John Tincroft, bachelor and benedict

by George E. Sargent

Tincroft was not very well up in this kind of affair, nor of any other where common everyday life was concerned. Once, for instance, when he was fishing for gudgeons in the Cherwell—having been enticed into investing in a rod and line—he lost sight of line and float so completely as to allow a mischievous urchin, whom he had hired to attend him, slyly to fasten a red herring on to the hook. Oblivious of the trick, John presently jerked up the line, and, without any further astonishment than that he should have caught any sort of fish, captured the prize—speaking of it afterwards as a feat of skill, or of chance rather, to be proud of, not being previously aware, as he declared, that the Cherwell reckoned herrings, especially red herrings, among its finny inhabitants.

So now, innocent as he was of any, or of many, of the commoner concerns of mortal existence, John Tincroft might have gone on worshipping this new-found idol at a distance, if his dreams had not been rudely broken in upon by the warnings of his clerical friend. So rudely, indeed, that he did not half like it.

"I did not mean any harm," thought John to himself that morning, when closeted in the old library, "and I cannot see now what harm I have done. But, however, if Mr. Rubric says so, he may be right, and it will be better for me not to go near the place again."

Then it came into his dull mind that the easiest way for him to get out of the difficulty in which he so unexpectedly found himself placed, would be to quit the neighbourhood altogether.

"They cannot talk about me, then," he angrily argued; "and I—well, what does it matter if I don't see the young person again."

Yes, it would be better for him to leave the vicinity of these charms, thought John. He could go back to Oxford, and though he could not conveniently, if at all, enter upon his old rooms at Queen's till the next term had commenced, he might take lodgings. He knew a laundress, the wife or mother or aunt—he did not know which—of one of the college scouts who lived out Jericho way and let lodgings to single men, and he could go there and pursue his Oriental studies in peace.

And John could but reflect that the last month had been sorely wasted. In the lap of Delilah, figuratively speaking, of course, he had been shorn of his (figurative) locks. But he was not so far gone as that amounted to either, so he thought within himself—which proved that he was, at that crisis of his history, farther gone than he himself suspected.

And so, presently, at the sound of the bell, John bestirred himself, and went down to dinner.

Resolved to beat a retreat from the difficulty in which he was placed, another difficulty presented itself to his mind. Shy and awkward as ever, he was at a loss how to make known his purpose to his host and his college friend. He had accepted the invitation for the whole of the long vacation, which even now wanted nearly a month of its termination; and his friends would possibly take offence at his abruptly quitting them. To tell the truth, he was reluctant enough, on all grounds, to take this step; and I hope my readers—my fair readers, at all events—will give Tincroft credit for some virtue—the virtue of self-denial—in having arrived at his present determination.

In the present instance, his virtue was reinforced, and he was, moreover, strengthened in his resolution by the course of conversation after the dinner-cloth was removed.