“Then you'll see me often enough. But promise, now, to turn me out whenever I am in the way.”
“Very well,” said Hardy, laughing; and so they parted for the time.
Some twenty minutes afterwards Hardy returned to his room after his interview with the Dean, who merely wanted to speak to him about some matter of college business.
He flung his cap and gown on the sofa, and began to walk up and down his room, at first hurriedly, but soon with his usual regular tramp. However expressive a man's face may be, and however well you may know it, it is simply nonsense to say that you can tell what he is thinking about by looking at it, as many of us are apt to boast. Still more absurd would it be to expect readers to know what Hardy is thinking about, when they have never had the advantage of seeing his face even in a photograph. Wherefore, it would seem that the author is bound on such occasions to put his readers on equal vantage ground with himself, and not only tell what a man does, but, so far as may be, what he is thinking about also.
His first thought, then, was one of pleasure at having been sought by one who seemed to be just the sort of friend he would like to have. He contrasted our hero with the few men with whom he had generally lived, and for some of whom he had a high esteem—whose only idea of exercise was a two hour constitutional walk in the afternoons, and whose life was chiefly spent over books and behind sported oaks—and felt that this was more of a man after his own heart. Then came doubts whether his new friend would draw back when he had been up a little longer, and knew more of the place. At any rate he had said and done nothing to tempt him; “if he pushes the acquaintance—and I think he will—it will be because he likes me for myself. And I can do him good too, I feel sure,” he went on, as he ran over rapidly his own life for the last three years. “Perhaps he won't flounder into all the sloughs which I have had to drag through; he will get too much of the healthy, active life up here for that, which I have never had; but some of them he must get into. All the companionship of boating and cricketing, and wine-parties, and supper parties, and all the reading in the world won't keep him from many a long hour of mawkishness, and discontent, and emptiness of heart; he feels that already himself. Am I sure of that, though? I may be only reading myself into him. At any rate, why should I have helped to trouble him before the time? Was that a friend's part? Well, he must face it, and the sooner the better perhaps. At any rate it is done. But what a blessed thing if one can only help a youngster like this to fight his own way through the cold clammy atmosphere which is always hanging over him, ready to settle down on him—can help to keep some living faith in him, that the world, Oxford and all, isn't a respectable piece of machinery set going some centuries back! Ah! It's an awful business, that temptation to believe, or think you believe, in a dead God. It has nearly broken my back a score of times. What are all the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil to this? It includes them all. Well, I believe I can help him, and, please God, I will, if he will only let me; and the very sight of him does me good; so I won't believe we went down the lasher together for nothing.”
And so at last Hardy finished his walk, took down a volume of Don Quixote from his shelves, and sat down for an hour's enjoyment before turning in.
CHAPTER VI—HOW DRYSDALE AND BLAKE WENT FISHING
“Drysdale, what's a servitor?”
“How the deuce should I know?”