CHAPTER XVIII
THE ENERGY OF JACK WARD
After Nina went to Paris Fred spent most of his time in trying to be cheerful, but for some days he looked as if he had lost something and expected to find it round the next corner. I was very patient, though I do not believe he understood how often I wanted to argue with him. By the end of the vac, however, he had forgotten to be gloomy, and I hoped that Oxford would cure him altogether, for he had a good chance of getting his Rugger blue, and he had got to read; besides, I have never been able to see that perpetual gloom is of any use to anybody.
I went back to St. Cuthbert's full of desperate resolutions. I wanted to make every one in the college understand that it was the slackest place in Oxford, and having done that I wished to find the men who would make it keener. The scheme was a gigantic one for me to take up; it needed tact, and I went at it so vigorously that in a few days I had offended some men and had succeeded in making others look upon me as a freak. Dennison told me that I had a bee in my bonnet. If he had said that I was mad I should not have minded, but those horrid little expressions of his always tried me very much, and I am bound to confess that my first efforts to rouse the college met with more ridicule than success. Very few men seemed to care what happened to us, and nearly everybody pretended that our eight would rise again, and our footer teams cease to be laughed at, though no one tried to make them any better. Dennison wrote a skit called "The Decline and Fall of St. Cuthbert's"; and some artist, who thought that my nose was as big as my arm, made a drawing of me in which I was trying to carry the college on my back, and was so overburdened by the weight of it that nothing but my nose prevented me from being crushed to the ground. It was very funny and also very unfair in more ways than one, because I did not start my crusade with any idea of becoming important, and I have no feature which is superlatively large.
This skit of Dennison's really settled me for a time, but I did stir up one or two men whom I had never expected to do anything. Jack Ward stopped driving about with Bunny Langham, and began to play footer, and Collier actually went down to the river every afternoon. Physical incapability prevented him from rowing well, but he persuaded several other men, who did not suffer as he did, to go through the same drudgery, and for self-sacrifice I thought he was hard to beat, because he was quite a comical sight in a boat. What good did come from my first crusade was due chiefly to him; a kind of revivalist spirit was upon him, and many unsuspecting freshers who had only thought of the river as a place to avoid, were unable to resist his entreaties.
The dons heard of my crusade, and I know that Mr. Edwardes did not like it, but I had two of them on my side, and the others did not take any active measures against me. Mr. Edwardes took the trouble to tell me that I was mistaken in thinking that the reputation of St. Cuthbert's depended upon athletics, and I answered that I had never supposed anything of the kind, but that I thought a college which was slack about other things would end by being slack in the schools. This reply of mine surprised him so much that he told me that any campaign to be successful must be managed by the right people, and I agreed with him cordially, for although I knew that plenty of men would have worried everybody out of their slackness much more successfully than I could, I was not going to tell him so.
The Bursar supported me soundly, and we had a new don at the beginning of my second year who took a most invigorating interest in the college. He was known to us as "The Bradder," and though his real name was Bradfield it was seldom used, and as far as we were concerned he could have done quite well without it. I had become so accustomed to aged dons that I could not understand him at first, he was so very young. He was also reported to be very clever, but I was so impressed by his youthfulness that it took me some time to believe that he would ever count for much. I ought, however, to have known that The Bradder was not the kind of man who would allow himself to become a nonentity, for he was full of energy and determination.
I was never able to find out how the dons heard of my scheme, but they find out most things by some extraordinary means, and The Bradder spoke to me very encouragingly about it, though he looked at me as if I amused him in some odd sort of way. He also asked me to breakfast, which I thought was carrying kindness a little too far. I anticipated the usual thing—a crowd of men with large appetites, and a host who abstained from food in his efforts to provide conversation; but when I went to The Bradder's rooms I found that I was in for a tête-à-tête, and my opinion of the other kind of breakfast rose considerably. As a don I was not in the least nervous of him, but as a host I thought he might be overwhelming.
That he ever lived through this meal without laughing was a marvel, for when I was sitting opposite to him my nervousness vanished, and I told him exactly what I thought about every subject he suggested, and it was not until I had left him that it occurred to me that I had been talking nearly all the time, and that he had said very little. I determined that he was a most thoroughly good sort, but the idea of his being a don struck me as being absurd. I put him on my side with the Warden and the Bursar, and thought that Mr. Edwardes was in a hopeless minority of one in persecuting me, for I looked upon the Subby as a man who had been born to be neutral. I do not suppose that I should ever have started my first crusade if I had known that it was going to cause the mildest of sensations. As far as I had thought about it at all, I had imagined that everybody in St. Cuthbert's would be glad to see the college take its usual place again, and certainly I had no idea that I should be violently supported and opposed. The captains of everything were in favour of less slackness, but Dennison and all his set said that an Oxford college was not a public school, and talked a lot of nonsense about the iniquity of compulsory games. No further proof is needed to show how unfair they were, for a man must be mad to dream of compulsory games at Oxford, and such an idea never entered my head. But all this talking made me wish that I had never said or done anything, and before long I was heartily tired of the whole thing, for my own affairs became rather more than I could manage.
At the beginning of the term I had moved into larger rooms, and I was elected to both Vincent's and the St. Cuthbert's wine club. Murray advised me not to join the wine club, because I was an exhibitioner, and the dons would be sure to fix their eyes steadfastly upon me if I did. But Jack Ward was very anxious for me to join, and every other member, except Dennison, who was only elected when I was, spoke to me about it. So I became one of the twelve Mohocks, which only meant that I could give a guest a good dinner three or four times a term, and after that take him to the rooms of the club where there was a big dessert, and old Rodoski, who was concealed in the bedder, unless some one asked him to show himself, provided music. When we had finished with Rodoski we went out of college and played pool, and then we came back and played cards. There was not much harm about the whole thing, and occasionally it was quite dull, but some of our dons had got hold of the idea that a Mohock must be a rowdy and riotous person. Mr. Edwardes was one of them, and I found out very soon that he considered that I ought not to have joined the club. I did not, however, feel in the least like resigning, for though there were one or two members who took delight in nothing which was not an orgie, they were generally suppressed before they made much noise. A club of this kind depends a good deal upon its President, and we had a man who thought far too much of the reputation of the Mohocks to insult his guests by a common pandemonium.
My position with Mr. Edwardes had become a critical one when I broke my collar-bone playing against Richmond, and suddenly ceased to be a culprit and became an invalid. At the time I was very sick at my footer ending so abruptly, but my accident was really a stroke of good luck, for I feel certain that I should have been turned out of the 'Varsity fifteen anyhow. An Irish international named Hogan had come up who was, I thought, a really good full-back, and each time I was asked to play for the 'Varsity I expected to be my last. But as soon as there was no chance of my playing against Cambridge I got no end of sympathy, and nearly all the team told me that my absence weakened the side, though previously some of them had said the same thing about my presence. My accident settled the question of who was to be the 'Varsity back quite conveniently; it also made me give up all thoughts of my crusade, and gave me plenty of time to read. I should not think anybody's collar-bone has ever been broken at such an opportune moment. Fred played against Cambridge, but our forwards were hopelessly beaten, and no one distinguished himself for us except Hogan, who lost two teeth and covered himself with glory.
At the end of the Lent term both Fred and I got seconds in Moderations; mine was not a good second and Fred's was almost a first, so what would have happened if Fred had been smashed up instead of me is not worth inquiring, for there is no doubt that I did more work than he did. Murray got a first, which was what everybody expected; he was one of the few men I have ever seen who read logic because he liked it.
I cannot say that Mr. Edwardes was very pleased about my second, for he had told me I should be lucky to get a third, and in my case I believe he would rather have been a truthful prophet than a moderately successful tutor. When I asked him if I might read history for my final examinations he was doubtful if I was not seeking a degree by the least fatiguing way, but The Bradder was a history tutor, and although I had found out that he was a very strenuous man, I meant to work with him. So after many warnings against idleness I was allowed to do as I wanted, and Mr. Edwardes got rid of me, which must have pleased him very much. I do not think that any one else ever upset him so completely as I did, and I have never been able to find out why he disapproved of me to such an extent, unless it was that until I got accustomed to him I thought him funny, and when I think anybody or anything funny I have to laugh. No one else laughed at Mr. Edwardes except me, and I should not have done so if I could have helped it, but an unintentionally comic don causes a lot of trouble.
Mr. Grace, the senior history don in St. Cuthbert's, was more like a very benevolent parent than a tutor. Perhaps he was rather old for his work, but he was so extraordinarily peaceful that you could not help liking him, and I had a vague feeling that he was my grandfather. The change from Mr. Edwardes to him was like going to bed in a choppy sea and waking up in a punt on the Cherwell. I can't explain the feeling I had for him, but he seemed to be surrounded by a homely atmosphere, and he reminded me of hot-water bottles and well-aired beds without making me feel stuffy. You worked for him because it struck you as being hopelessly unfair to annoy him if you could help it. He was a most pleasant old gentleman, and a very convenient tutor to have in a summer term. The Bradder, however, to whom I had also to read essays, scoffed when I told him that I had two years and a term before my examinations, and generally speaking allowed me to see that he was going to stand no nonsense. If he had been less of a sportsman I should have thought him more inconvenient, for I never found an excuse which he considered a reasonable one, and after I had done two very short essays for him he let me understand that I must do more work if I wanted him to be pleasant.
"Look here, Marten, it won't do," he said to me when I had read my second essay to him, which even surprised me by its early closing. "This could not have taken you a quarter of an hour to write, and you have read it in five minutes."
I had tried to lengthen my essay by stopping to discuss any point which might make him talk, but he knew all about that time-worn device, and had told me to finish reading before we discussed anything, and when I had finished there did not seem much to discuss.
"It's the summer term, and I read very fast," I said, because he was waiting for me to say something.
"Don't," he answered; "poor excuses are worse than none. When I began to read history, I wrote telegrams instead of essays, and I tried to make my tutor talk so that he should fill up the time, just as you have done. But I found out in a month that history is not a joke, and that my tutor was not a fool. You have got to read seriously, whatever else you may do; we may as well understand each other from the start."
I gathered up my essay slowly, for he had, as he spoke, scattered what there was of it over the table.
"It would be better to use a note-book than any odd piece of paper that happens to come your way," he said, and added, "if you are slack about your work, you may end by being slack at other things."
"So you have been talking to Mr. Edwardes about me," I said, and I was annoyed.
"Perhaps it would be truer to say that Mr. Edwardes has been talking to me about you," he answered. "You will probably like history very much if you will only give yourself a chance; don't think a fourth is any good to you—or me."
"I'm only just through Mods," I replied, "you do go at a fearful rate."
"You will have to be bustled until you get interested," he answered, "and I will bustle you all right, you can trust me to do that."
I expect that The Bradder knew that I should not care about being bustled by him, and the result of his conversation with me was that he got a great deal of essay out of me with very little trouble to himself, though I thought that he was mistaken in making me start at such a furious pace, and I asked him, without any effect, if he had ever heard of men being overtrained.
Although no one expected our eight to make any bumps, I think they astonished everybody by going down four places, and as we were being bumped by colleges which were generally in danger of being bottom of the river, a wholesome feeling spread over most of us that as a joke our rowing was nearly played out. We began to talk about what we would do next year, but Jack Ward was so disgusted with everything that he suddenly determined that he had wasted nearly two years, and meant to make up for lost time by doing everything with all his might.
I thought these terrific resolutions came from a row he had with Dennison about cards, a disagreeable row in which Dennison said such nasty things that had I been Jack, I should have picked him up and dropped him out of the window; but by some extraordinary means Jack kept his temper until he told him to shut up, and that ended the whole thing, for Dennison knew when it was wise to be silent. I did not think much of Jack's resolutions, for he had been doing no work for such a long time and with such perfect success, that a complete change was more than I was able to grasp. Every one in St. Cuthbert's was supposed to read for honours in some school or other, and Jack, having scrambled through pass "Mods," had for a year pretended to read law. I never saw him doing it, but he had a most effective way of fooling dons, and, as far as his work was concerned, he never seemed to be worried. When, however, he came to me three weeks before the end of the term, and told me he was going to give up law and read history, I thought he was seeking trouble.
"You will have to work if you have anything to do with The Bradder," I told him.
"For the last ten minutes I have been trying to make you understand that I want to work," he answered, but still I did not believe him.
"All your law will be wasted," I said.
"I don't know any, so that's all right."
"But the dons won't let you change."
"I can manage them; the history people won't want me, but the law people will be glad to get rid of me, I have sounded them already."
"You will end by reading theology," I said.
He gave a great laugh and said he didn't know where he should end, and that all he wanted to do was to work. But he spoke of working as if it was a new sort of game, and I thought his desire to try it would vanish as quickly as it had come, so I was surprised when he tackled The Bradder, and persuaded him that history was the only subject in which he could ever take a decent class. Without the consent of anybody, he stopped going to the lectures to which he was supposed to go, and came to my rooms at all hours of the day to borrow books and read them. Apparently he had become a kind of free-lance, having shaken off his old tutors and not having got any new ones, but he read through a short history of England three times in a week because he said he wanted a good solid ground-work to build upon. Perhaps The Bradder asked that he might be left alone, for certainly no one bothered him and he bothered nobody with the exception of me. I admit that I found him a very great nuisance, for I had been compelled to read during the last two terms, and I had not been smitten with any enthusiasm for an examination which was in the far distance. In fact I wanted to slack, and I did not see why Jack should choose my rooms to work in. The mere sight of him annoyed me; he took his coat off and turned up his shirt-sleeves to read, and whenever I made the slightest noise he told me to be quiet. I impressed upon him most earnestly that he could go anywhere he liked or didn't like, but he had settled upon me, and nothing I did could make him go or lose his temper. After a few days I got quite accustomed to him, and I believe that I should have missed him if he had not come to annoy me, but he showed no signs of slackening off, and I was watching for them every day.
We were within a few days of the end of term before I believed that Jack had any serious intentions of changing his manner of living, and then he explained the whole thing to me.
"I have worked for a solid fortnight," he said to me, "and if I can go on for a fortnight I can go on for two years. I didn't want to explain anything until I knew whether it was any good, for I have never worked before in my life and I didn't know what it was like. My father has suddenly got very sick with me, and says I have got to read or go down altogether; besides I am tired of doing nothing, and there are enough slackers in the college without me. We have got to pull this place together somehow." He threw himself into an arm-chair and picked up The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. "George Meredith," he said, "I tried him once," and he shook his head.
"Try him again."
"I shan't have time, you are always coming out in unexpected places. I should have thought you would have liked a good sporting novel, I can't understand Meredith."
"The Bradder told me to read this."
"The Bradder's an idiot; you be careful, or you'll write stuff which the examiners won't trouble to read. An examiner doesn't like any other style except his own."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"I guess from the look of them, they must get so horribly tired; facts are what I mean to give them, piles of dates and things like that. Just let 'em know what I know at once and no rot about it."
"You have got to write essays, not answer questions like a Sunday-school class," I said, and yawned.
"The Bradder will have to teach me all about essays, but I am going to stick to plain English, no going round corners for me. I mean to row next year, and I am going to be coached in the vac; if I don't get into the college eight next summer, I——"
"Aren't you going to do a lot?" I interrupted him by asking.
"I have always done a lot; hunting three times a week is a lot when you play footer and cards as well. We will read after dinner for three hours."
I yawned again, for I had had very little fun for some time, and I felt as if a little relaxation would do me good. An Irish M.P. was coming to speak during that evening about the advantages of Home Rule, and although I thought Home Rule meant the disruption of the Empire and many other things, I wanted to hear what this man had to say, and to see if anything exciting happened. The Bradder had told me that there was a good deal to be said in favour of Home Rule, but I put him down as a Radical and did not take any notice of him. The first thing I can ever remember about politics was my father saying that Radicals talked nothing but nonsense, and that had remained with me and was mixed up with the things which I most truly believed. The Bradder, however, made me think that Radicals were not bound to be hopeless persons. I don't know how he did it, but I think it was by telling me that I was one at heart. I never thought half so badly of them after that.
But if what I must apologize for calling my politics were rather wobbly just then, ten thousand Bradders could not make me a Home Ruler, and had I not known that other things happen at political meetings in Oxford besides the ordinary programme, I might have been content to stay in college and go on being dull and peaceable. As it was I thought that Jack and I had earned something in the way of excitement, and after a good deal of persuasion he started with me, but when we got to the meeting the place was packed with an audience which, from the noise, seemed to consist largely of undergraduates singing "Rule Britannia." We talked eloquently to the men at the doors, without getting past them. One of them told me that they had already admitted far too many of our kind, and then added that there was no room for anybody else whatever kind he might be, so we went over to Bunny Langham's rooms, which—for he was not living in college—were opposite the hall in which the M.P. was speaking. There were more than half-a-dozen men in Bunny's rooms when we got to them, and I found out that he had been scattering invitations broadcast during the afternoon. A lot of other men came in soon afterwards, but nobody did anything more extraordinary than sing out of tune until the meeting had finished. I was sitting by the window looking down on the people who had been in the hall, and nearly everybody had gone out of St. Aldgate's when Bunny came up to me and said he thought he should make a short speech. He went away and came back with a horn, which he blew so lustily that in two or three minutes he had collected a small crowd in front of the house.
"They are not enough," he said, and he blew on his horn until I should think fifty or sixty people were standing in the street. Then he put his head out of the window and shouted, "Silence. I will, if you will permit me, say a few words to you on burning questions of the day." The crowd was almost entirely made up of loafers from the town, and they received him with loud cries of approval.
"Fellow-citizens of Oxford," he began, and was told at once to speak up, and asked if his mother knew he was out and other ancient questions, which interrupted but did not discourage him.
"Fellow-citizens of Oxford," he repeated, "who have assembled in your thousands——" His next words were drowned by a rude man, with a blatant voice, telling him that he was a blooming liar.
"Fellow-citizens and burgesses of Oxford, who have assembled in your thousands to hear—" Bunny began once more, but the rude man shouted that he was not at a concert, and when he wanted to listen to the same thing over and over again he was not too shy to say so.
"I shall have to ask you to remove that gentleman, he is mistaking me for one of his unfortunate family," Bunny shouted back, and was told to go on and not mind Tom Briggs. It was not possible, however, for him to make himself heard, and instead of continuing his speech he and Tom Briggs talked to each other, until some one behind me threw a banana at Tom and knocked his hat off. At the same moment I saw the proctor and his bull-dogs coming down the street, and in a minute we had turned out all the lights in the room and gone up-stairs. There we stayed until we heard the proctor leave the house.
"That's a bit of luck," said Jack, as we sat down again.
"I can't make out what the deuce has happened," Bunny answered, "he must have spotted the house."
"Perhaps he didn't want to catch us; after all we were not doing much," some man, whose experience of proctors must have been limited, said.
We got back to the room and heard a tremendous booing in the street, for the crowd, deprived of their fun, were letting the proctor know what they thought of him.
"That's splendid," Bunny said, "it's a real score if he doesn't send for us in the morning. If he does he will be sick to death with me, I've been progged three times already this term. Pull the curtains and let's light up again."
"It's about time we went," Jack said; "has the crowd gone?"
I looked out of the window and told him there were only a few people left in the street, but just as we were going there was a knock at the door and a man came into the room.
"Halloa, Marsden," Bunny said; "I am afraid we have been making rather a row in here, perhaps you put a towel round your head and went on reading. Didn't you tell me you tied cloths over your ears when you wanted to be quiet?"
"It's not much of a joke having rooms in the same house with you," Marsden answered, and looked very solemn.
"Don't say that," Bunny answered. "Have a drink, I'm generally as quiet as a lamb."
Marsden sat on the table and refused to drink.
"It's no joke being in the same house with you," he said again, and began to laugh.
"I'm not going to set fire to the place or blow it up," Bunny replied.
"But the house becomes infested with proctors."
"Did you see the 'proggins?'"
"He came into my room and progged both Carslake and me. He said we were disturbing the peace of the town."
"He didn't, did he?" Bunny exclaimed, and then went off into such fits of laughter that for some time he could do nothing but cough and choke.
"He couldn't have chosen a funnier man. A sneeze is about the biggest row you have ever made in your life. Didn't you tell him you had nothing to do with the rag?" he asked at last.
"I left you to do that; he wouldn't listen to me, he seemed to be in a hurry to get it over," Marsden said.
"Was he Carter of Queen's, or the other man?"
"Carter."
"I'll be at Queen's at nine o'clock to-morrow, so you and Carslake needn't bother to go; Carter knows me. I am awfully sorry he has been shoving himself into your rooms; the worst of this place is, there is no privacy, Carter just goes where he pleases," and Bunny rang the bell and told his servant that he wanted a hansom in the morning at ten minutes to nine. There were only a few of us left in his rooms, but every one said they would be at Queen's to meet him, though he told us not to make fools of ourselves. "I asked Carter the last time I went to him to let me off a shilling because he had kept my cab waiting, and he fined me double for impertinence. I should think this would cost about two pounds, and I've got about thirty sixpences up-stairs, he shall have all those," he continued. "I'll have some fun for my money, so you fellows had better let me see it through by myself, I made the speech and blew the horn," but as we had all been in the affair we couldn't back out of it because we had been caught.
I walked as far as St. Cuthbert's with a New College man, who thought we should have to pay more than two pounds. "Carter will be so precious sick at being hooted in the street, we shan't get off under a fiver each," he said, and when I got back to college I went up to Jack's rooms to wait and see what he thought we should have to pay.
I was nearly asleep when Jack came in.
"Phillips says we shall have to pay a fiver each, what do you think?" I said, without turning round, and instead of answering me Jack went straight into his bedder and seemed to be washing himself vigorously.
"What are you doing?" I shouted, but Jack went on washing, so I shut up asking questions.
In a few minutes he came back into the room, and stood in front of me with a candle held up in front of his face. His lips were swollen, and there was a great cut, which kept on bleeding, over his right eyebrow.
"I look nice, don't I?" he said. "I've had a fight with a man who told me that his name was Briggs."
By degrees I got the whole tale out of him, but it is no fun trying to talk when a great coal-heaving man has hit you in the mouth with his fist. Jack had come home by himself, and as he was turning out of the High by B.N.C. Tom Briggs, who had followed him all the way, charged into him. Then there was a little conversation, and Briggs called Jack something especially horrid, and gave him a shove at the same time, so Jack hit him on the nose. After this there was a rough-and-tumble, until that most inquisitive man Carter and his bull-dogs came up and caught Jack. What happened to Briggs he did not know.
"You mustn't tell Carter that you were at Bunny's," I said, after I had blamed myself, until Jack was tired, for having persuaded him to start to that wretched meeting.
"That's a trifle compared with this," he answered, and he was right.
There was a huge row, and it ended in Jack being sent down for the rest of the term. A man, who had been lurking about somewhere, said that he saw Jack hit Briggs first, which was true as far as it went, but hard luck on Jack all the same.
Bunny wanted to have a procession to the station when Jack went away, but he absolutely refused to have any fuss whatever, and altogether took his luck like a sportsman.
If I had only waited for him, or never bothered him to go out at all, this would never have happened, and tired as I have often been of myself, I do not think I have ever felt more utterly wretched than I was during the last few days of that term when I, who ought really to have been in Jack's place, was still in Oxford, and Jack was with his very angry people.
I went to the Warden and told him that Jack would never have gone out of college that night if it hadn't been for me, but all he said was that the Proctor had taken a serious view of the case, and he would not have anybody in the college brawling in the streets. I also wrote to Jack's people and told them that the whole thing was my fault, but his father's answer was very short and disagreeable; he had entirely lost his temper.
Dennison and his friends made the most of this misfortune, and I suppose it was natural that they should think it a comical finish to Jack's attempts at working. For the rest of the term I did not care what happened to anybody or anything. I was thoroughly sick with my luck, and when you are born with a faculty for disobeying rules and offending authorities and have trampled upon your inclinations for a long year without any result except disaster, it is enough to make you think that fighting Nature is a perfectly absurd thing to do. It was very fortunate that the term was nearly over, for I had a mad idea that the best way to make up to Jack for getting him sent down was to get sent down myself; but The Bradder, who knew how foolish I could be, nipped my demonstrations in the bud, and gave me some of the straightest advice I have ever listened to. He was very rude indeed. One of the few good things about this term was that Fred batted splendidly, he was not successful afterwards against Cambridge, but we had every reason for thinking that they were an exceptionally strong eleven. I bowled faster than ever, and a little straighter than the year before; I was said to be the fastest bowler at Oxford, and I heard two men saying in Vincent's that their idea of bliss was my bowling on a good wicket. But when I lowered a newspaper and showed myself they pretended that it was a joke.