[CHAPTER XV.]
FIREWORKS.
YEARS ago there lived in a small house—one of a row of similar tenements, dignified by the name of terrace—in the suburbs of Oxford, known as Jericho, a young married couple who had but few acquaintances in the city, and who probably had no desire to make them. They were poor; their home was scantily furnished, and the only inmate of their dwelling, besides themselves, was an elderly, slatternly woman, who was understood to be the mother of the young wife. They had been married more than a year at the time when we take up their story, and a little weakly blossom of mortality had a short while before struggled into existence, to the unbounded astonishment of those most immediately concerned in its advent. But as it had soon afterwards made its escape from a world which certainly did not look over-inviting, nothing more need be said on this particular topic.
The husband was a quiet, gentlemanly sort of man, who obtained a scanty enough subsistence, but paid his way notwithstanding, as a teacher of mathematics and classics at one or two boarding schools in the neighbourhood of Oxford, where his rather shabby costume, his ill-got-up linen, his oddity of manner, and his frequent absences of mind, gave abundant scope for merriment among his pupils. They liked him notwithstanding, for he was "a good sort of fellow," they said, "and never got a chap into trouble" with the principal.
It was known by the neighbours around—the dwellers in Jericho, I mean—that Mr. Tincroft (for that was the gentleman's name) had been formerly a gownsman of the university; but that, in consequence of his marrying beneath him, he had been obliged to relinquish his prospects, and to take to teaching, which, in their opinion, evidently was something near akin to scavengering; and if he hadn't had "something to fall back upon," they did not see how he could manage to rub along at all. What this something was nobody knew, and, as it was no matter of theirs, they didn't want to know. It being no matter of ours either, we may as well share in their blissful ignorance, only adding that although "under a cloud," it was sagely believed that, some day or other, the object of their contemplation would emerge from his obscurity.
"He will be a rich man when he wins his lawsuit," was whispered.
I am rather inclined to think that this whisper about a mysterious lawsuit was intentionally set afloat by a good-natured gownsman (Tincroft's almost only university acquaintance), Tom Grigson by name, who persisted in taking his supper with the Tincrofts at least once a week, and in dragging out the male Tincroft for a constitutional, as he termed it, at all times, seasonable or unseasonable, whenever he was to be found at home.
"You shan't vegetate while I am here, John," said Tom, on one such occasion; "when I am gone you must do as you like, I suppose."
Let me do Tom the justice, moreover, of saying that, like a preux chevalier—or, rather, like a true gentleman—he paid all due courtesies to the young wife of his friend. There are different ways of showing such courtesies. Tom chose the right way—he treated poor Sarah as though she were in every particular his equal. He made no condescending efforts to seem at his ease in her society. He placed himself on a right footing by the respect he paid to her.
One summer evening, more than a year, as I have said, after the marriage of John and Sarah, Tom made his appearance at their cottage. John was at home.