The Don and the Undergraduate: A Tale of St Hilary's College, Oxford

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Contents

CHAP.

I. THE COMMON-ROOM MEETING II. TWO MEMBERS OF THE COMMON-ROOM III. A YOUNG LADY AND A YOUNG GENTLEMAN

IV. THE SHOOTING-PARTY V. THE dean's accident VI. BACK TO THE COLLEGE VIL IN THE dean's ROOM VIII. SEARCHINGS OF HEART IX. M'GREGOR to THE RESCUE X. A WALK TO KENNINGTON XI. IN MCGREGOR'S ROOMS XII. EASTER TERM

Chapter I. The Common-room Meeting

There was a division of opinion in the Common-room of St Hilary's when it met on the Saturday morning to discuss the overnight outrage.

The Dean stigmatised the proceedings as another instance of the growing tendency to profanity that he had long noticed and deplored in the undergraduate world. But then the Dean was one of a minority of archaeologists who upheld the theory that the figures in the quadrangle represented Cain and Abel.

" You call it desecration, do you, Dean ? " observed the senior Classical Tutor ; " well, yes, it is a desecration of an artistic antiquity. Young men who expend so much energy on a very inferior reproduction of the Olympic games might really be expected to show a higher sense of decency."

A

" Decency ! *' struck in the youngest member of the Common-room — to whose brilliant coaching of the Honour Moderation candidates the College was indebted for its recent successes in the Schools — "well, if you come to decency, you know, I am almost inclined to say that there is a slight improvement in that respect. A coat of paint is better than no coat at all, — at least so our ancestors thought."

Men who are sufficiently original to strike out a line of their own are seldom popular in general society. And yet it would be a mistake to suppose that Charles Ingram was an unpopular member of the community. In the first place, the College was distinctly proud of him ; and it was acknowledged to be a great feather in the St Hilary's cap to have secured the services of the most distinguished scholar of his day. Then, again, even the Bursar — albeit he had been heard to remark that the lines which Ingram had struck out for himself were especially designed to run athwart his colleagues' prejudices — was fain to admit that the young man had a very pretty conceit of his own, and that his judgments, if somewhat crudely expressed, generally turned out sound in the long-run. Hence it had come to pass, that though the Common-room as a body conceived it to be its duty to suppress the ill-timed frivolity of the junior member; though the President was in virtue of his character as well as his office more highly revered, and the Dean more warmly loved, in matters where common-sense was required, Ingram's advice was in private frequently sought by his elder colleagues.

" My ancestors came in with the Norman Conquest, thank you, Ingram," replied the senior Classical Tutor somewhat stiffly; " they dropped the De in the Tudor period."

"Ah, mine didn't; they were ancient Britons, and dropped their h's somewhere in the present century."

The murmur of disapprobation that greeted the flippant remark was checked by the President turning to the Bursar.

" I think that you had occasion to remark some disturbance in the quadrangle at a late hour of the night ? "

The Bursar assented.

" Have you any notion who the offending party was ? "

" Notion ! I have something more than a notion. The offender was that Australian giant, Ronald, who seems to possess the power of making more noise than any other six young men."

"What kind of noise?"

" Inane bellowings at unseasonable hours. I spoke to him about it once, and he had the impertinence to tell me that he was really obliged to let off the steam after a long spell of reading."

" Reading," said the President, meditatively. " I think I am right in saying that Mr Ronald was a candidate for honours in Mathematical Moderations ; is it not so, Lewis ? "

" I have been told something of the sort," answered the person addressed, who filled the office of Mathematical Lecturer ; " but as he has never taken me into his confidence, and never taken the trouble to attend any of my lectures, I really cannot undertake to speak more definitely on the matter. In any case, I should prophesy a gulf."

" Probably only an excuse for inane bellowings," chimed in the Bursar. " I don't see much occasion for laughing, Ingram."

" I was not laughing, my dear Bursar ; I was only smiling at the idea of your connecting our good friend Lewis's mathematical calculations with the young aboriginal's inane bellowing, and thinking that if non-attendance at lectures is a cardinal sin, I must be a sinner of the deepest dye. I can only recollect attending four lectures in my whole undergraduate career."

"And pray why was that?" inquired the Bursar.

" ^PXV y^P '^^ ^Ti, is all I can say," replied Ingram, languidly. "I really can't supply any particular reason; partly self-conceit, I suppose, and partly either laziness or doubt as to the efficiency of the lecturer. However, it has turned out all right in the long-run in my case, so we'll hope for the best for Mr Ronald."

The Bursar shrugged his shoulders, and Lewis murmured something unintelligible.

" At any rate, gentlemen," resumed the President, after a whispered consultation with the Dean, " I think that as this young man was in evidence in the quadrangle at a late hour of the night, it would be as well to have him in and — eh — interrogate him as to whether he had any part or parcel in this — ah — outrage."

George Ronald, who shortly appeared before the Common-room, was a tall upstanding young fellow, with crisp curling hair and steel-grey eyes. The firm

■0^ lines of the mouth seemed to tell a tale of strong will and perhaps latent temper. But frank and cordial manners, coupled with a general readiness to oblige, had won him golden opinions in the undergraduate community; nor could it be said that anything to his discredit had been recorded in the College books. No one except the President appeared to know much about his antecedents, except that he had been born and bred in the Antipodes, and had an apparently unlimited command of money. Though the Mathematical Tutor resented not so much the non-attendance at lectures as the fact that, in the face of his persistent absence, the young man should have ventured to pose as a candidate for mathematical honours; though the Bursar was occasionally irritated by what he was pleased to term " inane bellowings at unseasonable hours," — not one of the Dons could deny that Ronald's manners and general demeanour towards those in authority left nothing to be desired. Moreover, he had fairly won the Dean's heart by the ready liberality with which he had not only furthered a scheme for sending an old college servant who was taken ill on a sea-voyage, but had even furnished the wherewithal for a winter in Australia. At the house of the President, who in years gone by had known his father, George Ronald was a frequent and evidently not unwelcome visitor.

In a few minutes Ronald appeared before his judges.

Never having been Common-roomed before, he had very vague ideas of the attitude he was expected to assume under the circumstances. So he stood twiddling his cap and looking very hard at the

President, who dipped his pen into the massive silver inkpot preparatory to taking notes of the evidence, and assumed his most judicial, and therefore his most unfortunate, manner.

" If I am correctly informed, Mr Ronald," he began, "your voice was heard raised to a very high pitch in the quadrangle last night ? "

Ronald bowed assent.

*' Somewhere about or even after midnight, I believe ? "

Ronald bowed again.

"In fact the — ah — evidence goes to show that you were one of the last people moving in the College last night ? "

"The Bursar was moving, sir; he spoke to me out of his window, and I saw a light in his room more than an hour after that."

There was a general movement of disapprobation in the Common-room. Every one looked at the Bursar, who took off his spectacles, and, laying them on the table with great deliberation, apparently tried to stare Ronald out of countenance.

" I don't quite see the relevancy of that remark, Mr Ronald," he said at last. " You hardly mean, I hope, to insinuate that I was in any way connected with this disgraceful damage to the College property?"

" I only said that you were moving as late as I was, sir," replied Ronald; "and I don't fancy that much damage has been done to the College property ; the first shower of rain will put that all right."

The Bursar glared at him.

" We will drop this — eh — discussion, Mr Ronald, if you please," said the President, with much severity. ** Your remarks are wholly irrelevant, and highly — ah — derogatory to the — eh — dignity of the College. The present point at issue is — eh — what you were doing in the quadrangle at that hour of the night, apart from the unnecessary noise that you were making."

" I was merely taking the air, sir."

For the moment the President was nonplussed. Even the College regulations, which Ingram had once described as "a set of petty rules purposely designed to irritate," did not positively forbid a student to take the air at any particular hour of the day or night.

Recovering himself, however, after a short pause, he put a leading question.

" I will ask you this, Mr Ronald. Do you know anything whatever of this disgraceful — eh — disfigurement of the College statue ? "

Ronald hesitated before replying to the question ; then he said briefly, " I am afraid that I must decline to answer you in that, sir."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the President. "Then I am afraid, Mr I%)nald, that the — ah — College will have to use means to — ah — compel you to answer; in fact, to resort to — ah — coercive measures." And he looked round the room for encouragement.

It was interesting to observe the attitude of the different members of the conclave. The Bursar's face wore an expression of undisguised satisfaction. " Here," it seemed to say, " is something tangible at last. You have disturbed my rest, my young friend, by your inane bellowings; you have almost insinuated that I myself was implicated in this nefarious fc* proceeding. But the day of reckoning has come. Va victis!'' The Dean, who had been a silent though deeply interested spectator of the proceedings, was apparently engrossed in mending a pen. The Mathematical Lecturer seemed to be working out some abstract problem in his head ; the senior Classical Tutor looked, as indeed he felt, profoundly bored ; and Ingram murmured sotto voce, " Can't expect a man to incriminate himself."

Ronald's cheek flushed slightly at the mention of coercive measures, but there was no trace of excitement in his voice.

" May I ask, sir, in what manner you — that is,

the College purposes to compel me to answer your question, and why I should be compelled to answer?"

" The College, Mr Ronald," §aid the President in his most judicial tone, " is not called upon to give its reasons to any undergraduate. However, I will say that your refusal, or — ah — your unwillingness to answer the question, points to the fact that you were either the author of the outrage or at all events a party to it. And the College haAhe power either to gate you or to send you down for one or more terms, even for a whole year."

"Or strike your name off the books," whispered, the Bursar, anxious that the mention of the extreme penalty of the law should not be omitted.

The President frowned at the interpolation. Only once in the course of five-and-twenty years' office had he been called upon to pronounce the sentence of final expulsion, and he shrank from any allusion to a most painful circumstance.

" Yes, or take your name off the books," he went on nervously ; " a very serious matter. And so, Mr Ronald," more cheerfully, " I must ask you to reconsider and give me an answer to — ah — the previous question."

The President had spoken slowly and deliberately as was his wont, so that Ronald had had time to make up his mind. The apparently malevolent suggestion made by the Bursar — though the undergraduate world had occasion to know that there was not really a spice of malevolence in his nature — had upset the equilibrium of the young man's temper.

" I can save the College some trouble, sir. If it is pig-headed and obstinate enough to make mountains out of mole-hills, and to suppose that , I should be mixed up in a silly sort of schoolboy business, the sooner that the College and myself part company the better. I will take my own name off the books, sir, at once. Good morning."

Had a bombshell suddenly exploded in the Common-room it could hardly have created greater consternation. There was no doubt but that for the moment the youne man was master of the situation. It was an unprecedented act for an undergraduate to dispute the authority of that august body, the College. This authority Ronald had quietly thrown off like a wet rag, declining to be any longer beholden to it.

The members of the Common-room simply sat still and stared at each other and at the rebel alternately, as if doubting the accuracy of their own sense of hearing. A minute before they had had before them a culprit to chastise or censure at discretion ; now they felt themselves to be in the presence of a free and independent citizen who had criticised their policy in plain terms. Ronald had paused, with his hand on the handle of the door.

" Stop for one moment, if you please, Mr Ronald," exclaimed the Dean, who was the first to recover his self-possession.

Ronald stopped.

*** With your permission, Mr President," continued the Dean. The President nodded, and the Dean went on. ** The question of taking your name off the books, Mr Ronald, does not fall within your province. No undergraduate can remove his name firom the College books without the full knowledge and consent of his father or, in your case, his guardian. Is it not so, Mr President ? "

The President assented.

" Such being the case, Mr Ronald, I will ask you to be kind enough to put on paper your guardian's present address."

Ronald, who had by this time got the upper hand of his temper, smiled.

" I happen to have it in my pocket, sir," he said quietly; ** allow me," and he handed the Dean a card —

Mr George Ronald,

St Hilary's College,

Oxford.

" But you have given me your own card, Mr Ronald ? "

THE COMMON-ROOM MEETING. II

"Yes, sir; I am my own guardian."

" Since ? "

" Since Wednesday last, sir, when I came of age."

The members of the Common-room again exchanged looks of blank astonishment. The Dean's trump-card had failed.

" I should just like to say, sir," said Ronald, as he prepared to leave the room, addressing himself more particularly to the President, " that I am afraid that my language was hardly respectful just now; in fact I spoke hastily. I should like you to understand that I was alluding to the College rather in the abstract, and I should be sorry to leave the impression that the epithets which I unfortunately employed could in any way be construed as applying to any individual. You have been especially kind to me yourself, sir," — here he bowed to the President, — " and you too, sir," — bowing to the Dean, — " and in fact I do not bear any ill-will to any of you, gentlemen. I will leave a blank cheque for my battels, sir," — here he addressed the Bursar, — " and I hope that you will add to the amount any sum that you may think sufficient for restoring the statues, — which you evidently think that I decorated — to their — ah — primitive nudity, or for gilding them if you think proper." And, with this parting shot, Ronald made his exit.

"Well, I'm d d," muttered the Bursar, who,

being a lay Fellow, was wont under strong provocation to revert to the strong language which had been rather in vogue on the towing-path at the time that he was rowing in the University eight.

Fortunately his remark was only overheard by the junior member, who, after a momentary struggle to keep his countenance, fairly exploded with laughter.

" I really beg your pardon, Mr President," he explained, as he recovered, "but a remark that the Bursar made was so extremely apropos to the situation, and seemed so exactly to express our feelings, that it was too much for me."

" Yes, Bursar ? " said the President interrogatively; and every one looked at the Bursar.

Feeling himself constrained to say something, the Bursar grew very red in the face, and stammered out, " That young man carried his head very high : there is an old saying about pride going before a fall."

The lameness of this remark was palpable.

" Not very original, Bursar," said the Dean, with some severity ; " or very apposite, Mr Ingram. Unfortunately in this case the fall seems to have come first." Then after a pause he added, in a very despondent tone, ** I don't quite see how we could have acted differently under the circumstances, gentlemen, but I misdoubt me we have made a poor morning's work of it. The young man was a very promising member of the College in many ways. I could almost have wished, my dear Bursar, that you had been a little less wakeful last night."

This produced an angry expostulation from the Bursar, which was cut short by the President, who had strong private reasons for sympathising with the Dean's views.

"We may, I think, consider the incident closed," he remarked, slowly rising from his chair, — ** closed at least for the present," he added. " Perhaps later on there may be further developments."

THE COMMON-ROOM MEETING. I3

" That means Miss Daisy," whispered Ingram to the Bursar.

" By Jove ! yes," was the answer ; " I clean forgot Daisy. There'll be the devil to pay when she hears of it."

" Come to my rooms presently if you've got a few minutes, will you, Ingram ? " said the Dean, as he followed the President.

Ingram nodded as he repeated the word " presently," and in another minute he and the Bursar were left alone in the room.

Chapter II. Two Members Of The Common-room

Ingram had drawn up a chair to the fireplace, and taking up a newspaper, made a pretence of reading it, whilst he narrowly watched the Bursar's proceedings. Outward and visible signs were not wanting to show that the latter was ill at ease. He walked up and down the room with his hands clasped behind his back for some five minutes; walked on until, catching his foot in the hearthrug, he stumbled violently against the table, upset the inkstand over the green baize cloth which was produced on these official occasions, and, in his effort to recover himself, knocked off his own spectacles and trod upon them. Finally, after making an ineffectual attempt to mop up the ink, greatly to the detriment of his hands and shirt-cuffs, he pulled at the bell so violently that the rope came down in his hand.

" Here, John," he said sharply to the astonished servant who answered the summons, "take this rope and see that it is put up properly, and have that mess cleaned up. No, stop; take away the cloth altogether, and see that a new cloth is got before the next meeting."

TWO MEMBERS OF THE COMMON-ROOM. 15

" Am I to charge it to you or to Mr Ingram, sir ? "

"To me, of course; take the thing away at once, John. Pheugh, the place reeks of ink."

"Wouldn't it be as well," suggested Ingram, as the servant left the room, "to charge it to Mr Ronald's battels account? He seemed to be in a particularly liberal frame of mind this morning."

" Impudent young rascal ! " exclaimed the Bursar. " Did you ever hear such an impertinent remark ? "

" Well," drawled Ingram, putting down the paper," it might have been impertinence, or, again, it might have been good-nature. I have been told that he is a very open-handed youth. But you seem disturbed, my dear Bursar. Surely Shylock ought to be satisfied with his pound of flesh. Besides, he even gave Antonio the rope with which to hang himself."

"Look here, Ingram," exclaimed the Bursar, stopping short in his peregrinations, which he had resumed after the disappearance of the table-cloth, " I hope that you don't consider me responsible for this — this horrid fiasco. For goodness' sake, man, speak in plain English, and don't talk nonsense about Shylock and Antonio."

" Fiasco, my dear Bursar, is hardly the term to use. Let us keep fiasco for something that involves no particular result. Now I contend that the results in this case have been rather startling — rather out of proportion to the matter at issue. Shall we try catastrophe ? "

" I don't particularly desire a lesson in euphemism, thank you, Ingram. Look here, my dear fellow, I know that you are only trying to irritate me, and

I simply decline to be irritated. You can be sensible enough when you like, and I want you to be sensible now, and talk over this matter quietly."

"Sit down, then, like a rational creature," answered Ingram, pushing a chair toward him; "you can't expect any one to talk sensibly to a man who persists in walking round the room like a raving lunatic."

The Bursar laughed, and seated himself.

" I really don't see that I am in any way responsible for that young man's extraordinary behaviour," he presently remarked; "why on earth could not the young donkey have answered a plain question, instead of flying off at a tangent ? "

" If it was a plain question, it was a most injudicious one. Bursar. I regret to say that the dear old Head, who is thoroughly right-minded, and has the very best intentions, is to all intents and ff^ purposes what Mr Ronald would call pig-headed to a degree as a cross-examiner, and the question he expected Ronald to answer was simply — well — idiotical."

" I don't agree with you at all, Ingram. It was a very simple question, and wanted a very simple answer. Don't you think, my good fellow, that it is you who are making mountains out of mole-hills ? "

" Perhaps so," said Ingram, carelessly ; " different men often do see things in different lights."

The short silence that followed was broken by Ingram, who had apparently returned to the study of his newspaper.

"I say. Bursar," he said abruptly, "were you ever by any chance given to somnambulism ? "

" God bless my heart ! no," exclaimed the Bursar,

TWO MEMBERS OF THE COMMON-ROOM. I7

" what on earth made you ask such an extraordinary question ? "

"Oh, nothing in particular; curiosity perhaps," answered Ingram, quietly putting down his paper. " It's a curious thing, though. Bursar, that the — ah — evidence, as the President would say, seems to point to either Ronald or yourself as the author of this — ah — outrage. You seem to have been the last two people known to be moving in the College last night, which is in itself a — ah — highly suspicious circumstance: then, when you come to take previous character into consideration, we must put against Ronald's inane bellowings your occasional employment of — eh — forcible

language I beg your pardon, I didn't catch

that remark ? "

The Bursar, who was breathing hard, certainly said something. He did not, however, feel called upon to repeat it.

" Go on, sir," he said, stiffly.

"Well, then," continued Ingram, "we come to the question of destructiveness ; and having quite lately seen your performances in this room, my dear Bursar, before we go any further into the matter, I should like to ask you, quite between ourselves you know, — in fact I will promise you that your answer shall go no farther, — just this one question. Do you know an5i:hing whatever of this — ah — disgraceful disfigurement of the College statue? "

The wrath which the Bursar had been bottling up during Ingram's discourse, delivered in exact imitation of the President's style, with great de-

B liberation and occasional pauses, came out with a run at last.

"What the devil do you mean, sir? Do you mean to deliberately insult me ? How dare you ? "

The sentence was never completed; for, looking at Ingram, who had risen from his chair and was now standing with his back to the fire, the Bursar could not help noticing that he was shaking with suppressed laughter. For the moment indignation gave way to bewilderment ; then the light suddenly dawned upon the Bursar, and as he grasped the situation he jumped up from his chair, and, clapping Ingram heartily on the back, burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

'* Not such a very simple question after all, eh, Bursar?" said Ingram presently. " Under the circumstances as I conceive them to be, I hardly see what other answer Ronald could have been expected to give. Of course I am not going to compare the position of an undergraduate member of the College with that of our esteemed friend the Bursar. But, as even you will admit, they have some points in common — bones, blood, feelings, and a sense of justice and injustice. And, after all, I only asked you in private the identical question which our worthy Head thrust down the throat of a high-spirited young fellow before the whole Common-room. Why, my dear Bursar, if you had been in^ Ronald's position, the whole world itself would not have contained the bad words you would have spoken. Ronald's answer was, I contend, the sole possible answer under the circumstances."

TWO MEMBERS OF THE COMMON-ROOM. IQ

" Of course you are assuming that he had nothing to do with the statue ? "

" Most certainly he had nothing to do with it as far as manual labour went. I will even go so far as to say he had neither planned it nor sanctioned it, but my firm impression is that he knew all the time who the real offender was, so that in the matter of giving a definite answer he found himself in a worse position than — well, shall we say — than the Bursar of the College found himself just now."

The Bursar pondered for a moment.

" Awkward, certainly ; very awkward, if your hypothesis is correct. But I don't quite see, Ingram, that you have anything much to go on."

" There are none so blind as those who will not see," was the answer; "and when a responsible official of the College deliberately deprives himself at a critical moment of those adventitious aids to eyesight which are commonly called spectacles, he is morally guilty of wilful blindness. As it happens, I was watching Ronald's face very particularly, and I am sure that his first impulse was to say * No ' flatly, and then he remembered something, and changed his mind. I am absolutely certain, then, in my own mind, that some way or another, accidentally perhaps, he does know something more than we know, but beyond that is as innocent as you or I are."

" Perhaps you are right, Ingram ; " and the Bursar spoke with the air of a man partially convinced. " But to change the subject, will you kindly explain to me why first the Dean, and then you yourself, with your Shakespeare jargon, should apparently saddle me with responsibility for what, with your permission, I shall continue to call a fiasco, brought about partly, as you now say, -by the President's incompetency, and partly by a young fool's stupid — well — determination to commit suicide ? "

" Simply, my dear Bursar, because, in all innocency, you supplied the rope for the aforesaid young fool to hang himself with, and, most unfortunately, put into the old man's mouth a threat that would otherwise never have suggested itself to him. When you come to think of it, Ronald could hardly have gated himself or sent himself down for a term. But he simply jumped at your suggestion of taking his name off the books, just as a man who was looking for some instrument to cut his own throat with would jump at the offer of a razor."