Chapter II

"Will you go up the river for a row, Johnny?"

"I don't mind if I do."

The questioner was Bill Whitney; who had come in to look for Tod. I had nothing particular on hand that afternoon, and the skies were blue and the sun golden. So we went down to the river together.

"Where has Tod got to?" he asked.

"Goodness knows. I've not seen him since lecture this morning."

We rowed up to Godstowe. Bill disappeared with some friend of his from Merton's, who had watched us put in. I strolled about. Every one knows the dark pool of water there. On the bench under the foliage, so thick in summer, but bare yet in this early season, warm and sunny though it was, sat a man wrapped in a great-coat, whom I took at first to be a skeleton with painted cheeks. But one does not care to stare at skeletons, knowing they'd help their looks if they could; and I was passing him with my face turned the other way.

"Good-afternoon, sir."

I turned at the hollow words--hollow in sound as though they came out of a drum. It was Charley: the red paint on his thin cheeks was nothing but natural hectic, and the blue of his eyes shone painfully bright.

"Why, what's the matter, Charley?"

"A fly-man, who had to drive here and back, brought me with him for a mouthful of fresh air, it being so warm and bright. It is the first time I have been able to get out, sir."

"You are poorly, Charley." I had all but said "dying." But one can only be complimentary to a poor fellow in that condition.

"Very ill I have been, sir; but I'm better. At one time I never thought I should get up again. It's this beautiful warm weather coming in so early that has restored me."

"I don't know about restored? You don't look great things yet."

"You should have seen me a short while ago, sir! I'm getting on."

Lying by his side, on a piece of paper, was a thick slice, doubled, of bread-and-butter, that he must have brought with him. He broke a piece off, and ate it.

"You look hungry, Charley."

"That's the worst of it, sir; I'm always hungry," he answered, and his tone from its eagerness was quite painful to hear, and his eyes grew moist, and the hectic spread on his cheeks. "It is the nature of the complaint, I'm told: and poor mother was the same. I could be eating and drinking every hour, sir, and hardly be satisfied."

"Come along to the inn, and have some tea."

"No, sir; no, thank you," he said, shrinking back. "I answered your remark thoughtlessly, sir, for it's the truth; not with any notion that it would make you ask me to take anything. And I've got some bread-and-butter here."

Going indoors, I told them to serve him a good tea, with a big dish of bacon and eggs, or some relishing thing of that sort. Whitney came in and heard me.

"You be hanged, Johnny! We are not going in for all that, here!"

"It's not for us, Bill; it's for that poor old scout, Charley. He's as surely dying as that you and I are talking. Come and look at him: you never saw such an object. I don't believe he gets enough to eat."

Whitney came, and did nothing but stare. Charley went indoors with a good deal of pressing, and we saw him sit down to the feast. Whitney stayed; I went out-of-doors again.

I remembered a similar case. It was that of a young woman who used to make Lena's frocks. She fell into a decline. Her appetite was wonderful. Anything good and substantial to eat and drink, she was always craving for: and it all seemed to do her no good. Charley Tasson's sickness must be of the same nature. She died: and he----

I was struck dumb! Seated on the bench under the trees, my thoughts back in that past time, there came two figures over the rustic bridge. A lady and gentleman, arm-in-arm: she in a hat and blue feather and dainty lace parasol; and he with bent head and words softened to a whisper. Tod!--and Sophie Chalk!

"Good gracious! There's Johnny Ludlow!"

She loosed his arm as she spoke, and came sailing up to me, her gold bracelets jingling as she gave her hand. I don't believe there are ten women in England who could get themselves up as effectively as did Sophie Chalk. Tod looked black as thunder.

"What the devil brings you here, Johnny?"

"I rowed up with Whitney."

A pause. "Who else is here?"

"Forbes of Merton: Whitney has been about with him. And I suppose a few others. We noticed a skiff or two waiting. Perhaps one was yours."

I spoke indifferently, determined he should not know I was put out. Seeing him there--I was going to say on the sly--with that beguiling syren, who was to foretell what pitfalls she might charm him into? He took Madame Sophie on his arm again to continue their promenade, and I lost sight of them.

I did not like it. It was not satisfactory. He had rowed her up--or perhaps driven her up--and was marching about with her tête-à-tête under the sweet spring sunshine. No great harm in itself this pastime: but he might grow too fond of it. That she had reacquired all her strong influence over Tod's heart was clear as the stars on a frosty night. Whitney called out to me that it was time to think of going back. I got into the boat with him, saying nothing.

Charley told me where he lived--"Up Stagg's Entry"--for I said I would call to see him. Just for a day or two there seemed to be no time; but I got there one evening when Tod had gone to the syren's. It was a dark, dusky place, this Stagg's Entry, and, I think, is done away with now, with several houses crowded into it. Asking for Charles Tasson, of a tidy, motherly woman on the stairs, she went before me, and threw open a door.

"Here's a gentleman to see you, Mr. Charley."

He was lying in a bed at the end of the room near the fire, under the lean-to roof. If I had been shocked at seeing him in the open air, in the glad sunshine, I was doubly so now in the dim light of the tallow candle. He rose in bed.

"It's very kind of you to come here, sir! I'm sure I didn't expect you to remember it."

"Are you worse, Charley?"

"I caught a fresh cold, sir, that day at Godstowe. And I'm as weak as a rat too--hardly able to creep out of bed. Nanny, bring a chair for this gentleman."

One of the handiest little girls I ever saw, with the same shining blue eyes that he had, and plump, pretty cheeks, laid hold of a chair. I took it from her and sat down.

"Is this your sister, Charley?"

"Yes, sir. There's only us two left together. We were eight of us once. Three went abroad, and one is in London, and two dead."

"What doctor sees you?"

"One comes in now and then, sir. My illness is not much in a doctor's way. There's nothing he could do: nothing for me but to wait patiently for summer weather."

"What have you had to eat to-day?"

"He had two eggs for his dinner: I boiled them," said little Nanny. "And Mrs. Cann brought us in six herrings, and I cooked one for tea; and he'll have some ale and bread-and-butter for supper."

She spoke like a little important housekeeper. But I wondered whether Charley was badly off.

Mrs. Cann, the same woman who had spoken to me, came out of her room opposite as I was going away. She followed me downstairs, and began to talk in an undertone. "A sad thing, ain't it, sir, to see him a-lying there so helpless; and to know that it has laid hold of him for good and all. He caught it from his mother."

"How do you mean?"

"She died here in that room, just as the winter come in, with the same complaint--decline they call it; and he waited on her and nursed her, and must have caught it of her. A good son he was. They were well off once, sir, but the father just brought 'em to beggary; and Charley--he had a good education of his own--came down from London when his mother got ill, and looked out for something to do here that he might stay with her. At first he couldn't find anything; and when he was at a sore pinch, he took a place at Christchurch College as scout's helper. He had to pocket his pride: but there was Nanny as well as his mother."

"I see."

"He'd been teacher in a school up in London, sir, by day, and in the evenings he used to help some young clergyman as scripture-reader to the poor in one of them crowded parishes we hear tell of: he was always one for trying to do what good he could. Naturally he'd be disheartened at falling to be a bed-maker in a college, and I'm afraid the work was too hard for him: but, as I say, he was a good son. The mother settled in Oxford after her misfortunes."

"How is he supported now? And the little girl?"

"It's not over much of a support," said Mrs. Cann with disparagement. "Not for him, that's a-craving for meat and drink every hour. The eldest brother is in business in London, sir, and he sends them what they have. Perhaps he's not able to do more."

It was not late. I thought I would, for once, pay Mrs. Everty a visit. A run of three minutes, and I was at her door.

They were there--the usual set. Tod, and Richardson, and Lord Gaiton, and the two men from Magdalen, and--well, it's no use enumerating--seven or eight in all. Richardson and another were quarrelling at écarté, four were at whist; Tod was sitting apart with Sophie Chalk.

She was got up like a fairy at the play, in a cloud of thin white muslin; her hair hanging around and sparkling with gold dust, and little gleams of gold ornaments shining about her. If ever Joseph Todhetley had need to pray against falling into temptation, it was during the weeks of that unlucky term.

"This is quite an honour, Johnny Ludlow," said Madame Sophie, rising to meet me, her eyes sparkling with what might have been taken for the most hearty welcome. "It is not often you honour my poor little room, sir."

"It is not often I can find the time for it, Mrs. Everty. Tod, I came in to see whether you were ready to go in."

He looked at his watch hastily, fearing it might be later than it was; and answered curtly and coolly.

"Ready?--no. I have not had my revenge yet at écarté."

Approaching the écarté table, he sat down. Mrs. Everty drew a chair behind Lord Gaiton, and looked over his hand.

The days passed. I had two cares on my mind, and they bothered me. The one was Tod and his dangerous infatuation; the other, poor dying Charley Tasson. Tod was losing frightfully at those card-tables. Night after night it went on. Tod's steps were drawn thither by a fascination irresistible: and whether the cards or their mistress were the more subtle potion for him, or what was to be the ending of it all, no living being could tell.

As to Stagg's Entry, my visits to it had grown nearly as much into a habit as Tod's had to High Street. When I stayed away for a night, little Nanny would whisper to me the next that Charley had not taken his eyes off the door. Sick people always like to see visitors.

"Don't let him want for anything, Johnny," said Tod. "The pater would blow us up."

The time ran on, and the sands of Charley's life ran with it. One Wednesday evening upon going in late, and not having many minutes to stay, I found him on the bed in a dead faint, and the candle guttering in the socket. Nanny was nowhere. I went across the passage to Mrs. Cann's, and she was nowhere. It was an awkward situation; for I declare that for the moment I thought he was gone.

Knowing most of Nanny's household secrets, I looked in the candle-box for a fresh candle. Charley was stirring then, and I gave him some wine. He had had a similar fainting-fit at mid-day, he said, which had frightened them, and Nanny had fetched the doctor. She was gone now, he supposed, to fetch some medicine.

"Is this the end, sir?"

He asked it quite calmly. I could not tell: but to judge by his wan face I thought it might be. And my time was up and more than up: and neither Nanny nor Mrs. Cann came. The wine revived him and he seemed better; quite well again: well, for him. But I did not like to leave him alone.

"Would you mind reading to me, sir?" he asked.

"What shall I read, Charley?"

"It may be for the last time, sir. I'd like to hear the service for the burial of the dead."

So I read it every word, the long lesson, and all. Nanny came in before it was finished, medicine in hand, and sat down in silence with her bonnet on. She had been kept at the doctor's. Mrs. Cann was the next to make her appearance, having been abroad on some business of her own: and I got away when it was close upon midnight.

"Your name and college, sir."

"Ludlow. Christchurch."

It was the proctor. He had pounced full upon me as I was racing home. And the clocks were striking twelve!

"Ludlow--Christchurch," he repeated, nodding his head.

"I am sorry to be out so late, sir, against rules, but I could not help it. I have been sitting with a sick man."

"Very good," said he blandly; "you can tell that to-morrow to the dean. Home to your quarters now, if you please, Mr. Ludlow."

And I knew he believed me just as much as he would had I told him I'd been up in a balloon.

"You are a nice lot, Master Johnny!"

The salutation was Tod's. He and Bill Whitney were sitting over the fire in our room.

"I couldn't help being late."

"Of course not! As to late--it's only midnight. Next time you'll come in with the milk."

"Don't jest. I've been with that poor Charley, and I think he's dying. The worst of it is, the proctor has just dropped upon me."

"No!" It sobered them both, and they put aside their mockery. Bill, who had the tongs in his hand, let them go down with a crash.

"It's a thousand pities, Johnny. Not one of us has been before the dean yet."

"I can only tell the dean the truth."

"As if he'd believe you! By Jupiter! Once get one of our names up, and those proctors will track every step of the ground we tread on. They watch a marked man as a starving cat watches a mouse."

With the morning came in the requisition for me to attend before the dean. When I got there, who should be stealing out of the room quite sheepishly, his face down and his ears red, but Gaiton.

"Is it your turn, Ludlow!" he cried, closing the room-door as softly as though the dean had been asleep inside.

"What have you been had up for, Gaiton?"

"Oh, nothing. I got knocking about a bit last night, for Mrs. Everty did not receive, and came across that confounded proctor."

"Is the dean in a hard humour?"

"Hard enough, and be hanged to him! It's not the dean: he's ill, or something; perhaps been making a night of it himself: and Applerigg's on duty for him. Dry old scarecrow! For two pins, Ludlow, I'd take my name off the books, and be free of the lot."

Dr. Applerigg had the reputation of being one of the strictest of college dons. He was like a maypole, just as tall and thin, with a long, sallow face, and enough learning to set up the reputations of three archbishops for life. The doctor was marching up and down the room in his college-cap, and turned his spectacles on me.

"Shut the door, sir."

While I did as I was bid, he sat down at an open desk near the fire and looked at a paper that had some writing on it.

"What age may you be, Mr. Ludlow?" he sternly asked, when a question or two had passed. And I told him my age.

"Oh! And don't you think it a very disreputable thing, a great _discredit_, sir, for a young fellow of your years to be found abroad by your proctor at midnight?"

"But I could not help being late, sir, last night; and I was not abroad for any purpose of pleasure. I had been staying with a poor fellow who is sick; dying, in fact: and--and it was not my fault, sir."

"Take care, young man," said he, glaring through his spectacles. "There's one thing I can never forgive if deliberately told me, and that's a lie."

"I should be sorry to tell a lie, sir," I answered: and by the annoyance so visible in his looks and tones, it was impossible to help fancying he had found out, or thought he had found out, Gaiton in one. "What I have said is truth."

"Go over again what you did say," cried he, very shortly, after looking at his paper again and then hard at me. And I went over it.

"_What_ do you say the man's name is?"

"Charles Tasson, sir. He was our scout until he fell ill."

"Pray do you make a point, Mr. Ludlow, of visiting all the scouts and their friends who may happen to fall sick?"

"No, sir," I said, uneasily, for there was ridicule in his tone, and I knew he did not believe a word. "I don't suppose I should ever have thought of visiting Tasson, but for seeing him look so ill one afternoon up at Godstowe."

"He must be very ill to be at Godstowe!" cried Dr. Applerigg. "Very!"

"He was so ill, sir, that I thought he was dying then. Some flyman he knew had driven him to Godstowe for the sake of the air."

"But what's your _motive_, may I ask, for going to sit with him?" He had a way of laying emphasis on certain of his words.

"There's no motive, sir: except that he is lonely and dying."

The doctor looked at me for what seemed ten minutes. "What is this sick man's address, pray?"

I told him the address in Stagg's Entry; and he wrote it down, telling me to present myself again before him the following morning.

That day, I met Sophie Chalk; her husband was with her. She nodded and seemed gay as air: he looked dark and sullen as he took off his hat. I carried the news into college.

"Sophie Chalk has her husband down, Tod."

"Queen Anne's dead," retorted he.

"Oh, you knew it!" And I might have guessed that he did by his not having spent the past evening in High Street, but in a fellow's rooms at Oriel. And he was as cross as two sticks.

"What a _fool_ she must have been to go and throw herself away upon that low fellow Everty!" he exclaimed, putting his shoulders against the mantelpiece and stamping on the carpet with one heel.

"Throw herself away! Well, Tod, opinions vary. _I_ think she was lucky to get him. As to his being low, we don't know that he is. Putting aside that one mysterious episode of his being down at our place in hiding, which I suppose we shall never come to the bottom of, we know nothing of what Everty has, or has not been."

"You shut up, Johnny. Common sense is common sense."

"Everty's being here--we can't associate with him, you know, Tod--affords a good opportunity for breaking off the visits to High Street."

"Who wants to break off the visits to High Street?"

"I do, for one. Madame Sophie's is a dangerous atmosphere."

"Dangerous for you, Johnny?"

"Not a bit of it. _You_ know. Be wise in time, old fellow."

"Of all the muffs living, Johnny, you are about the greatest. In the old days you feared I might go in for marrying Sophie Chalk. I don't see what you can fear now. Do you suppose I should run away with another man's wife?"

"Nonsense, Tod!"

"Well, what else is it? Come! Out with it."

"Do you think our people or the Whitneys would like it if they knew we are intimate with her?"

"They'd not die of it, I expect."

"I don't like her, Tod. It is not a nice thing of her to allow the play and the betting, and to have all those fellows there when they choose to go."

Tod took his shoulder from the mantelpiece, and sat down to his imposition: one he had to write for having missed chapel.

"You mean well, Johnny, though you are a muff."

Later in the day I met Dr. Applerigg. He signed to me to stop. "Mr. Ludlow, I find that what you told me this morning was true. And I withdraw every word of condemnation that I spoke. I wish I had never greater cause to find fault than I have with you, in regard to this matter. Not that I can sanction your being out so late, although the plea of excuse _be_ a dying man. You understand?"

"Yes, sir. It shall not occur again."

Down at the house in Stagg's Entry, that evening, Mrs. Cann met me on the stairs. "One of the great college doctors was here to-day, sir. He came up asking all manner of questions about you--whether you'd been here till a'most midnight yesterday, and what you'd stayed so late for, and--and all about it."

Dr. Applerigg! "What did you tell him, Mrs. Cann?"

"Tell him, sir! what should I tell him but the truth? That you had stayed here late because of Charley's being took worse and nobody with him, and had read the burial service to him for his asking; and that you came most evenings, and was just as good to him as gold. He said he'd see Charley for himself then; and he went in and talked to him, oh so gently and nicely about his soul; and gave little Nanny half-a-crown when he went away. Sometimes it happens, sir, that those who look to have the hardest faces have the gentlest hearts. And Charley's dying, sir. He was took worse again this evening at five o'clock, and I hardly thought he'd have lasted till now. The doctor has been, and thinks he'll go off quietly."

Quietly perhaps in one sense, but it was a restless death-bed. He was not still a minute; but he was quite sensible and calm. Waking up out of a doze when I went in, he held out his hand.

"It is nearly over, sir."

I was sure of that, and sat down in silence. There could be no mistaking his looks.

"I have just had a strange dream," he whispered, between his laboured breath; and his eyes were wet with tears, and he looked curiously agitated. "I thought I saw mother. It was in a wide place, all light and sunshine, too beautiful for anything but heaven. Mother was looking at me; I seemed to be outside in dulness and darkness, and not to know how to get in. Others that I've known in my lifetime, and who have gone on before, were there, as well as mother; they all looked happy, and there was a soft strain of music, like nothing I ever heard in this world. All at once, as I was wondering how I could get in, my sins seemed to rise up before me in a great cloud; I turned sick, thinking of them; for I knew no sinful person might enter there. Then I saw One standing on the brink! it could only have been Jesus; and He held out His hand to me and smiled, 'I am here to wash out your sins,' He said, and I thought He touched me with His finger; and oh, the feeling of delight that came over me, of repose, of bliss, for I knew that all earth's troubles were over, and I had passed into rest and peace for ever."

Nanny came up, and gave him one or two spoonfuls of wine.

"I don't believe it was a dream," he said, after a pause. "I think it was sent to show me what it is I am entering on; to uphold me through the darksome valley of the shadow of death."

"Mother said she should be watching for us, you know, Charley," said the child.

A restless fit came over him again, and he stirred uneasily. When it had passed, he was still for awhile and then looked up at me.

"It was the new heaven and the new earth, sir, that we are told of in the Revelation. Would you mind, sir--just those few verses--reading them to me for the last time?"

Nanny brought the Bible, and put the candle on the stand, and I read what he asked for--the first few verses of the twenty-first chapter. The little girl kneeled down by the bed and joined her hands together.

"That's enough, Nanny," I whispered. "Put the candle back."

"But I did not tell all my dream," he resumed; "not quite all. As I passed over into heaven, I thought I looked down here again. I could see the places in the world; I could see this same Oxford city. I saw the men here in it, sir, at their cards and their dice and their drink; at all their thoughtless folly. Spending their days and nights without a care for the end, without as much as thinking whether they need a Saviour or not. And oh, their condition troubled me! I seemed to understand all things plainly then, sir. And I thought if they would but once lift up their hearts to Him, even in the midst of their sin, He would take care of them even then, and save them from it in the end--for He was tempted Himself once, and knows how sore their temptations are. In my distress, I tried to call out and tell them this, and it awoke me."

"Do you think he ought to talk, sir?" whispered Nanny. But nothing more could harm him now.

My time was up, and I ought to be going. Poor Charley spoke so imploringly--almost as though the thought of it startled him.

"Not yet, sir; not yet! Stay a bit longer with me. It is for the last time."

And I stayed: in spite of my word passed to Dr. Applerigg. It seems to me a solemn thing to cross the wishes of the dying.

So the clock went ticking on. Mrs. Cann stole in and out, and a lodger from below came in and looked at him. Before twelve all was over.

I went hastening home, not much caring whether the proctor met me again, or whether he didn't, for in any case I must go to Dr. Applerigg in the morning, and tell him I had broken my promise to him, and why. Close at the gates some one overtook and passed me.

It was Tod. Tod with a white face, and his hair damp with running. He had come from Sophie Chalk's.

"What is it, Tod?"

I laid my hand upon his arm in speaking. He threw it off with a word that was very like an imprecation.

"What _is_ the matter?"

"The devil's the matter. Mind your own business, Johnny."

"Have you been quarrelling with Everty?"

"Everty be hanged! The man has betaken himself off."

"How much have you lost to-night?"

"Cleaned-out, lad. That's all."

We got to our room in silence. Tod turned over some cards that lay on the table, and trimmed the candle from a thief.

"Tasson's dead, Tod."

"A good thing if some of us were dead," was the answer. And he turned into his chamber and bolted the door.