Mr. Rosedewʼs careful treatises upon the Sabellian and Sabello–Oscan elements had stirred up pleasant controversy in the narrow world of scholars; and now at the trito–megistic blow of the Roseo–rorine hammer, ringing upon no less a theme than the tables of Iguvium, the wise men who sit round the board of classical education, even Jupiter Grabovius (the original of John Bull), had clapped their hands and cried, “Hear, hear! He knows what he is talking of; and he is one of us.”
That, after all, is the essence of it—to know what one is talking of. And the grand advantage of the ancient universities is, not the tone of manners, not the knowledge of life—rather a hat–box thing with them—not even the high ideal, the manliness, and the chivalry, which the better class of men win; but the curt knowledge, whether or not they are talking of what they know. Scire quod nescias is taught, if they teach us nothing else. And though we are all still apt to talk, especially among ladies, of things beyond our acquaintance—else haply we talk but little—we do so with a qualm, and quasi, and fluttering sense that effrontery is not—but leads to—”pluck.”
Nevertheless, who am I to talk, proving myself, by every word, false to Alma Mater, having ventured all along to talk of things beyond me?
As they rose the hill towards Carfax, Amy (tired as she was) trembled with excitement. Her father had won a cure in St. Oles—derived no doubt from oleo—and all were to lodge in Pembroke Lane, pending mature arrangements. Though they might have turned off near the jail, and saved a little cab fare, John would go by the broader way, as his fashion always was; except in a little posthumous matter, wherein perhaps we have over–defined with brimstone the direction–posts.
Be that as it may,—not to press the scire quod nescias (potential in such a case, I hope, rather than conjunctive)—there they must be left, all three, with Jenny and Jemima outside, and Jem Pottles on the pavement, amazed at the cheek of everything. Only let one thing be said. Though prettier girl than Amy Rosedew had never stepped on the stones of Oxford since the time of Amy Robsart, if even then,—never once, was she insulted.
Lowest of all low calumnies. There are blackguards among university men, as everybody knows, and as there must be among all men. But even those blackguards can see the difference between a lady, or rather between a pure girl and—another. And even those blackguards have an intensified reverence for the one;—but let the matter pass; for now we hide in gold these subjects, and sham not to see their flaunting.
Be it, however, confessed that Amy (whose father soon had rooms in college, not to live, but to lecture in), being a very shy young maiden, never could be brought to come and call him to his tea,—oh no. So many young men in gorgeous trappings, charms, and dangles, and hooks of gold, and eye–glasses very knowing—not to mention volunteer stuff, and knickerbockers demonstrant of calf—oddly enough they would happen to feel so interested in the architecture of the porterʼs lodge whenever Amy came by, never gazing too warmly at her, but contriving to convey their regret at the suppression of their sentiments, and their yearning to be the stones she trod on, and their despair at the possibility of her not caring if they were so—really all this was so trying, that Amy would never go into college without Aunt Doxy before her, gazing four–gunned cupolas even at scouts and manciples. And this was very provoking of her, not only to the hearts that beat under waistcoats ordered for her sake, but also to the domestic kettle a–boil in Pembroke Lane. For, over and over again, Uncle John, great as he was in chronology and every kind of “marmora,” and able to detect a flaw upon Potamogeitonʼs tombstone, lost all sense of time and place, me and te, and hocce and Doxy, and calmly went home some two hours late, and complacently received Doxology.
But alas, we must abandon Amy to the insidious designs of Hebdomadal Board, the velvet approaches of Proctor and Pro, and the brass of the gentlemen Bedels, while we regard more rugged scenes, from which she was happily absent.
Rufus Hutton had found the missing link, and at the same time the strongest staple, of the desired evidence. The battered gun–barrels had been identified, and even the number deciphered, by the foreman of Messrs. L—— and Co. And the entry in their books of the sale of that very gun (number, gauge, and other particulars beyond all doubt corresponding) was—”to Bull Garnet, &c., Nowelhurst Dell Cottage,” whom also they could identify from his “strongly–marked physiognomy,” and his quick, decisive manner. And the cartridge–case, which had lain so long in Dr. Huttonʼs pocket, of course they could not depose to its sale, together with the gun; but this they could show, that it fitted the gauge, was not at all of a common gauge, but two sizes larger—No. 10, in fact—and must have been sold during the month in which they sold the gun, because it was one of a sample which they had taken upon approval, and soon discarded for a case of better manufacture.