Before the end of that summer term Tom had it made up with Hardy, and it was Hardy who, at Tom's request, called in at the Choughs, just to see how things were going on. Tom saw at a glance that something had happened when Hardy appeared again.
"What is it? She is not ill?" he said quickly.
"No; quite well, her aunt says."
"You didn't see her, then?"
"No the fact is, she has gone home."
IV.--The Master's Term
The years speed by, bringing their changes to St. Ambrose. Hardy is a fellow and tutor of the college in Tom's second year, and Drysdale has been requested to remove his name from the books. Tom is all for politics now, and the theories he propounds in the Union gain him the name of Chartist Brown.
In his third year, Hardy often brought him down from high talk of "universal democracy" and "the good cause" by insisting on making the younger man explain what he really meant. And though Tom suffered under this severe treatment, in the end he generally came round to acknowledge the reasonableness of Hardy's methods of argument.
It was a trying year to Tom, this third and last year; full of large dreams and small performances, of hopes and struggles, ending in failure and disappointment. The common pursuits of the place had lost their freshness, and with it much of their charm. He was beginning to feel himself in a cage, and to beat against the bars of it.
Squire Brown was passing through Oxford, and paid his son a visit in the last term.