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Roy Glashan's Library
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"Johnny Ludlow" was the name used by Ellen Wood as the by-line for a series of 90 popular stories and serial novels published in the British monthly Argosy, which she bought in 1867 and edited under her married name, Mrs. Henry Wood. The first story signed by and featuring "Johnny Ludlow" appeared in January 1868, the last in January-June 1891.
Six collections of stories in the series were published in book form. The first story, "Shaving the Ponies' Tails," was not included in any of these collections, presumably because some elements of the narrative and characterization are atypical in comparison with the rest of the series. The 48th story, "Fred Temple's Warning," was also omitted.
—Roy Glashan
IT was Friday night at the Oxford terminus, and all the world scrambling for cabs. Sir John and the Squire, nearly lifted off their legs, and too much taken aback to fight for themselves, stood against the wall, thinking the community had gone suddenly mad. Bill Whitney and Tod, tall, strong young fellows, able to hold their own anywhere, secured a cab at length, and we and our luggage got in and on it.
"To the Mitre."
"If this is a specimen of Oxford manners, the sooner the lads are at home the better," growled the Squire. Sir John Whitney was settling his spectacles on his nose—nearly lost off it in the scuffle.
"Snepp told me it was a regular shindy at the terminus the first day of term, with all the students coming back," said Bill Whitney.
There had been no end of discussion as to our college career. Sir John Whitney said William must go to Oxford, as he had been at Oxford himself; whereas Brandon stood out against Oxford for me; would not hear of it. He preferred Cambridge he said: and to Cambridge Johnny Ludlow should go: and he, as my guardian, had full power over me. The Squire cared not which university was chosen; but Tod went in for Oxford with all his strong will: he said the boating was best there. The result was that Mr. Brandon gave way, and we were entered at Christchurch.
Mr. Brandon had me at his house for two days beforehand, giving me counsel. He had one of his bad colds just then and kept his room, and his voice was never more squeaky. The last evening, I sat up there with him while he sipped his broth. The fire was large enough to roast us, and he had three flannel night-caps on. It was that night that he talked to me most. He believed with all his heart, he said, that the temptations to young men were greater at Oxford than at Cambridge; that, of the two, the more reckless set of men were there: and that was one of the reasons why he had objected to Oxford for me. And then he proceeded to put the temptations pretty strongly before me, and did not mince things, warning me that it would require all the mental and moral strength I possessed to resist them, and steer clear of a course of sin and shame. He then suddenly opened the Bible, which was on the table at his elbow, and read out a line or two from the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomy.
"'See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.'"
"That's what I have been striving to set before you, Johnny Ludlow. Read that chapter, the whole of it, often; treasure its precepts in your heart; and may God give you grace to keep them!"
He shook hands with me in silence. I took up my candle and waited a moment, for I thought he was going to speak again.
"Will you try to keep them, lad?"
"I will try, sir."
We were fortunate in getting good rooms at Christchurch. Tod's and mine were close together; Bill Whitney's on the floor above. Our sitting-room was pleasant; it had an old cracked piano in it, which turned out to be passably fair when it had been tinkered and tuned. The windows looked out on the trees of the Broad Walk and to the meadows beyond; but trees are bare in winter, and the month was January. I had never stayed at Oxford before: and I saw that I should like it, with its fine, grand old colleges. The day after we got there, Saturday, we wrote our names in the dean's book, and saw our tutor. The rest of the day was spent in seeing about battels and getting into the new ways. Very new to us. A civil young fellow, who waited on us as scout, was useful; they called him "Charley" in the college. Tod pulled a long face at some of the rules, and did not like the prospect of unlimited work.
"I'll go in for the boating and fishing and driving, Johnny; and you can go in for the books."
"All right, Tod." I knew what he meant. It was not that he did not intend to take a fair amount of work: but to exist without a good share of out-of-door life also, would have been hard lines for Tod.
The Sunday services were beautiful. The first Sunday of
term was a high day, and the cathedral was filled. Orders of
admission to the public were not necessary that day, and a
general congregation mixed with the students. Sir John and
the Squire were staying at the Mitre until Monday. After
service we went to promenade in the Broad Walk—and it
seemed that everybody else went.
"Look there!" cried the Squire, "at this tall clergyman coming along. I am sure he is one of the canons of Worcester."
It was Mr. Fortescue—Honourable and Reverend. He halted for a minute to exchange greetings with Sir John Whitney, whom he knew, and then passed on his way.
"There's some pretty girls about, too," resumed the Squire, gazing around. "Not that I'd advise you boys to look much at them. Wonder if they often walk here?"
Before a week had gone by, we were quite at home; had
shaken down into our new life as passengers shake down in
their places in an omnibus; and made lots of friends. Some I
liked; some I did not like. There was one fellow always
coming in—a tall dark man with crisp hair; his name
Richardson. He had plenty of money and kept dogs and horses,
and seemed to go in for every kind of fast life the place
afforded. Of work he did none; and report ran that he was
being watched by the proctor, with whom he was generally in
hot water. Altogether he was not in good odour: and he had a
way of mocking at religion as though he were an atheist.
"I heard a bit about Richardson just now," cried Whitney, one morning that he had brought his commons in to breakfast with us—and the fields outside were white with snow. "Mayhew says he's a scamp."
"Don't think he's much else, myself," said Tod. "I say, just taste this butter! It's shockingly strong. Wonder what it is made of?"
"Mayhew says he's a liar as well as a villain. There's no speaking after him. Last term a miserable affair occurred in the town; the authorities could not trace it home to Richardson though they suspected he was the black sheep. Lots of fellows knew he was: but he denied it out-and-out. I think we had better not have much to do with him."
"He entertains jolly well," said Tod. "Johnny, you've boiled these eggs too hard. And his funds seem to spring from some perpetual gold mine——"
The door opened, and two bull-dogs burst in, leaping and howling. Richardson—they were his—followed, with little Ford; the latter a quiet, inoffensive man, who stuck to his work.
"Be quiet, you two devils!" cried Richardson, kicking his dogs. "Lie down, will you? I say, I've a wine-coach on to-night in my rooms, after Hall. Shall be glad to see you all at it."
Considering the conversation he had broken in upon, none of us had a very ready answer at hand.
"I have heaps of letters to answer to-night, and must do it," said Whitney. "Thank you all the same."
Richardson might have read coolness in the tone; I don't know; but he turned the back of his chair on Bill to face Tod.
"You have not letters to write, I suppose, Todhetley?"
"Not I. I leave letters to Ludlow."
"You'll come, then?"
"Can't," said Tod candidly. "Don't mean to go in for wine-parties."
"Oh," said Richardson. "You'll tell another tale when you've been here a bit longer. Will you be still, you brutes?"
"Hope I shan't," said Tod. "Wine plays the very mischief with work. Should never get any done if I went in for it."
"Do you intend to go up for honours?" went on Richardson.
"'Twould be a signal failure if I did. I leave all that to Ludlow—as I said by the letters. See to the dogs, Richardson."
The animals had struck up a fight. Richardson secured the one and sent the other out with a kick. Our scout was coming in, and the dog flew at him. No damage; but a great row.
"Charley," cried Tod, "this butter's not fit to eat."
"Is it not, sir? What's the matter with it?"
"The matter with it?—everything's the matter with it."
"Is that your scout?" asked Richardson, when the man had gone again, holding his dog between his knees as he sat.
"Yes," said Tod. "And your dogs all but made mincemeat of him. You should teach them better manners."
"Serve him right if they had. His name's Tasson."
"Tasson, is it? We call him Charley here."
"I know. He's a queer one."
"How is he queer?"
"He's pious."
"He's what?"
"Pious," repeated Richardson, twisting his mouth. "A saint; a cant; a sneak."
"Good gracious!" cried Bill Whitney.
"You think I'm jesting! Ask Ford here. Tell it, Ford."
"Oh, it's true," said Ford: "true that he goes in for piety. Last term there was a freshman here named Carstairs. He was young; rather soft; no experience, you know, and he began to go the pace. One night this Charley, his scout, fell on his knees, and besought him with tears not to go to the bad; to pull up in time and remember what the end must be; and—and so on."
"What did Carstairs do?"
"Do! why turned him out," put in Richardson. "Carstairs, by the way, has taken his name off the books, or had to take it off."
"Charley is civil and obliging to us," said Whitney. "Never presumes."
How much of the tale was gospel we knew not; but for my own part, I liked Charley. There was something about him quite different from scouts and servants in general—and by the way, I don't think Charley was a scout, only a scout's help—but in appearance and diction and manner he was really superior. A slim, slight young fellow of twenty, with straight fine light hair and blue eyes, and a round spot of scarlet on his thin cheeks.
"I say, Charley, they say you are pious," began Bill Whitney that same day after lecture, when the man was bringing in the bread-and-cheese from the buttery.
He coloured to the roots of his light hair, and did not answer. Bill never minded what he said to any one.
"You were scout to Mr. Carstairs. Did you take his morals under your special protection?"
"Be quiet, Whitney," said Tod in an undertone.
"And constitute yourself his guardian-angel-in-ordinary? Didn't you go down on your knees to him with tears and sobs, and beseech him not to go to the bad?" went on Bill.
"There's not a word of truth in it, sir. One evening when Mr. Carstairs was lying on his sofa, tired and ill—for he was beginning to lead a life that had no rest in it, hardly, day or night, a folded slip of paper was brought in from Mr. Richardson, and Mr. Carstairs bade me read it to him. It was to remind him of some appointment for the night. Mr. Carstairs was silent for a minute, and then burst out with a kind of sharp cry, painful to hear. 'By Heaven, if this goes on, they'll ruin me, body and soul! I've a great mind not to go.' I did speak then, sir; I told him he was ill, and had better stay at home; and I said that it was easy enough for him to pull up then, but that when one got too far on the down-hill path it was more difficult."
"Was that all?" cried Whitney.
"Every word, sir. I should not have spoken at all but that I had known Mr. Carstairs before we came here. Mr. Richardson made a great deal of it, and gave it quite a different colouring."
"Did Mr. Carstairs turn you away for that?" I asked of Charley; when he came back for the things, and the other two had gone out.
"Three or four days after it happened, sir, Mr. Carstairs stopped my waiting on him again. I think it was through Mr. Richardson. Mr. Carstairs had refused to go out with him the evening it occurred."
"You knew Mr. Carstairs before he came to Oxford. Where was it?"
"It was——" he hesitated, and then went on. "It was at the school he was at in London, sir. I was a junior master there."
Letting a plate fall—for I was helping to pack them, wanting the table—I stared at the fellow. "A master there and——" and a servant here, I all but said, but I stopped the words.
"Only one of the outer masters, attending daily," he went on quietly. "I taught writing and arithmetic, and English to the juniors."
"But how comes it that you are here in this post, Charley?"
"I had reasons for wishing to come to live at Oxford, sir."
"But why not have sought out something better than this?"
"I did seek, sir. But nothing of the kind was to be had, and this place offered. There's many a one, sir, falls into the wrong post in life, and can never afterwards get into the right one."
"But—do you—like this?"
"Like it, sir; no! But I make a living at it. One thing I shall be always grateful to Mr. Carstairs for: that he did not mention where he had known me. I should not like it to be talked of in the college, especially by Mr. Richardson."
He disappeared with his tray as he spoke. It sounded quite mysterious. But I took the hint, and said nothing.
The matter passed. Charley did not put on any mentorship to us, and the more we saw of him the more we liked him. But an impression gradually dawned upon us that he was not strong enough for his place. Carrying a heavy tray upstairs would set him panting like an old man, and he could not run far or fast.
One day I was hard at work, Tod and Whitney being off
somewhere, driving tandem, when a queer, ugly-sounding cough
kept annoying me from outside: but whether it came from dog
or man I could not tell. Opening the door at last, there sat
Charley on the stairs, his head resting against the wall,
and his cheeks brighter than a red leaf in autumn.
"What, is it you, Charley? Where did you pick up that cough?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, starting up. "I thought your rooms were empty."
"Come in till the fit's over. You are in a regular draught there. Come along," for he hesitated—"I want to shut the door."
He came in, coughing finely, and I gave him the chair by the fire. It was nothing, he said, and would soon be gone. He had caught it a day or two back in the bleak east wind: the college was draughty, and he had to be on the run out-of-doors in all sorts of weather.
"Well, you know, Charley, putting east winds and draughts aside, you don't seem to be quite up to your work here in point of strength."
"I was up to it, sir, when I took it. It's a failing in some of our family, sir, to have weak lungs. I shall be all right again, soon."
The coughing was over, and he got up to go away, evidently not liking to intrude. There was a degree of sensitiveness about him that, of itself, might have shown he was superior to his position.
"Take a good jorum of treacle-posset, Charley, at bed-time."
SPRING weather came in with February. The biting cold and snow of January disappeared, and genial sunshine warmed the earth again. The first Sunday in this same February month, from my place at morning service, looking out on the townsfolk who had come in with orders, I saw a lady, very little and pretty, staring fixedly at me from afar. The face—where had I seen her face? It seemed familiar, but I could not tell how or where I had known it. A small slight face of almost an ivory white, and wide-open light blue eyes that had plenty of confidence in them.
Sophie Chalk! I should have recognized her at the first moment but for the different mode in which her hair was dressed. Wonderful hair! A vast amount of it, and made the most of. She wore it its natural colour to-day, brown, and the red tinge on it shone like burnished gold. She knew me; that was certain; and I could not help watching her. Her eyes went roving away presently, possibly in search of Tod. I stole a glance at him; but he did not appear to see her. What brought her to Oxford?
We got out of church. I took care to hold my tongue. Tod had cared for Sophie Chalk—there could be little doubt of it—as one never cares for anybody again in life: and it might be just as well—in spite of the exposé of mademoiselle's false ways and misdoings—that they did not meet. Syrens are syrens all the world over.
The day went on to a bright moonlight night. Tod and I, out for a stroll, were standing within the shade of the fine old Magdalen Tower, talking to a fellow of Trinity, when there came up a lady of delicate presence, the flowers in her bonnet exhaling a faint odour of perfume.
"I think I am not mistaken—I am sure—yes, I am sure it is Mr. Ludlow. And—surely that cannot be Mr. Todhetley?"
Tod wheeled round at the soft, false voice. The daintily gloved hand was held out to him; the fair, false face was bent close: and his own face turned red and white with emotion. I saw it even in the shade of the moonlight. Had she been strolling about to look for us? Most likely. A few moments more, and we were all three walking onwards together.
"Only fancy my position!" she gaily said. "Here am I, all forlorn, set down alone in this great town, and must take care of myself as I best can. The formidable gowns and caps frighten me."
"The gowns and caps will do you no harm—Miss Chalk," cried Tod—and he only just saved himself from saying "Sophie."
"Do you think not," she returned, touching the sleeve of her velvet jacket, as if to brush off a fly. "But I beg you will accord me my due style and title, Mr. Todhetley, and honour me accordingly. I am no longer Miss Chalk. I am Mrs. Everty."
So she had married Mr. Everty after all! She minced along between us in her silk gown, her hands in her ermine muff that looked made for a doll. At the private door of a shop in High Street she halted, rang the bell, and threw the door open.
"You will walk up and take a cup of tea with me. Nay, but you must—or I shall think you want to hold yourselves above poor little me, now you are grand Oxford men."
She went along the passage and up the stairs: there seemed no resource but to follow. In the sitting-room, which was very well furnished and looked out upon the street, a fire burned brightly; and a lamp and tea-things stood on the table.
"Where have you been?—keeping me waiting for my tea in this way! You never think of any one but yourself: never."
The querulous complaint, and thin, shrill voice came from a small dark girl who sat at the window, peering out into the lighted street. I had not forgotten the sharp-featured sallow face and the deep-set eyes. It was Mabel Smith, the poor little lame and deformed girl I had seen in Torriana Square. She really did not look much older or bigger, and she spoke as abruptly as ever.
"I remember you, Johnny Ludlow."
Mrs. Everty made the tea. Her dress, white one way, green the other, gleamed like silver in the lamplight. It had a quantity of white lace upon it: light green ribbons were twisted in her hair. "I should think it would be better to have those curtains drawn, Mabel. Your tea's ready: if you will come to it."
"But I choose to have the curtains open and I'll take my tea here," answered Mabel. "You may be going out again for hours, and what company should I have but the street? I don't like to be shut up in a strange room: I might see ghosts. Johnny Ludlow, that's a little coffee-table by the wall: if you'll put it here it will hold my cup and saucer."
I put it near her with her tea and plate of bread-and-butter.
"Won't you sit by me? I am very lonely. Those other two can talk to one another."
So I carried my cup and sat down by Mabel. The "other two," as Mabel put it, were talking and laughing. Tod was taking a lesson in tea-making from her, and she called him awkward.
"Are you living here?" I asked of Mabel under cover of the noise.
"Living here! no," she replied in her old abrupt fashion. "Do you think papa would let me be living over a shop in Oxford? My grandmamma lives near the town, and she invited me down on a visit to her. There was no one to bring me, and she said she would"—indicating Sophie—"and we came yesterday. Well, would you believe it? Grandmamma had meant next Saturday, and she could not take us in, having visitors already. I wanted to go back home; but she said she liked the look of Oxford, and she took these rooms for a week. Two guineas without fires and other extras: I call it dear. How came she to find you out, Johnny?"
"We met just now. She tells us she is Mrs. Everty now."
"Oh yes, they are married. And a nice bargain Mr. Everty has in her! Her dresses must cost twenty pounds apiece. Some of them thirty pounds! Look at the lace on that one. Mrs. Smith, papa's wife, gives her a good talking-to sometimes, telling her Mr. Everty's income won't stand it. I should think it would not!—though I fancy he has a small share in papa's business now."
"Do they live in London?"
"Oh yes, they live in London. Close to us, too! In one of the small houses in Torriana Street. She wanted to take a large house in the square like ours, but Mr. Everty was too wise."
Talking to this girl, my thoughts back in the past, I wondered whether Sophie's people had heard of the abstraction of Miss Deveen's emeralds. But it was not likely. To look at her now: watching her fascinating ease, listening to her innocent reminiscences of the time we had all spent together at Lady Whitney's, I might have supposed she had taken a dose of the waters of Lethe, and that Sophie Chalk had always been guileless as a child; an angel without wings.
"She has lost none of her impudence, Tod," I said as we went home. "In the old days, you know, we used to say she'd fascinate the hair off our heads, give her the chance. She'd wile off both ears as well now. A good thing she's married!"
Tod broke into a whistle, and went striding on.
Before the week was out, Sophie Chalk—we generally
called her by the old name—had become intimate with
some of the men of different colleges. Mabel Smith went to
her grandmother's, and Sophie had nothing to do but exhibit
her charms in the Oxford streets and entertain her friends.
The time went on. Hardly an evening passed but Tod was
there; Bill Whitney went sometimes; I rarely. Sophie did not
fascinate me, whatever she might do by others. Sophie
treated her guests to wine and spirits, and to unlimited
packs of cards. Bill Whitney said one night in a joking way
that he was not sure but she might be indicted for keeping a
private gaming-house. Richardson was one of her frequent
evening visitors, and she would let him take his bull-dogs
to make a morning call. There would be betting over the
cards in the evenings, and she did not attempt to object.
Sophie would not play herself; she dispersed her
fascinations amidst the company while they played, and sang
songs at the piano—one of the best pianos to be found
in Oxford. There set in a kind of furore for pretty Mrs.
Everty; the men who had the entrée there went wild over her
charms, and vied with each other in making her costly
presents. Sophie broke into raptures of delight over each
with the seeming simplicity of a child, and swept all into
her capacious net.
I think it was receiving those presents that was keeping her in Oxford; or helping to keep her. Some of them were valuable. Very valuable indeed was a set of diamonds, brooch and ear-rings, that soft young calf, Gaiton, brought her; but what few brains the viscount had were clean dazzled away by Sophie's attractions: and Richardson gave her a bejewelled fan that must have cost a small fortune. If Sophie Chalk did spend her husband's money, she was augmenting her stock of precious stones—and she had not lost her passion for them.
One morning my breakfast was brought in by a strange fellow, gloomy and grim. Tod had gone to breakfast with Mayhew.
"Where's Charley?" I asked.
"Sick," was the short answer.
"What's the matter with him?"
"Down with a cold, or something."
And we had this surly servant for ever so long to come: and I'm sorry to say got so accustomed to seeing his face as to forget sick Charley.
"WILL you go up the river for a row, Johnny?"
"I don't mind if I do."
The questioner was Bill Whitney; who had come in to look for Tod. I had nothing particular on hand that afternoon, and the skies were blue and the sun golden. So we went down to the river together.
"Where has Tod got to?" he asked.
"Goodness knows. I've not seen him since lecture this morning."
We rowed up to Godstowe. Bill disappeared with some friend of his from Merton's, who had watched us put in. I strolled about. Every one knows the dark pool of water there. On the bench under the foliage, so thick in summer, but bare yet in this early season, warm and sunny though it was, sat a man wrapped in a great-coat, whom I took at first to be a skeleton with painted cheeks. But one does not care to stare at skeletons, knowing they'd help their looks if they could; and I was passing him with my face turned the other way.
"Good-afternoon, sir."
I turned at the hollow words—hollow in sound as though they came out of a drum. It was Charley: the red paint on his thin cheeks was nothing but natural hectic, and the blue of his eyes shone painfully bright.
"Why, what's the matter, Charley?"
"A fly-man, who had to drive here and back, brought me with him for a mouthful of fresh air, it being so warm and bright. It is the first time I have been able to get out, sir."
"You are poorly, Charley." I had all but said "dying." But one can only be complimentary to a poor fellow in that condition.
"Very ill I have been, sir; but I'm better. At one time I never thought I should get up again. It's this beautiful warm weather coming in so early that has restored me."
"I don't know about restored? You don't look great things yet."
"You should have seen me a short while ago, sir! I'm getting on."
Lying by his side, on a piece of paper, was a thick slice, doubled, of bread-and-butter, that he must have brought with him. He broke a piece off, and ate it.
"You look hungry, Charley."
"That's the worst of it, sir; I'm always hungry," he answered, and his tone from its eagerness was quite painful to hear, and his eyes grew moist, and the hectic spread on his cheeks. "It is the nature of the complaint, I'm told: and poor mother was the same. I could be eating and drinking every hour, sir, and hardly be satisfied."
"Come along to the inn, and have some tea."
"No, sir; no, thank you," he said, shrinking back. "I answered your remark thoughtlessly, sir, for it's the truth; not with any notion that it would make you ask me to take anything. And I've got some bread-and-butter here."
Going indoors, I told them to serve him a good tea, with a big dish of bacon and eggs, or some relishing thing of that sort. Whitney came in and heard me.
"You be hanged, Johnny! We are not going in for all that, here!"
"It's not for us, Bill; it's for that poor old scout, Charley. He's as surely dying as that you and I are talking. Come and look at him: you never saw such an object. I don't believe he gets enough to eat."
Whitney came, and did nothing but stare. Charley went indoors with a good deal of pressing, and we saw him sit down to the feast. Whitney stayed; I went out-of-doors again.
I remembered a similar case. It was that of a young woman
who used to make Lena's frocks. She fell into a decline. Her
appetite was wonderful. Anything good and substantial to eat
and drink, she was always craving for: and it all seemed to
do her no good. Charley Tasson's sickness must be of the
same nature. She died: and he——
I was struck dumb! Seated on the bench under the trees, my thoughts back in that past time, there came two figures over the rustic bridge. A lady and gentleman, arm-in-arm: she in a hat and blue feather and dainty lace parasol; and he with bent head and words softened to a whisper. Tod!—and Sophie Chalk!
"Good gracious! There's Johnny Ludlow!"
She loosed his arm as she spoke, and came sailing up to me, her gold bracelets jingling as she gave her hand. I don't believe there are ten women in England who could get themselves up as effectively as did Sophie Chalk. Tod looked black as thunder.
"What the devil brings you here, Johnny?"
"I rowed up with Whitney."
A pause. "Who else is here?"
"Forbes of Merton: Whitney has been about with him. And I suppose a few others. We noticed a skiff or two waiting. Perhaps one was yours."
I spoke indifferently, determined he should not know I was put out. Seeing him there—I was going to say on the sly—with that beguiling syren, who was to foretell what pitfalls she might charm him into? He took Madame Sophie on his arm again to continue their promenade, and I lost sight of them.
I did not like it. It was not satisfactory. He had rowed her up—or perhaps driven her up—and was marching about with her tête-à-tête under the sweet spring sunshine. No great harm in itself this pastime: but he might grow too fond of it. That she had reacquired all her strong influence over Tod's heart was clear as the stars on a frosty night. Whitney called out to me that it was time to think of going back. I got into the boat with him, saying nothing.
Charley told me where he lived—"Up Stagg's Entry"—for I said I would call to see him. Just for a day or two there seemed to be no time; but I got there one evening when Tod had gone to the syren's. It was a dark, dusky place, this Stagg's Entry, and, I think, is done away with now, with several houses crowded into it. Asking for Charles Tasson, of a tidy, motherly woman on the stairs, she went before me, and threw open a door.
"Here's a gentleman to see you, Mr. Charley."
He was lying in a bed at the end of the room near the fire, under the lean-to roof. If I had been shocked at seeing him in the open air, in the glad sunshine, I was doubly so now in the dim light of the tallow candle. He rose in bed.
"It's very kind of you to come here, sir! I'm sure I didn't expect you to remember it."
"Are you worse, Charley?"
"I caught a fresh cold, sir, that day at Godstowe. And I'm as weak as a rat too—hardly able to creep out of bed. Nanny, bring a chair for this gentleman."
One of the handiest little girls I ever saw, with the same shining blue eyes that he had, and plump, pretty cheeks, laid hold of a chair. I took it from her and sat down.
"Is this your sister, Charley?"
"Yes, sir. There's only us two left together. We were eight of us once. Three went abroad, and one is in London, and two dead."
"What doctor sees you?"
"One comes in now and then, sir. My illness is not much in a doctor's way. There's nothing he could do: nothing for me but to wait patiently for summer weather."
"What have you had to eat to-day?"
"He had two eggs for his dinner: I boiled them," said little Nanny. "And Mrs. Cann brought us in six herrings, and I cooked one for tea; and he'll have some ale and bread-and-butter for supper."
She spoke like a little important housekeeper. But I wondered whether Charley was badly off.
Mrs. Cann, the same woman who had spoken to me, came out of her room opposite as I was going away. She followed me downstairs, and began to talk in an undertone. "A sad thing, ain't it, sir, to see him a-lying there so helpless; and to know that it has laid hold of him for good and all. He caught it from his mother."
"How do you mean?"
"She died here in that room, just as the winter come in, with the same complaint—decline they call it; and he waited on her and nursed her, and must have caught it of her. A good son he was. They were well off once, sir, but the father just brought 'em to beggary; and Charley—he had a good education of his own—came down from London when his mother got ill, and looked out for something to do here that he might stay with her. At first he couldn't find anything; and when he was at a sore pinch, he took a place at Christchurch College as scout's helper. He had to pocket his pride: but there was Nanny as well as his mother."
"I see."
"He'd been teacher in a school up in London, sir, by day, and in the evenings he used to help some young clergyman as scripture-reader to the poor in one of them crowded parishes we hear tell of: he was always one for trying to do what good he could. Naturally he'd be disheartened at falling to be a bed-maker in a college, and I'm afraid the work was too hard for him: but, as I say, he was a good son. The mother settled in Oxford after her misfortunes."
"How is he supported now? And the little girl?"
"It's not over much of a support," said Mrs. Cann with disparagement. "Not for him, that's a-craving for meat and drink every hour. The eldest brother is in business in London, sir, and he sends them what they have. Perhaps he's not able to do more."
It was not late. I thought I would, for once, pay Mrs.
Everty a visit. A run of three minutes, and I was at her
door.
They were there—the usual set. Tod, and Richardson, and Lord Gaiton, and the two men from Magdalen, and—well, it's no use enumerating—seven or eight in all. Richardson and another were quarrelling at écarté, four were at whist; Tod was sitting apart with Sophie Chalk.
She was got up like a fairy at the play, in a cloud of thin white muslin; her hair hanging around and sparkling with gold dust, and little gleams of gold ornaments shining about her. If ever Joseph Todhetley had need to pray against falling into temptation, it was during the weeks of that unlucky term.
"This is quite an honour, Johnny Ludlow," said Madame Sophie, rising to meet me, her eyes sparkling with what might have been taken for the most hearty welcome. "It is not often you honour my poor little room, sir."
"It is not often I can find the time for it, Mrs. Everty. Tod, I came in to see whether you were ready to go in."
He looked at his watch hastily, fearing it might be later than it was; and answered curtly and coolly.
"Ready?—no. I have not had my revenge yet at écarté."
Approaching the écarté table, he sat down. Mrs. Everty drew a chair behind Lord Gaiton, and looked over his hand.
The days passed. I had two cares on my mind, and they
bothered me. The one was Tod and his dangerous infatuation;
the other, poor dying Charley Tasson. Tod was losing
frightfully at those card-tables. Night after night it went
on. Tod's steps were drawn thither by a fascination
irresistible: and whether the cards or their mistress were
the more subtle potion for him, or what was to be the ending
of it all, no living being could tell.
As to Stagg's Entry, my visits to it had grown nearly as much into a habit as Tod's had to High Street. When I stayed away for a night, little Nanny would whisper to me the next that Charley had not taken his eyes off the door. Sick people always like to see visitors.
"Don't let him want for anything, Johnny," said Tod. "The pater would blow us up."
The time ran on, and the sands of Charley's life ran with it. One Wednesday evening upon going in late, and not having many minutes to stay, I found him on the bed in a dead faint, and the candle guttering in the socket. Nanny was nowhere. I went across the passage to Mrs. Cann's, and she was nowhere. It was an awkward situation; for I declare that for the moment I thought he was gone.
Knowing most of Nanny's household secrets, I looked in the candle-box for a fresh candle. Charley was stirring then, and I gave him some wine. He had had a similar fainting-fit at mid-day, he said, which had frightened them, and Nanny had fetched the doctor. She was gone now, he supposed, to fetch some medicine.
"Is this the end, sir?"
He asked it quite calmly. I could not tell: but to judge by his wan face I thought it might be. And my time was up and more than up: and neither Nanny nor Mrs. Cann came. The wine revived him and he seemed better; quite well again: well, for him. But I did not like to leave him alone.
"Would you mind reading to me, sir?" he asked.
"What shall I read, Charley?"
"It may be for the last time, sir. I'd like to hear the service for the burial of the dead."
So I read it every word, the long lesson, and all. Nanny came in before it was finished, medicine in hand, and sat down in silence with her bonnet on. She had been kept at the doctor's. Mrs. Cann was the next to make her appearance, having been abroad on some business of her own: and I got away when it was close upon midnight.
"Your name and college, sir."
"Ludlow. Christchurch."
It was the proctor. He had pounced full upon me as I was racing home. And the clocks were striking twelve!
"Ludlow—Christchurch," he repeated, nodding his head.
"I am sorry to be out so late, sir, against rules, but I could not help it. I have been sitting with a sick man."
"Very good," said he blandly; "you can tell that to-morrow to the dean. Home to your quarters now, if you please, Mr. Ludlow."
And I knew he believed me just as much as he would had I told him I'd been up in a balloon.
"You are a nice lot, Master Johnny!"
The salutation was Tod's. He and Bill Whitney were sitting over the fire in our room.
"I couldn't help being late."
"Of course not! As to late—it's only midnight. Next time you'll come in with the milk."
"Don't jest. I've been with that poor Charley, and I think he's dying. The worst of it is, the proctor has just dropped upon me."
"No!" It sobered them both, and they put aside their mockery. Bill, who had the tongs in his hand, let them go down with a crash.
"It's a thousand pities, Johnny. Not one of us has been before the dean yet."
"I can only tell the dean the truth."
"As if he'd believe you! By Jupiter! Once get one of our names up, and those proctors will track every step of the ground we tread on. They watch a marked man as a starving cat watches a mouse."
With the morning came in the requisition for me to attend
before the dean. When I got there, who should be stealing
out of the room quite sheepishly, his face down and his ears
red, but Gaiton.
"Is it your turn, Ludlow!" he cried, closing the room-door as softly as though the dean had been asleep inside.
"What have you been had up for, Gaiton?"
"Oh, nothing. I got knocking about a bit last night, for Mrs. Everty did not receive, and came across that confounded proctor."
"Is the dean in a hard humour?"
"Hard enough, and be hanged to him! It's not the dean: he's ill, or something; perhaps been making a night of it himself: and Applerigg's on duty for him. Dry old scarecrow! For two pins, Ludlow, I'd take my name off the books, and be free of the lot."
Dr. Applerigg had the reputation of being one of the strictest of college dons. He was like a maypole, just as tall and thin, with a long, sallow face, and enough learning to set up the reputations of three archbishops for life. The doctor was marching up and down the room in his college-cap, and turned his spectacles on me.
"Shut the door, sir."
While I did as I was bid, he sat down at an open desk near the fire and looked at a paper that had some writing on it.
"What age may you be, Mr. Ludlow?" he sternly asked, when a question or two had passed. And I told him my age.
"Oh! And don't you think it a very disreputable thing, a great discredit, sir, for a young fellow of your years to be found abroad by your proctor at midnight?"
"But I could not help being late, sir, last night; and I was not abroad for any purpose of pleasure. I had been staying with a poor fellow who is sick; dying, in fact: and—and it was not my fault, sir."
"Take care, young man," said he, glaring through his spectacles. "There's one thing I can never forgive if deliberately told me, and that's a lie."
"I should be sorry to tell a lie, sir," I answered: and by the annoyance so visible in his looks and tones, it was impossible to help fancying he had found out, or thought he had found out, Gaiton in one. "What I have said is truth."
"Go over again what you did say," cried he, very shortly, after looking at his paper again and then hard at me. And I went over it.
"What do you say the man's name is?"
"Charles Tasson, sir. He was our scout until he fell ill."
"Pray do you make a point, Mr. Ludlow, of visiting all the scouts and their friends who may happen to fall sick?"
"No, sir," I said, uneasily, for there was ridicule in his tone, and I knew he did not believe a word. "I don't suppose I should ever have thought of visiting Tasson, but for seeing him look so ill one afternoon up at Godstowe."
"He must be very ill to be at Godstowe!" cried Dr. Applerigg. "Very!"
"He was so ill, sir, that I thought he was dying then. Some flyman he knew had driven him to Godstowe for the sake of the air."
"But what's your motive, may I ask, for going to sit with him?" He had a way of laying emphasis on certain of his words.
"There's no motive, sir: except that he is lonely and dying."
The doctor looked at me for what seemed ten minutes. "What is this sick man's address, pray?"
I told him the address in Stagg's Entry; and he wrote it down, telling me to present myself again before him the following morning.
That day, I met Sophie Chalk; her husband was with her.
She nodded and seemed gay as air: he looked dark and sullen
as he took off his hat. I carried the news into college.
"Sophie Chalk has her husband down, Tod."
"Queen Anne's dead," retorted he.
"Oh, you knew it!" And I might have guessed that he did by his not having spent the past evening in High Street, but in a fellow's rooms at Oriel. And he was as cross as two sticks.
"What a fool she must have been to go and throw herself away upon that low fellow Everty!" he exclaimed, putting his shoulders against the mantelpiece and stamping on the carpet with one heel.
"Throw herself away! Well, Tod, opinions vary. I think she was lucky to get him. As to his being low, we don't know that he is. Putting aside that one mysterious episode of his being down at our place in hiding, which I suppose we shall never come to the bottom of, we know nothing of what Everty has, or has not been."
"You shut up, Johnny. Common sense is common sense."
"Everty's being here—we can't associate with him, you know, Tod—affords a good opportunity for breaking off the visits to High Street."
"Who wants to break off the visits to High Street?"
"I do, for one. Madame Sophie's is a dangerous atmosphere."
"Dangerous for you, Johnny?"
"Not a bit of it. You know. Be wise in time, old fellow."
"Of all the muffs living, Johnny, you are about the greatest. In the old days you feared I might go in for marrying Sophie Chalk. I don't see what you can fear now. Do you suppose I should run away with another man's wife?"
"Nonsense, Tod!"
"Well, what else is it? Come! Out with it."
"Do you think our people or the Whitneys would like it if they knew we are intimate with her?"
"They'd not die of it, I expect."
"I don't like her, Tod. It is not a nice thing of her to allow the play and the betting, and to have all those fellows there when they choose to go."
Tod took his shoulder from the mantelpiece, and sat down to his imposition: one he had to write for having missed chapel.
"You mean well, Johnny, though you are a muff."
Later in the day I met Dr. Applerigg. He signed to me to
stop. "Mr. Ludlow, I find that what you told me this morning
was true. And I withdraw every word of condemnation that I
spoke. I wish I had never greater cause to find fault than I
have with you, in regard to this matter. Not that I can
sanction your being out so late, although the plea of excuse
be a dying man. You understand?"
"Yes, sir. It shall not occur again."
Down at the house in Stagg's Entry, that evening, Mrs.
Cann met me on the stairs. "One of the great college doctors
was here to-day, sir. He came up asking all manner of
questions about you—whether you'd been here till
a'most midnight yesterday, and what you'd stayed so late
for, and—and all about it."
Dr. Applerigg! "What did you tell him, Mrs. Cann?"
"Tell him, sir! what should I tell him but the truth? That you had stayed here late because of Charley's being took worse and nobody with him, and had read the burial service to him for his asking; and that you came most evenings, and was just as good to him as gold. He said he'd see Charley for himself then; and he went in and talked to him, oh so gently and nicely about his soul; and gave little Nanny half-a-crown when he went away. Sometimes it happens, sir, that those who look to have the hardest faces have the gentlest hearts. And Charley's dying, sir. He was took worse again this evening at five o'clock, and I hardly thought he'd have lasted till now. The doctor has been, and thinks he'll go off quietly."
Quietly perhaps in one sense, but it was a restless death-bed. He was not still a minute; but he was quite sensible and calm. Waking up out of a doze when I went in, he held out his hand.
"It is nearly over, sir."
I was sure of that, and sat down in silence. There could be no mistaking his looks.
"I have just had a strange dream," he whispered, between his laboured breath; and his eyes were wet with tears, and he looked curiously agitated. "I thought I saw mother. It was in a wide place, all light and sunshine, too beautiful for anything but heaven. Mother was looking at me; I seemed to be outside in dulness and darkness, and not to know how to get in. Others that I've known in my lifetime, and who have gone on before, were there, as well as mother; they all looked happy, and there was a soft strain of music, like nothing I ever heard in this world. All at once, as I was wondering how I could get in, my sins seemed to rise up before me in a great cloud; I turned sick, thinking of them; for I knew no sinful person might enter there. Then I saw One standing on the brink! it could only have been Jesus; and He held out His hand to me and smiled, 'I am here to wash out your sins,' He said, and I thought He touched me with His finger; and oh, the feeling of delight that came over me, of repose, of bliss, for I knew that all earth's troubles were over, and I had passed into rest and peace for ever."
Nanny came up, and gave him one or two spoonfuls of wine.
"I don't believe it was a dream," he said, after a pause. "I think it was sent to show me what it is I am entering on; to uphold me through the darksome valley of the shadow of death."
"Mother said she should be watching for us, you know, Charley," said the child.
A restless fit came over him again, and he stirred uneasily. When it had passed, he was still for awhile and then looked up at me.
"It was the new heaven and the new earth, sir, that we are told of in the Revelation. Would you mind, sir—just those few verses—reading them to me for the last time?"
Nanny brought the Bible, and put the candle on the stand, and I read what he asked for—the first few verses of the twenty-first chapter. The little girl kneeled down by the bed and joined her hands together.
"That's enough, Nanny," I whispered. "Put the candle back."
"But I did not tell all my dream," he resumed; "not quite all. As I passed over into heaven, I thought I looked down here again. I could see the places in the world; I could see this same Oxford city. I saw the men here in it, sir, at their cards and their dice and their drink; at all their thoughtless folly. Spending their days and nights without a care for the end, without as much as thinking whether they need a Saviour or not. And oh, their condition troubled me! I seemed to understand all things plainly then, sir. And I thought if they would but once lift up their hearts to Him, even in the midst of their sin, He would take care of them even then, and save them from it in the end—for He was tempted Himself once, and knows how sore their temptations are. In my distress, I tried to call out and tell them this, and it awoke me."
"Do you think he ought to talk, sir?" whispered Nanny. But nothing more could harm him now.
My time was up, and I ought to be going. Poor Charley spoke so imploringly—almost as though the thought of it startled him.
"Not yet, sir; not yet! Stay a bit longer with me. It is for the last time."
And I stayed: in spite of my word passed to Dr. Applerigg. It seems to me a solemn thing to cross the wishes of the dying.
So the clock went ticking on. Mrs. Cann stole in and out,
and a lodger from below came in and looked at him. Before
twelve all was over.
I went hastening home, not much caring whether the proctor met me again, or whether he didn't, for in any case I must go to Dr. Applerigg in the morning, and tell him I had broken my promise to him, and why. Close at the gates some one overtook and passed me.
It was Tod. Tod with a white face, and his hair damp with running. He had come from Sophie Chalk's.
"What is it, Tod?"
I laid my hand upon his arm in speaking. He threw it off with a word that was very like an imprecation.
"What is the matter?"
"The devil's the matter. Mind your own business, Johnny."
"Have you been quarrelling with Everty?"
"Everty be hanged! The man has betaken himself off."
"How much have you lost to-night?"
"Cleaned-out, lad. That's all."
We got to our room in silence. Tod turned over some cards that lay on the table, and trimmed the candle from a thief.
"Tasson's dead, Tod."
"A good thing if some of us were dead," was the answer. And he turned into his chamber and bolted the door.
There's more to come; for Tod was on the downard path.
A Happy New Year to Everybody!
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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