But again and again, day after day, the image of the enchantress rose before his thoughts; and not the less so that he well knew, as a man and a gentleman, that Sarah Wilson could be no more to him than a bewitching and distracting though delightful memory of the past.
Thus three or four weeks passed away, with little addition to John Tincroft's stores of Oriental erudition; and the time came when he must quit the retirement of Jericho for the more classic shades of Queen's College, with his two solitary rooms therein. Meanwhile, as he was contemplating this flight, the following epistle reached him:
"DEAR TINCROFT,—This has been a horrid bad season for birds (videlicet, partridges). The wet weeks at hatching time, and the rats and weasels, have brought down our bags to a minimum. I was out all day, the 25th inst., and only bagged a brace and a half. Luckily, there is a good promise of pheasants; and pheasant-shooting, you know, begins to-morrow. And then there's a splendid lot of hares, to say nothing of foxes, on Dick's happy hunting-ground. So I don't mean to see Oxford till Lent term begins. I shan't lose much by dropping Michaelmas term, I reckon; and I shall manage to get an excuse."
"Please make all needful arrangements about my rooms and books, and so forth, and call on Dry, my tailor, in the High Street, and one or two others that you know of, to set their minds at rest that I haven't run away."
"There is not much going on down here. Rubric isn't come back yet from the Continent, and we have got a Cambridge man to do duty for him—a good sort of fellow enough, but he can't shoot."
"The harvest is all got in now, though a late one, and the wheat has turned out an average crop, Dick says. Ditto the barley; and turnips are splendid. But I forget, you are no Agricola. I wish I was going to be one, that's all."
"By the way, I have been over to the Mumbles a few times since you ran away from us. I wish you had gone; I should like to have your opinion of Kate Elliston."
"Dick sends his messages, and says when you like to have another turn out, you know the way to, and the ways of, Liberty Hall. So says also—"
"TOM GRIGSON."
Matters were not much improved with Tincroft when he got, back to his old rooms at Queen's—not at first, that is; but gradually, he slid back into his old habits, and, partially at least, forgot the disturbances of the last three months of his existence. In other words, there was a lull in the visible current of the maelstrom, that was all.
One day came the scout Barry to his room, with a face full of importance.
"Very busy, Mr. Tincroft?"
"Not very—not more than usual. What is it, Barry?"
"I wouldn't trouble you, sir; but my mother is in such a way."
"Your mother?"
"She keeps going on at me for not telling her before. You know my mother, sir?"