I muttered something about business.
"Business! Come, I like that. You have changed your nature, John, if you go after business the first evening of your return from Switzerland. Why, I didn't suppose you would have stirred if my old uncle yonder had sent for you to make his will, leaving me his sole heir." And he laughed his old hearty joyous laugh, which had been music to me from the time when I fought his first battle for him at Rugby. Now it filled me with an unaccountable dread; now it fell on my ear as the knell of times which were never more to come back. So near the truth too as he had been, talking in his own thoughtless, light-hearted way. What spell was over us all that fatal evening? Perhaps--I think it must have been so--all the dark shadows which were gathering over my soul revealed themselves in my countenance, for I saw him look at me with the kind solicitous look that never became a manly face better than his.
"I'll tell you what it is, dear old John," he said, putting his arm within mine; "you are looking terribly hipped about something or another, and any thing but the man you ought to look, after such a jolly outing as you've just had. Come, I'll go home with you, and we'll have a prime Manilla, a steaming tumbler, and a cosy chat together; and if that doesn't send the blues back to the venerable old party from which they are generally supposed by all good Christians to come, why, as Mr. Peggotty hath it, 'I'm gormed!' "And again that fatal influence stepped in, making me its agent to bring upon us the inevitable To be; and putting his friendly hand from off my arm, I said, '"No, Hugh, not to-night; I have need to be alone. Indeed I am too tired to be good company even to you."
"Well, good-night then, my friend; I'll betake me to mine uncle, and see [{408}] how the old man is getting along this damp weather. Lister said he should look in, so we can tramp home together. But I won't be shirked by you to-morrow, Master Jack,--don't think it; and I shall bring somebody to fetch the Swiss toy I know you have got packed away for her somewhere in your knapsack. Good-night, good-night."
We shook hands, and he turned down Vere street. An impulse,--blind, unreasoning,--seized me a minute afterwards to call him back and ask him to come home with me; and I followed quickly upon his footsteps. The evening was very dark, and the rain beat blindingly in one's face, so that it was difficult, with my near sight, to distinguish his figure ahead amidst the numerous other foot-passengers. After a few moments I gave up the chase, half angry with myself for haying been the sport of a sudden fancy. As once more I turned round to retrace my steps, a woman passed me at a hurried pace, and as she passed she almost stopped and gazed intently at me. A thick veil prevented my seeing her face, and in no way was her figure familiar to me; but the gesture with which she stared at me was remarkable, and for a moment a matter of wonder; then I forgot the circumstance, and rapidly made my way home, thinking of the strange revelations I had just heard; thinking of Hugh Atherton and our chance meeting; thinking of the days past and the days to come,--of much and many things which belong to the story I am telling,--of the time when I was a boy again at school, senior in my form and umpire in all pitched battles and the petty warfare boys wage with one another, when that little curly-headed, blue-eyed fellow, with his cheeks all aglow and his nostrils big with indignant wrath, had come to me, a great burly clumsy lad of sixteen, and laid his plaint before me:
"Please, Kavanagh, the fellows say I'm a coward because I won't lick Tom Overbury. Will you tell them to leave me in peace?--because I won't lick him."
"Why not, spooney?"
"Because I don't wish to."
"That won't go down here, you know, Atherton; you must give your reasons."
"He's got something the matter with his right arm, and he can't hit out. He'd have no chance against me. I know all about it, but the other fellows don't, and they think he can't fight; he bade me not tell any one. That's why they are always at him to make him pick quarrels. They set him on at me; but I won't fight him, not for the whole school, masters and all."