"I must be off now, you fellows!" he said.

"Nonsense! Why, you haven't yet seen the fun below. You must stay for that."

"I wish I could," faltered Tom; "but I really must do some reading to- night."

"So you can; the thing only lasts an hour, and you're not obliged to go to bed at eleven, are you?"

Still Tom hesitated.

"You don't mean to say you are squeamish about it?" said Gus, in astonishment. "I could fancy that young friend of your mother's turning up _his_ eyes at it, but a fellow like you wouldn't be so particular, I reckon; eh, Jack?"

And Mr John Mortimer, thus appealed to, laughed an amused laugh at the bare notion.

That laugh and the term, "a fellow like you," destroyed the last of Tom's wavering objections, and he yielded.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

HOW TOM DRIFT, STILL GOING DOWNHILL, MET MY OLD MASTER.

When Tom reached his lodgings that night he found a jubilant letter from Charlie awaiting him.

"Just fancy," he said, "it's only three weeks more, old man, and then to Jericho with books, and test-tubes, and anatomy! I'll drag you out of your study by the scruff of your neck, see if I don't; I'll clap a knapsack on your back, and haul you by sheer force down into Kent.

There you shall snuff the ozone, and hold your hat on your head with both hands on the cliff top. I'll hound you through old castles, and worry you up hills. If I catch so much as a leaflet on chemistry in your hands, I'll tear it up and send it flying after the sea-gulls. In short, I shouldn't like to say what I won't do, I'm so wild at the prospect of a week with you. Of course, the dear old people growl at me for leaving them in the lurch; but they are glad for us to get the blow; indeed, my pater insists on paying the piper, which is handsome of him.

I expect I shall get a day in London on my way, either going or returning; and if you can put me up at your diggings for the night, we'll have a jolly evening, and you can show me all your haunts."

Tom gasped as he got so far; and well he might.

"I'll tell you all the news when I come. I suppose, by your not writing, you are saving yours up for me. Ta, ta, old boy, and _au revoir_ in twenty-one days! Hurrah! Yours ever,--C.N."

Tom, in his misery, crushed the letter up in his fingers and flung it from him. If a pa.s.sing pang shot through his breast, it was followed almost instantly by other feelings of vexation and shame. One moment he was ready to sink to the floor in a pa.s.sion of penitence and remorse-- the next, he was ready to resent Charlie's influence over him even at a distance, and to sneer, as Gus and his friend had done, at the boy's expense. His brain was too muddled with the excitement and the strange emotions of that evening to reason with himself; his head ached, and his mind was poisoned.

"What right has the fellow always to be following me up in this way?" he asked. "I'm a fool to stand it. Why can't I do as I choose without his pulling a long face?"

Thus Tom questioned, and thus he proved that it was Charlie's influence more than his letter that worried him; for what had the latter said, either in the way of exhortation or reproof?

Then he threw himself on the bed, and lay with the wild memory of the evening crowding on his feverish mind. He rose, and, lighting a candle, endeavoured to read; but even his novel was flat and stupid, and in the midst of it he fell asleep, to dream of Gus and his friend all night long. Long ere he awoke my senses had left me, for he had neglected to wind me up. Next morning he went to lectures as usual. To his fellow- students he appeared the same shy, quiet youth he had always seemed; to Mr

Newcome, whom he met in the street, he appeared still as Charlie's chosen and dear friend, ready for his holiday and rejoicing in the prospect of the coming meeting; to his professors he appeared still the same steady, hard-working student, bent on making his way in his profession. But to himself, alas! how altered, how degraded he appeared!

In the midst of his duties his thoughts ran continually--now back to the strange experience of last evening, now forward to the doubtful events of this.

The recollection of the past had lost a good deal of its repulsiveness after twelve hours' interval, and although he still felt it to be low and harmful, he yet secretly encouraged his curiosity to revisit the place of his temptation.

"After all, it did me no harm," said he to himself; "it's not interfered with my work, or made me feel worse than before. What harm in going again to-night? When Charlie comes, and we get away from town, I shall easily be able to break it off; and besides, Charlie's sure to help to put me square; he always does. Yes; I think I'll just go and see what's on there to-night; it can't be worse than it was. Besides," thought he, glad to seize on any straw of excuse, "I'm bound in honour to play Gus a return match; it would be ungentlemanly to back out of that."

But why sicken you, dear reader, and myself, with recapitulating the sad workings of this poor fellow's mind? The more he tried to convince himself he was doing only a slight wrong, the more his conscience cried out he was running to his ruin. But he stopped his ears and shut his eyes, and blindly dared his fate. He went that evening to the music- hall. He met Gus and Mortimer, and two other friends. He had taken care to get himself up in a nearer approach to his companions' style.

He bought some cigars of his own on the way, and offered them with a less awkward swagger than he had been able to a.s.sume the night before.

He found himself able to nod familiarly to the barmaid, and fancied that even Mortimer must have approved of the way in which he ordered about the billiard-marker.

In the match with Gus for half-crowns he lost, though only narrowly--so narrowly that he was not content, without a further trial of skill, to own himself beaten, and therefore challenged his adversary to a second meeting the next evening. Then he watched the others play, and betted with Mortimer on the result--and alas! for him, he won.

It was Tom himself who said, at nine o'clock,--

"And now, suppose we see what's going on below."

It was the same stupid, disgusting spectacle, but to Tom it seemed less repulsive than he had found it the night before. True, he at times felt a return of the old feeling of shame; the blush would occasionally suffuse his face; but such fits were rare, and he was able to carry them off more easily with joke and laughter.

"Jack," said Gus in a whisper to Mortimer, as Tom, after accepting a very broad hint to treat the party to spirits, was turning to go, "that fellow will be a credit to you and me. Did you see how he smacked his lips over the play, and yet all the while wanted to make us think he saw that sort of thing every day of his life, eh? He's a promising chap, eh, Jack?"

"Wathah," replied Jack, laughing.

Meanwhile Tom, glad enough to get out into the pure air, though in not so desperate a case as the night before, shouldered his way among the loitering company towards the door. He was just emerging into the street, when the sound of voices arrested him.

"That's one of our men, isn't it?" said one.

"Why, so it is; I fancied he was anything but a festive blade. Yes; and upon my word he's half seas over!"

Tom had no difficulty in discovering that these hurried words had reference to him, and turning instinctively towards the voices, he found himself face to face with two, reputedly, of the wildest of his fellow- students.

Gladly would he have avoided them; gladly would he have shrunk back and lost himself in the crowd, but it was too late now; he stood discovered.

"How are you?" cried one of the two, as he pa.s.sed; "isn't your name Drift?"

Tom stared as if he would have denied his name; but the next moment he put on his lately acquired swagger, and said, "Yes."

"Ah! I thought so; one of the Saint Elizabeth men. Hullo! he's in a hurry, though," added he, as Tom made a dive forward and strode rapidly down the street.

It was but a step deeper. Well he knew that by to-morrow every one of his fellow-students would know of him as a frequenter of that wretched place. Well he knew that, as far as they were concerned, the mask of shyness and reticence under which he had sheltered in their midst was for ever pulled away. "One of us," indeed! So truly the very worst of them might now speak and think of him. Oh, if he had but considered in time; if he had but stemmed this flood at its source! But it was too late now.

And he strode home reckless and hardened.

The next day, as he expected, every one seemed to know of his visits to the music-hall. The two who had seen him accosted him with every show of friendship and intelligence. He was appealed to in the presence of nearly a dozen of his fellow-students as to the name of one of the low songs there given; he was asked if he was going to be there to-night, and he was invited to join this party and that in similar expeditions to similar places. And to all these questions and greetings he was constrained to reply in keeping with his a.s.sumed character of a gay spark. How sick, how vile he felt; yet in that one day how hardened and desperate he became!

It was not in Tom Drift to cry "I have sinned! I will return!" No, once loose from his moorings, he let himself float down the stream, watching the receding banks in mute despair, raising no shout for succour, venturing no plunge for safety.

You, who by this time have given him up, disgusted at his weakness, his vanity, his low instincts, his cowardliness--who say let him wallow in the mire he has prepared for himself, who know so glibly what you would have done, what you would have said, what you would have felt, remember once more that Tom Drift was not such as you; and unfortunately did not know you. He was not gifted with your heroic resolution or your all- penetrating wisdom. He was an ordinary sinful being of flesh and blood, relying only on his own poor strength; and therefore, reader, try to realise all he went through before you fling your stone.

The toils were closing round him fast. His will had been the first to suffer, his conscience next. Then with a rush had gone honour, temperance, and purity; and now finally the flimsy rag, his good name, had been torn from him, and he stood revealed a prodigal--and a hypocrite.

Even yet, however, help might have been forthcoming.

"I say, you fellow," said one of his fellow-students this same day, "I've never spoken to you before, and perhaps shall never do so again; but _don't be a fool_!"

"What do you mean?" said Tom sharply.

"Only this, and I can't help it if you are angry, keep clear of these new friends of yours, and still more, keep clear of the places they visit. If you've been led in once, rather cut off your right hand than be led in again, that's all!"