain; and then gave chase, calling out after him, till he saw that all attempts to attract his notice were useless, and so ambled back to his shop-board much troubled in mind.
The first object which recalled Tom at all to himself was the little white cottage looking out of Englebourn copse towards the village, in which he had sat by poor Betty's death-bed. The garden was already getting wild and tangled, and the house seemed uninhabited. He stopped for a moment and looked at it with bitter searchings of heart. Here was the place where he had taken such a good turn, as he had fondly hoped—in connection with the then inmates of which he had made the strongest good resolutions he had ever made in his life perhaps. What was the good of his trying to befriend anybody? His friendship turned to a blight; whatever he had as yet tried to do for Harry had only injured him, and now how did they stand? Could they ever be friends again after that day's discovery? To do him justice, the probable ruin of all his own prospects, the sudden coldness of Mr. and Mrs. Porter's looks, and Mary's averted face, were not the things he thought of first, and did not trouble him most. He thought of Harry, and shuddered at the wrong he had done him as he looked at his deserted home. The door opened and a figure appeared. It was Mr. Wurley's agent, the lawyer who had been employed by Farmer Tester in his contest with Harry and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not consider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on him and his master, and hurried away along the lane which led to the heath. The Hawk's Lynch lay above him, and he climbed the side mechanically and sat himself again on the old spot.
He sat for some time looking over the landscape, graven on his mind as it was by his former visit, and bitterly, oh, how bitterly! did the remembrance of that visit, and of the exultation and triumph which then filled him, and carried him away over the heath with a shout towards his home, come back on him. He could look out from his watchtower no longer, and lay down with his face between his hands on the turf, and groaned as he lay.
But his good angel seemed to haunt the place, and soon the cold fit began to pass away, and better and more hopeful thoughts to return. After all what had he done since his last visit to that place to be ashamed of? Nothing. His attempts to do Harry service, unlucky as they had proved, had been honest. Had he become less worthy of the love which had first consciously mastered him there some four weeks ago? No; he felt on the contrary, that it had already raised him, and purified him, and made a man of him. But this last discovery, how could he ever get over that? Well, after all, the facts were just the same as before; only now they had come out. It was right that they should have come out; better for him and for everyone that they should be known and faced. He was ready to face them, to abide any consequences that they might now bring in their train. His heart was right towards Mary, towards Patty, towards Harry—that he felt sure of. And, if so, why should he despair of either his love or his friendship coming to a good end?
And so he sat up again, and looked out bravely towards Barton, and began to consider what was to be done. His eye rested on the Rectory. That was the first place to begin with. He must set himself right with Katie—let her know the whole story. Through her he could reach all the rest, and do whatever must be done to clear the ground and start fresh again.
At first he thought of returning to her at once, and rose to go down to Englebourn. But anything like retracing his steps was utterly distasteful to him just then. Before him he saw light, dim enough as yet, but still a dawning; towards that he would press, leaving everything behind him to take care of itself. So he turned northwards, and struck across the heath at his best pace. The violent exercise almost finished his cure, and his thoughts became clearer and more hopeful as he neared home. He arrived there as the household was going to bed, and found a letter waiting for him. It was from Hardy, saying that Blake had left him, and he was now thinking of returning to Oxford, and would come for his long talked of visit to Berkshire, if Tom was still at home, and in the mind to receive him.
Never was a letter more opportune. Here was the tried friend on whom he could rely for help and advice and sympathy—who knew all the facts too from beginning to end! His father and mother were delighted to hear that they should now see the friend of whom he had spoken so much. So he went up stairs and wrote an answer, which set Hardy to work packing his portmanteau in the far west, and brought him speedily to the side of his friend under the lee of the Berkshire hills.
For some days after his return home—in fact, until his friend's arrival, Tom was thoroughly beaten down and wretched, notwithstanding his efforts to look hopefully forward, and keep up his spirits. His usual occupations were utterly distasteful to him; and, instead of occupying himself, he sat brooding over his late misfortune, and hopelessly puzzling his head as to what he could do to set matters right. The conviction in which he always landed was that there was nothing to be done, and that he was a desolate and blighted being, deserted of gods and men. Hardy's presence and company soon shook him out of this maudlin nightmare state, and he began to recover as soon as he had his old sheet-anchor friend to hold on to and consult with. Their consultations were held chiefly in the intervals of woodcraft, in which they spent most of their hours between breakfast and dinner. Hardy did not take out a certificate and wouldn't shoot without one; so, as the best autumn exercise, they selected a tough old pollard elm, infinitely ugly, with knotted and twisted roots, curiously difficult to get at and cut through, which had been long marked as a blot by Mr. Brown, and condemned to be felled as soon as there was nothing more pressing for his men to do. But there was always something of more importance; so that the cross-grained old tree might have remained until this day, had not Hardy and Tom pitched on him as a foeman worthy of their axes. They shoveled, and picked, and hewed away with great energy. The woodman who visited them occasionally, and who, on examining their first efforts, had remarked that the severed roots looked a little “as tho' the dogs had been a gnawin' at 'em,” began to hold them in respect, and to tender his advice with some deference. By the time the tree was felled and shrouded, Tom was in a convalescent state.
Their occupation had naturally led to discussions on the advantages of emigration, the delights of clearing one's own estate, building one's own house, and getting away from conventional life with a few tried friends. Of course the pictures which were painted included foregrounds with beautiful children playing about the clearing, and graceful women, wives of the happy squatters, flitting in and out of log houses and sheds, clothed and occupied after the manner of our ideal grandmothers; with the health and strength of Amazons, the refinement of high-bred ladies, and wondrous skill in all domestic works, confections, and contrivances. The log-houses would also contain fascinating select libraries, continually reinforced from home, sufficient to keep all the dwellers in the happy clearing in communion with all the highest minds of their own and former generations. Wonderous games in the neighbouring forest, dear old home customs established and taking root in the wilderness, with ultimate dainty flower gardens, conservatories, and pianofortes—a millennium on a small scale, with universal education, competence, prosperity, and equal rights! Such castle-building, as an accompaniment to the hard exercise of woodcraft, worked wonders for Tom in the next week, and may be safely recommended to parties in like evil case with him.
But more practical discussions were not neglected, and it was agreed that they should make a day at Englebourn together before their return to Oxford, Hardy undertaking to invade the Rectory with the view of re-establishing his friend's character there.
Tom wrote a letter to Katie to prepare her for a visit. The day after the ancient elm was fairly disposed of, they started early for Englebourn, and separated at the entrance to the village—Hardy proceeding to the Rectory to fulfill his mission, which he felt to be rather an embarrassing one, and Tom to look after the constable, or whoever else could give him information about Harry.
He arrived at the “Red Lion,” their appointed trysting place, before Hardy, and spent a restless half-hour in the porch and bar waiting for his return. At last Hardy came, and Tom hurried him into the inn's best room, where bread and cheese and ale awaited them; and, as soon as the hostess could be got out of the room, began impatiently—
“Well you have seen her?”
“Yes, I have come straight here from the Rectory.”
“And is it all right, eh? Has she got my letter?”
“Yes, she had had your letter.”
“And you think she is satisfied?”
“Satisfied? No, you can't expect her to be satisfied.”
“I mean, is she satisfied that it isn't so bad after all as it looked the other day? What does Katie think of me?”
“I think she is still very fond of you, but that she has been puzzled and outraged by this discovery, and cannot get over it all at once.”
“Why didn't you tell her the whole story from beginning to end?”
“I tried to do so as well as I could.”
“Oh, but I can see you haven't done it. She doesn't really understand how it is.”
“Perhaps not; but you must remember it is an awkward subject to be talking about to a young woman. I would sooner stand another fellowship examination than go through it again.”
“Thank you, old fellow,” said Tom, laying his hand on Hardy's shoulder; “I feel that I'm unreasonable and impatient; but you can excuse it; you know that I don't mean it.”
“Don't say another word; I only wish I could have done more for you.”
“But what do you suppose Katie thinks of me?”
“Why, you see, it sums itself up in this; she sees that you have been making serious love to Patty, and have turned the poor girl's head, more or less, and that now you are in love with somebody else. Why, put it how we will, we can't get out of that. There are the facts, pure and simple, and she wouldn't be half a woman if she didn't resent it.”
“But it's hard lines, too, isn't it, old fellow? No, I won't say that? I deserve it all, and much worse. But you think I may come round all right?”
“Yes, all in good time. I hope there's no danger in any other quarter?”
“Goodness knows. There's the rub, you see. She will go back to town disgusted with me. I sha'n't see her again, and she won't hear of me for I don't know how long; and she will be meeting heaps of men. Has Katie been over to Barton?”
“Yes; she was there last week, just before they left.”
“Well, what happened?”
“She wouldn't say much; but I gathered that they are very well.”
“Oh yes, bother it. Of course they are very well. But didn't she talk to Katie about what happened last week?”
“Of couse they did! What else should they talk about?”
“But you don't know what they said?”
“No. But you may depend on it that Miss Winter will be your friend. My dear fellow, there is nothing for it but time.”
“Well, I suppose not,” said Tom, with a groan. “Do you think I should call and see Katie?”
“No; I think better not.”
“Well, then, we may as well get back,” said Tom, who was not sorry for his friend's decision. So they paid their bill and started for home, taking the Hawk's Lynch on the way, that Hardy might see the view.
“And what did you find out about young Winburn?” he said as they passed down the street.
“Oh, no good,” said Tom; “he was turned out, as I thought, and has gone to live with an old woman on the heath here, who is no better than she should be; and none of the farmers will employ him.
“You didn't see him, I suppose?”
“No, he is away with some of the heath people, hawking besoms and chairs about the country. They make them when there is no harvest work, and loaf about in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and other counties, selling them.”
“No good will come of that sort of life, I'm afraid.”
“No, but what is he to do?”
“I called at the lodge as I came away, and saw Patty and her mother. It's all right in that quarter. The old woman doesn't seem to think anything of it, and Patty is a good girl, and will make Harry Winburn, or anybody else, a capital wife. Here are your letters.”
“And the locket?”
“I quite forgot it. Why didn't you remind me of it? You talked of nothing but the letters this morning.”
“I'm glad of it. It can do no harm now, and as it is worth something, I should have been ashamed to take it back. I hope she'll put Harry's hair in it soon. Did she seem to mind giving up the letters?”
“Not very much. No, you are lucky there. She will get over it.”
“But you told her that I am her friend for life, and that she is to let me know if I can ever do anything for her?”
“Yes. And now I hope this is the last job of the kind I shall ever have to do for you.”
“But what bad luck it has been? If I had only seen her before, or known who she was, nothing of all this would have happened.”
To this Hardy made no reply; and the subject was not alluded to again in their walk home.
A day or two afterwards they returned to Oxford, Hardy to begin his work as fellow and assistant-tutor of the College, and Tom to see whether he could not make a better hand of his second year than he had of his first. He began with a much better chance of doing so, for he was thoroughly humbled. The discovery that he was not altogether such a hero as he had fancied himself, had dawned upon him very distinctly by the end of his first year; and the events of the long vacation had confirmed the impression, and pretty well taken all the conceit out of him for the time. The impotency of his own will, even when he was bent on doing the right thing, his want of insight and foresight in whatever matter he took in hand, the unruliness of his temper and passions just at the moments when it behooved him to have them most thoroughly in hand and under control, were a set of disagreeable facts which had been driven well home to him. The results, being even such as we have seen, he did not much repine at, for he felt he had deserved them; and there was a sort of grim satisfaction, dreary as the prospect was, in facing them, and taking his punishment like a man. This was what he had felt at the first blush on the Hawk's Lynch; and, as he thought over matters again by his fire, with his oak sported, on the first evening of term, he was still in the same mind. This was clearly what he had to do now. How to do it, was the only question.
At first he was inclined to try to set himself right with the Porters and the Englebourn circle, by writing further explanations and confessions to Katie. But, on trying his hand at a letter, he found that he could not trust himself. The temptation of putting everything in the best point of view for himself was too great; so he gave up the attempt, and merely wrote a few lines to David, to remind him that he was always ready and anxious to do all he could for his friend, Harry Winburn, and to beg that he might have news of anything which happened to him, and how he was getting on. He did not allude to what had lately happened, for he did not know whether the facts had become known, and was in no hurry to open the subject himself.
Having finished his letter, he turned again to his meditations over the fire, and, considering that he had some little right to reward resolution, took off the safety valve, and allowed the thoughts to bubble up freely which were always underlying all others that passed through his brain, and making constant low, delicious, but just now somewhat melancholy music, in his head and heart. He gave himself up to thinking of Mary, and their walk in the wood, and the sprained ankle, and all the sayings and doings of that eventful autumn day. And then he opened his desk, and examined certain treasures therein concealed, including a withered rose-bud, a sprig of heather, a cut boot-lace, and a scrap or two of writing. Having gone through some extravagant forms of worship, not necessary to be specified, he put them away. Would it ever all come right?
He made his solitary tea, and sat down again to consider the point. But the point would not be considered alone. He began to feel more strongly what he had had several hints of already, that there was a curiously close connexion between his own love story and that of Harry Winburn and Patty—that he couldn't separate them, even in his thoughts. Old Simon's tumble, which had recalled his daughter from Oxford at so critical a moment for him; Mary's visit to Englebourn at this very time; the curious yet natural series of little accidents which had kept him in ignorance of Patty's identity until the final catastrophe—then, again, the way in which Harry Winburn and his mother had come across him on the very day of his leaving Barton; the fellowship of a common mourning which had seemed to bind them together so closely; and this last discovery, which he could not help fearing must turn Harry into a bitter enemy, when he heard the truth, as he must, sooner or later—as all these things passed before him, he gave in to a sort of superstitious feeling that his own fate hung, in some way or another, upon that of Harry Winburn. If he helped on his suit, he was helping on his own; but whether he helped on his own or not, was, after all, not that which was uppermost in his thoughts, He was much changed in this respect since he last sat in those rooms, just after his first days with her. Since then an angel had met him, and had touched the cord of self, which, trembling, was passing “in music out of sight.”
The thought of Harry and his trials enabled him to indulge in some good honest indignation, for which there was no room in his own case. That the prospects in life of such a man should be in the power, to a great extent, of such people as Squire Wurley and Farmer Tester; that, because he happened to be poor, he should be turned out of the cottage where his family had lived for a hundred years, at a week's notice, through the caprice of a drunken gambler; that because he had stood up for his rights, and had thereby offended the worst farmer in the parish, he should be a marked man, and unable to get work—these things appeared so monstrous to Tom, and made him so angry, that he was obliged to get up and stamp about the room. And from the particular case he very soon got to generalizations.
Questions which had before now puzzled him gained a new significance every minute, and became real to him. Why a few men should be rich, and all the rest poor; above all, why he should be one of the few? Why the mere possession of property should give a man power over all his neighbors? Why poor men who were ready and willing to work should only be allowed to work as a sort of favor, and should after all get the merest tithe of what their labor produced, and be tossed aside as soon as their work was done, or no longer required? These, and other such problems, rose up before him, crude and sharp, asking to be solved. Feeling himself quite unable to give any but one answer to them—viz. that he was getting out of his depth, and that the whole business was in a muddle—he had recourse to his old method when in difficulties, and putting on his cap, started off to Hardy's rooms to talk the matter over, and see whether he could not get some light on it from that quarter.
He returned in an hour or so, somewhat less troubled in his mind inasmuch as he had found his friend in pretty much the same state of mind on such topics as himself. But one step he had gained. Under his arm he carried certain books from Hardy's scanty library, the perusal of which he hoped, at least, might enable him sooner or later to feel that he had got on to some sort of firm ground, At any rate, Hardy had advised him to read them; so, without more ado, he drew his chair to the table and began to look into them.
This glimpse of the manner in which Tom spent the first evening of his second year at Oxford, will enable intelligent readers to understand why, though he took to reading far more kindly and honestly than he had ever done before, he made no great advance in the proper studies of the place. Not that he wholly neglected these, for Hardy kept him pretty well up to the collar, and he passed his little go creditably, and was fairly placed at the college examinations. In some of the books which he had to get up for lectures he was genuinely interested. The politics of Athens, the struggle between the Roman plebs and patricians, Mons Sacer and the Agrarian laws—these began to have a new meaning to him, but chiefly because they bore more or less on the great Harry Winburn problem; which problem, indeed, for him had now fairly swelled into the condition-of-England problem, and was becoming every day more and more urgent and importunate, shaking many old beliefs, and leading him whither he knew not.
This very matter of leading was a sore trial to him. The further he got on his new road, the more he felt the want of guidance—the guidance of some man; for that of books he soon found to be bewildering. His college tutor, whom he consulted, only deprecated the waste of tune; but on finding it impossible to dissuade him, at last recommended the economic works of that day as the proper well springs of truth on such matters. To them Tom accordingly went, and read with the docility and faith of youth, bent on learning and feeling itself in the presence of men who had, or assumed, the right of speaking with authority.
And they spoke to him with authority, and he read on, believing much and hoping more; but somehow they did not really satisfy him, though they silenced him for the time. It was not the fault of the books, most of which laid down clearly enough, that what they professed to teach was the science of man's material interests, and the laws of the making and employment of capital. But this escaped him in his eagerness, and he wandered up and down their pages in search of quite another science, and of laws with which they did not meddle. Nevertheless, here and there they seemed to touch upon what he was in search of. He was much fascinated, for instance, by the doctrine of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” and for its sake swallowed for a time, though not without wry faces, the dogmas, that self-interest is the true pivot of all social action, that population has a perpetual tendency to outstrip the means of living, and that to establish a preventive check on population is the duty of all good citizens. And so he lived on for some time in a dreary uncomfortable state, fearing for the future of his country, and with little hope about his own. But, when he came to take stock of his newly acquired knowledge, to weigh it and measure it, and found it to consist of a sort of hazy conviction that society would be all right and ready for the millennium, when every man could do what he liked, and nobody could interfere with him, and there should be a law against marriage, the result was more than he could stand. He roused himself and shook himself, and began to think, “Well, these my present teachers are very clever men, and well-meaning men, too. I see all that; but, if their teaching is only to land me here, why it was scarcely worth while going through so much to get so little.”
Casting about still for guidance, Grey occurred to him. Grey was in residence as a bachelor, attending divinity lectures, and preparing for ordination. He was still working hard at the night-school, and Tom had been there once or twice to help him when the curate was away. In short he was in very good books with Grey, who had got the better of his shyness with him. He saw that Tom was changed and sobered, and in his heart hoped some day to wean him from the pursuits of the body, to which he was still fearfully addicted, and to bring him into the fold. This hope was not altogether unfounded; for, notwithstanding the strong bias against them which Tom had brought with him from school, he was now at times much attracted by many of the High Church doctrines, and the men who professed them. Such men as Grey, he saw, did really believe something, and were in earnest about carrying their beliefs into action. The party might and did comprise many others of the weakest sort, who believed and were in earnest about nothing, but who liked to be peculiar. Nevertheless, while he saw it laying hold of many of the best men of his time, it is not to be wondered at that he was drawn towards it. Some help might lie in these men if he could only get at it!
So he propounded his doubts and studies, and their results to Grey. But it was a failure. Grey felt no difficulty or very little, in the whole matter; but Tom found that it was because he believed the world to belong to the devil. “Laissez faire,” “buying cheap and selling dear,” Grey held might be good enough for laws for the world—very probably were. The laws of the Church were “self-sacrifice,” and “bearing one another's burdens” her children should come out from the regions where the world's laws were acknowledged.
Tom listened, was dazzled at first, and thought he was getting on the right track. But very soon he found that Grey's specific was not of the least use to him. It was no good to tell him of the rules of a society to which he felt that he neither belonged, nor wished to belong, for clearly it could not be the Church of England. He was an outsider! Grey would probably admit it to be so, if he asked him! He had no longing to be anything else,ifthe Church meant an exclusive body, which took no care of any but its own people, and had nothing to say to the great world in which he and most people had to live, and buying and selling, and hiring and working, had to go on. The close corporation might have very good laws, but they were nothing to him. What he wanted to know about was the law which this great world—the devil's world, as Grey called it—was ruled by, or rather ought to be ruled by. Perhaps, after all, Bentham and the others, whose books he had been reading, might be right! At any rate, it was clear that they had had in their thoughts the same world that he had—the world which included himself and Harry Winburn, and all labourers and squires, and farmers. So he turned to them again, not hopefully, but more inclined to listen to them than he had been before he had spoken to Grey.
Hardy was so fully occupied with college lectures and private pupils, that Tom had scruples about taking up much of his spare time in the evenings. Nevertheless, as Grey had broken down, and there was nobody else on whose judgment he could rely who would listen to him, whenever he had a chance he would propound some of his puzzles to his old friend. In some respects he got little help, for Hardy was almost as much at sea as he himself on such subjects as “value,” and “wages,” and the “laws of supply and demand.” But there was an indomitable belief in him that all men's intercourse with one another, and not merely that of Churchmen, must be founded on the principal of “doing as they would be done by,” and not on “buying cheap and selling dear,” and that these never would or could be reconciled with one another, or mean the same thing, twist them how you would. This faith of his friend's comforted Tom greatly, and he was never tired of bringing it out; but at times he had his doubts whether Grey might not be right—whether, after all, that and the like maxims and principles were meant to be the laws of the kingdoms of this world. He wanted some corroborative evidence on the subject from an impartial and competent witness, and at last hit upon what he wanted. For, one evening, on entering Hardy's rooms, he found him on the last pages of a book, which he shut up with an air of triumph on recognizing his visitor. Taking it up, he thrust it into Tom's hands, and slapping him on the shoulder, said, “There, my boy, that's what we want, or pretty near it at any rate. Now, don't say a word, but go back to your rooms, and swallow it whole and digest it, and then come back and tell me what you think of it.”
“But I want to talk to you.”
“I can't talk. I have spent the better part of two days over that book, and have no end of papers to look over. There; get back to your rooms, and do what I tell you, or sit down here and hold your tongue.”
So Tom sat down and held his tongue, and was soon deep in Carlyle's “Past and Present.” How he did revel in it—in the humor, the power, the pathos, but, above all, in the root and branch denunciations of many of the doctrines in which he had been so lately voluntarily and wearily chaining himself! The chains went snapping off one after another, and, in his exultation, he kept spouting out passage after passage in a song of triumph, “Enlightened egoism never so luminous is not the rule by which man's life can be led—laissez-faire, supply and demand, cash payment for the sole nexus, and so forth, were not, are not, and never will be, a practical law of union for a society of men,” &c., &c., until Hardy fairly got up and turned him out, and he retired with his new-found treasure to his own rooms.
He had scarcely ever in his life been so moved by a book before. He laughed over it, and cried over it, and began half a dozen letters to the author to thank him, which he fortunately tore up. He almost forgot Mary for several hours during his first enthusiasm. He had no notion how he had been mastered and oppressed before. He felt as the crew of a small fishing-smack, who are being towed away by an enemy's cruiser, might feel on seeing a frigate with the Union Jack flying, bearing down and opening fire on their captor; or as a small boy at school, who is being fagged against rules by the right of the strongest, feels when he sees his big brother coming around the corner. The help which he had found was just what he wanted. There was no narrowing of the ground here—no appeal to men as members of any exclusive body whatever to separate themselves and come out of the devil's world; but to men as men, to every man as a man—to the weakest and meanest, as well as to the strongest and most noble—telling them that the world is God's world, that everyone of them has a work in it, and bidding them find their work and set about it.
The strong tinge of sadness which ran through the whole book, and its unsparing denunciations of the established order of things, suited his own unsettled and restless frame of mind. So he gave himself up to his new bondage, and rejoiced in it, as though he had found at last what he was seeking for; and, by the time that long vacation came round again, to which we are compelled to hurry him, he was filled full of a set of contradictory notions and beliefs, which were destined to astonish and perplex the mind of that worthy J. P. for the county of Berks, Brown the elder, whatever other effect they might have on society at large.
Readers must not suppose, however, that our hero had given up his old pursuits; on the contrary, he continued to boat, and cricket, and spar, with as much vigor as ever. His perplexities only made him a little more silent at his pastimes than he used to be. But, as we have already seen him thus employed, and know the ways of the animal in such matters, it is needless to repeat. What we want to do is to follow him into new fields of thought and action, and mark, if it may be, how he develops, and gets himself educated in one way and another; and this plunge into the great sea of social, political, and economical questions is the noticeable fact (so far as any is noticeable) of his second year's residence.
During the year he had only very meagre accounts of matters at Englebourn. Katie, indeed, had come round sufficiently to write to him; but she scarcely alluded to her cousin. He only knew that Mary had come out in London, and was much admired; and that the Porters had not taken Barton again, but were going abroad for the autumn and winter. The accounts of Harry were bad; he was still living at Daddy Collins's, nobody knew how, and working gang-work occasionally with the outlaws of the heath.
The only fact of importance in the neighborhood had been the death of Squire Wurley, which happened suddenly in the spring. A distant cousin had succeeded him, a young man of Tom's own age.
He was also in residence at Oxford, and Tom knew him. They were not very congenial; so he was much astonished when young Wurley, on his return to College, after his relative's funeral, rather sought him out, and seemed to wish to know more of him. The end of it was an invitation to Tom to come to the Grange, and spend a week or so at the beginning of the long vacation. There was to be a party of Oxford men there, and nobody else; and they meant to enjoy themselves thoroughly, Wurley said.
Tom felt much embarrassed how to act, and, after some hesitation, told his inviter of his last visit to the mansion in question, thinking that a knowledge of the circumstances might change his mind. But he found that young Wurley knew the facts already; and, in fact, he couldn't help suspecting that his quarrel with the late owner had something to say to his present invitation. However, it did not lie in his mouth to be curious on the subject; and so he accepted the invitation gladly, much delighted at the notion of beginning his vacation so near Englebourn, and having the run of the Grange fishing, which was justly celebrated.