His acquaintance with the college organist increased and developed into a friendship, of which mutual admiration formed a large element, and one happy Sunday, a year after his arrival at Cambridge, he received, for the first time, the much coveted permission to preside at the organ during a college service, a task of which he acquitted himself so well—nay, so remarkably well—that not only did he frequently find himself again in the same position, but his playing came to be a matter of remark among the musical set of Saint George’s.
“Who is the fellow who played to-day?” a man inquired one day of the organist; “is he a pupil of yours?”
“No. I might be a pupil of his in some things. He’s a boy, and, mark my words, if he goes on as he’s begun he’ll be heard of some day.”
“What’s his name, do you know?” inquired the youth.
“I don’t even know that, I never— Here he comes!”
“Introduce me, will you?”
“With pleasure. Allow me to introduce Mr Halliday,” said the organist to George.
Halliday! Wasn’t that a familiar name to me? Was it possible? This fine fellow, then, was no other than Jim Halliday, whom I had last seen as a boy on the steps of Randlebury, with his chum Charlie Newcome, waving farewell to Tom Drift.
Ah, how my heart beat at being thus once more brought back into the light of those happy days by this unexpected meeting!
My master by no means shared my delight at the incident. He had always shrunk from acquaintanceships among his fellow-collegians. With none, hitherto, but the organist had he become familiar, and that only by virtue of an irresistible common interest. His poverty and humble station forbade him to intrude his fellowship on the clannish gentry of Saint George’s, and certainly his cravings for hard study led him, so far from considering the exclusion as a hardship, to look upon it as a mercy, and few things he desired more devoutly than that this satisfactory state of affairs might continue.