CHAPTER XV.
CHARLES'S "LIDDELL AND SCOTT."
A growing anxiety began to take possession of Charles shortly before Christmas, arising from the state of his father's health. Densil was failing. His memory was getting defective, and his sense dulled. His eye always was searching for Charles, and he was uneasy at his absence. So it was with a vague sense of impending misfortune that he got a letter from the Dean of his college, summoning him back after the Christmas vacation.
Mr. Dean said, "That Mr. Ravenshoe's case had been reconsidered, and that at the warm, and, he thought, misguided, intercession of the Bursar, a determination had been come to, to allow Mr. Ravenshoe to come into residence again for the Lent term. He trusted that this would be a warning, and that, while there was time, he would arrest himself in that miserable career of vice and folly which could only have one termination—utter ruin in this world and in the next."
A college "Don," by long practice, acquires a power of hurting a young man's feelings, utterly beyond competition, save by a police magistrate. Charles winced under this letter; but the same day Mary, coming singing downstairs as was her wont, was alarmed by the descent of a large opaque body of considerable weight down the well of the staircase, which lodged in the wood basket at the bottom, and which, on examination, she found to be a Liddell and Scott's Lexicon. At which she rejoiced; for she concluded that Charles had taken to reading again, though why he should begin by throwing his books downstairs she could not well understand, until he joined her, and explained that he had been dusting it on the landing, and that it had slipped out of his hand.
"What a crack it came down," added he; "I wish Father Mackworth's head had been underneath it."
"I have no doubt of it, young gentleman," said the priest quietly from behind; and there he was with his hand on the library door, and in he went and shut it behind him.
Mary and Charles were both awfully disconcerted. Mary felt horribly guilty; in fact, if the priest had remained quiet one moment more, he would undoubtedly have heard one or two candid and far from complimentary remarks about himself from that young lady, which would have made his ears tingle.
"Confound him," said Charles; "how he glides about! He learned that trick, and a few others, at that precious Jesuit College of his. They teach them that sort of thing as the old Jews teach the young pickpockets. The old father inquisitor puts the door ajar with a bell against it, and they all have to come in one after another. The one who rings it gets dropped on to like blazes."