“F. C.
“P.S.—What have you said or done to render old Vernor so bitter against you? Clara Saville tells Lucy, that, when she informed him of her having met and conversed with you alone in the park that day, he flew into such a rage as she had never seen him in before, and abused you like a pickpocket; and she says she feels certain that, for some cause or other, he entertains a strong personal dislike to you. Entre nous, I don't think the fair Clara seems exactly to sympathise with him in this feeling. Considering that you had somewhat less than half an hour to make play in, from Lucy's account you do not seem to have wasted much time. Ah! Master Frank, you are a naughty boy; I can't help sighing when I reflect, how anxious your poor dear mother must feel about you, when she knows you're out.”
“Still the same light-hearted merry fellow as ever,” exclaimed I, as I closed the letter; “how long, I wonder, will those buoyant spirits of his resist the depressing effect which contact with the harsh realities of life appears always sooner or later to produce? Strange, what he says about that Mr. Vernor; I am not conscious that I ever met the man till the evening of the ball, and yet I fancied there was something which seemed not utterly unfamiliar to me in the expression of his face. Vernor! Vernor! I don't believe I ever heard the name before—it's very odd. Of course, what he says about Miss Saville is all nonsense; and yet there was something in her manner, which made me fancy, if I had time and opportunity—pshaw! what absurdity—I shall have enough to do if I am to imagine myself in love with every nice girl who says, 'Thank you' prettily for any trifling service I may chance to render her. Î am sure she is not happy, poor thing! Seriously, I wish I were sufficiently intimate with her to be able to afford her the advice and assistance of a friend, should such be ever required by her. I should take the liberty of asking old Vernor what he meant by his extraordinary behaviour towards me, were I to see much more of him; there's nothing like a little plain speaking. But I need, not trouble my brains about the matter; I shall probably never meet either of them again, so what does it signify? She certainly is the loveliest girl I ever saw, though! heigho!” and, with a sigh, for which I should have been somewhat puzzled rationally to account, I took up my gun, and set off for a day's shooting with Harry Oaklands.
CHAPTER XX — ALMA MATER
“He's a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can
easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of
the twenty to follow my own teaching. The brain may devise
laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree.”
—Merchant of Venice.
TIME, that venerable and much-vituperated individual, who, if he has to answer for some acts savouring of a taste for wanton destruction—if he now and then lunches on some noble old abbey, which had remained a memorial of the deep piety and marvellous skill of our forefathers—if he crops, by way of salad, some wide-spreading beech or hoary patriarchal oak, which had flung its shade over the tombs of countless generations, and, as it stood forming a link between the present and the past, won men's reverence by force of contrast with their own ephemeral existence—yet atones for his delinquencies by softening the bitterness of grief, blunting the sharp edge of pain, and affording to the broken-hearted the rest, and to the slave the freedom, of the grave;—old Time, I say, who should be praised at all events for his perseverance and steadiness, swept onward with his scythe, and cutting his way through the frost and snow of winter, once more beheld the dust of that “brother of the east wind,” March, converted into mud by the showers of April, and the summer was again approaching. It was on a fine morning in May, that, as Oaklands and I were breakfasting together in my rooms at Trinity, we heard a tap at the door, and the redoubtable Shrimp made his appearance. This interesting youth had, under Lawless's able tuition, arrived at such a pitch of knowingness that it was utterly impossible to make him credit anything; he had not the smallest particle of confidence remaining in the integrity of man, woman, or child; and, like many another of the would-be wise in their generation, the only flaw in his scepticism was the bigoted nature of his faith in the false and hateful doctrine of the universal depravity of the human race. He was the bearer of a missive from his master, inviting Oaklands and myself to a wine-party at his rooms that evening.
“I suppose we may as well go,” said Oaklands; “I like a positive engagement somewhere—it saves one the trouble of thinking what one shall do with oneself.”
"You can accept it,” replied I, “but it would be a waste of time which I have no right to allow myself; not only does it make one idle while it lasts, but the next day also, for I defy a man to read to any purpose the morning after one of Lawless's symposia.”
“Call it supper, my dear boy,” returned Oaklands, stretching himself; “why do you take the trouble to use a long word when a short one would do just as well? If I could but get you to economise your labour and take things a little more easily, it would be of the greatest advantage to you;—that everlasting reading too—I tell you what, Frank, you are reading a great deal too hard; you look quite pale and ill. I promised Mrs. Fairlegh I would not let you overwork yourself, and you shall not either. Come, you must and shall go to this party; you want relaxation and amusement, and those fellows will contrive to rouse you up a bit, and do you good.”