A Stumble on the Threshold. (Second edition.)

Front matter

A STUMBLE ON THE THRESHOLD. BY JAMES PAYN, Author of "By Proxy," "The Confidential Agent," &. LONDON : HORACE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C 1893. First Edition (2 vols., crown Rvo.J, November, 1892. Second Edition (\ vol., crown Svo.J, October, 1893. LONDON : PRINTED BY HORATE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. CONTENTS. Chapter I. Three Students page i Chapter II. The Fellow-commoner and the Sizar 10 Chapter III - Alother and Son 18 Chapter IV. A Little Dinner Party 2ft Chapter V. Tennis 3-+ Chapter VI. The Beginning of It 43 Chapter VII. Alother and Daughter 53 Chapter VIII. A Nice Little College 63 Chapter IX. A Hopeless Lover CONTENTS IV Chapter X. she Other Scholar page 81 Chapter XL Dangerous Devotion 88 Chapter XII. An Old Flame 95 Chapter XIII. Friends and an Enemy 102 Chapter XIV.

Caught Out in Chapter XV. A Born Fool 118 Chapter XVI. Blackmail 124 ( hapter XA'II. The Honour List 133 Chapter XVIII. A Blighted Future 141 Chapter XIX. Counter Plot .148 Chapter XX. Good News 156 Chapter XXI. An Invitation CONTENTS V Chapter XXII. A WTarm AVelcome page 169 Chapter XXIII. Walter Blythe's Fun 178 Chapter XXIV. Airs. Blythe 186 Chapter XXV. A Tete-a-Tete I05 Chapter XXVI. An Early Riser 204 Chapter XXVII. Alapleton 213 Chapter XXVIII. Introductions 223 Chapter XXIX. The Picnic 231 Chapter XXX. Up Stream 239 Chapter XXXI. A Proposal 245 Chapter XXXII. A Needed Ally 254 Chapter XXXIII. 261 Dreamful Ease CONTENTS. VI Chapter XXXIV. To Alapleton page 269 Chapter XXXV. With the Accused 276 Chapter XXXVI Breaking It 285 Chapter XXXVII. Air. Lee ... 293 Chapter XXXVIII. li.ul Xews 301 Chapter XXXIX. The Fishery 308 Chapter XL. In the Witness-box 3'5 Chapter XLI. A Little Science 320 Chapter XLI I. Hoyv They Fared ,26 ---•.crj'e-s-

Chapter I Three Students

It is not often that you catch two young gentlemen of twenty7-one or so, yvho are neither artists nor "serious" minded, in an English church upon a week day. But the reader might have caught two such persons (yvho I hope will come to be known to him) one September afternoon I have on my mind, in the noble fane of Christchurch. It is not a cathedral, but it is, metaphorically speaking, next door to one, and actually next door to a priory, which was built, as everyone knows, by superhuman assistance. The beam that was necessary7 to its completion, and had been too short at night, was found long enough, and a foot to spare (yvhich shows that saintly gifts are not bestowed grudgingly) when the workmen came in the morning. But it yvas not the sanctity of the church, nor its architectural beauty, that had caused Walter Blythe to come over from Bournemouth, and bring his friend, Robert Grey7, yvith him.

Blythe had a turn for literature, yvhich he believed to be a devotion to it, and an appreciation of poetry, yvhich he thought only7 one who was a poet himself could feel, and what he had come to look at was the Shelley memorial. Grey knew little about Shelley and cared less, but, like many other people who enjoyed Blythe's acquaintance, was very willing to oblige him. AValter yvas " a nice fellow " at B all times, but especially nice yvhen he yvas pleased, a circumstance that caused him to get his oyvn way more than is good for any of us. Some achieve this by being cross and disagreeable, yvhich requires no special gift of nature ; people " give up " to them for the sake of peace and quietness ; and when they are graciously pleased to accept a sacrifice, are said to be " not bad felloyvs after all, if you take them the right yvay."

But the service paid to Blythe by his fellow-creatures yvas mostly a willing service, though (for his nature yvas a gracious one) it never lacked the guerdon of yvord or look. He yvas by no means handsome in an artistic yvay ; his nose may have been too long, or his lip too short ; but the general effect was eminentlyattractive. His face yvas mobile and full of expression. He yvas rather beloyv the middle height and somewhat slightly made ; his dark eyes, yvhich yvere very large and lustrous, had a gazellish look that suggested effeminacy, until you happened to have seen him in a passion, after yvhich you never associated him with the feminine sex, just as having once beheld Vesuvius in eruption, one henceforth ceases to regard it as a symbol of tranquillity. His temper yvas very short, but so yvas its outbreak, though while it burnt it flared like a tar barrel ; and he yvas so extremely good natured that one was tempted to forget the ebullition almost as soon as he did.

His complexion, though swarthy, yvas clear, and the luxuriance of his dark hair gave him an appearance of delicacy, though he yvas both supple and strong. His voice yvas musical, and his laugh so infectious that you felt he yvas " good company " if you yvere but in the next room yvith it. His companion yvas. save in youth, a contrast to him. He yvas tall and athletic ; Saxon in hair and hue, but brown yvith the sun and wind ; yvith his fine and regular features, and keen blue eyes, that bespoke a trained intelligence, he would have made a better, because an easier, picture than his friend, for the average artist; but the true painter would have chosen Blythe. The one was the more comely, but the other had the more character. They had passed through the magnificent North porch, and were standing by the font, yvhen Blythe's eye lit upon what he had come to see.

" Hoyv seldom it is," he observed yvith enthusiasm, " that one ever finds true poetry on a tombstone. AVere ever finer lines writ on marble? " He read them out, in a hushed voice, but yvith appropriate intonation. " He hath oyitsoared the shadow of our night ; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not, and torture not again ; From the contagion of the world's sloyv stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart groyvn cold, a head groyvn grey in vain, Nor when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn." " Those are from his own ' Adonais,' you knoyv. " Ah," replied Grey, too honest to say " Yes," too careful of his friend's susceptibilities, to say " Are they?" "Well he has found a noble spot to rest in."

" Good heavens ! Is it possible that you, a scholar of your college — or is it because you are a scholar — don't know yvhat became of Shelley? " " Oh ! to be sure, I remember ; he yvas drowned in the Gulf of Spezzia," observed Grey, in some confusion. " You don't remember, my dear fellow, you have read it on the tablet ; and you don't knoyv that he was afterwards burnt ; upon my life it's shocking. I dare say you know yvhere Sophocles was buried, and Euripides, and what became of Æschylus, but about a poet of our country, worth the whole lot of them, you were never moved to inquire. You are like our dean yvith his ' And who was this Air. De Quincey ? ' " B " It yvas very foolish of me, my dear Blythe ; but if you get so excited yve shall be turned out of the church for ' brayvling.' Here comes the verger."

" I am going out ; nothing yvill induce me to listen to a lecture upon Norman shafts and English vaultings." " It is a pitv vou take such little interest in the archi tecture of your oyvn country," said Grey, demurely, yvhen they got into the open air. Blvthe laughed so loud that the ivied ruins of the old castle by the Avon rang yvith his mirth. "That's a fair hit enough," he said : ''but I do think it is more reasonable that — other things being equal — matters of our time should make a deeper impression upon us than those of a distant era. I daresay you yvould hardly think that what caused me to reply Bournemouth last month yvhen my mother said ' AVhere shall we go ? ' yvas because of that memorial yonder, and also because Godwin and Alarv AVollstonecraft and Shelley's Alary lie in St. Peter's church yard.

You knoyv that. I suppose? " " I read it in the guidebook," ansyvered Grev. simply. " I knoyv you knoyv all about the old one, but did you ever read the 'Modern Prometheus' P" inquired Blvthe, despairingly. " I tried to do so, but I couldn't get through with it," said the other, apologetically. "Just my case," yvas the candid rejoinder. Grey was amused but not surprised. One of the pleasant traits in his companion yvas his candour. Those yvho didn't like him, and yvere easily shocked, even called him shameless. " Come," said Grey, " yve have not stretched our legs vet ; let us go on to Barton cliffs." " What for ? " "Well, you see, I have brought my geological hammer yvith me." He produced from his pocket that scientific instrument, one side of yvhich is a duodecimo pickaxe. " AA'hat a murderous yveapon !

It was on an afternoon in September when two young men might have been seen op the road to Barton. The elder (and more good looking; of the two ' travellers ' had been reproached by his friend for his ignorance of the literature of his native land. He pretended to have forgotten it, but he hadn't. ... In the evening he returned alone. His companion, an innocent and much respected youth, was being carried out to sea with a hole in his head. A memorial was put up to him in the church where the quarrel had taken place, and some people supposed he was buried there, which was not the case." "That yvill make a capital story for you," said Grey, admiringly; now, in return step out." "I hate geologizing," murmured Blythe. It is like looking through a telescope at the heavenly bodies ; one has to pretend to see this and that, but one doesn't. ' This you perceive is a fossil : here is obviously the action of fire.' I like fiction, but I detest lying.

There is only one word for Geology in my opinion, and that's Trap." " But the fossils at Barton are recognizable by anybody, my dear felloyv." " When you find 'em ; but we shan't find any. It's like going fishing in the sea. The fish have been all caught the day before." " I will guarantee that yve find plenty. It is the Eocene formation." " I yvish it yvould not stick to one's boots so. It's the beastliest formation I have ever walked upon." "But we haven't got there yet." " You needn't tell me that ; there seems no end to the road." Grey did not mind the other's grumbling; as long as Blythe could talk he knew all was well with him. If he had trudged on in silence that would have been a sign of dissatisfaction indeed. As the view opened, and the sea and " the fair island " came in sight, Blythe's spirits rose.

He took a great pleasure in the beauties of Nature. His mind was stored with illustrations of them from the poets, which he quoted with the remorselessness of youth. Grev listened, not without] some interest ; thev were apt enough, and had for him at least the attraction of novelty, but he was not himself poetic ; the chief satisfaction he derived from them was the ■conviction that his friend was enjoying himself. Italsostruck him that if Ella had been there she would have appreciated I them. Ella was his I cousin, Ella Martin. I at present staving I with her mother at I Bournemouth, a cir- I cumstance which had I attracted him to that I locality much more I than the fact that I Godwin and Mary I Wollstonecraft were I buried there. He had introduced I her to Blvthe, and I she had expressed I her admiration for his friend and his social gifts.

Blvthe and his mother, the Martins, and Grey made a pleasant little colonv. and got on together very agreeably. '* It was an aphorism of that admirable moralist. Dr. Johnson," observed Blvthe, with a roll in his walk and a sesquipedalian utterance, in humble imitation of the great lexicographer, "that, however, picturesque mavbe a localitv " Where the deuce are we to lunch, Grey ? its sublimity suffers no deterioration from the propinquity of an hotel. Where the deuce are we to lunch, Grey ? " " Lunch, my dear fellow, has been defined to be a reproach to one's breakfast, and an insult to one's dinner." " Yes, but that was said by a man yvho had lost his liver. I am so hungry. Where 'is the Hotel ? " Blythe looked round as if he was putting the inquiry to universal nature ; there was no building of any kind within sight.

"There is the Needles Hotel," returned Grey, dryly; " but the Isle of Wight, though doubtless at one time con nected with the mainland, has been separated from it for some time ; there are also some fossil fish in the cliffs yonder, but not exactly fresh fish." " There's a fellow with a bag down on the shore there ; perhaps he has got something to eat," cried Blythe excitedly, disregarding these sarcastic remarks. " Hi ! hi ! my good man." " Be quiet, Blythe. I know the man quite well ; he was a freshman at St. Boniface in our first year, but migrated to Nots " (St. Neot's). " His name is Needham." " Well, if you know him all the better. Let us find out if he has got any lunch. Undergraduates of the same stand ing should share their last crust and sup with one another. Were't the last drop in the well, And I fainting at the brink, Ere my panting spirit fell, "After you, sir, take a drink." says the poet ; not that your friend looks like a poet, nor yet an undergraduate."

" Hush, the wind blows his way, and he may hear you." Indeed the attention of the individual alluded to was already drawn to the newcomers, whom he was regarding, yvith his hand over his eyes to keep the sun off. He was dressed in rough clothes, topped by a Glengarry cap, and certainly did not resemble that class of university youth called "gilded." Indeed, though he looked older than his years, he yvas not very youthful. The expression of his face yvas kindly and intelligent, but grave ; there yvere lines upon it, the autograph of care or study. He had a soft broyvn beard, at that time rarely seen upon an undergraduate's chin. "Why, Needham, yvho yvould have thought of seeing you here ? " exclaimed Grey, holding out his hand. " I thought you were up at Cambridge for ' the Long,' getting ready for the senior wranglership."

Needham smiled, a little feebly, not the sort of smile one yvould somehoyv have expected of him. " I am playing truant for a yveek or two. This is my favourite hunting ground. You knoyv my weakness." " I kneyv that geology yvas one of your weaknesses. I have brought my hammer too, but, of course. I am only an amateur — This is my friend Blythe, of St. Boniface." " I know Air. Blythe well by repute, and I have also heard him, yvith great pleasure — at the Union." The two young men shook hands. There yvere only a feyv years between them, but they seemed lustrums. The one looked as if he was born to consume the fruits of the earth, and the other to produce them. A little gratified perhaps by the compliment that had been paid to his oratory, Blythe resembled even more than usual the very embodiment of pleasure ; some idea of the sort seemed to strike the other, for he regarded him with the sort of interest that is aroused by some brilliant creature in another sphere than our oyvn, as a good-natured working bee might regard a butterfly.

" What is it you have in your bag, Needham ? " inquired Grey. " Nummulites." "Are they good to eat?" inquired Blythe gravely. "I am starving." " I have got some bread and cheese and beer, in a basket yonder, if they are worth your acceptance," said Needham, smiling. "Worth my acceptance!" cried Blythe eagerly. "The good Samaritan was a curmudgeon compared to you. Think of there being bread in this wilderness ! It is like the title of a fairy story or a moral tale — ' The bountiful geologist and the lunchless stranger.' " Needham opened his basket, which was well filled with humble fare. Grey, yvho was not a lunch-eater, lighted his pipe. His companions fell to with appetite. The three made a pastoral picture, natural and wholesome, if common place. If they could have looked into the future, even a little way, this would certainly have been far otheryvise. It yvould then have appeared to them as the first scene of a terrible drama in which they themselves were to play the leading parts.

Chapter II. The Fellow-commoner And The Sizar

It is a doubtful question whether sympathy, or the unlike ness that " fits us " most tends to knit men together in the bonds of friendship ; but on the whole it seems to be the latter. There is an element of agreeable antagonism in it that precludes monotony-. Grey and Blythe had several points in common, and were, therefore, no examples of either theory- ; this yvas also the case yvith Grey and Needham : but Needham and Blythe were in character, tastes, and opinions as opposite as the poles. It was yvonder ful to Grey, whose studies did not include that of human nature (yvhich, indeed, is a very isolated branch of know ledge i to see hoyv yvell these two "got on" together. It was, indeed, Blythe's nature to make himself agreeable to neyv acquaintances. They aroused yvithin him a certain social ambition ; he delighted in making them captives to his bow and spear, as sportsmen delight in killing all the strange creatures they come across; and after a little he also generally desired to kill them.

When he came to the end of them — that is his end — he dropped them, and resented the fact that he had throyvn away his attentions upon such undeserving objects ; but he did it with such skill that they seldom felt they yvere dropped. They continued to admire him long after he had found them intolerable. But Grey, yvho knew him yvell (though by no means so well as he imagined) had learned to dis tinguish the false from the true in his friend's manner, and saw that he yvas genuinely pleased with his new acquaintance. He had not thought it yvould have been so, or he would have introduced him to Needham long ago ; for he himself had been more or less intimate yvith both ever since he had been at Cambridge. A great advantage, though one little dwelt upon in a University course, is that it places men upon the same plane, notwithstanding all inequalities of fortune, which never happens in later life.

A curate on fifty pounds a y-ear, it is true, dines with the lord of the manor, even if he is a real lord, but it is well understood that his equality with him, so far as it goes, and that is not very far, is official and not personal ; but one undergraduate is exactly equal to another undergraduate, save in a few snobbish circles such as may, mathematically speaking be "disregarded." Grey had made Needham's acquaintance in the lecture-room of St. Boniface, yvhere they had both distinguished themselves ; but to the other's surprise Needham had not sat for a scholarship at his oyvn college, but taken one at St. Neot's. When asked why he had migrated, he had modestly replied because the ordeal at the smaller college yvas less difficult. " I yvas not so sure of success in the one case as I yvas in the other, and success yvas necessary to me ; I could not support myself at the University without it."

Grey kneyv that Needham yvas a sizar, yvhich at the date of our story it was not a pleasant thing to be. Sizars are poor scholars who at a University ought to be thought no less of upon that account, but in return for the bounty it bestowed upon them, it treated them worse than poor relations are treated by millionaires. They dined after the other undergraduates, and yvere subjected to various humilia tions, yvhich in reality degraded their Alma Alater and not them. It yvas a time yvhen for certain extra fees a rich undergraduate might wear a goyyn sprinkled yvith silver, and be called a fellow-commoner. These disgusting dif ferences — the offspring of snobbism in the very last place yvhere it ought to have been found — have long been done away yvith, and even while they existed, it yvas to the credit of University men that they were generally ignored.

A man like Grey yvas entirely unmoved by them ; and so indeed yvas Blythe, though he himself yvas a felloyv-commoner ; the altogether different circle in yvhich the latter moved had, hoyvever. prevented his having any acquaintance yvith Need ham, whereas their common studies had brought the other two together. When a sizar became a scholar his sizarship disappeared, and Grey hoped that Needham yvould have gained that position at St. Boniface. He thought his migration to St. Neot's had been a mistake. " You could cer tainly have got a scholarship at St. Boniface, my dear felloyv." he said. " Why you know tyvice as much as I do about everything." This yvas really true to a certain extent ; the other's range of reading even for his years (for, as has been said, he yvas older yvhen he " came up " to Cambridge than most fresh men) yvas enormous.

" Of classics for instance," said Needham, smiling, and like Blythe he had a very attractive smile, though of a different kind. " Well, you are about as good as I am in classics, and as to mathematics and all the rest of it, everybody savs " and then he stopped, for he had a practical mind, and he felt that " all the rest of it " yvould not be of much service in a college examination. Here Needham laughed outright. "Everybody is not an examiner, unfortunately," he replied, " and nobody knows better than myself that mv mathematics are uncommonly shaky. As for ' all the rest of it' I am afraid my reading, like the eating on a sheep's head, has been very ' promiscuous,' but much less filling." " But how did you find time for all your reading? " " Well, I suppose it was because I had so much other work to do.

It is the hard worked ones you knoyv who always have the most leisure." "At all events it is the idle ones who never have any," admitted Grey. His thoughts reverted to Blythe, who did not pretend to ' read,' and yet declared he had never time for anything. His mother complained of him, and with justice, that his letters, though feyv and far between, seldom exceeded half a dozen lines. " And the converse of that, so far as my experience goes, is true," said Needham. " I don't read now nearly so much as I did at Langton, yvhere I was an usher in a school, and had no time to myself till all the boys had gone to bed." "An usher!" echoed Grey, with undisguised astonishment. "That must have been a hard life." " There are doubtless many harder, but it was certainly — to me — a very disagreeable one.

An excellent uncle whom I had never seen left me a feyv hundred pounds, yvhich reclaimed me from slavery, and here I am with some of it still, comparatively ' a prosperous gentleman.' " "It must seem so by comparison. 'The boy,' judging from my own experience, is rather a terrible person, though I have known men who have taken kindly to teaching." " You are thinking of masters at public schools. Langton was very different : it is a poor place and quite unknoyvn. But there are boys and boys. When I came ayvay the poor little felloyvs gave me this. It does not look very valuable, but I would not part yvith it for 50/. Needham took out of his desk a roll of coloured parch ment, a humble sort of illuminated address, adorned also with those "flourishes" of the pen that were at one time thought highly of in commercial circles.

It set forth in a few words that the undersigned deeply regretted that Air. George Needham was about to leave them, after which followed a number of juvenile signatures, by no means of the same high class of caligraphy. The very simplicity of the testimonial proved its genuineness, and had a touching effect. " Fifty pounds ! " exclaimed Grey, earnestly. " If such a thing had been given to me I yvould not part with it for a thousand." "That is just my feeling," yvas the quiet reply. "My fifty pounds represents your thousand." Grey flushed to the forehead. Though no reproof had been intended, his nature yvas as sensitive yvith respect to others as that of most people is as regards themselves. He felt as if he oyved some reparation to Needham for being so much better endowed by fortune, for. though not destined to be a rich man like his friend Blvthe, he would be, and indeed was, very comfortably provided for.

His admiration was ex cited bv the other's content with his present, as well as bv the energv which had secured it. He felt a certain pitv for him, which, perhaps. did him no credit, and was " I would not part with it for a thousand." certainlythrown away. The son of humble parents, Needham had been left an orphan yvhen he yvas still a boy, and had "fended" for himself ever since. He yvas not ambitious, and the life of " learned leisure " that exactly suited him, yvas already in a fair yvay of being realised. But from the day in yvhich the poor scholar had told him his story the tyvo became fast friends. In consequence of Needham's migration to St. Neot's, they did not, however, meet very often, and it had never struck Grey to introduce him to Blythe. They yvere in such very different " sets," and he had a suspicion that they would not have appreciated one another.

In this, however, it yvas clear he had been mistaken. They got on together famously. Needham lent Blythe his pick, and showed him how to use it. His mind, it is true, was utterly unfitted for scientific inquiry. He kneyv no difference between Eocene and Aliocene ; and when he was told that "the Bournemouth beds" were cooler than those of London, ventured from his limited personal experience to doubt it, which amused his geological friend exceedingly. The cliffs at Barton are never drawn blank as regards specimens, and those which Blythe found sometimes, even before thev yvere pointed out to him by his new tutor, delighted him. It was really for once a good day's fishing. If he did not take Cardita elegans or Chama squamosa for what thev were, he knew a shark's tooth when he saw it, and he was so good as to admit that there was " something in the thing" — meaning, I am afraid, the science of geology — after all.

He even came upon what Needham called " a perfect specimen of the work of prehistoric man " in the shape — or approximately in the shape — of a hatchet: but, as it had no handle, and was not highly polished, being stained yellow yvith iron incrustations, this " interesting relic of evidently Paleolithic origin" did not obtain his immediate recognition. This incredulity, exaggerated perhaps for effect, and expressed with a great deal of humour, tickled Needham exceedingly. Blythe appeared to him almost in the light of a new specimen, though, it is true, of a late " period." It was pleasant to see how the impression thus produced was welcomed by Grey, and the more so since it had hardly been expected. We like our friend, but rarely our friend's friend. The logic of Euclid does not apply to these social matters.

Things that are similar to the same thing are similar to one another, but in the case of persons it is not so ; or rather they may have some point of similarity, and yet may be altogether unsympathetic. Needham and Blythe yvere both frank and natural in their way, but there all similarity ended ; and even in their naturalness there yvas a difference : in that of Blythe there was less of genuineness ; he yvas frank because it yvas less trouble than to have any concealment rather than from open ness of disposition, and his manner yvas so attractive that in speaking his mind he seldom gave offence. He seemed to yvear his heart upon his sleeve, but in reality it was only a cognizance. He had not a particle of shyness, and though he possessed a great deal of self confidence he had no self consciousness.