"I don't understand," said Hardy. "Why not?"
"Oh! I hardly know," said Tom laughing; "I don't seem as if I had anything to do here; that's one reason, I think. And then, you see, at Rugby I was rather a great man. There one had a share in the ruling of 300 boys, and a good deal of responsibility; but here one has only just to take care of oneself, and keep out of scrapes; and that's what I never could do. What do you think a fellow ought to do, now, up here?"
"Oh I don't see much difficulty in that," said his host, smiling; "get up your lectures well, to begin with."
"But my lectures are a farce," said Tom; "I've done all the books over and over again. They don't take me an hour a day to get up."
"Well, then, set to work reading something regularly – reading for your degree, for instance."
"Oh, hang it! I can't look so far forward as that; I shan't be going up for three years."
"You can't begin too early. You might go and talk to your college-tutor about it."
"So I did," said Tom; "at least I meant to do it. For he asked me and two other freshmen to breakfast the other morning, and I was going to open out to him; but when I got there I was quite shut up. He never looked one of us in the face, and talked in set sentences, and was cold, and formal, and condescending. The only bit of advice he gave us was to have nothing to do with boating – just the one thing which I feel a real interest in. I couldn't get out a word of what I wanted to say."
"It is unlucky, certainly, that our present tutors take so little interest in anything which the men care about. But it is more from shyness than anything else, that manner which you noticed. You may be sure that he was more wretched and embarrassed than any of you."
"Well, but now I should really like to know what you did yourself," said Tom; "you are the only man of much older standing than myself whom I know at all yet – I mean I don't know anybody else well enough to talk about this sort of thing to them. What did you do, now, besides learning to pull, in your first year?"
"I had learnt to pull before I came up here," said Hardy.
"I really hardly remember what I did besides read. You see, I came up with a definite purpose of reading. My father was very anxious that I should become a good scholar. Then my position in the college and my poverty naturally kept me out of the many things which other men do."
Tom flushed again at the ugly word, but not so much as at first. Hardy couldn't mind the subject, or he would never be forcing it up at every turn, he thought.
"You wouldn't think it," he began again, harping on the same string, "but I can hardly tell you how I miss the sort of responsibility I was talking to you about. I have no doubt I shall get the vacuum filled up before long, but for the life of me I can't see how yet."
"You will be a very lucky fellow if you don't find it quite as much as you can do to keep yourself in order up here. It is about the toughest part of a man's life, I do believe, the time he has spent here. My university life has been so different altogether from what yours will be, that my experience isn't likely to benefit you."
"I wish you would try me, though," said Tom; "you don't know what a teachable sort of a fellow I am, if any body will take me the right way. You taught me to scull, you know; or at least put me in a way to learn. But sculling, and rowing, and cricket, and all the rest of it, with such reading as I am likely to do, won't be enough. I feel sure of that already.
"I don't think it will," said Hardy. "No amount of physical or mental work will fill the vacuum you were talking of just now. It is the empty house swept and garnished which the boy might have had glimpses of, but the man finds yawning within him, which must be filled somehow. It's a pretty good three years' work to learn how to keep the devils out of it, more or less; by the time you take your degree. At least I have found it so."
Hardy rose and took a turn or two up and down his room. He was astonished at finding himself talking so unreservedly to one of whom he knew so little, and half-wished the words recalled. He lived much alone, and thought himself morbid and too self-conscious; why should he be filling a youngster's head with puzzles? How did he know that they were thinking of the same thing?
But the spoken word cannot be recalled; it must go on its way for good or evil; and this one set the hearer staring into the ashes, and putting many things together in his head.
It was some minutes before he broke silence, but at last he gathered up his thoughts, and said, "Well, I hope I sha'n't shirk when the time comes. You don't think a fellow need shut himself up, though? I'm sure I shouldn't be any the better for that."
"No, I don't think you would," said Hardy.
"Because, you see," Tom went on, waxing bolder and more confidential, "If I were to take to moping by myself, I shouldn't read as you or any sensible fellow would do; I know that well enough. I should just begin, sitting with my legs upon the mantel-piece, and looking into my own inside. I see you are laughing, but you know what mean, don't you now?"
"Yes; staring into the vacuum you were talking of just now; it all comes back to that," said Hardy.
"Well, perhaps it does," said Tom; "and I don't believe it does a fellow a bit of good to be thinking about himself and his own doings."
"Only he can't help himself," said Hardy. "Let him throw himself as he will into all that is going on up here, after all he must be alone for a great part of his time – all night at any rate – and when he gets his oak sported, it's all up with him. He must be looking more or less into his own inside, as you call it."
"Then I hope he won't find it as ugly a business as I do. If he does, I'm sure he can't be worse employed."
"I don't know that," said Hardy; "he can't learn anything worth learning in any other way."
"Oh, I like that!" said Tom; "it's worth learning how to play tennis, and how to speak the truth. You can't learn either by thinking of yourself ever so much."
"You must know the truth before you can speak it," said Hardy.
"So you always do in plenty of time."
"How?" said Hardy.
"Oh, I don't know," said Tom; "by a sort of instinct I suppose. I never in my life felt any doubt about what I ought to say or do; did you?"
"Well, yours is a good, comfortable, working belief at any rate," said Hardy, smiling; "and I should advise you to hold on to it as long as you can."
"But you don't think I can very long, eh?"
"No: but men are very different. There's no saying. If you were going to get out of the self-dissecting business altogether though, why should you have brought the subject up at all to-night? It looks awkward for you, doesn't it?"
Tom began to feel rather forlorn at this suggestion, and probably betrayed it in his face, for Hardy changed the subject suddenly.
"How do you get on in the boat? I saw you going down to-day, and thought the time much better."
Tom felt greatly relieved, as he was beginning to find himself in rather deep water; so he rushed into boating with great zest, and the two chatted on very pleasantly on that and other matters.
The college clock struck during a pause in their talk, and Tom looked at his watch.
"Eight o'clock I declare," he said; "why I must have been here more than two hours. I'm afraid, now, you have been wanting to work, and I have kept you from it with my talk."
"No, it's Saturday night. Besides, I don't get much society that I care about, and so I enjoy it all the more. Won't you stop and have some tea?"
Tom gladly consented, and his host produced a somewhat dilapidated set of crockery, and proceeded to brew the drink least appreciated at St. Ambrose's. Tom watched him in silence, much excercised in his mind as to what manner of man he had fallen upon; very much astonished at himself for having opened out so freely, and feeling a desire to know more about Hardy, not unmixed with a sort of nervousness as to how he was to accomplish it.
When